Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1 (Sephiroth's narrative)

I could see them watching me from above as I fell, but I made no movement to extend a hand. I had gone to so much trouble to find my death in this place. It had been all I could do to hold myself still and not attempt to parry that final attack as his sword cut into me. His sword, Zack's sword, Angeal's sword. Fitting that I should end on its blade.

If I had fought back, I . . . well, who can say? Omnislash is not an undefeatable technique, although my little nemesis had executed it to perfection. I thought I could have won, but at the heart of any battle there is always that one moment when the world can spin on its axis and everything can change, when misfortune can defeat even the most skilled.

I might have won that fight, but not the one that came after. I could not win against Her, against the being whose will moved within me even now, telling me to fight, to flee, to fly . . . but I should be too weak now. That was why I had forced myself to battle them over and over again, that young man and his friends. During the few moments of lucidity I had snatched from that overwhelming will that distorted my mind, I had set myself up for death.

I will not be a puppet. Not for Hojo; not for Her. And this was the only way I could cut the strings: by breaking myself to the point where I was no longer of any use to Her. Thank you, Cloud. Thank you for becoming as strong as I hoped you would; thank you for coming after me; thank you for putting me to rest.

I knew from experience that falling into mako wasn't like falling into water. The vapour pressure is too high, making the transition less sudden. Even falling from such a height, I sank into it without having the breath knocked out of me—was I still breathing? Still conscious, certainly, but my lungs should be filling with blood. Drowning that way was an ignominious end, but it was an end, one that would take me before even the largest amount of mako could regenerate my flesh, and that made it acceptable.

The Lifestream roiled around me, burning against my skin. Even submerged in it, my vision filled with green, I heard no voices. That which lay here would not speak to me. The only voice I had ever heard in this place came from within.

«My son, come, come! Leave that dying shell behind and impose your will here, on this world's very substance . . .»

It tugged at me, and I did my best to pull back, floating in empty glowing green. Get out of my head! Futile to attempt to speak to her, though. She would never listen. The communication between us was only one way.

The tug was becoming a steady pull, and I realized with horror that it was drawing me away, pulling me out of my body intact. It appeared I would not be permitted to diffuse into the Lifestream until my soul had been cleansed of all memories of this incarnation, as happened to every other being born of this Planet. Not while She still had a use for me.

I refuse!

No response. No indication of Her having heard. The part of me that wasn't frantically trying to hold onto my dying body knew better anyway.

No!

I was like a fish thrashing against the hook . . . hook . . . Her grip was localized. I could feel it. I gathered myself for one final effort, letting myself still, giving Her a few seconds to become complacent before I threw myself away from Her with all the force I could muster. I felt myself tear and tumble away both from Her and from my body. Leaving a piece of myself behind, and who knew what She could do with that? But going back and trying to reclaim it was out of the question; it would be an invitation to recapture.

I darted away into green, although my soul remained stubbornly one instead of falling apart into motes of light. I couldn't tell what direction I was moving in, if there were in fact directions here—I was a neophyte in this realm of the mind, with no one to teach me—but I felt I could vaguely sense Her, and I did my best to move away from that feeling.

It was quite some time before I dared to slow a bit and take in more of my surroundings. The green wasn't uniform. Bright to dim, thick to thin, chartreuse to turquoise . . . upon close examination, it varied along all of those dimensions. I was a small fish who needed to find a place in the endless green to hide from a shark, but there was nothing that spoke of concealment or welcome.

A mote of darker green bumped up against me, rubbing along my side like a friendly animal. It moved away a bit, then came back and circled me. Away again. Closer again. When in moved away a third time, I followed it. Maybe this remnant of a soul knew where it was going. At least it was something to focus on that had nothing to do with Her.

It brought me to a thin, dark spot in the torrent that . . . felt somehow familiar. And rubbed up against me again.

«I'm sorry, Seph, but this is the best I can do. They won't let you stay, and Aerith won't help me persuade them. They wouldn't even let me create a metaphor here to help orient you.»

Zack?

«I'm sorry,» the voice repeated, and the world tore.

Green lightning danced as everything went dark for a moment. There was something solid under my back—solid, smooth, and cold. I had a back. I had a body. One that wasn't, as far as I could tell, drowning in its own blood because of taking repeated slashes to the chest. Faint and far away, I could hear the noise of some kind of alarm, and a cautious inhalation gave me the scents of mako, disinfectant, and ozone. A lab. One of Hojo's, or at least a kindred spirit—I would know that reek anywhere.

And for the first time in years, I couldn't hear Her voice. No matter where I was, that was a reason to rejoice.

There didn't seem to be anyone in the room with me, so I opened my eyes, and was greeted with dull, yellowish emergency lighting. I was lying on my back on a steel table of familiar type, although my feet were sticking off the end. My arms and legs rested on top of ruptured straps. My coat and gloves were missing, but I still had my trousers, belt, and boots—much the same state as I had been in when I had fallen away from Cloud into the Lifestream.

My body seemed to be undamaged, so I pushed myself into a sitting position, and then, when nothing twinged, slid off the table and did a few stretches to test my muscles. Everything was fine, as far as I could tell. Well, then.

Before I could consider my next course of action, I heard footsteps outside in the hall. I curled my hands loosely, and immediately there was a weight in them. Since the long-ago day I had first taken Masamune into my hands, there had been a bond between us. If I called, she came. Always.

I drew her, raising an eyebrow as I noted she had appeared wearing her original scabbard of intricately carved monster bone and not the simpler lacquered wood one I had commissioned all those years ago. And her materia slots were empty. No matter. Unless Cloud Strife and his friends were waiting for me outside, steel alone would be enough. Masamune hummed in my hand, ready to fulfill her duty.

There was a click from the door, the sound of a Shinra-issue keycard lock disengaging. The door swung open.

"Come, boy, we must—" A stooped figure went silent in mid-sentence, freezing in the doorway, and my body moved on its own, bringing Masamune down in a powerful cut that sheared through the man's torso and struck sparks from the floor. He died with an expression of shock on his face.

It wasn't until he lay on the ground in parts that I realized something was very wrong.

I remembered Hojo with extreme clarity, and there were so many small things about him that were different here. His hair had started turning grey at the temples around the end of the Wutai War, but that of the corpse in front of me was night-black, even if it was a greasy mess as always. And the glasses were wrong—not in the last style I remembered him wearing, but one he'd abandoned years earlier.

The logical assumption was that he had finally given into vanity and dyed his hair, changed the style of his glasses. But his face also looked subtly younger, the lines less deeply engraved, the flesh not yet sagging away from the edge of his jaw.

I cleaned the blood off Masamune and resheathed her, then went through Hojo's pockets as quickly and thoroughly as I could, wiping my fingerprints off anything I discarded with a rag torn from his lab coat. A clunky old PHS that couldn't do anything but make phone calls, although I remembered him carrying a far more modern model. Wallet—I took the gil and keycards, left credit cards and ID behind. Latex gloves, three pair, too small to fit me. The breast pocket yielded a pen, a mechanical pencil, and a pocket day planner. A paper one. For the year 1992.

Riffling through it, I discovered that Hojo had systematically drawn a line through the page for every day up to and including April 3. Which should have made today April 4, 1992. Except that that made no sense whatsoever. Still, the oddest sensation was settling in the back of my mind.

Masamune's scabbard. Hojo's youth. The planner and the old PHS and the ruptured straps.

Had the good doctor opened that door expecting to find an eleven-year-old Sephiroth on the other side?

There should be other telltales, if so. I stepped out into the hallway beyond the door. The emergency lighting was on in here too, casting deep shadows. At least that meant the surveillance equipment should be down.

The keycard reader was an older type. Not positive proof, since they tended to get updated piecemeal except in the most security-critical areas, but it was consistent with the hypothesis that I was somehow nearly two decades in the past.

I went back and checked the expiry dates on Hojo's credit cards. Also consistent: July 1992 and February 1993.

If this wasn't 1992, then someone was playing an elaborate practical joke on me. One that involved Hojo clones and a large number of period props. It seemed ridiculous. Who would bother? Or . . . was I in the Lifestream even now, living an illusion?

Regardless, the only thing to do was play along. If this was a joke, I needed to poke and prod it more until the seams started showing. If this was the Lifestream, nothing I did would matter anyway, regardless of what it was. And if this was real, some sort of second chance Zack had somehow created for me, treating it other than seriously could turn out to be deadly.

So. The first thing to do was get out of this laboratory. Getting clear should be enough to disprove the "practical joke" hypothesis, and I wasn't about to stay in Hojo's territory. After that, I could think more carefully about what to do and where to go.

There was a large 36 painted on the wall at the end of the corridor. Was I in the Shinra building, on a lower floor that had been used as a lab before the sixty-seventh and sixty-eighth had been finished? My memories of the year in which I apparently found myself were diminished by time and by the fact that I had never wanted to remember most of what had happened to me as a powerless child under Hojo's care, so I wasn't sure this was the floor we'd actually been on, and my chances of recalling its geometry in any but the most general terms were slim.

I moved forward in silence. A stopped analog clock on the wall read 11:38. At night, presumably, or there would have been more light in here. At least that reduced my chances of running into anyone.

Restive sounds of beasts, and musky smells. I had to be near where they kept the specimens. But that other sound, so tiny it was almost lost . . . muffled sobs? Was someone crying?

"Aerith." A woman's voice, hushed. "Aerith, please don't cry."

"So scared . . . help me, Mommy."

"I can't, sweetie. Even if I reach out my arm as far as you can, and you reach yours out as far as you can . . ."

I rounded a corner. Specimen cages, yes—the big ones that could double as prison cells. Several held medium-sized animals, Kalm fangs and the like. But there was also one that held a woman. And another that held a little girl, perhaps five years of age. They both wore light green scrubs and brown slippers, the same sort of clothing I'd been provided with when I had lived in the labs.

It would have been sensible to ignore them. Fleeing would only be made more difficult if I had a civilian and a child in tow. But the purpose of SOLDIER was to protect people like these. And I wouldn't have left a malboro to the tender mercies of the Shinra Science Department.

And . . . well. More than two hundred innocent people had died in Nibelheim, because I had been unable to throw off Jenova. I'd learned how to tiptoe around that knowledge to avoid making myself ill, but that didn't change the fact that I had a lot to make up for. And I owed this little girl specifically, and knew it.

I could still remember the feeling of Masamune sliding between her ribs.

The woman grew very quiet as she looked up and saw me approaching. I ignored her stare and went to the door of her cage instead. The lock clicked when I swiped one of Hojo's keycards, and I pulled the door open. I turned to the girl's cage and repeated my actions.

"Mommy!" The girl shot across the floor and into the woman's arms the moment she was free to do so. The woman hugged her tightly to her chest.

"Thank you," the woman said, looking up at me from where she knelt on the floor. "My name is Ifalna Faremis, and this is my daughter, Aerith."

Faremis?

"You're Dr. Gast's wife?"

"Yes—you knew my husband? Just who are you?"

Well, why not? "Sephiroth."

"You can't—" She stopped in mid-sentence. Began again. "The only 'Sephiroth' I know of is an eleven-year-old boy."

"I'm somewhat confused by the present situation myself, but now isn't the time to discuss it. We need to get out of the building before the power comes back on. Can you run?"

Ifalna squared her shoulders. "If it gets us out of here, we can fly."

Chapter Text

Chapter 2

He was terrifying.

That was her first thought, and it persisted even after he opened her cage, and her daughter's. He was terrifying, tall and powerful and splattered with blood, his eyes burning with the poisonous colour of dead Lifestream. Calamity, all the voices whispered to her, and she knew her daughter could hear them too. Calamity's son—danger, danger, danger!

Shut up, she told the voices as she struggled to pull Aerith along at the pace he was setting—he wasn't even coming close to running full out, but even his casual lope was fast, since his legs were so very long. If he gets us safely out of here, I don't care if he's Hojo's lovechild with a tonberry!

At least he seemed to know where he was going, along a hallway, then right and through a door and into a stairwell that seemed to go on forever, its top open to the night. They ran down four flights before Aerith shrieked and tripped. The man who called himself Sephiroth blurred, catching the girl by the shoulder before she could tumble down over unforgiving concrete.

"Get her on your back if you can," he ordered, and his tone expected obedience. "We still have thirty flights to go before we're clear."

She nodded and crouched down. "Come on, Aerith. Behind me and put your arms around my neck, and I'll hold your legs."

It was the first piggyback ride the girl had ever had, running downward through hell by the dim emergency light. There was a door at the bottom of all the stairs, with a crash bar to open it, and they went straight through without slowing. Only when they were under the shadows of a scaffold some fifty feet from the door did Sephiroth slow to a stop.

"Catch your breath," he said. "I need to think."

"About what?" She crouched to let Aerith down. Having had little exercise since she had been brought to Midgar, she was already exhausted.

"How to get us down off the Plate. If I were alone, I could just jump, but that won't work for you and the girl."

She stared at him, appalled. One of the scientists had mentioned that Midgar's Plate was more than ten stories above ground level. And he was confident he could survive the impact of a jump from that height without serious injury. No, not even confident. He was matter-of-fact about it. It wasn't remarkable enough for him to require confidence.

Even as he frowned, his eyes scanned from side to side, searching for danger, and the sword he carried was held in a way that would allow him to draw it easily. She wondered how many men she had killed before he had let them out of the cages, whose blood it was that was spattered in a rough arc across the front of his body. And then she decided that she didn't want to know.

"The train," he said after what couldn't have been more than two or three minutes. "It was established early . . . won't draw attention the way a private vehicle would . . ." She wasn't sure whether he was talking to her or himself, but when he began to walk again, she followed him, keeping to the shadows as he did.

They were several blocks away when the lights of the Shinra Building came on again. She guessed from the tiny changes in his expression that they were now operating on borrowed time, but he didn't increase his pace.

She wasn't sure where they were going. He led them into a dimly-lit area along the railroad tracks, and Aerith jerked, startled, as a train shot past. Once it was gone, Sephiroth boosted them both over the fence that barred off the track itself, and then led them up onto a gantry that swayed precariously above.

"Get her onto your back again," he ordered, but once she had Aerith up again, they remained in place.

"What are you going to do?" she asked him.

"We are going to jump onto the train when it comes back, heading down." Once again, his tone brooked no argument, but she didn't care.

"That's insane!"

"It's practical, given our circumstances. No one will see us, and there won't be any records. I used to know someone who had done this hundreds of times."

"And I bet he died by falling off and breaking his neck." Sephiroth hadn't given a pronoun, but only a man—a young man—would have been so reckless.

He shook his head. "Shot while trying to escape from Shinra." And his expression went cold. "Once we jump, flatten yourself on your belly against the roof of the train car and try to hold on. I'll pull the girl off you and keep her safe."

She set her jaw, no happier about this than she had been thirty seconds ago, but she had no plan of her own. Perhaps he was right, and this was the best way.

The rumble of the train coming back interrupted her thoughts, and she could feel his arm wrapping around her, around Aerith, who was silent and shaking on her back.

The train surged under the gantry, and he barked "Now!" and pushed her forward and down.

She landed awkwardly on her knees, and immediately flattened herself as he'd told her. She could feel him pulling Aerith off her back one-handed, and the girl screamed at one point as he dug his thumb in to force her to release her grip on Ifalna. Then they were all three laid out on their stomachs with Aerith in the middle and Sephiroth's arm clamped over their backs, holding the girl and the woman in place as the train shot down and left and into a tunnel. All of their hair was whipping around wildly in the wind—she hadn't realized just how long his was until it flickered across the edge of her vision in a wild torrent of silver.

She was suffering from vertigo by the time the train came to a stop at ground level, from going around and around the pillar, always in the same direction. Sephiroth didn't seem bothered, but he gave her a few precious seconds to collect herself before helping her slip down off the end of the train. They'd been clinging to the very last car, and she didn't think it was a coincidence. He'd known, and timed their jump.

He steered all three of them into a dead-end alleyway near the station.

"Wait here," he said. And propped his huge sword against a crumbling wall.

"Where are you going?"

"To find us some less conspicuous clothes. Now that we're outside the likely search zone, I should be able to get us out of Midgar, but not with you two looking like escaped hospital patients." He didn't even try to describe what he himself looked like. Worker at a fetish brothel, maybe, but she wasn't going to say that in front of Aerith.

"Unarmed?" She had never been here before, but the Midgar slums had a reputation.

"My sword comes when called, but I don't expect to run into anything I'll need her to deal with." He ran his hands through his hair, easing out the worst of the windblown tangles. "I should be back within an hour. If I'm not, get out of here as quickly as possible and go to the Wall Market in Sector Five. I'll try to find you there."

He slipped away into the dark before she could ask anything else, and she slid down tiredly into a sitting position amid the dirt and the garbage, drawing Aerith into her lap.

"Is he a bad person, Mommy?" the little girl asked. She'd probably been waiting to ask for quite a while. "The voices say he's bad."

"The voices can be wrong sometimes." That had been dearly-earned knowledge: the Lifestream could see everything that had happened in history, but it wasn't always aware of what was going on in the minds of people who hadn't joined it yet. "I don't know if he's good or bad, but right now, he's helping us. And we need help."

"Oh." The little girl snuggled closer. She had to be very tired. Ifalna herself wanted to rest, but she knew it wasn't safe.

If a monster came along, or a thief, would she be able to use that sword leaning against the wall? Would she even be able to lift it? There was something about it that bothered her almost as much as the man. There were Wutainese characters among the elaborate carvings on the scabbard, and she reached out to trace them with a finger, wondering what they meant, and why they felt ominous.

Immediately she snatched her hand back, because the sword felt ice-cold under the fingertips. It did not like her, not one bit. And some of the voices were babbling again, but in Wutainese this time, thus incomprehensible.

Fortunately, nothing approached them before Sephiroth returned and tossed a duffel bag down beside her.

"Get changed," he said. "The girl as well." He had already swapped his tight leather trousers and partial nudity for khakis and a plain black T-shirt, and tied his hair back, although he had kept his high boots. He dropped a second duffel beside his foot and lowered the third item of luggage he'd somehow acquired, a fiberglass case more than six feet long, from his shoulder.

"What is that?" Every second sentence that had come out of her mouth since they had met had begun with 'what' or some other questioning word, it seemed.

"I think it was for fishing rods, originally. But it should draw less attention than a seven-foot nodachi." He set his sword inside, canted at an angle. It was a tight fit. "Get dressed. We've been here too long already. Bury the scrubs in the garbage when you're done." He turned his back pointedly to the two of them, leaving her to fumble through the bag he had given her in the half-light that was all that could get past him.

Two piles of clothes, neatly folded. Plain cotton panties, still in their packaging, in adult and child sizes, and a sports bra. A peasant dress and sandals for her, a plain pink A-line skirt, white T-shirt, and another pair of tiny sandals for Aerith. There were other clothes underneath, but she didn't stop to investigate, dressing herself and her daughter quickly. It all fit well enough, to her surprise. Aerith, who had never worn sandals before, frowned and wiggled her toes, but there was no time for that, either. Ifalna finished by throwing the scrubs and slippers (how had she managed that wild train ride without losing one?) into a dumpster at the end of the alley.

"And now?" she asked as Sephiroth shouldered the fiberglass case.

"Back to the train station. The early morning train to Junon leaves at five-fifteen, and we're going to be on it."

She nodded tightly. If gaining her freedom meant she had to sleep on a station bench tonight, then that was what she would do.

It certainly wasn't comfortable, she decided as she settled in beside Sephiroth, who handed her two tickets, adult and child. Hers and Aerith's. The tall man didn't seem bothered by the hardness of the bench, staring silently into the dark with his booted feet resting on the fiberglass case.

She doubted she would get any sleep at all tonight, although Aerith was out like a light. "Will we be staying in Junon for long?"

Sephiroth shook his head. "Only long enough to find a boat headed south. I had thought you might be safest in Mideel. Shinra technically owns that area, but it's so far from the center of everything that they pay no attention to it."

"You'll come with us?"

"I'll escort you there. After that, there are other things I need to do."

Calamity, the voices whispered to her again.

"I think it might be time for you to tell me just exactly who you are," Ifalna said slowly.

He gave her a long, thoughtful look, then returned to staring into the darkness. "I died."

What?

"At the Great Northern Crater. A little less than twenty years from now. I fell into the Lifestream as I was dying, and after a rather odd brief interlude there, I somehow appeared in place of my eleven-year-old self in this time. I have no idea why, or how. Or why I'm still here when technically I should already have destroyed the future I came from when I killed Hojo."

She stared at him. She'd only glimpsed him once or twice, the pale boy with the emerald eyes, but she could believe that this was what he'd grown into.

"Perhaps it wasn't enough," he told the darkness in a soft, flat baritone. "Perhaps it won't have enough of an effect unless I kill Her, too."

"Her?"

"My mother. Jenova."

The voices were thundering Calamity-Jenova-terror from the skies! and an image popped into her mind, a woman with red eyes and silver hair and a feeling of absolute wrongness about her . . . Ifalna hissed and rubbed her temples as pain stabbed at her head. That, and the feeling of rage-terror, had been the Planet itself speaking, not just the voices from the Lifestream.

"Jenova wasn't your mother." The words she spoke came back to her distorted, as though by water, but she forced them out anyway. "Gast told me . . . your mother was one of the scientists he and Hojo were working with. A Dr. Crescent . . . Lucy or Lucrecia or something like that. I'm sorry I can't remember exactly—it's been too long."

When her vision cleared, Sephiroth was staring at her. "Lucrecia Crescent," he repeated slowly. "I think I once saw that name on an old personnel list . . . Damn him. Damn him. How could I not have known he was lying again?"

His mouth had thinned with rage, and she recoiled even though she knew his anger wasn't aimed at her. He immediately wrenched his gaze aside and shook his head.

"Ultimately, it doesn't matter, I suppose. Regardless of what relationship does or does not exist between us, I still have to destroy Her. Or I'll become Her puppet again, and the tragedy will repeat itself. I refuse to let it happen a second time."

She wondered what it was. Although perhaps it would be best if she didn't know. Fire and death, the voices were saying now. This man's hands, that terrible sword . . . they had surely known a lot of death.

"Will you be all right?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "I don't know. And it doesn't matter, either. If the cost of ridding the world of Her is my life, I'll consider it well-spent."

Chapter Text

Chapter 3 (Sephiroth's narrative)

It was almost laughable that no Turk interrupted our exit from the city. Almost. I didn't doubt that Hojo's death and the inexplicable disappearance of child-me had the Shinra Tower behaving like a broken anthill. They might not even have noticed that some of the good doctor's other specimens were missing yet. Still, my hands itched for Masamune's hilt all the way to Junon, although I was careful not to call her down from her perch on the rack above the seats. She needed to act like a fishing rod while we remained on the train.

Beside me, the two Cetra continued to sleep as dawn broke outside the window. I'd long since ceased to worry about whether they were a liability to my survival, or useful camouflage. The Turks might be looking for a boy alone, or a woman with one or two children, but they wouldn't be looking for an apparent family. Regardless, I owed it to the girl to see to her safety, if I possibly could. Although it wouldn't entirely make up for killing her.

I shook my head, chasing away the memory. I also fished a pair of sunglasses out of my pocket and put them on. While SOLDIER was still semi-secret right now, meaning that no one outside of a handful of Shinra military and scientists would be able to recognize mako eyes for what they were, I also had the minor problem that my pupils contracted to slits when exposed to strong light, and that, I couldn't let anyone notice right now. In addition to being an absolute means of identifying me as Hojo's "Specimen S", it might make someone suspect I was a monster in disguise.

Damn Hojo, anyway. I'd realized long ago that he'd set me up for what had happened in Nibelheim. What I hadn't realized was just how long and how hard he'd been working on that setup. He'd been telling me Jenova was my mother's name ever since I'd been old enough to articulate the question.

Lucrecia Crescent. I might never have known her, but at least she wouldn't have been any more of a monster than anyone else who worked at those labs . . . which, come to think of it, wasn't much of an endorsement. But . . . my name, assuming she hadn't been married . . . Sephiroth Crescent? It was a mouthful, but not horrible. And a tiny piece of identity reclaimed after being stolen by Hojo.

Plans sifted through my mind as the train zigzagged over the mountains. In Junon, I would need to find us passage to Mideel, but there were boats from Junon to everywhere. Money would be more of a problem. We'd started this trip with the money I'd stolen from Hojo, plus a few other stray coins I'd had in my pockets, forgotten there for years since my initial plunge into the Lifestream in Nibelheim—a few hundred gil in all. But I was down now to less than fifty. Barely enough to afford a room for the night, and it went without saying that Ifalna and the girl had no money.

I would have to go hunting. It was the quickest way to earn money, and the easiest. The most common monsters in the area of Junon were nerusoferoths, capparwires, formulas, and zemzellets. None of them especially powerful, and if I dissected them properly, I could earn around a hundred-fifty gil per creature.

And after I had left the two Cetra safely in Mideel . . . well. North again. I didn't know where they were keeping Jenova right now, whether Her body was in Nibelheim or Midgar or elsewhere. I thought I would have sensed Her if She had been in the lab at the Shinra building, but I couldn't be absolutely certain. I would try the Mount Nibel reactor first, however, since it was less guarded. Not to mention that I had other business in that area as well.

My little blond nemesis would be about the same age as the girl right now. Five or six. But that didn't mean it was too early to begin training him—I'd been three when I'd been given my first practice sword, and taught how to hold and swing it.

Cloud had been a highly skilled swordsman when I had known him. How much better would he be if I started him early, with an individualized training program, instead of letting him fumble around in the rudimentary swordsmanship classes Shinra offered to ordinary infantry, supplemented by a few lessons from Zack? He might end up exceeding me in the same way that I had exceeded Genesis and Angeal. Or he might end up pushing me to new heights. With no real competition, I'd let myself get sloppy. Sloppy enough to be taken out by an unenhanced infantryman. Of course, I had been a little distracted at the time, and Cloud had made a move of ridiculous desperation.

What else was there, other than Cloud and Jenova? Wutai, obviously, but although the war wouldn't start until later this year, I couldn't see how I would be able to stop it, with the momentum toward it already building. Assassinate the whole Shinra executive, maybe, but if I made a mistake I might end up dead, and Jenova was more important. Forget about Wutai. But Genesis and Angeal . . . them I might be able to save. No, I would save them. Even though I knew it was selfish of me to prize their well-being so highly.

"What are you thinking about?" I hadn't noticed Ifalna opening her eyes. I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings, and I chastized myself once again for getting lazy.

"Karma," I said wryly. "And the flow of history, and how much one man can interrupt it."

"History is created by people," she said, with a quiet smile.

I looked out the window. "Only in the sense that a landslide can be created by a single rock. By the time you have a large number of rocks tumbling down, none of them is going to be able to stop it. I might fancy myself a large boulder, but there's still a limit to the amount of power I can exert."

"Is it going to be very bad?"

"Yes." With my death, Holy would have been freed to combat Meteor, but the spell had been too well-advanced to be countered completely at that point, and part of the chunk of space rock would have made it to the ground. Maybe not enough to destroy everything, but it had looked like it was going to be deflected in the direction of Midgar. Five million people, and even if someone had tried to make them evacuate, not everyone would have agreed to go. The body count might have been even higher than the one I'd racked up in Wutai.

"Then you're just going to have to catch that one rock before it can fall."

I nodded. After all, what other option did I have?

Junon . . . I would have liked to say it was as I remembered it, but this was long enough ago that the construction of the upper city wasn't yet complete, just as the Sector Eight Plate, back in Midgar, had been a mere lacework of girders not yet filled in by metal and concrete.

I followed the advertising at the station to the nearest inn, and used my last fifty gil as a downpayment to get a room. Once there, I put my leathers back on and freed Masamune from the fishing rod case.

"I should be back by evening," I told Ifalna. "Order room service if you need to, and have them add it to the bill."

I left the building by the back door, quietly. The guards made no attempt to stop me as I passed through the city gates.

I hunted the forested areas, mostly—not that I was exceedingly fond of capparwires, but they did tend to appear in large groups, which made slaughtering them efficient. I watched their spirits boil off into the Lifestream in a shower of green as I cut the bodies apart for the valuable glands . . . although I did make a hash of that the first few times. It had been a long time since I had last done any kind of monster dissection, and Masamune wasn't the most efficient tool for it. I was going to have to get myself a good knife if I intended to use hunting as my primary source of income. Which I would be a fool not to do, given the advantages it had in my current situation: a job that used my primary skillset, but didn't tie me down to any particular location or chain of command.

It was hot, bloody, stinking work. By late that afternoon, I had a bag of monster parts that should be worth between four and five thousand gil if the prices were similar to what I remembered, and wandered back to the seashore near Junon to clean up a bit before I re-entered the city. I rinsed out my T-shirt and used it as a primitive cleaning cloth to sponge the blood off my leathers, then rinsed it a second time, wrung it out, and put it back on damp. I'd worry about getting the salt out later.

The guards stared at me as I re-entered the city. Harder than they'd stared on the way out, I thought, although as far as I knew little had changed about my appearance. Perhaps I'd missed a splatter of blood somewhere, or perhaps they just did watch people entering the city more closely than those who were leaving.

Finding a potion compounder to buy the monster parts was easy enough—the first shop I walked into turned out to make their own goods in a workspace at the rear of the building. And the owner paid me unexpectedly well for my offerings. I came away with almost eight thousand gil.

I set aside the bulk of that, but there were some things I needed and hadn't dared take the time to acquire last night at the Wall Market. Materia. A proper harness for Masamune, which would be easier to obtain in a city like this than in a backwater like Mideel. Also some minimalist camping equipment and a new-old SIM card for my PHS, which I'd discovered still clipped to my belt when I'd changed clothes in Midgar. Fortunately, I didn't think the specification had changed much over time, so it shouldn't matter that the device was from roughly a decade in the future.

Given the awkwardness of carrying my sword around in my hand everywhere I went, the harness came first. The weapon shop didn't have anything that would have worked without substantial improvisation—a few SOLDIER-style harnesses with magnetic grips for heavy blades, but I had never carried Masamune that way and wasn't about to start. However, they were able to direct me to the leatherworker who had made them.

The man's shop was down in the old fishing village, in the shadow of the new city. A small building, little more than a shack, with weathered wood showing through the whitewash on the walls and a crack running up the side of the big window at the front. Inside, a wide range of goods were on display: chocobo tack and a few more sword harnesses like the ones at the weapon shop and . . . a coat. Long. Black leather, fine and smooth under my fingers. It looked like it might even be the right size.

"Try it on, why don't you?"

I'd heard him step through the curtain at the back of the store, so I wasn't surprised to hear the voice.

"If I may, then." I propped Masamune against the wall and took the coat down from its peg, flicking my hair out of the way as I slipped it on. I tested my range of motion to make certain it didn't bind, but the coat might as well have been custom-made for me, as my old one had been. I turned to face the man who now stood behind the counter. He was older than I had expected, balding, with a whispy grey beard and large, strong hands. "How much?"

"Five hundred gil."

"Sold," I said instantly.

"I'm not surprised," he said, with a smile. "It suits you. But I'll bet it isn't what you came in here for, either."

"The same dragon that destroyed my old coat also shredded my sword harness," I lied calmly. "The people at the weapon shop recommended you."

"Hmm. May I have a closer look at your sword?"

I laid Masamune on the counter, and the old man whistled softly.

"What would you even call that, a dai-nodachi? I don't think I've ever seen a sword this long before. I've got a plain nodachi harness in back, but I doubt it's sturdy enough for this kind of monster."

"How long to make something, then?" Irritating, but I knew venting my emotions on him wouldn't result in better service.

"I can have it for you tomorrow, if you're willing to pay for a rush job. Which I'd bet you are. You hunters are always impatient."

"How much?" I repeated.

Another two hundred gil downpayment, with the balance to be paid the next day when I came to pick up my new equipment. Almost a thousand gil down, and I hadn't even gotten to the materia shop yet. But worth it.

By the time I returned to the hotel, I had a Lightning and a Restore materia socketed to Masamune—newly spawned ones that would take a while to bring along, but still better than nothing—my PHS was working again (at least at a minimal level), and I'd acquired the schedules of the major commercial shipping lines that passed through Junon, plus a list of independent ships taking passengers. I was also down to a bit under five thousand gil, but that should be enough to pay for the hotel and the boat tickets, with a little extra left over for Ifalna to keep herself and the girl fed until she could find a job.

I folded the coat over my arm before I approached the hotel again, and once again slipped in through the back door. Aerith and Ifalna were standing side-by-side at the window, looking out over the city.

"I can barely believe this," the woman said quietly as I entered the room. "That we're free. That we're safe."

"Not entirely safe yet," I warned her, and sat down at the hotel-provided desk with the shipping schedules and copies of the Midgar Daily Herald and the Junon Times. "Shinra could come to its senses at any time. Hojo might have been the only scientist there interested in researching the Cetra, but you're still witnesses to the fact that they're conducting illegal experiments on human subjects. The Turks tend to try to clean things like that up. I'm surprised we haven't run into any opposition already." There was nothing in the papers about Hojo's death, but all that meant was that they were already engaged in a cover-up.

I turned to the shipping schedules instead. And frowned. While there was a great deal of traffic passing through Junon, most of it was cargo. Passenger ships were comparatively rare, except for expensive cruise ships taking wandering routes. Clearly, never needing to rely on commercial transport to get me where I needed to go before had left holes in my general knowledge. I wasn't, however, ignorant enough not to know that chartering a boat would look odd enough that the Turks would follow up on it.

The list of independent cargo ships that also had a passenger cabin or two was a little more fruitful, and I made note of the four whose pre-filed routes included Mideel. If we could, we would leave tomorrow.

I just hoped things held together until then.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4

"We still don't know," Veld said, standing with his arms loose at his sides. Pretending to be relaxed when he was anything but. Second-in-command or no, he hated dealing with his boss.

"You must have determined the cause of death, surely," the man on the other side of the desk said, lighting a cigarette. Myriad was old for an active Turk, his hair touched with grey, and he hung onto his various bad habits like a bulldog. Not that the head of the Turks was likely to survive long enough to die of lung cancer or cirrhosis of the liver no matter how much he overindulged, Veld reflected cynically.

Veld shrugged. "The autopsy report says the injury is consistent with an overhand blow from a very long, very sharp sword, possibly Wutainese. Except that only a robot or a SOLDIER would be able to apply enough force to cut straight through a human torso from the right shoulder to the opposite hip."

"What about the missing specimens?" Myriad was blowing smoke rings now. He always did, when a report didn't please him.

"Specimen S—according to the height and weight charts, his actual chronological age, and some video I was able to retrieve—is an eleven-year-old boy. He has been trained with edged weapons, but he's only permitted access to them when he's actually with his trainer, and although he may have the strength of a SOLDIER, there's no way he could have brought a blade straight down on Hojo's shoulder unless he was standing on something. A chair, at least. But there's nothing in that room except an examination table that's bolted to the floor at the far end. And the blood spatter makes it dead certain that Hojo died where we found him. The two other missing specimens are a woman and a girl. Neither of them should have been strong enough to do it no matter what they stood on."

What else? "Someone had gone through Hojo's pockets and taken his keycards and possibly some cash. The cards were found in a hole at one of the construction sites at the edge of the Plaza, wrapped in a rag torn from Hojo's lab coat—whoever took them knew they could be tracked and discarded them after getting out of the building. There are no fingerprints, and the only DNA traces uncovered so far are recognizably those of staff or specimens. They left the building via the fire stairs. We did find one possible clue there: the partial print of a Shinra military-issue boot. Size twelve." Of which, Veld know, there were tens of thousands of pairs scattered across the face of the Planet, and not all of them owned by people who worked for Shinra.

"So they weren't alone," Myriad said. More smoke rings. "You haven't recovered any video?"

Veld shook his head. "Whatever electrical disturbance took place took everything down, including every single bug and camera—some of them did have backup battery power, but it never came into play because the surge from the main electrical system fried their circuits."

He sank into silence, leaving Myriad to ponder the information.

"And your course of action?" the Turk head asked at last, stubbing out his cigarette.

"We're currently searching for any sign of Specimen S, since his appearance is the most distinctive. He represents our best chance of finding Hojo's killer . . . but I think it would be best to accept that this will probably remain unsolved. Even if we eventually find the man with the size-twelve combat boots, I would guess that he was no more than hired help, and Hojo had more enemies than anyone short of President Shinra himself. He's used hundreds of people in his experiments, and they all had friends and family. Narrowing things down to just one of them isn't likely to be possible. If it wasn't one of them, it was probably Hollander, and we can't touch him. We'll just have to make sure the security for the real lab floors is tighter, and let it go until and unless Specimen S turns up."

Vincent would have known where to look for them, Veld couldn't help thinking. The quiet sniper had had an uncanny gift for tracking suspects. Unfortunately, his death had been as abrupt as his rise through the Turks' ranks had been meteoric, so he wasn't available to consult.

Veld decided to go out drinking tonight. He was going to need it after what he'd gone through today.

It was midnight when she found him. Sephiroth hadn't returned to the cabin the three of them supposedly shared on this or any other night. In fact, he had somehow managed to avoid both Ifalna and Aerith most of the time since they'd boarded, even though they were all stuck on a ship less than a hundred feet in length.

When she did locate him, he was all the way forward, leaning against the rail and staring out into the dark, hair flowing in the wind.

"Have you slept at all?" she asked as she put her back to the rail beside him.

"Enough," was all he said.

He was wearing gloves, she noticed. He'd only started doing that after they boarded the ship, although it seemed he had them on in every glimpse she had caught of him since. Thin black leather gloves that fit him like a second skin, with long cuffs that went almost to his elbows.

"Where do you intend to go after you leave Mideel?" She wasn't stupid enough to think that he would be staying there with them. He had things to do that she wanted no part of, for herself or her daughter. And yet it was somehow difficult to think about their saviour just wandering out of their lives. Not least because he was so clearly a haunted man, and she knew Gast had felt horribly guilty about leaving the child Sephiroth behind with Hojo.

«He shouldn't have had to become this,» her husband whispered to her from the Lifestream, his voice the barest thread. «If there's any way you can help him . . .»

I know. Rest easy, Love.

She had never seen Sephiroth smile, she realized. Never detected the least bit of happiness or humour in him. Part of that was the weight of the burden he bore, guilt and grief and other things she didn't want to name, but he never seemed to set it aside for even an instant. Even in his sleep, he was granite-faced. He should, from the numbers he had given her, have been twenty-eight or so, but he seemed far older.

"North," he said now, answering her question in a way that was almost worse than no answer at all, since everything was north of Mideel. "It's better if you don't know the details."

She stood for a moment in silence, searching for words. "Gast always regretted leaving you behind," she said at last. Not knowing whether it was the right thing, but unable to think of anything else that wasn't even worse.

"What could he have done? Stolen me? Hojo would have killed him."

"He did."

She had all his attention now, she realized as he turned his head and gave her a burning, green-eyed look.

"You didn't know? I thought—" She collected herself and tried again. "Hojo tracked us to Icicle Inn. Aerith wasn't even a month old yet. Gast . . . Hojo shot him, and then took us." She felt the tears leaking out, flowing down her face like acid. In the lab, she had had to be strong for Aerith's sake, and she had known that tears would earn her no sympathy, but that nightmare was over now.

Sephiroth, she noted, looked both confused and unhappy. As though he wanted to help, but had no idea where to start. Well, that really wasn't an unusual reaction for a man faced with a crying woman, especially a man who had had very little contact with women at all.

"I'm sorry," Ifalna said, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "I miss him a great deal sometimes. I wish he had been able to know his daughter."

"You're a Cetra. I would have thought you could . . ." His voice trailed off again.

"I can speak to him in the Lifestream, as can Aerith, but it isn't the same. As for turning back time, I'm still not sure how you accomplished it, but I would guess that you have to be dead first." Then she realized. And . . . twitched. "I never told you what we were."

"Your daughter revealed it at a later time."

"Oh. I . . ." There were so many questions she wanted to ask. How was Aerith, in his future? Did she ever fall in love? Get married? Were there . . . grandchildren?

She wanted to ask, but she held her tongue. Jenova, he had said. And that it was very bad. And if someone as cold and stoic as this man thought it was bad . . .

"You met her, then?" was as much as she dared say.

"Not really. She was in a relationship with my second-in-command—the young man with a fondness for jumping onto trains. I heard a certain amount about her through him. And vice-versa, I expect."

Shot while trying to escape from Shinra, she remembered, feeling a bit sick. She hoped Aerith hadn't been with him when that had happened. And she resolved to ask no more questions about the future Sephiroth had seen. It was bad. People had been hurt. And it wasn't going to happen again. That was all she needed to know.

"You'll meet him again, you know," she said instead.

"Perhaps. Or perhaps it would be better for me to avoid him. Ultimately, it was knowing me that led to his death."

She picked through his words. "But you didn't kill him."

"Nevertheless, he died because of me. There have only been three people in my life that I have considered friends, and one after the other, I failed them all."

Sometimes, she wondered what it would be like to live her life without the Cetra aura that drew normal humans to confide in her. Although Sephiroth was scarcely a normal human, and they were . . . hmm. Still remarkably close to strangers, despite having spent almost a week in each other's company.

"And this time, you'll know better," she said firmly. "Find them. Treasure the time you have. Even if you can't save them, it's more important that they know you tried." If they forgive you, then perhaps you'll be able to forgive yourself. "Eventually, we all die and return to the Lifestream. It's just how the world works. The important part is what comes before."

"You'll pardon me if I find it difficult to be quite so philosophical about the situation." Dry, very dry . . . but was there an edge of exasperated humour lurking underneath?

"Well, of course you wouldn't be. You've spent your life deciding how fast people get there. I have quite a bit of contact with the effects, but a lot less with the process."

A long pause as he looked out into the night. Then, "Were all the Cetra like you?"

"I don't know. The dozen or so who were still alive while I was growing up all were, but that might have been a matter of . . . shared culture and community. I don't know if there were other Cetra cultures."

"You can't ask the Lifestream?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. First of all, older souls are more likely to fall apart and . . . be recycled. Most of them can't speak to us. The Planet itself . . . has trouble with mortal concepts like life and death, much less ephemera like culture. And we communicate most easily with the souls that resonate with us, either because they're people we knew in life, or because we're similar in some way."

"And you don't think Cetra from a different cultural background would be similar to you."

He did have a quick mind. But then, Gast had described him as an intelligent child, far beyond human norms. So much of the promise her husband had seen in the little boy seemed to have been realized in the man, but it was clear that the cost had been immense.

"I think that if they were, they would have spoken to me already," she said, and the conversation lapsed for a little while. "Thank you," she said suddenly, and he looked at her, one silver eyebrow rising. "I don't think I've said that to you nearly enough yet. Not enough to make it actually penetrate into that stubborn head of yours, anyway."

"I'm only trying to repay a debt."

She didn't ask him what the debt was, knowing that it probably came from the ugly future that he remembered.

But she did thank him again the next morning when they disembarked from the ship, and a second time when he pressed money into her hands—a few thousand gil, vital to their survival here. And one more time when she saw him again, passing through town a few days later. By then, he was wearing a long black leather coat unsuited to the climate and openly carrying his sword slung across his back. Dressed like that, he radiated danger and cold confidence. It was a costume designed to keep the world at bay and set himself apart, and she couldn't help thinking that he did both on purpose. She'd already made a handful of friends in town at that point, and they were all shocked when she approached the tall, pale, terrifying man . . . and even more shocked when he spoke to her civilly.

She didn't tell any of them that he'd given her his PHS number "in case of emergency"—which they both understood to mean "getting found by Shinra". The only person who ever found out about that was Aerith, and that not for many, many years.

Ifalna Faremis took a job as a nursing assistant at a hospice catering to mako poisoning victims. She lived in peace for many years, without ever needing to call the number she had written on a yellowing scrap of paper and hidden in the back of a photo album.

Her daughter ended up being another story, although she never did use that PHS number.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 (Sephiroth's narrative)

If not for the events that had taken place there, I might have liked the Nibel Mountains. Harsh, cold, starkly scenic, and full of many more monsters than people. It made the thought of spending the rest of my life as a hermit somewhat attractive. Unfortunately, that would have meant putting the entire world at risk by exposing it to the time-bomb that was Jenova.

I cut across the mountains from Costa del Sol, which would have been an unwise route for a normal human to take, but I knew that I was in no danger from the monsters, and the early June weather was mild enough to someone with my level of enhancement. The terrain itself constituted a small risk, but I knew how to keep myself from being injured in a fall and had the common sense to keep away from loose slopes and other delicate formations.

I had intended to make straight for the reactor on Mount Nibel, but the further west I got, the more the terrain seemed determined to force me south, and I ended up emerging from the mountains into the forest a bit south of Nibelheim. I even thought I recognized the particular point at which I first came up on the narrow dirt road leading up to the mountain community: it was near where the dragon had attacked us on that fateful mission.

Once I ended up there, there was no point in not taking the straight route, and I reached the outskirts of Nibelheim at midafternoon, after a long but not especially tiring jog. Not one vehicle passed me on the way up, emphasising the isolation of the settlement.

The town was as I remembered it, a cluster of old half-timbered buildings with peaked roofs to shed the snow. The population, as given by the file I had read in the future, was two hundred and eighty-three, with demographics slanted toward the older generations. In a story repeated all over the Planet, the younger folk were leaving to find work in Midgar or Junon, rather than staying here to eke out a hardscrabble existence.

I was prepared to just head over to the inn and take a room for the night—I hadn't slept in a real bed or bathed in anything but freezing mountain streams since Costa del Sol, and while a childhood in the labs left me less particular about my physical environment than most, there are limits—but as I passed between the buildings that defined the entryway to the town square, I caught an odd pattern of sound. Children's voices, and the sound of flesh hitting flesh. A fight. And, based on some things Zack had mentioned in my presence, I had a feeling I knew who was at the center of it.

Unfortunately, I turned out to be all too right.

By the time I found the source of the noises, four boys ranging, I thought, from eight to ten years of age, had a much smaller figure on the ground and were kicking him. The small boy had likely been beaten this way before, because he was curled up with his arms over his head, trying to protect his vital points.

"What is going on here?" I pitched my voice the same way I would have upon discovering a group of Third Classes violating regulations, and watched the four older boys jump, turn to look, and freeze.

"Let's get out of here," one of them said, and they all ran. I didn't bother trying to stop them. Instead, I watched them leave, then looked down at the curled-up boy. I hadn't been wrong: familiar spiky blond hair stuck out between his fingers, although much of it was matted and dirty.

"They're gone," I said. "You can get up now."

The child uncurled slowly, and not quite all the way, wincing. He also kept one large, blue eye warily on me.

"Just so you know, you didn't do me any favours, Mister. They'll come back tomorrow."

"I suspect they would have done that anyway. Can you straighten?"

The boy blinked. "What?"

"You're still curled in on yourself. I assume you were hit in the stomach a few times before they got you on the ground. I am not going to leave you here lying in the dirt if there's a chance you have a ruptured spleen." Great Leviathan, why had I ever thought this was a good idea? I knew nothing about children. I couldn't even draw on my experiences of having been one myself, since I knew my childhood had been abnormal in the extreme.

"Um. Okay. They haven't ever hurt me bad enough for my mom to have to call the doctor, though." Slowly, the boy climbed to his feet, and winced again, but he was able to straighten his back. Probably just bruises, then. I invoked the Restore materia I carried and let a weak cure spell wash over him, and his eyes got even larger. "That's magic, isn't it?" Then his expression closed itself in again. "Are you sure you want to waste something like that on me?"

"I scarcely notice the drain from a spell of that low a level." Which was true, although possibly not the best thing to say. "What's your name, boy?"

"Cloud. Cloud Strife . . . sir."

"Seth Crescent. I'm a monster hunter." I extended my hand, and Cloud looked warily at it, then at me, before reaching out tentatively to shake it. He was ridiculously small, the top of his head not even reaching my waist. Genetics or malnutrition? "Can you show me where the potion shop is? I assume that even a town of this size must have one."

"Sort of. Mrs. Violet makes potions and sells them, but it isn't a real shop."

"We'll hope that she's still interested in what I have to sell her, then."

Cloud looked thoughtful. "If you hunt monsters, did you kill any twin brains? She's always asking people to get her the livers, but not many people from town go up into the caves."

"I did run into some twin brains on the way here. The livers are used to make one type of ether, if I remember correctly." And I had thirty of them with me, collected over the course of two weeks and frozen with the help of an Ice materia I'd picked up in Costa.

"I don't think I've ever even seen an ether, and you know how to make them?"

I shook my head. "I know what goes into them. That isn't the same as being able to make them. Just like knowing what goes into a cake isn't the same as being able to bake one." Angeal had banned Zack from his kitchen after that incident, I recalled. "Your Mrs. Violet presumably knows the procedure and not just the ingredients list."

"Oh. We're supposed to be going there, right? This way."

Cloud led me along a winding path, mostly behind the buildings. At one point, he looked at me, looked at the space he'd been about to squeeze through, muttered, "Stupid, that won't work," and picked a different direction. I had the impression he didn't often have reason to guide other people anywhere.

We had circled half the town before Cloud stopped in front of a back gate and called out to a woman who seemed to be pulling weeds from a garden. "Mrs. Violet!"

She straightened up. "Cloud? You'd better not be—Oh." Unusual for someone to have a delayed reaction to me, but people sometimes take a moment to notice the presence of something—or someone—unexpected.

"This is Seth," Cloud said. "He's a monster hunter. Says he's got some of those twin brain livers you wanted."

"Really? Well, then, please come in—although you really shouldn't have brought him around the back, Cloud."

Cloud scowled and looked away. I touched his shoulder, just lightly. Trying to reassure him. The scowl lightened a bit, at least.

It took half an hour of haggling to dispose of all the monster parts I had accumulated. Or almost all. Mrs. Violet apparently didn't have the equipment or knowledge to process a dragon's flame sacs, so I was going to have to hold onto those until I had a chance to visit a larger town.

When I left the workshop at the back of the house, Cloud was waiting for me outside the back gate. I wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. On the one hand, I needed to attract the boy into my orbit if I was going to train him. On the other . . . how poor was his relationship with the other people in the town if he was happiest waiting outside someone's gate for a total stranger?

"I guess she bought most of your stuff," he said, kicking a pebble. "Your bag's a lot smaller. Guess you're not staying in Nibelheim, then."

"Actually, I expect to be in the area for a while, although not always in town."

"Oh." Cloud brightened up a little.

"For now, though, I need to find the inn." Which was over on my left—I was experienced enough not to get turned around even in a tiny town where nothing was laid out in a straight line—but I wanted to give Cloud an excuse to stay with me a little longer.

The unimaginatively-named Nibel Inn was also as I remembered it, although with perhaps a bit less accumulated wear and tear. Cloud wouldn't go inside, however, and I soon understood why.

"Was that the Strife kid with you?" the innkeeper said as he handed me a key.

"Yes." I saw no need to give him more than the bare minimum of information.

"Bad apple, that kid. Rob you blind if you give him a chance."

"I find that difficult to believe." The Cloud Strife I had known, watched, fought . . . he hadn't been inclined to that type of dishonesty.

"What can I say? Shit keeps disappearing, and there's no one else who could have taken it."

"But no one has actually seen him steal anything." For some reason, I felt the need to confirm that.

"We don't need to. Who else would steal toys and candy, except Claudia Strife's little bastard?"

Any of the other children in town, I would assume. But I refrained from saying it. Surely it would look odd if I leapt to the defense of a boy I barely knew.

It wasn't until I was upstairs that I realized the innkeeper had most likely meant the term bastard literally. I'd half-forgotten that Cloud Strife's file had indicated no known father. Something we have in common, then. Hojo might have claimed the title in my case, but a blind man could have seen that he and I were nothing alike.

I kept my mind carefully blank as I showered, slept, and ate breakfast. There was no putting off my primary reason for being here any longer.

I followed the long path up to the reactor through the caves, mistrusting the decayed-looking rope bridge. I had no desire to feel it part under me again. The mako fountain had a little less crystal sparkling around it than it had the last time I had passed through here. Would pass through here. Wouldn't pass through here? I frowned at the confusion of verb tenses. Simplest to treat things according to my subjective timeline, probably.

Likewise, the reactor, when I reached it, was a little less rusty and derelict-looking, but still only operating at ten percent capacity. The same access codes as before admitted me to the catwalks above the outer ring.

There were no voices in my head. I had been able to hear her, last time, by the time I got this close. A consequence of dying and taking a dip in the Lifestream, or . . . ?

I opened the door to what would have been the main control room in a normal reactor, and stopped on the threshold.

There were no pods on the concrete stair-steps that had once accommodated the monitoring consoles.

There was no door at the far end of the room, and no name plaque above the empty doorway.

I climbed the stairs, but I already knew what I was going to see in the inner room: nothing. Or, more accurately, some hookups for experimental equipment long since removed, a reminder that this reactor had been one of the first built, and the very first to be automated for low-capacity operation. But there was no sign of the equipment used to preserve Jenova—no sign that She had ever been kept here. And perhaps She hadn't. I had no idea what Her whereabouts had been before the Nibelheim mission. I'd assumed that this was Her permanent storage location, but upon reflection, that seemed ridiculous: leave such a valuable Shinra asset unguarded in such a remote area? The level of risk involved would have had any self-respecting Turk foaming at the mouth.

If Hojo had remodeled the reactor as a setup for the Nibelheim mission, he had to have started working on it a year or more before I had come here. That meant that whole business had been even less spontaneous than I had imagined.

I didn't understand how I could have missed getting wind of such a large project. Growing up in the snakepit known as Shinra, I'd developed some skill in ferreting these things out. Hojo had to have conspired with the Turks to hide it from me.

I turned my back on the reactor's inner chamber. There was nothing for me here except ugly memories of fighting my friends.

The question was, if not at the Nibel reactor, where was Jenova being stored? Midgar? Corel? Junon? I was fairly certain She couldn't be in the Shinra Building. They wouldn't have risked keeping Her so near the pilot phase of the SOLDIER project. Hojo was no fool. He knew better than to introduce additional variables at such a late stage. The Junon reactor would have been an optimal location, actually—controlled access, far enough from populated areas to keep civilians from hearing voices, plenty of mako, and a good laboratory. It was also a very difficult place to get into, unless I wanted to carve my way through all the guards. I would have to wait, and sift information. I might even need to ingratiate myself with the Shinra Electric Power Company once more. Or get myself captured and sent to the lab for analysis, but I would have to set that up very, very carefully. The idea also made my skin crawl, so it was best saved for a last resort.

Modeoheim was also a possibility, although the reactor there had never been completed. But it was nicely isolated, and—this far back in time—still populated. Midgar would be a pain to search without enough information to narrow things down to a specific area. There might be buried installations or other odd hidden spaces lurking under the city or inside the Plate or the Pillar.

Corel I should be able to eliminate quickly, though. I just had to set off a few alarm systems and empty the reactor for half an hour so that I could poke around. Easy enough.

I absently killed a few kyuvilduns as I pondered, and dismantled them for potion ingredients and other useful parts. I had done so many of them these past few weeks that I wouldn't have been surprised if I could dissect one of the creatures in my sleep.

I'd try to check Corel later this year, I decided. Given everything a few months to settle and security time to grow lax again after my little laboratory jailbreak in Midgar. Around October should be good. As for the others . . . next year. At the earliest. It might actually be easier to try to determine Her location by hacking into some files using my PHS, which was probably the most powerful computer on the Planet at the moment.

The faint sound of rustling cloth drew me up short, and I scanned the area, reaching for Masamune's hilt, but not drawing her yet. I was almost at the outskirts of the town; there might be others with legitimate reasons for being here. Odd that I couldn't see this person, though. There was nothing out here large enough to conceal a standing adult. Someone seated or crouching, perhaps, or . . . a child?

Rustling. Breathing. A heartbeat. I traced the sound to a mid-sized boulder, then checked behind it.

Little Cloud Strife was sitting behind the rock. One of his shoes was missing, his shirt was torn, and he was cradling his left arm to his chest. At least he didn't flinch away when he looked up and saw me.

"Is that arm broken?" I asked. If it was, it might be beyond my ability to treat, depending on the complexity of the fracture.

"Dunno." His face was tearstained. He'd been crying, then, but at least he wasn't now.

"Can you move your fingers?"

He wiggled them. No problems there, clearly. I pulled off my glove and bent down to palpate his forearm. Hot and slightly swollen, but I couldn't feel anything grating when I manipulated it.

"I think it's just sprained," I said after some consideration. "Easy enough to fix."

"With magic."

I raised an eyebrow. "Would you prefer a potion?"

"You shouldn't waste stuff like that on me. I'm not worth it."

I reached out with my ungloved hand and tipped Cloud's chin up, so that he was looking at my face instead of my boots.

"If I want to waste something that belongs to me, then that's my right," I told him. "And I think you are worth it."

"I'm a bastard," Cloud said, his gaze darting to the side as he tried not to look at me.

I shrugged. "So am I," I said, and watched the blue eyes widen again. "Nibelheim may be the last place on the Planet where anyone cares whether or not your parents were married."

The boy seemed not to know what to say to that. Too far outside his experience, perhaps, or too complex a concept for someone at his stage of development. I let go of his chin and cast a mid-level cure at him instead. That should be enough to take the swelling down and avoid damage to his ligaments.

"Now, what happened to your shoe?" I asked the boy when the light had faded.

"They took it."

Probably the same four boys. Regardless, it appeared that the shoe was long gone. I glanced around, but a second, closer assessment of the terrain agreed with my first, cursory one: this was no place to be wandering around barefoot. If he tried to walk, Cloud would be bleeding long before he got home.

"I'll have to carry you," I said. There was no way around it, although Cloud didn't look particularly thrilled at the idea either. I picked him up, and after a bit of jostling around, we worked things out so that he was more-or-less sitting on my right forearm, facing forward, with his arm around my neck.

Fortunately, I remembered which house belonged to the Strifes, having watched the older Cloud leave the inn to return home all those years ago, and the young Cloud didn't question my knowledge. Twenty minutes later, I was knocking on the door.

The woman who answered was tiny. The adult Cloud hadn't been a large man, but mako had driven him into a late growth spurt. He must have towered over her. If she was five feet two inches tall, I would have been surprised.

"Cloud?" she said. "What happened?"

I set the boy down, and he went and clung to his mother's skirts.

"I found him out past the edge of town, with a sprained wrist and only one shoe," I explained. "I healed the wrist for him, but creating footwear from nothing isn't one of my abilities."

"Thank you," the woman said. "Not many people here would have . . ." She stopped and looked down at her son, ruffling the mess of bright spikes that was his hair. "Please come inside. The least I can do is treat you to a meal."

Well, I reflected as I followed her through the door, that was a beginning, at least.

Chapter Text

Chapter 6

I want to learn to do that.

The morning after he'd lost his shoe, Cloud Strife woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. He knew he would make his mom mad if he made too much noise, so he went and sat by his window instead. And saw a figure outside moving like a ghost through the early morning mist.

It looked at first like the figure was dancing, but as the sun began to burn the mist away, Cloud saw that it held a sword in its hands, and that the dance, while graceful, could also be deadly.

Seth Crescent was practicing swordfighting in the middle of the town square. And it was weirdly beautiful.

Maybe . . . he would teach me? Seth looked really scary, but he'd actually been kind of nice to Cloud—one of the few grown-ups who was nice. And if he really was a bastard too, maybe he understood what it was like to grow up without a dad.

If I could use a sword, then Brad and his friends might stay away from me. He really hated Brad, but if he just stayed at home and never went outside without his mom, people would say he was a weakling and a coward and what do you expect from a child like that? And then they would start saying things about his mom. It made him so mad that he always tried to fight them, even though he knew he couldn't win.

So when he heard his mother starting to move around the house, Cloud got dressed and put on his old shoes (they pinched and had a hole in the toe, but they were better than going around with one bare foot) and went outside without eating breakfast.

Seth was still outside, but he'd leaned his sword against the inn's wall and was just stretching now. Cloud watched with wide eyes as the tall man bent over so far backwards that the top of his head was down near his waist and his hair was brushing the ground.

"Good morning, Cloud," Seth said gravely as he straightened up.

"'Morning," Cloud said. "Um . . . I was wondering . . . Can you teach me to use a sword?"

Seth gave him a slow, careful look from head to toe, and Cloud shivered a bit, because Seth's eyes, that would have been like a cat's except that they glowed like a dragon's, were a big part of what made him so scary. That and the way he never seemed to smile.

"Why do you want to learn?"

Cloud scowled. "I want to be strong. I want to be able to protect my mom." And myself.

"It could take years of lessons before you're good enough to fight anyone in anything but the direst emergency. Right now, you're too weak to be able to even lift most swords."

"So you won't teach me." Cloud felt like his stomach had just dropped into his feet. Shoulda known better.

Seth shook his head. "I will teach you, if you're certain you want to learn. But you need to understand that it's going to be a lot of hard work, and parts of it can be boring. A lot of what you do when learning a fighting skill is just repeating the same movements over and over again, until you can perform the sequence without thinking. And you're going to need a lot of strength training as well as the sword work. Hand-to-hand as well, I expect. I'm going to work you hard, and I won't put up with any complaints. Think carefully, Cloud—is this what you really want to do?"

Cloud made himself look up at the tall man. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"All right." Seth reached over and picked up his sword in its long bone . . . holder-thing. "First things first. Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

Cloud shook his head.

"Then come with me."

Cloud followed him. He wasn't really happy when he realized they were going into the inn. Mr. Rutgers always blamed him for the stuff Brad and his friends did, and if Seth didn't stand up for him, he was going to get thrown out again. Mr. Rutgers wasn't gentle about it, either.

But when Mr. Rutgers said, "What's that brat doing here again?", Seth gave him one of those cold, cat-dragon-eyed looks of his.

"Cloud is my guest," the tall man said. "If he causes any disruption, I will be responsible for it."

Cloud was starting to wish he had eyes like Seth's, that could make people go quiet with just a look. That would be cool . . . and oh-so-useful. But Seth had probably been born that way. That was what they always said about Lisa, who had that weird cleft in her lip—she was born that way, she can't help it. Just like he couldn't help not having a father. Except that everyone acted like that was somehow his fault anyway.

Cloud ate a big breakfast in the inn's dining room. There often wasn't much food at the Strife house, especially in winter when they couldn't get stuff from the garden. Cloud wasn't exactly hungry all the time, but he didn't get to feel really full all that often, either. It made him feel warm and happy.

Afterwards, they went out to the edge of town together, and Seth cut a stick-sword the right size for Cloud and showed him how to hold it and a couple of different ways to swing it. And then made him practice those over and over, sometimes stopping him and telling him to plant his feet a different way, or do something different with his elbow. And that part was really boring, but Cloud wasn't going to complain, 'cause while he was with Seth, he wasn't getting beaten up by Brad and his friends.

When Cloud got so tired that his arms started shaking, Seth sat him down and started talking about swords—how there were different kinds, and what the parts of one were called. Cloud listened hard and tried his best to remember.

After that, Seth made him work with the stick-sword for a bit again, then sent him home for lunch after telling him to come back to the inn tomorrow if he still wanted to learn.

Cloud spent the afternoon with his mother, weeding the garden. Whenever she let him have a break, he drew swords in the dirt and tried to remember the names of all the parts.

Seth stayed in town for almost a week that first time. Every day went about the same: he bought breakfast for Cloud, had him practice with the stick-sword, then talked for a bit about the things he thought Cloud needed to learn. Sometimes he talked about swords, but he also talked about monsters and materia and how to fix yourself up if you were hurt and there was no one nearby to help. A lot of stuff. Cloud did his best to remember everything, but sometimes he just couldn't and Seth would ask him a question about it and he'd look down and scuff the ground with his toe. Then Seth would frown and sigh and tell him over again.

Cloud almost threw a tantrum the day Seth told him he was going on a trip, up over the mountains to Rocket Town. But he was pretty sure that tantrums would just make Seth mad, and anyway, that was the kind of thing babies did, not big kids of almost-six.

"Can't I go with you?" He figured that would be okay to say.

"Not this time. Even if I thought you were ready—which you're not—I don't think your mother would let me. I should be back in two weeks or so, and I expect you to keep practicing while I'm gone. And a few other things."

All the exercises—push-ups and sit-ups and running—did make him tired enough that he didn't think too much about his teacher being away. Plus Brad didn't find watching him do those all that interesting, and left him mostly alone. And by the time Cloud had been doing them for two weeks, they were starting to get a little easier. He missed the big breakfasts, though.

So when Seth came back, exactly two weeks later, Cloud grabbed him by the hand before he could even go to the inn and dragged him home for lunch.

Claudia Strife wasn't sure what to make of Seth Crescent. At all.

She'd been profoundly aware that Cloud had no male role model in his life, but she'd always thought that she would be the one to pick out a man they could both bond with. She hadn't expected her son to latch onto a dangerous-looking stranger like an imprinted chicobo.

It wasn't that Seth seemed to be an evil person. Despite his imposing appearance, he was usually quiet and polite. On the surface, at least. Sometimes he would look at someone and give a command in a way that made it clear that he expected to be obeyed . . . and people almost always did obey him. That huge sword of his was an implicit threat that no one could disregard.

And . . . well. She'd intended for the man she chose to become Cloud's stepfather, and there was no chance of that with Seth. He was polite to her, but it was clear he had no interest in her as a woman, and she didn't think that was going to change. For her part, she felt that Seth looked like a masterfully-executed ice sculpture: beautiful, cold, and untouchable. She'd been worried at first that his interest in Cloud had been something unspeakable, but that fear lessened and finally vanished as she watched them together and saw that he never touched her boy in a questionable way, or even looked at him with an expression that suggested that kind of desire.

So she didn't object when Cloud brought him home for lunch, on the tall man's second visit to Nibelheim. Or when that turned into asking him to stay the night, although they had no real guest room and no third bed—Seth didn't seem to mind sleeping on the couch, even though it was so short compared to him that he ended up with his legs hooked over the arm and his feet nearly on the floor.

It became routine. He would train Cloud in the mornings, they would eat lunch together, and then Seth would go off into the mountains to hunt while Cloud played and practiced and helped her in the garden.

It surprised her a bit that Cloud was so serious about the training. He practiced a lot, especially when Seth taught him something new, and he did push-ups and sit-ups and squats without complaining. Seth, in the meanwhile, was quietly fine-tuning the number of exercises he asked Cloud to do at one time, so that the boy got tired, but was never really exhausted.

On the fifth day of Seth Crescent's second visit to Nibelheim, they woke up to rain. Seth still went out in the very early morning and did his own sword practice, but he told Cloud to stay inside, and came back in himself afterwards, taking off his long leather coat and hanging it up to dry. He toweled his hair off and put on a black T-shirt that somehow didn't make him look any less imposing.

Cloud's lesson for that day took place in the middle of the living room floor, and seemed to have to do with how not to get hurt in a fight. Claudia couldn't help but think that was a good idea. She knew how the other children in Nibelheim sometimes treated her son, but she couldn't be everywhere at once, and Brad was the mayor's sister's son. So she watched as Seth patiently taught Cloud how to deflect a punch, or roll with one, and didn't say anything.

Afterwards, Seth sat down on the sofa and took out his massive sword to clean and polish it, explaining the steps to Cloud as he did so. Then he took out the knife he used to cut monsters apart, and had Cloud help him sharpen, clean, and oil it. When Cloud wanted to do the same with the kitchen knives, Seth said that he wasn't to touch them without Claudia's permission, which was a relief.

Somehow, after lunch, they ended up clearing out part of the attic for Seth's use. Not that there was much up there to begin with—a few boxes of clothes that had once belonged to Claudia or her parents, and a really awful bright yellow chair with one broken leg that turned out to be exactly the colour of Cloud's hair. At least the roof didn't leak, and unlike some people's attics, theirs had a proper floor. Seth laid out his bedroll there, and left his sword on one of the shelves on the end-wall when he came down for supper.

On his third visit to Nibelheim, in late July, that turned into him paying rent, and picking up a Wutainese-style futon mattress from somewhere that he could roll up out of the way when he didn't need it, plus a rag rug and a crate with a piece of plywood on top that made a sort of table-desk. The crate began to fill with books soon afterwards, heavy technical works for the most part—engineering, chemistry, biology. Although as the collection grew, a second-hand copy of Loveless appeared, as well as several books in Wutainese, and some introductory texts on monsters and materia that Claudia suspected would eventually be given to Cloud. Who would be starting school at Nibelheim's one-room schoolhouse in September already able to read a little, because he'd wanted so badly to understand the labels on the diagrams Seth drew.

"Is this writing too?" Cloud asked on a rainy August afternoon, fingering the scabbard of the huge sword that they both now knew was called Masamune.

Seth nodded, looking up from where he was working on his boots—they'd gotten very muddy, and he was cleaning and oiling them to keep the leather from deteriorating. "It's Wutainese," he explained.

"Oh. What does it mean?"

"Very roughly, 'Who holds this sword in his hands holds the destruction of the world.'"

Claudia blinked and put her mending down. "That's . . . menacing," she said after searching for a word for a moment.

"Masamune is surrounded by menacing legends. It's said, for instance, that she killed the smith who made her, after whom she's named." Seth paused and went back to working on the leather again, but his voice continued. "Several hundred years ago, a great dead monster washed up out of the depths of the ocean and onto the shores of Wutai. Masamune, one of the greatest swordsmiths this world has ever produced, found it while walking along the beach and immediately decided to make a sword out of it."

"How do you make a sword out of a monster?" Cloud asked. He sounded fascinated. Claudia found the story more gruesome than anything, but then she wasn't a young boy.

"Mixing monster blood and powdered bone into steel is one of the ways they used to make stronger materials, before people learned how to smelt adamantine and mithril in quantity," Seth said. "Sometimes, people will still add ground behemoth bone to steel, to use in places where adamantine is too brittle and mithril is too heavy. There is definitely some kind of monster blood mixed into Masamune's blade—I had her analyzed once. Although they weren't able to tell what kind of monster. In any case, Masamune the smith went a bit beyond the usual, and had the artisans who aided him create all the parts of the sword out of parts of the monster, so the scabbard is bone, the hilt is part of a claw, and so on. It's said that he worked on her for forty-nine days without rest, and when he pulled her from the final quenching bath, he stumbled and fell on her, driving the blade into his chest and blooding her for the first time before she had even been hilted or sharpened."

Ugh. Claudia wrinkled her nose. She really didn't like this story, although she was glad to see Seth talking to Cloud about something that didn't have to do with his training.

"After that, those who had worked with Masamune considered his last sword a blade of ill omen, and decided to offer her to a temple once she was finished, but the fate that lay on the sword would not be so easily appeased. Three years later, the temple they sent her to was sacked when a battle took place in the area, and Masamune's last sword ended up in the hands of Daiichi Yamada, known in Wutai as the Traitor General for his actions during the Third Wutainese Civil War. He wielded her for nearly seven years, and when he was slain, she was returned to the temple. Forty years later, a dishonest alcolyte monk stole the sword and sold her to a bandit lord named Munegoro. He had her for eleven years and may have slain as many as a thousand men with her, and then he died and the sword was returned to the temple. I'm sure you can both see the pattern by now."

Claudia certainly could. Blade of ill omen, indeed. A sword used by traitors and murderers and other evil men.

"And how did you come to have . . . her?" she asked. "Please tell me you didn't steal her from a Wutainese temple." Please tell me you're not a bandit or . . . or something else horrible. Seth was so odd that if he did turn out to be evil, she was sure he'd be something much worse than a bandit.

The corner of Seth's mouth turned up. "The monks have become somewhat accustomed to the sword's philandering ways. I was in the town below the temple when one of them came up to me and shoved the sword into my arms. 'I don't know who you are,' he said, 'but she wants you, and we've learned over the years that our repair bills are smaller if we give in than if we let her find her own way to her next master.'"

Claudia giggled. So did Cloud.

"As for why she chose me, I have absolutely no idea," Seth said, setting his now-oiled boots to one side and reaching out to lightly touch Masamune's hilt.

The sword hummed. Claudia would have sworn that she heard it, a soft whisper of a sound, like the purr of a contented cat.

It wasn't until Cloud started school in September that she had a chance to speak to Seth alone, without her son clinging to him like a patch of lichen on a rock. Maybe by then it was already too late, since Cloud had gotten attached and he would hate her for a while if she tried to rip the older man out of his life. But it had been so good to see her son blossom. He smiled more often with Seth around, and even when he frowned, it was a thinking kind of frown, not an "I just got called a worthless bastard by someone and got beat up when I argued with them" kind of frown. And so she'd kept putting it off.

Seth had shifted his schedule so that he could go out hunting while Cloud was at school, and Claudia caught him as he was coming down the ladder from the attic, ready to head into the mountains.

"Can we talk?" she asked.

He arched a silver eyebrow at her. "If you wish," he said. "Regarding what?"

"Cloud." Of course. What else would she have to talk to him about? The ridiculous amount of rent he was paying for a cubbyhole where he slept on the floor? "I don't want him to grow up to be a mercenary, or join the military."

There was that eyebrow again. "He might choose to become an explorer, or a bodyguard, or a hunter, or teach the fighting arts, or take up a career in some other field and relegate swordsmanship to an avocation." Seth paused for half a beat, then added, "The truth is that Cloud is gifted as a fighter, although he himself doesn't realize it yet. It would be a waste for me to stop teaching him now."

And Cloud was still as much in love with the idea as he had been when they had started in June, Claudia admitted to herself. At least Seth would expect her son to keep up with his classes at Nibelheim's one-room school—from the way the man talked, he'd had more education himself than Claudia's single year of college.

"You'd better not do anything to hurt my boy," she said slowly. "If you do, I'll gut you with a kitchen knife and make you look like a fool."

"I can't promise that," he said. "I am . . . A friend once described me as 'emotionally tone-deaf'. I sometimes hurt people by accident. But I will do the best by Cloud that I can."

Well, at least that was an honest answer, she thought. Better that than a smooth-sounding lie.

"I'll hold you to that," she said.

Chapter Text

Chapter 7 (Sephiroth's narrative)

I had only once been to Corel while it was still a thriving, intact town. Well, arguably thriving. With the rise of mako power, the world's need for coal had declined sharply, and the product that came out of the Corel mine was sulfurous and thus unsuitable for creating coke to be used in steelmaking. With its main industry sadly diminished, the town was beginning to look shabby, as the owners of various buildings were now too poor to afford cosmetic maintenance.

The reactor was incomplete. I had forgotten the timeline on which it was constructed, if I had ever known. Such things had been largely unimportant to me in the future I remembered. Its incomplete state was an advantage to me, since the reactor not being in production should mean that most of its monitoring devices weren't yet hooked up, and the building would be empty at night.

I should be able to get in and out without even having to arrange to clear out the night shift personnel. And I could afford to be seen in the town and take a room at the inn for one night. Once more, I had just been on an extended trek through the mountains, and was looking forward to a hot shower with something verging on hedonistic glee.

However, the reactor's incomplete state made it unlikely that Jenova was being stored there. Still, there was a small chance, and I should make certain that there was no sign of a storage area being built. While I doubted that the moulded panels covering Jenova's tank in Nibelheim had been necessary to the equipment preserving Her body, other aspects of the setup, such as the massive mako umbilical, had been distinctive.

There were two young men unloading a truck in front of the grocery store next to the inn, talking and laughing as they worked. One was tall, muscular, and dark-skinned (and vaguely familiar—where had I seen him before?), the other wiry and pale. They waved to me as I passed, and, with a mental shrug, I nodded back to them, reflecting that my aura of intimidation seemed to be subsiding without my reputation to bolster it. That was . . . less than good. I had built most aspects of my public persona with great care, to allow me to keep people at arm's length. My upbringing had left me subject to an odd kind of social idiocy where I could read people's emotions—quite well, in fact—but I had a difficult time predicting before I spoke whether or not my words would transgress some hidden rule that "everyone" knew about but I had never been exposed to. I'd developed a lengthy list of them over time, but I still bumped into unexpected corner cases now and again. The sense of trying to pick my way through a minefield made small talk difficult and unpleasant for me.

The inn itself was quite large for such a small town, and bore the trappings of fading luxury. As I lay on one of the beds staring at the ceiling, I found myself reflecting that I would rather have been looking at the rafters of the Strife house. Or perhaps the ceiling of one of the prefabricated buildings that had served as part of our headquarters in Wutai, back when the world had been young and my life much simpler, with far less to regret.

Angeal. Genesis. Zack. Aerith. Claudia Strife and the other villagers in Nibelheim, several of whom I'd gotten to know slightly over the past couple of months. All condemned to painful deaths by my weakness. And there were others that I'd condemned to horrible lives.

What about my pain? the Cloud who had fought me to the death had once asked. And . . . I? Jenova? . . . had told him that he had no right to pain, that he was less than human. When I was the one who was truly less than human, a monstrous hybridization of mankind with a sentient alien virus.

I had cored him like an apple and manipulated him in two directions at once, and yet in the end he'd (unknowingly, but nevertheless) tried to save me in the only way that had been possible by that point. And I would never be able to thank him, much less make more substantial amends. Training the child Cloud who was waiting for me in Nibelheim was the best I could manage.

I tried to tear my mind away from the old memories, to focus on what I had come here to do, but I couldn't seem to banish the memory of Cloud—the child, the young trooper, the scarcely-older hero. I hoped he'd managed to wear that mantle more comfortably than I had, but I doubted it somehow. That Cloud had been quiet, serious, and not a little bitter. Oddly like looking in a mirror. I wondered if that meant he would have been just as susceptible to Jenova had he been in my place.

The child Cloud was . . . difficult to put into words. Still quiet and serious, but there was a quality of innocence and warmth about him that his older self had lost. I didn't know whether it was something common to all children—all normal children—or just something that was innate to Cloud. Well, no, perhaps not. Zack had posessed a similar quality, in the early days, when Angeal had still been alive. Afterwards, he'd never been quite the same.

Zack was a child of eight right now, living in Gongaga. Genesis and Angeal were thirteen and twelve, respectively, and still in Banora. Find them, Ifalna had urged me. Treasure the time you have. And yet, if I introduced myself to them now, I would be putting myself far too much in the position of a father figure, rather than a friend. The idea made me feel vaguely repulsed—well, with respect to Genesis and Angeal. Zack had always been younger.

Perhaps in a couple of years, if I could persuade Claudia, I would take Cloud with me to Gongaga, and see if he and Zack were as friendly with each other as children as they had been when they were older. It might do Cloud quite a bit of good, now that I thought about it. It was clear that he had no friends near his own age in Nibelheim, and the people of Gongaga wouldn't know his sordid family history.

The innkeeper in Nibelheim had been glad to inform me about that during my first visit, without my needing to ask a single question. As Zack had once told me, small towns run on gossip. The facts were simple: Claudia Strife had left home to attend Sunshine University in Costa del Sol. A year later, she had returned home penniless and pregnant, and refused to tell anyone who the father of the child was. Nor had any likely father presented himself to claim the infant Cloud. I could think of many possible explanations for her actions, but they all had one thing in common: someone taking advantage of the naive girl from the hinterlands.

I was half-tempted to investigate the matter in more detail, to see if Cloud perhaps had any half-siblings who shared his particular gifts . . . but only half. Training one child was difficult enough. It had taken me quite a while just to work out a general lesson plan, and I still wasn't certain what I could expect in terms of his ability to comprehend and retain information, as opposed to physical skills.

And there was nothing I could do about any of that right at this moment. Focus, I told myself. You know better than this. Had that period as Jenova's pawn, followed by months of wandering the hinterlands, robbed me of all my self-discipline?

I rolled over, curling up on my side, and told myself sternly to wake up in two hours. I still knew how to force myself into unconsciousness for a set period—a technique I had developed in the labs and then refined while deployed to Wutai. I didn't need as much sleep as someone unenhanced, but some amount was required to deal with accumulated mental fatigue, which I certainly had aplenty at the moment.

I can't say that my sleep was all that restful, although it did have the effect of allowing one particular bit of trivia to bubble up to a conscious level by the time I woke: the dark-skinned young man I'd seen unloading the truck had been one of those who had assisted the adult Cloud in hunting me down. Much younger here, of course, and I still couldn't remember his name, if I had ever known it.

Corel was large enough to have more than one restaurant, and I chose one semi-randomly for supper. The food was . . . adequate, and the wait staff stared less than I was accustomed to, which was a relief. Certainly better than a meal cobbled together from Shinra military surplus scout rations and chunks of roasted monster, my normal diet when I was out hunting.

Someone had left a day-old copy of the Midgar Daily Herald by the cash register, and I appropriated it, since the clerk didn't seem to mind. The newspaper had been a fixture in my life during my childhood, brought into the lab by some members of the staff. Occasionally I'd even been able to sneak a copy away and read it, but I didn't remember this particular issue.

Conflict in Wutai Escalating, read the headline at the top of the front page. President Shinra Says There Will Be War! And on the third page: New Enhanced Troops to Be Deployed.

None of that was unexpected. Since there would be a war, starting in about a month. At first it would be downplayed in the regions outside Wutai—President Shinra had even tried to rebrand it as a "police action" at one point, but no one had been willing to buy it. It would take two years before Shinra Corp's recruitment drive pushed onto the western continent, and another two years after that before they became desperate enough to start hiring mercenaries to bolster their own forces, as Wutai had been doing from the beginning.

At first blush, it might have looked sensible for me to involve myself in the war on Wutai's side, but the truth was that it would take more than a single brilliant general to save that country. No matter how unmatched my personal fighting prowess and tactical and strategic skills might be, I was still only one man. I couldn't fight hundreds of SOLDIERs on my own, and while the ninja were skilled at covert attacks, they didn't have the equipment to meet Shinra troops head-on. And delaying the inevitable would do no one any good.

Counterintuitively, if I wanted to help Wutai, the best thing I could do (short of assassinating President Shinra—I shook my head as a blurry memory of his body with Masamune sticking up out of its back flickered in front of my mind's eye) would be to step in on Shinra's side and hurry the war to its conclusion. Wutai would be less damaged that way overall, and there would be more time for them to pick up the pieces. And it wouldn't require me to fight Genesis, Angeal, or Zack. I knew which side they were all going to enter the war on, and it wasn't Wutai's.

Of course, I was in a rather different position with respect to Shinra this time than I had been the last. However, I didn't expect it would be all that difficult to squeeze my way into a position of some authority. I just needed to impress the right people.

. . . And once more, I was getting ahead of myself. The war had lasted nearly a decade in the previous history. I wasn't certain what would happen if I didn't step in, but I doubted it would shorten the conflict. I had time to plan. Right now, I had something more important to do.

I discarded the newspaper in a convenient trashcan and faded into the shadows—easy enough, since dusk had long since fallen and the municipal government of Corel had let some streetlights fall into disrepair, perhaps as a cost-saving measure. In the evening dimness, I left town, heading for the reactor, paralleling the road between the two without actually following it. I didn't need to be spotted by some construction worker who happened to be coming off the job late.

Arriving on the hillside above the plant, I made a quick check of the area below—no visible movement—and settled in among some rocks to wait for full dark. I wouldn't be going anywhere until after moonset.

I checked and rechecked my equipment. In addition to Masamune, I had a mithril shortsword sheathed across the small of my back. I'd taken it from a corpse that I'd found in an isolated valley in the Nibel mountains. It wasn't the best or most durable weapon, but more versatile in a confined space where I couldn't swing Masamune freely. As for materia, well, I'd managed to fill all twelve of the slots in my armour and main weapon, but not all materia were sold in stores, and some of the more useful ones were unique or nearly so. For instance, summon materia couldn't be produced artificially and so were never found for sale.

I'd made what I thought were the best choices I could from the materia available to me. A full set of elementals, although the Quake would be of little value here. Restore and Heal were potentially useful anywhere. Seal, Time, Exit, and Manipulate, selectively combined with a couple of Alls, would hopefully let me deal with anyone I found inside without killing them and raising the odds I would be pursued. However, I couldn't allow them to get a good look at me. That was a given.

I'd seriously considered doing this in disguise, but any such that I could muster would have been fragile in the extreme. My hair, due to some property of my odd cell structure, couldn't be dyed and was difficult to cut, and the specially formulated contacts that might have been able to hide my eyes without resorting to dark glasses didn't exist yet. Wrapping myself in a long, black hooded robe and a mask with tinted glass in the eyeholes and leaving Masamune behind felt like asking for trouble. And I would have risked tripping myself. And felt like an idiot to boot. So I would just have to hope that the place was as empty as it now looked.

It had been at least an hour since the last vehicle left before the moon dipped behind the horizon. Without knowing what stage of construction the reactor was at, I couldn't tell whether or not they would have posted a guard. I would just have to be careful.

I'd learned how to sneak silently through all kinds of terrain when I had been in Wutai. A messy patchwork slope of dry grass and loose gravel was more of a nuisance than a problem. The ten-foot wall topped with barbed wire was barely worth mentioning. Any First Class worth his salt would be able to jump one of those from a standing start.

The ground inside the compound was bare earth where it wasn't concrete. The area wasn't quite a desert yet, but it was right on the verge of it. In the future, the drain from the reactor had only needed to tip the scales slightly to push the process past the point of no return.

I ghosted over to the outer wall of the reactor proper, an incomplete mass of scaffolding, and held my breath, listening. I heard only the faint sounds of insects and a breeze rustling through dry grass. Nothing of concern, in other words. Well, then. I selected a section of scaffolding, climbed it, and dropped down inside. After checking that there would be a floor under me.

I landed on a narrow concrete lip around the main mako well. The glowing green of the Lifestream wasn't nearly as close to the surface here as it was at Mount Nibel or even at Midgar—nearly eight stories from ground level, I estimated. Fortunate that I wasn't prone to vertigo.

I worked my way around the rim to the rear of the building, where the control center and any experiment rooms would be located. Although still lacking a proper roof, the control room had a single console in it, inside a cobbled-together plywood enclosure to shield it from the weather. It appeared to be monitoring the mako levels and turbulence in the Lifestream.

There was no back room, no space for experimental storage. I knew how mako reactors worked and how large the mechanisms involved were. There was enough space that someone might have stashed a biosupport tank in a corner somewhere, but they wouldn't have been able to keep it hidden from the staff. And this reactor was not going to be run in automatic low-power mode. They'd want a locked room. Guards.

I was coming to the conclusion that Junon and Midgar were the most likely places for permanent Jenova storage. That meant that I really would need to worm my way into Shinra. I would still check out Modeoheim within the next year or two, just to make sure, but I was fairly certain at this point. Which meant I needed to wait until Shinra started hiring mercenaries to help take the pressure off the troops in Wutai. Or sign on as a common trooper—now, there was a joke. I'd get noticed too soon, in all the wrong ways. And likely get hauled off to the lab of whoever had replaced Hojo—Hollander, I would have guessed, but I was going to have to make a point of finding out for certain.

My thoughts snapped back to the present as I heard the softest of sounds outside the control room. A footstep, and someone breathing. Why had I allowed myself to become lost in thought while in enemy territory, even if only for a few seconds?

I jumped at the spot where the half-completed wall was lowest, and swung myself over onto the scaffolding on the other side, dropping flat so that I was below the level of the wall. Then I froze, and listened.

