Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Sins of Two Fathers ❯ Chapter 8 ( Chapter 8 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

"The Sins of Two Fathers" and the general overall concept of "The Sins of Two Fathers" is completely copyright Orin Drake 1999-2003, as are the character Kyrie Leonhart and Rodger Kinneas. The characters Seifer Almasy, Squall Leonhart, Quistis Trepe, Ellone (Leonhart?), Laguna Loire, Irvine Kinneas, Selphie Timett, Rinoa "The Great Big Bitch" Heartily (biased? me?), Sephiroth and Cloud Strife are copyright Squaresoft, as are the terms SeeD, gunblade, Trabia Garden, Griever, and probably a lot of other stuff I forgot to mention. Hell, if you played the game, you know. Enough said. Kyrie and Rodger are mine, the rest are not.
Background: To be completely honest, I had no idea this was going to turn into a serious story. All I started writing was as a free-for-all squickfic yaoi fan fantasy, but it got so out of my control that the characters are actually... endearing. What have I done?! Ah well. Lesse, there's a real obvious homosexual relationship, but they don't really do anything in this chapter, so... oh, there's language. You know me, I like my nasty language, so look out. It's innuendo city in this chapter, though. Spooky.

They wandered from room to room of the second floor separately, starting off from either end and meeting in the middle. While they were both quite convinced that Sephiroth was nowhere to be seen, they both held their weapons closely. One can never be too careful with an unpredictable psychopath on the loose.
Lucky for vacationers, there apparently hadn't been many people staying at this particular inn. Kyrie only discovered one body, decapitated, laying across a writing desk with blood and ink splattered across a half finished novella. All the same, it was disturbing. He'd obviously not seen it coming, and from the look on his face (she accidentally discovered on the way out), hadn't felt a thing.
How very odd, she found that. She'd pictured Sephiroth as a major sadist for obvious reasons. The idea that he'd just go around hacking people to bits in a very straight-forward manner was... odd. Not that there was anything sane about the man, but... something wasn't quite right about that. In a number of ways.
Setting that thought aside for the time being, she continued to search the rooms--drawers, closets, even under matresses--for anything useful. Mostly a cell phone. Hell, a phone would be nice. None of the rooms had it. Which possibly meant the front desk didn't either.
Meeting in the middle of the hallway, she found an equally confused Cloud Strife. "Two bodies. Both decapitated."
She nodded. "Only one. He was writing a book when it happened."
"Seph was never one for the arts." Cloud tried to lighten the mood a little... and didn't exactly succeed. "I never knew what the hell he was thinking before... but now, it's just weird."
To put it extremely lightly. She responded in her head. "Better check downstairs for a phone or something."
Agreeing, he followed her down the stairs. Once again they split up, rummaging through the many staff rooms to see what they could find. Again, there were only a few scattered bodies looking like they were in the middle of doing their daily chores. Even the lady and the front desk still had her hand half poised to take a reservation.
Kyrie shuddered at that sight. It was a little too eerie. But there was really no time to stay on that line of thought. Carefully, she flopped the body into a chair and started going through all of the drawers. Dammit. Weren't people who ran touristy places (as this appeared to be from the set-up, anyway) supposed to be prepared for emergencies? Certainly they never could have planned a raging psycho chopping off heads, but... it should have been considered.
Frustrated, she simply pulled all of the drawers completely out and looked for some sort of emergency device. No such luck. Not in the coat closet, either. No one had a cell phone, a beeper, or any other sort of anything useful. She even went into the employee rest room. (Point of interest: no one was dead in there.)
Walking out, she saw Cloud Strife surveying the mess she'd made before announcing his findings. "No communication devices. At all."
She sighed, an idea finally passing over her mind. "We must be somewhere around Winhill, then. The area prides itself on being completely 'old fashioned'."
"Well... bites for us."
She pulled a small device out of her pocket and held it to the window. Obviously, she got no response. "Solar powered. It'll take a while."
He looked aghast. "You had that the whole time?"
"Always do." She grinned without meaning to. "But... it doesn't work well. Actually... it never has worked. Guess it's probably the wrong time to bring that up with my parents, though."
