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Chapter XXXI – Lament of the Gigas
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Barret had watched his hometown burn. Barret had watched his best friend fall to his – apparent – demise. He'd been slugged, fired at, accused of murder, sentenced to death, and led a terrorist organisation against the biggest company and military force in the world. Then faced off against a self-proclaimed God who very nearly plowed an enormous meteor into the Planet and sent them all a one-way-ticket to the Lifestream; V.I.P.
Yet nothing terrified him more than finding his little girl missing.
The moment he found her room empty he made rounds checking every other room in his humble abode. Then, he turned his whole house upside down. The commotion drew Tifa to his side as surely as the words 'martial arts tournament' and, on hearing of his little girl's absence, the fighter too sought Marlene and the orphan known to be her best friend.
It was then, with the dawn of a blood-chilling horror, Barret realised he couldn't find Denzel either.
His face gave it all away given Tifa's resulting expression and neither spoke in their mad dash for the door. They barely set foot outside when Nanaki bound to their side, all tousled mane and laboured breath.
"I smell... Vincent–!"
The words barely parted Red's jaw before the whole party was tearing out of the house – albeit Cait Sith and Yuffie with great confusion at their heels. Despite the fire-dog's superior speed, Barret took lead with sheer bulk and iron will, charging into the plains to chase the lightning blind. Unnatural thunder in the form of grenade volleys greeted their arrival with explosive applause, the grasslands alight with flashes of gunfire. The air was rife with discordance but did little to deter the experienced eye of AVALANCHE's former leader. Within seconds Barret lassoed the two wayward children with a mighty arm, before slim yet steely hands tugged him further back from the monstrous bedlam.
Yet one monster stood out from it all.
Misshapen muscle clung together in stitched lumps, a puzzle of flesh barely strung together in a ghastly game of connect the dots. The sweet nausea of infection carried fragrant on the wind, slick ichor oozing thick from under dead and rotting skin. Silver staples and bolts pierced thick, ashen hide, but did little to impede the demon who wore it. Shocks of electric-blonde hair clawed out from cracks of a broken skull in spikes, haphazard strands left to tumble down bandages of familiar red. Scarlet eyes brimming with agony peered out from under the fabric. The pained gaze was more heart-stopping than the thick sutures that wove in and out of blue lips like a burrowing worm.
Death Gigas towered over the carnage like a stack of corpses, repulsive in macabre splendour. Bullets whizzed past the crimson toga draped over a bulging shoulder, the adorning buckles and straps doing nothing to contain the immeasurable power laced throughout muscle and sinew. The tattered garment – not at all dissimilar to Vincent Valentine's own cloak of choice – stretched to accommodate the rise of a titanic hand.
Tifa watched in spine-tingling horror as the demon thundered down a giant knuckled fist as one would a sledgehammer, sending one of the armoured tanks spinning as if it were a tossed coin. The fighter pulled Barret away from the chaos with urgency, Denzel and Marlene in tow, before flinching away herself from the unmistakable crack of bone. Once impaled clavicle tore through mercury skin to snap back into place like a missing jigsaw piece – a broken collarbone now healed. Death Gigas continued on unfazed to catch live grenades in scar-ridden palms, crushing the explosives to fizzle out before detonation like wet firecrackers.
Tifa pulled the two children behind Nanaki, the fire-dog's convenient form and height acting as a furry barricade to block the youngsters' line of sight. Cait Sith took to hiding within the spiky mohawk that was Red's mane, the cat peering out between blades of fire-grass hair while Barret took the opportunity to morph his gun-arm from its prosthetic counterpart. Metal fingers and knuckles melted away in a series of clicks and whirrs to reveal Myrna in her true glory.
Laboured gasps signalled the arrival of the party's resident ninja, who was just on time to watch the small squadron of soldiers surround and open fire on the grotesque hulk looming over the thunder-oppressed plains. Panic was evident more in their guns than their voices, firearms bucking wildly in their hands as they 'sprayed and prayed'. Death Gigas swatted the bullets away like flies.
Chestnut eyes locked onto the familiar cape come toga and contracted.
"V-Vincent... ?!"
Yuffie's choked cry unwittingly pulled Tifa's feet closer to the late teen. Barret lowered his gun-arm, indecision warring across his features. "Not anymore," he ground out. The three watched the demon haul its huge, lumbering form toward the soldiers who scrambled formation at the sight. Death Gigas bowed forward and let the lip-woven sutures pry his mouth open.
A harrowing lament rose over the plains, as cold and hollow as all the unmarked graves of those long lost. Tifa felt her insides fall into icy oblivion with them.
Yuffie stumbled back to frantically press white knuckles against her ears, shuriken teased from loose fingers with gravity's aid to spin and pierce the earth with an audible 'shink'. The fighter's psyche ripped unwanted imagery from dark corners like fragments of glass, each shard slicing her mind's eye with sharp clarity and bloody precision.
The snap and splinter of bone. An animal howl tearing from the lungs of a man. The sheer terror of the unknown emerging from the body of a newfound comrade for the first time–
'Don't think of that. Don't think of that–'
"Shouldn't we do something?! Barret..." Tifa grasped the trembling shoulder of Yuffie before she turned to her old friend. The man in question kept his eyes trained on the battle at hand. Lightning split the plain in a forewarning strobe.
