THIRTEEN
"I just want to ask Finé some questions," Hibiki hedges, pushing a stapler on Genjuurou's desk to the side a few centimeters.
His hands, directly in her line of sight because she can't meet his eyes, fold flat on the surface, each finger pointed outward. "She plays games. Rarely does she give a straight answer. She manipulates, sometimes simply for the satisfaction of it. Are you sure? I could easily send a secure courier for your questions." He says nothing she doesn't already know, nothing that will convince her to stay away, and he knows it.
"I want to see her." She squares her shoulders with barely a twinge. She pushes the stapler back to its place, pushes her nervousness out of her mind, and meets Genjuurou's stern gaze with the full force of what Miku likes to call her 'resolution face.' "Shirabe and Kirika don't regret going. I won't, either."
"Keep in mind that we have a full team collect and monitor audio and visual recordings of all conversations in that apartment. I will personally monitor your visit with her."
From the way his pace turns brisk and matter-of-fact, she knows he's agreed to her request.
[***]
Once they're alone (not really, but close enough), Finé drawls, "Hibiki Tachibana, my favorite hero." Finé's lips curl into a slow but wicked smile that makes Hibiki feel like a gawky, gangly teenager all over again. "Here. Have some tea before you work yourself into a Gordian knot," Finé says, depositing a teacup on a coaster in front of her and flicking a wrist toward a tray with milk, honey, and a bunch of unopened packages of madeleine cookies.
"Thank you." She gratefully occupies her hands with adding a generous serving of honey to her tea. She bends her head over the steam, inhaling slowly.
Finé stares, chin in one hand and the other draped over her crossed legs, smirking and smug.
She manipulates, sometimes simply for the satisfaction of it.
But is that true, still?
Putting down her cup on the coffee table, then hastily moving it to a coaster when Finé pointedly taps her own coaster, Hibiki follows her thread of thought. Even if she still manipulates people for the fun of it, hasn't Finé changed? No one's been hurt—really, truly hurt—since Finé's return despite Finé being easily capable of doing terrible things to adults and children, to the innocent and guilty alike. Finé has a lot of blood on her hands from her time as a rogue scientist, the leader of the NOISE, and a member the original FIS, yet Carol and Elfnein came home safe and sound and without casualties.
The only wounds were old, psychological ones.
"You didn't mean to hurt us." Hibiki returns Finé's stare, to which Finé raises an eyebrow in challenge. "Whatever your motivations, you didn't intend to cause pain. It was an acc—"
"—Not an accident, Hibiki Tachibana," Finé corrects severely. She rips into a cookie package, frown fierce and lips pressed white. Oddly, Hibiki notices then that Finé's not wearing her signature lipstick, and her nails are unpainted. "I have agency, purpose, a will. I am not some pitiable, misguided fool that cannot help herself. Make no mistake: I have forgotten how to be kind, but I am perfectly capable of staying my hand.
"I wanted to see my goddaughters. I also wanted to have you squirm." Finé takes a cookie between her thumb and forefinger, waving it carelessly and smirking again. "Just a little."
Wide-eyed, frozen by Finé's admonishment, Hibiki watches Finé take a sharp bite out of the cookie. "But—"
"—But what, hmm?" Finé sneers, as if knowing exactly what the next words out of Hibiki's mouth will be: But aren't you one of the good guys, now?
As an impetuous teenager, the motivations of others had been simple, clear-cut, straightforward. Villains wanted power and cared nothing for consequences or collateral damage; from mindless NOISE thugs to the masterminded organization FIS, evil was evil and had to be stopped or else innocent people (like Chris, like Tsubasa) would suffer. They were irredeemable.
Then Hibiki met Finé, whose advice she follows to this day. Hibiki met Tsubasa's grandfather, the man who had founded the Second Division and kept Tsubasa under his thumb. Hibiki met Miku's father, who saves countless lives in his hospital and smothers Miku with his rigid expectations. Years ago, Genjuurou started telling her about his and his family's mistakes, which cost… so many lives. Izak, for all that he squandered and his dangerous methods, only wanted to save the world from itself.
