InsaneJournal

You can't escape your sin...
Who: Vincent and Kadaj
What: Kadaj finds Vincent
When: Around noonish
Where: In the woods outside the barn
Rating: PG-ish
Status: COMPLETE



In the woods outside of the barn, a monster stood alone.

Some would have argued that he was not in fact a monster, but merely a man, that the monster lived in him, but was not him. Vincent Valentine tended to differ on the matter. He had stained his hands as red with blood as the mantle that he wore heavily upon his shoulders, and like that mantle it would never be a pure white. There was no way of undoing all that he had done in this life. He couldn't erase it, nor could he erase the memory of it. A part of him considered the paths that others had taken, trying to make up for it by doing something for the families that he had hurt, try to make amends in other ways by becoming a pacifist... but he knew that it wasn't the path for him. The dead were dead. There was no bringing them back. As for redeeming what he'd done... well, he'd probably have to save the whole world to atone for his past.

But all those thoughts were merely noise, idle static which disturbed Vincent from what he was really doing, which was concentrating. He'd practiced a bit the day before, but his near fall with Katara had worried him, and so, having spent the morning looking for a way home for Katara, he now spent his afternoon trying to remember what it was he had tapped into yesterday. It was still there, in a sense, but the flow of it was different, he had been able to move with an inhuman speed yesterday when he'd practiced... with Katara he'd almost not recovered in time.

Calmly breathing from the stomach Vincent let his mind flow to his training, the way his instructor had made him meditate before practice. The mind was the most important weapon one had in any martial art, and if it was dull and sloppy than one who trained for a thousand years would not be as efficient as one who trained for one year with a clear empty mind. Thoughts would clutter, compound, stack up and block the clear flow of thoughts from in and out of the brain, like a clogged artery waiting to burst. And in the heat of battle, a mental heartattack like that would kill you as easily as a real one would.

Focus, don't think, don't delay. Your body is merely reflexes, thoughts are irrelevant. To think about the future is pointless, it is not here. To think on the past is pointless, it has come and gone. In battle all that existed was one moment, one singular instant, one bat of the eyelashes, one beat of the heart. All life, who you were, everything existed within those bounds. Vincent could feel a soft spike of adrenaline creep lightly up through his bloodstream as his body relaxed, as well as his mind, and for that brief moment then, everything was clear, everything seemed to make sense.

Life was easy in that moment. His care for Katara was still there, but there were no thoughts of a future that could never be with her, no worries about how he had acted in the past. But even that care he pushed aside for the moment, more base things like the way his body moved when he breathed, the feeling inside of his chest, the feel of the warm air against his skin. It felt almost too hot to be doing this, and yet he knew well from yesterday that the heat didn't really bother him, exterting himself didn't cause his skin to sweat.

Suddenly his eyes opened wide, and he let himself be filled with the moment.

With a sudden motion his claw hand thrust outward, followed by a pair of kicks to what would have been a person's face, followed by a tight forward roll which would have let his feet slam into someone's shoulders or head. And from there he crouched down like a bird about ready to take flight. It was time to try that which he'd done yesterday, to go beyond what was possible to what seemed impossible... or had before yesterday.

Vincent's muscles tensed as he swiftly sprang into the air and spun a kick over his phantom opponents face, spinning again at the same height, as if gravity no longer affected him, and then coming around front suddenly brought his kicking foot up and then down, a move which would have hooked his opponent's head and sent him flying to the ground. The only problem was doing the move had been impossible for him. He could recall his instructor telling him not to try it, that unless aided by magic to move physically that way would never really be an option.

Vincent paused as he landed, and looked at his golden clawed hand. What was he?

He brushed the thoughts away too, as they disturbed the moment as well. Marvel at himself later, train now. He could recall the first time he'd seen his instructor use a claw like this. Vincent had thought it was funny, and mentioned that he should just use his gun instead. A moment later Vincent had wound up on his ass, not really knowing what had happened. His rubber bullets were littering the ground near the wall he'd been firing at, and his instructor had somehow dodged them all and knocked the wind out of him.

'If you fight a blade master, you can't count on just guns to stop him. Or if he has a shield, what will you do, Valentine? Cry and hope he puts it down? In order to truly fight you have to be able to handle distance close up and far away. That is why you train with a gun as well as with martial arts. The gun takes out that which is far from you, your body takes out that which is close to you. Without one you leave yourself weak and vulnerable, but with both you become nearly unstoppable. Now, show me what you can do...'

Imagining his old master was watching, Vincent began to move. It was an amazing blend of martial arts and gun styles. Even in drawing the weapon an elbow could be added to strike someone before firing. Dancing along the movements he spun and kicked, flipped and stabbed his claw into imaginary opponents, now and again pretending to pull the trigger on his gun, not really firing a round of the three barreled device for fear he might accidentally hurt someone. Then he ran towards a tree, planting his foot on it, kicking it as he imagined shooting at the same time, imagining taking out a foe before flipping over and taking out the one behind him as well.

Then with a swift motion Vincent holstered his gun and began to ran. He had to not think though, to make it like yesterday, just go through the woods. As he began to move faster and faster it felt as if his cape extended, and as he looked back it looked longer than before, bigger. With relative ease he turned and began to run another direction, leaping up into the trees. His cloak pooled around him as he fell down and then leapt back up again, nearly obscuring him as he leapt from tree to tree like a moving red mass, twisting back and forth as he moved.

When he came to a stop, the cloak seemed to return to normal, and Vincent breathed out a slow breath. He wasn't sure what that was, that moment he got into where everything seemed unreal, but it was insane... and slightly addictive. He straightened though as his eyes widened slightly. He felt the prescence of someone watching him. With a fluid spin Vincent turned and unholstered his gun, leveling it where he felt the new energy.


"Who's there?" he growled darkly, knowing it wasn't Katara.