fic: eir's tomorrow, ch.13.2

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…

 

So Elena wasn’t the most tactful of people on her best day, but even she could recognize the dangerously-thin tension that General Sephiroth was just barely able to control.  That made her task rather more daunting, but then she remembered Cloud and the bloodstains left in the corridor that night, and she drew herself up to her full height.

 

“General.”

 

Sephiroth didn’t move away from the office window, so still that his long, long hair never shifted against the black leather of his coat, and Elena was ashamed by her relief that he wasn’t looking at her, not with that sort of intensity.  Knowing what she knew, now, made facing Sephiroth easier in some ways and so much more difficult in others.

 

“Sir, I found something in,“ don’t stutter, you idiot, act in control even when you’re not, “in Cloud’s possessions that I think you might be interested in.”

 

Slight tilt of his head in her direction, not quite glancing over a shoulder.  Elena held up two data discs, one labeled Family Pix and the other Mum and Dad’s Wedding.

 

“They’re copies of some of Hojo’s, uh, experiments.”

 

Then she was under that intensity herself, Sephiroth’s catlike eyes narrowed and lips pressed into a thin line, and Elena was suddenly very aware of just how tall the man was.

 

“Where did you get them?”

 

“Cloud had them since he got here.  To ShinRa, I mean.  I found them once but he wouldn’t tell me what was on them, he hid them and I only just found them – “  Damnit, girl, shut up shut up shut up!  “I took a look, I thought maybe there’d be something useful on them since he basically threatened to kill me if I didn’t leave it alone, and.  Uh.”  Why wasn’t there a delicate way to say this?  “They’re records of Project S and Project CHAOS.”

 

“…And Cloud had them?”

 

She got the feeling that Sephiroth was only repeating her words in order to give himself a little more time to absorb their content.  “Yeah.  Well, granted, I had a hell of a time finding them.”  Cloud’s idea to stick them between the endpaper and the cover of one of his Materia textbooks was rather clever.  “But, uh, yeah.”

 

One of Sephiroth’s black-gloved hands was laid flat on his desk, fingers carefully spaced to give him something external to focus on.  “And how much of them did you read?”

 

“Just enough to know what kind of information it was,” she lied.

 

“What do you want?”

 

Because of course few people would bring something like this to him without an ulterior motive, and Elena ruthlessly suppressed a flicker of guilt.  “I want into the Turks.”

 

“Do you now.”

 

“Look, Cloud’s my best friend and I want to find him.  I can’t – I can’t do that if I’m stuck doing drills and classes and all that stupid meaningless shit.”  She seriously needed to learn how to control her mouth.  “But I’d make a damn good Turk, and I can help.  Find Cloud, I mean.”

 

“Guilt alone is not enough – “

 

“I was gonna be a Turk anyway, sir.”  Even she’d had to camp outside Tseng’s office door for a year to prove it.  “But if I can make a difference now, then maybe I can repay some of the debt I owe Cloud when he was always there for me.”

 

When Sephiroth continued staring at her in that creepy feline way, Elena heard herself starting to ramble a bit.  “I think I know where Hojo might’ve taken him.  I found the locations for a bunch of his labs – “

 

“How?”

 

“With all due respect, sir, the upper-level guards aren’t any more immune to a pretty blonde than the cadets.  So one of the locations was Nibelheim, right, which is where Cloud is from, and yeah, you could argue that Hojo would rather take him to a place where no one’s even heard of him – “

 

“Get to the point.”

 

Elena couldn’t help a slight flinch.  “So it turns out that Hojo was keeping that Cetra fossil, Jenova or whatever, in that area, maybe ‘cause there’s a mako reactor there or something, I dunno.  Anyway, this guy named Professor Gast used to be stationed there too once upon a time working on Project S with Hojo, and according to some of the old lab reports it’s where the SOLDIER formula was worked out.  Well, I found – actually, Cloud found it – references to this new project Hojo’s got, Project LAZARUS, and the thing is…”  She paused, fighting off a wave of nausea.  “Um, well, it looks like he’s using people as test subjects.  Something went wrong with the usual way of making SOLDIERs and he’s trying to find another method, and the whole medical department knows about Cloud’s mako thing – “

 

“You think that Hojo wants Cloud for this LAZARUS project.”

