by K.A. Rose
Final Fantasy VII and associated characters, et cetera, © and ™ Squaresoft/Square Enix, 1997-2005. Gensomaden Saiyuki and associated characters, et cetera, © and ™ Kazuya Minekura, ENIX and TV Tokyo, 1997. Used without permission, for nonprofit fan appreciation.
Rated R:VLST, meaning this story is rated Restricted (ages 17 and up) for merits of violence, foul language, sexual content, and the matter of topic discussed.
Enjoy.
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Flash First
They moved out before dawn again, the captain coming
round to each tent to rouse the troops and start packing up. Break camp
first, then two kliks down you could break out your rations, maybe, eat
breakfast as you moved. Half the platoon puked it right back up again.
Four days of this and Xian Tseng was pretty sure
he'd had his fill. He and his men (using the term loosely) had their own
segment to the camp and operated autonomously, but they still had to follow
the platoon's movements. So when the general said to pack up and go, even
T.U.R.K.S. packed up and went. Or rather Tseng went, while his compatriot
straggled toward the back and complained.
He was not about to say Reno was entitled. Sure,
the kid was seventeen and not even a year on the force, and certainly
no soldier, but this was not a serious business. Tseng was firm about that.
All they had to do was follow the general, after all-- monitor him, communicate
orders from the President, be on hand as delegates when they went into
civilized areas. And stay alive, but even Reno could manage that one with
a bit of prodding.
"Sir," Reno shouted angrily from the back lines.
"I really hate this, sir!"
"You didn't ask for permission to speak, soldier,"
Tseng answered tiredly, and the squad kept walking.
Of course he hated it. Everyone hated it. It was
goddamn Wutainese jungle. You could make it as pleasant as it was possible
to get and it still meant you were up to your ass in mud with fifty pounds
of camo and a ten-pound rifle. It still meant water pissed down from the
trees over your helmet and down your back and numbed out your fingers till
you couldn't feel the trigger. It still meant walking mile after mile after
goddamn mile at the general's behest because he was on his own now, he
followed his own orders, he went where he pleased when the President didn't
have a job for him and damned if anyone was going to speak up. You just
had to take one look at him jogging through the muck in his gear and his
pale hair drawn back and black camo like warpaint across his cheeks to
know that Sephiroth was more in his element than the wutes hidden in the
leaves were. How good or bad that was depended where you were in the line.
Technically Tseng and his petulant charge weren't
there to fight. Technically they were going to be gone in three weeks to
a nice comfy helicopter and the loving caress of the mother mainland, where
a polluted Midgar torn by politics and civil chaos offered AC and hard
drinks and pretty blonde things to draw onto their laps. Technically they'd
be getting a bonus for this.
Although, as Reno pointed out one evening over the
botched heater, technically they couldn't get any medals if they got shot
either.
So just don't get shot, Tseng had told him. Or burned
or shredded or diced or cut open or slewn in half or choked or poisoned
or drowned or snapped to pieces or blasted into a million tiny bits, because
unlike those real troops out there, Turks didn't have dog tags to identify
what was left of your corpse. You didn't wanna leave paperwork, did you?
He could do without Reno's whining. He could really,
really do without it.
Still, it reeked worse the way Sephiroth's men looked
at him, wondered loudly just what a wute was doing there with them in uniform,
didn't the big guys back east see about that sort of thing? Why aren't
you in concentration, man? Or else they might expect him to translate,
things and people, as if his home learning by his sickly mother in Midgar
ghetto could do anything to help him understand forty-three Wutainese dialects
and three written languages.
...Nevermind that he had proficience in eight and
two respectively. He wasn't getting paid to be an interpreter, damn it.
He was a fucking auditor.
"Permission to speak, sir," Reno was trying again
from the back lines.
"Permission denied. Just shut the hell up and walk,
Reno."
Around noon when the sun came out to bake the air
putrid, Tseng broke ranks and sloshed up to the general's side near the
head of formation. He had to pull the netting off his shoulder for the
S.O.L.D.I.E.R. to see his department sigil, because otherwise he knew Sephiroth
wouldn't let him have two words.
"General. You are cautioned that we're heading into
dense UC territory."
"I'm aware, Mister Tseng," Sephiroth said offhandedly,
tilting back his helmet to admire the sunshine. He apparently had no sense
of smell, or the swamp stench would have marred whatever aesthetic he seemed
able to appreciate. "You will recall that I have orders to verify integrity
of the river lines. We'll reach the eastern bank by mid-afternoon."
