Chapter Twenty-One
Beyond the Shadow of Memory
Two hours after fruitless searching
of every inch of the tightly sealed cell, Cloud gave up and slumped against the
locked door of the room, the tips of his spiked hair touching his pulled up
legs as he half-hung his head in despair. "That little bastard," he whispered
quietly. "Why couldn't he understand?"
"Money, Cloud," Cid snorted, lying
on his back on one of the lumpy cots. He shifted his weight in an attempt to
get comfortable that proved to be just as hopeless as Cloud's earlier search.
"Money makes the world go around, kid."
Vincent sat in a cross-legged
position, wedged in one of the corners of the place with his arms crossed and
his cape spread over his shoulders. "It was Aya, too," he said softly. "They
took her because of what she is."
Cloud's head bounced back up as he
fixed the dark man with his sapphire eyes. "Speaking of which, Vincent, I think
it's about time you told us just who 'Aya' is. You knew her from before, didn't
you?"
Vincent nodded slowly, crimson eyes
narrowing for a bare breath. "I knew her when she truly was still Aya, not the
woman you both know as Dusk. I can't remember very far back, but I know that we
were close, like brother and sister. She was the only family I can remember. We
joined the Turks at almost the same time, just a year from each other. I can't
remember who inspired who to join, though; we were both just looking for jobs
that suited our street lives, and the position of a Turk was there. The Turks
were newly established at that time, but Shinra had been around for at least a
decade before that. The old Shinra President Cloud served under had just picked
up the business from his father that decade after the establishment and began
expanding his forces with the Shinra walls. This included the founding of the
Turks, whose real jobs were to actually carry out all of the dirty work that
Shinra himself couldn't handle, and the hiring of Hojo, who was a few years
older than me. The Intelligence Sector—the Turks—never really met nor talked
with any of the members of the other sections, unless we were assigned on a
mission together."
Vincent reached inside his cape and
pulled out a slightly wrinkled sheet of paper that he extended towards Cloud.
Cloud leaned forward and recognized Dusk's wanted flyer, his eyes moving
immediately to the picture centered on the paper.
"This wasn't our first mission as
Turks, but it was the first time we had been assigned to work with the science
section. We were told to go to the Icicle area and guard the scientists, and
that was all. As Turks, we only needed to know the essentials of the reasons
for the trip. We were going up there to investigate the entire area in general,
and to find out why it was continuously cold. It was a matter that was not of
interest among us four Turks that were assigned there, although we did wonder
why they wanted so many Turks to guard just two scientists.
"That was when I first met Hojo and
Lucrecia. They were the two scientists who were investigating this matter, and
I learned soon enough that they often worked together. At that time…I don't
think I really knew Lucrecia enough. I kept my distance from the scientists and
guarded the house that they worked in, along with Aya and the other two.
Lucrecia took this picture, among others, to send back with the portfolio to
Shinra. She made sure to take at least one centered shot of each person
assigned to the mission, and then sent it back by a chocobo messenger who was
passing through Icicle Inn."
"So that's where that picture came
from," Cloud remarked offhandedly. "But how did Aya change into Dusk? I mean,
Aya looked really…happy back then. Now, she's just the most serious person I've
ever met, besides you."
Vincent quietly ignored the jab at
his personality and chose to answer Cloud's question instead. "The day before
we were to leave and return to Midgar, Icicle Inn was attacked by a two-headed
monster that had supposedly emerged from the depths of Gaea's Cliffs. We were
caught unaware—the biggest shame of the Turks. Aya and I only survived the
first blow because we were protecting the two scientists and leading them away
from the fight, warning as many townspeople as we could. When we returned, both
of the other Turks were dead." His voice hesitated slightly as he bent his head
forward, memories that had long been shut away in the back of his mind
returning with a vengeance.
* * *
The
creature roared triumphantly just as Aya and Vincent skidded to a halt in a
flurry of kicked up snow that briefly obscured their line of vision. When it
had cleared, the first thing they saw were the two lizard-like heads looming
above them, balancing upon slender necks that joined at the base and ended in
one shared shuddering mass of a scaled body. The next thing was Alan, the
eldest—and the first—of the Turks, his brown head slanted crookedly to the side
and his hazel eyes glazed over in death. He lay on the snow-covered ground that
was stained scarlet with his own blood, a deep red rose blossoming over his
heart and spreading slowly through the vest of his navy blue jacket. Alan's
mouth was open in a soundless and forever frozen look of astonishment, as if he
had just seen Death in the face but hadn't comprehended the true meaning of the
apparition until it was too late.
