Chapter 20: The hour's approaching, to give it your best, and you've got to reach your prime! That's when you need to put yourself to the test and show us a passage of time…
Tseng felt his fingers twitch as he waited for what came next. It was at times like this he wished he could have followed his subordinate path in finding comfort and courage from a bottle. If everything went as expected Avalanche would be entering the Mythril Mine soon, and he and the other Turks would be waiting for them. Trapped in the 'wait' half of 'hurry up and...' Tseng found himself once again wrestling with an intrusive thought he been encountering far too frequently ever since John Shinra death There are too many pieces on this board.
Tseng was able to feel himself losing control; a clockmaker watching their greatest creation strip its gears and fall out of pace moment by moment.
Not only did events feel increasingly chaotic, but exponentially so; the rate at which chaos increased was in turn increasing itself.
Faced with such an unsustainable situation, there really was only one option: find some way to intentionally simplify matters before they became simplified because of someone else intention.
So Tseng was going to take a risk. He was going to make an assumption .
He come up with a new plan, one that hinged on the premise that while what side Sephiroth was playing for might have changed, his methodology wouldn have. The General would decide on an objective and then advance upon it with the inexorability of a glacier, if not necessarily its patience.
Sephiroth had managed to break into Shinra HQ, but both casualties and property damage had been shockingly light, all things considered. That meant that either Sephiroth placed Aerith freedom above harming Shinra or midway through the break in he discovered something that had made him decide that Shinra was no longer his top priority.
If the former was true, then Sephiroth and Tseng goals were already sufficiently in alignment. If he wasn that lucky, he have to try and figure out what Sephiroth new goal actually was .
loved to talk about how they fought to protect the Planet hopefully this version of it would actually mean it . By sheer random chance you would think that, of the countless mouthpieces - including Shinra own - who made that particular claim, one must eventually end up meaning it. Granted, the genocidal goals of its prior iteration had been a low bar, but had at least served to quiet any qualms he might have had about things he had to do since taking command of the Turks.
Everything that had came before would hopefully make him cold-blooded enough to succeed today, and if he couldn actively take pieces off of the board at least he might be able to temporarily reduce the number of sides at play .
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Sephiroth! A clipped voice rang out from above.
Barret eyes snapped upwards, followed a second later by the barrel of his gun. The muscles in his shoulders that would send hot lead flying out of its barrel began to tense at the sight of the black haired man in a blue suit.
This wasn good. Being caught mid-march by the leader of Shinra own secret police was a situation no revolutionary wanted to find themselves in. Still, if this was an ambush, it was a very strange one.
If Barret had been in the Turk well-shined shoes, he wouldn have opened his ambush by verbally giving away his position. No, if you were gonna surprise Sephiroth, best to do it by detonating a few dozen pounds of buried C4 from a safe distance to distract him from the incoming artillery strike.
So if this wasn an ambush what exactly was it?
glad to see that you still alive, sir. Tseng snapped a textbook salute.
regret to inform you that our most recent mission on behalf of cooperation between the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department and SOLDIER ended in failure. We had reason to believe that the Science and Research Department had performed improper detention and experimentation on a member of SOLDIER; we attempted to extract them back to Midgar where they could be safely debriefed, but the SOLDIER in question perished before we reached them.
it is of any consolation, I used my position to make sure that the SOLDIER family would receive all due compensation for their son death in the line of duty.
Barret had done what he could to learn about each of Shinra top troubleshooters were like, and this was not how he heard Tseng was supposed to act. The Turk Commander was supposed to be as straight to the point as a switchblade to the heart, so why was he now acting twisty as a corkscrew?
the date of your mission, the name of the fallen SOLDIER, and his cause of death. Sephiroth voice was low and even, but Barret could have sworn the temperature in the cave had dropped a few degrees.
20th of this year, Zack Fair. Lamentably, the cause of death is currently classified. Tseng answered at once.
. Do you have any other information relating to my sabbatical that you wish to report?
