chapter fourteen: soulbound.

Vincent's hands moved against his will. He had never been this powerless in his life. Not when Hojo had mutilated him, not when his demons changed his form and wreaked havoc, not when Chaos tore his soul to shreds until they became one. Nothing was like watching his body move and not being able to control even the slightest twitch of a finger.

He didn't stop fighting, not for a moment, but every time he was met with stronger resistance. The spell Tatsumi had him trapped in was like an iron cage with no bars, nothing even to grab on to pull himself out with. He wasn't cut off from the Planet, but his chaotic energy had nowhere to go, and he couldn't send the slightest pulse of energy outside his own body.

Vincent tried to focus as much as he could on breaking free, and not what his body was doing, because he wasn't sure if he could handle the alternative. Cid was unconscious, obviously enhanced from prolonged exposure to mako and more than likely addicted, and though Vincent knew it gave him a better chance of surviving the procedure he found no comfort in it. Tatsumi had him strapping Cid down onto a surgical table, with restraints not unlike ones Vincent remembered, and even if Vincent's body couldn't shudder the rest of him was horrified at the sight. If he couldn't break free — if he couldn't stop Tatsumi —

No. No, he had to. He had to. He couldn't let Cid suffer the same fate. He couldn't let anyone bear his curse. He'd just have to fight harder.

"Step aside," Tatsumi barked once Cid was in position, and Vincent did so gratefully, even if his body moved on autopilot. He was still facing the table, and he couldn't look away, but he focused inward, channelling his chaotic forces into one single energy. Just because he had accepted his role didn't mean he had forgotten how much he had fought with Chaos at first, and he channeled all of that rage at the spell binding him, winding his power into tight, powerful coils of pure energy. Every one knocked him back a little further, but he didn't let up, hammering at it like a drowning man desperately reaching for the surface.

And then he felt a pain so sharp that it snapped him out of his concentration. He couldn't flinch, but internally his chaotic energy dissipated, scattering back into the depths of his soul as Vincent hissed in pain. When his bleary eyes managed to refocus, he saw the materia on Tatsumi's armband glowing all the brighter.

"Chaos, Chaos, Chaos," he said, like he was scolding a small child. "What did I say? You're going to need that power of yours for this experiment to work — or did you want me to kill him?" He lifted the scalpel in his hand, idly moving it over above Cid's heart. "I don't really need him now that I have you, you know. I could simply find another candidate. Oh, it would take time, but you're not getting any older." He pressed the tip of the scalpel into Cid's skin, a few drops of blood trickling out.

Vincent knew he had lost, then. He could do nothing but watch. Even if he did break free, Tatsumi held Cid's life in the palm of his hand. If the slightest thing went wrong, not even Chaos's magic could keep his soul tied to his body.

"Well, Chaos?" Tatsumi prodded. "Have I made myself clear?"

Vincent said nothing. He wouldn't be forced to speak. Silence was answer enough for the scientist, and Tatsumi hummed with satisfaction as he bent to his work.

Vincent didn't remember most of what had been done to him; whether he'd blocked it out or whether he'd been unconscious for it, he didn't know. He could only pray Cid didn't wake. The one saving grace Tatsumi Hojo had over his father was that he didn't seek to torture Cid — to him, this was simply a trial run before doing it to himself. If Cid survived — and Vincent wasn't sure himself if he wanted the man to or not, knowing what he could be cursed with — at least he wouldn't remember this.

Tatsumi blotted away the incision he'd made over Cid's heart and moved instead to the line he'd drawn further above it. He made several precise incisions, and Vincent found his hands moving to hand him tools with no small amount of horror. He wanted to cry out, wanted to fight back, but he could do nothing but watch, seeing Cid's chest cavity opened before him. If he could, he would have vomited. Tatsumi went about it all like it was a routine procedure, making the cuts he needed to rearrange Cid's internal organs to prepare for the materia waiting beside him.

