Redeeming Cain
By Kaj-Nrig

Notes/Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII is the sole property of Square Enix Co., Ltd. I claim none of its characters, scenarios, or affiliations as my own.

Chapter 7: The Second Night (Sarabande)

The silence in the air was unnatural. Neither of them moved, but neither did the flock of demons behind Turk. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath; the forest was absolutely still.

Both shot at the same time, and immediately the forest was bathed in the sounds of battle, of tumbling bodies and deafening thunderclaps. Both warriors veered to his right, twisting and ducking as bullets from the other grazed their cheeks and nipped at their clothing. Through the sudden burst of action, Vincent saw a large tree in his path and quickly pressed up against it, out of sight of his pursuer. Several shots slammed into the wood close behind him, but the trunk was thick and held.

The fresh clip was only halfway consumed, but he hastily reloaded regardless. It would be better for him to have a full clip now and waste ammo, he mused as he peeked around the tree, than to need ammo and not have a full-

Turk filled his vision, and Vincent leapt back out into the open forest just as the suited man slashed down on him. Twisting gracefully in the midst of his charge, Turk flowed from swinging to shooting as his left hand came up and fired off three short bursts. His momentum carrying him, Vincent slid backwards along the sparsely-vegetated earth and brought his metal claw up to protect his face. Three harsh dins sounded as he parried each shot, and as each bullet sent a ripple through his body, Vincent faintly recognized, from between the plates of his talons, the form of Turk dashing at him.

Everything suddenly seemed to slow down, and without thinking, Vincent swept upward at the final projectile fired at him even as he brought his own gun up. The round crashed against his claw, sending another swelling of pain through him, and then slowly, ever so slowly, flattened and deformed as the energy mutilated it before Vincent bashed it aside.

And with his claw out of his eyes, Vincent saw, with startling clarity, the amount of open space between Turk and himself. It was so clear, so crystal clear, that he almost didn't recognize his body already adjusting to the situation. He settled the handgun, the sights centered directly in front of his right eye, perfectly aligning the barrel with the center of Turk's head. His finger pulled, the gun kicked back, and Vincent suddenly had the sensation of seeing the bullet, being the bullet, rocketing straight into that open space between Turk and himself. He saw it fly unhindered, he saw Turk's eyes widen in shock as the bullet zoomed closer, closer...

Then suddenly Turk was no longer there, and the bullet slammed into the tree behind him, and Vincent saw a young, blonde-haired woman in Turk's place, dashing at him, reaching him, shoving her palm upward-

He stumbled back as she bombarded him, her thin limbs shooting out with the speed of a cobra strike, snapping at him here and there before he could even react, and he continued to falter under her relentless attack. Then, without a warning, she was stepping on him, her boots slamming into his ribs, his shoulders, his face, and one final kick threw him down as she flew up. Twisting in midair, the blonde-haired, blue-suited woman conjured two handguns from her sleeves and fired at him.

Vincent rolled and rolled, feeling the bullets fling up the dirt just behind him, and hurriedly reached inside his pocket for a glass orb. The cold ball shattered immediately in his grip and he threw the scattered dust on the earth, firing frantically at it. A massive sheet of ice immediately bolted from the ground, creating a thick wall which separated him from whatever it was that Turk had changed into.

Panting heavily, the hunter checked his clip again; the clip was still almost completely full. A thick sheen of perspiration covered his body, and a drop of sweat trailed down his cheek, causing it to sting. Reaching up to wipe the sweat away, his claw came back with a thin stain of blood on it. He hadn't even felt the bullet graze him.

But what the hell had that been? Vincent pondered the idea as he reached into his vest and retrieved another Lightning Materium. His bullet should have bored right through Turk's brain, but instead, the unfathomably quick Turk had somehow... ducked, right at the very last moment, when it was impossible. There was no way anyone could have done that.

Unless...

He's a shapeshifter. The thought was very abrupt and brought very little comfort to Vincent. That was the only explanation for the sudden disappearance of Turk and appearance of some strange blonde-haired woman-

"Short blonde hair... twenties."

Elena.

