Another chapter have arrived!

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The pain was mostly gone by the time Crimson woke up.

She found herself in a comfortable bed in Aerith's home in Sector 5, not really sure how she got there. She sat up, making the mattress groan and saw Cloud standing in the corner with his back against the wall. The Buster Sword was perched next to him, along with her Rekka.

"You okay now?" he asked. "We fell a long way, and I wasn't sure you'd recover despite being healed."

Crimson nodded, bringing her hand up to massage her forehead. "What happened?"

"The plate fell," he said softly, regret in his voice. "It was impossible to get everyone out of the Sector before it happened, but Tifa and the others tried. A few hundred made it out."

"I see…." She supposed that she should have been happy that not everyone died, but it didn't change the fact that so many had.

After giving her a moment to compose her thoughts, Cloud added, "I didn't see Aerith around, and her mother was rather upset. She let us stay in hopes of getting an answer."

"Shinra took her before the plate was dropped," she told him, sitting upright and planting her feet on the floor. "The new girl with the Turks said she would be safer than us, so she's probably fine for the moment."

"I see," he said. "I'll tell her then."

The door to the room opened with a groan of the hinges before he could move, and Tifa entered into the room. Her brown eyes met with Crimson's, which turned into a glare. She returned the glare for only a moment and then turned to Cloud. "The others have left for Kalm now."

"I thought they'd be the most interested in paying Shinra back for what happened," Cloud said.

A tired sigh slipped out of Tifa's mouth, and her long hair wavered as she shook her head. "Shinra's blaming the fall of the plate on AVALANCHE. Even the people we helped get out blame us too."

"As they should," Crimson spat out, rising to her feet. "If you hadn't bombed the reactors, it wouldn't have escalated to this point!"

Tifa scowled. She marched up to the former Turk and stood face-to-face with her. "No, you don't get to try and pin this on us! It was your boss that made the call, and your friends that blew up the support pillar!"

Crimson began trembling with rage at the truth of the words. She had been friends with Reno and Rude, yet they fought with one another. They killed thousands of their own people on the order of their superiors, and they were going to kill her along with them for trying to stop it. "It wouldn't have come to that if—"

"If you two are going to argue, I'm leaving." Cloud cut in as he pulled himself off the wall and grabbed his sword.

"Where are you going?" Crimson asked.

"To save Aerith," he said. "Shinra took her, right? Then she's probably at the headquarters. While I'm there, I'll kill the President as well."

The sheer scope of what he said left Crimson bordering on speechless as her mind caught up. "…You can't be serious. That's suicide."

"We'll see," he said, walking towards the door.

"Hold on Cloud!" Tifa grabbed his shoulder before he could leave out. "You can't just run in there and expect to actually do anything. As strong as you are, you're only one person."

"Then stop fighting each other and help me!" he demanded heatedly. The level of intensity caught them both off-guard and knocked them aback. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he turned to face them both. "Crimson, you were right. Our actions have consequences, and people suffered because of it. Maybe if we hadn't gone to bomb the reactors they never would have gone this far. That's on our shoulders."

"It's not like we expected this to happen…." Tifa leaned against the wall and then sank down, curling her legs inwards. "Me, and the others in AVALANCHE, we were ready to pay the price if we were caught, but… the people in the slums didn't deserve to die for it. They weren't bad people. A lot of them simply didn't have anywhere else to go because of how expensive it was to live on the surface of the plates."

Cloud nodded his head. "Their lives, and those of the people hurt in the bombings and fallout are our responsibility. But Shinra could have chosen a dozen different ways to attack AVALANCHE. In the end, they decided to simply kill everyone in the sector. Crimson, your former colleagues were the ones who carried it out of their own free will, even if they were ordered—that's a fact that you're going to have to accept."

"I know that, but…" Crimson sat back down on the bed and covered her eyes to hide the stinging tears. "I tried to stop them. I tried to convince them not to do it, but they did it anyway. Do you know what that feels like—to know that your friends were murderers, and that you were no better?"

"We all have blood on our hands," Cloud continued. "Innocent people are now dead, by the hands of those that were supposed to be protecting them and making their lives better. Sitting here and arguing over who was right and wrong isn't going to help anyone. Right now, we need to do what we can, and that means getting back Aerith and making the one who ordered it pay for it."

Crimson wiped away her tears. "You still can't just walk into the headquarters of the company and expect to come out. The elevators are secured and can be cut off remotely, plus they can always take the President and Aerith and run away."

"That's why, if you have some other plan that can get me in without being spotted, I'll go along with it," he said. "But I can't leave her in their hands, nor can I let what the President has done go."

"…I'm not letting you go alone," Crimson said, after a pause. "I'll reach out to my contact in Shinra. If he can get us inside, we can search for her there."

"I'm going with you too," Tifa declared, rising onto her feet. "Having numbers in enemy territory is best, and Aerith came to help me when you thought I was in trouble. I have to return the favor."

