A/N: To those of you following this story, I apologize for the late arrival of this chapter; I can't seem to find a way to connect the new ideas I have for stories together. And even then, I found a distraction in "Halo: Reach" as I'm trying to earn enough credits to get the GUNGNIR helmet. In compensation for me being late, we have a fight scene in the chapter! As usual, your comments and reviews will help me in my writing significantly, so do read and review would you kindly?
Legend:
"Normal Speech"
Excerpts
Thoughts
"Wutainese"
"Listen well, all of you! For now, I shall take my pound of flesh from these two child-murdering fools that have killed my son and his bodyguards as well as insulting us! To those of you from the kingdom that Nirvana had founded…to those of you that believe we of the Kingdom of the Moon are but the scourge of the world to the point that you think that she [Nirvana] would protect you and deliver divine justice upon us and wipe us off the face of the world, I shall call a plague upon you! You believe yourselves holier than us? Then I spit on your holiness! I curse the people that have allowed this to happen! I damn you all to hell for this crime! For the only scourge I see is the one that has wronged me…the scourge I speak of lies behind these city gates that you take pride in! You who would allow children to be murdered for your own pride and arrogance are the scourge I speak of! But fear not…my daughters and I are gnashing our teeth for vengeance, and yet as of this moment, we are not without mercy. I demand the body of my son to be returned to me at the oasis from whence he was abducted within three days and three nights…I wish to perform the proper funerary ritual as per the traditions of our people upon the body of my only son so that I may mourn for his death as a mother should mourn the death of her child—especially her youngest one. But if we do not receive the body in the time frame we have provided, then I shall call upon every chieftain of every tribe united and allied under my banner to declare war upon the arrogant Kingdom of the Sun until we get the body of my son back. We will not tire, we will not rest, and we will not falter—and if you shall continue to hide the body of my son, then I shall have my warriors kill every child in front of their families before they shall turn their blades upon every other man, woman and child until there is no Kingdom of the Sun left, and not even my friendship with Nirvana herself will save you! You have been warned!"
-Queen JENOVA's demand
Yuffie looked at both her partner and the cutlass-wielding little girl. Noticing the connection between them, she had dared to break the silence with both knives in her hands. "You know her?"
"Tsukuyomi and I go way back. In fact, he was the man I called brother."
Tsukuyomi looked at the girl with suspicion in his eyes—but he knew that something was wrong…"Shelke was a recently-added inhabitant of the Akatsuki Village. We had a tie that was as close to brother and sister that I could see. After the village was decimated, she went missing. Her body was not among the bodies of the villagers I had to bury on my own. Why she is here and against us, perhaps she can shed light upon."
"True enough Tsukuyomi…as you can see, I am not dead."
"How long have you been Hojo's spy before I even met you?"
The deadpan look on Shelke's face had betrayed no emotion, but her eyes had spoken volumes of the surprise she felt. "You knew?"
"I knew that Hojo was using you as a spy when I noticed you flinch upon encountering him. I also suspected you of being more than an ordinary girl from the way you carried yourself and the aura about you…and this was all on the day I found you in your cover as a lost little girl and I took you home. I had hoped that your stay in our village would have helped to heal your broken soul from the spy trade, while trying to encourage you to walk away from my path. Now that I see you before me, I now know that I was wrong to have trusted you."
"You're wrong! I betrayed nobody! Hojo had his sights on the Akatsuki Village and its people long before his betrayal of Wutai…when he had encountered the people of the Akatsuki Village, he envied their longevity and their prosperity…and their ability to learn quickly. I was merely a pawn in his game to ultimately destroy your people against my will…he killed my family and spared my sister, and in addition, he planted a mind control substance of his creation in an attempt to bind me to his will. For some reason, his substance didn't work on me when he had tested it on so many humans—but when he held my sister at knife-point; I had no choice but to obey."
"I ask you now Shelke, please leave. Even if I am angry at you for what you did, I can't find it in myself to kill you."
"You don't have any choice Tsukuyomi…as you have already concluded, the basement door is booby-trapped so that the only way out without attracting attention would be the front door…and even that is booby-trapped as well. Hojo had designed that explosive to detonate when my heart stops beating, or when you try to escape through one of those exits…I didn't have a say in the matter."
Yuffie was sickened upon hearing this. Hojo was not just a traitor…and simply calling him a monster or a demon would have been a compliment…and all the curses she could think of for that traitorous and sadistic piece of shit were not enough."Tsukuyomi, if you ever really treasured your bond to me as your sister, please—put me out of my misery…I've suffered too much without having this latest atrocity inflicted upon me, and I already know I will never see my sister in this life again."
This time it was Yuffie's turn to speak…she was praying that what she was hearing was true. "What do you mean?"
"After I awakened shortly after the bomb was linked to my heart, I saw what had happened to my sister…what he had done to her. It hurts just to remember now."
