Hello everyone, Mengde here. I don't own FFVII and so forth, but I do like to write about it. I'm calling this piece In Memoriam, and it's going to be relatively short - 4 to 5 chapters of about this length. However, short does not mean bad, so I urge you to read on if you like Vincent and Yuffie. Anyone who is familiar with some of my other work should take note that this will have a different tone (softer, more muted) and pacing (slower) than other pieces by me. Adrenalin-inducing action is best searched for elsewhere. As a side note, anyone who is wondering about Twilight of Spira (I flatter myself) may rest assured that it will continue after I've given this its run. Without further ado, then...

In Memoriam

Written by Mengde

He did not know who he was.

There was a house, and there was a woman in the house, and he knew that he had to get to this house to see this woman. Why he needed to get there and how he knew where to go he had no idea. It was the only thing on his mind, a driving instinct that surpassed the rational bounds of thought. One might as well have asked a bird why it flew south during the winter. Its answer would be no more illuminating than any this man could give about his purpose.

In the back of his mind he knew that he should eat and drink, even though he didn't feel like he needed to. He had been walking for days, through mountains and forests and rivers. Then he had hit a wall, one that was composed of water and stretched beyond the point where his eyes could see.

He'd found a boat, one that could carry him across the ocean, and he had hidden away on it. He'd had a feeling his appearance would not sit well with anyone on board. The accoutrements he found himself wearing were strange: pointed brass boots, a red cloak, and most fearsome of all, an enormous brass segmented gauntlet that encased the entirety of his left arm. The arm itself was normal, and he wondered why he wore the gauntlet, but it seemed wrong to throw it away, so he kept it on.

He also had a massive, triple-barreled handgun. It was loaded and the safety was on. He didn't want to contemplate precisely why he carried such a weapon.

The boat had taken him across the ocean to another continent, and he knew this one was the right one, that the woman and the woman's house were here. He started heading north. Sometimes he stumbled and his vision swam, but he pressed on. He didn't sleep.

His head hurt.

Nothing was familiar, but he knew where he was going. Nobody could say that he lacked focus, but that was essentially the only thing of which he had no lack. It would have made for a frustrating conundrum if he had wanted to reflect on his situation at all.

Night fell, and it began to rain. He pressed on, knowing that he was drawing near to his destination. Lightning split the sky and the wind howled, but he kept going. He had to make it tonight or he might never make it at all.

"Almost there," he muttered. His voice sounded alien, a deep, sonorous sound that bore no significance to him beyond the fact that it was coming out of his own throat.

There was a city in front of him, a huge, bright city full of people and lights. Slowly it rose up around him as he stumbled through the outskirts and suburbs, but he never stopped to consider where he should head next. He always headed unerringly in whatever direction he deemed to feel right, knowing that it would lead him to the house with the woman in it.

Suddenly he rounded a corner and there it was. He simultaneously recognized the house and realized that it had no significance to him. This was where he needed to go, but he had no idea why. It didn't matter right now, though. All that mattered was that he go up to the front door and knock.

He rapped several times and then stood back. A quaking unexpectedly took hold of his frame, and he felt his knees buckle. He knew he was supposed to be stronger than this. He broke out in a sweat. What was wrong with him?

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" a voice floated down from the floor above. "Just a sec!"

Was that the voice of the woman? It had to be. He didn't recognize it. Could he have come to the wrong house? He was certain that this was the one. He just knew it on a completely ineffable and unquestionable level.

The door opened. Framed in the light emanating from within the house was a surprised-looking young woman, who couldn't be a day over twenty. She was dressed in a rather flattering nightgown, had short black hair and grey eyes, and a short, supple frame.

"Vincent?" she asked.

"Who's that?" he replied before his eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed into her arms.

"So… what's wrong with him?" Yuffie asked.

She stood with Reeve outside the medical ward that Vincent was being kept in. As soon as Vincent had shown up on her doorstep and passed out, she'd called up Reeve and told him to dispatch an emergency medical team. It was a good thing that Vincent had come to her house in Edge. If she'd been in Wutai, there would have been no way to get a WRO trauma team on the scene in time.

