I never thought I would write something like this, but I discovered the wonder that is Final Fantasy 7 and immediately got attacked by plot bunnies. Not surprising, did you know that Wikipedia refers to Sephiroth as the "Patron Saint of Fan Fiction"? I swear it's true, go look it up.
I do not own Final Fantasy 7.
The song for this chapter is "Paint it Black" by The Rolling Stones.
Henkan
Chapter 1: Obscurity
Aerith Gainsborough shut the door of her apartment with a deft little click and blinked her eyes against the brilliant sunlight that flooded her balcony.
Her ears were immediately met with the crashing of waves and she spared but a glance to the sea cliffs her home overlooked. Intent upon getting down to the market sector of the city before it got overly crowded with people as it did inevitably every day beginning around ten in the morning or so. She took the steps that lead to the ground floor two at a time, enjoying the minute falling sensation that came with every step forward. Today she had woken full of purpose, restless energy that needed to be expended.
In her head she ran over the list of things that she needed to buy. The obvious necessities, then whatever seasonal fruits and vegetables were available, and perhaps some more frivolous shopping if there was any money left over.
She had a job with a local herb saleswoman, an elderly lady named Anika. The hours were reasonable and the pay was decent, it was more than she could say for most of the jobs she had held in the past. Anika had even given her Wednesdays and Saturdays off, saying that the middle of the week was really too slow to warrant an extra person coming in.
It wasn't terribly exciting work and in fact it grew downright boring more often than not. Every day it was the same routine, she would be lying if she said it was a satisfying way to live but at the very least she was trying to carve out some kind of existence for herself.
On the weekend she shared her duties with Anika's granddaughter Tiana. The other young woman would have been around to help more,having a very close relationship with her grandmother, but she was currently in training to become a technological engineer at some prestigious institution.
Aerith marveled at the sheer amount of time Tianna spent studying, having never attended any type of conventional school. She had always tried to educate herself to the best of her ability, and had studied under a good number of tutors. It had always been to risky to for her to be enrolled in a public educational system. All students were put into a central data base, one that would be all too easy for Shinra to access. They would have tracked her down and dragged her back in a heartbeat.
She wondered if they would have plucked her straight out of her class room, not caring who saw, or if they would have been more discreet and taken her from her bed at night.
Not one to wallow in self pity she quickly banished her dark speculations, telling herself that there was no way she would be discovered now. Unlike many more up to date employers, who used electronic paychecks, Anika payed her with straight, untraceable gill. Just as she payed her land lord, in nothing but a portion of the shiny silver coins she received each month.
Perhaps she was being a tad paranoid, after all most of shinra had been disbanded, and with their limited man power she doubted much, if any, of their resources would be wasted on her. She was hardly at the top of their "most wanted" list. And besides…
Who would bother to search for a dead girl?
The thought cheered her, perhaps more than it should have and by the time she reached the markets she had cast her worries aside. In fact she was actually somewhat enjoying her day off.
This was not to say that she typically allowed herself to walk around consumed by misery. But everything she had experienced had changed her, irrevocably.
She tried, really, truly, tried, to see the good in the world. She had tried to revive the person she had been before she had ever heard of AVALANCHE, or SOLDIER or Jenova.
She could not succeed, to do that would be to turn back the clock, to erase the last eight years of her existence, it was simply impossible. Gone was the girl who had laughed giddily when a tall, blue eyed boy fell from the sky.
She would not call herself bitter, though she knew she sometimes verged upon it. She was merely…
…Sobered...
That was the best way to describe it. Before she had been drunk on life before,viewing all of existence as pure, white, and beautiful. At one point she had truly been the embodiment of light, the very antithesis to the darkness that threatened her home.
Now she saw the world for what it was, a endless number of shades of gray. She had grown up.
She smiled in satisfaction as she tread the path that lead back up the hill to her apartment,examining her haul. She was definitely getting better at stretching her money.
She struggled with her numerous shopping bags on the stairs a bit and simply gave up and set her purchases down temporarily after fumbling with the door lock for several minutes longer than anyone would deem reasonable. Finally she pushed into her modest home and closed the door behind her.
As she moved about the kitchen putting her groceries away, Aerith surveyed her apartment. It wasn't much.
The whole building was new and the land lord had proudly informed her that she was the first person ever to rent her particular flat. The carpets were new, the paint was fresh, and thanks to her almost obsessive cleaning habits no bug had ever stepped foot over her threshold, small blessings.
The kitchen housed a refrigerator, a stove, and a sink, as well as a small expanse of counter space and a few cabinets. There was a small pale wooden table shoved into one corner, complete with a pair of matching chairs that had come with it.
To her immediate right was her foyer, which truly consisted of nothing more than a cheap, plastic "welcome" mat, and a small tiled area, no more than a square meter, that interrupted the blue patterned carpet.
Beyond that lay her living room. A large window took up most of the wall that faced the ocean and it provided a rather nice view of the surrounding shoreline and sea cliffs. On the far wall was a large, rather plush, and very unsightly couch and a dark, slightly banged up coffee table. Opposite them sat a small television set. All of these things she had bartered for, not having the funds to buy brand new furniture. They were not very modern or very stylish but they were functional and that was what mattered.
Her bedroom was nothing too spectacular or too awful. It contained a queen sized bed with pale jade colored bedding, a night stand with a lamp and alarm clock on it, and a closet. There was a tiny balcony out a sliding glass door that also overlooked the ocean and she knew that she should have been grateful that the designers had at least tried to make it nice, but in all honesty the attempt at ambience was a little sad. The adjoining bathroom was as cramped as the rest of the residence and held all of the things one might expect a bathroom to. A shiny white toilet and a corresponding sink housed by a counter even more miniscule than the one in the kitchen and a cabinet for storing toiletries. Across the room, synonymous with not even a meter, was a shower with an ugly curtain, so-so water pressure, and a tub.
