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Chapter TwentyFive "Hey, hey, wake up - there's trouble, big-time!"
Yuffie's excited voice would have made Kit jump clear out of her bed, had she felt better. The sleep she'd gotten didn't seem to have done her any good at all, and she fought the urge to cover her head with the blankets to block out the sunlight. "What time is it?" she murmured.
"I dunno, but the sun's up, everyone else is up, and you're still in bed," Yuffie pointed out. Cocking her head to the side, she looked at Kit curiously. "You're not gonna flip out on us again, are ya?"
"Nope," Kit replied, forcing herself to stand straight as she got out of bed. She had to stay strong, at least until the shuttle was fixed and she could get away - then it wouldn't matter. Sephiroth would find her, he would take care of her...
Shaking her head to clear it, Kit realized Yuffie had been telling the complete truth. Neither Aeris or Tifa were in sight; even their belongings had been gathered up. Why hadn't they woken her up? "So what kind of trouble is this?" Kit asked the girl, pulling on her clothes in a rush. "Where is everyone?"
"They're downstairs," said Yuffie, pacing around the room restlessly. "Cloud and Aeris found the spy..."
"What?" Kit exclaimed. She hadn't been expecting that, of all things. "Who?"
"Would you believe it's Cait Sith?"
"Cait Sith? A robot?"
"Yeah, someone from Shinra's controlling him from back at the building," Yuffie explained. "During the night, he took the Keystone from Cloud's room, and passed it off to Tseng."
Kit was grateful for the unexpected answer - when she sat down hard on the bed, she supposed it could be taken as shock, rather than her legs giving out under a sudden headrush. No wonder his voice had seemed familiar. It had to be someone she'd met back at Shinra. "Who is he?"
"He won't tell us," Yuffie said, shaking her head. "Cloud's so totally ticked off... and we can't even do anything because whoever he is, he's got Marlene with him."
Barret's little daughter... AVALANCHE had to do whatever Cait Sith said, if that was true. There was no way Barret would ever let anything happen to Marlene, from the way he talked. Everyone on the planet could shrivel up and die, if it would keep her safe. No, this was not a good situation. "And what is he asking? That AVALANCHE turns themselves in?"
Yuffie shrugged. "That's the weird part. He just wants to keep travelling with us. And he even told us where to go to find the Temple of the Ancients."
The situation was making Kit's headache grow steadily worse. "That doesn't make any sense," she said, putting her head in her hands. "They just won't tell him anything, now that they know he's a spy."
"I dunno either," Yuffie agreed. "But everyone's downstairs, ready to go. Cept you and Cloud." She grinned mischeviously. "I didn't know SOLDIERs were such slowpokes."
"I'll be down in a minute," Kit said, hoping she didn't sound as weary as she felt. "Just let me get my stuff together."
Apparently she didn't, because Yuffie nodded and took off. "The Ropeway shuttle's fixed, so we're all meeting there," she said over her shoulder.
Once she'd gone, it was a struggle for Kit not to lie back down on the bed and let herself go unconscious. That crawling feeling, the dizziness and nausea, they made her want to climb out of her own skin. She swallowed hard, and forced herself to think of Sephiroth. He'd take care of her...
The thought was enough to keep her moving down to the Ropeway station, where Cait, Cid, and Red were waiting just outside the shuttle. "Good morning, sleepyhead!" Cait called, as the moogle turned to face her.
She definitely knew that voice, but she still couldn't place it. "Don't act like nothing's changed," she said. "I heard about what you did last night. And you can tell Rufus, if he's listening in, that I hope his head wound doesn't heal for a long, long time."
The cat's mouth opened indignantly to retort, then it seemed to reconsider. Finally, Cait looked away with a sigh of resignation.
"Are you all ready?" Red asked Kit. "We're heading to the Temple of the Ancients, now that the shuttle's fixed."
"And about #$&% time," Cid said irritably, as he dropped the butt of his cigarette and ground it under his foot. "That shuttle's not a complicated piece of equipment, but they took so long, you'd think Shera was fixing it. I coulda done it in half the time."
"Funny how even though you swear up and down you can hardly stand her," Cait commented as they entered the shuttle, "you make a reference to her at least once a day. If I didn't know better..."
"Shut the #$@% up!" Cid said, rounding on the moogle angrily. "$@#& spy... you don't know $#@&!"
Ordinarily, Kit would have smirked, since she'd noticed the same thing in the past week. But as smooth as the Ropeway's movement was, it still made her stomach lurch dangerously. She closed her eyes to shut out the moving view out the window, and tried to imagine herself on solid, immobile ground. It didn't do any good.
