Sephiroth sat, mute, at Shinra's executive boardroom table.

Opposite him sat Director Scarlet's newest assistant, a trooper she picked for being pretty in just the way she liked. The trooper kept their head down and made no noise, except to laugh when Scarlet did.

Sephiroth did not laugh. He sat next to SOLDIER's Director Lazard and weathered the meeting with steady indifference born of long experience.

President Shinra spoke at length about Mako production numbers and distribution. Sometimes he barked questions at the table and one of his sycophantic dogs replied, but for the most part he didn't require much of his audience.

Unbidden an image rose in Sephiroth's mind of a pointy eared prisoner chained to a Cetra operating table. Professor Hojo smirked a reply to the President's question. Director Tuesti retorted with a toothless moral objection. The president ignored them both and continued on with what he had been going to say anyway.

In his mind's eye the elf struggled, pulling against manacles. His skin was red and blistered from futile resistance. His captors did not care. They didn't even look.

'You will die as surely as your friends,' Aega's memory whispered.

"Obviously Hollander's boys are a lost cause," President Shinra said, looking down the length of the table. "The public like them, but they're costing me more than they're worth."

Sephiroth focused on him. The President was already watching him.

"They could have other uses," Hojo said.

"Sir, Genesis and Angeal bring in countless recruits every year," Lazard said, removing his glasses in weak outrage. "The rest of SOLDIER looks up to them."

"The war's over, boy. Sephiroth brings in enough new blood on his own."

Sephiroth did not say anything. Heidegger made an argument that Hojo objected to. Lazard took Heidegger's side and it fell to bickering. The trooper laughed at something Scarlet didn't find funny and shrank in panic.

"No," the president said, cutting through the racket. They all fell back in chided silence. "They're liabilities. It's only a matter of time until they get some bright idea or do something stupid in public. Sephiroth. Take care of them before they do anything that embarrasses the company, will you?

The president watched him over his steepled fingers, from the head of the long table.

He could have argued if they were Lazard's orders, but it had been posed as a question. Which meant it was a test of loyalty.

"Yes sir," Sephiroth replied.

In his mind's eye the shackled elf looked up at his captors. They gently brushed his hair from his sweat soaked face and sewed disease into his flesh.

Heir of death and ruination.

Would Genesis have accepted the orders to cut down his friends? Or would he have publicly refused? Would Angeal? Would it be right to?

You are an infection upon the land.

Director Lazard and Hojo nodded and looked back at the president. They hadn't considered it to be a question at all.

Scarlet looked disappointed at his easy concession. Heidegger smirked at him, like he was a dog beaten and broken. The president turned to look out of the window, bored with it already.

He was just a weapon here, to be used and discarded when his superiors decided.

He hated them. He always had, but it had never felt like it mattered before. He was not here for his opinions, they did not respect him. There was nothing he could do. He was nothing, nobody.

Son of Andruil.

He did not want to be respected by them. He would gladly see them all burn.

"Tell me about the dead reactor in sector 4," the president demanded. "How are you going to defend other reactors from spiking fluctuations like that?"

The meeting rolled over him.

Soon Genesis and Hawke would be back in the city and he would have answers.


Midgar's smog lay thick and heavy like a blanket, only the sleek spikes of metal and glass skyscrapers pierced through it. Hawke watched from the window of the tiny airship as they descended down into the murky grey of the low cloud cover. The towering spikes rose up around them, and they fell further still, down below their foundations upon the plate and landed on the abandoned ground beyond the city's walls.

The airship slowed to a stop on the runway.

Next to her Genesis ran his hands down his face and breathed in deeply. His thigh pressed snugly against hers, and he made no move to get up despite the pilot telling them to get off his ship already.

Hawke unbuckled her seatbelt and stretched her legs out in front of her. It was going to be a muggy day, she could feel it. Hot and grey under the lid of smog, like boiling meat in a thin broth. They had planned to both go back to his apartment and from there decide how best to tackle their 'Blight problem', as Genesis had taken to calling it. She didn't feel very optimistic, but optimism hadn't been a necessary component in any of her previous victories either.

She peered out the window at the activity on the runway, the workers rushing backwards and forwards around the hangar, unloading and reloading. Under the wing of the plane they were offloading cargo.

A mop of messy red hair above a black suit caught her eye. Her back straightened.

