Softening of Stone
"No!" The slim girl shrieked. The man proceeded to roughly shove her into the small, dark cage. She scrambled to the back and cowered in the corner.
She shivered uselessly, curling up on the cold metal floor.
"Why'd this happen?" she asked herself for the umpteenth time since her arrival twelve months ago. The girl attempted to sleep, clutching at the ragged clothes that she wore. She fell in to a dark slumber.
~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~
Tifa looked around the bridge of "The Shera." The air ship was flying to the next destination that Tifa and her friends had chosen.
All of her friends were there. All but one. Yuffie. AVALANCHE, which consisted of Tifa and her friends, had been searching for there lost friend for who knows how long.
"One year." Vincent stated suddenly, as though he had read Tifa's mind. He had been affected the most by Yuffie's disappearance. The usually dark and broody man had opened up a bit to Yuffie, and grown close to her. Tifa half suspected that he had feeling for her. After discovering that she had gone missing, he had almost obsessively searched for her. He would stay up late looking. He repeatedly had to be forced by Tifa or Cloud to get some sleep. He would begrudgingly do so but then head back out as soon as he awoke.
"I haven't seen her for one year…" The sadness in his voice made Tifa cringe.
"We'll find her." Tifa's voice was shaken.
~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~
Vincent stepped off the ship. He had taken a lead that Cid had found to a forest that was unfamiliar to him. He didn't watch as the airship took off again.
He walked briskly, stepping over broken branches. Within a few minutes he came across a small house. Upon entering all he found were three empty rooms. He walked cautiously through each one, his gun un-holstered.
As he walked into the third room, which appeared to be a kitchen, his blood-red eyes caught a glimpse of a small crack in the boards at his feet. Using the tips of the golden claw that graced his left hand, he lifted the board.
Beneath it was a small metal switch. He placed one leather bound finger on it and flipped it. He stood as part of the floor slid away to reveal a set of stairs. He loaded his handgun quickly and stepped down the stairs. The bottom revealed a laboratory horribly similar to the one concealed in Shinra Mansion. He shuddered at the flash of terrible memories.
"Intruder!" A shout came from his left. He heard a bullet whoosh past him. The man was in a lab coat holding a gun. Vincent dodged the bullets the man shot easily. Vincent fired once and watched as the man hit the ground with a sickening thud. Vincent continued on, his search the most prominent thing on his mind. There were two doors he could go through. He looked through each and found one was full of cages and the other looked like the place the man he had killed slept. He walked into the room of cages and glanced in one. At the back of it whimpered a small dog-like creature. Vincent continued on, looking into each one as he went. Until he came upon a cage that seemed to hold a person.
"Oh gods, no..." He thought to himself. He ran back into the previous room and searched the mans lab coat. In the breast pocket he found keys that looked like they may work on her cage.
Vincent slid the key in and twisted, hoping it would work. He heard a small click as the mechanism unlocked. He pulled the door open. Sure enough, at the back Yuffie's slim figure lay. She was asleep. He un buckled the cape from his shoulders and lay it on her.
~X~x~X~x~X~x~X~
Yuffie was aware of a heavy cloth placed over her. It was warm and when she inhaled it smelt dark and mysterious. It was a smell she knew well. She had smelled it on various occasions when she was near Vincent. When he had lent her his cloak once before, whenever she stood exspecially close to him, or the emmbarressing incident where she had burst through a door and smashed into him. They had ended up with her on top of him and their faces only centimeters away.
Yuffie sat up. "Vincent!" She cried out in half-surprise when she saw him sitting at the opening of the cage.
"Thank gods your awake... I was worried, Yuffie..." He was unsure how to show her how he glad he was.
She came and sat beside him. He pulled her into his arms and held her there for a moment in a tight hug. She hugged back, but then said, "This is a dream isn't it?" Her voice was filled with sorrow. "Vinnie would never have hugged me. He doesn't like me. I'm lucky that he ever let me talk to him."
"Don't say that, Yuffie... This isn't a dream. I'm really sitting her right now. We've all been looking for you." He was extremely worried about her condition. She looked disheveled, her hair was longer but in knots, she had some dried blood on her arms. He stood and helped her up. "I'll prove this isn't a dream. Come."
She followed as he led her out of the room and into the lab. She cringed when she saw the instruments that were there and instinctively put her hands over her head as though she expected something to come at her. Vincent tried his best to block the sights from her.
She seemed to be ignoring it. Vincent led her to the stairs that would end with an exit. But just before the first step she paused.
"Hold on a sec, Vinnie. I have to do something." She said as the cloak slid off her shoulders. He picked it up as he watched her take a piece of metal and attempted to destroy some of the equipment.
"Wait. Let me. You need to rest." Vincent said, offering her the cloak again.
He slammed his fist into the glass of a Mako infusion tube. It shattered. He proceeded to destroy every single machine in the room. Yuffie did her best to help. That room was filled with horrible memories for her. She never wanted to see it again.
"How are you not crying?" A voice said in her head. Yuffie looked startled for a moment. She knew that Vincent had not said it; he was dissasembling one of the machines.
"Who are you?" Yuffie thought in her head, hoping whoever had spoke could hear her that way.
"I am Destruction, daughter of high demons. I have found my voice, yet I am stuck within you. I have answered your question. Now, please answer mine." The voice, or rather, Destruction, said.
"It was why I'm not crying, right?" Yuffie said silently to the demon, not surprised about hearing the voice at all. It was exactly like what had happened to Vincent, but not as bad. "I cried myself out long ago."
"Yuffie, did you hear me?" Vincent's voice came from besides her.
"Huh? Oh, sorry Vince. I was spacing out. What'd ya say?" Yuffie half-smiled at him, still glad that he hadn't dissapeared.
"I asked if you were ready to leave. We shouldn't stay here." Vincent's eyes were soft, but determined not to let her out of his site.
"Yeah. Can I borrow your phone?" She asked. He readily handed it over to her. She dialed Tifa's number in the phone and put it to her ear.
"Vincent! Did you find her? Please tell me you did!" Tifa was breathless and hopeful.
"Calm down, Teef!" Yuffie laughed into the phone. She thought the way Tifa was acting was hilarious.
"How can I calm down, Yuff-" Tifa gasped, "Yuffie!" Her friend cried through the phone.
