My love
I'll obey your law of gravity
This is the fate you've carved on me
- Vienna Teng, "Gravity"
Chapter Forty-Five: Gravity
Zack regained his consciousness far too early for anyone's liking.
The bright side was that he had been out long enough for his wounds to be properly treated and dressed. The worst of it was where Sephiroth's sword had pierced clear through him, but the physicians said nothing vital had taken irreparable damage. They concluded that Zack – with mako running nearly as thickly as blood itself through his veins – was in no danger. One of the apprentices even turned green after witnessing how some of the minor cuts had scabbed over almost before they could clean and bandage them.
But Vincent knew from how long the doctors had been in with Hana and the grim silence from the room where she was being treated that the woman had not been as fortunate as her SOLDIER friend.
Which was why he had fully expected the disaster Zack that caused upon his awakening.
He heard it first. Shouting, something breaking, and then Wutaian women trying to stop him in their foreign tongue. Their words would have fallen on deaf ears even if Zack could have understood them. Vincent listened as Zack's heavy footfalls took him down the east corridor, a shoji screen being thrown aside, and not bothering to close it as he came thundering toward Vincent.
Zack looked like the most haggard and beaten up mutt Vincent had ever seen – clearly in pain, hair askew, and patches of blood peeking through the linen tunic and trousers he had been given. Somewhere in his rampage, he must have reopened some wounds and undone all the hard work of the royal physicians that had attended to him. Zack didn't care. He was a man held upright against the pain and exhaustion by sheer willpower.
He had run past Vincent to the end of the hall, throwing another shoji screen aside to send maids shrieking and scurrying away. Zack staggered, clutching his side, but whirled and prepared to dash again when he finally saw Vincent.
"Where is she?!" Zack demanded. His voice was far too strong for his battered body.
"She is being treated," Vincent said coolly. "You are in the royal palace. Show some decorum."
"I have to see her." Zack noticed for the first time how Vincent was very deliberately standing in front of a shoji screen leading to an adjacent area. Gritting his teeth, he made a dash for it.
Wood and paper was no match for him. Vincent frowned as the fine walls tore and toppled as Zack darted gracelessly through them.
Vincent followed, hoping to mitigate the damage Zack would do, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The sight had stopped the SOLDIER in his tracks.
Hana was laid on a futon in the middle of a spacious room, not so much as a painting adorning the walls or a plant to dress the corners. Her hair stood out as a shock of black splayed out in limp tendrils beneath her body, making her skin seem all the more pale. Her lips were colorless, slightly parted in a silent moan. Around her were no less than seven doctors, cloths tied over their noses and mouths, hands stained red as they worked in concentrated silence. At her head was a man in an opulent purple robe, head bowed and eyes closed.
The wound stretched long, deep, and dark from her right knee to her left shoulder, closed in some places by even, dark lines of thread.
The macabre sight sent even Zack staggering back a step.
She looked like a corpse.
"I-I-Is she-?"
Several doctors muttered something in Wutaiese, irritated at the interruption. One of the doctors, however, looked up from his work. Slowly, the doctor shook his head. "No," he said.
Zack had resumed breathing, but was not allowed to tarry. Vincent grabbed the boy by his collar and dragged him out with no resistance on Zack's part.
The man in purple raised his head and regarded the proceedings impassively.
Zack was several shades greener when Vincent let him go, and put a hand over his mouth, holding back what little was still in his stomach. "That smell is chemicals to minimize the risk of infection," Vincent said impassively, "mixed with incense that is supposed to draw the aid of the gods. And, of course, the obvious."
Zack retched. "That's no antiseptic –"
"Naturally. We are no longer on the Continent. Medicine is different here."
Zack was holding his stomach and groaning. Vincent felt no pity. He had been the one to charge in there.
"Now that you are satisfied that she is alive," Vincent continued, "I take it you will cause no further trouble for the doctors that are trying to save her life."
"No, I'll be good," Zack said. He was still very pale, brows drawn and forehead etched with concern. "Will she be all right?" he asked quietly.
"It's too early to tell."
Zack turned. The man in the purple robe had followed the two men out. He was middle-aged, with the beginnings of age lines around his eyes and cheeks and fair amounts of gray in his long beard and thick moustache. While his appearance was unimpressive, his eyes shone with fire, and his voice was that of a dragon – deep, resonating with authority and reigned-in power.
"Lord Godo," Vincent said, with a slight dip of his head.
"Godo?" Zack asked with a start. "You're the emperor?"
