Na: Read and Review!
Galveston has by far some of the worst beaches in the US, afterall it is the the mudhole of America
Slowly Yuffie crept up behind the boy. Still sitting on the crate the boy continued staring off to the open spaces in front of the houses, kicking his legs gently. Her breathing quickly becoming faster and faster, she could feel sweat begin to appear on her brow as she gently reached out to get a grip on the boy, half expecting for her hand to slip through his body as if she were a ghost. To her relief she was greeted with the solidness of his small frame. Giggling a little at her own fright, she walked up next to the boy and just looked him over once, before turning her head to see what he was staring at.
Out in the yard... More like a courtyard... there were children playing, at least 8 of them. This place... so familiar, but new... This wasn't the Wutai she remembered, this place seemed to sparkle. Sure some of the buildings she didn't recognize, and some she remembered were yet to be built, but it was still Wutai. She was home... kinda...
"Vincent Valentine" she sneered, "you never told me you were from Wutai!"
"You never asked," he replied turning to her and giving her a beaming smile. She just stared at him for a second. There was no way this child and the Vincent she knew were related in anyway. The smile on this child with his short black hair was so bright, so beautiful. She had never seen Vincent smile, or laugh. Once she had seem him smirk as half the team was blown over by a gust on their way to the promised land. But seeing his smiling face, and thinking of Vincent just made her want to cry. 'What could cause so much pain, as to remove all sense of joy from a man? Slowly he jumped off the crate and began walking out towards the courtyard. Yuffie followed quickly behind him. When they reached the end of the alley and entered the courtyard they could make out the children more clearly. 3 girls and 5 boys playing soccer. Off to the side were 2 ladies wearing bright colored Kimonos, daintily chatting with one another, while monitoring the children's movements. One boy of dark brown hair was on a breakaway heading for makeshift goal, when suddenly out of nowhere a smaller child with jet black hair swooped in from his flank and slide tackled the ball. The ball flying off to the side, and the brown haired boy nearly tripping.
"Now Vincent!" snapped one of the ladies. "If you can't play nicely, we can leave for home right now!"
"I'm sorry mom, it won't happen again." Turning to the brown haired boy; "Sorry Godo, guess I messed up."
"I didn't fall, guess you did something right!" they both laughed and returned to the game.
"Godo? Godo! My father? Hah look at him! Hes... Hes so stout, and has a puffy face, ohmygod! As soon as we get out, I'm going straight to Wutai, finding his baby pictures, and he'll never hear the end of it!" Yuffie cried out, resisting the urge to release her bellows of laughter.
"Ya, I can sorta see the puffy face in you.." the younger Vincent casually commented, biting his lip and resisting the urge to laugh out at the reddening Yuffie who just went silent.
"Vincent Valentine!" Yuffie began. "That's the first joke I've ever heard outa you!"
"No, its the second." he replied, his smile of happiness, portraying more and more hints of sadness. "I know why you're here, and I can't, no won't take you there." He turned to her. "It hurts too much." A small tear slid down his cheek as he turned to face the women wearing the kimonos at the sidelines. "Besides, Its so much happier here, we can just stay here."
"Vinny... I want to help you, but you have to help me... Why don't we just start from here, we can try to ease into it. But I need to know what happened. Please, for me." she pleaded.
"Fine, for you." he replied. "I was born here, raised here till I was five years old. They were my friends." he said as he gestured to the group of children playing ball. "And she was my mother." He pointed to lady who had earlier scolded the young Vincent. "My father wasn't around as much as he or we would have liked. Usually he was traveling about selling weapons across the world. He was the vice-president of Valentine Weapons Corporation (VWC). The president was my uncle. The VWC has been extinct for a little over 50 years now." They began to walk around the courtyard as he orated his story. "I found out about half a year later, but when I was 5 my uncle was assassinated while inspecting family holdings in the south of continent of Wutai. Afterwards, when my father took over the position of President he moved our family away to Junon." As they turned the corner they came to a railing that over looked the sea. Wondering just when Wutai ever stretched this close to the ocean, she spun around and observed that they were no longer in Wutai. She saw layer upon layer of shops, houses, businesses and other building stacked one upon the other. "He said that Wutai was a strong nation, with strong warrior class citizens, but he couldn't rely on them to fight shadows that would stalk us in the night if they came. So we moved to the military port of Junon, one of the safest sites on the planet. It was here I first began learning about military strategy and weaponry. To my mother's dismay, my father made sure I had a working knowledge of guns, hand-to-hand self-defense, and a general grasp of military tactics. I joined a private school shortly after we arrived, but nothing too significant occurred while we were there. VWC began taking a larger share of the weapons market, and pushed some of the smaller companies out of the arms race, which pushed their competitors in entirely the wrong direction." The young Vincent turned from the railing and began walking towards one of the houses, as he did she noticed a group of 3 boys, wearing their school uniforms stop in front of one of the houses. None of them older than 7, one black haired boy, a near mirror image to the one she had been following, waved the others off and ran quickly into the house. The image of Vincent she had been following quickly following behind him. Yuffie ran to catch up with the two, lest she miss something important. When she got up the stairs and entered the living room, she saw both boys again standing one next to the other, Also in the room was Vincent's mother, the lady from the soccer game, sitting down on the couch, her face in the palms of her hands crying her eyes out. In the corner of the room was another man, wearing a black suit. Obviously fatigued and tired, he could barely look up to face Vincent or his weeping mother.
