Scars of the Past

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Y'know I didn't mean - What I just said - But my God woke up on the wrong side of His bed - And it just don't matter now - Little by little we gave you everything you ever dreamed of - As little by little the wheels of your life have slowly fallen off - Little by little you have to live it all in all your life - And all the time I just ask myself why are you really here? (Oasis – Little by Little)

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Chapter 6 - A History Lesson

Reno walked through Sector Five. He had always wondered how that god damn house ended up being in the slums. It looked like someone had just dug up a house from Kalm and planted right in the middle of the sector. Not to mention the flower garden that came with it. It was probably the only place in the slums, except that church, where flowers grew. He always wondered how the Ancient got anything to grow here. It wasn't exactly the best of environments to cultivate stuff. He reached the old oak door. 'Better make this as easy as possible.' He knocked and waited for the woman to open the door. He surprised by the fact that it wasn't the woman that opened it. 'This maybe easier than I thought.'

"Hello?" The little four year old girl asked from the small crack in the door.

"Hi Marlene, want to see your Papa again?" The girl nodded her head slowly. The Turk held out his hand. "Well if you come with me, you'll see him real soon, ok?" The brown haired girl looked at the red head for a minute, then took his hand. Reno heard someone walk down the stairs inside. "Come on then." Just as Marlene was going to walk out the door, it opened wider to reveal a brown haired woman.

"Turk. What do you want Marlene for?" She asked.

"Just need her as a little bargaining chip that's all. I won't hurt her."

"I'll be damned if I let her go with you!" Reno sighed.

"Look, don't believe me if you don't want to, but where I plan to take her is probably a hell of a lot safer than down here. If it really bothers you, you're welcome to come with me." 'Rufus is gonna kill me.' Elmyra looked at the red haired Turk for a moment, then nodded. "Heh, at least you didn't hit me with a rolling pin this time." The woman smiled a little as she shut her door.

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"So looking forward to the little parade, Mr. President? Gya haa haa haa!" Rufus stared at the fat man in the green suit. 'Kill me, kill me now'. The blonde president never answered. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the Junon sea air. Heidegger began to fidget. "I sent the Manufacturing Department in Administrative Research to find Sephiroth." Rufus spun around to look at Heidegger.

"What do you mean you sent the Turks to find Sephiroth?" He said dangerously calmly, taking a few more steps towards him. Heidegger fiddled with his tie.

"I sent them to go and kill him." Rufus' face turned a shade of red, making the green suited Executive gulp.

"Are you mad?? There's no way three people can kill that freak! You'd need the whole of SOLDIER to even have a slight chance against him. What the hell were you thinking?" Rufus shouted. This made Heidegger even more fidgety.

"Sir, the Turks are dispensable......." He never finished the sentence before Rufus grabbed hold of his green jacket.

"Ever say that in front of me again and I will personally make sure you don't see another day, understood?" The Shinra Executive nodded. The blonde let him go and shoved him a little. He turned round to look at the sea.

"I don't see why you're so fond of them, they're all useless, especially that Turk that was killed, what's her name......." The President spun back round again, pulling out his shotgun.

"Do you not listen to anything I say?" Rufus said with a dangerous gleam in his eye, waving the gun around "Just get out of my sight before I shoot you. Phone Tseng to tell him their mission is to keep an eye on Avalanche, nothing more. If I find out you never told him, I'll ram my shotgun up a very uncomfortable place, do you understand?" Heidegger went to open his mouth to say thing, but stopped. He nodded then walked a little away from the President, while taking out his PHS.

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In the Shinra Building in Junon, Tseng put the PHS back in his pocket. He smiled. Heidegger had finally opened his big mouth to Rufus. He looked at the other two Turks, who were having a drinking game. Since Reno wasn't here to compete with Rude like normal, Elena was filling in.

"Who was that?" Elena asked drinking her third Bacardi and Coke.

"Just Heidegger. Rufus finally found out about our 'mission' and told the fat ass to change it to spying on Avalanche." The Turk leader knocked back his drink. The blonde smiled.

"At least I don't have to fear my life anymore." She took another sip of her drink. "So how many can Rude actually take before passing out?" She said pointing to the other Turk.

"I don't know, about twenty whiskeys." Tseng said, pouring himself a whiskey. Elena's eyes went wide.

"Twenty? Aw gesh, I can only take about seven of these." She lifted her glass up. "And this is already my third." Tseng patted her on the back.