"You also have orders to see to the safety of your
men," Tseng reminded. "At the moment your platoon consists of eighteen
kids and one second-class S.O.L.D.I.E.R. We're grievously understaffed,
general. If we hit major opposition at the river we'll be forced to withdraw.
It's a long road to the capital."
"I'm not needed at the capital for another two weeks,"
the general countered. "We can get a drop ship if land movement is infeasible,
but for the moment we are in good time and standing. The rest of the platoon
should catch up to us within forty-eight hours. And with all due respect,"
he added, glancing over and down, "your presence here is not currently
an asset by any means, Mister Tseng."
Another person might've taken the hint from that
look and backed down. But Turks didn't get where they were by taking shit
from military dogs. "The President requests kindly that you deal with it,
Mister Sephiroth," Tseng told him sternly. Continued, "And may I add on
a personl note that you be prepared to drop your
windmill siege
on a moment's notice to go fight the war we happen to have going
on. General sir."
Tseng watched the man's mouth crease into a smirk.
Every soldier got a grin like that. That shit-eating smile with the laugh
down in the gut. "Duly noted, Mister Tseng," said the general. "Now get
the fuck back in line."
At Sephiroth's side, his radio hissed low with the
broadline commands from the highest of higher ups. "Eighty-four, sixteen,
twenty-eight-niner, ready, alpha-charlie" and always two seconds or
so after those numbers you'd get to hear the thunder of another firebomb
hitting target, thirty or twenty or ten kliks away and sometimes right
next door. By now you could see Sephiroth didn't even hear the numbers.
Certainly all the troops but Tseng and Reno had grown deaf to the sound.
"Eighty-four, sixteen, twenty-eight-niner, ready,
alpha-charlie, repeat."
True to the general's prediction, the platoon did
reach the east bank of the Utai River by mid-afternoon, if the nausea filling
the ranks and Reno's complaints of heat exhaustion were any indication.
The general culled his troops up close to the tree line and signed and
whispered directive, not caring for the risk if something was out there
in the trees waiting for them.
Great fronds curled over the beachline, pouring
green like impressionist slashes on canvas over the water. There was no
breeze. The water was murky brown and still, cluttered with grass debris
and nothing else. Were they close to a village they might see some mark
of it, say a pole along the river lines, or trash or diluted pink strains
of blood in among the flow, but nothing. Just the Utai flooding south,
smooth tainted glass and baking sunlight with nineteen soldiers and two
tagalongs walking downriver in their soaked-through fatigues, all but one
probably wondering just how long they were supposed to keep doing this.
What are they waiting for?
What are they looking for?
What's the sign, what's the hint, can they duck
soon enough when they see it?
Xian Tseng had been given all of two hours prep
before he'd been hurried onto the plane for Junon, to catch the ship that
would take him to a little island base off the northeast coast. The prep
had consisted of Veld showing him how to strip the weight in his pack a
little and what not to eat in the rations they'd give him, and then some
of the things he might like to watch for, if he didn't want to end up dead.
But it was one thing to vaguely describe movements in the trees and sounds
that sounded like any other sounds except they weren't, and another
thing to really be there, live, with mud over every inch of your skin and
seeped in every thread of your clothes and, goddammit, he wasn't a soldier.
He was not a fighter. He didn't have a war against anyone. Especially Wutai.
Especially Wutai.
"Son," Veld had told him. "All of that,
all that you're talking about? You know it doesn't matter."
"But it's wrong."
"It doesn't matter that it's wrong. Do you see?
Because you're a citizen of your land and a citizen of Midgar. You're an
employee of ShinRa Company and ShinRa has gone to war. It doesn't matter
what you feel about the other side. It's about what you feel about your
side." And he'd looked straight at him, straight into his eyes so there
was nothing else. "You love your city?"
"Yes."
"You love your land?"
"Yes."
"Then you fight for it, goddamn you," Veld
had said. "You fight for what it stands for and for what it made you.
Do you understand?"
Tseng had looked away from his mentor's eyes. And
when he had, frowned at the floor and knotted his brow a little, reading
over the words in his head. And then he'd looked back up.
"That's bullshit, sir."
Veld had nodded. "You're right there."
But of course he still had to go.
Sephiroth's radio was hissing at his belt. "Eighty-five,
fifteen, twenty-two-niner, ready, alpha-charlie--"
ba-boommm.
Upriver. Could just see the rise of materia smoke
above the lines of the trees.
"Permission to speak, sir," Reno whispered again
by his chief's shoulder, hugging at his gun he hadn't even been taught
how to use.
"Permission granted on the condition you don't say
anything that'll annoy me," Tseng murmured back.
"...Nevermind, then."
"God, I want to kill you."
