The Reason

Chapter 18


“I don’t care if it will help her, I won’t do it!” Vincent stated flatly for the hundred-and-fifteenth time.

“Valentine, she has to know how to prevent unwanted transformation, and physical danger is the only weapon we have.” Rufus reasoned.

“I am not going to force her into a corner and shoot her full of holes so you can feel a little more safe! What we’re up against is more dangerous than she could ever be!”

“Valentine, if you aren’t going to do it, then-”

“Sir?” Elena cut in. She had been holding in her opinion for long enough. “I agree with Mr. Valentine. We cannot do that to one of our own. Think about it: if she KNEW that we were going to attack her, and that we really wouldn’t kill her, Quietus would know it, too. We would have to surprise her, and she would never trust us enough to work with us again. Hell, after all she’s been through, she might decide that Weiss is right and try to kill us all.”

Rufus sat quietly during Elena’s pleading speech. She was right, he decided.

“Then what do you propose we do, Ms. Sazo?” he asked.

“When we were in the bunker before her first transformation, Tseng asked her about her past with Deepground. I think that’s what triggered it. We need to try to force her to talk about it, and maybe Quietus would try to come out again.”

“But it’s like you said,” Reno cut in, “If she knows that’s what we’re trying to do, Quietus won’t go through with it. It’s obvious that she doesn’t want Jex – I mean Ms. Strange – to have control over her at all.”

“We have to trick her into it.” Vincent said, defeated. He didn’t like the idea of misleading Jexebel in the least, but it was a hell of a lot better than physically hurting her.

The group was silent, waiting for Vincent and Rufus to decide whether or not this idea had any merit.

“So how do we do this?” Vincent finally asked. Everyone could tell that he wasn’t at all happy with the situation.

“I think I know how…” Reno started.


Jexebel laughed and took a healthy sip of her coffee. She sat in the kitchen with Tifa and Cloud, talking about one of the many times that the blonde man had gotten himself lost on a delivery. She really didn’t think it was funny, but her friends were trying to help her. By now everyone at the Inn knew who and what she was, and how she felt about it. She appreciated that they cared about her enough to try to make her feel a little better, but silly stories about a little blonde ex-SOLDIER were not going to do it.

The kitchen doors swung open, and Jexebel looked up to see Vincent standing there. Her mood instantly brightened; it always did when he was around.

He was acting strangely, though…she called to him and motioned for him to join them, but he didn’t seem to hear her. She knew that he had seen them, so what was the problem?

“Vincent?” She called again.

He stepped forward and both swinging doors opened, revealing Rufus ShinRa and the Turks, all in attack formation. Vincent led the way to Jexebel’s table.

Her breath caught in her throat. Something was wrong. The others in the kitchens seemed to realize this, as they backed away from her and made space for the Turks to get to her.

They came to a stop at her table.

“Vincent?” she asked again. He wouldn’t even make eye contact.

“Jexebel Strange.” Tseng announced, “It has been decided that you shall be taken into custody and questioned about the activity of your former leader, Weiss the Immaculate, and his accomplice, the fabled Genesis.”

“What?! No!” Jexebel exclaimed, standing up and backing away from the group. Reno and Rude stepped forward. “You swore to me that I would not have to talk about that! Vincent!”

Vincent cringed at the panic in her voice, but could not do anything to stop the others. He knew that this had to be done.

“Vincent!” she called again, “Do something! You can’t let them do this!”

“Yes he can.” Rufus said, “He is a Turk. He works for me. If I tell him to arrest you and take you to the holding cell, that’s what he’ll do.” It was cruel, he knew, and even he hated lying to her like that, but it had to be done.

She called to Vincent weakly, one more time. He just closed his eyes and bowed his head.

Rufus nodded his head in approval, and then snapped his fingers. “Reno, Rude, please escort Ms. Strange to interrogation room one.”

“No!” Jexebel growled. She lifted the large metal table and threw it at the group, knocking a concrete pillar over in the process. When the dirt and debris cleared, Jexebel was gone, but the doors were still swinging. They weren’t far behind her.

When Reno and Rude cleared the doors, they saw a flash of cinnamon hair streaking around the corner ahead of them.

Jexebel was fast.

Reno was faster.

He covered the distance almost immediately, lunging at her and knocking her to the ground before Rude had even cleared the corner.

“No! Stop it! Get off of me!” She screamed, struggling.

Reno held her tightly, not allowing much movement at all. Jexebel strained against him once more, then gave up. She cried.

“I’m sorry.” She thought she heard the redhead whisper. Her body was limp as Rude helped Reno drag her to her feet. They each slung one of her arms over a shoulder, and all but carried her away.

Vincent stood not far behind. He hated himself for allowing this. He hoped she wouldn’t hate him, though. He could handle hating himself. He did it for nearly four years. Ever since the day that Cloud and the others woke him from the coffin he’d been trapped in. But for Jexebel to hate him?

