A New Path [Final Fantasy VII Fanfic]

Chapter 17

That's when I felt a sudden rush of heat headed straight towards me. "Shit!" I rolled and crouched, an attempt to dodge the high-level fire attack [Firaga], I managed to not take any blows but I did get a few cuts.

I made use of the barrier materia I had kept with me and built a barrier, it wouldn't last that long but I needed the protection. I pushed forward, there were a few hits but it was like they were meant to taunt me rather than harm me, would be safe to say that I was getting irritated with every step.

"Ah, there you are, you ready Aura?"

"You've provoked me enough, I think you know the answer to that."

Raising my sword, I prepared for any further attacks, my annoyance earlier was now masked with a certain need to just get through with this.

She concentrated on every single blow and I had to halt now and then to defend against any attacks I couldn't simply dodge. Mom would be testing my defence, agility and mana skill, no room was left for me to hold anything back but I couldn't throw everything at her.

Her speed quickened, attacks grew fiercer and my dodging soon turned to returning every spell thrown at me.

It looked as though she wanted to end this in one shot but before she could do that, I tried to absorb whatever mana I could in that second from the area

'Looks like I have enough.'

I cast my hand forward and tried to stop all movement from mom's end, hoping that she wouldn't be able to cast her final spell.

Her limbs froze in position and I could see a look of surprise just flash past her face, I moved in a timely fashion and placed the sword to her neck from behind her, it wasn't far from touching her skin, just what I needed.

"Hahaha....you pass!" I hear mom say in a cheerful voice.

"I pass?"

"You pass."

I felt the satisfaction of hearing those words just build up inside me, my happiness could no longer be contained and so I came out of the test area laughing uncontrollably.

"I passed!!" I saw dad waiting and jumped onto him, "I knew you could do it! With this, it's settled."

"Oh my little Aura leaving home this early all to join SOLDIER, I'm so proud of you." Mom was closed behind. "Well, I did have good teachers." I smiled widely at my parents that were standing proud.

I did several tests to see if I was qualified, some theory-based, others were cognitive and this was my final one to see if I was physically capable. I don't know if everyone who goes to join Shinra's forces does this sort of prep work but it was a lot of hard work.

"Oh right, Cloud was watching you from afar, he was here a few— there he is, I think you'll need to talk to him, the kid looks a little down." Dad subtly pointed at the little blond that was standing around, blankly kicking the stones around.

"Yeah, I'll be back in a moment then."

To fill in with the little stuff that happened over the ten years, everything went according to how the original story was set, meaning Cloud had grown distant, even slowly began to believe that Tifa had disliked him.

Tifa had befriended the kids in the village and had grown quite popular in this little town of ours

I'll be honest, I disliked all the kids she made friends with. Behind her back, they would talk about Cloud as if they had little needles in their mouth but whenever I went over to stop them, they would all scatter as though they were afraid of me. Which they should be but at least let me tell them 'peacefully' that it's wrong to speak about people like that.