Blood rushed in Tseng's ears as he took four steps down to a metal door that might as well have been fashioned from aluminum foil for how effective it was in keeping them out. Lock picks were barely required - popping open with the application of a single rake. Elena was on his heels just far enough back not to foul up his elbow as they both drew their sidearms.
The room beyond was dim, making Tseng blink rapidly as his eyes adjusted from the bright light of the sun lamps outside. It was a square box of poured concrete situated mostly underground. Slivers of windows high up on the back wall were covered over by plastic garbage bags, two light bulbs dangling from the ceiling overhead on cords that poked through the water stained tiles consisted of the only illumination. He took in everything in a matter of seconds - the metal frame of a bed with a bare mattress and pillow, with boxes and bags stuffed beneath it. A cardboard box full of clothing sat beside a sink and toilet that didn't have even a cubicle to disguise their presence.
Their target looked at them in surprise, paper mask dangling from his fingers.
Recognition flared between them, and it took everything Tseng had left of his fraying control to not paint the wall in pink mist as professor Hojo's expression twisted into a smile that was entirely unhinged.
The pieces fell into place. Hojo had wanted Aerith from the moment she'd escaped with her mother as a child, and Tseng had done everything he could to not let her fall back into his hands - so long as the order never actually came, so long as he didn't realize that the Turks knew where she was, let alone knew her personally. The order had been to find the Ancient, and they'd stuck to the utter letter of his word - find, not retrieve - and it hadn't even mattered here in the end.
The connection had been there all along - he'd been looking for Aerith the entire time, hadn't he? Tseng had wondered if the appearance of the victims was a coincidence and now he had his answer.
Hojo didn't look nearly frightened enough as Elena stepped around Tseng and circled the professor. Not the least afraid at all, with Tseng's weapon pointed at his chest and Elena's at the back of his head. "Ah, well, this makes everything so much easier!"
The rogue scientist scratched at a spot on his face, pushing his smudged glasses further up his nose. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick, reddened and fragile looking as he gestured expansively towards Tseng and continued speaking as though they stood in his lab and not a sparsely furnished room that could barely be considered an apartment.
Even with the multiple scented cards dangling from the metal straps between ceiling tiles, and an air purifier stuttering away at the foot of the bed, the room still had a faint stench of foul air drifting up from the sewers below… They had to be close to where Aerith was, he just needed to get Hojo to lead them there.
"My work will go so much quicker with you, boy!" Hojo clapped his hands, and the sound of them rubbing together was like sandpaper in the otherwise silent room. "Not afraid to get your hands dirty. How very fortuitous!"
Hojo reached one hand up and rubbed at his temple, grimacing for a moment before focusing once more on Tseng, snapping his fingers and pointing at him. "I need you to fetch my son, Sephiroth is being so childish and disobedient - All that time in psychological conditioning and he hares off with his mother without even a by your leave. I didn't create him to be so willful. I should never have allowed him to develop a personality."
Tseng raised one eyebrow slowly. "You do realize that Sephiroth is dead, do you not?"
Hojo shook his head, then winced and pressed fingers between his brows as though in pain. "No, he isn't, he can't be truly ended in a way that matters. The son of Jenova must return when I find his chosen mate - clearly I needed to continue trying to make better ones. The copies were a terrible idea, Subjects Z and C didn't change in the least, their bodies were too weak perhaps, but oh well I did my best, didn't I, and Jenova approved of the little one - his memories were nourishment, especially of his mother, those memories - Jenova needed them, you see, so she ate them. She knows how to be a better mother now, she'll be such a good nurturing one for the new babies."
He peered over his shoulder at Elena, eyebrows raising. "Do you dye your hair?" Returning his intense gaze to Tseng he gave a small jerk of his head towards the younger Turk. "Does she dye her hair, is she an orphan, will anyone miss her?"
That was more than enough for Elena, and she growled as she lashed out with one foot to strike the back of his knee - sending him sprawling to the ground.
"I'll have you know that I am a natural blonde," Elena snarled, and it was so non sequitur that some minor bit of tension bled from Tseng's shoulders and his head cleared of the mire his thoughts had fallen into.
