Sheath for a Sword

by katz

Vincent gives Tifa an ultimatum while traveling across the Great Glacier.

                Sephiroth fled across the Great Glacier and we followed, Cloud, Tifa, and myself.  I remember the Glacier well, that icy, barren waste where nothing survived except for the oddly silent snow monsters that hunted us from the moment they smelled warm blood enter their territory.  They never made a sound, even as they were killed, something I think that was ingrained in them and their ancestors for so long surviving in a place where it seemed the slightest breath carried for miles.  It was for this reason I was loathe to use my gun, but I had no choice.  It was either use my gun and attract every monster in a what must have been a ten-mile radius or allow It to take me.  I knew It would get me through all right.  It was a hunter, It could move as silently as Death if It so pleased.  If I let It take control, I would have a much easier time.  We faced many monsters on the Glacier.

                Looking back I realize crossing the Glacier was more of a foolish move than I had previously thought.  We had no extra food or water, no proper clothing (although I admit that proper clothing would have restricted movement, leaving us easy prey for the monsters I inadvertantly summoned), and we probably would have found a safer alternative route if we had looked.  But most of all we had a leader who could not think rationally.

                No.

                He could think rationally, but he chose not to, which was worse in a way.  I had seen situations such as these, when a strong man is taken with emotion, not overwhelmed, no, he is too strong for that, but chooses to be blind anyway, because it was easier than seeing what was and doing what needed to be done.  It usually ended up with the man failing to accomplish his goal, but not before reality crashes down on him in the last moments like an avalanche, illuminating in a harsh light everything he chose to ignore.  He reminded me of myself that fateful night in Nibelheim, when I lost the woman most dear to me and what was left of my humanity.  Even as I watched him, trudging on with brutal relentlessness through the icy stillness as Tifa collapsed to the ground, I realized how eerily similar our situations were.  I thought I should hope that he did not become what I had become.  But truth be told, I did not care.

                I think it was then that I decided I would let reality destroy him.  From the moment I met him I believed he would be the one to take me to Hojo.  There was something about him, a strength that came from much deeper than the Jenova in his body.  Yes I thought he would be the one, but apparently I was wrong.  He was a liability, like the people Richard, had me kill all those many years ago were liabilities, and he needed to be eliminated.  This time I wouldn't drag him out of the snow.  I would leave him to the cold and the monsters, crying tears of frustration as he realized the futility of his actions or for Aeris or perhaps calling for help while I passed him.  Calling like the little girl I found that winter day in the dark mountains above Nibelheim, the one I stopped to help because I must have been half delirious from the cold and I wanted to die because Lucrecia left me for her husband, and I almost did die, holding her naked, freezing body against mine, trying to get her warm, whispering to her about nonsense things, about Freddy the Frozen Frost Fucker, the man I helped kill with the other deeves when I was young, as young as her, and then she pissed all over me because she was unconscious and couldn't control her bladder and I laughed and told her she was getting heavy, that one of us could probably make it without the other, that she wasn't helping her case at all by peeing all over my favorite shirt...  Today is a hard day to find.

                I called for Cloud to stop, and he did so as if coming out of a daze, so focused was he on killing the one who murdered Aeris as she prayed on the altar.  Sephiroth.  My poor, sweet, bastard son, Sephiroth.  He turned and came back, moving with that same step-after-step relentlessness.  He didn't bother to wipe his sword clean after battles, he simply sheathed it and marched, that dead look in his eyes the entire time.  The eyes that looked at me, demanding to know why we stopped.

                "What is it?"

                "Tifa collapsed again."

                His eyes widened, losing that dead look momentarily, and he ran to the girl's unconscious form, rolling it over, checking for a pulse.  Materia wouldn't work in this situation.  We needed to find shelter.

                "We need to rest.  I saw a cave about a hundred yards back that we can use."

                He stood, head bowed, as though thinking.  "Take her back.  I'm going ahead."

                I wasn't surprised.  "No."

                He looked up at me in confused, blurry anger.  I had never outright refused him before that moment.

                "What?"

                "I can't allow that."

                He started walking toward me in that rapid, jerky pace people assume when they are angry.  His hand moved up toward the sword covered with frozen blood he had strapped to his back.  The cold had gotten to him.

                He didn't get halfway to me when I put him to sleep using one of the many materia he gave me.  It was easy.  He was already weary in body and spirit.  He fell forward face first in much the same way Tifa did.  I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder and went to where Tifa lay.  As I bent to pick her up I saw her face, her beautiful face, and suddenly I saw the little girl I found on the steep slopes of the mountains, unconscious and freezing to death alone in the snow.  I almost staggered back before picking her up under the crook of my arm.  Today is a hard day to find.

