Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Past, Present, and Future

Bahamut opened his eyes to find himself on the ridge of a mountain that encircled a deep blue lake. He looked down the sloping sides, gauging the angle and finally deciding that it would be safe enough to walk down it. Leaning backwards slightly, he carefully found foothold after foothold and made his way down the mountain into the center.

His covered ears could still pick up the continuous laughter of a waterfall that ran in front of him across the lake's surface, creating white foam and sprays of water that in turn threw off iridescent rainbows. Bahamut nodded to himself, satisfied that the place seemed secluded enough before walking around the lake and starting to enter through the waterfall's thick cover.

Click.

Bahamut's intended path was cut short by the ominous noise and the nozzle of a gun pointing directly at the area between his eyes. He froze instantly as a cold, harsh voice pierced through the noise of the waterfall.

"Back away, give me your staff, and keep your hands up. Now," the voice that belonged to the shadowed figure within the waterfall ordered. The only thing that showed of the stranger—besides the gun—were two glowing, crimson eyes that reminded Bahamut of his own.

Bahamut obeyed without another word. Granted that a mere bullet was not enough to kill him, it would leave him uncomfortable for a while until his body's internal structure eventually destroyed its presence. Having that annoying twinge inside of him would no doubt interfere with his concentration of communicating with the Planet.

I can't take that risk now.

"I didn't think that there was someone living here," he commented as he backed off, extending his staff that the figure took quickly. He slowly put his hands up in the air, spreading his hands to show that he had no other weapons in them.

Of course, this person doesn't know about my knives…but I don't have to tell him about them.

"Don't talk," the figure snapped. "Move." The gun tip prodded Bahamut's forehead, causing the Summon to take step after step backwards as the other man stepped forward and out of the waterfall.

Bahamut raised an eyebrow in mild surprise as the identity of his captor was revealed.

Well, well…So this is where he went. I shouldn't be too surprised.

Vincent was soaking wet from walking through the waterfall at his slow pace, but that didn't dampen the threatening glare in his eyes or the way his aura simply flared with suspicion. The rest of him was slender and almost emaciated, making Bahamut wonder at how the man could manage to support the surely heavy mechanical arm that graced Vincent's left side. The part of his face that showed was still as pale as death itself and just as sharp and cold as his attitude.

In short, Bahamut thought amusedly, he still looks the same as ever.

"I have questions, and I want answers to them," Vincent announced calmly, managing—with very little effort exhibited—to ignore the water that dripped continuously from his hair, clothes, and skin. "I also am not in a very good mood today, so I'm sure you want to avoid meeting up with the Planet face-to-face, correct?"

Bahamut shrugged. "You have me at gunpoint. Do I have a choice otherwise?"

Vincent's eyes narrowed at the flippant comeback, his trigger finger tightening barely perceptibly. "You're digging your grave deeper," he hissed softly. His eyes had gone completely flinty and the tiniest hints of scales were beginning to creep across his face. Bahamut watched in fascination as the hand that held the gun in his face slowly began to elongate, fingernails lengthening into claws.

Careful, boy. You're losing control of Chaos, and I can defeat you easily if I have to.

"Dad!"

Vincent froze at the young voice an instant before the grayish flush of scales disappeared from his skin and his fingernails and hand receded back into human form. However, his eyes remained locked on Bahamut, as well as his gun.

"Dad!" the same voice repeated again. A new form slipped through the sides of the waterfall, avoiding the heavier parts that Vincent had just walked through. The small figure approached rapidly, flecks of water flying from a braid of chestnut brown hair.

"Aeris, I told you to stay in the cave," Vincent said in a low voice. "Now get back in there."

Aeris? Bahamut's ears perked up at the sound of the name and his eyes flicked over to the girl identified as Aeris in interest. The Cetra?

Aeris frowned, still managing to look like an angel from heaven as she stopped next to Vincent. "Dad," she insisted, reaching up with tapered fingers to gently swing Vincent's gun arm away from Bahamut. "He doesn't want to hurt us. I can feel it."

Meanwhile, Bahamut was definitely even more interested than before. He had seen the original Cetra, Aeris, before she had died, and this new Aeris was the splitting image of her, albeit a few minor changes. Her hair was a long, rich brown braided back with a piece of white cloth and a pair of long bangs fell into laughing emerald green eyes. She wore a pale, sleeveless pink dress that had obviously been through a lot, as evidenced by the many redone and worn out seams and patches. She still had that faint, permanent curve to her lips that made her look like she was smiling all the time, even in the rare instances that she lost her temper.