----____----

No sooner had Vincent come to this realization than part of the wall of ice he'd erected burst open as Turk charged through, this time appearing as a bald, brown-skinned man with eyes so intensely green that they left a trail of light in their wake.

Backpedaling, Vincent fired at the unbelievably quick Turk, keeping the shapeshifter at bay just long enough for him to grab another of his dwindling supply of Materium and crush it in his grip, letting the sparkling dust settle on his gold-hued fingers. Turk rushed at him again, and Vincent once again found himself retreating, using his acrobatic skills to their fullest extents, narrowly dodging blows here and absorbing blows there.

Turk swung with his right arm, slashing downward at Vincent as the hunter crouched low, and the hunter brought his metallic hand to meet it, resulting in a brilliant spark of light as gold met an electric silver. Turk brought his other hand down, hard, and the two of them were momentarily locked in that struggle.

How powerful is this thing? he wondered offhandedly, snarling slightly as Turk put more weight behind his weapons.

There was a hum then, an unexpected whine as something charged up, and suddenly Turk drew his rod across Vincent's fingers, and Vincent felt his arm being knocked aside as his vision was filled with a scintillating hot light and his ears were filled with the sound of a thousand thunderstorms, and lightning spewed forth from his fingers to fell some unfortunate trees to his left, and then everything was dark again, and he was left immobilized, stunned.

The next thing he could make sense of was Turk, now returned to his former red-haired self, standing beside him. Something prodded his stomach, and as he glanced down, his vision blurry and uneven, he saw Turk's arm, hand, and metal rod.

"It pains me to kill you, Vincent Valentine."

His scream was cut short by a sudden convulsion that just as instantly snapped into rigidity as electric tendrils snaked along every inch of his body. Before long, Vincent felt numb, felt all consciousness begin to fade, felt a black emptiness begin to overcome him... and then he was jarred awake by the sensation of being suddenly thrown off his feet.

As he flew through the air, Vincent tried to shake himself, broke his muscles out of their paralysis, and, looking behind him, twisted his body to avoid crashing into a nearing tree. A series of staccato claps faintly registered from below him. His booted feet caught the tree trunk just as he was about to slam into it, and before he even knew what he was doing, Vincent jumped to a nearby branch, narrowly avoiding a flurry of gunshots.

Vincent shook his head for a moment, trying to get his bearings straight. Taking a moment to catch his breath, the weary hunter looked down below him and saw that Turk had decided to come up and join him.

Oh, joy… With a quick motion, he reloaded his gun and retrieved another container of the powerful minerals.

Turk sprinted up the tree as easily as if he were running downhill, and Vincent quickly slipped into the higher branches, where the thick canopy was. It was dangerous to be up here – besides the nightbirds, there were probably hundreds of bugs and insects, of all shapes and sizes, that could kill him – but since he had yet to be attacked by any of them, he was willing to take his chances.

He had to slow down Turk somehow... The man-woman-thing was simply too quick and agile for him to take on.

The momentary respite was broken as Turk dashed up to meet Vincent, now sporting the same lithe, young frame of the girl whom he assumed was Elena. S/he sprang directly at him, rushing so quickly before bolting away from the barrel of his gun that he could see the violently confident grin on his/her face. Turk disappeared into the dark canopy, and Vincent listened intently to the rush of air as the shapeshifter circled around him. He's toying with me, he realized. And he only had two Materium left.

A crack sounded from his right, and Vincent leapt out of the way, but he barely touched his feet down when another bullet came from behind him. Twisting so quickly that he felt his bones grind slightly, Vincent narrowly avoided a direct blow to his spine. There was a rush of air in front of him as Turk streaked by, and Vincent brought his gun up, but by then the shapeshifter was already gone again, zipping through the trees and using each foothold to increase its speed that much more.

Damn it. This is getting me nowhere. Turk shot again from beneath him, and Vincent found himself in yet another game of cat and mouse. The dreary, monotonous world swirled dizzily around him as he was kept on the defensive, narrowly avoiding the seemingly endless hail of bullets that Turk rained on him. The shapeshifter was just too fast for him.