This had happened to him, Vincent realized, and he felt sick all over again. Even after Hojo had opened him up and done planet knew what to him, Lucrecia — the woman he'd loved — had laid him down on a table and done the very same. She had had noble intentions, she'd been trying to save him, and he'd forgiven her that, but she had done this. Vincent had never felt so much like a fool until this very moment. He had loved her, he still didn't regret that, but nothing justified this. Not love, not her beloved thesis, nothing.

For months he had tried not to think about what she had done to him. Finding out that Chaos had come from her and not Hojo had been a shock unto itself, but he had barely had time to process it while fighting off Deepground, and it was only in the time afterwards that he could really start to come to terms with it. At first he'd justified it as he'd justified everything she'd ever done, and put the blame on himself, but standing here, watching someone else recreate her experiment... he couldn't do it.

This wasn't Cid's fault. Cid had done nothing to deserve this. Tatsumi Hojo had picked him as his subject, taken him from his home — killed his wife — and kept him here for months, experimenting on him, all in the name of becoming a god. Just like his father before him. Just like Sephiroth.

And if it wasn't Cid's fault... then how could it be Vincent's fault that Lucrecia had done this to him?

She didn't want to become a god. She wanted to save him. But she'd made him into the planet's WEAPON, and cursed him with a destiny so heavy that sometimes he just wanted to swallow himself up with his chaotic force and leave the Planet to fend for himself. He didn't want this.

Her theory had been right, but what did that matter? There was no Shinra anymore. The world had changed. No one cared how the world was going to end. They'd survived one apocalypse. All anybody wanted was to live long enough not to see another one.

Lucrecia could apologize for eternity, but it wouldn't change what Vincent was. He was Chaos, the planet's WEAPON, the one who would cleanse the world and lead Omega on its journey to the next world.

And now Cid would suffer the same fate.

I'm sorry, he thought, knowing Cid couldn't hear it, and finally understanding why Lucrecia had never said anything else. The apologies had never been for him. They had been for herself.

He had been watching Tatsumi work with distant eyes, taking in the sight but trying not to process it, but the scientist was reaching for the materia now, and he couldn't ignore what was happening anymore. He felt a tug on the spell binding him and saw Tatsumi raise his arm. He had a scalpel pressed against Cid's neck.

"You will bind his soul to the materia, or he dies, Chaos," Tatsumi said. "Do we have an agreement?"

Vincent nodded, and hated himself for it.

There was nothing he could do. If he used his chaotic force to consume Cid's soul, rather than bind it, he would never join the Lifestream — he would simply be swallowed in the endless chaos that lived inside Vincent, and made a meal for one of his demons. It was the closest thing to hell Vincent could imagine, and even if he considered his existence a miserable thing sometimes, he wouldn't take the choice away from Cid. If he couldn't bear what he was about to become, Vincent wouldn't hold it against him.

He felt Tatsumi allow him a trickle of his magic, and Vincent shifted into Chaos's form, stepping into it like a second skin. It didn't hurt the way it used to, bones shifting and muscles stretching across his mass — if anything, he felt right in Chaos's body, like he belonged this way. It was why he tried to avoid it. He liked to pretend there was still some humanity left in him. It was easier to use his magic this way, though, and he raised his left, demonic hand as Tatsumi pressed the materia into Cid's chest, calling the summon to take form inside Cid's body.

He could feel the summon begin to take shape and reached out with nothing but chaotic energy, taking hold of Cid's soul. Already it was frayed at the edges from the mako addiction and the stress of the past few months, and it was easier than Vincent liked to tear his soul's bond with his body. It took just a push for Cid's soul to bind with the summon, the two meshing together as if they'd been made for one another. Cid's own innate magic resonated so strongly with the summon that within moments, the two were so fully joined that Vincent knew there would never be any way to break the bond.

He drew his hand away, shifting back into his human form, and felt the Manipulate spell loosen enough to allow him to sink back against a nearby table. It had taken only a fraction of his energy, but he felt drained, as if one of his demons had just been loose for several hours. He could still feel a lingering trace of the summon's magic, and though he'd known which one it would be, it hadn't really hit him what it meant until it was finished.

Planet, Cid... I'm so sorry.

He watched, mutely, as Tatsumi sewed up the new avatar of Bahamut.