Facing a Wound

The Wutain (almost) eighteen-year-old stopped dead where he was at the blond man's casual reference to the Blessing, causing Verde to also stop and turn back to face him curiously. Finally, after a short silence, Tseng sighed and asked, "I'm guessing that's become the Turks' worst-kept secret?"

"If you actually intended to keep it from us, you'd have called in sick," the older Turk replied. "You know that, especially if you have who knows how many extra years of experience, so why else would you have put yourself in a position where we would notice the changes?"

"Because my brain had honestly short-circuited and I wasn't thinking clearly," the younger man replied. He then paused and frowned slightly before admitting, "Though, some part of me may have done exactly that so no one would mistake my actions as those of a traitor. But even then, I have been really screwed up since then. Can you even begin to fathom what the influx of data and the base cause of it does to a person?"

Verde was silent for a minute before asking, "How many years, and what cause?"

The questions made Tseng smile coldly, the expression wry but the emotion flat and almost frightening. That sort of expression on a Wutain's face was never a good sign, and as the blond man's eyes widened, the Wutain began walking again. It took a moment for Verde to catch up to him, even as Tseng asked, "Do you really want to know?"

"I think it's more a case of us needing to know, rather than a case of wanting to."

In normal circumstances, Tseng would absolutely have trusted Verde—or any of the old hands, come to that. They were Turks; they were family, and would all get the back draft of anything he managed to get done. Weathering it would be another story, and the more they knew, the harder it would be to protect them from what was happening. On the other hand, if they already knew about Leviathan's Blessing (Eonna, Lakis, and Lenno were probably the ones to have provided the data to the others), was it actually possible to keep it from them? It seemed they were willing to take on the burden...

:Aer—med, should I tell them anything, or will this mean too many people know?: he asked her—Airmed's Materia was still in his ponytail.

:You're the one who knows them. Are they trustworthy?: she asked in reply.

:That's not it. Is it even safe for them to know? This could get them killed.:

:...Tseng, shouldn't you be asking them if they're willing to help you carry the burden, rather than asking me if you should tell them? They're already part of this, and honestly—these are the Turks. They're loyal to one another before Shinra, so the only question is whether they want to add the weight of your burden to the ones they already carry. I can't answer that for you.:

Sighing, the Wutain Turk said quietly, "If I tell you, your life will be on the line. Veld and Reno were unavoidable—Reno's directly linked to these events, even—but it's different with you and the other Turks. If I start giving you actual data, you're going to have to start making choices which have a high likelihood of putting you on Shinra's hit list. Or someone else's."

The older Turk shoved his hands in his pants pockets as he gave a shrug-like motion and said, "You were sent back to fix something. You're a Turk, and you were chosen to do this, so by default, we're all part of it—we're family, after all. We may even have been the cause, or part of it, the first time through. I can't necessarily speak for everyone else, but Tseng, I want to be able to fix whatever errors I, or we, made last time before they become problems warranting the Blessing's intervention. And if you think about it, our lives are on the line all the time, regardless, so that's moot to the Turks."

"...Fourteen years. I had fourteen more years of life, and I literally watched the Planet crack and break apart because it couldn't sustain itself anymore, even after everything we'd been able to fix...We hadn't been able to fix it soon enough, and the damage was already done. There were four others who were sent back with me, and people like Reno ended up with some partial memories from their future selves, even though they didn't get the Blessing. The Lifestream was trying to save everyone it could, but the only way it could—was this."

The two were silent for several minutes as Verde led the way to the area of the warehouse. Finally, he said, "So what you're saying is that there are several problems to fix, and many of them are being caused by Shinra directly, right?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll help you whenever I can. Let me know when you need something."

Startled, Tseng looked up at the older blond for a moment, then said, "Thank you."

Verde nodded, then motioned ahead and said, "The target location is in this area. I don't like the idea of splitting up here to find the specific warehouse, so let's each just take a side of whichever street or alley we take."

"Running silent signals?"

"Best idea. Head over—and don't be careless. Let me know before you try to chase or follow something."

"I'll remember that," Tseng answered wryly, then crossed to the other side of the street so he could check down the alleys.

