Diclaimer: I own Kaia and Kade. That's it.
"So what do I do now?" Kade asked, looking down at the sword in her hands.
"Well for starters pull it out of its sheath."
Cloud replied choosing one of his smaller swords from off the couch. Tifa had allowed them to move all the furniture back in order to practice in the living room with a stern warning that if they broke anything, they would pay dearly.
Kade pulled the sword out of the sheath as gracefully as Cloud had ever seen. He looked at her, bemused.
"I thought you said you didn't know anything about swords." Cloud said.
"Huh?" Kade blinked at him.
"The way you pulled it out. That was beautiful. Absolutely perfect." Cloud commented. Kade smiled and raised the sword above her head and promptly dropped it. "Spoke to soon didn't I?" Cloud asked.
Kade grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. You could say that."
"Alright, let's get started. You can lift that okay can't you?" He pointed his own sword at hers.
"Yeah. It's pretty light weight."
"Alright, first I'm going to teach you a warm up form. Watch closely and try to mimic my movements." He began to show her a slow formation and she tried to follow without much success.
"I can't do this." Kade moaned as she screwed up for the sixth time at least. She leaned the sword against the couch and sat down defiantly.
"Alright let's try another method." Cloud set his sword down and walked over to her. He reached down and picked up her sword and then grabbed her hand and pulled her up and against him.
"Cloud what are you-," Cloud turned her around by her shoulders so her back was to him, placing her hands on the swords hilt and his hands over hers.
"Now just relax. I'll move you how you need to." He told her, his breath warm and reassuring on her neck.
Kade did as told and he conducted her movements until they had completed the entire form twice. She had gotten it memorized already but didn't tell him that. It felt good to lean against someone and feel the safety she had always wanted.
"Now try it on your own." Cloud said, releasing her and stepping back.
Kade attempted it and got it perfect on the first try. She smiled brightly, as Cloud applauded her. Cloud walked forwards and looked down at her, his blue eyes studying her face as she looked back at him with her unreadable expression and mysterious metallic eyes.
"You did well." He said quietly.
"Thank you." Kade said, just as quietly, looking into his beautiful eyes and fighting the urge to close the few centimeters of space between them to feel his arms around her again.
Cloud took a small step and lifted a hand to brush a stray strand of hair from her face and behind her ear. Their faces were so close it was all Kade could do to keep her heartbeat steady.
"Cloud!" Both turned just a little girl bolted into the room and collided with Cloud whose face turned a slight shade of pink and Kade turned scarlet.
Tifa walked in with a young boy and looked between Cloud and Kade, her eyes studying Kade for a moment before she laughed.
"Not interrupting anything are we?" Tifa asked.
If it was universally possible Kade blushed even more while Cloud rubbed the back of his neck and shifted slightly.
"No. Not at all." Cloud said in a clear lie.
"Is that so?" Tifa smirked at him and Kade. "Okay Marlene, Denzyl, I have someone I want you to meet."
Kade looked at the little brunette before her and then to the boy beside Tifa.
"Kade this is Marlene," Tifa gestured to the girl who was still clinging to Cloud. "And Denzyl." Denzyl raised his hand in greeting. "Marlene, Denzyl this is Kade."
Kade smiled warmly at them.
"Do you even know where you're going?" Vincent asked as he followed Kaia through the forest. She had parked her bike just off the road and was now walking on foot, absolutely silent. As was Vincent.
"I know where I'm going that doesn't mean you should." Kaia snapped. She had been irritable all day. Vincent had reason to believe it had something to do with getting up at 4:30 that morning.
"We're going to the Forgotten City aren't we?" Vincent asked, though he already knew the answer.
Kaia's silence was all the answer he needed.
"Why are we going?" He tried.
No answer.
"Why does she have to be so damn secretive?" Vincent thought bitterly.
They emerged from the cover of the trees and the lake of the Forgotten City lay before them. Kaia walked forwards slowly, relaxing as soon as she set foot on the abnormally smooth, dark, green grass.
Vincent watched her curiously as she moved forwards and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She opened her eyes slowly and she looked back at him over her shoulder, her blue hair blowing back from her face.
She turned back to the lake and then sat down, pulling her legs around to the side and brushing her fingertips over the blades of grass. Vincent was beginning to space out when she spoke.
"I never told you. Did I?"
"Told me what?" Vincent asked dully.
"About what really happened to me." She said quietly.
"You told me a little but I didn't understand half of it." Vincent replied.
"I suppose you want to know then." Vincent said nothing, a sign for her to continue.
"Cloud and I lived in a small town, Nebelheim. Our parents fought constantly and I was the strong one out of the two of us. I was the one who distracted Cloud when the arguments started. I was the one who dragged him outside to play when they started yelling. I took up sword fighting when I was nine and attempted to teach Cloud what I had learned each day. He wasn't very good, and couldn't care less about fighting."
Kaia hesitated, her bright eyes watching the flower she was twirling between her slender fingers.
"The fighting got worse and by the time I was twelve I couldn't take it any longer. I took my training sword with me when I ran the night of mine and Cloud's 12th birthday."
Vincent could only stare at her. He had never known Kaia to run from anything. As long as he had known her, she had been eager to tackle any challenge head on. Running away was, in Kaia's own words, a coward's way out.