Barret was starting to deeply wish that this particular conversation came with subtitles to highlight what the hell the Turk and the General were actually saying under all this formal bullshit.
the lamentable early demise of John Shinra, his controlling interest in the Shinra Mako and Electric Power Company has been passed on to his son Rufus, who is now the organization CEO. Rufus is determined to bring his father killer to justice and hopes that every part of the Shinra Organization from Public Safety to the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department to SOLDIER will give its utmost to track down the vile villain.
killer being a renegade trooper by the name of Cloud Strife.
pleased to hear that you already hard at work investigating the matter. I also surprised to discover that Shinra has finally managed to produce a combat canine variant that meets with your personal approval. If you haven already, I file the necessary paperwork to have it transferred from the Science and Research Department to work alongside you on a more permanent basis. Tseng offered with a quick glance in Stargazer direction.
The one eyed former labrat let out a surprisingly human sigh.
.
also like to convey the new President personal thanks for your part in aiding Shinra efforts to stop the Plate from crushing Sector Seven. You be rewarded with a medal for your performance, but your part in the mission is still too highly classified - and Shinra would need to invent a new one as you already hold all our existing rewards for meritorious service.
see. Does he have any new orders for me?
President feels his best course of action is to simply give you your head in this matter. The situation is quite uncertain, so he feels you be able to accomplish more working on your own than being second guessed by corporate bureaucracy.
This, Barret could interpret confidently: Tseng was using a great number of words to say, more or less, doesn want to give you any new ideas for things Shinra doesn want you doing.
said, there is one more key piece of information I need you to be aware of. Elena, show yourself.
A moment later a familiar bald turk came into view on the edge of a precipice opposite Tseng, accompanied by a small blonde woman.
'm the newest member of the Turks, Elena. I was brought on board to streamline the auditing functions of the General Affairs, uh, Auditing Department. I graduated top of my class from...
Tseng cut her introduction short with a raised hand.
always an interesting experience to meet a new Turk. Sephiroth mused, with what Barret thought might just be the faintest touch of levity in his voice, though of course with Sephiroth faint touches went a long way.
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(Flashback)
all due respect, sir I worried that I produce a substandard performance when it comes to my most recently assigned duties because I lack a full understanding of their overall importance to the department. Elena broached the awkward topic in an even more awkward manner.
, I suggest that you elide diction of a superfluously sesquipedalian nature and eliminate excess magniloquence from our interlocutions. Tseng allowed a moment for the over-articulated admonition to sink in. I appreciate the effort, the point of my prior reprimand was to illuminate the error in second guessing me, not to make you turn every question you asked me into a game of buzzword bingo - just being able to see the difference between goals are my orders in pursuit of and are you making me do this is enough.
way of answer do you know what I consider to be my primary obligation as the director of the Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department?
fulfill all orders given to you by your superiors?
protect the Company interests. Each Turk is a unique resource, and very few mission objectives will ever be more useful in the long run than having all of my Turks alive would be. Your job is to give your all to carry out your orders; mine is to make sure you survive to do it again tomorrow, and a big part of that is risk management . .
Elena felt a strange sense of warmth in her chest. Her superior words might be borderline clinical, but it was clear that he really cared all the same.
going on this mission will make me less likely to die? She still didn see how that would happen, but at least she could follow her superior advice about cutting straight to the point this time.
. During the recent attack on Shinra HQ, objects were stolen from our lounge; that means that even if you never participate in a field mission, there exists a chance that Avalanche would come to you instead. That why we going to make it clear to them that even if you wearing a Turk uniform, you a functionary, not an operative.
really think that will make a difference to the people who destroyed two reactors and were going to wipe out an entire sector? Elena knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words left her lips.
The brief flicker of some emotion she couldn quite name must surely have been a result of him getting upset at her for second guessing him again.
is very easy for terrorists to kill large numbers of people impersonally. It harder, even for people with lots of experience, to kill a person whose name you know when they staring you in the face.
Elena decided to let the matter drop.
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concludes most of the relevant business matters at hand. Do please continue your exemplary work protecting Shinra Ancient. There would be a great many people who would be extremely upset if any harm befell her.
don have to talk about me like I not in the room you know.
