the twelve days of x-mas by t costa

8/3/2019 The Twelve Days of X-Mas by T Costa

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/the-twelve-days-of-x-mas-by-t-costa 1/49



C A series of murders hits a little close to home for Cloud Strife,sometime-Private Investigator and former hero of the world.

Rated R for swearing, descriptions of death and violence,discussion of corpses, and character death.

With much thanks for Woodster for alpha-reading and

VulcanElf for beta-reading.

I am clearly broken And no one knows what to do

Pieces of the puzzle don't fit So I pound them into you

Itching is the pulse inside

Creeping out to come aliveIt's just doing what it's gonna do

--Korn featuring Skrillex, “Get Up!”



CHAPTER ONE

it was raining, which seemed really cliché to Tifa's

ingrained sense of aesthetics.

Still, it was raining when Cloud walked into the bar –wearing a leather duster , of all things, so unlike him – and

Tifa inwardly winced at the mess he was making on hernice hardwood floors. Puddles began at the front door of Seventh Heaven, and ended in a very large pool beneathwhere Cloud was now sitting at the bar.

Thankfully, she'd chosen the vinyl-topped bar stools, ratherthan opting for the leather ones that had so caught her eyewhen furnishing the place.

Also unlike him, Cloud immediately ordered a double of scotch whisky. Cloud was more of a rum person, when hecould be coerced into drinking in the first place. At thispoint, Tifa began to get an inkling that something was verywrong in the world of Cloud Strife, her husband andlongtime friend.

Really, after eleven years of marriage, she should haveknown right from the beginning.

She had been surprised when Reeve had called, asking forhis expertise (Cloud having been semi-drafted into thepolice force of Edge, he'd become something of a privateeye as he approached middle age), but not unduly worried.



Now, a tendril of fear began to weave its way from her gutaround her spine, chilling her in a manner that the fire shehad just stoked could not help.

She held her hand out for his jacket, which he peeled off with a wrinkle of his nose.

"It's Cid's, sorry," he said, by way of explanation. Tifadidn't reply as she hung the sopping mess up on a hooknear the fireplace; it'd drip off quietly there, and the messwould evaporate from the flagstones of the hearth ratherthan making water-stains across her floor.

She let him drink in silence, locking the door and cleaningup while he sipped. The warmth of the drink pooled in hisstomach, calming him and steeling him for what camenext: telling Tifa and the others.

Once Tifa had mopped up everything, she came to sit nextto him at the bar. Cloud's face was normally quite pale, of course; so was Tifa's. It was a lovely side-effect both of

having grown up in the cloudy climate of Nibelheim, andgrowing up so near a Mako reactor.

Now, however, Cloud looked almost bloodless. As if he wereabout to faint right off the chair. He'd seen somethingterrible tonight.

"Was it that bad?" she asked, gently.

"Awful," Cloud replied, his eyes glazing over.

Reeve's voice had shaken badly when he'd called Cloud. It

was going to be bad, he knew, but nothing could preparehim for the mess he found. The mess that was anightmare, horrible to behold, and yet, so very familiar.



Pieces – and that was all it could be called: pieces , a hand

here, an arm there – of the victim were strewn about asmall cave just outside of Midgar. They might not have

known who it was but for some familiar items and the

infamous gold gauntlet left out prominently, for themurderer had incinerated the head. It was, perhaps, theonly way that he could have been properly killed,

considering his amazingly fast recuperation time and healing ability. It had been done with Flare, if Cloud knew

his materia, but he'd be calling in Yuffie for a positiveidentification later.

"Whoever did it must've done a helluva lot of research," Cid had said, scratching his head. He looked a little

ragged: his eyes were suspiciously red, the skin around them puffy. Cloud knew that Cid Highwind had done his

mourning already. "Everyone knew he was damn-near immortal, and his hearing was just 'bout superhuman. How someone coulda snuck up on him..."

"It must have been someone he knew," Cloud had replied.

"No one else could have gotten the better of himotherwise."

Reeve shook his head. "At least his dreams will be peaceful now," he said, mournfully. Then again, Reeve was amournful sort of person. Cloud was willing to bet he wasblaming himself for this death right now.

In the present, Cloud shook himself back to awareness.Tifa was looking at him expectantly. He shivered, flashes of blood, gore, and burnt flesh flashing across his mind's eyeonce more.

"What I want to know is," he said, "How does one go aboutkilling a man like Vincent Valentine, and survive?"



HThey weren't going to have a funeral (Yuffie had stompedher protest of the concept: "His whole life was a goddamnfuneral," and no one could really object to that), but Sheraproved herself to be the pious one of the group, insistingthat his soul couldn't rest until they'd laid his

physical remains to rest as well. It was a small affair: nopress, just AVALANCHE and a few other friends he'd gainedthroughout the years, held a mere two days after he'd beenkilled and before the news really had time to percolatethroughout Gaea.

The funeral procession wound its way through the snow-covered hills outside Wutai. Yuffie pouted; whether it was

because she hadn't wanted a funeral for Vincent, orbecause she had to wear the ceremonial kimono, Cloudwas unsure.

The ninja had nearly gone apoplectic at the thought of burying Vincent in Rocket Town, as Shera had originallysuggested. The launch site's proximity to the Nibelmountains and the cursed town within was exactly the

wrong spot for Vincent Valentine to be buried at. No onecould really argue that point, and so when Yuffie suggestedWutai as a final resting place for the gunslinger, nobodyobjected.

Later that night, she gathered up Cloud, Tifa and Cid andhit the bar in what she announced was a "far more fitting



goodbye ceremony," and proceeded to get the group of them shit-faced drunk.

Cloud resented this the next morning, when he had toattend to yet another crime scene, this time with ahangover.

H"I figured I'd better call you in before anyone else," theKalm police chief, a scrawny little man named Charles, toldCloud. Cloud blinked and tried to filter what the man wassaying through the pounding in his head.

