Chapter 11: Calm Before the Storm

Most of the team had left the Highwind for the day. Aeris was with her step-mother in Kalm, Cid was in Rocket Town, Barret was with Marline in Kalm and Nanaki was with his grandfather in Cosmo. Yuffie was dropped off at Wutai. The only remaining people on the ship were the crew, Naruto, Garra, Vincent, Cloud, Tifa and Cait Sith. The cat was shut off though so it was really only the five of them, seven if you included Kyuubi and Nibi. Cloud and Tifa had left the airship and were sitting outside.

'Ok, we need to think of a way to remove Jenova from Sephiroth. Any ideas Kyuu-chan?'

"As a matter of fact, yes. I've been thinking about it for a while now. It came to me when Sephiroth's conceivement was revealed by Hojo. The Jenova cells seem to be almost completely fused with Sephiroth's DNA, rather than simply infecting it like in Cloud's instance. The only way to free him would be to remove the Jenova DNA parts and to replace them with an organism that has a similar DNA makeup. Did you get all that?"

'No.'

Kyuubi sighed. "I suppose that was too much techno babble for you to handle. Ok, let's say that an object has been fused with a part of another object so much, that if removed, Object 1 would die soon after. In order for Object 1 to live, something similar to Object 2 would have to be inserted before too much decay happened to Object 1. Is that easier?"

'Yep!' said Naruto cheerfully. 'So how are we going to remove the Jenova cells from him?'

"There's a medical angelic jutsu that allows me to do this, but the problem is finding a near identical match to replace. Call Kaku and see if he can produce a match for us."

Naruto took out his phone and selected Shichibi no Kaku from the address book on the phone. There was a few rings before Kaku answered.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"We need to find a gene that is similar or exactly the same as the Jenova gene. I plan to 'debug' Sephiroth, then replace the new gene straight away. Can you do it?" asked Naruto.

"Of course. Give me a few hours to find a match. I'll get Namine to help out. I'll call you when I get the results." He then hung up.

"Ok. Now what?" Naruto asked as he changed Kyuubi into her hybrid form. She wore a pair of light blue jeans and a black loose t-shirt with a grinning golden chibi fox on the front.

"Well we could always play some games. We haven't had the chance to just relax and lounge around. I've got a couple of board games stashed away in one of my Dimensional rooms. I'll haul out some and we can have a good time."

"Sounds like a good idea. You do that while I go ask Gaara, Nibi and Vincent if they wanna play," said Naruto and went off in search of them.

It turned out that they did want to join in, though Vincent was a bit confused. It seemed that he didn't get the point of playing around just before the final battle. Naruto explained that being at peace before the battle would help them fight better.

"Let's face it. We all get tense at the thought of the end of the world. We need something to distract ourselves from the battle ahead. Times like these are precious."

In the end Naruto, Kyuubi, Gaara, Nibi and Vincent sat around at the end of the table in the conference room; a small stack of card games and board games in the middle of their group.

"So what's first?" asked Nibi.

"Uno!" called Kyuubi as she grabbed a thick pack of colourful cards. "Yay!" squealed Nibi.

"What's that?" asked Naruto.

"Well," said Kyuubi as she shuffled the deck. "It's a game that was developed on another world. It's simple and easy, but very addicting." She then went on to explain the rules. By the time she had finished everyone, even Vincent, was excited about this new game.

For the next hour they played a few games of Uno. Kyuubi and Nibi were doing quite well since they knew how to play completely. Naruto however, kept loosing, primarily because he kept forgetting to call 'UNO!' when you were down to one card and kept getting caught. Gaara was faring better than Naruto but it was Vincent who had beginners luck on his side. He was wining as many games as Kyuubi and Nibi.

Then they played Scrabble and Naruto completely stunk at it. He just didn't have a theoretical mind. Nibi wasn't much better either but Kyuubi, Gaara and Vincent did well. In the end, Vincent won the battle.

Afterwards they just hung out on the deck, looking no-where in particular. Then Naruto decided to ask the question that had been gnawing at him for some time.

"So Vincent," he said gaining the attention of everyone else around him. "How are you able to transform into another being?" The blond made sure he didn't say monster or demon.

For a few minutes Vincent was silent before he sighed softly. "To answer your question, you must first know my past. Thirty years ago, I was a member of the Turks."

"That's right. You did mention that before," said Naruto.

"Right, but back then the group was known as Shinra's 'Department of Administrative Reserch'. At one point I was assigned to supervise the Jenova Project in Nibelheim. There I met... a woman by the name Lucrecia Crescent. She was an assistant to Professor Gast Faremis.

