Section Three: Russet Seraph
Vincent's POV. About his life, about Nibelheim, about being a Turk, about his family, about Lucrecia.
Song: Vertical Horizon - Everything you want
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I'm the one they called Vincent Valentine.
Ex-Turk.
Now Demon against my own free will.
But always a monster.
Maybe I deserve everything that's ever happened in my life. Maybe it was fate that stopped me from being with the only woman I ever loved.
I was always a monster. The only difference now is that I perceive to be like one. Blood coloured eyes that could frighten the bravest of men. A brass claw that could pierce skin as easily as a knife through butter. A demon on the inside. Chaos. A demon I lose myself to day by day. Maybe one day I will transform and never turn back.
Maybe I don't care.
I have nothing to live for.
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You're waiting for someone.
To put you together.
You're waiting for someone to push you away.
There's always another wound to discover.
There's always something more you wish he'd say.
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I'm Condemned. I have made too many sins in my life, all of which I repent for now. I have made no end of people look down the barrel of my Death Penalty. I slaughtered anyone Shinra told me to, may it be grown men, or year old children. I killed for the gil in my pocket and the clothes on my back. The sad thing is, I never regretted being a Turk. I never regretted killing all those people.
The only thing I regret was not killing Hojo when I had the chance. I let the one I loved, the one I respected most, face the worst. No matter how many times I say that sentence, it never gets any better.
And that is my sin.
Along with the thousand other transgressions I have in my soul. I let Hojo do his experiment. I let Lucrecia become his research specimen. I let the near destroyer of the world be born. I was unable to stop them.
Perhaps I should tell you my story. My anguish, my love, my life. I suppose the best place to start would be my childhood.
In short, I was an unpleasant child, a spoilt brat. I realise this is not how people normally perceive me. Very little people know the real Vincent Valentine.
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"No!"
"But Vincent, it's only...."
"No!" I wailed, stood in the corner of my room. I believe one of the many nanny's I had, was trying to get me to wear a bow tie. It has completely slipped my mind why she was doing so.
"Vincent! you'll do as I say."
"I said No!"
"You're father will be unhappy."
"I don't care!" I pushed past the nanny to the bathroom opposite my room. Slamming the door shut, I locked it.
"Vincent! You'll be late and your father won't be happy!"
"I don't care! I hate him!"
"I have better things to do than argue with you all night, young man."
"No you don't." I had stopped yelling by this time, my voice had soften to a whisper. She wasn't supposed to here what I said, but she did.
"Excuse me?" The nanny's voice had drop a little in tone.
"You're paid to look after me. Why would you have better things to do?" I heard the woman huff then storm off, muttering something about not putting up with this job anymore. I grinned to myself, another nanny gone. That was the fifth in two months. I heard footstep outside in the hall. I gathered my father had seen the woman leave.
"Vincent?" My father. Like all children, I could wrap him round my little finger. I knew how to win him around. As he knocked on the door, I started to make myself cry, something I knew also got to him. I thought myself very tactful for a nine year old.
"What?" I sobbed from inside the bathroom.
I have this sense that you're beginning to hate me. Maybe you should.
"Vincent, what's wrong?" My father answered back, a touch of sympathy in his voice.
"Nothing."
"Vincent, open the door." I did as he told me. Un-clicking the latch, I opened the door slightly.
"She was mean to me." I said softly, in a voice that sounded like I had been weeping for hours. He held his arms out, so I walked into them, letting him hug me. A slight grin appeared on my face. I had gotten out of trouble, yet again.
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Sometimes, I find myself wanting to change the past. If you glanced at me now, you would never assume I was the child I used to be. You can be grateful to Hojo for that.
As I grew older, my parents got less and less resilient with me. When I was fourteen, they decided to send me to boarding school in Mideel. I suppose a little bit of me resented them more after that.
I left when I was eighteen, proclaiming to them I wanted to be a Turk.
Maybe I only wanted to be a Turk because I knew my parents would be against it.
