#I really strive to take their progression slow and steady and not rush through things | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

leonawriter · 7 years ago

Text

To Change A Sombre Morrow (chapter eleven)

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Final Fantasy VII

Characters: Zack, Angeal, Lazard, Hojo, Cloud, Tifa... Genesis.

Chapter summary: Promises, promises... some are more clear than others. So, too, is the effect we have on other people.

...

Ripples form on the water's surface...

...

"So... is he always like this?"

Zack's head tilted at an angle as he thought his question over after saying it aloud, and Angeal tried to hold back the mixture of exasperation and fondness that caused.

"I'm guessing you don't mean either the tactician, or the enemy commander."

"Uh, no- oh."

The eyes blinked, and Zack slouched in his seat. And even then, there was the steady staccato of a heavy combat boot rapidly thudding against the floor of Angeal's office. He really had got that sidetracked again, huh. And they wonder why I call him a puppy.

"Thankfully, a lack of focus in lessons like these won't cost you your life the way it would during a real mission in the field. Well, go on. You might as well get it out."

He knew by now that when Zack lost focus most of the time it was because he couldn't keep his mind - or his body - trained on one thing. But when his student's thoughts caught on something, they tended not to unstick until whatever it was had been sorted out.

Zack was a little like Genesis, in that respect, Angeal realised now. Perhaps in the past it might have been funny to think of it like that; now, with everything that'd been going on, he couldn't help feeling concerned.

"It's just - you've known him for a long time, right?" Ah. Zack was thinking about Genesis, too. "But I've been here a few years now, and you've been working with me for a while, but I hardly even knew you were that close before he started butting in on my materia training." The rush of words slowed to a halt as Zack stared briefly into space. "You know... he kinda reminds me of someone I knew, a while back."

"Oh?"

"It was back when I was a Third, before we even met properly," Zack said, staring off into space as he recalled. "There was this guy, a Second I knew. He was cool, but kind of a show-off. Kept saying he'd do something amazing and get in the news one of these days."

Angeal snorted, smiling slightly at old memories. Zack didn't know how close to the mark he was, given how much Genesis had been like that when they'd been younger.

"I'm guessing that's not all."

Zack shook his head.

"Nuh-uh. One day, he just up and vanished. Took me asking a few of his friends to find out he'd been drafted into Wutai." Zack's expression grew serious, and Angeal sighed. "He came back, and we all thought he was fine. He looked fine, and acted like it, but... sometimes he'd space out. And he'd pick more fights than before, too."

That... sounds an awful lot like what Genesis has been going through. Apart from the fact that he's been in the frontlines of Wutai as many times as I have, and he's never reacted like that to this degree before. Or to Sephiroth.

But we're his friends, surely we'd have noticed if something else had happened? Wouldn't he tell us?

"But... he disappeared again a few months later. And that time, he... he never came back. I wasn't even that close, so I didn't really know until a while after the emails went out."

An image of Genesis giving a half-hearted wave without even turning back to face him as he left for his own mission came abruptly to mind, and he tried to tell himself that the sudden anxiety it caused was unfounded, because Zack was talking about a Second who'd probably had no prior field experience, and this was Genesis.

"Up until recently, I just figured he'd died a hero, you know? Protecting people. Saving someone. But I asked someone, because I needed to know, and they said he'd frozen up in a fight."

"I'm sure we don't need to worry about Genesis though, Zack. Although I'm sure he'd be touched by the concern."

Or irritated at the thought that he needed it, Angeal thought wryly.

Zack looked back at him again, leaning forward, and Angeal was reminded yet again of some small dog. So innocent of the way the world worked, so eager to please. To make people happy.

"I want to believe that. Really, I do. But..." He shook his head, bangs flapping in front of his eyes not doing anything to stop that resemblance to a puppy. The thudding that was restarting from under the desk made Angeal think of a tail hitting something repeatedly. "Something feels wrong."

"All right, how about this. When Genesis gets back, I'll talk to him again. But until then, you still have to focus on the things you're supposed to be doing in the here and now."

Zack grinned, eyes lighting up in a way that had nothing to do with mako.

"Thanks, Angeal!"

Angeal shook his head and tried not to worry too much over how if Zack was so certain someone needed to talk to Genesis, that something was wrong, then... he could only hope that they really were all just making a fuss over nothing. If not - Genesis, no matter what happened, was still his friend, and he'd have to do something, even if Zack hadn't asked it of him.

...

The wandering soul knows no rest...

...

Lazard sighed heavily not for the first or last time, and pressed the fingers of the hand not holding his most recent reports against his temples, to stave off a headache.

