Disclaimer: FF7 and its characters belong to Square Enix. Adelina, however, belongs to me.
It has been five years since that day when the flames had consumed Nibelheim, my former home. Five years since that day when Sephiroth saved me from the smoke and the flames. I wonder now why he had chosen to save me. After all, he had been the one to set Nibelheim ablaze, as I had learned from Tifa after it all had happened and she had found me on the outskirts of town. So, why had he chosen to save me that day?
I will return for you. Sephiroth's words rang in my head, as they often had in the years following the burning of Nibelheim. There were times when those same words haunted my dreams, and I would wake up in a cold sweat. You never did, I thought bitterly as those words rang out again in my mind. It had probably all just been an hallucination, anyway. What he had said to me, and perhaps even how he had saved me that day. Although, I so wanted those words to be true and I wanted to believe that he had indeed been the one to save me that day.
Learning what he had done, and knowing that Tifa hated him for it like she hated SOLDIER and Shinra now, had not taken my love for Sephiroth away. When I lay in bed at night, asleep and dreaming of that day and of Sephiroth, I wish it had taken my love for him away. I wished that I hated him as much as Tifa did. How could I still love him, after what he had done to my home? He had set Nibelheim on fire, and he had hurt Tifa. Yet still, I wanted to see him again. At least one more time. It doesn't matter now, I tell myself.
I am now eighteen, and I still have the same slim body that I used to, although I now have a few more curves. I've let my brown hair grow longer, and I keep it in a ponytail most of the time, just as I always did back then in those days. I'm still lacking in the chest area, although not as much as before, and I am only an inch shorter than Tifa now, at 5 feet and 3 inches tall. I still have to admit, though, that even now I am just a bit envious of Tifa's figure.
I now work for the Shinra Company, in their main building, as a researcher and assistant in the lab. It took a lot of hard work for me to advance to this position, and I have to say I am proud of myself for it. I have not seen nor heard from Cloud since he left to join SOLDIER all those years ago, and I have not seen Tifa since the day I turned fourteen. That was the day when I had left to get a job at Shinra, just as I had promised that I would years prior.
Tifa hates Shinra, after what had happened to Nibelheim, and she had tried desperately to get me to change my mind about working for Shinra when I had announced that I would be leaving to get a job at the company. But, I would not be swayed. If anything, what had happened to Nibelheim had made me more determined than ever to work for the Shinra Company. As a child, I think I had actually admired the Shinra Company. But after the incident in Nibelheim, even I grew to loathe them to some degree. But, that did not stop me from seeking to work for them.
What I really wanted, and what I still want now, is to find out about Sephiroth. Something had happened to him that day, at the Mako Reactor, that had led to Nibelheim being engulfed in flames. I want to know what could have possibly happened to cause all of that. I wanted to know what could have made him so angry that he had done that. What could have caused the pain and sadness that I had thought I had also glimpsed in his eyes that day. Perhaps sifting through the files at Shinra Headquarters will give me some information, and that is why I have worked so hard to advance myself through the ranks of the company.
I live close to the Shinra building, and I have made a few friends since I started working there a few years ago: Misty also works for Shinra, on the second floor. We used to work together for a short while, until my talents were noticed and I started to advance through the ranks. Even though we no longer work on the same floor together, I usually always greet her on my way up to the lab. Sometimes we leave work together, if I finish for the day early enough, and we talk about various things as we head out.
Leila lives next door to me, and usually greets me when I head off to work in the mornings. She made me feel so welcome when I first came here, and even gave me a place to stay until I could afford my own place. On my days off, we sometimes have lunch or dinner together. Then, there is Elena, who is part of Shinra's Turks, and who I sometimes see while at work. All of them are nice, but I miss Cloud and Tifa very much. Is Cloud even still alive? An involuntary shudder coursed throughout the entire length of my body at the thought. No, he must be alive. He has to be. I may not have seen him for many years, but I know that Cloud is alive.
It started out like any ordinary day. I waved to Leila as I left to go to work, smiling as she wished me good luck with whatever tasks I would be given. She had no clue exactly what I did at work, but she knew that I worked in a lab. I wore a long white lab coat over a white shirt and black skirt. Yes, I had started wearing skirts, although I only really wore them at work. At home, or whenever I go out somewhere, I normally wear a tank top or tee shirt and pants. What can I say? I'm a bit of a tomboy, just as I have always been.
