Chapter Fourteen
What Won't Fade
As Bahamut led the way into the
depths of the Crater, Vincent found himself falling in step with "Dusk", his
eyes involuntarily traveling back to the profile of the girl dressed in the
uniform of a Turk. She made no attempt to acknowledge his presence, keeping her
own eyes fastened to the weaving path Bahamut picked out.
What
do I say to her? Vincent thought, biting his lower lip in a rare gesture of
the showing of his nerves. "Hi, sorry I
never made it back, Hojo did the same thing to me as he did to you"? Or, maybe…
His lips twitched into an unseen humorless smile. "My, the weather's been sort of chilly lately, hasn't it?"
"Aya," he abruptly said, almost
bringing the girl to a sudden halt as she worked her way down the rocky
incline.
"I thought I told you that my name
is Dusk," she shot back, resuming her downward movement. "Aya died a long time
ago."
"Why, Aya?" Vincent asked, ignoring
the chilling look she sent over her shoulder at him. "What…what did Hojo do to
you?"
Dusk made a barely perceptible noise
of disgust. "Don't ask me. I don't know. All I know is that when I woke up, I
looked like this, and…" she glanced back at him again. "You weren't there. No
one I knew was there."
"I…" Vincent swallowed, unused to
saying what he was about to say. "I'm sorry. Hojo—"
"Don't," Dusk replied, waving a hand
back at him. "I know that whatever he did to me…he did to you, too. You don't
have to explain anything, Vincent. It's in your eyes."
Vincent leaned over to help Dusk
down a short drop, catching sight of a tiny, misshapen charm of some sort that
swung into sight on a silver chain hanging around the woman's neck. "What's
that?"
"This?" Dusk fingered the item in
question absently for a moment before tucking it back into her shirt. "It's
some sort of materia, I think. So I didn't have it on me before I was…?"
"No. I can't remember," Vincent
responded as he easily took the drop in one smooth jump. He turned around to
give Aeris a hand down when he saw Zeno already taking that job, carefully
supporting Aeris as she landed lightly onto the ground. Feeling slightly uneasy
but unable to pinpoint the reason, he turned away and caught up to Dusk. "It's
white. I don't think I've ever seen white battle-type materia before…"
"Yeah. That's why it's so strange."
Dusk shrugged. "It was with me when I woke up, though. I've never taken it off
since, and I probably never will. I've had it for so long since I escaped that
it feels like a part of me somehow."
"A part of you…" Vincent shook his
head. "I'm certain that I've never seen it before, though."
"Nevertheless, I'm keeping it." She
tilted her head to one side. "What's happened to Shinra, Vincent? Are they
still going? What about the Turks? And…is Hojo still alive?"
"Shinra…died five years ago, along with Hojo and most of Midgar.
It was taken over by a man named Reeve Sith, one of Cloud's…friends. And the
Turks…you know that we weren't exactly the cleanest bunch in the Shinra
faction. All of the Turks that are still alive have an alive-or-dead bounty on
their heads, including you and most probably me."
"So that's why all of those people
were chasing after me," Dusk mused.
"I don't know how Reeve got the
information on all of these Turks, though. He only knew four of them—Turks
Tseng, Reno, Rude, and Elena. Tseng was killed a long time ago, but the other
three are probably still running around out there if they haven't been caught
yet. But how he got the information on you, when you were much before his
time…and how he knew that you were still alive…that is all beyond my
reasoning."
"And…do you have a copy of my
bounty?"
"Just a moment. Yuffie," he said,
grabbing the collar of the ninja who was conveniently traveling in front of
them, muttering about something under her breath.
"Ow! Let go of me, you jerk!" Yuffie
yelped angrily, twisting around on Vincent's handhold.
"Does anyone happen to have a copy
of Dusk's bounty?"
"Yeah, right here." Yuffie fished
around in one of the pockets on her khaki shorts and handed the folded piece of
paper over her shoulder to Vincent. "Now let me go, vampire."
Vincent took the paper without a
thank-you and released the little ninja, ignoring the venomous glare and
impudent displaying of the tongue she presented him before she turned back to
the others. "Here." He offered the paper to Dusk without even looking at it.
