Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Recapture- to capture again; recover by force; retake

Sept 29

Zack can’t stop thinking about the golden rain.

It’s been hours; the storm has all but dried up, and the sun sank out of sight hours ago. Yet Zack still can’t make sense of it. He really needs to focus on wiggling through the mess of metal and concrete that’s separating him from the Slums right now, but instead, his exhausted brain keeps drifting away. He’s caught himself swaying in place and staring at nothing at least three times in the last hour. Without the soft noises Cloud has been making, he probably would have passed out already. It’s just that the sudden shower of golden light won’t move from where it’s imprinted itself onto the back of his eyelids. What WAS it? Side effects of some Shinra madness? A hallucination caused by massive amounts of blood loss? Those shadows, he’d been seeing them for years now, and they’d been swarming Midgar. Thicker than fog, darker than black. And all of a sudden, they’re just gone?! Woosh! In a shower of golden dust that revealed Midgar in all its glory, and sent a hair-raising prickle all up his spine.

Was it a warning? A sign? Should he turn around? The thought could make him sick- he’s so close! If he can get through this pile of discarded construction equipment he can slip into Sector 6, and from there it’s only an hour's walk at most to Aerith’s! He fought a whole fucking battalion to get this far! A short stroll should be a walk in the park!

Instead, his vision keeps weaving in and out, and it feels like every other step sends him careening into another pile of junk. Without Cloud’s returning ability to grip onto the back of his shirt, Zack is pretty sure he’d have dropped the poor guy by now. The tight weight of it makes it feel like Cloud is just as annoyed at the stumbling as he is.

Zack is stubborn though, and he ignores the building frustration. They’re getting close, and he isn’t giving up now. Not after fighting so hard, coming so far -dodging shadows and bullets both. Frantic, praying to every god that could listen that no one would get it into their head to wander behind those rocks-

Aaaaand he’s shaking again. Zack scrambles for a moment, grip tight on Cloud’s waist as his thoughts try to fly away from him. Deep breathes Zack, he can practically hear Cloud say, nearly there.

“Nearly there.” he repeats aloud, a sad attempt at self reassurance. Gods, he’s so tired.

It’s not the kind of tired he’s ever been before. Deeper than his bones, sinking into his very being. Beyond dead tired, because at least the dead can rest, and Zack absolutely has to keep moving. He’s got people waiting for him, depending on him, and somehow those facts are both the light at the end of the tunnel and even more weight to bear.

No giving up. Zack reminds himself. No giving up. He can nearly hear Cloud agree, memories from the labs.

Practicality peeps up again, also in Cloud’s voice; then stop and rest. He has to shove it away. Zack isn’t sure that he would be able to get back up again, for one. For another, there is no way Shinra is not RIGHT on their tail. He’d spotted two helicopters sweeping around the wastes after the storm faded, and there wasn’t a chance in hell that an entire battalion went silent without someone looking into it. Thirdly, he’s not an idiot- he’s not in good shape. He goes down without some form of healing right now, and the chances he’ll ever get back up are so low you’d have to dig to find them.

Cloud sways slightly against him; to tug him forward or urge him to sit down, there isn’t really a way to tell, but it brings Zack back to the present all the same, and he’d curse if he had the breath. They have to move.

Each staggering step feels like an eternity. Step, stagger, rebalance, breathe, repeat. He’s feeling floaty and cold. Cloud is a scorching line of heat across his shoulders and down his side. Every time he blinks he sees gold dust. It’s no wonder it takes him so long to realize he’s finally left behind the maze of broken Plate and exchanged it for run-down warehouses and piles of trash. Somewhere in the distance, out of sight, he can hear the faint, rowdy riot of sound that is Wallmarket -which is to be avoided-.

Zack turns Northeast towards Sector 5, the trickling bubble of adrenaline clearing his head for a moment. They are so close. Sector 6 is trashed, but the people living down here have put effort into at least clearing pathways and restoring some of the storage. There are spray painted gang tags just about everywhere, and the occasional shitty lean-to, but the paths themselves are well-traveled and well-guarded. It’s unfair, actually. He keeps having to pause, lean around corners, and find workarounds to avoid the various thugs lingering by warehouse doors. His hands are going numb by the time they finally reach the next debris zone that divides Sector 6 from 5. He can’t shake the cold that’s started working into his muscles.

This debris zone is mostly made of the remnants of collapsed Plate. Luckily, there are signs of ‘cleaning’ anyway. Mostly meandering pathways, with assorted chunks of concrete and metal shoved up and to the side to create a high-walled maze. No more signs of habitation in this area, just the skitter of wererats and the always present rotten egg smells. The quiet clattering noises the critters make help keep him on his toes, and it almost feels like Cloud is taking a bit more of his own weight. Zack winces as he straightens up a bit more, ribs screaming in protest. He can practically feel the bullets rattling in his chest every time he breathes too deeply. Shit. Happy thoughts Zack. It's a fucking miracle that Cloud’s doing so much better, so quickly. Maybe it’s a hallucination too. Zack just wishes he could summon up anything besides exhaustion when he voices his encouragement anyway. The words keep falling out of his mouth though, basically a meaningless drone at this point, the neverending, repetitive chant of ‘that’s it, Spikey, nearly there. You’re doing so well. Can’t believe it, look at you.’ type of stuff. Cloud makes a humming noise and tries to raise his head again, but can’t seem to manage it for more than a moment, stumbling over his feet. Their feet. Whatever. At least if this is a hallucination it’s a good one.

Zack rebalances them and forces his eyes to refocus on their surroundings. He feels as hollow as the space around them. There's a chunk of collapsed plate to his left, and a long, deep crack, roughly 8 feet across, to his right, both edged in piles of trash and cement. The path continues on a ‘ways to a rundown warehouse, and beyond that, another section of debris. Past that, if he squints his eyes, he swears he can see the glimmer of golden lights from Sector 5.

He catches himself relaxing too much, swaying to the side. It takes a monumental effort, but Zack manages to straighten up. “Nearly there,” he says again. He’s said it so many times before, he wonders if the words hold any actual meaning anymore. Are they just routine noise now, to Cloud’s ears?

Cloud doesn’t respond to him, blinking blearily around, feet shuffling along and head bobbing whenever he tries to raise it. Zack is careful to skirt the pathway as far from the crevice as he can. He doesn’t like the sounds he’s hearing down there. Clicking and rustling. Could be a monster nest. It’s too dark for even him to see, and his eyes flit around, searching for the familiar swirl of black cloaks and finding nothing. He can’t tell the faint noises from the grinding of his own teeth in his head.

That golden light…what had happened?

His head is spinning too much to figure out anything right now. He needs to focus. Get to Aerith. Nothing else matters. They got this.

He doesn’t realize the grinding noise isn’t just his teeth until it’s too late, of course.

“Target sighted” he hears, and it feels like he dies right then, with how fast he goes cold. He whips around to see over his shoulder, dragging Cloud off his feet, and he sees them. Gray military attire, strange helmets, about 7 of them, all armed.

God no, he’s so close.

There’s barely enough time to tighten his grip on CLoud and lunge around the corner of the warehouse before a high-powered rifle sends a round after them, clipping the building and leaving a fist-sized hole in the edge. There’s shouting, and Zack isn’t sure if the cramping in his stomach is pain or dread, all he can hear is the one in charge snapping “For fuck’s sake, ALIVE dammit!”

“Order’s said Dead or Alive, sir!” someone snarls back, and there is a thud as Zack hauls Cloud back into place over his shoulder and stumbles away as fast as he can. He doesn’t get time to comprehend the words, he’s all but sprinting towards the debris when 3 more of the gray soldiers round the other corner between him and freedom.

One is dropping to a knee to aim their rifle, and the other two have swords- SOLDIER class broadswords, shit. Are they enhanced?

They’re so fucked, the rest of the squad have rounded the corner behind him, and there’s only one way out now.

The Buster Sword should feel reassuring in his hand when he drops Cloud against the warehouse wall and draws it, but his hands are cold and heavy, and his grip is too pinched, like his palms are swollen. His arms don’t shake, but they feel like they want to, every muscle protesting as he sinks into position and uses the very last of his Mana to cast Haste. He can’t let himself think about it. He's got this.

Gunman first; the one who hadn’t cared if he brought them in cold. Zack gets lucky, the guy hadn’t been expecting it, in the middle of aiming his weapon. One hard, vicious slash and he’s not getting up again. The guy next to him stumbles back and into a comrade as the Captain starts to shout, cussing them out.

Zack doesn’t give him time to issue orders and brings The Buster right back down in a devastating blow. Had the man not been enhanced, it would have cut him right in half, but he definitely is, odd gray uniform notwithstanding, and he manages to brace himself behind his standard-issue broadsword enough to redirect the force down and to the side.

It makes his spine all but shriek like chalk on a chalkboard, but Zack swings himself around to follow up, and hauls his sword right back up and forward, smashing right into the dude’s side.

For a second, he almost lets himself hope they can make it, but the crack of a rifle and the hot whizz of a bullet biting into his hip shoves him back into reality. Cloud is attempting to lever himself up on shaky arms, eyes still glazed with Mako Poisoning, and the three enemies on their 6 are closing in fast. Zack responds almost on instinct, slamming the broad side of the Buster Sword across the two men who remain in front of him and shoving as hard as he can to knock them back and off their feet. He doesn’t even have time to make sure that it works before he’s whipping back around and throwing the buster right over his shoulder with all the power he can muster.

One of the three doesn’t move fast enough and is slammed right into the ground as Zack legitimately pounces on the other two, fists swinging hard. There’s shouting, and choking noises, and the thud of blows as he lets loose and aims for the head. The remaining rifleman is scrambling to reload, and the other two behind him are scrambling back to their feet, so he decides to make some room and basically throws the poor sucker he’s been whaling on a good 15 feet into a pile of scrap metal.

Crack! Goes the rifle, and there’s barely time for Zack to jerk back as another bullet grazes his arm. Dumbass was using a single-shot? His hip is burning and numb all at once as he twists to grab at the Buster Sword again and slashes outward, driving their attacks back and out of range by a good 6 feet as he plants himself firmly between them and Cloud. There’s a frustrated grunt behind him, and he can hear Cloud’s boots scuffing against the dirt.

He still needs more room, to make sure he doesn’t hit Cloud in any backswings as they move. The rifleman is reloading again. No, seriously, who still uses a single shot these days? He’s got this, 4 left, all seemingly watching him warily from behind those stupid-looking helmets. They look worse than the ones the Infantry infantry uses, poor bastards. He just hopes they don’t have infrared.

Time to go.

Another lunge forward, and although the guy manages to block, the force is enough to send him skidding a good 20 feet back, struggling to maintain his balance. One of the others must be an absolute clutz because they windmill wildly when they attempt to move out of range and tumble into the chasm behind them with a startled yelp. The skittering noises that follow immediately after swallow up the startled shout the poor bastard lets out.

The third guy is fast though, practically teleporting right inside Zack's guard and striking out with his sword. Zack twists again and swears his hip disintegrates when he twists to catch the blow with his pauldron. It stops the cutting power, but the force sends him staggering backward and nearly knocks the Buster out of his numb fingers.

The attack has given him room though, which is what he needed. A quick turn, and he rushes down a path and around a corner, where he spins back around and catches the guy off guard with another blow from the Buster Sword. His buddy, unfortunately, is right behind him, shouting nonsense into a com unit and readying a materia. Not good. Zack has to duck down and roll forward, slashing at the other guy with his sword and striking out with his other fist at the dude's knee.

He doesn’t quite manage to land the blow, just to knock the man off balance again. He has to spin back around to block the other guy when they swing out at his unprotected back. The Buster sword screeches like a banshee when the gray-clothed man disengages, sparks flying. The third tries to step in, but the pathway is too narrow, and he can’t seem to swing his broadsword correctly in the tight space.

For one second, he actually believes he’s got this. Everyone followed him, so Cloud is good for the moment, and all that’s left is three stumbling goons attempting to swing broadswords in a narrow alley. His hip might have phased into another dimension or something, but the Buster is still in his hand, and he has 30 more seconds of haste to overwhelm these guys and show them what a real SOLDIER can do.

So of course that’s when the dart hits him.

Nice and sharp, a tight little pinch, right in the neck. For a second he thinks it’s shrapnel, and swings out with the Buster again, but then feathers tickle his chin and he feels the too-familiar burn of Hojo’s favorite serum start to spread down his collarbone and up his jaw. That’s when he panics.

He’s aware of the new arrivals as he whips the Buster around, slashing at the nearest target. He can’t think fast enough, everything’s a jumble of ‘oh god no, so close, Cloud, what can I do, do something, NO GIVING UP’. Adrenaline means he’s running out of time fast. Haste means he’s running out of time even FASTER.

The Buster sword smashes into the side of the pathway and sends concrete and metal tumbling back down, pelting everyone with fist-sized shrapnel. Zack swings again, and again, and again, until the pathway is completely buried, and his targets covered in slashes.

His vision is starting to go black, the weight of his own bones feels like it’s doubling, his knees are buckling, so he puts his back into it and hauls The Buster over his shoulder. Like hell Shinra will get their hands on Angeal’s legacy. They don’t get Cloud, and they don’t get-

He heaves on the pommel, using his shoulder as the fulcrum, and lets gravity do the rest. The Buster whips up and over the wall of metal and concrete, then back down, somewhere on the other side. Zack turns and tries to start climbing, concrete skittering under his feet and tingling hands scrabbling for a handhold-

The second dart hits him in the shoulder, but it doesn’t matter- his vision is already going black, and his fingers have gone slack as he tumbles downward once again, into the dark.

Chapter Text

Repress- subdue (someone or something) by force.

Sept 29

There’s a shadow in the corner of Kennedy’s eye. 

It’s not there if she looks directly at it, like searching for a white chocobo in the middle of a dark night, but it flickers in and out of view if she lets her gaze drift. Strange, yes, but familiar; they’ve been there for several weeks now. No, what makes this shadow so noteworthy is its behavior. 

The shadows seem to prefer to ignore most people, drifting from place to place with some sense of purpose, whispering in voices that lay just out of human hearing. Sometimes they’ll even pass through a person to get wherever they are going, leaving behind a strange, chilling shiver and a paranoid glint in the eye. The eeriness is nearly enough to convince her she’s finally cracked. Or finished cracking. The new shadow, however, is doing the opposite of ‘ignoring’. It’s practically hanging off her shoulders, following her through the crowd, brushing against her arms. It has physical weight, it’s cold, people are giving her a larger berth, and the animals are shying away like she’s a stranger. 

She’s pretty sure it’s herding her somewhere, actually. Perhaps once upon a time she would have let her curiosity lead her and allowed it to do so, but time had taught her there were worse things than dead cats to be found down that particular path. 

So she flips the script and attempts to ignore its foreboding nudges, determinedly making her way through Sector 5. Head down, ears open, not speaking to anyone. It’s irritating in the extreme. Usually, she’d be in the market right now, selling scrap to whoever needed it. Instead, she’s being given the runaround, nudged south with every other turn. Hip checks, swoops, shoves, bumps, tripping her up! People are starting to look at her weird! The last thing she needs is more attention! She’s gone to great lengths to be as unassuming as possible! She hasn’t washed her hair in almost a week at this point.

Of course she’s eventually railroaded past Chocobo Sam’s rental station and into the scrap yards, where her personal stalker finally seems to decide it’s done its job and starts hanging back instead of breathing down her neck like some kind of terrifying black apparition of Death. This must be it, proof she’s crazy. She finally cracked. Fine. The question is HOW crazy she is; since she knows that the shadows are not there and does everything in her power to ignore them, does that make her less crazy? Half crazy? Half insane?

She isn’t getting anywhere like this.

She peeks upward at the plate, at the sliver of smoggy, rainy sky visible in the gap where sector 6 collapsed mid-construction, and then hurriedly returns her eyes back to her feet when she trips up over some bent rebar. Fucking hell, she’s not going to get anything worthwhile done today, is she?

Eden Kennedy is about 25 years old; short, dark-haired, and slightly too bright-eyed. She’s notable only in that she looks like a car crash survivor who ran away from the scene and never went back. Her clothes are tattered and worn, obviously 2nd (or 5th) hand, and far too big for her. She’s got a dirty bandage wrapped around her head that covers most of the left side of her face, and a streak of white hair tucked up under her beanie, completing the escaped mental patient look. Her coat is an awful off-green color, and the sole of her right shoe slaps against her foot with every other step she takes. An obvious Scrapper, she’s got a visibly patched drawstring bag on her back, stuffed full of metal pipes and wooden boards that narrowly miss smacking the back of her head every time she has to twist around. She looks homeless, and tired, and half feral; which suits her just fine. If people don’t look at you, they don’t remember you, if they don’t remember you, they can’t snitch. 

The scrap in this part of Sector 5 has been picked completely clean, although farther down, deeper in the clutter, the monsters keep most people out. After the water in that area went bad, everyone moved out, so there are all kinds of useful things to snag from the precarious shells of former houses. Eventually, the usual slummy mess gives way to the disaster that makes up the bulk of Sector 6, and after that, to find Wallmarket, all you gotta do is follow the noise.

Kennedy doesn’t want to go to Wallmarket. She’d rather cut through the mess of metal and concrete and risk impalement of a different kind thank you very much. There’s not much scrap in this area, but that doesn’t mean today has to be a total failure. 

Her shadowy stalker seems fine with this, floating after her like a child’s balloon. The scrap in her bag comes in handy for navigating the uncleared path she picks through the concrete jungle of junk, the longer pieces are good for poking and testing possible footholds. It takes forever of course. She’s drenched with sweat by the time she finds a decent footpath, and wishes harder than ever that the rain could reach down below and help wash the filth away. 

Speaking of filth. Kennedy grimaces and wipes her hands off on her jacket. Hopefully, none of it was corrosive or anything. 

She’s paused to check over her hands for cuts, and is beginning to take a look at her legs when she hears the first gunshot. For a whole second, she’s absolutely sure it’s her; that she’s dead. She stays frozen for a good 20 heartbeats waiting for the pain to hit before she realizes she’s got to move. Diving behind a chunk of concrete, she grabs the heaviest thing she’s got in her bag. The old iron pipe is barely longer than her arm, but free of rust, and if she’s seriously gonna have to fight someone today it’ll work well enough. She braces herself and cocks her head, listening hard. 

Someone is shouting. Several someones, nearby. At least 4 voices. There’s another gunshot and some swearing. The shriek of metal on metal. Kennedy slowly lets herself relax as the info sinks in. Not her fight, and no one seems to know she’s even there, she can keep her head down and scram. 

Somewhere in the hubbub, she hears a voice call out ‘Man down!’. Her shadowy escort must decide that it’s time to get moving because it’s bumping into her and urging her back down the pathway and away. Irritating as hell. Kennedy slips out of hiding and starts to stand.

Another gunshot. Higher caliber. It makes her nerves scream, and the goddamn shadow has the nerve to try and fucking shove her, and she snaps.

Kennedy whips around and pushes the shadow as hard as she can, hands sinking into the weirdly fluffy cloak until she hits the main body, harder and colder, and sends it flying back into the mess of concrete and metal. An avalanche of debris immediately starts to tumble down, stone grating against steel, groaning supports, dust, and sand rushing through cracks. Something tinny crashes to the ground out of sight, and more of the makeshift wall gives way, tumbling over and down to leave her completely in the open. 

There are a couple of troops in an unfamiliar grey uniform, all armed, and the front half of a very run-down warehouse. She’s standing there, covered in dust and holding a pipe, eyes wide. Somewhere out of sight, there’s a good deal of shouting and banging, and Kennedy is pretty sure this is it. She’s gonna die. Her life is flashing before her eyes- (so many goddamn mistakes, she was such a fucking CHILD)- in a haze of golden glitter. Her shadowy follower has deserted her, and she’s going to die before she can get her hands on some chocolate cake from that Cafe in Sector 5. Fucking hell, what a way to go.

“No witnesses!” one of the troopers hisses, and his buddy immediately pulls up his rifle as the third draws a fucking SOLDIER-issue broadsword and charges her.

Yeah, no. She didn’t survive this long just to make it easy for them.

Eden Kennedy takes off running into the maze of debris, and the SOLDIERs in grey uniforms take off after her. 

Kennedy’s head has failed her plenty of times, but it still spins and calculates as she bolts back the way she came. Which footholds were steady enough to take her weight, which might give out under the fully armored men behind her. Mostly, she’s struggling to place how the fuck they’re using SOLDIER-issued gear; they must be enhanced. Maybe SOLDIER changed up their uniform? It doesn’t make sense for that to happen without some kind of fanfare, Hiedigger would want to make an event of it to squeeze out as much gil as possible. A stealth team maybe? Why not use the Turks instead? Something new? That gear was broken in, but maybe-

A shout from overhead- “Gotcha!”

Kennedy doesn’t bother ducking. Close range, it’s gotta be the broadsword user. Likely an opening, overhead strike to take her out in one crushing blow. Any civilian would be fucked six ways to Sunday. 

For the first time in a while, Kennedy is grateful she’s not a civilian. 

Midstep, she changes direction and lunges to the side, rolling across plate debris and earning herself a multitude of scratches. Broadsword guy smashes down right where she’d been running and shouts in surprise as the blow utterly obliterates the metal pipe she’d been using. Kennedy tightens her grip on her weapon and bolts back toward him. She’s only got a few seconds before he recovers, and after that dodge, she can’t let him give away her one advantage. 

She brings her pipe crashing down on the guy's helmeted head as he struggles to get back to his feet, cracking the reinforced armor and bending the iron in her fist. It doesn’t matter, can’t slow her down. He’d dropped his sword, and she might not have trained to handle any of the absurdly large blades so much of SOLDIER preferred, but she has enough enhancement to grab and swing as her target tries again to get back to his feet. 

This time, he doesn’t get back up. 

She scrambles back to her feet and tries to give the broadsword a hopeful swing, but it’s too unfamiliar to use effectively. She glances down at the unfamiliar grey uniform and considers the chances he had anything else on him. 

“Halt!”

Fuck, so fast. All of them must be enhanced. What was Shinra DOING? Hadn’t they tightened the requirements for SOLDIER until they figured out how to counter the Degradation?

The Broadsword isn't much use to her as anything other than a very unwieldy stick, but it’s thick enough she can duck behind it when her pursuers start shooting. She curses and stumbles back along the path she’d picked out earlier, struggling not to trip over scattered junk. The scratches all up her side are growing hot, and the painful burn of mako-enhanced healing makes her eyes water. Her hearing is able to pick up two sets of feet, quickly getting closer. She’s gonna have to think fast. 

The back of her knees comes into contact with the concrete ledge behind her, and she holds her breath, listening hard. Someone is still climbing, cursing as they clamber closer. The guy with the gun is still firing, but digging in his pocket- he must be running low, does she have time to wait him out-?

Yes, yes she does. Kennedy takes advantage of the split-second pause as the rifleman reloads, and throws herself up onto the ledge, dragging the broadsword behind her as still more cover when they both attempt to pelt her with projectiles. They don’t let up, so neither does she, scooting back, still curled on her side, until she feels the void of space that means she’s reached the end of this particular slab of concrete. Hopefully, her memory is working correctly because if it isn’t, this is gonna hurt like a bitch-

She rolls backward, scrambling to right herself during the 5-foot drop down onto a narrow wedge rock. One of the men shouts after her, and the firing stops as they immediately pick up the pace again. 

Kennedy barely manages to get around a corner, the remains of some building from before the plate tumbled, before bullets start whizzing after her again. It feels a bit like her brain is overheating, running so many different ideas one after the other. Her side has gone numb as the last of the scratches seal up; hopefully without anything inside. She’s fucked, so fucked. Out of luck, was she insane?

Probably. God, but it wasn’t like she could lay down and go quietly. 

Footsteps, voices, the targets are right around the corner, running toward her. She’s out of ideas, everything is a whirl of ‘fuck fuck fuck,’ and, ‘just fucking try me, bitch,’. Nothing left to do but swing.

The blow catches the man in the lead right across the visor, smashing up his helmet and blowing him back into his buddy. They both crash into something, and the rifle fires off a single shot. Kennedy doesn’t give them time to recover, whipping back around the corner right after the broadsword and dropping the hunk of metal as she charges. Both men are prone, struggling to right themselves, one seemingly attempting to pull off his crumpled helmet. That armor is probably bulletproof, she’ll have to aim for the gaps. 

One hand grabs a length of bent rebar, the other stretches out for balance as she commits, and Kennedy kicks the rifleman right in the head, preventing him from sighting her. He drops his gun and nearly slips into a hole in the debris pile. The other guy is cursing hard, yanking at his own helmet and struggling to remain upright. She takes advantage of the split second available to her and aims. 

She winces when the blood sprays, but she doesn’t let go of the rebar, yanking hard and swinging to hit helmet guy all over again. He goes down hard.

And that’s that. 

…

What. The. Fuck.

...

Wait, seriously?

Kennedy blinks in the dim light of the underplate, her mind coming up on a total blank. She hadn’t just managed that, had she? Seriously? Sure, as a Second Class, fully kitted out and prepared, she could have managed against three Thirds, but like this? Half starved, coordination busted, and basically unarmed? Holy fuck! 

(Is it adrenaline or relief that makes her fall over laughing? Or rage? Grief? Either way, she’s on her ass, laughing harder than she has in years, head tilted upwards and tears streaming down her face because holy shit!)

What had that sick fuck done to her?

It seems unfair, she thinks, that she might only be alive because of what he did to her. She’d survived the labs on her own strength, if only barely, right? Or had that been him too? Fuck, what if he knew the whole time she was faking? Was this all still part of his fucking project after all? Had she not managed to at least fuck up SOME of his data?

It felt like he was there, under her skin. Had any of her hard-won victories even been hers? Fuck, how was that fair?

How was any of this fair?!

…

Shinra fucking sucks.

Kennedy exhales shakily and allows herself to fall onto her back, staring up at the concrete sky. Her side is still numb. So is the side of her head. When she reaches up her hand comes away with streaks of blood; she must have gotten clipped without noticing. She drops her arm back down to her side and takes a moment to just breathe.

She lays there for about an hour, long enough for the artificial suns to go out and leave her in near-total darkness, and long enough for her eyes to adjust. 