He had been counting on Hollander being able to secure Genesis' cooperation in their plans - plans that had revolved primarily around the use of the Copy technology that would have granted them an army with which to destabilise Shinra. Right up until several weeks ago, things seemed to have been progressing well enough, with Genesis' own personal... issues... being ideal grounds to work with in terms of getting him to agree; if he knew what Shinra had done to him, then he would certainly wish to turn on the company just as the others in the small conspiracy had grown to.

The changes in the SOLDIER's demeanour, and especially in such a short period of time, had been unexpected. Not to mention concerning. Not simply for the sake of their plans, but also with regards to purely personal reasons.

When Hollander had suspected degradation based on changes in behaviour - and his suspicions had seemed well founded when Genesis had showed signs of physical change as well - the doctor had insisted that he would be able to use that as leverage of a sort, given how he had such an extensive understanding of the project that had created both Genesis and Angeal.

He had also said that in theory he should have been able to find some sort of cure for the genetic instability in due time, the thought in mind that they would be able to extend the lives of both the SOLDIER and their army, and yet...

Genesis had refused.

Point blank, in fact. Not agreeing to so much as talk to Hollander. Giving neither of them any opportunity with which to explain the situation to him, nor to encourage him in any sort of direction.

That had not been all - his general attitude had become markedly different, alternately either interacting more with others, or withdrawing entirely. Taking missions that were altogether far simpler than a First of his calibre should be expected to lower himself to and quite unlike his prior attitude which had him constantly striving to push himself to greater heights or - in one such case at least - leaving without due warning and without backup on a mission which even most Firsts would have been required to bring at least a Second or experienced Third along with them.

So, overall, their guarantee had turned into something unreliable. A loose cannon.

He had given the Genesis one last offer, a last chance after all of the times he had refused to talk with Hollander, or be treated. It hadn't been openly worded as such, but Genesis was an intelligent man, and Lazard had known that he would be able to interpret his meaning easily enough.

Genesis had read his meaning quite clearly, of course. And had also summarily enough dismissed it all.

Yet, he had to admit, in such an... interesting way.

There was a fire there in his eyes that Lazard couldn't say had been there before. An anger that was stronger than before. It wasn't merely the same ambition that drove Hollander, which he had seen echoes of in the young SOLDIER before. In fact, that need to improve and be better than even Sephiroth seemed to have taken a backseat to something that he clearly saw as more important.

"There's definitely something up with him - I don't know how, but I think someone's been slipping him information without anyone knowing," he remembered Hollander saying recently. Though neither of them had been able to make any headway on figuring out who that could be. "Says he got better, but if I'm right about what was going on, he can't have been able to on his own. Whatever they've told him, I think he's figured out that being part of Project G means he's capable of some sort of mutation - I haven't been able to get a decent blood sample to figure out what caused it, but there was a tear in his coat and a hasty patch job he sure looked like he didn't want to bring attention to."

Lazard sighed, and gave up on filing mission reports for the time being. There was no way to change what had already happened, after all, and the only way forward was to work with what they had, rather than what they only wished they had. So instead, he picked up one of the files on the prospective cadets that he'd been having the Firsts take a look at, one that he had put to one side even after he had given his decision.

Just a glance at the first page showed that it had been signed off by Genesis himself.

Notes were written in the margins as well as the sections where they were supposed to be, jotted down in what was usually a neat cursive and turned pointedly less so the more irritated with the work and the prospective cadets he became to the point of near illegibility.

Idealistic, one note that his eyes lighted on as particularly interesting read, but far too naive. Liable to become non-dependable as he learns harsh truths. SOLDIER isn't the place for people to join up if they want to change the status quo.

He closed the file, wondering what any of the others on the board of directors would think if they saw that one of their prize SOLDIERs, Shinra's most valuable and effective weaponry - whether Scarlet it or not, and no matter Heidegger's grumblings - harboured such feelings for the company he served.

Perhaps, then, it was fortuitous that - cooperation or no - he had no plans of letting that happen, and he was fully capable of going over the First's head. He still had his own plans even if Hollander's fell through, and Shinra was going to need a little more, ah, idealistic, if it was ever going to have any hope of change.

...

("So, Genesis, is it?"

"You're the new Director, aren't you? Lazard."

"I am. I was thinking it would be good to get to know some of you a little better - after all, we'll be working together from here on in."

"If you wish to ask something, you merely have to ask. You'll find I'm not nearly so infinite in mystery as some would assume."

"Ah, so... LOVELESS, is it?"

"Of course. My dream is to become a hero worthy of the great play itself. And in order to do that, I first need to become on a level with- no, better than Sephiroth himself."

