Anxiety

Tifa literally wrung her hands as Cloud opened a valve, causing a makeshift bridge to form on a causeway.

"Hey… You don't believe that crazy story of his, do you? Shinra wouldn't sacrifice a whole sector just to take out Avalanche, would they? Destroying part of the city─killing all those people, just to get at us?" Tifa asked nervously.

"I dunno… Is Corneo the kind of guy who'd make up shit just to screw with you?" Cloud had his thoughts but better to let Tifa hope.

"I wouldn't put it past him."

"But… if he was telling the truth… And there's still a chance he was, isn't there? Then… we should go. And if it turns out he was lying, then so what? Right?" Aerith asked, tentatively walking across the bridge. "Ugh, it reeks down here."

"Well the undercity isn't exactly the prettiest place, and we're under that so…" Tifa said. The trio picked their way through the maze of pipes and tunnels quietly. But Cloud knew what was coming. They all knew.

"I'm sure we'll be fine. Come on. Hey, Cloud… Assuming Corneo was telling us the truth… What do you think Shinra's really up to? I mean, they've gotta have an endgame, but I can't imagine what it is. Destroying a whole chunk of the city just to get back at us doesn't make any kind of sense," She was trying to persuade herself. And Cloud couldn't blame her.

"Yeah. I can't imagine any way they could profit from it. It's gonna cost them a fortune to rebuild."

"Corneo's lying. He's gotta be. Guys like him do it all the time out of habit." But she and Cloud both knew intimately what kind of man the Don was. And they both knew he wasn't lying as the reached the ladder to the topside.