A/N: Reminder for CA readers: Tseng's behavior is quite different from in CA (and in some cases from in canon), and there are reasons for this (one obvious one is him suddenly housing an entity like Minerva, even in her much-reduced form). That isn't the only factor involved, however.

Tseng's Awakening

As pain thundered through his body and voices assaulted his mind, Tseng woke suddenly with a scream, thrashing on a soft surface he didn't immediately recognize before curling up on his side in a tight ball as he went still and silent. With every ounce of strength he had, he tried to will away the pain, to gain some control of the voices, to push them away—and why was his body throbbing so much? Minerva had said she would house herself in him, but was it really necessary for it to be this painful?

Waves of throbbing pain coursed through his body over and over again, so he began counting seconds, starting over each time a new wave ended. Gradually, the time between the waves lengthened. The first time he managed to count over sixty seconds between waves of pain, he was in shock for over a minute after. Another wave of pain hit, but then he felt nothing else for one minute, then two, then five—and he stopped counting. Not because he hadn't wanted to time it, but because he fell into sleep with the lack of pain, and didn't even realize he had done so.

Some time later—he wasn't sure how long—he was woken by another wave of pain, but it felt milder than the previous ones and the voices had grown quieter, receding to a volume and 'distance' which he could manage. Well, somewhat.

:Good, it looks like your body has mostly finished adapting,: Aeris' voice said into his mind gently and softly. :Your mind as well.:

Tseng was left with the sensation of wanting to answer her but not wanting to move, even to open his mouth. Even just formulating coherent thoughts was hard enough, especially with how his mind seemed to be having a...discussion of sorts...with itself.

First, Aeris giggled, then told him, :Yes, your mind is 'having a discussion with itself' so your two sets of memories, and your two souls, can integrate. You'll have to go through them later to see what's different. As for talking with me, you just need to direct your thoughts at me like I'm doing to you. Um, I'm not entirely sure if you'd technically have to direct them at me as Aeris or me as Airmed, though. By what Minerva said, probably Airmed or it might go to my younger self,: Aeris explained to him.

Directing his thoughts...? If it was anything like how he would calm his mind or open it to sense those around him—even without a Sense Materia—then it shouldn't be difficult. As such, he directed his thoughts to 'Aeris as Airmed' and asked, mental voice exhausted, :Was it supposed to be so painful?:

:Do you think getting Mako infusions is less painful?: she asked curiously.

He had to stop and think about that for a minute before admitting, :I suppose they wouldn't be at the levels SOLDIERs have them. They never seem to end up in shape like I'm currently in, though.:

:Besides being prepared for it mentally, even excited to get the promotion, they aren't getting voices in their heads or the whole essence of the Planet stuffed into their bodies,: the young woman replied in dry amusement. :You are so strong, but even your body has limits, and it was never meant to hold what it is now. If she hadn't been as reduced in power and energy level as she had, your body wouldn't be able to handle her presence, and that would be even more true of the younger body you're now in, which hasn't had the experiences of your older self. The torture and suffering your older body had lived through would have made this easier to bear.:

The words reminded him of the fact that he was now not at the end of the world or dead, so he began actively trying to unlock his body as he asked her, :And what do I do with the voices?:

:The same thing I always did.:

:Which is?:

:Let them babble in the background and pay attention if something catches your attention, or ask them actively to try to give you information. If they can, they'll try, but sometimes it will be hard to grasp the meaning they're trying to give you. In the meantime, while they're just babbling about whatever, go about your daily life and pretend you don't hear them. Music helps if you have that luxury—I think they quiet more because they like listening to it as well. If not—don't think about them and it won't seem so bad or so prominent, more like you Turks going into a busy street to 'overhear' discussions while you're working on a mission.:

Admittedly, the comparison to what they did as Turks when surrounded by the din of voices on the street helped him deal with it much more easily, but maybe he would have to invest in some form of music for when he was resting in his own room...

His body was finally responding to him, but it was oddly tender, like he'd had to regrow a fresh, new skin. In a way, maybe he had. Since it seemed he would be able to move shortly, he asked, :Do you know anything about the date we were sent back to or my age?:

:Minerva doesn't know 'time' the way we do, so no. You'll have to find that out yourself, but I'm pretty sure she was setting it to more than ten years before the world's end. How much before...That's the question for all of us.:

He gave a small sigh and a mental chuckle to her before saying, :Thank you for your help so far, Aeris.:

:I haven't been able to do much yet. And my younger self will find out pretty quickly that you now have the powers of a Cetra—it feels like she's already looking.:

:How do you know?:

In reply, she tugged his mind to the paths of the voices with hers and 'pointed' to a narrow series of inter-linked, uniform flows to one side of the general chaos the rest of the voices showed as. It was odd for him to realize he could see the Lifestream and associated parts—colors—of it with various 'voices', and even more surprised to realize those voices and their activities changed the flow in what he could see. Most of those voices looked white-green, but the uniform flows Aeris had indicated looked more green-violet, and he realized they felt a lot like the same Aeris he had been talking to. Except when he looked for the 'voice' of Aeris as Airmed, it looked white-violet.

