Disclaimer: I do not own the ff7 characters. Yevon bless the creators of this fantastic game. I want to give them all a hug. Except not really.

Author's note: So we have finally made it to Part II! The first part really had nothing at all to do with the game…and frankly, this next bit might not be as accurate as it could be, but please bare with me. I have only played through the game once, so I don't know every name of every person in every place on the whole damn Planet.

Thanks

Chapter 11

The Shinra Labs

Deep in the northern mountains, hidden by the swirling snow and wind, one of Shinra's secret labs made its home. This was where the more unsavory endeavors of the company took place. Only the best were hired, and only the newest, most expensive equipment was used. All in all, the amount of Gil put into the labs each month was enough to feed a dozen starving northern villages for a year.

But saving victims of poverty wasn't on Shinra's agenda.

One thing that was on the agenda, however, was currently waking up ahead of schedule in the stasis room.

He was only vaguely aware of the many wires and needles piercing his skin, and his eyes weren't working properly. Attempting to feel his way out of wherever he was, he found himself encased in something hard and cool. He was in some glass tank of some kind.

He pounded on the surface, thrashing from side to side and nearly ripping out all of the needles, though he couldn't feel it. His whole body was numb. With a sudden hissing sound, the tank opened. He must have tripped some sort of switch. The dark haired boy gasped as the first breath of unfiltered air he had tasted in a month filled his lungs. Stumbling out, he felt his knees connect with the hard floor. He sat there for a few minutes, trying to calm his breathing. Very slowly, he was beginning to be able to see again. At first it was just light, followed by rough shapes and shadows. Eventually, he was able to make out his surroundings.

He was in a lab, that much was clear. It was lit with harsh, Mako-powered lights that gave everything a slightly unhealthy tinge. The floor he was crouching on was tiled and looked so clean you could probably have licked it. Apart from the ruined tank he had escaped from, there were others, spaced along three of the walls. Most were empty, but several had occupants, many of which were to horrible to contemplate.

The closest one was filled with some sort of greenish liquid, and the thing inside seemed to be nothing but a tangle of human arms. Just looking at it made him feel sick. But it got worse from there. In another of the tanks was what once may have been a human woman, but she was lacking arms, breasts, and hair, and her skin was bright blue. Her eyes were wide open, and the pupils were jet black. She didn't seem to be breathing. Yet another glass prison had something that looked like a cross between a dog and a cat. It was breathing softly, a long string of needles running down its spine.

The last tank that was occupied wasn't very terrifying at all. Inside it was a man, tall and pale, with long, shining silver hair. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep. He was completely naked and the boy, looking down at himself, realized he was as well. He glanced around the lab. His eyes fell on several white lab coats hung neatly on a rack. Getting very slowly to his feet, he limped across the room. Grabbing the closest coat, he wrapped it around himself, and suddenly realized how cold he was.

He wanted to find some warmer clothes. Then he wanted to try to figure out where the hell he was. And for that matter, who the hell he was.

"Sir?"

Hojo glanced up from the reports he was going through. "Lucrecia!" he exclaimed, as though nothing could have pleased him more, "What can I do for you?"

Lucrecia pushed her hair back from her eyes nervously. Why did she always have to be the one to convey messages to Shinra's top scientist? "Number 452, Sir," she said, "It's ready to wake up."

"Wonderful!" Hojo stood up, donning his white lab coat, "I'll go at once." However, as he passed Lucrecia, he paused. Leaning forward, he kissed her. The familiar feeling of disgust swept over her, but she knew it wouldn't last. It never did. With some effort, she pushed him off. He stumbled back into his desk, thrown off balance.

"What's the matter?" he asked, though his tone said he already knew the answer.

"Everything!" Lucrecia snapped, "Absolutely everything! This can't keep going on! I told you right after I came to work here, we're over."

Hojo's expression didn't change, but she could see the anger in his eyes. If there was one thing this man hated, it was being stood up to. Without taking his gaze off of her face, he yanked off his black gloves, one at a time. Lucrecia shrank back, but he grabbed her elbow. Pain shot up her arm and she gritted her teeth to keep from yelling. She refused to give him that satisfaction.

Drawing her close to him, he whispered, "It's over when I say it's over. Here, in this facility, I am God." He kissed her again, forcing her lips apart and pinning her to the wall. She seemed to end up like this a lot. Calling on all reserves of mental and physical strength, she shoved him off once again.

