Final Fantasy VII 1. Rosary

Rosary.

Chapter One.

Vincent rubbed the beads, one by one, counting each smooth sphere strung together, as his pale cheekbone pressed against the barrel of the gun, the other hand resting with a finger dancing on the trigger. His gaze and the rifle followed the small speck of black in the abundant gray that was the man: the target. His dark trenchcoat flapped in the wind over neatly pressed blue suit as he kneeled crouched atop the tall building. 

_One shot._ _One shot._

All he needed was one shot. 

The radio crackled. "Shall we move in Sir?" Tseng. Tseng the rookie. Tseng the teenage wiz-kid, top of the class, destined for succcess, jerked cruelly out of school by Shinra for his mindboggling tactics skills. Vincent didn't answer; let the kid wait. The speck was coming into focus, his finger slowly readied, the beads clacking together. Slowly, slowly he squeezed- when suddenly the radio crackled once more. "Sir?"

_Sh*t!_ The speck swerved, head jerking like a deer in an open field. He barked something into the gray, Vincent could almost smell the fear on him; it stunk of weakness and sweat. It was now or never... A single shot blasted, cut through the silence. The pigeons scattered. There came a horrified scream, then, a second later, the man was dead. Vincent stood up, unassembled the sniper, and within seconds had it packed it neatly into a black canvas case. He pushed the string of bead to his upper arm, donned his shades. More little black specks flew around the stain of red that now lay so still. They were so much louder than before.

"Tseng. There's witnesses. And backup. Move in."

"Roger, sir," came the young voice on the other side, lively and so eager to succeed. 

Vincent straightened his tie, flipped up the collar of his coat, and swished down silent as a panther to the streets below. 

And the beads lay silent.

Tseng jumped to his feet with grace rarely found in adolescents. He loaded his small pistol in a swift set of choppy movements, though bony fingers trembled. Out the door he ran, pressed blue alighting gray. The voices grew louder: more could show up soon, someone significant, powerful, public. But not on Tseng's shift. He trotted up to the bellowing bodyguards, the gasping bystanders, never lowering his eyes behind shades.

One shot, two shot, three shot, four.

One by one in sequence, the bodies hit the ground with efficient thumps. 

One by one they dropped, shot, shot, shot, reload. 

And all who remained was a single bystander, sobbing with arms thrown over his head: "Oh no, oh please, oh don't, oh please, oh..." He looked decent, not too rich and corrupt, nor poor and bitter, desperate. Casual brown slacks, a navy apron over plain white shirt: the florist from the shop around the corner. He held in his hand a bouquet of flowers. For his wife or mother, Tseng thought. The young Turk's hand shook holding the gun, noticing with pressure the figure of Vincent standing dark and foreboding at the end of the alley, watching. 

He shot the man twice through the forehead, the shells clinking on the floor. The man did not thump, but crumpled with his feet beneath him, the bouquet of roses scattering haphazardly across the muddy, rainy city street. The shaking hand lowered, and he followed the already departing form of Vincent, hiding burning eyes gratefully behind dark sunglasses. _He was a Turk_. 

The roses crunched as Tseng stepped upon them to cross, shoe heel grinding sweet petals into the muck of ashes and dirtied blood, disintegrating them into the gray, gray puddle.

Flash.

The light came in blinding through as the glass shattered, rosy filter tinkling to the floor in a shower of rose red. Tseng surveyed the area, standing tall and proud, strong body still as he stood silently watching. Reno shoved an elbow through another pane, sunning himself in the destruction, liking it just as much when the glass cut.

"Stop." Tseng's voice rang out: sharp, authoritarian. A voice he'd learned from his first Turk leader...

Reno plunged his hands into his pockets, the image of the repenting child. Tseng made no move to speak to him, his eyes drawn elsewhere. "Just find the girl," he ordered, and his Turks ran off to do his bidding. His Turks. Tseng's Turks. Alone in the chapel now, he allowed a sigh, taking off sunglasses to flip back long dark hair and rub his temples. The girl, he knew, was behind those walls, in her delicate rose dress, clutching her forlorn flower girl's basket of slowly wilting buds. Behind the wall the flower girl hid. And Tseng would find her. And he would bring her to Hojo, who would take all she had and then kill her. Maybe he loved her. Maybe she loved him back. Nothing really mattered...it was all going to end in red, then gray. This was his job. And Tseng would do it, even knowing that. Just like a Turk leader. Just like all Turk leaders. Aware eyes caught the small garden of light in the middle of the room: a collection of bright flowers thriving so alive in the beam of sun that broke through the roof. They stood so lively, fresh, but Tseng could already see them wilt, could see them fade and crumple to the ground to die, becoming part of the gray like we all did. Our lives, our loves. "Tseng!" Rude's deep voice indicated they'd found her. Tseng put his shades back on, straightened his shoulders. _The flowers, the flowers._ He couldn't stand their fragile beauty. "Tseng!" Tseng stepped briskly forward to Rude's voice, not looking back, not looking down as he ground the flowers down, letting them bleed blood red into the rotting planks of the floor. 

His footprints stained.

Unflash.

'Twas dark in the cavernous monastery :the monks didn't believe in the modern indulgement of electricity. Foolish, this unwillingness to move forward. They were afraid of losing their past so much, they missed everything ahead of them. The haunting chants hummed in the background, echoing back and forth. The smell of ashes and roses flooded the place. Hojo wrinkled his nose in distaste. Contemptuous, their blind devotion to their senseless, unsupported theory of a God. _Fickle Fascination_. He sighed. He really shouldn't be here, among these peons. _Of an everlasting_. He was the great Professor Hojo, he was science, conqueror of _God_. His eyes flicked to the pale statue of their lovely Goddess Peace, painstakingly rendered, the rosaries of blood red roses, made with a hundred petals per bead, secret of the monks. The secret they claimed to have been given by the great Goddess herself, to a humble follower in the field. Hojo rolled his eyes imperiously behind his spectacles. It was enough to make him laugh, and not much made him do so. He could be science, the great conqueror, but still had no power over that disgustingly corpulent, ignorant President Shinra, over where his very own research was to be held. And so he was stuck in this miserable shack of a tourist attraction in the rocky mounts of Nibelheim, living in the folksy little town, in the old historical Mansion. Oh how he abhorred history. It was such a bore, done before, yesterday's soggy newspaper. Only fit for puppies to piss on. He walked up to the old monk's cell gone gift shop. He slapped a couple gil on the counter, gave the ancient man behind a fake, weak sneer-smile, grabbed a rosary. _A hundred petals a bead._ Nonetheless, it was cute: their scurrying about, such enthusiasm to serve. Might as well buy the cheap trinket. He had the money, and besides, it'd remind him to keep his feet on the ground, dispell his rare dillusions of Fate. He walked out, shielding unaccustomed eyes from the light, and stuck the rosary deep in his pocket. The smell of roses was too strong for his liking. 

Dark and dank were Vincent's quarters as well, austere and cold as a monk's cell. He stuck the key in the lock, twisted the knob, but the battered door would not open. A rectangular white business envelope fell from the doorjam, fluttered to the ground like a wounded dove. Vincent picked it up, slit it open with the knife he held in his boot, opened the letter within, and read.

Mr. Valentine-

Your belongings are already packed and shipping. Your apartment is no longer yours. A private buggy awaits in the street corner behind this bhilding. Your next mission as a Shinra Turk- You leave immediately for Nibelheim.

And so the Turk turned and headed out. The story of his life-leaving. And he never carried luggage. 


	2. II: Rose Thou art Sick

II: Oh Rose, thou art sick  


Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time, laying it perfectly next to its mate. She stared at it for a few moments, then went to the window and carefully opened it, fingers curving 'round its frame to crack it exactly 2 inches open. Thin, pink lips, glossed smoothly, but not made up, curved into a smile. She loved her neat little room in the huge mansion. Just off the corner of the lovely spiral staircase, overlooking the small park that was the highlight of the small town. In the spring time, you could smell the roses all through the place. Surveying her room with a last critical glance, she carefully closed the door behind her, waiting until she heard the click, and walked down the stairs, running her smooth manicured hand down the banister, bright eyes behind rectangular wire frames transfixed on the grand chandelier hanging from the towering ceilings.

"Oh, excuse me," as she suddenly ran into someone.

Professor Hojo harrumphed, nodded indignantly. "Yes. Well. Pay more attention. I don't want to be run over every time I go to my own residency." 

Lucrecia flashed perfect white teeth, illuminating the shady mansion. "As I said, very sorry. I was just taken in by the beauty of this place. It's perfect," she said, her tone the very example of polite. 

"Beauty? Perfection?" Hojo snorted. "You mean that ridiculous frivolous staircase and that outdated specimen of a overdecorated lamp? Not to mention every window in the house lets in the stink of vegetation from that park next to us."

