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2020-05-17
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2023-02-21
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27/?
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Chapter 27: Liederkreis

Notes:

Also known as a “Song Cycle,” the Liederkreis is a group of individual, complete songs, performed in a specific order to establish a relationship to some underlying, conceptual theme.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The road beyond Kalm was quiet, save for the rumble of distant thunder. From Sephiroth’s perspective, nothing of particular importance was happening.

It was strange, he reflected. For the first time in more cycles than he could easily count, he was consistently being slowed down to a mortal’s pace. At times he had plotted and manipulated, watching with a predator’s patience as his targets blundered slowly in the directions he’d wanted. But this was different. He couldn’t work towards a goal; his ability to even make plans was on hold until he had the information that he hoped Aerith would be able to deliver to him at the end of this journey. He was ... idle.

By all rights, he should be bored out of his skull.

Is that what I am feeling? he mused to himself. Boredom?

No ... he decided. He remembered boredom; the emotion it was most strongly associated with was frustration. During the days when he had been still nominally mortal, boredom had been like a slow torture, as he chafed from the desire to do something – anything.

That was ... less of an issue, now. If he was bored out of one skull, he could easily turn his focus on another, creating situations to interest him if he needed to.

However, right now ... he felt no desire to do so.

Curious, he thought. I am not used to having no motivation to exert my will.

Was this ennui? A sapping of that will until even the desire to act was gone?

No.

This was a far cry from the soul-leeching – I will not call it “despair.” That would be ridiculous – he had felt at the beginning of the cycle. There was a nothingness here, yes, but it lacked emptiness – that abhorrent void.

Pain would not be preferable to this nothingness, he realized with some surprise.

Aerith had her nose in one of the books she had brought with her, reading as she walked. He wondered if she was unaware of the approaching weather, or had just decided to absorb as much as she could before rain forced her to tuck it away.

Unexpectedly, he was put to mind of another moment, long ago. A strange association, for how different the circumstances were; a clear sunset, rather than a storm rolling into the dawn’s wake. Still, it had carried this same feeling.

Am I ... content?

His mind was busy. But the details that occupied it were small, lacking obvious importance.

He watched the way electrons bounced off of Aerith’s irises as her eyes tracked minutely across the page. He found it ... pleasing, in a way.

Whatever he was feeling, it wasn’t his appreciation of beauty. There was no logical reason why this small, aesthetic detail should qualify. There was nothing particularly significant about this Moment. Her eye-color was atypical, yes, but held no deeper Meaning. As for Method ... there, it fell shortest of all. It wasn’t even something she could control.

Dryly, he chided himself for his foolishness. It is utterly ridiculous to be spending so much time and attention on something entirely outside of one’s volition.

Her attire, now ... Once, he had asked if it was not far better to admire someone for what they did than what they wore. While he could appreciate someone like Scarlet identifying the game and playing it well, it did not change his opinion that it was a stupid game. However, Aerith had swiftly gone on to demonstrate how even clothing could be something one did, a statement that spoke as profoundly as any action – and a statement with Meaning. So, he analyzed what she had chosen for herself – since surely that held more significance than the simple color of one’s eyes.

Pink. A great deal of pink. Such an interesting choice ... Given her connection to the planet, he might have expected earth tones: browns or greens. Failing that, something which complemented her eye color.

Yet ... it was associated with femininity, to the point of symbolism. As were the skirts, he mused.

The skirts ... He had often heard women around him complain that skirts were awkward, limiting. However, he had seen Aerith run, fight, and climb with apparent ease. The skirts she favored, it seemed, were made with practicality in mind. He wondered why most others weren’t, or didn’t seem to be. Probably for the same reason many pants are not made to be able to run, fight, or climb ... Because the people who dictate fashion are stupid.

Nonetheless, it presented a question: many, he knew, when deciding between practical pants and practical skirts, would have gone with pants. Was there some quality to recommend one above the other? He filed the thought away.

One way or the other, it was another data point. As was the fact that, of all the ways she could have chosen for concealing Holy, she had decided on a large ribbon for her hair. Then there was all the apparent time and effort she had taken into styling that hair ... as well as the bangles she wore on her wrists.

None of these had a practical component. They said: I wish to be pretty. I wish to be feminine. I get to decide what those mean – and, if there’s any compromise with practicality, it doesn’t affect me enough to matter.

It was, in a way, an expression of strength.

He found himself growing more impressed, in spite of himself. Especially since it was clear that these were not in spite of practicality. Her boots were very practical. Solid, tall enough to protect the ankle from turning while running across uneven ground. Thick soles, to protect even from rusted metal and broken glass, with firm, gripping treads. He was aware that the boots almost appeared to clash with the rest of her attire. However, Aerith carried on cheerfully as she was. Her look, then, was not for the sake of anyone external. She wanted practical boots, so she had them. She wanted a feminine appearance, so she had one.

He could respect the will behind such choices.

A feminine appearance ... Ah, so that is what recommends skirts over pants.

Pink and skirts – the combination was so iconic, it was nearly cliche. Which suggests a deliberate statement of a different kind ... After all, the root word of ‘stereotypical’ was ‘typical’ ... or, to put it another way: normal. Ironically, few real women, in his experience, dressed in pink and skirts to this degree – yet she cheerfully carried on, as if subtextually stating, “I like being this way. I like wearing pink and dresses – and, yes, I also like being normal, too.”

‘Normal,’ but ... she hadn’t lost herself in the stereotype. Her own personality shone through: quick-witted, stubborn ... empathetic, yes – but far more blatant was her ability to seize control of a conversation through a mix of devious twists and bull-rushing through even obvious changes of subject until the moment to follow up was long past. She does not feel the need to twist who she is to fit an arbitrary standard; she simply evokes the stereotype and nothing more. That, in its own way, speaks to a very strong sense-of-self. His lip twitched ever so mildly. I can respect that.

His contemplation was interrupted by a groaning sigh. While Aerith and Nanaki had been content to keep to themselves in comfortable silence, Jessie had been going quietly insane. After a few false starts of attempting to engage the others in conversation, she had finally given up and started browsing on her phone. The sigh had been hers. “The battery drains so fast when we’re out in the middle of nowhere ...”

She glanced around, then put on a burst of speed so she could skip around beside Sephiroth. “Saaaay ... Could you charge this for me?”

He turned to stare down at her; she quailed slightly. “Are you asking if I can emit an electric current, direct it specifically at a small device instead of generally out into the air, while keeping it powerful enough to charge a battery, without being so intense as to make it explode?”

“Yes?”

“... I can.” He kept on walking.

“Oh, come on! I need it for keeping tabs on the people who are keeping tabs on us!”

Sephiroth paused. “Give me the phone,” he commanded, holding out his hand.

Jessie’s eyes lit up and she handed it to him.

Sephiroth promptly pocketed it and kept on walking.

“Hey!” Jessie objected, then threw up her hands. “Come on, people; I’m bored ... I know we’ve still got a long way to go, but do we have to spend the entire trip in silence?”

“Well,” Nanaki rumbled logically, “do you have something to talk about?”

“I’ve tried; you’re all being stoic introverts! I will literally talk about anything at this point; I’m freakin’ dying!”

Aerith glanced up from her book. “Sorry ...” she said apologetically. “My mind’s all on Cetra magic stuff at the moment; the sort of thing that would be of no interest to literally anyone else.”

“Are you kidding?” Jessie threw up her hands.“How could you possibly think this wouldn’t be interesting?”

“She has a point ...” Nanaki murmured, ears swiveling forward in interest.

“But ... it’s all things that don’t really apply to anyone else ...”

Jessie abandoned Sephiroth, bounded over to grasp Aerith by the shoulders, and held them – walking backwards as she did, so she could maintain the dramatic intensity of the gesture, while not stopping them on their journey. “Aerith. I will talk about dirt right now and be happy.”

Sephiroth caught a playfully wicked light blooming in Aerith’s eyes. “Oh, but dirt is so fascinating! And it affects so many people!”

“This is true,” Sephiroth felt obligated to agree, with a smirk of his own. “I have been continuing my Nitrogen analysis ...”

Jessie threw up her hands. “Okay, I know you’re just messing with me – but please talk about the cool magic powers! You have no idea how clueless I feel being the lone mundane human in this group!”

“Actually ...” Nanaki gave each of them a glance, frowning. “Come to think of it, none of us are ‘the same.’ Each of us does what we do through very different means.”

“See?” Jessie said, leaping on this data point. “It’ll be valuable for everyone! And, unlike soil composition – which you two clearly know about already,” she added with a meaningful glance at Aerith and Sephiroth, “it’s stuff that’s new to all of us! So, spill!”

Chuckling, Aerith glanced down at the book. “I kinda feel bad with all that lead-up, but there really isn’t that much to say. I was thinking about ways to expand my abilities and I wanted to check something. I figure, if I work with ... well, Cetra stuff more often, it might strengthen my connection with the planet. Since our entire goal is to get me to a point where I can talk to the planet, then widening the channel can only be for the best, right?”

Sephiroth was momentarily taken aback; he heard echoes of his own explanations in hers. I'd believed that she would keep her word ... but her taking my warnings to heart and devoting effort in pursuit of clarity is encouraging. Very encouraging ...

Jessie made an encouraging sound. “Soooo? How does reading factor into this? Is that book full of Cetra spells or something?”

“Yes.”

“No way!”

Aerith giggled. “Alright, I’m exaggerating a little. It’s an academic book focused on how Cetra did magic – or, rather, how historians think the Cetra did magic. The authors are still very human, so they’re missing a lot of context ... But!” She grinned. “This book has one thing that makes it better than all the rest. Pictures!” She turned the book around to show a photograph of a crumbling piece of paper covered in fading ink. “I’d never be able to get my hands on something like this, otherwise. Since I have more context, I’m able to get a fair amount out of the original texts.”

“Including literal spells?” Jessie shook her head. “I was honestly joking about that. I thought it was all just ... well, Materia stuff. Not as in they used Materia!” she corrected hastily. “But, like, Materia is Mako crystalizing around the memories of the most-used techniques, right?”

“Aaah ...” Aerith held up a finger with a smile. “Most used, yes. The sorts of things nearly everyone could do – just like how we’re all taught addition and subtraction in our regular schooling. But they did have more advanced techniques – and, since it wasn’t something everyone knew, the Cetra wrote them down.”

“So, how do these spells work?” asked Jessie, bouncing in place. “Do you, like, say some magic words, wave your hands, and – KABOOM! Could I do that? I mean, if I learned the correct ‘wave hands, speak words’ thingy ...”

Sephiroth could not stay quiet at this. “ ‘Spells’ is a misnomer. It suggests gestures and words cause the phenomenon; even with materia use, the physical components of casting have more to do with one’s training and background than with the desired effect. Truth to tell, they can safely be dispensed with entirely.” Aside, of course, from being used to impart dramatic flair.

“Well, I do use gestures in my casting,” Aerith pointed out. “But it’s just like a ... You know how you sometimes use a silly phrase to help you remember something important – like ‘Roy G. Biv’ for remembering the order of colors in the rainbow? That! But with motion.”

“A kinetic mnemonic?” Sephiroth supplied.

“Mm-hm!” she chirped, eyes dancing. Her expression sobered as she glanced back at Jessie. “But this only helps me because I already have a power source: the same one my ancestors had. But ... well, just throwing open the flood-gates and going, ‘Power! Be power-y in this general direction!’ isn’t particularly useful most of the time! So the main thing I need is to figure out the – the correct way to shape that power to get the effect I want. The Cetra recorded the shapes ...” She glanced down at the book. “... and I can decode some of them.”

