1.
"No! You're lying!" Kadaj screamed at the man in a spray of spittle. So great was his vehemence that the very trees trembled.
"You meanie!" Loz whimpered, struggling to keep his youngest brother from attacking the stranger who was that worst of things, a bearer of bad news.
Said wet blanket, one Vincent Valentine, had the good grace to hang his head as he murmured, "I'm sorry, but no, I'm not."
Loz broke down and cried. As streamers of snot rained into Kadaj's hair, the little swordsman's expression shifted from rabid to something a little less focused.
Yazuu cleared his throat, tossed his hair in that evil bishie sort of way, and fixed Valentine with a murderous glare that would have wilted a lesser man. "Let me see if I've got this straight: Mother is only using us and plans to sacrifice the cute one to bring about the return of Sephiroth. And, on top of that, you think she's really the queen from 'Alien'; thank you so much, Sigourney Weaver. What are we supposed to do now?"
With what may have been a shrug beneath several layers of mouldering crimson shroud, Vincent mumbled, "There are plenty of other mother figures around. I suggest you attach yourselves to one of those," then vanished spectrally into the undergrowth.
Yazuu sighed and turned toward his brothers. He smiled a little at the touching sight: Loz was holding Kadaj as though he'd never let his little brother go.
Trapped in Loz' crushing embrace, Kadaj was beginning to turn slightly blue.
"This is going to be tricky," Yazuu observed. He would have to do a lot of research to find a suitable mother for them, and Kadaj wasn't likely to accept her without extreme measures, as his fixation on Jenova was pretty tight. Yazuu had never thought that was particularly healthy, especially for a boy; Vincent's news was one hell of a wake-up call, that's for damn sure. "Loz?"
"Yes, Yazuu?" Loz sniveled, wiping his nose on Kadaj's sleeve.
"Knock him out for a while. I have work to do."
Before Kadaj could complain Loz unleashed the Dual Hound, and the smallest remnant crumpled to the forest floor.