Stepping Stones
It was after lunch of the same day Genesis had spoken with Tseng in the Turk's room, and he and Kunzel had gone into the no-man's-land between the Sector 5 and Sector 6 Slums to fight monsters in the area. The monsters there were generally fairly weak, but not so weak someone without enhancements could just take them out in one hit. It would give Kunzel some much-needed real-time combat practice with the new skills he'd been learning, which Genesis would be able to observe, correct if needed, and monitor so things didn't get out of hand. As the pair had just cleared the area, Genesis was about to decide on their next course of action—only to freeze as he saw Reno pass by.
"Uh...Wasn't that Reno?" Kunzel asked, having seen the direction of the older man's gaze and seen the flash of bright red indicating the Turk.
"You know Reno?" Genesis asked in amusement as he instinctively moved to follow the Turk.
Kunzel fell in with him as he commented in amusement, "He comes down to the Cadet classes and training rooms every now and then to spar with us. He and I hit it off, and he and Zack got along great, too. Him and Zack being friends worries me, though."
"Why?" the older of the two asked, his gaze bemused.
"Uh—Zack likes pranks, and so does Reno. Big trouble putting them together. The only real benefit to it is that Zack seems to know when a prank isn't funny anymore, he's sort of got a prank censor, I guess? Anyway, they come up with some really strange pranks when they get together, but at least they're normally harmless."
The words made Genesis chuckle as he kept his eyes on Reno, who led them to—the Sector 5 Slum Church? Yes, that's where it was, and the red haired Turk slipped inside quietly as the two SOLDIERs watched him, and both their brows rose into their hairlines. Quietly, they followed, managing to slip inside, only to realize the Turk wasn't there alone, so they quickly hid behind the pews. The other two didn't notice, talking just loudly enough for Kunzel to hear them if he strained.
While Genesis had recognized the brown haired girl he knew as Tseng's and Cloud's flower girl, Aeris, Kunzel had no idea who she was, but it was obvious they were just sitting and talking like friends would. Reno was lounging on one pew right at the front of the Church, while Aeris was kneeling in the mud in the flower bed growing in a hole which had been broken in the Church floor right in front of a statue of—Minerva? Yes, the statue had looked like her when they had seen her at the end of the world. It answered at least one of his questions about the now non-existent former religions of the world, and people had actively worshiped Minerva at one time, in the not-too-distant past. After all, the construction of Midgar had only begun around twenty or twenty-five years ago, and the city and its walls were still in the building process.
"I still don't get it, Re~no!" Aeris said with a pout in her voice.
"...Actually, I don't, either, yo," Reno shrugged. "You're special ta Tseng, so...I guess I feel I gotta take care o' ya while he can't?"
The girl giggled and said, "Don't say it like a question if that's what you're doing!"
A pause followed, then Reno asked, "Are ya special to Tseng, yo?"
"Yes, of course. He's like my big brother, always taking care of me, ever since we were little. I think I was five when I met him. Seeing him in a Turk uniform was scary at first, you know. It's not like that now, because he's kept protecting me all along, even though he could have been really mean," the girl answered happily. "I wish I could get more water for the flowers. And sun. Sun is impossible here, though, even if the Plate was gone, because the Church roof would still be in the way."
"...Sorry...I don't know nothin' about flowers..." the red haired teen answered, and the girl giggled again. "If ya knew Tseng when you were five...That woulda made him ten, yo?"
"Uh-huh!" she agreed. "He was in a lot of pain then, though. He got better when he was with me, and he was nice, so I stayed with him."
"What was he like then, yo?"
"Mmm...He could fight better than anyone I'd met then, but I almost thought he wasn't—sane at first, his eyes were so wild and he hid in corners. There were scars on his body that made me think of sharp, thin things, like knives or worse things, and there were burns. Even with Materia healing, those never went away completely. But even though I was a bit scared at first because he'd attacked adults for getting close to him, I realized he wasn't attacking me if I went to close to him. Then there was once when I was running away from an adult and didn't even know he was there, when he suddenly grabbed me and pulled me into his hiding place so the adult wouldn't find me. He calmed down when he realized he'd helped me, and we started talking while we were cuddling in his hiding place. The more I was around him, the calmer he was, and he always tried to protect me."