 

“Makes sense, right?  Nibelheim’s in the middle of fucking – er, freaking nowhere with that Cetra thing and the mako reactor and it’s the origin of SOLDIER, and now he’s got his hands on someone young and fit with crazy-high levels of mako already in him without causing mako sickness.  I can’t believe you haven’t already combed the Plate above and below, so where else would he take Cloud except Nibelheim?”

 

“Do you realize that if you’re wrong, Hojo will certainly be made aware of our pursuit and find a way to stop us?”

 

“Well…”

 

“And Hojo is not above killing Cloud.  If he cannot keep the boy, then he’ll ensure that no one else can.”

 

Elena huffed, her frustration and worry overriding the general’s otherwise intimidating presence.  “Better Cloud be dead and not suffering anymore than us sitting around too scared to try.”

 

Sephiroth stared at her a moment longer (Dear gods, was this how the Wutaians felt when they realized they had to face him on a battlefield? she wondered) before smiling thinly.  “Give me those discs and all the information you’ve found on this new project of Hojo’s, and I will speak with Tseng.”

 

…

 

Reno wasn’t having the best day.

 

Those slant-eyed assholes of Wutai had finally, finally released him under the word given by Valentine (holy shit it’s fucking Vincent fucking Valentine, that’s both fucking awesome and really fucking creepy), and the first thing he’d done after getting back topside was to take a hot shower.  Like, scalding, past the point where his skin threatened to slough off in red peels, because being tied in a chair for several days and shitting in a bucket?  Sucked ass.  That too-hot-to-handle-but-so-good shower was probably the highlight of his pathetic day.

 

Well, no, that was a lie.  The highlight was having Rufus ShinRa himself calmly lay out to the Turks how his father’s company was going to go down, and by ‘go down’ he meant ‘kill the President and take over.’  And maybe Reno would’ve once protested – he had a pretty sweet deal, having such a badass job that wasn’t selling out his fighting skills to petty druglords below the Plate – but sometime between his putting on that blue suit and now, his loyalties had shifted from purely yours-truly to spoiled, wealthy, proud, merciless Rufus himself.  Wasn’t that a kick to the fucking balls.  Rule number one: every man for himself.  Except now it was every man for himself and the other Turks and his employer that sometime had turned into some kind of almost-friend when Reno had had his head stuck up his own ass and wasn’t paying attention.

 

Okay, so Reno had somehow wrangled himself into a misfit group of people that probably wouldn’t betray him for the next hit of Dragon Dust or some shit, so maybe that was the highlight.  Wasn’t everyone that got shit as awesome as that.

 

Or it could be that in the midst of all this plotting he, Tseng, and Rude got another chick in their ranks (Cissnei didn’t count, she was a total cockblocker and off on a mission besides).  Cute chick, too, short blonde hair and big brown eyes and enough attitude to keep Reno interested, especially when it turned out that Sephiroth himself had recommended her to Tseng and Rufus.  Big mouth, but hey, if that translated into the physical side of things then Reno really couldn’t complain.  That was the highlight.  Until he figured out that this blonde girl had the hots for this other girl down in the slums, and suddenly there were whole new heights of erotic potential.

Okay, okay, so Reno’s day was actually turning out pretty awesome, what the fuck ever.  As long as he got to kill some shit when this so-called revolution went down, he was cool with it.

 

The only true downside to this whole situation was, y’know.  The Planet trying to fuck them all up the ass with those WEAPONs.  And having to deal with Wutaians.

 

That could put a bit of a sour note in anyone’s day.

 

…

 

Then Cissnei called.

