FF7 Heartstrings
Vincent Unleashed
by TacomaSquall
Part Thirteen:
Yuffie listened to the dwindling footsteps of her compatriots as they left the ruined cavern under the City of the Ancients. The staircase to the altar above seemed precarious, though AVALANCHE's members were climbing it successfully. The pool that once stood beneath the stairs was gone, drained through the wound in the cavern's floor made by the Adamantine Weapon. Much like the wound we tried to create in the Lifestream. She sighed and turned to face the shade of her friend, Aeris Gainsborough.
"How much I've missed you, Yuffie-chan," the shade said. "I wish I could have comforted your desolation after my death. I felt your grief, as my life's blood drained."
"Before then, I could pretend it was all a game," Yuffie whispered in a broken voice. "Afterwards, everything changed. We weren't invincible."
Aeris smiled. "All the more reason to live each day to the fullest." She reached out with her spectral arms to embrace Yuffie, as the ninja broke into tears.
"We survived Sephiroth, and things started to look better –" Yuffie began.
"But you discovered that Cloud was not the only one of us who had a fabricated past."
Yuffie nodded. "I saw the goodness in Vincent, even though he denied it. That goodness did not lick with the image he presented to us throughout his story."
"Yes, he claimed to be a damned soul." Aeris' keen gaze met Yuffie's. "What did you do about this conflict?"
Yuffie's dark eyes looked into the emerald eyes of the last of the Ancients. She matched the shade's stare for a brief moment, and then turned her eyes away, looking downwards. "I went looking for the truth."
"And during your quest for the truth, you idealized Vincent as the good man you saw. In time, you began to fall in love with that idealized hero."
No –" Yuffie started to deny Aeris' claim, and then stopped. I did…
"And now, you don't know if he is still alive, since his four Limit Breaks gained their freedom." Aeris' voice was soft and full of empathy for the young woman she held in front of her.
Yuffie sobbed, "He ran away from me at Cloud and Tifa's wedding! When he left us in Kalm, he gave Cloud a note, but he didn't say anything at all to me. And now, he's gone…" Her voice trailed off, and the young ninja buried her face in Aeris' shoulder.
Aeris smoothed the ninja's hair, and let Yuffie's tears run their course. As the girl sobbed her grief, Aeris rocked softly back and forth.
When Yuffie was done weeping, Aeris held the ninja at arm's length. "Yuffie-chan, if Vincent is gone, you need to go on with your life. Don't make the same mistake I made with Zack, and then, with Cloud. I loved Zack and lost him. Then when I met Cloud, all I saw was his resemblance to Zack. I never got to know Cloud as the wonderful man he is, because I idealized him. The cost of my inability to see past his resemblance to Zack, and his made-up, shared history, cost me a chance to love again before I died."
Aeris' voice shook with emotion. "I could feel the hurt he felt at my death. I could feel the hurt I caused him when he summoned me back. He would come to me, if I lived. And I would be responsible for destroying his marriage." She sighed softly. "I am unwilling to do that, to make them pay that price to return me to life."
"If you love Vincent, love him for who he is, not who you want him to be. And, if you love him, and he is lost, go on living."
Yuffie nodded soberly to Aeris' suggestion.
"My time here is at an end, Yuffie. I need to return to the Lifestream." Aeris turned to walk back towards the jagged hole in the cavern floor.
"So long as I live, I will never forget you, Aeris." Yuffie looked sorrowful, but bravely looked her friend's ghost in the eye. "I will always miss you."
"Yuffie. As long as I am remembered, you will always have me by your side." The shade began to fade, and Phoenix folded its flaming wings around the last of the Cetra. They both disappeared.
In the air hovered Aeris Gainsborough's last words. "The Apocalypse draws near. Look for Garen and Astarte in the Hidden City of the Cursed."
* * * * * *
The SSV Palmer creaked with the weight of depths pressing against her hull. An hour before, she had been shaken by the wake of something immense churning through the waters above at high speed. The submarine had tipped crazily as the compressed water struck, before righting itself. Since that time, the Palmer had hugged the craggy ocean bottom in an effort to avoid notice and/or more wakes.
In the Officer's Wardroom, Elena was sipping a cup of coffee as she spoke with Vincent Valentine. In her hand, she held a manila file folder.
"Why did the Turks help me, Elena?" Vincent asked the question for what seemed to be the millionth time. He fully expected her to make the same dodge she had made so many times before. 'Once a Turk, always a Turk.'
"Because it is our Planet, too. Even though we fought against AVALANCHE more than a year ago, we knew that you would need our help, once we became acquainted with the severity of the threat." Elena spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, as if she were talking about the day's supper. "If you remember correctly, we didn't want Sephiroth to succeed any more than you did."
Vincent was stunned. "What do you mean by the 'severity of the threat'?"