Dusk skipped over the picture and
went straight to the description at the bottom, eyes narrowing. "I didn't do
half of these crimes they claim I did. 'Illegal smuggling'? Vincent, the
Intelligence sector didn't do anything like that. And…who's President Rufus
Shinra? It says that I was the one who murdered him."
"What?" Vincent took the paper back,
scanning it over. "You weren't awake in Rufus' time." He frowned and slipped
the sheet into the recesses of his cloak. "That's strange. Why would Reeve put
down false information like this? What is it about you that he wants eliminated
so badly?"
* * *
"So, um…your name's Zeno? That's a
pretty neat name," Aeris commented, trying to strike up a conversation between
herself and her silent companion for perhaps the tenth time.
Zeno shrugged. "Thank you."
"You got my name, right? I'm Aeris."
He nodded.
Aeris bit her lip in frustration.
From the position she and Zeno traveled in at the back of the group, she could
see a gray streak that was Bahamut followed by a mass of spiky blonde hair and
a long, brown, loosely tied tail. After them was the dirty-blonde hair of Cid
Highwind and the short, boyish dark brown haircut of Yuffie Kisaragi. In front
of herself and Zeno was her father and the woman called Dusk, both talking to
each other with the animation of zombies. She directed her gaze to the walls of
the crater as they descended deeper into it, watching the colors shift from
gray to grayish-green. Already the sunlight was almost unable to reach them
save for a few rods that hit in round, warm golden patches here and there.
Aeris turned her eyes to the opening of the crater, catching sight of the
downward trip's last bit of clear, beautiful blue sky.
"What was this place called? The
North Crater?" Aeris asked.
Zeno nodded again.
"Bahamut said that the Lifestream
was the closest to the surface over here. Is that true?"
He nodded yet another time.
"I almost can't see the sky already.
I can't wait to see it again, can you?"
A small shrug of his shoulders was
his reply this time around.
"Boy, it sure was a beautiful shade
of green today, wasn't it?"
"What was? The sky?" Zeno turned and
looked at her, his eyes meeting hers for the first time since they had started
moving into the Crater.
Aeris smiled. "Gotcha. I was just
checking to see if you were actually paying attention to me, or if you were
going off into La-La Land."
" 'La-La Land'? What's that?"
"You know, daydreaming. Thinking
about your own stuff." Aeris grinned mischievously up at him, twirling a lock
of hair around one finger. "I do that a lot. Dad says that it's not a good
habit, but the real world is so boring sometimes that I have to do something to
keep myself from dying of boredom."
"Hmm." Zeno turned his eyes back to
the front.
Not again, Aeris groaned
inwardly. For such a cute guy, he's
totally deadpan.
Her own comment slightly surprised
her. Up until the day Bahamut had arrived, her father was the only member of
the other gender that she knew—the only person she did know, in fact. Bahamut had been more like a mentor to her,
nothing more than a friend. And here she was, experiencing an emotion she had
never encountered before and was just as strange to her as the boy those
feelings were directed to.
Maybe
I'm finally growing up.
"Need a hand?" Zeno asked, extending
his towards Aeris. She blinked, realizing that if he hadn't broken her from her
thoughts, she probably would have ended up simply falling into the sudden, but
not fatal, drop that occurred in their path. He had already gone through the
obstacle so quickly that she hadn't noticed his movement.
"Oh…thank you." Aeris put her hand
into Zeno's, feeling a slight tingle move through her spine as skin touched
skin. She hopped down, letting Zeno take most of her weight into the support
formed by their hands and landing safely beside him.
"You're welcome." He let go once she
was safely on the path.
"So, um…is the blonde man your dad
or something?" Aeris asked, falling into step with Zeno once more.
"Who, Uncle Cloud?" he responded.
"No. He raised me when my mother died. I don't know who my father is."
"Oh." Aeris bit her lip. Bit of a touchy subject to bring up…
"It doesn't really bother me if you
ask," Zeno continued, almost as if he could read Aeris' mind. "I never knew my
parents anyway, so I quite frankly cannot feel any emotions for them in the
slightest."
"But—"
Zeno stopped in his tracks, ears
visibly pricking up. "Get down."
