Jenova's Daughter

CHAPTER NINE: The Calm Before The Storm


The triplets and their little sister soon fell into a routine of research, which ReiMei was best at, training rigorously in the gym, regular trips to Orin’s Trading Post, and simply surviving day to day. In the back of their minds was the knowledge that ReiMei might not have long to live.

Her siblings came to her, sometimes one, other times, two, but most often, all three. ReiMei never again experienced the violent explosions from the night of the Bonding. As the days passed, the torture of the Mako poisoning waned, but at the last, she could still feel it, like a second circulation that ran opposite of her bloodstream. It had made her into something different from her brothers. She was faster than Loz now, her movements like the blur of half-seen faeries. He did his best to keep up with her, but couldn’t quite make it. She kicked Yazoo in the face so many times during one training session, that she insisted they stop. She didn’t want to hurt her beautiful brother, the one that looked so much like she did. When sparring with Kadaj, she almost cut him with the katana that she wielded, but she pulled back at the last second. Kadaj frowned at her. He knew what she had done. On the Gyrobike, she was poetry come to life. Her little body didn’t stop her from having full mastery of the large machine. It was amazing how she could make it do anything she wanted, wheelies, sideslides, spins, and other tricks.

When ReiMei had time to herself, she immersed herself in Hojo’s notes. There was a voice in her mind as her eyes passed over his first person notations. It was a voice which she loathed, and tried to banish, but with no success.

“The Female will cleave to the Males in the order I have set. Final Bonding will take place within the first week after birth.


“We have grown 29 sets of Soldier/Assassin Teams so far, but out of 85% of those cases, the males have fought over dominance of the female and have ended up killing her. The Females have suicided 10% of the time in the remaining scenarios. The last 5% of the females who remained died at the span of six months of life. Forensics have not revealed the cause at this time. Lucrecia swears she’s done the gene therapy correctly, but I suspect she is concealing her mistakes.

“President ShinRa has determined that these experiments have no further value to ShinRa Corp., and that I am to delve deeper into the effects of Mako infusion – As if I haven’t already taken my research into the life-stream material as far as it could go. Fucker. At least he is generous when funding my researches.

“As far as the Soldier/Assassin experiment is concerned, there is one set still to be born, but personally, even if Lucrecia has done the gene sequencing correctly, I don’t believe that the subjects will be any different from their predecessors unless we change something in the procedure. Since they are all due for the insertion of Jenova’s cells, I plan to increase the DNA sequence to be spliced with the subjects, in the hope that it will change the final outcome and produce a stable team of Soldier/Assassin. I have also ordered the ratio of Mako in the Oxyfluid to be increased as well. I would very much like to see these last subjects perform in the manner they have been conditioned, but I do not hope for much. 29 sets of subjects have either become violent, depressed, suicidal, or died without cause. Having spent years on this one experiment, I would see at least one success. Besides. I hate it when the President thinks he knows more than I do….”

ReiMei sighed and rubbed her tired eyes. She had come to hate the lunatic scientist who had created her. Kadaj had told her the truth about what he knew of her fate, and the bastard, Hojo, confirmed it. Despite all of this, she knew one thing. She was the best that had ever been produced in the Madman’s lab. She felt deep inside that she would be the one Assassin to survive. She just couldn’t accept that she would be parted from the three men who loved her. Lucrecia’s notes would be her next study. Perhaps that scientist would reveal a secret that would enable the petite sibling to live past her allotted six months.

Kadaj was slowly forming a grand plan that would find Jenova. Thanks to ReiMei and Yazoo’s comp skills, they had hacked their way deep into ShinRa’s system, and had unearthed information that spoke of Jenova’s possible existence. The Eldest became convinced that if they could actually lay their hands on Mother’s cells, they would somehow fix the flaws they had. Especially ReiMei’s. No one wanted her to die.

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Loz counted each day as it ended, and as he did, each day became like a rusted nail driven into his little sister’s coffin. The thought of losing her wore him away, leaving nothing but an enormous ache in his chest. Why? Why her, and why couldn’t he do anything about it? What good was all of his strength if he couldn’t use it to save the youngest sibling? He sat on the edge of his bed, his mind caught on the well of days that was slowly filling up. His hands curled into fists of frustration. She had promised!

Loz felt lost when he was alone. He didn’t like it when Kadaj ordered him to do reconnaissance by himself. He either rode his Gyrobike, or hiked through the fallen sectors. There were still people moving about in the destroyed city of Midgar, and Loz hid from them. He watched and discovered that they were salvaging everything they could to build a new city on the eastern outskirts of Midgar. The new metropolis had been named Edge, and it was going up fast.

