Chapter Forty-Two: Into the Fire

"So this is Wutai," Zack said, turning back to the man behind him. "You said this will be your first time here, right?"

The man stared at him over the tall collar of his cloak, eyes that were as alight with mako as his own–but by Minerva, they were the most sinister red. They burned darkly like embers against a face pale as ash. He said nothing, and only barely lifted his eyes to see the approaching shoreline. He let out something like a sigh, and closed his eyes again. Zack wondered if it was the sun. The guy hadn't seen much of it in the last twenty-some-odd years.

"Sure is pretty," Zack said. "Different from the continents for sure. Gets me every time."

"We are not here to observe the scenery," the man said. His voice was low and melodic in its own way, but it still creeped Zack out every time. It was like hearing the voice of death. As much as he hated traveling in silence, he wasn't sure he could comfortably hold a conversation with this man either.

Everything about his newly found traveling companion was heavy and dark. He looked very much like the kind of thing you'd find in a graveyard or a nightmare (or, Zack noted, the abandoned laboratory of a mad scientist, which was appropriate as that was what had actually happened). In black and red, with a body at least as much demon as human, he was death incarnate, rising from a slumber that had spanned decades to be dragged back from the depths of an eternal nightmare.

Or, as the man calling himself Vincent had claimed, he had been dragged back into the nightmare.

Zack had to admit, he played the part well. He was a harbinger of darkness that would scare a grown man as much as a child. Even his aura was black, the tattered cape about his shoulders scattering the scent of death and decay as it flared in the wind.

But Zack had seen, in the hellish depths of Nibelheim, what had wrought this self-proclaimed demon. He wasn't sure himself what the ex-Turk had become, and had no desire to know any more than he did about what had caused that transformation, but for whatever reason, something about the name of "demon" just didn't sit right with him. Under the fearsome exterior was a sort of sad gentleness amid the remnants of a broken heart.

Zack did not fear him. Not one bit. He was creepy, maybe morbid, but not frightening. He didn't believe for one minute that Vincent was the monster he described himself to be.

"Right," Zack said. "So Seph should be in the palace by now. Sure would be nice to get some royal treatment ourselves, don't you think?"

The man said nothing, only stared at the slowly-growing figures of the towers and gates of the capital. Zack knew there had to be a lot on his mind, he just wished the man would let it out. Zack paced his unease away. He had tried to respect the man's desire for silence, but it was much harder than he initially thought it would be.

But so much about Vincent reminded Zack of someone else he knew. It was a similarity in the angles of his face, his broad forehead, even the subtleties in the shape of his nose and eyes. More than looks alone, they shared the same fearsome sort of elegance that they held themselves with and a depth of soul hidden well behind walls of ice and steel. Both untouchable, shrouded in mystery, peerless, drawing attention and power without desiring it…

Zack stared at him, concentrating very hard to imagine Vincent with mako green eyes instead of red ones and silver hair instead of black.

"Okay, so you're positive you're not Sephiroth's father?"

Red eyes snapped to Zack, fiery once more. "I am positive," Vincent said, each word a heavy blow.

"Because you know you kind of look an awful lot like…"

"I have already told you," Vincent said, "it is impossible."

"Not even maybe?"

"No."

Zack sighed, rolling his shoulders. "It's a lot easier to believe than the alternative," he mumbled. "Was it really Hojo? Honestly, Seph's mom picked him over you?"

Vincent's eyes held an infinite sadness behind the rage at the mention of his greatest love and failure (Lu-something? Zack had forgotten her name). It was the same look that had quelled Zack's initial terror at finding a live body locked in a coffin – that spark that signaled agony at the core of the anger.

"Hojo was his father," Vincent said. "There is no doubt."

"Yikes," Zack said, rubbing the back of his neck now. A whole day cooped up in a bunker on the ship had made him sore. "Try to break that one to him gently."

"I do not believe that will be possible."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

Wutai grew closer, and they would likely anchor within the hour. "How will you tell him?" Zack said quietly. "I don't even know the whole story, but I know it's not going to be an easy tale."

Vincent shook his head. "I don't know."

"Well," Zack rolled his neck and rubbed the back of it at the same time, a gesture more to break the awkwardness this time than to dispel soreness. "Thanks. I think what you have to say will mean an awful lot to him."

"Hmph, we will see."

