Capital
Sephiroth and Weiss stood side-by-side as they eyed the capital of Wutai thoughtfully. "How long do you think Veld, Cid, and Ansha need?" Weiss asked curiously, and Sephiroth's gaze diverted to him for a moment.
"I would say approximately half an hour, or possibly more. We would not wish to begin too soon and force possible allies to fight against us," the General answered, turning his head to eye their troops lying in wait. They were ready to fight, knowing this was a final push, a do-or-die to most of them. His gaze then moved to the cloud-darkening sky and commented, "Though, it appears we will be fighting in the rain."
Weiss' gaze traveled upward as well and he sighed. "It's already wet here, but that will help the enemy as much as us by obscuring the visual."
"It will cause us to easily mistake our own as enemies," the sliver haired man returned.
Before Weiss could reply, Argento stepped up beside him and said, "I can appeal to Leviathan to hold off the rain until the fighting is over. While I may not get back an answer, the lack of rainfall would be it." Riven was following her curiously.
"How would that work?" Weiss asked with a confused frown.
The woman paused, then sighed and said, "It's actually nothing in particular, just that I need to be sure he's listening. Rain is water, so it should be within his ability to directly manipulate, regardless—some other substance, I might not be so sure of."
"Can you actually get an answer from him?" Sephiroth asked curiously.
"Well, it should be possible for a Wutain, but normally, that's a select group similar to Priests," she shrugged. "You could likely directly appeal the one you call Minerva, even from here, General. If rumors of what happened in the Slums are true, you've got her ear, and she'd probably actually give you an answer of some sort."
He had to admit that was a possibility, but in that—he asked her, "But how would I do so? I most definitely never have before."
Her brows rose and she asked, "So what did you do in the Slums?"
"I desperately reached for her energy in the hopes that I would survive the Nightmare's attack on me," he replied in a flat tone. "I have nothing more specific, and I most certainly am not desperate now."
That made the woman sigh, but she said, "Focus your energy as you call her name—you don't have to say anything out loud, just focus it in your mind as the 'who' you're trying to reach. This land has no Reactor, so her energy, like all spirit energy, should be fairly near at hand and easy to access. You should feel something shift in the energies if you got her attention, then just—ask if she's willing to hold off the rain so we can fight. It's like reaching for the energy of a Materia shard, only reaching out into the ground below your feet instead of a fragment of solidified energy on your person."
"That actually sounds surprisingly easy for someone who has someone to appeal to," Weiss commented thoughtfully. "I'm not up to trying it just now, though—I might get unexpected results I really don't want to deal with right now."
For a long minute, Sephiroth thought about how he accessed Materia, since that had always largely been force of will. He then paused to think about Genesis' explanation of how Materia and magic worked that day he'd been teaching Kunzel and Zack how to cast (that felt like so long ago!), and realized an important detail. None of it took force. None of it involved overpowering another, only of reaching out to it and opening up to it to see the full extent of what it could do. Was Genesis actually so powerful because he played with them like they were friends, rather than forcing submission? And would that naturally be the same with the Planet's energy?
Since Materia were effectively pieces of the Planet's energy, it was likely.
Closing his eyes, he took Argento's advice and reached for the energy of the land like he would for Materia, but without force this time—instead, he asked for Minerva's attention. Like the Wutain woman had said, he felt the energies of the land shift—in fact, they created a sensation around him like he was being given a warm hug—and they seemed to be watching him curiously. It was likely that was Minerva, as he'd asked for, so he focused on the need for the rain to wait until the battle was over so they didn't kill needlessly, or kill allies by accident through not being able to see properly in the rain. When he received an affirmative, he sent a thanks and opened his eyes again.
"How long did that take?" Sephiroth asked slowly.
"Around ten minutes, maybe?" Riven replied. "I wasn't counting in particular."
"And the results?" Argento asked.
"It should hold off until the battle ends," Sephiroth replied. "For now, we can do no more, and we should begin the attack shortly."
"Okay, how do we get the guns?" Riven asked.
Both Weiss and Sephiroth found that amusing, but it was Weiss who said, "I can get them quickly. Our real problem will be the bombs and the Imperial Assassins. Well, and the elite of Crescent Unit. The rest of our troops should be able to handle their standard troops for the most part. What are we waiting on now, General?"