It was to there that she went, once her food for the week had been properly attended to.
She stood and examined her refection in the mirror above the sink. In her humble opinion she looked awful. Her face had been thinned, by her previous strife or by her new lifestyle she didn't know, but the once almost childishly soft oval had waned and sharpened to the point of looking a little harsh, particularly in the wrong lighting. Her hair was pinned in a loose bun on top of her head, bushy and uncooperative as ever, and the utilitarian style certainly didn't do it any favors. Her nose and mouth were so painfully plain and non-descript she didn't even want to think about it and her eyes looked dull and flat.
Why couldn't she be more like Tifa or Yuffie? Her friends were dazzling, both pretty, athletic, and about the nicest people one could ever hope to meet on top of that. She would never be so petty as to envy them, but that didn't stop her feeling like their ugly shadow at times. Even Cloud and Vincent attracted a fair amount of attention under the right circumstances.
Unbidden her mind drew up images of the different mako eyes she had seen. Zack's lovely sky blue, so expressive, he could persuade anyone to adore him with a single look. Cloud's curiously multi-toned turquoise, a million facets of color that sparkled in the sun, they drew a person in, invited them to come and examine more closely. What she would give to look like them, Aerith shook her head.
Before she could stop it, one final image conjured itself. One last gaze from a pair of eyes set at a dramatically exotic angle, an inhuman slit of a pupil that put the finishing touch on a vicious expression, irises that were such a brilliant emerald it looked like they had a live wire run through them. The scar on her abdomen ached.
She shuddered and turned away, on second thought, if that was the price of beauty she could be quite content with her own boring face.
Somewhat at a loss for what to do with the rest of her day, she returned to the living room and flicked on the tv.
The news was running images of a building that looked like it had been some kind of lab facility, but was now thoroughly demolished. The screen cut to an image of a lady holding a microphone in front of the still smoking wreckage. Aerith grabbed the remote off of the coffee table and cranked the volume up.
"For those of you who just tuned in, I am standing in front of what used to be the energy company, Shinra's ,main research facility,until late last night when the structure imploded without warning. Engineers have examined the remains and determined that the building was in fact sound. At the moment they believe that a sudden disturbance to one of the facility's large underground stabilizing columns was the cause of the collapse. As of now no one has any idea who or what could have damaged the pillars. Forty one people were killed when the concrete outer walls caved in. In a moment we will take to join Hiro who is currently live with the head of Shinra's research and development department, Doctor Hojo".
The scene changed again and showed a tall, rather exaggeratedly muscled blonde man standing beside a sallow, little dark haired man in a lab coat, who would have looked far more at home in a horror movie. There was just something about the man that screamed "shifty". The male reporter was paying no mind to the looks the scientist was shooting him and enthusiastically shoved a microphone in his face.
"Hello," the man called Hojo said curtly in a rattling, nasal, tenor.
"Why hello there, Mr. Head of Research and Development. Now you're quite the renowned scientist, right?", the taller man asked, oozing bravado.
The scientist looked as though he wanted to rip the reporter's head off of his shoulders for addressing him in such a manner, "That's correct", he replied stiffly.
The report asked the scientist if he had any guesses at the cause of the destruction of his facility and Hojo looked distinctly uncomfortable for a moment before launching in to a deeply scientific explanation that made absolutely no sense to Aerith, she could only hope that Tiana would see the interview so she could explain it to her.
She setteled herself into a more comfortable position on the sofa and huffed boredly as she waited for the endless onslaught of terms that meant nothing to her to end. She was becoming quite sorely tempted to change the channel when the station mercifully cut to the site where a team of grunts were digging through the wreckage. The camera lens focused itself for a moment and the image became clear in time for her to see a team of four men carrying a rock that was splattered with blood and an oozing a green substance she identified as liquid mako. She shuddered and took a moment to mourn whomever had bled to death upon that piece of stone. In the background the female reporter was explaining how it would be taken to a separate lab and handed over to forensic analyst who could deduce the identity of the victim simply by running the blood through a database. At least that much she was able to grasp, Aerith thought dryly.
The woman has halfway through what Aerith was certain was intended to be a very moving minute of silence for those lost when one of the work man began shouting in the background. The reporter's expression became quite nasty and she began to round angrily upon the man, but stopped when she saw he had something in his possession and was waving it through the air in his chubby hand frantically.
The reporter was on the excavation worker faster than one could say "breaking news", clearly smelling a moment in the spotlight and perhaps a nice raise. She crossed the rocky lot in several snappy high heeled strides and waved the cameraman closer with a perfectly manicured hand .
She glanced at her own hands self consciously and saw short, anxiety bitten fingernails and bony fingers, she had a small hangnail on her left pinky.
Her eyes slid back up to the screen where the woman was holding the object up as if it were the winning lottery ticket, so that it was clearly visible in the late morning sunlight.
Aerith's blood ran cold.
Slowly she closed her eyes and drew deep breaths through her mouth in an attempt to calm herself. She was jumping to conclusions, there had to be another explanation.
But when she opened her eyes she could not deny the evidence as it sat looking mockingly harmless.
She pressed her face into the fluffy back of her sofa and emitted a single, overly antagonized shriek.
In the reporter's red fingered nailed grasp, a single strand of long, shiny, hair the color of quicksilver, fluttering in the faint breeze from it's place entangled in the coarse fibers of a large, jet black feather.
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