Lucrecia laughed, refined and smooth. "You'd sleep in your laboratory if you could, Professor."

"It would doubtlessly be more sanitary," muttered Hojo, walking away. 

Lucrecia shook her head, smiling, and proceeded on her way, a crisp spring in her step. Hojo watched her go, running a hand through his hair, absently noting it was thinning. Quite a handsome woman, that Lucrecia. Quite a handsome woman, indeed...

Flash.

Aeris swung her legs as she sat on the roof beam of the church, looking down on Tseng. 

She was a beautiful woman, now, Tseng thought with something like awe. Quite a beautiful woman, and he hadn't noticed. She had been for so long a little girl, a child in pink with her flowers and toys. But now...he studied her form up in the rafters, and smiled.

The shining figure was suddenly eclipsed with dark, and he saw the shadow of Rude behind her, but lifted a hand and waved him back. Aeris misinterpreted the action, laughing cheerily. "Hello to you, too, Mr. Turk, sir. Have you come to visit?" she said pleasantly. "I've been hoping you'd come and say hello. You're always so businesslike. You won't catch me this time, either, so would you like to chat? I've got some sandwiches Elmyra br-Mrrph!" Her green eyes flashed wide open, betrayed, as Reno jumped out of nowhere and grabbed her, clamping one hand firmly across her mouth before she could move. Legs kicking, limbs flailing, all failing, impotent actions, Aeris thrashed desperately as Reno calmly and nonsogently dragged her down to the church floor where his Turk leader was. He grinned widely, holding the girl before him as if she were a trophy. He ignored the girl's cries, her struggles, the pooling, pathetic tears flowing in rivulets down her face. Turning his head to the side and whipping red hair back, he spit, right into...right into... her flowers.

Tseng masked a wince with an order. "Take your hand off her mouth, Reno. We don't want her suffocated."

Reno dropped his hand, and Aeris gasped, sobbing. "Tseng...Tseng, please. Don't- you know what Hojo will do, I ...I can't go back there, Tseng, I just...can't." She crumpled, just a girl after all, and Tseng's stony cold heart tore in two.

Tseng stared at her with wounded eyes, grabbed her into his arms, and ran, ran far away to somewhere safe where there wasn't Shinra and there wasn't Hojo or Science or even God, and there was never anyone watching them, where they were alone and together and in love and happy forever and ever.

Or maybe he stared at her with wounded eyes, made as if he were going to move, but instead turned on his heel, black hair whipping about him. Perhaps he said "Take her to the lab," roughly, a growl, and clacked across the rotting wooden floor. And Rude looked at him funny, suspecting...something. And maybe... maybe perhaps this time, after Rude and Reno left for Hojo's lab with Aeris, he grabbed, no... clutched, handfuls of her beautiful blossoming flowers, holding them up to his chest, then saw his stained hands, and sobbed into her roses. 

Or maybe he just got up and left.

Unflash.

Lucrecia trotted purposely across the corridor, pen neatly in hand as she readied to sign the sheets for the deliveries. They were expecting a great gift from President Shinra today. Reports from Gast said it was something absolutely ancient, frozen solid, an unknown species. Oh, the experiments they could do, the knowledge they could find, the reports she could write, the awards she could win. 'Crecia could almost hear the applause of the men in their tuxes and the women in their evening gowns, envying her, her accomplishment. Still half in her daydream, she pulled open the front door, expecting the delivery man, and stared stone still in shock. A man stood in the doorway. A man, holding a single black bag in hand. His dark, long coat was dusty and bedraggled from the trip, but dark blue suit beneath was impeccable. His hair fell dark and wild, shaggy, strands falling at random into pale face of distinctive features. This...man? He was real? Rather, he seemed like a dream, a fairy tale character, a bedtime story character. Lucrecia stared hypnotized, paralyzed by his eyes. Dark, gorgeous eyes, and suddenly, she felt overdressed, some sort of neat freak in her lab coat and corporate skirt, brown-auburn hair pulled back, hugging her scalp in a painfully tight bun. There was something about those eyes that looked more like gunshot wounds than irises, there was something in there pulling her, and with a gasp, Lucrecia blinked back to reality. "I...well. Hello. You're unexpected. Do you have papers to be here?" 

She was surprised to realize her voice was trembling. 

He silently handed her an envelope from his inner coat pocket, which, with shaking hands, she checked. She nodded once. "These seem to be all in proper order," she said, her voice back under control, fluid and trained. She smiled briefly. "Welcome to the team Mr. Valentine. What may I ask is your specific job here at the Shinra Mansion?"

He studied her face for a long time. "I'm a Turk," he said quietly. He didn't move, but stood there, curiously still and silent. Not even a boottip ventured past the doormat, as if he was locked behind an invisible wall.

She blinked at him. "Well? Come on in, Mr. Valentine. A Turk of our own. That'll help with lots of security precautions."

Soundlessly, he brushed into the room, his coat flapping about him, muted. Lucrecia, visibly shaken, turned to close the door, when suddenly, her small hand was caught in a strong, bony grip. She looked down to a pale hand lined with years' worth of scars, and her eyes followed the line of a dark-clothed arm, trailed up a tall form to meet his eyes once more. _Oh God..._ "What was...your name, miss?" 

The world fell over.

"Lucrecia."

He nodded, and walked off, bags in hand.

She wondered when the world would start spinning again.

If the world was a painting, then Hojo would be the man that was always there to sniff and straighten it when it went crooked. Emerging from his laboratory, he nodded curtly at Vincent, pointing down the hall. "Servants quarters are to the left, and if you consider yourself a guard, you can bunk in the room next to that. Very nice to meet you Mr. Valentine; I trust you will allow us to continue or experiment as before...only...safer." He smiled blandly, the expression plastered on his face coarsely. 

Vincent took the hint, and with another glance at Lucrecia, continued his exit.

Hojo turned back to Lucrecia. "Oh, Lucrecia. Fancy...bumping into you. I err...forgot to mention something earlier," he said, falsely dignified. "Your work on those Cetra cell lab reports were quite excellent. Good job."

Lucrecia smiled widely, eyes gleaming. "Oh, thank you Professor! I really don't know what to say," she said happily, a clinical laugh stored in the back of her throat.

"Don't say anything," said Hojo. "And take this." He held out the rosary he had bought at the monastery. "I thought it might make you laugh. Remind you of those crazy loons running about up there in that dusty hole, worshipping statues. Amusing, really."

The object of his attentions raised an eyebrow at him, looked down at the rosary she now held in her hand. "It's strange, and crude, and primitive." She grinned. "I like it. Puts my life in perspective. Thank you very much, sir." And her eyes hid her doubt in his intentions with a glaze of courtesy.

Hojo nodded, and looked off to the side. "You're very welcome. Now get back to work."

She did.

"Get to work."

Tseng stared at the row of women and children, then stared back at his section leader.

"...work?" The 14 year old shifted his eyes to the side. "Work as in...kill?"

"Eliminate them. Eliminate them all. They're witnesses and need to be dealt with."

Scrawny teenage arms lifted in protest. "Sir...sir I'm a rookie. Sir, they're women and children. Sir they're defenseless and innocent. Sir...good God sir, I'm only a kid. I can't do this, I'm only for tactics, I didn't sign up for this, I..."

"You're a goddamn Turk, Tseng. Now do your job."

"But..."

"If you don't, we'll be forced to get rid of you as well. And all those that know you."

Tseng remembered his mother, his father, the hysterics she put on when the took him away, the sad, hopeless look on the other's face. He remembered not being able to fight. 

"Yes sir," he said quietly. 

His section leader left, closing the door behind him.

He killed every one of them. Every mother, daughter, and son among them. He shot every one in the forehead and he made all of them watch. When the room was silent with the presence of only him and 20 some corpses, he looked down at the pool of blood drifting slowly towards him.

He wanted to vomit. He wanted to cry. He wanted to run away and go home.

He got a mop.

He filed for a transfer.

He left for Nibelheim that night, without even changing his shoes.

Lucrecia, lucrecia. She was a name, a face, a gleaming, penetrating smile. She was a soul who could see him, she was a soul that, though shrinking away, spoke to his. There was something, Vincent intrinsically knew, that was pulling him in. Something that was...calling him?

_"Vincent..._

Silently, it seemed she kept talking to him, and her few words rang in his ears, resonating almost painfully. Why did, Vincent wondered, her voice keep spinning round and round in his head without stopping, a constant, maddening beckon, call?

He put his bags down next to the bed. He opened the window, and his room flooded with some unfamiliar, beguiling scent. He took off his coat, lay down on the bed, and went to sleep.

He had nightmares the entire time. 

