Nanaki and the Fallen Angel Prologue
New Year's Eve
By Brady Bryner, Bill Shofstall, & Anthony McKinley
Niblehiem Area, Tifa's Bar 3:36 AM Dec. 31
Tifa sat cleaning a glass reminescing about the past monthes. But the year was ending on this day. It didn't matter how early it was. She smiled at remembering her friends. She hadn't seen them in monthes, but they had their own lives to live, and she respected that. A man wearing a dark trench coat walked into the bar. He sat down on a bar stool and looked up. He had a pale face with semi-long black hair. His eyes were a light green color, and wide and round. "Can I get some straight whiskey?"
"Sure. Four gil."
"Cheap as hell." He smiled and threw four coins of a grayish metal. He drank his glass of whiskey and tipped a dark tan hat he wore on his head. "Thank you ma'am." His black hair flowed out from under the hat. Three men stepped in. The man turned around to see the three of them.
"Its him!" They pulled out an assortment of guns. They fired several shots into the man. He stood still, and didn't fall. A shot was heard. One of the three fell dead. He pulled out a revolver and fired a second shot into another's head.
"Now. This revolver had three bullets in it." He pulled out the chamber and spun it around. "Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows!" He closed the chamber and pulled the trigger. A click was heard. "Its your lucky day." He instead pulled out a shotgun from his coat and fired a shot into the man's back as he ran. Tifa watched the whole spectacle with a half surprised, and half dull look on her face.
"What the hell was that all about?" The man put his shotgun and revolver away.
"Just some dirtbags who decided to come after me."
"Who are you? And why the hell did you shoot up my bar?" The man threw a vest on the ground, covered in crushed lead. Tifa hadn't seen him get shot. "Holy shit... Anyway..."
"I'm just somebody. Here..." He threw several bags of the grayish coins on the table. "That should cover some of the damages... Sorry about this ma'am." He grabbed the bodies and dragged them away, into driving rain. There was nothing but flatland around the bar for miles. But he came back and cleaned up the bar, and of the bodies he left not a trace. On his way out, Tifa grabbed him by the neck, and pulled the revolver out of his coat. She pressed to the back of his head.
"Enough bullshit... Who the fuck are you!?!" The man didn't reply. "Answer me you sorry ass fuck!" She tightened her grip on the gun.
"You don't have the stomach to pull that trigger." She knew she didn't. She had no reason to kill him. He had been attacked. He had lived. He had done nothing wrong except shoot up the bar, which wasn't his fault either. She gave him back his gun and apologized.
"Don't worry about it. I'da done the same thing if it had been me." He stepped outside into the rain.
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Cosmo Canyon, Seto 4:54 AM Dec. 31
Nanaki bowed his head in a quiet solace in front of his father. He waited for the sun to come up over the horizon before he spoke. "Father... What should I do?" He turned to the sun. "I'm afraid of what will happen to me if I pursue this any further. You wouldn't be afraid. But I don't understand it. I devote my life to the study of life and the universe, and I find I don't understand what is set right before me." He looked up to see the sun. "Sometimes I think 'Damn it all' like I should just retire to the canyon and become an elder. But that isn't my calling. I know it isn't, as I know I'm not the last." He stepped away and back to the town that inhabited the canyon. Elder Hargo walked over to him while he was reading memoirs left by Bugenhagen. He set his mind so deeply in the memoirs he was unaware of the elder's presence.
"Nanaki." Nanaki remained silent and reading. "Nanaki." Still nothing. "Hey!"
"Huh?" Nanaki looked startled. "Oh. Sorry. My mind was occupied."
"I couldn't see it in your reaction. Don't listen to carefully now. You may hear something important." Hargo's sarcastic expression faded. Nanaki's face began etching out a worried look. "This is the most important of Bugenhagen's works. To you for that matter. He never let anyone see it, and in the event of his death you were to be given it." Hargo placed a small sheet of paper in front of Nanaki.
"It's...blank..." Bugen shaked his head slowly. He put it under a magnifying glass and place it at a window. "Wait until tonight. You'll get a rather interesting surprise according to Bugenhagen." The man left Nanaki alone in the observatory.
"Oh great... I'm begining to reeealy hate surprises." After the death of Sephiroth, he began trying to relive his youth with a happier outlook. It ended up making him talk like Cloud and occasionally even to the extent of Cid. He cursed something in his true tongue and stepped back to the memoirs. He found something that caught his interest, as it was a scientific examaination. "The Gi Dremin Doll. A doll that can be possessed by the vengeful soul of one sentenced to hell because of murderous acts and because of perverse morals. I have had to safegaurd the only one never destroyed in a cabinet hidden away in the observatory. I cannot finish my research on the doll now, and I must hide because if Nanaki finds what it could do he may... What!?! He hid it because he thinks it could affect me some how?" Nanaki shook his head. He had began a drinking habit, and decided to nurse it at the bar. No one expected him to drink, but with everything they had seen, no one blamed him for it.
