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Chapter ThirtyThree The boat ride was slow and peaceful, with few passengers making the journey. It made sense, really; from the captain, Kit had learned that the Meteor seemed to be hanging in the air over Midgar. Costa Del Sol was much closer to Midgar than Mideel was. And, she thought dryly, the sight of the Meteor probably would ruin a beautiful sunny day at the beach for even the most enthusiastic sunbather.
Most of her time was spent up on the deck, staring at it day and night during the ferry ride as she tried to come to terms with what had happened. The planet was all but doomed, because of him. Aeris was dead, because of him. Kit would never see her again, never get to thank her for being her friend, and sticking up for her when the truth came out. Aeris would never get to play with the little boy whose birth she had foretold. And that was even if the world didn't end before the child was born.
Kit for the hundredth time wondered what random coincidence had put her in this position, where she was entwined in the ultimate fate of a planet. The other people on board the ferry spoke of spending time with their loved ones one last time before the end of the world, and that was all they could do. They were powerless to change anything one way or another, and yet Kit envied them. With their powerlessness came a lack of any responsibility. Once she had been that helpless, but but now she was not.
As the ferry arrived at Costa Del Sol, she steeled herself for the task she'd decided upon - to find the man ultimately responsible, Professor Hojo. His experiments were the reason she had the power of Jenova, and though Gast had been the one who headed the Jenova Project, Hojo had worked on it as well. He probably knew more of Sephiroth than anyone else living. If anyone could give her the clues she needed to stop Sephiroth, whether by a hidden weakness on his part or a latent power on her own, it would be Hojo.
And if he didn't want to give her those clues... Kit smiled grimly as she fingered her pistol's holster. He'd give her those clues whether he wanted to or not. In fact, she hoped he resisted a bit at first, just so she could repay him for all he'd done over the years.
Costa Del Sol was as reasonable a place as any to begin her search, she decided, glancing around at the tourists who bustled past her. Despite the fact that the ferry from Mideel had been empty, Costa Del Sol was packed with tourists trying to get in one last vacation before Meteor fell. Hojo had been there on vacations a few times, and since she'd heard news of him quitting Shinra, he might very well be doing the same. It would be just like him, Kit supposed, to not even bother putting his genius to use at an attempt to stop the Meteor. If she didn't happen to find him in Costa Del Sol, she decided, she'd head for Nibelheim. That seemed to be where he did most of his dirty work.
She was so busy looking through the crowds in search of a short man with a sloppy ponytail, she didn't notice the woman sitting on one of the barrels outside the bar until the woman's head whipped around to look at her. "Kit?!"
Kit glanced back at her and did a double take. "Mara!" Kit was slightly surprised Mara didn't seem afraid of her, for just an instant, until she reminded herself the dream she'd been shown by Jenova was only that - a dream.
"They told me you were dead!" her old friend exclaimed, jumping down off the barrel. "Where on earth have you been all this time?"
"Dead?" That explained why none of Shinra's troops had known her description, Kit realized. "It's a really long story," she began, then she noticed what Mara was wearing. "Why are you here in uniform?"
"I'm escorting a Shinra VIP," Mara explained. "Rufus decided Hojo should have Shinra's protection, even though he isn't actually with Shinra anymore, you know. Or maybe you don't," she added, "since you've been gone for almost two months now."
Kit frowned. "So Hojo is here?" she asked.
"Sure is, he's in the bar having a drink," Mara told her, grinning. "Quit trying to change the subject. You know I'm not going to let you weasel out of telling me where you've been, what you've been doing, and why on earth Shinra told us you were dead. You gotta tell me everything!"
Kit shook her head in disbelief. Somehow she'd managed to come right to Hojo, even though she hadn't been sure she was looking for him in the first place. Either she was very lucky, or something strange was going on.
"Ki-it!" Mara complained. "Come on!" Her normally cheerful face grew serious. "Do you have any idea how upset I was? They told me you were dead. They said Sephiroth had killed you..."
"Mara..." Kit wasn't sure where to begin. "A lot has happened. We need to go somewhere else if I'm going to tell you."
Mara shook her head, pulling her blonde braid over her shoulder. "Sorry, I can't, I'm on duty. It has to be here."
"It can't be here," Kit repeated. "You'll understand when I've told you what happened."
"Well, then I'll decide once you've told me."
Kit sighed in exasperation. "Mara, I'm dead serious. I can't be here. If Hojo came out right now and saw me-"
"I'm on duty here!" Mara protested. "So what if Hojo sees you? You've been gone for awhile, yeah, but has it been so long you forget how much trouble I'll be in if I leave my post? Besides, it's not like he'd even recognize you. He barely even knows my name, and I'm his escort."
