Adaskowa. Yuffie Kisaragi looked at the last page of her notes. At the top of the page, a single line of large text: Who is Aske?

Well, that's a mystery I've probably resolved. Aske, or at least, Barret's contact in the Junon Petrochemical Industry, is Reno, or more likely, Reno alongside whatever Turk happens to be working the case on a given day.

Sometimes the most obvious answer was the most believable; that was one of those times, and it wasn't worth writing down, at least at the moment. If there are leaks in the Junon government passing information to the W.R.O., directly or indirectly, they're almost certainly connected with Shinra. I doubt Barret has time for that level of introspection, but for people like Reeve, it's a willful blindness that makes that possible.

She pushed that particular page aside, then reached for the tape player.

[START]

Io: Honestly, I can't even fathom what you'll learn. But I know this: Shinra grew rich not from guns or from Mako, but ideas. And like they say, money is the root of all evil.

Kisaragi: Well, they're you're wrong. [LAUGHTER]

I: What's so funny, Ms. Kisaragi?

K: That's a common mistake. Money isn't root of all evil. Power is, obviously.

[STOP]

She turned the control knob back to the stop position, ending the playback. She hadn't meant for that to be the last interview with Victor Io, but a day of unexpected lethargy followed by the return of his long running condition had led her to cut her stay in Kalm short. It wasn't that she disliked him; more the opposite of that, she liked him enough that she felt bad for compelling an elder veteran of the Midgar Army to answer her questions with little explanation on her part.

"We'll speak again when you're better." That's the lie she had told him. No, she doubted there was anything else Victor Io could tell her; the most useful think he'd told her, to go to Junon, she had.

Without the warmth of the coal-burning stove of her room in the Nibelheim Inn, Yuffie sat with her arms flush against her body, the TC-5500, and her handwritten notes, arrayed messily at the small sitting table in front of her. Most people, she knew, were surprised how legible her handwriting was; they'd probably be only more surprised if they considered it wasn't even her native language in the first place. The truth was she almost never wrote anything in Wutaian, and hadn't for years; that short time as a "mystery ninja" in the forests outside Junon hadn't necessitated much writing, for obvious reasons, and even by that point she'd been fluent in the local language. All those expensive tutors paid for by Kisaragi Godo, she considered.

Power is the root of all evil. But you can't really apply children's proverbs to our current political situation. That's what she was telling herself, in the face of the disgusting, if unsurprising, revelation: she'd been led to Nibelheim by the Turks. The manipulation went back to at least her meeting with Rufus Shinra, if not even before that, she reckoned.

You can't say they 'got' to Rufus Shinra. Might as well say that the priests in the temple 'got' to their God. But Tifa…and Cloud…

She shook her head in frustration. That wasn't a certain fact. In fact, she couldn't even be certain this was a scheme of the man they'd called the "President of the New Age" years earlier; it didn't seem to fit him. Separate of her own feelings towards the man, Rufus Shinra was an obvious schemer: he'd manipulated Kadaj and his 'brothers' during their short reign of terror on Edge, his contingency in the event that he failed to convince Cloud Strife to do the usual thing and kill three more remnants of Sephiroth. The W.R.O.'s review of the incidents in Edge—the child abductions, the summoning of Bahamut, even the destruction of Shinra's tacky Meteorfall memorial—concluded that Rufus wanted Cloud, and whoever would help him, to hunt down and kill Kadaj while they were still preying on travelers in the Midgar Basin. When that failed, they tried to mastermind a situation where the location of all three remnants could be ascertained, and the Turks, and whoever else would help them, could kill them. For that, Rufus, not Cloud, had to be the bait, and he was.

She didn't dare to say that aloud, even with the reel-to-reel unpowered. That sort of thing is supposed to be confidential state secrets. In fact, the whole affair with Kadaj's Gang had been a terrible embarrassment to the W.R.O.. Even before the Deepground Army, it had been a strong political argument that the original covert surveillance tactics Reeve had championed were, by themselves, inadequate. If a lone fanatic with the necessary history or biology could use a stolen orb of materia to single-handedly destroy several city blocks, an actual military response—the kind Shinra had possessed, in the Peace Preservation—would be needed. And in Junon, where they had actually used military force to kill a Weapon during the Jenova War, it merely confirmed what they already believed.

