Under the Guiltless Sun


Volume II of the 'Sun' series



Tifa's Diary

October 1, 2005

Dear Diary,

I HATE JOHNNY.

Let me repeat that.

I H-A-T-E Johnny Fucking Highwind!!!!


Why? WHY, you're asking me?!
Because.

Let me tell you what he did to me a few days ago.
He was saying that it was HIS baby.
I never even slept with him!
I could fucking kill him!
I only KISSED him ONCE, a WHILE ago!

He did it just to piss off Cloud, who, by the way, is giving me the cold shoulder now. It's been three days since he said a WORD to me in passing!
I'm so SICK of this bullshit!
I didn't want Cloud to find out I was pregnant like this!

So, I'm having a sit down talk with Cloud this evening. If he wants to merry me, then, he will believe me that this is TOTALLY his baby.
We can get over this. Me and Cloud need each other, and we trust and love each other.
Jesus. Why is Johnny DOING this to me? I wonder what Barret thinks of all of this. I know Cloud told him.
I bet Barret believes whatever Cloud says. I bet Cloud's just upset, I don't think that he actually thinks I slept with Johnny. Because I didn't!
Ew!

I'm... I'm tiered. I need something to eat. I miss Cloud.

Yours truly,

Tifa R. Lockheart, future Mom.

~

Tseng, Reno, Rude, Elena, and Ray set off on the morning ferry that went to Icicle Inn, due North. It left at seven in the morning. It was nearly four in the afternoon, now.
The sun was going down early, because of their closeness to the tip of the world.
Elena was freezing; she locked herself in her cabin, refusing to surrender any extra blankets.
Reno and Rude were at the ships tiny bar. Ray frequented them a lot.
Tseng had found a abandoned, heavy, winter jacket made of leather and fine fur. He wrapped himself up in it, then, hung out with some of the ships crew members.
He was also found alone much of the time as well, reflecting.

Tseng stood at the far end of the ship, watching the mountainous icebergs float away, and shrink in the distance.
He also watched the cold wake of the ship leave long tracks in the sea.
The wind bit his face, and held onto his skin with icy teeth.
The tip of his nose ached. His fingers were long retreated into his sleeves as if they were five frightened turtles; the fingers at the end of his useless arm hung stupidly in the cold. They didn't matter to him, anyway.

Tseng's thoughts floated much the same way the icebergs floated; lost, random, and bobbing up and down in monotonous redundancy.
Such thoughts as:
What am I doing?
I want to change, but, I can't. I'm me, and that's all I CAN be...
I CAN change, if I try...
Who are you, Tseng? You don't even recognize yourself anymore...
What am I doing?
I want to change, but, I can't I'm m e a n d t h a t

Tseng blinked.

Soft petals of snow settled onto his eyelashes.
They had become frozen there.
Tseng sniffed. The air was like metal. The exhaling puffs before him were getting heavier and heavier.
He was getting too cold; he desired finally, to get inside. They were nearly at the Northern continent, now.
The hilly motions of the ship were getting to him as well. He disliked boats, but, he loved the sea. It had the emptiness, and unexplored wilderness that space had, but somehow, it also seemed more... maternal.
The sea seemed like a gigantic house, one that every living being could call home.

Tseng rubbed his thumb onto his fingers with his good hand. Then, he pushed it onto his mouth, and breathed hard upon them, warming his hand. They were so dry.
Tseng headed for the cabin door. The ships walls were white, and in their corners they were spiked with lengthy, lumpy icicles.
The moment Tseng's good hand pressed against the freezing knob, and burned him, the door burst open.
Ray Romeo's huge, encompassing, black shadow fell upon Tseng's short, skinny, stature.

"Eh, ya'll got a light?" Ray's enormous gaze fell upon Tseng like a sudden avalanche.
"I thought you had a lighter." Tseng said as he squeezed beside Ray through the doorframe. The wind was picking up suddenly as they neared land. Walruses, whales, and seagulls greeted them.

"Eh. I lent it out t' some young feller at the bar. Had red hair. Didn' give it back t' me." Ray said as he lumbered around, following Tseng back inside the cabin.

"Well, then, no, I don't have a lighter. Ask Reno for it back." Tseng suggested as he pulled down his furry jacket hood. "Hey," Tseng looked up at him as he approached an empty table inside the mid-sized dining cabin of the ship.