"So, east towards the sea, huh?" Barret was asking Cait. "You sure you're not just leadin' us on some $#&% wild goose chase?"
"No, I'm positive!" Cait replied. "I heard Tseng and Rufus talking about it, they know right where it is. Just take the Tiny Bronco east, and I'll show you."
The Tiny Bronco... The thought of riding the plane over the choppy waves again forced Kit to swallow convulsively. Talk about something else, she thought desperately.
"An' why should we believe you? You just told us you're with Shinra!" Barret argued.
"I'm just trying to help you out," Cait retorted. "If you don't believe me, then that's fine. You can spend the next month looking for the Temple on your own if you like, but I thought you'd appreciate me being honest with you."
"Honest?" Cloud asked incredulously. "You're a spy! Why would you help us out?"
"Hey, look - I know Shinra's going after the Promised Land for all the wrong reasons," Cait exclaimed, then lowered his voice. "I don't trust Rufus and Heidegger to do anything useful with that power if they get it, or even wholesome. But you guys aren't even after the Promised Land, you're just after Sephiroth. And it seems to me that stopping Sephiroth from reaching the Promised Land is more important than anything. So whether it's you who stops him, or Shinra, I don't care. And honestly, I don't believe the Promised Land even exists. Or if it does, I don't think it's what they expect."
"Bull $#&@!" Barret's bellowing shook the entire shuttle.
"He does have a point," Tifa commented. "How else are we going to find the Temple?"
"But if you want us to stop Sephiroth, why didn't you just let us keep the Keystone?" Cloud asked Cait.
"Simple - Shinra has the resources that you don't," Cait replied calmly. "They have an airship, and the helicopter, and hundreds of trained fighters. If anyone can beat Sephiroth there, it'll be Shinra. For better or worse, they're the most powerful and advanced organization on the planet."
The shuttle began to slow as it approached the station, and the change in motion sent a more severe wave of nausea over Kit. As her head began to throb painfully, she clasped a hand over her mouth and hoped it wouldn't be much longer until they landed.
Red noticed, and cocked his head towards her. "Kit, you don't look so good," he commented. "Are you okay?" She shook her head in response. Her skin was crawling again, with that feeling of something below the surface, wanting to break free. The world was spinning crazily, and her eyes couldn't seem to focus.
Aeris reached out to touch her shoulder, obviously concerned. "What is it? What's wrong?"
Kit just shook her head again, fearing to open her mouth. At that instant, the shuddering of the shuttle signalled that the Ropeway had landed, and Kit pushed Yuffie and Cid aside as she rushed out the door. She made it just in the nick of time, and her head spun as she was sick at the side of the platform.
Someone's gentle hand rested on her back, and a voice said something. She was barely able to make out the words over the sound of blood pulsing in her veins, like the sound of a thousand whispers in her ears. The whispers spoke of something far more powerful than she was alone. Join me, they laughed, and Kit shivered. Was she imagining the words? She could swear they were real. Join me and be free of this human infirmity! This is what you were made for...
She shook her head fiercely. No. Never... I don't even know what... "No!" she moaned aloud desperately, gasping for breath. "Leave me... alone..."
"I will not!"
Aeris's voice, even as indignant as it was, was suddenly crystal clear, and welcome to Kit's ears as the fit seemed to pass. "Aeris," she murmured, still struggling to catch her breath. "Sorry... Thank you. I'll be okay."
Aeris sighed in relief at Kit's words. "I wish I could believe you," she replied anxiously. "I know you'd like to go on pretending nothing's wrong, but anyone can see that's not true. Won't you tell me what's going on?"
"Nothing, I'm just a little woozy," Kit said faintly, sitting down and drawing her knees up tight against her chest. It was useless, she supposed. Aeris wouldn't fall for it this time. "It'll pass."
"No, you've been like this ever since we met you in Junon," Aeris insisted, sitting down beside her. "There's something very wrong with you. What is it really? Why won't you see a doctor?"
Kit sighed. "I don't know," she admitted. "It doesn't seem like I'm sick, and I haven't eaten anything unusual that might disagree with me." It wouldn't do to tell Aeris her true suspicions, that would mean telling her about the Nibelheim reactor. But she was so tired of hiding... making excuses, lying... When would it end?
After a moment's pondering, Aeris frowned. "Maybe the planet can tell me something about you," she suggested. "Here, lie down and I'll try." Kit shook her head, and curled herself into a tighter ball - Aeris could do that? - but Aeris put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. "It won't hurt you, don't worry," she assured her. "We all have secrets, I know. If the planet tells me anything that would embarrass you, I won't tell anyone, I swear. But the planet lets people keep their secrets most of the time anyway."
