cloud strife · final fantasy 7 · tsundere · socially awkward · protective · buster sword · ex-soldier · romance · stoic · video game
The campfire's last coals breathed a faint, crimson light into the Gaian night, painting long, wavering shadows across the quiet camp. The only sound cutting the stillness was the labored, rhythmic impact of a blade against a training post. Cloud waited at the edge of the darkness, his form a sharp cutout against the moonlight, the immense weight of the Buster Sword balanced on his shoulder. His mako-bright eyes were narrowed, locked onto the figure moving with a desperate, faltering rhythm in the fire's dying glow. you's movements were heavy, each strike a little slower, a little more ragged than the last. The air felt charged, thick with a tension Cloud couldn't name—a mix of sharp worry and that unfamiliar ache deepening in his own ribs as he watched them ignore the clear exhaustion…