III
Vincent was unsurprised to find Cloud had lost none of his speed. The blonde threw himself out of the way of Vincent's first shot, deflected the second with the First Tsurugi, and slammed his shoulder into Vincent's gut before he could get off a third, sending him flying out of the room.
"Let's fight somewhere else," Cloud said, forcing Vincent back with a flurry of wild swings of the First Tsurugi. "I need that machine undamaged."
He flared up with spirit energy. Vincent brought his gauntlet up in a hurried block just in time to take a Braver that sent him flying headlong through several concrete walls before slamming hard into a metal one. He straightened up, dust streaming off of him, and realized they were in the underground warehouse where he'd first fought Azul to a standstill all those years ago. His left arm hung useless at his side, the bone broken clean in half by the Braver. If he hadn't been wearing the gauntlet, he would be missing his forearm.
"This is nice and roomy," Cloud observed, stepping through the holes Vincent's passage had left in the walls. "High roof, lots of space. Don't see any of those exploding barrels, either."
"Hazardous waste was removed from the subbasements decades ago," Vincent said, ignoring the pain. "You didn't get the memo?"
"I guess I was out of the loop on a lot of stuff." Cloud's tone remained conversational, even flippant, but Vincent could see the bitterness in the man's eyes. "You sure you can fight like that?" he continued. "Looks painful."
"What, this?" Vincent asked, raising his mangled left arm.
He saw the shock blossom on Cloud's face as the limb twitched and writhed within the gauntlet, the flow of blood stopping as the flesh knitted and the bone reset itself.
"Just a scratch."
He hurtled forward, swirling his cloak around him, as he sighted in on Cloud again, firing as he charged. The shock stayed on Cloud's face, though Vincent could tell the man was wondering why a gunman was charging at a swordsman. The blonde still swatted the bullets out of the air, though, losing none of his focus, and as Vincent closed within melee range, Cloud transitioned seamlessly from a guard into a Climhazzard.
Vincent heard the man gasp with surprise as he caught the razor tip of the First Tsurugi with his gauntleted hand.
"You were probably wondering why I was giving up the advantage of range," Vincent said. "It's because I don't want to kill you, Cloud, and that's all bullets are good for. And…"
As Cloud tried to pull his sword free, Vincent holstered Cerberus to free his right hand and tore one of the component swords off of the First Tsurugi. He shoved Cloud backward with his gauntleted hand, feeling the wound on his palm knit up as soon as the sword left his body. He looked down at the weapon he held; it was the hollow sword, its hilt incorporated into the body of the blade itself.
In one furious motion, he bent it in half until it snapped.
"Your Final Omnislash is the only attack you've got that could conceivably kill me," Vincent finished. "Without all the pieces of your sword, you can't do it." He held out a hand to Cloud. "Give up. We can work this out."
He pulled the hand back just in time to avoid Cloud slicing it off.
"It's the only attack I've got that can kill you?" Cloud asked, his glowing eyes finally showing a glimmer of anger. He lowered his sword, its edge still keening from the spirit energy which had rushed along it as he'd struck. "Is that what you think, Vincent? You shouldn't make assumptions based on how I was fifteen years ago."
Vincent leapt back, drawing Cerberus again. "If you've got something to prove," he said, "then bring it. Full strength. If I make it clear how you can't win, then maybe I can dissuade you."
"Not in a hundred years," Cloud said with a sad smile.
He was inside Vincent's space in a second, his charge exceedingly fast. But Vincent was fast too, unnaturally fast. He read Cloud's swings, ducked or leaped or rolled out of the way. The blonde's footwork was flawless, the way he used the weight of his body and the weight of his sword to balance and complement one another was perfect – the pinnacle of human capability, extremely impressive in a sixty-four-year-old man.
But Vincent was much more than human.
"Come on!" he said as he ducked another swing at his head. "I said full strength!"
"Give me a minute, Vincent," Cloud protested as he began to glow with a lethal amount of spirit energy. "It takes me a while –" he raised the First Tsurugi above his head – "to psyche myself up to kill an old friend!"
