Goodnight Kiss

*Well all these shinanagans over the site’s servers has given me ample time to come damn near close to completing this thing, and all there is left is to post. (and it’s about friggin time, huh?) Once again, I have been a sucker for plot, so there is unfortunately no smut this particular addition, but there will be next chapter. Forgive the battle orientedness, but funny story about this chapter….*

Chapter Seven
Goodnight Kiss
The Way Out Is Through

It seemed that Tifa hadn’t said anything. No one’s behavior really changed except for Aerith’s. Vincent wasn’t sure if anyone else actually noticed the lack of sparkle in her eyes. Of course she kept on smiling. Just like she said she would.

She was sure her death was imminent.

He would have done anything to comfort her, but she hadn’t declared their relationship public yet. So he stayed close, but not too close. Tragically, through his inability to confess his love(?), it was still her call as to how they acted around each other. But it was becoming harder and harder to deny that she was the reason he kept leaving his door unlocked and decided not to cut his over-grown hair to a more manageable length.

Aerith had him almost believing that she was going to perish with the way she carried out each action as if it were her last. She spent long bouts of time with everyone—even Cait Sith—on the way to the Temple of the Ancients.

As it turned out, Tseng got what he deserved while Aerith got to say goodbye to him. Strange, but appropriate. Still, he was a pitiable sight; a broken, bloody and hollow man getting ready to die. Tseng was a Turk though. It was better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees. One of the many sayings in the organization. Vincent wondered if they still held true.

“Do you have a bullet left?” he asked the wounded Turk before he followed Aerith and Cloud through.

Tseng looked up with glassy eyes and licked his cracked lips in an anxious calm. He shook his head. Vincent took an older, less used .45 from his cloak, loaded a single round in and threw it at Tseng’s feet.

Tseng managed a small laugh. “You’re a good man, Valentine. Reno would’ve never considered it. There aren’t many good Turks left like you…”

“Which is why you keep losing,” Vincent replied coldly, turning to follow his comrades.

Vincent didn’t hear a gunshot, but then again they were deep within the maze in minutes. Aerith was in a sort of daze. Cloud frequently complained of a brain cramp.

“Oh this is bull… this isn’t Tomb Raider, what’s the point of all this?!” he cried in frustration at one point at a dead end. He sat down and seemed to half pull his hair, half think deeply.

Aerith was busy exploring just down the hall. Keeping her in his peripheral, Vincent leaned against an ivy covered pillar. Unwelcome thoughts buzzed in his ears. What would Cloud think about Aerith turning over her purity to the ex-Turk? He obviously liked her…

“Why do you turn her away?” he asked out of nowhere.

Cloud gave him a look that said, “you’re initiating conversations with me?” “I… I dunno,” he finally said. “Too much shit right now. Maybe when all this is over. There’s always tomorrow…”

She doesn’t think so… “Then you are a fool.” The words popped out before his carefully calculating mind could censor them. Cloud gave him the strangest look, as if he couldn’t figure out for the life of him what Vincent was talking about. And he probably didn’t.

Before Vincent could suffer the consequences of his fast tongue and slow brain, there was a scream that had both men on their feet and down the hall in less time to cock a gun or draw a sword.

This battle was more taxing than the preceding bouts. Rolling in to defend the ambushed Cetra, they were surrounded on all sides. Many potions and ethers were blown through in the process. Cloud’s sword was knocked right out of his hands, though he was improvising quite nicely with a large piece of plywood with jagged nails sticking out the end of it. Aerith was knocked down hard and was holding her chest, struggling to breathe after the blow. Vincent reached for a potion and found none. His heart clenched when his ammunition failed him two bullets early. He miscounted his shots, how stupid! They couldn’t lose now—there was Hojo to destroy… a life ahead with just a glimmer of hope that just maybe Aerith would be a part of it…

He was sure that it was the final blow—the razor sharp claws in the back of his neck. The world blurred, his limbs tingled and his muscles seized. Not again…

And then it was over. Using the last of her magical energies, Aerith eliminated the threat with a desperate plea to Odin—who miraculously answered promptly for less energy than he usually took in return.

