Although calm and professional as only a veteran Turk could be, Veld had known his kids long enough to tell when they were harried or exhausted. Despite her unflappable demeanor, Judit was- to Veld's eyes, anyway- ready to punch something.

"It could have been worse," she commented, handing him the folder. "Two dead, three wounded, the rest thoroughly unnerved."

Veld snorted. There were days he missed her dry sense of humor. "The short version?"

"Split right down the middle," she said. Veld looked up from the papers and into her eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"We have six surviving witnesses, one of which isn't in any shape to give a statement. I'll have him interviewed once he's stable enough to talk. I also had two others step forward who weren't involved, but wanted to give testimony on Nero's character."

Veld blinked. "Who?"

"Dixon and Jameson."

"The patrol that brought him in the first time?"

Judit nodded. "Apparently Dixon knew him prior to the fall of Deepground. Said he was a good guy, comparatively speaking anyway. She didn't think it would be like Nero to strike first."

"Were they an item down there?" A woman pleading for leniency for a man almost always pointed to a relationship of some kind, either familial or romantic. Nero had mentioned looking for his siblings, but the names he'd given were Weiss, Rosso, Azul, and Argento. Veld didn't know Dixon's first name, but doubted it was anything as exotic as that. Still, if he'd had a girlfriend…

Judit shook her head. "I doubt it. I asked her what her relationship to Nero was and she just gave me this weird look. Said 'I was a Jane', as if that explained everything. Maybe it does. I have no idea why her name would be so important. The given name on her paperwork is 'Amy'."

Veld got the feeling they were missing something; a subtlety of language or culture that had the potential to be rather important. "Valentine wants to review the reports. He'll probably want to question the witnesses himself as well."

Judit blinked but saluted, used to her superior's peculiarities. "Sir."

Excerpt (1):

Interviewer: Judit, Sector Supervisor. Officer: H. Thompson.

HT: I saw this guy sitting on the roof, ma'am.

Judit: Just sitting there?

HT: Yeah, at first. Couldn't see him that well cause he was kinda sitting in the shadow of the chimney.

Judit: And then what?
HT: Well, Chen says, what are you doing up there? The guy says, I'm not doing anything, sir. And Chen says, you get down from there, you got no business being up there.

Judit: And did he?

HT: Well, he stood up, and the light...the light was behind us, ma'am, and the guy puts his hand up to shade his eyes, and just then Avery says, hey, I know that guy! He's from Deepground, he's dangerous.

Judit: I see. Go on.

HT: So the guy says, yes, sir, and he….well, he took a step backward, into the shadow? And then he...just appeared on the ground in front of us, like, walked right out of the darkness where the light hadn't reached yet. So then Avery says, that's him, that's Sable, he's crazy. And he draws and fires.

Judit: He drew first?

HT: Yes, ma'am.

Judit: Thompson, did you see Sable draw a weapon?

HT: No, ma'am.

Excerpt (2):

Interviewer: Morley, Lieutenant, Sector Two. Officer: D. Carroll.

Morley: Tell me what you saw, Carroll.

DC: This guy just came at us out of the alley, sir.

Morley: Came at you how?

DC: He ran out and just started stabbing. He got Avery first, then Chen.

Morley: Stabbing? He was armed?

DC: Yes, sir, he had this long black sword.

Morley: Just to be clear, Carroll, did you or any of your fellow officers fire at or strike the guy first?

DC: No, sir, we did not.

Excerpt (3):

Interviewer: Judit, Sector Supervisor. Officer: I. Taki

Judit: So what started the fight, Taki?

IT: I'm not sure, ma'am.

Judit: Not sure? You were there. What did you see?

IT: I...didn't really see what started it. This guy was up on the roof of Carson's Dairy, and….and then he was down on the ground. [pause] Not really sure how it started, ma'am.

Judit: Two people were killed, Taki. Did you see how?

IT: [hesitates] He...I think he just...kicked them in the head, ma'am. Sable, I mean.

Judit: He kicked them hard enough to draw blood?

IT: Yes, ma'am, I believe so.

Excerpt (4):

Interviewer: Constance, Patrol Captain, Sector Two: Officer: P. Danzig.

Constance: Danzig, describe what you saw.

PD: I saw a man on the roof of the dairy, ma'am.

Constance: What was he doing?

PD: I'm not sure.

Constance: But you saw him up there?

PD: Yes, ma'am, I did.

Constance: And then what?

PD: Well, Chen or Avery, I'm not sure which, tells him to come down. So he does.