"I mean, we found him in his office and at first it lookedlike a suicide," Charles said. "But it was locked from the

outside and there was another set of footprints, and wefound glove-prints in the dust on the rafter he was hungfrom. And he wasn't wearing gloves."

Cloud followed him uneasily into the WRO headquarters.Choppers were flying overhead, their beat reverberatingthrough his skull (fwopfwopfwopfwopfwop) in anenormously unpleasant manner. Electric lights flickered on

and off gloomily, adding to Cloud's general misery. Charlesled him to an elevator and, to Cloud's horror, punched inthe top floor - where the WRO Commissioner's office waslocated.

Up and up they climbed. The ascent took forever, an



eternity of agonized waiting. Cloud finally exited theelevator and was relieved to find that he didn't smell thesharp, coppery tang of blood in the air. It would have, hethought, been more than his poor stomach could take at

the moment.Cloud often wondered to himself, in his heart of hearts, if he was getting too detached. He shouldn't be able to lookat the body of one of his best friends - a man who helpedhim save the world - so apathetically. Six years of being anon-call detective for some of the largest police forces in theworld had certainly made their mark on him.

Although, perhaps, it was seeing Zack gunned down thathad changed him. He supposed he'd never know.

The police forensics people offered to bring Reeve's bodydown, but Cloud wanted to have a look at the crime sceneunaltered, something he'd not been able to really do withVincent's. The death of two members of AVALANCHE in lessthan a week had him feeling on-edge.

He'd bet his entire fortune that these two deaths wererelated. But he had no way to prove it yet.

The Kalm PD cleared out of the room, leaving only Cloudand the police chief, who stood in the corner,pointedly not looking at Reeve's body.

There were greasy prints on Reeve's pants, average adult-sized ones. A close examination of the footprints revealedto him that this was, in fact, the work of two people. Theywore the same style of shoe, and the same size, but one of the people – whoever it was who had slipped the rope overReeve's head rather than the person who hoisted him upthere – was wearing the wrong size shoe.



Cloud found himself mentally flipping through the firstcrime scene in his mind. "Take pictures of everything," hesaid, turning to the police chief. "Document everything youfind on and around him. Take detailed pictures of the

footprints. I have to go check on something."Cloud left the room, his hangover forgotten. He flicked hisphone open and dialed Cid's number, knowing the pilotwould be just as hungover, if not more so.

"It's Cloud," he said, interrupting Cid's flow of innovativeswear words. "Reeve's dead, and I need a ride. I need togo look at the first crime scene. Get Yuffie." He paused

briefly. "Don't tell anyone yet, and come get me from WROheadquarters in Kalm."

HCloud had known that Cid would take him seriously. Hehadn't thought that Cid would arrive a mere twentyminutes later.

Yuffie was an ashen color that had absolutely nothing to dowith her hangover, which appeared to be nonexistent.

Cloud found himself unbelievably jealous of her.

"Reeve's dead?" she whispered, and it was at that momentthat Cloud realized she'd had feelings for the older man.

"Murdered, just like Vincent," Cloud said. He paused. "Well,not just like Vincent. They hung Reeve in his office, tried to



make it look like a suicide. They didn't try hard enough,though."

"They?" Cid said. He too looked unbelievably chipper forsomeone who'd drunk half a bar's worth of alcohol thenight previous.

"They," Cloud affirmed. "I found footprints. They were thesame, right down to the style of shoe and size. One pairwas wobbly, like the person was slipping around inside of them. One of them was wearing the wrong shoe size."

Yuffie sank into the copilot's chair, legs gone suddenly

nerveless. Cloud knew the feeling.

Cid handed him something in a sealed container, and theirinebriation-less state made a sudden kind of sense toCloud. It was Tifa's patented hangover remedy. It tastedlike Ifrit's bowels going down, but it worked. Cloud held hisnose and chugged it.

"Who'd want to kill Reeve?" Yuffie said. "He's done nothingbut good in the last decade, helping get rid of monsters,and build roads, and clean up Shinra's mess."

"I haven't got a clue," Cloud admitted. "But I think theymight be the same people who got Vincent."

Cid nodded. "Hang on to something, kids. We're gonna getback to Midgar in ten seconds flat."

H



The crime scene had been blocked off, but there had beenno posted guard, so Cloud was unsurprised to find that ithad been wiped clean.

"But look," Cloud said, pointing. "Same two sets of footprints. This was definitely the work of two people, andthey definitely killed both Vincent and Reeve."

"What does that mean, though?" Yuffie asked. She was stillashen-looking but doing better, as far as Cloud could tell.He'd see about having her talk with Tifa when they got

back to Edge."It means," Cloud said, feeling a little melodramatic as hesaid it, "that we're dealing with a pair of serial killers."

"It gets worse," Cid pointed out, chomping on his cigaretteand gesturing at Cloud. He seemed to be figuring they hadalready come to the same conclusion.

"How could it get worse? " Yuffie demanded, also turning toCloud.

Cloud hesitated, and then spoke carefully. "It looks likewhoever is doing this might be targeting members of AVALANCHE," he said. "Any of us could be next."



CHAPTER TWO

two days had passed, and Cloud hadn't been able to

do anything. Tifa thought he was being paranoid, andinsisted on putting up her usual Christmas decorations atthe bar, refusing to listen to Cloud's admonitions to keepthings quiet around their house. It was a week until

Christmas and she just couldn't stomach nothaving some Christmas cheer.

Asking her to talk to Yuffie hadn't much helped matters –Tifa seemed to be in denial about a great deal these days.Not that Cloud could blame her, but he doubted she'd bedenying anything if she'd seen Vincent Valentine rent limbfrom limb, or Reeve Tuesti hanging from a beam, his neck

at an awkward angle and a thin trickle of blood drippingfrom his nose.

Cloud sat upright. How would being hung force his nose tobleed? Reeve had died from a classic case of hangman'sfracture – his spinal cord had been severed. He'd not evenhad the time to be strangled, and his optical capillaries hadnot exploded. So why the blood on his face?

