He sits there. Alone and ultimately abandoned. Who would dare leave a man in such a position that he condemned himself for 27 years? He abandoned himself.
Haunting mental images swirl around in his mind like ghosts on a midnight prowl. The icy gash were the where his previous actions had punctured his heart still remained bleeding,open, and sore. The pit of his stomach would be nothing more than a pit. His body aching for some justification for what had happened that night in Nibelheim. Unfortunately, justice isn't always fair. Especially when your the judge of your own affairs.
He slowly climbs to his feet and raises his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight reflecting off of Mt. Nibelheim What had possessed him to even come back? The truth? Perhaps...But more or less to end something that another man had started. He slowly opened the old wooden doors and let the nightmare consume him once more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(I have no idea who did this artwork, but please note that it is not my own. And credit will be given if the artist comes forth.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It had been raining in Nibelheim for a quite a long time. The thunder echoed loudly through the rocky cliffs that seemed to be the identity of the area. Though, through all of the apocalypse, Vincent Valentine had found his place in heaven. Heaven's Resturant,that is.
Accompanying heaven's splendid beauty, was the purest angel Vincent had ever laid eyes on. A heart of gold and a face radiant of innocence. Her name even seemed to float through his mind on angel's wings. Lucrecia...Lucrecia my dearest friend... He sighed to himself. An angel in a sinner's presence...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vincent shook his head as if trying to shake the cobwebs loose from the memories that he had tried to leave behind. He found himself in the dusty foyer once more, still somewhat fascinated by the architecture of the building. The wind whistled through a crack in the stain glass window pane, almost whispering her name each time he took the
smallest breath. The demons were back...his guilt...How could he ever expect her to forgive him when he couldn't even forgive himself?
Down the encircling stairway and into the basement itself, he found himself walking. The seemly never ending winding staircase, ever the more reminding him of his heart wrenching guilt.
His footsteps eerily echoed through the silent basement's corridors. Ironically, symbolic of his own beating heart.
He suddenly stopped at the end of the hallway, looking over the dusty books and rusted medical paraphernalia. The scapel lay just as Hojo had left it, stained with Vincent's own blood, and seringe, with his piercing needle lye beside it. As he glanced down upon the floor, he found himself standing within a few cobble stones stained in
crimson red. This is where the nightmare began...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You gentlemen must never speak of this to anyone." Hojo mumbled as he stretched the rubber on his laytex gloves sending an annoying pop echoing through the imposing hallways of the mansion's basement.
"Speak of what?!" Vincent demanded.
Hojo quickly pulled something out of a drawer, making sure his body hid the contents of his hand. He quickly placed the object behind his back and walked up to the lovely woman who stood before him. He stopped only a few inches from her, and studied her as he placed his other hand on his chin.
"Answer me, Hojo." Vincent spoke in a low threatening tone.
"You may have her, Mr. Valentine." Hojo smiled as he pulled the seringe out from behind his back and squirted a small portion of it's contents into the air. "After I'm through with her."
Vincent's eyes widened as Hojo began to lower the needle down toward her skin. Out of the corner of his eyes, Vincent saw Tseng begin to spring on Hojo, the determination in his eyes narrowing down upon their target. But pure determination wasn't enough to stop the chain of events that were about to flash before Vincent's eyes.
Hojo suddenly pivoted as he pulled something out of an open drawer. His now extended arm, held a derringer pistol within it's evil grip. Vincent sprung as the shot filtered through his ears, but as he dove, he heard a cry of anguish from the young man as the bullet entered cleanly through his chest.
Vincent's eyes widened as glanced back after finishing his dive in a squatting position. Tseng's body stumbled backwards from the sheer force of the tiny gun. His long,black hair flung backwards as did a sprinkling of crimson blood. Tseng's body landed with it's shoulder blades first, causing him to bounce twice as he skidded to his
final resting place.
Vincent's eyes filled with pain as the young Turk's chest began to slowly deflate.
Vincent turned to Hojo, his eyes full of rage. His brother had been shot. He was not about to let another die in his presence.
Hojo quickly flipped the derringer up to Lucrecia's temple. "Now I suggest you back down, Vincent, before you end up as your young proigue."
Vincent's eyes softened as he looked into Lucrecia's pleading eyes. Vincent's shoulders slumped downward as he hung his head disgustedly, two tears slowly rolled down his pale face as backed away two steps before he heard three shots.
