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.




We needed Havars’ thumbprint to open the cell doors. We could have used his second in command, but I couldn’t sort out the man’s hand among the many body parts piled here and there.

“You can take him,” Tseng suggested, nudging Havars. “He can’t do much at gunpoint.”

“Drag the monster back down there?” The captain of the airship, Highwind, joined us, having heard some of our conversation. “Just cut his thumb off. I wouldn’t want those kids seeing him ever again.” He had a half-burnt cigarette in his mouth, making his words come out slightly slurred. His spear, now well-bloodied, he held slung over his shoulder. I found him casually menacing. Despite the diversity in AVALANCHE, the rough captain alone seemed unaffected by changes in the wind.

A certain poetry lay in that.

“Good point.” Reno handed the camera to Rude, reaching into a bag stowed in the seat of a chopper. He pulled out a pair of cable cutters. “Just the thumbprint or the whole thumb?” he asked, standing behind a quivering Lucas Havars. His eyes sought me and my approval.

“Take the whole thumb, just in case,” I replied.

Havars howled and thrashed, passing out when Reno made the blades meet. The Turk slung excess blood out of the digit and grinned at the scientist’s fallen form. “Too bad it couldn’t have been his middle one,” he joked. “I’ll loan him mine anyway.” He flash-signed the universal “fuck you” to Havars and stepped over him.

Very soon we walked through the cells. Reno opened the doors without pause, letting his fellow Turks do the actual meet and greet. I chose the first cell I’d peered into, once again seeing the little girl in rags. She made my very soul ache. “I won’t hurt you,” I said in Wutainian. “I’m here to free you.”

I knelt as she staggered out of her grimy nest, sickened and amazed at the wounds on her tiny frame. Her bones stuck out. Her bright yellow eyes burned with a fever. She couldn’t be older than five. “Come on,” I urged, taking her up. “We’re going away from the cells. I have a friend who would like to make sure you’re okay.” She felt lighter than a feather. My stomach roiled at the damage done to her.

At this point in my life I could feel. I felt things. For a brief second I wished for that time in which I couldn’t; I didn’t want to sense this child’s pain and despair. It made my own misery all the more acute.

Silent, the girl clung to me. I gathered up her next door neighbor, a little boy of about the same age and coloring, and walked toward the infirmary. They rested their heads on my shoulders, breathing hard, too scared and sick to resist me in any way though I had to look a nightmare. The clotting blood on my clothes clung to them, lending them the same, rank smell I carried.

I found Hojo and Aerith already amidst a group of small children, Valentine to the side putting bandages on a boy’s head. At his feet sat a freshly opened crate of candy, no doubt bribes used by lab technicians to get compliance.

Hojo took temperatures and washed wounds while Aerith tended to the children that moved very little. She faltered at seeing me, but her smile broke out and I felt bathed in sunshine. “Put them here, Sephiroth,” she murmured, patting a table she’d covered in linens.

I put the little ones down. They immediately adhered to each other in quiet desperation, damaging another part of my heart that I wished inviolate.

“Your brother?” I asked the girl. She nodded. I looked at Aerith. “These two are siblings; they can’t be separated.”

“You speak Wutainian, of course,” Aerith said. “Why don’t you stay here and translate for us? The Turks can bring the children.”

“Very well,” I agreed. Only Tseng could fill this need better than I, most likely, and he wasn’t in the building.

Hojo finished washing a gash on his smallest patient, eyes darting upward to mine. “Step in the hosing room, boy,” he ordered. “You can’t be in here covered in blood like that. These children are traumatized already.” I saw he’d managed to find a lab coat. He had to feel more secure now.

The coat bothered me; it had helped distance me from our past that I hadn’t seen him in one in quite awhile.

“Besides, you just drip with contamination,” Hojo went on, prodding me with his eyes. “You can’t get ordinary diseases but these children most likely can.” He threw a wad of bloodied gauze into a stainless steel bowl and dismissed me. He was in full, busy-Hojo mode.

I passed him.

And so, for the first time I voluntarily entered a laboratory decontamination room. The last time I’d suffered being dragged toward cold jets of water I’d screamed my head off and broken a technician’s neck.

The water never washed off more than blood. I shivered in the warm air, remembering many enforced trips to the showers.

I took off my coat so it could get a rinse inside and out, knowing I’d have to oil it later. My pants and boots I kept. They were waterproof.

The red just kept rolling off me. I bent under the spray, bracing myself with an arm against the wall. I smelled the familiar sterilizer in the water and gagged. It seemed enough to fully tip me into sickness. I vomited water and bile, having nothing on my stomach. In moments I succumbed to dry heaves.