Cloud tapped his foot for a moment, thinking. "Well, I bet there are more inns around here. And shops. Maybe someone has a phone."
They strolled casually out the door, into the morning light--apparently having forgotten what laid in front of the doorway. "Hyne..." Kyrie whispered lightly, seeing the true carnage in the slowly breaking dawn. Every slash was fatal, so it appeared. Many of the people were decapitated. But there was a good number (all wearing inn uniforms) were sprawled out on the ground over their own intestines.
Cloud sighed quietly. Well, it wasn't fire. But it was Sephiroth just the same. He must have had great fun slicing heads off--until someone saw him and screamed. Maybe even tried to get the rest of the employees out to safety. No success, it appeared. Stepping over one of the bodies, he was suddenly overcome with... a feeling. Something deep and ingrained, something he absolutely could not ignore. He'd felt it before, long ago. Hell, he'd felt in the moment he'd set out to unknowingly rescue Kyrie.
She noticed the look on his face as he paused halfway over the carnage, foot still in the air. "Yes?"
"There's... there's something here, still." He responded with assurance. "Something under this place. In a cellar, maybe."
She was silent for a moment, looking into his incredibly blue eyes. "Not to pry, of course. But, how do you know that?"
"The same way I knew something was going on here. The same way I knew Sephiroth was alive. I have no fucking idea."
Good point. She didn't bother to stop and question how or why he'd come to rescue her, but she was glad he did. Maybe there was someone else Sephiroth had tied up downstairs. Not a pleasant thought. "Well... I'm coming."
"Wouldn't you rather stay here and try to find a phone?" Deep down, he knew that was a dumb question. He could well be going into a strange place with very little chance of survival and no one to watch his back. In dealings with Sephiroth, he'd learned you need someone to watch your back. And then there was that look on her face. A stone stare, in a sense. A very subtle "fuck off", if you will, that was not to be taken personally.
And somehow she, too, knew that all of this information had just passed between them in the time it took to breathe. "We can always come back."
He grinned nastily at those words without thinking. They seemed incredibly... naive, in a sense. But she certainly didn't look it, that's what was really important. "Did you see a cellar entrance anywhere?"
"No. Must be out here somewhere." That grin had made her feel a little naive, truth be told. He'd obviously been around for quite a bit longer than she had. Maybe she should just suck it up and let him take the lead. Maybe.
They patrolled the outside walls of the inn, looking for any sort of entrance, or even an indication that the ground had been disturbed. Twice around, they looked even closer. And the third time, it was just goddamn frustrating. But near the beginning of the fourth, Cloud got a little chill as he passed by an old wagon used as decoration out front. It hadn't been used, or moved, in years. Sure enough, with a great deal of pushing and shoving on their part, they discovered a cracked stone panel beneath the untended grass.
Kyrie kneeled, looking for some grip with which to pull it up. Cloud tried to give her a hand by prying it up with his sword; it would budge a little, but was ultimately just plain too heavy. But there was a weak spot dead center... Kyrie advised her new friend to step back with a simple look, pulled out her gunblade, and shot twice. On the second shot, the bullet making enticing a loud ring like she'd hit metal, the panel broke into pebbles and fell into a dark hole, skittering at the bottom. Hell, it's not like anyone would want to vacation here for a while, anyway. And there was no one to complain about damaged property.
By the sound of the stones' fall, it wasn't that far of a leap. Thanks to the rays of morning, however, it was just too hard to know for sure. "I'll go first." Cloud announced.
"Good." Kyrie grinned.
"Humph." He tried his best to act offended. In reality, he was... excited. He knew he probably shouldn't have been, as this was more than likely going to be a hell of a lot more trouble than it was worth, but... he couldn't help it. The thrill of adventure was eating its way from the inside out. Not that he wanted it to be another goddamn quest to find Sephiroth.
Sitting at the edge of the hole in the earth, he kicked his legs a little--just wide enough for himself and his sword. Slowly, he lowered himself, still trying to feel for a bottom. With a deep breath, he finally let go of the hold he had on the remaining stone and fell--instantly slamming against a solid floor.
Whew. "Just drop, you'll be fine."
No answer. Utter, complete silence. His heart started to race. "Kyrie?"