He needed something, something faster-

Inspiration reaching him just before another bullet could, Vincent sprang upward, feeling the hunting eyes of Turk on him, and as he had figured, Turk fired at him just as he twisted and planted his feet on the underside of a thick, luminescent tree branch. Then he spotted it – a clear passage to the forest floor – and Vincent bulleted into that opening, putting as much energy into his descent as possible. It would only give him a few meters of distance at best, but he had to take every inch he could.

Tearing through the thick canopy, he ended up right where he wanted – in the corridor of scored trees that he and Lucrecia had followed earlier. Without hesitation, he rocketed off one tree after the next, pumping his legs furiously to try to gain as much distance as possible-

Leaves exploded as Turk burst through the same canopy, hot on his trail and gaining on him. Sweat stung his eyes, and he felt desperation threatening to seize hold of him, but he knew that if he was to do it, he had to do it now.

Bullets soaring past him matched the retorts from behind him, but Vincent ignored all that. Pulling out one scintillating yellow ball, he leapt off one last tree, tossed the Materium back, twisted in the air and fired quickly once twice thrice-

The entire corridor was suddenly filled with a deafening, roaring whine as if a million thunderbolts had erupted all at once, and it escalated until it seemed to Vincent that he'd gone deaf. A brilliant white light burned his eyes, penetrating past his eyelids and past his irises and seemed to touch his very center of being. Turning away from the brilliant shower of lightning and thunder, Vincent suddenly felt a sharp impact as he made contact with the forest floor, and he realized he had forgotten to keep his footing. Dragging unceremoniously across the earth, Vincent tasted the disgusting yet almost fragrant soil of the Asgard forest as sharp pebbles scraped his face.

As quickly as it had started, the explosion dissipated, and when Vincent opened his eyes again, all he saw were stray tendrils of blue-white lightning that pulsed in the air of the forest where Turk had been. The entire corridor was scorched, some trees sporting holes that had been gouged out by the lightning strikes, some others burnt so horribly that their soft glow was now as dead as the night sky, and some more that had been completely uprooted altogether. It was an awful scene, one of destruction on a scale he had rarely seen.

But what of Turk? It pained Vincent to get up – every part of his body was aching now that the battle was over, and his legs especially seemed on the verge of collapse – but he did so and carefully proceeded to check if the shapeshifter had been struck by the lightning or not.

----____----

"Ahhh..."

The voice was barely a whisper, but in the tremendous silence following the lightning strike, it was as clear as if Turk were standing in front of him. As it was, Vincent found the shapeshifter more than fifty feet back from where the explosion had occurred, likely due to the force of the lightning bolts. Turk's entire left arm was severed at the shoulder, and what little stump was left was a disgusting mass of shredded tissue and pulsing blood. A massive hole – Vincent's arm could have fit through it – had been gouged out of the lower left side of his abdomen, and although there was little in terms of blood, the flesh and clothing for a large area surrounding the wound was charred and cracked. Even Turk's left ear had been partially torn off, the remaining stump nothing more than a ragged, coal-colored protrusion. For the horrific state he was in, though, Turk, now reverted to the form with which he had greeted Vincent, still managed to smile weakly at Vincent as the hunter approached.

"Good... Very, good... Vincent," the shapeshifter spoke. Vincent trained his gun on Turk, but did not fire. He tried to say something, he wanted to say something, however strange that was, to at least acknowledge this worthy adversary in his final moments, but he remained silent. Turk chuckled, coughed, and chuckled again. "Firing upon your Materium... Using... Using the glass orb itself as a medium for the lightning... I would have never considered that. Hah..." He coughed again, but retained the pleasant smile. "I nearly... I nearly avoided it, though... as you can see."

"Our Father, who art in Heaven, blessed by Thy name, thy kingd-"

"Stop..." Turk chided, an amused smile playing at his pale lips. "Do not... speak of God... to me, Vincent."

"Were you Elena?" Vincent asked when one of Turk's coughing fits caused the red hair to turn a damp yellow for a moment. "Was it you who was attacked sixty years ago?"

Turk shook his head, again laughing. "Always so... to the point, Vincent..." With his good arm, Turk lifted himself to rest against a tree. "Alas... I am not her... Sir hunter... I merely took her form."

