Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“The real threat is not rebellion—it is routine, meticulously rearranged.”

Before Shinra Electric Power Company became the omnipotent corporate titan it is today—able to harness the blood of the Planet with the flick of a switch and privatize entire ecosystems at scale—it was a modest weapons manufacturer headquartered in the quaint mountain town of Nibelheim. Its original filing cabinets, it should be noted, were hand-labeled in fountain pen, its rotary phones in delicate shades of puce, and its office chairs (endearingly) squeaked like mice.

It was during this quieter period—roughly twenty-seven years before our story begins—that one of its more peculiar staff members, Dr. Elio Armand Petrovsky, authored what would later become the most subversive and enduring document in Shinra’s long and unbroken history of institutional hubris.

The manuscript was titled:

SIMPLE SABOTAGE: A FIELD MANUAL

An Illustrated Guide to Undermining the Machinery from Within, Without Firing a Single Shot

It was, by all appearances, a handbook for “workplace efficiency.”

In reality, it was a tactical treatise on how to dismantle any organization—no matter how elite, fortified, or tyrannical—through the deliberate and systematic weaponization of mediocrity.

Dr. Petrovsky, a behavioral economist by training and a quiet contrarian by temperament, had grown increasingly alarmed by Shinra’s manifest destiny. He had been hired to optimize internal structure. Instead, he wrote a manual on how to gum it up so thoroughly, it would collapse under its own procedural weight. His hope was that Shinra would become an ouroboros, an entity doomed to consume itself in existential dread.

He was quietly dismissed in spring. His departure noted in Meeting Minutes 9-C under “Miscellaneous Staff Changes,” sandwiched between a discussion on break room mug theft and a motion to replace the copier toner supplier.

Dr. Elio Armand Petrovsky would end his tenure in the field of behavioral economics forthwith, choosing to return to Nibelheim to live out his life as a hermit deep in the woods.

The field manual, however, was not destroyed.

Instead, it was quietly stamped RESTRICTED and relocated to the lower archives beneath Shinra Headquarters, where all manner of inconvenient documents go to be misfiled and forgotten.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

It would be nearly two decades before anyone accessed it again.

The last person to check out the manual was Doris Bellamy, a Senior Accounts Reconciliation Typist in Infrastructure Budgeting (Division D-7).

Ms. Bellamy was a woman of tremendous fortitude and barely-contained resentment.

She had, for nineteen years, arrived ten minutes early, logged every decimal point with precision, and endured a manager who called her “Red Stapler Lady” without irony. She wore orthopedic heels and collected ceramic figurines of woodland creatures. She asked for nothing—except a seat at the planning committee for midyear budget reviews.

She was denied.

Six months later, every invoice from Divisions B through G vanished into a recursive loop of “Pending Authorization.” The delay cost the company 47 million gil. When questioned, Ms. Bellamy submitted her resignation on a pink sticky note affixed to her sensible shoe, placed squarely atop her supervisor’s desk.

She retired to Costa del Sol. No further contact.

The manual has not been checked out since.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Now then.

Let us pivot gently—imagine a dolly with one jammed wheel squeaking around a corner—into our present timeline.

It is exactly 9:02 AM on a Friday. Shinra Headquarters is buzzing like a well-dressed hornet’s nest. And somewhere five floors below the executive suites, in the Restricted Archives Section (Sublevel 3, East Wing), a Service Center Specialist named Torianne Sutton is wheeling a crate of dry, dust-choked binders between the shelving units with all the care of a newly recruited church parishioner trying not to sneeze.

She is twenty-six years old.

Red hair pinned up in a braided twist.

White gloves.

Press-creased slacks.

A face built for discretion and an expression that implies she is endlessly capable of doing absolutely everything except breaking the rules.

Tori, as she is occasionally called (though more often referred to simply as “that redhead”), is not technically assigned to archives. She is a rotating support fixture—a warm body used wherever warm bodies are needed. Today, her responsibilities include:

1. Re-shelving technical manuals returned from Legal Compliance and R&D
2. Making coffee for the Procurement Division’s weekly report-out
3. Escorting a floor fan from Accounting to Maintenance for unknown reasons

She accomplishes all of this in less than thirty minutes.

Which is fortuitous, as her coworker, Marlo, has begged her last minute to take on this additional task in archives, freeing him up to address a battery spill in the server room within IT.

Now, in the low-humming cool of the archives, she pushes her dolly through Row 56 (Strategic Planning – Decommissioned), scanning spine labels with a faint frown. Titles include:

Minutes from Meetings That Reached No Conclusion

Shinra Chain of Command: A Visual Metaphor

Comprehensive Acronym Index, Vol. I–V

How to Appear Busy Without Doing Anything (well-thumbed)

It’s then that a flickering bulb overhead causes her to pause.

A single shelf—illuminated in strobing pulses—irritates her sense of symmetry.

She sighs.

And here we see the quality that has both endeared her to senior management and alienated her from her peers: Tori Sutton cannot leave things half-done. Even when she should.

She steps onto the bottom shelf, stretches carefully, and tightens the bulb. The flickering stops.

Light returns. The shadows retreat.

And nestled between a dated marketing pamphlet and an unlabeled black folder, she sees it.

Thin. Red-lettered. Fragile.

She pulls it down and brushes the cover with her gloved thumb.

SIMPLE SABOTAGE: A FIELD MANUAL
RESTRICTED – LEVEL SIX CLEARANCE REQUIRED

She opens it.

Inside: A table of contents that reads like satire. Or a manifesto.

Before she can fully absorb what she’s found, a familiar voice cuts through the silence:

“Ah, Miss Sutton! Always a pleasure to find you here in the stacks.”

The voice belongs to Mr. Percival Dockery, senior librarian of Shinra’s Restricted Archives and lifelong advocate for sensible hat wear. He emerges around the end of the aisle like a benevolent ghost, pushing a heavy cart full of misfiled employee complaints, most of which appeared to be organized by length rather than subject matter.

Dockery has the sort of face that always seems to be mid-apology. His glasses sit low on the bridge of his nose, and he has a habit of talking to the books as if they are old war buddies he hasn’t seen in a while.

Upon seeing Tori Sutton, Dockery brightens in the way only true introverts do when encountering a fellow operator of silent focus.

“I was just saying,” he begins, “we need more of your type down here. No fuss, no mess, no question about which section a document belongs in. Those other specialists? Bah. They require far too much hand-holding. And don’t get me started on the color-coded bins—what happened to spine labels and common sense?”

He leans against his cart with the satisfied air of someone delivering a decisive statement.

Tori, still clutching the slim, dust-worn manual she just pried from obscurity, gives him a small, polite smile.

“Careful, Mr. Dockery,” she says. “You’ll have to compete with the other departments. I hear I’m in very high demand.”

The sarcasm is gentle, like a ribbon in a new payment ledger.

Dockery chuckles and scratches his chin.

“Well then,” he muses, “perhaps I ought to put in a good word with the higher-ups. You deserve a proper transfer. Someone with your moxy could do wonders for this place—especially with the digital initiative breathing down our necks. The whole collection before Shinra became an energy company—do you know they want to scan it?” He says the word like it’s sacrilegious.

“A tragic fate for paper,” Tori sighs.

“I’m glad we agree on this matter, Miss Sutton.”

Dockery smiles again, and then his eyes drift downward to the book in her hands.

“Ah. What’ve you found there, my dear? One of those old marketing pamphlets? The ones printed back when Shinra still cared about winning hearts and minds. Let me guess—‘Shinra: Powering the Future With You’? We’ve got stacks of those behind the filing cabinets.”

He waves a hand dismissively, entirely unaware that the item in question is neither promotional, nor benign.

“Tell you what—take it with you.” He grins. “We’ve got half a crate of those things probably covered in asbestos. Just don’t shelve it next to anything flammable.”

This is a well-meaning gesture.

And a terrible idea.

Tori opens her mouth to politely decline, perhaps offer to log the book for further review, or at the very least misplace it intentionally for plausible deniability—

—but the opportunity vanishes the moment a voice far too pleased with itself echoes through the stacks.

“Oh wow, Tori. Look at you. Making friends with the management again.”

The voice belongs to Janelle Levitz, her coworker from Service Center and longtime purveyor of aggressive compliments. She has a particular kind of smile—broad, dazzling, and fundamentally insincere. Her nails are freshly painted. Her heels too high for utility. Her interest in Tori Sutton’s business: exhaustive and ongoing.

It should be noted here, as a matter of record, that while Janelle Levitz is capable of many forms of charm, she hates Tori Sutton with a passion usually reserved for power outages and unsalted fries.

“Hope I’m not interrupting,” Janelle says, in a tone that ensures she absolutely is. “I just happened to be passing through when I was instructed to find you.”

Tori, who knew better than to react to Janelle’s weaponized sweetness, simply raises one brow.

“You’ve been requested,” Janelle continues, eyes alight. “Human Resources. This afternoon. Sounds serious.”

The thrill in her voice was unmistakable.

To Tori’s credit, she does not react. She simply folds the slim manual under one arm, offering Dockery a brief but genuine nod.

“Then I’ll make sure I’m on time.”

“Of course you will,” Janelle says brightly. “You always are.”

Mr. Dockery, now sensing that the temperature in the archives had shifted to something subzero and petty, makes a quiet excuse about re-alphabetizing the digitization backlog and politely excuses himself.

Tori remains, steady and unflappable, the forbidden manual tucked like contraband beneath her elbow, and the faintest sigh catching behind her teeth.

She is good at saying nothing.

But she is excellent at remembering everything.

And if we are being perfectly frank on the topic and you are keen on learning what becomes of Miss Torianne Sutton and the illuminating discovery of Dr. Petrovsky’s magnum opus, then you must understand this:

What Ms. Sutton did not yet realize is that within the pages of this faded, brittle manual—whose author had long since disappeared from public record—were the exact instructions required to dismantle an empire. Quietly. Efficiently. From the inside out.

She did not set out to destroy Shinra.

She merely intended to fix a dying light.

And this, dear reader, is how all great revolutions begin.

Chapter Text

“The world keeps turning because ordinary people keep showing up.”

It is often said that a person is fully formed by the age of seven. By the time a child learns to lace her boots and read a face, her nature has already begun to take shape.

Tori Sutton was no exception.

She grew up under the plate, where a person’s ingenuity meant survival.

Her father had left before she was old enough to remember him. In his absence, her mother became everything. Proof that one could be soft-spoken and unbreakable at the same time.

Maeve Sutton was a mail carrier in Sector Five, and a good one. Her red parcel bag never stayed still for long. Six days a week, she wound through the tangle of alleys and walkways that laced the underplate, her steps steady and certain. The people on her route knew her by name. Some knew her for pay stubs and invoices; others waited for the hope sealed in thin white envelopes. When she appeared in the doorway, the tired faces of shop clerks seemed to ease, even if just for a moment.

Tori followed wherever her mother went, learning the smell of damp paper and the soft shuffle of envelopes brushing together. When Maeve lifted the parcel bag onto her shoulder, its weight seemed to steady the whole world. The metallic air of the sector lingered in Tori’s memory, along with the way pale light slipped through the seams of steel. Side by side, they walked the routes together; Tori balancing along the concrete barrier as she tried to match her mother’s stride.

Rain or reactor ash, Maeve carried on. When her boots filled with water, she laughed. When the soot clung to her uniform, she brushed it off. “The mail never stops,” she would say, and it never did.

At the end of each long day, Maeve treated herself to something small from a vending stall near the post office. A sweet bun if the coins stretched that far. A can of soda if they didn’t.

“You have to give yourself a little something,” she told Tori, sharing the first bite. “Otherwise the day takes everything back.”

It was a simple lesson. One that would stay with her daughter years later.

In time, those small habits became part of Tori’s rhythm too. What her mother carried in parcels, Tori carried in instinct: a need to keep busy, to make things work, to fix what others overlooked.

As the other girls in Sector Five tied ribbons in their hair and dreamed of sunlight, Tori sorted through the gutters for useful things. She collected bits of wire and bent paperclips—bolts that fit nowhere but her imagination. She filled jars with discarded scraps and saw possibilities in every one. Her mother teased her for hoarding junk, but Tori only smiled and called it “potential.”

When she wasn’t sorting her treasures, she was fixing things. Her hands were small but careful, and her patience endless. By ten, she could organize the local post faster than the new hires at the depot. There was a rhythm to the work, a comfort in repetition. It made sense to her, the way letters found their destinations, the way order created calm.

Then one winter morning, Maeve fell ill. A deep cough settled in her lungs and refused to let go. The doctor said to rest. Maeve promised she would, but Tori knew her too well.

When dawn came, her mother buttoned her coat, pulled on her gloves, and lifted the heavy parcel bag with shaking arms.

Tori trailed behind her, still in her school shoes. “Can’t you take one day off?” she asked.

Maeve smiled faintly and adjusted her scarf. “If I do, families won’t get their letters. Shops won’t receive their orders. People are waiting, love. The mail matters.”

“But you’re sick,” Tori said.

Maeve reached down and took her daughter’s hand. “I’ll rest once the people get their mail,” she said gently. “Until then, the work comes first.”

The words settled deep, in the quiet space where admiration becomes understanding.

That day, Tori walked the entire route with her mother. She watched her climb the steps slowly, pausing now and then to catch her breath before pressing a parcel into waiting hands. Even through the cough that shook her chest, Maeve managed a smile at every door. By the time they returned home, her voice was nearly gone, but her pride was intact. She counted the gil she had earned, bought a single can of cream soda, and handed it to Tori.

“I do this because it keeps the world running,” she said. “Everyone has a job that keeps someone else standing. You’ll find yours one day, and when you do, you’ll do it well.”

Tori never forgot that moment. It became her compass, a quiet reminder that purpose was not found in power or praise, but in the act of showing up, even when it was hard.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tori Sutton has never claimed to be special.

If anything, she considers herself the product of ordinary habits done consistently. What began as her mother’s way of keeping the world turning became Tori’s creed: fix what you can reach, and do it properly.

That kind of diligence serves a person well in most places.

At Shinra Electric Power Company, it makes you an anomaly.

She learned this within her first month at Headquarters. Precision and punctuality, once considered virtues, became reasons to be side-eyed in the break room. Where others idled, she optimized. Where most ignored the small things, she fixed them. And though she never sought recognition, her efficiency had a way of drawing the wrong kind of attention.

This, you can imagine, makes her unpopular among her peers.

At Shinra Electric Power Company, the Service Center occupies several levels below ground, a warren of narrow corridors with no windows and a faint, constant hum that makes the air vibrate. It is where new recruits are deposited like lost parcels to see which ones can survive the sorting. Officially, it serves as the central processing hub for interdepartmental support. Unofficially, it has earned other names: The Meatgrinder, The Holding Tank, The Joy Killer.

The walls are beige. The air is recycled. The silence is broken only by the tapping of keyboards and the sound of small dreams politely folding in on themselves.

Tori Sutton arrived here eighteen months ago, carrying nothing but a provisional badge and the kind of determination that doesn’t make noise. She had no college education, no family connections, and no elevator key that could bypass the thousand-step corporate hierarchy that existed between her and President Shinra. What she did have was grit.

And grit, as her mother used to say, is what remains when optimism has been boiled down and filtered through necessity.

Tori had seen necessity up close.

Her mother, Maeve Sutton, had carried the mail through flooded streets and days choked with reactor ash, working even when fever left her pale and unsteady. She taught Tori that dignity is not something given but something practiced: fix what you can reach, and never let petty people turn you mean.

Tori has followed both commandments like scripture.

So when she took the Shinra entrance exam and landed a position in Service Center, she knew what she was walking into. It wasn’t glamour. It was survival of the professional kind.