"Yeah, they might declare you dead, just like they did me," Kit snapped. Just knowing Hojo was inside that building was making her edgy. "He'd recognize me all right. You want to know where I've been, what I've found out? They brainwashed me, Mara. Shinra wiped my memory clean, to make me a nice little SOLDIER to kill for them."
Mara's eyes widened in shock. "What? Shinra wouldn't do that! Sure, they're a little tough and impersonal sometimes, but there's no way they would do something like that!"
"Yes they would, and they did," Kit said bluntly. "Now do you want me to tell you the rest? I'm not standing here for much longer, so either you can call me crazy and let me walk away, or you can trust me and come with me."
Despite her terminally upbeat manner, Mara was no airhead. Her pale golden eyes narrowed a bit as she considered her options, and Kit knew her well enough that she knew what her friend must be thinking. Hojo was really in no danger inside a bar at a resort, and if Kit was delusional, Mara's priority was to bring her back to Shinra for treatment. They would excuse her leaving her post for that. But if Kit was telling the truth, then Mara would support her completely.
Finally Mara nodded, looking troubled. "I don't know if I want to believe you or not. I mean, you're my friend, but we're talking about the integrity of the people I work for."
"I know, I felt the same way at first," Kit told her. "Now, where can we go to talk alone, where Hojo won't look?"
"I don't know if there is such a place," Mara commented. "He'll probably look everywhere when he sees I've left my post. But maybe we can go behind the bridge to the port, if it's that important to you," she said with a shrug.
"It is," Kit said as she followed Mara underneath the walkway. "Thanks a ton, this really is important."
"It better be," Mara replied, shaking her head in disbelief as they ducked behind the stone wall. "Okay, Kit - you're going to tell me right now, what do you mean Shinra brainwashed you?"
"I realized, just before I left Midgar, that I didn't have any memories of anything previous to my joining SOLDIER," Kit explained. "In fact, I didn't even remember joining Shinra's army at all. And I don't remember my childhood, my family, nothing. Not a single memory up until about four years ago. Strange coincidence, isn't it?"
"Hmm, I always just thought you never talked about your past because you'd left it behind." Mara shrugged, looking slightly relieved. "Technically that doesn't prove anything..."
"Well, after I realized this, I started to remember a few things," Kit continued. "You know that fire in Nibelheim, that everyone said Sephiroth died in?"
Mara's face darkened. "Kit... he's not dead-" she began.
"I know that," Kit interrupted. "I was there. What I remembered was the truth of what happened in Nibelheim. Hojo was using the reactor there to turn people into monsters." Kit saw her friend's dubious look, and nodded stubbornly. "People, Mara - he put people inside these capsules, so the Mako would seep into their cells and mutate them into monsters."
"Kit, you're crazy!" Mara exclaimed. "That's just insane! What gave you that idea?"
"I was there," Kit insisted. "I know because I was inside one of those capsules."
Kit watched the color drain from Mara's face as she related her memory of Sephiroth freeing her, and the theory she had about why she hadn't mutated grotesquely, though she left out the part about who gave her that theory. When she'd finished, Mara shook her head again. "Kit, do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?"
"So do you believe me or not?"
"I wish I didn't," Mara said with a grimace. "So Hojo took you back to town? What happened to you after that?"
"I couldn't say for certain," said Kit. "But that was five years ago. Four years ago, I was inducted into the SOLDIER program. Draw what conclusions you may from that."
Mara frowned. "It looks like I'm about to become unemployed," she commented dryly. Then she looked at Kit curiously. "What happened to you? You don't seem like the same person I knew before, you don't even talk the same."
"I'm still me, Mara," Kit assured her. "I just know more about myself than I used to." She shrugged. "Not much, granted, but more than I did know."
Mara sighed. "So why did you leave Midgar without telling anyone? You could have just quit or something, and you know if you'd told me this, I would have gone with you. I can't stay with Shinra knowing this... in fact, rather than protecting Hojo, I'd like to go back and wring his scrawny neck."
"It was... sort of a spur of the moment thing." Kit tried to think of a way to explain what had happened that wouldn't make her lose all credibility whatsoever. After all, she essentially had run off with a madman, and Mara probably wouldn't think too highly of that.
Before she got the chance to say anything, Mara tackled her, throwing her to the ground. as a popping noise came from the direction of the underpass. A second pop followed, and Kit heard Mara gasp in sudden pain. Rolling to her feet as she'd been trained, Kit drew her gun and swung it around to face the source of the sounds. Beside the bridge stood Hojo, pointing a dart gun at the two women. "Drop it!" she ordered him. "Or do you think a scientist can outshoot his own manufactured weapon?"
His shoulders twitched in what might have been a shrug, but he didn't drop the gun. "With your memories, I see your overconfidence is returning."