"And if one of my men kills you," Sephiroth
spoke up again beside him, "he'll get a commendation. Now stop talking."
Tseng shot Reno an angry look. The kid, for his
part, bit his lip and looked hurriedly away.
"Eighty-five, fifteen, twenty-two-niner, ready,
alpha-charlie, repeat."
Sephiroth could afford to be callous. Actually,
he could afford to be as racist and menacing as he liked, it wasn't as
though the President would remand him for it. The man had spent more time
in the jungle than virtually anyone else in the war, including a lot of
what had been or were his commanding officers. He'd never been granted
leave, and on the one or two occasions when it had been extended to him,
he'd turned it down. He never needed rest, and he never wanted to stop
fighting.
That the war was practically over must have been
such a blow to him. Not that anyone could ever say it to his face.
Except, well, Zack Hartzell. There were a thousand
and one exceptions for Zack Hartzell. But he was something in and of himself.
For one thing, he'd been scouted by T.U.R.K.S. before
S.O.L.D.I.E.R. picked him up, and even now Tseng occasionally caught Veld
remarking on what a shame it was. He was arguably a bit too naive for the
program, if not so gullible as to be a liability, but that was something
that could always be trained out of him. Unfortunately, S.O.L.D.I.E.R.
had only seen to junking him up on chemicals and handing him a large sword.
He still grinned a lot.
"Hey, ease up there a little, man," he whispered
at Sephiroth's side. "These guys're just here doing their jobs just like
us."
"They're not doing their jobs," Sephiroth muttered.
"They're impeding mine."
You heard the stories about Zachariah Tilsbury Hartzell,
and what went on after hours in the general's tent. Most couldn't figure
if it was desperate loneliness or the sicker sort of depravity, but either
way you couldn't say anything about it, not out loud. You couldn't say
much to Zack Hartzell. Not with the way he smiled.
S.O.L.D.I.E.R. Hartzell, 2nd-class. Now there was
a man you weren't sure just what the war had done to him. Half the time
he seemed crazy. Half the time he seemed the only sane one in this whole
goddamn jungle.
"Tell the men to keep scanning," Sephiroth whispered
to the captain. "We'll trail the river down to the delta and set a relay
for the Major. Get HQ on the radio and see when we can expect the drop."
"Yes sir."
"And you two," Sephiroth added to the Turks as Zack
trotted down the lines: "just try not to embarrass us."
"Eighty-five, fifteen, twenty-two-niner, ready,
alpha-charlie, repeat."
Tseng said nothing. Reno managed not to either.
As they walked, the shells sounded three more times.
It was hard to tell through the leaves if they were getting closer or farther
away, or if it mattered. Harder still to tell what they were hitting, if
it was the right target, if it was a target at all. If even that mattered,
because a wute was a wute, didn't matter if they were coming at you, if
they were in on the Utai Chichyou at all, every slanty-eyed motherfucker
in this forest was after you, was a crazy shit just asking for it. Whole
country of crazy shits just asking for it.
Tseng started to wear the same grin. The sick laughing
smirk. Because god, wasn't it hilarious. Take off his gear, take off his
badge, he was just the same as them. None of these kids would think twice.
Maybe Reno. But Reno didn't know his ass from his
rifle safety, so who the fuck could say.
What the hell were they doing here?
What the hell were they doing?
And that was about when Reno said he heard a sound.
Two seconds later, the whole platoon heard it, and
Sephiroth and Hartzell had all of them on the ground, grass in their eyes
and breath stopped in their throats, and Tseng stared at the sludge of
the river pouring down, while the murmur of a motor from upstream edged
closer to their ears.
He saw the ripples first, the glancing lines under
the sunlight, subtle shifting refraction. And then the crown of the bow
came into view, a jutting knife edge.
It was a patrol boat. Wutainese, but not UC class.
You could tell that looking at it, if the serial gone from the hull weren't
tip enough. Under sheer sunshine the shadows of four figures could be spotted
moving under the helm canopy, just shapes, no way to tell if it was civilian
or army or whatever the fuck. But the twin .50s said teeth, and that's
all Sephiroth really needed to make his call.
"Transporters. They're carrying something. Headed
for the delta. Captain."
"Sir," said Zack.
"Tell the men to hold fire," the general instructed.
"We're tailing them downriver to the bend. Better vantage."
"Sir," the S.O.L.D.I.E.R. confirmed, turning once
again to the line. "All right, men, on your feet," came the clipped command.
"Run low and fast, keep even, keep the line. Stay quiet."
After three days, you learned to run like a soldier.
You learned that half-bent trot with your gun at your chest and your breathing
a silent hiss through your nose, the path just a blur of green and the
shape of the guy in front of you.
