This is one of the best stories of final fantasy 7 i have seen...only thing bad about it is that they called Red XIII a cat.
“I think,” Vincent Valentine said glumly, spinning the Cerberus into its holster, “therefore, I am depressed.”
The smoldering corpse beside him seemed to echo his thoughts. It was rather futile, his existence, after everything was said and done. His internal powers kept him from dying, and his external skills kept him from being killed, and his own common sense kept him from killing himself. He was… he cocked his head to the side, figuring it out again… ah, yes. He was five-hundred fifty-seven years old. It was five hundred years ago that he and Cloud and the others (may their souls rest in peace) had saved the world.
What, now that he had done all of that, could he do but die?
There was a fizz. Another piece of the monster popped away from existence. This new ammunition that he had found was rather interesting. Each piece of it came with a core of fire materia, and, once imbedded in a being, it would burn the flesh from the poor creature. Much like him—he had been imbedded with power, and now, every time he used it, he destroyed a bit of the world, and he was slowly burning it away… his life, the world.
Nanaki.
Vincent looked up into the sky, unsure of where the thought had come from. Possibly, it was the Lifestream, once again interfering with his thoughts. It had been doing that a lot, lately (namely, the past forty years).
But Nanaki. His only remaining partner. His only partner, that is, besides his four other forms: the Galian Beast, Death Gigas, Hellmasker, and Chaos. He wondered if he was going insane, that he would talk to four persons, all a part of him, all separate from him. Each was a strange and intelligent persona in its own way.
Which one was trying to tell him something?
He pulled his cloak about himself. Here, hiding in the glaciers surrounding the North Cave, he was always near the planet, far away from the people. My, my, my, how they had advanced.
There was almost no war. There was almost no struggling. And yet… and yet… Shin-Ra was dead, but other mega-conglomerations had sprung up, and they waged a cold war for control. It was… sad, to think that all they had struggled for had, in the end, reverted to what had caused the distinct wars of five centuries past.
Nanaki.
Again, unprompted, the thought nuzzled its way into the fore of his consciousness. He sighed, and his now-knee-length black hair fluttered under his cloak as he shook his head, agitated at himself. “Too much time thinking,” he said, listening to his voice cling to the walls before dropping in crystal drops of watery dew.
“Too much time thinking, for what?”
Vincent looked at his reflection. One of many. This one, however, was Hellmasker. The leering, lipless grin was punctuated by the lidless eyes and lisping voice. It was his voice, but only if he had chosen to expose his throat to extreme cold for an extreme period of time. The black hair shuddered into fragmented place in the reflection. “Too much time… why not end it?” Hellmasker asked.
“My life is not my own to end,” Vincent replied, looking away now that he had identified the speaker.
“But what do you hold on to? Hmmm?” the face leered, but didn’t jeer. “An empty husk of life, one which you don’t even like yourself.”
“My life is not my own,” Vincent replied.
“Says who?”
“Says I,” Vincent answered, shrugging off his internal voice. “I gave my life to save the planet, and I give it still.”
“You save it from what, though?” Hellmasker persisted.
“From me.”
Hellmasker fell silent.
It was true. Vincent had given what was his heartbeat to save the planet. None of them noticed, none of the others, but he had, after so many years and torturous events, died at North Cave. Only his determination to preserve his friends had kept him from his inevitable sojourn to the Lifestream. And now, half millennia later, he was still trying to preserve his friends.
But while he stayed alive, the forces inside of him stayed harnessed, with his body as the shelter, shield, and cage for the four destructive beings. If he were to die, they would be released, and, like the ammunition, they would slowly but surely see to the destruction of the world.
Nanaki.
He violently shoved the thought out of his head, mixing the motion with a turning of his head as he sought the source of the footsteps he had heard.
“It’s you.”
“It’s all of you.” The Snow Witch made her languid way into the cave, trailing her cold lavender hair behind her. She wore nothing save for a modest bikini of wolf fur, and that, against her pallid white skin, made her seem naked regardless.
