Na: Ya… this takes place right after the Highwind takes off… think about it, when you see the people on the Highwind later, Yuffie and Vincent are not with them… Probably because they are extra characters but that hardly matters at this point.

Into the Darkness

No sounds escaped her throat as it happened, as she watched the Highwind with its compliment shrink into the night sky atop the awesome force that was Holy. Had she only been a few seconds faster she and Vincent would have been safely aboard (as safe as you could be riding a surfboard at the trough of a tidal wave).

She could only gape and stare at the Highwind, which was now becoming a speck of dust in the night sky. Even as the ground below her began to crumble she could only stare up, praying that it would miraculously swoop down and catch them. It took the steely coldness of Vincent's claw to tear her gaze away from the summit, and just in time as that particular platform below her began to crumble and fall into the depths bellow.

Glancing about she hysterically searched for a way out, as the next overhang they used to get down to that area to begin with began to crumble.

"ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod, Vincent we're going to die here, you hear that? We're going to die here! Why me? Why now? We won, we're heroes, we're not supposed to die!" she babbled to herself.

Vincent on the other hand pondered his death, wondering if the 30 years of solace in his coffin had been enough to make up for the weaknesses and mistakes he felt were the summary of his life. As he pondered his attention turned to the 4 great women in his life, his four greatest mistakes, and in the end he decided 'no'. 30 simple years would never be enough, he resolved to spend eternity to make up for what he did. That's when he noticed Yuffie again.

"Vincent! Vincent! Snap out of it! VINCENT," Yuffie screamed before she slapped his twice across the face effectively getting his attention. "what do we do? what do we do!." She let out a small sob, "we're trapped.." Silently she fell to her knees, and tears began to blur her vision. 'this isn't right, it isn't fair, we fought so the world could have a second chance, why can't we have one too?' she thought to herself. She quickly dried her tears as she saw Vincent come back from wherever he was. He stalked to the edge of the overhang and stare down into the lifestream. It's level beginning to rise

"Vincent? please help me, I don't want to die here." she pleaded in an soft tone, never expecting him to care more or less respond. They barely spoke... well he barely spoke... She'd tried hundreds of times to get some response from him, something other than his famous one-liners. Random attempts to bring out some emotion other than sadness or regret, some positive emotion. Like the joy he had when he killed Hojo.. no.. not joy... closure maybe, but definitely not joy. Vincent wasn't like that, he may be quiet, vampyric, and to a degree demonic, but he wasn't sadistic enough to enjoy killing someone, even if it was the guy who cut off his arm and did everything but kill his wife, or girlfriend.. whomever she was. Maybe he could turn into Chaos and fly us out... or maybe chaos would slice me to ribbons and fly into the life-stream in a blind rage before that happens… odds were not in her favor.

'Good, it's rising at a slow rate' he thought to himself, as he walked to the wall and inspected the slippery steep wall leading up. 'I could climb this, I'd need something with a good grip thought...' he thought as another usually more silent voice interjected; 'ur a friggin moron'. "Oh yes of course", he awkwardly said to himself.

Yuffie looked up, "You say something Vinny?"

"Its Vincent, now hold this" he said while tossing his cape to Yuffie, "and climb on my back."

"One last game of Horsee before we retire to the OK corral?" she jested drying her tears as she slipped her arms around his neck and pulled slightly in a gentle attempt to cling onto him, but not to choke him to death at the same time.

At that point in time he was glad he had a survival knife. At the first town they stopped at with his share of the gil, he decided to get a survival knife instead of smaller shotgun that was for sale at the weapons shop. The others tried to talk him out of it, arguing that the shotgun was more practical given that in their group situation a battle with environmental survival wasn't as likely as a battle with monsters survival, which called for a stronger weapon than his small PK. But in the end he ignored them and bought the knife anyways, keeping it holstered in his boot. He still remembered Yuffie, dancing around, whispering in the other's ears that he was buying a knife so it would be easier to 'slit their necks and drink their blood in the night', just loud enough for him to hear. And when he turned around to question her motives, she had just bent forward, hands behind her back and with a giant smile yelled 'luv ya Vinny' right before she dashed behind Tifa for cover.

Now he was using the knife in his right hand, trying to dig as far as possible into the crags of the rock, getting some grip before he switched hands and pulled himself higher with his claw. After about 20 minutes of this they were outrunning the lifestream, gently making their way to the top.

