Another chapter is here!

Kazeshuriken : Revealed have arrived.

Enjoy!

"And he's out cold," Crimson said, looking down at the mad scientist who lay on the floor with his glasses broken. She turned her displeased glare towards Tifa, who stood there with her fist still outstretched. "Was that really necessary?"

"You can't tell me he didn't deserve it," she countered, pointing towards Aerith. "You heard him. He thinks nothing of others. He admitted to murdering someone just because they felt it would be wrong to deny basic human rights to others. Everything in the world is just something to poke and prod and experiment on for the sake of his curiosity."

"We still had questions to be asked though." She triggered the second Restore Materia Kunsel had bought and used the Cure spell to patch the broken nose and gashes he had. It was lucky that he didn't crack his skull. "He'll live, but if you've given him a concussion it'll make questioning him all the harder."

"I'll cast Heal to be safe," Aerith said, wiping away the tears. "I'm sorry. I thought after my Mother's death I could handle it, but when the Planet showed me… I watched it happen from her point of view, like I was living a nightmare."

Cloud and Tifa were quick to offer her kind words, knowing what it was like to lose family due to Sephiroth's attack. Crimson couldn't offer her any words of comfort like they could, having been an orphan from the start. Instead, she focused on the objective at hand and got the chair back up.

Hojo was still unconscious, leaving his head slouching forward. After Aerith cast a Heal to clear his mind of any potential confusion brought about by his impromptu trip to the floor, Crimson lightly slapped his cheek to wake him back up. "Get up, we're not done."

His eyes fluttered open and he shook his head, straining to get his arms free. After that failed, he looked up and huffed. "Was that really called for?"

"Yes," Tifa said. "You deserve more for everything you've done. You're a butcher who doesn't care who gets hurt as long as you can get what you want."

"I don't want to hear that from a terrorist," Hojo said, unimpressed. "AVALANCHE was hardly a shining beacon of innocence considering they once enlisted my help. They're the ones responsible for Sector 6's destruction when they unleashed Zirconiade, just as Sector 7 was yours."

"Sector 6 was destroyed months ago…" Tifa turned towards Crimson. "Is he lying?"

She shook her head. The only way to officially leave the Turks was in a body-bag and the mass desertion would have led to a witch-hunt if they were careless. So when the summoning was unleashed by the last leader of AVALANCHE, who decided to go the genocide route, after it was dealt with the others were announced KIA while she stayed with the Reno, Rude, and Tseng.

After that, Tseng needed to patch any holes and exploits that Heidegger could have used to bury the remaining Turks as a whole. That was when word about the motorbike reached Tseng and he pieced it together about her helping Zack and confronted her. Then Zack returned and everything went to Hell.

"That's the reason second incarnation of AVALANCHE was considered milder before you started blowing up the reactors," Crimson summed up so they could get to the topic on-hand.

"Yet, in the end, all they did was prove themselves to be the same as before," Hojo countered. "Nothing more than a bunch of thugs espousing they wish to protect the planet by killing the very people who are a part of it. How is that any different than Shinra?"

"Shut up!" Tifa's fist clenched at the unpleasant truth. "We're nothing alike."

Hojo continued. "At least my work is done for the sake of progress; you just use the Planet as an excuse to kill people. You're nothing more than hypocrites at your core, beneath the very people you decry as butchers."

Tifa lunged for him again, but Kunsel had been ready. He grabbed her arm before she could swing it again. "You'll kill him if you hit him again like that."

Hojo tilted his head in Crimson's direction. "Ask her. As the Turk just how many times AVALANCHE has done things as bad as I have. Ask her about the Ravens then, about Corel, about—"

"You know he's doing that on purpose, right?" Yuffie said, cutting him off. She continued when all eyes were on her. "It might be because I'm detached from this guy while all of you have something against him personally and can barely contain yourselves, but the more you fight, the longer he goes without answering the questions you want. He knows you need him alive and Shinra's going to come looking for him eventually, so he's keeping you busy to get out of answering anything."

"She's makes a convincing point," Kunsel acknowledged, turning to Crimson. "You and I will carry out the rest of the interrogation while the others will go outside and keep an eye on the surroundings."

The rest consented, albeit with some hesitation on Tifa's part. She glared at Hojo, but ultimately turned and headed up the stairs to leave the basement. Cloud followed after her, looking as though he wanted to say something, and the rest followed after him.

"No more distractions," Crimson said once they were gone. Lightning crackled in her hand. "You called Cloud a reject from your Reunion Theory the last time. We'll start from there. Tell me what you meant by that."

[-oOo-]

"This is so stupid," Sutton couldn't help but say as he ran alongside the other two. They were following a dog in the middle of the night, only the night-vision of their goggles allowing them to track the hound as it chased after the scent of their target. "I didn't sign up for this."

The only reason he had joined Shinra was because it was the easiest way to get money. Being a coastal vacation paradise, Costa del Sol was expensive closer to the beach unless you wanted to live in the slums further inside. With the war over they weren't deployed often beyond getting rid of the occasional monsters that wandered too close to the town, so it was his way of saving up and living at the barracks.

