Chapter 9. Unchangeable truth.

Sephiroth's POV

I walked towards the Science Division clearly annoyed. My boots hit noisily the ground with the haste and the irritation I felt inside.

Not even the fresh breeze of the impending night could serene me a little. If there was a thing I loathed the most, was being kept apart – without prior notice.

I knew I hadn't anything to do with the stupid investigations down at the labs; I knew my access was limited; I knew that what was inside that building wasn't exactly my domain. But I had a say in this particular issue. SOLDIER division had a part in the woman's case and Doctor John Medina couldn't simply block me from it.

The man wasn't my superior to do that. And let's say I wasn't used to be pushed out of something without a word. It wasn't, simply, correct.

So if Medina wanted me out of the woman's case, he would have to justify himself very seriously. I didn't have time to play around authority with an M.D..

I had much better things to do.

Once inside the building, I didn't give the receptionist a chance to utter a word. I simply walked towards Medina's labs, not minding how many times the woman called me, alerting me I hadn't permission to go inside.

Yeah, right. No one was going to stop me now. Medina was going to hear it and I would-

A familiar presence made me stop dead in my tracks.

After I opened the first coded door, I felt something. Something wicked, filthy and disgusting emanated from the woman's premises. And I also sensed a compelling force I was used to, because I had had it inside me more times than I could ever count. Mako.

That's all I needed now…, I thought, with scorn. That useless walking mass of complexes…

Hojo.

And what on the Planet was he doing inside the woman's chambers?

Not a good thing, that's for sure… my mind whispered, as I made my way through the following coded doors, the ones that would lead me to the woman's presence.

And once I got inside, my eyes couldn't just believe the nerve of that man.

"Hands off." I said, before I could think of any other thing to say.

Those huge syringes with green Mako inside it were very familiar. And so was the painful sting those cold, hideous things caused, followed by that burning sensation of Mako traveling inside my veins. Pain and power, flowing together inside me as siamese twins.

The coldness of that man never ceased to surprise me. His greediness knew no limits, no boundaries. Come on, this wasn't his floor, not his team, not his freaking cave of horrors. He had his own premises to make his sick experimentations, unspeakable things that he so straightforwardly enjoyed calling "science".

Freak.

My dialogue with Hojo was short, blunt and unpleasant, and it ended with him leaving the woman's premises with a consistently beaten ego.

As I closed the door after Hojo's departure, I eyed the woman. She was shaking, as if an arctic breeze invaded the room, and her eyes… screamed with silence.

With her left hand on her right arm, covering the place where that syringe had been, the least I could do was ask her if Hojo had actually injected her with something.

"Did he sting you?"

She shook her head, breathing unevenly through her nose. I had a feeling she would break easily if I didn't do something eventually. Clearly, the woman wasn't used to Hojo's manners, or she wouldn't react like this.

"Let me see it." I demanded, as I approached her bed. Sitting, compressed against the headboard, I realized the fright she felt still lingered. She was afraid of me as well, but in a different way. And I really didn't understand why, if I never had done anything to her to elicit such magnitude of apprehension.

"I'm okay." She whispered, clearly trying to dissuade me from getting closer.

Well, it was too late now. Standing next to her bed, I had a feeling the woman in front of me would run if she could, would merge with the wall if that could be possible – just to be away from me.

And she avoided my stare like the plague.

"I said I'm okay." She said, massaging her arm with a shaking hand.

"Then it will do no harm to confirm."

Before she could say anything, my hand touched her arm. Warm, soft skin met callous digits and I heard her breathe in deeply as a reaction. What a strange response.

With my other hand I removed her shaky hand from her arm, revealing a little hole in her skin, a thin stream of blood flowing from it.

Damn.

"So he did sting you after all." I said, hoping Hojo didn't have time to inject anything in her. "Did you feel a burning sensation afterwards?"

She shook her head again. And my impatience flared again.

"You'd better not lie to me. If Hojo injected you with Mako, that's how it would feel inside your vein." I clarified, pressing the residual wound with a disinfecting stripe. "So, did you feel something or not?"

