A/N: Back on time, go me. Got to celebrate the small stuff.

Low key stressing about how little pre-written material I have left. Editing takes me SO GODDAMN long that I sometimes have no time to write anything new. Might have to take a couple of weeks in September in order to get ahead again but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. We've got about six pre-written chapters left.

Incidentally, I highly doubt there will be an update next Wednesday as I am suuuuper busy this week and next. Unless there is some kind of out and out miracle, expect a Legacy-less week. Big big sad. Sorry guys. Do keep an eye out on my profile/bio for update information; I always write there if I'm not going to hit an update :D (Or maybe that should be a sad face :( )

As usual, I hope you have yourself a fantastic week and I will leave you with Newberry's Gravamen.

21st Aug '19

Chapter 21: Newberry's Gravamen

Aster Doe returned to training. She did not report to the Turks, nor to the infirmary. When she stepped through the door into Tifa's theatre, Tseng was waiting. Had claimed the stage, as it were. Aster wondered if he had been looking for her at all. Probably not. He was practically omniscient, after all.

The mirror along the far wall remained smashed and splintered from the first break-in nearly a month ago. She thought it was a safer place to look than Tseng's face, yet somehow, in one of thousands of fragments, a cold blue eye ran through hers.

Sweat rose at the back of her neck. She blinked, and the eye was gone. Newberry was going to haunt her forever. He would always have his hand on her throat.

Said throat hid beneath the stiff, mint green infantry cowl that most cadets didn't wear. Suppose it wasn't too unusual. A few wore them. Rohrbach, for instance, always wore his. Sparrow, usually. Rex, never. Newberry would be the only one to know the truth that lay beneath.

And whether she was ashamed of herself or not was irrelevant; she couldn't afford not to cover up, in case she bumped into Zack in the days before he left for the mission he was planning. So this would have to do.

Zack.

She'd told him there was no possible way she'd be attacked again in the next few days. An empty string of words. A bracelet without a chain—sure, the component parts were there, the right thing to say, but no substance kept them together. Pass Out was Sunday. She was certain he'd strike again before then.

Tseng didn't even look at her. "Doe. Get over here."

When she appeared next to him, he tapped her helmet with a stun rod synonymous with Reno's Favourite. "Off."

She put it on the floor.

The redness of her eyes and the shadows beneath them weren't extraordinary only because they were on her face in particular. It would have been stranger to see her looking rested. So it didn't give her away.

Tseng eyed the recruits for a moment. "Sparrow, please remove your helmet and come forward."

Aster grew stiff, not looking at either Tseng or Sparrow as he approached. If the former was still trying to ostracise her, he needn't. The game was nearly over. There was no way he could make her comrades hate her any more than they already did.

Yet she still thought of them as comrades.

And it was true, some of them acted like it.

Tseng was speaking. "Doe granted you some form of notoriety. I only know your name thanks to her pointing out your weaknesses."

Sparrow looked at Aster. His hair was wispy like a toddler that hadn't had its first hair cut yet. Foxy brown eyes. Young. So young. He was smiling at her. It was like the acceptance of an apology she hadn't had chance to give. Acceptance of the apology for their immediate fate in the next five minutes.

Tseng didn't notice this exchange. He said to Sparrow, "Consider it a chance to recover your dignity. And Doe, a chance to validate your judgment. Proof that your observations are not incorrect. The battle will end when the other cannot return to his or her feet, understood?"

Aster glanced at Tifa, whose face was covered with a sheet of long hair. Her fists were clenched. Aster wouldn't have been able to tell they were trembling if not for the charm bracelet that rattled limply against her glove.

She looked back when Sparrow extended his hand to her. She grasped it firmly and found herself offering a smile. Yeah. He deserved a real fight. She wouldn't pity him.

"Begin."

Archie lunged for her and Aster threw her arms up to block his immediate blow. Quick strikes, but not faster than her reflexes. She ducked beneath a punch and struck him in the side of the ribs, stripping him of breath and offence.

He staggered back, and Aster's boot flew for his chin. He blocked it, and she rammed her weight down, grabbed his shoulder, and pulled back her fist. Knuckles jutting, ready to shunt his eyeball.

