Chapter 19: Balamb
Cloud and Vincent walked down a long, winding cement road, the one they had seen when they had first arrived in Gaia in fact. It was surprising well maintained although they had yet to see any vehicles or people it. The only conversation they had while walking was by Cloud when he mentioned a set of some sort of strange playing cards that Zell had given him when he saw Cloud leaving Garden for the week. Cloud had originally thought he was offering to have a game of poker when they got back, but the cards weren't anything like he was used to, he couldn't figure out any type of card game he knew that these cards could be used for.
The sun seemed to bear down on the two, both having grown up in cold Nibelheim and the sheltered and air-conditioned Midgar at some point in their lives. They would have been more comfortable in the snow-capped mountains to the north of the island, rather than walking further south. Vincent soon regretted wearing his long, dark coat, but stubbornly refused to show weakness to Cloud by taking it off. He soon wished he had thought of buying a cap to shade his head like Cloud, but would rather get sunburnt than wear something so clearly meant to symbolise Meteor. 'Would the Jenova in me allow to be get sunburnt?' Vincent pondered as he trudged on;he had been out in the sun for days at a time on Planet and never got any more tanned while travelling with AVALANCHE than when he first started, he stole as glace at Cloud, he was as pale as Vincent himself was.
It took nearly two hours to get to the town of Balamb, Vincent had predicted ninetyminutes, but their shorter, teenage legs made the journey longer than expected. Together they stood by the entrance of Balamb next to a car rental outlet and inspected the town. When Vincent saw Cloud eyeing up some of the new and powerfullooking motorbikes on offer he gave a small cough and walked further into the town knowing that Cloud would follow.
"What are we doing here Cloud?" Vincent asked as he adjusted his backpack. Balamb had the look of a seaside resort; new arcades, shops, hotels and the odd house gave the place a slightly cheesy look. Once the town may have been a simple place, but now it was full of small children clutching buckets and spades, ice cream vendors and cheap souvenir stands. Vincent silently thanked planet that they hadn't arrived during the summer's busy period. The place reminded him of Costal del Sol, only the people here, thankfully, wore more clothes.
Vincent resisted the urge to tug at the neck of his collar due to the heat; he noticed Cloud looked hot too, Garden must have been air-conditioned, strange how he hadn't noticed that while there.
"We need some supplies, just in case we run outta MP or something. See if they have any new weapons or accessories of any use." Cloud gave Vincent a meaningful look "You know the drill Vincent, see if you can steal something."
Vincent gazed at Cloud, his eyes drilling into him, "I do not steal, that is for you, Yuffie and Tifa to do."
"Well guess what? They're dead, so now it's your job." Cloud snapped harshly, he fished around in his bag and pulled out a yellow materia. "Right, here's a steal materia, born when we fought Ruby Weapon so Exp is still pretty low. You stick with the people, I'll check out the stores." Cloud threw the yellow ball to Vincent, who caught it scowling and stalked away.
'I am NOT here to be a thief, I gave up on that when I joined the Turks.' Vincent thought angrily as he passed a hotel with a poorly painted fish sign on it, it looked like a child had painted it. 'I will not run around stealing objects that we will never even use! All those Elixirs and X-potions we found, never used them! That was a complete waste of my time…then again, seems like I've got all the time in the world now…damn you Hojo…' Vincent abruptly stopped his inward ranting in shock as a lean figure wrapped in a long black cloak strolled gracefully past him, normally he would just have kept walking, but a glint of sliver hair under the hood made Vincent's breath catch. 'Dear Holy no! Please don't let that be Sephiroth!' As the figure walked down towards the harbour, Vincent followed, making sure to keep far enough back to not arouse suspicions, but close enough so that if he decided to turn down an ally Vincent would be able to tell which one. As they drew closer to the strong scent of the sea, fish and boats, the crowds thinned until it was only the two of them left. 'I guess not many people go here since Balamb is a tourist attraction so people don't fish for a living anymore' he thought while trying to block out the almost overpowering smell of decaying fish and other sea creatures from his heightened sense of smell.The cloaked figure soon stopped beside a small fishing boat and simply stood there, as Vincent contemplated actually going over and seeing if it was indeed Sephiroth,two other figures in long black cloaks moved out of a dark alley and moved next to the first. Curious, Vincent watched. One cloak seemed to be hiding someone who was tall and very bulky, probably male, and muscles rather than fat judging on how he stood and moved, he looked to have a staff or pole hidden too. The other person had a sword of some kind under his cloak as the material bulged where a sword tip would be found if one hung at his waist, the swords-man turned to face the other two, 'Most likely the leader' Vincent thought.
