There was the Door to which I found no Key; There was the Veil through which I might not see. -Omar Khayyam
In spite of the fact that I was heading towards Barret's not-so-likely doom, I enjoyed the travel to North Corel much more than any journey with Vincent so far, due to the warmth of the day, and the sweet, balmy caresses of the sun. Thinking to myself, I realized this was certainly my element: the sunshine, as it could bring about a positive attitude faster than anything I knew, except, perhaps, kisses, but those were harder to come by. They were special.
Smiling, I turned back to see Vincent lagging behind. Well, it was no surprise; the man looked as though he would be much better suited walking at night—or in the rain, but after enduring almost two weeks in the bitter cold, I felt he deserved to live in a little discomfort. Maybe if he didn't have such a dark wardrobe…
He lent you his cloak when you were cold…My blatant conscience reminded me, and I rolled my eyes, unintentionally picking up my stride a bit. Not that I wanted to get to North Corel any sooner.
"It would almost appear you wish to arrive ahead of schedule." Vincent observed with that old smirk in his voice, yet nonexistent on his face. I had a small inkling that he could read minds.
I scoffed, "I was under the illusion that we were already behind schedule." But I slowed down some nonetheless. In the distance the great expanse of desert stretched far into the horizon, and the hazy form of Gold Saucer could be seen shimmering in the heat even further away. I remembered being there once with Cloud. As Vincent fell in step with me, I twisted to glance at him, and saw something else out of the corner of my eye. A Bagnarada. Definitely not the most dangerous of monsters the world had to offer, but still… I had an idea to delay Vincent.
Making more of a deal out of the thing's appearance than necessary, I whipped around, pointing erratically at it and shouting, "Look out!" As I had always suspected, another revolver magically appeared in Vincent's hand, and he pointed it directly at the Bagnarada. After seeing it as no threat to us yet, he lowered the gun and glanced at me. I shrugged, "It looked close." My strategy was falling to pieces. "We had better kill it."
"To what purpose?" For a second I thought he may have guessed my idea—had read my mind again—, but perhaps not. He didn't have that look.
"Well, we spotted it; I like to think of it as our responsibility." This was not a lie. Cloud, as well as Zangan, had repeated those words to me many times when training on the field, and now I felt like a true teacher, repeating the wisdom to Vincent. "Who knows? We might be helping someone down the road."
For another moment, I believed Vincent were about to move to kill the monster, and I grinned. However, things are not as they seem, and he had turned back around without even a by-your-leave, the gun disappearing once again.
"I don't have time for such nonsense." He continued walking. Sighing, I knew there was no way now to make him turn back around. The passive Bagnarada didn't even notice our presence, and I accepted defeat. Not that I had been any good at ideas anyway.
---
North Corel looked as horrible as always, but I couldn't directly say it hadn't improved since the last time I had visited. Barret certainly had enhanced the town some: the houses actually appeared to be houses instead of little shacks composed of scrap metal, and someone had attempted to grow grass in the infertile dirt. I smiled to myself as I strode alone down the main path that ran through the town towards the cable car, which led to Gold Saucer.
Casually, I climbed the dusty hill to the shanty inn, where the innkeeper glanced up as I came through the sparse doorframe. The grimy curtain that hung there served really no purpose at all, yet I gritted my teeth and held my disgust.
"Yes?" His tone was anything but polite.
"Hi, I'm here for Barret Wallace." I recited Vincent's words, "Is he in town?" Never did I feel more like a betrayer than at that moment.
"He has gone out of town for a couple days," The man answered. "He received a summoning from Midgar for a missing friend or something. Took his little girl with 'im. Can I help you with anything else? A room?" His eyes glazed my body for a swift moment, while I narrowed my own at him.
"No, thank you." I ground my teeth together. Barret was looking for me though, and, although I could not show it, my relief was unsurpassable. But that meant… if I could lead Vincent away from Midgar, towards Nibelheim or even… Rocket Town, to Cid and Shera. Not that I wished to involve them in my dilemma, but I did need their help now more than ever.
Yes. I believed this was possible. Perhaps he might even hesitate at Cosmo Canyon where Red XIII currently resided. The gunman couldn't see through this idea—could he?
"Thank you," I repeated, and strode out of the poor excuse of an inn. Barret wasn't to be blamed for the casualties cursed upon this town; he was doing the best he could for it. I acted as a normal citizen would, moving slowly towards the cable car that bore tourists to and from Gold Saucer, but instead of following its dusty trail, I clamored over the small knoll to its left behind which Vincent awaited.
