Unsynced, Chapter 9
Sep. 3rd, 2018 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinnatiousSummary: FF7. Someone in ShinRa HR mixed up assignments, and Kunsel gets sent to Nibelheim instead of Zack.
Author’s Note: Not sure how much longer I can keep up with the weekly updates but my ambition is to at least last the year! Suddenly September, can it be done?
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
__________
Chapter 9
__________
Kunsel delayed only long enough to drag Cissnei’s body under cover and fetch his supplies. Then he booked it back to the cave at top SOLDIER speed, stealth be damned.
Cissnei had been delaying him. There could be no good reason for that.
He was almost back to the cave when an explosion shook the marshes. Flocks of birds took flight, scattering in the opposite direction. Cloud! He put on a burst of speed, stopping just past the treeline, with a full view of the crater.
It was a squad of twelve. Special forces. Three lay dead on the crater floor already, along with a copy. The others were waging an assault on another two copies guarding the entrance, who were looking worse for wear.
Where was Genesis?
Kunsel didn’t wait to find out. He didn’t have his bracer for a proper equip, but it wasn’t strictly necessary for a Monster Lure.
He clambered up the nearest tree and held aloft the materia, feeding it energy. Once it grew bright, he waited twenty seconds, then he tossed it towards them. The glowing yellow materia went unnoticed as it rolled near their feet.
He didn’t have to wait long – the explosion had caught the attention of just as much wildlife as it had scared away. A swarm of crysales burst from the treeline, screeching and chattering.
The squad broke into disarray, shouting warnings as half turned away from the copies to face this new threat. Gunfire thundered through the crater.
Kunsel dropped from the tree, drew his broadsword, and dashed into the fray.
In the chaos, none of the troops even realised they were facing a SOLDIER until too late. Kunsel slipped between the flailing crysales, cutting one down effortlessly as it turned and snapped at him, then stepping around its falling body to do the same to the trooper whose view it had blocked. One of the copies fell, catching one too many stray bullets.
Then a blazing inferno burst from the cave entrance.
SOLDIER reflexes was all that let Kunsel drop to the ground in time. A searing wave of heat roared overhead, then vanished into eerie silence.
He waited a second more, then rolled to his feet.
The assault squad was down. As were the copies. And in the cave entrance, Genesis stood braced against the wall, one gloved hand extended.
“Brought some friends, SOLDIER Second Class Kunsel?”
They’d known where the cave was. Kunsel pushed past him, running inside.
Hollander was there, hiding with Cloud, a nervous sheen of sweat layering his face. His skin paled even further at the sight of Kunsel. “Wha- what’s happening out there?” he stuttered.
“ShinRa,” Kunsel responded curtly. “It’s been dealt with.” And promptly ignored the scientist in favour of checking on Cloud.
Hollander took the hint and left in a hurry. Genesis trailed into the cave moments later, and only then did Kunsel notice the almost drunken lilt to his gait. “What’s wrong with you?” The former SOLDIER had looked fine when he left that morning.
“That is the question, isn’t it?” Genesis’s eyes glittered in the cavern light. “Were you followed?”
“No. They already knew where I was. I killed a Turk, then ran back here to find the cave under attack.” Accusation bled into his tone, but Genesis had defended the cave. If not Genesis then…
He glanced at Cloud. He was mysteriously no longer showing any symptoms of withdrawal, despite the lack of medicine. ‘I would question your doctor, in that case.’
“Hollander,” Genesis hissed, arriving at the conclusion in the same moment. In a whirl of red leather, he disappeared back into the cave network.
Kunsel delayed only a moment more, giving Cloud a fast once over. No new marks, nothing suspicious or unusual. He sighed, patted him on the arm once, then picked up his broadsword and followed Genesis.
He arrived in time to see Genesis cornering Hollander with his sheer presence alone. The scientist had been clutching a suspiciously well-packed bag to his chest, which he dropped to the floor when his back hit the wall. “-was your plan, then?” the former Commander was saying.
“It wasn’t – I didn’t-” the scientist stuttered.
“I didn’t think you were such a fool!” Genesis snapped, with the suddenness of a wolf’s bite. “Did you truly think ShinRa would give you amnesty? Did you think I would let you get away with it?”
“You were supposed to be asleep,” Hollander blurted in defence, giving up all hope of denial.