"Is everything all right?" asked Cloud as he came up beside them with Cid and Tifa. "Feeling better, Kit?"
"I was just going to see what I could find out what might be wrong," Aeris said, before Kit could answer. "The planet might tell me, if she lets me try."
"Oh, okay," Kit mumbled. She couldn't very well refuse Aeris's help when the others were standing right there, that would be a little suspicious. Still, she wasn't sure that Aeris wouldn't blurt out her secret if she found out what Kit was really doing with AVALANCHE. Sure, she'd sworn she wouldn't, but she wasn't sure that oath extended to spies. Even so, she lay back on the ground as Aeris instructed her.
Aeris placed her hands, one on Kit's head and the other on her stomach, and frowned in concentration, closing her eyes. Kit couldn't help shivering a little. Cosmic forces were at work, far beyond anything she'd ever wanted to know about.
And yet it came so naturally to Aeris, from the serene look on her face. After a moment though, she looked confused, and she moved the hand on Kit's stomach down just a little bit. She paused then, looking startled. "What is it?" Kit asked her nervously.
Aeris opened her eyes with a bright smile. "Oh Kit, congratulations! You're going to have a baby boy!"
Sitting up quickly, Kit's mouth fell open in shock, and she dimly noticed Tifa's and Cid's did as well. Seeing the look on her face, Aeris's smile faded. "What? Isn't that happy news?"
Kit couldn't bring herself to say anything, but just placed her hands over her abdomen in astonishment. A son! How would Sephiroth feel about it? The thought made her head whirl, and she would have fallen over if Tifa hadn't noticed and steadied her.
"The father left you, didn't he?" the girl asked indignantly. "Men can be such jerks!" Kit's eyes filled with tears. It would have been so much easier to keep on lying if they were all the callous bunch of terrorists that she'd expected to find, but they'd been so kind to her, how could she?
"Not exactly," she said, taking a deep breath. "I have... a confession to make. Only I'm afraid... that you might kill me when I tell you."
"I doubt it," said Cid. "We didn't kill that #&%$ing cat when we found out he was a &@#$ Shinra spy. Of course, that was just cause he has hostages," he muttered.
"It's safe to tell us, Kit," Aeris assured her. "We all have secrets we're ashamed of. I've seen into your heart, and it's good at the core. I trust you."
"I don't deserve your trust," Kit said, burying her face in her hands. "I came here on orders from-"
"Shinra, is that it?" Cid growled. "It's not enough they send us a %$@ing stuffed cat, they had to make double sure they had us where they wanted us!"
"No, not Shinra." Kit swallowed hard before finishing. "Sephiroth sent me."
At this admission, even Cloud gaped. "Sephiroth?"
"Yes, Sephiroth. I'm his... well, his... lover." After all the time she'd spent holding that thought in, it was a relief to finally say it out loud. Even so, the relief was muted by the fact that she knew what they would think of her now.
Aeris put a hand over her mouth in shock. "Then the baby is..."
"Sephiroth's son." Kit dared to look up at their faces, and saw no less than she'd expected. Cloud's face had gone stony and cold, Cid looked like he was ready to chew rocks, Tifa stared in astonishment, and Aeris looked frightened nearly to death.
"Just what were you intending to do to us for him?" Cloud asked coldly, fingering his sword. "Were you supposed to spy on us, mislead us, or just kill us when the opportunity came up?"
To Kit's surprise, Aeris laid a hand on her arm and glared up at Cloud. "I said I've seen into her heart, and it's good," she insisted. "If she was going to do something bad to us, she wouldn't have admitted what she just did. And here you are acting as if she's... as if she's a machine who can't think independantly from its owner!"
Cloud looked nearly ashamed, but asked, "So why did you tell us?"
"I agreed to spy on you for him because I believed what he told me, that you were all just out to steal the Promised Land from him," Kit said, unable to meet his eyes. "But now that I've met you, and... you've been so kind to me, how could I hurt any of you?"
Cid knelt down and patted her shoulder gently. "There now - we won't let him find you," he said gruffly. "Stick with us, and we'll keep you and yer kid safe."
"That's where I'm having trouble," Kit said miserably. "I was in SOLDIER, and the President assigned me to kill him. But when I saw him, and our eyes met... I just couldn't. I fell in love with him at that first moment. Because of him, I deliberately disobeyed my orders from Shinra, and am directly responsible for the death of President Shinra at his hands, just like Rufus said back in Rocket Town. For him I became a traitor. But this is where it gets difficult - it was my choice. If I had it to do all over again, I'd have done the same."