He always had nightmares.


	3. III Invisible Worm

Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time

III: Invisible Worm

"Woof, woof."

"Oh, Hojo. Please."

"Yes, my dear Lucrecia?"

"Stop it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Stop _teasing_ him."

Lucrecia craned her neck back over her shoulder. Still, always. a dark Turk shadow hovered in the doorway. 

Hojo grinned at her. "Oh, but it's so easy. He's such a puppy dog, following you around like that."

"Hojo..."

"I'd like to kick him in ribs."

"Hojo!"

The shadow did not stir.

"In all seriousness, Lucrecia, he's interfering with the experiment, and consequently, both our jobs." He raised a wily eyebrow, eyes on the solution he was preparing. 

Lucrecia wrung her hands, a strange habit she had picked up since her placement in the mansion. Funny, the vibes that resonated through this place... "If it will make your work more precise," she said, indignant nose in the air, shoulders stiff, fingers tucking an invisible strand of hair that, to her mind, had wormed its way out of the sleek net of her tightly wound bun. "If it will make our research more accurate, I will ask him to leave. For professional reasons."

"Why thank you Lab Major."

Lucrecia rolled her eyes. That undertone in the scientist's voice both annoyed and amused her. "You're very welcome, Professor." Clackety, clack, clack, her footsteps like a death toll, she walked to the door and stopped neatly before Vincent, a perfect foot and a half away from him as she spoke. "Vincent, what're you doing here," she said in a low, soft tone.

"Watching over you. My job."

"Watching everything I do?" she probed gently, a psychiatrist analyzing tone, clinical, medical; sweetly, falsely caring. The gentle floating touch of her fingers on his arm shoved him onto the shrink's couch.

He didn't speak. 

She smiled softly at him, in lieu of anything better to do. Vincent saw past the lab coat, the polished badge, the frigid posture, the stiff demeanor. He saw only the smile, and the soothing silk that lay over her voice. He saw perfect lips moving, the blur of voice in his ears, humming, but, hypnotized, he heard no words, he saw no signs. 

"Could you please allow me some time alone to focus on the experiment?" she asked, giving him an awkward pat on the shoulder.

With a dark glance in the general direction of Hojo, who turned his nose up snootily at the Turk, Vincent nodded slowly. He cast one last clinging look at Lucrecia, as if fearing the truth behind "out of sight out of mind", then disappeared down the dark hallway. 

Lucrecia sighed. In the pit of her stomach, she felt a prophecy of cacaphony, of Chaos and suffering and doom. Something very bad was to come out of this...it rung in the iron bars of the elegant spiral staircase. It whistled through the dusty forgotten eaves and gables, it jangled with dead child's whispers in the reflections of the chandeliers, it howled in the catacombs of the basement, crying. Lucrecia pretended she did not notice, fingers working deftly, scribbling short mathematic notes on her folders, but she could, she _could_ hear it. She could hear every word of the coarse cursing epithet; She could feel it vibrating in her calcium-enriched bones.

"I do believe," said Hojo without looking up when Lucrecia had returned, "That that boy believes himself to be in love with you."

"That's too bad for him," said Lucrecia stonily. "Because I don't believe in love."

"Oh don't you?" asked her colleague, eyeing her with an amused smile from behind his spectacles. "I wouldn't expect it to be so. You are, after all, a scientist. And a good one at that."

She hid a blush behind a stack of data sheets. "Gast believes in God..." Lucrecia commented, not knowing why she said those words out loud. 

Hojo laughed, continued mixing his chemicals. "That's not too surprising. The old fogey is more fantastical than one'd think. He's more a storyteller than a scientist." He siphoned a blue-green liquid from a freezer box. "Besides, I believe in a God too." 

Lucrecia narrowed her eyes. Even...Hojo...? 

The professor held up the blue specimen test tube to the light, shook it gently. "This," he said, in a reverent, hushed tone. Inside, acids clashed against bases, reactions happened at the speed of light, bubbles formed, salts disintegrated, and little invasive cerulean cells grew claws and teeth, multiplying, breeding, a chemist's witching orgy. "This...This is my God." The light gleamed through the azure liquid and reflected off his glasses, off his eyes. "Science."

And Lucrecia fancied she saw a bit of genius in those eyes.

Flash.

Tseng sat on the leather seat of the helicopter, looking into Elena's eyes as she sat across from him. The other Turk was concentrated on b*tching out the driver of the helicopter, and didn't notice that she was under scrutiny. But it wasn't really scrutiny. It was more....silent approval. Tseng held a certain degree of affection for all his Turks, and Elena was no exception. But there was something more...Eh. There could be no harm, the leader decided, in going out with her on a simple date or something. After all, he needed to get over....after all, Aeris... he swallowed. Unlike Reno, he couldn't even remember the last time he had felt human touch, contact. He frowned, the weary brow furrowing. Burrowed deep in his memory, he somehow remembered the last time he was hugged, decades ago.

He had been a mere teenager at the time, a junior Turk, in charge of watching an infant Sephiroth.

"What's love Tseng?"

"No idea, kid."

Tseng remembered the irritated look on his young charge's face. "What do you mean you have no idea? You must have _some_ idea."

Tseng had shrugged. "I'm a Turk. Don't know these things..Try hugging yourself."

He had received only a blank stare, and so the Turk had demonstrated, folding his arms around his shoulders. "Like that, except more intense. So I've been told.."

Sephiroth had cautiously mimicked the movements of the older boy. "Oh."

Tseng had given the surveillance camera a long stare, then had switched his gaze to the child. He had sighed. "Alright, c'mere." Then, when the silver-headed boy had curiously obeyed, he had brought him into his lap with a hug. Sephiroth had stayed completely stiff, even when Tseng deposited him on the floor. 

"I didn't feel anything," Sephiroth had said quietly.

"What?" Tseng had asked absent-mindedly, eyeing the camera still cautiously. 

"I said I don't feel anything, dammit!" had come the cross reply from Sephiroth.

Tseng had shrugged. "You don't feel anything, you don't feel anything. It's not my problem."

Sephiroth had glared, daggers blazing in that intense, stabbing gaze, as if to say that it were, in fact, Tseng's fault, Tseng's problem.

"I don't believe it exists. I don't believe you know. I don't believe you know anything. I believe you're a liar and a dunce."

But the child had walked around with his arms folded around himself for a month.

Unflash.

Arms folded about her shoulders, soul tucked away in a carefully sealed lockbox, Lucrecia realized that he had taken her by surprise, and that she _hated_ being taken by surprise.

"Come out with me tonight?"

Lucrecia almost started. She hated. The way he managed to break her composure, no matter how much she tried to maintain it. "Go out with you?" she said in a hopelessly shaky voice. She hated the way the world spun, so blindly and disregarding of its rightful orbit, making her world hurtle into space at random. "You mean on a date? " It thrilled her. It made her palms sweat and her heart beat too fast and images from tacky movies she'd seen in her adolescence flash through her head. "You must be joking, Mr. Valentine." She hated that the most.

She looked at him. She looked at his eyes. And he looked at her.

He wasn't joking. No, he was never joking. How could he, with those eyes so full of the most serious stuff of dreams the world could hold. As if were born somber, grew up somber, and lived somber, day by day. 

She opened her mouth, and nothing came out. She closed her mouth _Processing...._Her eyes darted about desperately. _Data retrieving...please hold...._ Vincent waited patiently, still and quiet and expectant before her. _Uploading...._

"Alright," she said, her voice too quite and squeaking. 

For a long time she stood in silence, feeling and hearing and smelling Vincent, Vincent, Vincent before her, and she thought she was going to go mad. Why wasn't he talking? It was a while before she understood that he hadn't heard her the first time. "Alright," she repeated, resignedly. "Ok," she said, in a somnambulist daze. 

"I'll go out with you." 

_Alert! Alert! System Error!_

Joy spread across his face, not in expression, but in aura, as if his entire bleak pallor had become alight. He smiled very slowly. "Thank you," he replied, a deep caressing mumble."8 o clock tomorrow night?" His voice akin to a masculine tremble.

_System is critical! Dangerous Error! System at risk to crash!_

Suddenly, her lockbox failed, her soul flew free, and she smiled, grinned at him wholeheartedly, the heartfelt smile spreading from cheek to cheek, and she almost laughed.

For a millisecond she forgot to care.

"Just don't be late," she said shortly, and turned on her heel.

_Illegal Operation Closed....System Stablizing..._

"Vincent, this isn't damn funny, not in the damn least," she said, her whole filled with terror. 