"I see..."

"...you think I'm not serious?"

"Hm? No, no. I suppose... the unattainable dreams are probably the best, I would say.")

...

Colm sat nervously in the back of the Shinra issue van, bracing himself against the bumps and jolts of the uneven road.

He wasn't the only one, though the others were far less tightly wound up. Or maybe they were just better at pretending they weren't - they'd long since taken their helmets off, and Denson was talking about his girlfriend who apparently knew some famous actress while Mack made rude jokes that had Colm blushing and Denson alternatively laughing and hitting the other Second hard enough he'd be breaking bones if they weren't all enhanced. Someone else whose name he'd forgotten was complaining yet again about how SOLDIERs were expected to use swords - he preferred daggers and speed over brute force and ignorance, always had.

Colm's eyes were drawn to the fourth and last person in the back of the van that was taking them further toward Wutai and war, red twitching.

Red coat, red hair, red sword... even the book that looked like its page hadn't been turned for nearly an hour was sort of a pinkish-red. Or a reddish-pink.

Commander Rhapsodos was like that, though. Even though he probably stood out on the battlefield like he had a target painted on his back. If Colm knew one thing about what he'd do with the honour of being chosen for First - if he ever did, he thought they were still figuring out if they'd made the right choice in making him a Second - he knew that he wouldn't alter his uniform so he'd end up dying quicker.

Maybe the Firsts only get away with it because they're just that good.

Someone leaned over to take a look out the window and made an offhand comment about the weather. Something about the chance of rain. Their commander twitched again, and for a single moment Colm could see the man's eyes from behind that old book of his - it was more the Shinra Library's, but by this point everyone agreed that it was basically property of Genesis - and there was something... wrong about them.

Colm would have preferred not to have seen anything, or at least be able to pretend as such, but those eyes, mako blue like the rest of them, caught and held his uncomfortably for a moment, and when the First looked away he was left feeling as though something had happened, but he wasn't sure what. Or even why.

The others carried on like nothing had happened. He didn't think they'd even noticed. The commander's hand went up to his shoulder, as though there was an old wound there, but came away to brush the hair out of his eyes.

"There is no hate," he read out, "only joy. For you are beloved by the Goddess."

He shivered slightly, and rubbed at his arms. Some breeze had come through the window, and Denson started shouting for the other Firsts in the front to close it, the others backing him up.

Later, when they were stopped for the evening and making camp since they were far enough away from any settlement that they couldn't just stay in town, someone clapped their hand on his shoulder, the unexpected nature of it sending him stumbling more than the strength of the other SOLDIER.

"First time off to war for you, is it? Don't worry, you're going to be fine."

As he tries to settle down in his tent, snoring coming from all around him, he puts his finger on why the lines spoken aloud in the van had felt so off.

He wasn't sure what was going on, but he'd always had a way with knowing when people were lying just to make you feel better. The SOLDIER earlier, he could understand.

Commander Rhapsodos, on the other hand, he was less sure of, and what worried him about that was that if this was the man leading them, and he was trying to convince himself things were better than they were, then what hope did the rest of them have?

...

(" We aren't going to Wutai. Are we, sir?"

"No, SOLDIER, we are not. Do you trust me?"

"Of course, sir! We all do. But with all due respect, unless it's confidential..."

"You'll learn soon enough. Along with the others. Until then, all you need to do is follow me."

"Is this something to do with what you were talking about before?"

"It has everything to do with that - and more. So, tell me - would you prefer to continue with someone more likely to tell you the truth... or slink back to Shinra and carry on being a mere attack dog ready to be commanded by them?"

"..."

"I somehow thought not. Well? Carry on.")

...

Hojo scowled at the computer he was working on, and his notes on paper next to it. Simple mathematics, science that did not - could not - lie, and could not feel emotion, and yet it felt as though the results were laughing in his face.

He knew perfectly well that the incident at the Nibelheim reactor hadn't been the work of monsters, or a minor meltdown - reactors never had minor meltdowns, and whoever believed that they did was clearly an idiot of the highest degree - but the purposeful, wanton destruction of his own life's work.

The fire might have seemed to have been out of control, but that was only to the untrained eye. If you knew what to look for, it was blatantly obvious that someone had done this. The epicentre of the so-called blast had originated in Jenova's room, which could only have happened if someone had been able to break in through the door, or get past the secure locking mechanisms that had been put in place from the construction of the very reactor itself.

Much as he hated to admit it, however, the vandalism that had occurred was of a second priority compared to one thing.

