Clearing Up

For the rest of that day, nothing much happened. It was around suppertime when Lucrecia returned with the results of her visit to Hollander, which she told to Kariya—they were affirmative on all fronts except for the transfusion, as Sephiroth was away. Where her data check differed was in the realization of more than one method of fixing Genesis' J-cells, the ones currently causing his problem. Auryn knew how her checks on Genesis had gone because Kariya shared the results with him and Tseng. They stayed in for the day, and Auryn only left his bed to use the bathroom or eat in Kariya's kitchen.

The next day and the one following, they left him alone.

He was grateful for that, for the option to only see others when he ate at the older man's. Quiet days were both sacred and rare to him, and he desperately needed the time to calm down. Shortly after supper of the second quiet day, he went and sat on the balcony, looking out over the city as he thought about his current situation. He also sighed more than once, but the weather was nicer than normal and he wanted to stay outside.

Suddenly, shortly after one sigh, feet landed a foot away from him, on the rail he leaned on. He looked up in alarm—at...Doriss? She didn't have a suit jacket or tie on, but she was in the Turks' uniform pants and shirt, gazing at him curiously with shrewd, pale blue eyes. At twenty-five, she had her blond hair cut in a short, somewhat shaggy crew cut falling about to the chin, and her twin dagger thigh holsters were in place. He looked up at the balcony above his with the sudden realization that her apartment was right above his own. It seemed the Hounds had direct access to him, regardless of the Guards' efforts. She was also one of the few 'old hands' he'd been able to meet more than a handful of times or not at all, and had participated in harming him as rarely as Cissnei, Kariya, and Sirra.

She stared at him for a long moment before commenting, "So...You're Lady Shinra's new stray." It wasn't a question, so he just stared at her without reply. Her expression became amused before she shook her head. "I don't have any reason to hurt you. She takes in strays all the time—Hellfire, we take in strays all the time. It's nothing new, and I honestly have no idea why the others take it so personally and try to do anything at all to the newcomers." She then paused and jumped down to the floor of his balcony, then went to his balcony door and opened it, letting herself in so she could look around.

"I didn't give you permission to come in, you know," he told her crossly as he followed her.

"You also didn't try to stop me, verbally or otherwise," she replied breezily.

"That's part of the reason they were trying to keep anyone not in the Guards away from me," he replied, and she spun to face him with a confused expression.

"...You...Oh. You're like Donnel and can't actually defend yourself properly against those you perceive as having authority." She glared off into the distance as she muttered, "I always hate it when Verdot uses that against him. Stupid..." There was a pause, then Doriss began looking around again as she said more loudly—obviously not realizing Auryn had heard her— "I'm Doriss, by the way. I don't know that the Guards are as much on the up-and-up as they like to make newcomers think, but they usually are more forgiving than the Hounds. I'm not surprised they'd take care of you. Though, with no way out of this apartment, you're as good as a prisoner here."

"I can climb the outside of the building," Auryn informed her, making her face him with a surprised blink. "But that isn't why they wanted to have me in this room. It was meant to keep people away from me who were likely to cause me mental breakdowns or panic attacks."

"...And has it worked?" she asked curiously.

"Not when my triggers are ordinary things like someone caring enough to give me a shoulder to cry on," the younger blond offered. "If it's this bad with people who aren't trying to cause problems like that, I can't imagine what it would be like without that shield."

Doriss was quiet for a minute before sitting down at his table and motioning him to sit across from her. "Do you trust them?" she asked as he sat.

"...That's...complicated. I can't just answer it."

"I'd be more worried if none of the Hounds had any way to reach you or keep tabs on things. Because I can, and we can if we really need to, we can see how things go. Be cautious, though, because they can be just as vile as we can in the process of trying to get what they want."

"I'm aware of that. Why did you choose the Hounds instead of the Guards?"

"Why? My first experience as a new trainee who hadn't chosen a faction was to be attacked and badly wounded by one of the Guards who is now dead. It was Anki, who is notably psychotic, who found me and took me to the doctors for care, and even waited around to find out how I was doing once the doctors had moved me to another room. When Verdot asked me to join the Hounds, I agreed. After all, what did I have to offset that from the Guards? To his credit, I'm pretty sure our Director—Valentine, that is—killed my attacker soon after, and he gave me a sincere apology. He also doesn't tend to play the kinds of games with me that he does with other Hounds. That doesn't mean I'll suddenly feel safe with them."