Again there was nothing. Not even a breeze blowing. Not even a bird cawing, for that matter. He called again, louder, "Kyrie?!"
A pair of legs suddenly dangled from the top. Breath caught in his throat until he saw the rings of the frye boots. As she landed gracefully, she presented him with a lit lamp.
Good idea! he didn't dare to admit out loud. He'd completely forgotten about actually needing light. "Where--?"
"Among the bodies." She answered dryly. "Matches right beside it." An unbroken oil lamp with matches right beside it among the scattered carnage was just the slightest bit... not quite right. But then, who was she to question? This whole fucking day had been far from normal.
Cloud nodded as if her thoughts had been spoken. "Weird. But good. I hope." He took the lamp from her and turned the wick up just a touch, igniting the tiny chamber they were in. It was a circular room, walled off with messy masonry at one end as though there had been another room there once, and opened into a dark, descending staircase at the other.
An interesting thought ticked his mind; could this be where Shin-Ra Mansion was all those years ago? Certainly the tunnels couldn't have survived that long. But they could have been discovered and re-used. What an interesting thought. He wondered if Sephiroth had a hand in this one, as well. "I guess we go down."
She shivered just slightly, despite consciously trying not to. She had never been claustrophobic before. But then, she'd never been presented with a strange, dark, possibly very old underground tunnel, before. She suddenly wished she'd asked her parents more about their training days. And what they did to prevent panic attacks. There's was something very stale about the air in here...
But Cloud was already slowly making his way down. Step by step, making sure nothing would crumble underneath him. If this actually were the same Shin-Ra tunnel, it sure as hell had been through a lot; chips, chunks, sand and water damage. With a sudden turn in the stairs, he became increasingly sure it was a different place altogether. Unless, that is, someone had added another portion to conceal something else. That thought alone was not a pleasant one.
Just as they felt like they were winding into the very core of the earth itself, the stairway finally stopped at another little room-chamber. It was large than the first one had been, though felt no less frightening. More so, even, because of how deep they'd gone.
Cloud was just on the verge of cursing a blue streak when he noticed the wall on the far side was not actually bricked up. It looked, instead, like a door. Walking closer and shining the light right on it, it was clearly separate from the wall. Stepping back and scanning the room, he looked for the trigger.
"Is this what you're looking for?" Kyrie asked very quietly, kneeling next to the wall to the right of the door. Regardless of her attempt at speaking softly, the stone corridor made her voice boom. Hey, cool.
Nodding, he brought the lamp over to her find. It was nothing more than a little rectangle cut out of the wall itself, no doubt deeply housing a switch system. It looked like one of the simpler devices, built more to prevent something from getting out than to prevent another from going in. Not a nice thought to have at this point, so close to the door. "Stick your hand in and press the switch at the back."
Kyrie simply turned around and glared at him.
He grinned in response and shrugged. "My hand's too big."
She made some sort of disgusted sound in her throat and bent in a little closer to peer into the hole. Nothing. It was pitch black regardless of the lamp. She had a pretty understandable aversion to sticking her hand inside. But then, Cloud had saved her life. He'd watched her grow up in a sense, even. He gave her the freaking belt she was wearing. She might as well humor him and help if she could. Taking a deep breath, she slowly pushed her fingers into the darkness. "Fuck."
The smirk disappeared from Cloud's face as he kneeled next to her. "What's wrong?"
"Booby trapped..." she murmured, feeling blood spill from the backs of her knuckles. She didn't bother trying to wiggle her fingers to see further damage. It felt like there were tiny blades everywhere. From the lack of gushing blood, she could only assume at the moment that all of her fingers were more or less in tact. It wasn't so painful, as the blades were razor sharp; but it was no picnic, either.
Seeing as how she was cut anyway, she just continued to press her hand further and further until at last something gave under her fingers. There was a loud click both from inside the hole and from the sealed doorway next to them, and she wasn't about to just leave her hand there. Facing yet more cuts, she simply yanked her hand back. Lucky thing, too; just a second after her fingers cleared the hole, the blades shot to twice their length, acting like the jaws of a shark. Had her hand still been inside, it'd have been useless.