One person, yes. Probably a security guard. As for why I hadn't spotted him on the way in, who could tell? Perhaps he'd been walking the perimeter at the other side of the complex. Or asleep. Regardless, I now needed to get away before he spotted me.

I climbed quietly down the scaffold and faded into the night.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8

Twin Daggers was having another bad day embedded in a lifetime of bad days that had started when his parents had named him Murton. Seriously, Murton. Who in their right mind tortured their kid with a name like that? That was why, when he'd entered the Turks, he'd decided he was going to use his weapon-derived codename for the rest of his life, even if he made it to the upper ranks.

Then he'd screwed up that stupid stakeout on Don Corneo and been sent to the back of the boonies as a glorified security guard for a half-built reactor that hardly anyone wanted and no one needed.

And then, then he'd been woken up from a nap at weird o'clock in the morning by some kind of weird instinctive twitch and been unable to get back to sleep. He'd tried for a while, and then given up in exasperation and decided to do a quick tour of the reactor site.

He put his variable flashlight on the dimmest setting and began to work his way around the perimeter of the building . . . and that was when he realized that someone else had been there recently. Some of the dry, brittle vegetation was broken in a location where he knew it had been intact that afternoon. He found two patches of that and sighted along the line in both directions. One of them took him to the perimeter fence, the other to a wall.

There were footprints at the base of the fence, but the dust had already been rearranged by the wind, obscuring details. The owner did have pretty big feet, though, so it was probably a man. Twin Daggers figured he must have climbed up, put something over the barbed wire to keep from sticking himself, and jumped down. He knew from experience that such a manoeuvre was possible for a trained individual.

But why would this person be wandering around inside the reactor grounds? Unless it was some stupid kid on a bet or a dare, the only possibility was sabotage. Twin Daggers cursed mentally and pulled out his gun with one hand and one of his signature weapons with the other, while trotting in the direction of the reactor's entrance, currently nothing more than a big hole in the wall.

It would have been so much easier if he'd been able to see anything, but he knew that was stupid when he was trying to stalk someone. The glow from the mako, far below, showed that there was no one in the outer area, but he would have sworn that there was someone inside the control room. Again, it was more a troubling of his sixth sense than anything he could put his finger on. No sound of movement or breathing, no light.

Whoever the saboteur was, he was good.

By the time he actually reached the control room, there was no one there. Just some marks in the dust, and the print of a boot. Shinra military issue, size . . . twelve?

Twin Daggers scowled. Fact: there had been someone here who wasn't supposed to be. Fact: that person was now gone. Fact: he was now going to have to have the entire damned site searched for evidence of sabotage. Fact: he was going to have to report this to Veld, and hope it didn't get passed up the additional level to Myriad when he was already on probation. Incompetent Turks couldn't be fired, so instead they got . . . taken care of.

He swallowed. Maybe he should have stayed just plain Murton after all.

Cloud didn't like school at all.

Well, he liked learning stuff okay, and Miss Carter had been happy when she'd found out he not only knew his letters, but could already read a bit. That part was fine. But there were only nineteen kids between six and fourteen in all of Nibelheim. Which meant it was a one-room school and Miss Carter taught everyone. Including Brad and his friends. And she couldn't be everywhere at once. It was barely a month since he'd started school, and he'd already lost track of the number of times he'd been tripped or pushed or had his pencil stolen while he was away from his desk.

There was nothing he could do about it. If he talked to his mom, she would just talk to Miss Carter, and he'd already figured out that she wouldn't do anything to help. And he didn't want to talk to Seth. He didn't want the tall man to think that he was a crybaby. Plus, Seth wasn't around, and probably wouldn't be back for a couple of weeks. That was how it had always worked so far: Seth would stay around for a week or so, and give Cloud lessons, and then wander off for a while.

It kind of scared Cloud, actually. Every time, he was afraid that Seth wouldn't come back. Seth was strong, but so were monsters. Something might happen to him. Or maybe he would just decide he didn't like Cloud after all, and it wasn't worth coming back to Nibelheim.

On rainy days, Cloud would go up to the attic to do his exercises, to the space where Seth kept his futon and his books and a couple of other odds and ends. There was hardly any light up there, but that didn't matter for doing push-ups. He wondered how Seth could read up there, though. Maybe having glowing cat-dragon eyes let you see in the dark.

Seth had been away for about a week and a half when another stranger came to town. Two strangers wandering into Nibelheim for no good reason in such a short time was so unusual that the grannies and grandpas would probably be talking about it until after Midwinter, even though it was still a few days from Harvestfest.

The new stranger said his name was Zangan, and he was a martial artist. He was older than Seth, and shorter, but his hair was darker, almost the colour of iron. Cloud didn't bother trying to get close to him, but it felt as though Zangan was trying to keep an eye on him somehow. Even though it was the other kids who kept running after him. It came out pretty early on that Zangan gave lessons—real lessons, with whole classes of students and all that, as Brad was careful to let Cloud know. Not the same thing at all as the training Cloud had been getting from Seth.

Cloud didn't care. He did his exercises, and practiced with his stick-sword, and wished Seth would come back. And then on the third day since Zangan had gotten there, Cloud finished a set of sword exercises, what Seth had called a kata, and looked up to see Zangan there, just leaning against a shed.

Cloud's first thought was to pretend he hadn't seen Zangan. But he was tired of pretending he hadn't seen things, and it always seemed to end up hurting him—even he was bright enough to notice that.

So he walked straight up to the martial artist, with his stick-sword propped against his shoulder, and stopped in front of the man. "Why are you watching me?"

"My apologies," Zangan said, and gave Cloud a little bow. "I don't mean you any harm. I was just curious."

Cloud did his best to imitate Seth's "don't mess with me" look. "About what?"

"Several of the other children said that you were 'playing' at learning how to use a sword . . . but what I just saw was not play."

"No," Cloud said. "It wasn't. But why do you care?"

"Would you like to learn how to fight without weapons?"

Cloud would have been lying if he'd said it didn't appeal to him. Seth had taught him a very little bit, but it was mostly how-not-to-get-hurt stuff, and not how-to-hurt-someone stuff. But he also loved the feeling that practicing the sword gave him. Even if he was just using a stick for now.

"I can't pay for your lessons," was what he said. Because he knew they couldn't. They'd had a hard time last winter getting enough food, even though his mom took in all the sewing and stuff that she could, and did odd jobs cleaning people's houses and some stuff he didn't understand that was called 'bookkeeping', but why would you need to write a bunch of numbers down just to make sure your books stayed in the same place? And anyway, most of the houses in town didn't even have any books. Cloud just hoped that Seth's money kept that from happening this year. Seth always seemed to have plenty of gil, and no wonder, if he was collecting the stuff you needed to make ethers. Ether was expensive.

"I would not ask you to pay," Zangan said. "You seem dedicated to the fighting arts in a way that is rare in someone so young. Any teacher is happy to have students who want to learn."

Cloud frowned. "I'd like to, but I think I should talk to my other teacher first." He wasn't sure Seth would like this. The tall hunter was difficult to figure out sometimes. He might not want someone else teaching Cloud. And Cloud decided he was okay with that. Zangan had only come looking for him because Seth was teaching him, after all.

Zangan blinked. "Of course you must. I understand he travels, however."

Cloud nodded. "He usually spends a week here, then goes somewhere else for a while. He'll probably be back soon." Or at least, he was hoping Seth would be back soon, 'cause he was hoping he'd be able to spend Harvestfest with him this year.

Seth came back that night, really late, or at least after Cloud's bedtime. No one heard him enter the house, but when Cloud got up the next morning, Seth was standing in the kitchen with a big mug of tea in his hands. Cloud thought he looked worried about something, with a little tiny frown line between his eyebrows.

Cloud smiled. It was even a Saturday, so he could spend more time with Seth. "Mom should be down in a couple of minutes to make the pancakes," he told the tall man, who nodded. They had pancakes for breakfast a lot, because his mom said it was cheaper than making enough eggs for all of them. "I've been practicing lots while you were away." Seth never talked just to fill up silences, so Cloud had to do that. He didn't mind too much. Seth always seemed like he was listening, even when he maybe wasn't. "Um, there's a man named Zangan who just came to town. He was watching me practice sword swings, and asked if he could teach me to fight without weapons. I told him I needed to ask you first."

Seth shook his head. "Zangan Yoshida is considered one of the greatest masters of the art of bare-handed fighting to have come out of Wutai in recent years. However, I'm not certain his style is appropriate for someone who intends to use it as a supplement to swordsmanship. Unless you intend to give up the sword."

"No!" Cloud panicked and almost shouted it. "I like swords better. And anyway, Zangan wouldn't have noticed me if you hadn't started training me first. If I have to pick one, I'll stay with what I'm already working on."

Seth looked . . . Cloud wasn't sure how Seth looked, but something about his eyes had changed. Like he'd relaxed a bit. One big, gloved hand even reached out and ruffled Cloud's hair, and the boy wondered if this was what having a father would feel like.

"I'll talk to Zangan and see if we can work out something between us," Seth said. "If he works with you a couple of times a week when I'm not here, perhaps you'll learn something useful without getting too worn out."

"I wish you wouldn't go away all the time," Cloud said.

Seth took a sip of his tea. "I'm not doing it just because I want to, Cloud. There's something that I have to do, and I can't do it in Nibelheim."

"Oh. What kind of something?"

"I can't tell you yet. If I haven't found a way to end it by the time you're old enough to help, then I'll try to explain it to you."

Cloud wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wanted to know now, but hearing Seth say that he might need his, Cloud's, help made him feel warm inside.

"When will I be old enough?"

"When you're strong enough to win a fight against a trained adult. When you're fourteen, perhaps."

Cloud scowled. That wouldn't be for years and years . . . What was Seth doing that was so horrible that he had to be as strong as a grown-up just to hear about it?

"You won't go away again until after Harvestfest, will you?" he asked instead, because he'd already figured out that arguing with Seth didn't work.

Seth quirked an eyebrow. "I'd forgotten about that—they don't really celebrate it in Midgar. I suppose I can stay that long, yes."

"Is Midgar where you lived before?" Cloud stared at the tall man. Midgar, to the boy, was so distant it might as well have been the land of the gods.

"It's where I lived when I was your age."

Seth really had been all over the place: Midgar, Wutai, Junon, Rocket Town, Casa del Sol . . .

"I wish I could go with you," Cloud mumbled at the floor.

"Convince your mother, and I'll take you with me to Rocket Town next summer, when the travelling is easier. Right now, it's getting late in the year, and you have school."

Cloud really hated school. It took all the fun out of everything. And he had no idea how he was going to get his mother to let him go all the way to Rocket Town with Seth. But at least Seth had offered.

"I wish you were my dad." Cloud cowered back as he realized what he'd just said and raised his arms to protect himself. He'd said that to Mr. Lockheart once, when he was four, and gotten slapped across the face.

Through his fingers, he saw Seth's hand twitch, almost dropping the tea. "Don't wish that, Cloud. I'm not as good a person as you think I am."

Cloud shook his head stubbornly, but he didn't know what to say. He'd never, ever seen Seth do anything he thought was bad. How could someone who hunted monsters and protected people be bad?

Claudia Strife felt bad for hiding behind a door, and she was pretty sure that Seth knew she was there anyway, but she'd come downstairs when she'd heard Seth's voice, and she couldn't not listen from that point on.

Midgar. She could believe he'd lived there. She'd known a few people in Costa del Sol with accents like his, and they'd all come from the Eastern Continent. Although Seth's precise, sometimes stilted way of phrasing things was entirely his own.

He seemed to have her son's best interests at heart, at least—telling him to stay in school and that he needed her permission to do things. If she had been from somewhere other than Nibelheim, she might have been uncomfortable with the idea that Seth expected that Cloud would be, effectively, a man by the time he was fourteen, but children of the mountains grew up quickly.

What worried her was the shadow that hung over the tall man. Even though he was trying to keep them clear of it, she knew he was involved in something more dangerous than just hunting monsters. There's something I have to do. I'm not as good a person as you think I am. Who holds this sword in his hands holds the destruction of the world.

Somehow she knew. That he was worthy of the terrible inscription on his sword's scabbard. That events were going to swirl around him. And maybe around Cloud, too.

And she knew that it was far too late to do anything to stop it.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9 (Sephiroth's narrative)

I wasn't terribly surprised when, instead of my needing to seek Zangan out, he came to look for me. Around mid-morning, when I was working with Cloud, I looked up and noticed someone watching us.

That he could get that close to me without drawing my attention proved that he was indeed one of the best martial artists in the world. Granted, I hadn't been all that alert, but it was still a feat that was otherwise the province of senior Turks and the best of the Wutainese ninja. For now, though, I ignored him and continued to adjust Cloud's form in the kata that I'd just taught him. We'd need to move on to contact drills soon, but I wanted to get some proper practice swords before that—sticks aren't really the right shape, and fighting with them can lead to having a distorted form. I should be able to buy something appropriate in Rocket Town.

We kept on until Cloud's small arms and legs could no longer hold the forms properly . . . although he could work longer now than when we had started, thanks to the improvement in his physical conditioning.

"Rest," I told him, and he sighed and flopped down to sit on the ground. "I'll be back in a minute."

Zangan was standing by a shed at the edge of our chosen practice area, a chunk of waste land on the mountainous side of town.

"You are the mysterious Seth Crescent, I presume," he said as I approached. "You are not what I expected."

I shrugged that away—on the rare occasions that I've met someone who claimed I was exactly what they expected, it had always turned out that they were distorting their perceptions of me to match the image inside their head.

"And you are Zangan Yoshida, master of the Tiger Ascendant school of martial arts," I said instead, addressing him in Wutainese.

"I am," he replied in the same language. "You speak our tongue better than most Easterners."

"Knowing how to speak it was of use to me, so I learned." It doesn't do to press a Wutainese to get to the point. They consider it polite to approach important business slowly and circuitously.

"That sword is not an imitation," he said then. "I had heard it had disappeared again, but it has never fallen into the hands of a foreigner before. Do you know its history?"

"I do."

"And what calamity will you bring on my people?"

"None of my choosing, but a calamity is fast approaching Wutai nonetheless." There was no use explaining that I had already brought calamity on Wutai, although it had now been erased in a twist of history.

"You believe there will be a war."

I nodded. "It's inevitable. President Shinra can't bear the idea of there being something desirable in this world that doesn't belong to him. He won't stop until he has what he wants, and couldn't care less about the lives he spends."

"Are you training your student for war, then?"

Ah, now we came to it. "I'm hoping it will be over before he's old enough to participate. This will be ugly even by the standards of war. Shinra has more resources, but Wutai will be fighting for its very survival. Neither side will be willing to give ground. This will be a bitter, murky thing of ninjas killing in the night and Shinra artillery shelling villages without care for civilians. It will be many years before Cloud is mature enough to deal with the wounds something like that leaves behind."

"You care about him," Zangan said, eyebrows rising. As though the idea surprised him.

"I . . ." I glanced over at Cloud, who noticed and smiled back at me. "He wishes to put me in the place of the father he never had, but I have no business being there."

"If not you, then who?" Zangan asked.

"He would be better off with no one than with me." Why was I admitting even that much, especially to a man I didn't trust?

Zangan shook his head. "I disagree. You care about him and his future. He can sense that, although he may be too young to put it into words. That is why he trusts you."

I owe him. And I'm using him. Words that I couldn't say.

The martial artist seemed to sense that I wasn't going to be the one to break the sudden silence. "The boy has told you what I said to him, no doubt."

"He did." I hesitated half a breath before adding, "Your skills in hand-to-hand doubtless exceed mine, but Cloud shares my gift with the sword. As the person primarily responsible for his training, I am also responsible for seeing that his lessons are appropriate to the final goal of producing a well-rounded swordsman." Ideally, that meant one at least as strong as myself. And the adult Cloud . . . hadn't quite been that, oddly enough. He'd never fought me solo when I was at my best, rather than floating in a Jenova-induced haze. Or am I lying to myself to shore up my damaged ego? Would it be legitimate to count his friends as part of his arsenal? Possibly. There was a time I would have counted most of SOLDIER as part of mine.

Zangan was smiling at me. "As I said. You care about him. It is your desire to see him excel. And although my knowledge of the sword arts is likely less than your knowledge of my specialty, I believe you are correct that the sword will be his best weapon and should remain his primary study. However, even if he has a sword in his hands, it would be good for him to be able to use the rest of his body to the best effect, don't you agree?"

"That's the reason I know as much about your specialty as I do," I said, and felt the corner of my mouth turn up.

"Then we are agreed in principle. We only need to work out a schedule to suit young Cloud, and ensure that you have an overview of what I am teaching him—since you are, as you have said, his primary instructor." Zangan offered me a Wutainese half-bow, and switched languages back to the common tongue. "Are you intending to leave Nibelheim again before winter? I am told that the snows come early here."

"I had intended to take one more trip to Rocket Town, after Harvestfest. After that, I suppose I'll stay for the winter." Well, the truth was that I hadn't thought about it—I'd drawn duty on the Northern Continent often enough that I didn't expect a Nibelheim winter would hamper me from doing whatever I needed to do—but I also didn't intend to try for Modeoheim until next summer, so there was no reason not to stay in Nibelheim for a few months, and avoid the worst of the weather. The Strifes' attic was far from the worst place in which I'd ever spent a season of my time.

Also, I wanted to take a look at the documents in the basement of the Shinra mansion. Without any maddening voices whispering in my ear or the sense of being pressed for time, and knowing what my real mother's name had been. If Lucrecia Crescent had left behind anything at all—any documents, even if they were just analysis reports on Jenova's cells—I wanted to read them, and see if I could assemble a picture of my least-monstrous parent from that.

"Well, then, I shall draw up some preliminary information for us to discuss. Good day, Mr. Crescent."

I inclined my head, wondering if I would ever grow accustomed to that name. "Good day, Yoshida-san."

"Shouldn't you have called him 'Mr.' too?" Cloud asked from where he was now standing beside me.

"I did. 'Yoshida-san' is the same as 'Mr. Yoshida' in Wutainese."

"Will you teach me Wutainese, too?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Don't you already have enough lessons?"

Cloud shrugged. "The stuff at school is easy. And I want to learn everything."

If anyone had ever asked me, I would have said I had no paternal instincts whatsoever—in fact, I'd once thought that if I ever did have a child, the kindest thing I would be able to do was cut its head off, so that it wouldn't be doomed to life as a freak or a laboratory specimen. I would never have thought that I was susceptible to pleading blue eyes in a small, determined face.

"No one knows everything," I told him. "The human brain can only hold a finite amount of information. But if you really want to learn Wutainese, I'll rearrange things so that you can."

Cloud gave me a grin that reminded me of Zack. One of his teeth must have fallen out while I'd been in Corel, because there was a gap in it.

I ruffled his hair, as I'd seen Zack do long ago with an older Cloud. I . . . really had no idea how to show affection, and that seemed to work, judging from the reaction I'd gotten from Cloud this morning. And the level of physical contact involved was less than an embrace, and more controlled. Easier for me to tolerate.

I am losing my mind, I reflected.

I was still thinking much the same thing two days later, when Cloud grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out to join in Nibelheim's Harvestfest. The mountain village was no agricultural center, but some of its inhabitants grew enough crops on terraced slopes nearby to provide fresh produce, so the festival had a moderate level of importance.

I had left Masamune behind in the Strifes' attic, and although I knew she was never more than a mental call away, I could feel an itching sensation between my shoulderblades. I had never liked going unarmed, even if a seven-foot sword was an awkward thing to carry around. I had retained the Crystal Bangle I'd purchased in Mideel as a substitute for my old Shinra Alpha, lost somewhere in the Lifestream, and the materia it carried should be enough to buy me a second or two against even the worst opposition if it became necessary. But I still felt oddly naked.

Both insane and paranoid, I reflected, and shook my head, letting Cloud pull me along as he headed for the center of town, where a square of tables laden with food had been set up around the water tower. There were small booths in the shadow of the buildings ringing the open space. Some displayed various sorts of merchandise, while others offered simple games and lotteries.

I would have expected a normal child to run off to explore, based on what little knowledge I had of normal children. Which, as with so many other things I had found myself dealing with lately, was mostly gleaned from Zack, Angeal, and Genesis. But Cloud clung to my side, always with one small hand wrapped around mine or grasping the folds of my coat. It appeared that my presence made him feel safe. How immensely ironic.

Cloud was still so short that he could barely see over the edge of the food-laden tables. After a moment's hesitation—Is this really such a good idea?—I picked him up, as I had when I'd taken him home after finding him at the edge of town with one shoe missing. This time, he settled onto my arm without much wriggling, and offered me another one of those Zack-like grins before reaching for a slice of pie.

"'S goo'," he mumbled with his mouth full.

"Cloud . . ." Claudia said from a few feet away, then shook her head. "I suppose letting him eat all dessert and no dinner for just one night won't do him too much damage in the long run, especially with the way you have him burning it off, but if he makes himself sick, Seth Crescent, then you're cleaning it up, do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am." Claudia Strife would have made a good sergeant, I reflected. And if I keep being so reflective, I'm going to turn into a mirror.

I let Cloud snatch a handful of cookies as well, then carried him away from the table. "We can come back for more later," I told him.

"You're not eating."

"I don't like sweets." To be exact, I had never developed a taste for them, since I had spent my childhood eating a scientifically-balanced diet that hadn't included much sugar. Things that Zack or even Genesis would consider an acceptable dessert, I found cloying.

"You don't like cookies?"

"No."

From the look Cloud gave me, he thought I was insane. "There's not-sweet stuff down at that end," he said, and pointed.

At Cloud's insistence, I did take a sort of savoury pastry from a large plate of same. It turned out to be heavily spiced, but not unpalatable.

If anyone who had known the Great General Sephiroth could have seen me that night, supporting a child with one arm while eating food offered at a small-town festival with the opposite hand, they would no doubt have thought I was an impostor. Sometimes, I almost felt like one, like a stranger inside my own skin.

Still, it was better than going mad and burning down the town. I was doing nothing tonight that I needed to feel guilty for. Except passing myself off to Cloud as someone genuinely concerned for his welfare, but I was resigned to that.

Someone had set up a wrestling ring of sorts just outside the entrance to the village, and a number of the men and boys—as well as several of the older girls and younger women—had drifted over in that direction. When I set Cloud down, it was that direction that he tugged me in, and once more I allowed myself to be led, since I had no other destination in mind.

As we watched two of the village's younger men grapple, Cloud frowned and said, "They're not very good, are they?"

"No, they aren't." Although the two were muscular, it was clear they'd had no training of any sort. They were just brawlers.

"I figured. They're almost as slow as I am."

"You're saying my brother's slow, you little snot?" One of the boys who had been kicking Cloud the day I'd first come to Nibelheim eeled his way between two of the adults to fling insults.

Cloud grabbed my coat with both hands, but he spoke firmly. "Well, he is. Seth's a lot faster."

One of the wrestlers threw his opponent down. There was a ragged cheer, and the nameless boy smirked.

"You see? I bet my brother can beat him—" The boy pointed at me. "—to a pulp."

"Cannot!"

"Can too!"

"Cloud," I said, and, when the small face tilted up, I added, "No amount of shouting will change the mind of a fool. Even if I went over there right now and broke every bone in his brother's body, he would only find some way to convince himself that I did so unfairly. Save your energy for something useful."

"He is a bit young to heed that advice, I think."

"Yoshida-san," I greeted.

"There is no need to be so formal. 'Zangan' is fine. So, do you think we should show them how things are properly done?" The martial artist smiled, but there was a hint of something calculating in his expression.

"You want to use me for advertising," I said flatly, but I had to admit the idea didn't bother me that much. Zangan was good enough, even unenhanced, to make me work for a victory. Although in the end, my enhancements would have a greater effect on the outcome than his skill. I would have to be careful not to break any of his bones.

"Indeed. No one else here could hold out against me for more than an instant." Zangan's smile didn't waver. "Are you willing?"

"Yes." There were only two possible answers, after all.

Zangan pushed his way through the ring of people—more like a C-shape, really, flattened up against a fence at one edge. The wrestler who had just won, the nameless boy's brother, tried to challenge him, but it only took a split second for the martial arts master to get him in an arm lock, and the young man accepted his defeat with far more grace than I would have expected.

The villagers parted before me when I stepped forward. Zangan watched as I led Cloud across to the fence, lifting the boy and setting him on top of it. Then I took off my coat and draped it over the fence beside him. Which produced some excited murmurs from the crowd—female voices mostly. As usual, I hadn't bothered with a shirt underneath the long garment.

I felt oddly saddened as I saw Cloud bury one hand in the folds of my coat, gripping the leather. I wasn't able to easily articulate what the problem was, but I felt somehow that he shouldn't have needed to do such a thing.

Zangan and I positioned ourselves at opposite ends of the space, and bowed to one another in the Wutainese ritual of respect for an honoured opponent. Or rather, Zangan bowed, and I imitated him a tiny fraction of a second behind, because the formality wasn't something I was accustomed to.

When we both straightened, we remained still for a moment, watching each other. Then Zangan aimed a side kick at me, twisting away when I grabbed for his ankle.

I shot in close, grabbing at his arm and shirt for a throw, but he broke my grip with a jerk and aimed a palm strike at my face. When I leaned back to avoid having my nose smashed, he used the opportunity to open a bit of space between us, and nearly kneed me in the chest with a leaping move that I blocked with my crossed forearms.

I noticed the hand reaching around behind me and tossed my head to the side as I aimed a punch of my own at his face. Do you really think I would wear my hair loose if I didn't know how to deal with it in this kind of situation?

He caught my wrist—excellent prediction skills, since I should have been too fast for him to catch me—and twisted me into a throw. I caught myself with my other hand as he let go and turned it into a sort of forward flip that had me on my feet again, then pivoted smoothly back just in time to block another punch. If I could get him into a wrestling hold, it would be my win, since I was both stronger and heavier, but Zangan proved surprisingly elusive, breaking out of my grip again and again as we exchanged kicks, punches, and elbow and knee strikes. He landed a solid blow to my stomach and another to my jaw, while I gave him a florid bruise that covered most of the right side of his face. If I'd struck with my full strength, that blow would have killed him.

In the end, I backed him up against the fence, and we stopped there, with his extended hand brushing my throat and my knee dug into his stomach.

"I believe we should consider this a draw," Zangan said.

I nodded. If we'd been going at this for real, I would have driven several of his organs out past his backbone at approximately the same moment as he crushed my throat. He would have died; my survival would have hinged on my ability to perform a tracheotomy on myself, most likely with Masamune, and hold the resulting hole open to assist my breathing until the crushing injury subsided. It wasn't something I wanted to have to try.

Now that I was no longer focused on the fight, I could hear the villagers whispering to one another.

"Wow! You couldn't even see them move—they were just blurs!"

"—hitting pretty hard. I mean, you could hear it!"

"If Zangan's that good, his lessons are more than worth it. I'm going to sign you up."

"Why is he wasting his time on that Strife kid?"

"Outsiders sure aren't peaceable types."

Zangan dusted himself off. "I believe we may have succeeded a bit too well. Although you have certainly acquired some admirers."

I glanced around. A knot of teenaged girls blushed and giggled as my gaze swept across them. I scowled and turned away, for their behaviour was almost too familiar.

"You are not interested?"

"I don't bed children," I said flatly, although I would have been no more interested had those girls been older.

"Ah." Zangan had packed quite a bit into that single vowel sound, and I was going to have to think about it a while in order to decode it. "I will see you . . . tomorrow, perhaps?"

I shrugged. "Perhaps."

Zangan and I parted ways, and I went over to put my coat back on, absently wiping blood from the corner of my mouth. The cut my own teeth had left on my lip had already healed, but the blood never just vanished into nothing.

"Are you okay? Seth?" Cloud asked. He looked worried.

"We weren't fighting for real, Cloud. The bruises will be gone by morning."

"Oh."

I ruffled his hair. Perhaps if I did it repeatedly, the action would begin to seem natural.

"Seth?"

"What?" Coat now in place, I lifted Cloud down from the fence, and felt him bury his hands in the folds of leather again.

"Will I be able to fight like that someday?"

"If you work hard enough at it."

I had never seen anything quite like the smile that spread across that small, upturned face before.

A shame it was founded on a lie.

Chapter Text

Chapter 10

Cloud's mom didn't let him go to Rocket Town the next summer, but she did say it was okay to go hunting with Seth in the forested hills below the village. The first monster he ever killed was a mushroom-thing that Seth told him was called a Battery Cap. He cut it down using the mithril short sword Seth had let him use.

Cloud also started learning to use materia that summer, and for his seventh birthday, Seth gave him an armlet and a Restore materia of his very own. Cloud wore them all the time, even when he was asleep in bed.

He worked with Seth, and he worked with Master Zangan sometimes when Seth wasn't there, and he could feel himself getting stronger. It didn't happen quickly, but by the time the next Harvestfest rolled around, he was starting to be able to see the muscles in his arms when he flexed them, and even Brad and his friends weren't that strong. They didn't bother him anymore, though. Cloud thought they might even be a bit scared of him. No one his own age seemed to like him much or want to play with him, but that was okay. He had Seth.

All the grown-ups seemed to talk about that year was the war in Wutai. Even Seth and Zangan talked about it sometimes, although the way they talked was different. Sometimes they would lay out a big map on the floor at Zangan's place, and put pebbles on top of it to show where the armies were, and Seth—it was mostly Seth—would talk about why what Shinra was doing was stupid, what they should have been doing instead, and what they would probably be doing next. Cloud didn't always understand the explanations, even when they let him hang around, but he tried hard. And he noticed that Seth was usually right about the doing-next part.

It was in the early spring of that year, when the snow was just starting to melt and everything looked dirty and grey, that Cloud found out that Seth didn't always go hunting when he disappeared for an afternoon. School had let out early that day because Miss Carter was sick, so when Cloud spotted Seth, he followed him even though they hadn't been supposed to meet up.

Seth went to the Shinra Mansion and let himself inside. Cloud was still outside the fence, and he found himself staring at the door of the big, spooky building. He was pretty sure no one was supposed to go inside there. Not unless the people from Shinra came back, but they'd been gone since before he was born. Sometimes the other kids would run up and touch the door on a dare, but Cloud never had. And it was supposed to be haunted, although no one was ever clear on whether it was by a vampire, or by the ghost of a man that the Shinra people had killed.

Cloud swallowed, but he was too curious to let it go, and anyway, no one had ever specifically told him to stay away from the Mansion. It was just kind of understood.

The door wasn't locked. Well, Seth had made that kind of obvious. Inside, Cloud found a big, dusty space with two staircases and some furniture—big enough for his entire house to fit inside.

"Seth?" he called. Not too loudly, though. Just in case there really was a vampire.

Something rustled in a room off to the side. Cloud bit his lip, but he also inched forward.

"Seth?" he said again.

Something that looked like a pumpkin wearing a skirt shot out of the darkness under a table, heading straight for his face.

Cloud yelped and cast a Barrier spell. That had been the second materia Seth had given him, at Midwinter. He knew it wouldn't protect him completely, though, so he dodged, raising his left arm to strike the thing aside if he could.

The line of silver that flashed past above his head to skewer the pumpkin-thing was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"They're called dorky faces," Seth said from behind him as he lowered Masamune. "Not especially strong fighters, but they normally attack in packs, and their breath can confuse you. It's fortunate that you only encountered the one."

Cloud nodded. And swallowed. Seth would expect him to remember the information, he knew, but there was no way he could concentrate right now. He'd thought he was used to monsters, but that had given him a fright, and he knew Seth was going to be mad at him.

"What are you doing here, Cloud?" Seth sounded like he already knew, but was going to make Cloud tell him anyway. It was something that he did a lot.

Cloud explained about Miss Carter, and about seeing Seth come into the building.

" . . . and I was curious," he admitted sullenly to the floor. "I mean, there's nothing in here but dust and monsters and maybe a vampire, and if you could get in, why aren't you living here instead of at my place?" It might be dusty, but the mansion still had all its furniture, and he could see it was a lot nicer than the Strifes' attic.

Seth stood there for what seemed to Cloud like forever, saying nothing. When Cloud snuck a look up, he didn't have any expression on his face, either.

"I need you to promise me that you will never tell anyone about what you hear here today," the tall man said at last. "Not your mother, not Zangan, not anyone. Do you understand me, Cloud?"

Cloud's eyes went wide, and he nodded solemnly.

Seth turned away from Cloud, and went quiet again for a moment.

"You've noticed by now that I'm different from most people," Seth said quietly. "Faster and stronger. I can also see in the dark, and . . . other things."

"Like the SOLDIERs everyone keeps talking about, that Shinra has fighting in the war," Cloud said, to show he was listening.

"In some ways. I was supposed to be something as far beyond the SOLDIERs as they are beyond normal humans. The experiments began before I was even born, and I still don't know everything that was done to me. The person who did most of it is dead now, so I can't ask about it. All I can do is search out hidden scraps of information and try to piece them together. And . . . there is a laboratory in the basement of this mansion where Shinra scientists worked on the very first stages of the SOLDIER project. I've been reading the records they left behind, trying to see if any of the information . . . fits."

Cloud had the weird feeling that whatever he said next was going to be really important, so he thought hard before asking, "Is there anything I can do to help?"

He was relieved when the corner of Seth's mouth turned up in one of the tall man's tiny smiles. "Not unless you know more about cellular biology, genetics, and mako chemistry than I do. Some of those documents are difficult even for me."

Cloud understood, or thought he did, why Seth didn't want anyone to know, because he already knew what it was like to be The Different One in a group of people. Everyone already knew Seth was different, but it was mostly because of things he did, not because of something that he was. You could change what you did, if you wanted to stop standing out, but not what you were.

"Can I see the laboratory?"

"If you like."

Cloud liked the secret door, although when they started down the stairs, he found himself holding onto Seth's coat the way he'd always done when he was smaller and scared. The smell of leather, and the feel of it under his fingers, were comforting. Maybe when he was older, he'd get a leather coat too. He thought he'd feel invincible if he was wearing something like that.

The lab was dim and shadowy and spooky and full of weird stuff. Bottles and jars, some of them so big that a person could fit inside, others full of colourful powders and liquids. Complicated machines, and a thing in one corner that was as tall as Cloud but made completely of strangely-shaped glass jars and tubes all stuck together. One room had a nasty-looking metal table with straps on the sides, though, and brown stains on it, and he didn't like that at all.

Seth took him by the shoulder and steered him out of there again, into a room that had more books in it than the town library. If he had to read through all of that, looking for clues, Cloud could understand why it would take him a while.

"I guess there's no vampire," he said.

"Not that I've found so far," Seth replied, and they both smiled just a little, because even Cloud knew the whole vampire thing was silly.

He listened to the vague murmur of voices, and wished they would go away. He'd been aware for some time that someone was coming to the mansion's basement, but the other had never spoken or disturbed him in any way, and he had ignored the lingering presence. Now, though . . . now he heard the clear voice of a child, and it reminded him altogether too much of what might have been.

He was going to have even worse nightmares now.

The last flight of steps up to the roof was a killer, Veld reflected. Not that his physical burden was difficult to carry, but he'd been injured in the last firefight, and he'd had to wait too long for someone to look at the hole in his leg while they'd tried to revive Myriad.

All in vain.

The plastic baggie of ashes in his pocket should have been far too small to contain everything that was left of a man. All Turks were cremated, to keep anyone from knowing exactly how they'd died. One last effort at secrecy. Sometimes, if the Turk still had a listed next-of-kin, they'd stuff the ashes into a fancy urn and send them to whoever-it-was, but more often, there was this little non-ceremony with another Turk up on the roof. Your partner if they survived you, or anyone else who offered—or, if no one did, the current head of Administrative Research got to take responsibility.

Myriad hadn't had any next of kin, and he'd outlived his last partner by eight years, one month, and six days. Veld had never understood why the man had bothered to keep track. It was just another thing about Myriad, like his chain-smoking, boozing, and frequent trips to the Honeybee. And so Veld, as the new head, got to be the one to do this.

There was a good strong breeze at the edge of the roof. There was always a breeze, when you got this high up. It would do. But first . . . He pulled out the lighter and the crumpled, bloodstained pack of Malboro Milds. Most of the cigarettes remaining inside were bent, but he managed to find one straight one and light it, then crouched down to prop it against one of the posts for the safety rail like some kind of incense stick. His left thigh screamed in protest as he straightened again, reporting that it still remembered having a bullet lodged in the torn muscle for half an hour the night before last, and it Did Not Like That At All.

Now. Take the baggie out and open it. Pour the ashes out slowly, gently, letting the wind take them a bit at a time until the bag was empty and he could turn it inside-out to release the last fine pinch of grey dust. All that remained of the man now was a battered half-full pack of cancer sticks and a cheap disposable lighter. Veld would leave those in the lounge for anyone who wanted to take them.

During his first few years in the Turks, he'd expected that Vincent would be the one to do this for him. He'd even talked it over with the quiet sniper, one night after a mission when they were both very drunk. Veld had asked, half-seriously, for a twenty-one gun salute, and Vincent had answered, just as mock-seriously, that he'd need to collect enough guns first, not that that would be a problem. The man had been a gun nut.

Veld still didn't understand how they could have failed to find a body. Vincent had been brilliant at everything, and he should have been the one standing here as the new department head. One incomprehensible piece of bad luck, and a death certificate in Hojo's illegible handwriting that the man could never be forced to expand upon, and Vincent was gone.

His own ashes would probably be sent to Geneva and Felicia in a fancy urn now. Veld wasn't sure whether that was better or worse.

That year, the year Cloud turned eight, was the one that his mother finally relented and said that it was okay to travel with Seth—not just to Rocket Town, but wherever the tall man wanted to take him. Cloud hugged and even kissed her, even though he'd mostly stopped kissing people when Brad had sneered at him that it was girly. And when Seth asked him if he wanted to go further than just to Rocket Town, he said yes.

So they sat down at the kitchen table with a big map of the whole continent, and Seth showed Cloud where he wanted to go, a long looping path that might not get them back to Nibelheim until Cloud's birthday. But they'd be able to see all different places along the way: Cosmo Canyon and Gongaga and Corel and Casa del Sol and Rocket Town.

Cloud didn't know why Seth would have planned such a long trip, and he didn't care, either. He was just happy to be spending more time with his teacher. If it meant staying with Seth, he would walk his legs off . . . but Seth did say they would be able to ride chocobos once they got down out of the mountains to the places where the wild birds lived. That would be new too. And interesting.

They were going to leave the day after school let out in mid-June, and Cloud had a hard time getting to sleep the night before.

He could hardly wait to leave.

Chapter Text

Chapter 11 (Sephiroth's narrative)

By the time we got to Gongaga, Cloud was sitting his chocobo as though he'd been riding all his life. Truth be told, he was better with the birds than I had ever been. They submitted to me, because they could sense the aura of an apex predator and didn't want to anger me, but they loved him. I'd turned most of the chocobo-maintenance tasks over to him before we'd even reached Cosmo Canyon, and tolerated his habit of giving the birds pet names. I was just grateful he hadn't tried to name one after me. Even if "Seth Crescent" was merely an alias, it would have been disconcerting. "Sunny" was better. Marginally.

Cloud gawked at the buildings and the people as we rode into town, but allowing him to gawk was part of the purpose of this trip, and the other part might not come to fruition on this particular visit. Although I hoped it did. I had been pouring a lot of effort into the boy, and for best results, I needed him to have more . . . emotional points of contact with the world . . . than just myself and his mother.

And if I were to be honest with myself, I missed Zack too. Even though I knew that a child-Zack wouldn't be quite the same. Especially since I hadn't gotten to know him all that well until after Angeal died. Without that tragedy, even the adult Zack Fair, SOLDIER First Class, would have been a different person.

Cloud bounced as I bespoke us a room at the village's tiny inn. He was eager to be out and exploring, less hesitant now than he had been at Cosmo Canyon. Of course, part of the reason I'd chosen to circle the continent counterclockwise and go to the Canyon first was that I knew it was a welcoming place for anyone except Shinra employees. They hadn't even batted an eyelash at my mako eyes, much less the presence of a little boy and two very happy chocobos.

Gongaga hadn't changed from what I remembered. In some ways, it hadn't changed even after the reactor explosion had half-destroyed the town. They had just rebuilt with the same rounded huts, subdivided or butted up against each other as necessary to form larger houses. As we left the inn, Cloud scampered off to look at something that interested him, and nearly collided with another boy as he popped out of the space between two huts. The newcomer was sturdy and tall for his age, with messy black hair and lightly bronzed skin and eyes the deep indigo of an evening sky.

He immediately smiled at Cloud. "Oh, hey, sorry for jumping out at you like that. Are you new in town? I'm Zack Fair, by the way." The hand he held out was muddy, but Cloud took it anyway.

"Cloud Strife. I'm just visiting for a few days." Cloud was starting to smile, too. Seeing it made me feel . . . relieved. Well, Zack's smile had always been contagious.

"Oh, cool. From where? Is that a real sword?" Zack pointed at Cloud's belt, where the boy was carrying the battered mithril short sword I kept as a spare.

"I'm from Nibelheim. And yeah, it's a real sword."

"Wow, that is so cool. Can I see it? Please?" Zack's puppydog eyes weren't yet as practiced as they would be in later years, but they didn't have to be to snare Cloud.

Cloud looked up at me—he never allowed himself to forget that the sword was technically my property. "Seth? Is it okay?"

I nodded. "Just try not to let him drop it on his foot. And don't panic and forget about your materia if he does."

"You have materia too?" If I hadn't known Zack, I wouldn't have thought his eyes could light up any more than they had already.

"A Restore and a Barrier. Seth gave them to me." Cloud held up his wrist and let the green of the materia sparkle in the sun.

I leaned back against the wall of the inn—a brick building more substantial than any of the circular huts, built by Shinra at the time the Gongaga reactor had been constructed, so that inspectors would have somewhere to stay—and watched the two boys as Cloud showed Zack how to hold and swing the sword. Both teacher and student did a good job. Unsurprising, since they were both naturals with bladed weapons.

Zack couldn't keep still, of course, and he hadn't yet learned the trick of letting his energy out while staying in one place by doing squats, so he ended up hauling Cloud all over town. I stayed by the inn for the most part, using my ears to keep track of where they were and listening to the gossip from various passers-by. Naturally, a lot of it was about the war, directly or otherwise. Production at the reactor had ramped down due to a shortage of trained personnel. Shinra had lowered the official enlistment age to fourteen. A great deal about SOLDIER, although little about individual SOLDIERs. No one had yet stood out the way I had in the previous timeline.

Then I heard something that wasn't gossip: Cloud's voice saying, "Oh, no! Zack!" and the croaking of a frog. I sighed in exasperation and went to find the source of the voice.

Cloud was at the edge of town near the road up to the reactor, staring teary-eyed at a bunch of large frogs.

"Cloud."

The sound of his name made the boy's head jerk up. "Seth . . . the frogs . . . we were kind of teasing them, but then one of them ran out and hit Zack and—"

"I think I can guess the rest," I interrupted. "Do you know which one is him?"

Cloud pointed to a smaller frog that was sitting a bit apart from the rest and looking peeved. I cast Esuna, and the frog expanded with a faint pop!

"Oops," Zack said, rubbing the back of his head. "Got a little too close—sorry for scaring you, Cloud. And thanks for helping me out, Seth. I was afraid I was going to have to go home and croak at the door until someone found a Maiden's Kiss for me, and that's always embarassing."

Cloud blushed slightly. "A what?"

"It's a type of potion that undoes that particular transformation spell," I explained. "One of which Zack should have had on him if he was going to play with touch-me frogs."

Now it was Zack who went slightly reddish. "Um, yeah. Except that I broke the last couple I had, and now Dad won't let me carry them around anymore."

"Is Esuna the only other way to fix it?" Cloud asked.

I shook my head. "A Remedy will work—but you were correct in not using the one I gave you, since this was not an emergency. Also, the Toad spell from a mature Transform materia can either inflict the condition or remove it. And finally, the touch-me's attack is effectively the same as the Toad spell, so a second attack will reverse the transformation. Fortunately, the frogs aren't all that bright."

"Except that once they've gotten you, they tend to run away if you come at them again," Zack added. "If you want to fix yourself that way, you have to go find another bunch, or else ambush one and hope it takes a swipe at you before it realizes."

Cloud frowned slightly, absorbing all this.

"They sell Transform materia here in town," Zack added, still trying to be helpful. "They're, like, five thousand gil, though. Reeeeeally expensive, and then you have to buy a bangle or something so that you can actually use them."

Cloud's eyes widened. "Five thousand?! Um, Seth . . . these weren't that much, were they?" He held up his wrist, showing his two materia.

I shook my head. "Restore is one of the least expensive materia, and the Barrier you're wearing calved off mine when I mastered it last year. Your armlet cost me more than what you've got equipped to it."

"Oh. That's . . . good, I guess. Um . . ."

"Try not to get into trouble for the rest of the afternoon," I said. "Cloud, I'll see you back at the inn for supper." Then I turned and left.

"You're right," I heard Zack say once I'd disappeared around the nearest hut. "He is cool. A bit scary, but cool."

"Yeah," Cloud said. "I'm still glad I've never figured out a way to make him angry, though. I'm pretty sure he'd be more than just a bit scary if that happened."

"Yeah," Zack echoed. "That sword . . . Did you really see him cut a grand horn in half with it?"

"Just yesterday. We had part of it for supper last night."

"You ate a monster?"

"We've been doing that ever since we left Nibelheim. Some of them are pretty good. Especially with barbeque sauce. The grand horn was tough, though."

We'd eaten monsters a lot during the early part of the Wutai War, as a supplement to MREs formulated for the regular army that didn't contain enough calories for a SOLDIER. It had taken them two years to come up with a formal SOLDIER supplement pack of dense nutrient bars . . . and even then, the monsters usually tasted better.

My singular metabolism hadn't needed the extra fuel, but I'd eaten the monsters anyway. Mostly because it had given Hojo fits to know that I was taking in so much organic matter of dubious origin, for which he didn't have nutritional or chemical breakdowns. It had been the first rebellion that I'd attempted in years, and the very first that he hadn't been able to do anything about.

Right now, any number of men I'd known were struggling and dying in the far west. None had been close friends, but we'd served together, standing shoulder to shoulder as we dealt with the defenders of Wutai, and being here while they were there . . . gave me an uncomfortable sensation. As though it were cowardice rather than necessity that was keeping me out of the war.

Two more years, I told myself. At the most. Without the young me participating in the war, Shinra wasn't doing as well as it had the last time.

I continued to keep half an ear out for Zack and Cloud as I wandered through town, browsing through the tiny weapon and materia shops (nothing of interest), but apparently the two boys were now behaving sensibly. Or at least as sensibly as a ten-year-old Zack was capable of.

I sighed soundlessly as I returned to my place against the wall of the inn. Find them, Ifalna had said. Treasure the time you have. And I was doing my best, but I knew it would never be the same.

"Seth? Hey, Seth!"

I looked down. "What is it, Zack?"

"Mom said I could invite Cloud and you for supper—c'mon!" Zack grabbed my hand and pulled, and Cloud winced.

"Zack, I don't know if that's—"

"It's all right," I interrupted the boy. I was accustomed to Zack's overly tactile nature—indeed, I would have been surprised if he hadn't tried to touch me. But under the circumstances, I couldn't say so. Instead, I reached over and ruffled messy black hair. That made Zack grin, and I felt a small answering smile tug at my mouth once again. "Lead the way."

I had never met Zack's parents before, although given his tendency to babble, I had heard a certain amount about them. His father was the talkative one, easygoing and full of anecdotes. He'd come down from Corel when they'd been hiring labourers to do construction work on the power plant, married a local girl, and stayed. Apparently he was now a foreman on a coconut plantation just outside the town. The "local girl" in question, Zack's mother, was quieter, but when she did speak, it was with incisive intelligence.

After the meal, I sat with them, drinking coffee and letting Mr. Fair carry the conversation while I half-listened to the boys in Zack's room next door. Mrs. Fair said nothing until her husband excused himself to use the washroom.

"Thank you for looking after Zack, earlier," she said suddenly. "We keep telling him not to tease those frogs, but he's fearless."

I shrugged. "I did very little."

"Other than save us the cost of a Maiden's Kiss—surely you'll grant me that, at least." She sighed. "Zack has this . . . desire to be a hero, but he can't even keep himself safe."

"He may have convinced himself that that isn't a hero's purpose," I said. "Consider: this afternoon, it was Zack—and not Cloud, who had never seen a Touch-Me before—who bore the brunt of what happened. I wouldn't even be surprised to learn that he placed himself between Cloud and the frogs. He's simply too young to have realized that it's more difficult for an injured hero to save the next person who comes along, and that may correct itself as he matures."

Mrs. Fair smiled. "If I didn't know better, I would say you have more faith in my son than I do."

I shrugged again, unable to formulate a response that wouldn't give away more information than I wanted these people to have. I was experienced at keeping secrets, but that didn't make it any less . . . tiresome.

Fortunately, at that moment, Zack came bursting back into the main room, with Cloud following him more sedately. "Mom, is it okay if Cloud stays with us tonight? Please?"

"It's fine with me, but aren't there other people you should ask first?" Mrs. Fair tilted her head in my direction.

"Cloud said he was pretty sure Seth wouldn't mind, so I figured we should tackle you first. You don't mind, do you, Seth?"

Cloud gave me a pleading look from behind Zack. I wondered what he would have said if I'd told him it was unnecessary.

"Of course Cloud may stay," was all I said, but Zack lit up with a five-hundred-watt grin and lunged forward to wrap his arms around my shoulders.

"Zack!" Mrs Fair half-shouted, but she was also smiling.

"Sorry," Zack said near my ear, "but you look like you don't get enough hugs, so I figured I would give you one. To say thanks."

"Cloud needs them more than I do," I said, but I also ruffled his hair. "Don't ever change, Zack."

The grin was still in place on Zack's face as he let me go. "I'm not gonna."

In fact, Cloud stayed with Zack's family the entire week we were in Gongaga, and I found myself with another young shadow when I—purely to keep myself occupied—went into the jungle to hunt. Fortunately, the monsters in that area were of types that I could kill with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back, and I had near-perfect resistance to the conditions they inflicted. Where possible, I deferred to the boys and let them both make the kills and accept any money to be made. By the time we left the town, Zack had earned enough money to buy himself a used mithril saber from the weapon shop. His parents let him keep it, although I understood that to be somewhat abnormal.

There were many tearful good-byes, and promises to write and to return next summer, when we did leave. I didn't bother telling Cloud that Zack was a horrible correspondent. Maybe this time, the dark-haired boy would make the effort.

Ironically, it was during the last stretch of the trip, headed south from Rocket Town across the Nibel Mountains, that we first ran into trouble that I couldn't deal with by waving Masamune in its general direction.

The pass through the moutains wasn't the best-maintained footpath I'd ever been on, to put it mildly. Occasionally, when some chunk of mountain inevitably crumbled and either landed on the narrower parts of the path or sent a piece of it down into some crevasse, someone would come along a few months later and clear and rebuild it, but more often it was left to its own devices. I didn't let that worry me too much most of the time, since even yellow chocobos were surefooted, and I'd travelled similar country in Wutai without the advantage of a path to help me find my way.

Unfortunately, luck always does play a part, and Cloud's chocobo stumbled at exactly the wrong moment, as we were trying to negotiate a scree slope above a long drop. The boy came off, and I was treated to a brief glimpse of a horrified expression as he slid over the edge.

I tore off my coat and draped it over my chocobo's back in the split second before I flung myself after him, ignoring the firey pain as the skin of my back tore. Feathers erupted around me as I dove, grabbing for Cloud's outstretched hand and pulling him into my arms, then angling for a wide cliffside ledge.

I set the boy down there, expecting him to pull back from me, but instead, he stared wide-eyed.

"You have wings," he said in an awed tone. "That's . . . beyond cool."

"Most people would be trying to run away while shrieking about monsters at this point," I said dryly.

"That's 'cause most people are stupid," Cloud said. "Can I touch?"

I hesitated, then said, "If you like." I'd never allowed anyone to touch my wings before—never allowed anyone to see them before. They'd erupted when I'd been fourteen and on a solo scouting mission in Wutai, and I'd concealed them carefully ever since. As a result, they represented one of the few things about my physical makeup that not even Hojo had been aware of.

I wished now, with the clarity born of hindsight, that I had shown them to two specific people. If I had, I couldn't help believing things might have turned out differently.

Cloud ran his small fingers lightly over the black feathers of my half-folded right wing. He reached for the left one, and blinked as his hand went straight through the near-invisible heat-haze shimmer. Then he blinked again, and rubbed his fingers together.

"You're bleeding," he said.

"The right one always insists on tearing its way out through the skin," I explained. "If it isn't healed already, it will be soon." I flared both wings one last time and folded them away, pulling them back inside myself in a way I'd never been able to explain. If my black-feathered wing had truly had a physical existence when it wasn't extended, I wouldn't have been able to hide it from Hojo.

. . . During my madness, I had understood, or Jenova had influenced me into believing that I understood. That version of me had known how it all worked, how parts of my body could be both physical and non-physical to varying extents, just as he had known how to tap the energies of the Lifestream without equipping materia. But I didn't dare examine those memories closely enough to re-learn those things.

I was too frightened that madness was a prerequisite for that level of understanding. It seemed as though it should be more than a human mind could hold. Mostly human. Whatever I was.

Suddenly, my vision blurred, and I staggered and dipped to one knee, cursing, as a sensation of weakness and dizziness washed through me.

"Seth!"

I waved away the small hands that were reaching out to me. "I'm fine. My left wing draws heavily on my energy reserves, that's all. The level of mako in my blood should stabilize again in a few minutes. Then we can see about climbing back up."

Cloud looked puzzled. "How can you have mako in your blood?"

I sat down with my back to the cliff, and the boy planted himself beside me, not quite touching. "It's the part of what was done to me that matches the process they use on SOLDIERs. Injections of purified mako, initially paired with a catalyst to make certain it's absorbed properly and doesn't make the recipient sick. SOLDIERs need more mako on a regular basis. I don't, unless I get seriously injured or do something foolish like trying to fly." I wasn't sure how much of what I was saying Cloud was actually following, but it didn't much matter.

"Are you going to be okay if you don't get more?"

"The lab in the mansion basement has the equipment necessary to purify mako." Complicated glassware that I more-or-less knew how to use, thanks to having had a bored lab tech explain it to me one rainy afternoon in Midgar when I'd been about Cloud's age. "I just haven't needed to use it until now. I'll be fine," I added, hoping that would be the incantation required to chase the worry from Cloud's face. The last thing I needed him wasting his energy on was worrying about me.

From his expression, he wasn't sure he believed me, but it turned out that he understood more of what I was saying than I had expected. "If they do the same thing to SOLDIERs . . . that's why they're stronger and faster than normal people? Would it work on me?"

"Yes, and . . . in theory."

Cloud had known me long enough by now to understand what it meant when I said those words, and he scowled at me. "You think I'm too little."

"In a sense. The mako has to be measured out carefully according to the recipient's body weight, and you're not heavy enough for me to be able to figure out the correct dosage. We'll revisit this when you're fourteen, if it's still what you want."

"That's six whole years!"

"Patience is part of the test."

"I hate your tests."

"I know." And I was used to being hated.

"Seth? This is one of those things I absolutely can't talk about to anyone else, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is."

Cloud's hand found mine and squeezed gently, and we stayed there in silence until my head had cleared enough that I was willing to risk climbing up.

Chapter Text

Chapter 12

Cloud was kind of shocked when they got back to Nibelheim and found out that Zangan had taken another special student for one-on-one instruction, and twice as shocked when he discovered that student was the mayor's daughter, Tifa Lockheart.

It wasn't that Cloud thought that girls shouldn't fight. Seth had told him that with the right training, a woman could be just as deadly as any man, and Cloud believed him. It was just that . . . well, Tifa. Why would Tifa want to learn how to fight? All she needed to get anything she wanted was to ask her dad.

He sparred with her sometimes, because Zangan's other students were all bigger and older. He didn't hold back, and he did dump her on her rump pretty fast the first couple of times, but after that, she started getting better quickly. That made him a bit mad.

The first time Tifa dumped him on his rump, he stormed over to where Seth was watching them, and punched the wall that the tall man was leaning against. It was February, so they were inside the dojo that Zangan had built. Cloud was spending a lot of time there lately, since Zangan let Seth borrow it for their sword practices.

"Why is she getting so good?" the boy asked the wall.

"Because she has the same kind of gift for hand-to-hand that you do for the sword," Seth told him. "And, if anything, she spends even more time practicing than you do, because it's the only thing she's learning."

As in, she wasn't doing materia lessons or monster dissection or wilderness survival or any of the rest. Knowing that he was better than her at so many things did make Cloud feel better, a bit, and he reminded himself of it every time Tifa dumped him on the floor from then on.

Tifa stopped coming to the dojo quite as often when the thaws started that spring. It was a couple of weeks before Cloud found out that her mom was sick. It made him feel a bit sorry for her. When his mom was sick, she got cranky and was just terrible to live with.

Except that his mom had always gotten better, and Tifa's didn't.

Everyone in Nibelheim turned out for the funeral. Even Cloud and his mom. They stood at the very back, in a knot with Seth and Master Zangan, and watched as Mayor Lockheart cupped his hands around Tifa's, steadying them so that they could both light her mother's pyre together. Everyone seemed to be pretending not to see the tears running down the little girl's face as she touched the torch to the tinder. Cloud saw them, though. Cloud stared at them, and he would have sworn that when Tifa's eyes met his, just for a second, she looked grateful.

A few days after that, she started coming to the dojo again, but it was like something in her was missing. She pretty much let Cloud throw her down, again and again. And if it made him mad when she won, it made him twice as mad that he was winning because she wouldn't even try.

He wanted to scream at her and ask what was wrong, but he didn't, because really, he knew what was wrong. He just didn't know what to do about it. If it was possible for anyone to do anything about it. Zack would probably have been able to figure it out, but Zack wasn't here, and by the time he could get a letter to Gongaga and Zack could send one back, it might be too late.

As far as he could tell, everything and anything was making Tifa worse. The grown-ups offering condolences and the other kids not quite willing to talk to her. He could always tell when something at school reminded her of her mom, because she would get this screwed-up look on her face and hide behind her hands for a moment.

And then there was that stupid legend.

It was one of the older kids, old enough that he was going to have to go to Rocket Town next year if he wanted to stay in school, who read it out loud to the class. About the land of the dead being on the other side of the mountains. Cloud knew it was stupid crap, because he'd been on the other side of those mountains, and he knew there was nothing there except Rocket Town. But Tifa . . . well, it made sense that Tifa wanted to believe it. That there was some way she could see her mother again.

He just didn't expect her to be quite so stupid about it.

It was the same day, right after school had let out. April 11, 1995. Cloud had meant to hurry home so he could have his session with Seth, but he frowned when he saw Brad and his friends and a couple of the girls, too, heading toward the edge of town. None of them ever went out that way without a grown-up. Even Cloud wasn't so happy about going too far in the direction of the reactor without borrowing the old mithril sword again first, but if they were going to do something stupid, he figured he should tell someone. And at least he had his materia. Four of them, now, since Seth had given him a Heal for his birthday and—after several warnings about where and when he was allowed to use it—a Seal for Midwinter. All the sockets on his armlet were full now.

Anyway, that was what they were all staring at: the path up to the reactor. And Tifa wasn't with them. And Cloud was kind of having a sinking feeling.

Mort was the youngest kid there. He'd just started school this year. So even if he was the younger brother of one of Brad's friends, Cloud was bigger than him, and stronger, and intimidating. That meant that when he asked Mort what was going on, the poor kid answered him right away.

"Tifa went up the mountain. She was crying and saying something about her mom and—"

Cloud rolled his eyes, because even he could see just how stupid this was. "Did anyone at least try to tell a grown-up? Or go after her?"

"Brad and Lenny tried to follow her, but . . ." Mort shrugged.

Cloud ground his teeth and tried to think of what to do. "Okay. I'm going after her. You go back to the school and tell Miss Carter what happened, okay? She should still be there."

Mort kind of sniffled. "'Kay."

Cloud just hoped he actually went. If Tifa went off the path somewhere, he didn't want to end up searching the entire mountain on his own.

Cloud set off at the ground-eating jog he'd gotten used to using when Seth assigned him to cover distance. The path curled all around, and he could see Tifa and Brad and Lenny on the last curve before the bridge, but he couldn't reach them, and he knew it was no good yelling. Tifa had her face in her hands, and she was half-running, half-stumbling without even looking at where she was going. She couldn't listen, and the other two wouldn't. As Cloud got closer, he could see Brad and Lenny arguing, and then Lenny turned and began to run back toward town. Brad trotted ahead and grabbed Tifa's shoulder, but she threw him down without even looking. Cloud winced—that would have hurt even at the dojo, with mats on the floor to cushion some of the blow. Mind you, it was Brad, so he'd probably said something that made him deserve it.

Tifa shot out onto the bridge without stopping. Cloud stopped just this side of the bridge footings to catch his breath, ignoring the way Brad was staring at him.

"What you doing here, Strife?" Brad asked.

"What you should be doing, dumbass," Cloud snapped. "I'm bringing Tifa home. And if you try to stop me, I'll dump you on your ass even harder than she did."

Cloud didn't like the look of the bridge. The rope was greyish and spotted with what looked like mold, and he'd heard Seth mention to Zangan that it was in bad shape. And Tifa was nearly at the middle and not paying any attention.

Maybe they'd be lucky. They were just kids, after all. Not too heavy. Cloud prayed to Odin that that would be true as he stepped out onto the bridge.

It creaked and swung . . . well, it had already been creaking and swinging. Cloud swallowed and made himself move faster. He needed to catch up with Tifa's back.

Creak, creak.

Creak, creak.

Creak, creak, snap!

Cloud could see the rope coming apart. He knew he didn't have time to freeze up. If he turned and ran right now, he'd be okay, but Tifa—

He grabbed for her as the bridge came the rest of the way apart. Cast Barrier first, and pull her up into his arms, and Seth had told him to try to land feet-first with his body relaxed if something like this ever happened—

He did succeed in landing feet first, on a slightly-tilted, mostly-smooth stone surface. That tilt was a problem, though, because it made one of his feet hit before the other, and he whited out as he felt pain shoot up his shin. He thought he'd known about pain, thanks to Brad and his friends, but this was worse. It made him fall over on his ass and he dropped Tifa on the leg he'd just hurt and he bit his lower lip so hard he drew blood to keep from screaming. He did manage to keep quiet, but he couldn't do anything about the tears of pain that flooded his eyes.

It was a bit better after he got his leg out from under Tifa, who seemed to be coming to slowly. Like she'd been sleepwalking all the way up the mountain.

"Cloud? What happened? Where are we?"

Cloud spoke from between clenched teeth. "We're somewhere below the reactor. That stupid rotten bridge fell apart when you ran across it. And I think I might have broken my leg when we landed." Or maybe he'd just landed too hard and sprained it, but he wasn't willing to bet on it. He'd had a fair number of first aid lessons by that point. Including the one about why it was a bad idea to heal a broken bone with potions or materia unless it was a dire emergency or you really, really knew what you were doing. Cloud didn't want to end up with a crooked leg.

Tifa was crying again. "I want my mom. I don't want this stupid nightmare."

"And I want Seth to be here, but he isn't. We've got to figure out what to do for ourselves. You can cry when we get back to town."

"I can't just turn it off, stupid!"

Cloud understood now why Seth rubbed the bridge of his nose in a certain way sometimes, 'cause he was starting to get a headache. He had to assess the situation calmly. That was what he'd been taught.

. . . It was hard. Really hard.

"Fine. Keep crying, then. You'll end up feeling tired and sick and awful, and I don't know if Morty or Lenny or Brad told anyone we were out here. Plus, I'm not going to be able to walk very fast, so we won't be able to get back to town on our own, or at least I won't. If no one finds us before it starts to get dark, we're going to freeze. It's way too early in the year to be sleeping outside without a tent—we need to find a cave or something. Or you need to find a cave, 'cause I can't." Or she could abandon him right here, but he didn't think she would. He knew more or less what direction Nibelheim was in, but he doubted she did.

"What kind of cave?"

"You mean, if there's more than one?" Cloud thought about it. "Nothing that smells of animals. Big enough for both of us, but small enough that we can warm it up a bit with our body heat. While you're looking, I'm going to see if I can use some of these boards to make a splint or something. Or we might be able to burn them." There was supposed to be a way to start a fire by rubbing a stick between your hands, wasn't there? Or were you supposed to rub two sticks together? I want a Fire materia for my birthday this year.

Tifa sniffled and rubbed the streaks off her face. She was still crying, a little bit, but Cloud decided not to say anything. "Okay. I'll see what I can find."

"Try not to go too far," Cloud said. "Someone might be looking for us—we haven't been down here very long."

"Okay," the girl repeated.

Cloud made a face as she vanished among the rocks. Part of the bridge had fallen not far away, but he knew a lot of the wood was rotten. Hopefully there would be a bit that wasn't.

He used the nearest boulder to pull himself to his good foot, and hopped awkwardly toward the debris, using the rock for support.

Tifa Lockheart was feeling like an idiot. She'd been charging up the mountain as though in a dream, and that bridge falling out from under her had woken her up.

It felt weird to been rescued by Cloud, of all people. She knew her grumpy little sparring partner as well as she knew anyone else in Nibelheim, and she wouldn't have said he was exactly a friend. But she also knew the fall might have left her badly hurt if he hadn't been there to cast that spell and then take most of the impact. And he'd hurt his leg. And he was forcing himself to act grown up and sensible, when probably all he wanted was to cry too. Even if he was a year older than her.

Lots of young girls dream about being rescued by handsome princes. She just hadn't expected hers to have chocobo hair and big blue eyes and not be much taller than she was.

She found a cave. It was low enough that she had to crawl inside it on her hands and knees after poking it a couple of times with a stick. And it looked big enough for two kids and it didn't smell like animals.

Doing stuff like this meant she didn't have to think about her mom. She was kind of grateful, really. Since her mom had died, it had felt like nothing mattered much and she was viewing everything through a thin layer of fog. Now the fog was fading away, and she could tell that the world was still there.

Had Cloud really been winning all of their sparring matches lately? That was . . . embarassing. She'd started taking lessons from Zangan because her mother had felt it was a good idea to learn self-defense, but then she'd found out she enjoyed it and was really good at it. And Cloud wasn't quite as good. Not at that, anyway.

She'd tried to pick up his practice sword once, and found out it was a lot heavier than she'd expected. Weighted, Cloud had told her. To build up arm strength. Like the push-ups and stuff that he was always doing.

Cloud was just . . . different from all the other boys in the town. Maybe it was because he wasn't planning to stay in Nibelheim. He'd talked about it a little, how he was going to travel around hunting monsters when he was older. Like he already had, a bit. She was kind of jealous that he wasn't going to get stuck for the rest of his life in drab little nothing-here Nibelheim. But he was a boy, and boys were allowed to leave. Girls weren't supposed to. Unless they got married and left with their husbands. Ugh.

She wanted to leave someday on her own. It was a hope that she'd hidden from everyone else, even her mom and dad. Especially her dad. She was pretty sure he'd already picked out who he wanted her to marry in eight years or so when she was old enough. The idea made her feel sick.

When she got back to Cloud, he was sitting on the ground with his leg sticking out. There were broken boards on either side of it, and he was trying to wrap up the whole mess with some of the thick rope from the bridge, wincing every time he had to lift his leg to get the rope underneath.

"I found a cave," she told him.

"That's great. Help me with this?"

The rope was way too thick, and they had to unravel the ends so that they could tie it together one strand at a time. Then Tifa helped Cloud up. They made a trail out of little pieces of wood leading to the cave, and crawled inside. By then they were both tired. Cloud fell asleep, but Tifa made herself stay awake, just in case.

It was after dark when Tifa heard someone shouting their names.

"Here!" she yelled as loud as she could. "Over here!" Beside her, Cloud stirred and woke. And then Master Zangan was there, and Cloud's teacher, Seth Crescent. Tifa had never liked Seth all that much—she thought he was cold and kind of spooky, even more now that she could see that his eyes really did glow in the dark—but she was glad to see even him. Even more when they started to run into monsters on the way back towards town, and Seth stepped in to fight them, wielding his huge sword efficiently even though he was carrying Cloud on his back.

When they got back to town, it turned out that stinky Lenny and Brad had lied to her dad and told them that she'd followed Cloud up the mountain, but Morty had told Miss Carter the real story.

"I was the one who went up there first," Tifa said firmly, hands planted on her hips. "Cloud saved my life. And he hurt himself doing it. You should be mad at me, not at him!"

She wasn't sure her father really listened. But from that day on, Cloud was her prince, and none of the other boys in town quite measured up.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13 (Sephiroth's narrative)

The call for mercenaries came in September of 1995, a year early. It wasn't unexpected. There was enough information available from public sources that I'd known the war was going poorly. Unfortunately, the fact that I would need to leave wasn't something I had been able to warn Cloud about in advance. I couldn't take the risk of letting anyone find out that I knew the future, even in a somewhat distorted form. The information I'd already given Cloud about me was dangerous enough.

But I hadn't expected him to burst into tears when I told him. Demonstrating the inadequacy of my own experiences again, I suppose. I hadn't cried since I was very, very small, and never over something so trivial.

Cloud didn't try to argue with me, or do any of the other things I had expected. He just hugged me, and cried until he was red-faced and limp.

"You'll come back, won't you?" he said at last. "Seth?"

"I should be able to get a couple of weeks of leave in the spring, but probably not before then." The logistics of travelling in or out of Nibelheim in the middle of winter were difficult in any case.

Cloud sniffled and nodded.

"Since I'm not going to be here at Midwinter, I'm going to give you this now," I said, pulling a small box from my pocket. Cloud's fingers shook a little as he opened it.

"Is this a real PHS?" he asked, picking it up carefully.

I nodded. "My number's already in it. And Zack's." The black-haired boy had been glad to give me the number for their household landline on our visit this summer. "I may not always be able to answer right away, but we'll be able to talk from time to time."

I took very little with me other than my normal equipment. Supplies for the initial trip to Junon. And a well-stoppered metal flask in my inner coat pocket. Mako. Enough for several booster shots that I hopefully wouldn't need . . . although I didn't expect to escape the war uninjured.

Cloud called me twice before I'd even reached Costa del Sol. And again while I was on the ship to Junon. He opened each conversation with questions about his training, but there were times I thought that he just wanted to hear my voice. And really, there was nothing wrong with that. Especially when I had nothing better to do than talk to him.

Junon was much busier than the last time I had been here, three years ago, with Ifalna and her daughter. I shook my head slightly. Three years. It seemed like a long time, and yet like no time at all.

The recruiting station wasn't difficult to find. Nor was it difficult to figure out which of the several regular army noncoms running the desks had been detailed to handle applications from mercenaries, as opposed to recruits.

The application she handed me was minimal. Name and sex were easy, and I was even able to use the truth for one of them. Birth date . . . I chose a random date and then had to count backwards to come up with a reasonable birth year. In the end, I made myself twenty-seven. Honestly, I had no idea what my biological age was at this point. My appearance hadn't really changed since I was nineteen and fighting in Wutai the first time, roughly ten years ago in my internal chronology, but . . . Perhaps I hadn't aged while under Jenova's domination, or perhaps my trip to the past had altered something . . . or perhaps my body was simply that odd.

I hesitated a split second before entering Cloud's name and address under Next of kin. If I managed to get myself killed, the boy deserved to know.

The second page asked about combat abilities and monsters defeated. There was no way I could fill that out truthfully and still be believed. Even the compromise I eventually decided on was likely to be questioned, although I included a note on how to reach the shopkeeper in Rocket Town to whom I'd been selling Nibel Dragon parts in the hope that an independent confirmation would speed things up.

I skimmed the contract boilerplate on the last page for unexpected legal hazards—none found, although I was certainly no lawyer—and signed. In theory, on paper, my life now belonged to the Shinra Electric Power Corporation for the next twelve months, with option to renew.

"It'll take me a moment to process this," the woman behind the desk said. "After that, we'll have someone administer the practical test. Please wait."

I chose a section of wall to prop up and reflected how very typical that was of Shinra: test the applicants' abilities only after they'd signed. Failures to be sent to the infantry, or wherever else the company thought they would be useful.

I saw the woman's eyebrows rise as she read the second page. She made a phone call, and then another, but there were too many people in the room for me to be able to make out what she was saying. A few moments later, a figure in a familiar uniform emerged from an Authorized Personnel Only door. I didn't remember this particular Third Class—might not even have met him if he'd gotten killed within the next year or so in the original history—but his uniform wasn't new, and he had a nasty scar along the left side of his face that looked like it had just barely missed the eye.

"Seth Crescent?" He was looking straight at me—the woman working the desk must have given him a description.

"Yes?"

The SOLDIER snorted. Had he been expecting a salute? I knew how to give one, of course, but it would be incorrect for someone outside the regular military. Or perhaps he simply found me unimpressive, which was . . . amusing. "Come with me."

I followed him back through the Authorized Personnel door and along a series of hallways. Since I knew the layout of the Junon base, I was not at all surprised when we emerged in a drill yard. Several other Third Classes and a single Second Class with captain's insignia attached to his harness. I vaguely recognized him, but remembering his name was not high on my list of priorities for the moment, even when he walked over to me and peered directly into my eyes.

"Huh. That's not Shimmer addiction. I don't know what the fuck that is."

"Prenatal mako exposure," I said, looking straight back at him. There were cases on record of an infant being born to a mother already in a mako coma displaying glowing eyes and some other odd traits, although they never gained the full range of SOLDIER abilities. Hojo had studied all known cases carefully.

The captain snorted. "Know why you're here, smartass?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I expect you intend to take me down a peg or two, on the grounds that I look like a SOLDIER deserter. Or perhaps you just don't like my face. Your motivations scarcely matter to me."

"Well, then, since you're so smart, there's no need for me to explain anything. Get him!"

All the Thirds drew their swords. I unsheathed Masamune and raised her to the high guard position I favoured. A dozen Thirds would be difficult even for me, since I didn't want to kill or maim them. At least the captain had backed off.

It would no doubt have been wiser to give in and let them beat me a bit, but my damnable pride wouldn't allow it. For years, I had been the greatest swordsman in the world. If someone beat me fairly, that was one thing, but the thought of throwing a fight enraged me. I couldn't do it.

Several of the Thirds shouted as they ran forward. Masamune hummed softly in response. And then I opened by kicking one man in the stomach, hard enough to throw him against the wall of the yard and leave a nice indentation behind. I slammed the blunt side of Masamune into another man's arm and heard the bone crunch, then cut through two of the flimsy standard-issue broadswords on the return swing. Feinted toward another man's eyes to make him back up. The trick when wielding an absurdly long blade against multiple opponents is to establish a zone of control around oneself early on, and not let anyone who enters it escape unscathed. No movement can be wasted.

I'd made an opening in the encirclement now. Not that I was going to run, but there were certain things that were easier with all of them bunched up on one side of me. Like slamming them into each other.

I disarmed my final opponent with another kick, shook a few splatters of blood from Masamune, and raised her in salute to the captain, who was staring at me and the scattering of groaning Third Classes and broken swords.

"Shinra needs to find a better alloy for these," I observed, kicking a disembodied hilt. "This would have been more difficult if we'd had blades of equal quality."

"That's all you have to say?" asked the Third Class who had led me in here. He was cradling a broken arm in his lap where he sat against the wall.

"Rauf, get your stupid ass to the infirmary," his captain said. "That goes for the rest of you, too, if you can walk. You, Crescent or whatever your name is. Stay."

I propped Masamune against my shoulder and waited while the Third Classes limped away. I'd tried to avoid breaking any legs, but the first man I'd kicked clearly had broken ribs, and needed the help of one of his buddies.

"Okay," the captain said. "I know how much skill it takes to deal with a dozen people without killing them. You've got my respect. But I still have to take you down that notch."

"You can try." I returned to my ready stance as he drew his sword—not the standard broadsword, but a Hardedge that must have cost him a pretty penny. Like the Buster Sword, it was a blade intended for strength rather than finesse: a chopping weapon with no point, like an oversized meat cleaver. And still an inferior blade.

He was faster than the Thirds, of course. Much faster. And stronger. However, there was only one of him, and no mere Second Class could beat me one on one. Masamune licked past his defenses over and over again, tracing shallow cuts across his body. Once again, I was being careful, trying not to maim him. If I hadn't been, I would have carved apart the tendons in both his hands and then buried Masamune's point in his throat in less than thirty seconds.

"That's enough! Back off NOW!"

I'd been aware of someone watching us for the past couple of minutes, but since he'd remained silent and never got within ten feet of us or made any motion to attack, I'd ignored him. The order, however, was enough to freeze my opponent in place. I took a quick leap back, then shook the blood from Masamune again and propped her against my shoulder.

Someone in the black uniform of a First Class was watching us, unamused. And unlike the other SOLDIERs I'd encountered since arriving in Junon, this man I recognized. Lloyd Walker had been the only SOLDIER I'd ever known with a moustache, a wispy darkness on his upper lip that was barely thicker than Angeal's not-a-beard. Other than that, he had a craggy face and a muscular build and was about an inch shorter than Zack would be as an adult.

"Major Walker, sir!" The captain snapped to attention and saluted. I waited.

"Would one of you mind telling me what the fuck this was all about?"

"My understanding was that it was a test of my competence," I offered, as the Second Class didn't seem to have a ready answer.

Lloyd gave me a thoughtful look. "Then why were you holding back?"

I shrugged. "Slaughtering a SOLDIER in the middle of a base full of SOLDIERs and infantry offers me no advantage that I can see."

"Hmph." Lloyd turned to face the unfortunate Second Class. "Since when is SOLDIER in the business of testing the qualifications of mercenaries who sign up to be fucking cannon fodder?"

"Since one turned up with mako glow and a SOLDIER-sized sword and claimed to have killed dragons," the man said sourly. "We figured he was either a deserter or a liar."

"And are you?" Lloyd asked me.

"No." I was fairly certain that being driven insane by an alien entity preserved by the Shinra Science Department during a mission whose primary purpose had been to cause that to happen didn't constitute desertion. If I'd been evaluating someone else in the same position, I would have placed him on light duty for a few months while he got his head back on straight.

Lloyd sighed. "Get your ass down to the infirmary to join the others—you're bleeding all over," he told the Second Class, and waited until the man had left before turning to me again. "Fuck. What am I supposed to do with you?"

"Technically, I don't believe you're required to do anything with me. I didn't ask for special treatment." I ducked my shoulder to slide Masamune back into her scabbard.

"No, you didn't, did you? You're not the type. But if you're good enough to play with my Second Classes, you're too good to waste on the kind of shit they have the mercs doing." He drummed his fingers on his thigh for a moment. "Here's what I'm gonna do. There's no real established structure for a SOLDIER unit—we haven't been around long enough, yet. If I say you're some kind of auxiliary, no one's going to question it. If you can take on even Third Class missions, you'll take a bit of pressure off us. Come with me, and I'll write up some shit and find you somewhere to bunk until we ship out. You got any luggage?"

I shook my head. "This is it."

"I admire a man who travels that light." Lloyd gestured, and I fell in and followed him up to the row of small, identical offices that the Junon base provided for the use of officers in transit. I'd used them more than once myself. Lloyd had the third one on the left. He did not get along at all well with the standard computer terminal that had been provided. "Lessee here, special assignment forms . . . attach to SOLDIER Unit Eight: Blood Raiders . . . function . . . what the fuck is this? Go with 'other—combat' I guess . . . serial number . . . have to write it down, then go back and re-enter it, and who designed this shit, anyway? Okay, okay . . . now send it in . . . 'Approved', phew. You'd better be worth it. ID . . . housing . . . meals . . . okay, gotcha." He looked up as a printer in the corner spat out a laminated card. "Don't lose this," he said as he handed it to me.

I gave it a quick glance before I slipped it into my inner coat pocket with the mako flask. The photo had been taken while I was standing at the counter in the recruiting office. It was better than several other ID pictures I'd had during my years in Shinra, actually. It had the familiar SOLDIER logo, but without the coloured border that would have assigned me specifically to a class. I wasn't even going to try to read the codes at the bottom, because they looked like a horrible mishmash.

"You're bunking in C-214 with a couple of my Thirds," Lloyd provided. "You've got Second Class privileges for supply draw, not that you'd have any idea what that means. I'd suggest familiarizing yourself with the manual even if you have no use for three-quarters of what's in it. We'll be shipping out in a couple of days."

"Understood, Major. And thank you."

"You're welcome. Dismissed."

I did in fact know exactly what having Second Class privileges for supply draw meant at the Junon base, and set about exercising them. Body armour, Pauldron, Pattern C-6 (2 each). Mess kit, SOLDIER. And so on. One of the army grunts manning Supply gave me an irritated look when I sent him to the back corner of a warehouse to dig out a specific pattern and size of obsolete Turk covert ops uniform, but I just stared back at him coldly until he gave up and did as he was told. In the end, everything except the shoulder armour (which I put on immediately anyway) fit inside a standard duffel with room to spare.

The second floor of barracks building C looked much like the second floor of every other barracks building in Junon: a bland hallway with white walls and drab linoleum floors, lined with numbered doors situated at precise intervals. I swiped my card through the lock of 214. I wasn't precisely eager to meet my temporary roommates, but I might as well get it over with. I'd probably lived in closer quarters with worse people during the course of my career, in any case.

"Hello?"

I froze in the doorway. That voice. That familiar voice.

"They warned us we were getting another roommate," said the dark-haired Third Class who was sitting on one of the lower bunks shining his massive sword. "I didn't expect them to put a First in with us, though—are they really that tight on space?"

"I'm not a First Class," I said, stepping into the room and letting the door swing shut behind me.

A head of touseled reddish hair popped over the edge of the upper bunk. "Then you are seriously out of uniform, and you need to change as soon as possible."

What were they doing here? In the previous history, we'd all gone to Wutai with the Fifth Unit, several months before this.

"Sorry about that—Gen often isn't very tactful. I'm Angeal Hewley, Third Class."

"Genesis Rhapsodos," the redhead added from above.

"Seth Crescent, SOLDIER Special Auxiliary."

"There's no such thing," Genesis said.

I shrugged. "Talk to Major Walker. He's the one who decided my placement."

"Gen, you're being obnoxious," Angeal scolded, and offered me his hand. I wondered if he noticed the slight tremour in mine as I took it.

Treasure the time you have, Ifalna had told me.

I'll do my best.

Chapter Text

Chapter 14

Genesis Rhapsodos hated the silver-haired man from the first moment he saw him. Seth Crescent, SOLDIER Special Auxiliary. A mercenary who was on par with a Second Class, or perhaps even a First if the rumours were true. In the hour or so since squad 3A had landed in the infirmary, gossip about how it had happened had spread through the entire base, moving at the speed of light as always.

How could such a person even exist? Genesis had been busting his ass for more than a year now to make SOLDIER, and this man just walked in and was handed everything on a platter. And the most annoying part was that he didn't even seem all that obnoxious. Well, except for the way he dressed like a leather fetishist's wet dream, but he didn't seem to be interested in using his appearance to flirt.

"Where are you from?" Angeal asked the silver-haired man as the latter set his kit in one of the empty lockers under the lower bunk on the other side of the room. "Gen and I are both from Banora. We enlisted together."

Seth, if that was even his name, shrugged. "I grew up in Midgar, but I've been wandering the West Continent for the past several years."

"A city boy, then," Genesis sneered.

A silver eyebrow tilted up. "At one time, perhaps. I have no particular desire to go back there, although circumstances may force me to do so eventually. Banora . . . that's near Mideel, isn't it?" He was stripping off the harness for his sword so that he could sit down. Genesis whistled softly. What was that, bone? And the style of the elaborate carvings on the scabbard made it Wutainese work. The damned sword was an art object, and this man was just casually carrying it around.

Angeal was talking about Banora. Genesis was more interested in watching than listening to words describing old, well-worn scenes, though. Seth Crescent moved with subtle grace as he seated himself on the lower bunk opposite Angeal, lifting his absurdly long hair out of the way with gloved fingers, gathering it and drawing it forward over his right shoulder so that it fell across his chest and down into his lap. It wasn't white or grey, but a true, molten, metallic silver that shone in the light from the ugly fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. Unusual and striking. In fact, as the other man smiled slightly at something Angeal had said, Genesis realized that Seth Crescent was strikingly beautiful in a way that somehow, impossibly, failed to compromise his masculinity.

Which just wasn't fair at all.

When Angeal invited their new roommate to eat supper with them, Genesis almost exploded. Almost. But he didn't want to deal with the disappointed look Angeal was sure to give him. Genesis had few friends, and Angeal was the most valued of them.

The redhead did, however, have groupies, since he was one of the best swordsmen in Third Class, and handsome and self-assured. A shame that there was no easy way to use those groupies against Seth Crescent. Physical attacks were right out, getting him into trouble with the authorities seemed out of proportion to the offense, and the man had no posessions of value except his sword. But tampering with another SOLDIER's sword wasn't just a prank, or even a crime: it was a sin. Well, all right, Genesis did consider the leather coat as a target, but over the next day or so he found out that Seth seldom took it off except to sleep or to shower. And if the man owned a single shirt, it wasn't apparent. Genesis didn't want to have to spend his time gazing at that bare, pale, perfectly-formed torso.

Seth probably would have had groupies too, if he'd been just a little more approachable. Genesis couldn't figure the man out. Obviously educated. Cold and precise to the point of being stiff. With most people. He seemed to loosen up slightly around Angeal . . . and around Genesis, although he never tried to strike up a conversation, and Genesis only spoke to him directly when trying to bait him. The red-head's barbed tongue just slid off the man's leather-clad shoulders, however. He even seemed to find the insults amusing.

They were assigned to bunk together on the ship to Wutai, too. Normally, no one except Angeal was willing to share a room with Genesis, and anyone who was ordered to do so landed in the infirmary within the week. With nothing provable, of course. But either they were really tight for space, or someone had decided that Seth Crescent, having survived two days of Genesis' company, was made of sterner stuff.

And Seth really did make a terrible target for Genesis' more vicious materia-based . . . pranks. He was just too alert. And he wore an armlet full of mastered natural materia, and knew how to use them, although he wasn't quite as quick and fluid about it as Genesis. The redhead had set fire to a wastebasket as a test, and found it clothed in ice mere seconds later.

Genesis spent the first several days of the boat trip scowling and brooding in the lounge that had been provided for the Thirds—the ship had been a cruise vessel before being converted to a troop transport, and it still had hints of faded luxury here and there. And the room was one whose threshold Seth Crescent hadn't darkened so far.

On the fourth day, Angeal came and sat down beside him on a worn couch and put his hand between Genesis and his copy of Loveless, forcing the redhead to look up.

"I'm starting to wonder what's gotten into you," Angeal said. "You normally don't sulk this long. I know being stuck with another person in our room isn't much fun for you, but Seth's been bending over backwards not to bother you."

