:-O three chapters up in two days! omg! but hey, i told you the next few would be up pretty quickly. nothing special to say about this one, tho i may wait for some reviews of it before i put up chapter 9. we'll see.
eerian
DISCLAIMER THE VIII: still not mine. still poor. please don't sue.
Chapter 8
Chaos! Did she really say she loved me? Despite how his heart had soared when they had heard her words, Vincent couldn't quite believe them.
Yes, Vincent. She did.
Take care of her, Chaos. She's all I've got.
As if I would do any less. Now be silent and let me fly.
Chaos turned his attention back to the world in front of him. The entire mountain range was coming apart, and the boulders falling from the higher peaks made flying extremely difficult. He was beginning to doubt that they would make it out of the mountain, let alone back to the Highwind. Prudently, he kept this thought to himself.
He dodged a boulder, only to move into the path of several knife-edged rock shards. He growled with pain as he felt them tear through his right wing.
"Chaos?" Yuffie asked nervously. "What happened?"
"Nothing. We're fine." He was lying through his teeth, but worrying the girl wouldn't get them anywhere. He could feel himself losing altitude already.
And with holes in his wing, they'd never get enough lift to get them over the top of mountain.
I'm sorry, Vincent.
It's all right. You did your best, my friend.
Vincent, thank you.
For what?
Calling me friend. No one has said that in a very long time.
The gunman didn't really have a reply for that. He hadn't even realized that Chaos was his friend until this moment.
"Chaos, look out!" Vincent just had time to register Yuffie's scream as a huge boulder knocked them from the sky.
The first thing to come back to her was the pain. Yuffie ached everywhere. She opened her eyes to discover that she was laying face down in the dirt. Her left hand was laying in something warm and wet. She turned her head to look at it as she raised her hand.
Red. Her hand was coated in blood! Carefully, she sat up to check herself out and make sure it wasn't hers.
After a quick inspection, she decided that it probably wasn't, but she'd have to get Vincent check her back more thoroughly.
Her eyes widened in horror. What if it was Vincent's blood?
Shakily, she got to her feet to begin searching for Vincent. He could be anywhere, but she decided to start her search at the pool of blood her hand had been in. Since the blood hadn't been hers, all she needed to do was find its source, and she could eliminate one possible place where Vincent could be.
Or not. Oh, Leviathan, what do I do if it is his?
Finding a small trail of blood running downward to the pool her hand had been in, Yuffie followed it to its source. There, she found Vincent, pinned to the ground by—presumably—the boulder that had knocked them from the sky.
Yuffie looked at the stone in dismay. Even if she was strong enough to move the boulder, she couldn't do it alone without crushing most of his bones to dust. And probably all his organs too.
"Oh, Vincent." She moved over to him and knelt by his head. Gently, she laid a hand on one of his cheeks and cast the last cure spell she had available on him. It wasn't much, but every little bit would help keep him with her that much longer.
As the glow from the spell faded, Vincent opened his eyes. "Yuffie? I thought I was dreaming when I heard your voice."
"I'm really here, Vincent." She knew that she'd started crying, but she couldn't help it. The fall and the boulder had done so much damage to him. Vincent probably wasn't going to survive the afternoon, let alone the night or until help could come.
Weakly, he reached up and put his hand over her own. "I'm glad…you're all right." His words were labored. His chest felt tight with each breath, and he was pretty sure his lungs were either partially collapsed or filling with fluid. Or both.
You'd better get it all out while you can, valentine. I think we're dying.
I know. I'm trying.
"Vincent don't leave me!" Yuffie's voice was bordering on panicked. But Vincent's eyes were glassy and out of focus.
"Sorry…talking to…Chaos. He's…worried about…our condition…" He tried to chuckle, but it turned into a bloody cough.
For the young ninja, that clenched it. Without proper supplies and help, neither of which they had, Vincent was dying. Not in a few hours, or a few days. Right now. She began to cry harder.
"Vincent, I—"sobs choked back her words.
"Shh…Even if…the world was…ending…you made these last days…the happiest of my life…"
Yuffie shook her head, trying to delay the inevitable. Trying to convince herself that if she kept him talking, he'd stay with her.
"I love you, Vincent," she choked out, needing to tell him to his face at least once.
The gunman smiled. "Love you…Yuffie…Thank you…"
He closed his eyes then, against the pain racking his body. The tightness in his chest was making it nearly impossible to talk now. And he couldn't feel his legs anymore.
All he could hear were Yuffie's sobs.
I am going to miss her, Chaos thought idly.
So am I. And then blackness claimed them.
Yuffie didn't know when Vincent blacked out. All she was aware of was the aching void that had opened up in her chest. All she could hear were her own choked sobs.
And all she could think about was the fact that Vincent was dying.
She didn't notice when the earthquakes started back up. The first indicator the ninja had that anything was wrong was when the Lifestream surged up through a sudden crack in the ground next to her.
Numbly, through blurry eyes, she watched as the ground around them spider webbed into lurid green cracks. When it all sank into the Lifestream, Yuffie didn't even try to run.
All she could do was hold onto Vincent's hand as the world around them went mad.