Sephiroth, his attention still focused on Aerith, noticed the brief flash of pain on her face, swiftly hidden. She deflected it almost at once by looking up at the other young woman and giving her a regretful smile. “But even if you could read it, you would still need a power source. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Jessie looked disappointed. “I guess that’s a fair point ... I wouldn’t even know how to begin manipulating a power source, even if I found one!”

Aerith looked thoughtful. “Actually ... Now I think on it, that’s probably the problem. It’s not the power source; it’s that you need to connect to it.” She shook her head and pressed her hands together in front of her lips. “Disconnect with the planet is ... well, the thing that separates humans from Cetra. We’re not even separate species –” she gestured down to herself with a slightly pained laugh “– I’m proof. But, connection is such a big part of who Cetra are ... no one ever wrote down how we do it.”

“You’ve just always been able to do it?”

“Erm ...” Aerith made a face, then held up a hand and waggled it. “Think more that I learned it the same way I learned how to reach out my arm. Clearly I did learn – I’ve seen babies; they don’t know how their limbs work. But I don’t remember learning it. These scraps of writing,” she tapped the book with one finger, “they’re like diagrams of martial arts forms – but if the first step is something like ‘reach out to grab someone,’ what sense does that make to a person who doesn’t know how to reach out their arm? Without that context ...” she smiled apologetically, “the ‘shapes’ just look like nonsense. Sorry.”

Jessie sighed. “It would have been cool to start developing powers of my own ... It’d make me feel like less of a load.”

“You’re not a load,” Aerith chided, nudging her.

“Or, rather,” Sephiroth added, “you are all ‘loads,’ compared to me.”

“Yet we still, each of us, possess something he lacks,” Aerith added, quick on the uptake. She smiled at him sweetly. “That’s how teams work. We support each other.”

“Hm.” Nanaki padded up beside Jessie. He turned his head upward to eye her with his one good eye. “I have gathered that stroking my fur is considered therapeutic for the person doing it, in addition to me. Would you like to give it a try?”

Jessie giggled slightly. “Aww, you just want a massage, don’t you?”

“... Yes,” he stated, deadpan.

“Well, I suppose I can’t argue with that.” She sunk her fingers into his ruff and began to comb the long, black fur.

“Hrrr ... I do have some more questions, if you don’t mind,” Nanaki said as Jessie proceeded to work out the morning tangles.

“Shoot,” said Aeirth.

“I’d rather bite,” he said dryly. “So. Anyone who wanted to make use of these ‘shapes’ would have to not just figure out a new power source, but figure out how to connect to it.”

“And bridge that connection into the wider world, yes … and maybe adjust the shape to account for the different source, come to think of it.”

“But, your power source ... the planet, the Goddess ... however you differentiate, if even you do ... She’s alive, isn’t She? Why do you need ‘shapes’ – why doesn’t simply opening the doors between Her and the World simply result in Her will being done?”

Aerith was silent for a few moments. “I’m ... putting this into words for the first time,” she cautioned. “The Goddess is the planet – and the planet is the Goddess. But ... there is a difference between them.” Her voice firmed, as if pieces of a puzzle were finally slotting into place. “Do you remember how you told me we associate speech with intelligence? The Goddess speaks. The Planet feels. The Planet is the living, breathing, force that surrounds us – and the Goddess is the mind that steers it. The Planet ... it has vast, vague desires – but, to achieve them, you need to take specific steps. The Goddess ...” She giggled. “Well, she probably could figure out the exact details for how to solve this specific situation, for this specific person, out of the entirety of all living and natural things on the planet, all of which She is trying to manage towards whatever long-term goals She’s aiming towards ... But that also seems like a dreadful lot of micro-management, you know?”

Sephiroth had an unusual moment of sympathy for the Goddess. “Indeed, I can vouch in favor of a vague push in the right direction; it costs less energy and is paradoxically more likely to achieve good results. I have some experience trying to walk pawns through a very specific set of steps; it’s often an exercise in frustration. Most of the time, it ends up being more useful to simply puppet bodies myself.”

“Awww, but you wouldn’t want to make everyone a puppet ...” Aerith flashed a sweet smile at him. “Who would there be to talk to? Haven’t you enjoyed our banter?”

He inclined his head, aware of his lips curling in response. “Entirely.”

Aerith tilted her head slightly at this acknowledgment. She didn’t seem surprised at it – which in turn seemed to prompt a moment of puzzlement. She swiftly hid what he guessed was a processing lag by turning back to Nanaki. “So, uh, yeah! You asked why I need to learn ‘shapes’ instead of just opening the flood gates and letting the Goddess do miracles through me. Well, She’s left me to figure stuff out on my own before ... maybe it’s because She’d rather just give people the drive to act and a consistent set of tools to plan around, then let them figure out the best way to use them to get the job done.”

“Like the details of a General’s orders are ultimately figured out by his NCOs.” Sephiorth said, nodding.

Aerith shrugged. “You would know better than I.”

“So, by your definition ... the one I ultimately wish to question is the Goddess?”

“I suppose so ... Assuming I’m figuring this right.”

“Are your ‘music cues’ giving you any indication you might be mistaken?”

“Not at present ... but this also isn’t a subject where there’s an easy ‘sting’ to give a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. All this tells me is that I’m not so off the mark that it’s likely to lead to disaster.”

“Noted.”

He studied her, turning thoughts over in his mind like a chef carefully roasting meat to be perfectly done on all sides. “Connection is such a big part of who Cetra are” ... “we” ...

She’d been indulging him with his style of play a lot today, using her chosen blade of words to parry him and wittily riposte on multiple occasions. I should ... give her something in kind.

“I remember that book ...” he offered. He found himself unusually uncomfortable; relating a parallel experience was an obvious and intuitive means of showing connection, but he’d suffered just enough inexplicable negative responses to doing so to make him uneasy of its reception. “I recall it being mostly frustrating, but containing a few useful gems. I agree that the authors don’t know what they’re talking about. The primary sources were ... at times useful, although I gave up on many of the techniques as opaque. Still, I – eventually – came to attribute my ultimate failures to my own ‘lack of context’ ... You have troubles as well?”

“... Yes.” Aerith grimaced.

“Ah. So we share troubles.”

This attempt did not have the result he intended. The pain was back, pinching at the corners of her eyes, even as she gave a laugh and shrugged her shoulders easily. “Maybe I lack context, too. I’m only half Cetra, after all.”

Sephiroth considered this. “Hm, perhaps ...” He stared thoughtfully into the sky. “... But I doubt it.”

 

Aerith stared at Sephiroth, her brow furrowing. He had caught her off guard by so casually agreeing to the possibility – He could have at least been polite enough to protest the idea, damn it. But then he had turned right around and dismissed the notion, as if it couldn’t really be seriously considered at all. Why? “... What do you mean?”

“Hm.” He seemed to ponder for a moment more. Then he shook his head. “I have, in other cycles, seen you accomplish incredibly powerful feats. That, alone, provides empirical evidence that your potential is, at the very least, undiminished. I ... suspect that there may be another factor at play.

“An analogy. You mentioned that which crystalized into Materia were things nearly everyone was taught; common knowledge, like addition and subtraction. Extend the metaphor further: it is like you are in a position of knowing calculus existed, but you have to try to figure it out from scratch, when you barely know basic math.

“So much has been ... lost. Books left unpreserved, to crumble into dust. Carvings scoured smooth by the sands of time. Mothers -” He met her eyes. “- killed before they could pass on what they knew. By now,” he gestured at the book, “all that’s left are a few scattered techniques – and almost none of the underlying theory. At this point ... it almost doesn’t matter how much potential you have.”

For a moment, his gaze turned distant, almost melancholy. “ ‘I stand on the shoulders of giants ... Except the giants are gone, their monuments crumbled. Until all that is left is the pedestal, inscribed with the words: Look upon my works and marvel! ... of which none now remain.’ ”

Aerith looked at him in surprise. Sephiroth shook his head, turning away with a self-mocking half-smile.

That’s right ... for a time, he thought he was Cetra, too. She wondered if the quote had been something he had stumbled across, or was actually his, thought in some cycle long passed, on a night spent in mourning for being heir to a legacy so forgotten, it could never be reclaimed.. He understands.

Last of the Cetra ... Such a lonely title. Aerith was a shadow of everything they had once been. Perhaps not because you are lesser ... but because one person, however great, cannot equal the works of an entire people. She studied Sephiroth. Have you realized that element, too? That we were never meant to work alone? We were meant to build on each other – and build and build ... until what we accomplished together was so much grander than the sum of anything we could figure out on our own.

Perhaps his sheer, inhuman capability had allowed him to assemble enough that he believed he didn’t need anyone else. Yet even he had fallen short in the end. What was more ... Aah, he needs to hear this ...

“Heh ...” She chuckled dryly, then caught his gaze when he glanced back at the unexpected sound. “I suppose the lesson we can learn from all of this is that doing things by yourself is just ... really inefficient. Things go so much faster when you don’t have to work through stuff that someone else might have figured out, you know?”

“Hmm ...” His eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the impression you are attempting to impart a life lesson?”

“Who, me?” Aerith smiled in cheerful innocence. “Is it working?”

“... Hmh.”

Smug as a cat who’d managed to trick – Well, another cat – Aerith gave him a second to stew by stowing the book back in her bag. “You know, I’m honestly surprised you were able to get anything out of Cetra techniques at all. Does it really transfer so easily?”

“Heh,” he chuckled, easily diverted by her offer of an excuse to – Word-dump on something he’s passionate about? Don’t let him catch you thinking about it in those ‘prosaic terms’ ...

“I would not call it ‘easy,’” he responded. “At the time, I was frustrated it did not expand my world with intuitive clarity, suddenly making everything make sense in the way the initial ‘revelation’ I was ‘Cetra’ had done for me. In retrospect, knowing what I know now, I can define the process as ‘easier than one might expect.’ ‘Power is power’ is ... too simplistic – the quirks of the source do matter, as you surmised – but it seems a number of the processes used to shape that power into usable effects can be adapted for other sources, once one realizes adaptation is necessary.”

“If you don’t mind me asking ...” Jessie said slowly. “What does let you do the things do? Like, you’ve explained Jenova ... but I’ve seen you do some pretty impossible stuff.”

Sephiroth smiled. He spread his arms, smirking as he turned his palms upward. “For the sake of brevity, you may call it ‘divinity.’”

Aerith threw up her hands. “It is not!”she exclaimed in exasperation. “Stuff like holding up the plate is just alien space-magic, writ large.”

“Yes, but – cutting a hole open in reality?” She pointed to Sephiroth, accidentally the sort of dramatic sweep that an actress might use to be seen from the back row. “I was there when he sliced open the air, creating a gateway to an alternate realm of existence – the home to a fundamental CONCEPT, which we then proceeded to fight.”

Sephiroth smiled blandly at Aerith, keeping his hands extended. “I can break the rules of this world. What else do you call that, but divinity?”

“Oh!” Aerith stamped her foot. “You are impossible.”

“Empirical evidence suggests merely ... highly unlikely.” Eyes glittering with amusement, he lowered his arms. “I would be interested to compare notes on which techniques you were able to glean from that book, versus the ones I was able to decode,” he added, changing the subject.

Was that a peace offering? She raised an eyebrow at him, aware he was likely doing the same thing to her that she had just done to him. After a moment, however, she accepted the diversion.

