Flyery: Thank you for reviewing! But, why do I need to capitalize my chapters? They're not part of the story or syntax. I don't think it should matter.
three : the boat.
On every corner of the Planet, the name's been uttered. Sephiroth. One of the most influential people—if not soldiers—in the world. I joined around the time when his name had just become famous, and his career blossomed as mine inched along, not particularly different from anyone else's. And like everyone else, I fell into the ranks of those who worshipped him and dreamed of becoming his mirror image.
The voice on the recording, according to Heidegger and Shinra, was confirmed by intel to be Sephiroth. But to me, it just wasn't. Sephiroth, while a bit out of place, was the most sane person in the army—rational and patient, never raising his voice, even when angry. He cared about the soldiers underneath him and he wasn't stuck up. I had always thought he was more sane than Heidegger, honestly.
Right now, I'm waiting along the beach for my pick-up, smoking a cigarette as I finger the dossier.
"I don't understand," I said at the lunch table, left in a daze from listening to the recording. "Where is the general, now?"
Heidegger removed his napkin and viciously threw it onto his plate, breathing heavily, and left to get a drink of water. Rufus calmly explained.
"Right now, Sephiroth is in the materia cave north of Wutai, staking out on that island with his men. As you know, it's a bit difficult to access, as there's a lack of beaches and the cliffs there are high."
By then, my appetite was completely gone, thinking about what this mission could possibly be about.
"Rumor has it that the natives living there surround Sephiroth and protect him as if he were a god. And, who would blame them: look at him."
I did as he said and accepted a color picture of Sephiroth in front of a company of SOLDIERs, examining how he stood out with his silver hair and bright green eyes. Rufus was right: Sephiroth is sort of a god amongst men.
And I also think: were the rest of us so different from the natives who worship him? If I happened to be under his command, wouldn't I have remained a part of the cult that surrounds his glory?
When I tried to give the photo back to Heidegger, he only tossed it into my dossier. I knew there must have been more to this story, so I waited as Rufus lit a cigarette at the table and leaned onto his elbows.
"General Sephiroth himself was in command of a SOLDIER battalion when he was dispatched. Of course, back in the yellow zone near the second bridge, we lost a lot of gained territory, and quite a few men. Several companies in Sephiroth's battalion fell prey to an ambush and many of them died. That was the last incident that HQ had officially contacted him at. After that, he and his remaining men disappeared."
"To the materia cave up north?" I asked.
Rufus nodded. "We're guessing so. For a short time after Sephiroth and his boys went AWOL, our advances became easier and we had little resistance. A few captured men could only blubber out short sentences concerning a silver-haired soldier… the Wutainese are terrified of him. Now, it seems that our enemies have multiplied in numbers. But these people are slightly different from the civilized Wutainese past the mountains."
He handed me another set of monochromatic photos, all depicting murdered civilians in various grotesque positions.
"It seems that these civilians were killed by Sephiroth, as well."
Among the dead in the pictures were several children with missing heads. I really wanted to give those back, but instead, I slipped them into my dossier. So. This is why Heidegger is so frustrated. Sephiroth had been somewhat like a son to him.
"Am I understood, Captain?"
I was honest. "No, sir."
"By the looks of it, Sephiroth has gone completely out of his mind." He summed it all up, colloquially. "He has killed numerous civilians without prejudice, hindering our goodwill efforts and intelligence gathering opportunities. He's murdered members of this army. And now he runs wild in the north, without any control from command. Therefore, your orders are," Rufus said, handing me a couple of thin, transparent papers with the word "classified" stamped across the top, "to proceed up the western coast of the Island, past the mountain region. Go to the cave to the north."
The whole conversation had been surreal. Before I was able to digest one shocking event, Rufus had thrown another one at me. But now I understood why he'd asked me if I'd ever been intimate with Sephiroth.
"Eliminate Sephiroth," he said, the words sending chills down to my feet, "and bring back evidence of his death."
Kill Sephiroth. If I could have, I would have laughed in his face, but the idea of trying to kill him doesn't disturb me as much as what I think I'll find when I get to him.
"Evidence, sir?"
"The Masamune blade." Came Heidegger's dark voice, his back turned to the dinner table.
"We trust that you're the only one fit for this job, Captain." I wonder fucking why, I thought. At this, Rufus Shinra really seemed to humble himself a bit—this Sephiroth incident is killing them, both. "Along the way, you'll meet other officers who will hand off more of the dossier. The file you are holding is incomplete." He took a drag from his cigarette.
"This is a classified mission. Our front hasn't gone anywhere near the north yet, so you will be behind enemy lines. Remember to maintain sound and noise discipline, and destroy the dossier when you finish reading it."