He lay on his back staring at the vast sky. For a moment I thought he seemed content and peaceful, and wondered at this rare glimpse to his hidden soul, but then I saw his eyes and realized he was just… laying there. Seeing me, he stood swiftly.
"Yes?" He prompted, and I realized a macabre truth that pained me. He truly trusted me by letting me go alone into a town where Barret or someone else could easily have spotted me, and turning his back. Even more chilling, I believe I trusted him as well. Fate was impossible to reason with, but I was not going to trust or have any feelings at all towards this merciless assassin. What would Cloud think of me now?
What did I care what Cloud thought, though? He left me.
"Barret has gone," I lied, pretending anxiousness, "to Rocket Town. Visiting a friend."
"Then, I suppose it is to Rocket Town we must go." Vincent sighed animatedly. "This is becoming a chore."
A thousand sarcastic comments to that statement arose in my head, but I suppressed them. I didn't need Vincent to be pissed off at the moment.
"Let's move on." He said. I nodded.
---
For two days we traveled towards Nibelheim without stopping—not even at Cosmo Canyon—and over those two days the temperature increased dramatically. No longer was I quite enjoying our ventures as I once did. Vincent seemed to be doing worse than I, although the weather wasn't enough to slow him down too immensely.
At the end of the first day, we camped in the forest near a river, and I took advantage of that fact for a bath. At least to rinse off in some cool water. Vincent did not accompany me this time, but I knew he was nearby as I splashed the refreshing liquid over myself. I also knew his eyes were not watching.
"I have no interest in you…"
I almost snorted as I remembered the gunman's words. Now I understood that obviously he did have some interest in me, for his overlords certainly held no concern for me, other than I was supposed to deliver Vincent's orders to him, which I had not done successfully. But what was it he wanted of me? Who was Lucrecia and what was her connection to the supernatural presence from the other night and Vincent? Impulsively, I placed my fingers delicately on the spot where I'd been bitten. It didn't hurt; it was merely a scab now.
The icy waters swirling calmly about my thighs and a noisy rustling in the brush along the bank of the river reminded me of where I was, and that monsters would not hesitate to attack— whether I be naked or not. Rapidly I splashed a bit more water over my hastily cooling body, and moved to dress on the mossy bank, self-consciously alert as I dried off for a moment or two. Vincent was at our campfire when I returned.
He said nothing as I sat down, and our silence continued throughout our meager meal. I did have some words to say, but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth my guilt over lying to my "kidnapper" would give away my scheme. Removing the idea from my mind I took a furious drink of water. Better to just go to sleep, I decided, and besides I was exhausted anyway.
About an hour later after much tossing and turning I managed to fall into a restless sleep, but in the morning it felt as though I hadn't gotten any sleep at all.
---
Vincent awoke me at dawn, and, after a short breakfast, we continued on our journey. I could hardly feel my legs anymore. At least all this walking would put me in the best shape I'd been in years.
The Canyons passed like a blur in my mind as I hardly remembered the hundreds─ perhaps thousands─ of steps I took. Once I recalled glancing up at Cosmo Canyon for an instant, but it was far off in the distance, and we clearly weren't stopping in for a lovely visit. I wasn't too sure if I trusted my eyes against the believable mirages that decorated the horizon, and Cosmo Canyon might have been one of them. Finally, Vincent called our voyage to a stop and built a fire. I was in too much of a daze of exhaustion to think. I collapsed on the ground the moment our meal of edible─ but not delectable─ meal bars and water was over. I slept "like a log" the entire night, and if Vincent would have told me I snored the following dawn, I would have had no doubt about his honesty.
Morning came on an unwanted schedule, and the gunman did not mention anything about my sleeping. I doubted he slept at all by the looks of him, nor did he need it. Secretly, when my thoughts were not focused upon my aching limbs and desperate need of water or food, I pondered his sleeping habits. Although I had only been with the man for a little more than two weeks, he seemed to only need one night of rest at the end of each to continue going. There was the time when I woke in the cave after my pitiful collapse in the cold, and then the night in the inn in Junon. Between those two times I hadn't even seen him lay down at night. Maybe he suffered from insomnia, I didn't know.
Even though my fatigue remained with me throughout the walk to Nibelheim, I felt a bit better than the day before. A bit.
