Final Fantasy VII: Patiently Waiting

Chapter 4 written by Vincent Noble Valentine...

'Vin vin, Vince, Vinnie, Vincent Valentine! You are SOOOO dead when I get a hold of you!' grumbled a very annoyed Yuffie.

Brooding wasn't exactly a fond characteristic of the aspiring Shinobi, that tedious moment of vast thinking was definetly something Vincent did a lot, well Vincent and Nanaki both really. But really brooding on things seriously wasn't in Yuffie's character at all. She would rather act on instinct; act now and worry about the consequences later. That's Yuffie Kisaragi for you in a nutshell. Other than being overly hyperactive, talkative to the point on where you have to wonder how long a thread of string is before one's patience wears thin and apart from being obnoxiously annoying at times to most, she was decended from the Kisaragi bloodline and thus an aspiring Shinobi in the making.

I believe as the saying goes: 'appearances can be decieving'. It's that sort of saying that makes you think twice about anyone you meet, especially a certain teenage Ninja. Now if a man pulls out a gun and points it directly at your head, there's no deception in that. He either threatens your life or blows your head clean off. Simple right? Either way no outcome from that equation is a positive one. Now simply look at the said equation and replace the man holding a gun at your head and picture it being Yuffie. Sounds different right? Not quite.

Your first instinct is to believe no such teenager would do such a thing, being a girl and all. So you would warm to her fearing no danger from one so young. But don't take anyone lightly. Yuffie wouldn't point a gun at your head and blow it off persay, but she certaintly would rob any stranger blind! To a Materia hunter as well as a thief, in her business if you have something she wants, she'll take it. And it doesn't matter what age or gender you are, even if it was an old woman Yuffie would still rob her without a second thought. As cold as that sounds that's how it goes when your a thief.

But that wasn't important right now, what WAS important was finding a certain vampire and sticking several shuriken up his ass for up and leaving without so much as a goodbye! 3 days ago, when morning came in Cosmo Canyon. Everyone in AVALANCHE came together to board the Highwind one final time to head off to where ever destinations that the respective parties wanted to go. But both Nanaki and Vincent were not present among the remaining crew. Since Cosmo Canyon is where he lived and resided at, the young protector of his tribe simply said his farewells at the Canyon's gate and wished them all good fortune...Vincent was nowhere to be found.

That's what pissed off Yuffie the most as they had all searched high and low for his whereabouts only to come up with nothing other than the gate keeper himself saying he left sometime early in the morning, far too early for anyone sane to be going out into the wilderness. Yuffie had hoped that he would have stayed a bit longer even if it was possibly for the final time that they would all be together as AVALANCHE. But geez, no note or PHS to say where your going Vinnie? Smooth move genius.

Yuffie had said she would hunt him down and bug him to death if he didn't keep in contact and what happens? Not a single peep out of him! Well Yuffie when with revenge in mind seldom never forgot. Like I said, Yuffie acts first and thinks about things later. But what had happened to the others you maybe wondering?

The young shinobi didn't need to think about that one. Sometimes those guys were predictable as Chocobo's mating when it came down to where the rest of them would go.

Cloud and Tifa for the most part had both decided to part ways first. Originally most of the crew had suspected that they would return to Nibelheim, where they lived as children growing up. But returning to that 'Nibelheim' didn't seem so comforting or anything like home for that matter since it was originally burnt down and the townsfolk were murdered by Sephiroth some 5 years ago. In it's place was an exact copy of the former town, rebuilt by the ShinRA to hide all traces of the incident and not a single detail was left untouched. The deceased townsfolk were replaced by actor's hired by ShinRA also to further cover up the incident and to completely deny any knowledge of any occurance happening, namely the town being burnt down the first time.

But no matter how much of a copy it was to both childhood friends, it was no longer deemed worthy as home. The place simply reeked of ShinRA in all it's corruption and all that was left was a hollow memory of how their town used to be. It was better decided by both that they should head to Kalm instead of Nibelheim. It was peaceful enough, they had no ties to the past there and with vast amounts of gil that was seperated between all of them, they had all they needed to start their life anew. Start once again fresh and lay bad memories to rest.

As for Barret well that was a no brainer. Much like his reason for fighting, as he always kept saying it was for the planet. However deep down his reason was for his daughter Marlene and only Marlene. Since the planet was safe now all he had to do was stay by her side and finally be a real father to her, helping her grow up and by giving her a proper education instead of her once serving drinks in Tifa's bar in sector 7. Obviously thanks to Cid once he had dropped off both Cloud and Tifa, Barret picked up his daughter and headed for a new destination, his former home of Coral. It wasn't much to look at after all the years of ShinRA had with it, destroying the former town and the lives of most of it's residents but to coal miners like Barret it was still home.