“I am a SOLDIER First Class,” Genesis hissed. “And capable enough of fighting through your drugs.”
“You mixed a sedative in with his treatment,” Kunsel realised. “And Cloud… his morning treatment was rigged too, wasn’t it? To create symptoms, to give yourself a reason to leave the cave. Or failing that, a reason to get me away from the cave.”
Leaving Hollander free to order the copies away, and carry Cloud unopposed into ShinRa’s arms to buy his passage. Tip the Turks off to get a meeting, but don’t give them enough that they could simply bypass Hollander, either.
It would have been an incredibly tidy divide and conquer, if he had taken into account that Genesis’s recovery made it that much easier for him to fight off a sedative, or that Kunsel might have left the town before Cissnei’s squad had managed to secure Cloud as a hostage.
It terrified him how very nearly it had worked. How very close they had come to being thrown back into Hojo’s clutches.
“Once you had the cure, it was only a matter of time before you killed me,” Hollander rasped, face red and eyes bulging in his fear. “We both know that. The only people who could protect me were ShinRa.”
“You are of course,” Genesis said, “absolutely correct.”
Then in a flash of crimson, his rapier speared the scientist through the heart.
Hollander staggered back half a step, staring dumbly at the sword buried in his chest. With a twist of his wrist, Genesis pulled it free.
They watched in silence as Hollander sagged to the ground, choking, hand pressed against the spreading stain of blood on his shirt. His gaze turned glassy, and after several wet, laborious wheezes, his chest went still.
Genesis produced a cloth from seemingly nowhere, wiping his sword clean. “It appears our time here is at an end, SOLDIER. I would recommend you gather what supplies you can. We leave in fifteen minutes.”
…………….
Reno slouched in front of his desk, hands in his pockets. Rude stood next to him, at attention.
Tseng closed the report before him and shut his eyes. It was as much to control his reaction in front of his colleagues as it was to process the news.
Times like this he missed Veld’s guidance keenly.
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Reno offered into the silence. Rude nodded in agreement next to him. They’d had the time to compose themselves already.
Dusk was falling outside, rendering the office dim, the city’s many lights twinkling to life beyond the windows.
“This is… unfortunate,” Tseng sighed.
It was beyond an understatement. Cissnei had been one of their best. A little soft hearted, perhaps, but possessing skill enough that she could afford the luxury of the occasional bit of mercy. Clever to the point where many attributed her strategy to luck. It was a significant loss.
To more than just the Turks, as well. Cissnei had been one of the strongest anchors keeping Zack loyal to the company.
The situation was dangerously close to slipping out of his control.
“This is a failure on our part,” Tseng said. “We never considered Banora.”
Reno shrugged a shoulder, as though letting the guilt roll off it. It was the correct approach. Mistakes happened, even in their profession. The cost of the Turks’ mistakes were simply higher than most. “Near as we can tell, she followed a bad tipoff. If she’d known it was Genesis and not our wayward test subjects she would have called for SOLDIER backup. At least she didn’t get turned into a copy.”
“Hollander?” Tseng prompted.
“We found him dead in an underground hideout beneath the crater. Our initial sweep indicates there’s a good chance this was where Genesis was hiding out all this time,” Reno drawled. “…Looked like a sword wound as well. Guess the psycho finally had enough of him. Only took, what, six years?”
It was a startling development on a case that Tseng had hoped time alone would solve. If Genesis had killed Hollander, that meant he’d finally given up on a cure. That, coupled with the recent increased sightings of Genesis copies, didn’t paint a promising picture. A revenge attack on ShinRa was most likely. They would need to increase the security on the President.
More importantly… “Zack will need to be told, before word gets around officially.”
“Who do you want to do it?” Reno asked.
“I will,” Tseng decided. “I’ve worked the most with him.” And he wouldn’t risk such a delicate conversation to anyone else.
Reno hesitated. “He’s… probably not going to take it well.”
“I know.” Worse, Zack’s ties to ShinRa were growing perilously few, in a pattern that reminded Tseng far too much of Sephiroth.
“We switchin’ priorities then?”
Tseng shook his head. “Continue on as we are, but keep monitoring the situation.” In truth, everything was a priority. ShinRa had acquired so many enemies lately – more than the understaffed Turks could keep sufficiently on top of. That was no small part in how Cissnei wound up dead in Mideel with nothing more than security forces as her backup.