Reno's hand found his superior's ponytail and tugged.
"What're we doing now?"
"Shut up and run, Reno."
"I'm not here to gun down fucking fishing boats,
sir."
"You're not here for anything. Just shut up."
He tried to, to his credit. Choked down the words
and ran close to his boss's back, hugging at his gun, pushing back the
helmet slipping into his eyes as he looked sidelong through the trees,
skirted lines of sunlight in the gaps of the leaves.
Who knows who tripped. It might've been the kid,
it might've been any of them. All it took was nudging a palm frond the
wrong way and the leaves were shaking from the riverbank, and those twin
.50s started to roar. Just before the fire.
"Shitshitshitshit!" Tseng was hearing Reno crying
as they ducked. "Materia! Those fuckers have materia! I'm not getting paid
enough for this crap!"
"Hold the line!" Sephiroth was shouting, crouched
low near the mud. "Return fire! Go for the gunners!"
Do you even hear the words, boy, with that blood
in your ears, that blood in your eyes?
Reno lost his gun almost immediately. Tseng tossed
his. Not their weapons anyway, not T.U.R.K.S. gear, that wasn't what they
were here for. Reno tapped the bracer around his wrist, small candy materia
burning up the air with mana-light, but "Hold," wait, odin's dirth what
the fuck was that across the water? As the gunners stood to the port rail
in broad fucking view, and a whole platoon's bullets ricocheted and disappeared
into nothing.
"Shield magic," the kid hissed. "Great."
"Reno," Tseng ordered over the guns. "Find the bastard
mage putting out that shit and send him down."
"Your strategies can wait, Mister Tseng," Sephiroth
shouted between his rounds.
"No they damn well can't, general. Reno!"
"I'm trying!" the kid wailed. "The Sense is blocked!"
"Neutralize the boost!"
"I don't have the fucking mana! You wanna kill me?!"
"We're dead if you don't take down that shield,
soldier!"
"I'm not a fucking soldier, sir!"
There were four of them. Three out from under the
canopy now, flashing shapes under the sunlight, gold and red and burning
white and the thunder of three different guns. Red slung his machine gun
back over his shoulder and took out a blade, a sickle baton, shakujyo as
Tseng's mother would have called it in the old stories, one of those old
traditional weapons you never saw. Gleaming under the white sun as it flashed
and thick chain clunked, and the fronds of leaves danced in small slivers,
flying in the air like a torrent of snow.
Through the haze, another thing caught Tseng's eye.
The sight of cream priest's robes. Shining stone
rosary beads, blessing-wrapped around hands, clasping the pistol trained
right to his forehead. His forehead. Right at him.
Even for the glare, even the fringe of the man's
hair, Tseng could see the bloody red chakra on his forehead. And the cool
look in his eyes.
What's war made you, priest?
It wasn't until Tseng felt Reno's hand at his shoulder
that he realized he'd lost track of himself. That the boat was gone, churning
downriver. With the priest and the red-haired hanyou with it, and eight
men in the lines moaning for restores. And Sephiroth cursing with his teeth
on the barrel of his rifle.
"We're moving," he was saying. "Let's not let 'em
to think we're so easy."
"General." Tseng's mouth was moving with words coming
on their own. "I don't think they were..."
"They're in a rush. And they think going on will
shake us off. They're headed somewhere. I want to know where."
"General, your orders..."
Wasn't any use. What use could it be? He could see
the fire in the man's eyes.
Sephiroth had locked gaze with that priest too.
Only probably hadn't seen a holy man of the highest order pointing a gun
in burn-smoke warning. Just the cool eyes of someone without the soldier's
passion to him, that was going to pull the trigger anyway. But not right
now, because he was fucking moving on, and fuck them all. What UC looked
like that?
"They had a kid with 'em," Reno breathed. Hands
still shaky. "Didja notice?" No one had.
Xian Tseng took his hand by the wrist and dragged
him along. Come on, baby, on your feet.
To the delta, Sephiroth was saying. They're bound
to stop at the delta. Get HQ on the radio and tell them to keep the drop
off.
"Permission to speak, sir," Reno whimpered, nausea
washing through as the ether seeped into him.
"Permission granted," Tseng finally relented.
"This is about to get worse, isn't it?"
"Eighty-five, fourteen, nineteen-eight, ready,
alpha-echo."
The materia fire boomed overhead.
"No, kid. It's just gonna make a lot less sense."
"I want everyone fully loaded and mako-ready," the
general was calling back to his platoon. "And you bastards hold onto your
lunch. We're making an evening call."
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