It was a terse moment before thunder growled alongside Barret's tone, "They're Shinra dogs, Tif'! What'd ya expect me ta do?! I can't help but feel like they brought this onta themselves..."
"They're still human, Barret! Vincent's still... he's still..."
Eyes of burnt umber glimmered back at her in the black of storm. Tifa opened her mouth when the screaming wrench of metal jarred them both back to the battlefield. Death Gigas took hold of the remaining tank's barrel in an unyielding grip, the armour plating crumpling under his disease-mottled palm like balled paper.
With effortless strength, the demon hoist the entire tank up from its treads amid the frantic pepper spray of bullets. Utilising the vehicle's armament as a makeshift handle, Death Gigas slung the tank over a bolt-studded shoulder as one would a baseball bat, stepping up to the plate of eight terrified soldiers clustered together like bowling pins. The small squadron rushed to reload, some scrabbling to find leftover grenades on their munition belts.
Barret's brow wavered in ambivalence, but steeled in decision when the monstrous gigas swung the sixty tonne tank over his broken skull and took aim.
"S***... !"
Barret practically spat the curse from his mouth.
Body racked with tremors, the gun-armed man charged into the fray, ignoring the various cries swallowed up by gregarious thunder at his back. The octad of troops crumbled what little formation they had by the time he reached them, yet still remained within batting range in their turbid state of affright. When Death Gigas planted all too familiar boots into tread-ridden plains to ready his swing, Barret did the only thing he could think of.
"YO! FRANKIE!"
The lumbering monster paused. With languid slowness, the demon turned to face the ex-AVALANCHE leader. Barret lowered his arms, a small grin of triumph playing across his lips. It swiftly vanished when umber eyes met the tortured bleed of scarlet.
Barret Wallace was by no means a small man: being one of the tallest (and widest) members of AVALANCHE, whatever he lacked, he made up for in great height and sheer muscle. Rarely did he come face to face with anything that made him question his own demanding bulk and presence.
Death Gigas, however, made Barret do just that.
Standing in the giant's towering shadow, he beheld the waning moon as it silhouette the grotesque hulk in a gleaming scythe of light. Various staples and bolts glimmered from beds of decayed flesh, while something else twinkled and winked from inside dark pits dug out of pale skin. For one terrible, skin-crawling moment, Barret could see each spent round and expelled cartridge that had lodged itself into the demon's carcass; a disjointed constellation of bullets.
The cloying stench of infection choked the air, lodging a gag deep down his throat. An enormous golden gauntlet, almost twice the length of Barret's own torso, glittered under storm-stricken skies. The tank balanced across a red-cloaked shoulder paled in comparison to the size of its wielder. Barret's heart rapped a frantic beat through his sternum – the howling urge to shrink back from the abomination grew too much.
The ex-AVALANCHE leader made his retreat in large, slow strides. Thick clouds choked the moon into darkness.
Death Gigas followed.
The barrel of his gun-arm jerked forward for the demon to peer down at point-blank range, the cylinder of Myrna spinning an aggressive whirr as she locked her next round into place. The monstrous gigas studied the machine gun with an almost imperceptible tilt of his head. The armoured tank slid a few inches more down a bolted shoulder, revealing the cluster of Shinra troops behind scrabbling away toward the fringes of battlefield.
Momentarily distracted by the soldiers heading way of his little girl, Barret failed to notice the closing outstretch of a colossal hand.
SHIIIICK!
Tempered steel pierced ashen flesh and muscle. Umber eyes widened at the shuriken jutting proud from a malformed forearm. Death Gigas stared, motionless and silent, at the prominent weapon sprung from his skin like a metal wallflower. Inky liquid bubbled from the wound in seeping veins.
Yuffie stood tall with shaking fists, threads of lightning bringing the wet trails on her cheeks to glisten. Tifa appeared by her side, as sudden as the flash that white-washed the field.
"Yuffie, don't–!"
Sombre eyes cut her plea short. When the ninja spoke, it trembled, quiet and pained. "I can't let him hurt anyone again, Tifa."
An all-encompassing boom rattled the soil; the armoured tank sunk from a misshapen shoulder to land forgotten by gold-plated feet. Barret stumbled with the quake, barely pushing himself upright in time to see Death Gigas turn to face Tifa and Yuffie.
Dark skin paled. "GET OUTTA HERE! GO!"
Yuffie and Tifa glanced at each other – one headband knot and two leather gloves pulled tight. One brisk nod was shared before the pair hurtled into the bedlam. Barret made to bark at the two women when a more vicious snap tore the air. Red XIII growled with the thunder, teeth bared with the promise of blood. All countenance that may have resembled human was gone: Nanaki was pure animal.
"Forget the cargo! Secure the Materia and return to base!"
Stray embers from a fire-tailed whip illuminated the encroaching cluster of soldiers. The blazing fur of Nanaki's pelt rose with each marched step forward. Red XIII lowered to the ground, tassels and bracelets chiming with dangerous acclaim. Marlene clutched her Phoenix Materia with quaking fingers.
"Denzel! Stop ye crazy lad! Come back!"
Cait Sith's sudden squall struck Tifa's heels to the dirt. The fighter skid to a halt, spinning in a pirouette of leather to search for the hazel-haired boy. Panic gripped her throat, the air charged with tension and something else.
The hairs at her nape prickled.
