Paper Tiger Burning

I respectfully credit all Original Creators, namely Squaresoft, which became SquareEnix,for these characters. In this way, I pay homage to my Fandom's Original Creator, and illustrate my Community's belief that Fan Fiction is "fair use". I do not claim to own these characters. I do not make money or gil from using these protected characters, nor do I wish to make money or gil from them. In other words, I am borrowing these characters to entertain the adult fanfiction community, but I am doing so with the highest degree of respect to the engineers, game designers, music makers, and voice actors.




“How is it that you know how to fly a helicopter?” I asked, watching Hojo flip some controls. “You aren’t military.”

“I’ve seen it often enough,” Hojo answered, guiding across a tree line. “I’ve never flown solo but I’m obviously competent.” He rubbed at his scarred forehead absently, appearing not to know he did it.

“You’ve never piloted?” I gripped the seat tightly. I wished he hadn’t said that, hadn’t told me.

“I’ve been a passenger some two thousand times,” Hojo answered, punching mysterious buttons while he directed the toggle stick. “For lack of anything better to do, I just watched the pilot.” He made a snorting noise. “Many times I believed I’d have to fly myself back to base; Shin-Ra soldiers and Turks are forever getting themselves killed.”

I made myself relax. This was Hojo. Despite the many problems he had yet to overcome, the mental illness he’d only recently shed, he remained a smart man. If he claimed he could fly a helicopter just from watching it done, I could believe that.

Besides, we seemed to fly as smoothly as when Sephiroth sat behind the controls.

“So, how far do we have to go now?” I asked. If I had been on the ground I would have paced with nervousness.

“Twenty kilometers, give or take.” Hojo adjusted the mike on his ear with an irritable swipe. “You realize, Cetra, that what we’re flying toward is going to be very ugly to a person like you? This is a compound full of abused, even dying children.” He shot me a piercing look as he executed a hard turn around the edge of a mountain. “And you won’t be able to save them all, not even with your miraculous abilities.”

I bit my lip. “I had that thought,” I confessed, feeling the queasy sensation in my stomach soar. “But I can make a difference to some of them, surely.”

Hojo nodded. For a few minutes we flew in silence. Then, he turned back to me. “Sephiroth did not include us in this for a reason,” he said. “He’s not going to be pleased that we followed.”

“Let him wave his arms and shout,” I answered grimly. “We aren’t children, no matter how he likes to think of us as his charges.” I had a bone to pick with him over this issue anyway. How dare he leave me behind when I could help? Was there another Cetra around to help the children? No. His desire to shield me didn’t give him the right to make my decisions. My blood boiled just thinking about it.

Hojo chuckled. “I may stand behind you,” he said, “but as much for shelter as support.”

I felt my bad mood slipping at his humor. I envisioned him crouching behind me while Sephiroth yelled and made threatening gestures. A titter escaped my lips.

Hojo’s chuckle became a light laugh. It sounded rusty, as if strong humor hadn’t touched him for quite awhile. More than likely, it hadn’t.

The Planet stirred, touching my mind gently. Warm kindness suffused my soul as a reward for doing so well with Hojo. I gave and the Planet returned. Many times we had exchanged our love, and every time seemed beautiful, but none compared to this. My help, my refusal to hang on to the negativity, my patience, returned ten-fold. I only sorrowed that Hojo could not feel the world’s benevolence without my help. This was what he’d ached to know for all these years, this quality that made me a Cetra.

On impulse I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, desperate to share this love and this connection. Hojo stayed relaxed under my touch as if he’d expected it. Casting me a smile, he kept his eyes on the horizon. “It’s interesting,” he said softly. “Jenova did her best to conquer your race and I am full of her cells, but I don’t shrink back from you. It suggests Jenova could have done things differently.”

“She could have,” I agreed. “But don’t you find it more interesting that you are farther advanced than she?”

“The human is the weaker,” Hojo argued. “Jenova would not have needed human cells to improve herself the way we’ve used her cells to advance; she did need a host but only because of her weakened state. In her natural, undamaged form she would have seemed a goddess to us.”

“I said you were more advanced, not stronger,” I pointed out. “You said you were full of Jenova cells and that I don’t repulse you, but Jenova hated the Cetra. Jenova only knew how to destroy.” I patted his shoulder briefly. “Human beings are very open and adventurous, always building and destroying. Yes, you’ve destroyed, but you’ve also built.”

Hojo gave a short sigh. He began guiding the chopper down between two mountains. I saw nothing but countryside in any direction, except for a cave entrance close by.

