28: An Opera Needs Explosions
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"So, Midgar. I haven't been here since she brought me back," Sephiroth said, grimacing. "Holy and Meteor are killing me…"
"You can feel them?"
"... of course I can," he sighed, shielding his eyes from the midday sun beaming down over Kalm's southern cliffs and hillocks. The town below appeared too vibrant to exist on the outskirts of Midgar's lowlands; the land hadn't even begun to recover from the lack of Lifestream in its soil, but this cozy setting still thrived. It was admirable, but not worth a thought beyond that little admiration. Kalm was meaningless in the end.
Sephiroth inhaled deeply, then whispered, "There's something else mingling with these energies. Could it be her…?"
"I'd heard that monsters and Lifestream were running rampant here..."
He snorted at the shadow standing far away from him, though the given statement sounded curious. And all too familiar. So, Meteorfall's ground zero was the right place after all. But with the air so thick from the remnant energies of Meteor, Holy, and even the Planet itself clashing and thrashing together, Jenova's influence on his body was growing. The bony wing, now melded deep into his right arm, cut growths like knives through the skin down his back. Where he'd walked or flown, little black-blue down fluttered in his wake. The sight shook him inward with laughter, that he'd gain wings and look more angelic than he wasn't. The clash of atrocity and, for lack of a better word, beauty made him feel like a total monster.
If she could see me now…
Grimacing once again, Sephiroth started down the hillside.
"Are you going to Kalm?" the umbra asked.
"No. Midgar," he chanted. "Midgar. She's waiting for me."
At the very bottom of the hill, his feet left the ground. And in a blaze of black cloth and tiny feathers, he was airborne, bound for the dead metropolis. The stranded shadow of Lucrecia bowed and shook its head, then sifted into the air, carried off on his wake.
----
Aerith's church sat undisturbed beneath its roof of shambles. Spare rays of grayed sunshine managed to beam down, giving it that forever holy air in a dirty, decadent land. The miracle building was empty, though on better days it saw fair traffic from friends visiting the area. Inside, it'd been all too clear that someone had come by earlier. Usually, signs gave away that someone being Cloud. Other times, it was just a random beast seeking shelter. The church haven didn't dare discriminate. All were welcome.
All included Vincent, of course, who didn't come there often.
He mourned Aerith's loss just like everyone else, but never attained that closeness Cloud and Tifa had shared with her before she died. So his visits were awkward. But he still meant well. Yet, he didn't come to pay his respects, not this time. Oddly enough, even to himself, he came to see the flowers.
What he'd heard from Tifa was true.
The flowers here were overgrowing from their solitary mound under the broken floorboards. Even long thin creepers, plants all too foreign to the eastern continent, were crawling up the barren altar and wall behind it. They almost seemed to sparkle with dew from nonexistent rain, brimming with so much life energy that it puzzled Vincent to the bone. This was highly unusual growth. A force was brewing in Midgar and the gunman had a few guesses as to what it might be.
"Hidden under our noses again?" he questioned the air.
He bent down on one knee at the edge of the wild flowerbed, plucking a red blossom from it. His sharp eyes concluded that it was just a regular flower, to which he frowned.
"It's impolite to spy," he said suddenly. "What are you doing here?"
"That's our business," a voice replied, chuckling. "What about you, Sir Dark-a-lot?"
The gunman exhaled tiredly, then rose up straight. Slowly he turned to face his unwelcome company, where the corner of his lips invisibly twitched in recognition. He was outnumbered, but he sensed no will to fight, so his rifle went untouched. Folding his arms in each other, his chin high, he voiced, "That's my business."
"We didn't want to intrude. We're just looking around."
"Tseng, right?" Vincent nodded in a somewhat noble manner.
"I'm honored you remember me," the solemn Turk answered, returning the nod with one of his own.
"Verdot's old protégé. You've been M.I.A. since the Temple of the Ancients."
"Can't die until I've truly made the old man proud."
"Why are you here?" Vincent queried, with almost a tone of regard.
"We're looking for some geeks hiding out up here," Reno said as he squatted next to Aerith's flowers.
"Geeks?"
"Yeah uh… Tell 'em, Elena," he coaxed hesitantly.
The young blonde sighed then stepped forward, slightly bowing. "We're... looking for some geeks. Just like Reno said."
"Sorry, haven't seen any." The gunman couldn't help but peer suspiciously at the dark and sharply dressed group. As a rule of thumb, the Turks only appeared when something major was going to go down. Could it have been possible that they were looking for Saristis Noah, too? That man was the closest thing to a 'geek' Vincent could think of. He was a doctor, after all. But why them?
"We're taking our leave," Tseng intoned with apology. "Guys, let's head out to old headquarters. Maybe we'll find something there."
"Gotcha." Reno rose to his feet, and then strode past Vincent with a huge grin on his face. "See ya, dark knight. Heh."
And then they were gone.
Vincent narrowed his eyes harshly at the entrance to the church.
"And the wings of fate drive me onward… My poetic line for the year."