Hopefully with time and effort Coral could return to it's once former surroundings and with Barret there to help put things right, maybe in time things will be as they once were. As boring and as touching that sounded to Yuffie she could sympathezie to oversized man. She too once had her hometown destroyed somewhat and taken over by ShinRA so it was only natural to her that what Barret was doing sounded right. After all she was trying to do the same thing: collect enough rare materia and restore Wutai to it's once former wealth and glory.

Then there was the matter of what Cid wanted to do. By joining AVALANCHE he had somewhat achieved his dreams and thus far only once travelled into outerspace. Something he once doubted he could never do since the ShinRA had lost all interest in the Outer Space project since they found gathering Mako to be far more resourceful and profitable for that matter. Many could debate on what the reason for Cid's fighting was as he only ever seemed to live for his dreams. But he had already achieved that goal some months back when Cid boarded the Rocket in his home town on what seemed like a 'suicide mission' to retrieve the Huge Materia that was to be used to try and destroy Meteor.

That plan failed however but at least he did get to see the stars up close and finally come to terms to the mistakes of the past he made against Shera. Shera was a scientist that valued Cid's dream as much as he did and was eager as anyone to help forfill his dreams to venture into outerspace. They weren't married but lived together and people can't really say that the company they shared was exactly 'intimate'. Especially after Shera had destroyed Cid's dream the first time. A long time ago he had to choose on going into space or saving Shera's life. A decision that cost his dreams but would have equally cost him more than he would have realized if he had left and let her die.

She was always concerned for him and always wanted to make sure that his journey was a safe one, which is why she chose to check everything several times over. Gas tank number 8 was a firm reminder of her dedication. The results she tested on it were unsatisfactory and even though Cid had wanted her to be more quicker and efficent she had refused to leave the chamber until she was sure it was safe, even if the launch would have cost her life. But when the Rocket launched and they retrieved the Huge Materia, they were about to leave when gas chamber number 8 exploded, causing the shattered debris to land on Cid, trapping him. It was then that the foul mouthed pilot realized that Shera was right and he was wrong after all these years for giving her so much verbal abuse.

Since then things between Cid and Shera had lightened somewhat. He hardly ever swore at her or berated her for anything. He still swore occassionally as he alway did but never to her face ever again. The chain smoking man knew that she deserved much better treatment then that. Evidently however it was no secret that when everyone was dropped off to their respective destinations that he would return to Rocket Town to reconcile with her somewhat. The Highwind was busted up slightly and still needed several major repairs before it was ship worthy again and if anything Cid would probably ask for his number 1 mechanic to help him repair it and to make doubly sure that everything was in working order. He didn't need anymore fuck up's, especially like last time.

Yuffie chuckled shaking her head lightly. Cid maybe be somewhat tempermental and foul mouthed but everyone on the team wasn't as dense as he thought they were, If anything Cid was probably at home right now trying to make 'babies' with Shera. 'Grossness'

As for Cait Sith or Reeve, the former ShinRA employee, the only member of it's faction that was uncorrupted. He had decided to do what he did best: help the people. He loved all of humanity and wanted nothing more than to set right the wrongs his former company had once caused the people. Although ShinRA was indeed dead and gone he was pretty much the soul survivor of that once billion dollar company. So being the only member left living naturally he would inherit what was left of the mass wealth presumedly if there was that much left and would set out to give back to the people what ShinRA had taken in the first place.

But what of Yuffie? What of her. She wasn't as predictable as the rest of them and not even I would dare want to know what scheming thoughts ravage freely in her twisted yet teenage mind. She had refused to go straight home to Wutai almost immediately, which had quirked quite a few eyebrows from some. Granted she had all the materia she needed to help her home town, what more could she possibly want out of life if her mission was completed? With some brief explanations and trying not to barf all over the deck of the Highwind, she explained that returning to Wutai right now and becoming 'Lady Kirsagai' was sooo not becoming of her. She was only 17 and she hadn't robbed enough people yet and she certainly didn't like the idea of Godo hand picking the man that would become Yuffie's husband.

The thought of that definetly made Yuffie want to be sick, especially if Godo picked anyone that resembled anything like Don Corneo!

So instead of being dropped off at her home town, Yuffie instead requested to be dropped off at Rocket Town, which further raised more eyebrows in her direction. The only explanation she gave to that was that she had other business to take care of and wouldn't mind the long trip as that would give her enough time to throw up all over the Highwind.

