Story: Firewall (Device to protect against the spread of fire or breaks into a computer system)

French version: Pare-feu

Date: 7 March 2022 (date on which I cleaned it up, the ⅔ had been hanging around in my files since 2020)

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Disclaimer: No, I don't own FFVII and I'm not making any money from this story.

To celebrate my tenth anniversary of writing, I've dived into my Doom Box (my folder of ideas and bits of unpublished fics) and here's one of the stories I've pulled out! I just corrected a few spelling mistakes, formatted it and came up with a title, and voilàààà! Makes me wonder why I never posted it before…

Enjoy your Reading!

Firewall

In another universe, Kunsel hadn't gone to Reno's party. In fact, he almost didn't go this time either. SOLDIER training was no picnic and with a mission the next day, it would have been more sensible to go to bed early. But Reno had been pestering him all day and ultimately, on a whim, he went.

It was a house-warming party for Reno and Rude's new flat. They'd finally moved out of their rooms at Shinra and into a shared flat on the Sector 4 plate. It wasn't an exclusively TURK party, but... well, Rude wasn't the social type and Reno didn't bother making friends. So Kunsel wasn't surprised when Rude opened the door to see only their work colleagues. A sea of black suits as far as the eye could see, barely interspersed with a few touches of green, white and blue here and there.

"You've come!" exclaimed Reno, rushing over to Kunsel. He hadn't even had time to close the door before Reno stole the pack of beer he'd brought and dragged him into the kitchen. "You can leave your stuff there, the toilets are on the right if you want to throw up and speaking of which... here, bottoms up!" He added, shoving a plastic cup into his hands. Given the smell, the contents should have been in a small shot, but Kunsel said nothing. Having already experienced it, he knew that if he tried to refuse, the redhead would just keep shoving more drinks down his throat all evening. As it was, he thanked Reno and pointed out that Tseng had arrived. Reno immediately left him to go and annoy his boss. With no one left to keep an eye on him, Kunsel set the glass down on the table, not doubting that someone in dire need of alcohol would devote themselves to drink it in the second half of the evening. Instead, he grabbed the two beers he'd allowed himself this evening, put one in his pocket and opened the other with his bare hands. If there was one advantage to these Mako showers, it was this.

"Kunsel!" Called someone behind him, and the SOLDIER turned to look for the source. A small group of people had requisitioned the sofas and chairs in one corner of the room and were quietly sipping their drinks while chatting. This was the group he intended to join anyway, so he made his way through the campers' buffet and free-fighters to reach them. It was Cissnei who had called him and Kunsel dropped beside her. "I really didn't think I'd see you tonight, don't you have a mission tomorrow?"

"I do, but Reno's been spamming me with emails all day. It got to the point where I almost missed one of my Lieutenant's for a patrol orders, so I gave in." Kunsel sighed before taking a sip of beer.

"Yeah, he did the same to me and Sophia too." Adana replied from a chair opposite them. She, too, was in a suit, but the blue stood out against the sea of black around them.

"He probably wants you all to feel included." Cissnei laughed and Adana grimaced.

"I don't see Sophia, has she managed to stay away?" Kunsel asked and Adana nodded.

"It's her turn to be Hojo's lab assistant tomorrow. She's sent photos of their latest vivisection to Reno so he'll stop spamming her. Terribly efficient, I'm jealous I can't do that... "Adana sighed dreamily.

"You could always try boring him to death with the list of entrances to the Shinra tower." Gun teased as she sat down with them, and Adana nudged her.

"Hey! Want to swap assignments and find out?"

"No thanks, receptionist or lab assistant, not my thing." Gun replied before glancing appraisingly at Kunsel. "Verdot offered me the SOLDIER position though, but I wasn't a fan of the mako experiments." Kunsel could understand, he wasn't too happy about it himself...

"Heeeey, my little spies!" Reno suddenly shouted, jumping onto Adana's back. He was already quite red, and Kunsel had no doubt that he was going to drink himself to death. Or more likely, until Tseng stopped him. "So, how does it feel to be with the family?"