"We worked together on the project, becoming close, but that all changed when I read one of her files on the computer. The file explained that my father had been working with Lucrecia on Project Chaos."

"What's Chaos?" asked Gaara.

Vincent was silent for a few moments before he spoke again. "Soul wrought of terra corrupt, Quelling Impurity, Purging the stream, To beckon forth the ultimate fate, Behold mighty Chaos, Omega's squire to the lofty heavens." He paused again. "This was a part of Lucrecia's scientific diary, known as the Omega Report. Omega is the entity that gathers all the Lifestream to one point before launching off the planet and into the cosmos. And Chaos is the entity that cleanses the living off the surface of the planet and sends the spiritual energy back to the Lifestream."

"After I found out that my father, Dr. Grimoire Valentine had worked closely with Lucrecia on Omega and Chaos, I confronted her about it. She revealed that she was the one responsible for his death. I wasn't angry with her. I tried to console her but she felt too guilty about the incident and this put a large amount of strain on our friendship. She eventually turned to Hojo for comfort, eventually marrying him."

"Woah! I never saw that coming," said Kyuubi in shock.

"So did you find out what happened to your father?" asked Naruto.

Vincent nodded. "It seemed that my father and Lucrecia found Chaos, which is a tainted strand of Lifestream. They were able to retrieve it and bring it back to their lab. One day, they were experimenting when Chaos became unstable. The containment vessel cracked and several shards of Chaos erupted out of the vessel. One would of struck Lucrecia, but my father pushed her out of the way, just in time. The shard struck him and Chaos entered him. Since he was not strong enough to hold Chaos, he began to deteriorate and die. That's why Lucrecia felt guilty, but I never blamed her for my father's death. I tried to tell her that, but she wouldn't listen to me.

"Eventually Lucrecia became pregnant with Hojo's baby. She also agreed to use her unborn son as a test subject. Hojo injected Jenova cells into Lucrecia and her fetus. However she fell victim to an illness as a side effect from having Jenova cells inside her."

"That's horrible," said Nibi, looking terribly saddened.

"She began to have fainting spells and dizziness right after the experiment started. I approached Hojo and argued with him that this was not the way to do things. We got into a fight, and... he shot me."

"What!" exclaimed Naruto.

"I can't be sure exactly what happened after that. It's all a little fuzzy. It seems that Hojo experimented on me after that. He tried to make me into something more, strengthening the endurance of my body and metamorphosis, enabling my body to transform into multiple monstrous forms. However I was considered a failure because I wouldn't wake from my death-like state. Lucrecia, as a last resort to try to revive me, infused Chaos into me and due to the experiments that Hojo did to me, my body was strong enough to become a vessel for Chaos.

"I awoke later, when everyone had left the Shinra Mansion, and I felt responsible for Lucrecia's illness after Sephiroth was born. As punishment for my inability to stop Lucrecia from experimenting on herself and her unborn child, I slept inside that coffin you found me in, for 28 years."

Everyone was silent for a good while. "Man, that's some history you have," said Naruto.

"Indeed," agreed Gaara.

"Well, I'm happy to say that from here on out, it's going to get better, since you're joining up with us now," said Naruto as he clapped his hand on Vincent's shoulder. "Assuming we don't get owned by Mr. Big Ass Meteor."

Kyuubi and Nibi laughed softly, breaking the gloomy mode. "And don't worry bout Chaos," added Naruto, gaining Vincent's curiosity. "After this is all over we'll see if we can tweak it up a bit, making it easier for you to use the Chaos transformation."

Vincent's red eyes widened. "Is such a thing possible?"

"Sure is!" said Kyuubi. "Being who I am and where I'm from I can say with complete honesty that we can help you with this completely." Naruto wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him while grinning at the shadowy and mysterious gunman who was now much less shadowy and mysterious. "You're not alone anymore."

Vincent smiled at these words and nodded. "Thank you."

After Vincent's story was told the group remained on the deck for a while but soon separated off to have some alone time. Gaara and Nibi went together. Vincent chose to remain on the deck while Naruto and Kyuubi moved to the bridge and sat against the wall and cuddled with each other.

However Naruto's thoughts were full of ideas for the future of his new Hidden Village idea. Konoha had made it abundantly clear that they no longer wanted him around. Who was he kidding, they never wanted him around. They only saw him as a rampaging demon while only a select few who knew the truth treated him like a normal person. Ero-sennin, Baa-chan, Iruka-sensei, the Ichiraku raman chefs... 'Great, still only five people,' he thought depressively.