With Jenova as good as gone given that the few samples that his team had been able to recover had been contaminated and unfit for further use, it meant that the science department was going to be working with dwindling supplies in the months and years to come.

All of his plans - not to mention his position and status - would be in ruins just as surely as Jenova herself if he failed to find some solution, because if the science department could no longer deliver, then the President would sooner or later turn to... other means.

Machines would never be able to do what Hojo's SOLDIER program had been capable of. They had been able to send Sephiroth against the entire Wutai army and he had come back the victor with barely a mark on him, and saying that he did the job of of even one hundred men was an understatement.

For now, he would encourage the line of thought that with the end of the war, they would need fewer SOLDIERs, allowing him to better utilise the remaining J-cells. Both on economising use, and... if possible... finding some way of further refining the process.

But later - oh, and later would come - well, he was sure that he would be able to mix work with the pleasure of seeing whoever had done this suffer for the inconveniences they had caused him.

...

My friend, do you fly away now?

...

Cloud's feet banged against the wood of the water tower he was sat on, hands on his knees and trying not to think of how cold it was, or what he'd feel like come morning if she didn't turn up. She'd been there when the SOLDIER had been leaving, when the others had laughed at him for saying that he wanted to be SOLDIER, too.

She hadn't laughed, though. She'd watched him, and his face had burned when he'd realised, but she hadn't laughed.

So he'd built up his courage and asked her to meet with him here - in the middle of town, in the middle of the night, when the stars were all out. Because it was pretty, and she liked pretty things, and saying something under the stars made it seem more... serious, somehow.

He sighed, head hanging slightly as he started to wonder how much longer he'd be waiting, and if he should just give up after all. He was just Cloud, after all. She'd never thought he was that much important to her before, so why meet up with him like he'd asked?

Which was, of course, when he heard footsteps on the tower, loud against the quiet of the night - or, as quiet as it could get with the wolves and dragons in the mountains, and the couple in the house a few away from his own home who were arguing over something.

"Sorry I'm late," Tifa said. Cloud found himself grinning stupidly. She'd come. "You said you wanted to talk to me about something?"

That brought him back down to earth, and reminded him of why they were there in the first place.

"Yeah," he said, swallowing down his nerves. He'd practiced this enough times. He could do it. "I'm... going to leave town. Soon, I think. I'm going to go to Midgar."

He felt sure - in fact, he'd never felt more sure of anything else before.

Tifa, however, sighed and looked down and away.

"...All the boys are leaving town," she said, almost quiet enough for him to wonder if she'd just been thinking aloud and he hadn't been meant to hear.

He shook his head all the same.

"But I'm different from all of them! I'm not just going to find a job. I want to join SOLDIER. I'm going to be the best there is, just like Sephiroth!"

Tifa crossed her arms on her knees, and looked out - maybe at the stars, maybe at the mountains, maybe at the village he'd be leaving behind soon.

"Sephiroth, huh..." Cloud nodded. "And it's got nothing to do with that SOLDIER guy who came up here to deal with the dragons a few weeks ago?"

He shrugged, and ducked his head.

"He said he knew Sephiroth," he mumbled to the ground several feet away. What were the chances - who knew, if he got there, maybe he'd be able to find the man again, somehow. And he'd been First Class too, making Cloud wonder if all of the Firsts knew each other. "And he's... strong, too. He'd have to be, to take on one of our dragons on his own."

"Right..." Tifa said, still sounding like her thoughts were only half there. "Isn't it hard, to join SOLDIER?"

Shinra didn't tell outsiders much about how to get in, but everyone knew how hard it could be. Cloud kicked a foot against the edge of the water tower, once.

"...I probably won't be able to come back home for a while," he admitted.

He stood abruptly, scowling out at the stars.

"If you think you can survive the monsters, be my guest."

He'd be lying if he he said the First who'd come - Genesis, his name was Genesis - hadn't had any impact on him. Sometimes he wondered if the man had been trying to warn him away - but then the other boys would tell him that there was no way he'd make it, and his mother would fuss over him, and he'd remember why he was doing this.

He'd show them all, that he could do it, that he could become SOLDIER, that he was more than whatever they thought he was. That he could be more than just the scrawny blond kid.

Besides. There were times when he remembered the look they'd shared, the glowing blue of the SOLDIER's eyes looking right at him, and feel that it can't have just been a warning.

It was an invitation. A challenge.

He had to believe that. He had to. If he did, then he could really believe that he could actually get in.

A noise made him look back at Tifa, wondering if she'd said something.

"Huh?"

She didn't so much as glance up at him, instead looking straight ahead.

"Will you be in the papers, if you do well?" she asked, whimsically enough that Cloud wondered if she was being serious.