He ducked into his office and used his phone to place a callto Kalm PD, who routed him through to the CSI division.

"Yeah, we thought that was weird, too," the coroner said."But the nose was broken. Looks like the Commissionerstruggled with whoever captured him, and they punched



him in the nose, which made him lose consciousness. I'dhazard a guess he wasn't even conscious when he died."

"Did you get any samples from the scene?"

"No epithelials, if that's what you're aiming for," thecoroner said, dashing Cloud's hopes. "We did get somefibers from their gloves that were lodged in his epidermis,but they're pretty standard winter issue."

"Alright, thanks for your time," Cloud said, preparing tohang up.

"Now, then, Mr. Strife," the coroner interjected. "I was justabout to call you when I got the page to answer the phone.Something's come up."

"What?" Cloud momentarily felt light-headed, as if hisblood pressure had suddenly dropped.

"Mr. Tuesti's body has gone missing."

HCloud didn't bother trying to call Cid, instead opting todrive his motorcycle out to the morgue at Kalm. A sweep of the office showed no visible prints, which meant somethingthat chilled him: the murderers knew how his investigationwas going, and they were close enough to have beentailing him – and they knew what he was looking for. Heshuddered and asked to see Reeve's clothing, which



had not gone missing.

The two men searched the whole mess and discoveredseveral food stains, what looked to be tear stains, and onelone, solitary brown hair. DNA analysis proved that it wasnot Reeve's and was female, but otherwise, they had noidea who they were looking for.

"How many women become serial killers?" Cloud mused, asthe two men sat down to write up the report.

"Not many," the coroner, a man in his mid-thirties whocalled himself Zane, replied. "The thing is, you're not

dealing with a serial killer. You're dealing with a pair of spree killers, which is a lot more dangerous."

"How so?" Cloud asked, sitting upright very suddenly.

"Serial killers kill because of a general psychological need,"Zane said. "There is almost always a cooling-off period andthere was no noticeable one in these cases. Spree killers,

unfortunately, are usually planning the murders theyperpetrate, and for a specific reason."

"So it's not to fulfill a psychological need ," Cloud mused.

"Most likely, no," Zane said, shaking his head. "It could befor any reason: hatred of the people in question, to fulfillthe terms of some sort of bizarre obsessive-compulsivedisorder quirk, or most likely, for revenge."

Revenge. It had been at the back of Cloud's mind sincehe'd gotten the news about Vincent, of course, but nowthat someone said it aloud, it felt right .

But who? There were so many people who could want



"Can it not wait?"

Cloud shook his head, and felt briefly faint with relief whenthe receptionist did as she was asked and called up to theair division to get someone downstairs to talk to him.

HYuffie and Tifa had joined him. Barret had gone home afterVincent's funeral and had no idea what was going on;Nanaki had the gist of it, but had returned to CosmoCanyon to meditate and research. Yuffie was at home inWutai and on the phone with Tifa when Cloud had calledher, so she agreed to meet them in Rocket Town. It wasonly the three of them.

So there were only three when they burst into Cid's houseat Rocket Town and discovered the grisly remains.

They were laid out on the bed in some sort of gruesomeparody of tenderness, holding each other, faces calm. Bothwere completely naked, which Cloud couldn't rule out asbeing normal for them, but he rather thought it wassymbolic of... something. Either way, they both had long

slash-marks on their arms and down the insides of theirlegs: directly where the femoral artery was located. Itwould have been over in minutes.

This time, Cloud didn't bother to hold back. He steppedoutside of the room and his breakfast rushed up to greet



him.

HThey flew Zane out to deal with the scene. Cloud knew hecould trust the coroner; he knew very little about thecoroners at Nibelheim and Rocket Town, and he wanted

nothing to do with the esoteric healer-types that Wutaiemployed for such dealings.

Yuffie and Tifa took on the role of CSI tech, photographingeverything in the house and combing over the place to findany evidence whatsoever. They found used hypodermicneedles and syringes, which nicely corresponded withZane's discovery that the couple had been drugged withthe soporific drug methaqualone, illegal for over twodecades. This explained why there were no signs of astruggle – methaqualone rendered the user nearlyincapacitated at the proper doses.

"They gave them Quaaludes? " Yuffie exclaimed.

Cloud nodded. "Nice strategy. They had to know thatbetween Shera's martial arts and Cid's training with the

spear, the two of them could take almost anyone who triedto attack them."

Tifa really surprised him, not bursting into tears, butgetting to the job at hand. She'd cry later, she said; rightnow, the best thing for Cid and Shera was to find the killers



and put their friends to rest.

They scoured the crime scene a second time, takingpictures and more evidence and doing a full 3-D renderingof the place with a special gravity camera that Reeve hadinvented prior to his death. Good thing, too, for that night,the building caught fire. Cid and Shera's house – and theTiny Bronco, which had been parked next to it and gotcaught in the blaze – was no more.

The next morning they shipped Cid and Shera's bodies toWutai, where Yuffie had set aside the area surroundingVincent. Originally the idea was to put in a zen garden or

something equally ridiculous, but Yuffie instead arrangedfor the couple to be buried next to their friend.

It was a stroke of providence, for that very day, Reeve'sbody was discovered at the Wutai morgue.

HTwo days after finding Cid and Shera, Cloud missed a callon his phone from Barret, highly unusual because therewas no message left. Barret always left a message

expressing his annoyance at having not reached Clouddirectly, his rumbling bass voice vibrating Cloud's phonefrom thousands of miles away.

A sinking feeling began to descend upon him as he calledYuffie, Nanaki, and Zane to inform them of events. Tifa



knew already, as she was sitting next to him.

"Oh, no, not Barret ," she said, allowing the tears to fall."Who will tell Marlene?"

"They might not have to," he said, grimly. "Was she athome for the Christmas holidays or off at that boardingschool with Denzel?"

Tifa's sobbing reached new levels of distress as Cloudpacked up their things for an extended stay abroad. Heclosed up the bar, jotted a note to put on the door, andwhen the tiny airship from the WRO air corps landed, had

Tifa and their things all ready to go.

