A/N: The poll has a total of ten votes (a very mixed batch of them! :D) now, so I'm working on fine-tuning the list for OC's I know already are going to show up. It'll get posted with the last chapter of what I'm dubbing 'part 1' (that's a few chapters away), and the poll will also stay up until then if anyone else wants to add votes to it. More details will be included at the start of the list, which is, of course, optional for all readers.

Phoenix: Thank you for the review!

Reminders

Knowing it was time to get used to their new names, Tseng—Haruna—led Neirine—Hokuto—to the house where he—she—Maya, and Hokuto were going to be living in the city. As they approached, she briefly wondered if she should knock to announce herself, then remembered it was supposed to be her home, so she should be able to just walk in. Hokuto was starting to pant with the effort of so much walking, so she was thankful they were near the home now. More than anything, that told her the girl still needed some time to recover, even if she was doing much better than prior to the Nibelheim trip.

"When we get there, find something you can do for the rest of the day, pick a place to sit, and don't move except to go to the bathroom and eat, all right?" she said, deliberately using Wutain.

"Yes, Nee-chan," Hokuto agreed in Wutain, using the traditional and familiar term for 'older sister'. She was smiling as she said it, and there was mirth in her eyes. She was being a teasing brat, and she very well knew it.

Regardless, the title-name was valid for their current roles, so would be expected, and Haruna was actually okay with that, though it was odd to hear the address as the one for an older sister rather than for an older brother, which would have been Nii-chan. Hikaru had called her Nii-chan because she'd been in her male body then. Now, Nee-chan was somehow both painful and cathartic, inducing both happy memories and sad ones.

She was distracted from the thought as they reached the walk up to the front door of the small house, so she turned up it and made her way to the door, Hokuto following behind her then. At the door, she paused only for a moment before opening it—and finding herself stepping right into the kitchen. That was good, she liked that. And Maya had turned from the stove to look at her, gave the two of them a grin, and went back to what she was doing—obviously, making breakfast. With the black haired woman dressed in traditional Wutain clothes and with her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, she actually could pass very well as a born-and-bred Wutain woman.

"Sit," she told them—in Wutain, Haruna was mildly surprised to note. "Breakfast is almost ready. I hope you'll be fit to work today after your early morning, Haruna?"

"I should be fine," Haruna agreed. "Will Hokuto be fine on her own for the day?"

"I'm making enough for her to have for lunch, and there are some snacks up there," she answered, pointing at one low cupboard beside the fridge. "We'll just go to a café for lunch, then come home for supper."

Haruna ushered Hokuto over to the table, pushed her into a chair—if only it was a traditional Wutain home!—and sat as well. Their tailor...Really? "I didn't know you knew Wutain, Maya," she commented, and Hokuto blinked in surprise as she glanced between the two.

"Hey, I traveled to learn my skill, Haruna. I just never grasped certain cultural elements before because when I traveled, I had thought clothing and tradition were two separate things. In Shinra culture, they largely are, but Wutains—it's all tied together. I was too young and idealistic and stupid back then to realize that fact. Now, I know better," Maya answered indignantly.

"So...do you also know some martial skills you haven't shared with me?" Haruna asked dryly.

"Does that matter for some reason?" the older woman asked in mild surprise.

"If you're posing as a Wutain, absolutely. There isn't a single Wutain who doesn't know martial arts, and most can handle weapons as well, though some do show up who don't know a thing about the latter. Knowing martial arts, though...That's not optional," Haruna explained.

"Oh, I get it!" Hokuto suddenly grinned, making Haruna blink at her as Maya chuckled.

Then, the older woman said, "Well, I know some self-defense, if that will be good enough to keep up the illusion?"

"I'll test you after work today. If it's good enough, I'll know then," Haruna agreed.

Right then, Maya finished the meal and put it in dishes to take to the table, and Haruna raised a brow when she saw a traditional Wutain breakfast. "Thank Kariya—he taught me to make some traditional dishes while we were waiting for you to join us." That made Haruna snort as Hokuto snickered.

"Well, at least he's making himself useful," Haruna commented, which produced another round of giggles from Hokuto. "And thank you for this, Maya." The other woman grinned and sat at the table with them.