One tore through the muscle in his right shoulder. The second penetrated his left thigh. The third, and final shot rocketed through his chest, causing him to slump over on his knees.It all seemed to happen in a series of surreal slow motions that made each moment seem like an eternity of excruciating pain.
He could hear Lucrecia scream as she tried to free herself, but Hojo held his grip tightly. Vincent looked up at Lucrecia once more as the room around him began to grow slowly dim.Her scream seemed to keep echoing in his mind, taunting him to do something as he froze in utter shock. Hojo roughly jabbed the needle into her soft skin, and Vincent fell forward onto his face on the hard, cold, cobblestone floor hoping... praying... never to see the light of day again, for a life without Lucrecia would be a life not worth living for...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vincent shuddered. The smell of must finally awakened him from his dreamlike state. He found himself oddly staring at the dried puddle of blood once more,letting it's burning colors seep slowly into his mind.
His eyes followed the trail of sprinkling blood until they finally rested upon a second guilt stained puddle. Crimson. The most beautiful and yet the most horrifying color in the world. It was here that second death took place.
It is said that family members have a certain connection to each other. They know and feel each other's pain, which in this case, only served to kill his broken body twice over. The crimson stain was a bitter memorial to another man and a brother, like Vincent, who did not live the way he once did. Vincent nodded acknowledgingly at the puddle as
if to thank it for it's remembrance of his younger brother.
Long after they had passed away, those bloodstained walls would retell the story for enternity if someone was interested enough to hear.Or...would the walls only retell the lies of betrayal as so many books in the adjacent library had?
Knowledge... He thought to himself. All of this madness caused by one man's thirst for knowledge.
Knowledge is power, and yet, power corrupts. If your search for knowledge with your totality, you will be consumed by it. Luckily, Hojo's son was able to see past the sins of his Father and was not the vector of further corruption.
With that thought, Vincent turned to face the library...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like a madman searching for treasure, he hastily thumbed through the many volumes of the dust covered library. His long silvery hair hung neatly behind him as he rushed his bangs away from his face with right hand as he balanced the sturdy volume in his left.
He had been down there for days, looking for something that he knew would have a major effect on his life.
He laid the heavy hard bound book down on the dusty wooden table and shifted his weight to his left arm as he let his index finger of his right hand smoothly underline the text he was reading. He was so immersed in his quest, that he neglected time itself until he reached a passage entitled his Mother's name: Jenova.
His eyes remained intensely fixated upon the yellowed pages of the sturdy volume. His black pupils darting back and forth over the hand-written text.
His eyes snapped shut as did the volume simultaneously. His chest inflated as his muscles contracted. He shook his silvery hair behind him and he thrust his shoulders back. A new gleam of pride shown upon his soft facial features, and a condemning look of insanity filled his once placid green eyes.
A dam had finally opened within his mind, and the voice of another seeped within his conscious. It was a welcomed experience, one that he never thought he would ever feel. The gentle caressing of his mother's voice began to filter through his once lonesome mind. It was a feeling of warmth...a feeling of love. Love. Why had no one ever shared
this miraculous emotion with him? Were they jealous? Jealous of what?
You are born of a higher race, my son... Her soothing voice flowed like honey through the jagged edges of his fractured mind. They fear you...they...the humans...destroyed we, the ancients, because they feared us...
"I am not a human?" Sephiroth muttered to himself.
You are more than human, my baby boy. The others stole from us what was rightfully ours...We are the rightful heirs to the planet. You must reclaim it by destroying all that tried to destroy you. You must destroy them before they destroy you..."
The young man was drunk with ambition and even more so by the lies that his mother as well as the Shin-Ra had fed him. He took the nourishment he sustained from those lies and began to grow an ambition of the greatest magnitude. He would punish those who stood in his way. But.... he wondered. What if she was wrong? No, someone with the love she dealt would never lie..No one has ever treated me with such kindness. Why should I not return the favor?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blink.PLUNK. Blink..PLUNK...Blink....
Vincent turned.
A cold wind began to blow from an unknown source as Vincent's dark hair rustled
slowly along with his crimson cape.
Blink.PLUNK. Blink..PLUNK...Blink....
He turned toward the source of the sound, finding a mildew covered mirror streaked with drops of run-off that had fallen from the stone ceiling above him. His red eyes warily glanced into the mirror before his eyelids hid them from what he had become. The droplets seemed to form intricate patterns on the reflective material, making Vincent's reflection appear more inhuman that it actually was. As he looked back into the mirror, he found himself staring into a reflection of a crying man, who's tears had formed by the condensation upon the mirror itself.