Tseng took a moment to straighten his tie before responding.
me for my overly formal approach to these matters, but I wouldn want anyone to think that our past interactions have left me emotionally compromised where you concerned, Miss Gainsborough. With so much going on in the world, there is unlikely to be time for a proper performance review and so I might simply be abruptly replaced instead. I would like to hope that is an outcome we both prefer to avoid.
guess I have to give you that, having to deal with somebody new would be a bit bothersome. Does this mean we should expect a return to our regular Friday check-ins?
Aerith tone was just a little too airy, her smile just a little too friendly and there had been just a touch of emphasis on the word . Sephiroth leveled a flat stare up at Tseng for good measure.
Tseng cleared his throat and straightened his tie again, somewhat unnecessarily. afraid not. My duties are being shifted to focus on tracking down the former president's killer. We may not see each other again for quite a while
a shame, sounds like I won get any more free helicopter rides
Tseng didn bother to reply; he simply retreated deeper into the caves, his two subordinates swiftly following suit.
. That not how I expected that conversation to go. Admitted Tifa.
may be evil but they ain all stupid. Even they realizing not to stand downhill of this Avalanche.
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need to visit that reactor. Barret insisted as the huge structure began to take shape on the horizon.
you a little light on explosives at the moment? Reeve almost choked on the words; sarcasm was a luxury of the safe, and it didn take much imagination to see that his life could get considerably worse if he made a nuisance of himself.
reactor with the bird on it isn in Shinra hands any more. Surprised the man in charge of all their infrastructure is hearing it from me, though. Barret concluded with a mocking chuckle.
Midgar reactors were fully functional, we dropped this one out of the network. Nothing else about it ever crossed my desk.
place is supposed to be the nerve center of anti-Shinra activity on this continent. Only Cosmo Canyon and Wutai are more invested. Tifa added approvingly.
it doesn belong to Shinra, why is stopping there so important? Kadaj inquired.
...Because it gives us a chance to rest. Sephiroth shot a glance in the Cetra direction.
Aerith and Reeve continued to de facto set the pace as the mere mortals of the group, but Avalanche wasn likely to be taking any breaks for his sake.
, and also resupply. We managed to get most of what we needed in Kalm, but as the businessman himself pointed out, some things are a little tricky to purchase. Would be a shame to visit a major Shinra base like Junon without being able to leave the bastards something to remember us by.
I realize I don have much, make that any , leverage at the moment, even if you destroy the reactor please don damage the docks. Keeping a city the size of Midgar fed...
call what you were doing keeping Midgar fed?
Midgar from breaking out in open riots due to mass starvation is a tricky thing at the best of times; if you cut off one of the continent's main trade arteries...
would be bad? Kadaj concluded, somewhat unnecessarily.
.
Sephiroth pondered the issue in silence for a few moments, staring Reeve down as if evaluating everything that the Director of Urban Development had done since being captured by Avalanche.
The sensation was uncanny; Reeve spent hours poring over spreadsheets in his office, using them to store vast amounts of data and automatically handle complex calculations. Somehow, he couldn shake the feeling that the exact same amount of data, the same kind of complex calculations were all taking place behind Sephiroth glimmering eyes. No wonder he been feeling like quitting Shinra five years ago; it was a wonder a mind like that hadn overclocked itself into meltdown well before his trip to Nibelheim!
many unknowns. Strife and Jenova want me in Junon, but I don know why; I don know under what conditions we may be leaving the city, and sabotaging Shinra port facilities may become necessary. The most I be able to do is consider keeping the docks intact a secondary objective.
understand. Thank you for hearing me out. Reeve had accepted worse in the Shinra boardroom.
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As the group began to make their way up a trail that was barely wide enough for them to walk two abreast, they discovered that a pair of men in civilian clothing dyed dark with mud and moss were waiting for them.
Sephiroth spotted them first, but they were at least alert enough to spare him the trouble of greeting them.
, crap ! This is it! I told you that the boss was a fool for not creating a silver drill the moment anyone suspected he wasn dead!
, hold on; latest rumors are that he on our side now!
what if those rumors are wrong ?
it wouldn make a difference if we manage to raise the alarm or not, so why waste your final moments running around like a chocobo with its head cut off?
Clearly, Sephiroth reputation had preceded him.
