. . . Vincent and the Art of Stalking . . .
"Here? Ya want to be dropped off here?"
Cid was delivering us home. We spent the past three months in rubble, up to our knees in displaced humans and corpses. Gruesome, tiresome work. But we could not simply go home when Midgar had been destroyed. They could not at least. I was obliged to go with them, and it further delayed what I had planned to do should I live.
Interesting that I always had that qualifier in the back of my mind. I did not want to die... but that cowardly part of my brain always knew that it was easier. Slipping away from regrets instead of passing through them.
I had not noticed that there were no more than three of us on the ship. The homeless, purposeless ones. And Cid. The anchor. The man had not realized what he had become when he decided to join us... when he had decided to befriend us. All of us.
I was included in that, perhaps. He was a man worthy of such things. He was passing through his regrets like clouds.
Hmm. Cloud was in Wutai. Where fewer people knew his face. A struggling nation in need of warriors. He would find his purpose. Still following Sephiroth, even after destroying him utterly. He had not learned that the sword was him as much as it was his weapon. Maybe some day I would tell him that.
Tifa had not gone with him. She was leaving the Highwind now, far from Wutains shore. A village outside Nibelheim.
"Yes. Maybe for just a while. I'll keep in touch." She reached up, short woman that she is, and hugged the pilot, narrowly avoiding singing her hair. It was a funny sight, considering how flustered he got over it once she let go.
The anchor and myself. Maybe Rocket Town would not be a bad place to sleep. To live. But I first had to see to it that one last act was done in Nibelheim... before I attempted a lifestyle of any kind.
"I will also get out here, if that is not too much trouble." He was still flustered by female contact, something of which he must not warrant often. A worthy man, who when he was far younger most likely had women clinging all over him. But like any foolish and typically driven man, he had become an engineer instead.
As I had learned from my days in school, engineers were always a little socially awkward.
"Am I gonna hear from ya too Slim? Or should I send the midget after ya?" his penchant for nicknaming grated and softened like sandpaper under a craftsman's hands. If only I had been like him in my youth, I might be... well, dead. But having earned it.
"There is only one thing I must do. After that... do you think that Rocket Town would begrudge another resident?" He laughed. Yes, I had done well in passing up my chance for Cosmo Canyon... I was in dire need of learning a trade lest I die from simple boredom.
Such morbid thoughts. Hmph.
"Hell, Slim, if ya hadn't said that, I wouldn't have let ya get off this plane." I appreciate your honesty, Cid. "Then I would have had to shoot you and then the plane would have gone to waste." My answer elicited a good guffaw from him.
"Stay outta trouble. Now get yer ugly ass out of my plane. The tea's gettin' cold back home... I can smell it." Nanaki and I knew his tea metaphor... terrible, terrible images assaulted my brain. I had to blink a few times to refocus.
"See you soon, Cid." I was stepping out into a spring morning... I had always enjoyed this season in the mountains. Far too bitter cold at the beginning, but it would only be a month before it faded to summer. I wondered if the other side of the mountains had similar weather patterns...
"Hey wait a sec there! Slow the fuck down!" I turned, not realized how much ground I had covered in my daydreams. I was on sensory overload every time I walked outdoors. A native Midgarian always felt nature keenly.
"Midget dropped a book or some shit like that. Got her name on it, so I reckon it's sure as hell is hers. And considering the state of my tea..." A favor already? Devious little man. I would have to get to know this Shera... she seemed the quiet enough type to be hiding a thousand and one secrets about this loud man.
It was good to ally with those types of people.
I still had to perform my last act as guardian of the Shinra scientists... I owed the dead that much. I could not go gallivanting off to find a girl. No matter how kindly she had been as I had known her. But I have always been weak when duty came to question. It had not even been beaten into me from Turk training... no. That had always been me.
"If I must." He handed me the book quickly before taking off for the plane, waving just as he dashed in through the hatch. Damn him for his tea... I had business to attend to. Maybe when I finally reached his town I would put something interesting into that tea of his...
Back to the morbidity again. Except humor this time. Odd.
I looked down at the book shoved so rudely into my hand—no, my claw no less. Plain, unremarkable. Large looping letters proclaiming that indeed it was property of one Miss Tifa U. Lockheart. U? I wondered briefly what manner of middle name would warrant that letter.
Then I noticed it. A page had fallen out, probably due to Cid's hasty passing. I would have to put it back or else it would be missed.