Zack faced the shore and began to do squats. The foreign presence that had stayed lodged in his mind since he had read about Jenova had only intensified. Now, knowing exactly what Jenova really was, it frightened him. What had once been a whisper had grown to a buzz and now, several times he had been assaulted by a roar from within, a grab at his control of his body from within. Once, he had blacked out, knowing when he had awakened that he had been a breath away from losing his mind.

If he could feel it, Sephiroth was bound to have it a whole lot worse.

"Hang on," Zack said into the wind. "I brought you help, Seph."


"Come on, 'Geal, get serious." Zack's lips automatically dipped down into his signature "puppy pout", but Angeal couldn't see it from across the phone line in Midgar.

Zack's mentor let out a chuckle, something that sounded strange and more than a little crazed, and strangely hollow. Something was pushing him to his limits over there in Midgar too. Time was running out on both ends. "I am serious," Angeal said again, slowly. "Sephiroth is MIA. I could add that you are too, Zack. I know you are not at Costa del Sol."

"Look, I don't have time to explain it now! Seph's in serious trouble!"

"You better start looking for him then. We haven't heard from him even once since he left for Wutai, and he was supposed to report nightly. From the chaos in the capital, we assume Hana and Sephiroth never even arrived at the palace."

Zack blinked, taking it all in. "Someone got Seph," he said slowly. "How?"

"We don't know. We don't know anything."

"How long…?"

"Nearly a week."

Zack swore. The whole time he was in Nibelheim, Sephiroth and Hana had been missing, and Midgar and Wutai had been barreling toward a head-first collision with catastrophe. So much could happen in a week – maybe even enough to topple two great nations.

"Is ShinRa-?"

"Get back here," Angeal ordered. "The situation is dire and we need all the help we can get."

"I gotta get Seph or something awful is going to happen!"

"Sephiroth can take care of himself."

Zack grunted. It was true…right? Sephiroth could take care of himself.

But something was nagging at him, telling him this threat was different. That maybe Sephiroth couldn't fell this foe. Or not alone, at least.

Zack removed the phone from his ear and yelled into the receiving end. "I have to find him," Zack said, and then hung up. He turned to Vincent, who had listened to the proceedings with a level face. "You're an ex-Turk, right? How good are you at tracking missing people?"

Vincent didn't even blink. "They're not far."

"How do you know that?"

"Call it instinct," Vincent said, sweeping his cloak away with a gauntleted claw.

Behind him, a mansion not far from the palace was on fire, and they could hear distant screams carried on a wind that reeked of disaster.


Hana wasn't bound when she woke up next. She wasn't even in the cell. Confused, trying to discern dream from reality, she sat up from the futon, her only bindings a thin plastic tube that connected her arm to an IV.

"Sephiroth?" she asked to the empty room. Was it all a dream? She had no idea. She was left alone in a spacious room with floors of tatami and walls of translucent paper. It was completely barren except for her futon and the IV standing beside her. The eerie vacancy surrounding made her uneasy.

"Sephiroth?" she asked again, louder and clearer.

The world was quiet, faded. Even the pale light through the shoji screens seemed devoid of life.

She was dressed in a white yukata, plain, but clean and soft. She shuddered again. The neckline of her yukata felt strange. She lost her breath as she realized why it felt different. The front panels had been wrapped around her in the opposite direction.

Only the dead were dressed this way.

"Sephiroth!" something was very wrong. She stumbled to her feet and gracelessly tore the IV from her arm. It hurt. She was not dead. But someone had dressed her as if she had been.

It couldn't have been her husband. Even if he had believed her to be dead, Sephiroth would not have known to dress her in such a way. It had to be someone more knowledgeable about Wutai.

From the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the cold fear mingled with anger in her blood, she had a feeling that it had been her father.

"Awake, my little girl?"

She had been right. Through a speaker that she couldn't see, Blackwell's voice filled the room.

"Coward!" Hana said. "Can't even handle my husband yourself?"

"I am a very busy man, Yuki-chan. My attentions are needed in Midgar."

She didn't like the sound of that one bit but had more pressing matters on her mind. "Where is Sephiroth?"

"Quite near. You could find him easily, but I wouldn't advise it at the moment."

"What does that mean? What did you do to him?"

"I simply told him the truth. The truth he's been seeking his entire life. He should be grateful, really. Instead it seems to have made him a bit irate."

"Anything coming from you would do that."