Aya
took a step forward but leaped backwards into Vincent almost immediately after,
eyes moving swiftly to the ground and the object she had just stepped on. It
was the already broken leg of the youngest and newly recruited Turk, Jonathon.
Blood was flowing forth from the broken leg anew, caused by the re-breaking of
Jonathon's leg, a result of the hard heel of Aya's boot. He was more of a
broken rag doll than Alan, with his limbs askew in what would have been an
extremely uncomfortable position for any living human. His face was ashy gray,
but his eyes and mouth were closed, unlike Alan's. Blood ran in a shocking
trickle from the corner of his closed lips, dripping unheeded into a tiny
puddle by the side of his face.
"Jon…"
Aya let out a tiny whimper of sorrow at her discovery. Vincent put a blind hand
on her shoulder, giving as much comfort as he could at such a critical time.
Because he was the newest and the youngest, Jonathon had been taken under Aya's
sisterly wing, allowing her to "show him the ropes" of the life of a Turk. He
had adored her as a little brother worshipped a dependable older sister,
trusting her entirely on everything in this, his first mission. Vincent could
grudgingly admit that he had been getting a little unsettled by the fawning
looks Aya and Jon exchanged between themselves more than once, and perhaps also
at the fact that Aya had practically shoved another member of her and Vincent's
close-knit family under his nose. But despite all of that, Jon still had become
a member of the "family" of outsiders, the duo expanding into a trio and two of
the three members on the lookout for more lonely additions to their group.
So
Vincent could understand why she felt so much grief at the boy's death.
Vincent
let Aya grieve for one more moment before he returned his complete attention to
the two-headed lizard that they faced. Or rather, the tail of the monster that
they currently were looking at. The animal had turned itself around while Aya
and Vincent had been distracted by the bodies of their allies and was busying
itself with the destruction of an abandoned factory-type house. It ripped into
the building with a mindless glee that was expressed by both heads.
"Let's
go, Aya," Vincent finally growled. "We can't just let this thing remain here,
or it'll destroy everything."
Aya
slowly raised her head and nodded, reaching for the long sword she carried over
her back. "And afterwards, let's bury Alan and Jon."
Vincent
nodded in agreement, checking the ammunition in one gun and fingering the other
that he kept in a holster for emergencies. "I'll go for the heads while they're
distracted, and you try to come around and finish it, okay?"
"I'll
do that," Aya replied instantly. "You back me up. I'm going to have to get
pretty close to do any major damage, anyway."
Vincent
hesitated. "You know that I'm not the best shot with these, Aya. You might get
hit by accident."
"I'll
take the risk." Aya shrugged before she sent Vincent one last grin. "Besides,
you would never shoot your little sister, would you?"
"Little
sister, indeed," Vincent snorted. "I'm going behind the trees. Give me the
signal when you're going to go for it." He slipped away before hearing Aya's
assent, picking a fairly well hidden place in the treetops that would let him
see enough to aim accurately. No sooner had he swung to his hiding place than
he heard Aya's signal that came in the form of a sharp, trilling whistle anyone
could mistake for a birdcall, especially in the forest that he was in right
now.
Anyone
except for him, that is. Vincent had his gun at the ready and cocked, squinting
downwards and aligning the closer of the two heads with the point of his gun.
Aya came hurtling into view, moving with the speed that her slender body
provided her with and making the longest leap Vincent had ever seen her take to
bring her first blow to the lizard's chest. The blade bit into the scales, but
bounced away in a shower of sparks that made both heads snort in surprise. Aya backpedaled
a short distance, eyebrows raising in surprise before she threw herself back at
the monster, this time scooting around to the rear.