Loz was an obedient Soldier, and his superior had ordered that he stay away from Edge for the time being. He was allowed to visit Orin’s outpost, and had even struck up a friendship with the old man. Kadaj didn’t know about that. Loz was sure he wouldn’t approve. None of his outings kept him from thinking about ReiMei. None of it helped to fish those fallen days out of that well.

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Kadaj sent Yazoo to Ajit, the Forgotten City of the Ancients. They needed to be able to live undetected, and sooner or later, Rufus ShinRa would discover that his old power plant was still being used. Yazoo fell in love with the stone-moonglow trees of Ajit, and the peace it brought him. He couldn’t say it soothed his soul. As a clone, he wasn’t sure he had one. He was the one who prepared the giant shell house for his brothers and sister. Ah, ReiMei. Yazoo had a gut feeling that she would pass the six month mark and live on, laughing that she had ever worried about the doom she had once faced. Like Loz, Yazoo counted each day, but unlike his older brother, he considered it a triumph for the littlest of them, not a death knell.

ReiMei had taught him to love, had given him that great gift, and Yazoo just knew she would be fine. She wouldn’t take his love of her to the grave. She was the only sibling that truly understood him. She was the one he yearned for the most, though he did not neglect his brothers, loving them just as fiercely. It was her gentle smile that matched his so exactly. It was as if he looked into a mirror when he gazed upon her. Something inside of him told him that she was much more than just a sister to him. He wished he could put his finger on it, but was glad of the feeling. It made him feel even more at ease than the stone trees of Ajit.

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Kadaj kept a close eye on his baby sister, often asking her how she was feeling. She always smiled that smile she shared with Yazoo, and would tell her Eldest brother that she was fine. She was lying to him and he knew it. Every day, she looked a little paler. Every day, her eyes became darker, and seemed to sink into her face, and lose their luster. Every day she became more fragile right before his eyes, while all the time denying that she was unwell. He didn’t like that she lied to him.

ReiMei still kicked his ass when they sparred, and he wondered where she pulled the energy from her frail body. It made him work harder at finding Mother. She continued to give it her all when he knew she was fading away, so he could do no less than find the cure to Hojo’s curse. He began a search for healing Materia as well, hoping against hope that if he found it, Yazoo could use it to heal the youngest. Something had to be done. ReiMei could not be lost. He was the Leader, and he wouldn’t let it happen….

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Two months had passed and ReiMei had started throwing up every morning. She searched the files and chips having to do with maladies and symptoms and came up with two possibilities. Either she had a condition called “Nervous Stomach”, or she was pregnant. That was supposed to be impossible. She and her brothers were sterile. It said so in the ShinRa files, and in Hojo’s notes. She was an Assassin. She could never be Mother. She could not be carrying a child.

Privately, She went to the infirmary and found a test kit. Twenty minutes later, she was shaking with the little stick in her hand. It said she was going to be a mother. It had to be lying. She found another kit and tested again. This time, she threw the stupid stick against the wall. It too had lied. It too confirmed that she was pregnant. How could she break this news to her brothers?!

Would this be the thing that killed her at the six month deadline? Or, would this be the way that she survived? Another thought lodged itself in her mind. She was an Assassin. She had no business wandering around with a belly full of baby. Should she tell only Yazoo and have him perform an abortion? Would the gentle man even agree to do it? Would that be her end? ReiMei thought over the problem for days. At long last, she came up with a plan that would break her brother’s hearts, but allow her to survive and give birth. She knew that the Mako poisoning she had suffered had everything to do with the condition she was in.

After her discovery, ReiMei became withdrawn, spending more and more time with the scientist’s notes that she hadn’t gotten to. Lucrecia Crescent’s notes were clipped and precise. The woman wrote little of her feelings, but for one page that spoke of an ex-Turk named Vincent Valentine. The old President ShinRa had given the Turk to Hojo for experimentation. He was in the lab for three months, then disappeared. Hojo never spoke a word of him. Lucrecia had asked about Valentine only once. ReiMei spent nearly a week diving into Lucrecia’s neatly written journal, but in the end, gave up on her. She made no mention of altering the sterility of the triplets, or ReiMei. The Assassin’s last chance for information was Gast’s journals.

The scientist hadn’t entered his notes on the comps. It took ReiMei almost two weeks to find them. She had to dig her way into the man’s private rooms, but in the end was rewarded with a thick stack of leather-bound books. She bundled the tomes back to her room and began reading. The voice in her head was soft-spoken with an inflection of kindness she’d unexpectedly found in his written words.

Book Three. “Kadaj. He will be born first, with an apparent age of seventeen or eighteen. Because the gene splicing from Sephiroth was more extensive with this subject, and because the Mako infusion was twice the usual amount, he will be the Soldier who spends the least amount of time in the growth tanks. Hojo is personally overseeing his education through the comp-feeds. I am almost afraid of what he might be teaching the boy. Hojo isn’t quite right.”