She froze. In reality, it was a fraction of a second. She was fighting to win, not to kill. Archie was not an enemy. He wasn't a Wutai troop or a monster. He wasn't someone trying to kill her. It was up to her own sense of restraint to keep from crossing that line. But the line was hazy. All she'd been taught was to not hold back—her battles had taught her that. But where did Tseng draw that line? Where did Shinra draw that line? And were they different?

She whipped her fist across Archie's face in a backhanded slap instead. Just as unexpected. Almost more than. Her knuckles cracked against his jaw and throbbed.

He was like her. Light, slight, and quick. Could do with a weaponry aid to do real damage. He slammed his palms into her ribs. The floorboards skimmed beneath her feet until she planted them and launched back into him with an uppercut deep in the gut. Her fist left him ripping a heave of air into his lungs, doubled over.

His face went purplish and eyes bulged, and she wondered if she had toed over that line. Then, he threw his body weight at her in her hesitation. Her back hit the floor and she swept her leg through his to bring him down with her. Winded and choking. She straddled him and drew back her fist once more, with the other bundling his shirt. Her eyes quivered.

Then she struck him in the nose.

Aster swore under her breath and cupped the back of his neck to keep his lolling head steady. His eyes fluttered as he fought against their desire to roll back.

"Hey, come on, buddy. You'll be alright," she said, feeling the energy of the fight rolling away from her. The headspace failing. Dread replacing.

She loudly disagreed with Tseng's tactics, yet it was also she who implemented them. And at this point, he hardly had to prompt her. She looked up at him, and he said nothing. Black, emotionless eyes. Detached.

She rubbed her face in an attempt to wipe the grime of regret from her skin.

"The defeated male. Pliable and submissive. Overwhelmed," Tseng said. The soles of his boots thunked against the wood as he stepped closer. "He waited for the final blow. Willed for it. The sooner he lost, the sooner the end of the pain came."

She scowled, and turned to Archie, helping him sit his back to the wall, near the broken mirror. No. She didn't think he willed for it. He put up a fight, or at least he was trying to. He didn't roll over and wait for the cheetah to bite into his neck like an injured gazelle.

Aster spun to her feet, ready to argue, but Tseng stopped her. "Doe. Is he still the weakest?"

He cocked a slim eyebrow. Somewhere in his dark eyes there was a glint. No longer shut off. His naturally downturned lips did not quirk. His posture, broad and solid, did not change. But in those black eyes, in the faintest, slightest flick of his brow somewhere in the connection between their stare, she saw—felt—a smile.

Her mouth bunched in a poorly contained grin. "No. No, he's not." Her voice croaked. She hoped no one noticed.

"Why not?"

"There's strength in perseverance. In carrying on, even when your weaknesses are constantly pointed out."

"Then who is?"

Her eyes flicked to Newberry's. Already set on her. Ready.

"Say it," Newberry said. "I want you to."

Tseng beckoned him over with the point of his stun rod. "Say it here."

Tifa pressed her fingers to her temples and stretched the skin of her forehead to alleviate the pressure headache she was no doubt experiencing. She watched under the hood of scrunched eyebrows, as if it were too bright to watch head-on.

Newberry stalked across the floorboards. Small, set, but bright blue eyes, simultaneously dark. Strange. Large mouth and square jaw. Maybe he could be attractive if he smiled, but Aster couldn't even imagine it. Not without seeing it as though it were carved in a pumpkin or hacked out of a tree with an axe. Maybe it would be warm and inviting. Not to her, though. She knew that much. Aster and Newberry could never be friends. They would never recover from this.

With locked horns, neither of them wanted to.

Aster sucked a breath through her nose. She was shaking. He was not. Then, she nodded. "Foolhardy. Volatile. Violent. Cowardly. Arrogant."

"Arrogant?" A growled gurgled in his throat. His temper was a thread holding the weight of a boulder. "You. You are arrogant. Arrogant and ignorant. Just as foolhardy. Just as volatile."