"What happened Vincent?" inquired Yuffie.
"That man just told her my father had been assassinated while attending a meeting in his office, and that the syndicate that had killed him, were likely after us as well. All my mother told me was that, something very sad happened, my father was on a business trip for the rest of the month, and that we would have to move again... I didn't believe her, but I didn't want to say anything."
"So you fled Junon?" The entire room suddenly darkened.
"And a day and a half later, we were at our new home in Midgar's Sector 2. We had a fairly decent house at the edge of town. I don't know too much about that place, I was only there for about 1 day."
Yuffie just turned and stared at Vincent, his body the only thing she could see in the darkness. "What happened there?" her voice trembled.
"I remember when I was training to become a Turk, someone once told me that Midgar was the best place to train Bounty Hunters. The place is so huge, and if you don't want to be found, its fairly easy to disappear altogether. That's why we went there... to disappear..."
Suddenly the area lit up again and they were inside a small one-story house. They stood in the dining room, inbetween the Master bedroom and the Kitchen. On the dining room table was a brief case, and a slightly larger looking transport case. Just then the back door opened, and a slightly pale Vincent's mother and Vincent made their way through the house. Stopping only briefly to examine the contents of the cases. One filled to the brim with cold hard cash and a name and number, the other contained two small pistols, what Yuffie recognized now as the Outsider and a small PK. Holding back tears, she put the suitcase under the bed. Unable to carry the gun case, she pushed it off the side of the table, breaking the hinges. After replacing the lid, she pushed it under the bed alongside the brief case. Then she curled up next to the small 7 year old Vincent who had been asleep since they arrived.
The time seemed to drag by, Yuffie didn't remember moving once, or blinking for that matter. She knew something was about to happen. The young Vincent who had been acting as her guide just stood by and watched his mother sleep. Slowly the day died out, and the night moon rose, hanging there in the sky. Yuffie could see it from the spot she had been standing at. Just then she heard something, a car drive up and shut off. Then the soudn of car doors. The noise wasn't wasted on Vincent's mother either. She quietly rose and woke the Young Vincent.
"Mother what is it? I'm tired."
"I know sweetie, I just want you to go... go under the bed for a little while until mother says its ok to come out. But you can't make any noise, you have to be as quiet as you can for mother." Vincent began to move, then she stopped him again. "Vincent wait, under the bed, in the case are some guns... If anything should happen, you should be able to pull the lid off.." Tears formed in her eyes.
"Mommy?"
"Not now sweetie, just climb under the bed like mommy said." With that she kissed him once on the forehead and flashed a proud grin at him. "Don't worry we'll be fine."
Yuffie began panting harder and harder, her breath becoming shallow and fast as she watched. Vincent quickly slid under the bed and removed the cover to the gun case, as his mother made her way forward through the dining room towards the kitchen. Yuffie could only turn and stare as Vincent's mother glanced quickly out the kitchen window, seeing nothing, and went further down towards the back door. Quickly looking through the door's window, she practically jumped back and two loud cracks echoed in their ears. Her lifeless body falling backwards and landing with a thud, her face falling to the side, staring down the hall, straight into the master bedroom. Yuffie didn't have the will to move. She could only imagine the sheer and utter terror the young child under the bed was feeling. Turning to her companion, she noticed that he was now sitting against the wall hugging his knees, tears falling down his face. Turning back towards the kitchen she heard another large thud as the door was kicked in, two men entering the residence.
"Two shots clean through the heart, she's gone. Lets find the kid and get out of here." said one of the gunmen.
Yuffie was without breath, for about half a minute after Vincent's mother's death, she forgot completely to breathe. Still standing in the Dining room between the bedroom were Vincent was hiding, and kitchen where the intruders were entering, Yuffie dropped to her knees so she would be able to better observe Vincent's movements. He already had the smaller PK pulled out in his hands, with the outsider laying on the floor next to him. The first assassin stepped into the hallway uniting the 3 rooms, gun in hand. After he was in full view seven consecutive bursts from the smaller handgun to the chest brought the man down. After hearing the distinct click of an unloaded gun, the second man burst out of hiding, and began opening fire into the bedroom, unsure where to aim. The first 2 shots hit the bed, a third one the back wall, and a forth one struck the floor a few feet in front of the bed. This shot was followed up by a loud crack emanating from under the bed. The bullet caught the man in his forehead and he was instantly down. Vincent just stayed under the bed, unsure whether or not to move.
