FIC - CRISIS CORE - COLOUR OF SIN - CH 1 COLOUR OF SIN
Crisis Core - Colour of Sin
Author: j_cae
Chapter Title: Chapter I: Colour of Sin
Rating: R
Pairing: Genesis/Angeal, hints of Genesis/Lazard
Warnings: Language, violence, yaoi, bad moral example, and dark and violent Angeal (If you’re expecting fluffy, harmless Angeal, I should have to suggest you look elsewhere).
Disclaimer: Don’t own CC or lyrics, but own the time spent writing this.
Summary: Monster, Shinra. SOLDIER, traitor. Angeal, Lazard-fighting on opposing ends but compelled into sin by a shared loss. This is Angeal and Lazard’s story.
A/N: Just a clarification-I compacted the timeline of the plot because it does not make sense Lazard responds to Genesis going rogue ONE MONTH AFTER. Mass desertion is not something that can be kept from the President and/or the Company’s powerful intelligence network for one month. Besides, Lazard is a young director in a position of power unparalleled to his experience and probably courted a lot of distrust and jealousy. With Genesis gone, this is like the golden opportunity for the ambitious--I’ll give Lazard one week.
COLOUR OF SIN
By J CAE
“I’m sorry. I cannot let you take the mission.”
“He’s my best friend since we were four years old. I need to find him. Please let me go.”
Three days before his disappearance, Angeal stood across from Lazard’s office desk with a medley of hurt, confusion and rage behind dark eyes. The SOLDIER usually came across as a proud man, sparing in conversation and never acquainted himself with Lazard beyond the need of duty. But here he was, close to pleading, asking to be sent on the mission to recover Genesis.
Lazard kept Genesis’s disappearance closely guarded. Only Sephiroth and a handful were privy to the information. How Angeal came by the news was not important, but Lazard had no questions why he was in his office. The SOLDIER already decided he would head to Wutai. He was only asking for Lazard’s blessing to sanction his venture but he certainly did not require it.
Lazard understood the need to do something, the need to be there looking for a missing friend. While he would like to help relieve Angeal’s pain, he saw the imminence of losing the second of the G-type SOLDIERs.
Perhaps less subtly than he would have it, Lazard said, “He may have been your best friend but you know very little about him as a SOLDIER.”
Angeal turned to leave. They both knew what would happen once he stepped through the door. Angeal would vanish too, lost in Wutai. But perhaps there would be a way to change the outcome, to keep him from deserting.
“Zack Fair.” Lazard said just as the SOLDIER wrapped his hand around the doorknob. “I will send your student to substitute for Genesis’s mission. You may go with him as his mentor and evaluator.”
Angeal turned. His face lightened with relief, but only a little. “Thank you. I owe you a favour.”
Lazard stood and met his gaze. “Stay with Zack. That’s all I’m asking.”
Angeal’s hesitation was answer enough. Then, he averted his eyes and nodded. “On my pride as a SOLDIER.”
CHAPTER I: COLOUR OF SIN
You never notice the colour of sin
Just as the storm clouds close in
It’s dark
L’Arc~en~ciel - Cape of Storms
*CRISIS CORE ~ DAY TWO SINCE ANGEAL WAS REPORTED MISSING
ANGEAL
Angeal became aware of a searing heat against his cheek.
A persistent motor noise hammered into his skull. He tried to shut it out, but the clattering was too close. Irritable. He forced his eyes open and saw only a white flare of sunlight.
He had fallen asleep with his face against the sun-cooked helicopter window while two spectators watched. Genesis said nothing, but Hollander had a pitying smile that was almost fatherly. “Tired, huh?”
Angeal ignored the doctor as he righted himself. He tried to regain his bearings, to recall why the three of them were sharing a helicopter, flying over intervals of verdant patches and barren cliffs-a landscape he finally recognized even though he had never seen it from the air.
Banora, at last.
Home.
Banora was a graveyard of Shinra failures.
At first, Shinra came in search for mako. They cut a quarry out of the hills to harvest the crystals formed within the caves. But they closed down the project when they discovered it cost too much to purify the crystals into a useable form. They pulled out of Banora but left behind the scars they made on the land. They took their equipment but left their empty promises.
Then, they began to dump their waste in this place-their abortive aspirations, their former employees, their babes from unsuccessful experimentations. Under the guise they were providing a haven for life after the Company, Shinra buried them here to forget about them.
Angeal understood now why he could not remember his true history.
