Final Fantasy VII: Another Story
By:
Mystwalker
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII.
A/N: I'm going to be spending a little bit of time on Icicle Inn, just so you know, because I think it's a sweet parallel, and a lovely what-if scenario ("What if Aerith was alive to learn about her past?"). So I hope you guys don't mind if we linger here for a couple of files, or one file and an interlude.
Thanks go to JazzQueen, CupofTeaforAliceandHatter, Guest, viralhybrid29, SpiritDreamWarriors, DarkSeraphim1, Riku Uzumaki, DJ Meltdown of Ground Xero, Irish-Brigid, Eavenne, Draconic, and Gameplayer23 for the reviews and support! Thanks for continuing to support this project!
Irish-Brigid, yep, Shion is a unisex Japanese name that means aster, as in the flower. So yes, he was named after a flower. ^^ Since his description on the wiki says that he appreciates beauty, I thought it was fitting. Not to mention, the Japanese, and I guess the Wutaiians in this case, don't consider flowers to be exclusively feminine.
Draconic, thanks, I'm glad you liked Reno. I actually have a very limited knowledge of Kingdom Hearts (I know who Axel is, but I've never really finished a game), so I wasn't thinking that. It just seemed like a Reno thing to do, lol. As for Kunsel, I first thought of him taking Aerith's place because that scene wouldn't be complete without some sort of tragedy for the group, and everything else fell into place from there.
Gameplayer23, Ifalna is dead, but if you go to Icicle Inn…well, I'll just let you read. Enjoy!
XxXxX
File 037: Endings and Beginnings
"Ifalna?"
Silence fell. Sephiroth stepped aside as the woman stepped forward, moving towards Aerith. She barely seemed to notice the food that she had dropped around her. Her eyes were on Aerith's face. Zack squeezed Aerith's hand, not letting go, but taking a small step back as the woman approached, letting Aerith face her.
"N—No," said Aerith after a moment. She shook her head. "No, I'm—not Ifalna. I'm Aerith. Her daughter."
"Oh." The woman's eyes misted over, and she shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry, dear," she said. "You look just like your mother."
She moved to turn away, bending down to pick up her groceries. Before she could take a few steps, Aerith moved forward, letting go of Zack's hand to take her arm. "Wait," said Aerith, her eyes wide. "Please. You knew my mother?"
"Of course I did, dear," said the woman, turning towards Aerith. "I knew her and your father very well. This town isn't so big that you can live here for years and not know your neighbors. Why, I remember when you were born—." Her eyes moved over Aerith's face, and slow understanding dawned on hers. "You…didn't know?" she asked.
Aerith shook her head. She took a step back, releasing her hold on the woman's arm. "My mother never told me. I just assumed—I thought I was born—." -in the lab. The words were on the tip of her tongue; Sephiroth could see that. The few times she'd spoken of her past, she'd spoken as if it began in Hojo's lab, with her and her mother. She'd never mentioned anything before that, never even mentioned a father. He'd understood, or he thought he had. It had taken him thirty years to find out who his parents were.
"—in Midgar," she finished instead, her voice strangely soft.
"Midgar?" asked the old woman, surprised. "Is that where you ended up? Why on earth would Gast take you back there?"
Gast.
Sephiroth froze. In the back of his mind, he remembered the scientist from his childhood, the only one who seemed to remember that he was a child. He'd been five when Gast left. Just old enough to remember him. Everything else he'd learned about the man had been in later years, when he learned that Gast had been the lead scientist in the Jenova Project, and the scientist who had been most interested in studying the Cetra.
Cetra.
Ifalna.
Aerith.
Across from him, Aerith straightened up, looking over at him. Their eyes met, and before he could say anything, she turned back towards the old woman, her eyes wide and her face pale. "…Gast?" she repeated.
"Yes," said the old woman, looking at her with a strange expression. "A nice man. A little eccentric. He used to work for Shinra, you know. He loved your mother very much, you know. We could all see that. And you…" A wistful smile touched her face. "…why, he was head over heels for you."