The steady droplets of water landed quietly into a stream upon the floor,which puddled around one of the crimson stained locations, causing it to appear to grow and sparkle amidst the torch lit room. He knew this was merely an illusion, but the blood seemed to seep up from it's final resting place, as if reopening the wound where Hojo had
maliciously murdered his soul...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He suddenly found himself lying in a casket in the Shin-Ra Mansion's catacombs, his shoulders wedged between the two angular satin cushions. As he laid in the darkness of the casket, he wondered if this was death. So encompassing. So alone. A tear slowly trickled down his battered face as the events of that previous day slowly haunted his presence. Tseng was dead and Lucrecia might as well been. He wanted to die there within the midst of his own fear and guilt. Life just wasn't worth living anymore...
His body ached all over, but he somehow managed to dislodge the wooden casket's lid. As the light began to slowly filter into the casket, he noticed a small shimmer emerging from his forearm. The lid crashed to the floor as Vincent slowly sat up, stretching every aching muscle in his body until he began to realize that he no longer
had feeling in his right hand.
His eyes grew in horror as he looked down upon monstrosity that had now taken the place of his left hand. "What?!" A metallic claw flexed as Vincent brought it closer to his face.
As Vincent leapt to the floor, he realized that he was not wearing his blue Turks uniform anymore. Instead, he found himself wrapped in a black suit and concealed within a red shroud. His right hand seemed to appear normal, but the claw seemed to horrify him each time one of it's digits moved.
He looked down at the stone floor surveying his body as his eyes slowly drifted downward until he hit a crimson stain beneath his feet. He stared down at the stain until it's image began melt away into a flood within his own eyes as tears began to burn like hellfire within his eyes.
It was then that he realized his penance. With a guilty conscience, he slowly climbed back into the coffin and reached over the edge with his good hand until he felt the rough edge of the casket's lid. As he pulled the lid back over himself, he laid his clawed hand upon his chest in his line of sight as a reminder of that fateful day. Never again would he allow such a tragedy to darken upon his now red eyes. From then until what he assumed would be eternity, he would sleep the sleep of a guilty murderer although not at fault for what had become of his two friends.
Haunting mental images swirl around in his mind like ghosts on a midnight prowl. The icy gash were the where his previous actions had punctured his heart still remained bleeding,open, and sore. The pit of his stomach would be nothing more than a pit. His body aching for some justification for what had happened that night in Nibelheim. Unfortunately, justice isn't always fair. Especially when your the judge of your own affairs.
He slowly climbs to his feet and raises his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight reflecting off of Mt. Nibelheim What had possessed him to even come back? The truth? Perhaps...But more or less to end something that another man had started. He slowly opened the old wooden doors and let the nightmare consume him once more.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(I have no idea who did this artwork, but please note that it is not my own. And credit will be given if the artist comes forth.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It had been raining in Nibelheim for a quite a long time. The thunder echoed loudly through the rocky cliffs that seemed to be the identity of the area. Though, through all of the apocalypse, Vincent Valentine had found his place in heaven. Heaven's Resturant,that is.
Accompanying heaven's splendid beauty, was the purest angel Vincent had ever laid eyes on. A heart of gold and a face radiant of innocence. Her name even seemed to float through his mind on angel's wings. Lucrecia...Lucrecia my dearest friend... He sighed to himself. An angel in a sinner's presence...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vincent shook his head as if trying to shake the cobwebs loose from the memories that he had tried to leave behind. He found himself in the dusty foyer once more, still somewhat fascinated by the architecture of the building. The wind whistled through a crack in the stain glass window pane, almost whispering her name each time he took the
smallest breath. The demons were back...his guilt...How could he ever expect her to forgive him when he couldn't even forgive himself?
Down the encircling stairway and into the basement itself, he found himself walking. The seemly never ending winding staircase, ever the more reminding him of his heart wrenching guilt.
His footsteps eerily echoed through the silent basement's corridors. Ironically, symbolic of his own beating heart.
He suddenly stopped at the end of the hallway, looking over the dusty books and rusted medical paraphernalia. The scapel lay just as Hojo had left it, stained with Vincent's own blood, and seringe, with his piercing needle lye beside it. As he glanced down upon the floor, he found himself standing within a few cobble stones stained in
crimson red. This is where the nightmare began...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You gentlemen must never speak of this to anyone." Hojo mumbled as he stretched the rubber on his laytex gloves sending an annoying pop echoing through the imposing hallways of the mansion's basement.