The three put their palms together in a prayer-like position, said the traditional meal opening, "Ittadakimasu," (which generally translated to 'thank you for the food', or more literally, 'I eat this'), and started eating. It was annoying how some phrases just didn't translate well into Standard, but it was what it was, and since they all knew Wutain, they didn't need to translate.

After eating, they had about ten minutes to help get Hokuto settled, for Maya to give Haruna a quick tour of the house, then for the two women to start on the trip to the shop. The house had another door leading out to a small yard of sorts, which was off the living room. The living room itself was down a short hall from the kitchen, and the short hall had two rooms, a small bathroom and a laundry and storage room. From the other side of the living room was another hall leading to four more rooms—a full bathroom and three fairly small bedrooms, though for some reason, the Master had been left for Haruna. It was across the hall from Hokuto's and Maya's.

"Why did you give me the largest? You're the oldest," Haruna asked of the woman as they walked to the shop.

"Hey, it's your home and your shop. I may be a close friend of your family for our purposes, but you're the head of the house and I'm really just a guest," Maya replied in an almost dry tone.

Haruna couldn't argue the point, so just sighed and shrugged. "So...the shop?"

"You have clients to meet, hear their requests, and make a decision—three just in the week we've officially been open for business. Otherwise, business as usual," Maya replied, then stopped at the back door of a building to unlock and open it.

Despite the shop being just a loading dock, a storage room, a couple offices, and a large main room (full of shelves of fabric bolts and stands of tailoring patterns), she was somehow fascinated by it, and thought selling fabric may not be so bad after all.

MB

Vincent was sitting in Verdot's—now Veld's, some twenty years later—office, just staring at the man while he worked. Cloud and Tifa were out in the main office, introducing themselves to the rest of the Turks, who all found the pair utterly adorable. He wasn't sure what to think of anyone thinking Cloud was 'adorable', but at least the blond didn't seem to mind the attention. With the door open, sometimes he could hear snippets of discussions in the main room, and was surprised to find not all of it was centered on the children taking up positions with them.

"How long are we supposed to wait?" Vincent asked suddenly, wondering why the President was taking so long to meet with him, Cloud, and Tifa. It was nearly noon, and by then, Heidegger had come and gone, a lot like a Grand Horn on a rampage. And it really had been a rampage, as he'd actually destroyed two of the Turks' desks (and other assorted items) when he realized Tseng was undercover and wasn't going to be there for weeks, if not months. He'd stopped short of striking anyone in that office, but otherwise...He really hadn't realized what the Wutain, or anyone in Shinra, had been dealing with since Heidegger's promotion.

"I don't know," Veld sighed, looking up from his paperwork. "He tends to make people do things on his time, not theirs, and I can't predict when he's going to decide to be prompt."

"You mean to tell me he makes people wait more often than he handles things in a timely manner?" Vincent's brow rose, and the man across the way winced.

"...Lady Shinra used to make him mostly keep to timelines and reasonable meeting times," the brown haired man sighed, his gaze pained.

Tipping his head to the side, the black haired man thought about that for a minute, then said, "You killed her. Why?"

"Orders."

"That would assume you were never loyal to her."

"She wasn't loyal to me!" Veld burst out suddenly, and all sound from the other room stopped as a sense of shock permeated the air.

Before Vincent could stop himself, he was on his feet, fists planted on the desk (the metal one splintered the surface) and hissing in fury in Veld's face, "You son of a bitch! She was more loyal to any of us than we could ever have hoped to repay, and she bent over backwards trying to help us! And you have the gall to think she betrayed you? What fantasy world have you been living in for the last three decades?"

"You weren't one of the ones she never helped, who she never gave closure to!" Veld replied angrily, rising and putting his own fists on the table less than an inch from the other man's so he could lean into Vincent's face. "But the President did!"

"Never...Wait, what? When did he actually give you 'closure'?" Vincent asked, suddenly shocked as he realized something didn't add up. He hadn't known what Verdot had wanted back then, just that it had been a family heirloom, but he'd helped the woman start choosing people who would have gone to a town's defense force. He was sure the item Verdot wanted had been in the town in question, and the defense force had been related to that—but after the bandit attack...

"Obviously after she refused," Veld answered, his eyes pained.

