TO DEFINE EVIL

CHAPTER SEVEN: GATHERING FORCES or WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

Disclaimer:  Square Soft and lots of other people own Final Fantasy, not me.  I'm just temporarily enjoying the playground they left behind. . . no sense in letting it go to waste!

By the way, I love C&C on my writing.  A quick word will make me happy, but

if you want to spend the time telling me what I should change, or what you liked best, I'd be delighted!  Thanks

for reading.

****************************************************************

CHAPTER SEVEN: GATHERING FORCES or WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

    Cloud woke up to a throbbing headache and the sound of murmured voices.  He was laying on a mattress on the floor, bandages wrapped loosely over much of his body.  He sensed that someone was sitting beside him, but couldn't summon the energy to move his head and look, afraid it would make the pain in his head worse.  Still, he got the impression of something red. Cloud reached out a hand and touched a sheet of soft leather, thick and well worn, pooled on the floor.

    "Vincent?"  His voice was barely more than a breath, but the other man heard him.  "Where. . .?"

    "We're in Wutai.  Yuffie's gathering her army."

    "Not. . . enough . . . gotta. . ."  Cloud's voice disappeared in a fit of coughing.

    Vincent paused.  Cloud sensed him get up and walk away.  A second later he heard a door slide open.  "Barret?  Red?" Vincent called quietly. "Cloud's awake and has something important to tell us.  Would you gather the others?"  

    "What?"

    "Sure, I'll get them."  Heavy footsteps pounded off at a run.

    Satisfied that the others were going to come, Vincent came back and knelt beside Cloud, helping him to a sitting position and stacking some pillows for him to lean against.  Cloud nodded his gratitude.

    Tifa hurried in, followed by the others. 

    She hesitated just inside the door.

    "Cloud. . ."

    "Hey, let us in!"  Yuffie elbowed her aside and darted into the room, clad in the stark black and gold uniform of the Wutai military like she had been ever since they returned from the monastery.  The others piled in after her.

    "Good to see ya up, kid."  Barrett grinned.

    "How come your hair is still spiky even after you've been asleep for four days?"  The pilot of the Highwind grumbled around his cigarette, reaching up to scratch at his moderately hairless head.

    "What did you want to tell us?  Vincent gave the impression that it was very important," Red commented, cutting through the chatter.  Cloud nodded, licking his lips as he tried to talk.  Dang but his throat was dry.  Logical if he'd been asleep for four days, but his lungs hurt with each breath also, and he wasn't sure that his jaw wouldn't fall off it he opened it.  He licked his lips and gave it a try anyhow.

    "Danger. . . Stop. . . Sephiroth. . ."

    "Aw, fuck, you had me worried there for a minute,"  Cid laughed, wiping the sweat off his brown and removing his hand from the spear where he'd unconsciously placed it when Cloud said, "Danger."  "Monster-boy's dead.  The permanent, lacking a head, and corpse dissolving into the lifestream type of dead."  He grinned broadly.  "I killed him."

    Cloud smiled slightly at the other man's bragging, but shook his head, the effort making him wince with pain.  "He'll return." He hesitated, trying to get enough air to talk more.  "Saw it. . . in his mind. . . as fell."

    Just before the darkness of unconsciousness had enveloped him completely, the sense of falling, of terror, of a voice. . .

"No. . .it can't be. . . please, not again. . .  I can't, not again. . .  Please don't. . .  I'll do anything you want, just don't let them kill me again . . . It hurts to die. . .  Please. . ."

    Cloud shook off the memory of Sephiroth's pleading voice and focused on his friends.  "Lifestream. . .won't accept him. . . The Jenova contamination would damage it. . ."  he paused, closing his eyes.  Somehow, the longer he was awake, the better he felt. Maybe because the human spirit was made of lifestream energy and mako, and when he was awake his consciousness forced down the Jenova energy that kept him from drawing healing mako from the planet.  Barett set Tifa down next to him, and she covered one of his large calloused hands in her tiny one.  He opened his eyes and smiled at her, sharing a moment of relief.  "The lifestream recreates his body, then tosses him out again."

    "What??!!"  Yuffie yelped.  "You mean, no matter how many times we kill him, he'll keep coming back?"

         "'I am eternal. . .'"  Vincent quoted, shaking his head in disbelief.  He laughed shortly at the impossibility of it all.

    "Stop laughing, you idiot!  This ain't funny!"  Barrett growled, "What the hell are we supposed to do?"

    "I thought the lifestream was supposed to be on our side!!"  Cid snapped.  "What the hell is it thinking?"