The black canopy of cumulonimbus, woven with threads of electric blue, winked with thick lashes of blinding white. The stage was set; an elemental show ready to premiere the main event. Thunder rumbled its own drumroll: a sound akin to boulders rolling through the severed heavens. Death Gigas, who was now staring at Nanaki and the enclosing cage of soldiers, rose his head skyward to answer the passing flashes of atmospheric spotlight.
Tifa's skin tingled in an intoxicating rush of both adrenaline and horror.
"GET DOWN!"
The fighter barely had time to react to Barret's bellow when the man charged across the field to meet Yuffie in a full-force tackle. He threw the late teen to the ground while another body composed of dead skin crackled with hair-raising voltage. Embedded bolts began to hum and glow, an invisible spider spinning a string of currents from one steel head to the next. A web of neon yellow encompassed the gigas in an electrostatic net a spitting kilowatts.
Rotten knuckles pummelled a dead chest, a rapid death toll beaten from flesh and bone. From the corner of Tifa's eye, Nanaki picked up Marlene by the scruff of her turtleneck and leapt across the field in bounds, Cait Sith hanging on by the tasselled reins of Red XIII's mane. Instinctual preservation howled in every fibre and nerve-ending of her body to move, but sudden and ice-cold comprehension doused her senses numb. Horror crawled into her throat to hold her voice hostage.
They'd been seeing Vincent's new limits, but not the limits of his demons.
What happened next, Tifa could barely register.
Light exploded before her eyes then behind her eyelids, the last image of Death Gigas unleashing his Livewire seared into her mind like a scorched film reel. An earth-rattling boom assaulted her ears before a crack of lightning lashed out to strike her in a blazing whip of static. The shock threw her back and rendered her deaf and blind. The last thing her waking mind registered was screaming.
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
~ oOo ~
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
Warm whispers, soft and low. A slow dream of crackles and pops. Intermittent snaps pervaded the thick cotton of her head while colours blurred together, followed by the dull sensation of each of her limbs. Tifa groaned as she slowly came to, the fog of unconsciousness clinging to her frame like a stubborn duvet. Pins and needles danced over her skin in static concert. She rose on scuffed knees and elbows, the dazzle of orange and yellows sliding into focus as she trembled under her own weight.
Patches of fire seared the night sky into colour. Charred earth met her nose in strong tones, the scent cloying and thick. A hazy urgency pulled her to her feet and she rose, haggard and slow. Something urgent scratched away at the downy mass in her head, and Tifa could only hope time would remember the need for her. Until then, she wandered the night dumb.
Enormous shapes of metal lay warped and smouldering on the plains. The fighter stumbled through the wreckage, dodging red sparks carried on the wind like angry fireflies. Army trucks stood blackened and bearing tattoos in the form of angry scorch marks. Enormous caterpillar treads were reduced to half-molten pools of rubber. The sight of a broken tank barrel, contorted on itself like a dying snake, struck Tifa as suddenly as her feet did the soil. Her body could only respond with a stumbling jog, her tongue dead lead.
'Vincent! Vincent... Denzel– Denzel, where is Denzel?!'
She made shaky lines through the carnage. The longer she wandered, the more something tired and raw rose from within. A weathered, long-due rage clawed at her chest. She felt like the risen dead come to inspect the carnage wrought from their final battle. A ghost in her own body and mind. Memories laid siege.
'Soldiers, armies, war...'
Blazing heat on her skin. The raging fires of her razed hometown.
'SOLDIER... Mako Reactors... Shinra...'
A sinister tower of metal and greed. Grotesque pipes jutting out of the Nibel Reactor to blot out the sun. And within...
Within her Papa, slick and viscid in his own blood.
'I hate them. I HATE THEM ALL.'
Before she could be further gripped with images of Shinra troops and their war machinations – that terrible day her father was ripped away from her, his life cut short by him – a ruby glimmer winked from her peripheral. Tifa stopped, her mind jerking to a now familiar crimson cloak and the unknown fate of its owner. Her heart lodged in her throat.
She pushed through the smoke and patches of flame, bidding the wild and fantasias conclusions of her mind to cease. She knew lingering on the unknown was its own path to insanity: a hard truth found in battle beside trusted comrades. When one fell to injuries not immediately evident, taking note for too long was just as dangerous as dropping a weapon. Facts were salvation, fiction her end.
A shadow grew close, silhouette smudged from the backlight of fire. Five crooked fingers emerged from the mass of black and colour to sear her vision. Gold flickered between the digits; a wicked claw jumped to the forefront of her memory along with her heart and pressed her forward with urgency. The ruby shimmer she'd spotted earlier revealed itself from behind a tuft of scorched grass, its spherical surface molten in light. Beside it, an outstretched hand strained to meet its resplendent glow.
Tifa stilled, russet eyes dancing with glazed fire. Numb with disappointment, cold with rage, she watched as the lone Shinra troop squirmed for the lonely ball of Phoenix Materia, completely incognizant of much else but the marble of mystical, crystallised wisdom bestowed by the Ancients. Arm twisted and skin adust, the soldier's broken rifle slipped down his shoulder to land limp by shaking fingers. The gold she'd seen was nothing but the warm radiance of fire's complexion.
He barely had the strength to cry out when white treads fixed to a monochrome boot bit painfully into his wrist.