His previous thoughts came flooding back to him.


‘You’re going to get hurt.’ His brain stated.

‘It’s too late to go back, now.’

‘It will kill you.’

‘Yes.’


It WOULD kill him.

Vincent Valentine was not a man to pray, but at this time, when his hope seemed empty, he offered up a small plea to the Gods that they take him from the world before that happened.

Somehow, he just knew that it would come to that.



“Let’s start from the beginning.” Tseng stated over the intercom. “What was your codename, as a Tsviet?”

Jexebel heard nothing. She sat at a cold concrete table, her hands and ankles chained down. There was a mirror on the wall, one she knew to be two-way. There was almost no light, just a small hole in the ceiling that allowed a bit of sunlight into the room.

At her silence, Tseng repeated his question.

“He just stood there…” Jexebel murmured, paying absolutely no attention to Tseng, or any of the questions he asked. Her thoughts were on Vincent. How could he let them do this?

“He wouldn’t even look at me…”

“What was that, Ms. Strange?” Tseng asked. She had spoken so quietly, he hadn’t caught a single word.

Vincent had, though. With every anguished word that left her lips, he felt a knife stabbing into his already-scarred heart.

“I knew that he would leave me… I knew that he would…”

Elena caught Vincent’s cringe and harsh gasp at Jexebel’s last comment.

“Can you hear what she’s saying?” she asked.

“Yes.” He grated out.

“What is it?” Rufus asked.

“She believes that I have betrayed her, just like she knew I would.” His voice sounded like gravel, like he had swallowed broken glass. He stepped forward and pressed one palm against the glass.

“Rufus.” He said, shocking the group. No one addressed the president by his first name.

“Yes?” Rufus answered, sensing that this was not the time to become indignant.

“If this doesn’t work…”

“I will personally and publicly apologize to Ms. Strange and deliver her release papers myself. Yours as well.”

“You will be held to that promise.”

That comment was not stated by Vincent Valentine, Turk; it was stated by Vincent Valentine, Assassin.

They turned towards the glass when Jexebel spoke again, louder than before. She sounded angry, now.

“I can’t believe he just stood there! Why, after all we’ve…after everything I’ve …Why?!” She tried to stand up, but was pulled down by the shackles around her wrists and ankles. She struggled against them.

“Why?!” She screamed, looking at the mirror before her. She stared right at Vincent, seeming to know that he was back there. “Why?! How could you do this to me?! You LIED to me! You told me you loved me!”

Her last two words were roared loud enough to shake the room, it seemed. She sat there panting, straining still at her metal bonds. Then it happened. What they’d been waiting for.

Her skin began to ripple, shimmering slightly between her caramel shade, and the ice blue that was Quietus. Jexebel cried out, realizing what was happening, and tried to raise her hands to clutch at her head. The shackles rattled and groaned, the metal stretching slightly under the pressure.

Tseng quickly got back on the intercom.

“Fight her, Jexebel! Fight her! Don’t let her out! I know you have it in you! Do it! Fi-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, VALENTINE?!” Tseng roared when the door to the interrogation room burst open and Vincent rushed inside. He slammed the door behind him and rushed to stand across the table from Jexebel.

“Do it. DO IT, JEXEBEL!” He ordered.

“You!” she hissed, lunging toward him threateningly.

“Come on, Jexebel! You are stronger than this!” He said when her skin took the ice blue shade and her eyes began to glow. Her nails and teeth lengthened and she roared her pain.

“You lied to me!”

“Jexebel-”

“ADMIT IT!”

“I won’t. I did not lie to you. You have to learn to prevent unwanted transformations.”

Jexebel froze. The only sound was the screaming of the hurricane like winds surrounding Jexebel’s broken form. “Wha-” she started. A sudden surge of pain flooded her senses and she doubled over, screaming. Her muscles clenched and all at once, the shackles broke. When she looked at Vincent, there was sheer hatred in her eyes. That was what he’d been afraid of.

‘Well,’ he thought, ‘At least she’ll kill me now, and I won’t have to live knowing that she hates me.’

‘Coward.’ Came a very familiar voice in his head. It was Vincent’s turn to freeze.

‘What?’ he asked, cautiously.

‘Coward. The Vincent I left behind wouldn’t have given up his life so easily.’ The voice growled.

‘You’re dead…’ Vincent thought.

The voice rumbled in what Vincent knew was a dark chuckle.

‘Never, host.’

‘Chaos…’

Vincent wasn’t given time to fully appreciate the magnitude of the situation, as Jexebel lunged at him and pinned him to the mirror, her lethal claws at his throat. The force of the blow cracked the glass around Vincent. He looked at her face and saw the struggle. She didn’t really want to kill him.