"Vinny, if you get us out of this, I'll luv ya forever!" She said, her heart skipping a beat in excitement as they slowly inched closer to the next overhang. She tried to inch a bit closer to his head, the side of her face rubbing against his jet-black hair. It's so smooth, I never noticed before... Then again I've never touched it before, her hands taking advantage of the moment and groping a bit as if to get a better grip. 'Hes built' she thought to herself. It was always hard to tell with him, the way he walked, the slightly oversized clothing, and the cape. He always seems to float with a supernatural grace, since he was a long-range fighter, she was never able to gage his strength, and the cloak hid his posture most of the time. Figuring out anything about this man was extremely difficult. His constant apathy to his comrades rubbed her entirely the wrong direction, being that she of all people demanded the most attention, but something in him made her keep trying to read him, keep pestering, and keep trying to get something from him. Was it curiosity? Curiosity wasn't this strong. No.. But why was she thinking of this now... She snapped back to attention

"Yuffie!?" she nervously glanced around and noticed the beginning of the next to final overhang. With all her upper body strength she managed to pull herself up onto the overhang, then gingerly helped Vincent up. They both sat against the wall neither speaking for a moment, Yuffie listening to Vincent's heavy breathing, and Vincent persuading himself that he was fine, and there was just a little length to the top.

Yuffie broke the silence: "Thanks for carrying me, I must have been quite the load." she murmured in gratitude.

"You were" Vincent replied coolly as he stood up and estimated the next section left to climb. Yuffie remained on the ground perplexed; 'couldn't have been a joke, was he serious? He has never been one to insult either though.'

Playing it off as a joke with a mock laugh she replied; "Did that hurt Vinny? Your first joke? Don't worry I won't let the others know you cracked under the pressure."

"As you wish. We have about 30 ft. left, nothing compared to the trip up here. After this it's a nice straight path to the surface. We can hike back to Icicle town from there." Said Vincent.

"And then we're home free!" shouted Yuffie.

With that they began to climb yet again, in what was expected to be a quick 4-5 min. climb. As they reached the edge of the ledge, Vincent began supporting himself on his elbows and arms as Yuffie climbed over him onto the ledge. Just as she stood up and turned back to him waiting for him to come up, the entire cavern began to quake, everything was moving. Some of the stalagmites came crashing down, and Yuffie had to scramble out of the way of a few larger ones.

Just as Vincent began his last heave to pull himself up, the strip of rock he was clinging to came loose about a foot from the edge and about 2 yards across. The slab of rock fell back down the slope with Vincent under it. Wide eyed Yuffie managed to get to the edge in time to see its landing on the very slope they had just had a breather at, the slab split into to two, Vincent right underneath the fracture. Yuffie screamed out to him, but it was like he couldn't hear her, or maybe was unable to reply.

'This isn't possible, no way. We tried so hard' she kept telling herself... noo... he tried so hard, you came along for the ride. What's worse the Life-stream began to rise at an exponential rate. She broke into a sweat as she watched Vincent below, move his head, only his head, and shifted his arms a little bit.

In the back of his head the voice called again 'its rising you fool, get up and move!' I can't he thought back, the rock... and my bones... my body... 'You must you fool, if not for me, then for the girl!' it shouted. Yuffie... He just stared up at her, and between heaving pants mouthed something, unable to add volume to it. She just stared back. Again he tried, this time adding a little volume, "run..." She just stared more intently, the meaning coming to her. Its getting close, almost to my level, he thought as he listened to the churning of the life-stream immediately below him. "RUN!" he screamed one final time before letting his head drop down onto the hard rock floor. She was still there... Some shine in her face... no she was crying... 'Why is she crying? Is she crying for me? Why is she feeling for me? How can anyone feel for me?' It almost made him feel angry.

He could feel the life-stream on his back slowly rising till it dampened most his body and finally the tip of his nose. The shallow level relative to him was rather transparent. Yuffie was gone now. But as the level rose, things became increasingly darker. The powerful current within the life-stream dragged the rocks from atop his torso, He had to dig his bronze arm deep into the rock below to be keep from the current, but still his ribcage ached with an ungodly pain, and darkness was beginning to take hold of him as his consciousness began to leave him. Below him was pitch black, all he could do now was stare up at increasing darkness. Just as he was about to let go and be sucked into the depths of the life-stream a crash of light broke through the darkness. All Vincent could make out was the frame of a small girl. Yuffie... Quickly letting go, he swam as hard as he could towards her, catching her body. She was already unconscious. And despite how hard he tried, Vincent too slipped gently into the darkness.

NA: Thougth I'd try to work the title into the story itself. Tell me what you think.. Feedback is fun.

Have a nice day, and don't forget to brush your teeth.