"Hmph," Godo replied. "It is meaningless now."
"…Should I bow, or something?" Zack asked sheepishly.
"Don't bother, boy. I doubt you could get back up from it, anyway."
Zack looked down at himself as if doubting what Godo said. The emperor did not wait for him to finish his self-evaluation.
"Doctor Toh is seeing to her now, along with his team of his most skilled apprentices. He is trained in traditional and Continental medicine, and is the finest in this land. If anyone can bring her back from this, it would be him."
"You are very generous to provide your personal physician for her," Vincent said.
Godo harrumphed. "She is the Kazehawa heir. She must not be allowed to die." He turned a disapproving eye to Zack. "You should not be out and about either. If ShinRa finds out a SOLDIER died while under my care there will be hell to pay."
"Well, thanks for your concern," Zack muttered.
"You should be resting," Vincent said. "And you should call Angeal to tell him you are safe. He has called you many times."
"Angeal!" Zack cried. "Aw, man…he's already worried enough about Seph and then I disappear too—" His mouth clamped shut and his countenance fell as a new thought hit him. "How am I going to tell him about Sephiroth?"
Neither Vincent nor Godo had an answer for him.
Zack sighed from the bottom of his heart. "Any news since the fire?"
"Sephiroth has not been seen," Godo said. "Vincent alerted us that his next target would be Nibelheim, and I sent spies to the area. They report that he is not there, either."
Vincent raised his eyebrows at that. "What would have stopped him?" the man wondered aloud.
Godo crossed his arms, his eyebrows sharply drawn down. "Perhaps he somehow managed to regain hold of his senses."
Zack looked at his cell phone in his hand. He was worn. He had endured the ultimate betrayal at the hand of his commander, watched his friend be struck down, and now waited to see if she would even survive. For even one as energetic and spirited as Zack, it was so much to take.
"Even if he has," Zack said, his hand clenching tight around the cell phone "it doesn't change what he has done."
"Hey, sleepyhead. You up?"
Hana smiled. "Zack?"
"You remember me," Zack said. He didn't sound his very most cheerful, but he sure was giving it a shot, and she appreciated it.
It was strange to awake to such idyllically tranquil surroundings after her last memories were of flames and a whip of crimson-stained silver lashing in a stroke of agony across her body. The room was full of precious familiarities: the tatami floors, the soft sunlight filtered through paper walls, and the firm warmth of the futon encasing her. With every breath, she became more and more reassured of the reality that the nightmare was over, and she had survived it.
She tried to sit up but Zack's hands were on her shoulders pushing her back down before she could get very far. "Don't move," he commanded sternly. "You're badly hurt."
"I can feel it," Hana groaned. And she did. Beneath the stiffness of her bindings, she felt the remaining, vengeful embers of the pain that had consumed her as the blade had cleaved her flesh.
"Take it easy, sis. Slow and steady." He reached behind her and helped to gently ease her back down to the futon. The touch was reassuring – she was safe, and she was alive.
"You wouldn't know anything about that, Zack."
Zack's ensuing grin was almost real.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Hana laid back against the pillow. She loved the feel of the futon beneath her and the gentle reassuring pressure of the thick comforter covering her. Perhaps the sensation was even sweeter for having recently cheated death. "I'm alive, right?"
"Heh, yeah." Zack gave his best shot at a smile and ruffled her hair. "You made it." More than anything he was relieved, and she could tell. He had not escaped unscathed himself, but Hana knew the circles under his eyes had not been caused by his own pain.
Hana blinked as another figure caught her attention. "Hello," she said to the crimson man in the corner. "I don't believe we've met."
"Vincent Valentine," the man offered curtly. "Zack found me in Nibelheim and brought me to assist in…persuading Sephiroth as to his true origins."
"Fat lot of good that did," Zack muttered sullenly under his breath.
"His origins?" Hana's eyes grew wide as she thought on her memories in the fire. "Is that what this was about?"
"Did Sephiroth say something to you?" Vincent asked.
"It made no sense at the time. Something about his mother, and being the rightful ruler of the planet. He spoke like he was different from me, like he wasn't human." She let out a bitter laugh. "It was the most ridiculous garbage I've ever heard."
"It is not entirely false," Vincent said. "The creature he believed to be his mother is the calamity Jenova, once thought to be a Cetra. Before he was born the scientist Hojo injected him with her cells to see if they could revive the Cetra race and their powers."
Hana made a face. "But Jenova wasn't his mother?"
"No. Sephiroth was born of a human woman. Of that much I am certain."
