Disclaimer: I don't own any of the ff7 characters, got that bitch?

Author's Note: Okay, so I lied. This isn't going to be the last chapter, there's going to be at least one more after this. There's just too much to squeeze into so few pages.

And once again I know it took forever and a piece of wood to get this up, and once again I apologize. Between school, my book, and all the odd vacations I've been taking, I haven't had much time for this fic. It makes me sad, but here it is finally!

Chapter 19

Walking in the Air

Cid Highwind poked at the fire with a long, soot-blackened staff that had only last night been half of the best spear he had ever owned. At times there seemed to be very little point in defending this tiny settlement that had never even been important enough to have a name. The monsters that prowled the Overworld had tried countless times to turn it into yet more of their ever-expanding territory. He had broken his spear over the spiky back of a slimy green lizard that had slipped in close. He would have to make another one as soon as possible.

He couldn't really recall the chain of events that had led him here; on an empty beach, staring off into a violet sunset. The empty huts behind him had fallen into shadow, their blank doors and windows like gaping mouths in the darkness. The town had been cleared out by the Shinra in order to make room for a reactor, but as of yet nothing was being destructed. All of those lives had been destroyed for nothing. That was the Shinra's trademark.

Some would say Cid's life had barely begun, but at twenty he felt like he had seen it all. War, pain, suffering, salvation, and the gut-wrenching reality of salvation betrayed had wrought lines in his young face that made him look years older than he was.

Sighing, he lay back in the sand, the sunset glowing against his closed eyes. The sound of the waves must have lulled him to sleep, because the next thing he knew, someone was shaking him by the shoulder. He slithered away roughly, grasping for the spear that he knew wasn't there. There were two of them, two sons of bitches sneaking up on him when he was asleep. Sand sprayed out in all directions as he struggled to his feet, preparing to fight with just his fists if he had to. But as his eyes suddenly focused on the face staring back at him, he paused.

"Hey," he grunted, narrowing his eyes. "I know you."

The man looked relived. He had his hands up, as though he was ready to defend against an imminent attack. The woman standing behind him looked fairly alarmed, her long silver hair fluttering in the stiff sea breeze.

"It's good to see you still alive, Cid," the man said.

Cid laughed suddenly, offering a hand as it finally came to him. Of course, the two travelers he had flown to Costa del Sol barely five months ago. It was strange, this man was the one, he had the same red coat and tangling black hair, but he had been a boy back then, as green as you could get. Now, something in his gaze had hardened, as though those crow-black eyes of his had seen something no eyes should.

"Vincent, wasn't it?" Cid asked.

The man smiled. "I'm glad you're alive. We kind of desperately need your help."

Cid raised an eyebrow. "What can I do for you and your pretty woman?"

Hojo was feeling something he wasn't used to. All of his life he had had the gift of being able to bury emotion underneath layers and layers of repression. It was the only way to do a job like his. But currently, standing outside the president's office in Midgar, waiting to be received, he was feeling something sharp and sickening.

Fear. Foreboding. Anxiety. Things that he would normally never even let near his conscious. They were unfounded; the president didn't scare him. How could anyone be scared of the roly-poly fumbling excuse for a man? Hojo had never been able work out how someone so incompetent had been able to take leadership of the closest thing the Planet had to a government. The president was practically a dictator; not a job for the faint of heart. And not someone you wanted angry with you. But regardless of this, Hojo knew the President would never do anything to harm him.. He was too valuable to Shinra's forays into the less desirable parts of science, the gaining of organic-human-weapons. For that is what every great empire wants. Power, and a way to keep its claws buried in the power indefinitely.

No, it was not himself that Hojo was afraid for. It was—

"The president will see you now, sir." Hojo was interrupted mid-thought. A secretary was holding the door open for him. He vacated the leather-clad chair he had been reclining in, following her past a security desk and two armed guards to a set of double-doors. He pushed his way past the secretary and opened the door himself.

The president was sitting behind his gleaming wooden desk, a grin on his round face. His suit was dark and spotless, his tie the color of dried blood. The huge office was free of the clutter that filled Hojo's to the brim. The president indicated a chair.