Genesis had his copies move Hollander’s machinery into the factory where they would use as their base. The villagers gathered to watch as they worked, curious why a Shinra taskforce would find interest in this dull, unadventurous place again. Angeal followed Genesis’s advice and donned a standard-issue helmet for anonymity. The two of them SOLDIERs returning home with a bunch of creepy imitations would be cause for upheaval-something they could not afford while they attempted to outrace Shinra.
The villagers slowed their advance with questions-what they planned to do, how long they were staying, if they had any news about their boys who went off to join Shinra. Genesis’s mother was among the crowd. She seemed to have more questions than most. Angeal now knew she was of no import, only a stranger arranged into their lives.
With savage impatience, Genesis hissed in Angeal’s ear, “These townsfolk are in our way. We have to do something about them.”
Angeal only followed as his partner strode ahead in a flurry of SOLDIER uniform and long grey coat.
He still could not say it was sensible to betray the director with both the funding and the army, but he understood fully when Genesis declared, “I won’t be used.” There had been no questions whose side Angeal should choose. Unfortunately, this decision proved anything but simple.
Behind them, Hollander was unused to long hikes but he observed Angeal’s threat to leave him should he hold them up. The doctor should not have left Midgar. Lazard had him closely watched for the part he played and his departure would be indication for his change of heart. Lazard would follow him, of course, and Hollander would lead him straight to where Genesis was.
Genesis was not particularly concerned despite Angeal’s warning. He insisted Hollander’s participation was absolutely necessary. Considering Genesis’s state of health, Angeal did not argue. They would have to act fast. They would have to be done with Banora by the time Lazard’s forces arrived. That meant they would have to complete the two tasks they came to do immediately-to lead Hollander to what he wanted and to confront the doctor’s former protégé and partner in Project G.
“Your mother’s maiden name was Gillian Sancta, was it not?” Hollander said but a day ago when he joined their operation in Junon. “She was my student. I have worked with her on Jenova Project G.”
Angeal saw her photo on her staff profile from thirty years ago-a young intellect, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her blue eyes burning with pride. He studied the papers she submitted to the science department-Project G had been her entire life then. She even used her own body to prove her thesis. Was this her true face? Was she always someone like Hollander who befouled life, who played god in the name of science? He read the contract she signed with the Shinra Company when she resigned. That was the final straw. Angeal had accused Hollander of trying to tamper with his mind. He had hoped to believe in coincidence, in unfortunate mistakes, but he knew the truth in his heart when he read the agreement terms.
“We are the proof of the Project’s existence.” Genesis reasoned. He and Hollander were predatory animals trying to trap him with their logic, to gnaw through his heart with their truths. “If your cells are not useful to me, why should Hollander try to obtain them from you?”
Angeal learned the essence of their plan. Hollander would provide a cure for Genesis and in exchange, Genesis would help him dispatch Hojo so that the doctor would be elected head of science department. To cover their operation costs, they involved Lazard who diverted a generous portion of SOLDIER revenue into the research. Whatever profit Lazard saw in this Genesis did not know, but once they received the funding, they turned against the director.
Angeal asked Genesis, “To be used by Hollander, to be used by Lazard-where’s the difference?”
Genesis considered the question and gave his answer. “I’ll die if Hollander refuses me.”
Angeal turned to the doctor, “Can’t I just pay you for this?” He knew as he asked that his question was too late. The betrayal was already underway and Shinra was not known to forgive those who turned against them. He only wished Genesis had told him everything sooner. They could have discussed this before.
“There is no known cure at the moment. I have to keep researching, and these tests I run, these equipments I operate-to put it bluntly, you cannot afford it.” The doctor turned up his palms. “And besides, what good would it do me if Hojo is still around?”
Angeal could tell Genesis did not want to take Hojo’s life. Hojo was nothing to him. It was Hollander who caused his grief in the first place, yet it would be Hollander whom he would help place in charge of all other hapless specimens like himself and Angeal. The conflict was obvious, but Genesis convinced himself that he did not have a choice. “If killing Hojo means I’m going to get the cure, I’ll do it.”
“You wanted to be a hero once,” Angeal said, but he immediately regretted his words.
It was the way Genesis lowered his eyes that broke Angeal's heart.
“But I can’t.”
They set up their equipment in the factory. Hollander coaxed two of the copies into the pair of mako tanks they brought with them. Mako showers helped contain the degradation, but it was not a viable solution in the long run when they were about to come up against the mako monopoly. Besides, Hollander insisted the key to curing Genesis was the slow release of concentrated stagnant mako, not in the dilute liquid enhancement issued to SOLDIERs. He came to collect crystal samples from the abandoned mine.
