What Lurks in the Shadows


Sorry for the long wait. I've been busier than usual for the last little while. Also, for some strange reason, it took several re-edits of this chapter in order for me somewhat close to happy with it which caused me to hold it back for a lot longer than I normally would.


We spent hours going through all the same records and all the same charts we've already gone through before, and I begin to wonder if I should save him the trouble by telling him the real reason I appeared to be choking. But I can't seem to bring myself to say it since I know damned well that the moment the words leave my mouth there's going to be some sort of verbal attack in regard to my superstitious and irrational behaviour.

So instead, I humour him, half-paying attention and half not to everything I pick up with disinterest. Whether it's the reminders that add to my lack of desire though, I'm not sure, and the only thing that breaks my train of thought is when Tseng flings an old photo of Lucrecia at me and snidely comments on her looks.

"Obviously, Seph took after her."

Then he smirks with no genuine attempt to hide the sarcastic bite to his thoughts when he turns around and gauges me, studying me like he always does with those cold and austere eyes.

But he's strangely curious at the same time as his eyes run over me like there's more going on in his head than he's willing to discuss. They settle near the top of my head, unkempt hair and a stained headscarf before they move down to my shoulders where his head slightly tilts and his eyes wander down to my torso, continuing on their slow journey toward my feet. Then he just stands there, staring at the golden armour and contemplating something unknown to me.

All the while, I wonder if I even want to ask while I stand there, motionless, and I let him study me with a strange mixture of fluctuating light behind his eyes. Then the moment passes and he suddenly lets me know a good portion of what was going through his mind, if not all of it at that moment.

"Did you sleep with her?"

He asks it like a doctor would ask a patient where the ache is, clinical and outright, no emotion suggests that it's anything more than curiosity. Though I highly suspect where the curiosity comes from when his attention is drawn to the photo that he carelessly flung at me and something unknown knots up inside of me, tight, before I growl at him like a defensive animal, "Don't go there."

Then I turn around with a swift movement that sends my cloak trailing behind me like a solemn wave, knowing full-well what he's getting at and I open the door to the lab while figuring that there's nothing left to look at in the library before I stiffen at his next choice of words.

"Is that denial speaking?"

Denial, I think, while cynically musing that he would know all about that. After which, I quickly shake the thought and walk into the other room and let the door close behind me, suddenly not caring whether he follows or not and immediately, I'm assaulted with a memory that has nothing to do with the lab in which I'm standing.


"I made a mistake," she told me, almost frantically as tears stained her cheeks when she found me in my room and clumsily ran to the foot of my bed after she startled me from my sleep.

"Lucrecia…? What's wrong?"

"I never should have married him!""


"Well, if you think about it, he certainly didn't look like his father," Tseng mutters behind me as the door opens and he follows me in, not paying any mind to my commonly absent thoughts. Then he snickers at the thought, making me wonder if he's only entertaining the idea instead of believing it, and he walks over to one of the consoles before turning it on.

"In fact, there's no resemblance at all."

"Shut up!" I growl while walking over to an old filing cabinet and pulling out the records I know pertain to what was done to me in hopes of escaping from the current and one-sided conversation. After that, I shake my head while keeping it lowered, realizing that I didn't need to react the way that I did and making him realize that he's striking a nerve while I mutter in a more passive attempt to end his excessively analytical speculation.

"She was married."

But even that comes out in the semblance of depressed thoughts and Tseng straightens up again, stoic, and probably reminding himself that we couldn't be more wrong for each other while I assume he's reading more into my tone than I'm wanting him to.

"Sorry."


"I'm pregnant," she told me when she found me outside of the lab as I was walking by.

But all I did was scrunch my shoulders as I sourly muttered with my head down, "Congratulations."

She must have sensed my sudden change of mood though, and she was about to say something I believe was concerning it. But whatever it might have been was cut off by Hojo when he found us as he approached from the other end of the hall.

"Ah! Vincent!" he exclaimed in that unnaturally pitched voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard while pretending to be happy to see me for a change. Then he pulled Lucrecia away from me to make her stand beside him by roughly grabbing her arm.

"Have you heard the good news…? I'm going to be a father."


"Well, I'm afraid that argument doesn't work very well," Tseng muses while curling his finger over his upper lip before he steps away from the console, snickering, and he stands over the drainage grate near the examination tables, "Considering I've had my fair share of being on the home-wrecker's side."

"I'm not his father," I flatly tell him, convinced that even if the child was mine to begin with that it died the moment Lucrecia and Hojo decided to agree on their twisted project. Then I open the file and flip through pages that I've already flipped through more than a dozen times in the past and ignore Tseng's hand when it goes into his pocket to toy with his locket while he quietly contemplates something.

