Disclaimer: I do not own Yuffie and Godo Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine, AVALANCHE, all characters and concepts related to AVALANCHE, or, in fact, anything that is from Final Fantasy VII (that honour goes to the wonderful bunch at Square-Enix).
Claimer: I DO, however, own the concept of this story and all non-canon concepts seen in this chapter and previous chapters. Feel free to use my ideas and original characters, but please give me credit. If you don't give me credit, Tsen Li will turn into a Gary Stu, ruin your story, and then eat your liver.
And When that Day Comes
Dig my head down deep so I can't hear the cars
Outside on the street, and the stars are laughing
They get a kick out of my misery.
I've tried everything short of Aristotle,
Dramamine, and the whiskey bottle,
I pray for the day when my ship comes in
And I can sleep the sleep of the just again
—Insomniac, Straight No Chaser
Chapter Fourteen
The Highwind
Cid Highwind stared at the panel. Vincent and Reeve stared with him.
That little window that informed them all of the airship's fuel levels had bad news. Very bad news.
"Don't you have a back-up fuel supply in every region?" Reeve asked.
"Yeah. But we're shit outta luck anyway. My back-up's in mother$&in Wutai."
". . ."
"Yeah, that's about our situation, Vince."
"This sucks."
"Yeah, Cat." Cid swore.
Reeve swore also. "How the hell are we supposed to leave, then?"
"You're all damn lucky I had the foresight to keep a few dozen barrels in the cargo hold." Cid belly-laughed. "I had you all worried. Admit it, Vince! The unflappable Vince, taken in. . . "
"That wasn't funny." And he's usually so funny, too. What's wrong with him?
Cid sobered up almost instantly. "A little too much like the Yuffsters, wasn't it?"
Vincent nodded.
"Whelp, let's get that shit loaded into my baby and get going, since there ain't a damn thing we can do here."
Yuffie was five feet ahead of him at the moment, and he was closing in. His legs were longer than hers; it was inevitable that he would catch up.
But Yuffie had been training her entire life for speed.
He wore the yellow kimono over a dark blue hakama, and, only partially to console him, she had worn a plain white kimono with red silk trim.
He was coming closer and closer, closer and closer.
Sprinting up this incline was harder than she remembered it being, but damned if she was going to stop for breath. Used to be she could get halfway up without having to stop. Her lungs hadn't even started burning yet. None of her muscles ached. She could keep going.
She could keep going. So she kept going.
Behind her, Tsen Li swore. "You could have warned me we would race on a rocky incline."
She didn't waste her breath replying. She needed that breath; she wasn't going to waste it on somebody who didn't deserve it.
She wound up beating him (though, to his credit, not by as large a margin as she'd thought she would) to the top.
"What the hell kind of physical training do you do?" She demanded. "You're two years older than I am, something like nine inches taller, and yet, you're only a seventh degree blackbelt and you can't tie me in a footrace."
"Compared to you, almost none," he admitted. "I don't really have time to train the way you do. Or the reason. Most of my duties are, you know, indoors. Talking to people. Politics."
"And mine aren't? I'm the Second of Wutai. The Second's duties aren't just ceremonial, you know! I have to help run this city every freakin' day! It's what I've done almost all my life, in some way or another! And you know what? I still find time to train. And if I can't find time, then I make time."
Tsen Li looked down. "I've never taken the whole fighting aspect of my training seriously. That's why I have guards."
Yuffie snorted. "Well that's a smart way to live! Somebody could pay one of your guards to kill you, and what would you do then? Gawd, you're dumber than I thought!"
". . . That thought never occurred to me. Why not just hire an assassin?"
"Because paying off your bodyguard would be cheaper. And easier. And less noticeable. Why do you think I don't have guards? And why do you think my father doesn't, either?"
"I'd thought you were too poor to afford them."
Wow. Just, wow. What a condescending jerk!
She almost wanted to lie and tell him that Vincent was actually her lover, and that they'd been secretly having an affair for a year, just to piss him off.
Maybe she could 'accidentally' throw him off First Face's hand.
She decided against it.
Instead, she started to explain the relationship between her and Vincent. The real relationship.
"Alright, we've got power. And pretty soon, we're gonna have thrust. And then we're gonna own the sky!" Cid pumped his fist into the air, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
"I understand the concept of an airship, Cid."
"I thought you could use a little reminder, seein' as it's been forever and a day since you've been on this beauty."
Vincent sighed, but said nothing further. There really wasn't anything to say.
As they gained altitude, he noticed something.
Two figures were standing on First Face's hand. One wore a very feminine kimono over a hakama, while the other. . .
Was wearing a red and white kimono and had hair that just barely brushed her shoulder blades.
Vincent blinked, his superhuman vision already telling him that the people standing atop Da Chao were Yuffie and Tsen Li.
Yuffie was gesturing wildly, but suddenly went still.
"Why did you really want to race up here, Yuffie?"
She sighed. "Well, at least you're smart enough to know something's up."
"Tell me. Please."