"And his father…?" Hana trailed off slowly, slowly looking Vincent over, up and down from head to toe, but focusing especially on the face half-hidden by his cloak.
Crimson eyes narrowed at her examination and insinuation. "…is not me," Vincent said.
Hana looked to Zack, who shrugged. "Fine, then," she said. "So we know the truth. We have to get it to him." With that, as if it really was that simple, she sat up and pulled the comforter off her.
"You're not serious, Hana?" Zack said, throwing the blanket over her legs again. "You can't go anywhere like this!"
"I am serious," Hana said, and she sounded it, wadding up the blanket and thrusting it into Zack's chest. "And I'm serious about going now before anything else can happen to my husband."
"He completely lost it!" Zack said. "Are you just going to forget about that? About what he did to you?"
Hana met Zack's eyes straight on, unafraid, steeled with almost frightening resolve. "You know that wasn't Sephiroth," Hana said. "I don't understand what happened, but I know my husband, and he was not there in the flames with us. He didn't do this to me, and if I don't blame him, you certainly have no right to either.
"Now I'm going to find him before something like this can happen aga—"
The blood drained from Hana's face, and her breathing stopped. Her eyes were wide and terrified.
"Hana?" Zack called, alarmed. Vincent's attention had been drawn as well, and he moved a step forward. "What is it? What happened?"
She didn't answer at first. Slowly, she moved her hands up to her face, clenching and relaxing her fingers, then placing a hand on her wounded shoulder to see that it still rotated. Timidly, she fingered the line of the wound down her yukata, tracing it across her body to where it ended at her knee. She took a deep breath in and furrowed her brow in concentration, but no further movement was made.
She was breathing again now, but too quickly. She clutched her chest and swallowed hard. "I'm sure it was just—" But as suddenly as the first time, she stopped in her tracks.
"Vincent," Hana said, and her voice was strained, tiny, and too high. "…I want to see the doctor. Now."
"What happened?" Zack grabbed her shoulders, panicked by her panic. "What is it? Hana, please, talk to me!"
"Doctor," she said. "Please…"
Vincent ran away quickly. He had suspected from the moment the wound had been inflicted, and by the darkness in her eyes, he believed Hana already knew what was wrong without having to hear it from the doctor.
"Hana, are you in pain? Hey, sis, stay with me," Zack embraced her, pressing her head into his shoulder and holding her tight. She was strangely, deathly still. "Breathe, Hana," he reminded her, patting her back.
"I can't-" her voice was so small that he didn't hear the rest.
"It's gonna be okay. Vincent's bringing the doctor."
"I can't-my leg-it's not…"
"There has to be something you can do!" Zack cried. "You can't…she can't be…!"
Doctor Toh's eyes were dark and sad under thick white eyebrows. "There is nothing else I can do, young one. I am sorry. We tried as best as we were able with what equipment we had. I'm sorry to say it wasn't enough."
"Could it be fixed with surgery?"
"It may have been possible had she received very specialized care immediately after the wound was inflicted. It has been days – it's far too late, it has already healed incorrectly and that cannot be undone."
Hana had pulled her yukata up past her knee, revealing the scar there, far thicker and darker than the stroke across the rest of her body. The area above her kneecap was sunken in, a strange and sinister hollow beneath the mending flesh. Ghosts of green bruises still flared wildly from the area. Even worse, the bump of her kneecap was abnormally low. It made Zack sick just to look at it and think that it was the way it would always be.
Godo swept the hem of his robe over Hana's leg to keep her from staring at it in disbelief any longer. "Enough, Yukihana," he scolded firmly.
"Materia, then!" Zack cried, grasping at any hope there was left. "Can you fix it with materia? There's got to be materia somewhere powerful enough to-"
"There is no materia in Wutai," the doctor said. "Not after the war."
"But somewhere. A really high level…it has to be able to fix…"
"Boy," Toh said softly, reaching a weathered hand up to place it on Zack's shoulders. "Materia is knowledge of the Ancients. The higher the level, the greater the knowledge, but," he shook his head, waves of thin, white hair swaying, "it would take a level of materia I have not seen in my entire life to fix such a wound after her own body's energy has already determined to mend itself."
Zack turned his back to the doctor and threw all his weight into a blow at the paper wall as he let out his rage in a furious cry. The wood crumbled like toothpicks, the paper rending at his touch. The materia in his arm bracer was flaring. "You're the best doctor in Wutai! There has to be something…!"