The ringtone of her PHS jolted Yuffie nearly out of her wooden chair. It'd been fully two days since her interview underneath Nibelheim Manor, and a day and a half since her telephone conversation with more than one of the Turks. In the intervening time, Major Albert Saunders had impatiently asked her what else she needed from "the authorities", in other words himself, for her research. And if nothing, when she would be leaving. So instead, she'd locked herself in her room in the inn, pretending to review her recordings and notes; sometimes, she even did just that, conscious of whatever listening devices might be around her, while the Polaris Air Force carried on with whatever it was doing in the mountains.

She took her PHS and held it in her hand, feeling the smooth plastic in her palm. The small preview display showed a blocked number, which gave her some idea of who was calling. She unfolded the clamshell and held it to her ear. "Reno, you know how late it is?"

He laughed on the other end. "Yeah, sorry about that, but there's a reason, I promise."

"Well?"

"You want to see why Dr. Adaskowa is actually in Nibelheim?"

She frowned. "She's not babysitting a deactivated Mako reactor?"

"Does a deactivated Mako reactor sound like something that needs a doctorate to babysit?" Reno jeered back. She didn't know the answer to that, unfortunately. "You know the old town hall? Meet me there in five. Don't bring your tape player."

It was problematically easy, Yuffie found, to misjudge the size of Nibelheim, the only organic population center in the so-called Nibelheim Autonomous Region. Barely more than a half-dozen wooden lodges encircling the village water tower, and a three-story Victorian mansion behind them. At night, with the dim glow of electric military spotlights and torches, it almost seemed easier to see the lower tier of the village, another handful of buildings just out of sight of the general store and the traveler's inn; the largest of those, Yuffie judged, was the town hall, certainly occupied by the military if not their headquarters. Reno was waiting for her, not in or even atop the town hall, but underneath its raised porch, behind the adjacent stone stairway. Even the military patrols with their flashlights would've had trouble spotting him until they were literally on top of him.

For once, he's trying to be discreet. From his position enveloped in darkness, he made a split-second-long gesture with his hands, the kind he must've thought only a trained ninja could've made out. Yuffie was on the slanted roof of what she knew to be Tifa Lockhart's childhood home, one of the taller private residences, boots lightly but securely planted on the brown shingles. After burying a twinge of reluctance, she sprint across the beam, leapt the gap, and landed on the opposite roof, timed in coincidence with a military police patrolman closing the door to the hall behind him. The MP paused, and Yuffie briefly thought her sneaking skills had waned over the last three years, before he leaned towards the door he'd closed and shook the handle, as if struggling with lock, before relenting.

I've still got it! She had to hold back cheering in her own mind, knowing the twitching smile that must've been on her face had anyone been able to see it. Like other large buildings in the village, the town hall's roof featured a pair of gabled dormers on either side, a design that had always reminded Yuffie of an ornate doghouse when she'd seen them in Kalm, and continued to do so here. The windowpanes were missing in one, allowing access to a long-emptied attic; inside, through what was left of the ventilation it was possible to see very easily into a large room on the second floor, well-lit by candlelight as well as electric lamps.

Well, Reno, it's see what if you're half as clever as you think you are.

At first, it didn't surprise her: Dr. Kasia Adaskowa, sitting in an unfolded wheelchair, like the kind you might see in any modern hospital anywhere in the world. In line of sight of her right arm, an enlisted woman in Peace Preservation dark blue but with the unmistakable armband of a combat medical technician, or medic, fixed to her uniform. Standing a little away next to an examination table, the tallest of the three, was Major Saunders. Yuffie silently reproached herself for not realizing that this particularly building was serving as Nibelheim's field hospital, focusing her vision through one of the gaps in the ventilation.