The calmer of the two sentries decided to welcome Sephiroth arrival with a salute, and after an elbow to the ribs his partner did likewise.
an honor to have you at Fort Condor, General Sephiroth!
are on our side and aren about to kill us all for defying Shinra, right?
that right. Seems like you can teach a silver hound new tricks, because ever since I met him he done nothing but shit in Shinra loafers. Sephiroth cut Barret a halfhearted glare, but didn bother to gainsay the enthusiastic endorsement..
then, we very glad to have you on board! the more excitable of the two declared with a sigh of relief.
Fort doesn have as many soldiers as we like at the moment, let alone SOLDIERs. The other guard quickly added.
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One of the sentries radioed for a replacement and escorted them to an audience with the Fort commander, a haggard looking man whose gray hair was partly covered by a wide brimmed brown hat.
, this is an unexpected reunion to say the least.
Sephiroth inclined his head in acknowledgment, then his eyes narrowed in concentration. face, I have seen you before Wutai, I think but your name escapes me.
name is Crix, and I actually fought in the Wutain War for a brief bit; we were probably deployed on the same front at some point. But then I was injured badly enough to earn a discharge, and I thought that would be the end of my days in uniform. Well, I guess I was technically correct... Crix admitted, taking a moment to examine his own unremarkable and distinctly civilian clothing.
in charge of leading Fort Condor resistance to Shinra attempts to reclaim the reactor.
Reeve said Shinra took the reactor out of its power grid. Why would they want to take the reactor over again when they don need it? That just get people killed for nothing Kadaj piped up.
might be experiencing a sudden need for additional power generation at the moment. Reeve noted, keeping his tone carefully neutral and his gaze focused very firmly on an unremarkable spot on the wall.
you implying what I think you are, the timeline doesn match up. These folks look to have been defending this place way too long for Shinra to have only started trying to reclaim it after we started hittin reactors. Barret countered.
right. From what we been able to gather from the various defectors, Shinra doesn have any plans to get the reactor running again. Instead, they plan to decommission the entire thing to get at some sort of special materia inside. But by the time Shinra turned their eyes towards this reactor, the condor up top had already laid its eggs, eggs that need to go undisturbed for roughly a year to actually hatch. So, me and some other folks decided that we wanted to do at least one good thing in our lives, something we could be proud of. That why we going to keep Shinra away from the reactor until the condor eggs hatch or we die trying.
way things are going though, today might be that day, since our intelligence suggests that Shinra has a pretty big convoy on the way here from Junon. For all I know, they might even launch their next attack before sunset...
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Felth, why aren our men already mustering for battle? Do you think that we came all the way here just so that we could sit around and twiddle our thumbs?
Hess, my scouts detected that the enemy might be getting unexpected reinforcements from an Avalanche cell in the area. In light of the danger they represented, I thought it would be better to delay the attack.
"Oh, so it's insubordination AND cowardice, is it? We outnumber the rebels at least four to one! What difference could a...
description my scouts got matched that of The Midgar Cell.
mean?
silver, two instances.
know Captain Felth, I've always said you had a good head on your shoulders!
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that attack actually arrives, what should we be doing? Sephiroth volunteered.
you can. I sure that my men would be inspired just by getting a chance to talk with the real live General Sephiroth, but in pretty much any room you walk into in this place you be able to find something that needs fixing or doing. We got too many men who have their hearts in the right places and too little of the proper training to survive fifteen seconds in a real battle. We also been trying to establish a cavalry force to harry Shinra flanks when they attack up the mountain, even managed to get our hands on some green chocobos, but they cleverer than you think - one of them found a way out of the pen and the rest just followed it; now they running wild all over the place.
, you need someone to chase chocobos? I have some experience in that area. Stargazer declared, his tail swaying back and forth in anticipation of the hunt.
The rebel leader blinked a few times in surprise, clearly not having expected the group quadrupedal member to be capable of speech.
glad to have your help? He eventually managed.
you have a greenhouse, or some other kind of garden area? Aerith abruptly cut in.
surely do but everything already planted. You more than welcome to look around, but I not sure what kind of difference you hoping to make, there.. Crix warned.
Aerith deflected his skepticism with a confident smile and a gesture towards Kadaj floral adornment.
grew this, in Lower Midgar - and flowers aren the only thing that I can grow. They bring in the plateside money, but I been growing potatoes under the plate for just as long; you show me the garden, I show you the produce!