"Is she the one behind this?" Vincent glanced around suspiciously, checking for signs of the demon horde that had been chasing him just minutes ago.

"Do not fret, Sir hunter..." Turk began. "They ans-" He wheezed and spat out blood. "They answer to me... As long as I live... they will not advance."

"Does that mean you commanded them to attack me in the castle?"

Turk shook his head, but offered no further explanation. "I..." he continued. "I was ordered to attack Elena... fifty-seven years ago... and take her form... She was turned, and then she was staked."

"Why-" Vincent began, but his eyes flickered in realization. Looking down at Turk, Vincent saw that what he suspected was true. "She was turned, and you took her place. The vampire who turned her fooled the villagers into thinking she was the vampire, and they staked her."

Turk nodded, and then retched a mass of blood that spilled over his lips and chin, at which he wiped half-heartedly with his right hand. His time was growing short.

Vincent holstered his firearm and knelt down by the dying creature. "Why? What did you do as Elena? Who is behind all this?"

Turk didn't answer for such a long period of time that Vincent nearly thought him dead. When the shapeshifter did speak, though, he whispered, "'Elena...'" The voice was weak, far away and rounding the final pass before Death's door. "Her parents found 'Elena' in her bedroom... floating in the air... And she vanished... vanished into a radiant brilliance, as if... as if God Himself had lifted her away." Turk laughed again at the concept – God's forgiveness - but it seemed he was also laughing at what the spectacle must have done to the people of the village. "I... I said to them... 'Momma, Papa... I have to go home now.'" And Turk burst into weak but uncontrollable laughter, spitting dribbles of blood at his feet.

It was funny, in a very sardonic, twisted way, Vincent realized. By having the "vampire" – Elena – staked and "Elena" seemingly taken away by God, the true culprit had stripped the residents of Asgard of their fear, had convinced them of their relative security in the harsh Outer Plate.

But why bother? he thought to himself. Why get rid of their fear only to re-instill it fifty-seven years later?

The confusion and frustration that had been plaguing Vincent returned in full force, and the hunter fought to control himself.

"Who was the one who bit her, then?"

The question did little to cease Turk's laughing, but Vincent sensed a sudden edge to the sound. Just as with Yuffie in the castle, even the mere mention of the mysterious "other" – the vampire who had turned Yuffie (and Elena as well, apparently) – had caused Turk to become... frightened, even in his dying state.

"Who is she?" Vincent repeated, but even as he spoke, he saw Turk's eyes close, his lips freezing in their perpetual grin. Gritting his teeth, Vincent slammed once on the rough earth and rose. Once again, he was to receive no answer to the one question that truly mattered-

"Sir hunter." Turk's voice was hardly audible anymore, and when Vincent turned back, the shapeshifter was all but dead. He almost passed it off as a ghost, but then Turk's lips moved again. "My heart... My heart belongs... to Yuffie... not...

"not...

"...

"to...

"...

"...

"...her..."

----____----

Turk died then, and the forest erupted as if in the throes of deepest sorrow. Vincent turned away from the dead body and retrieved the final Materium from its resting place. The fog that had limited his vision before had dissipated, and the glow of the ethereal trees had dimmed significantly, yet Vincent could still scarcely see more than thirty feet into the oily blackness of the forest. Howls and hoots of ballistic, animal madness seeped out from that mass of darkness as if it were something alive, and Vincent took only a moment to get his bearings before retreating toward the entrance of the forest.

They were already on him, though. Looking back, he saw that jet-black maw spitting forth its contents, the various monsters and goblins and centipedes that drew closer and closer as each moment passed. He was not going to make it out of this forest.

As he sprinted through the forest, the evils of the forest hounding on him, something pressed into his side, then fell away, then pressed again, then fell back, rocking around with each pounding footfall. It was his final Materium...