The change in posture caught Genesis attention and he looked over too. His jaw clenched.

"Are they here for me or for you?" she asked quietly, her eyes fixed to the Turk.

Reno tapped his mag-rod against his shoulder and looked patiently up at the ramp which was their only exit.

"They wouldn't send Turks out to get me," Genesis replied in the same quiet tone. "Reno is your handler, isn't he?"

"I.. suppose he is." She had known from day one that that was all the drinks and cards added up to, but it sounded so much worse out loud.

Genesis got up and held a hand out to her. She let him pull her to her feet.

This felt different to coming home to enemies making themselves comfortable in her kitchen. She ducked her head to look out at the hangar roofs but couldn't spy any figures up there. Of course she couldn't, Shinra owned the plane, the crew, and the airport. What did they need snipers for?

She narrowed her eyes and straightened. "This is a performance, isn't it?"

"Most likely."

"Well, I know my lines." She had been handling Reno right back for a year now. "It's probably just another questioning."

Genesis looked at her with his lips turned down and his blue eyes pinched. The air crackled with the soft hum of his shielding spell blocking out any listening bugs.

"It might not be," he said.

"I think I can talk them down from anything worse," she replied. She wasn't entirely sure which of them the reassurance was for, or who she thought would actually be convinced. By the time the Templars marched down the road to your house it was already too late. They'd never taken her yet, but she couldn't keep burning the house down and leaping to the next roof.

"And if you can't?"

She let out a thin breath. "I've never known how to lose with grace."

Genesis nodded slowly. The passenger cabin was empty of anyone else, all the crew and the other military personnel had disembarked already. They stood close to each other in the narrow space between the seats.

"If you kill a Turk you'll never know another moment's peace."

"If I cave I'll never know peace again either." She cracked a smile. "Well, they'll call it peace, but only in that corporate, euphemistic, doublespeak way, while they slap manacles around my ankles."

His expression darkened. "It won't come to that."

She shrugged. "I suppose if they were carting me off to a damp, dark cell somewhere they wouldn't be standing out in the open where we can see them."

"I mean I won't let it come to that." He lowered his voice. "If you don't contact me within three hours I will come and get you. Wherever they take you."

She paused. "Can you afford to do that?"

"I can't afford not to." His eyes roamed over her face, before settling on her eyes. "I don't lose with grace either."

"Neither does Shinra."

He looked out the window again, the angle when standing left them blind of all but the black and white tarmac. Two of the most powerful people on the planet, and it didn't count for anything.

"Damn them," he hissed under his breath.

She put a hand on his chest. He sighed and looked back at her. The blue of his eyes was so light in the cold interior lighting as to completely mute the glow. His heart thudded strong and reassuring under her palm. He ran a hand along her upper arm and they shared a look. She sucked in a steadying breath.

Then she squared her shoulders. He lifted his chin and pulled himself up to his full height. The thin crinkling shield spell fell away and they turned to the job at hand, pulling down their bags from the overhead compartment.

"They'll ask about you and I," she commented idly, "what am I telling them?"

"Surely you don't need to ask?" he drawled. They walked together through the thin passages to the ramp.

"You have a very public career. My professional reputation is already set."

"As is mine."

They reached the exit. He slid on a pair of overly large sunglasses and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"I don't do anything privately I'm not prepared to do publicly," he declared.

It was such a delightfully bald faced lie she couldn't help a laugh and a toothy smirk. They descended the ramp with a careless saunter she could be proud of.

Reno looked up at them with a suspicious leer.

"Reno!" Hawke called when they got to the bottom, like it was some crazy coincidence. "What are you doing here?"

He grinned. "I'm your ride home."

"Are you?" Genesis asked.

"Hers, not yours. Wanna see the paperwork? Don't worry, dotted all my t's and crossed my i's, it's all above board."

She snorted. "I'll be very disappointed in you if it is."

Genesis squeezed her shoulder and they traded an affectionate goodbye that didn't even come across as strained, she was pretty sure. Then she slung her little bag over her shoulder and let Reno lead her towards the road. They crossed it, not in the direction of the car park but towards the train station.

"Wait, you didn't drive? What kind of ride do you call this?" she asked. Relief spiked in her rib cage as she tapped on and crossed the turnstiles. In a car she had no control. On the ground in a crowd she had all sorts of options. Then again, so did he, he was more of a street than she had ever been.