When she sits up, she looks over her piece of rebar and, after a moment, stows it into her pack to sell later. She’ll have to wash it off first, but it’s nice and long.  

The bodies, on the other hand…

Look, bodies aren't something that’s hard to find in the scrap yards. Sometimes people wander off and die. Sometimes people want people to think that people wandered off and died. Sometimes a scrapper takes a tumble, or a dumbass shoots up in some out-of-the-way corner. And it’s not like you should just LEAVE them there. The smell might attract monsters, and decent shoes are hard to come by. 

There are rules of course. Note down identifying features and alert the local watch. Return any dog tags or IDs. But everything else was free game for salvage. 

And those were some really nice boots. 

Kennedy only pauses to pull out a flashlight and begins to work. Boots, armor (yep, bulletproofed, nice) She cleans out pockets (a low-level Cure materia, two potions. No gil.) and checks for any tattoos. What she finds is… disturbing. Even for Shinra. 

The Dogtags have only numbers, and there’s no identifying clutter. More points to the ‘Stealth Force’ idea then. But tattooed on the wrist of both left arms is the same series of numbers, like some kind of barcode. There are scars too, tons of them. More than she has, which is unsettling, because when she pulls off the one guy's helmet, he looks young, maybe 20 at the most, and scarily pale, like he’d never seen the sun once in his life. Beyond that, she’d seen lifetime slummers with more color. 

They smell like Mako and metal, both of them. It makes her skin prickle with uneasiness. 

Kennedy stares at the two bodies, slung out limply on top of a pile of scrap and debris, and triple-checks the dog tags like they’ll have some sort of answer. 

It’s hard to tell in the dark, but something looks off about the SOLDIER insignia on the back.

Chapter Text

Resolute- firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion

Sept 30

 Cissnei’s hands are shaking slightly with tension, he notices.  Travis Kunsel, age 25, SOLDIER First-class. A tall man, more towards the slender side, with a relatively plain, if pleasing, appearance. The only noteworthy thing about him is his eyes; one, the left, is brown, and the other blue. He’s known for being an incorrigible gossip and wearing his helmet absolutely everywhere while on call. He’s one of the few remaining SOLDIERs from the glory days of the department and is known for supporting the old-fashioned, ‘honorable’ ideal Commander Angeal Hewley always espoused. 

 ‘So much for honor,’ new recruits would say, ‘Didn’t he desert too?’. 

He’s a hard worker, meticulous, and never behind on paperwork; his current posting includes assigning missions and ensuring reports are filed correctly and on time. This makes him nearly invaluable to a department whose director is skimming from the budget. He’s knowledgeable and agreeable and harbors absolutely no ill will towards Shinra or its subsidiaries. 

 None whatsoever. 

 The train ride is quiet, and he’s trying to enjoy the peace. So much of his work these days feels like it’s nothing but arguments and drama. He’s almost glad to be headed underplate, regardless of the smell. It’s just…

Cissnei is in civies, a cute top with a Moogle on it, jeans, and some decent boots. She’s got a roughed-up jacket on over top, and her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. The youthful vibe is perfect for a young woman looking for adventure under the plate and almost manages to distract from the dark shadows under her eyes. She’s got a soft smile fixed on her face, and he might be the only person aside from the other Turks who can tell how brittle it is. Her hands are shaking, the tremors so fine that without enhanced vision, he doubts he would have seen it.

Kunsel himself is dressed in civvies too, simple clothes that could belong on any well-muscled young man in Midgar, plus some dark shades that scream ‘I’m cool!’ so loud it loops right back around to being tacky. As far as anyone in Shinra knows, he’s taking a cute girl on a date to Wall Market. The truth is- as most things are with Shinra- completely different. 

“He slipped past us,” She’d said, several hours ago in the early, early hours of the morning. “He must be in the city. Tseng gave me 18 hours, we NEED to find him. He’s in bad shape.”

A sobering thought. Years spent looking, digging, keeping his head down. The elation he’d felt when Cissnei had confirmed his suspicions had been heady. The follow-up however, including a good amount of rage and betrayal, had taken longer to fade. 

 They had been partners in this for years- Cissnei caught between a rock and the Turks in regards to what happened to Zack after Nibelheim, Kunsel digging and digging and digging. He’d gotten lucky it was her who was sent to tell him to knock it off, the only warning he’d ever get, courtesy of his then-new First Class rank.

 Zack was still alive at the end of the Nibelheim incident, she had confirmed. And then Veld Verdot had sent them away, claiming he’d take care of it, and Zack Fair disappeared. She’d had theories, most regarding the science department, but her superiors had gone out of their way to assign her far away from that particular shadow. Veld told her flat out he was dead.  Zack, for all that he was on incredibly good terms with the Auditing Department, was not a Turk himself, no matter how many missions he and Cissnei were sent on together. 

 She couldn’t help Kunsel, she’d insisted, but still, every time he asked a carefully phrased question, she’d disappear for a few days, and then return with an answer. Never undermining Shinra, only offering hints, walking that narrow edge. Eyes and ears open, she instructed. 

 He’d started to honestly trust her; and then she’d shown up at his door, still in her suit, far too pale, with wide, reddened eyes, and simply said his name. That trust had broken like glass after he pulled her inside and she started to speak.

 Kunsel had never fought with anyone like that before, not with his parents, with his friends, or with past girlfriends. They’d both hurled words at each other like knives, like the only point was to make the other person hurt. He’d called her a heartless bitch, accused her of knowing all along, mocked her, dared her to call Tseng and have him hauled away now that he knew the truth. She’d cried and called him pathetic, demanding to know what else she was supposed to do. He slung every possible wish he’d ever had at her, asked why she hadn’t looked harder, how she could betray a friend like that, and told her what kind of person that made her. She’d mocked him right back, how little he had managed to learn, to do himself. How pathetic they both were, how he wasn’t any better than she was. 

That night ended with the two of them sitting side by side in the dark, silent. 

He’d honestly thought that was the end of it. Expected, over the next week, for some Turk to come into his office and politely request he follow them. He’d planned for it even. Had his will written out, a letter to his sister ready to be sent. Made notes on his computer on who he thought would be a good replacement for him in SOLDIER.

On the 7th day, Cissnei had been at his door again, mouth tight, and instead of reading him his rights, she’d asked for his help. 

They’d spent the last couple of months coming up with whatever plans they could to help Zack- most lead to dead ends, as he was traveling so erratically. The bikes were the only real difference they made. Zack would disappear for weeks and then reappear halfway across the continent, and they thought they finally had him tracked down near Mideel when all of a sudden his next location was just outside Kalm and they were Out. Of. Time. 

He didn’t know what kind of favors Cissnei had called in from Tseng. Something was going down with the Turks, internally, and it was being kept very quiet. Still, she’d pulled a miracle and somehow got two choppers out the same day Zack’s orders had been updated to ‘Dead or Alive’ instead of just ‘Alive’. 

The storm had cut them off, but Cissnei had confirmed Zack made it into the city. He wasn’t with Aerith, not yet, which meant they had time. Not much, but a little. They just had to find him. 

The train lurches and Cissnei’s fingers flex, the tendons standing out briefly. Kunsel dares to reach over and squeeze them gently. She allows it, turning her hand palm up to return the gesture. It settles something in his chest, and he sits back, exhaling hard. Nerves or excitement, it doesn’t matter. 

“Next stop, Sector 5, Undercity,” 

The Sector 5 slums are business as usual when they disembark; busy and strangely cheerful. The Market stalls are open and proprietors are calling out to passersby. The station platform is crowded, but instead of threats if you bump into someone you get a quick apology. Cissnei doesn’t let go of his hand as they move, and Kunsel doesn’t have to look to know her face is still in that fixed smile as her eyes dart everywhere, from faces to hands to pockets and back. 

“Where to?” He asks, stepping off to the side of the platform and releasing her hand. 

Cissnei finishes a quick scan of their surroundings and turns her full attention to him, the fake smile finally gone. “Towards Sector 6. He’d probably want to avoid Wallmarket, so the scrap yards are our  best bet.”
He nods and thinks over his mental map of the area. “Is someone staking out the Church?” 

“Yes,” She doesn’t elaborate, so he’ll have to trust her lack of concern means whoever is stalking poor Aerith for the day is friendly. 

She’s rescanning their immediate area, on edge. All the Turks are on edge lately, of course, but this is the first time he’s ever seen her this wound up. She might be wearing civvies, but she’s still in full-blown mission mode. Compared to everyone around them, she’s incredibly stiff, almost robotic. For someone who specializes in mimicking body language and playing ‘Good Cop’, this is practically a public anxiety attack.

It would be best, Kunsel decides, to get her out of her head and moving, before she winds herself up any further.

“Scrap Yards it is.” He decides, and deliberately loosens his shoulders, swinging his arms. “There are monsters out that way, right? Might need to grab a pistol or something.”

“I’ve got my pistol,” she corrects, leaning slightly to the side to check behind him. “We can stop and ask the local watch for something you can use, as long as you’re not picky. We don’t need any extra attention.”

“Sounds good,” giving her plenty of time to react, he re-takes her hand; just another couple out for a little adventure, boyfriend ready to show off how many wererats he can hit with a baseball bat. The physical contact seems to help; because Cissnei straightens up and stops scanning the area over and over, and her shoulders relax to mimic his when she leans into him to complete the picture. She must realize he’s doing it on purpose, because she takes a moment to breathe before exhaling loudly and shaking her head slightly, a more natural smile finding its place on her face. 

The local watch has a stand not far from the station and is more than willing to hand over a spare short sword, which works fine with Kunsel. He thanks the guy, and Cissnei gives him a beaming smile and a wink before tugging them away. So armed, they head south. 

He keeps an eye out for dark hair or oversized blades as Cissnei chats away with anyone who stands still long enough. ‘Wasn’t that rain storm such a pain, hopefully, everyone had shelter!’ ‘How’s the monster population? My boyfriend here thinks he’s hot stuff and I figured I should make sure he’s being useful.’ ‘Any newcomers lately? I heard they’re trying to clear up some junk to make room for more buildings on the north side?’ The answers are the usual, "most everyone without shelter managed to make it to the community shelter to wait out the ‘rain’. Still, too many monsters to risk sending anyone anywhere unarmed. No new faces, but hopefully that will change when the new places finish going up.’

They pause by the entrance to the Scrap Yards to take one last look around. No sign of Zack or Strife. Cissnei is thinking hard, chin propped on her fingers and swaying from side to side. Kunsel takes advantage of the break and listens as best he can, filtering through the voices calling for business, chattering children, and barking dogs for any trace of Zack’s upbeat presence. 

“They didn’t come this way,” Cissnei concludes. “Not yet, anyway. They probably found somewhere to crash in the scrap yard and haven't gotten moving again. Might even still be recovering.”

That’s… not the kind of news that makes Kunsel feel warm and tingly. “What happened out there?” He finally dares to ask. “His status got switched over, and Heidegger sent out a whole battalion to search the wastes. All the updates and reports are still being processed, I couldn’t find much of anything.”

“They’ll take even longer still,” Cissnei observes dryly, and then sighs, glancing around for eves-droppers. “That battalion? Didn’t exactly spread out to search. They had snipers stationed on the plate and scanning from a distance, so once they had a location they sent the entire force out at once.”

“What?” Kunsel jerks and leans in, eyes flashing around to confirm the lack of bodies. “The whole battalion?!”

“He made it out,” Cissnei reassures him, “but it looks like it was close. Really close. He’s in bad shape, from what I can tell. We don’t exactly have much information of what happened after they caught up to him.”

“Heidegger’s still sitting on the reports?”

Cissnei bites her lip and shakes her head, rubbing her arm awkwardly. “The battalion…” she trails off. 

Kunsel lets the info sink into his head and rolls it around for a moment, considering the possible scenarios. That close to Midgar, out in the open, Zack wouldn’t have been able to run without leaving behind Strife. Which meant he wouldn’t have run at all, given how deadset he was on lugging the other kid around with him. Nowhere to hide out there, cornered, he would have had to fight.

Cornered. Oh Sweet Shiva. 

“How many?” He asks, and he feels sick, because Zack was never the type of person to take a life needlessly, but he would not have left Strife behind for anything.

Cissnei makes this noise halfway between a laugh and a scoff. “All of them,” she says, bitterly. “They have anyone on desk duty digging through whatever footage that could be recovered, it’s the only way to know how it all went down.”

It’s hard to wrap his brain around that.  Zack. A whole battalion. A WHOLE BATTALION. What? Angeal wouldn’t have been able to do that, he’s pretty sure. Genesis, maybe in his heyday, if he was fully equipt with his best materia. Sephiroth- ok, Sephiroth had pulled a similar feat in Wutai, but only ONCE, and he was prepared for it beforehand. The idea that kind hearted, puppy-dog Zack Fair had taken out an entire battalion with only the sword on his back and whatever supplies he’d had scrounged together is…

“You got a Cure?” He asks, just in case. Focus on the task at hand.

The Turk nods and raps her knuckles on her oversized purse. “Basic Med kit, hi-potions and ether, and three of just about everything else just in case.”

Not exactly a mobile hospital, but all they could hope for without tipping someone off. “Let’s get to it then.”

 As they start walking, pace brisk, Cissnei pulls out a piece of printer paper and offers it to him. “This is a copy of the most recent map of the scrap yard. It’s two months out of date, and you know how precarious the pathways can be, but it’s a start.”

 Excellent. “I swear, you think of everything.”

 It does bring to mind how helpful the Turks have been recently, in regards to Zack, now that the cat is out of the bag. He’ll need to consider contingencies, like if Cissnei is being used. Veld might be dead now (allegedly) but Tseng was just as capable of using them to locate Zack instead of further straining the Turks as a whole. They could be planning on turning him back in or using him for their own reasons. Or they could be attempting to right one of the few things the majority of them felt badly about. Burn down a town, they hardly flinch. Disappear someone who they might have honestly considered a friend, and maybe Turks were human after all. He wouldn’t even entertain the thought if he hadn’t been dancing around the department for years, doing his own investigation. There was no way NO ONE had noticed him poking around somewhere he shouldn't have been. The fact they had been letting it slide, letting Cissnei spill half-truths and hints, blandly offering their own services a time or two…

 'You can’t trust the Turks.'  Zack had, and look what happened to him. But Kunsel knew what regret looked like. He had been struggling with it himself for far too long. 

 So, no more regrets. He gives his shortsword a couple more test swings and nods at Cissnei, who pulls out her pistol and steps into the maze.

 In case anyone needs the reminder, the debris-strewn ruins of the Sector 6 slums are absolutely a maze; scrappers and enterprising residents had cleared meandering pathways through the mess, and roving gangs of thugs had dug out secret tunnels and shortcuts all over. Some sections of the fallen bits of plate were nearly stable, and others teetered precariously, where a strong wind could blow them over and completely block the way. It made the scrap yards the perfect place for smaller monsters and other kinds of scavengers to make themselves at home. 

 Which meant the search and rescue mission was looking more and more like a very in-depth monster extermination. SOLDIER wouldn’t be called in for wererats, no matter how many of them there were, and the Infantry was only ever sent out if the issue reached the more populated areas, and enough people got hurt that anti-Shinra sentiment began to creep back into everyday conversation. So Kunsel lead the way, ears open, and slashed at every wererat stupid enough to throw itself their way, while Cissnei consulted the map and provided cover. 

 It took too long. Practically forever. 18 hours dwindled down to 14, then 12, before they stopped to have a proper break along the main pathway that connected Sector 5 to one of Wallmarkets entrances. Chugging water and shoveling down power bars. Cissnei’s relaxed, friendly persona was strained as she chatted with passers-by. They were running out of time. 

 “Any word from work?” he asks her casually, tossing aside the power bar wrappers into a makeshift trash can that probably would just end up in the junk piles behind them.

 Her mouth goes tight again, and she shakes her head. “Nothing. I’m… really worried.”

 “...Yeah.” Can’t argue with that.

 She shakes her head and gets to her feet, tossing aside her own trash. “Ready for more?” She asks, almost painfully upbeat.

 “With you?” he teases. “Always.”

 She laughs and shoves his shoulder, readjusting her bag. “Let’s get going then.”

 10 Hours. 8. 6.

 The sun is starting to set, and Kunsel knows he will never get the smell of monster guts out of his clothes. Cissnei is looking drained, the shadows under her eyes so pronounced it almost looks like she has a black eye. The borrowed shortsword has a decent chip in the edge from a run-in with a group of Gorgers, and they’re down the last of their bottled water. Honestly, they might have cleared the majority of the sector of monsters at this point. And they’re not even being paid for it. They have finally hit the other side of the Scrap Yards, where it slowly starts to transition from squashed maybe buildings to mostly upright warehouses. It’s hot, and everything smells so terrible Kunsel is half afraid his nose is broken and he’ll never smell anything else ever again. They’re exhausted. Even for a First Class, the constant ambushes by vicious, mako-sick monsters and the never ending maze of unstable debris is difficult to handle just on a mental level. Cissnei’s cute shirt is ruined, splatted in monster guts, although her jacket looks like it might survive the scrub necessary to remove the smell. 

 To be honest, it all feels terribly unfair. 

 “Anything?” he calls over to her, kicking aside some sheet metal to see if there is anything hiding behind it; like ANOTHER secret passage. 

 “Not over here.” She sighs and lets the tattered piece of plywood fall back onto the junk pile. “I’m honestly considering just shouting for him at this point. Even my infrared isn’t picking anything up anymore,” She shakes her phone for emphasis, and then shakes her head, hopping lightly over some metal and back to his side. “How long do we have until sunset?”

 He glances upwards habitually, then checks his phone. Not long enough. “Two hours to full dark.”

 Cissnei huffs quietly and folds her arms, thinking hard. “We’ve searched practically the whole sector.” She mutters. “He wouldn’t have risked hiding out in a warehouse, would he?”

 “Depends how desperate he is,” Kunsel replies dully. He starts heading towards the next building.

 It looks like Cissnei is at the end of her rope because she dares to curl her hands around her mouth and shouts at the top of her lungs “ZACK!?”

 Startled birds squawk and take off in a flurry, leaving behind only quiet. Kunsel can’t quite make sense of the expression on her face when no one answers. Grief, rage, hurt? Whatever it is, it solidifies into determination. 

 “Let’s keep looking. “ She orders and quickly catches up. 

 “It’ll be dark soon,” Kunsel warns, “if you really want to keep searching we should call in some backup.”

 She shakes her head and keeps moving. “Tseng can’t spare anyone else.” She says tonelessly. 

 “I know some people,” He says carefully, watching her shoulders in the fading grey light. The street lamps should be turning on soon, not that there are any around here. “They can keep their mouths shut.”

 It’s quiet for a bit while she thinks it over, pausing only to check behind a slab of concrete propped up against the side of a building. “Once it gets dark.” She finally agrees, shoulders hunching. It isn’t often she’s unable to complete a task on her own power, he supposes. Or she may not want anyone else involved. 

 The light has started to turn golden from where it managed to drip from above the plates when they find their first sign of Zack. It’s not great news, however.

 “There was a fight,” Cissnei declares, her eyes sweeping over the area. “Look here-” She points at a rather large blood stain on the dust-strewn ground. “Someone bled out. Recently. Sometime in the last 24 hours. And here- she points out scuff marks and smears to one side. “Someone moved the body.”

 The thought of Zack dead NOW, of him being so close- no, focus. “Weapons?” He forces himself to ask. Stay centered. 

 She frowns and stands up, still looking around. “Firearms,” She starts, pointing to the pitted side of the warehouse wall. “Broadswords too, here,” Slashes in the ground. “Two types, one’s thicker than the other.”

“Wait, SOLDIER class Broadswords?”

 Cissnei glances at him, alarm flashing in her eyes, and reanalyzes the marks. “Yes.” She confirms, slowly. 

 “So it wasn’t just infantry then.” Kunsel grits his teeth. “What are the chances it wasn’t Zack?”

 Cissnei props her chin into her hand and squints, thinking. “Unlikely.” She calculates. “Even now, there’s not many who use a sword the size of the Buster.”

 “So what happened then?” he catches himself demanding and forces his lungs to take a deep breath. When he feels like he can regulate his pulse he lets himself continue. “The bodies have been moved. So either they got away, or they didn’t, any way to tell?”

 “Let me keep looking,” Cissnei commands. “Take a look around, tell me if you find anything unusual.”

 Unusual is a bit of a nebulous concept here. Quite the fight went down here, a whole section of the makeshift wall had been knocked down into the side of the warehouse. There’s a decent amount of blood and plenty of footprints, but no remains. No bullet casings, scraps of cloth, or even empty potion bottles. It’s even too quiet, no wererats, no birds, no crick-

 It’s too quiet. 

 Kunsel is careful not to stiffen up, remaining in a relaxed squat over another dried blood pool. Ears open. He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of the bloodstain, and sends a message to “Baby Girl.”

 He can hear Cissnei easily, although she isn’t being that loud, Her footsteps slow and even, her phone vibrating in her pocket, on the other side of the warehouse exterior. Wall Market is audible even from this distance, but easy to tune out. He can hear his own pulse, slightly too fast, but his exhales are steady. Somewhere water drips, and someone shifts their weight from foot to foot, grit quietly grinding under their shoes. 

 Just off to the side, nearly out of sight. Were they being watched?

 He might have been still too long. Kunsel deliberately sighs and straightens, wandering over to look at the recently collapsed pile of debris. Metal and concrete; fascinating. There’s a quiet exhale behind him. Too light to be an average male. 

 Pulling out his phone again, Kunsel checks for a response and sighs when he sees the cutesy wink emoji. Jeeze, what kind of functioning adult even uses those things? He pockets his PHS.

 “HOLY SHIT!?”

 Kunsel snorts as the shout splits the evening air, and turns to peek around the ‘corner’ of the Scrap Yard ‘wall’ to find… about what he expected. Cissnei is perched high up on a crumpled form, knees braced to prevent flailing arms, gun drawn and pressed pretty threateningly to the back of a beanie-clad head. Their observer looks like a woman, slight, dark-haired, wearing an ugly green coat and squawking indignantly. 

 “Nice shoes you got there,” Cissnei says conversationally, drawing Kunsel’s attention to the objects in question. The woman freezes briefly before she starts to squirm again, shouting all sorts of things about being a scrapper and swearing up and down she hadn’t seen a thing, no sir. She’d just been walking along and thought she heard something but it looks like she was wrong, her mistake, she’ll just be on her way-

 Cissnei is rolling her eyes, so Kunsel takes initiative and walks over, stepping over a bag of assorted scraps, to catch one flailing foot, examining the shoe. Calf high, slightly too big for her. Nice, sturdy black leather. Straps, thick soles. He tugs it off of her, to very audible protests, and peers at the sole. 

 “They match,” He confirms, and Cissnei huffs, digging her pistol in between their captive's shoulder blades, which finally gets her to hold still. Kunsel drops into a crouch in front of her and angles his head to get a good look at her. Her eyes are fever-bright in the fading light, a glint of mako. A junkie maybe. He dangles the boot in front of her.

 “Where did you get this?” He asks curiously. 

 She grimaces and looks away. “Found it,” She grumbles. “Someone must have lost it.”

 “Really now?” He asks, looking the boot over again. “This is good stuff, almost military grade. You saying someone just left a perfectly good pair of boots out in this mess?”

 Their captive huffs and remains silent. 

 Kunsel glances up at Cissnei, who has her thinking face on. He tries again. “Look,” he says, “you aren’t in trouble. We-” He gestures at Cissnei, “Just want to know what happened here,” he sweeps his arm out to display the cleaned-up fight scene.

 “There was some kind of fight,” the woman snaps, “Probably some gang shit, I don’t know. It was a mess. I just came back to check it out myself, I have no clue where the bodies went.”

 “So then where did you get the boots?” Cissnei asks coyly. The woman whines and drops her head.

 Another track, then, Kunsel decides and meets Cissnei’s eyes. He glances at the bag of scrap, and the woman’s dirty hands. ‘Food?’ he mouths.

 As if on cue, their captive's stomach growls loudly. Cissnei giggles.

 “How about this?” He offers. The woman glares back up at him. “We buy you dinner, you tell us what actually happened.”

 She’s quiet for a second, thinking it over. “Why do you even want to know? I’m serious, I have no clue what went down.”

 “Those marks over there-” Cissnei explains, and uses her free hand to point at the warehouse. “They were made by a weapon, one of a kind. It belongs to a friend of ours. He was supposed to meet us in Sector 5, but he never made it. If he’s in trouble-” or dead, is the unsaid continuation, “We need to know. He won’t have a lot of time.”

 The stern line of the woman's mouth wavers briefly. She squints at Kunsel in the dark, bright gaze hard. 

 “Take off those stupid fucking glasses and then we’ll talk.” She demands.

 Kunsel sighs and runs a hand through his hair, checking with Cissnei. She shrugs slightly, then jerks her chin, passing the decision right back to him. He looks back down. “I’m SOLDIER,” He says, “If that’s what’s got you so concerned.”

 “I fucking figured,” She snaps. “I can smell the fucking mako on you. Glasses off.”

 What had given him away? he wonders. He takes the glasses off, and offers her a dry look, raising an eyebrow. “Happy?”

 She looks him over intently, her visible eye still hard. It’s a long pause, but finally she nods, decisively. “I tell you what I saw, you feed me, we never see each other again, fair?”

 Cissnei looks amused at how directly the scrapper attempted to take control of the conversation. “Fine with me,” She drawls. 

 “Deal then,” Kunsel agrees, and stands. Cissnei levers herself carefully off their captive's back, who waits for a movement before slowly climbing back to her feet, watching them warily as she scoops up her bag of scraps. “Crepes ok with you?”

 “Crepes are fine,” the woman agrees, a little too quickly. Cissnei stays behind her, perfectly relaxed. The scrapper glances at the Turk and then back to him with a glare, gesturing impatiently. “Well?” 

 “Usually,” Cissnei sings cheerfully from behind her, “it’s customary to introduce yourself before demanding someone else pay for your dinner.”

 “It’s dinner, not a fucking date,” The woman points out, irritated. Cissnei simply smiles at her, and she sighs, the last of the fight draining out of her. “Kennedy,”

 “Nice to meet you, Kennedy! I’m Sissy, and this is my boyfriend Travis!”

