"What's the point of trying, you failure? You know that you're not going to make it. Shin-Ra doesn't have any use for weaklings, and that's precisely what you are. I can't believe a pathetic weakling like you even got past the selection process. Just got lucky, didn't you? You're not going to have any luck here!"

The speaker was a giant of a man with a close-shaved head and an ugly grin on his face. The row of recruits, as well as one unseen observer, watched the man easily dodge a flailing swing from the bloodied and disoriented Vincent Valentine.

The two men stood in front of a line of black-suited young men and women, who stared ahead expressionlessly under a harsh light. The big man had picked out Vincent from the line and said that he'd be made an example of.

"It was stupid of you to try to join the Turks!" he laughed. "This is what we do, failure. We will take hold of you and mold you into something deadly, and if you don't survive the process then we don't really care."

"Why me?" Vincent gasped, trying to staunch the flow of blood from his broken nose without much success. The fluid was covering the white lapel of his suit and soaking it through. "Why did you choose to make an example out of me?"

"Here's the fun part," the big man leered. "I was told to pick you out of this line and show you up for the failure that you are. Guess someone up at the top doesn't like you!"

Vincent nodded, slowly, and something in his expression changed. He reset his nose with a horrible cracking sound and straightened up, the panic completely gone from his face.

"How long have you been in the Turks?" he asked calmly.

The big man's grin faltered, but he recovered and boasted, "About a year now."

"Your specialty?"

"What the hell do you think it is? Combat. I'm the strongest current Turk – and that'll just be proven again when I finish with you."

Vincent nodded. "You've been in the Turks for nearly a year, you claim to specialize in combat, and you don't know who I am?"

"Why should I? You're just some pathetic failure who's being made an example of!"

Not seeming to notice the blood running down his face and the bruises forming around his eyes, Vincent slowly shook his head and waggled a finger at the big man. "This is where you're wrong. The pathetic failure being made an example of in this particular instance is not me." Slowly he stopped waggling his finger and straightened it out in an accusatory gesture. "It's you."

His leg came up so fast that the onlookers could barely track the blow. The big man took the kick straight to the chin. It hit him so hard that all six and a half feet of him was lifted straight off of the ground for an instant before he collapsed heavily backwards.

Vincent slowly lowered his leg and took a careful pair of steps forward. "Boasting pure physical brawn at the expense of any intellect whatsoever is not an asset to a Turk," he said. "You have done nothing but strongarm your way through all of your assignments where subtler and less costly solutions could be found."

Recovering from the blow to his chin, the big man gave a howl and leapt to his feet, charging Vincent to try to take him down with a tackle. Vincent whirled out of the way and delivered a lightning-fast blow to the man's neck. He went down like a sack of potatoes.

"Also," Vincent added, "you should gauge your foe's true strength before boasting about your own. If you were the strongest member of the organization, then we wouldn't deserve the name of the Turks." He looked up at the line of recruits and said, "That will be all."


"There were easier ways of dismissing him," Vincent argued. "Or he could have been transferred to a special ops unit, something more suited to his particular field."

President Shin-Ra ran a hand through his slicked-back blonde hair and grinned, displaying perfect teeth that were just starting to show the beginnings of permanent nicotine staining. "But we don't need any more combat specialists, and this provided us with an opportunity to teach the hopefuls a lesson they won't soon forget."

Verdot, an up-and-comer in the chain of command, moved to stand slightly closer to the president's desk and said, "I agree with President Shin-Ra, Mr. Valentine. I think this was extremely effective."

Vincent glowered at both of them and started pacing the length of the president's spacious office. "But this doesn't encourage them, it just frightens them. Putting fear into someone is fine, but where is the accompanying reassurance that they have more to look forward to than what happened to the so-called 'strongest in the unit?'"

There was a snicking sound as the president put a cigar through his gold-plated cutter. Verdot caught the falling tip out of midair with the same hand in which he proffered a light. The president lowered his cigar to the flame, took a few experimental puffs, and then settled back into his chair. "Look, Vincent, I'm not sure why you're having qualms about this. All we did was have you kill two birds with one stone – let this guy go and put the fear of god into the recruits. He'll go find some mercenary work or something and die young, and the new meat will all step a bit more lightly around you. I'm not seeing the problem."

"It's –" Vincent's face contorted as he struggled for the words – "not right."

The president expelled a massive cloud of smoke as well as a deep laugh. "I can't believe I'm hearing this from you. Vincent 'Cerberus' Valentine is getting cold feet? You shot up an entire board of directors to get to the one guy who was going to leak our reactor plans to the opposition, and now you're whining to me about disciplining a moron and scaring the new blood. I gave you that nickname because you were Shin-Ra's guard dog, but apparently someone's gone and neutered you without me realizing it."

Vincent bristled. "I didn't come in here to get old history thrown in my face."

With a sigh, the president made a quick shooing motion at him. "Enough, enough. If it'll stop your whining, I'll take your advice into account the next time we decide to fire someone."