"...Verdot, that's impossible unless he sent the bandits to slaughter the entire town!" Vincent answered, his eyes widening in horror. "Because all the plans she had been making then—plans I helped with—to get it, whatever 'it' was, back from the townspeople had been forced to come to a halt when she got word that the town didn't exist anymore after a bandit attack wiped it off the map! And they had taken everything—including whatever you were after! She sent Turks to check the town as soon as she heard, so unless you're going to accuse Moira, Veda, and Alan (1) of being liars and traitors, she only couldn't get your item because she had no way of finding it again!"

For a long moment, Veld just stared at him with wide eyes, but then slowly said in a faint voice, "He told me he just sent a couple Infantrymen to retrieve it from the town's statue quietly in the middle of the night..."

The two men stared at one another in horror before Veld leaned back and sat heavily in his chair, gazing blankly down at his desk.

"Um..." a voice began from the door, and they realized they had a gathering. Of Turks. The one in the lead, and who had spoken, was Terri (2), who went on when he saw he had their attention. "It sounds like you need someone to dig around in the archives for you. Around when am I looking?" His hair and eyes were brown, like the fedora and whip he wore, and he'd foregone the tie from the uniform. Other than a couple buttons at the neck being undone and the missing tie, he was wearing it properly.

For a moment, Veld didn't answer, but then he looked up searchingly and asked, "You're willing to do that, when it's something personal for me?"

Terri's brow rose as several of the Turks snorted. "Veld, what we just heard has a lot of implications we all don't like much—for all of us. If we can clear it up, we have a much better idea of what we're dealing with, especially with Tseng having the Blessing. And I'm guessing he's not the only one who has it."

Vincent turned back to Veld and said, "It's actually better for someone else to go looking than for you or me to do it. And if he just ball-parks what he's looking for to events of mass slaughter in that year, we might find out other things, too."

With a deep sigh, Veld shook his head. "It's not one year, Vincent, and it's not just me that process of events happened with." Everyone's eyes widened and the brown haired man looked up at Terri. "If you want to, you'll need to check years nineteen sixty-six to nineteen sixty-nine for sure. There may even have been others I didn't know about—I spent a good six months in nineteen seventy out of commission."

"I'll check right up to the end of nineteen seventy, then," Terri nodded. "Just make sure I'm registered as 'on assignment' for the duration, since that's a lot of paperwork to slog through."

"I'll do that, then," Veld agreed. "Thank you, Terri." The other man nodded and turned to leave, so the Director faced his computer and began formally registering all of the Turks not available to be called just then—he'd missed one other Turk, Rude, who had gone out after checking some paperwork that morning, Vincent noted as he scanned the list while Veld worked. That left them now five Turks down—Eonna, Donnel, Tseng, Rude, and Terri. Those weren't bad odds for their office.

Vincent re-took his seat for a minute, tapping one finger on his arm as he thought, then he asked Chaos, :Did you hear all of that?:

:I did, Host. It sounds as though the threads of destruction run deep. Do you really want to play his game like a good little puppet?: Chaos asked in reply. His tone was oddly serious.

:What do you mean?: Vincent asked with a small, mental frown.

:I mean, Host, that your plan was to charge in and force his hand to take you back. Right now, you are slipping back into the habit of obeying your 'superiors' by mere title, a position that man is not worthy of holding over you. Perhaps Lady Shinra would have been—I have no idea what kind of person she was to judge her—but he is not. Would it not be better to remind him that you have power and will only tolerate being ignored for so long? Perhaps then he will tread cautiously around you,: Chaos replied evenly.

For a minute, Vincent thought about that, wondering if he had intended to 'charge in' rather than simply be blunt, but a glance at the veiled pain in Verdot's eyes, a depth of hurt he knew intimately, made him reassess that point. Maybe it hadn't actually been his plan originally to take matters into his own hands, but on Verdot's behalf, he suddenly felt a sense of self-righteousness in taking exactly that action. It would be one small part of his old friend's vengeance, and it would remind the President that he doesn't, in fact, control everything.

So, he rose and announced, "I'm tired of waiting, so I'm going to go in there, whether he likes it or not." He then turned and marched towards the door.

"Wait, Vincent, you can't just—!" Veld began in alarm, realized Vincent wasn't going to stop, and quickly followed him, catching up quickly. Then he glanced back and saw Cloud and Tifa trade looks before running to catch up to them, staying just behind them as Vincent led the way to the elevator and up to the President's office through floor sixty-nine.

