A/N: This update is totally on time. It's late Wednesday, but totally still Wednesday. This counts. (I feel like all my A/Ns are apologising or making excuses for being late.) SO we're getting some major Aster and Rex vibing in this chapter and I'm living for it, no word of a lie. ALSO: I mean no offence to any Lachlans, Nates or Brads out there potentially reading this :) None were harmed in the making of this chapter.

To the guest reviewer who literally made my night the other day, I'm super glad to hear you're enjoying this—it's really nice to hear from you and I really loved reading your thoughts. Honestly, recently I've really been struggling with motivation and I think that comes from a fear of disappointing or underwhelming the reader. I guess I'm my harshest critic. I've got a lot of plot threads flying around, and they should all come to sufficiently satisfying ends, I hope!

I would love love love to address everything you wrote, but to keep this from getting ridiculously long (because I am prone to over-excitement), I will simply put this: YAS. I'm so pleased (-with everything that you said but in particular-) that Aster pisses you off sometimes—she should. I feel like very, very often in this story characters (not just Aster, either) make the wrong decisions or at least questionable decisions. I wanted that to emulate real life. When Aster snaps back at people, when she fought with Newberry in Stabscotch, when she taunted him in the fight that ultimately got him kicked out: were these the right things for her to do? People do morally grey things way more frequently than we realise, I think. Everything can be questioned—and indeed, everything should be questioned! All in all, I don't think everything is as it seems, even when it seems most like it is. Thank you so much for reaching out, and thank you to everyone who continues to read this and share this ride with me!

Once again, I hope you all have a super fantastic week—see you in the next update!

4th Sep '19

Chapter 22: The Special Combatants, Two and Four

"I'm gonna kill that bastard."

Surrexit found out about the choking incident.

"Yes, because that's just what I need," said Aster Doe, rolling her eyes and slipping down from his offered piggyback. "Two murderous nutjobs."

The steel caps of her boots clicked against the concrete of the barracks floor. Rohrbach and Sparrow—who had lingered in the training room and infirmary for about as long as Aster and Rex had—weaved around them towards their respective beds.

Twenty-four cadets began on this journey, and only did twenty beds remain occupied. One bed, deserted but not pristine, stuck out most. At first glance, Aster's lungs constricted, a reflex, a scar, almost, left by Newberry's impression. It began to subside when she remembered he wasn't coming back, but her relief was no flood. It was a sand-timer filled with a whole stretch of beach, letting out only one grain at a time.

His bed laid precisely as it had when he left, right down to the fine creases from where he had last sat upon it in that boxy, rigid way he always did. His cabinet door was still hanging open by a slice. No one had moved the digital watch that blinked a red eye with each passing second on his bedside table, and no one had touched the shirt that must have fallen from his cupboard, despite the fact it would be a blatant failure of barracks standards if seen.

It was a perfect, untouched memento, like a shrine, and the air surrounding it was still and thick as a preserving agent. Its own contained environment. Aster's lips tightened as she fought the urge to strip it and make it immaculate like everyone else's stations so it no longer stood out, or trash it, like defiling his grave before the body went cold.

Her clenched fists loosened when she realised her indecision spoke loud and clear; she wouldn't go anywhere near it. Ever.

Even if she wanted to. Even if she considered the potential rewards of rifling through his things for clues as to the secrets he so tightly held in the fists of stone he hit her with. Inclinations as to what that flyer could have meant, or what might transpire on the eighth of May. She couldn't bring herself to go near it. Some Turk she was. Tseng would have been disappointed.

The eighth of May. Three days after pass out. Ten weeks until…whatever comes next. SOLDIER for Rex, if he makes it. The Turks for Aster. The test? Or the task?

The silent disquiet that blanketed the barracks made it easy, at least, to read. To ignore the world, to hide her face behind a thick leather bind and hardcover: the monster compendium that Tseng had given Aster to study weeks before. She'd been through it a hundred times already, preparing for Tseng's frequent pop quizzes, but now she was a woman possessed, flicking over the same few pages over and over. Anything to occupy the mind.

