天の龍 ~ 「俺の運が変われると思う…」 (kiraya) wrote in drops_n_ripples, @ 2011-01-02 18:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | butterfly effect |
Butterfly Effect: Chapter 40
Authors: Bard Linn and Kiraya
Genre: General/Drama
Pairings: Zack x Sephiroth, assorted past pairings
Rating (Overall): PG-13
Summary: “Things eventually settled into a routine again, though Zack would hardly call it ‘going back to normal.’”
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all associated characters and symbols are the exclusive property of Square Enix and its associates. We’re just borrowing them for a while.
Chapter 40
Things eventually settled into a routine again, though Zack would hardly call it “going back to normal.” Cloud’s remembrance ceremony had helped them all recall the good times along with the bad and given them a chance to grieve. It still hurt not seeing him at the gym or hanging out in the office… but that was never going to change, and every day Zack got a little better at anticipating the lack of his best friend’s presence. They had divided up Cloud’s things according to his will, allowing maintenance to clean out his room. Joren would be getting a new partner once they had someone worth promoting to Second Class.
Zack sighed and filed away the latest pile of paperwork. He gave his desk the evil eye. It was getting close to the next set of SOLDIER entrance exams, the most dreaded time of the year for SOLDIER officers in Midgar — except, of course, that it came twice a year.
He grabbed the next stack off the desk — a rather thick pile held together with a rubber band — and yanked the tie off, skimming the first page. It was addressed to Sephiroth, but over half the stuff he ended up reading and responding to was, anyway. Including those thrice-damned party invitations; Seph would rather die than go to one. I don’t know why he still gets them. He slowed as he began to process what was on the page in front of him, then got up quickly and knocked on his superior’s door.
Sephiroth looked up at him in mild rebuke; ignoring this, Zack shoved the pile of papers into his hand. The General began skimming the first page, then flipped through the rest of report. “This is… very thorough.”
“Think you better call Tseng?”
“It has been a while since we compared results of our missions,” Sephiroth agreed. He reached for his PHS, eyes never leaving the report in front of him.
“Permission to search the grounds, sir?”
“Granted. Find him, Zack. And make it a priority.”
He nodded, quickly leaving the office. More than ever, he wished Cloud was around — he would’ve been able to find Valentine easier than anyone else. The SOLDIER did not, however, need his dead comrade’s input on exactly why Vincent would find it necessary to produce an inch-and-a-half thick report containing everything he knew about the Sephiroth Project. Dammit, Valentine. I better find you before you do anything stupid. Cloud’s going to have my head if I let you go and off yourself.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was too quiet.
Vincent shifted his position slightly on the Plate support, staring down at the slums below without really seeing them. Not the city — that was noisy as ever. No, it was quiet within his mind. Who knew his personal demons would go silent with Cloud’s death…?
He wondered in particular where Chaos was. It wasn’t like the creature to let him brood for hours without a great deal of aggravation.
Cloud had asked in his will for them all to stay strong and live well, but when it came to himself Vincent could hardly see any purpose in that. Hojo, damn him, was dead. Lucrecia was gone. Her son hardly needed him, and he had spent quite some time composing his final report. Sephiroth shouldn’t have any further questions, at least not any he could answer. He’d worked for days on that report, carefully analyzing everything he could remember, including not only his observations but hypotheses as well.
He allowed himself a tiny smirk at that. It would be quite a different report than what the General was used to, but it was standard operating procedure for senior Turks. As he had often reminded Cloud, they were required to think as much as act. The very fact they had to carefully ponder their actions was one of the things that made so few people suited for the job. Most would prefer the rank-and-file positions in the army — shoot, never ask questions.
Not that that aspect of the job never caused problems, but usually at that point they were given the coup de grace by one of their fellows. Vincent wondered how many Turks had ever reached his age — there could only be a few. Even most Turk leaders “retired” before they reached their sixties. The job was one for the young. No doubt why trainees have to get the immortality complex beaten out of them before the field, or they’re likely to never come back.