"This is so wrong," she muttered, wiping her mouth.

"I know," Hojo smirked, running a hand up her back, "But if it wasn't, you wouldn't like it half as much."

"You're insane," Lucrecia growled, "Stay the hell away from me or-,"

Suddenly, the lights began to flash and a howling siren filled the facility. Both Hojo and Lucrecia knew what this meant. Something had escaped from the labs. They glanced at each other, then leapt from the office.

"Lucrecia, I want you to go to your rooms. This thing could be dangerous." Hojo's face was fierce, and all Lucrecia could do was nod. The next second, he was sprinting up the hall, lab coat flapping behind him.

She set off in the opposite direction, heading towards the habitation sector of the labs. She moved quickly, just short of breaking into a run. She didn't even want to begin to imagine the sort of monster that could have escaped from the experimentation labs. She had seen it before; a giant spider with thirteen legs, a headless goat, and worst of all, one of the genetically mutated humans. That had stayed with her for some time.

Lucrecia turned one of those annoyingly blind corners of the corridors, and suddenly came face to face with someone. She knew instantly who the breakout had been.

The boy they had brought in over a month ago. He had been operated on and then put into stasis. The date of his awakening had not yet come; somehow he had had the strength to pull himself out. It seemed to have taken quite a toll on him. He looked a lot different than before; paler, thinner, and more haunted, but there was no denying the thick black hair and strangely delicate features. He was clothed in nothing but a lab coat, which he clutched tightly around himself.

Though they neither of them had been moving very fast, their slight impact had sent him stumbling to the ground. He coughed and looked up at her. His eyes were clouded with fever. His body had not taken well to the Mako energy. But then again, no body ever did.

"Where…" he managed to gasp, "Where…this…"

Lucrecia's fear immediately evaporated into pity. Obviously, this boy wasn't insane. Though if they continued to experiment on him, she knew it would only be a matter of time. Without really thinking about it, she extended a hand to him. He looked at it for a moment, as though unsure of what to do. With a sigh, Lucrecia bent down and hoisted him to his feet. His skin was very cold and felt charged oddly tingly.

"Kai? Kai, is that you?" he mumbled.

He touched her face with a pale hand. Obviously, he thought Lucrecia was someone else. She looked into his eyes and shuddered. They were bright blue and glowed with some inner light. Lucrecia had seen it before many times. "Mako energy," she muttered. It didn't leave you unscarred.

"It's alright," she said, patting him awkwardly on the head. The contact seemed to briefly pull him up from the brink. His eyes cleared a little.

"Where am…what is this place?" he choked out. His voice was barely there, a deep whisper that was almost inaudible.

Lucrecia hesitated. Fraternizing with the test subjects was something that was frowned upon in Shinra Labs. She had already broken about 80 rules by not taking the subject back to Hojo at once. But was that really right? Looking at him now, he just looked like a lost little boy. He couldn't have been more than sixteen, the same age Lucrecia had been when she had first come to this godforsaken company.

"Follow me," she said kindly, taking him by the hand.

It was at that moment that the boy suddenly became aware of himself for the first time after waking up from the stasis.

It was like someone had flipped a switch in his head. He no longer felt like he was walking through a dream, watching himself from the sidelines. He was following a woman down a laboratory corridor. He knew that much. The only thing was, he couldn't remember how he had gotten there, or why, or what he was supposed to be doing.

And now that he thought about it, he didn't even know his own name.

The woman in front of him didn't look like Kai. That thought crossed his mind, and he suddenly wondered who Kai was. He couldn't get a picture of the face in his mind.

At any rate, the woman in front of him was older than he was (he didn't know how he knew that, but he did) and she had silver hair that reminded him vaguely of someone, though he couldn't place who. The woman was wearing a white lab coat, and ran with a certain grace that suggested she could have been some kind of dancer.

"Where are we going?" he wanted to ask, but it was all he could do to just keep running. He wondered how long they would have to keep going. It felt like they had already run about two miles. How big was this place, exactly? It seemed like nothing but an endless expanse of sterile-looking white hallways and sliding doors.

"Here," the woman said. She had stopped in front of a door that looked no different than any of the others. Pulling out a small silver card, she swiped it through the sensor to the left of the door. There was a slight whirring sound and the door slid open. The woman moved to pull him inside, but before she could, someone came around the corner in the corridor.

He looked rather like a non-descript lab assistant. He stopped when he saw Lucrecia.