"Kit..." Aeris tried to say something, but Kit interrupted.
"This must be strange for any of you to hear," she said fiercely, "but I love Sephiroth. I know none of you are used to admitting you have feelings, and it's obvious that every single one of you does have feelings for someone, but I'm not afraid to admit it." The looks on everyone's faces, especially Cid's, would have made Kit laugh in any other circumstance, but she continued as if she hadn't noticed. "I know he's mad, and it scares me nearly to death, but I love him. He needs help... I can't turn my back on him like I turned my back on Shinra."
"So what are you going to do?" asked Tifa gently. "Are you going to go back to him, or stay here with us?"
"I have to make that choice, don't I?" Kit murmured. "I don't know what I'm going to do in the long run, but before I can make that choice, I have to see him at least once more."
Cloud shook his head. "This is Sephiroth we're talking about, you don't have to see him at all. He's very dangerous, he could hurt you."
"He won't," Kit replied. "I'm closer to him now than anyone besides... well, Jenova. He's let me inside his walls, he trusts me. And it will sound foolish to you, but I trust him. Sure, he's dangerous, and sure he's mad, but... there's something else I should tell you." Deliberately she forced herself to look up at Cloud. "I've been infused with Jenova cells too, apparently."
"What?" Cloud exclaimed. "How?"
"The Nibelheim reactor, as I know you're aware, was housing capsules in which Hojo had put humans to mutate. Sephiroth freed me from one, on the mission you two were on together."
"Wha... when?" Cloud's closely guarded reservoir of self-assurance was running dry, it looked like.
"You told me your story," said Kit, "so you remember when the first capsule broke open. Mine was the last." She told them the story Sephiroth had related to her, of her flashback at the reactor, and his theory on why she'd not been deformed like the others.
Cloud nodded thoughtfully at the end, having recovered a little of his composure. "It could be... but if all we've been hearing is true, Jenova wasn't an Ancient. Sephiroth isn't an Ancient. The only one left is..."
All eyes turned to Aeris, and she jumped. "What? I mean, I guess I am, but it shouldn't matter. Whether Sephiroth is an Ancient or not, we still have to stop him from getting the Black Materia."
"So let's get out to the Tiny Bronco," Cid put in, lighting a cigarette to replace the one that had fallen from his mouth when Kit had mentioned them all having feelings. "If Shinra's got the Keystone, what's to stop them from just letting him walk in and take it?"
"Well, I very much doubt the Ancients just left it sitting around where anyone could pick it up," said Aeris, "but no one should be going in there. Besides the Black Materia, who knows what else could be in there that they could use? The Ancients didn't leave much out here in the world, but the Temple is probably full of artifacts that could change the way the world thinks." She shook her head regretfully. "I wouldn't even say we should go in there, if it weren't necessary."
"But it is," Cloud said firmly. "Cid's right, we should be going." He paused for just a moment before turning to Kit. "Are you going with us, or back to Sephiroth?"
"I need to go to him," Kit said softly. "He could be at the Temple already, or nearby. But... he said he would find me when I needed him to return. If he came to me and found all of you with me..."
"Let him come," said Tifa, making a fist. "At least that way we won't need to hunt for him."
"No!" cried Kit before she could stop herself. "I won't lure him into a trap, and I won't endanger all of you by staying. When you go to the Temple, drop me off nearby. With any luck, he'll come after me before he goes after the Black Materia, and you can go in and get it."
"I doubt that very much," Cid remarked. "There's a village on the island next to the Temple though, if we could get there from here..."
As he was still speaking, Barret, Red, and Yuffie walked up. "So what are we doin' standin' here when Sephiroth's going for the Black Materia?" Barret growled. "Shouldn't we be saving the planet, not sitting here on our @%$?"
"We just found out something-" Aeris began, but Cloud cut her off in mid-sentence.
"We were just waiting for the rest of you to get equipped," he said. "So where's Vincent and Cait?"
Red twitched his tail thoughtfully. "What did you find out, Aeris?"
"Mmm, nothing," she replied, noting the stern look on Cloud's face. "Right, Cloud?"
Cloud shrugged. "We'll explain it on the way, it's a long story," he said. "Find Vincent and Cait, and we'll mosey."
"#@&$!" Cid exclaimed. "Mosey? What a wuss word! You were in %#$&ing SOLDIER, didn't they teach you to talk tough?"
"They taught me to speak without swearing every other word," Kit said solemnly, and was rewarded with a glare.
"Fine then," said Cloud. "Someone find Vincent and Cait and we'll leave. How's that?"
To Chapter TwentySix. To the intro. That means it's mine, not yours! |
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