"I'm sorry," Aerith took a deep breath, her shoulders shaking. "Where did you say they lived?"
"In that house over there," said the old woman. Her expression quickly changed to one of worry. "Did something happen to them?" she asked. "Is that why you don't know any of this?"
Aerith never replied. Before the old woman could finish her sentence, she was gone, running up the hill and through the snow towards the small house. Cissnei turned and followed, with Zack quick at her heels. Sephiroth wasn't fully aware of starting to move, but before he knew it, he was running. He ignored the group's shouts to come back, leaving Tifa and the others to deal with the woman as he followed Aerith to the house.
He reached it at the same time as Zack did, to find that Aerith had already thrown the door open. The inside of the house was dark and dusty, with the sort of air that told him no one had lived here for years. It was, like most of the Icicle Inn cabins, a small house with wooden floors, except that one wall of the house appeared to be taken up mostly by machinery, the same way that some of Shinra's labs had been. The lights still worked; he flipped the switch to find that Aerith was already kneeling in front of a shelf of tapes, a stack of them in her hands. She went through them with an air of desperation, her hands frantically moving from tape to tape, her eyes scanning the labels and the dates.
It was a desperation he recognized. Zack moved forward, but Sephiroth stopped him before he realized what he was doing, placing a hand out in front of him to stop him from moving. He stepped forward, and dimly heard Cissnei taking Zack by the arm, pulling him back with a few murmured words of reassurance.
Aerith didn't even look up as he approached, her hands still clutching the tapes. They had stopped on one in particular, and he saw her shoulders shaking. Sephiroth glanced down and saw the label on it, in a messy scrawl that was so suddenly familiar that something inside him ached to remember it.
GF JP I043
02/12/1985
AERITH – 5 DAYS
She smiled.
He looked towards the tapes she had discarded, and realized that they were all labeled with the same naming scheme, except that most of them referred to Ifalna. All of them had notes, although most of the earlier ones recorded more scientific things, such as "origin of Cetra" and "communication with Planet / Planet as semi-sentient being".
The ones that were labeled Aerith read things like "she laughed," or, "she looked at me".
There were so few of them, in comparison to the others.
Aerith said nothing, still staring at the tape in her hands. He didn't interrupt her, his eyes moving over the rest of the room. He took in several other familiar things he had almost forgotten, an empty mug by the desk with the chemical symbol for caffeine printed on it, notes neatly stacked and put away, observation notebooks labeled and organized by date. Gast had always been neater than Hojo, Sephiroth remembered, and yet, his lab had never seemed cold or clinical, the same way that Hojo's lab had, or sloppy, like Hollander's. In Gast's lab, you could feel as though this was a place of learning, as though Gast was still in it for the pursuit of knowledge, and for the good of the world. He had a sudden memory of Gast letting him sit on his knee at his desk in the Shinra Building, showing him the notes he was working on. They had been completely incomprehensible to him at that age, but he remembered Gast patiently explaining to him that everything living thing in the world was made up of unique DNA, and that by studying it, and learning to read it, you could tell a lot about another living thing.
It was his first science lesson. It was also his only one. After that, after Gast left, his education had been given over to whatever was essential for the military, and anything more he had learned about science, he learned from reading on his own time. The memory surprised him, because it wasn't something he had thought about. It wasn't even something he thought he remembered, until he was standing here.
That was when he saw the blood.
His eyes moved past Aerith, towards the dark spots that had been there for so long that they had stained the wood. Aerith hadn't seen them yet, but Zack had. Sephiroth caught it in the way the ex-SOLDIER glanced at them, his mouth tightening. He looked back at Sephiroth, then at Aerith, and said nothing. The others crowded in behind Zack. Sephiroth hadn't noticed that they were already there—so lost was he in memory.