                I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye.  I could hear them, I could smell them.  They were all around, predators that picked up on our scent or heard us talking.  It would be a long trip back.  I wasn't strong enough to make it on my own, I knew that.  But It was.  I reached down, deep down, to where I kept It chained in the dark corners and began to draw strength from it.  It screamed in furious protest while I fed and continued screaming after I was done until I gave it a mental lashing.  It fell silent, sullen and brooding.  When I lost control again, it was a question of 'when' not 'if,' it would be furious.

                We reached the old man's house just as the sun was beginning to set.  It was a long sun this far north, one that lasted well into the night, so I estimate I've been walking for at least four hours.  I stopped periodically to warm them up in the many hidden caves of ice that pocked the Great Glacier, putting them to sleep if they stirred and fighting any monsters that happened to come our way.  I was almost out of ammunition.

                The old man opened the door for me before I could knock.  He wasn't surprised.  It was the third time this happened.  He already set aside a room for the two, where I undressed the both of them, careful to avert my eyes, and tucked the both of them in warm blankets as though they were children.  The sleep spell was wearing out and soon they would awaken.  The old man gave me a canteen and I drank greedily.  The cold dries you out like no other, as the wise mountaineer Mike Thompson of Nibelheim once told me.  How right you were Mike.

                Surprisingly, Tifa was the first to awaken.  Perhaps awaken isn't the right word.  More like she gained consciousness, but only slightest bit.  I doubted she knew that she cried out softly for Cloud.  I knelt by her, cradling her head while I poured water in her mouth.  She sputtered a bit and then swallowed, drinking with the same desperate greed I did a moment before.  She looked like she was about to come fully awake but slipped back into unconsciousness.  I looked over at Cloud.  He didn't look like he was going to awaken any time soon.  I set the canteen next to him.  I wasn't worried about him, he had the benefit of Jenova cells to him alive.

                The old man was seated in one of the chairs beside the fire, tobacco pipe between his teeth and chess board  set on a table before him.  We played five games so far and were halfway through the sixth.  He looked up and nodded at me as I approached.

                "Your move," he said around the pipe.

                I sat and maneuvered my remaining rook across from his king.

                "Check."

                He moved his king behind a pawn.

                "Your third time back."

                I took his bishop with my knight.  "Yes."

                "You're stronger than you look."

                I didn't answer.

                He breathed out a puff of blue smoke and took my other knight with a rook.  "It's that boy ain't it?"

                I moved my bishop.  "Yes.  He lost someone dear to him.  Checkmate."

                He sighed and began setting the pieces back in their original positions.  "Yeah, I figured as much.  He has that look in his eye, you know?  Like a part of him just died."

                I couldn't have agreed more.  "Yes."

                He knew there was something about me, something that wasn't normal, but he didn't remark on it.  The first time I came back carrying Cloud and Tifa, he gave my glowing eyes and claw nothing more than a cursory glance before offering a game of chess.  I suppose after living as long as he had, nothing surprised him much anymore.

                He glanced over to the right and puffed.  Tifa was standing there, a pensive, weary expression on her face, blanket wrapped around her body.  I gave the old man a look and he nodded, stood up, said something about checking the bathroom for freezing and left.  I set the table aside and motioned for Tifa to sit.  She sat.

                She was silent for a moment, unsure of what to say.  I scared her.  I couldn't blame her.  Sometimes I scared myself.  She suddenly looked at me, mouth open as if to say something then stopped, blushing, and turned her face to the fire.  I admired the way the firelight played on her face.  She was very beautiful.

                I could see her gather up her courage to speak.  "Um, I know we haven't really talked all that much, Vincent, but I just wanted to say thank you.  For me and Cloud."

                I nodded, expressionless and silent, looking at her.  She blushed again and turned her face to the fire.

                "Don't thank me yet, Tifa.  We are not across the Glacier," I said.

                She jumped slightly, not expecting me to speak.  "No Vincent, I mean it, if it wasn't for you we wouldn't have -"

                I raised my hand to cut her off.  "I won't do it again."

                She stopped, gaping.  For a few long moments there was no sound other than the crackle of the fire.

                "What do you mean?" she whispered.

                "I won't do it again," I repeated.  I don't know why I was telling her.  It would be better if I simply left the both of them when they fell again, if I ignored their pleas for help and just walked on.  "If you fall I won't pull you out."

                "But, why...?"

                "Because we are wasting time.  Every moment we spend here is a moment I could be using to find Hojo and Sephiroth.  Cloud is becoming a liability -Richard's words coming from my mouth- to me, to all of us.  He is not thinking.  He will destroy himself and the rest of you along with him.  It would be better if I simply left you out there to freeze."

