Chapter Three: Chigiri
xXx
Three Months, Seven Days
Inside of the crystal tubing and clear blue liquid lay the female in silent, chemically induced slumber. Two scientists, robbed of what they treasured most, worked on the dream floating inside the casing. The creature's swelling belly was evidence of a successful pregnancy. Sephiroth moved his fingers over the glass of the casing seperating him from the naked female's bulging abdomen. Inside of this casing, this carrier, lay Mother's pride. Mother's Shi. How appropriate. Shi could mean so many things. Death. Remember. Pride. A longing to touch the female's stretching abdomen dwelled in him.
No.
Mother's scolding him. Snorting, he dismissed the idea, the nonsense of it all delving into his brain. Walking out of the room, he released all doubt, longing, and desire with Mother's comfort.
xXx
Inside, The Carrier floated silently, drifting in the warmed liquid in a dreamless sleep that rendered her hopeless. You see, while drifting lifelessly in the clear liquid, she was quietly dying inside. Blackness turned to blue haze, a flash of silver color in the corner of her eyes. Ninsoku watched the two scientists slump over on the machines that monitored her. Pity entered her eyes. One rose and went to the tank, opening the holographic monitoring station. He met her eyes, said something to his partner without turning. Her eyes glazed, closing.
Hello. White. Not black. So very beautiful. Green eyes met her blue gaze. He doesn't mean it.
She cocked her head in curiousity, hand going to her belly. It was smooth.
'Doesn't mean what?' came her voice. 'Who?'
Sephiroth. He wanted to be gentle. Jenova forces his hands. The young woman answered, high light hazel hair teasing her temples.
'Why has he done this to me?' Jesna, Ninsoku whimpered. Ninsoku felt her belly swell with the life that had been forced on her. Her abdomen clenched in pain, bringing her to her knees in the fog that surrounded her. A gentle hand rested on her, soothing the pressure that viced her stomach.
You'll be well, Jesna. He will come for you, like he came for me.
xXx
The search began the moment the hospital room was empty. By the first month, friends were giving up hope. By the second, Leon began to turn from her. Now, this third and excrutiatingly painful month, it seemed the family was at it's end. Zener and Seta's fighting had escalated, from heated verbal accusations on things that were simple to the slightest mention of Jesna's name. Ruyu sat hunched over with his elbows on his thighs in the spacious Fix-It shop. A steel barstool held his limp body up, supported by one foot on the concrete as the other took refuge on a steel beam supporting the four legs of the stool. Scents of gasoline and greases wafted from the parts that lay unused as well as the soiled work clothes that hung on the fading painted blue hooks. One stuck out like a wound, prodding him uncomfortably as a constant reminder she was gone. Jesna's light-blue coveralls wrinkled at it's midsection from constantly tying it around her waste.
Ruyu burst into hearty laughter upon his daughter's arrival for work. She dressed in the customary baggy work jeans, but today she had worn her favorite white shirt that clung to her physique and strapped over her shoulders with two elaborate stringy bindings.
"You aren't working in that, are you?" He chuckled, wiping black grease from the wrench onto the red clothe. She harrumphed loudly, pulling the coveralls over her jeans. Her smile turned rebellious, eyes lighting with mischeif. To better prove she would be working in the snow white shirt, she tied the top around her waist and marched inside, grabbing the greasiest tool she could lay her hands on.
"I thought I'd make a few memories in this shirt!" She snickered with him.
Memories it did make. Ruyu silently surveyed the room around him, wishing to remove all of the reminders from the place. Rage consumed him as he remembered the peace-keeper's words.
"We can't find her sir. I'm sorry, but it's already been three months." The man paused, contemplating his next words. "You know that in another six months we have to declare her dead." None to wisely, apparently.
Ruyu stabbed an accusatory finger at him.
"You will NOT let up this search until then." His voice cracked as he continued. "That girl is the last thing we have of her mother. She is a precious member of our family, and our community!"
The man shook his head, not to say no, but out of pity for the scarred man. Ruyu wouldn't accept it, couldn't accept it.
Rising, he made his way slowly toward the work bench, tools, lubricants, pieces of plastic parts and more decorated it's thick steel surface. His finger traced it's edge, all the way down to the other end of the where the sink dipped in a square. The black steel didn't show it until he reached the silver surface of the sink, but he had forgotten about his hands. The callouses broke open again, cracking down the pads of the fourth, middle, and index fingers of both his hands. Blood seeped through them and left a dark red stain on the sink as he turned it's hot water on. He looked up out of habit to survey his face. Small blots of red saturated the gnarled old scar that marked his face. Red blended with the water of the sink as he washed his hands, eyes stuck on the blood on his face.
Reality suddenly struck him with such surprise that it choked him. Hot tears welled up in the backs of his eyes, his throat closing from the harsh realties of the world. His knees betrayed him, hitting the concrete with a muffled thump in reverance for the loss that his mind was currently sinking in. Heaving sobs left the man in shambles as his water-warmed fingers clutched his temples, comforting his sore work worn eyes.