"Well, sergeant?" Saunders was still wearing his burgundy greatcoat, his kepi cap held underneath one arm, but there was a certain unfamiliar gravity, even urgency in his voice. It wasn't the annoyed, snarky bureaucrat dryly sneering at her from the mask of military anonymity granted by his uniform; this Saunders looked agitated, anxious, as if he was only reluctantly keeping his unease under control.

"Relax, Major, you're making her nervous," Dr. Adaskowa chided him.

The medic looked up at Saunders underneath the trio of photorceptors of her helmet. "It's the same today, sir. The doctor's Geostigma in remission shows the same symptoms as reported in the rest of the sample group."

"We're not a sample, for god's sake," the doctor growled. "We're Gast Faremis's project team…"

"Where the magnitude of the symptoms is measurable, particularly in the observed quantity of abnormal or dysfunctional leukocytes, we're seeing that reflects the doctor's reduced record of exposure compared to the rest of the sample," she cut her off.

"In other words, it's nothing like my own Geostigma." Yuffie saw Saunders clasp his left forearm through his uniform coat.

The medic shifted sides, revealing the gravity-fed intravenous fluid tubes running from Dr. Adaskowa's arm to a corresponding pair of bags suspended from a pole. "It doesn't seem to be, sir. We know from widespread observation that Geostigma showed particularly aggressive symptoms in children and those with weakened immune systems, which may explain the abnormal white blood cells…"

"I can't speak for Dr. Faremis after he resigned, but my colleagues in project team also reported a history of blood and bone marrow abnormalities through the 'Eighties during regularly-mandated health examinations for the corporation," the doctor cut her off. With her free arm, which looked particularly thin and pale underneath the plain white undershirt she was wearing, she scratched her left collarbone briefly.

"So in other words, your symptoms of Geostigma remission, and the more advanced cases that ravaged Dr. Faremis' original team, bear little resemblance to my Geostigma remission, that of a medical officer who was in Midgar during Meteorfall," Saunders scowled. "Rather, your symptoms have more in common with, well…"

"Leukemia," she interrupted him with a smile. "And no amount of experiments and tests here at Mt. Nibel are going to change that," she sneered at him.

"I wish you'd take this seriously, Doctor."

"Is there anyone else you'd like to get in for a new sample? We've already got your prisoner, Illyich, not to mention his guards. What about you, Sergeant?" she asked, glancing at the medic. She scoffed and rubbed her arm near the I.V. needles. "It's the same as I told you when I came here. I have leukemia, not Geostigma. You don't get Geostigma from having worked in Mako reactor thirty years ago."

"You don't get leukemia from having worked on a Mako reactor, period." She watched Saunders muster up all the military bearing it he could manage, a thin, prematurely-aging military doctor in an ugly red uniform, and stand in front of his expert on powerplant operation, maintenance, and unprovable speculation. "The requested records possessed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Arujunon were opened and reviewed. Shinra had not documented a single case of environmental exposure leading to acute lymphoblastic leukemia that can be traced to an operational reactor in Midgar or Junon. The closest cases were reported in a pair of engineers during the original construction of Midgar, who demonstrated symptoms before those reactors went online and had a history in the wartime petrochemical industry."

"Also they smoked cigarettes," the medic offered.

"And here I went through the trouble of quitting," the doctor countered.

Saunders took a step back and gave the medic a look facing away from Yuffie's point of view; the sergeant smartly saluted, tapping her boots together, before leaving. Saunders turned to look absently at the ground near his feet until the door opened and closed after her, before looking back at Dr. Adaskowa.

"So, Good Doctor, you have the results of your latest study." Saunders' tone had softened noticeable.

"It's not Geostigma," she answered, soberly.

"You're standing in the town with the highest measured rates of Reunion-related cellular activity in the whole of the Western Continent. How many weeks has it been, Doctor?"

"Enough," she conceded.

"If it isn't Geostigma here, it's not Geostigma period."

She nodded, then raised her arm intravenously-injected arm. "Perhaps I've been underestimating you military doctors." Dr. Adaskowa seemed to stare into the empty space past Saunders. "I did want to see what, if anything, would happen to me if I went back there."