"It's ok. No one I've ever known can out drink Rude. I think Reno can only take about ten, but it never stops him from trying." The blonde Turk giggled.

"You can take more than Rufus can, Elena. I think he can only manage three before he goes all giggly and falls asleep." The bald Turk said. Elena giggled some more. "Okay maybe I should take that comment back." Elena went to slap him with her hand, but it only ended up being a tap on his shoulder.

Rufus stormed into the room, muttering to himself. All the Turks looked up at him.

"Have a nice trip here then sir?" Tseng asked him. Rufus stopped and looked at the Turk leader.

"I had to sit with fat bastard, how do you think it went? I swear if he laughs one more time, I'll shoot him." The Wutian chuckled.

"Please do, don't think anyone would miss him a great deal."

"If I ever told Reno what he said to me, he wouldn't be alive for too much longer." Tseng gave the President a questioning look. "He basically said you were all useless, especially Addy, which I don't think would go down too well with our resident red head."

"Sir, we know he thinks we're dispensable, but frankly we don't care." Tseng took a drink of his whiskey. Rude nodded in agreement.

"He's not fit to be the head of SOLDIER, let alone you guys. He can go and fuck Hojo for all I care." Rufus paused for a minute. "Speaking of Hojo, did you know he's resigned?" The blonde man sat down, as the Turk leader poured him a drink.

"No surprise there. Trust him to unleash his spawn then run off." Rufus looked at Tseng puzzled. "Oh you didn't know did you? Doubt many people know this. The lovely Sephiroth is Hojo's son."

"No shit...."The President muttered.

"When the whole Nibelheim thing happened, I got sent to the mansion and that's what I happened to find out. As well as what happened there, nearly 30 years ago."

"Do tell, I'm all in for a good story." Rufus leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

"Alright. About 30 years ago, Professor Gast discovered a creature called Jenova."

"That gooey thing that Sephiroth took while he was in the Shinra Building?" The blonde man cut in.

"What?" The black haired Wutian asked.

"You didn't know? When Sephiroth was there the other night he took Jenova. I told Heidegger to......." Rufus stopped talking. Tseng's face looked bitter for a second.

"And that's why we didn't know. Anyway Gast's assistant was Hojo."

"Gesh How old is Hojo?" Elena asked.

"He's old, I lost count years ago. Shinra didn't want anyone to discover this Jenova thing, so they set up in lab in the basement of the old Shinra mansion in Nibelheim. So Gast, Hojo, a new lab assistant called Lucrecia and a Turk named Vincent Valentine, were sent to Nibelheim."

"Wasn't Vincent the man who........." Rude asked.

"Disappeared? Yeah. No one ever knew why though." The Turk leader took another sip of his drink "So after a while the experiment got under way. A couple of months after, Gast got called away to work on something else. That left Hojo to play about with whatever he wanted, which of course he did. He decided he wanted to see if Jenova cells could make people stronger than Mako ever could. The only way he could do this without a person rejecting the cells, was to plant them in an unborn child." Tseng swirled his drink around in the glass.

"Crazy old coot." The President mumbled.

"Since Lucrecia was a over enthusiastic lady, Hojo convinced her to have his child so he could inject it with Jenova cells. Lucrecia agreed, and nine months later Sephiroth was born. Somewhere along the way, Vincent ended up falling in love with Lucrecia. She died while giving birth to her baby. When Vincent found out, he went to confront Hojo, but Hojo just shot him and ended up making him an experiment. Hojo just reported that the Turk had been killed by a monster in Mount Nibel, not that many people believed that."

"What happened five years ago then? I know Shinra made a whole cock and bull story about what happened, but no one ever told me what really happened." Rufus asked pouring himself another drink.

"Trust me this part of the story explains a lot. People in Nibelheim were complaining about monsters coming into the town, which they thought were coming from the reactor. Sephiroth was sent to have a look, taking a first class SOLDIER named Zack Raven, and two guards, one of them I happen to know was Cloud Strife." The blonde haired man raised an eye brow as Tseng continued. "Travelling up Mount Nibel with a guide, who's name I believe was Tifa Lockheart, they reached the reactor." He put the glass down. "Hojo always told Sephiroth that his mother was Jenova, so when they got to the reactor and saw the name Jenova written over a door, Sephiroth kind of wanted to know what was going on."

"Sick bastard...." The blonde woman muttered. Tseng continued.