The secretaries called after them to try to stop them because the President was in a meeting, but Vincent ignored them and kept going, Veld on his heels and the two children right behind the men. When the women silenced, Vincent assumed Veld had given them a 'safe' code, but he hadn't bothered to look and see. The first thing he saw when he reached the top of the stairs was the President's large office, at the head of which was a massive desk. To the rear was the usual seating area, but the furniture had been upgraded. Overall, it hadn't changed much from the one in Junon, or the future Midgar one, so he didn't even break his stride as he headed for the desk.

The only thing which actually gave him a moment of pause was seeing Sephiroth standing across the desk from where the President sat, but it was a short one as he focused on the blond man—who had put on quite a bit of weight lately. His burgundy suit fitted well despite that.

"Who the Hellfire are you? Veld, why did you let him just march in here?" the President demanded angrily.

"Would you really like to try to stop him?" Veld asked in reply, expression wan.

"Did you try?" the President demanded.

"It doesn't matter if he did or not," Vincent cut in. "Veld let you know I was here last night, and I'm tired of being kept waiting. I'm sure you actually remember me—Vincent Valentine, one of the founding Turks. And I'm here to demand my job back and reparations for the twenty fucking years Hojo experimented on my corpse, all without telling you, thank you very much. You should be thankful I'm sane and well aware of what that bastard is like, so I'm not blaming you for the shit he pulled."

Both Sephiroth and the President gaped at him in shock for a long minute before the silver haired man managed to school his features to something more neutral. The President took longer, but then his gaze became thoughtful. "Vincent Valentine. I remember you. You don't look a day older than twenty-five, the same age you were when you vanished. I was told you betrayed the scientists working in Nibelheim."

"I see," the undead man replied, the latter word drawn out. "Did he also tell you he was going to effectively murder Sephiroth's mother, Lucrecia Crescent, a scientist who happens to be the only reason you have him? Did he also tell you he handed a valuable specimen of an infant to a pack of wild, starving Nibel Wolves on the off-chance he'd actually survive? Did he happen to tell you he advanced cybernetics by taking my arm off for no damned reason, just to see me suffer, and only did something useful with it after the fact? Did he tell you he likes playing with demons no one has any control over? Or how about the real kicker—that he's known since before he used stem cell infusion on Sephiroth that Jenova isn't a Cetra at all—she's a parasite Hellfire-bent on destroying the whole fucking world—including you—and doesn't even care about that fact, he just wants to prove my father's old Chaos and Omega Theory?"

The words made everyone's eyes widen in shock, and many of them in horror, but Sephiroth demanded, "How do you know that? Who my mother is, or what you said about Jenova?"

Vincent turned to look at the younger man, asking, "Oh, did he tell you Jenova was your mother?" He didn't give Sephiroth time to respond, just went on, "The man is a master manipulator and a lying son of a bitch with a sadistic streak a mile wide. I was there when your mother was pregnant with you, and when she gave birth. I knew her fairly well, since I was assigned to guard her. You've never seen the paperwork on your own genetic heritage, have you—he's never shown it to you, right? Of course, if he told you your mother was Jenova, he wouldn't want to, either—his lie would be discovered if he did."

"Sephiroth, is that true? You've never seen paperwork you should have been given as soon as you could read?" the President asked, tone suddenly sharp.

The silver haired man gave his head a dazed shake and answered, "I have never seen any paperwork on anything regarding myself, not even the results of the tests Hojo runs on me regularly."

A silence followed, then a small voice asked cautiously, "What kinds of tests?" Everyone turned to look, and saw Cloud and Tifa standing a bit behind and to the side of Verdot. Cloud has spoken, reminding everyone of their presence, but then he added, "If Vincent's right and Hojo threw you to 'a pack of starving Nibel Wolves', that would have been done in winter—the elements were just as dangerous as the Wolves themselves. So, what are the 'tests' he runs on you now?" His tone and gaze were wary.

"Why do you have Mako eyes, boy?" the President asked with a frown.

"I fell in a Mako pool that suddenly opened up just outside of town, Sir," Cloud answered, glancing over at the man before returning his gaze to Sephiroth. Vincent had to commend his self-control to be able to stay so calm in front of the man he'd known as 'the Nightmare'.

"And he only stayed unconscious for two days!" Tifa 'helpfully' added in a cheerful, chirping tone.