    "Not. . . thinking. . . Just instinct."  Cloud coughed weakly.  "Self-survival first and all that."

    "At least we know that he won't be trying to get Nibro's super weapon," Red commented, ever optimistic, cocking his head as he tried to find some silver lining.  "He made it obvious that he was only interested in Cloud.  And we have successfully rescued Cloud.  So now we only have two separate missions, stopping Sephiroth and stopping the Heiwa monastery, instead of three interconnecting ones."

    "Yeah, but one of those missions is fucking impossible!"  Cid yelped, throwing his hands up in the air.  "That is, if Cloud is telling the truth."

    "How dare you imply that Cloud might be lying??"  Tifa snapped.

    "Hey, I didn't say that.  Just that silver hair might have been messing with his mind, you know?  It's perfectly possible." 

    "How sure of this are you, Cloud?" Vincent asked, his voice almost as quiet as Cloud's. 

    "Sephiroth is sure that it's true."

    "It is a fact that we killed him before and that he came back."  Red sighed.

  Vincent shrugged, leaving Cloud to Tifa's care as he stood and stared at a picture on the wall: empty mountain cliffs coated in snow, a gust of cold wind racing down from the icy peaks to rustle the needles of a scraggily pine in the foreground.  Lucretia, my beloved, I'm sorry.  I tried to bring your son peace once before, but it seems I failed, and I can't see how I can succeed this time either.  But I will do everything in my power to try and save him . . .no matter what the cost . . .   Cloud was looking at him strangely.  Vincent wondered if the younger man had heard his thoughts.   A month ago he wouldn't even have considered the possibility, but Sephiroth had had no trouble reading his mind, and to a large extent Cloud and Sephiroth were the same. . . except in personality and ethics, of course, he added hurriedly, just in case Cloud had been listening.  But the blond didn't react, seemingly absorbed in something Barrett was saying.

    ". . . we gonna do??"  Barrett waved his gun arm in irritation, obviously wishing he could just blast the problem away.  "We gotta stop him somehow or he'll destroy mankind again!!"

    Cloud hesitated, looking thoughtful.  "I'm not actually sure that's necessary. . ."

    "No. . .it can't be. . . please, not again. . .  I can't, not again. . .  Please don't. . .  I'll do anything you want, just don't let them kill me again . . . It hurts to die. . .  Please. . ."

Sephiroth's dying words whispered through his mind again.

    "What the hell are you talking about??  Of course we gotta stop him!  You heard him back at the monastery!  He wants to turn you into his little pet and take over the planet! He still got some sort of disgusting hold over your mind or something??  Or Jenova. . . That's it, Vincent said you felt strange, like the lifestream had left you, and only Jenova remained."  Barrett swallowed and stepped back, trying to decide whether to train his gun arm on Cloud or not.

    "Like only Jenova remained?"  Cloud frowned and shook his head in puzzlement.  "Oh, yeah.  I used up all my mako energy casting that spell.  I thought it would kill me, but apparently the Jenova energy was enough to keep me alive, and keep us safe as we fell.  But I'm conscious now, so apparently the lifestream is replenishing me.  Vincent?"

"Huh?"  Still thinking about his lover and whether Cloud could read his thoughts, Vincent was unusually confused.  "Oh. . ."  He closed his eyes and concentrated.  "No, Cloud feels like normal, the mako balancing out the Jenova.  The odd feeling is gone."

"And Sephiroth's dead at the moment, and so he can't control me. . ."  Cloud shook his head, not realizing how very odd that sounded.  "I think I'm safe to be around for now.  Back to my previous comment . . . Sephiroth didn't say he wanted to take over the planet.  He wanted to make it so I couldn't attack him, and the planet couldn't oppose him. . ."  He hesitated again, knowing what people's reactions to his next sentence were likely to be.  "As we fell, he was terrified of dying again.  He said it hurt. . ."

    Tifa got the point immediately.  "You mean he tried to kill off every human on the Planet with the Meteor. . ."

    "Because Zack, a human, killed him once before, knocking him into the lifestream.  He wanted to make sure no one could ever hurt him like that again."  Cloud nodded.  "I think so."

    Red blinked.  "I thought Zack just knocked him into the lifestream then, not killed him.  I mean, you and Tifa were knocked into the lifestream without dying."

