The room vanished like scenery dissolving around them, until everything in Tifa's vision went black.
In the next second, Tifa opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a face very close to her own.
She was resting sideways against the owner of that face's shoulder, being carried princess-style as he leaped out of the Mako pool.
They were so close that she could feel his breathing. The warm flow of air brushed across her face.
The heat was clearly not even as warm as her own body temperature, yet in that instant, it felt as if her face had heated by several degrees.
Then Tifa suddenly remembered something, and the flush on her face rapidly faded, leaving her pale.
"Aerith, she…"
"She's fine. Don't worry."
"Huh? She's fine?"
"Yes. I know how she entered the Lifestream. She's all right now. You'll see her in a moment."
Those words dispersed Tifa's panic. She believed him.
Carried in his arms, she flew through the air, and soon they arrived on the floor where Aerith was.
Once they entered, Tifa immediately climbed out of his arms and looked toward Aerith.
Just as he had said, Aerith was now perfectly lively, with no injuries on her body. Clearly, Mr. Kain had saved her as well.
When Aerith saw Tifa getting down from his arms, the faintly teasing look she sent over made Tifa feel inexplicably guilty, and she did not dare meet Aerith's eyes.
"What just happened? Why did Aerith kill herself? Wasn't Tifa right next to her? How did she suddenly show up in the No. 1 Mako pool and get brought back? And how did Hojo suddenly die?"
Yuffie was like an endlessly curious child, hurling question after question at them.
She truly could not understand what had happened.
It was as if, in a single instant, everyone had lagged. Everyone had been stopped from moving.
When they came back to themselves and could move again, they saw a dagger buried in Aerith's chest. It even looked as if Aerith had stabbed herself.
That sight had terrified Yuffie.
But Aerith woke up almost immediately afterward, and the dagger in her hand was burned away by some unknown power in a flash of golden fire. She did not seem injured at all.
As for Tifa, they had seen her through the surveillance cameras in the No. 1 Mako Reactor.
She had clearly been on this floor with everyone else a second ago, so how had she teleported there in the very next instant?
It made no sense.
But Yuffie keenly sensed that something was very wrong. Something unspeakable had clearly happened among Aerith, Tifa, and the mysterious man named Kain.
"It was nothing."
"Aerith, what do you mean, nothing? Tifa suddenly teleported in such a weird way. Aren't you going to explain that? You know what happened, don't you?"
"I do know, but I can't tell you, Yuffie. This is a secret that belongs to me, Tifa, and Mr. Kain."
Aerith smiled with a sly look in her eyes, leaving little Yuffie glaring at her with puffed-up cheeks.
"What do you mean, a secret between the three of you? I'm not happy about being left out!"
Judging by the situation, asking Tifa would obviously not get her an answer either. Yuffie could only stomp her foot in frustration, then turn her gaze toward the central figure.
After entering, that man had walked straight over to the president's desk and borrowed the Shinra Building's system, operating it on his own.
Yuffie walked to his side and took a look. This guy was operating the Shinra Building's system with startling familiarity, as if he were the true owner of the entire building. He seemed to know every hidden secret inside it.
Right now, he was pulling up all kinds of classified documents.
"These are Hojo's secret laboratories around the world. Some of them also contain Jenova. As for these locations, they'll need…"
Aside from Hojo's intelligence, secret files belonging to the rest of Shinra's upper management were also brought up.
There were also some special covert plans, and the more Yuffie read, the deeper her frown became.
One plan involved mixing Jenova cells into medical supplies and distributing them in the slums for experimentation. It was utterly deranged.
"This should be almost all of Shinra's secrets."
Kain stopped operating the system. The large number of folders he had opened in front of them was practically the entirety of Shinra.
The reason he knew all this, of course, was because when his Warp domain had unfolded, he had also seized the souls of President Shinra and the others, reading the useful information from them.
There were many hidden threats here that needed to be dealt with. Presumably, Rufus would know how to handle them. Since he was a smart man, Kain did not need to explain further.
Now, the remaining problems were Sephiroth at the Northern Crater and the remaining portion of Jenova's will still inside the Lifestream.
Correction: Jenova's will probably no longer dared to remain in the Lifestream.
When his Warp had expanded, part of that thing's will had been caught in the spread, then crushed and devoured.
It seemed to have been frightened into immediately fleeing the Lifestream, and for that, it needed a body.
That body was Sephiroth.
In other words, at present, it had been locked within a fifty-kilometer radius centered on the Northern Crater.
That blockade had been created by the planet's will. After Kain struck Jenova hard and terrified it, the planet's will seized the chance to pursue.
The planet's will, which had originally been at a disadvantage, suddenly gained the upper hand. This was also thanks to Kain transforming the black Whispers, turning them gray first, then white, and bringing them into the camp of Gaia's will.
The gray Whispers represented both the hope of survival and the despair of destruction.
Because of his transformation, the scales had tipped again. The planet's will gained a massive army and began surrounding, pursuing, and blocking the enemy.
As for why he had been able to wake up, the planet's will had certainly played a part in helping him. Ultimately, it was probably worried that he might devour it as well.
Aerith was equivalent to the planet's spokesperson. The planet had used its help for Aerith to establish dialogue with the depths of his mind.
Next, once Saeko Busujima's side replenished D99, he would activate the Untouchable field and scan that entire region like someone sweeping for mines, clearing it out piece by piece.
The expanded Untouchable field would act as a debuff, weakening the polluted portion of the Lifestream in that area and making it continuously lose vitality.
If the enemy did not want to keep bleeding out, it would have to flee. But outside, the planet's will would be waiting to surround it.
However, if they wanted to completely eliminate Jenova's will, that might not necessarily succeed unless he opened his Warp domain again.
At the very least, though, they could remove most of the tumor and allow the planet's cycle of life to barely return to normal.
It would still be somewhat sickly, but that was far better than being half-dead.
Once he could control the Warp domain someday, he would be able to root it out completely.
Alternatively, Aerith might be able to cure it herself, because Aerith had now obtained the magic the Cetra used to fight Jenova.
His side would provide a large amount of psychic energy, and Aerith could take a processing fee from it, using that psychic energy to create materia so others could use magic as well.
That magic could then be used against Jenova.
(End of Chapter)
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