"Zack," Hana called softly, looking up from the folds of Godo's purple robe for the first time.
"Don't you say it!" Zack screamed at her. "Don't you tell me you can forgive Sephiroth after what he's done! He gutted you like a fish, and then he crippled you!"
Hana's eyes were blank, and she took the comment without further comment or movement.
"Your anger serves no purpose," Vincent said. "What's done is done."
Godo crossed his arms over his chest. "You should have known this was coming. Her leg was cut clear to the bone – not a shred of muscle or tendon still attached. Any fool could tell you that such a wound would be disabling. It's fortunate enough that she survived at all."
"She'll never walk again!" Zack roared, and from his hand flared a burst of ice. "She literally can't walk this off, she'll carry it for the rest of her life!"
"Zack," Hana tried again. "Please."
It took several moments, but Zack began to calm. He covered his eyes with a hand. "Emperor Godo," he pleaded. "You're the emperor, please…there has to be…something."
Godo lowered his head. "It is as Doctor Toh has said," he said. "It is done. Your time would be better spent looking forward than looking back."
Zack stormed out. Hana watched him go before she lowered her head, her expression hidden in her inky hair.
"I had hoped to not disturb you further until your strength returned, Hime-sama," the doctor bowed deeply. "Forgive me. I did not wish for you to find out this way." With only that, the man excused himself.
Now that the room was devoid of Zack's anger and the doctor's sorrow, it was deathly quiet. Hana neither moved nor spoke, eyes glazed over and unseeing. Seconds, then minutes passed in silence.
"Do you want to be alone?" Vincent asked.
Hana blinked several times before she turned her face out of the veil of her hair and looked up at Vincent. "I want to talk to Sephiroth," she said quietly.
"He hasn't been seen since the incident," Godo said.
"Vincent…?" Hana whispered, eyes wide and pleading.
The man in the crimson cloak turned, crimson wafting him more as a force than cloth. "I can take your message to him, as I have words for him as well, but I can't promise he will come."
"Please," she said. "Try. I need to see him."
Vincent nodded once and disappeared, carrying all of Hana's hopes with him.
That night, Hana could not sleep. She did not know where the rest of the day had gone, all the answers were lost inside a cold haze that had raged around her as she had sat on her futon. At some point Zack had come, murmuring apologies. She had sent him away. She hoped she had not been too harsh about it. Someone brought a meal that she had stared at but not touched. Finally, when she came to herself enough to notice the darkness around her, she had laid down, too tired even to pull the comforter over her, and tried to close her eyes.
Not a single tear had leaked from her eyes all that day, but they burned. When she closed them, she saw and felt fire strong enough to overpower her exhaustion. She stared up into the ceiling and neither thought nor felt.
Against the stillness of the winter's night, the sound of the shoji screen opening was a soft but discernable whisper. Hana had only the resolve to turn her eyes to the source of a sound, where a familiar man dressed in peasant's clothing held a single candle.
"Papa?" she whispered into the night. Slowly, the figure approached her, setting the candle beside her. She was filled with warmth as familiar dark eyes gazed at her.
"Pa," Hana choked, taking the hand he had placed on her cheek. Her eyes stung fiercely. "Papa, you're safe."
Pa did not say a word, only smoothed Hana's bangs and straightened the pillow beneath her head. He pulled the blankets over her properly, tucking them around her.
"But…Ma!" Hana said. "Is she okay? Is she here?"
Pa's shoulders fell, and he shook his head, hands never pausing from their work.
"What happened?"
Pa did not answer. With a small, sad smile, he began to stroke her brow. The rhythm, the candlelight, and Pa's gentle presence soothed her soul, and she closed her eyes at last.
"We'll find her," Hana said. "I promise."
Pa hummed a single note and pulled the comforter up to her neck.
As sleep began to creep closer, Hana felt a single tear in her soul break and gently, silently spill from the corner of her eye. Warm, weathered hands let them fall before drying the trail of wetness down her face.
"Pain," she thought she heard him say as she succumbed at last to sleep, "opens the heart."
That night, she dreamed she was falling. No matter how long she plummeted to the earth, there was always a figure beneath her, nearer to doom even than she – a figure with a single wing lying limp and helpless against the power of the fall.
A/N: I made you wait all this time and then I give you a horribly tragic chapter. I am ashamed of myself, don't worry.
Well, about ten very important things all have to happen in the short span of a few more chapters. Anyone wonder what Genesis has been up to? It's hysterical, actually. And I'll get to it! ...Soon. Ish. It's one of the ten things.