-
The trek to Shinra HQ towering high over the remains of Midgar proved to be a harder task on foot than Vincent first surmised. With the Turks nowhere in sight, he presumed that they had to have had some sort of transportation to get by on, leaving the gunman wishing for very much the same. Scrap and mortar still had a tendency to fall without warning, so he stayed on exhaustive alert. As the WRO had surveyed, monsters were five gil a dozen, lurking in every other shadow Vincent came across. The peaceful side of the beasts lounged in patches of green growing amongst charred buildings. The violent side swarmed in his wake but a mean blast of materia always managed to keep them at bay.
Hours seemed to pass.
Vincent prided himself in being quick on his feet but it wasn't going to help him catch up to the Turks this time. He wasn't much of a bike rider, but that was starting to look good now.
Eventually, the gunman looked up to spy old neon signs topping mounds of homes and businesses. Particularly, shady businesses. The demolished strip malls that lined these small streets began to look shamefully familiar. With no lights to make everything bright as day, he could have missed it. But there was no mistaking.
This was the Sector 6 slums, Wall Market.
With Wall Market came the soothing fact that Shinra HQ wasn't far ahead, as when Vincent peered up, the tower was larger than it was the last time he'd viewed it. He took a deep breath, closed out the catcalls of monsters from his ears on the hollow air and continued onward. Meanwhile, a tiny, but lazy swell of memories nagged him. This once prodigal slum under the rule of late Shinra bedmate, Don Corneo, had never been a favorite haunt, but his chief and buddy in the Turks of old dragged him to the Honeybee Manor at any given or taken chance. Verdot was a fan of watching President Shinra act like a fool in his special plays. The young, uptight Turk Vincent Valentine needed loosening up, at the president's expense.
Good old days, bygone.
A humongous rounded wall lain where the Don's mansion had once been. Good riddance. Shinra HQ loomed through a hole in the ravaged city plate above. A few houses had slipped off the side of the hole, trapped in gigantic cables like dead flies in spiderwebs. A still rain of concrete and metal marked the path up the core of Midgar's heights.
That was going to be a hell of a climb.
----
"Oh damn it, where did Vincent go?" Tifa huffed. "He's not answering his phone."
"Vinny told me he was going to Aerith's church to see the flowers," said Marlene as she sat at the bar, scribbling on paper. Denzel sat beside her, taking turns with the girl when she handed over her pencil.
Tifa frowned, puffing at a stray lock of hair tickling her nose. After a moment of silence, she glanced down at her phone then dropped it on the countertop. She hated being left behind, but she knew that man didn't always play by the rules, even after all this time everyone spent together. He came like the wind, left like a breeze.
"With all these things happening, how can he just run off to Midgar like this?" she muttered to herself. "I thought he was looking for Drana. I, I wonder if I should go after him. But I can't leave you kids here alone. Not until Barret comes to get you."
"Hey, we can take care of ourselves," Denzel barked in defense.
Smiling, Tifa reached over and patted the boy on his puffy, brown-haired head. "You can never be too careful, little guy. I should know…"
"Then leave a note for Daddy and take us to the orphanage," Marlene offered. "We won't be alone there. And there's grown-ups, too."
"Hm…"
----
"... I'm never doing that again," Vincent grunted miserably, leaning against an upturned block of concrete. The hole behind him now seemed like a memory of the distant past, but the exhaustion stayed just as fresh. If he ever had to hike through Midgar again, even for the hell of it, nabbing a bike was going to be the first thing on his to-do list. But the worst of it now was over. At least, until some random disaster occurred.
"If it isn't the dead man... A displeasure seeing you here."
"Gods…" The gunman slumped onto the concrete slab, pulling his hair back over his shoulder. Here was another thing he wanted to leave in the distant past. Being called a dead man. Even less, the one who loved to call him that just to be annoying. "What brings you here, Sephiroth?"
"I've come for Drana," he answered, approaching Vincent from the rear. Both men raised their heads to stare each other down, surprise gripping but only one of them. The gunman flinched, almost compelled to draw his weapon. Yet he caught himself. They weren't total enemies now, but the Planet be damned if Sephiroth wasn't starting to look a little like the superfiend that caused Meteorfall again.
He didn't feel like setting off the volatile beast. Other matters pressed.
"So... she's here?"
"Look around you. Why not? The monsters, the green earth sprouting up everywhere." The man labored to lift his disfigured arm into the air, grasping at nothing. Beneath fibrous scales, the skin was blue, purple and oddly smooth looking. The wing that used to jut from his shoulder now sliced down the side of his arm in long sweeps of bone, flesh, and feathers. Inhaling deeply, Sephiroth added, "I'm ashamed I can't feel her. Oh the suffering she must be in..."
"No more than usual with you, right?" Vincent spat.
"Very funny, but I'm not laughing," the man uttered, stepping past the other. His human hand reached down to gather up his long, dark coat. It almost slipped the gunman's notice that Sephiroth's clothes weren't exactly the exemplar of military neatness right now. The right side had been torn beyond repair to give his arm more than enough breathing space and he secured what was left of the sleeve with buckles clipped to and from his other shoulder, where a single pauldron sat. Clearly, Sephiroth couldn't get over his singular fashion taste from his general days. But, it seemed like he'd taken a cue from Vincent and kept the collar buckled high around his mouth.
