Chapter 92 - Impressionability
February, 2001
"So, that's how it goes, huh?" Zack Fair asks Sephiroth as he stares at his email. "We're done with Wutai?"
If there wasn't enough medical care in Sephiroth's life, it has become standard procedure for the First and Second Class SOLDIERs to get a medical checkup once a month. While most had shrugged it off without a thought, Sephiroth had asked for the truth. Lazard had been patient with his evasions but eventually he squeezed the truth out of him.
They are all on watch for the sickness that Genesis has. Lazard had let that slip and followed it with solid assurances that it wasn't truly possible. Through the details of finishing out the war, he had forgotten one specific detail. Sephiroth hadn't known Genesis was truly sick with something other than a hurt shoulder.
More than that, it is something that might be possibly caught or transferred.
What hadn't SOLDIER told him?
Worse, why didn't Genesis explain it?
Every time he thinks that he has reached the bottom of the pit of deceit, it yawns open even wider.
Therefore Zack and Sephiroth sit in the waiting room to be looked over and get another of many blood draws.
Except Zack is giggling to himself over his phone.
"What does it say?" Sephiroth asks. He had seen the proof of the email sent to the VIP list. He didn't have the stomach to read it. More half truths, more lies, more things that admin is feeding Shinra to keep them calm. It is the sweet and warm platitudes of a prostitute over a crying customer.
Sephiroth catches the rawness in that thought and shoves it deep. That emotion is unnecessary and a waste of his time. He is here, locked in place. It's best to not think about it.
"A bunch of stuff but mostly you are a big old hero, again. Funny how that works. I swear that I remember doing a few of these things," Zack says in a tone almost teasing.
Sephiroth lets out the air trapped in his lungs. "Did you? You must be getting forgetful."
"You are the old man."
Zack's boot crosses the tiles between them. The toe kicks the leg of Sephiroth's chair. It is just them so Zack feels more comfortable talking to him. A special waiting room was set up in R&D's general SOLDIER care. No one could know that they came in for care like everyone else. No, they had to be perfect.
Sephiroth checks himself. He's too reactionary. This gets categorized. He is having a bad day. Therefore the words he says need to be careful or else he will say something that he will regret.
Sephiroth shakes his head and crosses his arms. "You know how Shinra works."
"Like it could have been neat to get a little small print? A little star by your name?" Zack's eyes shine with the joke. "'Oh Zack Fair helped' or even better 'actually, just kidding, Zack Fair did everything' but what did Angeal always say? That thing about honor?"
That name makes his chest tighten because nothing good has come after it. When those people are mentioned, only trouble follows him. Yet, Zack leans forward in his chair, hands working each other and looking confused at himself. He stares at the floor like a crossword in another language.
Sephiroth leaves him be. He won't chase him into that darkness, not when it has already taken him whole.
"Do you remember?" Zack asks eventually.
"You will have to be more specific."
"Uhhh…that thing about honor and work…?"
"Work well done?"
Zack smiles and points at him. "Yes. That. There. What was that thing? You know that phrase he had?"
It spills out of Sephiroth without him having to remember it. "'A job well done is honorable in itself no matter if the world recognizes it, recognize it in yourself.' I never got that specific lecture myself."
Those words hurt something in him.
"Gen?"
"Genesis, yes," Sephiroth corrects him. "He was a frequent student for those lectures."
"Oh man, so was I. I was always getting the one about being careful. Did you hear that one?" There is something about this Second that is different. Perhaps it didn't take Zack too long to get past the Sephiroth that everyone else saw. Angeal's words always sunk in deep. Perhaps he had talked about Sephiroth with his prodigy.
Sephiroth swallows.
Angeal used to go on about how proud he was of his "puppy."
Zack waits for him so Sephiroth speaks, "No, my most frequent lectures pertained to honor, patience and understanding." That is the sugar coated way of putting it. The man kept pressing to him the importance of taking time for himself and trying to understand the emotions that he experienced.
Something he has been neglecting but he hardly saw the point anymore.