Constance: And what did he do next?

PD: He says, am I in trouble, sir? And Avery says something, I couldn't hear what - I was at the back - and then he draws and fires at the guy.

Constance: Did the guy fire first?

PD: No, I don't think he had a gun or anything.

Constance: A knife? A sword?

PD: No, nothing.

Constance: Danzig, did you see the man make any threatening moves?

PD: Not at that time, ma'am.

Constance: And did Avery's shot hit him?

PD: No, he missed. And he fired again, and...that one came close. And then guy just...went crazy.

Constance: How so?

PD: He just came at us like a berserker, ma'am. Took out Avery and Chen right away.

Constance: And how did the rest of you respond?

PD: We...we fired at him, ma'am. We couldn't hit him, he moved too fast.

Excerpt (5):

Interviewer: Judit, Sector Superviser. Officer: L. Hawke.

Judit: Hawke, did you see who struck first?

LH: Yes, ma'am, it was that guy, that Sable.

Judit: You're sure?

LH: Yes, ma'am! Saw him come out of the alley screaming like a crazy person, and he just jumped Avery and got him by the throat and-

Judith: Easy. Take a breath.

LH: Yes, ma'am, thank you. [pause] Anyway, he got Avery down on the ground, and Avery was bleeding badly.

Judit: And what did the rest of you do?

LH: We discharged our weapons, ma'am.

Judit: Did Avery fire his gun at any time?

LH: He tried, but Sable was already on him by then.

Judit: Uh huh, and then what?

LH: Well, he got Chen next, I think he kicked him in the gut and then in the head. Or maybe he had a knife, it was hard to tell.

Judit: You couldn't tell if he had a weapon or not?

LH: It...happened so fast, ma'am. No, I'm not sure how he did it, but they're dead. He killed them both.

Vincent tossed the sheaf of papers onto his desk. "Gahh, are they all like this?"

"Yes, sir," said Judit. Gesturing to the folder he'd set aside, she added, "There's a few more, just as contradictory. I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what to tell you."

Vincent removed his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Well, first, could you stop calling me sir? Veld is 'sir'. Just 'Vincent' is fine, or even 'Valentine', I don't care."

"Sure, Vincent. Sorry, old habits."

"Thanks. So, what next? Is there anyone who hasn't been interviewed?"

"There's one in a medically-induced coma. Castleton. They're waiting for the brain swelling to go down before they try to wake him up."

Vincent winced. "Is that it?"

"Except for Sable."

"Nero," Vincent snapped. "I don't think he likes the name Sable."

Judit blinked. "Okay. Except for Nero, everyone who lived through the fight's been interviewed. Will you be doing that one?"

Vincent stuffed the transcripts back into the folder. "Yes."

It wasn't much to go on, Vincent reflected, as he looked over the reports. Most of the survivor's testimony was nebulous at best. Only one seemed to put Nero in the clear, the others all agreed that he had struck first. It was possible that once Nero had begun an offensive- regardless of who had fired the first shot- it might be hard for him to stop. Once triggered, some soldiers entered a sort of berserker zone and would not stop until they were the only ones still standing. Given Nero's training, had he and Veld not intervened, probably none of the patrols would have been left alive.

One name in particular kept coming up in the reports: Avery. Reviewing his file, the facts were sparse, but telling. He'd been a small-time thug who'd eventually landed in Corel prison. There had been rumors about prisoners being transferred out of the facility and into Shinra's secret laboratories. Apparently those labs had been located in Deepground. Avery had served as part of Deepground's infantry with Nero as his commander. Out of both fairness and curiosity, Vincent looked over Dixon's record too.

She had also been in Nero's unit, but her opinion of him was much better than Avery's. Dixon had been an orphan scavenged from the street at a young age. She had been in Deepground most of her adult life. Perhaps she simply had a longer perspective, and had known what true suffering was, compared to Avery who had only been in Deepground a few months prior to its collapse. The only way to find out was to ask her directly.

"I can't say who shot first, Sir. I wasn't there," Dixon said upon interview. "Only I don't think Nero would attack first. It's not like him. Never knew him to be the first to throw a punch. He'd only retaliate if he felt threatened."

"And you know this because…?" Vincent drawled.

"Spent fifteen years in Deepground, Sir. Never been in the simulator with him myself, thank Gaia, but I watched plenty of times. He never fired a shot until somebody came after him."

"So you were in Deepground a long time?"

Dixon nodded. "Got kidnapped when I was about twelve. Some women can handle SOLDIER treatments, some can't. I was one of the lucky ones. S'why they made me a JANE an' not a Mother."

