Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shinra Mansion was restored in the aftermath of the Nibelheim Incident. It had become a public building, both a library and museum as well as an upscale hostel. Vincent scarcely recognized the inviting estate as it was now even after his previous return. Antique furniture had been placed at regular intervals to draw people into the manor. A donation box would need to be emptied soon, although it had mostly small sums of money inside. Dark wood bookshelves held innocuous titles for passing visitors and guests alike. Tall windows cast a soothing light over the entire scene and allowed everyone a glimpse of the relaxed landscaping on the grounds. The chandelier would likely turn on automatically as the sun slipped behind the mountains.

He knew one thing for certain when he set foot in the cozy, polished entry hall: His old coffin would no longer be in the basement. Strangely, he felt a distant pang of longing.

Vincent didn’t regret joining Cloud and his friends when he finally awakened to the outside world. Yet there would always be a part of him that felt he belonged there instead of among humanity.

“Mr. Valentine?”

He glanced at the staff member’s tag first—Royce. She was the one who had been emailing him.

“Vincent is fine.”

“Thank you for coming to help us, Vincent,” she answered with a polite nod. “Your room is free and available until your work is done.”

It didn’t take him long to realize she was keeping it discreet for the main entrance. Guests didn’t need to hear about the reported hauntings outlined in her messages. He knew that most spirits were benevolent, even those who were tormented by their demise or events of their lives. Not everyone was so informed. Shinra Mansion had been host to enough tragedies that, for once, Vincent would almost be glad if the place could have one positive outcome tied to it. But his happiness wasn’t the noticeable kind.

“I’ll get started.”

He didn’t bring much, so the visit to his room in the hostel was brief. Yuffie had seen to it that Vincent owned more material possessions than he knew what to do with, between her incessant gifts throughout the year and encouraging others to do the same. She came a long way from the brazen teenager who stole their Materia and trapped them all.

But most of his belongings stayed at his home in Gongaga. Repairs had long since finished in the village, and it had even grown since the former SOLDIER lived there. Zack Fair briefly crossed paths with Vincent before he was prepared to leave his casket and brave the world. He was only just conscious enough to be aware of his presence. What Vincent knew of him came from Aerith, and he only learned later that she didn’t entrust those stories to many others. The pink ribbon on Vincent’s right arm felt like a tribute to both of them in a sense. Perhaps they would be proud of his work helping others with the instability of Gaia. As the planet healed, some wounds still felt fresh to it. Hauntings and other supernatural events were inevitable. Who better than a monster and man to deal with these injuries to Gaia?

This ghost of Shinra Mansion reportedly terrorized a select few visitors and no pattern appeared yet. All Royce could tell him was that it came up from the basement to reach any floor of the estate that it wanted. Victims had sustained serious injuries—large slashes or odd puncture wounds, but never both—but nothing that could not be mended with magic or science. The manor’s new owners understandably wanted to take care of this spirit before that changed. None of the targets had a reason that they were targeted, and so, Vincent was called in to investigate and cleanse the deceased from the premises if necessary.

“The library here won’t be of use to me,” he muttered to himself. Even with no one to travel with, Vincent found a certain peace in speaking aloud. “The basement it is.”

Descending wasn’t as time-consuming as he remembered it being. The renovations removed all concealment around the hidden lab and definitely helped with navigating the grand building. Staff knew to let him in and didn’t look twice at his gauntlet arm, which he was grateful for. Vincent knew he was a monstrosity without wary stares.

“Should be further in,” the worker at the main desk told him and pointed into the darker depths of the old lab. Not as much changed down here compared to the main area. If someone planned to make a museum about the Nibelheim Incident, Vincent supposed it made sense not to make it seem as welcoming as the library or hostel areas. “We’re closed now, so no need to worry about any customers. Just stay safe, okay?”

“Of course.” He couldn’t be possessed and killing him was next to impossible. The sentiment was still appreciated.

Most ghost searches took days of careful monitoring and historic research to uncover. Vincent was prepared to comb through the museum section of the mansion at different times of day before making progress. He was immortal, after all, and time meant little to him. Surprises were uncommon as well. Even in his handful of decades on the planet, Vincent had seen more horrors and miracles than most.

So it was doubly unexpected when the apparition of Zack Fair manifested through the non-operational mako tank in the experimentation room. He had that signature grin Aerith spoke about, propping a hand up on his hip like neither of them were in the heart of the nightmarish place that ruined their lives.

“Finally awake, huh? Guess beauty sleep really does count for something.”

Chapter Text

“Zack. Aerith told me about you.”