Russet eyes blazed with voice as cold as winds from the Northern Continent. "Who sent you?"
A groan resonated from beneath the battered helmet, its trio of centred lenses webbed with ruby cracks.
Tifa twist her ankle a little deeper into the conscript's exposed skin. "I won't ask you again. Who sent you."
This time a cough met her demand. Crumpled shoulder pads slumped along with the soldier, armour peeling away to reveal a smile filled with blood-stained teeth.
The tick to Tifa's brow shot straight through her limbs. Honed muscles steeled. The soles of her heel sunk deep, heedless to the tremor and muffled snap of bone that went straight through her toes. The fighter kicked away one ball while her hand simultaneously reached for another, her ears singing with the soldier's screams.
Raising Cure Materia in shaking hand, she pinned the writhing troop to the parched earth, the treads of her boot now planted squarely on his chest. Heat prickled her skin and swam across her vision in melting ripples, but she clutched tight to the restorative Materia, enforcing her will into the orphic marble. The crackling lull of flame was interrupted by a silvery peal, magical ribbons sprung forth to splash the night sky with emerald. Sweat trickled down Tifa's temple, tickling the bangs glued to her skin. She barely took note of the arm-trembling pulse that emanated from the sphere clutched in her fist.
The troop's laboured gasps steadied to a more natural rhythm among the beryl glitters that snowed over his form like diamond dust. The newly learnt enchantment took hold of sinew and bone to rejoin what once was severed, the Regen spell a balm of fine hourglass sand. The conscript raised his healing wrist in wonder, his fingers making experimental flexes while Tifa did her utmost to rein in her umbrage.
Tifa removed her boot from the stunned soldier at her feet.
"You."
Ruby lenses focused in three flashing cascades of light. Russet eyes met them, ardent and gleaming. The man was held in rapture, watching fire dance across her irises like flames stoked under glasses of red wine. His breath held still, afraid the passing sparks in the air would ignite the burgundy spirit within.
"Go back to your leader. Tell them..."
Embers flickered; the spirit lit.
"Tell them AVALANCHE is back."
The conscript visibly paled under his neck scarf. With great effort, alongside the magical properties of Regen, the Shinra troop pulled himself up with haggard slowness. Tifa stepped back, the sole of her boot once again meeting with the cool glass of the discarded Phoenix Materia, securing it underfoot.
The troop limped away in shimmers of green and molten orange, his broken armour gleaming in mirrored flames. As one would a mirage, he disappeared; swallowed whole by light and fire.
Tifa stood, solitary and alone.
Smoke bellowed into the night. She lingered, as did her anger. It smouldered and seethed with burning grass blades and streaks of oil. Her heart remained aflutter where she could almost feel her ribs vibrate with the strain – a hummingbird desperate to escape the bars of its cage. Her mind reeled, a frayed thread running off a psychogenic spool.
Strands scattered across her mind in the form of blurred images and rewound memories, a jumble of colours and mnemonic yarn balls she couldn't hope to disentangle. Her skin sweat like nitroglycerin, her body alive with the vestiges of adrenaline. From the running mess of pigments that was her watercolour psyche, Zangan's voice from time past prevailed.
'Focus! Ground yourself and focus! Time waits for no warrior!'
Eyelids fluttered shut. Tifa inhaled the air, rich with smoke and petroleum, and swallowed down her frantic heart. The colours faded. Images slowed. The Materia beneath her heel suddenly grew uncomfortable.
Tifa swept the sweat-laden bangs from her forehead and stooped low, her spine arciform. She gingerly scooped up the glass ball, cradling the marble in gloved palm. Unlike the encroaching heat that stifled all around her – bar the four figures approaching from the smoulders – the warmth from the Phoenix Materia was a kind acquiesce.
She stood to smooth off the blackened soil from the sphere when an enormous hand came to rest on her shoulder.
A grim glimmer of burnt umber met startled russets.
"Tif'–"
The words rushed from her tongue, unbidden, "Did you find them?"
Barret's frown deepened over the shawl he wore in form of little Marlene, the girl's hands looped around her father's neck to fasten with interlocking fingers at his nape. It was in that moment Tifa noticed the rest of group. Huddled around ashen grounds, a disquiet settled over the party as surely as the soot on Nanaki's fur coat.
"The scents are... muddled," Red XIII was first to speak. "I am unable to determine much in this cloying air." One lone, ochre-coloured eye dipped to the ground with the quadruped's neck. Cait Sith remained nestled within spikes of mohawk, nursing a quiet seldom suited to the puppet. Tifa waited for something – anything – to assuage her fears. She turned to Yuffie. The teenager cradled her arms close to her chest, her head turned toward the surrounding carnage. Passing embers highlighted the ninja's warpaint of dried tears.
Fire crackled between them all.
"So that's it?!"
Tifa's outburst was met with four startled pairs of eyes. Marlene, the only one to have not jumped, clutched tighter still to Barret, her face buried against his thick neck. The fighter curled the Phoenix Materia closer to her palm with taut fingers, the glass-like surface protesting against her leather gloves. "I'm not going to leave them here. I'm not giving up on them!"
Tifa made to leave but her exit was blocked by Barret's hulking form. When she tried to swerve past him, her old friend bounced her back with his chest as one would a riot shield. The fighter balled her fists, preparing to clear her path with force when Barret's bark cemented her feet.