HThis was the least-traumatizing scene he'd been to yet.Barret had been drugged in his sleep. There was no bloodto be found, and he looked about as peaceful as the giantof a man ever got.

Zane completed his blood work in record time and reportedback that the former eco-terrorist had been given a sleep-

inducing barbiturate in his evening drink, and then wasdrugged via hypodermic needle with a mixture of potassium chloride and pancuronium bromide.

"The lethal injection mixture?" Cloud replied inastonishment. Zane nodded somberly.



"Whoever it was wanted him dead, wanted to punish him,but they wanted him to go peacefully," Nanaki said. Sayingaloud what they were all thinking was a trait that Cloud hadmissed of the odd feline.

"I expect so," Cloud said. "What made them hateAVALANCHE so much and hate Barret so little?"

There was a silence, and then Yuffie spoke up.

"Has anyone seen Marlene?"

HThe headmistress at the special school that Marlene andDenzel attended clicked disapprovingly when she heard

Barret's name. As the woman bustled off to get Marlene,Cloud wondered why she seemed to dislike Barret so, butshe was the type of person to require a strict sort of order:her hair was in a tight bun, her office was immaculate, andshe spoke with a clear accent, no regional-isms sneakingthrough. Barret probably offended all of her senses.

She'd assured them that Marlene had, in fact, been at the

school with Denzel all throughout the last two weeks, thetwo of them having elected to stay at the school for thewinter holidays. This cleared either of the two children of any complicity in the murders, but now the disagreeableduty of informing them that Barret, Cid, Shera, Vincent andReeve were dead remained.



CHAPTER THREE

the air corps pilot dropped them off at their

respective residences, all of them wondering if they wouldever see the other again. Cloud wanted to lay low, but Tifawas having none of it. She wasn't going to give the killersthe satisfaction of knowing they had her scared shitless,

she said, and she continued operations as she'd had themrunning prior to the whole mess.

Cloud settled in his office and got out a desk calendar. Hedidn't use the things very often, and this one had a thicklayer of dust on it, bearing testament to the fact that Tifahad gotten it for him last Christmas.

Tifa put Christmas music on downstairs. Cloud wasn't reallya Christmas person and it drove him insane, but the factthat Tifa restricted her holiday cheer to the two weeksdirectly prior to Christmas meant a lot to him.

Flipping the calendar open to December, he began jottinginformation down. Vincent had been killed on thethirteenth, Reeve the fifteenth, Cid and Shera the

seventeenth...

His thoughts ground to a halt as he filled in Barret'sinformation, for he'd been killed on the nineteenth. It wasnow the twentieth of December, and if the pattern held,one of the remaining members of AVALANCHE was going todie tomorrow. Nanaki, Yuffie, Tifa and himself were all that



remained. It was a little cocky to say so, but he was almostcertain that he would be last, because the pattern of thesedeaths was so clearly (to him anyway) designed to foil him,and no one else.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

Cloud desperately wanted to snarl to Tifa to shut thegoddamned radio off, because now was not the time to playChristmas carols. Six of their friends were dead and theywere on their way to joining them.

No, not if he could help it. He started trying to draw lines of

connection again, and failed so utterly that his head beganto ache.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to

me...

That is it , Cloud thought, irritably, standing up. He gave thecalendar one last glance before heading toward the door to

yell at Tifa's godforsaken radio, but he abruptly stopped inplace.

Twelve days of Christmas. Vincent had died on thethirteenth, exactly twelve days before Christmas.

Cloud did some mental calculations. Someone would die onthe twenty-first, and on the twenty-third, before the grandfinale on the twenty-fifth: him and Tifa.

His blood froze. He now had his timetable. And it scaredthe ever-living shit out of him.



H"You've got to be kidding," Zane said, spluttering into hisphone. "Are you sure? "

"Absolutely," Cloud said. "Whoever this is knows mypatterns very, very well, or else they would have gone for

Cid and Yuffie first, because they're the most visiblemembers of AVALANCHE. But instead they killed the twopeople I would ask for help from first."

"I think I'm going to change my opinion," Zane said. "I dida little research, and there's an entire subsection of serialkillers who plan things like this out. I asked one of ourCSI's about it, and it turns out he wrote his thesis aboutmission-oriented serial killers. I couldn't get him to shut up- even learned they're one of the only kinds of serial killersthat actually regret the killing bit. Apparently they seethemselves as ridding the world of evil or sin, and regretthat they have to kill anyone to do it. Or something." Zanesighed. "Anyway, I think that's what you're dealing with,not a spree killer."

"Are you sure?" Cloud asked.

"As sure as I can be," Zane replied. "If there's anothercrime scene, keep an eye out for missing items. Most serialkillers keep collections of things from the scenes -keepsakes, sort of. You'll know for sure if little mementosstart to go missing. Either way, I suggest phoning your two



friends and telling them to lay low."

"Already done," Cloud said. "I don't know that it'll fixanything, though. Whoever this is has shown a lot of cunning and intelligence."

" Heh. Well, your mystery ninja killer boogeyman will showhis head eventually, although I sincerely hope that they'refinished killing people," Zane said.

"I don't think they are," Cloud replied, "but thanks for thesentiment." The coroner chuckled again, which was creepilymorbid and sent chills down Cloud's spine.

"Good night, Cloud. I hope it all turns out okay," Zane said.

Cloud hung up without returning the goodbye. He didn'tthink anything good was going to come of this.

HCloud was proven right when he received the horrible wordfrom Elder Bugah the next morning that Nanaki had beenkilled sometime in the night. It was, he said, an internal

Cosmo Canyon affair, but Cloud could rest assured thatthere had been no evidence left behind, as they had donetheir very own sweep of the room before disposing of Nanaki's body.

It was appropriately gruesome, then, Cloud surmised, andnone of the Elders wanted that kind of bad publicity at a



place where people sent their children to be schooled. Hedoubted that Nanaki's corpse could have told him anythingthe other six corpses hadn't told him anyway.

