Chapter III – Angels in the Waterfall
"Come on guys. Let's go!" Cloud drew his sword and crept behind the sheet of water. Tifa and Nanaki followed ready to fight if necessary. They stood in a large circular room. The floor was a smooth solid sheet of blue marble. At the back of the room was a large white structure. Before it sat the form of a man. Cloud began to step forward. He was glad of the distraction. He couldn't stop thinking about what happened earlier with Lucrecia. So she contained Jenova cells too. He wondered what had happened to her and Sephiroth all those years ago. Sephiroth. He kept walking only to find he wasn't moving anywhere.
"What the…?" Cloud looked to his teammates only to see they weren't moving either. The man at the other side of the room stood and walked towards them. He was dressed all in black except a red cape that flew out behind him like a pair of bloodstained wings. A wave of black hair hung down his back. It was wrapped up in a red headscarf. Most of his face was covered except for his eyes. He stopped just short of Cloud. He was a good few inches taller than Cloud, almost as tall as Barret. Now Cloud could see his eyes. They were red, blood red. A small black pupil at the center of each eye seemed to be pulling the red irises toward them. Cloud couldn't turn away from his gaze. He spoke.
"Leave this place." His voice was deep and deadly. It rang in Cloud's ears. It reminded him faintly of Sephiroth's booming voice only this one was somewhat more delicate.
"We only wanted to see what was here. Who are you?"
"Leave. I speak to no-one but her."
"Who?"
"Me"
Lucrecia stepped forward. Cloud had left her aboard the Highwind to sleep. He thought it best not to let her come with him until he could figure out what dangers were in this strange place. Cloud tried to turn at the sound of her voice but some kind of force field was keeping him in place.
"Lucrecia! You need rest. Go back to the ship. We'll sort this out."
She ignored him and walked closer to the red-caped man. She held out her arms to him.
"Vincent."
Vincent stood still for a second before falling into her arms. She held him tightly to himself. He buried his face in her shoulder. She stroked the river of black hair and murmured his name softly. Cloud felt the force fields around him give way and he was able to move again. He started toward Lucrecia but Tifa held him back.
"Let them be, Cloud. She loves him."
She loves him. Cloud felt a tight knot in the centre of his stomach. He turned to Tifa. She felt his pain and felt her own.
"Come on. We'd better leave them to it."
She nodded in approval and was about to leave when Lucrecia let go of Vincent and turned to them.
"Please don't go. I have to introduce you."
Vincent spoke.
"My name is Vincent Valentine. I am Sephiroth's father."
Cloud couldn't believe his ears. It couldn't be. These were Sephiroth's parents? Then why did Sephiroth say Jenova was his mother?
"But I thought…"
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A flash of white light filled the cave. Next thing he knew, he was standing in the centre of a small town.
"Nibelheim. Why am I here?"
Lucrecia was standing right behind him.
"This is my past. This is how my darling child was born to the world. And this is why you should have left me in my coffin."
"Your past?"
"These events happened twenty years ago. We are mere visitors. They can neither see nor hear us."
"But…"
"Look"
Lucrecia pointed to the front gate. A truck drove into the town and parked in front of the Shinra mansion. Four people got out. Two men dressed in white coats one with brown hair, the other with black walked through the gate into the mansion. Next followed a man dressed in a harsh blue suit, the uniform of a Turk. He paused turned and reached out his hand to the last person. She took it and got out.
"Thank you."
The man smiled, unusual for someone of his position.
"You're welcome miss."
The woman smiled back at him.
"Just call me Lucrecia."
Cloud gasped. The woman was Lucrecia. Even though this woman looked a lot healthier, they were one and the same. She hadn't aged at all. He turned to her.
"That's you."
"Uh-huh. The man who helped me was Vincent. The other two men are Hojo and Gast, both were brilliant scientists. We were here to work on the Jenova Project. The Shinra wanted us to do it away from Midgar so that if anything went wrong, they wouldn't be responsible for us."
"You were in love with him."
"It was an instant attraction. He was such a gentle and caring man but he had his dark side. After all he was a Turk. I never saw that side of him though until…"
Next they were in the basement of the Shinra mansion. Hojo was talking to Lucrecia.
"You know how much I love you Lucrecia."
"You don't love me! You just want to use me in your sick experiments. I won't do it!"
"You have no choice."
Hojo removed a syringe from his pocket and held it towards her. Lucrecia pushed at his arm screaming.
"If you don't co-operate my dear, then you have to watch your boyfriend die"
"I'd rather have died a thousand times that to see Vincent suffer. Hojo managed to persuade me to leave Vincent and marry him. Vincent wasn't too pleased."
"Lucrecia! Can't you see that I love you? Please angel, you can't leave me like this!" Vincent and Lucrecia were now standing on the well in the centre of the town. It was late at night. Lucrecia faced away from Vincent, her face covered in glimmering tears.
"Vincent. Try to understand. We can't see each other anymore."
"Why?"
"I couldn't tell him why. I knew Hojo was watching us. If I gave anything away Vincent would be done for. I wished I didn't have to say this but I did."
"I don't love you anymore."
She ran fast as she could back to the mansion, hands covering her tear soaked face. Vincent stood alone in the moonlight. Very slowly, piece by piece, he tore up the wooden structure of the well.
Cloud turned to Lucrecia. She was crying. He took her in his arms.
"It's alright. I see why you did what you had to do."
"I betrayed him. It broke my heart to do it but I had no choice. The experiment was about to begin."
Another scene change. This time Lucrecia was lying on a bench in the middle of the lab. Her soft green eyes were closed. Hojo wore a surgeon's uniform.
"What's going on?"
"Hojo is implanting a fertilized egg inside me."
"Sephiroth."
The operation complete, Hojo began to inject a glowing yellow fluid into Lucrecia's stomach.
"What now?"
"Hojo was injecting me and my child with Jenova cells."
"I thought you said Vincent was Sephiroth's father. How did that happen if Sephiroth was conceived artificially?"
"I knew what Hojo was planning long before he made me finish with Vincent. One night I sneaked into the lab and switched the egg cells Hojo had prepared with one's of my own, one's I had artificially inseminated with Vincent."
"Does Hojo know?"
"No."
"So this is how Sephiroth was born."
(NB all word in italics are Cloud and Lucrecia watching not the Lucrecia in the flashback. Please review. Next chapter won't be far off.)