Angeal did not like the idea of Hollander intruding their childhood place, the only sacred memory he had left of Banora. His reluctance to show Hollander the cave was shared by Genesis who told the doctor “Not yet” when prompted. Genesis knew the cave like the back of his hand. He used it as a secret playground when he was a child. It was also the place he ran to whenever he was upset. Incidentally, Hollander believed his continuous exposure to the crystals in his early life could have been the reason he survived to adulthood while all other specimens from Project G died from the same degradation in their childhood.
It was decided then they would go to Gillian first.
The dirt road leading to Gillian’s house had been travelled often, but it had never seemed as long and strewn with difficulty. The house was not the same that Angeal had grown up in, although it was in the exact location. He used his SOLDIER’s pay to build his mother a new cottage so she would not have to run and fetch every bucket and container in the house to catch the leak whenever it rained. The incessant dripping of rainwater used to fascinate Genesis as a child. He never lived under a leaking roof before.
Genesis and Hollander were waiting for him at the door. He turned the lock with his key.
There was a time Angeal was convinced nothing in the world could startle his mother. She was always so composed and reserved. He was close to seeing her break when his father died-just that once. But she was quickly back to her resilient self when she saw Angeal needed more comfort than she had.
But he watched her change when Hollander reappeared in her life, in the middle of her house. Her face grew pale and then livid. She gripped the handles of her armchair and pulled herself up.
“You!”
Hollander said her name, almost affectionately, but she as a trembling mess of rage. She stared past Angeal and Genesis still in their masks and uniforms and marched straight at the doctor. There was only pure acid in her tone. “I thought I made myself quite clear. There are no more ties between us.”
“Gillian, listen.”
She cut him off. “Leave! Now!”
“I came here with-”
“Now!”
Angeal’s fists convulsed. He saw a face he had never seen before-not his mother, but his creator. The one with the wounded pride. Hollander’s partner who fell out with him when the funding for their project was cut.
Genesis chose the moment to pull off his helmet. Gillian stepped back in shock. She turned her eyes upon Angeal now with recognition-with horror. He refused to acknowledge her, still undecided between facing her or sparing himself the indignity of a lying mother. He chose the former when she said his name in a plea. He let his helmet crash to her floor.
“Mother, why don’t you tell me if it’s true-what Hollander told me about Project G? All you said about carrying me under your heart, feeling me grow inside you, and…and you just gladly used me for your experiments.”
“No, Angeal. It is not that way.” Gillian shook her head. Angeal would admit their confrontation was too intimate even for Genesis’s ears, but he was beyond caring. Let her attempt to explain herself in their audience’s presence. Let them hear her admit she bred her son for the tests and she knew no honour.
But she said, “I never experimented on you. I admit I was arrogant. I thought I could re-create an Ancient from the child of my body, but you have no idea the shame that filled me when I first held you in my arms. You were so tiny, so beautiful-how could I possibly think I can perfect you? Because of you, I left Shinra. I came to Banora to raise you.”
“They gave you a contract.” Genesis interjected with mirth in his expression as if all he had heard were amusing. “Page eight, paragraph two: Dr. Gillian Sancta is to accept one point five million gils for her long-term service, as well as an accommodation in Banora.”
“I did not take the hush-money.”
“Appendix A, paragraph nine.” Genesis recited more of the agreement terms from memory. “She petitioned for the legal adoption of one of her specimens from here on known as Angeal. President Shinra approved of her request under the condition she paid the company two point seven million gils and would resign Angeal to military service upon his reaching age eighteen.”
Angeal always thought joining SOLDIER had been his own free will. The day he left home for Midgar, his father pressed the Buster Sword into his hands while his mother urged him to reconsider and choose the right course. What was the right course when the path was already set out for him since birth? It hardly mattered Gillian had him playing at choices. Eventually, he would be coerced to walk down the same road to meet the same end.
There was a bittersweet satisfaction in watching Gillian’s defeat. She might have been an elite scientist with the power to create enhanced life forms. She might have thought she could change the future and conceal the past. But she could not lie her way out of what she had done now when he already knew the truth.