The look of horror on her face had been clear—it was an answer that Yuffie didn't want to hear. Tsukuyomi balled his fists together, holstered his shotgun, and settled his hands near a pair hidden pair of wakizashi strapped to his lower back—even though he had to get past Shelke, he still had to make sure this battle remained silent, at least until the traps were set off. "Please forgive me…" With that, the two spies got together and teamed up on Shelke and the battle had started.
Tsukuyomi had begun the battle by charging in with a wakizashi drawn, the blade missing Shelke by her hairs and using the momentum of his swing to perform a butterfly kick before she rolled away and into Yuffie as she threw several knives in her direction to stop her from escaping and moving both cutlasses up to block a downwards slash from her kukri, before turning quickly…and barely avoiding getting stabbed by a wakizashi courtesy of Tsukuyomi, and countering with a straight kick and dodging a horizontal swing from Yuffie's kukri with a forward roll before she could swing her cutlasses in an x-shaped slash. "You have seriously got to step it up Princess…and I know you are simply toying with me Tsukuyomi…there's no way to remove that bomb without killing me."
Shelke continued the battle by charging in and somersaulting over Tsukuyomi and attempting to stun him with a kick to the back of his head and finishing him off by thrusting both swords into his rib cage and impaling both of his lungs with each of her cutlasses, before she moved on in for a left swing aimed at Yuffie, causing the latter to block with her kukri—the strike was so strong that her grip on the knife was loosened, and the right swing finally knocked it spinning out of her hand. Shelke performed a straight kick upon her opponent's throat before she brought both blades around and began a scissors movement before she was interrupted with a pair of blades digging into her subclavian arteries…her assailant had then turned around so that they were back-to-back, and pulled both blades out before she was kicked hard and spinning into a wall, and she felt pain as she was pinned to with her back to the wall by a pair of wakizashi impaling her wrists. She then looked on in shock to see Tsukuyomi stalking towards her…it was clear to her that he was the one who moved that quickly to do that to her, and it was also clear that he wanted her alive.
"Impossible…a vampire should have been killed by now…"
"You're assuming that I am a normal vampire."
When he was a few feet away from her, Tsukuyomi stopped and looked her in the eyes. The look of realization on her face was very clear. Oh she now knew why he led the Akatsuki village…and why she felt so calm around him while she lived in the village…and despite the poker face she put on, it was clear to him through her eyes that the revelation had made her sick with self-disgust! "Shelke, I don't want to have to hurt you any worse than I have. Please tell me, what is Hojo up to?"
"Her vengeance shall be done, and Hojo wishes to aid her in that endeavor. And I think that you of all people should know the repercussions if she should reawaken." The words that came out of her mouth had mystified Yuffie, but apparently Tsukuyomi was fearful of it…what is it that she was trying to say? However, the even bigger question that had popped up in her head had become very obvious, thus increasing her ominous feeling upon hearing those words: what is with that line that had her partner terrified?
At this point, Shelke was getting paler by the second…soon she would bleed to death. "Fear not though Tsukuyomi, you have a bit more time…Hojo's experiments are not complete, and from what I've seen, he is only about halfway done. I am sorry for what I did…to you…to everyone…and I know I have no right to request this of you after all I've done, but I have a request of you…"
Tsukuyomi walked closer to Yuffie, as if to shield the two of them under his cloak. "Name it."
"When you find that bastard Hojo, make sure he suffers until his last breath…"
It was then that Shelke had weakened, and died of her wounds…and sure enough, an explosion had followed her death while Tsukuyomi had transformed and took his partner with him in his transformation as an apparition of swirling red mist following a trail of blood-colored and tattered silk that sped through the air quickly and just in time to escape the explosion that destroyed the entire manor with a gigantic pillar of flame. It didn't take long for the firefighters to arrive on the scene with volunteers to put out the fire that was Hojo's mansion. Nobody cared to stay long enough to see a flash of red disappearing into the forest…
The red apparition found a spot in a clearing as close to the village as possible. As soon as the area was found, it swirled around, and Tsukuyomi released his partner. With a confused look on her face, and in a sitting position…she would be asking her questions in a moment, which would be right about…"What in the name of Leviathan was that?"
"It's a trick that vampires have gained over the years—possibly due to a predatory lifestyle before we became more…mature and organized as a people. We call it, the 'mist walk', and attaining it was a rite of passage into adulthood for my people."
"What was it about that last line that got to you anyway?"
Upon hearing that, the fear in Tsukuyomi's eyes returned. "That is classified."
"Classified because you don't know? Bullshit. I saw the look in your eyes…you wouldn't be scared if you didn't know what Shelke was talking about. Now tell me what that was about, or else I'm telling my cousin that I'm going back to Wutai…and you'll have to do this on your own. So what'll it be?"
It was a few seconds of silence, but that was all Yuffie needed to know. She turned around, and started walking away.
"Wait."
