Flirting With Death: Restless Friends and the Numbers in Their Floorboards

(A/N): RikkuFF10 said something about missing out on getting Vincent in the party and I didn't know if that meant not knowing how or whatever, but the first time I played I had no idea how to get either Vincent or Yuffie. I went and beat up Sephiroth and came out going, "That's IT! I thought I was supposed to have two more people!" So anyways, if anyone didn't know, you'll know how to get Vincent if you read this. Um…trying not to spoil the chapter. Here we go!


They raced as they went, two blurs if gold and red streaking across the plains. Mayonee was working quite hard, and if Red ran any faster, Tifa feared his tail might catch up with him. The canyon seemed to stretch on forever, and the rush of the mountain air was exhilarating for Tifa. When they reached the grass, Red halted to a stop as Tifa kept on. She cast a long glance over her shoulder as she waved goodbye. Nanaki watched her go until she was completely out of sight, hoping that she would have all the success he felt she deserved.

Tifa had fed Mayonee early that morning, and she was determined not to stop until she reached Nibelheim. She barely had time to notice the scenery as she cut through the fields with ease. She rounded the mountainside quickly as the river came into view. She could see her hometown rising in the distance; it wasn't even mid-day yet, and already she was close.

Tifa had qualms about entering the city; memories of Nibelheim brought her mostly pain, and she didn't enjoy dwelling on that emotion when she could help it. As she approached the village, she saw the ShinRa Mansion looming in the back of the square, and Mount Nibel towering in the distance. The mansion had always given her the creeps, and she wasn't in any hurry to revisit that part of her past. She decided she would save that for last; first, she would go into town and browse the market for anything interesting. Maybe she would strike up a conversation with the people, and find out what was new in the area.

She hadn't seen anyone mulling about in the square; she couldn't understand why, since it was a perfect day outside. Naturally, she assumed that the market would be virtually empty, and she found it to be true. She had merely thought she had escaped the crowds, but she soon realized that the shop was missing an owner as well. Dusty shelves were void of everything but cobwebs; whoever the previous attendant had been, he wasn't returning.

A quick look around the rest of town proved futile. There was not a soul to be found, and most of buildings were near to falling. Her own house was dilapidated and sunken to one side; whomever had been hired to reconstruct the town had done a very shoddy job of it indeed. No wonder it had turned to a ghost town, streets completely empty. There was no life to be found anywhere.

Perhaps the false residents had all left after the fall of ShinRa; their conspiracy uncovered, their paychecks had been taken from them. Tifa herself wouldn't stay even if someone paid her. She'd come to rather dislike the presence of the quiet mountain town, and the eerie silence was beginning to grate on her nerves. She wondered if Reeve would send anybody out to the town in hopes of reviving it.

Tifa drew in a deep and shaking breath as she looked up to the old mansion, unbelieving that she was about to venture inside. It had torn her attention from her old house, which she didn't feel much like entering either way. Someone else had stayed there since she; her house had been burned down a long time ago. Anything resembling it would only serve to remind her that it wasn't hers.

She would have much rather walked past the old mansion and get on with her journey, but her curiousity had to be sated. She wasn't so much interested in exploring the mansion as she was in exploring what lay beneath it... or what didn't. She figured it was time she found out.

She had hated the mansion for a long time. The green rot covering the wood floors reminded her of mako; the dead trees reminded her of the dead bodies they'd found in the basement, along with Vincent. The overall appearance of the mansion reminded her of something out of a horror story; it was the classic, haunted house.

Her breath hitched as she walked through the creaking gate, leaving Mayonee to wander in the yard. She steadied herself and walked through the front door; it came surprisingly easy to her. As a team, they had fought many monsters within those walls; they'd gone bursting in, unannounced, making dreadful amounts of noise. Now the strange silence had her feeling as if she should have come in through some back entrance, her presence forbidden in the dark halls. Unconsciously, she snuck through the house on the tips of her toes.

No goblins or bats approached her this time; no odd noises came to disturb her at all. The inside of the mansion appeared just as it had the last time she'd been there; the wooden floors were still covered with that mako-green color, and rot continued to run up the corners of the walls, seeming to stretch on endlessly. Staring up to the ceiling, she felt as if she was sitting at the bottom of a long neglected swimming pool. The rays of light that shone through the windows betrayed the thousands of dust particles floating through the air.

Glancing around the room, her eye caught a bit of crumpled, yellow paper on the floor to her left. Bending over to look at it, she realized it was the old note that Hojo had left behind, giving clues to the whereabouts of his prisoner. Tifa read the letter to herself, remembering the time they had spent combing the mansion for those clues. The paper was obviously well-worn; they'd assumed the Turk to be dead, but curiousity had led them to find out what else was in that room. They had been sorely disappointed in what they had found; only skeletons, dead bodies of those who had probably angered the scientist to no end, to be deserving of such a fate. That was, until she had lost her footing, and knocked her head on the only covered deathbed in the room.