The quaint little town seemed exactly as I remembered it when I left it odd-some years ago. The inn sat next to the convenience store, and I felt a wave of relief when I saw my house and Clouds still beside each other. Some strange and unjustifiable doubt had secretly passed over me in the past few days, one that I refused to acknowledge or believe until now: that Cloud's house would be gone. Or mine. One or the other, and maybe both. Shaking my head, I saw a man moving about inside what once had been my room and wondered momentarily if the Shin-Ra still had actors—frauds—placed in the town since the incident that had occurred a number of years ago were still living here. Or maybe real people had moved in. The incident. That was around the same time I received the long scar that ran across my chest, and that wound was very much a part of it.
Sephiroth had burned the entire town to the ground, therefore, to avoid a crisis with the media and security, Shin-Ra rebuilt the town and replaced its former residents with impostors, while taking all those who survived the event for testing. My teacher, Zangan rescued me from that particular fate by transporting me to Midgar for treatment. Soon after that I returned to Nibelheim, using my will power to gain my father's house back and a couple weeks later Cloud came to the town and moved in next door with two people claiming to be his parents. He believed them, although I did not, and he did not remember the town burning. Strangely enough it seemed that I was the only one who did, so I kept it to myself. I figured the fake citizens wouldn't hesitate to silence me if my mouth were to begin leaking the truth.
Cloud abandoned me a couple years later, and I went back to Midgar where I had a friend named Barret Wallace who aided me in opening a bar—7th Heaven—in the Sector Seven slums. Since then, I hadn't been to Nibelheim, no welcoming memories waited here. In the darkening twilight I made out the towering form of the old well that stood in the center of the town. The relic still stood in remembrance of the town's beginnings, but I was sure in daylight that it even now appeared to be a pile of junk heaped in the square. Cloud's promise to me… The piece did hold some sentimental value.
Vincent didn't pause to admire the well, though, and he continued through the town past the inn, the store, and Cloud's old house towards the mountain. Suddenly, I wondered where he was going. Certainly, he knew of the inn's location, and even if he didn't, no one could miss its sign.
Tentatively, I said, "Vincent? You passed the inn."
"We are not going to the inn." He responded in the dark. My confusion was brief, before I thought of the one place that this assassin could possibly live in and it would suit him. The Shin-Ra mansion. My suspicions confirmed, Vincent came to a halt before the large, vine-encased gates with rust coppering their once pewter color. My childhood fear overtook me irrationally, and I attempted to thrust it to the further fathoms of my mind. Such things were beyond my age. The fear was soon replaced with unease.
Amazingly, Vincent forced the gates noiselessly open wide enough for both of us to slip through without alerting the entire town. When he closed the gates once more and replaced a lock I hadn't first noticed, it didn't look any different.
The mansion appeared more like a fortress than when I had last seen it a number of years ago, with blackening boards that had once been painted white, but the paint was now curling off like insects. The windows had gathered much grime over time, and the broken ones were haphazardly boarded shut as though the person assigned to that particular job had spent a total of two minutes on each window. I didn't blame the man, if it were me, I would have repaired the house in record time only to be away from it. The yard wasn't quite overgrown with weeds, a few twisted from the ground here and there, but for the most part the lawn looked dead, and the front door looked like a giant mouth waiting to swallow Vincent and me the moment he turned the knob. Of course, it didn't, yet I cowered behind him nonetheless.
Inside the house was even gloomier than outside, and, although I could not see a thing in the dim shadows, I knew the interior décor was far worse than the outer. Was anything waiting for us in the dark? The very idea chilled my bones, and I trembled.
"Nothing will hurt you." Vincent reassured, and I started more at his voice than his words, suddenly aware of the grip I held on his elbow. Jerking my hands away, I said nothing while following his shady silhouette, but that proved nearly impossible when I ran into his back as he stopped abruptly.
"There is no electricity in this house. Let me lead you." Vincent commanded in a voice that seemed like a polite offer, yet I knew better. And I pretended as though letting Vincent put his arms around me was the most horrible fate. Although I particularly didn't like being in the embrace of a murderer and the hired assassin of one of my dearest friends, the fact that I was in a man's arms—well arm and claw— and I felt comfortable there seemed to matter most in an awful way. I didn't care. I felt absolutely terrible, but I didn't care in the least.
He directed my footsteps up the large flight of stairs before taking a left, another left, and then a right, before guiding my body onto an ancient bed. The covers smelled musty, and pillow held the distinct aroma of mildew. Although I wasn't particularly tired, I knew Vincent wouldn't allow any room for protest on that night, so I kept silent. Just this once I held my tongue, and I was oddly rewarded when the gunman cupped my cheek easily in his large gloved hand, caressing my face gently. I didn't care. I didn't care.
