Disclaimer: Again, I don’t own any character of Final Fantasy, any of them, much to my dismay (I wish I could own pre-psycho Sephiroth all to me, but it cannot be).

This fanfict has been inspired by the song of Yann Tiersen, “Comptine d’un Autre Étè”.

Many thanks to everyone for their encouragement, corrections and ideas.

Enjoy!

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CHAPTER 16.

The Sneaky Frog and the Scoundrel – FFIX OST (Nobuo Uematsu)

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Reno took a peek around the corner. The corridor was likely to be empty at this hour of the night, but old habits die hard.

The redhead Turk still could recall those times when he had to hide among the debris of the slums just to avoid being beaten or suffer worse things. He had always attracted the attention of bullies and other kinds of men. Having bright aqua eyes and a pretty face was more of a burden than a blessing where he was from, so he had to learn how to hide and run. Combat wasn’t something to choose, for he had always lacked the necessary strength.

Until he joined the Turks and met Tseng. He had taught him that muscle is not everything in a fight. One could be small and thin and still beat up a supposedly stronger opponent.

He approached the lab’s door cautiously. All cameras were hacked and a four hours tape would be playing. That was the time he had to complete this mission. They had needed to recruit Elena to have access to the guard’s room. The blonde had been reluctant at first but, after an intensive training session with Tseng in the VR room from which she returned to the office with a cut on her cheekbone and many bruises all over her body, she was more than eager to begin with the plan. The redhead smiled remembering how the girl had been flirting with the security guard to distract him so Reno could get the codes. And the only reward that guy had earned had been a slight promise of a date. She was the babe Tseng needed.

If he were the Tseng he once knew.

They needed to find out what Hojo had been doing with him. It was not natural of him to be that way. He had been once so chivalrous, the perfect gentleman. But now he was so ruthless that he and Rude only stuck by his side because they knew that wasn’t his true self.

His slender fingers worked quickly on the security panel, hacking it in a matter of seconds. The door opened with a satisfying swish, leading the redhead to the partially illuminated room. It was not a nice view and Reno could understand the rumors about even the fearless General Sephiroth feeling uneasy about this place.

Several Mako tanks were arrayed at his left. Some of them, the filled ones, glowed faintly on their own accord with their greenish content; but the most unsettling thing was that there were living creatures floating inside the tanks and they were beginning to show the characteristic deformities of a prolonged exposition to Mako energy.

Along the opposite wall were the computers, now shut down. Nothing of interest, for Hojo always worked in a separate room. Reno strode to the metal door next to the tanks, trying not to stare too long at the beasts inside the liquid. One of them was a Nibel Wolf, without a doubt, but unnatural long fangs were beginning to develop in its muzzle and its muscles were overgrowing almost disgustingly.

Working again at the number pad, the redhead opened the door and entered the next room.

It was a small area, compared with the rest of the lab, but one person still found enough space to work comfortably.

Reno rubbed his hands in anticipation, as the familiar excitement at breaking into a forbidden place began to appear. Ever since he was a child he liked to pick locks, not only to get food and clothes, but also out of pleasure. And he loved when his job required those abilities. But maybe this mission wouldn’t be easy. Hojo was known for his calculating intelligence and maybe what the Turk was searching for was ciphered, it that was there at all.

The small desk was covered with just a few piles of documents: reports from his numerous experiments. He looked at them, but none of them attracted his attention. With a sigh, he leaned on the table, searching for something that might help him. Maybe the scientist stored all the important data in a personal computer to transport it with him. That would complicate things.

Something caught his eye.

There was a filing-cabinet on a corner and it looked strangely misplaced, as if someone had tried to move it. Reno directed his attention to the gap between the cabinet and the wall and then pushed the furniture to widen the gap.

There it was.

An untrained eye wouldn’t have seen it, but Reno could distinguish a thin line on the wall forming a square, of about a foot’s length. He knew this kind of hideouts and how to open them. He laid his fingers symmetrically and pressed lightly, until he heard a click and the thing got out from its place.

The real place was bigger than the entrance, but he could easily spot a pile of old looking files, neatly bundled in a thick cloth, under another pile of newer ones. Reno took them all.

He smirked to himself. This hadn’t taken even a whole hour to be completed, so he had three whole hours either to sit down and read or to rummage the place.

Rummaging was a priority. Who knew what kind of secrets was hiding that creep, besides messing up with his boss’ mind? So, rubbing his hands and rolling up his sleeves he proceeded to the pleasant task of poking around the little office.

But his joy was short and it took him only ten minutes to drop on the chair, fully disappointed.

“What’s the problem with the man?” he thought. All drawers were almost empty, holding a few boring and unimportant experiments’ reports. He rubbed his red spikes, “I suppose that’s the bad thing agout hitting the big price too soon.”

Shrugging, he tucked his loot under the arm and went outside that office. Hojo or not Hojo, the whole place emanated an eerie atmosphere which made him shiver.

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“This is boring, yo!” said the redhead, tossing the file on the coffee table. “And I’m hungry.”

“Don’t complain” retorted Rude, who had been stoically reading all the useless reports even twice, just in case he skipped something. Reno began to wonder if he wasn’t an android or something. Even the normally cheerful Elena was showing signs of being tired. It was no wonder at all, for after her training with Tseng she had been assigned to reorganize all the old reports from two years back. And it was well past midnight.

Now and then she was rubbing her temples or her now reddish eyes, yet she didn’t complain. The girl was so eager to help that she was overdoing it.

“Elena, why don’t you go home? You look like you are about to drop dead, yo.”

“No, it’s fine, really” she offered a tired smile and resumed her reading.