“Okay! Well ... I could show you!” She stowed the book back in her bag and flicked out her staff, slowing to a stop as she thought for a moment. Of course; the instant I’m put on the spot to demonstrate something I learned from the book, I immediately blank on how all magic works entirely – and also possibly my name. She knew there were several techniques she could choose from, but ended up going with the one she remembered first – one she’d been actively teaching herself to think of quickly.

She spun her staff in front of her, the rote movement sharpening the concept taking shape in her mind. As she thrust out her free hand, she spared a moment to savor the familiar warmth of power flowing through her, taking shape as a shield of rose and gold light. The image sharpened, overlapping layers of power coalescing in the petals of a radiant flower.

Jessie’s eyes went wide. “Oooo ...” she gasped in awed wonder.

Aerith smiled a bit self-consciously. It was one of her prettier abilities. “A shield is a pretty basic concept,” she explained. “I actually figured out how to do a pretty simple bubble-shield on my own. But the problem with bubbles is, you damage them too much ...” she pursed her lips, then made a sound like a soap-bubble popping. “This,” she gestured towards the lustrously glowing shield, “is a refinement. It has ablative protection; you damage one of those petals and the whole shield isn’t compromised because there are more growing behind it. You can keep adding petals to the back – well, basically until you start to get tired. The only downside to this all being, because it’s a more complex piece of magic, the shield isn’t omnidirectional any more. The same amount of power, but it’s focused into one point to make it stronger.”

“Hm ...” Sephiroth murmured. He seemed willing to temporarily put aside the desire to start the party walking again as he circled the construct, examining it from all sides. “Interesting; it seems to function primarily as static battlefield cover. I wonder if you could attach the anchor point to a limb and use it more like a traditional shield? Or, for two-handed weapon usage, anchor it to the shoulder to advance through incoming fire?”

“I ... don’t know. I’m pretty static myself, when I get my way.” She frowned thoughtfully at the shield. “Maintaining an anchor point on something that’s moving would be more complicated. I tend not to try it, because it gets tangled when I try to juggle it and other casting. But if I just drop it and forget about it, I can focus on the other casting with no problem. I suppose it would be different if you used a weapon and casting. Two separate, um ...” she was running out of words to describe it. “They’re different, so they wouldn’t get in each other’s way.” There; nailed it.

“Your turn!” she said brightly.

Sephiroth inclined his head in acknowledgment and lifted a hand. He paused, frowning slightly. “This one ... requires a subject for it to function. Would any of you like to volunteer?”

“No,” Nanaki said at once, at the same time Jessie said, “Ooo, me! Me!”

Sephiroth smiled and opened his hand towards a spot a few steps away. “You might want to stand ... here.”

Jessie obliged. As flickering violet lightbegan gathering around Sephiroth’s arm, she abruptly asked, “Hey ... this isn’t going to be dangerous, is it?”

“Only to your composure.” Before she could respond, the light coalesced into a sphere and shot across the intervening distance. Jessie was caught up with it and flew off her feet as gravity abruptly yanked her back towards the outcropping of rocks Sephiroth had positioned her in front of. The sphere connected with the solid surface and flattened into a set of glowing circles and runes. Glimmering, quasi-real chains clamped tight around Jessie’s wrists and ankles, locking her in place.

“Oh ...” she said in a small voice. “I see ...”

Aerith pointed towards the dully-glowing chains. “I want that spell!”

“Do you?” Sephiroth’s eyes glittered in amusement. “Also: it is not a spell; we discussed this.”

“It’s convenient shorthand, so: tough!” Now it was Aerith’s turn to step up to the spell so she could examine it in more detail. “Do you know how useful it would be to be able to restrain a foe without killing them?”

“Hey ...” said Jessie, “are you guys going to let me down?”

“Ironically, it has become somewhat redundant to me,” Sephiroth said, ignoring her. “I can accomplish the same effect with telekinetic power. This does have the advantage of being more efficient on living things ... but I have enough power that can simply overcome the resistance living things have to my abilities, should I choose to.”

“In other words, your desire for elegance clashes with your desire to be lazy.”

Streamlined, thank you. It has its own elegance.”

“Hey, you guys aren’t going to just leave me here, are you?” Jessie asked plaintively.

“Of course not,” Sephiroth told her. “You’re Aerith’s emotional-support human.”

Sephiroth ...” Aerith sighed in exasperation as she leaned in to study the circles more closely. “Hey! This kinda reminds me of one of my wards.”

That was another one she’d gotten from the book. She nearly smacked her head as she remembered it; it would have been a much better example than something she’d half figured out how to do on her own. Stepping back to give herself room, she twirled her staff before planting its butt in the earth. Out from her feet spun an arcane circle with glowing runes, expanding until it had formed a ring around her. Abruptly, the air within the circle felt richer.

“Mine’s made to aid people, though, not restrain them,” she explained.

“Fitting ...” Nanaki said, stepping carefully forward to sniff the new circle. “What does it do?” His nose passed inside the edge of the ring and he jerked back in surprise. “What is that?”

Aerith giggled. “You can think of it like an aether well. That’s not quite right, but it’ll probably conjure the closest image to what’s actually going on. It draws power up from the Planet for me and holds it in a concentrated spot; that way I don’t have to pull it all through myself. The end result is I can cast faster without burnout.”

“An external way-point to circumvent some of the throughput issue,” Sephiroth murmured, intrigued. “How much power can it draw?”

“There are built-in limiters to keep the caster from draining the land around them.”

“Ah.” He sounded disappointed. “It probably cannot handle power at a scale to be useful to me, then.” He still continued to study the circle with an academic interest. “Fascinating ... You reversed the runes from the book,” he said, pointing.

“What?” She tilted her head at him, confused. “No, the authors already did that.”

Sephiroth blinked slowly. “I’m sorry, what?

“Yeah! The picture’s upside-down; didn’t you notice?” Damn it, I just put the book away, she thought as she pulled it out again, flipping to a familiar page. “See?” she said, holding it up to show a photograph of a tablet covered in diagrams. “They assumed, since this end’s larger, it must go down – but look at the writing. It’s clearly the wrong orientation.” She reversed the book. “This is the correct way.”

Aerith would have thought she’d be afraid of Sephiroth’s fury, but this incensed rage building behind his eyes was just proving to be amusing. “Are you telling me I’ve been doing this upside down the whole time? Because some fool of a photographer botched his job and none of the supposed experts caught it?”

“How did you not know this?” A beat. “Wait, Sephiroth, did you figure out a Cetra technique without knowing how to read the language? HOW?”

“Even as a mortal, I could conservatively have been called a genius. For all their sins, those who shaped me considered my mental acuity as much a weapon as my physical strength; synthesizing a working practical from an incomplete theoretical was a well-practiced skill by the time I laid hands on that book.” Aerith caught an almost-imperceptible wince.

Yes, we both know how that skill ill-served you at least once.

She wished the thing he’d regret was the loss of human life, rather than having a mental breakdown with irreparable consequences over something which was wrong anyway. I mean, it’s a perfectly natural feeling too, but the former would mean viewing human life as a thing of value – which is a very nice trait to have!

Ugh, I can still work with this. The important thing is: no murder. The ‘why’ is ... well, quite honestly, less important than that!

And, you know what? We’ve been doing a pretty good job at that, all things considered! Her mind flashed to Hojo. Minimal murder! I hate to say that’s a good thing, but this is progress from the guy who literally wanted to end the world! Look at us: having a civil conversation, with no murder – except possibly by me, because oh my Goddess, Sephiroth; how did you even manage to adjkbhdb!

“So we looked at the same technique, but you started with it upside-down and we still, somehow, both got something – but completely different effects.” Aerith threw up her hands.

“Um ...” Jessie said hesitantly, from where she was still bound to the boulder. “I have what’s probably a stupid question.”

“There are no stupid questions,” Aerith told her.

“Only stupid people,” said Sepiroth, “like the ones who wrote this book.

“Sephiroth, no.

“Okay,” said Jessie, “I’m probably missing something, like ... REALLY obvious, but ... Both those techniques were circles. Why does reversing them result in different effects? Shouldn’t reversing a circle just ... rotate it?”

Both Aerith and Sephiroth paused.

“... An interesting question.” Sephiroth inclined his head. “Thank you, Jessie ...”

“Oh ...” Jessie said in a very small voice as the purr washed over her, in a tone that suggested she was suddenly very glad that she didn’t have to stand under her own power. Aerith caught a glitter in Sephiroth’s eyes that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing – confirmed a moment later when the circle faded and the spectral chains finally, “helpfully,” disappeared. Jessie was dumped in a heap with a startled, “Bwak!

Aerith put her fist to her face as she tried – and failed – to iron out a smile behind it. She did not quite manage to swallow her giggles. “Ahem. Hm! Yes. Ah. Very – hee! – good point. Ahem.” The giggles died away as she mulled over the issue.

“I do have some conjecture on the matter,” Sephiroth continued. “Which I will share while we walk. We’ve stood still for quite long enough. Walking and talking, I find acceptable, but we should at least be making some progress towards our goal.”

“Fair enough,” sighed Aerith, re-packing her book. Hopefully I won’t need to pull it out immediately again. “I guess Jessie was right and people found this all a lot more interesting than I thought.”

“Indeed,” said Sephiroth, “there is nothing going on in this world that I find more interesting at the moment.”

* * *

Rude was used to pretending to be furniture. That was one of the first things he had learned while on bodyguard duty: it was important to blend into the background, to be as overlooked as some piece of fancy upholstery designed to impress, until such time came that a person needed ... reminding of his presence.

Fortunately, it seemed like no one would be needing reminding today; Rufus seemed quite willing to dish out the entire daily supply of violence himself.

“You’re tellin’ me ...” Rufus positively snarled. “That in your haste t’ get us a weapon against Sephiroth, you managed t’ let Ifrit fall into the hands of Avalanche?”

The two targets of his rage almost seemed to squirm under his glower. Rude had found it very interesting how the two department heads had responded to the bad news. Heidegger had dispatched an underling to give Rufus the briefing, hiding from Rufus’ wrath – although he had covered himself with the claim that he was in the midst of trying to rapidly formulate a response. Scarlet, meanwhile, had been equally aware of the likelihood of Rufus’ wrath – and had come in person, so she could control the narrative.

This was becoming quite apparent as she raised one finely manicured fingernail. “Technically, Heidegger let Ifrit fall into the hands of Avalanche. It passed out of my responsibility the moment it left the research facility.” That nail made a sweeping motion to tap her chest, likely not accidentally drawing attention to both the magic Materia that had been cut into a gem shape to hang from her necklace – and her other significant assets that it nestled between. “I’m just here because this is a significant security breach and I felt we needed to coordinate.”

Rude had to crank down the instinct to give her a slow clap. He had always admired her ability to quickly turn and respond to new curve-balls. His wife had sometimes teased that there were likely other things he appreciated.

“She’s a viper who’ll turn just as quick to bite you as well,” he’d told her, before kissing her hand. “I prefer sweet.”

“A significant security breach it is.” Rufus directed his attention to the Public Security underling, standing to attention and sweating noticeably. “Do we know which Avalanche has the materia? Is it the group involved in the Reactor bombings, or the group running around in mil-spec gear? I assume it isn’t those bleeding hearts handing out flyers in the slums ...”

“Uh, no-sir. The single survivor was only able to give us so much, but his testimony and the weapon-scarring left behind at the scene of the attack suggest the group related to the reactor bombings.”

“Hrn ...” Rufus grit his teeth. “I thought they were going to fade into irrelevancy. And now they have a Summon Materia?”

“Um.” The trooper’s helmeted head twitched left and right slightly; Rude mentally filled in his eyes flitting back and forth in panic. “I’m just delivering the report, sir.”