When they checked the first three alleys, no one and nothing was visible, but on the fourth, Verde motioned him over to the alley he was at. Tseng joined him to watch as someone with a familiar insignia ran out of a door and down the alley opposite their direction. Neither remembered the insignia off-hand, but knew they had seen it before, and they were both sure the fact that they couldn't see it completely clearly was part of the reason they couldn't place it. Either way, that door was the one they needed, so they first circled the building to find the best way in, which turned out to be a fire escape leading to an open window on the equivalent to the third floor.

Inside, they were in a small office, so began quickly flipping through papers in filing cabinets and desk drawers to see if they could find the blueprints they were looking for. They weren't there, but as they were finishing up, the door opened—and Tseng immediately launched himself at the man to slit his throat. The two traded worried looks, knowing the man would probably be missed quickly—they would have to work fast now. There weren't many rooms on the 'third floor', really only four, and the stairs leading down to the second and first floors took them to four more rooms on each floor.

In the interests of speed, Verde motioned Tseng to the first floor while he searched the second, and Tseng nodded, heading down to the main floor. The first room he came to only had a few boxes, the second was a sitting area with a map but nothing else, and the third was mainly storage with one filing cabinet—it didn't have the blueprints. In the final room, he found another office and set about searching it, and had already gone through most of the cabinets and the desk by the time he was interrupted...

By a voice which sent chills down his spine.

"Well, well, well! Looks like we have a little, black rat. I'm a little surprised to see a Wutain, but hey, Shinra doesn't actually discriminate, does it?" The voice was one he knew, yet one he had never heard so harsh, so cynical and cold. This was a man who wouldn't hesitate to kill him, not the man he had come to know and trust, this was a man even colder than the one he had first met shortly after becoming a Turk, the Death God of the Battlefield.

Slowly turning, he could see the orange haired man lounging against the door jamb, his age about ten years younger, still with his shades on and dressed in dark brown pants with a casual, button-down shirt in dark green. There were explosives in his visible hand—and he immediately flashed back to their first meeting, when his partner and mentor in the Turks had died to save him from one of the Death God's bombs. This time, however, there was no one to throw themselves in the way, and he knew Verde wasn't so careless. He also wasn't a raw Rookie barely out of the Trainee phase.

"Do you actually want an answer to that question, or are you just talking to yourself for the sake of hearing your own voice?" Tseng retorted sharply, body humming with the tug-of-war of trust/not-trust/fear/safety his emotions were going through. He was really messed up if he couldn't sort out his feelings on the matter, and many of the VR programs, especially the newer ones, were highly realistic. Had Kariya actually helped set this one up so it would act and react like him, or was this just based on how others had experienced him?

When the Death God's brow rose, he knew the reactions weren't just from an outsider's perspective. "Cocky. Bold. Very nice. Your skills are wasted with Shinra. Come work for me—I can guarantee you'll find it more satisfying than your current position as a collared mutt."

"So you'd rather I wear your collar?" the Wutain asked in irritation—then realized all the connotations of the words when he saw both brows rise. He turned faintly pink as the Death God began chuckling, averting his eyes back to the papers in the cabinet, where he was 'absently' still flipping a few of them. "That's not the kind of collar I meant," he added, which just made the other man laugh harder.

"I'm sure it isn't," the orange haired current terrorist agreed, still grinning widely. "For a Wutain, you don't think much before talking. For a Turk, that's especially dangerous. Now, kindly take your hand out of the cabinet and tell me why you're here."

Tseng obediently lifted his hand, but rather than answer anything, he asked instead, "What do you think I'd be going through your paperwork for?"

After a silence, the man pushed off the jamb and said, "You haven't found whatever you're looking for. I can guess a few things it might be, none of which we're willing to give up. If you won't join us, I'll see to it you don't leave here alive."

A moment later, a bomb was flying at him—and the first thing he thought to do was a trick he'd learned some time in the future to negate many kinds of physical and magical attacks: he cast Demi 2 (the highest the Gravity Materia could access) on the bomb. Doing so caused a gravity sink which forced the explosion to compress and implode on itself. The result created a huge 'boom' sound and a fair bit of smoke, but did next to no damage to the room, and even as Tseng heard the man curse, he bolted past him and into the hall, heading for the nearest exit.

