No More Choices Left
When we reached the entrance of the cave, Tseng stopped and adjusted his bag over his shoulder. Then he quickly pecked me on the cheek as if it were an awkward action for him and looked me up and down before quietly muttering, "To be truthful, Vince, you don't look like a mangy animal."
After that, he stiffened up, regarded the sparsely clouded skies, and he started walking while I stood there for a moment and snorted before I almost smirked. I assumed it was his way of complimenting me, and I kept my pace behind him while something continually tugged at my insides. Something was eating away at me and it almost felt like it was because he wasn't sure if he'd ever get the chance to do or say any of it again.
The snow was deep, up to our knees as we laboriously made our way on foot to the rocky hills where Tseng figured passage would be safer and easier.
"The snow isn't as deep and it would be harder for Koerin's men to find or track us up there," is what he told me, and I nodded in agreement while noting his clenched teeth and the condensed air he breathed out with every breath.
He must have been cold, I assumed, but it was too late to turn back now and he was too stubborn to let me talk him out of it anyway.
As we travelled, the witches made their appearances in the distance again and just like before, they made no attempt to trigger any hostility and I caught myself frowning over the uneasiness it was stirring inside of me.
"Sara-Ann," Tseng muttered and looked down as if to purposefully ignore their presence. "They won't harm us."
"What?"
"That was her name," he said, and he motioned his slightly shaky hand to one of the witches. "She was a young girl—in terrible shape. I found her when I was in my early twenties after she'd escaped from a lab near Modeoheim."
"The Snow Witches?" I asked, and he nodded.
"She begged me to kill her," he said, and then he nodded in justification before adding that. "So I did… I put a bullet between her eyes."
Then he quickened his pace and grabbed my arm so he could quickly pull me into one of the crevices of the rock wall and he sits down with his hands curled into his chest as if he suddenly can't stand.
"Sara-Ann…" he mutters again. "I was ordered to bring her to Shinra from the Slums when she was a young girl… I had no idea they were going to experiment on her and create clones of the results."
"Kjata…"
"Mm," he mutters, and then he stares off into space for a moment before he rubs his hands together and notions that he's ready to continue as we step back out into the bitter air again.
He does it a few more times—pulling me into crevices and concave structures—and it takes me a while before I realize that he's doing it to warm himself up. All the while, he tells me that the witches established some kind of bond with him after that.
"I don't really know why… They're just always around when I'm in this area."
"You're not afraid of them?"
"They've never given me a reason to be afraid," he says, and we duck into a small cavern to quickly warm up again. "In fact, they quickly tended to me after I had a run-in with Genesis."
Then he nervously snickers out, "I doubt he used summon materia on me though… Well, either way, they've saved my life on several occasions."
"I see," I mutter, and I warily watch him while biting my tongue as he pulls the map out to check over it again, and then he urges me to follow him again while I constantly ask myself why I'm not stopping him from this insane quest of his.
We must have walked for miles until we finally approached the Great Glacier. It's a vast land of solid ice and the sky is disturbingly clear overhead. Though heavy grey clouds loom over the horizon and the surrounding mountains, and I catch myself frowning at the threat of another approaching storm. I remember the last time I came here. It was with Cloud and the others and the weather was treacherous. We needed to place markers in the ground to help us avoid getting lost since the snow was so thick that we couldn't see beyond half a metre.
But this day, we can see for miles on end and I find myself awed by the threatening beauty of our hostile surroundings. I'm also slightly on edge due to the growing number of witches coming into plain sight to simply stand and watch us, and I instinctively reach for the handle of my gun.
"Pay them no mind," Tseng says, and he places his hand on my arm to let me know that he doesn't want me to show any hostility. He does it without having to look at me to know what I'm doing or thinking. "If you give them no reason, they'll stay where they are."