"I didn't say I wasn't weak," she said without inflection. "Just stronger than you."

Tseng crossed his arms over his chest. "Well. One of you is the weakest here. That much is certain."

Both flicked their eyes to him. Neither willing to bet on themselves so much as the other.

Tseng looked at them both in turn. "This ends here."

Which meant something different to both of them.

Newberry thrust his hand out into the space between them. Keeping up appearances, maintaining his grand sense of honour, insisting that he was the better man. One of them. She deliberated. Wary of dirty tricks.

Then she took it. He squeezed her hand so firmly as to force her glove to slip at the wrist, revealing her bracelet and watch. If Tseng noticed her contraband—which he almost certainly did—he didn't mention it.

"Begin," he said.

Newberry let go of her hand. Then he grabbed it again, and her elbow, and twisted her arm sharply.

At the same time, Tifa rallied out the cadets under the pretence of an outdoor workout. She couldn't interfere with Tseng, but she could at least prevent his influence from affecting the rest of the squad. Sparrow remained slumped against the mirror. Rohrbach stayed with him. With the yelp that scratched through Aster's mouth as she swung herself to the ground to alleviate the tension Newberry twisted into her bones, Rex pushed back through the cadets that filed through the door to Tifa, who tried only half-heartedly to stop him.

On the floor—already, within seconds—Aster gripped Newberry's arm as he tried to pull away and launched her feet into his stomach to distance him. She rolled to stand.

Newberry outmatched her in size and strength. But if she was to be a Turk and he was to be in SOLDIER, she needed to be able to overpower him even after his enhancements, let alone before.

He lurched for a blow to her throat. Aster brought her arms up to block him and tucked her chin low. His fist connecting with her arms surged her with pain and rage. Her breaths whistled through ground teeth. Eyes grew dark.

She burst forth with her knee into his gut and ducked under his wrecking ball swing. She hopped back, holding her fists chin height in defence of her neck, and he smacked his fist into her arms again. Blow after blow.

Aster bounced back, grabbed his wrist, and kicked him in the side with a thud. She brought her other knee up into his chest.

It was like he planned it. He swung upwards and sank a fist into the cowl around her throat.

The force brought her to her tiptoes and she hit the ground like a wooden puppet. The floorboards creaked under the impact. She rolled onto her knees, clutching her neck. The fingers of her free hand clutched uselessly for something to give her breath. Her windpipe was as narrow as the eye of a needle, no matter how hard she gasped. Only the thread of a wheeze pulled through.

Otherwise, the room was silent.

Newberry looked down on her. "Foolhardy. Volatile. Violent. Cowardly. Arrogant."

Tseng, too, eyed her. "Stand before the man you believe to be the weakest."

A grunt made it past her lips as she picked herself from the ground with shaking elbows. She rolled back her shoulders and found her feet. One foot in front of the other until she stood uncomfortably close to Newberry. Until she could smell his sweat and feel his breath on her cheeks. Close enough that she could watch the muscles of his shoulders tense under his t-shirt.

His face twitched like he'd either kiss her or headbutt her. There was a bet she was willing to make there.

"Fight again," Tseng said.

Her eyes widened as she ducked under Newberry's incoming headbutt. Internally, she laughed. Right she was. She drove her fists into his stomach. He barely groaned, like it was a small inconvenience. Like she'd parked in a spot he was eyeing up. Then he cracked his linked hands into her back, and his knee into her face. As she grew more tired, his job became easier.

The leader gets further in the lead, and the loser falls further behind. It was like torture. But Tseng insisted.

Aster did well, but not enough. Newberry packed a pile driver into her chest and she hit the ground so hard and so fast there was surely little more she could take. She arched her back, groaning, and her feet slipped as she tried to get up. It took crawling to get to her hands and knees as the room spun. Splashes of colour danced across her vision. Red, purple, black. Only Tseng's words ran through her head.

Pliable and submissive. Waiting for the final blow. Willing for it. The sooner you lose, the sooner the end of the pain comes.

Aster Doe would never submit to Newberry.