The work was everything no one else wanted. Scrubbing oil residue from the mechanics’ labs. Logging disposal requests for hazardous waste. Crawling beneath desks to rewire terminals that hadn’t been updated in decades. Delivering parcels that had no label, no signature, and no thanks at the end. When other departments ran out of patience, Service Center received the ticket.

It was thankless, exhausting, and—if you were clever—illuminating work.

Most people didn’t last six months. Those who did either learned how to coast or how to disappear. Tori did neither.

She learned.

She memorized the labyrinth of corridors and loading docks. She noted which departments shared resources, which ones competed, and which ones pretended not to. She knew where IT kept their spare routers and which elevator in the west wing opened half a second faster. She recognized the rhythms of the company: the ebb and flow of crisis, the way an executive’s footsteps sounded different from an intern’s.

Tori became, quietly, indispensable.

Within three months, her efficiency drew attention. Requests started appearing on her queue with the tag “Sutton preferred.” Maintenance wanted her. Archives wanted her. Even Logistics made an offer once, though she declined; she wasn’t ready to leave yet. Not before she had earned it properly.

That was the difference between her and most of the others.

She wasn’t here to survive the system. She wanted to master it.

Still, not everyone saw it that way.

Her coworkers thought her precision bordered on arrogance. They called her “Yes Girl” or, behind her back, “Little Miss Manual.” Janelle Levitz, the loudest among them, had once joked that if Tori ever bled, it would come out in triplicate. The others laughed, and Tori smiled politely, pretending she hadn’t heard.

It wasn’t that she didn’t feel the sting.

She just refused to let it slow her down.

Each morning she clocked in early, logging her tasks with crisp notes and color-coded files. She stayed late when the work required it, not out of obligation but conviction. In her mind, every work order, no matter how degrading, was a rung on a ladder that would, eventually, lead her out of the sublevels.

The scoreboard that tracked departmental efficiency became her quiet battleground. Each completed assignment earned points, and every point was a step closer to better work. She could gain access to better desk assignments or clerical coordination. Perhaps, even administrative assistance on the upper floors.

By the time her eighteenth month arrived, her score outpaced every Specialist on record.

She knew this wasn’t just statistics. It was momentum. And for someone without pedigree or privilege, momentum was gold.

There were nights she lay awake, thinking about what it would mean to finally be promoted—to see sunlight again, to send a letter home telling her mother she could rest a little easier. She pictured Maeve in their small kitchen under the plate, pride glinting like a newly minted coin in her eyes.

Those thoughts kept her steady when the exhaustion hit, when the others mocked her drive, when her body ached from bending and lifting and smiling through it all.

Tori didn’t see herself as special. She saw herself as responsible.

And in a company like Shinra, responsibility could be the one virtue that took her higher.

Still, even a woman forged from routine and resolve required small comforts. Once a week, she disappeared for exactly nine minutes during her lunch break to buy a pistachio-hazelnut sundae from the staff cafeteria. She ate it alone, perched on the edge of a loading dock, watching the delivery trucks come and go in rhythm with her thoughts.

It was the one moment she allowed herself to be still.

The spoon small, the ritual sacred.

No one knew about it. Not Janelle, nor anyone else. But in that quiet corner of Shinra’s underbelly, she could almost hear her mother’s voice:

“You have to give yourself a little something, Tori. Otherwise the day takes everything back.”

She smiled faintly at that, tasting the sweetness, and wondered how far she had come from that little girl in the secondhand coat, holding her mother’s hand through the rain.

Now she was here.

Still standing.

And soon, though she didn’t yet know it, she was about to be offered the chance she’d been waiting for.

The kind of transfer that could rewrite everything.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tori arrived at Human Resources, Level Thirty-Six, exactly two minutes early.

That was intentional, though she tried to make it look otherwise, as if she had simply walked briskly from the elevator and happened to arrive at just the right moment.

Her palms were damp despite the cool air. She had managed to shake off Janelle at the last moment, but the message on her phone had been short: Report to HR immediately. No subject line. No explanation. Just the timestamp and her name.

Friday afternoons were never good times for meetings. Not in Service Center. Friday was when bad news tended to arrive, quietly and without ceremony. Terminations, demotions, disciplinary warnings—all of them handed down right before the weekend, when there was no one left around to whisper about it in the break room.

Tori told herself it might be something else. A procedural check-in, perhaps. A departmental audit. But the voice in her head reminded her that good things never came stamped URGENT.

She wore her standard uniform: pressed gray slacks, a white blouse with a stiff collar, and a navy ribbon tied neatly beneath her throat. Her tweed cardigan was buttoned to the third notch, the same way she always wore it when she needed to feel steady. In her apron pocket sat her gloves, a lint roller, and a decomposing copy of Simple Sabotage: A Field Manual. She hadn’t meant to bring the book. But the thought of leaving it unattended in her locker made her uneasy, as if someone might discover it and ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer.

Her shoes clicked too loudly against the tile as she crossed the reception area. The secretary at the front desk gestured silently toward the hallway without looking up.

“Right this way,” she said with a flutter of her hand.

Tori followed, every step a reminder of how small her world could become when nerves took over.

They passed the row of junior managers’ offices. Then the file archives. Then the standard HR conference rooms. Tori expected to be directed into one of them—the kind with lukewarm coffee and motivational posters about teamwork—but the secretary continued down the corridor.

At the very end, double doors opened to reveal a suite she had never been inside before.

The Director’s office.

Her stomach sank.

If they were calling her in to see the Director of Human Resources herself, it wasn’t about scheduling.

Inside, the room smelled faintly of lemon and copier toner. Late afternoon sunlight filtered through frosted glass, giving everything a mild glow that did nothing to calm her nerves.

Emina Thorne stood behind her desk, a woman built like the word “formidable.” Her dark hair was teased into a glossy bob, and a silk scarf in shades of coral and cream was knotted neatly at her throat. She had the air of someone who had heard every excuse ever invented on the other end of a sick day request and found them all equally tiresome.

Yet when she smiled, it was warm. Measured, but genuine.

“Ms. Sutton,” she said, gesturing to the open chair. “Do sit down. Would you like tea, coffee, or something citrus perhaps?”

Tori blinked. She hadn’t expected hospitality.

“No thank you, ma’am,” she said quickly, folding her hands in her lap. “I’m fine.”

It wasn’t true. Her throat felt too tight for tea, and she couldn’t remember if she’d eaten lunch.

The chair creaked softly beneath her as she sat. The sound echoed through her mind too viscerally. She tried to hold herself still, shoulders square, knees together, every inch of her body disciplined into compliance.

In her head, the possibilities raced.

Had someone filed a complaint?

Had she overstepped with the interdepartmental supply exchange? Was that against policy?

Janelle had joked earlier that she was “due for a good scolding,” and the words had stuck to Tori’s ribs like glue. Janelle enjoyed watching her squirm.

Without this job, Tori couldn’t pay rent. She couldn’t keep her Upperplate apartment or her phone or the little luxuries she had begun to allow herself. Two months without work would send her straight back to Sector Five, back to the filtered air and flickering lights she had fought so hard to escape.

Thorne opened the manila folder with the same care one might give to an autopsy. Her nails, short and immaculate, tapped once against the paper before she began reading in silence. The sound of turning pages filled the office like a slow metronome.

“Eighteen months,” she said finally, glancing up. “That’s impressive.”

Tori blinked. “Is it?”

“In Service Center, yes,” Thorne replied, unbothered. “Most employees last six.”

That didn’t sound like praise so much as a warning.

Thorne’s gaze dropped again. “Let’s see. No complaints, no disciplinary marks, no missed deadlines. The only delay on record was… six minutes, during flu season.”

“I called ahead,” Tori said quickly. “And left my files tagged and labeled.”

“Yes, you did.” Thorne’s smile deepened just enough to be visible. “You also implemented a cross-department bartering system for supplies during the Reactor Five shortage. ‘Clips for toner, toner for pens, pens for peace,’ I believe your report said.”

Tori felt her face heat. “I didn’t think that would make it into the file.”

“Oh, it made it into several,” Thorne said, closing the folder with a soft, decisive click. “Legal likes you. Logistics likes you. Maintenance would probably name a cart after you if they could get the request approved.” Her tone lingered on the edge of amusement, but her eyes remained calculating. “You’ve built quite the following.”

Tori shifted in her chair. “Rapport is important.”

“Indeed,” Thorne said, her voice smoothing out like glass. “It’s also rare. Most people prefer to be tolerated rather than relied upon.” She folded her hands neatly atop the file, studying Tori as though she were a newly acquired tool whose function she hadn’t yet decided. “You strike me as the other sort.”

Tori hesitated. “I… try to be useful.”

A thin smile. “Yes. Useful.”

The silence stretched until Tori began to wonder if that word had been a compliment or a diagnosis.

Then Thorne leaned back and said, with the casual gravity of someone who already knew the outcome, “You’ve been promoted.”

Tori stared. “I beg your pardon?”

“Effective Monday,” Thorne said smoothly, as if announcing a weather forecast. “You’re being transferred out of Service Center. Congratulations. You’ll be joining SOLDIER as the Executive Assistant to Director Lazard Deusericus.”

The words didn’t fit together at first. They felt like mismatched puzzle pieces forced into place.

For a second, Tori thought she had misheard. SOLDIER? The SOLDIER Department? The same floor rumored to eat assistants alive and spit out their security badges?

Thorne seemed to notice her stunned expression. “It’s quite an opportunity, Ms. Sutton. One that requires exactly your level of persistence. This is a ‘one in a million’ chance, you could say.”

“Me?” Tori said softly, her voice breaking on the word.

“Yes. You’ve built a reputation for competence. It’s rarer than you might think.”

Tori could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. For months she had dreamed of being transferred, of climbing out of the sublevels, but never here. Never this high.

SOLDIER was its own ecosystem—part military, part mirage. The kind of place where even the elevators seemed to move differently. She had heard stories of its floor: air that smelled faintly of mako, officers who walked like they were carved from stone. The idea of sitting among them felt impossible.

For a moment, the news shimmered like a dream she wasn’t meant to touch. Her chest tightened with something perilously close to pride. She’d done it. After eighteen months buried in the sublevels, after years of watching others climb past her, she was being pulled into the light. A real office. A real title. A salary that might finally make her mother breathe easier. The thought almost made her dizzy.

And then the name settled—Director Lazard Deusericus—and the dizziness curdled into unease.

Everyone knew the stories. Even in Service Center, the gossip traveled down the elevator shafts like static. Lazard was brilliant, charming, and impossible to keep pace with. The man had gone through seven assistants in two years. One resigned mid-meeting. Another never came back from lunch. The longest had lasted just under six months before transferring to Payroll and refusing to talk about it again.

No one could say why. Some claimed Lazard was ruthless. Others whispered that SOLDIER itself was to blame. The department carried a strange energy, a mix of military precision and mako intensity, that seemed to chew through ordinary people. The air was too sharp. The expectations too high. It was a floor that polished brilliance and burned the rest.

Tori had never believed half the things she overheard in the break rooms, but now they returned in vivid detail: the jokes, the warnings, the knowing smirks of employees who had never been summoned higher than the thirty-sixth floor.

“SOLDIER,” she repeated under her breath, as if saying it might make it less surreal. The syllables felt heavy in her mouth. What had she done to deserve a seat among legends? Or was this a test to see how long she could last before joining the list of assistants who had vanished without ceremony?

Thorne slid a small stack of papers across the desk. “You’ll start Monday morning at nine sharp. The office is on the sixty-second floor. Business attire is mandatory. Discretion, preferred.”

Tori picked up the pen automatically. Her hands were trembling. She signed where she was told to sign.

Only when she handed the forms back did she realize her knuckles had gone white.

Thorne smiled again, this time with something almost maternal in her expression. “You’ve earned this, Ms. Sutton. Don’t look so alarmed.”

Tori tried to answer, but her voice faltered. The only sound in her head was the faint whir of the office air purifier and the echo of Janelle’s parting remark.

Hope you’re not getting fired.

No, she thought.

Not fired.

Something far more daunting.

Chapter Text

“She was new, which meant they assumed she was useless.”

The weekend passed, as weekends do, with quiet optimism.

By all outward appearances, Tori spent her Saturday and Sunday exactly as one should before starting a new job inside a department that most people only spoke of in lowered voices. She purchased three tailored blouses (dove gray, oxblood, and one with pinstripes), a pair of polished black heels, and a soft overcoat for those cooler nights commuting home.

On a sudden impulse, she also booked a haircut to address her dry ends.

There was always a small thrill of reinvention that came with a new role. The feel of pressed fabric and a recent haircut could almost trick a person into believing they were ready to change their life. But this position felt heavier. SOLDIER wasn’t simply another department; it was a citadel of power.

She caught herself lingering in front of the mirror more than once, tilting her head, uncertain whether she looked the part. Did she appear capable? Composed? Like someone who belonged among the military elite? In the end, she decided she could at least look put together. It was a modest goal, but one within reach.

She phoned home, of course.

Her mother was delighted in that calm, Underplate Sector Five way: thrilled for her promotion, concerned about office air quality, and asking whether she was eating enough.

“And will you meet him?” her mother asked after a pause. “The General, I mean. Sephiroth.”

Tori froze. The name landed heavier than she expected, as if her mother had just spoken an entirely different language. For a brief second, she pictured the figure from recruitment posters with the gleaming hair, impossible poise, a presence that made the room seem smaller even through a printed page. Her pulse stuttered. She had been so consumed by the idea of the transfer itself that she hadn’t once stopped to consider what ‘SOLDIER’ actually meant.

Of course he worked there. Of course he would be somewhere on that floor, behind one of those polished doors. The realization was sudden and unnerving, like remembering a storm after you’ve already set sail.

Tori stared at the paperwork spread across her kitchen counter. From what she had already flipped through, support staff were to remain largely in the background. Not so different from the conduct training she received before joining Service Center.

Still, her thoughts refused to quiet. What if she passed him in a hallway? What if she was called into a meeting? What was the proper way to address someone whose existence felt mythological?

“I doubt it,” she said finally, keeping her tone easy. “I’m far more likely to process his expense reports than shake his hand.”

Her mother made a sympathetic sound. “Still, it’s an opportunity,” she said gently. Then, with a mischievous lilt, “And you never know. You might meet someone. I hear those SOLDIER men are all tall, fit, and very polite.”

Tori groaned. “Mom.”

“What?” Her mother’s laugh warmed the line. “A woman can admire the uniform. There’s a reason they wear those tight-knit turtlenecks so dramatically. It’s all part of the mystique.”

“I’m not looking for mystique,” Tori said, laughing despite herself. “Or anyone in uniform, for that matter.”

Her mother sighed, a soft, knowing sound. “You never are. You’ve been saying that since your first interview.”

“I was busy.”

“You still are.”

Tori hesitated, the smile fading just slightly. It wasn’t a reprimand, just the quiet truth. Her mother always had a way of finding the soft spot between pride and concern.

“I know,” she said after a pause. “It’s just… I want to get this right. SOLDIER isn’t like the other departments. They don’t hand out second chances.”

“I understand, sweetheart,” her mother said gently. “Just promise me you’ll look up from your desk every once in a while. You’re still young. Don’t let the job take that from you too soon.”

Tori’s chest tightened in that small, guilty way affection always did. “I’ll try,” she said, though they both knew she’d probably fail at it.

“Well,” her mother replied, sounding pleased enough anyway, “try to at least have breakfast tomorrow. And not just coffee. Real food. You’ll faint on your first day and they’ll think SOLDIER’s newest recruit can’t handle altitude.”

That earned another laugh. “Alright.”

Her mother’s voice softened again, fond and full of faith. “You’ve done so well, Tori. I’m proud of you.”

The quiet that followed was the tender kind, the sort that didn’t need filling.

