Author's Beginning Note Thingy: Any flames from here henceforth... will be oggled and laughed at. I'm a pyro. XD

xxx

Tifa cried herself to sleep that night... whether from the stress of what she'd just seen, or the stab of pain she'd felt deep in her core upon seeing it, she didn't know. Her mental state was a wrecked ship on jagged shores, and in her unrestful dreams that night, she was the sole survivor fighting against the tide while a demon of black clouds and red sunset-eyes mocked her from a distance.

The only difference between that awful night and the next awful morning was that now she had nothing to hold on to. She was utterly alone, despite the friendly company, they didn't count. Alone, exposed, and bare, feeling as if the concerned looks that Vincent and Yuffie periodically cast her way cut apart her shallow, fake smiles like they were just that. Perhaps Tifa had overestimated the security of her defenses.

The walls of her home were running away from her again, spreading out. She was alone, and her last refuge had gone barren and desolate. Tifa walked around that day, doing the menial chores of the house, making breakfast, mopping up the bar floor, as if on autopilot. She went through the familiar and tedious actions with mechanical disinterest, all of her usual fervor dead.

Of course, it was the shock which made her mask so thin. Some time alone, a strong shot of whiskey, and a long, medicine-induced sleep later (which she only realized upon waking and immediately throwing up was probably a bad idea to take with alcohol) she was refreshed and ready to face the public once more.

But serving dinner to the unabashed couple that night proved harder than she thought. Tifa imagined herself lucky that Vincent and Yuffie were so taken with eachother that they did not notice the slight discrepancies in her demeanor: the smile on her face was too wide, and her teeth grit together a little too tightly. The swing in her step was not out of cheerfulness, it was meant to rake in attention. In her line of work as a bartendress, she'd perfected it for those just-in-case situations when tips were running low, but Vincent would have nothing of it... he didn't even seem to notice, so she again gave up.

And last of all, the twinkle of mischief they caught in her eye when she walked in on the two tenderly embracing, entwined in a chaste kiss, was nothing more righteous than a gleam of jealousy.

But time heals all wounds, and all sharp edges are eventually made dull. Tifa came to terms with her situation after a few weeks and a few anti-depressants. Her insomnia melted away, as did her loneliness. There were still pangs of envy that she felt tearing at her heart when she saw Yuffie and Vincent openly displaying their affection, but for the most part she took pleasure, again, in their company.

The murders of women had stopped, though the killer hadn't been caught yet... nevertheless, it allowed more time for Yuffie to slack off on her case and stay at home.

Every once in a while she would see something peculiar again... a rustle around Vincent, a dark light (if there was such a thing) like an aura that surrounded him, took on a strange shape, or something. She always just shut her eyes, counted to five, and when she looked up it was gone. Sometimes Yuffie wasn't there. The girl would be walking by, and all color would leak out of her, and then she would grow fainter and fainter and disappear, and all of a sudden be back. It would have bothered her, if she would have stood to be bothered.

Right now, she was determined to be happy for herself and for her friends, and her drugs were determined with her. She attributed these strange visions to the mix of happy-pills and snoozy-pills (as Yuffie annoyingly nicknamed them), and the fact that the two probably had some strange reaction with one another. But if it meant good night's rest and a good day's mirth, she could take on anything.

In the eyes of Tifa Lockheart, this was the first time in a long time that things were finally looking up.

In the eyes of Vincent Valentine, it was quite the opposite.

Yuffie is strong. he told himself as he went to sleep the night after he first kissed her, She can survive. She will survive.

So from then on forward, he'd turned a blind eye to all contrary evidence. He let himself do things he'd never before thought he was capable of doing... smiling, laughing, holding hands. For a while, he thought things would be fine, if anything Yuffie was flourishing from the blank, empty slate she'd been when he found her. Could it be possible that he was actually healing a broken heart rather than just peeling the rest of it away?

He felt like he was being bashed in the head with the obvious now, all at once. His eyes were pulled too wide and taped open, forcing him to see that which he would have rather denied up until now. Yuffie may be acting happier, healthier... but her body and her strength was failing.

He could see this now, he supposed, because Chaos was making it very clear what he was craving... yes, Chaos was back awake now, drowsy, but awake, and that could only mean one thing...

"Yuffie?" he said, stepping softly in to the darkened bedroom where she was resting.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, hi Vince." she said, yawning, stretching, and sitting back up. "You need something?" the tone-shift in her voice, and deliberate crossing of her legs over the side of the bed meant that something had been implied by that... she offered him a cute smile.

"Are you allright?" he asked, looking around into the relative darkness.

"Yeah, fine." she assured him passively, "Just been really tired lately. No worries." another heavy smile.

