By a Fraction of a Degree
A FFVII Fanfiction work by findthetiger129
Rated T for Violence and Language.
I do not own Final Fantasy VII, or any of the characters, trademarks or likenesses from Final Fantasy VII or its spin-offs That honor goes to Square-Enix.
Drake, SOLDIER 2nd Class Eli, and Gin Okazaki are original characters
Part III: Demons
Chapter 53, A Shock From the Shadows
June 14th [ ν ] – εуλ 0008
Vincent was walking through an unfamiliar alleyway, and for some reason, he had the feeling something was pulling him. Chaos… he knew that primeval consciousness very well now. It had kept him company, and been the reason Sephiroth had knocked him unconscious so many times, down in the crater. Perhaps it had been the monster pumping his consciousness with emotions that weren't his own that had made him so flippant towards Hojo's pet project. The odd thing about it was that Chaos felt different, like it was searching, uncertain, and on alert. That was not something he'd noticed before. He walked further down the alley, deeper into the dark but before he could see what was there…
"I'm so sorry…" Vincent found himself inside a familiar cavern as something stirred within him. Looking up, he saw Lucrecia's familiar form encased in a crystal pillar, and it was her voice he had heard in his thoughts.
"We meet again, Lucrecia…"
The voice in his mind didn't seem to hear him but simply repeated the phrase again. "I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry…"
"Why...?"
Vincent opened his eyes to find himself dozing behind a rock on the West side of the Eastern mountains. Fort Condor lay to the south. He'd been here for a while to assess the situation there. Rufus had been attempting to fortify it and they were considering whether or not they had the force to take it back. It was all right. He had carried out his survey of the area and had only stopped to rest before heading around the southernmost pass to where he would hitch a ride back to Mideel. He brought his attention back to the dream, mulling over it. "I'm the one… who should apologize…"
What could it mean? The last time he'd had a dream like that, it had led him directly to Lucrecia, but this time... He shut his eyes again, trying to recall every detail of that alley, and then he remembered. Off in the distance, there had been a Mako reactor. Almost immediately, something within him seemed to realize it wanted to go towards Midgar. He frowned. This was most unusual, and yet, he'd found before that when his inner demons' attention had been grabbed by something, it often paid to listen. After a moment, he pulled himself to his feet, and started towards the caves that led to the swamp. This could be important.
At an out-of-the-way bar in upper plate Sector 4, Kunsel stared across the booth at the older man across from him with consternation. "I don't get it, don't you see the danger you're in staying here?"
"Only because you chose to throw away your career. I've been a loyal employee of Shinra for thirty years son, do you think I want to give that up just because you went and left?"
He glared at the man. "Except I had a good reason. You know how long I spent wanting to join SOLDIER. But if you'd seen what I saw, you would have left too…"
"What I've seen is that my son left his post and disappeared, and then turns up as a terrorist and war criminal. What was I supposed to think? Especially after those suits started asking questions."
Kunsel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't contact you because I didn't want to put you in danger. A lot of us had to do that. The truth is, SOLDIER isn't what they said it was supposed to be, and Shinra, well, the whole thing's a giant death trap."
His father sighed, and took a sip of the drink he'd ordered. "What happened? Your mother's really worried, you know?"
It was a couple of hours later when the two men finished their drinks and parted ways. Kunsel hadn't told him much in the end. If they didn't know anything, there was still a chance his parents could continue their lives if what GUARDIAN tried to accomplish failed, but he had told his father that if they did want to leave, there was somewhere to which they could leave. As he watched him go, he couldn't help but feel a little saddened. He'd done what he could for them, but in the end, it was their decision. Pulling a brown leather jacket on over his SOLDIER turtleneck, Kunsel paid his tab and walked towards the exit, refastening the new sheath he'd fashioned for the Gunblade across his back. The griffin emblem Zack had given him now hung on the shoulder strap across his heart with the bronze chain hanging from it as it draped around his waist before being affixed to the back of the sheath. He was almost out of the building when someone held out a dark blue cloak.
