Left Behind
A Story in the Turks of Midgar Arc
Chapter 7 – Silence
It was almost frightening how easy it was for Jesse and Reno to flee Midgar. Jesse's disguise was clever, but the guards at the Sector Four Gate should've questioned her anyway. Instead of using makeup to hide her scars, Jesse used it to cover her face in scars. She wore brown-colored anti-Mako contacts, dressed in the oldest, crummiest clothes she had, and jammed a grey, long-haired wig over her own rich brown hair. Reno called her "Grandma" in this disguise and the guards didn't cause problems when the boy with the wooden leg and the old woman left Midgar.
All evening, the kiss Sephiroth had given her tried to interfere in her scheming. So what if he'd kissed her? Simply another sort of warfare; that was all it could be. ...That was all Jesse would allow it to be.
The pair settled in Kalm, in a house Jesse had built within her first year of work. It was just outside the town, in a small copse of pine trees, a fifteen minute walk from the beach. The unique thing about this house was that it was above and below the ground, but not on it. The living room, master suite, small armory and watch tower were all in the trees in the clearing. Down a spiral staircase hidden inside a tree was the major part of the house. Three large bedrooms with a bathroom for each, the large armory, kitchen, dining room, pool and other rooms were under the clearing itself.
Now, some people might think this impossible, but when a wealthy person wants an unobtrusive fortress and knows what to prepare against, it was perfect. A clever arrangement of mirrors brought sunlight into the basement portion of the house, and the natural spring provided all the water. The plumbing was taken care of by the ocean.
The plumbing, Jesse admitted, was the one weakness. She had anti-Mako wards in every inch of the house and grounds, but there was a problem with containing the Mako once it left the house. Take bathwater for instance; the water absorbs excess Mako from Jesse and Reno, literally sucking it out of their skin. Now, that water goes to the ocean, and while in the pipes it collects anti-Mako particles to hide the radiation for a certain time. The radiation was invisible for approximately five miles. Anyone with a bit of Search Materia could trace the radiation back to Jesse's beach. Therefore, she had extended the pipe system an extra three miles out into the ocean, but that still didn't eliminate the problem.
Thinking along such lines, Jesse stood gazing out her bedroom window at the sea, switching her eyesight to see Mako only. And there it was; the glowing green path out into the ocean, a beacon for whoever wanted to find them.
XXX
Sephiroth stood perfectly still and listened to the shouting match in front of him closely. The emergency meeting of the Shinra executives had been interesting to say the least. He continued to watch Hojo and Heidegger battle it out, his thoughts on what he'd learned so far.
Jesse had rejected an offer to "join" the Science Department, and so Hojo complained to the President and the order to kill the beautiful Turk had been given. Heidegger, head of the Defense Department, had been utterly furious with Hojo and the President, for causing him to lose his best Turk. Tseng, leader of the Turks, stood behind President Shinra, his face blank and his normally full lips nothing but a tight white line. He was enraged.
Sephiroth looked at the other executives in turn, filing away their reactions in his mind. Scarlet was smiling gleefully; glad to be rid of her rival. Palmer was tinged with regret for the loss of such a pretty young thing. The other executive, Christopher Saire, was unreadable.
Sephiroth was greatly amused. Not once had they asked him if he'd succeeded in killing Jesse. No one doubted his ability, his invulnerability, his perfection. No one except Tseng, that is. The Wutainese had caught the gleam in the young General's eye, the laughter dancing in the brilliant green. Tseng had valued Jesse above all his other Turks. She'd been trained by Vincent, the greatest Turk to ever live.
Jesse had been his second in command, the Turk he trusted to watch his back, the woman who cried herself to sleep over a man who'd never loved her back when she thought everyone else wasn't listening, the only friend he'd had who wasn't looking to kill him for the throne of Wutai. And so, because of all this, Tseng said nothing and let Sephiroth gloat. Jesse was alive and out of Midgar, Tseng had seen her and the boy walk through the gate from the shadows. He knew they would head for Kalm and the fortress Jesse had built there.
But he would say nothing. Why? Because no upstart General deserved to love Tseng's angel of death.