"Yeah?" Ray asked as he crammed the tip of an un-lit cigar between his small, yellowing, teeth.

"Let me ask you something. Is there a chance that Sephiroth is still alive?"
Tseng laid his good arm upon the wooden table as he asked.

"Yur dumber than a bag of hammers!--Like I told ya before, yeah! There is a chance," As Ray answered, he gesticulated with his fat had that took his cigar out from his mouth.
"Because, well, Sephiroth is part goddess. He can't really die, just be... dormant, like his mom, Jenova. Fact, there was a journalist in Kalm who claimed t' be frequented by the late general. 'Course, word is, now, I don' know if it's true, he got locked up in a nuthouse for claiming that. But..."

"But, what?" Tseng asked intensely. His long brown eyes were plastered to the fat man's shadowed face.

"But, they couldn't explain these tapes he had. It was an interview. He was interviewing Sephiroth. It WAS Sephiroth's voice on the tapes. I 'eard 'em. And, it was all after he was supposedly killed. Now, mind you, I ain't nobody's fool, and I KNOW that there are things unexplainable in this world. Only fools and morons believe only in things they can see."

Tseng's eyes fell silent. He didn't want to admit that he thinks that doesn't believe in god. He never was given a reason to.

"See, I know this stuff 'cuz I work with monsters. Some of them are magical, an don' use materia. I SEEN it! With me own two eyes! That's why I don' take this End of the World crap with Sephris none too lightly, Tseng."

Tseng, again, remained silent. Then he turned, and looked out the window, watching large arms of white land float by. They were nearing the harbor.

--

Reno sat at the ships' bar, fingering the gold lighter that he forgot to return to Ray. Rude sat beside him, silently swigging a nameless beer in a brown bottle while minding only his own.
There were several others on the ship, mostly, they were fishermen and archeologists heading for Bone Village.

None of them paid even remote attention to Rude and Reno.

Reno sighed as he stared at his distorted, stretched reflection on the golden surface.
"You know, Rude, what the fuck are we supposed to be doing, anyway? Was their some great plan we missed? What the fuck's the point anymore? I'm not in love with anybody. Fuck. I don't even LIKE anybody, so, what's the point?"

Rude paused and smacked his lips after a long pull from the brown, glass bottle.
"Donno..." Rude answered as quietly as the fizz hissing in his beer bottle.

"I mean, a lot of people say 'it's all about love,' don't they? Well, fuck me a new asshole, I've never been in love." Reno ranted as they sat under the dirty yellow barlight.

Rude was very used to Reno's semi-drunk rants. They usually were about sex, love, and politics. Very rarely, but, sometimes they were about god- and how Reno hated that bastard.

"What about... uh-about... Bunny?" Rude stuttered slightly. He, too, was a little tipsy. His stuttering were worse when he had been drinking.
As a result, Rude never ranted.

"Bunny? Psshhh... Shhhhyyyyit." Reno leaned back slightly on his barstool, and kissed the top of his beer bottle, sucking the marrow-gold liquid from it dry.
Then, he leaned back in, hunched over, and slammed the empty bottle down.
"Fuckit. Rude. I miss her. I miss Elena too. I miss what we had. I miss having a girlfriend and being in love."

"We... we are all... luh-lonely, man. We are all lonely."

"Fuckit, we don't need women! Puh! What are they good for?! They suck up your money, they manipulate the hell out of ya! Fuckit! I ain't dating! And... what the hell do they want from us, anyway! They expect everything to be PERFECT! They expect you to be perfect, and you know, were only human! GOD! I fucking hate women!" Reno passed a pair of bloodshot green eyes to Rude.

"I bet your still all up on that Tifa, girl, eh? Still like her, hoss?" Reno asked.

"Uh... kinda, man. I, uh, stuh-still like her, 'n all, buh-but, she... she'd never give me a chuh-chuh-fuckin' chance, man. N... Not for any amount of money in the world." Rude mumbled quietly. "'N don't be stupid, hoss, we.. nuh-need them. Women. At least, I fuckin' need the pussy." Rude grinned.

"Yeah. Pussy." Reno repeated as he ordered another beer.

"I... uh, really... ruh-really liked Tifa... at one point. Ruh-Really.. really liked her... Ruh-Reno."

"Yeah. I know." Reno muttered soberly.