Elena began. "Little more than a week ago, Vincent, you fell into the hands of a being who calls himself Lord Tenarrus. Tenarrus is from another world, and he seeks to extend his empire by seizing this world. Jenova was once his servant. When he had his claws on you, Tenarrus used a process that was deemed too risky by HoJo himself to strip you of the four entities that were your Limit Breaks. The demons were sent forth to go on a rampage, distracting the members of AVALANCHE while Tenarrus' greatest generals, his Horsemen, positioned themselves to seize control in one lightning-fast blow."
As Elena spoke, her voice grew more and more bleak. "AVALANCHE has found and defeated the first three demons. The Galian Beast was killed in Kalm. The Death Gigas was brought down in Junon. And the Hellmasker was found and destroyed near the abandoned town of Gongaga."
"Unfortunately, we have reports that over the last few days that connect Chaos to attacks on three locations. Condor Fort, which was turned into an abattoir by Chaos' assault. Mideel, which is in ruins. And Corel, Barret's hometown, which reports a pitched battle between a demon and the town militia." Elena finished her tally of events.
"Why are we going to Lucresia's cave, then?"
Elena smiled suddenly. "Vincent, the process that Tenarrus used on you reversed what HoJo had done thirty-three years ago. Not only are you no longer the Avatar of Chaos, you are also no longer unliving."
"Are you saying that I –"
"Yes, you are fully human again." Elena grinned impishly.
"But, what about the crimes I committed?" Vincent's voice was incredulous, matching the stunned expression on his face.
"The crimes you remember committing, during your confinement? Lucresia's murder?" Vincent nodded. "I want you to read this file. In it are contained the true details of your dossier as a member of the Turks, and your involvement with Lucresia."
Elena set the manila folder down on the Wardroom table. It was stamped, Eyes-Only. It read – ShinRa Industries - JENOVA Project: Subject Avatar. The folder opened and showed a picture of Vincent Valentine, in his Turks uniform.
"We betrayed you by letting HoJo use you for the experiments that made you into a monster, Vincent. Now, we have a chance to pay that debt." She looked meaningfully at the folder. "I suggest you read a little of your real history."
Vincent began reading the file. Contained within were numerous physical fitness reports, eyewitness interviews of people who had known him since he entered ShinRa service at the age of 22, psychological evaluations, commendations, and a project journal. According to the file, Vincent Valentine was a conscientious man, an extremely skilled combat rifleman, something of a ladykiller, who was also lacking the killer instinct to make a good corporate enforcer, but made an excellent bodyguard and counter-terrorist operative.
The project timeline covered his being volunteered to join the Project, and coerced into undergoing the augmentation process conceived by HoJo. If the Avatar bonding worked, then HoJo planned to use the process to bind every Summon Materia in ShinRa's possession to SOLDIERs. Each SOLDIER would then be able to use that Summon as if it were a Limit Break.
Lucresia, a rival of HoJo's, found out about the plan, and sought to tamper with the experiment. Due to the addition of a psychoactive drug placed in the IV drip during Vincent's recovery, the subject of the experiment went on a rampage, his true persona regressing and the persona of Lord Chaos surfacing. Chaos slaughtered a number of the scientific aides before being subdued.
Lucresia convinced HoJo that the entire experiment was a failure, and proposed a collaboration on the Project's true goal, creating a child containing Jenova cells. To destroy the evidence of her tampering, Lucresia used HoJo's process to bond three more Summon Materia to Vincent, and edited the Turk's memories to make it seem that HoJo had been behind all of Vincent's suffering. Then, she placed the Turk in stasis under the ShinRa Mansion.
Seeing Vincent look up from the file as he reached the end, Elena spoke softly. "Now that you know the truth about you and Lucresia, it is time that you faced her. She is the only remaining bearer of Jenova's cells that is not part of AVALANCHE. And she would be all too likely to serve Lord Tenarrus if he but commands her to. If she happened to be unwilling, he could coerce Lucresia through Jenova's cells."
* * * * * *
Yuffie arrived back at the Highwind. As she ran up the ladder and onto the airship's deck, she was met by Tifa and Cloud. "Get inside," the long-haired blond yelled.
"Chaos attacked Mideel." Tifa sadly shook her head. "It is too far for us reach quickly by flying directly there."
Yuffie gulped. She didn't like flying at all, but they were about to do something worse. Somehow, it was quicker to reach Mideel by flying northwards, until one reached the Barrier.
Somehow, the Barrier warped space. By using it, you could reach Mideel by always flying northwards. The problem was, the transition was disconcerting to say the least, one minute sailing in the far northern sky, the next, flying over the south.
Yuffie felt her stomach give a lurch, and she staggered to the rail before she emptied the contents of her stomach over the side. Retching, she knelt by the railing. I hate flying…
End of Part Thirteen