Vincent carefully stepped further into the shadows of the buildings nearby and walked silently towards the cloaked people and into hearing distance.
"…on! Please! I just wanna drink, ya know." The bulky man was saying, or rather pleading to the leader.
"No, we don't have enough money left for your stupid caffeine addiction. Plus, we would be discovered if we go near the shops, Chicken boy's Ma works in the café and she'd know who we are as soon as she saw us and you know that. So SHUT UP! I'm sick of your constant complaining."
The silvered haired figure turned and suddenly kicked the bulky man…hard. 'Defiantly not Sephiroth.' Vincent thought as he watched. Sephiroth was not one to go around randomly kicking people for the hell of it. He almost left, but instead decided to stay and watch the bulky man hop around while clutching his right leg, this was more interesting then beating up random people for items. Vincent clutched his steal materia tighter as he thought of Cloud's orders.
"Awww, Fujin! Don't!" The man hoping around complained loudly, drawing Vincent back to the trio. 'Weird name, sounds Wutanese.'
The leader suddenly clamed a hand over the bulky man's face. Had Vincent's hearing not been so enhanced he would never have heard the leader's next words that were quietly hissed, "How many times have I told you? NEVER say our names. If SeeD knew we were here, they wouldn't stop till we were dead. So shut up and stay here with her till I get back." He turned to the woman "Keep an eye on him."
"AFFIRMATIVE" Fujin gave a salute that Vincent recognised to be from Garden.
'Well, now that was interesting.' With that the leader stalked off with the stride of someone who knew no one would dare get in his way, and if they did, they'd get what was coming to them. Vincent had a sudden urge to leap out and attack him, not liking his cocky attitude, but managed to restrain himself before the man got too close. He walked like Rufus or one of the Turks.
After a few minutes of silence where the two figures stood about looking bored, Vincent decided to check out the harbour out and see if there were any items he could use lying about. There was no point coming back empty handed. People always were dropping useful things when in a hurry, and the harbour looked like it normally was a busy place to be, or at least used to be a busy place. The place looked more or less deserted.
Vincent stepped out of the shadows and casually looked about the harbour area as he walked. His sharp eyes picked up nothing of any use, but as he turned to leave, one of the black figures moved away from the boat he was guarding and moved over to him. Vincent stopped and eyed the figure, it seemed to be the bulky man, from this close up Vincent could tell that the cloak was definitely covering a large muscled man, not simply an overweight one. He hated it how he now had to look up to people, not down on them.
"Yes?" He asked in a cold voice
The man looked taken aback for a moment, hearing the iciness in the voice of what he assumed was a young teenager. Under the hood Vincent could see him frown and then start grinning again at him. "I just wondered if ya wanted a game o' cards?" He asked while holding up a battered looking deck of playing cards.
"Why?"
The man shrugged, "Bored, want something to do." He bent closer to Vincent "Don't tell Fujin though, she thinks I'm over here asking ya what ya're doing wandering 'bout, ya know?"
Vincent frowned at the man; he seemed to be in his early twenties or late teens and was wearing some very baggy clothes with a piece of red rope holding his pants up. 'Maybe I can find out what's going on with this whole SeeD thing, after all even an ex-Turk hates the unknown, and it may be dangerous if I don't know everything about what's going on here. He may be of use later.'
"Poker?" He asked, he had a fantastic poker face, not even Rude had been able to tell what he was thinking when they had played, although Vincent was prepared to admit that when they had played, Rude had been a Turk in training and only a kid.
"You sound just like Fujin, ya know. I've never heard of the Poker rule before, I always play the Sudden Death and Elemental rules, that okay if we jus' use them?"
Vincent could feel one of his eyebrows rising in confusion before he could stop it, 'What is he going on about?' Before he had a chance to ask, a familiar scent appeared behind him along with a set of footsteps that were getting steadily closer. The ex-Turk turned and saw Cloud walking towards them, his Ultima Weapon seemingly to glow over his shoulder now the sunlight was directly hitting it from overhead.