She could feel him smiling, even if she couldn't see him through the blindfold. "I've got you," he said sedately. And it was true, his arms were a stable, immoveable force about her, a safe haven. Because, with him guiding her up this mountain path, no idea in her knowing mind as to where they were heading, she felt she was already falling, hurtling towards a stony death. To a certain degree, he helped. But only because she forgot about falling when he was around. In truth, it was still falling, except that he was tumbling down the cliff with her. She doubted he could break her fall. Strong, tall, stolid, there was something in his movements that indicated to her an extreme fragility. But then, the same could be said about her, she thought. Psych 101, be damned. Her? Fragile? She gritted her teeth at the idea.

"Stop clenching your jaw," he instructed calmly. "Relax."

"I have to ask again, Vincent. Where are we going?"

"You'll see when we get there."

"You already said that."

"You already asked that."

There he went again, making her feel stupid.

Her foot slid against a rock, and she stumbled, falling against him.

"Oopsee daisy," he said in a monotone.

She couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing. "A Turk that says Oopsee daisy?" She laughed and laughed. "Vincent, you're beyond me." But suddenly that warm musty presence behind her was gone. "Vincent?" Panic crept, no, clawed its way into her throat, the smell of blind disability and helplessness smothering her. "Vincent? Vincent where are you? Vincent!" She was paralyzed, incapable of movement, soaking in the premonition of cold sweat.

"Right here," he said, right next to her. "I've been here the whole time, watching over you, making sure you didn't get hurt. You just didn't notice."

She...didn't...notice....?

"I'm sorry, "she said, hushed.

"That's alright." His voice was so sad. "Anyways, we're here." 

Here---

He took off her blindfold and she saw a massive granite dome, simplistic, primal, beautiful. "- Oh..." The words flew out of her mouth, unbidden. "It's...." Utopian. Zen. Nirvana. A Dream, a childhood wish almost forgotten. Piper, piper..... "It's....different."

He took her hand in his, she stiffened. He was the piper come to trick her, take her away, wasn't he? Every logical cell in Lucrecia's body told her to go home and get her proper sleep. "Let's go inside," he said, and she followed.

Past the sparse monk's cells, past the side chapels, the closed gift store, they weaved, with only the nighttime to observe and lightly comment to the moon on the two wanderers. See the girl, she seems so scared of the fact that she still can't see what I hide, said the night. He loves us, said the moon. He loves us both, we're his family, only family. She liked us once, too, said the night in reply. She still does, said the moon. She just forgot. 

"I forgot what monasteries looked like," Lucrecia said, baring her soul. Freer now that she was gone from the spotlight of laboratory halogen, cloaked by inky midnight. "I haven't been in one since I was a-"

"Shhh," said Vincent abruptly. "They're starting." 

Lucrecia looked at him questioningly. Then, "Oh. Oh God, Vincent. Oh God, it smells so beautiful. It's such a beautiful...is it roses? Roses, but more condensed, sweeter, it....what is this, Vincent," she cried, her eyes alight, her delight a girl's. 

Vincent pointed to the courtyard. Dozens and dozens of monks in partridge gray cloaks, swinging urns of burning roses, chanting as the overwhelming, mesmerizing aroma rose up into the air in mystic spirals. _Goddess, we implore thee, give unto us a savior. Goddess we implore thee, do not forget us. Give us a guardian, Goddess ,give us a watcher. Goddess, let us not forsake thee. We will not forget thee, in time of need or fear. We will not forget thee... "_11 o clock rites," said Vincent, the monks chanting and chanting, and chanting away. "They do this every night, without fail."

"Quaint, isn't it," said Lucrecia, hand automatically flying to the rosary around her neck Hojo had given her. 

Vincent fixed her with a look. "I mean....I only meant..." said Lucrecia, quickly tucking Hojo's gift back into her shirt. 

The magic broke. Quick as they appeared, in rose colored smoke, they disappeared. The monks only remnants were a few stray members left to clean up the residue of ecstatic worship. 

She looked back at him, and found that in those dark swallowing pupils, he had swallowed up her faults and already forgiven, forgotten. For her, Vincent would forgive anything. 

"Who's this Goddess?" she asked. Vincent turned her around to face a huge icon hung on the exterior wall. 

She was one woman and many woman at once, with the open arms of a mother, the demure face of a virgin, the harsh eyes of a cruel judgment. She was old, she was young, she was eternal. She was cold, yet ultimately loving. She was fickle, and fair. Gilden all over, the icon was nonetheless given an image of simplicity. 

A monk quietly passed by in his gray robes, hunched over, ignoring them in his complete entrancing devotion.

"Who is she?" asked Lucrecia in a hushed tone, studying the woman's powerful presence, so loving and motherly, so distant and foreign, so biting and forboding. 

Vincent stood close next to her, looked up at the statue. "She has many names," he answered in his deep, earnest voice. "Shiva, Mary, Diana, Gaia, Tara. Some call her Isis, Rhea, Li, Kwilin, or simply the Goddess, the Mother. The Moon, Nature, the Virgin, it doesn't really matter. She's a symbol for something...beyond."

"Beyond what?"

"Beyond what we know." He took her hands in his. "Beyond the bounds of possible beauty." She turned to face him, the moonlight beaming softly on her as she tilted her head upwards towards him. "Beyond the bounds of earthly perfection." She looked in his eyes and saw deep, deep, dark, and something beyond... "...beyond what words can describe...something...deep, inside, unbidden, incomprehensible, and intangible."

"Vincent...why do you believe in God?"

"Because I believe in love."

And looking at her that night, kissing her smooth lips for the first time under the moon and the stars and the dark endless night, he believed himself.

To Lucrecia, Vincent's response never answered her question. Instead, it restated it. Why did Vincent believe in that something beyond? How could he believe in what he couldn't touch, feel, see, examine, _prove_? God is Love? She didn't believe in either. Not until she could put God on an operating table and run an MRI, dissect him, do a blood test. Not until she could stick Love under a microscope and study the cellular composition. Not until...until...

She felt herself faltering. 

And she kissed him, she did, when he kissed her she kissed him back, her hands warm under the protection of his dark coat, but she felt dirty. She felt...unsanitary, _common._ This was something you read about in supermarket aisle novels. This was something you watched on made for TV specials. There was nothing beyond, there was nothing that could take over her mind or actions or fate that easily. Nothing could control her.... She...She was...more than that. She was...she felt.... 

The eyes on the icon of the Goddess had been staring down at her all night. Lucrecia couldn't keep her own eyes off of that thing. It seemed like the eyes were gazing specifically at her, following her every move, judging her. It seemed like they were telling her something, disapproving silently as she walked and conversed with Vincent. Vincent, eyes shut to the world, open only for her, did not notice. And now, as his lips first touched hers, she looked upwards at the holy, pale face. She looked at the demure features and gleaming halo, and she swore she saw the eyes of the Goddess cry tears of blood.

http://www.sordidstory.cjb.net


	4. IV: Flies in the Night

Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time

IV: Flies in the Night

Outside, a howling storm whirled. Not a storm of wind and rain but a storm of flames and thick hot smoke. Flies ransacked the village of Nibelheim, their spiny wings beating in a mass exodus from the hills, terrified of the licking orange flames that seemed to laugh maniacally at them in forewarning, forming their own gray cloud alongside columns of smoke.

Vincent stepped out of the mansion and saw the people scattering like ants, scampering about frantically. He stopped one man who held a bucket of water in his ash-streaked arms.   
"What's happening?"

"Mona...monastery... burning...fire...so... far...hills...need water...far...buckets! More...bucke-"

Vincent's head turned sharply to the side, upwards towards the hills frothing with thick gray smoke, dark eyes breathing in and exhaling painfully the devastation that radiated from the mountain. 

"Get a hold of yourself," he said solemnly to the gasping man. "Tell me exactly what's happening."

The man panted, opened his mouth to speak, and found that someone else had already take his place in narrating.

"It's a fire," the voice sneered. "A bully, blazing fire. Oh, such a pity, this fire is. That monastery will _never_ be recovered."

Vincent didn't need to turn around. He could already tell by the ringing imperial voice, that tone that implied that it had the exclusive right to step all over you, turn around, and step all over you again. He clenched his fist until he could hear his knuckles cracking with the strain. "Hojo."  
The professor sighed, hands behind his back, pacing to and fro with no apparent effort whatsoever to aid the panicking villagers. The blinding light from the unmerciful sun glinted off his spectacles as he shook his head back and forth in a mockery of mourning. "So old, too. So ancient and historical...mythical, I guess you could say. Most of the stuff in that place you won't even be able to replace. In fact," he chortled. "None of it." Hojo turned on his polished leather heel. "Every tapestry, relic, icon, they'll be ruined." He raised an eyebrow. "Every rosary." 

