You Cradle Me And Kill
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Author's Note: Another Tseng-centric story, this time set fifteen years pre-game and deals with Aeris' entrance into his life and the beginning of his fascination with her. As you know (but I ought to write it anyway...) I own neither the characters or the fandom. Happy reading, and please leave feedback – especially if you enjoyed this.
-- YOU CRADLE ME AND KILL --
You ebb and flow and your rhythm beats my head
Leave me alone while you swallow up your dead.
– Lush (Lovelife).
x-x-x
He was eighteen when he first heard her name.
He'd known about her existence before that, of course. She and her mother had been in Shinra's possession for three years, and Tseng Tstutsuma had achieved much and was considered important and valuable enough to justify receiving a share of information on the two during what would be the last year of their internment. Not too much, but enough. He was a trusted agent, able to turn knowledge into above-satisfactory results. He was a proud man.
And then the two Ancients escaped. This he knew far too much about. The breach in security was a freak accident, but the recapture operation was a disaster. Not only did it destroy the reputation for efficiency and effectiveness the Turks had built for over three decades, but it had also destroyed all that Tseng had attempted to shine to gleaming, brutal perfection. It destroyed his vision of every example he valued and replaced it with the image of a sickly and ruined woman running whilst clutching at a gunshot wound and a distressed child.
His chosen team had failed, had forgotten the requirements of their mission the moment they encountered resistance and Tseng's disappointment was severe. The guilty agents were not fit to be Turks. They were useless and must never again contaminate Shinra ranks with their slip-ups and miscommunications, and it was Tseng's duty to deal with them appropriately. He did so with pleasure and was no longer a proud man.
Luckily for himself, there was no risk to himself, not rank, job, or life. Even with a war raging between Shinra territories and his homeland, the breakdown in communication was never misconstrued as disloyalty or sabotage on his part, and he had yet to be treated with suspicion regarding his Wutanese heritage. Tseng had already made his own set of connections, and had worked hard to establish himself within the department, and ensured that it wasn't difficult to keep the blame where it belonged and remain a trusted and valued member or the Turks. He was an asset, and his superiors knew it. But reparations had to be made, and Tseng took to this task with great willingness. It was his place to undertake this.
The operation's failure was regarded his responsibility, and he did not protest. Through placing professional trust in incompetent subordinates, he had failed utterly in his duty to retrieve both remaining Ancients, and reprimands were well-deserved. But he was not obligated to relish it. When he stood before Professor Hojo, repentant on behalf of his agents, he was already sick of the sound of the word 'Ancient'. But then something changed everything.
Enduring a conversation with Hojo was always a trying experience. The scientist despised Turks with a passion, for a reason Tseng had never had the privilege of uncovering, and was never a pleasure to be near on a good day. Today, the old monster was full of cold anger and frustration, and it was startling even to a Turk who thought he had seen it all. His body language – the wringing of hands, tension-lines in the forehead, and the occasional involuntary twitch – all spoke to Tseng of the man's brewing bitterness, and when Hojo turned and faced the young Turk for the first time, Tseng was given the impression of someone mere inches away from hissing and spitting, such was the toxic quality of his fury.
"You should make this quick," Hojo seethed, snapping on a pair of surgical gloves. "I've a dissection to get on with."
Though he gave no hint of discomfort, inwardly Tseng flinched at Hojo's remark. Though the young Turk hadn't been present when the Ancient was fatally injured, he had been in charge of the clear-up when a pair of Shinra grunts found her body at a station in the slums. In death, there was a peaceful smile on her face – something Tseng had been surprised to see. Knowing that Hojo would very soon be opening up the body of that woman poked and nudged at a part of Tseng's soul that he'd kept quiet for many years, and he tried to keep the conflict from reflecting in his face.
Hojo began to pace, looking as though the rage he was undoubtedly feeling at the loss of the two remaining Cetra was about to express itself in an explosion of laughter rather than violence, and that was a disturbing sight. Although Tseng was easily confident of the professor's inability to harm him even if he were to suddenly erupt, there was something bizarrely intimidating about the scientist's demeanor. As a Turk, Tseng was aware that perhaps it would do him well in the future to study that particular mode of intimidation, but something held him back. Effective or not, Hojo's attitude was one Tseng never wanted to emulate.
