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.



I didn’t sleep.

Instead of tossing and turning in bed yet another night, I got up and stared at the white roses on my coffee table. Their rich, heady scent layered my entire apartment. The flower girl had grown them, planted the bushes in her decrepit church. The flower girl, who I’d ended, and who Hojo had returned to the living, just like he’d done with me. Now she rotted in a glass cell, a scientific curiosity.

He would be the death of her.

The flower girl was delicate and pure, like her roses.

I put my clothing on and exited the building. This was foolish of me, I knew. I couldn’t justify what I was about to do. If discovered I would go back to being a criminal, hiding from everyone and unable to live any sort of normal life. And I did want a somewhat ordinary life, for a change. I wanted to walk in public without scuffles. I desired the option of making friends and taking lovers.

But I owed the flower girl this and I always paid my debts. Besides, I’d received another chance at life even though I hadn’t asked for it. My sense of justice demanded I extend that chance to her as well.

I wasn’t a good man, but before Jenova raped my mind I’d been an honorable one.

Rufus and Sheila wanted my image tamed and improved, didn’t they?

I flew to the lab. Hovering at five thousand feet, I used the energy of the current storm and increased it tenfold. The powers of Jenova served me well even if her poisonous voice was nothing but a memory. I couldn’t be separated from her abilities; the cells of my body considered her as natural as oxygen.

Lightning arced and burned all around me. I directed it toward the main power line at Shin-Ra. The building went dark as I shattered the line and the generator in one fell swoop. Now I had ruined Hojo’s refrigerated samples of gods only knew what, and eliminated the possibility of being seen with cameras. I would now simply phase inside the building, retrieve the girl and leave with her. Hojo would have no proof of my guilt. He would suspect, but he would not be able to provide evidence.

I found the Cetra lying on her side but curled up in a tight ball, her hands and feet bound with adamantine chains. The sight of her made my skin crawl. How many times had I lain in a cold cell, chained and drugged and trying to process high levels of mako?

She didn’t awaken until I’d torn her last chain free from the housing. “No, not already,” she moaned.

“Be silent,” I whispered in her ear. “I’m taking you out of here.”

She stiffened. “Who are you?” she asked fearfully, reaching for her blindfold.

“Leave it on,” I advised. “There is a storm raging outside and the lighting could permanently damage your retinas.” I picked her up in my arms and shattered the glass of her cell from the inside with a quick kick of my boot, making it seem as if she had broken out herself. Hojo would know better but he’d have a hard time explaining why she couldn’t have possibly gotten free on her own. His experiments frequently escaped in my day and Rufus would remember that.

The girl passed out shortly upon our exit from the building. I flew with her to my apartment, feeling her slight warmth growing chill in the cold rain. We weren’t airborne but a few minutes, yet long enough to lower her body temperature to a dangerous extent. I landed on the roof and passed through it, opting to not take a chance on being seen.

I placed her upon the couch and went into the bathroom to run a lukewarm bath. Hot water would burn her at this point, but she needed bathed, needed her core temperature raised slowly. Because I had them and because they might help, I added Epsom salts to the water. After making sure they’d dissolved, I rose and went to retrieve her. She hadn’t moved.

Staring down at her I felt very strange. I was so unused to feeling compassion I almost didn’t recognize it. Emotions seemed so useless. The rare occasions they were needed I let them pass without knowing; only learning of how I had erred by the way others reacted to me.

Sheila really should have known better than to assign me qualities I didn’t have; she and her brother were among the people who knew me for the monster I really am. I’d killed their father.

One of my more satisfying murders, that one.

I knelt beside the couch, wondering if I should attempt to awaken the flower girl. I respected privacy above many things, having not had the luxury of it for many years, and it would be an invasion of her privacy to bathe her myself. But she was weak and likely not able to clean herself up.

Hesitantly, I touched her shoulder. “Flower girl,” I murmured.

She stirred. “Do we have to start walking again right now, Cloud?” Her voice, weak, nevertheless held a note of censure. “It’s still dark outside,” she went on.

I couldn’t help smiling. When she discovered I wasn’t her little bodyguard cum boyfriend… “I’m not Cloud,” I said. “I need you to get up and come with me to the bathroom. You’re filthy and chilled to the bone.”

The flower girl wrenched up to a sitting position with effort, gasping. “You,” she said. “Where am I?”

“In my apartment; I took you from Hojo.” I helped her to stand, noticing how she swayed. Putting an arm under her elbow, I gently pulled her forward a few inches. “Come,” I commanded. “A bath awaits you.” I reeled at how small she seemed. I didn’t remember her being this little.

“A bath,” she murmured. “Not a hose?”

“You’re out of the labs,” I said impatiently. “I don’t keep a hose in my bathroom.” I tugged at her again. She collapsed. I had to swoop down to steady her lest she fall to the floor.

“I smell Angel’s Grace,” she murmured as I set her upright once more.

She recognized the scent of her own roses.

Impressed, I reached over and snatched a bloom from the milk carton vase on the coffee table. Pressing it into her limp hand, I brought the rose to her face. “I bought them from a little girl a mile from the Sector Five ruins,” I informed.

“My roses,” she whispered. A dark stain spread out under her blindfold. Tears. Slowly, she inhaled.

I looked at her. What a difference between this creature and Sheila. The flowers meant something to her, having been the one to start them, perhaps. But I couldn’t shake the idea that they would have held value for her anyway. When the puppet had picked her up she’d been selling flowers; her entire income, most likely.