“Angeal, look at me, please.” She reached to touch his face, reaching for him the only way she had left when the distance between them could never be bridged again. He allowed her only a moment before drawing away. “There was no other way. I paid them everything I had to take you away, and they told me it’s not even enough. But you are my son. I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t live with that. I had to agree to whatever terms they gave me so long as they let me take you out of Midgar. But if you had said you didn’t want to join the army, I would have done anything I could to stop that from happening. I was prepared to help you run away.”
“Why couldn’t you trust me with the truth?”
“Angeal, I love you, very much. The mistake I made in the past is not a burden I could ever ask you to take.”
Their gazes touched, the same deep shade of blue shadowed by the same black hair. He believed her. He believed her. There were no words so poignant when they were spoken with the eyes and time and memory.
He believed her until he heard Genesis scoff. All these years, Genesis was almost a family member at their house. Angeal knew Gillian’s betrayal hit him just as hard when he found out the truth. But Gillian was not bound to him by blood. It was easier for him to make up his mind.
“I do not deserve forgiveness, but all I wanted was for you to have a normal life away from Shinra.” Gillian swept her gaze to include Genesis. “For you both to live normal lives.”
“If only we could.” Genesis slid off his grey coat. His left shoulder was bandaged but still bleeding under the linen-the damage Angeal was responsible for causing six months ago. Bruises marked along his thin arms. There were also pale patches on his skin, a worsening case of vitiligo when his colour pigments began to break down. “It began with the wound in this shoulder,” Genesis told Gillian. “It never healed, and this corruption started to spread through my body.” He had too much pride to ask for help, not directly anyway. But his message was enough.
Pity and pain were obvious in Gillian’s expression. She, of course, recognized the symptoms of the deterioration that killed her Project G. But she made no move to go to Genesis even as he opened his arms to show her the fruits of her sin. Instead, she turned her gaze to the doctor, the unwanted guest. “Tell me, Hollander. Have they reopened Project G?”
Angeal wanted to ask what that had to do with anything.
“I can’t tell you that.” Hollander said. “It’s classified information.”
“You seem to need my help.”
Hollander shifted his weight to another foot. “Well...Not officially, they have.”
Gillian took a long moment to consider her response. She closed her eyes and whispered something too soft to hear but Angeal thought it was a plea for forgiveness, or a prayer perhaps. Then, she looked at Hollander and gave her answer. “I have already paid my debts when I left the Company. I no longer have any obligations to Shinra or Shinra property.”
“Shinra property? Mother!” Angeal was so stunned by the effect of her blunt words. She might have bought Angeal off from Shinra but she left Genesis behind. He was still owned by the Company. Shinra property. She would refuse him based on this. How could she? She mothered Genesis through her knowledge and ambition too. How could she deny him and let him die?
“Gillian, I only want to help Genesis,” Hollander said. “This has nothing to do with Project G and I’m not trying to pull you back. But you knew how to help Angeal. He isn’t deteriorating and I know you have done something for him. Tell me what it is.”
“No.” She was unmoved. “If I help you cure a G-type SOLDIER, I will give you the means to create more of them. This goes against the vow I made when I left Shinra. I have to refuse.”
Genesis pulled on his coat, concealing his scars out of sight. Angeal knew the empty way he smiled. Gillian could pretend she was noble, but she had no right to sacrifice him for her morality. Angeal heard everything he needed to hear. He placed his hands on Genesis’s shoulders and Genesis allowed himself to be led away-a small change, a little sign he was tired of fighting his disappointment. He had been fighting too hard to keep up a strong appearance but Angeal could see right through that.
“I’m so sorry, Genesis,” Gillian said as she watched them go. “I hope you understand why I have to do this.”
If Genesis had the capacity to accept her apology, Angeal certainly did not.
Genesis sat hunched over his book for the better part of an hour on the floor of the factory. Almost inhuman now, changed, weak, and hurt, but the essence of his being still remained, a certain naiveté. The same way he seemed confident Hollander would keep to their bargain, he accepted Gillian’s refusal as something final. All Angeal could do now was to sit with Genesis against the same wall a few paces away, an equal partner in silence.
“My mother-” Angeal started to say. “I didn’t expect she would refuse.”
Flipping of a page.
“I’d speak with her again. Maybe I can turn things around when we are alone and calm.”
Genesis gave no answer, but Angeal knew he must have heard because his hands went rigid around the spine of his book.
Hope. Sometimes hope cut deeper than the lack of it.
Of all the things Genesis could have said, of all the blame he could have shoved at Angeal, he only stood and brushed the dust off his coat. “I’m tired,” he said, “even though all I did was wait.”