"Hojo knows you've found the subject," he called to her, "He wants to see both of you in his office, now." With his message delivered, he turned abruptly and left.

Lucrecia glanced back at the boy. "I guess we'd better…" she slipped her card back into her lab coat. Turning, she began to lead the way to where they'd come. The boy followed without question.

She had been being stupid. Of course Hojo would want to see him right away, to make sure he wasn't about to go on a rampage and tear apart the base, and also to see if his experiment had ended up in the form he wished it to. Lucrecia didn't know why she had been leading to boy to her private rooms. It wasn't like she could do anything to help him. He was property of the Shinra now.

"Hey, what's your name?" she asked abruptly.

The boy blinked. His eyes were very tired. It was a good question. What was his name? He cast around his mind, trying to pull something recognizable from the swirling river of his thoughts.

"Vince," he said finally. He seemed to remember someone calling him that.

"Alight, Vince," Lucrecia said, "Here we are."

She had stopped outside of a door that was identical to all of the others in the facility. This one however, made him cringe as he stepped over the threshold. He had a feeling there was something very unpleasant inside…

"Ah, Mr. Valentine. Thank you for joining me."

The office was quite small and extremely cluttered. So high were the stacks of papers and file folders on the desk, that at first he didn't even notice the man sitting behind it. But then he stood up, taking off his glasses and setting them down on the desk.

"I am Dr. Hojo, head scientist here at Shinra Inc." He smiled, though his eyes remained the same; hard and cold.

Vince was taken aback. This man was the head scientist? He couldn't have been more than twenty-five, and he wasn't quite what Vince would have imagined. When he thought 'head scientist' he saw an older, bearded man holding a clipboard, though he had no idea where that image came from. Dr. Hojo had no clipboard, and he could have even passed for handsome, if it hadn't been for those black, lightless eyes.

His gaze of fell on Lucrecia. "Leave. You have things to take care of." He looked back at Vince. "Have a seat." Vince sat.

Lucrecia looked for a moment as though she might argue, but then she said, "Of course." Inclining her head slightly, she left.

For a few moments, Vince just sat there, feeling uncomfortable. Dr. Hojo's eyes weren't leaving his face. He tried to match the gaze, but it was no use. He couldn't look into those twin pools of darkness for too long without feeling dizzy.

"How are you feeling?" Hojo asked suddenly. He didn't sound as though he really cared, more like he was just slightly curious.

"I'm fine," Vince answered quietly, though it was a lie. He was everything but fine. He was in some strange place, and from what he had already seen, he was some sort of science experiment. On top of that, he couldn't even remember if he had spent his life here, or if he had grown up somewhere else…

"I'm glad to hear that," Hojo said lightly, as though the two of them were old friends having a drink, "Now, can you be more honest? How do you feel?" His tone had suddenly become eager. "Have my experiments worked. Are you different? Answer me!"

Vince felt a stirring of something in his stomach. It took him a moment to realize that it was anger. Who was this man to demand anything of him?

"Maybe I could tell you," he began coolly, "If I could remember anything. Whatever you did to me, it erased my memory, and-,"

But Hojo was nodding his head. "I imagined something like this would happen. I should have told them to use less Mako…" he said this last part to himself.

There was this Mako again. Vince didn't know what it was, but something in his head seemed to connect Mako with Bad. Lucrecia had been talking about it, and now Hojo.

"What's Mako?" he tried asking.

"Ah," Hojo said, standing up and opening one of his desk drawers, "Perhaps this will help you remember." He pulled his hand out of the drawer. He was holding a small black handgun with a scarlet V emblazoned on the barrel.

For a moment, Vince just looked at it. Then, quite suddenly, something exploded inside his head. The levee had been broken. Fragmented thoughts and images began to race across his mind's eye. A wet forest, mud spattered kids walking through a town, the town in flames, and his father, lying dead on the ground. He saw the rolling plains of the Overworld, the stone corridors of the Mithril Mines, and he saw Kai. She was sitting beside him in the cramped interior of Cid's plane, she was standing with him by the sea, and she was lying bleeding on the ground, with Erika standing over her.

Vincent, for he now remembered that was his real name, jumped to his feet, his chair clattering to the ground. "What the hell?" he yelled, "Why am I here? Who the fucking hell are you?" he demanded Hojo, who was just sitting there, looking rather amused.