She won't be able to make a good
blow unless she hacks away continuously at one spot, Vincent realized. Her arms aren't strong enough. Even then, her
blade would probably break before she'd make a decent wound—it's too thin. By
that time, this monster thing would probably be picking her from its teeth. I
have to back her up good enough…
Taking
careful aim through his peephole in the foliage, Vincent let his first shot go
off at the head he had been pointing towards. The head turned at the same time
he let off his shot, causing the bullet to miss the soft cheek area and instead
bounce off of the well-protected forehead, ricocheting into some unknown
destination away from the monster. The head blinked and shook its head stupidly
for a brief moment before its red eyes narrowed in anger.
What the…oh, crap. Vincent barely had the thought out of his
head before he gathered his legs beneath him on his unsteady tree branch perch
and propelled himself away from the place, going back into the open but not
caring in the least. The tree he had been hiding in was covered in an encasing
of white mist that had issued forth from the head's gaping mouth. When the mist
had dissipated, all that was left behind was the tree clearly frozen in a huge
chunk of ice. Vincent shuddered at the thought of himself trapped in there as
well before he came out of his roll and crouched back on his feet, bringing his
eyes up to check his position.
A
thick string of dark olive green uncoiled itself and slammed itself into his
chest, flinging him backwards to crash into the trunk of a tree. Vincent's head
spun with the contact of both tail and tree, his hand loosing the gun he had
been using before to let it fall with his body to the ground. He blinked
dazedly just in time to see the monster's tail bringing itself around to swing
at him again, both of the heads glaring over their respective shoulders at him.
He ducked, covering the back of his head as the tree he had been resting
against exploded into splinters with the contact of the tail, wincing as sharp
bits of wood bit into his unprotected hands and lodged themselves into the back
of his jacket. Immediately, he rolled behind a bush before the tail could come
at him again, almost curling around himself in pain as his ribs reminded him
that they, too, had just been hit with the same force that had decimated a
tree.
I might want to lay low for a while,
he thought. But…where's Aya?
Aya
screamed in reply to his thoughts, making him bring his head up sharply to peer
once more through the bush despite the complaints of his ribs. The head Vincent
had shot at earlier had the girl dangling from its mouth by a leg that was
clearly broken and was swinging her around like how a dog worries away at a
bone. The other head was snapping impatiently at Aya each time she swung
towards it, sometimes coming away with parts of her clothing missing but
luckily nothing else. At that rate, though, soon it wouldn't be just her loose
bits of clothing that would be ending up in the other head's hungry mouth.
Vincent
shot out of hiding before he could think, grabbing his spare gun and letting
all of the shots in that round out without hesitating. One lodged itself in the
cheek that he had been aiming for earlier, another clipped the ear of the
second head, and the rest either ended up in the monster's two necks or
disappeared into the air. He dropped the empty gun and ran straight towards the
monster, moving as quickly as his legs would take him.
As
expected, the head that had been shot in the cheek let out a rough scream of
outraged pain, throwing its head back to the sky and dropping Aya in the
process. She fell like a limp piece of discarded garbage, Vincent barely
managing to catch her before she hit the ground—a blow that would have surely
finished her, if the beating she had received before hadn't. He stumbled in his
steps but doggedly continued forward, clutching Aya to him as he practically
flew into the depths of a vacated home.
Vincent
set Aya down onto an empty couch as gently as he could, carefully arranging her
in a position that would provide her with comfort and the reassurance that she
would not fall off of. She sobbed in the back of her throat and opened her dark
brown eyes, lifting them towards him with a painful effort.
"Vincent…"
she croaked.
"Hold
still, Aya," he whispered softly. "It's not over yet. Are you comfortable
enough?"
"I
can't…" Aya winced as she tried to move the leg the monster had been biting
through. "I can't…I can't move…"
Worried,
Vincent felt her pulse and grew even more alarmed at the way it fluttered like
terrified butterfly wings beneath his fingers. "Is your heartbeat supposed to
be that fast? I…I'm not good at things like this…"
"Hurry,
Vincent," Aya mumbled as her eyes began to slide shut again. "You have to…get
rid of…that monster…"
"All
right, Aya. You just rest, okay?" Vincent remained for as long as he dared,
just long enough to watch her slip into a deep slumber. As soon as she did, he
grabbed up a nearby blanket and wrapped it as tightly as he could hope to
without causing any more damage around her broken leg, making one last attempt
to staunch the blood that seeped from the slices on the limb. Then he rose and
walked calmly out of the house, shutting the door behind him.