Easy for him to say, I think, and I reflect on how they attacked us every chance they got when I was here with Avalanche all those years ago. But I'm not with Avalanche this time around. Instead, I'm with someone that stirs more curiosity in me than I ever thought possible and as we get closer to our destination, a large building begins to fall into our view and Tseng seems to grow tense and clenches his jaw.
Then he mutters in a barely audible tone that, "It's not possible," and his pace quickens while he reaches behind and drags me by my sleeve to pull me along with him.
"What…? What is it?"
"It's the damned base," he says as a sharp edge overshadows his voice. "We destroyed the damned thing… I was right there!" he insists as he quickly points to the high cliffs in the distance. "I watched!"
"Are you sure this is the same one?" I ask, and his pace quickens even more while he shakes his head.
"I don't make mistakes, Vincent," he curtly tells me. Then he mutters, "This isn't possible," and abruptly stops so he can pull out the map and study it while frowning and biting on his bottom lip. "I clearly remember what I did."
"You're sure no one could have rebuilt it?"
"Are you blind? You can't see the sheer size of that place?"
"No… I'm just saying that—"
"I know what the hell you're saying, Vincent."
"Vince," I mutter as he folds the map back up and daftly stares at me.
"I know your damned name!"
Then he wipes at his upper lip as if he's breaking into a sudden sweat and he blankly stares through me while I stand there without knowing what to say or do to help.
"Nonono…" he finally mutters with a strong sense of denial and shakes his finger at me before he quickly points it to the building behind him without bothering to look at it. "That building is too damned big to have been rebuilt in that short of a time."
"Maybe it was only made to look like it," I suggest and await another verbal outburst.
"You mean it's empty?" he suddenly asks as if the thought never crossed his mind and it makes enough sense to him that he could happily live with that explanation, "Like a prop?"
"Maybe."
Then he turns around and stares at it while the wind starts to pick up. It blows his hair into his eyes and he ignores it.
"Well," he mutters, and then he puts the map into his coat pocket and quirks his brow. "I guess there's only one way to find out."
A part of me wishes he never said what he said as we continue on our journey toward the mysterious building. It's concrete—a dark, dull grey with signs of damage from weather as if it's been standing for too many decades and there's something familiar about it that stirs a strange discomfort inside. On the outside, there are area lights placed more than a metre apart and several metres from the ground. They're bright enough to light the grounds that are surrounded by a high concrete wall with barbed wire coiled along the top. Most of it's falling apart now.
As we approach, Tseng leads the way to a rusted iron gate on broken hinges. It's wide open and there's an old security camera that looks like it hasn't been in use for years. The camera's support is bent and rusted and the lens is cracked and frosted over. The place looks like it was a solid fortress at one time.
Yet it's wide open and barren now, and I take a moment to look around while Tseng cautiously studies the entrance and I note that the witches have moved closer and grown in their numbers.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I cautiously ask, and Tseng nods while stating that, "There's no going back now," and he takes the first step onto the grounds while readying his gun as if he's as uneasy as I am. Then he removes one of his hands from his gun and rubs at his temple like he's developing a headache before he returns both hands to his gun to keep it steady.
At any moment, I'm expecting something to happen as I follow his lead by keeping my hand close to my gun in case I need it. I don't know what either of us is expecting, but I know I wouldn't be surprised if Genesis suddenly showed up, or the Witches suddenly decided to attack without warning.
Nothing happens though, and as we approach the main entrance to the building that is secured by another iron door, Tseng lightly taps on my arm to get me to follow his gaze to another security camera.
"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" he asks, and then he returns both hands to his gun again and continues to stare at the camera that looks as if it's been newly installed, and it moves to focus its attention on us.
"It's working," I lowly growl, and he nods before he slowly looks at me and then looks at the security panel on the other side of the door. It's a retinal scanner and it's fully operational.
"Do you still think it's empty?"
I have no idea, I think to myself as I step closer to the panel on the scanner to study it and it slides open, and before I have a chance to react, a laser runs across my face and I literally freeze while Tseng tensely asks, "What the hell are you doing?"