 “Hi,” Kennedy returns bitterly, looking for all the world as if she’d rather crawl under a rock and die. “Food?”

 A one-track mind, worn out, very hungry: Kunsel could work with this.

 5 hours left. 

Chapter Text

Recalcitrant- obstinately defiant of authority or restraint, difficult to manage or operate, not responsive to treatment

Sept 30 (Evening)

Crepes are pretty tasty, in Kunsel’s objective opinion. They’re easy to customize to suit an individual's tastes, simple to make, and fun to look at. They are not, however, THAT good.

The scrapper, Kennedy, is hunched over her paper plate and eating as fast as she can without dropping anything on the ground. She's glaring at anyone who passes too close like she’s a feral cat, and chewing so frantically he swears he can hear her jaw popping. It’s a pitiful sight, to be honest. She'd barely bothered to step out of the food truck line before falling onto her prize, and he can hear her stomach still demanding more. He... shouldn’t be surprised; scrappers live at the bottom of the barrel, so who knows how long it’s been since the last time she had hot food that hadn’t come out of a can? Or food at all.

She twists to the side as she finishes her food, and licks the plate clean, deliberately not making eye contact. Cissnei acts amused, but there’s a glitter of sympathy in her eyes. 

“Seconds?” the Turk asks playfully and gets a calculating glare in return.

Kennedy responds slowly. “...If you’re still paying.” She looks a bit irritated, though Kunsel get’s the impression it’s directed at herself. She holds out the paper plate, and ‘Sissy’ accepts it with an easy smile. 

“Sure thing!” Cissnei grins at him and stands, patting his shoulder. “Be right back!” She jogs off and jumps back into the line. It’s a good food stall, positioned in the optimal territory, right on the edge of Wall Market by the main pathway to the Sector 5 Slums. Someday the owners might even make enough to go topside.

Kennedy still isn’t making eye contact, twisted away so all he can see of her face is dirty bandages and a tight mouth, set into a scowl, but she doesn’t take off running. 

“So,” Kunsel takes a quick breath and adjusts his shades. Don't scare her off. “You’re shiny new shoes?”

Kennedy scuffs the boots in question into the dirt and huffs softly, but uncrosses her arms to shove her hands into her jacket. “What do you wanna know?” she asks, still not looking at him. Is it avoidance, or fear? Shame, maybe. He supposes she might not have always been down here scrapping. Looting corpses for clothing. 

He clears his throat. He’s got enough dark thoughts hanging over him today. “Those boots match the prints from the scene we were looking over.” Kunsel starts off, and deliberately keeps his posture relaxed and non-threatening. “So, how about; where’d you get them?”

There’s a definite air of ‘uncomfortable’ around her, but Kennedy doesn’t take off. Perhaps because Cissnei is near the front of the line for the crepes. She taps her feet against the ground, and her mouth twists to the side, before- 

“Look, I was minding my own business!” She blurts.

“Of course,” He agrees, fighting a smile. She sounds like a teenager, instead of a young woman, when she puts it like that. She pauses to squint at him, obviously aware of his thoughts. After blatantly weighing the benefits of simply fucking off, she reluctanty continues.

“I was scrapping the area and heard this weird noise.” She announces, very deliberately NOT looking at him once again. “Being the idiot I am, I figured I should take a peek before scramming. If it was some kind of turf war, Leslie pays well for tips.” She sniffs and rubs at a dirty patch on her cheek with the back of an equally dirty hand. “Of course, those walls are about as stable as a newborn chocobo, so the second I leaned on it, it came crashing down, and the next thing I know I’m running for it.”

“Running from who? Did you get a good look?”

She fidgets and glances at Cissnei again, who’s finally at the ordering window and chatting happily with the cashier. She dares to dart her eye back over to him and gives him another up and down, frowning still. “You said you’re SOLDIER, right?” she asks, suddenly. 

Kunsel frowns back. “Yes,” he says, carefully, half expecting her to ask him to do a backflip or something to prove it. Instead, she just nods slightly and looks back down at her feet, examining her ‘shiny’ new boots. 

“They were enhanced,” She says, slowly, like the words had to force their way out of her mouth. “I thought at first SOLDIER must have gotten new uniforms because I’ve never seen any like them. All gray,” She shuffles uncomfortably, and then gestures at her head, “Big, heavy-ass helmets; like what Public Security uses.” 

That’s.. disturbing. “What makes you think they were enhanced?” he asks casually, flipping through his memory for any similar descriptions. AVALANCHE and their RAVENs don’t fit. Heidegger would, however. He was the loudest voice when it came to declaring the benefits of that specific helmet type. SOLDIER was also now under the man's management- could he be..?

“One of them had those huge fucking broadswords Thirds like to use.” She continues, cutting off his thoughts. “Other two had rifles, high caliber. I’ve never seen anyone unenhanced manage anything more than a single shot without being thrown on their ass”

Definitely enhanced then. “And they chased you?” he asks, a bit skeptical.

That brought her scowl back in full force. “I’m not helpless!” She snaps. “The scrapyard is as good as a maze if you don’t know your way around it.”

“Uh-huh.” He doesn't try to hide how unlikely he finds this. Did she seriously think he believed she had taken out enhanced soldiers with just the shit in her bag? He has more important things to do than listen to fish stories. “The boots?” He prods. Keep the conversation moving. 

She must catch that he doesn't believe her. Her mouth twists and she tosses her head to get the hair out of her eye, straightening up to her full height and jutting out her chin to meet his gaze head on. “... anything dies if you hit it hard enough,” she claims, boldly. 

He has to swallow some kind of sound. He's not sure if it was a laugh or a scoff. What, had they tripped?

Her face goes sour. Shit, he’d said that bit out loud hadn’t he? When was the last time he slept? Kennedy loses most of her confident body language, and turns away. She tugs at her ratty coat, eyes jumping back to Cissnei. Fuck fuck fuck. He clears his throat awkwardly. 

“What happened to the rest of the body then?” he dares to ask. “Did you just leave it out in the open?”

“Dumped it in a crevice.” She says dully. Her eyes are fixed on Cissnei. “Probably pyreflies by now.”

They might have a shot at getting some more information, if that’s the case. “Could you show me where?” he asks, pulling out the now very crinkled map. “I might be able to get more off the clothes-”

Kennedy sighs heavily and twists around, grabbing for her bag. It falls into her lap with a dull clang. “500.” She says, sounding every bit as long-suffering as his own sister does when he asks for a favor. Kunsel blinks, completely lost.

“I’m sorry?”

“500 for the lot.” She insists and from the depths of her shitty bag, pulls out the rest of the mystery uniform. It’s slate gray, with blue tubes running through it like highlights. Durable material, the weave suggests it may even be bullet resistant. High quality, and definitely Shinra made. It smells of Mako and blood.

“You’re selling it to me?” He asks, baffled by the sudden turn of events. Kennedy grins at him, eyes glowing faintly with a spark of smugness.

“Going once~” she sing-songs, already moving to shove it back into the bag.

Sweet Goddess, she was a menace. His head was starting to hurt. “500!” He agrees, and shovels the gil into her outstretched hand. He takes the pile of gear from her, glancing over each piece as it comes. Very high quality. This is nicer than the stuff they give most Seconds. Clues. He pretends not to slump in relief and offers a distracted but polite “Thank you.”

She grumbles some kind of response and tucks the money into her jacket. “What else you wanna know?”

Focus, Travis . He nearly has to shake his head to get his thoughts back into order. He’s got the uniform in hand, which seems to be the last of the physical evidence. That leaves verbal. “Did you hear anything while they were chasing you? Accents, names, codes?”

“Mostly 'Halt!' and gunshots. No accents, no codes. Sorry.” She doesn't seem too sorry, eyes focused back on Cissnei, who’s receiving a plate.

“Is there anything else you can give me?” Kunsel asks, exhausted and trying not to look it. Another hour, gone. Who knows where Zack is now, they don’t have TIME for this, SOMEONE had cleaned up that scene, and had access to high quality gear, but commissioning a unit like that would have had to have been noticed by the Turks, and Cissnei was dead certain that Shinra had already thrown everything they had at Zack outside the city. Private forces maybe? Funded by who? 

Kennedy takes something from the bag of junk and holds it out towards him, eyeing Cissnei and the approaching crepes. “They all had this on them.” She offers. “It’s part of why I thought they might be SOLDIER, but it looks wrong. Maybe they’re copycats or something, like with what Avalanche had a couple of years back.”

It’s a patch, probably torn off a jacket or piece of armor. Like she said, at first glance, it does look like the SOLDIER insignia, but there are differences. Like the bottom half has been inverted and curled in the wrong direction. The color is off too, with a light blue shine to the stitches. It’s decent quality, unlikely to fray, with metal highlights made of the same alloy as the buckles on Kennedy’s nice new boots. 

“They were fighting someone else,” She adds, “But they weren’t shooting like they wanted them dead to rights, you know-” She gestures as though firing a full auto, finger held down solidly on the trigger. “If it’s really your friend they found, my guess is he pissed off someone up top and they sent a strike team to bring him in.”

“SOLDIER strike teams don’t have special uniforms,” He corrects absently, already slotting the information into his head. Now he’s got questions again, though he doesn’t think he has time to run them down. Kennedy shrugs. 

“Look, the only other thing I know is they chased me because they weren’t supposed to have any witnesses.” She says. “That means secrets, and secrets mean Shinra’s dirty work. Someone cleaned up those bodies while I was trying on my shiny new boots. It all happened this morning in like, less than an hour.”

Efficient, funded, secret. It must be someone on the board of directors. Kunsel desperately digs into his brain. “What about transportation?” He tries, as Cissnei finally reaches them and holds the plate of crepes out. “Or numbers? How many were there?”

Kennedy actually pauses to look at him before she starts eating again, and there’s something like pity in her eyes. “There were at least 6,” She says after swallowing. “And transportation…”

Cissnei glances at him, then back to Kennedy. “Weren’t they on foot?” She asks.

The scrapper shakes her head slowly, “No, they had, like, a transport truck. Not the big ones the military uses to move troops, more like an oversized golf cart. With bulletproof armor. It was parked back by the other warehouse, the one with all the Stamp graffiti Avalanche finds so funny.”

Kunsel takes a deep breath and resettles himself as Cissnei takes over the conversation, mind spinning. Enhanced, unfamiliar uniforms with SOLDIER standard equipment, Modified SOLDIER insignia. Organized, with transport. They MUST be connected to Shinra then, but I’ve never heard of anything like that. He glances at Cissnei, who shakes her head slightly and rubs her ear to remind him she’s been listening the whole time. A private team, one even the Turks don't know about. Under a specific member of the board? Is that possible?

The Turks are on the outs with Shinra right now. Something to do with the Director and AVALANCHE. Had the president decided to put some eggs in a different basket? If so, he must have pulled from SOLDIER; and the number of members who would fight Zack Fair on orders alone is low, about 23%. Most of them would be newbies. Kennedy definitely killed someone to get those boots, so if any SOLDIERs are reported KIA or missing in the next few days, that could give him an idea of where to start looking, and he could track down who they had been in contact with. But that’s several DAYS. Zack might not-

“You really think they were trying to take their target alive?” Cissnei is asking.

Kennedy shrugs and swallows another huge mouthful of crepes before she keeps talking. “They weren’t spraying, and I think I heard a tranq gun,” she claims, “Ya know, with the ‘woop-thwack’ sound? Pretty different from gunfire.”

Tranq's are not a good thing, but not terrible either. If Zack and Cloud have been recaptured, the chances of them being moved out of the city are small. They might have time to track them down, the only concern is if the kill order is still in effect. Hojo was picky, but Zack has made a hell of a lot of trouble, the president might have decided it would be better to just cut his losses...

Kunsel feels sick. His head throbs, and his eyes burn. Which is worse? he wonders.

Cissnei sighs and drops her arms from where they were crossed. “Thank you,” she says to their witness, honestly. “For helping us. I know this kind of information can get you in trouble if it gets out.”

Kennedy glares at her halfheartedly, and seems to soften somewhat when faced with Cissnei's earnest expression. “Just don’t go snitching, and forget you ever saw me.” She grumbles, and sits down right there on the side of the path to continue eating, waving a dismissive hand. “Have fun playing with fire.”

The smile on Cissnei’s face is tight as they part ways.

4 hours left. Fuck.

“We can test the blood at the site, “ Kunsel suggests, almost desperately, as they start moving again. He runs more methods and ideas through his head.  “We need to confirm 100% that it was Zack, and that they took him. Maybe one of the men in the gray uniforms is already in the system.”

“There’s always a chance,” Cissnei agrees, but the shadows under her eyes are even darker under the flickering street lamps. “That takes days though, and I can’t put it on a rush order without getting flagged. How are we supposed to find these guys in less than 4 hours?”

She sounds close to tears, or like she wants to hit something. Kunsel stops walking. She’s just saying the exact same things that have been running through his mind, and is running on even less sleep. He reaches out, and touches her shoulder carefully, swallowing around a knot in his throat. 

“We can keep looking until time runs out,'' he offers, feeling completely helpless. Even if it’s just to make us feel like we're actually doing something. “I’ll talk to some contacts and get some feelers out. You-” He squeezes her shoulder, “You focus on handling whatever is going down with the Turks as quickly as possible. See if Tseng knows anything, or if one of the others might have seen something. If it’s Zack, they might be willing to talk straight. There has to be more info, we just need more time to find it.”

The nod she gives him is short, but her eyes are flinty with determination again, chin stern. She straightens back up, slipping out of her civilian persona and into Turk Mode. “... We probably won’t find him tonight.” She finally says, out loud.

He hates this so much. They are so close. “No.” He has to agree, because it’s true, and he hates that. “But if she was right about the tranq-guns, he should still be somewhere in the city. It would be too dangerous to risk transporting him right now.”

Cissnei takes a deep breath, and he lets go of her shoulder after a moment more.

“4 hours, right?” She asks, and pulls out her PHS, shooting off a message. She pockets it and meets his eyes, rock steady now. He nods and holds out a loose fist toward her, earning him a small, lopsided smile. She returns the fist bump.

“4 hours,” He agrees. 

4 hours later; digging through the dirt, and they haven’t found much. Cissnei takes 7 different blood samples, and measure’s the marks left behind from the fight. It all but confirms the presence of the Buster Sword. Kunsel tries to put his enhanced senses to use, but everything smells overwhelmingly of blood and mako, and the dark doesn’t help. It feels painfully unfair when Cissnei’s PHS goes off. A lot like getting sucker-punched in the gut. He wants to shout even as he curls and uncurls his hands, shaking them out and pretending he can’t hear every word Rude is saying. 

“-the church,” Rude informs her. Them. Who knows if he’s actually aware that Cissnei has involved him in this? “We can’t wait any longer. Tseng says it’s all hands on deck.”

The set line of her shoulders doesn’t loosen, but there’s something in the way she stands that screams disappointment and frustration. Still, Cissnei’s voice is perfectly even. “And Aerith?” she asks, as though this is just another everyday conversation she’s had a hundred times. Of course, there is honest concern in the question. Even if Zack doesn’t miraculously turn up at the Church, the idea of leaving Aerith undefended for an unknown amount of time likely does not sit well with any of the Turks. 

“... Tseng agreed to consider enrolling Elena if she managed to keep her out of trouble.”

That got a raised eyebrow. “Are we sure that’s a good idea? Trouble and Elena-”

“Bosses orders, yo!” Reno’s loud voice cuts in. “Look, I get ya wanna keep looking, but we got-”

“Rod will meet you at the station.” Rude interrupts in turn. “45 minutes. Send whatever evidence you need analyzed on your way.”

It’s very quiet for just a second too long, but Cissnei doesn’t try to cover it up. “Very well.” She agrees evenly. “45 minutes.”

There’s a click as Rude hangs up, and then silence. 

It’s hard to be pissed off with the Turks when Cissnei is right in front of him, obviously struggling to keep herself under control. It’s harder not to be pissed off whenever he thinks about how close they are.  Mere hours . Zack could be 3 blocks away from them right now and they’d have no way to know, to do anything about it. The helplessness, the tantalizing possibility of it all, is nearly unbearable. 

Cissnei breathes out, long and steady. “I’ll drop these by the lab on my way out.” She says, not looking at him. He’s glad, he's not sure if he wants her to see the look on his face without his helmet to hide behind.

Kunsel nods and forces himself to match her. Back straight. “I’ll ask around. People talk, and someone knows something.”

There’s a small nod of agreement. Cissnei looks tiny in the dying light, spine of steel, but the rest of her is wilting like a flower without sun. Kunsel feels hollow, as lost as the day he saw Zack’s KIA announcement all over again. Useless. No good to Zack even after all this time, and no assistance to Cissnei either, with whatever she is handling. Just empty words. 

“The Turks have some info on several AVALANCHE cells in the city,” She says suddenly and turns to look him dead in the eye. “I’ll send you the dossier on how to find them. They have their own eyes and ears, especially down here.” Her jaw is hard. “If we missed something, maybe they caught it. Follow every lead.” 

That’s not information she should be giving him. No way Tseng cleared it. Kunsel keeps his mouth shut. “Every nook and cranny.” He promises.

Another curt nod. “I’ll message you the details.” She says, and heads towards the train station, back straight, chin up, like she’s made of iron; swaying in the wind, but not bending. Not yet.

Kunsel stands there, in the near dark, and stares after her, eyes distant and beyond exhausted. He’s got nothing. No Zack, no answers, just more questions. So many questions. Cissnei is getting desperate enough to spill Turk-only intel; the chances of AVALANCHE knowing something a Turk doesn’t is so low it may as well be a flat zero. She’s pulling out all the stops, short of deserting, in her desperation.

He knows why. They hadn’t found Zack before, not until she’d literally ran into him. If they lose his trail now, the chances of them finding him again are…

Stay positive . Zack’s voice advises from his memory, and Kunsel’s heart twists.

“Fuck.” He says, with feeling, and takes a deep breath. He rubs at his eyes under the cheap shades; the tension headache he’s been fighting all day finally setting in, hot and throbbing. One long, deep breath, inhale until you go dizzy, and hold for one, two, three, exhale. OK.

He straightens his shitty glasses and pulls out his PHS, already creating a list in his head as he begins typing. If Cissnei is pulling out all the stops, he supposes he should too. 

Chapter Text

Reflect- think deeply or carefully about.

Sept 30

Well, this is unexpected.

Chadley scans the message again, both physically and virtually, and still cannot gain any additional insight into the reasoning behind it. Sent from the listed PHS of one Lieutenant TRAVIS KUNSEL at 10:17 PM, via company email, to Research and Development Intern CHADLEY, also via company email. SUBJECT: Meeting Request- SOLDIER Uniform Improvements . The contents are direct and to the point. ‘ I would like to have a brief meeting to discuss possible improvements that may be made to the standard SOLDIER uniforms. ’ ending with a possible date and time for said meeting the following day, during the period of time Chadley has set aside for such requests. 

The message itself is not that unusual, nor are the contents. However, as Chadley allows himself the opportunity to physically assess the message with his own eyes, he cannot help but hypothesize that there is more to the communication than is indicated. A ‘gut feeling’ if you will. (How unscientific.)

Travis Kunsel is a highly competent, reliable member of SOLDIER, with a large amount of sway among the ranks. Promoted to First Class several years ago, he handles the bulk of the paperwork the department files; the only First Class that can reliably be located in Shinra Tower at any given point. Most of his duties revolve around issuing mission assignments, filtering requests and complaints, filing mission reports, and managing members of SOLDIER not currently on deployment. Hard-working, intelligent, and rule-abiding. His only noted ‘liabilities’ recorded by the Department of General Affairs and Administration -or ‘Turks’ as they are called by the rank and file- include the amount of sway he holds in SOLDIER, and his subscription to the ‘Honorable Conduct’ the former Commander Angeal Hewley espoused. Other than that, the Shinra’s internal systems merely have him noted as a prolific gossip, and a shadow ban on any missions issued to the Nibel area of the Western Continent.  

Chadley’s personal files are far more detailed than Shinra’s, of course. By his measurements, Travis Kunsel is a level-headed, intelligent man who is all too aware of the fine line he walks. He is resourceful, kind, cunning, and loyal to a fault. All wonderful traits to have, in Chadley’s opinion. (Kindness? Loyalty? Don't pay any attention to such subjective and unhelpful concepts) Analysis... the subject does not work to undermine Shinra or its interests, and keeps his department on budget without drawing any attention to himself. Chadley doubts anyone on the Board of Directors even knows his name. Conclusion; Subject is not seeking promotion or recognition. Why that is...?

As for Lt. Kunsel’s hobby as a prolific gossip, Chadley is of the opinion that, while it may have started out as a casual indulgence when the man first joined Shinra, presently, the SOLDIER’s social circles could also, potentially, function as an information gathering resource. Most of the time this skill is put to use by including useful and little-known information regarding missions to dossiers when issuing orders; everything from notes about good camping spots and monster tips, to low-level reconnaissance info regarding the local goings-on of the area. At least twice in Chadley’s estimates, Kunsel was alerted to possible AVALANCHE sightings before the Turks were. 

And Kunsel… didn’t hoard this knowledge. When Chadley had approached him to request that members of SOLDIER fill out a survey meant to detect early signs of degradation, he’d been more than happy to assist and even provided his own insight regarding early-onset warning signs. His observations turned out to be fairly accurate later on, after the data was processed and viewed by the relevant specialists. 

Kunsel did have one of the more common quirks the general population fell victim to in regards to Chadley himself. Except, instead of appearing discomforted and doing his best to avoid or minimize contact after their initial meeting, Kunsel had gone as far as to seek him out personally on several occasions for no other purpose than to ‘chat’. If they passed each other in the hallway or elevator, he would stop and inquire about Chadley’s wellbeing, or offer a bit of candy. Chadley always turned down the offer, of course. (Don't ingest that slop, it throws my readings off!) Sweets were not a part of his required nutrition schedule, but the warm welcome and easy attention made working with the man uncomplicated and efficient. Overall, Chadley would call their meetings enjoyable. It was strange, from his perspective, to be treated like any other person, but it was not a negative experience. Contrast with the average scenario, when scientists in the lab would forget that he required directions when assigned to a task, and were inconvenienced at being required to give them.

The Lieutenant was not… officially aware of Chadley’s status in the Research and Development Division, but he had obviously noted some form of discrepancy. He’d been observing Chadley’s own behavior, and that of the people around him, to come to some kind of conclusion. Chadley isn’t sure how he should react to the situation; whatever conclusion Kunsel had come to, he seemed to believe he had the required amount of information to make an informed decision, which then lead to his regular checkups and offers of food and snacks, which had so far only had a mild, positive impact on Chadley’s own functions.

It was a little baffling. From what Chadley could gather, the SOLDIER appeared to be under the impression Chadley was a mistreated child? However, the man was also somewhat aware of Chadley’s… improvements, and increased intellect; never treating him wholly in the manner one would a ‘child’. He mainly offered simple kindnesses and ensured no one attempted to 'give him any trouble'. 

Now, this message…

It was entirely possible that the Lieutenant truly did wish to speak with him about possible alterations to the SOLDIER uniform, but usually, he would have sought Chadley out and made the request in person. This message had been sent from a PHS in the Undercity. Chadley checked the timecards for the last few days and was intrigued. The Lieutenant had actually messaged him on his day off. 

What would prompt the Lieutenant to request such a meeting while he was away from work? 

Conjecture; regardless of ‘hunches’, Kunsel’s past behavior suggested he was unlikely to have a negative impact on Chadley’s functions as an intern and asset, and therefore there was no reason to be concerned or decline the invitation. Chadley’s own curiosity had no impact on this result, of course. So the intern does not bother to flag the message in Shinra’s systems, and sends off a prompt reply; confirming he is available at the requested point in time, and suggesting a location. 

He hopes he has read the situation correctly; it would not be the first time he has made an incorrect calculation in regard to social interaction. This request, however, is straight forward enough, if strangely blunt. Absolutely nothing to worry about. Kunsel had sent it directly, instead of to the Department Secretary to pass on. Does the man want to meet to discuss something he is not comfortable putting in a message? Does he need my help? Does he think I need help?

Chadley decides to exercise some discretion and chooses a relatively solitary location, where he could also put time towards completing his own tasks. He confirms his response and sends it off, then updates his calendar to include a portion of time to upgrade the VR Combat Simulator, listing the Lieutenant as a reference for potential improvements. Two birds, one stone , he thinks and smiles. 

Efficiency is one trait the professor had found no reason to discourage in him, after all.

Cissnei has no reason to feel helpless.

The Helicopter takes off perfectly, of course. Reno is flying today, Rude is in the copilot’s chair, and Tseng is in the back across from her, holding out a headset. She smiles and accepts it, taking her time in ensuring the wires are untangled. Mentally, she runs through a list of the gear she has on her. She’d changed into her Turk uniform on the way up, after dropping off the samples she took from the Slums. She has her pistol, ammunition, and her shuriken, Rekka. Lockpicks, gil, a small taser, an even smaller laser pointer-

“-ssnei.”

Ah, the headset is on.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that?”

Tseng gives her one of his bland not-smiles, more out of habit than anything else. His eyes are a little far away, but overall he seems as impassive as usual. Sitting straight, hair done up, relaxed but ready. You would never be able to tell he had been pulling all-nighters almost every day for the last week, there’s not even a shadow under his eyes. 

Well, not at this angle. His not-smile fades as she maintains eye contact, expression once again unreadable. Still, she can see something, curled up in the corner of his eyes, in the tightness of his mouth. What is it? she wonders. The mess with Velde and Zirconiade and the President? The stunts Rufus keeps pulling? Aerith’s growing independence? Zack ? 

She’ll probably never know. Tseng does not, as far as she is aware, keep confidants. Like her, he was never formally assigned a partner. Unlike her, he has never had an informal one either. The closest thing to a partner he has might be Rufus, since he spends so much time sitting on the VP and cleaning up his messes. Maybe Aerith would know what was on his mind, although the flower girl’s ability to see through him might have more to do with how insightful she is by nature, rather than any shared, personal connections. Tseng was the youngest person to ever join the Turks, years before Cissnei herself. Velde had been training him as his second for nearly as long, but the Director already had a partner, and dead or not, he seemed loath to replace them. So Tseng remained solitary, even as he was assigned as a third wheel to pretty much every team the Turks had whenever a little extra ‘oomph’ was required.. 