With her head down and her gaze somewhere on the sheets, she shook her head once again.

And that made me react, maybe in the least adequate way. But I didn't care, I was getting fed up with her muted behavior.

So one of my hands left her arm and I grabbed her hair and scalp, right where her hairline began, directing her face to me.

"Is there something wrong with my face."

My disdained comment matched the shock her complexion revealed with my sudden, unexpected action. Her widened eyes, too damn expressive, met mine with ease. But what flowed from there worried me for subtle moments. It was nothing and everything at the same time. It was information, sensations and things I didn't know how to name. It was the unknown, I realized. It was the unpredictable, the indescribable, as if all the frames from past, present and future could merge in one mind, one being.

"No…", she suddenly said with her voice failing. I had to make a subtle effort to recall what had been the question in first place. This strange eye-to-eye communication had distracted me for brief moments. And that just couldn't do.

"Then look at me when I talk to you."

My hand released her and I gave her a time-off from my proximity. I knew I wasn't a calming presence. I had realized that several times, even before I was General. Men under my command had that strange tendency to avoid my stare. I didn't know why and I actually didn't care – I had learnt to live in a world where I ordered and others complied without questioning. And if my eyes bothered them – I assumed it happened because of its original appearance -, it was their problem.

"Thanks for coming up."

Her voice, her words surprised me somehow.

"It was a coincidence." I clarified. "I didn't come to pay you a visit."

Her eyes met mine in a swift movement, and then she just focused on the wall instead. She hadn't enjoyed my words, it was obvious.

"But of course," She answered, a slight scorn on her tone. "why would you pay me a visit."

I scanned her for brief moments, considering her daring words. I had to admit it almost made me laugh. Irony, really, at this hour of the day? She had guts, that was for sure. Okay then, if she wanted war, she was going to have it.

"Why do you look at me like that?"

Words had been spoken slowly, and my question seemed to take her by surprise and her eyes found mine again.

"Like what?" She whispered in my direction, expectant.

I took the chance immediately.

"Like you know me. Like you actually know everything about me, of what I do, of what I did, like I am evil reincarnate about to consume you, like you fear me with all you have inside, as if I have a hidden capacity of destroying everything I touch, as if I am a monster just because I'm obviously superior."

When I ended my sentence our faces were almost leveled and I couldn't read anything in her face except for shock. I had walked towards her and I hadn't even realized it. And now, a gaze-war was being drawn.

"Will I have to repeat myself… Eleanor?"

As I insisted, she shook her head, a stubborn tear falling as she gulped hard.

"And don't you dare to vomit on me again."

She blinked a couple of times, clearly trying to find an answer. She was thinking, obviously recalling. It didn't take much for me to guess she actually knew something – something I was involved in. And I didn't have to be a psychic to realize it was something serious.

"I-I… can't."

Her feeble words surprised me a bit, as she kept her stare leveled with mine. A feeble but intense stare that contrasted with mine in all aspects.

"Why?"

I guess it was only fair to ask.

"It's… uh..." She fought with words, she blinked, she averted her eyes from me, she took deep breaths, she… finally managed to say something, after a long pause. "Don't go to Nibelheim."

And with that, my eye-brows rose and my mouth pended a bit. I had to admit, her answer had surprised me.

I had no idea what she was talking about, why she had brought up that small village to issue. There was nothing wrong with Niebelheim. That place was completely irrelevant to me. And I didn't have any assignment there. I didn't have… I hadn't had, and concerning future missions I had knowledge of, I wasn't going to have any mission towards that area of the Planet.

Which made absolutely no sense.

"General Sephiroth!"

A familiar voice broke out of nowhere, disrupting the bubble we both seemed to be immersed in. Doctor John Medina, the person I had been searching for since the moment I had entered this damned building – was finally here.

"Professor." I greeted, with a consistent annoyed tone.

"You must leave now."

What? He had got to be kidding me. There was no way I was going to leave this place in the next hour or so.

"No." I said, my eyes hard on his.