Torture training, almost. Endurance. Tseng was trying to teach her to endure. Over and over. Endure, persevere, like the qualities she pointed out in Sparrow. Endure the beating. Pain only serves to remind you to stay alive. Or so this was the excuse Aster gave to permit Tseng's behaviour. A little lie to help come to terms with the fact that he merely watched with blatant disconnect as her body grew weaker with every impact. To come to terms with the fact that he seemed perfectly okay with that. That he truly did not care about her at all. And why would he?

She staggered to her feet once again, grasping on to each laboured breath. "Newberry. What the hell…is this? What did I do to you? You're always so angry; your sanity hangs on by a worn thread—"

"You know nothing about me," he said, with a quiet, calculated voice worse than if he had screamed. "You don't know why I'm here. What I'm fighting for."

"Then tell me."

"Stop talking," Tseng barked. "Fight."

Newberry drove his fist into her jaw. Pain splintered up to her temples and the bridge of her nose like tremors that cracked frozen lakes. She hit the floor.

"Newberry, tell me," she said, almost a whimper, almost a whisper. Some breathy whine between the two. "Because I don't even know why we're fighting anymore."

His fists shook as he grabbed her shirt and yanked her up to her feet. His breathing was so concentrated, whistling through gritted teeth, that his saliva foamed. The taste of rage. It flicked onto her cheek. She didn't flinch.

She narrowed her eyes. "Tell me. Who is the girl in the photo in your cabinet door?"

And he smashed her back into the ground.

It took her a few moments to come around. It could only have been seconds, just seconds of darkness and rest, the body protecting itself from further trauma, because vision returned from black in time to watch Newberry storm off and punch the wall. The sound a sickeningly empty thud and crack.

Aster rolled onto her side. The room lurched, vision blurred. She felt for the floor. Hands and knees. "Newberry," she seethed.

He whirled around. She'd seen him like this before. He was always broad, stocky, muscular, but fury pumped his shoulders out as though they bulged, and painted his face red. Built like a bull.

"Tell me…about May eighth," Aster said.

And the bull shrank to a calf.

His pupils pulled away and the whites of his eyes dwarfed his irises.

The faintest of gasps escaped Tifa's lips. When Rex looked at her, she said, "Is she taunting him or something?"

Rex had no answers.

"Tell me, Newberry," Aster growled. Her voice was roughed up by the gravel walls of her swollen throat. "Because if you don't, you can bet your goddamned ass cheeks…that I'm gonna find out.

"Because I will find out," she said, clambering to her weak feet. "I won't stop until I do."

He launched towards her with a scream growing in his throat.

Tseng stepped between them. A hand on Newberry's chest, a finger pointing at Aster. "Doe," he said. "You cannot fight."

Her jaw clenched, twitched at the sides.

"You've been defeated."

"I can carry on."

"And do what damage?"

Aster looked at Newberry. He stood five inches taller than her on a good day. Now she was slouching with fatigue and holding herself to protect her neck, he towered over her. Even though he panted through tiredness and the paling of his face, he still bettered her. The anger within him outmatched hers, and it would fuel him to the end of the earth.

Aster looked down.

"But can you sit by, defeated, and tell your opponent he is still the weakest man in this squad?" Tseng asked.

If he was testing her gall, he needn't bother. She met Newberry's eyes once more. "Comfortably."

Tseng folded his arms. "I quite agree."

He commanded the gaze of everyone in the room. Then, he smiled. But it wasn't a real smile—it didn't reach his eyes. "Commiserations, cadet. You will be discharged, effective immediately."

"What?" Newberry spluttered.

"Doe chose you."

Aster's eyebrows twisted upward, mouth puckered to pose her confusion into words. Tseng didn't allow it. He interrupted her breath. "She was given the arbitrary power to remove an individual she saw unfit to continue. It lands with you. Goodbye."

The sound of gasping didn't come from Aster, though her jaw dropped hard enough. It might have come from Rex or Tifa, maybe Rohrbach or Sparrow, but certainly not from Newberry himself. His eyes widened with his undoing, the unravelling of the cocoon he thought he was so secure in. Fear, true defeat. He snapped his head left and right as two Red Cap officers entered the room on Tseng's command, Rude taking up the rear. They didn't initially take him. Not until after he grabbed Aster's shoulders with clammy palms and sweating temples. Eyes bulging from his head and nails digging into her skin.