"He always knows the right thing to say and do. Do you know that he's let me struggle through things so then I could figure out how to do it the right way?"
"I'm not surprised. His teaching style has always been…natural."
He remembers Angeal watching him in the forest, waiting for his decision. Every word that he had said had been so careful. Talking about Angeal forces him to remember them not as betrayers, the false friends, or enemies but the human beings underneath. In that brief moment, he can picture the smile that Angeal used to have when Sephiroth did something right.
It brought back a faint echo of what it was like to be on the receiving end of it.
"I miss him. I wish I knew why he…"
Sephiroth startles back to reality. Zack's smile is still on his face but it is strained. The easy attitude is still there but the mask slips for a moment.
"Fair, we're ready for you."
A nurse holds open the door.
"Time to bleed in a controlled environment." Zack rises and then pauses. "Hey, I know you are going through some shit too but can you…pick up a mission now and then? I really need a night off, you know? I'm just a Second doing his best."
It's the crack of desperation on the last statement that gets Sephiroth to nod his head.
"Thanks." Zack grins and disappears down the hallway.
Sephiroth settles back in his chair as the door closes trying to hold onto the fading memories.
It takes very little for Director Lazard to be convinced that it was time for Zack to become a First. It is the quickest and easiest conversation that they'd had in a long time. Since the highest parts of command stand in the room between them, all it takes to complete the promotion is to sign the bottom of a form and write in Zack's name.
Sephiroth looks at his signature and wonders how proud Angeal would have been at this moment. If he still had a phone number that worked, he would have called him and told him. They would have waited to tell Zack when all three of them were in the room. Instead, the two signature lines underneath Sephiroth's scrawl are empty and would remain so.
"Well, congratulations Sephiroth." Lazard glances at him as he feeds the paper into a scanner. "You are no longer alone."
Sephiroth hums as he puts the pen back on the table. The silver nib shines in the ceiling lights.
"It's bittersweet," Lazard supplies.
"Yes."
"He's a good choice. He will grow into the role."
"He is the only choice."
"You'll like him when you get to know him."
It is a replacement.
Sephiroth steps back. "There are other things you wish to discuss?"
"Yes. Angeal and Genesis."
He schools his face, his posture, the beat of his heart. "Yes?"
Lazard pauses and then he speaks.
It is almost merciful that Genesis decides to attack Headquarters. It breaks the need for Sephiroth to answer the question that Zack Fair had asked him. Could he kill Angeal and Genesis? Well, that he would have to wait and see. It boils in him, almost like it is a childish dare of a question.
Lazard's words are clear cut in the screaming red lights. He tells him the order and Sephiroth responds.
It is logical to send Sephiroth to tend to the escape of the President. In a way with the alarms blaring and the shakes rippling through the infrastructure of HQ, Sephiroth is at home. This is the environment that he knows how to handle.
The elevator chirps as he steps off on the top floor. The marble clicks with his shoes as he summons Masamune. The sword shines deadly and red in the lights.
The Turks have chatted in his ear. They have told him to protect Shinra on the roof as he escapes via a helicopter.
Flying Genesis copies have been spotted. Also some Shinra machines have been hacked into. More questions that beautifully don't need to be answered at this moment. Instead, they melt away into nothing. All that matters is the mission.
The hilt of the weapon sits solid in his palm. His keycard swipes him into the Shinra apartments. That was an honor that has been restored only recently for emergencies like this.
Masamune sings to him as he walks past the gilded statues of lions and abstract paintings. They are waiting in the study. A dull explosion echoes up from the levels below. Zack, newly minted a First, should be able to handle it. Still, Sephiroth needs to get back down to him and defend the building.
The weapon sings for blood in his ears. She cries out for a specific man. She wants the blood of the President of Shinra as much as he does at that moment.
Sephiroth has to block it out.
It is easy to think of death when the president has ordered the murder of Angeal and Genesis. Lazard's words are still settling in his ears that the President has gotten impatient and has labeled them both "irrecoverable." It was enough that both Genesis and Angeal were claimed to be killed in action a week ago when most of SOLDIER and Shinra itself snickered at the lie.
