...tendencies. (a story about obsession)
11: Revolution
"Though the pattern of death never repeats, it rings eternal. "
said Vincent Valentine with a bitter laugh.
Aeris smiled with clouded eyes, a smug smirk of a smile that was not hers but
Jenova's. "Do not seek to cross me again," she said doubled, in the
flower girl's voice and in the virus'.
"Thrice," said Vincent wrly. "Once."
Lucrecia.
"Twice."
Sephiroth.
"They say third time's the charm."
"Aeris!" Tifa and Cloud ran in and called to her, halted when they saw
Vincent on the floor, the blood on her hands, the sword by her feet.
"Aeris...?" Tifa repeated to the girl's back.
Aeris' body leaned over and picked up the sword. Slowly, eerily, she turned
around. "I'm not Aeris," she said with her mouth, her voice, but not
her mind.
Cloud set his jaw. "No," he said. "You aren't."
He unsheathed his sword, and the end began.
"The scene," said Vincent to his gory wound, "fragments
here."
This is what they saw:
It was not one of those clean battles, those epic battles, those pretty heroic battles that you hear about in storybooks and movies. There was not one nicely aimed gunshot that ended the story, not one shove off a cliff or anything so untainted and simple. It was a hack and slash and gash fight, and Cloud had to make decision after decision to bring Ultima before him. It was not just Aeris he was fighting against, but also his compounded guilt, for he was doing exactly what he had let Sephiroth do to his Aeris so long ago as he used the keen metal edge of his blade to cut deep into her pale innocent flesh.
It was not an easy fight, for Jenova did not want to let go of her newly formed puppet without a good brawl. Aeris's hands found a skill and grace that she had never felt before- a style of fighting comparable to...well...Sephiroth's. Tifa's fists slammed once and again, and again again with soft packs and "unghs" into Aeris' ribs. Finally, though, Cloud plunged his sword through her stomach, her spine, split, and it was all over.
Aeris' eyes did not clear. She did not see with her own eyes once more before she died. She just emmited a sort of blades hissing sound, and fell to the ground, dusty. She decomposed before their eyes, returning to the rotted, waterlogged corpse-form she had inhabited before she was disturbed.
This is what she saw:
The face of Cloud and he was thrusting his sword at her with a terrified,
twisted expression. The fists of Tifa and her face, scrunched in worry, eyes
shut in pain to what she was doing.
And Vincent, slumped and bloody huddled in the doorway, looking at her with a
blind piercing gaze that said, in no uncertain terms "Go home..."
And suddenly, there was that sharp, sharp coldness of bladesbladesblades I- And she wanted to go to sleep so badly. Somewhere in the distance, rustling in the water, she could hear her mother, her grandmother, her grandmother's mother welcoming her, whispering to her, Aeris...we miss you...Aeris...you belong with us...come back... and it was getting very dark and her skin started feeling very dark.
Aeris went home.
And will she not come again?
And will she not come again?
No, no, she is dead:
Gone to thy death-bed:
She never will come again.
This is what he saw: a chance.
"If there's...if there's only a
chance..."
The blood was leaking. It was
leaking out in pulsing gushes, red plasma flowing over and
over in a thick, thick, waterfall, like burgundy velvet curtains tumbling,
tumbling, tumbling down into nothingness.
"Vincent?" ventured Tifa. She watched her friend stumble down the path into the cavern where the lake was.
"Vincent, what are you doing?"
Hesitantly, she walked a few steps
towards him.
"He knows what he's doing,"
said Cloud quietly. "Blind as he is, for once, he knows exactly where he's
going."
And Vincent did, his boots scuffling
against the ground, doggedly digging in to bring his beaten body through the
doorway as the blood splashed in beautiful red waves over the forearm he held to
his stomach. He swayed as he walked, a rootless tree.
"Oh God..." Tifa said in pain. "He's really..."
Tifa watched and Tifa cried, and Tifa
knew, too, where Vincent was going, and she silently whispered to him a goodbye.
Then, as he disappeared through the doorway, she turned back to Cloud, and spoke
to him over a twice-dead corpse. "And you? Do you know where you're going,
now, Cloud?" Tifa asked her true love with sapphire tears in her
eyes.
Cloud stepped over the body in one sure step and took Tifa in his arms. He looked down at
her, his own
eyes dewy with tears, and pulled
her to him in a kiss. "Whereever you want to go, Teef. From this day forth and
forever, I'll go whereever
you go."
Red, red, red. The world was a deathbed of red. Vincent stumbled and fell, coughed up a mouthful of thick black blood. But no-he couldn't stop here. He wouldn't stop until it ended; he wouldn't stop until ... Arms, trembling, convulsing with the effort, Vincent locked his elbows and pushed himself back up onto his feet. He walked staunchly forwards, swaying, dying, to the lake. Swallowing hard, he waded in and closed his eyes as the first soft wave broke against his knees.
Vincent, Vincent the voices cried, the waters whispered softly in his ears as he waded, deeper, deeper. Each gentle droplet of water kissed him in sympathy, in compassion to his great otherwordly pain. Vincent, we understand, Vincent we're sorry.
Completely submerged,
lake stained with his vermillion sin; seaweed wrapping
around his ankles crying Vincent...
Currents buoying him up, aiding him along his way-- he fell to his knees in the center of the lake. The tide
washed away, ebbed with his life.
Vincent's downtrodden body relaxed, let the water's loving arms carry him away. "If there's only a chance," he said to himself. It was alright that his time on earth had ended- just as long as there was a chance. But God, he was dying, he knew it, he couldn't see, the world was fading away, the darkness closing in, his fingers, clutched tight about his consciousness, slowly loosened their grip... oh if there was anyone in Heaven or earth who had any love at all they would bless him with this one wish....Quick as the acceptance had come, the icy chill of fear slowly spread through his bones like a disease. What if... through the fighting and the blindness and the rage and the thousand year yearning...what if...god, he was so scared...what if there was no other side, no Lifestream, or worse...what if he saw the other side and found himself, once again....alone?
Then he saw the Lifestream, green, illuminate. The bells of a thousand mortal
passings vibrated in his ears.
And every cell in his body gathered together for one all-consuming cry--
Floating in a watery waiting room.
Swimming in a sea of green.
Someday.....
Someday.....
17 years, and now...
someday soon....
"Lucrecia?"
"...Vincent?"
END.