(Untitled)

[animus_inspire]

Who: Hojo and Reeve. Kira via PHS.
When: Concurrent to / around This and after This
Location: Reeve's apartment, Eastern "Edge" of Midgar
Rating: PGish.
Summary: Hojo has materialised within Reeve's apartment. The Professor is back and is prime to gain an advantaged position once again.

Comments

He'll start making sense soon

[moralmisconduct]

The voices of the young ones dropped out of range... or had they really been there at all? The state of his mind was unreliable... His skeletal muscles were seized in some phantom anticipation, the pain widespread to the point of numbness. Hojo was vaguely aware of his fingers twitching, his internal organs in silent mutiny, and when he opened his mouth again there was the sound of rice paper being torn:

"...but you are wrong. Ethics is a word inapplicable to this scenario. Let's take a utilitarian approach, if you really want to be philosophical. You see-"

The laboratory's lights were brighter than usual; the gleam off the shelves of glass equipment maddeningly blinding. The edges of the room were fuzzy. He had stepped forward to argue the point, but found himself falling, through a floor which swallowed him. The old, disapproving features he had been addressing morphed into another bespectacled set, though infinitely closer to his own appearance than the previous face had been. He swallowed.

"Ah...well...I thought it was Makaemia initially. However, the symptoms seem to suggest-"

But, this wasn't right, was it? Neither was this. An ancient hand gravitated towards him and touched his forehead, lifting a fringe matted with blood from open eyes. He was floating through a corridor of bleached coats and immaculate bedsheets, hearing the moans of the broken around him whine as if in song.

"I don't have a given name!" He was becoming desperate, sensing invisible bodies press in around him like soulless statues. "Stop asking...I don't know. I don't know what-"

Then-

The real human sound reverberating on his eardrums seem to bring a whole world crashing down on his plastered form. Hojo shivered entirely as a strangled gasp left his lips - the only response he could give to the question posed, because presently he honestly did not know the answer himself.

I apologise for this being short... there is much more Reeve has to remember....

[animus_inspire]

Reeve inched slowly into the main living room, gun held - hand in palm - in front of his face. It felt so alien, everything disjointed, discomforting; the garbled mess of language spewing forth from the blackness eerie and disconcerting. Sweat started to bead on his forehead and the Commissioner shunted ever closer, wrenched between logic and curiosity.

Eyes landing on a heaving figure upon his carpet, the Commissioner hitched up the gun and moved to the light switch. The harsh glare of illumination on sickly skin, whisped hair and glasses. A strange smell assaulting his nostrils and Reeve put his hand over his mouth. Choking down bile he stuttered out a shocked "Prof-essor.... Ho-jo?"

You poor, unfortunate man. And really, I mean that. XD

[moralmisconduct]

A mean flood of light burned behind his eyelids, forcing Hojo back to reality. Because, that was what this was, wasn't it? Reality? The thin touch of torn clothes, the familiar pinch of light glasses on the bridge of his nose, the stiffness invading every joint, and that damn brightness - all a part of the real, physical world he had unwillingly found himself back in?

The voice, too. He should know that voice. Who-?

Gingerly opening his eyes against the glare, he squinted up at the other presence. An apprehensive face swam lazily into view, blurred and smeared like a rain-washed painting, features only just discernible beyond a thin glaze of protective tears.

"...Tuesti? ...Reeve...?"

Was this luck or misfortune, to have been found in so vulnerable a state by a former acquaintance? Hojo grimaced as the name exited his lips. Pity; he had really meant to smile.

"I did answer to that name," he replied, finally, "But right now I'm a little uncertain. I think that's...understandable, given my current...incapacitated state."

Another deep breath, to test lung compliance, and the possibility of fractured ribs or torn respiratory muscles. From the searing pain he received on the action, the former was weak, and the latter two were highly likely.

"However, perhaps you can do something about that, Reeve." He closed his eyes again to minimise the sting. "Either put a bullet through my head, or give me some basic first aid... Both will help...and I know which option I'd prefer. What about you?"

Never told you how much I adoooore your reply XD Pity; he had really meant to smile? WIN XD

[animus_inspire]

No. There was no mistaking it. The Professor's name, spoken in a question of surprise and shock, died upon the lips of the Commissioner; the unmistakable reality of the situation sinking in to Reeve's mind also as the strip lights bathed them both in a luminous glare.

Hojo was... in his apartment. Reeve blinked as the figure before him contorted that hideous visage in an effort to focus, his own name falling from thin lips sending a shudder down his spine. Yet Hojo twisted his features further, desperately pathetic like a lame dog that never learned to stop leering after it's prey. A sweat bead trickled into Reeve's eye, salt stinging suddenly until he brought up the back of his hand, still holding his gun, to brush away the pallid wetness of fear; slicking across his forehead like a cold film of grease.