At Headquarters, I stopped on the second floor to say hello to Misty as she sat behind her desk, before I headed for the Lab on the 67th floor to see if Professor Hojo had anything he needed my help with. There was a new specimen, he told me, but right now he did not need my help as he was going to a meeting in a little while so I could work on whatever I wanted to in the meantime. Thank goodness, I thought as I breathed a sigh of relief. Hojo was kind of creepy, and I was always uncomfortable whenever he looked at me. It made me feel like one of the specimens in the lab whenever he laid eyes on me.
Since I was not needed for anything in particular, I headed for the research libraries on a lower floor, where Shinra keeps records on all sorts of things: plans for Midgar, files on SOLDIERs, Materia, the Jenova Project. I had already looked through the files on SOLDIERs, and had not found a file for Cloud despite rechecking all of the files several times in case I had overlooked his file somehow. That meant that he had not become a SOLDIER, as I could not fathom why anyone would remove his file and not put it back if he had become one.
So, what then? Had Cloud chosen a different position in Shinra, or had he just gone somewhere and felt too ashamed to return home after failing to become a SOLDIER? I had told myself that I would look through the files on all of the Shinra employees some time, to see if I could find a file on Cloud anywhere among them. I had not done that yet, but today was not the day for that. I had already decided that today I would look through the files on the Jenova Project. I had no idea what that project was about, and was quite curious to find out what it was. While I was worried about what had become of Cloud, my curiosity got the better of me in the end.
I headed into the library where the files on the Jenova Project were kept and grabbed a folder off the shelf. Opening the folder, I began to quietly read its contents. After a few moments I heard the library door open, but I did not stop reading to see who it was who had entered the library. I was too engulfed by the words on the pages I was reading to care who had come into the library at that moment. Then I heard someone gasp, and I thought they sounded familiar, so I looked up. And I gasped in surprise as I saw who it was.
"Addy!" Tifa exclaimed as she stared at me with wide eyes. I noticed a tall, dark skinned man behind her who gazed back and forth between Tifa and myself. I wondered who he was, but before I could even form words to so much as greet Tifa, another man appeared. One whom I recognized all too well, and my heart clenched as memories of my childhood flooded my mind. The man had spiky blond hair, and blue eyes. And, for some reason, he was wearing SOLDIER attire which puzzled me, but the thought was pushed to the back of my mind.
"Brother!" I cried, dropping the folder of files on the floor as I rushed over and hugged him tightly. It was Cloud! I could barely believe that he was here, after so many years of his absence in my life. "Where have you been?" I asked as I pulled away and looked him up and down. He had grown quite a lot, but he was Cloud, all right. Tears stung at my eyes as I gazed at him, still shocked to see him after all these years.
"Around." Cloud answered me, a small smile on his lips. "You work for Shinra now?" he asked, taking in my appearance. I briefly wondered if it was my lab coat or the fact that I was in this library that gave it away. "Yeah," I replied, smiling back at him. "I'm a researcher slash lab assistant." I added proudly.
"Addy," Tifa spoke up, and I turned to her, hearing the urgency in her voice. Some part of me expected her to be a little hostile, considering that I worked for Shinra, whom Tifa hated so much. Another part of me expected her to be worried about me, as she had been in the past. "It's been a while, Tifa." I said to her. "How have you been?"
"Um, okay." Tifa replied. She didn't sound hostile, just... awkward. Like talking to me was awkward. I guessed it probably was, considering I was sort of a Shinra lackey now. "Addy, do you know of someone named Aerith?" She asked me. I thought the name sounded a little familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.
"I'm not sure.." I replied to her honestly. "I think I might have heard someone mention an Aerith before. Why?" I asked, curiously. "She's a friend of ours and she was kidnapped by the Turks." Tifa explained to me quickly. I gave a nod at her explanation. If this Aerith had been kidnapped by the Turks, then chances were that she was in this building. I wondered, though, why they would kidnap someone. Had Aerith done something to get on Shinra's bad side?
"Then she must be in the building, somewhere. I can help you look for her. If that's alright?" I said, holding up my keycard proudly. "I can't get to every floor, but I can at least get us up to the 67th floor. She might be there." I added. "If you help us, you could get in trouble, Addy." Cloud spoke up, and I looked at him. His gaze was very serious, and held barely concealed worry that I still managed to pick up on. Considering that they weren't Shinra employees, I certainly could get in trouble for taking them to areas where they wouldn't otherwise be permitted to go.
"Well, it's my choice, and I want to help you." I told him, gazing back at him with a look that surely told of my own seriousness. "How did you three get in here, anyway? And who is your friend there, by the way?" I asked, looking at the tall man behind them. "That's Barret. And we, um, sort of snuck in... And got hold of a keycard." Tifa said. I nodded at the tall man, Barret after Tifa finsihed.