Auryn was silent for a long time before he looked away and said, "None of this dynamic even makes sense to me. How long ago did Verdot attack Lady Shinra, and why did he feel he had to? Why did that split the Turks?"

"Is that what they told you happened?" she asked in surprise, and he turned back to her with a confused expression and a small nod. "To be fair, that was probably the final nail in the coffin of division," Doriss sighed softly. "But Auryn, this has been the case—the division, the Guards and the Hounds—for around twenty years, and that incident only happened seven years ago." His eyes widened at that. "I asked Verdot once why we're divided. He told me they've been such nearly since the start of the Turks, though it was a lot quieter and the President had a lot fewer of us."

She paused for a moment, shaking her head. "It was only a few people he had, but he had them because he had helped them when Lady Shinra had refused. She was only selectively helping people, even the Turks, and it was the President filling in the gap. Verdot was one of the ones Lady Shinra had refused to help, but whom President Shinra did.

"The turning point which caused the Guards and the Hounds to form was when Valentine disobeyed his orders and took Doctor Crescent and one of Hojo's experimental subjects to one of the Turks' hidden safe-houses until Lady Shinra found them. Only Doctor Crescent's word kept him from being executed, but those who agreed with his reasoning and those who didn't force-created the Guards and the Hounds. I can't say if he was ever right to do what he did or not, but that was the origin of the division. Verdot's loyalty to the President was literally the only reason he tried to carry out those orders to kill Lady Shinra, and the Guards took that as a personal affront—and, of course, so did anyone she had actually offered her assistance to. It just solidified a situation we were already in."

Auryn sat back in surprise as he gazed at the blond woman across from him, then got up and wandered back to the balcony door to stare outside.

They had lied to him.

He supposed it was possible some didn't know the whole story, but they were Turks, and he found it hard to believe they didn't know. Especially not Tseng, who was very, very good at knowing things he shouldn't have known.

At the same time, he couldn't think of a reason why they even needed to lie to him about that.

"...No one really knows anyone's reasons, do they?" he asked quietly.

"What?" Doriss asked in confusion.

"Why Lady Shinra helped some but not others, why the President helped anyone she didn't, why Vincent effectively kidnapped the Doctor and the subject, or many other events along the way. All everyone has is a series of actions or events with no purpose or motive," he clarified.

"Favoritism is favoritism."

"Not when favoring one person will mean slaughtering a town, while favoring another will save a life. Even if I wanted to help someone, if they were asking me to do something which would result in deaths, especially over an object, I couldn't bring myself to do it without another damned good reason. We don't know what those people were asking for, or if circumstances would have led to some other unpleasant situation. Did Verdot ever tell you what he asked for?"

"...No, but I was under the impression it was an object taken by thieves."

"Define 'thief'."

"Someone who steals things from others, takes things which don't belong to them without the owner's permission."

"So a starving man trying to feed his starving children is just the same as an average man stealing for the sake of making 'more' money than he had?"

"Stealing is stealing."

Auryn sighed. "Now I know the difference between the Guards and the Hounds."

"I beg your pardon?" Doriss asked in surprise.

"You Hounds operate in absolutes. There is no leniency, there is no look at motive or circumstances, just black or white—there's no gray, no in-between where things aren't simple to resolve," he told her. "That's—"

He was cut off by the sound of the door in his room opening as Kariya called, "Auryn! How about some company?"

When he looked back at Doriss, he couldn't see her and only knew she was there—and moving towards the wall where the front door should have been—because of both his bond with the Lifestream and his martial skills. Turning to look at his doorway as Kariya appeared in it, the blond sixteen-year-old said, "For a bit, I guess."

The man looked faintly amused, but moved over to sit on the couch. "You look like you're upset about something. Care to share, or would you rather find a different topic?"

Auryn blinked, then sighed and looked outside for a minute before asking, "Is there a difference between—say, someone stealing food to feed their family and someone stealing to make more money?"

The question made Kariya blink in surprise, but he said, "It's not fair to ask me that when I have a bias."

"What?" Auryn blinked, turning to look at him.

"When I was growing up, right up until I was about fourteen and joined a terrorist group, I was the 'someone stealing food to feed their family'," the man clarified. "Our father ditched us after Mom had given birth to their sixth child, my youngest sibling, and she had no feasible way to work and take care of us. We were all only a year or a year and a half apart in age, so I was—I think eight when the baby was born and he left. We all helped when we could, but I started stealing around age ten, mainly food, or even digging around in garbage bins, to try to keep us at least decently fed. When I joined the terrorists, that stopped—only because some Infantry on orders from the President started going from house to house in Junon and killing the working poor and those not lucky enough to have work at the time. Hence why I even joined the terrorists until the Turks caught me and—gave me sound reason to join them."