"These records were erased," he mutters before I look up and he motions toward the console with a disappointed expression. "What I found before is gone now."

"What did you find?"

"Information about the Chaos experiment… and the stagnant Lifestream," he says, sounding retired before his hand fiddles with the locket and he stops, realizing what he was mindlessly doing. Then he lets out a heavy breath and leans against the table, "Most of it was Hojo's observations."

"Hojo's…" I repeat while noting that the papers I'm going through are all Hojo's as well. It's something that's always bothered me since I know Lucrecia kept her own records. But I could never find them.

"I can't say this sits easy with me," he admits before he slowly shakes his head with his back to me. "This isn't the first time records have disappeared on me since Icicle Inn."

"What records?" I ask, suddenly curious about what he's been finding.

"Mostly irrelevant things," he says while shrugging and crossing his arms like he's ready to take a break from being the professional Turk that he usually is. "Stagnant Lifestreams… Tainted Lifestreams…"

Then he takes a moment to ironically snicker before adding with a wry tone to his voice, "Tainted materia… Something called Project T…"

"T," I respond, not knowing why it's caught my attention as I relax my arms at my sides while still hanging onto the folder.

"Mm," he mutters before curling his finger over his mouth again and shaking his head in thought, "that was about all I found though, I'm afraid."

"What's that?"

"That there was an experiment called Project T that appeared to have been abandoned. Other than that, I have no idea what it's about."

"There must have been something in the records."

With another shake to his head, he straightens up and sighs, "No." Then he smoothes his hair back and shakes out his leg like its bothering him, "There was only one sentence… Something about a success of something or other…"

"More Jenova," I mindlessly think before I put the file back and wonder why I'm uncomfortable at the mention of it.

"Yes," he says, like there's no doubt in his mind that it was exactly what he read. Then he shrugs his shoulders and tells me that, "The rest looked like it was either never entered or erased."

I only muse over it though, not commenting about it and staring at the rest of the files while wondering if I should even bother to look through any more of them again while I figure that the records Tseng's referring to were probably "Erased."

"It was," he says before I turn around in confusion and stare at him, not realizing that I said it out loud.

"What was?"

"The record," he answers with a slight hint of agitation over the questions I'm asking when he thinks I should be well-aware of what he's talking about.

"The second time I went to the lab it was gone. I only remembered it because it was only one sentence."

Then he moves forward and stands on the drainage grate again, staring at the files near the console he was at while lowering his voice in thought, "It was when I first noticed files were disappearing."

I can't help but want to suggest that Rufus or Reno might be behind it. But I'm sure it's not the best of ideas to bring up something that I know he'll view as vindictive on my part and I'm also not sure that it could be them either, considering there are plenty of others out there that probably have more of a motive to erase Shinra's records than those that are trying to keep them preserved and hidden.

So instead, I ask, "Do the others know?"

"Hm?" he asks while scraping the bottom of his shoe over the grate and staring into the empty depth of it. Then he looks up at me with a dull revelation, "How did you know it was Jeno –?"

"Tseng!"

At that very moment, the grate gives way as Tseng grabs under the table beside him to steady himself so he can check the bottom of his shoe. As he falls through, he mercilessly hits his chin on the floor and I cringe at the sound of a snap when he lands after I instinctively try to grab him before he falls. But I'm too late.

"Tseng!"

Kjata...

The blood on the concrete where he hit his chin freezes me for a moment and I hesitate with a lump in my throat before I grip over the edge to try to see if he's okay, almost panicking over a sudden feeling of loss that I can't seem to reason out right now.

But he's unconscious and can't respond, and there's a trail of blood running from his mouth before he starts to slowly sink under the water he's fallen into after hitting the path to the side, and for some unexplainable reason, all I can focus on is his hair as it flows outward like tendrils… like black fingers… beckoning… serenely waving…

"Chaos…"

His skin is as pale as moonlight, more striking than usual while darkening swirls flow from his wounds and he sinks farther into the blackish water.

"No!" I growl before I automatically jump down without thinking, "I'm not losing you again!"

"What have you done to me!"

Or… should I have said… too?


I nearly glide through the air when I jump down to save him, realizing that I'm only half in control of myself as I yank his unconscious body out of the water like a precious possession that I can't afford to lose. It's an odd sensation that I'm feeling though, something inside of me feels split, like Chaos is in as much control as I am while I brush the wet strands from his face and worry less about the unnatural way his arm is bent than I do about whether he's breathing or not.

But he is and I take a moment to simply hold him in relief while I pay no mind to the grate slowly closing above us as if it's mechanically triggered and is locking us in.

