Disclaimer: Tell you what. I'll make a song that doesn't end. It'll include all the things I don't own. Mmkay? FFVII and its characters, concepts etc. are some of them.
A/N: I am sick of studying and I am desperately creative. So we have this chapter. In which more status afflictions are abused for the sake of Yuffentine, and, well… read the chapter title. Anyway, I've noticed in my misadventures that Vincent seems to get affected by Berserk rather a lot. So we have this. Enjoy, kids. ^^
Chaos Ensues
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
Yuffie had to clamp both of her hands over her mouth to prevent herself from laughing out loud. Vincent seemed to have made it his private mission to grind the grass he walked on into its component atoms. It wasn't his fault, really. As they had been wandering around, a fiend had leaped from the brush and attacked, hitting him with Fury Needles. And of course they had nothing with which to heal the condition, only a Heal materia that was not powerful enough to allow her to use anything except Poisona. So he really had no choice but to be Berserk, as his status indicated.
But hey, what had the poor grass ever done to him?
"Hey monster man, what's your major malfunction?" She asked loudly as she trotted ten feet behind him. "It'll wear off sooner if you let it, y'know." Vincent didn't make any sort of coherent response, only hunched his shoulders slightly. He seemed to glow in anger, ever more brightly, ever more heatedly. She wondered if Berserk made people explode.
"Hey, you listening up there? You have to take a chill pill, Vinnie, or the Berserk lasts longer."
"Yes, Yuffie." Vincent's words were clipped with frustration. "Thankyou, Yuffie." He continued winding his way up the small mountain they had been in the middle of climbing when this shenanigan had started. Yuffie bounced along behind him.
"Because, y'know, if you keep being angry like this, you're gonna go ahead and blow away your big silent exterior, monster man, and you're gonna say more than '…'." She jumped, ricocheted off a few trees and stuck a landing directly in front of him. She then proceeded to do a spirited imitation of Vincent at his most dramatic, flinging her right arm around and yelling, "………!" with a vengeance.
Vincent's expression slowly darkened to the point where his face actually started to change colour – the first time she had ever seen such a thing in the stoic man. Still, she managed to muster a soulfully pathetic look, making her eyes wide and tortured and murmuring, "Lucrecia…" in as deep a voice as she could find within her small, skinny ribcage.
It was the last straw. Vincent's human hand darted out and grabbed her by the collar faster than even her ninja reflexes could match, and he wrenched her forward with a snarl. She let out a cry of shock and alarm at the sudden action, and at his inhumanly sharp canines. Yuffie squeezed her eyes shut. Oh gods, help me. Now I've done it.
"Do not speak of her," he said in a voice gone hoarse with fury. "Do not speak of her in that manner! You, Kisaragi Yuffie, are trying me to the point of insanity. Do you not think that perhaps, having been a Turk, I know precisely in which circumstances Berserk is most likely to wear off? Has it occurred to your miniscule, puerile mind that perhaps the demons that inhabit my body feed from the rage and do their utmost to prolong it? Have you no inkling of when you should shut the Hell up—?"
He thrust her away from him with a wordless cry of agony and she landed heavily in the dirt, curling her thin arms above her head protectively, as though afraid he would strike her. Her breath came fast, fearful. She could hear Vincent's steps approaching, heavy on the gravel of the slope. Leviathan help me. There was a loud crunch.
"W-What are you going to do?" She whispered in a panic, tears trickling from beneath her squeezed-shut eyelids.
Nothing. Silence but for her own too-fast breathing. She raised her head cautiously, her tear-streaked cheeks pale with dread. And Vincent made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, a sound that made her certain he was choking, he was dying, and it was all her fault. His claw was buried, deep gouges in the ground testimony to a savage swipe at nothing. His right hand was tensed, clawing at his collar as though something there pained him.
"Oh my god! Vincent!"
She flung herself toward him, her eyes wide and fearful, no longer of the man but for him. "Vincent, Vincent, Vincent, oh my gods, Vincent, breathe Vincent, oh my god…"
His hand relaxed briefly, his eyes opened, but the entirety of the eye was flooded with crimson. Only for a moment, and then he choked the demons down once more, battling frantically to lock them away. Slowly the red seeped from the whites of his eyes, to dwell only in the pupils once more. He turned his head to lock eyes with her. Gods only knew what she looked like to him, eyes wide with panic, tears still on her face, the face that must have aged five years with fear for him.
But it was enough. And his hand unclenched at last, and he twisted his gauntlet-arm until the tips of the gleaming deadly bronze came free of the stone. Yuffie felt her breathing slow and calm, looking into those eyes. Deep and calm and cool, like the soothing bottomless ocean. Leviathan's depths. She took a shuddering breath and slid down the hill and locked her arms about his neck.
"Don't do that! Don't ever scare me like that!" She ordered him roughly, trying to make anger more pronounced in her voice than tears. To her shock and amazement, Vincent lowered his forehead to rest it on her armour-less shoulder. She knew without knowing how that his eyes were closed and that his mouth was again tugging downward in grief.
"I'm… sorry. For what I said. I don't… mean it, Yuffie." His breath was cool as he exhaled, keeping his voice level and calm. "Please forgive me… I am always affected badly by Berserk."
Yuffie gulped. "Vinnie, Vinnie, are you okay now? I thought you were gonna die. I'm sorry. I'll try not to pester you any more. Are you okay?" She asked him nervously, noticing that she was babbling and not really caring. He raised his head from her shoulder then and stood carefully, offering her a courteous hand, as ever. He nodded slightly.
"As long as you are well." He said, his words laden with some meaning she didn't care to try and decipher. Just listening to Vincent talk gave her a headache – if she started thinking about everything he said, and all the different meanings behind his words, she'd go crazy. Totally, completely crazy.
"'m fine," and then, regaining some of her fervour, "Hey, ya big idiot-head, you'd better not get hit by Berserk Needles again! If you think I'm gonna put up with you'n your damn bad moods…" She trailed off as ominously as she could, turning her nose up in the air to hide her relief that Vincent wasn't about to transform and chomp on her backbone.
Vincent seemed to understand. To her surprise, his eyes crinkled slightly at the edges. He seemed to realise the oddity of this at the same time she did, for he turned away and continued up the mountain. His step was far lighter than it had been before, iron-tipped shoes making barely a sound even on the loose scree of the slope. "I will try my utmost to make certain that it does not occur again."
Yuffie ran up the slope ahead of him, tossing him a grin over her shoulder as she passed. "Betcha can't beat me to the top of the mountain!"
Vincent shook his head slightly as she darted off. Incorrigible child. He didn't think even in his thoughts he could properly express how glad he was that she did not flinch away every time he looked at her. He wasn't certain how, despite everything, she could still be concerned for his health over fearing the demons within him… but he was not going to discourage her. Even he needed to be supported at times, and if that strength had to come from the ninja, so be it.
~*~
A/N: Well, what do you think? I'm starting to like status afflictions. 3
