Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy or Vincent. But I am putting thoughts into his head.

A/N: Vincent disappeared between FFVII and Advent Children, and I've never been satisfied with the idea that he was lurking in Lucrecia's cave the whole time. Mosty because it's boring. I expect he wandered, as many a wounded soul does. New setting and a bunch of OCs, but he'll rejoin Cloud and the gang before the end.

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"I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind"

-Brad Arnold, 3 Doors Down

The man walked along the edge of the narrow street, wrapped tightly in his own thoughts and yet, in some separate part of his consciousness, peripherally aware of the physical world through which he moved. His obvious self-absorption freed the curious from averting their eyes from his odd appearance, odd even beyond the inherent oddity of being an outsider to such a rural place at the edge of the world. They couldn't know that some inadvertent part of his mind cataloged every glance toward his clothes, his pale skin, or his long ebony hair that hung heavily to the middle of his back. He prudently kept both his unnatural left appendage and his firearm concealed under his cloak, although the cloak itself was viewed scandalous enough with its bright red color and tattered edges.

Vincent Valentine didn't mind the scrutiny of the townspeople. They had nothing to do with him. And besides, what point was there to denying his role of outsider? He was completely and utterly so; an alien among his own species. It would be true in the biggest of cities- at least here in this tiny backward town of Bifröst it was acknowledged outright. It was an honesty he could appreciate.

In this isolated state of mind his long legs carried him along while his boots scuffed along the uneven stone surface of the road. His thoughts cascaded down the same well worn trenches, trenches dug from pain and guilt and sorrow, like blackened brands burned into the flesh of a farm animal. He didn't direct this obsessive ruminating; it was an automatic and constant rehashing of his life, in quadruple stereo.

He was tired, and his soul ached.

Each of the last five evenings since his arrival in this small town he had taken this trek to the end of solid ground, right to the brink of where cliff met sky and the ocean pounded below. To the very cliff that had put a stop to his wandering eastward. Over the ocean there were no known lands, nowhere farther to go, and still he had not gone far enough. It was not possible for him to go far enough. A phrase his mother had been fond of drifted through his mind: 'Wherever you go, there you are.'

How maddeningly true.

Vincent stood gazing out over the water for the better part of an hour as the sun reddened and lowered, the ragged ends of his cloak billowing out behind him on the salty breeze. Anyone else would have seated themselves onto the inviting long grasses, but it did not occur to Vincent Valentine to sit. The relief he experienced from this activity was not physical. Something about the rhythmic pounding of the waves quieted the voices in his head and their constant vying for control, until he was at last able to relax some unidentifiable mental muscle. But not without effort. Like the guy who sucks in his beer gut day after day, he gets so used to flexing those muscles that he has trouble relaxing, even when the control is no longer needed. But Vincent kept coaxing until the rigid clamp he kept on his emotional state slid to a more human level and he lifted his face skyward to let a sigh vent from his open mouth. He stayed this way for a long time, knowing that even near the ocean's waves the truce was only temporary. He let his body slip away from himself, as if it had no more to do with his true self than the people of Bifröst.

But then that body turned him, head jerking and twisting his whole frame toward the town. The event that had precipitated this perfidy was a gunshot, a unique sound that years of brutal training left Vincent Valentine unable to mistake or ignore. He moved with startling speed down the slope, mindful of the cover between himself and the center of town from where he judged the shot had come. Picking his way carefully between the buildings, he eventually spied a gathering of people in the town center. Six men stood at one end of the group, definitely not from Bifröst and definitely very rough looking. Behind them sat six high powered motorcycles.

Vincent cursed himself for his inattention. He of course had heard the whine of the bikes 10 minutes ago, but it is one thing to hear and another to be mindful enough to understand the implications. Nobody in Bifröst owned a bike with an rpm that high pitched and he knew it. At the feet of the leader of the newcomers lay a man, an older fellow who had kindly directed Vincent to the inn where he now stayed. A pool of crimson spread slowly from the head of his motionless body.

"Shit," Vincent hissed as he drew his own gun. It was a monstrosity of a thing with three barrels, long and unwieldy looking. But it was extremely accurate for a handgun, in the right hands, that was. He could easily sniper out all six before they could even get a bearing on him, but there was a problem. Several actually. The lead man had taken hold of his next victim, a small girl, and another had restrained a frantic and wailing woman who Vincent guessed was the mother. The remaining four all had guns pointed at the crowd. Vincent doubted anyone in Bifröst owned an actual gun, they were so uncommon this far out. The lead man was talking, raising his voice over the woman's unintelligible pleading. The newcomers wanted something, but he had to get a little closer to hear.