Specifically enthralled by the anti-SOLDIER monsters that managed to ground even Zack, of First Class. Of course, the clue was in the name. But how could they possess such unimaginable strength? What was within them that made them so incredibly strong beyond measure?

Rex crouched beside her bed, leaning to see what was taking her so long to read. When she didn't respond to his presence, he craned his neck to get a look at the yellowed pages. Head right in the way of her line of sight.

"Rex," she growled.

"What," he said, and from the sound of his voice alone, she could tell he was grinning.

Aster glared at the back of his head, brought her knees up and rested the book open against her thighs. She pointed to a sketch of a Vajradhara Tai—a sketch she knew to be accurate since she had had the blessed misfortune of verifying it with her own eyes.

"This thing here? This is what attacked Zack and I when we were in the elevator shaft. It threw this weapon," she said, pointing to a detailed drawing of the club that was as large as she was, "and just missed us. It clipped Zack's shoulder guard."

"Shit," Rex muttered. His hazel eyes scanned across the text, flicking left and right faster than Aster could comprehend with his brow in a hard line.

"Shit is right. And they're huge. If I were to put it to scale, Zack at six foot one- or two-ish, he'd meet maybe half its height," she said, rubbing her finger up and down the page, indicating the height of the man in question.

Rex snorted. "So. You'd be, like, knee-height."

"Oh, shove off," she said, literally shoving his shoulder while he snickered to himself and grabbed the bed frame to save his precarious balance. "I'm not even short."

"Not tall either, though, are ya?"

"You're not exactly a tower of a man, yourself." She pushed her nose up with her finger. "Are you even six-foot?"

"Yes, thanks."

Aster blinked as if to clear her eyes. "Wait, are you actually?"

"Yeah."

"Can I measure you?"

"No," he said, crinkling his nose.

"Why not?"

"'Cause I don't need you to validate me!"

"Obviously lying, then."

"How tall do you think I am?"

"I dunno," Aster said with a shrug. "Five-ten?"

"No way," he said, rattling the bed frame with his vigour. "I'm taller than that, an' proud of it! Do you know how long I had to wait to grow those extra two inches?"

Aster's eyebrows shot up and her eyes trailed back to the book. "That ain't none of my business."

"You're bloody unbelievable," he said. "Whatever. So this thing, it's often accompanied by a…Vajradhara Wu, yeah? That's what it says right here."

"Right," Aster said, turning the page. It blew the sigh of musk and sweetness that old books are known for, and then she noticed, given his proximity, that Rex smelt much the same. "That's what destroyed the first elevator—with its axe. The second, the Tai, was the one that attacked us directly. And Gaia," she said, almost breathless for a moment, "Zack destroyed that one with a Blizzaga spell. I've never seen anything like it, it was incredible. We'll get to do some materia lesson stuff in School of SOLDIER, right? After BCT?"

"Mate, I hope so. I've been gasping to get my hands on some of that stuff. It's so freakin' expensive in Rocket Town, though, and they don't look much worth having, either."

"You can't even buy materia in Icicle Inn. People that own some sort of pass it through their families."

"Bet Fire is popular there."

Aster laughed. "Yeah. But we start fires the old-fashioned way, too. The ol' flint an' steel kit. Do you know, it's mandatory in the Knowlespole to have a fire lighting kit on you if you leave the vicinity of the town. In case you die."

"Not gonna be useful if you die."

"You know what I mean. In case you get stuck or lost. You ever need to light a fire, and you have no materia" —she jabbed her thumb to her chest— "I'm your girl."

"Aw, thanks. If you ever need someone to help you escape a building in the event that a rusty old rocket falls out of its bracket, I'm your boy."

"That sounds like really crucial knowledge for my everyday life. Good to know we have each other's backs with these completely equally practical skills of ours."

"Isn't it, though?" he said with a fake grin that took over his face, then allowed it to subside into a genuine laugh. "So, the Wu, then. One threw an axe at you?"