If Vincent wasn't Vincent, if Vincent wasn't a Turk, he would've sunken to his knees and put his head in his hands, cried and prayed just like the multifold number of monks now wailed, prostrated in the middle of the Nibelheim square, writhing with their misery. But Vincent was still Vincent and he stood there in his dark overcoat in the dead heat of the merrily scorching sun tall and stoic and silent. 

"That poor, poor Goddess Love," crooned Hojo with a snicker creeping in the back of his throat. "All burnt and charred to a crisp in her fiery, fiery tomb." He gave up trying to hide his disdain for the monks and their subject of worship, let it fly out into the air like a cat thrown out of a window. "Im...imagine," he said through his bubbling, scornful laughter. "A Goddess of miracles and she can't even save her own bloody temple. Uh-heh. Uhehehehe." He used the toe of his dress shoes to scratch out tally marks into the dirty of the Shinra Mansion courtyard. Vincent looked down.

Science- 1. Love- 0.

"You should know," said the whispering voice that came suddenly and unexpectedly close behind Vincent's shoulder and into his ear. "Never. Ever. To mess with Shinra Science Corp. You do not mess with our experiments, our scientists, and you especially never stand in the way of what I, Hojo, want." Vincent could feel the terrifyingly frigid pressure of Hojo's presence pressing up against his back. The shorter man's smooth white hand, effeminate and obviously unfamiliar to work, slowly slid down Vincent's arm and placed something firmly into the Turk's large palm, folded his fingers over it. "You never interfere with anything I want...or you will pay," said the voice, silken and serpentine, breath cold and feathery on Vincent's neck.

Then Hojo was already at the door of the mansion, cackling "Fight on, workers of the world!" to the bedraggled townspeople before disappearing, laughing, inside.

Vincent opened his hand and looked at what he held.   
It was a book of used matches.

When dusk came, Lucrecia had just finished her work for that day. Casting an approving eye out at the evening's weather, she dubbed it "Perfect", and so, trading her lab coat for an equally spotless white leather overcoat, proceeded to step outside for a walk. Having trapped herself in the isolated buzzing of the lab all day, she was oblivious to the drama that the town had encountered that day, and so therefore was completely caught off guard when a monk, half his face melted away, attached to her leg in one of quieter areas of the town. 

"It's you..." he hissed at her, arms clutching her frantically shaking leg. 

"Please, sir" she said, voice tight. "Let go."

"It's her!" the monk yelled, and instantly, the streets arose and walked in unison, rows and rows of monks with dark robes thrown over their bodies and heads. 

"It is her," they repeated.

Lucrecia regretted having walked so far from the mansion. Slowly, monk still in tow, she backed away. Her voice was sharp and professional, but a waver in it belayed her secretly mounting anxiety. "Please...leave me alone or I'll inform the authorities." 

"We have waited for you," said the monk who was clinging to her, his scalded and blistered eye swollen shut. "We have waited for you for very long and now you have come for us, in our time of greatest need." 

Lucrecia shook her head, side to side, quicker and quicker, her fear coming out not in her still, serene expression, but in her ragged breath. "No, you've mistaken me for someone else. I'm sorry. Please, let me go now," she said, voice lowering as she looked about her for help, desperately.   
All she saw were the monks in the robes.  
"We have no home, Goddess," said the monk. "You sent fires in the form of a disbeliever, a man of the laboratories, and he destroyed us. You are here to rejuvenate us. You are here to bring us new hope. This..." He let go of her leg and stood up. "This is the reunion!"

Lucrecia, her leg free, was now backing away rapidly. She would have run yet...the intrigue...these monks...their strange midnight ceremonies... what was it that Vincent had said about their Goddess? Something... beyond? "I'm not your Goddess," she said. "I'm not anyone. I'm just a, a... scientist."  
"We know the prophecies," came the dark voice from another monk in the back, as his companions intoned "Yes, yes."   
"We know the prophecies," he repeated. "A woman in the coat of a disbeliever, as the companion of the one who brings destruction, shall come unto us and she shall be the charge of the Goddess. She will be the right hand of the Goddess and she will bring to us the true body of the Goddess."   
Lucrecia's brow furrowed, her expression darkened and deepened, and suddenly she let out a laugh. "Oh, you mean the Jenova specimen? I'm sorry to disappoint you all. That's just the frozen remains of an ancient species of mammal. It's no Goddess. We've done tests. It's quite positively organic."   
"The prophecies," they insisted, ignoring her. "You will bring us the body of the Goddess and her perfection shall be marred and so you, the right hand, shall bring forth a new perfection in the form of a child."

"A child, a child, a child," the hiss echoed from monk to monk, from hooded figure to hooded figure, corridor to corridor. "And the child shall be perfect," the chant continued, all of them in unison, now, for they all knew the words by heart. "And the child shall be our salvation. And the child, with the Goddess controlling his perfection, shall bring us all down to the Promised Land where we shall never burn or suffer again, and where we will know what perfection is ourselves." 

"And all of us," said the monk who had been holding on to her leg, "All of us who had touched the child will be blessed with eternal perfection." 

Lucrecia's lips fell open wordlessly. Then she blinked, and she realized that all this time, the monks had been circling her, enveloping her, trapping her. And the hypnotizing beat of their words faded away, and with terror, she realized there was something inherently stupid and strange in all of this. "Let us touch the mother of Perfection," they said to her, and she smacked away their prying hands as all of them struggled to palm her stomach. 

"Leave me alone," she said. "Leave me alone!" she shrieked. "I don't know you! I don't know any of you! Leave me alone!" 

She ran all the way back to the mansion, to her office, shut the door tightly, and did not come out. 

Standing outside of the mansion as if incapable of setting foot beyond the gates, the crowd of monks chanted. "The reunion is coming."

Flash.

"Why do you do this, Tseng?" the girl had asked him, brown hair framing her delicate face as green eyes blinked without accusation.

"Do what?" had asked the young Turk in his crisp blue suit, sunglasses holding back long black hair. 

"This," said Aeris, head in his lap as he ran his fingers through her hair, soothed by the serenity that hovered about her. 

Oh, he had been young, he had been in his first prime, and inexperienced and he had believed in things that he knew, now, did not exist. 

"What?" he asked again, sadly. He wasn't sure what he was doing. He wasn't doing what he wanted to be doing, which was whisking this poor innocent angel away to a paradise in the sun, nor was he doing what he was supposed to be doing, which was supervising her while Hojo stuck her in a tube and poked syringes into her.

"This," repeated Aeris, and a tear dropped from her eye.

"I can't do anything else," he said softly, and suddenly he felt so very old, and suddenly she felt like a small, small child in his arms.

Oh, she had been younger, she had yet to become a true woman, and she was inexperienced and would always, always believe in the beautiful things that Tseng knew, bitterly, did not exist.

"You can, though," she breathed to him, believing in him, even though, far back then, he still did not believe in himself. "I know you can."

"You don't know me," he said quietly, taking his gun out of its holster. Both of them knew what came next. "You don't know me at all." 

Aeris sat up and combed the tangles out of her hair, looked at him, and now they were both crying. Silently, she took the walkie talkie out of his coat pocket and handed it to him, eyes pleading. "I do know, though, Tseng. You're just hiding it. I know you...I love you...and...you know me...You...you lo..." Her voice halted and her tears fell and mingled with the dew on the flowers that grew from the church floor.

"You don't love me," said Tseng, putting on his sunglasses and the sneer that came with it. "You don't love me because you don't know me. You've got the wrong guy. You made a mistake, miss. I have no idea who you are." He picked up the walkie talkie and his jacket in one strong arm, a sobbing, limp Aeris in the other arm. "Rude," he said into the crackle of the walkie talkie over a flower girl's pained cries. "Get the car. I've found the girl..."

Unflash.

Somewhere in the dark of her office, Lucrecia pondered perfection and saw in her mind's eye a child she could shape flawlessly with her hands.

Somewhere in the dark of his lab, Hojo pondered perfection and saw in a blue tank a creature so complex and brilliant it could bring him unbearable glory.

Somewhere in the dark of his psyche, Vincent pondered perfection and saw a clean, gleaming white light that could wash him of all the grime he had built up around him all his life....and her name was Love. And her name was Salvation. And her name was...

Lucrecia. 

[sordidstory@yahoo.com][1]  
[www.sordidstory.cjb.net][2]

(irony: I was listening to 'light my fire' by the Doors while writing this and didn't notice 'til I finished.)

   [1]: mailto:sordidstory@yahoo.com
   [2]: http://www.sordidstory.cjb.net



	5. V: Dark Secret Love

Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time

V: Dark Secret Love  


He wanted her to

Hurt him. Cut him. Kill him.

Rip his heart out and serve it on a platter made of his bones.

Lead him to unbearable agony, all so long as she touched him.

So long as she was near him.

So long as she was...there.