Either out of curiosity or the boredom that hissed at me from my uncertain future, I decided to look at it. If there was text, I would not have read it. But there wasn't... it was music. Sloppily inked sheet music with splatters and smudges all over. Handwritten notes done in the heat of the moment. A release.
Part of earlier Turk training involved extensive education in music theory... at least in my day. I followed the messy notes across the meter. Piano, with bass and treble parts both composed. She had more than a rudimentary knowledge of the subject; more so than her upbringing had suggested.
Then again, she was the woman with all the secrets. Even more so than Aeris. It took a blind man to not see that.
I found myself humming the melody, the way I had learned music in the first place. I was not a visual learner, I needed the notes themselves to learn their footprints. Low, melodic undertones with a high melody... like two voices. A baritone and a soprano. Man and woman. There was no masking that harmonic metaphor. But this man was quiet, hesitant and the woman wailed like a caged bird.
Haunting.
The dissonance when the parts came together was chilling in some aspects. Beautiful, but mournful. Once I had reached the end, which trailed off into silence, I looked back up at the top. I had not seen it the first time, having been distracted by the notes themselves, but it was titled, near buried by smudges.
Lucrecia's Theme. Simple and to the point. I nearly dropped the paper. But the mere mention of her name caused me to instead turn the paper over. More scribbles; mostly unreadable. But a date. If this was a journal...
No. I would leave it be for the moment. I tucked the music just under the front cover. I had to make a decision now... return this immediately, or gone on and conquer my figurative demons. My literal ones... I had learned that I exerted every control over them. They surfaced as the body's plea for help. Not the mind's. It was not anger... but injury.
Left or right, Vincent? Left or right?
The mountains looked far more inviting. Better to give the girl a chance to settle a bit before I came to her door. A day would not hurt anyone. I simply had to set something in motion that would prove helpful for the world.
Immortality had only made me more impatient. It was almost more ironic than the demons. Hojo certainly had a sense of humor... but then, I had always known that.
Time to set your legacy free, Doctor.
---
There are a great number of flammable things that exist in nature. Even more so when you take humans into account; cooking grease, leaves, cotton swabs, hair gel... a fascinating science. I was known for my marksman's skill publicly, but my real talent lay in arson... in explosives.
The fact that Nibelheim burned so cleanly was due to the stash that had been left after my... absence. It would only further my irony that Hojo's child would find it and know what it was for.
He had not, however, found my real stash.
I was satisfied, seeing how the mansion did not in fact burn so much as implode into dust. You are finally free Hojo. I have left nothing of Sephiroth here. Not in this ghost town, whose fake residents had fled for fear of the great wrath of the One True General... it was all quite complicated, really.
Maybe I would write this all down, someday. A day I learned to write with my right hand. They used to force left handed children to write like everyone else. Hojo always did have a professor complex.
But our past was nearly more complicated than Lucrecia and mine. Done. It was all finally done.
I packed up what I had leftover... there was no telling when I would need all this again. Maybe Shera would make use of it... that morbid humor again. It must be the cloak, because I do not recall having this dark of humor. Then again, I spent the greater portion of my middle adulthood in a Dracula styled coffin. No wonder Yuffie used to stalk me with that pencil of a stake that she widdled once while we had down time.
This felt better. I felt... awake.
Something itched at me, from the pocket in my cloak. First things first... I needed to get to a proper supply shop. The cloak had gotten a bit singed by the explosion, and I undoubtedly stuck out in it. This new world of chaos would not handle someone dressed oddly.
But the small book, most likely a journal, kept itching at me from its pocket.
I decided that maybe I would just look up the date I saw on the back of the sheet of music and put it there. Maybe just quickly glance over the page. There was no harm in finding out why she would compose such a piece? And she would never know...
This was idiocy.
But I found myself settling down on the grass, and digging into my pocket for the slim volume. She kept the date neatly written at the top of the pages, so I found the one I was looking for in no time.
I was immediately fascinated.
We finally found Vincent's ghost. The reason he's so uptight, so guarded. All the previous speculating and wondering has come down to this... woman. Can't say I'm surprised, really. I'd always heard that in stories, the lone swordsman is riddled with the pain of lost love. Romantic, really. Vincent always seemed to be in that plane of existence.
Her account of the event was detailed... and almost unfeeling. The way she wrote gave me a sense of "them" but never of "I". Scribbled between a few paragraphs were some experimentation about the music... almost as if it helped her to write it.