"Right, then Zack killed it with some kind of Fire-based spell. It was weaponless. Then, there was a Cala." She flicked over the page once more. Of course, all the sketches were in the soft greyscale of graphite, so to Rex, the Cala seemed virtually identical to the Wu, right down to the axe in its hand. Before he could spot any differences, Aster turned a few pages back to the start of the section and read from the text. "Any pair of Vajradhara-variant anti-SOLDIER monsters can combine their efforts into an attack known to the unlucky few as Twin Tomahawk, an unavoidable assail against their target. Note that these attacks have not been observed in the Rakshasa, Kinnara, or Asura variant of Vajradhara."

The pages fluttered again. Back and forth. Vajradhara Asura, similar to that of the others. According to the author, troll-like and unfathomably large with swells of muscles bulging beneath stone-grey skin and glistening red armour. It held a flail whose striking end dangled from an industrial chain and could have weighed as much as Aster and Rex put together. Maybe twice that. But there was no data to back up that assumption because no one had the opportunity to report back alive. A hit from that meant lights out forever.

Rex cocked his head to the side at her folded features. "What are you trying to work out?"

"No one knows what they are or where they came from," Aster said, tapping the page with her fingertip like a woodpecker's bill. "They look biological as opposed to, I don't know, mechanical or pseudo-bio, but where did they come from? They aren't natural. These things don't just grow in the wild and frolic with the flowers."

Rex leaned his elbows against her bed and his chin in his hand. He narrowed his eyes at the page. "Are they Wutai's answer to SOLDIER?"

"Well, yeah, they're anti-SOLDIER—"

"That's not what I meant," he said, taking her wrist to move her hand from in front of the picture. "I meant, are these their own version of SOLDIER? Their own kind of—"

Rex trailed off, and his eyes slid from the page to her limp hand in his grip, at the faint shine of graphite over her fingerprint from incessant fumbling over words and images.

"What?"

The red lamp over the door turned green with a faint click of a faulty ballast within the bulb.

"Attention," the Red Cap ordered, but he needn't have done. Twenty cadets snapped to their positions at the ends of their beds with hands tucked at the small of their backs reflexively.

The DI in the red uniform marched in with a blackboard under his arm sheathed in a black cloth. He passed six men to his left, a space with only boots in place, then another four men, and finally jolted a folded up easel-like stand into shape and laid the blackboard atop.

"There will be no pomp and grandeur until the pass out ceremony on Sunday. These are but your final tallies of Basic." He grabbed the fabric in a gloved fist. Chin at a right angle to his neck and beady eyes set forward beneath the lip of his cap, he, too, seemed to snap into the military mould on command. He cleared his throat and began his scripted speech. "Cadets. These are the final BCT scores that will be delivered to those in charge of deciding whether you make it into SOLDIER at the end of your next stage within the infantry."

"But," he shouted, to quell the growing mutters of apprehension back into submission. "This is not a perfect indicator of your progress. You will continue to be closely monitored for eight weeks after pass out, during which time you will remain in this accommodation. These scores will also be numerically tallied and delivered to SOLDIER and Public Safety branch leaders, as will your health, constitution and mental resistance records, and of course, the result of your SOLDIER examinations. The SOLDIER exam is perhaps most important of all, so do not become complacent on receipt of a decent score here. Neither should you allow a poor one to destroy your motivation to become better."

His voice reeled as though he read from an autocue. "In the event of failure on any grounds, you may reapply to SOLDIER once each quarter. Positions are always available in the infantry, where you may decide to pursue a career in the captain branch, the Security Department, Junon branch, or perhaps as a medic or an underwater MP if you're real damn good."

He ripped the cloth from the board, for the first time exposing surnames followed by fore. "Congratulations. None of you did shit enough to get kicked out."

#1: Rohrbach, Lukas

#2: Surrexit, Joshua

#3: Newberry, Jack

The Red Cap hesitated. He reached into his pocket for a stub of chalk and scratched through Jack Newberry's name unceremoniously, then left the chalk on the shelf beneath it.