Shalua was already examining the machines, her pack set on the ground as she studied them. "These are mostly recording equipment," she said. "A few medical instruments too. They still work, I think, if you want to view those tapes. It shouldn't take me too long to get things running again." Her eyes moved over Aerith, who still hadn't responded.
Sephiroth frowned, glancing back at the rest of the group. Cissnei looked over at them, stepping forward. "I don't think now is the best time—," she began.
"No," said Aerith, straightening up. She turned towards Shalua, her shoulders shaking.
"No?" Shalua repeated, a look of confusion on her face.
"I want to see them," Aerith clarified. She stepped forward, holding the tapes out to Shalua. "Play them for me."
XxXxX
Chris stepped into the small office that Shion, Eira, and Shelke had occupied, closing the door behind her. The room had not been built to hold more than one or two people at once, and with four, it was already crowded, but neither of the other two ex-Turks told her to leave. Shion glanced at her, but said nothing as she took up a spot against the wall, folding her arms and leaning against it to take the pressure off her bad leg. She rubbed at it unconsciously—even with the support Shalua had built for her, it still hurt sometimes—and turned to face Shelke Rui.
She'd only seen Shelke in the one picture Shalua had of her, but the resemblance between the sisters was staggering. Shelke still looked like she couldn't be a day over nine, some accident caused by whatever concoction of mako Hollander had given her, but without the mako blue eyes and if she had been allowed to grow to her true age of sixteen, Chris had no doubt that she'd resemble her sister. The eyes were all wrong, though. Shalua's eyes were probably the most expressive part of her—always searching, looking, imploring even when her face said nothing. Shelke's eyes were cold, bright, and alert. If there was any feeling there, it was well hidden. The young Tsviet glanced at her, and when no one dismissed her, glanced away as if she was not there, speaking to no one and everyone at once as she began her story. Chris noted the lack of any recording equipment in the room. This would be completely off the books then. She settled down, listening with renewed attention.
"The man known as Genesis Rhapsodos first appeared in Deepground approximately three years ago," she said. "Nero and Weiss were sent on a surface mission to retrieve him. He was found unconscious in the mountains near the Nibelheim Reactor."
"Three years?" asked Shion.
Shelke nodded. "Yes," she said.
Glances were exchanged, each of them shaking their heads at the others. Chris frowned, thinking back to that time. Three years ago, all of them but Cissnei were still in active duty. There had been suspicion in the department back then, some of it directed towards Veld, who was still the head, but even then, a mission like that would have gone through the Turks. It should have.
Maybe it did.
"Who gave the order?" asked Eira, always the practical one.
"The Restrictors," said Shelke, blankly.
"And who ordered the Restrictors?" asked Eira again.
Shelke glanced at her. "At the time," she said. "There was only the Restrictors. We did not question."
Shion exchanged a glance with her. She recognized that look, the way his mouth tightened as his eyes met hers and he looked away. He didn't say anything, but she had been his partner for long enough to understand his suspicions. Veld. If there was any member of the Turks three years ago who would have held more secrets than any of them, it would have been Veld.
"Go on, Shelke," said Shion.
Shelke nodded. "Genesis was in a severely weakened state when he arrived in Deepground. He was quickly given over to medical care. He did not regain full consciousness for approximately three weeks."
"Did he show any signs of degradation?" asked Shion.
Shelke shook her head. "No. It was specifically noted that he did not."
"And he eventually recovered?" asked Eira.
Shelke nodded. "Yes," she said. "Within the span of two months, he had regained full mental capacity. After six months, he had almost regained complete physical strength. In eight months, Weiss included him in our number."
"Weiss made him a Tsviet?" asked Chris.
"No," said Shelke. "But Weiss introduced him as their brother, and said that with Genesis's help, we would shake off the control of the Restrictors and remake the world."
"Remake the world?" asked Shion, frowning at her. "How?"
"Weiss ordered it. I did not question."
There was something in the way she said it that gave Chris pause. A frown, perhaps, some hint of emotion. "But someone did," she said.
"There was a Tsviet," she said. "A nameless, colorless one. He questioned Weiss's plan. So we killed him."