“That’s Mister. President.

“Uh! Yes-sir, Mr. President, sir!”

“Oh, he’s cute,” Scarlet chuckled.

Rufus shot a glower that silenced her. “Not the time.” He sat back in his chair, his fingers beginning a slow, dangerous drum on one of its arms. “I want eyes on them yesterday.”

Rude, who had been suddenly distracted by the spree of chatter in his earpiece, drew attention to himself by unexpectedly coughing into his fist. “Pardon me, Mr. President. I may have something relevant ...”

* * *

Tseng leaned against the concrete of the alley where he had taken refuge from the noise of Wall Market, fighting between his strong desire to smoke and his need to speak into his phone. “Sector 6 sighting is not Sephiroth,” he told Reno on the other end. “Although if a man with silver hair and Mako-glow eyes isn’t related to him somehow, I’ll make you eat your tie.”

Shit, boss, I’d do that for free; I hate that tie.

“Is it clean from the last time you wore it?”

... Fuck!

“Send it to dry-cleaning later. I’m not actually done.”

Right ... How did the noobie do?

Tseng glanced up the alleyway where their new hire, Elena, was keeping watch. “Aggressive. Impressively physically strong, even unaugmented; she laid a guy out with one punch. She’s enthusiastic about toeing the Shinra line – a little too enthusiastic.”

Yeah. Our job isn’t one where you want a lot of illusions.”

“That ... and she almost got me killed.” She’d been ready to launch them into a fight with the entire house of thugs. She seemed to be entirely confident that the two Turks could wade through them all like trash, much to Tseng’s alarm. Even if they could, he’d warned her later, it was a gamble. They may have been significantly better trained, but there were a lot of guns in that establishment.

Worse, that silver-haired bastard set off all sorts of alarm bells in Tseng’s head.

Tseng was a killer – brutal, efficient, and always ready to strike.

Like recognized like.

They were mid way through their conversation before Tseng realized they were circling each other – literally, as well as with words. It was not like two predators facing off. Tseng had seen giant cats and wolves sizing each other for a fight. They tended to hold perfectly still, until some barely perceptible trigger caused them to explode into violence. The two men had been establishing a pattern of movement, using it to potentially mask the moment when one of them would go for a weapon. And if one of them just happened to stumble ...

That didn’t happen, thanks be to whatever divines took an interest.

He rubbed the top of his nose, right below the red spot on his forehead. He was a little afraid that it might have been one of the ones with a nasty sense of humor. This didn’t feel over to him, yet.

I don’t like this ... Mako-glow eyes meant ‘SOLDIER’ – or it should have. But Tseng had killed SOLDIER’s before. One thing about them was that they all shared a core of basic training, something Tseng could pick up on at an instinctual level. This man hadn’t moved right.

There was something else. Some small alarm, ringing in the back of his head, warning him to be ready for danger. It was the sort of instinct he’d learned to pay attention to, over the years, and was part of the reason he’d jumped in and made so much of an effort to keep Elena from starting something here. It was half way through the conversation with the silver-haired man when he’d realized what it was.

This room ... There was a blood-bath here. One that had been cleaned up ... but not to a Turk’s exacting standards.

“That wasn’t what I meant, though,” Tseng said out loud. “You know that Mr. Kyle we’ve been hearing about?”

The new Don who’s been running Corneo’s operation?

“It’s the same man.”

Fuck ...

“He apparently doesn’t like being called ‘Don,’ by the way.”

That had been an interesting revelation. He had thrown it out there as a lure, testing the waters. They still didn’t know what had happened to Corneo. The last they had heard, business was continuing as usual – the Don had even hosted another of his infamous ‘auditions.’ Then, very abruptly, he had seemed to vanish off the face of the Planet.

He hadn’t expected the depth of hatred in Mr. Kyle’s reaction to the title. It had thrown all Tseng’s half-formed speculations into a tumble.

The simplest answer was that Corneo was still around – and ‘Don’ was reserved for him and him alone. But that didn’t explain the vitriol he had heard.

His instincts told him there was something more going on here. But what?

What’s a guy who looks that much like Sephiroth doing creating an empire for himself in the slums?

His phrasing chilled Tseng’s bone marrow. That was what he seemed to be doing. He not only possessed the entire network of Corneo’s old enforcers, he was slowly collecting to himself hordes of scared, desperate refugees from Sector 7, who were elated by his offers of salvation.

Even worse: he knew too much. Way too much.

“I asked him about his looks ... He said we should ask Shinra, if we were so curious.”

Shit. Really?

“Well, what he actually said involved calling us ‘Shinra dogs’ and telling me to ask the ‘corporate masters holding our leash.’”

Damn ... He really doesn’t like us, does he? Does he know about Sector 7?”

Tseng didn’t answer.

Boss?” Reno’s voice held growing alarm. “Does he know?

“Corneo should never have learned about the operation at all,” Tseng snarled. “For something so potentially damaging to Shinra’s public image, info-sec is shot to hell!”

Fuck, does that mean he DOES?

“I don’t know. I have no idea how many people Corneo told. He wasn’t supposed to tell any – but do you trust his discretion?”

Why the hell was he on the need-to-know list; couldn’t we just pay him to find the man we wanted and not ask questions?

“Ask the former President.” Tseng barely managed to keep a growl out of his voice. “He thought that this ‘show of good faith’ by letting Corneo get his assets out of the sector in advance of Platefall would ‘strengthen ties.’”

Oh-ho; I know those words. That’s code for ‘soon we’ll own his ass,’ right?

“Exactly. In addition to all his other grand plans, our former President had ideas to seize control of illegitimate trade completely – so no matter whether something came into the city legally or illegally, Shinra would get a cut. Corneo couldn’t try to blackmail us, because we could easily point out his own culpability.”

‘Besides,’ Tseng could hear the President’s voice in his head, ‘Who are people more willing to believe? Us, the upstanding citizens who provide them with the luxury they all enjoy? Or some two-bit criminal who mistakes his odiousness for charm?’ “Corneo was going to become to the criminal elements what the Mayor is to the Midgar government – tongs for Shinra to use to manipulate things the way they see fit. When we moved to the new site, bringing Corneo with us would allow Shinra to establish things from the ground up as they meant to go on.”

Rakshasas take them both. The demons would find Corneo a filling meal, Tseng thought darkly. As for President Shinra ...

He’s consumed so many lives, he might as well have been a rakshasa himself.

The idle thought shook him. Stop that, he told himself. You don’t believe any of that.

But what does it say that you took orders from a man, when you could think that about him?

Get a hold of yourself.

Tseng pulled out a cigarette and seriously considered it.

So ... Where’s Corneo, then?” Reno was asking from the other end of the line. “He should be expanding right now; why’s he got this new guy doing it? Think he grew a conscience and scarpered?

“Corneo? No. He looked victims in the eyes and ignored their screams. Then went out and hosted another audition, all over again. Not for necessity, but to sate his own gluttonous appetites. A man like that wouldn’t care about killing abstract people whom he doesn’t have to see.”

Think the new guy killed him?

“No,” Tseng said before he could think. He frowned, trying to put a finger on why he had been so convinced. He was certain bloodshed had happened in that room ... But ...

The goons. There had been something wrong about their reactions.

“The men on duty were ... too cohesive. No worried looks, no glancing at their new boss – and then each other to covertly check whether their partners were going to report them for some perceived disloyalty. The majority seem united behind the new power structure in a way that wouldn’t have happened if Mr. Kyle had seized power by revolt and instituted a purge.”

The only reasonable answer he could think of was that Corneo had passed on power willingly to Mr. Kyle as his successor.

But WHY would a man like Corneo hand off power to anyone? Furthermore, this didn’t explain Mr. Kyle’s loathing towards the word ‘Don.’ In fact, if this chain of thinking were correct, he should have been grateful to Corneo for giving him everything.

Mr. Kyle despises Corneo more than I do ... and he’s wearing it openly, now. Why would Corneo leave someone like that in charge, if he had done so willingly? Even if these are feelings he’s had for some time and has been successfully hiding, why show them now, if there was any possibility of Corneo returning?

So the guy has the full backing of his organization, he’s winning even more support, he doesn’t like us, and we don’t have that same reverse-blackmail on him – I get that right? Since he didn’t ... do the thing.

“Eloquent as ever, Reno.” Tseng just barely managed to resist the call of the cigarette, twirling it between his fingers instead. “Corneo is an unforgivable loose end ... I don’t know what it means that he’s disappeared in what should have been his moment of triumph, but it isn’t good. Suffice it to say, if I ever see him again, I’ll put a bullet in his head myself. As for this new man, I’d do the same thing, just to be safe – if it weren’t for the possible connection to Sephiroth. As it stands, we have no idea of his capabilities – or what apocalypse we could call down upon ourselves by moving too rashly. Especially because we don’t know that he knows. It’s entirely possible he just hates us for personal reasons.”

That’s depressingly likely.”

“Less depressing than the alternative. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on the situation.”

We’re keeping our eye on a lot of situations, boss.

“I’m aware, Reno.”

Alright, alright! How’d you get out of there, anyway? Sounds like it got pretty tense.

“I pretended I was there to test the waters, since there had been a shake-up in the leadership; see if a lot of the old deals we had with Corneo still held good.”

You promise him anything?

“Mako-vapors for the drug dens, medicine that’s fallen off the back of trucks, surplus weaponry; the usual. Not to mention continuing to turn a blind eye to the steady stream of staff that show up for a night on the town – all while publically frowning at the idea, of course, to give it an air of the illicit. It’s the sort of thing Wall Market really wants; a thrill is good for business. Plus, feeling like you can’t turn to Public Security because you were in a place you weren’t supposed to be ... that only helps Wall Market’s other business ventures, doesn’t it? And if some employee gets rolled out of a few gil – well, it just makes the person work extra hard to try to make up for the money they lost.”

You’re scary sometimes, boss.

“Do you want to storm in at the head of a security division to clean up the place?”

Fuck no!

“That’s why. Sometimes, being scary and cruel saves lives.”

He thought back to Sector 7. Perilously close to Platefall. Aerith at the bar – and the girl.

It was always harder when he could see their eyes. The eyes were what turned someone from a figure into a person. So, he said what he had to in order to take the decision out of his hands. “Before you say another word, know that your options are limited.”

He knew Aerith wouldn’t be willing to leave a child alone, at risk. With one sentence, he’d been able to both accomplish his mission and save someone.

It was just one. But it was something. Something.

He took a deep breath. Transferring the cigarette to his lips, he pulled out his lighter and lit it. He held the phone away from his ear for a moment while he took a long, steadying pull. He realized, as he put the lighter away, that the hand was shaking.

He was off balance. His mind had been increasingly circling thoughts that he hadn’t focused on in years. First religion, now ...

This was starting to affect his ability to function. The smoking was a symptom; he’d seen agents go this way before. First they needed substances to calm their nerves, then they kept using them when their nerves started coming back again. It was why he was normally so careful not to smoke too frequently, too close together. The fact that he had felt the need to do so several times in the last few days ...

If he wasn’t careful, he’d find that circling was around a whirlpool, which would drag him to his destruction.

What you’re doing isn’t working. So: how do you get out of a whirlpool? You don’t fight the current; you ride with it until it can slingshot you out. You already have your question: ‘What do you believe?’ Stop avoiding it. Sit down with the texts when you get back; make time. If someone tries to give you trouble, tell them it’s research for the current situation. It might even be true.

Not exactly a thought to steady the nerves. Still, he could already feel himself growing calmer. Strange, that.