Then a female recorded voice speaks, "Welcome. Vincent. Valentine," and a loud mechanical whine pierces our ears before Tseng quizzically looks at me and I dumbly shrug.
"You know this place?"
"No," I answer.
"Well, it seems to know you," he accusingly points out, and then he holds his gun more securely while regarding me with mistrustful eyes and steps back the moment the reinforced steel doors begin to open as if they haven't been opened for decades.
After that, we both stand there and stare into the darkness as lights slowly begin to turn themselves on as if they're automated, and Tseng turns to regard me warily again, hesitating as if he might be having second thoughts all the sudden.
I don't blame him for the way he's looking at me though. I'm beginning to wonder how much he can trust me too, and I wind up stating that I think I recall my father running a lab in the North when I was a child, but that was far too long ago for me to recall correctly and this place doesn't strike me as familiar while Tseng points out that he was told the place was a base.
"Not a lab," he says.
I merely shrug again and hope that he believes me while I convince myself that I'm positive I'd remember a place like this as he takes his first hesitant step forward and warns me, "So help me, Vince… If Genesis has gotten to you—"
"I think I'd know!"
"Very well," he states, and then he nods in the direction down the hall and cautiously glances sideways at me. "I suppose there isn't much I could do about it now anyway."
Bastard, I think, and I follow his lead as we carefully walk down the hall in as quiet a manner as we can. Both of us have our guns ready and I think he may be as nervous as me when my nerves cause me to jump at the sound of the heavy door closing behind us.
As we walk a little farther, Tseng suddenly stops and grows paler as if he recognizes something about the place. Then he takes a look around him and dances his eyes across the closed doors on both sides of us that run the length of the hall before he confusedly states that, "I think I know this place," and then he runs his cautious eyes over me before he turns back to the way in which we came and whispers, "I don't think I want to be here…"
Kjata…
I'd offer to turn back but I don't think it's an option either of us has. So instead, I step closer to him to remind him that I'm here for him, and I realize that it's probably not the most comforting thought when I think about the fact that he could possibly be right about Genesis 'getting to me.'
And before I have the chance to say anything, he quickly starts walking as if he suddenly knows where he's going. Then he turns another corner, and another one, and by the time I think I can catch up, I've lost him.
"Tseng?" I call out, unable to hide the slight urgency in my voice as it echoes down the empty halls, and I regard the maze before me and anxiously call out again, "Tseng! Where are you?"
He doesn't answer though.
Nearly every door I check is locked. Almost none of them opens except for the odd small office that seems to be deserted, or a closet that he obviously hasn't been to, and panic begins to grow at a rate in which I can't stand.
"Tseng!"
Still no answer, and I stand in the middle of another hallway while coming to the conclusion that I'm lost, and I try to calm myself down while telling myself that I'll never find him if I can't focus. A few minutes have passed, maybe more, and I start to run down hall after hall with the sound of my armoured boots echoing against the dark grey floor as I do so. Each turn looks the same. There are doors lined down every hall and all of them are locked except for ones that lead to more empty offices and endless closets, and I wonder with a sense of futility, How many damned closets does one place need?
Kjata…
"Tseng!"
He still doesn't answer, and for the first time since I awoke in the mansion, I curse at myself for not owning a damned watch. Has it been an hour yet? More by now? How far into the bowels of this accursed place have I gone? Am I lost? Is he lost?
Kjata…
If only I didn't care so much about him. Then maybe the urgency and lack of knowing wouldn't have embedded itself so deeply and I wind up attempting to backtrack and end up more lost than I think I was to begin with.
So help me if… No—Don't think like that…
By the time I'm about to give up, I find myself standing in the middle of another hallway and just listening. I should have done that first, I think, and the sound of a subtle whirring of a machine or a computer catches my attention. Only this time, I don't call out his name for fear that I'll simply create another false hope for myself.