The
monster's head that had been shot in the cheek was busily pawing at the wound
angrily while the other head looked on anxiously, making encouraging chirps
under its breath while ignoring its slightly bleeding ear. Taking the
advantage, Vincent glanced around quickly to find any weapons of any sort.
His
eyes fell immediately upon a silver object sticking out of the snow nearby the
lizard creature's tail. He focused in on it, recognizing it as Aya's sword. It
was the only suitable weapon that he could find.
Vincent
shot forward again and had his hands wrapped around the hilt of the long sword
in a second, tightening his grip involuntarily as the head with the bloody ear
whipped around on its neck and glared at him. He yanked the sword out of the
ground and brought it around in a clumsy arc, swinging it down with all of his
strength onto the thick tail in front of him.
The
limb was severed with that one blow, the sword slicing through both sides of
the tail but snapping in half as soon as it had done its job. Vincent still
clung to the half-broken blade's hilt and jumped out of the way as both heads
roared once more in a mixture of pain and astonishment. The head that had been
glaring at him earlier opened its mouth and spat fire at the place where
Vincent had been standing, instead burning its severed tail to a pile of ash
and cauterizing the stump where Vincent had made his blow. Vincent wrinkled his
nose at the pungent odor of live flesh burning with sizzling crackles while the
two-headed lizard, seemingly short in the brain department, did a dance of
agony in reaction to its burned wound. He glanced down at the stump and saw to
his disappointment that the wound had been sealed completely shut by the scales
melting around it, leaving no opening for the lizard to slowly bleed to death.
He
rushed forward again, eyes narrowing as he focused on his one target while the
lizard slowly brought its heads around to try and catch the lanky animal that
menaced it constantly. Vincent used the jagged ends of the sword to stab the
belly of the creature, leaving the remains of the blade stuck to the hilt in
the scaled body. He vaulted over the back of the lizard without bothering to
try and grab the blade again and began to run away from the writhing mass of
the monster.
It
shrieked and swung a paw full of claws at him, knocking him away once more, but
this time he mercifully didn't land against a tree trunk. Vincent still hit the
ground hard enough to cause him to cry out as pain ran anew through his chest,
closing his eyes tightly against the snow that flew up in a small blizzard
around him.
He
heard the lizard-thing behind him inhale, one of the heads preparing to let its
power loose upon him and finish him once and for all. He threw his hands
outward, scrabbling for a tree branch, a handhold, a rock—anything.
Vincent's
hands closed around a familiar grip that came readily to him. He sat up and
pointed the gun he had started off with at the gaping mouth in front of him,
too terrified to do anything other than shoot. The bullet flew straight down
the gullet of the head and its eyes, amusingly enough, went cross-eyed from the
shock. Vincent wasted no time as he spun to his feet and took aim once more,
this time shooting directly through the gelatinous eye of the head he had just
shot. It let out a wheezing cry of despair before it fell over, leaving just
the other head behind. The remaining head looked in shock at its brother—sister?—before
it began trying to clamber away, dragging its dead twin head beside it.
Vincent
took grim aim again and shot the fleeing head straight and true through its
eye, the bullet traveling the same path as its mate and piercing through the
brain of the monster. This time, it fell without a single cry, first the head
and then the body landing with twin ground-shaking thuds that were slightly
muffled by the trampled blanket of snow beneath its form. The body's sides
expanded in one last shuddering breath before contracting and becoming still
without a single bit of evidence of life ever residing there.
Dropping
his gun in exhaustion, Vincent collapsed to his hands and knees and was
contemplating on following the two-headed lizard's example before he remembered
Aya. He drew himself painfully to his feet and rushed back into the house he
had left her in, ignoring the pale faces of the townspeople and the two
scientists who had all begun to return once they had felt the tremors of the
fall of the monster.
Vincent
found Aya in the same position as he had left her, her eyes closed and her
chest rising and falling with agonizing deliberation. He knelt beside her,
feeling her pulse once more and despairing when he discovered that the
fluttering wings of the butterfly had not slowed down any more than the rate it
had been at before.
"Is
she still alive?" a woman's gentle, soft voice asked behind him. Vincent
whirled around on his knees to find both of the scientists standing in the
doorway of the house. The woman wore a look of clear gratitude mixed plainly
with concern on her face, while the man kept his own face a mask of cool
indifference.
