Chapter Eight

Genesis bolted out of the kitchen and tore up the stairs. The horrible shrieks were continuing, and coming from Grozni and Yukki's room. "Azimawa!" Genesis yelped, as yet another piteous screech reached his ears. What, he wondered, in the names of all the gods were they doing to his poor angel? What sort of hideous, evil torture, that only a child's mind could come up with, were they subjecting his poor baby to?

Throwing open the door, he ran inside, his eyes roving the room. After a moment of searching, they settled on his angel. She was atop a table, her back arched and her tail an unnatural thickness, screeching down at Grozni, who was reaching for her. She was a good foot above him, but he was doing his best to cover the distance, stretching as far as he could stretch. "Kit-ty!" he laughed, somehow unfazed by her fearsome shrieking.

Genesis, agape with horror at his cat's predicament, lurched forward, pulling Azimawa from anywhere near the toddler's grasp. "Don't even think of touching her, you!" he scolded.

Azimawa continued to yowl, even as Genesis tried to comfort her, and Grozni, smarting from his rebuke, started to bawl.

"How dare you yell at my brother?" Yuffie demanded, barging past Genesis and toward Grozni. "It's alright," she comforted, holding him. "He's just a big, mean, stupid Shinra thug!"

Genesis, meanwhile, was telling Azimawa, who was struggling to break free of his grasp, "It's alright, my angel...he's just a filthy, nasty Wutai brat. You're safe...I won't let them touch you!"

"Don't worry," the girl was continued to assure her brother, "Yuffie's here. I won't let that fiend hurt you!"

The child and the cat, both still howling, seemed only to irritate each other, so Genesis decided it was best to get Azimawa out of the room. As they departed, Yuffie seemed to manage to quiet her brother, because Grozni's crying ended also. The teenager followed Genesis, demanding loudly, "How dare you scare my brother like that? Just because he was saying 'hi' to that disgusting, ghoulish cat of yours?!"

Azimawa, her eyes big with fright and her ears flat against her head with displeasure, loosed a final howl, and leapt from Genesis' arms. The redhead turned fiercely on the girl, now. "How dare I?" he asked. "How dare you talk like that about her?! Did you see what he was doing to her?! Trying to touch her -- trying to touch her -- with those gross, tiny, spitty, germ-covered hands of his!"

Yuffie stared open-mouthed at him, for once at a loss for words.

* * *

Genesis was trying to lure Azimawa out of hiding with innumerable cat treats and extraordinarily foul-smelling canned cat food when Angeal returned. "Hey, umm...how's it going?" the dark-haired SOLDIER ventured, although he guessed the answer wasn't going to be a very good one.

"You're never going to believe the hell that I've endured," Genesis groaned. "And my poor Azimawa!" Angeal hesitated for a moment, as if wondering if he dared ask what had happened; Genesis, however, beat him to the punch. "First, Yuffie had to go through the whole kitchen finding things she didn't want to eat before settling on something to eat. Then that miserable little rodent started torturing my poor Princess."

"Which...'miserable little rodent'?" Angeal asked.

"The boy, Grozni," Genesis returned, his voice laced with distaste as he spoke the child's name. "He chased the poor cat over to a table, and had her trapped up there. She was crying -- so piteously -- and he kept pursuing her. She was terrified -- absolutely terrified!!"

"But...what did he do to her?" Angeal wondered, confused by his friend's use of the word 'torture', and the rather mild annoyance that he described.

Genesis glared at him. "I just told you! He chased her over to a table, and wouldn't let her down!"

Fighting to keep still the eyebrow that was trying to creep up his forehead, Angeal asked, "You mean...that's it?" This was clearly the wrong question to ask, because Genesis' expression turned stony. "I mean," Angeal hurried to explain, "he didn't actually hurt her?"

"Of course he hurt her!" Genesis erupted. "The poor little girl has suffered enough emotional trauma in her life already, not to have to be subjected to that sort of terror!"

At that moment, Yuffie's voice came to their ears. "Ahh, I thought I heard you," she said, addressing Angeal. "We've got a problem -- a big problem, mister!" She stood glaring at Angeal, her hand on her hip, in an extremely authoritative and rebuking manner.

"Umm...we do?" the dark-haired SOLDIER managed, at a complete loss to understand either her words or her attitude.

"Yes, we do!" she snapped. "You see that?" Here, she pointed to Genesis, who rolled his eyes at her words. "That thing that you have us living with absolutely will not do!"

"He won't?"

"No, he won't! First of all, he's always putting us down and treating us terribly. Plus, he was yelling at my brother because he tried to say hi to that deranged, hideous cat of his. And, to top it off, he's a gods awful cook."

Angeal cleared his throat. "I see."

"You see?" Genesis broke in at the same time. "This is what I mean! This is what I have to put up with! You hear the way she talks about Azimawa? No respect whatsoever -- even after her brother was torturing her!"

"It's bad enough to be a prisoner," Yuffie was continuing, "without having to endure treatment like this. We are Kisiragis, and no one -- I mean NO ONE! -- talks to us the way this...this..." Once again, she was at a loss for words.

Angeal sighed. This was going to be a long day...a very long day.