Author's note: I managed to salvage this part from one my infected disks. Sorry for taking so long in putting it up. There is quite a lot of violence in this part. Blood and gore warning!
Ying/Yang
By: Silver Rayne
Part 3
"Look at what I have for you."
Something heavy sloshed onto the ground by Vincent’s feet, rousing him from the haven of his mind. The only place that could distance him from the constant harassment of Sephiroth’s imagination. Could this be the meal that had been promised to him? No. He would only be fed if he divulged Cloud’s whereabouts. That would not happen while he was still aware of his mental capacity. Another few hours with Sephiroth might make him snap however.
"Don’t be like that. It took me several attempts to locate one that was suitable. Let’s put our differences behind us and share a bite to eat."
It couldn’t hurt to look. The worst that could be lying there might indeed be identifiable as a human corpse. Then again, if it was nothing more than a small, roasted animal, the nourishment would strengthen him. Lend a hand in his speedy recuperation so that he would be fit to take on Sephiroth. *You will regret forcing me to endure this.* A bitter flavor could not be dismissed from Vincent’s mouth. The foul taste of Sephiroth. For that indecency, the man would suffer tremendously.
Vincent dragged himself to an upright position where he could inspect the offering before him. *My God! He is beyond help.* His aching hand found its way to his mouth, holding back the instinctual response of revolution. Anything to deprive the scent from reaching his nose to corrupt him. Even his legs would not move to push the object away from him. Physical contact with it would taint him permanently, add to his nightmares. "I’d rather not eat it," he managed to say, eyes shielded by his long hair. He had to hide the horror from his vision or it would gnaw away at his soul. To see a fellow human looking as if they had been thrown into a mixer was not a pleasant sight.
"But, she must taste delicious. Just look at how tender her flesh is. You would hardly recognize her as that girl who used to hang around Cloud’s loser group. Poor, sweet Yuffie. She had so much to look forward to. It’s a shame that someone so young lost her way."
"YUFFIE!!!" Vincent spun around against his restraint. He had to see if it was a bluff. Surely Sephiroth could not have gone to Wutai within those few hours to kill the girl. Upon a second, more thorough inspection, Vincent realized that he had been tricked. The body was not Yuffie’s, it wasn’t even human with the blue toned skin and flowing, green hair. She had been a magic user, one of the mystical beings they had encountered during Cloud’s battles. A pathetic challenge but one of the more unique foes that had been acknowledged. They weren’t dangerous either, merely an obstacle to overcome. And here she was, dead, hacked for the sheer pleasure of doing it. "Get away from me."
Sephiroth was not very pleased with Vincent’s unappreciative manners towards what he assumed was dinner. He grasped Vincent’s jaw between his fingers and stared deep into cowardice. "You’ve lost your appeal sooner than I would have expected." The silver head shook with mild pity for him. "Aren’t you a fighter, Vincent? You should be familiarized with the strategies of survival. First rule: never lose whatever it is that attracts your captor to you. In this instance, that sniveling fear mixed with loathing is your only means of holding my attention. Now, you do neither. Have you lost your hatred for me? Or…has your fear evaporated" His expression rendered Vincent helpless with an abnormal bout of shivering. "That’s more like it."
"This is all a charade. You act as though there is an audience to behold your ingenuity. Open your eyes! See the fraud which you’ve become."
"How contradicting. Your mouth doesn’t seem to coordinate with your body. We should remedy this problem immediately." Sephiroth kicked Vincent onto his side, snatching a fistful of black hair to pull on. "You have always been in dire need of some correctional training," he growled. "If we had met earlier, I could have prevented you from falling into place by Cid’s feet. That is where you want to be, isn’t it? A mongrel dog to do his bidding."
"Cid would never treat me this way!"
With one sharp ripping sound, Sephiroth had torn off Vincent’s cape, hurling it into the fire. "Then you can freeze and rely on your clumsy lover to get here before your skin turns to ice. The last time we met, I surmised that Cid would be able to function entirely on brawn, selling his brains for free. Stupid man that he is."
For once, Vincent would not counterattack by defending Cid’s name or character. He had reached his threshold for pain and now it would only be a matter of time before he died as a result of it.
**
An hour went by with no words spoken between the three men searching for Vincent. They were dismayed having found no further evidence of his abduction save for some little scraps of metal or cloth along the mountainside. The silence drove them to walk faster, hold weapons aloft any openings along the way. Hoping to slaughter Sephiroth as he exited his hiding place. Even if they did find him, he would have to be led a healthy distance from Vincent. Praying that he was still alive.