"Aside from having exerted himself far beyond even his unique capacity, we can't really say," the doctor told her. "We've examined him, but as you know, his physiology is only human in a cursory sense. As far as we can tell, his body appears to be functioning normally. His brain is a different story. He's suffered some kind of massive head trauma from an indeterminate source and it seems, as you say, to have affected his memory. We did a scan and got all sorts of bizarre readings. If there was someone else like him we'd do another scan to compare these results to, but…"

"There isn't anyone else like Vincent," Reeve finished for the doctor. "He's unique."

"Precisely. I am sorry, but we've done all we can. It just remains for him to get hydrated and get some rest. Maybe his memory will return in time, or with stimulation. I'm really not qualified to make such an assessment."

"Nobody is," Yuffie murmured. "Not anymore."

The next morning, Yuffie's heart leaped into her throat with hope. She'd entered Vincent's ward and he'd immediately sat up in bed, a look of recognition on his face.

Her hope was immediately dashed. "You're the woman from last night!" he said. "Who are you? Where am I? For that matter, who am I?"

"You don't remember me, Vincent?" she asked, crestfallen.

He cocked his head. "Is that my name?" he asked her. "Vincent?"

She managed a nod. "Yes. Vincent Valentine. That's your name. I'm –" her voice caught in her throat for a moment – "Yuffie Kisaragi."

"I suppose it's good to make your acquaintance, then," Vincent said to her. "I'm feeling much better."

Yuffie motioned at the IV drip inserted into Vincent's arm. "We've had you on the tube since we got you here last night. You sure came a long way to find me."

Vincent relaxed back into the pillow on his bed. "I guess I did at that."

"If you don't remember who I am or even who you are, how'd you know where to find me?"

His expression became contemplative. "It was the strangest feeling. I knew precisely where I needed to go. I knew that there was a house I had to get to, and that there was a woman in that house that I needed to see." He turned his head to look at her again. "I suppose you're that woman."

"What's the last thing you remember, Vincent?"

"Walking. I remember walking a long way, day and night, not stopping. They're not very vivid memories, just long stretches of time blending together." She had to stop herself from taking a step forward when he added, "And before that I remember waking up and not knowing who I was."

Yuffie cleared her throat. "The doctor – the doctor said that your head had been hurt. He wasn't sure how. You don't remember that?"

"I only remember it hurting throughout the journey." Vincent held up his left arm and looked at it. "I also remember being dressed differently than this."

"I'm sure the doctor knows where your stuff's been stashed," Yuffie told him. "Don't worry. Once you're good to go again we'll get your stuff back and things'll get back to normal, I promise."

"You shouldn't make promises that you can't keep," Vincent said.

The penetrating insight behind the words startled Yuffie. She almost thought that Vincent's memory had suddenly come back, made a resurgence. He sounded like himself again. "Why do you say that?"

His ruby eyes met her grey ones. "You were lying," he said. "I could tell."

"Vincent, I'm only telling you what I hope will happen," Yuffie said, feeling the blood rushing to her face. He always had been able to tell when people were lying. "I just meant that –"

"You. Were. Lying," he cut her off. "You're just trying to convince yourself that it'll work out that way. The reality is possibly quite different. Don't neglect that."

She managed a calm nod, just one, before turning around and walking out of the ward. Closing the door behind her, she saw that Vincent had more visitors – Cloud and Barret both waited outside.

"How is he?" Cloud asked.

"He's still Vincent," Yuffie replied, silently vowing not to cry in front of her friends. "Even if he doesn't know it."

"Favorite color?" Tifa tried.

"Can't remember," Vincent replied around a mouthful of hospital food. Tifa had been hungry when she'd arrived. After catching a whiff of the stuff they were serving Vincent, she no longer had an appetite. How he managed to eat it with a straight face was beyond her.

"Birthday?" The chair that she had pulled up next to his bed was uncomfortable.

"Can't remember."

"What caliber is your handgun?"

"The huge silver thing with three barrels? No idea, but if I had it in front of me I could tell."

"Multiplication tables?"

"Up to thirty. I've already told everyone else who's asked, I can remember basic things but not anything specific about myself." Vincent finished the food and set it on the table next to his bed. "The only things about me that I remember are elementary knowledge, simple things. I can speak at least four different languages. I know I'm trained in at least intermediate-level first aid. I know I'm also a combat expert."