Sephiroth could admit, at least privately, that the formal florist's cheerful confidence had a certain charm to it, even when it wasn't taking problems off his plate. When it was ...
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been skimping on weapon maintenance until it misfired during a drill, so what are you in for?
one of the six richest men on the planet..
. Got any stock tips?
...Well, prices do usually slump when the CEO dies unexpectedly.
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After the meeting Sephiroth had made himself at home on top of one of Fort Condor many ramshackle structures; it got him out of the way yet still gave him a good vantage point to spot any moving Shinra troop formations. Until the attack Crix predicted actually arrived he was going to spend his time reviewing some documents he obtained from the staff of Fort Condor. Unsurprisingly, rebels who had set up shop relatively close to one of Shinra main military bases could provide more current information than his five year old memories.
Studying them in detail should allow him to brush up on troop numbers and discover exactly how Shinra had seen fit to reinforce the place after the first version of Avalanche had managed to temporarily capture the Mako Canon surely they must have reinforced the place after coming within a hair breadth of complete catastrophe
He began eagerly poring over their reports on facilities and troop numbers, and while most of them were second hand, sprinkled in among the scouting reports were debriefings of defecting Shinra troopers who had more direct knowledge. It would make for interesting reading if only he didn keep getting distracted by a particular series of sounds rising up from the yard below.
! Kadaj voice, determined and unfaltering.
The sound of metal impacting on metal.
Something firm yet blunt flesh contacting flesh.
A grunt of pain.
A short pause.
! Thus did the cycle repeat.
Sephiroth was only able to listen to it for about half a dozen repetitions before succumbing to curiosity.
A quick glance confirmed that indeed Kadaj was currently positioned in the middle of an outdoor training area, sparring against some of Fort Condor other occupants. That was reasonable enough on its own, but it should have made the fourth sound in the cycle Sephiroth had been listening to impossible . How were any of these people hitting Kadaj, let alone hurting him?
His brother still had a lot of room to grow as a swordsman, but going up against unenhanced, barely-trained humans, he should have easily been able to coast to victory on his superior speed and strength alone
So Sephiroth sat and quietly watched as Kadaj and his opponent traded blows, both of them having wrapped their blades in thick padding so they be less likely to inflict serious injury on each other.
The rebel came at Kadaj with an overhand slash.
Kadaj tried to block with Souba in the least effective way possible.
It would have been one thing if Kadaj had simply been doing hard blocks that absorbed the entire force of his opponent blows with his arms instead of parries that redirected that force out into empty space, but this this was even more absurd.
So far as Sephiroth could tell, Kadaj was trying to perfectly angle Souba so that the sword being swung at him would end up getting trapped between its twin blades. When that maneuver -analogous to threading a needle at combat speed - inevitably failed, the rebel sword simply bounced off the edge of Souba outer blade and continued downward to slam into Kadaj arm.
Sephiroth hadn known Kadaj for long, but it had been long enough to know that there was no point in expecting him to stop any time soon. Sephiroth was either going to have to learn how to ignore the sounds Kadaj was making, or go study Junon defenses somewhere else.
That, or he have to get personally involved in his brother training regimen.
Carefully tucking the papers into an inside pocket, he jumped down from his perch and headed over.
?
Kadaj head swung around.
over here.
try this some more later, promise! Kadaj informed his sparring partner and then jogged over to Sephiroth side.
were you doing?
with Souba . Was I doing something wrong? Kadaj head tilted to the side quizzically, making it clear that his repeated failures hadn yet caused him to consider that the problem might be his chosen technique rather than its implementation.
were you trying to block like that? Sephiroth left the gently unspoken.
, um the Doctors explained to me that pulling off that technique is why Souba has its unique design. The two parallel blades allow me to catch my opponent sword between them, then with a flick of my wrist I can disarm them I just not very good at actually doing it yet. I think the padding actually making it harder...
Sephiroth gave the sword in question another quick glance, and then Kadaj a much longer look. He hoped to go longer without needing to have this discussion, but if it was actively getting in the way of Kadaj developing proper sword fighting technique, it needed to be out in the open.
you remember how I explained that you can leave it whenever you want to, it isn your room; it your cell back when we first met?
hundred percent!