Kit spared a second to look down at Mara. The woman groaned as she weakly rolled onto her side. "What did you shoot her with?" Kit demanded as one hand plucked a dart from Mara's shoulder. The other kept the gun trained on Hojo.
"Nothing special, just a tranquilizer," he replied. "Of course, I'd meant it for you, so there was enough to put a zolem to sleep. For this girl, the dose was more fatal than a bullet." He covered his mouth with his hand, laughing. "If you're planning on saying goodbye, you'd best do it fast before her heart stops."
The sound of his cackling rang in Kit's ears until it was all she could stand. "I'm going to kill you," she told him through her clenched teeth.
"Oh, are you?" he asked in mock surprise. "I thought you'd have a few questions you'd want to ask me."
In a red haze of anger, Kit fired shot after shot from her pistol, watching his entire body jerk as each bullet met its mark in his flesh, even after he'd collapsed. She would have gone on firing forever, if the gun hadn't run out of bullets.
Once the clip was empty, she knelt down beside Mara. "Kit..." Mara moaned.
"I killed him," Kit said firmly, wresting a small bottle from its clip at her waist. "He's the one to die, not you. I've got a Hyper - here, swallow it."
"Dunno if I can," Mara mumbled. "Can't feel my own tongue... Kit, I'm sorry... should have trusted..."
"Not your fault," Kit told her, lifting Mara to an upright position. "Come on, walk with me. Maybe if you keep moving, walk off the worst of it... Mara, why did you take that dart for me?"
Mara stumbled along as they paced, mostly dead weight on Kit's shoulder. "Dunno... instinct?" She laughed softly. "He was right... y'know... 'm gonna die..."
"No you're not!" Kit exclaimed, trying to hold back the tears that were welling up. "I won't let you."
"I know better... Can't feel anything anymore, keep fallin 'sleep..." Mara mumbled. "No use... jus' let me down... Kit..."
"Never." Her hands were too busy trying to keep Mara upright and moving, she couldn't spare a second to wipe away the tears that leaked out of her eyes.
Mara turned her head and squinted at her with glassy eyes. "Kit... never seen you cry like that before... even when that slum punk shot Clyde down... remember what Hoff used t' say...?"
"Well, things have changed," Kit said, careful to keep her voice steady. "I'm not SOLDIER anymore, remember."
"You're still you, though. Still stubborn 's ever..." Mara laughed weakly. "Put me down... can't even see when you've lost."
Kit hesitated, struggling for control, then did as Mara asked, setting her down gently to lean against the wall. As much as she hated to admit it, her friend was right. The signs all pointed to a fatal overdose, and she was powerless to stop it.
"When I check out... jus' leave the body here," Mara mumbled. "My gun uses the same kind of ammo as yours... take my clip, leave 'n empty. They'll think I went crazy, shot 'im... never know you were here."
"Mara, you already took a fatal wound for me!" Kit exclaimed. "Why would I let you take responsibility for my actions too?"
"Not like they can punish me any worse..." Mara smiled up at her faintly. "S'okay you know... not painful. I just always thought I'd die in a more normal way... shot, stabbed... blown up by terrorists..." Her voice trailed off faintly. "Everything's goin' black... You gonna tell me what happened before I die...? Why'd you leave? Where'd you go...?"
Even facing death, Mara still wanted the full scoop. It was enough to make Kit smile through the tears. "I left because I fell in love... yeah, at first sight. I wanted to travel with him."
"You..?" Mara laughed a little. "Who was it?"
"Sephiroth," Kit admitted.
Mara's eyes glazed over a little more. "Seph'roth...?" she whispered. "You better hurry up an' explain that... 'fore my time is up."
"Then you'd better hold on for a good long time," Kit replied gently. "It's complicated."
Starting from when she'd seen him from above in the alley, Kit began to recount the tale for her friend. After a minute or so, Mara closed her eyes, though she smiled a bit when Kit told her of the fate of the Midgar Zolom. A few minutes later, Mara's chest no longer rose or fell. Stopping her story, Kit felt for a pulse, but found none.
As Mara had requested, Kit switched the empty clip from her own gun and the full one in Mara's. It was the least she could do, to let her friend protect her this one last time.
Before she left, Kit looked over her shoulder at Hojo's lifeless body, and stifled the urge to go back and kick him one more time for good measure. Now she would never learn anything more of what Sephiroth really was... However, there was one more way she might be able to find out who she really was.
Wiping the last of the tears from her eyes, Kit set out for Cosmo Canyon. At least, she admitted, Hojo had taught her something about herself after all - that she could still kill, given enough reason.
To Chapter ThirtyFour. To the intro. That means it's mine, not yours! |
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