 

…

 

“Okay, I know this is probably gonna get my ass thrown out a window, but why is everyone so concerned over a single cadet gone missing?  He ain’t exactly the first, yo.”

 

Tseng cut in before Elena could snarl at Reno.  “For one, this Strife boy was one of the more promising SOLDIER cadets,” he said calmly as he slotted a loaded magazine into a pistol and placed the gun alongside several others on his desk.  “Not only Lieutenant Fair but General Sephiroth as well praised his skill with a blade.”

 

The redhead whistled.

 

“You’ve read his medical record, of course, and that alone is enough to push him to the front of the line in entering the SOLDIER program.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I get all that, but dude, have you seen Sephiroth lately?  It’s like someone killed his puppy or some shit.”

 

Tseng interrupted Elena’s ready growl once more.  “Our local Ancient also claims that his disappearance was the prompt for the appearance of the WEAPONs.”

 

“No shit?”

 

“Indeed.”

 

Vincent watched all of this from his corner of the office.  He was once more in his dark leathers and red cape, claw uncovered and resting over the handle of Death Penalty, waiting for the Turks to finish their preparations.  Elena was flushed and restless as she loaded explosives under her jacket; Rude was silently checking over their shared firearms while Tseng double-checked; Reno was idly tapping his electromag against a bony shoulder, seemingly as restless as Elena to get moving.  The redhead, though a little haggard, had survived his captivity with admirable strength, though to be fair the Wutaian rebels had only kept him under surveillance and never actively abused him.  Reno appeared to be of the opinion that everyone had just been doing their jobs, nothing personal about it.  Which didn’t mean that Reno wouldn’t happily shoot any of those rebels if push came to shove, but hey, no use crying over spilt milk and all that.  Vincent wasn’t sure if that attitude was surprisingly healthy or incredibly repressive, but it was none of his business.

 

Events were coming to a head and he was already imagining Hojo’s blood spattering the golden shine of his claw.

 

“Sephiroth contacted Highwind yesterday at seventeen-hundred hours, so he should arrive outside Midgar shortly,” Tseng told them evenly.  “Elena, you will go with Vincent and Lieutenant Fair to rendezvous with Cissnei in Nibelheim.  Reno, Rude, you two will remain with me to handle the fallout of Rufus’ change in position.”

 

“You sure the timing of all this crap is a good idea?” Reno asked.

 

“No.  All we can do is proceed and plan for every eventuality.”

 

“Well, never let it be said our lives are boring, yo.”

 

Vincent had met with Zack, Sephiroth, Angeal, and Genesis the day before to discuss the practical things.  It was pure luck that Sephiroth, whose mind was second to none in retaining details, had remembered ShinRa’s former airship captain, once the leader of the burgeoning space program and then tossed aside with his beloved ships when the President had turned his attention to other matters.  At first Cid Highwind had simply hung up when he realized who was calling him in Rocket Town all the way from the eastern continent, and it had taken a good deal of Zack’s charisma and Sephiroth’s straightforward way of conducting business to convince the man to at least hear them out.

 

“Yeah, and why the fuck should I help you out?”

 

“Not only does it give the Highwind another chance to fly, but it’s also a flight straight into the face of ShinRa.”

 

“You give me the funds to fix ‘er up proper after this and you’ve got a deal.”

 

“I’ll write the check myself.”

 

By then Genesis’ hair was almost completely grey and his once-young face scored with lines of age and exhaustion.  Angeal had become a hovering constant presence behind his shoulder, never more than two steps away.  Zack, youngest of them all, had been torn evenly between the problem of retrieving Cloud and his mentor’s obvious distance; Vincent could see the way the young SOLDIER’s eyes kept returning to Angeal, looking a little more lost each time when Angeal was entirely consumed with Genesis’ deterioration.  Vincent himself had been finding it harder than usual to concentrate: Sephiroth could be my son, mine and Lucrecia’s, and was the shape of Sephiroth’s eyes like Vincent’s own or was he looking for signs that weren’t there?