There was a snarl behind him and the sound of footsteps following after him, but the thing which worried him the most was the alarm which began sounding a few moments later. He bolted into the main room because he knew the hall had no exit other than back up on the third floor, and he'd never have enough time to escape up the stairs before they'd be destroyed—not if this projection of Kariya had even a fraction of the real one's skills. The room was full of huge crates stacked two high, creating a veritable maze through them, and there were other people in the room as well, all of them terrorists he couldn't afford to be seen by.

It wasn't until he ran right into a dead end that he paused to think about what he could do—not much as an explosion sounded behind him and nearly every crate in the room went up in flames. It was just like back then—!

Dropping to his knees, Tseng suddenly found himself unable to move, to process what was happening. Even in the heat of the fire, he felt cold. Vaguely, he realized he was going into shock, and this was one of the scenarios which could actually do him real harm. Maybe part of the problem was the fact that it really could hurt him.

Before his thought process could go any further, he was seeing the day his mentor had died again, the raging flames in the factory, the burnt corpse, a smirking Kariya standing over the body, the pain from his burns. But then, the Death God of the Battlefield had faced him and drawn his hand back to throw another bomb, even as he'd struggled to rise—and the hand had stopped. The smirk had gone from smug and malevolent to a faintly puzzled frown to surprise—to...respect?

"I don't meet many who can still move with injuries like that. Baby Turk, you'd better live to meet me again when you're ready."

Drawing in a sharp breath, Tseng straightened and blinked his eyes clear to look around with dawning realization. Kariya had let him live because of his strength. Until that moment, he had never believed it, but he'd also blanked out parts of the memory, like those words Kariya had spoken back then. With the memory restored and those words fresh in his mind, he found the strength to keep searching for a way out. He wasn't dead yet, and the fires in VR scenarios couldn't cause smoke inhalation issues, so with his current situation, he was still in good shape—not even burnt yet.

Rising, he faced the crates blocking his path as he heard the man's voice shout from nearby, "You can't escape, Turk!"

"That's what you think," the eighteen-year-old murmured, then cast Demi 2 on the crates in front of him. They were crushed, the fires forcibly put out and his path cleared. It was exactly what he needed, and he'd be able to repeat the action at least five more times. Right then, he needed three casts just to reach a warehouse wall, then a fourth went to crushing part of the wall itself. That left him with one cast unless he could rest or get a refresher in the form of an Ether or Elixir.

As he escaped the fire, he heard the Death God yell, "You conniving little bastard!"

Exhaustion hit him like a ton of bricks, so he only managed to cross the alley to the warehouse on the far side, where he leaned against the wall, then slid down to the ground and wrapped his arms around his knees, leaning his head back against the wall. His eyes focused on the hole he'd put in the Death God's hideout—only to see the man standing there, gazing at him with an unreadable expression. As he was about to struggle to his feet—had even moved his arms and begun to push himself up—the man vanished back into the building. Tseng dropped back to the ground fully, wrapped his arms around his knees, and dropped his head onto them to rest.

About five minutes later, there was a strange 'ping' and the whole warehouse collapsed in on itself, reducing the fires to minor flames here and there while obliterating everything inside the warehouse.

"What happened, Tseng?" Verde asked a few moments later, standing beside him with worry etched into his features.

"It's the Death God of the Battlefield," Tseng answered tiredly.

"...Kariya before he joined us?" the older Turk asked, and Tseng nodded into his knees. After a pause, Verde paled and asked, "How are you holding up?"

With a snort, the Wutain answered, "He did the same bloody thing to me again!"

"...What do you mean?"

"He walked away and let me live..."

After a long silence, Verde said, "I've taken out several groups of terrorists already, and have a good haul of items. Think you can make it back to the archway?"

"Give me a few more minutes..."

Verde waited for him to be ready to move, giving him an Ether while they waited, then they made their way to the archway, the blond supporting the black haired Turk. Long before they got there, Ansha and Cissnei met them worriedly, the former helping Verde support the Wutain while Cissnei led them to a rest place where no terrorists were running around. After the two groups had updated the others, they decided to leave the terrorists to their own devices and go after the leak, first, taking out only the ones they needed to in order to reach the one they needed—the Infantry posted in Junon would take care of the rest. Since Verde had the blueprints, the scenario would end once they did the last action required to fulfill the terms. By the time they reached the office they needed in the Junon Shinra building—the same building they'd started in—Tseng was fully functional again.