~


The worried Yuffie, the agitated Cid, and the pensive Red sat about a dying flame inside a tent at Bone Village.
They sat beside and shared stories with several archeologists and anthropologists.

It took them several days to travel from the swamp they were in, across the sea to the Northern continent.
Cid was able to 'fly' the Tiny Bronco, (or rather, use it as a boat,) across the icy waters.
As they went, Red played back the black box's recordings of Cid crashing the plane after it was hit by lighting.
He wasn't able to get the strange voices he once heard play back to him; all that he heard was Cid's desperate SOS call.

They were in the warmer areas of the Northern continent. It was nearly a hundred miles before they would reach the arctic circle, and hit hills of tundra and ice.
Their small camp, the place that made up Bone Village, was a small oasis admist a sea of pine trees, deer, and snow rabbits.
The archeological/anthropological group that made up the scientific community that accepted Red, Yuffie, and Cid with open arms were a small and strange bundle of people.
They were into country/folk/and bluegrass music, listened to National Public Radio, abolished television in all it's forms, and most of them belonged to some sort of an environmental organization. They also ate purely organic foods, all of which Cid found repulsive.
Red got along with them perfectly, and Yuffie found them perplexing.

The three scientists they sat with inside the burlap tent were named Rose-Mary, Gary, and Owen. Gary and Rose were near Yuffie's age, and Owen was an older man, with a thin jaw lined with thick pepper black hair.
Gary, too, had a thick beard, but it was red, and much of it was hidden behind a acoustic guitar that he played.

Red continued to talk- explaining to the three scientists why they traveled to Bone Village.
The scientists found his story fascinating.
His voice was soft against the lonely howling of the winter wind outside their tent.
Gary's guitar playing lulled Yuffie into dreams; she sat beside Rose wrapped up in three brown, wool, blankets.

Cid smoked a cigarette within the shuddering tent. He wished he could go home. He was cold, hungry, irritated, and tiered. He added nothing to Red's re-telling of what happened.

Owen, the older archeologist, offered Cid, Red, and Yuffie his chocobo for the rest of their journey.

As Red and Owen talked about the white chocobo that they would borrow to reach New Gomorra (They could get there by cave, he said), Gary sang:

Yesterday,
We dance in the sun's ray.
Today,
Everything will be okay.
Tomorrow,
The weather forecasts
Sorrow.


January, February,
The forecasts calls for
Us all to be merry.

March, April, May
I wish I could say,
I love you every day.

Yesterday,
We dance in the sun's ray,
Today,
Everything will be okay.
Tomorrow,
The weather forecasts
Sorrow.

June,
It's time for a blue moon.
I wish that death wouldn't part us,
So soon.

July, August, September,
That's all that I can remember,
Too bad the weather,
Drifts in the air,
Away, float away like a feather.

Yesterday,
We dance in the sun's ray.
Today,
Everything will be okay,
Tomorrow,
The weather forecasts
Sorrow.

October,
Promise me now,
Forever or never
Infinity, eternity,
Destiny,
We were meant to be.

November, December,
Death can bring us through
Yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
Our past, our present, and our future,
For me, and for you, it brings us to completeture.

Yesterday,
We dance in the sun's ray
Today
Everything will be okay,
Tomorrow,
The weather forecasts for
Sorrow.

Summer, spring, winter autumn,
Forever and ever in a cycle,
We head to the top, only to fall to the bottom.

Well into the night, Yuffie found herself un-able to fall asleep. She was tiered to the point that her joints ached with exhaustion. Every pore in her body belched with cries for sleep.

Everyone had talked themselves hoarse for hours.
The scientists had told them everything they knew about New Gomorra: the monster city under the snow.
The scientists had told them about the strange lighting, about the vampires that sometimes prayed upon their camp when there was no other humans to feed upon.
They knew a little about Dr. Stygian coming around, searching for Aeris' remains. They also knew about another vampire- who was the sole monarch of New Gomorra. But, they did not know that vampire's name.

They were all now long lulled into blank and heavy dreams.
Cid and Owen were snoring.
Red had a sort of snore, but it was more of a deep growling purr.
Rose-Mary and Gary were stretched out, murmuring, and tossing.
Even the small orange fire in the middle of their large tent was drowsy in a smoking, amber haze.

Yuffie WANTED to sleep. She was cold. Tiered... but... couldn't bring herself to do it.

Maybe if she exhausted herself, she thought, her body would force itself to rest.