Tifa raised an eyebrow. "How do you know these things?"

"I could tell you what I'm telling you now in Wutainese, Gongagan, or Tradespeak. When I woke up this morning and had a chance to look around I recognized all of the equipment in this room and knew instinctively what it did and how to operate it. When I look at you, or anyone else, I know precisely how to kill you." He cast his gaze down at the sheets and added, "Not that I want to. But the knowledge is there."

Tifa nodded. "And you don't remember any of us?"

Vincent's gaze wandered over to the window, which provided an excellent view of Edge, situated as they were on one of the top floors of the WRO Tower. "No. No, I don't."

Nothing was said for a minute. Tifa got up and brushed herself off. "Well, I need to be going. I just thought I'd check up on you." She paused on her way over to the door. "You hurt Yuffie's feelings last night, or so I'm told. You might want to apologize."

"Yuffie…?" Vincent asked. "Oh. Her. I didn't mean to."

"You never did mean to," Tifa said. "You still ended up apologizing."

There was nothing else to be said, really, so Tifa saw herself out. Vincent watched her go and returned to gazing out the window.

He'd at least gleaned another bit of knowledge about himself from this exchange. The thought of apologizing to Yuffie seemed familiar somehow, in a burdensome kind of way. He had a twofold feeling: that he did this a lot, and that he was not very good at it.

The next day, the doctors declared that Vincent was well enough to leave, and that he should get back out into the world and try to rediscover some of himself. There was nothing they could do for him in that regard.

Yuffie watched him take aim with Cerberus at a target about twenty-five meters away. They were outside Edge, in an area that Cloud liked to call his "practice zone." It was a dry, rocky area, littered with target dummies and other pitfalls that Cloud had set up as a kind of obstacle course. Yuffie had perched herself on a particularly high rock so she could watch Vincent.

Vincent fired and the target had a new hole in it. He shook his head. "Too easy." He turned around and sighted on a target that had to be at least forty meters away. The report sounded and Yuffie could just make out the perfect headshot that Vincent had scored.

"You didn't forget how to shoot," she observed.

"It's strange," Vincent said. "Like I have a third eye in my forehead. It just seems natural and entirely too easy." He reloaded Cerberus with a practiced ease, handling the massive gun like it weighed nothing, before switching on the safety and holstering the weapon. "All of it's too easy. I feel like I should be clumsy and a poor shot, but I'm quite the opposite."

(And Tifa tells me you also remember how to speak Wutainese,) Yuffie added in her native language.

(As though I was born speaking it,) Vincent replied. "What kind of person was I, Yuffie?"

"A pain in the ass," Yuffie said. "And a good guy to have watching your back."

"You seem more familiar to me than the others in… AVALANCHE," Vincent observed, remembering the word after searching for a moment. "Besides the fact that you were the person I felt I had to get to, there's more."

"Like what?"

Vincent shrugged. "I don't have any memories of the two of us. It's more like I look at you and I remember an emotion. Think back to a time when you were angry, or sad, or happy, and just remember the feeling, not the event. That's what it's like."

Yuffie closed her eyes and tried to find an appropriate memory. The first thing that came to mind was the moment after Omega WEAPON was destroyed. She felt a rush of exultation, followed by a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach accompanied by mounting dread when she realized that she could see no sign of Vincent anywhere at all, nowhere –

"Whoa!"

Apparently Yuffie had perched herself less securely than she'd initially thought, because she lost her balance and started tumbling towards the ground. Vincent immediately leaped towards her, desperately trying to catch her and knowing that he wasn't fast enough. He stopped short and blinked several times in surprise when Yuffie did a mid-air recovery and landed easily on her feet.

"Are you all right?"

Yuffie scoffed. "I'm the Great Ninja Yuffie, Vincent. Did you forget who you're talk- " She broke off in midsentence as what she was saying hit her. She clapped her hands over her mouth in horror, or at least embarrassed shock.

"Yes," he replied.

Slowly, Yuffie withdrew her hands from her mouth. Both of them just stared at one another for a moment until Yuffie said, "Vincent…"

He cleared his throat. Something in his mind told him that now was the proper time.