"I have called you here in person," he began as Hojo sat down, "To inform you of my disappointment at our recent failures."

Hojo's eyes flashed coldly. Anyone with any survival instincts would have backed off then and there, but the president of the Shinra was accustomed to being revered. He never would have imagined the positions reversed.

"Why is that, Sir?" Hojo asked, putting just enough emphasis on the word 'sir' that the president wouldn't be able to tell if he was being insulting or not.

The man folded his meaty hands. "The botched mission to Falcon for a start." He glanced casually at a open file on his desk. "I understand one of the specimens was killed…shot by another subject we have been pouring money into. Is that correct."

"It is, Sir."

The president was getting into his stride. "Yes, and it seems that same subject escaped the facility only two days ago, kidnapping a scientist in the process."

Hojo didn't blink. "I will find them. It won't be difficult."

The president shook his head. "No."

"Excuse me?"

"You're mind conditioning procedures may have worked on…what do you call him…that Sephirath."

"Sephiroth," Hojo corrected him, his voice low and poisonous.

"Yes, him. As I was saying, the procedures may have worked on him, but they are obviously not working on the demon boy. He is a dangerous liability, and his body isn't even compatible with the Jenova cells. He is useless to me. I want him disposed of."

Hojo's heart suddenly began to beat faster. "What?"

"When you find him, kill him. That is all."

"That's quite a tale, kid."

Cid had brought them back to the hut where he hung his hat. But for the makeshift fireplace and pile of blankets, it resembled every other building in the crumbling town. The roof was partly open to the elements, but this region of the Planet was mild, even in the winter. Vincent had sat down on the only small section of floor that wasn't damp with mildew, Lucrecia beside him, while Cid had crouched by the wall.

"It's all true," Vincent told him. "Everything."

Cid's eyes didn't leave the fire. "So, that girl…Kai. She's dead?"

Vincent nodded, trying and failing to keep emotion away from his face. He was acutely aware of Lucrecia beside him, though he didn't dare look at her.

"And you're a demon now?"

Vincent almost laughed. It sounded so ridiculous. "Sometimes. It happens whenever I'm angry and…I can barely control it."

Cid let out a long whistle, shaking his head. "All sounds kinda doubtful to me." He tossed another piece of driftwood onto the fire. "But then again, what does a hick like me know?"

"So then you'll help us?" Lucrecia asked.

Cid looked up, his eyes rather wild. "I love the idea of dealin' some death to the Shinra, but what the hell could I do?"

"A lot," Vincent told him. "We need transport to Midgar City."

Cid, who had just taken a swig out of a tinted blue bottle, choked, spitting it out on the fire. It flared up, almost catching Lucrecia, who had stood up just then.

"Why the hell do'ya wanna go somewhere like that?"

"We want an audience with the president," Lucrecia said rather gruffly, feeling her slightly singed eyebrows. "The experiments on…people. They need to stop." She looked away. So far, both she and Vincent had avoided serious mention of Sephiroth. They had spoken of him like he was nothing but a passing character in a different story.

"What makes ya think the president'll talk to ya?" Cid wanted to know. "There ain't any way he's gonna care what you have to say."

Vincent picked up the bottle from where Cid had dropped it onto the sandy floor. "I don't think you understand. We're not going ask. We're going to tell. And if not…"

"What?"

Vincent took a swig form the bottle. It burned all the way down. "Then I'll tear him apart."

Cid leaned back, looking appeased. Lucrecia too seemed impressed by his bold words, but if Vincent seemed confident it was only a ruse to mask the mounting sense of dread he had felt since they left the facility. His intuition was telling him things wouldn't go at all well, and, as he had learned those past few months, his intuition was usually correct.

He had no doubt he could tear the president apart. It was just the simple matter of becoming angry enough to change, and put in a room with the head of the Shinra, that wouldn't be a problem. The real difficulty of the matter lay in reaching the man, and what may lie beyond. Vincent felt no misgivings about his plans to murder someone. It didn't even occur to him that it might be wrong. The old him might have been concerned, but the new wouldn't even pause. Even so, the threat of who might take the president's place was a worry.

But they would burn that bridge when they came to it.

