Chapter XXIV: Vincent
Reno sat outside the apartment complex in Junon. He was sick of this town, and constantly running back and forth between it, but there was a problem.
"That's Corneo?" Reno asked.
"Yeah," said Rude, approaching the crime scene. "Wants immunity, 150 million gil and a privately contracted chartered flight to Mideel."
"He should have chosen his game better. There's nobody in this building that Shinra really cares about. We'll send in the SIA and SWAT, but this isn't a Turk issue," Reno said.
A heavily armored SWAT Division leader walked up to Reno. "Sir," he saluted.
"At ease, I'm not in the army anymore, just a lowly second-in-command Turk," Reno nodded with an air of amusement.
The SWAT Officer seemed taken aback, but reflected the wishes of Reno for this conversation to remain informal.
"At present he has all but one hostage tied up in a large suite apartment. They are guarded by five private military mercenaries, likely from some of our missing soldiers," he explained.
"Okay, what are our insertion options?" Reno asked.
"I'd recommend approaching from the rear stairwell. Take in a team of 9 SWAT Operatives , and two SIA agents. Break the door down, fire off some rounds, we lose about 6 hostages at the most," The officer replied.
"Make good your estimate," Reno nodded.
"You say all but one hostage? Where is the other one?" Rude asked.
"With Corneo, sir. Tied to a bed from what we can tell with infrared imaging," The Officer replied.
Reno's fists began to shake. "That sick son of a bitch. God only knows what he's doing to her. Okay, now this is a Turk issue."
Reno patted the Officer on the shoulder and then opened the front door to the apartment complex. As he entered, he heard the Officer directing his men and the two SIA Agents around back. Rude followed closely behind him.
Shot rang out from the stairwell above them. Rude looked up and saw a thuggish young man holding a pistol.
"What the hell, he's got reinforcements?" Reno asked, casually firing three rounds into the man's chest.
"Score one for military intelligence," Rude commented coolly.
They ran up the flight of stairs and rounded the corner. Two more bursts of fire came from down the hall, and two more thugs stood in their way. Rude dispatched them both with two well place bullets in their skulls.
"Got the whole damn building on his side, apparently," Rude cursed.
The went down the hall and bashed in one of the apartment doors. The place was an absolute disaster. Spare cartridges and clips of ammunition laid scattered on the floor, as well as cheap military rations, some which had been left open and were now attracting flies. Furniture lay threadbare and tattered in no particular order and inexplicable scraps of paper seemed to litter the floor.
"Lovely hideout," Reno chimed.
More shots shattered the eerie silence that had filled the apartment. But these came from above. Apparently the SWAT team had arrived.
"They got here a little too soon," Reno said kicking down the bedroom door and raising his pistol. "Freeze!"
But Corneo was nowhere to be found. Just the bound, naked, shivering blonde. She was gagged with a pillowcase and blindfolded by another, but Reno could still see streams of tears rolling down her face.
"Rude, take care of the girl," Reno said.
He rushed back out into the main part of the apartment and kicked open the kitchen door. Nobody was here. He moved down the hall to the dining room and it was the same. He opened the bathroom door, but still nothing. Reno scoffed and rejoined Rude in the bedroom. The girl had been untied and Rude had wrapped a sheet around her. He was softly consoling her in a level of compassion that Reno had never seen.
"You're okay now, he's gone. We're gonna take care of you," Rude said, rubbing her back as she sobbed uncontrollably into Rude's shoulder. He turned up and looked at Reno. "Is he-?"
"He's gone. Must have bolted when he heard the shots downstairs. Fucking coward," Reno cursed.
"I want this son of a bitch. I want him dead."
---
The morning came quicker than Cloud would have preferred. The sun beat down on him from the makeshift window on his second floor lodging. His SOLDIER training failed him, and he hung in bed for a few more minutes, pondering the events of the night.
The journey had taken a toll on all of them, and he found himself waking up with less and less energy. Their two "vacations" upon starting this journey had been short-lived. Their visit to the theme park Gold Saucer ended when they were thrown in prison for a crime that Dyne had committed and the earlier Costa Del Sol stay had ended because they had run into Hojo.
Hojo. Something clicked in Cloud's brain. An epiphany in its purest form. The minute scraps of detail that Cloud had been subconsciously following popped back into his conscious thought, and a scrap of paper hovered in front of his minds eye with the warning: "He is heading for Nibelheim".
But all the doubts that he had pondered then resumed their stations now. What was in Nibelheim that could interest Sephiroth now? Surely it was all burned down. Did he hope to find more answers there? And if so, answers to what question? Hojo seemed to know something about the situation… but what relevance he could have still remained outside Cloud's grasp.