"I beg of you, Mr. Valentine, calm down," he said, holding down a chuckle, "You'll knock over my various important objects." He indicated the stacks of paper, file folders, and coffee mugs. Vincent couldn't tell if that was supposed to sarcasm or not. But he did sit back down, attempting to keep his temper under control. Kai had always been the one who dived into things head first. He would always stand back and consider.

Use that to your advantage now, Vincent, he told himself, consider away.

He pushed the thoughts of Kai out of his head, and fixed Hojo with what he hoped was a menacing glare. It probably came off as more of a grimace, though.

The head scientist shuffled his various important objects as he spoke, "I'm sure that gun triggered all the memory the procedures wiped from your head." He glanced up, hair flopping in his eyes. "Am I right?"

"Yeah," Vincent answered grudgingly, "But hell if I'm going to tell you about what happ-,"

"Oh, that doesn't matter," Hojo interrupted, "I already know about Kalm and your suicidal revenge. Tell me, did you really think a little hick boy like you with no Materia could actually take on a top Shinra operative?"

Vincent had an overpowering desire to knock this guy flat on his ass, but he had a feeling he was a lot stronger than he looked. He seemed like the type who would use the ability enhancers that only the rich could afford.

"Screw you," he said instead, "I'm going to kill Erika even if I go down with her."

For a moment, it looked as though something like rage had entered Hojo's eyes. But then he grinned, though it wasn't a friendly expression. It reminded Vincent a bit of the wolves that always attacked Kalm every winter.

"That's what I like to here," he said smoothly, "A man who isn't afraid of death. We could use someone like you here. Give your body some time to adjust to the arm, and you could be another Sephiroth."

Vincent was about to ask what Seph had to do with anything, when one of things Hojo had said registered.

"The arm?"

Vincent looked down at his hands. The right was flesh and blood, if a little paler than he remembered his skin to look like. The left hand, however, made him gasp in horror. It was gold, and shone like metal. He didn't know how he could have missed it before. It began a little above where his elbow had been, and ended in something that was more like a clawed gauntlet than a hand. He lifted it out in front of him, flexing the fingers. It could move just as well as his other arm.

"What the hell?" He looked back at Hojo. "Why'd you do this?"

"You were bleeding to death, my short-tempered friend. We saved you. We gave you a new arm."

"So you had to give me a special shiny gold one?"

Hojo rolled his eyes. "You're stupider than most. That one is much more powerful than a normal human limb. Three times as powerful, you'll find."

Slowly, Vincent lowered his new arm back into his lap. It felt natural, but it looked so strange. "Fine. What now?"

It was the most pressing question that he had at the moment. According to Erika, the Turks had been after him the whole time, not vice versa. So, they had got him, and all they did was give him a new arm. When he fainted on the deck of the ship back in Costa del Sol, he never expected to see another day.

"Now?" Hojo asked innocently, "Now you will become part of the Shinra corporation. Why do you think we're spending money on enhancing you?"

"I don't understand." Vincent said.

"No, I didn't think you would. I'm offering you a place in the Shinra corporation. As an agent."

Vincent stared at him for a moment. Then hysterical laughter began to pour from his mouth. Was this some kind of joke? After everything Shinra had done to bugger up his life, and now they were offering him a job? It was more than laughable. It was absurd.

Hojo waited for his laughter to subside. "Think about it. Working for this company, and with your enhanced body, it will be very easy to settle old grudges." He gave him what might have passed for a friendly wink. "Think about it. Now, go down to Lab…" he checked one of his papers, "…3. We have to get your vitals checked, make sure you're not about to drop dead. Go on."

Vincent stood up. He was outside the door standing in the hallway before he thought to mention that he had no idea where Lab 3 was. He spun around and turned the knob, opening the door again. He opened his mouth to ask, but Hojo wasn't there. The office was empty.

"What the..?"

"He has a tendency to do that."

Vincent looked over his shoulder. Lucrecia was leaning against the wall a little way down the corridor. "Disappear, you know? No one has a clue where he goes."

Vincent's scanned the office once more, and shut the door. "What do you want?" he asked.

"You're blunt," Lucrecia said, heels clicking as she approached, "I was just wondering how you're doing, that's all."

"I'm fine," Vincent answered stiffly, turning and striding down the corridor. He had no idea where he was going, but Lucrecia didn't need to know that.

"You have no idea where you're going," she called after him.

Shit.

"Sure I do," Vincent insisted, not looking back, "I'm going to Lab 3."

"Then you're going the wrong way."