    "Maybe he didn't die that time then.  But in any case, I think it was probably very painful for him.  Mako is Jenova's opposite, remember- they cancel each other out of existence when they comes in contact.  I don't know what Hojo did to let Sephiroth and I survive without tearing apart, but I bet that's what happened to him in the lifestream.  After all, I had sworn myself to defend the planet when I fell in; the planet had a reason to protect me, and probably managed to keep the lifestream from coming in contact with the Jenova in my blood.  When I pushed Sephiroth in, he had decided that humans were liars who would hurt him, and he might even have already given himself wholly over to Jenova.  The planet would have had no reason to protect him, and might had deliberately tried to erase him from existence, even though it was destroying part of itself at the same time."

    "But Sephiroth survived because the Jenova was buried in his soul."  Everyone looked at Vincent when he spoke.   "Hojo mentioned it while he worked on me.  That was how he got the mako and Jenova to mingle in you.  Apparently souls are a different form of mako than the lifestream, with different properties.  It's like iron and carbon.  Solid iron won't mix with coal; they'll just sit next to each other.  But melted iron will absorb the coal and create steel.  In the same way, mako and Jenova normally mutually destroy each other, but if the mako is in the 'liquid' form of a soul, Jenova can co-exist with it."

    "But . . ." Cid protested, his cigarette hanging loose from his mouth.

    "And the Jenova might have changed the soul so that it could no longer lose its self-definition to join with the lifestream."  Red nodded.  "The Jenova probably buried itself within the soul, completely encased so the lifestream couldn't touch it.  And the lifestream couldn't force Sephiroth's soul to dissolve, so it had no way of forcing through to destroy the Jenova.  Still, it would have been a constant war until the lifestream gave up, creating a new body for him and kicking his soul out."

    "And Sephiroth himself was the unfortunate battleground for that war," Vincent murmured.  Poor boy. . .

    "And he was just so scared of it happening again he decided to destroy all humans and the entire lifesteam. . ."  Yuffie's eyes were wide in a mix of awe and horror.

    "Aeris must have known," Tifa said quietly.  "Maybe she never figured out how to explain it to us, or had her own reasons for keeping quiet.  She never talked about killing Sephiroth, just defeating him.  But she never had time to tell us how to defeat  him otherwise."

    "Or maybe she didn't know how. . ."  Red murmured.

    Cloud relaxed slightly.  They believed him. . . not that that solved anything. . .  He wasn't sure why it was important that they knew that, but there was a half formed idea tingling in the back of his mind.

    "So what the hell are we supposed to do with him?  Just keep killing him every- let's see, it's been two years since we killed him, so it takes about two years for him to reincarnate- we're supposed to fight him every two years???  Hell, even us would lose eventually, just by bad luck!  And what about after we die?"

    Cloud and Vincent shared a look.  Vincent smiled with sad, glowing red eyes and looked away.  When we die. . .  Cloud bit his lip and concentrated on the conversation again.  "Actually, I don't think that it takes him two years to reincarnate.  I got the impression that it's already happened multiple times, he's just so weak when he comes back that monsters kill him again before he recovers enough strength to protect himself.  That's why he summoned me back when I disappeared on the way to Mideel.  He had been to weak to contact me when I was in Midgar, but once I wandered close by, he could control me and use my body to defend his own till he recovered."

    "Multiple times. . ." Tifa took a deep breath.  "Your strange illnesses, when you collapsed and seemed to be in so much pain. . .  Every time he dies, you feel the pain, don't you?  And when he's in the lifestream, you still feel his pain, just lessened so it seems like you have a constant flu."  She reached out to touch his unburned cheek hesitantly.  He looked away.  "Cloud. . ."  She murmured, looking worried. 

    He covered the hand against his cheek, holding the comforting warmth pressed there.  "I'll be Ok, Tifa.  It's not bad; I don't remember it, remember?  It's more important to stop Sephiroth from destroying anything else."  The entire company shifted uncomfortably.  Cloud finally looked up.  "Oh, stop it, you guys."  He shook his head in exasperation.  "We gotta stop Sephiroth.  I'm certainly much, much better off when he's dead than when he's alive, regardless of what else that entails.  I'd much rather be sick than a puppet!"

    Yuffie gasped in sudden realization, stumbling backwards and tripping so she sat on her bum in the dust.  She didn't even seem to notice, staring at Cloud in confusion and pity.  Then another idea hit her and she glanced over at Vincent.  "You guys. . . you have Jenova in your souls too, don't you?  When you die. . .  That's not fair!!  You're the good guys!"  She leapt to her feet, brushing herself off absent-mindedly.  "And Cloud shouldn't have to feel it when Sephiroth dies!  What sort of sadistic bastard designed this world?"  Everyone was looking at her as she sniffled, wiping her fist angrily across her face.  When her hand fell away, her eyes were burning with the righteous fury found only in youth and insanity.  "It's NOT fair!!"