"We’ve already gone this fucking way!" Cid threw his arms up into the air and nearly screamed. He thought better of it, choosing to smash his flashlight against the palm of his hand.
"Cloud," Zack whispered so that Cid would not hear. "Should we have him around when things start flying? We will need all the concentration and power in our reserves to defeat Sephiroth. Any loose cannons will only drag us down."
But Cloud shot Zack a furious glare, also making sure that Cid would not hear his words. "That’s a terrible thing to say. He loves Vincent more than anything in this world. How can you suggest that he go back now? We were in love once. I would not have abandoned you. Besides, Cid may surprise you when we go into battle. He isn’t as hopeless as you think."
*’Were’ in love?* Zack watched Cloud hurry to catch up with Cid, oblivious to the pained sea of hurt in his eyes. Was there to be nothing more between them? Love was supposed to be forever. Through thick and thin, happiness and sadness. No two people could be separated by any barrier if they were in love. It couldn’t be. *Cloud doesn’t love me?*
"Over here," came Cid’s quiet voice. Cloud’s senses were operating at peak efficiency so he was not caught off guard. Unfortunately, Zack’s heart did a figure eight before he was able to join them behind an outcropping of vines. The leafy greens roped around the base of a relatively small cave entrance. It would serve as cover until they could think up a plan. "I heard Sephiroth’s voice." His own was barely steady because he was straining to listen for Vincent.
"Can you hear what he’s saying?," Cloud asked.
All of the color in Cid’s face drained momentarily to be replaced by a flood of heat. "Not much…just insulting me…damn bastard! I’ll show him who the wimp is."
"We need a decoy." The other two glared at Zack. "No, really. Someone has to distract Sephiroth to get to Vincent. As soon as we have him in the clear, we attack."
"I’ll do it." Cid volunteered easily, as if the job involved sleeping and not risking his life. "You’d better be as good a swordsman as Cloud says you are." He gave Zack seconds to think about the compliment before he dove into the cave, unarmed.
"Brave man."
Cloud was astonished to hear Zack admiring anyone but himself. This would not be a good time to bring up how selfish Zack would have been in the past. They had both grown into bigger men since then.
**
A very simple course of action had been present in Cid’s head when he stepped into the cave. Get by Sephiroth. Protect Vincent. Call in the cavalry. Well, he hadn’t been counting on tripping over some mauled woman on the way in. His entrance couldn’t have made him appear to be more of an idiot. After his boot caught on her arm, he fell flat on his face, gazing up at one very angry Sephiroth.
"YOU!" It was spoken with undeniable contempt as Sephiroth prepared to crush the spine of the man before him.
Cid focused a little, scanned the cave surreptitiously until he found Vincent. His lover was lying out of reach, looking battered and lifeless. "Vincent!" He jumped up only to be hammered back down by Sephiroth’s fist. Seeing Vincent covered in blood, his body broken and still nearly drove Cid over the edge. Even Sephiroth’s pounding couldn’t keep him from driving forward. Ignoring the kicks, the punches, not even thankful that the psychotic man was unarmed. If Vincent were dead, his own life would cease to be of any importance. For all of Sephiroth’s strength and attacks, he was not able to keep Cid from Vincent.
"Blasted miscreant!" Sephiroth picked up a heavy rock and approached Cid, intending on grinding it into his skull.
"Vincent." There was no pulse beneath his fingers, not even a thready one. Was he too late? But, his wrist was warmed by the gasping breath that Vincent clung onto. He moved his hand from his lover’s lips to bring it upwards, knocking the rock from Sephiroth. Then, getting up further to give the man a good left hook in the mouth. It gave him no satisfaction to see Sephiroth stumble away, spitting out the blood from his lips. "You’re going to wish you had stayed dead."
"And you think that I am scared by the likes of you? Your kind has become obsolete to me. A pile of trash to do with as I wish. You are one of the lowest forms. So, I welcome you to take me on. See what a man of your caliber is made of. Or are you not worth the effort?"
"I’ll show you who the trash is!" A rock appeared in Cid’s hand, giving him the weapon which Sephiroth had been about to use. "Since I like to whack things, I’ve acquired a really nasty arm." He tossed it into the air a couple of times to distract the enemy before launching it expertly between Sephiroth’s maco green eyes.
The blow merely stunned Sephiroth. "You fools! Nothing can stop me. I will have my revenge. Every weakling who had the courage to prevent me from ascending to my destiny will now become spineless. Maybe you could have challenged me…you and your sickly band of rejects. But now, now you are nothing. Look at you!" He wiped the blood from his eyes, laughing insanely when Cid shielded Vincent’s body from an imaginary strike. "Protect him all you like. In the end, you will both be nothing more than carcasses at my feet for my legion of followers to feed on. Listen and fear me, pilot. I have been given a second chance and I shan’t squander it."