Motivations do not come in black and white, nor do people exist as wholly good or bad. What is right does not always correspond with what is good. Intentions, motivations, actions, and results have muddled relationships. More goes on in a person's mind than anyone else will ever, can ever know. There exist more dimensions than the human mind can comprehend.
"Papa didn't believe in religion." Carol shrugged and shoved her glasses back up her nose, barely missing Hibiki's hands deftly tying the knot on her school tie. "He said that what people think of as 'Gott'—I mean, 'God'—is basically a being that can comprehend the eleventh dimension."
"There's an eleventh dimension? Eleven dimensions?" she'd boggled at Carol. She forgot to chide Carol for not staying still.
"There are more than three dimensions, you know," Carol said in an insufferably condescending tone, delighted that she knew something Hibiki did not, "but human brains can only perceive three, like how we perceive less colors than a mantis shrimp can."
First, she needs to apologize. She drags her gaze from her tea back to Finé's neutral expression, says, "I'm sorry for assigning a narrative on you," and folds herself into a quick but defined bow.
"'Assigning a narrative'?"
"Heh. It's, um, something I picked up from hanging around Tsubasa and Ogawa. Being a celebrity is harder than I thought!" She rubs the back of her neck.
Finé's expression turns into a smirk.
Hibiki takes a few fortifying gulps of tea, then asks, "What do you want, Finé? Why are you here now? I don't understand… the kids have been here for a year, Izak's been dead for almost two years, and we all thought you were dead for, like, more than ten years!"
At that, Finé tilts her head and finally settles into seriousness. "I can't tell you everything," she cautions, "but let's see…."
[***]
The story Finé tells goes thusly:
Ver worked alone, but in a world with eight billion people, there's no shortage of threats like him. Izak had his failings, but he loved his children and villains more ruthless than he were eager to exploit this fact for their own 'dastardly plots.' His parents had been Ryouko's colleagues once upon a time, and he had become a colleague of Finé. Maria, Shirabe, and Kirika had Nastassja to keep them safe; when Nastassja died, they were actually safer than before because Genjuurou folded them into the Second Division.
The world has no shortage of 'delusional narcissists that think taking over the world is the height of power.' Years went by as if they were seconds. Izak's death in a remote village was no accident. Finé had had to work quickly to keep Carol and Elfnein safe.
"Getting Ver to Berlin was child's play. Getting that information to Genjuurou-baby without tipping him off about my continued existence wasn't so easy, but I am Finé."
Even after the children were on the Second Division's radar and the bad guys lost interest in them, Izak had made a few true enemies itching to take revenge. Whatever bone they had to pick with Izak Malus Dienheim, however, paled in comparison to their ire at Finé's change of heart and her active role in dismantling their conspiracies. That led to a 'merry tour of the world combined with a scavenger hunt,' and once Finé was finished with that, she returned to Japan to check on Izak's children.
Ultimately, what Finé talks about is threadbare, the bare bones of an epic story; Hibiki thinks that maybe Finé left out a lot of things because Genjuurou's listening, but that's fine. She understands better, now, the overarching series of events that led them to this point.
[***]
"Here." Finé shoves a couple packets of cookies into Hibiki's hands just before Hibiki leaves.
"Uh—thanks?"
Finé rolls her eyes. "Genjuurou-baby knows I prefer macarons. Ciao!" Finé closes the door on Hibiki's face.
"She doesn't prefer macarons. She just likes being unnecessarily expensive. 'Extra,' I believe the youngsters call it," Genjuurou grumbles into her ear, and Hibiki laughs more freely than she has since Finé came crashing back into their lives.
a/n:
A reminder that I haven't watched AXZ, so... anything about their backstories that surfaced in season four hasn't been taken into consideration for this.
(Please also check out my "Etheria Rebuilt, Reclaimed" series on AO3 if you're into the She-Ra reboot~ I'm under the pen name Vertumn there.)