He could stand anything, anything she did, so long as she loved him.

Standing on top of the cliff, looking down at the dark vortex of Nibelheim reflected in his own eyes, ready to be swallowed up or swallow itself with darkness, Vincent thought:

There's still a long way to fall.

Flash.

"That's a long way to fall," Tseng said out loud to himself, his voice hollow, as he stood on the edge of the Shinra building, staring down into the layers and layers of Midgar. The wind whipped his hair back into his face painfully, nearly sent him off balance and spiralling off the side of the skyscraper, but he didn't notice. Or mind. He kicked a pebble off and watched it whistle down, skipping off some fat executive's finely polished window. 

"Tseng?" crackled the walkietalkie on his belt. It was Reno. "Tseng? That bastard Hojo wants us all downstairs to restrain the specimen chick. Y'comin'?"

Tseng lifted one foot.   
_Tseng?_

And flung his broken heart over the edge.

His tortured soul crashed into the asphalt, impaled by streetsigns, ripped open by traffic lights, crushed into the dead, dead ground.

Then his empty skin walked downstairs to find Reno.

Unflash.

The petals of the winter rose crumpled and fell from their crimson buds: bloodstains, omens upon the snow. But on a day like this, Vincent had no time for omens...he waited, waited, until it was dark. And then he came out.

"Lucrecia..."

They were alone in the park, his favorite spot on the bridge. She was staring in a daze at the frozen bank beneath the bridge, buried in the powdery snow. She knew he was going to ask her, and a tear fell from her eyes, hit the snowbank, and melted away in a blur.

She continued staring down, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of her true reflection, but the snow concealed. Somehow she liked it that way. 

The question was- Red or white roses?

or

What did she want? That was too easy. Red roses for the lover, the passion, that _want_, that need within her. But red roses dig deep, too deep into her heart, her soul for her liking. The deeper they dug, the more aware she was of the emptiness, the holes inside herself. She couldn't bear the thought that she might open her heart to someone, and find that that door let to absolutely nothing. 

Lucrecia stared off into the distance. The falling snow had blanketed the droplets of red petals, smothering them.

White roses, then, please. White roses to smother, to cover, to hide the ugly, bloody red emotion beneath. Or lack of. White roses that will fold, and crumple, and rot-too quick to loved, to be missed. White roses that failed at a whim, a flitting feather finger touch. She needed that power, could not stand before the red rose that **would not die**. She looked over the bridge, contemplated jumping. The white would be waiting, and hold her down, steady, solid. But the dark, the red would swallow her up, never ending, and she'd keep falling... and falling....

She lifted her eyes, saw the platinum band in its case.

"Do you want it Lucrecia?

It's yours if you want it."

His voice was so gentle.

"I love you..."

He pulled her close, she closed her eyes, her hand raised dangerously close to accepting. 

"Marry me...?"

Oh how she wanted to keep her eyes closed and fall into him and kiss him and take the ring and tell him "Yes I love you and I'll never leave you and I want to marry you want to be with you forever and ever for all eternity..."

But then she opened her eyes, and looked into his, and they were black holes, endless, and now she was scared, scared of falling, even though she wanted to. She wanted to enter those eyes, but they were too deep, his love, his kiss was too deep for her. She saw herself, her own emptiness within them. 

But she still wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and be with him until all of it, it all ended. 

But instead she closed the box, withdrew her hand, gently pulled away, and looked up into the mournful eyes of the man who loved her. 

"You're a fool for loving me," she whispered.

And then she walked away.

Hojo. He was pacing the front yard of the Shinra Mansion, mumbling out loud to hisself as he often did ever since the Jenova specimen had arrived. "But that would require testing during the foetal stage, my dea-" The professor cut hisself off as he saw the slim figure of Lucrecia approaching. Slowly, a smile not unlike the one pasted on the face of Jenova spread across his pale face. "Ahh...yes, but would she...?" He stopped speaking as she half stumbled, half jogged straight towards him. "Lucrecia."  
"Hojo." Her voice vibrated like a tightly drawn guitar string.   
"I'd like to propose, Lucrecia, an extension to the Jenova Project," said Hojo, head held high.   
"Is that so?" Her head kept darting around to look behind her. "What would that be?"  
Hojo squinted at her. "Something wrong?" When she shook her head from side to side quickly, he continued. "I'd like to run additional tests to a child starting from the embryonic stage all the way until after adolescent development. And I'd like to have that child be of two scientists directly tied in with the Jenova Project."

"Are you asking me to have a child?" She wrung her trembling hands together frantically. She looked behind her at the bridge at some shadow beneath a tree, and fell into his arms as if terrified, pursued. "Who's to be the father?" He was watching her, he could feel his eyes boring into her back. _Oh why doesn't he just go away, just leave me alone, I can't stand wanting him like-_

"Me."  
Lucrecia's eyes suddenly refocused on Hojo. "Yours?"   
He smiled coldly. "Of course. I'm head of this program, aren't I?"  
"I..." Her voice faltered. She swiveled her head around and saw Vincent take a step off the bridge towards her. "Yes!" she shouted.  
Hojo studied her curiously. "...yes?"  
"Yes," she repeated. "On one condition." She swallowed. "People will talk about strange things if I become pregnant. I... Marry me Hojo. That's my condition."  
A cross between delight and relief crossed Hojo's icy features. "That's a reasonable proposition. Anything else?"  
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucrecia could see the inky figure of Vincent walking towards her. She fell into Hojo's arms as if terrified, pursued. "Yes..." _I'm sorry, Vincent, but... _"Kiss me already." she said, moisture collecting in painful clots within her tear ducts.   
  
Pressing his cold stiff lips against hers, ice sculpture embracing ice sculpture, Hojo saw from over Lucrecia's shoulder a shadow buckle to its knees and disperse, shattered, in the snow.

From that day on, Vincent was a ghost. Dead, slaughtered by her small army of words, his unfinished business-- his neverending guard, his reason: Lucrecia, kept him here. She walked away from him, and he walked in the opposite direction _As long as she's happy_. The red rose died, but left its ghastly, ghostly shadows haunting in the snow. As long as she's happy, he told himself frantically. God is love, Vincent had said, and his love, his one love, his one true love, his own Goddess Peace had left him. Where did that leave him with God? He could choke himself, hang himself with his own Rosary beads. He was left...he was left standing alone in the snow, for the sun had faded. He was left there by himself, abandoned by even his shadow, even the light, even his f*cking God. 

And he was utterly, utterly alone.

Flash. 

Tseng was alone. His Turks, his faithful, beloved Turks were no longer behind him, and before him was a ghost: an image from the past that could not be real. But it was. Sephiroth smiled slowly, eyes distant, unsheathed his sword. In the flash of Masamune, green eyes, silver hair, Tseng's own gun was up and pointed at Sephiroth's head. For the first time since that faroff day when he was 14, before Nibelheim and its nightmares, his hand was shaking. He couldn't shoot him...he just couldn't. This was Sephiroth, child who he held in his lap, Sephiroth, his only friend through his teenage years, Sephiroth...who had suffered just as he, and more. And now, now there was no one to back him up, no shadow of Turk leader, of Vincent cast over his shoulder, and his hand wavered. In that nanosecond, the blade plunged forward, into the Turk's stomach. Then Sephiroth was gone, laughter drifting off, and totally alone, completely abandoned, Tseng fell, keen eyes slowly glazing, and hit the ground with a deadening thump.

Unflash.

Lucrecia thumped her heels against the wall, legs swinging like a little girl as she sat on the examination table, watching Hojo's back as the Professor went about fiddling with his Jenova specimens. He wasn't really a bad-looking man, no, not at all, thought Lucrecia, holding her swollen stomach tenderly. And he had given her her little Sephiroth. _Sephiroth_. Funny that Hojo had picked a name with such strange religious connotations despite his vehement stance in atheism. Yes, he had given her her dear child, a child unborn as of now that would doubtless love her in a way Lucrecia would understand fully. A child- a bond against all thoughts Lucrecia might have outside of matrimony, of love. A child...so incredibly perfect that Hojo could make even more perfect. Yes her, and this child, they would be perfect together...and when Hojo smiled at her as he turned around, with that syringe full of something she knew was liquid hell, about to be injected into her, her child, the woman simply wiped away all thought of past or future, even the realistic present. She simply cradled her dillusions of perfection close, and smiled back at her husband.