    "We don't know that,"  Red said gently, having apparently considered the issue already.  The flame on the end of his tail dimmed slightly though, betraying his worry.  "Cloud and Vincent have done a great deal for the Planet.  It will probably do it's best to protect them, just as it did when Cloud fell in."

    "It doesn't matter."  Cloud said firmly.  "If that's the price of protecting the planet, then I'm willing to pay it.  But we have more important things to discuss.  Assuming it takes Sephiroth three weeks to be reincarnated, we have three weeks to deal with that fake monastery before we have to deal with him.  If worst comes to worse, then yes, we'll kill him again, or lock him up where he can't cause problems or something.  They're not set solutions, because someday in the future someone won't be strong enough to kill him, or he'll escape, but it'll do till we come up with something better."

    "Now what about the monastery?"  Cloud had fallen instinctively back into his role as leader of the group. 

    "I'm readying the Wutaian military," Yuffie offered.  "Six squadrons could march now, but it'll be at least a few more days before the rest of the army can gather."

    "Six squadrons would just be a slaughter.  We'll wait.  Actually, no offense, but why just use the Wutai armies?  The more numbers we have, the better our odds of success are, the faster we can topple them and get to the weapon, and the more likely that they'll surrender without much fighting.   Why don't we call up Reeve and get the Shinra army to come also?  I'm not sure how much he could send in such short notice, but Junon's pretty close, and they have one hell of an arsenal."

    Everyone stared at him.  Barett scratched his head.  "Yeah, I guess we could ask Shinra for help. . ."  He sounded doubtful.

    Cloud rolled his eyes.  "It's not Shinra, it's Reeve.  Cait Sith, remember?  Our friend?"

    "Yeah, but the troops will be Shinra troops."  Tifa pointed out.

    "And they don't particularly like Wutai.  We were at war a generation ago, remember?"  Yuffie frowned, not likeing the idea of a large number of potentially hostile soldiers invading her soil.

    "They don't even particularly like Reeve, cuz he cut their budget so much.  They might not even obey him."  Cid shook his head.  "I know that I disobeyed Shinra every time they did something I didn't like, just to show my opinion, when I was building that rocket for them."

    "And Shinra troops sure as hell don't like Avalanche!  And we don't like them!"  Barrett nodded decisively.  He'd have banged his gun arm on a table, but there wasn't one around.

    "Guys. . ."  Cloud sighed.  At least he'd gotten them to change the subject.  "We're talking about protecting Midgar.  Even Shinra troops would be willing to work with us to accomplish that, I think.  And Yuffie, I know you don't want Shinra troops here, but face it, Wutai is a part of the Shinra Empire now, and as such, you might as well use Shinra troops to protect yourself.  Unless you're planning on rebelling soon, which maybe you are, now that the Shinra military's been partially disbanded?"  He cocked an eyebrow in question.  She shook her head negatively.

    "I used to want to- but it would cause so much upset, and everyone's suffered so much.  Even though I bet Reeve wouldn't turn it into a war, he'd just give us our independence. . . It's not worth it now though.  If we lost trade with Shinra, hell, even if we just lost the tourist trade, the economy would fall apart so fast. . .  Everyone has more chance of survival if we all work together.  But I don't want us to lose what makes us Wutai either.  I want us to keep some independence, if we can."

     "Talk about that with Reeve,"  Cloud ordered.  "For now, we're trying to keep another set of dictators like the old Shinra from rising.  Because trust me, while Reeve will work with you, they won't."

    Yuffie nodded.  "I guess I'd better be the one to contact Reeve then, huh?  Since Wutai is still a semi-sovereign state, it'll have to be an official diplomatic request for military aid."

    "Thanks, Yuffie."  Cloud smiled at her.  She shook her head.  "How do you get me to do things so easily?  Or more to the point, how come you're always correct about these things?"  She held up a hand quickly. "Don't answer that!  I've got a secure connection to Midgar in my office; I'll use that."

    "Just a sec, I ain't working with no damn Shinra troops!  They'll stab us in the back!"  Barett bellowed.  "Maybe it's logical and all, but they are gonna make sure that if anyone dies out there, it's gonna be Avalanche!"