“What do you desire, Nimme?” Vincent asked, putting light contempt in his voice, but unable to hold the anger long enough to see it through.
The Snow Witch stopped respectfully at the mouth of the cave. “I felt heat in here.”
“A monster attacked; I defended myself.” Vincent moved his cloak to reveal the still-smoldering corpse.
Nimme nodded. “You do smell lovely,” she said, slinking her way over to him with her most seductive smile on. “You always do when you kill something.”
Vincent stared her in the eyes, not for a moment buying her seduction. She had tried, several other times, and found a full clip of Death Penalty ammo in her gut for her efforts. Now, she kept it casual.
Hellmasker shrugged in a reflection, reaching out in mimicry of stroking her bare leg. Vincent ignored him, too. It was his more uninhibited side in Hellmasker.
Nimme stepped inside of Vincent’s personal distance (namely, pressing her cold body against his) and reached up to stroke his neck. “You always seem so cold to me.”
“For a reason,” Vincent said, not giving her the pleasure of seeing him flinch.
“I’d have thought that you gave up on that b***h by now,” the Snow Witch countered, reaching closer to kiss him.
She actually did flinch as the red-hot round passed through her chest. She stepped back, looking at the triple mark in her chest. “Oh, my. That is the way to a girl’s heart.” She gave a mock tormented look to Vincent.
Hellmasker laughed a little. “It wasn’t there, anyways.”
“I know. But do you know this?” She stepped in close again, not afraid of his gun, nor of his anger as she whispered in his ear, “Lucrecia. Is. Dead.”
Another round pierced her belly. She took a step back, looking annoyed. “Well, I guess I’ll keep my sexiness to myself, then.”
“Thank you,” Vincent said, glaring at Hellmasker’s ornery reflection.
Nimme had been a constant visitor since he had immigrated to these climes. She would play at seduction, but, when all was said and done, she was Vincent’s only friend out here, if she could be called a friend.
“Why don’t you come out and play with me,” she cooed. “We’ll make the snow fall, and there will be diamonds, and there will be sheets of snow to play in…” There was a pause as he turned a solid look her way, “but you don’t look happy enough for that,” she finished, dropping her hands rejectedly at her side.
“Nanaki.”
“Who?”
Vincent mentally slapped himself. How had it escaped his lips?
Nimme nodded, smiling secretively. “Your friend in Cosmo Canyon. And how is that big kitty doing? Is he calling you?”
“I don’t know,” Vincent replied truthfully. “I just can’t stop thinking about him today.”
“Oh,” the Snow Witch said, looking unwanted as she rubbed her white hands down her equally white… Vincent didn’t watch. “That explains your attitude towards me.”
Vincent didn’t waste the ammo this time. “What do you want?”
“I’ve heard the glacier speaking to me,” she said. “It talks of secrets, of trysts, of lovers and killers. But mostly, it talks of you.” She walked in a careful circle around him, wary of the burnt corpse before she reached out to place a hand on the wall.
The cave was suddenly a sheen of mirrors, but the only reflections were Nimme, a thousand jagged times reflected, and Vincent, reflected five times. There was the Galian Beast, with fire in his eyes and violence in his soul. Beside him was Chaos, a being whose very existence was dangerous to the planet, much less his cold desire to see life end. There was Hellmasker, leering and revving his chainsaw. And there was Death Gigas, the silent giant filled with power but not speech. And, Vincent noted, there was his reflection as himself.
Nimme talked again. “You have been feeling cold inside of yourself. And you slay the beasts of the glacier in an attempt to awaken your heart. But you fail. And each time you fail, you slay more. But your friend, Nanaki, searches for you. And the longer he searches, the more likely he is to get lost here. Perhaps if he dies,” she tilted her head, “you will feel again?”
Vincent’s violet eyes glared through her. “He will not die.”
“Not by any beast’s hand, for certain,” Nimme agreed, “but the glacier is another matter. What if the glacier would decide to kill him? What would you do then?”
“You wouldn’t!” Vincent shouted quietly.
“No,” Nimme responded sadly, “but the glacier would.”