He returned to the phone.

“In the meantime,” he continued in a cooly professional voice, “we still have our primary mission. That potential sighting was already one of the more unlikely ones, given the difference in reported hair length. But with it eliminated, we’re running perilously low on leads to where Sephiroth is.

Oh! I’ve got that covered, boss; I already know where he is.

Tseng set his teeth. You let me go into the viper’s den – “You what?”

Yeah! He’s in Kalm, probably looking to travel away from Midgar.

“Reno. HOW do you know this?”

Well, you see, remember my theory about how Sephiroth is working with Avalanche?

“Reno ...”

Ut-ut-ut-ut! Well, remember how, when Avalanche broke out of Shinra HQ, we got into a car chase, and they somehow managed to escape, despite us blocking off all the exits that didn’t dead-end above an open stretch of outer wall? Well, one of our convoys was just attacked –

“WHAT?”

– and I drew a line between the outer wall where we lost sight of those guys and the site of the ambush. Turns out, extend the line a little bit, and you get to Kalm! So, I did a quick check of our possible Sephiroth sightings. Turns out! There’s one of them right there!

“I remember that one. We discounted it because of the reported beard and the glasses. The beard in particular was so extreme a change, we determined it was highly unlikely to be him.” A pause. “Son of a bitch.”

Bingo! And, speaking of, remember how some of those other Sephiroth sightings seemed to have Aerith with them?

“Reno. Are you calling Aerith a bitch?”

What? No! What’s wrong with you? No,” he continued as Tseng squeezed his eyes shut in exasperation, then took another deep drag on the cigarette. “Remember how several specimens went missing the night everyone and their mother decided to invade Shinra HQ and Hojo was stabbed? Good times ...

“I was stuck in an elevator, Reno.”

It was quiet, at least.

“There was a fire alarm!”

Well, quiet for me!

“You were getting crushed into a wall and then having a panic attack.”

Oh yeah ... I’d been trying to repress that.

“Your point, Reno.”

Right. Well, you know how one of Hojo’s lab rats was that cat-dog thing? Guess what, in ADDITION to a potential Aerith sighting, was spotted alongside the possible-Sephiroth in Kalm?

“You’re joking ...” Tseng breathed.

Flaming tail and all! It’s the only sighting so far where we’ve seen that!

“Any sign of the other specimens?” he asked quickly.

A pause. “Eh ... Not that I KNOW of. I am still working on my back, you know; that kinda limits my investigative options. And we still don’t know which ones Sephiroth took and which were the ones Hojo messed around with.

“Hm. It’s still a more solid lead than anything we’ve had so far.” By the divines, was Reno’s crazy theory right? “Get me a line to Rude; we need to inform President Rufus.” Another pause. “What was that about a convoy attack?”

* * *

Heidegger’s fist hit Reeve’s desk with enough force to make several pens bounce and a stack of papers lose its vertical status to slump into something more resembling a snowdrift. “Damn it, I need those helicopters back, now!”

Reeve tried to keep his cool. He folded his hands on top of the drift, trying to ignore the mess it was making of the space. “I’m sorry, but we still need them for evacuating refugees. We’re already starting to get building collapse on the plate; they weren’t meant to withstand structural forces canted 45 degrees to the side. There’s also still far too many people still left in the Slums. The plate’s going to buckle eventually and there’s nothing we can do about it; we can’t start disassembling it from either the top, bottom, or middle without collapsing the entire thing.”

“Rrrgh!” Heidegger slapped the desk hard as he pushed away, causing a few more things to fall over. “Hang the slums! This is a danger relating to our people!”

“And so is this!”

Reeve pushed himself to his feet, facing down the head of Public Security for the first time. The attack on the convoy had emboldened him. He was done with bowing quietly to whatever the other department heads wanted and angsting about it later. He could see the surprise on Heidegger’s face and felt a certain satisfaction.

He kept his voice low. “You were the one who wanted to go through with the plan to drop the plate, even when we learned it would be Sector 7 – the residential plate, populated by Shinra families. Perhaps part of the reason your people are performing so badly is because they’re distracted from worry about what’s going to happen to their loved ones!”

“Bah!” Heidegger covered his surprise by turning away from him and waving a dismissive hand. “If they’re too afraid to keep their minds on their jobs, maybe I should give them something to really be afraid about.”

Reeve battled down his disgust. “That’s always your answer, isn’t it? Direct force, bully your way into a solution. Well, I haven’t seen signs that it’s been working so well, lately.”

He could hear Cait Sith in his head, jumping up and down in enthusiasm and cheering him on. ‘Go, ye beautiful longshanks, go!’ Bolstered, he pressed on, “You had things your way – and now everything’s screwed to hell. What’s more, seems like the President thinks so as well. So now you’re in the doghouse and, until I hear from the President telling me otherwise, those helicopters stay.

There was a terrible stillness. Then:“Gya haa haa haa!”

Heidegger threw back his head with laughter, holding his belly as if he could barely contain the mirth from bursting out of him. “So this is what you look like when you’ve developed a spine ...”

The moment the laughter ceased, any sense of joviality went with it. Heidigger stepped around the desk, hands moving to clasp behind his back in a deliberate parade-rest, then leaned forward. In spite of himself, Reeve found himself leaning back. He was suddenly very aware of how large Heidegger was. Although the head of Public Security had let himself go to seed, beneath that fat was a layer of rippling muscle.

‘Naw just any muscle ...’ Cait Sith’s voice suddenly sounded a lot weaker, as if the situation were slowly dawning on the cat as well. ‘Best muscle money can buy ...’

Reeve received a flash of a highly secured file on the cybernetic implants of the Shinra Department Heads. He caught a glimpse of his own chip that allowed him to remotely direct his robots, Scarlet’s healing micro-materia, Palmer’s “gut-job” that enabled his unhealthy lifestyle ... and the bone-bracing and vat-grown synth-muscle that Heidegger had placed into himself.

He’s a bully; of course he’d look to enhancing himself in the most direct way possible.

... He could snap me in half!

Heidegger’s posture – with his hands clasped behind his back – was deliberate, Reeve realized. It said: “I’m not even implying that I’ll lay my hands on you ... So, try crying about how I threatened you.”

“Here’s what you never figured out, Reeve,” he said in an ominous, almost conversational tone, “and what the new President still has to learn ... The reason we’re having so much trouble now, is because we went half way – and stopped. You all are scrabbling around, shackled by sentimentality into trying to pick up the pieces of what was – after we already committed to the future. So you’re wasting resources on rebuilding, when what we need is for it all to burn.

Heidegger brought one hand around and closed his fist, fingers tightening until Reeve thought he could hear the bones creak. “Burn it all down, to salvage what we can from this dying city, and ride the outrage to new heights of glory! You want to coddle the displaced; I want to channel their rage into volunteering – signing up themselves, for the opportunity! – to become our soldiers to ‘strike back’ at Wutai ... We would devastate them; we could take everything we need to finish funding our new city. You want to rebuild when we should be expanding. But you’re still stuck in the present instead of looking ahead to the Promised Land.”

“This again.” Reeve’s shook his head. “We don’t even know where it is!”

“We know who can tell us!”

“Didn’t you hear the president; Sephiroth has forbidden us from bothering her!”

Heidegger’s hands slammed down on the table, making Reeve jump nearly out of his skin. “That’s why I need the damn helicopters! We need summons to take out Sephiroth! Ifrit would never have been lost, if I didn’t have to transport it by truck -”

So, Heidegger did call for Ifrit to fight Sephiroth.

Shit, I’m not supposed to know about any of this.

“Ifrit has been lost?”

“- We should be recalling Shiva from Junon!” Heidegger ranted onward, either not hearing or deliberately attempting to stampede past Reeve’s question. “We should be bringing up the Bahamuts! We should be gathering all of the summons we can get our hands on! But I can’t, because your shortsightedness is tying up the entirety of our working air force!”

“Well, I don’t agree,” Reeve said, still shaking, but holding his ground. “Take it up with the president – and see if your arguments work on him. Until then, the helicopters are mine – and there’s not a thing you can do about it. But please,” he managed to school his expression into what he hoped was a cold frown, “insult my intelligence some more. It’s definitely convincing me to work with you.”

Heidegger took a deep breath. Reeve watched with a terrified sort of fascination his rib-cage expand and expand. But what finally came out of Heidegger’s mouth was surprisingly calm.

“So. You want to play politics, eh?” Heidegger returned both hands to clasped behind his back and took a step away, inclining his head in cool acknowledgment. “Fine. You have control over the helicopters, I’ll give you that. But I have control over ground troops. I know about that pet township you’re setting up at the edge of Midgar for the refugees ... Go right ahead. But you can do so without my security forces.”

Reeve’s jaw fell open. “You can’t do that! The monsters – ! And the people – they’ll tear themselves apart – !”

“You’re right; I suppose I can grant you a few troopers ... Enough to man a recruiting station for when they want to get the hell out of there! Gya haa haa haa!

Heidegger was almost at the door when he turned back to a stunned Reeve. “You’re a kitten who thinks he has claws – but you’re playing in a game with lions. Stay in your lane, Reeve.”

The door swung closed; a moment later, Reeve threw himself back into his chair with a muttered “Fuck!” Resting his elbows on the mess of papers that now cluttered his desk, he dropped his head into his hands.

* * *

Barret was cheerfully – and loudly – singing to himself. Cloud supposed it was better than traveling in complete silence – barely.

‘Oh, come on ...’ Zack said internally. ‘It’s charming!’

Pass ...

‘You don’t have to try so hard to be cool, you know. It’s just the two of us in here.’

What? I’m not trying to be cool.

‘You are – and you’re trying too hard. Being cool doesn’t mean being all aloof and edgy ... Take me, for example; I love joking around! Don’t you think I was cool?’

I don’t even remember you.

‘Well, I think I was amazingly cool!’

You don’t even remember you!

‘Yeah, but I feel like I was cool!’

Wedge set down his bag with a sigh, flipping it open to search for the snacks he’d raided from the glove-compartment of the sacked Shinra truck. Cloud heard the crinkle of plastic wrappers and was about to tune out once more, when he saw Wedge abruptly frown and start digging deeper. He continued, actually pulling things out of the bag, starting to look panic-stricken. “No, no, no ...”

“What’s wrong?” Cloud demanded, argument with Zack forgotten.

“It’s the Ifrit Material! How can it be gone?

“What?” “What?” Barret and Tifa asked in unison.

“Hey you! Evildoers! Over here!”

Cloud spun at the voice, scanning the rocky landscape; the speaker was visible at once.

“AHAHAHAHA!”

She stood with legs spread, confidence radiating from every inch of her skinny teenage form, as she laughed like someone out of a movie, pointing at them with one hand, the Ifrit Materia clutched firmly in the other.

“What the hell?” Barret demanded.

“Who are you?” said Biggs.

The strange teenager, in her green sweater-vest and ill-fitting pants that looked like they had been her favorite before she’d had a growth spurt, grinned in triumph and put a hand to her chest. “That is exactly what I was hoping you’d ask!” she said, bowing with a flourish.

Cloud clutched his sword as he saw a shimmer take over the air about him. He knew what this was the instant he saw petals drifting through the air, even when there was no healthy tree for miles. Limit Break. All the other members of Avalanche glanced around as dramatic music filled the air. Cloud heard Cait Sith’s claws skitter across the dirt as he absolutely booked it for cover.

“And ... action!

The teenager threw something at her feet that exploded in smoke and then, an instant later, the entirety of Avalanche found themselves in the middle of a Wutaian Kabuki Theater.