Cid let them stay in the hut, muttering something about liking to sleep out in the open. Vincent and Lucrecia sat side by side, not speaking, watching as the fire died. It didn't make any sense to dwell too much on the past or future, but there they were, both of them, tangled up in their own confusing thoughts.

Vincent was thinking back to Kalm village. He wondered if his mother was doing alright and if the town had been rebuilt. The visions of his father and Gon lying dead in the mud swam in front of his eyes. Had they been buried in the little cemetery outside the chapel no one had worshiped at for years? Some of the gravestones there were so old all the writing had faded away, and some of the epitaphs were in a script no one had ever been able to read. Vincent could only imagine that they were in old Spiran.

He glanced at Lucrecia, sitting next to him so silently. How was she feeling, he wondered, about taking on her former employers? Was she wondering perhaps, whether they would run into Hojo along their way? And what of Sephiroth? Vincent didn't have the answers. He didn't know of anyone who did.

He inched closer to her, wrapping his arms around her tentatively. She didn't pull away, but laid her head on his chest. "I'm scared, Vincent," she muttered quietly. "I don't know if I've ever been this scared in my life. Not at the facility, not with…him."

"It's alright," Vincent told her. Why couldn't he ever come up with something better to say? It's alright. It was never alright. Nothing ever was, and nothing ever could be.

He sighed. Lucrecia glanced up at him. "What's wrong?"

Vincent shook his head. "There's nothing…uhhggh. I don't know. I still can't get over it—you and Hojo?"

Lucrecia laughed bitterly. "Does that bother you?"

"Yeah, sort of."

She sat up. The fire was shining on her hair, turning it from steel to copper. She was so beautiful it made Vincent shiver. "So much that you don't want to have anything to do with me?" She was smiling slyly, like she knew something he didn't.

"Yep, I can't stand you," Vincent laughed, pulling her closer. "You make my skin crawl."

"Really?" Lucrecia asked, turning and kissing him on the neck.

"Yeah, you're sickening, you—ow! You don't have to bite me!"

Lucrecia giggled. She pushed his tangled hair out of his face. "Come on, tough guy. You're a demon thing, don't be a wimp."

"Wimp?" Vincent demanded, feigning offense. "I am not a wimp."

Lucrecia slipped from his arms. She narrowed her eyes. "Prove it."

Vincent stretched out beside the fire, utterly exhausted. It had burned down substantially; it was now just a glowing mound of blackened wood. The night was quiet, save for the sound of Lucrecia's breathing. He was feeling extremely sleepy and relaxed, the nervous tension in his muscles eradicated.

"I feel better," Lucrecia spoke up, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

"I'm glad I could help."

She smiled. "Maybe now we can sleep."

Vincent's thoughts turned back to what tomorrow promised to bring. "I doubt it. But it doesn't matter. Tomorrow, we're shutting the Shinra Labs down. For good."

Vincent did sleep, but it was a light sleep, troubled by worrying dreams. One seemed to slide into the other, never close enough to comprehend. But there was one thing he saw that he did understand, something he hadn't seen in a long time.

He was standing on a warm stone floor, wind gripping his clothes and swirling his hair. There was someone standing a few paces from him. She was staring off over an expanse of clear water that never seemed to end. Vincent wanted her to turn around, he wanted her to see him, but somehow he couldn't make his limbs move. He was rooted to the spot.

A fierce wind seemed to be creeping up on the girl. It lifted her crimson mane of hair and sent ripples across the surface off the water. Slowly, agonizingly, she turned her head toward him. The familiarity of that face hit Vincent like a physical blow, sending him toppling from the dream. He awoke in the little hut in the town by the beach. The smell of a fire long dead hung in the air and the sound of Lucrecia's breathing filled his ears. He went back to sleep.

The sky had grown dark. Only a few minutes ago, however, it had been washed with red, a perfect mirror of the carnage below it. The Overworld was strewn with bodies, some of them human, some of them monster. They covered the ground for nearly fifty meters, dirtying the grass of an already dirty world.

Sephiroth stood in the center of it all, wiping his blade clean. On his was to one of the Shinra field offices, he had come across a caravan of rovers, gypsies they might have been. They had been under the attack of an insurmountable force of monsters and they had called to Sephiroth, pleading for his help. Well, he had killed the monsters, but there was human blood on his blade as well.