Book Five. “Loz. He will be second born, with an apparent age of twenty-one to twenty-three years old. Tanaka is his tech, and he’s mentioned that the subject is absorbing the mechanical info very well. With Tanaka’s guidance, he will be a great Soldier, possibly greater than the original he was cloned from. I wonder if the General will be pleased with his son?”

Book Seven. “Yazoo’s birth will occur third in the sequence. His apparent age will be nineteen to twenty years old. Yazoo is an interest to me for he is the genetic twin of my charge, ReiMei. Lucrecia is his tech, and is busy imprinting him with her considerable comp knowledge. Hojo has accused her in the past of incompetence concerning the DNA therapy. He is very angry that so much time has been spent on an unsuccessful experiment. His idea of the Soldier/Assassin teams had merit, but we have produced nothing for all our labors.”

Book Eight. “ReiMei. She will birth last, one day after her Soldier brothers. Her apparent age will be the same as Yazoo’s – nineteen to twenty years old. Due to previous failures, I have taken it upon myself to school ReiMei much more extensively than I am ordered to. It is my belief that Hojo’s damned Ritual, and the fact that none of the Assassins were informed of it, have led to our lack of success. I believe that if ReiMei understands the urges that will drive her to ‘Bond’ with her brothers, a deeper connection will be made, and the tragic outcomes of the past will be avoided.”

Book Ten. “It has been discovered by Lucrecia and I that Yazoo and ReiMei are intuitives. They will sense things on a level that even the General could not delve to. In battle, both will have remarkable abilities. Their reflexes will have amazing speed, they will have a talent for knowing a move before it happens, and dexterity never before achieved in a Soldier. Both Lucrecia and myself are very excited by the news. Though Loz does not look like his younger siblings, he is of the same genetic stock and should inherit these abilities as well. Kadaj too will show signs of extra senses in time. We still have nearly two months until the birthing.”

Book Twelve. “Sephiroth. The General has stolen Jenova. Personally, I am shocked. The Soldier/Assassin team was due for the insertion of Jenova cells tomorrow. The General’s timing couldn’t be worse. I am relieved that Hojo had the foresight to collect some of her cells, and put them in storage. The experiment can continue…”

Book Twelve. “Hojo’s foresight wasn’t enough, it seems. The Jenova cells in deep freeze are no longer viable. Tanaka, Lucrecia, and I have managed to convince Hojo not to end the Soldier/Assassin experiment. I am going to double my efforts to make sure that ReiMei is ready to do what is expected of her. I have also upped her Mako infusion to three times the norm. Hojo does not know. Tanaka and Lucrecia have followed my lead.”

Book Thirteen. “Sephiroth…Again! The General has gone mad! He has destroyed the Soldier Nursery! Our final experiment is a failure after all. I have never been this angry before! We are awaiting President ShinRa’s orders. Currently he is dealing with the fall of the fifth and seventh sector plates. Avalanche has been named for the disaster in the media. All this, and the destruction of the Nursery too. Has the whole world gone mad?
I don’t care about anything right now. My poor little china doll will never be born. I hate Sephiroth for taking her away from me…”

ReiMei closed the thirteenth journal, tears riding in her feline eyes. She knew the rest of the story. The scientists had been killed, the Turks had been beaten, President ShinRa had also died, and his son, Rufus, had nearly been blown up. The Diamond Weapon had fired only once, and had caused the devastation that she and her brothers now occupied. Sephiroth had gone on an insane rampage, and had been defeated by the members of Avalanche. Jenova had been thought to be lost, but she and her siblings now knew better.

The youngest one had been grateful to her tech in the past, but now she was doubly so, glad that she had found a connection to him in his journals. Gast had not only written about the experiment that produced ReiMei. He had also left notes about his daughter, Aerith, and how he worried about her. He had spoken of a very special day, long before ReiMei and her brothers had been created…

Book One. “President ShinRa came to me today. He informed me that Hojo had designated Aerith to be an egg donor for the Soldier Program. By Shiva! She is only thirteen! How can that bastard even consider strapping my daughter to his table, spreading her legs and harvesting eggs from her?! It’s atrocious!
I am no father, for I am forced to comply with the President’s and Hojo’s demands. If I do not, I will be terminated as a ShinRa employee, and possibly assassinated for good measure. Odin, this is terrible. How can I do this to my little girl?”

Book One. “She didn’t cry, my brave Aerith. She endured Hojo’s procedure without a tear, and even smiled at him when he was done. I have recently learned that her eggs will be combined with the General’s DNA for a special Soldier/Assassin experiment. The three man, one woman teams that we create will be my grandchildren…”