Instead, I follow the sound until I quietly approach an opened door and stop outside of it long enough to hear the subtle sound of a soft sigh.
Then I ready my gun on the off chance that I'll run into something I'm not prepared to run into, and I quietly step through the entrance.
"Tseng?" I quietly ask as I take another step forward and he just stands there. His back is to me and he's not moving. He's just standing, looking down at a terminal with scattered papers placed over the keyboard. And I take a quick look around and see the filing cabinet he must have ransacked and frown at the files on the floor—all with his name on it.
"Koerin was right."
The dead tone to his voice reflects resignation and I turn my attention back to him and watch as he continues to do nothing. His hands are spread apart and resting on the console and his hair is loosely tied back, and for a moment, I wonder where he got the elastic from before I give my head a shake to focus on more important matters when he starts to disturbingly laugh.
Then he pulls the elastic out of his hair, ripping his hair out along with it before his laughter turns to the sound of torment, "And so was Genesis… about everything…"
Kjata… I think, and I take a step toward him while noting that there's a room beyond the glass wall in front of him. It looks like the one I saw in a dream—the one he awoke in before someone snuck up behind him.
"DON'T COME NEAR ME!"
And I stop while he throws the papers from the console toward me without turning around and places his hands back on the console as if he'd never moved.
"What does it make me?"
I don't know, I think, and I look down at a number of papers. The older ones are signed off by Dr. Crescent and Dr. Valentine—Lucrecia and my father—and the newer ones are by Hojo, along with a few that are more recent with nothing more than an 'S' written on them, and above the newer signature, approval for Tseng Kisaragi has been clearly marked.
"Kisaragi?" I mutter, almost low enough to not be heard.
Yuffi?
"My mother was from a prominent family," he bitterly mutters back. "Godo Kisaragi's disowned sister. She was the eldest. Aunt to Yuffi Kisaragi—you know her—the young thief and tramp of Wutai."
"He was the leader of Wutai," I mindlessly mutter, and I think I'm beginning to understand a small number of his inner demons.
His mother was brutalized and exiled, and from what I've gathered from the small pieces he shares from time to time, his childhood was far from ideal and he even went so far as to hide that fact from his mother, and all the while, his own cousin is a well-known thief, turncoat, and whatever else Tseng happens to know about her, and she has been honoured by the same people that turned their backs on a woman whose circumstances went beyond her control.
She may even be the only woman alive that is capable of making Tseng feel shame for the need to protect her from the facts of how disappointing he must feel he is to her, and I bend down to pick up one of the older pieces of paper to quickly skim over it while he laughs indignantly at himself.
"I…"
I don't know what to say as I stop skimming and focus on the part of the paper that states that Grimoire Valentine came across a legion of elder Gods that were locked in mako prisons by their rivals during the days before the Ancients. They were believed to be destroyers of civilizations—Chaos, Destruction, Disorder, Omega, and a fifth one that my father and Lucrecia couldn't find a name for. It was a shape-shifter that enchanted Chaos and made its existence even more chaotic by playing both sides.
It was a member of the Bahamut family—the gods of fire, energy, armour, and sheer strength, and it was the first and only one to sacrifice itself to its own prison for unknown reasons.
Above its description, Hojo had written a small note:
The safest one? Tseng must survive—Use the summon Materia.
Studies from Vincent should prove useful. His spinal fluid is proving to be the key.
It's a plan to create a biological weapon and to control it with summon materia. My father had hidden the papers in hopes that his discovery would never be misused. Only from what I gather, Hojo had found them and turned the project around to suit his own, more secretive purposes as I pick up more pieces of paper and skim over them. They're all covered with notes that are hand-written by Hojo and how he thinks he can use it to save the life of a Turk that was poisoned in a mako refinery incident back in Nibelheim.
How can he be infected? He was never approved for the Jenova experiments.