The problem was that Vincent was an odd man out, not truly part of the Turks, not completely divorced from them. It didn’t help that many of them considered him… well, not a god, but some sort of supernatural creature. He doubted any but Tseng would even consider how he might be killed, and the Turk Leader still thought the last Valentine could serve some use. Past my prime, no matter what my body thinks — more than past expiration date.
Shaking himself from his thoughts, Vincent gave up his brooding for a moment and clambered down the pillar, heading for the Miss Gainsborough’s house once he’d reached the ground, sticking to the shadows out of habit. He noted with relief that both the young woman and her mother were out as he approached Cloud’s grave, studying the metal plate. Valentine had heard of people visiting graves to find solace or to communicate with those who had passed on; personally, he felt more ridiculous than anything else. Not that that stopped him from coming…
Movement caught his eye and he realized with surprise that the Lockhart girl had returned. He faded into the shadows, watching as she settled into a light workout, and his eyebrows rose as he recognized some of the moves. It seemed his apprentice had taken on one of his own — though he supposed Tifa was certainly bright enough to do well with Cloud’s teaching.
As he continued to watch, he came to the conclusion that Cloud had most certainly not finished what he had begun. Tifa was good — better than good, actually — but there were still obvious flaws in her technique where some of things Cloud had taught her had not been completely assumed to the point of instinct rather than conscious thought. It was entirely possible she would be able to get to that level on her own, but it would take much longer without guidance.
Without thinking, he took a few steps forward, catching her arm. Lockhart whirled, her other hand coming up in a punch. He sidestepped and lashed out with his left, careful to mind the claws. Sparring was one thing, but he had no desire to blind the girl. Tifa twisted in mid-swing, managing to dodge the attack and use the momentum to bring her right leg up in a swift kick. Vincent blocked it, but felt the strength of the muscles behind it. “Enough.” He straightened. “You’re skilled.”
“You scared the crap out of me.”
“Your awareness of your surroundings needs work. When executing the Hidden Claw move, you need to bring your elbow in more.”
Tifa looked at him as if he had grown an extra head, and Vincent waited patiently. While they had met briefly in Nibelheim, they’d never been formally introduced and had never really spoken. He wasn’t even sure if Cloud had ever mentioned him during the interim years. “Are you… training me?”
“Rule number six: Never leave a job uncompleted,” Vincent stated.
“Huh?”
“Go back through your routine.” Vincent met Tifa’s stare calmly. She clearly wasn’t going to take his instruction as easily as his previous student had, but he had worked Cloud with for over a decade and a half.
Finally, Tifa looked away, beginning the routine again. Vincent stayed close, correcting with a touch here, a word or a suggestion there. By then end of the hour Tifa was sweating, and Vincent was feeling almost… content.
He left the Gainsboroughs’ yard to find Zack bearing down on him with all the determination of an enraged behemoth. “Valentine!” he shouted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Cloud wouldn’t want you throwing your life away, you— you— idiot! I know Hojo’s gone, but there have to be other things you want to do with your life!”
He allowed the SOLDIER his fuming. Sinclair clearly needed to get this off his chest; Vincent suspected he’d been tempted by similar thoughts himself. This was as much a rant at himself as it was the former Turk, though Sinclair probably didn’t realize that. Sephiroth and a stable position in life had made any such thoughts only ghosts in the young man’s mind, but it was good for him to confront them in some fashion. Seeing Sinclair finally pause for breath, Vincent murmured, “Perhaps.”
“‘Perhaps’ what?”
Vincent ignored him, heading back towards the upper part of the Plate.
“I hate it when you do that!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sephiroth entered his quarters, placed Masamune on the wall and settled down on the couch with an ungraceful, Zack-like thud. His friend was out for the night, having taken a group of Seconds outside of Midgar for evaluation. While Sephiroth had to admit he missed Zack’s presence, it was nice to have a night alone every once and a while — particularly when he wished simply to think. Zack was still running on autopilot, trying to get through each day one at a time; Sephiroth couldn’t deny that he had similar inclinations, but the very act of thinking had been drilled into him from such a young age that his mind rarely settled.