She tried to remember the combination to the safe. 'It was...ten to the right...' She searched her mind for the missing information. 'I know I remember the last one was ninety-seven...to the right.'

It was hard, remembering. It should have followed that the numbers stood out in her mind quite easily; it wasn't that long ago, and they were etched so crudely into the various pieces of furniture around the mansion. They had all had to remember the combination, just to make sure that they didn't get it wrong. In her excitement, she must have forgotten all about it once it was over.

However, she did think that she could remember where the clues were located. Not that she needed to know, but it would be a memory worth reliving, should she want to find out. She decided, after a moment, that it might be fun, and she wondered if she could revive that sense of anticipation, if she could relive that moment when she'd not known what they would find. She could almost remember the feeling of butterflies in her stomach.

'Searching for a man locked beneath the old mansion...'

The only number she was certain about was the very last one, so it mattered not that mold had started to grow over the faded ink. She started off through the mansion, looking for the places that had led them to find the key to Vincent's tomb. He'd kept it on him after that, hung round his neck like some morbid charm. She'd thought it strange at first, but she then realized that it was a part of him that no one else could touch, and for that, it was personal to him.

Still, she enjoyed remembering everyone around her, scrambling to figure out what heach of the clues on the paper had meant. There had been whining and arguments, all in jest and all with good intentions. She remembered Cloud scratching his head as Yuffie had complained and insisted, and Aeris trying to be the voice of reason amongst them all. It was nice, remembering everyone together again.

Tifa walked into the room with the huge stained-glass windows. She bent down to look at the left side of the old piano; (1)Right 10 was scratched into the side. She thought about trying the keys, but something washed over her and made her feel as if it would be wrong to touch the instrument, like doing so would be a grave disturbance to the only peace left in the mansion. She decided to let it be.

Tifa left the room, making her way up the creaking stairs and across the hallway to stop in front of the room with the secret passageway in it. She turned to her left then, and she began prying at the floorboards with her hands, trying to find the loose one. Her fingertips started to become awfully sore, but she didn't mind it so much when she finally found the right one. '(3)Right 59...'

She was excited at last, and nearly ran the rest of the way to the west wing of the house. Seconds found her in the conservatory where the old treasure chest sat, still open. She nearly jumped over to the back of the chest in eagerness, and stole a glance at the lid. 'Aha! (2)Left 36!' Tifa shot her right hand up in the air and let out a clipped whooping sound. When she'd ended her brief celebration, she was facing the doorway; something caught her attention then, something that she hadn't noticed when she'd first entered the mansion.

She immediately recognized the room as being the place where Cloud had stayed with Zack when they were waiting for Sephiroth to emerge from the basement library. Before there had been two beds; now there was only one, and it was in the center of the room. She crossed the hallway, new curiousity and a bit of apprehension taking over her. She stopped inside, a short ways from the door. She'd remembered many things about the mansion, and she knew right away that the room was far different from the last time she'd seen it.

For one, it was clean.

Tifa's brown eyes danced, taking in every detail of the room. It was odd, almost fitting for such a place, but it was anything but boring. Rotted tapestries throughout the house had complimented the rotting floors and musty smell. This room lacked such things.

The bedsheets were a black satin, topped with velour blankets of the same color. There were also heavy, velveteen curtains of black that hung down to the floors, held back loosely with silken, black ropes. From where she stood, she could see the view quite clearly, as if the window had been replaced. The floor of the room had been completely redone, clean and varnished wood now holding her up confidently, instead of creaking, rotting wood that could easily give way. The walls had been stripped of the rotting paper and covered in flat stones.

Two silvery sconces decked the wall above the bed, one on each side; they held deeply colored garnet candles, which, though not lit, she could tell smelled of wild spices. She noticed four more sconces; two were behind her on each side of the doorway, and there was one on each side wall. She imagined the room could be easily illuminated. Turning to face the room once more, she thought of that particular satin and velour bed bathed in soft candlelight, and she caught a shiver running up her spine.

The entire room felt somehow warmer than the rest of the house. There was an overshadowing heaviness in the room...a feeling of oppression. There was a coldness, but the room had a certain warmth to it. Someone had been living there. The entire top story had seemed better kept than the lower story, especially the west wing. But the only person she could ever imagine taking up residence in the mansion, the only person that would ever take to a house that was cold, dark, musty and falling apart was...

She jumped suddenly as a throat was cleared behind her, accounting for the warmth and oppression in the room.