Disclaimer: I don't own Vincent, Yuffie, Chaos or Wutai. Or anything else you may have seen first in FFVII. Obviously I don't own the tea ceremony, but I don't think I got it right anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
A/N: ^_^ Enjoy the mental eye-candy. *grin*
GREY SKY MORNING
Part III: Learning Not to Love
Learning not to love others leads to not loving oneself any longer.
~ Anonymous (found in a Baci ^.^)
Vincent was curious, despite himself, of what Yuffie had planned. Scant minutes after Chaos had finished its rampage, she had strode into the section of the cave he had told her his past in and demanded that he leave so she could have a bath. Yuffie the Apparently Shameless had been wearing nothing but one of the less picnic rug-like of the blankets he had stashed with his old items. Her extra clothes were bundled under one arm. Vincent had stubbornly kept his eyes trained on her face, schooling the blush from his face with the ease of long practice. He had been shooed from the cavern with the hot springs on orders not to go out to the main cavern, with another 'towel' for when it was his turn. Now, waiting patiently near the narrow gap that led to the springs, Vincent wondered when Yuffie would return from the main cavern to get him.
"Don't you come out until I come back and tell you I'm ready, okay, Vinnie?"
Vincent looked at his drying cape and shirt. They would be wet for an hour or so, yet. He was wearing only his black pants and boots, having bathed. His wet hair was tied back in a queue while it, too, dried.
Vincent looked up as Yuffie, properly dressed once more, walked back around the corner, hefting her club. Vincent breathed in and frowned as a scent he remembered came with her. He couldn't quite decide what it was. Yuffie caught sight of him, too, blinking several times before she spoke.
"Uh... you can come back out now." Wooooow. Aaaabs. Aaaaarms. Yuffie thought dazedly, trying not to goggle like a moron. I wonder if he'll get really angry if I totally shred his cloak and shirt and stuff? Regaining some of her dignity, she gave Vincent a pointed look and he stood fluidly, the muscles in his stomach rippling as he moved. "Follow me, Vinnie."
Vincent wondered what on the Planet this was all about. He refrained from asking. It was not in his nature to ask questions that would surely be answered within a relatively short timeframe.
Yuffie walked a little faster, turning the corner so that she was out of his line of sight. When next he saw her, he stopped short in surprise. The cave had been laid out like a Wutaian tea room. Yuffie was kneeling on one of the blankets, her hands folded demurely in her lap, eyes downcast like a true Wutaian lady. Before her lay an empty bowl and a tin pot filled with what Vincent recognised as tea. That had been the spicy smell. He stood, uncertain for a moment, then knelt on the blanket obviously meant for him. Yuffie looked up at him through her lashes and Vincent felt an odd tingle of electricity in his stomach. They bowed.
Yuffie pushed herself forward on her knees and with much ceremony poured the tea into the earthenware bowl. Solemnly, she turned the bowl three times and handed it to Vincent. They bowed again. Steam curled from the small bowl and Vincent drank cautiously. Yuffie breathed a sigh of relief when it became apparent that the tea wasn't scalding, or tasted like crap. She hadn't messed up. Vincent's eyes, closed while he drank, opened again, catching hers. He turned the bowl three times and held it out for her. This time Yuffie wasn't so careful and their fingers brushed. As they bowed, Yuffie struggled to keep the blood from her cheeks.
What the?! She shrieked mentally as she drank, the spicy sweet tea having half the calming effect it usually had on her. Why the hell am I going all girly over that? Gawds! She drained the bowl and replaced it, where it sat beside the empty pot. Yuffie, feeling better than she had since her 'sacrifice' (albiet still embarrassed), bowed once more to Vincent, who was watching her shrewdly. Yuffie smiled at him.
The old Wutaian ceremony had restored a ceertain measure of peace to Vincent's soul. Chaos no longer rent the edges of his consciousness. The soothing tea he had hated when he was a youth had even managed to calm the demon. Vincent watched the young girl before him, feeling a profound sense of gratitude for her act. Obviously she had recognised that he had been Wutaian and had known that the tea ceremony would calm his turmoil. He wonderd whether the normally proud and brattish teenager had thought of it that way, or whether it had been some deeper instinct guiding her. Either way, he owed her his thanks.
Yuffie spoke. "I thought I'd better apologise for prying... seing's I made you tell me so much, I figured it was only fair that I told you about myself, too."
Vincent opened his mouth to tell her it was unnecessary, but Yuffie had already begun.
"My mother was Lady Amaya. She married my father, Godo Kisaragi, the seventeenth descendant of the Kisaragi bloodline. They were a house of ninja... the Shinobi... I expect you've heard of them." Vincent nodded, vaguely surprised to hear that she was of that line. "When I was four, Mama died in the Great War, protecting the village. The Great General Sephiroth was the one who killed her. My Dad fell apart after that - all his real power withered away into nothing. For the last twelve years, Wutai has been nothing but a dinky tourist-trap, not the blood, oath and honour place it was before." Yuffie's hands were clenched on her knees. "All our ancestry was just trampelled by the Shinra when they took over. My father didn't like it, but he was too weak to stop them, and so were the Five Mighty Gods." She sounded incredibly bitter for one so young.