Especially when it had such unique material to ponder…
Valentine’s report had been very complete. If anything, it made him a bit more sympathetic towards Tseng; if he got reports like that on a regular basis he must put more hours in on the office than Sephiroth, who knew well the amount of work he was required to do was excessive. Still, while the report had answered many questions, it raised still more. What had his mother been like? Vincent had included descriptions and even a standard ShinRa photo ID among the appendices, but Sephiroth didn’t know her. What was more, he was curious about his other parent. He had assumed, as Hojo had been known to boast about how he had been “intimately involved in the creation of the greatest weapon ShinRa has ever known,” that the scientist had been his father. And yet…
There were hints buried in that thick report that Valentine had more than known his mother, that he had loved her. If that was the case… could his father be the mysterious man who had first trained Cloud in the martial arts? It made a fitting parallel.
There was another possibility as well. Dr. Gast had been involved in the project far longer than Sephiroth had realized. His own memories of the former head of ShinRa’s Science Department were fuzzy, but they certainly held more compassion than he’d been shown in a near lifetime under Hojo’s mercies.
The truth was he would probably never know. Even assuming he could get Valentine to agree to a paternity test, it was far too likely that they had both been too altered for an accurate reading to be possible. There was no point in questioning him about it. If Valentine had known for sure, he would have included the information in his report. Turks were not known for stepping around something because it was emotionally uncomfortable. If anyone had known for sure, it was probably Dr. Gast.
Sephiroth made a mental note to ask Dr. Matheson to look for any documents Dr. Gast might have hidden. The man had found more than one cache of old records when they had reoutfitted the lab levels. Dr. Gast had left under his own power; it was possible, though unlikely, that he had hidden some information in hopes someone, some successor to Hojo, would discover it someday.
He shook his head and rose, entering the kitchenette to start a pot of tea. Leaning against the wall, he caught sight of the box still on the counter. Three weeks back in Midgar and Sephiroth still hadn’t looked through Cloud’s bequests. Every time he had started when Zack was around…
But Zack wasn’t here now. He might as well get the books unpacked on his shelf. Once they were there, Zack would never know which were from Cloud and which he had bought himself. Sephiroth hefted the box with ease, carrying it to his bedroom. He thumbed through some of the volumes as he unpacked them. Cloud hadn’t had a large collection, but at least two were in Wutaian, which promised to be interesting. A few were something of a mystery — among them several thick journals, filled, as far as Sephiroth could tell, with complete gibberish. These he set aside as he emptied the box.
Once he had obtained his tea and settled back onto the bed, Sephiroth examined the journals, four in all. There was definitely some progression in the strange code. Some of the volumes were more readable than others, the most complex having only about a third of its pages filled. He picked up the least complicated volume and flipped to the beginning.
28 October 469
This is going to sound completely stupid, but here goes. My name is Cloud Strife. I’ve just made SOLDIER Third Class and I’m going to start my treatments in a few days. One of the possible side effects is memory loss, so I want to get through the important details down in case I should forget them. I was born in Nibelheim…
Sephiroth skimmed the rest of the entry, most of which was information readily available in Cloud’s file anyway. It was clear that Cloud had decided, as many new SOLDIERs did, to take a reasonable precaution against the partial long-term memory loss that occasionally came with SOLDIER treatments. Most created voice or text files, but Cloud had apparently decided to go the old-fashioned paper route — unusual, considering the high cost of paper, especially compared to the free data systems ShinRa provided. Then again, electronic formats are far more susceptible to remote access, malicious or otherwise. Anyone wanting to access these records would have had to know about them and been able to enter Cloud’s room.
Still, that didn’t seem to be adequate insurance, considering the secrets Cloud had known. Turning the page, Sephiroth noted that the writer had come to the same conclusion.
Much of what that is important to me — you — isn’t on these pages yet. The problem is a lot of it is secret. So I’m switching to a code. I’ve already given you the key. If you can’t figure it out, show it to our red-eyed friend. I’m sure he’ll be able to decipher it easily.
The next entry began the strange symbols and notations. Sephiroth nodded to himself. Valentine would undoubtedly be able to decode the symbols, and Cloud would regain whatever information he had lost.