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"I won't let no son of mine become a Turk!"
"You wouldn't understand anyway." I murmured to myself.
"They murder, steal, kidnap! That's not the type of job you want!" He yelled at me. My mother was stood in the background, keeping quiet like she always did.
"Well what job would you want me to have? A stupid executive job like you!?"
"At least it's an honest job, Vincent."
"No matter what you, it won't change me mind." I suppose that night, my father had lost all the tolerance he had gained over the last eighteen years. He grabbed hold of my collar and threw me against the wall, holding me up against it while he whispered harshly in my ear.
"Vincent. You will not become a Turk, understand?" All my attention was focused on the man in front of me. I barely remember my mother shouting in the background at him to let me go. I never answered him. He threw me against the wall again, to reinforce his point. "Understand?"
"There's nothing you can do to change my mind." I said in a deadly tone. That night, I conceivably went a little bit closer to becoming the man I am now. With the strength I never knew I possessed, I pushed my father backwards. He fell, hitting his head on the marble mantelpiece as he did. His body slumped against the floor. He never got up.
I had killed my own father.
What was worse was that I didn't feel anything.
No guilt, no sadness. In fact, I even felt a little relieved.
Now you see why I was always a monster.
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Out of the island
Into the highway
Past the places where you might have turned
You never did notice
But you still hide away
The anger of angels who won't return
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I did become a Turk, as you all very well know. I was a Turk for nine years. I somewhat kept myself to myself. We primarily operated on our own, there was no need to have contact with the other Turks. I killed. I kidnapped. I did everything Shinra told me to.
When you're told about love when you're young, you never believe it'll happen to you. But when it does, it normally happens at the worst time. Love makes you feel all diverse emotions at once, something that you thought was quite impossible.
Happiness.
Contentment.
Serenity.
But it can also make you envious, spiteful and animosity.
I met the most beautiful looking lady I had ever seen in my life. She was an assistant to Professor Gast of the Jenova Project. Beautiful Lucrecia. I found out I would be a armament to the scientist team that were scheduled to work at a remote town for a few months.
So there I went, to the beginning of my nightmares, to the place where all nightmares seem to commence.
Nibelheim.
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I was strolling down one of the hallways in the Shinra mansion in Nibelheim. The mansion was warm and cosy thirty years ago, all the decor remained intact. I barely noticed the young woman that collided into me. Whatever papers she was carrying, spilt on to the floor. I quickly bent down, picking up the files, mumbling my apologies. From the corner of my eye, I noticed her stop for a minute. I glanced at her for a few moments.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going." She meekly told me.
"It's my fault. I should have been looking where I was going." I carried on picking up the papers, handing them back to the woman. "You seem to have a lot on your mind?" She smiled at me gently.
"It's just all the business with this project. We're quite busy you see."
"Ah, you must be Lucrecia then?" I held out my hand for her to shake. She took it.
"And you must be Mr. Valentine?"
"Vincent." I offered her.
"Vincent then." The clock in the hall chimed. She turned to glance at it. "I'd better be going." She said hastily as she walked off. I watched as she scuttled down the corridor, taking the door down to the basement.
I've never been the over-sentimental type, but for some reason, I was utterly besotted over her.
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They say love makes you do the strangest things. I'm beginning to believe that saying. I met Lucrecia several times after that. I found myself wanting to know more about the Jenova project. I always was the inquisitive individual. I wished I never found out. If I didn't, perhaps I would be a sixty year old man now, instead of rotting away in a never aging body.
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I had been at Nibelheim for a few months. I found myself getting used to a routine that didn't involve killing, or kidnapping anybody. I found myself loving Lucrecia more than I did before. To make her unwind, I decided to take her on a walk round the village. I wanted to ask her some issues related to the project. I established that Hojo was planning to experiment on an unborn baby.
I never did like Hojo all that much. He just seemed to be a foolish scientist to me.
I was surprised that while walking round the quaint little town, she took old of my hand. I just let her, trying not to show my incredulity.