"Forgetting something?" He looked up to see a pair of faintly glowing copper-colored eyes looking out from under the brim of a grey fedora. Freya was holding a pair of tinted sunglasses in her hand and looked very much like some blue-collar worker, her hair coiled up under her hat so no one would see it and the worn trench coat she wore concealing some of her more feminine attributes.
"Thanks," he took the cloak and donned it.
"Just don't forget next time. Shinra doesn't have cameras everywhere, but the last thing we need is for someone to realize we're here. Especially now." She had a point there. It wasn't just them putting their lives on the line right now. So were the people they were getting ready to meet.
The two of them walked along the street for a while headed towards the rendezvous point and Kunsel noted the troopers they passed. It didn't seem like any SOLDIERs were out on the street right now. Good. Not long after, they found their way to a familiar alley. It was the one by which Aerith had led them down into the slums, and as soon as they made it past the bridge passing the Sector 5 reactor, they'd be right at the pillar with the service ladder.
Upon entering the alley, Kunsel spotted several pairs of glowing eyes looking back out at him. Once his own vision adjusted he saw that they belonged to about two or three SOLDIERs in plain clothes. A man with straight blonde hair stood at the center of the group. He met Kunsel's gaze unflinchingly and the ex-SOLDIER cleared his throat. "What's the code?"
The man grinned as he recited the phrase. "Return to sender."
"Package received," Freya answered, counting each of the men who stood there. "I take it you're Eli?" she addressed this question to the one who had spoken.
"That would be correct," the man confirmed. "These are all the guys I could talk to who actually want out." Kunsel looked them over. The three of them were young, probably not even past eighteen yet and probably only 3rds. Understandable. A lot of the older ones were probably either dead, had accepted their fate, or had already disappeared for knowing too much. The younger ones hadn't dived as deep, and didn't know as much about what they'd signed themselves up for before Eli had opened their eyes.
"You took a big risk doing this."
Eli nodded. "You have no idea. There are a few I was worried would rat me out, and even without any of us saying anything it went up to Rufus. One guy ended up confined to solitary for getting caught. Bradley's going postal every time someone disappears."
Kunsel nodded. "Well, I'm sure you're doing the best you can, so who have we got this time?" he looked around
Once they had gotten everyone else's names Freya instructed them on the plan. "All right, we'll be heading out by the Sector 4 exit through the slums. Once we're through, we'll be going northeast of Kalm to a village called Howling Point. There's a boat that'll be waiting for us. Are we set?"
There was unanimous affirmation and soon they were headed out towards the edge of the sector, leaving Eli to retreat back towards the Shinra building. Kunsel took the rear, alert for any sign of being followed as they kept to the back alleys and side streets. With their disguises, it wasn't hard for them to look like a normal group of factory workers out for lunch in the brief instances where they were out in the open.
They were walking down an alley near the bridge leading to the Sector 5 reactor however, when Freya stopped and leaned against the wall. "What is it?" Kunsel asked.
"Something moved over there," Freya said, indicating the bridge.
Kunsel drew the Gunblade. "Was it a guard?"
The lady Turk shook her head. "I don't think so."
"Stay here, I'll check it out," Kunsel said before slinking quietly along the bridge. The wind whispered hollowly from the Sector 5 slums below, and he had to hold the cloak close to keep it from blowing up away from him. He felt Freya watching him along with the other SOLDIERs as he approached the path leading into the reactor, and that was when he saw it. Curled up on the steps below the main entrance, was the figure of a man. The first thing Kunsel recognized about him was that he was wearing a familiar looking armored suit, with glowing blue tubes sewn into the fabric. Creeping closer, he began to notice other details. The man appeared to be severely emaciated, covered in dirt. Blood also in places, and something else… "Geostigma," he murmured. Well aware of the risk he was taking, he knelt by the man and pulled him over so he lay on his back, and that was when he saw the man's face and his own went white as a sheet.
"…Luxiere?!"