"What?" Was Aeris' reply before Zeno
forced her to the stony path with a firm hand on her shoulder. Out of the
corner of her eyes, she could see the travelers in front of them whirl around
at the sound of her hitting the ground. Through the other side of her eyes, she
saw a gleaming dagger appear in Zeno's free hand that somehow seemed to give
off a sickly, bloody red glow to her own eyes. A rusty-colored blur that easily
reached past Zeno's head launched itself at him, moving so quickly that it
remained a blur with no distinguishable characteristics that would identify it.
Before Aeris could blink, Zeno had
released her shoulder and the dagger he had held a moment before was buried
within the creature's long throat. It let out a gurgling howl of pain as he
lunged forward, ripping the weapon out of the wound with a sickening sound of
tearing flesh. But that didn't stop the creature; it simply flew back at Zeno,
greenish liquid dripping from the wound in its neck and its bright yellow eyes
flashing with fury.
Zeno had clearly been taken by
surprise this time around. An outstretched claw raked at the young man's
shoulder before he had himself fully cleared from the reptile's reach. Now
bright red was mixing with the scintillating green of the animal's blood,
splashing against each other on the ground in eye-catching contrast. Aeris let
out a squeak at the sight of the blood and forced herself to move backwards on
the ground, sliding right into her father's arms.
"Aeris! Are you okay?" Vincent
demanded as he grabbed his wide-eyed daughter's trembling form.
"I'm fine, dad, really!" she
insisted, nevertheless clutching to Vincent's cape.
The man named Cloud Strife came
hurrying up to them, managing to squeeze in between Dusk and Vincent despite
the narrow space provided by the path that was only haltered by a wall and a
drop to the bottom of the Crater. "Is she all right?" he demanded, glancing at
Aeris to check.
"She's fine," Vincent returned,
helping Aeris to her feet and supporting her as he moved away from the two
combatants. "I wouldn't know about your kid, though."
"How the hell did a Kajiha that big
manage to follow us from Wutai?" Yuffie yelled as she peered over Cloud's
shoulder.
Bahamut appeared in front of both
Cloud and Dusk so quickly that they couldn't even wonder how he had gotten
there. "Is that what you call them? Kajiha?"
"Where's Zeno?!" Tifa cried, running
up with Cid following.
A howl of pain answered her,
emitting from the Kajiha as it fell on its side, a new wound dripping green in
its side. It glared hatefully at the source of its agony and tormenter while
Zeno took the opportunity to grab the claw mark on his shoulder. He squeezed
the lips of the wounds together to try and stop the bleeding as best as he
could before the Kajiha threw itself at him again.
"This isn't going to work," Bahamut
muttered to himself. "Cloud, Dusk, get the others a little further down the
path and get yourselves flat on the ground. Whatever you do, don't look up
until I say so."
Dusk obeyed without question,
grabbing Cloud and herding the other away while muttering her instructions to
them. Cloud glanced over his shoulder as the hooded man moved towards the
Kajiha, who was busy eyeing Zeno up for another attack.
"What does that crazy old man think
he's doing?" Yuffie growled as she threw herself on the ground.
Bahamut put himself between the
Kajiha and Zeno, staff held at his side with the flawed crystal facing the
Kajiha. It let out a hissing snarl at the new obstacle, gathering itself to
leap again. At that, Bahamut snapped the staff forward, concentrating on the
power that came surging from his soul.
"Zeno, cover your eyes!" he warned
only a moment before the crystal on the staff exploded with a blinding light
that filled the entire North Crater. The Kajiha screamed a very human-like cry
of sheer terror and pain. Only Bahamut saw what happened to the reptile's
writhing form as it disintegrated into the heart of the blast, slowly melting
away until nothing remained of it except for the echoes of its scream. The
light disappeared with the Kajiha's body, seemingly sucked back into the
crystal that had formed it and taking even the Kajiha's scream with it. Bahamut
nodded to himself before lifting the staff over his shoulder and turning to the
others who still lay facedown.
"It's all right now," he called to
them. Bahamut glanced over his shoulder at Zeno, who was staring at him with
narrowed black eyes while blood dripped unnoticed from his shoulder.