#4: Doe, Aster

#5: Huntington, Samuel

She turned to Rex and grinned as cadets crossed the room and grouped together to relish in their accomplishments as the Red Cap abandoned the room.

"Third, huh?" he said with a grin, ruffling her hair.

"Fourth," she said. "Just because he's not here, doesn't mean I beat him."

Rex rolled his eyes and poked her in the forehead. Then, Aster skimmed to the bottom of the leaderboard.

#20: Sparrow, Archibald

And the boy wasn't far away from the chalkboard, grinning with Rohrbach and another of the boys. He distinctly shrugged his shoulders and offered what Aster assumed to be a self-deprecating joke that garnered a laugh. She found herself grinning with him, even all the way across the room. Good for him.

Then her grin took the taste of misbehaviour when she turned back her Rex. Lips curled up a smirk. When she opened her mouth to speak, he cut her off. "Don't."

She did anyway. "Joshua?"

"Oh, Gaia."

"You don't look much like a Joshua. A thousand names I might've had in mind, Joshua was not one of them."

"Sorry to disappoint," he said flatly.

"I just thought you'd have more of a douchey kinda name. Lachlan. Nate. Brad."

"So, a frat boy name?"

"Dude—yes. That's exactly it."

"Great," he said. "For the record, you don't look like an Aster, either."

"What do Asters look like?" she asked, folding her arms and dropping a hip.

"Like Heathers and Daisys."

"You're just associating plants."

"Oh," he said, then snorted. "You're right."

"Do you hate your own name or something?"

"Or something, yeah," he said, then ran his fingers into his hair at the base of his skull. "I'd rather be remembered as Surrexit."

Most of the following day was spent undergoing drill practice for the pass out ceremony. Apparently, Rufus Shinra would be present, and all new infantry members needed to be up to the impeccable standards expected of them. Not least because it would reflect poorly on the department.

The muscles in Aster's arms agonised with every movement after only a short while of swinging around those unwieldy rifles, although something was satisfying about twenty recruits moving in perfect unison at the blow of a whistle. Uniform smacking of heels into the ground. It would sound even better the next day, where one or two hundred recruits would stand.

And when the evening came, the recruits—for their last evening of being just that; recruits—were given free time. Relatively normal for Aster, granted it was the only time off she had, but still. Everyone else looked at a loss. Not like puppies that bounded off the lead with the opportunity, but old dogs that had never been given the chance, more confused than they could be curious.

That was what Aster was thinking about, cheek bunched in her palm against the bar in Seventh Heaven. Her eyes drifted onto a random man who happened to be in a suit. Then she wondered, did she get every Saturday evening free because Tseng was with Elena?

"What're you thinking about?" said a girl snapping her fingers in front of Aster's face. Brown, leather gloves. A dainty silver charm bangle. Aster looked at her, Tifa. "You're making the bar look a mess!"

"She doesn't have a very inviting look on her face, does she?" said Rex.

Of all the puppies let off-leash, Rex looked the most lost. So she brought him along.

"Don't exactly look inviting at all, do I?" she said, slipping down the turtleneck Tifa lent her. "I'm wearing a three-inch-thick bruise for a choker—which is brutally ironic. I look more like someone you'd rather avoid."

The neckline flicked back into place like a loose elastic band, and she swallowed back the cough that rose at the impact. The infirmary magic was wonderful, but not miraculous.

"I'd prefer it if you'd stop making dark jokes about almost dying," Rex said.

"Why? Am I making you uncomfortable?" she said, wiggling her fingers in his face until he was forced to slap them away. "It's laugh or cry, friend."

So, she laughed.

And Rex rolled his eyes.

"Tifa," a voice said, soft but with a bit of gruff. "You got a sec?"

It was Cloud, and Aster double took not just because the shock of gold hair was the brightest within a twenty-mile radius, but also because he was, one, behind the bar, two, Tifa didn't appear phased by this advancement in the slightest, and three, he was pulling her towards him by the crook of her elbow. Gentle, but firm, guiding her towards the kitchen in the back. Tifa smiled at Aster, holding up a finger, a 'wait there' gesture, almost, or 'one-moment'.