Now it was just Yuffie, Tifa, and himself left.

Yuffie, Tifa, and himself.

"Well, your mystery ninja killer boogeyman will show hishead eventually."

A shiver went down Cloud's spine. Yuffie, hethought. Yuffie is the killer.

He'd thought she seemed spectacularly surprised atReeve's death, but she'd always been a pretty good actor –she'd convinced them, after all, to trust her long enough tosteal all of their materia, and then to let her back into thegroup despite the black mark on her record. She hadn'twanted a funeral for Vincent, and Zane himself had evensaid that mission-oriented killers often regret the need to

kill.

Yuffie had one of the only Contain materia in existence withwhich to cast Flare, the only fire spell strong enough toactually kill Vincent. The only other one that they knew of lay within his own materia vault.

She knew him. Extraordinarily well – she'd solved a helluvalot of cases with him in the past and she knew forensicsthoroughly. Well enough to forge two distinct sets of footprints and glove-prints. And she'd helped him so manytimes in the past, that anyone killing off his compatriotswould know to kill her right near the beginning, not at theend.



And every dead member of AVALANCHE - with theexception of Nanaki, who would be buried at CosmoCanyon with his tribe - was now buried in Wutai. Withinwalking distance from Yuffie's house.

"You'll know for sure if little mementos start to gomissing."

Mementos? No, Yuffie was collecting bodies.

She'd never seemed particularly unstable, but then againshe'd been wandering alone a long time before AVALANCHEmet her. It was entirely possible, Cloud surmised, for a

sociopath to feign normalcy – they did it all the time in thereal world, turning into such fine upstanding citizens aspresident Shinra, who could order the destruction of Sector7 and the thousands of lives housed within it while listeningto opera and smoking a fine cigar.

Was Yuffie such a sociopath?

Cloud didn't want to stick around and find out. It was hiswife's life, and his own, if he screwed up at this late juncture.

He wouldn't give them the opportunity to find out.



CHAPTER FOUR

the trip to Wutai was just as long as it had been the

week previous, and less comfortable now that they weretraveling incognito and couldn't use an airship. Cloud's goldchocobo resented the cold and wet – for it rained themajority of the trip there – just as much as he did.

Tifa, to her credit, didn't utter a single complaint.

By the time they'd finally arrived in Wutai it was at the tailend of the twenty third. If Yuffie didn't make a move, hertimetable would be off.

Was she expecting them? Cloud thought to himself, as they

got the chocobo tied up at the public stables, that sheprobably was. It put him on edge.

Very much on edge. It had started to rain again as theywalked from the stables to Yuffie's house, which muffledevery sound. Their footsteps were quiet as they walkeddown the stone path; Yuffie's footsteps would be equallyquiet should she come after them. A constant drippingnoise sent whispers of sound into every crevice and corner,making his hair stand on end.

As the town's clock tower tolled midnight, Cloud reachedup and knocked on Yuffie's front door.

There was no answer.



HGodo's face had gained a few lines over the years, but itwas just as red and flustered now as it had been yearsbefore. Cloud could almost hear him saying, "Yuffie? Neverheard of her."

Still, time had been kind to him, and he didn't lookanywhere close to his age.

"Strife?" he said, opening his front door wider. "What areyou doing here?"

"Where's Yuffie?" Cloud said. He imagined it sounded veryrude coming out like that, but he didn't much care at thispoint.

"Yuffie? She went to the AVALANCHE graveyard, to give herrespects for Christmas Eve," Godo said. Cloud didn'tpretend to know anything about the Christmas customs of Wutai, and he had no idea what significance that statementmay hold. In fact, he didn't care – he had a possiblelocation for the ninja.

"Thanks," he said shortly, turning off into the night.

He heard Tifa behind him, thanking Godo as well. He washalf-tempted to tell her to stay behind and keep herself safe, but Tifa was a fighter. She'd want to be there withhim, to the end.



If he went and killed Yuffie, but died in the process, Tifawould never forgive him. Especially if he left her here towait.

No, they'd stand together and fight.

HIt wasn't a very long walk, maybe twenty minutes total.The town graveyard was in the hills above Da Chao, andthe little portion that contained his friends' bodies was off to the east. It was a minor hike, but both Tifa and Cloudwere in fine physical shape. They didn't even break into asweat.

Not that one could sweat in this weather. As they got to the

higher elevations, the rain turned to snow, which onlyserved to heighten Cloud's sense of alarm. The lights of Wutai's only city reflected off of the snow clouds andturned the sky purple: a false twilight. The snow muffledsounds so much more than the rain did. If he held hisbreath, the only sound he could hear was his ownheartbeat.

The only consolation prize was that footprints were clearlydelineated in the snow. Of course, that meant that anyonecould track them, but it also meant that he could trackanyone else. It was an edge, and Cloud would take it.

When they got to the graveyard a mere three inches or so



had fallen to the earth, giving it a sort of soft look. If youdidn't look too closely, you couldn't even tell that this was aplace where people buried their dead.

"No one's here," Tifa whispered. Her voice didn't carrybeyond Cloud's ears.

They stepped carefully, feeling for traps with their toes andseeking enemies with their eyes. It took a few minuteslonger than normal, but eventually they stood in theAVALANCHE portion of the cemetery.

Tifa's gasp startled Cloud, and he jerked to face whatever

she was seeing.

It was Vincent's grave. Dirt was thrown around and ingeneral it looked a mess. Cloud was no expert, of course,but it looked like they'd just missed a grave robbery.

He gestured for Tifa to keep an eye out around them as heinched closer and peered in.

There was no body. Vincent Valentine – or whatever wasleft of him – was missing.

H"He's gone," Cloud said, turning toward Tifa. "His body isgone. I think Yuffie took it."

"That's just sick ," Tifa said, wrinkling her nose. Cloud very



much wanted to point out that they were dealing with aserial killer and thus "sick" was kind of a part of the job,but he kept his mouth shut.