It was quite clear that Cloud had not lost any memories during the procedures, however. There was no way that he had written all of this over a mere four days. It seemed far more likely that he had continued writing even after he had passed the point where memory problems could still be an issue.
Sephiroth stared at the books before him, feeling conflicted. On the one hand, these journals had been coded for a reason. He doubted that Cloud had ever intended for them to be read by another person. But Cloud was dead, and… well, that pretty much said it all, didn't it?
He flipped through the pages, staring at the odd code. He should probably show these to Zack and Valentine. The latter would be able to decode them… but Sephiroth didn’t want to give up the challenge. Zack, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t, and would just be frustrated by the entire exercise. I’ll take a try at them myself. When I’m done I’ll let Zack look at them. Cloud had left this part of his life to him, after all.
His mind made up, Sephiroth settled into a more comfortable position and set to work.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sometimes Tifa found herself utterly bemused by the direction her life had taken.
Only a little more than a year ago she had been in Nibelheim, feeling trapped in what she feared would be a dead-end life. Now she lived in Midgar, working part time as a bartender, part time as a Turk liaison. She had made leaps and bounds in her training — Zagan had complimented her the last time he had come to the city — not to mention made some wonderful close friends. Who would have thought that a backwater girl like her would have come so far?
The fact that Cloud’s eerie teacher had become her own had to take the cake in the weirdness competition, though.
Cloud had rarely mentioned his mentor. The few times he’d referred to him he’d more often than not simply called him “my teacher,” avoiding his name altogether. It had always seemed a bit odd to Tifa, but she’d lived in Midgar long enough by then to realize that some secrets were not to be mentioned out in the open, even secrets ShinRa already knew. Tifa only knew his first name, and he had never made any further attempt to formally introduce himself. And yet Tifa didn’t have a problem with that, despite the fact that such a thing would have been inexcusably rude in the well-mannered, orderly world she’d grown up in.
Yes, she’d come a long way from Nibelheim… but frankly, she could never imagine going back.
“Tifa…”
“Yeah?” She smiled up at Aeris from the book in her hands. The manuals Cloud had left proved to be fascinating, if a bit difficult for her to get through. She tried to get through about a half hour a day, but sometimes she had to read them a few times before she got the gist of what the book was trying to tell her. She wished she had someone to explain this to her in detail, but she was just going to have to make do. Cloud was gone, and clinging to his memory with grief would only stall his soul from moving on.
Aeris was frowning. “That man was here again, wasn’t he.”
“He was,” Tifa admitted. She had taken to spending at least some time at home recently. Aeris was with the MMG staff most of the day, and frankly they all adored her. She didn’t need Tifa’s service as a bodyguard anymore, with nearly forty people willing to jump between her and danger — the catlike creature who went simply by Red one of the first and foremost among them; “I made Cloud a promise,” he’d told Tifa. Left lacking in work there, she had been able to take on more hours at the bar, coming in earlier and staying later. “I think… maybe he feels obligated to work with me because of Cloud.”
Grief caused the other woman’s expressive face to crumple for a moment, and Tifa silently cursed herself. Aeris was clinging to her grief as if it was a favorite toy about to be passed to a younger sibling, one she didn’t want to admit she had to let go. At first, Tifa had been worried that Aeris really had loved Cloud and hadn’t realized the depth of her feelings until he’d died. As the days went by, however, she began to realize that it was more that Aeris seemed to consider herself in some way personally responsible for Cloud’s death, as if she should have somehow been able to stop it. Ridiculous, of course — Aeris couldn’t have stopped Cloud’s death any more than Tifa could have picked up ShinRa Tower and thrown it.
She’d tried to talk to her about it, but Aeris had always pushed her away. All she could do was hope that her friend found closure soon. It had been nearly two months — not to say that Tifa still didn’t miss him, but her grief was not nearly as consuming as Aeris’s was.
“There’s something… odd about him.”
“You can say that again,” Tifa agreed. “But he is a good teacher.”
Aeris gave her a look that seemed to look through her and weigh every part of her. Tifa fought the urge to shiver; the other woman didn’t get like this often, but when she did it was eerie. “Be careful. I get the feeling he could do a lot of damage to you if you aren’t.”
