Tseng XXIII: Strawman
After he left Tuesti's office, Tseng had to stop and take a deep breath by one of the large windows on the front side of the 39th floor. The Head of Urban Development had been given a list of demands and possible concessions by the president and had been instructed not only to make peace with Wutai, but also to get them to agree to as many of the demands, while making as few concessions, as possible.
Tseng knew Tuesti as a strait-laced, sincere, hard worker, who put everything into his job. He was able to handle tasks of impressive complexity, which made him the best possible choice to lead the urban development department, which, despite being severely underfunded, somehow managed to bring a little bit of order into the perpetual construction site that was Midgar. The only section of his department that the president paid any attention to, was the Reactor Engineering and Maintenance Division, because the mako reactors were what granted the megacity its high standard of living, and the Shinra Electric Power Company most of its income.
As with the other directors, the Turks were continually tasked with gathering incriminating evidence on Tuesti. Based on what had been found (or not found), Tseng had a fairly good grasp on Tuesti's character and activities. The worst thing that they found on him was that immediately after he was first appointed, he undertook profound cost optimization of the Reactor Engineering and Maintenance Division. Despite the decreased cost, he continued to request the same amount of funds for reactor maintenance and diverted the funds toward secret construction projects in the slums. Veld had tasked Tseng himself to verify the nature and extent of these construction projects, and they were convinced that Tuesti did not use the funds to sponsor anti-Shinra activities (or at least not knowingly), and did not use them for his personal benefit. Veld had made the call to just observe for the time being, just as he had done with Rufus Shinra's activities, but Reeve Tuesti's activities were not nearly as threatening to the integrity of the company, and so his secret had remained under lock and key for the four years he had been in this position.
Despite his personal admiration for the Head of Urban Development's commitment to improve the lives of the people living in the slums, on a ration level Tseng was convinced that he was fighting a losing battle, both in the construction of Midgar, and in trying to raise the living standards under the plate. And despite his remarkably high intelligence, he was stricken with unequalled optimism, while apparently completely oblivious to what was going on outside his department. From their earlier discussion, Tseng was under the impression that Tuesti sincerely believed not only that Wutai would agree to make peace with Shinra, but that they could also be convinced to have not one, but two mako reactors built on their fertile land, and purchase the energy from Shinra.
Unfortunately, upon deeper inquiry, Tseng had learned that he had no actual plan besides talking and bargaining. If Tseng was to make any prediction, he would guess that in the best case, they would simply waste their time going to Wutai, or, in the worst case, be captured and used as bargaining chips to force Shinra to make peace without giving in to any demands. Tuesti had advanced to the formal position of Head of Urban Development after having been the former head's assistant for several years, all the while doing the actual labor involved in city planning. But his hard-working, honest attitude would not help him succeed in this particular mission, and could possibly put them all at risk.
Tseng loved the view of the night city, but gazing down on it during the day after realizing that the one who had so dramatically altered the course of its development over the past couple of years was running to his doom with his eyes wide open was strangely unsettling. He turned away from the window with his mind firmly made up that he would try to bring the city planner back from Wutai alive it at all possible. But he would not compromise the success of the mission or the safety of the vice president for the sake of Tuesti's. Tseng had not mentioned Rufus Shinra's secret agenda to him, and as things stood, he was better kept out of it. He would be more valuable trying his very best the way he could.
Before he could call it a day, he needed to check up on Sephiroth and fill him in on the details he actually needed to know. As a SOLDIER, Sephiroth was hardly ever filled in on the highly classified details. He was always looking for more information than he was allowed to know, and it had become an increasingly difficult ordeal for Tseng over the years to hide things from the young man he cared so much about.
When Tseng got to Sephiroth's quarters, the SOLDIER did not answer the door. Finding it unlikely that Sephiroth had relapsed, Tseng assumed that he either was not in the mood for visitors or that he was out. A message sent through his phone went unanswered. He sent another message to Zack, inquiring if he had heard anything from Sephiroth, which Zack negated. Still, unless there was reason to assume that there was an emergency, he would not let himself into Sephiroth's apartment. The boundary crossing had been out of control during the past couple of days as they were trying to handle one unprecedented situation after another, and it was time to return to normal.
He would later learn through text that Sephiroth had been out to get some exercise in the combat simulator all afternoon to get himself back on track before the Wutai mission. Although Tseng did not expect that half a day's worth of training would be quite enough to get Sephiroth back into peak form after his extended break since Angeal's desertion, it was better than nothing and showed his good will and commitment to do whatever he could to do his part in making the mission succeed. Just that was more than enough in Tseng's opinion because even a Sephiroth who was not in peak shape would be good enough. He was enough in Tseng's eyes.
While he was still at sector 3, Tseng directed his steps toward a nearby department store. He had inquired about the vice president's reasoning to require a feather boa for the Wutai mission and had again learned something new about Rufus Shinra in the process. Upon hearing Tseng's simple and, in his own eyes, irrelevant, speculation about the master of ceremonies being homophobic, Rufus had immediately come up with a way to divert attention away from him being the final boss of the truce negotiations. The Wutaians would instead focus on Tuesti, if they were up to something.
Although Tseng did not agree with the way Rufus planned to achieve this, he would support him in this endeavor, because he was the boss, and he wanted him to succeed. But faced with a modest selection of feather boas at the department store, he was left with the difficult task to pick a color. White was the vice president's favorite color, closely followed by black, as Tseng had concluded from what the fashion-oriented man usually wore, which was quite monochromatic. But he wondered if white or black would suit the purpose of this undertaking.
Tseng could not even decide on what he wanted for himself and much less for someone as particular about fashion as Rufus Shinra. He decided that he should have discussed this prior to taking his leave and at this point, it had turned into an emergency. And so, for the very first time, he sent the captive a message over the phone: "What color do you want?" He kept it as short as possible in fear that if he enjoyed himself being in contact with Rufus too much, he would not be able to refrain from it in the future. The quick and professional response, "Blue", made Tseng smile weakly. Blue was the color of Rufus' eyes. Tseng could have known that would be a good color, but with him knowing nothing about fashion, that would have been as good a guess as any.