A rib or bone or tusk soared past him and embedded itself in his path, forcing him to vault it, losing so much precious time in the process. Cursing to himself, Vincent tore into his vest pocket and ripped the orb out, noting quickly that it seemed to shine a dull rust-red color, and threw it back. He turned, backpedaling but going too fast even for his feet to keep up, and fired as his feet pumped, once twice thrice more and more until his gun was empty-

He was suddenly flying, thrown off his feet by the enormous orange and crimson blast that shattered straight through the forest canopy and reached into the night sky. His eyes were blinded by the sheer energy of the explosion, and the heat that rolled over him made his entire body clench up as clothing was singed and seared. His body met the ground very suddenly, and instead of bouncing back into the air, he was driven along the ground, tumbling and rolling and feeling sharp stones slash into him. There was a sudden shock in his left arm as he snapped to a sudden stop, and something popped out of place, and when he glanced up he saw his metallic arm snagged on yet another tree root, looking a bit longer than usual and the wrist bending awkwardly. The heat wave then intensified and he felt everything suddenly moving again, the tree trapping his arm ripped out of the earth.

As he was dragged through the muck of the forest, he did his best to see what had happened. There was a cloud, then dirt, then debris flying with him, then the forest canopy, then the cloud again, shining through the trees in a tremendous mushroom, and then the orange glare of the fiery detonation, and then from that orange heat rocketed the black silhouette of something shooting right at his head, and the last thing he saw before the stone smashed into his forehead was the massive mushroom cloud that continued to expand into and illuminate the star-dotted sky.

----____----

Vincent Valentine nearly didn't wake up, and when he did, he found himself in tremendous pain. His head seemed to pulse and throb a thousand times every second, the entire right side of his face itched incessantly, and what little he could hear came through in a muddled, sticky, watery way in his right ear and not at all in his left. His entire outfit was sufficiently shredded, revealing scores of burn marks all over his body, and his glove was little more than a few thin scraps of burnt leather. His right arm from the elbow down itched viciously, and Vincent had the distinct impression that if he looked at his fingers, he would see only five stumps of coal. His left arm fared no better, for it felt like a tourniquet had been bound tightly around his shoulder while his blood had been superheated and boiled; the searing plasma pooled around his elbow and he didn't need to look at it to know that it was likely dislocated.

There were no more creatures rushing to devour him, though, which was a fortunate turn of events. If he was lucky, or if God was feeling particularly gracious, then every single one of them had been caught in the explosion and the world was now cleansed of them. He sincerely hoped that was the case. Lying on the forest floor, paralyzed with pain, Vincent fought the urge to spring up and make for the forest entrance – movement now would serve no purpose other than to further aggravate his already abhorrent wounds. And from what he could see of the sky, the moon was now nearing the horizon again.. Dawn was approaching, which meant that Lucrecia was safe, at least for the day.

So he bade his time, waiting patiently and closing his eyes to feel his body. His muscles slowly, gently worked, dissolving away the broiled fibrous tissues little by little. The charred black crust that was his skin eventually began to flake away, cracking into gruesome fissures that zigzagged all across his arm before falling off completely. The world became less a distorted warble and more of a supreme silence, interrupted by nothing except the occasional whisper of the breeze. His head suddenly felt warm, and it was only then that he realized his hair had been completely burnt off. He tried to picture himself without a single lock of hair, and the vision provided some unexpected humor in his current dismal state.

After what felt like lifetimes lying on the damp earth, Vincent finally decided to examine his right hand. The fresh skin there felt the tiniest twitches in his muscle, felt every particle of dust in the air as it moved about. He touched his index finger to his middle finger and each twinged as if it had just been dipped in scalding water. Still, at least his fingers were fingers and not simply overcooked extensions of his body.

Scanning his arm, he saw that the pink and purple flesh extended all the way to his elbow, and every inch of it was warped and unnaturally smooth. His veins stood out sharply against the thin membrane, allowing him undisguised view of the damage to the insides of his arm – the top layer of muscle was colored a disgusting gray from being cooked by the firestorm he had unleashed earlier.

It was all very interesting, but Vincent realized he had better things to worry about. Lucrecia, for example. Hissing in agony as he felt every single brush of the wind on the way up, Vincent stood and scanned his surroundings. Luckily enough, he had been thrown almost straight to the forest entrance; the opening was hardly more than a few hundred feet away to his south.

After popping his left arm back into place, Vincent began the search for his gun, which had been knocked out of his hand sometime between the explosion and his waking up.