"No manners whatsoever, no no, you can't be related to her, she was a lady," Hojo said inanely, as though that made sense to either of them, "no, no, not suitable, Jenova will never accept you - not at all, she's so picky!"
"Jenova?" Tseng asked, brows drawing down in thought - Jenova had been a specimen of Hojo's, pieces of her ensconced in Nibelheim's reactor and Zack had mentioned that Sephiroth seemed to believe it was his mother, and perhaps the catalyst for his psychotic break. Professor Rayleigh, discovered and rescued from yet another of Hojo's labs and coaxed by Emma into taking his place once she'd recovered, had mentioned that its cells had some vital function in the creation of the SOLDIER serum.
"Yes, of course, Jenova. She has such high standards, she only wants the best possible body for her purposes," Hojo rambled, rolling onto his back and looking up at Tseng as he gesticulated wildly. He'd always been insane, but now it had truly come to the fore - his lips twisted up in delight as he spoke, "The new one, she's quite lovely and looks just like her almost exactly. Not the eyes, no, but those can be changed mechanically if need be. Lucrecia had such lovely eyes - but then perfection is hardly ever truly achieved, not since Sephiroth, nothing and no one has been able to replace him… you might do as a copy my boy… Let me see your teeth…"
"Where is she?" Tseng asked slowly, bringing up a well of frozen calm from deep within himself. If Hojo was mad enough to believe Tseng would cooperate, then cooperate he would.
"Jenova is with Sephiroth, obviously," Hojo said as though it were the most obvious thing, "the important bits anyway, the brain matter is where it's all at you know. The soul and consciousness, why did I ever question whether that existed until it was almost too late - no, yes the soul - Jenova, mater vitae et interitus…"
"Of course." Tseng nodded, and flicked his eyes up at Elena for only a second. She backed down, clearly wanting to do anything but, dropping her hand to hold her gun along her thigh after thumbing the safety back on.
He reached down and offered his hand to the professor, who took it as though it were the most natural thing for him to do - as though Tseng hadn't personally attempted to blow his brains out less than a year ago. Hojo didn't seem to remember, or care, but then if he had always been this untethered…
Tseng wasn't particularly versed in Old Juno but he knew enough to parse through the nonsense at the end. "And 'mother' Jenova has instructed you, to what?"
At the word 'mother' Hojo's eyes lit with fervor. "YES! Mother, mother Jenova, the mother of… she will be the mother of all, a new mother, greater than Gaia, a new world, destruction and rebirth, Sephiroth - Sefirot - it's all there, it's all here and the vessel! She will bring him back, bring him forth, the world's new god!"
"How the hell has he been playing normal enough to work a job?" Elena muttered, barely audible, and he shot her a quelling look. She shrugged and twitched her chin towards the professor who seemed not to notice in the least.
Tseng felt the cold mask he'd drawn around himself sharpen into something more like a blizzaga than mere frostbite. "And the… vessel… is I suppose?"
"The girl, of course, the vessel to give birth to Jenova, or to Sephiroth, through the girl and from him perhaps if I can bring him back, and you could do - you're not perfect but I could make you perfect!"
Tseng's hand twitched towards his gun at the implication, but he controlled himself. He breathed in through his nose, steadying himself, out through his mouth, one hundred and eight heartbeats, peace and duty. If he had touched Aerith…
"Where is she?" Tseng said, voice low and calm and soothing the way he might speak to a rabid guard-hound straining at its leash, "where is Aerith?"
"Aerith… Faremis? AERITH! HA!" Hojo stumbled back and his knees buckled as they hit the narrow bed tucked into the corner of the tiny room. He collapsed onto it in a fit of giggles, hands clapping over his mouth as he writhed against the bare mattress.
"Ah! Yes! No wonder she's so perfect, she's taken to the procedure so much more receptively than any of the others yes…" He swung back up like a puppet yanked by strings, tilting his head to one side and eyes going distant as he appeared to listen to someone's voice. "Yes? Of course, you will, of course, vengeance Mother yes!"
"Where is she?"