Vincent turned to leave. But he couldn’t. “Let me go.”
“I am not holding you back.” Nimme put her hand down from the ice wall, but the spell did not break. She lifted an accusing finger to him. “You are holding back yourself.”
Vincent looked. His reflections in the ice were holding on to him. Though he turned and fought, he did not move. “Stop your witchcraft now!” he shouted, pulling at his restraining body.
“She isn’t holding you,” he heard Chaos say. “We are.”
“Why?”
“Nanaki would have wanted this.” Chaos narrowed his eyes. “Why do you think he came for you?”
Vincent stopped struggling. “What do you mean?”
“Where have you been the past six nights?” Galian Beast asked, his voice rumbling and shaking the cave.
“Asleep, here.” Vincent narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his reflections. “Haven’t I?”
“Yes,” Chaos said. “You have been. But I… I have been speaking with Nanaki.”
Nanaki.
“You knew he would come today.”
“Your stupor,” Hellmasker said, “required extreme action. So, we acted extremely.”
Death Gigas cuffed Vincent’s reflection over the head, and he saw stars.
Chaos spoke up again. “We want you to die, but you simply refuse to. What else did you think we could do?”
Vincent struggled again.
“Calm down,” Galian Beast said, holding him firmly. “Not expressly for our own means.” The Beast snarled a disgusted noise. “You need to learn to die if you’re ever going to live with yourself.”
“If I die, you break loose.” Vincent struggled again.
“And we want that,” Hellmasker said, “but not at the expense of your death.”
Vincent stopped, and looked at his reflections.
Nimme, off to the side, stepped forward, and draped herself on Vincent’s shoulder. “You, young lover, have become very depressing. You no longer argue with me. You don’t leave the glacier much at all any more. You don’t even have the decency to shoot me so that my clothes fall off.” She ignored Hellmasker’s lecherous laugh and Chaos’ rolled eyes, instead looking into Vincent’s, saying, “You aren’t alive any more. And I just can’t stand it.”
“I have nothing more to live for.”
“But your cat friend does,” she retorted. “He even found himself a mate, unlike you. Even though I basically lay myself in front of you, you don’t bother with me.”
“You don’t love me,” Vincent said, frowning at her.
“No,” she answered, “But I am alone.” She took a step back. “And so are you.”
“He has us,” Galian Beast said.
“But who do I have?” Nimme said to him. “I had no one… until you.”
Vincent said nothing, but it was not for emotions that he held his tongue.
“You actually talked to me,” Nimme said. “And I always thought that it was because you were lonely out here. But I saw your counterparts, here,” she pointed to the reflections, “and I realized that that wasn’t the problem. Then I thought that you might actually like me.” She pointed to her chest, where the holes had healed along side unnoticeable other scars. “You shot that idea out of the sky. So, why did you talk to me?”
Nanaki.
“Yes. Your friend Nanaki. He had warned you about your solitude, that it was just another way of trying to repent of something that wasn’t your fault, that if you just went back to sleep again, you would die in another way. And now,” Nimme said, “he came here to see that you weren’t making that mistake.”
“I’ve been living.”
“But you’ve been dead,” Chaos said, emerging with a cruel and precise observation. “You keep thinking, ‘what else is there for me but to die?’ But you don’t die. You’re too lazy to die. Too afraid of what your death might mean. You’re already DEAD!”
The loud accusation rang in Vincent’s head. He looked at Nimme, then at his reflections. Each was looking back at him. They were living. Nimme risked her safety to join him in his warm cloister. Chaos had been taking nightly ventures to talk to Nanaki, daring Vincent’s knowledge with each tidbit. Hellmasker had been stalking through his dreams, remembering days of yore when he had been powerful in battle, even fighting beside the AVALANCHE crew. Galian Beast had emerged once or twice, to feast on lesser beings or to dare the heights of the mountain. Even Death Gigas dared to come forth, venting his unrest to the glacier. All of them had been living, or reaching for something, save for him.
And now, Nanaki was here, because he had not lived.
