Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Immortality ❯ Frozen Nightmare ( Chapter 21 )

 

Chapter 21

 

Frozen Nightmares

 

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“It has been nearly three-years since then…”, Vincent whispers to himself, as he sat on a rocky-shore of a natural cave-spring, surrounded by crystallized-Mako and a giant Mako-crystal sitting in the middle of the spring in front of him, “Lucrecia… I still don't understand why you apologized in your letter to me… I'm the one who sinned…”, he woefully mutters, as he slowly stood up and turns to walk from the cave.

 

He suddenly winces and clutches his gantlet-clad left-arm, collapsing to his knees as pain shot through the limb and the fingers went numb, “Maybe I should try acupuncture to stop the pain and numbness like Yuffie suggested…”, he grinds out from behind his clenched teeth, as he presses down on a pressure-point just above his elbow to force the pain to subside, `But the only location to get it is in Nibelheim…', he thinks, “Looks like I have no choice but to go…”, he groans, as the pain quickly returned.

 

`Why can't I shake this feeling that I've forgotten something in Nibelheim…?', he ponders, as he leaves the darkness of the cave.

 

 

 

 

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Meanwhile…

In Nibelheim…

 

 

 

 

A woman who appeared to be in her late 40's steps out of her house on the far end of the mountain-town, tightening her shawl around her shoulders against the cooling-temperatures of the approaching winter. The sunlight reflects off of her metal-prostatic right-arm and peeking out from underneath the left-sleeve of her tunic were multiple scars, some even crossing over each-other.

 

“Puppy! Come here, Puppy!”, she calls out.

 

An unusually-large wolfish-looking dog with dark autumn-red fur and dark-gold eyes comes running from the direction of the mountains to the woman's side, “There you are, Puppy… Do you want to go into town with me and get some meat for dinner?”, she asks, as she rubs the animal in between it's ears.

 

The creature tilts it's head into the caress before lightly barking in agreement.

 

“Good, let's go Puppy”, the woman smiles, starting to walk down the path towards the town-square.

 

“Oh look, it's Kira and that crazy-mutt of hers…”, a villager whispers to the other.

 

“I wonder what she was thinking when she adopted that thing…”

 

“So long as it doesn't attack the live-stock, there shouldn't be a problem…”

 

The wolf-dog turns it's head towards the two-villagers and glares at them, before returning to look forward with a snort.

 

“Is it just me or did seem like it could understand us…?”

 

“You have got to be kidding me, animals can't possibly comprehend human-language…”

 

 

 

 

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Nibelheim Square…

 

 

 

 

“There you go”, an elderly-woman says, as she massages the pin-holes in his flesh from the acupuncture-treatment, “How does your arm feel now?”

 

“A lot better now, without the painful-numbness”, Vincent replies, as he experimentally flexes his hand.

 

“I just can't get over it…”, she mutters to herself.

 

“Get over what?”

 

“How much you look like a young man who used to live in the mansion 53-years ago”, she answers.

 

“Really…?”, he utters, `Apparently, some of the original residents moved back into town after the Shinra-employees left', he mentally notes.

 

“You're probably his grandson…”, she mulls.

 

“Maybe…”

 

“Thank you for your service, sir”, she bids, “Come back whenever the pain returns”

 

“I'll be sure to”, he nods, before walking towards the center of the square, 'It's amazing how after all this time that's passed, the town still looks the same as it did back then. Despite the fact that Sephiroth burned it to the ground and Shinra rebuilt it 8-years ago…', he thinks.

 

Suddenly a prickling-sensation travels up his spine as his supernatural-senses detects something that didn't feel quite-normal entering the town-square, upon turning to locate the presence and he spots the source of the disturbing-aura, a large wolf-dog creature with dark autumn-red fur standing next to a woman as she spoke with the butcher to negotiate a lower-price on pork-chops.

 

`Is that creature her pet…?!', he mentally questions, observing the woman's complete-comfort with the animal at her side, but the surrounding villagers were extremely uncomfortable by its mere-presence.

 

He was content with leaving the woman and her furry-companion alone, so long as the creature didn't do anything threatening to people or himself until the canine turned its head and laid its gold-eyes onto him, and he hears a slight-whimper escape from its throat at the sight of him.

 

“What's wrong, Puppy?”, the woman asks, hearing the animal's discomfort, but the canine doesn't react to her question and begins to tremble as it starts to back away from her.

 

Vincent watches at the creature continues to slink from his gaze before turning and bolting from the village, towards the mountains causing him to give chase after it, knowing that the mako-monsters of the area had a distinct fear of him and would flee on sight from him.

 

`But why is this one the companion to a human-woman?', he inwardly asks, as he leaves the edge of the village.

 

 

 

 

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Hours Later…

Mt. Nibel, Mountain-Range…

 

 

 

 

 

`Where did that canine go…?', Vincent ponders, shielding his face from the stinging and blinding wind-whipped snow, as he clutches his tattered-cloak closer to his lean-frame and glances around looking for any trace of red-fur in the blizzard.

 

Suddenly he painfully shivers as he grabs his left-arm, the cold-mountain air permeating into his flesh and bones more quickly via his metal-gantlet; he also found his feet had become numb because of the steel-integrated onto & into the leather of his boots, and it was through these three-limbs of his body that coldness and pain begun to spread throughout his frame, even his right-hand was badly shaking.

 

Upon the spreading-coldness from his left-arm reaching his shoulder and chest, his breathing instantly became laborious and pained as his frozen-legs buckled out from underneath him, forcing him to collapse to his knees and dig clawed-digits of his gauntleted-clad hand into the snow-bank, his vision starting to blur.

 

`M-my lung…! It must still be weak from the injuries Hojo caused…', he thinks, as he felt himself beginning to waiver and saw blackness starting to erode the edges of his sight, before he fell forward into the snow.

 

He could hear heavy-steps in the snow approaching his prone-form, but he couldn't force his eyes to open to see who or what was coming towards him, he felt the collar of his cloak being grabbed and himself being pulled onto something soft and furred, and the body beneath the fur was an extremely warm temperature; which immediately penetrated his chilled-body, but he still found himself losing consciousness despite the heat being applied to his figure.

 

The living-breathing radiator carries Vincent through the wind-whipped flurries and into a candle-lit cave completely-shielded from the storm, and drops him onto a pile of animal-furs as the large red-furred wolf-dog he had been chasing trots to the other side of the cave and shakes off the remaining snow and water from its fur, before walking over to a shadowed-corner and its form begins to shift and morph into a humanoid-shape, a hand reaches out from the shadows and grabs an article of clothing made of furs, tugging it on before stepping out of the darkness and towards Vincent's damp-body.

 

The newly-acquired form was that of a female with slightly-matted red-hair that trailed down to the small of her back, the fur-outfit resembled a furry-bikini of modest-design but still revealed a decent-amount of cleavage, her golden-eyes carefully looking over her pursuer's body as she reached him and began to remove his drenched-clothing from his body; hanging the garments onto a rope that spanned the cavern, before tugging a large fur-pelt over his semi-nude body to maintain his dignity.

 

She lightly caresses his cheek with her finger-tips, brushing a strand of hair from his face with a look of disbelief on her face, “I can't believe it…You're alive…”, she whispers, “Vincent…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DemonGirl-Setsuna: Well? What did you think? Please review!

 

Hmm?

I wonder who this could be…

Unfortunately, you'll have to wait to find out!

 

Join me when I post Chapter 22!

 

Catch you readers next time!