Jesna, his mind spoke, was no longer here.
xXx
Zener sat on the mossy steps of the crumbling two-story building they called home. It felt funny for the fourteen-year-old to sit awaiting his older sister to come home from a day at work that didn't happen. The sun was setting in the street's distance, and for once the hick-town Kuzan 12 miles outside of Junon held a bit of splendor. Since his sister's dissapearance, the town was filling with a few detectives who had caught wind of the unusual case. He had seen the paper headlines the day they published it. 'Girl Goes Missing Moments after Pregnancy'. Stupid, but to the point. His posture shifted as the door opened and sounded Seta's arrival. The two boys had had a particularly nasty fight only hours before, pointed fingers and berating comments flying back and forth until Seta slammed the door of Jesna's room and locked himself inside. Seta's shoes scuffled just behind him, stopping.
"Dad isn't home yet?" He asked quietly.
"No." Zener answered tonelessly. Their father was a shell of what he had been before Jesna's sudden departure. Leon hadn't even come back after the first two months, saying something about a job he had to finish in Junon. Silence stifled the air, making it hard for either brother to breathe. Moments passed, and neither knew quite what to say, both longing to apologize. Finally, they both gathered themselves and each made the first move.
"Zener-"
"Seta-"
They both exchanged glances, looking away swiftly. Seta chuckled after a moment.
"Just like sis said. Walking telepaths." A sigh escaped his mouth, the corners dropping out of it's smile. "I'm sorry, Zen. I really didn't meant to..."
He paused. Zener looked farther out into the orange hues of the sky, clouds appearing black in it's midst.
"Neither did I brother. I just really..."
"I miss her too." Seta finished for him. Zener patted the cracking concrete step beside him. Sitting beside him, Seta ran his hands through his spiking black hair. Dyed that way of course.
"Tofu, your hair is going to fall out if you keep dying it like that!" Jesna exclaimed as she poked one of the spiked points.
He laughed at her back then. Now the only thing he could laugh about was the name she left him. Tofu.
"So, Jink, you wanna walk to the shop with me?" he asked. Zener smirked at the nickname.
"I couldn't decide whether to call you a jerk or a dink!" Jesna growled from the other side of the door, still bare from his rude interruption of her shower when he asked her.
"Yeah, we better get dad out of there before he goes nuts." He answered as he stretched his arms and back. They walked down the sidewalk for a few blocks, passing the apartment complexes and walk-in shops with burned out neons. Their dull colors painted the sidewalk purples and blues. Seta and Zener walked in silence. They were contemplating everything at the same time, knowing that Jesna was most likely dead by now. Seta looked over at Zener, who returned the look. Two pairs of glistening eyes met, and that was all it took to make their silent pact. Seta and Zener threw an arm around the other's shoulder, holding tightly as they walked down the streets in silent remorse.
xXx
Five Months, Sixteen Days
The white didn't last. Beauty faltered, Jesna knew by experience. The woman, curious as it was that she had even appeared to her, was no longer by her side. Slumber made it hazy to think, slow sluggish thoughts reeling slowly back and forth in her psyche. But think she did, and she was none to happy with the ideas that were rolling around in her head. The memories. Especially the haunting one she had suddenly recieved as a door prize from captivity. A hum filled her ears, the tubing laughing for her. Zener, Seta, father. The names suddenly flashed by without any real need to contemplate whose they were. What were they thinking now? Her throat closed up wondering if they considered she had run away, and wouldn't come to find her. Nothing seemed to frighten her more, and she suddenly wanted to struggle out of her cage, out of the darkness that consumed her.
xXx
The creature's heartrate escalated. The beeping increased and it's fingers began to twitch, face beginning to emerge from dormancy with a twisted but calmed look of desperation. Sephiroth watched in mild amusement as he looked up from his research. Not disturbing the sleeping captives watching over the Carrier, his fingers flew over the keyboard for the research he hungered for.
Chikara Ko.
Ah yes, Chikara Ko; he remembered the name well. Sweltering rage was surpressed by the desire to find this woman, this monster of humanity. Chikara Ko, he remembered, was one of the many that had encouraged the testing of Jenova cells on a human fetus. Her resume was rather impressive as he stared at it's contents. He didn't allow the frown that crossed his mind entrance to his face as he noted she was still in the midst of child experimentation. Unique child experimentation. Irony flooded him. It just so happened that her most recent project was to begin raising children with faster growth patterns, in order to attain a body that took 16 to 20 years to attain within a few short months then stop the growth and slow it affectively for longetivity. Cellular growth on a massive scale with slower cell regeneration after bodily growth reached the goal. Apparently Chikara wasn't quite finished with her experimentation, with no recorded successes being listed.
Sephiroth slowly closed his green eyes and opened them once again to stare at Mother's prize, her Carrier. The creature inside the tubing was staring back, anger and fear pasted all over her features. It's defiant look blazed through its eyes despite the terror that had flashed as he returned her glare with a sneer.
Waking the two watchmen with his mere presence, he ordered them to up the dosage of the sleeping chemicals in her bloodstream.
Chikara Ko.
He grinned, enjoying the sheer irony and pleasure he would be in with this next guest.
xXx
Chigiri- Promise/Pledge
A/N: What's wrong with you people?! Don't you know how to review?! Yeesh! I should just delete the series for criminy's sake! No, I won't, because I like it too much. Besides, I'm contemplating posting it on my homepage, devart for those that haven't looked. So today I almost bit my fingers off because I was so Peeved with my very VERY slow photoshop 4 program. I need a computer with more memory. Crap. Well, I'm done complaining. Enjoy!
Godsspiker!