"Thought you might enjoy the walk more," he said, with false innocence.

She rolled her eyes.

They took the train in silence and got off nearest to her house. They walked side by side through the meandering alleyways and unsealed streets piled with rubbish. There were a lot more signs of rioting and destruction than when she'd left. Boarded up shops, marauding MPS, and boarded up shops. Military checkpoints split up the slums and for the first time she saw SOLDIERs patrolling below the plate.

They turned down an empty back alley behind a row of cheap restaurants. It stank of old meat and grease. There were a few too many side alleys splitting off of it she couldn't see the ends of. They were being followed by Turks she didn't know and hadn't picked out yet, but she knew they were there.

"How was your little getaway?" Reno asked. "See all the sights?"

"So much sand. I wish I'd known it was a desert ahead of time, I'd have packed a hat," she replied. Her eyes jumped from the roofs to the overhead windows, to the little gaps in the wall. "Maybe an extra water bottle."

"Uh-huh."

Someone walked across the entrance of the alley behind them and she gave a quick look in her periphery. It was a street kid. He disappeared back into the hustle and bustle of the street.

"Calm down, yo. If this was a hit I wouldn't be standing within stabbing range," Reno drawled. "We'd have started with the long range attacks."

"That's not very reassuring."

"Should be." He stopped walking. "Bailing on us without warning for ten days and getting nothing worse than the welcome wagon? No gratitude."

She stopped too. "I'm not a Shinra employee, I don't need to apply for leave."

"Na. You're a person of interest." He pulled out a cigarette and placed it in the corner of his mouth. "You don't get leave."

"Leave from what? I'm not even getting paid."

"Don't play dumb, Hawke. You're no good at it."

"Then don't waste my time. Spit it out already."

He lit the cigarette and took a long drag, watching her thoughtfully throughout. She crossed her arms.

"You're restricted to the city limits."

She scowled. He had given up his smirk.

"Or what?" she asked, because she had to. She knew him too well for it not to sting, for her to not want to throw it back in his bony face and ask him where he got the gall.

"Or you're a flight risk and we have to bring you in."

She tilted her head in a mockery of calm understanding. "Assuming you catch me."

"Yeah, you're a slippery one." He nodded back with the same attitude. "If it looks like you're gonna do a runner, we'll plant a tracking chip under your skin."

A dread she knew better than her own name passed over her like a wave. It was followed by anger, so cold and strong it seized in her limbs and clogged up her throat.

"Remind me to short circuit your mag rod next time we get into a bar fight," she forced out, with an off kilter smile.

He gave her a knowing look. "Be glad we're not limiting you to the sector"

"I'm not."

"This is the easy way. You know we can make your life a lot harder."

"I'm supposed to be grateful, am I?" she said quietly, "that you decided to only take away some of my freedom?"

"Yeah. You are." He blew out a cloud of choking smoke with a scowl. "I had to fight to only threaten the tracking chip, yo, instead of having it waiting for you on the tarmac. Give me a break. 'S not personal. Just how it is."

"No it isn't," she spat. "It's not 'how it is', it's what you and yours have chosen to do."

He shrugged. "Tell yourself that if you want. Complaining ain't gonna make a difference."

She looked him up and down, disgusted.

"Why not just bring me in now? Why the pretense of slowly tightening the noose when you can just kick the stool out from under me and be done with it?"

"Why not have a good time while you can?" He flicked the stub onto the ground and met her star head on, although not for long. "Might never come to that."

"Tell yourself that, if you want."

"I will." He forced his scowl into a bitter smirk. "Thanks for the permission."

It was his turn to stare her down, and her turn to play along. She knew her part, but the cold, numbing rage made her struggle to remember why she should. Her hands were perfectly still with the strength of her anger. She knew if she threw a knife it would her aim true. There were a million reasons to just quietly take her lumps for now, from the armed Turks following them to Genesis, to Aerith, to the Blight, to any chance of ever getting home. She had to forcibly remind herself why any of that mattered.

Reno raised an eyebrow and put a hand on his hip, right next to where his mag rod hung from his belt. A reprimand for her letting the act slip.

If she didn't play along they would decide she couldn't be trusted with a simple perimeter and there would be no more second chances. They'd put some technology she didn't understand beneath her skin, worse than any phylactery, and she'd never be free again.