“Aerith,” he said as we landed, using my name for the second time. His eyes stayed firmly ahead, unseeing and unblinking. “I couldn’t rue my treatment of you any less than Sephiroth’s. And your forgiveness is the only reason I haven’t eaten a bullet.” Swallowing hard, he tilted his head a little. “And what amazes me is that I started this very tricky path on my own. I bought into my reputation and did everything to sustain it. I feared myself.”

“Don’t we all?” I joined him in looking out the glass. “Sephiroth gave you the first nudge by revealing he knew his parentage. He made you look at what you didn’t want to see, and you took it from there.” I smiled a little. “And I know how you feel about me. You’re like Sephiroth; you show how you feel.”

“He does now,” Hojo replied, kicking open his door. “Come on. This is the rear entry to Havars’ compound. I hope Sephiroth knew of it. If not he’ll have walked right into the thick of things.”

“He generally does,” I sighed.

***************************************************************************************

Mistakenly thinking our group a democracy, they voted me to the front. They had a decent enough excuse, but I wouldn’t accidentally slice them with the Masamune; I knew exactly how long my sword was and they all knew it too. Still, I had to concede Eldon’s point. Everyone knew me, knew my reputation. The sight of me charging through the compound covered in blood would probably be a psychological advantage. I went along with their election easily.

I decapitated the fifth or sixth man out, sending his head rolling down the corridor. A chorus of horrified gasping rose up with an echoing refrain from behind. Eldon and Cloud, by the sound; I could probably gut Valentine and not get a peep out of him.

Men rushed me, making me lose count. I shredded them.

It felt familiar having super SOLDIERs at my back, doing nothing. Just like the invasion of Wutai… Granted, Valentine and Cloud had more remarkable skills than the average soldier. Skills I couldn’t see, being in the front and never letting an opponent get behind me. I attributed this to my colossal ego. Eldon still had the camera rolling, after all.

I doubted I’d ever air on the news unedited for content.

I dripped blood now, none of it my own. This seemed quite familiar too, common and thrilling. How long had I waited to kill? It seemed an eternity. I took my leisure of slaughter, enjoyed bursting these blood-filled, moving targets. Their screams were music to the tempo of my sword.

Still, more men came. The numbers grew, making a lie of Havars’ count. I suspected he’d alerted more guards by a remote alarm, or perhaps we’d set an alarm off coming inside. It didn’t really matter; I could mow them all down easily.

“Where are they coming from?” Cloud pitched his voice above the battle.

“The compound appears to be Y-shaped,” Eldon shouted back. “We came in the lower, single fork; these guards are coming from the left.”

“Then we’ll plug the central position,” Valentine growled. “How far?”

“Another kilometer,” Eldon answered, having to reply louder over the screaming.

They didn’t even worry I would tire, which suited me fine. I hadn’t an excuse to kill like this in years. It fed a darkness in me that never entirely slept. Already I felt the distancing of bloodlust, gently put into motion with throat-slitting, but whetted by slicing through dozens in the corridor. I became liquid, without pause. Like performing katas, I moved through my motions in a meditative state.

On and on we pressed. The Masamune made an excellent brush with men for paint. This hallway seemed a perfect canvas, enclosing us on all sides with pristine white walls. I knew where to cut for artistic effect. Slice, splatter. Jab, spurt. Two men at once for a large coat of red, one man for accent dotting. Stipple with a beheading…

Ten minutes and I created a half-kilometer masterpiece in red and white.

“Now what?” Cloud asked as we jammed up the Y-fork.

“Let the General hold,” Valentine answered. From my right peripheral I saw him glide down the empty, right hand corridor. I approved and sanctioned his planning so far. We now made a block in the middle of this oddly shaped building, able to prevent advancement from one end of the other. Also, Valentine seemed our stealthiest member; I could rely upon him to investigate solo and not worry too much.

The numbers began to trickle. I lazily cut men down now, bored. I couldn’t maintain the continuity of my artwork when bottled up in the same fifteen feet of space, so I attempted to paint the junction a uniform red. The side walls and the floor coated easily, but the ceiling presented an issue. I found I could cause a veritable eruption of blood if I hacked straight down into the cranium, especially if I immediately pulled my sword free.

I stood waiting for the next group of prey, but the corridor remained clear. Turning, I looked at Cloud and Eldon. “Follow Valentine,” I commanded. “If I don’t hear from you in two minutes I will follow.”