Retreating to his own mind, he asked her, :Why is the Lifestream 'green', your younger self 'green-violet', and your Summon form 'violet'?:

:Green is nature's color, calm and peace and growth. As a Cetra, I had part of that, but I was also a healer, which is denoted by violet. As Airmed, my essence has become a spirit-form healer, so I've lost the Cetra energy which gave me the green color and have gone right to straight healing. Kirin and Unicorn also will have a violet or purple 'voice'. I'm surprised you can see the colors so easily, though—most can't. It must be one of those abilities Minerva told you would suddenly turn up.:

He had to sigh at the words as he felt faint amusement from approximately where his own personal core and center of gravity was—Minerva was still there, but didn't seem to be capable of much communication personally yet. The realization that he had more than one hard something under his leg and arm reminded him he was supposed to be trying to move, which he had stopped attempting to do while looking at the younger Aeris' 'voice'.

Finally, his eyes opened and he had to blink several times as he tried to place what he was seeing. It finally came to him—his room in the old Shinra Headquarters, the tower in the heart of Midgar in all its glory.

He was laying on his bed in a room he never thought he would see again.

His mind promptly shut down for several minutes at the realization as he just stared blankly at the window in the wall he faced, where the curtains were open, showing night outside.

Again, it was the sensation of several hard, round objects digging into his leg and arm which roused him, causing him to begin by rolling onto his back and lifting the limbs resting on the items. Pain shot through each of those locations and a check of his arm under the sleeve of his nightshirt showed those three spots had indented and bruised rather impressively. Chances were good his leg was in a similar state, but with five and a half or six bruises instead of three. Rubbing the arm and leg allowed circulation to return to it and smoothed the indented parts back to their proper positions.

Why did he have a bunch of balls of some sort in his bed?

As he recalled what Minerva had said she was sending with the five of them, he suddenly sat up and began digging in his bedsheets to pull out the nine he knew for sure were there. Finding those stunned him—one was Airmed's Summon Materia—and prompted him to search around for others which may have appeared as well. The quest was easy since Minerva had limited them to three feet away—they were all knotted into his sheets and blankets, other than a few which had hit the floor, likely with his initial thrashing at the pain he'd woken in.

By the time he had gathered them all into a pile on the bed in front of him, he was officially stunned, both by Cloud's accomplishments to have had these, and by what Minerva had deigned to give him access to. After all, to have even one of the legendary Master Materia, Cloud and his friends in AVALANCHE had to've Mastered every available Materia of that type, leading to three results: said Mastered form, a baby off it, and the literal Master Materia of that type. If Cloud had managed all three of the Master Materia which were known, his group had really worked hard to power themselves up before facing Sephiroth in the battle to try to prevent Meteorfall five years earlier.

Well, it would now be several years in the future, if it happened at all, rather than several years in the past.

...The time differential would certainly take getting used to...

Either way, he now had forty-four very impressive Materia, and only six of them were ones he knew as the ones he'd previously owned in that future. The ones his older self had owned were fairly 'normal', other than the Full Cure he'd been given and the Shapeshift Materia which had been a family heirloom. The new ones he'd most likely inherited from Cloud included Master Magic, Mega All, Final Attack, Steal as Well, Underwater, every one of the 'Plus' Independent Materia, and several Summons. The last included Ifrit, Ramuh, Typhon, Bahamut, Alexander, Leviathan, and Knights of the Round. Really, Knights of the Round? His last two Summons were Airmed and Siren, the two previously unknown ones who had formed just for this purpose. Some of the Materia he now had were even the Mastered versions—Master Magic was automatically in that state, but Final Attack, Typhon, and Leviathan were all Mastered versions as well. Many of the Materia weren't Mastered, actually, but for what they were...

At first, he just had to laugh, sounding hysterical even to his own ears. This was too much all at once, and he had to get out of there, because the pain, Minerva, Aeris-as-Airmed, the room, the memories, and the insane amount of rare Materia sitting on his bed weren't things he could deal with right then. Pushing himself up tenderly, he went to the closet, took out something random, pulled it on, and walked out, only barely remembering to grab his ID from the nightstand. As it was, while he had managed to get pants and a shirt on, he'd forgotten completely about footwear, and didn't even bother to put his hair up like his younger self would have worn it in public.