She was a beautiful woman. I could see that without any help. But cold, her stare was cold and intelligent. But the way Vincent looked at her suggested he never saw that stare. That expression. Maybe that's why he decided to punish himself with sleep instead of some more... violent. Closing his eyes from it.
Did she watch everyone so closely? I almost felt under a constant microscope, the way she wrote. I had never really considered her much... always seemed so capable. Maybe that was why I expressed my concern, when she and Barret were in danger. Capable did not mean unbreakable.
I was capable once. I hoped that I would be that again.
My fingers had sought out more pages once the entry was finished. The beginning, closer to it. Maybe I would learn more about the others. She had a way of expressing everything about everyone... and I had never really been included in much. Only as much I had wanted to, or that Cid dragged me into... he is really hard to turn down once he has his sights on a goal.
I almost didn't think he was Cloud at all. Such a way he carried himself, head held high. And the way he spoke! Like he was a general. Like he had turned into the childhood hero he always wanted to be. At least... he believed that.
But he didn't remember me.
I read on from there, in that fashion. She had all the evidence set out for Cloud... she just never came to the right conclusion. It was the closest it ever came to being about her, when she talked about Cloud.
Like a sister, almost. Worrying and fussing over her troublesome little brother. She undoubtedly loved him, and thought it romantic too, judging by some of her thoughts. But the real story... was brought about by Aeris no less. Such a catalyst, that girl.
Cloud brought a girl with him, when he came to rescue me. She assured me there were no designs from her end on "my" Cloud. What she doesn't know is I still haven't gotten him. But just meeting someone who isn't afraid to go out and say something like that... I'm baffled. And curious.
I put the book down. I would read all of it before I had the chance to go about my business. As enthralled with the detail and thought that went into her entries, I had things to do. I still had to return this, and I felt the starting prickles of guilt in the back of my mind. What if I should find out something that would alter my perception of her negatively? It is not fair to dislike someone on account of rummaging through their personal things.
Back in the pocket it went. Clothes. Something discreet to put the explosives in. Some food. I needed all these before nightfall.
And then? Maybe I would indulge in a little more reading.
---
I had the deepest respect for Barret now.
Once I was all set and camped for the night, I pulled out the book, as an aid for my insomnia. Of course, insomnia was not really a problem... I had thirty years in the green in that regard. But the true problem with insomnia was the boredom. The night hours do not provide much entertainment of a reputable sort. At least in this lifetime, I intended on being reputable.
But it was in her entries that I really met Barret for the first time. He did not care much for me, but then again, he did not care much for any man around Tifa's age. Protective instinct, as I learned, was the crowning feature to his personality. But to think that someone had guilt that surpassed my own... and over such things... I would not have thought that it would have been Barret.
It's wearing on him. The offhanded comments from Cloud only worsen it. He knows that there were children in some of the bombings. He knows that there were families. He comes to tell me about his dreams at night, where he sees Marlene crying at him from the inside of a building, only to watch it explode. But he still believes it. And for that strength, I will believe him too.
A noble cause, but did the end justify the means? Tifa did not have an answer for that. She observed, she comforted him... but she did not write her thoughts on the matter. Her descriptions of things were wonderfully detailed... but she still had yet to reveal herself.
And then I found the opus.
Six pages long, folded up somewhere in the first half of the journal. Neatly composed, as if there had been several revisions of it, and this was the final. There was no searching for the title, it was beautifully written across the top. Her handwriting was normally so sloppy, and seeing the beautiful script on the top reflected the words beautifully:
Aeris's Theme
May you smile until the world falls out around us.
A little fatalistic note there. But I found myself humming it out, just as I had the other song. Sadness... yes, there is some grieving. But so damn hopeful. She does not write about the people beyond observations and worries... but she knew Aeris. More than Cloud thought he did, far more any of us did. Our brief little firefly; Tifa's secret. And I wondered if Tifa's platonic love for the girl even exceeded what she had for Cloud.
I remember, Aeris. I remember your advice... but without you here? What can I do, but sit and watch... and wait. You would have gone right up to him, and told him everything. You would have... I still see you, in Corneo's mansion, standing in that pretty red dress and telling me "it's not like that". Apologizing for a situation that you didn't even really understand. Apologizing... because...
I wonder. I hypothesize. I watch. I thought I was supposed to do this time around.