He got up out of bed and rubbed his eyes. He had just enough time to put on his pants (which had been washed and dried while he slept) when a knock came at his door.
"Come in," Cloud said casually.
It was Tifa. She was gazing at Cloud, who was suddenly very aware that he was shirtless, with a look of unusual determination.
"Um… you probably know, don't you?" Tifa asked.
Cloud slid his shirt on and then shook his head. "I don't follow you."
"Well… we're getting close, you know. Nibelheim," she half-whispered the last word, as if telling Cloud a dark secret.
Cloud had a sudden flashback, but there were no images, only words, spoken jovially by two people in unison. One voice was his, and the other was unidentified. The words "If it has a reactor, ain't nothing else out there."
Cloud couldn't explain what had just happened to him, but hurried for an answer.
"Uh, yeah. I thought Hojo said something about Sephiroth wanting to see it again," Cloud explained.
"I don't know why he would though," Tifa sighed. "It's… just rubble now."
Cloud nodded. "Well we won't know until we go there now will we?"
Cloud was now the determined one, although the source of his determination remained a mystery because he was all too aware of the fact that they could well be falling for a wild goose chase, or else walking into a trap.
Tifa nodded. "Uh. Okay then. I think we should head there next."
She walked out of his room, but hung her hand on the door and then turned back to Cloud and, with a slight frown, said, "You have so many scars."
"You're getting a few yourself," Cloud nodded.
Tifa nodded and then shut the door.
---
"I am so ready to get out of here," Yuffie exclaimed, grabbing a small slice of cheese from a platter that had been set up in the center of town. Breakfast had been served.
"That's a bit rude," Cait Sith observed. "These people have been great to us."
"Well yeah, but now that our ride is fixed, we can go back to work, saving the planet and all that," Yuffie explained.
Of course Barret cast her a glance that seemed to indicate his suspicion that all she was interested in was leaving the hot and dry desert.
Red walked over to the group as they sat on the rocks to eat their breakfast. His head hung low and his tail seemed to droop a little lower than usual. Cloud let out a low sigh. This was undoubtedly the moment he'd been dreading upon arriving. This would be their last farewell.
"Cloud, everyone…" Red looked around the group. And then something flickered in Red's eyes. "I'd… like to continue traveling with you."
The request was completely the opposite of what Cloud had expected. He honestly didn't know how to respond. Tifa caught this, and took charge.
"What about staying here to protect the canyon?" Tifa asked.
"Grandfather says that I am still too young. I am learning my way in the world and the best way to do that is to travel with you all. Besides, they will always have Greymare," Red nodded.
Cloud regained his composure. "Well… the more the merrier. Of course you are welcome to travel with us."
Red nodded appreciatively.
"Speaking of Greymare, where is he? Doesn't he want to see you off?" Aeris asked.
"He is a quiet loner. I expect we won't hear from him for a while," Red explained. "But we understand each other."
Cloud understood the sentiment, and waved his hand in an approving manner.
"Well, the boys have fixed up our buggy. Should we get going?" Cait Sith asked.
"Yeah. We're heading across the river to the north," Cloud explained.
"Alright," Cait Sith replied. He scratched his head, tilting his misshapen crown slightly. "Uh, why are we heading there?"
"That's where Nibelheim is. That's supposedly where Sephiroth is headed," Cloud explained.
Cait Sith scratched his ear, but nodded in understanding.
---
Scarlet raised her hands to the computer terminal in the Gelnika.
"Damn machine!" She shouted, her throat hoarse after two hours of work. She was not in her usual red dress, but was rather sporting a tanktop and pair of shorts that, to her dismay, she could hardly fit in anymore.
The Gelnika's onboard computer had been on the fritz for several weeks now, and team after team of experts had not been able to uncover why. Scarlet demanded to look at it herself, and desperately tried to recall the lessons she took in college on the engineering and computer science aspects of military vehicles.
"Everything is fine!" She hissed. "You should be working, but you're not!"
There was a low gurgle from above her. She looked up at a ventilation shaft and could swear she saw a fleeting red eye before it dodged her view.
"What the hell?" She cried, pulling a pistol out of a holster slung casually on her hip.
The gurgling noise stopped, and time soon followed. Scarlet waited in that position for several minutes before turning back to the computer screen.
"Cargo…" she said tapping out the appropriate commands on the computer. "…Classified. Of course it is. Well, let's solve that little problem."
She hacked her way into the mainframe using some of the earliest skills she had learned, and found her way back to the same screen, this time with full administrator privileges.