“I know he could,” Tifa replied. “He’s really strong and a lot more skilled than I am. Don’t worry, I’ll keep my guard up.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Zack stared at his desk.
He stared at the door.
He stared at his desk again. “Seph?”
“Yes, Zack?”
“Got any paperwork I can do for you in there?”
Amusement colored his superior’s reply. “Unfortunately, all of this requires my actual attention. I will, however, mark this day down on my calendar for posterity.”
“Very funny.” Zack slumped back in his chair. “Any luck on the search for Jenova?”
“Nothing so far. Until we find another of Hojo’s hidden labs, we aren’t likely to get any further. Alien lifeforms don’t leave credit trails.”
Before, Zack would have considered Sephiroth’s little joke a great success. Now… now he felt only a distant satisfaction at seeing his friend acting a bit more like a human being. Mostly he just felt numb.
He knew he was worrying the others. Paperwork was done in record time. He stayed up late sparring and doing monster runs. No one had threatened to send him in to medical — yet — but he could tell they were seriously considering it. It was just surprisingly hard to go through the day-to-day around here without Cloud. His friend had become so much a part of things that he was finding it hard to enjoy his life anymore — all of it had been part of Cloud’s, too.
It didn’t help that he didn’t have anything to take his anger out on. Hojo was dead; Seph had seen to that. And while Zack hardly wished the bastard was still alive, he would have liked something to take his anger out on.
He’d even take SOLDIER entrance exam paperwork — at least it’d be something to do. Unfortunately, though, they’d ended two weeks ago.
The truth was Zack felt like a chocobo running in circles. He wasn’t sure what his purpose was anymore. Sephiroth seemed to be functioning just fine these days, even with his constant aide being at less than his best. But Zack… He had simply been doing his job and enjoying life, hardly anything spectacularly driving, but now his life felt horribly incomplete.
Maybe I should take up a hobby or something. Zack snorted as the mental image of himself with a pair of knitting needles came to mind. That was one thing he wasn’t going to try.
Even Valentine seemed to have found himself a place from where he could move on. Since that time Zack had found him near Aeris’s house he’d been disappearing down below pretty frequently, and whenever Zack asked about what he’d been up to he got the same cryptic response: “completing an unfinished job.” Whatever that meant.
“Go for a walk, Zack.” He started in surprise at seeing Sephiroth by his desk — he hadn’t even noticed the man leaving his own. “Clear your head — you don’t need to be here anyway.” A small, wry smile crossed his face. “You’ve done enough paperwork in the last three days for the rest of the week. Go spar. Or substitute for a class. You need the physical activity.”
Zack had to admit that was true, but he was surprised Sephiroth had noticed. True, the man had excellent observation skills in the field, but the office was usually a bit different— well, no matter. He stood, shoving his chair back roughly. “Permission to be dismissed?”
“Granted. Make sure you’re back by 1530, though — we have a meeting with the executive board.”
“Be still, my beating heart.” Zack rolled his eyes. “See you then.” He grabbed his PHS and headed out the door, his spirits picking up as he was out of the office. At least he got to move.
“SOLDIER Sinclair!”
Zack’s head turned at the familiar voice. “Arthur, you know you don’t have to call me that.”
“Maybe not, but we’re in the middle of an upper-level hallway. Doesn’t hurt to be careful.” He jogged to Zack’s side. “I’ve been trying to catch you, but we keep missing each other.”
“What are you doing up here, anyway?” He wracked his brains, trying to remember if anyone on the floor had called for a specialist.
“Morgan’s working with her father on a few things, and I was designated errand boy. Not like I had anything else to do.” He shrugged. Specialists also tended to have light duties, and lighter physical training regimens, Zack remembered. That was part of the reason their numbers were small, particularly during peacetime, and many took on two positions in the company to supplement their incomes. “Actually, I wanted to ask you a favor. You heard that Morgan and I are getting married, right?”
“Cloud had told me,” Zack admitted.
“I asked Cloud to be my witness.” Arthur paused. “Since he… can’t, I thought I’d ask you to take his place.”