Zack’s loyalty was paramount, however. Genesis alone turning against the company had done considerable damage – continued to do damage, even now. The loss of Sephiroth had been similarly devastating.
Tseng was not sure if ShinRa could survive losing Zack Fair, too.
……………………….
“It would be best to camp in the countryside for at least a week,” Genesis informed him. “Hiding in isolation will be far more effective than leaving a trail, especially if we are attracting that sort of attention from the Turks.”
Kunsel just nodded his agreement, focused on packing away Cloud’s latest dose. “Anything in the area?”
“The closest I found was a hermit’s house the next mountain over. It is as remote as one can get on the Eastern Continent.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. The late afternoon light filtered through the trees overhead, casting dancing patterns of light across the ground. He wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of being on the same continent as Midgar right now, but travelling off-grid was slow even for SOLDIERs – doubly so with a catatonic companion.
It wasn’t as though there were many places on the Planet actually beyond ShinRa’s reach, after all.
They set about making camp, though all that really consisted of was a small canvas sail Kunsel had bought back before Mideel and a few bedrolls. As the sun sank into the horizon they spent some five minutes making a small fire, then a few dozen more cooking provisions.
By the time twilight set in, they were sitting around the campfire, the silence broken only by the crackle of flames and the crinkle of paper as Genesis leafed through his worn copy of Loveless.
Cloud’s gaze had settled somewhere near the base of the fire, unfocused and unblinking. Kunsel nudged him, and he made a small noise of vague displeasure, but didn’t otherwise react. Still awake then. Kunsel let him be.
He turned to watching Genesis from the corner of his eyes. The former SOLDIER was looking almost… healthy. That strange double-bowed wing still stretched unnaturally from his back, but the feathers were dark and glossy instead of dull and tattered. His complexion had improved tenfold, and the pinched wrinkles around his eyes had smoothed – from what Kunsel could only now guess due to easing pain.
He was beginning to once more resemble the Commander Kunsel knew and admired when he first joined SOLDIER.
Kunsel didn’t know how he felt about that.
“Would you care for some literature? I’m sure I have a copy to spare,” Genesis said. Apparently he’d been less absorbed in his reading than he appeared.
“Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ve read Loveless enough times already.”
Genesis smirked at him. “Your choice.” He turned back his book.
Kunsel remained restless though. The silence stretched long into the night, the shadows deepening as the fire grew low. He fed it a fresh log, and watched it flare up again.
It was the first moment of peace they’d had in days. And now there was nothing left to dampen the questions burning at the tip of Kunsel’s tongue.
Why had Genesis fled with them? There were no more copies standing guard – he was inclined to believe the last of them had been sacrificed defending the cave. Genesis had his cure – Hollander had stockpiled more than enough treatments for his unsuccessful defection.
Stewing about it accomplished nothing. “I’m surprised you haven’t ditched us,” Kunsel said into the silence. “After all, we only slow you down. You have your cure now.”
Genesis turned a page, not lifting his gaze. “You friend is still unwell, though. I do believe that our agreement included that.”
Genesis contributed nothing on that front, however. Kunsel had overtaken those duties with the supplies from Mideel, and only time could solve the rest.
He didn’t waste his breath pointing that out, however - nor did it seem he needed to, as Genesis added, “Besides, if it weren’t for you and your friend, I would not have the cure. Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of gratitude, SOLDIER Second Class Kunsel.”
“Stop calling me by my full title already then,” Kunsel muttered. Genesis merely smirked in response.
A matter of weeks ago, Kunsel would have chafed at his continued presence, itching to take the opportunity to escape and go their separate ways. In the face of a fresh manhunt by ShinRa though, there were few more qualified in the matter than Genesis Rhapsodos. He figured that if Genesis, for whatever bizarre reason, intended to stick around, they would be well served making the best of it.
Still…
“I blamed you, you know,” he eventually said.
Genesis lowered his book, curiosity finally snared. “For what sin of mine in particular?”
“For Sephiroth. For Nibelheim.”
The fire popped and sizzled. Next to him, Cloud minutely twitched away from a floating ember as it settled on his knee.
“…And now?”
“Still do,” Kunsel said, staring into the flames. “But there are bigger monsters than either of you.”
“ShinRa,” Genesis guessed, though it was as much a statement. “Hojo.”