The hound bound into an alley that led towards a portion of the city damaged during a hurricane that was left unrepaired and abandoned. The infantrymen occasionally used it for urban combat practice. With a sort of grace belaying its size, it leapt on top of a dumpster and then climbed over the fence.

"C'mon! We can't lose it," Lawrence said as he climbed on top of the dumpster and then over the fence as well. Sutton figured he would be the one most eager to keep his job. He was a military brat and his father had been an infantryman during the Wutai War. He couldn't be SOLDIER because he didn't pass the tests, but he told himself that as long as he was a part of the military his father would give his silent approval.

Cambert was next. He didn't say much when not spoken to by a superior. Then again, he'd been around longer than them and seemed to have worked under Heidegger more often that naught. That was usually enough to do the trick.

Sutton got into contact with the base using the radio and let them know where they were checking next, as ordered. Then he followed after the rest of them. His boots crunched down on broken glass as he landed and stood side-by-side with the other two as the hound sniffed the ground.

"…Damn this place is creepy at night," Sutton said as he looked over the scene. He could see some rats scurrying around on the ground, but not much else that looked remotely alive. It was possible someone could have taken their target here and they would spend hours searching blindly.

The hound gave a low chuff and then began to run, taking a right turn around a corner leading further into the desolated area. Sutton and the others followed, but he kept his hands on his gun to be safe. Firing without confirmation may have led to getting fired, but you couldn't spend the money if you were dead.

It was about five minutes into their run when the hound sudden came to a stop and started looking around in alarm. Cambert suddenly jerked back, holding a hand to his neck and dropping his gun. He fell to his knees and, as his hand slipped from his neck, the sheen of blood glistening in the moonlight revealed his throat had been cut. He tumbled down to the ground lifelessly afterwards.

Sutton and Lawrence stood in abrupt shock until the sound of the hound snarling and then scampering out of the way snapped them out of it. They moved as a ball of searing hot flames flew towards Lawrence. At the same time, a gouge was torn in the ground where Sutton had been by what he presumed was an invisible blade of some kind. Sutton managed to take shelter behind a wall. Lawrence wasn't so lucky and burned, his scream silenced by the flames instantly.

"We're under attack!" Sutton screamed into the radio, the gun trembling in his hand as he did so. Then some kind of red beast whirled from behind the corner for him and the guard hound, a sphere of fire in its mouth. The flames flew forward and he screamed, dropping his sole means of communication in favor of shielding his eyes from the blinding glare.

He expected the pain—fire so hot that it licked his bones clean of every ounce of flesh and burned them to charred ashes. He could feel the heat burning patches of his skin and uniform, and it felt like his goggles were going to meld with his skin. He ripped the goggles off and opened his eyes to see the only thing that stopped him from suffering the same fate as his radio was the guard hound rushing in as the flames practically rolled off a sheen that surrounded it in order to deliver a bone-crushing bite.

The red beast snarled at the hound's fangs sinking into its corded muscles, bringing a paw around knock it off. Sutton then remembered that he was armed and took aim at the creature. The sound of gunfire filled the night air as bullets flew, some of the shots finding their way into its flesh. A Bolt spell from the guard hound joined them and elicited a pained sound from the beast's maw, forcing it to disappear around the bend again.

He rose back onto his feet, heart hammering in his chest. Whatever that thing was, it would likely come back. He didn't plan to stick around and die. The hound apparently had the same idea because it turned the way they came and bolted with him on its tail, courtesy of a fresh surge of adrenaline to make him forget his wounds and keep him moving forward.

It was when they were partway back that the hound came to a stop. It leered towards the darkness ahead and snapped off another Bolt spell. The bluish-white bolt smashed into a figure there and the tongues dancing over its body illuminated it enough that he could see it was a person.

Sutton let loose a barrage of gunfire as the electricity finished grounding itself. The person staggered back a step before shifting something and the bullets sounded like they were hitting metal. As the impacts caused sparks to fly, the brief moments of illumination allowed him to catch a better glimpse of his foe in the darkness. Someone with blonde hair and mako-colored eyes….

SOLDIER, was Sutton's final thought as the man rushed in with a sword in hand, upraised. He was fast. There was no time for him to react as it came down. There was only pain and then everything went dark….

[-oOo-]

Crimson had never been particularly good at, nor liked, torture. It was usually unnecessarily cruel and people would often say anything to make the pain stop. Using Sense was an easy way to get around that once she had mastered it, but that didn't change the fact that it was unpleasant on all fronts.

Hojo's body was at the point where it would spasm randomly from the constant application of the Bolt spell surging over his muscles and forcing contractions. He wheezed with every breath and he had lost control of his bladder. The resulting consequence of that was pooled at the base of the chair.

It was an ugly sight to see and it left her feeling uglier on the inside to know she did this to someone. But, upon coaxing a part of the information out of him that she sought, she couldn't help but feel he deserved every ounce of it. "You turned all of them into clones of Sephiroth!"

"Not on a genetic level," he scoffed, sounding offended at that insinuation. "I merely used a similar method used to create Sephiroth. Everything from his conception onwards was arranged to make him as capable as he was. For people literally taken off the street, they couldn't hope to compare. Jenova's cells simply overtook their minds."