The astral form of the man grinned even wider. He had none of the wounds that brought about his death, nor the iconic sword on his back. Most ghosts had some mark of their life or their passing on them when they haunted the living world. But then again, most ghosts would linger in the area where they died rather than where it all fell apart. Yet there Zack was. Apparently haunting the mako tanks that changed the course of his and Cloud’s lives forever. He didn’t even wear his SOLDIER uniform anymore. In plain, brown pants and a mostly unbuttoned white shirt, he looked like a man who grew up in Gongaga and had moved to the city for the better part of a decade. Before everything went wrong.

If any of it bothered him, Vincent wouldn’t have known.

“She talked you up too, don’t worry about that.”

“I…” He’d never had to go over his personal memories in a supernatural job before. With his experiences, Vincent supposed he should have expected as much eventually. He’d been alive for a long time. Looking back on his travels with their fallen friend, he didn’t come up with anything that warranted a lot in the way of compliments. Vincent focused once more on the spirit with him. “I can’t imagine she had much material.”

“Oh, you know Aerith! I bet she’s gonna double down now.”

Zack didn’t stop smirking when Vincent crossed his arms. He presumed not much frightened the former fighter anymore. Taking in a breath, he kept asking questions. It was technically part of the investigation.

“Do you talk to her often?”

“Yeah, the universe kinda seems to just let her come and go as she wants. She even brought me over with her one time, but I came back. It’s too clean over there.”

In contrast, Zack wrinkled his nose at the idea of it. Vincent could envision the place where souls would find their rest. A soothing, soft afterlife with a peaceful atmosphere. Paradise to the weary and torment for the energetic types such as Zack Fair. Of course, his typical Gongaga clothing gave him away as wanting some serenity now that he wasn’t caught up in mortal matters anymore. Almost as though he saw death as a long-term vacation with plenty of pastimes to appeal to him. The right balance of rest and action.

But when Vincent thought again of the injuries reported by the staff of the restored Shinra Mansion, he could see the puzzle coming together.

Large slashes, as if from a massive sword. Odd puncture wounds—almost like heavy gunfire.

It fit what he knew of the devoted man. He wanted to be a hero, dreaming of a world where people didn’t suffer needlessly. He died to save Cloud. Why wouldn’t his spirit be drawn here, to this trauma-filled place that set them on that cursed path? The Nibelheim Incident Museum had a more accurate exhibit than the owners knew. Zack Fair, SOLDIER 1st Class, defender of the former labs where he spent years being subject to experimentation.

That was the theory, in any case. Vincent would have to research the previous attacks to confirm his suspicions.

“If it’s mess you’re after, you’re in the right place.”

Talking with Zack didn’t stop Vincent from updating his digital report to his client. A confirmed haunting, although what kind of spirit Zack was had yet to be discovered. He may have omitted the fact that their resident ghost was none other than Zack Fair. The man wasn’t famous, exactly, but that information may have sparked some urgency—or worse, entrepreneurialism. Many business owners attempted to commercialize the torment of a wandering soul. Vincent would rather not find out that his present customer was one of them.

Onryō were typically women, but anyone who suffered an untimely death could become one. The resentment that caused an imbalance so intense that it separated the soul and the body. He would likely show his vengeful ways and leave this place if he was a goryō, similarly motivated by injustice and a desire to get even with the specific people who wronged them in life. Or perhaps there were two ghosts on the grounds, and Zack was something like an adult version of the protective and playful Zashiki-Warashi.

Finding out wouldn’t necessarily be peaceful.

“Have you heard about the attacks here?”

Blinking, Zack painted the perfect image of ignorance. It didn’t mean he wasn’t responsible. Some spirits had a way of removing those painful memories from their thoughts. Vincent envied it, almost. He sometimes wondered if he would choose to forget how Lucrecia used him, given the chance.

“No, sorry. I don’t want to startle anyone, so I mostly stay down here.”

“Hm.” While he still had his phone out—a few models behind the newest version—Vincent drew up a picture of the first victim. An older woman who had been vacationing with her child and grandchildren. At least before reported waking up in pain, finding slash marks across her forearms and along her back. “Did she come into the museum?”

“Lemme take a look,” Zack offered, drifting closer and putting his hand on his chin while he examined the image. “I don’t… I don’t think so, but…”

The shift was subtle at first. Nothing but a hazy blur that ran through Zack’s translucent form. If Vincent hadn’t seen it before, he could have dismissed it. A ghostly sword flickering to life on the former SOLDIER’s back was much harder to ignore. It phased in and out, dragging Vincent’s mood down as it did. Aerith told him about his kindness, his enthusiasm, all with a soft smile. It wouldn’t have been easy to warp his character that way. But the world was cruel, and no one could endure it forever. Vincent had to see for himself how much damage Shinra had done to Zack in his afterlife.

“She was attacked in her sleep. Her daughter had to treat these wounds.”

Changing to the next image was his breaking point. Zack snarled, staring down those slices, eyes glowing to match the tanks behind him. Or close enough. They didn’t actually contain mako anymore, just colored lights for the approximate accuracy.