"Cargo… Test subjects? Huge…" Scarlet scanned the computer screen and laughed derisively. "Huge Materia. So… that's what you're up to Hojo."
---
The dune buggy chugged across the river and returned to the dry grass on the other side with little difficulty (save for one moderately soaked Red, who did not seem amused in the slightest). The mountains of Nibel lay just a few miles away… they would be seeing the town any moment.
And then, they did see it. But it was not a pile of rubble, or smoldering ashes, but rather exactly as Cloud had remembered it before the incident. Every building back in its proper place, nothing at all different.
"I thought the town burned down," Aeris observed.
"I can remember the heat on my body…" Cloud explained. "What's going on here?"
---
A closer inspection of the town filled Cloud with confusion. The town had been rebuilt and repopulated in the five years. He had half expected it to remain burned to cinder… but then no. Shinra would have rebuilt it to hide their sins. To hide their greatest failure.
"This is a show," Cloud said. "I want to see the manor. That's the only place that wasn't affected by the fire. The only place they wouldn't need to rebuild."
"A little truth is a dangerous thing to Shinra," Barret nodded. "Let's go."
The gate swung open almost automatically, but the rust of five years neglect was evident. Cloud walked up the familiar cobblestone path, and placed his hand on the manor's doorknob. The doorknob felt hot to his touch, as though the nearby fires still beat down on it. The sensation was over in a moment, and Cloud sighed and turned the knob.
Darkness greeted them, and the silence inside the house seemed to swallow the noise outside. Cloud took a tentative step inside, and the others followed behind him.
"I hate this place," Tifa muttered, shivering.
Cloud was all business, though, as he led them relentlessly down the stairs that led to the basement. There was a thick stench of death in the cavernous lower halls of the manor.
"Phew! What is this, a graveyard?" Yuffie asked.
"Not far from it," Tifa said. "The inhabitants of this house believed that their halls should be tread by their owners even after they died, so they built a mausoleum under the house."
Tifa glanced to the side, where a wooden door lay open.
"As a matter of fact, that should be it," she explained.
The group stepped in, although Aeris had to hold her breath and Yuffie plugged her nose and mouth with both hands. The source of the stench became apparent immediately, all the coffins had been opened and their former inhabitants lay sprawled upon the ground haphazardly. All except for one large coffin the center.
"Who do you suppose is in that one?" Tifa asked.
Before he knew what he was doing, Cloud walked over to the coffin. "Only one way to find out."
He drew his sword and threw off the lid. A flash of red streaked across Cloud's vision and a man in tattered clothing with wild brown hair looked back at him. A long red cape flowed down his back.
"Who disturbs my sleep?" The man asked.
"That's not important. Why are you sleeping in a coffin?" Cloud asked.
"That is equally unimportant," The man replied in a manner that indicated sincerity rather than sarcasm. "I don't know what you are doing here, but you must leave now. This mansion is the beginning of a nightmare."
Cloud nodded. "You can say that again."
The man gave Cloud a quizzical look. "You mean to say you understand the nature of this house?"
"I know what nightmare happened here," Cloud explained. "Five years ago."
The man rubbed his face, and when he did so Cloud noticed that his right hand had gold-plated metallic talons at the end of each finger. "Then… do you know of Lucrecia?"
"Lucrecia?"
"The mother of Sephiroth," The man explained.
"Mother?" Aeris asked. "I thought JENOVA was his mother."
"Interesting theory," The man shook his head. "But no, Lucrecia was his mother. She was beautiful. I saw her surrender herself when I could have stopped it… that is my sin. And yours?"
Cloud explained what had happened, and as he went on, the man's face grew more troubled.
"What you have told me will bring more nightmares tonight…" The man sighed.
"What about you?" Aeris asked. "Who are you?"
"I was once a member of the Shinra Intelligence and Weapons Research Division… the Turks. My name is Vincent Valentine," The man bowed to them. "I gave up my life for the Shinra Corporation… and the life of Lucrecia… I'm sorry, but I don't wish to speak anymore of the subject."
"Wait a minute," Cloud said. "If you have a score to settle with Shinra, then we can use the help."
Vincent pondered this for a moment. "You know so little about me and are already ready to welcome me into your ranks?" There was a pause. "If I were to join you… would we meet Hojo?"
"We're fighting Shinra along with Sephiroth, so eventually we'll have to," Cloud explained.
"Then I will join you. Perhaps by dealing with him, I will be able to rest easily," Vincent said, as he took a holster from the back wall and slid it around his waist. "Now come. Sephiroth awaits."