"Sit."
It was ostensibly an invitation, but Gorov didn't speak again until Vincent had taken his place on the short stool opposite. Barret and Reno flanked his seat, though for his benefit or hers he was not prepared to say. Not when she planned to commune with the shadows in his head.
"As I explained to your leader, to train you, I must know your current state." Gorov's eyes, cold and sour as citrine, were as impersonal as her words. "Which means the dragon must know also. It will be difficult. Unsettling, for you, and for the one who rides within you. Keep it leashed, or we must begin again."
The twist of indignation in his chest was easily quashed. Tendrils of dark amusement, an echo of wild laughter in his head, were another matter.
Anxiety crawled across his shoulders, down his ribs like a marching swarm. Gorov still watched. He steadied his breathing, and lifted his brows in a silent prompt to continue.
"Eyes closed. Make your mind as still as possible. Do not resist what you see."
For a long while, there'd been nothing but breathing, deep and slow. Then, as Cid found himself absently gnawing a corner of his glove for the third time since he and Tifa'd come on shift, the dragon woman's body had spasmed so hard her chair skidded a few inches toward the far wall.
They'd been tensed and ready in a second or less, Lightning materia sending blue light arcing between his fingertips, useless as Venus Gospel was in close quarters, but there'd been no more movement after that. Just shallower, faster breaths, the occasional shudder, a jerk of her head, as if she tried to pull back from something too close to her face.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tifa chewing her lips, relaxing her stance but not the tense set of her jaw. "Does she look… pale to you?"
Pale or not, she was sweating like a pig. Not ladylike little beads like Shera got across her lip in the sun, either; it trickled down from her hairline, wriggling between the scales and down into her collar.
"Should we—"
She came awake with a gasp, chair teetering for a moment before Tifa lunged forward to right it. Gorov hauled in breath after breath, choking and coughing on the air like it was salt water. Real fear showed in her eyes, and as Cid moved forward to get a better look, he suddenly realised why.
Chaos looked out from Vincent's eyes, a bloody, malevolent glow. Vincent's shoulders heaved, hunched to flex wings he didn't have. His mouth hung ajar like a scenting cat's, so that a sound fell out — a low, breathy huff too fast to be just breathing. Cid's stomach clenched.
It was laughing at her.
"Howdy, stranger."
Cloud blinked, and had to freeze before the automatic backward sweep of his elbow could take out the mug of coffee Aeris had just placed on the corner of the low table. "Aeris. Hey."
"Deep in thought?" She settled herself on the matting, legs tucked to one side, braid curling over the other shoulder. He'd forgotten how easy it was to lose himself in the deep green of her eyes until she closed them and tilted her head away from him, pointedly.
"Sorry, sorry. I, uh. I'm a little. Nothing's seeming very real today." He put both hands around the mug, had to remind himself after a moment to take a sip. "I don't think I got much sleep."
"You'd think you'd be used to Tifa working late." Not even a hint of rancour, just a twinkle and a smirk. He grinned, ducked his head.
"She's not usually guarding prisoners, these days." Just the good liquor.
"Mmm. We're going to have to let her out, though." Aeris grimaced, and then hid it behind her mug. "Summoning in a room that size wouldn't be pretty."
Cloud shrugged. His faith in Wutaian architecture wasn't that strong. "There are guard posts around the courtyard. Only the four of you will be training. Five," he added, remembering Feather. "We'll be down a few regular shift members, but nothing dangerous." He put a hand out across the table, drummed his fingers across her cool, dry knuckles. "We'll keep you safe."
Aeris looked tired as she withdrew her hand, but she smiled at him all the same. "It's not me I'm worried about."
Yuffie was focusing. Yuffie was focusing really hard.
The problem was, Yuffie was focusing on not focusing on setting Gorov's head on fire with the power of her mind. It probably wouldn't be a very good idea, and besides, based on the newspaper clippings, that was probably more Vincent's bag.