Now he wants it to be true.
The leather bound books sit on shelves unread as he moves last them.
"Angeal and Genesis are not coming back into the fold," Lazard had said, "I don't want to track them down and have the army kill them either. They were good men. They are perhaps misguided men now and we both saw them grow but we cannot ignore a direct order, neither one of us. My compromise is that you just have to locate them."
Gods.
Everything could be Shinra's fault.
None of them would be here without one singular, fragile, man.
The door is open to the office.
A safety clicks as he walks into the doorway.
Shinra himself holds a gun shining gold in the light and aims it directly at Sephiroth's head.
The man is short. He is not the person he has painted himself. He is not as intelligent as Genesis. He is lesser of a person than Angeal. Both of them had kindness that would forever out pace him. This man couldn't even shoot him if he wanted. At this distance, Sephiroth's reflexes would allow him to step out of the way, especially with a warning like this.
Masamune's leather grip is strong and reassuring on his fingers. He holds out, careful to angle the blade so he could drive it forward and into that withering heart at any second. The slide of this blade into his flesh would fix everything.
President Shinra's face is set. He is ready.
If Sephiroth wished it, this life could end here. Against the advice of everyone else, against his own very short future, the president of Shinra would be dead. It might protect Angeal and Genesis. It might save Sephiroth from the endless fall he finds himself in.
Sephiroth smiles.
As much as he wishes to do this, there is a time and place. This is not it. There is still too much at stake. He is not free, at least not yet.
"President." Sephiroth nods and drops Masamune to his side. "I am here to escort you to your helicopter."
It keeps getting worse when he thinks he cannot fall any further down.
First, the army locates the real Genesis before he can in Reactor Five.
The lie surprises even him as he tells the army to stand back and let him go in first with Zack. They will handle it comes smooth from his lips.
They don't even hesitate to agree. Going in would be slaughter for regular infantry. Sephiroth doesn't even know if a First Class in his prime could be taken down by the army. Sephiroth on the other hand carries a legacy of blood and no mercy. Now that Shinra itself was being attacked, it is an easy assumption that he would go after them in revenge.
It's a joke.
A soft and bitter joke that slides down his throat as dispatch wishes him luck and hangs up.
The momentum of his actions sweep him away as he quickly starts the next call. Zack's anger is quick to turn to hope as Sephiroth tells him the plan to fail to eliminate his friends. For all his training, the new First is quick to follow orders. Without anybody else to be there, it is up to Sephiroth. He does his duty. He leads them. For the first time in years, it is truly up to him.
It feels good, almost right.
It's also affirming. Zack, impressionable and eager Zack, is easy to convince that Shinra is wrong and that these men are worth saving. If there is any convincing to be had. He is smart enough to keep his true colors from administration but the color of his heart leaks onto his sleeve to Sephiroth.
It's the paperwork scattered around the lab that brings a stutter to Sephiroth's confidence. Genesis is not homegrown. He is not a choice of nature. He is not from Banora. He is not himself. He is encased in lies, known or not, spun around him from the test tube of his birth. Project G, Project Genesis, states the truth in lines of text.
Shinra was trying to make someone stronger than a human SOLDIER.
And from Hollander's handiwork and scribbled notes, it is costing him his life. It's causing him to degrade but also doing something much more. It is making him sick. It has made him a monster.
The paperwork, the ID number, the ripped and copied confidential files state all of this in black and white. The labs show something else. Not only does Hollander have access to Genesis' DNA but he had easy and readily available access. The copying is happening because he allows it. Hollander has a willing participant but why would Genesis cooperate? Surely, Hollander could have found a way to help him from within Shinra.
It did not have to go to this extreme
Still, there must have been a mistake.
A piece that he had missed.
Sephiroth looks for it and tries to find the fact that will unravel this all into perfect sense.
He doesn't make it.
He is interrupted. Hollander comes down the steps. Soon after Genesis Rhapsodos stands in front of him holding his sword at Sephiroth's throat.
And Sephiroth no longer recognizes his friend.