Crowsong
by Akai Kuu
Hope climbs atop of the piano
Reaching out towards the warmth of the sun
Some man tries to ask her down
But now maybe that's where she belongs
-Our Lady Peace, Hope
Chapter 1
Vincent Valentine appraised his old adversary, the mansion on the hill looming like Odin himself before him. In a sense, it looked little different than it had thirty-five years ago: the iron gates remained twisted, the large, soulless windows still leered at passerby like ravenous demons. It was only the bright construction equipment and the newspaper clipping wound around his prosthetic fingers that snapped the ex-Turk into reality.
Why was he here?
He closed his eyes as he considered the question. Images of a comfortable home in Junon reached him, much like where his family had lived in better days. A decently-paying job that fulfilled his childhood dream. A brown-splotched mutt, wagging its tail as its master returned home each day. It had taken him the life of a murderer, a sleep of 30 years, a transformation into a monster in the literal sense, a soul-shattering revelation, and the end of the world to at long last bury the Hell within this mansion behind him. And all it had taken to summon him back was news of its immanent destruction.
He lifted his head and raised his golden arm in front of him, the limb mostly covered by the black sleeve of his turtleneck. Plucking the article out of it with his right hand, he unfolded it and scanned the headline again:
SHINRA MANSION SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION
A wry smirk crossed his features. Yes, here was the chance to lose all of his godless memories forever, allowing him to continue his new, sane life in peace. But there was a part of him that could not let go of the past; the past, after all, lingered in everyone, and made them what they were
It offered hope for the future.
A gust of biting November wind rushed in from the east, and Vincent pulled his coat more tightly about him as he shouldered through the gate. He was asking too much, and he knew it. The Shinra's treatments had already brought him so much closer to humanity: to distinguish between the extremes of the elements, to taste his food again, to lessen the control of the demons that shared his body with him. Reeve's team of scientists had worked wonders, and yet, there was one aspect of his humanity they could never hope to restore without very precise and detailed information, information that might be concealed in the depths of the old mansion.
"Excuse me? Sir?"
Vincent recognized the tone of stretched authority. With a slightly overdone sigh he looked to the speaker, a dark-haired woman in overalls and work gloves, looking as if she were barely out of college. She wore a bright yellow construction hat on her head, held a clipboard in her hand and an unlit cigarette between her lips. Pale hazel eyes regarded him with disdain from behind the plastic eye-shield for a moment before she rolled the cig slightly with her tongue, as if preparing to speak.
"I suppose I am trespassing on a government project?" The woman blinked. Well, that had been easy. She nodded apologetically as she adjusted her eyewear.
"I'm sorry sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the premises."
He nodded curtly and went the way he had come. Feeling ill-at-ease now that the mansion was at his back, he resisted the growing urge to cast a fearful glance over his right shoulder, lest he appear paranoid to the forewoman and her companions. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he made his way back out to the town, gaze downcast and watching his booted feet hitting the cobblestoned pavement rhythmically before him.
His brows creased in a frown, but only slightly. Denied entry; a minor inconvenience. He was fairly certain the site would be unguarded during the night, and even if security were posted, it would be of little consequence. He was certain he could infiltrate the manor with relative ease. After all, he thought with a more noticeable grimace, old habits died hard.
The realization then dawned on him that he now had the perfect opportunity to avoid entering the old nightmare house altogether. As soon as he considered it, however, he had already pushed the idea out of his mind. Ridiculous, he knew, but he could not pass up this chance... And yet, a part of him suspected that even if Hojo had kept all of his documents in the Shinra Headquarters, he still would have returned to the Mansion once more before it was destroyed. Hope dangles on a string above your head; the past latches its hook-like claws into your shoulder blades and drags you down.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose self-consciously. My he was being morbid today. He shook his head and extended a gloved hand, palm-first, against a door; it swung open easily. He had really hoped he was past all of that brooding -and he was, mostly. Again, old habits died hard. Vincent had a decent life now, and rather than the ghost of Lucrecia anchoring his heart to the pit of his stomach, it gave him the courage to grasp life by its horns and triumph. The words he had shouted to her son at the center of the Planet, five years ago, rang in his ears:
I was frozen in time... But now I feel as though my time is finally about to begin!
A faint smile crossed his lips.
Vincent suddenly registered the overpowering odor of cigar smoke, and his ruby eyes widened as he took in his surroundings. The lighting was dim, and there was a sense of green in the faint luminescence that managed to prevail. At one end of the establishment, patrons sat hunched over a long wooden counter, once varnished perfectly, but now showcasing nicks, dents, and scratched obscenities from various drunken fiascoes. Away from the bar were various pool tables, and a very particular brand of patron huddled around them: nearly all men that looked somewhat formidable in one way or another, and the few women present did not have a great deal of clothing about their person. A big-screen television on the back wall streamed the current chocobo race live.
Some sort of invisible force pulled Vincent's gaze to a table in the far back corner, where two cloaked individuals sat, conversing in hushed tones. He stared right through them; he saw a young man with medium-length raven hair and chiseled forest eyes, a blue sleeve curled around a tall glass of alcohol.
The ex-Turk jarred the image out of his head as he approached the bar; the patrons, for some reason or another, parted like the Red Sea before him. Yes, he thought, old habits certainly died hard.
Cold. It was the first sensation the child registered when she awoke. Not pain, not malice. Just cold.
Where... am I? She opened her eyes, and instantly regretted it as they were assaulted by a stinging lime world of flowing funhouse-mirror distortion. Something was wrong: she was naked; she was floating; there were tubes in her nose.
Another thought surged into her mind, an electrically-charged panic:
I can't breathe!!
She gave a cry, her lungs filling with the foul-tasting liquid as she writhed, kicking and punching forward through the goo. Her hands and feet hit something solid. Glass. Her mind screamed more loudly - She was going to die was goingtodie wasgonnadie!!
A bright red flashed across her consciousness. Her gaze hardened, and she raised a hand. Staring at it through the liquid, she recalled a reflex from the back of her mind...
Pain shot through her hands, and tendrils of crimson danced through the florescent green of her prison. Yet, when she brought her hands again to the walls of the glass tomb, it shattered easily, the crippled cylinder vomiting up her naked body in a sea of green with shard-capped waves of broken glass.
A tiny body now lay in the center of a cold stone floor, rivers of blood trickling down from the jagged peaks of glass mountains embedded in her skin, sickly green clinging to the chalky white. Her sides rose and fell as she gasped for breath, her bloody hands twitching as she grasped for something that was not there.
And then, with obsidian hair dripping into her eyes, she stood, haphazardly. Something about her demeanor was no longer childish, yet the proper word for it was impossible to place.
Until a cold, rot-red eye snapped open, boring a hole into the plaque at the base of the mutilated cylinder.
Monster. The spirit of a monster.
Her vision was blurred, her breathing was raspy, and her will was iron as she read the inscription:
SUBJECT LE-1
LE...
L...E...
...L......E....
....Elli....
Author's Notes: Yes, it was a short chapter; it was more of a teaser. This is an attempted rewrite of a rather poorly-written story of mine from several years ago. If I get this baby rolling, it'll run for about ten chapters, each more than likely substantially longer than this one. I'm hoping this is a somewhat-original concept for a story; if you're worried about some self-insertion OC x Vincent fanfic, don't, as Elli is roughly eleven, and that would be a bit creepy, even by fanfiction standards O.o; Besides, I already self-inserted myself -the construction worker is me in ten years XD Wewt!
Ahem yes. Any feedback is appreciated.
Akai