Medina's stare now fought a battle with mine, his eyes dark with anger. The good doctor was clearly bothered with my presence next to his test-subject, which was simply hilarious. I couldn't help but to smirk maliciously.

"We may discuss this someplace else." Medina said, interrupting the moment. I took the chance to strike back at once.

"I highly doubt it, considering the way you shoved Fair from this place." I spoke, calmly and clear. When I ended the sentence, I could feel two sets of eyes on me – one completely oblivious to the issue, and other completely aware of it. I had caught Medina and he knew it.

"Let's talk about this in my office, it's not appropriate for us to discuss this here."

"Says who?" I teased.

"Please." A feminine voice sounded, feeble and slightly trembling. We both looked at her, reflexively. Her eyes were a mirror of hurt, pain and sorrow, and that flow of emotions took us aback a little, dissolving the resentment between us. "Don't argue." She added, and Medina signed me to exit her chambers.

This would continue outside, I was sure of it.

-/-

"So, are your doubts resolved?"

My tone was ironic, as I walked into Medina's office, the good Doctor launching a deadly stare at me, frankly annoyed with the former situation involving the woman. Well, wasn't the female creating trouble in the science division.

"You don't know any of my doubts." Medina whispered, knowing I would hear him in spite of the background noise. The doctor seemed furious, paginating swiftly one of the files he had on top of his desk. What a pile of papers the man collected.

"Hardly." I smirked. "Do you still think she's an Ancient?"

My curiosity was genuine.

"She's not one of us, that's for sure." Medina sighed. "And what she knows… no one random could have possibly known."

His mysterious tone reminded me of ghost stories, which annoyed me. There we go again…

"You didn't answer my question."

"I honestly don't know what she is." Medina's tired eyes were angry, maybe because he would like to know so many things and at this point wasn't sure of anything. "She claims she isn't an Ancient. But how can she know things-"

"Fair mentioned you had knowledge of classified matters. Was she the source?"

His eyes answered me.

Her. It had been her telling her things that remained classified. Okay. I was definitely not liking the path towards this situation was headed.

"She knows things that clearly remain classified in this company."

Medina was providing me redundant information. Okay so the woman knew things and we were all completely out of clues as to why and how she could possibly know such things. Secretly, all this worried me. I recalled how the expressivity in her eyes had given me the confirmation of her… capacities. The question now concerned the "how", more than anything.

"Such as?"

"She knew exactly what happened in Junon. And the reason you were called for – because the President had been shot." Medina's declaration only confirmed my suspicions. But he wasn't done. "Plus, she knows details of Professor Faremis's research and... Hojo. Very compromising details."

Not a pleasant event to recall, I thought. The past was the past and I did not enjoy to un-bury matters that didn't had anything to do with my unit. And that past tension between Hojo and Gast certainly wasn't something I would enjoy digging in. But of course, I had my theories. Gast's sudden death had been terrible enough for me not to wonder. I had read the file about his detention and death on sight.

"Did you check the veracity of that suspicion?"

"Partially."

"And what did you find?"

Medina's silence felt oppressing. Suspicions and unproven accusations were all I didn't need now. But everybody in the company gossiped that Hojo had been there, personally, to take care of Faremis. As well as silent whispers concerning Hojo's involvement in Faremis' s death. But the report was clean, I recalled perfectly.

"So Hojo took care of Gast?" I risked, verbalizing my thinking.

"The report states 'defensive fire'. On Gast? Really?"

I raised an eyebrow as I processed the doctor's words.

"So you think her theory is true."

"I just think it fits-"

"Just because it fits, it does not mean that it is actually what happened there."

Our gazes locked and for a moment, all I could her was Medina's breathing through his nose, obviously considering his answer.

"I believe her."

Well that didn't surprise me at all. Which reminded me of other events that didn't pose much of surprise to me as well.

"I advise you to keep a shorter leech on the personnel." I said, as I bent forward and rested my hands on his desk.

"Why?" Medina's eyes widened, totally unaware. I smirked, shaking my head as I took my time sitting on a chair right in front of his desk.

"Dr. Hojo sneaked into your alien's room for a little try-out with Mako."