The idea of that didn't settle too well for Cid as he profusely swore in her direction, glaring evilly while she in return just winked at him, sticking out her tongue before making urging noises to signal that she was going to be sick. A nice little trick but it had Yuffie in hysterics as Cid continued to glare at her with daggers in his eyes as he threatened time and time again that if she was going to be sick even ONCE then he'd shove the Venus Gospel so far up her ass, then she'd be shittin materia orbs for life.

Since then Yuffie had been alone. She was dropped off the Highwind and she said her goodbye's before mounting her Gold Chocobo and started to trott off south from Rocket Town. It was no small wonder on how Yuffie had kept her sanity especially when the only conversation she could get was a 'Wark!' out of her pet. But still it did little to sooth her boiling anger. That other business that she explained briefly was finding Vincent Valentine and gutting him to death with her Conformer for not saying goodbye. True it hurt a little and she did kinda consider him more than just a friend, something she wouldn't openly admit to the gothic gunman. But friends don't just up and leave without saying goodbye! That was just wrong in her books.

But finding him shouldn't be too hard, after all he only had 2 places he could go too. The waterfall where his lady friend lucrecia was residing at and Nibelheim where he claimed that he would burn the ShinRA mansion to the ground. So since Nibelheim was the closest of the 2 locations, she would search for him first there and if he was nowhere to be seen then the last place she hoped to find him is at the waterfall. And if not there...well then she was screwed.

Nibelheim hadn't changed much as Vincent had remembered it. The town now only a shadow of it's former self, looked untouched as it did 30 years ago. Yes, the town itself just seemed ageless and untouched by time, much like the man in red and black walking through it. Ironic is it not? He himself thought that he was the only one unaffected by the wheels of time and yet this one place had remained as it always was. But it was far more ironic when Vincent easily discovered, thanks to his heightened senses that town was indeed now an abandoned one.

The actors who were formerly paid by the ShinRA to continue the 'hush hush' cover up had simply up and left the now deserted town when they discovered that ShinRA was dead and gone or probably more important to them when they discovered that their pay checks, however meager they were,.were often arriving late and the volumes of mail were becoming few and far between until all postage came too a full stop. Much to the disgruntlement of many of the actors before they packed their belongings, leaving Nibelheim to become nothing more than a 'Ghost town'.

But it suited Vincent better this way anyhow. He didn't need all the commotion and angst of all the screaming residents if he was going to burn the ShinRA mansion down anyway. He stops briefly at the mansion gates, as memories enter his line of vision as he watched slowly events of the past unfold once more, taking in the sights of when he first entered the town with the scientists put under his charge, to the times he had enjoying walking around Nibelheim with Lucrecia, as they idly chatted away. Enjoying one another's company. If anything what he was seeing again thru his eyes alone could be deemed possible as some of the only good memories that he had thus far in his hellish life. Memories that would continue to linger and never to leave, forever etched in memory.

The vision's fade and time returns to normal for Vincent as he looks towards the mansion now as the sound of thunder cackled in the distant, sounding omnious and somewhat daring the ex-Turk to enter the dark confines of the dreaded mansion. Vincent never walked from a single challenge in his life and he certainly wasn't going to back out from doing what he deemed neccessary. This mansion had been here far too long and if it remained, the secrets harbouring deep inside could still bring misery and misfortune to other's if they remained here. Something Vincent would remedy shortly.

The inside of the mansion was different the outside. It was fairly spaceous and looked quite like an old victorian style home. However much dust and cobwebs had accumlated over the past 3 decades, leaving the place looking quite withered and covered in filth. Vincent not giving a spare thought for what would seem touching scenery, advances upwards towards the stairs, scenes from his past springing up every now and then as he moved upwards and onwards. It is often said that 'the past will come to bite you in the ass' but Vincent was simply reliving it as if looking through the eyes of another. Seeing all the scenes unfold and move on with every step he took, already knowing the outcome to each and every scene as if it was a stage act.

It was as if the mansion itself knew what the ex-Turk was here for in the first place and was simply playing his past for him one final time before it would be reduced to ashes. But that did not matter. The past was and is the past, it's already happened and can't be changed regardless of how many times we've looked it over and no matter how many 'what if?' scenario's we've played over and over in our heads, what if's are mearly speculation. Thing's that both the mind and heart desire to take place, that could have taken place, but never can come to be.

The past has already been played out, it is only the future that is unwritten.