Tori smiled into the receiver, resting her forehead against the cabinet door. Her free hand cupped her mug, the one with the chipped handle and the fading gold letters that read EXCEL-ENT WOMAN.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Call me tomorrow night and tell me everything,” her mother said. “Even the boring parts.”

“I will.”

“Good girl.”

When the line clicked quiet, Tori stood for a long moment in the hush of her kitchen, listening to the hum of the old refrigerator and the city outside her window. The conversation had left her both lighter and lonelier somehow. Her mother’s faith always had that effect. It reminded her that someone still believed she could do extraordinary things.

But as Tori looked back at the paperwork on her counter, the weight of the SOLDIER insignia printed in the corner felt suddenly heavier. Meeting Sephiroth had never crossed her mind—until now—and the thought alone sent a chill of anticipation up her spine.

Still, she thought, setting her phone down, extraordinary would have to wait.

For now, competence would do.

. . . . . . . . .

Later that night, she brewed some tea and spread the contents of her onboarding packet across the kitchen table. What To Expect When You’re Stationed on the 62nd Floor. The title alone made it sound like a survival manual. The packet’s cover bore the SOLDIER crest, an intricate silver emblem embossed into the cardstock, its gleam catching the light whenever she moved. It looked like a shield polished for ceremony. Even the typography beneath it seemed militant, letters stamped deep enough to feel carved rather than printed.

Inside, she found a strange fusion of military conduct and corporate policy. The first page read:

WELCOME TO SOLDIER.
Administrative staff are entrusted with maintaining efficiency, confidentiality, and composure within Shinra’s most elite division. Every action reflects the discipline of SOLDIER.

Beneath that, in smaller font:

Note: Any correspondence bearing the insignia “S1” is classified as top-tier priority. Do not ask what S1 means.

Tori tapped her pen against the margin, lips quirking. “Good start,” she murmured, underlining it twice.

The next section bore the heading PROTOCOLS FOR CIVILIAN INTEGRATION.

Maintain professional decorum at all times.

Avoid interrupting SOLDIER briefings unless bodily harm is imminent.

Disclosing internal operations to external personnel is strictly prohibited.

She paused, pen hovering, then underlined that last one three times.

Further pages wandered into the surreal:

Do not engage in sparring demonstrations, even if invited.

Should you hear the phrase ‘Mako containment breach’, remain calm and follow your assigned evacuation route.

If you encounter a First during off-duty hours, do not inquire about their missions.

The appendices were even stranger. A floor map of the 62nd was half-obscured by gray redaction bars labeled CLASSIFIED CLEARANCE REQUIRED. Corridors ended abruptly in black rectangles. Even the bathrooms were marked Restricted. She traced the lines with her pen, trying to imagine what kind of workplace required such secrecy.

But the most fascinating section came near the end, under its own bold header:

INTERPERSONAL CONDUCT IN THE PRESENCE OF GENERAL SEPHIROTH

It had its own font. Its own formatting. Its own atmosphere of quiet dread.

THE GENERAL IS TO BE REGARDED WITH PROFESSIONAL DEFERENCE AT ALL TIMES.

• Conversation should be limited to official matters, preferably initiated by him.
• Do not initiate physical contact, including handshakes.
• Avoid direct commentary on the General’s appearance, uniform, or physical stature.
• Do not request autographs.
• Do not attempt humor.
• Do not request to see the sword.

Tori blinked, reading that last one twice. The clause went on:

Employees who hold active membership within the Silver Elite fan organization must submit their registration details to Human Resources for recordkeeping.

Members are expressly forbidden from collecting, photographing, or reproducing any materials (digital or physical) pertaining to General Sephiroth or his activities. Posting, trading, or distributing such collateral on interdepartmental platforms is strictly prohibited.

Below that, printed in smaller, sterner type:

Failure to observe these guidelines may result in disciplinary action, reassignment, or termination.

Tori lowered her mug, pressing her lips together to stifle a laugh. The text was absurd, yet undeniably revealing. Rules like this didn’t appear in a vacuum. They existed because someone, at some point, had tested them. She could almost picture it: a secretary fainting beside a copier, a junior officer blurting a compliment about the General’s hair, someone bold—or foolish—enough to ask to touch the sword.

Still, there was something unsettling beneath the humor. The language was too meticulous, too cold. No warmth. No allowance for error. It described a man so far removed from ordinary humanity that even the page seemed to hold its breath around him.

Her eyes lingered on his name. General Sephiroth. Even printed in corporate font, it carried weight. She wasn’t sure if the unease in her stomach was awe or apprehension.

She flipped the packet shut. The silver crest on the cover caught the lamplight again, its mirrored surface glinting like a blade.

SOLDIER. The world’s most formidable department. And she was about to walk straight into it armed with nothing but her good faith.

The thought sent a ripple of nervous excitement through her. Whatever waited on the 62nd floor, she knew one thing for certain. No manual could prepare her for it.

. . . . . . . . .

And then, sometime after 10:15 PM on Sunday night, when the city outside hummed like a hive and the laundry had finished drying, Tori chose a ribbon for her morning outfit, brewed a cup of decaf that was far too strong, and finally sat down to read the little red book she brought home from archives.

SIMPLE SABOTAGE: A FIELD MANUAL
Classified – Internal Use Only
Prepared by Dr. Elio Armand Petrovsky, Strategic Division, Shinra Weapons Manufacturing

The manual was 150 pages long, printed in fine Courier typeface, bound in stiff cardboard with a cloth spine. The pages smelled faintly of dust, toner, and a century-old grudge.

The tone was not hysterical. Nor was it rebellious.

It was instructional.

Tori’s eyebrows lifted once, then twice.

From what we can gather (and we have it on good authority that Tori has read a good many manuals), this one was exceptionally well-written.

Its chapters were structured with bureaucratic elegance. Bulleted lists. Anecdotal footnotes. Graphs that illustrated how to slow institutional momentum by 12% through improper stapling alone.

A few notable excerpts:

CHAPTER 3: THE COMMITTEE TRAP

“A committee with more than five members will never reach a decision on time. A committee with more than nine will never reach a decision at all. When in doubt, propose a subcommittee.”

 

CHAPTER 7: SYMPTOMS OF UNSEEN POWER

“You may not hold authority, but you may hold influence. The mailroom holds secrets. The receptionist directs the flow of command. And the assistant? The assistant holds the schedule—and therefore, the war.”

 

CHAPTER 9: REASSIGNMENT THROUGH EXCELLENCE

“One may rise faster by appearing irreplaceable than by appearing ambitious. If they think they can’t run without you, they’ll move you higher. If they think you want it, they’ll clip your wings.”

There were, of course, chapters on surveillance avoidance, conversational misdirection, and how to weaponize the phrase “As previously discussed.”

Tori flipped through the final appendix, which contained a brief guide titled “Sabotaging Without Breaking the Rules”—a surprisingly engaging read for anyone who had ever rerouted toner requests in quiet protest—and stopped at the last signature page.

There, in slightly faded ink, was a name written with tidy precision:

“Doris Bellamy,” she murmured, frowning.

Below it, in handwriting that seemed both hurried and deliberate, a scrawl slanted into the margin, as though added in secret and perhaps under duress:

They think we are disorganized.
They think we are filing clerks, cleaning crews, supply runners. Let them.
But we are gears. Quiet gears. And one by one, we have learned how to jam the machine.
If you have found this manual, you are already part of it. Welcome to the Secret Society of Hidden Machinery.
Do not seek us out. We will find you when the time is right.
– D.B.

Tori read the lines twice, her curiosity peaking. The phrase we are gears lodged somewhere behind her ribs, both absurd and oddly stirring. She leaned back in her chair, the lamplight catching the faint dust on the page.

“Ominous,” she said aloud, deciding that was the safest word for it.

Still, she couldn’t shake the sense that Doris Bellamy had known exactly what she was doing. Perhaps this was how certain assistants had managed to survive the upper floors so long—by taking a few lessons from Simple Sabotage and pretending it was nothing more than good administrative sense.

By 11:48, the book rested on her nightstand. Its presence felt welcome and strangely reassuring, as though it contained all the wisdom one might need to survive the corporate world. Tori slipped beneath her comforter. Her body was tired, but her thoughts refused to quiet.

Tomorrow she would walk into a department heavily shrouded in mystery. And now, if the enigmatic “Doris B.” was to be believed, there might also be a secret resistance moving quietly through Shinra’s hallways—an invisible network of ordinary workers, all quietly jamming the gears of the great machine.

She had every intention of rising early, well-pressed and punctual. But sleep did not come easily. The city outside hummed, the manual’s words circling in her mind like a low, persistent current.

Tori wasn’t a saboteur. At least, not yet.

But as she lay staring at the ceiling, one thought refused to let her rest: if Simple Sabotage had landed in the wrong hands, Shinra would have a problem.

And if it had landed in the right ones—

Well, that would depend entirely on the kind of assistant she decided to become.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The newly printed security badge still smelled faintly of plastic when Tori clipped it to her lapel. It gleamed against her silk blouse like a warning label.

Along with it came a Shinra-issued datapad, slim and metallic, the protective film still clinging to the screen. Her generic login credentials were scrawled across a paper slip she had already changed twice, just to be safe. She tucked the device neatly beneath her arm and nodded her thanks as Emina Thorne, Director of Human Resources and the living definition of precision, gestured toward the elevator.

“I’ll take you up,” she said briskly. “Let’s make sure your first impression is memorable, though preferably not because of fainting.”

Tori managed a polite nod, her throat too dry to risk a reply.

She had chosen her outfit with care that morning. The oxblood blouse had a soft sheen under the light, the color deep enough to appear confident but not ostentatious. Her pencil skirt was simple black, pressed to a knife’s edge, and her new heels made her posture feel taller than she felt inside. To finish, she had tied a narrow velvet ribbon beneath her collar. An afterthought at first, but one that felt like a quiet signature. She looked, she hoped, like someone who belonged in a place where belonging was never guaranteed.

Her stomach, however, seemed unconvinced. The toast and half a pistachio yogurt she had forced down that morning had been an optimistic mistake.

As the elevator began its ascent, she clasped her hands behind her back and inhaled through her nose, counting each floor that blinked past. The car moved without sound, climbing through glass and gold and layers of air that smelled faintly of floor wax. Each passing number seemed to erase a little more of the world she knew.

Service Center felt impossibly far below with its endless stream of work requests. It had been tedious but familiar. This, by contrast, felt like stepping into someone else’s dream.

She thought briefly of Janelle and Marlo, who would by now be exchanging knowing looks over their morning coffee. The gossip would travel fast. Promotions into SOLDIER were rare, and promotions that stuck were rarer still. By noon, her name would join the growing list of Sacrificial Rookies—those who rose too quickly and were quietly erased by the upper floors.

Her palms grew slick against the datapad. She flexed her fingers once, twice. Fix what you can reach, she reminded herself. Her mother’s old advice. Stand up straight. Smile.

The elevator chimed.

And then the doors parted.

. . . . . . . . . .

The SOLDIER floor was alive. An ecosystem of order and frenzy in equal measure. Cadets moved in formation, their boots striking like clockwork. Scientists barked data across open terminals. Runners in black uniforms dashed past with sealed reports, the air behind them rippling with urgency. Somewhere, an intercom crackled with a voice shouting, “Emergency Recall—Reactor Four!” The scent of sweat, steel, and something electric lingered in the air like ozone before a storm.

Tori took one cautious step forward and nearly collided with a nutritionist balancing three meal packs and a clipboard. Before she could apologize, Emina Thorne had already forged ahead, gliding through the current with impossible grace. Watching her was like watching a swan steer through rapids, each turn precise and commanding. Tori followed as best she could, clutching her datapad to her chest like it might save her from drowning.

They passed two security checkpoints and paused for biometric scans before entering a quieter executive corridor that looked, mercifully, like an office again.

There was a receptionist’s desk, currently unoccupied. A coffee station hummed softly beside a pristine copy machine. A conference room to the left glowed with filtered morning light.

And at the far end of the hallway stood six polished doors, each bearing brass nameplates. One read: Director Lazard Deusericus.

Her heart lifted slightly. Outside that office sat a smaller desk, which was presumably hers. The sight of it steadied her, the way a shoreline steadies a ship in rough seas. She inhaled, smoothing her blouse, and rehearsed her introduction one last time in her head.

Good morning, Director. I’m Tori Sutton, your new executive assistant. I look forward to supporting your work here at SOLDIER.

Polite. Efficient.

But the moment the door opened, her carefully composed script vanished.

Inside Lazard’s office, pandemonium had claimed the floor.

Smoke poured from what used to be a console, now a scorched monument to bad decisions. The air shimmered with the chemical sting of fried circuits. Sparks danced in erratic bursts, flaring like fireflies in the haze. The acrid scent of burnt plastic settled thickly over the room.

Director Lazard Deusericus, who in the recruitment brochure had been described as “a picture of composed leadership,” was sprawled on the floor in what could only be described as systematic defeat. His chair lay overturned, his blond hair stood on end from static, and a smudge of soot streaked one temple. His wire-frame glasses hung crookedly, one lens clouded with smoke residue.

And standing over him—perfectly still, sword drawn, gleaming faintly in the low light—was General Sephiroth.

For a moment, Tori’s mind refused to process what she was seeing. Her onboarding materials had warned her not to comment on the General’s personal effects, but they had said nothing about finding him in the middle of a structural meltdown.

He was exactly as the propaganda reels promised: impossibly tall, impossibly composed, and impossibly real. The light caught in his silver hair like a blade itself, every strand impossibly immaculate despite the chaos around him. His posture was a study in stillness. Even the smoke seemed to curl around him deferentially, as if unwilling to touch him without permission.

Tori couldn’t look away.

Then Emina Thorne broke the silence.

“Good grief,” she said, her tone as flat as Lazard’s position on the floor. “It’s not even nine.”

Without so much as raising an eyebrow, she strode to the wall-mounted fire extinguisher, plucked it free, and aimed with impunity. The extinguisher went off in a roaring hiss, flooding the console with a heavy coat of white foam. The remaining sparks vanished beneath a cloud of chemical snow.

Thorne gave one final squeeze on the trigger for good measure. The smoke thinned. The hiss subsided.

“There,” she announced, lowering the extinguisher as if concluding a board meeting. “Crisis averted.”

Tori blinked through the haze, unsure if she should faint or applaud.

Thorne adjusted her sleeve, unhurried. “Director. General. Your new assistant has arrived.”

The words landed like a dropped gavel.

Lazard stirred with the weary dignity of a man who had long since accepted that life was absurd. He pushed himself upright, patted at his hair, and produced a faint puff of smoke for his trouble. “Ah. Ms. Sutton,” he managed, offering her a smile that was only partly soot-stained. “Apologies. We weren’t expecting combustion this early in the morning.”

Tori stared. He was smoldering in the most literal sense of the word. The left lapel of his blazer had a scorch mark shaped suspiciously like a lightning bolt. His tie was half-melted. His shoes were dusted in extinguishing foam.

“Of course,” she said faintly. “Happens to everyone on a Monday.”

A noise she couldn’t name escaped her—half laugh, half incredulous breath—as she realized the General was still standing there, blade drawn, the tip of it resting near the charred remains of what might have once been a printer cable.

He hadn’t said a word.

When he finally did, the sound of his voice startled her more than the explosion had. It was deep, level, and resonant enough to make the air itself feel more disciplined.

“Call forensics,” he said. “Sweep the office for explosive residue and electrical tampering. I want a diagnostic report before noon.”

The quiet authority in his tone made her pulse skip. It wasn’t shouted. It didn’t need to be. He spoke as one who had never been interrupted in his life.

Then his gaze shifted—to her.

“You can handle that, can’t you?”

The question was neither condescending nor kind. It was a test.

Her throat went dry. “Yes, General,” she said automatically, the words coming from some survival instinct that bypassed rational thought.