“Me?” Zack’s eyes widened in surprise. “Arthur, I’m honored, but surely you’d rather have someone else…”
“Cloud was my first friend in Midgar.” The specialist struggled with his words. “It’s thanks to him I have this place at all. I’ve made other friends, but there was always something different about him.”
“Yeah,” Zack agreed, his throat tightening. “Cloud was pretty special.”
“And I can’t think of anyone who’d do a better job representing him than you,” Arthur concluded firmly. “You’re both our friends, and you knew him better than anyone. Besides, you’ll keep the speech short.”
Zack had to laugh at that. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll drag it out to get back at you. Me, writing speeches!”
“You’ll do fine. Rehearsal’s in a month!”
“Rehearsal?!”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Aeris dug into the soil almost savagely. Tifa’s knowing, worried look back at the house had put her on edge.
It wasn’t that she was mourning Cloud needlessly. It wasn’t because she felt if she had been there she would have been able to stop it. She knew, quite well, that Cloud’s combat abilities surpassed hers by leaps and bounds. She couldn’t imagine how much more powerful Zack and Sephiroth were.
It was doubt in herself that caused her such sorrow.
Always before she had been able to contact the spirits of the deceased who had been familiar to her. She never touched them for long, but with her mother’s gift she could at least say goodbye. The fact she hadn’t known, hadn’t felt Cloud’s death weighed heavily on Aeris’s shoulders. Not being able to say goodbye… She felt as if she’d been struck blind, deaf, and dumb. It worried her — had she lost her abilities? Had using her powers so much to help plants grow in Midgar made her weak? She didn’t often speak with the Voices anymore, often coming home too tired to do much more than eat and go to sleep. She hadn’t felt the need to seek their guidance until Cloud had died; she had felt confident in her choices, but… Why hadn’t she heard? Did they disapprove of her attempts to help Midgar and thus ShinRa?
“Aeris?”
She blinked back tears. “I’m here, Reeve.” She looked up, surprised to see him wearing a pair of casual pants and a shirt that, spotted with dirt and grease stains, had clearly seen better days. She wondered if this was what he wore when working on his mechanical gadgets. “I’d thought you might want to take a break for lunch. It’s nearly one.”
“I guess.” She rose, stretching her legs, feeling them tingle from lack of blood. Clearly she had been in that position too long. “What did you have in mind?”
“I picked up some sandwiches from a deli not far from my place. I’m sure they’re nothing compared to the picnic lunches you’ve made before, but I’m really not much of a cook, so you’re better off with bought food.” Reeve offered her a smile, clearly trying to cheer her up.
Aeris forced one in return. “Somehow I doubt you could mess up sandwiches that much.” She followed him to a bench set among some of the thicker bushes… and unaccountably felt tears well up in her eyes again, her throat tightening. “You know,” she managed, “Cloud gave me the seeds for these. Not all of them, I mean, but the first ones I ever planted.” She gestured at the bushes.
“You really miss him, don’t you?” Reeve put down the bag he had been carrying, but made no move to open it.
“It just doesn’t seem real,” Aeris whispered. “Even after this long… it hasn’t sunk in that he won’t ever be coming back.” She was so tempted to just tell him everything, but even after all this time her mother’s warning to tell no one stayed her tongue.
“Sometimes it doesn’t, not for a while. It takes longer for some.” Reeve looked serious, and she bit back a sob. “Aeris… there’s nothing wrong with needing time.”
“I— I know.” She dropped her head into her hands, blinking back tears.
Reeve put his arm around her shoulders. “Just let it out, Aeris — it’s okay.” She fought a sob for another moment, then began to cry in earnest, feeling Reeve shift to hold her as she shook. “It’s all right.” He gently rocked her until her tears started to ebb, and finally said softly, “Come on, let’s get you home — I think you need to take the rest of the day off.”
“Yeah,” Aeris agreed, drying her tears. Her head hurt, her eyes were sore… and yet she somehow felt lighter. Cloud was gone, and she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye, but… that was… well, still not okay, but… not something to spend forever moping about. He wouldn’t blame her; she shouldn’t blame herself. All she could do was hope this one time had been a fluke.