My Vietnam
19 September 2014
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This is a FFVII fic by klepto_maniac0. I own no concepts and no characters except the ones you've never heard of, which means they're ones I've made. I freely admit I will take liberties with the FFVII canon because this is an alternate universe fic (in case you haven't figured that out already.) That's why some details are different, some events are ignored, and some people don't exist or act in a different capacity. Ain't fanfic fun?
"My Vietnam" (henceforth shortened to MYV) is a continuation of "Put Your Lights On" (PYLO), but it is not necessary to have read PYLO before reading this story. Whenever PYLO-specific events are referenced, the pertinent chapter will be indexed in the author's note.
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But I guess
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For a long time, Toriko did not want to get up. She lay with her eyes closed, feeling the meager heat leave her mother's body and fighting the panic in her own that screamed for her to do something. She barely breathed that night as Seishi's body went cold, then subtly and slowly hardened with the last release of life. Toriko held her mother's hand and felt the rigor leave, and it was only then, when the smell of dead flesh and rotting bile took on a new dimension, something sour and fetid, that Toriko could no longer convince herself that Mother was merely sleeping. Seishi was dead now because Toriko couldn't fucking hold it together. Fear of Sephiroth would have killed Seishi like a knife to the heart, but Toriko's dream was like the softest of pillows pressed over a drugged person's face. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, to let Seishi go gently and quietly, but now that Toriko was awake and alone, all she could think about was that she needed to die so she could apologize to Seishi for killing her.
Deep black night turned to gray predawn. The door slid open and Yoko came in with a tub of hot water. She didn't say anything to Seishi or Toriko, knowing that they would sleep as much as Seishi needed to. Toriko watched her through barely opened eyes, wondering if Yoko sensed anything was wrong. Both handmaidens were so desperate to prove they were more loyal and more loving. Toriko didn't doubt it in this moment, but at the same point in time, a truly attentive daughter would have known her mother was dead. Yoko set the tub down, put a clean set of washcloths and towels nearby, and left. She never once looked at Toriko or Seishi. Toriko closed her eyes again.
She didn't know if she slept or if time simply flowed away, but she became aware of another set of steps sometime later. It was Nanashi. The older woman came down the hall briskly, and for the first time, something like nervousness stirred in Toriko's stomach. She decided to keep her eyes closed. Nanashi came in, but stopped. And she stood there in the entrance of the room, silent as only one familiar with death could be. At least a solid minute, or maybe it was longer. Toriko didn't know anything but the steady uptick of anxiety making her heartbeat flutter. Why was that happening?
Nanashi sighed. Toriko heard a world of grief, resignation, and relief in her sensei's voice and couldn't decide how she felt about that. Then Nanashi came closer and a surge of panic, surprisingly strong, made Toriko spasmodically tense up. But even then, she was careful not to crush Seishi's hand. Nanashi knelt at the side of the futon, her presence solid at Toriko's back. Toriko still had her forehead touched to Seishi's.
"Young mistress, it's time to get up," said Nanashi softly. "We must prepare her. You know this."
Toriko knew Seishi's body needed to be washed and dressed before cremation. The idea of her strong brave mother in flames made her shudder.
"Young mistress, please."
There would be a funeral. A very grand one, considering all Seishi had built. People who didn't know anything about Seishi would turn out to pay their respects to someone they'd once spat on, or maybe just to gawk at the spectacle. Seishi wouldn't mind that. She liked being made much of.
"Toriko. Tori-chan, get up."
"Don't call me Tori-chan," said Toriko, opening her eyes. "No one is ever allowed to call me that."
"Alright," said Nanashi. "But you have to get up."
"Why?"
"Because I refuse to let you burn with her."
Stupid intuitive sensei. Toriko pushed herself into a sitting position, but her hand was still locked around her mother's. Toriko looked at Seishi's face and felt her face crumple. Why did Seishi look so happy about being murdered?
"Toriko, you have to let go of her hand."
Impossible. Toriko bowed her head before the shameful, worthless tears could start. She couldn't cry over this. She didn't deserve to. Daughters who killed their mothers didn't get to be sad.
"Toriko—"
"No."
"Toriko, you—"
"Don't tell me what to do," said Toriko, her voice hardening. "She's dead. You have nothing to do with me any more. Neither does this place, neither does this country—"
"If you really believed that, you would let go," said Nanashi implacably.