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Niblehiem, Square 6:01 AM Dec. 31
Cloud Strife stood with a blade he had finally been able to possess. He carried the Masamune. Now bathed in blood of hundreds, its power was amazing, even surpassing that of the Ultima Weapon. He stood in the square of the town bowing his head. He picked up a green orb. The ring of buildings caught fire. He ran to the mansion and hid away from the blaze. He had that memory well implanted in his mind. "It had to be done." He hid in a corner of a room like a child, clenching his knees and curling into a tight ball. He recited the same phrase over and over again as he rocked back and forth. He actually fought tears. So rare to such a man was it to cry. "Damn you!!!" He screeched at the top of his lungs and then held his breath. Tears began to pour down the side of his face and made a trail from his eyes the whole way to his chest where they welled up.
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Midgar, Shinra Building 9:48 AM Dec. 31
Reeve stepped out of the rubble of the Shinra building. Several Shinra gaurds followed. "How much is salvagable?"
"Almost all of it."
"Have you assessed the damage fee?" Reeve looked around. Most of Midgar was already rebuilt.
"More than fourty billion gil."
"Good enough."
"Good enough? It costs us less to rebuild the plate."
"Who said I was using my money? I'm using Rufus's."
"Kaaaay..." The soldier looked away. Reeve pulled out a magnum and fired a shot into the air.
"Listen up. We need to reconstruct at least thirty percent of this in two months."
"Thats easy!" The soldier looked away again and shuffled his feet like a shy child would. He walked away, than split to a jog, and than ran off.
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Niblehiem Area, Tifa's Bar, 8:00 PM Dec. 31
Tifa lay sleeping behind the bar in a fine little bed. "Hey!" Tifa mumbled and rolled over. "Wake up!"
"Go away! We're open 6 PM to 8 AM." She rolled back over.
"Wake up, Tifa! Besides, your open!"
"Go away, God damn it!"
"Tifa! Its Cloud and Yuffie!" Tifa's eyes broke open. She leapt up. Yuffie and Cloud were standing there.
"Hi. Yuffie..." She began passing out. "I...thought you were in...Mideel..." Tifa fell asleep standing up.
"Gawwwwwwd..." Yuffie tapped her on the shoulder. Tifa's fist shot out and met Yuffie's face. "Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!" She clenched her hand over her nose. "You broke my nose!!!"
"Oh my God! I'm so sorry!" Yuffie waved Tifa and Cloud away.
"I'll be fine. Owwww..." She sat in the corner nursing her nose. At that time, a red furred, feline\canine creature stumbled into the bar, tripping over all four of his legs. No one had seen him in monthes, and had never seen him wasted.
"Nanaki?" Cloud had called him by his proper name whenever he talked about him since the Meteor.
"What?" He tripped onto his face.
"Whats with you?"
"Nothing." Tifa looked at him.
"Are you drunk?"
"Noooo... I had a few drinks though..." He grinned an idiotic drunken grin.
"What did you drink?"
"Whiskey and scotch..."
"How..." Tifa was afraid to ask. "How much?"
"Just half a bottle..."
"You should be dead from that!"
"Ummm fine..." He tried to stand up straight but failed and fell again. "Hehe... I can't sum to stand..." He tried to get onto all fours again, but fell and went unconscious. Tifa was now awake, as she had been sleeping since 7 AM, an hour before closing. She helped Cloud drag him to the bed and set him down.
"I've never seen him wasted..." She giggled slightly with Cloud's chuckling. Nanaki looked around.
"Whats sue funny?"
"You. No one would expect to see you drunk. How did you get here? You'd have to get over the river."
"I tagged a ride with a caravan..." He was starting to come around from his drunkness and was entering the hangover stage. "My head is throbbing... What the hell was I doing?"
"You got drunk."
"I was not drunk! Gaaaah!" He took a paw and placed it to his head. He looked around and saw Yuffie. "What happened to her?" Yuffie said several slurred words.
"Tufattucked maa..."
"Okaaaay... I didn't understand... Bwaaah! You have anything for a headache? Please..." Tifa pulled out a shringe and bottle of rubbing alcohol. "Your kidding me..." She rubbed the alcohol on his neck. Nanaki's head hurt to much to defend himself. She plunged the needle into the area she had cleared of fur and injected a green liquid. Nanaki cringed, but his head felt relieved. "What was that?" Nanaki didn't like shots, ever since Hojo, but the relief it offered was amazing.