He eyed the entire area. He couldn't see any signs of Yuffiedragging the body away, but with the amount of materiathe ninja owned it wouldn't surprise him if she had somesort of anti-gravity magic. He couldn't see anywhere thatshe may have gone, actually, and that sort of unnervedhim.

"What now?" Tifa asked him. "Should we go get thepolice?"

Cloud shook off his sense of unease and surveyed the areaone last time. "She'll come back. She wants the rest of thebodies. If we have the police up here, that'll tip her off andlet her know that we've figured her out."

Tifa eyed him for a long time. "You want to set a trap," shesaid. Cloud blessed himself for having married Tifa - she

was no one's fool.

"I want to catch her before she catches us," Cloud said."Let's find somewhere to hunker down."

It took several minutes, but they found a tattered branchto wipe out their tracks. The snow was falling fast now, andif they were careful to wipe out their footsteps any other

indentations would be filled in before anyone else wasaround to see them.

"We need to find somewhere hidden," Cloud said, oncethey'd left the cemetery proper. "Somewhere we can seeher but she can't see us."



HCloud rushed to Tifa's side, and for a brief moment hethought that Yuffie was dead. Numerous wounds, whichlooked to be ice-inflicted, had begun to heal over. Cloudwondered if she'd managed to heal herself before passingout, when a sudden and inescapable conclusion slammed

into him.

"Yuffie's not the killer," he said. A rushing sound filled hisears, and he sat very heavily into a snowbank.

Tifa left him there as she leaned over to examine the ninja."Well, she's definitely alive," she said, checking her pulse."And this was definitely ice. I'd say it was Freeze, whichmeans someone's using the Contain materia again."

"How could she even survive that?" Cloud asked, dazed."Contain killed Vincent . There's no way it wouldn't do thesame kind of damage to Yuffie."

"Ah, but she had ice-elemental linked in her armor," Tifasaid, pointing. She frowned. "Usually she has fire-elemental. I wonder why she changed?"

They were quiet for a second, and then Cloud spoke, softly."Yuffie isn't stupid, Teef. She must have realized that thekiller – killers, probably, now that we can rule her out –was trying to make us believe it was her. If she figured outthe pattern, she had to realize that she needed to be



unpredictable."

"And of course, Yuffie's first line of defense is materia," Tifasaid. Even in this situation, she sounded amused at Yuffie'sobsession with materia.

"We've got to get up and get somewhere safe," Cloud said."We need to get Yuffie revived and find out who's doingthis. And then we need to kick some ass."

Tifa smirked up at her husband as she gestured for him totake the younger woman's left side. She slung Yuffie's rightarm over her shoulders. "The fire caverns aren't that far

from here, and they're warm. Let's go."

HThe fire caverns had always mystified Cloud. He couldunderstand why the people of Wutai felt this cavern wassacred. The fires burned eternally, always providing warmthand comfort to those who sought its depths. He had noidea how deep into the cliffside they went: they'd neverbeen able to get past the second bend, even with theLeviathan Scales. Something told him they were immense.

None of this was important right now. All that matteredwas the fact that as soon as he entered the caverns, he feltimmeasurably safe. Something awe-inspiring was watchingover this place. They could take a breather here andformulate a game plan.



After a few moments of rest, Tifa sat up next to Yuffie. Shespoke the incantation, green sparkles of life flowing fromher fingertips to the younger woman's body. The edges of her wounds sealed over, scarring as if they'd been acquired

several months previous. Her color, which had been edgingtoward gray, immediately improved, flushing pink andhealthy.

A few seconds after casting Revive, Tifa slumped over,exhausted. She fumbled for an elixir.

A few seconds after that , Yuffie inhaled deeply, gray eyesshooting wide open. Her arms lashed out and she sat up so

fast she nearly collided with Tifa, who was trying to quaff the elixir she'd finally found.

"Cloud! Tifa!" Yuffie exclaimed. "I'm so glad you're alright!"She threw her arms around Tifa. "I'm so glad to see youthat I'm going to forgive you for ever thinking I could dothat to Reeve or Vince, Cloud," she said, glaring at himbalefully from over Tifa's shoulder.

Cloud grimaced. "Mea culpa, but can you blame me?"

"No, not really," Yuffie said, releasing the older womanfrom her embrace. She stood up and stretched. Cloudalways hated how perky Yuffie was after someone castRevive on her. "Whoever did this was smart. Real smart.Genius-smart, right? And all of the geniuses I know are

dead." She turned toward them somberly.

"Whoever? You don't know who it was?" Cloud said,shooting up from his seated position. He began to pace.

"I don't," Yuffie said, shaking her head. She sighed."Whoever said the incantation had one of those voices that



could be male or female, yanno?"

"It could be anyone," Tifa said. She frowned.

"Exactomundo, Teefmeister," Yuffie said. "I haven't got any

ideas, either. But there were definitely two people there."

"Back to square one, then," Cloud said.

"It could be, but it isn't."

As one, the three of them turned toward the entrance of the fire caverns, where two figures were silhouetted

against false twilight.



CHAPTER FIVE

cloud had never felt more betrayed in his life

than at this very moment.

"Denzel? Marlene? " Tifa said, sounding as if the foundationsof her very universe had just fallen out from under her.

Cloud knew how she felt - when Yuffie had brought up thepossibility after Barret's murder, Cloud hadn't taken herseriously at all. He'd all but raised the both of them, upuntil they'd left for that school.

He had to admit that he hadn't thought much about thetwo children the last few years; at seventeen and eighteen(almost nineteen) respectively, Marlene and Denzel had

been accepted to a stellar preparatory boarding school nearCosmo Canyon. That had been two years ago thisSeptember, and they'd taken to spending their holidays atthe school as well. Tifa had thought that the two of themhad romantic interests at the school, and so they only eversaw the kids briefly during the summer holiday. Theirschool uniforms – which matched, he realized, down to theshoe size even though Marlene was swimming in them –

did nothing but emphasize their youth.