The other man looked up at him through drooping dark locks of hair, so dirty he hadn't at first been able to tell they'd been black, but those blue mako-infused eyes held no recognition in them, instead, there was just confusion and something else. Anger.
"Who the hell… Go away Usher… I know you aren't…" Before he could finish, Kunsel had taken off his cloak, wrapped it around him and hoisted him up to carry him away from the scene. He was so light, even with the armor. They had almost reached the edge of the bridge when Freya met them.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"Where's the current safe house?" Kunsel returned.
"It's on 2nd Avenue" Freya said. She only took one look at his face to know it was important and whispered in his ear "Upper plate Sector 6. Building 3450, Apartment B."
"Thanks, I don't want to move him more than I have to."
"Who…?" she began.
"I'll tell you more later, but he's a friend."
She nodded in understanding and gripped her shotgun, her expression concerned but understanding. "I'll let them know you're coming. Be careful." she whispered.
"Thanks," he said. With that, he looked around at the SOLDIERs. "Sorry to leave you, but Freya knows what she's doing. She'll give you the details on what happens next once you're away, all right?"
After they departed, he pulled the man's arm over his shoulder, hurried back across the bridge as quickly as possible and then ducked behind a building on the Sector 5 side, noting a young boy playing with a model airplane on a nearby flight of steps as he went.
Luxiere didn't say much that was intelligible as Kunsel carried him along, but that was all right. He had a lot more things going through his mind. Where had Luxiere been all this time? The last time he'd seen him, his fellow SOLDIER had been talking up rumors with him like always, and he'd mentioned something about wanting to be promoted eventually, and then the next thing he knew, the man had vanished, like he'd never existed, and Kunsel hadn't even an inkling of where he would have been able to look. Odin knew he'd tried.
That he'd appeared out of nowhere in this condition… in the same armored suit as the man who'd taken Professor Hojo… it was too much of a coincidence to ignore. His eyes narrowed at the thought. If that man… that monster, had harmed another friend while he'd been unable to do anything about it… Anger seared within him, but rationality kept it to a slow simmer. He had to get Luxiere to safety first, and then they could figure out what to do next. Even so, it didn't make it any less infuriating.
"Leave me alone…" Luxiere murmured again.
"That's not happening Lux. You need help," he said, continuing to carry his friend through the alley they were in.
Cloud strapped the new shoulder guard he had fashioned with the wolf's head emblem firmly affixed to it onto his left shoulder before he shouldered the Buster Sword, probably for the last time. He would be going with Cid to meet Zack today and unless things went amiss, the sword smith he had commissioned to fashion his new swords would be finished by now. Once he had completed his own preparations, he walked out of his room and down the stairs. Tifa appeared at that moment, ready to go, and the two of them walked out of the lodge together. It was a nice autumn morning. The leaves had been changing for a while now and a lot of the trees now hung empty of their tresses, though a few still hung on.
He didn't speak much, but spent most of the time listening as Tifa occasionally broke the silence with talk about her plans for the day, or about what Marlene had been learning at the local schoolhouse, or something interesting she'd seen the day before. He'd simply punctuate it with an occasional nod and a light chuckle when she cracked a joke. He didn't mind letting her do the talking, and if anything, it put him more at ease, which was good, because with Kunsel and Freya gone on recruitment duty and not due to return until a few days from now, he was the guy in charge, at least until Zack boarded the Highwind.
They were almost to the end of the path when one of the larger leaves fell right in front of him. He caught it in the air and let it blow out of his hand as they walked out of the woods.
"Commander Strife!"
The two of them looked up as Drake, now their Sergeant Major walked up to them. "I've got all the patrols on high alert until you return with General Fair, sir."
"Good," he replied. "If there's any trouble you can reach me aboard the Highwind until Fair takes command."
Drake saluted smartly. "Yes sir!" With that, he was on his way.