Tifa had insisted nothing was going on between them.

Aster chewed into her lip to bite back her grin and stole another glance at the pair as they passed through the bar divider. At how Tifa looked up at him and how Cloud's face softened. He spoke quietly. Not so quiet to suggest a secret. Not so loud as to let everyone in. The kind of murmurs and hums that are designed to exist only in the frequencies between the bodies that spoke them. But Cloud was serious. And he was serious as his blue-green eyes with the signature of Mako writ within them snapped to Aster's as though he felt her stare.

She looked away. Yes, Tifa said nothing was going on, and Cloud looked like he was talking about something serious—but the guy always seemed serious. Aster smiled. Maybe she was imagining it. Maybe she was just seeing what she wanted to see.

Rex sighed and rolled the bottom of his bottle against the counter in circles. The vibrations made the bottle sigh right back. "I can't believe pass out is tomorrow. Only seems like yesterday you barrelled into the training room calling Tseng a bully by nature."

"Not my exact words."

"Premise is the same."

She paused for a beat. "A lot has happened."

Rex hummed in agreement, or at least acknowledgement. Silence isn't always the absence of sound. There were people in the bar, glasses chinking and music coming from somewhere—and there was a small television with a grainy picture delivering news on the wall beside them. There was sound. Sometimes silence is a feeling, and it enveloped them both, pulled them underwater.

'A lot happened' left a lot unsaid.

Eventually, Rex surfaced from those muted depths. "Something just doesn't feel right."

Aster looked at him, eyed him, sure they were on the same wavelength, but unsure.

"Gone," he said, without prompt, and clicked his fingers. "Just like that."

So they were.

"I had no idea that who I chose was going to be removed from basic. No idea at all. And I don't know why Tseng said I did. When I think I'm getting to know him, it turns out I'm all wrong. I really have no idea what he's thinking. Ever."

She turned the beads on her bracelet mindlessly. A, S, T.

"I don't think it's over yet."

Rex said nothing.

E. R. 2. 1.

"Is that me being paranoid?"

He hesitated. "I don't think so. If it is, it's justified."

"Gone, just like that," she muttered. Her stare was blank as she pulled a few pints into glasses, body operating autonomously so her brain didn't have to work.

Somehow the man being referred to only as 'he' like he was some kind of reverent figure had turned into not referring to him at all. 'Gone, just like that.' 'A lot has happened.' 'It's not over yet.' Different ways of saying virtually the same thing. Mentioning him without mentioning him. As if he was omnipresent. God-like.

Aster ground her teeth. She slammed down the glass as if she intended to dent the counter, and beer lapped over her fingers. The customer frowned, a gentleman in his late thirties with the lined faced of a man in his early fifties, but she didn't apologise or indeed even look at him before he went. No tips earned there.

"And what was that about the eighth of May?" Rex said. Unknowingly, he interrupted her spiral into rage. "Newberry looked like he was gonna shit himself."

If there was one thing she hated more than Newberry, it was promoting him to God-status. And Rex wasn't doing that, wasn't skirting around like everyone else was seeming to. Wasn't afraid to say it as if the boy was an urban legend that appeared if you said his name too many times too fast in a mirror.

With a heavy, stabling exhale, she wiped the beer off her fingers onto her apron and turned to apologise to the customer—but he was long gone. No skin of her nose.

Her lips twitched into a pout before she replied. "I don't know."

"Then that was a pretty niche bluff, mate."

"No, I found a flyer in his stuff when I was cleaning up for my punishment. There was some kind of address on it—definitely not a topside address," she said. "It was a bluff, but a calculated bluff. The note was hidden somewhere it was never meant to be found. Figured it might strike a chord."

"Thinking like a Turk again?"

Aster's eyes drifted out the window. "Maybe. I don't know." She shrugged. "I don't know anything. But I'm gonna find out."

