Yuffie held herself close to Chaos as he carried them over the treetops, shivering when the rain soaked her skin and dripped down from his leathery wings in a thick curtain. The storm continued to rage with ever-increasing fury, and the rain was already so thick that she could barely see her hand in front of her face. Chaos continued forward without complaint, even though it was clear he was in some sort of distress. Yuffie could hear his breathing growing labored, and his body was trembling hard enough that she was able to feel it against hers. She drew closer to him, thinking perhaps he was cold and the heat would help, but was surprised when he hissed and pulled back, pushing her away from his body.

"Human… I'm afraid… We may have to land now…" he growled, clenching his teeth in frustration. "My host's body was too weakened for me to take over fully, but if I keep up even this level of control much longer it will greatly slow his healing. Is it alright if we land among those trees for a while?"

"Of course!" Yuffie nearly shouted, her heart hammering with worry. "I don't want anything happening to either of you, so do what you need to." Chaos nodded and banked steeply, diving down to the trees beneath them and pulling back sharply just before they hit the forest floor. The second he had set her on the sodden ground, Chaos receded into Vincent's body; the gunman cried out in pain as his body changed shape again, stretching his wounds and broken bones. Yuffie hurriedly knelt beside him, brushing his wet black hair out of his face and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. She was alarmed to see how much he was already bleeding again; the wound in his abdomen had gotten wider when he transformed into Chaos, and there was still a copious amount of blood dripping through the hole in his prosthetic arm.

"Vince, I'm going to take this shirt off so I can look at your wounds, alright?"

"You don't have to, Yuffie," he said softly. "If I just rest here, I'll heal on my –"Vincent suddenly gasped and paled, leaning to the side and coughing wetly. When he straightened, there was blood running between his fingers and down his chin. Yuffie managed not to panic, gently unfastening the buttons and buckles on Vincent's shirt and dropping it down onto the ground so she could examine the wound in his stomach. It was deep; she knew the blade had started in his back, so for it to have exited out the front… She swallowed back a surge of fear, remembering that she had no Cure materia with her since all of her possessions had been taken. Even if he wasn't going to die from these wounds, they would still weaken him significantly if left untreated. There had to be something she could do…

She suddenly remembered the two pieces of glass she had stashed in her obi, and hurriedly thanked every god on the planet for her good fortune. Careful not to cut herself, she removed them from her obi, tossing one into the brush before stabbing the other through the sleeve of her kimono and ripping a large strip of white silk from the garment. Vincent watched, curious, while she cut the strip in half and wadded the two pieces up. When she started to approach him with them, he knew what she was going to do. He managed to keep himself from making a sound when she pressed one piece into each side of the deep stab wound, letting the silk act like gauze and hopefully ease some of the bleeding.

Next she untied the obi from around her kimono, wrapping it around him instead to keep his broken ribs stable and hold the silk pieces in place. He let her do as she wished, thankful for how gentle she was and how much her very presence took away much of his pain. Finally, she finished tying off the long obi and helped him move under a thick tree; it was still wet underneath, but at least it was out of the heaviest part of the downpour. She sat back against the tree, pulling him to lie back against her while she wrapped her arms around him. He leaned back, fatigue begging him to succumb to sleep. He resisted, still too on edge to relax until he had brought them safely back to Edge. Yuffie sighed, beginning to knead his shoulders as she stared up at the endless stream of rain.

"You're not going to sleep even if I tell you to, are you?" she asked with a gentle smile. Vincent gave her a weak smile in return, shrugging sheepishly.

"I would if I could, believe me. But there will be plenty of time for that once we're home."

"Yeah," she whispered. "Well, if you can't sleep, at least lie here and recover, okay? I'm not going anywhere, so you don't have to be on guard so much." Vincent nodded, leaning further against her and sighing tiredly. She looked up at the sky again, wishing she still had her phone so she could at least call someone and tell them where they were. "Oh, well," she thought with a tiny smile. "At least if I have to be out in this weather, I've got Vinnie with me. And now, we wait…"


When Yuffie stirred again, she wasn't sure whether minutes or hours had passed. At first she couldn't place what had awakened her. Vincent had settled down to lie on her lap, a great deal more relaxed than he had been earlier, and she had finally managed to doze off using the gunman as a sort of blanket. After a moment, though, she realized that there was something rumbling overhead that was not thunder. She looked around for a moment, alarmed by the way the trees were thrashing in the sudden wind. Was it a hurricane?!

A beam of light suddenly shone down on Vincent and Yuffie, and they both tensed as they recognized the shape of a helicopter descending onto the forest floor just in front of them. Vincent stood shakily, holding himself protectively in front of Yuffie with Cerberus drawn, waiting to see who had pursued them. A low growl rumbled in his throat, and Yuffie was reminded once again of just how determined the gunslinger really was to protect someone once he'd made up his mind to. A moment later, the door of the helicopter opened; Vincent tightened his grip on Cerberus, ready to shoot as soon as he needed to.

A pair of bodies stepped out onto the ground, their faces still masked in shadow. When the first of the pair finally stepped out into the light, though, Vincent relaxed immediately, re-holstering Cerberus and leaning exhaustedly back against one of the trees.

"Vincent! Yuffie!" Tseng shouted, his long black hair blowing wildly in the wind created by the chopper's blades. "Thank the gods we found you. Hurry and come with us, we need to get you back to Edge before anyone decides to come looking for you." He strode over to the pair of them, Rude emerging from the shadows and following silently behind him.

"How did you know we were here?" Yuffie shouted over the noise of the storm.

"There's no time to talk about that now. We need to get you both home." When he saw the blood splattered across Yuffie's white kimono, his eyes widened with concern. "Are you hurt?" he asked, indicating the stains.

"No, this is all Vincent's," she said in a small voice, noticing that the act of standing seemed to have reopened the red-eyed man's wounds. Tseng hurried to his side, and the two of them talked softly while Rude escorted Yuffie to the chopper. A moment later, Tseng stepped inside, carrying a very ruffled-looking Vincent to the back of the helicopter. He set the gunman down on his back, motioning for Reno to take off as he began examining the wounds. Vincent barely reacted to having the large stab wound poked and prodded, but at the slightest touch to the gauntlet he hissed and jerked it away. Tseng frowned, concerned, as Vincent held the limb protectively against his body.

"Are you alright?" he asked, putting a hand on Vincent's shoulder when the gunman's breathing had calmed again and his eyes had lost their wild edge.

"Yes, I'm sorry… Sometimes I still…" He lowered his gaze, hating to reveal something so personal to the Turks but not wanting them to worry too much about him. "I still get phantom pains in this arm once in a while, and having it stabbed in a very similar way to how I lost it…"

"I understand. I'm sorry," Tseng said gently, taking his hands far away from the gauntlet. Vincent began to thank him, but instead choked on his inhaled breath, bringing up several mouthfuls of blood into his hands as he hacked and coughed. The Wutaian Turk stood quickly and retrieved an oxygen mask, bringing it back to Vincent while Rude filled a needle with something Vincent couldn't identify. He barely noticed when Rude gave him the shot, but very soon his vision was blackening at the edges, and he was breathing easier as soon as Tseng slipped the oxygen mask over his face. He could hear Yuffie beginning to question them about what they had just given him, and he wanted to ask the same thing. But before he could even think of the words for the question, he had slipped into the darkness, finally asleep whether he wanted to be or not.