She smiled, radiant and spiteful. "Your welcome."

He smirked, as was required of him.

She thought he probably really didn't want to have to bring her in. It was a cold comfort. They both did things they didn't want to do all the time.

"Drinks on Thursday?" she asked.

He sucked his teeth and hesitated.

Maybe she'd already blown her chance.

She resolutely did not reach for her knife. He watched her hands.

Then he spread his arms, "You know it, babe."

He turned and sauntered away.


Genesis got a message from Hawke as he drove through the streets of the upper plate. She was safe, simply grounded.

She didn't sound happy. He wasn't happy either. The lingering joy they'd found together out in the wilderness had been thoroughly stamped out.

He noticed with disquiet the heavy SOLDIER presence throughout the city. Domestic peacekeeping was normally the job of the military police. Anti-Shinra slogans had been spray painted everywhere and roads were closed through multiple sectors. That must have been why his leave was cancelled. He suspected all SOLDIER leave would be cancelled and the forces last used to crush a sovereign nation were patrolling their own streets, hunting for dissent.

Why hadn't he left Shinra when Hollander gave him the chance?

He had thought maybe he'd get to keep it all. His career, his health, his hard earned reputation. Maybe Shinra wouldn't strangle them with their own enhancements, strip them of all dignity, and then bleed them dry. He was waved through a SOLDIER guarded check point. His own naivety disgusted him.

His side had started to ache on the flight back. He was so accustomed to it now he rarely noticed it. His fingers tingled in their gloves as he tapped them against the steering wheel. He couldn't stop noticing it. It had refused to go away since he dreamed of the infected dragon.

He pulled up outside of Angeal's town house and let himself in. There was nobody home. It looked dark and empty inside, nobody but the cleaners had been there in some time. The plants were missing too.

He looked around the place and swallowed down his alarm.

Sephiroth hadn't said much on the phone, but he would have said more if Angeal had taken a very bad turn again. Wouldn't he?

Genesis shook his head of the ouroboros of worries in his chest, eating their own tails. He locked up again and drove to Sepiroth's place. The apartment was within a Shinra owned complex. The red logo was plastered on the walls of the foyer. Other SOLDIERS hung around, this was where Shinra tended to house its military people who didn't want to find their own accommodations, or who it had determined needed to remain within company walls.

A Third Class sat on the foyer desk, reading a magazine. He was humming something. It sounded familiar, one of those irritating ear worms probably off a commercial. He stalked down the corridor with the irritating tune repeating in his head.

He passed another SOLDIER who was hanging around the windows to the west facing courtyard. He was humming the same song. Genesis scowled and told him to stop it.

The SOLDIER blinked at him slowly then nodded.

Genesis left him there with a stupid expression on his face and took the elevators. Unease settled into his stomach.

He got out on one of the higher levels. There was a SOLDIER standing by the windows. This one wasn't singing, thankfully. Genesis belatedly recognised him as Kunsel, one of the rare Second Classes with a brain in his head. It was hard to tell under the standard issue helmet.

He was staring out of the west facing window at a sky full of nothing.

Genesis slowed down as he passed him. The clouds were low and the smog thick, there was no view whatsoever.

"What are you looking at?" he snapped. The stupid tune was still running in loops through his head.

"I've been asking myself that for the last thirty minutes, sir," Kunsel said.

Genesis narrowed his eyes at him and looked out the window too. Kunsel wasn't an idiot, but it really was just a churning white void of cloud. Or… was it? Were his eye playing tricks on him? It was still nothing to be seen in the clouds, he knew that for certain.

"There's something to the west," Genesis said.

Kunsel nodded. "The song's getting louder too."

Deep unease settled within him.

There was no expression to be read on Kunsel's shiny helmet.

"Keep that to yourself, SOLDIER," he said, his voice slightly unsteady.

How many others were hearing it? Was it all of them or just the higher ranks? Had Shinra covered the entire city in compromised SOLDIERs?

Kunsel went back to staring into the clouds.

Genesis left him to his vigil and continued on to Sephiroth's apartment. He swiped the keycard, afraid of what he might find.

Angeal stood in the semi dark, surrounded by rotting plants.


A/N: Thank you for reading! I appreciate you sticking with me and leaving feedback. The updates are going to continue at a fortnightly pace from here on out.

Next Time: Sephiroth vs Hawke, round 2.