This is a surprise.

Vincent jammed the gun back into its holster after switching on the safety, still keeping his eyes on Bahamut. "Aeris," he began in a patient voice, "you've never been outside of the grotto your entire life. You don't know what people are like out there. Besides, didn't you say that your connection with the Planet was being blocked recently?"

Aeris shook her head. "Dad, I don't need the Planet to know what this man is like. He doesn't want to hurt us; trust me on it." She turned to Bahamut, smiling cheerfully. "Please excuse my father. He hasn't lived in very welcoming conditions before, and I know he's only trying to protect me. I'm Aeris." She extended one graceful hand towards Bahamut.

Bahamut lowered his hands and covered Aeris' proffered hand with his own, smiling back at her.

"I am called Bahamut."

* * *

As soon as the stranger's hand touched her own, Aeris knew that this man was no ordinary person. His hand was rough and almost felt like it was covered by barely developed scales of some sort. When she glanced down in surprise, she saw that his hand that was carefully closed around hers sported long, dagger-like nails that could no doubt rend any man into shreds with a few quick swipes. His skin was also a strange light gray, which also struck Aeris as strange since from what her father had described to her, humans didn't normally come in shades of gray.

And then he had smiled.

It was only her own curiosity and politeness that kept her from backing away. The man's teeth were pointed like his fingernails, were a pure milky white, and looked just as capable of slicing through meat as his nails were. Looking up—just how tall is he, anyway? Aeris wondered as she tilted her head far back—at his teeth gave her a good look at his fiery red eyes that burned from the depths of his cape's hood, as well as another glimpse of the same gray skin of his hand.

"I am called Bahamut," he introduced himself in a pleasantly low voice. She heard her father look up sharply at the name and barely felt the slight breath of wind that meant that he was reaching for his gun once more.

"Don't, Dad," she warned softly, keeping her smile on her face. Her father stopped again and sighed almost soundlessly, crossing his arms over his chest to signal that he had given up and that Aeris was in command.

Bahamut's eyes shifted to her father, glinting with faint amusement. "And who are you?" he asked, releasing Aeris' hand from his friendly grip.

"I think you know," Aeris' father replied in a steely, wary voice. "Now that we know each other, how about you telling me what you're doing here?"

"A legitimate question," Bahamut responded, his voice plainly showing that he was at ease with everyone present, despite Aeris' father's suspicious attitude. "However, I am afraid that you won't be getting an answer to that question just yet. I promise that I will tell you in due course; however, now is not the time. Until then, I beg that you allow me to stay here until a certain time."

"Of course," Aeris agreed amicably, as was her gentle nature to.

"Why?" her father snapped at the same time.

Bahamut lost his light mood for a mere instant as his eyes immediately became harsh and darkly foreboding. "The time for you and your friends may arise soon enough, Vincent Valentine," he said in hard tones. "I think you have noticed that by now." He nodded in Aeris' direction, a motion that was not missed by either Aeris or her father.

"W-what?" Aeris asked in bewilderment.

"Aeris, I have to talk with this man for a moment," her father growled softly in a voice that brooked no argument this time. "Get in the cave. We'll join you soon enough."

Aeris shivered at the chilly aura that ran through the air, which was strange since the grotto's enclosed position kept all wind from entering. She turned and ran back through the waterfall, willingly letting the cold waters clear her mind and dissipate the uneasy dread that ran through her spine.

* * *

Vincent regarded the man who called himself Bahamut with calculating eyes, moving out of the shadow of the mountain as Aeris disappeared. "Tell me what you meant, Bahamut," he demanded. "And be quick about it before I either put a bullet through your head or Aeris comes back out."

Bahamut shook his head, letting his hood fall back and revealing his entire face for the first time. His strangely iridescent silvery-blue hair spilled out of the confines of his dropping hood, moving away from his sharply pointed, animalistic ears. "I think you have suspected at least half the truth, Vincent," he remarked quietly. "Do tell me what you think so that I won't have to bore you with details you already know."

"I know that you aren't mortal," Vincent shot back. "What I don't know is why Bahamut, the great King of the dragons, would come here out of all the places on the Planet. All I can think is that your appearance has to do something with Aeris and why she keeps talking about how the Planet is being blocked from her by someone."

Bahamut nodded slowly. "You're correct so far." He abruptly sat down on the ground, looking over the barely disrupted part of the lake. "I am here because of the Planet and because of your 'daughter,' Aeris." He turned his head to look up at Vincent, who remained standing. "Does she know that she isn't really your daughter?"