"Barely,"
Vincent replied, turning back towards the young woman he considered his only
family. She let out a weak cough and opened her eyes again to meet his.
"Aya…hang on."
"Vin…cent…"
she breathed, the pain that occurred when she spoke written in ever line of her
face. "I…don't know…if I can…go back…"
"Shh,"
Vincent whispered comfortingly while his own heart cried out in horror at her
weakness. "You're going to be fine, Aya. Don't worry."
"No,
she won't," the male scientist announced matter-of-factly as he stepped up
beside Vincent, examining Aya with a critical eye. "At best, she has two more
hours. Even without that broken leg, she's lost enough blood so that—"
"Shut
up!" Vincent growled from between his clenched teeth. "Just shut up, okay? Do
you think that I don't know that?!"
"Then
why try to hide the inevitable?" the man returned calmly.
"Hojo,
stop," the woman pleaded as she moved towards her fellow scientist. "Can't you
see that the poor girl's suffering enough already? And stop talking about her
as if she isn't here. Can't you do anything about her?"
"I'm
a scientist, Lucrecia, not a doctor," Hojo snapped. "There's nothing that I can
do."
"Surely
you can," Lucrecia whispered sadly. "There must be some way to save her at
least."
Hojo
began to say something before he snapped his mouth shut and closed his eyes,
thinking. Abruptly, he opened them and grinned, an action that should have put
Vincent at ease but instead made his hair stand on end.
"I
have a possible solution to the problem," Hojo announced, fidgeting in his
obvious excitement. "Carry the girl and follow me, Turk."
Biting
back a cutting remark, Vincent lifted Aya into his arms as gently as he could.
She tilted her head to rest against his shoulder, closing her eyes as if she
fought against an unseen enemy inside of her mind. He walked after the
scientist as smoothly as he could, putting all of his concentration into
carrying Aya while Lucrecia brought up the rear.
Hojo
stopped at the building in the far back of the Icicle Inn town where the two
scientists had been working diligently at day in and out. He turned around at
the door, glancing towards Lucrecia.
"Stay
here, please," he requested mildly, "and watch the door for me."
Lucrecia
nodded and waited for Vincent to enter before she closed the door behind him
and took up guard. Vincent followed Hojo once more, glancing sideways occasionally
as they took a winding path through darkened rooms full of jars of glowing
green liquid that occasionally held strange bits and pieces of what apparently
had once belonged to a living thing. He shuddered within his mind at the sight
of a floating human hand and kept his eyes fixed on the white-clad back of the
man in front of him.
Hojo
stopped at the door of the room in the farthest part of the house. He reached
deep within his lab coat's pocket and pulled out a key that he inserted into
the knob of the door, turning it with a click and opening the now unlocked door
while placing the key back into his pocket. He motioned for Vincent to enter,
closing the door behind him once he was inside.
Vincent stared at the place that was too big
for a closet, but too small for a complete room. Foremost in a corner was a
long, cylindrical glass tank lying on its side that was filled with the same
green liquid he had seen throughout the house. In a different corner were piles
of paperwork stacked on top of more paperwork with a gleaming long sword of a
type Vincent had never seen before leaning against a stack. Various papers were
pinned up on the walls, pictures of various people he didn't recognize mixed
with lines of notes placed their apparently for immediate reference. The room
in its whole entirety was a dark place that was only lit by the eerie light of
the tank of liquid. He frowned pensively as Hojo moved forward and opened an
almost invisible door in the side of the tank that faced upwards, nodding towards
Vincent.
"Put
her in here," he instructed.
"Why?"
Vincent asked suspiciously as he felt Aya shiver in fear or simply from the
chill that was in this room. "What is this, anyway?"
Hojo
regarded Vincent with a bored, slightly supercilious look. "The concept may be
difficult for one such as yourself to understand, but I will make my best
effort to explain it to you as lucidly as possible. This tank contains fluids
directly from the Lifestream. Do not ask me how or when I got it, but it proves
to be very useful in my research. Now, what it also does is support life within
it. The girl, if put inside of here, will be able to survive and heal properly
by herself and with the aid of the Lifestream fluid."