"I ran as far as I could until I reached Midgar, when I was there I tried to find work. I had been taught never to steal from anyone else but I began to become a thief. And I won't say I was a bad one either." She smiled to herself. "Others who lived on the street saw me as a threat and I was constantly living in fear. Keeping my sword close at all times. That was when they found me." She paused.
"Shinra?" Vincent inquired.
"Yes. They found me fighting a group of people who had been trying to get at me for months. The two Turks jumped in and then offered me a place back at Shinra. I was too young to get work anywhere and everyone knew it, so I went with them. I met the director, Tseung, back when he had just been put in the position, and he permitted me to join the Turk's ranks as long as I went through extensive training."
"Sounds to me like you didn't need the training." Vincent noted.
"We were being trained to fight any creature that reeked havoc. Hojo's or otherwise. I passed well in the hand-to-hand combat but was a little off in the monster thing. I passed though. In fact, Reno and I were in the same training division. When both of us passed the exam we hardly saw each other. I was sent to do paperwork for the president of the company himself, and Reno was assigned to another group of Turks. We ended up becoming partners later on, but when SOLDIER was really starting to hit off, I took an interest in it. I had met Sephiroth once in passing, when Reno and I picked him and a team up from Wutai. And after that I was incredibly curious about how SOLDIER worked."
"And you just couldn't stay out of it." Vincent smirked.
"I prompted Tseung for a transfer and somehow I was granted. I went through training, in the division that Sephiroth was instructing actually. He didn't go easy on me, if anything he expected more from me than the others, possibly because of my Turk background. I was in the same division as two others, Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley. They became my best friends and after our training, the three of us rose through the ranks very quickly. Although they made first while I was still a second, we still shared our bond. And upon having fought with Sephiroth on a mission all three of us were sent on together; we all formed a bond. One that strengthened between me and Sephiroth when I became a first."
"A bond? Sephiroth?" Vincent raised an eyebrow.
"Unbelievable but true all the same. I was something of an inspiration for the program. The only girl to be above the rank of the infantry. Rufus prompted his father, and Lazard to try to make an example of me, show me off and publicize me as the female equivalent of Sephiroth. Try to convince more people to enlist. Lazard talked him down, somehow, but rumors still circulated that I was the next Sephiroth. That if anything happened to him I would become General. It was false of course, Angeal was Lieutenant so he would have been promoted before myself or the other commander."
"So you made commander?"
"Yeah. My fellow commander, Genesis. He and I made rising in the ranks a competition between us from day one of training. He beat me to third class, I beat him to second, and then he managed to beat me to first. He never did let me forget that. Sephiroth was my mentor though, no matter how close I was with the other two."
"Wait. Cloud was going to try to get into SOLDIER, did you and he ever meet?" Vincent asked.
"You know this isn't hair dye." Kaia said flicking a strand of blue. "The mako injections took their toll on me, supposedly because they were never designed for females, and when Cloud showed up it was solid blue. My eyes were blue/green then as well so he didn't recognize me at all. Sephiroth kept us up to date for high priority missions so we didn't have much time to mingle with infantry. The man that eventually began to mentor Cloud though, Zack, he knew we were related. He and I were close too, mostly because he was Angeal's student. He was also one of the few below our authority and our director that knew my actual name. Where Genesis was nicknamed the Crimson Commander, I was the Sapphire one. Zack kept telling me over and over that I should tell Cloud the truth. But I never got around to it. After he and Zack got hurt when Sephiroth went off the deep end and deserted the company, I was the only first left. At first I went to go looking for Sephiroth, since the other two had defected before then, but I failed, and got a call from Tseung about Cloud and Zack being pursued. I got to where they were too late, and only got to speak to Zack one last time, after which I finally did tell Cloud who I was. The same day I got my wing."
"Did you ever find him?" Vincent pressed."Sephiroth that is?"
"Oh I found him. He wasn't as crazy as they had said he was, he was just fed up with everything. I barely understood any of what he told me but he did say that he needed me safe. Here is where I finally found him. The same place that he proposed to me two weeks prior."
Kaia stood up and walked to the waters edge looking down into the mirror like surface, her eyes hidden from Vincent. But as he watched a single tear fell from her face and hit the surface of the water, creating a ripple that expanded to the far edges of the lake.
Both were silent for a while until Kaia turned back to him, her face completely devoid of emotion, save for her eyes that were sparkling with unshed tears. Her blue hair drifted around her as she turned to look out across the water.
"We were standing in this very place when he tried to convince me he was fighting for what was right. For mother. And this is where we fought. I don't know who won that battle, I had a gift of the goddess granted to me to try to wake him up, but I still don't know that it worked. I doubt that it did. He said he would come for me, but….,"
Vincent recognized the sadness in her voice as what he felt and was reminded again, how much he and the young blunette warrior had in common.
"He was so different though. He turned into someone completely different than the man I loved. I hate to say it but I began to fear him. Both his strength, his insanity, and whatever emotional hold he would have over me if he ever came back. And so I returned to Banora, Genesis had gifted his parent's estate to me since I was the only one of us left. I helped rebuild the town from the ground up, and I've never looked back." She smiled walking forwards and looking up at him. "So care to tell me your life story?"
"No." He said pointedly.
"Oh, please. Do you have to be so antisocial? I mean come on you barely talk to anyone besides Cloud and-," She paused, seeing something on the shore of the lake. It was a cell phone. "Cloud's phone." She walked over to it and picked it up before pocketing it. "Anyways where was I?" She turned back to Vincent just in time to see an evil smirk spreading across his features.