"Kal's return with Akira," Sephiroth replied, then blinked and added, "Which it appears she is just now." The other three turned to look, and sure enough, she and her fox, along with Inder, were just returning.
Quickly, the two Thirds joined them, Kal panting a bit as she said, "They're braced for an attack. Why they seem to expect one, I don't know. Veld probably got in around half an hour ago, and Ansha and Cid were probably with him, since Akira couldn't find another disrupted entry point. There are strange men dressed all in black in several places—I think they're like the ones from the Slums, those really strange ones?" She paused to draw in a deep breath. "They've got manned gun turrets on the gate towers, not just the machine guns. I think the troops there have shields, too. That is—I think they're using Shield Materia. Not many forces are near the gates, but the ones who are all had Crescent Unit's mark, so it isn't like it'll be an easy in. We couldn't check further than that, but I doubt their troops are relaxed right now."
Sephiroth gave her a nod, then looked at the white haired boy beside him and asked, "Did that create any issue with your plans, Weiss?"
"As long as it doesn't start raining, we should be good, especially since most of our troops are heading for the barracks. We—as in the six of us—will have to find the really strong opponents and handle them until Angeal and Zack join us. Otherwise, we'll have to deal with the towers and Shields. I think that's the only current sticking point."
The General turned back to the wall visible in the distance, then asked, "Kal, were you able to determine how much of the towers were protected by the Shield?"
"Um..." she blinked with a faint frown. "I think the upper half or so?"
"You are certain it did not extend to the base of the towers?" he asked.
"That, I'm sure of—there was a pretty big gap there, too—it was above my head for sure," Kal agreed, and Akira added a yip of agreement, too.
"Very well," the silver haired man said. "Weiss, if you have the gun turrets, I have the towers. Kal, Inder, you will have to direct the remainder of the troops in our wake—once we disrupt the first layer of defenses, we will be more than busy with attackers."
The two Thirds traded momentarily surprised looks, then said together, "Yes, Sir."
"And we begin," Weiss commented, drawing his blades and launching himself forward towards the distant wall.
In his wake, Sephiroth followed, though he didn't draw his blade until Weiss jumped for the first of the turrets shooting at them. When the boy did, Sephiroth turned towards the first of the towers and aimed his cutting energy attack at the base of the wall rather than the top. He cut out a large chunk of it, even as Weiss jumped rapidly from unmanned turret to unmanned turret along the top of the wall. It appeared the manned guns weren't sure who they should aim at, so he pressed his advantage to aim several more similar attacks at the base of the wall. It didn't take long for the first tower to fall, leaving a gaping hole in the wall.
As he went to work on the other tower—and dodged a member of Crescent Unit—Kal and Inder led their troops into the capital. To his surprise, it was Argento and Riven who took out his Crescent Unit attacker, which allowed him to stay focused on the tower and the wall. Since the remaining tower's manned turrets were now aiming at the Shinra troops swarming through the hole left by the downed tower, he knew he wouldn't have long to take it out, too. By then, though, someone had begun launching magic at him from above, making him jump around to dodge the forming spells and making it hard to target the tower's base.
Finally, the tower fell and he looked around for who was where. Weiss had disappeared and there were only a few unmanned gun turrets left to the outer edges of the battlefield. The Shinra troops were in the city and engaging the Wutain troops, with only their mages still close by their entry point and largely focused on healing spells. Kal and Inder had both moved well into the city to directly challenge some members of Crescent Unit near one of the capital's main cross-streets. Argento and Riven, along with their forces, were nowhere in sight, so had likely headed for either the Palace or the Crescent Unit barracks. The strange-looking airship hanging over the city made it look eerie—something so clearly technological didn't belong in this extremely traditional city.
He headed in Kal's direction, intending to lend a hand there and press deeper into the city. It was then when he noticed Angeal and Zack—and their forces—join the battle, and noticed some of their other Turks, who had their own orders as well, fighting down a side street where some of those strange men in black were. It was almost amusing to find their two dual-gun wielders fighting back-to-back, and he wondered if that had actually been the point. They had six Turks, not counting Cloud (who wasn't staying), Veld, and Ansha, all of whom had other tasks to do there, and all six of the fighting force's Turks were taking orders from Argento, so she'd apparently assessed those strange men as elimination targets. That made his job easier, so unless it looked like they were going to lose, he'd leave them to it.