"Dad only trained me to be a ninja because it was what Mama wanted. He sent me off to other continents to steal materia off travellers. I was totally bent on restoring Wutai, but then the demon started kicking up dust. The tourism went to hell and Godo was just too damn pathetic to fight, just like last time. And just like last time, there had to be a sacrifice, only this time it was me."
Vincent was silent, apparently engrossed by her tale. Yuffie looked at him and noticed with disappointment that he did not look much happier. In fact, he did not look happy in te remotest sense of the word. She suppressed a sigh and looked down at her hands. I guess I can't expect a miracle...
"...Yuffie." Vincent's voice sounded strained. "Sephiroth... how old would you say...?"
"Um. I dunno. He must've been about my age now." Yuffie shivered. "I was with Mama... his eyes were... so cold... just empty..."
Vincent closed his garnet eyes, head tilted to the ceiling. When he spoke, his voice was as toneless as she remembered Sephiroth's had been all those years ago. "More sins added to the list... all the destruction, all the misery that could have been prevented..."
"What are you talking about, Vinnie?" Yuffie asked, confused and slightly alarmed. Vincent's eyes slid slowly open, but they were like to stagnant pools. No life flitted beneath the smooth garnet surface.
"...the same Sephiroth could have been taken away from Hojo... from Jenova. He could have been my son." Vincent murmured. Yuffie stared at him as though he were crazy.
"That's impossible!" She declared. "If he hadn't died five years back, Sephiroth would be the same age as you! Round about." She added, not knowing Vincent's exact age.
Vincent stood wearily, swaying a little because of the lack of circulation to his legs. He held up his claw and stared at it balefully. "When Hojo gave me this he... changed me. I do not age as you do." He said it as though it was not quite all. Yuffie stared at him in incomprehension for several seconds. As he walked away, she made a noise in her throat that made him add, "...thirty years, I slept in that mansion... thirty years..."
Yuffie stared after him blankly before her mind slowly started to recognise events. So he's... what... immortal? Gawds, imagine looking that good forever... what the @#$%?! What am I thinking? Oh, ew, he's like thirty and he's really sixty and I am thinking this why?!
Noisily she piled the tin and the bowl together and picked up the blankets. Shoving them into the tunnel with her bone club, Yuffie thought she heard something. She paused. Nothing. She got down on her stomach and pushed the wadded blankets down the tunnel before her. They caught on the stone, ripping out threads. Yuffie sighed and tugger at them impatiently. The loud tearing sound in the confined space might have masked the roar had the entire cave not quaked with its fury. Yuffie's heart stopped, then started up again with beats like a hummingbird's wings. Frantically, the teenager pushed at the bundle, trying to make enough room so that she would be safe inside the crawlspace, but only succeeded in further ensnaring them and tangling her club into the mess. Through the stone another roar reverberated, much closer this time. Yuffie could hear the tread of the demon's talonned feet. It was in the main cavern. Panicking, she tried to force her way past the clot of blankets, knowing her legs were still in the open, knowing it was far too late.
She screamed and clawed at the rock tunnel with both hands as she felt the demon seize her legs. Wounds opened in her palms from the sharp rock, but the tunnel afforded her no shelter. She was hauled out of it as though she were no more than a struggling, terrified rabbit. She screamed at the top of her lungs with a volume that nearly drowned out the triumphant blast of Chaos.
It flung her into a wall. She slid to the ground, dazed and bleeding, but still screaming. "VINCENT! VINCENT!" She shrieked, hoping to all the gods she knew that he was coming to help her. She had no weapon but the tiny hunting knife, and with bleeding, ruined hands there was no way she could defeat the demon. "Vincent!" She curled into a ball, clutching her bleeding hands to her chest. Leviathan, Da Chao, help me...
Chaos roared, enraged and filled with hunger from the scent of the blood and the weak human female. Promises to the host meant nothing when it was in control. Any human it found was rightful prey. Yet the tiny, frail creature was still sobbing, chanting the name over and over like a mantra.
"Vincent... Vincent... Vincent..."
Her distressed cries meant nothing to Chaos. But they meant something to the host, as did the eyes huge with fear and filled with tears. They mattered not to the demon, but to the host those eyes seared over the wasteland of soul.
"Vincent..."
The call was weaker, more hopeless, as the girl realised that the caped man was not going to save her this time. Chaos swiped at her, throwing her backwards across the cavfe floor. It loomed above her, teeth bared in its horrible, leering snarl.
"...Vincent..."
The eyes closed, accepting defeat, as Chaos felt the warmth gush over its claws. But even as the satisfaction of knowing that a kill was near washed over it, a wall slammed into the brief peace of the beast, battering its will aside. It roared, confused.
YUFFIE!
"...Vin... Vincent..." The eyes cracked open once more to see demonic features melt away into pale skin, the wings folding and shrinking away. Only the burning ruby eyes remained the same, and the blood that gushed life over his hands. Chaos had sliced open Yuffie's shoulder. She lay, weakening, on the cold cave floor. For the first time in many years, Vincent Valentine felt. The emotion was fear.