He screamed. Face not merely red, but bordering purple. "You have no idea what you've just done!"

The guards yanked him off her. He must have hit her again because her eyes felt clouded by murky water, and she sank slowly to the floorboards.

Aster must have closed her eyes because next she knew, something was pressed to her face. Something cold, but nice. Her head rested on someone's knee.

She shot her eyes open and her eyeballs ached under the barrage of bright lights, because for a moment she thought she was in Zack's safe embrace. So when she was not met by sky blue eyes with a tiny hint of lavender, she was confused by those of a foxy brown. Something tawny and warm, like whiskey—though she couldn't imagine him drinking it. At that moment, she decided she was going to buy him a glass.

It was Archie Sparrow, and he smiled when she looked at him. "Hey."

His face was bruised where she'd smacked him, but he seemed to wear it proudly. She could see now, looking at him properly, that his eyelashes reminded her of those of a chocobo, long and fair. He helped her sit up, holding the ice pack to her cheek. She stared at him in her confusion, so he averted his eyes a couple of times and stammered for words.

"They'll come over when they notice you're alert."

She looked around. 'They' could only be Rex and Tifa, who appeared to be in a heated argument in furious whispers, but upon closer inspection were actually rather intensely agreeing with each other. Tifa's hands on her hips, Rex's flailing in the space between them. Then she saw Rohrbach not far from them, not actively participating in their conversation, but listening with the same severe expression he always wore. He reminded her a bit of Angeal in that way.

The Red Caps were gone, Rude was gone.

Newberry was gone.

Some kind of justice, at last, for the hell he had been bent on exposing her to.

Archie was watching the group, too. "They think you're insane," he said. His eyes shone. "I think you're brave. Wish I had some of your courage."

A warmth spread through Aster's chest as she smiled faintly. "Wish I had some of yours." She took the cold pack from him and held it herself. "You'll …you're gonna make SOLDIER someday. I know it. And I mean it. Just…keep going."

He smiled. "You keep going, too."

Tseng appeared and cast the pair in a shadow. The smile slipped from Archie's face, delicate as it was. Aster stood to meet him.

"Tseng—"

"What's wrong with your throat?"

"Wait, what?" She practically made a double-take. "You don't know?"

He knew so much of everything else, she had assumed—

"Know what?"

"W-wait—why did you just kick out Newberry if not as punishment—?"

"Answer the question."

"He attacked me. He," Aster spoke hesitantly, aware that Sparrow was in earshot, "strangled me in the middle of the night." She shook her head. "You really didn't know?"

He tucked his chin into his hand. "Interesting. Did he mention why?"

She rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Tseng, I missed the exposition when I was running for my life."

"Pity. Run away after the dramatic villainous monologue next time, won't you?"

She frowned. "Did you just make a joke?"

"Concentrate."

"Sorry," she said. "How did you know he hurt my throat?"

"Your body language. The same he was detecting—or so I thought. I apparently gave him too much credit. He obviously knew very well the weaknesses you faced since he inflicted them. But for example, you tucked your chin an inch further than usual and kept your guard high, even when he was clearly hitting low. And of course, throat punches are effective and damaging, but your reaction when hit was much more intense than it ought to have been. And now that you are speaking, your voice is gravelly. You should check yourself into the infirmary before the end of the evening. Consider it an order."

"Understood," she said, giving a soft salute out of habit.

And he left.

Aster realised then, stood next to Sparrow who looked at her as though she were a kicked puppy, that she gained no answers. Only questions. Aster had never been given the arbitrary power to remove an individual as she saw fit—not expressly, anyway. Not in so many words. And if Tseng didn't kick Newberry out because he practically tried to kill her, then why did he?

But he was gone.

There was no epic showdown. No dramatic argument or satisfying end. Newberry was gone, Aster remained,

and nothing would ever be the same again.