Cissnei herself had not been scouted, like Reno, but she had come through from the Shinra-sponsored orphanage in Junon, and one of the senior Turks had seen fit to recommend her when she came of age. Emmaline had been a brutal teacher, but an effective one, and not without kindness. Cissnei had learned a lot from the woman. She had learned a lot from everyone she had been partnered with over the years, making her one of the most versatile members of the Turks, if not the strongest. 

All that work, all that sacrifice, for what?

Guilt isn’t an unfamiliar emotion for a Turk to face, despite what everyone else may think. They were just as human as everyone else, just as prone to mistakes and slip-ups and straight-up bad decisions. But regret? That’s a whole different ball game. 

Guilt, Cissnei could accept, could face, could bear for the rest of her life. She’s done things that still kept her up at night, all of them had. Things she felt guilty for, and wished were unnecessary. Guilt was as familiar to her as the burn of alcohol, or the smell of gunpowder; as the feeling of Rekka grasped firmly in her hand. 

Regret though…

Regret made her want to burrow into her bed and stay there forever. Made her want to unwind her entire life and try something, anything, else. Guilt was for things she had done, regret was for all the things she hadn’t. It’s only now, years down the line, that she can see all the places she went wrong, all the questions she should have asked, things she should have tried.

And now, she couldn't reconcile that feeling with what she had justified her guilt with. 

For the Company? They were the ones who were at fault, for all of it. Always.

For the world? Would the world thank her? Would the world look at the things they had and hadn’t done and consider it a worthy sacrifice, another offering on the altar, bones stacked on bones built on bones? How long could such a world exist? Should it exist? Was it worth anything, built on the bodies of unwilling sacrifices?

For the Turks? They were likely the only reason she hadn’t done something completely insane and run off yet. Her family. They looked out for each other, they NEEDED each other because it felt like some days everyone else in the world was out to get them. 

For herself? God no. No money or future was worth the look on Zack Fair’s face when he turned around that day and thought she would truly send him back to hell. The hell she’d left in him. The hell she’d been deliberately blind to.

She wasn’t blind now. 

God, she regretted so many things. She should have jumped on that bike with him and ran as far as her feet could carry her. 

There's nothing for it now. So she sits in a helicopter and holds on to the only thing it feels like she has left. This fragile string of 'Trust' looped between her and the other Turks, and maybe Kunsel. Too fragile. How long will it hold? Who do you trust when you can’t trust yourself? She doesn’t want to do this anymore. Once a Turk, always a Turk. She’d been so proud. 

One thing was for sure, don’t trust Shinra. If they could disappear a General, a Lieutenant AND an entire town in less than a day, why on earth would a Turk be off limits?

Once a Turk, always a Turk. Who’s to say they hadn’t done it already? The list of dead Turks is much longer than the list of living ones.

“Nei~?” Reno’s voice filled her ears, obviously trying to get her attention. 

Don’t ask me, I’ll lie, she thinks. No, I’m not ok. The world is falling apart right under my feet and I don’t know if any of you will catch me.  I don’t deserve your help.  

Focus , Turk.

“I’m sorry, I wasn't paying attention.” She laughs a little and pinches the skin between her index finger and thumb, because she needs to stay present. “Could you repeat that?”

Tseng’s face might not change, but she swears he manages to look concerned, maybe even worried. 

“Have you slept recently?” He asks cooly.

No. Not since the day before yesterday. “I’ve been busy,” She says, a little too cheerfully. Crap. 

“What the fuck, man!?” Reno jumps in, twisting around in his seat. “We’re fixing to fight a world-ending monster and you haven’t slept in HOW long? Are you crazy?!”

“Reno, the chopper.”

“Oh shit!”

While Reno corrects the helicopter's flight path, Cissnei tries not to cringe at the flat look Tseng is giving her.

“Cissnei,” He starts, carefully. She can’t hold eye contact with him, an unusual pressure building in her throat. He doesn’t continue for a long time. Long enough for the pressure to stabilize and start fading as she breathes through it. She pinches herself again. 

“We will be in Junon in less than an hour,” Tseng eventually says. He must have decided not to push. “You should rest while you can.”

She shakes her head abruptly and forces herself to meet his eyes again, jaw tight. “No, there’s some things I’d like to ask you about the mission I was on.”

He hardly looks bothered by the idea, but his fingers twitch slightly. “I was under the impression you failed to locate the target.”

Ouch. “We didn’t find him.” She confirms. HIM, not it, not ‘the target’. Him. Zack was a person. “But as for our investigation… It looks like another department may have located him first. Except nothing has been updated in the system yet.”

That catches his interest, and Tseng’s eyes seem to sharpen in his passive face. “What makes you think it was another department?” he asks. “Could it have been Corneo? He would be interested in the bounty.”

“I did consider that,” Cissnei admits, burying the urge to fidget. “However, the scene and traces we managed to recover, and an eye witness, pointed in another direction.” She pauses a moment, to let him interrupt, before continuing. “Military tactics, and gear. High-quality, SOLDIER standard weapons. The uniforms are obviously custom, and their insignia is similar, but it isn’t SOLDIER’s. There are no tests or trial teams being run either, and no records I could access matched anything about them. From what I can make sense of, the witness and the gear mean that whoever it was that… interrupted… Zack, were enhanced. They had military experience, and resources to match Shinra’s. Except we all know that no force is capable of matching Shinra’s standards at the moment, not with AVALANCHE scattered to the wind. I suspect a member of the board, and a private security force.” Unknown of by the Turks, she leaves unsaid. If a board member is hiding an enhanced security force, what else could they be hiding?

It’s only because she knows him so well that Cissnei can tell that Tseng is troubled. “I am also unfamiliar with any entities who could manage such a thing without access to Shinra’s resources.” He admits. He glances at her, looking her up and down before coming to a decision. “Sleep,” He orders, withdrawing his phone from his inner pocket. “I will see what information I can find while we travel. You focus on resting, we need you in top form for this.”

Cissnei swallows around the pressure in her throat, and this time it dissipates, melting into something warm. “Yes sir. Thank you.” 

She leans back in her seat and tries to get comfortable, hoping beyond hope that maybe Tseng will find something she missed. Because if he doesn’t, it could only mean one of two things. Either they have yet another powerful enemy on the horizon, or the Turks really have lost the President’s favor. 

Neither of those means anything good for her, for her family, or for Zack. 

Chapter Text

Reputation- the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something.

Oct 1

 Kunsel’s average workday is not particularly exciting. He prefers it that way, most times, but today is not one of those days. He’s itching, unable to sit still or focus on any of the normal paperwork, fingers drumming. The need to be active, to move, is so intense he’s walked the length and breadth of the SOLDIER floor 3 times already, and it’s not even lunch. The floor secretary, a sweet, middle aged woman named Malinda, is starting to look concerned, and even his fellow SOLDIERs are glancing at him uneasily; he’s one of the higher ups now, First Class, and his agitation is making them nervous. That alone should be enough reason for him to buckle down and keep the pacing inside his own office. Unfortunately, the building sense of helplessness and impatience is getting to the point he may have to drag one or two of his men into the sparring room to work through the adrenaline. Not right now though, or even anytime soon, because he has several places to be today, and many people to talk to. 

People like Rodney (a fellow First Class) at about 1400 hours, or Owens (a Sergeant in Public Security he’s meeting with for drinks) at about 1800. Before all that though, he needs to check in on Iskar, and message Taylor to see if he has any updates, and then maybe he should call Casha too, in case she found something below the plate. Then he needs to see if he can get in contact with AVALANCHE directly-

First and foremost, however, he has a meeting with Chadley. 

Chadley, the Science Department’s ‘Intern’. He had been an enigma when he first arrived. Out of nowhere, the Science department had a VERY young intern, roughly 13 years old, working almost full-time and personally assisting Hojo. A calm, curious young man with a precise way of speaking and an off-putting lack of emotional response. The poor kid came across as both older than he appeared, with the social experience of someone much younger. The obvious connection to Science had been unsettling in its own right, and when taken all together, most people with any common sense tried to keep their distance. Kunsel had waited a long while before daring to venture into the company files for the young man. While he waited for that opportunity, he had watched and listened, and learned.

Chadley was almost... robotic in his methods; efficiency was king, and he had a single-minded type of focus that was practically unheard of. The kid seemed confused by social conventions, but was also unfailingly polite, and nearly always cheerful. That didn’t change the fact that seeing a 13-year-old kid run around Shinra Tower at all hours didn’t make some people worry. Social strangeness aside, Chadley had an innocence to him that softened everyone in the tower with any kind of conscience. Kunsel had several people approach him to ask after the boy, his home life, and his health. No one knew anything about any of it, but they worried at the precision of the kids actions, the strictness of his schedule and, most of all, the sheer amount of time he logged in the depths of the Drum; Chadley himself seemed politely confused when people asked after his well being, and always insisted he was in ‘perfect condition’. 

That didn’t really reassure anyone. Smart people took to handing him messages and deliveries for Urban Development, like they hoped the brief respites into Tuetsi's figurative territory could somehow fix anything about the whole messed up situation.

It was when Chadley had vanished from the Tower for over a week, only to reappear from the science floors with his familiar patient smile and a brand new, too-large lab coat, that Kunsel decided enough was enough. The kid- because he was a kid- had claimed he was in ‘working order,’ when asked, but Kunsel could see that something was off. There were faint shadows under his eyes, and the kid's voice was rough. Chadley couldn’t hide the traces of a bruise from SOLDIER eyes.

Cured bruises healed differently than wounds like cuts or broken bones. The color would fade, yes, back through the blend of purple, brown, and yellow, but when the magic finished, it always left the area slightly too pale, and the skin peeled easily over the course of the next week, to reveal the healthy, pinker skin beneath. 

Kunsel didn’t like it. Actually, it went beyond ‘didn't like’ and edged close to the line of ‘one more inch and I’ll lose my shit’ that he’d been toeing ever since Zack disappeared. So later that night, Kunsel had ventured below the plate and camped out in a maintenance passage, inside the pillar, to tap into the Science Department’s ‘Secure’ network. He wasn’t foolish enough to dare to dig into the restricted files, anything that was being actively monitored, but if he accessed Hojo’s personal work log and checked for projects, he could possibly find Chadley’s information attached. 

He did in fact find Chadley’s information attached to several projects. With a very glaring issue. The kid wasn’t listed as an Intern for a single, but rather as a subject. 

The most recently updated project, ONEIROS, had something to do with VR and the Net- the ability to transfer a consciousness over it? Somehow? There were several Subjects listed when he glanced over it, all focused on somehow combining or bridging the human mind with specialized networks. It made his skin creep even glancing through the overview. The majority of subjects were marked as ‘Terminated’. One, a heavily redacted file belonging to a middle-aged, red-haired man, was marked as ‘Unable to Locate’. Only about 5 subjects appeared to have even survived the process. Somehow, despite the large number of failures, the project was marked as a success, with three follow up projects being created from whatever they managed to learn. The SND project, the Fragmentum project, and the NU project. 

Chadley was marked as a ‘Success’ of ONEIROS, subject CH4-D1-3Y. The specific aim listed in his file was to create a ‘smaller’ version of the final project- a single normal human capable of remotely connecting to a single local network terminal. To do that, they decided to make some changes so the ‘human-to-terminal’ connection was closer to the electronic ‘terminal-to-terminal’ connection everybody else in the world used.

That’s... where Kunsel had stopped reading. He didn't need to know how many different ways they had chopped the kid up just to replace parts of him with machine. (The list of 'upgrades', the most recent file of all, was... His hands were sweating. He didn't need to know.) Of course, the Science Department didn’t stop once the base goal was achieved- Chadley was also linked to another project for an ‘Operational Prototype’ of an ‘Inhibitor Chip’. Three guesses what that did. No wonder the kid was so well-behaved.

He didn't look any closer. Couldn’t bear to. He didn't need to know any more. He had to keep his head down. Zack was counting on him.

Zack...

Nothing could stop him from scrolling through the basic project index and cross referencing creation dates, and recent updates. He'd never had such unimpeded access to the Science Department's files for such a long time before, and he refused to pass up the opportunity. Skimming for info, just like eavesdropping in the cafeteria.

That was the day he confirmed Zack was still alive, at least as of the month before. He confirmed Cloud Strife was alive as well, both listed as subjects under a truly massive ‘RE:UNION’ Project, linked to a Project ‘S’, that then somehow connected to the SOLDIER Project under a huge umbrella of ‘J’.  Everything beyond project names was password locked at that point, even with Hojo’s credentials.

Kunsel didn't look. He couldn't have if he wanted to, the files were locked, but still. 

Zack. Nibelheim. Reunion. Chadley. Cybernetics. Inhibitor Chips. 

That last one… hadn’t been marked as complete yet. If it ever was, what would that mean? For him, for the rest of SOLDIER? If that project meant to do what he thought it did... Goddess, Shinra was so fucked up. He knew it was, he just hadn't realized how much. Corporate greed, cutting corners, political manipulations, vanishing people, yes, but the lists in the Science Department project files...

Kunsel didn’t sleep much, now. 

So, the next time he saw Chadley, he offered him some candy and was politely declined. The kid seemed surprised, but pleased that he had even offered. Poor kid worked too hard. Had it too rough. Kunsel suggested to a couple of people they offer him snacks or drinks when he came around to do his tasks. By the end of the week, he could at least confirm the kid was getting enough food and water for a growing boy, even if it was mostly tasteless health bars. (Too little, too late)

Time passed, as it does- slowly, anxiously, grinding his nerves down until they were nothing but a constant buzz of paranoia. Over the next two years, he got to know Chadley better. He got to appreciate the dry observations the kid made, the small bits of cheerful humor. Chadley was observant and intelligent; he had a habit of briefly mimicking other people he met around the town, trying out turns of phrases or body language, and then he would inquire about the responses his antics earned. It became a game, for some people. Chadley innocently echoed something he’d seen or heard, knowing it to be at least a little ridiculous to see when mixed with his studiously neat appearance. 

Kunsel could remember the day he saw Chadley very deliberately make Hojo a cup of hot coffee; Slightly too hot, just barely, with a narrowed-eyed look of focus, after another week-long disappearance. The slight tick in the kid's jaw. He felt sick, and proud, and so, so, helpless.

Those were Chadley’s tiny rebellions, he learned; small mistakes, lies of omission, and other small accidents.

(The coffee incident didn't occur again. Instead, Chadley disappeared for another day, and from then on religiously ensured the coffee was between 195°F and 205°F. Wouldn’t want for anyone to get burned, after all. It reminded Kunsel eerily of Sephiroth.)

Chadley: the kid who would chat with anyone about all sorts of science, if they had the mind to ask. He couldn’t reveal confidential information, of course. That didn't stop him from voicing some very leading questions. That didn’t stop him from giving helpful, general advice with a sharp look in his eye. Warnings, hints. A kid. A good kid. A brave kid. Kunsel could do nothing- he had no idea how tight the controls on the boy were, what that ‘chip’ did. He didn’t want to risk Chadley getting punished, couldn't risk his own cover, or his chance to find Zack. It made what had happened 9 months ago feel even worse.

It had been a normal day, one of the ones when Chadley was not due to deliver or retrieve any paperwork. Still, the kid had walked in, carrying a small stack of papers and greeting Kunsel unusually quietly. 

“Hello, Chadley.” Kunsel had returned, and immediately stood up to take them, despite being confused. “Are you here for this week's forms? I’m afraid I don’t have all of them finished-”

“Oh, no! It's not that!” Chadley had interrupted. Interrupted, which was incredibly out of character for him. The kid must have realized this because he quickly schooled himself back to cheerful compliance and approached the desk. “I have some papers to deliver.” He set the small stack down in Kunsel’s arms, and glanced around the room like he was curious, despite having been there multiple times. 

“Thanks.” Kunsel pulled them closer, then frowned when he saw Chadley straighten abruptly and look determinedly out the window. “Chadley? What’s-”

“The professor left in quite a hurry this morning,” Chadley said quickly, still staring out the window. His tone was perfectly even; relaxed and cheerful. “He was quite upset, I wonder if something went wrong with an offsite project?”

Kunsel blinked, startled into a brief silence. “That would be… most unfortunate.” He replied carefully, studying the boy in front of him, who was still staring out the window like his life depended on it. “Do you think he would want to send a request to us for assistance? I know some of his subjects can get a little out of hand…”

“It might be a sensitive project,” Chadley remarked, and rocked back on his heels a bit, still looking out the window. (A hint?) “He wouldn’t want to expose anyone to anything potentially dangerous or upsetting.”

The kid was definitely hinting at something. “What do you think?” Kunsel asked carefully, setting the papers aside. 

Chadley finally glanced at him, a little uncertain, but still wearing his practiced smile. “I think it would be best to be prepared to leave at a moment's notice, just in case!” He suggested. “No need to make a fuss, though. It might be nothing! ‘Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst!’” That last bit sounded an awful lot like Director Tuesti giving another safety seminar. He turned away from the window, and seemed to relax a bit. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Kunsel agreed, taking in Chadley’s return to form with something that was half relief and half suspicion. “Anything else?”

“No, that will be all, Lieutenant. Thank you for your time!”

“Candy before you go?”

Chadley’s eyes seemed to brighten slightly, and they zeroed in on the peppermint bowl on Kunsel’s desk. “I couldn’t compromise my health for such a thing.” He said, and then added, unusually serious and half to himself. “Maybe another time.” It sounded like a promise. 

“Another time, then.” Kunsel agreed. Chadley smiled again, like a mild, sunny day, and left. 

When Kunsel looked down at the small stack of papers, he found a report of a break-in on top. One of President Shinra’s properties. In Nibelheim. 

And now, it’s nine months late, and here he is, leaning casually against the wall just outside VR Training Room 3 and thinking about his options. 

Chadley has always had little flashes of rebellion, but they had always been that, flashes; brief and impulsive. They seemed that way, anyhow. Kunsel had been relieved because they were hints of the teenage rebellion the teen should have been going through. The subtle warnings of when to avoid the science floors were more than welcome, but could have been born simply from a wish to help people avoid trouble. The report from Nibleheim all those months ago, though, and Chadley’s choice of meeting location today... Those spoke of planning, of caution, of already knowing what places were secure, and what places were not. Considered objectively, it made one wonder how much thought went into finding the loopholes Chadley so often exploited. It made Kunsel think about the inhibitor chip, and if the kid had managed to find ways around it. If he could afford to trust the boy. 

Prototype Inhibitor Chip. He had to assume it was somewhat functional. 'Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst!' The Science Department had plenty of time to work out the bugs now. How long until Kunsel himself got called to the infirmary for a check-up, and then left with one in his head? How extensive was the monitorization? 

The sound of quick, even footsteps draws him out of contemplation, and he looks up to see exactly who he expected. Chadley looks good, smiling pleasantly as always and carrying a small bin full of who knows what. Mechanical tools, it looks like. 

“Good morning, Lieutenant Kunsel!” He practically chirps. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me here, I am aware it was a bit last minute!”

Kunsel smiles back, unable and unwilling to stop himself. “Good morning Chadley.”

Chadley is practically walking on air as he approaches the door, flashing his access pass. “As I mentioned in my earlier message, I’m working on upgrading the Virtual Reality Room.” The door in question beeps and allows him to hip-check the push bar open. “I’m focusing on utilizing combat data to improve manufactured materia at the moment, but I have hopes that in the future I could recreate summon materia by analyzing the information gathered in the simulators! And if I can recreate summon materia from mere simulations, theoretically it would be possible to-” He stops and shakes his head, and Kunsel lets the door swing shut behind them.

“Pay me no mind. That’s beyond hypothetical at the moment. First I need to confirm that improvements can be made using VR in the first place!” 

He sets the box down and turns back to face Kunsel with a bright smile. “Of course, to do that, we need the Simulator to be in working order! However, Once I get the system up and running, you won’t be able to connect to the local network while it’s active. Are you expecting any calls?”

Oh, this clever kid. “Nothing that can’t go to voicemail.” Kunsel reassures him. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

“In that case-” Chadley steps up to the terminal and selects several settings. In response, the room around them flickers violently before going dark. After a moment of intense buzzing, the walls seem to melt away into the floor, before fading to an off blue color and settling into the familiar, endless landscape reserved for basic simulation space. The floor glitches and snaps into a gridded pattern, each tile a meter squared, the shadows rending in so quickly it’s disorientating. The buzzing fades away as the simulation settles. 

Chadley turns back to Kunsel, bouncing on his heels and smiles politely. “You had questions for me, Lieutenant?”

Tension drains out of Kunsel like water out of an overturned cup, stress draining down his shoulders from somewhere behind his ears. Abruptly, he feels like he can breathe again, and can’t resist inhaling deeply enough to make his own head spin. “Yes,” He agrees, the word escaping him like the impact of a baseball bat to the gut. “But before I do, I want to make it clear you can decline to provide any amount of-”

Chadley shakes his head sternly. “I appreciate your concern,” he cuts in firmly, “if I feel that a question is inappropriate, I will be sure to let you know. But Lieutenant…” His round face tightens a bit, eyes going narrow and bright. “I have no intention of sharing any information with Shinra that I am not directly compelled to.”

That’s both a relief, and a concern. “Directly compelled?” Kunsel asks uncertainty. He’s never  heard Chadley reference his possible 'situation' so bluntly before. 

Chadley smiles again, and there’s a hint of smugness in the way he rocks back on his heels. “I am very good at avoiding unpleasant lines of questioning.” He declares, like he’d gotten an 'A' on a school assignment, instead of bypassing some kind of mind-control brain chip. 

“You-” Kunsel stops himself as his mind spirals down multiple avenues of thought, and forces himself to refocus. Agreement or not, he feels compelled to confirm. “Are you sure that-”

“Yes.” The young man cuts in, almost impatiently. “Lieutenant, I’m fully aware of the risks, and have already taken precautionary measures accordingly. I am not the one with a flagged employee file.” 

Yeesh, Kunsel thinks, and kneads the base of his neck, where his helmet tends to rub. He can practically feel Cissnei’s elbow digging into his side to remind him to stay on task. “I, uh..." He struggles to reorient himself before sighing and dropping his arm. "I don’t know how to respond to that.” He admits. 

That admission seems to break through the tension in the room, and Chadley’s face softens slightly. “I do hate to bring it up, but we have a limited amount of time to discuss the situation.” He begins, effortlessly polite again. “I inferred from your message that you have questions for me? How may I be of service?”

Eyes forward, SOLDIER. Kunsel straightens up, turning slightly to face the young man directly. It was time to get down to business.

“First,” he begins. “I want to confirm some things. A couple months ago, you delivered a stack of reports to my office on behalf of another intern. On top, there was an incident report from Nibelheim. Did you put that there deliberately?”

Chadley’s face is picture perfect innocence. “Is a potential monster incursion into a Shinra owned property not something that should be forwarded to SOLDIER?” he asks, guilelessly. Kunsel almost opens his mouth to continue, but Chadley laughs to himself and hides a smile behind his hand, crouching down and digging through the box of supplies at his feet.

“I apologize,” the boy laughs. “Yes, I put the report in an observable location on purpose. You had mentioned your relationship with Zack Fair in the past, and given the flags on your file, I postulated that you would find the report most illuminating.”

A huge gust of air exits Kunsel’s lungs, and he allows himself to slump slightly. “I certainly did. Can you confirm the identities of the missing… assets?”

Chadley selects a screwdriver from his box and turns to the terminal, breaking eye contact. “Two assets escaped containment from the Nibelheim site.” He quotes, tone going light and slightly soulless, echoing the automated voice for Shinra’s internal systems. “SRZ1 was confirmed to have exited the site, and appeared to have taken Subject SRC0 with.”

“SRZ1, huh?” Kunsel’s stomach sinks. 

Chadley nods, and finishes prying open the terminal’s access panel. “S type Reunion specimen, one Zack Fair, previously SOLDIER 1st CLASS.” He quotes robotically. “The subject he escaped with is Cloud Strife, previously a Corporal from Unit 47 of Public Security, escort specialist.”

“I thought so.” Kunsel closes his eyes, not sure if he’s grateful for the confirmation on Strife’s fate or not. “Then, do you have any more recent information on them? Location, status?”

Chadley fiddles with several wires, and the simulation around them fritzes briefly before settling, the image quality now notably improved in clarity. “Officially?” His voice is back to normal, though markedly more serious. “Several days ago, Heidegger approved a battalion’s deployment to ‘handle’ the situation.” Even Shinra’s most mild mannered child can’t quite hide the derision in his tone when discussing the director of Public Security. “He deemed the Auditing Department's efforts as subpar, and the President agreed. The casualties were… : …" He trails off and huffs out a breath. "Well, frankly, no one came back. It is being filed as a rabid Behemoth, escaped from some kind of smuggling ring. The whole thing is being kept on the ‘down low’,” His voice drops briefly, and he sounds an awful lot like a redheaded Turk for a few seconds when he uses the colloquialism. “The follow-up investigation was unable to find any signs of the original targets.” He continues. Around them, the colors of the simulation are shifting, growing redder and redder, then abruptly inverting, before returning to normal, only without any yellow whatsoever. “It’s been theorized that the subjects managed to enter Midgar some time in the following 24 hours. Shortly after that period, however, things get a little murkier.”

Kunsel nods, “Zack’s Kill on Sight order is rescinded, right?”

Chadley hums and nods in return. “It’s strange though, the rest of the case is closed after that. From simply looking at the files, one could assume that the subjects had been retrieved and the issue resolved. However, there are no follow ups or reports to indicate that happened. Nor are there any records of orders to continue the investigation.”

That’s… concerning? Alarming? Confusing? Kunsel taps his chin and hums to himself as Chadley lifts his chin to select several new settings on the terminal without standing. 

“I will 'keep an eye out,' as it were.” Chadley promises. “But that is all that is available in Shinra’s network.”

He says it oddly. Slightly too much stress on ‘Shinra’s’, which doesn’t make much sense. There aren't any OTHER computer networks. AVANACHE’s systems were on the West Continent, and are long gone. Could this be new information entirely? Kunsel focuses on the more important information.

"Do you know anything about their current whereabouts? Anything after the order was rescinded?"