Blood seemed to have been drained of Medina's face. He looked as pale as a ghost.

"So he… saw the interview. And came right to her." Medina resumed thinking out loud, sitting on his chair in slow motion.

"Maybe you should have refined sooner the access to your alien's file, Professor."

He narrowed his eyes, pursing his lips in annoyance.

"Stop calling her that."

Oh, aren't we touchy!

"So you've tested that theory also? I'm surprised." Irony imbibed my speech, and patience was starting to grow thin inside me. I absolutely loathed circular conversations.

"What is it with you and genetic diversity?"

That seemed to trigger a nasty reaction from me.

"I don't like what I am not familiar with." I said, speaking deliberately slow, as if Medina needed that to fully understand what I was saying.

But my little provocation didn't have the expected reaction.

"You should be more open-minded. Especially in what concerns-"

Okay, enough of useless talk.

"Why did you limit Zack's access to the woman's chamber?"

Medina didn't enjoy being interrupted, but he was making a hell of an effort not to yell at me. His contact with the woman was getting territorial, what meant trouble. If he was getting attached to her, the little objectivity he had would be clouded.

And I would have no choice but to give his head to the Ethical Board.

"There is clearly more to her than we might think. I don't want her to snap at the very first sight of you and your men." He justified, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

What a nice excuse to keep my unit off the case, Doc., my mind snarled. But that was not going to work.

"Oh."

Medina didn't miss my sarcastic tone.

"Unless you enjoyed last time's-"

The vomit? No, thank you.

But, on the other hand, he had a point when he mentioned there was something about the woman we were obviously missing.

"Yes, well… otherwise Hojo wouldn't have sneaked to test upon her."

"I'll deal with Hojo." Medina declared, confident. "Meantime, if you want to talk with the woman you let me know."

I rose from my chair, preparing to leave. But I had to question Medina one more time. His faith on this woman seemed completely unshakable. What was completely unacceptable, under my perspective.

"Do you actually believe her words?"

"I told you, at this point I don't reject hypothesis that easily."

"Scientists. You sure do lack objectivity."

"You shouldn't be that overconfident, General. Not everything on the Planet is explainable."

"Allow me to disagree." I smiled with irony. "And I want full access to her file."

"Maybe you shouldn't-"

Okay, that one threw me over the edge and I interrupted him mercilessly.

"Maybe it's you, doctor, that should not mess with my residual patience." I affirmed, as if I was ordering my soldiers. "If the woman is acquainted with events within my domain, it's only obvious that I have to accede to all contents of her file. I didn't particularly enjoy having restricted access when I tried to get to the files hours ago."

Medina gulped dry and I realized I had won.

"I'll provide you the password. But this matter stays between you and me, until further development."

"I wouldn't think of it otherwise." I smirked. "You have my word."

"Okay then."

"Later, Doc."

I said, as I closed the door behind me. This case was starting to mess with my nerves.

And that wasn't a good thing.

-/-

For the whole week, Gast's death had been all inside my mind.

Thankfully, the tasks at SOLDIER division resumed to training, which allowed me to think out the box.

Gast Faremis. A remarkable scientist, ethical man, dedicated to his work… a man that had died in the northern continent. The report reported Gast had fought back, shooting against the company… hence the reason they had to put him down.

Defensive fire.

It was so unlike Gast. I had to admit, this sudden conspiracy theory fitted – it fitted Gast and, above all, if fitted Hojo, who would do everything to get his hands on Gast's research, secrets and who knows what else. Would 'everything' to Hojo include murder?

But of course it did. To Hojo there were no limits.

My body knew that in first hand. Limits, ethical borders – was something that missed in Hojo's dictionary.

Now, thing was… should I make I try-out of this? A little experiment?

I hated to confirm Medina's theory – the theory being that-woman-knows-things-inexplicably would add a very unpleasant factor to the whole case. It would be much more comfortable to find out she was a spy and had her executed. It would be a much logical and accurate thing to conclude… but sadly, things weren't that simple.

And now my curiosity peaked. Concerning Hojo and his supposed secret.