Thorne was already halfway to the door. She glanced over her shoulder and arched one brow. “Try not to fold before lunch,” she said, and departed without a backward look.

Tori was alone. Well, alone with two of Shinra’s highest-ranking officials and what looked suspiciously like the aftermath of a small war crime.

She stepped carefully into the room, heels clicking against the floor, mindful not to trip over Lazard’s fallen chair, or the sword still gleaming within arm’s reach. Her new datapad felt absurdly fragile in her grip, as if a stiff breeze might break it.

She peeled off its protective film in one clean motion and began inputting commands, clinging to the rhythm of procedure as if it could anchor her to reality.

“Internal Security,” she said, activating the comm. “This is Sutton for Director Lazard. Clearance seven-alpha-zero-five. Initiate containment sweep of Executive Administration. Flagged for possible sabotage. Timestamp cross-reference with General Sephiroth’s witness account. Mark it urgent.”

Another quick command. “System Ops, Sutton again. I need a replacement console rig delivered immediately, surge-protected and diagnostics-ready. Full data migration queued manually on my end.”

And finally, “Facilities, this is Sutton for Lazard. Requesting cleanup after one extinguished fire, partial wall damage, and a melted light fixture. High priority.”

Her fingers moved automatically, efficient despite the tremor in her hand.

Trial by fire, she thought. Quite literally.

Lazard had regained his footing, albeit with soot still smudging his temple. “It overheated,” he said, studying the ruined console. “One moment it was fine, the next… well.” He gestured at the devastation.

“Power surge?” Sephiroth asked, his tone still unnervingly calm.

“Possibly,” Lazard replied. “Or interference. Frankly, I’m too embarrassed to guess.”

Tori crouched near the power source, tracing the cord to the wall. “Director,” she said gently, “did you plug this directly into the wall socket?”

Lazard frowned, then blinked behind his cracked glasses. “No. At least, I don’t think—” He stopped mid-sentence. “Oh. I may have.”

“That would explain it,” she said, biting back a smile. “Too much draw, no protection, heat overload.”

Lazard sighed. “That would be me, then.”

Across the room, Sephiroth remained perfectly still, eyes faintly glinting through the haze. His presence was magnetic, disquieting, almost impossible to ignore. Tori could feel the weight of his scrutiny even when he wasn’t looking directly at her. When their eyes finally met, it was like the floor tilted half an inch.

“You have this handled?” he asked Lazard, though his attention didn’t stray from her.

“It’s handled,” Lazard replied, attempting to dust ash from his hair and only succeeding in making it worse.

Sephiroth gave a brief nod. “Third Class evaluations are waiting. I’ll return once the sweep is complete.”

At that, Tori finally exhaled. The statement alone anchored her—something tangible, familiar. Evaluations she could understand. But the rest of him? He was an enigma wrapped in quiet violence and impossible grace. The General she had only read about now stood within arm’s reach, and not even the manual’s sternest clauses could have prepared her for the reality of him.

Without another word, Sephiroth turned. The sweep of his coat followed like a shadow. He left the room as silently as he had entered, the air seeming to realign in his absence.

Tori released the breath she’d been holding and glanced toward Lazard. He regarded her with a faint, wry smile.

“Well, Ms. Sutton,” he said. “Welcome to SOLDIER.”

She smiled back, still holding her datapad like a shield. “Thank you, sir.”

He gestured toward the hall. “Shall I show you around before the next emergency?”

“Yes, please,” she said, squaring her shoulders.

As they stepped into the corridor, the last curls of smoke drifted from the office. Tori cast one final glance back at the scene.

Her first day, and she had already survived an explosion, a myth, and a smile from a man who had apparently just set his own office on fire.

Not quite what the onboarding packet had promised.

Chapter Text

“They threw her to the wolves, assuming she’d be eaten. She took notes instead.”

The SOLDIER complex was a labyrinth of polished metal and reinforced glass, buzzing with several ID checkpoints. She followed Director Lazard—still impeccably dressed despite his earlier brush with spontaneous combustion—through corridors that clicked with authority and vibrated faintly with the pulse of machinery below.

Every space they entered bore the Shinra insignia like a brand: subtle, sleek, and everywhere. And every room, every face, every hallway, reminded her that she was not in Service Center anymore.

“The Executive Administration Wing houses departmental liaisons, mission logistics, and your office—of course,” Lazard had said, already four steps ahead. “Next to mine. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with the intercom codes. And the espresso machine. The second is more critical.”

He said it like a joke. She jotted it down in her leather notebook with a shaky hand.

"...espresso machine," she murmured aloud as she scribbled. "Yes, sir."

They moved briskly through the mailroom (which, unlike in other departments, had its own secure vault), the in-house medical facility (two floors, one of which was marked “Clearance Level 5+ Only”), and the main barracks, which smelled faintly of grease and protein powder.

Lazard’s commentary never faltered. Neither did Tori’s notetaking.

But somewhere between the Training Decks and the Special Operations planning wing, a familiar feeling began to return.

A slow, tightening sensation in her chest.

Imposter syndrome.

There it was again.

The creeping sense that she had wandered into the wrong room at the wrong time wearing the wrong clothes.

She had felt this eighteen months ago, too—standing outside Shinra HQ for the first time, resume in hand, dressed like competence on legs and wondering if anyone could see through her thin veil of practiced composure.

She’d survived that.

She would survive this.

Six months, she reminded herself. In six months, I’ll have systems. Processes. An understanding. A grip.

At least... she hoped so.

As they walked, Lazard drew gazes like a magnet draw metal filings. SOLDIER staff turned to watch him pass—cadets, engineers, security personnel. Some straightened. Others tried not to look at all.

When they noticed her, however—walking precisely two steps behind him, polite smile intact—their gazes flattened.

Curiosity dulled into apathy. Then pity.

She didn’t need an explanation. She was the new one.

Everyone already knew how this story ended.

Sacrificial Lamb #8. Brought to slaughterhouse with a dumb smile on her face. The innocent dolt.

Tori kept a stiff upper lip and ignored the looks.

They passed an open glass wall overlooking one of the live training decks—a multi-tiered combat simulation space that throbbed with distant grunts and sparring noise.

“Ah, the evaluations must be going well,” Lazard murmured, glancing at his wristwatch as they approached the wide-paneled glass. “He usually keeps these things to a minimum.”

Tori stepped lightly beside him and peered into the simulation room beyond the window. She didn’t know what she expected—sweat, perhaps. More noise. The kind of overhyped exertion that accompanied staged heroics.

What she saw instead was danger in motion.

The room was enormous—domed, matte-gray, and illuminated by artificial skylight. Sephiroth stood at the center like the axis of a precisely balanced compass, and every Third Class trainee in the room rotated their discipline around him.

He wasn’t moving. Not yet.

And still, Tori had the overwhelming sense that he was the one holding gravity in place.

From this distance, he didn’t look real.

He looked like an architectural study in dominance—six-foot-seven-inches of lethal geometry, all shoulders and coiled power and stillness.

Or, she thought dimly, the product of two rival sculptors, each claiming divine instruction, locked in an escalating war of artistic vengeance to produce the perfect Adonis carved from stone.

His combat coat fell just above his boots, jet-black and nearly soundless in the simulation chamber’s sterile light. His sword—the Masamune—was sheathed against his hip like a long tail. A blade that long shouldn’t have been practical. Somehow, it was.

The trainees stood in a staggered V-formation around him, a dozen bodies frozen in anticipatory dread. Not one of them slouched. Not one of them blinked. Some, she noted, seemed to be holding their breath.

“You are not here to be impressive,” Sephiroth said, his voice cutting across the chamber, low and firm. “You are here to be useful.”

Tori stiffened.

“If I wanted theater, I would go upstairs and watch politics,” he said. “If I wanted chaos, I’d ask the Second Class to spar unsupervised. What I want is execution. Calm. Precision. Without those, you’re dead weight. With them, you might be worth the uniform.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then he gestured—just slightly—with one gloved hand.

“Begin.”

The room erupted into synchronized motion. Not the clumsy chaos of too many limbs moving at once, but the mechanical snap of obedience. Every cadet leapt to position, bodies moving like they’d been rehearsing this moment in their sleep.

Tori’s breath caught.

She wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the sudden contrast. The stillness he carried, and the power it commanded.

“He’s…” she began, then trailed off. She wasn’t entirely sure what word to use.

Lazard, watching with the ease of someone long past the stage of being awed, hummed lightly.

“He’s Sephiroth,” he said, as if that answered everything.

And perhaps it did.

Tori glanced once more through the glass, catching Sephiroth’s gaze already fixed on her.

She froze.

It wasn’t hostile. It wasn’t anything really. Just direct. As if he’d already placed her and set her aside.

She looked away too quickly.

Her cheeks burned, despite her best efforts.

You are not here to be impressive, she reminded herself. You are here to be useful.

It echoed like a threat. Or maybe a goal.

Either way, it would do.

Lazard didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he’d grown used to that feeling.

“Right,” he said, clapping his hands lightly. “Back to base.”

By the time they returned to the Executive Wing, Tori felt one wrong move away from collapsing into a supply closet.

The reception area, mercifully, was still quiet. The smoldering console had been removed. The white foam cleaned.

Her desk was waiting.

If Tori had imagined she’d be given the courtesy of sitting down—perhaps allowed a quiet moment to breathe in her new title, admire her new desk, and possibly cry behind the coffee machine in peace—she was, of course, mistaken.

“Ah! Perfect timing,” said Lazard cordially, as if he hadn’t just narrowly escaped combustion thirty minutes prior. “Thank you for waiting on us.”

Tori halted mid-step, her smile frozen, datapad and notebook still clutched like religious artifacts to her chest.

“Ms. Sutton,” he continued, beaming, “I’d like to introduce you to our auxiliary administration team. These fine young women will be reporting to you from now on.”

Reporting to her.

The words landed like a memo to the face.

Tori turned, slowly, to the desk that was presumably hers.

Three young women were perched around it, arranged not unlike a carefully posed classical painting—something between the Three Muses, the Fates, and a trio of heavily caffeinated Gorgons.

They did not stand. Nor did they smile.

All three glanced at Tori as she entered and waited expectantly for her to speak.

Oh, Tori thought. Wonderful. I’ve inherited a three-headed fiend.

. . . . . . . . . . .

INTERMISSION I: ON JOINING THE PACK

Let us now take a moment—a polite pause, a sip of lukewarm coffee from a communal pot older than the building itself—to discuss a particular aspect of professional life that no handbook covers.

Not the dress code. Not the breakroom policy. Not the confidential fire evacuation diagram laminated and ignored.

No, we speak now of the most complex and invisible system in any workplace:

The Social Ecosystem.

Or, as it's more accurately known in its natural state:

The Pack.

Every office, department, division, or task force—be it in government, private enterprise, or a secret paramilitary wing of a multinational energy corporation—operates less like a machine and more like a habitat.

And into this habitat, inevitably, a new creature arrives.

Eager. Freshly badged. Wearing shoes that haven’t yet conformed to the carpet’s despair.

This creature is called: The New Hire.

She (or he, or they—but for the purpose of this field study, let us say she) does not yet know the rules.

She does not yet know who refills the coffee and who resents being asked.

She does not yet know that Todd in Procurement is never to be emailed directly, or that calling something “urgent” only ensures it will be ignored on principle.

She is a fawn. And she has entered a den of wolves.

Not hostile wolves, mind you.

Just... bored. Territorial. In need of entertainment to get through the day.

Perhaps recently annoyed by a mandatory software update.

And so begins the ancient and poorly documented rite of passage known as:

Social Integration by Controlled Tension.

A series of tiny tests, conducted in full view and complete silence. These include but are not limited to:

• The “Wrong Coffee Mug” Incident
  (Was it Brenda’s? It was Brenda’s. Beware. You’ll know by lunch.)
• The “Where Do You Usually Sit?” Test
  (There is no assigned seating, and yet you’ve definitely sat in someone’s soul.)
• The “We Always Do It This Way” Trap
  (Often said after you’ve done it the other way.)
• The “Let’s See If They Last the Week” Watch Party
  (Spoiler: They’re watching.)

Each of these minor infractions is met not with confrontation, but with a series of subtle signals such as: raised brows, whispered jokes, polite smiles so sharp they could open envelopes.

This is a natural and ancient ritual that, in many ways, prevents the herd from getting eaten.

Because workplaces, for all their spreadsheets and manuals, are still built on instinct. And when a new body enters the watering hole, the existing herd must determine:

Is she a threat? A weak link? A brownnoser? A spy from HR?

Or, perhaps... just someone who wants to do her job and survive with her dignity intact.

If Tori passes these tests (which are ever-shifting and occasionally contradictory), she is rewarded with the highest honor a workplace can bestow:

Inclusion in the Shared Complaint Loop.

She will be invited to whisper about an inefficient process.

She will be trusted to roll her eyes at a vague directive.

She may even, one day, be added to the “real” group chat where memes, cat videos, and gossip are exchanged with reckless abandon. The Holy Grail of corporate belonging.

Until then, our dear heroine must endure this sacred rite of passage, a process that can take anywhere from six weeks to six months (the length of time is, of course, dependent on the scope and scale of the workforce present during her shift).

Tori will need to endure the loneliness of unfamiliar laughter, the sting of inside jokes, the occasional lunchtime where no one sits beside her—not out of cruelty, but because everyone assumed she’d be gone by Thursday.

She will question herself and overthink every single interaction until she learns the pecking order in its full fluency. But if Tori remains patient and remembers who hates Brenda (and why)—she may just find her place in the habitat faster than expected.

And so, dear reader, if you find yourself in the same shoes as our heroine—wandering through the wilds of a fluorescent-lit jungle, unsure whether you are prey or potential—

Take heart.

Even the office vulture was once a newbie.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Tori did not sit. She suspected doing so would be seen as either presumptuous or weak. She remained standing—posture erect, neck ribbon straight, heels quietly braced—and gave a pleasant nod that said, Yes, I am aware I’ve just walked into the inner sanctum of bureaucratic trauma.

Behind her, Lazard beamed, radiant with obliviousness.

“Why don’t we do a quick round of introductions?” he said, clapping once in a way that suggested this was going to be fun. “Names, preferences, responsibilities. Help Ms. Sutton get her bearings.”

There was a long pause.

Then, as if some invisible stage cue had flicked the house lights on, the three women shifted. Together. Synchronized like a dance troupe that had long since stopped smiling during rehearsal.

The summery blonde went first.

She sat delicately upright, her posture trained, her voice as soft as a satin ribbon being threaded through a corset.

“Delphine Choufleur,” she said, crisp and poised, with the practiced cadence of someone born and raised on the Upperplate. “I prefer Choufleur—not Del, not Delphie, and absolutely not Delphalina.”

She crossed one leg over the other elegantly.

“I manage the social calendar, official invitations, commemorative language, decorative tablescapes, and all seating arrangements involving foreign dignitaries, internal stakeholders, and Commander Trellis—who, for reasons unknown, refuses to sit near potted plants. I also handle procurement for Shinra’s commemorative ribbon program.”

A pause.

“It’s a real program. Not just something I made up to cope.”

She blinked once. Slowly.

Her blouse was lavender. Her nails matched. Her expression did not.

Next came the dark femme fatale, all heels and elegant curves. She set her mechanical pencil down like a dagger in a game of Midgardian roulette. Beautiful, but dangerous.

“Gwendolyn Kovacs. ‘Kovacs’ to you, unless I’m scolding someone. Then I prefer ‘The Punisher’,” she said in her low, sultry voice, making Tori flush. “I’m the firewall. Everything that passes through this floor comes across my desk: personnel memos, mission briefs, internal complaints, meeting minutes, gossip with legs, expense justifications, inventory discrepancies, and—most importantly—damage control.”

She gestured to a red folder labeled simply: “In Case of Emergency, Burn.”