"What's going on?" Cloud asked as he eyed the cloaked man. Vincent knew exactly was Cloud was doing, assessing how much of a threat the man was. Soon Cloud looked over to where Fujin stood behind them next to the boat watching him in return, her face unreadable due to the cloak's hood. Which brought up the very interesting question up of how on Planet they were not dying of heat exhaustion due to the thickness of the material.
"Just wanted a game of cards, ya know." He held up his hands showing he didn't want a fight
Cloud grinned and held out his right hand, holding the pack of cards he had been giving by Zell earlier that day. "He doesn't play, but I do. I'll play you, but if I win I get your boat she's guarding, and all the items you have."
The man looked over his shoulder at Fujin and the motorised wooden rowing boat, "…High stakes, but ok. If I win though, I get…erm….your weapons and armour."
"Right." Cloud nodded, eager to test out his new skills. "Want to go somewhere less in the way than the middle of the harbour?"
"Yeah, sure." The trio made there way over to the edge of the harbour where they sat on the edge of the raised platform, just off to the left of where Fujin was stood.
Vincent quietly hissed to the blonde mercenary "Cloud, are you sure about this, you don't even know how to play. Plus, our weapons are worth a hell of a lot more than their boat and items."
Cloud smirked, "Its fine, I asked some woman by the train station, she told me how to play, sounds really easy. She called herself Queen of Hearts or something like that, she seemed to know what she was on about. Odd name though, since these cards don't have hearts, clubs, spades or diamonds on them like normal cards do."
"What if you loose?"
"Don't worry, I wont. I'm a fast learner, you should know that by now."
Vincent suppressed a groan and watched with wary anticipation as the players chose their best cards to play; he didn't want to loose another good rifle. Although, Cloud minus a sword the length of his body was always a good thing.
5 minutes later:
Cloud couldn't believe it…. he'd lost…how could he possibly have lost? No way was he going to give up the Ultima Weapon to this overweight freak! He glared at the man who had taken away all of the cards Cloud had used in the game as a reward, not simply one, but all! He only had three left now. How was he supposed to know that if all his cards were overturned that the other guy would get them? This was his first game! He glanced at Vincent sitting beside him, his ruby eyes widened slightly in shock, 'Why did I have to loose so bad in front of him of all people?' Cloud thought to himself bitterly. He turned his head back to glare at the man who had so efficiently beaten him; he was currently dancing in the middle of the deserted harbour like a little kid.
Cloud felt his hand twitch towards his sword in annoyance when the man passed close to him.
"Oh yeh! I win! I win! I'm the best, ya know! I can sell their, I mean MY, stuff and buy caffeine and real food and a bed!"
Cloud slowly stood up from where he had been crouched on the floor for the game, Vincent followed suit while clutching his rifle through his long coat obviously not wanting to give it up. 'Why did I bet the weapons? Damnit! I had to fight Ultima Weapon four times for this sword!'
Sensing danger brought on from living on the streets in childhood, Fujin left guarding the boat and carefully walked over to themwhen her partner starting cheering, while keeping an eye two obviously enraged teens.
"RAIJIN"
Raijin immediately stopped his dancing and faced Fujin with a grin on his face. "Fujin, I've just won us some good weapons and stuff we can sell! We can sleep in a real bed tonight!" He made to grab her hands to make her dance too, but froze before he managed to actually touch her, he didn't want to be kicked again…it hurt.
For a moment Cloud was shocked out of his anger by the young woman, the silver hair and slim figure reminded him of Sephiroth; although she was a lot shorter than the boss, she could have been his sister. But his anger soon returned when Raijin asked for him to hand over the promised goods.
"Like hell I am!"
Raijin stopped dancing once more and froze on the spot, "Ya what?"
"You heard me," Cloud scowled, "you're not having the Ultima Weapon. Want it, come and get it."
"We made a deal, ya know! You can't take it back now! I won fair and square."
"AFFIRMATIVE" Fujin agreed
Cloud quickly drew his weapon and got into his fighting pose. Vincent followed suit, throwing back his coat to reveal Heaven's Peace.
Fujin and Raijin exchanged eager looks before both hastily taking off the black cloaks, Fujin took out some sort of Pinwheel that looked a lot like Yuffie's Conformer, while Raijin held a long wooden pole ready.
