Disclaimer: Repeat after me- I DO NOT OWN FF7.

Mako, Water, Land, Iron.

What do all these things have in common, I ask you?

And hopefully, the scholar inside you will reply that all four things are commodities currently in demand during this war ShinRa is insistent doesn't exist.

But that's not what both sides need.

More important? It's lives.

It's really the driving force.

You see, the ShinRa Empire is divided into several manageable sectors. Each is ruled by an Earl, whom is expected to rule over a couple of hundred thousand villagers with the help of payments from the King. Interestingly enough, the fact that most fail miserably, thus letting precious lives wither and die, is ignored. The worst failure is one disgusting specimen of a man known only as 'Hojo'. This cockroach leaves his sector in squalor and instead uses the gil granted to him to partake in his favorite hobby- playing god. He pulls random lives off the street and performs inhumane experiments on him, or so Vincent tells me (and I would take his word as truth over any one else I know). These abominations of nature (released into the wild when Hojo is finished with them) are what we are fighting against.

This is also where I come in.

You see, seventeen-ish years ago, an malnourished blonde woman late into her third trimester of pregnancy stumbled into an isolated temple of questionable purposes after leaving a village of people with nothing but scorn for women carrying bastard babies.

She died in childbirth a week later, but I survived- I being the newborn, for those out there that couldn't connect the dots.

So, I was raised surrounded by stuffy monks whom I found incredibly boring. So, I would practice sword fighting with sticks in the courtyard, modeled off what I had read in outdated books from a musty out-of-the-way library, in between boring lectures about something-or-rather. Because really, there was no place for an adventurous seven-year old in a temple.

At about eleven, something small with spindly legs and gnashing needle teeth (I later learned that this was no doubt one of Hojo's earlier creations, from before he started on humans) managed to get into the main prayer room and was terrorizing the old men who were truly scared out of their wits (which was quite entertaining, considering the thing was the size of a rabbit). I threw a cast-iron incense pot at the thing, killing it instantly. The priests declared me a great warrior (or great cannon fodder) dug a rusting sword out of a more dubious room in the temple and told me to kill six other scaly things running around the rice fields. As the things were about as bright as a candle, they weren't exactly a challenge for a few well-aimed strikes.

The conclusion to my little adventure was that the more boring part of my day spent listening to dreary monks was no longer, and instead I was sent out to 'patrol the borders' AKA keep a couple of old men safe, and out of their hair (or what hair they had). Being the soul member of the temple's guard suited me just fine, for although I enjoyed literature, I had no taste for the type of thing I was encouraged.

Over the next two years I defended the temple against the occasional monster, and with the aid of no doubt forbidden weaponry textbooks and all day to practice, my skill improved considerably.

My thirteenth year was when I found Vincent. I'd tell you about how I found him lying in a ditch, soaked in his own blood or how he had some startling physical attributes, but it's not really my place to say. What is relevant, however, is that I convinced the temple to 'adopt' him to help me defend the place, and that he is now my best, and only friend.

Anyway, back to the story. During the next year or so, a small village started growing around the temple's boundaries as small families evacuated here to escape roaming monsters. The monks were only too happy to enlighten these newcomers, who in return helped extend the priests diet from rice and simple vegetables.

When I questioned why these people where coming to us, Vincent explained the mechanics of ShinRa to me, and how Hojo's monstrosities were life-threatening to simple serfs, and how I and him were the only defenses against the threat apart from the elite army that King ShinRa was not willing to use to defend such trivial things as peasants.

And so the town of Keystone, with a temple at the centre and two of the stongest warriors among the villages in the area, became known.

And sometimes fame really isn't a good thing, especially when the very place you're defending is rumored to have an artifact hidden inside, is it?

I guess we'll just have to see where this life leads us, I guess!

END-OF-CHAPTER+

So. This is my latest brainchild. It may sound boring right now, but hopefully you'll be able to wait the gods-know-when wait for the next chapter- this is my secondary fic right now. But I do promise to update some time this year sweatdrop, But I'm in second-last year of high-school right now and it's pretty full on. But I do plan on completing this!

Although I cannot promise you an updating date, I can tell you these things, which this fic will have-

PLOT (OMG RLY!)

Yaoi- Romance of the SephirothXCloud type, EVENTUALLY

Vampires (YAY)

Tifa-bashing (perhaps, if I can put up with her)

And AU-ness.

UPDATE TIMES ARE SHORTENED BY REVIEWS!

...And really, does it take that long to review? Please just take a moment to feed the author, here! Even if you do hate it!