“I also maintain our back-channel with Legal, whom I email frequently.”

Everyone's gazes turned expectantly to the starry-eyed sprite who had remained in a trance, gazing at the wall with a blank expression stretched across her almond-shaped face.

She turned slightly in her chair. One slow, deliberate motion. Like a haunted music box finally deciding to reveal its last tune.

“Orla Zeffirelli,” she said, her voice flat but oddly musical. She slowly tapped her stylus against the side of her head, once, twice, then let it fall limp against her clipboard.

“I don’t like names,” she added, blinking slowly. “But if you must, you may address me as Orla.”

The other two assistants exchanged a long-suffering glance.

“I track what’s untracked,” Orla continued, glancing vaguely at the ceiling tiles as though they might be listening. “Supplies. Schedules. System anomalies. Emotional temperature. Mako leaks. We’ve had four." She stared deeply into Tori's eyes at that moment, making her jump. "Only two were reported.” Orla leaned forward just slightly, her gaze sharpening, eerie in its clarity. “I have a separate log.”

She held up her clipboard with nothing on it.

Tori had no doubt it was the most organized log in the building.

“I also water the plant in the hallway. It’s not ours to keep alive,” Orla shrugged, “I do it anyway.”

The introductions concluded, and then the three women looked at her in unison—as if waiting for her to spontaneously sprint from the room or reveal herself as the latest false prophet to lead them into the promised land of Functional Office Dynamics.

Tori smiled. Warily.

“Torianne Sutton,” she said, offering her name like a feather in a bear trap. “Ms. Sutton will do. I’m here to support Director Lazard and this team, making sure no one drowns in admin entropy.”

They blinked at her.

No smiles.

Choufleur reviewed her lavender nails. Kovacs resumed brandishing her mechanical pencil with menace. Orla continued staring at Tori with that eerie, vacant expression on her face.

They’re not trying to test me, she realized. They’re waiting to be let down.

She felt the weight of that truth settle in her chest—not heavy, exactly, but insistent. Like a belt cinched too tight. These women weren’t difficult. They were exhausted. Shell-shocked. Keeping the machinery moving with grimaces and caffeine, their instincts tuned to survival over structure.

It wasn’t their trust she needed to earn.

It was their relief.

And she would have to earn it inch by inch—by restoring order without steamrolling autonomy, by listening before fixing, by proving, with quiet consistency, that she intended to stay. That the chaos wasn’t their fault.

And, gods help her, that the eighth time might actually be the charm.

Tori glanced at her desk, already littered with Post-its of unknown provenance.

She gave the three junior assistants a gentle smile. Not condescending. Not wide. Just enough to say: I see you.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Choufleur, Kovacs, Zeff...Orla,” she said warmly. “I’ll be reviewing current systems and touchpoints this week. If there’s anything you’d like to flag for immediate attention, you can drop it in my inbox. Or pin it to my chair. I’m adaptable.”

Choufleur tilted her head.

Kovacs narrowed her eyes, just a fraction.

Orla said, softly:

“You’ll need coffee first. The good kind. I’ll make a cup.”

That, Tori decided, was progress.

Chapter Text

“You can survive anything. Just not all at once.”

Tori had barely glanced up from her notes when Orla returned with a full mug, held like an explosive device missing its pin.

"I brought you this," she said with deep concentration.

Tori blinked, then smiled. "Thank you, Zeff—Orla. That’s very thoughtful of you."

She set her notebook down on her desk, the desk she still had yet to organize. Choufleur had taken the liberty of occupying her chair, Kovacs sitting on the edge with her arms crossed, reminiscent of a bored gargoyle. Tori was forced to continue standing with her arms full. Her heels had begun their slow rebellion, pinching from her hike across SOLDIER. A sip of something warm felt like salvation.

Orla murmured something as Tori reached for the mug. Something like, "Careful—the rim—it’s got a crack."

Too late.

The sharp chip along the rim channeled hot coffee straight down the front of her brand-new silk blouse. The liquid scalded and clung, leaving a dark stain. There were audible gasps.

“Oh no—” Kovacs leapt to her feet. “Don’t move!” Choufleur barked, already grabbing tissues from a drawer. Orla took a step back, grimacing. “You’re lefthanded. My mistake.”

“What?” Tori frowned, puzzled.

Tissues were flying. Choufleur dabbed. Kovacs pressed. Orla attempted to blot with the efficiency of a scribe erasing history. But the tissues disintegrated into pulp, leaving Tori flecked with white fluff, like snow on a dying rose. Orla reached for the squirt bottle resting beside the hallway plant.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Tori raised both hands. "It's fine. I'm fine. No need to cry over spilled—" she glanced down at the wreckage "—dignity."

Two hours into her first day, and she looked like she had insulted a barista.

Choufleur looked genuinely pained. Kovacs returned to her perch on the lip of the desk. Orla took back the chipped mug and set it atop the notebook where it leaked a ring of black coffee.

Tori took a long breath. Then, airing out her blouse, returned to the subject at hand.

"Right. Mission reimbursements. Let’s walk through the process one more time."

"First round or final round?" Choufleur asked.

Kovacs groaned. "Gods, here we go."

Orla tilted her head. "Define 'file,'" she said.

Tori pressed her fingers to her temple. "I mean: how do you reconcile expenses from SOLDIERs when they return from the field?"

"Easy. I use the pink slips," Choufleur said.

"I don't," said Kovacs. "I ignore them until a SOLDIER complains. Then I fabricate receipts. It's technically allowed."

Orla raised her hand. "I conduct a review."

Tori blinked. "A what?"

"Caloric triangulation," Orla said solemnly. "I cross-reference vending machine spikes with re-entry logs. Six honey buns at 0200 hours? Definitely post-mission fatigue."

"She interviews the janitorial staff," Choufleur added with a curious glance at Orla. "They see everything apparently.”

Orla nodded. “Especially snack-related fraud."

Tori opened her mouth. Closed it. Thought better of it and pressed on.

“Ladies,” she said, choosing her words with care, “we are dealing with military-grade operations, company funded excursions, materia transport, high-risk travel—these are not office supplies. If one decimal is wrong—”

"We adjust it in the audit," Kovacs replied flatly.

"What audit?"

Kovacs made a lazy swirl in the air. “You know. The theoretical audit. The one that’s always ‘next quarter’," she said, using air quotes. “ Like summer Fridays.”

Tori felt a curl of panic in her gut.

“Where are you standard operating procedures?”

Choufleur leaned in. "This office hasn't had a manual since the start of the Wutai Conflict."

"The last continuous improvement officer defected to Recreational," Orla added. "He said there was less blood. More ping pong."

Tori took in the mess she had inherited and wondered, exasperatedly, if Mrs. Thorne expected her to work miracles. This was, in a word, atrocious.

She exhaled.

"We're starting small. One step. From now on, scan all reimbursement slips and upload them to the shared drive."

She received blank stares.

“Scan and upload,” Tori repeated, slower this time. “Simple. Clean. Universal.”

Kovacs lifted her eyes from a chipped cuticle. “Copier’s still down.”

“What?”

“It’s been broken since last Wednesday,” she said. “Keeps throwing a ‘no input detected’ error. Sometimes it beeps. Sometimes it hisses.”

“We call it The Demon.” Orla nodded. “It’s possessed.”

At that, a strange and completely miraculous flicker of hope sparked in Tori’s chest.

Brocken machinery.

Now that was something she could fix.

Her entire tenure at the Service Center had been littered with malfunctioning equipment. Paper jams, toner explosions, error codes written in what may as well have been cuneiform—she had seen it all. Once, she had even talked a junior executive out of throwing a late model printer off the rooftop ledge, deescalating what could have been a minor setback in equipment inventory.

She could handle this.

“Let’s go meet The Demon,” she said, standing with a little more purpose than she had all morning.

She crossed the suite toward the massive white copier in the corner, sitting like an albino sarcophagus beneath a half-dead pothos vine. The three assistants followed, not unlike a jury being led to a particularly grim exhibit.

Tori cracked her knuckles.

“Step one,” she said, lifting the front panel, “run a system diagnostic—”

“We’ve already done that,” said Kovacs.

“Twice,” Choufleur added.

“But you can try,” murmured Orla.

Tori ignored them, fingers moving with muscle memory. She pressed a hidden reset sequence and brought up the diagnostic screen. The machine hummed, then shuddered, then made a single chirp—like it wanted her to know it was trying.

“There,” she said, pointing to the readout. “It’s stuck in looped standby. Easy fix. You have to flush the cache, then reboot from the motherboard access. Most people don’t realize there’s a secondary menu under—”

The copier chirped again before blackening out completely.

“...or,” Tori closed her eyes and counted to three, “we do a hard reboot and see if that works.”

She dropped to her knees, momentarily forgetting she wasn’t in her standard-issue slacks but a fitted black pencil skirt and sheer hose. Regret hit instantly as a scatter of rogue staples bit into her knee. Gritting her teeth, she reached for the large square button at the back of the device and held it for five seconds. As she pushed back onto her heels, she heard it—the unmistakable whisper of fabric giving way. A slow, threadbare rip snaked down her shin like an insult drawn in ink.

Tori felt a spike of frustration. Somewhere in her chest, an invisible thread began to fray. One tug away from snapping.

“Son of a—”

“Ms. Sutton!”

She jolted, nearly spilling into Kovacs. “Yes, sir!”

Lazard appeared in the hallway, glasses and tie askew, his PHS held aloft in one hand. He looked exactly like a man who had just received six high-priority action items and was about to faint.

“Director,” Tori said, scrambling upright—staples and dignity forgotten. “Sorry, I was—”

“No time,” Lazard said, already checking his wristwatch. “We need to finalize the vendor audit summary, approve those requisitions from Logistics, and get a new copy of the Sublevel Four clearance logs to Heidegger before the board meeting. I was hoping—”

He stopped mid-sentence, staring at his PHS as if it might give him a different to-do list if he blinked long enough.

“I was hoping,” he tried again, slower this time, “someone—anyone—could help me pull those files together in a coherent format while I figure out how to stop Hojo from hijacking the agenda again.”

Orla appeared beside Tori, silently handing over her datapad with a faint nod of encouragement, as though she were offering Tori a ceremonial dagger and sending her into ritual combat.

Tori clutched it like a life raft—only to realize, with a slow-spreading dread, that she hadn’t even completed the basic security onboarding protocols. No software shortcuts. No saved log-ins. No access to the document index Lazard just assumed she had memorized.

“I haven’t—uh—I still need to configure the—”

“Perhaps you three,” Lazard said, waving vaguely at the admin trio while already raising his ringing phone to his ear, “can show her where the reports are stored on the shared drive.”

His voice was gentler now, if still clipped. “Whatever you can dig up, just flag it for me. Heidegger’s been circling for blood since Tuesday, and if he doesn’t see those logs…” he let the sentence trail off like a man staring down a tiger with only a manila folder for protection.

Then, as if summoned by fate or cruelty, a deep male voice crackled through the earpiece loud enough for all of them to hear.

“—Negative on the sweep perimeter. Confirming movement near the maintenance hatch. Requesting recon support in Sector Four.”

“Yes, yes, I’m handling it now,” Lazard muttered into the phone, voice distracted, eyes flicking between Tori and the ticking wall clock. “We’re bringing it up in the meeting.” He glanced at Tori. “The missive you signed earlier this week.”

Tori blinked. “I didn’t sign—?”

“No, not you—” Lazard turned slightly, still on the phone. “Angeal, not you either. Ms. Sutton. Ms. Sutton’s handling it.” A pause. “My new assistant.”

Kovacs leaned in over Tori's shoulder, pulling up a folder named “Misc. (Do Not Touch)” while Choufleur reached around her to open what might’ve been a spreadsheet or a small wormhole. Neither seemed to agree on what document they were even looking for. As they continued to jockey for the right set of spreadsheets, both gasping as they found the correct one, the screen went black. No warning. No battery low alert. Just sudden, traitorous death.

Because of course it did.

“Director, forgive me,” Tori said, her hopelessness ratcheting. “I just—uh—I ran into a technical hiccup.”

“Hiccup?”

She lifted her datapad, black screen staring back at her like a bad omen. “It’s... dead. I didn’t get a chance to charge it this morning. I was given the device during onboarding and—”

“Don’t worry,” he said, waving her off with a harried flick of the wrist. The motion was somewhere between dismissal and deep sympathy. “We’ll circle back after the meeting. Just bring your notebook. Orla, you have printouts, right?”

Tori glanced sideways at Orla, who was currently squinting at a flyer for Shinra’s Annual Spring Bake-Off like it held the secret to interdepartmental enlightenment.

“She’s thinking,” Kovacs muttered. “Dangerous game.”

“I’ll find a way,” Tori said to Lazard quickly.

The Director nodded, distracted. “Good. We’ll head over to the conference room in fifteen. We’re presenting to Heidegger, Scarlet, and Hojo, so… we’ll improvise. Improvisation seems to be the theme today.”

He turned, Angeal still in his ear as he hurried back to his office to gather his affects.

Tori stood there for a moment, blouse still damp against her camisole, her hose sporting a new tear, her shoes pinching like twin vices. She hadn’t sat down all morning. Her stomach had started growling so loudly that even Choufleur had noticed and offered a stick of gum with the solemnity of a cigarette.

And now she was expected to walk into a boardroom full of Shinra’s most powerful—and most merciless—figures and conduct herself as Lazard’s righthand man.

Her palms itched.

Her scalp prickled.

Her throat felt like it was trying to close politely.

But she nodded to herself once, sharply, like a woman pressing a seal to a final notice letter.

One problem at a time, she told herself.

Even if the problems were stacking up faster than she could handle.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

INTERMISSION II: WORKPLACE ACCLIMATIZATION

Ah, the first impression—that mercurial, adhesive little ghost that clings longer than it ought to.

Is it accurate? Rarely.

Is it fair? Certainly not.

Is it usually formed in the presence of coffee stains, malfunctioning tech, and a room full of judgmental executives with inflated titles and disappointing personalities?

Almost always.

You see, dear reader, when one such as Miss Torianne Sutton is plucked from the dense administrative underbrush of the Service Center—a realm optimized for pulse-based tasking and passive-aggressive sticky notes—and dropped into the high canopy of SOLDIER Administration, complications are inevitable.

Allow us a brief detour through the annals of organizational theory.

In 1969, a curious little concept emerged from the bowels of management literature. It was called The Peter Principle, named not after a saint, but a senior bank manager from Mideel. It proposed the following: within every hierarchy, competent individuals will rise—steadily, sometimes gloriously—until they reach a position in which they are no longer competent.

In simpler terms:

You’re good at your job.

You get promoted.

Congratulations—you’re now bad at your new job.

But let us be generous. For behind every theory is a human truth, and the truth is this:

What Tori is experiencing is not incompetence.

It’s onboarding.

Yes—the same rite of passage responsible for mismatched email signatures, misfiled HR forms, and the inability to find a restroom without a full tour guide and compass.

She is not failing. She is acclimating.

It is a biological certainty that the first week of any new job renders the body 62% more prone to coffee spills, jammed printers, minor wardrobe betrayals, and the occasional existential spiral in a restroom stall. That’s not opinion. That’s workplace science.

Place even the most capable creature under new fluorescent lighting, among a jungle of unwritten rules and missing manuals, and she will falter. Her blouse will wrinkle. Her hair will revolt. Her stomach will growl mid-sentence in front of men who wear silence like armor.

This is not failure.

It is metamorphosis.

And like all cocoons, it is dark, uncomfortable, and strangely damp.

But inside, our dear administrator is changing. She is shedding the fragile skin of self-doubt and growing something far more durable: procedural command, operational wit, and the uncanny ability to run a meeting while fielding a paper jam, rerouting a vendor dispute, and pretending not to notice that her datapad has died—again.