Hojo was... in his apartment.The commissioner couldn't concentrate on why or how this might have occurred, his mind instead a mere scramble of memories and pricked emotions. Tongue tied with a tidal rush of feeling; some base fear, confusion, suspicion, loathing... perhaps hate. "Y-yes.." was all he managed in response before temporarily falling silent with a grit of teeth and a twitched finger on the trigger of a gun.

Hojo was... in his goddamn apartment!

What memories could he possible explicit from the jumble of what had come before? The tales of experiments, the responsibility of the world's end again and again falling upon those hunched, skeletal shoulders in front of him... of Vincent, Elfe, Cloud, Aerith, Nanaki, Deepground, Shelke, of SOLDIER... of the sores and lesions upon the histories of people he called friends... of the geostigma that killed too many. That killed his own mother before he could make amends for being a too absent son! The callous dismissal of the lives of thousands, of millions and for what for?! For Science? For JENOVA? For Sephiroth? For his own sickening morbid curiosity and egomania?!

"Midgar? A small price to pay for my experiments!"

"Hojo.." Reeve spoke quietly, ignoring the other man's words like he had also been ignored back at the time of that memory, a memory suddenly burning fiercer than the rest. "Hojo.." He repeated, lips forming the name slowly. The finger on the trigger tightened and the brown-haired man took two steps forwards, pressing the nuzzle into the scientist's forehead. Neither men were natural fighters, Reeve did not fear retaliation from the man below him. They were both men of science in a way... yet that's where the similarity ended. Athithesis. "Why?" The Commissioner's word lingered in the air like a plea for mercy... To understand.

The scientist's words clattered harshly around the room, ripping Reeve from his reverie, his wash of emotion. The man surely meant not to die! But then... why had the question sound so skewed? He could feel the tremble of his hand from the adrenaline.

Just pull the trigger, Reeve.

But what would that accomplish? The lifestream was in flux. Without further research, what would be the likelihood Hojo would keep returning, frightful just like those blasted Zombie movies Yuffie so liked...

No. That's not why you can't pull the trigger, Reeve.
You know why.

"Let's just say I'm against Capital Punishment~!"

The Commissioner of the WRO, the odd ally to both ShinRa and AVALANCHE, the man in himself... -Reeve- could not become judge, jury and executioner.

He could not shoot Hojo.

Reeve pulled the gun away from the other man, fingers and wrist aching, neck and back muscles stiff and painful, and offered a hand forwards. "I... have a First Aid kit in the kitchen.

...Come with me."

You helping a pathetically incapable Hojo to his feet? This feels -familiar- XD

[moralmisconduct]

The harsh press of metal left a lingering touch of coldness and regret as it drew away from his skin. But, even in its previously lethal position, the weapon had held no conviction, the wielder no willpower. With all that had passed, Hojo remembered little of his former colleague and fellow Shinra executive, but the other man's actions were still predictable enough... Spineless. Pleading, desperate, uselessly attached to and blinded by a few dispensable lives! The scientist's mouth cracked into a grin, giving his pale face an almost manic expression as Reeve chose the much less logical of two options. Though...it was probably also the one easier on the chooser's conscience, who knew? Hojo could not properly read in others that which did not exist in himself.

Reeve's hand was extended towards him when he again opened his eyes. Amusing...the open palm offered more promise of damnation than the armed one ever could. Not that Hojo believed in salvation...but he was so, so tired. Defeated, then defeated again - the string of promising successes crumbling to failure, failures rising to success through no intervention of his. What would be the point of returning to his feet, of returning to the world?

"Are you sure you've thought this through?"

But, the body still clung pathetically to life, and the mind followed meekly in some primitive survival instinct. Hojo's hand found Reeve's with initial difficulty, but once contact was made, enclosed the other with a terrible grip. Frame shaking visibly with effort, he started to raise himself from the floor, from his stupor, from the dead. Inch by inch, clawing up Reeve's supporting form, a parasitic vine winding zealously around a sturdy structure.

He was laughing despite himself - choked, weak laughter in reflection of his condition. But this was too rich! Once, twice, three times he should have died, and now, again, victim to the circumstance of life! Whose sense of humour was this, to bring back one so unsuited to living so many times over? Certainly it was a sense of humour twisted enough to match his own! Ha!

"A potion for now...will suffice. I don't think I have any severe injuries." He was on his feet, though his balance lay entirely with the taller man. Awareness returned enough for him to notice his own appearance - the bloodstained labcoat hanging skeletal shoulders so familiar, except this time the blood had been his own. His glasses were covered with hairline scratches. "Tell me, where am I...? Or, perhaps more appropriately...when am I?"