A/N: Once again, I have succumbed to the urge to write a fic with extremely niche appeal. Go me. X)

This will be a series of vignettes on the executives of Shinra. How do they think? What makes them tick? Each chapter will be titled with their name, so you can easily find the one(s) who interest you the most.

If you do read these, it would make my day if you decide to leave a comment. Please tell me I'm not the only one in the world who is curious about these characters!

Heidegger

Heidegger always did his best thinking under pressure.

At his desk, Heidegger scowls at the report in front of him. Its very existence offends him. He hasn't read a single word.

A whole heap of reports sits to his left. A second, smaller stack is on his right, signed and ready to be filed. He hasn't read those either. If nobody is running around yelling about it, it has to be too trivial for him to bother reading.

It wasn't like this in the old days. Out on the front lines, where making a decision was to choose between life and death. The slightest hesitation meant sure defeat. Those days, each of those critical moments… Those had been his time to shine.

These days, though? Board meetings and emails are the biggest threats he has to face. The only thing still shining is the row of medals on his wall.

Heidegger signs his name with short, angry slashes and stabs his pen back into its holder. Every minute he spends chained to this desk is another brain cell gone to rot. He can feel them. Hojo would probably laugh at his theories. Or sneer, rather. That is what the man does. Sneer smugly at anyone who dares express an independent thought in his presence.

Well, what does a damned scientist know about the real world? Hojo was born and bred to spend his days indoors, where his soft, pasty self remains safely out of harm's way. He doesn't understand men of the military. He certainly isn't stuck inside Heidegger's head, feeling his own vigor and determination leak away with every pencil-pushing day.

Heidegger huffs and pushes back, scraping his chair along the floor. He takes a moment to loosen his belt a notch, and as the pressure on his gut eases, his grimace melts away. His entire uniform is getting oddly tight again. One of these days he will go have another stern word with the dry-cleaners. Last time they claimed that it was impossible, that their cleaning processes were carefully monitored, that no one else has ever complained. One of them even dared to insinuate that the problem lay elsewhere, while looking pointedly at Heidegger's waist.

What did a bunch of launderers know, anyway? Bunch of liars, the lot of them, just dodging the bill for the new set of uniforms Heidegger had been forced to order to replace what they had suspiciously shrunk.

At the time, Heidegger even sent a memo to internal services about it. Nothing had changed, and now another uniform was bursting at the seams. Showed how much those idiots knew, too.

Heidegger pulls himself to his full height, ramrod straight, shoulders back. He marches over to the window, clasping his hands at the small of his back as he takes in the scenery. Far below, Midgar's streets stretch out like spokes of a wheel to the edge of the plate, where one of the city reactors stands tall and proud. He used to appreciate the view. Now, after staring down on it year after year, it seems so... lethargic. Like a stagnant pool, slowly going to rot.

Well! Nothing in this world lasts forever. Sooner or later trouble will arise again, and then these scientists and launderers and all the other fools will see the world for what it really is, and they all will come running to the only man in Midgar who knows how to keep it together in a crisis.

There will always be turmoil in the world. Always be those who seek to crush and subjugate, and those who are determined to stop them. All Heidegger has to do is wait.

Before long, it will be his time to shine again.