It made me angry. Her grief and closeness to another human being made me... angry. Not enough for me to hide in a monster... but enough for me to pitch the offending journal away from me. Watching, waiting. Tifa, it does not work that way.
I should know.
---
I stood outside the house that I had found out belonged to Tifa now. Just bought. She was settling, maybe only temporarily. A small, clean house, suggestive of a small, clean community. So she had wanted to fade off into obscurity. I could respect that. Once I had returned her journal, I would be off to Rocket Town... to find my own obscurity.
But I hesitated.
My claw, raised to knock on her door stops in midair. The small book nearly burned in my pocket, and I realized why I was so hesitant. I was still curious. I was always just a bit nosy, just a bit on the side of prying. It was how I got into the Turks in the first place, how I met Hojo, how I met Lucrecia... you would think a person would learn from their mistakes.
So, as a walked away, the journal bouncing in my pocket, I figured I had a couple hundred years to learn. Besides, I could watch for her, maybe she was not home? Yes, that would justify this. My crooked sense of morality was satisfied.
From my vantage point, I could see her quant abode and remain undetected. The Administrative Research Manual 5.46-7 stated that undetection was best achieved through blending in with the local flora. Considering that I was not currently wearing the red coat I had bought to replace the cloak and was currently sitting with a few branches for a hat, I had followed regulations.
Pay raise for me. Wait, no. More morbid humor? Hmmph.
Satisfied that I was hidden, I nearly tore my pocket as I reached for the book. I did not even care for continuity at this point as I opened it to a random page, beyond where I had read before. This time I was rewarded with my name amongst more musical scribblings.
Vincent told a joke today. Something sarcastic and biting at Cid's expense. It made me laugh, seeing the reaction on Cid's face as it happened. It had been such a tough day too, with all the walking... always the walking. It's wearing on Barret the most, though he hides it the best. Cloud... I can't tell where he is any more. Consumed with this passion for revenge... I'll always smile when he needs it, and make dinner. Always. This is really my place. Not telling jokes with Vincent and Cid, no matter how funny they are. I am needed as support, I have no time for a break.
Almost as soon as I had read it, I heard footsteps. I ducked lower into the underbrush, becoming one with the surrounding foliage. It would take a good eye to see me.
"If you plan on robbing my house, you are sorely mistaken," a familiar voice spoke from behind me. I only had barely enough time to react as a kick was aimed strategically at me. Not a particularly nice strategy either.
"Tifa! Friend, not foe!" I managed to get out before she stopped her barrage of kick and jabs, staring at me like I had grown an extra head. Oh, I still had the branches on my head. And why had she come through this way? Maybe my instincts were thinning.
"Vincent? What are you doing with a bush on your head? Outside my house?" She crossed her arms in front of her, like a headmistress awaiting an explanation from a troublesome student.
Oh, lucky me. My reflexes had afforded me a chance to put the journal in my pocket. Now I just looked like a lurker, not a complete stalker.
"Well, I was sent... by Cid. To make sure you were properly adjusted. He figured that I might remain unseen, so as not to worry you or make you feel like... you are being coddled or some such nonsense." Her look softened. She bought it. Now I could read more of her delightful account.
Wait... that was not supposed to be my first thought, was it?
She laughed. "Right. Cid. Old codger. What is it with you men and assuming I can't take care of myself? Barrett's called probably a dozen times already, almost immediately after I called and gave him my number—" She stopped, most likely realizing who she was babbling to.
Yes, the man with the bush on his head. I must have looked like a tree or something.
"Well, you can come in if you'd like... not sure if you have anywhere to be..." Rocket Town. Job. Enlisting Shera to help me torture Cid. Repose. I had a million excuses as to why I needed to be going.
But damn it all if I was not just a bit weak to nice offerings by women who in fact smiled like they would take care of everything. That you would not want for anything during your brief venture with them.
"I can stay for a short while." Smile wider, check. Sound natural? Definite check. I was getting back into my old reconnaissance habits... it was comfortable. I was a rather good Turk, back in the day. And I never truly was a humble man.
And her house... smelled like tea as I approached it. The kind that is strong and dark and without sugar or milk that tastes delightful... oh, Cid had taught us all well in that regard.
Maybe I would rest here for a day or so.
---
A day or so had turned into three months, three hurried phone calls to Cid explaining why I was not in fact invading his town, and some many pots of tea that I could not count them on all my fingers and toes.
And I had read it. All of it. Four times. And still, I did not return it to her.
