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 Nineteen

Da Cha O --- Yuffie's Old Home

Night

Vincent stared at the cage in the basement.

The slight dent he'd made in the bars a year before was gone. Someone had welded over it with a different type of steel.

Squeak.

That was all the sound he needed— nightingale floors didn't lie.

He turned away from the cage, made his way up the steps to the first floor. He wended his way through the house, finally coming to the front door.

In the doorway stood a particularly haggard-looking Chang Sho Tzu.

"Mr. Valentine," Sho Tzu panted, "please come with me. We need your help."

"What's going on?"

Sho Tzu shook his head, breathing heavily. "Tsen Li has launched an attack on the Palace."

"What? But what of the guards?"

"Traitors or dead, all of them."

"And Yuffie? Godo?"

"I— I don't know. Yuffie wasn't in the Palace when the attack launched."

"Godo?"

"No one knows. We have no way to know."

He looked away, realizing that there was no time to even think about this. He had no choice, because there was no choice to make.

So he nodded. "My weapons?"

Sho Tzu pointed to a cabinet, already crossing the room towards it. "Hidden in here."

His feet glided almost soundlessly across floors that announced his every step. His knuckles rapped against the cabinet.

A panel slid open, revealing the Death Penalty.

"Don't try to lift it."

Vincent took the Death Penalty from the panel, the rifle's weight familiar to his right arm, the grip fitting perfectly in his hand. He jammed the Death Penalty into its holster.

"Let's go."

They went.

The Palace, he realized, was on fire. He did not know this by seeing that the building was burning; he couldn't see the building burning because of smoke irritating his eyes. Instead, he tasted the air, letting the senses that Galian had improved tell him.

The scents of burning wood and airship fuel clung to the air.

That was really all he needed to know, and that was all he could know, because the scents were too heavy for him to identify individuals.

Where is Yuffie?

The one question that ran through his mind.

Where is Yuffie?

He had no way of knowing. He could only hope that she hadn't so lost her senses that she'd run into a burning building.

Knowing her, she had. With no second thoughts.

Where is Yuffie?

Sho Tzu stared hard at the building, eyes narrowing.

"The Second will have gone in," he murmured.

And with no further comment, Sho Tzu drew his weapons— a pair of wakizashi— and headed into the Palace.

Vincent popped the snap on the Death Penalty's holster. He checked his ammunition.

And then he followed Sho Tzu.

Where is Yuffie?

The building was hot, so hot, and the smoke irritated his eyes even worse than it had outside.

How could anybody fight in these conditions? Why were people bothering to try? Didn't they understand that the Palace could come crashing down on their heads at any moment?

That, he supposed, was what bothered him about the situation. Not that he had gone chasing after a man he barely knew and didn't much trust into a burning building. Not that he had chased this man into a burning building for the sake of a seventeen year old girl. The blind running, the screaming, the smoke in his eyes, the heat, the constantly having to bring up the claw to stop people from bringing swords down over his head— that didn't bother him.

At least, not as much as the fact that people were trying to fight like this. That they were foolish and desperate and vengeful enough to continue to fight in a hostile environment that was only growing more hostile with every passing second.

Someone tried to skewer him. He only knew because he heard the sounds of their movements, dully, over the crackling of the flames.

He blocked the attack, twisting lightly with the 'fingers' of his claw. The blade raised against him snapped. He could feel the jolt of its destruction thundering up his arm.

But where, where, WHERE was Yuffie?

He made his way through the Palace, his eyes flooding with tears because of the smoke. Thick, black stuff that choked him. Had he any true need to breathe, he would surely have fallen to his knees by now.

How did they stand it? He had thought himself a monster, but his bloodlust had never been so great as to drive him to such misery and destruction as this. Perhaps that was the self-serving side of his monstrous nature...

Or perhaps bloodlust was part of human nature.

Distantly, he heard people coughing. It wasn't half as loud as his false, hideous heartbeat in his ears. It wasn't half as loud as the crackling of the flames, as the creaking of the wood.

Creaking wood.

Automatically, his eyes widened, unleashing his tears and helping the smoke irritate him even more.

Creaking wood. Burning building. Unstable building. Creaking wood.

Every attack, every shout, every footstep was weakening the Palace. And weakening the Palace would result in—

Yuffie stopped running, her chest heaving up and down, up and down.

She couldn't seem to breathe.

Around her, the Palace burned. Smoke choked her, irritated her eyes.

Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea.

She hoped to Leviathan that the man she'd just skewered hadn't been one of her own.

But how could she just leave her father in a burning building? Sure, she didn't always get along with him. But he was still her father, and fucked up as he was, fucked up as their relationship was, she still loved him.

She had to find him. She had to get him out of here. She had to. Wutai still needed him.

Wutai just wasn't ready for her rule.

"Dad!" She cried, then bent over, coughing.

Damn Tsen Li! Damn South Wutai!

She could have put her fist through a wall in frustration if she hadn't been so out of breath.

...And if she didn't care if the Palace crashed down on her head.

Where was he?