"Now WAIT jes' a goddamn second, 'ere! No one said a damn thing 'bout givin' up. No one!" Sniffled hiccups rose from the puffy white vest collar of Barret's jacket and doused the man's ire in a heartbeat. The dark-skinned man cradled his daughter closer with his prosthetic. When he next spoke, if was with smooth stones rather than harsh gravel. "We're worried, Tif'. We all are, dammit! But take a good look around."
Tifa stopped. Her eyes fell over the party then, their forms imbibed rather than glanced over.
Nanaki's proud, lion-like form now stood alike a sullen kitten, as if the flecks of ash and soot on his coat carried an indiscernible weight to them. His blazing tail now a simmering candle, it passed back and forth across the parched ground in restive flicks. Cait Sith, who nestled atop the mop of mohawk on the fire-dog's head, remained still: a complete contrast to his usual animated self. The golden crown situated between his cat ears took on a dull varnish. Yuffie's visage was no different.
Wooden and tame, the ninja continued to avoid the fighter's gaze. Her chestnut-hued eyes were glazed with the surrounding fire while her arms gave a near imperceptible tremble. It was then Tifa realised the late teen's scorched arm warmer – but more worryingly – the scars that singed her skin and snaked across her right arm. Yuffie hugged her swollen limbs closer as if she sensed Tifa's eyes on her electrical burns.
Barret joggled Marlene in his arms, diverting Tifa's attention by way of re-adjusting the little girl in his hold. Her old friend looked worse for wear, his fishnet vest now a dirtied shade away from its usual vibrant white. Marlene quivered in his grip and clutched ever tighter to his log-like neck. The same raw pinkness Tifa saw on Yuffie's skin also spread across Barret's thick biceps, the lines of his fiery skull tattoo cleft in tender sores to add a different kind of fire to his ink.
When he next spoke, his countenance held a petrous edge to it. "We tried searchin'. Then we tried backtrackin'. We looked damn near everywhere – behind every bit 'a grass, every rock, under every goddamn pebble – but it's too dark to see shit out here."
Tifa inched closer to Marlene in his arms, reaching out to rub her back in soothing circles. It did little to smooth the stubborn dirt stains out of the little girl's turtleneck sweater. "So what do you suggest?" she asked, her voice betraying a calm she didn't at all feel.
"You ain't gunna like it. Hell, I don't either. But I say... we go back an' regroup."
Tifa's hand froze mid-circle though she willed against it. Barret continued, "We keep pushin' on like this an' we're jes' askin' fer trouble. It's dangerous, not ta mention black as brew. We're tha blind leadin' tha blind out here. If we can't go far in this, they can't go far in this. I say we go back and round up some Corel folk, then first sign'a daybreak? We send out a search party."
Tifa wanted to argue. More than argue. She wanted to kick and scream and curse at whatever deity could possibly garner such perverse pleasure from such a series of accursed events. But she knew Barret to be speaking with his head; it was his seasoned way after years of acting as AVALANCHE's leader, after all.
She took the Phoenix Materia in her palm and entrusted it back into Marlene's care, gently curling the little girl's cold fingers around the warm sphere before squeezing and letting go.
Barret mistook her deep and regretful silence for indecision which spurred his tongue further. "I know it's hard, girl. But I say we cut our losses fer now an' return ta base."
'Return to base...'
Tifa threw her hair over her shoulder to peer into the gloom, her heart sent aflutter at the idea of Vincent and Denzel lost somewhere out there among the dark and black. Despite her fears, the barked orders of one particular troop still lingered in her head.
'Return to base...'
Tifa balled her fists tight as the fires raged.
'Just where are you, Shinra SIN?'
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
~ oOo ~
-ЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭЄЭ-
'Just where are you, Cloud?!'
Denzel pushed through the smoke, thick and smothering as it rolled over the night in blankets. The fires were but a distant haze of orange and reds in the vapour; elemental fingerpaints smudged across a canvas of smog.
'I just have to find you. I have to. I– !' he caught on his undone shoelace and stumbled forward, his chest meeting the parched earth along with his canvas backpack. The weathered pipe that was once secured behind a worn strap went rolling away from him through the scorched blades. Small hands clumped fistfuls of grass with shaking fingers.
More than a few times Denzel considered going back. He hated the way he'd left Marlene behind, but he knew his best friend would be safe with Barret. He also knew if he hadn't taken his chance to run when he did, Tifa or one of the others would have held him there under watchful eye. And for how long, Denzel didn't want to know. He'd wasted enough time, already.
Opportunity was everything to those who grew up alone in the slums.
He picked himself up, clapping the dirt from his hands and wiping what mud he could from his dirtied cheeks. Brushing down the soil from his sullied dark-green hoodie, he dragged his backpack over to the fugitive pipe. He picked it up to once more wedge it in its seat, when suddenly it transformed in his hands: his mind's eye replaying the memorized glance of a tank barrel seized within an enormous, rotting palm. The steel wrenched and crumbled under his grip. Denzel dropped the pipe with a yelp.
His heart matched the frantic pace of his backpedalling feet. It was a few moments of laboured breathing before he once more made his cautious approach towards the weapon.
The pipe lay in innocent obedience for him on the ground.