“Come on,” I said in a softer tone, guiding her. She clutched at my arm. Underneath her current weakness I felt the potential of mako enhanced strength. With a few days of rest, food and warmth she would have a growth spurt in power and stamina, possibly, and her senses might become enhanced. I didn’t know anything for certain; mako generally wasn’t used on women. The reason for that escaped me.

I sat her down on the closed toilet and tugged the faded, useless ribbon from her hair. “Can you get in by yourself?” I asked. I tossed the ribbon onto the floor happily. I hated pink and enjoyed ridding her of the color.

The flower girl reached out blindly to touch the rim of the tub. “I think so,” she replied haltingly. “May I take my blindfold off now?”

“Leave it on a moment longer, “I answered. “I will go through the apartment and douse lights. By the time you finish it will be completely dark and you can remove it.”

“Thank you.” Her lower lip trembled. “I’ve had it on for months now and I’m so sick of it.”

I remembered feeling the same way, but as a child. Every time Hojo gave me a new series of mako injections I had to wear a blindfold until my irises adjusted. Accidental light, however brief, hurt quite a bit. “As soon as day breaks you’ll have to put it back on,” I warned, turning off the incandescent overhead to leave us in complete darkness. “Alright,” I said. “You can remove it now.”

I heard the soft rustle of cloth and then an even softer sigh. “My face is sore,” she whispered. “My whole body hurts, actually.”

“It will pass.” I turned the heat up. “Close your eyes until I leave.”

“Ok.”

I slipped out and began wandering through the apartment, shutting off lights. As a precaution I even unplugged the digital clock beside the bed. Not a ray of light leaked in anywhere when I finished.

I waited in the darkness with the scent of roses, listening to the gentle splashing in the bathroom and the hum of electricity in the walls. The Cetra bathed less than a half hour before I heard her clumsily making her way out of the bathtub. I grabbed one of my softest shirts and went to her, standing just outside the bathroom door. “I don’t have clothes for you,” I said. “You can wear my shirt for now.” Opening the door just a crack, I reached in with the garment. She heard me and took it with a murmur of thanks.

“Do you need help getting back to the living room?” I asked.

A silent hesitation.

“Yes,” she answered, sounding miserable. Her breathing hitched. “You are a very large person,” she announced in a tone of wonder. “Your shirt is…a nightgown on me.”

“I’m six feet, eight inches tall,” I replied, smiling to myself.

“That would be about right, then,” she sighed. “Ok, I’m decent.”

I opened the door, releasing a cloud of heat and steam. I smelled her feminine scent, surprised by how it pleased me. She simply smelled of woman. I did still detect the roses, however. Reaching out my hand, I took her by the elbow and slowly led her back into the main room. She stumbled over something and I caught her, setting her upright in an instant. Her startled gasp filled the darkness.

“You’re strong, too,” she commented. Her little hand gripped my bicep and squeezed lightly. “Oh my. You’ve never been mugged.”

She amused me, this flower girl.

“Not once,” I agreed. Sometimes I rued my celebrity status. I would enjoy it if someone attempted to rob me on the street. It would give me perfect license to indulge in murder and violence.

She shivered. “Could I have a blanket?”

I put her on the couch. “Yes, of course.” I went into the bedroom and took my chocobo feather stuffed quilt from the bed. Upon returning I draped it around her. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving,” she admitted. “I haven’t eaten in a few days.” By her voice I knew she was trembling.

“Wait here.” I walked into the kitchen and shut the door behind me. I would have to see to heat up food and she couldn’t have the light.

I remembered well how often I’d gone hungry under Hojo’s tender care. He liked to keep subjects starving and stressed to reduce the possibility of escape. In my case it had also been a matter of seeing how much I could endure. Until I entered SOLDIER I’d never even thought of escaping him. All I’d known was the lab.

I made a mushroom stock soup with leftovers in fairly short order, making certain to put garlic in it to give her some natural antibiotics. Putting it in a cup so she wouldn’t have to wrestle with a spoon, I carried it in to her. I expected her to be asleep, but she shifted as I approached and I knew she’d been sitting there listening to me cook.

“Here,” I said, putting the cup in her hands. “It isn’t too hot to drink; you don’t have to wait.”

“Thank you so much,” she whispered. “You’re very kind.”

“I’m afraid I’m not, flower girl,” I answered. I could make myself be kind to her because I owed her that, but I couldn’t allow anyone to sum me up as kind.

I heard her hesitate halfway through a sip of soup. She swallowed hard. “You called me that before,” she said slowly. “You know me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“But you aren’t anyone I know.” She drank a little bit more. In a few minutes she’d finished. “I can’t place your voice, anyway,” she went on. “I think I would remember such a voice.”

“Oh? What is remarkable about my voice?” I asked, curious, taking the empty cup.

“It’s very deep and smooth,” she answered. “I don’t hear an accent. It’s like you learned to talk without hearing others.”

“Very astute of you,” I murmured. My first years I’d spent in near total isolation, no one speaking to me at all. Hojo had given me recordings of language lessons, which of course had been elocuted with textbook perfection. I probably spoke the way a well educated foreigner would.

“Are you ready to go to bed now?” I asked.

“I am,” she answered, sighing again. “I could sleep right here. Planet,” she sighed, “this sofa or whatever it is feels so soft.”

“You will sleep in a bed,” I informed her. “I don’t know if we got away from the labs without being seen, and so I will stay beside you. I want to be able to take you out of here at a moment’s notice.” So saying, I picked her up blanket and all, carrying her to the bedroom.

She didn’t protest when I got into the bed with her. I realized she’d fallen asleep while I carried her.