Cloud couldn't entirely suppress a nagging guilt as he lightly scooped her bloody hand into his own to inspect it. It wasn't too bad, really. But there were several cuts in her fingers both on top and underneath, all bleeding steadily.
Now the wounds chose to burn. She clicked her teeth together and prevented herself from murmuring curses. Her hand was on blood red fire, dripping every so often as if to tease her. Lovely. No ability at healing magic. Absolutely no medicine. Just her luck, as usual. And where would she bleed from next, she wondered. If she survived this one, anyway.
He seemed to be concentrating rather hard. Or maybe he had a really terrible headache. Whatever it was, it was already causing a sheen of sweat over his face. It had been a very long time since he'd used any Materia, but his Regen abilities had perhaps suffered most of all. He could naturally heal from pretty much anything, so there was never really a need to use it for himself. With so long without use, the Restore materia was probably almost useless. He dug deep, deeper than he ever remembered doing, trying to find it. Trying to tune his mind to it like an instrument. He was starting to get a splitting headache by the time he finally felt a tingle of magic still left there, forgotten in an old dusty corner.
Where her hand burned, it suddenly froze. Not in a bad or painful way, but something she certainly never experienced before. A very odd feeling of actually being able to feel each individual cut closing overcame both heat and cold sensations, and before her eyes, the slices in her hand melted into healthy flesh.
"There we go." Cloud grunted, releasing her in favor of trying to massage the pain from his temples. He was sure it'd done nothing for her back, but at least her hand was fine again. That was important for her weapon.
She stared at her hand for a moment, flexing the muscles painlessly. "Neat trick."
"Didn't think I'd be able to do it again..." he trailed off, shaking his head of a bit of dizziness. There was an empty, almost hungry feeling at the pit of his stomach for just a moment as his natural energy flowed back to normal. Feeling better, he stood and took the lamp with one hand, offering his other to Kyrie.
Should she press to see what this remarkable talent had been, she wondered. But it probably wasn't the time. The door was open, and there was undoubtedly something on the other side. An excited, frightened curiosity had begun to take control, and she lifted herself up with Cloud's help. This was probably not going to be pretty.
Actually, it was quite fucking dull. The room on the other side was full of nothing but dull gray. Just the most bland, horrific color of gray Kyrie had ever seen in her life. The walls, the ceiling, the flo--
And there it was. Bringing the lamp forward, it was perfectly clear; the only furnishing the room contained at all was an old wooden coffin. Cloud's heart pounded. This was a little too familiar for his liking. Then, it was also sort of welcome. If there was any chance at all, any chance of meeting again...
Kyrie followed behind him closely, her eyes never leaving that peculiar interior design touch. Close enough to touch it, she bent down and read the aged brass panel near the head of the coffin. She murmured to herself, but loud enough for Cloud to hear, "Good riddance." Oh, that's what I want on mine, too...
He swallowed. There was a good deal of him that would be completely, perfectly okay with just setting the lamp down and dashing back to the surface. Or even just backing out, back up the steps, right back up the hole, and going home. Leave Sephiroth and his crazy fucking ideas to himself, and just go home, run the shop, happily ever after.
But, that coffin... There were possibilities in there. Of an old friendship somehow lost over the years (it was so hard to remember after all this time). Of someone who could be trapped there, begging to get out but not being heard. Or, of course, it could just be one hell of a rich fuck's sick idea of the end to a long treasure hunt. There were all kinds of possibilities.
Only one solution, however. He put the lamp, full wick, on the ground and braced himself. Kyrie's eyes went just slightly wider in realization of what he was going to do. He obviously knew something she didn't. And she wasn't sure she quite wanted to know, period. As he grasped the lid, she took several wide paces backward.
Heaving the top over the side, he felt instantly that he was about to relieve himself. It was perfectly unmistakable. The shine of gold metal over to the right hand side caught his eye first, amongst a field of red fabric. Crow black hair framed a porcelain face that was both dead and lively at once. Just as he feared perhaps this was a far cry from the last time such an event happened, the eyes flashed open.
Kyrie felt her heart stop. How she was stable upon her legs, she had no idea. She was actually pretty sure that she'd be collapsing in a human puddle in just a moment; but she saw that Cloud's reaction was far different. He, in fact, looked... elated.
