Blood & Sympathy (FFVII: Vincent x OC)

Ch38 - Helping

The next day, Cid, Barret, Yuffie, Cait Sith, Red, Vincent, and Jocasta set off to check on Tifa and Cloud back in the Hospital. The town was busy, the sky was clear, and Meteor was just a few days away. Jocasta let out a heavy sigh as she stared at the burning ball in the sky before she set off to follow her friends in the streets of Mideel.

She needed to get her hands on JENOVA cells. If only she had one. A single cell would be enough. She just wanted the genome and that would be all it took to produce antibodies. She wanted to have them ready when they'd face Sephiroth. She glanced over at Cid and Barret who were chatting with each other. Yuffie was asking Vincent how his guns worked and he replied as best as he could, and Red was chatting with Cait who had settled on his back.

Jocasta sighed. How was she supposed to convince them, that she wanted to save Sephiroth? How was she supposed to explain? Jocasta was never good at convincing somebody to do anything. She would never engage in conversations that involved tricking somebody's opinion to match her own.

She snapped out of her thoughts, when she realized, Yuffie was done messing with Vincent, and now it was her turn.

"Did you know that we use Sais in Wutai too?" The young ninja pointed at her Sais around her waist.

Jocasta raised an eyebrow. You wanna get on my nerves, I'll get on yours "Wutai? Isn't that a tourist attraction of Shinra's?"

"Hey!! Do not refer to my home like that! We were once a magnificent empire!" Yuffie yelled out offendedly and then she sighed "Until my father quit like a coward,"

"Hey, kid. It wasn't your father's fault. The Wutai War was the main reason Shinra started the SOLDIER program. A couple of genetically modified and Mako unfused humans, born and bred for war. Your ninjas wouldn't be able to stand for too long," Jocasta said as she paused walking for a second and turned at the sixteen-year-old.

Yuffie sighed "I know. That's why I joined this team. I want to make things right," she admitted.

Jocasta placed a hand on her shoulder "You will. You're the future Queen of Wutai. You owe it to your people,"

Yuffie sighed again. Jocasta said nothing but the truth, and she could already feel the weight of her people's hopes on her back. Too much for a child her age. Her eyes found the soil and she wrapped her hands around her chest.

"Hey," Jocasta's voice snapped her attention back at her "We're a team. We'll help you,"

"That's damn right, kid," Cid's voice came from behind and he approached them "We all wanna rebuild our homes, in the end,"

"We're here," Red's voice came and everybody turned their attention at the huge building that spread in front of them. The team entered the Hospital and made their way towards Cloud's room.

Jocasta stayed behind though, and she looked for Dr. Alford's office, since he was the head of the clinic. She was going to ask if he had any JENOVA cells, even though she highly doubted it. Shinra wasn't sharing their specimens unless that town was under Shinra's command, which, it wasn't.

"Where are you going?" Vincent's voice stopped her halfway to the different direction of the corridor.

Jocasta turned around and she gritted her teeth. She couldn't explain. How could she? But she knew, Vincent wasn't against saving Sephiroth. For all she knew, he'd even support it, because Sephiroth was Lucrecia's son. He was all he had left of her.

"There's something I need to do," that was her only reply, before she turned around and hurried towards her old friend's office.

Vincent made a step in an attempt to approach her but she had already vanished in that maze of halls of that Hospital. He sighed before he turned around and joined the others. She'd never explain much about what she was doing and it was kind of annoying. It happened with Lucrecia too. She would study the Cetra Scriptures, she would disappear in her lab all of a sudden and she would come out like nothing had happened. The same thing would happen with his father. He was never around either. Vincent let out a sigh. Scientists. He would never regret choosing to become a Turk instead of a mad scientist that would mess the world.