They were almost to Seventh Heaven when he and Tifa shared another smile, and then he went into the shed to collect Fenrir. The plan was that after he collected his swords, Cid would drop him near the former site of the Temple of the Ancients, so he could scope out the nearby Fort Raven which guarded the western side of the straights into the Central Sea. It was a very recent construct, but if they could take it, they might have an easier shot at Fort Condor, depending on what he found.
He lifted the kickstand before rolling it out of the shed to find Tifa waiting for him.
"Be careful," she said.
He nodded, giving her a look that spoke as plainly as if his lips had moved "I will," before he cranked the engine and rode out to where Cid had brought the Highwind to land. As he approached, he saw the captain standing outside the loading hatch, a cigarette in his mouth. "Where ya been kid? I've been waitin'."
"Sorry," he muttered, wheeling the motorcycle up the ramp. "Let's get going."
Elfe was waiting at the door to the apartment alongside Shears when Kunsel arrived with Luxiere over his shoulders. "I hope you have a good reason for coming," Shears said.
"I'll explain later," Kunsel said, "I need a bed, plastic, and bandages…"
"But wouldn't a Restore…" Shears began.
"It won't this time," Kunsel barked. "Hurry, the last thing we need is for any of this stuff to get on anyone."
Enlightenment dawned on Shear's face. "You mean… that guy's got…"
"Yes, he does! Sorry about this, but there was nowhere else to take him!"
Elfe nodded and wordlessly ushered them inside even though Shears looked like he might be ready to protest. It was understandable. Elfe especially was high on the list of people who were believed to be at greater risk for the disease. As hard a life as she and Shears had in the last few years there had to have been times they'd thought they were going to die. As illogical a risk factor as that sounded it was one Rayleigh had identified fairly quickly. Elfe had also had more than her share of Lifestream exposure during Hojo's experiments but even so, she led him to a back room while Shears brought out a cot. Once it was set up, they placed a tarp over it before Elfe found a fitted sheet they could put over that. Once everything was in place, Kunsel lowered Luxiere onto the cot and then removed the cloak and promptly dropped it into a garbage bag so it could be dealt with later.
He then reached for his Restore materia. It probably wouldn't do a whole heck of a lot of good, but he could still cure the man's wounds that weren't infected. He had just begun casting, when something else caught his attention and his eyes widened in recognition.
Luxiere was currently lying on his back leaving the breastplate of the suit he was wearing exposed, and in the dim overhead light, Kunsel could now see the symbol pressed into the metal. Where had he seen that symbol before…? He knew he had. It looked a little like the SOLDIER logo, at first glance. In fact, from a distance, one might even mistake the two, but this one was much less angular, and the lines all connected. They were much more curved and elegant too…
It was a few hours later when Cid flew the Highwind over the Wutai mountains, and Cloud looked out over the view from the main deck with anticipation. It wouldn't be long now before they reached the road on which the forge sat. Underneath them, he spotted a couple of mountain villages resting in the valleys but for the most part it was empty landscape. Not that he minded. It was tranquil, even over the Highwind's engine, and there was nothing wrong with that.
Soon, the mountains began to fall away, leaving hillsides tiered with rice paddies, and not long after, he caught sight of the road that would lead them up past the capitol. He wordlessly observed the ground below them as Cid flew the aircraft over the city, catching site of the Da Chao cliffs and their iconic statues Zack had always talked about. In the afternoon sun they were quite a sight.
Finally though, the Highwind began to go lower and lower, until at last, Cloud caught sight of a flare off in the distance. "That's Yuffie's signal," Cid muttered. "Of course, knowing her, she probably robbed'em blind."
"Zack knows better," Cloud said. He knew his friend used to be rather trusting in the past, but he was sure he could handle Yuffie. Anything he'd ever lost to her, he either didn't care about it or had managed to get it back in the end anyway. The one time he knew of she'd actually gotten away with one of his materia, she'd mailed it back to him because, at the time, she'd been really young and hadn't been able to figure out how his Bahamut Fury materia worked. Zack loved telling the story, much to Yuffie's chagrin, and he had this way of telling her to knock it off when she went too far that was nearly impossible to believe.