So let us be kind. To Tori. And to ourselves.

Because the beginning is rarely elegant.

And first impressions?

They are nothing but faulty projections with excellent posture.

Now then.

Let us return to the lion’s den.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The conference room was cold.

Not in temperature—though the air conditioning murmured overhead with the mechanical indifference of a jet engine—but in atmosphere. It was the kind of cold found only in places designed to impress and intimidate. Everything gleamed: the floor, the walls, the heavy paneled doors. The long marble table, veined in gray like fossilized smoke, dominated the entire space. Even the chairs had an executive sort of posture.

Tori stepped inside behind Lazard and immediately felt the shift in air pressure. Heads turned.

Scarlet, draped in red silk that screamed power and bloodshed, looked her over like a smudge on a mirror. Her lip curled in the smallest, sharpest display of disdain. Tori recognized her from procurement-level flurries—requests marked “PRIORITY” in all caps, often filed under threats. Scarlet had once demanded six sets of prototype blueprints reprinted on crimson parchment for an impromptu board presentation. It had taken Tori an hour and a bottle of toner to make it happen.

Heidegger let out a booming laugh at nothing in particular—the kind of guttural, territorial sound that filled the room like a foghorn in a library. But Tori had the distinct feeling it was aimed at her: another sacrificial lamb trailing behind Lazard, wide-eyed and doomed. His signature on requisition forms had always been infamously illegible, often stamped three times as if daring the paper to protest. She still remembered the last one she fulfilled in Service Center: One executive-grade leather chair. One bottle Midgar malt. Three ashtrays—glass, not plastic.

Tseng, seated calmly beside the screen, offered her a slight nod—polite, distant, the kind typically reserved for interns or unattended visitors. Tori straightened instinctively. In the Service Center, the Turks were spoken of with equal parts awe and caution—administrators in a league entirely their own. Among entry-level staff, they were mythologized as elegant predators in tailored suits. And Tseng, their vice commander, was the sharpest of them all.

A few chairs beside the handsome Turk, Professor Hojo didn’t look up from his notetaking. His pen twitched like a nervous limb, scrawling haphazard script across several yellowing pages. Tori had once processed a work order labeled “Containment Unit: URGENT—MUST SIGN AN NDA.” No further details. It had been signed by Hojo and tagged with six layers of clearance, which no one in the Service Center dared question. Including her. The Service Center employee who fulfilled the work order spent two weeks in physical therapy.

She let her eyes drift across the remaining figures at the table, quietly cross-referencing nameplates and half-remembered requisitions—grasping for order, some sense of orientation in the presence of so many giants.

And then she saw him.

Seated at the far end.

Half in uniform, half in armor. Silent.

Mako eyes catching the light like a cat’s—reflective, yet unreadable.

Sephiroth.

Her breath hitched.

She hadn’t expected him here. Not in a boardroom. Not within arm’s reach. In the Service Center, Sephiroth existed only as a myth folded into headlines and military dispatches—his name muttered in awe when high-clearance requests arrived with his signature, always stamped with Commander’s Authority. Most employees went their entire careers without so much as a glimpse of him in person.

And here she was—sharing a room with him for the second time that day.

His gaze brushed hers, and it hit like standing too close to a window in a storm—charged, silent, a pressure that bent the air.

Then, his eyes dropped.

To her blouse.

Tori blanched in dread. She was suddenly, acutely aware of every flaw. The coffee stain. The rip in her stocking. The tight placement of her limbs.

And Sephiroth was looking.

Taking it all in with a brazen curiosity.

She flushed with heat, from throat to scalp. Her shame wasn’t even rooted in vanity. It was the feeling of being naked in front of power—undignified in the presence of a myth.

“Everyone, this is Ms. Sutton,” Lazard announced with careful optimism. “She’s just come from Service Center and will be serving as my executive assistant moving forward.”

A pause followed. Not silence—silence implied stillness. This was judgment, hung like a chandelier and glittering with private speculation.

No one spoke.

Scarlet’s manicured nails clacked against her datapad like knives on porcelain. Someone down the table—male voice, low and unimpressed—muttered, “Hope she lasts longer than the last one.”

Tori dropped her gaze, willing her pulse to slow down.

“She’s highly capable,” said Lazard, his tone trained but practiced. “And learning quickly.”

Tori gave a short nod, trying to mimic composure. Her hands were trembling. Her body buzzed with heat and nausea—probably because she hadn’t eaten since early that morning. At the time, she hadn’t thought skipping lunch would matter. But now the consequence was tangible. Her stomach issued a groan of protest so loud she felt it vibrate in her chest.

She prayed the AC would mask it.

It didn’t.

Lazard pivoted quickly. “Ms. Sutton, would you mind setting up the projector?”

“Yes. Of course,” she replied, a little too fast. Her voice cracked, a touch too loud.

She crossed the room, heels clicking far louder than they should. Her palms were slick. The console greeted her with a blank display and an unfamiliar security screen. She paused. Where was the access input? The software wasn’t what she knew. She tried her standard override.

Access denied.

Again.

Wrong password.

Behind her, someone cleared their throat. Sharp. Impatient.

Scarlet, maybe. Or Tseng.

It didn’t matter.

The sound was the same: Hurry up.

She could feel her pulse in her fingertips now, breath shortening as panic built behind her ribs.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

Lazard leaned down beside her, voice pitched low. “Try ‘MODOS-1’ as the access code.”

She typed it.

The projector hummed, flickered, then sprang to life, spilling pale blue light across the wall. Success.

Relief hit so fast her knees nearly gave out.

Conversations resumed. Scarlet was whispering something to Hojo. Tseng was skimming his tablet. Heidegger barked another boisterous laugh about something she hadn’t heard. And Sephiroth—

—was still looking at her.

His expression remained neutral, head angled just slightly—an almost imperceptible tilt that made him look like he was diagnosing a malfunction. Detached. Silent. As if she were some uncooperative machine he’d been tasked with observing, rather than a person unraveling by degrees. Whatever he saw in her, she couldn’t begin to guess.

Tori looked away first.

“Ms. Sutton,” Scarlet called sweetly, without glancing up. “How about refreshments for the room?”

It wasn’t a request.

It was another test—administered with lacquered nails and a sharp smile.

“Yes, Madam Director. Right away,” Tori replied, her voice thinner than she meant it to be.

She gathered what composure she could and excused herself from the room. The hallway beyond the conference doors stretched like a tunnel—sterile and oppressively quiet. This floor was unlike anything she had known in Service Center. Gone were the buzzing fluorescents and half-functioning elevators. Up here, the walls gleamed, the air purifiers hissed gently, and the doors whispered open and closed like secrets.

She followed a discreet sign to the employee breakroom and stepped inside, only to be met with more opulence—steel, glass, matte black surfaces, and the faint scent of something citrus and cold. The floor tile alone looked expensive enough to bill her for stepping on it.

At the far end of the room was a countertop tucked beneath recessed lighting, the soft glow highlighting a state-of-the-art coffee machine with a blue-tinted touchscreen display that looked more like a weapons console than an appliance. There was a cabinet of perfectly aligned mugs beside it. Everything was gleaming. Intimidating.

As she crossed to the beverage counter, her breath finally escaped her chest in one long, uneven rush. Her heels clicked once against the tile before she stopped, palms flattening against the cold countertop like she might collapse without it.

Her legs were shaking now—less from adrenaline and more from sheer depletion. She hadn’t sat down all day. Her datapad was dead. Her outfit was ruined. Her stomach had been gnawing at itself since ten. The ache behind her eyes throbbed like a low tide tugging something loose. And now—now—she was supposed to perform another minor miracle: deliver flawless hospitality with no second chances.

She turned to the coffee machine.

And there—reflected in its obsidian sheen—she saw herself.

Strands of hair clung to her cheek where her bun had caved. The blouse she’d chosen so carefully that morning was now stained and wrinkled beyond recognition. Her eyes—always her best feature—were rimmed with fatigue, red and glossy, blinking against a wave she could no longer hold back.

The tears came fast.

Hot. Mortifying.

She hunched forward, shoulders bowing over the breakroom sink. Her hands gripped the edge of the stainless steel, fingers curling like she could somehow wring the shame out of her body. This wasn’t just stress. It wasn’t pressure.

It was humiliation.

Layered. Compounded. Pressed down by every sideways glance, every clipped tone, every sigh that said, you’re not enough. She had held it in through the console fire disaster, through the tour, through the whispered comments and blank stares and Scarlet’s casually barbed sweetness.

But this—this damn coffee machine—was the final insult.

She buried her face in the crook of her arm and let herself cry. Quiet, angry tears. The kind that built up slowly and collapsed all at once. The kind that made her question why she ever thought she could rise above the desk where she used to deliver toner refills.

Imposter Syndrome didn’t creep in. It marched through the door and settled behind her eyes, flipping through old Service Center comments like a cruel little slide show:

“She’s sweet, just not leadership material.”

“She means well. That’s what counts.”

“She should stick to copywriting requests.”

“Cute, how she tries to take initiative.”

The breakroom spun slightly. She leaned against the coffee machine, willing the cool glass to take some of the heat from her skin.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to talk to Mrs. Thorne, she thought in defeat. Maybe there was still a desk open in Service Center she could return to. Maybe this was all a mistake.

Maybe—just maybe—she didn’t belong here after all.

“Ms. Sutton.”

The voice landed like a pin drop.

Her entire body locked. She didn’t turn—couldn’t. Her breath snagged in her throat, heat rising so fast it nearly blurred her vision. “One moment please,” she bit out as she wiped her face with the back of her sleeve, as if she could erase the evidence of her tears in one swipe. Her focus tunneled on the coffee machine, suddenly hyper-aware of every damp strand of hair stuck to her cheek, every tremble in her hands.

And then she turned—and jolted back so sharply she nearly collided with the counter.

Sephiroth.

The suddenness of him—the sheer size of him—knocked the breath from her lungs. Even in her heels, she barely reached his sternum. And there, framed by silver hair and leather harness straps, was the carved silhouette of a SOLDIER’s physique: strength honed, not flaunted. Unforgiving lines of muscle traced beneath matte black leather like something sculpted for war, not for mercy.

She couldn’t look up. Couldn’t meet those eyes again. Not when she still felt the hot streaks of tears cooling on her cheeks. Not when her reflection was still smeared across the coffee machine’s gloss like a ghost of everything she was trying to suppress.

But his presence pressed in anyway—like gravity itself had shifted to orbit him. She felt it in her pulse. In her breath. In the tightening space between them.

Tori swallowed, her throat dry and raw. Her gaze stayed fixed somewhere near the seam of his uniform. Her fingers curled instinctively against the counter, bracing herself against the vertigo of proximity—standing this close to the company’s most untouchable figurehead, a man whose reality operated in a stratosphere far above hers.

“Did Lazard inform you of the usual protocol for these meetings?” he asked, his voice quiet.

But not cold, Tori realized. It was soft. Maybe even concerned.

She cleared her throat. “No, sir. I’ve been improvising.”

He said nothing at first. Just moved beside her with a quiet assurance that made the air seem thinner. She stepped aside automatically, watching as he began to tap through the machine’s sleek digital interface with quiet precision.

“I prefer to do this myself,” he said by way of explanation.

Tori blinked, caught off guard by the contrast. Here stood Shinra’s war hero, pressing the cute latte button on the touchscreen like it was part of his daily ritual.

She risked a glance at him.

Silver hair immaculate—still in place even after drills with the Third-Class unit that morning. His uniform, partially shed, still somehow looked more formal than her best work attire. There was a dangerous grace about him, a stillness that implied he never truly dropped his guard.

If he saw her ruddy cheeks, he gave no indication.

Instead, he reached into the cabinet overhead and pulled out a paper cup.

“Your triage of the console this morning,” he said without looking at her, “was deft. You handled the situation well.”

Tori watched his movement in a trance.

The console. She had already forgotten about the whole ordeal. It felt like a lifetime ago.

“I—thank you,” she stammered.

“If that is any indication of your skill,” he continued, “then Lazard is in good hands.”

Tori felt that words settle somewhere deep—beneath the tight band around her ribs, below the storm of doubt still scraping against her confidence.

The machine gave a polite hiss as the latte began to pour.

Her stomach, exhausted and empty, chose that exact moment to let out another indignant growl.

Sephiroth’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. But something near the border of amusement.

“There are granola bars in the second drawer,” he said, already pulling it open. “Top shelf’s got tea. If you prefer that.”

Her outlook immediately brightened at the sight of the drawer overflowing in complimentary snacks.

“There’s no need to rush back,” he added, still facing the coffee machine. “Lazard will be presenting for the next hour. Nothing life or death. He can handle himself for that long.”

He turned then, latte in hand. The smell—warm, rich, faintly spiced—rose up to greet her.

Tori hesitated, still assuming it was for him.

But he held it out to her.

“You’ve done enough for now.”

The paper cup was warm against her fingers. The foam sat high and perfect beneath the lid, the cinnamon dusting almost delicate.

She stared at the cup, then at him. His expression was no less difficult to read, but there was a perceptible amity in the set of his mouth. As though he were giving her exactly what she needed and not a drop more.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He nodded once, then turned and grabbed a carafe of black coffee sitting off to the side before exiting the breakroom with the same effortless silence that had preceded him.

She stood there, latte cradled in both hands, the heat soaking into her palms.

And for the first time that day, her hands weren’t shaking.

Chapter Text

“Some people break down. Others reorganize the filing cabinet.”

The door clicked shut behind her with the soft finality of a coffin lid.

Tori stood in the entryway of her modest apartment, still wearing the shoes she meant to take off twenty minutes ago. Her satchel hung from one shoulder like a sack of lead, and her blouse—wrinkled, stained, and slightly untucked from the band of her skirt—was clinging to her with the loyalty of a bad decision.

Her ears rang in the absence of all the office cacophony. In it's place: a silence so complete it felt suspicious.

She collapsed onto her couch without ceremony, limbs sprawling like a marionette dropped from height. Her work bag thunked to the floor beside a pile of unopened mail and a to-go box of stir fry she had promised herself she would reheat.

Neither task seemed remotely achievable now.

The room smelled faintly floral from the beeswax candle her mother gave her three months ago. It was the smell of a life that had been quiet, if not particularly inspired. Her walls were lined with small, hopeful things—sticky notes with affirmations, postcards from nowhere important, a bulletin board half-covered in schedules and color-coded goal maps. All of them now felt like souvenirs from a more naïve version of herself. Someone who hadn’t yet stood in a boardroom under the withering scrutiny of Shinra’s board of directors. Who hadn’t fumbled with a security code while her pulse screamed in her ears. Who hadn’t cried into her arm over the breakroom sink, only to turn and find the Silver General—of all people—handing her a latte like a goddamn lifeline.

She exhaled sharply and stared at the ceiling, one hand splayed across her stomach, the other loosely fisting the fabric of her skirt. Her thoughts moved like floodwater—messy and fast, refusing containment. She replayed the entire day in sequence. Everything leading up to the breakroom.

And then, her thoughts settled on Sephiroth’s voice. Quieter than expected. Almost soothing as he offered her a vote of confidence. A stark contrast to the drill sergeant she had observed from afar instructing his underlings.

That, somehow, made it worse.

The most feared man in Shinra had seen her cry—and handed her a coffee sprinkled with cinnamon.

She groaned, covering her face with both hands. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Surely his kindness was out of pity. Just small nudge of encouragement in a place that had offered her very little. And yet that—his particular regard—lodged deeper than she wanted to admit.

Which was absurd. Lazard was her direct superior. The one whose opinion should matter most. He was gracious and highly respected. But Sephiroth’s opinion—no, his notice—seemed to strike a different chord entirely.

She sat up, heart still racing.

“No,” Tori groaned to herself. “Don’t go there. It’s a trap.”