	6. VI: Thy LIfe Destroy

Lucrecia fluffed out her pillow one last time 

**VI: Thy Life Destroy**

_i've __been dreaming. _

_i __ was lucid. _

_i __was dreaming blood was seeping from my pores. _

_who'd believe that it was all my own decision? _

_cracked faces and medicated smiles. set fire to my home before i turned and walked back in. _

_for every needle, open my chest and insert ten pins. _

_i just anticipate what awaits when i awake....break... i die in my daydreams. _

_the gardens have all been overgrown. _

_i pushed my hand through the thorns just to crush the final rose. _

_a deadly secret only i suffer to know, _

_i can't eradicate what awaits when i awake...break. _

_...i die in my daydreams._

-AFI, No Poetic Device

________________________________________________________________

Vincent watched from the shadows, unnoticed, the ever-present guardian. His eyes were crying, his soul was crying, his heart, his bleeding, gushing heart was crying. He was so, so empty, and she... was so very full. He watched her smile, could almost cry out. In her womb she held the moon the stars, an angel-child, a revolution. Though pained, Vincent's eyes saw all. Didn't she see how pale she was? Her skin was as light as gauze, translucent as moth's wings, pale as porcelain. Didn't she see that what grew inside of her was draining her, was eating her alive? Her lips were so unnaturally red in that alabaster face: fallen rose petals in the snow. The white would consume the red soon, Vincent knew.. Soon, it seemed, the white rose would win. And then she would die.

  
Vincent's eyes burned at Hojo. His inner cries were desperate. Didn't Hojo see any of this? Didn't that damnable Professor see how precious, how fragile, how beautiful she was, and her child would be? How _dare_ Hojo use them for his experiment. To him, she was just another little white lab rat, to use and dispose of. If only Lucrecia would let go, unsnare herself, before her 'husband' took everything she had. If only she would let herself fall away from this science, this practical reality. If only she would let go and do so... Vincent would catch her. But...she was smiling. 

_  
_And he let her be.

Tseng watched as the child was brought in by the lab intern. Something in him stirred. The infant had been born no more than half an hour ago. He should have nannies, not scientists and soldiers about him. But..wait. That's what he was here for, thought Tseng bitterly. To be a nanny. The young Turk had been overjoyed when his leader Vincent had called in for reinforcements in maintaining Nibelheim security. Even happier when President Shinra had picked _him_, the rookie of all people to assist. But when he was told of his charge, the crestfallen Tseng realized that, stereotypically, the teenager's job would be to babysit. Apparently, thought Tseng dryly, as he watched the tiny baby study its surroundings, apparently tactics, traps, stealth were essential for watching children. But as the miniature Sephiroth swiveled humongous, eerie green eyes to study Tseng, the rookie Turk comforted himself by telling himself he was guardian to the key to the Jenova project, Shinra's second largest scientific investment. Tseng turned back to watching the babe. That was, after all, his job. The infant, though just a newborn, was already dragging, dragging hisself towards the exit. Barely an hour old, and already recognizing his prison. Silver fluff of hair alighted in an occult halo as a moonbeam cut through the window like a curved, steel blade, lighting up the room. And the eerie smell of late roses wafted in.

Flash. 

Tseng dragged himself doggedly towards the exit, trying to flee this prison. A pain from his bloodied torso racked his body, and Tseng knew he was going to die. As if confirming him, the deep, malevolent voice of Sephiroth, disembodied, rolled out from some faroff corner of the Temple of the Ancients that he couldn't see. Tseng rested his dark head for a moment on the stones, and he couldn't believe Sephiroth could do this...yet he so could. Then, as if seconding the voice of the great, insane warrior, another voice, one from the past came, though higher-pitched, the voice of the same Sephiroth...

"I'm never going to die," the child Sephiroth had said to Tseng that day, gazing up intensely at the Turk from his 'toys' of old gun parts. "Everybody dies," Tseng had stated matter of factly, silencer in between his teeth as he cleaned his guns. "I'm not everybody," Sephiroth had said, mako green optics still huge. "That so?" Tseng had mummered, half-ignoring the 4 year old boy already articulate beyond those 10 times his age. Sephiroth had looked down unsatisfied at his jumble of deadly playthings, and had stood up, walking for the door. "My father's expecting me," he had announced imperiously. "It's not on my schedule," Tseng had pointed out, never stopping his work, and still not paying close attention. "So you're not moving an inch, buster." Sephiroth had unstuck the older man's dagger from his boot, had run a child's finger down the blade caressingly. 

"My mother's expecting me."

Tseng had stopped greasing his gun's barrel, stared at the tiny figure so commanding. "That's sick. Your mother's dead." And he had kicked the door shut from his seat, unnerved. Sephiroth had clutched little babe's fist, taken a deep breath. Then he had spoken, ringing toddler's voice an omen. "You're going to die, Tseng." Tseng had made no answer. "I'll be alive, my mother will be alive, but you'll be DEAD. And as you crawl to your deathbed, all you'll do is wish you were me. Because I'm not going to die." Then the boy had tiptoed on little black booties, twisted the doorknob, opened the door himself, and walked out. 

Tseng gasped for breath as he finally reached the portal, his flashback over as he collapsed against an aged pillar. Sephiroth had been right, even at the boy's young age so long ago. He was dying and Sephiroth was alive and it didn't seem that Sephiroth would ever die. The band of people he recognized as AVALANCHE walked in, and the flower girl approached. 

_Aeris..._

Oh how he wished he could open his mouth to tell her it all. Tell her how he loved her, how he was sorry, how...how...oh...oh...A frantic splash of dizziness flooded his senses.

He had so much to do still...he needed to tell Aeris...he needed to atone...he need her to forgive him and tell her that he...The girl in pink warbled something, and he mumbled back, blurry. He didn't hear her, and he didn't hear himself. 

Sephiroth had been right. He was heading for his deathbed and he so wished he was Sephiroth right now, alive, if only to have that lost time to finish his business. But it was not be so, and darkness rolled in on Tseng, all too soon.

Unflash.

__________________________________________

_O Rose, thou art sick!_

_The invisible worm  
That flies in the night,  
In the howling storm,  
  
Has found out thy bed  
Of crimson joy:_

_And his dark secret love  
Does thy life destroy._

_-W.Blake_

__________________________________________

The day came too soon. In her fevered, diseased rantings, one day the name that slipped out from between cracked and fevered lips was "Vincent." But he couldn't hear her. So she screamed it. She screamed so that the room resonated with "VINCENT!" and the whole mansion heard and knew. Everyone in the town knew, save Vincent himself, who sat in the charred remains of the monastery and silently, stoically shot bulletholes through every icon, bible, and tapestry he could get his hands on. Far away in the crags of Mt. Nibel, the mountain hid her pleas. Nightfall brought Vincent home to Hell, and as his footsteps dragged wearily in through the iron wrought gates, he noticed the eyes. They gathered in plethoras and furies, chattering and whispering in hushed tones, all watching him, examining him. Sad wistful nurses clucking as he passed by, Scientists who looked down and away, Shinra executives who harrumphed apologetically...and Vincent still did not know. Thumping, dragging, walking as if he had a ball and chain, Vincent was making his slow progressing way to his room when...He stopped. Lucrecia's door was finally open. And standing sideways, he could barely bear to turn around and look. Achingly, step by step, Vincent turned and stepped in. He crossed the long walk to the other side of the room- she was sleeping, he thought, and even in sleep, her back was turned to him. He sat down on the bed and stayed still for a long while, simply sitting quietly in her presence. Then in a burst of initiative, he touched her shoulder to turn her over to face him. 

In a howl of anguish, in a howl of disgust, Vincent recoiled, falling away from her dead cold skin and her blank, empty eyes in a panic. Dead. Without her love to catch her, she fluttered to the ground, wilted, hitting the floor in a sounding of dove's wings, her hair splayed out, her limbs sprawled limp, lifeless. Vincent did not recognize his own voice. Strangled, it tore out of his throat of it's own volition, sounded out hollow and tortured. He collapsed to his knees, picked her up and rocked her, crying, sobbing into her shoulder smelling of roses. Roses, oh God, roses. He looked up, saw the red rose in its vase, wilted, its petals falling, drooping forlornly. With a cry, he swung out his arm, letting it crash to the floor. The crystal cut through his arm, cut through the rose petals, they bled, bled together in a puddle of sweet smelling red. The rosy glass tinkled as it hit the floor. _Like it just as much when it hurt_. She was dead. He had loved her, loved her more voraciously than he valued his own soul: he would give up eternity to have her back, but now she was gone. Standing by like a fool, he had let go of her hand, let her slip, slip, slip, fall into the gray, fading, she was lost, she was rose petals for the lover, disintegrating into the mud.