It was a shame he didn't have that materia anymore, but Hojo hadn't been so stupid as to let him have something that dangerous while a laboratory specimen. It had been a wonder he'd been able to find his PHS again, or that it was even still working. How that oversight had been made on Hojo's part was anyone's guess.
Cid brought the Highwind in lower over the location from which the flare had gone off and soon, they were low enough that Cloud found himself looking down on a dirt road with Yuffie waving both arms up at them, while Zack and Aerith were watching from behind. Giving orders to the crew to remain on standby, Cid headed towards the weather deck with Cloud behind him and not long after, the two of them were climbing down the rope ladder to meet their friends.
"Hey guys!" Yuffie ran up to them excited. "Glad you could make it!"
Cloud dropped the last few feet to the ground once Cid had gotten out of the way and was just in time for Aerith to give him a hug.
"Has everything been all right since we've been gone?" Zack asked as he offered him a handshake.
Cloud nodded with a smile. "Rufus hasn't moved from the mainland, so we've been waiting to see what he does."
"I knew you could handle it. But anyway, Gin's in the back, putting on the finishing touches." Zack grinned. "I think we found the right guy. They look great."
Aerith nodded in agreement and the three of them led the way around the cottage to come to a small building separate from the house. Zack pulled open the door and beckoned that everyone go in and as their eyes adjusted, Cloud and Cid found themselves inside a workshop. Across the way, an older man sat hunched over a countertop, a set of tools strewn around him as he worked securing a woven red leather grip around the handle of a slender central blade with two prongs connected to a wide hilt with an expanding mechanism. Cloud recognized it instantly from his own designs, even as the man turned around, taking a brass cap in one hand in preparation for securing it to the butt of the grip.
"Welcome back, young Master Strife," the man spoke, a smile peeking through his greying black beard. "As you can see, I'm almost finished."
"Thank you." Cloud nodded in acknowledgement and smiled upon seeing the other blades lined up on a nearby table. He had already been certain it had been well worth the trouble to find this man. Zack had come with Cloud here a couple of months ago to discover that the work of the master sword smiths of the Okazaki family had been renowned throughout Wutai. Judging by Gin's immediate recognition of the sword Cloud had carried on his back as well as the variety of blades around his shop which both swordsmen had been able to appraise as being of excellent quality (one of which was an elegantly forged odachi not unlike the Masamune), that renown was well founded.
The Buster Sword, it seemed, had not been his work, but the work of his grandfather. A gift to Angeal's great grandfather for assisting in the delivery of modern weaponry for the time at great risk to himself during a piracy outbreak on Wutai's eastern shores. The circumstances were not well remembered as it was before Shinra's time, but one thing Gin had told them was that his grandfather would tell the story as an example of a foreigner who kept his honor as close as the Wutaians kept their loyalty to Godo's family line.
The grey-eyed black-smith with strong muscles in spite of his age had been suspicious at first but upon hearing the story of Angeal's end and Zack's acquisition of the sword, and seeing Cloud's designs, he'd leapt at the chance to get on board, saying his daughter would have been thrilled to work on something like this had she not disappeared during the war.
Cloud approached the other table, taking in the five blades that lay there. The hollow blade, and the two notched blades were there, as were the two switch-bladed ones, just as he'd drawn them. He picked one of the switchblades up to examine it more closely while the others watched.
"They look good," he said, checking the responsiveness of the folding mechanism while the smith was using a small hammer to knock the brass cap in place on the largest blade.
"I built them precisely to your specifications. I should hope they do." Gin knocked the cap in place with several precise taps and then proceeded to make sure everything was secure before reaching for an oil cloth and other cleaning supplies. "Although this'll be a heavy blade even for a SOLDIER when fully assembled."
"That won't be a problem," Zack chimed in. "The Buster Sword was already pretty heavy, and he can wield it like a pro."