They obeyed. It surprised me that Cloud conformed to my orders. I stood as an impatient sentry, ears strained for their corridor while my eyes watched ahead of me. Attentive that men could approach from behind, I put my back to the left-hand wall and waited.

“This way!” Cloud shouted some distance in. I abandoned my post and entered the right fork.

The entire corridor was nothing but cells. I swallowed back nausea. I’d lived in a tiny room for the first thirteen years of my life. Feeling disoriented, and slightly claustrophobic, I tracked the rest of my party. I didn’t have time to wallow in painful memories right now. I had to focus on the immediate duty at hand.

They stood outside a central control, flanked on both sides by large, metal gates. Holes in the floor secured the bottom of each gate, the fringe of spikes dropping securely inside. Eldon had a device wired into the left gate controls, his fingers flying over multicolored buttons at each panel. “Separate security protocols,” he said in a distracted tone. “One gate will not open the other.”

“Which one are you opening?” Valentine asked, ruby eyes absorbing Elson’s movements.

“I don’t know what’s behind this gate,” Eldon answered, frowning. “I guess we’ll have to split up. Two down this side and two down the other; as soon as I get this gate open I’ll start on the next.”

I couldn’t find fault with any of this so I remained silent. I felt scattered at the moment anyway. Without men to kill as a distraction, the walls felt very close. And they were walls full of cells, full of children…

Children with a present like my past.

Valentine and Cloud took the first side, sliding in as soon as Eldon got the gate open. I crossed the corridor to the next gate, waiting while Eldon did his technical magic. He glanced up at me with deep, brown eyes while threading a wire into the panel. “Are you alright, General Sephiroth?” he asked softly. The camera on his shoulder had a blinking light.

“I’m functioning, Eldon,” I replied. “And you?” I loved his loyalty, rejoiced in his dependability. Of all the soldiers I’d know, Eldon remained the most reliable. He didn’t even know how valuable he was, but I vowed he would know before long.

“I’m a little sick,” he divulged. “Labs and cells and things like that make me very uncomfortable. And I don’t know what we’re going to find here. I dread it.”

I remembered how Eldon had acted going inside Shin-Ra labs with me. He’d trembled and sweated, his eyes roaming at all times. Here, he acted like a soldier, managing his fright and working over it. He had valor, more than many would in his place.

“You’re doing very well, Eldon,” I said quietly. “I don’t like this either.”

Eldon nodded. I noticed he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He finished his button punching and the gate slid upward.

We stood inside the access corridor, behind the cells and outside their doors. I peered inside one, being tall enough to do so. The form of an emaciated child met my eyes. She huddled in rags against a grimy pillow, her eyes fixed upon my window with fear. Gut churning, I stepped back. “How are we to open these doors without hurting the occupants?” I asked, looking at the complicated, electronic locks.

“That’s what we want to know,” Cloud said, coming up behind us with Valentine in the lead. “We couldn’t open anything and we were afraid we’d hurt these kids if we just broke in.”

“The Turks will be here soon,” Eldon said, “and with them to secure the compound I’m sure it won’t be dangerous to release the children, but for right now we should just do a head count. What if we get them out only to have leftover security injure them, or those wolves which we haven’t seen yet?”

In the back of my mind, true darkness stirred with silken, barbed tentacles. I went rigid, banishing the Masamune. I hadn’t felt HER presence since my reunion. Perhaps my bloodlust had awakened her…

Havars had at least one piece of Jenova somewhere in this compound.

SHE laughed softly, in her musical way.

“I haven’t seen you in so long, my son,” she whispered in my mind, her voice like a heated razor. “Be a good boy and do what mother tells you.” Her poisonous tentacles wrapped around me, banishing my rational mind.

I clenched my head in both hands. “No,” I shouted. “She’s here!” I could not fall to her, not now. She would ruin everything if I didn’t drive her out. But, I had never tried to drive her out; I didn’t know how.

Cloud slapped my face, hard, his bright blue eyes like brittle shards of ice. “Snap out of it,” he demanded. Seconds later he too began to crumple where he stood, as Jenova turned her attention to him. His blood held enough of my identity now to completely incapacitate him to HER. We fell almost together; I felt his shoulder against mine as I hit the wall and slid down.

“Why do you struggle?” Jenova asked. “You cannot defeat my will, son.”

The pain would shred my nerve endings. I gasped, rolling from side to side, not quite hoping for death. She’d never wounded me this much, never. But I didn’t belong to her anymore and I had to be punished...