Vincent shook his head reluctantly. "No. I found her four years ago, and the fact that she's aged into a twenty-two-year-old over that period of time kept me from wanting to tell her. She's so innocent that it's hard for me to even bring up the fact that I'm not her real father and that I don't even know who her parents were. Or that I found her, alone, in this very same lake."

"Then this makes things a little harder." Bahamut turned back to the lake, resting his chin on his hands. "You named her Aeris because she reminds you of the Aeris who died for the Planet a few years ago, correct?"

"Uncanny sense of yours, but it's true. She acts and looks just like her."

"Here is my theory, because the Planet has even been shut from my kin and I, and we can only speculate as to what has happened. The appearance of Aeris has confirmed it to a slight degree." Bahamut breathed outward slowly. "There's a slight possibility that Jenova has returned."

"We killed her," Vincent growled flatly. "There's no way—"

"There is," Bahamut interrupted gently. "You do remember that Sephiroth kept dropping parts of Jenova for you and your companions to fight with? Each part grew into a Jenova. Sephiroth, however, didn't drop every single part he had. He kept one preserved deep within the Lifestream; so deep that it couldn't emerge at the time of the final battle. But it did eventually, and the first thing that happened was that it grew into Jenova. Then, once she was whole, she proceeded to find her son's wandering and lost spirit within the core of the Lifestream and brought him back to the mortal world of the Planet. She implanted him into the womb of a young girl much like how her cells were injected into the original Sephiroth and used a stored clone of her original son to father the unborn child. Afterwards, she destroyed the clone and then used her growing powers to block the Planet from the beings that lived on it."

"How come she didn't just use that stored clone to let loose on the Planet and then block it off?" Vincent asked, his guard going down slightly as he listened to Bahamut speak.

Bahamut shrugged. "Judging from the way that Jenova thinks, she was putting the boy into a place where people would raise and care for him, not knowing that they were nurturing a living weapon. A clone would carry out the job just as readily, but would not inflict as much emotional pain. Knowing that a child they had raised themselves had just turned on them would tear the 'parents' apart before he killed them."

"Makes sense."

"It's Jenova, and it's how she thinks. Now, this brings us up to Aeris. The Planet copied Jenova and brought back the one person who could foil Jenova's plans once more—Aeris Gainsborough, the last being with Cetra blood within her. It barely managed to do this before Jenova shut most of it off from the mortal realm, and Aeris emerged as a baby in the one place the Planet could think she would be safe."

"Then explain how she aged so quickly."

"Remember, this is only a conjecture of my own and not necessarily the truth. I think that Jenova knew that she wouldn't be able to hold the Planet back indefinitely, and she also knew that the Planet had somehow managed to send out Aeris. So, in order to have an advantage, Jenova aged her Sephiroth-would be at a quick rate before entirely stopping the aging process. Once more, the Planet copied her, only it was at a disadvantage with Jenova blocking its full strength. So, I'm guessing that Aeris is a younger age than that of whoever Sephiroth is. She's just about the age that she was when she died before, so there's a possibility that the same goes for 'Sephiroth.' The problem is that no one knows for sure how old the original Sephiroth was."

"Do you know who this Sephiroth incarnation is?"

Bahamut frowned and shook his head regrettably. "Unfortunately, no. The reason why I am here is because this is a place extremely close to the Lifestream, although people might not know that. I was planning on using it to see if I could successfully contact the Planet and to maybe sense exactly who this new Sephiroth is. The problem is…" He stopped completely and tilted his head to one side in a listening pose. "Well, the problem is that from what I can pick up, the Planet's signals are just as muffled as before I tried it, and I was outside of a Mako reactor at the time. If I concentrate hard enough, I might be able to just barely get in touch with the Planet. Last time, I was stopped quite forcibly by someone I suspect to be Jenova, but over here I might be able to break through her barriers."

Vincent was silent for a moment before he sighed reluctantly. "Alright. I don't like it, but I'll have to believe you for now. Stay here for as long as it takes, Bahamut."

"I have a few questions for you." Bahamut slid to his feet, spinning once more to go face to face with Vincent. He was still taller than the mortal, which Vincent obviously found uncomfortable since he was used to looking down at people, not the other way around. Bahamut held out his hands for his staff, which Vincent handed to him.

"Strange weapon," Vincent remarked as the staff left his hands, noticeably changing the subject. "What does it do? Is it the only thing you have?"