Vincent stopped. He turned and tried to force his face into an appealing smile. "Do you know that way?" he asked, in a overly-cheerful tone.

"Yes, I do. But first I would suggest you get dressed." A small grin tugged the corner of her lips. "As attractive as that lab coat is, some parts you'll need later in life might freeze if we don't find you some pants."

Vincent felt his face burning as he wrapped the coat around him tighter. Lucrecia laughed, but it wasn't unfriendly. It felt more like she was laughing with him; as Kai might have. She started off in the direction Vincent had been heading previously.

"Wait!" he called, "I thought you said this wasn't the way…"

"Oh, that. I lied. I wanted to prove my point. Now come on."

Vincent followed a little hesitantly. This woman was definitely a lot to take, what with everything else going on. Looking at her, she seemed to be in her early twenties, but she spoke almost as Kai had. Though they looked nothing alike, he could see a resemblance.

Lucrecia led him to an identical door on an identical hallway. It had a plaque beside it that read: Laundry. Vincent thought that seemed extremely out of place. Here, together with a bunch of secret labs where they conducted secret experiments, was a room that was completely normal. He had never really seen as the people of Shinra as anything more than monsters; enemies. The realization that they had to do natural things like laundry unnerved him.

"Here," Lucrecia said, shoving a handful of garments into his hands. She went back out into the hallway, and he moved to follow her, when he caught sight of something. Sitting on a table, and freshly ironed by the look of it, was his coat. It was the same red, rather raggedy thing he remembered, though it seemed like it came from a different life. He grabbed it and quickly followed Lucrecia back into the hallway. She glanced at him as he caught up with her, but if she noticed the coat she didn't say anything.

Lab 3 looked about as inviting as the rest of the facility. Metal sinks and cabinets lined the walls, surrounding three uncomfortable looking examination tables. A hulking beast of a machine sat hunched in the corner, covered by various buttons and dials. Vincent had no idea what it was, and he hoped to never be put in a position to find out.

But the thing that interested him the most was the person sitting on the center table. Vincent recognized her at once, though her hair had been cut and she looked strangely older. He would have found the look on Scarlet's face as he entered almost comical, if his stomach hadn't suddenly begun to boil with rage.

With a growl, he leapt across the room, with much more speed than he remembered having. A moment later, he had knocked Scarlet of the table and onto the floor. Standing over her, he raised his clawed hand, while still attempting to keep the lab coat closed. He remained there motionless, for a few seconds, trying to will himself to do it. Just kill her, she's a Turk! the frightening part of his head yelled at him.

But before he could make a move, Scarlet sprang into action. Sweeping his legs out from under him, she grabbed a scalpel from the counter. There positions had been reversed; Vincent on the ground, Scarlet with a knife at his throat.

"That's enough!" Lucrecia seemed to have gotten over the initial shock of her patients attempting to kill each other. Vincent and Scarlet continued to glare at each other even after they had stood back up. Lucrecia looked from one to the other. "I don't know what the problem is, but I won't have you two killing each other in my lab. Vincent, go get dressed." She pointed to a door on the other side of the room.

Vincent did as he was told. The door led to a supply closet. It was a bit difficult, trying to pull on the clothes while trying to navigate around the various stacks of medical gloves, a few mops, and for some reason, dental floss. For one thing, these clothes weren't the ones he had had back on the ship. They were black and edged with silver, and made from a weird-feeling leather. They were also practically skin tight, and looked extremely familiar. There wasn't a mirror in the closet, but he imagined he looked rather stupid. He put his coat under his arm and stepped back out into the lab.

Another woman had joined Lucrecia and Scarlet. Vincent felt as though his insides were draining out of his body. Erika was now sitting on one of the other tables. As he shut the closet door, they turned. Erika let out a long, low whistle.

"Damn, Vinny. You look hot as a Turk." She was wearing a satisfied smirk. Vincent was just able to curb the impulse to rip out her throat. Anyway, he was more concerned by what she had said.

"As a Turk?" he asked, aghast. He had suddenly remembered where he had seen the outfit before. It was the same thing Tseng and Reno wore. The male clothing of Shinra's top operatives.

"There is no way I'm dressing like a Turk!" he yelled. He sounded like a spoiled child, and he knew it. But he also didn't care. He despised anything that had to do with the Turks, they had killed his father and Kai, and led him on a merry dance all over the Planet.

Lucrecia folded her arms. "Would you rather change back into that flimsy lab coat?"