There was fear in the eyes, too, the eyes that saw through him now. The eyes. He had to save the eyes. He had to save the eyes that had called him back, through the power of the demon. Touching the handgun at his waist, he found the Restore materia. He murmured the spell as he cast, willing Yuffie's eyes to stop flickereing so horribly closed. "Cure2. Cure2. Cure2." He was tired, so tired. The demon howled in fury behind its prison walls, sapping his strength as Yuffie was slowly healed. Vincent finally lost the battle with complete exhaustion, toppling into blackness, Yuffie and a puddle of dark blood.
*
Fire. Fire in her arm. Hypersensitive skin made the weight on top of her into tonnes of agonising pressure. She moaned. Get it off... make the pain stop... The weight shifted slightly. It was breathing. Vincent. It's Vincent. Relief flooded her veins before Chaos could intervene. Vincent is Chaos. Chaos. Holy Leviathan... Chaos. Yuffie froze, hardly daring to breathe. She didn't want to cause Vincent to inadvertantly transform into the demon. Trying to ignore the pain in her shoulder and arm, Yuffie opened her eyes.
Vincent was sprawled across her, crushing her sensitive arm, he head resting on her stomach. The bronze claw pricked her hip with its deadly razor fingers. Vincent shifted again, muttering incoherently. The claw tightened slightly and Yuffie made a nervous sound in her throat. It didn't hurt, but the dread that it would start hurting very soon made her afraid. The sharp pricks she felt through the faded denim of her shorts were completely at odds with the sleeping countenance of Vincent. Though the dream he was having was obviously less than pleasant, his pale features were smooth and calm. The black hair trailed down his pale back - he had not had the chance to don his shirt and cape before the demon had taken over. Yuffie wondered how such an outwardly quiet and - it had to be said - sweet man could become a monster like Chaos. She sighed loudly and sneezed.
Vincent's eyes snapped open, the glowing red flaring dangerously. Yuffie froze, fear rising to choke her. Vincent appeared to recognise her. His human hand, resting on her shoulder, squeezed gently. "...Yuffie. I stopped the demon... I can control it more, now..." His voice was soft and raw, but he seemed pleased by this. He blinked slowly and a tiny smile spread across his lips. "I stopped it from hurting you more."
"Y-Yeah." Yuffie agreed shakily. It was true, after all. She shifted uncomfortably, wincing at the stiffness in her body. Vincent appeared to realise he was using her as a pillow and sat up, blushing slightly, begging her pardon. Yuffie sat up and gasped as she realised she had been lying in a pool of blood. Her own. She slid away, reluctant to put her hands down in the sticky gore, and discovered that her clothes were stained beyond saving with it. She moaned and stood up, moving away. "Oh, grossness..."
Vincent looked down at the dried blood on his hands and sighed. Grossness indeed. And what must she think of me? My deceit of her has been necessary, but great.
As though to echo his thought, Yuffie spoke. "Why didn't you tell me, Vincent? You told me everything else."
Vincent looked troubled. "..."
"It would have helped." Yuffie murmured disconsolately, rubbing her arms. Vincent was filled with an urge to comfort her, but as he started towards he, hands raised in appeal, she backed away, shaking her head. "Stay back, Vincent. I need space..."
Vincent looked at the new scar across her shoulder, the blood on his hands. His shoulders slumped. "...forgive me... I thought it was for the best." Slowly he backed away from the shaking girl. On the other side of the cavern, he turned and fled into the depths of the cave, leaving a trembling Yuffie all alone.
She sank to the ground, holding back ears of shock. Despite what she had told Vincent, what she felt like right now was a hug. But not from a demon... oh gawds. I want to go home... Home. The Pagoda. Godo. Familiarity. She didn't care if he condemned her for failing Wutai so long as the first thing she got from him was a hug. Shivering convulsively, she got to her feet and began to stagger for the mouth of the cave.
"...you are leaving."
Yuffie let out a squeak and spun around to see Vincent, dressed once more and looking more forlorn and lifeless than she had ever seen him. Almost her resolve broke. Almost she felt for him. Almost. "Y-yes."
Vincent did not waver. "It was a pleasure to have you, Miss Kisaragi." It would be a joke to tell her he looked forward to seeing her again. He told himself he did not. Yet it had been a pleasure. Never have I felt so accepted than when in the company of one who was so equally alone. Yuffie nodded, not believing his words. The eyes stirred fear in Vincent again. His human hand began to unbuckle his cloak. "Please," he heard himself ask softly. "...it is a long walk to Wutai." He finished aimlessly, holding out the cloak for her to take. Her fingers shook horribly as she tried to take it from him. Eventually Vincent draped it around her shoulders and buckled it loosely, careful not to touch her.
Yuffie clutched at the cape as others might a security blanket, huddled beneath its scarlet warmth. She walked away, out of the cave. The princess gave no thanks. The beast did not expect any.
*
A/N: *weeps* Arw. Poor Yuffie. Poor Vinnie. Y_Y Last chapter coming up! Short, I know, but... meh. Thankyou for reading. Please review! ^^