"Brave words…spoken like the lunatic you are!" Cid attacked Sephiroth, punching him, still keeping an eye out for anything he could use to crack the man’s skull with. "I won’t let you hurt Vincent ever again. You did more than enough harm to us the first time. What makes you think you can succeed when you failed so miserably in the past?"
A hand closed around Cid’s ankle, yanking him off balance and onto the rocky surface of the cave. His skin scraped over rocks and firewood as he was dragged further into the cave.
"What the hell?!!" Cid grasped frantically for a grip on something, anything to prevent him from disappearing into the darkness behind him.
Upon witnessing Cid’s dismay, Sephiroth cackled some more. "There is a difference between what I had been trying to accomplish before to the feat I oppose now. Whereas I was foolish and without a solid army before, I have been justifiably compensated for that error this time around. Let me explain it to you, feeble minded man. I have an ally." He knelt down to Vincent, watching Cid brace himself to tug back towards them. "She may not be a god but I could not find better on such short notice. An ally from another realm…one with powers beyond your comprehension. Aerith and I will create a new world order. He will be the first to die under it." One of Sephiroth’s hands pressed to Vincent’s head and the other underneath his chin.
"STOP!!!" Although Cid pulled and fought, he could not dislodge the fingers that bit into his flesh. He was helpless. His eyes filled with horror the moment Sephiroth prepared to twist Vincent’s neck to kill him.
**
Outside of the cave, Zack and Cloud were having problems of their own. From nowhere, a mist of limbs had tangled their bodies in restraints. They struggled, hacking their swords into deadened flesh and brittle bones.
"What the hell is happening here?" Cloud bashed an arm back into the ground until it became buried once more. He then turned to smash several hands off of Zack’s midsection as they crushed him.
"Ever heard of raising the dead? I think that this is Sephiroth’s new army." Reeling from the bruises he had endured, Zack moved back to the entrance of the cave. "This just became a lot more difficult. We’d better hurry up and help Cid rescue Vincent."
In the same breath, both Zack and Cloud rushed into the cave, not pausing when they realized what kind of imminent danger Vincent was in. They kept going, Zack hitting Sephiroth’s shins with Cloud aiming high to slash his sword into the maniac’s forehead. Each one felt the impact, saw the cut run into flesh, veins, bone marrow and even straight through. But, their swords evaporated, the metal fibers dispersing as if they had been made of thin air.
Now, left holding nothing more than a bludgeoned corpse, Cloud found himself falling. Taken down by mobile arms which clenched onto his body. Sephiroth anchored him down, tugging at his body. He hardly heard himself scream or flinch at the sensation of those alien appendages clutching him. "Zack! Get him off of me! Zack!!!" A shout echoed his own but it seemed that his old lover was occupied. More zombies? But Sephiroth was…dead?
"Surprised, Cloud? I know I would be if I just found myself alive. You may have damaged my shell but the god inside me can never be destroyed." Sephiroth squeezed Cloud tighter, grinning joyously as his arch enemy turned blue in the face. "Have a good look, boy. Is this what amuses you? To hack me to pieces for your own amusement? If you have the stomach to inflict these injuries, then be a man and enjoy your reward." He wrenched Cloud’s face towards his own, smiled when those maco blue eyes widened in terror. "It isn’t such a pretty sight to see all this blood…to wonder where the rest of the flesh on my face went. Maybe if you look hard enough, you can see the exit wound your sword made in my skull."
"Nooo!!!" Cloud shut his eyes, having no choice but to open them again when he was thrown onto his back.
"We could have had something, you and I. But you were never attracted to real men." He sighed, shaking his head at the pathetic fight Zack was putting up against a group of quivering bones. Held together by a whim, a thought on Sephiroth’s behalf but more magical on Aerith’s. "Why you chose that boy scout over there instead of me, I might never understand. That’s all in the past now. Everything has been said and done. You will suffer tremendously. One by one, I will slaughter the people you hold dear to you. Their sacrifices will ultimately shred your soul of its humanity until there is nothing left. Then and only then will I appease my own desires and put you out of your misery."
"I won’t let you hurt any of my friends!"
"It’s too late for them." Before Cloud could get up, Sephiroth had returned to Vincent who was now semi conscious. "Your punishment begins with him." From a ripple in the atmosphere, a masamune sliced into Sephiroth’s hand. He ignored the injury, clasping his favored weapon above Vincent’s collar bone. With one downwards strike, the man would become impaled to be the first victim of Sephiroth’s conquest.
End of Part 3