Where he went, he didn't know.

Suddenly, as he opened a door, he came face-to-face with Kariya, the Legendary Turk—and the Death God of the Battlefield. His younger self would have reacted poorly to the orange haired man who had abruptly frozen mid-stride and mid-laugh to stare at him in shocked surprise. At least, by his slightly open mouth and the cigarette falling to the ground from said mouth, Tseng could assume it was shocked surprise. It would have made sense if they were to suddenly meet after Veld admitted he'd spent about three years deliberately keeping Tseng and Kariya apart.

The older man had sideburns and a slender, almost lanky form, though the eyes hidden behind his ever-present sunglasses were green, a trait the Wutain had only discovered in the future. While Kariya wore the full Turk uniform of a black suit and tie with a white shirt, he had some of the shirt buttons undone, the tie worn loosely, the jacket only partly buttoned, and had foregone the standard, brown shoes in favor of white ones. He also wore black gloves because he frequently handled dangerous substances as an explosives user and creator, and in one of his hands was his PHS.

If Tseng had actually been his younger self, he would have reacted badly, but he currently couldn't bring himself to do any more than give the man a quirky sort of grin with only one corner of his mouth turned up a bit. Instead, he kept walking in the direction he had been going, not actually realizing where he was until a hand grabbed his elbow and pulled him backwards into a strong body built with lean muscle, then let go of his elbow so two arms could wrap around his arms and body. At the warmth and the touch, his mind began clearing and his eyes managed to focus on what was in front of him—absolutely nothing. No ground, no building, just open air. A look down showed him a rather spectacular view of the Upper Plate of Midgar just as dawn broke, and the breeze just then was strong enough to even temporarily blow away the green haze of pollution spewed out by the Reactors, revealing the neon glow of the city.

"What happened to you, Baby Turk?" a voice asked softly in his ear, sounding rather more worried than Tseng had ever heard it before. Only one person had ever called him 'Baby Turk', and that was Kariya. One of the man's hands had pushed up one of his sleeves while holding him away from the edge.

"...Why did you follow me?" Tseng asked softly in reply, wanting to avoid answering the question he'd been asked. Largely, it was a question of how he'd even be able to answer...

"I didn't spare you two years ago so you could walk off the landing pad right here in the Shinra building now, Tseng," the older man answered in an oddly languid tone. "And you're not getting out of giving me an answer when you look like shit. And, you've got some fresh bruises, too, so—who attacked you and hurt you bad enough you'd actually try to jump?" His sleeve was released as Tseng realized it was the one he'd damaged on the Materia he'd found in his bed.

Before the younger, Wutain man could stop it, he'd given a small, single chuckle, only to feel the older man's grip on him tighten marginally—it strongly reminded him of someone already worried getting more worried and instinctively tightening their grip. "I wasn't—attacked—and I didn't—try to jump. Not by that definition, at least." At least he now knew he'd be around seventeen or eighteen years old and the year would be sometime in nineteen ninety-eight, probably...

"Try again, Baby Turk," Kariya replied sharply. "Or would you rather I take you to the Hospital Wing and have you put on suicide watch while I go wake Veld?"

Up until that point, Tseng hadn't realized how tense he was, but the realization of his own tension and Kariya's very real worry caused him to release a deep sigh and let his tender, aching muscles relax. When he let himself lean back against the older Turk, the man's grip loosened a bit, shifting to hold him more gently and comfortingly.

"It's not that I was 'trying to jump', it's that I really didn't know or realize where I was until you pulled me back. I'd have walked right off the edge without even knowing I did it. I don't think that counts as 'suicide'," he told his apparently self-appointed protector.

After a silence to assess the words, Kariya asked, "What happened to put you into that state, and where did those bruises come from?"

Reaching up to rub his forehead as he wondered what to say, he found the bond he now had to the Lifestream actively putting the reminder of Leviathan's Blessing into his head. Yes, Minerva had 'recognized' him that way, meaning he always had been carrying a blessing to some degree. How had he not known? Either way, Minerva had said the changes in him would resemble 'Leviathan's Blessing' to others—in fact, that the description was valid—so it was probably the easiest way to explain things, assuming the person he was talking to knew what that was...

"You've...spent a fair amount of time in Wutai, haven't you?" Tseng asked tentatively.

"Yeah. What does that—Oh, fuck!" Kariya suddenly swore softly in the younger man's ear as a sudden realization came to him. "You have Leviathan's Blessing now, on top of those gifts, don't you?"

