Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, locations, or items of Final Fantasy VII, they belong to Square-Enix.
Chapter Four
Take Me Far Away
A face that awakes when I close my eyes
A face that watches every time I lie
A face that laughs every time I fall
And watches everything
So I know when it's time to sink or swim
The face inside is hearing me
Right beneath my skin"
-----------Papercut by Linkin ParkVincent slowly slid round after round of ammunition into one of the many clips for his beloved Death Penalty. He had just finished field stripping and cleaning the ancient rifle in preparation for his next journey. The rifle's dark barrel shined in the low light cast from the fireplace before him. The polished hardwood stock that made up the rest of the weapon gleamed and the flickering light danced across the many small runes etched in the wood above the fire selector.
He was so engrossed in the maintinence of his most prized possession that he almost did not notice Yuffie's footsteps as she came down the steps. He didn't even look up when she plopped down in the chair adjacent to his. He finished loading the clip and smoothly loaded it into the weapon.
"I have to tell you something," she said tenatively.
Vincent looked up at her, and for the first time actually gave her his full attention.
"The other day, when I heard you playing the piano, I was attacked in the streets before I came back," she confessed.
Vincent remained silent, taking in this new information.
He also remained perfectly still and quiet during her recitation of the events of the fight and what he had told her.
"The wierd thing about it is, they have been chasing me since before the whole mess with Sephiroth and Meteor," she finished.
Vincent sat back in his chair. What did it all mean? Yuffie obviously didn't know, and she must want his help to figure it out.
But why me? he thought bitterly.
She could have sought help from any of her other friends from AVALANCHE, but she came to him. Maybe she was pinned and didn't have anywhere else to go, and she reached out to the closest estranged loner for help. He didn't think that likely. Rocket Town was far closer to Wutai and Cid was rumored to still be there, however, Vincent wasn't sure of this, as he had not talked to the the Man of Many Curses in years. She must have come to him purposefully, but he could only guess what went through her mind.
"You want my help?" was the first thing he said.
"Please," she pleaded, "you're the only one I could trust with this."
"Why not someone else, like Cloud or Cid?"
"They never took me seriously before, and I already asked Cid, he thought I was jumping at ghosts."
"I imagine his language was more colorful and elaborate than the way you describe it," the words came out before he realized what he was saying.
The words hung in the air. Yuffie gave him a startled expression and stared at him, wild-eyed.
"Vince, did you just make a joke?" she asked with apparent awe in her voice.
Vincent's lips formed a thin line as the laughter of Chaos resounded in his head. Then and there he knew that he was losing control of the demon. The fact that Chaos had been able to force him to say something astounded him.
"I've never heard you say something like that before," she continued. "I always thought you were just plain dead in the humor department."
That struck a nerve.
His face suddenly darkened and he stood up. While turning towards the burning fire, he said, "Leave me."
"But..." she began.
"Go!," his quiet voice was suddenly loud and hateful. It then dropped back to it's usual volume, just above a whisper. "We need a plan, and I must think. Now leave me."
Startled, she left the room with no complaints.
Immediately after he heard the door shut behind her, he began rummaging through the many books upon his shelves. When he did not find the particular item he sought, he threw whatever book he held to the floor. After many minutes of this he finally found what he sought.
Vincent removed from a high shelf at the back of the room that was once Professor Hojo's office. Dust covered the book's spine and obscured the title. With a quick rub of his hand Vincent removed the dust and dirt to reveal the title, Through the Looking Glass. Vincent had thought that title to be very apt for what he concealed between the front cover and the first page.
He stalked quietly to his reading chair in the main room. After setting the book on the table near the Death Penalty, he stared at it apprehensively. After shaking off his momentary fear, he opened the cover and stared down. There, sitting on the first page, was a reflective shard no bigger than the palm of Vincent's real hand. The shard was a piece of the first mirror in which he had seen Chaos in place of himself. In a fit of anger he had beat upon that mirror with both hands, real and prosthetic. This one piece was all that remained, for the rest was, impossibly, shattered to splinters and spread across the plains south of Nibelhiem.
He leaned towards that shard and spoke to it.
"Chaos, what are you doing to me?"
Yuffie had retreated to the safety of the hallway after Vincent's outburst. His sudden display of raw emotion had caught her completely off guard. The confusion she saw deep in his eyes greatly disturbed her. He always seemed so in control and calm that to see such confusion and hopelessness in him only fueled her own paranoid thoughts.
She quickly tired of waiting, and decided to put her ninja skills to use. She crept silently to the heavy wooden door to look through the keyhole. For a while she could see nothing at all, only the sounds of rustling paper and dull thuds as some particularly heavy objects hit the cobblestone floor.