"And?"

She sighed. "Nothing. So it was a disappointment."

"I don't think our visitor felt the same way, even just the one time." A tinge of humor entered Saunders' voice, and Yuffie felt the hair on the back of her head stand on end. "Not that I'm suggesting anything."

"What will you tell her?"

"About this? Nothing. What is there to tell her? You're the company expert on reactors, our reactor has been deactivated, and whatever was in it during that unholy age, it's long gone." Saunders was now facing away from the doctor, pretending to be interesting in the bags of clear fluid, and the doctor gave the back of his head an unkind look. "What? She came here to see our prized historical relic and our prized historical guest. Not everything is about you, Doctor."

She shook her arm, causing the tubes to rattle the bags of fluid. "She might've noticed some of Citizen Illyich's symptoms."

"Why? She didn't notice them in you." Saunders gave an indignant sigh. "The…representative of the W.R.O. came here for other reasons that I'm not paid to concern myself with. My findings will go back with you to Camp Helwitt and the higher-ups. Probably to Junon after that. If you're so curious as to what she's thinking, tell her yourself. It's a free country."

He replaced his cap on his head, then turned to look out of one of the room's windows, in the direction of Mt. Nibel. "For my part, I'm sure she's disappointed. Nothing left here, just an empty reactor and a fake town with a few sick geriatrics."

Yuffie had risen from her crouched position, and was already leaning towards the dormer she'd entered through, as the odd couple sat in silence.

Saunders muttered something under his breath about recalling the sergeant from earlier. "What did they do with the effigy?" she heard the doctor asked.

He seemed surprised by the question. "The…effigy?"

"Yes, the effigy from the reactor." Her tone was much colder now, even impatient.

"Well, I imagine…it's still where it was when the rest of the fissile material was extracted," Saunders replied slowly.

"So, the Junon Navy has it. Pity."

Saunders gaped at her. "E-Excuse me?"

"It was a beautiful work of art, wasted sitting in a military warehouse somewhere."

"Doctor, far be it for me to question your much more extensive medical experience, but you don't think that given what occurred in Reactor Number One on Black September, maybe your 'work of art' should be cast to history?" Saunders' voice was still controlled, but looking back she could see him opening and closing one gloved hand in rhythmic motions, the one attached to the same arm he'd grasped earlier.

"The original sculptor hired by Dr. Faremis was the first one to die from bone marrow disease. He was a brilliant artist, paid by Shinra to do numerous sculptures in Midgar. You've seen the statue of the Goddess Juno, in the Citadel Historical Museum?"

Saunders sighed. "Yes, during a school trip. I must've been...eight years old, a child."

"No, you haven't. The original one was destroyed during the war, the first time Junon fell to the Wutaian Empire. You've seen a reproduction, paid for by Shinra. He created that."

Saunders looked cowed, feeling the collar of his uniform briefly. "The talent of the artist aside, in its current state the effigy must be at least as radiologically…dangerous as everything else confiscated by Junon."

"So you hope they destroy it," she told him. "That's the typical military solution to all problems, isn't it?"

Yuffie didn't wait for directions from the Turk when she left; as she predicted, she met Reno again on the way back to her room, this time hidden by the village water tower, obscured from the moonlight by the cylindrical reservoir. She thought the military would've put the structure to some kind of use, but instead they seem to treat it was complete disregard; that, or she was being fooled by a masterful deception all along.

"How's that for an opening offer?" Reno whispered at her finally, barely containing his excitement.

She almost complimented him on the amount of surveillance he must've already undertaken on Major Saunders and Dr. Adaskowa, but she didn't want to flatter him. "Why…why'd you show me that?" she finally asked.

"Would you have believed me if I just told you?" Reno asked. The unexpected wisdom behind the question, from someone like Reno, was almost a knock-out blow. "Tseng didn't, not at first."