Azure eyes watched on long enough for them to blur. Denzel scrubbed over his tired lashes with a worn sleeve, willing the images to fade. Re-securing his choice of arms, the orphan fished into his hoodie pocket and pulled out the crumpled folds of canvas he'd previously stolen from Shinra's convoy that night. He shook it out in time with his shaking fingers.
'If I make it to the nearest town, I can ask around. Maybe I'll even find Cloud myself.' His wishful thinking was followed by memories of past decisions inscribed in the tablet of time. Of Vincent peering up at him over his claw as he hung from the cliff back at Corel's Mako Reactor; his wish of pushing the gunslinger over the edge gnawed at his conscience.
'If the others won't do something then I will,' he decided.
He turned his eyes to the map in hand with every intent of plotting his next course of action, when all it resulted in was the scrunch of his nose. Blots of haloed light and wayward sparks were his only source of illumination in the haze of smoke and dark. Try as he might, he couldn't see any of the markings, roads, or waypoints inked over the fabric. His heart sped up at the idea of being lost in the black.
And that of all the provisions he'd scavenged, the one thing he didn't have was a lantern.
He rolled up his only source of direction and tucked it back within his backpack with a swallow. His thoughts unwillingly turned to Tifa, and what she might do if found in such a situation. The sudden memory and idea that came to him brought out a surprised blink from the orphan.
If Tifa once followed clouds to find him in Kalm, like she'd told him once before, then maybe he could do the same following sparks to find Cloud... ?
He watched a few lone glimmers brush against his cheek and drifted south with them. The smog swept downwind with him like an oppressive shadow, dogging his steps with incorporeal, twisting, swirling fingers. They grasped at his clothes with all the vain of a ghost. It was some time before a different kind of shadow emerged from the gloom: a haunting, broken thing with skeletal hands and crooked bones. Denzel's legs shook with the effort to push forward, where the shroud of murk lift from the silhouette's form like a silken sheet used to unveil a great discovery.
A solitary acacia tree stood in stalwart resilience to the elements, hobbled though it was by the effort. Once proud branches bowed to innumerable storms and, at one point in time's endless march, shed leaves in favour of tears. Its bark was set to an impossible lean not unlike a crooked back, as if it stretched over to survey the vast prairie it served as lonely monarch in. Denzel eyed it with careful regard, peering up at the blackened streaks that ran down one side of the tree in splintered patterns not dissimilar to lightning's forked tongue.
Being the only landmark he'd stumbled upon so far in the inky dark, the orphan decided this tree with its looming stretch of branches was the best cover he could possibly find at current. And without a source of light, it was his only shelter to wait out the duration of the night. He shrugged off his backpack and rounded the trunk with bag in hand, only to freeze solid.
Two red eyes, unmistakable and dim, met his own.
Adrenaline saw his steel pipe into his hand faster than he could speak. Denzel's eyes took on a dangerous glimmer. "What are you?" he managed after a swallow.
Vincent peered at him, solemn and broken, from under his bandanna.
"... A mistake. One I'm still paying for."
Confusion saw the young boy lower his weapon, but only by a slight margin. He corrected his stance and shook the tousled hair from his eyes. He had to be strong. Just like Cloud. While he mimicked a more intimidating posture he'd seen the ex-SOLDIER take up countless times before, a glimmer of recognition flickered in Vincent's gaze by way of a golden glint. The sight stuttered Denzel's lungs.
When it was evident the man made no effort to move, the boy opened his mouth to speak but a small break in the clouds stalled the orphan's tongue. While the moonlight was sick, paled as it was with smoke and fog, it afforded enough visual for Denzel to count the fresh holes in Vincent's cape. Tattered ends of crimson pooled by the gunslinger's feet, perforated from bullets.
Nestled between dry grass and tree roots, the crimson-caped man lay with his back propped against the umbrella thorn's trunk as one would a chair's backrest. Wisps of smoke swirled around his solleret boots and between the tree's roots in playful abandon. His golden claw, the metal dulled to a burnished copper in the gloom, lay draped across his stomach in limp fashion. Vincent watched him with all the indifference of the surrounding dark, his red eyes burning through like lit cigarette ends.
'He looks... weak. He doesn't look so scary now. Apart from his eyes, he doesn't look scary at all.' This was it. This was the best chance Denzel would get.
Small fingers wrapped tighter around the cold cylinder in his hands. The steel bit into his palms as he recalled the way Cloud would bring down his sword; the way the ex-SOLDIER practised in his room while Denzel would peer through the doorway when no one was looking. His biceps tensed. His pipe moved with shaking hands to mimic the ghost.
"Strike me down."
Denzel was ripped from his memories. He blinked, peering at Vincent as if seeing him for the first time. Aside the gunslinger's propped leg, the man's right hand curled slightly around the grip of his gun. No effort was made to unholster nor reach the trigger.
"Is that not what you wish?" he continued, timbre more coarse than usual, as if he'd gargled whiskey with glass. The malcontent orphan grit his teeth, staring hard at the vague form of Vincent in the dusk. He could just make out the gunslinger's hand slip from his revolver. Two glowing orbs of red stemmed as eyelids drift shut, leaving Denzel in the dark with his decision.