"...I hadn't been aware of having 'gifts', but—this made itself fiercely and painfully known, and it's...overwhelming," the younger Turk agreed both softly and tiredly. At least the man had made it more than clear he knew about the Blessing, so it spared him having to try to explain it right then.

"How do you think you managed to survive so many situations which would have killed anyone else?" Kariya asked him in mild amusement. The amusement had left his voice with his next words, however, "But where did you get the bruises from?"

"Er—I slept on—a bunch of Materia that got into my bed—including a Mastered Leviathan..."

"...Mastered...Aw, Hellfire, something must've gone really, really wrong for that to've happened..."

Both released tired sighs before falling into silence while standing there. It was quiet, and for some strange reason, Tseng was comfortable enough with Kariya to allow the man so close to him when he'd never even allowed Reno to touch him the way the older man was now. Wait, was Reno even a Turk, yet?

Finally, Kariya said, "I'll walk you back to your room so you can rest."

"I don't want to move," Tseng answered absently.

"...You want to just stay out here on the landing pad by yourself?" the man asked in that worried tone.

"No..." the younger began, hesitating before deciding to just—say what was on his mind for a change. "I mean...leaning against you is strangely comfortable, and if we move, whatever this is—it'll disappear. Right now, it's also acting as my anchor, so I'd really rather not...lose it. Not yet."

The words at first caused the older Turk's shoulders to sag in shock, but then he huffed out a small chuckle and asked, "You're really comfortable with me—the Death God of the Battlefield—holding you like you're my lover, Baby Turk?"

At first, Tseng drew a blank, but then blushed faintly in realization and closed his eyes as he muttered, "Apparently."

Kariya's head descended onto the Wutain's shoulder as he shook with soft laughter, but his grip didn't change. As amusing as the older man found the situation, Tseng was more confused by his own reactions than anything—he'd never been one for this sort of intimacy before, let alone ever been so close to Kariya to let it happen...And would the older man even have such an interest in him as a person, friend, family, or 'lovers'? Then again, how much had he really known, or let himself know, about the man the first time through?

For his own part, he'd had partners of both genders before, both top and bottom, as he liked experimentation well enough—but it had never been romantic or serious, just a series of one-night stands all of his partners had known and agreed to. Rather, he'd made them agree to accept that it went no further than a night of pleasure. There were reasons he avoided serious intimacy, but for some reason, having Kariya wrapped around him so intimately felt oddly right. It was made more peculiar by the age difference between them, because the older man was easily old enough to be his father. Even friendship and familial bonds took a very long time for him to accept and form.

While Tseng had been thinking, Kariya had gone silent, and several minutes of quiet passed before the older man said softly, "It's really endearing for you to be so comfortable with me, but...Is it really me you're so comfortable with, or is it the 'me' you would have known however long into the future you saw—lived?"

Leaning his head back against the man's shoulder, the younger Turk answered quietly, "I didn't know you well, but had come to terms with your loyalty to the Turks. I didn't know enough about you personally to—for this to be happening now or to account for my apparent comfort with your touch."

"...I must have been a very lonely man."

"You practically had a harem of bikini-clad beach girls."

Kariya snorted and said, "Yup, I was a lonely man."

With a frown, Tseng asked, "How could you have been lonely with so much adoring attention?"

Silence fell for a minute before the older Turk replied, "Because all of that was just me pretending to be happy when I knew, or at least felt, I'd never be able to be with the one I really wanted to be with. I know that about myself, Baby Turk. It takes a lot for someone to truly attract me, and a bunch of beach bimbos wouldn't have done it. And you have a reason for avoiding a serious relationship—I don't think you should get into one until you resolve whatever put you into that mindset in the first place, regardless."

"That never stopped me from getting into bed with anyone who caught my fancy."

For a moment, Tseng began to wonder at his own sanity after he said something like that, but Kariya said very definitively, "No, Tseng. Not like this, not in these circumstances. I don't want to be allocated as one of your conquests—and because that's your habit right now, that's what would wind up happening."

For some reason, the words hurt Tseng on a level he had never felt before, and tears actually filled his eyes, making him glad they were closed. It also caused him to pull away from the man abruptly, shaking off his arms, and his hand when he tried to rest it on the younger's shoulder. He knew, even at the age of his mind, that he couldn't deny the words—it was why he had never allowed such a thing to happen with Elena, because she'd never have been able to handle the fact that it was nothing more than carnal pleasure.

"Even with all my new memories, knowledge—I never was able to fix that," Tseng said softly, knowing Kariya would hear him. "I'm—sorry to have..." He couldn't finish the sentence, so walked away instead, heading back inside as he realized there was no way he could meet Kariya's eyes then—and likely not for a very long time to come now.