Vincent stared at his hands. Just moments ago, just minutes ago, fresh blood had run over them, cascaded and rushed, hot and vile. And he had liked it. He had liked it and reveled in it and it had felt delicious to him.

Chaos. Being Chaos once more was a unique experience. Unique in the way that you think you are completely rid of something and then it returns. He should have known that he'd never be completely done with that particular burden. You couldn't just drop your sins like an old cloak, something he had remembered sharply with this latest obstacle, this latest hurdle to leap.

Chaos was gone, but this had just served to remind him of the damages he had caused, real and unreal. His hands were tainted by the blood that had been there, and he stared at them, rapt, as he turned them over in the nonexistent light, or whatever let him see in the void.

His right hand was pale, lean, and delicate to the eye. But there was a strength in the subtle, supple arch to his fingers and the callous on his index finger from pulling the trigger too many times. Aeris had once told him briefly, with a contemplative look in her eyes, that he had pianist hands. She had realized her slip, blushed, and apologized, but afterward, he had stared at his flesh hand, wondering at what she could see in a hand. But now he gazed at his hand and slightly understood what she had meant, what she had found there.

He switched his studying to his gauntlet, to its sharp, gleaming digits. It was deadly, and it was part of him. The bronze sparkled dully at him in the darkness, seducing his gaze like a thousand unrecognized dreams. It looked cruel, it looked deadly, and it looked cold. It was cruel, and it was deadly, and it was cold.

Side-by-side, left and right, bones and blood next to metal and gears. This was a contrast that he knew very well. This was Vincent Valentine: a sad excuse for a human being who had barely had any time to learn what it was to have a soul before it was sold away to demons and broken promises.

But that was what made him. That was what had sent him on this fool's errand of a quest, this hopeless mental and physical torment. He had not had his shot at a soul, but he would be damned if someone else suffered his same fate, if slightly different.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Vinnie, what if—"

His head snapped up; a burning, smoldering, searing heat in his impossibly red eyes. He was angry, and she had rarely ever seen him that way.

"Why, Yuffie?" he asked her. "Why do you ask me these questions? What tells you that I will know the answers?"

Yuffie stared right back at him, unnerved by his demeanor. His voice was steady, calm, low and dark as velvet, just like it always was, but resentment and repressed anger practically radiated off of his person.

"I—"

"Do you think that I know the answers to the whims of the dying? Do you think I know what lies beyond the world of the living? Do you think I have the knowledge of death?"

Her eyes darkened, stormed, and he knew then that he had made her angry at him in return for his unnecessary fury. But instead of yelling and raging like she usually did in a fit of temper, she surprised him. She tended to do that quite often, as of late.

"You know, Vinnie, you could just leave."

His eyes widened fractionally, taking her in. She was disheveled, her hair in a bushy halo around her head, and she was painfully thin, gaunt even. Her eyes were bright with something he couldn't initially identify, accentuated strongly by her hollow cheekbones and the deep smudges underneath. When it hit him what it was, he was staggered.

Yuffie had the look of someone who was dying.

She was dying. He knew it. She knew it. They all knew it. No one talked about it aloud; it was taboo. But this time, there was something else there in her gaze. She wasn't just dying. She was dying. She had done what he never thought possible for Yuffie Kisaragi. She had given up her hope. In the end, and the end was drawing nearer, that was all that Yuffie had left, and she clung to it like a drowning person. But now, he saw none of that in her eyes. There was only a strong, quiet, steady resignation.

Something in him snapped, and, for one moment, he lost control. That was really all it took.

He grabbed her by the collar of her soft shirt and wrenched her forward, coming nose to nose with her, so close he could smell the sweet chocolate pudding they had given her for an after-lunch dessert. The sugar helped her energy somewhat, and the chocolate was mentally comforting for her.

"Don't you ever even think about it," he snarled. She was startled at his behavior. Vincent losing control only happened with the demons, and that problem had been solved more than a few years before.

In that same level tone, the one that belied her overwhelming anger, she replied, "Think…about…what, Vincent? What."

"Dammit, Yuffie. There's always a way. There is a way. I don't care what I have to do, I'll find it, and I'll…"

He was speaking so harshly that he was spitting. She didn't move back. "You'll…what?"