No words spoken, only a puzzled look from the living dead and the look of a child at holiday time being exchanged between the two old friends. And then the corpse merely sat up. Possibly the strangest thing Kyrie had ever seen. At this point in time, that was quite a statement.
The pale man closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with the hand that was flesh and blood. Upon deciding the headache would probably be staying with him a while, he opened his eyes to Cloud's outstretched hand. Appearing to think it over, he finally grasped it and let himself be pulled up and out of the box.
Kyrie remained slack jawed and staring. Had she been told she'd bear witness to this event just a day ago, she'd have thought it ludicrous at best. She never thought she'd see something that so... astounded her. It was just... so... weird.
A thick, tired voice from the living corpse, finally broke the silence. "I'm a little sick of being locked inside a coffin."
Cloud burst into laughter. A comfortable laughter that immediately shattered Kyrie's unease.
There was a pause and a puzzled look from the man. "That just isn't funny, Cloud."
Kyrie stayed back from the two, just watching the them. It was more than obvious that they had a history together, and their interaction was a friendly one. Somehow she never sickened of that, of seeing old friends meet again. Maybe it was the lesson of making sure to live the fullest out of that moment in time, since there is no return. She learned all too well through her parents.
Only then did the pale waif seem to notice her. When their eyes met, they locked on for dear life. His eyes were as red and as bloody deep as hers were. Glorious, deepest red. Absolutely perfect against skin even more white than Sephiroth's and raven hair, were those piercing red eyes.
He broke eye contact first, staring right at her belt. As though it held all the value in the world, he whispered, "That's mine."
Kyrie looked down at the belt, then to Cloud. With two pairs of red eyes on him, he found it a little hard to keep laughing. "It's in good hands, Vincent." He caught his breath quickly.
Kyrie wasn't sure she wanted to be responsible, though. She quickly unbuckled and slipped it off, folding it gently in half and holding it out to the man Cloud had called Vincent. "This obviously doesn't belong to me."
Vincent looked puzzled for a moment, just staring down at the belt. Then he gazed back at her eyes, like mirrors, and nodded slightly. It was a greeting gesture rather than acceptance of her offer. He didn't reach for it, only stared at it for several seconds, then away into darkness. "How long has it been?" he whispered.
"About a thousand years, give or take a decade." Cloud sighed.
Kyrie's eyes flashed. 1000 years. Immortals? She looked at the ground a moment, collecting her thoughts. Not even the world history she knew of went back that far. What hadn't been destroyed in the first Sorceress War was destroyed in the second. She smacked the belt against her open hand several times, just thinking. Suddenly the belt stopped moving, and her eyes pierced both of them at once. "Mind filling me in?"
Cloud nodded slowly, still a little overcome. It was great to see an old friend, an old fighting companion, but he wished the circumstances were different. "Kyrie, this is Vincent Valentine. Vincent, this is Kyrie Leonhart."
She wasn't sure if she should put out a hand or not. The man was standing very stiffly, his hands to his sides, and yet maintained a delicate appearance. It was the polite thing to do, however. She switched the belt to her left hand, stepped forward, and held her right hand out. "Uh... hello, Vincent."
Garnet eyes locked for less than a second as he turned his attention to her hand. He stared at it as though contemplating what sort of poison she was laced with, then finally grasped it lightly. But there was no shaking. "Kyrie."
There was a mild accent there, but she couldn't place it. She was sure she'd never heard anything like it. Nor had she ever felt a hand like that before. It didn't quite feel like skin, even. It felt like... cold silk, maybe. Quite the interesting experience, anyway. Not one to miss opportunities, she swiftly replaced her hand with the belt. "You really ought to be keeping this."
Vincent looked down to see that he still had his other belt in place. He remembered how Cloud had won the very one in his hand during a card game, and felt it quite odd that he should ever see it again. Especially after all this time. "No." He stated softly, placing it back into her palm. "I only need one." Perhaps it was no wonder Cloud had given his belt to her, so it appeared. Their eyes were quite alike, indeed.
She was clearly uncertain of the appropriate thing to do in such an instance. He seemed genuine enough, of course. So, she shrugged and placed the belt back around her waist. This was getting weirder and weirder.