"Hmm…I will consider myself flattered to hold such control over the darkest depths of his soul. The man you knew as your husband is not here, Yuki-chan. You will only find harm if you confront Sephiroth now."

"I don't know what kind of game you're playing with me but I'm not falling for it."

She took one step forward and felt cold steel beneath her feet.

Luckily, the cold made her jump back.

Under the covers of her futon, lain beside her as she had slumbered, was the terrible length of her husband's sword.

She stared at it, confused, more than a little afraid.

"What will you do now, Yuki-chan?" her father's voice said. "Will you take it to him? I can't advise it, little one. As I have said, your husband is not here."

It was just some kind of mind game, she told herself. Sephiroth would know what to do.

She just had to find him.

But she smelled smoke now. And people…men…were screaming. The light coming through the wall before her was warmer than the rest. Flaring. Angry.

Without any further thought, she grabbed the sword by its hilt and ran forward, tearing through the thin shoji screens and their lacy paper.

Somehow, she knew that her husband was within the inferno.

She followed the summons in her heart, letting the call draw her into the heart of the fire.

"So be it."

Her father's voice followed her into the flames, and strangely, she could not feel the heat.


Zack and Vincent could not arrive fast enough.

Most of the west wing of the building was engulfed in flames, with new areas being lit from the inside every minute or so. They knew many people were inside – unfortunately, they could hear them – but no one was making it outside.

"Who would do this…?" Zack asked, appalled by the sight. "This is…too cruel…."

Vincent said nothing, the set of his jaw grim.

Outside the front gate, a red flag flew. He had seen the insignia on it before. "Hana's father," Zack hissed. "He must have done this!"

"Reuben Blackwell," Vincent mused softly. "It is within his character."

"You didn't tell me you knew the guy!"
"I hardly thought the detail relevant."

"Come on, Seph and Hana have got to be in there!"

The inside was worse than the outside. Zack was a seasoned warrior, but the carnage before him made his stomach roil. It wasn't just the guards that had been broken in half and left to burn – there were servants, unarmed civilians, women…

"I'll avenge you all," Zack swore. "I'll make Blackwell pay for this!"
"N-Not Burakuweru-sama…" a wraithlike voice choked, barely audible over the roar of the flames. "S—Se—Sefirosu…." A Wutaian soldier adorned with the symbol of the phoenix died with the name of Zack's friend still on his lips.

Zack felt the blood rush from his face. "Impossible!"

Vincent bowed his head in acceptance. "It makes sense."

"No!" Zack roared. "You don't know him! He would never…this is too cruel! Just because he's a SOLDIER doesn't make him a murderer! He's a good man!"

"What other reason would a dying man have to blame him?"

"Blackwell is the murderer. This is probably one of his awful tricks. It just…it can't be him! He would never…kill like this…"

Vincent turned to the unburned portion of the hall before them. "He likely went that way. There is little hope for the people here. It would be best to confront him and end the destruction."

"Confront Blackwell," Zack emphasized. "You heard it. I swore I'd make him pay."

"I do not know if I can kill the son of the woman I loved."

"You won't have to!" Zack screamed as he drew his weapon and charged forward. "Blackwell is the one behind this!"

But when they broke through to the back of the building, into a garden courtyard in the center of the palace, surrounded by walls of flames, they saw Hana, dressed in white, face set in anger as she yelled inaudible words to her husband.

Zack's blood turned to ice at the scene before him. Hana was hugging the bared Masamune, the blade's tip set in the moss and the length running up the entirety of her body. She turned, but did not move, as he advanced, keeping the sword's edge sheathed with her own flesh.

And Sephiroth, with the eyes of the madman, was approaching and reaching for the hilt of his blade.

Hana only clutched the blade tighter. "Come and take it from me then, monster!" she screamed.

"No, Hana!" Zack screamed.

But it was too late. With Sephiroth's eyes locked with hers, and a sick and malevolent smile on his lips, the SOLDIER general grasped the hilt of his blade and savagely tore it upwards.


A/N: Please don't kill me...yet. The story's not over...

I never did get my Zack muse back. His adventures in Nibelheim and how he found Vincent will have to wait. Forgive the shortcut. It is an amusing story, and I'll get to it some time, but seriously, if I waited for it to come out you guys would likely never get an update. I'll come back to it later.

Hang on, things are about to get ugly...