“Why we have to go through all this junk when the real thing is still bundled?” Reno moaned for the last time. Since his arrival he had showed his disappointment when Rude insisted on searching every single file.

“I told you before. No loose ends.”

“Yeah, yeah, but while we are burning our eyes with this shit time is running. I want to find Hojo as soon as possible. And also I want to go home. You don’t know how upset Ciss will be if she calls me and finds out that I’m not at home resting.”

“All right” sighed the dark skinned Turk while tossing the file on the table. Elena gave a little giggle and even the hieratic Rude had to suppress a smile remembering the bossy Cissney.

“Aaaawright!” said Reno rubbing his hands and returning to his mischievous grin.

He picked the package and put in on his knees, feeling like it was his birthday. Soon, the thin cloth that restrained the files was free and he could at last look at his loot. Rude and Elena sat at his sides to see well. The first file had the oldest appearance and only a name could be read on its cover.

Sephiroth.

“What?” wailed Reno. “All this effort only to find reports about that madman?”

“Keep looking” said Elena. “Maybe there is more.”

File after file he passed them. They felt like that had been a worthless effort, until Reno reached the last of them. It looked newer and on its cover the name Tseng was written.

“Why pile it with Sephiroth’s?” mused Elena.

“Don’t ask me what goes in the mind of that creep” said Reno as he opened the file. “But we’ve found it at last.”

Inside there were many hand-written notes, presumably from Hojo’s infamous clipboard. Pages and pages of his sinuous, yet legible calligraphy that might reveal what he had done and if there was any solution at all.

The first paragraph of the first page said: “The last specimen, though it appeared to be a success, proved to be mentally unstable, maybe due to Jenova’s influence on his body and mind. I have to research on a clean, yet strong individual. I think that Turk leader Tseng will be perfect; he’s a perfectly healthy individual, both physically and mentally…”

“Just what you thought” said Elena.

In another paragraph said: “… but this time I will not suppress memories like that time. I will do it chemically. Sometimes the old methods are the best...”

Next he described the correct proportions of the formula and the method he was to use.

“Vitamin pills?” yelled Reno “Does Tseng take those things?”

“Some people care about their health” said Elena.

“Very funny.”

“Kids…” retorted Rude for the second time, as he turned over the pages.

The blonde and the redhead kept quiet while the dark skinned man eyed the notes.

“Nothing” he said after a while.

“Nothing? What kind of nothing is it?” said Reno.

“There seems to be plenty of information about Tseng’s evolution. The end states that the experiment has been a success.”

“That’s why it was hidden” said Elena.

“Yeah, we have the why and the how, but we don’t have the how-the-heck-are-we-going-to-cure-him, yo.”

They sat back in the couch. Nobody said anything for a while and in the silence, Elena closed her eyes to rest her sight, Reno yawned widely and even Rude took off his trademark sunglasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

“Something bothers me” mused Elena with her eyes still closed. “What about that last time thing?”

“Surely he was referring to Sephiroth” said Rude. “It was a secret that he was infused with Jenova’s cells before his birth.”

“But” said the girl opening her honey eyes and leaning forward to look at him, “who is Jenova?”

“It’s a creep from outta space” concluded Reno while stretching his arms. “It escaped the night the President was killed.”

“And Sephiroth believed it was his mother.”

“And was it?”

“Of course not, yo!” said Reno. “I could hardly believe that thing still lived at all.”

“But it did.” Rude stood up and began pacing out of the room with his sunglasses in his hand. “And now we have to chase Sephiroth. Tomorrow we’re heading to the Mithril Mines, so…”

“Too late, pal” said Reno picking the files with Elena. To the puzzled look of the dark-skinned man, he answered: “Tseng already made the arrangements to go alone. We cannot interfere in this one.”

“Damn! And Sephiroth has Aerith with him.”

“Who is Aerith?”

“My boss’ crush some time ago” thought Reno, but finally said: “She’s the Ancient. We know her for some time.”

“Things are not what they used to be, so let’s pray that they can evade Tseng.”

“But… that wouldn’t be going against Shinra?”

“Elena, Elena, little Elena” said Reno, adopting his cocky pose. “We do what we are paid for, that’s all. What befalls upon Shinra is none of our business.”

“But…”

“Remember what Rude has read” this time his stance was sterner. “We are things to them, tools; nothing more and nothing less, so quit dreaming about the ideal Company because it doesn’t exist, at least with Shinra.”

Normally that statement had to be learned through experience, but with Elena there was no time, so Reno thought she needed some aid from his part. The redhead wasn’t surprised when she looked at him with such confusion and even pain in her eyes.

“Awww, but don’t worry, dear” he said hugging her shoulders with an arm. “You have us to rely on and…” he added with a mischievous smirk and winking to Rude “When we cure Tseng you’ll know him as he really was. Who know? You may even want to date him.”

“Oh, just stop it!” she said pushing Reno aside, between angry and amused.

“Come on” said Rude. “Tomorrow we will discuss what to do.”

“I have a good idea: what if I find Hojo and beat the crap out of him until he spills what I want to know?” proposed the redhead crackling his knuckles.

“Suggestive, but he might have strong ties with Shinra. The new President may use him.”

“Humpf, how boring.”

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End of chapter 16.

How was that? Our lovely redhead doesn’t have much chapters, does him?

Sephiroth: And I think that’s more than enough.

Reno: Don’t be selfish!

Sephiroth: I’m supposed to be the hero here.

Reno: Yeah, some hero you are, kidnapping a poor girl.

Aerith: He hasn’t harmed me at all.

Sephiroth: -sticks out tongue-

Aerith: -whispering to Reno- Besides, I have a little trick down my sleeve.

Reno: But… you don’t wear sleeves.

Aerith: -face palm-