He nodded anyway.

"I'll try."

Her feet kicked, lightly thumping the wooden slats of the water tower, and she hummed.

"Hey, why don't we make a promise?" She nodded to herself in a way Cloud had seen her do with all of her friends before, like she'd convinced herself of something on the spot, but she still wasn't sure of it. "Um... if you get really famous and I'm ever in a bind... you'll come save me, right?"

The last of it was rushed, and it took Cloud's brain a few seconds to catch up with what his ears had just heard.

"What?"

"Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come rescue me," Tifa explained - if that was an explanation. "I'd like to at least experience that once."

He still didn't understand.

"What?"

He shuffled a little further around the water tower's edge before sliding back down and holding onto his knees. Why me, he couldn't help but think. He wanted to be that, for her to see him that way, but still he couldn't help wondering why- why him.

He could just about make out that Tifa had craned her head over to look at him better.

"Come on, promise me!"

But sometimes you couldn't ask why you had to just take what was given and go with it, so he nodded.

"All right... I promise."

It wasn't as though she was asking him to do anything he wouldn't have done anyway, after all. Putting it in a promise just made it... different.

...

To a world that abhors you and I?

...

He awoke to darkness and the dewy smell of morning tent and the sound of his own laboured breathing as he tried to get himself back under control with his hands going to his chest and coming away dry and free of blood and slowly realising that the reason his clothes were sticking to him was because of sweat and he'd been sweating because of a nightmare not a fight-

The tent's flap was pushed open while his eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light and his mind was reminding him that the caves had been lit by Lifestream and crystals and water and there was none of that here, and the pallet he was lying on wasn't the best thing he'd ever slept on - his rooms both at Shinra and in Seventh Heaven and his own apartment had been better - but it wasn't the hard, cold stone of the ground in the underground, either.

"Uh- sir...?"

"What?" The man - or was it boy? There were enough people sent to war who weren't even old enough to drink that it was more likely than not - tensed, but didn't back away. Brave, then. Or foolish. "It had better be good, if you're waking me up at..." He reached out beside him. His handset lit up the darkness, the lock screen showing the Shinra company's logo in black and red - and the time. "Gone half two in the gods-forsaken morning."

They were being ambushed, perhaps. And yet, if they were, then he would have heard screaming. Or shouts. Or someone would have already attempted to take him out, and there would be at least one dead body in his tent rather than a terrified Third. Who had probably drawn the short straw to wake up the Commander for something inane.

"Ah- actually... we, we thought we'd heard noises from. From your tent, sir."

Sounds. From his tent. When he was fairly sure that if someone had tried to attack him, it shouldn't be him people should be worried over.

He blinked to get rid of the way that his mind had overlaid the Third's face - somewhat pointy, with dark hair and big ears - with his own. A layover from his dreams. The Third didn't say anything, or even move, while Genesis came to his long overdue understanding of what had happened.

"Out." He said the word flatly, but the temperature dropped all the same. "Now."

The Third scrabbled away like he couldn't move fast enough, leaving him alone with his memories once again.

After a few breaths, and the realisation that no one else was coming, that nothing else was going to happen, he let his head fall into his hands.

Eventually, his heart rate and breathing evened out, and his eyes, adjusted to the dark, fell on the book that he had fallen asleep reading. Hardly a first edition, but still leather-bound and expensive; it had been difficult even getting his hands on a copy this decent in the future he still remembered.

He dusted off the covers, smoothed down the pages, and placed it, this time more carefully, beside him.

Act three. Even changed and altered as it had been by the sensationalist broadway performances in Midgar that had focused on the romance rather than the true mysteries of the gift of the Goddess, it was an aspect that he had connected with far more on a personal level since understanding where his life had gone wrong than he ever had before.

I never promised them anything, he thought to himself, lying on his back and staring at the roof of the tent, hearing snoring from some short distance away. Neither now, nor then. Perhaps that made it easier. After all, you can't break that which was never made to begin with.

Tifa would say that you cannot simply change the past by wasting your time wondering over what could have been, but that doesn't account for when you truly are stuck in the past... unlike all of the idle thinking and what ifs in the world, I can actually change things.

No, he thinks, turning over onto one side and drawing the light blanket back over his body, his hand pausing at his chest... at his shoulder, still sensitive even though it was mostly healed, by now. I have to have changed at least something already. Otherwise... what is the point of it all?

#ff7 #final fantasy vii #ffvii #ff7 stuff #Leona fic #to change a sombre morrow verse #I can't believe it's taken this long to finish the chapter #wow

10 notes · View notes