Room 504, Monday Evening

[intraspective]

Paperwork was not Ino's very bestest friend ever, no.

Especially when she probably didn't know enough about the subject to fill in all the blanks. This was not stopping her from going through the pile and filling in anything she did know, mind, but it did mean she was gathering a list of questions that Ino was pretty sure the village only wanted so they could totally be insanely nosey.

Did it really matter if he had siblings, after all?

Ino was pretty sure he didn't, anyway, but that wasn't the point.

Once you'd ascertained that, oh hey, no they were not a threat to Konoha and yes were willing to swear on this, Ino was of the opinion that the rest of it was garbage.

This did not stop her from doing it, of course, but it did mean she was muttering to herself about utter idiots who needed a book written for a visitor as she steadily worked her way down the questions. Music was on, the door was half open and Ino was working on her bed.

[Open door, open post!

ETA: The phone call with Reno is chronologically last, plz. The content of the call is NFB!]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

"I won't be." That held another air of finality to it. "I was a Turk, then. Didn't give a shit about nothin' but the job. Only way to get me offa that back then woulda been to kill me. An' now, the stakes are too damn high. I don't care if it ain't even my Gaia. Zack had a bad weekend, and suddenly you wanna risk the end of the fuckin' world."

Snort.

"I can't fuckin' believe it."

Yes. Yes, he understood that those words were going to bite him in the ass someday. He hated saying them, even now. He knew that it wasn't 'nothing' coming up. But for now? For now, nobody knew much of anything, except that right now sucked. That sentence fit, in the reality that was right now.

[intraspective]

"It ain't that Zack had a bad weekend that has got me riled," she hissed, voice taut and almost disturbingly level.

"It 'bout knowing that whatever's going on? Ends in that dead poisonous city you showed me. The one Edge skirts."

Zack was a friend, yes, but he wasn't the only thing here.

"Sue me, for thinkin' maybe there's a different way."

[raspberryturk]

Reno was wavering. Fucksakes, he'd gotten soft over the years. Fandom had done it, maybe. Took him, put him back together, and substituted the broken pieces with squishy bits.

"I ain't bein' like this because I want the world to end up this way, Ino. That'd be real, real damn stupid, zoto. I'm bein' like this because there's no way of knowin' how changin' any of it might make this different. We might think we're doin' the right thing, an' then damn the whole planet."

[intraspective]

"That's a maybe too," she pointed out softly.

[raspberryturk]

Reno shut his eyes and pulled in a long, deliberate drag from his cigarette. He let it sit heavy in his lungs for a moment. Toxic and stinging and comforting. Like Midgar air. Homey.

"Pickin' up the pieces here has been hell," he said, his words a hiss of smoke and regret. "But at least if things go the way we went, we know there'll be pieces to pick up. What's left... that ain't worth gamblin' over."

[intraspective]

"I don't understand," Ino said, honestly. Not nicely, of course, but honestly.

"If there's a chance why shouldn't you take it?"

[raspberryturk]

Reno frowned. Looked at the ground. Hello, ground.

"Wouldn't know where to start. An' that's assumin' there's a chance. I can't take down Sephiroth. Zack wouldn't be able to, either."

Nibelheim. Packing up the SOLDIER that was bleeding out on the stairway, and the infantryman who was in worse shape still. Shipping them to the mansion, with Hojo. Don't look back, just do the job. Leave the worrying to Tseng. Tseng was the one who damn near wanted to screw the kid anyhow.

"Seems easier from the outside, maybe. Not havin' all the pieces."

[intraspective]

"And no way to get the pieces but to drag them out of you," she said, with some asperity. "So it's not just the clones of Sephiroth? The real thing too?"

[raspberryturk]

Reno sighed and rubbed at his forehead next.

"Real thing was worse than the remnants were. An' I couldn't handle one of them. The real thing... He ain't a bad guy, in Zack's time. He ain't nothin' for the kid to worry about right now. Does him a world of good, for a while."

That was... only kind of lying. More or less.

"Trains him for a bit, since Angeal ain't doin' him any good."

[intraspective]

"Since Angeal is running 'round and Genesis ain't good at all."

No, kidding.

"Remnants are clones?" she checked. "Okay. So he's good for now, but..."

[raspberryturk]

"S'complicated," Reno decided, slipping into the faintest hint of a mumble, now. "He's more'n just good right now. He's a friggin' hero. Sooner or later, he'll snap. And then the son of a bitch is gonna just refuse to stay dead. The remnants ain't clones, nah. They were three pieces of him, just... pieces. Lookin' for their mommy, yoto."

That last sentence was said in the sort of drawl that suggested that Reno would pay to see Rufus shoot their mommy's disembodied head a few more times. Please.

[intraspective]

...

...

Ino was torn between frustration and stress-fuelled hilarity, really. Seriously. Ow.

"Why does he snap?"

[raspberryturk]

This wasn't something that Zack could have any effect on, either way, and so Reno sighed, buried his face in his hand again, and pressed onward. Why the hell not? Ino was treating 'don't tell Zack' like a mission objective, and so it was safe.