Chadley pauses and seems to brace himself a bit, before returning to the terminal. "No, not at the moment. I'm sorry."

It was expected, but the confirmation stills feels like he's been kicked in the chest. Still, Kunsel nods, and accepts it. There are other places he can look. Taylor and Casha might have leads, and Cissnei looks like she's going to pull out all the stops. There might still be time. There has to be. If he can't figure out where Zack was taken, then maybe he can find something about who. 

“What was your next question?” Chadley asks, attention still on the terminal. “I can’t imagine that was all you wanted to confirm.”

If discussing Zack was dangerous, then bringing up his concerns about private security would be considered insane. The Turks had access to Zack’s records; if Kunsel’s hunch turned out to be correct, then not even the Turks had high enough clearance to know about the strange gray SOLDIERS.

“Look, if you don’t know anything about this, don’t go digging,” he warns. “But if you know off the top of your head… would it be possible for any executives to have commissioned the Science Department for Private Security forces? Enhanced Private Security measures?”

The pale haired intern stills, and Kunsel swears his eyes glitter in the shifting lights of the Sim. “Hypothetically…” He says, very slowly, and turns to face Kunsel. 

Kunsel can't quite place the look on his face, only that his eyes are distant and not focused on him. Eventually he is left with nothing to do but echo the kid after a long silence. “Hypothetically?”

Something in Chadley’s shoulders relaxes, and he returns to the terminal and immediately begins chatting. “Well, SOLDIER is entirely under Heidegger these days.” he points out, cheerfully. “Getting any enhanced assistance requires quite the mess of paperwork, let me tell you! All those forms, and fees. You know what I mean, you manage OPs.” He squints and adjusts his micro lens. “Hypothetically, a Private, permanent Security Force would be very useful. Faster response time, no waiting on permission or having to get authorization from other departments. A superior option, especially if other security measures were suspected of being… vulnerable to interference.”

“Other security measures…? The Turks?" Kunsel demands, "Vulnerable to interference?” He thinks abruptly of Cissnei.

“Hypothetically.” Chadley insists, hard, still not looking back at him. 

“Hypothetically…” Kunsel echoes, and begins to think, realization settling in. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small notebook and pen. He hastily scribbles down a series of lines and curves. “Chadley, hypothetically, what do you think of this?”

He holds the page out, and Chadley turns to him, peering back with a frown of concentration.

A brief glint of something flashes in the kids eyes, but it’s smothered so fast Kunsel could almost believe it to be the lights of the Sim. Chadley shrugs and turns away, back to his terminal. “It looks like a variant of the SOLDIER insignia.” He remarks mildly, “A special division, perhaps? The president was very proud of the original insignia, he designed it himself; it makes sense he would want to reuse as much of the concept as possible.”

"The President, huh…” There’s not really anything to be said on that. Of course the president would be involved. Of course this went all the way to the top. Of course. It’s quiet for several minutes, only the clink of Chadley’s tools and the low whir of the Simulator.

“The Turks-” Kunsel starts, then pauses and restarts, more slowly this time. If Chadley is speaking in hypotheticals, there might be a reason. “Hypothetically, if the President felt he had reason to be distrustful of his personal security forces, he would probably look into 'upgrades' without informing them.”

Chadley hums, but doesn’t comment. It wasn’t really a question anyway.

“Upgrades like enhancement, of course. Acting as an unknown entity for enemies would also be a huge benefit. Of course, that still leaves room for them to be in the same situation again in the future, since the core issue is one of trust...”

Kunsel’s stomach drops, and it all clicks together in a way he has been desperately trying to deny to himself. The chip prototypes. He shakes his head. That’s going too far, too sci-fi to be real, right? Mind Control? That's like something out of a superhero movie. A cartoon supervillain's plan for world domination-

Wutai. Just because Shinra doesn't claim to be in control of all the various city-states and regions, doesn't mean they aren't. Who would tell them no?

“Hypothetically.” Chadley says. “There would be several options to prevent your own forces from turning against you. Propaganda is the easiest, and money can buy quite a lot of loyalty.” He pinches two wires together and reaches for another tool. “Beyond that, one would have to resort to other measures. Blackmail, coercion. Not just monetarily, of course.” He shakes his head. “By that point, money would not be enough to sway loyalty or obedience in the remainder, so it would have to be a much more direct form of leverage. Family, or even the target’s own life, would make excellent leverage.”

“Hypothetically, of course.” Kunsel feels dead inside.

“Of course!” Chadley's voice is bright in the quiet of the simulator. 

Leverage, even the targets own life, to ensure compliance. Blackmail, coercion. The Turks were the pinnacle of loyalty, and yet they had failed the president multiple times in the last year. Cissnei's whispers suggested they were in the middle of failing him again now. It didn’t sound like the chips were in working order yet, the prototype file was all he saw. They had time. 

“Leveraging a previous weakness would work as well.” Chadley remarks. “Especially if the leverage were to correct an issue that threatened someone’s life. You could get anyone to agree to experimental surgery for that.”

Leverage, weakness, issue, life, corrected.

Kunsel isn’t able to smother his response entirely, he jerks out of his relatively thoughtful pose, spine snapping straight and feet bracing as if for a blow as all the air in his chest goes cold and tight. Correcting a previous weakness, a life threatening one, but only in return for loyalty. Assured loyalty. Obey or die.

The Degradation. 

Shinra has no official term for it- most SOLDIERS die in combat. But the rare few who do survive ‘too long’, suffer for it. The whispers spread, after the mass desertions. After Genesis. That you begin to age, and rot. Wither away like you are being eaten from the inside out. Unofficially, Shinra has a task force dedicated to ‘researching’ the issue. It’s killing off their SOLDIERs, after all. Those who begin showing symptoms are sent away to ‘rest’ and are ‘treated to the best of Shinra’s ability’. No one has ever come back from the medical unit, it's basically a terminal ward in function.

If Shinra had a cure, and planned to leverage it for obedience, well… all of SOLDIER had seen at least a glimpse of what kind of death degradation was. No one deserved to go out like that. Falling to pieces, vomiting black sludge as you lose your mind. The screaming-

It all awakens Kunsel’s darkest fears. Leveraging a cure for the degradation, to place inhibitor chips. The cure wouldn’t even have to be real for SOLDIER to fall for it. 

Fear keeps Kunsel’s throat tight. “Chadley, the chips-”

Chadley turns to face him, and smiles brightly, completely at ease. “Hypothetically, of course!” The simulator flickers around them. 

It’s impossible for Kunsel to return the gesture when his blood feels like it’s made of ice. He’s been lucky with his time in SOLDIER- there’s been a correlation between how often a SOLDIER is wounded, and how quickly the Degradation appears. He’s only ever come out of combat with scrapes and bruises, and one nasty cut along his left forearm. He’s seen others far worse off, barely surviving gored torsos or fighting off exotic poisons. None of that changes the fact that his death hangs over him the same as it does every other SOLDIER. Messy, painful, insane-

“Lieutenant?” Chadley asks, sharply, like he’s called several times, and Kunsel is only now hearing him. It’s possible he has. The 1st Class shakes his head and places a hand on his shuddering chest, taking a deep breath. 

“Sorry about that!” He makes himself say. Trying for cheerfulness and probably coming across as slightly hysterical. “What were you saying?”

Chadley frowns at him severely. He’d climbed to his feet while Kunsel was… freaking out. “I’m not sure how up to date you are on the latest... scientific advancements.” He says, “but are you familiar with the RE:Union project?”

RE:Union? Hojo’s project? Was Chadley trying to tell him that Zack was involved in that? Kunsel was already aware.

“I’ve read about it,” He agrees, “a while back. Seems like it had stalled out. Why? Was there a breakthrough recently?”

Chadley hums carefully, and crunches back down. “Something like that,” He agrees. “The research team is preparing to enter a new phase of testing,” He flickers his eyes up to Kunsel, and then away. “You might be interested in looking into it in more detail.”

 Because that’s just what Kunsel needs right now, even more nightmares on top of the one he’s living. 

“That being said,” Chadley shuts the terminal panel and stands back up again, “How are the new visual upgrades? I’ve adjusted the PPI to compensate for SOLDIER enhancements, so it should be much clearer now. Actually, it should be visually indistinguishable from real life! I matched the average CFF for Second Class personnel, so the lag problem should be completely solved!”

“PPI?” Kunsel is a little bewildered, “oh, you mean the framerate problem?”

“Framerate? Oh, yes! The enchantments mean your brain experiences time slightly differently, and can perceive light modulations at a much faster rate! Can you see the difference?” Chadley gestures around him at the simulator.

Kunsel takes a moment to look around, and is pleasantly surprised to find the laggy, jerky quality of the simulation's rendering is almost completely gone. “It’s much better.” He agrees. “Hardly any flicker at all.”

Chadley beams. “The current system lacks the power necessary to project at a rate that would match the CFF of a First Class, at the moment,” He apologizes. “But the newer batch of simulators should make the cut, once they are complete. In the meantime, what other improvements would you suggest could be made? I believe 2nd Class Luxiere mentioned a time delay in regards to sound effects…”

“Luxiere has good ears,” Kunsel agrees. He's caught his breath, and is settling back down a bit. This is stuff he knows. Stuff he can handle. “But honestly, most of SOLDIER don’t reach that level. If it’s immersion you are looking for, scent is much better at creating-”

There’s several hasty raps on the door of the simulator, and the intercom buzzes. Kunsel forces himself to remain relaxed, and expels the snagged breath in his chest as a voice asks, “Intern Chadley?”

The blond jumps a little, and looks upward. “Yes, I’m here. Can I help you?” He calls out, clearly.

“If you could report to Floor 21 when you finish here, it would be greatly appreciated. There appears to be a fault in the last prototype, and the team requested that you run an analysis to pinpoint it as soon as possible. The, uh ...” There’s a sound like rustling paper, and the voice returns. “The relevant data has already been sent to your personal folder.”

“Of course! Thank you for informing me!” Chaldey calls back politely. The messenger apologizes for interrupting and disconnects. 

Chadley sighs, and smiles at Kunsel, gesturing for him to relax. “It appears I am on a rather tight schedule,” he says, voice light and cheerful as ever. “Let’s move on to your improvement request for the SOLDIER uniforms" He claps his hands together and adjusts his coat. "We wouldn't want anyone to think I’m slacking off!”

“You, slacking off? Never.” Kunsel responds, a little too seriously. He digs into a pocket and pulls out a peppermint as he strolls forward to help recollect Chadley’s discarded tools. “Want one?” he asks, crouching down and offering it. 

“Not today Lieutenant,” The boy apologizes, eyes snagging on the sweet. His fingers twitch. “Perhaps another time.”
 

Chapter Text

Relay- receive and pass on (information or a message).

Oct 1

It’s late when Kunsel dares to call Cissnei, probably too late. Who knows where she is right now? The time zones could have her hours ahead of him. The potential consequence of NOT calling isn’t worth forgoing the task, however. His ears hurt just remembering it. So it’s 17:00 in the evening and he rings up her personal burner. (One of four- her Shinra issued work phone, her Shinra issued ‘special’ work phone, her personal burner, and her ‘special’ burner. She might have more than that, actually; now that he thinks about it. He has no clue how she remembers which is which without labeling them. No wonder she's such an asset for the Turks.)

She answers on the fourth ring, voice easy but tired. “Travis?” She asks.

They had agreed, several months ago, that it would be best if she started calling him by his first name. 

“Hey babe, you busy?” He keeps his tone deliberately casual, but doesn’t bother to disguise the exhaustion behind it.

This is their cover story- The first layer, anyway. Cissnei and he had bumped into each other a couple months ago and hit it off. He knew vaguely she worked as a Turk, she didn’t spill any kind of company secrets. Steady, exclusive, but somewhat casual. Layer 2 was that Cissnei was asked to keep an eye on him after Zack’s breakout, and when he asked her out she agreed, since it let her keep an eye on him. He, of course, knew none of this. Layer 3 was that both of them genuinely liked each other. Layer 4 was that she’s come clean after their 4th coffee date, and they both had been working together ever since. 

Layers upon layers, different levels of honesty carefully overlapped to obscure the truth. The other Turks were a threat, and had been ever since the first time Cissnei let Zack go, all those months ago. The different truths left the true nature of their relationship... blurry. They liked each other, but also took serious issue with things they had each done in the past. They certainly had lots in common, but lived very different lives. He enjoyed their dates, on his end, and the occasional kiss to sell the story was hardly a punishment. That still left a LOT in the air, however. Things that likely wouldn’t be solved anytime soon, certainly not while they were still ‘undercover’. What mattered most was Zack. Everything else came second.

“I have a few minutes,” Cissnei responds lightly, and he can hear her sit down. When she speaks again, her voice is rougher, and a bit quieter. “This place is bug free, and no one’s around. You can speak freely for now.”

He sighs and leans back, sprawling on his beat-up sofa, dropping his helmet onto the floor. “So that potential contact I mentioned came through.” He starts off, running his fingers through matted brown hair in an effort to disrupt the helmet head effect, even though he knows it's basically permanent now. “I have... no idea how to even explain this.”

It's a good thing Cissnei is so well trained with taking statements. She gives him a place to start, the most important part of everything. “Any news on Zack?”

Kunsel smothers a wince and drops his arm across his face. “No." He makes sure he doesn't grind his teeth, jaw carefully relaxed. He didn't need another headache. "My contact had some suggestions on where to look for more information, but..” the guilt sits heavy in his gut. Don't grind your teeth, man! 

Her tone is complex, when she answers. “There's something else?” He can tell she had been resigned to the lack of a concrete answer, and is both curious and worried about what other kind of surprise he had stumbled across.

He swallows and sits up, fidgeting and restless. “The President doesn’t trust the Turks anymore.”

“We were… kinda picking up on that.” Cissnei’s voice is abruptly light, bordering on teasing. She's referencing the recent chaos with Verdot and AVALANCHE. Kunsel shakes his head, forgetting she can’t see him for a moment.

“No, he hasn’t trusted the Turks for a while now, I think.” He fidgets with a hole in his pants, near the knee. “That ‘Private Security Force’ we’re looking for? I think it’s his.”

There’s a breathless silence, and then Cissnei hisses, and he hears her get to her feet. “Shit.”

“I went digging in the system." Kunsel confirms. "With the tips I got, I managed to find an entry by looking through project files in the Science Department. I couldn't find anything solid, but it looks like a whole department, kept separate from the rest of Shinra, running off of Reactor zero in the basement. Below the basement, even. It’s only recently it's started being particularly active, but it's there. The president must have been working on this for a while.”

“How big do you mean when you say ‘a whole department’?” She asks, stress flooding the space between every word. It sounds like she’s pacing on the other end of the phone.

“Large enough to provide a small army, with all the personnel required to support them.”

“Fuck.” Something thuds in the background. He doubts she's thrown anything, but the sheer panicked frustration in her voice is a match to his own restless anxiety. His head is spinning a bit again, thinking about it. There's so much wrong with this. He thought he had finally found the bottom of the well Shinra used to hold its sins. To find out there was still more... And she didn't know about...

Remember to breathe. “That’s... Not the worst part,” Kunsel hedges, before biting the bullet. “Remember that ‘inhibitor chip project’ I told you about, that the Science Department was prototyping?”

“No.” It's not a response to the actual question. She sounds breathless, like the air has been knocked out of her, so he just keeps going. Better to rip the bandaid off, so they could get planning and actually do something.  

“Chadley said he thinks they’re planning on blackmailing SOLDIERs into 'conscription' by leveraging a cure for the Degradation. So it’ll be a choice between a long, painful death-”

“Or total servitude.” Cissnei finishes. Her voice has gone cold in rage, and snaps out in rapid staccato as she starts to think. “The Chips, how complete are you thinking they are?”

“Not fully functional, I don’t think.” Kunsel reassures her. It's the only good thing about the whole situation. “Otherwise they would have started approaching us by now. No one in SOLDIER has gone missing this month, and a whisper about a cure would spread faster than wildfire on our floors. But it’s only a matter of time, or Chadley wouldn’t have warned me. With the recent mess between you guys and the VP, the president would want to fast track production. I don't know how much time we have.”

“I can’t believe I-” Cissnei cuts herself off. She sounds absolutely enraged. He imagines her, standing with taut, hunched shoulders in the middle of a hotel room, fists tight, eyes burning. The quiet stretches out, and he just listens to her breathe, leaving her to think. Emotional platitudes are not what she needs right now. The difficulty in wrapping your mind around all the separate parts of this, and the insanity that comes in putting it all together is...

His head spins. A hidden Department. Chips. Degradation. The Turks.

“Fuck,” She finally gasps out, close to an enraged shout. “Fuck, how am I supposed to explain that? "Hey, Director, so it turns out the President hasn't trusted us for a lot longer than we thought, and he’s been secretly funding an entire mako-enhanced, MIND CONTROLLED army, literally right under our noses?!”

“Reno would appreciate how succinct you are, if nothing else.” Kunsel tries, and isn't above wincing, both at his words, and the slight edge of hysteria in his voice.

“That’s not-” She cuts herself off and growls. 

He winces again, missing Zack with an ache that hasn’t faded at all in the last few years. Zack always seemed to know what to say to make a situation lighter.

Cissnei either sighs, or takes a deep breath. Either way, she sounds more centered when she speaks again. “Thank you, Kunsel.” She says, and sounds genuine. “I’ll pass the info along. Most of us are at the end of our rope, so it’s better to have the cards down at the moment. For this round, anyway.”

“Chadley also mentioned another of Hojo’s projects, the one Zack was involved in. Project Reunion. Do you know anything about that?”

She takes a moment to think back before speaking this time. “I think I might have heard the name before...” the words feel reluctant, like they're being forced out of her mouth. “But I can’t recall anything specific.” 

“If you could ask the others, I’d really appreciate it.”

It’s a small request, but better than this conversation simply bearing bad news, something to do. “I will.” She promises.

“Do you have any news on your end?”

“No, sorry.” She sounds it too, and even more tired than before. “The samples are still being run, and no one here has heard anything. It makes sense now, if we are deliberately being kept in the dark.” 

“What about your... ‘situation’?" He asks. "Have you decided anything about that?”

“You mean Tseng’s offer?” Her voice goes mellow, and Kunsel bets his materia bracer her eyes have gone distant and hazy while she thinks. “I… I’m still not sure. I’ll be meeting with the others tomorrow, so I guess I’ll have to get their opinions on it.”

“Alright. Remember what I said.”

“‘No biggie!’, right?” She laughs, and the air finally lightens a little bit. “It’s only the rest of my life, after all.” 

“You’ll make the right choice,” he reassures her. 

“I’…” her voice trails off into the quiet. Outside his window, Midgar rumbles away, belching smog into the sky. Above it all, the stars continue to shine anyway. “Thank you.” she eventually settles on.

The air between them stretches for hundreds of miles, and all of it is heavy and tired, quiet. The new information means so many things, and both of them are highly aware that they will not be getting much rest.

“Let me know if you hear anything else, ok?” He asks, eventually.

“Will do. Goodnight, Kunsel.”

“Night.”

There’s a beat of quiet, and he hears her hang up, the call droning off into a low dial tone.

Kunsel sighs and collapses back onto the couch, bones feeling like lead weights. His eyes burn dryly. He should get his computer out, see about accessing the Reunion project files again. Instead, he stares at the ceiling and pictures Zack with a wide, confident grin. Cissnei, smile wry and a little lopsided, eyes hooded and teasing. The pictures he’d seen of Cloud Strife, and the stories from Zack. Aerith. Chadley. All used up and cast aside, left to struggle in Shinra’s massive shadow. No where is left untouched.

'To be a hero, you need dreams, and honor!' he remembers, Zack’s unusually serious face crystal clear in his mind. 

Dreams. He thinks, and closes his eyes, just for a moment. 

He’d thought Honor would be the hard part. 

Cissnei snaps her phone closed and stares at the scuffed, dark cover, the time blinking lazily up at her. 9:02 PM.

Had things really gotten that much bleaker, in just an hour?

‘You’ll make the right choice.’ Kunsel had said. 

Would she? She hadn’t, in the past. Just because she swore that she would try to do better, that didn't mean she’d manage it. What should she do? Take Tseng’s offer, and remain a Turk for a little longer? Or retreat with Veld and the others, after they deal with the massive… problem slowly marching their way? Stay with Shinra, just a little longer, in the hopes that some scrap of information will fall into her hands, or finally free herself of the corporation's grip, and do some actual good in the world, but possibly at the expense of…?

She didn’t want to leave Zack behind. Not again. She didn’t think she could survive that and still call herself any kind of decent. But which way was best? Every hour working as a Turk, furthering Shinra’s goals, felt like adding more and more wood onto the fire she would be burned at the stake on. 

Cissnei shivers, and rubs her arm, before straightening up and shaking her head. When unable to decide a course of action, ensure you have gathered as much information as possible. Then you can go with your gut.   
Everyone was gathering together for this. This was the only time that had ever occurred, from what she was aware. It was department policy to never have everyone in one place. This was different though. They weren’t doing this as Turks, to be honest. They were doing this for Veld. For his daughter, for his wife, and for all the people who would die if they didn’t. 

Cissnei stares down at her hands, firmly wrapped sound her PHS, not a tremor in sight. It felt good, knowing that what she was going to do next could only help people. That must be why so many people turned to monster hunting in their free time. It’s difficult, yeah, and there’s a huge chance they're all going to die, but it’s also so simple. A relief to be using her talents to unequivocally help.

Zack would love to be involved in this, she thinks, fondly, and swallows down the sharp stab of guilt. If only everything else in life could be as straight-forward as stopping a rampaging monster. 

The sound of footsteps coming down the hallway draws her out of her head, and back to the present. She’s straightened up and cleared her expression by the time the knock arrives, and so she wastes no time in pulling the door open. 

Tseng nods in greeting, his eyes flitting around her face. Cissnei wonders what he sees, how many microscopic traces of her struggle are hidden under her placid expression. “Do you have time to talk?” he asks, politely. 

There’s really only one answer, as it's either about Veld and the Weapon, Zack, or Cissnei’s own uncertain future. “Of course.” She steps aside, opening the door wider. 

“I checked with our contacts in Midgar,” he begins, entering. “So far, no one has seen anything, inside or outside of Shinra. I’m afraid that for the moment, our leads have run dry. Hopefully, your investigation with the Lieutenant will bear some fruit. Beyond that, I don’t have anything I can offer at this time.”

What she expected then. Still, the lack of forward momentum is somehow painful. She nods, and hesitates a moment, before daring to ask. “Do you think the director- I mean, Verdot would be open to offering his input? I know time is tight, but…”

“I don’t believe that would be too much trouble.” Tseng assures her. “He hardly has any meetings to be in, at the moment.” That earns a wry smile from her. Verdot most certainly would not be in any meetings with the higher ups any time soon. “There should be time tomorrow, after we rendezvous with Shotgun and the others.”

Shotgun... That reminds her. “Kunsel did have some info for us.” Cissnei says, and refocuses on the present again. She’s much too tired, if she’s drifting away this often during a simple conversation.. “He also asked if I could see what everyone knew about Hojo’s Reunion Project.”

Tseng frowned. “Reunion… I’m sorry, I can’t recall any information about that one. Though I’m sure I’ve heard it mentioned…” 

“Me as well.” she agrees. “Though, it could have been Hojo talking to himself again. If you could pass the question along, I’d be in your debt.”

“Who am I to pass up a favor?” Tseng smiles, but his eyes remain serious. “You mentioned Kunsel had info for us?”

Oh boy. Cissnei takes a deep breath, and sits down on the bed, gesturing beside herself for Tseng to sit. “I did.” She agrees carefully. “And I don’t think you're going to like it.”

Chapter Text

Retrace-  to go back over something, for example a path or a series of past actions

Oct 4

It takes Kunsel two days to find another opportunity to return to his illegal access point inside the main pillar. He throws on a disguise (hat, wig, clothes and glasses) and leads any potential followers on a little (long) wander through Wallmarket before making his way to the pillar. He hunkers down in the dark with only his laptop, a ratty camping chair and a half empty bottle of water for company.  

The Reunion Project folders have indeed been updated. There's a massive mess of them, so it’s a good thing he hadn’t attempted to dig into it earlier, prioritizing getting information on ‘Deepground’’ instead. The folders are of course full of scientific jargon even he can’t make sense of, cross linked with older projects and specimen profiles. It would have taken forever to parse through if he hadn’t stumbled upon the ‘Coordination’ file.

The file had a program and plenty of additional subfolders, all neatly organized for speedy accessibility. It was a risk, but the access history made it clear the program was opened and closed constantly, from all sorts of terminals around the city. It was a bare bones application, prioritizing information over sleekness, but it wasn’t hard to figure out what the purpose of the program was. The massive map taking up the majority of the space certainly helped.

It was some sort of tracking program, tracking and updating the location of roughly 60 ‘Subjects’ globally. It looks like groups of roughly 20 subjects had been ‘released’ from one of three locations, in Midgar, Junon, and Costa Del Sol. Their movements were being tracked and studied, seeking some sort of pattern or correlation, and updated every half hour. The subjects were split between three subtypes, ‘Null’, “Passive’ and ‘Variant’, with the majority categorized under Null. It was an eerie way to classify humans, stripped of any sign that they were living beings. Kunsel rubs away the goosebumps attempting to climb his arms, and forces himself to focus.

Whatever pattern the Science Department, or Hojo, were looking for, it wasn't a hard one to spot. An attraction type movement of the ‘Null’ subjects, centered on Midgar. The Passive subjects didn’t seem to be moving around that much, and the Variant types were heavily varied, no doubt the source of the label. Some subjects had no ‘active’ tracking options, and seemed to be mapped out via eyewitness accounts. One or two were marked with ‘Tracker Nonfunctional’, and others had extensive behavior notes. Connecting the dots made it easy to see any movement patterns; the streaks of green, yellow and grey/blue painting lines across the global map like a spiderweb. 

The obvious pattern was the slow, steady progression of the 'Null' types towards Midgar. The majority of the subjects were made up of them, and the same description was echoed over and over again. -Responds erratically to external stimuli, motor function only mildly impaired, no sign of fully conscious or deliberate thought. Eats and drinks sporadically, but enough to maintain momentum. Decreased reaction to pain and injury, no reports of aggression, easily directed over the short term.- It was unsettling as hell, seeing people described like that. Like they weren't even people anymore. Every picture he can access has obviously Mako-sick, pale faced humans staring listless into the distance. Too thin, most of their hair shaved or burned off by the Mako, some with freshly healed wounds in terribly straight lines...