“Some know me as a beguiling ninja!” Cloud saw someone in the all-black clothes of a stage-hand helpfully tossing what looked like an absolutely giant shuriken through the air for the teenager to catch with ease.

“Others as the world’s greatest Materia hunter!” she proclaimed, spinning around to lift her hands to the heavens. Several more black-shrouded stage-hands had lowered what looked like an array of prop Materia on thin, translucent strings. The teenager batted at them once, resulting in a chiming sound that seemed highly likely to be coming out of some invisible speaker, then she twirled again as more stage-hands rushed to effect a scene change.

“But! Who am I truly?”

Spotlights snapped onto her. An image of the moon was projected large onto the backdrop as cherry petals were tossed into the air.

“Well, excited onlookers, wonder no more!” More figures in black began to excitedly beat on a drum as what sounded like a live orchestra began to play. “Before you stands a rare bloom: the single white rose of Wutai ...” Special effects exploded in a glorious display of fireworks as she twirled, throwing her shuriken up into the air and catching it to strike the final, finishing pose. “The one and only YUFFIE!”

The Limit Break dissipated a moment later, leaving reality to reassert itself once more. The teenager was now standing in the middle of a cloud of smoke, coughing and waving her arms as she tried to waft it away.

Wedge was still clapping enthusiastically. He slowed as the others looked at him. “... What? I hear being a stage-hand is hard; that was a good performance.”

“They weren’t real, Wedge,” Biggs said in exasperation.

“Yeah, well ...” Wedge mumbled with a reddening face, scuffing his toe along the ground. “Good habit ...”

“Hey!” the teenager shouted between fits of coughing. “Don’t ... ignore me!”

“Why not?” Cloud asked point-blank. “You’re just some kid.”

“Hey! I just stole your Materia! Take me seriously, damn it!”

“No.”

Tifa sighed and put a hand to her forehead at the seemingly juvenile banter, which hurt Cloud a little. He wasn’t just doing it to ‘appear cool’ – or whatever it was Zack had said. It only made sense: Anyone who wasted a Limit Break on making a first impression was more driven by their emotions than tactical sense. Making her mad gave them an advantage.

She was just a kid, but he was keenly alert to the fact that she had managed to steal a large-sized Materia from out of Wedge’s pack – which she must have done while they were walking – with none of them being any the wiser. Plus, something about the sight of her was making Zack uneasy.

Do you recognize her?

‘Not with memories ... But, I just have this feeling ...’

“Look, we don’t got time for this!” Barret pointed at the teenager with his good hand. “That Materia you got is dangerous! It ain’t somethin’ to be played around with! Besides,” he added, unable to turn off the instinct of a parent, “stealin’ is wrong; didn’t your daddy teach you better?”

Leave my father out of this!

“Hey ...” said Tifa, putting up her palms placatingly as she tried to de-escalate the situation. “Can we just start with why you wanted to steal our Materia in the first place?”

I was tracking that Shinra convoy before you came along.” She put her thumb to her chest, radiating the extreme confidence of someone who was young, cocky, and had complete faith in their skills. “You took what it was my right to steal! So: I took it back!”

“How does any of that make sense?” Biggs demanded.

“Look,” said Tifa, trying one last time. “If you’re against Shinra and we’re against Shinra, maybe we have some goals in common.”

“Whatever,” the girl said, extremely peeved. “I don’t need to be condescended at by you; I beat you! Hyah!

Her hands flashed through a series of staccato gestures that left Cloud entirely confused. Did she actually think she was like a ninja in those dumb movies, able to just shout attack names plus make a few gestures and have something actually happen?

Then an eruption of rock exploded out of the ground in a line traveling away from her, sending Wedge flying and into Biggs and knocking them both down in a tangle of limbs.

For a split second, Cloud’s mind went blank. What?

The teenager took off, sprinting as fast as her gangly legs could carry her away across the wasteland.

“Damn it!” Barret said, instinctively swinging his gun around to take aim. Then he hesitated. His parental instincts were too strong; he couldn’t just shoot a kid! “Damn it!” He launched himself off after her at a charging run.

Tifa and Cloud quickly shot past the others. Cloud’s super-human physiology powered him well past all the normal humans, while Tifa’s own Limit Break was clearly starting to infuse her limbs, making her nearly weightless as powerful legs propelled her forward, pulling her out ahead of him.

“Oh come on!” The ninja, who they were rapidly gaining on, twisted half around as she ran, making another series of fast, precise hand gestures. A small tornado of wind tore away from her, forcing Tifa to leap to one side. This allowed Cloud to draw to the head of the pack.

“Got you.” His weapon was already instinctively in hand, but he too hesitated about using it. Yes, she had stolen from them and yes, she was currently attacking them ... but she was just a kid.

“Uh-oh.” Cloud saw her hands come up to begin another series of gestures. So, he caught her wrist with his free hand, stopping the motion dead in its tracks.

“Hey!” She cried in indignation. “You can’t do that!”

In the split second they were looking down at the kid, Zack’s mind lit up with the feeling of deja-vu. ‘Oh, hey! Watch out for the -’

Cloud’s world exploded in blinding white pain, emanating from the one place that even super-human toughness did not fully protect.

‘- punch ...’

“Ungh ...” Cloud acknowledged, his knees buckling.

Vision still struggling with the white haze of pain, he looked up to see the most glorious sight. Tifa was engaged in battle, trading kicks, blocks, and punches with her opponent at a speed only a master could pull off. Time seemed to slow for Cloud as he watched the way her body moved through the precisely controlled forms, maintaining graceful perfection even as she transitioned smoothly from one attack to the next to the next ... Goddess, she is so beautiful.

This ‘Yuffie’ was clearly a prodigy, with skill at martial arts entirely beyond what her years would suggest. But Tifa was a prodigy too – and had the advantage of several more years of experience, plus limb-length. Cloud didn’t quite catch what triggered the final reversal, but between one eye-blink and the next, Yuffie was airborne, being tossed over Tifa’s hip to come crashing to the ground.

“Ow! Bitch!”

Excuse me?” Tifa demanded, one knee planted on her chest. She blinked down at the struggling captive, still instinctively controlling one arm in a lock that could be turned into a joint break if she desired. But the words seemed to reawaken some realization of who precisely she was fighting. “Right,” she said sheepishly. “Guess I shouldn’t take pride in besting a literal child.”

“Stop calling me a child! I nearly messed you all up!”

“Skilled child,” Tifa allowed as Barret staggered up, planting his hand on his knee to catch his breath. “But you made some rookie mistakes – which is nothing to be ashamed of if you’re actually a rookie. Cloud? You okay?”

Cloud used the Buster Sword to lever himself up to stand with his feet wide apart. “Yup ...” he said in a strained voice, taking one bow-legged step before thinking better of it. He put his free hand on his thigh, exhaling in deep, hissing breaths. “... all good.”

Biggs and Wedge caught up a moment later. Taking one look at the stance every guy would recognize, they both winced in sympathy.

“We’ll be taking that,” Biggs said, walking over to scoop the Materia out of Yuffie’s flailing hand.

“Hey!”

“What does Wutai’s princess even want with Ifrit’s Materia anyway?” Wedge asked.

Biggs stopped in his tracks to stare at Wedge. Yuffie’s eyes went wide. “What, me? Wutai’s princess?” She made a dismissive noise. “Why would you even think that?”

“I mean ... ‘Single White Rose of Wutai’ ... the fact that Wutai’s royal family has exactly two members and one of them is named ‘Yuffie’ ...”

Biggs blinked at him. “How do you know that? I only know the names of our government because we fight them.”

Wedge sheepishly poked his index fingers together, becoming suddenly fascinated by his own hands. “I just think listening to the news is neat ...”

“Ah-HA!” Yuffie had taken advantage of the distraction to somehow pick-pocket the fire Materia that Tifa had on her. “OW, OW, OW!” she cried a moment later as Tifa warningly increased pressure on her joint-hold until Yuffie dropped the Materia once more.

“Why are you so eager to steal our Materia?” Tifa asked as Biggs scooped up the dropped bauble. “I know you’re skilled – but that doesn’t matter with Ifrit. Don’t you know he’s the kind of Summon who can eat you alive?”

Yuffie stopped struggling and glared up at them. “I need it!” She put her free hand proudly to her chest. “I am Yuffie Kisaragi, heir to Godo Kisaragi, and princess of the Wutaian people -”

“We know,” Cloud interrupted.

“I’m giving my dramatic speech! Stop interrupting me! “I am Yuffie Kisaragi, heir to Godo Kisaragi, and princess of the Wutaian people! Now that the Demon of Wutai has returned, it is my duty to see him defeated and the honor of my people restored!” Her fist clenched and, for a moment, the rehearsed quality of her words fell away. “If my father won’t act, then I’ll do it myself. I will defeat Sephiroth.”

“Wait,” Cloud said. “You’re going after Sephiroth too?”

“By the heavens, I just made a speech – wait, what do you mean, ‘too’? Are you ... chasing after him as well?”

“That’s right,” Barret proclaimed. Seemingly caught up in the theatrical spirt, he struck a dramatic pose. “We’re AVALANCHE! Like the smallest pebble can begin a rockslide that’ll sweep away all before it, so we too shall sweep away any who mean the Planet harm! And right now, that means Sephiroth.

That was clever, Cloud thought as he saw Yuffie’s eyes light up. People didn’t normally go through life acting like they were in a stage production – but, by doing so, Barret seemed to have played right into her good side.

“You’re Avalanche? Why didn’t you say so!” Beaming, Yuffie put a hand to her chest. “I was looking for you! We’re allies; my dad’s funding you!”

“Hold up, what?” Barret asked.

“We’re getting funding?” asked Wedge.

Yuffie gave him a look of consternation. “Uh, yeah ... Where do you think your cool gear comes from?”

“She means Main-Branch Avalanche,” Biggs said, before anyone else could say anything. His voice had taken on a tone of sudden realization. “I was wondering how they were suddenly getting their hands on mil-spec gear.”

“Now wait just a minute,” Barret demanded. “You’re saying that snake Heidegger’s accusations about Avalanche working with Wutai were real?” He sounded incensed by the idea.

“You do realize there are like three different branches of Avalanche right now, right?” Biggs asked Yuffie. “There’s the Main Branch, who decided Shinra’s political hegemony was the big thing to be concerned about. We’re the group that looks at the dangers to the Planet as a whole. And there’s a third group, just kinda ... passing out pamphlets and such. ‘Friendly neighborhood Avalanche,’” he added, a bit derisively.

“They mean well ...” said Wedge. “I think they’re trying to create a popular movement.”

“Shinra’s gonna shoot a popular movement,” Barret growled. “What we need is a revolution.”

“There’s some tension between the groups,” Tifa told Yuffie.

“O-kay ...” The teenager clearly didn’t quite seem to understand it.

But,” Cloud interrupted before anyone else could say anything, “If you’re going after Sephiroth – and you promise to stop stealing our Materia – we can talk.”

“Oh, yeah.” Yuffie waved her hand dismissively. “You can totally hold onto the Materia for me! This is obviously fate.” Her arm swept out dramatically. “ ‘Travelers on the road, off to fight the same terrible foe, likely with some tragic backstory to give them a personal motivation for this quest ...’ Clearly, you’re my sidekicks!”

“Not Fate,” Biggs stated firmly. “That’s another story.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Tifa said. She looked around at the others. “Are we seriously considering this?”

“She managed to tail us this far without us noticing,” said Cloud. “Do you think we could get rid of her once we let her up? Look. This is Sephiroth we’re dealing with. I say we should collect all the allies we can.”

