Introduction

"There might be monsters! Or vampires! And this place is really creeping me out! My ninja sense is tingling," Yuffie babbled. The dark caves curved in a way that reminded her too much of home. The Fire caves of Da Chao, a winding maze, were just like this. After all, Da Chao meant Chaos.

They had reached a door. "Um, Cloud...Please tell me we won't be going in there...?" His blue eyes found her face, twisted in fear, and he shrugged.

"Cloud!" she protested loudly. He pushed the door open, and she shuddered. Something was behind that door, and it would change their journey, effect their quest beyond repair. She peeked around his shoulder, and there, smack dab in the middle of the floor, was....A coffin.

She muttered under her breath, "Oh joy. More spooky monsters." Yuffie cringed as Cloud walked across the room and broke the lock on the box. And screamed when her worst fears were confirmed and a tall, scary guy jumped out. "A vampire!"

The tall man's eyes were drawn to her, a puzzled frown flitting across his brow. His irises were red. She cowered, moving back, towards the door. He returned his attention to Cloud, who wasn't even fazed, probably because of all the weird shit he'd seen in ShinRa.

"Who are you, to wake me from my nightmare?" Yuffie noted the tone of his voice, the inflection of his words, and his accent. Soft, ashy, a voice that threatened and soothed at the same time, like a razor sharp blade wrapped in layers of flannel and satin. He talked like...her father...all old-timey stresses, and proper grammar. As he continued to talk with Cloud, and the rest of the group fidgeted (most were as uncomfortable as Yuffie, if not more), she noticed something else. The faint lilt of an accent that took her a moment to place.

Wutain. Her eyes widened again. He spoke with her accent.

"Sephiroth!" The strange man's eyes narrowed, anger blazing behind the red. "You know Sephiroth?"

Cloud answered, "Yes. We're searching for him. Why?"

Tall Dark and Creepy closed his eyes. "Lucrecia was the mother of Sephiroth. That is my sin. I could not stop her."

Now, that is a sin....thought Yuffie. He was responsible for the monster they were hunting?

"I could not convince her not to use her child for the experiment," he continued. Convince? That is what he's accusing himself of? Not being able to change someone's mind? Under her breath, Yuffie snorted. His eyes snapped back to her face, but now she met his gaze with a glare. If he couldn't even stand up to his own failure, he should quaver in front of her.

"What interests you so about my face?" he asked.

She glared harder. "Just thinking that you're kinda pathetic if you think Sephiroth is your fault just because you couldn't talk him mom out of using him as an experiment."

He met he glare and returned it, as what she would soon come to know as Vincent Valentine's Patented Glare®, full force. "I should have convinced her. I was..." he sighed and looked away.

The unspoken words hung in the air between them, Yuffie and this man whose name she did not know. "I could have, if I'd tried harder." "It is my fault." "I failed." She nodded. Yuffie knew what it was like to fail.

Cloud cleared his throat, breaking the tension. "AVALANCHE, this is Vincent Valentine. Vincent, this is AVALANCHE. Tifa, Barret, Cid, Red XIII, Yuffie, Cait Sith, and Aeris," he introduced, pointing at each respectively. A murmur of hello's, then awkward silence.

He now known as Vincent turned to Cloud. "If I joined your group, I could find Hojo?"

"Well, I can't guarantee it, but we're searching for him, too." Vincent nodded, contemplatively.

When the group left the Niebleheim Mansion cellars, Vincent went with them, Yuffie's eyes always watching him, an occaissional mutter of "creepy vampire" issuing from between her lips. By the end of Day 1 with Vincent, she had jokingly dubbed him "Vinnie". He prayed, with a shudder, that it wouldn't stick.