, we need to have another conversation like that, about Souba. Parallel blades of the exact same length are ill-suited for capturing an opponent blade mid swing, even with your enhancements.
you actually want is to have one blade be somewhere between a quarter to a half the length of the other; that would actually allow you to far more easily guide your opponent weapon into the gap between the two blades. Sephiroth explained, hoping that he be able to keep this discussion limited solely to sword design and fighting techniques.
then why would the doctors give me Souba? What is it good for?
Better he give Kadaj an honest answer than to try and dance around the subject Sephiroth might not be the ideal older brother, but he knew that hard truths given with compassion did more good than comforting lies ever would.
parallel blades of the exact same length are the ideal weapon for inflicting injuries that are difficult to heal; tightly parallel cuts are challenging to stitch and inefficient to palliate with materia. It a sword that was made to maim. He paused, forcing his facial muscles to relax and hoping the resulting expression looked gentle. sadist weapon.
Kadaj looked down at his sword with a mixture of dismay and horror.
think I think I need to find a new sword... He eventually managed to half stammer out, looking like he was tempted to simply drop Souba on the floor then and there.
that what you think would make you more effective in combat, this might be the right place to go looking for one...
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, this isn your fault. I don want you to think that I hate you because I don . The metal didn shriek as the file cut into it; the torch had left it too hot for more than a dull rasping sound. The armorer raised an eyebrow, but was firmly inclined to let the quirks of strange, silver-haired men go otherwise unremarked.
not broken, it like um uhhh cancer! Yeah, there a part of you that isn supposed to be there, that isn the real you, His client hadn said to stop, so the armorer continued his work, slowly sawing through the dully glowing section of the blade the strange young man held between two pairs of tongs.
just like when I met my big brother the things he told me they hurt, but those things didn me they made me who I was really supposed to be, gave me a chance to really be a hero. So now, now Souba you gonna get a chance to be what you should have been from the start . It was just as well, really. It was too late to stop, but it was for the best. The weirdass double sword was probably a liability in any serious fight - what was a weapon like that good for, anyway?
. The armorer didn realize at first that the young man was speaking to him. thank you, but I think I can take it from here.
The blade was maybe half cut through. sure, kid? I know you SOLDIER types are strong, but The strange young man hadn actually introduced himself as SOLDIER, but once you seen mako eyes, you could spot them again in a heartbeat.
. I think this is something I need to finish myself. Thank you. The young man started pivoting the tongs, the heated steel flexing in his grip, folding back over the cut, and finally, with a dull snap, the upper two thirds of the second blade broke off.
The youth gently set the broken section on the workbench, returned the tongs, and turned to leave, still talking to the rest of the sword.
, don you feel better now, Souba?
The armorer glanced at the snapped-off blade. Shame to let it go to waste; nothing wrong with the steel itself
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! Kadaj voice, determined and unfaltering.
The sound of metal impacting on metal.
Then there was another more high pitched metal on metal sound.
!
The sound of something firm yet blunt contacting flesh.
A grunt of pain.
. Kadaj admitted awkwardly.
okay just need a moment to catch my breath... Wheezed the rebel who had been simply watching the sparring match one moment, and then when Kadaj had disarmed his opponent a bit too energetically had been knocked off his feet by a flying sword to the chest.
, that enough training against unenhanced opponents for one day. Sephiroth called down before he went back to reviewing the state of Junon defenses.
Though for some reason he couldn quite put his finger on, Sephiroth felt his lips twitch in an upwards direction...
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So, here Aerith was again.
Well maybe not, again again, but since she always considered her gardens in the Sector Five church a home away from home,but the scent of growing things among stone and steel gave even this new place a familiar feel.
There were differences, of course; the rebels had decided to set up their garden outside, giving them access to natural sunlight. That meant that half of Aerith work was pretty much already done for her when she arrived. Compared to the enervated soil and artificial light she was used to working with, this place was practically the Promised Land itself.
Not that she was complaining - if she was only going to have a day or two to work, it was nice not to have to start from scratch.