“If you’re saying it, I’m worried,” joked Biggs.

Tifa, however, was starting to look genuinely concerned. “This isn’t like you. Are you sure about this?” She’s a literal child, her gaze seemed to say.

“I was younger than she was when I decided to become SOLDIER,” Cloud pointed out, prickling a bit under the implied censure. He sheathed the Buster Sword and folded his arms. “If I could make a decision that would see me transformed into a different being ... Well, I think she gets to make up her own mind if she wants to fight monsters, too.” He could feel his voice turning bitter. “It’s not like being a child or civilian will keep you safe from him. Let her protect herself by hunting him down.”

Something about his wording seemed to make Tifa deeply uncomfortable. But Cloud couldn’t see why; it was all so obvious to him.

“Yeah!” Yuffie crowed. Taking advantage of Tifa’s slackening grip, she vaulted showily to her feet and made a big production of dusting off her eclectic attire. “Don’t worry about this little misunderstanding; it’s common for future allies to have a ‘let’s you and him fight’ moment, before becoming the best of friends! I forgive you,” she stated magnanimously.

“For kicking your ass?” Biggs asked dryly.

Hey!” she pointed at him. “I knocked you on your butt!”

“That’s true ...” He let that hang for a beat, then pointed to Tifa. “She kicked your ass.”

Tifa blushed as Yuffie sputtered in indignation. “I mean, I do literally teach martial arts.” She gave a mollifying smile at the sulking teenager. “I got the feeling from our fight that you’ve been training since you were a little kid. But so have I – and I’m older, which means more time to gain experience. I’ve also got reach and mass on you, which helps,” she added with a grin.

Cloud could feel himself tensing in anticipation. If you try to salve your pride by making a joke about how being ‘old and fat’ have their uses, he thought as he watched the teenager warily, I may have to rethink my suggestions.

To his surprise, Yuffie simply huffed and went, “Well ... I suppose you have some skills.” A moment later, she seemed to come to a realization and shrugged, giving a grin that seemed much more at ease. “I don’t mind being beaten at your Thing because I have so many Things!” she proclaimed proudly.

Biggs sighed. “Just couldn’t take the Humble Pie, could you?”

“Hey!”

Barret made a come-along gesture with his good hand. “Walk-and-talk, people! If we’re not fighting, I’m hungry – and I’d like to make it to Kalm before missing another dinner!”

“Yes, please ...” Wedge agreed hopefully.

Cloud gave a grunt as they started to move again. His stride was still a little bit bowed. Yuffie gave him a chagrined smile. “Hey ... sorry about that -”

“Yes, thank you; moving on,” he interrupted stiffly. “So how do you have so many Things?”

“Wow, that was the least subtle deflection I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s got a point, though ...” said Wedge. He shot Cloud a look that said, I got your back, bro!

Don’t call me ‘bro.’

‘To be fair, he just kinda implied it ...’

Which is even worse; I can’t say anything about it. Also: I really don’t want internal commentary right now.

‘Sorry ... I know you’re embarrassed, but I can’t exactly go anywhere.’

I am NOT embarrassed.

‘Hey! Easy! Don’t snap at me because I can literally read your thoughts and you don’t like what they are. None of this situation is my fault.’

Cloud couldn’t apologize – because he couldn’t admit Zack was right. But there was also a certain pointlessness to arguing with a person who knew your thoughts.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to solve the conundrum. Wedge was still speaking, providing a welcome distraction.

“He’s got a point, though ...” Wedge had said. “I mean – we saw what your limit break was. You showed it to us, straight off. I can kinda figure out the rules for how it works based on that. And then you did something completely different that doesn’t fit with that theme at all. Like, that was magic. Magic! A couple days ago, I would have gone, ‘Oh, that looks like something magical; it’s probably Materia!’ But I’ve seen some things and started paying attention ... That was not Materia! You just waved your hands and stuff happened!” After a few moments of gesturing helplessly, he managed, “... How?”

“Oh ... you’re talking about my Awesome Ninja Shit?” Yuffie asked with poorly hidden smugness.

“Watch your mouth,” Barret growled.

Everyone stared at him.

“What? Kids shouldn’t swear.”

Yuffie bristled immediately. “I’m not -”

“When you’re eighteen, you can swear,” Barret pronounced firmly, raising his voice to cut off her rising objection.

Yuffie sputtered, clearly unable to figure out what to do about this clear line in the sand. It wasn’t exactly like she could become eighteen faster. “This is bullshit! It’s so arbitrary -”

“It’s not bullshit; it’s training.”

The teenager stopped at the word ‘training.’ She gave him a suspicious glance.

“Heh. You’re a Ninja; you gotta know being sneaky’s sometimes better than going in guns blazing, right?”

“Right ...” she agreed warily.

“Works that way with conversation, too. Most of the time,” he waved his good hand, “feel free to swear your head off; some people need to hear it. But there are times or places where you shouldn’t. Where it can seriously fuck you up, or cost you an opportunity, or even if you don’t care about yourself, end up hurting the people counting on you. And you best start training for those moments now, because when they come, it’ll be so much easier to swear than not.”

Yuffie actually shut her mouth for a few moments. “Hmph,” she said eventually. “Well, you wanna hear about my Awesome Ninja Stuff? That make you happy, old man?”

Barret grinned and gave her a thumb’s up. “Good job, kid.”

“Hmph!” She gave a toss of her head, as if to say she totally wasn’t doing this because of his validation – totally. “Well, it is awesome, which is the important bit.”

Tifa covered a smile as Yuffie, back on script, grinned and struck a dramatic pose once more. And Barret worried about when Marlene became a teenager ...

Yuffie smugly tapped her thumb against her chest. “Not to brag, but I am something of a prodigy.”

Tifa, who was also something of a prodigy and much more humble about it, gave what she hoped was a neutral-sounding and not amused-sounding, “Mm.”

“Prodigy at what, though?” Wedge insisted.

“Glad you asked!” Yuffie said, conveniently ignoring that this was in fact the second time he’d asked. “Behold!”

Tifa glanced around instinctively, half expecting her to break out her Limit Break again. But it appeared like she wasn’t quite in the mental place for it, so there was nothing to behold.

“The Ancients were a people for whom the way of magic was as of the science of today,” Yuffie began with the air of someone declaiming an epic saga. “And then – WHABAM! Calamity struck! And the Ancients were gone forever!”

“Not quite,” Cloud said dryly. “Met the last of the Cetra, actually. Sephiroth kidnaped her. It’s one of many reasons we’re going after him.”

Yuffie stared at him with jaw agape. “Okay, first: what is with you guys interrupting me; stop it! Second: what the hell, that is the coolest plot twist ever! And third: by the Thousand Gods, you are a terrible story-teller; you can’t just drop bombshells like that so casually!”

“Cloud, let Yuffie finish telling us about her Ninja stuff,” Tifa told him with as much sternness as she could muster – which she was afraid wasn’t very much. “Yuffie, we’ll fill you in after you’re done. Continue.”

“Right, uh. Let’s see. Calamity struck, Ancients gone – right, okay.” She paused, then stamped her foot. “Dang it, the flow’s just ruined now! Look, they left behind a bunch of papers, okay? And everyone was like, ‘Thanks, well I can’t do magic, so this means nothing!’ But then some really smart people – who were my ancestors, if you couldn’t tell – were like, ‘But wait! We’ve got all these texts with shapes in them and we know, if you run power through those shapes, it does a magic thing. So why don’t we just do that?’

“But everyone else was like, ‘That sounds like a lot of work – and where’s that power supposed to come from? Are we supposed to just – HRNG! RRRGH!’” She balled up her fists and made exaggerated straining noises, which unfortunately did not convey the state of intense concentration she seemed to have been aiming for. “ ‘Nope; didn’t just manage to pull a bunch of power out of the air.’ And my ancestors were like, ‘Not from the air, silly.’” She tapped her chest. “ ‘From in here. The true power ...’ ” She held up a single finger, beaming with the absolute smugness of someone who was about to shatter everyone around her’s world, “ ‘... was within you all along!’ ”

There was a long pause.

“That makes absolutely no sense,” Cloud said bluntly.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m not a magician,” Biggs agreed.

“It’s not being a magician!” Yuffie stamped her foot. “It’s pulling from within who you are – and then shaping who you are into the thing that makes the effect possible.”

“That makes even less sense!

Suddenly, Tifa felt her eyes widen. “... But not to me.” She shook her head quickly as everyone looked at her. “Monk stuff – Master Zangan’s teachings – i-it works the same way,” she hurried to explain, almost tripping over her words. “What you’re pulling from is your Inner World. But everyone’s Inner World is different, so how are you supposed to train a standardized martial art?

She closed her eyes and, even as she talked, began to move through the familiar patterns of a form. “It’s what separates a martial-artist from a Monk. ‘You can’t reach out and find any kind of power. The only thing you can change is yourself.’” She could feel the familiar motions begin to center her, moving her back into a neutral state, from which ... “It’s all about changing yourself into the right shape to achieve the effect you want. For a martial artist, that means knowing how to change your movements to best achieve the effect of your enemy’s destruction. For a Monk ...” She began the much shorter set of movements, pulling herself into the familiar mindset. Be as unto the dolphin that leaps from beneath the waves ... “You can change the part of you that acts as a ... bridge.

She felt a part of herself click. A moment later, she had exploded into movement, starting with a kick that was more than a kick. For that instant, as her limbs blurred into movements that were impossibly fast, every part of her being was in alignment – Inner World, body, and motion all creating a perfect circuit through which the power of everything she was flowed, until she could practically see the dolphin leaping up with her in her final blow.

She landed with face flushed and out of breath to see the wide eyes of the onlookers; she wondered if they’d been able to glimpse the dolphin as well. Pressing her palms together, she bowed, feeling herself relax back into a more neutral shape.

“A lot of Monk training is learning how to affect that part of ourselves, then practicing over and over until certain motions are enough to trigger the correct mindset that’ll connect Inner World to technique,” she explained. She tilted her head at Yuffie. “We use it to empower our bodies. But it sounds like Ninjas use it to empower more external effects.”

“Holy shit ...” Biggs whispered out loud. “You figured out how to hack Limit Breaks.”

Tifa rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “Well, yeah. It just takes years and years of training – and the results are relatively minor.”

You call it minor,” Yuffie said smugly. “I call it being able to cast a fireball with my fists.”

“Yes ...” Tifa acknowledged. “... Something that can also be accomplished with Materia,” she pointed out, setting Yuffie to sputtering. “The advantage of the training, though, is that your Inner World can never be taken from you. And, while a Fire Materia can never cast Ice, you can train yourself into many techniques, which require no slotting or anything so time consuming, because they all key off nothing more complicated than a set of motions.” She smiled at the still somewhat stunned looking Ninja. “That’s what the hand motions are for you, aren’t they?” “Well ... yeah!”

“Thought so.”

“So you don’t really need the windup at all,” Cloud pointed out, making Tifa and Yuffie both immediately wince. “Why waste time with a series of motions that make it more obvious what you’re about to do, when everything you’re doing is internal anyway?”

“Speed,” Tifa answered simply. “Cloud, using motions to trigger the right state of mind is the shortcut. Realigning yourself to that degree is not a simple process; if you want to use it in combat, you have to sacrifice: making yourself a little more predictable just so you can get it out in time. It’s why we learn Martial Arts in the first place, to handle the vast majority of keeping us safe. You have to be good at combat already to know when it’s safe to give yourself that space to get off the technique – and to know how to quickly turn the situation back to your advantage if you judged wrong.” She glanced at Yuffie. “Grabbing your hands threw you off your game, didn’t it?”