"Kjata," I mutter before I lay him on the soiled pathway and decide to take his unconscious state as a blessing while I take advantage of the opportunity to reset his arm. The sound causes me to cringe again, despite the lack of response I receive.

Then I check the back of his head, hoping that the impact when he fell isn't serious as I pull his gloves out of his pocket and replace my own with them. All the while, I hope that I don't wind up being pulled through the window of his past again while I do it.

But it almost seems like it can't be avoided, and it happens nearly every time he's unconscious.

"Angel Whisper," I mutter before I lean down to kiss him on the forehead, hoping he'll be all right while I feel the tug of whatever it is that we unwillingly share.


"Tonberry…"

Sephiroth always calls him that, every time and for some reason, it always catches my attention. But it's not what catches my attention this time. It's what he says when Tseng is sleeping that I find digging under my skin.

"You have no idea how much I love you."

He looks upward when he whispers it as if he's confiding to the Gods before he awakens his lover and starts to explore him with a disturbing gentleness, and I try to turn my head away only to discover that I can't.

"You like this, don't you…"

"No," I answer, not even sure of why I'm answering but knowing I'd rather be anywhere else instead of watching him touch and manipulate Tseng in a way that starts a fire burning within me.

"Oh… I think you do," he threateningly purrs, almost in my ear while I shiver at the feel of something moving over my shoulder, "You like to watch him… You think you can learn how to control him by watching."

"No."

"Hm… Well, I hope you're dressed appropriately," he confusingly taunts before I feel his presence move away and his voice grows more distant.

"Because you won't be able to keep him forever."

And the next thing I know, snow starts to fall and the sound of violent winds surround me, and I see Tseng, alive this time but with blood staining the front of his shirt from a bullet wound as he stumbles while hanging onto his gun, growing weaker from the cold.

Then he tries to aim it at me and frantically yells like he sees me as a threat, "Stay away from me, Vincent!"

But he's unable to pull back the safety as I feel myself walking toward him, almost predatorily, gun in my hand and barrel still warm as he drops his own because he's unable to hold it with frozen hands while he clumsily steps backward and falls.

"No…"


There may have been more and whether I'm relieved or disappointed about seeing the outcome eludes me as a powerful blow strikes me back to the present, and Tseng's bewildered voice demands, "What the hell is the matter with you?"

What? is all I can think of for a moment before I realize that I must have been kissing him if not attempting to go further while he was unconscious and I was someplace else, "I…"

"Never mind," he mutters like he's reconsidering whether he wants an explanation and would have expected no less from my unorthodox behaviour anyway. Then he roles his eyes to try to gain better focus while deciding that he'd rather ask, "What happened?"

Instead of answering him though, I only stare into space, still trying to work out his first question more for myself than for him, and the best I can come up with is, What the hell 'was' I doing?

But before I can give it much more thought, Tseng's agitated sigh pulls me out of my thoughts and my focus returns to him. Then I stroke his hair back and realize I've just made the mistake of letting him see that I'm wearing his gloves.

After that, he does what he always does—he demands that I take them off and I do as he demands like I always do while half-ignoring him and half-paying attention.

Then I tell him through clenched teeth that, "You fell through the grate."

"Through?" he asks before he looks up and winces when he tries to move his arm.

"It's not broken," he says, not fully understanding due to the blow to his head even though he tries to understand how he could fall through a solid grate without it breaking.

"I think you hit a release on it," I tell him before sitting him up a little more and offering him a potion for the pain.

"So… you…" he starts before he pushes my hand away and grabs the potion with his good arm, clear-headed enough to know that he doesn't like being tended to for fear of admitting to a weakness, "fell through too?"

"No," I tell him while frowning at the fact that he's not comprehending the seriousness of his injuries and that there's a threatening bruise starting to form under his chin.

"I don't understand," he admits before wiping at a trail of potion that runs from his mouth and wincing when he touches himself near the jaw.

"Here," I mutter while pulling his hand away and taking his handkerchief out of his pocket to help him by lightly wiping at his mouth with it. "You hit your chin—"

"No shit."

"Hard," I add, ignoring the fact that he cut me off to point out that I was stating the obvious in a manner I would normally consider out of sorts for him. "It will take a while to heal but the pain should clear in about an hour."

"Maybe if I was more like you," he sarcastically grumbles before he tries to get up and swaggers, grabs at his head like it hurts, and winds up falling back into me.

"Stop being so difficult," I mutter before taking a look around and then down the dark tunnel, wondering where the water leads as the reflections of its movement dances along the cavern-like walls, making the environment seem strangely tranquil. We were already two stories below ground level and we must be at least another one-and-a-half now, if not more.

