Architect Of My Own Destruction

[11.07.00] » by Astarte

They called me 'The Dragon'. I suppose it was because neither of us were things you wanted to ever meet face to face. Dark, deadly and merciless. People who met me had a tendency to wind up dead.

Among the Turks, I had no equal when it came to the art of murder. Nobody was faster or more deadly and I was the first choice when an inconvenience needed to be taken out of the picture. Technically, we were supposed to be generalists, excelling at all the things that a Turk was expected to do: stealing, lying, kidnapping, spying, killing, and sabotaging. I was only passingly good at most of them, I was a specialist. In ShinRa's payroll files, I was listed as a 'repair man'. That used to strike me as hilarious. Vincent Valentine, repair man, indeed.

I might have been mediocre at other things but give me a target and I suddenly came to life. I loved the gun and it loved me. We were like extensions of one another. We were like lovers, my hand so gentle on the trigger, caressing its cold steel length. Nobody but a sharpshooter could ever understand what I mean. My gun wasn't a tool, it was my friend and ally. Taking the sight, the patient wait for the opening, the gentle release of my gun's innermost intimacies, the sudden bloom of crimson mist that told me I'd done my job. Killing was an almost orgasmic experience for me. I'd never given any thought to the lives I was destroying, of course. Wasn't it their fault that they'd pissed off the Big Boys?

Of course, that wasn't to say that I couldn't do the other duties I was assigned. I was a passable spy. Lying? Oh I could lie with the best of them, I was a virtuoso. You didn't get to be the kind of man I am without being an amoral bastard. I was a pretty good thief too. Not so good as Lyka, of course, but then she was a specialist too. She could steal your shorts right off you and you'd not notice it. I remembered many an interesting night where she'd done exactly that.

We were close, very close. We'd just fit together so well, like different sides of the same coin. Where I was cool and methodical, she was passionate and vibrant. I was dark and she was flaming red. We shared a bed together for years and she was as close to a loved one as I'd ever had back then. She wanted nothing more than to make me happy but I... I was never quite capable of committing myself to her. I loved her as much as I was able to but it was not quite enough as it turned out.

I was her murderer. It was the job, you see. Eventually being a Turk either kills your emotions or buries you in guilt. She just couldn't take it anymore. I think it was having to kill that young family that finally broke her. Lyka bolted and ran away from the Turks, from ShinRa, from everything she'd become. I couldn't really blame her for it but, unfortunately, you only leave the Turks one way.

It was my mess, I'd been told. I was supposed to straighten it out. I suppose they figured that since I knew her best, I was the ideal assassin to send after her. I had never really hated up until that point but I began to learn. I hated ShinRa, I hated the Turks, I hated myself. It didn't stop me from doing it though. It was far, far too late for her. Better me than someone else, I knew my kill would be clean. I knew I could take her out without her feeling a thing.

It took me months of painstaking work to finally track her down. Poor Lyka was in some remote village, trying her hardest to forget what she'd been. She had this haunted look in her eyes, those pretty brown eyes. I knew that she was having nightmares about the family she'd killed. I never knew much of the details of what had happened during her assignment, only that she had killed a man, woman and their six year old daughter. I assumed that they'd walked in while she was still there, stealing whatever it was she was there to take. The rules of the game are clear though: No witnesses, no exceptions. Lyka had little choice but to obey or she'd have ended up dead and that family would have been killed anyway. In the end, it made no difference.

The very beginnings of a conscience had begun to form, I guess, because of my long association with her. I could see the toll that being a Turk had taken on her and I felt regret, pity and remorse. She was beyond saving anymore. Perhaps if she'd talked to me then maybe... She was the walking dead now and all I could do was put an end to it.

I took aim, looking at the fiery mane of hair that I had so often run my fingers through. She looked up, her keen instincts alerting her. She knew that a Turk was here and I prayed that she didn't know it was me. I remembered conversations over dinner, long walks, passionate lovemaking, fun, fights, the enjoyment of just being with her. I pulled the trigger. The red spray of blood felt like a condemnation. I killed my lover, my Lyka. She fell like a broken doll.

I was never quite the same afterwards. I suppose that Lyka successfully infected me with conscience. The things I did suddenly had wider consequences, they were abruptly lives and not just targets that I was taking aim at. At first, I was able to hide it, cover up my growing guilt but I couldn't hid it forever. Soon the other Turks began to whisper that the Dragon had been defanged.

With the rumor mill spreading the news, I was not really surprised to hear my new assignment. Time off, they claimed. An easy job just babysitting a few oddball scientists, they told me. It was possible that they were hoping that I'd straighten out but to tell you the truth, I always knew that something would happen. ShinRa was not known for its compassion.

Even if nothing had gone wrong, I knew that there was a Turk out there, waiting to bring me to the same end as Lyka. It was an odd sensation, knowing you were going to your own burial grounds like a lamb to slaughter. An assassin with a guilty conscience was a liability. My time was destined to run out, one more job before I died. Lucrecia just hurried the process along.

I saw in her so much of what I'd lost in Lyka. She was beautiful, intelligent, far out of her league and surrounded by vultures. I just had to try and save her where I hadn't saved Lyka. I suppose that I should never have proposed to her but it was rather like the final wish of a terminally ill man, a longing that I wanted to fill. All I wanted was to have someone love me, not the Dragon, not my reputation. Oh, how I was desperately in love with Lucrecia.

I often wonder if that desperation frightened her straight into that lunatic's arms. I failed Lucrecia even more miserably than I'd failed my first love. At least, Lyka's end was quick and merciful. Lovely dark-haired Lucrecia suffered a fate worse than death.

ShinRa betrayed me. If they had just put a bullet in my brain that would have been one thing but they didn't. ShinRa sold me to that mad bastard as a laboratory rat. I know that Hojo would never have done all those things to me if it weren't with ShinRa's sanction. Every horrific thing that he did to me was with ShinRa's approval.

Why? Why not? I had no family, nobody that cared about me, except maybe Lucrecia but she was under Hojo's control. Most of the people who knew my name would have been my potential killers anyway. There were far too many people that, had they known my name, would have gladly paid to see me tortured. I had so much blood on my hands, so very much. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many kills I had under my belt, each one with an angry family seeking revenge.

With nobody who cared whether I lived or died, my fate was sealed. I'm not sure I deserved differently. I had killed Lyka and I had failed Lucrecia.

I had become an inconvenience.

One that needed to be taken out of the picture.

Fin.