Cloud wiped his bloody lip and helped Aerith up, who then tended to Vincent. He hadn’t quite transformed but there it was, just beneath the surface. His body still felt strange and weak—adrenalin saturated, exhausted and just short of a strange new demon that whispered obscenities in his ears. “How much farther?” Cloud huffed, trying to stop said bleeding.

“We’re close,” was all that Aerith could offer.

“Vincent. Potion,” Cloud ordered as he usually did after battle.

Vincent turned the bad upside-down to show that they were completely out of supplies almost sarcastically.

“Shit…” He checked his PHS. “No reception in here. ShinRa can desecrate holy ground but they can’t build a cell phone tower over it? Figures…”

“It can’t be much further now—look at the clock,” Aerith pointed out.

Sure enough it was pointed strait ahead to a previously unreachable archway. They crossed the bridge the hands made with surprising ease and into a room full of murals.

“The mosaic room…” Aerith mused.

Vincent wondered if he had missed something while he had spoken with Tseng…

Cloud went pale—as if ice were flowing through his veins and not blood. “Where are you Sephiroth?!”

Aerith stiffened and Vincent tensed. He held no supernatural sense for such things like his current party did, but the demon crawling under his skin did, and yanked his eyes to the alter down the narrow hall.

The sight almost made him drop the gun he was carrying. His shock just registered as a brief quiver of disbelief, but the truth was there, sitting in front of him. That face… those eyes… burning like leprosy…

Lucrecia’s son. He was living and breathing proof. Vincent had to stop brooding over it now… and accept the reality.

Sephiroth.

“So cold…” were his words when he finally spoke. “I am always by your side…” Vincent wasn’t sure who he was addressing; Cloud, himself, both of them or maybe just Aerith. Could he know the beauty of his mother? Could he know that he himself, Vincent Valentine… just might be…? “Splendid!” the murderer approved of their shock. “A treasure trove of knowledge…”

“I don’t understand what your saying…” Cloud accused, becoming more and more disoriented. The boy’s brain wasn’t right around the madman—his gestures were jerky and his eyes were cloudy. Vincent crept between the two ex-SOLDIERS and Aerith. Things were going to get ugly…

“Look well.”

“At what?!”

“At that which adds to the knowledge of becoming One with the Planet.” There was an edge in his words and those calm, glowing eyes—an insane edge he was about to cross. “Soon… we will become One…”

Aerith bit her lip, burning with a question she only half knew the answer to. “How do you become One with the Planet?”

Vincent wasn’t listening to the answer. He wasn’t sure if he were staring at himself or Hojo in the maddened soul before him. Just who was it that Lucrecia conceived from? And could he—Vincent Valentine—ever bring himself to kill her baby?

“Injure… the Planet??” Aerith repeated from Sephiroth weakly, going pale.

“Behold the mural. The ultimate destruction magic…” Sephiroth looked Vincent right in the eye with his next word, and it sent a chill down his spine. It took a lot to unnerve him, and this was one of those instances. “Meteor.”

“That’ll never happen!” Cloud shouted as Sephiroth disappeared. What he was referring to—Meteor or some strange enigma boiling in his head—they would never know.

Sephiroth was out to destroy everything. Cloud was freaking out. If he were honest with himself, Vincent saw with his black, selfish little heart that he couldn’t care less for the fate of the Planet. Let the world in which he had lost all faith in perish…

But her…

“Cloud!” Aerith was shouting, shaking the boy, who was laughing maniacally about Black Materia. “Get a hold of yourself!”

“Cloud…” he was saying, calming down. He didn’t even know himself. What a waste… “I’m … Cloud…”

What sort of spell had Sephiroth put him under? It’s not safe here… not without supplies and not without a coherent leader. “Aerith, we should go,” Vincent suggested.

And just like that Cloud’s mind snapped back into place mid-laugh. “Mm? What’s wrong? Is… something wrong?”

He didn’t remember. Not the babbling or the kicking or that sheen in his eye that was disturbingly familiar… He was dangerous. He could hurt her…

Just as Aerith opened her mouth to explain, there was a rumble and then an ominous roar.

“Sephiroth?” Cloud asked.

“Hahahaha…” his voice mocked. “It’s not me…”

The largest monster they’d seen yet angrily burst through the archway from where they came, spitting fire and smoke with furious cries of war and sacrilege.