Yuffie stood up. Immediately, her body reacted to the cold. She shook like a dying leaf in the autumn wind.

She stepped around Rose-Mary, Red, and Cid. She wanted to get out of the stuffy tent, and breathe some air.

Yuffie pushed the heavy tent door flap open, and stepped out onto the dirt in her bare feet. Under the sliver of a pale moon, the shapes of the night moved.
The huge skeleton that marked Bone Village was that of a long dead dragon that wandered away from New Gomorra several hundred years ago.
That dragon skeleton, in fact, marked the beginning of human's understanding of monster society.
Apparently, according to monster anthropologists, and some paleontologists, the dragon was outcasted and sent off to die in the forests where Bone Village is now, because of his disrespect to the then queen of New Gomorra.

But it was mostly speculative.

The huge dragon skeleton looked like huge jail bars, locking her in while casting stripped black shadows across the dirt.
Around her, were several other burlap tents belonging to other sleeping scientists, and beyond that, was an unexplored forest.

Some scientists say that the forest surrounding Bone Village is enchanted.
(They say that because it is completely covered in smaller monsters. Some of these monsters ancestors bloodline goes back to the days when Cetra walked the Earth. Mostly, these creatures that live in the forest are harmless elves, faeries, pixies, and sprites.)

It must have been very early in the dead morning, Yuffie thought, if NO ONE was awake and talking.

Yuffie sat down in the dirt several feet away from her tent, and rubbed her arms. Her eyes wandered from the abandoned dragon skeleton (It was so enormous, that just it's skull protruded from the pine tree canopies,) to the tiny blinking in the black forest around her.
She convinced herself that the small orbs of light, flashing in the forest, was nothing more that dozens of dancing lighting bugs.

She sighed, and let her eyes drop to her tiny, dirty toes.

She thought of her father, her little brother... that must be, how old now? Six? And of her mother she never knew... but, her mind continued to wander to Vincent. She didn't want to think of him.
HE certainly wouldn't be thinking of HER.

What was the point of wasting priceless breath on him, anyway? There were other boys, better boys, to have small crushes on. Why does she always fall for the ones she can't have?

Boys are jerks. She hates them. Her last boyfriend was too... immature. Vincent was mature, but wouldn't give her the time of day. She wishes she fell for the nice boys. The ones that wouldn't treat her like dirt. Like Vincent.

Yuffie folded her arms upon her knees. She had never felt so lonely before. She wished that she could go inside, and just sleep. But, she didn't feel like sleeping, now.
Was she getting depressed, she asked herself? No. Just lonely. Such is the life of a materia hunter... Materia hunter? She hadn't really hunted for much materia, lately.

Why couldn't she just get OVER him? He doesn't even LIKE her. Maybe that's why he was so irresistible. She got over Cloud much quicker, when she had a crush on him. What is it about him? He's cold. He's mean. He's so intellectual-high-and-mighty, he's insensitive, and cute... in a tall-dark-and-brooding sort of way... his hair is sooo long, and wavy, and shiny, and his eyes...

It was his eyes, thought Yuffie, that did it. Those dark, mysterious eyes that hide behind a cloud of crimson and sadness.

The sigh that seeped from her cold lips was more of a swoon. Vincent. Vincent Valentine, how I love you.

Little did Yuffie realize, it was the same pair of eyes that made her melt under the guiltless sun, that was pressed to her head, far behind her.

Vincent hid behind a mass of shapeless shubbery, watching her the way a wolf watches a rabbit.
'Wait,' he formed the words without sound with his freezing, vampire-dead, waxy lips, 'just wait.'
No.
A voice inside of his chest said, 'Not her. Feed upon someone else. You don't NEED her... you just WANT her... because you know how she feels about you... That's why you have to kill her... because she likes you... Your not the old Vincent, whom wouldn't hurt a fly, he's dead. Kill her. Kill her now. For the fun of it. She nearly kissed you, once. How would it feel for her if she kissed those corpse cold lips of yours. Off with her! No. That's. Yuffie. Just turn, and walk away, Valentine. Just. Go.'

Vincent stood.

Yuffie snapped her head around. She thought it was a possum, or a wolf, moving in the pushes.

She held her breath. A pair of red eyes reflected off the weak shuttering blue light of the moon. Yuffie couldn't tell what it was, off in the forest, but it was an animal. A tall one, by the height that was on the red eyes, staring at her.
It wasn't human. Not at all.


