melissal58: I'm glad you liked the last chapter!
valkera: Glad you enjoyed the last chapter :)
CupofTeaforAliceandHatter: Thanks :)
SpiritDreamWarriors: Thank you! I'm glad you like them both.
Yukiko: I'm sorry! I hated leaving it at such a good part, but things got really busy for me there for a while. I'm glad you like it though :D
To everyone who has been waiting for this chapter, I'm sorry that it's taken me this long to finish it. I've been so sidetracked these past few weeks, life has been crazy. I'm only taking four classes this semester, but the amount of readings they require is more than I'm used to. I'm trying to keep at least a week ahead so that I don't get bogged down, and in doing that I haven't had as much free time as I thought I would. But enough about that, here is Chapter 3, I hope you all like it. I'll warn you now, it's another cliffhanger, but I don't think it's quite as bad as the last one.
Chapter 3
When the day has come
That I've lost my way around
And the seasons stop and hide beneath the ground
The brilliant white trees that surrounded the Forgotten City swayed slightly in the breeze. Everything looked like it should, the shell-like structure in the middle of the lake stood reaching up to the sky, glowing despite how dark the night was. The only noises came from the Shera's engines as they hovered above the area.
Vincent turned to Cid and raised one eyebrow. There's nothing here that looks out of place, he thought.
Cid stood stiffly at the helm and stared straight ahead without speaking. The fact that Cid had remained silent since Vincent reached the bridge made the gunman wonder exactly what the pilot had seen. Vincent moved closer to the large windows that lined the room just as the airship turned. The new view revealed something that immediately put Vincent on high alert.
A section of the forest looked like it had been leveled by a small explosion. A circular area, about an acre in diameter, sloped down into a shallow crater. The trees that stood along the edge of the crater looked charred around their bases, and several of them had deep gashes farther up their trunks. Blackened branches and piles of what looked like ash covered the ground and appeared to have been disturbed in some places.
The Shera dipped closer to the ground, but it was impossible to determine anything else without setting foot on the ground. Vincent looked over his shoulder at Cid and found the pilot watching him. He didn't bother stating the obvious. We need to go down there.
Cid left one of the crewmen at the helm and led the way belowdecks. Vincent followed closely on his heels, calling for a squadron of WRO operatives to accompany them.
Once they were on the ground, they found that the level of destruction was worse than it appeared from the air. Vincent knelt along the edge of the crater and ran a gloved hand along the ground, disturbing the light gray ash and revealing darker soil beneath. "We should be able to see any tracks," he called to the others. "Keep your eyes open."
"It looks like goddamn bomb went off," Cid muttered, nudging a branch away with his spear. A few of the WRO soldiers looked around uneasily, like they expected another explosion to occur.
Vincent ignored them all and moved down the slope with narrowed eyes, giving silent thanks to whoever might be listening that it hadn't rained here. The ash in the center of the crater had been turned over multiple times, making it difficult to pick out individual tracks, but as he looked at the ground closer to the edges it became easier.
Two sets of prints. Both male, judging by shoe size. Blood here, one of them was wounded. Vincent found himself on the opposite side of the crater, and looked up to examine a slash mark in one of the tree trunks. A sword fight, then. He looked back at the center of the crater and scowled when he saw one of the WRO soldiers trudging straight through without a care for what evidence he might be compromising.
"Sir!" he saluted Vincent. "We've had a call from the Commissioner. There's been an incident in Wutai. Reports are of an unknown object crashing somewhere in the forests south of the capital city. The Commissioner wants us to provide assistance as soon as we're finished here."
Vincent gave him a withering glare. "Understood." The boy turned and trotted back the way he'd come, completely oblivious to Vincent's irritation.
"Hey, Vince! What d'ya make of this?" Cid waved him over to a spot about halfway down the crater's slope. "Looks like somethin' swept away the ash right here," Cid used his spear to emphasize the edge of the arc, "and this looks like-"
"Feathers." Vincent brushed aside some of the ash at the edge of the arc and pulled out a long black feather.