His mouth, still open after trailing off, snapped shut with an audible click, so close to her nose that he almost took away a bit of skin in the process. Slowly, painstakingly, he uncurled his fingers from her neckline and released her, bypassing the chair he had vacated so hastily moments before to go toward the door.

"Vinnie…"

That voice. It was so small. He turned and studied her. She was pale, shaking, and sweating, and she looked exhausted. He turned back to the door and made his exit.

- - - - - - - - - -

Memories floated around in his brain in no particular order, surfacing briefly before being buried again in a wave of more memories. He couldn't just stand there in the void forever, he knew, but he was thinking, and there wasn't much that could stop a thought process like the one he was having.

Except maybe the little stars hovering around his vision, and why in the world was he suddenly lying on the ground? Something had hit him in the head, hard.

It took only a split-second for his reflexes to bite him in the ass, and he scolded himself for it having taken even that long. Stupid…

Vincent rolled out of his undignified sprawl on the ground and straight into a crouch, defensive and poised. He hadn't thought he would need his guns here of all places, considering he'd been safe in the abyss up this point, but he pulled Cerberus out of its holster and cocked it, peering hard into the darkness around him.

He lunged to the side at the sound of approaching footsteps—light, small build, running—from behind him. He did a full backward somersault and swept upward, uncurling into a standing position, gun cocked and aimed. He was so startled at who was coming at him that his hands went slack and his mouth dropped slightly open and he almost dropped Cerberus.

As it was, that surprised relaxation of his muscles saved him, and since his momentum was already going that way, he let his body fall to the left as the razor-edge of Yuffie's boomerang-shuriken swept down where his head had been not a second before. He caught himself on his metal hand, which he suddenly found was squealing against bare brown rock. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of reflected light from Yuffie's weapon and shifted to the side. He kicked out his foot at the right moment and managed to hit her in the shin. She lost her balance and fell backward, turning it into a flip and soaring back into the air like a spring.

The light from the flash he had detected was from the sudden flames around them. They were standing in a sort of arena, large, circular, and rough-hewn from rock. It dropped off sharply on its edges, disappearing in the hungry flames that licked at its boundaries. The ceiling rose high overhead, a dome of that same, dirty-brown rock.

Vincent's observations spawned from a few quick glances at his surroundings as he surged to his feet in a swirling cloud of cape. He couldn't hurt Yuffie, he knew, so he holstered his weapon and had no further time for thought because Yuffie directed a punch straight at his nose. His gauntlet flashed as he blocked her fist with it, and her knuckles struck the metal with a resounding clang.

She didn't stop at the pain the impact had to have caused; she didn't even blink. She just threw her other fist in the direction of his gut, which he knocked aside with the barrel of Cerberus. He sidestepped her left foot and dashed to the other end of the arena. She started to circle around slowly, so he matched her, going the opposite direction.

"Yuffie," Vincent addressed her, voice resonating through the cavern. "I don't want to hurt you."

In response, she planted her feet shoulder-width apart and spun around in swift circles, both hands held out in front of her, grasping the Conformer firmly. On her third turn, when she was facing his direction, she released it, but he was prepared, as he had seen her execute this maneuver before, and he dodged out of the way. A moment afterward, he turned and was forced to duck as the boomerang-shuriken wheeled back around in the air and returned to its master via the space his torso had been occupying.

"What is wrong with you?" he shouted as she flew at him again. "What are you doing?"

Her gray eyes were flat and dull as she landed a kick to his ribs and sent him flying, thankfully far from the edge of the platform. He got to his feet again, defending himself against her as she furiously battered away at him. Only occasionally did she manage to hit him, and he was not getting tired. This could go on forever unless he figured out what was happening.

Another illusion, perhaps? Even so, there was an object to it, something he had to do to which he didn't know the answer. There had been an ultimate goal to everything that had happened to him here, but for all he tried, he could not think of a single point that could be made from this.

For all the things that Vincent was unsure of about Yuffie, there was one thing he knew without a doubt: she was absolutely lethal in a fight. Whether it be one-on-one or one-on-one-hundred, she was excellent.

Yuffie fought with a kind of swift, precise determination that would surprise anyone who had never seen her do battle before. She had an intensity that she never used when she wasn't fighting. Her body was small, which gave her an ease at supporting herself in elaborate acrobatic maneuvers. She somersaulted over and under and twisted in and out and swung back and forth and never stopped for breath the way a normal person would. She didn't need it. That unchecked, boundless energy that annoyed so many people made her an excellent fighter. She almost never got tired, and after a while, whoever or whatever was fighting her did get tired.