Nanaki.
Vincent hung his head. It was sudden, but the thought, after five hundred years, had finally occurred to him: he had lost his life over the years, and had been just a shambling corpse, not unlike the one in the corner of the cave, just sitting and waiting, until a sudden round of different ammunition had caused him to die.
His mind went back.
During the years after their adventure, all of the others had kept in as close contact as they could around matters of business and state. As some had died, the survivors had grown closer. Until only he and Nanaki were left. And then, Vincent had retreated away from his friend and away from his reputation, to live in the glacier, where the cold made him forget what pain was. And it was the pain of dying which he wanted to forget.
But it was the pain of living which he had forgotten.
Nanaki.
But the large cat had made a life, it seemed. So, why did Vincent himself insist on dying so slowly?
He looked, inadvertently, into Death Gigas’ eyes, and he saw the answer.
A part of the departed AVALANCHE members had remained with him. Yuffie’s carefreeness showed a bit in Hellmasker’s unconstrained manner of acting. Tifa, frank and understanding and to the point, was living in Chaos. Barret’s blunt but warm persona was there in the Galian Beast. And, there, silent but powerful in presence, was Cloud, in Death Gigas.
He didn’t want them to die.
“But we all have to die,” Nimme said, and Vincent looked at her, remembering another thoughtful if strange character. “We all have to die. When you come to grips with that, then, you’ll live again.”
Vincent was taken aback. “Aeris?”
“No, you sexy nimrod,” Nimme said, suddenly herself again, “I’m the Snow Witch.”
Vincent stopped his struggling completely, and his counterparts released their holds. He didn’t raise his eyes to look at any of them. “Nanaki would be ashamed to learn how I turned out.”
“You’re a damn fool,” Galian Beast rumbled, “if you think he’ll be proud of you.”
“But you have some time, still,” Chaos said, “to find him and show him otherwise.”
“Yeah, get your rear in gear,” Hellmasker chuckled, “before it’s too cold to go outside.”
Vincent looked at Death Gigas. “I’m still not alive.”
Gigas shook his head disdainfully, then placed his hand on Vincent’s shoulder, just like Cloud used to, and nodded.
“But Nanaki is.”
Nanaki.
“And it’s getting cold out there.” Nimme motioned to the mouth of the cave. “I’m not sure where he is right now.”
Echoes were the first things that came to his ears. Drips, and crackles.
Next was warmth.
Then cold.
Then air. Crisp air. And… meat.
He cracked open his good eye.
Meat. It was cooking.
He was too tired to lick his chops. But he did salivate some.
And he smelled… hair. Black hair, he saw.
Tired.
He slept.
Vincent kept the fire going, even though Nimme had to stay outside of the cave. Nanaki was slowly recovering. He had been lost in the cold for a full day before Vincent had found him. Nimme had helped find him, but had kept her distance after that, uncomfortable in the presence of the cat’s flaming tail.
He looked at his reflections again. They were all just him, this time, but there was no denying that he saw the other four inside of himself. He didn’t want them to die, but all that that was doing to fulfill that meager wish was keeping him from knowing peace.
He dwelled on that.
“Is any of that meat for me?”
Vincent didn’t immediately react, instead finishing his bite of food before answering, “You need water first.”
The cat nodded, and his unfrozen fur rustled. He lapped at the pool of water that Vincent had dug near his head.
Vincent watched, waiting.
When Nanaki finished, he opened his good eye and looked at Vincent. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than you,” Vincent answered back. “I’m not the one who was caught in the snow for a full day.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Vincent thought about his answer. “I’m not living. But, I’m willing to try.”
Nanaki nodded, falling back asleep.
The large cat tore another chunk of meat off of the bone, sharking it down. Vincent passed him another leg of meat. “Your strength is returning?”
Nanaki nodded. “I’m noticing that you are looking more alive, as well.”
“Your conversations have been…” Vincent searched for an appropriate word, “…invigorating.”
“Humph,” Nanaki responded, “I’m likely the only company you’ve had in a while.”