"Nice to meet you, Barret. Name's Adelina Strife, but call me Addy." I told him before eying Tifa. "Snuck in, huh? We better hurry, then. I don't think it will take that long before the guards become aware that there are intruders in the building." I told them before I picked up the files that I had scattered on the floor and put them back in their folder. I glanced at the shelf and then at the folder in my hands. I hadn't read much of what was contained in there, but what I had read of the Jenova Project so far had caught my attention. I grabbed the other folders with files on the Jenova Project and stuffed them into the bag that I carried with me.
No one was supposed to take files from the libraries, but, hey, if I got caught helping intruders I'd be in big trouble anyway and would probably never get the chance to check out the libraries here again, so I might as well take them with me. "Follow me." I told them before we left the library. I casually headed for the stairs, keycard in hand. I hardly ever took the elevator, unless I needed to be somewhere fast, because it sort of freaks me out. I didn't want to admit that to the others, and thankfully they didn't question my choice of taking the stairs.
Cloud, Tifa, and Barret followed behind me as I climbed up the stairs. As we climbed, I spoke to Tifa and found out that only the other day she had been reunited with Cloud. And that she, Cloud, and Barret were members of a group known as AVALANCHE. "Oh, boy. Then you three are really going to be in trouble if you get caught. Having blown those Mako Reactors, and all. And that deal about the plate over Sector 7." I commented. Of course every Shinra employee knew about what had happened in Sector 7, and that AVALANCHE was being blamed for it.
"It's them Shinra that are responsible for the plate falling in Sector 7!" Barret rumbled at me, sounding defensive and a bit angry. "O-okay. Gotcha." I said to him, eying his gun-arm nervously. Best not to make him angry. I imagined that others had learned that lesson the hard way in the past, and I didn't want to be one of them.
"Addy, are you sure you want to help us?" Tifa asked me again. "Who knows what Shinra'll do if they find out that you helped us." She added, and I shrugged. "Heh, probably fire me. But, I have the files I want, so let them go ahead and do that. I don't care." I said, grinning as I patted my bag that held the files on the Jenova Project. Tifa and Cloud still looked at me with worried expressions, and I rolled my eyes at them. "Hey, I'll live. Now, stop worrying about me." I told them. They both nodded in response.
We continued up the stairs silently for a while, until an idea struck me. "Hey, since we're going to be in big trouble anyway... Care to listen in on a meeting of the higher-ups?" I asked them, grinning. I had always wondered what those meetings were about, and this seemed like the best chance to find out. I might never get such a chance again, after all. "We might find out some useful information." I added when they did not reply right away to my suggestion.
The three of them finally agreed, and I led them to the 66th floor where the conference room was. "We can't go barging in, obviously." I told them. "And, we won't be able to hear anything by listening at the door. But, I do know of a way to spy on them." I said, grinning as I led them to the bathrooms on this floor. This might seem weird, I'm sure, to some people, but I had been in the bathrooms on this floor before and heard voices, even when there was no one else in there. I had looked around and discovered that the voices were coming from the vent above one of the stalls.
I led Cloud and the others to that stall and pointed out the vent. "We have to get up there." I told them. Cloud went first, taking the cover off the vent and climbing up into the passageway. Then he helped Tifa and then myself up, and then came Barret last. The four of us then crawled through the passage, towards where the voices seemed to be coming from. And we discovered another vent cover, above the conference room where the meeting was being held. I peered curiously down at the room below.
"Geez! That's a lotta suits!" Barret remarked as we spied on the meeting happening in the room below us. I had to agree with him. There was President Shinra, of course. I had seen him a few times before. Then there was Scarlett, a blond haired woman and head of the Weapons Division. I didn't know her well, but I didn't really like her very much. She didn't make a good first impression with most people. There was also Reeve, an executive in charge of Urban Development; he wasn't so bad. I had run into him once, and he had seemed rather nice and pleasant to talk to.
There was Heidegger, the head of the Public Maintenance and Order Division. I hated him, although I didn't know him well. He just rubbed me the wrong way. There was also Palmer, the head of the Space Development Division. I didn't know him well, either. Palmer... was just Palmer. I was drawn out of my thoughts as the people gathered in the conference room started speaking. "We have the damage estimates for Sector 7." Reeve was saying. "Considering the factories we already set up and all the investments, the damage is estimated at approximately 10 billion gil." he announced.