It wasn't something he could control. When he killed, he killed everything. That was just the way he had been made, the way he was programmed.

He slid his sword home, turning his back on the dead.

Two Weeks Later

Nothing was going to stop him. Nothing. He could feel it in the blood that coursed through his veins, smell it in the air. The day the Shinra had placed Vincent Valentine on their radar was the day they had signed there own death warrant. He took a deep breath, savoring the smell of the sea air. Flying was the most amazing feeling in the world, and now that he could control his transformation, make it happen in stages, it was a feeling that was within his grasp.

He and Lucrecia had spent the last week and a half in Cid's abandoned coast village. Vincent had wanted to leave for Midgar right away, but the other two had held him back, saying he was still too week to attempt anything more intensive than a casual walk along the beach. And Cid had needed a few days to get together the things they would need. After all was said and done, Vincent's brilliant plan was shaping up to be pretty pricy, but as Cid said, if it worked they wouldn't have to worry about money, and if it didn't, well, they would be dead, and the dead didn't have living expenses.

So Vincent had spent the last week or so discovering the extent of the changes the Mako had wrought in his genetic makeup. He was stronger and faster, and of course he turned into a demon when he lost his temper, but the changes were underneath the surface as well. It wasn't exceedingly apparent, but his personality had received a massive alteration. Once upon a time he had been a boy, a child. Now, just a few months later, he felt years and years older. Even away from Shinra and their mind control he found himself looking inward; spending minutes at a time just staring into space. He could tell from Lucrecia's face that this worried her, but she didn't comment on it, so neither did he.

One evening when the wind had been blowing hard from off the sea, he had flown again. He found that if he focused enough on a certain thought, he could keep himself grounded enough to stop the changes at wings, and not turn into a fully-fledged monster. But this presented new problems; the dreams he was having for one thing. They were dreams were of things passed, old memories resurfacing. For the thing he focused on when he flew was Kai.

It wasn't that he felt guilty, thinking about her. If anything, the memory of her made him feel safe, as though he was looking through a window into something warm and familiar. It was just distracting, that was all. And, considering his ultimate goal, it wouldn't do well to get distracted.

Vincent shook himself. There he was again, drifting off into thoughts of the past. He had to focus on not running into the bird he was currently flying next to. And he had to recall the exact specifications of the plan he, Lucrecia, and Cid had mapped out the previous evening.

He was on his way to Midgar right now, and somewhere behind him Cid and Lucrecia were following at a slower pace. It was a simple plan, but one in which a thousand things could go wrong. And if anything did go wrong, they were all dead.

Several Hours Later

"I hope Vincent's alrigh'," Cid commented, shuffling his feet anxiously. "He should've contacted us by now."

Lucrecia paused in the tying up of her hair. "You don't have to worry about him. He has a habit of taking care of himself."

Cid shrugged, still looking uncomfortable. "Doesn't matter. Guy just flies of toward the Shinra building…it's unbelievably dangerous there. And then there's the flying. I'm never gonna get used to that."

"Don't be concerned with him. What I'm worried about are these." She held up two shining Ident. Cards. "Are you sure they're gonna work?

Cid snatched one from her indignantly. "How rude. These little babies are the best pieces of crime money can buy. There ain't no one out there who can tell them from the real thing."

I certainly hope so, Lucrecia couldn't help thinking as she and Cid donned their silver vests. They signified them as Annalists, low-level workers who performed Shinra's more menial tasks. Grunts, really. Lucrecia was not proud to be wearing the uniform, but it was probably the easiest way to get inside the building. Masquerading as higher level partners would be too risky, as the guardsmen would probably know all of them by face, and workmen or janitors would require a credentials check. Grunts were the way to go.

Cid was peering out of the tinted windows of the van they had rented. They were parked just off the street that housed the famous Shinra building. No one was allowed to park anywhere near it without official business, something they didn't have.

"We should go before it gets too late," Lucrecia advised. "It's almost the end of these guard's shift. They'll be tired and bored and won't care too much about who goes through."

"Right behind you," Cid chirped.