"How
long will it take?"
Hojo
shrugged. "That's a price to the deal. I don't know. This is relatively new,
and I've never tested it before on a full living human. I am rather eager to
discover the results, however."
Vincent
was silent as he cradled Aya to him. Finally, he said, "I can't decide for her.
This is Aya's life…and I can't do anything about it."
Hojo
leaned towards the girl, peering over the frames of his glasses. "Well?"
Aya
drew one long, shuddering breath and glanced up at Vincent with eyes that, for
the first time since Vincent could remember in a while, were filled with fear.
"Vincent?"
Vincent
recognized her fear for what it represented, realization dawning in his mind as
he nodded to her. She's
afraid of being alone. When her parents died…and when my parents died…we were
both alone, save for each other…
"Don't
worry," he whispered gently. "I'll be waiting for you, right here, when you
wake up."
"Promise…?"
"I
promise."
Aya
shifted her head so that she could meet Hojo's dull yellow eyes. "I'll do it."
Hojo
smiled again. "Wise decision." He reached out and picked up a slender injecting
needle that was filled with a bloody red liquid that glowed just as readily as
the Lifestream inside of the tank. "This injection will help you adjust to the
new environment more readily and ensure quicker recovery." With one deft
movement, he reached out, took a secure grasp on Aya's arm, and released the
contents of the needle into a vein.
Aya
blanched when the fluids entered her body, biting her lip. "I feel funny."
"Side
affects of the injection," Hojo explained. "Oh, and be warned that you might be
a little…different when you wake up. They're just slight physical and possibly
mental changes due to the combination of the injection and the Lifestream
treatment. None of them are anything serious to be truly worried about. Are you
ready?"
Aya
nodded and looked back up at Vincent. "I'll see you soon, I hope."
Vincent
moved over to the tank and slowly lowered Aya's body into the glowing
Lifestream, watching as she half-lidded her eyes and inhaled her last breath of
air. He released her before she was totally submerged and stepped away, seeing
her eyes move underneath her half-closed lids and travel in his direction.
"I
promise," he whispered again, more for his own reassurance than Aya's before
she shut her eyes completely and disappeared beneath the shifting green
surface.
* * *
"But I never came back and was
forbidden to," Vincent finished, resettling his cape around him. "When we left,
Hojo safeguarded the room so that no one could enter and told me that he would
return regularly and update me on Aya's recovery. In all the years that
followed, he only went back to Icicle Inn twice and never once allowed me to
go. Every time he came back, he seemed more pleased and excited than ever
before but simply told me that Aya was still recovering and hadn't awakened
yet. Then I was assigned on the Nibelheim mission with Lucrecia and Hojo, and
then…" His eyes narrowed from beneath the midnight bangs of his hair. "You know
the rest."
Cid whistled quietly from between
his teeth. "I was right. That girl has been through a lot."
"Then she's really…how old?" Cloud scratched his head.
"Physically, twenty-three," Vincent
replied. "She was just on the verge of turning twenty-four, as I was nearing my
twenty-third birthday as well. The injection that Hojo gave her was really the
Jenova cells that he later tested on me, and finally himself much later. It
also stopped her aging, so she and I are, in essence, immortal.
Chronologically, Aya—or Dusk, if you will—is almost fifty-nine years old. I was
taken for the experimentation less than five years later and, as a result,
continued aging physically until that time. It was when I had just reached my
twenty-seventh year that I was assigned to Nibelheim, and Hojo took me as his
second guinea pig." He seemed to retreat into the corner he leaned on, wrapping
the folds of his cape more firmly about his shoulders. "Now I would suggest
getting some sleep. There is no way of telling when we will get out of here, or
what happens next."
Cloud watched as Vincent firmly
closed his eyes and Cid leaned back on his cot. He decided to remain where he
was against the door so that he would be able to warn the others when someone
was approaching and shut his eyes as well.
Vincent, although his eyes were
closed, feigned his sleep. He still could not recall his past before joining
the Turks, but what he could remember provided enough pain for him.
The
pain can either make me stronger or reduce me to nothing, he thought. What is my choice?
For the first time in many years,
Vincent's dreamless slumbers were filled with images that came to him with
stark clarity and left wounds long healed over open and bleeding once more.