The Passive types were just as heartbreaking. Fully Mako-sick, catatonic. They lacked the slow, directed movement the people 'Null'-tagged had. They mostly stayed in place and just.. waited. The conclusion of their observation was that sometimes, a Null arrived in a specific location and simply stopped. If removed from the premises, they would again begin moving towards it, then remain in place and just... wait. Sometimes wander the area, but always remaining inside some kind of limit. These subjects were often checked on in person, given food and water, and then left alone again, watched, and left to simply wait for some unknown signal (if you believed Hojo's hypothesis).

It's under the Variant tag that Kunsel spots Zack’s ‘SRZ1’ Science ID number, marked as last being updated an hour before. He tries to select it so quickly he nearly knocks the laptop off his knees, and has to scramble to ensure the stupid thing doesn't smash to pieces on him.

Heart pounding from the near miss, Kunsel carefully selects the ID, and after a small eternity of watching the loading wheel spin around and around, a folder pops up. It's followed immediately by an access code request, and a now familiar symbol.

Before, he would have thought it was a bad image of the SOLDIER insignia. Now, Kunsel has to close his eyes and count 10 racing heartbeats before looking again, blood buzzing but cold. The Deepground logo, stamped in the lower corner of the request, tells him more than enough about his suspicions regarding Zack’s potential whereabouts. It's just his luck he doesn't have the access code, but he might be able to find another way in. 

Swallowing hard, Kunsel backtracks to the overview and frantically scans it for any additional information. Combative, cell count remains inert, request to transfer- in progress, suggested removal from second phase of the project. 

Alive then, for now. Request to transfer… Kunsel copies the request number and searches it up inside the application. Transfer of Undisclosed Resources to Reactor Zero Bio-Storage.  Reactor Zero was the one directly below Shinra Tower, supplying energy to the company headquarters directly. As for Bio Storage... that had to be Deepground. A terrible way to label human bodies. They must have moved Zack there then.

The big question then, was how much longer his friend could stay alive. Who knew what Hojo or Deepground had planned?

Kunsel stares at the unchanging computer screen for far too long before he registers the shaking. There’s a fine, tight tremor in his shoulders and biceps. He swallows, and is surprised at how hard it is to relax his jaw. Air rushes through his nose and down his throat, just to be spat right back out in a rough exhale, as he realizes he’s not just afraid, he’s angry.

Viciously, bitterly angry. 

He takes a deep breath and sets the computer down. Breathe, he thinks to himself, Once, twice, a thousand times. Time ticks, trickling away like sand in an hourglass as he struggles to control himself, to stop himself from doing something insane, like storming the tower all on his lonesome. 

Strange, how similar panic and rage can feel, from a physical perspective. 

Focus. He reminds himself, closing his eyes and tilting his head back, gulping down damp, stale air. Focus. You need information. What else can you learn from this? What other questions did you have?

He tries to recall the list of questions he had prepared for Chadley, running through it and wincing when he remembers. Strife. The bubble of guilt pops in his chest like a balloon, and his phone is heavy in his pocket. Strife was with Zack when he entered the city, what was his current status? It takes Kunsel a few frantic seconds to recall the ID code attached to the blond, and he crouches back down to scroll through the directory all over again. SRC0…

It’s not listed in the Null or Passive tag, so he returns to the Variants and carefully notes the details.

SRRC- Null- Tracker Nonfunctional: Midgar (Last updated) Male…last sighted in Sector 6 Undercity, but he was too old, and listed with a large tattoo on his right arm as a distinguishing feature.

SRT3- Passive- Tracker Nonfunctional: Junon (Last updated) Male… last sighted in Junon. Under watch, confirmed stationary, weekly updates provided by Administrative Research. Previously a 3rd Class, supposedly retired - oh, that was Tucker Salair, he’d managed to survive his military contract and had headed home several months ago. Of course Shinra wouldn’t let an asset go, even when they’d earned it, for fucks sake. 

SRLC- Passive- aware of surveillance, continue to monitor from a distance. This poor sucker was considered crazy by the local community, and his paranoia kept him in his tiny bunker in Costa Del Sol. Another one too old. 

SRE3-F- Null- possible Passive, aware of surveillance and project. Consider excluding data due to data corruption. A woman, one of only 3 under the project. A woman in SOLDIER, 3rd Class? When did that happen?

Kunsel pauses and leans forward, scrutinizing the last one again. Curiosity, his darling, dearest fatal flaw, had him selecting the ID for more information, half expecting the Access Code request to pop back up. Instead, it easily opens another specimen folder. 

Eden Kennedy… The name takes a moment to bounce around in confusion, and then connect to a face. He feels the familiar mix of guilt-shame-disappointment-rage he always does when Shinra shows it’s dark side. She was one of 10 SOLDIER candidates put forward by Dr. Amanda Rayleigh several years ago, to test a new enhancement formula. It had been a breakthrough, free of the unusual reaction most women had to the serum. Three of the 10 had been the first women successfully enhanced enough to join SOLDIER. Kennedy had been small, but very fast, he recalled. The women had all seemed fit enough, but the Science Department declared the formula subpar and had them removed from the program several months later. He’d been stupid enough to think that ment they got to go home. 

Something tickles at the back of his head and he rereads the information carefully, struggling to place it. Kennedy… he frowns and peers closer, mouth going tight as he skims the list of procedures Hojo had put the poor woman through- girl, really, she’d barely been 18 there at the start. He’s not sure what he’s looking for, but it itches at his brain. Notes, updates, reports, photos-

His eyes stutter right along with his brain, but it takes him a moment to register just what it is about the old personnel photo that unsettles him. She’s small, as he remembered. Dark brown hair, cut short as any other member of SOLDIER's lower ranks. Bright eyes and a friendly enough face, set in the serious expression all military personnel use. Standing straight, chin up. She doesn’t look afraid at all.

That’s the biggest difference, Kunsel notes, a chill running down his back. That, and the lack of dirt.  

‘Kennedy,’ the scrapper had said, eyes jittering away from him. ‘Mako bright, probably a junkie,’ he’d thought. He feels numb as he backtracks and pulls up the map, scanning the location data. 

Midgar, Sector 5 Undercity. 

The chances were…not zero. He needed to look into the other ‘Nulls’ and ‘Passives’ listed as being in the city anyway, confirm the data, and try to figure out what Hojo was looking for. 

It’s hard to refocus, to return to the Variant menu and scan the last few entries. Hard to leave that guilty suspicion behind. He manages though. There’s more subjects in the folder; another missing tracker, another Null who knew something was up, (although this guy was attempting to outrun Shinra, with little luck. They just waited for him to reach the next town and sent someone to confirm he was still operating under his own power.) Another Passive, listed as a variant simply because they were a woman who had survived all of the previous procedures. Same with the next one, though this one was in Costa Del Sol. And of course, at the very bottom, and therefore the last one he'd see, SRC0.

SRC0- Null- No Tracker, non-functional catatonia. Status unknown, last reported outside Midgar. Requesting removal from project- ‘why are we still bothering with this one, it can't even lift it’s own head up. If SRZ1 ditched it, it’s unlikely to still be alive-

He was marked as ‘Status Unknown’. Zack had still been carrying Strife when he was intercepted in the wastes, but there was no sign of the trooper when the First had been taken by Deepground. Maybe for one of Shinra’s scientists it would make sense for Zack to ditch potential deadweight after all the close calls, but Kunsel knew Zack. There was no way Zack Fair had left Strife behind without a very good reason. 

Kunsel isn’t sure what he’s feeling, right then. He sits back and focuses on the ceiling, blinking bright spots from the screen out of his eyes. He’s feeling... a lot… Affection, and grief, and frustration; because it sounds like something Zack would do, doesn’t it? Give himself up in a bid to lead the enemy away from someone who was more vulnerable. Someone who couldn’t even walk, let alone-

Guilt screams and alarm rings through his head loud enough it shakes out every other emotion in his body. Because if Zack had done that, used himself as bait, Strife was still catatonic. He couldn’t have wandered off on his own. Which meant one of two things. Either someone else had found him and not said anything (a civilian? Avalanche?) or he was still somewhere out in the scrapyards. 

For the last 3 days.

'The human body can survive roughly 3 days without food or water...' he thinks, dizzy with dread, a sinking black hole in his stomach. He sits back, trying to remember to breathe and pulling out his phone, thoughts whirling around. He'd need help to search the whole of the scrap yards fast enough, backup, a good cover. Maybe there were some missions for monster clearing he could repurpose? He should check with Kasha, double check with Cissnei's AVALANCHE contacts maybe. Someone must have seen something! Even just a body..,  

It would be worth checking for, even if it was just for…  something to send home. To give to Jim Owens, at least, and the other members of Strife’s old squad.

Shit, if he’d left Strife out in the scrap to die because he was too preoccupied with finding Zack - what would his friend think after going to such extreme lengths to drag the blond along with him? 

Kunsel shuts the computer, and stares at the wall, brain going blank. He can't handle thinking about that. He needs to do something, right now, if he's going to be able to look the other man in the eyes. He needs to look, call, plan, and eat, he hasn't eaten in hours, and then he needs to…

Breathe in, good! Now, let it out! Zack's voice echoes in his head. You got this, just take a second to get reoriented, okay?

Kunsel breathes. In and out. Reorient. Breathe again, stale, cold air. He can do this.

He’s going to call up some friends. After all, he could use a boys night out under the Plate. 

Chapter Text

Reassure- say or do something to remove doubts or fears

Oct 4

Ajax Coine is a quick study and a faster flirt. Kunsel had met him on the first day of the SOLDIER trainee camp, when the golden haired heartthrob had plopped down next to him at a crowded cafeteria table and promptly dropped the cheesiest pickup line he had ever heard. Everybody had called him ‘Hey, Beautiful’ for a week after that, before Kunsel had gotten fed up with the jokes about ‘getting lost in your eyes’ and requests for a map, and started to wear his helmet everywhere except to bed. Something that ended up benefiting him, but didn’t stop him from giving the other teen the cold shoulder for a good month before Ajax could corner him and apologize. By offering to buy him dinner, of course.

Kunsel had turned him down, but he’d thawed out towards the reckless blond anyway, and they’d become decent friends. Zack hadn’t joined Shinra until the year after, so for the bulk of his first days in Shinra, it was Ajax who allowed himself to be bombarded with gossip, trivia and assorted tirades. They remained friendly over the years after that, meeting up for drinks at least once a month, and leaving little notes for birthdays and holidays. 

No one could ever call Ajax reluctant to stir up trouble. Where youth had faded, Ajax’s reckless drive had turned jaded from exposure to Shinra and its cruelties, and settled into something closer to blatantly dancing with death. He was always pushing the buttons of higher-ups and messing with the Turks; skipping meetings, mocking any complaints. Kunsel had ended up fielding him almost exclusively on monster hunting to prevent him from getting killed by insulting Heidegger one too many times. When Zack had vanished, and Kunsel had expressed his... concerns, Ajax was the one who tolerated his paranoia. Told him, completely serious, to look into it, and promised to have his back.

So it made sense to call him first. Ajax was 2nd Class now, unsuited to the commanding portion of 1st class duties, and unpalatable to the Directors in regards to promotion. A fantastic spear wielder, he’d learned the basics from his Dragoon grandfather, and enhancement had turned him into a vision on the battlefield. He would be able to look out for himself in the slums, and watch everybody else's backs at the same time. 

It’s not a surprise to see him relaxing at the station, splayed out on a bench like he was being paid to take up as much space as he could. Kunsel feels a rush of relief anyway. They might not be able to speak freely, but seeing his friend’s lopsided smirk is like seeing a candle in the dark. A reminder that there was something else besides the lurking shadow of Shinra’s hunger left in the world. 

Jim Owens is standing slightly off to the side, looking just as tired as ever. The younger man is a more recent member of Kunsel’s little circle. Smart, slightly mousy looking, with dark skin and large brown eyes. A chronic worrier, with an eye for detail, and a good judge of character to boot. He’d been the one to approach Kunsel. About 3 years ago he’d cornered the SOLDIER in a bar and asked to speak with him, a thin undercurrent of steel in his voice. Kunsel had been half terrified he’d run into an unknown Turk at the time, so when the young man had all but blurted out his dissatisfaction about the causality report from Nibelheim, Kunsel had played dumb but sympathetic. Right up until the poor guy had nearly burst into frustrated tears and demanded to know if he seriously bought into all of Shinra’s shit.

Turns out the kid from Corel was smarter than anyone gave him credit for. He’d been looking into the incident ever since the Corporal from his squad was sent out and then declared missing. A missing friend was something Kunsel could sympathize with. It hadn’t taken him long to connect the photos of Jim and his squadmate to Cloud Strife, the capable trooper Zack had mentioned a couple of times in casual conversation. Jim didn’t have much additional information he could add to Kunsel’s little investigation, but they got along well enough, and having the similar drive to understand what had happened to their friends had been a comfort Kunsel hadn’t been willing to deny himself. So here they were. Casual friends headed under the Plate to grab a drink.  

Jim offered him a small smile and a wave as he made his way over. The station wasn’t packed, but it was pretty crowded; a good night to head to Wallmarket. There was no recent rain to flush filth into the undercity’s streets, and it was not so hot as to turn the shadow of the city into an oven. Perfect cover for a rushed search of the scrap piles for signs of Cloud Strife. 

Or Eden Kennedy. Was she some kind of plant? She'd honestly seemed freaked out by being cornered by him and Cissnei. Was it the fear of a slummer faced with Shinra, or an escapee faced with possible capture? How was she out and about, free of the supervision the other ‘passive’ subjects were subjected to? She was still being tracked, her movements marked as suspiciously able for a ‘null’ subject, flagged as a variant, same as Zack. Had she managed to escape? Did she know she was being monitored?

So many questions for her. On the top of the list, if she had heard or seen anything of the catatonic Cloud Strife during her wanderings.

“You ready to let loose a little?” Ajax’s easy country drawl drags Kunsel’s attention back to the present. The 2nd is grinning easily up at him, flicking a pen between the fingers of his left hand and tapping his foot. Always in motion, this one.

“I definitely need it,” Kunsel admits, and feels guilty that it’s true. He’s exhausted. 

“Everyone does.” Jim agrees, slipping his hands into the pockets of his worn cargo pants. He’s wearing a dull green and yellow checkered scarf to duck his head into, over a decent quality jacket with deep pockets. His body language isn’t meek, or cowering, but something about the way he stands makes him feel like he’s standing on the edge of the conversation, instead of one of only three conversing friends. He’s always been more of a listener than a talker. Something he claimed to have in common with Strife. 

Ajax huffs a laugh and hauls easily to his feet, stretching so his fitted t-shirt rides up enough to get the attention of some passing ladies. “Don’t I know it!” He says, falling into step as they begin moving to the platform proper. “You should have seen what Luxiere and Huntsaker were like today, barking at each other like Guard Hounds all afternoon. Couldn’t do a damn thing to please them, either, so they were biting heads off left and right. Fucking nightmare, that is.”

Kunsel notes the increased stress level down somewhere in his mental catalog and stays on task. “I still don’t know why Heidegger thought it was a good idea to promote those two to 1st like that. They’re way too hotheaded.”

“A-plus asskissers, though.” Ajax notes dryly, and Jim hides a laugh in his fist. 

The smile on Kunsel’s face becomes just a bit more real. 

“Are we ready to go then?” Jim asks, “Hate to hurry things along, but…”

Right, Jim would be eager to get below plate. Kunsel hadn’t had the liberty of giving him details, only that there was a chance that Strife had been down there, passed along in jumbled doublespeak that referenced the weather way too often to be believable. Good thing the Turks were otherwise occupied. Kunsel spares a moment of worry for Cissnei and her silence, but tucks it away. They’d discussed the likelihood of her having to go radio silent for a bit. There was no need to worry just yet. 

“The train isn’t even here yet, cool it hothead!” Ajax teases. “You that eager to be first in line to the Honey Bee?”

Jim blushes like a sunburned tomato- so red it’s actually alarming. “We are NOT going to Honey Bee Inn!” He insists, almost violently. “What is with people in this city? It’s a really nice club, I get it, you don’t have to be absolute horndogs all the goddamn time-” He’s cut off as Ajax drops an arm around his shoulder and cheerfully steers them onto the train.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with having a crush on a honey girl!” the SOLDIER starts off. “I remember when I was a fresh faced cadet! The first time I ended up there, I about fell on my face when I saw this absolutely gorgeous-!”

Kunsel tunes out Ajax’s poetic reprisal of his doomed romance and checks his phone, following after them and dropping into the seats with a grateful huff. His back has been killing him. Rodney had confirmed he’d meet them below the plate, and passed along that he’d enrolled Deniel Bentz, a 3rd Class also in the know, to assist in their little get-together. Taylor hadn’t answered the last request about Avalanche updates, and Casha’s little clinic was swamped with a bad flu outbreak. Still, 5 well trained men was a decent search team, and he knew who to talk to about the local gossip to track down info on either of his targets. 

Jim is half heartedly attempting to remind Ajax that he is not, in fact, a cadet, and Ajax is playfully ignoring him, continuing to pass on his ‘worldly wisdom’. The train is filling up properly now. Most of the seats are taken, and any newcomers are forced to stand and grip the grab handles dangling above. It’s a Friday night, so the train will be packed by the time it departs. Good cover for escaping any surveillance. 

The ride itself is uneventful. Crowded and loud, full of jostling and irritated cussing, but uneventful. The atmosphere is expectant, eager, and overall positive. Ajax has managed to strike up a conversation with the woman standing next to him, and seems to be attempting to drag poor Jim into it. Kunsel can’t help but keep checking the progress updates as the train begins making its way below the plate anyway. Security checks have increased ever since AVALANCHE stepped up their assassination attempts. Silently, he counts down to their stop in Sector 5. Closer, closer. ID scan. Tick, tock. Never enough time, always so close, never close enough …

“Kunsel?” 

Kunsel jerks back to himself, swaying on his feet. Jim is leaning towards him, peering over a stranger's shoulder to give him a concerned look. He struggles to smother the burst of frustration that look invokes. He gets it, he looks terrible and needs sleep. Unfortunately, there are more important things to take care of. He can sleep later, or when he’s dead , whichever comes first.

Ajax is looking at him too, eyebrows raised, expression carefully bland. “You need some sleep, man.” He advises. 

The advice is unwelcome. “I’m fine.” Kunsel dismisses, and pretends he doesn’t see Jim’s worried expression. Ajax’s mouth goes tight, briefly, before he huffs and leans back to rock on his heels, swaying with the movement of the train. “Alright.” he agrees easily. The SOLDIER nudges Jim, drawing his attention away. 

“So, you’ve never been to the Honey Bee, but you must have been below Plate before?” 

Jim flushes a bit, indignant. “I WORK down there!” He insists. “I patrol the Sector 3 underbelly 5 days a we-!”

“Yeah, but that’s warehousing .” Ajax interrupts, rolling the sentence around in his mouth. “I mean ‘below Plate’ as in Sector 5, or Wall Market! Ya’ know, where the people are?”

“Rookies get assigned 3 months in the slums right after Boot Camp!” Jim reminds him, exasperated. “It’s practically a part of initiation- Yes, I’ve been below Plate before!”

“But not to Wallmarket? Man, what do you guys even do for fun?”

“I’ve been to Wallmarket before!” Jim insists. “I just didn’t hang around! It’s so loud there, and it smells awful! I don’t know how you guys stand it!”

“Practice!” Ajax informs him, cheerful. “‘Sides, it doesn’t all smell like that! The Madam wouldn’t stand for it! Plus, the Honey Bee Inn is classy , ok? Not some run of the mill strip club!”

“I don’t want to go to a brothel this weekend, Coine! Drinks and music I can do, maybe some gambling! We talked about the Colosseum, didn’t we? Then bar hopping?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” Ajax subsides, and falls quiet, pouting a bit. The people around him appear relieved, and Kunsel reminds himself to thank the two later. Establishing an alibi, so if Shinra is having them watched, no flags will be raised when they don’t stop at the Inn. Too many eyes and ears there. Rhodea trains his Bees well, and information is a currency second only to Gil. Bar hopping all weekend is a tried and true pastime, and would account for the periods of time when no one was sure where his little team was at. 

Two more crowded stops, and the train finally reaches the Sector 5 slums. 

It’s definitely the nicest of the populated underbellies. Once, it was its own quaint little town, but the name has been long forgotten. Traces of it remain- there’s an unusual amount of brick to be found in the ramshackle buildings that surround the station. There has been some attempt to keep the platform itself clean, and the signs and papers stuck to the walls are mostly orderly and upright. It’s also very crowded- Sector 6 has little housing beyond overly expensive, tiny apartments overlooking the chaos of Wall Market, and the bulk of Sector 7 is made of scavenged wood and building materials, mostly necessity shops, with little lean-tos and plywood houses pressed between them. Sector 5 is the safest of the choices, when it comes to living. There’s plenty of water, regardless of the smell, and most of the residents are… relatively law abiding. The lack of late-night saloons or entertainment means the area is fairly quiet at night. It’s mostly families here, with the local orphanage, the Leaf House, located in a well protected area, far from monster attacks. Aerith lives here, somewhere. He hopes she’s doing well.

Aerith means Turks though, so it would be best if they didn’t linger. The bars are in Sector 7, and they’ll be cutting through the junkyards instead of trying to cross Wall Market unmolested. Rodney and Deniel had been assigned a monster clearing mission there, the moment Kunsel saw it come across his desk. He had managed to confirm the request was actually submitted before there were any local sightings of Zack, which meant it was unlikely that Shinra had sent it as a trap. Kunsel hadn’t even assigned himself to it, so hopefully no one would look twice.

Ajax is still hassling Jim, this time about the Security Officer’s dislike of tequila, when they disembark. The train squeals and rumbles, spewing mako-tinged, gray smoke. The social atmosphere is much brighter, residents headed home after a week of work, food stalls offering specials for the next hour, kids laughing somewhere out of sight. As nice a day as the undercity can get.

“So, where to?” Ajax asks brightly, a squirming Jim trapped under his arm. The darker skinned young man looks resigned to his fate, but wiggles his shoulders to try and elbow the other anyway. 

“That road there.” Kunsel indicates with his head, adjusting his sunglasses. “Rodney said they were almost finished, so we can meet them on the way.”

They wouldn’t, of course. Instead they would hang around the junkyard entrance for a bit, and Rodney would text, to ask for some help with clean up, and they’d all enter the maze and begin their search away from possible eyes and ears. It’s not a perfect plan, but Kunsel is hardly going to stage a bombing as a distraction.  

Not yet, anyway.

There’s a few sprigs of yellow-green grass hidden here and there along the path they take. Sometimes it seems like this is the only part of all of Midgar that anything can grow without professional botanists hovering over them 24/7. The faint, sweet but humid smell of greenery feels like it loosens something in his chest, a small seed of hope in a barren field. 

Even if they don’t find Zack today, they might be able to find Strife. That’s something, right?

It’ll be something to Jim, at least. The younger man’s face is settling into stoney determination, growing harder as they approach the scrap heaps. Being in the same unit wasn’t a guarantee that everyone would become good friends, and from the stories it had sounded like Strife’s unit was pretty divided; Jim claimed it was mainly due to work ethics- the unit was made up of failed SOLDIER candidates, some of whom carried heavy grudges about still being required to finish their 3 years of service despite not making the cut. Retests were only available if they were recommended by a commanding officer, and with such obvious chips on their shoulders, it was unlikely the bitter beans had any chances of making it. Pair that up against the other members of the unit, who hadn’t given up on the retests and therefore tended to put their backs into the work, and the obvious gap in ability and respect created an atmosphere of general distaste and sabotage. 

Jim had failed as a candidate due to his lack of command ability and low physical scores. The guy was tall, but thin as a rail and looked liable to snap if you asked him to carry too much. That hadn’t stopped the guy from putting in his best effort, instead of complaining and throwing around his weight like the rest. 

Strife was quiet, according to him. Practical, with a dry sense of humor, and a hard worker. Good with mechanics, a solid shot. Short, and had probably lied about his age to get in, and with a stubborn streak a mile wide. He didn’t tend to get along with the bullies, and wasn’t afraid to point out bullshit when he saw it. Despite that, Jim admitted the blond second guessed himself a lot when removed from a situation, and wasn’t the friendliest person. A grouchy old chocobo, Jim said. He swore the only reason the kid hadn’t made SOLDIER was because he was so damn small, and that the mako sensitivity excuse was probably because he told off a proctor during the SOLDIER exam. 

Kunsel was pretty sure Strife hadn’t made it because he was short as all hell, and had a functioning moral compass that wouldn’t have let him overlook Shinra’s shadier side. Zack was people-smart, but not all that observant, at least not when he’d first made SOLDIER. Strife had enough common sense and too much stubbornness to let details get overlooked. It was even noted in his official personnel file.

Kunsel had never met the kid in person, but Zack had mentioned him a time or two, the few times he talked about the mission to Modeoheim. Everything he’d heard about the guy made it seem like he was a decent human being. He didn't deserve getting caught up in Shinra’s bullshit.

No one did. 

A very loud, sharp whistle sends a screech of pain through Kunsel’s ears, and he jerks around to glare at a grinning Ajax, who’s following behind at a leisurely pace. Just ahead, Owen’s stumbles and curses under his breath. 

“There you are!” Ajax teases. “Thought I lost you for a second there.”

“What’s wrong?” Jim steps back to Kunsel’s side, glancing around like he might spot Strife or maybe the Turks hiding behind some junk pile. 

“There’s a new little entrance just past here.” Ajax points his chin off to the side, past a stack of old, rusted oil barrels. “Was thinking we could check it out first, might be a shortcut. Sure wasn’t here last time I was sent on monster cleanup.”

“You haven't been on monster cleanup in this sector in almost a year;” Kunsel points out, but he’s already moving to step around the barrels. “You got hedgehog pie guts all over the station platform, trying to herd them like that.”