Meditation had never been her strong suit. In fact, meditation was pretty much the lowest card she had, right next to 'impulse-control' and 'modesty', and if anyone had ever told her that one day the fate of the world would ride on her ability to 'go inside herself', she'd probably have cracked a joke (with appropriately inappropriate gesture) and laughed like a trumpet.
"Are you sure there isn't, like, a ritual we could do?"
To her left, Vincent sighed, and Sephiroth's soft curse was audible from beyond him.
"I'm just saying, some kind of sacrifice might be easier! Everyone's open to bribes."
"I nominate you," Sephiroth muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, and Yuffie had opened her mouth to deliver a scathing retort about how gods waited eons for sacrifices like her to come along when Gorov shook her head, as if the idea had actually been worth something.
"Were we dealing with Yojimbo, that might be an option. But the Water God is no lost warrior." She resettled herself, loose and comfortable and yet still managing to sit straight as a spear. "Close your eyes and think of him. Remember him. Allow his presence to fill your mind..."
Yuffie closed her eyes and thought about tossing Gorov into a pig pen. The week after new year, when the leftovers went to the livestock, and their messes were at their messiest.
She thought of how the rains would come and the fields would flood and the streets would stink from all the half-rotted bacteria-infested jetsam that got left behind as the water receded. She thought of the storm clouds overhead and the constant, suffocating humidity and how it should have gone away, but it just kept raining.
She thought, Leviathan, help me, but the only thing manifesting was disappointment, and an uncomfortable itch.
Vincent emptied his lungs, straightened his shoulders, and tried to ignore the dull ache in his pelvis. There were mats on the cobbles, but having sat for twelve of the past twenty-four hours, they didn't make much difference.
He inhaled. Grit and stone, soap and sap and damp, sweltering sunlight. Yuffie had fallen silent shortly after they were seated, today, and he wondered if it were fair to assume she had also fallen asleep. On his other side, Sephiroth's breaths were likewise deep and even, although the creak of his swordbelt on particularly deep breaths was a useful distraction.
Vincent preferred not to dwell on his guests.
Cid had told him what the demon had done, how shaken Gorov had been when she had regained her own body and mind. He could have warned her; he had warned her. She had taken no heed, but Vincent had been living his own advice in this matter for many years.
Chaos thrived on attention, and Vincent kept it carefully underfed.
He could not help but notice, though, the shifting in his skull. The Galian Beast paced, not alarmed but alert and disgruntled. Its vigilance kept him analysing every breath he took in through his nose, for all that the scent of the courtyard hadn't changed in hours, beyond the gradually increasing tang of perspiration. The Gigas was more patient, oddly content to sit in the day's soupy warmth and listen to the breath of his companions. Hellmasker waited, not patient, but still and silent as a cat waiting for prey to venture within reach. It watched every movement, its breath hot and damp behind his ears, grinning, anticipating.
"Shimusou."
He opened his eyes to find Gorov frowning at him, irritation clear in the downward turn of her mouth.
"If you aren't planning to try, you may as well leave."
He felt Yuffie's gaze as a prickling over his neck and shoulders, and felt guilt twist between his ribs. "I do not generally provide the demon an invitation."
"Perhaps if you did, you would not be so afraid of it," Gorov responded sourly. "Try, or go away. I'm sure your time would be appreciated by those on guard duty."
They stood together, stretching in the early afternoon. Sephiroth had moved twenty paces away, habitually marking out enough room for a sword he wasn't carrying, and was moving through a set of practice forms with speed and grace. Yuffie shook out her hands and then set them against the cobbles to flick her feet up over her head.
"So was she right?" she asked, voice distant, as if she had to concentrate. They both knew better.
By now, he supposed, he should be used to speaking to her feet, one way or another. "I have not aged. Despite all odds, I have not died or even been grievously injured since I… slept." He bent at the waist, ignoring the snort of laughter as his hair pooled around hands and toes on the cobbles. "I have reservations about what we gain by granting the demons freedom."
