Viral Love

It even felt similar to my old cloak, being made of the same thickness velvet. I felt much more concealed and at ease. Still, I wondered why Hojo had gone into that fabric store in the first place. He couldn’t have known I had a cape in there; I hadn’t even known, really.

I watched him slyly, using my peripheral vision. He looked so odd in my clothes. I hadn’t paid much attention before, because of my irritation with him, but now… Now I had to look, because the clothing had shrunk to fit him perfectly. If he only had a bandana and cloak, I’d have my very own mini-me with glasses.

I laughed inside. Hojo. Mini-me. Mini-me-Hojo. Sounded like a doll’s name.

He turned his head to avoid a brier, and I gazed upon his smooth skin. No, he was too dark to be a miniature me. A tan did wonders for how he looked, certainly. I’d never really seen his physical appeal until taking this unexpected, unwelcome trip. He always wore those ill-fitting lab coats, concealing himself. For a scientist, he had a healthy muscle-to-fat ratio. He wasn’t a small man even if he looked smaller beside of me.

“For the record,” he said suddenly, “you can’t conceal the power of your pretty red eyes. They bore through me like lasers.”

I decided to be completely honest. He’d entertain me by being completely honest in return. “You look better with a tan, is what I considered,” I told him.

“I always have. I’ve got too much green in my complexion for the pale look to be vogue.” He stopped to re-tie his bootlace, and I took a long look at his ass. Why couldn’t I shake the feeling I’d done something to him while in Chaos form? He said I hadn’t put my dick in him, and I believed him.

He straightened up and met my eyes. Seeking something, he held me for a long few seconds. Finally, his lips twitched as if he aborted a smile. “The lines are blurring,” he said cryptically.

“Meaning?” I’d yet to figure out if spoke like a seer because of a true existentialistic point of view, or if because his brain just wouldn’t allow straightforward communication.

“Meaning, you’ve let Chaos further in. I see more of him this morning than I’ve ever seen before.” He leaned against a tree with his hands behind his back. “Don’t you feel better?”

I did feel better. I felt less like a hunted animal and more like a predator.

Did it matter if Chaos and I united into one? I didn’t feel like I’d lost my personality yet, but would that eventually happen? I felt a wave of the old melancholy overtake me. No one would notice, probably, if Vincent Valentine blended into Chaos. No one except this absolute mad man.

“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Hojo went on smoothly. “Of all I could have followed in medicine, I never cared to study how the human mind processes, figures, assimilates and heals.”

“Your point?” I asked simply.

“My point,” he repeated softly, still studying me openly. “I wish I’d taken those courses, now. I could have some intelligent input on how you’re supposed to feel. Yet, I doubt anything in the psychiatry books could come close to your struggle; I’d still be in the dark, wouldn’t I?”

Despite his words, I knew he had a better understanding of this issue than I did. I was too close to it to see objectively. And, the very nature of self-assimilation probably ruined objective thought from the get-go. “You know more than I do, regardless,” I answered.

He smiled. “Not about all things,” he argued, his voice still quiet and soft. “It seems that all I don’t know, you’re at expert level.”

“We’re opposites,” I shot back. “That isn’t unusual. It’s more unusual to be the same.”

He blinked slowly. I got a sudden and deep intuition that I’d just impressed him, or turned him on, or maybe both. “Being opposites,” he said slowly, “has little to do with learned skills. A person might learn woodworking to build their own house, or to simply enjoy a hobby.”

Hojo relaxed his stance a little, leaning one leg and shoulder against the tree. “We’re both decent with a gun, though I’m sure you easily top my marksmanship, but we learned for different reasons. I first learned because hunting successfully meant a difference in my father’s household. I then took my skills farther for self-protection.” He smiled again. “You probably learned because you’ve always liked firearms.”

True. I’d always liked guns. Felling an opponent before they came into my personal space, appealed to me. “What does any of this have to do with wishing you’d taken psychiatry?”

Hojo blinked rapidly and shook himself. “You put me back on track,” he murmured. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

Crazy scientist.

“I just wish I could make it easier for you,” he said. “But, though I don’t have the needed degree, I am observant. “Watching you and talking to you is surely better than having a degree and interacting with you one hour once a week.”

Oh god, I’d become a project again.

“Don’t you make me your new hobby,” I said in warning.

“Afraid I’ll throw your equilibrium, or afraid I’ll actually be of use?” he asked in that maddening, reasonable tone. “Looking at you distresses my conscience, Valentine. Since I’m not much accustomed to that, I have to conclude you’re a real soft spot. The question is, why?”

“You feel bad about what you’ve done to me.” That was an easy enough guess.

“Yes, but only because it bothers you,” he countered. “You’re a brilliant bit of my work, physically. My dear wife approached your augmentation personally, though. Yet, neither of us could deliberately or accidentally harm your intelligence.” He pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes from his pocket, opened it and lit one with a flick of his wrist.

He still had his materia.

I shoved that thought back for now, because he was speaking again and I needed all my concentration to make sense of his words.

“You know what else you have that makes you strong?” he asked, blowing a plume of blue smoke. “Your nobility. I’ve marked it time and time again.” His black eyes wandered me with uncomfortable intensity. “I’ve never, ever known someone capable of your determination, anyone else so committed and driven once they gave their word or consent. You’re the ideal of knighthood.”

His words struck me in a tender area. Many, many times I’d felt impatience or disgust with people who gave their word and then easily violated the vow. I hated it. I despised oath-breakers and liars.

“No wonder Lucrecia found you so fascinating,” Hojo murmured. “You belong to a world of personal honesty, of values, of philosophy tempered by hard fact. She must have wanted you to shine, Turk. She took all those aspects of your personality that might get in the way of your higher being, and, realizing she couldn’t eliminate them, just separated you from them as best she could.”

Hojo drew smoke again, eyes glittering. “She had no way of knowing that would screw you over, eventually. I can’t really find fault with her attempt, except for the fact that she had no right to complain over what I did to you. We achieved the same level of scientific blindness, made a beautiful monster. I’m very, very sorry you only have me to take it out on. I think you’d feel a lot better if you could give both of us a little punishment.”

Talking to Hojo nearly always meant confusion, pain, or terrible enlightenment. I stepped back and leaned on a tree, matching his stance and separated by piles of sweet-smelling pine needles. I felt compelled to give his thoughts some time in my head. Closing my eyes, I let my mind flow neutrally.

Without intending to, my lost love had indeed done as much to harm me as Hojo. Did it mean so much that I got her smiles with her experimental serums? Had I loved her so much that I could ignore what she did?

Hojo still loved her, but in the way of admiration, in the manner of respecting a colleague.

I still loved her, but in what way?

In what way?

She was beautiful and kind, with soft words and hands… Hojo had soft words and hands, they had that in common. They had their work in common, too. Yes, they’d made a joint effort of me…

Like a thunderstrike, I realized they had something else in common, something raw and terrible and so utterly obvious that I’d never seen it. Or, maybe I’d refused to see it. Maybe I turned my face deliberately.

Lucrecia was every bit as mad as Hojo. They were both mad scientists.

My eyes opened of their own accord, and I met Hojo’s intense, black stare. No wonder he couldn’t grasp why I clung to hate for his sake, and love for her sake. To him, he and his wife were the same.

They were the same.