Even Hojo had no idea how it had happened. When he ran tests on Tseng, he discovered that Tseng was mutating from the same cells that he used to enhance his own son—Sephiroth—just like Genesis said. Only Tseng was reacting to the cells in an uncommon, unstable, and unchartered way and fusing with them at an alarming rate.
He suspected that his colleague, Dr. Hollander was involved but he couldn't understand why he'd go behind his back to conduct an experiment on a man that…
I did everything to protect him.
The later notes focus more on the fact that Hojo suspected that Sephiroth had gone against his advice and courted the Turk. But he's angrier at Sephiroth than he is at Tseng. He even goes so far as to express his disappointment over the matter and that he's disgusted that Sephiroth would even consider going after a married man.
I told him to stay away from him. But Sephiroth… He never listens.
He's too much like Lucrecia when it comes to such matters.
Attached to the paper is another note, a separate one where Hojo wrote that he confronted Dr. Hollander over the matter and wanted to know why he'd done it. Infecting a Turk went beyond madness, and I catch myself unconsciously sneering over his own words while I try to brush it off and read on only to discover that Hollander was as much in the dark about it as Hojo was. Neither of them knew how it was possible and neither of them knew of anyone else that could have known about the original project.
Sabotage? But who? And why the Turk?
The only one close enough to him is Sephiroth. But he doesn't know what he is.
Does he?
His wife and child…
"He murdered them," Tseng flatly says, and his knuckles grow white as he grips onto the console while I quietly regard him. "My wife… My daughter… All this time I thought it was my fault."
I merely nod and return to the papers, unable to come up with anything to say that could improve an already dire situation.
Best to say nothing, I suppose.
The rest of the papers are signed with the mysterious 'S.' They are approving the use of genocide on the subject—a complete destruction and reconstruction of his cells from cloned matter from healthier samples. It's a blueprint of theories on how to stop the mutations caused by the 'S' cells that Sephiroth was infected with and the 'G' cells that were believed to have destroyed Genesis on a massive molecular level, and they're all based on Hojo's findings from the refinery incident.
The subject must be stopped and restarted.
The cells must die before healthier ones can be reintroduced.
I was able to clone them from previous samples before this matter got out of hand.
More of Hojo's handwriting and the reason he suffocated Tseng to begin with. It's as Genesis said. He killed the Turk to stop the mutations. It was the only way to stop it but he couldn't leave him dead because of…
He has to die—It should be permanent. There's no guarantee he won't revert.
But… Xvan…
Shinra would surely conduct an autopsy.
I can't take her son away. No matter how much I despise the abomination that he is.
Xvan.
Her name is written all over the last couple of notes as if madness had been the very hand that wrote it there.
Kjata…
When I look up, Tseng is still standing with his back to me. His hands are still spread out as if he hasn't moved the entire time, and he stares at the glass in front of him. His reflection is as cold and sleek as the surface he stares through. It's also as empty as the room he stares into and I consider the fact that he may have already mentally left from the inability to deal with the impact of what he's found.
"Am I…?" he emptily starts as I slowly stand and watch him, "Going to be like them…?"
"I don't know," I answer, and I watch as the wheels turn and I can only imagine what he's thinking.
"The subject was a mess."
"I…" stop in dead sentence. Kjata… he just referred to himself as a third person…
"Sephiroth… You…" he dully mutters. Then he shakes his head in denial and covers his mouth while simultaneously wiping at his upper lip as he emptily stares with a hint of horror I his eyes. "I think I'm going to be sick…"
"We can find a cure," I hopelessly mutter, and his eyes dart towards me through the reflection on the glass in the semblance of a man who thinks I might have gone mad, and I know. The cure is written all over the place. It's been used on him several times without him having any knowledge or recollection of it, and my higher reasoning tells me that it's not an option he's willing to consciously consider.