As he headed out of the room, Angeal did not ask where he was going. He simply followed.
Author: j_cae
Chapter Title: Chapter I: Colour of Sin
Rating: R
Pairing: Genesis/Angeal, hints of Genesis/Lazard
Warnings: Language, violence, yaoi, bad moral example, and dark and violent Angeal (If you’re expecting fluffy, harmless Angeal, I should have to suggest you look elsewhere).
Disclaimer: Don’t own CC or lyrics, but own the time spent writing this.
Summary: Monster, Shinra. SOLDIER, traitor. Angeal, Lazard-fighting on opposing ends but compelled into sin by a shared loss. This is Angeal and Lazard’s story.
A/N: Just a clarification-I compacted the timeline of the plot because it does not make sense Lazard responds to Genesis going rogue ONE MONTH AFTER. Mass desertion is not something that can be kept from the President and/or the Company’s powerful intelligence network for one month. Besides, Lazard is a young director in a position of power unparalleled to his experience and probably courted a lot of distrust and jealousy. With Genesis gone, this is like the golden opportunity for the ambitious--I’ll give Lazard one week.
COLOUR OF SIN
By J CAE
“I’m sorry. I cannot let you take the mission.”
“He’s my best friend since we were four years old. I need to find him. Please let me go.”
Three days before his disappearance, Angeal stood across from Lazard’s office desk with a medley of hurt, confusion and rage behind dark eyes. The SOLDIER usually came across as a proud man, sparing in conversation and never acquainted himself with Lazard beyond the need of duty. But here he was, close to pleading, asking to be sent on the mission to recover Genesis.
Lazard kept Genesis’s disappearance closely guarded. Only Sephiroth and a handful were privy to the information. How Angeal came by the news was not important, but Lazard had no questions why he was in his office. The SOLDIER already decided he would head to Wutai. He was only asking for Lazard’s blessing to sanction his venture but he certainly did not require it.
Lazard understood the need to do something, the need to be there looking for a missing friend. While he would like to help relieve Angeal’s pain, he saw the imminence of losing the second of the G-type SOLDIERs.
Perhaps less subtly than he would have it, Lazard said, “He may have been your best friend but you know very little about him as a SOLDIER.”
Angeal turned to leave. They both knew what would happen once he stepped through the door. Angeal would vanish too, lost in Wutai. But perhaps there would be a way to change the outcome, to keep him from deserting.
“Zack Fair.” Lazard said just as the SOLDIER wrapped his hand around the doorknob. “I will send your student to substitute for Genesis’s mission. You may go with him as his mentor and evaluator.”
Angeal turned. His face lightened with relief, but only a little. “Thank you. I owe you a favour.”
Lazard stood and met his gaze. “Stay with Zack. That’s all I’m asking.”
Angeal’s hesitation was answer enough. Then, he averted his eyes and nodded. “On my pride as a SOLDIER.”
CHAPTER I: COLOUR OF SIN
You never notice the colour of sin
Just as the storm clouds close in
It’s dark
L’Arc~en~ciel - Cape of Storms
*CRISIS CORE ~ DAY TWO SINCE ANGEAL WAS REPORTED MISSING
ANGEAL
Angeal became aware of a searing heat against his cheek.
A persistent motor noise hammered into his skull. He tried to shut it out, but the clattering was too close. Irritable. He forced his eyes open and saw only a white flare of sunlight.
He had fallen asleep with his face against the sun-cooked helicopter window while two spectators watched. Genesis said nothing, but Hollander had a pitying smile that was almost fatherly. “Tired, huh?”
Angeal ignored the doctor as he righted himself. He tried to regain his bearings, to recall why the three of them were sharing a helicopter, flying over intervals of verdant patches and barren cliffs-a landscape he finally recognized even though he had never seen it from the air.
Banora, at last.
Home.
Banora was a graveyard of Shinra failures.
At first, Shinra came in search for mako. They cut a quarry out of the hills to harvest the crystals formed within the caves. But they closed down the project when they discovered it cost too much to purify the crystals into a useable form. They pulled out of Banora but left behind the scars they made on the land. They took their equipment but left their empty promises.
Then, they began to dump their waste in this place-their abortive aspirations, their former employees, their babes from unsuccessful experimentations. Under the guise they were providing a haven for life after the Company, Shinra buried them here to forget about them.
Angeal understood now why he could not remember his true history.