"That isn't it," Genesis admitted in a low voice. "You're right that he's being as unobtrusive as he can, considering. But he . . ." Genesis shook his head. "I don't understand how someone like him can exist. He's too perfect to be human, in so many ways, and it . . . isn't fair."

"This from the man who used to say that talent was unequally distributed, and those who didn't have it should just . . . I think the words were, 'admit they're worthless peons'?"

"That wasn't my best-considered turn of phrase," Genesis admitted, scowling down at his book. "But he's been handed everything we worked for on a platter, 'Geal!"

Angeal shook his head. "Unlike you, I've watched him practice. And spoken to a couple of the men from 3A. Seth's swordsmanship is phenomenal. Better than most of the First Classes'. He must have been working since he was a child to get that good. He might not have gone through Basic Training or SOLDIER School, but he was hunting monsters through some of the most Goddess-forsaken places on Gaia while we were still eating dumbapple pie at my mother's kitchen table and worrying about passing eighth grade algebra. I wouldn't say he's gotten something for nothing. You're just jealous because you hate military discipline, and he managed to bypass a year's worth of that."

"No, that isn't it. I—"

The ship lurched, nearly throwing them both off the couch. The two of them exchanged glances.

"Did we hit something?" Angeal asked aloud.

Then an intercom crackled to life. "Enemy attack! Enemy attack! All hands to battlestations! All SOLDIERs arm yourselves and get on deck! This is not a drill!"

"Attack by what, somebody's trained dragon? We're in the middle of the Goddess-forsaken ocean, and the Wutainese don't have any decent ships," Genesis growled. "Come on, 'Geal, let's go."

They had to return to their quarters for their swords first. Seth Crescent wasn't there, and neither was the excessively long nodachi with the bone scabbard. Perhaps he had already been on deck when the call came.

They clambered up into the open air with blades at the ready, and the moment they stepped out of the shelter of the last doorway, Genesis felt his boot skid on a patch of something too viscous to be mere seawater. He looked down, but somehow he already knew what he would see.

Blood.

Around them, there were screams and shouts . . . and smoke. Was the wretched boat on fire? Visibility was terrible. He couldn't even see what they were supposed to be fighting, unless some of the shadowy figures in the middle of the haze were Wutainese and not fellow SOLDIERs.

Before he could orient himself, though, a wall of water broke over the deck of the ship, and Genesis yelped and grabbed a convenient structural post of some kind, locking his non-sword arm around it, so as not to be swept away. Behind him, Angeal braced himself, boots to one wall and shoulders to the other, inside the mouth of the passageway they'd just come from.

"What in hell?" Genesis asked the world at large as the wave receded. And sneezed. He was cold and wet to the skin and very annoyed by both the situation and the fact that he still didn't know what was going on.

"Wutai seems to be throwing every summonable creature they have at us," replied a familiar voice as Seth Crescent dropped down from above, sword drawn. Had he always been left-handed? Genesis hadn't noticed until now. At least he was as wet as the rest of them, judging from the way his hair clung to his coat and his boots squelched as he landed. "One of the Firsts had a Shiva, and used it to take down the Ifrit they sent in first, but now we have a Leviathan after us, as well as a couple of lesser water and ice types."

"So what do we do?" Genesis demanded, then wished he hadn't. How in hell did Seth project the idea he was in charge without actually doing or saying anything to reinforce it?

The corner of the silver-haired man's mouth turned up. "Go after the Leviathan. The Firsts are being too conservative and trying to attack it from a distance. We need to close with it if we don't still want to be here next week."

Genesis barely stopped himself from gaping like a country boy on his first trip to Midgar. Seth's proposal was incredibly audacious, not to mention dangerous, but if they could pull it off . . .

"Which way?" he demanded.

"Gen—"

"Stay here if you like," he snapped at Angeal.

"Follow me," Seth said, and took off, sprinting across the deck. Genesis scrambled in his wake as they dodged another group fighting an unfamiliar Summon which had climbed up out of the ocean. Behind him, he could hear Angeal's heavier footfalls.

Seth led them to a section of railing between two Firsts who were squeezing off spells. Beyond the side of their ship, the Leviathan loomed out of the water, the top of its head even with their ship's funnels.

Seth went from deck to the top of the rail to flying through the air straight at the Summon's face without checking his speed. It was a ridiculous, reckless leap, and yet he landed neatly on top of the creature's head and knelt to stab downward. Genesis grinned fiercely and threw himself after the other man, sword extended. He didn't land quite as neatly, but his sword bit into the creature's flesh and held, allowing him to scramble up.

Angeal didn't quite make the leap either, landing on the Leviathan's snout and making it go cross-eyed as it tried to figure out exactly what was going on. The dark-haired man punched it in the eye with a nasty squishing sound as his fist sank in, and the Summon howled and reared back, almost flinging Genesis off. Indeed, he would have fallen into the water had Seth not grabbed his wrist with a grip firm enough to crack the bones of an unenhanced man.

"Can you cast Stop?" the silver-haired man shouted over the sound of the ocean and Leviathan's roar.

"Slow is the best I can do!" Genesis shouted back, cursing the meagre supply of materia Shinra offered to Thirds. The Leviathan was trying helplessly to bat Angeal off its nose with its forward fins, which weren't nearly long enough to reach.

"Good enough! Cast it!" Seth raised his hand, and a materia in his wristlet began to glow. Did he expect to tandem-cast? Didn't he know how difficult that was? You could spend years learning someone else's style of materia use and still not be able to synchronize that perfectly. "Genesis!"

The red-head gritted his teeth and cast the spell. Instantly, he felt a second casting linking with his and reinforcing it, making it spread over a wider area than could be covered by two separate spells and affect the entire Summon. The Leviathan's movements became sluggish. Seth hewed at its head with his deadly sword. Genesis turned around, straddling the neck, and drove his own blade into the base of the skull. Seth seemed to have either stabbed through the bone or found a hole in it, because he drove his blade in deep and then cast a lightning-elemental spell using the weapon as a conductor. It wasn't a trick Genesis had ever realized was possible, but it had an excellent effect on the Leviathan. It vented a howl, oddly distorted by the Slow spell, and then began to fall apart into sparkles of green light.

Genesis hadn't been ready for it, but once again, he was rescued by a leather-clad hand, as Seth threw him back towards the ship. The tall man somehow managed to apply enough force against their disintegrating opponent to leap after him, although his trajectory was less favourable. Genesis winced as he heard the loud clang! of a human-sized mass hitting the side of the boat. Seth, however, didn't seem dismayed by his landing, as he was powering his way up over the rail a moment later, still holding his sword in one hand.

"That was possibly the most impressive thing I have ever witnessed. And also one of the most risky," Major Walker said, following Angeal over to join them by the rail.

Seth shrugged and sheathed his sword. "As we're all still alive, my plan clearly didn't exceed our capacity to execute it. However, if you consider my actions worthy of punishment, I will accept it without complaint, Major."

"I'm not that concerned about you putting yourself at risk, but you dragged two inexperienced Thirds into it. Granted, they're two of our best Thirds, but that would just have made the loss to Shinra all the greater if you'd gotten them killed. And furthermore, unlike him—" The major was looking at Genesis and Angeal right now, but pointing at Seth. "—you two had a squad that you should have been with. What do you have to say for yourselves?"

Genesis jerked his chin up. "I was told that SOLDIERs need to exercise discretion, sir, not just follow orders."

"And you think jumping onto an enemy to make a close-range assault in full view of everyone on this ship counts as 'exercising discretion'?"

"In this case, sir, yes, I do. Besides, how were we even supposed to find our squad in that mess? It isn't as though we had an assembly plan." Genesis ignored the way his words made Angeal wince. The dark-haired man would defy authority from now until next Tuesday if he felt his precious honour required it, but he would never do it for the sake of expediency.

"I should sentence you to a week of latrine duty for being a wiseass rules lawyer, never mind anything else, but the ship's captain reserves that kind of thing for his sailors," the major grumbled. "As it is, none of you are getting a mission payment or a kill bonus, got that? And the only reason you aren't getting anything worse is that you may have saved all our asses. Now, get below."

Seth ran a hand through his damp hair as the major walked away, and grimaced at the additional deposit of salt on his glove. There were already white encrustations appearing on the black leather wherever it was beginning to dry.

"You might as well get into the shower with all your clothes on," Genesis said with a smirk.

"I may do just that," the silver-haired man said, in an extremely dry tone of voice. Then, more gently, "Are you both all right?"

Genesis blinked. Was he genuinely worried? That was . . . unexpected. "I'm fine." Thanks to you. Although it hurt his pride to admit it.

"Bruised, scratched up, and cold and wet, but it isn't going to kill me," Angeal added. "And we'd better get below before Major Walker comes back."

Genesis hesitated as his childhood friend began to walk away. "Why did you give me that boost back onto the ship? You could have ended up in the water yourself."

"We're comrades in arms," Seth replied, as though it were obvious. "I acted to give us both the best chance of reaching safety."

Comrades. Genesis thought he might be able to live with that.

Chapter Text

Chapter 15 (Sephiroth's narrative)

I couldn't claim that I slid back into a familiar pattern of interaction with Genesis and Angeal in Wutai. Not quite. But I knew that the one who had changed was me. I was older, more experienced, and of a different status than I had been when I had known them before.

Oddly, it was the difference in age that seemed to have changed things most. In the previous timeline, there had been a period when Genesis and I truly were equals in most ways, when his extra year of growth, combined with determination, gave him enough of an advantage to close the gap that my greater enhancement should have created. That had been over before the end of the war, when I'd reached my full adult size and started to pull ahead again, and I suspected the transition from equal to inferior had been part of what had destroyed him.

He wasn't going to be able to pull even with me this time, not unless I started to show signs of deterioration due to age. And even then, I knew it wouldn't be the same.

Still, we formed a comfortable triangle in fairly short order. By the end of November, Lloyd Walker had become somewhat resigned to that status quo and assigned us together as our own small squad, on the grounds that we completed missions otherwise considered impossible. And (although the number of people I was commanding didn't justify it) he'd given me a set of lieutenant's bars and a promotion, which I found more amusing than anything. Such a comedown from my old rank! Nevertheless, I wore the insignia in its proper place, clipped to my sword harness, because a little authority could be useful sometimes.

No one had told my PHS about my demotion, and I found the fact that it retained all of its old monitoring and command authority codes even more amusing than the lieutenant's bars . . . and potentially more useful, although I'd only be able to employ them once, or perhaps twice, before I had the Turks coming down on me like a ton of bricks.

Midwinter's Eve found me lying fully clothed on a cot in a tent in central Wutai, idly reading an improbable spy novel I'd pulled from one of the shipments of assorted entertainment materials that occasionally turned up at the camp. Angeal, having drawn guard duty the night before, was asleep on the opposite side of the tent, and Genesis was in between us with his well-worn copy of Loveless. I had never understood how he could endure reading the same text over and over again. He also had a dozen Fire materia spread across the floor around him, all glowing with just enough energy to keep the air warm. We'd been using that trick a lot, because the alternative was squeezing into a tiny prefab building with twelve other men, and Genesis had rejected that. Not that it was my first preference either. Meanwhile, the ground outside was frozen and covered in three inches of snow, although it wasn't nearly as cold or unpleasant as Nibelheim in winter.

"Lieutenant Crescent?" someone called from outside the tent. "Are you there, sir?"

"Yes," I replied, closing my book.

"Major Walker wants to see you immediately, sir."

"A mission now?" Genesis asked the world in general as I rose from the cot, grabbed Masamune, and pushed through the tent flaps, out into the cold. Behind me, I could hear Angeal stirring too.

"Is the major in his office?" I asked the young infantryman who was waiting outside.

"Yes, sir. I was told to ask you to hurry."

That didn't sound good. I took off at my fastest walking pace—a SOLDIER officer, or anyone who appeared to be a First Class, running inside the bounds of the camp was treated like a portent of the End Times by the ordinary infantry, and it was clear that the base itself wasn't under attack. The infantryman who had been sent to fetch me had to trot to keep up, since he was much shorter than I was.

Lloyd Walker's office was inside one of the six Wutainese houses that had come into Shinra's posession when the army had commandeered the deserted hamlet. The tatami mats on the floors of the interconnecting rooms were beginning to break down where they'd been pounded over and over again by combat boots. Any true Wutainese would have been livid to see the damage, I knew.

Walker wasn't alone in his office. An infantry lieutenant was sitting in the corner, wrapped in a blanket. I glanced at him, then drew myself to attention and saluted formally.

"Lieutenant Crescent reporting, sir."

Lloyd returned my salute. The corner of his mouth twitched with amusement, as it always did when circumstances led to us sharing this particular military ritual. "As you were. I'm sure you've already figured out I have a job for your team. First things first, though." He placed a small object on his desk and pushed it toward me. "Congradulations, Captain."

I accepted the triple-diamond insignia and replaced my old lieutenant's bars with it. I also raised an eyebrow—granted, promotions came quickly in wartime, but less than a month was a bit abnormal.

Walker shrugged slightly. "Colonel Murray was impressed by your defense of the Shinbashi Bridge, so when he decided we needed to promote someone, your name was the first one that came up. When the new troops arrive after Midwinter, you'll be placed in command of an independent company reporting directly to Headquarters, and I'm being transferred to the First Army, so this may be the last mission I ever assign you. Rhapsodos and Hewley will be going with you, of course."

"Thank you, Major." Sending Angeal and Genesis on with me certainly hadn't been required of him, and I was honestly glad he had done it. "And the mission?"

"We're sending you on a rescue. Or it could be considered a monster eradication mission. This is Lieutenant Hefner, Sixth Medical Company. They were transferring a group of wounded overland to the coast, so that they could return to the East Continent to recuperate, when they were ambushed by creatures they had never seen before. Some of them managed to escape and hole up in a cave, but all that means is that they're trapped there."

I looked at Hefner, who had been sitting quietly in the corner. "What kind of creatures are we talking about?"

"Imagine something like a grand horn, but smarter, wearing armour, and carrying an axe, and you've more-or-less got it, sir."

I didn't let it show on my face, but inwardly, I felt a twitch of surprise. Vajradhara? They shouldn't be in production for at least another two years! Granted, I knew that history had been changed by my actions, but this particular set of events hadn't been one that I'd expected to see speed up.

"Segmented armour, like that worn by the heavier Wutainese troops?" I asked.

"Yes, sir."

"How many of them did you run into?"

"About four, sir."

I relaxed a hair. Four vajradhara, I would be able to handle alone. With Angeal and Genesis along for the ride, that part should be easy. But it wasn't the only consideration. "How many people are we going to need to move, and in what state?"

"About thirty, I think. The remaining wounded are all capable of walking. The ones who weren't . . . didn't make it."

"Transport remaining on site?"

"They destroyed our vans, if that's what you're asking. The roads had already broken a couple of axles before we even got that far, though."

"And the location?" I nodded toward the large map pinned to the back wall.

Hefner considered it for a moment, then pointed. "Around here, sir."

Twenty-odd miles from the camp by the most direct route, but nearly fifty by road. I turned to Major Walker. "We'll need chocobos. And some infantry to help manage them. Is it possible for Lieutenant Hefner to come with us?" Without Hefner, once we took out the vadrajhara, we would be searching for a hole in the ground in an area full of holes in the ground, in the middle of winter and with hostile forces on the move around us. However, I didn't know if he was medically fit.

"Take whatever you need, Captain," was all Walker said. "And give these to Rhapsodos and Hewley. Dismissed."

I pocketed the two small packages. I suspected I already knew what was in them.

In the chocobo stables, I ordered that all available birds be made ready. The encampment had a pool of about thirty chocobos for general use, plus a handful more that belonged to specific officers. A dozen of them were typically unavailable at any given time—exhausted from a mission, injured, or reserved for something-or-other. If I was lucky, I might get twenty birds. Some of the wounded were going to be riding double, but they might have needed to anyway.

"That include the ferals we just brought in, Captain?" the sergeant running the stable asked.

"If they can be ridden. Forty birds in total would be ideal." Some feral chocobos took well to domestication, and would agree to let themselves be ridden by the first human to offer them greens. Others never did quite get used to the idea. "I'll need an appropriate number of handlers, as well. Expect an overnight trip."

"Yessir!" The sergeant went over to a game of stud poker in the corner, and upended the crate the men were laying their cards on with a crash. I didn't bother to stay and see what happened next, instead striding back through camp to the tent I shared with Angeal and Genesis.

Genesis, who had once more been reading the same copy of Loveless, slammed the book shut. "So, do we have a mission? Who's he?" He gestured at Hefner, who had been following me around like a lost puppy. "Nice jewelry, by the way." And he nodded at my insignia with a familiar smirk.

"I have some for you, too," I said, tossing him one of the packages Major Walker had given me. "This is Lieutenant Hefner. His unit is in trouble, and we get to go rescue them. We'll probably be out overnight."

"Ugh," came a response from Angeal's cot. "Terrible timing."

"Fifteen minutes to get ready," I warned him. "And this is yours." I handed the dark-haired man, my old friend, Major Walker's second package.

Genesis had already gotten his open and fastened his new lieutenant's bars to his harness. I think that if he'd been a little younger, he might have made some loud and Zack-like noise out of sheer pleasure. As it was, he smirked at me. "I knew sticking with you was the right decision."

Angeal pulled on his boots, harness, new insignia, and swords, and we all grabbed the bags we kept ready. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

"Are we taking a jeep?" the dark-haired man asked.

I shook my head. "Chocobos."

"Don't worry," Genesis added. "We'll find you a nice docile one with a wide back so you can sleep along the way."

Hefner cleared his throat. "Is this it? The three of you?"

"Plus you and the chocobo handlers," I said.

"Don't bother arguing," Angeal said, and yawned. "So far, there hasn't been a single time that Seth hasn't turned out to know exactly what he's doing."

"SOLDIERs are all crazy," Hefner muttered.

With all the spare birds, we made quite a cavalcade. As Genesis had suggested, we found a nice, calm, part-draft hen that would let Angeal doze on her back. Genesis himself had a favourite bird, a leggy fellow of fine breeding that let loose a cheerful wark the moment his human approached.

I rode one of the ferals, a tall, rangy, one-eyed hen who snapped at me when I took up the reins. I slapped her on the beak, and after that, she seemed to figure out that I wasn't going to let myself be intimidated.

A good chocobo can trot at about ten miles an hour, and keep it up all day, with occasional breaks for water and greens. It took us a bit more than two hours to reach the point where the Sixth Medical Company had been forced to abandon their vehicles. A couple of the vans were still burning, and all of them had been hacked apart by massive blades. There were also a wide assortment of footprints in the snow, spent bullet casings, discarded supplies, and the requisite blood and corpses. As Hefner has said, the non-walking wounded hadn't had a chance.

Most of the footprints led in the same direction. I glanced at Hefner, who nodded.

"Once we locate the enemy, SOLDIERs are to dismount and close, and all other personnel are to drop back with the chocobos," I said. There was a ragged "yes, sir!" chorus in response, and I steered my irritable bird toward the trail of footprints.

Four more miles and almost half an hour of travel, and our path was suddenly blocked by a mass of boulders. Snow-covered, but sitting directly across the footprints.

The vadrajhara had almost been smart enough.

I called the halt with a gesture and swung down off my bird. One of the chocobo handlers took her, and I waved them all back down the trail. Beside me, Genesis and Angeal drew their swords. I nodded to Genesis, who smirked and volleyed off a Hell Firaga.

Snow flew everywhere as the "boulders" became massive, armoured, bipedal forms. We'd caught them by surprise instead of the other way around, and I took the opportunity to drive Masamune into the shoulder joint of one of the creatures from below, crippling its arm. It roared angrily and swung at me with its empty hand. I dodged and slashed at its wrist, crippling that hand as well, so that it couldn't pick up its weapon. From there, it was easy to dispatch by impaling it through the eye socket and pithing the brain.

It had taken less than thirty seconds, all told. I glanced around for my next target. Angeal was exchanging blows with one vadrajhara on an equal basis, and Genesis had blinded another by burning it across the face and was playing with it. The third was sneaking up behind the redhead, and I hit it with a faceful of lightning, then sheared the handle of its axe off short with Masamune, forcing it to attack me with its bare hands. It hadn't learned from the death of its brother. I jumped and cut down on the unprotected back of its neck, and that was that.

I turned away to discover Genesis pulling his sword out of his dead opponent's face, and Angeal applying a coup do grace to one that appeared to have broken both arms. Two minutes, approximately, from start to finish.

"Burn them," I told Genesis. "We can't afford to take any risks." A handful of ashes wasn't going to resurrect itself and attack us from the rear. However, the Science Department would want a sample of the new and interesting (to them) creatures, and not giving them one would only make various people unnecessarily annoyed. I used Masamune to chop a horn and the skin sheathing it off the nearest corpse, then packed the severed end in snow to reduce the mess it would make. Then I had one of the chocobo handlers find a bag for me while Genesis started a nice pyre for the vadrajhara.

Hefner stared at me as I packaged up the horn and fastened it to the harness of my grumpy, one-eyed bird. I ignored him.

It was late in the afternoon by then, with the sun ducking low and throwing deep shadows across the landscape. Which didn't make hunting for a cave entrance in all the churned-up snow any easier. If we couldn't find it, we'd have to turn back soon. We weren't equipped to spend the night in the open.

"I think . . . a little more this—yii!" Hefner yelled suddenly as a net popped out from under the snow and closed around him. Zack would probably have laughed.

I followed the unfortunate lieutenant's footprints through the snow to the edge of the area where the net had lain hidden. Improvised from a cargo net, some ropes, and a couple of saplings, I realized as I examined it. The saplings hadn't been strong or springy enough to actually lift the full net off the ground, but they'd done a fair job of pulling it shut.

I freed Hefner with a quick slice of Masamune and examined the rocky hillside nearby. No one built a trap in an area where there was nothing to protect and no animals to hunt. There. That darker shadow was . . . a gap. Although I didn't understand why there was no lookout.

"Does this look right?" I asked Hefner, who had shaken himself free of the net.

"Yes, it does. There's a passageway, and then it opens up further inside."

"Alright then. Behind me." I kept Masamune bare in my hand, although she wasn't the best weapon for confined spaces. There was still something here that didn't feel quite right.

The temperature warmed rapidly as we went deeper inside, although it never exactly rose to summer levels. As I approached a curve, I began to see a light up ahead, and also to hear a voice speaking in soothing tones. I wasn't able to make out what it was saying until I got somewhat closer thought, and when I did, it made my hair stand on end.

"Please, put the gun down before you hurt someone."

"That's the entire point. Don't you see? We're all going to die here! We can't get past those things at the entrance, and Hefner's already been eaten and—"

I gauged the distance and direction to the second voice as best I could, and cast Stop. There was a bewildered silence.

Around another corner, and I was able to step into the larger cave where the survivors had taken refuge. Those who were conscious were goggling at the would-be gunman, currently frozen like a statue. He wouldn't have been worthy of notice without the weapon in his hand—middle-aged and almost bald, he wore the uniform of a common trooper. Presumably, he had signed up long before the war and had been a guard of some sort for the vans, or a driver.

I plucked the gun from his hand. It was an ordinary sidearm. I made certain the safety was on, and pocketed it. "Captain Seth Crescent, SOLDIER Unit Eight," I introduced myself. "Who's senior here?"

"I am." Another middle-aged man. This one in a medical uniform, with a captain's triple diamonds. Fortunately, a SOLDIER officer outranked a non-SOLDIER of the same grade, so I wouldn't need to wrestle for control here. "Captain John Richter, MD. We have one other doctor, three nurses, one orderly, two guards, and nineteen patients."

"You're going to have to make space overnight for three SOLDIERs, Lieutenant Hefner, four chocobo handlers, and twenty-six chocobos," I told him. "We've cleared away all the 'things at the entrance', but it's too late to take you back to camp tonight."

Richter wrinkled his nose. "Chocobos. Well, if we must. Start bringing them in, please, and we'll work something out."

"Izzy! Thank the goddess you're alright," Hefner was telling someone off to the side.

"No, thank the Goddess you are, or my sister would never let me hear the end of it," laughed a younger, bronze-skinned man who also wore lieutenant's bars and a medical doctor's insignia. "I can't believe they managed to get rid of those monsters."

"The SOLDIERs powered through them in five minutes flat," Hefner said, shaking his head. "They're really something. Especially Captain Crescent. He took out two of them. By himself."

Izzy's eyes went round. "Wow. I mean, you hear the stories, but . . ."

"Yeah, I know. I didn't believe them either, until I saw them go at it. But I sure as hell do now."

I shook my head. "Hefner, tie that idiot up." I gestured toward the still-Stopped would-be murder-suicide. "Angeal, go tell everyone to start bringing the birds in."

Fortunately, it was a big cave, and we were able to make all of the chocobos fit, although the smell was . . . unfortunate. In the end, I took the job of lookout at the cave mouth for myself. Although I almost had to fight Genesis for it.

The first stars were coming out when I heard movement from back inside the cave. A moment later, I saw the beam of a flashlight.

"Hello? Captain Crescent? I brought you dinner." Izzy, the junior doctor, held out a steaming package that I recognized as the main component of a standard-issue field ration, already heated. He had the rest of the ration in his other hand with the flashlight.

I stretched out my hand to accept it. "Chocobo stew," I noted with amusement as I read the codes on the package.

"The handlers brought it with them. I get the impression they eat it a lot."

Metaphorically taking irritation out on their charges, no doubt. Still, it could have been worse. The different flavours of ration varied widely in their edibility, and the chocobo stew was at the higher end of the range. I'd once spent a week at a remote base with nothing to eat but "Tomato Veg Rice" rations, otherwise known as Mystery Mush.

I opened the stew package and picked up the included spork. Regardless of whether it was good or terrible, my other option for a meal was the protein bars in my pocket, and even Mystery Mush was better than those.

"Captain Crescent?"

I glanced up. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"I . . . um . . . I just wanted to say thank you. We thought . . . well. We're not that important, you know? We thought that even if anyone was sent to pick us up, they'd turn right around when they saw those monsters."

"Fighting monsters is a SOLDIER's job, Lieutenant. Just as patching people back together is yours."

"My life isn't usually at risk when I'm sewing up a cut," the young doctor protested.

I raised an eyebrow. "Isn't it? You never know what might be in someone's bloodstream, what kind of virus they might have picked up since their last screening, or what kind of poison they may have encountered. If disease breaks out among the troops, you and those like you become frontline defenders—with a corresponding risk to your own lives. At least SOLDIERs only have to fight things we can see."

Izzy smiled. "I suppose that's true. I'm Juan Alvarez, but everyone calls me Izzy—I just realized I never introduced myself. And I'm still thankful that you came to rescue us."

"You can owe us a favour, if it makes you more comfortable," I said, and took another bite of chocobo stew.

It's odd, how the smallest encounters can have an effect on our lives. I never expected to call that favour in, but perhaps the Goddess knew better than I.

Chapter Text

Chapter 16

"Can I have a word, sir?"

"Tseng, isn't it?" Veld raised his eyebrows at the young Wutainese man who was waiting politely outside the door. "I can give you fifteen minutes." Their newest Turk was far too stiff, he reflected, but he'd already tried to correct that without much success.

"Thank you, sir."

"You're currently assigned to check military dossiers, aren't you?" All officers being promoted to field grade had to undergo a background check. Normally that wasn't a problem, but the combination of rapid wartime personnel turnover with the general increase in the size of the military meant that there were two Turks assigned to it full-time, for all practical purposes. Veld tried to rotate the duty through the department to keep anyone from getting too bored. "Did you find something that needs an urgent follow-up?"

"More of a mystery, sir. This man has no background at all. And he's a SOLDIER, although his enlistment was . . . irregular."

Veld's eyebrows climbed higher. Candidates for the SOLDIER program were normally screened with a great deal more care than field officers. "Let me see that," he said, holding out his hand for the folder.

He flipped it open, and immediately froze, staring at a photograph. Silver hair. Green mako eyes. Skin whose colour was just on the healthy side of albinism, made paler by the fact that the subject of the photo was wearing black leather.

Project S.

The Turk shook his head. The man in the photo was clearly mature, in his twenties at least. Far too old to be the child who had vanished from the lab almost four years ago now. And yet, the colouring and features matched.

Seth Crescent, he read. Age twenty-eight, supposedly. Enlisted as a solo mercenary and was immediately dragooned by SOLDIER. Prenatal mako exposure confirmed by the Eighth Unit's medical staff as the most likely cause of an extremely high and unusually stable blood mako level. Mako booster shots and other SOLDIER-specific medical stabilization treatments not required. Next-of-kin . . . an odd name and an address in the tiny West Continent village of Nibelheim. Service record . . .

That covered several pages, and Veld found himself whistling silently. What was this guy, a one-man army? It looked like he'd been wading knee-deep in Wutainese blood. Promotions and commendations and a recommendation for a medal that was now working its way through the system, all in a bit more than six months. Currently commanding the Third Special Operations Company of the Second Army in central Wutai.

Now he was almost certain that he had just found Project S, somehow. But if he had . . . what did it matter, really? With Hojo dead, the project was permanently on hold, and its single success had thus far kept his mouth shut. In fact, if this was the missing Sephiroth, he was helping Shinra.

"Did you follow up on this . . . Cloud Strife?" Veld asked, after checking the name again.

Tseng nodded. "The Nibelheim address belongs to a single mother named Claudia Strife and her son Cloud, who will be turning ten this year. Seth Crescent has apparently been living there on-and-off since mid-1992, and teaching the boy swordsmanship. The problem is that I can't find any record of him before that year. At all. When I spoke on the phone to Claudia Strife, she said that Crescent had mentioned having lived in Midgar, but I haven't been able to find anything to prove that."

In short, he first shows up a few months after Project S vanished, Veld reflected. There were too many coincidences for "Seth Crescent" not to be Sephiroth. Perhaps something in what Hojo had done to him had allowed him to alter his age somehow.

"What else did Claudia Strife have to say about Seth Crescent?" Veld asked.

Tseng shrugged. "She described him as intelligent, quiet, serious, and polite. Also, stiff and not very sociable, but capable of pressuring people into doing what he wants by sheer force of personality on the rare occasions that it seems to matter to him. The only person in town he had much contact with, other than the Strifes, is a Wutainese-born martial arts teacher named Zangan Yoshida. Which did not make me any more comfortable with the situation. Do we need to make a detailed follow-up on this, sir?"

Veld closed the folder. Tapped it on the surface of his desk.

"I don't think that will be necessary, Tseng," he said. "What you've found is the last residue of an old, closed case. Seth Crescent's early records would have been destroyed as part of the cover-up. I don't think he's likely to harm Shinra at this point—he's had previous opportunities. Add a note to his file indicating a cross-reference with case file C-00083-J-1992 and let the check go through."

"Understood." Tseng took the folder back, and, leaving quietly, shut the door behind him.

There were two framed photographs on the corner of Veld's desk. One was of his wife holding their baby daughter. The other showed two young men in Turk uniforms, smirking as they raised shot glasses in a toast.

Did I do the right thing, Vince? Veld wondered, looking at the second photo. I never realized it when I was looking at the pictures of him as a kid, but . . . if he had red-brown eyes, and you'd gone prematurely grey and grown your hair out, you two would look an awful lot alike.

It was partly because of that slim possibility that he'd let "Seth Crescent" go (although the fact that he had no orders about the man also helped). He'd been sure from the first that Sephiroth wasn't Hojo's kid, because Hojo was a perfectionist. He wouldn't have wanted his perfect specimen to carry genes for nearsightedness and a tendency toward spinal disorders. But the actual sperm donor involved could have been any male who had been an employee of Shinra between 1963 and 1979. Vincent was a candidate, but so was his father Grimoire. So was Veld himself, truth be told, but Sephiroth didn't look anything like him.

Your son, or your brother, or something. Maybe the last piece of you. Turks weren't supposed to be sentimental, but it seemed that Veld couldn't help himself this time. No matter how shameful he found it.

Cloud moved quietly through the mansion's dusty rooms. Not that he wasn't capable, these days, of dealing with a few Dorky Faces on his own, but he wasn't here to hunt today.

The lab was as ugly as he remembered it, chemicals and apparatus and other weird stuff everywhere. Dusty, too. He didn't think Seth had ever cleaned it up properly, and he was pretty sure they were the only ones who had come down here since the Shinra people had left.

Seth would be coming home tomorrow. He'd called up Cloud to tell him he was in Rocket Town, and that he had a couple of weeks before he had to go back to Wutai. And Cloud could hardly wait to see his teacher again and show him how much he'd improved. But there was something else he had to do first.

I can't ask him about it without having a better idea what I'm asking for.

Cloud was taller, now, than the complicated glassware installation at the back of the lab. And he still didn't know how it worked. But when the weather had been too cold to travel and he'd come to the mansion to hunt monsters, he'd seen a faint gleam of green in the large beaker that seemed to be the output of the system, and realized that there was still a little there. Just a few drops of purified mako, but that was all he needed for this. All he needed for a test.

He'd brought some alcohol wipes with him. Now he opened the little packets and used one to clean his knife and the other to wipe the little finger of his left hand. He made the smallest of nicks on the pad of the finger, just enough to draw blood. Then he tilted the beaker to one side, to make all the mako gather there, and stuck his hand in and quickly brushed the cut against the glowing green stuff.

It burned. Allfather Odin, did it burn.

Cloud snatched his hand back out and held it to his chest as tears ran down his face. Nothing had ever hurt like that before, even cracking his shin when the rope bridge had come apart in the mountains and he and Tifa had fallen. After Seth had used his wings in the Rocket Town pass, Cloud had watched the tall man stick a needle full of this stuff into his own arm and squeeze the plunger until the veins glowed through the skin, and Seth's expression had never changed, and Cloud didn't understand how he could have done it. Maybe it hurt a little less if you'd had the catalyst-thing already. Or maybe the mako was the reason why Seth barely seemed to notice when he got hurt any other way.

The pain slowly faded, and when Cloud looked at his hand, the cut was gone. Not healed, just gone. Like he'd never cut himself in the first place. He shook out his left hand, then ran his fingers through his hair. It was wet and plastered to his head, and his shirt was all wet and gross and sticking to his skin. He was going to need to take a shower before supper.

I think maybe I really am going to wait until I'm fourteen to talk about the mako. He still wanted it, wanted to be strong—wanted to be like Seth, with wings and glowing cat-dragon eyes—but now he was scared of it, too.

The next day was warm and sunny—well, warm and sunny for Nibelheim in early spring when the snow was only just starting to melt—and Cloud did his sword practice outside at the mountain end of town, where he'd be able to spot Seth the moment he arrived.

"Wark!"

Cloud looked up and grinned. There were no chocobos in Nibelheim. Except for Seth, he didn't even know anyone else in town who had ridden one.

And there he was, swinging down off a yellow bird that fluffed its crest and warked again when it saw Cloud looking at it. Seth took the chocobo's reins and led it over to him as Cloud carefully put his practice sword down before running over to hug the silver-haired man. He hid his grin against the black leather coat as Seth ruffled his hair. He was so happy, it felt like he might burst.

"You've grown," the tall man said.

"I just wish I could grow quicker," Cloud said, looking up. Then you wouldn't have to leave me behind.

"And your lessons?"

"At school, or with Zangan?"

"Both."

"I'm nearly a year ahead at school. Miss Carter says it's nice to have someone in the class who pays attention. And Zangan says I'm doing pretty well. Tifa still kicks my ass, though. And I wish I had someone besides just the monsters to practice against with my sword."

Seth's smile hadn't changed. It was still very small, just a quirk at the corner of his lips. "Let me take the chocobo to the stables at the inn. Then we'll see how much you've forgotten."

Cloud nodded, and ran to grab his practice sword so that he could follow the tall man into town. Not that he'd actually forgotten anything, but he knew he was going to have to prove it.

His mom and Miss Carter had both given him permission to take time off from school while Seth was here, since he'd managed to get so far ahead in class. Cloud spent the next ten days at sword lessons and hunting monsters in places where he wasn't supposed to go alone, following Seth around like a shadow.

He cried the night before Seth left, quietly and all alone in his bed, because big boys weren't supposed to cry where anyone could see them. But he knew he couldn't change it. It was just like all those times Seth had left before: Cloud had to trust that he would come back again.

But he had one more thing to do first, and he followed Seth into the stable to saddle his chocobo so that he could do it in private.

"You probably won't be here for Midwinter again, and I don't know when your birthday is, so I figured I'd give you this now," Cloud said, holding out the red materia. He had never given Seth anything before, because he hadn't had anything he'd thought the man would want. "I found it in one of the materia caves up on the mountain. I'm not strong enough to use it, at least not yet, but I figured . . ." He ran out of words as an expression he'd never seen before flashed across Seth's face, then vanished again.

Seth's gloved fingers closed over both Cloud's smaller hand and the materia. "When it calves, I'll return the child-orb to you," was all he said.

Cloud nodded. He could feel a lump forming in his throat, but he wasn't going to cry again. He'd promised himself that. He was going to be brave, even if this was more difficult than facing down a dragon. Because Seth was going back to the war, and people died in wars.

Seth popped one of the green materia out of his wristlet and put the summon in.

"You're going to be okay, aren't you?" Cloud blurted at last. "I mean, you won't . . . die, over there? Will you?"

"I'm difficult to kill," the tall man said. "I'll see you again, Cloud. I promise."

Again, Cloud nodded.

Not-crying had to be the hardest thing in the world.

Genesis Rhapsodos glared angrily at the closed door as he rubbed his nose, reddened from too-intimate contact with the pavement of Loveless Street.

"Is that the third place you've been thrown out of today?" Angeal asked, staring down at his friend with folded arms.

"The fourth," Genesis replied.

Angeal sighed. "I swear, Gen, you're the only person I know who can be obnoxious enough to get himself thrown out of four clothing stores without being drunk out of his mind as well. What's wrong with you?"

"Other than that ignorant fool claiming that tangerine is an 'in' colour this season? I suppose being free to roam Midgar for two weeks isn't as much fun as I thought it would be." Genesis dusted off his new, red, Second Class uniform and scowled at his reflection in a plate glass window.

"You'd rather be at the front? Or maybe back in Banora?"

"I don't know, 'Geal. It's just . . . since we went on leave, everything feels . . . not right, somehow."

"Well, it's been nearly sixth months since the last time it was just the two of us."

So I'm not the only one who feels there's a Seth-Crescent-shaped hole just off to the side somewhere, the redhead reflected. It wasn't that the silver-haired man had ever come between himself and Angeal, but he'd somehow made himself a part of their dynamic nonetheless, sliding himself in like a needed puzzle piece that was now missing again.

"'The wind sails over the water's surface / Quietly, but surely,'" Genesis quoted at his reflection. And sighed. "Even if we went back to Wutai this minute, it wouldn't be right, with Seth off in Nibble-whatsis."

"Nibelheim," Angeal said.

"What a revolting name for a town."

"It's quite picturesque, actually. I looked it up—really old stone houses, and mountains in the background."

"I cannot imagine that man going to some mountain village to admire the scenery," Genesis spat. Having gotten most of the dust off himself, he began to move on down the street, stopping here and there to peer into a window.

"Maybe he has a girlfriend there."

Genesis' snippy response stuck in his throat. True, there was no reason Seth shouldn't have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or even a wife. He was a stunningly attractive man, and his personality, if rather low-key in some ways, wasn't unpleasant.

"He could even have children," Genesis realized, horrified.

"I suppose he could. You have to admit that we know very little about him."

Which was true. Getting personal details out of Seth Crescent was . . . frustrating. Ask a question he didn't want to answer, and he simply wouldn't. He'd go silent, change the subject, leave the area, or simply lay a hand on his sword and shoot a glare at whoever was asking.

"He does talk to someone on his PHS." Genesis scowled, and told himself that surely it was Seth's little old granny on the other end of those conversations.

Angeal nodded. "I've never dared ask him who it is either."

"You want to know as much as I do," Genesis said, and pointed a finger theatrically at Angeal when the other man hesitated. "Admit it!"

"He's the closest friend either of us has ever had besides each other—of course I want to know more about him. There's this expression he gets sometimes—have you ever noticed?"

"As though he feels horribly guilty about something?" Genesis had seen it flash across the silver-haired man's face a few times. Random times. Never when he would have expected to see it, either. If someone under his command died, Seth seemed to take it with grim stoicism, but make a tasteless joke about setting a Wutainese town on fire, and he'd get that expression for a split second.

"I think something terrible must have happened to him. Maybe that's why he won't talk about the past."

Genesis rolled his eyes. "Now you're just being depressing. We could try to wear him down—keep asking questions until he answers out of sheer irritation." Since nothing else has worked so far.

"I think that would just chase him away. Maybe if we're patient and supportive, he'll open up a bit more."

"And how long do you expect that to take?" Patience had never been the red-head's strongest suit.

"Years, probably."

"Getting him drunk would be more efficient."

"Gen, he's a First. They can't get drunk."

"He isn't really a First," Genesis said stubbornly. "He's never been through the SOLDIER process, or been assigned a Class. Maybe he doesn't have such a high resistance to alcohol."

Angeal sighed. "Well, I suppose we can try. The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work."

Genesis made a mental note to get his hands on some quality liquor while they were here. Not that Seth was particular exactly, since the man was willing to shovel the most Goddess-forsaken horrible stuff into his mouth and swallow it down if that was all that was available when he needed to refuel, but if he had even half the sensory acuity of a normal First, he'd be more tempted by something that tasted good.

"Or one of us could try to seduce him," the redhead offered facetiously, just to make his companion laugh. "That loosens some people up."

"I think we should stick with the liquor for now," Angeal said with the expected chuckle. "Unless you want to do it anyway."

"Me? Oh, no, perish the thought. We'd never be able to agree on who was going to top, unless Seth is far kinkier than I think he is." Truth be told, while Genesis knew himself to be attracted to both men and women, the number of men with whom he'd acted on that attraction was small, and what he'd actually done with them had been limited. The thought of hopping into Seth Crescent's bed would have frightened him a bit if he'd contemplated it seriously, so he refused to do so. No matter how attractive the man was. "And I've never seen him so much as look at anyone as though he were interested. Either he's very repressed, or he's unnaturally fond of chocobos." Although Genesis really didn't think so, since he'd never caught Seth looking at the birds with unsavoury interest, either.

"I really wish you hadn't planted that image in my head, Gen," his friend said. Angeal was straight enough that you could use him as a ruler—Genesis knew that, too. But the dark-haired man put up with his jokes anyway.

That was why they were such good friends.

Chapter Text

Chapter 17 (Sephiroth's narrative)

Returning to the front to discover I'd received another promotion was a bit of a surprise, since I knew I should never have passed the required background check. Some overworked Turk intern must have decided that no news was good news. Personally, I would have fired him.

The ID that went with my major's insignia also, for the first time, had the border of black triangles marking me as a First Class SOLDIER. I was even less certain how that had come about, which made me uncomfortable. I didn't like owing favours to invisible people. They could be called in at the most inconvenient times.

Nevertheless, having official First Class status put me in a better position to claw my way even further up the ranks, so I made no effort to delve too far into the matter. The maze of lies I'd built only had to hold together long enough for me to destroy Jenova, and save Genesis and Angeal (if it was even possible to do that with the resources that I had). After that, it could all come crashing down, even if that resulted in my death. My . . . third death? Was it that many already?

I shook my head and went back to putting on my boots. My rank had given me a small tent to myself this time, on the outskirts of the very large encampment that currently housed most of the Second Army. We were moving north in force, and everyone from the company commander level down was supposed to be briefed on what we were doing here before we struck camp today. Personally, I had a feeling that we were embarking on what had become known as the Fusoda Offensive on the other timeline, but of course there was no way to know for certain at this point.

Since I hadn't been in any particular hurry, I was among the last to arrive at the tent that had been set up for the briefing. I positioned myself well to the rear. They hadn't called the mid-ranking officers here to allow us any input on strategies already developed, and it was better than I avoid the temptation to speak up.

I was one of only five SOLDIER officers present, and the only one commanding a mixed company. The people standing closest to me were ordinary infantry captains for the most part, and they stared at me sidelong and shifted to create a little bubble of open space around me. I ignored them, or pretended to, although I was always aware when one of them was forced to shift a little closer by the pressure of the mass of people around him.

The briefing began. Yes, this was the Fusoda offensive, a joint action involving the First and Second Armies. The diagrams we were shown were familiar. I studied them regardless, since my company's job was likely to involve reconnaissance, and that meant knowing the details of where we were going. During the original Fusoda, I'd been with the First Army's regular ground troops, which had different requirements in terms of tactical knowledge and terrain awareness.

I was as surprised as anyone when the explosion occurred. To be exact, Masamune was in my hand and I was parrying shrapnel before I even realized that the mass of small, high-speed projectiles was shrapnel and not a spray of bullets. Purple clouds were wafting up from the crater located right where the senior officers had been standing, and I knew immediately that it wouldn't be a good idea to breathe any of that in, no matter how thoroughly I resisted most toxins. I cut my way free of the collapsing tent into the clean air outside.

Several of the infantry officers followed me, and I grabbed one of the less dazed-looking ones by the arm.

"Go to the medical tent and tell them what happened. Warn them that there may have been some form of poison gas as well as the shrapnel bomb."

The man looked at my face, then down at my insignia. He saluted. And then he ran.

"Injured over there for now," I added to the others, pointing to an open space where a gathering of people wouldn't be in the way. "The rest of you, help me start shifting this, but don't touch anything directly and avoid breathing anything we stir up."

Masamune was long enough and versatile enough to make a decent remote-handling instrument for the tattered tent canvas. If need be, I would sterilize her with fire after I was done here. The infantry officers, lacking very long swords, used guns or shovels or spare tentpoles or whatever else they could find.

The first men we pulled out were additional infantry company commanders, captains with a smattering of majors. None appeared to be seriously injured, although a few were slurring their speech in a way I didn't like. It could have been caused by head injuries, but it seemed like an oddly uniform set of symptoms for that.

There had been almost thirty colonels, and three generals of various numbers of stars and levels of seniority, taking part in the briefing. We might yet find one or two of them alive, but I wasn't betting on alive and in good enough shape to exercise command at this point. The other SOLDIER officers had also been down near the front.

It was quite possible that there was no officer more senior than myself in the entire Second Army who was still on his feet.

If I had been merely what I seemed, the thought would no doubt have been overwhelming, but as far as I was concerned, the most disturbing thing about the whole idea was the thought of the number of forms I would have to fill out if that actually turned out to be the case. Notifications and burial arrangements and letters to next-of-kin and all the rest of it. That the tasks would be familiar ones would make them no more pleasant. If hell had existed, it would have involved round after endless round of filling out Shinra-style forms.

"Excuse me? Sir? Are you senior here?" A medic was eyeing me dubiously.

"As far as I know," I said. "What is it?"

The medic grimaced. "I'm afraid that whoever mentioned poison gas was correct. It's a neurotoxin favoured by the ninjas, not curable by spell or standard Antidote. We can treat it, but anyone who breathed it in is going to have the dubious privilege of spending the next couple of weeks in a medically-induced coma, with a fifty percent chance of making it. The good news is that it breaks down pretty fast when exposed to normal air, so it's unlikely there are any dangerous residues left now."

"Sir!" A different voice. Someone was waving his arm. "We found General Stuart, sir! He's alive!"

"Bring a stretcher," I called, and began to pick my way carefully through the mess that had been the briefing tent. The medic followed me in, sticking to my heels like a starving puppy.

They had indeed found General Stuart, second-in-command of the Second Army. He was even conscious, more or less. He also had one leg torn to hamburger and was foaming at the mouth, which was hopefully the neurotoxin and not a sudden case of rabies.

"Whash . . . shituashon?" Apparently he was also able to speak, if haltingly and badly slurred.

"The bomb that went off had a cannister of neurotoxin attached," I explained, kneeling down. "You're the only senior officer we've found alive so far, but we've still got part of a downed tent to go through."

"You . . . who?"

"Major Crescent, sir. I was far enough away from the site of the explosion to escape injury."

"You . . . shenior?"

"Barring a miracle."

"Ah. Lishen. Have to . . . get to . . . meeting point. North. Radio . . . shilensh. Unnershtand?"

"Yes, sir. I will take the Second Army to the rendezvous point at Kawadoro. We will maintain radio silence until we arrive. If it turns out that I am not the senior surviving officer, I will relay these orders to whoever is."

"Good. Good . . . man."

"You shouldn't be talking, sir," said the medic.

The general grunted and let two men lift him onto the stretcher, which had just arrived.

"Preliminary diagnosis?" I asked the medic quietly.

"If I had to guess . . . if he survives the poison, he'll probably lose the leg."

That was what I'd thought.

The two colonels they eventually dug out alive were in worse shape than General Stuart. Neither was conscious enough to communicate, and Medical took them right away.

Eighteen officers on life support. Thirty-seven dead, either from the explosion itself or because we hadn't been able to dig them out in time. The command structure was decimated, and I was promoting people at not-quite-random to fill the most vital positions. And still I managed to get everyone on the road only a few hours late, while the pathologists were still sorting out which bits of flesh belonged in which body bag, although it was one of the more nightmarish sequences in my command experience.

It could have been worse, though. We hadn't lost transport or supplies. In absolute terms, we hadn't even lost many personnel. It was just which specific people we'd lost that made it a problem.

"Unfortunately, it has to have been an inside job," I told Angeal and Genesis as we drove slowly along in the middle of the convoy. To be exact, I'd picked a random jeep from the motor pool, inspected it closely, and currently Angeal was driving it. The vehicles reserved for the higher-ranking officers could have been booby-trapped, and any of the infantry might have been involved in planting the bomb. For now, I was going to stick with people I knew I could trust. "And I don't know enough about the people in the other companies to begin to guess who was responsible, or why. I need you two to keep your ears open for anything that might suggest we have Wutainese sympathisers on our hands."

"You don't think it was the Wutainese?" Genesis asked, with a clearly amused smirk.

I grimaced. "Shinra's internal politics can get this cut-throat, and for the medics to recognize the poison, some of it must have been captured and analyzed on a previous occasion. Whoever set off the bomb might be counting precisely on us thinking that it was the Wutainese. We can't even be sure that the target was the entire army, and not a specific officer."

Angeal made a disgusted noise. "I can't even fathom how someone would justify killing forty other people just to get to one man. It's deranged."

"It's the type of behaviour that gets rewarded when you work for an organization that's inherently psychotic," I said.

Genesis snorted. "So if the Shinra Electric Power Corporation is, as you say, out of its collective mind in a dangerous way, what are you doing here, O Pseudo-General?"

"If I told you I was trying to minimize suffering by getting this war over with as quickly as possible, would you believe me?"

"Maybe," Genesis said, uncharacteristically sober. "You're the right kind of calculating to pull something like that, if you don't mind my saying so. And you're strong enough that you just might make a difference on your own. Does that mean you're not going to be staying in after the war is over?"

"That depends on other factors." I glanced away, out the window. SOLDIER was the one place where I felt like I belonged—disturbing, but true. After all, I had been in the army for more than ten years, starting when I was twelve, and being here felt more satisfactory than spending my time chasing weak monsters through the wilderness and training a single student, however gifted. This . . . was my home. And yet, if I drew the wrong kind of attention in my search for Jenova, I wouldn't be able to stay.

Even if that didn't happen, I would need to work out some way to continue to train Cloud. He was vital . . . or his ability to stop me from entering into an orgy of destruction was. Perhaps I could invite both the boy and his mother to join me in Midgar. I was more than capable of supporting a dependant or two.

Genesis was shaking his head. "Are you sure you weren't the one who set that bomb, as a way of furthering your ambitions?"

"Genesis," Angeal said warningly.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm not that callous. Or that ambitious, really."

"I still can't believe that we're doing this," Genesis admitted.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Doing what? Following our orders to get everyone to where we're supposed to be, on time and in good order?"

"You're honestly not worried at all, are you?" Angeal said. "You're in charge of an entire army, Seth. Tens of thousands of people."

I shrugged. "The only difference between ten and ten thousand is the number of details you have to keep track of. And the amount of paperwork you have to do."

"Well, at least let us worry for you," Genesis drawled, and I found myself smiling as Angeal snorted something that wasn't quite a laugh.

I had missed these men so very much . . .

The trek north to Kawadoro wasn't quite without incident—the Wutainese specialized in guerilla operations, and anyone who got too far separated from the main convoy was likely to get picked off—but nothing that would have justified us stopping. Not until the scouts reported back on the last day.

"It looks like a pitched battle, sir," the scout explained as her chocobo loped along beside the jeep. "The First Army and the Wutainese. No one's had time to dig in properly yet, although our people are trying."

I frowned, visualizing the terrain at Kawadoro—open plainsland with scrub brush and a few ravines—and considering where the First Army was normally stationed and the direction they would have arrived from.

"First Army in the northwest, Wutainese in the east?" I said.

"Yessir."

"Right. Genesis, take us out of line. Angeal, get those damned flags out and call a halt." The signal flags were seldom used in the modern era, but with an entire army running under radio silence, we'd needed some way of communicating basic orders quickly, and the flags had been the best thing available.

The order was passed back up and down the convoy, and its various elements came to a ragged halt. I had Angeal display "commanders assemble".

"The First Army is engaged in combat up ahead," I explained when what currently passed for the Second Army's senior officer corps had gathered around the stopped jeep. "The Wutainese intend to do as much damage as they can, then creep away again. We're not going to let them. Support elements of the convoy will remain here. The rest of us will be circling around to the east to hit the Wutainese from the back. Carry your comms equipment, but don't transmit anything until I give the word."

No one argued. Well, I would have been surprised if they had. Since I had taken over command, no one had dared defy me.

We drove for a few more miles, over rough terrain, then got down and left the vehicles behind. The idea was to smash into the rear of the Wutainese troops with as close to perfect stealth as such a large number of people could manage. We'd bring the artillery pieces and the like up afterwards, if there was time and need.

The Wutainese had posted lookouts to their rear, of course, but I put some of the SOLDIER Seconds to work disposing of them quietly, and the whole thing went as disturbingly smoothly as a slide down a greased chute into a dragon's maw. We weren't detected until I broke radio silence.

"SOLDIERs, with me. Infantry, lay down covering fire according to plan. Go."

Some of the Wutainese turned and began to shoot at us as we ran up the back of the nearest unit, but a SOLDIER who can't parry bullets is worthless on the battlefield. We rolled up their rearmost elements like a carpet and kept moving, smashing into their center and the heaviest troops. Angeal was steady at my back and Genesis was flitting around spewing fireballs and Loveless quotes with a manic grin on his face. None of the individual Wutainese were any match for us.

How long had it been since the last time we'd fought together this way? It might have been before Masamune came to my hand, in the days when I'd been using a more ordinary nodachi a mere four and a half feet long. Nearly a decade, then. Before Angeal had taken Zack as his student, and we'd been split up to lead the various armies.

The Wutainese commander had chosen to lead from the front, like a SOLDIER. I wasn't sure whether that was an indication of the desperation of his people or just of his personal skill as a ninja, but he was very young. I felled him with a Sleepel and pointed Masamune at the throat of his second-in-command.

"Surrender or die," I said evenly. "Either way, it won't matter. The Turks will find out everything your commander knows quickly enough."

"Bastard!" It was a worse insult in Wutainese than it was in Common. Family was very important in their culture.

"Do you really think calling me names is going to make a difference?" I asked, and pressed lightly on Masamune, letting him feel blood trickling down his neck.

The young ninja swallowed visibly . . . and then threw himself forward onto the blade.

I immediately slashed sideways, to keep his corpse from fouling Masamune, and her razor edge cut through and out as I kicked another ninja who tried to close with me. Typical Wutainese honour, and the reason I'd felled their commander with a spell. In any case, while I'd wanted the leader for questioning, it was more efficient to kill all the rest. We'd never taken many ninja as prisoners. They were difficult to hold onto, and a dead ninja couldn't escape and take up arms against you again.

The disorganized Wutainese were much easier to deal with now, and the battle ended after another half an hour or so with us standing on a pile of corpses, most of them in pieces. I sighed as I flicked the blood off Masamune and sheathed her.

"Ugh," said Angeal, from where he stood to my left.

"If you're going to say you can't believe we did this, I'm going to hit you." Genesis looked tired. Well, they both did.

Angeal shook his head. "I believe it. I just . . . regret the necessity."

"We should go get cleaned up," I said. It would take a while to sponge the blood, mud, and assorted bodily fluids off my leathers, but I knew from experience that it went even more slowly if I let the mess dry first.

"Always the practical one," Genesis said, with a hint of a sneer. "Tell me, doesn't this bother you at all?"

I shrugged. "As Angeal said, I regret the necessity. But there's no point on dwelling on it. It's done, they're dead, and we remain alive."

It would have been supremely ironic if I'd fallen here, at the hands of some random ninja, or to a beast in the wilderness. Assuming that I could die in any real sense. It was difficult to tell, when I'd been run through and chopped to pieces and it hadn't taken either time. What had that phrase of Zack's been? "Third time's the charm"? I shook my head.

I was halfway back to our own lines when the headset I wore suddenly crackled to life. "Major? General Phelps of the First Army is waiting to speak to you."

Phelps. I'd half-forgotten about him—he'd been near to retirement when the war began, and had experienced a stroke due to stress right before I'd taken over command.

"Where is he?" I asked, scanning the mess of support elements that were now moving up. I was going to have to ask the First Army for medical supplies, if no one had thought of that already.

"Comms relay post, sir." The one support element we'd brought with us from the first.

"Understood. Inform him that I'll be there shortly." So much for getting cleaned up.

I began to walk in that direction, then stopped again as Angeal and Genesis fell in behind me. When I turned, Genesis spoke up before I could, not even pretending he hadn't overheard.

"I know he didn't ask for us, but he's either here to congradulate you or chew you out, and if it's the latter, he might tone it down a bit if he knows someone has your back. And we know you can handle it, but we want to help anyway. Or are you going to order us to go somewhere else? Sir?"

I looked at Angeal, who gave me a slight nod as our eyes met: he agreed with everything Genesis had said.

"Do what you like," I said, and turned to start walking again.

General Phelps clearly hadn't been on the battlefield, since his uniform was unsoiled except for a bit of mud on his boots. He was well into middle age, with a bald spot that covered more area than his remaining hair. I stopped at the prescribed distance from him and saluted.

"Major Crescent reporting, sir."

The general returned my salute. "I'd like to speak with you privately, Major. If you would . . . ?" He gestured in a direction empty of people.

"Of course, sir." I glanced at Genesis, who seemed about to say something. I caught his eye and shook my head warningly, and he scowled and subsided.

We weren't yet out of earshot of my two friends when the general stopped in his tracks and turned to me, and I wondered just how often he dealt with SOLDIERs.

"Why didn't you call for help after the explosion?" Phelps asked abruptly.

"The last orders I had included one for radio silence. It didn't seem necessary to break it."

Phelps made an exasperated noise. "I can see that Walker was right about you. Absolutely confident and cold-blooded, but without an ounce of bravado. He wasn't at all surprised when we found out you were in charge."

There hadn't been a question in that, so I said nothing.

"What would you have done if you'd made a mistake, Major?"

"Owned up to it, accepted the consequences, and done whatever I could to repair it." What else was there to do, when something went wrong?

"I can't figure you out."

Again, not a question. The silence stretched uncomfortably, but I wasn't about to break it.

Phelps sighed. "I'm going to have to issue you a commendation, at the very least. And they might want to promote you again, even though you're already shooting up the ranks like a mako-doped cat. Hell, they may even want to give you a medal."

I was tempted to say that I'd make certain he got an equal share of any paperweights that came my way. Shinra's praise meant nothing to me, and nothing I had accomplished here rose above the baseline I had long ago established for myself.

"I would prefer that any rewards go to the junior officers who performed in an exemplary manner despite being forced into positions they weren't nearly ready for," I said. "I have a company commander who's been in theatre for less than a month, among others."

"A model officer," Phelps observed, a tinge of sarcasm entering his tone. "If not for Walker, I'd think you were some kind of robotic officer prototype, in fact."

I raised an eyebrow. "If you need me to demonstrate that I don't bleed oil, kindly let me first ensure that the blade of my sword is clean." Besides, Scarlet isn't good enough to produce a prototype anything that won't blow up. I bit that back, however, both because it showed a bit too much knowledge of the wrong things, and because I wasn't sure Scarlet had risen to Head of Weapons Development yet.

"Walker was right about your sense of humour being drier than dry, too. All right, I'll take your remarks into consideration. I'm going to be detaching my second-in-command and a couple of my colonels to take over the Second Army until the chain of command can be sorted out. You'll remain in charge of the army's SOLDIER operations. Dismissed, Major."

"Yes, sir." Released at last, I strode away.

I both needed and didn't want the attention all of this was going to bring me. Needed it, because I also needed access to information that was available only to people of high rank inside Shinra. Didn't want it, because it increased the chances that someone was going to connect me with the missing subject of Project S. Which might be catastrophic, depending on who made the connection and what their attitute towards the Science Department was. I hated knowing that the future was outside my control, because that had seldom boded well for me.

And, just to add to my discomfort, I was still splattered with blood and mud. Clean up, I told myself. Then worry about contingency plans. Perhaps being clean would make me feel better.

I doubted it, though.

Chapter Text

Chapter 18

Lazard Deusericus thumbed through the paper copy of the file one more time, and repressed a sigh as he learned nothing new. Even with the Turks having tossed in a few notes about his background before joining Shinra, Seth Crescent remained an enigma. He wasn't even quite sure how they'd wound up with a First Class that the director of SOLDIER had never met, but every single other First Class that the man had come into contact with during his service in Wutai had said he was more than worthy of his assigned Class. Which meant he had the approval of five out of the other eight First Classes. And so Lazard had signed the papers to regularize the man's status.

It would have been easier to absorb him if the man hadn't been so . . . ridiculously outstanding, both as an individual combatant and as a commander. Kawadoro had been a massive battle, with the Wutainese throwing in everything they'd had. And somehow Major Crescent had been instrumental in gaining victory for the Shinra side. Not by accident, either. The reports all spoke of units being precisely positioned for best effect before the man had even seen the battlefield. Why would a lone monster hunter who happened to have mako in his veins also turn out to be a master tactician? Was the man some kind of devil?

Lazard cast a glance at his seatmate. Veld appeared to be completely absorbed in some kind of game on his PHS, but the fact that the Turk was here at all spoke volumes. Lazard just wished he knew whether Crescent was a target of Turk curiosity, or of Turk elimination. He didn't think the man had done anything that significant in terms of Shinra internal politics yet.

"Just about there, folks," the driver said from up front. "You can see the camp now."

And so they could, Lazard realized: a village of tents and prefabricated buildings that had engulfed a small Wutainese hamlet. Shinra Second Army SOLDIER headquarters. Which was not, in fact, mostly populated by SOLDIERs. There were about a hundred of them here. The rest of the population were support troops. The whole thing was incongruously shaded by massive blossoming cherry trees that perfumed the air even inside the car.

Veld slid his PHS into his pocket, but said nothing. Lazard was starting to think he would have preferred even his despised father as a travelling companion. He wasn't used to dealing with Turks, and Veld's silence was getting on his nerves.

At least the encampment started to feel familiar once they'd disembarked from the car, with well-known commands being thrown around and uniformed men striding from place to place, intent on their jobs. Lazard wasn't truly military—"Director of SOLDIER" was more of an administrative liasion position than anything—but he'd visited many of these places over the past few years.

The Third Class who had acted as their driver tossed the keys to a trooper waiting nearby, then turned and saluted. "Do you wish to go to the command post immediately, sir, or would you rather visit your quarters first?"

"The command post," Lazard said firmly. He picked up the briefcase that held the few sensitive materials he'd brought with him. The rest, he knew, would be waiting for him when he arrived at whatever room they'd prepared for him. About some things, the military could be as silently efficient as the Turks.

The Third led him down a path among the cherry blossoms, to a prefabricated building in the middle of the encampment that was unhelpfully labeled 102-A. Inside, it had the familiar outer-and-inner-office layout.

"You can go straight in, Director Lazard," said the young infantryman at the outer office desk. He gave a sidelong glance at Veld, but anyone who had been with Shinra more than a few months knew that it was better to pretend not to notice a Turk who hadn't chosen to announce himself.

Seth Crescent rose from his desk as Lazard entered. He was tall, with an aura that caused him to seem taller still, and the contrast between the black leather he wore and his pale hair and skin made him look like something out of a surrealist painting.

"Director," he said, polite but expressionless. Then he quirked an eyebrow at Veld. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Administrative Research has taken an interest in me."

"You do present a number of mysteries," Veld replied. "For instance, where were you in 1991?"

There was that eyebrow again. "Midgar, I believe."

"There's no record of you there."

"Perhaps the information was misfiled." The SOLDIER seemed . . . almost amused by the verbal fencing, although it was difficult to tell. The odd slit-shaped pupils (and how had that come about?) turned his eyes into something too alien for Lazard to read them easily.

Veld tilted his head. "Let me try a different tack, then. Did you kill Dr. Hojo?"

What? Lazard had met the oily little scientist, of course, but he avoided thinking about him as much as possible. The man had never inspired anything in him but revulsion.

"If you're trying to get me to confess to a murder, this is an exceedingly clumsy approach," Seth Crescent said, but Lazard no longer got a sense of amusement from him.

"You bear an extraordinary resemblance to one of his experimental specimens. Your sword fits what we were able to establish about the murder weapon. And you wear size twelve boots in the officers' alternate dress pattern, which matches a print found at the scene."

Lazard's eyebrows rose. Crescent's feet weren't visible behind the desk, so Veld must have secured that information in advance . . . but why? "Veld, I would thank you not to accuse one of my men of a crime without something more than circumstantial evidence to support you. Especially not one who has rendered service as exemplary as Major Crescent's."

"Ah. My apologies, Director Lazard. It was merely a matter of passing curiosity. Even the President is no longer interested in finding out how Hojo met his demise. Although it would be tidy if it turned out that he died because of one of the missing specimens."

And there was an interesting choice of words again. The picture Veld seemed to be sketching in outline was one of the man on the other side of the desk rescuing a specimen from Hojo because of . . . some sort of blood relationship? Or was he implying that the other man had also been a specimen, perhaps an off-the-record one? Twisty Turks and their love of communicating in code . . .

If the silver-haired man had been one of Hojo's projects, it would explain . . . everything. The green cat's eyes, the super-SOLDIER level of physical prowess. The reticence about his past and the difficulties tracing it, especially if he'd been rendered unrecognizable by physical mutation. Crescent was probably lucky that he still looked human.

But whatever he was, he was also an asset to SOLDIER. He'd proven that several times now. And so Lazard would do his best to protect him.

"Veld, if you have no other reason for being here, I would like to talk to Major Crescent alone for a while."

"Of course, Director. A pleasure to meet you, Major."

As the door shut behind the Turk, an almost-inaudible sigh passed Crescent's lips. His black-gloved hand ran lightly over the intricately carved scabbard of the long sword racked against the wall, as though seeking reassurance. Or plotting to kill someone.

"I won't pry," Lazard said, seating himself in the only chair on his side of the desk, one of the hard, folding variety that were commonly supplied to these camps. "Your past is none of my business, unless it has some effect on your future in SOLDIER."

Crescent also sank back into his seat. He said nothing. Forcing Lazard to carry the conversation. At least the man's attention was focused on him. The green gaze never wavered. It was a bit disturbing, but compared to other SOLDIERs who were deliberately irreverent or had attention span problems? Lazard would take this any time.

"You've been working with Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley. What do you think of them?" The two young Second Classes normally wouldn't have caught Lazard's attention, but Hollander was deeply interested in them and always poking around asking about their progress. And because everyone knew about Hollander's fascination with them, and Genesis tended to annoy people just by existing, it was difficult to get an undistorted assessment of their abilities.

Crescent leaned back slightly in his chair. "Genesis is hot-headed, impulsive, and thinks he's a better swordsman than he is, but his skills with materia are without peer. If I wanted to take on a lot of troops, or command a large area, and could take only one other person with me to help, he would be the one I would choose. He isn't yet at the zenith of his abilities—he needs to mature more. Angeal is very nearly his complete opposite. Steady and solid, only an average caster, and far too moral to survive for long in Shinra, but he's also a gifted leader who excels at forming teams. He's at his best when handed a mission that involves protecting or defending something."

Interesting. According to the reports Lazard had read, Seth Crescent himself could best be described as a pinpoint destructive force: point him at a single creature, or a small group, and tell him to get rid of it, and it was as good as dead, no matter what it was. An attacker, not a defender or a large-area interdiction weapon. And a tactician of cold and singular brilliance. The fact that he'd drawn two other strong SOLDIERs with complementary abilities to himself would have proven that even without the other reports.

"According to what I've heard, you're not a bad leader yourself," Lazard said. Testing.

A firm headshake. "It isn't the same. I can command respect, and, if necessary, fear, but Angeal's men love him. They'd tear themselves apart to please him. I've never been able to inspire that level of loyalty."

Not modest, but not arrogant either, and almost painfully logical, Lloyd Walker had noted in his report on Seth Crescent. Of all the other First Classes, he'd had the most contact with the man. Few shortcomings, but he can't not acknowledge the ones he does have. Most of which are in the area of human interaction. If he'd been given the standard psych tests, I'm not sure he would have passed. The doctors tend not to like people who clam up the way he does. But he's easy to work with if you keep your interactions businesslike.

"You didn't come here to discuss Genesis and Angeal. Just why are you in Wutai, Director?"

"Routine inspection, Major." Which was true—it just wasn't all the truth.

Crescent's eyebrow rose in a way that was becoming familiar. "With the head Turk in tow?"

Lazard shrugged. "If you know anything at all about that man, you know he tends to invite himself along on trips."

The silver-maned head dipped in acknowledgement, and Lazard wondered belatedly just how much the SOLDIER did know about the various people in the Shinra hierarchy. If he'd been imprisoned in the Science Department, he might certainly have come into contact with some of them.

"I also wanted to meet you," Lazard continued. "Currently, your rank and position are not a good match for one another, and I wanted to get a better idea of who you were before I made any decisions about what to do with you."

"And?"

Lazard steepled his hands in front of him. One more probe. "Hypothetically speaking, if you had a grudge against the Shinra Electric Power Corporation, what would you do?"

There was a long pause. Then . . .

"If you're asking if I would seek revenge, the answer is no," Seth Crescent said. "That kind of systematic, long-laid plan isn't the same as having your worst tormentor appear in front of you at a time when you suddenly have the ability to do something about it. Calculated vengeance against a large group of people achieves nothing—except, perhaps, a temporary emotional catharsis on the part of the avenger, and even that isn't reliable. Shinra in particular cannot be safely destabilized at this point in history. It supports too much of the fabric of modern society. A simple attack of the type that I'm equipped to mount would harm far more people than it saved, and I have no desire to do that."

That, Lazard recognized, was the logical-minded tactician speaking again. And perhaps it was also a confession. And a warning? He hadn't actually said, Yes, I killed Hojo, but he had strongly implied it, also folding in the fact that there was unlikely to be a recurrence if Shinra was . . . respectful. Really, it was a dense, carefully-thought-out communication.

Almost terrifyingly intelligent, Lloyd Walker had also written. Lazard wasn't sure he would have included the "almost".

Lazard forced himself to once more meet the eerie green eyes. "Well, it'll be a relief to have one First Class who isn't under the thumb of the Science Department. Dr. Hollander's demands can complicate scheduling and mission assignments, at times."

"Hollander has his own agenda," the SOLDIER said. "And no true allies. Shinra would do well to keep him on a short leash."

Oh? Well, hardly surprising the man would be wary of the Science Department.

"Unfortunately, I have other duties I have to get to today," Lazard said. Like conducting a proper inspection of the camp, although it hardly seemed necessary. He couldn't see this man doing anything other than keeping his subordinates under tight control. He set a small box on the desk. "Congradulations, Colonel."

Crescent released another one of those nearly inaudible sighs. Well, given the speed at which he was being promoted, it probably seemed old hat to him by now. Shinra might even have its first SOLDIER general, if the silver-haired man didn't get himself killed or flame out spectacularly.

Lazard couldn't decide whether the prospect made him more pleased, or frightened.

Veld smiled faintly as he held the PHS to his ear. So that was Sephiroth. A dangerous man, but it was almost enjoyable to be playing his games with someone who understood.

No question, Vince. I don't know if he's your son or your brother, but he's definitely your something. Nurture must have altered many details, but there were hints of the dark gunman in the silver SOLDIER's face, in the tiny changes of expression and the quiet, level voice.

He heard the click as Lazard shut the office door through the bug's pickup, and then a sudden, unexpected burst of static. And a voice.

"I hope that held your interest, Veld. For future reference, you can't hide a wireless bug from a SOLDIER. We can hear the electromagnetic field they give off." Then there was a crackle, a squeal, and nothing. Signal lost was painted across the screen when he lowered the PHS for a look.

Veld stared at the banal notice for several long moments. Then, quietly, he began to laugh.

"Definitely something of yours," he whispered to the ghost of his old partner. It was exactly the same kind of non-joke Vincent would have played.

They weren't going to be friends. He was a Turk; he couldn't have outsider friends. But he was going to keep watching over the younger man, even helping him where he could. If nothing else, it might give him some leverage, and he didn't doubt that he was going to need it.

Sephiroth wasn't going to remain a mere colonel for long. Veld could tell.

Chapter Text

Chapter 19 (Sephiroth's narrative)

"You look like someone pulled you backwards through a patch of razor weeds," Genesis said with a smirk. "I thought you were just meeting with Lazard."

"He brought a Turk with him," I said. My trapezius muscles complained as I stretched, leaning back from my paperwork. I wasn't getting enough exercise, something which I would have to remedy.

Genesis wrinkled his nose. "Which one?"

"Veld."

"The Chief Cockroach himself? That's odd—he doesn't usually come this far from the tower."

"Apparently he was interested in tying up some loose ends. Where's Angeal?"

"Collecting supper for the three of us from the mess. Nice jewelry, by the way. Think you're going to be able to collect the whole set?"

I touched my new insignia and frowned. "Given that I already have four out of five? I suspect it's inevitable." Especially since I had been subtly pushing for it. I needed better access to Shinra's secrets if I was ever going to find Jenova, and Veld, uncharacteristically, seemed to have given me a free pass. Perhaps he'd had a personal dislike of Hojo, or considered him such a loose cannon that he might have been a threat to Shinra. It was still very odd, but it did explain why the initial security check on me had gone through: Veld liked to keep potential enemies close at hand.

"You don't look happy."

"The particular loose end Veld wanted to tie up was a touchy one," I admitted. "I'll explain when Angeal gets here. I don't want to tell this twice."

Genesis raised his eyebrows. "Be careful, now—if you start explaining things to us, we might start to think that you trust us."

I shook my head. "I don't even trust myself anymore."

A long stare. A soft, strangled sound. "Oh."

The door opened again, and Angeal entered, carrying a large box—three SOLDIER meals wouldn't fit on a tray. "I'm not interrupting, am I?"

"Seth said he wanted you here, too, for whatever the important part of this is." Genesis began lifting piles of paperwork off my desk. I let him. He knew enough by now to make sure the papers didn't become disordered.

"There's an important part?"

"Lazard had Veld trailing after him when he came here today," Genesis explained. "And for once, Seth actually seems to want to explain what was going on."

"That's unusual."

"Have I really been freezing the two of you out that much?" Did that plaintive-sounding question actually come from me?

"Not . . . freezing us out, exactly," Angeal said as he laid out the food. "But you do tend to be . . ."

"Reticent," Genesis said, when Angeal fumbled for a word. "When it comes to anything outside of SOLDIER, anyway. Hamburg steak again? Oh, joy."

"The alternate was that synthetic tofu we've all agreed is for emergencies only," Angeal said. "Seth, we're grateful you confide in us at all. It's obvious that it doesn't come easily to you."

"I know too much that I shouldn't," I admitted. "And the easiest way to avoid saying the wrong things is to avoid saying anything at all. I don't want to put anyone at risk if it isn't necessary, but the two of you, sooner or later . . ." Stop. Breathe. "Veld was here to question me about a murder case from five years ago. Hollander's predecessor as the head of the Science Department, Dr. Hojo."

"But you weren't even working for Shinra five years ago," Angeal said.

"No," I agreed. "I wasn't working for them. But Hojo was less ethical than Hollander, difficult though you might find that to believe. He didn't always bother to ask for volunteers when he was conducting his experiments. Shinra covered for what he was doing because he got results."

"By the Goddess . . ." Genesis whispered.

"There was a power outage that night," I said. "Lightning must have struck the Shinra Building directly—I never did find out the details. But in the confusion, I was able to get free, and Hojo made the mistake of approaching me without a dartgun loaded with behemoth tranquilizer. He was in pieces on the floor before I'd even consciously recognized him. After that, I freed the other human test subjects that were being held in the lab at the time, and did my best to get them to safety."

There was a long silence. Angeal shook his head slowly. "I don't know what to say. Except that I understand now why you're always willing to sit up with Genesis when some treatment or other makes him sick."

"My friend, the fates are cruel . . . It's surprising that you dared have anything further to do with Shinra," Genesis added.

I shrugged. "For various reasons, it would be difficult to identify me from Hojo's records, if any of them even survived in a retrievable form—the man was paranoid as well as psychotic, and he encrypted everything he could. Besides, I'm fairly sure Shinra has decided that the branch of research that produced me was either not cost-effective or too prone to failure, or they would have folded more of what they learned from it into the normal SOLDIER treatments. I'm more worried about them finding the others that I freed, and I'm more likely to catch any rumblings in that direction in advance if I'm on the inside."

"No one who didn't know you would believe you worry so much about other people," Angeal said, with something that was almost a smile.

Genesis took a bite of his half-forgotten meal, and grimaced. "Can't they fix the recipe for this? I'm going to be tasting onions all night again. Is it one of those other escapees who keeps calling you on your PHS at odd hours?"

"No. I've been teaching swordsmanship to a boy from Nibelheim—he's the one who keeps calling me. He's . . . rather attached. Partly because his mother is trying to raise him alone, I suspect."

Gen laughed. "And he picked you as his substitute father? Well, he could do worse, I suppose. It isn't as though my parents are any kind of prizes worth having."

We all turned our attention to our meals for a bit. The others were no doubt thinking about what I had just said, and I . . . was trying to decide how to bring up one more thing, without also bringing up the more unbelievable parts of my story. It took me a while to find a plausible angle.

"Hojo was prone to talking to himself," I said as I set my plate aside. "About his own projects, and those of the other scientists in that department."

"Seth, what—?"

"Please, just listen. This is important."

"Is that why you look like someone just drowned your kitten?" Genesis asked. "I didn't know you were capable of that kind of expression."

I glared at him, and he fell silent again. "One of the things he talked about the most was Hollander's prototype SOLDIER project, the so-called Project G. Although he never identified the subjects of those experiments outright, every single referent I can remember him giving matches the two of you. And Hojo's belief was that the project was a failure and its products were unstable."

Angeal's, "Unstable in what sense?" overlapped with Genesis' scornful, "And a madman's ramblings should matter to us . . . why, exactly?"

I gave Genesis another glare. "While I believe Hojo was quite insane as well as completely devoid of ethics and incapable of properly designing an experiment, he was also brilliant at certain types of analysis. When he made pronouncements about someone else's work, he always ended up being proven right, sooner or later. By 'instability', he seemed to mean that your cellular structures would begin to break down. The first indications would be a compromised immune system and a slowed healing process. Then heightened irritability and disintegrating emotional control. After that, you would begin to show signs of premature aging."

"That is . . . terrifying, if true," Angeal said slowly. "And one thing we do know is that Hollander has taken a particular interest in the two of us. Going all the way back to our childhoods."

Genesis snorted. "Hollander was in Banora because Shinra fired him and no one else would give him a job. They must have decided to re-hire him after this Hojo bastard died. And I don't know about you, but I haven't developed any grey hairs so far. I say it's all nonsense, nothing more that the ramblings of a madman who was trying to get under Seth's skin."

I gritted my teeth. I wanted so very badly to beat Genesis about the head with the flat of Masamune until I forced some sense into him. The room had suddenly filled with one-winged ghosts with cracked skin, smelling of mako and rot. But I had no proof except my memories, because none of it had happened yet.

"I hope to the Goddess that you're right," I somehow managed to say. "But promise me that if you—either of you—start showing those sorts of symptoms, you'll take it seriously. And if Hollander tries to bargain with you over a cure, assume that he's trying to deceive you. Don't give him anything until he fulfills his end of the bargain." I couldn't be sure that Hollander had the same level of grudge against Shinra in this Hojo-less timeline, but he had still been considered lesser than the other man. He might try something. "And especially don't run off on your own without telling me, out of some mistaken notion of avenging yourselves on Shinra."

"Seth, it's kind of . . . sweet . . . that you're worried about us." Angeal looked just as surprised as I felt over his choice of adjective. "But I don't understand why you're so concerned about this, when you've been so calm whenever the three of us have had to risk our necks in this war."

"Because we all know how to fight Wutainese. I trust you to be able to defend yourselves in battle, but there's nothing that a sword can do about this." The words tasted as bitter as some of the things Hojo had force-fed me as a child. "I don't have many friends, you may have noticed. The thought of losing you is . . . painful to me." It came out as a ragged whisper. In my past life, I would never have admitted so much, but being turned into Jenova's puppet had taught me how little my dignity truly mattered, and how much losing the two of them had damaged me.

Even if you can't save them, it's more important that they know you tried.

"Seth . . ." Angeal stepped around the desk and put his hand on my pauldron. I was so startled that I froze. A moment later, Genesis was there too, on the opposite side. Very slowly, I found myself relaxing into their touch. "My mother used to tell me not to borrow trouble. Even if this Hojo was telling the truth, it hasn't happened yet. And he might have been telling the truth, and still been wrong. Or we might all get shot in the back by a ninja before it starts to matter. For my part, I promise that if it looks like something's gone haywire with my ability to heal, or I start seeing grey hairs—"

"—not that you have any room to talk," Genesis added caustically, fingers playing with my hair.

"If I start having symptoms like those you describe, I'll take them seriously and try to get help," Angeal said firmly. "And I'll make Gen do the same. Also, there's no need to tell us not to trust Hollander. Even I'm not that . . . forgiving."

"You're just saying that because he made your mother cry," Genesis said.

"And pushed your parents into handing you over to SOLDIER instead of letting you go to university the way you wanted to," Angeal said. "Although to be honest, Gen, I can't imagine you as a literature professor."

"Neither can I, since I'm fairly certain most universities have strict rules about throwing fireballs at the students for inattention," I said dryly, and Angeal chuckled, while Genesis gave a mock-offended sniff.

"I hope you put in a good word for us with Lazard, at least," the redhead said. "And don't try to tell me he didn't ask about us. He always does."

I shrugged. "I told him the truth."

"That's all you had to offer your only friends?" Genesis looked hurt.

"Would you prefer that he give you inappropriate assignments?" I asked, eyebrow raised. "I did my best to play up your strong points, if that makes you feel better."

"A little bit." Genesis wandered back around the desk to collapse elegantly into my desk chair, while Angeal straightened up and rolled his shoulders a bit. "But I still think you owe us at least a sparring match."

"Leave me out of this," Angeal said, but he was smiling.

"Tomorrow morning, then," I said. "Perhaps we could even make it a regular event—I was just thinking that I haven't been getting enough exercise lately."

"That's because they're wasting you by keeping you behind that desk," Genesis said. "Now, if you were smart enough to pretend you were stupid, and made a hash of some of those tactical assignments . . ."

" . . . the war would be prolonged because it would be getting run by politically-motivated idiots," I completed for him, albeit not in the words he would have chosen.

"Give it up, Gen, he's even more stubborn than you are, and you know it," Angeal said. "Seth . . . This is off on a tangent a bit, but do you have any family?"

"None living that I'm aware of," I said.

"None at all?"

I shrugged. "I was told my mother died shortly after I was born. As for my father . . . well, there was a man who claimed to be. He is likewise deceased. If they had any living relatives, none of them have ever bothered to contact me."

"So just the boy from Nibelheim. And us. Well, quality over quantity." Genesis smirked.

And one other. Possibly. But I wasn't going to try to explain Zack to them. Not yet. If he followed the same pattern as he had in the previous history, the Gongagan would join SOLDIER later this year, and Angeal would take the young Third Class as his protégé and bring him back to Wutai with him next spring.

"You're overdue for some leave, you know," Angeal said. "Technically, we all are."

"I'll be applying for some after the current offensive is over," I said, and the conversation turned to other things.

Chapter Text

Chapter 20

"I don't know what to think," Angeal said quietly, in the dark. "I mean, I can hardly imagine what he must have been through, and I understand now why he isn't comfortable talking about his past. I would prefer not to believe that Shinra endorsed the use of human beings as . . . as lab rats, but . . ."

" . . . even you aren't that naive," Genesis completed. "Seth was right when he described Shinra as 'inherently psychotic'. It's a problem with all large corporations, but Shinra takes it to extremes." A pause. "I'm not sure Seth is quite sane either."

"His insistence on passing on what this Hojo person had to say about us did seem more than a little odd. But I also got the impression that there was more to it than he was telling us. And he was genuinely worried."

"Genuinely frightened, you mean," Genesis said. "Not a good look on him, I have to admit."

"Not a look I've ever seen before on him."

"I don't think he was lying when he implied he only fears what he can't fight." Genesis sighed and rolled over on his back. Normally he liked puzzles—they gave his mind something to do when reading Loveless wasn't an option—but this one had an ugly picture on the box.

"'Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul.'" What are you still not telling us, my friend? Genesis knew that Seth hadn't confessed everything. And some part of what he had told them had been lies. Not big, substantial lies, or at least he didn't think so, but they'd been mixed in there somewhere. Normally Genesis was better at spotting such things than anyone gave him credit for, but Seth Crescent had such solid control over his expressions that he was almost impossible to read.

That would probably have been a necessary survival skill when he'd been imprisoned in the labs. Don't ever let them know that they're hurting you. And the labs were probably also responsible for his discomfort at being touched. The redhead had noticed how it had taken Seth more than a minute to relax into contact with him and Angeal, and they'd only touched his armour.

It occurred to Genesis to wonder what their friend had looked like before Hojo had gotten his hooks into him. The slit-pupilled eyes that had the exact poisonous colour and glow of mako were surely due to the experimentation, and so was the silver hair. Maybe even the man's pale, unblemished, never-tanning skin. The young SOLDIER tried first to imagine the other with red hair and freckles, and had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. No, Seth would have been dark-haired. Maybe it would even have been black—the contours of his face hinted at some Wutainese blood in his ancestry somewhere. Steely grey eyes and black hair might have looked close to right.

"Gen?"

"Mmm?"

"If he's right about us . . . what are we going to do?"

"Look for something to blackmail Hollander with, I suppose." If they needed the scientist's help, that would be the easiest way to get it while ensuring he kept his mouth shut afterwards.

"That's—"

"Not very honourable? Neither was what he did to us, if Seth's right," Genesis snapped. He drew in a slow breath, then let it out. "Just go to sleep, 'Geal."