Why would anyone trust a thing you say? Confident that the nearest patrols were at the far edge of the central square, by the Nibelheim Inn, Yuffie let herself slid down to her knees against the reservoir. Her eyes had already readjusted to the darkness since leaving the Town Hall's attic. "What does it even mean?"

"I was hoping you'd know. I came here chasing a lead on the same thing you did, the Clean Air Development Plan. Instead, what? A village that isn't a village, a reactor that doesn't generate electricity, and a weird form of Geostigma that isn't Geostigma."

"Don't forget the political theorist that can't practice politics or theory," she whispered back, holding back a smile.

In the darkness, Reno hadn't failed to notice that. "You and me, we're looking at the wrong place. This…place, Nowhereheim at the foot of Mt. Nowhere, is literally under the microscope of the W.R.O.. You thought of that, right?"

That must be an ironic question. Reno continued, his chumminess only growing. "It's not just the Mt. Nibel Reactor either, even if there's literally international monitoring on that. Nibelheim Manor? Come on, that's too obvious."

"To be what? A political prison?"

He shook his head. "No, it can do that. Trust me, no one cares about political prisoners. Not before Meteorfall, not after. It's too obvious for the other thing."

A reluctant feeling welled up in the pit of her stomach. "What other thing?" She stared at Reno, trying to make out the turquoise in his eyes through his long bangs. "Oh, that." Instead of his face, a succession of others in the darkness: Weiss, Nero, Rosso, Azul. Shinra's favorite son and greatest war hero, the butcher of Nibelheim and killer of comrades. When Deepground took this place from what we still called the Junon Air Force, what did they intend? And what did the military intend when they took it back after Vincent fought Rosso?

There was the military's public answer, and then the too obvious one: Reunion. But it didn't work that way, did it? The constituent components that made it necessary were long gone, what she had witnessed both officially and unofficially seemed to confirm the same.

"Yeah," Reno sighed, apparently reading her mind. "Real atrocity sh-."

The plainspoken declaration surprised her. You would know. "You would know," she whispered back at him. "No, that's not happening either," she added before he could defend himself.

The two of them watched another patrol leave in the direction of Nibelheim Manor, torches in hand. "I shouldn't be here," she told him. "Now that the military has taken back Nowhereheim, who cares what happens to it. I should be back in the East."

Reno seemed at a loss for words. "Well, thanks for making the trip," he finally offered with a shrug. Another patrol appeared, this time from behind the general store, and the two sat in silence from their hiding spot until it crossed down the stone stairs in the opposite direction. Still staring down from the water tower, Reno produced something the size of his palm from an inner pocket of his jacket and held it towards her.

"What's this?" She couldn't see it clearly in the darkness, but she could at least tell it was a flat, cylindrical shape, like the lid of a jar, but significantly heavier. She could feel that one face dominated by a circular glass panel surrounded by a stainless steel bezel; the other was brushed metal with a few angular features cut into it.

"A gift from my boss. I mean Tseng, not my boss's boss."

"And I'm supposed to figure it out on my own?" she asked dryly before dropping the jar lid into one of the pockets on her vest. "Nice."

"He said you'd know when you needed it."

"What a load," she grumbled. "Tell him I'd prefer flowers next time."

Reno had to hold back one of his boisterous laughs. It was easy to forget that they were still whispering at each other at a volume that would barely be audible under any other circumstances, a feat only possible from the years of training they both had, her as a ninja, him at Shinra's General Affairs Department. "I really don't know you after all these years, Yuffie Kisaragi."

And the rest of you Turks, you really shouldn't pretend like you do. None of you do.

Author's Note:

Another long chapter (technically the longest one yet, by a slim margin) heavy on the prose and light on the interviews, after a substantially longer delay; probably even less excusable considering how quickly I actually wrote this chapter, while trying to figure out the complexities of other stories that are substantially greater a challenge to write. I'd like to think that means I had a burst of creativity, but I don't find that entirely convincing either. Still, I'm happy with how it came out, and I think it this should tie it back to the overall plot as I've composed it so far (though it's making me realize that this story will likely end up longer than anticipated if I am actually able to finish it As always, thank you for staying with me for this long.