Silence fell for a moment. They were, each of them, Turks, they'd all heard worse than this before. But it felt strange, almost, hearing those words coming from so young a face.
"How?" asked Eira.
"We sacrificed him to the Restrictors," said Shelke, calmly, as though she were giving a mission debriefing. "Weiss ordered me to use a Synaptic Net Dive to hack into the Restrictor chip implanted in his brain and plant false memories about a 'sister' that had been killed by the Restrictors and erasing all memory of our plans for rebellion. With that, the Tsviet was driven to an extreme rage. He and Weiss fought the Restrictor, and he sustained a mortal injury that allowed Weiss to kill his opponent. Then, he died, and Weiss took his place as leader of Deepground."
"What happened after that?" asked Shion.
"We ruled Deepground for the next year. At the time, Shinra did not question us. Weiss, Nero, and Genesis also used that time to tell us the details of their plan. In his time above ground, Genesis had been in contact with a being called Jenova, who was being held in the Nibelheim Reactor, but who had now been transferred to the Science Department in the building above. Jenova wished to destroy the world and use it as a vessel to travel the cosmos. She had promised Genesis that if he aided her in this, she would help him remake the world, and leave him, and us, to rule."
"And you believed her?" asked Eira, folding her arms.
"I followed Weiss," said Shelke. "If you wanted to, perhaps you could say I believed him. But we realized that even after defeating the Restrictors, we couldn't leave Deepground. Not with Shinra still strong over our heads. So we decided that the best thing to do would be to offer our services to Shinra for the meantime."
"And Shinra accepted," said Shion.
"Sephiroth was already a rogue entity at the time, and his presence made the President nervous. It didn't take long for him to agree to devote us to his capture. Both Weiss and Genesis are skilled at persuasion."
"So that was that, then?" asked Chris, frowning. "They just let you go?"
"There were some dissenters," said Shelke. "Tseng of the Turks was one of them. He argued that allowing us onto the surface would create a bigger problem for the company than Sephiroth posed."
Chris snorted. "Well, he was right about that," she said.
"Tseng argued that if the Tsviets were to be used in this, it shouldn't be without restriction. So he was granted the same power as the Restrictor was, the ability to end our lives if we became problematic."
"Which is why Weiss attacked him," said Eira.
Shelke nodded. "The Restrictor chip has limited range, which is partly why Deepground is so confined, but Weiss couldn't afford to have Tseng loose with the Restrictor controls. So he attacked him and destroyed the controller. Tseng was supposed to die."
"Well, he pulled through alright," said Chris, frowning. "He's in the hospital now."
Eira rolled her eyes. "Like any of us believe he pulled through that on his own," she said.
Glances were exchanged, a single word went unspoken: Aerith. Their minds touched upon it briefly, before pushing it away. Tseng's feelings for the flower girl had always been something that seemed off-limits to them, something that was beyond even the usual office gossip. Shion moved on.
"So, what now?" he asked. "You mentioned that Jenova was defeated at the Forgotten Capital. What does that mean for the remaining Tsviets and their plans?"
"I don't know," said Shelke. "After the events of the battle at the Forgotten Capital, I am no longer in Weiss's confidence." Which, Chris thought, was a fancy way of saying that Weiss would love to see her dead.
"Your best guess," said Shion.
"I am not in a position to make predictions," said Shelke, coolly. "However, if I were to hypothesize, I would say that Weiss would continue to pursue dominance. He would consider this a setback, not the ultimate failure of his goals."
"So he's still an active threat," said Shion.
"Yes."
"And what about you?" asked Eira, frowning. "Where do you figure into all of this?"
"I no longer obey Weiss's commands," said Shelke, "nor do I associate myself with Deepground or the remaining Tsviets."
"And why not?" asked Eira, again.
Shelke glanced away. It was the first sign of emotion Chris had seen in her throughout this entire interview. "My reasons are my own," she said. "Suffice it to say that I no longer agree with Weiss's logic."