Vincent blinked at the terminology. "Come again?"

"Sorry, Sir. 'JANE' stands for 'Jenova Augmented Natal Exemption'," she explained. "If you can't have kids, you become part of the military. If you can, you become a Mother. I hear the Mothers were treated well, best food, posh accommodations, that kind of thing."

"So JANEs are female troops?"

"Yessir."

"And you were under Nero's command?"

"Yessir."

"What did you think of him?"

Dixson smiled. "He was nice. For Deepground, anyway. I was scared of him at first, everyone is. Was. Sure, he looks like Hades incarnate, but underneath, he's a good guy."

"How do you know that?" Vincent genuinely wanted to know.

Dixon was quiet for a moment; chewed her lip as she thought about what to say, and how to say it.

"He never came after us girls. Us and the little guys, we were at the bottom of the heap. Lot of nasty characters down there. If you couldn't keep 'em off your case yourself, no one was gonna do it for you. He didn't put up with none of that in his ranks. Can't speak for elsewhere, but if he caught anyone, he'd let 'em know."

"How so?"

"Seen him snap one guy's neck. Threw his body into the shadows. Nobody ever said anything about it, but plenty saw."

Vincent blinked at that, unsure how to take this particular revelation. "Snapped his neck?" he echoed.

Dixon nodded. "I would have too if I'd caught 'em in the act, but I'm not big enough for that. It sets an example for the other guys: you try to force yourself on somebody, you don't get a second chance to ask nicely."

"Was he always so…" the word that sprang to mind was 'vicious', but that didn't seem appropriate for the boy lying half-starved and under guard in a hospital bed.

"He don't put up with no nonsense, if that's what you mean," Dixon supplied. "He wouldn't be commander if he weren't strict. He's fair, though. Felt lucky to be under him, if I had to be there."

Not knowing what else to do, Vincent nodded.

"He wouldn't'a fired first," Dixon went on. "He's not like that. Please, Sir, you'll take that into account, won't you?"

"Yes. Of course." Hers wasn't the only statement he ought to consider.

Nero was still tied down, but awake and looking better despite his misadventure. As an added measure, a security camera that Vincent did not remember had been mounted near the ceiling. The gunshot had been little more than a graze, and had healed on its own before the doctor could even apply a Band-Aid. Someone had very considerately patched his suit with electrical tape.

"Sir," Nero said, nodding his head by way of a salute.

"At ease, kid," Vincent told him. Nero leaned back on the pillows ever so slightly.

"I'm sorry about the restraints," Vincent said. "That...wasn't my idea, but it's not my decision. Do you feel up to answering some questions?"

Nero nodded. "Yes, sir."

Vincent glanced at the camera mounted on the wall above the door. "By the way, you're being recorded. That's standard with someone who's being held pending charges. Just so you know."

"Understood, Sir."

"So, what were you doing in Sector Two last night?"

"Watching the sun come up," Nero said quietly. "Before that, looking for Weiss and Rosso. Do you want a full account of my movements that night, Sir?"

"Sure, why don't you summarize it for me?"

"Yes, Sir." Nero took a deep breath. "Upon release of WRO custody I resumed searching for my brother and sister in both what's left of Deepground and the surrounding area. So far, I have not been successful. I can't bear the sun, so I do my searching at night. I don't believe anyone has seen me. I have scavenged discarded food. I haven't frightened any more pizza delivery persons.

"On the night in question, I was sitting on top of a building, watching the sun come up. I was planning to go to sleep immediately afterward. Someone hailed me from the street. I recognized the individual as one of my subordinates from Deepground; infantryman 465217 Avery. He asked me to come down to street level, so I did. Upon facing me, he made a number of false accusations which I denied. He then fired a shot at me. I was able to dodge. He then fired a second shot. I engaged and killed him. His squad then opened fire on me, and I retaliated in order to defend myself. I killed one other officer before you and Agent Dragoon intervened. That is all, Sir."

If Vincent had ever had reason to doubt Nero had had a military background, he didn't now. He'd heard long-time Turks deliver less succinct and cohesive reports.

"Thank you. So it's your contention that Avery fired first? You didn't threaten him or try to strike him?"

"No, Sir," Nero shook his head. "I had no personal grudge against him. I was tired and hungry. I was not looking for a fight." A pause. "May I ask a question, Sir?"

"Go ahead."

"Am I to be dissect- Excuse me. Am I to be examined?" he nodded at the restraints.

