Junon, Gaia, Thursday Afternoon

[raspberryturk]

Junon, Reno supposed, wasn't half bad. Sure as hell better than Edge, which he couldn't wait to get the hell out of, especially after that weird-assed argument in Tseng's kitchen.

Tseng's ex-kitchen, Reno supposed.

He was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on one of the city's lower levels, the world's crappiest coffee slowly dissolving a coffee mug in one hand, waiting for somebody in particular. He'd left Edge a little early, dragged a few of the boxes of paperwork along with him so that Rude wouldn't have to haul it all here, and then he'd started to poke around.

Yeah, Junon had suffered a bit since WEAPON's attack. But then, where the hell hadn't?

... Besides Kalm. Lucky, lucky-assed Kalm.

[Open for anyone who might want to call, or who has reason to be in Junon!]

Comments

[intraspective]

"I know.

Ino's eyes narrowed slightly. Something about that phrasing...

"But I doubt that my mere presence will be enough to stop all of this. I make things easier for Zack. That's my worth at the moment."

[turk_mailman]

"From the sound of it, your Zack has a fair bit more to contend with than ours ever did."

Tseng sighed. The Zack that he knew didn't know what tomorrow would bring. And for a moment he wondered if perhaps that was all the better for him.

Knowing would be almost like torture. Waiting.

"He'll need you."

But then, who did that leave for Aerith?

... He refused to let his brain wander to the possibility that there was a shadow's chance, for some other Tseng...

[intraspective]

"And yet," her voice was a bit sad, "that is all you'll say."

Was it not?

[turk_mailman]

Tseng looked up coolly at her over the top of his tea.

"You still haven't asked your questions."

[intraspective]

"Zack wishes to tell this world's Zack to go visit his parents," she said, arching an eyebrow.

And waiting for a response to that.

[turk_mailman]

"That," Tseng noted, his tone not changing in the least, "is not a question."

And then? More sipping at his tea.

If he was anybody else, he might have cracked.

[intraspective]

"The question is implied."

Her tone was carefully pleasant and empty as a sunny sky. "We wish to know where this world's Zack is."

[turk_mailman]

Leviathan help him, they didn't know.

"You'll have a difficult time finding him," he replied, not untruthfully. "I, personally, haven't seen him in years."

[intraspective]

"And why wouldn't the Turks and SOLDIER associate with each other. Two halves of ShinRa's coin."

And that, she thought, was a fair enough question.

[turk_mailman]

"There is no SOLDIER anymore."

Tseng finished off his tea.

"The Turks remained together out of loyalty to one another, not to the company. SOLDIER had no such compunctions."

This, too, was truth. It was also gross misdirection. And Tseng would dish it out shamelessly.

[intraspective]

"Lies." An accusation. "I know Zack better than anyone. His honour would not have him leave ShinRa so easily. Or a friend."

[turk_mailman]

Tseng's eyebrow quirked again.

"And what, then, do you suppose the explanation is? How can you be certain that our Zack and yours are so similar?"

[intraspective]

"You're certainly similar to your counterpart," she observed. "And Zack has a very strong personality. It would not be changed greatly without good cause and a great deal of reason."

[turk_mailman]

"You say this," Tseng noted, "as somebody who has seen Midgar. More than once."

If that didn't count as a 'great deal of reason,' he suspected that very little did.

"And the Turks went underground for two years directly after the fall of Meteor. We could not be found, even if he'd wanted to."

Guarding a man who was supposedly dead did these things.

[intraspective]

"Then he'd be here. Helping the WRO. No matter the pain."

Ino had, perhaps, more faith in Zack than even he did.

"Or do you contest that as well?"

[turk_mailman]

"I don't."

He couldn't. That would be exactly the place for Zack in this day and age, had he made it this far.

"Perhaps you'd do best to check with them, then."

Where Reeve would be absolutely no help at all, having never met Zack in his life.

[intraspective]

"We'll do that."

They would, too.

Ino pursed her lips. "Are you opposed to our trying to change the future?"

[turk_mailman]

Tseng watched her for a long, long moment of silence, letting the sound of the cafe around them settle in his ears.

"It isn't change that I'm opposed to," he said, finally. "It's risk. Turks don't last long by taking unnecessary risks, Yamanaka-san."

If there was some way to save Zack, save The Planet, and know that it would work?

He'd agree to do it in a heartbeat.

[intraspective]

"Life is a risk," she murmured, eyes cool. "And extending information risks little on this end."

[turk_mailman]

"So you say."

He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, considering what the risks ultimately were.

"What do you know, about the cause of Meteor?"

[intraspective]

"JENOVA. Sephiroth--went insane," she sipped at her tea. Her cold... water, truly. Sigh. "And tried to destroy the world. The Planet didn't much like that. It fought back."

[turk_mailman]

Tseng nodded faintly. More than he'd thought, then. He imagined Reno had told the girl a good deal of that before Zack had ever come into the picture.

"JENOVA is the root of the problem, in many ways. But it was ShinRa that made that the case. By the time of your Zack, it's far too late to do anything about the different results of the JENOVA project, however."

[intraspective]

"Sephiroth has not yet gone insane." She didn't know what triggered it, truly, just that JENOVA was involved.

She hesitated, then added, "And your Turks remain alive."

Rub it in, Ino. Rub it in.

[turk_mailman]

That was a dangerous glint in Teng's eye, there. It was the sort of glint that anybody who knew Tseng would recognize as his 'the decision I make in the next three seconds will directly influence whether or not you make it through the next four' face.

His fingers pressed tightly against the chipped ceramic of his empty teacup.

Five seconds passed, and he continued to speak.

"The loss of my Turks had nothing to do with Sephiroth, or JENOVA."

[intraspective]

"AVALANCHE," she murmured, "and Ravens."

But she still didn't know about Zirconiade.

"They matter, nonetheless. Everyone who died matters. And with more people alive the simpler altering things would be."

She kept herself very still, however, and watched him carefully.