As they were doing well, he decided to jump for a nearby rooftop and landed near the edge of what was probably a business' roof. Sprinting along it, he used the roofs to travel more quickly to places he might need to help, like Kal and Inder's location. When he reached them, he paused on the rooftop to observe for a minute, seeing how they weren't doing too badly and just needed a hand to reduce the numbers. Jumping down, he aimed to eliminate several of the Crescent Unit members at the back of the force, and once they were down, he returned to the rooftop to keep going. Checking in at the barracks was a good idea.
He got there fairly quickly and found most of the Shinra troops on the winning side of a battle against Wutai's troops, but also noted how some Wutains were being left alone—it also looked like those ones had put their weapons down. Good, the troops were choosing for themselves not to eliminate people needlessly. He gave a nod, then decided to head for the Palace. It had a large courtyard past a gate and wall not far from the mountains and the Da Chao Statue, and from that courtyard were three separate buildings. The largest was the Palace, but the other two were around equal size and to either side of the main entry; one was likely a martial arts training building (he thought they called them 'dojos'), while the other seemed to be office or paperwork-related.
From the wall, he had to frown—there were quite a few people who shouldn't have been there, all of them either those strange men dressed in black or members of AVALANCHE. Jumping into battle with them, he was quick to cut down as many as he could before they even had a chance to retaliate, but the last five of the strange men dodged him and he was forced to fight them. It placed him in the middle of their group, and they weren't foolish enough to hit one another because he dodged. If there had been only four, then maybe, but not five, and he wouldn't have counted on it with only four, either—these were skilled combatants.
Actually, since they managed to force him back from the remaining AVALANCHE members (he'd aimed for the strongest first and only eliminated the weak ones who were on the way to the strong ones), they were at least on par with Seconds. As he dodged and parried three of them, he managed a lunge which took out one of five, then had to jump back to evade a Limit Break strike from the fifth. He threw his strongest Ice spell (Ice 3) at the last, but the man was able to dodge and attack him directly again, but with Lightning attached. With incoming attacks from the three he'd evaded before, his best bet was to move to meet the magic user head-on.
As the move apparently shocked them, he was able to eliminate the magic user, then turned to attack the nearest of the three remaining—but before he could, he heard a volley of gunshots and jumped back and onto the nearest high perch. That happened to be the lowest level rooftop of the 'paperwork' building, and a glance below showed him the AVALANCHE members had rallied to aim their guns at him. Which was singularly annoying. The three men in black followed him to the rooftop, so he turned to fight them again, but chose a new tactic and ducked below the nearest one's strike to knock his feet out from under him. As the man fell, Sephiroth was able to stab him (it was a heart strike), and that was one more down.
Two remained, one to each side of him, even as the men on the ground below fired their guns at him again. At the sound, he instinctively jumped, then focused on his own Limit Break, a similar—but much stronger—cutting air attack than he'd aimed at the towers earlier. That, he aimed at the shooters on the ground as they were much more detrimental to his ability to defeat the last two men in black than the men themselves were. The attack struck, and screams sounded as marks like from a massive sword were torn in the courtyard. When the two men launched themselves at him, even before he'd begun dropping down again after his jump, he realized he'd have to be fast and creative to hit both and dodge their attacks.
He only had one blade.
No normal man could have done what he was going to do just then, so he was thankful he wasn't 'a normal man' and had excellent combat training. Mid-air spins were both hard to control and as difficult to maintain power while performing, but he knew how to do exactly that. Not that he'd done it often, but needs a must—so he drew his blade to a downward diagonal angle from him and set himself into a fast, hard spin. The sudden motion took the men by surprise again, and he was able to bypass their blades to strike them directly. As they fell, he knew he'd won, and all he had to do was stop spinning so he could land safely.
The rooftop held under his weight, but he was forced to crouch to keep his balance—and keep upright, for that matter—otherwise he'd have been pitched off the rooftop head-first due to his momentum and the spin he hadn't quite been able to stop.
Before he had a chance to do anything else, even glance around to check the state of things, the sense of threat behind and above him spiked, so he forced his blade up as he turned to face it—and felt the force of the blow shove him back almost to the edge of the roof. His hands actually hurt from his having held his blade against it. That kind of force could only come from one kind of person—an Imperial Assassin.