"I'm sorry!" they both blurted out at once.

Yuffie cocked her head at him. "What? Why are you apologizing too?"

Vincent ran a hand down his face in embarrassment. His feeling had apparently been correct – he was terrible at apologizing. The proper time, his foot. "I was told – Tifa, that's who told me – that I hurt your feelings," he rambled quickly. "And I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, and I hope you aren't too upset." He shut up and held his breath, hoping he didn't look too pathetic.

"No big deal," Yuffie said, trying to pass off nonchalantly what had to be the most heartbreaking thing she'd seen in ages. "I just stuck my foot in my mouth too, so what say we call it even?"

"Okay." Vincent let himself breathe again. She didn't hate him. That was good news. He wondered why this was so difficult and why he felt it was so important to gain the approval of this woman – girl, even – but couldn't find any satisfactory conclusions. "So you're a ninja?"

"Best one there ever was," Yuffie replied proudly. "One time, a couple years ago, I was traveling with this bunch of fools, right? We got within ten miles of Wutai – do you remember where Wutai is?"

"Yes. I remember where it is, just not anything about it."

"We got within ten miles of Wutai, which is where I'm from, and I stole all their Materia right out from under their noses!" Yuffie said. "That had to be my greatest moment."

"Really," Vincent said. "What ended up happening to this band of fools?"

"I gave them back their Materia out of pity, they were so helpless without it," Yuffie snickered. "And they were so thankful they begged me to stay even though I'd stolen all their stuff!" She paused in her embellishment of the tale and looked at the genuine expression of mirth on Vincent's face. There was something she hadn't seen in a long time, if ever.

It reminded her of the smirk he'd worn, visible even when she'd been tied to that damn statue of Da Chao. He'd had it when he'd addressed Don Corneo during the incident she was busily restructuring for his amusement. "I don't care about what you're doing," he'd said to the fat man, "so much as the idiotic way you are doing it."

"That's very interesting," he said. "A little hard to believe, though."

Yuffie molded her expression into one of appropriate shock. "You're calling me a liar? Vincent, you just apologized for hurting my feelings once today already!"

"I'm not trying to hurt your feelings," he said, and suddenly that same smirk appeared on his features. "Just prove that you're that good by getting this gun off of my hip."

Yuffie eyed Cerberus, secure in its holster at Vincent's waist. "I don't know if you're going to be enough of a challenge," she said, "for me to –"

In midsentence she sprang at him, fingers going for the gun. He easily swerved out of the way, reading her without effort. She doubled back and went for it again, and he whirled away, cloak fluttering. "I must be a ninja too," he observed, still smirking.

Yuffie picked up the pace, going at him faster and faster, but he dodged and weaved around erratically, always moving just out of reach of her grasping fingers. Yuffie frowned. She couldn't let herself get beat now that this was a matter of honor. Time for desperate measures.

Instead of going for the gun, Yuffie leaped in a full-on tackle straight at Vincent. He stared, surprised, for a split-second too long, and took Yuffie's tackle in the gut. She bowled him over and he landed hard on his back. He didn't seem to notice – his right hand immediately moved to protect Cerberus, while he pulled his left arm farther away from her, obviously afraid of accidentally scoring her with it.

Vincent's eyes widened when Yuffie sprang off of him a moment later. He felt Cerberus slip out from under his fingers – Cerberus, and his belt, holster and all.

"Gotcha," Yuffie sniggered. She held the article of clothing aloft like a trophy. "Am I right, or am I right?"

Vincent got to his feet, right hand making sure his pants didn't go anywhere, and extended his free hand to her so she could give back his belt. "I suppose you're right," he admitted. "You are a ninja."

She nodded and gave him a small curtsy with surprising grace before putting his belt back in his hand. "Thanks for saying so."

He took a minute to get himself readjusted. "Yuffie?" he asked.

"What?"

"This band of fools," he said. "Am I one of them?"

Yuffie felt the grin slowly slide off of her face. He looked so sincere, buckling up his belt and asking her about the life that no longer existed for him. He barely looked like Vincent at all.

"Yeah," she told him quietly. "You are."