"Don't tell me you're—"

"I'm gonna go. It's on Wednesday. Some kind of gathering, I think."

"Tseng know?"

Aster scoffed. "As if."

Rex pulled on the hem of his shirt. "You're just gonna rock up in some random neighbourhood in the slums? Actively searching for the man that wrapped his hands around your throat when you were sleeping?"

"It's simple surveillance," she said, with a cocked eyebrow, as though it were as scripted as catching a train from point A to point B. "I'm pretty good at not being seen when I don't want to be. It's part of my training."

Rex looked unconvinced. "Then I'll go with you."

"Could be dangerous. The slums are no playground."

This time Rex outright scrunched up his nose. "Cocky and haughty? No, mate, you have to pick one. Both is gross."

She let out a laugh. "I was kidding. Be a bit hypocritical, don't you think?"

"Little bit."

Time pressed on. The heavy-duty lamps that baked the slums blacked out and the artificial day turned to artificial night.

It had been an unusually quiet evening for a Saturday. All the tables were full, but the people weren't drinking much. Tifa staked Rex and Cloud behind the bar so she and Aster could rest their aching feet on the barstools, and when Cloud protested, Tifa laughed and exclaimed, "Barret's four-year-old can do it. You'll be fine."

So the girls were snickering and giving instructions when the saloon doors creaked open and slapped back together.

It was Zack, and it must have been strange for him. For a fraction of a second, his hand was scratching his head, and his features were crossed in perplexity. It was a somewhat unlikely band of individuals before him. People who he knew separately. His best friend, the spiky-haired blond was pouring drinks into martini glasses with tiny pink umbrellas—which was out of character enough as it is—behind the bar that belonged to his colleague-come-friend Tifa. And then there was one of the cadets due for pass out tomorrow, definitely breaking curfew, who he apparently had more mutual friends with than he realised, because Surrexit was talking to his favourite ice skater—not that he knew any others—who just so happened to be the girl he was seeing a little bit more than casually.

He blinked once with his eyebrows drawn together, then grinned. "Did the party start without me?"

"Hey, Zack," Tifa said.

"Porcupine," said Cloud.

"Uh. Sir…?" Rex gave an awkward flair of something midway between a salute and a wave and committed to neither.

Aster started snickering at him. "Weirdo."

"Jerk," he said, with much less conviction than she.

But Aster wasn't listening since she'd already got up to greet Zack with a smile that betrayed the life she led. Still. It was genuine.

She hugged his middle, and he ran his fingertips down her neck to move the fabric of her top. "Looking better."

"Are you just saying that to make me feel pretty again?"

"Come on, I wouldn't need to lie about that."

She laughed until he kissed her and her spine tingled. When he pulled away, he looked proud of himself. Maybe it was because he had an audience.

Said audience was not particularly engaged. Tifa had politely averted her gaze while Rex stared into the wood grain. Cloud just looked bored. Let's be real, Aster was not the first girl Cloud had ever seen Zack dating.

"Glad I caught you," said Zack, fitting his hands to the curve of her waist. "Mission's tomorrow morning. Nothin' major, few days, maybe. Four, tops. 'Cause it's off somewhere between Junon and Fort Condor."

"Can't they just send Junon troops?" she asked.

"Well," he said, placing his words more carefully than he needed. "Has to be SOLDIER."

Aster narrowed her eyes faintly and took half a step back. "Wutai."

Zack confirmed her fears, if that's what they were. "Yeah. S'no big deal. I'll take you out somewhere nice when I get back."

And she tried so hard, but she couldn't hold back the grin that spread across her face. "I'll hold you to that," she said.

The Pass Out Ceremony. May fifth.

The first stage of the process was over.

The training compound within which Aster learnt to fiercely defend and protect herself became something else. Approximately one-hundred and fifty to two-hundred cadets stood in formation. All in uniform—the iconic Shinra infantry attire. The stiff, blue jacket with sleeves that cut off at the elbows and similar combat pants to those worn by cadets. Shoulderguards matched the grade and steel of their helmets, and knee shields, too. Leather gloves, belts and buckles, a holstered baton, and finally, a pale green cowl Aster had come to know well.