"Strange," Tseng mutters while wiping at the corner of his mouth again and looking around in confusion. Then he tries to sit upright as I hang onto him, almost counteracting his actions more than I'm trying to help. "Where's the light coming from?"

"I don't know," I answer in response to a greenish-blue hue that makes our surroundings seem iridescent and wondering if it's from years if not decades-worth of chemicals that have probably been dumped down here. Along with those thoughts though, I try to brush off the concern over any adverse affects they might have on him when I think of how he'd nearly drowned in them no more than a few minutes ago.

Then he turns his attention back to the grate and the steel ladder leading up to it and studies it with a strange curiosity, "You climbed down?"

"No."

"How'd you get down then?"

Not wanting to tell him that I jumped after him because he'll find a problem with my lack of forethought about getting us both trapped down here, I wind up only lowering my head while he puts the pieces together on his own and scoffs at me. Then he feebly pushes me away and shakes his head with thoughts I don't care to entertain.

"You're an idiot."

Of course I am, I sarcastically think as he manages to stand a little more successfully and steps a few feet away from me. He still sways though, and he takes another hard look at the grate and its surroundings.

"I don't see a lever."

"There isn't one," I lowly admit, causing him to shake his head at me again without paying any concern over the fact that I saved his life. Instead, he focusses only over the fact that I thoughtlessly got us both trapped and like always, I stew over the fact that he thinks it's my fault regardless of who hit the lever first.

"Well," he muses as he rubs at his chin again and moves his jaw to test the severity of his injury. All the while, he keeps his other arm still and limps closer to the water, "Hojo wouldn't have that lever or the ladder if he didn't want to come down here. Not to mention the fact that it appears like he wanted to keep this place hidden."

"Kjata," I mutter before admitting that I'd come to the same conclusion while he takes a more curious look around and says, "I wonder what he's hiding down here."

All the while, I'm wishing that he would stop talking, thinking that it's only going to slow the spell and the potions down, and when I suggest that he should give his tongue a rest, he only gives me a disapproving glare like I was somehow responsible for it all to begin with.

Either that or he thinks I'm telling him to 'shut up.'

"Are you telling me to sh–?"

"No," I mutter as I place my hand over his mouth as gently as I can and grit my teeth over the fact that he'd confirmed my last thought, "I'm saying that you've injured yourself and that you should rest for a while."

"Down here?" he asks with a disbelieving tone before he snorts at the thought and painfully snickers out, "I don't think so."

Then he steps into the filthy water that comes to below his waist and starts running his hands along the slime-covered walls beneath the surface.

"What are you doing?" I ask, wondering how he can be so disdainful whenever I do something like that. Yet it's never an issue when he does it himself.

"Looking for a switch… There has to be one."

Although I argue with him to get out of the water, not knowing if it's one of his better ideas, he refuses and continues to run is hands along and as far down the walls as he can. He's convinced that Hojo would have put it somewhere that wasn't obvious while I wonder if the switch I've just noticed across the way might be what he's looking for and I mutter, "I doubt his intention was to trap himself down here."

"He was nuts," Tseng reminds me while I almost snicker at the thought and wonder if Tseng's any less nuts as I step across the way, knowing that he wouldn't listen to me if I wasted my non-existent breath about the switch being in an obvious spot right by the ladder. Albeit, it's in the shadows that his eyes probably aren't capable of seeing in.

"Found it," he says, stopping me before I make my way entirely to the ladder.

"What?" I ask with my hand in the dead air and my head partially turned, wondering what the hell he's talking about now.

"Right here," he says, "near the top."

Suddenly thinking he hit his head harder than I originally thought, I turn around to see that he moved over to the other side, facing me before he yanks on something under a discoloured stone on the surface. His movement suggests it was a lever that he found. But that's not the biggest concern on my mind as a low grinding noise catches my attention near the location across from where he's standing and I wind up acting on pure instinct again as I pull him out of the water while he protests—for fear of something else going wrong.

"What's the matter with you?"

"You've already hurt yourself once today."

"Only once?" he snidely asks, reminding me of the Ying/Yang in the hall that caused him to sprain his ankle. Then I pull him closer, more protectively, and I ready my gun with my other hand while ignoring him as he tells me, "You're overreacting."

Whether he's right or not is unimportant right now and I remind myself that I'd rather overreact than have any more regrets as the initial whining of machinery stops and a more frictional sound begins as if whatever he's triggered has been neglected for years and is reacting far slower than it normally would to whatever it was that Tseng triggered.

"We should get out of here."