"...So if Shinra did that to you, how did it suddenly become okay to join them?" Auryn asked in surprise. He really was learning more about 'his family' in this dimension than he had in any previous one.

"Lady Shinra gave me the authority to kill Infantry stepping out of line like that, as long as she has a valid record of events and witnesses to trace so she can validate my actions. The President has stopped giving orders like that in the few years since I joined. Also, I think he's rather terrified of pissing off the Death God of the Battlefield. Lady Shinra gave me that authority because she knew the abuses of the Infantry had to stop, but I still can't stop everything, and they know they have a good chance of getting away with their abuses here in the city if many of them in different areas are doing the same thing. I can't kill the whole Infantry, after all."

After a pause, Auryn clarified, "So, to you, the reason why a criminal is doing something changes how you handle them?"

"Normally, especially in the example you gave—I'd be more likely to give someone trying to feed their family work, and only give them a real punishment if they kept stealing after having the issue resolved. What were you intending by your question? That is, what feelers are you putting out this time?"

The question was faintly amusing, but the blond sighed. "Would there be—any circumstance you could think of where what was done to me would be 'right'? That it would be justifiable?"

Kariya stared at him in something like horror. "Auryn, I don't think there's any sane human out there who can justify what you suffered through with something valid. That's for the purely psychotic who have no moral compass."

"That means you'd include Hojo in that."

"Even he has some limiters."

Auryn's brow rose and he asked, "Are you sure?" Kariya blushed, and the blond sighed again before shaking his head. "But would there ever be some kind of validation for it? I don't know if there is something far-reaching enough to—do that. At the same time, if there are reasons to justify things like stealing..."

"Again, personally, I can't see a justification for torture," the older man said. "If we had more information, it might be that they felt their reason was valid. If the various experiments were done in the hopes of creating someone capable of saving the world from its own destruction, maybe I could see those, but that would then be assuming they already knew the fate of the world. Knowing what I do about Leviathan's Blessing, there might be a plausibility to that option, but again—I can't see Leviathan giving someone that Blessing if he knew they were going to torture and experiment on an unwilling victim. I've never known a psycho to get it, anyway."

For several long moments, Auryn was silent, then he looked away again. "I was told Verdot trying to kill Lady Shinra caused the split between the Guards and the Hounds. I still—can't grasp the situation enough to know why it was so important."

"Who told you that was the split?" Kariya asked in surprise.

"Tseng," the blond blinked in surprise. "I don't know if Verde heard him, but if he did, he didn't correct him. Was he wrong?"

"He was about thirteen years too late," Kariya replied, a small frown creasing his brow. "It's possible the full explanation was missed because of the events happening around that time—I'm not clear on all the details from the Turks' perspective, but apparently their new recruits until they caught me a few months later all got a trial by fire, on both sides, then things calmed down again. I was told there had always been a few Turks who weren't actually working in Lady Shinra's favor, but about twenty years ago—basically not too long after I was told my son was dead—Vincent pulled a hijacking from Hojo's labs in Shinra Manor out in Nibelheim. To make a long story short, rather than let Hojo torture Lucrecia and baby Sephiroth, he took them to a Turk safe-house, and only reappeared when Lady Shinra found them. The Guards and the Hounds split then, either in Vincent's and the Lady's favor or in the President's. Verdot trying to kill Lady Shinra just—made sure the divide became complete."

Auryn blinked—it was the same story Doriss had told—and moved back over to his seat at the table. Finally, he asked, "So, you joined the Guards because Lady Shinra gave you permission to police the Infantry?"

The man leaned back with a small sigh and a faint smile. "Partly. I mean, I probably would have gone with the Guards regardless, because my 'Baby Turk' is here."

"Your...what?" the younger man stared in surprise.

He gave a chuckle. "Did 'Tseng' ever tell you how we first met?"

"Uh—you killed his mentor, but for some reason, you didn't kill him?"

The older man looked amused. "Yeah, that. He was really just a kid still, not that much different from you, but even when he was badly injured, had just watched his mentor die, and had me—notorious as I was—bearing down on him, he still didn't give up, still kept struggling to survive. For the first time, I saw a human being when I looked at a Turk, and I couldn't help but respect his strength. That's why I walked away, why I agreed to join the Turks, and why I'd have joined the Guards regardless."