Erika eyes roved their way up and down Vincent's form. "Ooh, that sounds good. Change back into the flimsy lab coat, Vinny." She and Scarlet laughed. Lucrecia smiled slightly.

Vincent could feel himself going red. He had just found out he had a metal arm, and now he was being made fun of by three women, one of which had cut off the hand that had been replaced with the claw.

"Alright, I'm out," Erika said, getting to her feet, "Come on, Scarlet, Dr. Hojo needs to see us." Vincent couldn't help noticing the sly, rather scornful look she shot Lucrecia as she said this.

"Stupid bitch," Lucrecia muttered ruefully, as soon as the door closed.

Vincent could have hugged her. Finally! Someone who agreed with him. He sat down on the table that had been occupied by neither Erika nor Scarlet. The Turk clothing was definitely difficult to move in. Lucrecia picked up a small flashlight.

"Open your mouth," she ordered. Vincent obeyed, and she proceeded to examine his tonsils, nose, ears, and finally eyes. "They'll look like that for awhile," she commented as she put the flashlight back down with the rest of the medical supplies.

"What'll look like what?"

Lucrecia swiveled a mirror on the counter so it was facing him. Vincent barely recognized the him staring back out of the glass. His hair was shorter and less matted, his skin was whiter, and his eyes were completely different. His eyes were black, they had been that way since birth, but somehow they had turned so blue that they reflected off the mirror like two tiny pricks pf light.

"What the hell?" he breathed.

"It's the Mako," Lucrecia explained, picking up a stethoscope and checking his heartbeat, "It does that you to your eyes. Actually, it alters your entire body, but the only visible change is in the pupil. You're fine," she concluded, putting the stethoscope around her neck, "You can go."

"Go where?" Vincent asked. He hopped off the table.

"I'm sure Dr. Hojo would like to speak to you again," she answered without turning around.

Oh joy.

"You can get there on your own can't you?"

"I guess so," Vincent said grudgingly. He didn't want to. There was no way he wanted to be alone in a Shinra building. He might run into something unpleasant.

As it were, something highly unpleasant was waiting for him as soon as he stepped out of the Lab. Erika was leaning against the wall of the corridor.

"Welcome to the gang, Vinny," she said.

"What do you want?" Vincent demanded, turning down the hall back to Hojo's office, though he tried to expose his back to the Turk leader as little as possible.

"I'm welcoming you to Shinra on behalf of everyone else who doesn't want to bother."

Vincent laughed coldly, annoyed that Erika had fallen into step behind him. "Funny, I don't feel welcome, I feel like a god damn lab rat. That's what I am, according to Dr. Hojo."

"Wrong again, Vinny," Erika said, wagging a figure as though at a naughty child, "My God, you're not that bright. You're being offered a position. Why do you think they brought you in?"

"I don't want a position!" Vincent yelled, "I want you out of my life!" He glanced up the corridor. There was no one there. He could kill her right here, and no one would see. Slowly, he began to raise his arm…

"Don't even try it," Erika hissed in his ear, "Even with that shiny knew claw of yours, there's no way you could ever beat me. I could have you down in a second." She clapped him on the back. "But cheer up, Vinny! You're going places! Now that your little bandit slut is dead, that is."

Vincent froze. He hated the woman behind him with every particle of his body.

"You really are better of, you know," she was whispering, "I did you a favor, by bleeding her dry, dumping her body for the sharks…"

Vincent was shaking with anger. He wanted her to die. He wanted to kill her with his own two hands, or one hand and one claw.

Erika smiled at the expression of rage on his face. "You've gotta move on in life." Her tone suddenly changed, it became low and sickly sweet. "If you ever need someone to help you do that, or you're just feeling…" she ran her fingers through his hair, her nails scratching his scalp, making him shiver involuntarily, "Lonely, I'd be more than willing to help." She turned on her heel; Vincent watched until she had walked back up the hall and turned a corner.

Had she just come on to him? It was ridiculous. She had threatened him and dragged up the memory of Kai, and then she had come on to him? The very thought of it made Vincent feel sick. His skin seemed to be burning from where she had touched his head.

Reaching the office, Vincent threw the door open. Hojo was once again at his desk. He raised an eyebrow as he entered. "May I help you?"

Vincent was breathing heavily. It took him a moment before he could choke out, "You said something about settling a grudge."

Hojo smiled and indicated the chair across from him. "Have a seat. Let's talk."