_ As long as she's happy_, but she wasn't. And the blind fool he was, he hadn't noticed, blocked it out with his stupidity and denial. They were too pale the petals that scattered on the floor, just like her, they had bled out all their blood, their red. He hugged her close, ignored the blood pulsing from his arm, like he gave a damn anymore like he gave a damn about anything anymore. He sobbed, held her hand, her beautiful smooth slim hand, seeing the blood trickle down her arm, then cursing himself for staining her. The guilt swallowed him with a horrible sucking sound that drowned out all senses. Then, a flash of gold band upon her finger. Hojo. Vincent stood up. The rosary beads lay on the floor. No more prayers for Vincent, Lucrecia. _God is love_, but their love was dead. God is Caring God is Peace God is buried 6 feet under a snowbank in the middle of Nibelheim with the rest of the roses-turned-compost.   
He sprinkled her with bloodied roses, eyes streaking with tears. With a swish of dark coat, he exited. The candle tumbled, toppling, it hit the roses, alighting in a stifling, blazing flame, enveloping the entirety of the room in smoke and incense and fire. Let it burn. Let it all burn.

The door slammed open, Vincent stood bloodstained, dripping with crazed eyes, empty rosary chain in his hand.

"Ah. Mr. Valentine. I've been expecting you."

Vincent could do nothing but sob, guilt enveloped in grief cutting through his heart, his lungs.

"Pity you didn't wash up before you visited. You're hardly sanitary."

Vincent stared at him with animal's eyes, unblinking, shoulders heaving. He threw a limp bundle at Hojo, contempt evident.

Hojo shifted his glasses on his nose. "Eh? What's this?" He examined the bundle. "Wilted rotting white roses. So?"

Vincent's voice was low, deadly. "You never knew her you b*stard. She hated white roses."

"Hmm. Too late now. She's dead, isn't she?"

"You killed her."

"And you let me."

Vincent cursed him with his eyes.

Hojo laughed. "Actually, she let me too. Her idea, oh yes. She had to be in control: sometimes I didn't know whose experiment it really was." He laughed again, but this time, it seemed fake and forced. "She did it because of you, you know. You drove her absolutely loony. All she would talk about, shriek about actually. You know, the birth, just lately, in her sleep, in her nightmares, on her deathbed. That woman had lungs like a banshee. But then, you'd know that. You've probably slept with her."

"F*ck you."

"Hmm? What's that again?"

"F*ck you."

"Oh yes. Well, articulate, aren't you?"

"You never loved her."

Hojo rolled his eyes. "Love. Tell me Mr. Valentine, who would you love? A gorgeous specimen who'd give you the world, make you a God, or a weak 2nd rate scientist who was screwing the hired muscle?"

"There's no such thing as a God."

"Oh-ho, how our ideas change. 'God is love', didn't you say? No, don't look surprised, Lucrecia told me. There is God: that's Jenova, and that'll be me. Y'see, together we are Science, and we've beaten down your old God of Love, your Goddess Peace. Science is the new ruler in town now. Love's obsolete. I'll admit I was fond of her, my lovely Lucrecia, but as you so eloquently put it my dear," he patted the glass tank. "She was just a pawn. Lucrecia...was nothing. _Love_, is nothing."

"You never loved her."

The scientist's eyes flashed. "Why do you insist on repeating that infernal phrase? I tell you, Love is a figment of one's imagination, the materialization of some obsession, hormones, sentimental nightmare, really. There's no such thing, so just drop it. There's no point in pursuing the matter."

"You never loved her."

And something went distant in Hojo, he seemed to snap, or return to sanity. Whoever knows the difference. The hand of the tank went limp, and he spoke softly, though his voice increased in volume with momentum. "Oh, but I did," he whispered, dangerously, then louder. "Yes, I f*cking loved her. I loved her, okay? I loved her, but I always knew she loved you. I loved her, but then she ran off with you so I ran off with another woman too." He stroked the glass caressingly, his voice returning to its normal lull, eyes refocusing. "Though Jenova's more than a woman. Yes, yes, she's a God. Don't you understand? Perhaps I did love Lucrecia some time, but she never let me really touch her, even when I... when I... she never let me in, never let me close never... responded. Jenova gave back. She gave me my Sephiroth experiment, my PROJECT, a life. She's going to make me a God, you know," he repeated. "A God. You see Valentine, Lucrecia just took everything away and she never, not once gave back."

But Vincent loved her, and he never tired of giving.

"And then Jenova, she wanted something, and I had taken so much, what could I do but give back, give her the tiniest gift of Lucrecia?" The rims of his glasses lined with tears. "Don't you see? Don't you see Valentine?" Hojo began laughing maniacally. "No, no you can't see, not with those disgusting pits of eyes. " He sighed. "But Jenova is God, and Lucrecia...she's nothing. Lucrecia who did nothing but drain me, suck me dry: the whore. "

"She never drained you, you drained her. Would you like to go upstairs and take a look at her, almighty Science? She's a shell, a white sheet. I may have been a fool, stood by watching and not moving, but you, you and that monster who's the only true whore, you sucked her life out, her blood out, you disgusting, repulsive vampires. You can call yourself Science, Hojo, call yourself God, but you're still just a f*cking monster. And monsters go to hell." Out came the match that lit the candle burning Lucrecia to gray, gray ashes. Out came the match that was held by strong hand now hovering and wavering so close to the open barrel of gasoline for the burners of the lab. "Monsters go to hell... So burn."

But too fast, Hojo pulled out a gun from under his lab coat. "Too bad you won't get that luxury," said the scientist evenly. And he aimed the gun. And shot him.

Under beaming florescent lights, Vincent was dimly aware of Hojo speaking aloud to his Mistress and his son, both in cells of glass. "Can you imagine little Sephiroth? He called your mother and I vampires. Really, the nerve. When it was so obvious he was the bloodsucking fool. Here, I have a good idea Sephi. What say we make our friend the Turk a vampire?" He giggled inanely. "Oh, of course it'll be hard but I can do it. I'm an 'artiste', I'm Science." The florescent lights were burning, somewhere he could hear her singing, calling his name. _Vincent_. All he could see was the Mako green eyes of the perfect silver child stare back at him, and all he could notice was that the eyes weren't blinking. Over him with his shining scalpel, Hojo hummed a morbid tune to himself. "Oh look, there's a nasty cut on his arm. A few injections of Jenova cells (yes you love) will do the nice little trick. See? Another game piece for you. And since he was _so_ intent on wearing a gold band about that horrid finger, let's make the whole hand bronze, better yet the whole arm. Too bad gold wouldn't work, so heavy, it'd be quite amusing. But ah, one has to make sacrifices even for Science. But now he's got that burden he'll enjoy carrying oh, so much for the rest of his life. And **ugh** those eyes. you really have the most abhorrent eyes Valentine. There's no end to them, big black vortexes, sucking in, like a vampire, yup, that's you. You know what, let's have them red, like roses and blood; you do seem to love them so." And suddenly everything was rose-tinted. If he could have, Vincent would have cried. "Hmmm...remember what he called us Sephidear? Monsters. He's the monster, no matter what he says. And I'll prove it. I'll make him a monster. Better yet, 3. And I'll stick in a demon for good measure since we're all going to Hell anyways." Hojo's voice lilted cheerily, delirium obvious. Vincent saw pigeons wings, fluttering sheets, wilting flowers rolling rosary beads. And then tearing tooth and fang, flames bursting from the monster, flames in Lucrecia's room, blade gritting against flesh and bone, cutting like glass, like crystal, and he saw himself, a person pieced together from spare parts, not even a true person, broken, electrified and shocked with his pain, in truth, a demon. He was the being of true agony, true Chaos. Hojo clapped twice. " A new outfit and we're done. I didn't give the vampire fangs, love, because he doesn't need them. Remember? He's taken enough blood for quite a while now. But we musn't let them know that. Give him a mask, to hide the missing fangs, the impotence, the incapacity, the uselessness, shall we?" 

And Vincent felt the uselessness, for he couldn't even save the one he loved. 

"A mask and a cape, yes that's it. Ah, a masterpiece. Do you see little Sephiroth?" Watch Daddy carefully: you're next on my magic table. I'll take him down now, Jenova, to what he deserves. Be back soon, don't stay up." 

Vincent was moving, how he did not know. But the world was fluid, rolling like rosary beads, and it was getting darker, and darker. Was this the basement? Just as well. No pigeons to distract him from atonement, the dove had already fallen from her glorious perch. Only bats, blood sucking monsters like himself to keep him company. He felt himself eased into his coffin, his resting place, grateful for the gray, but when his eyes closed, agony came in. So this was the luxury he was denied. Even with eyes closed, no restful gray came. Even in sleep, the red tint stayed, stayed to haunt him for eternity. So he settled back in crimson velvet, Hojo's cackling somewhere off in the corridor far away. The coffin lid clapped shut, and he awaited his judgment, his nightmare. For though he was alone in a dank dark basement, trapped in a stone cold tomb, he swore, that somewhere off in the distance, he could still smell the roses.


End file.

Final Fantasy VII