"The Headmistress said you'd been in school the wholebreak," Cloud blurted out, belatedly realizing how stupid itsounded. He'd never quite gotten the hang of being afather, even now.



"Of course she did," Denzel sneered. "I cast confusion onher throughout the week. She's an idiot; the spell wasn'thard to hold up."

Marlene stood next to him, timidly, mouth clamped shut.She had a gun in her hand, though, so Cloudwasn't about to underestimate her.

"What the literal fuck , man?" Yuffie exclaimed. Marleneswung in her direction, gun pointed forward, but Yuffie wasso incensed that she didn't even notice. Yuffie had justturned twenty-nine years old the month previous, but shestomped her foot as if she were still an impatient sixteen-

year-old girl.

"Yuffie -" Cloud began.

"No, fuck this, man!" Yuffie said, incredulously."You cannot be serious! The two big bad murderers are thetwo kids who should be the most fucking grateful to us?Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? "

" AVALANCHE killed my family!" Denzel yelled at her. Yuffieshut up. "They killed my mother and father when Sector 7came down! They stole my childhood from me! EverythingI was supposed to be, supposed to do,AVALANCHE ruined!"

He spun around, gesturing at Cloud with his pistol.

Absently, Cloud noted that it was a standard-issue Glock 9mm, and resolved to have a stern talk with thequartermaster at WRO Headquarters.

"He killed my parents! He ruined my life!" Every timeDenzel emphasized "he," he jabbed the pistol at Cloud.Cloud did not flinch; he'd survived gunshots before, and



he'd survive them again. As long as Denzel was pointing agun at him, he wasn't pointing it at Yuffie or Tifa.

"That's twisted. That's fucking twisted ," Yuffie said. "Youguys are fucking idiots. We didn't drop that plate; hell, half of AVALANCHE wasn't even in AVALANCHE then. You'rekilling innocent people and doing a piss-poor job of it!"

"Yeah, well, it worked , didn't it?" Marlene shot off, thewords tumbling out of her mouth. Denzel shot her a look of annoyance and she clammed right up again.

"Why, Marlene?" Cloud wondered aloud, stalling for time to

try to piece together a plan.

"Barret," Denzel said, smiling triumphantly.

Yuffie slapped her hand to her forehead. " Goddammit. Sheeven went to see a psychologist about it, rememberCloud?"

He did. She'd been having nightmares and went to thepsychologist, who'd diagnosed her as having trust issuesafter Barret confessed the truth about her biological fatherand what had led to his demise.

"She tried to tell me," Tifa said, quietly. "She tried to tellme that Denzel was making her do things, poisoning hermind, and I thought she meant she was having baddreams."

"You all deserve it," Marlene said, her anger coming forthnow, her timidity toward her older brother-figure forgotten."You left me to rot and you deserve to die. All of you."

Cloud could practically see the scars on her soul, and for a



brief second, he agreed with her. They'd failed her asparents and they deserved what they got.

Then common sense reasserted itself. "We were trying tosave the goddamn world ," he snapped. He immediatelyregretted the harsh words, as Denzel grinned maniacallyand pointed at Tifa with his pistol.

Yuffie stretched back into a stance that Cloud recognized,although he didn't know if Marlene or Denzel did: it was herbattle position. Cloud wondered if she had any ninja starshidden in pockets or if she was going to try to go after thetwo teenagers by hand. She was nearly as good at hand-

to-hand combat as Tifa was, but he doubted that either of them could outrun bullets.

"Don't even think about it, Yuffie," Denzel said, switchinghis aim to her. "I'll kill you first ."

"I dare you, punk," Yuffie said, eyes flashing. Cloud knewthat Yuffie was terrified of guns. They weren't like swords

or shuriken. They didn't forgive. They just made deadbodies. But she was covering up that fear excellently,because she was well and truly pissed off .

"No materia immunity this time, Yuffie," Denzel said,dispassionately. "Bullets are for real ."

"Blah blah blah," Yuffie said, crouching down low. "I was

friends with Vinnie Valentine for thirteen years and Inever once got shot. And he was a way better shot thanyou are." And then she took off, darting around like liquidsilver and leading Denzel away from Tifa and Cloud.

A gunshot rang out, and the world turned red.



HMarlene gasped. Her gun fell to the ground as her handsflew to her mouth. Red blossomed brightly over her whiteshirt.

"When you decide to kill someone," a familiar voice said,

sardonically, "it would be in your best interest to make surethat they can, in fact, die."

Denzel rushed to his sister's side. "How is that possible?"he cried, hands fluttering around Marlene, trying to staunchthe blood.

Vincent Valentine, wearing what Cloud could only assumewas a stolen pair of jeans and a T-shirt, stood at the back

of the cave. The clothing bore singe marks and Cloudrealized that Vincent had literally come through the depthsof the fire caverns to get here. Cerberus glinted brightly inhis right hand, and his left was gauntlet-clad as usual.

Cloud would ponder the specifics later, but right now hewas so very happy that Yuffie had insisted on burying himwith his gun.

Marlene's breathing was coming in shorter breaths, andthen just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended andMarlene Wallace was no more. No theatrics, no drama –she was just gone. Denzel cried out in anger and took uphis gun again, this time focusing exclusively on Cloud.



Cerberus issued his cry, and Denzel fell short of his goal amere three feet from Cloud.

"Next time," Cloud said, "let's not leave it so late." He satdown very heavily, seeing but not seeing his adoptive son'sdead body.

He'd deal with his feelings tomorrow. Today, they werealive.

HYuffie didn't like the idea of leaving their bodies in the firecaverns to be consumed, but she agreed that it was reallythe only way to ensure that the two would never be found.They'd simply come up missing, and no one would ever

know the truth.

By the time they finished the grisly work of binding thebodies and letting Vincent disappear with them into thebowels of the fire caverns, it was nearing noon, and thesnow was letting up. Cleaning up the mess had taken moretime than Cloud had thought it would.