"Things always look better in the morning, don't they?" Angeal agreed. Genesis heard him rolling over, and then the sound of the other's breathing and heart rate slowing as he dozed off.

In the morning, when he went to claim his sparring match, the redhead was relieved to see his friend and superior officer looking better than he had in months. Their talk the previous evening must have relieved some stress for the older man. Seth even smiled faintly as he drew his terrifying long sword and raised it to the familiar high guard position. Genesis had never met anyone else who favoured that stance, but the silver-haired man knew exactly how to make it work.

The redhead ended up getting beaten like a drum, but he enjoyed the challenge of the fight. His sword didn't, since Masamune's blade was capable of slicing through ordinary steel, but he'd already ordered a replacement—a custom longsword to be made from steel-mithril alloy mixed with diablo bone and quenched in bomb fluid. It should make a much better magic channel than the plain issue broadswords. Especially for fire spells.

Genesis had always liked fire. It was easy to call, and bright and cheerful and destructive all at once. Seth, he'd sometimes mused, seemed to have the personality of an ice caster, but the man actually tended to favour the violent chaos of lightning. It just showed that you never could tell.

The other SOLDIERs watched them covertly as Genesis trailed Seth across the encampment towards the prefab building where the older man had his office. Colonel Crescent was respected by almost everyone, but only Genesis and Angeal dared approach him informally. Seth's aura was just too daunting. Truth be told, if he hadn't been willing to relax a bit when he'd been bunking with them, Genesis might have been among those who treated him like one of the dragons that writhed the length of Masamune's scabbard. Which would have been a terrible shame. He'd learned more from sparring with the silver-haired man than he had from all the regular SOLDIER sword instructors combined.

Genesis wondered if Seth had latched onto himself and Angeal because they'd matched Hojo's descriptions of the Project G subjects. He also wondered if it mattered to him if that was why they'd become friends.

"Don't give yourself eyestrain from all that paperwork," he said mockingly as the other reached for the door.

"Don't make me send you to check the mountain valleys for ninjas," Seth retorted, a smile curling the corner of his mouth, and Genesis made a face—this early in the year, the valleys would be full of lingering snow and razor weeds emerging from hibernation. It was an assignment officers gave to people who annoyed them.

"I hope something more interesting is going to come along soon," he said.

"Perhaps."

Which was as good as a set of mission papers, just about. Everyone knew that now that winter was over, they'd be going on the offensive.

It was just a matter of time.

Somebody knocked on the door.

Cloud looked up from his homework, then down again. Knocks on the door rarely meant anything good for the Strifes, so he usually pretended not to hear them. And his mom had gone to the general store to buy flour and stuff.

The knock came again, and Cloud scowled and grabbed for his sword and belted it on before getting up and going to see who it was.

And when he did open the door, well, it was like being dumped on his butt by Tifa. Except less painful.

"Zack? What are you doing here?!"

The older boy grabbed him in a quick, firm hug. "Hey, Spiky! It's good to see you again! Can I come in?"

"You're just as spiky as I am," Cloud said, and backed off to let Zack inside. "I can't believe your mom and dad let you travel all the way to Nibelheim alone!"

Zack scratched his head. "Um, yeah, well. About that. I didn't exactly . . . ask permission."

"What? Zack! They're going to ground you until you're twenty!"

Zack's expression went serious, and Cloud . . . went quiet. Because Zack was hardly ever serious, so he knew this was really, really important.

"We had a fight and I . . . left," the older boy said. "They didn't want me to join SOLDIER, but I'm fourteen now. They don't have the right to stop me, and I . . . It's what I want to do. You know."

Cloud nodded, because he did know. They'd talked about it when he'd called Zack to wish him happy birthday, about a month ago.

"Shouldn't you be headed for Costa del Sol, then?" was all he could find to say.

Zack shrugged. "I figured I could catch a ship just as easily from Rocket Town, and I didn't want to leave without seeing my favourite Spiky again," he said, his grin coming back. "Besides, I, um . . ."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "What is it now?"

"I'm kind of out of money, and I was hoping I could crash here for a few days and get a bit of hunting done." Zack spread his hands.

"I've got to ask my mom. If she says it's okay . . . well, I'm not supposed to go too far into the mountains without Seth, but we could hunt in the forests, or inside the old mansion—it's full of bats and dorky faces and stuff. Mom'll probably make you call your mom, though."

"So long as it's just calling them, it'll probably be okay," Zack said. "I don't think they're gonna come all the way up here after me. I'll figure it out." His stomach growled, and he gave Cloud a sheepish smile. "I haven't eaten since yesterday—the food I brought with me ran out, and the monsters around here aren't kinds I know, so I'm not sure which ones are safe to eat or how to take them apart . . ."

"Okay, but I hope you like bread and cheese, 'cause that's what we've got right now. I haven't been able to go down the mountain to hunt lately, and the only things in the mansion that you could eat are the bats. And they taste awful."

"You don't buy meat?" Zack followed him into the kitchen and took his sword off so he could prop it against the table, then started to poke through the cupboards while Cloud sliced the bread.

Cloud sighed. "It's expensive up here. Well, everything's expensive up here. With the gil Seth sends us, we could probably afford to eat whatever we wanted, but Mom saves about half the money. Says beans are just as healthy as meat, and a lot easier to store. Maybe with you here to back me up, they'll let me off school for a couple of days so we can go down to the forest."

Zack's eyes were as round as saucers. "Your mom lets you take time off school to hunt?"

Cloud shrugged. "I'm actually a couple of grades ahead of where I'm supposed to be, 'cause I work at it. Seth says learning is important, and you never know what part of what you learn might turn out to be useful, even if it seems pointless at the time. He has this story about how him knowing who fought in the Second Wutainese Civil War saved someone's life once."

"You're kidding me."

"No, there was this Wutainese terrorist who thought he was educated and he made a bet that he'd surrender and let his hostages go if Seth could answer three questions. Otherwise he'd kill them. Seth won."

"Do you know who fought in the . . . in whatever war that was?"

"Sort of. I've got a book on Wutainese history that Seth gave me—we don't spend much time on it in school. It's hard to keep track of all the names, though. A lot of them are written different in Wutainese, but they come out the same in Common, and I don't read Wutainese all that well yet."

"Cloud . . ." Zack half-mumbled the name through a bite of cheese sandwich.

The younger boy shrugged. "It isn't like I can spend all my time hunting or doing sword practice or hand-to-hand, and you know I don't have a lot of friends here." Just Tifa, sort of. "It isn't like I never let loose and have fun, either. But I like to read."

"'S just kind embarassing you're so much smarter than me."

"Seth says there are different kinds of smart—that you're good with people, and that's just as important as book learning."

"Huh." Zack's plate was down to the crumbs now, but he picked those up and ate them too, licking his fingers. "Wish he was here now—I could use some advice. But I guess I'll see him when they send me to Wutai."

"Probably." The name Colonel Seth Crescent was starting to appear, now and again, in the newspapers that got shipped to Nibelheim from Rocket Town. The Cosmo Canyon papers never had anything about Wutai or the war, because people from the Canyon didn't like Shinra much. "We could call him, later. I've got his PHS number—I don't know why he never gave it to you. But I'm not supposed to call him during the day unless it's an emergency, and it's a couple of hours earlier in Wutai than it is here."

"Oh, right, timezone stuff," Zack said, nodding like he wanted to pretend he'd known all along. Which was probably why he didn't have Seth's number, come to think of it. Cloud knew that Zack wasn't dumb, but he got distracted really easily.

Cloud's mother, when she came home, said it was okay for Zack to stay, and okay for the two of them to hunt together even if it meant Cloud took a bit of time off school, but Zack had to call his parents so that they'd know he hadn't been eaten by a dragon or something.

Cloud loaned his friend his PHS to do that with. It didn't sound like there was too much yelling coming from the other end during the call, so he figured it was probably okay and Zack's parents were getting used to the idea. By the time was over, Zack was exhausted, though, so they didn't try to call Seth that night.

The next morning, it started to rain, so the boys decided to go hunting at the mansion instead of climbing down to the foothills.

"We have to be careful to make sure no one sees us going in," Cloud warned his friend. "No one's really supposed to go inside without permission from Shinra, but Seth broke the lock on the door a long time ago and no one's ever bothered to fix it. And anyway, permission from Seth is almost the same thing as permission from Shinra these days—a colonel is pretty high up."

"Yeah," Zack agreed. And sneezed, because they'd just stepped inside and kicked up some of the dust. "They don't ever clean in here either, do they?"

"It would take forever. Besides, no one really lives here. Except the vampire."

Zack snickered. "Yeah, the vampire." Cloud had told him that story before, and Zack had laughed then, too. "Where can we find some of those dorky face things?"

"They hide in the corners," Cloud said. "Or under stuff. There's usually a lot of them in the pantry—here, I'll show you."

Children's voices again. Boys, he thought, one of them starting to crack with puberty. How long had it been this time? Not as long, he thought, staring into darkness. Days? Weeks? Surely not months.

How long had he been here, exactly? He had been terrified, and feeling horribly ill, with voices reverberating in his mind, and he had instinctively found a small, safe place to hide. He'd lain there ever since, dozing in darkness as his flesh was wracked with fever, and chills, and fever again. He felt stronger now, though. The voices were silent (he was certain the children weren't inside his head, but what were they doing here?), and although his memories were full of terrible, terrible things, the bullet in his chest and Lucrecia collapsing and the dim green view from inside a tube filled with mako, he no longer felt physically ill.

Sephiroth, he thought, and felt a pang of guilt. He had been vaguely aware of conversations around him even while he had been comatose. Knew the baby had been born, but Lucrecia's health had continued to deteriorate afterwards. Remembered Hojo's voice shouting at him from outside his refuge, gloating, telling him that she was dead, and that the child would be taken to Midgar while he stayed here to rot.

He didn't feel very rotten. Just guilty, and ashamed at his own incompetence. Becoming emotionally engaged with one of his charges was a rookie mistake. And failing to win an argument was one thing, but he should never have been shot by a civilian. Even a trainee Turk would have been more aware of his surroundings than that. Goddess, he was such a damned fool . . . If he'd kept the confrontation from escalating to the point of lethal violence, he might have been there to protect the child. Might have kidnapped him out from under Hojo's nose, or assassinated Hojo, or . . . so many other things.

How old was that little boy now? How many years had that child spent in Hojo's clutches because he, Vincent Valentine, was a complete and total failure?

He raised his hand to push at the darkness above his head—he could tell that there was some kind of ceiling or lid or something there. It held firm until he raised his other hand as well, the half-numb left, and put his back into a harder push. Something rose and toppled and then there was a feeling of space above him, and the faint hint of a distant, arched ceiling. The room smelled of dust and cold earth.

. . . It really was a coffin that he'd been lying in. He wondered what had happened to the original inhabitant. The several others strewn around the room were . . . occupied.

How was it that he could see so well? Everything was weirdly monochrome, lit in baleful red, and yet absolutely clear.

There was a clink as he raised himself out of the coffin, and he looked down to discover that his left arm was encased in a metal gauntlet from the elbow down. He appeared to have a full range of motion with it, although the claws would make it awkward for certain tasks, but the only thing he could actually feel from that hand was a dull ache.

He was truly beginning to wonder what Hojo had done to him, with the mako and the scalpels and . . . had there been a materia in there somewhere? A strange transparent one with a shimmering core of light? His memories of that period were fragmented, mixed with bits of his nightmares and possibly some outright hallucinations.

He absently tried to run his good hand through his hair, and felt it snag on tangled strands that were far longer than he remembered. There was some kind of band across his forehead holding the worst of it back. He wondered whose work that had been. For that matter, his clothes . . . The leathers were his, he'd worn them to hunt monsters outside the village, because wiping blood and other unpleasantness off leather was easier than getting a suit dry-cleaned in a place like Nibelheim, but where had the cape loosely settled around him come from?

Well, he wasn't going to be able to answer those questions here. If he remembered correctly, this was one of the rooms in the mansion's original cavernous basement, one of the few not converted into laboratory space. The main door, when he tried it, was locked from the other side, but there was an old secret passage from the days a fortified manor had been built on this site, and following it took him to the front room that held the spillover from the other sections of the lab.

Someone else had been here. Vincent crouched down and examined the layers of overlapping footprints. The size-twelve combat boots had been in and out frequently over a period of time, but hadn't been back in quite a while. And . . . a small child. One footprint, distinct under another layer of dust, had to be several years old, and it was tiny. The last person to come here had still be a child, perhaps even the same child, older. He followed those footprints over to the mako-purification apparatus in the corner. The child had crouched there for a while, then left again.

There was mako residue in the apparatus, and it had been cleaned more recently than the rest of the lab. For use?

Vincent straightened and took another overview of the lab. The bookshelves were half-empty, disarranged, and a quick check found a large number of books in a pile in the corner—a heap, not a neat stack. As though someone had considered them trash.

He picked the top one up—a standard research journal, with a cardboard cover—and frowned. Contradicts information from reliable sources, someone had written across the cover, in a neat script with a hint of backslant that suggested the writer was left-handed.

Other books bore other notations, sometimes on notes stuck to the covers or used as bookmarks—no such professor at UMidgar, read one, and cross-reference of publication data produced a paper on soil bacteria was on a second, and a simple inconsistent dating on a third. The handwriting was always the same: precise, neat, and backslanted.

Vincent skimmed the contents of the first one, and found himself frowning. The journal was supposed to have been Gast's, and it did look like his handwriting at first glance, but the content referred to hypotheses the ex-Turk knew that the scientist had rejected even before Lucrecia had started falling ill, even though the dates were much later.

In short, it was nonsense, a forgery, although Vincent didn't yet understand its purpose. And the other books in the heap were no doubt more forgeries, each carefully investigated and debunked by the person with the neat handwriting and size-twelve combat boots. Not all of the books on the heap were mere laboratory notes, either—there were what appeared to be science journals (mostly issues of something called Cytology, to which Hojo had had a subscription) and a few heavy hardcover tomes with publication data indicating university presses. It would have taken an immense amount of time and effort to fabricate all of this.

He picked several items off the heap at random and settled in to read them more carefully, trying to figure out what kind of false information they were supposed to give the reader, all the while listening with half an ear to the sounds from above, the two boys talking and evidently fighting something. He wondered if the younger boy had been the one who had left the footprints in the lab's dust.

Jenova. That seemed to be at the core of all the forged documents: information supporting the assertion that Jenova had been an Ancient. But who would have wanted to lie about that to whom, and why? He suspected this was Hojo's work . . . but was that only due to his opinion of Hojo? Vincent frowned behind the collar of his cape. He knew he was getting emotionally engaged again, but how could he help it? The only reason he wasn't dead at Hojo's hands was that the scientist had wanted him to suffer, and to witness the sufferings of others.

"Wow, this staircase is rotten! I swear, I can feel the boards bending! How did Seth even manage to get down here?"

"He jumped whenever I came down with him, and made sure he landed on the spots where he'd fixed it when he was working his way back up."

Vincent swore inwardly as he heard the voices and the footsteps descending toward the basement. Silently, he returned the books to the heap and slipped back into the secret passage. He didn't have the time to do anything about the dust he'd disturbed himself. Hopefully these children wouldn't be acute enough to notice the marks on the floor.

He heard the shrill screech of some bats, and the sound of someone letting off a fire-based spell.

"I can't get over how cool that is," said the older boy. "Wish I could figure out how it works."

"We can try again when we've caught enough monsters to pay for your boat ticket," the younger said. "Now, this is a black bat, right? You want to get the fangs from them. Like this."

Vincent wondered whether the boy he'd thought younger was just slower to develop than his friend. Or perhaps he was listening to a boy and a girl. There was a peephole in the wall here that gave him a view of the lab, but the angle was narrow and the two hadn't entered it yet.

"Four down, a dozen more to go!" The older boy never lost his cheerful tone of voice.

"Yeah." Footsteps. "Zack, wait a sec."

"Something wrong?"

"I think someone's been here since the last time I was down here."

"How long ago was that?"

"Um . . . February sometime? Before the last time Seth came home on leave. I usually only hunt upstairs—the bats are too much work if it's just me."

"Maybe he came down here before he went back to Wutai, then," Zack suggested.

"Maybe. I don't . . . Something seems wrong, but it's only a feeling. I mean, it doesn't look like anything's been stolen or even just moved."

"You have too many feelings."

They crossed the space in front of Vincent's peephole, then. "Zack" had to be the older boy, with the black hair and tanned skin, about fourteen. The other boy, the blond one, was smaller—ten, perhaps?—but he held his sword in a way that suggested the weapon wasn't new to him. The ex-Turk wasn't all that interested in the boys themselves, though. "Seth" must have been the meticulous researcher with the combat boots ("on leave" rather than "on vacation" certainly suggested someone in the military). Who was in Wutai right now. And who might know where to find Hojo. Certainly if he was doing research on Jenova, he would at least have heard of the man. So this Seth might be worth tracking down.

The alternative would be to go to Shinra Headquarters in Midgar and breaking into the records there to see where Hojo had been sent after he'd left Nibelheim, for this lab was long-disused. Except for the mako-purification apparatus . . . but that was a mystery Vincent had no reason to study in detail. Midgar might be quicker—at least it was a fixed location that would be easy to find.

He would find Hojo, and he would ensure that the greasy little man never got his hands on a helpless individual again. It wouldn't be enough to atone for his failure, but it would at least ensure that things couldn't get any worse.

Chapter Text

Chapter 21 (Sephiroth's narrative)

My presence made no significant change to the course of the war in Wutai. Or perhaps it did, and things would have gone much worse without me. I was moved back to the First Army in the fall of 1997, exchanging places with now-Colonel Walker. Angeal and Genesis went with me once again, although I suspected we would be assigned together less frequently now that they were First Class.

Northern Wutai was where the fighting was at its thickest, and Masamune and I reaped a trail of blood, much as we had done in the first history. Back then, I hadn't been mature enough, or perhaps jaded enough, to feel weary distaste for what I was doing. The battlefield was my home, but I wanted this war to end. Fighting monsters always felt . . . cleaner . . . than fighting human beings.

By December, I was General Phelps' lead tactician as well as responsible for the cadre of three hundred SOLDIERs who were nominally part of the First Army. That put me in the position of being the one to start rotating Genesis and Angeal elsewhere. Angeal went back to Midgar to inspect training procedures with a list of things we needed to improve. Hopefully he and Lazard would be able to sort that out.

Gen was, as always, a chocobo of a different hue. I couldn't assign him too nearby without snubbing his pride (and cutting myself out of missions that would get me away from my damnable desk), but I also couldn't assign him too far away without losing the ability to sit on him if he did something too impetuous. There had been . . . unnecessary problems . . . in the previous history, and I was hoping to avoid them this time.

In the spring, Angeal returned. Of course, he wasn't alone.

"Aren't you curious about what sort of person Angeal would mentor?" Genesis asked from where he was lounging in the chair on the visitors' side of my desk. He had his copy of Loveless in front of him as usual, but was doing a poor job of pretending to read.

"I'm sure that anyone who was able to catch Angeal's eye will be extraordinary." And I had a lot more papers to get through today, mostly requisitions forms, since I was required to sign off on anything that would cost Shinra more than a certain amount.

"Still, how can you stand to do paperwork on the day he's finally coming back?"

"I only have to reflect on what this pile is going to look like tomorrow if I don't deal with it today," I said drily. "Angeal knows the way up from the airfield. He won't get lost between there and here." After much effort, Shinra had secured a ninja-free corridor to the coast where aircraft weren't at risk from the smaller types of rocket launchers, so it was possible to move people between Midgar and the camps without putting them on a boat for a week. "Although if you want to fetch him, I won't stop you."

"I have no intention of being too eager to greet him." Genesis sniffed and pretended to return his attention to his book.

I raised an eyebrow. "It's perfectly acceptable for you to miss him, you know. You've known each other for so long that you'd miss him even if you hated each other."

"You are the last man I would take any advice about interpersonal relationships from."

Which was probably true. Although I'd been trying to channel Angeal himself, it was a task I failed at far too easily.

Footsteps in the outer office, and the sound of my secretary greeting someone. "Welcome back, Major Hewley. And this is . . . ?"

"My new student," Angeal said, sounding amused.

"Zack Fair, SOLDIER Third Class," added a cheerful voice. "I'm really pleased to meet you!"

"Corporal Handred," my secretary introduced himself.

"Is Colonel Crescent free?" Angeal asked.

"Major Rhapsodos is in there with him, but you know as well as I do that that doesn't mean anything."

"Perfect—I was afraid Gen would be sulking and I was going to have to go hunting for him."

"I do not sulk," Genesis muttered. I ignored him.

Angeal took several steps closer to the door. Genesis drawled "Come in," at precisely the moment his friend would have been raising his hand to knock. Angeal was still rolling his eyes as he stepped inside.

"Gen, Seth, I'd like you to meet—"

But Zack was already dodging around the end of my desk. At least, I reflected wryly, he hadn't thrown himself headfirst across it. This time.

"Seth! I didn't figure I'd get to see you the first day I was here—" Zack's hugs, I noted, weren't yet up to the rib-crushing standard they'd reached by the time he was eighteen . . . but they were getting close to it.

I sighed and ruffled his hair. "You've been taught how to greet a superior officer, Zack, but I'll let it go this time, since it's only the four of us. Don't do this in public, though."

Zack gave me an unrepentant grin. "You're the one who told me to never change."

Angeal cleared his throat. "You two . . . know each other?"

"Um, yeah. Remember how I told you I learned the very basics of how to use a sword from a hunter who used to come to Gongaga once or twice a year? That was Seth." Zack turned his attention back to me, giving me his best puppydog look. "By the way, can I get your PHS number now? Cloud wouldn't give it to me."

"I told him not to. Since you've been deployed here, it will be in your contacts list under officers soon enough, if it isn't already. Don't use it frivolously. Unlike you, I have a great deal of administrative work to handle."

"That's Seth-speak for, 'All this damned paperwork is so boring I'll use any excuse to get out of it, including talking to a wet-behind-the-ears Third, so don't tempt me,'" Genesis drawled.

"I think that's you, Gen," Angeal said. "Puppy, this is Genesis Rhapsodos. Don't hug him. He tends to cast fire spells at people he doesn't like."

"He does look a bit like a puppy, doesn't he? I think it's the eyes."

"Gen," Angeal said in a familiar long-suffering tone, complete with eyeroll.

I sighed again. Their antics seemed almost to require it, sometimes. "Angeal, if you're done with the introductions, I still have these to get through before supper." I gestured at the pile of papers. "And please, take Genesis with you."

"I've probably got some work of my own piled up," Angeal admitted. "We'll be back for dinner. With an extra chair for Zack, if that's okay."

I nodded acknowledgement, and turned my attention back to the stack of requests for toilet paper and chocobo feed.

Zack slotted into place easily among us. Well, he'd been meant to be there all along.

Since it was spring, we began to ramp up the offensive again. This year, we would take the capital, although in the original history, outlying areas of Wutai had continued to resist Shinra for almost four more years.

Unfortunately, I had to throw Zack into the middle of things right away. I needed the strength of the elite Firsts to back up the regular army on this campaign, and that included Angeal. So Zack's first real mission was the attack on Kogaisen.

It was a small village. Wutai's population tended to be distributed that way, small agricultural villages about a day's walk apart, with a handful of larger towns that acted as centers of trade. Kogaisen's location was strategic, however: a chunk of open land at the base of one of Wutai's many natural terrain chokepoints. As such, it was built around one of the old Wutainese forts, and this one was buried deep enough in stone that it was somewhat resistant to artillery. The quickest way to deal with it was to send in SOLDIER.

I couldn't even afford to give Angeal one of the less-fraught parts of the mission, like guarding the outer gates. I could have separated him and Zack, but I wanted our newest Third where I could keep an eye on him. And so he ended up in the most-protected available position, at the middle of the spearpoint group composed of Angeal, Genesis, myself, and a trio of Seconds.

We entered the fort through the old sally port at the rear, cutting a metal door that had corroded solidly into place out of the way, then breaking through a wall on the inside where the other end of the passage had been bricked up. The Wutainese didn't have a guard on it. They probably hadn't expected anyone to be able to get through that wall without making a lot of noise with explosives or materia. I knew better than to think they hadn't known the entrance was there at all. Wutai kept very good records of that kind of thing.

Quick, silent movement along the hallways brought us to the fort's command center. And there the slaughter began, with an explosion of fire from Genesis and burning ninjas rolling out of the smoke to attack.

Zack stood frozen at first, but I had been expecting that. I kept an eye on him as I skewered the enemy commander, then shook the corpse off my blade and began to cut down others with broad strokes of Masamune. A ninja jumping at the young Third seemed to snap him out of his stupor, or perhaps he merely reacted on reflex. Either way, he cut the man down.

It took a couple of minutes to clear the room, and even when the Wutainese all seemed to be dead on the floor, I was still hearing an extra heartbeat coming from somewhere. Genesis must have been closer to the source, because he was able to pinpoint it, and slashed one of the light dividing walls out of the way.

A small figure threw itself out of a no-longer-hidden cubbyhole with a yell and a dagger, and Genesis cut the attacker from the air. The body of a girl of perhaps ten years fell to the floor, eyes already glazing over in death.

Zack threw up. I'd been expecting that, since it was a common reaction to a first human kill, and Angeal had mentioned it in the previous timeline. Angeal put a hand on his student's shoulder, but Zack shook it off . . . and really, Angeal was looking a bit sick himself.

Zack wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stumbled over to where the tiny body was lying on the ground. "Why?" he asked, glaring at Genesis. "Why did you have to kill her?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, Puppy, that little knife of hers was poisoned. If I hadn't dealt with her, she might have killed someone instead."

"She was a kid!" Zack all but screamed. "Just . . . a little kid. Someone who should have been protected, not . . . Where's the justice in this? Where's the honour? Tell me, Angeal!"

"I . . . don't know." Angeal was barely more than a boy himself, and I couldn't remember whether he'd run into Wutainese child assassins before. Perhaps not.

"Zack," I said, and the boy's eyes fastened on my face. "Sometimes all you can have is a choice of evils. Shinra won't abandon this war. Wutai can't win it, but they will throw everything they have at us. Including lives that, in a just world, would not be at risk of being lost. The only thing we can do to save them is end the war as quickly as possible. Which means winning with such overwhelming power that Wutai won't bother with contingency plans like these." I gestured at the girl's body with the tip of Masamune. "Let your honour rest in doing your duty and protecting your comrades. Under the circumstances, that's all any of us can manage."

Zack swallowed visibly, and made a face. "Yes, sir."

Angeal gave me a nod. He looked subtly older. Perhaps it wasn't only Zack I had been educating.

As we left the Wutainese command center to finish clearing out the fort, Genesis fell into step beside me.

"I take it back," he muttered, looking at me.

I raised an eyebrow, hoping for a better explanation.

"I've told you a few times that I would never take advice on relationships or politics from you. I was wrong. You have an odd angle of view, but sometimes you seem to see more clearly than anyone else."

"They call it cynicism," I said dryly, and Genesis snorted.

"Well, I suppose that if anyone has a right to it, you do. 'Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul.'"

"Loveless, act two," I observed, and Genesis blinked.

"I didn't know you'd read it."

"The labs didn't provide the widest selection of recreational reading material. I picked up anything I could get my hands on." Both true statements, although Loveless hadn't been included among the offerings. I'd read the poem later, when Genesis had all but forced a copy on me. When I'd told him that I wasn't impressed by the character dynamics, he'd called me names using some rather dense and poetic language of his own, and then refused to discuss it with me ever again.

Genesis might have been about to say something else, but the wall to our left blew out. Some sort of Wutainese bomb or grenade rather than a spell or anything from our ordnance—I could smell the black powder the ninja favoured for homemade explosives. Genesis hissed through his teeth as a large piece of shrapnel bit deeply into the meat of his thigh. One of the Seconds immediately dropped to his knees and wrapped a strap around the redhead's leg above the injury as a makeshift tourniquet, and Gen cursed as he pulled it tight. However, he knew as well as I did that it was the safest way: to cast Cure effectively, someone had to remove the metal, and the easiest way to lessen the risk of Genesis bleeding out in the process was to stop the blood flow entirely. A few minutes wouldn't cause significant tissue damage.

I was busy wiping out the additional ninjas on the other side when I heard someone say from behind me, "Sir! The wound won't close!"

A cold knot instantly formed in the pit of my stomach. Already? We should have had three more years! Goddess, Genesis was only nineteen!

"Keep the tourniquet on him," I snapped without turning. "And try casting again, the strongest spell you have." Sometimes that had helped a little, I knew—adding extra energy to drive the healing to completion. Quickly, I cut down the remaining three ninja, shook the blood from Masamune, and turned.

Genesis was sitting on the floor with his teeth visibly gritted and Angeal, Zack, and the Second who'd tied the tourniquet hovering over him. The Second looked at me and shook his head. I motioned him out of the way and knelt in his place.

"There's one thing I can try, but it isn't going to be pleasant," I warned the redhead. "If it doesn't work, all we can do is keep the tourniquet in place until we get you to Medical, then have them sew it shut and hope that holds you until Hollander can get here."

"Do it," Genesis forced out.

I reached inside my coat, and took out the silvered flask and the small plastic case that held the three empty syringes. Opening the case, I took one syringe from its packaging, and stabbed it through the stopper of the flask. Everyone could see the green glow as I slowly pulled the plunger back, but there was no helping it.

"What concentration is that?" Angeal asked, staring.

"As close to pure as makes no difference. Dilution would be detrimental for this."

I looked at Genesis, who nodded, teeth still gritted. His breath hissed out as I plunged the needle in right next to the deep wound from the shrapnel. I emptied it steadily, until a thin layer of green filmed over the surface of the cut. Then I cast the highest-level spell my mastered Restore materia was capable of channelling. Twice.

Slowly, grudgingly, the wound eased shut, leaving an angry red-green line behind. Genesis' breath hissed again as I untied the tourniquet. The veins in his thigh were glowing visibly through the skin.

"Zack," I said, "help Major Rhapsodos back to his quarters. The rest of you are still with me."

The Seconds were all staring at us. I was going to have to think of something to tell them that would make it clear that what had happened to Genesis was peculiar to him and other members of SOLDIER weren't at risk. The last thing we needed was to start a panic. However, we had a fort to clear first. Hopefully, that would keep everyone occupied until I could come up with an idea.

Chapter Text

Chapter 22

"I still do not understand how some thick-headed sword-swinger could have the authority to place you on medical leave, even for a mere two weeks!"

It was the third repetition, and Genesis was getting beyond tired of Hollander's inability to just shut up.

"He's my commanding officer," he drawled, and if he'd been in a normal chair instead of perched on the edge of a lab table in his briefs, he would have leaned back just to show how concerned about this he wasn't. "He can order me to do whatever he wants." Not to mention that I suspect Seth is quite a bit smarter than you.

He didn't look down at the seam across his thigh. It was closed and mostly healed, but it still ached if he exerted himself. Hollander claimed it was healed enough that it wouldn't tear open again, but what did he know?

"Concentrate on finding out why I needed a mako injection and multiple full-force spells to knit a flesh wound back together," he added.

"And I still don't understand why one of your colleagues had mako with him on a mission. Especially not that much mako. Judging from your blood levels, he gave you as much as one of your regular booster shots, and it was medical-grade. That's more mako than anyone not working in this department should have been able to get his hands on, and yet there's no record of any having . . . escaped."

Genesis snorted. "You make it sound like it grew little glowing green legs and ran away." All Seth had said when he'd asked about the mako afterwards was that he kept it for his own use, since while he didn't need routine boosters, he was subject to some level of draw-down if injured. Perhaps he'd gotten it from some secret store of Hojo's, after he'd killed the man. "Does mako have a limited shelf-stability period? For that matter, is it difficult to purify? Perhaps someone at Midgar University got ambitious, then thought better of it and unloaded the stuff on a SOLDIER. Or Wutai was trying to create its own line of SOLDIERs, and was interrupted. Or maybe someone just twiddled your inventory records."

Hollander frowned. "It does go bad eventually if kept stagnant, but 'eventually' would mean hundreds of years, and any lab technician who knows the procedure can purify it. And the procedure itself is published, I believe. So in theory, someone could have collected raw mako from Mideel or the Nibel Mountains or some other reactor-friendly site and nursed it past the explosive stage. I just find it unlikely. And I would like very much to speak to this 'Colonel Crescent'. If he doesn't require mako booster shots, his physiology could revolutionize the SOLDIER program."

"You'd have to send the Turks to haul him in," Genesis said pleasantly. "And even that would probably result in a bunch of dead Turks rather than a sample."

"He's contractually required to—"

"He signed a mercenary contract, not the standard SOLDIER forms. There's nothing in there about him having to do anything for the Science Department."

"His status should be regularized," Hollander grumbled.

"You're welcome to try, but I'm fairly sure he'd resign rather than sign."

"I'm going to have a talk with Director Lazard."

"You do that." Genesis somehow restrained himself from patting the scientist on the arm in mocking commiseration. "Now, do you have any more cups that you need me to pee into, or are we done here? Because my contract certainly doesn't obligate me to stay here and listen to you moan and whinge."

Genesis scowled at nothing as he dressed, and scowled again as he caught his reflection in a panel of polished metal on some piece of lab apparatus. The standard SOLDIER uniform was atrociously unfashionable. A sleeveless turtleneck sweater, for Bahamut's sake! They couldn't have come up with anything more ridiculous if they'd tried. Seth's long leather coat, while equally ridiculous in its way, at least had some flair to it.

Perhaps he should get a coat of his own. Not black, though. The colour might accentuate Seth's unearthly beauty, but it just made Genesis look washed out. Red, perhaps. Yes, a red coat would be quite suitable. He should be able to get one made while he was here in Midgar.

I hope I was careful enough, my friend. Forgive me for being unable to prevent Hollander from taking an interest altogether. He brushed his fingers over the mark on his leg, still and perhaps permanently just a little too inflamed to be called a scar. Genesis had no doubt that Seth's prompt first aid had saved him from bleeding to death on the floor of a hallway in a Wutainese fort. And . . . he had seen the look in the other man's eyes as he'd bent over him. Perhaps someone less familiar with those mako green cat's eyes would have had a difficult time reading past their strangeness, but Genesis had known Seth for quite a while now, and he'd been able to interpret that look as deep worry. And pain.

Genesis would never have expected anyone but Angeal to react to his situation in that way. His own parents didn't bother to worry about him. Seth didn't make it obvious, but he cared deeply about the handful of people he let close to him. Genesis just wished there had been a little less difference between them in experience and skill. It felt as though he was always running after the older man, always playing catch-up, and it galled him. It was impossible to be the best when there was someone always a step ahead of you. And yet, how could he resent his saviour's strength?

My friend, your desire / Is the bringer of life, the gift of the goddess. He touched the mark on his leg again, through his clothes.

They'd talked about it for a bit—Loveless, that was—after Genesis had discovered that the older man had read the poem. There hadn't been much else for him to do during the twenty-four hours he'd had to wait for a ride out of Wutai, and Seth was quite capable of talking and signing forms at the same time when he wanted to be.

What I find particularly frustrating about your beloved poem is its gilded view of what constitutes heroism. Moving from one easy battle to another isn't being a hero. True heroes are forged in blood and pain. No one in their right mind ever seeks to acquire that status in the only way possible, and the "heroes" that are acknowledged by the public are generally frauds.

That had given him something to chew over. He was still considering it. It was true that Loveless said little about the Hero's travails, focusing more tightly on the lives of the other two friends. If the Hero was a fraud, did that make the Wanderer or the Prisoner the true hero?

And if that is the case, which of us is the hero?

"Not a chance," Veld said, leaning back in his chair with his hands folded comfortably across his stomach.

"Why not?" Hollander was no Hojo. He couldn't seem to quite make up his mind whether to seethe or cringe. He glanced around Veld's office periodically, but there wasn't much to rest his eyes on unless he wanted to stare at the vertical blinds covering the window. The Turk kept his office as sparse and undecorated as possible on purpose.

"Tell me, what happens if a First Class SOLDIER defects from Shinra and can't get mako any longer? Does he maintain his strength?"

Hollander frowned. "Of course not. Some of the changes are permanent, naturally, but he'd deteriorate to a Third Class level over time. I fail to see what—"

"A Third Class can be taken down with a well-timed bullet from a sniper rifle. A First Class would laugh and catch the bullet in his teeth. Do you have any idea what my department's contingency plans for disposing of a rebellious First Class look like, Doctor? The ones after 'find another First to do it, if you can find one who can be trusted not to just fake his comrade's death and let him go'?" Veld smiled without humour. "Most of them involve stalking the renegade First for a long time, until he starts to deteriorate enough that we have some chance of taking him out without involving half the army." And killing anyone the hypothetical renegade came into contact with, if at all possible . . . but Veld wasn't going to bring up that part. Or the alternative plan, which involved the selective deployment of multiple wild malboros in the hope that one of them would be able to connect with a breath attack. That one was barely a skeleton of a skeleton, anyway, since no one had ever figured out who was going to catch the malboros in the first place. "The mako injections are a control measure. A SOLDIER who can maintain his mako levels unaided isn't an asset to the company, Doctor, but a liability. And if you drive such a project forward, so are you."

Veld watched the expressions that paraded across Hollander's face as that sank in. It was always the intellectuals you had to hit with the biggest possible bricks to get them to think outside of their comfortable little boxes.

"Then what about Seth Crescent?" Hollander asked at last.

"Administrative Research has had its eye on Colonel Crescent since he first joined the company. So far, he doesn't seem to have done anything against Shinra's best interests, or mishandled any secrets. If he ever does, we'll be ready," the Turk lied.

The truth was, Veld thought as the scientist finally spluttered his way out of his office, that there wouldn't be much they could do if Sephiroth decided to turn on Shinra, Inc. The consensus among SOLDIERs was that the man had no equal and that they should establish a new Zeroth Class to put him in. If he decided to be uncooperative, well, they'd have to hope that whatever he did was heinous enough that they could get all the other Firsts to attack him en masse. The alternative was to use heavy ordnance and hope that it didn't fail and piss the silver-haired man off.

Veld really didn't like the thought of a Sephiroth with nothing left to lose gunning for Shinra. Even if they could win against him, they'd incur heavy losses. Right now, their best protection was the silver-haired man's rational acknowledgement that destroying Shinra would also trash the world power structure, throw everything into chaos, and likely cause millions of deaths. But if he was angry enough, that might stop mattering to him.

Vince, the things I do for you, Veld thought, shaking his head at the picture on his desk.

A gil was definitely worth less now than it had been twenty years ago, Vincent was discovering. The handful of change he'd found in his pockets should have been enough for a decent selection of supplies, but he had to settle for some bullets and a cleaning kit for the worn Quicksilver he'd dug out of the upstairs bedroom where he'd once lived, a lifetime ago. The gun hadn't been his, but an extra left behind in the hidden gun safe by some other, nameless, forgotten Turk. Still, it worked, and that was the important thing.

No one in Nibelheim seemed to recognize him, although the town hadn't changed very much. Still, it had been quite a while, and he'd never really associated with the townsfolk.

He had picked up one tidbit of information, though.

Haven't had a real hunter up here since Seth Crescent left to join SOLDIER. The Strife boy tries, but his mama won't let him go too far into the mountains. Well, he's only eleven.

If this was the same Seth, and he had no reason to believe that it wasn't, a last name would make him infinitely easier to track down if it became necessary. And he suspected he'd just run across the name of the blond boy with the sword who had been at the mansion with "Zack". If Midgar and Wutai failed to pan out, he'd come back to question the child, although he suspected the boy knew little of use.

(He didn't let himself consider the possibility that his target might be related to his beloved, lost Lucrecia. There were places on Gaia where "Crescent" was not an uncommon last name.)

Vincent turned his face north, towards the pass that led to the coast, and began to walk.

Zack was getting used to being in Wutai. Sort of.

He didn't like the fighting. He'd thought he would, but he didn't. Because he understood now what it meant, that there were people dying all around him, and he was part of the reason. But if he didn't fight, there would still be people dying around him, and he would still be part of the reason, because he wasn't protecting them or doing anything to end the war. He could only be on one side, and his friends were with Shinra, but the Wutainese were the ones doing the right thing, really. It was difficult to wrap his head around, and come on, he was only fourteen.

Sometimes he wished he really was stupid. Maybe then he'd be able to follow along behind Seth and Angeal without thinking about it too much. Sometimes all you can have is a choice of evils. Zack was sure those words were going to stick in his head until he died.

He wished he could talk to Cloud, but the blond hadn't be answering his PHS for the last week or so. He'd probably forgotten to charge it, the way Zack sometimes had with his until Angeal had caught him with dead comms and made him haul a portable charger around the camp and make sure everyone had their batteries topped up. That thing had been heavy, even with SOLDIER strength.

Maybe he should have asked Seth if he'd gotten any calls from Cloud, but Seth was . . . well. Zack was still trying to come up with better words for how he sensed Seth worked, inside. This was the first time he'd ever spent more than a couple of days with the man (although he'd talked about him with Cloud pretty often), and every so often Zack would take a look at him and realize that he was really hurting. There was something awful bottled up inside him, like there had been in Great-Uncle Elias after he'd killed that frog and only afterwards found out that it was his wife, transformed by a touch-me. Great-Uncle Elias had walked off into the jungle one day a couple of weeks later and never come back. Not alive, anyway.

Zack thought that whatever Seth was hiding was the same somehow, a great big sad-guilty-horrible thing that he blamed himself for. And it wasn't just about what was wrong with Major Rhapsodos, either. But he couldn't think of any way to talk to the older man about it. Seth was too smart and too stubborn and it was obvious he didn't want to talk. So Zack waited. He was better at waiting than most people thought, so long as he didn't have to stay still while he was doing it.

Still, Zack was going crazy by the time Cloud finally did call. By then, it was the middle of summer, and it was almost as hot as Gongaga, although Wutai wasn't even nearly as wet, so it didn't feel as hot. Shinra forces had been moving steadily forward, a single town or fortress at a time, and they'd probably be at the capital while there were still leaves on the trees, or at least Zack thought so.

His PHS buzzed in the middle of a practice session, but it was just private practice, not something supervised by Angeal or one of the other officers, so he put his sword away. His eyes lit up when he saw the caller ID on the device.

"Spiky?"

"Zack? Oh, thank Fenrir. I, um, did something kind of, well, you-like, and now I'm kind of in trouble."

"What kind of trouble, and how can I help?" Zack said instantly.

"I signed up with Shinra as a mercenary. And I'm in Wutai and we're taking fire and I can't get close enough to use my sword and I don't think I can cast another spell and I . . . don't know what to do." Cloud sounded awful, like he was three and wanted to cry, and Zack didn't like it at all.

"Okay," Zack forced himself to say. And again. "Okay. I'll tell Seth, but Cloud, first of all, I need to know where in Wutai. It's a pretty big place."

"I don't know."

"There has to be something! The place you started from, the place you were headed for . . . even what kind of mission you were on! Think, Spike!"

"I . . . um . . . Entsu! That was where we were supposed to be headed for, with a supply convoy!"

"Entsu. Got it. Just hide as best you can, and try to hang on, 'kay? Play dead if you have to. We'll be there soon."

Zack stuffed the PHS back in his pocket and took off at a run. Seth was going to be really, really mad about this. He'd seen Seth mad once before, when he, Zack, had done something stupid in front of a Grand Horn and almost gotten himself and Cloud killed. He wasn't looking forward to dealing with that at all. Saving Cloud was more important, though. Always.

Chapter Text

Chapter 23 (Sephiroth's narrative)

The noise of the helicopter bordered on the painful even with the double layer of hearing protection I was wearing, but I gritted my teeth and endured. Beside me, Zack sat, folded in on himself and looking nervous and miserable. Perhaps if I'd been Angeal, I would have put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but the impulse withered immediately as it flowered.

I had no comfort for myself. How could I spare any for anyone else?

This was—had to be—all my fault. If Cloud had never met me, he would be safe at home in Nibelheim right now, not hunkered down somewhere along the dirt road between Entsu and Hamadoro, trying not to die. And if he did die, then the last failsafe, the barrier that might have to protect the world from me, would be gone.

I'd thought I was doing the right thing. Apparently, I'd been wrong, and I was going to have to pick up the pieces.

The burned-out convoy was visible on the road below now. The Wutainese liked throwing summons at things, especially fire and lightning types. They didn't seem to care about the deforestation that tended to result.

"Be ready," I warned Zack and the four Seconds I'd brought with us. "And get that door open."

With the side of the helicopter out of the way, the wind tore at my hair and my coat. I took a firm grip on the bar mounted beside the opening for that purpose, and leaned out for a better look at the ground.

One group east of the road, one group west. Impossible to tell which side was the Wutainese, and which the hired mercenary convoy guards.

"I'll be dropping in straight. After that, circle around to the north a bit before letting everyone else off."

The pilot flashed a gesture back over his shoulder to show he understood. I discarded my hearing protection and made certain that Masamune was secure on my back. Then I jumped.

Wind whistled past my ears as I relaxed my body and oriented myself. I landed on top of the cab of a burned-out truck with a metallic thud as my feet sank an inch deep into its substance, and was immediately forced to parry a spray of bullets. Well, at least that gave me a direction: the Wutainese were the ones to the east of the road.

I jumped down from the truck, batting bullets aside, and ran toward their half-hidden position with Masamune raised to strike. A Wutainese man in the garb of a ninja, holding a naginata, rose out of the bushes and came charging at me. No doubt his intention was to force me to stay in one place long enough for the bullets to do their work. The polearm was one of the few hand weapons I knew of that had more reach than Masamune.

It didn't, however, have more reach than a materia. I fired a lightning spell at him, and he screamed and convulsed, dropping his weapon as I lunged forward and impaled him, then brought Masamune around in a quick motion that threw the still-sparking corpse onto his compatriots. Then I descended on them like the wrath of Leviathan.

One of them managed to get off a shot in roughly the right direction and clipped my ear with a bullet. The wet warmth of blood dribbled down my neck for a moment before the veins clotted over and began healing. I took the shooter's hands off, and then cut through her head on the backswing.

Other than the ninja, the dozen or so Wutainese were typical partisans, dressed in civilian clothes and armed with a motley assortment of guns. Two of them were barely Zack's age, and roughly a third were women. I killed them anyway. If they'd picked up weapons once, they would do so again. My disgust with the situation didn't mean I would let them harm any of the men I was responsible for, and partisans had little intelligence value. Let your honour rest in doing your duty and protecting your comrades, I'd told Zack, and I knew very well where my duty lay. Even if this whole war seemed like an idiotic children's squabble over a toy when I considered the real evils abroad in the world.

I decapitated the ones I had only run through, to make certain that they were well and truly dead, whipped Masamune through two quick, sharp strokes to cleanse her, and quickly stripped the ninja of his materia. Then I turned back towards the road, sword still in my hand, and raked my eyes over the brush on the far side, looking for any sign of the mercenaries—of Cloud. There was just enough noise here, from the light breeze and the sounds of gunfire somewhere in the distance, to make it impossible for me to pick up on human heartbeats and breathing at this range, and everything smelled of blood, smoke, and hot metal.

There had been six trucks in the convoy. The drivers in the foremost three had died in their seats as their vehicles were reduced to metal frameworks around them. There was enough left for me to be able to tell the lead driver had been shot as well as burned. The fourth and fifth trucks had been out of range of the Ifrit casting, and might still be in working condition—unlike the old internal combustion engines, mako-based drives were no more flammable or explosive than any other complex mechanism. The sixth truck had also been out of range, but it had been knocked over onto its side by what looked like a mid-level quake spell, and the visible tires had been slashed. That was the one we were going to have to move to get the working vehicles back on the road.

There were seven Wutainese, three trooper, and three likely-mercenary corpses also distributed along the road, in addition to the charred skeletons of the lead drivers. A convoy of this size should have had twenty men attached to it: six drivers, six relief drivers, and eight guards. That left eleven people who should still be either alive, or dead somewhere out of sight.

I stepped around the rear of the last truck to the far side of the road, and a chocobo-yellow head suddenly popped above the level of the brush on the far side of the roadway. "Seth! Over here!"

After a fraction of a second of internal debate, I sheathed Masamune. Then I strode over to the boy from Nibelheim.

He wasn't the only one crouching in the vegetation-bordered drainage ditch. All present and accounted for, I thought as I scanned people and uniforms, although one man was clearly dead. Only when I had the full count did I turn back to the person who had brought me here in the first place.

"Cloud. I hope you've realized just how abysmally stupid this was."

"Around the time I called Zack," Cloud told his feet, the smile that had blossomed on his face the moment he saw me vanishing again.

"Why Zack and not me?"

Cloud swallowed. "Because I knew you'd be angry. And I didn't . . . No one ever shot at me before. I wasn't thinking properly, I guess."

"You're right. I am . . . very angry. I thought I had taught you better than to do something so reckless." I hadn't needed to put so much effort into smothering my rage since the labs. It felt like I had swallowed bottled lightning. "Although part of the blame rests with the recruiting office that was willing to accept an undersized eleven-year-old as fourteen on the basis of his word alone."

"The kid's eleven?" someone off to the side muttered incredulously.

"Not quite my word alone," Cloud said. "The blanks for birth certificates are in the basement of the town hall. The room isn't locked, and no one outside of Nibelheim would have any idea who's allowed to sign them or what their signatures look like."

Resourceful, I thought, but with more irritation than praise. "We'll discuss this further when we're clear of this area." I turned to face the other men. "Who's senior here?"

"I am, sir. Corporal Roger Deeton." He pushed himself to his feet and saluted.

"Colonel Seth Crescent, SOLDIER First Class." I returned the salute with precision, although SOLDIER doesn't normally bother with formalities when in the field. "What is your condition?"

"What you see is what you get, sir. Ten of us made it, including Strife there. Rynar's going downhill fast, though. Bullet nicked an artery, and it's spurting every time he moves. The rest of us are a bit banged up, but none of us to the point where we can't walk."

I nodded. "Show me Rynar—I have materia and may be able to help, if he isn't too far gone. Also anyone else who's seriously enough injured that you would normally be using a potion or such on them. The rest of you, try to figure out where the keys for the undamaged vehicles are, unless you want to walk out. There will be a few additional SOLDIERs arriving soon, and between us, we should be able to move the damaged vehicles out of the way."

"Yessir. This way."

Rynar was one of the mercenaries—out cold, his lips blue, but still alive. I used my Restore materia on him, then moved on to a couple of troopers with flesh wounds.

One of them grabbed at my coat as I finished healing him and made to leave again.

"What is it?" I asked sharply.

"You . . . aren't going to be too hard on the kid—Strife, I mean—are you, sir? He saved my ass, and a couple of other people's, too."

I shook my head. "I intend to find him something unpleasant and safe to do while I arrange to have him shipped home. Harming him would be counterproductive." I didn't want him to try coming back here until he was legally eligible to do so, if I couldn't manage to stop the war early. Cloud might be an experienced monster hunter by this point in his life, but he had no business being involved in this war. Not yet. Even I hadn't been sent to the front lines until I'd been twelve, and I had been trying to ensure he had something closer to a normal life than I'd ever been granted. Even if I barely knew what a normal life was.

Cloud's greatest flaw in the future-that-had-been, however, was a lack of self-confidence, which had fueled an aggressive need for him to prove himself. He seemed to be doing better this time, and I didn't want to take that away from him. Not breaking his spirit while trying to prevent him from taking stupid risks was a finer line to walk than I'd imagined.

"Papa dragon's seriously pissed at the l'il hatchling," someone said nearby—I didn't recognize these people's voices well enough to be able to tell who had spoken.

There was a shout of laughter from not too far away. "Don't pester the colonel too much," Zack warned, hopping down into the ditch. "He gets grumpy, and then he acts even more like a dragon. Spiky? You okay?"

Zack was hit by a small blond bullet. The Second Classes were lined up along the side of the ditch, watching and grinning as Cloud latched onto his friend for a hug.

"You four, go move that rear truck," I told them, pointing. "And for the rest of you—where are those keys? If we don't get to Entsu before nightfall, the amount of danger we're all in will increase exponentially. Cloud, drink this." I passed the boy an ether. "If we run into anything along the way, I won't forbid you to fight, but I would prefer you stay in the rear and cast spells rather than try to close with the Wutainese. Zack, you're to stay with Cloud. Regardless of what else happens, get him out of this in one piece. That means that if something happens to me and you need to grab him by the hair and haul him away, you do it. However, neither of you are to surrender to the Wutainese under any circumstances. It's a recipe for a slow and agonizing death. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." Zack now looked rather subdued.

With the overturned truck out of the way, we were able to back the two undamaged vehicles out and drive them carefully around the burned-out ones. We managed to cram three men into each cab and rearrange things so that three more could climb into each cargo area. I would remain on foot, running beside the trucks with three of the Second Classes, who would trade places with the one in the rear truck as each of them tired.

The quality of the road, or rather the lack thereof, limited the speed of the vehicles. I'd impressed on the drivers that they weren't to try to hurry, since a broken axle or other irreparable damage would waste more time than a slightly slower speed. That meant that it was easy to keep pace with them, but it also meant it took three hours for us to cover the sixty miles to Entsu.

Somehow, I wasn't surprised to find a messenger waiting for me when I got there. Some things can't be said over a PHS.

It was an older trooper, wearing a sergeant's insignia. He saluted me crisply. "Sir, General Phelps wishes to speak to you."

"Lead the way, then."

Phelps wasn't based at Entsu any more than I was, so I was still unsurprised when the sergeant led me to a prefab outfitted as a conference room. The general wasn't alone, which was slightly unexpected, however. Lloyd Walker, SOLDIER First Class, was there with him.

"Crescent. Sit or stand, whichever suits you."

"Yes, sir." I took up a regulation "at ease" posture, with my feet apart and my hands clasped behind my back. Walker snorted. Phelps just raised an eyebrow.

"Relax. You didn't actually commit any breaches of the regs . . . which I think you know very well. Men of your rank are supposed to take a certain amount of initiative. You, however, don't normally exercise yours in this way, and I would like to know why you had any form of backchannel communication with the mercenary irregulars based in Hamadoro."

"The latter was coincidence. A mutual acquaintance of mine and SOLDIER Fair's had signed on with them, and he happened to have both our PHS numbers. He also happens to be all of eleven years old."

Walker twitched. Phelps was less restrained. "What?"

"He falsified a birth certificate and claimed he was fourteen, but he was five when I met him and his mother, and I know for a fact that he'll be twelve in August. And that he's here without parental permission."

"Goddess," Phelps muttered. "How did he even manage to— No, never mind that. In any case, I can see why you went after him. I'd probably have done so myself."

"Personal feelings aside, I believe rescuing him and the other men was also the best thing for Shinra," I said evenly. "Bad enough that we're shooting any Wutainese child that happens to come at us with a weapon—can you imagine what would happen if anyone found out we let a child from our side get killed? It would be a public-relations nightmare, and his mother would be leading the mob with the pitchforks."

Walker chuckled. "And you were worried about him," he said to Phelps. "It just goes to show that political neutrality isn't the same thing as political ignorance. Seth can usually find a reason or two that a suit would accept for just about anything. Hell, I've kind of missed not having him around to come up with crap like that."

I shrugged. The calculus of power isn't all that different from military strategy: it's all about advantage and disadvantage. And I was actually horrible at public relations (which was why I'd been all over recruiting posters and on television in the previous history, but was never required, or even invited, to make speeches except at closed, military-only sessions), due to being so oddly socialized, but I was intelligent enough to apply basic principles of biology, like the need of adults to defend their young, to that field.

"Might I ask why we're gathered here?" I raised an eyebrow at Phelps, although once again, I had a feeling I knew what was coming.

Phelps blew out a long breath. "You know we had to rotate Kennick back to Midgar for some medical work after he started getting stomach pains. Turns out it's cancer, and it's worse than anyone thought. The oncologist they've got working on him indicated that his insides are about to split open like a rotten fruit. Even if he pulls through, he's going to be missing so many parts he won't be able to return to the field."

I nodded. General Kennick was second-in-command of the First Army, and I had known that he was having medical problems, but not the details. In the previous history, he'd been with the Third Army, and I'd barely met him. And this conversation was headed in exactly the direction I'd expected.

"They offered me Heidegger as a replacement. I told them that I wasn't taking a useless political puffwort—not in those words, mind you, since the president actually likes the bastard—and they told me to suggest someone else. You were the only one who came to mind. But . . ."

"There are political strings attached," I suggested dryly.

Phelps nodded. "Your contract's a problem, first of all."

"He just about had heart palpitations when he realized you were working under a year-to-year mercenary contract," Walker added. "Fortunately that didn't get as far as the president, or I'd probably be on the chopping block myself." His expression suggested rueful amusement. "Still, if you agree to take this, you're going to need to negotiate something longer-term with Lazard. They'll probably give you a certain amount of leeway, given that you've pretty much handed us fifteen percent of Wutai that we wouldn't have otherwise. Did you know the Wutainese are calling you 'the Silver Devil'?"

"If not that, then they would have come up with some other ominous nickname," I said. "Everyone who has ever owned my sword has left a black mark on Wutainese history. There's no reason I should be an exception. However, if I may return to the main topic, it isn't just my contract you're worried about, is it? Let me guess: the president wants to meet me before he risks handing over a large number of his troops to me." It wasn't really a guess, of course, but standard operating procedure for old Shinra.

"I'm afraid so," Phelps said. "Currently, no SOLDIER has ever reached the rank of general, and on top of that, your background is so abnormal that I wouldn't even be considering this if you weren't a tactical genius. It's no surprise the president is reluctant to let you be promoted sight-unseen."

"I hope you're aware of what my being SOLDIER means," I said, looking him straight in the eye despite the slight, subconscious flinch it produced in him. General or no, his primitive hindbrain was screaming inhuman and predator and he was having a difficult time controlling it. "I won't sit behind the lines and wait for reports. I lead from the front, despite the risks involved. If you can accept that, I'll try to hammer out something with Lazard and tolerate the president for the few moments necessary. Sir."

"Good man," Phelps said. "I'll arrange transport for you to Midgar."

"Please make the pilot aware that there will be a second passenger, and we're making a detour along the way," I told him. "I still have an eleven-year-old that I need to get back to his mother."

And so I was circling back to where I had been on the day of that fateful mission to Nibelheim, except that this time my promotion was purely due to merit and not more than half publicity stunt. Not that that knowledge made me any happier with the crushing feeling of inevitability.

Am I really going to be able to salvage anything from this insanity?

Chapter Text

Chapter 24

While camera technology had changed quite a bit in some ways while he'd been locked away in Nibelheim, Vincent had figured out that lenses and motors hadn't changed that much, except for the latter getting smaller. That meant that, no matter how sophisticated the camera, it could only point in one direction at a time, with a limited field of view, and it was possible to jam the mechanisms that turned it.

He'd also figured out that his physical capabilities had been considerably enhanced by whatever Hojo had done to him. Free-climbing the first ten stories of the Shinra Building in the middle of the night should have left his arms aching, but he barely felt the strain as, with a careful eye for the cameras, he slipped inside through an unsecured window that led to a janitor's closet. Picking a lock released him into a floorful of office cubicles.

The computers were hopeless, but a little rummaging around eventually turned up a paper directory with office numbers and PHS codes, only three years out of date. It was enough for him to grasp the current locations of various departments. The labs were up on the sixty-seventh and sixty-eighth floors, but there were notes attached to them about restricted access and the need for keycards.

There was no way he was going to be able to get past some type of fancy electronic lock that he had never seen before. Climbing up another fifty-eight stories on the outside of the building was perhaps possible, but if there were no convenient open windows that high up, he'd be taking an immense risk. Stealing a keycard . . . well, he'd have to figure out what they looked like, first, and how to use them. He needed to set things up so that if Hojo wasn't in the labs when he arrived, he could wait until he turned up.

Maybe there was an easier way.

There was a directory entry for the Department of Administrative Research. While it was extremely rare, there were circumstances where some civilian needed to find a Turk, and those were usually emergencies. The department maintained a public point of contact to deal with them, and the directory said it was on the thirteenth floor.

Vincent went through the rest of the directory carefully. There were no office numbers listed for the thirteenth. The implication was clear.

Three flights of emergency stairs. The door to the thirteenth floor was locked, but it was a common pin-tumbler lock, not some electronic monstrosity. He'd obtained a set of lockpicks in the slums of lower Midgar when he'd first arrived, for just such occasions as this. The actual picking took longer than it should have, but that was mostly because his gauntlet made it difficult to keep a good grip on the torsion wrench—he was going to have to modify the handle. Still, within five minutes, he was through.

The thirteenth floor had a lounge, another small forest of cubicles, and a set of enclosed offices at the back whose nameplates only bore one name each. Director Veld was at the end, and Vincent felt a tension he hadn't even been aware of before fall away. If his old partner was still alive, he wouldn't need to worry about proving his bona fides. He might be a bit of a mess, but he wasn't unrecognizable.

Not bothering to avoid the cameras this time, Vincent strolled over to a section of wall between Veld's office door and the next one over. Leaning against it and folding his arms, he settled in to wait, an activity at which he was a master. Snipers spent a lot of time waiting, watching through a scope until they had the chance to line up the perfect shot. And Vincent had been the best.

He wondered which of the names on the doors had replaced him. Or replaced his replacement's replacement, given how long he'd been gone and the typical lifespan of a Turk. They didn't die in bed, unless it was a hospital bed they'd barely survived long enough to make it to. Shot, blown up, garotted, chopped apart, eaten by monsters, poisoned . . . he'd seen a lot of colleagues die, had already been active for more than the average number of years when Hojo had gotten his hooks into him.

Vincent wouldn't have been surprised if he was the most senior Turk in the department at the moment. As he tried to decide whether or not that constituted irony, the lights flickered on. Deliberately, he maintained his pose, arms folded, hands well away from the Quicksilver still strapped to his thigh. One of the voices in his head growled warning as it sensed someone nearby with the intent to kill. He ignored it. It was one of the stupid voices, anyway. Not the dangerous one.

He waited for the stranger to act, to speak. He knew they had a weapon trained on him, but he was also fairly sure that he could survive anything short of decapitation or a headshot. Whatever Hojo had done to him had caused the minor injuries he'd picked up on the way here from Nibelheim to heal within seconds. He wondered if he was ever going to completely get a handle on the repercussions of the greasy little man's experiments. Perhaps he'd ask Hojo a few questions at gunpoint before killing him.

Ten minutes. Still nothing. Well, he could do this all day.

"Are you really just going to stand there?" someone asked, at last. A woman, or maybe a girl. It was difficult to tell from just her voice.

"I'm not here to fight," Vincent replied.

"Then why are you here?"

"To report in." More or less.

A pause. "Codename?"

"Sniper. I'm probably listed as KIA. Veld will recognize me."

"And no one else? You've been gone for that long?"

Vincent saw no reason not to tell the truth. "More than fifteen years."

"Sniper," the girl said. "Sniper . . ." A sudden indrawn breath. "You're Vincent! No wonder you look familiar! Veld has a picture of the two of you on his desk."

Vincent raised an eyebrow. "Unusually sentimental of him. For the Veld I knew, at any rate."

The girl, still hidden among the cubicle dividers, snorted. "There aren't many things he's soft in the head about, but you're one of them. Look, I'll call him, okay? He's got some kind of medical appointment this morning, and he wasn't going to come in until afterward."

Vincent once again settled in to wait. He didn't really understand these newfangled communications devices everyone seemed to carry around in their pockets, although he supposed he was going to have to learn if he wanted to live among human beings again. He hadn't decided whether that was the case yet, although he supposed he did owe Veld something for just dropping out of sight all those years ago. And Lucrecia and little Sephiroth . . . who wouldn't have been that little anymore, if he'd lived.

There was nothing he could do to help the woman he had loved, or her son, except kill Hojo. The slimy scientist's death would serve as revenge for all three of them, including Vincent himself, and as insurance that the man wouldn't be able to mess up anyone else's life.

"No, I think this is good news for once," the girl was saying. "One of ours turning up after being declared KIA."

"Who is it?" The voice was only just audible, no louder than the chirping of a cricket, but it was definitely Veld. "Razor Disk? Grenades?"

"Sniper."

For a few seconds, absolute silence. "That isn't funny, Cissnei."

"It isn't a joke. It actually does look like him, and he seems to know you."

Another long pause. "Our first job together was at a theme park. Ask him what colour the chocobo costume was."

He doesn't think I can hear him, Vincent realized. And really, I shouldn't be able to. Damn Hojo, anyway. He waited while the girl relayed the question—he hadn't decided yet just how much of his current state he was going to try to explain to his old partner.

"There was no chocobo costume," he said evenly. "It was a moogle theme park. And lavender is no more Veld's colour than pastel salmon pink is mine."

Cissnei, if that was her name, giggled and repeated that into the . . . PHS, was that the word?

The pauses were beginning to mount up, Vincent thought, amused. "Okay. I accept that it might really be him, but there's no guarantee he hasn't been turned. Especially after this long. Keep an eye on him until I get there."

Clicking noises, probably the call ending and Cissnei putting away her PHS. A moment later, she stepped around the corner of a cubicle. She was younger than Vincent had expected, short and slender, the curves underneath her suit jacket still more of a suggestion than anything. Fifteen, maybe? The large shuriken in her left hand was no joke, though.

"Looks like we're going to be waiting for a while," she said, with a tiny, secret smile on her lips. She pulled a chair out of the nearest cube and seated herself facing him. "I'm Shuriken, by the way."

Vincent nodded.

"Is that cape supposed to be some kind of fashion statement?"

"If it is, I'm repurposing someone else's words," he said wryly. "I was wearing it when I woke up. It's slightly useful, so I kept it."

"Where were you?"

"Locked in a basement in Nibelheim." He had no reason not to tell her.

"For fifteen years?"

"I wasn't conscious for most of it." Vincent shrugged. He wasn't about to admit that it had been his idea. Mostly. He wasn't quite sure how much the voices in his head had been affecting him at that point.

"Okay." Cissnei absently tossed and caught her shuriken, making it look easy despite the coordination he knew it required. "What were you and Veld doing at a moogle theme park?"

Quick changes of subject could be used as an interrogation technique, to catch the suspect off-guard. Vincent approved, although he wasn't about to fall for it. "Shadowing the President's brother. He was involved in some sort of charity for disadvantaged children."

"I never even knew the President had a brother."

"Ancient history. He died a couple of years later in a motorcycle accident. Not interested in women, so he didn't leave any children behind."

Cissnei nodded approval. "Tidy. Much tidier than the President himself. Every time I'm down in the slums and see a blond, blue-eyed kid, I shudder. The current heir apparent is enough of a handful without adding more of them. Of course, in a few more years, he's going to be able to create extraneous little half-Shinras of his own."

"Old Shinra finally managed to pop out a legitimate son?"

"I guess the news never got as far as your basement. Yes, Rufus Shinra just turned thirteen. You'll meet him soon enough if you stick around. He comes here to hang out—even does some marksmanship lessons and hand-to-hand training. Veld lets him because he figures it's better if we know where he is and what his capabilities are. He's pretty good with a shotgun."

Vincent considered that. "Is Lazard still around?"

"Oh, yes. Director Lazard these days." Well, it made sense that old Shinra would do well by his genes. "He's in charge of SOLDIER . . . which would also be after your time."

His eyebrows crept up. "I was present for some of the earliest planning stages, but at the time it didn't seem likely that Hojo would find a way of getting mako into people's systems without an unacceptable failure rate." An unacceptable casualty rate, rather. Vincent had seen what had happened to some of the laboratory animals, and then the early volunteers.

"They found ways of screening for likely failures. There are around eight hundred SOLDIERs now."

And so old Shinra had the super-army he'd always wanted. Why didn't that make Vincent feel any happier?

Vincent's preternatural hearing picked up the sound of the elevator stopping through two layers of closed doors, and then footsteps, quick and no-nonsense. He turned his head slightly for a better view of the door as it opened.

Veld.

He looked tired. Not only that, but there was a shininess to one side of his neck that suggested scars. Burn scars. His balance was off, and his arm . . . there was a subtle stiffness to the movement there that didn't belong. Cissnei had mentioned a medical appointment, but Vincent had assumed it was for a routine physical, not follow-up on damage this serious. But then he glanced over, caught sight of Vincent, and his eyes lit up.

"Son of a bitch, it really is you! Hojo reported you dead."

"I was. He revived me—by accident, I assume, since he was the one who shot me in the first place. Embarassingly enough." Vincent grimaced. He never was going to live that one down. "Or maybe the exercise of reassembling me was so fascinating to him that he didn't care either way."

"That sounds like him. Good thing he's dead."

Vincent . . . flinched. Even though he'd trained himself not to show surprise. Already dead? "How?"

"Murdered. The details are complicated. Here, I've got the files in my office. We need to talk properly, anyway." Veld stepped past him to unlock the inner office with his name on it, then beckoned Vincent inside.

Veld's taste in decor, or rather, lack of decor, hadn't changed much, Vincent reflected as his mouth curled into something that was almost a smile. Two framed photos on the desk, one of them lying face down, and otherwise not so much as a motivational poster. He sat when his former partner gestured him to a chair, and watched the other man slump into his.

"You're not well," Vincent observed.

Veld shrugged. "There was . . . an accident. Late last year. Kalm was firebombed. Officially, it was a military exercise gone horribly wrong. Unofficially . . . let's just say that I tried to convince them to wait a bit longer. That's probably why they made sure I was caught in it. My wife didn't make it, I ended up losing an arm and taking third-degree burns over fifteen percent of the rest of my body, and my daughter wasn't hurt physically, but hasn't spoken a word since. And I had to help cover up the entire mess from my hospital bed. Shinra's internal politics are a mess these days."

"Veld . . ."

"If anyone asks, just tell them that Hollander's flunkies haven't gotten my prosthetic quite right yet, which is certainly true. Now. Your turn. How the hell did you, of all people, get shot by Hojo?"

Vincent told him the sordid little story of love and compassion gone wrong, while Veld listened quietly, with his elbows braced on his chair arms and his fingers interlaced in front of him.

"Sephiroth," the head Turk said at last. "Funny how everything seems to link back to him."

"That doesn't make any sense. How important could a dead boy possibly be?" They're going to kill him, Lucrecia had said over and over, while he floated half-conscious in a tube full of mako. Although he hadn't seen the body himself, he had no reason to disbelieve her.

Veld blinked. "If Hojo told you the kid was dead, he was lying. Sephiroth was alive as of the night Hojo died. After that, he vanishes off the radar. Mostly."

"Mostly?" Vincent repeated.

"I have suspicions regarding what happened to him, but no confirmation, because the person with the key piece of information has proven to be an extremely tough nut to crack . . . and he's dangerous to attack directly." Veld reached down and pulled three files from the drawer of his desk. "Here, look at these."

The topmost file, Vincent discovered, was the incident report on Hojo's death. Loss of electrical power, corpse found in two pieces, three or four human lab specimens missing—Sephiroth, two females, and a possible unidentified adult male for whom no records had been found. Likely inside job. Size-twelve combat boots, and a trail that petered out before even reaching the edge of Midgar's Plate.

Then Sephiroth's file. Not his full medical file, of course, but the executive summary, with photographs. Vincent found himself staring, mesmerized, at the pictures of the silver-haired boy as he grew from infant to toddler to child to preadolescent . . . at which point the records ended abruptly. Ready for military deployment within the year, the last page said. They'd been going to throw him into the army at twelve. Vincent heard an odd noise, and realized he was growling.

Veld blinked at him. "That . . . is going to be a problem if you ever go back to playing poker."

"Possibly," was all Vincent could find to say. He wasn't sure how much of that had been him, and how much had been the voices in his head—the stupid ones did come across as rather bestial. And the thing he'd transformed into that one time had been, more or less, an undersized, bipedal behemoth.

Rather than consider those unnerving questions, he picked up the last file and opened it, and found himself staring at another photo of a silver-haired, green-eyed male. The resemblance to Sephiroth was unmistakeable, but the figure in the photo was an adult. Sephiroth would have been nearing maturity by now, of course, but the documents clipped to the photo indicated that it had been taken three years ago, when Lucrecia's son would have been fifteen.

Seth Crescent, he read, and shook his head. He could have been a brother, a cousin . . . except that Lucrecia had been an only child of only children. And no other relative of hers would have had those eyes, clearly luminescent even in the photograph, the pupils contracted to cat-slits.

He read the rest. Age, apparently, around thirty by now, which was consistent with his appearance in the photograph. Place of residence not given, next of kin had an odd name and an address in . . . Nibelheim. An odd, familiar name. Cloud Strife. Short, blond, likes to hunt monsters, and knows someone called Seth. That was an interesting coincidence, that the boy had just happened to show up at the lab in the mansion the day he'd woken up.

Instead of following the normal course of assignment for mercenaries signing up with Shinra, Seth Crescent had been conscripted by SOLDIER before he'd even left the recruiting office, which Vincent assumed was unusual.

He flipped through the rest of the pages. Notes from superiors, battles fought, promotions and honours received. Some notes on his preferred weapon, an unusually long Wutainese sword with a number of odd stories attached to it. And one more note on his shoe size and the fact that his boots were unusual but legitimate regulation footwear—Officers' alternate-pattern dress boots, originally designed for the pre-Shinra chocobo cavalry, and still on the books. They have to be specially commissioned, but they're built with the same soles as the standard combat boots.

Size twelve combat boots. Like the prints in the lab. If Vincent had had any doubt that Seth was the meticulous researcher who had debunked all of those fake books, those doubts were now gone.

"He's up for promotion to general now," Veld said as Vincent finished the last page of the file. "He should be arriving in Midgar in the next couple of days to iron out a few details. What do you think?"

"That there can't not be a connection," Vincent said. "We have a genetically-engineered super-SOLDIER disappearing from one place, and another super-SOLDIER with a very similar appearance popping up a few years later somewhere else. He's even using Lucrecia's family name. If not for the apparent gap in age and the way the 'Seth Crescent' identity seems to have been set up, I'd think they were the same person—"

"What is it about his identity that catches your eye?" Veld interrupted, and Vincent half-smiled as he saw the intent look on the other man's face. This was the Veld he remembered.

"The way it seems arranged more for plausible deniability than any real attempt at concealing himself from someone who's paying attention. That suggests an unusually sophisticated pattern of thought for a youth who had little contact with the outside world until he was twelve. He knows he can't hide completely, not looking the way he does."

"Hmm. Go on. If they're not the same person, then what?"

"Then 'Seth Crescent' has to have been created out of Sephiroth. Hojo was working on using viruses to rewrite DNA—I never understood the details, I'm not a biologist, but if he actually got something like that to work, the results of applying Sephiroth's genome to a pre-existing adult might have resulted in someone like our mystery man."

"Interesting. That's an explanation I never came up with." Veld ran his hand—his plastic hand, Vincent could tell—along the edge of his desk in a familiar gesture. "Although if Hojo managed to produce a success of that magnitude, why not publicize it?"

Vincent shrugged. "Perhaps he thought he needed more development time. Or Seth's creation was an accident, and he killed Hojo before he was sure what he had. Or Hojo may just have wanted to give a little more thought to how to present his new toy."

"Or he thought he needed a countermeasure before the Board would accept his work," Veld murmured thoughtfully. "The normal SOLDIERs have a built-in vulnerability, but Seth Crescent and Sephiroth don't share it."

"Regardless, it's clear that Seth knows where Sephiroth is, and what happened that night," the red-eyed man added. "Now, are you going to tell me why you're worried about this? Whoever Seth Crescent is, he doesn't seem to hold a grudge against Shinra, or he wouldn't be fighting for the company in Wutai. With Hojo dead, I doubt recovering Sephiroth is that urgent."

Veld grimaced. "I went to Wutai to talk to Crescent when he was promoted to colonel. He has a pragmatic and fairly sophisticated view of the war, and of Shinra's role in the world, that's tipping the scales in our favour for now. The problem is that if he did turn on us, I'm not sure we could stop him from doing whatever the hell he wanted. He has the combat capability of a major Summon. I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up fighting a Bahamut Zero-equivalent with the mind of a genius tactician. And that's assuming he's been letting us see everything he's capable of."

Vincent had to admit that that . . . didn't sound promising. Tapping the forefinger of his metal gauntlet lightly against the file folder containing the details of Hojo's death, he thought in silence for several minutes. Veld waited patiently. Veld knew him, and his silences.

"First question," the red-eyed man said eventually. "What does Seth Crescent, whoever he is, want? Why join the Shinra military? It isn't just for the paycheck—he was making a decent enough living hunting monsters on the West Continent, judging from what you've collected here. Maybe he wants to monitor the company, but he's too intelligent to do it at the risk of revealing himself. He has an agenda. Find out what it is, and you'll have some greens to dangle in front of his nose. Does he have any personal ties inside the company at all?"

Veld shook his head. "A couple of the other SOLDIERs, but we can't go after them even if we wanted to—two of them are part of some major Science Department project that even I don't know the details of, and the third is the student of one of the other two. Beyond that, Seth is respected, but has a reputation for being difficult to get close to. One of those stoic types who doesn't want to connect with people."

"What about Cloud Strife?"

"Seth's student, apparently. He likes the man just fine, to the point that he followed him to Wutai—at the age of eleven and without permission."

Vincent whistled softly. "Determined kid." That went a bit beyond hunting black bats for their fangs.

"Determined kid who fights better than some adults. It's like everyone Seth Crescent touches turns to solid steel with razor-sharp edges. Those two special project SOLDIERs? They're effectively an Ifrit and a Titan to his Bahamut Zero."

The red-eyed man tapped the folder with his gauntlet again. "Next question: what do you want to do with him? Watch him? Drive him out? Take him down—which would, based on what you've told me, lead to a huge mess?" And which I might shoot you right here and now in order to prevent. Even if Seth Crescent wasn't Sephiroth, he was Vincent's one tangible link to Lucrecia's son at the moment. Over his years in the coffin, his desire to make amends—to the son and the mother both—seemed to have crystallized into an obsession. One that he found himself uninterested in breaking.

The only thing about it that made him nervous was that the voices in his head seemed to approve.

"Not take him down. Great Minerva! I actually like the man, you know. Reminds me of you. Watch him, for now. I'd like to get a little more leverage with him somehow, but I'm out of ideas. Which is why I'm dumping it on you the moment you show up, I suppose. The current batch of seniors are useless for brainstorming. Thanks for letting me bend your ear."

"It's a wonder you haven't folded it into origami," Vincent said, with a small smile. Veld snorted.

"Are you coming in from the cold?" the Turk Director said after a moment. "You told Shuriken you were here to report in."

Vincent shrugged. "It isn't as though I have anywhere else to go, unless I want to follow Seth Crescent's example and become a monster hunter in the hinterlands." And if he didn't stay, he would never figure out what had happened with Hojo and the rest.

"Good enough. I'll send someone up to Nibelheim to check your story, of course, but I know you—if it's a lie, you've already destroyed all the evidence. For the time being, I'm going to put Shuriken on giving you a crash course in modern tech."

"And then?"

Veld smirked. "Having you show up in this state actually represents an opportunity for us. I've been wondering for a while now how the hell we were going to deal with having no deep-cover operatives capable of impersonating a SOLDIER. But whatever Hojo did to you seems to have involved mako somehow, because your eyes are glowing. You'll be able to pass. So unless you've got a good reason that I shouldn't, I'm going to slip you into the First Army with General Crescent, as he will be by then."

"I was never in the military," Vincent pointed out.

"Fortunately, SOLDIER isn't all that big on decorum and protocol. Not saluting all the time will make you look sloppy, but you aren't likely to get court-martialed or anything. And Wutai is the place we're most likely to need your main specialty right now, sad to say."

Vincent grimaced, but he also nodded. Of course Wutai would be the place they most needed a sniper right now. Any branch of the military would be happy to have him. They'd probably still be happy even if they found out he was a Turk mole.

"Long-term assignment?" he asked.

"Duration of the war, at any rate."

There was another long pause, while the red-eyed man weighed various factors. " . . . All right."

"I'm not staying," Cloud said firmly. "The only way you can make me stay is by locking me up."

"Cloud . . ." his mother said, in that sighing way that meant she was mad, but a worn-out kind of mad.

"I've already proved I can look after myself, and I hate Nibelheim. Either we both go somewhere else, or I'm going back to Wutai with Seth."

Cloud had actually liked Wutai, mostly. Okay, not the attack on the convoy, but everything up to that had been better than Nibelheim. Even the other missions, and the mercenaries. Once he'd proven that he could fight, they'd treated him like a little brother—well, like the good parts of what he imagined being treated like a little brother were like.

And then the convoy, and Seth jumping down out of the sky, and that had been so cool. Zack had told him it was one of the things you could do when you had mako, just jump out of helicopters and stuff. You didn't even need wings. Of course, Zack didn't know about Seth's wings. Cloud was pretty sure he was the only one who knew.

He and Zack had been talking about stuff like that for the last three nights, since Seth and Zack's mentor Angeal had said it was okay if they shared Zack's room. Zack had told Cloud a lot of stuff about what it felt like to have mako, and yeah, it did hurt when they gave it to you, and you felt sick and weird in the head for the first couple of days, but it was all worth it.

Cloud's days in Wutai, after Seth had come to pick him up, had involved a lot of boring stuff like sharpening swords and peeling potatoes, but spending the nights with Zack had more than made up for it. And Seth had made time to teach him, even if it was only for an hour or so a day and he'd been kind of snippy sometimes because he was still mad.

Today was going to make Seth even more mad, but Cloud knew he'd get over it. Thought he would. Hoped he would.

The helicopter ride back to Nibelheim hadn't been nearly so much fun, partly because he'd been always right on the edge of throwing up, and partly because he'd been thinking about what he needed to say to his mom, and to Seth, with his thoughts going round and round in circles. Now that he was in the middle of the argument, he actually felt better.

Seth was staring at him like he'd just mutated into a giant bug or something, so Cloud looked him in the eye and said, "I can go with you, or I can sign up for the mercenaries again, under a fake name this time so it's more difficult for you to find me, and you can both spend your time worrying about where I am and what I'm doing and whether I'm still alive. I get that you want to protect me, but I'd be happier if you'd try to protect me from Nibelheim. I can handle Wutainese soldiers, but not people I'm supposed to be nice to."

That actually made Seth smile one of his tiny smiles, and it was pretty clear his mother was starting to have to force her mouth down at the corners instead of having it naturally go that way.

"I'll bet Seth didn't have to wait until he was fourteen to leave home," Cloud said.

The silver-haired man shook his head. "I was twelve, but I didn't leave by choice. And my childhood, such as it was, should not be used as a model for anyone else's."

"That explains quite a bit, actually," Cloud's mother said. "You taught him to be strong and independent, but Nibelheim values conformity more than either of those things."

"Ah. My apologies, Claudia."

"No need. I probably should have stayed in Costa del Sol when I realized I was pregnant, but the thought of my classmates all watching me and laughing was too much, and I ended up making a selfish decision. A selfish, stupid decision. I'm sorry, Stormcloud."

"Uh . . . um. Okay." Cloud wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to say, but his mother seemed more interested in hugging than talking right now. "Mom!" He was just old enough to be kind of embarassed about being hugged.

And then his mom said, "How much money do you think it would take, to move everything to Midgar?" and Cloud felt a grin spreading across his face.

"I should be able to squeeze the money out of Shinra," Seth said. "If you're certain."

"You can't possibly—"

Seth gave her one of his scary-cold looks. "I'm being railroaded into a high and influential position in Shinra. The least they can do in return is provide me with the housekeeping staff of my choice. Including paying for you to relocate. And providing a salary."

Cloud's mom began to laugh.

Chapter Text

Chapter 25 (Sephiroth's narrative)

Lazard and Tseng met us at the helicopter. They both stared as Cloud climbed down to join me. In the end, the boy had clung stubbornly to my side and refused to wait to come to Midgar. My only choice other than bringing him with me had been Sleepeling him.

Am I too soft on him? I wondered. I'd been trying not to harm him, but I had no natural sense of how much discipline was acceptable for a boy so young. Had I overcompensated for my natural tendency to be demanding of subordinates and trainees? His self-discipline was excellent, though. He merely had a strong idea of what he wanted, and would stop at nothing to get it. Rather like Genesis.

Genesis. I hoped he was alright. As of yesterday, he hadn't yet returned to the front, and there was no word on when he would. I'd half-expected to see him here, but perhaps the Turks were playing the shells-and-pea game with trivial information like my arrival time again. Sometimes I swore they did it just for the sake of practice.

"We had expected you to arrive . . . unencumbered," Lazard said at last.

I inclined my head. "My apologies. It was less of a headache to bring the boy than to leave him, and as my student he would end up here sooner or later anyway. We can leave him in the Third Class gym while we transact our business—he's capable of keeping himself occupied."

Tseng raised his eyebrows. "To my knowledge, you've never been inside the Shinra Building before. How did you know there was a 'Third Class gym' on the premises?"

"SOLDIERs gossip just as much as anyone else," I said dryly. "I don't believe we've been introduced, although it's clear you know who I am."

"Tseng of the Turks," came the level reply. "Director Veld sends his regrets—he wanted to meet you himself, but was otherwise occupied."

"Ah," was all I offered in reply. Truth be told, I would have been happier if Veld had been less interested in me. "Shall we?" I gestured at the door that led to the elevator.

Cloud stared around at everything wide-eyed as we headed down. He also looked slightly nauseous. I'd never known anyone who had motion sickness so severe it could be triggered by an elevator before. Hopefully mako would take care of it when the time came.

Tseng had selected the button for the forty-ninth floor. When we arrived, I allowed him to lead off, so it wouldn't be clear that I knew my way around the building. The gym used by the Third Classes was quite near the elevator, on the left.

There were a handful of Thirds exercising, and they glanced in the direction of our group, then just as quickly looked away again. Apparently, the combination of Director Lazard and a Turk was just too much for them.

I laid a hand lightly on Cloud's shoulder. "Practice the kata I showed you yesterday, and anything else you think appropriate, but don't exhaust yourself. I expect this will take about two hours, unless the President starts playing childish waiting games."

"I understand." Cloud chose an open area and drew his sword. I watched him for a moment before turning away. The kata was still rough, but he had good instincts and would work it out.

"I'd heard he served for more than a month in Wutai, but I didn't believe it until now," Lazard said as he led us out.

"He's currently trying to convince me to take him back there," I admitted wryly. "Apparently he's been so miserable in Nibelheim since I left that the front lines of a war are actually an improvement."

Tseng snorted, barely audible.

We took the elevator back up two floors, to Lazard's office. Actually, most of the SOLDIER offices were on this floor, with a few spilling over onto the fiftieth, although the lower floor was mostly occupied by the armory.

Inside, Tseng propped himself against the wall beside the door, while I disengaged Masamune from her harness and propped her against Lazard's desk, then sat down.

"This is the standard SOLDIER contract," Shinra's bastard son said, laying down a half-dozen sheets of paper. "Somehow, I doubt you'll agree to sign it as-is."