Hell, where was she?

Funny, how she'd lost her way now that she couldn't see where she was. She'd thought she'd known this place as well as she'd known herself.

She must not have known herself very well.

She finally managed to get a clear breath.

She got down on her hands and knees, crawling through the burning passageways. With her face almost impossibly low to the ground, she got more clean air.

Okay, maybe if she just kept heading in that direction...

She found her way to the Throne Room.

Odd, the floor was colder here. The air was easier to breathe.

What was going on?

And then she realised. Things weren't burning here.

What the?

She moved into the Throne Room. And now everything made sense.

In the centre of the Throne Room stood Tsen Li and Godo.

"Damn you," Cid pounded a first against the airship's console. "Damn you, answer me! Wutai, answer!"

But there was nothing. He tried channel after channel, but all he saw in the distance was smoke, and all he heard in his headset was static.

"Do we have any idea what's happening on the ground?" Cloud asked.

Cid shook his head and swore. Violently. Again. "Not a fuckin' clue, Cloud. Last we heard from anybody in Wutai was when Yuffie asked if I'd left airship fuel in Wutai. They were dumping it on the Palace."

Cloud looked to the horizon.

In the distance, they saw massive plumes of black smoke. Black smoke, thick and heavy, like some sort of poisonous fog or cloud, like currents of black water swimming through the sky.

"Son of a bitch," Cid breathed.

"So they've set fire to it." From the way Cloud sounded, Cid wasn't sure if he was asking a question or making a statement. "Think we can crash the airship through the city gates?"

Cid didn't even blink before replying, "Think I can slam your head through that console?"

"Was that a yes?"

"That was a fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, goddamnit NO." He added a few more instances of fuck for good measure. "Tifa could break those damn gates down with a Final Heaven."

"Good point."

It was then that Tifa and Reeve (who was carrying Cait Sith in his arms with the giant Moogle walking behind him) rushed into the cockpit.

"Cloud! There's—"

"I know. Cid, grab the Gospel. Tifa, do you have the Premium Heart?"

Tifa nodded, even as Cid retrieved the Gospel from a corner of the cockpit.

Reeve did something to the back of the Moogle, retrieving Cait's megaphone and a very large gun.

They headed down to the stables, saddling Chocobos and lowering the ramp.

"Let's mosey," Cloud said.

"Damn you," Cid replied.

And then they were off, racing to get to Wutai. The monsters couldn't catch them; the Chocobos were moving so fast it was more like flying (flying, flying, flying) slowly.

And then they were there, no idea how long it had taken, right outside a city with closed gates and a Pagoda that was on fire.

"Tifa?" Cloud asked.

Cid blinked at the grim look on Tifa's face.

Moments later, they had the gates in shambles. The city was open, defenceless.

Goddamnit, Cid thought as he raced through the dirt streets so near the entrance. He nearly lost his footing when the dirt changed to dusty cobblestone.

The spear was becoming a heavier weight in his arms by the minute. Would his arms be jelly by the time they reached the Pagoda?

Would he get a hold of his fuckin' head and maybe do something productive, like run?

The Pagoda was burning down, he realized. Bits of it were already falling off. Smoke, heat, nothing but goddamn fire in half the places he could see.

The smoke stung his eyes, and with his left hand, he pulled down his goggles.

He'd always known he'd need 'em.

Cloud looked to Tifa and Reeve, he could see that.

"Reeve, you know what Yuffie's people will be wearing?"

"I've got an idea, yeah."

"Good. Shoot anybody who comes out of there and doesn't belong to Yuffie or us, got it?"

Cid grinned, running his left hand through the stubble on his jaw. Kid was finally showing a bit of sense.

Reeve seemed to disagree. "Cloud?"

"And you wouldn't happen to have a sidearm, would you?"

Cid looked over. "Give 'im the damn sidearm, Cat. I know you got it. The sonuvabitch gave up the damn Ultima Weapon."

"Shut up, Cid."

Reeve handed over a sidearm. "It's a nine millimetre."

Apparently, ankle length coats were good for hiding shit like that. Cid made a mental note to never try and take Reeve out.

Not that he would have wanted to, anyway.

"You have extra ammunition?"

Reeve pulled a box from a pouch and said, "The magazine holds eight rounds; the box has twenty-four cartridges. The magazine's already full, but be careful, okay?"

Cloud nodded, tucking the box of ammunition into a pocket somewhere (was that safe? Cid wondered). The gun looked alien in his hands.

He realized then that he really didn't like seeing Spike with a gun. It was almost as bad as seeing the brat with one would be.

Cloud slid the safety off and pulled the slide. "Ready?"

"Are you fuckin' kiddin'? We ain't—"

"Let's go."

Cloud moved in, head down, barrel of the gun pointing up. Tifa, being Tifa, followed.

And Cid sighed, realizing he had no choice.

"Hold my cigs," he said, tossing the little carton at Reeve. It hit Reeve square in the chest. After a moment, his assortment of matches and lighters followed.

And then he followed Cloud and Tifa into the Palace.