Chapter - 13: In Blood We Swear
The bullet left the barrel of Vincent's gun. Sephiroth cringed as it flew past his head, but opened his eyes when he heard it hit and a scream behind him.
"Ambush!" Vincent shouted as he sidestepped to the right and let loose three more rounds, each hitting a blue-uniformed Shin-Ra guard.
Sephiroth spun around and unsheathed Masamune, cleaving the soldier now in front of him in two. The marine screamed as his remains fell backwards, and Sephiroth stepped over him to run the next man through with his sword. He quickly pulled the sword free of the corpse, tucked it under his between his arm and his side, and thrust it hard behind him, impaling another foe that had charged up.
Gunfire erupted around them as their surprise counter-attack ended. Vincent turned, quickly putting his back towards Sephiroth as he side stepped again and released two shots. A few bullets blew through his cloak as he continued his run.
Sephiroth walked forward as a gun-toting guard fired repeatedly on him with his automatic rifle. Each bullet slammed into his chest but he kept walking and swung Masamune, severing the head of his enemy. Three more men crouched low in the nearby bushed and fired. The silver haired warrior aimed an outstretched palm at them, as lightning shot out, arced over to them, and ignited the patch of trees on fire with the explosion.
Vincent leapt up into the air and disappeared into his cloak as it floated across the lake to engulf a marine on the other side. The man screamed as he faded into the darkness and Vincent emerged. Another guard ran at him from behind, but Vincent spun around quickly and smashed his metal gauntlet into the side of the mans head, sending him out cold.
"Don't move." a voice came from behind Sephiroth as someone rammed the tip of a pistol into his back hard. "Turn around slowly and drop the sword."
Immediately, he spun around and swung, the gun went off seconds before he severed the hand holding it, the bullet hit him in the side. When he paused, he noticed it was Scarlet lying on the ground, blood gushing through her fingers as she tried to hold the stump.
The fight was over in mere seconds. Vincent walked back over to where Sephiroth stood and knelt next to Scarlet. He grabbed her bleeding arm with his right hand and rammed his gauntleted palm down on the top of her wound. She cursed, struggling briefly, but in a second, green light wafted off his hand as her the cut sealed.
He stood back up and looked at Sephiroth. Their talk had been cut short and he still shuffled through what he had told him, in his mind.
Cloud, Barret, and Tifa ran into the clearing breathing hard.
"Wha' the hell jus happened?" Barret asked franticly as he looked around.
"An ambush." Vincent said as he lightly prodded Scarlet's arm with his pointed boot.
Cloud walked over and knelt next to her as Sephiroth sheathed his blade.
"What were you doing?" Cloud asked.
Scarlet huffed and defiantly turned her head to the side. "We were coming here to find the Promise Land, after the incident in Midgar; this looked as good as anywhere to start."
"You'd think they'd jus give dat up already…" Barret scoffed.
"Shin-Ra is dead." Reno said as he and Rude walked out from behind some nearby trees. "Rufus is dead. Midgar might as well be dead."
"It's over…" Rude added solemnly.
"Ignorant grunts." Scarlet spat. "You and the rest of your group always thought you were better then you really were."
Cloud shook his head and interjected. "Are there anymore of you left?"
"Heidegger and the rest of his troop died last year in an accident attempting to find a way into the Lifestream."
"Why would you want to go into the Lifestream?" Sephiroth asked.
Scarlet sighed and looked off into the sky wistfully. "We thought that if the Promised Land wasn't anywhere on the planet, then maybe it was inside it."
"You people are really losing it." Tifa shook her head.
"I've been in the Lifestream, there is nothing there." Cloud explained.
Sephiroth paused and thought a moment. "I remember fleeting things from when I traveled it, under the Northern Crater, there was something, it looked like a city of green crystal. It was being choked by Jenova as she absorbed the power."
All eyes turned to him for a moment as they thought of it.
"If she's killin' the planet, then we're gonna stop her." Barret turned around and started back towards their camp.