"He ended up locking himself in the Shinra mansion trying to find out about himself for days on end. While doing this he totally lost his insanity. He came out and burnt Nibelheim to the ground. He then marched up to the reactor again, bent on seeing Jenova. When SOLDIER's came to the village to clean up a day later, Sephiroth's body was found floating in the Mako of the reactor. Hojo decided it would pleasurable to take Raven and Strife, who were still barely alive in the reactor, and experiment on them. Later on that day, they went back to retrieve Sephiroth's body and it was gone."

"And now I know why it was covered up." Rufus finished off the rest of his drink and slammed the glass on the table. "Does Heidegger really not tell you anything?"

"Only when he needs to." The Wutian said.

"To hell with the fat bastard, I'll tell you what to do from now on. From this moment in time, Heidegger is no longer your boss. How does that feel?" The President smirked as he stood up. Tseng looked at him.

"You'd make a better boss than fat ass any day." Elena added. Rufus took a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket.

"I'll take that as a compliment. Now for your first mission from me. Go back to Midgar and take bloody Scarlet to that reactor in Gongaga before she moans at me anymore."

"Does that really need three of us?" Rude asked.

"Nope it needs four, since Reno is going with you as well. She's looking for something called Huge materia, so she can power the sister ray again. Don't ask me why she wants to, but it might be a good idea while Sephiroth is roaming around." Rufus lit up a cigarette as he walked towards the door. "Excuse me, but I have a ship to catch and a fat ass to annoy." As the door shut, Tseng shook his head 'That man will never change'.

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Callum was sat on the floor in Reeve's office, playing with an Action Man. Cait Sith was sat, staring at the little red haired, wondering how he could be amused by a piece a plastic with clothes on for so long. Reeve was sat behind his desk, mumbling numbers to himself. The cat jumped up onto the desk.

"Did you know that mumbling to yourself is the first sign of madness?" The Shinra Executive looked up slowly, glaring at the cat. "Gesh, someone has a pole up their ass today." Cait jumped back off the desk and walked over to Callum. "So what are you playing?"

The boy didn't have time to answer before the doors to the room burst open and Reno stormed in. Reeve smirked.

"Have a nice time?" Reno glared at the dark haired man. If looks could kill, Reeve would be dead ten times over. The red head stared pacing the room.

"The kid is a brat. She won't shut up. Elmyra encouraged the kid to keep talking. It was as if she wanted to torture me." Reno said as he sat down in an empty chair.

"So where is the kid?" The Shinra Executive decided to ask.

"Outside the door. Cait do me a favour go and fetch them for me." The cat ran out the door.

"Them?" Reeve asked, questioningly.

"Daddy!" Callum dropped his toy on the floor and ran over to the red haired man.

"Hey Kiddo." The Turk ruffled the child's hair. "I had to bring Elmyra with me." Reeve started to chuckle. "What? I wasn't going to risk getting hit with her rolling pin again. It damn well hurt the first time."

"Daddy, Who's that?" Callum said, pointed towards that little girl that was now stood in the doorway with Elmyra. Reno's PHS then chose that moment to ring. The red head put the little boy down to answer it. Callum walked over to the girl. "My name is Callum. What's yours?" The brown haired girl blinked, then smiled.

"Marlene."

"That's a pwetty name. Wanna play action man with me?"

"Okay." Marlene said, shyly. She followed Callum to where he was playing before. Reno closed his PHS.

"Reeve, you know how you love me......." He said walking back over to the desk.

"No Reno." The black haired man said, wiping a hand over his face.

"Please?" Reno asked pathetically, trying to make puppy dog eyes.

"Okay, get lost then. Just please don't ever do puppy dog eyes again, they don't suit you."

"Thanks man, I......." Reno trailed off as Callum shouted.

"Grandma!" A red blur shot past Reno. He put both hands on the desk and leaned on it.

"Oh dear god, please tell me it's my mother come back from the dead, Reeve." Reeve looked over the Turk's shoulder.

"Nope, but if it's what you want to hear, then yes Reno, there's a ghost stood in the doorway of my office." He said grinning.

"Damn you and your sense of humour." Reno spun round and smirked. "Ready then, Grandma?" Scarlet stared at the Turk for a minute.

"Why did you have to be going to the reactor?" The blonde woman scowled, as she walked off down the hall. Reno followed, while shouting.

"I love you too." Reeve shook his head.

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