Tseng bowed, revealing nothing but respect. "On behalf of the organization that employees me, I must offer the sincerest of apologies for the inexcusable actions of my subordinates today. If you'll just examine this report, you –"
"A disgrace..." the scientist muttered, wringing his hands. "I thought you were trained in discipline and strategic thinking? Following orders and all that? Following orders to the letter, in fact – isn't that what your esteemed organization is so well known for?"
"Yes, sir." Tseng answered. "The error was a disgrace to the Turk name. Accordingly, I have –"
"Oh shut up," Hojo snapped, the sharp edge to his voice having taken over all traces of weariness and regret. "You're not paid to talk. A typo on a report is an error; this is a travesty. Typical Turk idiocy – always shooting first. All of you brutal and ignorant simpletons with no concept of or value for what can be learned and gained... No better than disobedient dogs. And to think that when I was informed of who was assigned to the recovery mission, I was told how promising you were."
Tseng remained quiet, knowing better than to interrupt the man. It was more difficult than he'd anticipated to calmly accept accusations of irrational brutality from a man who couldn't see the irony in his own words, but Tseng was not foolhardy enough to turn his thoughts into comments. Biting his tongue, he acted as a Turk should.
"I hope you realize all that's been lost thanks to your squad's incompetence," Hojo said with a quiet and twitching rage resonating in each word and each shift of his body.
"I do," Tseng replied in flat supplication.
"I don't believe you are fully aware of all that's been annihilated, Turk," the professor continued, eyes spitting poison. "Can you imagine the implications of a unique specimen being destroyed? Your oafish lump of a superior has no doubt already informed you that a great deal was invested in these two samples, but what you can't comprehend is the treasure trove of knowledge destroyed. Your department can grovel as much as it likes, it will never replaced what's been lost today."
"Those responsible have been punished, sir. The insubordination will never be repeated."
"Is that intended to placate me as I reflect on decades worth of information left bleeding in the filthy Midgar slums, good for nothing now except dissection? You're more of a fool than I thought if you think your squadron's blood will buy you anything from me or the President. There's no such easy remedy. Do you think I care how many heads roll because of this? Your Turk lives are nothing. That specimen was worth a thousand of you."
"...I understand."
"Oh, you do?" Hojo mocked. "Why not examine those files and see the great potential you helped destroy? Then perhaps you'll understand."
Hojo motioned to his desk, where a pair of beige folders rested. Tseng instantly recognized the coded titles, each referring to mother and daughter, and figured that Hojo must have recently updated both documents when reporting recent events. Carefully, Tseng approached the desk and picked up both folders and with guarded eyes, watched Hojo watching him. The professor's lips curled up in a smile as he motioned for Tseng to continue, seeming to take a kind of delight in the Turk's suspiciousness.
Tseng hesitated, unsure what Hojo could be up to. It was certainly not his place to be reading classified information on Shinra's plans for the two Ancients, and he couldn't help but be wary of a trick or trap. His fingers took a page between them, but did not turn.
"No, go on," Hojo cajoled, his voice twisted by mocking friendliness and encouragement. "Don't mind me. It'll be our little secret."
A test was in process, the Turk realized. Or perhaps an experiment. Tseng knew he could refuse and leave, and that there was danger present in choosing to read. He deliberated for a moment, but his own desire for knowledge and understanding suddenly overwhelmed him, and he rose to the Professor's challenge and began leafing through the documents. He would commit himself to this ambition of the Shinra Science Department and bind his fate with the girl's by reading on. It seemed very fitting, and so he took the risk, quietly daring Hojo to cry foul.
There it was – records of experiments, analysis, progress reports, estimations and many varied theories on what the future could hold and what greater knowledge could offer. Though she could do nothing about physical examinations and experiments, the mother had initially refused to respond to any questions asked of her. However, after certain treatments her tongue loosened considerably, though the information was incoherent. Nonetheless, schemes had already been built upon them. Tseng bit back his disgust at what had taken place and his own growing interest in the results.