"Speak of what?!" Vincent demanded.
Hojo quickly pulled something out of a drawer, making sure his body hid the contents of his hand. He quickly placed the object behind his back and walked up to the lovely woman who stood before him. He stopped only a few inches from her, and studied her as he placed his other hand on his chin.
"Answer me, Hojo." Vincent spoke in a low threatening tone.
"You may have her, Mr. Valentine." Hojo smiled as he pulled the seringe out from behind his back and squirted a small portion of it's contents into the air. "After I'm through with her."
Vincent's eyes widened as Hojo began to lower the needle down toward her skin. Out of the corner of his eyes, Vincent saw Tseng begin to spring on Hojo, the determination in his eyes narrowing down upon their target. But pure determination wasn't enough to stop the chain of events that were about to flash before Vincent's eyes.
Hojo suddenly pivoted as he pulled something out of an open drawer. His now extended arm, held a derringer pistol within it's evil grip. Vincent sprung as the shot filtered through his ears, but as he dove, he heard a cry of anguish from the young man as the bullet entered cleanly through his chest.
Vincent's eyes widened as glanced back after finishing his dive in a squatting position. Tseng's body stumbled backwards from the sheer force of the tiny gun. His long,black hair flung backwards as did a sprinkling of crimson blood. Tseng's body landed with it's shoulder blades first, causing him to bounce twice as he skidded to his
final resting place.
Vincent's eyes filled with pain as the young Turk's chest began to slowly deflate.
Vincent turned to Hojo, his eyes full of rage. His brother had been shot. He was not about to let another die in his presence.
Hojo quickly flipped the derringer up to Lucrecia's temple. "Now I suggest you back down, Vincent, before you end up as your young proigue."
Vincent's eyes softened as he looked into Lucrecia's pleading eyes. Vincent's shoulders slumped downward as he hung his head disgustedly, two tears slowly rolled down his pale face as backed away two steps before he heard three shots.
One tore through the muscle in his right shoulder. The second penetrated his left thigh. The third, and final shot rocketed through his chest, causing him to slump over on his knees.It all seemed to happen in a series of surreal slow motions that made each moment seem like an eternity of excruciating pain.
He could hear Lucrecia scream as she tried to free herself, but Hojo held his grip tightly. Vincent looked up at Lucrecia once more as the room around him began to grow slowly dim.Her scream seemed to keep echoing in his mind, taunting him to do something as he froze in utter shock. Hojo roughly jabbed the needle into her soft skin, and Vincent fell forward onto his face on the hard, cold, cobblestone floor hoping... praying... never to see the light of day again, for a life without Lucrecia would be a life not worth living for...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vincent shuddered. The smell of must finally awakened him from his dreamlike state. He found himself oddly staring at the dried puddle of blood once more,letting it's burning colors seep slowly into his mind.
His eyes followed the trail of sprinkling blood until they finally rested upon a second guilt stained puddle. Crimson. The most beautiful and yet the most horrifying color in the world. It was here that second death took place.
It is said that family members have a certain connection to each other. They know and feel each other's pain, which in this case, only served to kill his broken body twice over. The crimson stain was a bitter memorial to another man and a brother, like Vincent, who did not live the way he once did. Vincent nodded acknowledgingly at the puddle as
if to thank it for it's remembrance of his younger brother.
Long after they had passed away, those bloodstained walls would retell the story for enternity if someone was interested enough to hear.Or...would the walls only retell the lies of betrayal as so many books in the adjacent library had?
Knowledge... He thought to himself. All of this madness caused by one man's thirst for knowledge.
Knowledge is power, and yet, power corrupts. If your search for knowledge with your totality, you will be consumed by it. Luckily, Hojo's son was able to see past the sins of his Father and was not the vector of further corruption.
With that thought, Vincent turned to face the library...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like a madman searching for treasure, he hastily thumbed through the many volumes of the dust covered library. His long silvery hair hung neatly behind him as he rushed his bangs away from his face with right hand as he balanced the sturdy volume in his left.
He had been down there for days, looking for something that he knew would have a major effect on his life.
He laid the heavy hard bound book down on the dusty wooden table and shifted his weight to his left arm as he let his index finger of his right hand smoothly underline the text he was reading. He was so immersed in his quest, that he neglected time itself until he reached a passage entitled his Mother's name: Jenova.