She was fast. That lightness that let her twist and turn and wriggle her way out of a tight situation let her be lightning quick, with rapid-fire reflexes. Those same reflexes had been honed and sharpened into the wit of a ninja, giving her the skill and strength required to correctly throw a boomerang-shuriken so that it came back. And to catch it without harming herself on the sharp points.

She was lithe, and it hadn't worn off with age. Vincent had seen Yuffie run straight up walls before without so much as batting an eye. Vincent had seen Yuffie leap from fifty foot tall buildings and land like a cat and with the same exact cat-like twinkle in her eyes and not have a single broken bone or bruise on her body.

Vincent had seen Yuffie demolish her victims so many times simply through her confusing movements. She was so fast and so skilled that she could vary her pace to a bewildering variation. There was no pattern to where she went or the speed she went at and it could be dizzying to be on the receiving end of such an advance.

Now Vincent was the one on the bullet-end of Yuffie's barrel, and he had never experienced this before. He was at a serious disadvantage there. Ninjas were one thing—Yuffie Kisaragi was another area entirely.

- - - - - - - - - -

Three months ago, Yuffie Kisaragi had been diagnosed with a fatal illness.

Vincent found himself hesitant to admit it, but he admired her tenacity in the face of death. He did not admire her adamant denial that she was dying because Vincent never had been one to approve of lying, even to oneself, but he did admire the way she was handling the news.

Three months ago, Yuffie Kisaragi had been diagnosed with a fatal illness and after a week of wallowing, she had thrown herself fervently into training long and hard hours. From the break of dawn to dusk she would train herself, sparring with the palace guards, honing her weapons skills with bows, blades, and shurikens. The members of AVALANCHE would periodically check in on her—the members still in Wutai.

Cid had gone back to Rocket Town, which was fine for him because he could fly over on the airship at any time. Tifa was still there, worried about Yuffie. Cloud had gone back to the orphanage to look over the kids. Reeve was keeping in contact, Barret was back in Edge with Marlene, and Nanaki had stayed as well. As for himself, well, Vincent didn't have anywhere else to be really, and he was at least needed slightly in Wutai.

One day when Vincent stopped by to look into Yuffie's designated "spot," she caught sight of him and dropped her defensive stance for an offensive stance. She beckoned to him slightly, indicating that she wanted to spar with him. Following a whim, he nodded and unfastened his cape, unbuckled his belt with his holsters on it, and dropped them both to the ground at his feet.

Vincent knew a good bit about hand-to-hand combat. Even though he was one of the Turks who had been specifically trained for the firearms field, those Turks had also been required to learn basic field moves, which he had honed and expanded upon with time.

She came at him, fists out and eyes blazing. They were heavily involved in the match when something went wrong and she just sort of…collapsed. He only blinked once before kicking into high gear and going to her side.

"Yuffie, are you all right?" His voice was tinged with an uncharacteristic concern.

Her eyes fluttered open after a few moments. She blinked confusedly at the sunlight in her eyes and at him standing over her. He could see that she was pale, very pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Come to think of it, she was looking awfully thin. Yuffie was always delicately thin, but this was an unhealthy thin, and the bones at her joints jutted out at odd angles.

How had he not noticed this before? Surely Tifa…or Red…

She panted as she tried to reply. "I…I'm fine…Vinnie. Just…gimme a few seconds…and I'll be up and right…right as rain!" The authority in that statement was undermined by the fact that she started to cough at the end of the sentence.

His eyes hardened. "I think not. You're pushing yourself too hard, Yuffie." With that, he scooped her straight up into his arms, cradling her like a baby, and took her back to her home where he tucked her into the bed with something like care. It was a good thing Tifa and Red were out on the town, doing who knew what, or else Tifa would be stiflingly worried and Red would be admonishing.

"I'm fine, Vincent. Just…just tired." Her gaze was flinty.

He lifted a dark brow. "You just passed out in the middle of a sparring match and you're 'just tired'? Yuffie, you are ill. You shouldn't push yourself this way."

"Push myself what way, Vincent? Just because I'm gonna die doesn't mean I'm gonna sit around and waste away. If I've gotta let my insides dissolve and drain all over the damn carpet, why not do it in the middle of a fight?"

