Author's note: Prompt by Tierry Leoine.

Tifa learned at a young age not to be afraid of the dark. It can help you stalk creatures not deserving to live just as easily as it hides them. It’s merely a matter of training, skill and talent. A matter of who is better, monster or Hunter.

She is very good, a prodigy of the independent Lockheart line.

But lack of fear does not equal like. Tifa hates the night, always feeling it belongs to vampires and demons rather than to humankind. Not at all like the day…

It was not yet dawn when she first met Cloud Strife. Her father had asked for permission to terminate a coil of lesser snake demons that had settled in Jenova’s part of the city. While not strictly the Lady’s concern, even a Hunter clan like the Lockhearts treaded lightly in her territory. In response, she had sent them her own Hunter as aid. He’d been as cool and distant as any vampire, but he’d treated them with respect and gained theirs in return.

Tifa found him attractive, how could she not? He was beautiful, deadly, a true Hunter. But that wasn’t what melted her heart and turned desire into determination to have him.

He carried the sunlit sky in his eyes.