Yuffie's legs dropped to either side, her left foot colliding solidly with his lower back. Her tone made it clear it had been purposeful rebuke. "We know what you'd gain, monster man."
He twisted, frowning at the stone. "Is that enough?"
He heard a scoffing sound, and then her voice was abruptly over his head. He straightened to find her standing with both hands on her hips, cheeks puffed out as if she were trying to contain something. A few moments more, and she failed.
"What exactly do you think is going to happen?"
He stared at her. Did she truly not understand the dangers the demon posed? Something in his face made her scowl and throw up her hands.
"No, really, Vincent. Was the whole world full of chaos before Hojo cut you open and squirted you full of mako juice? Do you have this idea that the Planet needed you to put a summon in so that the rest of the world could be protected from it? Because before it was with you, it was with the Shinra. I'm willing to bet they did a lot more damage with it than it would ever do on its own. You know how they tend to 'improve' things. I'm pretty sure the Planet was better off with how it organised things before anyone came along and started messing with it."
Vincent became aware that his jaw had slackened slightly. He licked his lips, and looked back at her feet.
"And I mean, let's think about this carefully. One, Galian Beast will belly crawl for ham hock and for broccoli because he is weird but not evil. Two, either you or Death Gigas or both saved me from a flooding building. Which, don't get me wrong, the Planet might actually have appreciated me drowning like a kitten, but fuck the Planet anyway! Four for you, Death Gigas! Three—"
"Yuffie, enough. You are right. I…"
"Are you sure?" She tilted her head at him impatiently. "Because I can go on, believe me. I am only just getting started."
She had lost her father for this. And he— Vincent swallowed against his own shame and disgust. "I am sure. I apologise."
"Oh my gooooood," she groaned, and abruptly she brought both hands to her face, raked downward from her eyes to form a truly gruesome expression. "You are just so. I can't even. Aaaaagh."
There was really no response to make.
Yuffie threw herself face first onto her bed and wriggled and rucked until the covers were all at the foot of the bed. She let a long breath filter slowly into the mattress, took in a quick lungful, and hissed out another.
She still kind of wanted to shake him.
She'd thought they were past this. She'd thought he was actually starting to be able to move past guilt and sadness and self-loathing into a good place, or at least a place that didn't just totally suck. And then she'd shown him the goddamn newspaper clippings and he'd gone right back into protect-you-from-myself mode, like she hadn't found the spot that made Galian's leg go, or they'd never played three-on-one (okay, five-on-one) to chill Gigas the hell out.
And the worst part, the worst part, was she'd been so damn mad at him that she hadn't been able to concentrate on what they were supposed to be doing, so she'd been just as useless as he had.
She rolled onto her back, scowling into the darkness behind her eyelids until it throbbed. Her hands drummed restlessly over her stomach.
Nope. She couldn't sleep. She could feel it.
Stupid Vincent.
Yuffie wriggled against the mattress, stretching her neck long and pointing and flexing her toes until they cracked. She took a deep breath through her nose, laid her hands out loose beside her hips, and let her eyes fall closed on the exhale.
The breeze was light across her arms, her knees; the chimes outside her window stirred but faintly. Beyond them, the layered trill of crickets and cicadas in the gardens was deafening if she focused on it, strangely calming when she let it wash over her instead. Night sounds. Summer sounds. Home.
The only thing missing was rain.
She drew a breath, let it out. Imagined how it would start, the gathering clouds, the suffocating humidity. And then, the first drop against her palm, so small and warm it might be imagination. Another, a tiny muted impact in the dirt. Leviathan's tears, of joy and of sorrow, pouring his love of his wife into the world she had given her light for. Washing the remnants of darkness back into his deeps, crushing them, keeping them prisoned and the crescent safe.
She thought of safety and comfort, cocooned in the whisper of rain, all other sounds literally drowned out.
On the very edge of sleep, warm and weightless, something shifted, coiled close. And outside, it started raining.