“In her sleep? Liar!” A reverberation layered his voice, the sword returning to stay. The materia slots were empty but everything else was identical.

“Then you tell me what happened.” If the man noticed the difference between their voices, he plainly didn’t care about it. Zack thrummed with energy at the edges of his presence. Hostile energy.

“The kids wouldn’t stop playing and go to bed, so she beat them. That coward wanted to take her issues out on some defenseless target, her own grandchildren,” he spat out, as if sickened by the very words, and his clothes shifted to SOLDIER gear. Phasing out and reappearing closer to Vincent, glowing all over and seemingly unaware of it, Zack’s voice fell to a cold steel. “So I showed her, I showed her what it felt like.”

“Zack. You’ve changed.”

“What?!” Offense or disbelief, probably both, drove him to shout. Vincent angled his head away to lessen the sharp feeling in his ears.

“Look.” Pointing to the black top for SOLDIER fighters, Vincent explained what he could. The sword would have to wait. Pushing him to the brink would only make matters worse. “Ready for conflict.”

“I’m a hero. I protect people,” Zack insisted, or tried to. The sword disappeared and took some of the brimming energy with it. His mystical eyes still shimmered as the rest of the uniform remained. He was faltering, trapped between his integrity as a person and his resentment in death—rather, Vincent imagined that his struggle. Who could blame Aerith’s long-lost crush from being hesitant to talk about the agony of that conflict?

“Never said you didn’t.”

Ghosts were a lot of things. Deceitful was not typically one of them. If they wanted to hurt people, they didn’t bother hiding it. His spirit was imbalanced and fracturing even more the longer he stayed at the estate. With Zack’s open season approach to any wrongdoing, he wasn’t a goryō. But one incident wasn’t enough to confirm he was an onryō. And he clearly wasn’t strictly benevolent. Vincent brought up another victim’s picture, burying the writhing regret that came with it. He had to be certain.

“And him?”

“He, he was,” Zack started, still flickering now and again. Trying to make himself remember added to the strain of keeping his form recognizable. The man winced with the effort, and it occurred to Vincent that no one reported seeing a man in these attacks. But they were obviously dealing with some of the worst humanity had to offer—the truth couldn’t be expected. Zack locked his gaze on Vincent like nothing else existed in the world. A focal point to steady him, most likely. “He’s got his boyfriend convinced he’s crazy. Changes all the rules to make him the one that can’t be trusted.”

“So you… shot him?”

Emotional abuse was harder to prove in the eyes of the law. He wouldn’t put it past this diehard hero type to handle it himself, but he needed Zack to confront that himself. There would be no resolution if he stayed metaphysically trapped in this basement.

“People like that don’t stop. Not until someone makes them.”

“You can’t be the one to do it,” Vincent stated, sliding his phone back into his pocket. There was no other reason to put this man through more than he already faced.

“Why not?” Clenching his fists, Zack got defensive once more. At least the sword didn’t re-manifest.

“Injustice sets you off.” Pacing through the room to give Zack something else to be distracted by, Vincent described what his fate would be if he didn’t leave this spiteful drive for retribution behind. He deserved that much. “Enough anger, and a ghost turns malevolent for good.”

“I can’t control this, I just…” Zack made a frustrated noise, throwing his hands up as though it would dislodge the vengeance that kept him on this plane. “When I see it, I have to do something.”

“That’s why you can’t stay. You’ll lose yourself.”

Chapter Text

“Where would I go? I’ve tried checking out the town, but I can only get so far.” Flickering still, Zack gestured to the village past those walls. Hiding fear was harder when steady emotions were required to keep his form intact. “I just end up back here. Don’t remember how.”

“Your soul.” Vincent pointed with a claw to the glowing chamber. “It’s still in that tank.”

“This?” Legs phasing out, Zack drifted to the tank. He squinted closer at it, like his soul bond was a visible thing if he just tried hard enough. Vincent failed to fight a smirk. “But I don’t… Why?”

“Our lives ended here.”

“Ours?”

Steadying off his flashing, Zack looked back at him. Vincent nodded. He didn’t have the luxury of not talking about the atrocities that brought him to the present, not if he wanted his plan to work. Stalling the conversation was harder to prevent. The rough beginning was as good a place to start as any.

“I was a Turk. Before.”

“Oh. I hear the pay’s good.”

Aerith told him that Zack tried to keep things light, with a sort of endearing awkwardness, so he knew to expect that. Complete with the half-smile despite just having grappled with murderous impulses. Vincent tilted his face behind the tall collar of his cloak.

