A/N: I do not own FF7 or any of the characters mentioned here. FF7 is the sole property of Square Enix and Tetsuya Nomura.
Again, experimenting with timelines, plot fillers and poor Turks. Making up stuff about Wutai is fun. :)
Now, call down your dark and your cold and be damned.
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Violence is not the only way to achieve peace.
That was what he'd learnt, a long time ago when the world was still innocent, when Wutai was still Wutai and not Shinra, when he was little more than a boy seated at his grandfather's feet, tracing patterns in the sand while listening the long-ago stories as worn and old as the elderly man himself.
Whatever you do, you must not forget this – you have a duty to your family and your country. Honour this in all you do and never besmirch the trust others place in you.
Sunlight played off steel, making it glint in ways that metal should not. The weight of the katana heavy in his hands, sweaty and trembling with the strain of holding it, right hand just below the hilt, right leg forward – but the blade fell from his hands, tumbling, tumbling to the dirt. As if mocking him. He was a boy trying to be a man, and in the wrong time and the wrong place.
He bent down, wiping the tears and grime off his face. The guard was chipped – an ugly gash marring the beautiful finish. If his grandfather had been here, he would have been fiercely rebuked – but no one was there, save a ten-year old boy, a sword, and a field of carnage.
That is all that is left behind, and all that will ever be.
You owe Shinra everything. Without Shinra you would be nothing. We gave you clothes on your back, food to fill your stomach and money to buy more. We gave you your life back when no one else could or would. You're ours now and nothing can ever change that.
The gun was a reassuring weight in its holster. He moved swiftly and silently, a shadow in the deeper black of night, leaving a trail of blood and the rumour of death in his wake. Footsteps ahead, panicked and stumbling. Not long now, he knew.
Wide eyes, rimmed with exhaustion and fear. Always the same query, always the same ending. It was no different now, and it would not change.
He drew the pistol, locked his wrist, cocked the gun.
"How could you do this? You're nothing but a fucking traitor!"
The same dark hair and the same dark eyes, they could almost have been brothers. Except that, for him, the past had long ceased to exist. Except that over time, the ice had crept into him, laying fingers of frost on his heart and turning it to stone, so that when people looked at him, he was glassy and hard and emotionless, with the bleak unfeeling eyes of death.
The report was loud and deafening in the oppressive murk. Blood spattered against the wall, limbs convulsed and then grew slack. He wiped the organ tissue from his face, then stood and turned to go.
And we will rule the world with fear.
Because he was a Turk, and that was what Turks did best.
We are Shinra and we will not go quietly...
The empty shell dropped to the floor, and the tinny echo was all that was left behind.
Until the end.