"What does that damned bastard have fer Shinra?" Barrett yelled. "If he’s one of them, I’ll avenge me crew through him as well as the rest of them!"
"Wind’s still be at several knots!" Cid yelled. "Yuffie! Get those sails up now! We be gettin’ too close!"
"Already tried!" she yelled back. "The wind’s too much. The ship like this ain’t gonna get hurt. If ‘t’weren’t, the sails would be shreds!"
"Tifa, get Cloud outta that room and give him a sword!"
"But—"
"I don’t care what he’s doin’ now. If he’s rabid, it be a good idear to have him on our side."
"And if he isn’t?" Nanaki asked.
"Push him in the right direction!"
"Cid!" Yuffie yelled. At their pace they were so close to their enemy they could spit on them with precision when they had begun yelling. Now the two ships were facing each other’s side, everyone watching and waiting for the Shinra cannons to go off.
Before, they had always had Aeris steering them away from the fire of cannonballs and shrapnel. Only by luck had someone thrown a bottle of oil and hit the sail to set it afire.
That was the last ship, one that had sparkled with the stars before. That was Aeris, who sparkled with the different stars.
First there was no warning, not from noise and not from anyone's mind, for they were all watching the cannons. Then, as eyes turned upwards, as Cid pushed his blind cook away before the beak greater than any anchor before came flying downwards, there was warning; it was not for them.
"Avast!" No one heard it; all was drowned away as the beak of the raven, once again lying dormant, now connecting the ships like a bride by spearing its victim, crashed into Cid’s ship.
"Damn you! Fight fair!" Cid yelled. "You can use that spawn of a crustacean all ya want; keep off my ship!" Cid yelled.
…………………………………………………………………………………………
"I could not hear what he said," Sephiroth said.
"I know what he said," Rufus said. "The meaning of it, at least."
"And what did it mean?"
"It means Heidegger and Scarlet have less time than I thought. They won’t be leaving alive."
"And will you?"
"I only know Black Valentine won’t."
………………………………………………………………………………….
"Rude, fire. Aim for that mast!" Vincent ordered. "Everyone else… prepare to have some fun once we get there, but keep your guard up."
The strength of the artificial wind held back the ship from moving away as the cannon fired and tried to rock the ship.
The ball sped true, but the hit failed in a miracle, taking away most of Heidegger as it hit him.
"Damn, again!" Vincent ordered. "We take the ship, the crew are sport!"
Again, the cannon was angered as it was kept from puching the ship at all, and again the hit was miraculous in disaster and death.
Two small balls chained together had been spent flying. They flew, spinning, and sliced straight through Scarlet’s waist.
Blood and body all over the deck near the mast, a gigantic raven digging into an ally’s ship, the last of the Shinra fleet had been taken, all sport taken from its captors.
"I would have preferred to quench the thirst of my blade," Vincent said, the wind carrying him to his new ship and he stepped aboard.
In comparing one to a hawk, such as Black Valentine, one truthfully would not mean to grant him inhuman sight. He bore dull, human eyes, able to see little, and plain to look at until one has stared so long their own eyes are pained. Just as a hawk, Vincent’s eyes bore few and simple joys, an intense and unbreakable bond and thrill in the hunt. Simple fear. Simple desire to reunite with young. Simple.
Simple eyes searched the deck.
For Black Valentine a deck covered in blood was nothing new, and that was all he saw.
He knew far well to never put all trust in the eyes.
"There are more on deck," he said, not only to his crew, but also to the one now cautiously crossing the fallen raven.
"Ye kin scare a man like the Valentine," Barret said.
"And I mean to. This threat could cost someone their life."
"Damn cur!" Yuffie yelled as Nanaki suddenly ran the other way and down to the cabins. "Where is that thing off ta?"
"Cloud," Cid said, heavy and emotionless as the thing he stood upon.
"The boy with the same curse," Black Valentine said. "Was it he who sent that torturous trinket to me?"
"That be Shera," Cid said. "She gone damn weird. I don’t like it. She said it was safe and let it be at that. Where is it?"
"Safe," Vincent said, echoing Cid’s statement of Cloud’s name, resounding in intensity.
None even nodded, lest they give themselves away. Secrets are more easily kept when fewer people hold the key.
"He opened the locket," Barret said. "But with it wakened, he be worse than ye ever were, and ye were a day in the pillories."
"That boy be more rabid than anythin’ I ever seen," Cid said. "I ain’t been on land much, but on my spear I took the teeth of each ev’ry one o’ them sharks. It be like tangling with another one."
"Smart dog," Black Valentine said.