"That's all I wanted to hear." Vincent strode out of the president's office and made an effort not to slam the door behind him.

The observer followed him down a series of hallways until Vincent arrived at his own office. He stepped inside and collapsed into his chair, running a hand down his face as he did so. Instinctively, Vincent checked the calendar for the current date and then stared at the letter that had been sitting on his desk for the past week. The date on the letter was from several months ago. The delay had been necessary to preserve operational security until such time as the operation was suspended or he qualified as needs-to-know.

He sat back and stared at the ceiling, while the observer looked at the letter on his desk. It informed Vincent that Grimoire Valentine had been killed during an experiment.

Finally Vincent sat up, pulled out a pen, and signed the form he'd been provided saying that yes, he would like to be reassigned to guard duty at the think-tank in Nibelheim. He needed a change.


Vincent swallowed and instinctively tightened his grip on Yuffie's hand.

They had come back down here, at her insistence. She had said that she needed to figure out how he had managed to expel all his memories from his body, and why they had taken on this form, here – and she had also said that he apparently couldn't come with her.

It was true. The darkness that was evidently the manifestation of his memories shied away from him, as though unable to touch him. By contrast, it clung to Yuffie like iron filings skittering towards a magnet.

"Whatever happens," she had said, "don't let go of my hand."

After they had reentered the coffin room, Yuffie had closed her eyes and stood very still. It suddenly seemed as though she was infinitely far away, that Vincent was staring at her through a telescope as she stood on a distant shore that he could not get to.

He kept his grip on her hand. It had been only a few minutes, but a feeling of dread was mounting in his gut. How this was going to help her he had no idea, but she had asked him to do it, and he wasn't about to argue.

Not with the woman who was putting her own mind at risk to retrieve his.


"This isn't your first sin."

The voice sounded like jagged metal on metal, low and grating. It also had a terribly insidious quality to it, making it sound reasonable and intelligent despite its horrible nature. As he lay in the coffin, Vincent could hear it, and as the observer lay in the coffin next to him she could hear it as well.

"All those people. What were their crimes, hmm? I'm sure many of them committed some major offenses, but just as many were guilty of nothing but not seeing eye-to-eye with Shin-Ra. Those scientists who tried to defect. The workers who threatened to get the union to order a strike." The voice paused, and if the silence had been made manifest it would have appeared as a knowing smile. "The children of that one engineer who had been stealing company secrets."

Vincent twitched in his hibernation.

"You remember the children, don't you? You had just crushed their father's skull in against their mantelpiece and they had come down from their bedroom because they heard the struggle. You couldn't let them know your face. Your choice was quite clear."

An expression of pain rooted itself in the gunman's features. His closed eyes squeezed shut even tighter, his brow furrowed, and his mouth contorted into a grimace. The observer could see it even in the total darkness of the coffin.

"You were very merciful – you made it quick. A bullet in the head and then two in the heart for each of them. You thought you were doing them a favor, didn't you? How laughable. How hypocritical for you to feel regret about Lucrecia when she's merely the last in a very long line of people that you've hurt."

A face was almost visible in the blackness: Vincent's, but drastically altered, with glowing yellow eyes and fangs. "You could put an end to this. Even in this body you could kill yourself. A big enough explosion, a hot enough fire… Perhaps it would make up, in some amount, for everything you've done.

"You never did understand death until it happened to your father. Everything that makes a person who they are – all their quirks, their unique traits, their individuality itself – they all vanish. What's left is a husk, an empty shell with a face that it doesn't know as its own. You look at it and see the person you used to know, but instinctively recognize that it's not them, that it's something else entirely.

"Everything they did in life becomes academic. Whatever wrongs they committed, whatever their sins… Washed away like leaves in a current. Everyone would eventually forget. You could take that path. You could make it all go away, you could reduce yourself to that shell with someone else's face."

Vincent's lips parted in his sleep and he breathed a single word. "No."

Chaos snarled and its presence suddenly receded – but it was not gone. It would not be gone for decades yet.


"I hate this, Vincent."

The observer felt her stomach do a flip. She didn't want to see this.

Vincent looked up at Yuffie from where he sat on her bed. She was pacing the length of her bedroom while he sat there, immobile, not sure what to say and afraid to try in any event.

"How many times have we done this, now? I invite you over for a drink, even though you can't really get drunk, and we talk, and then when I get to a certain point I start trying to make out with you, and it's like kissing a pillow, and then you tell me you don't think you can do this."

"I don't keep count," Vincent said quietly.

"I don't, either, because I'm usually too tipsy to think of it." The ninja-girl turned on her heel and walked right up to Vincent, bending down to bring herself nose-to-nose with him. "This is where you gotta show me that you're not just stringing me along, Vincent. I'm tired of trying and trying and not getting anywhere. Do you want me?"

Vincent swallowed and looked at the floor, unsure of what he should say. Yes, he did want her. He wanted her more than he'd wanted anything in a very long time. He wanted her more than he wanted absolution, more than he wanted to forget everything he'd done, more than he wanted to be able to truly move on from the sins that weighed him down.

