By: Mags

Yuffie stared down the barrel of Vincent’s Death Penalty. She whispered a silent prayer to Da-Chao that she would get out of this one alive. She could see the headlines now: Girl- 26 killed by Vincent Valentine- like 80ish, saved teammates the trouble.

She gulped, and a big bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face, making it itch like crazy but she was too petrified to scratch it, or brush it away. She was petrified, and she knew that Vincent knew it. She smiled and looked up at him, hoping for something, anything that wold give some indication that he was just fooling around with her, and did not really want to kill her, but all she got was a cold, hard stare attached to an unreadable face.

‘Click’

Vincent had cocked his gun.

She knew that she was dead. She knew that she had it coming to her, too, she had just thought that she was good enough not to get caught.

"Live and learn" she thought as she waited for herself to die.

"C’mon" she had thought when she had entered Vincent’s room looking for his materia while he was asleep, "Live a little!"

"Okay, very little" she thought as she readied herself to be reunited with the Planet for good.

Although Yuffie had long since given up materia hunting and theft, she still liked to test her mettle every now and then just to keep her skills intact incase she should ever need them. It had been 6 years since she had joined Cloud’s party on their 3 year trek over the planet in search of Sephiroth, and she knew that she really wasn’t as good as she used to be. She had decided that since she was so out of practice that she would start to hone her skills all over again. So what better way to start up again, then b practicing on her old pal Vincent. It seemed had seemed like a good idea at the time, but considering her current predicament, she realized that Vincent apparently did not see it in the same light that she had. So she, in an act of defeat, just shut her eyes really tight, gritted her teeth, and waited for herself to die.

Vincent, although one could never tell from looking at him, he was particularly enjoying this. He had always thought that it was rather amusing the way Yuffie was always picked on and taunted. He had never joined in, of course, but he was just content to sit by and watch. He had never felt the need, the proper emotion that would justify such things. Truly, he had had lost almost all his emotions, or so he had thought, to Hojo when he had been experimented on. But it had just been a mask, a mask created by his psyche to prevent him from feeling the brunt of the pain that Hojo had caused him, both physically and mentally. And although it had prevented him from feeling most of the pain inflicted on him, it also caused a case to form over the part of him that expressed emotions. Although he had been able to feel them, he was never able to express them. Added to the fact that he was usually quiet and withdrawn anyway, it all added up to the Vincent that Cloud and his party had met almost eight years ago, about a year or so after Cloud has said that he, Barret and Tifa had started their three year journey. But that Vincent was now dead. He no longer existed. With Sephiroth dead, Vincent felt that he had atoned for his sins as best that possibly could. He decided that he was tired of being so cold and withdrawn, so he lightened up a bit. The mask over his emotions was gone. At first, it had been extremely painful, as he now had to feel the pain that had dwelled up inside of him for all those years that he had had it stored up inside of him. Then it just began to feel odd, like something that he had always knew was missing but could never be complete without had just been found. Finally, he had begun to get adjusted, and after it all was over, he felt whole again for the first time in he knew not how long. And it felt great. He was able to function as a normal person, but if necessary, he could still become a cold, calculating person. He had the best of both worlds. Unfortunately, with the return of his emotions, he lost his ability to morph. Both a blessing and a curse as far as he was concerned. But he didn’t think of it too much. He had taken up residence in the Icicle Area, just north of the Corel Mountains near a newly formed town of Adrock. He had been nice enough to help the rather small town get on its feet and fend off any monsters that dared stray too close. They had been few and far between, and eventually there were none, but he still stayed on alert. Due to the rather secluded area, he rarely got visitors, but when he did they were always welcomed warmly. Or at least usually. So far the only exception to his policy was Yuffie. This was the second time this month that he had caught her trying to steal from her. He wasn’t too pleased with that, and about 10 minutes ago when he had awoken to find her going through his things, he had decided to play a trick on her. He had pulled out the first gun he had gotten his hands on and played out a scene he had been meaning to do for quite some time now. He meant to teach the young Ninja a lesson, and he felt that there was no time like the present.

He smiled a half smile and without warning, shifted the gun position from between her eyes to the space between her feet.

Yuffie had been waiting for herself to crumple to the floor after she heard the gunshot rock the simple house she was standing in, but she realized she was still there. After about two minutes she decided to find out why. She opened one eye, looked around quickly, then shut it again. She opened it again a minute later, this time for a bit longer. Finally, deciding that she was okay, she opened her eyes and looked to the floor, still quivering a little. The bullet-hole between her legs was still smoldering a bit, but otherwise, everything was normal. She looked up at Vincent with an expression of shock and curiosity and saw that he was grinning from ear to ear, his gun back on the gun rack that decorated his right wall. She felt a great warmth overtake her, but then it began to feel rather strange and when she looked down, she realized that she had pissed her pants. Humiliation and rage overtook her fear and she started screaming.

"Just what IN THE HELL do you think that you were doing? YOU BASTARD! You nearly SCARED ME TO DEATH!" Yuffie fiercely screamed at Vincent to his face.

Vincent’s face remained, to Yuffie, normally cold and unreadable.

"If it will teach you not to sneak around people’s houses while they are trying to get some sleep, then perhaps I should kill you next time."

"You can’t be serious" Yuffie stammered, petrified.

"Perhaps you’re right. It would be such a waste of a Phoenix Down." Vincent said, and then, unable to hold it back any longer, burst out laughing. "Now…" he said, returning to his solemn sate of mind, "Before I kick you out of here, I want you to tell me exactly what the hell you’re doing all the way over here."