Stunned, he stared at her.

"Didn't expect that, did you, Vincent? Well, face it because it's the cold, hard truth, and no matter how hard I push, now matter how far I try to run away, I'm still a dead woman."

Something snapped almost audibly within him then, and he reacted blindly, slapping her clear across the face. She glared hatefully at him for a few moments, and then her eyes filled and she was crying huge, hot tears of shame.

"I…" she choked, breaking off.

Yuffie threw herself abruptly and forcefully into his chest, spilling her tears onto the fabric of his shirt without holding back. He resisted the urge to bolt at her sudden nearness, and willed himself to, instead, relax his muscles, to kill that impulse to just jump away. He was at a loss as to the proper thing to do for a while, so after a few tense moments, he brought his arms up around her and rubbed small circles into her back until she calmed down.

The crying had stopped, but Yuffie was still curled into his chest. His lap, really, as he had grown tired of standing in so awkward a position and just allowed his knees to buckle and land him a soft spot on the bed. She had shifted to get more comfortable and was now practically sitting on him, which was disconcerting to say the least.

The ninja woman sniffed, hard, and looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm…I'm sorry, Vinnie. It's just so…hard to think about sometimes. I…I don't wanna die, Vincent."

A surge of compassion rose in him at the stark despair in her voice, and he tightened his grip on her, resting his chin on her head. "You're not going to die, Yuffie. We will find a way. We always find a way."

She looked up then, breaking his grip on her a bit. She was grinning through the puffiness that the sobbing had caused. "Urgh, Vinnie, you sound all mushy. Keep this up and you're gonna make me blow chunks."

He contained the sigh that was threatening to escape at her words.

"Now," she said, flopping back onto the bed. "I'm ill and distraught and you are at my beck and call. Make me soup, slave."

Vincent walked out shaking his head in wonder.

- - - - - - - - - -

Vincent bent himself nearly backwards as he avoided a kick intended for his head. Some absurd part of his brain thought of playing with a limbo stick, but he ignored it. He planted his hands behind him on the ground, doing a backbend, and catapulted his feet into the air to do a full flip. He came out of this twist blocking once more. Yuffie was relentless.

There was nothing for it, then. He was going to have to see if he could immobilize her. Maybe if he knocked her around a bit she wouldn't be acting as if her brains were quite so addled—the irony of it was not lost on him.

The next time she came at him, fists flailing, he knocked her hands away with his foot and followed it up by a punch to the gut with his gauntlet. She didn't act as though it affected her at all, continuing her barrage. He skirted a swing, and she overstepped, losing her impeccable balance slightly, and he brought his left elbow back, swift and sharp. He heard the wind leave her ribcage with a whoosh. She reached a hand around and snagged the crook of his arm, twisting it up behind him and kneeing him in the back.

He had a split-second to hesitate on the decision before he reared up and nailed her straight in the face with the back of his head. He thought he might've heard the sound of bone cracking and turned around to see that her nose was broken and gushing blood freely. She wiped her hand across the lower half of her face, attempting to remove it, but only successful in smearing it thickly.

A low kick at his knees was checked by him grabbing her ankle and tugging it out from under her. Falling on her tailbone sharply, an instant later she twisted artfully, wrenching her limb away from his metal grip. Blood and skin tore off in the process, his razor-edged digits snagging in her flesh.

She was bleeding heavily, and he barely had a scratch on him to show of her efforts. For all that Yuffie was fast, Vincent was sturdy and had more years under his belt. She never had been able to best him when they sparred, and now was no different.

- - - - - - - - - -

"Again!"

Vincent exhaled softly through his nose. It was like a sigh, but it wasn't because Vincent Valentine definitely did not sigh. "Yuffie, I've beaten you three times now. I think it is time we rest."

She turned her head to the side and spit a bit of blood onto the ground. This past round, he had accidentally hit her hard enough that she bit down on her lip and split it wide open. It had mostly stopped bleeding by that point.

"No, not until I beat you at least once, Vinnie."

"You will not win."

"And what makes you so freakin' sure?" Her expression was defiant..

"Because you are not putting yourself into the battle."

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"You have to give a piece of yourself every time you fight, or you get results like this."