"Okay. . . Do you know the legend of First Face's Hand?"
"Isn't that the one that says if you jump and survive, then one wish will come true?"
"Yeah. Have you ever wondered what you'd wish for?" Idly, she performed a kata Vincent had taught her. It brought her to the edge of the hand.
Tsen Li waited a long time to respond. "It's always been a moot point. This is my first time on Da Chao."
"Just. . . what would you wish?"
She was going to have to make her decision soon. Bring her mother back. . . Or save Wutai.
"I'd wish that I didn't have to marry you."
"Aw, how sweet of you. Bastard." She ground her teeth. "When I was little, I dreamed of wishing to see, just for a day, how my life would be if my mother hadn't died."
"And what would you wish today?"
But Yuffie didn't answer him. Instead, she turned to look at First Face's. . . well, face. "All blessings upon Da Chao, who sows to reap, who gathers beads to string, who stands fair judgment over all."
First Face didn't answer, of course. He simply stared at her with those unseeing eyes.
And then she began to scream. "If I survive, Da Chao, let it mean that I am a worthy leader for Wutai! That is all I want, is to be worthy of Wutai, to be the one to save her! Take my life, if I'm not worthy, but if you can make me worthy, then do it! Make me worthy, Da Chao!"
She gave Tsen Li a little wave, and stepped backwards.
I want to be worthy. I want to be worthy. I want to be worthy. I want to be worthy.
Vincent felt his heart jump into his throat. His throat tightened while his bile rose at the thought of what Yuffie had just done.
He had to get to her. . . Had to save her. . . He had sworn to never harm any member of AVALANCHE. And staying still was definitely harm.
"Holy $&!" Cid cried. "Hot $&in' damn! She just—"
But Vincent didn't hear the rest of Cid's words. He was casting aside his cloak and hastening towards the airlock doors in the cargo hold.
Before anybody could stop him, he had reached the cargo hold and pulled the lever. The doors opened.
As Yuffie fell, she thought, oddly enough, of her father. All their bitter moments, every ridiculous test he'd put her through. Every time he'd berated her for beating him at his own game.
Every time she had cried to stay home. Every time he'd turned away, laughed at her, mocked her. Pretended she wasn't there.
And then her thoughts drifted to Tsen Li. Beating the everliving hell out of him had been fun, in a way. Even better, he'd deserved it. He had tried to ruin Wutai's future.
Well, she wouldn't let him. If she survived.
Right before she realized that this was the stupidest thing she'd ever done, she thought about Vincent. That weirdly intimate and yet totally innocent moment they'd shared. The way he'd patiently taught her pieces of the Mi Tsu style of martial arts, the way he'd thrown himself into learning Da Chao.
Those early mornings when they had hurled themselves at each other, fists flying, legs snapping out. They'd never tried to injure each other. . . But they both knew that the other wasn't fragile. They hadn't been trying to hurt each other, but they hadn't been trying not to, either.
That warm expression on his face as he'd played with her hair haunted her.
And, just when she realized that this was the dumbest thing she'd ever done, and not only was it the dumbest thing she'd ever done or thought of doing, it redefined the term "dumb". . .
A pair of arms wrapped around her.
Yuffie found herself face-to-face with a very odd looking Vincent. His eyes hadn't flooded red, but they were glowing extremely brightly. He was holding her in some sort of death grip, as though he feared that he'd let go.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and held tight. Her body, naturally, slid up against him. Vincent stiffened for a minute. The glow intensified.
And then he began to change. It wasn't a normal change, where his whole body changed at once. . . This time, it seemed randomized for every part of his body.
He screamed as Chaos' wings exploded from his back. Various parts of his body tried to transform. Yuffie bit back a scream when Vincent's mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth.
Within a half second— and though all of this seemed, to Yuffie, to pass slowly, it took a lot shorter of a time than she estimated— Vincent's body had entered such a state of flux that the only constants about him were his eyes. . .
And the wings.
Chaos spread the wings against the wind, slowing their fall. Making it manageable.
Vincent made noises in the back of his throat. They were like a cross between a moan and a snarl.
She found the Blessing upon Da Chao tearing itself from her lips. It forced itself from her very extremely numb mouth in something that might have been a whisper or a scream. She couldn't tell. Vincent's throat noises seemed to coincide with the Blessing, but that might just have been wishful thinking on her part.
Wind buffeted them, and her kimono, which she'd chosen partly to ensure her dignity as she fell and partly to shut Tsen Li up, did not billow gracefully as she'd hoped. She'd known it wouldn't look graceful, but she'd hoped to be able to manage it with dignity.
She didn't. Her hair and kimono flew all over the place, slapping Vincent in the face at times, sometimes whipping into her eyes.
"Little dragonfly," Vincent hissed in a voice that wasn't his. "Know how to fall."
And that was when she realized that the wings were retreating into Vincent's back, that the purplish tint to his skin was going pale. . .
The flux ended. Yuffie automatically pulled herself into a proper falling position. Vincent wrapped himself around her.
She closed her eyes.
They hit the ground.