"It is because I believe it that I don't," said Toriko. "She's the only thing keeping me here."
"Do you want to be here, then?"
Something seemed to break. Toriko covered her mouth with her free hand, water threatening to spill from her eyes. She managed to kill the sob before it even reached her throat. It hurt. And it felt right, which was more than she could say about her locked-up hand. Toriko forced her thoughts into her half-frozen fingers, willing them to open.
But at the first hint of movement, the most horrible thing happened. As though Toriko's hand had covered a leak, black fluid began to seep and soak through Seishi's bandages. Every inch of Seishi was covered in bandages except her face and Toriko watched in horror as the white gauze turned black in moments, releasing more of that sour, fetid smell she'd detected earlier. Infinitesimally, the blanket covering Seishi started to sink and slump onto the floor.
"Mommy," Toriko choked out. Black fluid soaked into the futon, spreading like oil over water. Nanashi yanked her out of the bed just as tracks like black tears began to seep from Seishi's eyelashes. Her sunken eyes became even more pronounced as more black fluid ran from her nose and mouth. A black spot on her forehead, right where Toriko had rested her head against her mother's, grew like a terrible flower.
Nanashi picked Toriko up and half-ran down the hall with her. She opened the door, flooding the house with blinding light except for a large, man-shaped shadow that moved to stand before her. Toriko stared at her hand, which was smeared with black.
"Take care of her," said Nanashi, handing her to Rude. "She's in shock."
"What's this?" Rude asked, staring at Toriko. At first Toriko thought he was just talking about her hand, but when Toriko followed his line of sight, she realized that a lot of her sleeping robe was dyed black. Black fluid was smeared over her legs, all but soaking her ankles and toes. She touched her face with her clean hand, brushing her forehead and cheek. Black fluid gleamed on her fingertips.
"If it was red, it would be blood," thought Toriko. It was entirely appropriate that it was all over her. A part of her felt like screaming but the rest of her decided that screaming was indulgent and she didn't deserve any of it.
Nanashi left. Rude hesitated a moment before carrying Toriko to the main building, more specifically the washroom. The Blue Lotus's traditional one was very large and more on the scale of a public bath due to the amount of people that came through in a day. No one was using it now. Rude deposited Toriko in the changing room and went away. She was not inclined to bathe, however, and had a half-formed idea of stewing in her own filth until she died, but then she heard a scream from her mother's house. Two of them. High-pitched, girlish ones packed with grief. Something inside her seemed to vibrate on the same level.
And then all of a sudden Toriko was gasping, repressed tears breaking out with a vengeance as full body shudders nearly brought her to her knees. Toriko clapped her hands over her mouth and squeezed until her knuckles hurt. She wasn't going to lose control. She wasn't going to break down, not now. It was so stupid. She hadn't cried after the dream or waking up to Seishi's corpse in the same bed. Those times would have made sense. Why was this happening now?
"Keep it together," she all but screamed at herself as her body seemed to swell right into panic mode. "Do not be weak. You can't face Father like this."
If he was actually still alive.
A surge of emotions too intense to be faced made a low cry escape her throat, and then furious at being so weak, Toriko slapped herself hard, forcing her tears to be those of pain instead of grief. She deserved this for being so faithless, so stupid. She hit herself again and again, trying to enforce discipline over her doubts. Of course Sephiroth was alive. Of course he was. Even though Seishi was dead. But if one parent could die, why couldn't another? Why wouldn't another?
"Don't be stupid!"
Toriko's head headed pounded with the force of her conscious mind screaming logic and reason at her soft traitorous core. Of course Seishi would die. She was only human, incredibly sick, and had lived through so much stress and trauma. On the other hand, Sephiroth was the best of SOLDIER and the strongest man in the world. There was no way he could be dead.
"The incident report. I need to see the incident report. There has to be one. Tseng said one was never filed, but I know names. Zack was there. The town is called Nibelheim. Someone must have seen something. I'll find out the truth. And then I'll find Father and everything will be fine."
The door slid open. She whirled but it was only Rude. The absolute certainty that he'd seen her lose control cracked through her chest and organs as surely as if Hojo had poured liquid nitrogen into her lungs.