    "You don't have to go if you don't want to, Barrett.  Neither do the rest of you.  It would be nice, because I trust you, and you're good fighters, but this attack is going to be won by numbers and firepower, not individual skill.  It won't hurt things too much if you don't come."

    Barrett opened his mouth, but Cloud held up a hand to keep him from saying anything.  "Don't decide now, just think about it for a while, Ok?  Go ahead and call, Yuffie."

    "Yeah. . ."  Yuffie headed out, glancing behind her uncomfortably.

    "Well, we'd better let you get some more sleep, you're still injured and all. . ."  Cid hesitated and then motioned everyone towards the door.

    "I'll stay."  Tifa said softly.

    "Ok then.  See ya later this evening, Cloud, Tifa."  Cid hurried out.

    "Later you two," Red said, and the others followed him out, each murmuring their good-byes.

    Cloud sighed.  "Could you help me lay back down, Tifa?"

    She nodded, and let him lean against him as she removed the pillows and he fell back against the white cotton sheets.

    "Thanks."

    She nodded again, and grabbing one of the pillows, lay down on the straw mat beside him.

    "Does anyone else think that Cloud's being kinda pushy?  As in, pushy beyond normal leader pushy and way beyond normal Cloud behavior?  He's usually pretty wussy about giving orders."  Barrett was leaning against the painted red fence overlooking the river where the Water Dragon theoretically dwelled. 

    Cid nodded.  "Hell, yes."

    Yuffie hesitated, having just returned from sending the message to Reeve.  "But he seems to be right, so I don't have any problem following him.  Unless you think Sephiroth's still controlling him or something?"

    Barrett turned away glumly, kicking a pebble into the swift flowing water.  "I don't know.  I just don't know."

    Nanaki and  Vincent glanced at each other.  "He is acting normal considering the situation."  Vincent said firmly.

    Red nodded, sitting down so he could address them without straining his neck so much, as they were all so much taller than him.  "He has information and plans which it is vital that he relay to us.  He is feeling that it is necessary to do so as quickly as possible because Sephiroth will awaken in three weeks, and from that point on we will no longer be able to fully trust anything Cloud says or does.  So he wants to make sure all problems are ironed out before then.  Moreover, he is ill, and will probably spend a great deal of the time between now and then asleep and unable to coordinate things.  He has a limited amount of time and is attempting to use it as efficiently as possible."

 "He is also slightly in shock from learning about his likely immortality,"  Vincent added, looking dark and unapproachable as his red eyes glowed at them from the shadows under a pine tree.  Most of them thought his constant hiding in shadows was some instinct that accompanied his transformations into Chaos, but in reality it was just a long kept habit from the Turks he had never bothered to change.

    Barrett stared at the mysterious man.  They had known each other for years, fought by each other's side, traveled together.  Yet he still couldn't read Vincent's expressions, and not just because of the high collar that hid the lower part of his face, and the dark hair that cast shadows across the rest.  Nor was it because his red eyes looked so inhuman as to obscure emotion, for they did not.  It was something different about Vincent's thinking, a cold practicality from his employment in the Turks, combined with deep emotions he kept locked up inside.  Barrett would even guess that Vincent would have been a romantic, if he hadn't been so good with a gun that the Turks got a hold of him, what with the deep love he still bore a woman who had married another, even after several decades.  And Barrett suspected that Vincent still felt each emotion deeply, he had just learned to bury it deep down inside.

    "You ok, man?"

    Vincent nodded.  "I was aware that I was likely to live a very long time from the moment you awakened me, and decades had passed without my ageing.  I have grown used to the idea.  As for the rest,"  he shrugged.  "Although I am delighted that you think otherwise of me, I am not a good person, and I have destroyed more lives than I care to remember.  Whether the world is fair or not, I do not deserve heaven."

    "Hey!"  Yuffie protested.  "You loved her, Ok?  You tried your best.  Maybe you could have done better, maybe you could have saved her.  But someone who can't swim can't be expected to save a drowning person.  You have the knowledge and experience necessary to save her.  You can't blame yourself forever for that!"

    Vincent looked up and smiled, knowing that his fangs were bared now that his chin was no longer hidden in the cloak's collar.  "I am delighted you think so highly of me.   But I refer to times before that.  I was a Turk during the times just following the wars, when half the country hated the other half, no one was sure whether the Shinra or the military actually ruled, and speaking one's opinion was a sure way to be found dead the next day.  The Turks you know are paragons of virtue in comparison."  He allowed the smile to fade and turned away from his friends to disappear into the forest. 