"...Tseng and cuddlin' so don't go together in the same sentence, yo," Reno snorted. "He sounded like a cute kid, though."
"Isn't he still cute?" Aeris asked innocently, and both Genesis and Kunzel had to cover their mouths to keep from laughing. "He always cuddles with me when he comes to visit. I haven't seen him in a few weeks, though. Is he okay?"
"Yeah. He just got—kicked in the head by Leviathan, yo."
"He...got what?"
"He sorta...got a whole bunch o' memories from his future self dropped on 'im, yo. Got 'im pretty screwed up. Now, Veld's got 'im on house arrest for days, then he's got a mission. I think he'll be okay ta visit ya when he gets back."
"Ohhhhh...That sounds hard. He should come see me so I can help him and calm him down again."
"I don't think Veld'd be okay with that, even if it'd be true, yo."
"Aww...I want to see my brother!"
"Sorry, kiddo. I can't help ya with that, yo," Reno sighed.
She sighed, too, then her voice went absent as she murmured, "But it felt like him then...Could he have somehow...?"
"...Whatcha mutterin' about, Flower Girl?" the sixteen-year-old Turk asked with a small frown.
There was a silence which grew fairly long, then—a brown haired head popped over the back of the pew Genesis and Kunzel leaned on, staring down at them in mixed puzzlement and worry. Both of them stared at her in surprise as she stared back at them, then puffed out her cheeks and said with a child-like glare, "No hiding from me! If you want something, just come and say it!"
At that, while Kunzel was just stunned by her declaration, Genesis had to laugh and push himself up. After a moment, Kunzel stood as well, and both looked over at a stunned Reno. Genesis then looked back at Aeris, who knelt on the pew's seat as she peered up at them warily, and said, "We're not actually here for you at all, Flower Girl—we happened to see Reno down here and followed him to find out what he was doing." His gaze then went back to the red haired Turk as he smirked and added, "I thought Turks were trained to notice when they were being followed?"
Reno glared and bit out, "I'd like ta see you notice you're bein' followed in the Slums when half the people ya meet're gonna try it 'cause they've got a bone ta pick with ya for gettin' outta their grasp, yo!" His gaze then turned suspicious as he asked, "Why'd ya even bother when you were the one who warned me about Tseng bein' protective of her, though?"
Genesis shrugged and answered, "I don't actually know that much about her, only that the world can't afford to lose her. That's good enough for me."
"Will you take me back to Shinra, to try to 'protect' me?" Aeris asked suspiciously.
"Uh..." Kunzel began, completely confused by then.
"Why?" Genesis asked curiously. "You'd be in more danger there than you would be in the Northern Crater. And to be completely honest, I don't really give a damned about Shinra or its fame, only about protecting people and fixing all of Shinra's stupid mistakes. Don't go doing stupid things to attract Shinra's attention, and we'll make sure only people who count as your allies and protectors will ever meet you."
Her gaze was puzzled and thoughtful as both Reno and Kunzel looked shocked and perplexed by the SOLDIER Commander's declaration. After a silence, the girl asked tentatively, "So why is one of Jeh-nova's sons trying to protect me? I thought Jeh-nova wanted us all dead?"
"Jenova wants the Planet dead, and I'm not playing her game anymore—I'm firmly Minerva's," the red haired man told the brown haired girl evenly. It was true, and she needed to realize that so she didn't run from the very people who would protect her, even at the cost of their own lives. "I'm one of five. Tseng has been one of yours since you met, and is one of the five. Reno has become one, and I'm hoping Kunzel has enough sense to pretend he never saw you, which would make him one now as well—and that's in addition to the five I belong to. We're hoping to have two more of the five soon. In the meantime, if you're okay with Reno and Kunzel, they'll take care of you when we can't." Aeris just stared at him in shock.
"You should probably add Zack to the list, because if you're dragging both Reno and me into it, I don't think we'll be able to keep it from him..." Kunzel put in dryly.
"That's a good point, yo..." Reno admitted, suddenly looking tired.