His eyes remained intensely fixated upon the yellowed pages of the sturdy volume. His black pupils darting back and forth over the hand-written text.
His eyes snapped shut as did the volume simultaneously. His chest inflated as his muscles contracted. He shook his silvery hair behind him and he thrust his shoulders back. A new gleam of pride shown upon his soft facial features, and a condemning look of insanity filled his once placid green eyes.
A dam had finally opened within his mind, and the voice of another seeped within his conscious. It was a welcomed experience, one that he never thought he would ever feel. The gentle caressing of his mother's voice began to filter through his once lonesome mind. It was a feeling of warmth...a feeling of love. Love. Why had no one ever shared
this miraculous emotion with him? Were they jealous? Jealous of what?
You are born of a higher race, my son... Her soothing voice flowed like honey through the jagged edges of his fractured mind. They fear you...they...the humans...destroyed we, the ancients, because they feared us...
"I am not a human?" Sephiroth muttered to himself.
You are more than human, my baby boy. The others stole from us what was rightfully ours...We are the rightful heirs to the planet. You must reclaim it by destroying all that tried to destroy you. You must destroy them before they destroy you..."
The young man was drunk with ambition and even more so by the lies that his mother as well as the Shin-Ra had fed him. He took the nourishment he sustained from those lies and began to grow an ambition of the greatest magnitude. He would punish those who stood in his way. But.... he wondered. What if she was wrong? No, someone with the love she dealt would never lie..No one has ever treated me with such kindness. Why should I not return the favor?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blink.PLUNK. Blink..PLUNK...Blink....
Vincent turned.
A cold wind began to blow from an unknown source as Vincent's dark hair rustled
slowly along with his crimson cape.
Blink.PLUNK. Blink..PLUNK...Blink....
He turned toward the source of the sound, finding a mildew covered mirror streaked with drops of run-off that had fallen from the stone ceiling above him. His red eyes warily glanced into the mirror before his eyelids hid them from what he had become. The droplets seemed to form intricate patterns on the reflective material, making Vincent's reflection appear more inhuman that it actually was. As he looked back into the mirror, he found himself staring into a reflection of a crying man, who's tears had formed by the condensation upon the mirror itself.
The steady droplets of water landed quietly into a stream upon the floor,which puddled around one of the crimson stained locations, causing it to appear to grow and sparkle amidst the torch lit room. He knew this was merely an illusion, but the blood seemed to seep up from it's final resting place, as if reopening the wound where Hojo had
maliciously murdered his soul...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He suddenly found himself lying in a casket in the Shin-Ra Mansion's catacombs, his shoulders wedged between the two angular satin cushions. As he laid in the darkness of the casket, he wondered if this was death. So encompassing. So alone. A tear slowly trickled down his battered face as the events of that previous day slowly haunted his presence. Tseng was dead and Lucrecia might as well been. He wanted to die there within the midst of his own fear and guilt. Life just wasn't worth living anymore...
His body ached all over, but he somehow managed to dislodge the wooden casket's lid. As the light began to slowly filter into the casket, he noticed a small shimmer emerging from his forearm. The lid crashed to the floor as Vincent slowly sat up, stretching every aching muscle in his body until he began to realize that he no longer
had feeling in his right hand.
His eyes grew in horror as he looked down upon monstrosity that had now taken the place of his left hand. "What?!" A metallic claw flexed as Vincent brought it closer to his face.
As Vincent leapt to the floor, he realized that he was not wearing his blue Turks uniform anymore. Instead, he found himself wrapped in a black suit and concealed within a red shroud. His right hand seemed to appear normal, but the claw seemed to horrify him each time one of it's digits moved.
He looked down at the stone floor surveying his body as his eyes slowly drifted downward until he hit a crimson stain beneath his feet. He stared down at the stain until it's image began melt away into a flood within his own eyes as tears began to burn like hellfire within his eyes.
It was then that he realized his penance. With a guilty conscience, he slowly climbed back into the coffin and reached over the edge with his good hand until he felt the rough edge of the casket's lid. As he pulled the lid back over himself, he laid his clawed hand upon his chest in his line of sight as a reminder of that fateful day. Never again would he allow such a tragedy to darken upon his now red eyes. From then until what he assumed would be eternity, he would sleep the sleep of a guilty murderer although not at fault for what had become of his two friends.