The friends he did have that didn't know the truth were most of the Konoha 12. Sasuke was out of the picture. Even though Naruto still thought of Sasuke as his brother, he realised that, no matter what he did, he would always steep himself in darkness for power to kill Itachi. He recalled the first time he had seen the older brother. Back then he had seemed so threatening and yet, so emotionless. But now there was something... off about him. He didn't know what, but he got the feeling that it was very important. He resolved to ask Baa-chan later when he realised that if this was something that the Hokage knew about, then there was a good chance that the knowledge could've died with the old man.

Then there was Sakura. Boy oh boy, he had such a different view on her now. Before he would've done almost anything for her. But after that scene at the gate, most of his affection for the pink haired kunoichi had been dashed. And then when Kyuu-chan entered the picture as his most important precious person, Sakura just... faded out of the picture... never to return. She had shattered his trust in her and it would never be earned back. Besides, now she had Sasuke all to herself. She had got what she had always wanted.

Naruto shook his head mentally, seeing where this train of thought was taking him and not liking the destination. He returned his thoughts on what he was supposed to be thinking about. The new village. More importantly, his new village. He had thought up the idea and had expanded on it by saying that it would be a Hidden Village dedicated to training ninjas that would be sent all over the universe so that an accident like with what happened to Shukaku and Kyuubi never happened again.

'But what happens? What will I call it? And more importantly, where will it be stationed? For this new village's forces are going to be wholly committed to Kyuubi's organization. There wouldn't be enough ninjas left over for things like mission requests for whichever country he planned to build this village. Plus he didn't want to deal with the possibility of going to war against Konoha. Despite all the bad things that had gone on there, there were a lot of good things. And Naruto was no traitor. He wouldn't abandon his home village. But that meant he would have to spend the rest of his life being in service with Konoha.

"Ahh!" Naruto growled out loud, surprising Kyuubi. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Just thinking about this new Hidden Village. There are so many factors to think about. One thing that's bothering me is where to build this new village. The village forces will be so busy with working for you that there won't be any time to do things like missions for whatever country I choose to plot my village at," explained Naruto.

Kyuubi thought about it before she smiled. "I might be able to help you with that," she said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. If you can't build on a spot where you'll have obligations to meet, then build where there is no obligations."

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked. She just smiled. "Don't you worry. Let's just concentrate on the task at hand. Whatever happens, it'll all be over within a week."

"True, though for your information, I plan to win," Naruto said.

"Of course. I do too," replied the love of his life. They would of talked more, but there was an interruption in the form of someone calling his phone. Naruto picked it up and put it on speaker.

"Hey Naruto. I found your gene. It's called the Angel gene. Basically it achieves all the same results as the Jenova cells. Superhuman strength, reaction, agility and so on. What makes it different is that the Angel cells are dependent on the body and so won't create another persona or fight for dominance like the Jenova cells would and they self replicate extremely quickly so it would only be a matter of hours before the cells in the subject would be fully integrated into their bodies," explained Kaku on the other end.

"Great! Can you send the sample?" Naruto asked.

"Sure thing. Just give me a second..." there was a brief pause before a small spinning glowing seal appeared on the floor in front of Naruto. The seal vanished in a puff of smoke to reveal a vial of azure blue liquid. At one end of the vial was a short needle which was protected by a plastic cap.

"Thanks Kaku. We'll see you in a week," Naruto said.

"Yea, I've been monitoring your progress up here. Good luck!" he then hung up.

"Great! This'll help get Sephiroth back to his real self!" said Naruto, standing up, Kyuubi rising as well.

"Hey blondie!" came a familiar voice. Naruto and Kyuubi turned to see Cid grinning at them. "We're back!"

"We?" asked Naruto before Nanaki, Yuffie, Barret, Cloud, Aeris, Tifa, Gaara, Nibi and Vincent walked onto the bridge.

"Hey guys!" Naruto welcomed. "You ready to kick some serious ass?"

"Hell yeah!" roared Barret enthusiastically. Cid winced at his volume. "Oi! Keep it down! I've got one hell of a hangover!" he yelled back.

"Hang over?" asked Aeris.

"Yeah. There's a chance that I'm not going to walk away from this one so I got as smashed as I possibly could without killing myself yesterday. So I'm a little delicate at the moment," explained Cid.

"You? Delicate?" Tifa said before she snorted with laughter. Soon everyone joined in. Cid just grumbled to himself.

"Well then, let's go!" shouted Naruto as Cid fired up the engines and throttled forward.