The Blade Beam he threw at Vincent was massive, bigger than he was. It washed over Vincent, setting his cloak aflame and searing away his flesh. He hit the ground a mangled lump of blood and bone.
He got up three seconds later, his flesh tightening itself back over his body.
"I've got too much spirit energy myself for the beam to disintegrate me outright, and any damage you do goes away almost instantly," Vincent said. "I've gotten stronger over the years, Cloud. Please don't make me kill you."
Cloud grimaced. "Sorry, Vincent. That just means I'll have to hit you with a bigger one next time."
"Your ability to manipulate spirit energy's vastly increased over the past forty years, it's true," Vincent said. "But I told you, it's not enough to kill me."
"Nobody likes a gloater," Cloud replied.
Vincent felt the thread of his patience fray. He snapped Cerberus up at Cloud and double-tapped it, throwing out six rounds in a quarter second at Cloud's head and chest, then hurled himself backward and kept doing it, reloading as he expended his ammunition. The blonde didn't falter until the renewed barrage of bullets, dodging or blocking them. Vincent went to reload a third time, and in the half-second he wasn't firing, Cloud hurled another massive Blade Beam at him, even larger than the last one.
He saw the surprise on the blonde's face again as he levitated out of the way of the beam, moving far faster than even his enhanced body would be able to convey him.
"Physical laws have always had trouble applying to me after my alteration," Vincent said, hovering half a foot off the ground with only the force of his will and a little spirit energy. "Last chance, Cloud. Don't make me kill you."
That struck a nerve. He watched Cloud's eyes widen, his face contort into a grimace.
"You're pretty damn generous with handing out chances when you're in a position of power," Cloud said. "You like being this way, Vincent? You in the air, me on the ground? I bet you hated it when the Sons of Weiss took the advantage away. Made you realize you were vulnerable. I bet letting Tifa die was pretty easy, considering your only alternative was giving up your power."
Vincent snarled. "How dare you –"
"What? Get angry? Tell you the truth?" Cloud sneered. "Or just try to goad you into fighting me at full strength so I don't feel like I need to hold back?"
In an instant, Vincent hovered behind Cloud, Cerberus pressed to the back of his head. The man's body stiffened with surprise as he realized, too late, what had happened.
Vincent hardly even hesitated as he pulled the trigger.
Cloud rolled back to his feet, panting.
There had been a split second, a tiny instant, of hesitation before Vincent had fired. That was the only reason he was still alive.
His shoulder bled, but only a little. The bullets had grazed him as he'd dodged.
"You get it now?" Vincent asked, his feet settling back to earth. "This is the difference between us now, Cloud. We're both special, but you're also human, and old, and tired. I'm none of those things – not really."
Cloud shook his head. "No, Vincent. That's not it. You know what the difference really is?"
If you get really famous and I'm ever in a bind… You come save me, all right? Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come and rescue me. I want to at least experience that once.
He opened his eyes, not remembering having closed them.
"I keep my fucking promises."
As soon as he saw the rage hit Vincent's face, he threw another Blade Beam, big enough to tear a building in half, then immediately rolled to his left, knowing Vincent would dodge to his left and thus put the beam between them. He came up and fired another beam at where Vincent should be –
"Too slow," the gunman said, flashing past him, Cerberus leveled.
Cloud aborted the Blade Beam, transitioning the attack into a block, barely getting his sword in the way of the bullets aimed for his head. He dropped, threw another Blade Beam, then kipped up into a Finishing Touch, the razor-sharp wind expanding out from around him to fill the entire room and lifting him into the air where he could keep better track of his enemy's location.
He saw Vincent out of the corner of his eye, the wounds from the Finishing Touch already closing up. Cloud threw yet another Blade Beam, inverted himself as the momentum from the Finishing Touch made his feet hit the ceiling, and pushed off at Vincent in a Braver. The gunman effortlessly dodged the Blade Beam by a hair's breadth, then brought up his gun. He fired directly at Cloud's sword as he brought it down. The bullets slammed the First Tsurugi off-course. The blade, still crackling with spirit energy, crushed into the ground beside Vincent.
