Chapter Text
The crumbling walls of the Shinra mansion creaked in the wind drifting down from the mountains. With every heavy gust the manor groaned and swayed, shifting on its antiquated foundations, but still the structure held steady. Occasionally, the direction of the breeze shifted, whistling through cracks and holes too small to see. It was late, so late that the moon had dipped below the mountain range. The sky was a curtain of black velvet but for the blinking of a smattering of stars whenever the clouds briefly thinned. While his companions slept in bedrolls scattered through the rooms of the upper floors, Red XIII crept through the darkened first floor hallways. The tips of his claws clicked faintly against the aging wood floors while he paced. His turn at the watch had been up for some time, but he couldn’t think of any reason to wake one of the others when he was so restless that sleep was never going to come.
Red turned a circle in what appeared to have once been a closet that now had its door hanging from the hinges and made his way back down the hall. A puff of air fluttered down the hall beneath his nose and his ears pricked up. Something in the scent of the air had changed. It smelled like mountains and twilight, with a hint of something that reminded him of old dirt. He’d heard nothing— no creaking floor boards or rusty hinges— but when he turned to look through the grimey glass windows facing the back garden there was a shadow looming that hadn’t been there before. He crept to a massive pair of glass doors and peered out through a large broken pane. The shadow came from a figure that was standing perfectly still beside a crumbling fountain. Drawing his body down as tightly as he could, Red squeezed through the glass and made his way into the garden.
The garden was a long rectangle bordered on two sides by the L-shaped back side of the manor. Across from the short side of the L was a stone wall topped in wrought iron spikes that nearly reached as high as the second story windows. The final long side of the garden was made up of a sheer cliff in the face of the mountain that loomed up hundreds of feet above the town. Paths through what had once probably been beautiful beds of plants now alternated between being overgrown or little more than dust clinging to dead leaves. In the corner where the stone wall met the cliff face a chunk of rock had fallen from the mountain above and crushed some sort of statue. A central pathway wound through the ruins of plants and statues toward the fountain he’d spotted from inside.
Though the clouds above completely obscured the sky, Red found himself able to recognize the figure as he made his way down the path. The ragged red cloak rippled like a living thing in the wind rolling off the mountains. They hadn’t spoken yet, but he was sure the man was someone who might be able to understand the things he’d suffered at the hands of Hojo and his lackeys. Aside from the fact that they’d found him in a coffin in a place where experiments had clearly been carried out, there was something in the way he held himself. There was an aura of sadness and suffering that could only come from being treated as nothing more than a scientific plaything for the whim of a madman. Here was someone who might understand the hatred of humanity he was struggling so hard to reconcile with the group of genuinely good people that were his travel companions.
“You are impressively quiet.”
Red twitched in surprise at the rumbling vocal acknowledgement. He was still several feet behind the man, though the distance would not be impossible for him to clear with a single leap if he needed to do so. Before him, Vincent Valentine turned his head just enough to one side that Red could see the glint of a single red eye that nearly glowed in the darkness of the garden.
“Even before I was…” Vincent trailed off, then made a sweeping gesture at himself with his human arm. “Well, let’s just say that it’s never been easy to sneak up on me.”
“I wasn’t intentionally sneaking.” As if to prove his point, Red took a few steps, leaped onto an intact piece of the fountain, and settled back on his haunches. From this angle he could see more of the man’s face than he had before, and was surprised to find there were barely any lines of age in his features. Were it not for whatever had been done to him, he might not have been alive for as many years as Red himself. Though, humans did age differently. “Most of the time humans don’t hear my approach at all.”
Vincent’s gaze grew distant, and he turned to face the mountains once more. “I don’t suppose I am one of those.” His head tilted back as a cloud rolled past, revealing a handful of twinkling stars in the sky above. “Not anymore.”
There it was, the source of the sorrow. From his perch on the fountain, Red watched the pain roll over Vincent’s features. In the faint light of the flame on the tip of his tail, the metal arm at Vincent’s side glinted. Red wondered what he might have been before whatever had been done to him, wondered whether he would have fought against SHINRA as they were doing now. He watched him for several long moments while he pondered all those things, and considered his previous thoughts about the experiences they might have in common. Finally, as the clouds once more obscured the stars and Vincent’s glowing red gaze returned to him, he found the words he wanted to say.
“Humanity has done me few favors,” he scoffed, the horror’s of Hojo’s lab bubbling up in his mind. There were exceptions, but he considered them to be shining examples of traits beyond how human they might be.
“Hmmmm.” Vincent was silent for another long stretch of time, his eerie gaze traveling over Red from the comb and beads at his head to the flame flickering on his tail and back again. His eyes lingered on the branding of letters and numbers at his shoulder. “Red XIII,” he muttered. “That seems more like one of Hojo’s designations than a name.”
“It is,” Red confirmed. “I met no others with a similar designation, but I can only assume by the number I was given that I was not the first.”
“No.” Vincent’s gaze grew sad. “There may not have been as many as he’s claimed, but I remember Hojo having another creature like yourself many years ago.”
That caught his attention. “You’ve seen others like me?”
“Once, a long time ago.” Vincent rolled his shoulders before he crouched down. The way he moved was strange. It was swift and fluid, but there was a distortion to it as though he were a recording that played back with frames missing. “I’m afraid I don’t know many details. It wasn’t long after I saw the specimen that I became an experiment myself.”
Red nodded. “I understand. Hojo keeps many secrets.”
Vincent settled down from his crouch to sit on the stones at the base of the fountain. “Do you not sleep?”
“Do you?”
“Not anymore. Not really.”
“Hmmm.” Red settled down on the lip of the fountain. “Sleep has not been my friend as of late.” He hesitated a moment, but Vincent didn’t press. Instead, he just regarded him with that steady gaze. The clouds scattered and returned twice more, revealing pockets of stars while Red considered whether or not he would say more. The words came slowly at first. He stumbled through a brief explanation of his childhood in Cosmo Canyon and the pain he’d felt at his father’s abandonment. By the time he reached his kidnapping at the hands of The Turks for Hojo’s experimentation the tale flowed as swift and steady as a river. He told Vincent of his struggles with his sentience and the instincts of his more beastial half, his rescue at the hands of their current companions, the decision to join their quest, his discovery in the Cave of Gi, and the conflict that had been brewing within him since learning that Seto was a hero. Vincent listened to it all with the rapt attention of a man who had not known conversation in far too long.
And then the tables turned. When Red found he could speak no more Vincent began to share his own story instead. He told him of humble beginnings and then an invitation to join the ranks of The Turks. He spoke of missions and hierarchy and the pride he’d felt upon achieving a high status in the ranks of his peers. He’d been one of the best, he admitted, just a hint of pride in his tone. Then, he spoke of Lucrezia. The sorrow in him deepened with longing as he told of his love for her, then deadened to a dull monotone when he gave a clinical description of Hojo’s work. By the time he reached his awakening in the coffin beneath the manor the sky had begun to lighten above them.
With their tales spun they both rose from the cold stones, only just realizing that they’d grown stiff in the chill of the night. Red stretched his front paws out across the stones, shivering a bit as his muscles loosened. He and Vincent walked back to the manor in silence, content to have shared their stories with one another. When they reached the glass doors, Red stood back to let Vincent pull them open, but the man paused with his metal hand on the handle.
“I look forward to having you as a companion on this journey, Red XIII,” he said with a grave nod.
Red considered him for a beat. “You may call me Nanaki.”