Bahamut smiled once more, baring his sharply pointed teeth. "You don't want to know what it does," he replied lightly. "And no, it's not my only weapon. May I ask you my questions now?"

Vincent shifted his weight uncomfortably, as if he knew that he wasn't going to like the questions that Bahamut was going to ask.

"If you don't want to answer, you don't have to."

"Shoot, then."

"Why are you living by yourself out here, Vincent?" Bahamut leaned against his staff with the end planted firmly in the ground, lowering his head to Vincent's level. "Why did you split up from the others?"

Vincent laughed in response, a rough, bone-chilling laugh that sounded more like a snarl. "We all split up in the end," he replied, still chuckling harshly under his breath as if Bahamut's question was the funniest thing in the world he had ever heard. "Last I heard, Cid went back to Rocket Town, Nanaki is overseeing Cosmo Canyon in the place of his grandfather, Barret and Reeve are trying to rebuild Midgar into a better city, and Cloud, Tifa, and Yuffie are all in Wutai, doing whatever the hell they're doing. I…I was just the first one to go. Before you ask why, think about it. My reason for joining them was over and I just as obviously never belonged with them." He drew his lips back into what could have been taken as a smile, but was just as contorted and cold as his laugh. "Cloud and Tifa ran away from their memories that they couldn't stand anymore. I live with my past every single day of my life, because those memories are all that I can truly cherish. Karma plays a harsh role on us, don't you think? My memories…are my life, and I can't just throw them away."

"Do you truly feel that way?" Bahamut asked softly, red eyes glimmering sadly under the fading rays of the sun that was sinking beyond the tops of the mountain ranges encircling the grotto. "Vincent, there has to be more that you aren't exploring. What about Aeris? And—honestly, now—why have you never told her the truth?"

"Aeris is the only person in my life who has meant so much to me that I'll give up my existence for her. Ironic, isn't it?" Vincent smiled briefly, a direct contrast to his bitter grimaces. "Years ago, it would have been Lucrecia. But…I was never in love with her as much as I was infatuated with her, I think. I truly care for Aeris in ways that I'll never care for another human being—as a daughter." He abruptly raised his mechanical left arm into the air, light glinting off of the steel tips. "Do you know how I became like this? I wasn't like this at all before I came to Nibelheim. I could still feel emotions back then. That was when I first met Lucrecia, while I was still working as a Turk under Shinra. Lucrecia was a scientist, the co-worker to Hojo. As much as I thought I loved her, she fell in love with Hojo. He, in my eyes, turned traitor to her and used her and the unborn child she bore from Hojo within her as one of his twisted Jenova experiments. I tried to stop him and was killed, and then he used my corpse as a Jenova test as well. He rebuilt my structure entirely and revived me back into what I am today.

"I fell into a state of confusion and shock after that. Not knowing what to do, I crawled into a coffin I found in the basement of the Shinra Mansion off to the side. Once there, I immediately slipped into sleep. Despite that, I still thought to myself within my dream world. I wondered how Lucrecia could agree to go through with Hojo's plan and use her own child as an experiment. I kept thinking…how could that woman, in her right mind, permit herself and her son to a life of despair?

"When I awoke, I was still confused, but I was faced with people this time. People I didn't know…They were none other than Cloud and his friends. The original Aeris was still alive back then, and she was the only person there who expressed pity for me as Cloud explained what had happened throughout the years that I had rested. That pity was what hardened me for what I believed to be the rest of my short existence. I didn't want that pity and I promised myself that, no matter what, I would not be like Lucrecia and weakly bend to the wind. I still thought back then that Lucrecia had allowed herself to become Hojo's experiment because she was so weak.

"I met her for the last time afterwards. She was on the verge of ceasing to exist in this world, more of a ghost than anything else. I remembered my past through her, and I saw the raw emotion she showed for her son, Sephiroth. I started thinking again, about how she could let her child become a lab animal—a son she obviously loved so much. And I realized that it was because…as much as I hated to admit it…she loved Hojo." Vincent convulsively closed his hand into a fist, shaking his head slowly. "She loved that sick bastard so much that she gave her and her son's life away just to please him. And I knew then…that I would never, ever love anyone as much as she loved Hojo. So I thought until I found Aeris." He turned back towards the waterfall and began walking towards it. "So you see, Bahamut, even though it may sound totally irrational to an immortal like you, that is why I can't bring myself to tell Aeris that she isn't my real daughter. And that is why I will willingly sacrifice myself for her…"

…Because she's all the life I have left.

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