"Its like a regenerative liquid. It just puts your pain nerves out of commision." She smiled and kissed Nanaki on the forehead. "I missed you." Cloud looked at her.
"Sure. Kiss him. What about me?" She turned and kiss Cloud on the lips.
"Shut up, Cloud." Cloud smiled with a reddening look on his face.
"Uma furgutten?" Yuffie waved a free hand as she slurred out more words. "Uh think the bludins cluring up." She wiped more blood from her nose and looked around. "I think its done..." She wiped the last of the blood from her nose. A man in a trench coat and hat walked in.
"It's you again." Tifa stood up. The man fired a shot from a golden revolver in half a second. He pulled his weapon and fired and holstered it in the oppisite side of his coat. The bullet flew from the gun in what had seemed to be slow motion. Cloud jumped up and caught the bullet in his stomach.
Tifa jumped down and grabbed a gun from under the bar. Nanaki jumped down and flattened his body to the ground. Tifa jumped up and cocked the gun. "You have two choices. You can pull a gun and get shot, or you'll put your guns on the ground and leave." He shot Tifa as well, in the side. Yuffie was completly ignored. She sunk further into her corner. The man pulled a shotgun and pointed it at her head. She began to cry as he pressed it to her head.
"Please don't kill me..." She began crying uncontrolably.
"It won't even hurt for a second. You'll go quick." Nanaki continued to advance on the man stealthily. He jumped up as the man tightened his grip. The gun went off, taking Yuffie's head with it. Nanaki looked in horror at it. He dropped his teeth around the man's throat and ripped his neck apart. He ran to Tifa and Cloud, who were both alive, but in pain. Nanaki began blubbering about Yuffie.
"Yuffie... She... He fired... It was... It was my fault..." He buried his head in his paws and cried. Cloud got up and saw the now beheaded Yuffie. Her gray matter was sliding down the wall with shattered sections of her skull and blood. He looked away and vommited in an ice bucket. Tifa turned pale.
"What is it?" She was about to get up, but Cloud pulled her back down.
"You don't want to see it..." Cloud's own eyes began producing tears. Tifa realized what the pleading had been and the scream of terror before a blast. She choked slightly and managed a sentence.
"Where'd... Where'd he go?" Nanaki was too busy crying to answer, so Cloud looked away from the corner and scanned the rest of the bar to find a bloody body with a neck missing. He began to feel the rest of his dinner bubbling up from his stomach. He threw himself down on the ground crying like a child. He had never felt so scared. The death of Aeris hadn't struck him so hard. But that had reason not too. Mainly because her body remained intact. They all sat there, not realizing how much time had passed with two dead bodies in the bar. It wouldn't be so bad if it had been two unknown people. But Yuffie was a friend, and the trench coat man was just horrifying. A psyhcotic killer blew a young girl's brains out. Took her head off. Thats why it hit so hard. A most unfortunate way to ring in the new year.
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North Corel, Mayor's Office 3:56 AM Jan. 1
Barret Wallace sat still. The message had just reached him. Yuffie was dead. Odd how things seem to repeat. Barret had always disliked Yuffie, but never hated her. He couldn't bring himself to do so. He sat in solace, listening to Marlene's breathing quietly in the next room. Barret was far more intelligent then he would sound, usually. He was indeed, a genius. And it was so that his mind played back the events described unto him. Why had some one pointlessly shot Yuffie, Cloud, and Tifa? Barret was deeply saddened. He was as sad as he had felt when Wedge, Biggs, and Jesse had died. But his days of adventures were over, he hoped. He was tired of blood, and death. Now was a time to reconcile with enemies and rebuild. The war he had waged on Shinra, Sephiroth, and all of those who had oppressed the people. But as Reeve had said, "What is few to you, is everything to those lives you destroyed." How many people had died in those explosions? Barret didn't care anymore. He was mayor. He was going to rebuild lives. He had to.
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Mideel, Forest 4:07 AM Jan. 1
Vincent Valentine hid in the darkness. He believed such a horrid creature was not worthy to be seen by human eyes. He remembered his Lucrecia. Jenova had taken her. He had not atoned. He pressed his gun to his chin, aiming the barrel to his brains. One simple movement. He would atone by simply squeezing his hand shut. "No... Not here... Not like this... Never..." He shot random shots into the forest, tears streaking his lifeless face. "Damn you Hojo... Damn you Sephiroth... Damn you Shinra... Damn you all... I'll join you in hell soon enough..." He ran through the forest, prepared to atone. He would atone, in death.
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