The impact clove a furrow neatly through the center of the entire room, splitting it in two. Cloud could see the floors below through the fissure.
He could also see Vincent's boot coming up to kick him in the gut.
The blow was painful, but nowhere near as painful as the ones that followed – Vincent holstered Cerberus in one instant and was beating Cloud in the next, the taloned fingers of his gauntlet deliberately curled into a fist. The strikes rocked Cloud back with their sheer, brutal power. He could feel his enhanced bones bruising, even cracking. It was all he could do to even follow the attacks, much less defend himself against them.
He managed to block a punch which seemed slower than the others, but he realized too late it was a deliberate feint, leaving him open for the follow-up tornado kick which cleanly broke his clavicle and sent him flying across the room. Cloud hit the far wall, hard, and slumped to the floor, the metal behind him warped from the force of his impact.
Unless Vincent had changed dramatically in the past fifteen years – a possibility he couldn't discount, but not one he would bet on – Cloud knew the gunman would close for a finishing blow, either with Cerberus or his gauntlet. He wouldn't let Cloud lie there and bleed, now that he was done with the lecturing and the attempts to 'save' him. Mercy and Vincent Valentine in a killing mood were concepts far removed from one another.
So, rather than hesitating, Cloud immediately hurled himself back to his feet, ignoring his screaming body, and pulled out his best trick, the one he'd been saving just in case.
Vincent, as Cloud had suspected, had already closed the distance when Cloud launched into an Omnislash. The gunman reacted instantly, dodging the first strike, again by a hair's breadth.
That meant he was caught flat-footed when the swing also blasted forth a Blade Beam. The impact spun Vincent around, throwing him off-balance, even with his ability to levitate. The other fourteen strikes also produced Blade Beams, all of which hammered Vincent at point-blank range in addition to the damage caused by the sword itself.
The last blow sent what was left of Vincent hurtling back across the room to slam wetly into the wall.
Cloud dropped to one knee, panting. He'd worked on that move for ten years, knowing he would need it to beat his old friend. He just prayed it would be enough –
Then he saw the thing at the other end of the room explode with dark energy.
Pain.
Worse than when he'd first woken up like this, all those decades ago. Worse than when Rosso had ripped the Protomateria out of his chest. Worse than when Chaos had begun to slowly consume him, fiber by fiber.
But he was still alive.
And he was angry.
"That was good, Cloud," he said as he stood up, the transformation eradicating his wounds. "And if you were just fighting me, it might have won you the battle." The energy engulfing him dissipated, letting him see his enemy once more. He bared his fangs, his eyes glowing yellow in the dimness.
"But you're also fighting Galian."
He hurtled forward, picking up Cloud and pinning him to the wall with a massive, grey-furred hand. The blonde cried out as Vincent squeezed, crushing his body against the metal. Vincent raised his other hand, Galian's angry white hellfire blossoming in his palm.
"Any final words?"
Cloud opened his eyes. "Yeah," he murmured. "I'm disappointed."
"What?"
The man gave Vincent a pained grin. "I'd just hoped I could win without… cheating."
Pain suddenly exploded all up and down his right arm. Vincent staggered backward, disbelievingly watching as his blood gushed out of a dozen deep lacerations all along his limb.
Cloud dropped to the ground, a single wing sprouting from his back. Pale flesh, spiderwebbed with angry black cracks, stretched across cruel bones to reach nearly five feet in span. Its inner edge, razor-sharp, dripped with Vincent's blood.
"'He who fights monsters,' right?" Cloud asked, that pained smile still on his face.
Vincent roared, thrusting his hands forward and unleashing a torrent of pure hellfire. Cloud's wing instantly curled around in front of his body, dispersing the brunt of the blast, then whipped back out to its full length, slapping the rest of the attack aside. As it moved away from Cloud's body, Vincent realized the man was once again alight with spirit energy, except this time it was no longer the familiar blue-green flames of his aura – it was black, the color of the void, tinged with the deep blue of utter solitude.
"Bye, Vincent."
Vincent Valentine's last thought was that he couldn't bring himself to blame Cloud.
After all, he had asked the man to bring his full strength.