Vincent just smiled to himself.
“You’ll come with me, then?”
Vincent nodded. “I’ll finish a few other matters, and I’ll be with you shortly.”
Nanaki nodded and padded off into the woods, following the directions Vincent had given him to get to Icicle Town.
Vincent, meanwhile, went back into his cave.
His reflections were his own. Save for one. “Nimme.”
The Snow Witch slinked up to him. This time, though, Vincent didn’t shower her with anger. She noticed this immediately. “What? Don’t want to leave?”
“No, I do,” Vincent replied. “I just thought I’d give you a parting gift or two.”
“Like what?”
Three shots pierced her body.
“Those,” Vincent said, spinning the Cerberus back into its holster, “were for your insults of Lucrecia.”
Nimme opened her mouth to protest.
Vincent kissed it.
Nimme was caught completely by surprise. It took her a few seconds to decide to lean in and enjoy it.
It was nice.
Vincent slowly broke away. “I was alone with myself, and you came to talk to me.”
“You came first.”
“To die,” Vincent responded. “You made me live again.”
She huffed. “And it only took five hundred years.”
“Yes,” Vincent replied. “Thanks for trying that long.” He turned to walk away.
“No more kisses?” Nimme asked, her voice cracking a little.
“No,” Vincent said, looking over his shoulder to see her. “You’ve got to find a life of your own now.”
Nimme nodded. Tears froze on her cheek as her friend left.
The canyon was deep, and long. Dusty, too.
The dust rose underneath his paws as he lightly ran on, knowing that it was only a brief distance more.
His two sons ran behind him. They were unmarked, unscarred, and they made him proud.
Nanaki saw the wall, now. He put on a small burst of speed, running up to it as swiftly as he could. He jumped onto one ledge, then another, then another. He heard his sons’ smaller pattering paws touching and pushing off of the ledges as they followed as quickly as they could.
He waited for them at the top. When they finally got there, he led them to the edge of the cliff.
There was Midgar.
He gave a roar, a greeting to it. It had been covered in plants over the years of a lack of population. No one wanted to live there, so it remained a suiting memorial to the past. He could make out the Shin-Ra building complex, and the Sister Ray was plain to see, even through the vines.
It was a relic of the past, but it was his past.
Nanaki sat back on his haunches as his sons panned out to the sides to see the mythical city from different angles. Their chattering reminded him so much of listening to the children in Midgar.
He looked out over the city, then leaned forward and lay down, his head in his paws, just on the ledge. “I see that you also came to pay your respects.”
From the ledge below, Vincent nodded. His cloak was still. He said, “I miss them all.”
Nanaki agreed. “They were… they were our friends.”
“How much longer do you suppose you’ll live?” Vincent asked plainly, not taking his eyes from the city.
“I don’t know,” Nanaki replied. “They say that my heart could burst at any time.”
Vincent nodded.
There was silence between them.
“Five hundred years ago,” Vincent said a few minutes later, “I died at North Cave. My body was unable to take further damage from Mako poisoning, and it died. I kept alive only because of the Mako poisoning, and even now, I have no pulse.”
“Hardly surprising,” Nanaki said offhandedly. “You were the most unique of us.”
“Yes,” Vincent said, not at all fazed by the red cat’s blunt answer. “But I’m still overdue for death.”
“Before you go,” Nanaki said, closing his eyes, “tell me this: why did you—“
His heart burst at that moment. He died without pain. His sons would find and mourn him later.
Vincent heard the question, though. The whole question. “I stayed alive,” Vincent said, closing his own eyes, “because I was afraid of dying.” His body began to shimmer, going through the primary stages of Lifestream absorption. “I was afraid of losing everyone. But I lost them anyways. I think…” he let his head nod to his chin, “I think that I’m willing to let them go now.”
Chaos crept away from his body, floating in the air and watching Vincent. Galian Beast crawled onto the ledge above. Death Gigas stood beside him. Hellmasker hung from the ledge. All watched Vincent.
He finished speaking. “I guess it was never my choice. Death happens.”
And it did.
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