Crimson eyes slowly fluttered open behind long black eyelashes, standing out like rubies against the ghostly white of their owner's face. The pale man blinked slowly, groaning and holding a hand to his head before hesitantly sitting up and taking in his surroundings. The chamber was small and sparsely decorated, with moldy, dusty walls and bars across the only tiny window in sight; the entire place smelled of death and decay. The remains of a small fire smoldered in an old fireplace on the other side of the room, giving off only the faintest of lights and causing the shadows to dance hauntingly across the floors and drip down the walls like black blood. Vincent shivered, pulling his cloak tighter around him as a gust of icy wind blew in through the barred window and snuffed out the last of the glowing coals.
"Where… am I?" he asked himself quietly, not recognizing any part of this eerie, dark place. He stood from his seat on the old bed, looking for a doorway or other type of exit, but there did not seem to be one. The window, then. He paused, trying to think of the best way to remove the bars without drawing attention to himself; he did not know how he got there, after all, so an enemy could be lying in wait for him to do just that. "Where am I?"
"This is the place where you will spend eternity," answered a soft, angry voice. Vincent's head turned instinctively toward the sound, and he froze in place as soon as his eyes locked on the two figures suddenly standing before him. A man and a woman, both dressed in ornate kimono better suited to a wedding than this strange prison, stood hand-in-hand, glaring at him with cold, dead eyes. The gunslinger's heart nearly stopped in his chest when he realized that the woman was Yuffie, accompanied by Koichi. The Wutaian noble looked the same as he had just before their battle, but Yuffie seemed much older, perhaps in her mid-to-late thirties. While Vincent watched in horror, she turned toward Koichi and pulled his head down toward her, kissing him deeply and moaning with pleasure.
"Yuffie!" Vincent nearly shouted, stunned by what he was seeing. She slowly pulled her lips away from Koichi's, giving Vincent a pitying look with those strangely empty eyes of hers.
"What, did you think I was yours just because you killed him, Vinnie?" she sneered, striding over to him and running her hand mockingly down his cheek and jaw. "Did you think I loved you? Who could ever love a monster like you?"
"Yu… Yuffie… What…?" Vincent choked out, completely shocked by all of this. What had he missed? When had Yuffie changed so much? The White Rose of Wutai threw her head back and laughed, a hollow, bitter sound that would never have belonged to the cheery woman he loved.
"You poor, pitiful fool," she said venomously, glaring at him even as she bared her teeth in a twisted grin. "I could never love you. Not after what you did to me." Before Vincent had a chance to ask what she meant, she had grabbed the left sleeve of her kimono, yanking it up to her elbow to show her arm to him. Or where her arm should have been. Instead, she now possessed a steel prosthesis very similar to his own, marked with several strange symbols that had meaning only to the royal family of Wutai.
"Yuffie, what do you mean I did that to you?" Vincent whispered, gasping in pain as his own metal arm began to burn white-hot. "This has to be… some mistake… I would never hurt you!" She glared at him again, letting the sleeve hide the prosthetic arm once again. Suddenly she screamed in pain, clutching her chest as blood spurted out from beneath her hand.
"You did this, Vincent!" she screamed as he tried and failed to get his body to move, to go to her. "You did this to me! We should have just left you in that coffin all those years ago; look what's happened to me because of you!" Strange bleeding cuts began to appear all over her body, staining her white kimono with sickening red blotches. Koichi stared furiously at Vincent, holding Yuffie close to him as she continued to gasp in pain. "You promised you would never hurt me, and I trusted you! How could you, Vincent?! How could you?! Vincent… Vincent…"
"Vincent!"
The gunslinger awoke with a gasp, sitting up and almost striking the person seated beside him.
"Whoa, whoa!" Cid said as he dodged Vincent's fist. "Easy, there, it's just me." He placed a broad hand on his friend's shoulder, settling him back against one of the pillows balanced in front of the headboard. "Yer at my house, and you've been here since midnight – about, eh, four hours ago. Yuffie's downstairs with Shera; everything's okay." Vincent closed his eyes and focused on steadying his breaths, which at the moment were coming in quick, harsh pants. When he had finally managed to breathe normally again, he opened his eyes, gratefully accepting the glass of water Cid offered him. "What was it about his time?" the blond asked, already very familiar with his friend's frequent night terrors. Vincent shook his head slowly, pushing his hair back from his eyes and sighing tiredly.
"It was… nothing important," he said dismissively, taking a sip of the water and hoping Cid would let it go. Cid, of course, did nothing of the sort.
"Wasn't important, my ass!" he nearly shouted. "When someone like you's screamin' like he's about ta be murdered, it's definitely important!" Vincent colored a dark shade of red, and Cid shook his head and sighed, regretting the fact that he hadn't remembered how easily embarrassed Vincent was. "Look, Vince, I didn't mean it to sound like yer weak or anything, okay? Ya know I don't think you are. I just thought if I could help –"
"I know, Cid," Vincent said with a heavy sigh. "And I appreciate the thought. But I think the first person I need to talk to is Yuf…fie…" He trailed off slowly, his eyes widening as he noticed something odd about his left arm. The entire gauntlet was gone, leaving him without any limb below the elbow and only the brass-plated attachment point to show that it had ever been there. "Cid… What happened to – Where's my –" he began, feeling the first stages of panic creeping up on him. Of all of the things Hojo had done to his body, the loss of his left arm was the one he hated most. He had never wanted anyone to see him without that gauntlet, to see how much weaker he was with only one arm.