The President blinked in surprise, then returned his gaze to Sephiroth to ask, "About those tests Hojo runs—"

He was cut off as one wall of his office, not far from the door leading out to the balcony, slid open sideways and two men in black uniforms stepped out—then froze to stare around at the room's occupants. Vincent and Cloud both knew them as two of the four Restrictors. The door slid shut behind them.

"What happened to bring you two up here?" the President asked in annoyance.

There was a pause, then one of the men said, "Besides the fact that this is our scheduled time to visit if something needs your attention, Sir...We've come to tell you that Weiss apparently went insane during a recent training exercise and slaughtered over three quarters of the group, including two of our number. There are only about a hundred and fifty left, not counting the scientists and—new arrivals who weren't participating in the event. He only stopped when he fell unconscious, and we need new instructions and some serious cleanup and repairs."

A glance at Sephiroth let Vincent know they were both thinking the same thing, and Vincent couldn't be bothered to hold his tongue, so he crossed his arms and asked, "Do you think you could stop lying through your teeth sometime today?" At the words, Sephiroth nodded, and the President caught the motion.

"What does that mean?" the President asked of the silver haired General.

"Those two men, even assuming they did not care for their combat personnel, are far too calm and put-together for an incident they claim is recent, President Shinra," Sephiroth replied. "And it should theoretically be impossible for that to be the case if they just lost around five hundred people in a sudden and unexpected massacre."

"More than that," the President muttered. Then, he made some sort of decision and scowled as he looked up at Vincent and said, "Fine, you want your position back, you can have it, Valentine. We'll discuss the exact amount of the reparations later, but for now, you're a qualified Turk, and I intend to tell Hojo to stay well away from you unless you've sought him out. Now, everyone is going to wait here while I make a call and finish some paperwork, then we'll readdress everything else in an appropriate order. I expect approximately fifteen minutes."

He then pulled out his PHS and hit an auto-dial number, and when it was answered a moment later, he said, "Yes, I'm in need of a collection box and all the fancy tags you can find for an arrangement. Bring them up to me as soon as you can put it all together." After he hung up, he shuffled his papers and began actively working on one. To Vincent, that had been a code, but for what, exactly, he wasn't sure.

"We can go back to—" one of the Restrictors began.

"You're all staying put until I'm ready to address all of this," the President huffed in annoyance. "I still have deadlines to meet, no matter what disasters you lot all want to throw at me, so you'll wait your turn." His focus stayed on the papers in front of him, so Vincent looked around the room again.

The two Restrictors seemed uncertain about what their best course of action was, but Veld moved to the window behind the President to stand looking out it—and also in such a position that he was effectively 'blocking' the door to the balcony. Sephiroth sighed faintly and turned to wander around the office as Cloud and Tifa started a finger game played in Nibelheim. He suspected it would have been a clapping game, but that would have made more noise than he was sure the President would want just then. However, when he glanced back at Sephiroth—he was directly behind the Restrictors, casually leaning his back against the lift doors. That left the routes directly to the President and down the stairs.

Vincent shifted to lean his hip against the edge of the President's desk, having placed himself between the Restrictors and the blond man. The action drew Cloud's attention, and he screwed up the game he and Tifa had been playing—which resulted in her huffing and pouting as she turned her back on Cloud. She placed herself facing the stairs and just at the wall to the inside of them, so she wasn't specifically in the way of them (he was sure that was accidental). However, when Cloud joined her, he moved in front of her to try to cajole her into forgiving him, he was 'in the way' of the stairs.

It only took the Restrictors a minute to realize they had been boxed in, making them wary and on edge.

Notes:

(1) Obviously, these three Turks are dead (and had been from the era when Turks just used their own names), and actually, Alan was another one the President had bought, so was a known ally of Veld's. At least, he had been to Veld. Since he'd also been one of the ones to report back on the situation to Lady Shinra, resulting in her having to deny Veld his 'closure', Veld couldn't just dismiss the fact that there had really been nothing left for anyone to find. That's all background information which doesn't really fit in the story text, though.

(2) Obviously, this is one of the 'Old Hands' in the Turks. He's good at digging up information and solving puzzles, so he's effectively one of the most ideal people to set to a research task. Yes, he needs to be remembered because he's going to show up again, like nearly all (if not all) of the registered Turks.

For those who read my Dimensions story, Terri would already be somewhat familiar, but since he wasn't a major player then, you're not much ahead of the MB readers. :P :D