“…The enemy of my enemy,” Kunsel agreed.
After all, ShinRa had a special way of shifting the moral event horizon until even the vilest of their enemies started to look reasonable.
“For what little it is worth, I only told him the truth,” Genesis offered.
“In the worst manner possible. What made you think he would help you after that?”
“Enemy of my enemy,” Genesis parroted back. “That his hatred of ShinRa would be worth helping his old friend who had respected him enough to share the truth with him, no matter how heinous.” He shrugged. “We are monsters, SOLDIER Second Class Kunsel, in the most clinical definition of the term. But how we embrace that label is what makes the difference. That is what Sephiroth failed to grasp.”
“Yet you-” The words died on his lips, the thought unable to be brought to completion. Even knowing what damage degradation had wrought, he still struggled to reconcile it. The Genesis of now to the Genesis of several weeks ago, who had tried to infect him with his malady, who had triggered Sephiroth’s breakdown, who had unleashed such carnage and destruction upon Midgar in the interest of revenge.
Genesis appeared to read the train of his thoughts anyway. His gaze shone knowing in the firelight. “Does it surprise you, truly? In our most desperate moments, we will do anything,” he said. “I suspect you know that well already, SOLDIER Second Class Kunsel.”
Cissnei standing on the beach, her knuckles white against her shuriken.
Kunsel supposed he couldn’t really judge anyone for that.
“What happened to destroying the world, then?”
For a fleeting moment, the former SOLDIER appeared almost embarrassed. “With my death no longer inevitable, that seems counterproductive.” Genesis shifted, crossing his legs and resting his chin on his hand. “ShinRa, on the other hand…”
On that, they were in agreement.
…………………
Kunsel blearily blinked the sleep from his eyes, wincing at the morning light, to the sound for murmuring voices nearby.
He came alert in an instant. Their tiny little campground shouldn’t be able to have any visitors.
Cloud still slumbered on the bedroll next to him. Kunsel quietly rose, picking up his broadsword as he did so, and went to investigate.
He didn’t have to go far, luckily. Only a short distance away, Genesis stood amidst the trees talking to… Angeal Hewley?
Angeal Hewley in a worn grey and blue pinstripe suit that looked as oddly familiar as it did out of place on a SOLDIER, with a single large white wing drooping from his back. His hair had greyed, and his body wasted away, missing the musculature the former Commander had sported before his desertion. The difference was as stark and shocking as his initial encounter with Genesis had been.
But wasn’t Angeal dead?
“You’re looking better,” Angeal was saying, “Astoundingly so. You found a cure?”
“Obviously,” Genesis retorted.
“And Hollander?”
“Dead.”
This didn’t appear to surprise Angeal. “You killed him, then.”
Genesis flicked his hair out of his eyes in a flippant gesture. “Consider yourself fortunate I have not yet done the same for you.”
“Because I wear the face of your old friend?” Angeal replied.
Genesis sneered, but didn’t respond.
It couldn’t be Angeal. Unlike the many ambiguities of Genesis’s multitude of ‘deaths’, Zack had been up close and personal for Angeal’s, and distraught for weeks afterwards. So this could only mean… a copy?
Genesis at last noticed his presence. “Ah, you’re awake. As you can see, we’ve received an impromptu visitor, who is no doubt going to cause us no end of trouble.”
“It’s not actually Angeal,” Kunsel said. “Who is it?” Someone who had gone missing. Someone who had a connection to Genesis, Angeal, and Hollander. “…Director Lazard?”
“It’s refreshing not having to explain everything for a change,” Genesis remarked.
“A SOLDIER?” Lazard studied him. “I remember you. Second Class, used to hang around Zack Fair quite a bit. Solid mission record, never caused much trouble. Kunsel, wasn’t it?”
Kunsel was surprised he recognised him at all, much less remembered that much, but then, any association with Zack explained that. “Should I be flattered?”
Lazard shrugged – the laconic gesture looked somewhat wrong on Angeal’s frame. He turned back to Genesis. “You’re still being stubborn about it, then.”
“The situation hasn’t changed with my cure, and neither has my opinion. If anything, you should be more wary. Hollander was quick to sell us out. We don’t know how much he told ShinRa. He may have included information about you in whatever deal he was trying to wrangle.”
Lazard seemed unworried about it. “Though it pains me to say it, on my own, I’m little threat to ShinRa. As you’ve reminded me often enough.”