"Who are you?" Zeno asked softly.
Bahamut smiled toothily, baring his
pointed teeth in what was almost a threat.
"Who do I look like I am to you…?"
Aeris' form moving towards Zeno
interrupted Bahamut's line of vision. She knelt beside the young man, mouth
opening in shock. "Zeno, are you okay?! You're bleeding!"
Zeno shrugged. "I'm fine." He
one-handedly ripped the ruined sleeve off of his shoulder, discarding the
bloody parts and beginning to wind the rest around his wound.
"Here, let me do that." Aeris took
the cloth and deftly finished the job, securing it with a tight knot.
He studied her with his midnight
eyes. "Thank you."
Aeris felt a blush coming under the
scrutiny of Zeno, so she hid her face quickly with a duck of her head.
"Um…you're…you're welcome." Oh, boy…if he
caught that…
Cloud was at Zeno's other side in a
matter of seconds, checking the wrapped shoulder with the brisk efficiency of
one who had seen many wounds in his life as a fighter. "Hopefully, the Kajiha
didn't have poisonous talons. Can you stand, Zeno?"
Zeno lifted himself to his feet in
reply, using his unhurt arm as leverage. "I'm fine," he told Tifa before she
said anything as she hurried up to him.
"Are you sure, Zeno?" Tifa asked
anxiously. "That Kajiha was much bigger than the first one…"
He shrugged with his good shoulder,
a strangely lopsided gesture. "It took me by surprise. I should probably keep
my guard up even more now."
"That…mutated dragon was a native to
the Crater," Bahamut said softly. "It was just protecting its home." For an
instant, Cloud caught a flash of sadness and pain in the man's crimson eyes.
Then he straightened up, glancing towards the rest of the group. "We're nearby
the heart of the Crater. Everyone, be on your guards—attacks like these will
become more frequent as we progress further in."
As the rest of the group turned to
follow Bahamut, Aeris glanced up at Zeno once more. "Does your shoulder hurt?"
"I'm fine," he assured her shortly.
He nodded ahead at the others. "Let's go."
Aeris remembered nodding and taking
one step forward ahead of Zeno when there was the noise of cloth sliding
against stone behind her. She whirled around just in time to see Zeno collapse
on his side, landing roughly on his wounded shoulder and not noticing in the
least.
"Zeno? Zeno?!" she cried out in alarm, dropping to her knees and touching
an outstretched hand. She almost drew back immediately in shock, for Zeno's
skin, as warm and pulsing full of life as she had remembered it before, was now
as cold as the ground underneath her knees. His pulse was lucid but slow,
beating so irregularly with such unnatural intervals between each throb that
she had almost thought he died before the next pulse came to her searching
fingers. All Aeris could think of was the Kajiha and the gash in Zeno's
shoulder that was bleeding once more through the cloth of his makeshift
bandage.
She was roughly pulled back by her
father's hand as he crouched in her place, feeling Zeno's pulse as she had
done. "Cloud!" He immediately called over his shoulder. "You'd better come
here! This doesn't look too good!"
Although Cloud immediately began
recklessly running towards them, it was Bahamut who still managed to reach the
unmoving body before him. Bahamut grabbed Zeno's neck, eyes widening distinctly
from underneath the confines of his hood.
"What happened?" he demanded, fixing
his gaze on Aeris.
"I d-don't know," she stammered,
almost on the verge of tears of helplessness. "I…he told me that we should
start following you, and th-then…he just f-fell over!"
"Was it the Kajiha?" Cloud shot at
Bahamut, icy blue eyes piercing through Bahamut's own red ones.
Bahamut shook his head. "No.
That…Kajiha, as you call it, had no poison capabilities. This…is unnatural. I
have no idea what would cause such a death-like reaction as this…"
Aeris was pulled away from Zeno as
the others rushed in to see what had happened, and she let them do it. Tears
began to trickle down her face unchecked as she squeezed herself as small as
she could against the side of the Crater.
And Zeno's light devouring eyes,
wide open and staring mindlessly into nothing, ceaselessly plagued her thoughts
until she let herself fall into oblivion.