"Correct." I read my way through it slowly, with pen in hand. When I hit the paragraphs about the Science Department and enhancement, I began to cross things out wholesale. After a few more strategic changes further down, I looked up. "I'm going to need additional paper."

Lazard sighed and provided, and I began to write. It took me nearly twenty minutes to produce something I thought was sufficiently air-tight, and even then a good lawyer could probably have found a way to overturn it. It didn't matter, really. The whole thing was a legalistic farce, since it had been years since the justice system had had the ability to do anything to Shinra, Inc. What I'd written out was more of a statement of intent than anything.

I pushed it across the desk to Lazard, who read in silence, then said, "You realize that not all of this is under my control."

"I'm aware . . . but conveniently, we have a Turk right here in the room."

"True. Tseng, would you mind coming over here and looking at this?"

The Wutainese Turk disengaged himself from the wall and came over to take the papers, reading through them slowly.

"You drive a hard bargain," he said expressionlessly when he was done. "Voiding the rest of the contract for violation of these clauses is . . ."

"Needed to make both Administrative Research and the Science Department take this seriously," I said. "Contact Veld if you can't make the call yourself. I'll wait."

"That won't be necessary. I can authorize something this . . . minor."

"Thank you," Lazard said. "Just to make certain we're all on the same page . . . Colonel, you've eliminated all of Sections 3 and 26 of the original contract, and the medical subsection of Section 5, and added provisions at the end which state that the Science Department is not to be permitted to take any biological samples from you without your permission, and any such samples which must be taken for the purpose of providing medical care are to be destroyed immediately after the necessary tests are performed. You also have the option of refusing any non-emergency medical care, including any form of enhancement treatment, and you are the one who decides whether or not something is an emergency. Furthermore, no listening or monitoring devices are to be placed in your office or quarters, or in a position to monitor them from the outside, without permission from, and full disclosure to, you. Any violation of these conditions by Shinra will void the entire contract of employment. Lastly, the additional conditions are to extend to one Cloud Strife, should he ever undertake a contact of employment with Shinra."

"Correct," I said. "There are a couple of additional matters, but I don't think they need to be included in the contract itself."

"Go on."

"First, as you may have noticed, I have an eleven-year-old following me around like an imprinted chicobo. He's already threatened to sign up as a mercenary again, with better precautions against being identified this time, if I don't take him back to Wutai myself. I wouldn't be worried if he hadn't already pulled it off once. As it is, I need some sort of special status for him that will allow me to keep him where I can see him. I'd suggest imposing a minimum height rule on the mercenaries instead, but he's ingenious enough that he might find some way around it."

Lazard rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Do you realize what will happen if the media find out we're letting a child go to war?"

"Yes," I said flatly. "Falsify any necessary records to make him legally appear to be fourteen—no one will care. I've already discussed it with the boy's mother. Which brings us to the second point. She's relocating to Midgar from Nibelheim, and I need her set up with a job and some sort of a residence, ideally here in the Tower. Assign her to the cleaning staff for the First Class suites, if you can't come up with anything else."

Lazard and Tseng exchanged looks.

"It wouldn't be the first time we've set something up for someone's mistress," the Turk said. "Although most of the arrangements are more . . . elaborate."

"Most likely because she isn't my mistress," I said dryly. "We have little to do with each other under normal circumstances, but the boy is . . . attached. As one would expect of a child his age."

"You're going to a great deal of trouble on behalf of this child." Tseng quirked an eyebrow at me.

"And why should I not?" I shot back.

"No reason, I suppose." But Tseng's expression remained subtly quizzical. As though I had deviated from his expectations of me.

"Is there anything else we need to discuss?" Lazard asked. "If not, then I agree to your additional conditions, although you had better be worth it, General."

It took another five minutes to make a duplicate of the contract, then initial and sign everything. I folded my copy of the papers and slid them into a pocket. Lazard slid the insignia of my new-old rank across the desk to me, then consulted his watch as I swapped one small bit of metal for another.

"The President expects us in fifteen minutes," he said. "You had best leave your sword here. And any materia. He doesn't allow anyone except the Turks to be armed in his presence, unless it's an emergency."

Which meant that the old man was still both paranoid, and not paranoid enough. If I chose, no Turk could stop me (or any other SOLDIER) from killing him with my bare hands. Nor could they stop me from summoning Masamune, although I preferred to keep that ability a secret for the time being.

Still, I slid the bangle from my wrist and looped it over Masamune's hilt, leaving the sword propped against Lazard's desk. There was no point in wasting time arguing. I just wanted to get this over with.

Tseng followed us into the elevator, and we rode up to the seventieth floor in silence.

The pointlessly huge office hadn't changed. Red carpet, polished black marble, chrome accents, all arranged in such a way as to make the man behind the desk seem more impressive. Petty pageantry. Veld stood to the President's left. There was another Turk lurking in the shadows, however. A quick glance out of the corner of my eye showed me a young Rude.

The place stank of tobacco smoke, unspeakably foul to my enhanced senses. Fortunately, I'd had a lot of practice in not gagging on it.

"I've brought Seth Crescent here, as you requested, sir," Lazard said as we all came to a stop before the massive desk.

I bowed according to the etiquette that had been drilled into me as a child, in between lessons in the more violent and the more intellectual arts. "Mr. President."

"General Crescent. It's a pleasure to meet you at last. I understand that a third of our gains in Wutai have been due to you."

"I wouldn't claim more than a quarter," I said blandly. At least Veld gave me a genuine smile for that.

"No need to be so modest." President Shinra's smile was exactly as I remembered it: fake. Falsely paternal, which was even worse. I had no good associations with anything fatherly. "You've done a lot of good work for us. Deserving of a reward. What would you like?"

For a split second, I toyed with the idea of giving him a real answer. Destroy the Jenova specimen. Go jump off the balcony outside those doors. End the war with Wutai. Turn off all the mako reactors, and halt the construction and development of new ones, before the Planet loses its temper and sends WEAPON after us. I wouldn't, of course. President Shinra couldn't be relied upon to carry out even the requests that did him the least harm personally, and I'd be burning all my bridges.

"There's a flavour of field ration called 'Tomato Vegetable Rice'," I said at last. "Cease manufacturing it, and have existing stocks recalled. The entire army will thank you." Although whatever they came up with to replace Mystery Mush would no doubt be equally vile.

President Shinra blinked. "Interesting," he said. "There's nothing that you want for yourself?"

"I had to subsist on those rations for a week once. Since then, having them eliminated has become a personal crusade."

Veld smiled again. Perhaps he was familiar with Mystery Mush too. Lazard just looked puzzled.

"Well, it's an easy enough request to grant. Consider it done."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

"Keep up the good work in Wutai, General Crescent."

"Of course, sir."

President Shinra waved his hand in dismissal. I bowed again, then turned and strode for the elevator.

Lazard waited until we were about two floors down before asking, "Is there something wrong with those rations?"

I raised an eyebrow. "The general consensus is that they taste like old socks. They meet all military requirements in terms of nutritional content and such, and they aren't poisonous, but no one eats them by choice."

"Oh. I suppose this is the sort of thing I miss out on by not being in the field."

"Just as well. SOLDIER needs a political buffer between it and the rest of the company more than it needs another field officer." And Lazard was too old for mako enhancements to take properly. The body adapted better if they were applied before it had stopped growing. That was why Shinra mostly recruited teenagers as SOLDIERs. Some people adapted well as late as twenty-four or twenty-five, but I didn't know of anyone who had started later than that and managed to get past Third Class.

"You have an interesting angle of view on things."

I shrugged.

"Did the President truly have nothing else to offer that you wanted?"

"Nothing that I considered wise to request of him at this time."

"Ah." Lazard gave me a long, thoughtful look. Then the elevator chimed and the door opened.

Tseng blocked me with his arm as I was about to step out. "One moment, General. You'll need this." He handed me a small, flat envelope. "The keycards inside will admit you to the lower levels of the Tower, up to the fifty-first. They are time-limited and will self-erase a week from now. They will also give access to your apartment here, which I believe you have never used, and to all SOLDIER facilities. More permanent security arrangements will have been made by the next time you return from Wutai."

I nodded and accepted the cards. The second must have been prepared for Cloud, most likely in a hurry when our pilot had radioed in and told them that the boy was still with me. Tseng lowered his arms and let me step out of the elevator, which slid shut behind me before I could offer him any kind of good-bye. It was probably just as well.

I followed Lazard back to my office to retrieve Masamune and my materia bangle. Shinra's bastard son watched me as I re-armed myself, but didn't say anything until I was done.

"You're scheduled to return to Wutai with the next shipment of troops in three days' time. I'll send the details to your PHS. Until then, you're free to take missions or do whatever else you wish."

"Understood."

Lazard frowned slightly, and added, "You seem to be more politically adept than I had expected. Please don't do anything risky. We need you in Wutai."

"Having a partial understanding of the rules doesn't mean I'm interested in playing the game. Good day, Director."

Outside his office, I paused and sent a text message to Genesis. Meet me at 3rd Class gym on 49?

When? came the near-instant reply.

Now?

5min.

OK.

I took one of the keycards from its envelope and let myself into the stairwell—I had never been fond of the enforced togetherness of the elevators. Apparently I wasn't the only one, since I could hear the sound of someone else's footfalls, around twenty stories below.

The main SOLDIER floor never changed, it seemed. The smell of metal and mako-laced sweat was almost nostalgic. Better than stale cigar smoke, at any rate.

There was a bit of a commotion going on in the Third Class gym, two voices raised in opposition to one another.

"I promised I would stay here."

"Look, it's just for a little while—"

"Are you trying to get me in trouble?"

I stepped inside quietly, and was not at all surprised to find a lanky youth with honey-blond hair confronting a smaller boy whose yellower spikes didn't quite top the other's shoulder.

Rufus Shinra. And Cloud.

This was going to be awkward.

Chapter Text

Chapter 26

Rufus was bored. Really, mind-numbingly bored.

There had been something going on with the Turks for the last couple of days that Veld didn't want him around for, that had to do with someone codenamed Sniper. Someone he'd never met, which was weird because he'd thought he'd met all the Turks. Once or twice, he'd caught sight of a shadowy figure with red eyes disappearing around a corner on the thirteenth floor. Anyway, Tseng and Cissnei were way too busy to spend any time with him outside of their guard shifts, and most of the junior Turks were working on some kind of job involving smuggling between Wutai and Junon. No one had any time for Rufus except his tutors. It was getting so bad that he'd actually gone to see Reeve Tuesti, the head of Urban Development, once or twice, since he was one of the few non-Turks who was actually willing to hold a conversation with Rufus. Even if it was about boring stuff.

He'd also taken to wandering around areas of the building that he normally avoided, just to see if anything had changed—Cissnei said it was important to be aware of his environment. Which was how he ended up on the SOLDIER floor, outside the Third Class gym, watching a blond kid who couldn't be more than eight or nine waving around a sword that should have been way too big for him. Should have been, but it looked like he was managing it pretty well.

He was curious about who the blond boy was, and why he was practicing SOLDIER katas with what looked like a cut-down Butterfly Edge. There was no way he was old enough to be part of the program. At least finding out who he was and why he was here wouldn't be boring.

He seized his chance when the younger boy ended his kata and went over to the bench to grab a water bottle, drinking several swallows. Rufus strode into the gym and said, "Hello."

It wasn't the most inspired greeting, perhaps, but it was neutral. It would do.

"Hello," the younger boy echoed, taking another gulp of his water. His expression was . . . guardedly curious, Rufus decided. He'd had lessons on the subject of interpreting subtle facial expressions. Actually, he was pretty good at it.

"I haven't seen you around here before."

"Probably 'cause I haven't been here before. We only got to Midgar a bit more than an hour ago."

Rufus blinked. "And you're in a gym doing sword practice?"

"My mentor told me to wait here while he spoke to Director Lazard, and why waste a perfectly good gym?" The younger boy finished this off with a shrug.

Mentor and Director Lazard and the other boy's presence on the SOLDIER floor could mean only one thing, but . . . "You can't possibly be old enough to be in SOLDIER. Even as a trainee."

That got him a scowl. The younger boy seemed to have no control over his face at all. It was delightful. "Not officially. Not yet. That's one of the things he wanted to talk to the Director about—finding some way to sneak me in so that I don't have to wait another two years."

"There's no way you're twelve, either."

The scowl deepened. If Rufus wasn't mistaken, he'd just made the other boy genuinely angry. "In a couple of months. My birthday's in August. I'm just short." He sounded disgusted.

"You should be due for a growth spurt soon, then—maybe that will help. I grew six inches the year I was twelve." Rufus held out his hand. "Rufus Shinra."

"Cloud Strife," the other replied, although he still didn't look happy. His hand was surprisingly strong, and rough with sword callus, like he'd been working with that Butterfly Edge for a couple of years. Maybe he really was almost-twelve.

Rufus wondered suddenly if Cloud was any good with his chosen weapon. Firearms were his forte, so he'd done only the most basic training with blades. All he'd been able to tell was that Cloud's movements were quick and smooth.

"Why don't I show you around the Tower while you wait for your mentor to come back?" he offered. Again, it was something to do, and he had a feeling that Cloud's reactions to some of the things here would be . . . entertaining.

"I promised I would stay here." Cloud picked up his sword again, and positioned himself for a new kata.

Rufus had no desire to lose his entertainment, and didn't the younger boy realize he was talking to the son of the President? "Look, it's just for a little while—"

"Are you trying to get me in trouble?" For all his small size, Cloud knew how to glare at people. He didn't seem intimidated at all.

"Cloud."

Rufus blinked and looked toward the door, because the voice hadn't been familiar. Seeing its owner didn't immediately enlighten him, either. Tall, silver-haired, with green mako eyes which clearly made him a SOLDIER, but out of uniform, which made him either First Class or off-duty. It wasn't until Rufus spotted the insignia clipped to the man's sword harness that he realized who this must be. Seth Crescent was the only First Class he had never encountered before and the only SOLDIER to ever be recommended for promotion to general, and he'd been supposed to arrive in Midgar soon. "Soon" had evidently meant "today".

"Did I keep you waiting long?" General Crescent was asking the tiny blond boy with the Butterfly Edge.

Cloud shook his head. "You said up to two hours, and it's been only one and a half. Do I get to go back to Wutai with you?"

Rufus stared at the younger boy. Back to Wutai? Meaning he'd already been? And he actually wanted to be involved in the war?

General Crescent nodded. "You'll probably be counted as some species of cadet—I don't have the exact details yet, but when I leave again, you'll be going with me."

Cloud's wide grin said everything.

"What were the two of you arguing about?" the SOLDIER added.

"We weren't, really. Rufus wanted to show me around the building, but I figured it was better for me to stay where you left me. I didn't want to call you to ask for permission, because I didn't think you'd want your PHS going off while you were meeting with the President . . ."

"It could have been a bit awkward," Crescent admitted.

"Really, Seth, when you asked me to meet you here, I didn't expect to find you blocking the doorway," drawled a voice that was somewhat more familiar to Rufus. With only eight First Class SOLDIERs now active, most of them were immediately recognizable, and Genesis Rhapsodos was no exception even when he was wearing a button-down shirt and ordinary trousers instead of his uniform. The only reason Rufus hadn't known Seth Crescent on sight was that there were no public photographs or video of the man, because he almost never left Wutai and most war correspondents didn't try to interview SOLDIERs. Although with one of them now in a position of such authority, that might be about to change.

Crescent stepped aside to let Rhapsodos into the gym. Rhapsodos scanned the room with disdain, until he saw Cloud and uttered a delighted laugh.

"Angeal was right—he does look like a grumpy chicobo!"

"Regardless of what he looks like, he's about ten seconds from skewering you," Crescent warned, although Rufus thought the man might actually be amused.

"Ah, that was rude of me, I suppose. I apologize. Can we start over?" Rhapsodos seemed to take Cloud's slight nod as encouragement, because he said, "You must be Cloud Strife. My name is Genesis. I hope we're going to be friends." The SOLDIER held out his hand, and Cloud shook it, still looking a bit dubious. "Did the Turks tell you where they were putting your luggage?" Rhapsodos added to Crescent.

"No. Which means they'll probably have dropped it at my apartment, if they've finished searching it."

"The apartment you've never occupied—or furnished, I dare say. Well, I have an extra bed. Plenty of space, if Cloud doesn't mind taking the couch."

"I've probably slept on worse," Cloud said, as Crescent fished a small item from his pocket and handed it to him. Rufus recognized it as a standard keycard.

"Genesis' apartment is on the thirty-eighth floor," the SOLDIER general said. "You can join us there when you're ready. Don't leave the building, and call me if you decide you're not going to show up for supper."

"I understand," Cloud said.

"Then if young Mr. Shinra will excuse us, Genesis and I have some catching up to do."

"Of course," Rufus said. He hadn't known Crescent had recognized him—there weren't many pictures of him floating around, either. That would probably change next year when he was officially confirmed as vice-president of Shinra, Inc.

The two SOLDIERs departed together, and Cloud slid his Butterfly Edge into place on the SOLDIER-style sword harness he wore on his back.

"Still want to show me around the building?" the boy asked.

"Of course." It's the easiest way to pump you for information. As the highest-ranking true SOLDIER, Seth Crescent was going to become a force in Shinra politics, Rufus knew. And damned if he wasn't going to be smart enough to make use of that.

"Are you certain it's safe to let the boy wander off like that?" Genesis asked as they waited for the elevator.

"Cloud is a great deal more self-reliant and mature than he appears. And better socialized than I am, not that that's difficult." There were shadows falling across Seth's face—both literal and figurative. Genesis thought it looked like he wasn't getting nearly enough sleep.

"I only fear you may be expecting too much of him, my friend. Even an unusually mature child is not an adult."

A soft sigh. "Possibly. I have no good point of reference for what a child should be capable of, since I was never treated like one."

Great Goddess. My friend, I am starting to wonder how you've managed to stay sane all these years.

"The apartment they gave you is on thirty-eight too, isn't it?" Safe topic. Safe assumption, as well, since all of the Firsts were housed on that floor.

"I suppose that since I'm stuck in Midgar for the next few days, I should buy some furniture and general household goods, so that I can at least use the place as a hotel-equivalent from now on," Seth said as they stepped onto the elevator. "Since I've now walked straight into the lifetime commitment to SOLDIER that I was dodging before."

Genesis smiled. "I know the perfect store." Not that Seth's taste in decor was likely to be at all like his—Genesis couldn't see the man obsessing over fancy little end-tables or what kind of paintings to put on his walls, even if he were laid up with an injury and bored out of his skull—but Lyon and Sons had a wide selection of top-quality items. "Do you think Cloud will be staying with you?"

"Intermittently, perhaps. His mother is moving to Midgar, and he may prefer to stay with her. Still, I should set up the guest room for him."

The door labeled "S. Crescent" was at the end of the hall on the right, once they left the elevator again. As far as possible from the door labeled "L. Deusericus", although Genesis wasn't sure whether that was intentional or not. Regardless, the apartment was laid out the same way as his own, but it had those awful faux-wood floors Shinra installed in all the untenanted apartments, and the walls were plain white.

"We should probably start by getting you some carpet, or decent hardwood or tile if that's your preference," Genesis said as Seth picked up the two duffels sitting just inside the entranceway.

"I'm almost tempted to cover the floor with tatami mats, but I'm sure Shinra's publicity department would have a fit," the older man said.

"Oh, yes, we can't risk the marketing staff having apoplexy," Genesis drawled. "Do you actually like Wutainese interior decoration, or was it just the thought of annoying someone?" Although, really, Genesis was the one who enjoyed annoying people.

"The contrast between minimalism and sudden bursts of intricate detail does appeal to me." Seth let the door fall shut behind him and gestured for Genesis to lead the way. "As for the other . . . I prefer not to make enemies at random."

Genesis smirked. "No, you wouldn't. You're too cold-blooded. So . . . hardwood? And you'll need . . . let's see . . . beds for yourself and the boy, a sofa, a coffee table, and a couple of chairs for the living room, a dining room suite, a desk for the study, and the usual basic housewares—curtains, towels, bedding, and dishes. A coffee maker? No, you prefer tea, don't you?"

"When I can get it."

The middle of a war zone wasn't a place to be particular—Genesis understood that perfectly. He'd even stooped to eating ordinary red apples while they were in Wutai. "A kettle, then. Anything else that I'm forgetting?"

"Bookshelves. A stand for Masamune, if I can get one—I'll probably have to have it custom made. Cloud will need his own desk."

That conversation got them to the door of Genesis' apartment, and he unlocked the door and waved his friend inside.

"That one's the guest room," he said, pointing to one of the doors on the far side of the living room. "You can leave your coat there. Do put on a shirt, though—I know you own some."

"If you insist." Seth dropped one of the duffels he was carrying near the entryway, then glided across the floor and disappeared into the guest room. How he managed to move that silently while wearing big, clunky boots and carrying such a large sword, Genesis had never understood.

He took a seat on the couch and waited for his friend to re-emerge. That took a few minutes.

On the occasions when he saw Seth without his leather coat and pauldrons, the first thing that always struck Genesis was the difference his clothing made to the man's apparent size. The armour, in particular, made his shoulders look as broad as Angeal's, but without it, it was clear that he was of more average build. Just tall, with muscle development so perfect he might have been a heroic statue. The skin-tight black T-shirt he was currently wearing certainly left nothing to the imagination in that regard. Genesis himself wouldn't have been caught dead dressing that way, but he could admire the effect. Very sexy. Except that, given Seth's personality, it was probably accidental, just due to him grabbing the topmost shirt from his bag.

Civilian wardrobe, he added to his mental list of items to obtain on their shopping trip. At least a few items. Ideally, not black. Black was striking on Seth, but it also emphasised his pallor, and it would be nice to see what he looked like with some colour in his face.

"You're looking better than I had hoped," the silver-haired man said as he took the chair across from Genesis. "Has Hollander cleared you to return to Wutai?"

"As long as I'm careful." Genesis put all his irritation into that word. "I'm to act like an octogenarian and avoid exertion in general and close-quarters combat in particular as much as I can. Hollander hasn't come up with a cure yet, and he says that overdosing myself with mako after every injury will only take me so far. Even if it may have saved me this time." The mostly-healed wound throbbed, and he rubbed it absently.

"Are you all right?" Seth sounded truly concerned, which was unusual. Very unusual.

It made Genesis angry.

"No, I am not 'all right'!" he snarled. "As far as I can tell, I'm dying! I'm not even twenty yet, and I'm . . ." He was horrified to feel tears prickling at his eyes. "I've never been so afraid in my life," he whispered. "If Hollander doesn't come through, then what happens to me? To Angeal?"

Hands. Big hands, with pale skin and long, fine fingers, were closing over his. They felt like they were the only warm thing in the world.

"There may be another way," Seth said. "Possibly more than one, although I would prefer not to explain in detail until I absolutely must, since there are more people's secrets involved than my own. But if it looks like Hollander can't find a solution to this, I will do so instead. I'm not going to let you die, Gen. Not you, and not Angeal either. I am not going to fail you. I don't think I could bear to lose any more friends."

There was a flat finality to those words, and when Genesis looked up and met the burning green eyes, he felt a distinct jolt. Lingering old pain. Determination. Self-reproach. Or at least, that was what Genesis thought he read there.

Damn you, stop seeing the past and look at me! At me! The impulse to shout those words into the man's face was powerful, but Genesis wrestled it down again, and the next moment, he was wondering where it had come from. All his nerves seemed raw, lately.

"If I don't make it, I'm going to come back to haunt you," he warned instead.

"At least your ghost would provide me with some company," came the wry reply. Regardless, the moment was broken, and Seth let go of his hands and sat back. "We'll let it ride for a month or two more—fortunately, your condition isn't an immediate death sentence. If it doesn't look like Hollander is making any progress by then, I'll think of some way to stir him up."

"Making an enemy of the Science Department is dangerous."

Seth smiled. It wasn't his normal minimalist smile, but something altogether cold and vicious. "They already are my enemy, and always have been. Unfortunate for them that they've forgotten that."

"Now you're frightening me."

"Sometimes I frighten even myself," the silver-haired man said, smile vanishing from his face.

Genesis shook his head slightly and changed the subject. "About dinner—are you all right with Costan food? There's a place only two blocks away from the Shinra Building, and it delivers . . ."

Chapter Text

Chapter 27 (Sephiroth's narrative)

Genesis had always presented himself as volatile and emotional, but until he'd started to degrade, it had been something of an act. A mask. Until then, he had chosen not to control his actions, but once the madness had dug its claws into him . . . Well. For now, he was still stable, if a bit more irritable than usual. That become evident as he led me around the Plate (which I let him do, since I had never needed to shop for furniture before—my original apartment had been presented to me crammed with so many useless things that I'd spent quite a long time trying to get rid of them) and argued with shopkeepers. Of course, Gen had always argued with shopkeepers. Mostly about things outside their control.

"Excuse me, but are you blind? There is a run in this fabric! How can you possibly justify selling something like this?"

"No fireballs," I said firmly, pushing Genesis' hand down. "You'd end up having to pay for the repairs and lost merchandise. Or I would."

Genesis muttered something about "an act of the Goddess", but he also lowered his hand. "Oh, very well. Let's go somewhere else."

We'd managed to deal with the flooring and the furniture already, but eight stores later, we hadn't been able to find towels or sheets that Genesis considered acceptable. He wouldn't let me buy anything containing synthetic fiber, and had very strong opinions about goods he considered shoddy or substandard. Such as sheets with invisible and possibly mythical runs in them.

I was glad I'd left Cloud back at Shinra Tower with some homework. He needed to get a handle on SOLDIER regulations as soon as possible in any case, and adding a bored child to our expedition would not have made it easier.

After the fourteenth store, I was starting to lose patience. And so, when Genesis began to berate some unfortunate clerk about thread counts, I stepped between them, and waved the woman away.

"Why don't I just buy from wherever you get yours—or have we already been there?"

Genesis' slightly guilty expression seemed to confirm that we had.

"Are you prolonging this on purpose, then? Why?"

"I'm trying to figure something out, if you don't mind." The waspish tone of Genesis' voice didn't match his expression very well at all.

I raised an eyebrow. "Something that requires my presence?"

"Yes!" Was he . . . blushing? Just the tiniest hint of pink, dusted along his cheekbones?

"You don't have to terrorize sales personnel to obtain my companionship. Surely you're aware of that."

"The most irritating thing about you, Seth, is that you're so damnably rational all the time. Perhaps I didn't want to be so obvious about what I intended to do." Genesis glared at me.

"Too late," I said. Genesis looked like an angry kitten, all puffed up and hissing. He would probably try to slit my throat if I told him it was . . . adorable. Not a word that I used very often, but it felt as though it fit. I shook my head slightly and said, "I had intended to spend the day with you anyway, or as much of it as we could both stand, so can we please just deal with the boring parts of this shopping trip a bit more quickly, and then, perhaps, go for lunch?"

"If anyone but you said something like that to me, I would think that was the most ridiculously inept request for a date I had ever heard."

I blinked. A date? Shards of half-forgotten conversation flickered through my mind, and a splintered memory of one time he'd tried to turn a private sparring match into something . . . more. I'd been unable, in those early days of our friendship in the original timeline, to recognize Genesis' attraction for what it actually was. And now that I knew . . . what was I supposed to say to him? I appreciate the thought, but I'm not interested?

"I certainly didn't mean it as such," was all I could manage, in the end, and Genesis scowled.

"I didn't really think you did."

He got sulky after that, and a genuinely sulky Genesis was, if anything, a more irritating companion than one throwing theatrical temper tantrums. We ended up going our separate ways early in the afternoon. Genesis disappeared into Loveless Street, and I returned to the Shinra Building to give Cloud a swordsmanship lesson, then took the boy out to explore the Plate a bit.

I took him down to the Slums the next day, which was more to his liking, while Genesis made himself scarce. We killed monsters in the Train Graveyard—or rather, Cloud killed them while I watched, just in case, but he handled himself like a veteran. If he'd been bigger, I would have thought I was looking at a Third Class on the promotion track for Second. That he managed to accomplish so much without any enhancement whatsoever was mind-boggling.

Afterwards, I took him to the Wall Market, ignoring the stares and whispers. A lot of people down here hated Shinra, but no one was likely to take the risk of attacking a SOLDIER in public. A couple of toughs did try to target Cloud at one point, but he set one's shirt on fire and smashed the other to the ground with a throw he must have learned from Zangan, and I didn't even need to step in.

My sometime nemesis was coming along very well indeed. A few more years, a bit of mako, and a better weapon, and he might become everything I was hoping for. In fact, he was rapidly approaching the point where he would need to be enhanced in order to be capable of much further improvement. But while Claudia Strife had given me papers appointing me her son's guardian in her absence and was permitting me to take him back to Wutai, I wasn't sure how she would react to my having him pumped full of mako, no matter how much he wanted or needed it.

I decided to put off trying to create any kind of plan for that until we got back to Wutai, although the initial stages of enhancement were normally performed in Midgar. If I made a mistake here, I might lose all access to Cloud for the next two years, which could be dangerous.

The third day was reserved for the trip to Junon, where we would embark for Wutai again. The evening before, I'd escorted Cloud down to the Shinra Building's main civilian clinic and, after some discussion with the physician on call, gotten them to issue the strongest anti-nausea medication they considered safe for someone of Cloud's size and age. He fell asleep after taking the pills, and I ended up having to carry him off the train. It made several of the junior SOLDIERs who saw us disembark snicker. One of them even floated the "Papa Dragon" nickname I seemed to have been tagged with after the attack on the convoy, and I pinned him with a glare.

In the process, I discovered something quite interesting. Or, more accurately, someone.

Standing behind the Third Class with the loose lips was another person in the same uniform, a tall, slim man with black hair held back from his face by a bandana. Unlike most members of SOLDIER, he carried a sniper rifle rather than a sword slung across his back, and a heavy pistol strapped to his thigh.

He also had red mako eyes and wore a distinctive brass-washed claw-gauntlet covering his left hand and forearm. Although my memories of the period when I'd been under Jenova's thrall were scrambled and partially repressed, there was no way I could have failed to recognize him as one of Cloud's companions in the original history: Vincent Valentine, the former Turk who had known my mother.

The need to speak to him was so strong it verged on being a physical ache. Like Ifalna, this man knew things about my origins that I had never been told, only he had actually been there to witness them instead of receiving the information at second hand. He might be the last person alive who could tell me about my real mother.

However . . . why was he here? Judging from what I could remember glimpsing in the mind of the elder Cloud, Valentine should still have been sulking in a coffin in Nibelheim. Why had he appeared so many years early? Unless . . . Oh. It had mostly likely been my fault, and to some extent Cloud's. We'd not only entered the building early, but done so repeatedly, and I at least had spent quite a long time in the underground lab. Even if one visit during the Nibelheim mission hadn't been enough to wake him, perhaps repeated comings and goings over a period of years had.

Once out of the coffin, he would have found evidence of what I'd been doing in the lab, the discarded documents from my search for truth, and concluded . . . what? Something that must have pushed him towards Midgar, and from there . . . He wouldn't have been able to slip seamlessly into SOLDIER just by enlisting—a medical on him would have sent up dozens of red flags. At the other end of the spectrum, I doubted he'd dressed up just to sneak aboard the train. Someone had to have set up an identity for him. Most likely, he'd gone to his old comrades in the Turks. Which meant that said assumed identity would be air-tight.

As for why he'd bothered . . . either the Turks had demanded something of him in return for this setup, or he was here looking for me. Or both, since the two options weren't mutually exclusive.

Well. If he really was mine to use, and I would search the personnel documents I had access to in order to make certain of that, use him I would. It wasn't every day a Turk-trained sniper fell into my lap. Taking a few strategically chosen Wutainese officers down in advance would speed things up a great deal.

And if I believed Jenova's twisted whispers (something to be done only with the greatest of caution), one of the creatures inside Vincent Valentine might be just as capable of destroying me as the adult Cloud, although letting it loose would be far more dangerous.

Now wasn't the time to make contact, though. If he would be travelling with us to Wutai, there would be plenty of time, and I didn't want to put the boy still sleeping in my arms at risk. I couldn't be certain that Valentine's reaction to being cornered wouldn't involve violent self-defense.

On the other hand, I couldn't just let him go. I'd had no luck in finding Jenova myself, and I'd done everything I could think of that didn't risk someone figuring out what I was trying to do. That meant I needed help, and I couldn't imagine anyone who would be more useful in that regard than a Turk. Even if Vincent Valentine didn't know exactly where the information was buried, he'd have the tools needed to find it. If it looks like I'm going to get trapped in a third iteration of this idiotic mess, I'm going to learn hacking first.

Cloud didn't wake up until—inevitably—I'd set him on the second bed in the room we'd be sharing tonight. "Are we there already?"

"You slept through our arrival as well as the entire trip. We're in the officers' quarters in the base at Junon."

"Oh. Um, can we . . ."

"What is it?"

"Can we go see the cannon? I mean . . ."

"If you like. Keep in mind, though, that it's still under construction, and the workers may not want us poking around much."

The warning turned out to be unnecessary. The foreman must have been bored out of his skull or impressed by meeting Shinra's SOLDIER General—or both—because we got a full tour. Cloud ran around with his hands clasped carefully behind his back, looking at things, while I half-listened to the foreman's prattling, and indulged in remniscences, good and bad. Genesis had favoured the cannon as the backdrop for our duels in the Training Room. Something about the long drop on all sides always seemed to excite him.

I repressed a sigh. My feelings about Genesis right now were . . . complicated. He was still sulking, too much for me to convince myself that his line about the date had been a joke. With anyone else, I might have just offered him that date and tried to show him why nothing like that would ever work out between us, but Gen had always been horribly stubborn. He'd push and poke and prod and pry and try to make reality rearrange itself the way he wanted it to.

I didn't want to hurt him, but it seemed there was no way not to do so. I hated this. Show me the most powerful monster in the world, even the Omega WEAPON itself, and I would know how to fight it, but right now my main tasks involved locating something hidden, saving the lives of two people afflicted with a genetic illness, and maintaining the emotional stability of a number of people (including myself). None of those things exactly played to my strengths. Winning the war with Wutai would be easier, or at least make me feel like less of a fool.

"Zack would say that you're thinking too hard again."

I hadn't even noticed Cloud coming up beside me.

"I have a great deal to think about," I replied.

"More stuff you can't talk about?" I could see the disappointment in Cloud's expression.

This time, I did allow myself to sigh. "Cloud, I promise that a time will come when I tell you everything, but that can't be today."

"Because I'm too young." Cloud scowled.

I shook my head. "Because I want to hold back to the last possible moment, and then tell all the people I need to tell all at once."

"How many people?"

"You, Zack, Genesis, and Angeal. Perhaps one other—I'm not sure about him yet, but I think we may end up needing his help."

"Who?"

"You haven't met him yet, but he was one of the Turks who guarded the laboratory in Nibelheim when Shinra was still using it."

"Oh. Not a good person, then."

I might, I reflected, have warned Cloud a little too thoroughly about the Turks. "You can work with people, even if they're not good and you don't trust them, as long as you know why they do the things they do. I think I understand this man well enough to work with him, but we'll have to see."

Cloud offered me a tentative smile. "As long as it's still 'we', then it's okay."

You shouldn't trust me so much. But I wasn't going to tell him why. Not yet.

It was selfish of me, but I wanted to keep him by my side for a little longer. Not just to be sure that he was ready for the role he might need to play, but because I'd allowed my internal barriers to wear down to the point where I felt some genuine affection for the boy.

I am such a fool.

Chapter Text

Chapter 28

Vincent had seen the silver-haired man watching him at the train station. It had been a bit of a relief, truth be told, to realize all this wasn't in vain. The life of a SOLDIER Third Class hadn't been treating him all that well so far. The food was terrible, but now that he was up and about, whatever mechanism had maintained him in the coffin for more than a decade wasn't sufficent, and he needed to eat. The regimentation he could live with, although it irritated him when some officer insisted on a spoken response where a nod should have sufficed. But it was the lack of privacy that was truly getting on his nerves.

It hadn't been all that bad for the two days before they'd shipped out. With Junon's upper storey now complete, there was enough space in the barracks to assign each Third Class a tiny private room, and since his weapons specialty wasn't usual in SOLDIER and he hadn't had any pre-existing social connections, he wasn't expected to practice with the others or even talk to them very much. He'd spent most of his time in the lounge, reading and listening to the other men gossip.

The ship, however, was more cramped, and he'd been assigned to bunk with three young and inquisitive SOLDIERs, who had taken all of ten seconds to start getting on his nerves.

Collins was the worst of them. The questions he asked weren't different from the others', but even Vincent's nastiest glares weren't able to make him shut up. The Turk was starting to wonder whether the other man had any self-preservation instincts at all.

"Look, I've been posted to practically every garrison on the Planet—I was infantry before I made it into SOLDIER—and I've never, ever seen you before, or heard anyone mention you. And you stand out. Plus, there aren't all that many snipers even in the infantry. It isn't a common skillset."

It was almost midnight, and still the man would not shut up. Even worse, Vincent could tell from their breathing patterns that the other two Third Classes they shared the room with were awake and listening.

Fine, then. He'd do this their way. "I was part of an experimental pilot project to see if they could make mako treatments take better on people who were slightly outside the age envelope. The other subjects didn't survive, and I lost part of my left hand to necrosis." They hadn't been able to get the claw-gauntlet off, but Veld had managed to get someone from the Science Department to scan it, and they'd been able to determine that his hand was badly damaged underneath it, with some bone missing, and presumably flesh as well. "I've been locked up in a lab for the past year and a half while they tried to figure out what went wrong. In the end, they decided it had all been a bad idea from start to finish. Who I was before all that . . . is none of your business." That was the story he and Veld had cooked up between them, hewing as close to the truth as they could under the circumstances.

Vincent slid down from the top bunk he'd been forced to occupy, landing silently on his feet. He opened the door without turning on the lights.

"Where are you going?" Collins asked.

"Anywhere but here." Vincent ignored the man's babble about "after lights out" and slipped into the dimly-lit corridor outside.

As he closed the door, he heard one of the other men comment, "Smooth move, Collins. When I suggested getting him to open up, I didn't mean you should go at it like a fucking jackhammer. Now I'm never going to get into his pants."

If that had been an attempt at courtship, it had been the most stunningly inept one Vincent had encountered since his early adolescence. The Turk hadn't realized his appearance was still capable of attracting admirers. He found the sight of his own malevolently glowing crimson eyes in the mirror disturbing to the point that he was grateful that whatever Hojo had done to his carcass seemed to have permanently relieved him of any need to shave. However, it appeared that for some people, his elegant bone structure and athletic body still won out over the claw and the eyes and the deliberately messy hair.

Well, he wasn't above making use of that fact, if the opportunity arose. Just not in order to seduce some rank-and-file Third Class. If he came across someone with worthwhile information, however . . .

While mulling the matter, Vincent absently dodged past two patrolling night guards and slipped through a door that led up on deck. Although the weather outside was far warmer than it had any business being after the sun had set, it being July and near the equator, there was a pleasant breeze, and more to the point, no people. Vincent hadn't been the gregarious sort even before his life had fallen apart in Nibelheim. He jumped up on top of a tall crate and sat near the edge of it, releasing a small sigh. No one would walk into him by accident up here. He'd just have to remember to get back to his bunk before sunrise.

"Excellent timing. I was just about to go below again."

The Quicksilver was in his hand and pointing at the source of the voice before Vincent had consciously registered that he wasn't alone, and how had whoever-this-was managed that?

"I would suggest not pulling that trigger. It would make things awkward for both of us." The speaker stepped out from behind Vincent's crate with absolute calm. In such low light, the gunner should have seen him in reddish monochrome, but the other man's eyes glowed brilliant, baleful mako green.

The Turk reholstered his gun as the man who called himself Seth Crescent leaped to the top of the crate, landing easily beside him. At first glance, he appeared to be unarmed, but a more careful look immediately spotted the materia bangle half-hidden inside the sleeve of the long coat. Vincent suspected that at least one of the several full pockets of that coat held a pistol or a combat knife, and of course it would have hidden anything below a certain size strapped to the silver-haired man's back underneath the leather.

He resembled Lucrecia . . . excessively, in ways that hadn't been obvious from a static photograph. Not just his bone structure, or the way his hair fell, but also tiny mannerisms and expressions. The thoughtful frown on his face as he considered Vincent . . . was hers.

"I wasn't aware that being on deck in the middle of the night was such a severe transgression that it required a full general to deal with it," Vincent said, testing.

The corner of the other man's mouth curled in amusement. "It doesn't, and had I come across anyone else here, I would have ignored them. I wanted to speak with you specifically, Vincent Valentine."

He hadn't placed his real name on the fake SOLDIER dossier that he and Veld had concocted—not that he was worried about being recognized, but it just wasn't done. So if this man knew who he was, it was likely that he also knew a great deal more. "To what purpose . . . Sephiroth?"

A soft snort. "I suppose I've been relying too much on the obvious counterfactual to keep anyone from making that connection. I should have been more cautious, but I had hoped not to have to get so deeply involved with Shinra again." Strands of silver hair shifted about his shoulders as he shook his head slightly. "I need information, and currently you seem to be my best chance of obtaining it."

Vincent raised his eyebrows. "What information are you looking for?"

"Primarily, the location of the Jenova specimen. It isn't in Nibelheim, and Hojo wasn't keeping it in the Shinra building at the time he died. It wasn't at the Corel reactor, either, or in the part of Modeoheim I was able to access. That leaves a limited number of possible locations, all of which are difficult to get into, much less search."

That was not the request Vincent had been expecting. Although he wasn't really sure what he had been expecting. "Why do you want to find it?"

"Because if I don't know where it is, I can't destroy it."

Only Vincent's training kept him from showing his considerable surprise. If this was the hidden agenda of "Seth Crescent", no wonder Veld hadn't been able to figure it out.

"Why?" the Turk asked again.

Sephiroth turned his head slightly, and the breeze caught at his silvery hair. "That thing is far more dangerous than anyone ever suspected. Although it's physically inert at present, it's also telepathic. I'm fairly certain that it influenced some of Hojo's actions, although it has a harder time controlling anyone who hasn't been exposed to its cells. Unfortunately, that means that all members of SOLDIER are susceptible to its manipulation. Including myself. And what it desires is destruction: the deaths of not only every man, woman, and child, but every beast, plant, monster, and even bacterium. It wants the slate wiped clean, and when it's done, it will take the barren husk of our world and turn it into a vehicle to reach the next one, as it has already done countless times before." He closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head. "I can hear it whispering to me sometimes. If it ever caught me in a moment of weakness . . ."

Vincent did understand about hearing voices in one's head. Of course, he couldn't be certain that the voice this man heard was real, but if there was even the tiniest chance that what Sephiroth was saying was true, he had no choice but to go along with him. The benefit Shinra would derive from retaining the Jenova specimen was slight compared to the possible consequences of keeping it intact.

He also knew he would have to be extremely careful about telling anyone else. Even Veld would doubtless suspect that he'd let sentiment influence him to aid a madman.

"I don't know where it is, but I'll try to find out," he said, and noted the slight relaxation of Sephiroth's rigid posture. "What else?"

"Blackmail material on Hollander. Although if everything goes well, there won't be any need to use it. Call it a selfish personal request on behalf of a friend."

Hollander. Current head of the Science Department, still nursing a certain amount of hurt pride over the fact that Hojo had been considered the superior scientist; he had only risen to his present position because his old rival was dead. He could think of several reasons why Sephiroth might want a scientist's aid, but on behalf of a friend wasn't one of them.

"A friend?" He made a question of it, unsure whether the other was going to offer him an answer.

A long hesitation. Then, "One of the Project G subjects. And even that is more than I really should be telling you."

Project G. Hollander's branch of the Jenova Project, to which Hojo had responded by creating Project S. He'd noticed that both the surviving subjects were within Sephiroth's tiny circle of friends, but he'd only done a quick scan of their dossiers. Perhaps he should read them in more detail, the next time he had the opportunity.

"I don't have anything on Hollander myself, but I'll see what I can turn up." He was mostly curious about how Sephiroth intended to use the information . . . and gaining the trust of Lucrecia's son would be useful in and of itself. As for what happened to Hollander, he couldn't care less, even if he did remember the man as being slightly less creepy than Hojo.

"Thank you."

"How should I go about getting a message to you, if I find anything?" It wasn't as though a Third Class could just walk up to a general and ask for an audience.

"I'll arrange to assign you to teach Cloud basic marksmanship and firearms maintenance. That will give us an excuse to speak."

Vincent nodded thoughtfully. It wasn't a bad plan, although . . . "I'm surprised you're taking the boy into a war zone."

"It was that or lock him up—even his mother admitted that. I may have taught him a little too well in some ways," Sephiroth admitted ruefully.

"Better an enthusiastic student than one who doesn't want to learn," Vincent said.

"True enough."

They both fell silent, then, but Vincent saw no particular reason to leave, and apparently, neither did Sephiroth. The Turk studied the lines of the silver-haired general's face as the latter stared off into the distance, deep in thought. Part of him was still unable to believe that this was Lucrecia's son, apparently whole and well and sane despite everything he'd experienced. He still didn't understand why the evidence pointed to Sephiroth having gone from a child of eleven to a grown man in the space of a single night, but perhaps one day, the other would feel secure enough to tell him.

He hadn't decided yet whether he would pass that information on to Veld, if he ever received it. It would probably end up depending on the content. For the time being, Sephiroth didn't seem to be at odds with Shinra, but if that eventually did turn out to be the case, Vincent could only act according to his conscience.

He'd already failed to save this man once. He wasn't going to do it again.

"Is my appearance so fascinating?"

"You look like your mother," Vincent admitted.

"I wouldn't know. I've never seen so much as a Shinra ID photo of her. Until I spoke to Dr. Gast's wife, I didn't even know her name. It's been expunged from all the records, even those that were left behind in Nibelheim."

Vincent shook his head, wishing that a fit of drunken broken-heartedness hadn't caused him to destroy the photo of Lucrecia that he'd once carried with him. "You have her cheekbones, and your eyes are the same shape, even if the colour's different. Her hair behaved the same way as yours, arching up and over. You share some mannerisms and expressions as well—enough that it's difficult to believe that you never knew her."

"Hmm. I wish . . ." Sephiroth went silent, staring out to sea again.

"I'm afraid I don't know anything at all about your father," the Turk found himself saying. "Beyond the fact that it wasn't Hojo—even he considered his genes too defective for the purpose. They chose something from the bank of sperm samples held by Shinra, but I don't know what the basis for selection was."

"I found a few notes crumpled at the back of a drawer in Nibelheim that included the serial number of the sample and the information that whoever had donated it was deceased at the time of my conception." Sephiroth was still staring at the horizon. "They arranged it that way on purpose, to reduce the chances of a custody dispute. That would have been the last thing they wanted, even though the Turks would have quashed it immediately."

And they would have, Vincent knew. Probably, he would have been detailed to take care of it himself.

He wasn't sure whether he was relieved or sad to know that this man couldn't possibly be his son.

"If you remember that serial number, I can see if there are any records," he offered.

"3703-A," came the immediate reply, and Vincent committed the number to memory. "And now it's my turn to ask why, I suppose. That information couldn't possibly be of value to anyone but myself. Or are you still trying to expiate your guilt, Turk?"

Vincent shrugged. "I suppose I am. Do you find that so surprising?"

"No. I understand about guilt." Sephiroth must have seen something in the glance Vincent threw at him, because he added, "Perhaps someday, I'll tell you why. Although by then, I expect you'll have assembled half a hundred incorrect theories. Good night, Vincent. I'll contact you after we arrive in Wutai to make the arrangements. And do remember to get back inside before dawn, because if you earn yourself a punishment detail, I'm not going to intervene."

A swirl of black and silver, and he was gone into the dark, leaving Vincent Valentine to contemplate one of the oddest conversations he had ever had.

"I don't understand what the problem is," Angeal said, even as he patted Genesis' back. "We already know that Seth doesn't always take hints."

"I don't know what the problem is either," Genesis admitted. "I feel like I'm losing my mind." And perhaps he was. Heightened irritability and disintegrating emotional control. Hollander had confirmed those as likely symptoms of his condition, although he didn't expect them to appear for some time yet. "I'm not even sure I want . . . Actually, I'm almost sure I don't want . . ." He gritted his teeth, cutting his words off, and forced himself to begin again. "Seth is a stunningly attractive man. Possibly the most beautiful I've ever seen. But I don't feel like I'm falling in love with him, or even like I just want to get into his pants. I feel like he's pulling at me somehow. As though he's a magnet and I'm a nail. I want him to be nearby. I want him to hold me, to touch me—it doesn't have to be sexual, I don't care what kind of touch it is, I just want him to . . ." Genesis threw up his hands as his fumbling for words once more failed to yield results. "It terrifies me, 'Geal. I've never felt anything like this before. I want to lose myself in him until Genesis Rhapsodos is gone altogether."

"And it started when he touched your hands."

"I think so. I didn't realize anything was wrong until the next day. It hurt to leave him, 'Geal, even though we'd hit the point where he'd gone silent and I'd gotten snappish."

"Like someone was tearing your heart out?" Angeal asked, with a bemused smile.

"More like someone was tearing my brains out. And then my stomach. First I got the most awful headache, and ten minutes later, I was vomiting in an alleyway behind a closed theatre. And the headache won't go away."

"Did you tell Dr. Hollander about this?"

"About the headache and nausea, yes. He'd just think the rest was a figment of my imagination." Or of my blue balls. "He said it was all part of the degradation thing, and he was working on it. He recommended chewing ginger if I started to be unable to keep food down, but fortunately it hasn't gotten that bad."

But there was one more symptom that Genesis hadn't even been willing to tell his best friend about, because it gave him a cold, creepy feeling.

Since he'd woken up the morning after Seth's arrival in Midgar, he'd always been able to tell where the other man was—not the number of the room he was in or anything, but distance and direction. It had taken him a while to figure out that that was what he was sensing, because the tug had been diffuse while they'd been in Midgar, as though it was coming from more than one location, but once they'd left the city on the way to Junon, he'd been certain of it. They'd been at opposite ends of the troop train, and every bend in the track had made the sensation of directionality shift.

It was like some form of magic, but it was no spell he had willed—no spell he could have willed, there were no materia for such things—and it frightened him out of his mind.

I must be out of my mind, Claudia Strife thought as she climbed down off the train. Midgar, even up here on the Plate, smelled of chemicals and far too many people crammed in too close together, and the sky was overcast. Why did I agree to come here?

For Cloud's sake, she reminded herself. Her son might not be here right now, but this was where he would be coming home to from now on, to this ugly double-layered city with the giant tower of steel and glass sticking up obscenely from its center.

Why had she let Seth Crescent step in and change their lives like this?

She still believed the man was good for Cloud. In some ways. But she hadn't expected him to turn her boy into a soldier before he was even old enough to graduate from Nibelheim's one-room school! So much for him not becoming a fighter.

She shook her head. What's done is done, she told herself.

"Mrs. Strife?"

Technically it should still have been "Miss". Technically. But no one in Nibelheim had been willing to address a woman with a child by that title, so she'd gotten used to the other. And who in Midgar knew her name anyway? That had been a woman's voice.

She turned around slowly. The young woman who smiled and waved at her might have been sixteen or so, and was wearing a men's suit that fit her so well it had to have been tailored for her. There was a girl beside her who might have been a little older than Cloud, brown-haired and wearing a simple sundress. She was gripping her companion's suit jacket with one hand as she stared down at the railway platform.

"I'm Cissnei, and this is Felicia," the woman in the suit explained. "We were asked to meet you here—or rather, I was, and Felicia decided to tag along."

Felicia shook her head in denial, but didn't look up or speak. To Claudia, it felt as though something wasn't quite right with the girl.

"Are you sisters?" she asked, tugging her suitcases forward.

Cissnei shook her head. "Felicia's father is my boss. Her mother died last year, and it's been kind of rough on her, so we take it in turns to look after her."

"Oh, dear. I'm very sorry about your loss," Claudia said to Felicia. The girl offered her a watery smile, but still didn't look up or speak.

"We're supposed to escort you to your new apartment in the Tower," Cissnei said. "Everything's been set up for you—you just need to sign a few papers."

It seemed that Seth Crescent had been a man of his word. But then, he always was, as far as Claudia could tell.

"Thank you," was all she said.

She'd been afraid she would be all alone in this huge city, but it looked like her fears had been for nothing.

Chapter Text

Chapter 29 (Sephiroth's narrative)

By the end of that summer, we'd chewed up more than half of Wutai, taking the capital in the process. The remaining Wutainese troops dispersed themselves to a couple of dozen remote forts, which they would need to be ferreted out of one at a time.

I tried to keep Cloud away from the worst of the fighting, sending him and Zack on monster-hunting missions under the supervision of one of the older Thirds when I could. Despite that, the boys were forced to cross swords with Wutainese troops a time or two when they attacked whatever encampment we happened to be at. Cloud collected his fourth human kill that summer, although neither of us was happy about it.

Vincent ended up training not just Cloud, but also Zack and a couple of other younger SOLDIERs who had realized they needed to improve their skills. He reported periodically to myself and Angeal on our protégés' improvement or lack thereof, but it wasn't until midway through September that he came to my office alone and silently laid an envelope—addressed to him and already torn open—on my desk.

There was a single sheet of paper inside. Part of a letter.

—not even going to ask why you need to know, Vince, I read, but Hollander's been embezzling money from the company since forever. Almost as bad as Hojo, although he seems to have decided to stick to one private facility in Banora rather than nearly a dozen scattered all over the world.

As for the thing about the sperm sample, that number would have been assigned in the late sixties sometime—too long ago for there to be anything in the computers. I'll have to poke around in the archives, which means it's going to have to wait until the next time I have a reasonable excuse to be up there.

Evidently the original letter had been at least three pages long, since this sheet held neither salutation nor signature, but I could guess who had sent it.

"Did you ask Veld about Jenova as well?" I asked Vincent.

"Not . . . specifically. I asked him if all of Hojo's labs had ever been investigated. I may have implied that the good doctor mentioned trying to clone me," the Turk added with a hint of a smile. "So he's looking into the locations as a personal favour, and sooner or later, I'll get the list out of him. Then we can check them."

"I would have expected you to trust him more," I said.

Vincent shook his head. "He isn't the same man now that I knew twenty years ago. I do trust him, but only up to a point. And if, as you say, Jenova is telepathic, telling him that we're looking for her could end up giving her advance warning."

That, unfortunately, was true. "Hopefully, She won't move before I can get to Her." Inwardly, I winced. I'd been trying to separate myself from Jenova, to depersonalize Her, by calling Her "it", but that didn't seem to have stuck.

"We."

I raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't expected you to do more than find the information. Truth be told, I wasn't even certain you would do that."

Another headshake. "I may not ever be able to fully atone for my failures, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to add to them. I'll guard your back in this."

"Promise me something, then. If it ever looks as though Jenova is controlling my actions, stop me even if you have to kill me. Keep in mind that it won't be easy to do so. Any injury that doesn't immediately kill me will heal quickly, and my natural magic resistance is unusually high." The words tasted bitter, but they were my best chance to avoid involving Cloud in the uglier parts of this. I couldn't—shouldn't—allow myself to care about preserving my own life in this. I didn't deserve it.

Vincent was frowning as he gave me a single, tight nod. Trust a Turk to understand the reasoning behind a request like that. "I know your reputation," he said unexpectedly. "And not just from your dossier. Cloud and Zack talk about you a lot."

"Cloud and Zack know a great deal less than they think they do."

"They care about you."

"And?"

"I suppose I'm just pleased that someone does. Despite everything."

What was I doing, allowing this man so close to me? He was a necessary part of my plans now, but I was trusting too much in his guilt and nostalgia to keep him in line. Still, it seemed a little too late now to start making threats of death and dismemberment.

I know your reputation. Hopefully that would be enough. Implicit threats were always better than explicit ones, anyway.

"Sephiroth?"

It was also pleasing to have one person around who called me by my proper name, even if only in private. It was both an affirmation of my real identity and a reminder of what I needed to do. I'd let myself sink too deeply into the life I'd been leading as "Seth Crescent", pushing Jenova to the back of my mind while I went about my day-to-day tasks. But Jenova was absolute, and I should have been treating her as such.

"I don't deserve them," I said quietly.

"You're too hard on yourself."

I snorted. "You are the last person who has any business saying that to me."

Vincent shrugged. "I supposed I'm speaking in place of your mother. She would have wanted to see you happy."

"Perhaps there will be some room for that after Jenova is destroyed. Until then, I am a potential danger to everyone around me."

"You truly believe that."

"I know that," I said flatly. "And don't tell me that you wouldn't feel the same if you thought you didn't have control of what's inside you. I've read Hojo's notes on what he did to you. They may not have been complete, but certain points were clear." Not entirely true, but I was hardly going to cite Jenova as one of my sources of information about him.

Vincent nodded grimly. Perhaps he did understand, although he was no easier to read than any other Turk.

"You're on guard duty in an hour," I remembered suddenly. "Go."

Vincent saluted—sloppily, but in a way that made it look as though the sloppiness was on purpose rather than due to inadequate training—and left. I went back to reading the stack of reports in front of me, or tried to. After the third attempt to read the same paragraph without being able to absorb a word, I gave up and left the office. I'd return after I'd burned off some of my restless energy.

Outside, everyone gave me plenty of space. That was quite usual. It was rare for non-SOLDIERs to get within a couple of feet of me, and no one outside my own small circle routinely touched me. Cloud, Zack, Angeal, Genesis . . .

When was the last time I'd seen Genesis? My mind flicked back across the days. In passing, a few times in camp, but he hadn't turned up at my office with the supper trays since we'd gotten back from Midgar. I hadn't noticed because Angeal had taken to bringing Zack and Cloud with him instead.

I hadn't, as far as I could remember, spoken more than a few words to Genesis since our shopping trip in Midgar, even though Cloud and I had spent two more nights at his apartment. He'd even been coming to my office when I wasn't there so that he could leave his mission reports with my secretary instead of handing them to me directly.

Something was wrong. And I should have noticed it before now, but I'd been busy with the rest of the army, and with Jenova. And Angeal seemed to have been deliberately covering for Genesis.

However, if I really wanted to find the redhead, there was no way he could hide from me.

It was an old trick: I pictured Genesis in my mind's eye, and then began to wander around the camp, never consciously choosing any direction. I could do it for anyone with a high enough concentration of Jenova cells who wasn't too far away. The instinct for Reunion would gradually guide me in the direction of my target, although I hadn't realized that was what was going on until . . . afterwards. I'd just thought I had an odd form of biological radar tuned to my fellow Firsts.

A shame that it was too dangerous an ability to use in hunting Jenova herself. Anything that might result in my mind brushing against hers had to be avoided at all costs. But I was reasonably certain she wasn't here in Wutai. Surely no one, even in Shinra, was mad enough to leave a valuable scientific specimen in the middle of a warzone.

I saw a flash of red off to my left that had to be Genesis—he'd finally had the red coat I remembered remade at some point while he'd been in Midgar, and although I hadn't seen much of him, I doubted he'd given up his habit of wearing it everywhere—but when I turned and began to make for him, he moved away, vanishing around the end of the messhall. He didn't have any reason I knew of to be over by the kitchens in the middle of the afternoon, though. What was going on here?

I didn't hurry, but I did follow . . . only to see the coat whisking around another corner up ahead.

It rapidly became obvious that Genesis was running from me on purpose, and I wasn't quite sure what to do about it, since I still didn't understand why he was avoiding me. It was too baffling and annoying to let go, but I wasn't about to draw attention to this by chasing him down, either. I was going to have to herd him into a place where he couldn't escape from me, and then see if I could get some information out of him.

It took quite a bit of time and patience, since Genesis knew the layout of the camp as well as I did, but he didn't seem to want to make it look like he was trying to get away any more than I wanted to make it look like I was trying to chase him. And I had more patience than he did.

In the end, I managed to chase him into a cul-de-sac made from crates, near the motor pool. Once again, he could have escaped by jumping to the top of a pile, but he didn't, instead turning to face me with his arms folded defensively across his chest.

"What could possibly be so important that a general has to chase a humble colonel through the entire encampment to address it?" Genesis drawled, but I could see the tension in him, and smell it.

"What could I possibly have done to offend you so seriously that you would spend half an hour running away from me just to avoid a few minutes of conversation?" I shot back.

"The wandering soul knows no rest," he quoted.

"Irrelevent, and you know it. Please, Gen. Don't do this to me." I stretched out a hand, and he flinched away.

"Don't touch me! This all started because you . . . I can't take this, Seth! I can't! Stay away!"

"Do I have to put you on medical leave again?" Something twisted inside me as I spoke. I wasn't sure whether I was making an offer or a threat. I also forced myself to take a couple of steps back, opening up a little more distance between us without giving him an opening to escape, and I felt another twist as Genesis seemed to relax slightly. "Is this something to do with me specifically?"

"It aches. When you get too close."

I raised my eyebrows. "You're saying my physical proximity is casusing you discomfort."

"Yes, and if you don't mind, it's making it very difficult to think!" That was the first thing he'd said since the Loveless quote that sounded like Genesis.

"Very well," I said, after a moment of quick thought. "I'll leave, and we can have the balance of this conversation over PHS." It was a bit risky, but under the circumstances I couldn't think of anything else to do. "And you had damned well better pick up when I call, or I'll come looking for you again."

He didn't move until I was well away from the crates, and when he did come out he strode briskly toward the armoury. I kept moving in the other direction, until I was in my office again with the door closed.

I pulled out my PHS—still the same one that had taken two swims in the Lifestream with me and then been hauled back in time, although it was beginning to show its age now, with the edges of the case worn to a streaky satin finish—and dialed Genesis' number. It rang three times before he picked up.

"I'd hoped that something would distract you and you'd forget to call. No such luck, I suppose." Genesis sounded more like himself now, at least.

"Now will you tell me what's going on?" I said, no doubt sounding more than a bit exasperated.

A gusty sigh. "I'll try, but I can't explain it myself. Presumably it's another symptom of my . . . condition . . . but it isn't one you warned us about."

"Consider the source of my information," I said drily. "Hojo was not only far from omniscient, he often wasn't entirely coherent." And by the time it got at all bad, the two of you weren't talking to me anymore. "Now, tell me what's wrong."

He did. Unfortunately. The symptoms he described could mean only one thing, as far as I could tell.

Reunion.

But I wasn't Jenova, and I wasn't consciously broadcasting any kind of call to summon others. Nor had this happened the last time. And it didn't seem to be affecting Angeal.

Was it simply because this time I knew what I was? Or had Jenova somehow awakened the cells inside me while I was under her dominion?

I shuddered as a memory pushed itself mistily to the fore. Seven wings, and the sensation of the power of the entire cosmos flowing through me . . . No. No, no, no. That mutated . . . thing . . . had not been me in any real sense. Just a shell, stolen and repurposed.

If I let myself believe otherwise, I would never be able to retain my sanity, and Jenova would use me again.

Somehow, I managed not to squeeze the PHS into plastic shards.

"I don't think it's dangerous in and of itself, but I'll try to give you as much space as I can," I said. "Has Hollander given you an indication that he's getting anywhere with this?"

"No. Truth be told, I almost have the impression that he's stalling for time."

I muttered a Wutainese curse—a real curse, one of the complicated poetic ones the condemned one's enemy to suffer eternally in Leviathan's bowels. It got an amused snort from Genesis, at least.

"I'll talk to him," I said. "In the meanwhile . . . look after yourself. I don't want you to get shot by some ninja just as Hollander comes up with a cure."

"Seth, really. I could be on my deathbed and still dodge one of those ridiculous ninjas. It's my healing factor that's compromised, not my strength or my speed."

For now. But I wasn't about to say that . . . and in any case, he'd already hung up.

It took me a moment to find Hollander's number, buried deep in a subsection of my contacts list that I hadn't touched since before I'd burnt Nibelheim. Or at least, it was the number Hollander had been using at the time he'd defected from Shinra, but they rarely got changed unless someone leaked an executive's number to the public.

It rang four times before being picked up. "Hollander."

"Dr. Hollander, this is General Seth Crescent, calling from Wutai. I wanted to inquire as to the state of your research into Colonel Rhapsodos' condition."

"Well, the interruptions aren't speeding it up."

"That was not what I asked. I am aware that science is not entirely predictable, but you should have some idea of what is causing his condition by now, and the beginning of a theory or two on how to treat it."

"What's causing his condition is the mother of all immune disorders. Treating it is another matter. I have no way of deactivating the rogue cells in his system, and destroying them would also kill him, as they're vital to his body's functioning."

Damn. I remembered quite clearly what Hollander had sent Genesis looking for in the previous timeline. I'd always thought he'd just been using Gen to get cell samples for his own research, but perhaps he really had been trying to save Gen's life.

"What about replacing them?" I said.

"Replacing . . . That's an interesting idea. In fact, it may be his best chance. I'll look into it. Thank you, General."

I was left staring at my PHS. I hadn't even needed to use my blackmail material. How . . . odd. Perhaps it was even a good omen, or so I thought at the time.

I should have known better.

Chapter Text

Chapter 30

Claudia Strife hadn't expected her new duties to involve arranging furniture, or at least telling the delivery people how to arrange it, but it seemed that someone had to do it, and with both of the proper inhabitants of the apartment gone, she was the best available substitute. So she gave her best guesses as to where everything was supposed to go, and glued felt to the bottoms of chair legs so that they wouldn't scar the flooring, and if Seth Crescent didn't like it when he got back, well, he could go pound sand.

To her mind, the apartment didn't look quite finished even when everything was moved in and put away. The walls were still blank and white, without a single picture or photograph to liven them up, there was no food in the kitchen, and the shelves were almost empty even after she stacked the handful of books Seth had left in Nibelheim on them.

There was only one of those things she could (or should) do anything about, and she dipped sparingly into the budget she'd been given for "supplies" to ensure the kitchen wouldn't be entirely empty, stocking a small selection of canned goods and other things that would keep for a year or more if necessary. Seth's cooking skills were basic-but-adequate, as she'd discovered when she'd been laid up with that horrible flu and left him as the only functioning adult in the house for a week, so he'd know what to do with what she'd laid in.

In the end, she stood with her hands on her hips in the middle of the apartment and turned slowly, taking it all in. It might be unfinished, but it was a pleasant enough space, with the pale wood of the floors in the main room and the soft green-grey of the upholstered furniture combining with the white walls to give an airy impression, like mountains seen at a distance.

She wondered if Seth had enjoyed his time in Nibelheim. Perhaps even enough to subtly commemorate it here.

Regardless, that was the last thing she was going to need to do in this apartment for a while. She'd come back once a week to keep the dust under control while the space remained unoccupied. There was plenty of other stuff to keep her busy, since she'd been made responsible for the cleaning and maintenance of half of this floor and part of the one below as well. The occupants of these apartments were all SOLDIERs, but apparently the news that she was associated with General Crescent had gotten around, and she hadn't had any trouble with them. Most were nice enough young men in any case, if a bit boisterous.

Out in the hallway, she grabbed the handle on her cart and began to pull it toward the next apartment she needed to clean.

Something grabbed it and pulled it back.

Claudia blinked and went around to examine the cart from the side, trying to determine what it had snagged on. It took her several moments to spot the feet, since they weren't what she'd been looking for.

She went around the end of the cart again, and discovered a small form huddled behind it. "Felicia, dear, what are you doing here? Are you hiding from someone?"

The girl nodded, her eyes full of tears. Still, at least this time she was looking at Claudia, which she hadn't done at the train station.

"Well, you can't stay there behind my cart forever. Why don't I put the cart away, and we can go down to my apartment and have some tea and cookies, and you can tell me what's wrong."

The girl brightened, just a little, at the word cookies. She was still at the age where she would go after any kind of sweets. And indeed, when Claudia put the plate down in front of her, she took one immediately and began nibbling.

"Will someone be looking for you?" Claudia asked softly.

Felicia's lips parted, and for a moment Claudia thought she was going to speak, but all that came out was a sort of sighing sound. The girl gave her a terrified look and mimed writing something.

Claudia got her a pen and a stack of post-it notes. The first thing the girl wrote was, I'm sorry. Since the fire, words get stuck in my throat.

"It's perfectly all right, dear. Were you with Cissnei?"

The girl shook her head. With Ruluf. But he— She stopped writing in mid-sentence.

"You don't have to tell me," Claudia said, but Felicia had already resumed writing.

He said Dad should never have married Mom. She dug the pen in hard as she wrote, almost tearing the topmost note.

"That's horrible, and I'm sorry you had to hear it. Point him out to me, and I'll beat him over the head with a rolling pin until he apologizes," Claudia offered, and Felicia offered her a wan smile.

Thanks, but I want to learn to beat him up myself. Cissnei said she'll teach me. She's really good at hand-to-hand.

Inwardly, Claudia sighed, and wondered if everyone at Shinra was so casually okay with teaching children to fight. Not that she had any right to talk. "It's better to be strong, isn't it? Safer."

Felicia nodded.

About half an hour later, when the plate of cookies was empty and the tea had all been drunk, someone knocked firmly on the door. Claudia went to answer, wondering who it would be—Cissnei? Ruluf, who apparently had too big a mouth for his own good?

She checked the peephole first. It was a man, middle-aged, with a dark beard clipped short along his jaw, wearing the same kind of impeccably tailored suit as Cissnei.

"Who is it?" she asked through the door.

"My name is Veld. I'm Felicia's father, and I'm here to pick her up."

Claudia unlocked the door. As Veld stepped inside, she noted that his eyes had dark circles under them, and there was a bit of shiny scar tissue edging up from under his collar on one side of his neck. And one of his arms didn't move quite right.

Felicia had obviously been traumatized by whatever had happened to her mother, but there were people trying, however fumblingly, to help her. She wondered if anyone was trying to help this man at all, or whether he was just hiding everything away and pretending he was fine, the way most men seemed to do.

The girl came out of the kitchen and immediately threw her arms around her father. Veld hugged her back. At least, Claudia thought, his awkwardness seemed mostly due to whatever was wrong with his arm, so he probably wasn't a hands-off dad. She decided that she approved.

"Thank you for looking after her," Veld said gruffly. "Felicia, I'm sorry about sticking you with Ruluf. It was supposed to be Emma, but I had to switch things around at the last minute and put her on a case. Forgive me?"

Felicia nodded. She clung to his hand as they left, although she didn't forget to wave good-bye to Claudia.

That girl needs her mother, Claudia thought. And sighed.

Genesis threw himself down on his cot, telling himself that the aches in his joints were due to overexertion, and not some form of creeping degredation-induced arthritis.

He wondered how much longer he was going to be able to make himself believe that.

He wanted to cry. His twentieth birthday had been a month ago, and he was pretty sure that if someone didn't do something, he wouldn't live to see his twenty-first. He was terrified, and angry at his body for betraying him this way, and doubly angry at Heidegger and Shinra for letting this happen to him. And triply angry at Seth Crescent, although he knew the man hadn't done anything, except tell him the truth. Most of the truth. There were still too many secrets behind those mako-green eyes, and so help them, if one of those turned out to hold his cure, he was going to rip off the man's head and have it stuffed and mounted by the best taxidermist in Midgar!

And it didn't help that he still wanted to track the man down and snuggle with him. In all fairness, Seth had been as good as his word and not come anywhere near him since the day he'd chased him around half the camp, instead using his PHS to check up on him, or passing messages via Angeal. But Genesis could still feel where the other man was (in his office right now, judging from the direction of the pull), and the draw was undeniable.

"They're coming to take me away, ha-ha!" Genesis' PHS shrilled suddenly, and he grabbed for it, wondering when Zack had had a chance to mess with his ringtones again.

"Rhapsodos," he snapped.

"Hello, Genesis. Are you doing anything right now?"

It was never a good sign when Hollander asked a question like that. "I just got back from a mission and was going to have a siesta before writing up my report. Why?"

"Well, I have some good news and some bad news."

"Spare me the cliches."

"This from a man who spends half his time conversing in Loveless quotes?"

Genesis ground his teeth, making sure it would be audible, even over the phone and to an unenhanced. "Get on with it."

"The good news is that I may have found a way to fix you. The bad news is, it requires something that I don't have."

Fix him, was it? As though he were a machine. "Well then, get it, whatever it is."

"I can't! I don't know where it is—where either of them are. All I have are the records."

"Be more specific," Genesis said through clenched teeth.

"We need to find either Jenova, the foundation specimen that led to the SOLDIER program, or Hojo's Project S prototype. The problem is, Project S disappeared the night Hojo died and hasn't been seen since, and Jenova was transferred a few days later, but the destination has been redacted from the records and no one will tell me where it was taken. Those two are the only possible sources of unaltered J-cells. Hojo tinkered with the cell lines in the Science Department labs—I tested them, and none of them have all the attributes we need."

"Then what do we do?"

"I keep working and you start looking," Hollander said. "Jenova should be pretty obvious if you manage to find it—a female humanoid creature with bluish skin, silver hair, and one red eye, preserved in a mako solution. It has what appear to be the remains of wings jutting from its shoulders, a large organ of indeterminate use replacing its feet, and assorted other bits hanging off it that are difficult to make out because of the general damage. Oh, yes, and the right breast has an eyeball in place of the nipple—one of the descriptions gives particular emphasis to that."

"Sounds charming," Genesis drawled. "What about Project S?"

"Male, superficially human, about your age. I haven't been able to get a good description beyond that, because the Turks have a flag on its general file that I've been trying not to trip. The more biological files aren't monitored, but they don't include any photographs other than those related to biopsies and vivisections. Hojo was . . . not nice to his specimens."

"One more question, Doctor. Why would these J-cells be able to help me?"

A long pause, and then, "Because your illness is due to the altered J-cells inside your body rampaging out of control, although since they've been present since before you were born, I don't understand why— In any case, replacing them with the ur-strain should reverse your degradation, but there may be other side effects of uncertain nature. That's the other reason I'd like to find the Project S specimen—it was treated in utero with the unaltered cells. If it's still stable, that would tell us for certain—"

Genesis hung up on the scientist between one word and the next, and threw his PHS at the wall. The casing shattered, and the parts dripped down like some technological form of blood and guts.

Hollander's prototype SOLDIER project, the so-called Project G. Seth had told them about it, but never described what it entailed.

He'd never told Genesis that he and Angeal had been created out of a monster, any more than Hollander ever had. And his parents—if this had been done to him before he'd even been born, surely they must have known.

Genesis could feel the metal frame of the cot bending under his hands. Betrayed—everyone had betrayed him, lied to him. Let him think he was a person, when in fact he was a . . . was a . . .

Pain shot through his back, and Genesis choked back a scream. It was a horrible sensation, white hot, leaving him shivering in agony, skin slick with cold sweat.

After a moment, the worst of it receded, and Genesis stumbled to his feet. He needed help. . . . Angeal. Angeal had never betrayed him. And his room was right across the narrow hall.

He stumbled out his own door and over to the other, nearly collapsing as another wave of pain hit and all his muscles clenched. Wait it out, he told himself, leaning against the wall. When it was over, he raised a hand shakily and knocked.

The door opened, and he nearly fell across the threshold before registering that the person who had opened it was not Angeal.

"Gen—I mean, Colonel Rhapsodos? Are you okay? You look awful." Zack was staring at him, and behind him, Genesis could just see the blonde spikes of the Strife boy.

"No, I am not 'okay'," Genesis snapped, and grunted as the pain struck again. Zack pulled his arm over his shoulders and helped him into Angeal's room, sitting him down on the cot. "Get 'Geal, Pup. Hurry."

"Take your coat off," the Strife boy said suddenly.

I don't think I can. But what Genesis said was, "I don't recall that I'm required to take orders from you, boy."

Strife gave him a cold look that would have done his mentor proud. "I think I might know what this is, and if I'm right, we need to get your coat off. And your shirt. And Zack—call Seth, too."

"No!" Genesis shouted.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, Spiky," the puppy said.

"He's the only person that might know for sure if it really is what I think it is," Strife said. "Colonel, can you please relax your arms so that I can pull your coat off? Otherwise, I think you might end up breaking something."

"Breaking what?" Genesis asked, but he tried to relax his arms, too.

"This," Strife said as he pulled the leather coat off. He touched something on Genesis' shoulder, and the man hissed, because the spot was tender. Strife's fingers traced down across his back at an angle. "There's a lump on your shoulder bigger than my fist," the boy said, "and I'm pretty sure this is bone under here."

"That doesn't—" Another wave of pain, and Genesis hissed as his muscles contracted. "—make any sense!"

"I think you're growing a wing," Strife said, and Genesis went cold. It has what appear to be the remains of wings jutting from its shoulders . . . "Damnit, Zack, get Seth here now!"

The puppy swallowed, eyes round and huge. " . . . Yeah," he said, and pulled out his PHS.

Meanwhile, Strife was rummaging for something under the cot. After a couple of minutes of searching, he pulled out . . . a first-aid kit. Genesis somehow managed not to dissolve into hysterical laughter. Does he think there's some kind of specific treatment for people sprouting wings in there?

He stopped laughing when Strife took out some scissors and used them to cut his shirt open down the back. Then the boy began arranging some alcohol wipes and a scalpel on the lid of the kit.

"I don't want to do this, because I'm not sure what I'm doing, but if it looks like the skin's going to burst open, it's probably better that I cut," the boy said, chewing on his lower lip. "At least then it would be clean, and not all raggedy and torn up."

Oh goddess, this is actually happening to me, what did I do wrong, oh goddess oh goddess . . . He could feel Seth getting closer, the pull changing direction as the other man went around to get to the door—

"Gen! Gen, are you all right?!" Angeal began talking before he had the door all the way open, and once more, it was all Genesis could do to keep himself from laughing hysterically. Then there was another surge of pain, worse than all the rest, and he yowled like a cat as something cold was dragged across his skin.

"Get away, 'Geal," he said when that wave had receded. "No closer—I can't—Goddess—"

Strife was cleaning his small hands with a couple of the alcohol wipes. "I'm going to cut," he said. "The skin's so stretched it's practically see-through—there are feathers under there—"

"No," Genesis breathed.

"Cloud, what are you—" Angeal began, but the boy interrupted.

"There's no time. If I don't do this now, it's going to rip its way out, and there might not be enough mako in camp to fix him up afterwards. Hold him. If he fights, this is going to be a mess."

Genesis screamed as Angeal grabbed him by the shoulders and dug into a tender spot near the base of the growth—he would not think of it as a wing. He was human, and humans didn't have wings. It was that simple.

He barely noticed the scalpel biting as another surge of deep pain took him over, and then small hands tugged at something and there was a sliding sensation and the pain became less unbearable.

Angeal and Zack were both staring at him with wide eyes, while little Cloud Strife pulled and lifted and arranged, ignoring Genesis' horrified stare at the broad web of skin and black feathers stretched over bone that was being carefully spread on the bed. He could feel it, every touch and every movement. It couldn't not be part of him.

Humans didn't have wings.

Therefore, Genesis Rhapsodos was not a human being.

He felt the familiar pull center itself in front of him in the instant before Seth Crescent stepped through the door of the room and shut it behind him, but he couldn't focus well enough to respond to it.

Not human. Not human. Am I a monster, then? Well, what else could I be?

The laughter bubbled up slowly, shaking him right down to his bones. He heard Angeal saying, "Gen?" in a concerned tone, but ignored it.

The Strife boy's small hands were still bandaging his back. He knocked them away.

"Don't touch me."

The boy gave him a stubborn look. "You're still bleeding."

"What of it? Aren't you afraid I might be contagious?" Genesis could feel his mouth spread into a rictus of a grin. "I might turn you into a monster too!"

The slap wasn't hard, but it did sting.

"You aren't a monster, Genesis," Seth Crescent said, voice firm. "I should know. I see one in the mirror every morning . . . but it isn't my body that makes me one. It's the blood on my hands, the innocents that I've killed." He paused for a moment. "I also seem to remember telling you not to do anything stupid."

Genesis glared at him. "If I'm not a monster, then I'm a freak, and freaks are hopeless, pathetic creatures. I'd rather be a monster. You—" You wouldn't understand, he wanted to say, but as he looked at the other man's glowing cat's eyes and silver hair, the words caught in his throat.

Seth returned his look for a moment, then unbuckled his sword harness and set Masamune and the straps that supported her aside. He shrugged out of his coat, letting it fall to pool around his boots, and flexed his shoulders.

The black wing that emerged on his right would have hit Angeal in the nose if the latter hadn't dodged. But it was the other wing that Genesis stared at, the heat-haze shimmer on the silver-haired man's left. Goddess, he's . . .

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Seth growled, voice low and menacing. "You've had twenty years in which you were allowed to think of yourself as a human being. I didn't have that privilege—I've been set apart since the moment of my birth. But go ahead. Try to take revenge on the world for not having a nice, neat category for you to nestle yourself in. I guarantee that all you'll be left with in the end is a pile of corpses and a handful of ash."

Genesis scrubbed his hand across his face as Seth folded his wings back in—they can be made to disappear, that's good to know. "What does it matter? I'm dying, anyway. Hollander's hit a dead end. He can't do anything more to help me unless one of us finds something called Jenova or something else called Project S."

"Genesis, I am Project S."

Chapter Text

Chapter 31 (Sephiroth's narrative)

Genesis was staring at me still, lips parted, eyes wide. "But you . . . Hollander said 'Project S' was the same age as Angeal and I."

"To be exact, I should be two months younger than Angeal and roughly a year younger than you," I said. "The reason I'm not . . . is tangled up in a rather long story that I've been putting off telling anyone for the past few years. Partly because it's rather unbelievable."

"And?" Genesis prompted. He'd always had the instincts of a shark.

"And because a great deal of it is shameful," I said flatly. "Innocent people died because of my weakness. Tens of thousands of them, at least. Possibly as many as several million." I'd started with a few hundred of them in Nibelheim, and then I'd invaded Shinra's strongholds and tortured the Planet until it sent WEAPON after me—after humankind. And dropped a meteor on an incompletely-evacuated Midgar for dessert.

"Seth—" Angeal began.

"'Sephiroth,'" I corrected him. "My real name. A little too distinctive for me to use while the Turks might still have been looking for me, which is why I adopted the other."

I waited for him to continue with what he had been about to say, but he appeared to have forgotten about it, or perhaps he merely wanted to process this latest tidbit of information.

"How?" was the question that emerged at last. "If that many people died, surely we would have heard . . ."

"That's all part of the story, and if I'm going to tell it, there's one more person I'd like to have here to listen. Just a moment." I shrugged back into my coat, grabbed my PHS, and texted Vincent.

By the time he arrived, we'd rearranged ourselves a bit, with Angeal on the bed beside Genesis, me on the desk chair, Cloud on the edge of the desk itself, and Zack cross-legged on the floor. Genesis still had his wing out, and Vincent looked at it and raised his eyebrows before leaning back against the door, arms folded.

"Interesting," Genesis said, raising his eyebrows at the gunman in turn. "What stake does a Third Class have in this? I can understand the puppy, but not someone who joined SOLDIER less than six months ago."

"He's a Turk," I said drily. "And he was present at the very beginning of this mess, more than twenty years ago now. Which makes him the only person now living who can independently confirm some of the details about Jenova and Project S."

I had everyone's full attention, it seemed. I just wished it hadn't been necessary.

"I've told most of you a few pieces of this," I continued. "But I've deliberately kept the information incomplete. I'll start with the invariant, I suppose."

"An interesting choice of words," Genesis said.

I inclined my head, but said only, "Some twenty-five years ago now, a Shinra-sponsored archaeological expedition found the body of a humanoid creature, preserved in mako and ice, near the Northern Crater. They named it 'Jenova', and mistakenly declared it was an Ancient. When they hauled it back to civilization for a more detailed analysis, they were shocked to discover that some of the creature's cells were viable—that it was still, in a sense, alive. Shinra immediately made attempts to exploit that fact, and two projects, separate but parallel, were founded in an attempt to create a continuation of the extinct race Jenova represented by introducing elements of Her genes and cellular structure into a human."

"Project G and Project S," Angeal said, and I nodded.

"Project G was deemed the less successful branch, and as such, you and Genesis were dropped from the overall Jenova Project and given over to your parents to raise. I wasn't so fortunate, since my father died before my birth and my mother, who had been one of the Project S scientists, not long after. In fact, Hojo told me my mother's name was 'Jenova'. It was a lie, but at the time, I had no way of knowing that. I was raised in Shinra's laboratories, treated as something midway between a robot and a performing animal when I wasn't being used as a lab rat, and subjected to brutal training and painfully invasive medical tests which I won't bother to describe, since all the details would do is give everyone nightmares. I tolerated it because I knew nothing else. And that brings us to the night of April 4, 1992, when things cease to be invariant."

No one said anything. I would have been glad for an interruption, a question of any sort, because how was I to explain this?

"Originally, nothing at all unusual happened on that night," I said at last. "But in the version of events we were currently living, my twenty-eight-year-old self suddenly replaced the child Sephiroth who was held prisoner by Shinra. I don't understand the mechanics of it—I was flung into the Lifestream some years hence, and after a peculiar interlude, it spat me out in the past."

"You're claiming to have travelled in time?" Genesis looked like he wanted to burst out laughing again.

I shrugged. "There are only three possibilities: one, I did travel in time. Two, someone went to a great deal of trouble, including fabricating a decade and a half of unpleasant memories for me, to make me believe that I had. Or three, this is all a hallucination, and I'm floating in the Lifestream, slowly dying. I choose to believe that both this world and my memories are real."

"My department was never able to locate the child Sephiroth after that night," Vincent added unexpectedly, "and the first confirmed sighting of 'Seth Crescent' occurred the next day in Junon. It's consistent."

"Just impossible," Genesis pointed out, with a smirk. At least I seemed to have distracted him from his own troubles.

Vincent voiced a low chuckle. "I would have considered my own current condition impossible before Hojo got his hooks into me, and yet here I am. Continue, please, Sephiroth. You're making me increasingly curious."

"I need to tell this in the order that I lived it, or none of it is going to make any sense," I said.

The first part, summing up my time in Wutai and my original friendship with Genesis and Angeal, was easy enough . . . because once again, most of the details weren't needed. After that, I found myself descending into the clipped style of a military report to avoid choking on the words. Genesis' injury and subsequent degradation. His defection, and Angeal's. Angeal's death. I heard Zack sob, just once, but I couldn't look at him—couldn't look at any of them. Even Vincent's Turk mask was probably going to crack soon. Better to stare at the opposite wall, and try not to feel anything.

Nibelheim, and even the clipped, report-style words began to catch in my throat as I forced myself to describe how I had cracked under the sheer weight of stress and emotional pressure and let Jenova in. Fire and death and devastation and damnation . . . the nightmare of Zack falling under my blade while I felt nothing, and staggering back out onto the platforms above the main reactor pit to confront Cloud. Being thrown into the mako by the young trooper's spurt of desperate, hysterical strength.

"No!"

The near scream made everyone whip around to look at Cloud, even me.

I hadn't realized the boy was crying.

"Cloud," I said. "Listen to me. That other version of you did nothing wrong. If I'd been in my right mind, I would have begged him to kill me before anything else happened. The only unfortunate part was that he didn't succeed."