She stood, and picked up a stone near her. Maybe it was a monster. Yuffie swallowed, and as Vincent began to walk toward her, leaving the bushes and heading nearer to a tent, She threw the stone.

Vincent lifted his metal arm, with a 'ting!' the rock hit it, deflecting from his smooth face.

"Vincent?" She whispered rather loudly. "Is that YOU!?" She squinted to see in the darkness. Then, he existed the thick shadows of the forest and tents.
"I thought you were a wolf, or a monster coming to attack me!" She dashed up to him with her two white twig arms flung out like a snowman's, and smashed her body into his in an embrace.

But the moment she felt the iciness of his body, she pulled away.
Normally, his breath was warm upon her neck, and his hugs were sweet and hot...
But it was like hugging a inanimate object, like a lamp, or a pillow.
There wasn't even emotion in it. Was he happy to see her? Was he sad? Was he...

She looked into his inhuman features. He seemed paler than she remembered him. His eyes were the same color. Red. Beautiful ruby. But, they seemed glossed over, smoother, rounder, sharper. His skin, too... His cheeks, his small nose... his coral pink lips...

"Hi." He said in an empty, soft voice.

"Uh, hi. Uhm. You know..." She wanted to say, 'There is something totally different about you, is there something wrong?' The thought began to bubble in her mind, 'Was this even HIM? It has to be, right?' "I really missed you." She wound up saying after a half second of brief thought and hesitation.

"I, uhm, wanted to see how you were. It was so hard finding you." Vincent began as he started to walk away from the scientists tents, and towards the towering dragon skeleton.

"Yeah? How did you?" Yuffie said in her normal volume of voice once they edged the campsite.
She hopped onto a small slap of stone peeking out from the sand.

"Oh. Well. I-uhm. It was pure luck. I was heading North also." Vincent replied nonchalantly. He gnarled his long fingers behind his back, and walked stiffly. The thoughts that raced along the tracks of his mind, steamed and howled with the words, 'Does she know? Is that why she is acting so strangely? Does she know that I have become a vampire? What if she saw me... wanting to hunt her? Maybe I should tell her...?'

"Were you?" She stopped, and looked at him. She stood like a castle stone wall, hovering above him. The slab of stone she stood on gave her height, almost intimidatingly so. Her dark blue eyes sparkled like heavenly stars pouring down upon him with a goddess' strength.
Vincent swallowed. Did she know something he didn't? He cowered in her shadow slightly.

"N...Yes. Yuffie! Sit down, I have something to tell you." Vincent reached up, and with his good hand, pushed her down upon her shoulder.
She sat down on the rock.
He continued to stand.

How should he tell her?
She was watching him pace.

'Yuffie, I'm a vampire, and the real reason that I'm here was because I had a craving for your young, innocent, blood, and I really, really, wanted to kill you?' No, that wouldn't do. Not at ALL.

Vincent rested his fingers under his chin a moment. They folded like a delicate fan of a stairway, each of his fingernails dripping down as the inside spiral of a conk shell.
His two blood colored eyes shot at her.

She stared back, unafraid.

She knew something was totally off with him.

"Yuffie. I. Am. ...No... less human than I ever was."

"What?"

"The old me is dead. I. Am... a vampire." As she spoke, he took the ends of his cape with his good hand, and hid most of his face behind it, like a theatrical red curtain.

"Oh." Really, this wasn't a surprise... Yuffie thought. He slept in a coffin, anyway. She was surprised that he wasn't before. "How'd this happen?"

This wasn't the reaction he expected. Not at all. She wasn't screaming, yelling, or running off. He stood there, staring at her staring at him.

"Not long ago. Aren't you... frightened?" He dropped his cape. He felt like dropping his jaw, too.

"Not any more frightened of you than I ever was. It just confirms your weirdness to me. I thought you had something to tell me like, 'I'm gay,' or, 'I like dressing in women's outfits...' No, wait, that's Cloud!" She giggled. "Well, no, you see, it just explains a lot about you, I guess. I don't know."

"Oh." His desire to drink her blood and kill her only peaked for a moment, then fell. It was Yuffie. Only Yuffie. Like his little sister.

Vincent sat down across from her.

They talked, well into dawn.
When the sun threatened to rise, Vincent was gone.

~







~