"Drink this," he said, holding out a cup of something that steamed. "You'll feel better."
"I'm fine," she said in the weakest lie of her life.
"Drink," he said, and she could hear the sympathy in his voice. "Please."
"No," she said, suddenly furious. "Get out."
"Toriko—"
"GET OUT!" She screamed at him. Her internal caution shrieked at the loss of composure, but she didn't give a fuck anymore, he'd already seen her at her worst.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. Rude set the hot drink down on the changing bench and turned to go and Toriko fought to calm her breathing, which was not easy when he stopped in the doorway and looked at her. She could see him weighing the consequences of saying something, probably words of comfort or platitudes or—
"There was nothing you could have done," he said.
Toriko threw the cup at him, her vision scarlet with rage. The sheer ignorance of his statement was bad enough but then Rude dodged without blinking an eye, which just made Toriko even more furious. She very nearly ran at him, but this time logic managed to hold her back. She needed to look helpless. She needed to keep up a certain facade so she could locate and save her father. But the harder tried to concentrate on saving Sephiroth, the more she thought of all the time she could have had with her mother, and when she thought about Seishi, the black stains on her body seemed to burn like Mako. Of course that made her think of Sephiroth again, and so on and so forth. She was unaware of tears welling up in her eyes and rolling down her face, though she did see Rude's gaze flick to her left hand.
"You're bleeding," he said, nodding at her.
Toriko looked at her hand. No wonder Rude had been able to dodge the cup; she hadn't thrown it so much as shattered the thing in her hand and essentially hurled nothing but water at him. As she watched, shards of ceramic grew slowly out of her hand and then dropped to the floor, pushed out by her healing flesh. Her own blood washed away the black stains on her fingers. It was morbidly fascinating. At any other time Toriko would have been uncomfortable at the sight of her inhumanity, but now the grotesque display calmed her. Yes, her human mother was dead. But the Demon/SOLDIER father who had given her these abilities was still around and he needed her.
"Keep it together, Toriko."
"I'm going to wash," said Toriko, looking at Rude. Her heart was still a ball of distilled awfulness in her chest, her soul still wracked with guilt, but her mind was clearer than it had been in weeks. Mother was dead. Father was alive. Those were the facts.
"And when I'm done, I'm going to change and then we are going to leave," said Toriko, making Rude tilt his head slightly in confusion. "If I go to the funeral and someone recognizes me, it will raise questions for the Company. And as of now... The Company is all I really have."
Rude bowed his head. He understood, of course. He was in a rather similar position.
"I'll bring you something to wear," he said, and left. Toriko took a few breaths to compose herself and then went to wash. The black goo her mother's flesh had dissolved into felt oily and smelled disgusting, but it washed off very easily. How quickly humanity faded and was replaced! Toriko looked at her left hand from time to time and saw her flesh go from red to healing pink to her usual pale gold. By the time she was done washing, there was not a trace to show she'd ever lost her temper.
"But I can't count on being so lucky all the time," Toriko thought as she dried off. "I must become even better at controlling myself if I am ever to find Father. Who knows how long he can hold on without me?
"I may have failed my mother in the worst possible way, but I will find Father no matter what. No matter what it takes."
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Turks took their meals in the commissary like most other Company employees, where they (usually) blended in with all the other men and women in suits. As a result, Tseng was nearby when he heard a retrival team chatting amongst themselves. He wouldn't have paid them any mind except he heard "Toriko" and nearly turned to look.
"Really?" Someone asked in a hushed voice. "Her?"
"Yeah," said someone else. "Apparently she's been due for an appointment and keeps putting the Professor off."
Now that wasn't right at all. Tseng knew that Toriko had been to see Hojo two months ago and wasn't due for another four. Something else was afoot.
There was a certain amount of under-the-table dealings when it came to the Directors and their departments, but Toriko was a member of the Shin-Ra family now, so Tseng went to the President and asked if he knew about Hojo's plans. His impression was that President Shin-Ra thought of Toriko as a cute granddaughter at best and an inconvenience at worst, since her public debut had definitely been an embarrassment. In any case, he'd want to know if Hojo was moving without his say-so.
"And?" President Shin-Ra asked when Tseng delivered his report.