When they walked in, the Death God of the Battlefield was with the man—and he, to everyone's surprise, turned away from Tseng to face the others, then focused on Cissnei for a moment before just blowing out the wall and ditching his informant. It wasn't hard to take care of the leak, which did end the scenario and returned them to the empty, blank-walled holographic chamber.

Against one wall stood the older Kariya in his Turk suit, sunglasses in one hand as he eyed Tseng. "Holding up all right, Baby Turk?" he asked.

Tseng searched his gaze as the others all watched quietly, then said, "I couldn't remember what you said before you walked away. The missing parts of my memory returned in there, so—I think I can move forward without going into shock again."

A faint smile formed on the older man's lips as he gave a small nod. "Good to hear. It's one less problem you need to worry about. Rest well." With that, he left, the others staring after him in surprise.

MB

Genesis had woken with a start around seven thirty that morning, truly having no idea this time why he'd woken so early. Racking his brain for something unfavorable produced no results—but his thoughts were interrupted by the faint sound of Kunzel growling from the main room, "Let me go!"

Pushing himself up, he grabbed his Bracelet and strapped it on (just in case) as he made his way to the door, not even thinking about taking the time to get dressed in his uniform, opening it in time to hear someone answer lowly, "—little cheat like you. If you're going to be a whore anyway, you can make yourself useful."

"I'm not—" the sixteen-year-old began as Genesis reached the end of the hall and saw his new protegee backed against the living room wall with one of the older, stronger Cadets standing over him. As he watched, Kunzel was cut off by the older Cadet knocking his feet out from under him and shoving him down to his knees on the floor, still pinned against the wall. The only thing either had going for them was that they both seemed to be dressed in their Cadet uniforms, the older one completely and Kunzel with a few straps at the arms and legs still loose.

"If you think I'm going to believe you, you're a fool. Now, make yourself useful and suck," the older Cadet sneered, trying to force the younger's head into his crotch.

"Interesting," Genesis commented, making the older Cadet start and face him.

"We were just—" he began.

"I don't need to hear your lies, thanks," the red haired man cut him off coldly, and the Cadet stared with his jaw hanging open. Kunzel managed to slip out from the narrow space between the wall and the older Cadet, push himself up, and back into the far corner of the room, arms wrapped around his body and eyes downcast. "I saw and heard plenty enough to know what you were about to do to one of your fellow Cadets. We don't need people like you in SOLDIER, so I suggest you return to your room and pack your bags, because I'm going to have you completely locked out of any position with Shinra."

"You like your fuck toy that much, Commander?" the Cadet sneered. "I wonder what everyone would think if I told them about you."

Genesis' brow rose and he said, "Tell them whatever you like. This is going to become an investigation regardless, because if you'd do it to him, you've probably done it to others. All that will do is make you look even worse than you already do."

"You don't care if everyone knows?" the Cadet tried again, though he'd paled.

"About what? I have nothing to hide because nothing is going on beyond one Mage taking on and training another in combat skills. That's why I said, tell them whatever you want—it'll be proven false rather quickly and you'll look worse than you do already."

A knock sounded on the door before it was pushed open and Angeal walked in with a bag of raw foods over his arm. He then stopped to stare around at the scene before looking at Genesis and asking, "What happened, Gen?"

The Cadet jumped in immediately with, "Commander Rhapsodos is taking my buddy Kunzel to bed with him!"

Genesis' brow rose at the Cadet's words as Angeal blinked twice in surprise, then said flatly, "That's impossible."

"Just because he's your friend, Commander Hewley?" the Cadet asked in something like mixed fury and desperation.

"There's a reason why it's impossible, and that reason is none of your business, but the doctors are aware of it," Angeal replied. His gaze then narrowed at the Cadet before moving to Kunzel, who was looking rather ill in the corner he'd picked. "What do you have to say about this, Cadet Tarins?"

"The Commander didn't do anything, it was Dante (1) who tried it," Kunzel answered softly, sounding like he was trying to force the words out. If Genesis and Angeal hadn't had Mako-enhanced hearing, they wouldn't have heard him, but they did, and Angeal turned back to the other Cadet with a glower.