                I paused.  She was looking at me as though seeing me for the first time.  Like a monster in human skin.  I knew I should have left it there, let her tell me that they were not going to fail, they would kill Sephiroth, they would learn whatever secrets they needed from Hojo, and save the Planet in the entire process.  I should have just let them march on to their deaths and go by myself.  But something about it did not feel right, as though there should be something more.

                "But perhaps there is a way to save him."

                I gave her a hard look, to make sure she was listening.  "In Wutai, there is a saying for a man like Cloud.  'He is like a sword without a sheathe.'  He is dangerous, Tifa, to himself and all around him.  If you fall out there I may change my mind and save you but he would be left out there for the cold and monsters."  I leaned in closer.   "However if you can keep him under control, if you can be his sheathe, you may survive the next trip across."

                Tifa was still looking at me in that way.  I hated it.  "Why are you telling me this?"

                I spoke harshly.  "Because you want to live.  Is that not enough?"

                She recoiled as if I had bitten at her.  A corner of the blanket slipped to the side, revealing a long leg sculpted by many hours of martial arts practice and tanned by many hours of trekking under the hot sun.  As she bent forward quickly to throw the piece of blanket back over it, more of it fell away, this time the top half, revealing much of the soft curve of her proud, ample bosom.  She looked back up at me, her eyes telling me she was embarrassed and very afraid that I had seen too much.  I had.  And I wanted her.  I wanted her with a desire that shocked me, a desire I thought I would never feel again.  I didn't want her in the way I wanted Aeris that first night we met, no, I wanted her in the way a man wants a woman.  She was no longer a work of art, a painting or sculpture I might admire for hours on end, but a living, breathing woman.  Lust made unfamiliar by time raged through my veins, lust I hadn't felt since I met Lucrecia.  She saw this, she must have, for she was paralyzed in the same way a mouse is paralyzed when it meets the gaze of a serpent.  A low growl was forming deep in my throat.  It was the monster in me coming out.

                It took a moment to fight my lower instincts back into control.  My breathing was ragged.

                "Go to sleep."

                She came out of her fear-induced trance and hurried back into the room with Cloud, ignoring the way the blanket flapped around her, revealing tantalizing portions of flesh.  I kept my eyes down.  I slept in the chair that night.  Whatever may come tomorrow would come and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

                We started out at dawn, Cloud setting his grim, inexorable pace toward Sephiroth (I explained to him that he fell unconscious, an explanation he accepted quickly and without argument, eager to resume the journey) and Tifa trying her best to avoid looking at me.  She did not have to fear me for that reason anymore, the desire I felt the night before was gone.  But there was still the matter of the sword and sheathe.

                We came to the place where Tifa collapsed and Cloud had fallen asleep from my spell.  Tifa stopped and doubled over, breathing hard.  I called for Cloud to stop.  A mix of deja vu and a sort of strange sadness filled me.  It was going to end here, at least for them.

                Cloud came back, his eyes still holding that hard, dead look.  "Why did you stop?"

                "Tifa is tired.  We must rest."

                Cloud stood for a moment as if considering.  "Take her back to the cave.  I'm going on ahead."

                I was about to tell him no, that I wasn't taking her back, that I wasn't going to rest, that I was the one going on ahead, that I would leave her there and him too, because he looked like he was ready to collapse and he couldn't last much longer, maybe a few miles at the most, and I was going to find Sephiroth myself without them because he had become a liability.  Then Tifa intervened.

                "Cloud?  We need to rest," she said, touching his arm.  "You're tired, all of us are.  Just for an hour. Please?"

                His eyes softened for a moment.  "Tifa, I... you're right.  We need to rest."  He smiled tiredly, the first time since Aeris had died.  "Can't fight while we're tired right?"

                Tifa gave a quiet sigh of relief while she and Cloud walked over the hard-packed snow to the shelter.  I saw her turning her head to look at me, but I turned my head until they were past me and followed them.  I did not want to see what was in her eyes, gratitude or revulsion, it did not matter.  I was a monster.  I was going to sacrifice them to reach my own goal and I felt there were going to be many moments like these over the course of our time together.   It was going to be a long journey.

Author's Note:  I got the idea for this story (which is an excerpt from a much larger story I've been thinking about writing over the last two years or so) after watching the Kenshin OAV's, the part when Tomoe is told to be the sheathe to Kenshin's sword, and my own experience playing Final Fantasy VII.  I always wondered how the group survived the Great Glacier when they fainted, so I thought I'd write a small, if unlikely explanation to it.  It's still in rough draft form so please forgive any spelling errors or lack of ease when reading.