Genesis had his copies move Hollander’s machinery into the factory where they would use as their base. The villagers gathered to watch as they worked, curious why a Shinra taskforce would find interest in this dull, unadventurous place again. Angeal followed Genesis’s advice and donned a standard-issue helmet for anonymity. The two of them SOLDIERs returning home with a bunch of creepy imitations would be cause for upheaval-something they could not afford while they attempted to outrace Shinra.
The villagers slowed their advance with questions-what they planned to do, how long they were staying, if they had any news about their boys who went off to join Shinra. Genesis’s mother was among the crowd. She seemed to have more questions than most. Angeal now knew she was of no import, only a stranger arranged into their lives.
With savage impatience, Genesis hissed in Angeal’s ear, “These townsfolk are in our way. We have to do something about them.”
Angeal only followed as his partner strode ahead in a flurry of SOLDIER uniform and long grey coat.
He still could not say it was sensible to betray the director with both the funding and the army, but he understood fully when Genesis declared, “I won’t be used.” There had been no questions whose side Angeal should choose. Unfortunately, this decision proved anything but simple.
Behind them, Hollander was unused to long hikes but he observed Angeal’s threat to leave him should he hold them up. The doctor should not have left Midgar. Lazard had him closely watched for the part he played and his departure would be indication for his change of heart. Lazard would follow him, of course, and Hollander would lead him straight to where Genesis was.
Genesis was not particularly concerned despite Angeal’s warning. He insisted Hollander’s participation was absolutely necessary. Considering Genesis’s state of health, Angeal did not argue. They would have to act fast. They would have to be done with Banora by the time Lazard’s forces arrived. That meant they would have to complete the two tasks they came to do immediately-to lead Hollander to what he wanted and to confront the doctor’s former protégé and partner in Project G.
“Your mother’s maiden name was Gillian Sancta, was it not?” Hollander said but a day ago when he joined their operation in Junon. “She was my student. I have worked with her on Jenova Project G.”
Angeal saw her photo on her staff profile from thirty years ago-a young intellect, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her blue eyes burning with pride. He studied the papers she submitted to the science department-Project G had been her entire life then. She even used her own body to prove her thesis. Was this her true face? Was she always someone like Hollander who befouled life, who played god in the name of science? He read the contract she signed with the Shinra Company when she resigned. That was the final straw. Angeal had accused Hollander of trying to tamper with his mind. He had hoped to believe in coincidence, in unfortunate mistakes, but he knew the truth in his heart when he read the agreement terms.
“We are the proof of the Project’s existence.” Genesis reasoned. He and Hollander were predatory animals trying to trap him with their logic, to gnaw through his heart with their truths. “If your cells are not useful to me, why should Hollander try to obtain them from you?”
Angeal learned the essence of their plan. Hollander would provide a cure for Genesis and in exchange, Genesis would help him dispatch Hojo so that the doctor would be elected head of science department. To cover their operation costs, they involved Lazard who diverted a generous portion of SOLDIER revenue into the research. Whatever profit Lazard saw in this Genesis did not know, but once they received the funding, they turned against the director.
Angeal asked Genesis, “To be used by Hollander, to be used by Lazard-where’s the difference?”
Genesis considered the question and gave his answer. “I’ll die if Hollander refuses me.”
Angeal turned to the doctor, “Can’t I just pay you for this?” He knew as he asked that his question was too late. The betrayal was already underway and Shinra was not known to forgive those who turned against them. He only wished Genesis had told him everything sooner. They could have discussed this before.
“There is no known cure at the moment. I have to keep researching, and these tests I run, these equipments I operate-to put it bluntly, you cannot afford it.” The doctor turned up his palms. “And besides, what good would it do me if Hojo is still around?”
Angeal could tell Genesis did not want to take Hojo’s life. Hojo was nothing to him. It was Hollander who caused his grief in the first place, yet it would be Hollander whom he would help place in charge of all other hapless specimens like himself and Angeal. The conflict was obvious, but Genesis convinced himself that he did not have a choice. “If killing Hojo means I’m going to get the cure, I’ll do it.”
“You wanted to be a hero once,” Angeal said, but he immediately regretted his words.
It was the way Genesis lowered his eyes that broke Angeal's heart.
“But I can’t.”
They set up their equipment in the factory. Hollander coaxed two of the copies into the pair of mako tanks they brought with them. Mako showers helped contain the degradation, but it was not a viable solution in the long run when they were about to come up against the mako monopoly. Besides, Hollander insisted the key to curing Genesis was the slow release of concentrated stagnant mako, not in the dilute liquid enhancement issued to SOLDIERs. He came to collect crystal samples from the abandoned mine.