And if it wasn't safe, then he would take whatever measures needed to be taken to ensure the safety of Gaia. That went without saying.

"On a mission somewhere, Sephiroth found files on the being we call Jenova," he replied. "Who he's been told his entire life was his mother. Guess he had problems with ShinRa keepin' most of her body in a tube to be experimented on an' used in the SOLDIER project, yoto. Figured that her rightful place wasn't as some kinda science project, an' that instead, the two of 'em should be rulin' the planet together."

Not right in the head by that point, that Sephiroth.

[intraspective]

It was a sucky mission objective but it wasn't like she got any say in her missions, right? So sucky was well... to be dealt with.

Suck it up. And bitch. A lot.

She chewed her bottom lip at that. "Can't say I blame 'im for not wanting her experimented on. Wouldn't want my mom in that situation either, you know?"

[raspberryturk]

"She ain't really his mother," Reno sighed. "She's a blue-skinned freak from outer space that crash-landed on The Planet ages ago, an' has been tryin' to destroy it in one way or another since. I don't know much about the project that Sephiroth came from, but he had a human mother, just like the rest of us, yo. That much, I do know."

Which hinted somewhat at exactly how shitty ShinRa had been, so far as things like 'human rights' went, perhaps.

[intraspective]

"Blue-skinned freak," Ino repeated.

The sad thing was that that made more sense than some other things in that explanation. She could only thank Fandom. Her world had demons, not aliens. Totally different thing.

"So he figures destroying the world is a good idea for revenge or somethin' 'cause of his fake-mom?"

Her head hurt.

"The SOLDIER project--and Jenova?" That was a separate question. She just wasn't sure she could phrase it right so he got it fragmented.

[raspberryturk]

"Somethin' like that," Reno replied, managing to pick apart the two. He figured he knew what she was getting at, both ways. It was a Turk thing. "He wanted to rule the world. Which apparently means killin' every livin' thing on it, and then ridin' the planet off to another planet to repeat the process. Probably her idea, not his."

Okay, deep breath, now. It was never any secret that Jenova cells were used in the SOLDIER project, but Zack probably didn't understand what Jenova was, so this could be touchy territory.

"When people join SOLDIER, they go through a series of alterations, zoto. It's a cross between bein' doused in mako, fused with Jenova cells, an' some kinda technological whatevertheshit that they have put in their heads. The Jenova cells make a lotta the difference, yo. They take on some of her traits, like bein' able to take stupid amounts of damage without dyin', but it means that they're genetically impossible to tell apart from shit like monsters, among other things along those lines, yo."

[intraspective]

Annnd that was Ino's stomach, tying itself in a knot. Even as she distantly spared part of her mind to mused that 'whatevertheshit' was a rather awesome way to describe something.

"Zack asked if he was a monster." Flatly. "I told him he wasn't. You sayin' I'm wrong?"

She didn't want to be wrong.

"Any other traits?"

[raspberryturk]

"So far as his cells are concerned, an' so far as all of ShinRa's monster-huntin' equipment ever saw it, yeah, you're wrong, yo. But mentally, nah, he's human. He's a good kid, even."

The kind that made Reno wrinkle his nose and want to kick him in the shin for being so damn optimistic all of the time.

"There's other shit, too. They're immune to certain scientific procedures, they're more prone to bein' genetically manipulated in other ways. That kinda thing. If you're worryin' about SOLDIER boy so far as that goes, there ain't no point. You'll be happy to know that Zack gets to stay Zack."

In spite of Hojo's best efforts.

[intraspective]

She was, in fact, relieved to hear that. It didn't stop her eyes from narrowing speculatively.

"'bout the mental part," she started, then stopped, and then just...

Well, silence on her end.

Ino was thinking.

[raspberryturk]

"What about it?" Reno's eyebrow twitched up a little at that. Silence wasn't always a good thing, was it?

[intraspective]

Not really, no.

She tucked her legs up under her chin and studied the sheet of paper she'd tugged out to scribble on. Details, here.

"Jenova cells. Mako. Whatever piece o' tech gets stuck in 'em--that make mental manipulation easier too? Not genetic level. Or--not just."

[raspberryturk]

"So far as I can figure, the mental manipulation goes hand-in-hand with the genetic. That's how it was with the Ravens, how it was with the Genesis Copies, an' how it went with the Sephiroth clones, too. So, so far as I can figure, unless they get screwed around on a cellular level too, they're safe."

A pause.

"The DMW is there mostly to regulate their growth, I think. Keep 'em from overloadin' themselves an' gettin' too strong too fast, or somethin'. I ain't no SOLDIER-scholar or nothin', here. I just know what happened an' what didn't."

[intraspective]

"DMW?"

It was like he was talking in code.

"I was just thinking. That's all."

Ino, get better at diverting the conversation.

"So if they were strong willed before, they'd be strong willed after?"

Better.

[raspberryturk]

"Digital somethin' or other," Reno replied, dutifully.

Mind Wave, Reno. Digital Mind Wave. But it wasn't as though he ever gave a shit what it meant for.

"I figure they'd be just as strong after, yeah. Why?"