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The Sins of Two Fathers	By : wickedorin Category: Final Fantasy VIII > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 687 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
"The Sins of Two Fathers" and the general overall
concept of "The Sins of Two Fathers" is completely copyright Orin Drake
1999-2005, as are the characters Kyrie and Rodger and some more random
people that don't matter as much. The characters Seifer Almasy, Squall
Leonhart, Quistis Trepe, Ellone (Leonhart?), Laguna Loire and Rinoa "The
Great Big Bitch" Heartily (biased? me?) 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. Oh yeah, and there are plenty of spoilers
everywhere for everything. That about covers it.

        Background:
To be completely honest, I had no idea this was going to turn into a serious
story. I started writing is 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. Angst, I love putting angst everywhere.
That's about it for now. I will warn you, though, that FF characters
actually don't make up a lot of this story, especially not in the beginning.
I will make it up to you all some day. Enjoy.

The Sins of Two Fathers

Chapter 8

by Orin Drake
        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 tickled
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.
- 7
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The Sins of Two Fathers