"Don't worry, you'll get it back," Cid said reassuringly, patting Vincent's shoulder. "That Koichi bastard really did a number on it, though, so we had to call Reeve to fix it. He's downstairs now, actually. Wanna go see how it's comin' along? I think the Turks are still down there, too; they wanted to see ya when ya woke up." Vincent nodded, still a bit dazed, and slowly stood from the bed. He was relieved to notice that although his chest was still wrapped in red-stained bandages, the worst of the bleeding had stopped and Chaos's powers had already begun sealing the deep stab wound. Cid led him out of the guest room and down the stairs, careful to stay in front of Vincent in case his balance was still off.
They made it to the kitchen without incident, and Vincent was surprised at how many eager faces were there to greet them. Shera stood near the counter, holding the newest addition to the Highwind family; she was blonde-haired and blue-eyed like her father, and she had been named Rozalynne, meaning "little rose." Reeve was sitting at the kitchen table, working on repairing the badly broken gauntlet while Yuffie watched him like a hawk; all four of the Turks were sitting or standing in various parts of the room, listening more than talking as they and Reeve discussed some of the plans being made between Rufus ShinRa and the W.R.O.
"Vincent!" Yuffie shouted, rushing over to him and wrapping her arms around him. He returned the embrace with his one functional arm, laying his chin on her head and holding her almost painfully tightly as he recalled everything they had gone through in the last few days. Yuffie ran her hand down his other arm, tracing the brass plating around the end of his bicep and smiling brightly at him. "Reeve's working on your gauntlet now, so you should have it back soon, okay?" He remained quiet, the words of the dream-Yuffie echoing in his mind. He shook his head, reminding himself that this was the real Yuffie in front of him, not the nightmares conjured up by his troubled subconscious. "Vinnie? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he answered with a small, genuine smile. She really did care what happened to him; it was just a dream, after all. He was exactly where he belonged, and nothing would ever change that if he could help it. "Nothing at all. I'm just glad to have you back."
"I'm glad to be back," Yuffie said quietly, leaning against his side and giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'm so glad it was you I asked to come to Wutai with me, Vincent. Without you I'd probably be married to that… that…" She wiped a tear from her eye, leaning into him again as she did. "Oh, gods, Vince, I'm just so glad you came for me!" Vincent stared at her for a moment before pushing her away enough that she was looking into his eyes.
"I will always come for you, Yuffie."
Yuffie smiled brightly, her next words muffled as she buried her face in his chest. "I never doubted that, Vincent."
"Aww, that's so sweet, yo!" Reno said from his position by the kitchen door. "Looks like you're getting soft on us, Valentine!"
"Don't bet on that, Reno," Tseng warned from his seat beside Reeve. "Vincent Valentine is one you do not want to underestimate."
"I could say the same about you," Vincent said with the slightest of smirks. "How did you know Yuffie and I were missing? And even knowing that, how could you possibly have found us in the middle of that jungle in that bad of a storm?" Tseng looked steadily at Vincent, his eyes betraying nothing as he brushed a lock of long black hair over his shoulder.
"Believe it or not, we were actually going to pay you a visit late last night. We had some rather important business to discuss with you, but since you weren't in, we decided to ask around and see if anyone had heard from you. About that time, we got a call from Cid asking us to go out and look for you. He said you and Yuffie had left for Wutai the day before and when her cell phone suddenly stopped working and you didn't answer yours, he got worried. Luckily, we were still able to track the GPS chip in your phone and find you fairly easily." The room fell silent after Tseng's explanation. Cid cleared his throat and looked away sheepishly when Vincent and Yuffie turned toward him, both wearing expressions of slight amusement.
"Well hell, I mean…" he began, scratching the back of his head absentmindedly. "Somethin' about the whole thing just didn't seem right, y'know? I got kinda worried, but I couldn't leave Shera alone since she was still real out of it, and –" He was cut off as Yuffie grabbed him in a tight hug, nearly squeezing the life out of him until he finally managed to pry her off. "Damn, Vincent," he said, coughing and rubbing his throat. "How d'you put up with that all the time? She damn near broke my spine!" Vincent smirked and shrugged, stoic as ever. Yuffie just laughed, shaking her head in disbelief.
"Cid, you have no idea what you just did for us," she said, tempted to hug him again. "You're not as much of a crusty old jerk as you want us to believe, are you?"
"Nah, I'm still a mean ol' bastard and you know it," he said with a grin. "But after all we've been through over the years, I figured it'd be a bad idea to let something happen to you guys – even you, Brat." With that, he stepped outside through the kitchen door to have a cigarette, leaving Yuffie to stick her tongue out at his retreating back. Tseng stood almost immediately, looking at Vincent as he rose.
"Well, then, Vincent," he began, straightening his coat without seeming to notice he was doing it. "If you're feeling well enough, I was hoping we could have a little chat. After all, that's what I just travelled across the world for."
Author's Note: Okay, we're finally getting toward the end here. I plan to write Chapter 11 and an epilogue, but you never know what the plot bunnies will dream up next. What's Tseng going to say to Vincent...? I guess you'll have to wait and see! ;)
Just as a side note here, I am very much aware that I am using two different spellings of Shin-Ra. The un-hyphenated version is what I use for Rufus's family name, while the hyphenated version is the one I use for the actual company. Just in case you were wondering.