If anything, it would have to be done against his will, just as it's already been done over and over…
"I saw what became of them. I mourned for Sephiroth… I was awed by Angeal, and I feared Genesis," he tells me, and he remains as if he's nothing more than an empty vessel—resigned—as he continues to speak with an emptiness that I fear I might understand more than I want to.
"He was a gentle man, Sephiroth… He wouldn't have done this to me… I know… He was a soldier… He didn't understand the word 'No'… But when he shed those skins…." He breaks off and shakes his head before he starts to shake and breathes out as if he's holding his breath, "He was so much more…"
"…"
"But even Sephiroth, with all of his resolve—he couldn't fight what he was and he succumbed to it in the end."
He starts to nervously shake then.
"If he couldn't fight it… What would I do? Become? If I waited too long?"
He focuses his attention on me again and regards me with a bottomless pool in those obsidian eyes of his and he simply stands there as if he's afraid to move while he admits that, "I would have shot him if I'd been there, but not because of what I thought he might become."
"To save him," I regretfully conclude as he subtly nods and thoughtfully runs his left hand along the console.
"Do you think that's why he stabbed me?" he asks. "To do as I would have done…? Did he know?"
As much as I'd rather not answer the question honestly, I catch myself regretfully nodding while I reflect on my conversation with Genesis. Tseng and Sephiroth had a connection, regardless of how much I'd rather not admit to it, and it went beyond the limits of life and death, or anything else for that matter, and I'm despising the fact that a part of me is willing to believe that Sephiroth would have done anything to protect his lover even if it meant killing him.
Then he turns around and his eyes slowly drift towards Cerberus, the gun I'd aptly named that sits in my holster as we speak.
"If I asked you—"
"Don't," I mutter. Actually, I beg and suddenly wish that I wasn't the pawn that I was as my hand automatically flinches while I regard the unnatural subtleties I've always noticed about the man.
"Would you?"
"Don't ask me," I whisper, unable to raise my voice beyond the constraints that are choking it as my hand automatically settles onto the jewelled handle of Cerberus, "Please…"
"Please," Tseng repeats. But instead of making it sound mocking like he normally would, it sounds more like a request. "Vincent…"
"Vince!"
"Vince… Vincent… Valentine…" he calmly says as if to humour me. "You lost your chance with Sephiroth. You always wanted to destroy everything that he was and what he cared for."
"Shut up."
"You can regain that honour. You can finally get your chance to get even—through me. You've already humiliated me, humbled me, betrayed me and lied to me—you've already claimed your vengeance upon him through me without even realizing what you've done."
"What are you talking about?"
"You've reduced me, Vincent. You tore down the only thing that Sephiroth could tear down and you dug your claws into it to claim it as your own. You won that part already."
He stops for a moment and crumples a piece of paper in his hand that I didn't notice until now, and then he throws it at me so that it bounces off my chest while I remain unresponsive.
"If it wasn't for your despicable existence, I wouldn't be alive right now!"
Then he lunges at me and we both tumble to the floor.
"Time and time again… You stupid imbecile! How could you not know that you've been a part of this from the beginning! You were used!"
"Tseng—" I choke out as we both struggle over the ownership of my gun and I fear that he's going to force me to pull the trigger while he fights against me with an adrenaline rush that I didn't know he was capable of.
"What do you think it was that saved you and Cloud when you were both being transported here so that they could use you again? What do you think it was!"
"Kjata…"
It was him, I think, and I grunt when he hits me so hard that I go flying across the room. It was a creature like Bahamut, and the men were trying to capture it and it never attacked us, only them, and I reflect on the notes I just read from Lucrecia and my father.
"That's right, Vincent," he maliciously says, and then he grabs me by the collar and throws me against the other wall while I suppress my desire to voice the pain of my spine hitting the small border that runs horizontally along the wall to conceal the cords for the electrical equipment.
"I chose to understand you because I always felt that you could help me understand something about myself."