The forest was dreadfully quiet, though, which brought about that same feeling of unease he had felt when he and Lucrecia had first entered the forest. It was disquieting for such a deadly environment to feel so tame and lifeless.

He was only a few meters further from the entrance, searching the ground for a dull, artificial blackness or a metallic reflection of the burgeoning light, when Yuffie suddenly landed between him and his exit. He tensed for a moment, seeing the furious, pained look in her eyes, and his eyes quickly scanned the ground one last time in a last-ditch effort to find his gun.

His efforts were for naught; the vampiress brought out the firearm and hurled it angrily at his feet. He reached down gingerly and cautiously, grasping the familiar handle while muttering a quick blessing, his eyes not straying from her skinny form. She had changed back to her much more utilitarian garb, and he was surprised to find that he now felt more comfortable seeing her like this than in her last attire.

"You killed him," were her first words, spoken in such a quietly forlorn pitch that Vincent could not even dream of doubting her sincerity.

He nodded once. "Why are you here?" he asked, his voice breaking into a grimace when he moved to holster his weapon. His flesh had become fuller and wasn't nearly as discolored as it had been, but he could still feel every single twitch of muscle or rustle of wind with acute sensitivity.

Yuffie did not answer him for a long time; by the time she did speak, the sun was nearly on the horizon. "I couldn't find his body."

"The sun will rise soon," he cautioned, though he found it massively perturbing that any bit of his sentiment was being spent on this vampire girl.

"When those monsters went crazy in the castle, he protected me. He always protected me. He was the only one who ever protected me."

Vincent didn't know whether to respond or keep quiet. It was impossible for him to gauge what the young girl would do.

"Why do you hate me so much?"

The question took him off-guard, and before he could help himself, he was asking himself the same question.

...but he had already asked himself that question so many times before. There was no need to go through the ruminations one more time.

"'We are all transient guests,'" he quoted, feeling the simple truth of the words slipping through his lips of its own volition.

"You told me that in the church. What does that mean?"

He shrugged slightly, the briefest of smiles forming on his lips. "Transient? It means 'momentary.' Fleeting. Someone told me the same thing long ago."

"Who?" Yuffie asked as she leaned back on a tree and bent down to rub her bare legs. The action was very distracting, but Vincent had the distinct impression that she was clueless to this.

"...God." He could see the disbelief in her eyes when she looked up, but he didn't say anything more.

"God." She nearly spat out the name. "You... stupid religious nuts." To his astonishment, her glowing eyes – gray again – began to waver, as if... no, because she was on the verge of crying. "Wh-What the fuck did I ever do to you!?" she snapped, her voice full of repressed resentment. Crossing her arms, Yuffie looked away from him in a vain attempt to hide her tears. "I-It's not like I chose to be a vampire! If... If you had just kept your hands to yourself, Vincent, I would've never-"

She sniffled once and regained her composure, wiping quickly at her eyes with one hand before turning back to him. He noticed the way her hands crawled down to her stomach and seemed almost poised to claw at the flesh there. So. That's how it was. "Vampires deserve the right to live, too. Even me. Why can't God see that?"

Vincent sighed and strode past her toward the small expanse of light. "I know why you did it, Yuffie," he said as he came to the exit and faced the northern hills of Asgard. And I'm sorry I remind you of him, he added to himself. "But power, immortality, and vengeance will never undo what was done to you. The only thing you can do is let it go."

As the vampire and her hunter proceeded their different ways, the moon in the sky above continued to wane, and all that was left in the air of Asgard was the unnatural silence that pervaded deep into every living citizen's mind, entwining into their dreams a sense of the abyss, of an emptiness filled not even by the howls and cries of beasts.

Chapter 7: The Second Night (Sarabande) END

Notes:

Materium – I had originally integrated Materia into the story with the intent of giving them some sort of pseudo-scientific properties: they were meant to be extremely unstable elements (the "-ium" was meant to reflect this) that reacted vigorously with the slightest application of energy – the kinetic energy of a bullet, for example, or the friction that comes from rubbing your fingers together. In the end, though, they may as well be balls of magical pixie dust that Vincent uses to perform cool special effects.