The two men shared a glance before Cid turned and bellowed, "EVERYONE BACK ON THE SHIP! NOW!"
"Are you sure?"
"There's not enough evidence for me to be certain," Vincent stood with his arms crossed before the monitors in the Shera's communications room as he told Reeve what they had found outside of the Forgotten City.
Reeve sighed and shook his head. "All right, leave as many of the WRO there as you can spare. There may be a simple explanation for this," the look on his face showed how little he believed that statement. "In the meantime, I want you and Cid to take the Shera and check out the situation in Wutai. I have operatives in the area, but I want your opinion." Vincent nodded and the transmission cut out.
After a brief trip to the bridge to inform Cid of their new destination, Vincent returned to his room. There was nothing for him to do during the journey but keep out of the crew's way, so he reluctantly decided to get what sleep he could. Memories would continue to haunt him whether or not he was awake now that there was nothing to keep him busy. His thoughts drifted toward the memory that Cid had interrupted when they reached the Forgotten City. Just a few weeks after he had sent the text to Cloud, when…
Vincent made his way carefully down the old stairs in the Shinra Manor. They had been making more noise lately and the way one of the boards seemed to bow beneath his weight concerned him. He was planning to get more supplies for the room that he was making a library, but he decided that fixing the stairs was more of a priority.
He'd only taken a few steps off of the stairs when the front door flew open with a bang. Before he could process what was happening, a large pile of bags materialized in the main hall alongside one widely grinning ninja.
"Yuffie." Nothing in his tone gave away the fact that he was happy to see her. After their last encounter he wasn't sure what she would do, but he was relieved to see her smiling.
"Heya, Vince! I decided I'd come crash with you for a few days," Yuffie sounded like her usual self, and Vincent wondered if it really had been her idea to come or if Cloud had encouraged her after receiving Vincent's text, "you don't mind right? Of course you don't, I make an awesome house guest!" Vincent nearly rolled his eyes at how she refused to give him time to answer. "Sheesh, you really need to fix this place up, it's a mess. I know! Once I'm all unpacked we'll go shopping! Then I'll help you get this place back in shape!"
Vincent stood watching her, wishing he could see what was going on inside her head. She continued talking and spinning around the room as she looked at everything, barely glancing at Vincent at all.
"So how about it? Are you in?" she grinned at him with her hands on her hips and he knew that he would give her whatever she wanted. He could never refuse her when she was like this, much to his dismay, so he just nodded his head. "Great! I'll just take my stuff upstairs! I'll be right back!" She grabbed a bag and dashed up the stairs before he could stop her.
When she reached that one step that always made him uneasy, she crashed through it to the floor. Vincent was across the room in the blink of an eye, standing over the ninja and searching for signs of injury when she looked up at him and coughed a few times to clear her lungs of the dust that now filled the air. Now that he was sure she was all right, he couldn't help but smile at her predicament.
"Perhaps we should start by repairing the stairs?"
"Are you laughing at me?" Yuffie narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms as she glared at him. "You are! That's so rude, Vinnie! What if I'd been hurt?! Would you still be laughing then?!"
"No," he held out his hand to help her up, glad that she wasn't aware of the brief flash of panic he'd felt when she fell. She glared at him for a bit longer before she grinned again and allowed him to pull her to her feet.
"Alright, let's go. Those stairs aren't gonna fix themselves." Yuffie ran ahead of him to the door and spun to face him again. "Ya know, I hate admitting this, but I've kinda missed you, Vince." She shrugged and trotted off, leaving Vincent staring after her for a moment. "Even though you've been acting really stupid lately."
He considered the consequences of arguing that point and decided against it.
Vincent's eyes fluttered open and he sat up slowly. A glance at the clock showed that he had been asleep for almost an hour. He stared at the clock for a few more seconds, realizing that this had been the first time since this whole ordeal started that he'd been able to get even a little bit of sleep that was actually restful. He didn't allow himself to dwell on it, choosing instead to wander around the Shera in an attempt to work off the nervous energy that he suddenly felt.