This was the right thing to do. He needed to protect Marlene and Tifa and everyone. Vincent had turned on him before, outside of Costa del Sol, so who was to say he wouldn't turn on the others? His head buzzed with images and sounds, of a man raising his claw towards him as an animalistic snarl tore from his throat to assault his ears. And yet with it, the sight of Vincent cutting down the two beasts that had stalked up behind him followed. Earlier that night, the horrible sight of a titanic figure, stitched and sutured, hoisting an armoured tank up by barrel alone to swing at surrounding soldiers. Yet earlier still, a Shinra troop advancing towards himself and Marlene was swept aside by a putrid hand, saving them both from danger.
He looked down at the pipe in his hands. The steel didn't wrench under his grip this time.
Vincent was a monster.
… Wasn't he?
Then why couldn't he raise his weapon?
The crimson glow returned to pierce the night at the dampened thud of steel hitting the earth. Dirtied fingers curled into dirtier palms. Denzel glared back at the only light found in the smoke-riddled haze.
"I'm going to find Cloud once it gets light enough. Don't get in my way." With that, the boy picked up his dropped backpack and began to clamber up the crooked tree, muttering in quiet anger, "... I'm not going to be left behind again..." He nestled in the natural cradle where the tree's bole sprouted to bough, finding the bark here to be smooth in contrast to the lightning-split wood that served as the tree's broken armour. He lay down, clutching his backpack and staring up at the black fingers of acacia branches threatening to ensnare him. He watched stray smoke idly tease through the twigs.
"When were you abandoned?"
The quiet, raspy intonation made Denzel's blood run cold. He pulled his moss-green hoodie over his head, angry with himself that Vincent had overheard his self-directed mumblings.
He stuffed his hands into dark-green pockets. "I wasn't. I left by myself. I don't need them. I don't need anyone." He leaned over to peer down from his perch. "Especially not you."
"... Perhaps not. But you need Cloud. Is that not correct?"
Silence answered, before a rustle of fabric followed the orphan rolling over to turn his back on the world.
Vincent breathed a soft exhale through his nose. He reclined further against the tree, the back of his skull resting against the solid bark. Its split surface ensnared loose waves of ebony mane, but did little to distract the gunslinger. Black-winged brows furrowed under a dirtied bandanna.
It was some time before he could muster his voice again.
"You're not sent away because you're unwanted, Denzel. It's because you're important enough to protect."
Denzel lurched upright in his seat, hood falling away, "If I'm so important then why doesn't anyone stay around to protect me?! When the Sector 7 plate fell, Mom and Dad didn't come back so why–?!" Denzel snapped his jaw shut with an audible clack.
Vincent's back straightened against the tree.
An ill silence settled over them as easily as the twisting fog. The orphan threw himself back down amongst the branches, doing his hardest to fight the welling of hot tears. He curled around his backpack. "When people leave, they don't come back," he mumbled. "But this time... this time I'm going to get them back. I'm going to get Cloud."
Vincent closed his eyes, staunching their soft red glow in the gloom. The distant crackle of bickering fires filled the space between them. The radiance reappeared when a soft grumble rolled through the smoke. The gunslinger didn't need heightened hearing to acknowledge the protests of an empty stomach.
Denzel reached into his backpack and wiped his eyes on his hoodie sleeve as he rummaged through the contents. Small fingers brushed upon an angular yet familiar shape and he grasped it, pulling the object from its secured seat. He ran his thumb over the smooth wood carving, staring hard at the Chocobo and its carefully engraved tail feathers. It stared right back. Memories played behind his eyes. His eighth birthday; a smiling mother and grinning father. Small fingers – his fingers – tugging at blue ribbon and silver paper as they both watched him unwrap his present with pride.
He clutched the bird tighter in both hands.
His stomach growled.
The boy took a moment to shake messy strands of hazel hair from his eyes before he tucked the gift deep into his hoodie pocket, much to the grumbling protests of his tummy. Wiping his nose, he fished some candy from his backpack and began to peel away the wrapper.
A low rumble joined the surrounding murk.
"Denzel... if you truly intend to seek Cloud, then I won't stop you."
The boy didn't answer, instead focused on removing the foil from his chosen treat.
"Yet know this. In leaving to find Cloud, you do the same to Marlene and Tifa as what Cloud has done to you."
Denzel paused mid-bite into his chocolate bar.
He swallowed, suddenly feeling sick. He sat quietly, expecting, waiting for more words, but all he got was the speechless silence of drifting sparks. It was some time of strained listening before he finally leaned over to peer down from his perch in the tree.
Vincent lay still and stolid.
Denzel's heart stuttered at the thought of the man being dead, before he mentally reprimanded himself at the idea; and his adverse reaction to it.
Why should he care?
He tried to think of something to say, anything to prompt a reaction, but just as he made to talk, Vincent inched forward. Even in the dark, Denzel could see the man's frame visibly shake with the effort. The gunslinger managed to reach as far as his gauntlet-draped waist, before he fell back against the tree with a 'thump' Denzel could feel through his seat in the branches.
A few burning sparks in the air more and Vincent tried again.
The orphan looked on, watching the body of a man he once feared quake in the attempt to pull himself to his feet. It was to no avail.
"What's wrong?" Denzel ventured.
Vincent's chin rose from his cowl as if to address the boy: a low rumble yet again joined the surrounding murk, but the crimson-caped man held his silence.
Denzel blinked at recognition of the sound.
Taking a moment to scrunch up his nose and come to terms with his decision, the boy grabbed his backpack and gingerly shuffled down from the acacia tree's cradle of branches. At the bottom, Vincent had chosen to rest with eyes closed.