Vincent blinked. Surely he hadn't heard what he thought he'd heard? "Well, you'll be examined by the doctor, certainly, to be sure you've recovered. Seems to me you have. What did you think we were….? Never mind. Let's go back to last night.

"Did it occur to you that you should surrender at any point? The second patrol took a few minutes to get there. You could have left, or surrendered to the survivors of the first patrol. Why didn't you do either?"

Nero's attention drew inward, evidently replaying events in his mind. The monitors wavered, betraying his distress. Nero looked up at them, briefly casting the machines a resentful look for revealing his weakness.

"There is no such thing as surrender," he said quietly, eyes downcast. "You fight or you die. I was not ready to die."

"It….doesn't quite work that way up here," said Vincent. "Surrender is an acceptable choice. Sometimes it's the smarter one. You also could have left the area. I know you can use your shadows to hide, and to move from place to place. Why not just run?"

Nero looked at him as if he'd suddenly sprouted a second head, or begun speaking ancient Cetran. Although he could not see it, Vincent got the impression that behind the mask, Nero's mouth was opening and closing but producing no sound.

"They fired on me," he repeated, tone helpless. "The shadows were too weak and getting weaker. I… I tried to run, then you grabbed me…" If Vincent didn't know better, he might have thought the boy was going to cry. Taking a deep breath that crackled through his respirator, Nero visibly composed himself.

"They fired on me. I reacted in self-defense. That is all."

Self-defense was, of course, the oldest excuse in the book, but Vincent didn't think the boy was lying. He'd been roaming around Midgar for the last couple of weeks without harming anyone; why start now? Unfortunately, it wasn't within his authority to decide that Nero was innocent. He had killed two people.

"Thank you. There might be more questions later, but right now, just rest. Is there anything you need?"

"Is...is there any news of Weiss and Rosso?" he asked, voice small and painfully hopeful.

"No one answering to those names has been identified," said Vincent. "But we don't really know what they look like. If you can give me a description of the people you're looking for, we can check with Rescue and Recovery. I can't...I mean, it's possible they might be among the dead."

Nero flinched as if struck. "No," he insisted. "No, they're both Tsviets, bigger and stronger than me. They were given light mako. They're fine, I'm sure of it. Weiss is almost as tall as me, but twice as wide. He's strong, fair-skinned, messy white hair, blue eyes. He's my brother, but he doesn't look anything like me. Rosso's beautiful. About a head shorter than me, with curly red hair to her shoulders and golden eyes. She always wears full armor because…" Here he trailed off. "They're not dead. They can't be. There's no way I could survive and not them."

The vivid descriptions rang a bell for Vincent, but it faded almost as soon as he realized it. Something about a young man with white hair….Dammit, it was gone. Chaos had taken control at Deepground, leaving Vincent behind a wall in his own mind, unable to make decisions or notice much detail. He'd have to think about it, but gods knew if that would help.

"Noted," he said to Nero. "Don't give up hope yet. There were a lot of survivors and some of them are still being treated. They might be in the quarantine area, or still unconscious."

"I will hope for my brother and sister," Nero said, in the flat military tone he'd used earlier. "Should I hope for myself? Will my life be required for the two men I killed, or will I only be punished?"

"There might be punishment," Vincent admitted. "I'm no lawyer, and I don't know how things worked in Deepground, but here we don't execute for every death. It depends on the circumstances. Usually corporal punishment is required only in cases of premeditated murder...things like that."

Nero's account squared with those of the patrollers who said Nero had made no threats. Maybe he'd have to have a talk with the ones who insisted Nero had attacked without provocation. He looked forward to it.

He wasn't quite sure why he was going to so much trouble to reassure Nero. The kid had snapped, killed two people, and badly injured a number of others. And yet Vincent still felt as though Nero was not the monster he was being made out to be.

Nero nodded quietly, some of the tension going out of him. "I will await sentence for punishment."

"You'll be taken to a holding cell once the doctor releases you. You aren't going to stay here in the hospital." An idea occurred to him, and he ran with it. "If you cooperate, I'll see what I can find out about Weiss and Rosso. How's that?"

The boy brightened a little at this. Vincent could almost see the small smile hidden behind the mask.

"Yes, Sir. I will cooperate."

As Vincent left, the camera lense caught his eye again. Damn, why hadn't he thought of that before? There were security cameras throughout Edge. If there was one near the alley where the fight had gone down, they might be able to find out who was telling the truth after all.

With that in mind, he headed for the Municipal Security office.