“My job was to supervise the Jenova Project.” Turning away to examine the other equipment still set up in the museum, Vincent had to admit to himself he was glad not everything remained. It was a close enough comparison as it was. Cleaner, yes, but similar enough to be sharp at the edges of his mind. To think people could buy tickets to visit the place where his life and his humanity fell apart forever. “I fell in love, and she didn’t feel the same.”

“Ouch. That sucks.”

He was more flippant with the worse something was, just like she said. No wonder they got along so well. A playful personality that masked a lot of suffering, beyond their mortal existence as it were. Vincent blinked. The machines in front of him were protected with a velvet rope. None of the buttons or levers likely functioned anymore, but of course you could never trust people or kids not to tinker them anyway.

“She died.”

Zack winced. As if his own former girlfriend hadn’t died, violently and peacefully all at once. But Vincent assumed it was better—or less terrible—that she didn’t agree to human experimentation on her unborn child before that point. While it wasn’t a contest between their dead crushes, he had learned over time that things could always be worse. One had to appreciate when circumstances erred on the side of better.

“Yes. When I confronted Hojo—”

“Hojo?!”

Vincent nodded. His chest ached. With effort, he kept his hand from scratching at the scarred spot in the center of his sternum.

“He shot me.”

“Bastard.”

“Well said.” Vincent was progressively grateful for how straightforward Zack could be. Direct like Cid and enthusiastic like Yuffie, he could get used to that. The plan to save this one troubled soul could succeed. Neither of them would have to see that dismal lab again, if they pulled it off together. Vincent faced Zack again. Those gleaming eyes trained on him with furrowed brows and a firm frown. “He started experimenting on me when I was half-dead, and she helped him. Now I’m a vessel for the very essence of Chaos, which I can mostly control. Effectively immortal and a monster.”

Frown turning into a scowl, Zack threw his hands up.

“Why does everyone always think they’re monsters? An actual monster would never say that! Hojo sure as shit never did.” Grumbling something wordless, Zack ran a hand through his messy black hair. His stare went right through Vincent, and the shrug in response got him to focus. “And why are you telling me all this?”

“Your trauma is keeping you here. But I share your painful past.”

“So…” Smarter than almost anyone probably gave himself credit for, Zack pointed at Vincent and let his disbelieving grin grow. “I can go with you instead? I won’t fall apart?”

“If this is effective,” Vincent explained, “and if I avoid people who will make you angry.”

“Uh, but you’d have to live in some village tinier than this.”

He waved an arm at the wall and ceiling, the general town of Nibelheim surrounding them. Vincent smiled again and let out a small chuckle. Most people wouldn’t have heard, but Zack’s whole-body glimmer was an obvious tell that he did.

“I already do.”

“Huh? Where?”

Vincent ducked his head, using his cloak and hair to dodge eye contact.

“Gongaga.”

“Hey, Gongaga!” When he peered back at Zack, he put on his country attire again. They made it to safe mental territory somehow. “Guess she really did tell you great things about me.”

“I wasn’t surprised when you flirted with me first thing, if that’s what you mean.”

“Someone has to tell you how handsome you are.” Significantly happier now, Zack propped his hands up on his hips. It helped make the vague self-consciousness of his fragile smirk seem smaller for a second. Definitely endearing, as predicted. “Are you sure this is alright, though? Like, I’m not going to scare off your partner or anything?”

“I don’t have anyone.”

“…No one?” Zack’s joyful expression fell into gawking. When Vincent blinked and inclined his head to confirm it, Zack’s mouth fell open. He looked up and down the scarred body in front of him like a marvel instead of what it really was. “Seriously?!”

Vincent laughed again on a breath. He’d been caught once before. Let the ghost have his win, and he wouldn’t have to know there was no competition out there for an asexual monstrosity. Though he apparently did and refused to believe it. Finding out if Zack could sway him in the other direction… Well, it would be an interesting way to pass a decade or so.

“Dibs.” He clapped a hand above Vincent’s chest, unable to actually touch him since he wasn’t enraged. Fortunately. Though he did sense—something. A faint tune that lulled someone to sleep. Much-needed shade on a hot day. The latching of one soul to another. “Let’s go.”

“What?”

Watching the fallen SOLDIER walk up the stairs as if he could go too far, Vincent arched an eyebrow.

“I’ve got all the time in the world now to woo you, so I’m calling dibs. Okay with you?”

Being past death’s grasp as a horrific, shifting beast, the former Turk knew his life would be far from typical. It was something he knew to expect when he became a Turk in the first place. Before that too, back when he first realized that most other people in the world had a sexual drive that he didn’t share. It seemed fake. He knew the deep, unconditional love of wanting to keep Lucrecia safe much better than wanting to fall into bed with someone. Maybe it was just as bizarre that he wanted to keep Zack safe. Apparently that tendency for the odd brought him there, haunted by his own aspiring lover.

“Alright, Zack. Let’s get home.”