Genesis chuckled and said, "But Zack would have protected her, anyway, so even if he's not one of the five, his place as her protector was—already known." Reno's gaze turned wide and comprehending.
"Okay, now you've really lost me, Genesis," Kunzel glared. "As though this whole thing wasn't strange enough, you're starting to sound like some kind of prophet."
"Well, yeah, yo," Reno snorted. "Genesis got kicked in the head by Leviathan, too."
There was a pause, then Kunzel's eyes widened and he gasped, "You have Leviathan's Blessing!"
"Uh..." Reno stared as Genesis blinked, then raised a questioning brow at Kunzel.
The black haired sixteen-year-old blushed and said, "Sorry, I'm half Wutain. Anyone with—well, recent Wutain blood knows about the Blessing, and while it didn't surprise me to hear Tseng had gotten it—he's Wutain, after all—I'm surprised you have it, Genesis. It actually explains a whole lot about your actions, though. I'm glad to know it."
"Thanks for the support," Genesis answered, gaze amused. "Does that mean I can count on you if we happen to need your help to fix things—even if that means going against Shinra?"
Kunzel was silent for a long minute before nodding and saying, "Yes. After what happened to Kalm, I would rather stop things like that than let them happen again. As long as you tell me what I need to know, I'll do it. Zack will help, even without knowing about the Blessing."
"Thank you," the Commander replied.
"So, what's Leviathan's Blessing?" Aeris asked suddenly, and the others noted how she'd leaned her elbows on the back of the bench to peer up at them.
Genesis then chuckled and said, "Let's just say we five lived into the future, but it turned out poorly, so we got shoved back into our former selves, all of our future memories intact. It's those future memories we're reacting to, and we all unanimously agree that you're one of the keys to making things turn out better this time around. And we'll get as many others protecting you as we can."
"Oh..." the girl blinked. "Do you know why it felt like my brother was inside the Lifestream, at least twice before now, then?"
"You'd have better luck asking Minerva," the red haired man answered. "Or him once he's off house arrest." As much as he knew why and could have told her, he didn't think it was his place to do so.
"Awww..." Aeris pouted. "Come on! You know, don't you?"
"I don't quite think 'knowing' is the issue here," Kunzel replied quietly, making her look at him in surprise. "Before being sent back with Leviathan's Blessing, they all would have had an 'experience' with any or all Summons—or deities—involved in their being sent back. Even if they all knew one anothers' experiences, it's like breaking a sacred pact and trust between them if they start telling other people about the experiences the others had. Genesis may know exactly what happened with Tseng to cause—whatever you were talking about sensing him—but it's really not his place to tell, it's Tseng's unless Tseng gives Genesis permission to share with certain people or in certain circumstances."
A long silence followed the sixteen-year-old's explanation, then Aeris sighed and got up to go back to the hole in the floor to take care of the flowers. "Are you going to start visiting me at my home to check up on me, then?" she asked as she worked.
"Do you want us to?" the Commander asked curiously.
"Only if I'm really in some kind of trouble. People are used to Tseng being around my home, but if all of you started showing up there, too, people would start to notice, and maybe then I'd be found. Here is safer," she replied calmly.
"That's good, because we'll have to come back with Zack sometime or he'll feel really put out," Kunzel chuckled. "You have a point about not going to your home, too. Since we don't know where it is, we'll just keep things that way, right?"
Aeris giggled at the words, then said, "I come here in the afternoons and evenings most days. Well, one or the other. This week has mostly been afternoons, but sometimes things don't go so well. At worst, I get here every other day to take care of the flowers, every day if I can. I know I'll be here pretty much all weekend this weekend, though, because Mom won't be at home for those two days."
"We'll check back then, probably with Zack at least once," Genesis agreed. "Now, Kunzel and I were in the middle of training, and it sounded like you and Reno were having a nice discussion, so we'll leave you with his company and go back to what we were doing."
"Okay. Thanks for visiting!" she answered cheerfully, and Genesis and Kunzel left with waves to her and Reno.