Lifting his gaze as he forced himself to his feet, he was forced to block again, but it was indeed the hard gaze of an Assassin he met. That time, he'd been more prepared and didn't move with the blow, and was able to counter it properly to shove the man back. The Assassin landed easily, then immediately jumped forward to attack him again, so he shot forward to meet him—but spun at the moment the Assassin's blade struck his, sending the man off-balance. Ducking, Sephiroth used the same trick as he'd done on one of the men in black to trip him, and the Assassin ended up on his back on the rooftop.
Since the Assassin was already moving to try to rise, Sephiroth lunged forward to pin him down, Masamune lodged in his shoulder—and the rooftop under him—but it looked like the man was going to draw a dagger—
A woman spoke words in Wutain suddenly and the Assassin went rigid, then spoke in reply in Wutain, even as Sephiroth glanced around for the speaker—and found Argento standing below them, eyes on the Assassin. When he raised a brow at her, she said, "This one is still true to his original purpose, so you can release him, General."
"He will not attack me again?" Sephiroth asked slowly.
"No, he won't," she replied flatly. "Because he knows there's only one way he could have been forced to answer me."
Sephiroth looked down at the Imperial Assassin again for a long moment, who was staying very still, then gave a nod, withdrew (and pulled his sword free of the man's shoulder), and cast healing on the wound. The Assassin eyed the wound for a moment, then gave him a nod—and rolled off the rooftop to land in a crouch and bow at Argento's feet as he obviously had chosen to defer to her. Sephiroth watched curiously as three other Assassins landed nearby.
One of the new arrivals said, "You have found us all now. Two have escaped, one you killed, one was killed in Midgar, and two you showed us the message saying they had been killed. We are what remains. You are not here by Emperor Kisaragi's orders, and by extension, he is merely a figurehead. A Kaoin yet lives, and is the true Emperor. What instructions have you been given regarding us?"
Argento eyed the four men for a long moment, then said, "You are true to the well-being of Wutai. There are only five families of High Nobles left, and they must be protected while we search out the betrayers. You are the best ones to do that task, otherwise we would have to take them out of Wutai, which would do this land little to no good. Do I have your word on Emperor Kaoin's behalf that you will keep the High Noble families safe?"
"We shall do so," all four agreed as one, then they all turned and jumped for the top of the wall and headed out of the city.
"Was that the best option?" Sephiroth asked curiously as he jumped down to stand beside her. Riven joined them just then, looking like he'd been fighting—he was breathing hard and blood showed on his arm, where he'd obviously been injured and had magically healed the wound.
Argento faced Riven and asked, "Did you manage?"
"Yes, but not easily. Without your mentoring and advice, I'd probably be in much worse shape," he replied, making a face. "What's next, then?"
"For you, collect reports from the Turks in the city. It looks like the airship is getting more active, so Cid and Ansha should be taking it away from here soon. If you find Veld, his input will be especially useful here, but I need to be sure of all six other Turks and their tasks," Argento told him.
"Yes, Sir," Riven agreed smartly, and turned to walk away. After several paces, he broke into a jog and was soon back out of the Palace courtyard.
"To answer your question, Sephiroth...They're the Imperial Assassins who gave the answer they should have given, so they're the ones we can trust," Argento told him plainly. "Now that they know we're all working in the true Emperor's name, they'll protect those families or die trying. In the meantime, we need to visit Godo Kisaragi."
He blinked at her, then asked, "So we search the Palace for him?"
Giving her head a shake, she pointed to the dojo-pagoda nearby. "It's unlikely he's relaxing if his soldiers aren't, so we'll probably find him there, on the top floor, ready for a fight. However, if I ask him the question and he's forced to answer—or not—we may not have to fight. Interference from the other four residing in that tower is more dangerous than dealing with him directly. Of course, with our enhancements, we should just be able to go right to the top floor."
"Shall we, then?" the silver haired man agreed, and she gave a faint smile before the two began jumping from one rooftop of the dojo building to the next. On the fifth floor, they stepped inside from the window to see Godo looking resigned as he rose, hand on his sword hilt.