"I was going to have him pack his bags and ban him from any employment in Shinra, but he doesn't seem to obey orders from his superiors very well, either, especially if he doesn't like the order," Genesis threw in.

The larger First gave a nod, then held the bag out to Genesis and said, "Take this and put it in your fridge. I'll be back to make it once I've signed him over to Lazard and Heidegger and issued the ban. You'll have to make sure Kunzel is excused from any of his lessons today."

"It's fine—Lazard has already made the arrangements for him to be out of his lessons until the finals in three days," Genesis answered. He moved over to take the bag, then turned to Kunzel and asked, "Have you got someone you can call—a close friend you'd trust—for support right now?"

At first, Kunzel didn't move, waiting until Angeal had led the very pale older Cadet out of the apartment before saying absently, "I'd thought he was a friend...That's why I let him in this morning..." He fell silent again, so Genesis put the food in the fridge, then went back to the younger man, stopping just outside arm's reach of him and waiting. Finally, he said softly, "I think...maybe Zack Fair? But, he's not excused from classes..."

"He's a Cadet who trained with you?" the red haired man asked, even though he knew who—and where—Zack was. It looked like he'd be meeting him soon after all...

"More...We knew each other...from way back...I lived in his hometown for awhile, that's why I think he might be..." Kunzel explained, but his body was trembling.

"Would you be okay here by yourself if I went to get him?" The younger boy's eyes shot to his in something like panic, so he held up a hand and said, "I'll take that as a 'no'. Okay, I'll send Seph to show him up here. In the meantime, you're safe here. Choose a seat and I'll put some tea on—at least I can make tea without burning it. Since you keep quite a collection of them, do you have one in particular you'd like?"

After a pause, Kunzel closed his eyes and drew in several deep breaths before opening them again and saying more calmly, "Chamomile. It's usually for sleeping, but it has a secondary, calming effect, too. Please?"

With a nod, the older gave a small smile and said, "I'll do that, then. Sit." As he turned and headed to the kitchen—which was in full view of the living room—he pulled out his PHS and chose Sephiroth's number.

While he was filling the kettle, Sephiroth answered his phone with, "I hope this is not an emergency. Again."

"Good morning to you, too," Genesis replied in amusement, then sighed as he set the full kettle on the stove and turned it on to heat. "I wish this was just a social call, but there was an—incident—this morning, and I need you to go down to the Cadet class and get Zack Fair. Kunzel needs a friend right now, and that means he needs Zack to be excused from his classes for today. I'd go myself, but he doesn't feel safe alone at the moment, and Angeal is already dealing with the perpetrator, so that leaves you."

After a silence, Sephiroth's subdued voice said, "I will find Cadet Fair and return to your apartment, then."

"Thanks. I'll send Ang a note to bring more food back with him," the red haired man agreed.

"That will be useful," Sephiroth agreed. "I will see you shortly, then."

"Mhm," Genesis agreed, hanging up, then quickly searching the cupboards for the one Kunzel had put his tea boxes in.

They were near the stove, so he found them quickly and found one of the chamomile tea bags, then found cups to pour the tea into. Since he had those ready before the kettle had boiled, he sent a text message to Angeal asking him to bring more food for Sephiroth and another Cadet on his way back. The kettle, of course, still hadn't boiled, so he turned to face the living room, leaning back on the counter to examine the room. Kunzel had moved to the couch, curled up tightly in one corner of it as he periodically shivered.

This had definitely not happened last time, but then—that would have been because he'd let Kunzel fend for himself that time. For the first time, he realized they could just as easily cause problems as fix them by changing what they'd done the first time. Did any of the others know that yet?

Notes:

(1) General note for all readers: While this character won't show up again for some time, he's now got reason to be pissed with Shinra Company and won't just disappear. The current situation will be explained better next chapter.

For FoWD (part of the CA series) readers: Yes, this is actually the much younger version of the Dante Ed met. He already had an unpleasant personality, so rather than create a new character, I'm re-using an old one. The difference is, the FoWD one didn't have any particular obsession (other than the one he developed for Ed), while this one has one with Genesis.