'How do I always get involved with all this stuff?' Vincent thought to himself as Raijin twirled the pole in his hand, 'All I ever wanted to do was to be left alone in my coffin, but noooooo…' Deep inside, Vincent could feel Chaos struggling to get loose to join the battle about to start, but he had to suddenly spring back when Fujin tried to hit him with some strange wind magic, in shock Chaos retreated. 'There is no honour in that, she didn't even wait for us to get ready properly.' Countering, he shot at Fujin, she managed to block one of the armour piercing rounds with the Pinwheel, but the other hit her in her right shoulder and carried on through it. She had good reflexes, he had to give her that.
Vincent grinned inwardly, he had disabled her throwing arm without killing her. But the grin soon turned into a frown as Raijin cast Curaga onto her and the bullet hole healed up instantly. How come Cure materia didn't heal that well? He really needed to know how or why their healing spells worked so much better than anything Cloud or himself had done before.
"Ya gonna have ta do better than that!" Raijin yelled happily, his pole held behind him and one arm held forwards.
"Gladly." Cloud said calmly as he rushed over to meet Raijin, Vincent noticed a yellow materia on his sword glow for an instant, he recognised it as Cloud's mastered Double Cut materia. He fired a few more damaging, but not killing, shots as Cloud charged, before he needed to reload.
Cloud brought up his weapon and slashed Raijin on the upward stoke, the man fell backwards clutching his face as blood poured out between his fingers. Vincent had to give the man some credit;he hadn't made a sound, not even when Cloud slashed deeply across his ribs twice and then thrust Ultima Weapon through his leg, almost cutting it off. But then he gave off a low moan of pain, Vincent felt a strange surge of pity for the guy, but it was instantly suppressed. 'I'm getting too good at this suppressing game, I would rather not forget chunks of my life like Cloud…well, maybe a few choice years.'
Raijin fell to the ground in a pool of steadily growing blood, still clutching his face. Fujin rushed to his side, while keeping an eye on Cloud and Vincent in case they attacked.
"RAIJIN…. UP!"
Vincent would never attack someone tending their friends or partners, and lowered his rifle, waiting until she got up. But obviously the 'new and improved' Cloud didn't believe this as he calmly cast Comet 2 on them with a smirk that looked very Sephiroth-like on his face, and didn't seem right on his face somehow.
A number of small and large comets crashed down through the clouds above them, smashing repeatedly into the two Gaians. Vincent shielded his eyes from the dust, debris and chunks of cement that was thrown up into the air from the impact zone. When the dust had settled Vincent quickly looked at their opponents, Raijin lied limply on the ground, his body placed at awkward angles, even someone not an expert in fighting injuries like him would be able to tell that no Life materia or Phoenix Down made was going to bring him back. His eyes stared out towards to sea, thankfully not at Vincent. He wanted no more nightmares or sins to cause them, and a pair of teenage eyes staring at him, accusing him of murder, would have been one such event.
Fujin and Cloud seemed to realise at the same time that Raijin wasn't getting back up. Cloud grinned as Fujin suddenly started screaming in anguish, blood running down her face from the comet attack, her left arm obviously broken as the bone could be seen sticking through the skin. Turning the scream as a battle cry she charged at Cloud as though Berserked, all rational thoughts of how she couldn't win gone to the wind.
Cloud simply smirked at her, while indicating to Vincent to sit this out by moving his sword in a well know sign by anyone who had been around him long. Vincent hesitated but moved backwards a few steps away from the fight.
Fujin started slashing at Cloud using her Missile Blade to try and cause as much damage as possible by tearing it into her enemy. Cloud easily evaded most of her attacks, only gaining a few nicks on his arms and face. But Fujin didn't seem to realise how little damage she was doing as she brought the weapon over her head and swept it downwards in an arc perfected by years of training.
Cloud dodged that one particularly close attack by ducking under it, but Fujin managed to slice off one of Cloud's spikes from his headas one of the many edges of her Missile Blade caught it. Seeing it fall, she jumped back and smirked at Cloud as he caught it in one hand.
"No one cuts my hair." He said in an icy voice, laced with rage
Vincent felt Cloud's limit break suddenly flair up, although the few hits he had takencouldn't have caused it. Fujin seemed to realise her mistake as her eyes widened and she took another step back.
Cloud practically flew at her, his sword flashing in the sunlight as he brought it down on her again and again. Vincent didn't want to watch, but forced himself to, seeing this on a human was completely different from monsters. Slicing her across her face, stomach, chest, legs and back Fujin was finally brought down. Cloud snarled at her and stormed towards the boat, leaving her for dead next to his other victim.