"And what if I don't finish the mission?" I asked, just to test him.
"Haha," Rufus laughed, returning to his old self. "I was waiting for you to ask that." He took another drag and walked up to me, stating the conditions plainly.
"Complete this mission and you'll be done on the Western Island. I'll send you to Midgar myself, where you'll be promoted to major, given a handful of decorations and two months of leave to Costa del Sol. Return with the mission failed," he began again, his voice remaining unchanged. "Sephiroth will decimate any chances of us taking this island. The war will be lost, and you will be out of work. Before that even happens, you'll be dismissed from the officer corps, and you'll be demoted to private. You will not be able to reapply for officer school for the duration of your career. Furthermore, your SOLDIER qualification will be revoked. Understand?"
Damn, I thought. For failing an impossible mission?
"Oh yeah," Rufus said, walking back towards me to hand me the dossier before sending me away. "You have seven days to complete this mission. If we don't hear from you after that, consider the mission failed. In that case, a rescue team will not be sent out. After three weeks, if we hear nothing from you, your status will change from MIA to KIA. The death notice your family will receive will say that you were killed by a sniper, or something mundane like that." He handed me a little cyanide pill enclosed in an undissolvable, waterproof capsule. "I doubt you'll need this, but take it anyway."
I knew he wasn't saying that to be an asshole: from the looks of it, several rescue teams had been sent out, only for advancing groups to find their maimed bodies with Sephiroth's signature carved into them.
As if reading my mind, Rufus's last words were, "Please don't let that happen to you, Captain. We'd like to see you again, some day."
Yeah, right.
--
Of course, Heidegger and Shinra aren't just gonna send me on foot or have me swim if I need to be back in a week, so they send me a pick-up—a tiny, quiet patrol boat armed for combat, manned by a fire squad.
When my pick-up arrives, I'm a little disappointed to learn that there are only four of them. I was hoping there would be a couple more so that at least one could deliver my dead body back to Shinra. But, I guess it's for the best--the more people there are, the more I feel like more than one of them is going to die, and it's my mission, so I don't really like the idea that it would only be to get me to where I need to go.
When they introduce themselves, I'm even more dismayed that they give me either first names, or names that that have to be nicknames. I hate feeling like I know people when it's not going to be for long.
The driver and highest ranking of the bunch (yet still not higher ranking than me) is Tseng, a Wutainese native who speaks our language without an accent. A bit battle-hardened and tough, he reminds me of me, sort of: quiet and spiteful, choosing to observe rather than act until he knows exactly what's going on. He doesn't like me, I think with a smile as he nods after I greet him and jump on his boat. The fact that he's Wutainese, though, throws me off a bit: although it occurs to me that he's old enough to have moved away long ago, I wonder about how it feels to be back in his native lands, fighting for the other side, but he looks like the type of person who wouldn't appreciate that sort of intrusion on his personal life.
Then, there's Rude from a well-to-do family in Upper Midgar, a bald guy who doesn't seem to like shaving. He tries to be quiet, but I think that's only because someone had told him that in the military, it's best to keep your mouth shut and your ideas to himself, and he believed it—because when he does talk, he doesn't shut up.
Reno is a young slum kid from Midgar, who apparently has a knack for mechanics, despite only recently learning how to read and write. Now, he really doesn't shut up, and I have to keep reminding him not to salute me when we're on the boat so that I don't get shot. Of the bunch, he's the most careful about his appearance, even though no matter how much he combs that nappy red hair of his, it's always gonna look like a rat's nest. The dope fiend, he shares the drugs his friends send him from Midgar with the rest of the boat.
Lastly, there's the youngest—Eli, a jittery blonde seventeen year old boy who seems like he wants to identify with the rest of the group, but can't seem to do anything right. Before I even found out, I knew he was from some military family in Junon—I could smell the overzealous "my daddy's a general and I'm gonna be a general one day, too" complex. Tseng is especially concerned for his safety. The others think he's annoying and fuck with him a lot, but also give him advice. When there's nothing else to do, Eli pulls out flash cards that he made out of the boxes of our rations, and he helps Reno practice the alphabet and mid-level vocabulary. Although Eli is a few years younger than Reno, Reno still appears to be the youngest, at least in my opinion.
All in all, the crew works, I guess, like their own little family. To them, or at least to Tseng, it seems that I'm an intruder, so for the most part I stay out of the way and lay on the ground in the shade, thumbing through my dossier as they go about their business.
--
Next chapter's already written, but I'd like to go through it a couple of times before posting: Cid's up next, so it'll be fun. XD