Sleep then cascaded gently over me as the effects of a sleep materia worked its magic against my dulling senses. I didn't care as I lightly kissed his open palm.
---
The next day I stayed indoors under Vincent's wishes, and came down in the morning to a simple breakfast of toast and eggs, also under his wishes—although I did not believe Vincent had made the meal. He watched me eat from across the small table in the aging kitchen, while I chewed, awkwardly aware of the quiet in the room, and managed to swallow down a mouthful. Finally, Vincent spoke when I didn't take another bite.
"There are rules you must abide by while staying here," he said and I nearly laughed. I knew something like this would come up. "First you must stay out of the basement. Under no circumstances will you enter that area, understand? Second, you will not leave the mansion. No one must see you, or else measures will be taken that you do not want on your shoulders." I assumed the measures would be death. "Thirdly, everything will be brought to you; there is no need for you to go looking. I believe that is all. I will answer any reasonable questions or demands."
After break fast I didn't see him for the rest of the day.
---
The Mansion was even larger on the interior than what it appeared on the exterior, but the rooms were not difficult to navigate. The large foyer contributed most to its size. There were a couple rooms that had been completely ruined from God-knows-what and some that seemed to be mere storage space that the owners had no intention of taking their contents. Maybe the boxes of debris were Vincent's although I highly doubted it. I didn't think Vincent would be this messy, and I realized the gunman could care less about the rest of his house. The reason he wanted me to stay away from the basement was because that was his lair. I guess I respected that, but moreover I feared his anger.
Upstairs was a pleasant sunroom overgrown with unkempt flowers and plants. I believe that place was my favorite in the entire building, and, with nothing else to keep me busy, I spent the remainder of the day washing its grimy glass walls and ceiling as best I could, and pruning the plants. Even when twilight fell, the task was not completed, however my work was significant.
I ate a small meal in the kitchen before going to bed without even talking to Vincent.
How was I supposed to ask answerable inquiries if he wasn't even around to question?
---
The following morning I managed to tumble down the entire flight of stairs from top to bottom, bringing Vincent rushing from my sleeping quarters, which aroused my suspicions of his whereabouts and possibly the entrance to the basement. I walked away from the incident with a couple bruises, bumps and an injured pride. He laughed with his eyes.
"We leave at ten for Rocket Town. Leave your things, we will be returning afterwards." Afterwards. After I stalled his intentions and he maimed me. After that?
Later, alone in my room, I examined a stone pillar randomly placed in a corner, wondering at its logic. Certainly it wasn't a support. Maybe this was the way into the crypt below. It seemed coherent. Following a hunch like a detective on a case, or a hound on a scent, I went to the room below mine—carefully mastering the stairs— and finding the same pillar in that room too. The space looked as though a demolition crew had moved in and destroyed every piece of furniture, painting, and flooring it could. The stone tower seemed to be the only thing in one piece.
"Tifa?" Caught guilty I stiffened fearfully at Vincent's voice, turning slowly to face him surreptitiously. "Are you looking for something?" Translation: are you breaking a rule?
"No. Is it time?" My tone was graciously steady. He said nothing, which I interpreted as a yes, following him out of the clutter to the entrance hall. The manor no longer seemed to be an object of fear to me any longer, now that I had been inside and realized it was merely an old house inhabited by a ruthless assassin, but truly the place was beautiful—in an ancient-freaky-haunted-mansion sort of way.
I found it strange Vincent was willing to march through Nibelheim in midmorning, but I soon understood why he decided to depart now and not at night. Dark storm clouds churned angrily above our heads, and a chilled wind blew through the humid air, contrasting with the unnatural heat. I hoped the downpour wouldn't be too fierce, remembering the awful gales that rolled through when I was but a child. Being mere miles from the ocean, the small town had never been spared by the hurricane season either.
I just hoped the rains would hold off long enough for us to cross over the mountain.
---
And that's it for pre-typed chapters. I feel like an insect trying to crawl out from under the time-to-write-your-own-shit-again thumb, but it's got me pinned good. No more running, but I get sick and tired of every time I write something out for this little ficcy something happens to the papers. My entire chapter seven (eight maybe?) was lost to wherever lost things go and the additions to chapter six were left with a friend who went out of state. Okay, I'm done whining, but it helps. So do reviews so give me your thoughts! They feed creativity!
Hehe and I noticed that at the time I wrote this chapter I'd beaten Resident Evil 4 only six times. Oh, that seems like forever ago! Hard to believe Leon and I have kicked ass almost five times that now. Addicted, eh?