Cloud silently shook his head and smeared the tears with the back of his hand. "I'm okay. I'm sorry, Seth. Sephiroth."

I forced myself to look away, to pick up the story again, knitting together the fragments I'd witnessed through the other Cloud's eyes into something resembling a coherent narrative. The labs. Zack's death. I knew that there were pieces missing, that I wasn't aware of everything that had happened while I'd been . . . apart from the world, but it was enough to make the narrative hold together.

Cloud in Midgar, and the first time Jenova had dragged my splintered mind with her to inhabit her half-dead flesh. The death of President Shinra, and making Cloud and his friends chase me across half the Planet.

Nibelheim again. Vincent. My attempts to destroy that other Cloud's psyche. The North Continent, white and black materia, and murder. Meteor and WEAPON and confrontation and death and falling and a hallucinatory encounter with what might have been Zack's spirit and being spat back out in the lab.

I finished with a brief account of killing Hojo and smuggling the last two Cetra from Midgar to Junon, and finally let the narrative end.

"Why tell us all of this now?" The question Vincent dropped into the silence seemed to be the one everyone wanted to ask me.

"Because of something Genesis mentioned in passing," I said wearily. "That Hollander needed to find either Project S or Jenova in order to treat his degradation. Which means that Hollander doesn't have Jenova, even though She should be under the control of the Shinra Science Department, and he is head of that department. Jenova might be in anyone's posession, and that means that I am a danger to everyone around me. I was training Cloud as a failsafe, because he was the one who succeeded in destroying me the last time, but he isn't ready yet. In the worst case, if Jenova gains control of me again and Chaos refuses to help, it may be necessary for all of you to mob me in order to take me down before I can lay my hands on that damnable materia again."

"You can't be serious," Angeal said. "We can't kill you!"

"I see," I said coldly. "So you had rather see me suffer? I would far rather be dead than ever become that thing's pawn again, do you understand me, Angeal?" I raked him and Genesis and Zack over with a glare. "Now. I'm certain you all have a great deal to talk about, and that it's discussion you had rather I not be privy to, given that I've been lying to you all and using you for my own ends." I made to heave myself up out of the chair so that I could make for the door, ready to push Vincent out of the way if necessary, but unexpectedly, two small hands shot out to grip my arm. Small hands, but strong ones.

"I don't want you to go," Cloud said.

"Cloud," I said patiently, "the only reason I went to Nibelheim to find you was that I might need you to save the world from me. I've been using you most of all."

"No."

"Cloud—"

"I said no! I know you want me to hate you, but I won't. If all you wanted was for me to be able to fight you, you wouldn't have had to teach me Wutainese or look after me when I was sick or take me to meet Zack or all the other stuff we did together. You're my dad, and there's no way I'm letting you go."

My mind went entirely blank. I had no idea what to say. For several seconds, I just sat there, frozen, staring at those two small hands, already marked with the calluses and small scars of a veteran swordsman, that were gripping my sleeve. My gaze slid up an arm, along a shoulder, and up a neck to a face.

He was crying again, silently. Over me. Why? I don't understand . . .

"Cloud, I'm not—" I tried again, and once more, the boy interrupted me.

"I know it probably wasn't what you meant to do and I know I've got a . . . a sperm donor out there somewhere, but you're the one who spent time with me and you're the one I care about. So there!"

That last bit was unusually childish for him. I'd often thought that he was deliberately erasing those types of words and phrases from his speech, patterning himself after . . . me?

What have I done?

Slowly, I reached over to ruffle spiky blond hair. Cloud sniffled and wiped his face.

"Good on you, Spiky," Zack said from the floor. "I was starting to wonder if you'd ever tell him."

"Shut up, Zack—this is hard, okay?" Cloud wiped his face again. "But I really don't want you to leave while we talk about all the stuff you remember happening," he added to me. "It didn't happen, and it won't happen, because that's the reason you went looking for all of us, isn't it? I trust you. We all trust you . . . or we'd better all trust you." Cloud glared at Genesis and Angeal, then at Vincent. Which made Genesis snicker and mutter something about dragon hatchlings in chocobo's clothing.

"Oddly enough," the redhead said, "listening to your little venture into alternate history has made me feel a lot better, despite the ominous content of the tale." His wing fluttered against the bedding. "You know, Sephiroth, I don't understand why you think it would take all of us to deal with you. I've seen you fight, and you're good, but you're not that good."

"You've seen me fight like a human," I corrected. "Under Jenova's control, I was capable of teleportation, casting spells without materia, and a few other tricks."

"And you can't do those things now?" Genesis prodded.

"I don't know. It's possible that I have the raw ability, but I don't know the method, and I don't like to examine those memories too closely." Was it cowardice? Possibly, but I hadn't been in the position of truly needing to know how to do any of it yet. Currently, what I remembered of my years under Jenova's thrall was a mixture of disjointed images and a mental narrative of events that often felt as though they had happened to someone else. I knew what I had done, but I preferred not to think about why. That way lay madness, a creature whose jaws always gaped open below me, and I was hyper-aware of how a single misstep might land me inside them again.

"Can we do that?" Genesis gestured between himself and Angeal.

"Materialess casting, maybe, although I wouldn't suggest attempting it until we have you both stabilized. There was no indication that either of you could teleport. On the other hand, I can't create or absorb clones . . . although I would strongly advise not trying that, either, since it sped up your degradation the last time."

"Hmm." From the thoughtful look on Genesis' face, he was going to perform some experiments as soon as he got the chance. Better him than me.

"If you could cast spells without needing materia, why did you need the black materia for that Meteor thing?" Zack asked.

"I don't know," I admitted. "It might simply have been because no one had ever cast that spell before, and so even Jenova didn't know quite where to begin."

There was a silence, into which Angeal inserted, "At least it seems that Genesis' and my problem is solved."

"If Hollander was telling the truth." Vincent flexed his metal hand, bringing it down to rest on the butt of his gun. "Genesis, do you remember exactly what he said to you? It may be important."

"Well, at first he was joking around—'I have good news and bad news'—and then when I told him to stop talking in cliches, he gratuitously insulted my taste in literature. After that, he said that the good news was that he knew how to 'fix me', as he put it, but the bad news was that he didn't have what he needed to do it—didn't 'know where either of them are'. He then specified that 'they' meant 'Project S', which had vanished the night Hojo died, and Jenova, which had been transferred somewhere shortly afterwards, but the destination wasn't in the records he had access to. Then something about how Hojo had tinkered with the cells left in the labs so that he couldn't use them to help us. He suggested I look for both of his missing specimens, and gave me a rather disgusting description of what Jenova looked like. He wasn't able to do the same for Sephiroth, though—apparently the Turks have some sort of flag on your files," Genesis added to me.

Vincent frowned. "If there are official transfer records, however incomplete, I would suspect that Jenova is still under Shinra's control, and has been moved to a secret laboratory or project—possibly one of Hojo's, but possibly not. Unless we come across some better information, I think it's best to proceed as Sephiroth and I had initially discussed, and see what we can do with the list of laboratories that I wrung out of Veld."

"Finding things is closer to your area of expertise than ours," I said. "But that still doesn't tell us whether my cells will actually help Genesis and Angeal, or Hollander just wants the samples for his own research." I frowned, thinking. "I suppose we could perform some preliminary experiments for ourselves. Most of the medical professionals deployed to Wutai have some knowledge of SOLDIER biology, since they need to be able to deal with mako-related illnesses." I might have grown up in Hojo's labs, but my formal training in the sciences ended at the undergraduate level. We needed more here. Was there a doctor or scientist that I could trust, among those in the First Army? Or would it be easier to find someone we could blackmail?

Wait. That mission, my first year back in Wutai, where we'd come up against those prototype Vadrajhara . . . and that young doctor. Who still owed me a favour. Hopefully a big enough one to run a few simple tests on some blood samples without asking too many questions.

"If we're going to get a doctor, can we get one who knows how to do enhancements?" Cloud asked.

"Oh, no." Angeal had clearly caught the implication as quickly as the rest of us. "You're far too young for that, Cloud."

"I'm needed," Cloud insisted. "If everything really does go wrong, and Jenova . . . gets at Sephiroth . . . Are you really going to tell me to sit out something that important? Something I've been training more than half my life to be able to do? Just because I'm young?"

"It's the duty of adults to protect children," Angeal said. "I don't like even Zack being involved in this."

"So I'm supposed to sit out because your feelings would be hurt?" the boy said, giving Angeal a sharp look.

"That isn't what I meant—"

"That's what it amounts to," Cloud snapped. "Just because I'm young doesn't mean I'm stupid. I know that if something happens . . . soon, there's no way I can really be ready, but I'd like to be more ready rather than less. I might be the last one left standing. I hope not, but it could happen, and it's scary as hell. Being enhanced would make it a little less scary."

"Cloud . . ."

In the end, what Angeal thought didn't matter, though. I was the one who had to decide. I sighed inwardly.

"There are two problems," I said. "One is your mother, and what opinion she will have if I let you do this. She may even attempt to separate us. The other . . . Do you remember what I told you about the enhancement process? That a catalyst was required to make the mako bind to the recipient's tissues? The catalyst used on SOLDIERs is derived from a weakened version of Jenova's cells, Cloud. That's why all SOLDIERs are susceptible to Her. It's possible that my own cells could be used as a substitute, but it's never been tried, and I'm not certain it would be an improvement. Currently, of the people in this room, only you and Vincent cannot be controlled by Jenova."

"So you think it could be useful for me to stay unenhanced," Cloud said.

"It's possible. But I won't decide for you. For much of my life, I've had others choosing what would happen to my body, and I've come to despise the practice. Furthermore, you understand more about the consequences of the process than most new SOLDIERs. If this is what you truly want, knowing what you do, we will find a way to make it happen."

Cloud stared into space for several moments, nibbling at his lower lip, while Angeal gave me angry looks. No doubt he felt that I was requiring Cloud to make a decision beyond his capacity. I doubted he would understand if I told him that I was only offering the boy the self-determination I had been denied at his age.

"I want it," Cloud said at last. "But if there's a way to use your cells, and not Jenova's . . ."

"We'll see," I said. And Cloud smiled, because he knew that was as good as a promise.

Chapter Text

Chapter 32

"Cloud, are you sure about what you said back there? I mean, really, really sure?"

Cloud flopped down on his bed and buried his face in the pillow. His room was a small one added on to the back of Seth's—of Sephiroth's (he was going to have to get used to that)—quarters, but at least he did have his own room, instead of sleeping four or more to a tent the way the Thirds did.

"How many times do I have to say it, Zack?" he mumbled into the foam. "Yes, I'm sure. Really, really sure. I thought you couldn't wait for me to get enhanced, so that we could go on missions together without needing a minder."

"Not just that. About fighting him if something goes wrong, and being the last one standing and all that."

"I'm sure about that too," Cloud said, rolling over onto his back so that he could look up at his friend. "And I'm scared shitless. If the absolute worst really did happen, it might be just you and me and maybe Vincent fighting, with Angeal and Genesis too sick to help much. And I can't see any way we could win if that happened." Just thinking about it made his stomach churn as though he was getting motion sick again. One good thing about enhancement was that it was supposed to fix things like that.

"Yeah. Seph is . . . he's scary-good."

"'Seph'?" Cloud repeated.

Zack shrugged and started to do squats. "What can I say? His real name's way too long. I bet you anything the other me called him 'Seph' too. Besides, it's close enough to 'Seth' that it won't matter too much if I slip up. Maybe that's even why he picked that name instead of, I dunno, 'Jack' or something."

Cloud almost snickered, because there was no way Sephiroth looked like a Jack . . . and because Cloud himself was tired and feeling confused and, well, raw.

I can't imagine being a hero. It sounded awful. People dying all around him, and having to kill the man who was the closest thing he'd ever had to a father. Except that other-Cloud had never known Sephiroth that way. He would have been stuck in Nibelheim all alone, being treated like crap by everyone, until he'd gone to Midgar to enlist with Shinra. And that was maybe the most horrible part of all.

He'd called Sephiroth his dad, and even made him listen this time. That was . . . It was . . . He almost couldn't believe it. And in a weird way, it made him the happiest he'd ever been.

I'm not alone, and I'm not going to have to be a hero, either. He promised himself that. Oh, sure, he was going to be a SOLDIER and fight monsters and all that, but that didn't make him a hero. It just made him someone whose job fit him well. He wasn't going to have to save the world. He'd make sure his dad was okay and that Jenova thing didn't get her claws into him, and that would be enough.

"What's it like, getting enhanced?" He'd asked Zack that before, but he figured it wouldn't hurt him to hear it again, now that he was going to go through it soon himself.

Zack made a face. "Kind of like getting burned from the inside out. And then you spend a week stumbling around while everything's too bright and too loud and stinky and you break things all the time 'cause they're so flimsy. Well, you saw me after my last booster."

That was true, he had. But Zack broke things anyway, sometimes. He'd knocked things over while they were hunting in the Shinra Mansion—not because he meant to, but just because.

Cloud had also seen Sephiroth dose himself with pure mako and come out of it acting like nothing had changed at all, but Sephiroth had been enhanced since he was just a baby. Which was freaky, when you thought about it. Always living a a too-bright, too-loud world without ever knowing what it was like for normal people.

"Cloud?"

Had he been quiet for too long? That happened sometimes, even with Zack. The only ones who really seemed to understand his silences were Sephiroth . . . and Vincent, weirdly enough. "Yeah?"

"I'm worried. About Angeal. While Genesis was freaking out, he was kinda . . . I don't know. It felt like he was freaking out even worse, somehow. It didn't feel like he was just standing there because he had no idea what to do, like me. I mean, I know this degradation thing is supposed to get at him too, sooner or later, but it hasn't yet, and he just kinda . . ." Zack spread his hands, still doing squats.

"He didn't seem any different to me—well, okay, different from usual, maybe, but not more than you were," Cloud pointed out.

"You were kind of busy looking after Genesis, and I guess it was just a feeling, really, but . . ."

"I don't think I can help you with him, anyway. I mean, he thinks I'm just a kid. Too stupid to make decisions about my own body, let alone . . ."

"He doesn't think you're stupid, Cloud. He just doesn't know you the way Seph and I know you. My parents wouldn't have let me do anything as crazy as get an experimental enhancement thing done when I was twelve, either. They weren't even thrilled about me leaving to join Shinra at fourteen—that's why I ran away, remember? Angeal just weighed that stuff about protecting kids against us maybe being short on time, and he decided that protecting was more important, 'cause that's what he does."

"And maybe if I wanted or needed to be protected, he'd be right," Cloud growled, wishing that he was older and his voice would just break already, the way Zack's had started to do a few months ago, because he had a feeling his growls sounded like the ones you'd get from some little fluffball of a kitten, and he hated it when people thought he was cute when he was trying to be serious. "But I don't, and even if I did, saving the world is more important."

"I'm not sure Angeal entirely believes that part yet," Zack said, halting his squats. "Or maybe he doesn't want to believe. I don't really want to either, but if it's true, we can't ignore it, right?"

"Exactly."

Zack scrubbed his hands across his face. "Ugh, today has been such a weird day. And we didn't even get to spar!"

"We've still got an hour before supper," Cloud pointed out, and sat up, reaching for his sword.

"Yeah, but my sword's in 'Geal's room, and I think Genesis is still in there. And I don't want to bother them."

"There's practice swords under my bed. We can use those." Zack would probably pound his ass with them, because using the practice swords meant he didn't have to hold back so much, but that was okay. When Cloud was enhanced too, he'd be able to beat Zack like a drum.

Like getting burned from the inside out . . .

Well, if he was strong enough to save the world, he could handle a little pain, right?

Cloud forced himself not to cringe as he remembered what just touching mako had been like.

"Now you're just fussing," Genesis said as Angeal moved to tuck him in.

"Can you blame me? You scared me today, Gen." Angeal's hands shook as he remembered the terrible moment in which he'd first seen his friend's wing unfurl.

Is that going to happen to me, too?

"I keep telling you, I'm fine, just tired. Strife did the right thing, cutting me to let the stupid thing out. Once the mako does its magic, I'll be as good as new."

"Cloud is . . ." Angeal shook his head. From the moment he'd met Cloud Strife, he'd always thought the boy was too mature for his age, that he'd been forced to grow up too quickly. That he seemed—superficially, at least—happy with that state of affairs proved just how deeply broken he was.

But he was still better off than his mentor and quasi-foster-father, because Angeal was now firmly convinced that Seth (or Sephiroth or whatever he called himself) was quite insane. He might have believed the other about being the subject of the mysterious Project S, just barely, but . . . time travel and aliens and little Cloud Strife growing into a world-saving hero was just too ridiculous.

He had to allow that the man might be right about the mad scientists, though. There was too much proof of their existence to dismiss them entirely.

He didn't want to believe that the silver-haired man was crazy. Seth Crescent had been his second-closest friend for several years now, and Angeal was aware of the burden of guilt the other man had always carried.

If there was something else behind the bizarre narrative of that afternoon, then what could it be? That Seth had once been a prisoner in the Shinra labs was difficult to deny, but how much did the man really remember of his time there? If there were gaps in his memory, if someone had tried to feed him some kind of story to fill in the holes . . . then that man Vincent had to be in on it.

Turks. Vincent had neither confirmed nor denied his affiliation with Administrative Research, but his weapon of choice was a gun. Most SOLDIERs didn't do more than minimal training with firearms.

Turks were dangerous, subtle, and slippery. Dishonest. Dishonourable. They would do anything in order to achieve a goal, even convince a damaged man of things that made no sense at all. And then carefully stand watch over him, to make certain that he didn't break free of their web.

Seth, don't worry, he thought as he smoothed Genesis' blankets, and his oldest friend muttered something poetically pejorative. I'll protect you. Even from them.

Vincent had never needed to steal medical supplies before, but he didn't expect it to be at all difficult, and it wasn't. Of course, it might have been different if he'd been after mako or narcotics or valuable equipment, but a few vials and syringes? Those weren't a problem. And Sephiroth had been very specific about what kinds of vials and syringes he needed to draw and store blood—something he must have learned as a child in Hojo's lab, the Turk mused. He'd turn the goods over to the general in the morning.

He was lying on his back on the roof of one of the prefabricated buildings, looking at the stars and wondering whether he should go back to his bunk or just sleep out here, when his PHS beeped. It hadn't done that since he'd received his last message from Veld.

He pulled it out and looked at it, and it was his old partner again. It took him a moment to decode the brief message—the cipher used to encrypt it was old and no more than semi-secure, intended to prevent casual eavesdropping, and both he and Veld could work it in their heads. That suggested the content of the message was personal, rather than professional.

The sample was taken from Grimoire Valentine.

Vincent almost fumbled the PHS. There was only one "sample" he was waiting for information on: 3703-A, the one from Sephiroth's paternal donor. But he had never imagined this.

He's . . . my brother?

It was almost ridiculous. Almost. And the idea of Lucrecia being pregnant by his father, of all people, was nearly enough to make Vincent's brain snap.

How was he supposed to feel about this?

He barely even knew the man. And yet, he'd felt oddly protective of him from the moment he'd read those files in Veld's office.

It felt . . . strange, knowing he wasn't the youngest anymore. Strange, but . . . not bad.

I doubt we'll be good for each other, Vincent reflected wryly. Two quiet, introverted men who had lived lives of violence, both hauling massive burdens of guilt on their backs . . . Well. Maybe they'd at least manage to find each other's presence soothing, bonded by a silent understanding the likes of which Vincent doubted he could manage with anyone else but Veld, these days.

There was no question of not telling him. Sephiroth clearly needed all the emotional support he could get—all the family he could get, although he did seem to have accumulated an odd little family of choice. Vincent snorted softly as he realized he wasn't just getting a little brother, but a pseudo-nephew and a trio of . . . cousins, perhaps. And what he was going to do with those, he was even less sure, but for Sephiroth's sake, he'd protect them.

Actually, he did rather like Cloud. The boy was intelligent, hard-working, quiet, earnest, and protective of his loved ones. Vincent could believe that he had matured into quite a leader in that other history. Sephiroth's story about that would have seemed preposterous if he hadn't seen the sheer level of strain the man had been under, trying to get the words out. Vincent was certain he was sane, so the words were unlikely to be anything but the truth. No one could summon up that kind of emotion for a lie.

I understand about guilt. Perhaps someday, I'll tell you why. Sephiroth had to know guilt inside and out. Vincent just wished there was some way he could fix that. Another load of guilt of his own for him to shoulder.

The Turk sighed and began slowly composing a text on his PHS, triple-checking the encipherment of each word.

Got a confession that they're the same person and he did what we think he did. Full report to follow.

He just wished he could figure out what he was going to put in it. It was too risky to pass on Sephiroth's story unadorned, but he had to tell Veld something.

Genesis' back still ached. Not nearly as badly as it had when his wing had been trying to erupt, but badly enough. As a result, he remained insomniac, curled on his side on his cot. At least he'd been able to convince Angeal to stop fussing and go away. The man could be worse than his old nanny sometimes!

He wondered if Sephiroth had had a nanny. Someone had to have looked after him as a child, even if he'd been kept in a cage in a Shinra lab. Goddess, it was sickening to imagine his beautiful, proud, self-posessed friend being treated that way. Genesis had banked the initial flare of anger into a pile of glowing mental coals, but he expected it would be easy for them to flare up again.

I always thought you were the Hero, but perhaps not. Or perhaps it's a progression, Prisoner to Wanderer to Hero, and you're only halfway through. Perhaps we're all stuck at some point on that path. But if I asked you who the Hero was, I have a sneaking suspicion you'd tell me it was Cloud, of all people. Little Cloud Strife, Saviour of the World. Until Sephiroth's confession, he hadn't been able to fathom how the other man had been able to find such a gifted child in a tiny, remote village like Nibelheim. But it made sense if he'd known exactly where to look.

That little time-travel-and-aliens story would have been unbelievable if the pieces hadn't fit together so well, both with each other and with the reality around them. Sephiroth's casual competence when he'd had to take over the troops on the run-up to the battle at Kawadoro, for instance—he'd been calm about it because he'd done it all before. And . . . Reunion. Well, at least he had a word for his desire to snuggle up with the man now. And understanding what was going on should make it easier to resist and go on with his life.

He wondered if having Sephiroth's cells in his system—if that did, in fact, turn out to be the cure for his condition—would make the phenomenon worse, or cause it to disappear. He also wished the man was, well, snuggly-er. Except for ruffling the boys' hair, which he always did with his gloves on, Sephiroth touched people only out of necessity. That was why his behaviour at Genesis' apartment that night stood out so much: it was abnormal. And a measure of how much he values us, Genesis realized.

Perhaps he should try to use the Reunion instinct as an excuse to snuggle up to the silver-haired man. As Zack would have said, Sephiroth probably needed a hug worse than anyone else in the world. They needed to make him see that he wasn't alone, so that Jenova couldn't use his isolation to make it easier to get her hooks into him again. The bitch.

How hard do we have to hit you over the head to get "we support you" pounded in there? I understand why you don't trust anyone but yourself, at least not completely, but you would think Cloud would have broken you of that by now . . .

If I really am dying, and it turns out Hollander was lying and there's no way to fix it . . . there are worse ways I could spend the rest of my life than by supporting you. At least I might be able to become a footnote in the history books that way. "Genesis Rhapsodos, who died saving the world." Better than dying coughing my lungs out in bed without ever having done anything more important than develop dumbapple juice as an export product for Banora.

But he really didn't want to die. Please let this work, please let this work . . .

He fell asleep with those words rattling through his head.

Chapter Text

Chapter 33 (Sephiroth's narrative)

It took me a while to find Juan Alvarez, MD, in the personnel roster. Of course, things might have gone more quickly if I'd been able to remember his legal name from the start—his nickname of "Izzy" had done a better job of sticking in my head. Wonder of wonders, he'd been promoted to captain and transferred to the First Army. Which put him within reach.

I had Vincent escort him to my office, since the Turk would be able to tell if anyone was paying undue attention to them. The young doctor stopped in the doorway, staring at me.

"General Crescent. You've certainly come up in the world." His smile looked a bit forced.

"Doctor Alvarez. Please, sit down." I gestured to the chairs in front of my desk—there were two of them these days, plus a couple of folding ones stashed behind the door for Zack and Cloud.

Vincent closed the door and leaned on it, folding his arms.

"Are we secure?" I asked him as the young doctor seated himself.

A nod. "Nothing as of this morning. Veld wouldn't violate your contract just for the sake of speculation, anyway. You're too valuable to Shinra at the moment."

"I wish I could say that was a relief." I redirected my attention to Juan Alvarez, who was now eyeing me even more nervously. "My apologies. That must have been a bit disconcerting to overhear."

Alvarez shrugged. "We all know that there are things about what Shinra does that we're better off not knowing. Um, General, if I may ask . . . Why am I here?"

"I need to call in that favour you offered me. I promise that what I intend to ask of you will be within your capacity, does not violate any laws or Shinra regulations, and should not put you at risk. I merely need it done without questions being asked or any reports going through official channels."

The young doctor nodded, but asked warily, "And if someone catches me out?"

I shrugged. "If telling them that it's classified doesn't suffice, tell them the truth: that you have no idea of the purpose of any of this, and no interest in speculating. If they seem likely to try to investigate on their own, inform me and I'll see that it's dealt with." Or Vincent would. Terrifying people into silence was another Turk specialty. As was killing silently in the dark, although I hoped we didn't need to go that far. Still, the future of the world might hinge on keeping anyone from getting too interested in our affairs.

A visible swallow. "All right. What do I need to do?"

"Some routine analysis." I'd had the vials in a box behind the desk. Now I picked it up and set it in front of him. "This contains several blood samples and some written instructions for combining them. I need to have the combinations checked both for cell activity differing from the raw samples, and for adverse reactions arising from the combination itself. Most of the samples are from enhanced individuals and some are quite mako-dense, so please apply appropriate precautions."

"What kind of cell activity changes are you expecting?" Alvarez reached out to open the box, then stopped his hand in mid-motion and glanced at me. I nodded. Go ahead.

"I wouldn't want to bias you in the direction of delivering a particular outcome," I said, in answer to his question. "I will give you this much, however: in one case, I am expecting little or no reaction from the combination. It's the other three that I'm interested in."

Alvarez opened the box, and examined the samples one by one. Three of them—from myself, Angeal, and Genesis—had so much mako in them that the surface of the blood had a hint of green iridescence to it, visible as the vials were tilted back and forth. Zack's was less saturated, and Cloud's, of course, was still clean and human. For the time being.

"These haven't even been in here for half an hour, if they're still this warm," the doctor observed. "Well. None of my business, I suppose. All right. Anything else?"

"I also need a mako dosage chart for a Third Class who will be under the normal minimum weight at the time of induction. Cover the range from sixty pounds up, if you can."

"That cadet of yours," Alvarez said thoughtfully. "Are you certain, sir? I understand that he's underage."

"His genetics indicate that he's unlikely to reach the weight limit by the time he is of age, and I'm going to need the information in advance to persuade the Director to go ahead and enhance him." Which was all perfectly true, just incomplete.

A soft sigh. "Those charts are difficult to create, because they depend a lot on individual tolerances and some other factors they don't tell us about, not just weight, but I should be able to work the basic equations and generate a minimum effective dose list for each weight range—the kind we use for giving boosters to SOLDIERs who come back from the battlefield with serious injuries. Then you would just dose him more frequently if he seems to be taking it well."

"That will suffice."

"All right. Looks like I have my work cut out for me. I take it that involving one of the lab techs is out of the question? Thought so," he answered himself without even waiting for me to nod. "All right. Unless something happens to absorb my time or you want me to test all possible combinations from those vials, I should have results for you in a couple of days."

Doctor Alvarez turned out to be as good as his word, because three days later, several sheets of paper with small, dense handwritten notes on them arrived on my desk.

General notes, I read on the first. I have five blood samples, labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, and S, in vials with standard EDTA anticoagulant. All but 4 are SOLDIER samples. 1, 2, and S show extreme mako levels, probably First or high Second Class. Directives indicate that each of the numbered samples is to be combined with S and the results monitored for 24 hours, followed by the introduction of additional mako and further monitoring.

Comb. S + 1. 1 without S had very high mako levels, elevated leukocytes and J-cells, and a large number of dead and dying erythrocytes. S started to cannibalize J-cells and dead erythrocytes immediately, and acted as a repair mechanism for damaged cells. After one-hour mark, most J-cells had been replaced with cells from S, and the remaining normal cells had stabilized. Adding mako to the combined samples had no effect to speak of, suggesting that the person from whom sample 1 was taken has already attained mako homeostasis.

Comb. S + 2. 2 without S was in what appeared to be a precursor to the state of sample 1, and S and additional mako both had much the same effect on it.

Comb. S + 3. 3 without S appears to be a standard sample from a healthy Third Class. S cannibalized and replaced most J-cells. When mako was added, the S-cells bound and stabilized it in much the same way as the J-cells are known to do. This might or might not count as "no effect". Mako homeostasis limit fell into the upper 25% of First Class.

Comb. S + 4. 4 without S appears to be a sample from a healthy, unenhanced human who has spent most of his life in a mako-rich environment. S-cells seemed to act as a substitute for J-cells here again, binding and stabilizing mako, but 4's own cells seemed to develop a weak ability in that direction after exposure to S. The mako homeostasis limit on the combined samples is extremely high, past the normal First Class maximum.

I'm afraid you managed to pique my curiousity, sir, so I did a few tests on the S-sample in isolation. It overloaded the automatic mako tester, so I had to look up the manual procedure. It turned out to contain more than twenty times the lethal dose (at least thirty times the First Class maximum), which I suppose isn't surprising when all the cells are able to bind mako. Unlike J-cells, S-cells appear superficially differentiated—that is, the blood sample contained what looked like normal leucocytes and erythrocytes . . . that just happen to be able to bind mako like J-cells. When introduced to the other samples, however, they reverted to a more J-cell-like profile that made them immediately distinguishable from the cells native to the numbered samples.

I'm not sure whether what you gave me is an abnormal sample of type O- human blood from a heavily enhanced individual, or something else entirely. And I think I understand why you don't want me to know.

The last sheet was a chart of weights and mako dosages. I kept it when I burned the others, leaving a dusting of ash on the floor near my desk.

So we now had answers both to the important questions—yes, my cells could stabilize Genesis and Angeal—and to some I hadn't wanted to ask. Hojo had almost certainly known all of it, though.

My blood was mako soup, and my cells were like Jenova's. Not only mako-binding, which I had expected, but metamorphic.

Seven wings . . .

No! I was not remembering that. And there were other ways in which I was not like Jenova. I couldn't create clones, or change other people into monsters. Hojo had injected dozens of people with my cells in the other timeline, but none of them had undergone any visible mutation.

I might not be human, but I wasn't . . . that. Not really. If I had been, surely the Lifestream would have destroyed me, even with Zack's protection. Goddess, I hoped so.

I don't want to have to end this by falling on my sword. Sudden, startling thought. I didn't deserve a future beyond Jenova's death, and yet I suddenly wanted one so badly . . . wanted to have the closest thing to a normal life that I could, with my friends and my not-son. It was something Shinra had always denied me, but those years in Nibelheim had given me a faint taste of what it might be like, and now I craved it, bone-deep. But if it turned out I was a danger to the world even without Jenova, I would have to remove myself from it. For the others' sake.

"You don't look very pleased. Bad news?" Vincent had entered the room silently . . . and when he wanted to be quiet, he was undetectable until he got close enough for me to smell him.

"I was merely lost in thought." I shouldn't need to say more than that—this was a man who understood about guilt. And about nightmares. "The actual news is good. It appears that Hollander was telling the truth: my blood will cure, or at least arrest, Genesis and Angeal's condition."

"Remarkable that that place would actually generate an honest scientist," Vincent said, leaning back against the door. "I have some news as well, although whether it's good or bad remains to be seen. Veld sent me a message last night. Apparently he had a chance to get up to the records floor and look at the file for sample 3703-A." He paused there with an odd expression on his face.

"I take it my biological father wasn't some random middle-manager." If I had been sired by a faceless Shinra drone, Vincent wouldn't have been emotionally affected. Someone he had known? Another Turk, perhaps?

"The name on the file was . . . Grimoire Valentine."

I blinked. "A relative of yours?"

"My father. He was a scientist, a specialist in Cetra archaeology and anthropology with cross-disciplinary interests, who worked with your mother."

His father? But that would mean . . .

"You're saying that you're my brother." The logical part of my brain was processing the information, even as the emotional part stumbled to catch up.

"Half-brother. Or so it appears."

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "I think this is the most bizarre thing that's happened to me since I popped out in Hojo's damnable lab six years ago." I was certainly getting a headache, trying to figure out what this meant.

Vincent snorted softly. "A bit of a shock for me, as well. We have, or had, two older sisters, but I have no idea if they're still alive, or if they'll own you."

"And do you own me?" I asked, meeting his eyes. Holding my breath, although I certainly hadn't intended to do so.

"I do."

Two short, simple words, and they completely rearranged my world, even more than Ifalna had when she'd told me about my mother. Here was a living close blood relative, who knew what Hojo had done to me and yet didn't deny that we were kin. Family. Unlike Angeal, unlike Genesis, unlike even Cloud and Zack, the bond between myself and the ex-Turk couldn't be repudiated by either of us.

"I don't know how to do this," I found myself saying, in a small, tight voice. "I never . . . had anyone."

"I know. We'll work it out. I haven't had anything to do with family in a very long time either." Vincent smiled, and added, "For what it's worth, I'm proud of you. You're a stronger man than I am."

It shouldn't have meant anything more than the praise I'd received on any number of occasions from fellow SOLDIERs, but somehow it did.

"It's a good thing I already made Veld promise not to issue me orders that would require me to hurt you," Vincent added.

"I'm surprised he allowed that."

"Administrative Research acknowledges that its personnel are human beings and that we all have breaking points. Part of Veld's job is to assign things so that no one is forced to confront theirs. I'm glad he's the one that got stuck with it. If I hadn't been missing for so long, I might have ended up as department head instead."

I snorted. "Having been lumbered with Lazard's paperwork after he defected, I have to agree with you that no sane man would want to be a department head for Shinra, and your department is probably worse than most, given its nature. If I may ask, why did you return there? In the original history, you went your own way."

Vincent shrugged. "I suppose it was because I woke on my own, rather than being extracted from my coffin by a persistent Cloud Strife. I wanted some place to belong—call it a lingering bit of my humanity that Hojo didn't quite manage to destroy. Cloud's people might have been enough, if they'd been there. And then I got curious about what you'd done with the books, and realized that Hojo's tinkering extended even further than I'd thought. Which meant that he had to be destroyed, and returning to the Turks would give me the best access there. I didn't know you'd already taken care of him."

"My apologies for stealing your kill, then."

"Unnecessary. You are the one person who might have had a greater right to his death than I did."

Although I didn't especially want it. I did remember what it was like to seek revenge. I remembered Jenova's rage burning in my mind . . . but it was completely foreign to my true personality. Punishment was worthless if it didn't correct the behaviour that had inspired it, and if you had something dangerous running around, it was better to kill it quickly than to torture it to death. I am too analytical for my own good, perhaps. And that may have been why it was so easy for Jenova to get under my skin: I hadn't been familiar with the level of emotion She had forced on me, and so had had no defences.

At least that was no longer true. Perhaps it would be enough to enable me to deny Her a foothold, when we finally found Her.

Chapter Text

Chapter 34

"This is your last chance to back out."

Cloud wrapped his arms around his knees and stared at the four syringes lined up on the desk. Two were empty—they'd already been used on Genesis and Angeal. Of the others, one was full of blood that had a green glint overlaying the red. The other held a bit more than half an inch of pure, glowing green. Sephiroth's blood, and a short dose of mako. Cloud was sitting on his mentor's bed, and the tall man was standing with one gloved hand resting on the desk.

"I was never going to back out," Cloud said, and held out his left arm. "Do it."

Gloved hands steadied his forearm and picked up each of the syringes in turn, emptying them into him. First the blood. That didn't feel like much, just a pinprick and maybe a hint of pressure. Or he could just be imagining it.

Then the mako, and oh, Fenrir, Zack wasn't lying, because it burned like liquid fire. Cloud bit his lip and blinked back tears. You've been hurt worse than this, he told himself sternly, as the burning spread. Remember the time you and Tifa fell off the rope bridge? Or when you got shot in the leg, and Zack had to carry you back to the base? Never mind that he'd cried both those times, too.

The mako was feeding the S-cells inside him, he told himself. And together, they were making him more like Sephiroth—like his dad.

It still hurt, though.

He wondered if he'd get wings. He wanted wings. He wouldn't care about the pain at all, then.

When Sephiroth turned to leave the room, Cloud reached out and grabbed the skirts of his coat. There was a slight, frozen pause. Then Sephiroth gave in and sat down on the bed beside him, placing a gloved hand on his head, and Cloud crawled into his lap, burying his face in the leathers so that his tears weren't visible.

The smell of leather still made him feel . . . comforted. Maybe it always would. As he rested there against Sephiroth, it seemed to grow slowly thicker and pick up undertones of mako and . . . he wasn't sure what. Enhancement affects all the senses, he remembered. Including smell. Including touch, which had to be why the little irregularities in the well-worn leather were suddenly easier to find and identify.

The mako got less painful as it spread out through his body, and by the time it reached his toes in a shower of hot pinpricks, Cloud was able to sit up properly and wipe his face with the back of his hand. "How long was I . . . uh," he sort-of asked.

"About ten minutes. The first time is always the worst, or so I'm told. I . . . don't actually remember."

"Well, of course you wouldn't," Cloud said. "You weren't even a baby yet." He flexed his arms and legs, searching for any difference. If there was any, he couldn't tell.

"Your dose was only about a quarter of what most new Thirds get," Sephiroth said. "And it takes a while to have much influence on the musco-skeletal system. I wouldn't expect you to start showing any increase in strength for a couple of weeks. The materia-related effects, sensory augmentation, and improved reaction times come almost at once, though."

Cloud should have known that already. He knew he'd been told it before, but it felt different from the inside. So I'm faster, and better at magic, but not stronger. Yet. Well, he could live with that.

"And yes, as long as you can't feel any more burn from the mako, you may go with Zack on that mission he's accepted for this afternoon," Sephiroth added, ruffling the boy's hair. "You might want to wear sunglasses, though. Now, I need to get back to my desk, or my paperwork may end up devouring the entire office."

This time, Cloud really had meant to watch him go. He wasn't sure why he grabbed a fold of the leather coat again and stopped the man in his tracks. Not until the words came out.

"Dad . . . thank you."

The expression that flitted across Sephiroth's face then was indecipherable, but Cloud thought he saw a tiny smile mixed into it somewhere.

"Feeling better?" Angeal asked.

"Much," Genesis said with a smirk, rubbing his thumb over the crease of his elbow, where the mark of the needle would have been if it hadn't vanished within minutes of the injection. As it was supposed to. It had still been a little slow, but he put that down to the new cells taking a little while to circulate through his body and make themselves at home. And for the first time in what seemed like years, he didn't feel tired, and his back didn't ache. Even the pull towards Sephiroth had dropped off, although he could still sense where the man was. He suspected he would always be able to, just as he would always have that wing, currently hidden inside his body by some weird quasi-magical process he didn't understand. "What about you?"

"I don't know," Angeal said slowly. "A bit of fatigue I'd barely noticed seems to be falling away, but other than that, it's just . . . odd." He glanced in the direction where Genesis could feel Sephiroth.

"You'll get used to that part." Genesis allowed his smirk to widen. "I think I can feel you, too. Not as strongly, of course. But there's . . . something."

The idea of having Angeal-radar in addition to Sephiroth-radar didn't bother Genesis at all, but it made his oldest friend go chalk-white.

"'Geal?" Was the other man having an adverse reaction that hadn't shown up in the blood samples? "Are you sure you're alright? Wings coming in?"

"No!" Angeal all but roared the word, then forced calm on himself. "I'm sorry, Gen. I just can't be as . . . as casual about this as you are. I . . . I don't want to be this. We're all freaks, Gen, and a couple of doors down from here, Sephiroth is turning poor Cloud into another freak, and I couldn't stop him."

Genesis snorted. "Poor Cloud? Are we really thinking about the same boy? Sephiroth's dragon hatchling, who's already killed four men? He might be a child in purely chronological terms, but he's already planned out his life more thoroughly than a lot of people our age. He was always going to end up enhanced—hell, if we'd tried to keep him from it for too long, he's determined enough that he would have eaten one of Hollander's petri dishes of J-cells and jumped into a mako spring, just on the off chance that it would work. He's going to be the happiest freak in this camp."

"It doesn't bother you at all?"

"Why would it? I've already seen the endpoint of our transformation, and you have to admit that Sephiroth with his wings showing is . . . glorious. I don't care about being human, not really. I just care about not being pathetic. So long as I'm not dying anymore, I can tolerate having a retractable wing, a few alien cells, and the ability to cast spells without materia, which I am going to try out by the end of today, one way or another. As for Cloud, I'm pretty sure he doesn't care about his humanity either—he just wants to be more like his personal hero."

"Sephiroth." Angeal spoke the name like a curse. "How can he . . . I don't . . . Graah!"

Genesis sighed. Angeal didn't normally get angry. Not this way. And when he did, he ended up completely frazzled. "Go find your puppy and spar with him, or something. We can talk more later." After I figure out what's got you so riled up.

Angeal closed the door heavily. That alone would have told Genesis how agitated he was, if he'd needed any other confirmation.

"My friend, do you fly away now? / To a world that abhors you and I?" he murmured, trying to work through it. At a guess, it had to do with the way Angeal could sometimes be so horribly rigid. Getting him to tolerate something that had previously fallen outside his worldview could take days or weeks of painstaking gentle pressure. Perhaps five days of letting him mull things over wasn't enough time, but what little spare energy Genesis had posessed had been going into learning to handle his new wing and his own inner demons. He hadn't had time to even speculate on Angeal's.

Well, now that they were both healthy again, if perhaps a bit altered, he should have all the time he needed. Unless Angeal did something stupid, but that wouldn't be like 'Geal, not at all. Genesis had always been the impulsive one, while Angeal played the part of voice of reason. He probably just got caught up in enforcing community standards again. That happened sometimes, and it always made Genesis want to crack him over the head with Rapier's hilt.

Tseng kept his gaze carefully focused on the bridge of Heidegger's nose as the man ranted on. It really should have been one of the Turks' more junior members standing in this office—Nunchuk, perhaps, or Reno—but Heidegger was a Director and a Board Member now, and he had the President's ear, so of course when his office was broken into, he could call on anyone he wanted to investigate. Veld might easily have been the one in here, except that Heidegger hated the Turk Director, so his newly-minted second-in-command got to stand in for him instead.

Tseng didn't mind that part, though. Veld carried a lot on his shoulders, and all of his juniors were willing to pitch in to ensure he didn't end up with any more. If only Heidegger would shut up and let Tseng get on with his job . . . but the man was in love with the sound of his own voice. That note in Heidegger's file went all the way back to his days as a cadet at the Shinra Military Academy.

Tseng had catalogued thirty-eight ways he could have killed the heavyset man by the time Heidegger finally wound down. The Director of Public Safety ended with, "And I expect you to be done in here by tomorrow morning—I have important work to do, and this is interrupting it."

"Of course, sir," Tseng said smoothly, as he considered the best angle of attack for disembowling Heidegger with an oddly-shaped paperweight that was lying on the floor near his foot. "We'll be finished the forensics by nine o'clock tomorrow morning." And if that resulted in them missing some evidence . . . well, it wasn't all that likely to matter. The video cameras had recorded everyone who had entered Heidegger's office after hours, and Katana was already ninety-eight percent certain that he'd found the person responsible for the vandalism. Tseng's job was mainly to enumerate the papers strewn all over the furniture and the floor, so that the company had some chance of establishing whether any important information had wandered out of the building.

"You'd better," Heidegger said, and headed for the door without bothering with good-byes. Tseng didn't relax until the door closed behind the other man, however. Then the Turk began gathering and sorting papers.

An hour later, he had several stacks dealing with the regular army, several dealing with Shinra executive business, one stack of invoices and receipts for Heidegger's personal expenses (many of which involved the Honeybee Inn), and one single, solitary sheet of paper from the middle of a file not otherwise in evidence, whose contents he didn't like at all.

As Assistant Director of Administrative Research, Tseng was supposed to know about every facility under the control of the Shinra Electric Power Company, and he had made a special point of studying the labs since he'd noticed Veld becoming abnormally interested in them a few months ago. The photo on this page hadn't been taken in any of them, and yet it and the text definitely referred to an experiment, and the paper bore last Tuesday's date. There was an indecipherable scribble of a signature at the bottom which didn't match Heidegger's, or Hollander's, or that of any other member of the Science Department that Tseng was aware of—they didn't even have anyone on staff right now whose name started with an F, which was the only distinguishable character. And although he didn't entirely understand the text, he was able to extract enough information from it to be certain that this wasn't a Weapons Development project.

Tseng's instincts were screaming at him that something here was very, very wrong. The paper might have been planted . . . or he might just have found evidence of a rogue project. Either way, Veld was going to need to be told. And he was probably going to end up pulling another all-nighter investigating the ramifications of this.

Tseng allowed himself the smallest of sighs before turning to the remaining unsorted papers.

He tapped the pen on the edge of the desk, trying for one of the drum rhythms he had learned in Cosmo Canyon—the most basic one. Tap-ta-ta-Tap-ta-ta-Tap-ta— and the pen slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor. He glared at it through his glasses, then bent to pick it up.

When he'd accepted the offer to work for Shinra for a time, he hadn't expected that it would be like this. He did have access to a reactor and certain other things required for his experiments, and free run of the notes Hojo had left, as was written into his contract, but he hadn't expected to end up buried in the earth like a mu. When was the last time he had seen the sun? He found he couldn't remember.

People who came down here mostly weren't allowed to leave, unless they were Shinra executives, and thus above the rules. He was trapped here, though, as nominal overseer of the scientific side of this zoo. Possibly the only sane person in this complex, although he was getting less and less sure of that as time passed.

He was starting to lose track of it. Why he was here. What he meant to accomplish. He'd wanted to twist Shinra's power around, to use it to destroy them and the rest of worthless humanity, to leave Gaia free of parasites . . . He'd come here to use them, but he was starting to fear that they were using him instead.

He glared at the entity floating in the mako-filled tube at the center of the room. "This is all your fault somehow, I'm sure."

One empty red eye stared back at him, but there was no response. He still couldn't hear her voice, as Hojo apparently had. And he wasn't quite brave enough or mad enough—yet—to experiment on himself with her cells.

That time would probably come soon, though, given the rate at which he seemed to be losing his mind.

Chapter Text

Chapter 35 (Sephiroth's narrative)

There were seven labs on the list Veld soon sent Vincent, not including the ones in Shinra Tower in Midgar, the as-yet-unfinished reactor complex in Junon, and underneath the mansion in Nibelheim. Some were in locations I had already suspected, like Banora. Some were in entirely unexpected spots, like here in Wutai (that one was supposed to be abandoned, though), deep in the Gongagan jungle, and on the coast north of Corel. There was also one buried under Rocket Town, another I had missed during my visit to Modeoheim, and one inside the Fort Condor reactor. Regardless, even if we split up, we wouldn't be able to check them all at once. Also, it would draw attention if we all left the front simultaneously, and possibly cause problems with Shinra.

"We have a good excuse to go back to Banora," Genesis observed, examining the list over my shoulder. "After all, I haven't taken leave in quite some time, and neither has Angeal. If we're discovered, we were just exploring our old haunts and let our curiosity get the better of us, so sorry."

My office was rather crowded with six people in it. It had been getting rather tight even before I had added Vincent to our group. Fortunately, the Turk was quite willing to stay off to the side and prop up the wall.

"I can go to the one near Gongaga!" Zack offered. He looked disappointed when I shook my head.

"You're not investigating any of these alone, and neither is Cloud," I said firmly. "The three of us will check on the abandoned lab here in Wutai. Vincent, can I ask you to go to Modeoheim? Your skillset seems best suited for investigating an active lab where none of us has any business being." Modeoheim would have been abandoned next year in the original history, but even if that hadn't changed, I preferred not to wait that long—not when Veld had flagged it specifically as a biology lab.

The Turk nodded.

"The other four can wait until after we see whether any of these contain Jenova, or information pertaining to her," I added. They would also be more difficult to access. After this, we would have to retreat into normalcy for a few months to make certain Shinra's attention wasn't drawn to our extracurricular activities. We had no excuse to be near the other labs, and if Shinra realized that someone was probing them, they would be better guarded.

Vincent would no doubt be able to find a way around that—or several ways, one for each lab—but I still wasn't sure how far I trusted the Turk. My brother. That was still such a bizarre concept that I didn't quite know what to do with it.

He might still be on Shinra's side. I didn't think so, not given the way he had espoused Cloud's cause in the original history, but it was always a risk. However, under the circumstances, I had no choice but to rely on him.

It took a few days for me to arrange everything—for the necessary paperwork to be filed to send Angeal and Genesis on leave, to concoct a solo mission for Vincent that could easily stretch to cover several weeks while he made his way to the North Continent and back, and to establish a pattern of taking the boys out to hunt monsters inside the portion of Wutai held by Shinra, under the guise of "training". I made certain to vary the length of the expeditions as well, twice stretching them to encompass almost a full twenty-four hours, and went out of my way to convince my staff that I was not to be disturbed for non-urgent matters during these hunts.

On the day I had selected to perform the investigation, I didn't even tell Zack and Cloud where we were going until we'd already left camp on chocoboback. I didn't want anyone outside our group to notice that there was anything unusual about today, and Zack was a horrible actor.

We rode southwest for about two hours before I stopped to check my PHS and confirm our location. "We're within ten feet of the entrance to the lab," I said to the boys as I slid down off my bird and tied her reins loosely to a bush.

Zack blinked. "Damnit, Seph," he said, but he was half-smiling.

Cloud gave me an unfathomable look as he climbed down and tied his chocobo to a different bush. "The door is supposed to be built into a hill, right?"

"That's what Veld's information said." There were a couple of deep, shadowy, suggestive folds in the nearest hillside, and I immediately went to check the nearest one. Cloud headed for the other, and Zack . . . began to climb the hill. Well, that wasn't necessarily a bad idea, especially if it turned out that we were slightly off-target.

Finding no evidence of any kind of door hiding in the space I had chosen, I backed out again to follow Cloud over to the other, only to find him already standing beside his chocobo and shaking his head at me.

I frowned. Perhaps we had the wrong side of the hill? Or—

Zack must have missed his footing at that moment, because he suddenly yelped and tumbled down the hillside, uprooting a thornbush along the way. Boxthorn, scientific name Lyceum, I identified, although I wasn't quite sure what species. It would have been easier to tell if the plant had been flowering or fruiting, but the season was wrong for that. Regardless, I was going to have to have Zack take off his belt, pauldrons, and sword harness, so that I could make sure that any thorns that might have broken off inside his flesh were pushed out when I healed him. I shook my head in irritation . . . then stopped, as the change in angle caused by my movement allowed me to detect a glint of metal where the bush's roots had been ripped from the soil.

"Cloud, Zack may have found our entrance for us. Check it while I heal him."

"Yes!" Zack was grinning as he wiped blood from a scratch across his cheekbone.

Cloud had the top half of the door free by the time I was done healing Zack. There had to have been a landslide after the lab had fallen into disuse, because the whole thing was thoroughly buried. Or perhaps it had been intentional. Shinra had probably pulled out of here just before the start of the war, at a time when relations between Midgar and Wutai had soured but not completely fallen apart. Which meant that burying the lab had been possible, but not bombing it (as Shinra would no doubt have preferred).

There had been a keycard lock attached to the door, but I doubted it would have answered to my card even before it had spent several years getting more closely acquainted with the mud and roots we'd cleaned away, so I cut the metal barrier out of the way instead, leaving a dark, fetid-smelling hole in the hillside.

Zack took a step forward, but I held up my hand and motioned him back again. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Mako, formaldehyde, rust, rotting meat. Something down there had been alive recently enough that it hadn't yet degenerated into a skeleton or a mummy. Perhaps it had been left in stasis somehow, or pickled in a jar whose liquid contents had since leaked away. Either way, I doubted that it was Jenova.

This was not going to be a pleasant investigation.

"Stop when you're a few steps inside and give your eyes time to adjust," I told the boys. "There's a stairwell, and I don't want either of you tumbling down it."

The passageway just inside the door was actually a short piece of corrugated pipe, seven feet in diameter, that ended at a rickety spiral staircase leading down into the earth. The bottom was well below ground level, a good twelve feet. The floor of the lower level was solid rock, roughly shaped so that it slanted a bit to one side for drainage. If I craned my neck, I could just barely see an open door marking the entrance to another corridor.

"Whew, it stinks in here!" Zack said. "What died?"

"We don't know any more than you do, Zack. It's probably down there. Whatever it is." Cloud pointed at the stairs. "At least we aren't going to have to fight it, if it's as dead as it smells. And I can't hear anything moving except us."

"Water," I corrected him. "Or some sort of liquid, dripping and trickling. I can't hear anything that sounds alive, but robot sentries are still possible, as are traps. Stay alert."

I left Masamune in her scabbard as I descended the stairs, however. I wouldn't have space enough to swing her in here. No matter. My materia and my fists should be enough, even if Weapons Development had left some toys behind.

There had once been an airlock at the foot of the staircase, but whoever had been last to depart this place had left both doors open. The fittings suggested the small room had been a decontamination space for personnel exiting—an attempt to keep pathogens or chemicals inside the lab, rather than to prevent contamination from the outside. I wasn't sure I liked that, but even Cloud now had the improved immune system that went with enhancement . . . and in any case, we had all breathed in anything airborne the moment I'd opened the door in the hillside, or possibly even before that if some of it had leached up through the soil.

Having seen the airlock, I'd expected the lab on the far side to be outfitted for dealing with viruses, or perhaps poisons. And so I was rather surprised when a large steel surgical table loomed out of the dark at me. Too large, my mind immediately pointed out—a ten-foot by ten-foot surface with long slots carved into the sides to make it possible to access the center. I'd seen this kind of table before, and it was for operating on monsters. Or dissecting them. It would accomodate creatures up to the size of a grand horn if they were correctly laid out. And the ceiling in here was quite high.

I checked the rows of pickled body parts arranged in rows along the wall. Not human, unless the human in question had been heavily mutated. One of the disembodied bits was a forearm, ending in a true hand, with fingers and an opposable thumb. There were certainly monsters that had hands, things like dragon riders and tonberries. I couldn't immediately determine the species of this body part, however. It might have come from a unique monster. Was that what they had been playing with here? That made it much less likely that we would find any information of use to us, because Shinra had never considered Jenova to be a monster, not even one of the rare uniques. Hojo had placed Her in a different category altogether.

In any case, the rotting thing wasn't here. There were four new doors radiating out from this room. The signs had been torn off them before the lab was abandoned, but if the layout resembled the other labs I was familiar with, the big door that had once had lifting tackle on the ceiling above it would lead to the specimen holding area. The others would go to offices, living quarters, and other labs with different equipment. My nose told me that I should try the cages first. Or perhaps not, given how rank the smell was.

"This sucks," Cloud muttered from behind me. "Breathing through my mouth just means that I end up tasting it instead of smelling it."

"Welcome to one of the suckier parts of enhancement," Zack said, and I blinked, because I'd always thought that being able to taste things in the air was normal and universal. Well, no matter.

We walked forward into the dark. Empty holding cells, too large to be called cages, appeared on either side of us. One of them held the bones of a former occupant, possibly a juvenile hippogriff.

We were some twenty feet in when I signaled the boys to stop again. The hallway ended in a T-junction a little ahead of us, and I could hear something from the left-hand branch that wasn't the sound of dripping water. Breathing. A heartbeat. Something alive. Not human, not with a heart and lungs of that size.

I pulled Masamune from her scabbard, thankful that this area had been designed to hold larger-than-human monsters. I should be able to fight here without bringing down any ceilings.

Deliberately, I took one more step forward, bringing my foot down heavily, and pointed Masamune at the monster. The creature wasn't quite stupid enough to charge straight in, though. I could perceive it as a darker bulk in the darkness, and smell its rank scent, but it remained where it was, at the end of the hall. I would just have to close with it, then.

I considered it for a moment, trying to determine its shape in more detail. It seemed to be built like a grand horn: bipedal, but with arms far too long and thick for it to look even vaguely human. There wasn't enough light in here for me to be able to make out more than that, but it was enough. A biped suggested a normal animal arrangement of parts, with vulnerable organs in the head and torso. Not all monsters had weak points that easy to predict.

It growled at me, and I whipped Masamune up to my shoulder and rushed forward, ignoring a yelp from behind me—one of the boys, but it didn't sound like they were in danger. The point of my sword found flesh, hard muscle from the feel of it, and then bone as I dragged the edge downward. The monster growled again and crashed to its knees, spattering a line of blood down the front of my coat. I took a few steps back—let it expire at its own pace—and reached into my pocket for a rag.

"Not fair!" Zack called from behind me. "Why didn't you leave it for us? There probably isn't anything else down here to fight."

"I'll find you an adamantamai to play with later," I said absently. The monster's heartbeat was fading, and I stepped forward once again, aiming for a better look at it while the body was lit by the green sparks of its life boiling away.

Not a grand horn after all, was the first thing that crossed my mind. The head was the wrong shape, with dark horns that swept back along the skull rather than pointing forward, the forepaws were hands rather than rigid talons, and there was no colour change in the upper body. Nevertheless, it did look familiar, and from recent experience, at that.

"That's one of those monsters Wutai keeps using against us!" Zack said, prodding an outstretched arm with the toe of his boot. He sounded indignant.

I used one of the creature's horns to haul its head up, confirming that the skull, and therefore the brain, was smaller than that of the vajradhara that actually fought with the Wutainese troops. Too stupid to learn even the primitive weapons-work the normal vajradhara could manage, perhaps? "The first ones were likely bred here. This one would have been considered a failure, I think. Wutai must have raided this place, possibly even before Shinra pulled out."

They'd left several of the proto-vajradhara together in the cell at the end of the hallway, probably juveniles at the time. There were well-gnawed piles of bones with insects moving in and out among them. Metal shackles encircled bony legs. One corner of the cell was filled with a solid mound of feces. The creature I'd just killed had only one foot, and it was emaciated. It had spent its entire life in this place, eating centipedes and beetles and the remains of its siblings, the shackle designed to restrain it as a juvenile cutting into its flesh as it grew until the foot necrotized and fell off, or was torn off. No longer chained to the back wall, it had been able to rip the door from its cell, but it had never made it out of the lab complex, and possibly never out of the prison corridor.

Had it even known that any other place existed?

I had half-expected this would turn out to have been a mercy killing. What we had found here was . . . very Shinra, and I could have wished that I had less sympathy for this monster.

It had taken me a long time to find my way out of my cage.

"There's nothing more for us here," I told the boys. "Let's go."

Chapter Text

Chapter 36

Genesis had a half-empty bottle of dumbapple brandy in his hand as he descended into the caves, and he swung it idly by the neck as he walked. If he was half the actor he thought he was, it would provide an additional excuse for his presence here. Not many people knew that First Class SOLDIERs were almost entirely unaffected by alcohol. Even the scientists were more used to dealing with Seconds and Thirds, who could get blitzed if they worked at it hard enough and tranqued themselves to slow their metabolisms.

Angeal had insisted on remaining outside. He had claimed that it was to deflect attention from Genesis, but Genesis had been able to tell that that wasn't the entire truth. Angeal was still . . . off, as he had been since taking in Sephiroth's cells. Genesis told himself that he wasn't worried.

The caverns beneath Banora were quiet, for the most part. As they always had been, although he'd only explored the outermost areas as a boy. There were supposed to be monsters deeper inside, although that might have been a rumour started on purpose to hide the lab.

Genesis shook his head gently and took another swig from the brandy bottle as he passed the alcove where he and Angeal had spent many hours playing with toy soldiers and arguing about the things young boys found contentious. There were still worn, musty blankets on the ground.

It took another ten minutes or so of walking for him to come to a place where one wall of the natural tunnel had been chiseled away and a standard Shinra security door installed. Locked, of course, but a selective application of heat and a good hard kick made the door part company with its latch. Genesis dodged the resulting globs of molten metal with a little auxiliary pseudo-drunken flailing that he fancied looked quite realistic . . . only to realize it was for naught. There was no one inside the lab. The lights weren't even on.

He never seemed to have an audience for his best performances. Such a pity.

Veld hadn't known much about this lab—not what it had been studying, and not whether it was permanently shut down, temporarily mothballed, or being maintained by a skeleton staff living on-site. Hence Genesis' little performance with the door. The installation appeared to have been stripped of anything that was both valuable and portable, but the outer room still contained a lot of dated office furniture and dusty papers.

The SOLDIER conjured a weak Aero spell with a flip of his hand and sent all the dust flying off into one corner. Then he found the most intact chair, shifted most of the paper to a convenient desk, set the brandy down, and began to read.

Half an hour later, he was leaning back in the chair (ignoring the ominous creaking sounds from its rust-filmed metal base), rubbing his temples and frowning. Science was not Genesis' strongest suit, but from what he could tell, there had been two lines of research going on here. One of them had been largely geological, with emphasis on the effects of mako on the formation of the caves and the soil in the area surrounding Banora. The other . . . there weren't all that many papers pertaining to the other, but they mentioned a "Specimen W-prime" that lived somewhere deeper in the caverns. There were no pictures, and not enough information left for Genesis to be able to tell what "W-prime" actually was.

There was definitely no blue-skinned alien in a mako tube hiding in this small suite of rooms, and the prudent thing to do would have been to return to the surface, but one didn't become a hero by being prudent. Genesis left his brandy bottle on the desk when he proceeded deeper into the caves, following a map scribbled on the back of a yellowing printout.

The further he got into the cave, the more crystallized mako he found. Little clumps at first, then pebbles too flawed and tainted to become materia, then larger stones, crystal stalactites and stalagmites, and sheets of glassy green clinging to the walls.

And then he found it. The largest monster he had ever seen, green-armoured and vaguely humanoid in form. It seemed to be asleep—or more likely, comatose, since the documents Genesis had read concerning it indicated that the Shinra researchers once based here had (unsuccessfully) attempted to jackhammer a piece of its armour off without causing it to stir. Nevertheles, they had been certain it was alive.

Genesis triple-checked the opening he'd entered through to make certain it was far too small for the creature before pulling out his PHS. After all, Shinra's assessment of the creature was as old as he was, and it might be stirring in its sleep by now . . . and there was no way he was going to get a usable picture under these conditions without using the flash.

He was hoping that the creature had been identified sometime in the future of the alternate timeline, and that Sephiroth would know what it was. Perhaps, he mused as he tried to get the entire creature inside the rectangle delineated by his PHS's camera, he was getting too curious for his own good, but far better curious than degrading.

Modeoheim was both easier and more difficult to infiltrate than Vincent had hoped. Easier, because the security was so lax he was tempted to send in a complaint after he was done with the place. More difficult, because it was a tiny, closed community where everyone knew everyone, so if he did get spotted, there was no way he'd be able to talk his way out of it. If they'd had a bit more information, he would have timed things so that he arrived right after new security personnel had rotated in, but Veld hadn't included that schedule with his data, and Vincent hadn't thought to ask. More evidence that he was rusty when it came to this sort of job.

As it stood, the best he could do was wear a trooper uniform without the helmet as casual camouflage, and hope that no one saw him at all. The helmet was out of the question, unfortunately, because of the way it obscured his peripheral vision. He was going to need every scrap of that. Also, his . . . indwellers . . . had disapproved violently when he'd tried the thing on. One of them especially seemed to hate the armour, and might have gone into a panic if he hadn't taken it off again immediately. Not the most bestial one, interestingly. It had been one of the quiet ones. He understood those two very little.

He ducked quickly behind a stack of crates protected by an all-weather tarp to allow a guard to pass by. At least his footprints wouldn't give him away—the soil was frozen, but there was only a dusting of snow as yet, leaving raised areas of ground hard and bare and difficult to mark. Late September wasn't such a bad time to be infiltrating an arctic outpost.

The other guard who was supposed to be patrolling this area was standing out of the wind, in the lee of a warehouse, and smoking. Under other circumstances, Vincent might have shaken his head, but right now it was better not to make such an unnecessary movement. Instead, he moved across a short piece of open terrain like a ghost, and passed through a door.

The stench of mako in here was overwhelming, stinging his nose. He hoped his eyes didn't start to water. He was going to have to spend, at minimum, twenty minutes or so in here, since the lab was conjoint with the reactor workings.

He hadn't had much to do with the reactors before going off to hide in his coffin, but he was certain they had never smelled this bad before. Some aspects of his enhanced senses were less than useful . . . but there was nothing he could do about that.

The lab was deserted, thankfully, with no one intent on working through the night due to a flash of inspiration—Lucrecia had been prone to that, back in the day. He'd lost count, somewhere along the way, of the number of times he'd covered her shoulders with a blanket after she'd fallen asleep at her desk. His father had been known to do it too, although Vincent had been too young for blanket duty back then. Probably just as well Sephiroth didn't become a scientist—he would have inherited it from both sides.

The ex-Turk might not have been a scientist either, but he had enough background to be able to assemble a picture of what the lab was trying to do from the contents of the rooms. More efficient mako extraction and purification, improved methods of materia manufacture, studies of how the Lifestream interacted with geological processes in areas of volcanic and seismic activity. The biological side was botanical, a search for crop plants hardy enough to survive up here in the north without greenhouses or other special care. None of the papers or computer files he found had anything to do with Jenova, or even with animal biology, and the equipment and supplies available supported that. His searches for concealed rooms or hidden information turned up nothing.

All in all, the trip had been something of a waste, he mused some hours later, tucked away in a thermal sleeping bag in a low tent pitched among rocks on a frozen hillside. Perhaps they were going about things the wrong way. If Jenova had been in one of the laboratories under control of the Science Department, Hollander would have known where to find Her. But She needed to be kept in a place with abundant, available mako, as well as some specialized equipment. A hidden lab would have to be associated with a reactor, or at least some spot where mako rose to the surface.

Vincent frowned up at the fabric of his tent while his inmates all tried to vent opinions on where his "prey" might be hiding, most of which made no sense whatsoever. He hoped that the others were having better luck.

Veld Verdot was . . . well, perhaps not in love. Not quite yet. But he thought it might turn into that, if he gave it enough time to develop.

Claudia Strife would never replace his dear Geneva, of course, but that was fine, since she was nothing like Geneva at all—short and blonde rather than tall and dark and slender, a no-nonsense home cook rather than a talented chef, and not, as far as he could tell, interested in collecting hundreds of pairs of shoes that she never wore. He had no difficulty whatsoever telling them apart. And perhaps that was why it felt like this might work. That, and the fact that Claudia could coax a smile out of Felicia. Only a tiny, weak one that flickered into place and then vanished within seconds, but it was the first time he'd seen his little girl smile since Kalm had burned . . . and for that smile, he was willing to do anything. Lie or cheat or kill or push himself into a relationship he perhaps wasn't quite ready for yet, even if it wasn't objectionable.

It helped that Claudia didn't seem to want anything from him. Nor did she seem to be bothered by the fact that he was one of the most dangerous and feared men in Shinra. Perhaps knowing Sephiroth had numbed her to the danger that people like him represented. Or . . . not numbed, exactly, but taught her that a man with a tremendous gift for violence was still, in the end, a man.

They'd had dinner at his apartment—she'd cooked them a traditional Nibel meat dish in a thick, creamy sauce, served over noodles—and then spent a little time watching TV together while Felicia did her homework before he'd walked her to the elevator. A very domestic evening that was, once again, nothing like his dates with Geneva.

He was almost home again when his PHS vibrated for attention. He pulled it out and checked the screen to discover a laconic two-word message from Tseng: Found something.

Tseng had been working on the mystery paper he'd found in Heidegger's office. Veld frowned, and texted Felicia—working late again tonight—so that she wouldn't worry. Then he snapped his PHS shut again and stuffed it in his pocket.

There were advantages to living in the building where you worked, the largest one tonight being that he didn't have to go out into the cold, mako-tainted autumn rain. He found Tseng in the younger man's tiny office, where he was contemplating something on the computer screen.

"What did you find?" Veld asked, without preamble.

Tseng didn't startle. He never did. "A match for the signature on the documents. Fuhito was a graduate student at Wutai National University when it closed down for the war."

Veld's eyebrows rose. "He's Wutainese, then?"

"Not really. His parents were, but Fuhito himself was born in Cosmo Canyon, and he returned there after the university closed rather than enlist in the army. A year later, he disappears from the records."

Veld digested this. "His major . . . biology?"

"Close. Dual major in ecology and biochemistry."

Which was no better. "What else do we know?"

Tseng shrugged. "He was an only child. His mother is dead; father still lives in Cosmo Canyon, but they were never close. As a student, he was associated with several . . . ecologically-minded fringe groups, but most of them threw him out sooner or later for being too militant and advocating violence against Shinra. Which is why we have a file on him: he was considered a minor-but-active security threat."

"And now he's in bed with Heidegger." Heidegger himself was too much of a fool to be a serious thorn in Veld's side, but if there was someone brighter working with him, that might change the equation.

"So it seems."

"What changed?"

"I don't know. Yet. With your permission, I'd like to send Katana to Cosmo Canyon to poke around."

Veld didn't hesitate. "Permission granted. Don't make this look like an emergency, but send him as soon as you can. If it turns out that the President isn't aware of this . . ." Heads will roll, he didn't need to say.

The boat was late.

Boats to and from Mideel were often late, actually. The one Genesis and Angeal had left the island on all of those years ago had been late. At least this time the lateness was only a matter of hours, rather than days. They'd be leaving tonight. In the meanwhile, they could spend the afternoon looking around town. For what that was worth. Mideel wasn't much of a place even by Angeal's standards, and Genesis was bored enough to be quoting Loveless every ten minutes.

The town had a single shopping area, which turned out to be good for wasting . . . all of half an hour. The only thing of interest was the local crystal steel and the products made from it. The material had nothing to do with crystals, really. Instead, it incorporated the ground shells of local monsters, which gave it resilience and coloured it a pale blue-purple. Weapons and armour made from it were better than most other mass-produced types, but had no particular outstanding characteristics that would have made them useful to two top SOLDIERs.

Other than that, well, checking out all the restaurants in town to decide what they would have for dinner consumed another hour or so. Under other circumstances, Angeal might have suggested they make use of the deck of cards he was carrying in his pocket, but he was too on-edge to settle down long enough for that. He needed to get back to Wutai. Even though he didn't believe Zack was in any immediate danger, leaving his protégé in Seth's hands (he couldn't think of the man as "Sephiroth"—surely a name like that had to be part of his delusions) set his teeth on edge.

They ended up wandering through the residential end of town. At least Genesis didn't seem to mind that more than anything else they might have done to pass the time.

Angeal stopped suddenly on a street corner when he caught a hint of a familiar scent that shouldn't have been there. Mideel was too hot for dumbapples to grow—they needed the colder nighttime temperatures of upland Banora for their fruit to form. But that was definitely the scent of a mature dumbapple tree, flowers and fruit mixed together. Artificial perfumes never got it right.

He followed the dumbapple smell, or tried to—he was no bloodhound, and he had to circle back a few times before he found the garden.

It wasn't so very large. True, it did surround the house occupying the modest suburban lot on all sides, but the lot itself just wasn't that big. The dumbapple tree was at the front, covered with blossom and a handful of fruits at varying stages of ripeness. There was an orange tree nearby, with coconut and date palms, and a banana plant. And there were flowers everywhere. The whole lot was carpeted with them, so many of them that Angeal couldn't see a single stalk of grass.

"Someone has quite a green thumb," Genesis observed.

Angeal shook his head. "This goes beyond just skill at gardening. This . . . it shouldn't even be possible. The temperature and soil conditions required by a lot of these plants conflict, but they're thriving side-by-side here. Some of the flowers I don't even recognize." White and yellow, not quite daffodils or tulips or snowdrops . . . Maybe they were extremely local, but he would have expected the big Mideel article in last month's Gardener's Guide to mention them if that were the case. Then again, it hadn't mentioned the only healthy, fruiting dumbapple tree outside of Banora, either . . . Perhaps the reporters had somehow missed this garden.

The flowers went right up to the edge of the sidewalk, and Angeal crouched down for a better look. They were healthy, whatever they were, soft petals dusted with golden pollen. They had a subtle scent, green and faintly sweet and . . . life-affirming.

"You can take that one if you like. We have plenty more."

Angeal's head jerked up as he heard the voice, and he found himself blinking in confusion at the speaker.

She was maybe thirteen, at the age where girls typically shot up in height but hadn't filled out yet, and wore a simple sundress patterned with pink flowers, a straw hat, and a pair of sandals. Her long, brown hair was braided down her back, and her eyes . . . Angeal didn't think he'd ever seen such eyes. Green, but just that word didn't do them justice. They were full of light in some way that had nothing to do with actual light, and something about them suggested a depth and wisdom that should have looked odd when connected to so young a girl, but somehow didn't.

They're the opposite of Seth's eyes, Angeal thought, and in the next moment wondered why he'd made the comparison.

He cleared his throat and straightened up. "I'm sorry, miss. We didn't mean to intrude. It's just that we're both from Banora, and we couldn't help but notice your dumbapple tree . . ."

The girl smiled. "That one's my fault. When I planted the core, my mother said it might not grow here, but I looked after it carefully. Plants respond well to love, I find. They're sort of like people that way."

Genesis chuckled and motioned at his friend. "Angeal here would love to lavish care on some plants, but being shuttled back and forth to Wutai all the time makes it somewhat difficult to look after living creatures, miss . . . ?"

"I'm Aerith Faremis." Why does that sound familiar? Angeal wondered.

"Genesis Rhapsodos, and this is Angeal Hewley, both of SOLDIER." Genesis offered the girl a little bow.

Aerith flinched. Just a little bit, but Angeal noticed. "SOLDIER . . . you're with Shinra?"

"We're off-duty right now," Genesis said easily. "We're not married to Shinra, you know. We don't have to do anything for them that we're not explicitly told to do. We're just in Mideel to catch a boat back to Junon."

"Oh. That's good. Um . . ."

"It's alright, I understand. We'll excuse ourselves. And keep this conversation . . . strictly unofficial."

Angeal waited until they were two blocks away before saying, "Gen, what was it that I missed there?"

His friend smirked. "That, my dear friend, was an adolescent Cetra. I don't blame you for not remembering her name—Sephiroth only mentioned it the once, and we were both a bit preoccupied at the time."

One of the ones he let out of the lab. Of course! That's why plants grow so well for her and her mother. "Are you going to tell him that we met her?"

"Hmm. I haven't decided yet."

"I don't think you should."

"Why not?"

Angeal shrugged, unable—unwilling—to articulate his reasons. Because he's crazy and I don't want anyone else to be at risk of getting hurt wouldn't go over very well, he knew.

Genesis frowned, but in the end, he shrugged too. "I suppose there's no need for him to know, at the moment. Although I do wish you would tell me what it is that's eating at you."

"What do you mean?"

Genesis rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, you've been distracted since . . . my little fledging incident. And if I noticed that, your puppy must be frantic."

"I'm not ready to talk about it yet." He needed more evidence.

"Don't wait too long."

Angeal grimaced. He knew it was an ultimatum. Genesis was putting him on notice that he wasn't going to tolerate Angeal's behaviour for much longer.

He was going to have to start poking around the moment they got back to Wutai, and hope it didn't take him too long to find something useful.

Chapter Text

Chapter 37 (Sephiroth's narrative)

Truth be told, I would have been pleasantly surprised if any of us had found Jenova during our lab raids. Currently my working theory was that she was in Junon, which was going to be damnably difficult to get at. For the time being, though, it was best to not even try to plan a raid. Vincent and I had discussed it, and agreed that we should do nothing to advance toward our goal for at least three months. We probably hadn't drawn Shinra's attention, but we needed to be absolutely certain. If they moved Jenova, it might be disastrous. It might also be an opportunity, but best save that for a last resort if none of our other searches turned Her up.

I intended to spend the time training Cloud, because it was imperative now that I bring him along as quickly as possible. And I did indeed spend most of my time doing just that, when the war permitted. We were working our way up violently through individual fortresses in central Wutai right now, just as we had been doing at this point in the original history. On the surface, nothing of significance had changed. Underneath . . .

Since Genesis and Angeal had been injected with my cells, I could feel them more strongly than I ever had before. Genesis didn't seem bothered by that. Occasionally I would even wake in the middle of the night and feel his consciousness somehow, impossibly, curled up against mine to rest, like a sleeping cat.

Angeal didn't seem to be nearly so sanguine about his situation. I received little from him along our newly-forged connection, but what I did sense took the form of disquiet, unbalance, and worry. I could have pushed through into his mind to find out more, and at one point found myself instinctively doing just that, but once I realized it, I pulled out immediately and sat at my desk for several minutes with my head in my hands, willing the nausea to leave my stomach and unable to believe that I had just been about to violate my friend in such a way.

I will not be a monster. Not ever again.

It was Cloud who kept me sane when these things happened. Cloud, who wanted nothing except a future together with his mother and Zack and myself, whose touch on my mind was warm. Cloud, who . . . was a great deal happier and more whole than that other Cloud, despite his situation. Although the memories were obscured by a fog that I hoped would never lift, I knew that other-Cloud's mind had felt like a bone too often broken and allowed to heal without treatment: not weak, but in constant low-level pain that would never entirely fade. The damage had begun long before Nibelheim had burned, before I had ever met him. This Cloud, however, the Cloud I had nurtured, smiled as he and Zack returned from their hunting missions, and genuinely looked forward to celebrating his twelfth birthday in a war camp.

That . . . was not normal. Even I, with my poor understanding of normalcy, was aware of that. But if Cloud was happy, did it really matter? Angeal . . . would have said that it did. Angeal believed, on some level, that there were certain boxes that had to be ticked off in order for a person to be happy, and that no one could genuinely be happy without those things even if they thought they were. But I could sense Cloud's emotions, and so I knew Angeal was wrong.

"Hey, Seph! I mean, General Crescent, sir! Are you awake? We brought supper!"

I shook my head, focused on Zack, who was standing in the doorway between my outer and inner office with a stack of food trays in his hands. Behind him was Cloud, visible only as the tips of several yellow spikes over Zack's shoulder now that Zack was entering a growth spurt, and behind the boys was Genesis.

"Come in and close the door," I told them.

"My friend, your desire / Is the bringer of life, the Gift of the Goddess," Genesis quoted as he pulled the door shut. "Does this mean you want to have a private conversation?"

"Is Angeal intending to join us?" I asked.

"He's leading a training session," Zack reported, frowning. "He said he'd pick something up from the mess later. I can call him if—"

I held up a hand to cut him off. "If he wouldn't give me a straight answer about why he's avoiding me previously, I doubt he would do so now. But I am . . . concerned about his behaviour. He seems out of sorts."

"Oh, he is," Genesis replied, sitting down and helping himself to one of Zack's trays. "He won't talk to me either. And he's been making risible attempts to stalk your pet Turk."

I frowned. "Vincent? That makes no sense."

"I quite agree. Not only is it a clear exercise in futility, but Angeal barely knows the man. Nevertheless, I've caught him at it several times."

"Have you confronted him about it?"

"I pressured him a bit, but thus far that has produced nothing." Genesis frowned down at his tray. "I can try again, but I expect that he would attempt to dissemble."

"Um . . ." Zack swallowed a mouthful of food, then continued, "I could talk to him about it, if you guys think that would work better."

Genesis shook his head. "He'd brush you off as well, Pup. Angeal can be very stubborn when he wants to be."

"And given the turmoil his emotions are in, I'm not certain he's capable of listening to anyone," I added, and immediately regretted it.

"If he's been avoiding you, how can you tell?" Zack asked.

I busied myself with my meal, pretending not to have heard so that I wouldn't have to answer, and ignoring the phantom voice in my head that snapped, Are you deaf, boy? Hojo was dead. Even the Turks said so, and I'd handled the body. It was the first time in a while that my memory had spewed him up.

"I expect Sephiroth is doing it the same way I can sense his mood, Zack," Genesis said. "Although I'm not always certain whether I'm picking up our fearless leader, or Angeal, or even young Cloud. You could have warned us about this side effect, you know."

"I didn't realize," I admitted. "In the previous history, the only person I had such a bond with was Cloud, and he was so damaged and confused at first that if he was able to sense my thoughts or emotions, I don't think he realized it. Later on, he shut me out. As far as I knew, the bond ran only one way, from him to me." The others, the drones that had been rendered mindless by Hojo's botched treatments, hadn't had enough awareness to sense much of anything.

"So you knew you would be able to feel us," Genesis said, frowning.

"I knew there was a possibility, but I've been doing everything I can not to invade your privacy. Unfortunately, while I have to actively reach out in order to hear your thoughts or . . . attempt to exert control, emotions seem to seep along the bond regardless." This, too, was something I would have preferred not to say. I had no intention of overriding my friends' will, or Cloud's, while I remained in my right mind, and I had already told them that such things were possible. However, I knew that they might not have grasped until now that everything I had done to the older Cloud, I could do to them as well.

"Pride is lost," Genesis said, and sighed. "I had rather be alive, even if it means you can listen in on my outbursts of peevishness, than dead with my emotions kept private. As for the rest, trying to take over our minds and such . . ."

"You won't do it," Cloud said firmly, looking up from his plate. "Or not for no reason, anyway. 'Cause that isn't the kind of thing you do."

"And yet I have done such things," I felt obliged to point out.

"You mean Jenova made you do them," Zack said, and Genesis nodded agreement.

"I rarely see you make the same mistake twice," the auburn-haired man said. "And I think you are profoundly aware that taking over someone else's mind is a mistake. Especially after having been a victim of it yourself."

"I find myself . . . philosophically less than certain of that," I admitted. "I can think of scenarios where suborning someone's will might be the only way for me to keep them or others alive."

"If it was to save someone, I'd be okay with it," Cloud said.

"You trust me far too much." What else could I say?

"'Cause we know you," Zack offered. "We know you look after your friends."

"Returning to the original topic," Genesis said, "I think it would be best if one of us spoke to your Turk. Perhaps he knows why Angeal is so interested in him."

I nodded. "It is about time that I checked up on Cloud's marksmanship training. Tomorrow, then."

However, when I met with Vincent at the firing range, he turned out to be of little help.

"I've noticed him watching me, of course. His stalking technique is more like that of a child playing hide and seek than that of a trained agent. But I have no more idea why he's doing it than you do. Do you want me to confront him?"

"Not yet, I think. If you were to speculate about his motives . . . ?"

Vincent shrugged. "Mistrust, perhaps. Your Angeal wants to live in a simple black-and-white world, and he sees Turks as black."

I considered that. "It hardly seems sufficient."

"To me either, but I have no other explanation."

"Maybe he wants to throw you a surprise party." I'd noticed Zack approaching, but ignored him as Not A Threat. Vincent raised an eyebrow in the young SOLDIER's direction. " . . . No, I didn't really think so," the black-haired boy admitted. "Just . . . it would be nice if that was all it was, wouldn't it?"

Vincent's expression sharpened. "Perhaps we should have Zack confront him."

Zack blinked. "Me?"

"Angeal isn't likely to perceive you as a threat," Vincent said. "It's hard to say whether he would tell you anything useful, but even seeing which lies he picks may tell us something."

"Didn't Genesis say he'd just brush me off?" Zack asked.

"Regardless, if he knows you know, he may stop following me," Vincent said. "I want to see what his next move is."

"The alternative would be to post him somewhere he has no contact with you," I said, nodding at Vincent. "And I don't like the idea of letting him out of my sight right now." Not when my instincts were telling me that Angeal was right on the edge of doing something stupid. Although I doubted it would be the kind of stupid that had caused him to run off with Genesis at Fort Tamblin—it felt more like the several times early in our first friendship that he had tried to convince me to visit Hojo for this or that minor injury, because he didn't understand what visiting Hojo meant. When Angeal convinced himself that he was helping, it could be very difficult indeed to make him understand that there was a bad assumption mixed in somewhere.

I allowed myself to breathe a sigh. With Genesis and Zack and Vincent all on my side for the moment, I would at least be able to keep an eye on Angeal. We'd be able to sort this out, given enough time.

"If you think it's the right thing to do, I'll try," Zack said.

"Thank you, Zack." I consulted my mental clock and mission roster briefly. "He should be getting back about now."

"I'll go see if I can find him," Zack said.

"Go, then, but don't rush into questioning him. Pick your moment."

Zack nodded and threw me an infantry salute that walked a fine line between "very sloppy" and "parody" before he trotted away.

I was about to leave myself when Vincent stopped me with a light touch to the elbow. I turned back to him and raised an eyebrow, inviting him to speak.

"I want to bring Veld into this. All the way in."

My first instinct was to refuse—that too many people already knew. Then again, under those circumstances, what was one more? And Veld, as the head of the Turks, would be able to walk into places like the Junon reactor that the rest of us couldn't easily access. However . . .

"Do you trust him?" I asked slowly.

"As much as a Turk ever trusts anyone. We were partners for years, after all. And friends. If it's any reassurance, he's never voiced any of his theories about you, or any of the meagre handful of privileged information about your situation that I've given him, to the rest of the executive. And he claims to like you."

"That makes me question his sanity," I said, and Vincent snorted softly.

"He's a Turk. Happy, well-adjusted people don't end up in our department . . . and if they somehow accidentally do, they don't survive very long. Veld's been with Administrative Research for more than twenty years."

It was my turn to snort. Although in his way, Vincent was right: someone who did what the Turks did wasn't likely to remain sane for all that long.

In the end, it all came down to one thing, however: if those of us here in Wutai tried to search the other labs for Jenova, especially this soon, Shinra would notice. Veld, along with his accesses, wasn't involved in the war, and so had more freedom of movement.

"Very well," I said. "Talk to him. Explain the situation, and see if he can be convinced to search the labs in Midgar and Junon. However, make it very clear to him that he is not to draw Jenova's attention if he does find Her. She is far more dangerous than She looks."

"One would almost think that Veld's survival matters to you," Vincent said.

"Not alerting Jenova matters to me. But I don't like it when people die for no good reason, either. Bad enough that I'm fighting in the President's pointless, miserable war."

"And yet, here you are."

"It was the best of several very bad options," I said. "I want to leave the world in good shape this time. I want its people to have a future. That requires a functioning economy. And that, unfortunately, requires Shinra. At least for the present."

Chapter Text

Chapter 38

"I'm just kind of worried, Pup. He is a Turk, after all, and we are working against what Shinra wants."

"And you think following him around's gonna help?" Zack said, sounding a little sullen even to himself. Frustration did that to him. "Angeal, he knows you're following him. They're trained to pick up on stuff like that." He barely managed to stop himself from adding duh at the end and instead turn it into, "You've got to have known that."

And Angeal actually seemed a bit flustered. "I . . . didn't think it through, I suppose. You're right, Pup."

