And still, restrained and no longer a threat, soldiers wouldn't go near him.
Veld had taken one look at him, slammed a fist into his stomach that had left the furious boy near-insensate and choking on blood, and had torn the manacles and chains away as if they meant nothing.
He'd had powerful hands---long and broad and calloused, with square palms and scars criss-crossing them. Tseng remembered thinking, through the haze of pain and fury, that this stranger in the dark suit had a true fighter's hands, and had felt ashamed that his were so unmarred by comparison.
They'd had a saying in those days, when people were just beginning to forget that ShinRa's assassins had ever been anything else---Once a Turk, always a Turk. Tseng hadn't believed it, then; nothing was forever, after all.
But now he did.
He'd modelled himself after Veld, the only man--the only human--who had ever posed a challenge to him, who had ever broken through his hatred; who had knocked him flat on his back again and again and again, with the same words even now echoing in his head.
"Get up, goddamnit. Get up! Don't ever let yourself fall. Never, never let your opponent see you on your knees, you damned stupid boy."
Veld had never lost control. He'd always been the model of patience, of cool collectedness, and Tseng had burned with envy. If he could only---only have that. If he could only be like that, like Veld, and find a way to make the hate, the hurt, go away forever..
He would never lose again.
Once a Turk, always a Turk.
Some things never went away. Some things burned themselves like brands into your soul.. and if he had believed in a god, he would have known himself to be damned.
Some things you could never escape. Even when everything you touched turned black with cold, and you could feel the winter in your lungs, and in your throat, with every exhale and every meaningless smile.