Tifa was dead on her feet, Yuffie not so far behind her.Even Cloud, with his enhanced metabolism, could stand anap. In fact, the only person in their group who lookedutterly normal was Vincent.

"How the hell are you even alive?" Yuffie demanded, asthey began the trek down Da Chao.



"As I said," Vincent replied, "I cannot die. It is the curse of Chaos. I very painfully reconstituted in my casket. Theywould have done better to cast Flare on my heart."

"Huh," Yuffie said. "I guess Shera's catholic sensibilitiessaved your ass." She blinked. "We were gonna have youcremated, but she was horrified when we mentioned it."

Vincent was quiet for a second. "That may have preventedmy reconstitution."

Yuffie grinned wickedly.

HThey sneaked back into town, getting to Yuffie's house via

her super-secret underground passageway that Cloud wasin no way surprised to discover existed. Yuffie's reasoningfor the subterfuge was that no one knew Vincent was aliveyet. Vincent's reasoning was that they didn't know if Marlene and Denzel had been working alone.

Cloud was pretty sure they had been – they'd been alonefor so long that reaching out for help seemed unlikely at

this juncture. But Vincent had survived this long on beingparanoid (and, apparently, immortal), and Cloud wasn'tabout to gainsay him.

"How did you get into the fire caverns?" Yuffie asked, asthey slid up a trap door that led into her basement hallway.



"There are several entrances and exits to most cavernsystems," Vincent said. "This is not my first time in Wutai."

They all went silent, pondering the implications of thatstatement.

"I found the entrance when I was a Turk," he explainedfurther.

"Right," Yuffie declared, as they entered her kitchen andshe stoked the fire. "As soon as we get the matter of youstill being alive settled, you are so totally showing meeverything you know about Wutai."

Vincent merely looked resigned.

HThey slept well into the evening, but Yuffie drew the line atactually allowing them to miss the start of the holiday. Ateleven thirty she woke the lot of them up with hot cocoa(Vincent refused to even consider drinking it, which Yuffiepouted over for a solid ten minutes) and Christmas cookies.Cloud was surprised to find, but said nothing about, the

fact that while they'd all slept, she'd apparently fussed withher altar. It now bore smoking incense, a bowl of rice, andplate of pickles. Chopsticks stuck out of the bowl at rightangles, and Cloud suspected she'd left the food out fortheir dearly departed friends.

Yuffie seemed determined to remain cheerful, even going



so far as to put Christmas music on, but as the clock towerstruck midnight, her happy facade crumbled.

"You don't have to pretend everything's alright," Cloudpointed out, taking a sip of his hot chocolate, which Yuffiehad doctored with peppermint schnapps.

"I know," Yuffie said, wiping tears from her eyes andsniffing loudly. Vincent pointedly looked out a window, andTifa leaned over to touch Yuffie's arm, sympathetically. "It just feels wrong to have Christmas when they're all gone."

"Life goes on," Vincent said. Cloud was startled to hear

anything resembling words of comfort passing his lips. "Thebest way to honor those who have gone before us is to goforward, not to live with one foot in the past."

They stared at him.

"I am aware of the irony of my statement," Vincentcontinued.

It was like a dam had broken inside him, and Cloudlaughed. And laughed and laughed, and when Tifa andYuffie joined in, he laughed some more, and eventually thethree of them were in a pile under the table, slightly drunkand laughing hysterically. Vincent looked vaguely amused.

"I think this is the start of a wonderful new tradition," Yuffiesaid. "The Christmas Morning Drink-Off. Same time, sameplace, next year?"

"Sure thing," Tifa said gamely. "Next time,though, I'm making the drinks."

Cloud chuckled. He glanced up just in time to see Vincent



smiling a legitimate smile at the group of them, and henodded understanding.

Broken things could be fixed. Vincent was living proof.

They were going to be alright.

SThe End



Author's Notes

when Sylla emailed me with who I had been given to

gift for the Secret Santa – Zarazia, who had given me my giftlast year (which was fabulous, by the way) – I was a bitstartled. Zara had been a member of a private Skype chat withme, and while I adored her, I couldn't imagine how I couldcreate something she would enjoy. I had planned on fallingback on my crafting abilities and making a physical gift to bemailed out, as I did the year previous, and I had absolutely noidea what to do.

I had only just begun getting back into writing on a regularbasis, after a nearly two-year-long bout of writer's block, and Iwas hesitant to start up a fic for a gift without a backup plan.

For the last year or so Fearandloathing has been absolutely

obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, and recently (throughFacebook) got my husband hooked to the BBC series.Additionally, I had just finished re-watching the entirety of Torchwood , another fabulous BBC program. These two thingscollided one day while I was discussing a new outliningprocedure that Pen Against Sword and I had begun using towrite, and suddenly I knew exactly what I was going to write.

Sherlock discussion at the front of my mind, I decided a

murder mystery was in order, and the bones of the story roseup to the front of my mind. I whipped the rough draft out inone singular day, writing just under 9,000 words. I hadn'twritten that much in one day in years, and I was very pleasedwith myself.

Woodster gave me a great alpha-read, pointing out some



logical fallacies and encouraging me to go through the betaprocess and finish it. Thanks for that, Woodster – it helpedmore than you can ever know.

A few days later, I sent it off to VulcanElf to be beta-read. Beta-

reading with Vulcan is a singularly awesome experience. Mostother beta experiences I have are pure grammar editing, and alot of ass-kissing. Vulcan strips both from the process; if there's a major grammatical error she'll point it out, but notdwell on it.

Instead, Vulcan focuses almost singularly on style, misusedwords, and flow. She helped me completely rewrite the ending,

and this story would have absolutely sucked without her. Sothank you, as well, Vulcan, for helping beat this poor story intoshape. I bow before your expertise.

This fic was a real community effort, and it's something I'mvery proud of. I give this ebook to the Genesis Awards as a giftfor that effort – you all helped me in some way, and youdeserve something in return. Thank you.

T. Costa, January 2, 2012

the twelve days of x-mas by t costa

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