Gin nodded, "I suppose that's true." He set to work oiling the two pronged blade as he talked. "This one and the switchblades will probably be the most difficult to clean since they have the most moving parts. You'll need to make sure the joints are properly cared for…" He paused for a moment, thinking, as he finished with the cloth. "Ah yes, and then there is the attaching mechanism…" he stood up and offered Cloud the hilt of the primary blade so he could see inside it. "I worked a powdered materia agent into the metal. That mastered Morph materia I asked you to leave with me did the trick perfectly." He reached for a switch on the hilt that caused the two prongs to fuse into one over the base before reaching for the hollow blade that would make the primary edge when attached.
"Set that in its appropriate slot if you would please," he said.
Cloud placed the hollow blade over the lower edge of the main blade and sank the handle into the First Sword's hilt. As he did so, he felt the slightest tingle, almost as though he had called on a low level materia, at which point the blades glowed faintly before fusing immovably into place.
The others watched, clearly impressed, and even Cid looked surprised. "Whoa," Zack muttered. "That really is some sword."
"How did it do that?" Aerith wondered.
"It draws on the wielder's natural supply of energy, much like materia does, though at greatly reduced levels. It makes it a lot less troublesome to disengage the blades, and they will come apart quite easily when you need them to," he indicated another small button on the inside of the hollow blade's handle, which Cloud promptly hit, causing the blade to gently pop free. He caught it in his hand, definitely impressed, before placing it back on the table, in favor of two of the notched blades, taking a test swing with them in a clear area of the workshop. "Well-balanced," he noted.
"Of course," the smith agreed, "Although… there is one last thing," he walked over to another table nearby to reveal a special sword harness made of black leather. "With the complex nature of this weapon, I felt you might need this," he said, offering it to Cloud.
"It wasn't part of the contract though…" he murmured.
"Nonsense. This has been the most interesting project I've had since my daughter… since the war even. Consider it a gift, for allowing me a break from making kitchen knives," Gin offered.
Cloud decided it was best not to argue, and so he took it from the man with a grateful "Thanks," before turning to Zack, and indicated the Buster Sword. "I guess it's time I returned this, huh?"
Zack grinned. "It might be a while before anyone will let me train with it, but I can't say I haven't missed it."
Cloud took a moment to unfasten the sword from the magnet and then undo the sword harness for it. Deftly, as though he'd been able to do it one-handed his entire life, Zack fastened the harness to his own armor, and then secured the blade to his back. He opted to forgo his once-traditional habit of swinging the sword in a circle before securing it behind him, but Cloud was sure he'd figure out how to do that one day too. "Look out world," his friend muttered, "Zack is back in the heavy-weight division."
Cloud chuckled as he strapped on his new sword harness, and then one by one, attached all five of the auxiliary swords to the first blade before securing it behind him.
Gin seemed pleased, though it probably hadn't hurt that they'd paid him in advance. "Is it all to your satisfaction, young Master Strife?" he asked.
Cloud nodded and offered a small grin. "They're perfect."
It didn't take long after that before everyone was headed back towards the Highwind, and they were getting ready to get underway when Zack noticed his PHS was buzzing. This was unusual because most of the time they'd have to connect through an adaptor that had been installed at the lodge, thanks to Shinra cutting the grid, but when they were out they could still use the encryption if someone was out in an available area. After a moment, he checked the caller ID and then answered. "Kunsel?"
Cloud was nearby as his friend listened. "He's alive?! That's… oh…" Zack's expression darkened with worry. "And you think he came out of where?" He listened a little longer. "Yeah, I can see why you'd want to take another look. All right, we'll be there as soon as we can." He hung up his PHS and walked over to Cid. "Change of plans, you're putting us down a mile or two outside of Kalm. Fly under the radar if you can. Hopefully that'll keep us from being noticed. We can rent a couple of vehicles and sneak into Midgar from there. Kunsel just found something big."
"Sounds insane," Cid muttered. "I like it. Let's go."
So, we've dropped a few bombshells it looks like, and there's still more to go. Welcome to Part III. ^^
Not much to say without giving anything away, so I guess I'll just leave it here.
See ya next week!