"No," Tseng answers while attempting to get away from my protective hold with less effort than he's used in the past, mostly because I'm guessing that he's pampering his arm, "If Hojo was hiding something down here, I need to know—Shinra needs to know."

"At the risk of injury?"

"I'm beginning to wonder if you were really a Turk," he sarcastically mutters while suddenly readying his own gun and reloading it when the noise finally stops. Then a part of the cavernous wall falls back, creating a strong dust-cloud in its wake that causes him to jump too subtly for an average person to notice.

"Scared?"

"Hardly."

For a moment, we both simply stare into the new haze while it slowly settles. Then he betrays himself again by nervously resting his hand on my wrist as my arm crosses over the front of his shoulders to keep him close and with a subtle nod, I protectively pull him closer, readying myself to step in front of him if the need arises.

"What are you doing?"

Knowing that he'll find the answer offensive, I keep my silence and start to push him behind me anyway. But like usual, he catches on to my obvious action and protests as if he thinks it will get through my thick skull and make me see reason the way he thinks it should be seen.

"I don't need you to protect me."

"Humour me," I mutter, more of a low growl than anything while I lower my head and squint at the dark cavern-like opening to see if what it leads to is visible from where we stand, "Just this once."

As a response, he only scoffs at me, nothing more. Then he shakes his gun in my face to let me know that he'll humour me by standing behind me but he sure as hell isn't going to put his faith in my bumbling idiocy that causes me to grit my teeth instead of saying anything in regard to the fact that he's the bumbling idiot this time around.

"Just get behind me," I lowly growl, finally being able to see more while Tseng hops to his toes to get a better view over my shoulder, forgetting about his ankle and wincing at the reminder before falling into my back with his bad arm and grimacing again at the reminder that he's still in the process of healing.

"What is it?"

"I don't know," I tell him, suddenly wondering if his head injury is going to leave any permanent damage and then I suddenly find myself more concerned over the thought than I thought I would be.

All I can see is an opening, dark, dusty, and maybe deep enough to lead farther into the earth. It could lead to a joining room or cavern or it may be nothing more than hollowed out earth that never got to meet the originator's plans. I can't hear anything beyond the opening either—no threat even though I still keep the gun aimed and anticipate something unexpected out of habit.

Though I have no idea what I could possibly anticipate regardless of the thoughts that monsters never seen before could very well be lurking there.

"What lives in the earth?" I ask, more to keep our minds occupied while we wait.

"Spiders, worms… mites…"

"What kind of mites?"

"What the hell kind of a question is that?" he asks with a slight hint of agitation carried on his tone before he snidely adds like he's not sure if I really am as stupid as he thinks I am at times, "There must be hundreds if not thousands of species… You might as well have asked me what bloody species of spider we could possibly run into as well."

"Mites," I repeat, suddenly trying to take my mind off of how much I'd like to tell him where to stick his unnecessary opinion right now.

Then he elaborates on a little known fact that I've already discovered some time ago regarding his phobia to insects. Although as he puts it, he simply doesn't like them.

"I hate spiders."

"It's an opening," I tell him, ignoring his grumbling before I ease my hand away from him and reluctantly put my gun back in its holster.

"Where's it go?"

"I don't know," I tell him before I pull him to my side and help support his weight from his sprain. "How's your arm doing?"

"Better," he mutters, reluctantly accepting my aid and nodding toward the opening, "You can see in the dark, right?"

"Yes," I tell him before taking a short step forward while he hops beside me. All the while I'm hoping that he isn't going to suggest what he winds up suggesting.

"We should check it out."

But of course, that suggestion is dismissed just as quickly as the door to the lab above us crashes open and voices flood the room—unfriendly voices, and something else, unsightly and monstrous comes barging out of the opening. It's also unfriendly, and Tseng has to add his two cents before both our guns are readied and aimed at what we both view as the greater threat, "This is so typical of you…"

"Me?

"Ah… Tseng… You look like you could use some help down there," comes a formal and amused voice from above us before the sound of a zipper is undone and Tseng is showered with something golden that I don't need to guess at. Just as that happens, the monstrosity before me lets out a screeching howl and sprays some kind of web to pull him in too quickly for me to stop.

And here, I thought I was the one having the bad day right as I start firing at the most immediate threat and Tseng manages to pull out his cane and painfully strikes me wherever he can reach with it as if to say it's all my fault.

But then again, he may have had another reason and it crosses my mind upon the second or third hit as bullets mindlessly fly from my gun and right before a shrieking howl of my own—though not exactly my own—joins in with the grating sounds from the mutated creature that looks like a combination of all three of the insects that Tseng so graciously named off… like he knew exactly what was hiding in the shadows.