Reno: Oh my god!
Reeve: Tyramir is going for the hat trick! Four chapters, folks! He means to tie his record!
Reno: As a prize, I will say the disclaimer. Tyramir does not own the rights to Final Fantasy.
Reeve: And Final Trinity is coming.
Chapter Fifty Seven
Respect For the Dead
"What did you say?" Reno asked, shocked. Somewhere deep inside, it felt as if a hand had gripped onto his heart and was beginning to squeeze. Hard.
"You heard me!" Elena shouted, her face tear streaked. "That bastard stole Tseng's body! He has my Tseng!"
Reno tried to sit down, found there was no chair underneath him, and fell backwards, landing on his bottom. He stayed there, a dumbstruck expression on his face, and a hundred million things running through his mind.
Hojo was capable of a lot of things, grave robbing being one of the lesser crimes. And while he and Cait had joked about Hojo making an army of undead flunkeys, now that the thought was there, he couldn't get it out. And he desperately wanted it out.
"How?" Reno asked.
"How what?" Elena demanded.
"How do we even have Tseng's body? We left it in the godamn Temple of the Ancients before it got crushed and turned into the Black Materia. I know I don't remember pulling it out. I made a quick examination, then went outside looking for whoever did it. How 'bout you, Lena?"
The woman stopped short and shook her head. "I didn't… we did leave him in there, didn't we? So whose body did he steal?"
"Uh…" Cait said, "He stole Tseng's. I was kinda sorta the one who pulled his body out of the Temple. Unit One, anyway. Before it went into the Temple to turn it into the Black Materia, I saw Tseng and pulled him out. I ordered him to be kept in the Junon morgue until I could have his body cremated and sent back to Wutai. It was a discussion we had once. He made me promise that if he ever died, I'd make sure that his family got his remains."
"Then why didn't they?" Elena asked, lifting the doll up and shaking it. "Why was his body still here? Why was Hojo given the chance to steal it?"
"Stop!" Cait cried. Elena immediately stopped shaking him and placed him back on the desk. "It's not my fault. I meant to do it as soon as possible, but so many things came up. Sephiroth was still on the loose, and then the Weapons came, and Meteor hit, and I lost my memories… I quite literally forgot!"
Reno brushed a hand through his hair and just shook his head in disbelief. "Can he really do it? Hojo, I mean. Can he bring Tseng back to life?"
Cait shrugged. "I'm not sure. I mean, he cloned Sephiroth about thirty five times, mostly using other people as a template. He'd literally graft Sephiroth's genes on someone else. He was a brilliant geneticist. But if he wanted to bring Tseng back… well, he wouldn't be able to do it. Not from scratch, or from a corpse. I don't see how he could do it."
Reno nodded, relieved to hear that. He didn't want to have to fight Tseng. Not in a hundred, no, not in a million years. Tseng had not only been a friend, but he'd also been his teacher. Tseng knew every move Reno had, plus a lot more. The Wutaian man had rarely used his skills that Reno had seen, but he knew that the man could kick almost anyone's ass three ways from Sunday. One handed. While getting a manicure and making sure his hair was shining and full of body.
Tseng had always been a little queer.
"Think he's gonna try to graft Tseng onto Trask?" Reno asked, surprised at his own words as he spoke them.
Cait made a sound akin to a whistle, and Elena threw another fit. Reno felt like joining her. Instead, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialled up Yuffie's number. After half a ring, he got an answer.
"Hey!" she said cheerily.
"No time for a good mood, Yuff. Find Hojo. Watch him. If possible try to steal a controlling mechanism off him. That's your briefing. This is a full on mission."
"What's going on?"
Reno rolled his eyes, and answered, "What's Rule Two of the Turk handbook?"
There was a pause, followed by the inevitable answer. He'd made sure to drill these rules into Yuffie, while letting Trask figure them out on his own. "'Never question your Commander.'"
"Good girl. Now get to it." He hung up on her, then put the phone away. "Elena, you're a wreck, fix yourself up."
Elena looked up at him, her mascara running. "I, uh… I request permission to confront Trask himself. Before he becomes Tseng."
"Denied," Reno said firmly. "I have another plan. But first, ransack Shera's office. I need you to look through all of her belongings. Give it a thorough search."
"Her office was already searched by-"
"Do I give a crap what some rent-a-soldier didn't find? Shera was hiding something before she died. Find it. Give it a full on Turk search. And if anyone interferes, remember Turk Rule Number Four."
"'Shoot first, ask questions never?'"
"That's the one. If anyone tells you that you're doing something wrong, or tries to interfere with you, they're working for Hojo. He broke Rule 5. And the Turks never, ever, allow anyone to break Rule 5."
"What's Rule 5?" Cait asked.
"None of your business," Reno said. "And you… get in that Robo-Guard of yours, put the thing on standby, and I want you to figure out how Hojo's bio-modem works. I don't care if you have to take apart your own head and pull out the pieces that keep you running. Figure it out, or by tomorrow night, we're killing Hojo, whether he's in your body or not."
Cait gulped, then nodded furiously.
"And what will you be doing?" Elena asked.
Reno thought about it for a moment, then grinned. "The two things I like doing most. Ordering weapons and looking at porn while waiting for them to come in. Now get lost!"