Once again, she spoke in Wutain—even before Godo had a chance to say anything or draw his blade—and he, like the Assassin before, froze and replied in Wutain. A moment later, the spell was broken and Godo swayed for a moment—then sat down hard. His stunned gaze was on Argento as her brow furrowed in both thought and confusion. Sephiroth, having no idea what the Wutain words meant (he could translate a few basics, but they were using complex formal language, which was well beyond him), could only look back and forth between them in confusion.
Finally, Argento crossed her arms and said, "Ah, I see. The problem wasn't the current Emperor, it was how others bypassed him, leading to someone else needing to intervene."
Before the silver haired man could say anything, Godo asked suddenly with a degree of hope and pain which was palpable, "One of the Kaoins is still alive? Please, tell me who, let me talk to him, or her! All this time, I thought they were all dead, and I mourned them—to find they'd been killed was one of the most painful things I've ever had to deal with, so if I could at least have one back, my family...!"
Both Argento and Sephiroth blinked at him, then the woman sighed. "I can pass on your request, as well as your answer, but I can't make that decision. It belongs only to the remaining Kaoin. Though, you may want to know I sent the Assassins—only four are still on the right path—to protect the remaining High Nobles, and the Shinra Turks are adopting Yufi. Yes, she's going to meet her cousin, eventually. Right now, the last surviving Kaoin is away on a task and we only have sparse communication. When the task is done, it's highly likely Yufi will end up spending a lot of time with them."
Godo's eyes closed for a long minute, partly in pain and partly in thought. Finally, he nodded and opened his eyes to look at the two of them again, asking, "Why the Turks?"
"Because they're actually fit to take care of her and use up her massive degree of energy," Argento replied in faint amusement. "And they won't let her get away with things like stealing. They pay a lot of attention to what goes on around them, which means by default that they'll give her the attention she needs to have."
For a long moment, the man pondered that, then asked slowly, "So you have no plans to end my daughter's life...but what of mine?"
That made Sephiroth sigh faintly as he said, "Apparently, you answered the 'all-important' question correctly, so killing you would defeat our purpose."
The man blinked slowly, then asked, "But Shin-Ra is attacking Wutai to conquer it, isn't it?"
"The President gave the go ahead for Wutai's defeat," Argento answered in a dry tone. "Otherwise we couldn't have gotten so many forces here. But the reality is, we, with the help of the five who were sent back with Leviathan's Blessing—including the surviving Kaoin—are the ones who planned this and arranged for it to happen a certain way. No, we're not trying to decimate Wutai, we're trying to eliminate the fools who are killing off all the High Nobles. The President has no idea what our actual plan and purpose here are."
Suddenly, there was a strong wind and a blast of light from outside, so Sephiroth turned back to the window to look outside. His gaze turned bemused as he saw the airship rise straight up into the air, trailing dozens (or hundreds?) of electrical wires after it. "It appears Cid has gotten the airship moving," he told Arengto.
"Good. That's one less thing," Argento agreed.
"Emperor Godo!" someone yelled urgently as several pairs of feet sounded on the stairs—and several people came up, and all stopped to stare for a long moment.
Sephiroth could see Veld, a young woman of maybe sixteen or seventeen who looked much like him but dressed largely in green, and a pale-skinned man dressed like a mercenary in the group, but the others were Wutain—and Argento immediately asked the question in Wutain. Nearly all the Wutains answered—but then many pairs of eyes widened as they turned to stare in horror at the one who had forcibly been prevented from doing so.
"Well, that's one of them. Sephiroth, would you, please?" Argento sighed.
He jumped forward to kill the one who hadn't answered, found a blade meeting his—and found another blade piercing the Wutain from the back. He looked up at the young woman who looked like Veld—the man's daughter—as the man she had killed fell to the floor. She looked resigned, but otherwise seemed all right with the situation.
"...I would never have thought one so close to me..." Godo sighed. "And that would be why the last Kaoin is the true Emperor..."
A long silence fell, then the young woman in green asked, "So, how much more do we need to do to finish cleaning up this mess?"
After a moment, Argento began giving instructions to all the new arrivals, and Sephiroth watched in bemusement as they all took their orders from her. When she'd finished, he told her he had to return to the battle in the city, so she waved him away, and he headed back to the barracks, then to check for others, like the Turks and Kal.