They met face-to-face, Vincent turning to observe her with his newly cleared vision. Both noticed something peculiar about the other.

"Vince... what's with your eyes?"

Yuffie was very, very skinny. Tifa fed them well, but for some reason she wasn't putting on any weight... or even keeping on any, for that matter. And she'd done nothing in particular to take it off. Her once slightly plump and lively face was now gaunt and weary. Her grey eyes had lost both their childlike shimmer from long ago, and their cutting edge from more recently... instead they were just a dull muted shade, like pewter left unpolished. Dark circles had formed visibly in the pale skin under those eyes.

He was walking towards her. She won't understand he heard his own voice say, Don't tell her, she'll just run away. I'll lose her and she won't understand. a warning, a threat, a horror story all in one being told to him in his own words, in his own mind: losing Yuffie, hurting her... but he had to do it. He had to. But she wouldn't understand...

"Vince?"

He took his seat at her side. The madness, that second part of himself, himself that had formed when the inhibitions against violence just needed to be taken aside, was bubbling up. It knew he didn't want to do this, it knew how much he had to. It was ready to take over if he faltered, but he didn't. Yuffie... Yuffie was special, important, different from all those other girls. Deserved a better treatment.

Deserves, he thought, if nothing else, than to be killed by the one she loves.

I am the one she loves. his mind said, I know. he thought back. I know she loves me.

I won't be able to do this, I'll help you. he argued, I can, and I will. Yuffie deserves...

...deserves a clean death. I deserve to remember, as punishment, as...

"Vincent?" her voice broke through his cloud of thoughts again, and her bony hand came to settle on his flushed cheek. He looked up, meeting her gaze questioningly, but silently, "Your eyes..."

There was great turmoil there... amidst the bloody scarlet was a fiery orange-red that swirled and twisted like snakes around his iris, and cast a flickering light over both their faces.

"Yuffie..." he breathed, his voice a low animalian growl as he leaned forward, oh-so-gently moving his arms into a tender hug around her shoulders.

She smiled and hummed appreciatively, leaning into the embrace without suspicions.

"...I love you." he said, and in a swift motion, moved his metal hand over her neck, and snapped it after no more than a twitch of the finger.

Eyes wide, Yuffie slumped breathless into his waiting arms, while Vincent closed his eyes tight. He never remembered doing it... but the action was so well-practiced, so familiar to his muscles that it all but enacted itself, as the brass claw raised up, then plunged down into her chest.

He felt the squirt of warm lifeblood on his face, and shut his eyes tighter, pressing together his lips and gritting his teeth while the pointed fingers groped around within her for something in particular. They found it, and with a disgusting slurp he wrenched the hand from her breast, holding aloft the desired object.

Burning with an orangeish-pink light in the sinking darkness was a spherical jewel, smooth, pure, and perfect, despite the small spots of blood that decorated the surface. He surveyed it with such calmness that it alarmed him. Like a critic reviewing a piece of artwork, was Vincent scrutinizing the crystallized form of Yuffie's heart. He turned it over, spun it around, tested the feel in his human hand, and at last returned it to the mechanical one.

Just like Yuffie's strength, the light slowly faded away, absorbing into him. He took a deep breath of it, the sweet smell of affection, the refined power of materia, as it sunk into his body, strengthened him. Chaos evanesced to that only miniscule, distant worry he became whenever Vincent was similarly refreshed. His chest rose up, back straightened, and he felt his shaking nerves calm down as he exhaled... but the surprises weren't over yet.

There was a strangled scream from the doorway. A hoarse, quavering yell that rocketed back and forth between high and low painfully, tearing at the vocal cords of the woman shrieking it. A cry of sadness, a wail of utter disbelief, denial, fear...

Vincent abruptly looked up, stood. Yuffie's lifeless corpse fell to the floor at his feet, blood flowed down his metal claw like a river. Little red droplets fell from each finger-point like water from a melting icicle, heated liquid running from the cold to spatter on the ground. He turned and faced the still open doorway. Why hadn't he closed it? What good would it have done anyway? he asked himself, She would've come in at morning, found Yuffie dead and me gone. I just spared her the suspense this way.

"Nnooo!!" Tifa screamed again, her legs giving out as she flopped back against the far wall and slid to the ground, "No, not you!"

xxx

Author's Ending Note Thingy: One hell of a cliffhanger! This was a fun chapter to write. The next one also will be. I hope the next will be the last... there's not very far to go. Our last two characters here are as good as insane now, so there's not much left to do. Although I haven't even posted the first chapter of the story (because I'm without a name for it, still) yet, and will have definitely already written the conclusion before I post this, I promise I'll update soon!