As she walked a careful circuit around the section of the fort designated to serve as a garden, Aerith drew in a deep breath and carefully, consciously emptied her mind. Take this moment just to feel . Her powers weren so trite as to work through her talking to the plants and either commanding or encouraging them to grow. No, it was more like the plants would follow her example given half a chance. She was here to be a silent friend, not a leader barking orders.
In short, things would probably go better if she was able to find something other than the process of cultivation to occupy her mind.
That would have been easier if everywhere she looked her mind didn keep seeing reasons to remind her of why she was doing this in the first place. A part of her she wasn especially fond of couldn help but point out that each and every single person she saw was another stomach that needed to be kept fed. It didn take her long at all to reach the disheartening conclusion that there was no way this garden could possibly provide enough food for all of them even if she made a full-time career of tending it.
When faced with an impossible task, Aerith once again strove to twist such depressing thoughts inside out. She hadn been able to feed everyone in Sector Five, let alone everyone in Lower Midgar from her church, either but that knowledge hadn stopped her from trying. Elmyra had once told her the world is too big to change, make the difference you can make, that life was made up of small steps and half-measures - and that actions too small to touch the world could still mean the world to the people they touched..
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Sephiroth had quite clearly told Kadaj that he needed to stop training with unenhanced opponents. Luckily, unenhanced opponents weren the only people who Kadaj wanted to learn things from at Fort Condor.
is it important I take my boots off though? If the point of training is to prepare you for a fight, I probably going to be wearing them if I get into a fight... He couldn help but ponder as he glanced back at his discarded footwear.
were kind enough to lend us their training mat; least we can do is avoid getting it dirty. Tifa answered. "Besides, nothing I'm teaching you today works differently with boots than without. .
Like Kadaj, she forsaken her footwear before stepping out onto the dojo mat.
start things out, I going to throw you. Is that okay? she asked, almost gently.
!
- don let me. The next thing Kadaj knew everything got very for a few moments, then there was a and the world stopped rotating but it had decided to stop while still upside down.
.
, let unpack what happened there.
you threw me.
Tifa lip twitched, but she didn crack. , but why was I able to throw you? You bigger than me, stronger than me - what did I do to make it work?
This sounded important. Kadaj scowled in concentration, forced his mind to stop racing and focus on each moment. You got close, you grabbed my arm, and turned and you forced my foot up off the ground?
Now Tifa smiled. ! No matter how strong you are, how fast you are - if you can brace, push off, pivot - you can use it. To throw, break their footing. To not be thrown, keep your footing. That what we going to focus on first, alright?
Kadaj nodded keenly, curled his back, and vaulted the ceiling back into the floor.
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The training session actually went quite well in Tifa opinion. Kadaj might have a bad habit of adding unrequested flourishes to the techniques she was trying to teach him, but he was determined to learn, seemingly inexhaustible, and the thought, or even the act of picking up a few bruises along the way didn deter him in the slightest.
, do you think that I be able to beat Reno in a one on one fight next time we meet?
It was a shame that he had trouble seeing the bigger picture.
I wouldn go throwing down your sword and challenging him to gentlemanly fisticuffs, if that what you asking. For one, he doesn know the meaning of the word, and for another he been fighting dirty a lot longer than you been fighting at all; one day of intense training isn going to make you a match for someone who has spent years doing this.
Kadaj eyes drifted down towards the mat in regret but Tifa gave him a quick reassuring slap to the shoulder.
doesn mean I wasn able to see some noticeable improvement. Besides, remember what we heard Tseng say? First of all the Turks are probably going to be too busy hunting down Cloud to pick fights with us any time soon and secondly right now Reno is on medical leave. The way things are going, if he a few more fights against you then he probably wind up in a wheelchair. Tifa noted with a wry smirk.
Kadaj eyes flickered upward and slowly a satisfied smile started to spread across his face.
like you said, part of every good fighting style is knowing how to play to your strengths well my strength is that heroes don give up. Kadaj insisted as he tried to brush the various impact creases left by their training session out of his outfit.
two are so awesome! Another voice cut off Tifa reply.
Tifa and Kadaj both turned in its direction, they both been so caught up in the training session that neither of them had noticed they gained an audience.