That last word was quick and terse, but that was all she needed to know that now he was going to confess. Yuffie turned around, and walked closer to listen carefully. The look of hesitation was clear in her partner's eyes, and the sound of him reluctantly speaking out his next sentence was clear in his voice. "How familiar are you with the Stele of Da Chao?"
"I have a fairly good understanding of it."
"If I were to tell you that Queen JENOVA actually existed, what would you say?"
The look of confusion on Yuffie's face was clear…but she smirked as if to humor him. "I'd say 'what are you smoking?' and leave you be."
"Very good, you actually do your mother justice. But I am not pulling your leg in any shape or form. Queen JENOVA exists, and her anger and wrath is as real as the story in the Stele of Da Chao. I'd tell you more, but as it stands, dawn is approaching…we need to split up and get back into our covers. I'll meet you at the fountain tomorrow at midnight. I'll tell you everything I know then…and then after that, I want to see if we can find out where Hojo is hiding. Farewell Yuffie."
Before she could say any more on the matter, Tsukuyomi vanished with his 'mist walk' technique, leaving her alone in the middle of the woods—the anger she felt at the moment was quashed as she needed to flee before her disappearance looked suspicious…
The next day…
Yuffie moved along the room with trays containing food in her hands…as she walked towards the piano room with Vincent playing on the piano, she began to ponder upon Tsukuyomi's words—Queen JENOVA exists? Of course she would still be mad that her son's corpse was not returned to her—hell, even Yuffie would be angry if her child had been killed by those assholes in the first place. Come to think of it, the Stele of Da Chao seemed to have been cut off in the middle of the story…perhaps Tsukuyomi, being the last of his people, knew about the other half, which would relate to his claim about Queen JENOVA's existence. Until then however, she'll have to wait until tonight to learn about it.
Upon hearing knocking she left the trays at the piano within reach of Vincent, and walked towards the front door. Upon opening the door, she saw a woman standing on the porch. She was taller, had hair the color of midnight tied behind her back in a red hair tie, and was wearing a white shirt with a black skirt. Her maroon-colored eyes made her look inviting to any man—as was the figure that any woman would kill for. She had a sort of motherly aura about her—coupled in with a large dosage of sincere kindness due to the smile she showed…that oh-so-warm-and-welcoming smile that put her to shame. "Oh hello, you must be the new maid. Is Vincent around?"
This woman knew Vincent? Who is she? Yuffie was rather conflicted about this woman—on the one hand she rather liked her and saw her as much of a sister-figure as Aeris; and on the other, she rather envied the beautiful women that seemed to know her employer. Hell, who is to say that Elmyra won't have a moment, and try to take the man she desired oh-so-much? Wait a minute…did she just think 'the man she desired oh-so-much?' Something clearly was wrong with her…and so she shook herself from her thoughts, and the disturbingly erotic images of Vincent wearing a dress and kissing her oh-so-passionately, and faced the woman with a smile on her face. "Uh, yes, as a matter of fact he is…would you like to sit down?"
"That would be lovely."
Yuffie guided the woman to a seat in the living room. She could not help but feel that this woman she was guiding to the recliner before her was stronger than she looked—she could feel the power behind the grip, no matter how much she tried to disguise it with an extremely gentle and delicate hand. The only question she had on her mind was how much power she really had. Once she sat the woman down, Yuffie turned to face the woman. "I'll be right back with him in a moment; but in the meantime, feel free to make yourself comfortable."
The second the other woman looked satisfied, Yuffie walked towards the piano…the music she was hearing was getting more and more beautiful as she walked closer and closer towards her goal. The tune she was listening to was so sad and intoxicatingly beautiful that she was getting more and more reluctant to interrupt her employer. "What is it Yuffie?"
"There's a lady sitting in the recliner…she wanted to speak with you."
"Very well then, take me to her please."
This would be the second time today she would be guiding somebody to the living room…but she rather enjoyed the more delicate touch of Vincent as much as the deceptively strong grip of the other woman. "Vincent, how good it is to see you!"
"Tifa, how good it is to hear your voice."
A/N: This fight scene is difficult…1 fighter vs. 1 fighter is easy—it's like playing a fighting game. 2+ fighters vs. 1 fighter is not an easy fight to write, especially for a longer amount of time…although I suppose it is a bit of a challenge that I have decided to experiment on. I'm willing to take on your theories as to why Tsukuyomi knows that Queen JENOVA existed…but I may reveal that sooner than expected.
Songs Used:
"Blood Pain" by Daisuke Ishiwatari from "Blazblue: Calamity Trigger"—Tsukuyomi and Yuffie vs. Shelke
"Evil" by Toshiro Masuda from "Naruto"—Tsukuyomi talks with Yuffie
"Wind" by Akeboshi—Vincent playing on the piano
Vocabulary and Culture Notes:
Wakizashi—the Japanese samurai short-swords…they normally have blades that are up to around 2 feet long.
