Sephiroth/Tseng #8: Articles/Newspapers

ShinRa General Dies
Decorated General Sephiroth, who rose to rank and fame during the Wutain War, was killed yesterday inside the Mt. Nibel reactor. Our sources say that the General’s body was found partially dismembered…


Tseng dashed the Midgar Times away from him with such force that Reno, dozing across the table, jumped at the noise. Rude reacted just in time to save his cup of coffee from being knocked over as the newspaper sped across the tabletop, collided with the wall, and fell to the booth seat below.

Rude looked at Reno from behind his glasses, Reno raised a brow in return and they both looked across the table at Tseng who was now staring at the revolving door of the restaurant, watching the shafts of light spinning an ephemeral chrysalis throughout the shadowy restaurant as people came and went.

Reno lit a cigarette, Rude sipped his coffee. Neither said a word about the paper, but sat jibing at one another as was custom, letting the memory of that one moment of uncalculated action fade away.

When Tseng turned to them again, his face was smooth, but his eyes were darker than usual. “I’m heading back to the Tower. Call me if anything changes.”

“Yes,” Rude said, his voice echoed by Reno’s “Sure thing.”



The Jaguar made swift work of the curves as Tseng made his way through the slick streets toward the plate. The rain had started moments before, a burst of water that halted quickly, but not before leaving the roads half flooded. Any company issued car would not have been able to handle the curves as he was taking them and still maintain its tires. He was glad in more ways than one that he supplied his own transportation.

He slowed through the business district of sector one, careful of the teeming mass of people that were about despite the rain, all preparing for the midsummer festival, no doubt. At a crosswalk he stopped, engine idling, right hand resting on the gear shift as he waited for the group to make their way to the other side. Once clear he slipped the gears, sped off toward the main thoroughfare.

Traffic was light tonight, nowhere near as crowded as it could be; he merged easily onto the road that would take him to the plate’s center, but at the last moment veered off onto another exit, heading instead toward the outer edges of Midgar. Past the businesses and the construction and down to the incomplete ShinRa parkway, already heralded as the gateway to Midgar, even though it might be months or years before the road reached the grounds.

Pulling to the side of the parkway, he killed the engine and sat for a moment before getting out of the car and walking to the very edge of the road that was blocked off by hazard cones and bright orange construction tape. He tossed his suit jacket over the concrete barrier that rose on the roadway’s side, and propped his hip on the cloth, turning his gaze toward the south west.

All he saw beyond the city lights were mountains, purple-black as a bruise in the night, but beyond those mountains he could just picture the ruin of a town, the blackened hollowed buildings and the few SOLDIERS left behind to keep the order of what townspeople were left until ShinRa decided what to do about the mess Nibelheim had become.

He didn’t see the reactor, or tried not to, ignored the memory of blood strewn across the metal causeway that led to its center, the sight of the broken handrail, the scrap of soft black leather that hung off the jagged edge of the rail, limp and dead now as the cow it had come from. He didn’t see hands gripping that rail, hands encased in black gloves, long fingers slipping slowly over the bar until at last the grip was lost and black and silver plummeted to the reactor’s core.

Damn it. He swung his head, whipping his hair around his face, and took a breath, trying to get the account of the story out of his mind; he’d gathered the story from the young blond cadet right before the boy had passed out and been carried off by Hojo’s assistants.

There was no body. Special crews had been dispatched to comb the reactor core, but nothing had come from it.

Goddamn sensationalism, Tseng thought, casting his eyes back toward the mountains, ignoring the sting in his palm as his hand clamped down on a ragged edge of concrete, ignoring the seeping red trail that stained the cuff of his shirt.