He consented with a nod, and the three set things into motion.

[-oOo-]

Roughly an hour later, the trio stood at the rear entrance of the building while dressed in the infantrymen uniforms, courtesy of Kunsel.

The second-class SOLDIER was present as well, still dressed in his clothes from their earlier meeting. Crimson had informed him of what transpired and how Zack's girlfriend had been taken. He had met her before, wanting to repair her wagon while Zack was away, only to be turned down.

"This should get you to the 66th floor," he said, presenting a card for the elevator to Crimson. "It was the best I could do on short notice."

"I'm honestly surprised you managed to get this high a level of clearance," Crimson admitted.

He shrugged. "Well, it's not like the Mayor needs it in the first place."

"Won't the Mayor know something like that's gone missing?" Tifa asked. "How did you even get it?"

"Drugged his coffee," Kunsel said bluntly, adjusting his shades with his finger tips. "The man's nothing more than a figurehead, which is why the card only goes up to that floor. The 67th floor doesn't have an elevator entrance since that's where the prison and laboratory are, so they'll likely be holding her there. My bet is on the laboratory."

"Why's that?" Cloud asked. His inherited Buster Sword was in his arms, bundled in cloth to cover it from view. It was too recognizable to be seen in headquarters otherwise.

"It's the most likely scenario," he explained. "I've checked with a guy who works as a guard in the cells, but there's no one there. And Hojo has been holed up in there since the plate fell, only coming out for a meeting. He'll likely be your best bet in getting there."

Crimson frowned. He was the one she was looking for, the one who captured and experimented on Zack and Cloud after what happened in Nibelheim. If they could corner him, then maybe they could get answers about Cloud's treatment as well as save Aerith. "Do you know when the meeting will be over?"

Kunsel shook his head. "No clue. But, he's not the type to be held up long and kept away from his research. You'd best get a move on. I'll work on setting things up for the getaway and meet you back out here."

"Thanks again," Crimson told him, and then joined the others in entering the building.

They went unmolested by the staff as they entered into the main section and climbed up the stairs. Because they were disguised as rank-and-file infantrymen, with their heads covered by the standard helmets commonly worn, it was presumed they were heading to the floor where they underwent training. They didn't have the standard weaponry, but those were under better security and they didn't need them to begin with.

Once they were inside of the elevator and it began to move upwards, Cloud shifted around uncomfortably in his gear. "I don't see how anyone could get used to this."

Crimson let the irony of that statement go in lieu of reaching into her pocket and pulling out some of the spare materias that she had taken during her supply run prior to the second reactor. "Take these. We might need them on the way out."

Cloud and Tifa took and equipped them as the elevator came to a stop on the 66th floor. They stepped out of the elevator and found themselves outside of the meeting hall, as the panel indicated it was still in effect. Crimson fiddled with the control panel to bring up an audio-less video feed of everyone there.

"The President, Reeve, Palmer, Heidegger, Scarlet, and Hojo are all present," she said. "It looks like they're talking about something important, but I can't get a decent view of their faces to read their lips."

Cloud's grip on the sword tightened in his arms. "If we move quickly enough, I can probably take them out now."

Crimson shook her head. "Maybe you could, but we haven't found Aerith yet and I guarantee that Heidegger and Scarlet are armed. We need to secure her before we can even think of doing that."

"Not to mention that the President carries some kind of defensive materia on him," Tifa reminded him. "I wouldn't put it past them all having something like that."

The SOLDIER's grip remained firm on his weapon for a moment longer, and then it went slack. "To the next floor then."

They went around to the right of the meeting hall and up the stairwell, reaching the next floor. The entrance to the Science Research Division was secured behind thick steel, reinforced to the extent that even Cloud's brute force wouldn't suffice. It had to be in order to hold in the monsters Hojo made.

"We need a scientist's card to get past this part," Crimson stated. Then she heard the sound of the door at the stairwell opening and grabbed the other two, dragging them around the corner towards the direction of the cells.

A rather slender man with round glasses walked hunched over, yet there was a sense of purpose in the way he did so. He was middle-aged, and was adorned in a white lab-coat. There was a small smile on his face that pushed aside the premature wrinkles and sent a shiver down Crimson's spine.

"That's Hojo," Crimson said. "It seems the meeting is over now. Get ready to move."

They waited for the reinforced door to slide open and then charged, with Crimson grabbing Hojo and covering his mouth to muffle his startled yelp as the others filed in before the door could close. The man struggled, but he was just a frail and middle-aged man against a former covert operative, a martial artist, and a super-soldier born of his experimentation. Crimson slammed him against the containment case, stirring a red beast of some kind with 'XIII' tattooed on it and a flaming tail.

"Who are you?" the scientist demanded. "What are you doing?"

Crimson restrained his arm behind his back and then twisted his wrist, earning a pained cry from the man. "We'll be asking the questions: starting with the location of the one you call an Ancient?"