Even she knew a handsome face and accidental compassion did not an eligible suitor make. She had to be careful—not to mistake his kindness for anything more than good manners. Not to fold just because someone powerful made room for her to stand.

But even as embarrassment licked up her spine yet again, something sturdier began to settle just beneath it. The faint, stubborn outline of resolve.

With a sharp breath, she swung her legs off the couch. Her pencil skirt clung to the backs of her thighs as she stood, crossing to the bathroom with stiff steps. She peeled it off, replaced it with soft cotton lounge pants and an oversized cardigan—one she usually reserved for rainy Saturdays and soup nights. Her hair came down next. She brushed it back with her fingers, catching sight of herself in the mirror. Exhausted but upright.

A small improvement.

She turned her attention to her heels—two nasty blisters had formed just below her ankle bones. With a practiced hand, she retrieved her emergency first-aid kit and padded the wounds, muttering softly as she applied the bandages. “No blood on day two. That’s the goal.”

Next came the blouse. The coffee stain had already set. She deliberated whether or not to throw it out, then rolled up her sleeves. Some things deserved salvaging.

She brought it to the kitchen sink and flipped the fabric inside out, rinsing it with cold water before reaching for her under-sink stash: white vinegar, a soft-bristle brush, and an empty spray bottle. The maintenance team had taught her a simple trick after a toner spill six months ago.

One part vinegar, two parts water. A little patience. A lot of blotting.

As the solution soaked in, she felt a familiar steadiness return—like aligning columns in a spreadsheet. Her world made more sense when she had a method. When her hands could fix something, no matter how small.

She finally returned to the couch, retrieving her tote from where she’d dropped it earlier.

Somewhere in the chaos, buried beneath her old ID badge and half a protein bar, was her battered Service Center notebook—the one with fraying corners and coffee rings stamped across every other page. She retrieved it and flipped to a blank section near the back. The pages were warm from travel, soft and familiar under her fingertips.

Her phone pinged inside the bag.

A missed text message. Group thread: Service Center Legends.

She tapped it open, thumb hovering over the string of texts she had neglected all day. Tori hadn’t been able to share the good news with her coworkers, too focused on surviving the moment. Perhaps, Mrs. Thorne had informed them when Tori failed to show up in her cubicle as usual.

Marlo had sent a thumbs-up gif.

Gordon dropped a celebratory sticker of a cat in a tie.

Janelle, though, had written only: Hope the big leagues are everything you dreamed, Sutton. LMK when you need us to dig you out.

Tori stared at it a moment too long, then pressed the screen dark again.

There was no malice in the message. Not exactly. But the tone clung to it like static—friendly on the surface, dismissive underneath. She could already hear Janelle’s voice: that clipped, singsong lilt she used when pretending not to be competitive.

Tori set her phone aside and turned to the kitchen table, pushing aside a stack of unopened utility bills and a potted succulent she had definitely overwatered. Her datapad joined the notebook, blinking to life with a cheery chime that felt vaguely inappropriate.

Tori reached for a pen.

She didn’t know how to fix the dysfunction that lingered in the Administrative Wing inside SOLDIER. She couldn’t rewrite the internal politics or silence the skepticism or stop the office from assuming she would fail just like the others.

But she could build something. A system. A rhythm.

“A game,” she realized with a strike of inspiration.

Getting up from the kitchen table, she dashed into her bedroom and retrieved the small red book from her nightstand. Perhaps it was fortuitous that this particular book came into her possession.

She flipped past the table of contents, past the foreword about psychological operations, and landed on a chapter she had dog-eared last night:

CHAPTER TWO: THE BOILING FROG COMPENDIUM

(For training purposes only. Do not distribute without proper clearance or, ideally, without a conscience.)

Should you place a frog in boiling water, dear reader, it will do the sensible thing and flee. Legs flailing, dignity intact, off it will leap with amphibious urgency. But place that same frog in tepid water, warm and seemingly harmless, and it will remain. Cozy. Acquiescent. It will blink slowly at you, paddle in place, and perish most elegantly once the bubbles begin.

This is not a metaphor.

It is a demonstration.

Within the corporate terrarium—be it a hydroelectric utility conglomerate, a defense agency, or, dare I say, Shinra Electric Power Company—the principle remains true: rapid change alarms the system. It triggers defense mechanisms. Protests. Policy reviews. Meetings.

But gradual deterioration?

Ah. That is the true saboteur’s delight.

One outdated memo.

One rescheduled meeting.

One faulty copier that never quite gets fixed but somehow still devours requisition forms like a hungered beast.

These are not accidents. They are choices. Micro-decisions stacked like termite eggs beneath the floorboards of operational integrity.

And when executed with discipline—subtlety, my dear reader—they result not in alarms but in resignation. Numbness.

A workplace wherein chaos is not noticed because it wears the uniform of routine.

I have long held that the most catastrophic acts of organizational sabotage are not performed by saboteurs at all, but by the competent—those who, through sheer force of will, prop up broken systems, create workarounds, and in doing so, become complicit in the very dysfunction they despise.

That is why I submit to you the Boiling Frog Strategy not as theory, but as a tool.

A compendium, if you will.

To infiltrate an institution bent on its own mediocrity, one must do so in degrees. The mission is not to expose chaos, but to cultivate it—quietly, expertly, beneath the surface of memos and meeting minutes and mandatory morale slideshows.

It is summer camp for the bureaucratically inclined.

Now: stir the water. Smile politely.

And wait for the bubbles.

— Dr. E.A. Petrovsky
Shinra Department of Internal Efficiencies | D.I.E.

Tori paused.

Her gaze drifted from the book to her own scribbled notes, still open beside her datapad. For all its dark metaphors, the logic was sound. Slow acclimation breeds complacency. But hadn’t she seen the reverse in Service Center? A fresh air filter, a hotplate for lunch, a shared joke pinned to the bulletin board—and morale, ever so slightly, lifted. The slightest improvement sparked momentum.

So why not use that?

Instead of boiling frogs, she would unboil them.

Not with grand gestures—those invited unwanted dependence. But with invisible upgrades. Structural warmth. The kind that wasn’t noticeable until someone realized they were breathing easier. Thinking clearer.

“Tactical kindness,” she murmured. “Covert coordination. Administrative insurgency.”

It would be her own strategy of reverse sabotage. The office wouldn’t even know what was happening until it happened.

She began jotting down her plan, her pen rushing across the page in overzealous delight not unlike Professor Hojo. Her back straightened. Her plan came within view in sharp clarity.

Tori didn’t have to win the war, she realized. She merely needed to outlast the chaos long enough to reroute its circuitry.

One form.

One folder.

One espresso-powered protocol at a time.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Now then.

Let us momentarily step away from the modest kitchen table, where Miss Torianne Sutton is currently surrounded by an assortment of pens, one contraband book on psychological subterfuge, and the lingering scent of vinegar from her earlier attempts at domestic textile triage.

Observe her: cardigan sleeves rolled to the elbows. Hair spilling haphazardly over her shoulders. Eyes squinted with quiet fire. A woman with a plan, if not yet a reputation.

She does not yet look like the kind of woman who will fire a missile at an active Shinra transport.

And yet.

In precisely thirteen days, at 0900 hours, Miss Sutton will be standing at the edge of Hangar Bay E4—chin high, datapad tucked like a sidearm beneath her elbow, and the other extended in crisp direction as she commands the full attention of the hangar staff. Her bun, miraculously intact, appears to have its own gravitational field. Her blazer is crisp, smart, in a soft shade of eggshell blue. Her expression is that of a woman who has spent the last two weeks hand-wrangling one of the most volatile departments in the entire Shinra organizational chain.

The transport, a matte black chopper emblazoned with the SOLDIER insignia, is whirring to life on the tarmac. Director Lazard, mid-conversation with General Sephiroth in the rear compartment, appears entirely unaware that his diplomatic credentials—and the custom briefcase containing three prototype treaty modules—have been left on his office desk beneath a half-eaten croissant and a commemorative coffee thermos from a trade summit in Mideel.

Cue the scramble. Cue one intern hyperventilating into a comms unit. Cue a middle manager running toward the blast doors in unlaced boots, eyes wide with existential dread.

But not Tori.

No, Miss Sutton calmly strides toward the weapons bay, where a startled but obliging technician named Greg is mid-snack and holding a wrench the size of his arm.

“I need a delivery capsule,” she says.

He blinks. “A—like for artillery?”

“Yes,” she says, already unzipping a foam-lined case she packed herself for such emergencies. “Retrofit for a non-explosive payload. You’ll want to adjust for drag. This item contains highly sensitive materials—and also a pastry. Director’s preference.”

And in less than five minutes, the capsule is loaded, the launcher calibrated, and Tori Sutton is standing at the edge of the hangar like an avenging secretary of destiny.

“FIRE!” she shouts.

Greg does as instructed.

The missile arcs—a perfect parabola, slicing through the early morning mist with the elegance of a swan and the velocity of an unpaid invoice. The entire hangar watches in reverent silence as it zips toward the chopper.

One of the gunners aboard, a man known only as Ludo (Specialist, third-class, allergic to shellfish), catches it with two gloved hands and the stoic grace of a man who has seen weirder things during transport drills.

Inside the cabin, Sephiroth glances sidelong through the reinforced glass. His expression does not change. And yet—it does.

From the eastern stairwell, a low whistle escapes a junior dispatch officer.

“Criminently. She just shot at the Director!”

And somewhere on the lower catwalk, one of the engineers quietly mutters, “I don’t know who that woman is, but I’m terrified of her in a good way.”

Applause is not given. Shinra does not do applause.

But respect, however grudging, begins to calcify.

And what of Tori?

She nods once, adjusts her sleeve, and checks her watch. Precisely on schedule.

But that moment, dear reader, is still in the future.

Tonight, Miss Sutton is simply jotting bullet points beneath the heading Phase One: Communications Reform. She yawns. She saves her notes. She glances at the clock and instantly regrets it.

In the quiet of her warm kitchen—beside the succulent she may or may not have named Succulentus Maximus—she closes her notebook and finishes her lukewarm tea.

And thinks, without saying it aloud, that maybe, just maybe, she hasn’t made a terrible mistake.

She does not know it yet, but she is very close to becoming dangerous.

And the office will never be the same.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Tori arrived the next morning before the lights in the SOLDIER Administrative Suite had fully brightened—those long, humming overhead bulbs still blinking to life in sluggish succession. The floor was quiet save for the distant mechanical grumble of the old coffee machine, muttering darkly to itself like a disgruntled employee forced to clock in early.

But Tori didn’t pause. Not to check her reflection in the glass walls. Not to second-guess the plan she had mapped out the night before. Her arms were full—one tote bag stuffed with highlighters and folder tabs, another brimming with tools borrowed from Maintenance. And balanced precariously on top, a bakery box of fresh bagels: sesame, poppyseed, everything, and three chocolate chip for the choosy.

She wore a pinstriped long-sleeve button-down tucked into a charcoal gray pencil skirt. Heels clicked quietly with each step. Her hair was twisted into a purposeful bun, secured with no fewer than nine bobby pins. A thermos of tea hung from her pinky finger like a quiet oath.

She did not cry. She did not flee. She rebuilt.

It began, as all revolutions should, with furniture.

By 8:15 a.m., the Maintenance crew had arrived—two veteran engineers in matching Shinra jumpsuits, grinning like boys about to dismantle a sandcastle. They remembered Tori from Service Center, from the time she rerouted the entire 38th floor’s delivery system after an elevator meltdown. One of them—Harvey—called her “Boss” before she’d even finished unrolling the blueprint of her new office layout.

Desks were rearranged for optimal flow. Filing cabinets were repositioned for accessibility. Chairs were tested, rejected, and replaced with ergonomic upgrades that supported posture and, more importantly, morale. The soft fluorescent bulbs overhead were swapped for daylight-spectrum lighting, and the old, chipped coffee mugs were quietly escorted into a labeled box: CERAMIC PURGATORY. A new rack of matching mugs gleamed beside the sink, adorned with employee initials in discreet vinyl lettering.

From her desk near the copier, Orla nibbled on a bagel, elbows perched elegantly on the armrests of her freshly adjusted chair. She watched the operation unfold with the solemn calm of a field general who had waited decades for reinforcements.

“I told you she wasn’t like the others,” she murmured to Choufluer and Kovacs.

The other two were busy exploring the different features of the new remote controlled receptionist desk.

By midday, the office shimmered like a fresh museum installation of peak administrative function. On each desk sat a pristine new PHS still wrapped in cellophane—each one configured by Tori with preprogramed features for things like:

— Code Orange — Copy Panic — Lunch???

Kovacs sighed upon activating hers. “It’s so intuitive,” she whispered, clutching it to her chest like a newly hatched chick.

Choufluer had already changed her wallpaper to a pastel skyline and programmed a ringtone that sounded like a jazzed-up Shinra anthem.

Tori didn’t linger for thanks. She was already on the move. On to the next thing.

To The Demon.

It’s official name was MODEL E7-A79: Office Print Management System, according to the manufacturer's plaque. But the sticky note taped to the manual tray said what everyone knew: THIS MACHINE EATS SOULS.

It had jammed. It had smeared. It had destroyed morale on no less than three separate occasions.

Tori stood before it like a priest before a cursed altar, arms crossed, waiting for the specialist she had summoned: Pilar from IT, a wiry woman with half-shaved hair, dark lipstick, and a steely gleam in her eye.

“It’s cursed,” Pilar confirmed upon arrival, unsheathing a compressed air canister. “We need to go in hard.”

What followed was nothing short of mechanical exorcism. Side panels came off. Cables were tested. A melted cough drop was found lodged in the output tray. Pilar cursed in three languages, slapped the side of the unit, coaxing it into submission.

The Demon whirred. Choked. And then, for the first time in however many days, printed a document.

In full color.

Without jamming.

Kovacs swept Tori into a tight hug as Choufluer and Orla danced around them in rapturous joy.

By late afternoon, the suite had found its rhythm—a low, buzzing hum of shared purpose. The new inbox folder for Team SOLDIER Admin went live. Emails auto-tagged by category. Outgoing correspondence was now blind-copied to all assistants. Everyone had eyes on everything.

And then, the piece de resistance: a rolling whiteboard, wheeled into the kitchenette by Tori herself, nearly flattening the forgotten pothos vine in the process. She wrote in thick, black marker:

THE SITUATION ROOM.

Laughter broke out spontaneously. 

“Wait,” Choufluer blinked. “Are we… organized?”

“I feel weird,” Kovacs said, looking pale and withdrawn. “Like I’ve showered emotionally.”

Orla, ever composed in her signature chaos, slowly turned in her chair to gaze at the spotless whiteboard, the absence of clutter, the smooth coordination humming around them like a low-frequency miracle. “Is this what joy feels like?” she asked, tone almost reverent. Then, with a smile sharp enough to dent steel: “This must be the end.”

Tori only smiled.

Marker still in hand. Skirt still pristine. Spine straight.

Not the end.

The beginning.

And it was only Tuesday.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The absence of fluorescent humming was the first thing Sephiroth noticed upon entering the upper-tier hallway of the SOLDIER complex. That, and the scent of fresh paint—subtle, industrial, tinged faintly with citrus cleaner. His boots made no sound on the tile as he strode beside Angeal, who was speaking in low tones about the fallout in Sector 4.

“The infrastructure report from Engineering is three days late,” Angeal muttered, shaking his head. “If they’d flagged the weakening seam when I filed the first request—”

“They didn’t,” Sephiroth said flatly. “So we patch it. Then we move.”

Angeal grunted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. His gaze shifted as they approached the glass doors of the Administrative Wing, which—oddly—had been propped open.

Inside, the suite buzzed with a quiet, coordinated chaos.