“Fight her, Jexebel.” He croaked, trying in vain to loosen her grip on his neck. “Fight her or watch her kill me.”

His red eyes bore into hers, still glowing with that unnatural light. His words seemed to work, for the time, as he suddenly found himself in a heap at her feet – still human. He brought his hand to his throat and coughed, trying to regain his breath. She hauled him to his feet and threw him across the room to land on the concrete table, jumping lightly and crouching over him.

“Tell me how…” she whispered. She arched her back and threw her head back, screaming again as her magnificent wings erupted from her skin. Her clawed hand gripped Vincent’s throat again, this time the points of her nails breaking the skin and spilling a light trickle of blood.


Her hand shook as she tried to fight the urge to kill the man that betrayed her. She should hate him!

‘You may not kill him!’ she ordered Quietus.

‘You do not make the rules, host.’

‘YES I DO!’ Jexebel pulled out everything she had. All of the anger, and the hurt, but that only seemed to make the demon stronger.

“Tell me, Vincent!” she screamed desperately, looking down at him. To her horror, his eyes were closed, and he was turning blue. She used all of her strength, and ripped her hand from his throat, pounding on his chest. He gasped for air and started coughing.

“How, Vincent, how?!” She shook him when he didn’t immediately reply.

“L-love…” he choked out, “Love is the only thing that she doesn’t understand…” with those words, he promptly passed out again.

‘Love…’ Jexebel thought. She knew what to do.

Her memory took over, images of Vincent smiling with true joy on the first night she met him, and then the flustered look on his face the night he crashed his motorcycle. The feel of his lips against hers when she had forced that first kiss on him, and the warmth of his arms when they wrapped tightly around her. The way he had held her through all of her nightmares, rocking her gently and telling her that he would keep her safe.

The night he told her that he loved her.

Quietus screeched inside her mind, throwing up a solid wall, and the noise, movement, and pain came to a crashing halt.

She looked up at the broken mirror and was once again, Jexebel Strange.

‘I did it…I beat her…’ she thought. Then she looked down at Vincent, and was horrified all over again.

“Get in here!” she shouted to the group on the other side of the mirror. She swayed slightly, the fatigue from half-transforming taking over her body. She fell backwards off the table, into Reno’s arms as he rushed into the room with the others behind him. Jexebel closed her eyes, and felt Reno slapping her cheeks, trying to keep her awake. She heard Tseng shouting Vincent’s name and then whispering that he couldn’t find a pulse. She jerked awake instantly, struggling in Reno’s arms.

“Vincent!” she cried, trying to stand up and go to him.

Reno held her down. “Shhh.” He soothed. “It’s all right, Tseng will take care of it. I’m sorry, Jexebel, we were only trying to help you learn to control her… I’m Sorry!” Reno said, hugging her close.

“It was intentional? You were TRYING to make me transform?” Jexebel asked incredulously.

“Yes.” Reno admitted.

“Then this whole thing was-”

“A set-up.”

“Oh gods…VINCENT!” she cried again.

Her vision finally cleared and she saw Tseng on top of Vincent, doing chest compressions, and Elena standing by, breathing into his mouth. Jexebel flew to her feet and raced to the table, knocking Tseng aside and straddling Vincent herself, taking over and pumping his chest as hard as her tiny body would allow.

“No…” she whimpered, “No…no…no no no!”

Tears blurred her eyes until she couldn’t see, but she kept pumping, unwilling to give up.

“Jexebel…” Tseng said, laying his hand on her shoulder. “Stop, it’s too late, he’s-”

“NO!” she growled. “GODDAMMIT I KNOW YOU CAN TAKE MORE THAN THAT!” She screamed. She drew back and slammed her fist against his chest. Nothing. She did it again. Nothing.

Tseng and Rude rushed forward and grabbed her arms, attempting to drag her off of Vincent’s body.

“No! Let me go, he’s not dead…he can’t be dead…I didn’t kill him…” she sobbed.

There was a sudden sound from the body below her. Everyone stilled.

Vincent moaned weakly, then coughed, gasping for breath with what seemed like little strength. Rude and Tseng released Jexebel and she latched on to Vincent.

“Oh thank God! I’m so sorry…I’m sorry…I love you…I’m so-”

“Jexebel let him go so he can breathe!” Elena said, prying her away.

Jexebel quickly jumped off of Vincent and fell to her knees beside him.

“Are you alright?” he croaked, still gasping weakly.

Jexebel laughed through her tears. “Yes, I’m fine…are y-”

“Chaos is back.” He whispered. His words were slurred, and he was fighting to remain conscious.

Jexebel was caught off-guard.

“What?” she said slowly.

“Chaos is back.”

Then, Vincent’s world went black.





(A.N. well, starlight dragon, is this what you were hoping for? challenge passed? or failed? *bwahahaha*