Vincent quickly went over to her; she was still alive, but barely. He felt around his clothes, but didn't have anything to heal her with, or at least ease or suffering. His human hand found a small bag he'd almost forgotten about…Sleeping powder… inside it was a low level Cure materia, he almost cheered. He moved over to the man, he didn't have any materia or items either; Vincent wasn't sure how he'd managed to heal Fujin before, but it wasn't anything that he could find. 'Probably that damn drawing thing, I really need to find out how to do it.' Moving back to Fujin, he placed her head on his knees as she started coughing up blood from her punctured lungs.
"…hurts…" she whispered before starting to bring up more blood
"I know, hold on it'll be okay." He lied, "Just have a rest and you'll be fine." He concentrated on the materia, "CURE" A few cuts closed up, but the majority were still bleeding pretty badly.
"Raijin?"
Vincent glanced over to her friend's mutilated corpse, as he concentrated to try again "He will be fine with a good Cure spell."
She gave Vincent a small smile, "…'kay…"
And in his arms, she died.
Balamb beach:
Seifer sat wrapped in his cloak on a small boulder, safe from prying eyes as he was surrounded on three sides by even larger rocks and debris from a rock fall, but he still was getting a great view of the sea. Maybe he shouldn't have been so hard on Fujin and Raijin, out of everyone of the whole stinking planet, they had stuck by him. Even going to his greatest enemy Squall to try and get him to knock some sense into him. Anyone else would have turned him into SeeD or the local authorities, but they had remained loyal all this time. He had a few gill left, maybe he should use it to buy a few cans of cola or something. They all deserved some treats, Gaia and Sorceresses had done enough to them without him making it worse.
Having finally decided what to do, at least for now, Seifer jumped down from the boulder and made his way back into town while wishing he had chosen a thinner disguise than the cloaks.
Seifer left the small café, he was sure that Dincht's Ma had realised who he was, but surprisingly hadn't said a word, he hoped she wasn't ringing Garden at this very moment. Refusing to look over his shoulder to see if anyone was following him, Seifer quickened his pace as he walked past the town's main hotel and into the old harbour. He glanced at his watch, he'd been about an hour, 'I hope Fujin hasn't killed Raijin with me being gone so long.'
Seifer looked towards the water as soon as he turned the last corner, where were the others? He'd gone to the trouble of getting them drinks Raijin had been whingeing about, and they'd gone. To that matter the boat had as well, seemed like that had finally abandoned him, well he couldn't say he was surprised. Actually, he was, he never would have seriously thought they would leave him, they were like family or something! More so than the stupid 'orphanage gang' back at Garden.
Sighing, Seifer started to walk towards the sea where the boat had been. After a few steps he stumbled across something lying on the floor. Catching his balance, Seifer turned around and looked at the thing he'd tripped over.
"…Guys?"
He fell to the ground with a thud, legs no longer able to keep him upright, as he stared at the bodies of his best and only friends.
Authors note:
I know I said this was going to be up earlier, but my dad caught me writing this the day before one of my exams. So got kinda banned from writing till they were over…
But I hope this chapter was worth the wait! And now I have nothing to do for two months until uni, should get more up, BECAUSE –dum dum dummmmm- it was voted to keep going! Thanks to everyone who asked/told me to carry on, cos without it I never would have! I was practically bouncing (ok ok I actually was) when I started getting peoples telling me to carry on!
So thank you to spikestrife (yup, its as dead as they come! And I love your reviews); electronicgamer3 (you really made my day!); Jo-C13 (short but sweet, thanx); Falcon Strife (don't know how you knew they were appearing, but they went fast too, love your reviews nearly every chapter!); MasterWraithe (thanks! Means alot); Edward (loved your comment XD); Yukata (I updated! See??); Yuleen75 (hope u didn't think the wait was too long): Andy Lupin (woooo! Another short but sweet one! Thanx); Macky (erm…there was big fight over who got the drink, while no1 was looking Zell ran off with it to cook his own hotdogs, couldn't figure out how to do it so got mad and bust the machine…); Johnny (I'll see wot I can do); Vincents-Soul (hope not!); Precious Fire (I love your name); Katie (always love your reviews, and you'll see about the dog later!); Edward (its here!); Afro-Rican (never really thought about it, I might give it a try!); Chip (bit longer just for you).
And thanks to everyone else who read this, but didn't review.