As they made their way back to the area they'd been fighting monsters in, Kunzel asked quietly, "Those Materia you showed me—came from Leviathan's Blessing, didn't they?"
"They did," the older man admitted.
"It makes sense now that I think about it—the place they 'saw' and the others who had been there with you," the black haired sixteen-year-old mused. "Anyway, what are we doing next?"
"Today is the last day you have for training before your tests," Genesis commented. "I believe your academic education is more than sufficient to pass those, unless you'd like me to set aside some time for you to do some brushing up?"
"No, I've been doing that myself. The last two nights especially, when I found I couldn't sleep as easily as usual. That leaves combat and magic."
"Tactics and strategy."
"...Aren't those academic?"
"They're combat, actually. You'll be useless as anything but a berserker if you don't have those, strategy for active time combat especially. You were decent at them, but you could use some work. As far as I can tell, your mind is fine, it's getting it to adapt to thinking in that way which gets you stuck, much like how everyone gets stuck on the casting of a spell on a target—that there's no actual distance between you and said target. Now you have to go through a learning curve like that in strategy and in tactics."
"Genesis..."
"Yes?"
"It's not that I don't know the strategy or the tactics they teach us to use. I know the answers they want us to give, and I could ace those if giving those answers didn't make me feel ill."
Genesis was silent for a minute as he thought about what Kunzel was saying, but then he recalled something his previous Turk contact had told him about—some of a Turk's basic training. With that, he also recalled the way the tactics and strategy tests were actually marked, as his tactical scores had meant he had been asked to help them with grading if they were short-staffed.
"If there are three ways an enemy can attack a location, which one will he take?" he asked the younger man beside him.
"The one with the least resistance," Kunzel sighed.
"That's actually the wrong answer to the question," Genesis replied with a raised brow.
"...What?" Kunzel frowned, expression one of pure confusion.
Nodding, the red haired man said, "Tactically and strategically, that would be the 'easy answer' and not necessarily wrong, but the better answer, the one which shows you're capable of being a strategist or tactician, is if you look further."
"How can you look further if there are three ways to do something?" the younger man asked, shaking his head.
"Because there are never 'just three' ways to do something." Kunzel stared at him in shock, so he said, "Turks are literally trained for this with a scenario which forces them to think past the—usually two—most obvious answers to the third, and actually correct, answer. They also need that training, because they need to be adaptable more than we do. However, while we have to do it ourselves, it's also very valuable and viable to learn those same tactics, especially on a battlefield. If someone tells you 'there are only three ways to attack a location,' your response should be, 'the enemy will take the fourth.' That's real strategy and tactics—seeing beyond what's right in front of you."
Kunzel stopped walking as his gaze moved far into the distance, eyes shifting rapidly as he calculated something in his mind, so Genesis stopped to face him. Finally, his jaw dropped open and he looked at Genesis as he gasped out, "You're saying I don't have to give the obvious answer, as long as I can give a viable alternative?"
"That's right. And actually, if you just give 'the obvious answer', you'll never get above seventy percent on a test in tactics and strategy, which by their standards is only mediocre. Let's go back home to work out some scenarios so your mind starts getting used to finding alternate options."
"Thanks a bunch, Commander!" Kunzel grinned suddenly as the pair started walking again, almost skipping next to him with his new-found excitement with the topic. The response amused the red haired man, even as he led the way back to the Shinra building.
When they got there, it didn't take them long to head back to the storage room on the training floors where they would have to leave Kunzel's borrowed equipment. As they were heading back towards the elevator, they reached the corner at the same time as someone else turned it, causing Kunzel and the other person to run into one another. Being the sturdier of the two, the young man reflexively put his arms around the other person to steady them—only to feel the other collapsing. He reached out to catch them before they fell, finding the small, slender form shuddering and barely aware. He shifted his hold on the form as the smell of blood reached him—and realized who it was a moment later as he saw her Shinra Academy uniform.
"Neirine!" Kunzel gasped in shock, and heard Genesis gasp beside him. The SOLDIER First knelt beside them and began checking the girl for injuries—only to draw in a sharp breath. Kunzel realized it himself, how she looked like she'd been mauled. "What happened?" he asked quietly as Genesis drew his PHS.