15 minutes later and with the disposal of a few monsters, the silent gunman was in the murky halls far below the mansion. A dark place left only to small rats and left over human bones, a place where monsters ran more freely down here. But still not much of a threat to one as experienced as Vincent. Taking care of pests like these was like calling the exterminator to take care of some nasty cockroaches infesting in your bathroom. Easily disposable and easily taken care of in both cases. In either case it wasn't long before he was inside the hidden library, to where all of Hojo's twisted experiments had taken place. From where Lucreica had been ejected with the Jenova cells, deep within the worm where her baby was slowly growing. To where he had shot and killed Vincent himself and then dragged his lifeless corpse over to the examination table, to where blood staines still remain even after 3 decades on where Hojo experimented on Vincent, literally tearing off his left arm mercilessly and replacing it now with his still fashioned prosthetic arm.

And not even long after that, he was experimented on further with the infusion of mako and Jenova's cells, granting him ungodly powers of demons. Hojo had intended for such a gift to further strip Vincent of his humanity as well as to remind him of his failure to save Lucrecia. But by granting him such a gift it only further cemented Hojo's death warrent as he used those very same powers to end his twisted life.

The last to possibly ever come into Hojo's clutches were none other than Zack and Cloud Strife. For 5 years they were hidden away in this very same lab and were experimented on by the madman. To Cloud's knowledge as he remembers it, Zack seemed unaffected by the experiments unlike himself since the spikey haired youth was to be nothing more than a failed Sephiroth clone, one never given a number. Perhaps if Zack were alive today, who knows how things could have turned out if he were still among the living. But then again that's another 'what if', who knows how anything could have turned out if he lived. Better? Worse? It's hard to say really...

Scowering the room Vincent eye's the shelves of books with eyes of a hawk, going from label to label before picking out anything of interest from literature to science and then once done with raiding for his own personal use, he grabs all writings, notes, any and all forms of Hojo's twisted work and litter's it all in one pile before clutching a green materia orb and with a whisper casts fire2 burning all Hojo's precious work to cinders in seconds. But Vincent wasn't done there, he only just started. From what erputed in one single spell came multiple ones as fire2 and 3's cascaded all around the basement library destroying everything within Vincent's wrath and range. Glass jars, test tubes, needles of all shapes and sizes exploded all over the place, glass shattering everywhere. Hell had come to the Shinra Mansion and Vincent had every intention of not stopping here.

Satisfied that basement library was burning brightly, reducing everything to dust. He turns to the examination table frowning, it was the only thing he had left deliberately untouched by flames as he brought his golden claw high above his head and with one swift movement he brought it down on the table itself, shattering the wood easily into a million pieces as bits and shards flew all over the place. Satisfied the ever emotionless gunman turned from the library never to look back on it again as it roared and blazed away, everything coated and lathered in flames that would show no mercy to anything within the burning room.

Making his way back up to the stairwell and with a simple hand gesture to his right without even looking, a spell was cast from the inside. Erupting with an explosion, the door was thrown off its hinges, smashing into the wall as Vincent's previous 'living quarters' had become nothing more than left over rubble and dust thanks to Flare spell. That coffin was just another reminder of his hellish past and he needed it not as it only harboured his guilt and sorrow, such things for a man who had sought redemption and found it.

With all the anger and frustration he could bring forth every single place within the mansion was covered in destruction and flames as the once proud victorian but corrupted house went up in flames. This was Vincent's final act of revenge against Hojo, his final act towards redemption and peace as he watched the flames light up the night sky, making the whole scene seem somewhat like a spectacle, becoming more impressive as it was exotic as the flames continued to roar higher into the sky.

Vincent alone had caused this and beared witness to it all. As fitting as his revenge was and with it being somewhat beautiful to watch it wasnt enough, he had to make permanantly sure that nothing else would remain, not even a scrap of evidence could be allowed to linger! And with a final gesture he grasps onto a reb summoning orb and from a portal of lightening and dark clouds soars the king of all dragons Bahumut. And with the simplest of gestures the great dragon god fire's a single Mega Flare blast, reducing anything and everything within his range of firing.

The ShinRA mansion that was just a few minutes ago standing almost proudly covered in flames was now nothing more than a mere crater littered in smoke and ash.

Exhausted and down on one knee now, Vincent was breathing hard as he tried to regain his wits and strength to stand before the sound of soft feet moving fast behind him were approaching.

"There you fucking are!"

Author's note: A little dramatic no? But I had to put a lot of time and effort into this chapter as I felt Vincent harboured a lot of memories and frustration to this place. But since it was demanded quite a bit I made this chapter longer also. Anyway enjoy and don't forget to leave a review to tell me what you think!

Recommended mp3 of the day: Creed- My Sacrifice

Signed Vincent Noble Valentine...