Angeal did not like the idea of Hollander intruding their childhood place, the only sacred memory he had left of Banora. His reluctance to show Hollander the cave was shared by Genesis who told the doctor “Not yet” when prompted. Genesis knew the cave like the back of his hand. He used it as a secret playground when he was a child. It was also the place he ran to whenever he was upset. Incidentally, Hollander believed his continuous exposure to the crystals in his early life could have been the reason he survived to adulthood while all other specimens from Project G died from the same degradation in their childhood.
It was decided then they would go to Gillian first.
The dirt road leading to Gillian’s house had been travelled often, but it had never seemed as long and strewn with difficulty. The house was not the same that Angeal had grown up in, although it was in the exact location. He used his SOLDIER’s pay to build his mother a new cottage so she would not have to run and fetch every bucket and container in the house to catch the leak whenever it rained. The incessant dripping of rainwater used to fascinate Genesis as a child. He never lived under a leaking roof before.
Genesis and Hollander were waiting for him at the door. He turned the lock with his key.
There was a time Angeal was convinced nothing in the world could startle his mother. She was always so composed and reserved. He was close to seeing her break when his father died-just that once. But she was quickly back to her resilient self when she saw Angeal needed more comfort than she had.
But he watched her change when Hollander reappeared in her life, in the middle of her house. Her face grew pale and then livid. She gripped the handles of her armchair and pulled herself up.
“You!”
Hollander said her name, almost affectionately, but she as a trembling mess of rage. She stared past Angeal and Genesis still in their masks and uniforms and marched straight at the doctor. There was only pure acid in her tone. “I thought I made myself quite clear. There are no more ties between us.”
“Gillian, listen.”
She cut him off. “Leave! Now!”
“I came here with-”
“Now!”
Angeal’s fists convulsed. He saw a face he had never seen before-not his mother, but his creator. The one with the wounded pride. Hollander’s partner who fell out with him when the funding for their project was cut.
Genesis chose the moment to pull off his helmet. Gillian stepped back in shock. She turned her eyes upon Angeal now with recognition-with horror. He refused to acknowledge her, still undecided between facing her or sparing himself the indignity of a lying mother. He chose the former when she said his name in a plea. He let his helmet crash to her floor.
“Mother, why don’t you tell me if it’s true-what Hollander told me about Project G? All you said about carrying me under your heart, feeling me grow inside you, and…and you just gladly used me for your experiments.”
“No, Angeal. It is not that way.” Gillian shook her head. Angeal would admit their confrontation was too intimate even for Genesis’s ears, but he was beyond caring. Let her attempt to explain herself in their audience’s presence. Let them hear her admit she bred her son for the tests and she knew no honour.
But she said, “I never experimented on you. I admit I was arrogant. I thought I could re-create an Ancient from the child of my body, but you have no idea the shame that filled me when I first held you in my arms. You were so tiny, so beautiful-how could I possibly think I can perfect you? Because of you, I left Shinra. I came to Banora to raise you.”
“They gave you a contract.” Genesis interjected with mirth in his expression as if all he had heard were amusing. “Page eight, paragraph two: Dr. Gillian Sancta is to accept one point five million gils for her long-term service, as well as an accommodation in Banora.”
“I did not take the hush-money.”
“Appendix A, paragraph nine.” Genesis recited more of the agreement terms from memory. “She petitioned for the legal adoption of one of her specimens from here on known as Angeal. President Shinra approved of her request under the condition she paid the company two point seven million gils and would resign Angeal to military service upon his reaching age eighteen.”
Angeal always thought joining SOLDIER had been his own free will. The day he left home for Midgar, his father pressed the Buster Sword into his hands while his mother urged him to reconsider and choose the right course. What was the right course when the path was already set out for him since birth? It hardly mattered Gillian had him playing at choices. Eventually, he would be coerced to walk down the same road to meet the same end.
There was a bittersweet satisfaction in watching Gillian’s defeat. She might have been an elite scientist with the power to create enhanced life forms. She might have thought she could change the future and conceal the past. But she could not lie her way out of what she had done now when he already knew the truth.
“Angeal, look at me, please.” She reached to touch his face, reaching for him the only way she had left when the distance between them could never be bridged again. He allowed her only a moment before drawing away. “There was no other way. I paid them everything I had to take you away, and they told me it’s not even enough. But you are my son. I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t live with that. I had to agree to whatever terms they gave me so long as they let me take you out of Midgar. But if you had said you didn’t want to join the army, I would have done anything I could to stop that from happening. I was prepared to help you run away.”