After 5 minutes, which seemed more like an eternity, the small boy climbed out from under the bed and ran to his fallen mother. Yuffie chased behind him. Vincent just lifted her head, and placed it in his lap. Then he looked at his hands, they were smothered in blood. Yuffie turned to her companion. He too was staring at his tiny hands, they too were covered in blood. The host Vincent, just looked up at her, Yuffie's mouth was gaping open, tears forming in her eyes.
He gestured to the young man still holding his mother, "I'd be like that till morning. Then I'd go through the briefcase, and discover the name of a bank, and the confirmation code and key to a safe deposit box in Sector 2. I could barely hold those pistols... I'd take them and the cash to the safe deposit box, I'd use their car." He laughed quietly at the memory of a 7 year old boy who would later that day drive to a bank to make a deposit of guns and cash.
"No one questioned a 7 year old's presence at a bank like that?"
"It wasn't their job to, I had all the right names and codes. But there was already something in the box. A large rifle, with its name inscribed in the handle. 'Death Penalty.' There was a note to my mother in the box, instructing her to give me the rifle when I was older. If anything were to happen to him, it would be as a keepsake. The first and last produced of its kind. After I placed the guns and money in the box, I memorized all the necessary names and codes I'd need to get back in there. Then I burned the paperwork. I probably wouldn't return for another 5 years, even then just to get one of the pistols, I didn't touch the money or the death penalty. I didn't feel worthy of it. After I was done at the bank, I promptly went to the police, and told them I had lost my parents in Sector 4. After two weeks they had assumed that either, they were dead, or I was abandoned. So I was sent to live at an orphanage. I'd stay with them for another 4 years, until I was kicked out, and began my life with the inner city gangs...
"You must have been about 11."
"I was old enough..."
"Vincent, about your mother... You have to realize it was not your fault..."
"It was my fault!" he snapped. "I could have gone with her, I managed to kill them both. I could have protected her!"
"Vincent, look at yourself. You're seven years old. You probably wouldn't be able to see out the back door window, more or less shoot someone."
"I don't care what you say! I could have. She didn't have to die!"
"Yes she did..." Yuffie whispered, the tears beginning to trail down her cheeks. "They would have expected resistance from her, they didn't expect you to even know how to handle a gun, more or less know how to effectively use one. Your mother chose to die there, so you could ambush them when they came for you."
Vincent was shocked, and angered at the same time. Storming back and forth in the dining room he just shouted; "How can you know that?! How can you say that?!"
"I didn't say that. Your mother did." Yuffie could feel her stomach churn as a sick feeling overtook her.
"What?"
"While I was floating in the darkness. She contacted me. She wanted me to tell you, that if there was any other way she could have been with you she would have jumped at the opportunity. But there were none, so she sacrificed herself, so you would have a chance at ambushing those two. She wanted you to live, and be happy. So please forgive yourself, it would have made her sad to see you torturing yourself like this."
Going down onto one knee, Vincent ran into her and embraced her. Holding one hand on his head, and the other on his back, she gently pushed his head into her shoulder. And they wept together.
"How can I be happy when she's dead?"
"So long as you always remember her, she'll never truly be dead."
Vincent pulled back from her. "Thank you. I don't know what to say but thank you." Tears were still flowing down his face, but now he had a small smile.
"Don't mention it short stuff." Yuffie winked at him before drying her own tears. "Oh ya, I'm not sure if you'll remember this when we're awake again. But if you... Vincent as a whole that is, ever needs to get something of his.. err.. your chest, I'll always be there for you."
"Thank you, I'll take you up on that." He gestured to the bedroom, and when Yuffie turned around, the doorway became the doorway leading back to the Shinra office. She began walking back. Before she entered she spun around and waved to Vincent. He waved back. In the background she could see the Vincent from the memories still cradling his mother's head, then he began to look up. For a second Yuffie thought he was staring at her, but his gaze was off to the side, towards the windows, where the first rays of the morning's light was filtering in. She turned around again and walked through the portal.
NA: I forget what kinda crack i was on when i first wrote this however many years ago that was. Its strange because this is probably one of the shortest flashback sequences i have. At the same time it may become really annoying to the reader since i spend alot of time going into conversation and subtle things about the characters. Right now i've gotten up to chapter 12, and well most of the chapters are pretty long. I'd like to apologize to everyone in advance if it seems like i go on forever about nothing. But i'm just trying to put this down as i imagined it.
Please write up some Reviews! I really appreciate all the feedback, I just with there were more of you to thank for it!