The further they traveled from land, the darker the skies ahead of them seemed to grow.
This was the territory of smugglers and the insane kind of explorer that was never heard from again; east of the eastern continent and west of Wutai. There was nothing to see but ocean, sky, and angry clouds drawing ever closer.
Cid kept muttering about hurricanes.
Sierra was smaller and sleeker than the Highwind, and there were fewer places for her occupants to hide. Mostly, the team stuck to the passenger bay, or the cargo bay if there wasn't much on board. Yuffie and her bucket were discouraged from holing up in the med bay (something about not disposing of used tranquilisers) so rather than puking on everyone's shoes, she was sitting at the front of the cockpit, bucket looped over the handrail, feet dangling into the void between the deck and the fish-eye of shatterproof glass. She couldn't have air in her face, but they were flying low, and the blur of water beneath them was better than the steady crawl at higher altitudes, at least where her stomach was concerned.
Tifa had been past to check on her twice, but the next time she heard boots on the walkway behind her, it turned out to be Feather. The other woman grabbed the handrail and let her feet skid forward, expertly levering herself into place on Yuffie's left. Yuffie took pity and moved her bucket to the right. "Kinda boring without Reeve, huh?"
Feather rested her arms on the lower rail, her chin on her forearms. "It's strange," said Feather. "Almost empty. Like being back where he found me."
"Not much out here," Yuffie agreed, and spat excess saliva with elegance and grace into her bucket. Feather tilted her head back and forth, tattooed lips pulling over her teeth.
"There's something."
Yuffie peered at the horizon. Between the sky and the sea... "Rain, maybe?" That was all it looked like to her; a faint suggestion of mist, a smudge that dulled the colours of the ocean.
"Maybe," Feather said, and that was the last Yuffie had from her for hours.
Boots on the catwalk and a cold nose on her cheek woke her. She opened her eyes to Nanaki curled beside her. Aeris stood at the hand rail, Sephiroth looming over Nanaki's back. His eyes flicked down to her and back up again, the sway to his braid the only real evidence of the shake of his head.
Yuffie wrapped her arm around her bucket and sat up carefully, reaching out automatically to scrunch her fingers in Nanaki's mane. Feather hadn't moved. Gorov stood beside her, unmoving, both hands clenched on the rail. Ahead of them, through the fish-eye, was Yuffie's 'rain'.
The view port was dry, the clouds not yet spiraled but smeared as the storm built. Cid had slowed Sierra to patrol speed and Yuffie could see every heaving wave, the ocean's surface reflecting the darkening sky.
Behind her, she heard the distinctive scrape of Vincent's boots on the catwalk as he, too, was drawn to the nose of the airship.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A reef, I believe," Nanaki replied in his near-subvocal murmur. "Shallower, warmer water; stronger weather patterns..."
"Titan," said Gorov, and Nanaki's ears pricked forward. "The reefs build towards an island, honeycombed with the caves I mentioned. It was a study outpost, once, but the Shinra abandoned it quickly."
"Great place to put a reactor," Aeris said. "Except for how expensive it'd be to do anything with it. I bet they were disappointed it was in the middle of nowhere."
The conversation flowed past Vincent like the ocean beneath them, indistinct and impossible to focus on. Whatever they were heading toward was impossible to see, but the sense of it had drawn him here to try to catch a glimpse, to prepare for the coming conflict. The sniper in him wanted a clear shot, but there was nothing at which to aim.
His shoulders were tense, impatient for wings.
Movement caught his eye; Gorov turned and pitched her voice toward Cid. "Be cautious as you approach. He will sense us eventually."
Cid grunted, gestured to the instruments around him. "You want to come keep an eye out, be my guest. I don't exactly know what I'm looking for."
It was Sephiroth who strode toward the pilot, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "A reef, you said. Populated? Coral, fish?" Gorov nodded. "Likely fed by hydrothermal vents. If the Lifestream or even magma flows close to the mantle here..."
"Hotspots." Cid's expression soured. "And unpredictable wind. Better keep that bucket handy, kid."
Yuffie groaned. Aeris tousled her hair.
"Not for long," she said. "We're getting close."
The promised turbulence nearly sent Yuffie and her bucket past the rails and into the fisheye, and came with a blast of expletives from the helm. She clung, wriggled backward and away from the rail just in time for the next batch of juddering, evil wind to bring her stomach up into her throat.
"Strap in," Cid hollered, presumably into the comm. "She's gonna kick—"
Yuffie pressed her fingertips through the catwalk grating, flattening like a cat. She twisted her head to watch the tilt of the landscape outside, tears in her eyes as she tried to keep from vomiting, vomited anyway when fear clenched her stomach at what she saw.