It was getting to be a daily joke at this rate. I had the routine in my head, how I would randomly find it amongst her things and how she would tell me I was helpful and maybe pat me on the head. Well, that is quite a silly image, but that is what I had turned into, in some respects. Someone to help her fix up the house, and fetch groceries, and chat about idle things. Though, considering my little secret, I found it best to let her do the talking.
She would not get curious that way. As I had read, she was terribly observant. But she expected me to be vague and quiet. So I was vague and quiet. Not that I ever liked talking much anyway. That was a job for rookies and politicians. Not seasoned veteran old fools like me.
For, there was a problem with my daily joke. Quiet simply, I was terribly obsessed with the woman.
I compared the almost memorized notes in my head to her doings. I kept trying to match up the Tifa in the journal—observant, mothery, detailed—to the Tifa that always made far too much food, and still worked despite now being quite well off.
A man could almost go mad living the way I did. Especially now that her birth date was approaching. I had known exactly what to get her, since the second reading of the journal. Something that someone with her level of skill and detail in this facet of living would either love or hate. It was always extremes with her... luckily, she loved far more than she hated.
So would she love a piano, or hate it?
And why did I worry so much over frivolous things such as that? I should have been staking my claim in Rocket Town at this very moment. The last phone call with Cid... he suspected something, and I felt guilty for no reason.
Dammit, Valentine, just give her the journal back and get on with your life!
"Vincent? What are you doing?" She quickly adjusts to any situation, as evidenced by her accounts. To Aeris, to Nanaki, to myself and Cid... and she was adjusting now. Quickly.
And I was standing stock still, outside the house with a paint bucket in my hand, not having added a single drop of paint to the siding that I had been asked nearly an hour ago to paint.
Thinking is like a blackout for me... I should not indulge in it, for I might lose track of time. Like now.
"This is not an appropriate color." She does not argue or even begin to argue. Maybe she has caught onto me. Maybe... she just knows that I am a crazy old man with a creepy tendency to stalk women. Maybe... she just does not care.
"Alright. But can you make a decision on the paint faster? I thought you had an aneurysm or something." And why does the fact that her humor which has started to border on slightly morbid is so appealing? I almost pulled the journal out of my pocket that very instant to show her, to confess that I am in fact a deranged man.
But I was stuck like this. Is this why Aeris would often listen to her and no one else? Why Cloud and Barret and everyone but me?
"And um... get back to work. You can't completely freeload off me." A swish of dark hair and she was back inside, humming one of the many tunes I had memorized from the book that felt like a lead weight in my pocket.
Oh no... Valentine. Not again.
---
I gave into the urge to buy her a piano, and considering the difficulty it took for me to get it into her living room, and just so too—did she ever like a neat house. Cloud drove her nuts on the trip for his messiness—I was impatient for her to arrive.
So I waited. The journal still such a heavy weight in my pocket. The piano across from me, taunting me. I really was a nutjob, was I not?
Keys jangled in the lock. I had forgotten to unlock it... I was still rather paranoid about security. Old habits die hard or some such thing. But she had the lock under control before I had a chance to get up. Good thing too, she still did not see me.
But she certainly saw the piano.
At first, she looked confused. Then almost angry. But soon enough she was smiling that terribly unreadable smile. I guessed that was a good thing. Sometimes that spelled imminent destruction.
And then she saw me.
I stood up carefully, hand resting on the journal in the coat that I refused to take off indoors. It was getting colder, and Tifa was such a hothead and never turned the temperature up.
Were we good enough at this nonverbal communication? Had three months of living with a person that only gave hints at who she really was entitled me to that? And why was she looking at me like that? Had I done something terribly, terribly wrong?
"You know, Vincent, you're not like the other Turks. You're actually friendly."
"It looks like you are my roommate. Hello, my name is Linus. Linus Hojo."
"That is because the others are just so... focused. I like to take time out, enjoy the things that Nibelheim has to offer."
"What are you studying, Linus? I have to admit that I do not quite know what I am doing with my life yet."
"Science."
"I am a scientist... my name is Lucrecia."
My head felt dizzy. I knew that my... crazy would catch up with me eventually. Old habits die hard, and seeing that look on her face... no wonder Hojo saw that I was fit. No wonder Lucrecia...
"Would you play something?" My throat was dry, and I must have looked paler than usual. She arched one perfectly placed eyebrow at me and sat down. This nonverbal communication... were we passing the test?
And why was May such a cold month here?