Tseng was nothing if not a quick thinker. The President's reply indicated that he knew of the team going out to get Toriko, perhaps maybe even ordered it. So Tseng said, "This isn't the retrieval team's usual sort of mission. Please allow us to handle it, sir."
President Shin-Ra scoffed. "Yes, because the Turks did so well the last time you were ordered to retrieve her." As Tseng bit his tongue, the President said, "It's now or never. Rufus will be shipped off to Junon where he can't extend his protection and she needs to be back in a cage."
Tseng struggled for an alternative. "If you recall my report of the Rocket Incident, she performed admirably in regards to Rufus's extraction," he said. "It wouldn't be a bad thing to have her formally trained and serving as his bodyguard. No one would suspect her and it would free us up for other matters."
"And give my son a superpowered devotee," said President Shin-Ra with an eyeroll. "Exactly what he needs while he's planning sabotage."
Tseng didn't know what to say to that. It was true that an investigation of the rocket's second failed launch had revealed clever sabotage, and while Rufus was smart, the Turks were smarter—it was their job to investigate such things. If not for the efforts of a single engineer and Captain Highwind refusing to take off with said engineer inside the engine, the rocket would have exploded just before clearing the atmopshere. As it was, Shin-Ra No. 26 was the Company's most expensive failure to date, and Tseng was honestly surprised that there was still a Space Department after the debacle.
"I only think that Miss Shin-Ra's contributions to the Company—"
"She is not a Shin-Ra."
Tseng bit his lip again as the President's eyes narrowed to cold blue slits.
"I don't know what Sephiroth ever saw in her mother, but to debase himself with..." President Shin-Ra shuddered and Tseng let the toxic racism flow past him; he hadn't survived so long without a very thick skin. "She is willful, disrespectful, and a freak of strength and nature. She might as well be useful to Hojo, if no one else."
"She could be useful to the Company too, if you let her," Tseng thought. "She's very smart. She's loyal to those she loves, to a fault. She's also the only superpowered human of her caliber that we have around and with the right people, she would be more loyal than Sephiroth ever was."
"Is that all, Tseng?"
"...Yes, Mr. President."
President Shin-Ra dismissed him with an annoyed flap of the hand, like he was shooing off flies. Tseng bowed and left the room feeling like slugs were crawling over his skin. He reviewed his choices as he went back to his office, and by the time he reached there, he had an idea. It wasn't a good one, but it was better than having another reason to avoid looking at himself in the mirror. Seeing Toriko grow up from hard-eyed street urchin to smiling young lady had ruined just enough of his professionalism with damnable sentiment.
Tseng went to see Rufus, which was more difficult than it should have been. After the worst of Rufus's injuries had been treated at the hospital, Rufus had been moved to the in-Building clinic, which more typically treated workplace accidents (usually involving the Science Department or Weapons Development, but vent covers also fell on people with alarming regularity). Armed guards outside Rufus's door were there ostensibly for protection, but Tseng knew they were there to keep him in. It took a good bit of verbal fencing before Tseng finally convinced the guards that yes, the head of the freaking Turks was allowed to talk to the Vice President, and by the time he actually got into Rufus's room, the young man was already up and waiting impatiently. He didn't look at all hurt or injured, but it had been nearly two months at this point.
"It's a dark day when MP grunts give you some lip," said Rufus, his voice a mixture of amusement, annoyance, and questioning. He was an intelligent young man, far more than most people gave him credit for—yet at the same time, not as smart as he thought he was. Which was probably why he outright asked, "So what did you do to the Old Man? Or rather, what does he think you did?"
It was best not to say anything incriminating for the ubiquitous bugs to pick up, so Tseng instead said, "Miss Toriko is due to arrive back from her vacation any day now."
Rufus's lips thinned. "Vacation," he muttered. In his normal voice he said, "Well, I suppose she can stop by Junon on her way back in. You have heard, haven't you?"
Tseng inclined his head.
"Well, I suppose it would be good to see Maman again," said Rufus, looking out the window. "I haven't been back in nearly five years, and God knows she's been pestering me."
He was getting off-track. Tseng tried again, more directly this time. "Miss Toriko's return seems to discomfit the President."
Rufus got a strange look on his face. "Oh?"
"Yes," said Tseng, and decided to go out on a limb. "To be frank, I was unaware he didn't think of her as a member of your family."