"...reasonable. Nobody else has to get hurt today." The captor pressed his barrel into the sandy blonde hair of his victim. "Just tell us where your bridge keeper is"

Tuning out the world until the entirety of existence lay in his sights, Vincent adjusted his aim to the back of the speaker's head where he had the best chance of killing the man without inducing a spasmodic trigger pull. He knew it was risky, but at the moment it seemed the best option. He was about to fire when a young woman came around the side of the crowd and squared her shoulders to the lead gunman.

"I am the Bridge Keeper," she said, her voice clear, unwavering. Vincent recognized her, but had the impression she was not a local, let alone had a position keeping a bridge. And as far as he knew Bifrost had no bridges. But he had no time to contemplate; the leader had smiled and was shifting his gun from the child to her. Several of the others were turning their weapons toward the woman as well. Now was the moment.

Vincent dropped the two foremost men with two quick shots and closed half his distance before their minds could grasp that their happy situation had gone to hell. Now the remaining four were firing while the crowd screamed and ran for cover. He was vaguely aware of the woman who had identified herself as the Bridge Keeper scooping up the crying child, who was now spattered with the blood of her short-lived captor. Now at closer range he was able to pick his targets even amid the melee, and downed the two who had the wits to figure out it that he was the source of their problem. They weren't bad shots, but they weren't very fast. One of their rounds came close to him, sizzling past his right ear even as he sank two rounds into its owner. The remaining two were already escaping on bikes. Vincent hit one square in the back, sending him off sideways in a cartwheel while the bike nosedived and tumbled in an explosion of dirt. He had a bead on the last when one of the panicked citizenry darted directly in front of him, nearly taking the bullet instead. Vincent inhaled sharply as he jerked the nose of his gun upwards. Close one. That was always the worst in these kinds of things. Unintended targets.

He scanned the field of his destruction with a cold expression that an outside observer might have been mistaken for disinterest. It wasn't that he was emotionally unaffected. It was more that he was one of the few people on the planet who truly knew the value of keeping head, and body, calm and clear. He was in face busy double-checking the scene as he internally forced his breathing to slow, letting the slow breaths do their job of calming his elevated heart rate, consciously making his shoulders relax as he holstered his weapon. Of the four in the plaza around him he had no question of his work; they would not be getting up. Of the one he shot off the bike he could not be so sure, but the downed rider appeared to be equally stilled. The crowd however was agitated. Not realizing the action was over they ran about wildly, crying, calling names of their children, looking for the Goddess knew what. Everyone except the self proclaimed Bridge Keeper. She had handed the crying child to the crying mother, and now stood staring directly at him. And now Vincent was sure that she was not a member of the Bifrost community, and therefore almost certainly not this mysterious Bridge Keeper. He thought her awful young for a woman travelling alone in these parts of the world, and had to stop and mentally check himself. Living in these rural places the past year had triggered some of his old-fashioned ideas, formed back when women were not allowed to be Turks and before he had fought to save the world alongside some fantastically adventuresome females. A traveler this woman certainly was, like himself. Her clothes were too plain, too utilitarian, lacking personalized adornments or style. They were efficient the way travel clothes should be. And her short, dark hair had been whacked off haphazardly, maybe by herself by the looks of it, nothing like the proud, smooth, long tresses of the local women. Yet she had tried to trade herself for the child.

Her demeanor was different as well. Her face wore not the widespread blankness of shock, but what he judged to be an intelligent calm. That she was able to hold his gaze at all surprised Vincent; he knew the red cast of his eyes, or maybe it was his general appearance, unnerved almost everyone. But she kept her eyes steady as she walked toward him, stepping over one of the dead without so much of a glance downward. She was outwardly completely composed, but Vincent could see her somewhat accelerated breathing moving her shoulders.

"You missed one, I think," she said, turning to squint in the direction where the last rider had disappeared.

"Maybe that's better," Vincent replied, irritated at being accosted so. "Let him report to whomever he reports that they should think twice next time."

"You think they were sent? By some criminal organization perhaps?"

"They wanted something specific. Not you," Vincent replied.

The woman turned to him with the barest curl on one side of her lips. Her face wasn't pretty in a classical way, but it had an earthy quality with warm, wide set eyes that instilled trust. With her small, somber smile of appreciation Vincent allowed his annoyance at her initial reproach to slip away.