    "Ok,"  Barret said finally, breaking the silence, "Who thinks that Mr. 'I'm never going to talk about my past or show any emotion' Vincent is acting weird?"

    Everyone raised their hand.

    Vincent paused beside a waterfall, deep in the forest.  It was a mere trickle, a thread of white draped over a bolder no taller than him.  The steady dripping was comforting, as was the smell of wet stone and moss.  He reached out his metal hand and held it under the water, watching the liquid pool in his palm and then split into four streams dribbling out from between his spread fingers.  It wouldn't rust he knew.   Hojo made his creations to last. 

    He sighed. What had come over him?  Was it fear of the pain death would bring?  He had never feared death before.  When he was a Turk, fearing death guaranteed it.  And after Lucretia died, he no longer cared. 

That wasn't exactly true.  For a very long time, he would have welcomed it.  It had only been in the last year or two that he had begun to find beauty in life again.  Still, the concept of suddenly not existing held no more fear than it ever had.  And he knew that he did not fear the pain.  Whether it would cleanse him in the Planet's opinion or not, even now he didn't object to pain, seeing it as payment to those he had hurt before.  Not that he sought it, for he didn't, and indeed greatly preferred and sought out pleasure of any sort, but he didn't run from pain.  And as he had said, he had spent a long time getting used to the idea that he would exist for a very long time, and his mind wasn't really capable of comprehending the difference between 'a very long time,' and eternity.

    No, he was feeling off balance due to a much more normal, human situation.

    Sephiroth. . . and my beloved Lucretia . . .

An aide hurried up to Yuffie's side, wearing an elaborate costume that designated him as part of her inner staff and carrying a scroll.

"Your highness."  He bowed and offered her the scroll.  "The transcript of the reply from Midgar."

"Thank you." Yuffie waited till the man had left and then began to read.

To her majesty the most royal and imperial crown princess of our beloved ally Wutai:

I received your message and will send you the aid you requested.  It will take a few days at the absolute minimum for I will go to Junon personally to give the order and see that it is carried out.  If you have no objection, I would suggest that both our troops be joined under Cloud's command, as he is competent and it is generally more effective in military situations to have only one supreme commander.

May you be successful in this endeavor.

President Reeve

Yuffie sighed.  As they had expected, Reeve was having trouble getting the Shinra troops to obey him.  The poor guy.  At least he still kept his sense of humor about it.  He had inherited one hell of a messed up situation from the Shinra dynasty.  Which was a good question.  Now that there were no surviving Shinra, who would inherit after Reeve?  Would he choose someone, or would he open the country to elections like used to happen six hundred years ago?  Or would he set up his own dynasty?  Well, he'd have to find a lady first.  Yuffie chuckled, trying to imagine what sort of girl the shy ex-minister of urban affairs would like.  Ah well.  All they could do now was wait for another communication from him.  Well, that wasn't exactly all they could do.  She had about six million tactical meetings and military reviews to attend in the interim.  At least her father had come out of semi-retirement to run most of them.  She had discovered a severe lack of experience in dealing with the military under an emergency situation.  They wanted everything done their way, right away.  Even Allen was supporting his commander's ideas over what she and her father thought was feasible. 

Dang.  She had promised herself she wouldn't think of him for a while.  When she first returned she had been far too busy to sneak away for some private time with him, so all she could do was exchange a few formalized phrases with him in the hall.  And then once she started mobilizing the army, they were suddenly on opposite sides of every issue, and all they seemed to do was argue. 

She sighed again.  At least it would all be over soon, provided nothing went wrong.

*********************************************

AUTHOR'S NOTES

    Dang, now I have to write a fic about Vincent's past in a Shinra even more messed up than the one we know.  One dark, and dangerous, where no one can be trusted, and serving the wrong person means death. . .  I haven't even finished this one or it's sequel Snow Queen, or Entering the Turks, or the frog story I'm half working on!!  Why do I do this to myself. . . .  Sigh.  This is turning into an Arc.  Actually, I'd previously decided not to write much about Vincent because I know most of the way I see him is due to Glass Shard's wonderful fic about him and Lucretia.  I think this is different from her version in most ways though . . .  Might be some personality cross overs, just because Glass's version is so dang good it's embedded itself in my psyche, but I'll do my best to avoid it.  Oh, and the Turks definitely show up next chapter.  One last question- was it Cloud or Zack who knocked Seph into the lifestream after he burned Nibelham??  I couldn't remember.  I'll go look it up when I edit this after I finish writing it, if no one tells me, I promise.

Inarae

ginabrae@aol.com

*******************************************