“Yeah! That was a totally bit – a totally unfair move!”

Tifa nodded. “Getting interrupted is rattling. It throws you out of the correct head-space; disrupts the process. It’s why, if I get interrupted, I normally transition into just a straight-forward, mundane Martial Arts technique. But if you’re trying to get yourself into the right frame of mind without a shortcut – at the speed of combat? You’re all but guaranteed to be interrupted.”

“So, outside of combat ...” Cloud began.

Tifa put her hand to her head and rubbed it with a sigh. It was Yuffie who answered, however.

“It’s tied into our Limit Break, stupid. Do you think we get that sort of stress in our daily lives?”

“Yeah,” Biggs jumped in dryly. “We don’t work at Shinra.

“Ha!” Yuffie nearly doubled over laughing. “I get it! It’s ‘cause they’re assholes to their employees ... I get it ...”

“There’s that mouth again,” Barret growled. “Need some soap for it?”

“What?” she stared at him in disbelief. “Why the heck would I eat soap?”

“It’s what my Mamma always said. ‘You got a dirty mouth; need some soap to wash it out?’”

“Yeck!” Yuffie made a disgusted face.

“Sure as hell made you remember the lesson, though.”

Tifa was silent as they bantered, quietly glad the conversation had moved away from Cloud’s question.

The truth was ... she was able to access elements of her Limit Break much faster than most people. Is that because of training ... or because I’m constantly stressed?

Or, there was the distressing possibility it was both.

Barret didn’t have any training, but she’d seen the way the gun on his arm seemed to pull reloads out of nothing – including rounds that shouldn’t have been possible to fire through a gun of that type. His constant rage at the injustice of the world – and fear for Marlene’s future – ensured the foundry of revolution never rested. Seeing him almost effortlessly slip into ‘Dad’ mode for Yuffie was a quiet lesson in how such powerful emotions didn’t always have to overshadow all elements of life – and therefore quiet moments like this didn’t mean the emotions were never there at all.

But, at the same time, part of it was training. Yuffie’s flashy demonstration of Ninja powers had reawakened Tifa’s memories of Zangan’s teachings. Her time in Avalanche had led her to mostly focus on the Martial Arts aspects, concerned as she’d been with the entirely worldly problems of Shinra’s slow strangulation of everything she held dear, from the people to the planet. But recent events had started to remind her that there was more to the world than the mundane. Some of it beautiful – Aerith ... Some of it terrible – Sephiroth ...

I’m getting mixed messages, here. What should be my lesson from all this?

It was entirely possible there wasn’t just ONE lesson. “The acts of the world are going to affect you,” Zangan had told a scared, angry teenager who’d just lost everything. “... And to deal with them, you can’t neglect yourself. You are the only tool you are always going to have to fight them.”

Tifa smiled a bit at the memory, her mind automatically filling in the rest of the conversation. It had been the talk – the inevitable talk – about why they had to ‘waste time’ on things that didn’t seem relevant to fighting. Tifa had to have similar conversations with her students about why they had to start with ‘stupid things’ like footwork – which seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with hitting people, until one learned it was the necessary foundation for performing the perfect strike. Similarly, Zangan had impressed upon her that ‘spiritual’ things which didn’t on the surface seem relevant to something so ‘material’ as fighting could be equally foundational.

“You must always care for your tools: temper them, refine them. That takes time; do you think those shitty blades Shinra mass-produces for SOLDIER are as good as one forged with attention and care? Making them may be fast, but they’ll shatter under stress. Pay attention, learn, don’t rush through the fundamentals, and you’ll find the tool built through slow progress is stronger than you thought possible.”

She heaved a long sigh. Alright, alright ... I’ll start paying attention. To what’s going on inside as well as out. She HAD been neglecting herself as a Monk and not just a Martial Artist ... What things going on inside were strengthening her and what things might make her shatter. With what they were facing, she couldn’t afford that. Sephiroth is the most terrifying being I’ve ever seen. I can’t afford to not make myself as strong as possible.

I have too much to lose.

* * *

Kalm. Finally.

Barret heaved a sigh of relief. They needed something to go according to plan. They’d spent too much time slowly starving, dealing with ever mounting twists and turns with an ever dwindling amount of fuel. Time to rest and stock up.

“They’re all very lively,” Biggs noted as he watched the movement of groups of people around them. “Are they in the midst of unionizing? Good for them.”

“Hey, that drawing kind of looks like Jessie,” Wedge observed. “We should tell her about it the next time we see her!”

“Heh,” Barret chuckled. “She’d like that.” It would be a nice thing to cheer her up from the hospital bed. Girl’s gonna be pissed she missed all this. Still, it was important she focused on rest and healing; Barret wasn’t about to lose one of his people, not if he could help it.

The thought triggered a chain of associations. He excused himself from the group for a minute, muttering excuses about needing to take care of a thing that were more to remove himself expeditiously than be illuminating. A few minutes later, his broad shoulders were filling up the majority of space inside a phone booth as he grumpily leafed through the yellowed pages of its accompanying phone book. He’d only seen the number he needed once, glimpsed briefly on a caller-ID, which wasn’t enough to remember it. But it was enough to recognize the right number when he saw it.

“Sector 6 ...” He muttered to himself. “Slums ...” Not many private citizens could afford a land-line phone in the slums; most of the places that did were businesses ... Which meant most of the ‘private citizens’ are likely ‘business’ in their own right. His finger tapped a spot on the page, then he started punching the number into his own personal phone. Here we go.

“How’d you get this number?” said a hostile, unfamiliar voice in lieu of a ‘hello’ as soon as someone picked up the other end of the line.

“I’m calling to talk to Leslie Kyle. Tell him Barret Wallace from Seventh Heaven is calling to repay a debt.”

There was a pause. “... Hang on.”

“Mr. Wallace,” a much more familiar voice said a few minutes later. “I didn’t expect to be getting any return calls from you. How’s your daughter?”

Barret grunted. “Fine enough; keeping her head down. Listen, it’s sorta about that. That little head’s up you gave us about the pillar – we coulda lost a lot more lives than we did, if it hadn’t been for that tip. So, I’m going to return the favor.”

“I don’t like the sound of this. Go ahead.”

“Shinra was moving Ifrit into the city.”

A pause. “Fuck ...”

“We stopped that convoy, don’t you worry. And we don’t know what they wanted to do with it, let’s be clear. But it occurred to me that Heidegger might have a number of rats who are on his shit list.”

“Thanks for the warning ... We had Turks sniffing around here not too long ago.”

“Hm. Not good. You watch yourself.”

“Thanks. You do the same.”

* * *

Reeve watched through Cait Sith’s eyes as Barret wrapped up his conversation. It was lucky he’d chosen to use his cell phone and not the pay phone; wireless signals were child’s play for a robot to scoop up and an SND to decode.

And now I have Mr. Kyle’s number.

Back in Shinra HQ, Reeve sat back in his chair. The big question was what he was going to do now.

‘Bullshite,’ Cait Sith muttered in his ear. ‘Ye know “what.” Yer question is “whether.” Whether ye’re gonna do it.’

... It’s too risky, Reeve said after a moment. It’s like making a deal with the devil.

‘Oh that’s rich; didn’t ye already sell yer soul to Shinra?’

Yes, but it’s not just about me.

‘No. It ain’t.’

After a moment, Reeve took a deep breath. Institute a redial. Connect me to that number.

* * *

Leslie nearly jumped out of his skin when the phone rang again just as soon as he’d put it down. Quit being so on edge, he thought to himself as he picked up the phone again. Don’t let the boys see you rattled. It’s probably just Barret, anyway, with some detail he forgot.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Kyle,” came through an entirely unfamiliar voice with enough polish to make Leslie snap to instant wariness. “This is Reeve Tuesti of Shinra’s Urban Development. We need to talk. Privately.”

Notes:

Oh boy, this chapter had SO many delays due to work and sickness getting in the way – especially because it contained SO many things which required careful writing. Lots of sprinkled bits of character development, introducing a character who was rather annoying in the OG, and one of our most lore-heavy chapters in a WHILE!

On the bright side, I do believe we have at last placed the final pieces on the board in regards to all our various magical systems! We have (drum-roll, please):

- Limit Breaks, which come from your own personal Inner World.
- Cetra Magic, which involves channeling through a connection to the planet.
- Materia, which is the memories of common techniques in Cetra Magic.
- Cetra High-Magic, which was born from the scientific study of Cetra Magic.
- Ninja-Shit, which is descended from a reverse engineering of Cetra High-Magic (specifically), jury-rigging it to work with Limit Breaks to create limited external effects.
- Monk-Shit, which involves taking the idea of Ninja-Shit and refining it to better work with humans, by using the power to enhance yourself.
- Jenova Powers, which come from a completely alien entity.
- Mako Enhancements, which all SOLDIERs have in addition to Jenova Cells (making it, at times, hard to untangle which ability comes from what source).
- SNDs, who are tech-mages (sorry, Shelke; its true).
- Cybernetics, which are technically sci-fi, but are sufficiently outside the realm of what exists in the real world that they count as a form of “esoteric thing, working according to setting-specific rules.”
- And Conceptual Beings – the lowest level being Summons, whose identity and powers are tied up in being Legends – and the ultimate expression being personifications of fundamental forces of reality, like Fate.

It’s important to have all these clearly defined, because they do NOT have anything to do with our power tiers. These can be roughly delineated into:
- Normal human.
- SOLDIER.
- Summon.
- Cosmic.

However, these only describe the amount of ALL AROUND power a person has; where someone falls on the power tiers has nothing to do with their ability to solve problems. Tifa, Barret, and the Turks are all more dangerous than a SOLDIER in certain narrow aspects, even though they are less enhanced overall. Furthermore, skill and clever use of available tools – especially while coordinating with others – can allow people to tackle opponents of a significantly "higher" tier. This is definitely a setting where even perfectly normal humans can potentially defeat a cosmic entity.

Hence why discussion of these tools is so important. It’s probably clear by now that we, as authors, love complexity. It’s fun to have lots of different characters with wildly different motivations running around, intersecting and affecting each other, even if they don’t realize it! Likewise, it’s fun to explore what happens in a chaotic situation where a lot of different tools come into play! But that can’t happen unless all the tools are laid out on the table first (although some details may not be immediately apparent). Likewise, characters can’t refine their tools without it being clear what they’re trying to sharpen.

I love extended metaphors.

Anyway.

One other side note, because it’s GOING to come up unless we mention it first. During the pre-writing process, Yuffie’s groin shot became a point of significant debate. It may seem like a relatively minor detail, but OH NO. We watched, over and over, the scene in Crisis Core where Zack meets Yuffie ... and STILL came away with different interpretations of what precisely was happening. I am (still) convinced she was punching Zack in the stomach, her punches did nothing, and he simply fell to the floor because he was faking distress to be nice. Fenrir, however, INSISTED she was punching Zack in the groin. With the acting quality of the original Crisis Core, we could not tell whether Zack's groans were genuine or not.

In the end, what finally convinced me to go with the scene as Fenrir envisioned it was the moment when he started literally acting out Cloud’s reaction to being punched – in a way that I, as someone who lacks the parts to have ever experienced this phenomenon, would be able to describe. The physical comedy had me in stitches; I was informed that mix of hilarity and dismay I was feeling was, apparently, exactly right. After that, well ... “Yuffie punched Zack in the dick” became part of Epiphany canon.