And she had been right, the sound of two-hundred rifles being shouldered and drawn and turned within the same half-second was astounding. Like a room full of people clicking their fingers at precisely the same moment. And it was a connection, a thread that ran through each man in the same uniform. This must be what camaraderie feels like, Aster thought.

The training ground was no longer just that. It became consecrated. The deity: Shinra. The giant stone tableau with the Shinra logo etched within it became much more than another of their insignias. It became a symbol of pride.

That was how Aster felt. Proud.

Forget about the Turks, for now. She was a soldier. The uniform smelt a little funny, kind of dry, but right now, it smelt like accomplishment.

The atmosphere vibrated with the tension that ran through every man's body. From the fourth row and over the shoulders and gunmetal grey helmets of countless troops, Aster could not see the owner of the voice that boomed without a microphone. She didn't need to.

"Men!"

"Sir!"

The instant crack of two-hundred united boots smacking into the ground as they stood to attention was deafening. Rewarding.

"I come here to congratulate you all on your pass out into the grand Shinra military. I, head of Public Safety, welcome you."

The voice of the man weaved left and right as he paced before them, and she finally caught a glimpse of a green suit and a salt-and-pepper beard. Bile leapt in her gut. She kept it down. A strong reaction to Heidegger.

"Your three months of mandatory training are complete. From here on, you will enter the School of Infantry and SOLDIER, where for eight weeks you will devise your own personally-tailored training route to best prepare you for the next SOLDIER try out in two months."

Aster spotted through the crowd a whole row of Red Caps at the front, all stood facing them and to attention.

"Those who do not will be moved into the infantry proper, where you will cooperate in missions for Shinra's future. This is the mere beginning. The best is yet to come. Gya ha ha. In the best interest of Shinra!"

"Sir!"

"Congratulations, soldiers. You are all permitted five days leave to visit your families to celebrate. And we expect you back on the eleventh to throw yourselves even harder into your training! Gya ha ha ha!"

Each Red Cap blew his whistle. "Dismissed!"

There was a collective gasp and subsequently overpowering chatter from the recruits. Laughter. Some lobbed their helmets into the air like university graduation. Seemed like a great idea until they hurtled back down to earth and threatened to cave a crater into your skull.

Rex threw his arms around Aster, laughing, cheering. "We've done it. We did it!"

"Mate," she screamed into his ear in her best impression of his accent, clinging to each other, holding each other up in their elation. "We—we can go home!" She chomped into her lip with wide eyes. To go was to betray her own self. What about May eighth?

She pushed it back in her mind.

Whirling around, she saw Archie Sparrow and Lukas Rohrbach, and she grabbed them, both of them, and congratulated them. And they did she. Archie with a broad, young grin, Rohrbach with his more reserved but reaching slap on the shoulder guard.

Then a dark, slender figure appeared through the sea of cadets with black eyes, and her heart sank all over again. Skin pulled back tight by his ponytail of dark hair.

"Congratulations, Aster," said Tseng. "I hate to interrupt your celebrations."

A muscle near his jaw pulsed. His dark eyes shut off, sealed safe doors with forgotten contents. "You cannot go home."

The blow hit her straight to the gut, winding. "What?" she spat, breathless, "but I passed out, didn't I?"

"Yes," he said. "And you've been called forth for the first mission of your force. Consider it an honour."

Her mouth went dry as her mind raced after the stolen opportunity to go home, see her family again, her friends again, allow those emotions back into her life again.

Foolish, Tseng would have never allowed it anyway. It would be a distraction. Stupid for getting her hopes up.

But oh, how it crushed her.

"Wutaian upsurge," he said, snapping her eyes back into focus. "Fort Condor."

Suddenly, her thoughts organised themselves, snapping back into place, into logical sense. Into a place she could perhaps ignore them for now, and deal with them later.

Zack.

Aster nodded. "When do I leave?"

"Now."