It didn't look right on him.
"Do not stare, it's impolite."
"I wasn't staring," the gunman shrugged. "... Dressed to kill?"
"Always."
"You think she'll care how you're dressed?"
"... she'll pout if I don't make a good impression," said Sephiroth with a smirk.
"You're beyond good impressions."
"I'm through talking." With an even broader smirk, he turned away from Vincent and started towards the howling skeleton of Shinra headquarters. He ascended the steps littered with holes and piles of scrap, oddly putting in effort not to fall. The gunman didn't dare move from his spot at the concrete slab, but quirked an eyebrow instead. What a graceful general he isn't.
"Mm…" Vincent watched Sephiroth step up to the double doors of Shinra HQ. He seemed to freeze up suddenly at the naked frame, confusing the gunman. He ventured a step forward, half as curious as a child. What made him stop?
"What a... cute idea of a joke," Sephiroth said rather woodenly, tossing a piece of paper over his shoulder. A slight breeze caught and rolled it further down the steps, to where Vincent could safely snatch it up. He swiped the wad of paper and twisted away just as the other man made his way inside the building.
"... A joke, yes," he muttered.
-
-SHE'S IN HERE.-
The simply scrawled message left him a little less than disturbed. If left by the very people he pursued, he was obviously in for a trap. If not, then someone intended him or another to come here. In any case, Sephiroth wasn't happy about this little beginning of a game. But he was, however, elated at the devastation of Shinra HQ, as well as Midgar at large. The once shining staircases were, just as everything else was about town, devastated. It would take some definite fancy footwork to scale them, a guarantee for safety not included. But offers for a broken neck still stood.
Sephiroth shrugged thoughtfully. A broken neck was easily remedied but it'd waste valuable time that would be better spent finding the damnable doctor's lair. So he had to watch his step. With his steady advance up the steps came the acknowledgment of life nearby that wasn't Vincent Valentine's. It brimmed with fury that obviously had trouble being controlled. He looked up to the mezzanine that overlooked HQ's entrance. A fleeting figure had just escaped his animal gaze. Quietly clicking his tongue in alert, Sephiroth gathered up his coat again, bent his knees, and launched himself as high as he could towards the mezzanine.
"Ah," he grunted, his fingers catching on the rusty rails that moaned under his weight. The toes of his boots caught on the old, metal Shinra logo mounted just below him, its center shifting to one side when he began pushing himself up and over. By the time he was on his feet again, the figure had disappeared entirely. "Tricky, tricky…"
Now he had mystery creatures playing hide and seek with him. This was not going to be an enjoyable mission. But when and if he did catch them, Sephiroth planned on having a blast blowing them to absolute pieces.
"... please, Drana's the focus here. Not hunting and killing some miserable thing…"
"You." The man glowered faintly at being scolded. It distressed him that he had to keep his bloodlust in check. He wanted to kill these people who had taken his precious thing, even though the sentiments didn't sit well with his 'usual' female entourage. Heaving a careless shoulder, he muttered, "It's not as if you can stop me. In spite of your obvious, and thus meaningless, warning, I know where my priorities lie. I need her to get rid of Mother. I will deviate little, if not at all."
Sephiroth's keen eyebrows drooped begrudgingly on his forehead with, "You're an utter pain. How she could stand you, I'll never know."
"She understood..."
The man huffed in finality and continued deeper inside the demolished tower, soon entering the spacious lobby littered with debris and clouded over with stagnant dust. His eyes spied that numerous floors above had caved in on the center, crushing the one great tree that stood there. Dead branches lay scattered at the base of the enclosure but new growth crept out onto the floors and up towards the holes in the ceiling. Off to one side, half shattered light fixtures along the wall glowed dimly like stray ghosts.
Power was being supplied here, albeit very little. Someone was, now without a doubt, occupying the building. One question stood: Where were they?
Something caught his eye. He lo and beheld a yellow scrap of paper discarded on the floor, looking fresh against the backdrop of old destruction. Sephiroth approached it slowly and bent to see what message had been left behind this time.
-UNDERGROUND'S WHERE IT'S AT.-
Steadily, he crushed the paper in his hand and lit it on fire, his eyes kindled with irritation. Just as he rose to his feet and tossed the little ball of fire into nearby rubble, the shadow came to impede his path. Its arms were raised to stop him, making Sephiroth scoff with a shift from irritated to downcast eyes.
"Let me lead the way," it pleaded. "I can sense her. I'll be a lot faster than trying to figure out these notes. But they are pointing in the right direction: We'll have to go below. Shinra's always had a... thing for burying their secrets underground. Like-"
The shadow of Lucrecia suddenly burst when a body lunged through it. Reflexively, Sephiroth threw himself against the assailant, sending it flying in a mist of calm greenish light. His arm screamed, cracking and arcing over his head before he managed to get it back under control. A crazed grin ran across his face under his limb's angry quiver. This power he knew.
"She is here. But…"
"Time to get your ass kicked, general!"