She was about to leave when Vincent finally came into view. He held a thick leather-bound volume on his metal hand, and was wiping away a thin film of dust from the cover with his other one. He sat at his usual chair and put the book on the table before him. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, but shook his head just before carefully opening the front cover and removing a small, thin object from the first page.
He was turned towards her, so, as he inspected it, she could not see what it was, and therefore Yuffie had no idea what the object was. All she knew was that it was incredibly thin, could fit in the palm of her hand. These facts canceled it as a materia orb, and she so she ignored it and studied Vincent.
His attention was fixed on the object in he hand, and emotions flickered on and off his face as if he were a television with it's channel being changed every half-second. Many expressions splayed across his delicate features in the course of a few seconds. It looked as if he were angry, sad, in pain, and joyous all at the same time and his face was trying to reflect those emotions all at the same time.
Yuffie intently studied his facial exressions, for she knew she would probably never see any of them again. Yet she was so zeroed in on his face that she completely forgot about what he held in his hands until he began speaking to it.
"Chaos," he said in a sad and desperate tone, "What are you doing to me?"
Yuffie's mouth nearly dropped to the floor. Had he completely lost it?
His eyebrows furrowed in an expression of puzzlement.
"What does that mean?" he asked the empty room.
He paused, as if listening to someone. He frowned.
"What I already know?" another question. "What is this about?"
His face turned angry.
"Yuffie and I? Leave her out of this!" the sound of his voice came out in a forced tone.
He hung his head as if being scolded for being caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. When he next spoke, his tone was one of sadness and of regret.
"I do have feelings for her," he admitted to no one but himself, "But that is all it is, a feeling. My feelings only get the people I love hurt or killed."
Yuffie was throttled by his sudden confession. She never thought, not in a thousand years, that he would ever feel anything for anyone, especially her. She had developed a small crush on him while hey journeyed togather, but she never acted on it.
After a long while, Vincent spoke again, "But I don't know what to do."
Her attention immediately snapped back to reality.
"A lone guardian?" he said, apparently slightly confused.
His expression quickly changed after that. Eyes narrowing and a scowl dominating his features.
"What about the door?" he inquired sharply as his head jerked up, crimson eyes leveling on the door.
Startled by his quick movements and the way he spoke his words, Yuffie fell back, and, with a slight grunt, landed hard on her rear end. The door before her was immediately ripped from it's hinges and flung aside like a flimsy piece of cardboard. There, silhouetted by the firelight, was a menacing and fully armed Vincent Valentine.
His menacing scowl softened somewhat when he recognized her, but his finger was still curled tightly around the trigger of the Death Penalty as if he were preparing to shoot her.he instead slung the rifle around his back and, without a word, his metal hand shot out from beneath his cloak to grab and lift her with inhuman strength by the back of her collar.
He carried her into the library and dropped her not too gently into one of the chairs. Vincent unslung his weapon and laid it on the table as he sat down across from her. He stared into her eyes.
His piercing gaze made Yuffie impossibly uncomfortable, but she could find no strength to look away.
"How much did you hear?" his question sounded more like a command than anything.
Yuffie finally broke his gaze and looked to the floor. "Everything. I heard everything," she said quietly. When she looked back to his face, Vincent looked sad.
"What's wrong, Vincent? Why are you talking to yourself?" she pleaded with him.
"I speak not to myself, but to the thing inside me.," he answered, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "Whenever I look into a mirror, I do not see myself, but Chaos."
"How long?" Yuffie asked.
"Ever since..." his voice trailed off and he shook his head. "It does not matter. He has been talking to me ever since I was first aware of his presence." He stared off into space as he continued to speak, "Back then, I was always too busy to pay any mind to what he told me, so he was easy to ignore, but now..."
"Do you have any idea of what to do about my attacker?" Yuffie asked him, hoping to change the subject.
Vincent sat back, appearing to be in deep thought. After a minute or so, he spoke.
"We are leaving Nibelhiem. I have been planning a trip anyway. We must go to Cosmo Canyon and confer with Nanaki. Perhaps we can retrieve some information from his libraries, which are far more extensive than mine. Go, pack your things. We leave in the morning."----Author's Notes: This story is finally starting to shape up. After the next chapter, the plot will drasticly begin to pick up speed. I find the beginning to the middle of stories hard to write because I have to set the scene and work into my grand finale. I can say that the end will be a surprise. Also, I have at this point decided to write a sequel. Once again, please read and review.