 

So many knots and complications of individual motives, of emotions and drives and desperation that made one person’s fate inextricably tied up with another’s.  One person’s decision could so easily change the circumstances of another’s and it was downright terrifying to think that not every eventuality could be planned for, that it was impossible to know every decision that a person might make and its ramifications on everyone else.  The consequences of free will, Vincent thought without amusement.

 

So now Tseng and Rude were preparing themselves for the President’s assassination and Rufus’ ascendancy; Reno and that SOLDIER Third, Kunsel, were going below the Plate; Sephiroth, as the most powerful fighter among them, had no choice but to take a regiment of SOLDIERs and confront the WEAPON that had finally roused itself from the well of Lifestream in Mideel.  Only Vincent, Zack, and Elena would be going to Nibelheim to meet up with Cissnei.

 

“Vincent Valentine?”

 

The Turk looked to the side without moving his head, watching a blue-suited man with a neatly trimmed goatee and a case in his hands walk towards him down the corridor outside Tseng’s office.  Rather than being intimidated, the man just smiled slightly.  Vincent wasn’t fooled and kept his body in a loosely ready position of attack.

 

“My name is Reeve,” the man said easily enough.  “I want to help you.”

 

Vincent didn’t bother playing dumb, not when this Reeve obviously already knew who he was.  “Why?”

 

“Well, primarily because Sephiroth threatened me with a painful end if I didn’t cooperate,” came the rueful answer.  He added more seriously, “I’ve been trying to do what I can to mitigate the effects of the other directors, being head of the Urban Planning and Development Department and all.  I…haven’t been especially successful in that regard given how carefully one must tread in the upper echelons of ShinRa, but now my services may prove useful.”

 

Reeve didn’t try handing the unopened case to Vincent.  Instead he set it on the ground and unlatched it slowly, without any sharp movement, apparently trying to demonstrate the lack of danger.  Vincent nevertheless kept one hand on Death Penalty as the director pulled out a…a plush cat.  With a small cape and smaller crown.

 

“This is a toysaurus AI.  An artificial intelligence,” Reeve explained as though he pulled robotic animals out of suitcases every day.  “It has an adequate level of fighting capability, albeit limited.  It’s also equipped with a long-range communication radio that will give you permanent access to my private line.”

 

“No explosives?”

 

All except maybe Cloud would have taken his utterly flat tone at face value, but Reeve seemed to find some humor in it.  He laughed a little.  “If I had any intention of killing someone, there are far easier and more remote ways of doing so.  Besides, the moment I killed any of you I’d have both Turks and SOLDIERs after my blood.  I’m a survivor, Mr Valentine, but I’m neither stupid nor heartless.”

 

Vincent arched a brow but Reeve just stared back calmly.  Under the collected exterior was a sharp intelligence, no doubt expertly hidden just enough from his own coworkers that he flew under ShinRa’s radar.  Slight nervousness too, no doubt because of Vincent, but it was controlled and most people reacted like that anyway.

 

“…All right.”

 

The cat in Reeve’s arms suddenly twitched and came alive, its tiny mouth curving up in a smile and chirping, “Off to some poor damsel’s rescue, then?”

 

Unable to help himself, Vincent stood there for a moment and just blinked.  It hit him at the strangest moments that in losing over two decades of time he’d missed witnessing the advance of technology, and sometimes it was like watching a piece of magic, a small impossible miracle.

 

“Cait Sith is able to function autonomously, but I can also override his basic personality and communicate directly through him.  If you need my help with anything, use him.”

 

“…All right.”

 

If nothing else, the world in which Cloud had woken him was never going to be boring.

 

…

 

Sephiroth was too absorbed in his own plans to immediately understand was Lazard was telling him over the PHS.

 

“Thank you for remaining you, Sephiroth.  And I’m sorry.”

 

“I – what?”

 

Only the dial tone responded.

 

…

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