That's a lot of gil! I thought silently, my mouth dropping open at the unbelievable amount of money. "The estimated cost to rebuild Sector 7 is-" Reeve was saying, but the President cut him off. "We're not rebuilding." President Shinra told Reeve. I gasped at his statement. Why not rebuild? What about all the people whose homes were destroyed in Sector 7? They needed a place to live! "What?" I heard Reeve echo my thoughts.
"We're leaving Sector 7 as it is, and restarting the Neo-Midgar plan." President Shinra explained. Neo-Midgar? I had never heard of that before, and I'm not sure if I had seen anything about it in the library, either. "... Then the Ancients?" Reeve asked. I raised an eyebrow and leaned down closer to the vent, listening intently as the conversation continued.
"The Promised Land will be ours. I want you to raise the Mako rates fifteen percent in every area." President Shinra told Reeve. Fifteen percent! And what's this Promised Land he's talking about? I wondered as they spoke. "Rate hike! Rate hike! Tra, la, la!" Cried Palmer, and I cringed at the glee in his voice. "And please, include our Space Program in the budget!" I rolled my eyes at this. So like Palmer.
"Reeve and Scarlett will divide the extra income from the rate increase." President Shinra said to Palmer. "Oh man!" Palmer cried. Ha ha. I thought, almost grinning at Palmer's disappointment. "Sir," Said Reeve. "If you raise the rates, the people will lose confidence-" Again, he was interrupted by the President. I felt rather sorry for Reeve, seeing him constantly being interrupted by the President. "It'll be all right. The ignorant citizens won't lose confidence, they'll trust Shinra Inc. even more." President Shinra said.
Ignorant?! I thought angrily. Heidegger started laughing then, which only made me more angry to see him find that so funnt. How dare they! "After all, we're the ones who saved Sector 7 from AVALANCHE!" Heidegger said, and I gritted my teeth. I heard Barret cursing, and then I saw Hojo enter the conference room and I cringed again. "Hojo, how's the girl?" President Shinra asked. What girl? I wondered.
"As a specimen, she is inferior to her mother. I'm still in the process of comparing her to her mother, Ifalna, but for now the difference is eighteen percent." Hojo told the President. What is this about? Who is Ifalna? I wondered. "How long will the research take?" President Shinra asked Hojo.
"Probably 120 years. It's probably impossible to finish in our lifetime. Or in the lifetime of the specimen, too, for that matter. That's why we're thinking of breeding her. Then we could create one that could withstand our research for a long time." Hojo explained. I was starting to wonder who or what he was talking about. "What about the Promised Land? Won't it hinder our plans?" President Shinra asked. I was beginning to wonder what this 'Promised Land' was, too.
"That's what I need to plan. The mother is strong.. and yet has her weaknesses." Hojo said, turning around. He looked to be in deep thought. The President took that as the cue to end the meeting, and dismissed everyone. As they were leaving, I noticed Scarlett stop and sniff, then glance up towards the vent. I shrunk back so as not to be seen. "Something stinks..." Scarlett commented before leaving the conference room. Heh, yeah. The bathroom. I thought, snickering.
"They were talking about Aerith... Right?" I heard Cloud ask. I looked at the others curiously. Wait... I cringed, thinking back on the things Hojo had said. So, he had been talking about a person. Sounds about right, actually... I grimaced. I knew Hojo more than I cared to from working with him in the lab, and I knew how he was.
"I dunno. Probably." Said Barret in response to Cloud's question. "Probably." Added Tifa. "Knowing Hojo," I decided to chime in. I knew Hojo better than the three of them, I was sure. "There's a good chance they were."
"Let's follow 'em." Cloud said, looking at each of us in turn. We nodded, and the four of us crawled back and climbed out of the vent, then left the bathrooms. We peeked around a corner, seeing Hojo head for the stairs. "Hojo... Huh?" Cloud said before the four of us followed Hojo up the stairs. We stopped on the 67th floor.
"I remember him. That Hojo guy." Barret said, and I glanced at him. "He's in charge of the Shinra's Science Department." I nodded at this. "That's right." I said. He was my boss, after all, so of course I knew this already. "Cloud, don't you know him?" Barret asked, looking at Cloud. I wondered what Barret could mean. How could Cloud know Hojo?
"This is the first time I've actually ever seen him." Cloud said. "So.. that's what he looks like.." He said to himself quietly. I shrugged, deciding not to ask right now why Barret thought that Cloud might have known Hojo, and led the others to the lab.
