I Never Let Her Die! (Aerith x Male Gamer Reader)

Disk 01: Chapter 20: The Vampire And The Villain

Single file, we cautiously descended the narrow stairs into the basement of the Shinra Mansion. Once there, we found a slightly wider but still narrow passageway hewn into the bedrock. It continued out of sight, gradually curving as it went. "Cait, can we have some light?" Cloud asked.

"Coming right up laddie." The cat replied. He punched his moogle on the head and twin beams of light shone forth from it's eyes, illuminating the corridor. I think we were all relieved to find that this was just a normal darkness, not the creepy blackness we had encountered at first. Now that we could see better, it was clear that the hall was rock-walled all the way to where it curved out of sight. There were long-extinguished mako lanterns hung on the walls at regular intervals, and the occasional crate or barrel along the sides on the floor.

"Is this a basement or a cave?" Yuffie wondered.

"A little of both from the looks of it." Tifa answered.

"Let's go." Cloud said. He took point and led us along the path.

I soon saw that, as I was getting used to expecting, this place was larger than the game would have you think. We continued, I estimate, around a quarter of a mile. It occurred to me that we had to be far beyond the footprint of the above-ground mansion, and I was wondering if Yuffie might have been right. Maybe this was a natural cavern Shinra had found and made 'improvements' to. Several times, we came to doors opening off of the main corridor. None were locked, and all proved to be empty storage rooms.

Just past the quarter-mile mark we found another door. This one was larger than the others, of steel rather than wood, and locked tight. "This must be it." I thought to Aerith.

"I wonder why this one is locked?" Aerith then said aloud, giving me an opening.

"Maybe we can find out." I replied, producing the key. "Let's see if this fits."

"Now hold on!" Barrett objected. "Remember what was in the safe. "Everyone in combat positions first!"

I waited patiently until Barrett was satisfied that everyone was ready for whatever might rush us when the door opened, then slid the key into the lock. It turned effortlessly and the door slid open. Now, after Tifa's comment to Yuffie in the last chapter, the ninja was expecting the locked room to be filled with some kind of treasure. I can't fully describe how funny it was to watch the expression on her face change when the door opened to reveal coffins.

"That's it!?" she demanded. "The great treasure is dead people!?"

"Who knows what might actually be in these coffins though..." Cait said.

"Yeah. I saw a film once where a coffin was filled with weapons and such." I agreed. "At the very least we should check..."

"This risks disturbing the dead." Red countered.

"Yeah." Yuffie said. "What if you open a coffin and find, like, a vampire or something?"

Tifa laughed. "I thought teenage girls were all swoony over vampires."

"The sparkly kind, yes. The bitey kind, no." Yuffie argued.

"Opening them or not, we're here let's at least check out the room." Aerith said.

That seemed reasonable to everyone but Yuffie, who insisted on staying at the door. We entered and examined the chamber. A central aisleway ran the width of the room. On either side were five rows of coffins, with four coffins in each row, two on either side. At the front lay one last coffin, raised on a platform and centered with the aisle. As Cloud, in the point position, passed the last row of coffins before the reaching the front of the chamber, a voice called out; "Why are you here?"