By V.Valentine
Chapter 1
Too Soon
A/N: New Story I felt like I had to start. Please read and review, not just this but my other works too. Of course, Square owns Final Fantasy, not me. Lucky.
I never thought he would end up like this.
He was always the mysterious one, the one that always had the big fucking question mark tagging along with him.
Was he a man? Was he a monster? Was he a mix of both?
He's not anything now. He's dead.
I could have done more, I know I could have if I had just been there. But what did he do? He went off to go find himself and separated himself from the others and me. And now, after all these months of looking for him, he comes back to us. Dead. In a coffin.
Bahatmut, I hate speaking of him in the past tense. He should still be alive right now.
That's two members of my team I've lost now. Aeris was the first. Now Vincent is the second. Maybe they'll find each other in the Promised Land.
I look around at everybody else standing around the coffin. We're all here, staring at it like we're all expecting something to happen. That the lid will just pop off and Vincent will do some sort of dance to prove to us all he's not dead.
I wipe the rain from my eyes and from the bangs of my hair. I look over at Barret, and he's the silent one, compared to Marlene, whose childish innocence is wondering what is really going on. I envy you, Marlene. This doesn't really hit home for you. You know that your dad lost one of his friends, but you really don't understand what all of this means. Barret? He's just staring at the coffin.
Tifa's not hard to peg. Tears, along with the rain, coming down like a flood released from a damn. I'm a firm believer that she is still the conscience of our group. No matter whom we killed or what we did, Tifa was there, trying to make our lives brighter.
Not today, though. She's just crying.
Red XIII, whom I really should be referring to as Nanaki, is sitting on top of a giant boulder right next to all of us. He's the most intelligent out of all of us, and yet, there are no words for this. So instead, he gives Vincent the only other goodbye that he can know how to give him. He raises his head and howls at the sky, almost in anger that gods took him away from us.
Cid is holding Shera, who like Tifa is crying. And as I look closer at Cid, I see tears in his eyes too. They had been friends during the adventure to beat Sephiroth. He's not smoking, or cursing, he's not even thinking about his goddamn rocket. He's just hurting, like we all are.
Reeve came out to see the funeral. Maybe he felt it fitting to be here in person, and actually see this for himself, instead of on a computer screen via Cait Sith. It's easy to be on a mission like ours if you know that even if your current toy gets destroyed, you'll just send another one to join us. Isn't that right, Reeve? No matter how hard it gets, you'll always have an extra life handy.
This isn't a video game. Vincent doesn't get an extra life. It's simply just game over.
And then there's Yuffie. She's quite possibly the most hurt by all of this. We all mourn and grieve, but Vincent was something more to her. A mentor, some one to follow around and idolize, while pretending to be a bratty little thief. She's crying to, but she's holding back the gale force winds of rage about his death that she wants to unleash.
That we all want to unleash. We want to find those responsible, and make sure that they realize that it was not just one person they were dealing with, but seven of us. Like a big fucking Avalanche coming down on top of them. Personally, I would show them no mercy. Just like I did with Sephiroth.
I look to the woman that's speaking now, the one that had brought Vincent back to be buried. She had wanted to bring him back to his homeland, felt it was only right. Gotta say I admire that. Vincent had chosen a fine wife.
We were all shocked when she announced who she was. OUR Vincent barely even showed any skin ever, let alone the idea that he was capable of getting married to someone. But she had the proof to prove it, and she needed to be here too. She was giving the eulogy, even though her blonde hair was sticking and matting to her skin because of the rain. She continued on, her piercing blue eyes like a oncoming storm, a force of nature that was going to destroy everything in its path should it ever be unleashed.
She came with two other people. A young girl, probably no older than Yuffie and who looked just like her. She stood there silently, letting the rain wash off of her yellow trench coat. The woman who came with Vincent's body had introduced her as Vincent's adopted daughter. Wife and kids, huh?
That's two more surprises that Vincent shocked us with.
The other person, who stood away from all of us, but still could be seen in the back, looked like the world was nothing more. As if a part of himself was in the box. His wild red hair covered his face, and his broad shoulders, he was a fighter of some kind. He didn't say a word to any of us since he had been here. Only spoke to Vincent's wife.
Speaking of, she just stopped speaking, and went to hold their daughter close to her, her white cloak and cape almost covering the both of them.
And then everyone seemed to look at me, as if I needed to do something now.
I guess I do. Stepping forward, I got a closer look at the coffin. Here's to you, Vincent. I hope you find the peace that you were looking for here in the Promised Land.
Looking at everyone, I narrowed my eyes and unsheathed the sword off my back. Thrusting it into the air with Ease, I yelled with part of the rage that I wanted to unleash.
"AVALANCHE! Salute!" I commanded, just as I thrust the Ultima Weapon down, right in front of Vincent's coffin.
Everyone with his or her weapons did the same, surrounding the coffin with our best protection.
It's the least we could do.