He looks a few years older than Tifa, dressed in the gray combat fatigues and white bandana that seemed to pass for a uniform in Fort Condor.
, my name is Arvel. Didn mean to startle you, but I didn want to interrupt. Watching two SOLDIERs fight pretty sure I never gonna get a chance to see something like that again. Heh, not safely, anyway.
Her veins still buzzing with adrenaline, Tifa took a few deep breaths and worked to remind herself that Fort Condor was full of people who pledged their lives to oppose Shinra; clearly she spent too long living in Midgar, it made her jumpy.
do you think that you could teach me some of that? Arvel asked.
"Sure, Tifa's a great teacher!" Kadaj volunteered, vacating the mat to make room for Tifa's new 'pupil.'
Tifa shrugged, using the motion to mask a final deep, steadying breath. This place was safe, for now - and this was a chance to help keep it that way.
, we all gotta start somewhere. I think I can at least teach you a few quick moves. Just keep your expectations realistic: these techniques will give you an edge in close quarters with line troops, but there nothing I can teach you in an afternoon that let a normal human take on a SOLDIER unarmed. Your best bet, if you forced into melee, is to get them off their feet long enough to get some distance - or better yet, some backup. Tifa advised.
Barret had once given a similar speech to Biggs, Jessie and Wedge, about how if they ran into SOLDIERs, they should try to disengage or lead them back to Tifa.
sure when you started watching; let start the same way Kadaj and I did. You good with me throwing you?
Arvel nodded eagerly as he began to remove his boots and joined Tifa on the mat.
time we do this I gonna go extra slow so that you can pay attention to everything that I doing. She warned him after taking up a position directly in front of her new student.
starts with a forward to close the gap. She moved so that her feet were positioned so that a single horizontal line could pass through hers and Arvel at the same time.
your opponent arm, and start to pull it upwards, you probably won be able to see it, but if you doing it right the leg opposite the arm you grabbed will start to be lifted off the floor. Then, to help them along you hook your leg around their closer one and break its connection with the floor. Just make sure to unhook your leg afterwards so you don wind up losing your own footing as you finish the throw. She warned him.
No sooner had she finished her demonstration routine than Arvel shot her another wide smile.
think I got it, now can you show me how it actually supposed to work? He asked even while flat on his back.
So Tifa decided to give him a less restrained demonstration.
It was only after she just finished sweeping his leg and started sending him careening towards the mat that she suddenly remembered something that had slipped her mind after nearly an hour of training with Kadaj: normal human beings don naturally bounce .
/Oh shit!\
Arvel was headed towards the ground at a dangerous angle, and way too fast; at this point she had only bad options left and fractions of a section to choose and execute one.
She tightened her grip and pulled upward on the captive arm, trying to tune out the dull pop as the rest of Arvel kept falling - only for a moment, but a moment too long.
!
She released the limp arm as Arvel crumpled to the mat with a soft thump - not the splat-crack she feared, but she doubted he was feeling too grateful, at the moment.
Arvel was curled up on the mat, squinting against the pain and whispering obscenities. sorry, I- let get you to the infirmary. You have an infirmary, right?
! Cure! Kadaj had been quick to retrieve Souba from where he placed it alongside his boots and started using the materia Tifa had bought for him.
, no- his shoulder dislocated. Trying to heal it will just make it worse until it been set. Just Just get him to the infirmary. Tifa backed away.
She needed to get away. Anywhere but here, even if just for a few minutes. Long enough to get her heart and breathing under control. Kadaj could handle it from here.
could she feel so high on adrenaline and so bone weary at the same time?
End Chapter
AN: First let me apologize for how long this chapter took to get ready. All I can say is that hopefully the next one will go quicker.
Moving on, the exact purpose of Souba somewhat unorthodox design is most likely a result of someone going had one big blade, what if we give the new villain two small blades, as part of the same sword!
That said, the comments Kadaj makes about it being used to trap a foe own weapon and disarm them come from the Final Fantasy Fandom Wiki on the topic of what the weapon is good for . meanwhile Sephiroth response is mirror those of my editor who knows far more about swords than me. Thus we have Souba reforged into a new design that wasn created for the purpose of either looking impossibly cool or inflicting wounds that would be especially hard to heal