She took the initiative and obviously decided to interpret his silence as a "yes." It was a questionable way of looking at it, but he couldn't blame her for wanting to see it that way. He stiffened as she pressed her mouth against his and forced her tongue between his teeth, then instinctively let himself relax and return the kiss.

Yuffie pressed herself harder against him, climbing onto the bed and breaking the kiss long enough to force him onto his back so she could straddle him and start sucking at his neck. He felt a low, pleased growl form in his throat, and Yuffie worked her way up to his ear, running the tip of her tongue around his lobe in a maddeningly arousing fashion. At the same time she grabbed his hands – he had shucked his gauntlet as soon as she had started getting touchy earlier – and pressed them earnestly against her chest. She was not the most endowed of women, but Vincent could feel her erect nipples through the thin material of her shirt, and he let himself give in and experimentally tweak them, eliciting a mewl of satisfaction from her. She switched her attentions with her mouth back to his own, while her hands wandered beneath the hem of his shirt and ran along his abdomen before reversing their course and undoing his pants.

Slowly, Yuffie started to slide back off of him, clearly intent on dropping to the floor and taking his pants off there. He opened his eyes and looked down the length of his body at her receding face, which bore an extremely knowing grin. A wave of déjà vu hit him and his expression slid into shock.

The observer finally realized what had happened in that pivotal moment, seeing what Vincent saw. He was in a hotel, a well-to-do-one with a large, plush bed and a fantastic view of the nearby Corel Mountains. There was another woman sliding off of him, her face sporting the same grin. She was young, pretty, with green eyes and blonde hair.

Her name was not particularly important. All that mattered was that she liked making pillow talk with Shin-Ra employees about the upcoming reactor project and then selling her findings to the highest bidder. There was a flash, and the scene moved to the bathroom, where Vincent held the woman's head under the water of the bath she had run. He held her there until a minute after the bubbles stopped issuing from her mouth and nose and her limbs stopped thrashing.

"You weren't even that good," Vincent muttered as he finally let go of what used to be a woman and started toweling off his soaked forearms.

They were suddenly back in Yuffie's bedroom. Vincent hoarsely screamed "NO!" and threw Yuffie off of him before leaping to his feet and fleeing the room.


Another few minutes had passed, still with no visible change in Yuffie's condition. She continued to remain stock-still, breathing very shallowly, eyes closed, gripping Vincent's hand as the darkness swirled around her.

Vincent swallowed. He had told her that if she didn't come back in fifteen minutes from wherever the darkness took her he would take her out of the mansion again and not consider coming back. This was dangerous, and it wasn't right that she was the only one taking the risk.

When it came down to it, if the choice was between remaining an effective John Doe for the rest of his life and recovering his identity at the possible cost of Yuffie's mind, Vincent was absolutely sure he would choose the former. There was no doubt in his mind.

He loved her, after all.


"I can't escape it," Vincent said to the woman in the crystal formation. "It's not possible. No matter how hard I try to put what I've done behind me, to make up for my sins, they won't leave me. I've stained my hands with too much blood. I've done far too many horrible things."

Lucrecia said nothing, and the observer was unsure whether the woman had even heard Vincent. The gunman kept going, pacing back and forth in the waterfall cave like a caged animal. "The only way that I can possibly atone for what I've done and put my mistakes behind me is my death – but what does death accomplish? I've lost count of the people I've killed and this is what it's brought me. Taking my own life won't change anything." He cupped his face in his hands, the most distressed that the observer had ever seen him. "I try to forget, and continue to live, but it all continues to come back, and I end up here, talking to you…"

There was a sound, as though a glimmer of light had been made into a noise, and it slowly rose into an ephemeral voice – Lucrecia's voice. "Vincent… I can help you."

Vincent's head whipped around and he stared at Lucrecia. "What?"

"You know… of my modifications. The JENOVA cells inside me. You know the power JENOVA cells have over the mind, Vincent. Their power over thought… and memory."

"What are you saying?"

"I can remove your past. Put it… away. Elsewhere. Where it won't come and ambush you when you're not looking for it."

Vincent walked up to the crystal formation, pressed his hands against it. "You can do this?"

"I cannot tell you what will happen afterwards… but yes. I can."

He bit at his lip and his expression fell. "But is this any different from running away, from killing myself?"

"You will not be dead. You will not be who you used to be, but you will be alive – alive, and able to make the best of your new life… and able to be with the people in it."

Vincent looked at Lucrecia again. "You know about Yuffie."

Lucrecia answered his unvoiced question. "By all rights I should not even be alive. I am not, in some senses. How could I object to your wanting to live and move beyond me when I never asked for your love to begin with? If by doing this thing I can make up in some small part the debt I owe you and your father…"

Indecision written on his face, Vincent bowed his head for a long moment.

Then his expression hardened into resolve. "Do it!" He slammed his head as hard as he could into the crystal formation, hitting with a sickening crack. There was a flash of light, and the cave swirled away into nothing.