"Besides, if he was gonna do anything, he'd have done it already—he's had time," Zack said.

"Not if he wants to catch us all red-handed doing something illegal," was Angeal's reply.

Zack gave him a look. "That's ridiculous. If Shinra wanted to get rid of us, they'd just do it, and cover it up later." Sephiroth hadn't been gentle in explaining how Shinra worked, even though it made Zack feel more than a little sick, knowing about some things that the older man had seen. "Besides, would you just let yourself be arrested if we got caught? I wouldn't, that's for sure. No way am I gonna end up in those labs."

"They wouldn't actually send us there," Angeal said, and that was just stupid.

"If Seph was telling the truth about even half of what happened to him, then they absolutely would."

Angeal just sighed and shook his head, but Zack knew what that meant, too.

"You think he's lying. You seriously think he's lying. Even after Vincent backed him up, and his blood worked on you and Genesis and Cloud exactly the way he said it would."

"I don't think he's lying, Zack. But that doesn't mean he isn't mistaken about some things."

Zack stared for several moments before he found his voice again. "You think Seph is crazy, don't you? Just because it would be easier."

"Zack, I—"

"That's bullshit!" the younger SOLDIER said. "I don't like all the stuff he told us either, but Seph is our friend! He wouldn't tell us all that horrible stuff about us dying unless he was really, really sure, because he isn't a horrible person!" Was that too many "horrible"s? Agh, why do I even care?!

"All right, all right, calm down." Angeal's smile looked less forced, and maybe it was even a real one. Zack figured he'd done enough, anyway, and let the other man change the subject. He wondered what Sephiroth was picking up from Angeal along that connection thing they had.

Really, it was kind of unfair, in Zack's opinion—why was he the only one who wasn't part of that? Being able to talk to Cloud in his head would have been useful as well as seriously cool. Ditto always knowing where Angeal was. And how angry he was.

I could ask, Zack thought. For a bit of his blood, to make me like Cloud and 'Geal and Genesis. Maybe if I told him it was to protect me from Jenova . . . maybe he would . . .

He wasn't quite sure what Sephiroth would do, that was the problem. But he also knew he'd never find out if he didn't ask.

Claudia tasted the stew, then added a bit of pepper and a couple of glugs from the bottle of red wine on the counter beside the stove. Veld's apartment had much better cooking facilities than her own, but she hadn't the least idea what to do with most of the devices. Being from Nibelheim, she was used to getting by with a stove and a refrigerator (or even a fireplace and an icebox) and ordinary muscle-powered equipment. Felicia had been the one who had shown her how to use the stand mixer, and there were several things here that were even more complex and specialized. Claudia doubted she would ever get the hang of those. Apparently, Veld's late wife had been some kind of chef, not just an ordinary housewife-who-could-cook. Not that she'd lived in this apartment with her husband, but she had visited from time to time when Veld spent several weeks unable to get away from his work for long enough to go back to their house in Kalm.

"Felicia, dear, would you set the table? This is almost ready," Claudia said as the little girl poked her head through the doorway to the kitchen. She received a nod in return, and a tentative smile. Poor mite still couldn't talk, but she was relaxing around Claudia in other ways. Perhaps it helped that Cloud hadn't been much of a talker either, as children went.

Cloud . . .

She still wasn't sure she should have let him go back to Wutai. Never mind that the last few messages he had sent from there had been bright and joyful, with a picture of himself and his friend Zack (both covered with mud and grinning like loons) attached to one. (She'd asked Veld to show her how to print it out, and it now rested in a frame in her living room.) A good mother wouldn't have let her preteen son join an army in wartime, no matter how he begged or how well-protected she thought he would be. But at the same time, there was no way she could possibly have kept him from running away again. At least this way she knew where he was, and that someone was looking after him.

They weren't supposed to grow up that fast, but Cloud had all the Strife stubbornness and then some.

The front door of the apartment opened and closed, and from the entryway, Veld said, "That smells really good."

"That's the idea," Claudia replied. "How was your day?"

"Bizarre," Veld admitted. "I had to rescue one of the newer recruits from a trio of drag queens, there was a call from Director Palmer about a bomb in his office that turned out to be a stray children's toy—we still haven't figured out how it got there—and I received a very long, very strange report from an operative in Wutai that I'm still not certain what to do with. If I didn't trust the man absolutely, I'd think he'd lost his mind."

"Maybe you need to sleep on it," Claudia suggested.

"Actually, that sounds like a good idea. After supper, though. Can't let good food go to waste."

After Claudia left to return to her own apartment for the night and Felicia was tucked into bed, Veld opened a bottle of whisky and seats himself in the living room with a full glass and Vincent's monumentally bizarre report.

Jenova. He remembered when they had first named it that, the eerie specimen that Gast, working from Grimoire Valentine's notes, had dug up from under the arctic ice. Ugly thing. It hadn't been nearly as top-secret then as it had become later. He also remembered the excitement within the Science Department when they had discovered some of its cells were still viable, but he hadn't been interested in the details of the projects that had followed. Perhaps that had been a mistake. Definitely a mistake, if Vincent's report was to be believed.

Veld flipped past the first several sheets of decrypted printout, which contained some preliminary remarks and a transcript, as close to verbatim as Vincent had been able to manage, of what Sephiroth had told them all.

I know it seems crazy, he read. But I believe him. Every word. Difficult not to, when you've seen two men with wings real and physical enough to leave shed feathers behind, but I think I would have believed him even without that. I've never seen a man choke up in quite that way over a piece of fiction, and as you know, I've met plenty of liars. Sephiroth believes what he told us, so either it's the truth or he's insane, and I haven't seen any other signs of irrationality in him. The way it fits together with everything else we know also encourages me to believe it's all true.

Veld sipped his drink before continuing to the next paragraph. And if it is true, we need to find and destroy Jenova. That has always been Sephiroth's goal, and is likely to be the price of his further cooperation as well. As for what we might need him to cooperate with, well, you can read the writing on the wall as well as I can. Who we can trust, and who we can't.

And who had known about what had happened to Vincent. Once Veld had found out his partner was still alive, he'd gone looking for information in the Science Department's old records. He knew who'd had access to the reports and financials for "Project Werewolf". He knew who had required them to be filed in the first place. He knew that they'd included very recognizable photographs of "Subject V".

Shinra didn't exactly protect the Turks. An undercover Turk who failed at their mission would be disavowed, if not shot. But they were never, ever sold out to other departments within Shinra. And yet Hojo's reports had gone to both Myriad and the President, and neither of them had done a damned thing to get Vincent out of that lab.

Myriad was dead, so there would be no explanation there, and no revenge. Hojo, likewise. But there was one more person left.

Perhaps the President needed a reminder that the Turks served Shinra-the-corporation, not Shinra-the-man. A nice, forceful, lethal reminder. After Veld squeezed an explanation out of him.

Pissing off your head bodyguard and black ops man was a very, very bad idea.

As for Jenova . . . Veld would look into the records and poke through the labs, but if Hollander didn't know where the creature was and the paper trail had been obfuscated, he wasn't optimistic about finding his target in so obvious a place as the Junon lab. Especially when it had recently become clear that there was another lab around that even the Turks didn't know about.

Fuhito. All attempts to trace the man had failed. He'd just vanished at some point. And when you had two things that you absolutely couldn't find, the odds of them being in the same place were pretty decent.

There were ways to find hidden things, of course. Especially expensive things like labs.

Veld sighed and picked up his glass. He hated forensic accounting.

What am I doing here? Cloud wondered, not for the first time. There were times when he just got caught up in Hurricane Zack and went along with him without thinking about whether it was a good idea, and that was one of those times. He didn't want to meet the plane bringing the new crop of Thirds in at the airstrip, but Zack apparently knew a couple of them and insisted on greeting them.

And now he'd lost track of Zack, too, among the rush of taller people. He wasn't being bumped around too much—after two months of injections, he had as much mako in him as most of the new Thirds—but one thing mako enhancement didn't do was make you not short, if you were young and your genes called for short. At most, it might gain you a few inches over time.

"Hey, kid, what are you doing here?"

And of course, now one of them had noticed the short person.

"Fuck, he's tiny," said a Third who was standing beside the first one who had spoken up. "Hey, kid, does your momma know you're here playing SOLDIER?" He guffawed. "Hell, you're probably here because she screws SOLDIERs, aren't ya?"

Icy rage gouted through Cloud. The people of Nibelheim had mostly stopped insulting his mother once Sephiroth had settled into their household, but now and again someone had slipped, and his temper always flared when he heard someone calling her horrible things. Sephiroth had trained him to control his temper, not to go in hot, but that didn't mean that Cloud didn't get angry.

"You take that back," he said, and it took all of his will not to reach for the hilt of his sword. "My mother is not a whore."

"And if I don't, what will you do?" the Third asked.

Cloud knew that he needed to do something impressive. Something showy. And that he couldn't kill the idiot Third, or even seriously damage him. But at the same time, if he didn't take him down a notch, he'd be dealing with this crap until this idiot and his friend got killed or were sent back to Midgar. Well, then. He considered the other's height and build (tall, hulking, and Angeal-like) and the level of mako glow in his eyes (not very intense) . . . good target for an aerial attack. He was just preparing himself to spring when—

"Hey, Spiky! Where did you wander off to?"

"I'm busy, Zack," Cloud growled.

"With what?" A couple of seconds later, Zack had pushed past the spectators. There was another Third with him, anonymous under the helmet that Zack never wore. "What's going on?" Zack asked, looking from Cloud to the loudmouth and back again. "Who are you?" he added to the loudmouth.

It was the Third who had been with Zack who answered the last question. "Hugh Williams. From Midgar Sector Four Upper. Sixteen years old. He doesn't have a brain-to-mouth filter or the common sense to back down after he starts something. The guy beside him is Brian Jones. They signed up together."

"Thanks, Kuns. So, Williams, how'd'ya manage to piss off General Crescent's protégé?" Zack nodded at Cloud.

"That runt is what?"

"General Crescent's protégé. And a friend of mine. And he looks like he's about to tear your throat out. You probably didn't insult the General in front of him . . . did you say something nasty about his mom?"

Williams wasn't any good at hiding his expressions, either.

"Did I mention that Cloud here has already killed four people?" Zack added, putting his arm around the smaller boy. Cloud let him—he was just about the only person he would have let do that. "I'd take back whatever you said about his mom, if I were you."

"Like hell," Williams said. "I don't have to apologize to some runt. No matter who his mentor is."

"What is going on here?" Another familiar voice, and Vincent shouldered his way past the younger SOLDIERs.

"Lieutenant Valentine," Zack said with a nod. Sephiroth had made Vincent an officer and defined him as a one-member squad because it made things easier for some paperwork stuff that Cloud didn't understand. "Someone trying to pick a fight with Cloudy here. Guess they thought he was weak or something."

"Oh?" Vincent tilted his head slightly, and Cloud got the impression of a Nibel dragon contemplating prey. "Tell me, Soldier, who was it that you came here to fight? The Wutainese? Or the people who are supposed to be on your side?"

Williams swallowed visibly. "The Wutainese. Sir."

"Do you think the army needs troublemakers?"

"No, sir."

Vincent's slow blink was, again, very dragon-like. There were little sparkles of gold in his red eyes that Cloud had never noticed before. "I don't expect that a generic punishment will have the proper impression on you, therefore . . . Cadet Strife."

"Yes, sir?" Cloud said.

"You will spar with this man. I'll clear it with your mentor."

"Yes, sir. And when I win, I want that apology." Cloud gave Williams a wide, fangy, Nibel wolf grin, trying to look more confident than he felt. Sephiroth didn't usually let him spar with the Thirds—just Zack, and sometimes a hand-picked Second. And the Firsts, of course, but it didn't really count as a spar when your opponent had to slow down to a snail's pace just so you could keep up.

He didn't really know how he measured up to the Thirds, but if he expected to be able to defeat Sephiroth one day, he had to be able to beat them. Didn't he?

It was loud. So, so loud. It would, Aerith reflected, be easier to deal with if she could tell what it was trying to tell her, but it was just . . . loud.

No, that was a lie. Something was pushing at her to go. But why, or to where . . . that she still wasn't able to pick out.

Her mother couldn't even hear it. That had surprised them both, until Ifalna had gotten a bit pushy with the Planet (to the extent such a thing was possible) and received a reply that translated best as, Not for you. Which didn't please either of them. Not when it looked like the Planet wanted to send a barely-fourteen-year-old girl somewhere alone. Yes, technically fourteen was the age of majority in most places now, but that was because Shinra had forced it downward from sixteen or eighteen so that they could recruit more grunts to fight Wutai.

Aerith had never even considered enlisting in the military. She was just a schoolgirl with a green thumb. She didn't want to leave Mideel, because what she remembered of the outside world was scary. Their escape from Shinra Tower in Midgar had been terrifying. Especially the ride down to the Slums on the roof of that train, with only a stranger's strong arm between her and death.

Sephiroth. She remembered him mostly as a blur of black and white, glowing poison green and sharp metal edges and a low, serious voice, just as terrifying as the train ride. Consciously, she knew he had helped them. Protected them. Subconsciously, the fear was still there . . . but at the same time, he was the only person she knew outside Mideel who might be willing to help her, even though the Planet hated him.

If the Planet did force her to leave her safe haven, she would have to find him and ask for his help. Aerith knew that her mother still had the enigmatic man's PHS number, so she would be able to contact him even though he was apparently some kind of Shinra bigwig now. She just hoped she didn't have to.

The Planet could be such a brat sometimes.

Chapter Text

Chapter 39 (Sephiroth's Narrative)

How did I end up here?

"Here" was on the edge of the First Army's encampment in Wutai, in the area set aside for SOLDIERs to practice weapons-work without risking fragile things like infantry grunts, vehicles, or buildings. Nor was I the only one here. Vincent, Zack, and I stood together, while an assortment of Thirds newly arrived in Wutai and some other off-duty SOLDIERs formed a rough oval around the edge of the practice grounds. There were two more figures at the center, another new Third and a boy with spiky yellow hair.

I normally didn't let Cloud fight the Thirds. They had nothing to teach him—he'd reached their level in all but enhancements when he was nine, and now that he was enhanced, he might accidentally kill one of them. Although perhaps it had been a mistake not to match him cautiously with one or two of them, judging from the nervousness I could feel along our bond. Cloud should have been bored, or perhaps angry, not worried.

He had certainly been angry earlier, so strongly so that I had sent Vincent to check on him. The last thing I wanted was for Cloud to be court-martialled for attacking a fellow SOLDIER or committing massive property destruction with the materia he carried. I would probably be able to get him off without significant punishment, but it would eat into my influence with Shinra as well as leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

I needed him to be strong, mentally as well as physically. Granted, part of the older Cloud's strength had always lain in his emotions, but that just meant that I didn't want him to waste them on trivia. He might need every ounce of motivation he could scrape together when the time came.

I wished I could have relied more on Vincent as a potential backstop, but the Turk had little understanding as yet of what Hojo and my mother had turned him into. Granted, I didn't understand much about that either, only that there was something massively powerful inside him that had made Jenova cringe back in fear . . . although in the end, he'd done me less damage than the adult Cloud. Perhaps he hadn't understood even then.

"Ready?" called a Third I didn't know, who had been chosen to supervise the . . . spar. "Fight!"

Cloud stood his ground while the much larger Third dashed forward. That's right—since there's no need to keep him at the far end of the ring, let him expend the energy needed to close. The Third's swing was . . . not clumsy, but textbook. Predictable. Cloud stepped around it smoothly, and whipped his practice sword upward. The blunt edge struck the Third's arm hard, and he winced and dropped his weapon.

"Point to Strife!" the referee declared.

The combatants resumed their stances, since the format they'd decided on had been best three of five. Beside me, Vincent shifted his weight.

"I received a message today," he said. "We need to talk. But not here."

I nodded, watching Cloud annihilate his opponent with a backstep and a simple thrust this time. And a third time with a jump and a drop-kick. There was no need for a fourth round.

Cloud propped his practice sword against his shoulder. Then he turned to me and gave me a shy smile. I offered him a nod in return—you did well, not that I ever doubted you would—and the next moment Zack was all over him. I found myself smiling as I left, just a little bit.

"It wasn't even that he was slow," Cloud explained to us over supper. "He was just . . . obvious. Worse than Zack, even. I'd have had to be stupid to not know what he was going to do next."

Zack belatedly said "Hey!" through a mouthful of something the cooks were trying to pass off as mashed potatoes.

"You do tend to be pretty obvious, Pup," Angeal said. "We'll work on that."

"The question is," I said, "did you get the results you wanted from that spar, Cloud?"

Cloud bit his lower lip. "Hmm . . . yeah, I think so. Little early to tell, though. They might get on my case again. I've never tried to scare anyone off before on purpose."

"They know you've got friends now," Zack said. "Me, for one. Kuns, too. He thinks you're cool."

"You can't be serious," Cloud said, but he was smiling.

It wasn't until the meal was over that Vincent spoke up. "I received a message from Veld. Jenova is not in the laboratory at the Junon reactor, or the official one in the Shinra Building."

"I had wondered why you chose to join us tonight," Genesis said. "So that leaves the more obscure labs—Fort Condor, perhaps? Or Gongaga? They would have the best mako access."

"He intends to check those as soon as he can fabricate an excuse, but there is something else," Vincent said. "Do any of you know of a man called Fuhito?"

"He was an ecoterrorist in the original history," I said slowly. "And a scientist. He admired Hojo." Which was the worst indictment I could place on anyone. "You cannot possibly saying that he now has access to Jenova."

Vincent frowned. "Unfortunately, that may be the case. Fuhito is working for Shinra, or at least Heidegger is getting some kind of reports from him . . . but he isn't on the official payroll. Veld suspects there may be another lab, one secret even from the Turks. He's combing through the accounts and purchase records right now to try to find it."

My desk made a terrible noise as I accidentally bent part of it, and everyone was instantly staring at me.

"Seph?" Zack tentatively voiced his nickname for me.

I forced myself to let go of the desk, and smoothed my hand over the mangled surface. "My apologies. Being unable to accomplish anything is becoming frustrating for me. I believe I would like a problem that can be solved by simply killing someone or something. Just for once."

Angeal snorted, Vincent's mouth twitched, and Genesis said, "Alas . . ."

"Zack and I could go find some adamantoises or something for you, if you like," Cloud offered.

"That won't be necessary, but thank you for the thought." Adamantoises in camp . . . Leviathan, what a mess that would make. "Although I may make time tomorrow to go monster hunting." I doubted it would be enough to settle my nerves, but it was worth a try. "In any case, it appears that our job right now is still to wait and train." As I had been doing for most of the past seven years.

The labs had taught me patience, but even their lessons had limits.

Zack and Cloud lingered when the older members of our group left, but it wasn't until Vincent closed the door behind him that Zack said, "This telepathy thing you've all got going on—I want in on it."

"Zack," Cloud said, sounding mortified.

"I suppose it doesn't raise your risks with respect to Jenova when you've already had the SOLDIER treatments," I said. "However, when Hojo exposed you to my cells during the original history, you didn't react at all. And also . . . are you certain you want to risk my being able to control your mind, Zack?"

"I trust you," Zack said simply. "And as for it not working on me before, I'd bet it was 'cause I didn't want it to. I mean, the cells respond to the person whose body they're in, right?"

"To some extent, I suppose."

"Well, I can't have an anti-Jenova-y-things field around me, or I wouldn't have been able to get enhanced in the first place, right? Can we at least try?"

" . . . If you wish." It was no worse, surely, than what I had already done to Cloud. "Wait a moment." I pulled out the syringe case I carried with my mako flask.

Zack swallowed as he looked at it, but he also said, "There's no time like the present, I guess," and held out his arm.

I rolled up my sleeve and drew a small amount of blood from my arm, then injected it into Zack. Afterwards, Zack stood there with his head cocked to one side for a couple of minutes before saying, "I don't feel anything."

"Even if it does work, it might take a while to show results," I stated, although, truth be told, I was . . . feeling around in the mindscape, so to speak, to see whether I could detect any new traces. While trying at the same time not to reach too far. Jenova was out there somewhere, and I didn't want to find Her. Not this way.

"I guess." Zack didn't look too happy about that, though.

"It isn't as though we're going to abandon you if it doesn't work. We need you, Zack." Very much so. Our odd little dysfunctional group needed a . . . mediator. At one time, Angeal had filled that role, but with him currently running off the rails, Zack was the only one capable of taking it on.

Zack's eyes widened a little, and he grinned. "Really?"

"Without you, the only conversation we would have over dinner right now would be Genesis and his endless recitations." It was only a slight exaggeration, and from his laugh, Zack seemed to agree.

"Okay, then, I'll go on trying to shake something loose from Angeal," he said. "See you around, Seph!"

I watched him leave. There was still a stack of paperwork on my desk, but I felt disinclined to deal with it just then. Instead, I gave Zack a few minutes head start, then left my office in favour of Wutai's crisp fall twilight.

We were well-behind the lines here, the sound of the gun emplacements reduced to an occasional bass rumble that would have been inaudible even to most other SOLDIERs. I wished I hadn't been able to hear it at all.

It was ironic, but I had never wanted to hurt Wutai. It was beautiful country, and the best years of my life prior to my fall through time had been spent here. If President Shinra had been less greedy, or Godo had been less proud . . . Well. No use regretting it.

I had no desire to talk to anyone, so I found a perch among the gnarled branches of an ancient sakura tree that was shedding its leaves on the prefab building that housed the kitchens, and wondered, not for the first time, what I was doing here. Zack's spirit had forced the Lifestream to give me a second chance of sorts, but what had I truly accomplished with it?

Hojo dead. Ifalna alive. Her daughter safe from Shinra. Vincent Valentine awake early. Genesis and Angeal free of degradation. Cloud . . . different. None of it felt like enough, and I wasn't even certain that Cloud's situation was a net positive.

According to the branch of systems science known as chaos theory, a butterfly flapping its wings in Mideel can cause a typhoon off the coast of Wutai, but none of my actions seemed to have been amplified to anything like that degree. Perhaps it was just as well, since an uncontrollable amplification could be dangerous. For instance, I would very much prefer that the WEAPONs stay asleep and the Meteor materia remain a temple, impossible to equip and cast.

Still, it had been seven years at this point. Surely I should have been able to accomplish more than nibbling away at the edges of some of Shinra's smaller atrocities.

There was a soft rustle of falling leaves, and I realized, to my surprise, that there was someone above me in the tree, who had been there since before I had arrived and was now coming down. A flicker of red light and brass-toned glints among the leaves and braches identified the person as Vincent Valentine.

He picked a limb beside mine and sat down in silence. Just as well, perhaps, because I wasn't certain what to say.

I hadn't even tried to follow up on the knowledge that this man was family, because I had no idea of how to do that, either. I scarcely even knew him. We were allies, true, but that didn't mean that we were friends. Not quite.

"I would ask you what you intend to do after this is all over," the low, rough voice said suddenly, "but I doubt you have any more real idea of that than I do."

"Nothing concrete," I admitted. "I expect it will take me a while to adjust. This has been a very long mission."

Vincent chuckled. "So it has. I . . . would you . . ." There was a pause. I waited. "I think I would like to get to know you better," he finally managed to articulate.

"And I was just thinking that I barely know you at all," I admitted.

A long silence.

" . . . You have no idea how to do this either, do you?" Vincent asked, and I almost laughed.

"Isn't how to approach someone—striking up a conversation with them to try to learn their secrets—something they train Turks for?"

"Yes, but . . . that's an act of taking. You never give of yourself when you're doing something like that—you tell the mark what he wants to hear, in order to elicit confidences. And someone like you wouldn't be considered a good target for such manipulation—you're too wary."

An act of taking. And he wanted to give. Perhaps that was the key to this interaction.

"It's strange," I found myself saying slowly, "but the thought of having a sibling never occurred to me. Not while I was growing up in the labs, and not afterwards. I have no idea about the social protocols involved . . . although I do suspect that it's unusual for siblings to meet for the first time as adults."

"It does happen occasionally," Vincent said, leaning back against the tree trunk. "Adoption can result in even identical twins ending up in different families that have no contact with each other. The age gap between the two of us would be considered more unusual, although your time travel has mitigated that somewhat."

"I admit to being a little surprised that you believed me about that," I said.

A shrug. "No other explanation we were able to come up with is so completely consistent with the evidence. Turks cherish explanations that make sense, even when they defy the laws of science as currently established."

"There were alternative explanations for Hojo's death?"

"The most sensible non-time-travel-related theory involved 'Seth Crescent' being a different experimental subject from 'Sephiroth', one that Hojo had somehow kept concealed in the upper labs without any word reaching our department. Not entirely impossible, but very unlikely, and a dubious match for the physical evidence. It also left the question of what had happened to 'Sephiroth' hanging."

"Hojo didn't normally keep his secret projects in the main lab in Midgar," I observed.

"Yes, that was one of the problems with that theory."

A moment of silence, and then I found myself asking, " . . . Are you disappointed?"

"About . . .?"

"I can't be what you expected from my mother's son."

"I didn't really have any expectations, and I am not dissatisfied with what I have seen of you. In many ways, you are a better man than I—certainly a braver one."

"Am I?"

Vincent raised an eyebrow. "While you were fumbling for a way to save the world, I was hiding in a coffin. I believe the comparison is clear."

"While you were hiding in a coffin, I was burning down Nibelheim," I corrected. "And large sections of Wutai. And here I am doing parts of that all over again. Attempting to clean up a few of Shinra's messes seems like poor atonement."

"It's more than anyone else in your position likely would have done."

I thought about that as I watched night fall over the encampment. In the end, I decided that the truth of the statement depended on whether anyone else had ever truly been in my position. Very few people have it in them to singlehandedly destroy the world, or save it. Even other-Cloud hadn't set out on his journey alone.

Vincent remained silently by my side as I thought. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, though.

Chapter Text

Chapter 40

"Ugh, I hate this formal meeting shit, yo."

"Sometimes when the problem is formal, the best venue for the solution is as well," Tseng offered mildly, but Reno waved the words away.

"Yeah, whatever. Can we just get this over with?"

"When we're certain that no one's listening," Veld said patiently.

Reno seemed surprised. "Who'd dare?"

"I've found three bugs already that aren't ours," Katana offered as he scrutinized an air vent. "Weapons Development usually has its own in the public rooms, but I've been finding some lately that aren't theirs, either. Not sure where those are coming from. Anyway, I'm almost done." The thumb-sized gadget he pulled from the vent looked like an honest-to-goodness beetle, roundish with legs. "This one's actually mobile, I think. Interesting." He dropped it in an insulated box and stepped up on the chair he'd been sidling around the room. " . . . And nothing on the light fixture. That's it." He got down, sealed the bug box, and kicked it out into the hallway.

"Why the sudden paranoia?" Shotgun drawled.

"Sudden?" Shuriken asked. "We're Turks."

"Enough," Veld said, and everyone's attention instantly turned to him. "I was the one who ordered the bug sweep, and for good reason. It turns out that the President has been hiding quite a bit from us, and I'm not talking about the amount he spends at the Honeybee Inn."

Rod snorted. "We know that, anyway—eighty thousand gil last month."

Veld wanted to roll his eyes, but instead he just dipped his head before continuing. "First, the President apparently decided it was acceptable to give a member of our department over to Science. My predecessor appears to have condoned this, but didn't leave any indication of his reasoning. Second, it appears he's also allowing Science to conceal some of its facilities from us. One of which contains a potential world-ending disaster, and the only thing keeping it from getting loose is maybe a few Public Safety men, and whatever automated containment systems Science might have dreamed up. Except that we're fairly certain they don't know how dangerous the thing they're containing is—it's something they dug up, not something they made."

The expressions of every Turk in the room suddenly turned serious.

"So the President no longer trusts us," Katana said.

"I'm becoming increasingly uncertain that he ever did," Veld said grimly. "I should note for those of you who didn't meet him while he was in Midgar last year that Sniper ending up as a surprise guest of the late Doctor Hojo and his minions is old business—more than a decade old—and the only reason we ever found out about it was that Sniper survived and eventually got free to contact me. If there were others who died before they made it out, we may never know unless we stumble across the records."

"Shit," was Reno's eloquent contribution to the meeting at this point.

"The other interesting thing we've discovered is that President Shinra seems to have informally split the Science Department after Hojo's death," Veld continued. "Hollander doesn't know about all of the concealed facilities. At least one of them is under the charge of a man named Fuhito, whose file will be sent to all of you. I want him and that facility found before something goes horribly wrong."

"The President?" Rude asked.

"Is a dead man walking, I'd bet," Katana said.

"SOLDIER isn't going to like that," Gun said—they all knew that Public Safety wasn't worth mentioning, but SOLDIER was potentially dangerous.

"General Crescent knows everything and is in agreement with us about what needs to be done." Veld didn't need to add that Lazard was irrelevant—when all was said and done, the man's main jobs were scheduling, logistics, and keeping the Board from bothering the real SOLDIERs. "However, we need to deal with the laboratory situation first."

"It's that dangerous?" Gun asked.

"Think alien virus that has mind-control properties once it gets into your brain. Also mutagenic ones. Apparently Hojo didn't realize it was sapient and not very happy about being locked up in a lab, and it's just biding its time before it wipes the face of Gaia clean and uses the husk as a kind of makeshift spaceship to take it to its next destination. And yes, I know just how ridiculous that sounds. If everything else I'd heard from this contact about the situation hadn't panned out, I'd be looking to lock him up too."

"How contagious is it?" Tseng asked.

"Unknown, but it may be the same virus that wiped out the Ancients. And to make matters worse, the SOLDIER treatments make use of a strain of it—supposedly crippled, but . . ." Veld gestured expressively.

"So if this is all true, we may have to deal with mind-controlled hostile SOLDIERs," Rod summed up. "Great. Why did I get out of bed this morning, again?"

"'Cause your girlfriend threw you out," Shotgun said. "Knowing her, anyway."

Veld, however, was looking at the Turks who hadn't spoken yet. He hadn't been able to get everyone here on such short notice, so Two Guns, Nunchuk, and both Martial Arts would have to be briefed when they got back. Knife gestured that she had nothing to add when she noticed him watching.

That left Cyclops. She was the third most senior surviving Turk next to Vincent and Veld himself, and quite frankly, Veld didn't expect her to be there for much longer. Since they had lost her partner to a Wutainese spy the previous year, she had been taking more and more risks. Soon, he'd be carrying another little baggie of ashes to the roof of the Tower and scattering it on the wind. But right now, her expression was thoughtful, her good eye scrunched slightly as she frowned down at the table.

"There used to be some labs in the Slums," she said. "In the old Midgar General Hospital complex that they closed a few years ago—except that that was just the entrance for a big section they buried near the pilot reactor—and one underneath Sector Five that I ran security for back before they got the interim complex in the Tower up to snuff. Has anyone checked those?"

Now it was Veld's turn to frown. "Sector Five was Professor Gast's private lab. It was shut down when he left Shinra . . . but I suppose we should check it, just on general principles. The original access was through the surface streets, which would be noticed, but I suppose someone could have dug a tunnel from the Tower's subbasements. The complex attached to Midgar General . . . Deepground, they called it. Hojo kept some of his less-ethical experiments down there while the Tower was under construction, but it should have been shut down along with the reactor. I was with Myriad when he ordered the accesses walled up as a possible security risk." Except that Myriad wasn't trustworthy—he had betrayed Vincent. "We're going to have to take down one of those walls to get inside."

Reno looked rather cheered by the prospect of being able to blow something up, even if the "something" was only a wall. Fortunately, Veld was experienced at pretending that he didn't feel like he was about to get a headache.

The sharp pain in his eyes woke Cloud suddenly in the middle of the night. Tears were streaming down his cheeks as he stumbled into the bathroom at the end of the prefab building he shared with Sephiroth, Angeal, Zack, and Genesis. The pain was already fading, but he was terrified that when he opened his eyes to look, there would be something really wrong—he didn't let himself think the word blind. Instead, he groped his way to the sink and sluiced the tears off his face. Only then did he dare open his eyes.

The room seemed well-lit, even though he hadn't turned the light on, and SOLDIERs didn't bother with silly things like nightlights. But far from being blind, he could see quite clearly by the blue mako-light of his own eyes. Much more clearly than he should have been able to with only a Third's enhancements.

He had to grab the sink and push up, suspending himself with his feet off the floor, for a good look in the mirror. Nothing seemed to be different.

Then the lights came on, and Cloud yelped even though they were the half-level lights specially provided for SOLDIERs, because they were bright.

"Cloud? What are you doing in here in the dark?" Angeal asked, voice gentle.

"Wanted to wash my face." It wasn't really a lie, Cloud told himself as he glanced over his shoulder at Angeal, who inhaled a sharp breath.

"Cloud, your eyes—"

Cloud pushed up against the sink for another look in the mirror. His pupils were slit-shaped. Slits. Not dots, the way they would normally have closed up when more light arrived.

Slits like Sephiroth's.

"They're perfect," Cloud said. He'd wanted eyes like this ever since he had first met Sephiroth, and now he had them. Now he just needed wings.

"Cloud, you—" Angeal seemed to be having trouble finishing sentences. Maybe it was because he was still half-asleep.

Cloud tried to feel for him along the S-cell bond, but all he really got was that Genesis was dreaming about something that made him happy. Well, he'd just have to get Angeal to use his words, then. "Is something wrong?"

"You're turning into . . ." And again, Angeal just stopped talking.

"I look like my dad," Cloud said firmly. "That's normal, isn't it?"

"Seth is not your biological father, so no, it isn't. Especially not when the ways you look like him are because of what Shinra did to him, and not—" Angeal stopped talking again.

"And if I'm okay with that, why is it any of your business?" Cloud asked. "You're not my dad. Or my mom, either."

"I'm not certain your mother is a fit parent. You shouldn't be here in Wutai, Cloud."

If Cloud had still been feeling the least bit sleepy, that would have burned it away. "Take that back. Ma's been busting her ass for me ever since I was born. You can say anything you like about me, but not about her. I just fought someone over that, or did you forget?" Not that he had a chance of winning against Angeal. Not yet. Someday, though.

"I don't mean that she's a bad person, I meant that sometimes it seems as though she doesn't know what's best for you."

"And who does, you? If you had your way, I'd still be trapped in a shitty little mountain village where everyone hated my guts. Sephiroth was the one who had enough money to let us move away—to let us have any kind of life at all, really."

"You're not the only one to have grown up poor, Cloud."

Cloud glared at him. "There's poor, and then there's poor. When I was little, my Ma didn't have money to buy new shoes for me after the other kids stole one. Not even secondhand. I wore shoes that were two sizes too small for a month until she worked out a trade with the Clements. And I bet people never threw rocks at you, either. Nibelheim isn't Banora, and you had a dad, even if you were still a kid when he died. Don't even pretend you know what my life was like before I came to Wutai. If I die here, it at least won't be because some bully twice my size kicked me in the belly and ruptured my spleen or something. First time Sephiroth saw me, four bigger boys had me on the ground and were taking turns to kick. I was five."

"'Geal, what are you doing up? You've got a mission tomorrow." Genesis' hair was sticking up on end as he leaned around Angeal. Cloud pretended not to notice.

"I heard someone moving around in here, but it was just Cloud."

"Oh, hello, Cloud—I didn't see you there. Bad dream?"

"Something like that," Cloud said.

"His eyes—" Angeal began, but Genesis immediately interrupted.

"So I see, but is this really the time and place to discuss it? Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul . . . but only if it gets enough sleep! Come on."

Cloud was glad to see them go. He knew Zack loved Angeal the way he loved Sephiroth (except that Zack had a real dad too), and he knew that Angeal was kind and generous, but the man was also a . . . a busybody. Only sometimes, but enough to be annoying.

"North," Aerith said slowly. "Not that that's much help. Everything's north of here."

"Indeed it is," Ifalna said. She had chosen to have this conversation in the back garden, rather than the front garden or the side garden or the narrow strip of flower-decorated grass that ran along the property line between them and their neighbour. "Is it getting stronger?"

The girl nodded. "Every day. Not fast, but it's pretty steady. I think I've got two or three months before I won't be able to deal with it, if it stays like this."

Ifalna blew out a breath. She had been hoping that it wouldn't come to this, that the Planet would leave her daughter alone and not force a just-about-to-turn-fourteen-year-old girl out into the world. "You're going to have to start spending more time training with your materia, missy. Including the ones you don't like. I don't want you going out there defenseless."

"I wish you could come with me," the girl said, looking down at her feet.

"I know, but the Planet's choice is clear, and it doesn't want me. Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish can take you to Junon on their boat, so you won't be alone on the first leg, and I'll find someone to meet you there if I have to turn the entire world upside-down to do it. And you'll have gil, and a travel kit. Everything will be fine." But inwardly, Ifalna was snarling at a deaf god. She's just a little girl! How can you send her into this! I'm almost tempted to build a mako reactor myself!

The Planet made no reply. It never listened to threats. Ifalna wasn't sure it even knew what a threat was. And even if it did respond, chances were that all it would do was repeat the very same thing: For her, not you.

Ifalna hated it, but at the same time, she knew she had no choice. If the Planet had refused her, that meant that if she went along, everything would be ruined.

Still, she was going to do whatever she could to protect her daughter, even from a distance.

Chapter Text

Chapter 41 (Sephiroth's Narrative)

I had survived Hojo and the Lifestream and Cloud's blade, but waiting might yet be the death of me. Currently, I was waiting on the Turks' investigation of Fuhito and the labs, waiting on the war—since Godo had decided he wanted a ceasefire and a parley—and waiting on Godo himself while sitting in a tent in no man's land, although why he had specifically requested that I be present for this farce of a negotiation, I couldn't imagine. It would almost be a relief if it turned out to be an attempt to assassinate me.

Beside me, Rufus Shinra was playing a game on his PHS. He looked far too young to be the negotiator in charge of this for Shinra, which I suppose just showed how seriously the President wasn't taking the parley. Tseng loomed behind him with a forbidding expression on his face—he wasn't yet quite mature enough to have mastered the perfect blandness that I remembered from the first version of history.

"If he isn't here in ten minutes, General, go and find him," Rufus said suddenly, without looking up.

"If I restart the hostilities by approaching their encampment, you may not get out alive, sir." Although I didn't really much care.

"He's right, sir." Tseng could always be counted on to put the safety of his charge first.

Rufus frowned. "Who does that man think he is to leave me waiting?"

"He thinks he's the Emperor of Wutai," I pointed out dryly. "And he has a nation's worth of people propping up his self-image."

Tseng coughed quietly.

"And he thinks I'm a nouveau riche upstart, no doubt," Rufus said to his PHS.

"By his standards, you are," I said.

"Rather blunt, aren't you, General? I suppose it's because you're not afraid of me. In fact, I would guess you give exactly zero fucks about my opinion of you, am I right?"

I shrugged. "As you say."

"It isn't a common trait at Shinra, and most of the others who think that way are stupid. Or Turks. You're neither, which makes you very interesting."

All I could offer him was another shrug. I wasn't about to explain to him that he couldn't effectively hinder my immediate personal goals, and he wasn't likely to be of more help in achieving them than Veld was. In short, I didn't need or want a Rufus Shinra right now.

Since he didn't seem inclined to continue the conversation, I folded my hands in my lap and returned to waiting. It was another half an hour before the fly of the tent was pushed back and Emperor Godo entered.

In the original timeline, I had never met him until the treaty was signed at the end of the war. By then, Godo had been looking old and tired, having seen much of his country torn and burned and bleeding. This version of him already looked grim, his expression hard, and he kept his spine straight and his shoulders back to give the impression of size and danger. He and his two guards loomed over Rufus, who ignored them, attention still on his PHS game—a power play undoubtedly obvious to everyone involved. If Godo was going to force Rufus to wait, then Rufus was going to act as though Godo wasn't worthy of his attention.

One of Godo's guards made to slap Rufus' PHS out of his hands, but Tseng grabbed his wrist. Godo himself didn't move, and Rufus only moved his thumbs, continuing with his game.

Godo's eyes flickered to me, and I offered him a shrug. "Perhaps if you had been more respectful of his time, he would be more respectful of yours." It was the exact sort of thing you weren't supposed to say under these circumstances, but I didn't want to spend another half-hour listening to the tinny music from someone else's PHS speaker until Rufus decided he had made his point. The negotiation was a farce with a predetermined outcome, so why not hurry it along?

"Perhaps if my wife's cousins were more respectful of my time, I would be able to fulfill my obligations properly," Godo said. It was a face-saving assertion if I had ever heard one, but I inclined my head anyway.

Rufus kept fiddling with his PHS a moment longer before he put it away and gestured to the chair across from him. Godo seemed willing to take it as an invitation rather than an order, and sat down. His bodyguards remained standing, and the one who hadn't attempted to grab Rufus gave me an odd look, as though to ask why I had taken a chair. But I was here as . . . an invited guest, not a guard.

"You called for these negotiations," Rufus said. "I assume it's because you intend to surrender. Otherwise, we're wasting time."

"Is that the only way, then?" But Godo wasn't looking at Rufus. He was looking at me.

All I could offer him was a shrug. "You don't have the resources to throw Shinra off, and the President won't stop until he owns the world, because he has all the self-control of a toddler who's been told he can't have a certain toy. You can't win, only prolong the fighting and increase the destruction. I've been trying to move things along as quickly as I can and minimize collateral damage, but I don't control all of Shinra's forces."

Rufus' nonchalant mask had dropped away, and he didn't seem to quite know whether to be amused or horrified at my bluntness. Tseng was working very hard on being bland, and Godo's bodyguards were frankly staring.

Godo's expression was even grimmer than it had been when entering the tent. "I thank you for your honesty, General. So you advise us to surrender?"

I nodded. "I realize it will be costly—particularly in the damage to your nobles' pride—but it's better than having your country flattened, the forests burned, and the majority of people of fighting age killed or maimed." I remembered the first iteration of this war far too well to gloss over the consequences. "Shinra will poke around a bit, demand what amounts to a yearly tax payment, and then ignore you except for the occasional random flailing motion."

"And the reactor they've threatened us with?"

"Will most likely never be built—it would be too difficult to get the power from here to somewhere it would actually be wanted. Furthermore, I doubt anyone on Shinra's Board of Directors actually wants to build another reactor, since funds going into reactor construction and maintenance can't be siphoned into their own pockets."

Rufus was definitely amused now. "The truth is that my father is looking for something he calls the 'Promised Land'. When he realizes it isn't in Wutai—as I presume it isn't—he'll stop paying attention to you. The only reason he started this war was that you wouldn't let his pet scientists poke around Mount Da-whatzis."

"Mount Da-chao," I said. "And no, the 'Promised Land' isn't there."

Rufus' eyebrows rose. "Does that mean you know where it is?"

"It's nowhere," I said. "President Shinra is chasing after a mistranslated Cetra legend about the afterlife as though it represents a physical place he can exploit." Although I wasn't quite certain how I knew that. Something I had picked up in the Lifestream after I had tumbled into it in Nibelheim all those years ago, perhaps. What memories I permitted myself to retain of that time suggested I/Jenova had questioned a number of Cetra souls there, although of course She hadn't been interested in information that wasn't germane to Her purpose.

Rufus started to laugh. Godo's eyebrows rose as he stared at the Shinra heir . . . or perhaps at both of us. I doubted any of this had been what he had expected to get out of this negotiation.

"I am beginning to believe that you are all mad," the Emperor said.

"If the world is insane, how else are we supposed to deal with it?" Rufus quipped. "Now, I believe we both have quite a bit to think about. Perhaps we should reconvene tomorrow?"

"As you say." Godo gestured to his guards, and they departed, leaving Rufus and I alone with Tseng.

"If my father had been witness to that, he would be having an apoplectic fit about now," the Shinra heir observed. "What were you trying to accomplish?"

"A quicker and less damaging end to this ridiculous war," I said firmly. "I don't particularly care about Shinra's other objectives—even the ones that appear rational on the surface."

"Have you forgotten who you're talking to?" The tone was more curious than insulting.

"Not at all, Mr. Vice-President. I'm talking to the man who will be left holding the bag when the current President's 'Promised Land' project fails to pan out. He's been ignoring Midgar's problems because he's convinced himself that he can eventually leave it to rot while he and his cronies depart for the land of endless mako. You are the one who is going to be forced to devise solutions for the spread of the Wastes and the conditions below the Plate. Which are bad enough that they will eventually start sparking riots if nothing is done."

"And what would you do in my place, to address that?"

"Hypothetically? Get Palmer fired. Once he stops embezzling, find a way to funnel the money being saved toward Urban Development. They'll know where best to direct it. Push for research into solar, hydro, and wind power—if you attempt to sell it on the grounds of not everywhere being suitable for a reactor and long-distance transport of electricity being inefficient, you may be able to convince the President to buy in. Unfortunately, regreening the Wastes is going to require shutting down the mako reactors in Midgar, and that will be easier and less painful if there are alternatives already there to be phased in."

"Why, General, I never knew you were an ecoterrorist."

I gave the Shinra heir a flinty look. "It's common sense. The Wastes didn't appear without a cause. Said cause isn't related to climate or soil or other expected ecological variations—we have the records to prove that. Unless there's something else poisoning the area, the reactors are the only thing that could be causing this. Furthermore, Mount Nibel is also showing signs of ecological damage near the reactor there, although it's confined to a small area and doesn't seem to be spreading."

Rufus frowned. "I hadn't heard about that."

"You can investigate yourself if you like. There are standing copses of dead trees in the valley below the reactor. Cut one down and have the rings dated if you don't want to take the word of the local people for when they died." I hadn't bothered, because I hadn't thought there was any reason for the Nibelheimers to lie about it, and in any case, I hadn't cared all that much.

I was focused on getting rid of Jenova, both for my own sake and the world's. Since I was barely able to make forward progress on one world-saving project, I was certain that taking on another would doom me to accomplish neither. Shinra had to be either changed from within or disassembled carefully to make certain it didn't to more damage in its absence than it did by its presence. Perhaps Rufus would be the one to do that. He certainly had the means—the issue would be convincing him to use them.

"That seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble," Rufus was saying.

"Only if you consider being the wealthiest and most powerful man in a world of ashes and dust a desirable outcome." I did my best to channel Genesis to ensure what I said had an impact, simultaneously wondering why I was even having this conversation. It was certainly nothing I had planned for.

"My father might regard it as acceptable," Rufus admitted, still frowning. "I'll think about what you've said."

That, I suspected, was the best I was going to get.

"How is that little apprentice of yours, by the way?" Rufus asked. I'd forgotten that he'd met Cloud.

"Well enough." Infected with S-cells, but that didn't seem to be harming him. Quite the contrary: he was becoming stronger at a phenomenal rate. Enhancement seemed to suit Cloud. And if he wasn't disturbed by having eyes like mine, I wouldn't let myself feel bad about it either. "Although it can't be officially acknowledged, he's rapidly approaching the level of a SOLDIER Second Class." I only hoped that that was going to be good enough. If we found Jenova, and things started moving too fast, and Cloud wasn't ready . . . Don't think about it. As long as Jenova remained not-found, it was merely a hypothetical, in any case.

"Give him my regards, then." Rufus rose to his feet and stretched. "I hope your cooks manage to scare up something better for lunch than they produced for breakfast."

"No one joins the military because the food is good, Mr. Vice-President." Although the retirement of Mystery Mush had made it just a bit better.

Rufus wrinkled his nose. "There's 'not good', and then there's what the people in the mess tent claimed were poached eggs this morning. Well, no matter—my personal trainer has been encouraging me to go on a diet."

He didn't need one, as far as I could tell, so I assumed the remark was a rhetorical device. And indeed, he didn't wait for a reply, striding for the tent flap with Tseng trailing behind.

I stood up, repressing a sigh. The paperwork on my desk was the most unconquerable beast I had ever wrestled with—worse than Jenova, in its way—and it grew every moment I wasn't tending to it. Time to tackle it before it bred.

Outside, it was sunny, but the wind was carrying thin cirrus cloud across the sky at a good clip that created shifting shadows on the ground. The guns remained silent, but I could still smell gunpowder and blood along with the woodsmoke and rotting leaves more characteristic of autumn in Wutai.

We had done such damage here despite all my mitigation efforts. Could it ever be repaired?

I was nearly back at the prefab that housed my office when it felt as though the entire world shivered. Or perhaps it was only myself. I heard something cry out joyously and felt an incredible pressure on my brain which almost drove me to my knees.

«My son—»

"No," I said aloud. "Stay out of my head!"

The spike of pain that followed was expected. Not this time, I told both myself and Her. Not. This. Time. Last time, Jenova had fed on my intrusive thoughts of wanting to see Shinra burn, fueled by lack of sleep and Hojo's lies. I wasn't going to let that happen again. Wasn't going to let Her use me to harm the people that I cared about.

Right now . . . I forced myself to think past the pain and the pressure and Jenova's voice. Right now, even if I didn't succumb to Her, Genesis and Angeal and Cloud and possibly Zack and the other SOLDIERs were still at risk. I wanted to go find them—especially Cloud—but that felt too much like the Reunion instinct for my comfort. Better to go to the command center and see if anyone had anything to report, like a sudden outbreak of insane berserker tendencies among the general SOLDIER population.

I forced myself not to run. It wasn't very far, and if nothing had happened except a voice in my head, I didn't want to panic anyone.

"Sir!" A young lieutenant from the regular infantry looked up from where he was manning the comms post as I entered. So did Genesis, who was standing over by the map table.

"You heard it too, I take it," my old friend said. "I understand now why you weren't happy having us exposed—does that creature ever shut up?"

"Only when She gets what She wants, or when something distracts Her," I said. The lieutenant at the comms was looking back and forth between us, no doubt wondering what in hell we were talking about.

"Joy. Does that mean—" Genesis stopped in mid-sentence as Jenova went silent between one word and the next, and he and I looked at each other. There was a pause. Then, "I can't sense Angeal."

I felt around inside my head, and frowned. "East, and travelling rapidly. I can't get much more than that." I pulled out my PHS and tried to contact him, but the call didn't connect.

Suddenly I was having a very bad feeling.

Chapter Text

Chapter 42

Zack heard the echo in his head of someone yelling, but it wasn't very loud, so he tuned it out and pulled his attention back to his sparring match with Angeal . . . only to realize that his mentor had frozen in place, staring at nothing with his blade still in his hand.

"Angeal? Hey, are you alright?"

Silence. Zack considered for a moment, then waved his hand in front of his mentor's face. His left hand. He wasn't about to risk his sword hand, not when there was this sinking feeling in the pit of his atomach.

Angeal didn't react to that, either, and that left Zack at something of a loss. This wasn't a situation covered in SOLDIER regulations. Wait it out? Call medical? Call Sephiroth, maybe? Zack chewed on his lower lip for a bit before deciding he'd wait five minutes. Maybe Angeal was just really, really deep in thought or something, and it would be embarrassing if Zack called in the cavalry over that.

(He didn't believe that Angeal was okay. Not really. But he wanted it to be true pretty badly.)

He counted slowly. Five minutes was three hundred seconds—he might not be good at numbers, but he knew that much. He was at one hundred sixty-three when Angeal came alive again, although he still didn't seem to be seeing anything.

Angeal dropped the sword in his hand. Dropped it. And maybe it wasn't the Buster, just an ordinary SOLDIER broadsword, but Angeal was normally super-careful about looking after his weapons, and dropping one was way out of character. Zack swallowed. His mouth was dry.

" . . . Angeal?" It didn't come out very loud, but it didn't look like Angeal was listening anyway. Instead there was this awful meaty tearing noise, and a wing ripped through the back of the First's uniform. White, on his left side, with another smaller wing underneath it. Just like Sephiroth had said it would be if Angeal grew a Jenova-wing.

And then Angeal just jumped into the air with his back all sticky with blood while Zack was still trying to figure out why the wing didn't get hung up on the Buster and its harness. Even then, he might have been able to jump and grab Angeal by the ankle before he got out of reach. He would have tried it if he'd thought his weight would be enough to drag his mentor back down to the ground again, but he knew that probably wouldn't work.

His mentor was halfway to the horizon before he made himself look away and get his brain back online. Sephiroth, yes. Sephiroth needed to know. He'd know what to do.

Wouldn't he?

"What the fuck did you just do?"

Cissnei repressed a wince as Reno shouted at the top of his lungs from right beside her. Between that and the gunfire from before, she was going to need to cast some curative magic on herself later on to keep from going deaf.

"I purged the cylinder," the man in the labcoat said, calmly and politely. "Its contents are in the Lifestream now."

"Its contents," Cissnei repeated. "Jenova." Just to make absolutely certain she understood what was going on here.

"Jenova," agreed the man—Fuhito, although he had last rather a lot of weight since the most recent photograph the Turks had been able to find.

"And what will that do?" Cissnei forced herself to keep her voice level as well.

"Destroy you. Probably destroy everyone. I really don't care anymore." Fuhito sounded as though his irritation were merely on the level of someone who had been served a bad meal at a restaurant.

"So why'd you bother, yo?" Reno was tapping his electroshock rod against the seam of his trousers. Without activating it, of course—the redhead wasn't that stupid.

"Because humanity doesn't deserve to survive, and I'm not certain that a Lifestream so heavily tainted with human souls does either." Fuhito shrugged.

Cissnei made a series of small hand signals: suicide risk, capture alive. She still didn't understand why Veld had put her in charge of this mission, but she was going to do her best to complete it. Reno and Rude both acknowledged with tiny motions of their own that Fuhito hopefully hadn't spotted. Reno might still be green, but even he was too much of a professional to telegraph his moves openly.

"My understanding's that when a soul has been in the Lifestream for a while, it is cleansed of its former identity, both as an individual and as a species." Who had told her that—Tseng? Some horoscope on the back page of the less-than-respectable Midgar Tattler? Right now it provided a topic she could use as a distraction while Rude snuck up behind their quarry. No one who didn't know him expected the bald man to be able to move quietly, and Cissnei was hoping that Fuhito would make the same mistake as everyone else. She might have tried to drop the man with a Sleepel, but she didn't know if the scientist had something equipped that would counter it. We have one shot at this. If they made a move and failed to take Fuhito out, Cissnei had no doubt that the scientist would choose to escape them in the only way he now could.

Or at least, she thought that until a materia flashed to life under the scientist's labcoat. Cissnei threw herself forward to prevent the impending activation, expecting the lab to explode before she could do anything useful. She wondered if it would be a nice day when Veld took her ashes to the roof.

Then the scene shifted, and she was falling. Exit, she realized. There was a catwalk about to fly past, and Cissnei grabbed it instinctively, nearly wrenching her arms from their sockets. By the time she had pulled herself up onto its surface, Fuhito was gone.

She looked down and down, seeing a green glow at the bottom of the shaft she was inside. Mako, she realized. The Lifestream. Fuhito had sent himself after Jenova.

Cissnei didn't know what that meant, but she had a feeling it wasn't good.

Veld was on the verge of tearing his hair out (and it passed through his mind that it was a good thing that Claudia Strife wasn't the shallow sort who would break up with him if he went bald). Cissnei's verbal report, delivered as she sat on a hospital bed being treated for a wrenched shoulder, had joined together with the message Vincent had sent to his PHS and formed an incomplete-but-terrifying picture. (Gods, he wished he'd been able to send Tseng on the Deepground raid as originally intended, but Rufus had changed his mind about going to Wutai at the last minute . . .)

"You're looking for what appears to be a human being with one wing, flying eastward from the primary First Army encampment in Wutai," Veld repeated to the junior Turk who was searching the satellite images. "Yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds. Look anyway."

"Something to do with the Science Department, sir?"

Veld shrugged—it was good training for rookie Turks to make them figure out things like that by themselves. "Just tell me when you find him."

His PHS blatted for attention. Let this not be one of the executives . . . but the number was Tseng's. Which was not necessarily better news. Veld brought up the message, read it, and blinked, because he wasn't certain whether it was good or bad news.

We're on our way back with added passengers: Gen. Crescent, Col. Rhapsodos, Vincent Valentine, Crescent's protégé and Hewley's protégé. Rufus was bored, and Crescent was unexpectedly persuasive. He has us tracking Hewley, who is still on the straight route to Midgar. I wish you had mentioned that Crescent had made our deep-cover agent.

Veld grimaced, because, now that he thought about it, he had been keeping rather a lot from Tseng. Just as Myriad had seemingly once kept rather a lot from him. He'd thought he had good reason, but maybe Myriad had thought that too.

"Found him, sir!" the junior Turk said suddenly. "Although I'm still not sure I believe it."

Veld wasn't certain he believed it, not when all the information he had on this was secondhand at best. He did trust Vincent, but although he couldn't remember anyone ever successfully selling his partner a bill of goods, that didn't mean the man was infallible.

"Keep an eye on him," was all he said. "I want an ETA, assuming he continues on this course at the same speed. Also see whether you can find a helicopter following on behind."

"His speed's kind of variable, but it looks like about three hours."

Three hours. It was enough time to work himself into a lather, but not enough to do anything useful. Damn it all.

"Sir." When had Rude even entered the room? "Sweep of Deepground complete. There are . . . some experimental subjects that need to be dealt with."

Something he couldn't just have shot, apparently. "Explain."

"They're kids, yo," Reno said, emerging from behind his partner. "Couple of dozen of 'em. Oldest is about twelve. Youngest are still shitting diapers. And there's a couple of knocked-up women, too."

Children. Children and infants and fetuses. Veld was feeling more and more out of his league—he could barely handle his own daughter. "Where are they now?"

"Old school in the Slums—the one we use for live fire drills sometimes." Rude didn't add that there was no way they could have brought them up to the Tower. The Board were going to find out about this sooner or later, but Veld would prefer it to be later if he had the option.

"Leave them there for now. Tomorrow we'll have to find an orphanage or something, I suppose."

"Might not be such a good idea, boss. They're enhanced, and the oldest girl's halfway to crazy."

Bahamut and Bismarck! "Leave them at the school for now anyway. We'll figure something out in a day or two. Make sure they have food, water, clothes, blankets . . . you get the idea. Put some infantry grunts on it."

"Understood," Rude offered, and hopefully that would at least buy them a little time. Two dozen foster homes for traumatized enhanced children. They'd be better off finding some SOLDIERs among those crippled in the war who might be willing to become orphanage staff. He'd have to talk to Lazard. And Sephiroth, who was the most like these kids of anyone available. He might have some idea of what the Deepgrounders needed.

Enhanced kids. Plural, not just one experimental subject volunteered by his legal guardian. That went beyond just sharp business dealings. Shinra really had gone off the deep end at some point when Veld hadn't been watching. The company, and the old man. Perhaps Rufus would be better, although the mixture of anger and arrogance in the younger man made it difficult to tell.

Kill President Shinra. It was becoming clear that they might already have waited too long.

She hated Junon, hated the way the very air felt sick, hated the Planet whimpering about the dying ocean. But at the same time, she knew that this was the way she needed to go. More or less. The pull had been shifting as she travelled, and she was fairly certain now that it was coming from Midgar.

With her staff in one hand and her suitcase in the other, Aerith Faremis made her way from the docks to the train station. She remembered the train, a little, although she'd been quite small and had slept through most of the trip, safely ensconced between her mother and the wall, with the man named Sephiroth forbiddingly guarding them from the other passengers.

She hadn't called him yet. She was . . . a little afraid, to be honest. She was ashamed of that: the man might not have known how to be kind, exactly, but he hadn't been hurtful, either. It was just the Planet that didn't like him, for whatever Planet-y reasons it might have had. She'd tried to ask it before she'd left Mideel, but she hadn't been able to make it understand what she was asking about. Although it was hardly the first time that had happened. The Planet didn't think like a person.

She could feel someone staring at her, but with a heroic effort, she ignored it. There had been a couple of those on the ship, too: creepers who liked to stare at teenaged girls. She'd had to use her Fire materia on one of them to get him to keep his hands off her. Fortunately he hadn't tried to report it to the captain, because she didn't know what she would have said. Anyway, nothing would happen here on this well-populated major street, which she was not going to leave until she got to the station. Then a few hours aboard a train, and she would be in Midgar. And then . . . well . . . the Planet had, as Ifalna had said, bloody better well guide her after it had made such a nuisance of itself.

Genesis' fingers tapped against his knee. He couldn't seem to stop them.

My friend, do you fly away now? To a world that abhors you and I? Until recently, the idea of those words being literal hadn't even occurred to him. What have you done, Angeal? Flying off into the sky on, for all intents and purposes, one wing. Leaving the Puppy behind in the process, and not explaining a damned thing to anyone.

Genesis could feel his oldest friend out there somewhere ahead of them, but he couldn't detect so much as a hint of the man's emotions. Angeal seemed focused on something far away. Or perhaps Genesis was merely having difficulty reaching past the Puppy's contained terror and Sephiroth's worry (there was no pretending now that the man didn't care!). Even Cloud was worried, although Genesis wasn't sure the boy was worried about the same thing as the rest of them.

He wished he could have cuddled up against someone, as Zack was doing with Cloud and Cloud was doing with his mentor-slash-foster-father, but it would have been undignified. So instead, he sat, staring slightly to the left of the leather-clad hand resting on Cloud's shoulder, and pretending to be relaxed when he couldn't even bring himself to pull out Loveless.

Vincent was lucky that he was up front with Tseng. Right now, Genesis regretted never having learned to fly a helicopter. Not that he thought it would be all that entertaining, but at least it would have been something to do.

"Gil for your thoughts?" The voice came from behind him. He'd half-forgotten there was anyone sitting there. Not a good idea, when one considered who the speaker was.

"Surely the heir to the largest fortune in the world can afford to pay me more than a gil for them," Genesis retorted to Rufus Shinra.

"But would it be a good investment? First lesson of business: don't throw money away on frivolities."

"Second lesson of business: making your employees happy is not frivolity."

Rufus just laughed. "No, that's down around sixteen somewhere, and formulated differently. There are a large number of things that take precedence over employee happiness. However, my interest in this case is in one employee in particular: General Crescent. What do you think of him?"

"Really? You expect me to drop interesting tidbits when he can hear every word we're saying?"

"He said some extraordinary things to me this morning. Do you believe they're true?"

Genesis decided to tell the truth. "He has a habit of being right about the most bizarre things." Like the degradation. Like the colour of Angeal's wing. "Yes, whatever he said to you, I would believe it."

"Hmmm." Rustling as Rufus sat back, and why had the Shinra heir bothered bringing such a large helicopter anyway?

Genesis had to admit that he was concentrating on trivialities so that he wouldn't need to really think. Really thinking meant contemplating Angeal and . . .

No. He wouldn't even think that name. Not while there was still some hope they might avoid it.

Chapter Text

Chapter 43 (Sephiroth's narrative)

The helicopter landed on the roof of Shinra Tower in the middle of a firey red sunset. Angeal wasn't there—he'd ducked under the Plate and we had lost him when Tseng had refused to pursue. I didn't altogether blame him: this was one of the larger helicopters, and we had Rufus Shinra as an additional passenger. And there would be no difficulty in finding Angeal later, with the pull of his cells directing me.

Having the minds of four others pressing lightly against mine as that of the older Cloud had in the original history wasn't painful, but it woke uncomfortable memories that I had done a lot of work to repress. I hated the memory of those years, of what Jenova had made of me, although I had been forcing myself, these past few weeks, to remember some things I had picked up there that weren't of her, like materialess casting. But the ability to bend another's mind to my will . . . the very idea filled me with revulsion. There had been so many years when I had owned nothing but my thoughts, and forcing mine on someone else . . . I could have tried to push into Angeal's mind when he first flew off. Could have. But not without destroying myself.

There were Turks waiting for us on the roof. Veld, and a girl, very young, that I remembered as having been friends with Zack in the original history.

Veld approached us as soon as everyone was out of the helicopter, but Rufus waved him away. "I have some thinking to do. I'll be going straight to my apartment and staying there—no need for a guard."

"Of course, Mr. Vice President. Have a pleasant evening."

"Hmm," was all Rufus said as he turned toward the elevator.

"I wasn't expecting all of you back," Veld said, inspecting our group, "but it's possibly just as well. This is getting too complicated for me to feel comfortable using someone else—even a trustworthy someone else—as an information conduit."

Vincent began to move toward the elevator. "What have the complications been, from your end?"

There was a hint of a grimace on Veld's face. "We raided Deepground this morning." He nodded towad the young female Turk.

"We cornered Fuhito in his laboratory," she reported. "He dumped the Jenova specimen into the Lifestream, then used an Exit materia to follow."

I spat an elaborate and poetic Wutainese curse.

"I take it we have a problem there," Veld said mildly.

"I'm not certain of the extent or potential consequences, but yes. I don't know Jenova's full abilities, but She believed She could corrupt and destroy the Lifestream. Which would mean the end of all life on Gaia."

"You seem very certain of that," Veld said. Testing.

"She believed it," I repeated. "As did the Cetra spirits I encountered in the Lifestream myself. I do not, incidentally, recommend going for a swim of your own just in order to verify that. Not if you want to come out sane."

The Turk girl—Cissnei, that was the name—was staring at me openly now. As was Tseng.

"The first order of business is to track down and deal with Angeal," I added, and something exploded inside my head—terror, anger. The terror was Zack's. The anger . . . Genesis. Of course. "I don't mean we need to hunt him down and kill him. I won't lose another friend that way. But it seems that Jenova has Her claws in him. We need to pry him loose before She can come up with a way to use him. Some of the things She's capable of . . . he would never forgive himself if he were involved."

Perhaps I should have been angry too—angry at Angeal, for being weak. Perhaps I would have been, if I hadn't remembered all too well how it had felt when Jenova had wormed Her way into my mind, preying on my pain, my confusion, my loneliness, my despair. Angeal shouldn't have been lonely, but any of the others might have applied, along with simple fear.

"What do we need to do?" That was Cloud, who, being less involved with Angeal than the rest of us, was best able to focus.

"We need to start by finding him." That was obvious. "He's almost directly below us," I added.

Zack shook his head. "I still don't know how you can tell which one is him."

Cloud put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "You'll get it eventually. It took me a few days."

Veld gave Vincent what seemed to me to be a pleading look. Presumably the Turk's reports hadn't contained quite the level of detail that would have been required for his superior to make sense of what we were saying.

"We'll answer your questions later," I said. "Right now, we need transport down to the Slums. And a Turk escort, if possible." I hated to admit it, but the blue suits were allowed into areas where SOLDIERs weren't. Having one with us—one who, unlike Vincent, was in the proper uniform—would expedite matters if we had to enter the restricted areas near the central pillar.

Veld nodded. "I'll sent Reno and Rude with you. They can pick something up from the motor pool."

"That would be acceptable." Reno notwithstanding. How old was the redhead right now?

A little older than Zack, it turned out. Old enough to have reached his adult height, but he was gawky, all elbows and knees. When he grinned at us, he showed a chipped front tooth that must have been repaired later on. "So, we're off to the Slums?"

"For now," I said.

"Kid and all?"

Cloud reached back over his shoulder to grasp the hilt of his sword. "You just try to stop me from coming." And possibly I should have, but the thought of forcing him to stay behind sat ill with me.

"He's a skilled fighter despite his size," Vincent said.

"Oookay. Well, it's your funeral, yo. And maybe his."

We piled into a standard issue infantry personnel transport—the Turks seemed to have one of everything in their garage—and began the long spiral down to the Slums. Rude was driving, Reno was in the passenger seat, and I was rubbing Cloud's back in a slow circular motion, because although enhancement had helped enough with his motion sickness that he no longer vomited, he still tended to feel nauseous in surface vehicles. And I, fool that I had become, cared about his comfort. Across from us, Genesis stared at nothing, Vincent remained inscrutable, and Zack . . . bounced, as though trying to do squats while seated.

There was a bump, and our vehicle leveled out. The stench of the Slums had already been with us for some time.

"Where to now?" Reno asked, and I consulted my inner sense of Angeal.

"Left."

"Hate to break it to ya, Gen'ral, but there ain't much 'left' available that we can take a truck through."

"Then we get out and walk."

"Joy," Genesis muttered, but didn't actually object. "Left and on a level with us?"

"Left and down," I corrected.

"So we're lookin' for a basem—oh, shit. Rude, how near are we to old Midgar General?" Reno did not look happy. He looked even less happy when Rude pointed at the high brick wall to our left. "He went to Deepground. How'd he even know where to find Deepground?"

"His guide wouldn't much have cared what the place was called," I said. "It would just have drawn him there. Most likely in a straight line. Keep an eye out for holes in walls and floors that might admit a man of Angeal's size." Jenova had never had much respect for physicality that I could recall. I wasn't certain whether she would have been able to get Angeal to walk through walls. I knew there was a way to do that, but I didn't dare touch the memories.

"If I'd known we were gonna be coming back here just a few hours later, I wouldn't have bothered going topside," Reno muttered. Rude shrugged, and led the way along the wall to an opening that had once housed a gate. On the other side was a small yard and a loading dock. The personnel-sized door beside it had been broken open at some point in the past, allowing us to walk right into the building it served.

Inside, the building showed clear signs of abandonment, but it wasn't in as bad a shape as I might have expected. Although the walls bore misspelled slogans and crudely spraypainted pictures of genitalia, the floors were dirty but sound, and enough signs and other oddments remained to indicate that this had once been a hospital.

Rude seemed to know where he was going, and I followed him without questioning that, even though he seemed to be taking us nearly around in a circle. We'd turned right twice before he led us through a door with a plaque beside it that read Clinical Research. Then around an overturned desk and through a fire door that had been opened at some point in the recent past and imprinted an arc in the dust on the floor.

Beyond the fire door was a narrow stairwell, heading down. We proceeded single-file, still following Rude.

At the bottom, we found another fire door, its keycard lock torn open as though it had been hacked, and a hallway with a tile floor and white walls and greenish emergency lighting.

"Shouldn't be anyone down here but us, yo—we cleared it out earlier today," Reno said quietly. "So, where from here?"

"Left," I said dryly. At least I could sense we were on the correct level now. Just a little further . . .

We clattered along the empty halls for five minutes or so, the pull shifting slowly until I could sense that Angeal was just beyond an unopened door. I promptly cut said door out of the way with Masamune and stepped through.

I don't know what I had been expecting, but a catwalk high above what looked like a reactor's main mako bore was not it. Angeal was . . . to my left. Of course. Kneeling on a platform with his wing trailing unheeded down over the edge and his head bowed.

"'Geal!" Zack took off running. I had a split second in which to decide whether to stop him or not. In the end, I let him go. Angeal was more likely to react positively to Zack or Genesis than myself, and Zack was a SOLDIER. He might not be able to win a fight against Angeal, but even if things went horribly wrong he should be able to dodge a blow or two and buy the rest of us time to get there. "'Geal, are you okay?" Zack reached his mentor's shoulder, looked over it and down . . . and staggered back a step, eyes wide. "Ugh, what's with that?"

Angeal didn't respond, even when Zack very cautiously put a hand on his shoulder.

"What does he have?" Genesis asked.

"It looks like someone's ear, 'cept that it's this blue-grey colour," Zack replied.

"Jenova. Don't touch it, and back away from him," I ordered. Such a small concentration of cells couldn't make too much trouble . . . or could it? Those, too, were memories I dared not examine for the sake of my sanity.

It took only a moment for us to reach them, and Angeal still hadn't moved. No, that wasn't true. His eyes were moving, darting back and forth. His breathing was quick and shallow, his heart rate erratic. And . . . tentatively, I reached along the S-cell bond, instead of just tracking it. Just the lightest brush, but fear and confusion and a sense of being trapped hit me like a freight train.

"Angeal," I said. No response. I tried again, this time pushing at his mind as I had sometimes done with the adult Cloud. "Angeal. Don't listen to her."

Angeal gasped and his head began to slowly turn.

The ear erupted.

I grabbed Zack by the shoulder and pushed him behind me before attempting to assess the rest of the situation. What had once been an ear had hit Angeal in the face, causing him to half-turn as the cell-slime spread across his skin like a blue-grey half-mask. He staggered to his feet like an ill-handled puppet and reached back over his shoulder for the Buster Sword. And although his expression was blank, I could still feel that confused terror beating against the bars of my mind.

I unsheathed Masamune, only to have Zack grab onto my arm with both hands.

"You can't! That's Angeal!"

"We have to neutralize him as a threat before we can work on getting Jenova out of him," I said grimly. "I doubt we're going to be able to just talk him down."

"You haven't even tried," Zack said.

"There is a limit to the risks we can take." Vincent's tone was clipped. "If we're taken out here, there will be no one at all to fight Jenova."

I caught Genesis' eye and raised a brow, getting a slight nod in return. I hadn't dared be any more explicit about the message I wanted to send, because there was no way of encoding it that Angeal didn't already know about. Hopefully I had gotten what I needed to across.

When Angeal (or was it Jenova?) swung the Buster down, I turned it aside with Masamune, needing some force to keep the weapons from cleaving into the platform we were standing on—I knew from experience that a direct hit to such a surface would crumple it like cheap foil. I did the same with the second blow. And the third. If this continued for too long, I knew, my arms would start to ache. Angeal's strength was equal to mine—what he lacked was speed, not force. Damn you, Genesis, hurry it up!

«Have you ever tried to cast an amplified Sleepel surreptitiously? You'll need to hold him for at least another thirty seconds!» The voice in my head was definitely not my own, and I almost fumbled Masamune in surprise. I had been able to push my words to older-Cloud, of course, but he had never been able to send any back to me.

Perhaps the bond created by the S-cells meant more than I had thought . . . but this wasn't the time to study it. I forced my attention back to what Angeal was doing just in time to deflect another sword strike. This time I was able to lock our blades, twisting Masamune to keep the Buster from escaping as we strained against each other. It was a struggle I would normally have been able to keep going for far more than Genesis' thirty seconds. However, the Buster Sword was possibly the least dangerous thing about Angeal at the moment. When the blue-grey mass covering his face like an obscene birthmark started to reach in my direction, I was forced to disengage our swords and even kick my friend in the chest to give us some distance.

No matter what I had to do, I was not going to succumb to Jenova again. I wouldn't even let that thing touch me if I could help it. There were few things that I could remember ever having genuinely feared, but She was one of them.

At least Masamune's reach was long. I could keep Her at sword's length for a little while. I readied myself for the next clash . . . and almost staggered as Genesis' Sleepel spell hit. Even though it wasn't aimed at me, it produced a substantial dizzying backwash, and behind me I heard the distinctive crystalline cracking noise of a materia breaking. Genesis had to have gotten the spell off at the exact moment of overload. That took immense skill.

Angeal staggered, and the Buster fell from his hand as he collapsed to his knees, then slowly crumpled face-down on the platform.

"Okay, so, now, how do we get it off him?" Zack asked aloud.

"I don't know," I was forced to admit. "We need a Cetra." Or the help of the Science Department, but I didn't want to resort to that, either.

"Well, that explains why the Planet wanted me here," said an unexpected voice.

Chapter Text

Chapter 44

Aerith had followed the Planet's voice through the Midgar Slums, into areas she would never have entered by choice, dark and filthy and full of shifty-looking people and empty of anything green. Move like you know where you're going, and don't make eye contact, she reminded herself. It had worked in the labs when she was very little. Had sometimes worked. But it didn't have to work here for long. I'm going to do whatever it is that the Planet wants so badly, and then get out.

The Planet hadn't quite seemed to know where to direct her once she'd entered the abandoned hospital, so she followed the footprints in the dust instead, and then the noises, even though the sound of swords clashing made her cringe. The mako smell was bad too, somehow more acrid than what wafted out of the occasional upwellings near Mideel. It stung her nose when she breathed, and made her eyes water. So she wasn't entirely surprised when she stepped through a door and found herself on a narrow catwalk suspended above glowing green, with a bunch of people blocking her way forward and a sword fight taking place on a nearby platform.

She didn't recognize the broad-shouldered man with the black hair—or wait, she did, he was one of the ones she'd met outside her house that time, and the man who had been with him was part of the group blocking the catwalk, but she'd forgotten their names. His opponent, though . . . him, she knew. Sephiroth. Unchanged since her last memory of him in Mideel, dancing a deadly dance with his blade. She had never seen him fight before, and it was both terrible and beautiful. Although . . . well, she didn't know much about sword fighting, but it looked to her like he was stalling for time.

Then the spell went off—a Sleepel, but more powerful than any Sleepel should rightfully have been—and the broad-shouldered man crashed down on the platform.

"Okay, so now how do we get it off him?" She hadn't really noticed before that there was a boy there who had to be close to her own age, and another one beside him who had to be even younger. They both wore swords and SOLDIER uniforms, though.

"I don't know." Sephiroth sounded frustrated. "We need a Cetra."

And that, obviously, was her cue. She saw finely-drawn silver eyebrows jump as she spoke up, and realized that Sephiroth was actually quite handsome. Somehow she'd never made that connection when sifting through her memories, coloured as they were by the Planet's commentary.

"I'm not exactly sure what I can do, though," Aerith admitted. "The Planet wanted me to come here, but it's terrible at explanations."

"Jenova," Sephiroth said, and the Planet screamed.

Aerith put her hands over her ears. "Ugh. Stop that . . ."

A warm hand on her shoulder. Concerned blue eyes. It was the boy she had thought was about her age, who had dark hair that spiked messily around his head and down his back. He was saying something—Are you okay? she half guessed as the Planet finally began to quiet again.

Aerith forced a smile. "I'm fine. I just wish it wouldn't do that."

"My apologies, Miss Faremis," Sephiroth said. He wasn't looking at her, though—he was watching the man face down on the platform. "I perhaps should not have mentioned that name. However, the Planet's reaction should be sufficient to indicate the magnitude and urgency of what we are dealing with here. Some Cetra had a Limit Break capable of eradicating small quantities of Her cells, and I can only assume the Planet sent you here because you are one of them."

"Oh," Aerith breathed. Because it suddenly made sense why it had to be her, and not her mother. Ifalna didn't have that kind of ability. "I don't know how to trigger a Limit Break, though. Doesn't it usually happen while you're fighting?"

"The primary trigger is adrenaline," Sephiroth said. "An injection can induce one artificially."

"So where're we gonna get adrenaline?" a red-haired man in a suit asked.

"At a pharmacy. It's used in the emergency treatment of heart attacks and severe allergic reactions, among other things. As a medication, it's usually called epinephrine."

"Gotcha. Be back in ten, yo." The lanky redhead eeled his way past the other men and jogged off toward the stairs.

Aerith leaned against a railing and tried not to think, because she had a feeling this wasn't going to be much fun.

"So . . ." the black-haired boy said, flashing her a bright smile, "what's your name? I'm Zack, and this is Cloud." He gestured at the smaller blond boy, who gave her a firm nod, but didn't say anything.

"Aerith," she replied.

"Aerith," Zack repeated. "I like that. It suits you."

He was still smiling. She did her best to smile back.

"So what's Mideel like? I've never been there, although from what I hear it's a bit like home—Gongaga," Zack half-explained while rubbing the back of his neck. Of course he knew her story. Sephiroth had probably told him—told them all.

"I've never been to Gongaga," Aerith admitted, "but yes, I hear they're a bit alike, warm and surrounded by jungle. I don't think Gongaga has hot springs, though."

"Nope—our water's cold. Well, cool, anyway." Zack started to babble about Gongaga, not seeming to care that Aerith was taking in maybe one word in three. At least it gave her something to think about that had nothing to do with what the Planet wanted from her. Maybe that was even the reason for Zack's steady stream of nonsense. "Now Cloud here, he's from Nibelheim, and I just don't know how they survive up there in the mountains when winter comes around—all that snow, brrr."

"It isn't like we can just hibernate all winter," Cloud said. "And I hate to think what's going to happen if you ever get sent up to Icicle Inn to hunt malboros. They'll end up sending you back as an ice statue in a freezer case: Thaw only at destination."

The look Zack gave Cloud reminded Aerith of the new puppy one of her classmates had gotten a few months ago. "Spiky, are you saying you'd leave me frozen while they shipped me back? That's cold."

"I guess I could ask Genesis to thaw you out." Cloud's mouth wasn't smiling, but Aerith was pretty sure his eyes were. Zack seemed to think so too, as he looked at the auburn-haired man in the bright red coat with exaggerated terror before dissolving into a fit of giggles. Never mind that everyone said boys weren't supposed to giggle—this one definitely was.

Aerith decided that she liked Zack and Cloud. Much more than she liked the boys she knew in Mideel. Zack and Cloud both seemed more mature, somehow, even if they were being goofs.

She was less sure about the four grown men: Sephiroth, and Genesis, and the bald man in the blue suit with the sunglasses, and the one who was mostly visible as glowing red eyes in a pool of shadow. The Planet didn't seem as concerned about the others as it was about Sephiroth (who had been nothing but polite), and it actually seemed to like the red-eyed man. Still, they were kind of scary, big and strong where she . . . wasn't. And while she might be good with materia, for all she knew they might be better.

"Zack, Cloud," Sephiroth said suddenly. "If anything should go wrong, you are to protect Miss Faremis at all costs, do you understand? She is not replaceable."

"Got it! So, I guess we're your bodyguards now," Zack said, flashing her another smile.

She wasn't sure how she felt about needing a bodyguard. Also . . .

"Does he always 'Miss' and 'Mister' everyone?" Aerith asked.

"He's . . . formal," Cloud said. "If it bothers you, you can ask him to call you by your name."

"It just feels a little weird," Aerith said.

Cloud tilted his head. "I think Reno's coming back. The Turk with the red hair that went to find a drugstore," he added when Aerith gave him a puzzled look. "I guess we never really did introduce everyone properly. The guy in the red coat is Colonel Genesis Rhapsodos, the bald guy is Rude, and the one lurking in the shadows is Vincent Valentine. General Crescent . . . well, there's no way you don't know him. Just like everyone else on the Planet." Was that a sort of half-warning not to call the silver-haired man Sephiroth? Aerith wasn't quite sure, but maybe she would stick with titles too, for now.

"He is in the news a lot," seemed like an uncomplicated thing to say, and she was saved from having to come up with anything else when Reno clattered in with a paper bag in his hand.

"Had to threaten the stupid-ass behind the counter at gunpoint to get him to give me this, and I sure hope someone here knows how to give shots, 'cause I don't."

"I can manage," Sephiroth said, stepping forward to take the paper bag. "Did you think to get a syringe?"

"Asshole insisted," Reno said. "It's all in there."

"As though you don't have any on you," Genesis said to the silver-haired man.

"I would prefer not to use SOLDIER-grade ones on an unenhanced person," Sephiroth said.

Aerith licked her lips. "What do I need to do?" she asked.

"Genesis, please keep an eye on Angeal. Drop him again if necessary." Then Sephiroth beckoned her over. Aerith slipped past the men on the catwalk, brushing against Rude's suit jacket and Genesis' coat even though they shifted to make room for her. She went over to stand near where Sephiroth was laying out the contents of Reno's paper bag on some kind of console bolted to the platform: a small bottle, a needle, and a couple of wipes in little foil packages. "May I see the inside of your elbow, please, Miss Faremis?"

Aerith flipped her left arm over and held it out. Sephiroth ran a gloved finger over the thin skin on the inside of the joint.

"Good enough. Clean that area, if you would." He passed her one of the wipes, then broke the seal on the package holding the needle. He filled the syringe from the bottle—about a third of the way full, and keeping an eye on the amount, Aerith was relieved to see. She'd been a little afraid that he would just randomly stick her with as much as he could cram in, but he seemed to actually know what he was doing.

She cleaned the inside of her elbow with the alcohol wipe and held out her arm again.

"Your heart rate will speed up when this takes effect," Sephiroth said. "You will also feel shaky and anxious. If this is going to work, you are going to need to concentrate on that anxious feeling, I'm afraid."

"I understand." Although it really didn't sound like a lot of fun. The sharp pinching pain of the needle, on the other hand, was trivial. Sephiroth supported her elbow with his right hand while smoothly squeezing out the contents of the syringe with his left. He even Cured her when he pulled the needle out, leaving no mark behind. You actually are a nice person, aren't you?

The Planet was whispering about Calamities in her head again. Shut up, she told it.

She could feel her heartbeat beginning to speed up, and she took a deep breath and went over to stand by the unconscious man, spreading her legs slightly as she settled into a balanced stance. She wanted to hold her staff, to give herself something to fidget with, but some instinct told her that if she did this while holding a weapon, it might come out wrong.

Steady, deep breaths. Concentrate on the anxious feeling. She could feel something building up inside her, pushing at her to move, but she held it in until she had a sense of how. Spin around, and arms like this, tilt her head back to look at where the sky would be, far above the ceiling of the reactor, and . . .

The rain, soft and warm and smelling faintly of green and growing things, came out of nowhere without a cloud to weep it and sprinkled gently down on the platform and the unconscious man. The first drops that struck him left grey sores behind, but further ones washed that away. Sephiroth crouched down and rolled the other over on his back, and the mask covering much of his face began to dissolve too, washed away by the water. It was gone by the time her body found an end to the movements and the rain died down.

Zack grabbed her hands and spun her around, and if his smile had been bright before, it was blinding now. "You did it!"

Aerith forced a smile of her own, although she still felt shaky, heart beating too fast. "I guess I did."

An Esuna washed over her, and the adrenaline lost its grip, leaving her feeling wrung-out. She leaned into Zack a bit, and he bore up, supporting her.

"Are you okay?" Cloud wasn't asking her the question, he was asking . . . Sephiroth?

"So it seems. My cells are still present in Angeal as well, although I think the pure Jenova strain is gone. Perhaps I am more human than I thought."

And the Planet had subsided into occasional mumbled complaints. Maybe it wasn't Sephiroth it hated, or at least not exactly.

The silver-haired man leaned down and slapped the unconscious one across the face—not hard, but the way you would if you were trying to revive someone who had fainted. The black-haired man stirred and winced.

"Ugh . . . Seth? What happened? Where are we?"

"Midgar, inside the main bore of an abandoned reactor below Sector Zero."

The black-haired man half sat up, holding his head. "How did we get here? The last thing I remember is Wutai . . ."

"You had some kind of fit near the end of my sword lesson, sprouted a wing and took off," Zack said. "We followed you here."

"A wing . . ." The white wing sprouting from the man's shoulder twitched as he spoke the word. "Ouch. I guess it tore its way out. That would explain why the back of my shirt feels like it could stand up on its own."

"It might," Sephiroth agreed.

"Did I . . . hurt anyone?"

"No—fortunately Zack had the sense not to try to stop you." Sephiroth paused, then added, "Angeal, I need to know why. What were you doing, what were you thinking, right before this happened?"

Angeal frowned. "I was . . ." And then he went silent.

How can I possibly tell him?

There were many more eyes on Angeal than he had realized were present when he had just woken up. Turks, an unfamiliar girl . . . and they were all looking at him, waiting for an answer.

His state of mind, and the reasons for it, were important, he realized sickly. He was going to have to tell them.

"I had been hearing a voice for a while at that point," he said, and the words tasted bitter. "I tried not to listen to it at first, but it . . . supported me. What I was thinking. My suspicions."

"Suspicions of what?" That was Vincent's voice, low and rough and seldom heard.

"That someone—probably the Turks—had tampered with Seth's memory and sold us all a bill of goods."

