Vash had always hid a few things from Cloud, if not, everything about himself, it was not exactly time to wonder how he had moved at such speed, so it would be less surprising to have the taller man suddenly in front of him, blocking the girl's path towards him... but that wasn't what he had planned, dammit.
All right, maybe it hadn't been the most intelligent move he would have thought of, he knew and accepted what was about to happen, but he had strong reasons to try this instead of attacking Loki, if it worked, she would be alright, if not, well, whatever... he'd think on that later...
"Why did you do that!" Cloud, being Cloud, did wonder why the heck Vash didn't trust him in what he was doing. It would hardly be his way on giving up, if he had given up, he would have ended UP slicing Luki from the very beginning.
Then again Luki snapped out of he little surprised state, attacking Vash, which of course Cloud wasn't about to let it happen.
It was now or never, before the gunman actually tried something else on her, the smaller blond impelled himself towards both of them, in the only opportunity he saw, when Vash wasn't exactly in front of him, but when Luki pushed herself enough to give him some change on catching her.
He literally embraced her in mid air, trying to distract her from biting the red fabric, and at the same time trying to get her attention to him instead. Falling with her to the ground, rolling over her and getting her underneath him, his hands holding her arms strongly, against the floor in an attempt to immobilize her and keep her teeth away from him, his legs pinning the rest of her body. And he looked into her eyes, and it was when he realized how small and somehow fragile she really was.
"Luki, look at me." It wasn’t a plead, it was an order, "She’ll be back, I promise to you Noki will be back."