"How's the project going?" Is how I started the conversation. She looked at the floor, shuffling her feet about in the gravel of the path.
"Pretty well. Professor Hojo wants to test the Jenova cells on a human being." She muttered. She wrote an L in the rocky path. I frowned at her.
"He seems a bit... imprudent to me. Human life isn't something to be toyed with." I answered her truthfully. She nodded her head slightly. "What's bothering you?" I foolishly asked.
"Nothing." I took hold of both her hands.
"There's something troubling you." I stated. She looked me in the eye.
"Vincent.... I can't be with you. I'm having Professor Hojo's baby for the Jenova project." Her eyes started to water. "I'm sorry." She whispered shakily before running off.
"Lucrecia!" I shouted to her. At that moment in time, it didn't hit me that she didn't want to be with me. What hit me more, was that a beautiful woman like her, was donating herself to science. To a project that no one really cared about. A few minutes later, I realised. She didn't want to be with me. My last thought before rage consumed me was, if she's happy, then I don't mind. I couldn't make her love me. All I wanted was for her to be happy. But the thought of human's being donated to science was something I was not happy with.
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He's everything you want
He's everything you need
He's everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
He says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But he means nothing to you
And you don't know why
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In the angered state I was in, I marched down to the basement laboratory. Even me, a Turk, wasn't supposed to be down there. I found Lucrecia stood next to the man named Hojo.
"I'm against it! Why experiments on humans!?" I yelled as soon as I entered the laboratory. Did I ever mention I used to speak before I thought?
"She and I are both Scientists!!" He hissed back at me. "It has nothing to do with you what I experiment on!"
"Haven't you ever heard of the value of human life!? You can't treat someone, especially her, like this!" Pointing to the upset young woman behind Hojo's back. The professor walked up to me. Behind a good head shorter than myself didn't seem to bother him.
"Listen to me Valentine, and listen good." He murmured. "You can't stop me, understand? You're nothing but a lowly Shinra lackey. Now get out of my lab!" I clenched my fists as tight as they would get, before turning around and storming back out of the laboratory.
I never saw Lucrecia again after that night.
I didn't want to acknowledge the appalling experiment that was going on under my feet.
I remembered hearing about the baby when it was born.
Sephiroth, he called him.
I felt the anger boiling up within me once again. Seven months after I last set foot in the laboratory, I was there again. I found Hojo, tinkering about with one of his side experiments.
"Are you happy with yourself?" I asked him, a deadly tint to my voice.
"Excuse me?" The professor asked as if he hadn't heard me.
"Are you happy with yourself? Bringing up a child to know nothing more than experiment after experiment. It's not right for a child to grow up like that. And whatever happened to Lucrecia!?" My hand fingered the gun I had in my holster. I didn't care if I lost my job, Hojo didn't deserve the right to live.
"Miss Harding, is no longer needed. As for the child, it can't hurt him if he doesn't know what's it's like to grow up normally." He sneered at me. He pulled the gun from out of his coat, pointing it at my lower abdomen. Before I realised what he was doing, he pulled the trigger. Excruciating pain went through my stomach. I fell to the floor. "As for you Mr Valentine." I vaguely heard him speak. "You'll make a nice experiment yourself." I passed out.
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I'm everything you want
I'm everything you need
I'm everything inside of you
That you wish you could be
I says all the right things
At exactly the right time
But I mean nothing to you
And I don't know why
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This body I now reside in, is the punishment that's been given to me. I was unable to stop Hojo. All I could do was watch. I couldn't stop them.
And that is my sin.
I thought my sleep would give me time to atone.
It has not.
I still suffer guilt from the fact the world was nearly destroyed, because I couldn't stop a simple experiment. Millions of people lost their lives because of the Jenova project, in one way or another.
Hearing other people's stories about Sephiroth adds yet more sins.
I shall sleep now.
Sleep with the knowledge that I shall have more nightmares than I previously had.
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