It wasn't just waves any more, it was steam, great plumes of it, as if the ocean itself were on fire.
She saw the rhythm of the waves change, huge swells moving over the reef without breaking, and spat so she could shout, "Titan! It's Titan."
"How the fuck," Cid called back, snapping carabiners onto the stations around him to keep himself in place. Yuffie scrambled to her knees, her feet, abandoning her bucket.
"The quakes are underwater," she said. "He's destabilising the whole area, Cid, there's gonna be a wave, a hurricane." Her people, her villages, was anyone still in the lowlands— "You gotta get us down and get out of here."
"Gotta get there first, kid," said Cid through gritted teeth. Yuffie looked from him to the fish-eye, see-sawing wildly, and felt a different kind of tension in her stomach as she realised what to do.
"Cid," she said. "Think this through with me."
They all felt the summoning begin, heads snapping toward the bridge as Yuffie's magic flared, concentrated. Vincent's stomach dropped with the ship. "Leviathan..."
"She'll kill us all," Gorov spat, already wrestling with her harness. Nanaki shook out his mane, lips curling back over his canines.
"Yuffie would not call on Leviathan without need," he barked, moving unsteadily towards the bridge. Barret waved his prosthetic, stone-faced, and touched the communications panel on the wall.
"What's happening?" he said.
"Titan's opened up the ocean bottom," Cid said after a few moments' distracted cursing. "She's tryin' to drown the storm."
"She's what?" Cloud asked, eyes creasing, but Nanaki looked thoughtful, and Sephiroth nodded once.
"She's trying to equalise the temperature of the ocean," he said. "Titan used his abilities to create the perfect conditions for a tropical storm. Yuffie is trying to dilute them."
"But the area she would need to affect," Nanaki said, wondering. "Even Leviathan..."
"She doesn't need to quell it entirely," Sephiroth said. "All she needs to do is get us through."
Eyes squeezed shut, clinging to the guard rail, Yuffie summoned. Leviathan coalesced around her, scale after scale, and before he solidified she urged him through the fish-eye, into the ocean below.
Calm, she begged him. Calm the ocean.
She'd never used a summon this way before; battle was one thing, when purpose was clear and focus was singular. Now, forehead pressed against cold steel, she felt the wave building with him and had to pull back from it, had to persuade him to the swift, spiraling thrash beneath the waves rather than summoning the currents to push behind his sails.
Calm.
Yuffie saw with disjointed, strange-coloured eyes: coral bleaching, fish and eels and sharks half-cooked and floating to the surface, and Leviathan felt the scalding through his scales, the mineral gas in his gills, and roared. The current gathered around them.
More, she told him. Bigger.
They plunged from the shelf into deeper, colder water, the spiral of their swim widening as they spun the water along behind them, finding the cold currents and dragging them upward, back toward the reef. They spun through the steam over the gaping, glowing maw of Titan's handiwork, screaming their rage and pain, twisting and churning over the reef, into the light and the air and back down into the cold black darkness on the other side.
"You're doing it kid." Cid's voice was distant. "A little further."
They dove, they pulled, they wove the current, easy as knot work, easy as the spin of her mother's fan over and under and circling, widening and widening and Nanaki's teeth on her wrist guard dragging her to her feet.
Yuffie watched Leviathan breach and hang, weightless, for long seconds, as light latticed over his scales and along his fins and he split into a thousand thousand glittering drops and vanished.
She let Nanaki tug her to the hangar bay. Leviathan wrapped around her, close and comfortable and cold as the depths of the ocean, and the deck beneath her no longer heaved with every footstep.
She was gonna need elixir.
Yuffie was near delirious with exhaustion when she joined them on the ground, but awake enough after a restorative to wonder aloud, "Why isn't he attacking?"
"You are young and healthy," Gorov said. "Titan has great power, but he is an old man still. It will take him time to recover. We must move quickly."
"Into a cave system, when Titan could regain his powers at any time." Sephiroth said flatly. "Beyond foolish."
"It's our only way forward," Tifa said, and that decided them all. "Lead the way."
There was little enough on the island to indicate that it had ever been a research post; a few stray poles from ancient tents, a half-buried fire pit lined with stones. Gorov led them away from the bare, weather-stripped shore line into tangled vegetation that smelled more of salt and mud than greenery. The stone of the mountain in its centre was bleached to pale orange, but as they ventured into the winding cavern, the rocks brightened to a deep orange-red that reminded Vincent of Cosmo Canyon. And then, as Gorov led them deeper, the walls began to shimmer, and the air gained a mako tang.