Two phrases caught his attention: Neo-Midgar and the concept of a 'Promised Land'. All the information offered and all the subsequent speculations, and the evidence of Hojo's absolute cynicism regarding the idea's basis in reality, gave it a haunting quality. How much potential could have been unlocked, he wondered, if only the unfortunate woman had cooperated? And how much pain could she have spared herself?
Tseng glanced at the mother's file and Tseng disappointed himself by feeling affected by the small photograph clipped to the first page. The image showed a ruined woman, not the peaceful corpse he had cleared away. This was much less than a corpse. She looked as though she had been very beautiful once, but at the time this recent photo was taken she was sallow and thin, without strength in her posture, hair limp and crinkled like stiff wires, and her green eyes, that might once have been striking, were hazed and drugged. Somehow, this woman had avoided Shinra captivity for four years whilst also caring for a small child, but that strength and spirit seemed to have been leeched from her by three years of internment. There was still some small spark apparent underneath that, but it was the kind of resilience which belonged to a person no longer living for themselves. This woman managing to escape carrying her seven-year-old daughter was more than a feat; it was a miracle, and the extent of her resistance of recapture no longer surprised him. Still, the company could not be questioned and perhaps, in its own way, death was a form of mercy...
Disturbed, Tseng turned his attention from the mother and glanced down at a photograph of the girl attached to his file, careful to memorize her features. At age four she was a pretty and pigtailed thing, if only the sick fear on her small face didn't ruin the image. She looked as though she had been crying for her mother. A later picture, taken sometime earlier in the year, showed a very different girl. Still surprisingly pretty, considering her mother's state, but brave. The fear was still there, but hidden behind what appeared to be a wall of confidence and a resolution which was not cold or hardened. This time, she looked as though she knew her mother would come for her and run away with her – as if she believed they could escape to a better life. Those vast green eyes stared up at Tseng from the paper, and questioned him. It was a startling and almost fascinating transition, and her sudden maturation was enough to make the Turk look twice.
It suddenly hit him that at this very moment, whilst he inwardly complained at the indignity of being reprimanded by Professor Hojo, this child was most likely wandering alone in the slums, afraid, bereaved, and traumatized. The intensity of his sympathy startled him. He glanced to the huge glass window at his right, overlooking the city – night was falling.
Unbidden, memories of his own childhood and early adolescence returned to him. Early childhood in a well-off (though not aristocratic) family in a south-eastern province of Wutai, raised on the teachings of the warriors of the Kisaragi line and on the wisdom of the capital city's philosophers. The eldest son, in charge of managing the family, well-educated, and head of the Little Homeland Resistance at school; a little activist. He had been young in the days before the Great War, when skirmishes between Shinra and the rural provinces were common. It was during a temporary occupation by Shinra forces that his relationship to village and homeland had ended forever. He had been too eager, and then was sold out by his own. At age twelve, he had ended up interned in Midgar, then quickly released onto the streets with nowhere to go and a home that no longer existed in his own mind. All he had kept of the past was his name. They were desperate times, and to survive a child had to become hard, cold, clever and ruthless very quickly. Violence and theft were cornerstones of life, and the honour he had so revered in his youth had to be buried. The new life demanded that the old ways be discarded, though they did not die easily. For that, he had suffered and grown strong. Those cruel years had been something of a baptism of fire and Tseng had recreated himself and found a new destiny. It was a troubled one, but fitting. He deserved and needed no better.
He had not thought on those days for a very long time, and was surprised at how the child's face could encourage such reflection. He had not thought about very much recently except his job and its requirements, or focused on anything other than fulfilling his duty.
How could a seven-year-old girl, now orphaned, survive in such a place? Perhaps those green eyes had appealed to a caring stranger, perhaps a parent who had lost their own child (and in the slums, there were many) would be moved to compassion and take her in and offer her safety. Or perhaps those green eyes were at that very moment appealing to a much darker aspect of human nature that ran rampant in the slums, and the last Child of the Planet was being led by the hand towards a danger she could never have prepared for. The thought sent a chill through him, but the spirit in her eyes gave him confidence that she would not allow herself to be hurt easily.