Her voice grew dangerously low as she leaned close, ignoring the scent surrounding him. "And you did the same thing to Cloud and Zack?"

"They were failures because they didn't take properly," Hojo said, still unrepentant. "I didn't expect him to awaken at all. However, these current developments are fascinating. It's possible there was a delayed reaction, maybe something in his genetics that I didn't take into account…."

Crimson swore under her breath as she tuned him out to think. The Reunion Theory explained both why Sephiroth attacked Shinra and Cloud's reaction in the research department. Jenova was influencing them both, drawing the former in and trying to gain a stronger hold on the latter.

If that was the case, what if it managed to overtake him entirely? That truly horrifying thought made her stomach drop. Cloud was already suffering from knowing he was borrowing Zack's memories. To know that he was a possible thrall of Jenova would likely send him over the edge of despair….

Crimson took a deep breath and turned to Hojo again. "You said that he was a failure, but he inherited the memories of the other SOLDIER who you also deemed a failure. They're tangled with his own. How do I fix them?"

"Anything that happens outside of the laboratory is an uncontrolled factor," he said with a shrug. "There are a number of reasons it could have happened, perhaps due to the influence of the cells implanted in them both or perhaps not. A pity, but there's nothing I can help you with there."

Sense told her there as an elevation in his pulse, a half-truth. Electricity flowed from her outstretched hand and into the mad scientist. "I've told you about lying. You have some idea of how to fix this, so talk!"

"Ni-Nibelheim," he rasped as the flow ceased, swallowing as he fidgeted under the lingering tongues of electricity. "The mako may have acted as a conduit for the memory transference in the same essence as the Lifestream carries knowledge of the Planet. My notes are there, in the archives of the manor and the safe."

She took note that his vitals were dropping, interfering with the reading. The jolt to her mind as she used the Cure spell left her lapsing in her thoughts briefly. She had been using too much mental power, but it wouldn't matter as long as she had the chance to recover.

Kunsel tapped on her shoulder as she finished healing him and whispered into her ears that the others had just killed three infantrymen. It wouldn't be long before whatever forces Shinra could muster would be there soon. They were pressed for time now.

"Tell them to get ready to leave," she whispered. It wouldn't do for Hojo to overhear them and know ahead of time they would have to cut this short. "And don't breathe a word of this to the others. Not like you did in Midgar. There are enough problems on our plate; I don't want to make this bigger than it needs to be. We'll handle this tactfully, but until then not a word."

He frowned but nodded once. "Fine."

She watched him leave and then rubbed her eyes, feeling tired and unclean beneath her skin. Between having to torture someone, learning about all of this, having less time than they expected, and now lying, she couldn't help but miss the days when things were simpler. The price of her actions weren't weighing on her body as much as they were on her mind and soul.

"Lately, just about everything bad that's come out of Shinra is the result of your efforts, Professor Hojo," she said aloud. "The world would have been better off without you."

"And then there would be no mass-produced materia," he shot back. "There would be no SOLDIER and no defense against the creatures that roam this world. The only reason you're able to wield the power that you do right now is because of my work. Or do you denounce that as well for the sake of your hypocrisy?"

"The good doesn't outweigh the bad," Crimson countered. "Not anymore. I used to believe that what we and the company did made things better for the world, even if we had to do horrible things in the process. But I know better now."

"You think that makes up for everything?" He chuckled, despite the rasp and pain he must've been in. "The Turks have supplied me with test subjects for years, and that doesn't even begin to cover the other things they've had a hand in. How many atrocities have you been a part of, even by proxy? Do you think that feeling remorseful will wash your hands clean?"

"My hands are just as bloody as yours, but I am not a monster like you."

"Yet you indulge in torture for convenience," Hojo pointed out. "But I suppose its fine as long as you do it to an enemy, whether of the company or whoever else you can place that label upon. It's quite easy then, isn't it? It makes it so much easier to see someone as less than a person… an acceptable target… a test subject to be put to experimentation until destruction, all for the sake of sought knowledge."

Crimson wanted to deny it. Context behind actions mattered. She didn't do this because she enjoyed it like him. It had to be done to get answers and the others weren't capable of doing it.

They killed only to survive and every enemy they faced was one that would kill them if not killed in turn. To torture someone efficiently was to know how to hurt them, not how to kill them like in battle. It was how to prolong their suffering until they gave you want you wanted.

It was… it was something that chipped away at you on the inside as you willfully hurt someone else for the sake of convenience. It was something she hadn't been able to stomach when she first joined the Turks. Yet here she was….

Crimson was shaking before she realized it. That wouldn't do. She took a deep breath and pushed the rising feelings of self-loathing and disgust deep down inside. There was time for that later. For now she had to focus on what she could do.

They could search the Shinra Manor in Nibelheim for something that could help with his memory, but the biggest issue was the connection to Jenova by the Reunion Theory. Cloud already had enough doubts and fears about who he was and what he was becoming. The least she could do was give him the peace of mind to know he'd never become a monster. That meant she had to remove every other trace of Jenova from the face of the Planet.

It seemed Aerith's mission would also become hers in the end.