"Mostly it reminds me why I've been avoiding you." Adana rolled her eyes and shoved him to the floor. Proving just how wasted he was, Reno collapsed without any grace and remained prostrate on the floor for a good ten seconds before suddenly getting up and running to the toilet. Even with the music on, Kunsel was able to hear his vomiting, and he struggled to hold back a disgusted grimace. His enhanced hearing was usually pretty cool when it came to picking up information, but he could do without it in cases like this.

"Speaking of family, we're going to have to organise a Black Party." Cissnei told them.

"Really? For whom?" Gun asked curiously.

"Knife, she's chosen her fiancé." Adana told them. "It's about time this happened, they've been together for years and they're due to get married in two months."

"Do we really need to organise one then? He came to Fouet's daughter's baby shower, we all know what he looks like." Kunsel pointed out and Gun shrugged.

"Meh, it's tradition, and I, for one, am not going to spit on free booze."

"By the way, haven't you nominated anyone yet, Kunsel?" Cissnei asked and he shook his head.

"There's no one outside the Turk I'm particularly close to so..."

"Really? Not even a SOLDIER buddy? This would be an opportunity too, they're particularly at risk with Hojo and all." Adana asked curiously. And she was right, Kunsel had lost count of the number of fellow SOLDIERS who had been seriously injured on a mission, repatriated and disappeared into the limbo of the science section, declared dead. But...

"I have a few friendly acquaintances, but no one I'd want to organise a Black Party for. You only get to do it once after all, best not to burn out your ammo too quickly."

"Too true!" Gun agreed, raising her glass. She herself had named an old boyfriend and had been kicking herself ever since they broke up. Kunsel sometimes wondered if she wasn't going to end up murdering him outright just to get the right to nominate someone else. She wouldn't be the first...

"Still, has it ever really been useful?" Adana asked curiously.

"On several occasions, that's why it was created, but it's certainly not common... and fortunately, in a way." Cissnei agreed.

"It was Veld who created the procedure, wasn't it?" Kunsel asked and Cissnei nodded.

"Yes. According to the rumours, his partner became MIA while they were on different assignments and he discovered afterwards reports detailing experiments carried out on him leading to his death. That's also why we're keeping such a close eye on the rest of the company now." She explained, raising her glass to the three Turk who didn't look the part.

"Oh yeah, that's right, no fun." Gun grimaced. "And then, especially, there's the thing with his daughter and his wife... nasty business." Cissneï nodded grimly. No need to summarise that one: everyone remembered it.

"I guess, in the light of that, it's nice we have the possibility to appoint someone whom all the Turk have to protect to the best of their ability." Adana concluded.

Kunsel raised his beer to his lips at these wise words. It was true, it was a great initiative, but you still had to have someone you cared enough about to do it. Apart from the Turks, in any case. The Turk were protecting their own, after all, but they also had to be able to sacrifice themselves for the company if necessary. Most of the Turks would designate a member of their family or a spouse or child. But Kunsel, like Cissnei, had been brought up by Shinra, trained from childhood to serve the company. So they didn't really have any attachments... but Tseng, who was in a similar situation, had nonetheless appointed Aerith Gainsborough, a former experiment of Hojo who badly needed this protection. And of course, as Gun had said, appointing a fellow SOLDIER would be particularly appropriate, but who?

The answer leapt into his mind some twenty-two hours later, slumped in the mud and his insides desperately trying to escape his gaping belly. Above him, a young SOLDIER 3rd Class had his hands pressed firmly against his stomach, not seeming to mind the blood seeping everywhere as he told him, in a falsely jovial tone, an incredibly stupid story that he must have thought was funny. Zack Fair, Kunsel realised. This idiot had just decimated an entire troop of monsters to save the life of a guy he'd met three times at the gym. Well, saved... it wasn't quite a given, but Kunsel swore to himself that if he got out of this mess alive, he'd honour his debt.

And the Turk spy knew exactly how to repay the favour.

That's it! I really want to make it a multi-chapter story, especially as we don't have much on Kunsel (let's hope they'll give us a few more crumbs on him in Rebirth) but I've got lots of other ideas in the pipeline too so... we'll see which one appeals most ^^.

I hope you liked the concept! I just posted another FFVII one-shot-that-could-turn-into-a-long-fic too if you want! A Sephiroth&Cloud time travel one.

Consider leaving a review on your way out and see yah!