“And that is why you attempt to turn others into threats for you. I have no intention of being your attack dog any longer, and if you had any brain cells left to rub together you would abandon your notions of appealing to Zack Fair. And if you were too stupid to do that, I would hope you at least aware enough to leave me out of it.” Genesis sounded bored of the exchange already.
Kunsel tensed at the mention of Zack. Neither appeared to notice.
Lazard sighed. “How do you expect anything to change by hiding?”
“How do you expect to change anything if you are dead?” Genesis retorted. “You lumber around the countryside like a three-legged behemoth. It’s a miracle you’re still alive as is, and you wish to poke your nose out further? You’ve only survived this long because ShinRa hasn’t been looking.”
Lazard, for his part, caught onto the line of thought quickly enough. “But ShinRa is actively looking for you then.” He glanced towards Kunsel. “Because of them? How unlike you to stick your neck out for others.”
“Yet you expect me to stick it out for you?” Genesis snapped. “Your hypocrisy is as galling as ever. Just because you wear Angeal’s face doesn’t mean you have miraculously inherited his virtues.”
Lazard, for his part, had no response to that.
Genesis huffed, and dismissed him with a wave. “If you have nothing of use to offer, leave. And don’t bother me with your ill-thought out schemes again.”
“…Stubborn as always.” Lazard shook his head. His gaze shifted to Kunsel, contemplative, long enough that Kunsel’s skin began to crawl, before he nodded once in farewell. “Very well then.”
He spread his wing, and took off into the sky. Compared to Genesis’s flight, it looked awkward and fumbling, but in a matter of minutes he was out of sight.
Genesis, for his part, simply scowled and turned back to camp. “We have to move. Now that graceless idiot has inevitably been seen around here all our attempts at hiding a trail have been rendered pointless.”
Kunsel had already guessed as much. “How did he find us at all?”
“A rather outdated means of tracking and contact, meant for emergencies, which he has invariably used to attempt to sway me to his causes.” Genesis sounded irritable about it, waving what looked like a small jury-rigged pager at him in explanation. “It had been long enough that it slipped my mind, but of course once we left Mideel he would take it as a sign I had come around.”
He didn’t discard it, though.
Kunsel wondered how accurate Lazard’s quip about Angeal’s face had been.
They arrived back at camp. Cloud’s eyes were half-open, blinking sleepily, so he’d apparently woken up while he was gone. Kunsel fetched his canteen to get him some water. “I thought he’d come for a cure,” he remarked as he helped Cloud sit up. “Are you not giving it to him?”
“So anxious to have you friend harvested for his cells again?” Genesis asked. Kunsel cringed at the reminder. “You think little of me indeed, don’t you, SOLDIER Second Class Kunsel? For your information, he doesn’t want it. Some misguided notion of ‘penance’. And in any case, his need is not as great as it appears. Angeal’s genes were far more stable than mine. His poor condition has much more to do with stress and lifestyle.”
“Sorry,” Kunsel offered. “I just didn’t know where you stood with him.” Cloud shifted his head slightly from the canteen – Kunsel withdrew it and capped it, reminding himself to refill it in the nearby stream before they left. “Because, what you said, about Angeal…”
“The genetic transferral affected Angeal differently,” Genesis said, his posture uncomfortably stiff. Kunsel had the feeling it had been some time since he had spoken of his friend so directly. “In Lazard’s case it has, it seems, affected him even on the level of his personality.”
Unsettling. How much of that was still Lazard then? “Then Zack…”
“Is something of a blind spot for him,” Genesis confirmed.
Kunsel’s gut churned. Zack…
Something must have showed in his expression, as Genesis remarked, “That’s right. Lazard said he was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, he was,” Kunsel replied.
They finished packing up the camp in silence.
Next chapter
no subject
Date: 2018-09-02 08:45 pm (UTC)I am dying to know what Zack is thinking through all of this. Is he unaware of Kunsel and Cloud? How will he react to hearing that Cissnei is dead? And OMG Aeris is still alive!
I'm having a wonderful time reading your updates.
no subject
Date: 2018-09-08 02:04 am (UTC)Your stories never disappoint
Date: 2018-09-08 12:37 am (UTC)Re: Your stories never disappoint
Date: 2018-09-08 02:04 am (UTC)