Rufus's eyes narrowed to the same blue slits that Tseng had seen on his father less than an hour before. The family resemblence was rarely so strong, as Rufus's frame and bone structure was definitely that of the Junon aristocracy.
"Well," said Rufus in a cold voice. "She is. Legally, at the very least."
He ran his hand through his hair. Careful facial masking made it look like an arrogant gesture, but since Tseng had been the one who'd taught him about facial masking, Tseng knew that Rufus was actually upset.
"I think it's time for Toriko to meet Maman," said Rufus, looking at Tseng. "Call her and tell her to expect her granddaughter, won't you?"
Tseng nodded, though he wasn't quite sure what Rufus was thinking. Theneva Aisling-ShinRa was influential in her own right, but she didn't exactly have a paramilitary force at her disposal to protect Toriko from a retrieval team AND she had no motivation either; she didn't live in Junon year-round to have more interaction with her husband and the Company. But Tseng saw gears turning in Rufus's head and not for the first time Tseng put his doubts aside. Rufus could fight it out with President Shin-Ra the way few others could and he was far from stupid.
"Yes, Vice President," said Tseng with a small bow. "I will do just that."
However, doubt continued to swirl in Tseng's stomach. He retreated to the safety of his absolutely unbugged office and made a call to the Aisling residence. Fortunately the butler gave him no problems, which staved off a threatening headache; any more resistence from a peon and Tseng was going to snap at someone who didn't deserve it. In a very short time, Tseng was speaking to the woman herself.
His impressions of Theneva were not flattering. It was obvious that President Shin-Ra had married her for status and looks, because without the Aisling fortune, he never would have been able to expand the Company and as long as you were bedding something for profit, it might as well be pretty to look at. Another man might have felt sorry for Theneva, who had purportedly fallen head-over-heels for young, fiery Seamus Shin-Ra and then utterly ignored by him; however, Tseng's interactions with her proved that the woman cared only for the elaborate social maneuvering of her tiny, outdated social class, spending fortunes on dresses and jewelry and 'events' that the same two hundred people always came to. Spending years among them as Rufus's bodyguard had instilled a deep loathing for the Junonese elite in Tseng's very soul and it was stunning how quickly the contempt came roaring back as soon as he heard Theneva's cultured, accented voice.
"This is irregular, Tseng," she said. He hated how she said his name, with the nasal flat 'uh' that the Junonese upper class had. It was one vowel, how could you mess up a single vowel? "Is all well with my son?"
"The Vice President is well, Madame Aisling," said Tseng, deciding that she'd learn of the house arrest through other means; right now taking care of Toriko was more important. "He asks that you see fit to receive Toriko, your adopted granddaughter, in the near future."
"But of course," said Theneva, sounding surprised. "I have wondered why we had not met before now. You will give the details to my butler."
"Yes, Madame Aisling."
"And Tseng?"
"Yes?"
"Is my son truly well?"
Concern? From her? Tseng bit back the sarcasm and said, "He will be in Junon very soon. Perhaps you would like to talk to him in person then?"
"I think not," said Theneva. "I believe I will speak to him now. Put him on the line."
"The Vice President is currently indisposed."
"Then you will have him call me directly. Good day."
It was just as well that she hadn't pressed the issue, because Tseng did not look forward to telling the woman that her son was under house arrest under his father's orders. This was a family affair as much as a Company one...
So what did that make Toriko, a family member or a Company asset? Where would she fit into all of this?
"The best place for her would be somewhere in the middle," thought Tseng as he picked up his PHS to check in with Rude and the rest of the Turks. "As a Company asset, she'll be locked up forever. As a Company child, she'll always be on display. The longer she can confuse people about exactly what she is, the safer she will be."
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a/n: So the best-laid outlines sometimes blow up in your face for no good reason because you sit down and go, "Is this really necessary? What am I trying to accomplish?"
And then you go and consult your notes and then realize that the notes that you're looking at reference a different set of notes on a laptop that went dead five years ago.
And then you try to repair said laptop because not only does it have story notes on it, but holy crap, you just remembered that there are drafts for your other fics on it too. It is a fanfic goldmine. But then life happens in the most spectacular ways, and the next thing you know it has been a very, very long time.
And then finally you admit defeat and get back to writing.
So what has everyone else been doing? :D
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