I breathed in deep and looked out the window. It was late afternoon. And I was going to take the chance.

-/-

"General."

Hojo's tone was a memory that always triggered a visceral reaction in me. Standing, I faced the man, his stare meeting mine above the line of his glasses, that dark hair of his decorating the sides of a face that I had always dreamed to disfigure.

Maybe one day…, I thought, as I bent slightly my head, complimenting him. Manners mattered always, even if I stood facing a lesser human. Hojo's lab was deserted, all of his slaves had left for the day.

"Professor."

"How can I be of your service?" He smiled, facing the computer screen again.

"By answering my questions."

"So offensive. And straight to the point, just like I taught you."

My jaw tensed at his comment. He sure knew how to provoke me, innerve me. But I focused, managed to get some self-control… and recalled the reason I was here for.

"Did you kill Gast?"

Hojo's eyes met mine, and he considered his answer – a sign of an impending… lie.

"No. The company did."

His tone wasn't ironic or firm. He was just quoting the lines written in the report I had re-read hours ago. The report on Gast's death.

"Only someone very gullible would believe that 'defensive fire' was needed on someone as The Professor Gast Faremis." I declared, very relaxed as I arranged my gloves absentmindedly. "You don't have to go by the official version with me, Hojo." I smiled, irony bathing my complexion.

Hojo took his time answering . Again. Gotcha.

"Oh really. And who-"

"Tell me, was his research that important to the point of having him off the map?"

Hojo's eyes now burned into mine and he rose from his chair, breathing audibly, visibly nervous.

"He had the whole world on his hands. And he let it slip away through his fingers, only because of a ridiculous infatuation."

Infatuation? What was Hojo talking about?

"So the end justified the means."

"Yes." Hojo smiled, triumphant. "It did."

For the Planet, this man was so disgusting. At all levels.

"I assume this little conversation will stay between us." Hojo declared, a hint of threat imbibing his speech as he gazed upon me. Right, he had his own way to attack me. Low ways, as expected.

"Do not worry about that." I affirmed, not surprised by his speech. "Everyone knows already how vicious and wicked you are. I assume the word executioner wouldn't pose such a shock, considering the sick endeavors you conduct in your den."

And with that I left, not bearing the sight of that man in front of me.

As I walked out of Hojo's lab, all I could think about was… the consequences of the confirmation I had won. So it was true after all. Hojo had found a way to get rid of Gast. Hojo had been the responsible for Gast's death.

Which meant Medina was right.

Which also meant… the woman we held inside our premises… was something we didn't have knowledge of. Something unknown, something… that sent shivers up my spine.

Hojo's POV

I remained standing, facing the door for some time, as my mind avidly remembered the dialogue I had had with the General.

How could have my top experimental SOLDIER known about my technique to get rid of Faremis would remain a mystery. Well, not quite. That woman Medina held hostage certainly had something to do about it.

But he, my Sephiroth, was smart. He was very intelligent – to the point of not risking his career for a simple doubt.

He would not raise suspicions, not now, not after so much time… Gast's death was part of the past, an event that wouldn't be changed… in any way. Time had erased all the doubts and what was written in the report was stated as truthful.

An unchangeable truth.

So, as I saw my progeny walk away, hating me with such energy, I couldn't help but to feel proud.

A smile decorated my face as the words came out, but I was the only one listening to them:

"Like father, like son…"

A/N – First of all, my deepest apologies for the absence of late. Real life will have me trapped until late November, so expect a slow updating rhythm.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter – I sure did, I had finally time to finish it properly and I have to tell you as well that I updated my journal at Dart and! I created a FB page for all my fanfictions! Join in, I'll accept you all, and it will be easier to contact me if you want to ask, suggest, comment, whatever. (Except for abhorrent flaming). You may find it right there in my profile, first thing! Join and enjoy :)

Now, about this chapter – the plot is going, slow as it should as discoveries are being made. Fear not, this will be a memorable fic.

Review with all your strength fellow readers! And join the community "Fanfiction by AGoEB" on FB! Can't wait to have you there!