"You realize," said Shion softly, "that we cannot just allow you to leave."
Shelke nodded, calm again. "I factored that into my plans when I brought Marlene here."
"Then you'll know it's nothing personal," said Shion. "We can't trust you yet."
Another nod. "Understood."
"Eira will escort you back to your quarters," said Shion. "You're to remain in them for the rest of the night, until we decide what to do with you."
Shelke said nothing, allowing Eira to lead her from the room. Chris moved away from the door, letting the pair of them walk through. She followed Shelke with her eyes, still watching her even as the door closed behind her. When the last of their footsteps had faded away, she turned towards Shion.
"She'll be gone by morning," she said.
"I know," said Shion, sitting on the desk. Now that Shelke and Eira were gone, he looked older and more tired than she had ever seen him. He raised his good hand to his face, pushing his glasses up and pinching the bridge of his nose. "We can't prevent Shelke from leaving if she wants to—not without causing a scene, which is something we can't afford in our current situation. We don't have the manpower to keep a guard on her 24/7."
"So we're just going to let her go?" asked Chris.
"We won't make it obvious," said Shion, his voice hushed as he glanced at the door. "But I'm curious to see where she goes, if she thinks no one is following her."
Understanding dawned on Chris. She stared at Shion. "She's bugged."
"An internal tracking device," said Shion. "When we treated her wounds." His eyes moved towards the files on the table, the ones that they had collected in their few weeks here. "She may lead us to AVALANCHE, or to the other Tsviets. Either way, I'd consider it a plus."
Chris frowned, folding her arms. "She's not gonna fall for that," she said. "That kid might look like a little girl, but she's smarter than you give her credit for. She's probably already figured it out."
"Maybe," said Shion with a shrug. "Maybe not." He frowned, looking at Chris, and she was startled to realize that she recognized the expression on his face. It was one she'd seen on him multiple times before, after difficult missions. Guilt. Weariness. Regret. "I'm inclined to let Shelke go," he admitted.
The pieces came together. She'd always suspected, ever since hearing Shalua's story, but now she knew. "It was you," she said. "You're the one who brought her to Deepground in the first place."
"It was Veld," said Shion, pushing himself up off the desk with his good hand. He straightened up. "I stood by and watched. Take the first watch tonight. I have business in the city."
Chris watched as Shion moved past her, letting him go. His hand moved almost unconsciously to the weapons rack by the door, brushing over the curve of his sword before he pulled it back and let it fall to his side. She pretended not to see. Her frown deepened, and she wondered what his business in the city was, or how, after so many years of partnership, they had drifted so far apart.
The door echoed in his wake and she sighed, pushing her thoughts from her mind as she went off in search of Eira.
XxXxX
Midgar's slums were always hot and humid, the air pressing in close on all sides and making it difficult to breathe. Elena found them hard to deal with in the winter, when the air was lighter and the occasional cool breeze made it down from the surface to the streets below. Now that winter was over and the world was inching closer to summer, they were becoming almost unbearable again. She'd spent time down here before, working as a bartender in the Wall Market bar that the Turks frequented, so she was somewhat used to it, but that didn't mean she particularly liked it. She remembered not being able to understand, while in high school, why the Turks spent so much time in Wall Market. Tradition or not, weren't there bars above the Plate that were more suitable than the one here?
Maybe it was because of the respect they commanded down here. Up above the Plate, they were a curiosity, like a guard dog that one wasn't sure would bite or not. She'd always found the looks the businessmen gave her when she walked around in her suit disconcerting, like they expected her to attempt to assassinate them at any given moment, but she had no illusions about the fact that those same men would sell her out to Shinra in a heartbeat if they thought she was having dealings under the table that the President wouldn't approve of. They had power, they understood how the balance of power went.
Down here in the slums, everyone respected the Turks, and no one messed with them. They'd carved out their niche in Midgar's underground, and it was here that they could deal secretly, out of the public and even the company's eye. Maybe that was something about the Turks that the slum-dwellers understood better than Shinra did.