"Lifestream," Aeris said, tracing fingertips over the walls. "It flowed out through here, during Meteor. That's why there's a new reef."
"Yes," said Gorov, distracted. "Move faster."
Vincent understood the sentiment. Perhaps it was the effect of the Lifestream infusing the rock, but the caverns had the same crawling feeling he associated with the manor basement, of voices no longer heard. He paused in the mouth of an offshoot tunnel, letting Yuffie and Nanaki pass, and fell in behind her. Nanaki moved to trot beside her, tail flame making the wet stone steam.
There was a rumble of commotion from ahead, and their column slowed and halted. Gorov and Cloud came squeezing their way back up the tunnel toward them.
"The way is flooded," Gorov said. "There is another."
"Wait and move back if you're tired," Cloud said to Yuffie in passing, one hand going to her shoulder, but she shook her head, droplets flying in the darkness.
"I'm good," she insisted, and Cloud caught Vincent's eye as he passed. Vincent nodded, and fell into step behind him. He and Nanaki would be enough to defend her if she were too exhausted to fight.
The darkness and heat grew more oppressive as they descended, their footing slicker and more treacherous. Vincent heard Yuffie's breath stutter more than once as they went, and he sent glittering shards scattering noisily when he caught himself on a wall. He froze, and Gorov hissed for quiet, but there was no answering vibration, no rumble, no falling of rocks.
"Ra femm rayn ic," Gorov said. "Ku lynavimmo."
"Carefully," Vincent repeated for Cloud's benefit. "He may hear."
"He already knows we're coming," said Aeris from behind them. Vincent saw Yuffie nod, and turned back to Cloud.
"Faster," Cloud agreed. "If he could bury us now, he would."
Gorov made a sound halfway between a growl and a chuckle and plunged forward into the darkness. They followed, lights lurching, footsteps splashing in the dark.
The speed was not taxing, but the concentration it took to move without twisting an ankle would have been difficult enough without the suffocating heat rising up from the earth. Sweat itched beneath his collar, and Cloud's shirt was dark where it stuck along his spine. Gorov's hair was a slick rope down her back, slapping wetly against her leather as she led them steadily downward.
Nanaki's pant was harsh behind him, and further back he could hear Yuffie's steps, swift, but growing less careful of the noise she made. She nearly ploughed into his back when Gorov slowed abruptly, and held up a hand to still them. He felt her fingers briefly grip his shirt, and then she was at his shoulder, peering ahead into the gloom.
"Fa'na lmuca."
Gorov looked back at the soft pronouncement, nodding once, breathing through an open mouth. More used to ambush than endurance, Vincent surmised, but even so he had not expected her to tire so swiftly. Perhaps Lucrecia's serum had done more for him than he'd believed.
There was a faint glow beyond her, glinting through the materia shards sprouting from her temples. In daylight, he had not noticed them begin to turn toward each other, like petals, or a horn.
"The way widens here. He'll be waiting. Whatever else you must do to prepare..."
Vincent stepped down beside Cloud and cocked Outsider's hammer. Cloud ran a hand over the materia in the hilt of his sword. Together they stepped into the corridor, scanning for movement.
The glow was half crystal, half molten rock; too cool to move, too hot to darken and solidify. The ground was warm, even through his boots. He spared a glance for Nanaki, but Yuffie was already crouched beside him, rearranging materia to protect his paws. She stood again, eyes darting, and his tail flared brighter as the magic took effect.
Aeris stepped into the cavern, eyes distant as she reached out with her magic. Vincent felt the stir of the demons as it reached him and went further, out into the darkness. Sephiroth followed, Cloud's Murasame held loosely by his side. Tifa and Barret brought up the rear, the latter casting around uneasily for signs of instability as he moved up beside Vincent, prosthetic reshaping itself with low whirs.
"Not a good place for a fight, Vince. Watch your step." He cast another dubious glance upward. "And the ceiling."
"There." Aeris' voice was sudden and sure. "Dead ahead. Eighty yards."
Vincent let his eyes fall wider, Galian's urge to scent opening his mouth, flaring his nostrils. The scant light emanating from the crystal was only just sufficient, but as Titan climbed to his feet, his body turning to face them, the movement was enough to let his eyes resolve the haggard figure.
He raised Outsider to shoulder height, took aim, mind reaching for the Ice materia in its barrel.
Titan's shoulders rolled, skinny, cracking, and Vincent felt the rumble in his feet, his hips, his jawbone.
"Found you," Titan said.