“Why couldn’t you trust me with the truth?”
“Angeal, I love you, very much. The mistake I made in the past is not a burden I could ever ask you to take.”
Their gazes touched, the same deep shade of blue shadowed by the same black hair. He believed her. He believed her. There were no words so poignant when they were spoken with the eyes and time and memory.
He believed her until he heard Genesis scoff. All these years, Genesis was almost a family member at their house. Angeal knew Gillian’s betrayal hit him just as hard when he found out the truth. But Gillian was not bound to him by blood. It was easier for him to make up his mind.
“I do not deserve forgiveness, but all I wanted was for you to have a normal life away from Shinra.” Gillian swept her gaze to include Genesis. “For you both to live normal lives.”
“If only we could.” Genesis slid off his grey coat. His left shoulder was bandaged but still bleeding under the linen-the damage Angeal was responsible for causing six months ago. Bruises marked along his thin arms. There were also pale patches on his skin, a worsening case of vitiligo when his colour pigments began to break down. “It began with the wound in this shoulder,” Genesis told Gillian. “It never healed, and this corruption started to spread through my body.” He had too much pride to ask for help, not directly anyway. But his message was enough.
Pity and pain were obvious in Gillian’s expression. She, of course, recognized the symptoms of the deterioration that killed her Project G. But she made no move to go to Genesis even as he opened his arms to show her the fruits of her sin. Instead, she turned her gaze to the doctor, the unwanted guest. “Tell me, Hollander. Have they reopened Project G?”
Angeal wanted to ask what that had to do with anything.
“I can’t tell you that.” Hollander said. “It’s classified information.”
“You seem to need my help.”
Hollander shifted his weight to another foot. “Well...Not officially, they have.”
Gillian took a long moment to consider her response. She closed her eyes and whispered something too soft to hear but Angeal thought it was a plea for forgiveness, or a prayer perhaps. Then, she looked at Hollander and gave her answer. “I have already paid my debts when I left the Company. I no longer have any obligations to Shinra or Shinra property.”
“Shinra property? Mother!” Angeal was so stunned by the effect of her blunt words. She might have bought Angeal off from Shinra but she left Genesis behind. He was still owned by the Company. Shinra property. She would refuse him based on this. How could she? She mothered Genesis through her knowledge and ambition too. How could she deny him and let him die?
“Gillian, I only want to help Genesis,” Hollander said. “This has nothing to do with Project G and I’m not trying to pull you back. But you knew how to help Angeal. He isn’t deteriorating and I know you have done something for him. Tell me what it is.”
“No.” She was unmoved. “If I help you cure a G-type SOLDIER, I will give you the means to create more of them. This goes against the vow I made when I left Shinra. I have to refuse.”
Genesis pulled on his coat, concealing his scars out of sight. Angeal knew the empty way he smiled. Gillian could pretend she was noble, but she had no right to sacrifice him for her morality. Angeal heard everything he needed to hear. He placed his hands on Genesis’s shoulders and Genesis allowed himself to be led away-a small change, a little sign he was tired of fighting his disappointment. He had been fighting too hard to keep up a strong appearance but Angeal could see right through that.
“I’m so sorry, Genesis,” Gillian said as she watched them go. “I hope you understand why I have to do this.”
If Genesis had the capacity to accept her apology, Angeal certainly did not.
Genesis sat hunched over his book for the better part of an hour on the floor of the factory. Almost inhuman now, changed, weak, and hurt, but the essence of his being still remained, a certain naiveté. The same way he seemed confident Hollander would keep to their bargain, he accepted Gillian’s refusal as something final. All Angeal could do now was to sit with Genesis against the same wall a few paces away, an equal partner in silence.
“My mother-” Angeal started to say. “I didn’t expect she would refuse.”
Flipping of a page.
“I’d speak with her again. Maybe I can turn things around when we are alone and calm.”
Genesis gave no answer, but Angeal knew he must have heard because his hands went rigid around the spine of his book.
Hope. Sometimes hope cut deeper than the lack of it.
Of all the things Genesis could have said, of all the blame he could have shoved at Angeal, he only stood and brushed the dust off his coat. “I’m tired,” he said, “even though all I did was wait.”
As he headed out of the room, Angeal did not ask where he was going. He simply followed.