“Well, no one else had figured out a better way to get them all at once! I wasn’t gonna spend the whole day poking my spear into every hole this side of Wallmarket!”

“I remember that.” Jim admits glumly. “Some guys from unit 203 were trying to pay people to cover their shifts so they wouldn’t have to clean it up.”

“Yeah, buggers do smell pretty bad. And the purple stuff is a bitch to get out of your clothes…”

There is, in fact, a new ‘entrance’ to the scrap yard. More of a very narrow game trail, to be honest, half stairway, half debris; but it does look like it cuts right through the large pile of scrap metal and concrete that serves as the main deterrent that drives people to walk around to the more well known pathway. 

“Split up?” Ajax asks, after a moment. 

“No.” That was easy. Deepground could be anywhere. “Let’s take a look, we can ask about people taking the main trail when we come back.”

“Right-o.” Jim hums and nods in agreement with the louder blond.

It’s more of a climb than a walk, moving from stable space to… slightly less stable space. The squeezes between concrete slabs are nothing to sniff at either. Kunsel winces when he notices the grime on his shirt, once they manage to get through. The other side is a very windy trail that looks like it merges back onto the main path a couple hundred yards away. There’s nobody else around that he can see, but his enhanced ears can faintly pick up on what sounds like an older man singing a bawdy tavern song.

“Alright,” he decides, and turns back to the other two, pulling out his phone to wait for the text message. “Here’s the plan. We start searching…”

They’ve stopped for a brief break about 2 hours later, as the last of the sun finds its way through the scrap heaps with narrow, orange fingers. Jim is chugging down the last of the water in his canteen, and Ajax is chatting brightly with a concussed looking old man, who’s hair is so wild and curly it hides all of his face, except for his long, pointed nose.

Kunsel stares at his phone, chewing on his cheek and pretending he doesn’t feel violently nauseous. Rodney and Den haven’t found anything on their end either, and unfortunately no slum dwellers were willing to talk to two SOLDIERs in full gear for any longer than it took to tell them to fuck off. They had lights, of course, but the passage of time is making dread pool heavily in his guts. 

Too late, too slow, so useless…

“Welp.” Ajax pops his ‘p’ as he saunters back towards them. “Want the good news or the bad news?”

“Good news?” Jim’s face lights up hopefully.

“Old man hasn’t seen anyone matching that description.” Ajax cautions. “BUT, he did say someone came around the other day, asking around about what sounds like the same guy.”

“Who was asking? Any names?” Kunsel tries not to let the alarm bells in his head drown out his actual hearing. 

“No.” Ajax looks uncomfortable admitting that. “A woman, dark hair. Huge, uh, badonkers.” He guestures weakly with his hands, offering a lopsided grin when Kunsel just stares flatly at him.

“AJAX!” Owens sputters, face darkening significantly. 

“His words!” the blond insists, gesturing back in the direction the old man had come from. “He said, that she said, that her friend had gotten hurt in the area, and might have lost something, and was wondering if anyone had seen him. Hit his head or something.”

Kunsel hums and runs the new information through his mind, forwards and back, slowly, as Jim turns to face him, uncertain hope all over his face. “Do you think..?”

He doesn’t want to get anyones hopes up, and it’s not enough to stop the search, but… “Maybe,” he offers. “We should keep looking, just in case. See if anyone else saw her, or Strife.”

“Sounds good to me!” Ajax agrees, seemingly reinvigorated by the response. Thank goodness, keeping up morale was not Kunsel’s forte. “Keep asking around then, good time for it! Scrappers will be coming out right about now, since the sun is setting, one of them is bound to have seen something!”

Kunsel shoots off a few texts to various contacts in the slums. Alex and AVALANCHE, Casha’s clinic. Alex responds immediately, solely to mock the description of the woman. Kunsel promptly stuffs his phone into his pocket. 

They don’t have to travel far to rejoin the main path, where several scrappers are huddled together, arguing over what looks like a bag of metal pipes. Ajax, fearless as ever, immediately bounds forward and lets out a hearty “Hello!”

The group looks at him almost as one, like a hunched, many headed monster standing guard over a treasure horde. If treasure was made of questionably quality scrap. There’s a variety of faces peering back at him, but no short blonds or busty brunettes.

There is another familiar face though. Unlike the others, which are varied shades of bemused and alarmed, this one quickly falls into stark annoyance, and Kunsel can clearly hear her grumble “Not THIS asshole again.” over the other murmurs.

Play nice . Kunsel thinks to himself, feeling cold when her face matches with what he recalls from the pictures. She probably knows more than you thought. Out loud, he says, as brightly as he dares, “Well, fancy seeing you around here!”

Kennedy outright growls at him, and the other scavengers seem to take that as their que to begin hurrying away. Ajax seems stumped, stranded halfway between the two groups and glancing back over his shoulder at Kunsel for directions. 

“What do you want ?” Kennedy gripes at them, slinging her sack of scrap over her shoulder and leaning away. “I already told you everything.”

Oh dear, Ajax looks interested enough to derail the conversation before it even gets going. Kunsel cuts in before he can. “This is about something else, actually.” He’s unlikely to run into a chance like this a third time. “'You hungry?”

Her mouth goes tight, and her eyes dart between the three of them. Kunsel attempts to project calm, and hopes Jim and Ajax’s body language reads more as curiosity than aggression. 

The gods must be real after all, because she opens her mouth, to no doubt decline, when a very suspicious gurgling sound reaches his ears. Ajax looks ready to laugh and turns to her, grin already back in place. 

“Fucking hell.” she bitches, and spins to begin power-walking back towards sector 5. “Wutain or bust, got it?”

“That place by the cafe work for you?”

She grumbles some kind of acknowledgement and slows enough for them to catch up. Jim is looking her over curiously, and Ajax seems to be sizing her up to mess with her. Hopefully he keeps the impulse in check. 

The walk is awkward. Jim makes one gentle attempt at conversation, but Kennedy just grunts. Ajax makes several more attempts, most of them very bad pickup lines, that get him annoyed huffs and one final “Are you always this annoying?” After which Kunsel stepped in and silently encouraged leaving the woman alone. By the time they arrive at the cafe, the whole thing is starting to feel like a bad idea.

“Any preferences?” Kunsel asks, pulling out his wallet for some gill. Before she can even answer, he hears her stomach grumble, and she flushes.

“Noodles.” She gripes, and sets herself at the nearest table, dropping her scrap bag with a muffled clang!

Kunsel passes off a good handful of Gil to Ajax, who pouts, but gets into line. Jim hovers anxiously before sitting across from the tired lump Kennedy has melted into. Kunsel follows.

“What is it this time?”

“I’m looking for someone-” she glares at him, hard, and he hastily skips forward. “Blond, young. Probably sick?

“When about?”

“Same as the other guy.”

She huffs, but seems to think about it, mouth twisting a bit as her eyes drift across the open air cafe. “No” She says eventually. “Nothing, sorry.”

“What about a woman? Dark hair, fit-”

“-big boobs.” And Ajax is back.

At least he has the noodles, which is all Kennedy appears to care about. She straight up snatches the plate from the other man’s hands and starts eating. She swallows the first, huge mouthful and answers. “That one I remember. The guys wouldn’t shut up about her for a week. I think somebody mugged a friend of hers or something? I do remember she must’ve worked at a bar or something, everyone was talking about saving up money to go for drinks in Sector 7 to get another look at her.”

“Sector 7?”

She hums and nods, mouth already full again. 

“‘Kay.” Kunsel leans back in his chair and lets out a long breath. His mind shuffles the new information into place. He’ll need to talk to Casha and Taylor then. Avalanche has several cells in Sector 7, and if it was Strife he wouldn’t be in good shape; if the woman was a civvie, she probably would have taken him to the clinic. 

His PHS has no more positive updates, Rodney and Den haven't found anything then. Not too surprising, given they are in full SOLDIER gear. Kunsel glances at Kennedy stuffing her face and considers what he knows about her. Her info has been good so far, and she’d have no reason to lie. So that leaves only a handful of additional questions.

Out of habit, he glances around lazily to check for Turks. No one nearby is listening in, or even sitting quietly, the area full of quiet, easy chatter. He can risk it. Best to lead into it though, she might bolt if he straight up asks what she’s doing down here. 

“Any news about the other day?” He asks. “Sightings, or rumors?”

She frowns and finishes chewing her current mouthful. “No.” She says, after a painfully large swallow. “Nothing anyone has seen. But there’s been more talk of ghosts out in the scrap after dark. There’s a chance they are moving around out there while the monsters are out. If they’re enhanced at all, the Hedgehog Pies wouldn’t be much trouble. You know how fast monsters pyre* up.”

He nods and hums in agreement. “Could I ask another question, Eden?”

She shrugs, rolling more noodles around her fork like it’s spaghetti. “I mean you’re payin-” 

Kennedy freezes, eyes going wide and flashing with mako. Her focus snaps onto him, face completely blank. She suddenly looks violently young, not even breathing, every inch of her body going tight in some combination of surprise and fear. 

Thank the gods that Jim freezes up too, startled by her reaction. Ajax is smart enough to keep his mouth shut, eyes darting between Kunsel and Kennedy, confused but willing to wait for some kind of signal. Instead, Kunsel keeps talking, keeping his body language relaxed. If he stops, she might take the silence as a threat, or blackmail, and bolt. He doesn’t want that.

“I doubt you like the idea of people being privately enhanced any more than I do.” He continues, like he hasn’t clocked her reaction. “And you wouldn’t be so good at keeping your head down if you didn’t know the kind of danger people like us are in.”

“Like… us.” she says. She hasn’t moved, fork still halfway to her mouth, eyes flickering around from face to face, body to body. She’s still thinking about running. Gods, he misses Zack. What would Fair do in this situation?

Kunsel takes a deep breath, and pulls off his sunglasses, projecting his movements and leaning forward. Ajax slowly relaxes, and leans back, carefully glancing around like he’s bored, keeping watch. Jim keeps his mouth shut and just listens, looking a little overwhelmed at the sudden shift in the atmosphere. 

“I remember when your training group came in,” he informs her, carefully, not meeting her eyes. He doesn’t need the intensity of the conversation to go up any higher. “It was a big deal, women in SOLDIER. I mean, for the men it meant ladies who could kick their asses, but medical…” He pauses to think carefully here. “They still don’t know why the SOLDIER serum has such a high fatality rate for women. Everyone was talking about you guys and Dr.Rayleigh.”

Kennedy twitches slightly at the Doctor's name, her face spasming briefly with an emotion he can’t place in time. Her mouth twists afterwards though, and her voice is bitterly sarcastic. “Oh they know all right.” she snarls quietly. “They knew from the beginning. They were just stringing us along, wondering how she’d done it. Couldn’t have someone else knowing the secrets to success.”

She’s still wound tight as an old 2-day watch, and he’d bet she’s not completely here in the present with them, but she’s talking.

“Couldn’t have what?” Jim asks softly.

Her eyes snap to him, startlingly bright in the early evening dim. Clear, and focused, exhaustion pushed to the side as she analyzes him, SOLDIER quick. Kunsel knows what she sees; Public Security, infantry, loose shoulders, calloused hands. He’s been with Shinra for a while, but hasn’t moved up the ranks. Her eyes flash between Kunsel and Coine, no doubt doing her own mental math. 

“I’m sorry,” she says suddenly, dropping her fork. Her voice is completely different, polite and even, each word clear and concise. “I must have been confused. Thank you for the food, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more-”

“Kennedy-” Jim starts to stand, reaching out, looking a little panicked, Ajax glances at Kunsel for directions, and Kunsel-

‘Captain Fair? Nonononono, it’s ok, you can call me Zack! After all, we're gonna be best friends, right!’

“Eden,” Kunsel says, not too loudly, knowing her enhanced ears can catch it. “I know where your tracker is.”

She freezes all over again, half bent over to grab her scrap bag, fingers twitching, eyes jumping between them all. She’s breathing this time, quick, quiet and shallow, The mako in her eyes made brighter by the adrenalin rush she’s got going. Her feet twitch, and she sways, away from him, the table, the cafe-

Way to go, genius, you fucked up again . God, he misses Zack, how did he manage to get people to trust him so quickly? She’s going to run, and he’s not going to be able to help anyone. What good is photographic memory if all he can remember is how many times he’s failed the people around him? She was in SOLDIER, her whole group was, and he hadn't even noticed they’d been disappeared until it was literally written out in front of him-

“You have to stop.” she says, her voice high and tight.

Kunsel twitches and snaps his attention back onto her. She’s still standing there, bag in hand, eyes too wide in a far too pale face. Her lips tremble slightly, but she’s looking at him, at Ajax and Jim. 

“You have to stop .” she repeats, urgently, desperately. “You just- you don’t know! You can’t fight them, you can’t even run. Shinra has eyes everywhere! I know you think things are bad as they are now, but I promise, it can get so much worse!” she blinks rapidly, gulping down a lungful of air. “Once they have you, they don’t let you go, there’s nowhere you can even hide -”

“Miss Kennedy?” Jim asks, softly. Her eyes jerk back onto him, hands tightening around her scrap sack, looking dazed, panicked. 

Jim is... thinking. His expression is soft, but focused. Not even on her, but on her hands; clenching and unclenching. “You…” he pauses and visibly rethinks his words, before he looks up at her with earnest brown eyes. 

“They took my friend.” he says. “They took our friends.” he nods at Kunsel and Ajax sitting silently. “They’ve taken so many people, I’m sure everyone in this city has someone who’s vanished. And, I know… I know the people who go looking vanish too, but… it isn’t right .” He clenches his own fingers, and glances back up at her face. “It’s wrong !” he insists. “And I know that you're scared, and you're right, we don’t know! But Miss Kennedy?”

She stares at him, wordless. A forgotten shape in the chatting crowd, formless as a ghost.

“Miss Kennedy, you know.” Jim insists. “You know what happens when Shinra takes someone, you know who to avoid, the places they take them,” he glances at Kunsel for confirmation, and gets a small, stunned nod. “You know them better than we do. And I know it’s not much to you, but saving our friends? It means everything to us. I know you are afraid, but wouldn’t that be the best revenge you could take? The closest thing to justice we could get? Saving someone from that?” He leans forward, voice falling low and urgent. “Miss Kennedy, what’s happening is wrong , and we owe it not just to our friends, but to you , to do everything we can to fix it.”

She stares at him, breathless. “You’re insane.”

This might be my last chance. “A trade.” Kunsel says, voice hoarse. She turns to stare at him.

“A trade.” Her voice is empty, flat, drifting away.

“Meet us here tomorrow,” he all but pleads, “in public. We’ll go up to the Doc’s office by the Leaf House, and remove the tracker Hojo has been using.” Her fingers twitch. “You give us everything you know about the science department, and what happens when people… go” Oh, that was a weak ending to such a strong statement. Why must he be so bad with words? “We part ways, and I swear, I’ll never look at or speak to you again.”

She continues to stare at him.

Ajax clears his throat, and of course everyone turns to look at him. He looks a little sheepish. 

“Look, you seem like you want to run, or hide. You can’t do that with an active tracker. On top of that, all the info goes into an attempt to screw the company over. Even if we fail, we cause Shinra quite a bit of trouble, and if we succeed…” he grins broadly, sweeping his arms out. “It’s proof it can be done. Maybe then, even more people will try. I know individually the chances are insane, but statistically, someone will make it. And I’m a bit of a gambling man. All you have to do is talk, and then sit back and watch from whatever little hidey-hole you find yourself in!”

She actually looks like she’s considering this time, eyebrows furrowed. Obviously though, she doesn’t trust them. Kunsel checks his memory of her file, her rank and unit, and makes one last, desperate, gamble. 

“Rodney Lowenfalter is in on this,” He confides. “He was your former C.O. right?” She still doesn’t answer, just stares at him and looks exhausted, haunted; pale and dirty and lost. “He can be there tomorrow.”

“... Lowenfalter.” She says. Kunsel is banking on the man’s steady personality. Hopefully he’d never done something to piss Eden Kennedy off. He shouldn’t have, the man was as dependable as a compass. 

Eden Kennedy just stares at him. Kunsel tries not to swallow, fiddling with his sunglasses and praying she sees something worth trusting. He doesn't look away; they need every bit of information they can get. If they can’t find Deepground from the outside, she could help them find it from the inside. 

“Fine.” She says. Spits the words out like a curse. “10:30 AM, don’t be late.”

And with that, she spins around, clanking scrap and all, and power walks away, like she can't escape fast enough. He prays it's enough. 

It’s quiet in the chatter of the cafe for a good 30 seconds before Ajax exhales, long and loud. 

“Ho~ly shit.” he says, glancing between Jim and Kunsel with wide eyes, leaning forward to drape himself across the table. “You want to explain that, Kuns?”

That would be a good idea. He should start up a dossier of all the information they have, to share around. But dossiers could be intercepted, or found. A code maybe? Having everyone on the same page was going to be vital if the Turks returned... 

“Travis?” Jim asks, carefully. Kunsel shakes his head and rubs at his eyes, feeling the tension headache already returning. He puts his shades back on and sighs.

“Yeah,” he says, and pulls out his phone, mentally drafting two texts, one to Rodney and one to Casha. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

Chapter Text

Definition- a surprising and previously unknown fact, especially one that is made known in a dramatic way.

Oct 4

TwoGuns is the last of them to arrive at the safehouse, just outside Junon. It’s late, and the moon is only just rising when Cissnei hears the ‘Tap-tap, tap-tap’ code at the door.

Everyone is gathered together in the large, open ceiling great room, enjoying the fire roaring in the mantle and waiting for their last member to arrive. Reno had managed to convince several of the others, Rod, Tripwire, Martial M and Legend, into playing cards with him, and every one of them had been cheating outrageously while the onlookers called out slip ups. There’s a decent dinner left out in the kitchen, and the atmosphere is nearly festive, despite the looming elephant in the room. Cissnei herself is relaxing in one of the many red velvet armchairs the hunting lodge offers, listening to Gun and Rude discussing Elena and her ‘trial mission’. From the sound of it, Aerith Gainsborough was driving her up the wall. That girl, she’d grown bolder lately; dangerously so. 

Nunchaku is the one who answers the door, every inch the handsome young master on an uneventful hunting trip.TwoGuns mumbles a thanks to him and slips inside, running his hands through his ridiculous hair to ensure the wind hadn’t tangled it. Various Administration members call out hello’s, even as the cards are quietly dropped, and an additional chair is made readily available near the fire. 

TwoGuns grunts in acknowledgement and flops into his seat, looking exhausted. Shotgun, curled up with a blanket and drink beside him, leans forward, looking concerned. “You doin’ ok Guns?” she asks.

“Heidegger.” Is all he says, even though his eyes flash and his jaw pops. Cissnei straightens up and turns to look at them, noting the shadows under her seniors' eyes. 

“Runnin ya ragged, huh?” Shotgun says, more statement than question. “What the president is thinking, putting him in charge-”  

“That is one part of the matter we have been gathered to discuss.” Tseng interrupts. 

Everyone turns to look at him. The cards have been put away, and everyone has found a seat, gathered in a large, loose circle that takes up the bulk of the great room. All eyes are on Tseng, who is the only one standing, and Veld, who is sitting just beside him, staring into the fire from his own place near Shotgun herself. The room falls quiet like a sigh, attention centered, gazes focused. 

Nearly every Turk Shinra has ever employed is in this room. Rufus is excluded for a great many reasons; his recent bullshit with AVALANCHE only compounded by the fact he is not attached to them in any meaningful way, beyond having been basically raised by them. Veld may have put his foot down on the matter. Emmaline is the only other member Cissnei herself can recall who is not in the building. Her position in Junon was too essential even for this. Baring the many deceased members of the Turks, every single one of them is here. It’s unsettling, in her opinion. Dangerous. Even moreso, considering the information she just recently passed on to Tseng and Veld. If they were attacked now-

Veld clears his throat, and Tseng steps back to give him the floor. The Direct-... Ex-director, looks well for a dead man. He is a bit pale, and has his own shadows under his eyes, but he’s alert, and looking them all over with a strangely open gaze. 

“Turks.” He greets them evenly. “I’m sure you have questions, but I’m afraid we will have to save those for the end of this meeting.” He huffs a bit and leans into the arms of his chair, gaze knowing. “We have a great many things to discuss tonight, and very little time to discuss it, but rest assured, tonight is the night our decisions must be made. That being said…” he trails off.

The room is quiet. The fire crackles, and Cissnei breathes in warm air, exhales it warmer still. The atmosphere is heavy, but not dark; falling like a coat around her shoulders. She feels taller under its weight. 

“I trust you.” Veld says, suddenly, terrifyingly. “All of you.”

It’s an unspoken, but well known rule among the Turks. They are expendable. They serve Shinra and its interests, and often lose their lives in doing so. The rule is not absolute, but it is always considered- to do everything possible to ensure that one of their own is not left behind. You mess with one Turk, you mess with all of them. They travel in pairs for a reason. ( Her back feels cold, unguarded) This means trust is the ultimate currency among the Turks. Earned only through blood and the passage of time, tested again and again and again. For Veld to trust them, ALL of them, so much, so blatantly , leaves Cissnei feeling wrongfooted. Things like that weren’t just said out loud!  

After all, the President might hear. 

“I know my loyalty to Shinra is.. In question.” Veld continues. Someone muffles a sound that may have been a snort. “To begin with, I would like to share the evidence I have procured that led me to leave the company. What you choose to do with this information is your decision. I simply wish for the choice to be an informed one.” 

That tidbit has several bodies shifting in interest. Veld, the Veld Verdot, laying down all his cards for them to see? ALL of them? TwoGuns sits straight up in his seat, eyes bright and intent as a hound. Knife actually pulls out a little pocket notebook.

Cissnei feels a bit like she’s having an out of body experience. The whole situation is so… if she’d been told, a year ago, that she would be sitting here, knowing what she knows now; she wouldn’t have believed it. The Director, faking his death? Shinra building itself a second army? Why? 

If Veld’s information was why the President could no longer afford to trust the Turks, information that resulted in their own Director leaving the company, it could only be a handful of things. Personal, or Professionally personal. Personally professional? Either way, the President must have broken that one rule; Don’t mess with the Turks.

It’s one thing to take out a traitor, or fail to rescue someone on a mission, or lose someone on a job. To send Veld walking away, the President would have had to have had a hand in an unprovoked attack on a Turk or a Turks direct family member. Given what Cissnei has heard about Elfe, she can take a guess. But Veld wouldn't bank on telling all of them about his daughter resulting in everyone leaving. There must be more…

Cissnei shakes her head slightly, jarring herself back to reality. Veld is still speaking. “-I was given a warning, of course; at the time, it seemed to me only bad luck and worse time management was the cause of my failure.” He shakes his head, expression bitter and angry. She’s never seen that emotion on his face before, she realizes. 

“While I was looking into Felicia- Elfe’s- past, I stumbled upon some information inside an old Shinra laboratory.” he raises his head, mouth slanting into a hard line. “My partner, Vincent- codenamed Sharpshooter, was killed in the line of duty, protecting Shinra scientists from a rabid lab specimen. That’s what I was told, anyway.”

It might only be Cissnei’s position, nearby and slightly to the side, that allows the firelight to highlight the flex of his hands, clasped together, as they tighten enough to throw the tendons into sharp relief. His voice lowers, dark and near hissing, furious. 

“The documents I discovered contained the truth, left behind by one of the scientists working in the laboratory. Vincent was not killed by a lab experiment. Dr. Crescent confirmed that Vincent was shot after arguing with Professor Hojo about the safety of an experiment. She attempted to intervene, but was discovered, and Hojo took possession of Sharpshooter's body. She claimed to have attempted to contact the president directly, only to be told that she must have been confused. She then disappeared shortly after the conclusion of the experiment, and I was unable to find any trace of her.” Veld leans back and massages his forehead, face grim. 

“I can only conclude that she was telling the truth. That the president not only allowed the murder of one of our own, but granted Hojo leave to experiment on his body, and concealed this fact from us. So, I took it upon myself to investigate several other suspicious deaths involving former members of Administrative Research. My findings-” here he pauses, and leans forward to gesture at Tseng, who sets several folders of files onto the coffee table in the center of the room. “Have led me to believe that Shinra orchestrated at least 2 additional deaths, and were involved in 4 others to some capacity”

No one says anything, but various members glance around at each other, gauging reactions. Tripwire, one of the few remaining Turks from Veld’s generation, is staring at the folders on the table, eyes burning as his teeth audibly grind. Rod looks gobsmacked, and Reno smacks his arm when he notices. On the whole, everyone looks bitter, but unsurprised. Betrayed, but facing the inevitability of it.

Of course Shinra had turned on them. It was only a matter of time. Turk lives were a currency spent only to ensure Shinra’s victory. 

Except, instead of serving any benefit, for a Turks life to be tossed away, and the perpetrator left unpunished…

It’s… offensive. A slight, an insult of the highest order. A complete betrayal. 

“I know that, in hindsight, such things are a natural action for a company such as Shinra to take. However, I’m afraid that recently, even more troubling information has come to light.”

Everyone’s attention returns to Veld, razor sharp and somewhat concerned. ‘ Even more troubling information ’.  Cissnei glances at Tseng, who only briefly catches her eye before returning his focus to the Director. 

“The President has authorized and concealed the existence of an advanced military unit below the Weapons Testing Grounds. The purpose of this unit is-”

His words fade from Cissnei’s ears as her PHS vibrates in her pocket. Bzz Bzz, BzBzBz . Kunsel’s tone. She slips the device silently into her hands and unlocks it, immediately scanning the most recent messages. 

Strife, possibly still below the plate. It’s not hard to recall the boy. The memory of the first time she saw him in person sends goosebumps up her arms. 

She had never seen that look in Zack’s eyes, had never imagined it would fit onto his face. He had spun around, and suddenly the Buster Sword was right in her face, and he was snarling at her. His eyes had burned so brightly they reflected off the dark metal, his teeth pulled back, body braced and set firmly between her and the slumped blond like a wall. He’d made this sound, practically feral, and her heart had just about stopped. She’d stepped back, not just startled, but, very briefly, afraid. She hadn’t recognized him for a moment, couldn’t understand why he would react like that-

She’d leaned slightly to the side when she tried to peer around him at the blond. It was Zack shifting to ensure he remained between her and the shape behind him that had finally made everything click.