He had seen many young girls look at him with desperate, frightened and pleading eyes, always tearfully begging for help. In his village during the occupation, in the Midgar ghettos before the Plate system had been established, and in the eyes of the children who unluckily walked into a confrontation between himself and a parent who had become a nuisance to Shinra. After a while, his ability to respond deadened. But her eyes were nothing like that – they big not beg or plead or whimper. They asked for no help. They were confident in their own destiny. Tseng couldn't help but wonder if this was what it meant to be an Ancient; to be special in such a way. The last of her kind.
Then he saw the girl's name for the first time in print, and she became more than a pitiful or conscience-stirring figure. She became a person. Aeris Gast.
The surname was not meaningless to him, and many webs of lies began to unravel before his eyes, whilst Hojo watched, now silent and calm, and altogether too knowing. Now Tseng was certain he'd be involved with both Cetra and scientist indefinitely, and accepted it. He couldn't help but feel sorrow as his eyes moved from the classified name to the brave face, and wondered how much she understood of herself and her importance. And what the future held for such a fated child.
"The child...what will happen to her?"
"The offspring is too young," Hojo said, heavy disappointment tangible in his voice. "She can't survive alone. Without the mother, she'll die in the streets."
"I refuse to write her off. If she's half-Cetra then she has at least half a chance."
"Ha!" Hojo exclaimed, flinging his head back and baring teeth in a wide and genuine smile. "Very good, Turk. Yes, the mother was strong. Perhaps it's best not to underestimate the child, even in the slums. Hmph...a noble home indeed for a creature of such fine blood."
"These agendas... This 'Promised Land'..."
"Yes, quite something, isn't it? As you can see, we had many interesting projects in the works concerning these two. I wonder what the future holds for Midgar now without the knowledge of the Cetra..." Hojo chimed in, amusement suddenly giving way to a false pitying tone. "They had so much to offer. Of course, some unpleasantness was necessary to determine their qualities and how they differed from humanity, but the promise for the future was never brighter. Such a shame."
Aware he was being played, Tseng deliberated his next move. He could plainly see the scientist's angle – to win indefinite support from a Turk in tracking the last Ancient. He was on the verge on gaining it too, but was that all that motivated him? Could Hojo maybe have another agenda? To learn was to gamble, Tseng reasoned, then felt slightly sickened in realizing that Hojo himself would probably approve of such an adage.
In spite of that inner-warning, there was something in the girl that had called out to Tseng and stirred a strong sense of compassion, as well as an odd fascination. Whatever else happened, he wanted to be involved in bringing the last Cetra back to where she belonged and to where she could recreate her own destiny.
Tseng made his venture. "I can report to my superior and propose an immediate covert recovery operation – with your approval, sir."
That won a sinister grin from Hojo. "I suppose the experiment can be recovered, though I've already deduced that this particular specimen is inferior to the one lost. What a waste. Nonetheless, she is an intriguing sample for additional reasons and could be quite valuable to us..."
"Then I will volunteer to recover her. She will be found and restored to Shinra."
"It'll never happen, Turk. Someone with a less egregious foul-up on their record will take care of it, as they should. You'll be sent back where you belong."
"I'm willing to do anything to redeem myself. I can make it happen."
Hojo turned and adjusted his glasses for a brief moment, fully looking at him for the first time since the conversation had begun. Slowly, an amused smile crept up the scientist's face, making the sags and deep lines in his face and the livid energy in his eyes all the more apparent.
"Anything, you say? How interesting," he chuckled mirthlessly. "Suit yourself. Take this file and get out of my sight."
Tseng Tstutsuma bowed again, and obliged him.
x-x-x
That night, on returning to his apartment, Tseng looked out at the heavy and bitter rainfall soaking the miserable city. Somewhere in the clouded and polluted darkness, gunshots sounded in the distance. Tseng looked at the girl's picture and imagined her alone and shivering in that rain. Alone in that black and dripping Midgar night.
Instead of taking the rest he needed, he sat at his computer and began the morning's work, full of determination. Without words, he vowed to do everything possible to find the girl called Aeris; whose name he would never forget.
-- FIN --