The red-headed Turk barked a laugh. "Nah, we can't make people remember things that didn't happen. Sure wish we could, yo—it'd make our job one hell of a lot easier. Just what've you been telling these guys, Gen'ral?"

"The truth," Seth ground out. "In all its . . . unpleasantness."

"Then you probably know more than I do at this point, SOLDIER-boys. Even if it's damned embarrassing for me to admit, yo." The Turk shrugged.

"Veld is in on it only because I told him a few weeks ago." Vincent again. "Prior to that, he didn't have enough information to connect the dots on his own."

Angeal felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as he realized he believed them. As the redhead had said, it was downright embarrassing for a Turk to admit ignorance that way.

"You heard a voice," Seth said, pushing them all back toward the original topic. "A woman's voice?"

"Yes," Angeal admitted, wincing. "It provided what seemed like plausible alternate explanations for the few proofs of your story that you'd offered us. I . . . don't think I was thinking quite straight." True enough. He hadn't even noticed how . . . fogged he had been feeling until he had woken with his mind clear.

"She is very good at that," Seth said, with a frown. "She clouds the mind and attacks one's weaknesses. I believe I warned you of that."

"You did." But I wasn't taking you seriously at the time, Angeal admitted, still feeling sick. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

"No. It isn't. And regardless, we stopped you before you could do any real damage." Seth shook his head. "Perhaps the other Cloud was correct in his belief that having the support of one's friends can allow one to accomplish what might not be possible otherwise. How very ironic."

And I didn't listen to my friends, Angeal reflected miserably.

"You look like you're going to be sick."

How pathetic was it that he was grateful for Genesis' calculated tactlessness? "I have no idea what I ate on the way here," Angeal said.

"Nothing, I expect. We had ration bars while we were on the helicopter, but you never stopped. Shall we go find a restaurant?" Genesis offered his hand.

Angeal took it gratefully and let the other man pull him to his feet.

Seth was right. Friends were important.

Chapter Text

Chapter 45 (Sephiroth's narrative)

We chose a restaurant in Sector Three of the Slums, which was slightly more upscale than, say, Seven. The staff took one look at the nine of us and offered us a private room, which we accepted. There was no need to disrupt their business by filling their tables with Turks.

I believe the food was good enough, but I paid little attention to what I was eating. Jenova. We needed a way to get Jenova out of the Lifestream. And I didn't like the only way I was coming up with.

"You look tired." That was the girl, Aerith, who had somehow ended up seated between myself and Zack. Her eyes were the luminous green of growing things, without the harsh glow of mako.

(I remembered the light fading from those eyes. Even though that had been Jenova's action and not my own, I couldn't seem to forget it: the blade sliding in, and the materia falling from her hand as her eyes went dark and dull and she slumped forward along the blade.)

"The situation is only marginally better than it was an hour ago, and I have no plan for what to do next." Or none that I cared to share. "Unless the Planet is willing to whisper a recipe for getting rid of Jenova in your ear. Leaving her in the Lifestream for too long is all but begging her to use it as an energy source."

"It's difficult for me to hear it here," the girl admitted. "I don't know . . . Is there a place in Midgar where the Lifestream is close to the surface, but there's no reactor?"

The memory slashed through my mind, accompanied by the beginning of a headache: an abandoned church full of flowers, seen through the other Cloud's eyes rather than my own.

"Ugh," Cloud said. "White and yellow flowers? What was that?" He rubbed his forehead.

"One of the other Cloud's memories. I apologize—I didn't intend to project it to you." Indeed, I wasn't quite certain how I had.

"All I saw was a flash of white," Genesis said.

Angeal and Zack both shook their heads. Aerith, Rude, and Reno looked puzzled.

"Maybe it's because other-Cloud and I are on the same wavelength or something," Cloud said. "It might have been easier for me to catch it."

I waved that aside. "Regardless, there is a church in Sector Five where it may be easier for you to contact the Planet. We will go there, and—"

The girl yawned. "Sorry," she said afterwards. "But I don't think I can right now. I've been up since before six this morning."

It was only a little after nine at night, Midgar time, but she was thirteen and hadn't begun the day several timezones to the west the way the rest of us had.

"Do you have a place to stay?" Angeal asked. And, when the girl shook her head, "Genesis has an empty guest room, but I'm not certain that putting you in with him is appropriate."

Genesis rolled his eyes. "Angeal, are you insinuating that I would do something questionable to a girl younger than your Puppy?"

I blinked, because I hadn't even considered that interpretation as a possibility.

"I don't think you'd touch her, but it would still look bad." Angeal's jaw was stubbornly set.

"She can use my room in Ma's apartment," Cloud suggested. "I'm sure Ma won't mind."

That appeared to have settled matters, and after paying the restaurant bill, we all headed for Shinra Tower together.

Cloud's mother was waiting for us in the lobby, giving us a disappointed look, hands braced on her hips.

"Ma?" Cloud's tone was cautious, and while he wasn't clinging to a fold of my coat as he'd sometimes done when he was smaller, he was still sticking very close to my side.

"Why did I have to find out you were coming home from Veld?" Claudia Strife said.

"Because it wasn't planned," I offered. "There was an emergency that required our urgent return to Midgar. We didn't even stop to receive permission from the President, who will no doubt be demoting me as soon as he finds out." Not that I really cared about my rank, or what the fat man in the office at the top of the tower thought of me.

"Hmm." Her expression eased despite her skeptical tone, and she lowered her arms to her sides. "Must have been quite an emergency."

"Yes," Rude offered unexpectedly. Just the single word, but it carried more weight coming from a man who so seldom spoke.

"Anyway," Zack said, always irrepressable, "we were about to come looking for you, Mrs. Strife, 'cause we kind of need your help. Y'see, Aerith here just got to Midgar from Mideel, and she doesn't have anywhere to stay, and, um, if you don't have a bedroom she can use, that leaves Genesis' spare room . . ."

"I already said I could stay at Seth's," Cloud said.

"And my spare will go to Vincent, unless he has other arrangements already made," Genesis said. "Good. That's settled, then." Conveniently ignoring that Claudia hadn't said "yes" yet, but that was just Genesis.

"We need to report in, yo." Reno gave us all a little wave as he and Rude turned to head for the elevators. "Don't go fighting any aliens without us!" Which was a tacit message not to move without letting Admistrative Research know if I had ever heard one.

"Aliens?" Cloud's mother said, looking amused.

Angeal overrode whatever Zack was about to say with, "Don't even ask."

Although I knew that they had been in a relationship in the original timeline, I was a bit surprised when Zack clung close to Aerith as we took the elevator up to the floor that held the Strifes' small apartment, along with those of other staff whose wages were paid partly in board. He didn't seem to quite dare hold her hand, but he looked as though he wanted to. And she seemed taken with him as well, smiling back at him and even giggling when he made jokes.

Perhaps there was such a thing as love at first sight, although I had never truly believed in it.

Their separation at the apartment's door seemed to take forever, with Zack always coming up with one more thing he just had to say, while Cloud's mother hid a smile and the rest of us waited patiently. In the end, it was Aerith's yawning that parted them.

As the door was about to close behind her, though, she turned and met Zack's eyes and said, "See you tomorrow," and Zack went an interesting shade of pink.

Up on the floor that held the SOLDIER First apartments, the rest of us split and went our separate ways, Cloud with me, Zack with Angeal, and Genesis alone because Vincent had vanished at some point. I swiped my keycard through the lock on my apartment door, opened it—and instantly gestured Cloud back, because there were heartbeats coming from inside. Cloud obeyed. He also drew his sword, which I hoped he wouldn't need.

I moved cautiously forward, past the entranceway, into the sitting room that I had entered only a few times since I had purchased the furnishings. Veld, of course. Veld and Vincent, seated side-by-side on the sofa. Clearly, Veld did indeed trust Vincent, or he would never have allowed him so close. The Head Turk looked old and tired as he watched me.

"I take it that whatever questions you have couldn't wait," I said, removing Masamune and her scabbard from my back and setting her on the stand I had commissioned for the purpose. Behind me, Cloud sheathed his sword, but didn't set it aside as I sat down in an armchair and he came to stand beside me.

"I had a few things I wanted to talk about that weren't urgent enough to tackle on the roof. It wasn't just Jenova that we found in that research facility."

"Go on."

"It seems that the facility was mostly given over to attempts to produce better SOLDIERs. We have twenty-two enhanced children—the oldest about Cloud's age, the youngest still in diapers. Also two pregnant women. And you're the only person I know of who has ever been in a situation analogous to those kids'."

What would I have needed at five, eight, ten years old if someone had seen fit to pluck me from the labs? It wasn't a question I had ever asked myself before, but I somehow found the beginnings of an answer. "They are likely to need structure, above all, while adjusting. If the way Fuhito ran his labs was anything like the way Hojo did, they won't have been permitted to choose much of anything for themselves, and may even have trouble with the concept. I was . . . fortunate, in a way, that I was sent straight from the labs to the military. I couldn't have functioned as a civilian. Not then."

Veld exchanged a look with Vincent. "So . . . something like military school," the Head Turk said. "Rules and schedules. Make sure that if they're asked to choose anything, it's from two or three defined alternatives. At least to start."

I nodded. "Also, I would suggest consulting Lazard to find SOLDIERs that have been removed from their military roles but are still physically and mentally able enough to serve as child-minders. In addition to being able to shield unenhanced adults, the knowledge that they are not unique should reduce the alienation that will have been trained into the children."

"Alienation?"

"One of the reasons I made such a terrible mess in the original history was that Hojo made an intense effort to prevent me from thinking of myself as human or forming emotional attachments. The resulting lack of support rendered me vulnerable to Jenova." Embarrassing to admit, even after all this time, but it might be necessary for them to know.

"I'm still not sure I entirely believe the time travel aspects of your story," Veld said. "You have to admit that it's a lot to swallow."

"You have to admit that having a Turk make such an obvious remark is rather suspicious," I said in return, and the corner of Vincent's mouth twitched up.

"He has you there," my . . . brother . . . remarked. "Stop fishing for information. He's already given us more than we really need."

"Very well. On to the next topic, then. If, as you say, Jenova can contaminate all the subsurface mako on Gaia, how do we get it out of there? I already have people watching the intakes of the other reactors for anything about the size of a dead body, but . . ."

"I hope we end up being that lucky. Or that the Planet offers its assistance to Aerith tomorrow. If not . . . I have the bare bones of a plan, but I need to consider it and flesh it out, as it has possible undesirable side effects in its current form." Which was as much as I was willing to say right now. "The damage progression will be slow, so we do have a bit of breathing space."

"Still, don't spend too long thinking about it."

"I don't intend to."

Vincent must have believed me, at least, because he nodded and got to his feet. "We'll see you in the morning."

I nodded. "Knock, next time."

Veld snorted, but he also headed for the door, and a few moments later, I was alone with Cloud. Who was giving me something of a fishy look.

"I get a feeling there's a reason you're not telling anyone what that backup plan you're making is," he said, sounding much older than his years.

I . . . should I tell him? Perhaps I did owe him that much. "In order to carry it out, I will need to search through my memories of the period when I was under Jenova's control. It . . . is not something I am comfortable with." There. That wasn't the entire truth, but it was a good bit of it.

"Oh. Yeah, I can see how that would suck." Cloud sat down on the arm of my chair and gave me a worried look. "You aren't going to do something stupid like sneaking down into the reactor and jumping off into the mako without telling anyone, are you?"

"No sneaking," I said. "I promise. I have no intention of doing anything without telling you and the others." I had come to understand that moving forward with my own plans without informing my nucleus of confidants, even if those plans had nothing to do with them, verged on being cruel. I would just have to handle the arguments that arose as a result. "In any case, there is still the chance that Aerith will come up with a safer method than what I am considering. I have no intention of doing anything until she has a chance to commune with the Planet tomorrow."

"Okay. I guess that's good enough for now."

"I suppose I should be glad that it isn't Genesis who's questioning me."

"No, we . . . kind of agreed I should be the one to do it. Well, Genesis and I did—we figured it was better not to bother Angeal, and Zack was too busy with Aerith to be paying attention to the rest of us. Which I don't get. I mean, she's a Cetra and I know that's important, but Zack usually doesn't care about stuff like that."

"He isn't interested in her because she's a Cetra, Cloud. He's interested in her because she's a pretty girl close to his own age."

Cloud blinked. "And now I'm even more confused."

"Didn't those correspondence courses I've been having you do include information about puberty?"

"Some stuff about physical changes—hair growing, voice deepening, that stuff. A lot of it sounded a bit gross. There was nothing about girls, except for listing the kind of changes they go through too. And that sounded even grosser."

"Did they bother to mention what the purpose of puberty is, biologically speaking?" I could not believe that I was the one who was going to have to explain this to him. Almost anyone else would have been a better choice.

" . . . Not really?"

"It's a stage people—and animals—pass through as their bodies gain the ability to reproduce. In addition to the associated purely physical changes, certain instincts surrounding the drive to find a mate develop. Of course, in humans, our intelligence complicates matters, and not everyone develops equally or the same way in all aspects."

Cloud blinked several times. "So Zack . . . thinks Aerith would be a good mate?"

"His subconscious does, I suppose. His surface mind will likely take some years yet to come to terms with the concept. And he may find someone that he likes better." Although I doubted it.

"And . . . this is going to happen to me, too?"

"Perhaps. Or you may find that you prefer a male partner, even though such a pairing can't produce offspring. And, while it's rare, some people never do develop the instinct to seek out a mate. In any case, you are unlikely to feel many stirrings in that direction for at least another year. There are some aspects pertaining to the physical act of mating that we will need to discuss then—right now I would consider it premature." Bahamut willing, I would be able to find someone else to have that portion of the discussion—someone for whom the business was more than theoretical.

Cloud was blushing and visibly scrabbling for a way to change the subject. "I don't think I've ever seen you . . . interested that way . . . in girls. Or in guys, either."

And of course that would have to come up. "I am one of the handful who never develops an interest. Possibly my instincts would draw me toward other Jenovans if any were available, but I find it more likely that I would have been uninterested even if I had been born fully human."

"Oh. So you won't ever . . . That seems kind of sad."

"The truth is that it would be a complication I'm glad I don't have in my life. Given my socialization issues, I have a difficult time even forming friendships, much less anything more intimate. I am grateful that I have no urge to seek out a romantic partner."

"You won't ever have kids, though."

Was it the right thing to say? I hesitated only for the barest fraction of a second. "I have you."

Cloud hugged me awkwardly. "Yeah. I guess you do."

Chapter Text

Chapter 46

It took a long time for Cloud to turn his brain off that night and get to sleep. That conversation had been a lot to process, and he was still scared about Sephiroth's plan. But . . .

I have you.

It was the first time his mentor had said anything like that out loud.

I have a dad. I really have a dad. Not just for pretend.

It was a good feeling, but a strange one. Well, most of his life had been strange, so he was kind of used to it.

When he did fall asleep, it was with a smile on his face that was still there when he woke up to the sounds of someone moving around in the kitchen. He rolled out of bed and grabbed his clothes and put them on. He considered grabbing his sword, too, but he knew that whoever was in the apartment was supposed to be there, or Sephiroth would have dealt with them already.

When he left his room, he discovered that there were three someones in the kitchen: Angeal, and Aerith, and . . . "Ma?"

"Hello, dear," his mother said. "I thought you'd probably prefer pancakes over cereal with powdered milk for breakfast, so Aerith and I came over to make some . . . only to discover that someone else had the same idea," she said with a smile and a nod in Angeal's direction.

Cloud could hear several people breathing off to his other side as well, so he turned his head to check, and . . . "Does that have anything to do with why the living room is full of Turks?" Well, not full-full. Just Veld, and Vincent (who looked really weird in a suit when he was used to him in a SOLDIER uniform). And a little girl around Cloud's age, wearing an ordinary dress and not a Turk suit, who was sitting on the sofa beside Veld and staring at the floor. Also . . . "Where's . . . Seth?" He made the change from "Sephiroth" at the last moment, because he didn't know whether anyone had told his ma or not.

"It was his turn to prod Genesis out of bed," Angeal said, and Cloud nodded his understanding, because Genesis was not a morning person. "I sent Zack back to our place for extra chairs, once I realized just how many people we were going to have."

"And, um . . ." He tried to gesture in the girl's direction. Angeal seemed to get it, at least, but that might have been as much from Jenovan quasi-telepathy as Cloud's handwave.

"That's Director Verdot's daughter, Felicia. They say she's been having a bit of a rough patch since her mom died."

"She has, poor thing," Cloud's ma admitted. "She hasn't spoken a word since. She can still write, thank Odin, but she says the words stick in her throat."

"Oh," was all Cloud could find to say.

He didn't want to imagine what it would be like to lose his ma. Even with Sephiroth and Zack and everyone else there to prop him up, it would be so, so hard.

He wondered if there was anything he could do to help, even if it was only just a little. What would Zack do? Not stand here like a lump, that was for sure.

He walked forward into the living room, past Vincent and Veld, and stopped in front of Felicia. "Hello, I'm Cloud. It's nice to meet you." He forced a smile onto his face, afraid that he sounded so dumb she wouldn't want anything to do with him.

Felicia looked up. She smiled and held her hand out. It was cold when he took it.

"I think they're gonna be another ten minutes at least with the pancakes," Cloud said. "Is there . . . anything you'd like to do? Play a game, maybe?" He had a deck of cards Zack had given him. That would work.

Felicia took out a pen and a pad of paper. Can I see your sword? she wrote.

"I don't mind," Cloud said. "I left it in my room, though. Give me a sec to get it. Um, if that's okay." Belatedly, he looked at her father, who sighed.

"Go ahead. She's obsessed with weapons lately."

"Hardly surprising, given what happened, that she would be looking for one that fits her," Vincent said. Veld grimaced, but didn't reply.

Claudia watched Felicia carefully draw Cloud's sword from the scabbard, and shook her head. What was it about children these days that made them want to take up weapons so young? Cloud, Felicia, young Zack who had just arrived with the chairs . . . even Aerith had her staff. A Nibel child might learn to set a snare and skin what they caught in it when they were eight years old, but that didn't mean they were encouraged to take up arms at that age.

But . . . Felicia and Cloud and Zack were all smiling as they crowded around the weapon. Openly, happily.

Not for the first time, Claudia was wishing that children came with instruction manuals. Or even that she'd paid more attention to her own ma, back in the day. She thought that, on the balance, she'd done more good than bad for Cloud, but how would she ever know for sure?

The door to the apartment opened and shut again, and Colonel Rhapsodos said, "Oh, my, that smells excellent."

"I took the time to make some dumbapple sauce," Angeal said. "Still warm."

"The Gift of the Goddess indeed!"

Behind the auburn-haired man, Seth Crescent lurked, dressed in monochrome black and looking serious. Neither of those ever seemed to change, although Claudia would allow that the man owned a couple of grey shirts along with all the black. He just didn't wear them all that often. Thank Odin that his taste in clothing was one aspect of the man Cloud hadn't seen fit to copy.

"It's all ready," Claudia made herself say. "Aerith, dear, can you get a serving spoon for that wonderful-smelling fruit sauce?" She'd watched Angeal make it, but she'd been so preoccupied about other things that she hadn't listened to what he'd said about it. But they did get everything moved to the table, and Claudia was glad that she'd remembered where she'd had the movers store the extra leaves for it, even though she had never expected them to be used.

She sat between Veld and Cloud, which should have felt odder than it did. Her old family and her new—wait, since when was Veld "family"? They weren't quite . . . well, she had been cooking for him and Felicia, and he had started kissing her good-night recently . . . Odin and Fenrir, she was going to have to talk to Cloud about that before things got much more serious. And it was not a conversation she was looking forward to.

She thought they had made enough pancakes for a small army, but with six SOLDIER-sized appetites (and three smaller ones) working away at the platter, everything vanished from the table with unexpected speed. Afterwards, Zack patted his stomach and belched.

"Wow, that was good. Thanks, 'Geal, Mrs. Strife . . . and Aerith."

Oh, that boy had it bad. She could tell just from the tone of voice. And judging from the way the girl was blushing just a little, she didn't mind, either. Well, they wouldn't make a bad couple. Zack was a genuinely kind person. She didn't know how he was surviving in Wutai.

"Claudia, can you look after Felicia for now?" Veld added. "I'm not sure exactly how risky this next bit is going to be, but . . ."

"Of course I'll look after her," Claudia said. "You don't even have to ask." In fact, it had become almost usual. "Just promise me you'll be careful. All of you," she added, raking the collection of men and boys and one more girl with a sharp gaze.

"Ma," Cloud said, in the tone of exasperated youth.

"As careful as we can be," Veld offered.

"We always are," said Angeal.

Seth Crescent said nothing, however, and Claudia wasn't certain she liked the look in his eyes.

Aerith could feel that something was different from the moment she entered the church, because she relaxed for the first time since she had come to Midgar. The Planet's voice wasn't as loud here as it was in Mideel, but it was clear for the first time since she had crossed into the wastelands around the city. It sang welcome to her, but also need and fear.

Her escort of five SOLDIERs and two Turks waited patiently for her to say something, although she could see that Zack was worried. She tried to give him a reassuring smile, and was relieved when he smiled back. Then she walked forward to where a shaft of light struck down through a crack in the rotten roof right in front of the crumbling altar. There was a single flower there, white and yellow, poking its head up through a crack in the floorboards to reach for the sun. There. That was the focus she needed.

Aerith knelt in front of the lone flower and gently stroked its petals, whispering words of encouragement and strength that she needed as much as it did. Then she clasped her hands together and reached for the voice of the Planet.

Need! Fear!

Which was, she reflected irritably, about as useful as ever. Perhaps the voice of the Planet wasn't what she needed here after all.

«Dad? Dad, can you hear me?»

«Aerith? Do you need my help with something?» His voice was weak at first, but became stronger as he focused. Normally, his soul would have decayed back into the Lifestream to be reborn by now, but . . . I'm waiting, he had told her once. For you and your mother. As long as you're still alive, as long as you need me, I'm going to remain myself.

«Um. What can you tell me about Jenova? Specifically, how to clean it out of the Lifestream. It . . . kind of fell in.»

Dr. Gast Faremis' immediate reaction to that involved words that Aerith was pretty sure her mom wouldn't have wanted her dad using in front of her. «Kind of fell in,» he repeated when he had the shock under control, and she received an image of him rubbing his forehead.

«There was a mad scientist involved, if that helps,» Aerith offered. «Sephiroth says it would be bad to leave Jenova there—something about drawing energy from the Lifestream and contamination—and he does have some kind of plan, but I don't think it's very safe. He asked me to see if the Planet could give us something better.»

«I'm afraid the chances of that aren't good. I . . . right after I died, I went looking for information about Jenova, here in the Lifestream. According to the preserved memories of the Cetra, the Planet almost wasn't able to imprison the thing the first time, let alone get rid of it. It can erode small pieces, but large concentrations of Jenova cells fight back.»

Oh. So even her fancy limit break could only nibble away at the edges. «What about imprisoning it again? Is there a way we can do that?»

A pause. «I think it could be done, but you'd have to get as much of it as possible into the same place. The Lifestream can burn away a few scraps, but if there are too many broken-off bits left behind, they can merge together to form a new body for the thing.»

«And how do we get it all into the same place?»

«I don't know. It isn't as though you can put the whole Lifestream through a strainer, and Jenova won't attempt to call for Reunion under these circumstances.»

«Just in case we can get it all together in one place, how do we imprison it?»

He helped her find the memories. Cetra memories, faded with time, of how to build what amounted to a giant materia around it, one that would reflect back any attempt it made to reach out mentally. And this time, Aerith vowed, they were not just going to bury it in the ground and forget about it afterwards. They would make certain it was never found again.

«Is Sephiroth with you now?» Gast asked as he came to the end of the Jenova-related information.

«Yes.»

«Please tell him that I'm sorry. For leaving him behind with Hojo.»

«I think he's come to terms with it. But I'll tell him.»

«Thank you. Be safe, Aerith.»

«I will.» As much as I can, anyway.

When she pulled out of the trance, the first thing she did was assess her surroundings as she had been trained to do—had anyone new arrived? Anyone left? Falling into a trance in public could be dangerous, her mother had taught her. It could mark her as Cetra, and that was always a risk.

This time, though, there were just the same five SOLDIERs and two Turks, and Zack looked like he was about to bounce off the crumbling pew he was sitting on. Aerith gave him a soft smile.

"I'm fine," she said, and Zack flashed her one of those blinding smiles.

"We can only hope that the news you bear is equally fine," said Genesis.

"It's mixed," Aerith admitted, and began to explain.

Vincent did not at all like the expression on Sephiroth's face. True, it wasn't much of an expression, and he wasn't certain a non-Turk would have spotted it . . . but he was a Turk, and Sephiroth's facial expressions often resembled minimized versions of his mother's anyway. And Vincent had spent many hours just watching Lucrecia.

He could tell that the silver-haired man was afraid. It was triggered by the girl's statement that they had to get as much as possible of Jenova in one place. Vincent didn't see why, unless . . . Scattered information overheard long ago slowly came back to him. Jenova Reunion theory. Jenova herself wasn't likely to summon her scattered bodies just in order to comply with their plot, but did Sephiroth have enough of her cells to do it himself? Hadn't Aerith's limit break cleansed him? The rain had fallen on him as well as on Angeal, but perhaps Jenova was too tightly woven into Sephiroth's makeup to ever be entirely removed.

Guilt clawed at him as he thought that, as he remembered what he had permitted to happen. It always did, even though Sephiroth seemed to have come to terms with what Hojo had done to him.

And sure enough . . . "I can call Jenova in," Sephiroth said, his voice flatter than ever. "However, there is a chance that She will be able to suborn my will, as She did with Angeal. If She does . . . you all know what to do."

He looked directly at Vincent as he spoke the words, and one of the creatures inside the Turk half-woke, growling softly, because it knew. It knew Jenova, and what Jenova was capable of. His inmate's reactions were one of the reasons Vincent believed that Sephiroth was telling the truth, about Jenova and everything else.

We are the final failsafe, Vincent thought. It took all of his Turk-trained composure to manage a nod.

Chapter Text

Chapter 47 (Sephiroth's narrative)

"You promised you wouldn't do anything like that!" Cloud didn't quite shout, but he was right on the edge of it.

"I promised I wouldn't do anything without telling everyone," I corrected. "Which I am not."

"My friend, your desire / Is the bringer of life, the gift of the Goddess—but this . . . What in hell is wrong with just burning chunks as we find them?!"

"That would only dehydrate the cells and force them into a state of dormancy," I forced myself to say. "We would have to repeat the treatment every few days for the rest of eternity, or store it in an environment with absolutely no water vapour, or it would come back. Imprisoning it is a more reliable path. I am aware that if I fail, it will be emotionally damaging to many of you." The words tasted like blood and dust and bitterness. "But I can't see any other choice. The survival of the entire world is much, much more important than my personal future—than all of our personal futures."

Angeal frowned. Genesis outright scowled. Zack looked as though I had slapped him, and Cloud was crying. The two Turks were being professionally bland.

Aerith was frowning too, which I had not expected. Why should she care about what happened to me? If anything, she should be glad to see me dead. She might not remember my killing her, but I had no doubt the Planet had told her something.

I crouched down and pulled Cloud into my arms, hoping that he would find some comfort in the contact, as he often seemed to do. He stood rigid for a moment, but then his arms snaked around my torso and he leaned into me, still crying, ignoring the no-doubt-uncomfortable sensation of my left pauldron digging into him.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to him. It was the only thing I could think of to say. My hand rose to cradle the back of his head.

"I'll try to convince it to help," Aerith said. "It can be kind of difficult to make the Planet as a whole understand what you want, though."

"You should stay here, then," I said, forcing my mind into planning mode. "This will be easiest at one of the reactors, or some other place where physical access to the Lifestream is possible." I didn't want Jenova-chunks tearing their way up through the ground and into the church.

Someone's PHS blatted. Veld grimaced and reached into his pocket, glanced at the screen of the device he pulled out, and raised it to his ear. "What is it?"

"The President has just returned from Costa," Tseng said at the other end of the line. "He's furious."

"Not unexpected," was Veld's concise reply. "Can you handle him?"

"Not for very long. He insists on seeing you. And General Crescent."

"Stall him," I said, still crouched and holding Cloud.

Veld blinked, but what he said into the PHS was, "Tell him I'll be there as soon as I can get back to the Tower. That should hold him for a bit."

"Understood, sir." Tseng hung up without bothering with a polite good-bye.

"I hadn't realized your hearing was that acute," Veld said to me. I shrugged, cursing myself inwardly for having given up information unintentionally. To a Turk.

"I heard him too," Vincent admitted.

"It isn't as though it's something we choose," Genesis added, with a sniff.

"I suppose not," Veld said. "I'll see you in a few hours, if the President doesn't order me shot and dumped off the roof of the Tower." He gave everyone a little wave as he turned to exit the church.

I considered the remainder of our party. "Zack, stay here with Aerith and guard her." I would have liked to leave Cloud at the church too, but I doubted he would permit it. Even Zack didn't look all that happy, but he nodded. Hopefully he understood that if something really did go wrong, he would be of less use than Angeal or Genesis or Vincent.

"So where to, O Fearless Leader?" Genesis asked.

Not fearless, I wanted to say, but I knew Genesis didn't really mean to be snide. It was just his way of dealing with his own fear. "Deepground, I suppose. Less chance of interruption than if we try to get into one of the active reactors." And I didn't want to risk getting the ordinary reactor personnel caught up in this.

We could have ridden the train back to the station at the base of the central support, but instead we chose a path across the roofs of the more intact parts of Sector Five, leaping SOLDIER-style from building to building. I carried Cloud, since while I knew he would do his best to keep up with us, he still had short legs and barely-Second-Class enhancements. Cloud didn't protest, just buried his face in my hair and held on, even though I suspected he was getting motion-sick. Although perhaps holding onto me was more important to him just now.

It was both too long and not long enough before the four of us leapt from the roof of the old hospital to the ground, entered the building, and began to trace our path through its empty halls. I could smell the mako already, and it only got stronger as we approached the reactor. I frowned as I realized I could also hear the sound of the reactor's machinery. Well, I hadn't stopped to turn it off the last time we'd been down here, and the Turks might not even have known how. Hojo wouldn't have forced them to study reactor schematics. I'd just have to do it this time, before going for a swim.

We hadn't exactly been conversing while we traveled, but somehow everyone seemed to become more and more silent as we approached the main reactor shaft. I forced myself to walk calmly over to the console in front of which Angeal had collapsed and begin the shut-down process.

I was still carrying Cloud. He didn't seem to want to let go . . . and truth be told, I didn't either. But it was necessary, and I crouched until his boots touched the catwalk.

His hands remained tangled in my hair. "Dad . . ."

"I'll be careful," I told him. "I promise."

"I'm just afraid careful won't be good enough."

What was there to say to that? I held him a moment longer before reaching up to disentangle his hands.

It was all I could do.

"We should move down into the bore," Genesis said before I could. "Encasing a large mass in something like a materia will surely require quite a large amount of mako, and reducing its distance of travel should make this more likely to succeed. The wind sails over the water's surface, quietly but surely," he added with questionable relevance.

And so down we climbed, following old ladders and platforms. No maintenance seemed to have been performed down here, and vapour from the mako had attacked the metal, encasing it in a layer of greenish corrosion that had thankfully protected it from rotting through. Nevertheless, Angeal took one look and placed himself at the rear of the group, not starting down any ladder until the rest of us were off it.

Several minutes later, we had all reached the lowest platform, and there was no more putting this off.

"Stand well back," I warned the others, and waited until they had all shuffled back against the wall of the bore. Now I just needed to remember how Jenova had done this when She had been in control of my body.

Great Minerva.

I could taste bile as I forced myself to think back. Standing on a peak inside the Great Northern Crater and watching as black-robed figures crawled slowly across the Whirlwind Maze below, along with the odd monster that Hojo had used in some test or other. Pulling them to me had barely required any effort, just a little twist that I could set aside once I had initiated it and trust my subconscious to maintain.

It was easy. Sickeningly so.

I focused my mind and called, and saw Genesis take a step away from the wall, blink, frown, and step back again.

For several minutes, nothing else happened. Well, I'd known this wasn't going to be instantaneous. The cells I was calling couldn't just spontaneously appear here, they had to move through space to reach my location.

There was movement, below in the green. Shadows, shifting. Growing.

Something fell from above and landed on the platform with a soft splat.

"Eeew," Cloud said, staring at the splotch of bubbling blue-grey that was now wiggling a few inches from my boot.

"The remains of a cell culture," I identified aloud. "It must have been left in the labs here."

"Are there going to be more of them?" My protégé's face was screwed up in an exaggerated grimace.

"Very likely. Although it will take some time for the ones from the tower proper to get here." Hollander had to have some cultures—he had said as much to Genesis, although it was hard to tell whether all of them would be similar enough to the original cell strain to heed the call for Reunion or not. The ones that were would have to make it all the way down here from the upper floor where the labs were. I couldn't find it in myself to feel at all sorry for them, although . . . "Let's hope that the bulk of the remaining Jenova cells are still in this area, or this might take days."

"Well, if we're still here in four hours or so, we'll send someone to find lunch," Angeal said. "Um, Seth? I think that cell culture is trying to climb you."

So it was. I used Masamune to remove it from my boot, then cast Barrier, since I had no desire to assimilate the thing.

"What an extraordinarily boring crisis," Genesis said from where he was leaning against the wall.

"Not for much longer." Vincent's voice startled everyone, I think, because we had all half-forgotten he was there. "Something big is coming." His eyes flashed gold as though to emphasise the words.

I could feel it too, although I wasn't certain what it was. Something big, as he had said. Something that was actively responding to the call of Reunion, trying to get closer. Something that wasn't just Jenova, but held another mind within it.

"There may be people caught up in this," I warned the others, as I should have done before we began. "Some of the weaker-minded SOLDIERs, or other former experiments. If they still have any will of their own, I would prefer to hold them back so that Aerith can cleanse them, rather than include them in what we seal away."

"We'll herd them off to the side," Angeal offered, which was what I had been hoping for.

. . . There was a very large shadow just under the surface of the mako. I took a half-step back and reached for Masamune's hilt as a precaution, because I felt certain that this was what Vincent and I had sensed, although it shouldn't have the wit left to be dangerous. Even the adult Cloud hadn't retained enough of his mind through the call of Reunion to attempt to harm me when I had summoned him. That had come later.

It broke the surface of the mako with a splash. Medium-sized for a monster, perhaps eight feet tall and two human body masses. Asymmetrical, with four wings that weren't quite in proper pairs, and leathery purplish tegument. It had a left arm that ended in a three-fingered hand with massive claws, and two whippy tentacles on the right. Legs too small to support it dangled below. A faceless, not-quite-round head protruded from the top, while an actual face was visible at the juncture of neck and chest, its eyes closed as though asleep. I hesitated to call this standard Jenovan anatomy, but it did partake of elements of other forms I had seen Her create.

We all drew weapons and pointed them at the creature as the embedded face twitched. The eyes slid open.

"Ah, General. A pleasure to meet you at last."

That . . . was not Jenova. Or at least not only Jenova. She hadn't been able to speak any modern language when I had first encountered her in Nibelheim—she had communicated in concepts and snippets of a tongue long dead until she had absorbed that knowledge from me. And she had never even tried to be polite.

"Apparently you know me, but I don't recognize you." It seemed a safe enough thing to say, although I wasn't certain what I was going to do with this . . . entity, even if it proved not to be hostile. It seemed to have a functioning mind, but we couldn't let such a large mass of Jenova cells escape.

"I suppose it would have been more polite for me to introduce myself first. My name is Fuhito."

Of course. Well, no need to worry about salvaging that—if he hadn't jumped into the Lifestream when the Turks had raided Deepground, I would have had to hunt him down and kill him myself.

"I can't say that I'm pleased to meet you," was the best reply I could come up with. "Although I was surprised when I learned you had joined Shinra. An odd choice for someone who considers himself a defender of the Planet."

"Sometimes it's easiest to destroy something from within. Shinra. Humanity."

"And what do you intend to do now?" Perhaps I could trigger a monologue. Monologuing monomaniacs were easy to kill, because they never paid as much attention as they should to the people they were addressing.

"Wipe the world clean of the human scourge. I had intended to wait a little while longer, but Jenova wants you dealt with before you endanger Her."

"You do realize that She wishes to destroy all life on the Planet, not just the human ones," I said.

"I think I can exert at least that much control. But enough talk."

The vicious laser that lashed out was not unexpected, and we all jumped in various directions to dodge. Fortunately, it had little effect on the metal of the platform except to scour away the corrosion on its surface, leaving a clean silver line behind. I didn't want to take another swim in the Lifestream if I could avoid it, and I doubly didn't want to risk Cloud doing so. I didn't want to spend a year nursing him through mako poisoning, as Zack had done with his adult counterpart.

I didn't want him to be hurt.

The stray cell culture that had been trying to climb my boot jumped at Fuhito-Jenova instead, and was absorbed. I gestured to the others to fan out.

"Aim for the face," was all I said. We had to destroy Fuhito's brain, since Jenova without another mind up and running was largely instinct-driven and not all that smart, but I couldn't let Her know that I knew that, or She might copy Fuhito's neural patterns to another section of Her body. Which would likely cause the fight to devolve into a tedious game of whack-a-mu.

Vincent instantly took a shot at it, but Fuhito-Jenova moved with enhanced speed, intercepting the bullet with a tentacle. Genesis threw a fireball that left a char mark on the composite creature's shoulder, and I took advantage of that distraction to lunge forward with Masamune.

Fuhito floated out over the mako until he was beyond even Masamune's reach, and I would have sworn I heard him laugh.

"What an asshole," I heard Cloud mutter, just before he shot off a mid-level ice spell. Angeal braced his feet and swung his sword, activating the Long Range materia in the hilt to create a shockwave. Both attacks hit home, but caused little in the way of visible damage.

I was considering the best course of action—did I dare try to walk across the mako using a Float spell?—when I heard the sound of footsteps, multiple sets, quick and staccato but not all that loud, as though the people making them were light in weight. What in hell?

It was only when the first child came sliding down a ladder with a blank expression on her face that I realized some of what was going on, and by then, it was too late.

Chapter Text

Chapter 48

"What is he doing here, Veld? That's what I want to know. And what you seem to be unable or unwilling to tell me." The President's hands rested motionless on top of a file folder, fingers interlaced, while he stared at the man who stood in front of his desk. "Tell me, who exactly do you think you work for?"

"Shinra," Veld replied—and if he meant the corporation, rather than the man, there was no way for the President to tell. "I'm sorry, sir, but the past few days have been difficult. I've had more things to worry about than the motives of one AWOL SOLDIER, even if he is a high-ranking officer. It isn't as though he's vanished, after all." Truth was a popular and useful Turk weapon. So were lies, but as when dealing with shaped explosive charges, lies had to be carefully formed, not overdone, and applied in the correct way.

"Hmph. True enough, I suppose. But why have the past few days been difficult? I don't recall any disturbances."

"We had to clean up what appeared to be a leftover project of Hojo's, which, as far as I could tell, was not authorized." Serves you right for neglecting to keep me informed.

"And you broke it up without consulting me?" old Shinra asked with a scowl.

"Why would I need to consult you because there were squatters in an old lab?" Veld fired back.

A muscle in Shinra's jaw twitched so hard that it was visible under the encroaching fat. The old man really had gone to seed, these past few years. "What has gotten into you, Verdot? In all the years we've known each other, you've never been this openly confrontational with me."

"Tell me what happens if there is no Promised Land," Veld said evenly.

Shinra blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"It occurred to me," Veld said. "If your scientifically impossible 'land of endless mako' doesn't exist, what are we left with? A city whose population is so violently unstable that we've declared permanent martial law, surrounded by vast environmental damage that's spreading every year. That's the world your son and my daughter are going to inherit. And I find I don't like that idea at all." He shook his head ever-so-slightly. "There's a reason Turks aren't supposed to have families, you know. If you have a child, it gets you thinking about what kind of future they might have."

Shinra sneered. "Turning ecoterrorist on me now?"

"I'm not turning anything on you. I've been angry at you now for quite a while. Project Werewolf. Do you remember that? And its subject?"

"What of it?"

"You sold my partner out to Hojo."

"I let Hojo make use of a fresh corpse he'd come across."

"That he'd created," Veld corrected. "If you didn't know that, you're too incompetent to be left in charge, and if you did know it, then you can't be trusted in a position of responsibility."

It was easy to pull out his gun and aim it at the portly blond man behind the desk. So easy. Why hadn't he done this when things had started to deteriorate? It was, he supposed, like that old anecdote about slowly boiling a touch-me frog: it only jumped out of the pot if the water heated up too fast.

It hadn't been until Vincent had turned up alive that he'd felt the need to go through Myriad's old papers. It hadn't been until he'd gone through those papers that he'd understood that President Shinra was more than willing to sacrifice Turks—his Turks—to the curiosity of the Science Department.

The fact that old Shinra apparently believed in the mako-Cetra-legendary equivalent of perpetual motion machines and was well on his way to bringing about the end of the world as a side effect of searching for something that couldn't exist was a lesser problem. He'd thrown his bodyguards, his black ops men, the ones tasked with making sure no one interfered with his plans, under the bus. And Veld wasn't going to stand for it.

The President was just opening his mouth to say something when Veld's gun barked. The splatter pattern across the window behind the desk wasn't as symmetrical as the Turk had intended. Proof that he was getting old. If Tseng had been the one doing this, he would have been able to create a scene with perfect aesthetics.

Veld shook his head and reached into his pocket for his PHS. He would need a cleanup team in here, and then a frank talk with young Rufus.

He felt the vibration against his fingertips before he could even grip the device and pull it out, much less make a call, and frowned. This had to be something very urgent, given his PHS' current settings. The screen told him it was Katana on the line, and Katana was assigned to supervise the Deepgrounders at the moment.

When he answered the call, Katana spoke immediately, without bothering with greetings. "Sir, about twenty minutes ago every single child in this place got up and tried to leave. They're still trying. Most of the little ones didn't get far, and I have them locked up now, but a few of the oldest escaped in the confusion."

I can call Jenova in, said the voice of memory. Inwardly, Veld cursed.

"They're probably on their way to the Deepground reactor. We have personnel there already. Stay with the remaining children and make certain they don't break a window or crawl out an air vent."

Ending the call, he sent Vincent a warning message, although he suspected it was already too late.

The girl was perhaps Cloud's age, skinny despite her budding breasts, her ruddy hair cut short. And the blank look on her face made Angeal want to throw up, because it wasn't an expression that anyone should have . . . and yet, he was almost certain he knew what was causing it.

Two others followed behind her—both boys, both slightly younger. Both with the same haircut as the girl, although the colours differed. The one with the silvery hair seemed more aware than the other two children, since he looked at the dark-haired boy from time to time with a worried expression on his face.

Angeal knew he couldn't let them get closer. It was possible that they might have training, but they were unarmed, and he couldn't see any materia, either. And stopping them had to be his job, because Sephiroth and Vincent and Genesis were better at distance-fighting and the other children weren't likely to listen to Cloud.

Well, then. Goal established; now he just needed to carry it out. Ducking to make himself a smaller target for all the spells whizzing back and forth, and shielding himself with the Buster Sword, Angeal ran for the ladder and the children who were just getting off it.

His shoulder hit the wall as he skidded to a stop, and the silver-haired boy's head turned. Mako-touched blue eyes widened, and Angeal understood that the boy perceived him as a potential threat.

"I just want to keep you three safe," he offered. "This isn't a good place for you to be right now."

"They won't stop," the silver-haired boy said, and Angeal thought he detected a hint of panic in him. "There's a voice telling us to come here, and it's hard not to listen. Rosso hit the man in the blue suit when he wouldn't let her go, and Nero . . . I can't leave Nero."

Angeal considered the dark-haired boy. "I should be able to haul him upstairs and lock him in a room until this is over—"

"That won't work. Nero can disappear stuff—doors, walls, people. Even the scientists don't know where it goes when he does."

"You're from Deepground," Angeal realized. Another part of his mind was trying to come to grips with what people getting disappeared in ways that even scientists couldn't understand or reverse might mean. Not to mention doors and walls. Had Shinra only been able to keep the boy prisoner because it hadn't occurred to him to leave? "What's your name?"

"Weiss. Anyway, we can't try to stop Nero right now. It isn't safe."

"Seth! We can't let these kids be pulled into the Reunion! Ease up!" Without the call for Reunion, hopefully the kids would return to their senses.

"Understood." The silver-haired man sounded more calm than he had any right to be.

Angeal hadn't understood that the light pressure at the back of his mind was the call for Reunion until it suddenly eased. A moment later, the girl and the dark boy stopped moving forward, and their heads swiveled around as though taking in their surroundings for the first time.

"Where the hell are we?!" the girl growled.

"The reactor, I think," Weiss said. "All I know is that you and Nero took off, and I came after you."

"We what?" the girl said, frowning.

«Come!»

Angeal cursed as he seldom allowed himself to do at the sudden spike of pressure and pain in his head. He was barely able to keep himself from dropping the Buster Sword so that he could clutch at his temples. There was one moment of agonizing clarity when he realized Fuhito was approaching, and shoved Weiss behind him, but the other two kids were just out of reach, and he couldn't . . .

Tentacles grabbed Nero and the girl, despite the lone gunshot that rang out in what had to have been an attempt to stop it. Vincent wasn't Jenova-tainted, he probably hadn't heard . . . whatever that had been.

"I'm sorry," Angeal said as the pressure began to ebb. "I couldn't reach them. I'm sorry."

At the edge of the platform, Sephiroth threw himself into an aerial attack with little of his usual grace, bringing Masamune down on the tentacle holding the girl. She fell, hitting the metal hard with the disembodied tentacle still wrapped around her. Genesis' flames scorched at Fuhito, but the attack wasn't well-targeted and half of it shot right past to hit the far wall of the reactor bore.

Sephiroth leaped again, going after the boy, but he was too late: the tentacle holding Nero had reached the main mass of Fuhito-Jenova, and was pulling him inside. On the ground, Cloud had dragged the girl away from the fighting and was cutting the tentacle off of her.

"Nero," Weiss whispered in a despairing tone.

"We'll get him back," Angeal said, pushing himself to sound more confident than he felt. "In the meanwhile, you take that girl—Rosso, was it?—and get out of here."

"Not without Nero." Weiss cringed as he said it, as though expecting to be punished, but his eyes burned with anger.

Angeal wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose, but his hands were full of sword. "I guess you don't have any reason to trust us, do you? Fine, but stay as far back as you can. You can't fight something like that with your bare hands."

Weiss nodded, just as Cloud arrived with Rosso, who couldn't seem to get her left foot under her, and looked like she wanted to spit tacks.

"I think her leg's broken, but she says she can't feel it," Cloud reported.

"Rosso can't feel pain," Weiss offered, and Angeal's stomach flipped over again, because he didn't for a moment think the girl was naturally that way.

Focus, he told himself. "Right. Well, both of you stay here for now while we try to get Nero loose."

Cloud helped Rosso prop herself with her back to the wall. She should have been sitting down, but Angeal wasn't going to try to fight her about it right now, not when they all had bigger fish to fry. Hopefully Weiss knew how to handle her.

Angeal turned his focus back to the fight in time to see Sephiroth barely avoid landing in the mako by grabbing onto the outside of the platform's safety railing—what was left of it. Genesis was tossing fireballs around as he hadn't done since that group of students from some private school had ruined a Loveless performance he was attending. And Vincent was . . . Where was Vincent?

Something growled overhead. Looking up, Angeal caught the flash of golden eyes.

«That child is dangerous,» whispered the voice in Vincent's mind. «He smells of stagnant mako.»

The creatures in his mind were rarely verbal—not all of them were even capable of it—and it took a moment for the Turk to rein in his surprise at the thing having spoken at all to consider what it had said.

"What does that mean in practical terms?" He barely breathed the words, hoping the creature would answer the question. They often didn't.

«I am uncertain,» the creature admitted. «I don't believe there is a precedent.»

And wasn't that just perfect?

"Can we agree that we need to get the child loose from that thing?" Vincent all but growled.

«It would be prudent. However, I don't believe that little hole-poker of yours is going to be adequate for the job. Let me.»

Vincent felt a pressure inside his mind. He was familiar with this. If he didn't fight it off, the creature inside him would take over. He'd passed it off as a Limit Break, but it wasn't really. He knew what a Limit Break felt like, and this wasn't it. However, the creatures did remain able to tell friend from foe, and it was true that his gun wasn't doing much good.

It took every ounce of control he could muster not to fight, to let the creature take over. He felt a spark of late-developing panic as he realized that this particular one had never taken the reins before—it had usually been the beast, the weakest one, or once the giant that looked like it had been pieced together from spare parts by drunken medical interns. Not the giggling one or this one, the strongest one. It was too late to stop it now, though—the transformation had already begun, with ugly meaty popping sounds as his body deformed from the inside out. He would just have to hope that it confined its attacks to the target.

«Have more faith in me, Host.»

Difficult, when the creature had never done anything but taunt him, but he did his best to keep that thought to himself.

It didn't help that, although he had no control over his body, his senses still functioned. He could hear the creature growl, feel the wind against its wings as it launched itself out over the mako, see the claws tearing into the strange floating mass of Jenova cells as it tried to free the half-absorbed boy with the terrified eyes. The child never made a sound.

He also saw the sudden billow of darkness opening in front of them. The creature controlling his body dodged it, tumbling backwards, but Vincent could feel the disquiet lurking around the edges of its sudden understanding.

«An opening into nowhere. That should not be possible. Even I cannot use that power at will.»

Vincent wasn't sure what they were supposed to do with that.

Chapter Text

Chapter 49 (Sephiroth's narrative)

I cursed myself and Jenova both when I realized I wasn't going to be able to save the second child. The pressure against my mind had me off-balance. The darkness that opened to swallow one of Genesis' fireballs only added to the effect. What was going on?

"It's the boy," someone said, and I blinked as I realized that the purple monster Vincent had turned into that had spoken. The Turk's voice was low and rough at the best of time, but the creature sounded like a talking gravel pit. "Dark mako in his veins . . . He's a deviation in the structure of the universe."

"Then it's doubly imperative that we get him out," I said, flipping back over the railing at the platform's edge and onto solid ground. The purple Vincent-creature backwinged and landed beside me. "How can we counter this . . . new weapon our opponent seems to have acquired, without hurting the child?"

"It can't be countered as such," the winged purple creature rumbled. "I am immune. The Calamity could likely break open the space from the inside via the Reunion call, if it were trapped. Whether you can as well . . ." It shrugged. "I am uncertain about your companions. The best solution is not to be hit."

"Of course." Simple. Which rarely meant easy. "If you are immune, can you distract it while we attack?"

The creature seemed . . . incredulous. "You would trust me?"

"We have few options, and as far as I know, you have no reason to turn on us. Someone allied with Jenova would not have called her 'the Calamity'. That's a Cetra term."

Its chuckle sounded like falling rocks. "Very observant. I begin to see why my host has such a high opinion of you."

True, that would be a quality valued by Turks. "Draw the enemy's attention," I told it, and it laughed again and pushed off into the air.

Now. If I wanted to get the boy out of the Jenova-construct alive, assuming that was even still possible, I needed to keep track of where he was within the mass so that I didn't kill him by mistake. And I needed to deal with Fuhito, who was doubtless still in charge.

There are two logical places to put a weapon in a vehicle, which was the closest analogy I could think of to this situation. For maximum efficiency, you mounted it close to the skin, to minimize energy loss when you fired it. Or, if protecting it was more important, you put it as far from the outside as you could. Near the centre. There was also the slighly illogical possibility that the boy was still near the place where he had been pulled in, near the bases of the tentacles, if it had wanted to be able to use him as soon as possible.

I turned to Genesis. "I need you to freeze whatever we cut off." Freezing Jenova cells solid would incapacitate them for half an hour or so. Burning would take them out for much longer, and make it difficult to use Reunion to gather them back up when the time came.

Genesis grimaced, but he also nodded. He was less argumentative in this iteration of history than he had been in the original. Was it because he wasn't degrading? Or did the fact that I was now significantly older than him make it less galling for him to bow to my authority?

I snapped the straps for my pauldrons, cast my coat aside, and unfurled my wings. I hated to do that, because it drained my energy like nothing else, but this was going to require precision that would be difficult from the ground.

The air out over the mako was twisty, full of unexpected updrafts and crossdrafts—no downdrafts, thankfully. If I landed in the Lifestream, it wasn't likely to be by accident. There were assorted tentacles and laser beams to dodge, but it was almost too easy. Rather like one of Zack's video games, which were not created with SOLDIER reflexes in mind. However, in this case I believe the issue was that Fuhito wasn't a trained fighter. He was simply not tactically minded. And I intended to use that to our advantage.

Vincent's creature struck Fuhito-Jenova from the other side, tearing out handfuls of flesh that Genesis duly froze with quick flickers of spell-energy. They floated on the surface of the mako, bobbing slightly.

I twisted in and cut, a wide scything blow to the side of the thing opposite the one where the boy had been pulled in, and a good-sized chunk of Jenova cells fell away to be frozen by Genesis. Most of what was revealed inside the cut was gloppy magenta alien guts, as Zack might have described it if he'd been inclined to use colour terms as specific as 'magenta', but I also saw what looked like fabric. A sleeve. Not the boy's—a lab coat?

Well, well, well.

Another cut, more precise, and I could see an elbow and a shoulder for a moment before they vanished under crawling magenta flesh. Fuhito-Jenova was trying to heal the wound I had created. No matter. I backed off for a few moments and shortened some tentacles, pretending that I hadn't seen what the wound had revealed. Then I chose an angle and stabbed.

The creature shot upward, almost dragging Masamune out of my hand, and flew a quick, erratic path over the mako. Following it was impossible, and in the end I just hung grimly onto my sword's hilt and let it throw me around. Between that and flying, the muscles in my shoulders were going to ache for hours despite my ridiculous healing factor. However, I was certain I had driven the blade into Fuhito's brain. I twisted Masamune for good measure, and the motions of the Jenova-creature became even more violent. Different minds controlling it, unable to coordinate as one of them died.

After a minute or so more, it stilled, hanging motionless in the air above the mako. The purple creature that had taken over Vincent's body darted in and began clawing chunks of it loose again. I settled for fine slices, hoping that one of us would be able to spot the body of the boy hidden somewhere inside it without doing him harm.

The Jenova-creature pulled in all its tentacles, and I immediately backed off, because unpredictable changes in a monster's behaviour often heralded some sort of powerful attack. Sure enough, a ring of blackness began to form around it, and not-Vincent backwinged away.

When the ring burst, we had both landed on the platform. The blackness hit the walls and vanished, leaving a thin scar behind. A bit of stone crumbled away in one spot, revealing that the thin line was a cut that went who-knew-how deep.

"An interesting use of that energy," the purple creature said.

"And a vicious one," I said. "I know you said you were immune, but try not to be hit."

It grinned at me with far too many teeth. "Worried that your brother will be hurt if I take damage?"

"Worried that I might lose an ally that I desperately need at present," I replied. "I know you aren't Vincent—your personality is too different, and he has admitted he has no control during these . . . episodes."

The grin vanished as though it had never been. "You are even odder than I thought. I am Chaos, created by the Planet to herald the end of everything. And as such . . . I know it isn't time for that yet."

I doubt that Jenova cares. I didn't bother saying it. Chaos already knew.

"We need to get the boy out of that. Fortunately, without Fuhito's brain to rely on, Jenova's intelligence should have dropped considerably."

"What about the boy's brain?" Chaos pointed out.

I was trying not to think about that. "It's immature." The glimpse I had caught of him suggested the boy was younger than Cloud.

What if we couldn't get him out alive?

"Nero." That was Cloud, suddenly speaking up. "His name is Nero."

"More importantly," Genesis added, "why isn't it attacking?"

"Maybe it's recovering?" Angeal had taken up a protective position between the other children and the fight.

Tentacles promptly lashed out in several directions. Twenty-eight seconds, I noted. That would have been more than enough time for a decisive attack if we'd dared just slaughter the thing, but under the circumstances . . .

Cloud fired off a mid-level lightning spell to keep its attention while Chaos and I leaped into the air once more. I had a feeling we were going to have to do a few more rounds of this before we would be able to retrieve Nero. Cut tentacles until I could dodge between to reach the main body and shave slices off as Chaos tore away handfuls of magenta flesh and Genesis froze the pieces we let drop, then leap away again as another ring formed, skewed at an angle this time. It was going to cut into the platform. I had to trust Cloud and Genesis to dodge, and Angeal to keep himself and the other children safe, because I needed to slice up as much Jenova as possible during the lull while She fired off this attack.

«—hurts—» a tiny voice whispered in my mind as I cut. It wasn't Jenova.

"Nero?" I whispered out loud, trying to push the thought toward him. It had been so long since I had tried to speak into only one mind while having access to several, but the skill was there and I knew it would return if I let it.

«—who? Weiss—»

«Weiss is here,» I told him. «He's waiting for you to come out.»

That turned out to be a mistake.

I leaped away as the entire Jenova-mass shrouded itself in darkness. Chaos was engulfed for a moment, but emerged from the shadow an instant later, making a noise somewhere between a grumble and a growl. We both landed on the side of the platform that looked like it had maintained the most integrity.

"What now?" Genesis grumbled, after a spell he threw was absorbed by the dark without causing so much as a ripple. "Oh, don't bother answering that," he added as I took a breath to do so. "I only asked for rhetorical effect."

If I concentrated, I could sense Nero's panic, but only very distantly, as though we were half a world apart. I wished now that I had tried to hone these mental skills, rather than casting them aside as tainted. Although I doubted I would have been able to do much to reassure the boy, given that I am not a reassuring person in general.

I heard Cloud make a protesting noise as the darkness began to clear. The form inside was no longer a tentacled sphere, but more humanoid, with proper limbs, although the legs were disproportionately short and dangled in midair. There was also a tail, long and whippy. Hands, large and clawed. Head, tiny and all-too-human where it stuck up out of a thick purplish neck.

Well, at least we know where he is now, I observed as Nero opened his eyes. He was crying silently, for which I didn't blame him at all. His mouth moved, but I heard the words only inside my head.

«—help me, Weiss—hurts so much—gonna die this time—»

Not if I could help it. I couldn't leave him. He was terrified and in pain and had never asked to be any part of this.

At least we knew where inside that mass his body was. But that didn't mean this was going to be an easy fight, not when the claws on those hands were dead and empty black. Even a touch from them would likely kill. Or transport, if I had correctly interpreted Chaos' not-quite-an-explanation.

"I'll go for the left arm," I told the purple creature. "Get the other one if you can."

"Are you trying to give me orders?" Chaos asked, sounding incredulous.

"Strong suggestions," I said, and was treated to a rumbling chuckle.

Chaos launched from the edge of the platform without another word, and I followed immediately, nearly dipping a wingtip into the mako when a beam-type spell slashed in my direction. The claws were the most dangerous, but that didn't mean Jenova wasn't able to create lesser obstacles. Once again, I followed a twisting path between spells and swinging limbs until I was able to briefly plant my feet on the thing's upper arm and hack it off just above the elbow. A moment later, Chaos roared in triumph as it snapped bone and left the other arm to plummet. Both limbs were encased in ice before they splashed into the mako.

«—hurts—»

«They're trying to get you out as fast as they can. You're going to be okay.» I was surprised to hear Cloud's mental voice, clear and focused. «Weiss is here waiting for you. You just need to be brave for a little bit longer.»

I shaved the thinnest of slices from the thing's shoulder, and frowned when I didn't find human flesh underneath. Had Jenova . . . ?

More slices, thin and quick, while Jenova appeared to be trying to figure out what to do. Still no human flesh was revealed, only shifting magenta.

«—no more!—»

Suddenly, darkness ballooned around both myself and the Jenova-mass. I could have tried to flee, but some instinct told me to stand my ground instead, despite everything Chaos had told me.

The blackness engulfed me—engulfed us, myself and Jenova and the boy Nero.

«—won't let go—»

"Jenova tends to be rather stubborn," I said, sheathing Masamune so that I could grope through the swirling dark with both hands. It was bone-bitingly cold, and there was a sense of something malicious staring at me from somewhere in the blackness. "Let me see what I can do. I promise I won't cut you again." Yes, that was the boy's hair. I laid one gloved hand on the top of his head, and called.

You'd better have been right about this, Chaos.

Reunion.

I shouted it, roared it, sang it without restraint. And Jenova came, her worn will and ancient hatred no match for my call. Her flesh crawled on me, enveloped me, because I knew I had no choice. My skin was enveloped in an uncomfortable shifting feeling.

And still I called.

When the darkness began to splinter into light, I wrapped an appendage around the boy, no longer certain whether it was an arm or a tentacle, and dragged him through with me.

We emerged back where we had vanished, in the air above the mako. Tumbling, I was barely able to establish which direction the platform was in and throw the boy that way before I struck green and sank under.

Acid green was burning every surface of my flesh, more viciously than ever before, and I would not scream. But it was also impossible to hold on to any other thought.

Chapter Text

Chapter 50

Cloud watched in horror as Sephiroth, three-quarters engulfed by shifting multicolored stuff, threw the dark-haired boy free as he fell towards the mako. And then the silver-haired man was gone, vanished beneath the surface before anyone could try to help.

"Nero!" Weiss pushed past Angeal and ran to the other boy. "Are you okay?"

Nero slowly picked himself up. "I think so. Just scratches. Nothing like . . ."

"You shouldn't have to put up with scratches, either," Angeal said, and Cloud turned his attention away from them. Nero had never been the one he was worried about, not really.

The purple not-Vincent creature that had called itself Chaos was standing right on the edge of the platform and frowning at the Lifestream. As Cloud began to move toward it, Chaos knelt and carefully lowered one hand into the green, then, after no more than a second or two, snatched it back again.

When Cloud stopped beside Chaos, the creature turned to look at him. "The Planet will not listen to me," it explained. "Its anger is such that I dare not even stay in contact with it too long. And my host's body is reaching its limit. You'll have to find another way."

Cloud just nodded, since he hadn't been expecting much help from it anyway. Chaos shuddered and melted into Vincent, and the Turk almost pitched forward off the platform before he caught himself.

"So what do we do now?" Genesis was the one to ask the question that was on all their minds. "Unless someone fancies a swim."

Cloud swallowed. "I think someone should call Zack and Aerith. I'm going to try to reach Sephiroth."

"Reach him?" Vincent said, sounding rusty.

"With his mind," Genesis said. "Are you sure, Cloud? I can try if you're not—"

"I can do it," Cloud said firmly. "I've been practicing. You know that." Since Genesis was the one he had mostly been practicing with. A bit with Zack, too, but either the S-cells weren't taking as well with Zack or he hadn't had them long enough, because he could barely hear Cloud no matter how hard Cloud thought at him.

"Very well," Genesis said, and pulled out his PHS instead.

Cloud sat down, laying his sword beside him, because he knew it was easier to concentrate if he didn't have to worry about standing.

He had never reached for Sephiroth on purpose before. Several times he had wanted to, but he'd never quite dared, since he knew what the silver-haired man thought of his Jenova-fueled abilities.

«Sephiroth?»

Nothing.

«Dad!» He tried to shout it as loudly as he could and push it down into the green, and slowly, sluggishly, a response came.

«Cloud? No, don't. I don't know if I can keep you safe.»

«I'll keep myself safe—isn't that what you've been training me for?» Cloud listened intently, because he wanted to be able to pick out more than just the words from Sephiroth's reply.

«Not . . . entirely.» Pain, Odin and Fenrir, pain like burning, and horrible things wiggling under his skin . . . Jenova?

«You pulled it all to you, didn't you?» Cloud said. «Because it was you or Nero.»

«Yes. I suppose he became a person to me when you told me his name. How odd.» Bitter amusement. Sephiroth's voice was stronger now. «Zack would never have been so intent on being a hero if he had understood how difficult saving people really is.»

«No, I think he would—I mean, he's Zack.» And Zack was a force of nature—everyone knew that. «Dad, how do you do that Reunion thing?»

«What? Cloud, no. I won't let you sacrifice yourself for me.»

Of course he was being stubborn. «I pull it up, and Genesis freezes it. I'll move down one of the corridors if it'll make you feel better, so that he has more time to catch it. You don't get to sacrifice yourself either. You promised.» Cloud knew he sounded like a kid, and hated it. Especially since he knew Sephiroth hadn't promised. The silver-haired man preferred to be truthful, not reassuring.

«I—» Sephiroth cut the thought off, and Cloud could sense him forcing it back and down to where it wouldn't distract him. «I will trust you to know your limits, but if any part of Jenova is about to touch you, break off the call immediately and run, do you understand?»

«Yes, sir.» Because that part felt like an order from his mentor.

«All right. It works like this.» And Cloud felt an odd mental twist. «Broadcast in all directions, not very selective. Keep an eye out for cell masses approaching from above, or other unexpected directions.»

«I understand.»

Cloud uncoiled from his seated position and drew in a breath to speak, but Genesis beat him to it. "I believe I caught most of that. There aren't any corridors at this level, but that alcove over there should provide some protection."

Cloud looked at the hollow that had been cut into the rock, and nodded. Genesis was right. It would do.

Zack looked pale as he put his PHS away.

"What's wrong?" Aerith asked. She really didn't like that expression. And she had felt a death, although she didn't think it had been anyone on their side who had died.

"Sephiroth went over the edge into the Lifestream all tangled up in Jenova . . . stuff," Zack said tightly. "He was trying to protect some kid that got mixed up in things."

"Does that surprise you?" Aerith found herself asking.

Zack shook his head. "Nah. He may act like he froze his emotions off in a Nibel mountain winter, but really, he's a decent guy. S'just that he was trained not to show he cares. Anyway . . . Cloud's gonna try to do the Reunion thing and get the Jenova-stuff to let Sephiroth go, but if you can get the Lifestream to push everything out, it might go easier." Zack hesitated, then added, "If Seph asks you to start the Jenova-packing thing while he's still in the middle of it, well, don't. I don't think he will, but . . ."

Do you hear that, Planet? The son of your Calamity has a self-sacrificing streak. "I won't," Aerith said firmly. "And if the stupid Planet tries to do it anyway, I'll do whatever I can to stop it."

"Thanks," Zack said, and smiled that so-bright smile that she was coming to love. "I guess we're all gonna end up owing you one. I just don't know what we can give you for coming all the way here from Mideel and doing all this stuff."

Aerith smiled mischievously. "I'll settle for one date. With you." And giggled as Zack went a really interesting shade of pink.

But then she had to get serious again. Planet, Lifestream, Jenova, Sephiroth. She knelt in front of the single flower growing in front of the disintegrating church's altar, and reached.

The Lifestream felt panicked. Aerith sensed lots of babble about Calamity and Calamity's son and rolled her eyes, wishing she could knock the Planet over the head with her staff. Just hard enough to get its attention.

«Spit it out,» she told it. «It won't fight you. Just spit it up out of the Lifestream. Then we'll separate it and freeze it and start packing it away.»

It felt like she was talking to a toddler that was trying to eat something unhealthy. Minerva, she'd almost forgotten that time she'd agreed to babysit the neighbours' twins when they'd been about three. One had stuffed a bug in his mouth while Aerith had been trying to keep the other one from climbing the side of the house. She still didn't know whether the mangled mass she'd pried out of the toddler's mouth had been the whole bug or not.

The Planet, unlike the toddler, didn't want its bug, but somehow that just seemed to be making it more stubborn about getting rid of it. It hit her with more "Calamity" and "Jenova" and Aerith had just had enough.

«Do you want to fix this or not?» she asked, exasperated. «The Calamity's son didn't choose his parents. He is not evil. He's trying to help, and that means he deserves your help.»

There was a little backcurrent of shame as the Planet admitted that it didn't quite know where to send the Jenova cell mass. It didn't want to just eject it at random.

«Just give it a push in the direction it already wants to go. Someone should be calling it.»

It seemed that that, finally, was simple enough to understand. Aerith felt the Lifestream concentrate force briefly somewhere nearby, felt the Jenova-mass shift and lose direct contact with the blood of the Planet. The itch at the back of her mind didn't go away, but it lessened, fading even more as the Planet smugly burned away the Jenova-traces left behind.

Aerith opened her eyes and stretched, accepting the hand Zack offered to help her get to her feet.

"That's that part done," she said. "Just the most difficult bit left to go."

Genesis' eyebrows rose involuntarily as the surface of the mako began to bubble and spat out . . . something. A pulsating, multicoloured mass of flesh that lacked any form of sameness or organization that would have allowed him to define or describe it. The only solid feature was a single leather-gloved hand extended from the technicolour chaos.

Angeal swore softly, incredulously. Genesis ignored him, and grabbed the hand. It was risky, he knew, but Sephiroth had taken so many risks for them that this was minor by comparison. He squeezed the leather-clad fingers, and was please when they squeezed back. He might be temporarily captive, but Sephiroth was still in there, and they were going to get him out.

The mass was crawling—gradually shifting toward Cloud, although it seemed sluggish and not altogether happy with the idea. Genesis gripped Sephiroth's hand more firmly, because if the thing moved and Sephiroth didn't, he would eventually pull free.

It took more than ten minutes. More of Sephiroth's arm slowly emerged, and after about four minutes, his other hand broke the surface. Genesis was only a little surprised when Vincent reached past him to take that one, although he normally wouldn't have been pleased with a gesture of solidarity from a Turk. Then, finally, finally, a lump extending from the side of the mass parted to reveal a head of silver hair and the upper part of a black-clad torso.

Genesis pulled, and beside him, Vincent did the same. Angeal might have been more effective, but he was still with the children—trying to fix the girl's injured leg, from the look of it—and perhaps he truly was more useful there. Sephiroth wasn't a small man, but Genesis and Vincent were both enhanced. Genesis just wished he'd been able to stomach the idea of bracing his foot against the multicoloured Jenova stuff. Alas, the very thought was nauseating.

When Sephiroth finally did slide free, Genesis wasn't certain whether it was because they had pulled him out or Jenova had finally receded that far, but no matter. His friend was alive, and, apparently, conscious, because the silver-haired man immediately pulled loose from them and forced himself up onto his hands and knees. He made choking noises, and before Genesis could even use his Sense materia to see if he could learn what was wrong, Sephiroth began to vomit, or perhaps cough up, more multicoloured glop, which writhed against the surface of the platform before crawling off to join the rest of the Jenova mass. Genesis gathered his friend's hair and held it out of the way, because he couldn't see what else he could do to help.

At length, the spasms subsided, but Sephiroth took several deep breaths before speaking. "Cloud. Stop calling." His voice was a bit raspy.

"Right. Are you okay?" Cloud did something, or perhaps stopped doing something, and the light pressure that Genesis had been feeling in his head on and off since they had come back down here vanished again.

"I will recover. But there are more immediate matters we need to deal with." Sephiroth shifted his weight, got one foot under him, and tried to stand. He barely made it, and so unsteady that Genesis felt obliged to grab his arm to assist his balance. "Genesis, can you freeze all of Her with one spell?" The tiny gesture he made with one hand to aid in mapping his "Her" to the Jenova mass almost unbalanced him again.

Genesis assessed the gloppy pile of multicoloured flesh. "Possibly, but dividing it into three or four parts would make it easier—What are you doing, you fool?!" For Sephiroth's left hand had reached toward Masamune's hilt. "Don't you dare. Angeal and I will handle it. You need to rest."

"When I can be certain She has been properly confined and will not be reviving again any time soon," Sephiroth said, even as he wobbled on his feet.

"By the Goddess, you are the most stubborn person I have ever known," Genesis said from between clenched teeth. "Vincent, can you look after him? I have a space monster to freeze."

Vincent wordlessly hauled Sephiroth's arm up across his shoulders, taking the silver-haired man's weight. Genesis kept an eye on them even as he persuaded Angeal to come and apply the Buster Sword to what was left of their enemy.

"I would have expected it to still be trying to fight us," the big man said as he cut the multicoloured mass into quarters.

"Jenova doesn't really think on a human timescale unless there's a human mind helping Her," Sephiroth offered. "Right now, She's confused. If left free, She would decide on Her next course of action in a day or two. She isn't accustomed to needing to hurry."

Genesis didn't like all the extraneous capital letters he was hearing in that pronouncement, but he and Sephiroth had had that discussion before without resolving anything. He gritted his teeth and cast ice spells instead, until he had turned the Jenova-chunks into a frost-covered mass that appeared to steam in the warmth of the reactor core as the ice sublimated.

Cloud came and dropped another little tissue-culture blot that he must have frozen himself on top of the pile. "Think that's all of it?"

"I don't think we can wait for any more," Genesis said, ignoring Sephiroth's indrawn breath. He expected the man was about to voice a protest—he could be meticulous about the oddest things. "Call Zack and Aerith. Tell them to begin the sealing procedure."

Chapter Text

Chapter 51 (Sephiroth's narrative)

I was fairly certain that there was more Jenova out there, somewhere, but the choice to wait for it had been taken from me. Perhaps we could perform a separate encasement for any straggling bits too large for Aerith's Limit Break to handle. In any case, Genesis might be impulsive, but he had never been stupidly so when not degrading, so hopefully his decision to wrap things up would bring about an acceptable result. Nor was I about to countermand him when I was having a difficult time just following the action. I hadn't felt so exhausted since Hojo had stopped running endurance tests on me.

Genesis was holding his PHS up with the camera directed at the Jenova mass, presumably so that Zack and Aerith could see the work-in-progress. Mako lapped up from the reactor bore and washed over the frozen Jenova-bits, and they moved under the pressure of the green until all sides were coated. Then the mako slowly thickened into a cocoon.

"So what do we do with it after this?" Cloud asked suddenly. "Burying it didn't work very well last time."

"Send it into the sun, perhaps," I said. "If not, burying it at the bottom of the ocean should at least buy humanity a few centuries." Articulating the words with my usual precision took considerable effort, but Hojo had always punished me for slurring.

Great Bahamut, why was that sorry excuse for a scientist suddenly so much on my mind? Perhaps it was just my exhaustion, or the release of pressure that came from knowing that my lengthy self-imposed mission was effectively over, with only the mop-up remaining.

And so what do I do from here? I wondered hazily as I watched Jenova's new Huge Materia-like shell develop. Hojo, Jenova . . . I should probably kill Hollander as well, just on general principles. And then President Shinra. Or the other way around. However, the two of them together weren't likely to occupy more than an hour of my time. What else? Withdraw the troops from Wutai as cleanly as possible, if I still had the authority to do so. And . . . gods. So many possibilities spreading out from that point that it was actually frightening. I had never in my life had complete freedom to choose a goal before, without reference to duty or what anyone else wanted.

Duty. I still had a duty to Cloud. He had claimed me as his father; I had accepted him as my son. Given my upbringing, I didn't have a true, visceral understanding of what that was supposed to mean, but I knew I owed him a duty of care. And there was Genesis, and Angeal—who was still adjusting to his S-cell-contaminated state—and even Zack. My . . . friends. And Vincent, my unexpected brother.

The future had a vague shape, and there were people who could help me work on the details. I wasn't alone with only the fractured internal compass resulting from Hojo's early training this time.

I think I understand now, I told my faded memory of the adult Cloud. What your friends were to you. What mine should have been to me, if we hadn't been deliberately sabotaged.

The Jenova-crystal was slowing its growth and clouding over into what looked like a coccoon. Minerva grant that nothing would ever again emerge from that chrysalis.

I just hoped it was small enough to fit through the doors down here without too much demolition.

When I was certain it had reached its final size, I said, "Vincent, call someone to pick up Her remains and store them securely until we can arrange for final disposal. Angeal, keep an eye on the children for the time being—we'll be taking them back up to the Tower with us." Because I have no idea what else we could do with them. "Genesis, I'm afraid you're going to have to field all of our appointments for the rest of today. A few fireballs are acceptable, but please don't kill anyone or cause property damage that exceeds your salary. Cloud . . ."

"I'll handle anyone who gets past Genesis," the boy said. "I have schoolwork, anyway."

"Make certain someone wakes your papa up to feed him at some point," Genesis said, positioning himself on my left side, opposite Vincent on my right, and drawing my arm across his shoulders again before I could protest.

Cloud nodded seriously. "I'll look after him. Mom will too, if I ask her. So you guys can concentrate on getting the important stuff done."

There was more to the conversation, I think, but as we began to move toward the door, I discovered I didn't have the energy to coordinate my feet and my language centers simultaneously. The words disintegrated into auditory mush, and I think I may actually have lost some time during the drive from Midgar General up to the Tower (someone must have summoned a car, but I didn't remember that either), and again in the elevator. Hojo would have been livid.

Hojo isn't here anymore.

I woke in my own bed in my apartment in Shinra Tower, with the clock by the bedside indicating that I had slept a good six hours—unusual for me. Someone had gotten me out of most of my clothes, except for the trousers. My boots were beside the bed, coat flung over a chair, pauldrons on the dresser, Masamune propped in a corner with her harness dangling from her scabbard. And there was a faint smell of something delicious in the air.

I could hear breathing and the occasional rustle of a page turning, indicating that someone was in the living room. Still barefoot, I padded silently into the stubby hallway connecting the rooms, and saw Cloud playing with a pencil as he flipped through the history text from his correspondence school.

Cloud looked up, and smiled. "Good. You're awake. Mom made some stew—it's on the stove. And Genesis made me promise not to give this back—" He held up my PHS. "—until after you've eaten."

I could have taken it, of course, but there was no point. Instead, I went to the kitchen to fill a bowl with stew and make myself some tea. There were rolls in a paper bag on the counter, too, fresh and crusty—also Claudia Strife's handiwork, if I didn't miss my guess, although she'd gotten her hands on a better grade of flour than was available in Nibelheim. Plain food, but tasty and filling and that was more than good enough.

I refilled my bowl twice before beginning to feel sated. How much energy had I burned in that fight? After setting my dishes in the sink, I returned to the living room and silently held my hand out to Cloud, who just as silently placed my PHS in it. It appeared that the worn device, relic of a future that would never exist now, had survived yet another swim in the Lifestream in working condition.

I scrolled through messages—Genesis, Lazard, Angeal, Veld, Rufus, Vincent, Genesis again . . . Hard to tell which were the most important, so I might as well take them in order.

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting in a chair and frowning at the little screen. So, the President was dead, long live the President. I wondered who had actually killed the old man—Veld's message had been rather cagey. Lazard wanted a report and wasn't pleased that we'd left Wutai without permission. Predictable. Rufus wanted a meeting with me tomorrow. Angeal had the three Deepground children who had wandered into the fight with Jenova under control for the moment, but wanted to know what we were supposed to do with them long-term, and messaging him back with I don't know either didn't seem appropriate. In the end, I'd offered him, Ask Veld if you haven't already. Vincent wanted me to know that the Jenova-mass had been moved to a Turk prison cell under round-the-clock guard. And Genesis . . . was being Genesis and sending me videos, first a behind-the-scenes at the press conference where Rufus had revealed his father's death to the world, then one of Angeal trying to get the Deepground children to act like civilized beings in public.

"You look like someone just served you a Mystery Mush ration they'd been hoarding," Cloud said, having given up all pretense of reading his textbook.

"I am . . . uncertain of how to deal with Rufus as president," I admitted. "By the time I had killed his father in the previous timeline, I was no longer part of Shinra and therefore had no need to deal with the fallout. Zack would no doubt say that I cheated, that time." That made Cloud snicker, as I had intended. "And I have no idea how to deal with the Deepground children, either, as we never crossed paths in the original history. I suppose I have to come to terms with not knowing even a distorted version of the future anymore." I found myself smiling, although it didn't feel at all humourus.

"Flying blind," Cloud said, then added, "It isn't fair that I don't have wings."

"Mine didn't manifest until I was fourteen. You still have time."

"Oh." A hesitation. "You don't mind? That I want to be . . . like you?"

"It was a bit disconcerting at first," I admitted. "The other Cloud hated me to such an extent that I expected he would have stabbed anyone pointing out a similarity between us. But I told you before that I won't overrule you when it comes to choosing what to do with your own body. It would make me feel too much like Hojo and the other scientists."

"They really hurt you, didn't they?"

"It was a long time ago," I said, because "no" would have been a lie, and "yes" would have meant too much vulnerability. Even now.

"It's kind of scary. I mean, when I was little, I thought you were invincible. You could kill dragons. But these people . . . they had you all messed up inside."

I shrugged. "By the time I was strong enough to fight them, it never seemed worth it. I was so accustomed to being in pain that it no longer mattered—no longer even registered as significant. Like a fish not noticing that everything around it is wet, because that's how everything has always been. I didn't want to admit that other states were possible, because if they truly were, then why had I suffered for so long? And then Jenova gave me what felt like an answer, and I proceeded to make a fool of myself. Never give up your own will, Cloud. Ever."

"Yeah, I figured that one out after you told us about the other timeline." Cloud swallowed visibly. "I'm sorry you had to go through all that. But I'm still glad you're here—you, and not the younger Sephiroth who never met Cloud Strife. If you hadn't been there for me, I'd still be stuck in Nibelheim with everyone crapping on me 'cause I don't know who my sperm donor was. I guess it's a bit selfish of me, to feel like that's the most important thing."

"It changed your life, and very likely the future of the world, so it would be wrong to say it was unimportant." I wasn't certain I would have made it back from that last dip in the Lifestream, if not for Cloud. It was Cloud's need for my presence that had given me the will to hold on, and it was Cloud who had been willing to risk himself by calling Jenova away. "I never imagined that things could end up this way."

Cloud smiled. "I figured that out, too."

"I thought as much. You're quite bright." He was just close enough for me to reach over and ruffle his hair, so I did. He ducked away, but his smile didn't vanish.

I did have work to do, though. Of a sort. The question was, should I lie in my report to Lazard, or tell him the entire truth and watch his head explode? I neither liked nor disliked the Director of SOLDIER—he could be useful sometimes, but at others, there was just too much Shinra in him. In the end, I decided on a mostly-truthful version that wouldn't address my origins, time travel, or how I knew what I did about Jenova. If he asked, I would refer him to the Turks and have Vincent and Veld take over the job of tying his brain into knots. Leaving things out was easier than lying outright, since I have never been much of a fiction writer.

I sent a message to Genesis: "Have you lied about what happened? Lazard wants a report, and I want to make certain we keep our stories straight."

The answer came a few minutes later. "No, I've been keeping everything deliberately vague. Veld is doing likewise, from what I've overheard. Write what you think fit."

Good enough.

It took me several hours, and I wouldn't claim that the result was a masterpiece, but hopefully "Berserk winged Angeal headed for Midgar to rendezvouz with brainwashing alien, and there were peace negotiations taking place anyway" would be a sufficient explanation for leaving the front even if I didn't elaborate too much on it. Besides, the new President was in on that part, so what Lazard thought wouldn't really matter.

This might be the last report that I ever sent him. Once Hollander was dealt with, there was no reason for me to stay at Shinra—Heidegger, Scarlet, and Palmer weren't nice people, but compared to what had gone before, they were more like a comedy team than a threat to the Planet.

However, I wasn't about to leave without the others, and Genesis, Angeal, Zack, and Cloud might feel quite differently about what place Shinra should occupy in their future. My home was with them, wherever they chose to be.

And perhaps I was—just a little—longing for the structure that remaining at Shinra would bring, with the future opening up in front of me, so wide and empty and free. It made me feel a bit more sympathetic to the Deepground children.

There was a knock at the door. I went to answer it.

"Alive, I see," Genesis said the moment I opened it. "Excellent. Angeal and the Puppy are bringing more food—he even managed to come up with a dessert or two that we think you might like."

"One would think you were trying to fatten me up," I said dryly.

"Only to introduce you to the better things in life, my friend, now that you have fewer other concerns to interfere. And it isn't as though you won't burn off the calories. Even if the war is over, which is by no means certain yet, there will always be behemoths to slay."

I stepped back to allow Genesis into the apartment. His expression softened oddly as he looked at the living room, slightly disarranged, with papers and books on the table.

"It's good to be home, isn't it?" he said softly.

I shrugged. "I am . . . still engaged in an ongoing study of the concept of 'home'." And whether I had one.

Genesis chuckled. "That is very like you." His expression went serious, then. "You always have a home with us, you know. Always. It would feel wrong not to have you with us. I don't know what the other versions of us were thinking, leaving you behind at Shinra."

"They had lost their way," I said, after a moment's though. Because I understood all too well how that worked.

"Perhaps, but I cannot imagine myself wandering so far astray. There is no hate, only joy / For you are beloved by the goddess / Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds. Perhaps it's just as well that those words turned out to be about you, and not I."

I shook my head. "They're about Cloud," I said.

"Dad!"

Genesis' smile stole out again. "Perhaps they are, at that."

Chapter Text

Epilogue (Sephiroth's narrative)

"Five," said the voice over the loudspeaker. "Four. Three. Two. One. Ignition."

There was an explosion of fire and thunder, and the rocket rose, carrying Jenova and her prison away from Gaia forever. Not many of us knew of the payload, of course. To most people, this was just the last test before we used the next rocket to send a human into space.

The most likely candidate for that honour whooped loudly as the rocket rose into the sky, making himself heard even over the roar of the engines. Cid Highwind, new head of the Space Program. His skills as an aerospace engineer and a pilot were matched only by his skill at cursing.

Beside me, Cloud watched the rocket recede into the sky, eyes wide with wonder. Now fourteen, he was officially a SOLDIER, and wore the Third Class uniform as though he'd been born to it.

We'd ended up bringing the entire group to Rocket Town with us. Zack and Aerith stood together beside Angeal and Ifalna, whom the Planet had allowed to travel with her daughter this time. Beyond them, Vincent and Veld and Felicia in her new cadet uniform. Genesis was on our other side, and beyond him, the oldest of the Deepground children with their minder, Argento.

«So now even the mop-up is over with.» Cloud laid the words gently at the edge of my mind. We were all learning how to cope with that—the others with the enhanced abilities that came with sharing my part-alien cells, and me with the idea that I wasn't unique anymore. Or at least, not in that way.

«Indeed,» I responded. Jenova was gone, and the Planet would not have to suffer her again. The mako reactors were going offline, one at a time, as they were replaced by other means of generating electricity. I didn't know whether the wastes around Midgar would recover in my lifetime (however long that turned out to be), but they had a chance now, at least. «Except for the tiresome celebratory banquet, that is.»

«Guess so. I almost wish I was still a cadet—then they wouldn't expect me to show up no matter whose protégé I was.» Cloud made a face.

«And why should you have the evening off while the rest of us are forced to suffer?» That was Genesis.

«Because I'm the 'Hero of the dawn',» Cloud replied cheekily. «You admitted as much yourself.»

«Hopeless brat.» I could feel Genesis' amusement, though.

«Hey, guys, we have a bit of time before the banquet-thing, right?» Zack offered. «And this is the first time we've all been together in one place in more than a year. We should be celebrating, not complaining!»

«Your idea of celebration frightens me more than the banquet,» I told him, but I could feel a smile slip across my face.