"...Your 'Baby Turk'? I thought Cissnei universally held that label," Auryn put in flatly.

"I didn't know Cissnei then," Kariya shrugged. "And yeah, she's literally a 'baby' Turk, but I was calling Tseng that long before she was made a Turk, and I had given that nickname to him because he was a bare rookie—a 'Baby Turk'—who somehow got sent on a mission pitting him against the Death God of the Battlefield. I'm still trying to get Vincent and Lady Shinra to explain to me how that happened."

"They don't have one?" the blond blinked.

"Not so far," the older man shrugged. "I know accidents happen, but they won't use that as an excuse, so—I'm not really sure what to think except that they actually have no idea what went wrong themselves."

"Could they have done it on purpose?"

"For what reason, Auryn? I've searched my mind for any possible reason they'd have deliberately sent Tseng and his mentor on that mission to get them killed, and have never found one. After retrieving Tseng, they also became extremely protective of him, which would strongly indicate they hadn't meant to endanger him the way they did. On top of that, if they had meant to kill Tseng then, he wouldn't be next on the list to fill the role of the Turk Director's second if something happens to either Vincent or Verdot—even Verdot grudgingly agreed he'd accept Tseng as his second if he got bumped into the role of Director."

The new data made Auryn blink again, then sigh and drop his head onto the tabletop. "What a—fucking mess—you guys have made of things...You'd all be so much more effective if you were working together instead of being at each other's throats..."

"In some other lifetime, maybe," Kariya chuckled, reaching over to ruffle his hair. "By the way, do you like chocolate ice cream?"

Auryn perked up at the question and lifted his head to look at the man hopefully. "You have some?"

"Shelke and Shalua got some the other day, then told me to take some of it back home with me for you," he explained with an amused grin as he rose. "I'll go get it."

"Thank them for me!" Auryn called excitedly.

Kariya gave him a grin as he disappeared into Auryn's room and back through the door into his own. He returned soon after with a bowl and spoon for the teen, and with the remains of the ice cream in the package, which he put in the blond's fridge freezer. He then opted to let Auryn rest when he found the sixteen-year-old both wholly focused on the ice cream and lacking in further topics of discussion.

A few minutes after he'd left, Doriss reappeared beside the seat she'd used before and sat, eying him oddly, but waited until he'd finished eating his treat before saying anything. He beat her to it by saying, "Stealth Materia. I thought the only known copy belonged to the Goblin King on Goblin Island?"

She stared at him in surprise, then said, "I—took it from him about two years ago, found it Mastered almost right away, and gave him back the baby."

Auryn snorted at the words. "Thief."

"You asked me to define it, not to say I'm fully capable of being one. I also don't justify it—I wanted the item badly enough to want to risk it, but if at all possible, I return something to the person I stole from. It doesn't make it any less theft, and I know I could be—disciplined for it."

"So, why are you just hanging around here?" he asked, pushing his now-empty bowl to the side of the table.

She leaned her elbows on the table, linked her fingers, and leaned her chin on the linked digits as she gazed at him for a moment. Finally, she said, "You were risking a lot by getting into a discussion like that with him while I was here. Why did you do it?"

"I can turn words as well as any of the senior Turks, and I wanted to get some of those answers for myself. And you didn't really hear anything useful or new you can pass on to your superiors which will make any difference to me—you already knew I've been experimented on, after all. Apparently Verdot would have forced Donnel to tell him everything he knew about me and my situation?"

Doriss sighed. "That's true, and you aren't wrong in saying I didn't learn any key points. That doesn't mean I didn't learn plenty of things we could potentially use against you or the other Guards. I agree with Kariya, though—I can't see a justification for torture, no matter what kind of situation is in play."

He blinked in surprise at her, then gave a small smile. "Thanks. Having it reinforced by two very different people is—has more meaning than just a guy who likes playing daddy to a bunch of kids saying it."

The woman gave a snort and rose, but didn't move away from her seat. "Why are you so excited by ice cream?"

Auryn stared at her for a minute, then sighed and said, "It's been a very long time since I've had a treat of any sort, and this is—the only one I have left that I don't associate with a bad memory."

She nodded. "That makes more sense than I care to admit. If you ever need help, or if you just want to talk, drop in to my apartment upstairs. I'll leave the balcony door unlocked for you." With that, she walked out through the balcony door and quickly climbed back up to her apartment.