From there, he grows calm and sets his attention on my gun that sits on the floor in the middle of the room while I try to overcome the inability to move and he quietly mutters, "I just didn't know it until now."
Then he casually picks up the gun and stares at it like he's not really seeing it and walks up to me, kneels in front of me, and grabs my hand while he places my fingers over the handle and the trigger, and then he rests his chin over the barrel while coldly regarding me.
"Pull the trigger."
"Don't."
"I don't have the courage, Vincent… Pull the trigger!" he urgently repeats as the intensity in his eyes grows and his hands tighten over mine. Then he quickly moves the barrel towards his chest and I wince from the pain in my back over the movement.
"Or would you prefer to destroy what you've already stolen—my empty heart."
"I won't kill you," I tell him, and I reengage the safety while he averts his eyes downward and sits back as if he's lost every ounce of determination. He reminds me of a child all the sudden, the way that he slouches his shoulders and drapes his arms over his crossed legs and takes on a look so forlorn that it makes my heart sink.
"You can't let me live."
"…"
"Look at me," he says. "Really. Look at me."
I do. I look and I see the epitome of everything I've fought against in my life, as empty as it was, and I wince as I force myself to move. His eyes are empty, cold and resigned. His skin is as pale as death that it's almost unnatural. The subtle lines on his face show signs not only of age, but of regrets. Dark circles under his eyes express endless nights of nightmares and dreams of things that could have been and never were, and his hair…
His hair has grown dull with the first signs of greying.
"I'm tired," he says and he shyly smiles—that painful smile of his—and he doesn't cover it this time when he honestly tells me that, "I'm so terrified."
Then he playfully quirks his brow with a great amount of effort to lift the weight and attempts at sounding almost playful, "Pay dirt takes its toll."
It sounds more painful than playful, and I release the safety on the gun when he stands and I fight with myself to come up with a good enough reason to argue with myself. All the while, our eyes remain locked as if neither of us can really escape from the things we want and don't want.
And I wish…
I wish that I had more than my bangs to hide behind as I wince when I force myself to stand and fight the numbness in my legs. I wish that I had more than this empty shell of what used to be a man to call my home—this thing he revived from its eternal slumber to be nothing but an eternal tool, and I wish…
I wish he never showed me what it felt like to feel again.
I wish I never knew what burdens were as I aim at him, uncertain of exactly where to aim and tensing my finger over the trigger while arguing with myself that we could be wrong. It could all be lies. We could both be wrong. Maybe it was a setup to make him—us—think that he was no longer what he thought he was, like a cruel joke that some vengeful adversary from his past wanted to play to get back at him so he could hurt him.
"It can't be like the last time. You know that, right?" he says with a serious regard, and regretfully, with no intention of stopping me. "You have to make sure that they don't get their hands on me again… You have to make sure that this never happens again."
And the moment I go to reluctantly fulfill my own prophecy, a smooth, almost velvety voice from the door numbs me as I hear the sound of another gun's safety being pulled back when he says, "I'm afraid I can't let you do that."
Then Tseng pulls his gun out in the instance of a heartbeat and whirls around to aim it at the door while screaming out, "You!" as the man's gun quickly changes its direction from me and coldly focuses on the Turk that's furiously focussed back at him.
At the same time, Genesis appears in front of me as if out of nowhere and throws me through the glass pane behind the terminal with an ear-piercing crash that makes me feel as if everything happened in slow motion while the sound of shattering glass echoes through the insides of my skull.
"Don't make this difficult, Tseng… I did this for you," that same familiar voice says in the other room as Genesis stands over me. He serenely looks down with an angelic and compassionate expression, kneels and lightly caresses the side of my face while he musically muses over the poetic irony of it all with a sickening sense of admiration.
"How painful your existence must be," he says, and he caresses his gloved thumb across my cheekbone. "You just can't win, even when you're trying to lose. Can you, Valentine?"