"So, who is the Bridge Keeper?" he asked.

"I don't know. I don't even know what a Bridge Keeper is. I am a stranger here myself. My name is Serina Kusa. People call me Seri."

"I'm Vincent," he said after a long pause. "Vincent Valentine."

Her eyes showed amusement, probably from his unlikely name, but her smile remained polite. Seri put her hand out in front of her.

"We are well met, Vincent Valentine."

Vincent silently took her hand and shook it. He disliked this type of physical social contact, but decorum would hardly allow him to decline. To cover his discomfort he changed the subject.

"There might be some answers," he said, "my last target was pretty far out. He may still be alive."

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A short jog later and they were both looking down at the fallen rider, lying on his back in muddy puddle of his own blood. Vincent bent down and relieved the injured man of his weapon. It was an average quality piece, not something he would normally bother with, but he pocketed it anyway. Seri pressed her sun-browned fingers along the rider's throat, her short fingernails framed by ragged cuticles.

"Well, he's alive, but barely," she pronounced.

Unlike the corpses that now lay in the street, this one at least lacked the fist sized, ragged exit wound. His distance from Vincent had saved him from that fate at least - the round was still parked inside his body. They rolled him over and with a violent jerk Vincent tore two long strips from the rider's shirt. With practiced speed he rolled one strip to form a bandage and they tied the second to hold pressure on a leaking red hole bigger than the diameter of a man's thumb in his back.

"Well he might live for a few hours," Seri said. "Gods, what caliber are you using, Valentine? You didn't leave much left of these guys."

"It's not what I do."

This time her smile cracked wide, her not-quite even features and wide nose spreading quite naturally across her face. Vincent, who seldom found anything funny and certainly not now, knit his brows at her.

"You're a pip to be sure," she said. "Here, you can have the heavy part. Grab his shoulders; I'll get his feet."

Vincent did as he was bid, wondering why he was doing it, wondering how he had gotten so involved, and wondering what a "pip" was. He plotted his disengagement. The simplest approach was usually best; he would just walk away and move on. That decided, he was free to contemplate the stranger Seri. She seemed quite at home among the carnage and gunfire. Not at all like any of the rural people he had met in the last weeks, or months, rather. Perhaps she was a battle-hardened refugee from the war? The cold look she had initially given him reminded him of a Turk. That stealthy and murderous organization had changed much in the last few years with the decline of ShinRa, and many Turks had slipped their lifelong contract to hide out in the remote corners of the world such as this. But even if she were an ex-Turk there was no chance she would have known him; his 30-year slumber after the experiments made his Turk days distant history. And that part at least suited him well enough.

The townspeople had begun to recover themselves and some were pulling the bodies of the attackers into a gruesome pile with limp arms, legs, and heads tumbled into angles the victims never would have chosen for themselves in life. Vincent suspected the citizens of Bifrost didn't have a clue what to do with their macabre pile once they had it, but were instead working on impulse while their minds eased down from the shock. Vincent recognized Sheriff Jansen coming toward them. He was a decent fellow, but in reality only a retired farmer elected as a part-time law man. His sum experience amounted to collecting truant boys or bringing home a friend and neighbor who had too much to drink at one of the three taverns in town. His broad, dinner plate-like face was compressed into confusion as he looked up at Vincent, then, finding no comfort there, he focused on Seri.

"Sheriff," she said, "I see you've collected their guns. Get someone you can trust to organize a party to haul those four out to the flats and burn them. Empty their pockets first and also take any unusual pieces of metal off their clothes. Put them in a bag for you and make sure no-one, no-one hangs on to any of it. This one is still alive but we'll need him conscious if we're to get any answers out of him. We're taking him to Betty's."

The sheriff nodded, his countenance now full of grateful purpose and determination. Seri pulled forward and to the right and Vincent followed, attached as he was to her by his hold to the other end of the man they carried. Seri had given the sheriff exactly the instructions he would have, and he added another point in the positive column for his theory of her being an ex-Turk or something similar.

Vincent wasn't sure what he was expecting from "Betty", maybe harmless and wholesome, but the small house they approached looked anything but. The door was already open and expectant, and from the darkness inside a damp smell of earth and incense reached out and grabbed at them like the clawed hands of a rank and discarded beggar. Suddenly he understood. They had little or no natural materia in this region. No mako reactor to crystallize materia from the planet's mako laden Lifestream, probably no materia anywhere to heal wounds. Well, other than the little he carried, and he wasn't about to use it on this scum. Betty was then, of course, the healing witch.

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