The courtyard was still damp when they arrived the next morning. The smell of wet stone was familiar, comforting, even as the cold and damp of the cobbles soaked into the seat of her pants. The grit stuck to her palms and dug into her knees when she sat cross-legged, and the humidity made it feel like she'd climbed into her clothes straight out of a shower. But it all seemed right, somehow; at once refreshing and relaxing.
Yuffie lengthened her spine, slowed and deepened her breathing. Opened up the place in her head and heart that she used to call magic. Sank into the clarity, the tranquility.
She breathed in the scent of damp stone, thought of sitting sleepily outside her mother's chambers as the river surged higher and higher, churning its usually clear waters dark and violent, too great a risk for the Shinra to risk troops in or around. Remembered feeling heavy and light and cocooned, her mother's arms, the roar of the wind and the water blocking every other sound.
When it started, the rain was soft, barely there. She heard sounds of discomfort, but the mist was warm and gentle, with all the kindness Leviathan learned from Ashura, kept for Ashura. And she'd always loved the rain.
It grew gradually harder, colder. Metal grated against stone; Vincent was smart enough to go in out of the rain, even if he wasn't—
The wave of frustration washed over her, through her, and beneath it the fear, the urge to protect, the fierce, unwavering love. Her magic throbbed. The rain roared, and through it, Yuffie thought she heard a shout—
The wave was cold, salt, barely a lick, but enough to shock her and throw her off balance. She yelped, scrambled backward, grazes stinging and numbing in icy water up to her ribcage, and gaped at the flowing, looping coils of Leviathan, dissolving into mako spiderwebs and lattices and sparks and finally nothing at all.
Something caught in her chest, burning, expanding. The Lady of Wutai leapt to her feet, spinning and laughing and shedding water droplets left and right. She lurched sideways to tackle Aeris in a hug and drag her down into a splashing contest in the remnants of Leviathan's tide.
No sense wasting a courtyard-wide wading pool.
"Now, tell us what you did."
Washed, dried, and fed, they had left the flooded courtyard in favour of a training room attached to the Crescent barracks. Slightly soggy guards were posted around the room; Yuffie hoped they weren't too uncomfortable.
Then again, maybe if she sent them all to get changed she could avoid having to tell Gorov, Feather, Aeris, Sephiroth, and most of all Vincent what she'd been actually thinking about when she'd managed to summon a god.
"Um," she hedged. "Mostly what you told me to."
"Describe it," Gorov prompted, a touch of irritation in her voice. "Summoning is not a sport or an equation. It requires an affinity of purpose. What I call upon to summon the dragon will not help you summon the Water God, or you to summon Da Chao."
Vincent's expression darkened, and mostly to stave off that particular conniption, Yuffie said, "I think that was it. Affinity."
And then of course, she had to continue.
"I was thinking about... well, it had rained, and I was thinking about how comforting the smell was, and how I'd always associated rain and rivers and the ocean and Leviathan with, with comfort and protection. And feeling protected. And I was thinking about the stories of Leviathan and Ashura and... and then that wave hit me," she finished lamely, looking up from her fingertips. Gorov looked smugly pleased. Sephiroth just looked thoughtful.
"You were able to communicate a similarity of purpose to Leviathan when you called," he mused. "To align yourself with it, because you are so familiar with its legends and, through them, its intent."
"His legends," Yuffie said. "And yeah, I guess. So?"
"So, I am not as familiar with Odin," Sephiroth pointed out. "And we are far from certain of the provenance of Chaos."
"Oh," Yuffie said, and puffed out her cheeks as she thought, letting the words gather. "Well, we have plenty of writings on Leviathan and Ashura and Da Chao, I think, but not much on Odin. Tifa might know, though. He's more of a mainland god."
"If we pool our knowledge, we might be able to suggest different avenues of approach," Aeris added brightly. "Things we might have in common."
"Research partyyyy," Yuffie droned, and fended off Aeris's indignant poke attack. "No, it's a good idea. We should get Asako and Gen to help; they'll know how their elders told it, and the older it is the closer it is to right, right?"