"You know, madness is a relative term, my dear Vincent."
One and two and three and four and... eight notes so precise and calculated. Stiff, formal, and almost maddening in their evenness. Her fingers were precise and flashed carefully over the keys. Her shoulders sagged a little each passing measure. So it had been the wrong thing to get her... she never spoke of memory, she never did. Barret always hid it with a string of curse words and a gung ho attitude. Cid hid it under a mountain of ash. Cloud never really found it.
"Why is it that you seem so fascinated with my wife? Really, it is quite tiresome dealing with your little obsession."
I was sitting on the bench next her, as soon as the music abruptly stopped. Her memories... they went so much farther than the journey. As mine had, buried under a self-righteous fury and indignation. So, I blamed Hojo for everything. But Lucrecia was no innocent. Nor was I.
And maybe... Tifa was not the girl that I so obsessed over in the journal. And maybe... I liked that.
She sniffled onto my shoulder, turning my silly red coat to burgundy with her tears. I always thought she should cry, especially after seeing the music...
"I never could figure out music for you. You know that?" Almost petulant, that tone was. Oh, she was quite angry with me. Would she try and pummel me, or was there something far better planned?
"You are frustrating. You know that? Showing up at my doorstep and acting like some crazy person hovering all the time... and damn you I liked it. But what am I? Some experiment? Some..." she deftly put her hand into the front pocket, like she knew it was there all along, "Some comparison? You want me to play music for you? So you can see whether I memorized all this?"
Tifa was a woman. So irrational. Especially sniffling and throwing books across rooms. Very irrational.
"I cannot help it that you are fascinating. And I apologize for keeping things from you." Not good enough. The frown had commenced.
"You're such a stalker! People go to jail for less than what you've been doing! You're completely... batshit! Do you know that! BATSHIT!" I did not mean to smirk at her language. I had never seen her temper before, and it was so terribly fascinating...
"You! I don't want you anywhere near me! You're crazy! I'm married, can't you see that? All this hovering and stalking... it has to stop!"
...Which promptly earned a crazy erratic female slap from her. Fair enough. Why did all women think I was crazy? Albeit, this time Tifa was far more accurate than she knew.
And it hit me. This was Tifa; unattached, angry, and so completely fascinating Tifa. She too had lived a lie, and was slightly on the neurotic side. She always took milk and sugar in her tea, and was bossy if you gave her the chance. She loved Cloud like a brother, even if she could not confess to it.
She would also be rather angry with me if I decided to kiss her. I had not seen angry Tifa enough, so I took a chance.
Maybe I had chosen right this time? "You will not distract me while I am lecturing you Vincent Valentine!" I expected this as soon as the act was done. I did not expect the sudden stuttering and crazy wide eyes that followed.
"W-wait... you didn't just... that's low, even for you... and... and... I have nothing further to lecture you git!" And as if to show me that she was just as annoying, kissed me back.
"You have to learn what is yours... and what is not. I laid a claim, Vincent. A claim."
"You cheated. You knew how interesting you were to me. You knew it. Sneaky, batshit, stalkerish man..."
"I guess it worked out, did it not? You cannot sit and watch and wait all the time, Tifa."
I think I staked a claim this time. And if Cloud were to show up, proclaiming his undying love? Well... I was a little "batshit" was I not?
"But... you need to talk more. Or be all quiet again. The attitude has to go."
Of course... this would put a damper on my Rocket Town plans. I am sure Cid would not lose any sleep over it. And who knows? Maybe once Tifa got over the fact I was indeed crazy, she would come along too.
"Now, will you play me something? I must compare notes."
"Batshit... crazy... it's so not fair..."
I think that I might have figured how to work my crazy to my advantage. The Administrative Research Manual 5.46-7 said that any weakness should be turned into a strength through proper dedication and training.
And I still had to find out what her middle name was.
AN: This HAS to be the longest one-shot I have EVER written. But Mila drew me SUCH a pretty picture... and I worked hard on this. Due to some RP stuff, I fear my Vincent will never be the angst bucket he used to be. I always thought him a little on the crazy side... same with Tifa. That's why I love them. Sorry about longer fics I have been ignoring... big RP project of d00m has eaten me. Liek whoa totally. Hope that this was amusing. I do enjoy messing with fanon characterizations. And I hope this is good enough for you, Mila. Really do. Not so dramatic or weepy... but I can't write like that. XD Cendri will now sleep.