Yuffie’s face turned beet red again, and Vincent stifled a laugh, because this time it was from humility, not rage.

Yuffie straightened her posture and attempted to think up a halfway decent excuse for her being here.

"C’mon Vinnie, is it so unbelievable that I might want to stop in and just say ‘hi’ once and a while?"

"Yes" he said bluntly, "Unless there was an ulterior motive that is" he added before she had a chance to protest his accusations.

"But…" she began.

"And one more thing… don’t ever call me Vinnie, again. Capeche?"

"Capeche." She agreed.

"Now, give me a reasonable excuse for your presence here" he demanded firmly.

"Well, y’see Vince ol’ pal…" she stammered, shuffling her feet into the ground, "Can I call you Vince?" she asked hopefully.

"No" was his only response.

"Well, okay…Vincent. I was…uh…just…. Ah…uh…. Heh heh, y’know its actually a rather funny story…"she rambled, her sentence fragments getting less and less coherent.

"I rather doubt that"

"Well, it’s like this. I was…uh…walking by your…uh…house and I heard…a…uh…noise! Yes, that’s it. I heard a noise! And I came in to…uh…investigate. Yes, that’s it! I was investigating."

She nearly cried out that last part, out of sheer joy of having come up with something that sounded even remotely believable. Unfortunately for her, Vincent did not appear to be buying it.

"And you decided to do all this, despite the obviously blatant fact that I was asleep" he questioned without skipping a beat.

"Well…y’know…I mean…you were there" she said gesturing to the bed," and I was there" she gestured to the door, "I just didn’t want to wake you. You looked so peaceful asleep that I didn’t want to wake you." She spat out as quickly as she could, before she snapped and confessed everything.

"Well" she said hastily, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible and high tail it to Adrock before nightfall, "Everything looks to be in order!" She gave the room a once over with her eyes to give her statement more credibility. "Everything seems to be in order, so if you don’t mind I’ll be going now, K?" She gave him a grin large enough to swallow her ears, then spun around on her heel and made a mad dash for the door…

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Vincent roared, freezing Yuffie in her tracks.

Yuffie froze like she had just been hit with an Ice 3 spell. She gulped, and waited for the gun cocking and the scariness again.

"Yuffie", Vincent said coolly, "If I ever catch you sneaking around my house again…"

He made a slit motion over his throat with his right hand and gave her a stern look that sent a chill down her spine.

Yuffie, eager to please him and due to her fears of pissing her pants again, readily agreed to his terms and conditions, and exited his house as fast as her slender legs would take her. Once she felt she was a safe distance from his house, she let out a huge sigh of relief. She snickered to herself and dug deep into the cowl she was wearing and fished a large sack out of a pocket that was concealed on the inside of hr coat. She found a large rock nearby and after scrambling to the top of it. Safely making sure that the area was secure, she sat down Indian-style on the rock and dumped the contents of the sack on her lap like a greedy child after a good night of trick or treating. She let out a loud yelp of pain, and looked down at her lap in puzzlement. Instead of glowing materia in her lap, there were only a small pile of heavy rocks spray pained various colors of materia. Then Yuffie also noticed that there was a note that had fallen out of the bag. He hesitantly picked it up and flipped it open.

‘You’re not the only one who is sneaky’ it said, written in red ink with Vincent’s familiar handwriting. Yuffie balled the note in anger and frustration. She knew that she could not be allowed to tolerate this affront. Her code of honor as a ninja, although not really supposed to be used in this sense, clearly dictated that she must exact her revenge. And she would, oh, she defiantly would, she would see to that. As she thought, she was already formulating a plan to get revenge on Vincent. Oh how sweet it would be. But now she had to worry about hurrying the next 3 miles to Adrock before the sun went down in about an hour and then getting a new pair of pants.

"So many things to do, so little time" Yuffie thought as she began sliding down the rock and began running into the horizon towards the mining town of Adrock.

Unbeknownst to her though, Vincent had been watching her every move from his high haunch in a tree not too far away from where Yuffie had been not a minute ago.

"Yuffie would kill herself if she knew" Vincent thought. Vincent ran a gloved hand over his chin in deep thought. He knew Yuffie well, and knew that while she was gone for now, she would be back soon. He would have to begin to make preparations. Suddenly an idea came to him, and it made him grin from ear to ear. But his smile soon faded, as the wind picked up and clouds began to roll in from the north. A heavy breeze picked up, and the sky darkened. Vincent narrowed his eyes as he watched the sky go from being a crimson red to a black, foreboding demon as the clouds began to get darker and darker, until the entire area had become covered in a blanket of darkness.

"Like the shadow of God" Vincent thought. He began to climb down from the tree, not wanting to get caught in whatever was headed this way. Then, the wind shifted and Vincent froze. He stared directly at the wind’s destination, as it changed course, he noticed that it was headed directly for Nibelheim. Something was wrong. Wind this cold and strong never came from the east because the Kerigas Ocean’s temperature never got below 60 degrees. But it wasn’t just that that worried Vincent. He could just see the area of sky over the Corel Mountains, past the Corel Mountains and it was pitch black. It was as if there was literally nothing there, or ever had been. Vincent was worried. It was time for a road trip. He could sense that there was something almost evil about. Something very bad was coming. He could feel it… calling to him, singing its tainted songs into his ear. Whispering of evil deeds of the past, and new ones yet to come. He shivered. This was not right.

"Not the shadow of God", Vincent thought, giving one last look at the nearly pitch black sky before he ducked into his house "Its like the very maw of Hell, itself."

And for the first time that he could ever remember, Vincent was afraid.