“Why did you come here?!” He had demanded.  

The way he melted, when she expressed concern. “Mako poisoning,” he’d said. Severe case. She could see it, the blond was eerily pale, eyes shining so brightly they made his hair glow. He was nothing but skin and muscle, too thin, slumped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

Zack honestly hadn’t been much better. She hadn’t been able to deny the truth then. 

She’d look at him, how he still held his sword between them, unmovable. His eyes had been hard and so bright they left spots in her vision when she pulled out her phone. She’d known then, already. He wouldn’t leave the blond behind. 

That was in character for Zack Fair, with his heart of gold. The eerie, feral glint in his eyes was not. She figured it was because of the experiments. Personally, she… couldn’t bear to be the one to return her partner to Hojo’s gnarled hands. If Strife was going to be slowing him down…

She’d handed over the keys. 

Zack would have wanted Strife safe. She’s certain of that. Kunsel was probably beating himself up for having forgotten about the trooper in the scramble to locate Zack before anyone else. Her fingers twitch, but she resolves to finish reading before replying. Kennedy having a connection to SOLDIER and Dr. Rayliegh was a lucky surprise. A concerning one too. What were the chances they would stumble across such a resource right when all their other leads had dried up? She would need to look into it, dig up the project files to ensure the woman wasn’t a plant. 

“Are you SERIOUS!?” 

Cissnei jumps violently enough to nearly lose her grip on her phone. Legend is on his feet, staring at Veld like he’s lost his mind. Everyone else is looking pretty stunned as well. Rod is half out of his own seat, held in place by Reno’s extended arm and tight expression. Tseng looks unaffected, but Veld’s face is somehow older, shadowed in the firelight.

“Mind control?” Nunchaku demands, childishly. Gun is shaking her head and mumbling under her breath as the discontent spreads around the room like ripples on a pond. 

“Are you for real?” Rod asks, glancing between his brother and Veld, completely off balance. “For real for real?”

“Sounds like Supervillan type bullshit if ya ask me.” TwoGuns grunts. Katana’s foot is tapping rapidly against the floor, eyes darting from face to face. Tripwire has his face buried in his hands. Spear is whispering an old Dragoon invocation for protection, and Knife is scanning the windows, already searching for a threat. 

“We have confirmed that the information is authentic, and comes from a verified source.” Tseng replies evenly. 

“What the FUCK?!” Rod slumps back into his chair, but refuses to let go of Reno’s arm. MartialArts, the female one, takes up the questioning. 

“How close are these chips to completion?” She asks. 

“Unknown.” Tseng answers promptly. “Our source confirmed there are still flaws in the prototype, but it’s possible that the company itself is unaware of that. However, it does mean that from this point forward, anyone who decides to stay with Administrative research is to refrain from any medical procedures not cleared by me, personally. Anyone who does will have to be held at arm's length, for their own protection.” 

Someone swears, and the other Martial Arts breaks a chair somewhere in the back. 

“Well there’s no way I’m going back!” Legend insists, loudly. “What the fuck? And they’re willing to go after our families too? Protection was the reason half of us agreed to this damn job!” He gestures at Guns, who immediately pales and turns to Tseng, mouth half open.

“Elena has been informed she is not to seek medical treatment from Shinra personnel.” He reassures her promptly. “Miss Gainsborough may be… unusually combative as of late, but she wouldn’t leave someone wounded if they asked for assistance.”

“ Whipped. ” someone mumbles quietly. Tseng ignores them. 

“Are there any more questions?”

“Uh, yeah.” Rod snips, but he stays in his chair, slumping back bitterly. “What the hell are WE supposed to do?”

“‘Even half of that shit is legit, there ain’t no way I’m goin’ back.” TwoGuns announces to the room at large. Martial F holds up her drink in a silent gesture while several of the others cheer a low ‘ hear hear !’ 

Veld leans forward, back into the light. “Me and Tseng have discussed the potential for a… mass casualty incident to occur, when we face Zirconiade.” 

“The summon is rumored to be a near world ending threat.” Tseng agrees. “Some form of collateral is to be expected.”

“Then what?” Gun demands, eyes flashing as she crosses her arms and throws out a hip, looking disturbingly like her younger sister. “We all hide out? Where?! Gongaga?”

Katana frowns at her and adjusts his glasses. Legend rolls his eyes dramatically. It’s Veld who answers, likely having expected the question.

“I took the liberty of preparing cover and identification options for everyone.” He admits. “Should any of you wish for it, I’ve arranged the safehouses in such a way that we should still be capable of acting as an information gathering network, outside of Shinra’s reach. It will be a year or so before AVALANCHE’s network is completely back up and running, but we can make use of the avenues Shinra has missed.”

“Without us looking, it’s unlikely they’ll find them any time soon.” Shotgun muses. She looks around the room and crosses her arms, sinking into her chair. There’s a dark look in her eyes. “But what about our families? Did you really go to all the effort to forge their covers too?”

“Most, yes.” Veld confirms. Shotgun’s mouth hardens into a tight line. 

“ Most isn’t going to cut it, Director.” Katana says mildly, adjusting his glasses again. “How safe are these identities? It cannot be that easy to hide so many operatives without raising some red flags.”

“Be honest about it.” Rod bites out. “Who are we throwing to the sharks this time?”

Reno flat out smacks him around the head, and the gathering shifts uncomfortably, no one willing to meet Veld’s eyes. 

“... Perhaps it would be better to discuss things plainly.” Veld says, and drops his hands. Somehow the shadows on his face grow longer still. He looks positively ancient. “Are you referring to something specific?”

“Blade and Arrow.” TwoGuns barks out. “You remember that, don’t ya? Two Turks and a town, ashes. Like it didn’t mean anything .” All across the room, shadows fell over various faces at the reminder. 

“If I had truly thought Rhapsodes was planning to return to his family home-” Verdot replied, voice tight, staring forward at the coffee table. “-I would have sent more than one team. Their deaths were due to my failure to predict the target’s actions. They were not a sacrifice to draw him out.”

“What about Fair?” Rod demands, and Cissnei swallows as her heart drops. She can’t keep her eyes from jumping to the Former Director, searching for the slightest twitch. 

The older man closes his eyes and exhales softly. “Fair belonged to SOLDIER, not the Turks.” 

“That’s bullcrap.” Reno bitches, apparently having had enough of trying to contain his frustration. He sounds exasperated and tired, like the whole situation is an argument he’s heard before. “You know full well before things went to shit he was supposed to be our official liaison.”

Cissnei’s fingers twitch in her lap, and her mind spins the new information out into a web, easily creating a picture. She was by far the least intimidating of the Turks, a support and recon specialist who was good at teasing out information from the general public without generating any fear or backlash. Zack was strong, steady, and friendly. When it came to classified issues, the two of them had been the ideal team to reassure the public when the edges of Shinra’s underbelly showed its teeth. They’d been paired together consistently on purpose then. She wonders when the plan changed.

“The Nibelheim incident was…” Veld grimaces, actually shakes his head, slumping in his chair and rubbing at his temple. “If we are being honest, the Nibelheim Incident was a goddamn catastrophe.”

“Ya think?” Rod grumbles. “Look, it’s one thing when a slimy little snitch is selling secrets to AVALANCHE and we turn him over to Hojo. Those kids did not deserve-”

“Hojo-” Veld warns, head shooting up and gaze snapping to meet theirs, one by one. They all fall quiet. “Hojo has more power than you can believe.”

“Apparently, given we handed over OUR SOLDIER, 1st Class, without putting up a fight!”

Reno and Rude move to calm Rod down, and everyone else's eyes return to Veld, who frowns, the shadows under his eyes dripping across his face as the fire crackles away merrily, ignorant of the chill in the air. “I did not allow Hojo to stake his claim lightly.” He gruffs, voice tight.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Katana demands, his fingers flexing against his knee, despite his face remaining carefully placid. 

Veld purses his lips and returns his gaze to the coffee table, hands return to clasp between his knees. He sighs, a bit louder than before, and his shoulders slump in defeat. 

“The president wanted all the survivors dealt with.” He says. “Hojo was on site, tagging every living thing he came across, and the president was in Midgar, cozy in his bed.” Acid drips from every word, and the firelight seems to briefly flash in his dark eyes. “He was already upset the company had lost Sephiroth. He wanted the issue finished. Had I attempted to withdraw more people than I had previously cleared, he would have… resented… the lost sleep.”

Shotgun goes ridgid, but Gun doesn’t notice, focused on the Director. Cissnei glances at the other woman’s pale face.

“So you had clearance to pull people, and you still didn’t grab Zack?” Gun asks, agast. 

“Hojo was in fine form.” Veld snaps back. “I had a choice to make. I made it.”

“Wait, but we only had the one person supervising that mission.” Katana cuts in. “Are you saying-” He turns to look at Shotgun, who stares back, ghost-like. The room falls quiet. 

“Director.” Shotgun says, quietly. “Did the Professor…? Sephiroth injured me near the reactor. I was unconscious right up until the helicopter landed in Midgar…”

“I spent the better part of an hour arguing with Hojo over whether he could include you as one of the ‘survivors’, yes.” Veld finally says, and he sounds so bitter the words scrape across Cissnei’s brain like sandpaper. “I had literally just gotten him to give in when Fair was found. He was ecstatic. When I tried to say something, he asked if I truly felt the need to wake the President up after such a ‘long day’. And then, of course, he offered a trade. Both Fair and Shotgun had survived the encounter with Sephiroth, he was mostly preoccupied with locating whoever managed to injure the man. He claimed either one would do.”

“You chose me.” Shotgun says, blank faced. Her long blond hair looks golden in the firelight, but her face is so pale, and the shadows cast across her eyes make her look like a ghost. 

“Yes.” Veld confirms, and sits upright, meeting her gaze evenly. “I did.”

It was obvious from his body language that Veld was resentful of the situation he had found himself in, and regretted handing Zack over. But the look on his face as he answered made something in Shotgun's eyes melt, and she turned away, covering her mouth with a shaking hand. Cissnei stares at the space between them, feeling like there was a sudden hollow space in her chest, just below her heart. 

“Fuck.” Rod says, with feeling, and he flings himself back into his chair. Reno snorts at him, and Rude relaxes somewhat now that they’ve calmed down. 

“ Fuck Hojo, man.” Legend says, expression twisted like he’d bitten into a rotten lemon. “Seriously. First he gets away with killing one of us, then he gets his hands on Felicia, and now we find out he wanted Shotgun too? How many of the rest of us did he have eyes on?!”

“There are 2 possible connections between former Turks and the esteemed Professor.” Tseng recites, tone bland and expression hard. “You see why we thought it best to inform you all?”

“I guess so.” TwoGuns grunts sarcastically, and runs a hand through his hair. “Holy shit man, really ? How did we not know about any of this before?”

“Dead men don’t talk.” Knife points out, sounding tired. 

“Most don’t.” Veld agrees, wryly. “Which, as it happens, is the key to our escape; if anyone wishes to hear?”

Chapter Text

Remain: continue to exist, stay in place, continue to possess a particular quality or fulfill a particular role.

Oct 4

Cissnei stares into the fire, silent. Shotgun is the only other person nearby, curled up in her plush chair with a mug of something dark and hot. Most of the others have moved to the dining area, passing around narrow folders full of proposals and assorted priceless information.

Neither of the women have spoken beyond the initial whispered “I’m sorry.”, followed by the gentle reply of- “It wasn’t your fault.”

The fire crackles merrily, and the consistent, low drone of trusted voices is so soothing Cissnei catches herself drifting away, eyelids drooping as her thoughts roll slowly around in her head. Her brain feels slightly over-full, thick and syrupy with all the recon and detailed backup plans. Veld must have started working on them immediately after she passed along the info about the chips. She can’t imagine how much time it took to put it all together, on top of the attack plan for dealing with Zirconiade. She can barely keep her thoughts in order enough to recall her own part in it. 

Coffee. She needs coffee. 

Shotgun is staring into the fire too, sipping thoughtlessly on her own drink. Cissnei manages to un-slump her spine enough to sit up and glance around for the coffee maker. It’s in the kitchen, being refilled by Tseng, who catches her eye and gestures to the machine. She nods and muffles a yawn behind a deceptively dainty hand.

The stretch she falls into is probably the best she’s had in ages. Her spine definitely cracks at least twice, and something in her left shoulder loosens so nicely she can’t stop herself from groaning loudly in relief. Shotgun huffs a laugh, and straightens up enough to stretch out her own legs, rolling her ankles and humming. 

“The Madam would have a fit if she saw that.” Tseng observes, pausing to hold out a mug of fresh heaven. “You do know we have a free monthly visit set up in Wall Market for everyone in the department?”

“Yeah,” Cissnei admits, and takes her drink with a grimace. “I just haven't had the time recently, you know?”

He hums in acknowledgement and sits gracefully in an empty seat, eyes sweeping over Shotgun, who is back to staring into the fire, her brow furrowed. “Thinking heavy thoughts?” he asks her.

The Turk glances at him, still frowning. “What are we going to do about those Chips?” She asks. “That’s not the sort of thing we can just-” she waves a hand in the air to demonstrate her point. “-keep running away from.”

His mouth falls into a grim line, and the room quiets. Of course everyone else had been listening, and now that Tseng is saying something interesting, they're the center of attention. Shotgun had said it out loud, the truth they've all been tip-toeing around.

“I think it would be best…” He says after a moment of only the crackling fire breaking the silence. “... if those who have not yet reached a decision play a game of pool in the recreation room down the hall.”

Blunt, for Tseng; plausible deniability. Cissnei hesitates, and wraps her fingers around her coffee. 

Shotgun huffs, and sinks lower in her seat. Her confidence is frightening. Cissnei suddenly feels frozen, stuck in place, and dizzy. What kind of decision could she possibly make? What would a life without Shinra even mean for her? Running, hiding-

The surprising weight of Tseng’s hand on her shoulder drags her back to her own body. His gaze is level, but he doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t need to. Her hesitation spoke for itself. She quickly re-gather’s herself, and stands, following Reno and Vegas down the hallway. 

Decisions. 

More like options. It’s easier to consider everything that way. There are various options available to her, some of which may align with her goals, and others that may not. Limited options, yes, but options. Stay, and either attempt to sabotage the company from within, or continue her loyal work and pretend that her loyalty will mean something. Leave, and either hide, or assist in bringing some aspect of the company to its knees, even if only in the interest of selfish survival. There. 4 Options.

It’s just so… overwhelming. 

Cissnei has known what her future would look like since she was 15 years old and flagged for Turk work. The orphanage in Junon sponsored orphans for that exact reason- shaping the children into various useful members of Shinra’s society. Her whole life had been quickly and efficiently planned out for her, with only a handful of differing paths- who her assigned partner would be, for one. From then on, she had known she would be a Turk until the moment she died, however that came about. And now she's facing the gaping void of a future without any that certainty. 

It’s like the floor has dropped out from under her feet, and she’s found herself falling through an endless sky over stormy Junon waters. It’s almost too much to comprehend, the idea of leaving. Leaving and doing what? Hiding? AS what? She could be anyone; a seamstress, or a fisherman. A college student at the university, a treasure hunter in the desert. It’s terrifying. How will she know which is the right answer? 

Staying, however, is just as heart stoppingly terrifying. Staying and serving, only to be reduced to a machine with no will of her own. With no choice but to obey.

(How is that any different than before? She would have killed any of the other Turks on Shinra’s order, no?)

It’s different. Perhaps she does not have the words for how, but it is. 

(Zack. Travis.)

Does she really think that Shinra could be dissuaded from their current path? Truly? Even with the full might of the Turks set to change its course, with Deepground looming ominously on the horizon -heavily enhanced, trained from birth-  how much of a chance do they have? 

She tries to run the various scenarios through her mind- blackmail, assassinations, full out war. Every way she looks, Shinra reigns supreme. The idea of hiding sounds better and better, until she actually tries to apply it to herself, and the nausea takes hold. She tries to sip at her coffee, and grimaces. It’s long gone cold. How long has she been sitting here?

The whole room has gone much quieter, actually. While she’s been thinking, various members of the Turks have come, played a round of pool or two, and left for their rooms. Reno and Vegas are still going, betting down to their last gil on who will make what shot. It’s beyond late, nearing 2 in the morning if the clock hanging on the wall is correct, and she hasn’t moved from her place in hours. Guess that explains why her knees hurt.

She hasn’t managed to make herself decide, either. What SHOULD she do? Training insists she stay, habit says to support the company. Common sense bids her run, and the bitter, burning iron on the back of her tongue tastes like rage, and grief, and betrayal. 

“Cissnei.” Tseng’s familiar, steady tone rings a little in her ears, and she immediately orientates herself to better face him. 

“Sir!” She tries to cover her surprise. How unprofessional, letting someone sneak up on her like that. From behind, too.

He hums, and looks at her intently. She wonders what he sees, nearly fidgeting for a moment before forcing herself to wait patiently. 

“I thought I should inform you of my decision.” He says, abruptly. Cissnei barely has time to process half of the words before he’s continuing. “In the interest of safeguarding department resources, I will be remaining with the company for the time being.”

She isn’t sure what to think, actually. She hadn’t really expected him to just come out and say that, even as heavily shrouded in doublespeak as it was. “Ah.” she manages, head spinning. Safeguarding department resources. Not the company’s resources, the department’s. Was he planning to remain behind to cover for the ones who left? Or was he referring to Rufus? Both? Neither?

Cissnei is bewildered when Tseng CONTINUES talking, his eyes glancing aside, almost like he’s embarrassed, even as the rest of his face remains perfectly composed. “I did this because I am… invested, in seeing that the department’s resources are not mishandled.”

Invested?

He glances back at her, and his mouth tightens a bit, his eyebrows briefly furrowing, before he looks completely to the side to ensure they make no direct eye contact. Looking vaguely uncomfortable, he adds, hurriedly. “Emotionally invested.”

Oh.

OH.

He’s... giving her advice. 

“I have my own investments to look after.” She tries, and looks away too, if only to give him time to compose himself from the shameful display of honesty. “It’s just that I’m not sure what the best way would be to… see them through.”

He hums thoughtfully, and she takes it as a sign that she can look at him again, now that the honesty is once again hidden under various layers of flawless professionalism. “I can imagine several avenues you could take.” He muses aloud. “The main deciding factor, I think, will be which you prefer.”

“And you?” She dares to ask. “What avenues will you be utilizing? Any… resources from other departments?” That’s such a clumsy way of asking if he’s planning on bringing in SOLDIER, or even informing Rufus. She’s… not sure how she feels about Rufus being aware of the chips. He’s no longer the slightly-too-reckless, overly-entitled young man he was when she first joined the Turks. He’s grown colder, more bloodthirsty, and socializing almost entirely with the Turks throughout his life has left him more comfortable with manipulation and other such tactics than might be preferred. At least his father tries to keep his own hands physically clean. 

“Not at the moment, no.” Tseng says. “I would need a… liaison, to ensure that communication goes smoothly. An unbiased liaison, as it were. Potential allies are unlikely to trust just anyone.”

His tone modulates strangely and she forces herself to focus. Conversations with Tseng are just as much about what is left unsaid, as they are about what is spoken aloud. Liaison. Not a mole, then, or a plant. Someone who already has ties to potential allies…

“Me?” She asks, and she’s not sure why she’s so wrong footed. It makes sense. She herself had considered it, she just… didn’t think that Tseng would have. 

He nods. “I have a handful of ideas, if you care to listen?”

Something like relief spills down her spine. “I have time.” She reassures him. It’s 2 am, but it’s not like she’s getting any sleep tonight anyway. He smiles slightly, and gestures back towards the great room, the fire now low enough to be nothing but embers. Reno curses somewhere behind her as his game continues.

“I’ll be honest,” he says as she stands and follows. “I fear what would happen to the world were Shinra to suddenly fall. Such abrupt, chaotic change would, at best, leave quite the power vacuum behind, and at worst, could send us plummeting back into the dark ages; no electricity, no medicine, no protection. The infighting over resources would be vicious, and I can’t imagine the death toll to be anything less than astronomical.”

She nods in agreement, and he sits in the chair Shotgun had occupied earlier in the night. She tosses a log or two onto the fire, and sits across from him, back straight. He rarely talks so much, or so openly. Best pay attention. 

“There are several options available to us,” he says. And she understands that here, ‘us’ is referring to the Turks as a whole, rather than individuals. “Me and the others have several plans that should cover most of our bases, in that regard, so long as no more new variables throw themselves into the mix.”

“May I ask about those plans?” She ventures. 

He smiles a bit. “Those who are taking extended leave will be assigned to various regions in order to prepare them for any sudden changes; to improve self sustainability, and, most importantly, ensure communications remain open. Lowering dependance on Shinra as a whole while gaining communities goodwill should help manage any fallout from whatever does end up occurring.”

She nods. Keep your options open. Still, she’s going to ask.

“What about the VP?”

Ah, poor Tseng. His face barely changes, but she can see his mouth go slightly tight again, and his forehead wrinkles slightly. He sighs. 

“I truly believe that the VP would be… dissatisfied with the day to day running of the company, outside of a crisis.” That’s one way of putting it, she supposes. “Were something to happen to the current president, I imagine it would only take a year or so for the novelty of his responsibilities to wear off. It may be in his best interest to leave the day to day matters to those more predisposed to such work.”

“And competent, I hope?” She asks, a little cheekily. Heidegger has been making a mess of things, pretending he could tell the Turks how to do their jobs.

Tseng hums softly. “Competence is a desirable trait for someone in that position, yes.” he agrees peaceably. 

Inhale. Exhale. Steady, stay professional. “And where would I fit into this?”

He closes his eyes to gather himself, an odd habit she’s seen the others pick up from him. When his eyes open again, they are clear and focused as they meet hers. “I have a handful of suggestions.” He begins. “The first requires the least amount of change or immediate danger on your part; remain with me, and the company, and assist in ensuring a… smooth transition in regards to the board of directors.”

“And sit on Rufus?” spills out of her mouth without permission. Oops, she must be more tired than she thought. 

Tseng suppresses a smile. “And ensure the VP does not do anything too… disruptive. Such as funding an ecoterrorist organization behind everyone’s back.” She can’t help but wonder who’s ass was on the line for missing that, now that he mentions it. 

“If, instead, you would prefer a quieter task.” Tseng continues. “I understand you spent several days in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Fair a handful of months ago. We could use some hands and ears in the area, if you would be willing.”

That’s actually somewhat tempting. If Travis-no. Focus. If Kunsel had not found traces of Zack inside Midgar, if they had not stumbled across Deepground, she thinks she would have accepted that offer without question. She had only spent a handful of days with the Fair’s in person, but she had long been the one to field their inquiries into their son’s whereabouts, masquerading as a friend who worked as an intern. They were kind, and hard working, and somewhat set in their ways, but within three conversations Mrs. Fair had begun sending care packages to her. Under all the cheer and dedication, it wasn’t hard to tell they were lonely. Zack was terrible at writing, but he’d sent random postcards every time he went somewhere new. His disappearance weighed on them. It was only right that she take responsibility for her part in it and help carry the weight. 

However, Kunsel HAD found traces of Zack, had found Kennedy, and Deepground. The Fair’s were not the only people she now owed for her complacency. 

“My final suggestion is, I must stress, just a suggestion. But one I think you would personally prefer.” Tseng ensures he has her attention before continuing. “You are in the unique position of having a great deal of trust placed in you from uncommon sources. Lieutenant Kunsel, for example. Who, in turn, holds great sway within the ranks of SOLDIER.”

There are several avenues of thought here, Cissnei deduces. Various ways Tseng and the others could leverage her connections to better serve the Turk’s interests. She just can't quite figure out how. That's probably why Veld had made Tseng his second in command, in hindsight.  

“I would like you to act as a liaison of sorts. A free agent, with no ties to Shinra. Maintain your ties with the Lieutenant, and continue to pass whatever information you choose. In return, should the time come that you find yourself in need of company resources, I may be able to ensure attention is focused… elsewhere.”

That makes sense, except- “a free agent?” She asks, curious. “So, not a liaison then?”

Tseng gives her a flat look. “You have personal reasons for being involved, both with the Lieutenant, and in investigating Deepground. You also have your connections among the rest of the various departments. As things stand, should you remain as is; playing both sides, as it were, you will eventually be forced to choose.” He flicks a speck off dust from his shoulder, glancing away. “Instead of attempting to predict when and where that happens, it would be easier for everyone to know for certain where your priorities lie. Not just for us, but also for any potential allies.”

That’s a huge risk, though. You don’t leave the Turks, as evidenced by all the scheming done in the last 24 hours alone. In the end, all that mattered was the other members, and the company. With the company now a true threat, all they had left to rely on was each other, and Tseng was, what? Cutting her loose?

Cissnei is sure her confusion is clear, and no doubt her uneasiness as well. Tseng’s eyes soften slightly. 

“While your loyalties may not be above reproach-” He says, and she feels like a child again; caught stealing cookies from the kitchen, caught ‘slacking’, found ‘wanting’- his words continue however. “Your good heart is not.” 

That’s… not what she expected to hear. Tseng’s face softens a bit more, almost like he’s amused. 

“You do what needs to be done, yes.” He tells her. “But you care about those who must manage the consequences as well.”

Cissnei glances away, feeling small. She knows this already. She’s always struggled with being too soft. As long as it didn’t affect her work, Veld and the others had let it go. A quirk of her personality. But that doesn’t ease the sting of being considered-

“Cissnei.” Tseng says firmly, and she turns back to face him. He looks at her, eyes hard. “You are an excellent Turk.”

He stares at her, letting his words sink in. She slowly relaxes some, now confused. Where was he going with this?

“But a Turk doesn’t have to be all you are.” Tseng says, firmly. “Unlike the others, who were recruited, who had a whole world of options and opportunities available to them from the beginning, you were hand picked at a young age. Like I was. I would venture to guess that you’ve never really imagined a life beyond what we do.”

Cissnei remains quiet, feeling like she’d missed way more than just one step on the stairs; Junon's stormy waters churn beneath her as she bids solid land goodbye. She can't tell if she's feeling anxious, or exhilarated. Falling, or flying.  

“Take the time to explore your options.” He says. “You make an excellent Turk, I am curious as to how good you will be at whatever else you put your mind to.”