"AHHH!" came from behind her before she could get an answer.

Crimson turned her head to see that Cloud was on the ground and curled into himself. His helmet was removed, and he was clutching his head in agony. She asked Tifa, who was kneeled over him and trying to calm him, "What happened?"

"He looked into this holding tank labeled 'Jenova' and just started screaming," she said.

"Sephiroth's mother," he said weakly. "They brought it from the reactor… and it's still moving…."

"His mother?" Tifa said incredulously, looking into the tank. How that thing could be anyone's mother was beyond her, even for a monster like the man who destroyed her town. "It's missing its head."

"Hehehehe…" The mad scientist began to chuckle darkly upon seeing the reaction, a look of realization now in his eyes. "I see, I see. You're the failed experiment for my Reunion Theory, one of the survivors from Nibelheim, was it?"

"One?" Tifa repeated heatedly. "There were others?"

"The others were successes, but I remember that this one went catatonic because he was too weak in mind to handle the experimentation and infusion, while the other was tainted by the SOLIDER treatment and training. I had thought you both had been eliminated, but it seems that one of you manage to slink away. It figures Heidegger was so incompetent that he couldn't get the job done, even with half of his forces—AHHHH!"

Crimson had twisted his wrist, turning the madman's ramble into a scream of pain. She hadn't taken the insult to Cloud and Zack well, and they were pressed for time. "I'm hearing a lot of nonsense and nothing that I want. Where is the girl?"

"On the second floor," they heard from inside the containment unit. It was the red beast. "The madman spoke of breeding us, and I can smell her scent in the container above this one."

"… Okay, that's new," Tifa admitted, after a pause. And then a look of disgust crossed her face as she registered what it said, that the scientist had plans to breed them. While only Crimson's lips could be seen with her helmet on, she had a matching expression and fought down the urge to not break his arm entirely before getting answers to her questions.

Hojo had a different reaction, his brows raised. "I did notice that your vocal cords were different than I expected from a normal beast, but never did I think that they would let you use human speech, nor did I think you had the mental capacity to do so. It'll be intriguing to learn how that is possible."

"We shall see how intriguing it is when I tear out your throat for taking me from my home and cutting me open," the red creature said, stalking towards the edge of the containment glass and raking its claws where Hojo's face was. Only the fact that it was durable enough to prevent them from doing any damage kept him alive. "Have you no shame for your actions and the pain they cause?"

"I am a scientist, and life is nothing but a series of experimentation in the end," Hojo said, unrepentantly at that. "Besides, I'm not the one who's responsible for taking you from your home, nor was I the one who procured those test subjects from Nibelheim. It was the company and the Tu—AHHHH! "

Crimson twisted his wrist to silence him before he could say anything more and jerked Hojo towards the lift. She turned her head to Tifa and said, "I'll take him to get Aerith out of her container. See about things down here."

They got onto the lift and were halfway up when Hojo broke the silence. "You were one of them, weren't you? A Turk?"

She said nothing. Not that she needed to. Hojo was a madman, but he wasn't an idiot. The timing of when she silenced him would have been more than enough evidence.

"I take it that your companions don't know the part you played in their experiences, do they?" he asked. "I wonder how they would respond, knowing that? Knowing that you and your associates played a part in making their lives miserable?"

Crimson could imagine Cloud being angry with her, and the thought made her sick to her stomach. Their neighbors and friends that survived being murdered were taken and given over to this madman by the Turks. Even if she wasn't personally responsible, and it did lead to a mass desertion by Veld and the others, it was still something she had tolerated until Zack's escape. Like Cloud had said, they all had blood on their hands….

Only hers had long since been stained in it, while theirs were still fresh.

"Move." She forced him out of the lift when it opened and towards the containment unit housing Aerith. Pulling out her Rekka, she held it at the back of his neck and made her demand. "Open it."

He mumbled under his breath as he did so, freeing the Ancient from captivity.

"Thanks for coming after me," Aerith said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I was a bit worried."

"It was my fault you got taken, but now we need to get out before something else happens…." Crimson trailed off as she heard the elevator connecting the chamber start up. She pointed her weapon at Hojo again and demanded an answer. "What did you do?"

"You told me to open it, so I did," he said with a smirk. "I opened all of them."

No sooner than he said that did what could only be described as a monster emerged from within the cage. It was a grotesque monstrosity of some kind, deformed by twisted experiments of the mad scientist. It bellowed with the enlarged mouth on its shoulder and slowly stalked forward.

"I give you sample H0512 and its buds," Hojo said as they backed away. "Now, I must bid you farewell. I feel this is no longer a safe place for me to conduct my research."

Seeing that he was fleeing, Crimson wanted to go after him. She still had questions about Cloud's treatment. But her priorities shifted as the abomination lunged for the pair of women, joined by its three buds.

They had a fight on their hands.