Her hand strayed to the place on the inside of her suit jacket where the file was hidden, next to her gun. She wondered if that was why Tseng had sent her down here, if there was something the Turks were dealing with that they didn't want even Shinra to know about. But what? Something to do with her sister, and Shion, and Reeve Tuesti. She couldn't even piece those elements together in her head, let alone try and figure out what she might have to do with them.
Elena made the turn into Sector 6's slums, moving against the throng of people heading towards Wall Market. She wasn't due to meet Reno and Rude for another hour, and the instructions Tseng gave her were on the other side of the Sector's slums, away from the wreckage of Sector 7. She made sure to avoid the main streets, not wanting to be seen. Word got around fast in the slums, and she was still well-known in this area. A Plate girl whose sister was a Turk didn't get a job bartending in the slums without everyone for miles around hearing about it. She remembered getting the job just to spite Lydia. Her older sister had never liked her sticking her nose where it didn't belong.
Tough luck, sis, she found herself thinking, as she approached the drop-off location. At the rate this is going, I just might end up saving you.
She didn't know what Lydia had to do with any of this, but she had no illusions about the tone Reno had used with her. Whatever was up, it was big, and she was going to get to the bottom of this, whether Reno and Rude wanted to or not. With ten minutes to go before the time Tseng had given her, Elena pushed open a side door, entering the small building.
The first floor of it was a small, dimly-lit bar, and it smelled strongly of smoke. It was also empty, apart from a handful of drunks at a side table playing dice, and one old man at the counter. The patrons looked up as she entered, and just as quickly went back to their drinks or their game. Elena moved through the room, ignoring them and ignoring the smell of liquor and smoke that seemed to permeate every surface in this place. An old TV in the corner crackled the latest news from Shinra.
She glanced over it, recognizing the story that Rufus had had them air, and ignored it, taking a seat at the bar and ordering a beer. It was swill, but she didn't trust the water in this place, and it was just bad manners in the slums to walk into anyone's bar without buying anything. The bartender—a bearded man with the hollow-eyed look that she recognized from the long-time slum residents—gave her her drink and slipped into the back room. She let him, already getting the sense that this bar was more than it appeared to be.
Drink in hand, she settled down to wait.
Her contact arrived precisely ten minutes later. Elena spotted her entering the room, using the staff entrance instead of the main door—a curiosity she noted. It wasn't hard to pick her out of the crowd. She wore a rough-spun wooden cloak that hid her face, and gloves that ran nearly up to her elbows. The body beneath the cloak was slender, and obviously female, but she carried herself like someone who was confident of her ability in a fight, and said nothing as she slid into the chair next to Elena. She said nothing for a while, but didn't order a drink, which in Elena's opinion was more telling than anything else she did do. When she spoke, her voice was flat, and artificially soft, as though she didn't want to give anything away.
"You have something for me?" she asked.
"From a mutual friend," she said, saying the pass phrase that Tseng had given her. She reached into her pocket, drawing out the file. The woman laid one slender hand on the tabletop, but didn't reach for it.
"I'll make sure he gets it," she said, which was the phrase that Elena had been told to expect.
Her grip tightened on the file, and she found herself possessed by the sudden urge to reach out and grab the woman by the shoulders, to turn her towards her so that she could see her face. She knew the Turks dealt in secrets, but she'd always expected that becoming one would make her part of the privileged few that knew the secrets, not just kept out of the dark from more of them. For a moment, the urge to know what was going on was so strong that Elena almost did it, but she remembered Tseng's instructions, and she stopped herself just in time, laying the file on the table. The woman picked it up, and it slipped neatly beneath her cloak. She turned to go, and Elena caught the barest hint of brown hair from beneath the cloak, of sharp brown eyes that she thought she recognized, thought she remembered from something, somewhere before, from the time before she was a Turk.
Then before she could say anything, the woman was gone.
TO BE CONTINUED