"Well, Mr. I-Am-An-Enigma-Wrapped-In-A-Puzzle-That-Happens-to-Be-Having-A-Dirty-Love-Affair-With-A-Riddle, how do you propose I 'put myself into the fight'?" She infused the last statement with so much derision, he could swear it was melting the ground they stood upon. She was furious that she couldn't win, and he could tell.

He shrugged, this time. It was something he had never been good at, shaping things into words. He had told her all he could, and it was basically up to her from this point forward to use it if she chose. She'd just have to figure out how.

She rolled her eyes at him, one hand on her hip. "Fat lot of good it does to learn something new but have no idea how to use it."

"Use that."

Yuffie stared through a few pieces of hair hanging in her eyes. "…I hate you."

One corner of his mouth twitched. "I know."

"Ready for another round?"

"Yes."

- - - - - - - - - -

There was nothing in her eyes, this time. No passion, no fire, none of that burning that he had become accustomed to associating with Yuffie. One thing about Yuffie was that she exuded energy. It rolled off of her in waves, and her whole being was almost on fire to the touch, if you were sensitive to emotions and energy like Vincent was. Having demons attuned you to different things, and on a small scale, he could feel things of that nature.

But now he looked into her gaze and it was flat and dull and empty, like a stagnant pool of water. She fought, yes, but there was no passion there. She was not putting herself into it, and he was steadily gaining the upper hand.

Yuffie was tireless, and there was definitely something wrong with her. His sole purpose in being there was to take her back home, to the world of the living. He had finally finished these ridiculous tasks, and he was finally near her, and they could finally leave, if she would just stop trying to kick his ass long enough to listen to reason.

But she was having none of that, and it was getting harder for him to keep up. This could go on for hours before he got completely exhausted, and then she would win. But he couldn't have that, and there was something overpoweringly wrong feeling about this, and he knew what he had to do, even if everything screamed at him not to do it.

Vincent pulled out Cerberus with its three gleaming barrels, laced with intricate engravings and symbols. His trigger finger was, as always, steady, and he had a perfect shot at her chest as she made for him again, but he hesitated.

And that was all the opening Yuffie needed, kicking the gun to point in a different direction. He kept a firm grip on it though, choosing to use it as something to hit her with as he fought back. Several more times he had the chance to pull the trigger and put a stop to the uselessness of the whole situation, but each and every time, he faltered.

He just needed to immobilize her, he decided. So, the next time he had the shot, he took it, shooting her straight through the thigh. The three bullets from Cerberus's tri-barrel hit home, spraying her blood through the air. He expected her to cry out, to fall to her knees, to falter, anything, but she merely braced herself against the shot and continued her endless flurry of blows.

He tried again, this time in the other leg. And again, in each of her arms. Nothing worked. Nothing was making her pause.

Yuffie had picked up her shuriken once more from the ground where she had discarded it in favor of using her hands and feet. She tried for a sharp jab aimed at his middle, but he grabbed her wrist with his metal hand and twisted abruptly; her fingers loosened and the weapon clattered to the stone floor. She wriggled out of his grip, lightning-fast, but he stretched out his boot and hooked her behind the knee, knocking her straight to the ground.

Before she could move again, he placed one foot firmly on her neck, pressing her into the floor. She was making little gasping noises now, but her eyes still held nothing, a gray abyss. He pressed harder, willing something, anything to be there. His hopes were crushed as much as her throat under his shoe, though.

A cold, heavy emptiness settled over him like a blanket, and Vincent lifted his gun, pointed it at her head, and…

Done.

Her eyes were just as dead as they had been before the bullets in her brain.

Yuffie Kisaragi was dead. Again.

He had killed her.

Vincent Valentine choked on his own breath once, twice, and Vincent Valentine cried hot, bitter tears. For himself, for Yuffie, for everyone he had ever touched. For the world, for Lucrecia, for Hojo, for Cloud, for Reeve, for Red XIII, for Aeris, for Tifa, for Cid, for Barret, for Marlene, for Sephiroth. For Loz, Kadaj, Yazoo. For Reno and Rude, for Tseng and Elena.

Vincent Valentine curled into a ball on the ground, letting his tears wash over his face, into his hair, into the stone. The salt sat on his lips, a bitter tang, and the water left sticky trails on his skin, his cheeks, his neck. He washed away his regrets with those tears, with that pain, and he washed away parts of himself that he had clung to for far too long.

Vincent Valentine cried.

It was the second time in thirty years.