Evening fell sooner than Aeris thought it had a right to, given the season. Sitting back from her notes, she closed her eyes and rubbed slow circles over the tension in her brow, listening with half an ear as Tifa walked Sephiroth through the fifth of nine alternative legends she had on the origins and nature of Odin. To his credit — or maybe the credit of Tifa's storytelling — the swordsman appeared to be absorbing the information with good grace.
She sincerely hoped they had come up with more information than she had.
The problem, she suspected, was that Titan was an old god. Incredibly old. From the first civilisations on the central continent, or what eventually became it, the scholars thought. Between war, enslavement, disease, politics, and invasion, there weren't very many legends on Titan left.
The most interesting thing she'd learned was that his followers were keen on mud baths, and that there was some evidence to suggest that they'd covered themselves in clay and sat three days in the desert as it hardened to teach themselves the patience of the earth god.
She didn't really want to think about what that evidence was.
When Cloud shouldered in with a tray of cookies and hot, sweet tea to keep them until dinner, she all but leapt at the distraction. Vincent, too, was remarkably quick to abandon his research. She bumped him with her hip as she investigated the cookie assortment.
"Any luck?"
Vincent made a negative sound in the back of his throat. "Da Chao has many faces. Nothing that resembles... mine." He took a mouthful of tea. She saw a downward twitch that might have been a grimace, and he set the cup resolutely back on the tray. Aeris grinned, and picked up a sugar cookie.
Tifa, unwarned, drained her first cup in two long gulps, then screwed up her face and coughed. "Augh! He always forgets if he's sugared it already..."
"And this is why I have my cookie first," Aeris said, popping it into her mouth and dusting sugar back onto the plate. She took a long, slow sip, swallowed, and sighed. "Perfection."
Tifa rolled her eyes good-naturedly, downed a second cup of tea, and turned toward Sephiroth. "Don't need a break?"
He blinked, not quite a startle reflex. "... No. My apologies, I was... considering the legends you have shared. It seems likely that the SOLDIER program may well have been a fallback of an Odin imbuing. Enhanced sensitivity, vitality... not the skill of a god, but measurable, certainly."
"From what I understand of the early stages of the Jenova Project, that is... not impossible." Vincent gave half a shrug. "Useless to wonder."
"Not so," Sephiroth countered. "I wondered because the god, by all accounts, would share my opinion of the program. It was and is foolhardy in the extreme to grant power to those who are merely physically capable of withstanding its receipt."
Tifa thought about it, nodding slowly over a mouthful of cookie. "That does match with my sense of the legends. Do you think it's enough?"
"It may need to be. But finish your break and we can continue."
As Tifa dusted her hands on her top, Aeris pressed her finger to the plate to pick up stray cookie crumbs, and patiently drained the last dregs of tea into her cup. When she was sure that Tifa and Sephiroth were once again fully engrossed, she nudged Vincent's ankle with her foot.
"I have come across a few stories," she offered. "You've been reading mostly about Da Chao, right?"
Vincent raised his eyes and nodded.
"I've been reading... everything, mostly Titan, but there's lots about Ashura here and I've been wondering... Traditionally she has three faces, right? But over the legends, she's appeared as lots of things. Foxes, rabbits, fish, old women, young women, ghosts and bears and dragons."
"The sun," Vincent said, as if remembering. "A purifying flame."
"Right. It's usually three per tale. And I'm wondering... what if, instead of faces, they're just... aspects. Three aspects, and a combined form. A different set of faces for each person."
She felt his breathing still, and looked up sharply. Impossible to tell if he had paled, but he looked ill, shaken.
"You're saying there is no Chaos," he said. "No demons, just aspects of Ashura."
"I'm saying it's possible," she responded gently. "That's all. Legends are—"
Vincent tried to step away from the table, swayed. "I—"
"Vincent—"
"—a moment."
He was gone before she could reach out her hand.