"I'll hazard a guess and say she tried a VR program she wasn't ready to try, thinking her skills would be enough to see to it," Genesis replied, hitting the dial button and putting the phone to his ear.
On the third ring, a familiar voice asked, "Is something wrong, Genesis?"
"Kunzel and I are taking your little Turk-in-training to the emergency ward. We don't know for sure what happened to her, but I'm working on the assumption that she thought she'd be able to handle a VR program she wasn't ready for—you'll have to find out the rest from her directly once she's been taken care of. I thought you'd want to know so you can be there for her, though," the red haired man explained.
There was a momentary pause before the other man asked, "How bad is it?"
"Bad enough that she's barely conscious now and looks like she's been mauled by a Wolf."
A soft sigh followed the words, then agreement, "I'll be there shortly and let Veld know what happened. Thanks for taking care of her, Genesis."
"You'd do the same if it was Kunzel, Tseng," the SOLDIER replied in a cross between worry and amusement. "I'll see you soon, then." With that, he hung up and asked Kunzel, "Do you want to carry her, or should I?"
"I'll do it," Kunzel agreed, lifting her gently in his arms as he rose, then both men headed for the elevator again. "How are you so sure it was something to do with the VR room, though? A human man could have attacked her and left her this badly damaged."
"Possibly in terms of general damage," the older man agreed. "But this isn't about the degree of damage, it's about how it looks. As you work with SOLDIER, you'll end up seeing a lot of damage monsters and humans do to bodies. The positioning and types of her injuries are in line with a Nibel Wolf or a Bandersnatch—both much stronger versions of Kalm Fangs which live in much harsher environments. The fact that she's even still alive is a miracle in itself—all the VR scenarios which use monsters like those are A or S rank, which means they can all do you real damage, or even kill you. Even if she took the lowest of them, she was in very real danger, and managed to get away alive, if badly injured. That doesn't mean she was anything like 'ready' for it."
By then, they were at the employee hospital emergency care room—and as soon as they stepped inside, a nurse was shouting for the doctor and walking over to them to find out what she could. They told her as the doctor and other nurses got a stretcher prepped, then as the the girl was being wheeled away, a hand touched Genesis' arm, making him turn to look at Tseng, whose face was blank, as he watched her being wheeled away. Just the lack of expression told him the Wutain was worried about her.
Then his gaze moved past him, only to see blond, sixteen-year-old Rufus there, too, his gaze a frown of mixed worry and—jealousy? Really?
"...Why did she do this?" Tseng asked softly, his voice shaking slightly.
The other three all stared in surprise at him for a long moment, until Genesis sighed and said, "We'll probably have to wait and ask her that when she wakes up. Why is young Mr. Shinra here?"
"I was giving him some lessons to improve his skills when you called me. When he heard Neirine was injured, he insisted he come as well. In a way, it would make sense, as she's the person he actually spends the most time with...the most friendly time, where they actually talk about things much like friends do," the younger man replied.
Turning to look in the direction the doctors had taken Neirine, Genesis asked, "What did Veld say?"
"To let him know when she was fit for visitors so the three of us could discuss the situation, nothing more. Are you staying?" Tseng asked.
A glance at Kunzel showed a hopeful, worried look, so he said, "We can stay for awhile, at least, unless you'd like us to go?"
With a shake of his head, Tseng replied, "I'd prefer you stay so I have someone to talk with while I wait. Mr. Shinra isn't very talkative right now."
The four found places to sit in the waiting room, Tseng and Genesis near the doors deeper into the emergency ward and Rufus and Kunzel on the next row over. Because the Turk and SOLDIER were sitting side-by-side, it was easy for Genesis to hear the younger man mutter in distress, "What happened? She didn't do this last time..."
"Did you introduce her to the VR system when she was thirteen last time?" Genesis asked softly, and Tseng blinked up at him before giving his head a shake. "You changed something in a positive way, but one of the secondary results of it was negative. That happened to Kunzel, too, when I took him as my protegee. Don't beat yourself up over it, okay?" He gave Tseng's shoulder a pat and got a small smile back.