Golden-flecked irises returned along with their crimson bleed at the chocolate bar suddenly waved under his nose. When the only movement was the body of fog slipping between them, Denzel thrust his hand out further, dispersing the smoke.
"Here," he mumbled, "have some."
Vincent peered carefully over his cowl as much as Denzel peered carefully through his hazel-hued strands of hair. It wasn't long before the orphan averted his eyes. He scuffed his sneakers across bunkers of dirt surrounding the tree's roots, disturbing the soil and ragged ends of the gunslinger's cape.
A crinkle of foil refocused the boy's gaze with a start.
Gloved fingers, gentle but shaking, took hold of the confection. Denzel let go as if he were burned. If Vincent noticed, he ignored it. When it became evident the man wasn't going to eat right away, Denzel clambered up a stray tree root that arched high off the ground next to his laconic guest. A clean snap garnered attention, and he jumped at the halfen bar of chocolate offered to him.
"Do not neglect yourself," Vincent rumbled. Denzel could only nod and take his share with wary regard. They sat together in the gloom, listening to the vague crackle of distant fires and breathing in the smell of smoke-laden kerosene. Denzel looked down at his sweet, snapping off a few squares in thought while swinging his legs back and forth to watch the whip of his undone shoelaces. He popped some chunks into his mouth and thought of Tifa and Marlene.
Would they really miss him if he was gone? Surely finding Cloud would be better for everyone... ? That familiar sick feeling he'd lived with for the better part of three years crept upon him and hollowed out his stomach, especially so at the thought of Marlene and Tifa sharing the same sensation. Denzel swallowed down his milk chocolate, but it tasted more like sullen ash than cocoa velvet. And what about Vincent? Should he ignore the man and press onward to find Cloud for protection? Or should he leave him here and go back, protecting everyone himself in the hopes that Vincent wouldn't follow?
… Did they really need protecting from Vincent?
Denzel just didn't know anymore.
He glanced at the gunslinger which promptly jumped his eyebrows towards his hairline: Vincent's chocolate bar had vanished like the evanescence of Mako vapours. Red eyes gazed into the murk as if they saw past the surrounding shroud and viewed some deep secret only adults could know.
It took a few attempts for Denzel to swallow the lodge in his throat, one that had nothing to do with his eaten pieces of chocolate, and asked: "Will Cloud ever come back?"
Vincent slowly turned glowing crimson on him. There was a pensive pause before he answered, "He will. Of that I have no doubt."
"When?"
"Whenever he is ready. Or perhaps he will always remain ill-prepared. It could be when he finds whatever answers he seeks... or it could be when he finds lack thereof. It makes little difference." Vincent peered down over his cowl at the boy. "Being here right now means you know better than Cloud."
"But... I don't know anything..." Denzel frowned, picking at his hoodie sleeve. Vincent took time to breathe, his struggled inhale quite audible.
"Understanding you know very little means you know a lot indeed."
The orphan couldn't quite stop the tilt to his head. He watched the gunslinger next to him with care, but as per the demeanour Denzel was growing accustomed to, the man gave nothing away. He thought over their conversation word by word before his train of thought brought a scrunch to his nose. "Don't you sometimes try to leave, too?" he asked.
"... I do, for my own reasons. Perhaps Cloud has his reasons, too. Yet our difference lies in that Cloud has commitments. I do not."
Denzel took another bite out of his chocolate half and chewed thoughtfully. "You don't? But I thought you were here to help the others. Isn't that a com– cuh... cuh-mitt-mint?"
Vincent tilt his head as if to respond, but just blinked instead.
At the gunslinger's held silence, Denzel polished off his last bite of candy while playing with what he knew to be his wooden Chocobo's tail feathers inside his hoodie pocket. He thought about his mother and father. About Marlene, and Tifa: Barret, Red XIII, Cait Sith, and Yuffie, and he wondered where they were now, and if they were worrying about him.
And he thought of Cloud.
He gripped his eighth birthday present tight enough to whiten knuckles. Hopping down from his seat on the tree root, Denzel turned to seek out the now somewhat comforting glow of Vincent's eyes. "I think... I think I'm going to go back now."
Vincent stared at him from his seat among the acacia tree's roots, giving no sign that he'd heard the orphan. Denzel busied himself with shouldering his backpack when a barely perceptible grunt drew his attention; Vincent leaned forward, dispersing the smoke and fog that twisted and writhed around his limbs and gauntlet. He pulled himself upright with all the haggard shakes of a stuck clock hand. Denzel watched rolls of crimson cape cascade down the gunslinger's back as he drew himself to his full height. His shoulder no longer held a strange angle to it.
"Denzel."
The young boy jumped, his eyes snapping back to Vincent's own. The man kept his gaze trained on something far and deep in the fog.
"My regards. For the chocolate."
Denzel tried to hide his cracked smile by way of a stifled yawn.
Taking one shaky stride, then another of more steady gait, Vincent strode in a direction the orphan wouldn't have taken, but one he knew to be the correct one: north. The boy followed, tugging at his backpack strap and clutching tight to his carven timber.
Together, the gunslinger and orphan walked against the tide of stray sparks, until they were eventually swallowed into smoke and darkness.
Denzel's metal pipe was left forgotten on the ground.