A vial appeared before my eyes. Blinking, I abandoned the wall, turning to see the bottomless blue gaze of Cloud. “We’ve all had to take a dose,” he prompted, pushing the vial at me again. “Havars has some kind of gas circulating the air supply. I didn’t understand the jargon, but it kept the kids weak. This stuff fixes the nausea.”

I took it gladly. Cloud stepped beside me and got under the spray as well. Wolf blood streamed from his body. Though sopping wet, his hair still pushed stubbornly up into rebellious spikes. “Rude and Elena are exploring the air ducts now, looking for the gas canisters,” he went on. “Cid’s gone to get Tifa ready to open up the orphanage. We have med-techs from Shin-Ra on the way.” Cloud grabbed a bar of utility soap from the floor and furiously scrubbed at his head. “Tseng picked up the guard you left. He has Havars, Rufus and Sheila secure.” He shrugged and grinned. “And the Turks aren’t targeting Aerith; your protection and Tseng’s warning accomplished that.”

I absorbed the information almost dully, fighting my own mind. Too much. Too much everything, of blood and death and pain and HER. I teetered between present day and my past. I heard two of Hojo’s voice now, coming through the door. One spoke of the glory of the Jenova Project and the other spoke quietly, even gently. My vision blurred. This shower didn’t look like the one Hojo always threw me into…


Who was this blond standing next to me?


Nothing hurt.


Why was I in here, covered in blood?


“Sephiroth?” The blond stared at me.


My name, but I couldn’t answer. The water just kept beating down. I’d done something to be in here, remember it or not. The fact I could hear Hojo outside meant I’d have an escort back to my cell. Therefore, the second voice was the liar. Hojo could never be kind or gentle. I thrust that voice away and focused on the other.

The blond man’s blue eyes seemed to go on forever, staring into me as if searching for answers to a riddle. I watched the water drip off of him, slightly tinged pink from a patch of blood on his shoulder. Maybe were in here together from fighting?

“Sephiroth?” he repeated, reaching out to touch my shoulder. I flinched away. Touching always meant pain.

The blond drew back, his face thoughtful. Suddenly, he grabbed a towel and wiped off his spiky head. “Stay here, alright?” he asked. “I’ll go get somebody.”

I watched him leave, catching a glimpse of Hojo with a small boy. Suddenly, my legs just wouldn’t support me any longer. I slumped, falling to my knees in the shower. Determined to stay under the water, I moved until I just sat up beneath the stream. Maybe I could drown myself.

“I can’t leave these children, not even for Sephiroth,” I heard a female voice say. “I’m the only thing keeping a few from death and they keep coming in.” She sobbed shortly. “Send Hojo.”

No, not Hojo…

I curled up, arms over my head. I could only sit here, trapped, at his mercy. And he didn’t have mercy. He intended I shouldn’t either.

“Sephiroth?”

The water stopped falling with a squeak of rusty washers.

“Boy?”

I trembled as he knelt beside me, cringing from the feel of his hand on my bare shoulder.

“Sephiroth, look at me,” he said firmly, but I heard no violence in his tone. He was in a patient mood, today, then. I risked raising my head, obliged to obey his command. Those black eyes peered into my soul for a long moment. “How old are you, boy?” he asked softly.

“Ten,” I answered, wondering what sort of trick he had in store for me. What a strange question. But he did forget things at times. It gave me hope that he’d forget about me one day.

Hojo sighed. I almost forgot to breathe as he sat down on the wet tile right beside me. “Here, Sephiroth,” he said reaching into his pocket and drawing out a tightly wrapped chocolate. “You’re not being punished. You haven’t done anything wrong.” His long, white fingers deftly un-wrapped the sweet. He handed it to me slowly. “I’ll sit in here with you awhile,” he offered. “There’s nowhere we have to be.”

I snatched it quickly, putting the chocolate in my mouth before he could change his mind. I hadn’t had anything sweet like this in months and only then because Gast snuck it in to me. But I hadn’t seen Gast in quite awhile…

Outside the room I heard the female’s voice again. “Just stand there and wash wounds, Tseng,” she commanded. “Hojo’s busy. No, don’t go in there.”

I looked back at Hojo. “Am I taking you away from a project, Professor?” I didn’t want to take the blame later if Hojo’s absence ruined work.

“No, no you aren’t,” Hojo answered quietly. “I don’t have any projects right now, and if I did, you’d still be more important.” He didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off me. That was strange. Hojo rarely looked directly at me.

“I would be more important?” I repeated. That didn’t sound right at all. He always had at least one project; me. How could I be more important than myself? Was he having one of his sick, addled days?

Maybe he saw my skepticism. Hojo gave me another chocolate. “Yes, Sephiroth, you would,” he said firmly. “You’re the most important person to me.”

Was he crying? I looked at him closer, amazed to see water lingering at the corner of his right eye. He didn’t let me cry, not ever.

But the chocolate tasted good.