He was passing the communications room when a young crew member burst out of the door and nearly ran into him. Vincent dodged out of the way and was about to continue on his way when the crewman grabbed him by the arm.
"Mr. Valentine! I was just coming to find you! The Commissioner wants to talk to you."
Vincent sighed and followed the man into the room, wondering what Reeve had found. Whatever it was, it was unlikely to be good news, and Vincent really didn't want to deal with-
"Vincent!" Reeve was smiling far too brightly for someone with bad news. "I've just received a call from my men in Wutai. They found Tifa." Reeve continued to talk, but Vincent was no longer listening. Tifa. Tifa, not Yuffie. He felt guilty for being disappointed and turned his attention back to Reeve. "-keeps saying that we need to look for Cloud. She's already taken a transport and is on her way here to Edge, so I'll see what else she has to say when she arrives." Reeve paused, studying Vincent for a moment before he continued, "I asked her about Yuffie." Vincent stood frozen, not daring to breathe. "She said that she thinks Yuffie was with her, but Tifa seems to be suffering from some mild memory loss. She isn't sure where Yuffie is, or if she's hurt. I'll let you know what else she says after I talk to her again."
Vincent nodded stiffly and turned on his heel, sweeping out of the communications room and down the hallway. He stubbornly refused to allow himself to dwell on any possibilities. If Yuffie was is Wutai, she would be found.
When they reached Wutai, Cid decided to stay with the Shera and patrol the area from the air. There was too much ground and too few people to do a proper ground search, so whenever they found something that looked promising, they would leave a WRO team and continue on, circling back to pick up teams every so often.
Vincent wasn't overly confident in many of the WRO when it came to tracking, but he stayed aboard the Shera, staring out the large windows on the bridge at the sprawling forests. As he studied the landscape below, he realized that if Yuffie wanted to hide, no one would be able to find her, not here in Wutai. A burst of static interrupted his thoughts.
One of the crew held a radio to his ear, listening as one of the WRO teams made a report. "Captain! The team we left by the ruins found someone!" Vincent's ears perked up and he turned away from the window. "It's a man, but not Mr. Strife." Vincent frowned and moved back to the window. "They say he was calling for Ms. Kisaragi when they found him."
Vincent was across the bridge in an instant, standing at Cid's shoulder. Before the stoic gunman could say anything Cid gave him a look and adjusted the Shera's course. "Tell them we're on our way. We'll drop a few more teams and then stay in the area." Cid pointed at Vincent, then at the door leading off the bridge. "Go on, you'll be the first one off." Vincent didn't bother responding as he dashed off the bridge, leaving Cid looking worriedly after him. "Make sure someone gives him a radio," he said as several of the crew followed Vincent.
The Shera left three WRO teams with Vincent near the ruins of what looked like an old military compound, before flying north to collect the team that they had left to examine an odd break in the trees. Vincent directed the teams to fan out and walk south, telling them to use the radios to contact him if they found anything - anything at all - that looked suspicious.
Vincent entered the ruins, knowing that Yuffie wouldn't be able to resist searching through them if she was in the area. He spent nearly half an hour wandering through the crumbling structure and was rewarded with a few scattered tracks, but not enough to determine where anyone could have gone. With a grudging sigh he left the ruins behind and started walking south, not making a sound as he moved between the trees.
His radio crackled to life a few minutes later, and he recognized the voice of one of the more competent members of the WRO. "Sir! It looks like someone was here not that long ago." Cid responded, offering Vincent directions to the team's location and telling them to spread out and search their immediate area.
Vincent picked up his pace, still moving easily through the overgrown forest, the little bit of hope that had been pestering him for the past two days springing to the front of his mind again, and for once, he didn't dismiss it right away. He caught sight of the WRO soldiers between the trees and wondered if this would finally be the end of his two year long search.
A loud shriek, accompanied by a very familiar figure falling out of a tree and almost on top of one of the WRO was all the answer he needed.
When the sky turns gray
And everything is screaming
I will reach inside
Just to find my heart is beating
Comments, questions, concerns? Leave me a review! Also, if you have an idea for a flashback feel free to share, I'm open to ideas :)