Knowing a hopeless fight when he saw one, Vincent’s trained eyes darted around, looking for an escape route. Cloud swung away with that enormous nail-bat of his before any plan of action could be formed. No supplies, low on magic, low on energy, no more ammunition… no escape!

Vincent pushed Aerith out of the way without thinking and took a deathblow right in the head. His knees gave out and failed completely on him. Anger… darkness…

I will bring death upon those you could not…!

The demon sprang forth, and Vincent’s recollection of the event ended there.

***

It started with a tingling in his limbs as warmth flooded back into him. He sat up and held his head as a familiar sensation brought him back to his senses. Materia…

“Thank goodness you’re okay!” Aerith cried, throwing her arms around him. Vincent wanted to kiss her but tensed. The others were present. They were just outside the temple, which looked like it was slowly enfolding into itself.

“That was SO COOL Vinnie!!” Yuffie was gushing. “We saw, like, the last half of that battle and you kicked so much ASS! You HAVE to teach me how to do that!”

“Do you EVER shut up, brat?” Cid asked her, cigarette hanging off his rough lips.

“Old fart! Mind your own business!” she shot back.

“What happened?” Vincent asked, standing without Aerith’s help. Oh how he wanted to sweep her off her feet, so grateful that they were both alive. But though her hand lingered, she didn’t initiate. Her call… always her call…

“You don’t remember?” she asked.

“After the dragon was defeated you fell unconscious,” Red XIII explained. “The temple itself is the Black Materia, and the only way to extract it is to sacrifice oneself to solve the puzzles from the inside; to be crushed to death.”

“What…? Is Cloud in there?” Vincent asked dubiously. Not like he cared much for Cloud, but it would be stupid for their leader to throw his life away like that…

Cloud came around the corner. “Reeve’s Cait Sith is. It’s the least he can do after all the shit he put us through.” The temple was now condensed enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand. Even from the top edge of the former site it emitted a dark aura. “Perfect,” Cloud approved, climbing down to retrieve it.

“Does anyone else get a bad feeling about this?” Tifa asked nervously.

Yes, actually, Vincent did. The new demon that identified itself as Hellmasker was still dangerously close to the edge of his consciousness. Something about that last battle had it hovering just below his awareness. It was almost as if he could will it forward if he wished. It whispered omens of betrayal, manipulation… and death.

Sure enough as soon as Cloud had the new Materia in his hands, none other than Sephiroth appeared in a whirl of dark energy.

“Cloud!” half of AVALANCHE called in alarm.

Vincent reached for his gun on reflex. No ammo. Aerith was starting her way down the crumbled edges, for fear of Cloud or the Black Materia he didn’t know. AVALANCHE fanned out, also starting their decent so Cloud wouldn’t have to fight alone. But Cloud wasn’t fighting.

Not in a physical sense anyway. It was obvious he was struggling, but somehow Sephiroth made him turn over the Black Materia they had labored so hard to protect.

“Good boy,” Sephiroth approved.

Aerith was the first to reach the bottom. “Cloud, what are you doing?!!”

She was responded with by a fist in her face, knocking her against the wall. Vincent’s stomach flipped.

“What are you making me do?!” Cloud cried in horror and frustration, just as he laid another blow upon the helpless Cetra.

Vincent’s anger got the best of him. Hellmasker laughed quietly in agreement. It took over because Vincent let it. Hellmasker threw itself to the bottom, landing hard but unharmed before anyone could safely jump. It tore into Cloud savagely.

Get off of her! You have no right!; she’s MINE! You broke her heart! She chose me! And now you’ll SUFFER for your actions, just as Hojo will suffer!

“Vincent!! He didn’t mean it! Vincent!”

“VINCENT!”

“Whoa! What’s going on?!”

“Vince, what the FUCK?!”

“Vinnie, don’t!”

“Pull ‘im off! Get ‘im offa the kid!”

“Vincent I’m sorry… … …”


End Chapter Seven
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Since this story directly involves Aerith, it’s hard to leave out points that involve her, so I tossed a bit of script in. Yeah, true story about the Temple—I stumbled through there once stupidly without an item in the world and had a hell of a time getting out (in that case I missed the feature of save points in FFX…). Getting on to the end as some of you might have guessed, and that makes me sad ;_; But oh well, plot goes on…