The copier was halfway disassembled. Maintenance carts flanked the corridor like military barricades. Cables trailed across the carpet in clean, deliberate loops. The whiteboard in the kitchenette bore a large, bold label: THE SITUATION ROOM, below which someone had scrawled a skull with crossbones and the words No gods, no masters, no fear.

Sephiroth’s brows ticked upward.

Standing at the center of it all, flanked by IT and Maintenance and a loose semi-circle of junior assistants with bagels in hand, was the redheaded woman he had found crying in the breakroom just yesterday.

Torianne Sutton.

She was issuing instructions to a female technician from IT—calm, crisp, unbothered—as the technician jabbed at the inner workings of the cursed copier with a screwdriver. Her sleeves were rolled, her shirt neatly pressed in subtle pinstripes, and the toe of one black heel tapped quietly as she waited for the jam to dislodge. She looked like a foreman, not a secretary. Focused. Self-possessed. Determined.

Angeal leaned slightly toward him. “Who’s that?”

“Lazard’s new assistant,” Sephiroth replied, voice low.

Angeal blinked. “You’re joking.”

Sephiroth didn’t answer. He merely watched as Tori knelt to inspect the copier tray, eyebrows drawing together with the gravity of a demolition expert handling live explosives.

It was… endearing.

Not in the simplistic way people used that word—cloying or sweet or soft—but in its rarer form. Steadfast. Fierce. The kind of resolve that shrugged off embarrassment and clawed its way toward usefulness, no matter how graceless the beginning.

He remembered her shoulders shaking over the sink. The cracked voice. The trembling hands.

And then—his own, outstretched palm. Offering her the latte.

He hadn’t thought much of it at the time. A courtesy, yes. But one issued with deliberation. Lazard had gone through four assistants in less than two months. Each had arrived with a résumé full of poise and left with an emotional support plant and a signed HR memorandum. Lazard, for all his intellect and strategic nuance, lacked the basic scaffolding skills to onboard someone properly—especially under pressure. And everything about this department, this floor, this building—was pressure.

Sephiroth had not intervened to rescue her.

But… it would have been a waste to lose someone for lack of a little grace on the first day.

Now, watching her navigate the chaos with startling command—issuing directions to Maintenance, doling out custom PHS units, sipping her own coffee out of a stainless steel thermos between bursts of multitasking—Sephiroth could not help but feel… reassured.

She had returned.

And she brought bagels.

Choufleur and Kovacs were seated in swivel chairs like devoted acolytes, eating from a pastry box labeled in Sharpie: SOLDIER FUEL – DO NOT HOG. Orla was marking a new grid on the whiteboard. Even the IT technician looked vaguely impressed, muttering something approving about someone finally calling in a real maintenance requisition.

Sephiroth exhaled softly through his nose.

There might be hope for SOLDIER yet.

He turned from the scene, continuing down the hall beside Angeal, who was now launching into a tangent about building integrity and mako fiend pestilence. Sephiroth offered a distracted hum, but his mind lingered on the woman across the hall. Not the crying figure from the breakroom. The one who had just rebuilt an office in a day.

He was, for once, curious to see what she would do next.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The café was quieter than expected.

Tori stood near the hot bar with a plastic tray in hand, eyeing the assortment of braised meat and vegetables like it all might disappear. She was not going to have another repeat of yesterday – failing to eat a proper meal before the day got away from her. She had been on her feet since 6:00 a.m., implementing the first phase of her plan while diplomatically discouraging an infantryman from lounging in the receptionist waiting room. She was exhausted. She deserved a hearty meal.

“Well, well,” came a voice behind her. “Look who went corporate.”

Tori stiffened.

Turning, she found herself face-to-face with Janelle from Service Center. She was flanked by Gordon and Marlo, both of whom broke into surprised smiles.

“Tori!” Gordon said, giving her a light pat on the arm. “Heard you got moved up to the 62nd. That true?”

“It is,” Tori replied, forcing a smile. “Executive Admin now. Just started this week.”

Marlo let out a low whistle. “No kidding. That must be a change. What’s it like up there?”

Tori opened her mouth to answer, but Janelle cut in. “Probably lonely. We all know how long they last.”

The words were coated in syrupy innocence, but the venom beneath was unmistakable.

“Well,” Tori said carefully, “I plan to last.”

Janelle tilted her head, eyes skimming over Tori’s button-down and pencil skirt. “Sure. Just don’t blink. HR might mistake you for a budget line.”

Gordon shifted uncomfortably. Marlo cleared his throat.

Tori offered a thin smile and glanced toward the far end of the cafeteria—just in time to see Orla moving toward her like a black bob in tailored slacks.

“There you are, Ms. Sutton,” Orla said smoothly. “Lazard is asking for you. Something about a dignitary lunch he wants you to attend with him.” As the words left her, she paused. Momentarily dazed. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I only just realized I could have pinged you on my new PHS.”

“That’s alright, Orla,” Tori replied in understanding, grateful for her presence. “Soon it will become second nature.”

There was another scoff.

“‘Ms. Sutton’?” Janelle repeated with a smirk. “Already working hard for that executive title, huh? I suppose you’re too good for us lowly specialists in the Meatgrinder now.”

Tori returned her plastic tray to the bin, fixing Janelle with a cool look.

“Perhaps if you applied yourself more, Janelle, you too could join the ranks of upper administration,” she said in a tone that was neither scathing nor condescending. “But until then, I do understand how challenging it must be—adjusting to someone else’s success.”

Janelle opened and closed her mouth like a fish. Gordon and Marlo visibly winced.

Tori smiled. “Excuse me,” she said to the trio. “Nice seeing you all.”

She didn’t look back as she exited the cafeteria with Orla.

“Who were they?” Orla asked in open reproach.

“My old team,” Tori explained. “Some of them just haven’t realized I’m not coming back.”

The thought gladdened her more than she expected.

There had been a moment—no, several—during her first day in SOLDIER when the weight of humiliation, anxiety, and sheer overwhelm had nearly sent her spiraling back to the safety of the Service Center. She had come dangerously close to marching back down to HR and demanding her old cubicle be returned, right down to the dusty fern and passive-aggressive printer queue. The thought of giving Janelle the satisfaction of watching her slink back, tail tucked, was mortifying in hindsight.

Tori smoothed her dress shirt and exhaled slowly.

No. She was glad she had stayed. Glad she hadn’t folded under the pressure of a rocky first impression or the eyes that had already written her off. For all the missteps and tension, there was something exhilarating about building a system from the ground up—about proving, if only to herself, that she could survive the firestorm and make something better out of the ashes.

The hallway beyond the food court smelled faintly of axel grease and lemon floor polish. Tori walked alongside Orla, scrolling through the messages on her phone as they approached the elevator bay. She was in the middle of dispatching a reply to Lazard when she paused.

Just past the elevators, something tugged at her attention. A shape. A shift.

Percival Dockery.

He wasn’t supposed to be here—not in this corridor, not above ground level, not anywhere outside the hermetically sealed depths of the Restricted Archives. Tori had only ever glimpsed him in the lowest sublevels, always half-shadowed by stacked crates and blinking consoles. Seeing him now, clutching a manila folder like it might be snatched from his hands, was like spotting a lighthouse clerk in a ballroom.

“Miss Sutton,” he said, voice paper-thin. “You’re just the person I need.”

Tori slowed, caught off guard. “Mr. Dockery. I’m actually on my way to meet Director Lazard. If this is a work order—”

“It’s not,” he cut in, lowering his voice. “Not something I can log. Not something I can trust to stay logged.”

He glanced over his shoulder—not at anyone in particular, but at the hallway itself, like it might be listening.

“There was a withdrawal,” he said. “From Section R7. A file that shouldn’t have been touched. Blueprint classification. Cleared years ago, then buried. But on Friday morning, it vanished.”

Tori blinked. “Vanished how?”

“No checkout scan. No barcode trail. No internal receipt. Just gone.”

She frowned. “Could it be a cataloging error?”

“That was my first thought,” Dockery said. “But I know the stack. I know every title in that section. And this one’s just… missing. Not misfiled. Not mislabeled. Missing.”

A chill started low in her spine.

“You were down there Friday morning,” he added. “Shelving. Did you see anyone else?”

Tori tried to recall. The day had been a blur—rows of binders, the quiet hiss of HVAC, her own thoughts circling like moths.

“No one that stood out,” she said cautiously. “No one I remember.”

Dockery nodded, but it was the sort of nod that meant nothing had been solved.

“I didn’t want to put this in a ticket,” he murmured. “Because if someone did take it... and they scrubbed the log... I’d be flagging myself by reporting it.”

Tori took a half-step back. “Mr. Dockery, if this is a breach—”

“I didn’t say that,” he snapped, too quickly. “I said something disappeared. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. But I know it happened on my shift.”

His eyes darted toward the ceiling vents.

“If you remember anything—anything at all—don’t forward it. Don’t tag it. I’ll find you again.”

The elevator chimed.

Lazard stepped out, brightening when he saw her. “Ah, Ms. Sutton,” he said cheerfully. “If you’ll kindly join me, there’s a car waiting to take us to the Intercorp luncheon.”

“Yes, sir,” she said automatically, but her gaze remained locked on Dockery.

Dockery was already retreating into the crowd, his coat flapping around him like a cloak caught in the wrong weather. “Congratulations, by the way,” he called softly over his shoulder. “You’re a good hire. Be careful.”

He was gone before she could answer.

Orla appeared at her elbow like an omen.

“That was strange,” she said mildly.

Tori’s reply came slower this time. “He’s from Archives. Probably just… tired.”

Orla raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t we all.”

Tori had no choice but to follow Lazard toward the entrance lobby. But her mind was no longer in motion. It was stuck on a single word:

Vanished.

Chapter Text

"A gathering of crows is called a murder; a gathering of assistants is called a reckoning."

The car ride to the luncheon was quiet and only vaguely concerning.

Tori had assumed—perhaps foolishly—that this would be her chance to speak with Lazard. Ask a few questions. Gauge the social terrain. Maybe even share a light anecdote to break the ice.

But the moment they slid into the backseat of the sleek Shinra transport, his phone lit up like a fireworks show.

“Apologies,” he murmured, barely glancing her way as he began typing furiously with one hand, swiping through alerts with the other. “Just a few things from the upper barracks.”

“Of course, sir.”

More pings. A vibrating call. Lazard answered without preamble:

“Tell him the materia batch isn’t cleared for field use. He either waits, or he gets decommissioned for insubordination.” A beat. “If it glows green and hisses, it’s not supposed to do that.”

Another text. A follow-up call. Another ping.

“Please excuse me,” he said again, eyes still on his screen.

Tori sat stiffly beside him, watching in silence as he fielded request after request—supply chain snags, mission approvals, personnel disputes, and someone named Walsh demanding an immediate reassignment due to “psychological trauma,” which Lazard took in stride.

Meanwhile, she glanced down at her outfit and winced. Definitely not executive-luncheon formal. A memo would’ve helped. A calendar ping. Even thirty seconds to swap shoes or retouch her lipstick. But no—this was firehose training, and she had to roll with the punches.

Still, she made a mental note to carry business cards from now on. Maybe even invest in a holster. There was a Shinra-friendly surplus shop near the visitor’s center, full of tactical nonsense and novelty TURK gear—she’d find something.

She looked back at Lazard. Polished as ever in his navy suit and pressed shirt, his expression composed even as his thumbs worked at blur-speed across the screen. But his shoulders were tight. The small crease between his brows deepened with every new alert.

She recognized that look—sleeves metaphorically rolled, trying to hold back a tidal wave. She’d worn that look more times than she cared to count. No one had stepped in to help her, either.

And then it hit her: Lazard wasn’t distracted because he didn’t care.

He was distracted because he cared too much.

He wanted to do right by everyone under his command, which—unfortunately—meant letting himself be crushed beneath the weight of it all. The calls, the texts, the constant secondhand crises. SOLDIERs clearly relied on him for everything, large or small.

No wonder the position turned over so quickly.

Lazard didn’t need an assistant.

He needed a firewall.

She looked at him again—and saw something even rarer than arrogance or incompetence: decency.

Misapplied, sure. But real.

Something in her chest gave a subtle twist. It wasn’t pity. It was recognition.

And maybe—if she was honest—a little worry.

For both of them.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Their destination rose into view like a palace on a hill—an opulent five-star hotel nestled in Midgar’s arts district, all glass chandeliers and polished marble. The kind of place that offered cucumber water in the lobby and silently judged anyone who sank too deep into the furniture.

Tori eyed the entrance with quiet resignation. She was still wearing the wrong heels.

They left their car with the valet and strolled into the main ballroom, where ambient string music filled the space with a soft, civilized chaos. Executives mingled in dense clusters, forming territorial rings around the canapés. Laughter floated in bursts, occasionally undercut by the hushed baritone of backroom negotiations.

Lazard adjusted his cufflinks, already scanning the crowd. “I figured this was as good an opportunity as any to have you meet the other assistants,” he said, tone low and distracted. “It’s always good to foster interdepartmental friends—just try not to get recruited into a rival department.”

He gave her a wry grin, and just like that, he was gone—vanishing into a clot of regional directors like a well-dressed soap bubble absorbed by the tide.

Tori blinked at the empty space where he’d been standing.

“Right,” she muttered. “Social freefall it is.”

She took a steadying breath and began weaving her way through the ballroom, dodging clusters of executives with practiced grace, her eyes scanning for signs of sanctuary. That’s when she saw it—a loose semicircle of well-dressed individuals lingering near the edge of the room, all of them armed with tote bags, datapads, and the unwavering vigilance of owners at a dog park.

The trappings of the other support staff.

Bingo.

With a quick adjustment of her shirt collar, Tori approached the group.

“Is this tuna tartare any good?” She asked a young man, pointing to the buffet. “I’m famished.”

He turned to her. Sunshine, sharpened into human form. Tousled blond hair, a tailored white polo that clung just enough to suggest gym loyalty, and a lanyard speckled with commemorative Shinra enamel pins.

“Hello,” he said warmly, his grin as easy as his face. “You must be new. Wesley Hart.”

"Tori Sutton," she replied, shaking hands with him.

Wesley peered at her with a slight wrinkle in his brow.

“Are you with Intercorp?” he asked.

“Shinra, actually.”

“Oh? Well then,” Wesley said, holding her hand in both of his like they were about to cross a road together. “Welcome to the outer banks of corporate jockeying. Skip the tartare. The crab puffs are life-changing."

Grateful for his kindness, Tori followed him to the end of the buffet where she loaded her plate with an assortment of canapés, cheese cubes, and something wrapped in fig leaves. Wesley watched with approval, much like a proud sponsor.

"Let me introduce you to the other ‘Second-in-Commandments’,” Wesley said brightly, gesturing with his little plate of canapés. “We’re basically a support group for raising high-functioning executives in the wild. Think young moms at a playground, except the kids are forty, carry sidearms, and occasionally declare fiscal war on other departments.”

Tori frowned at that. “A support group?”

“Oh, absolutely,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “It’s very important to have a circle when you’re the one doing all the scheduling, feeding, emotional regulating, and damage control. You give and give—and sometimes, Tori, they throw a temper tantrum anyway.”

He leaned in conspiratorially, lowering his voice. “We try to meet like this as often as we can. Just a little vent session over some catering. Sometimes we like to slip a little—” he mimed taking sips out of an imaginary flask while winking at her. “No judgment. Just a few of us assistants helping each other survive the developmental milestones.”

Tori was perplexed but smiled, nonetheless. “How nice.”

Wesley’s eyes flicked toward the ballroom floor, his expression suddenly shifting into what could only be described as maternal alertness. Without breaking conversational stride, he nudged the elbow of a woman holding a paper-thin cracker to her lips.

“Lavender,” he murmured, “yours is doing the cold-shoulder shuffle.”

Lavender followed his gaze and immediately spotted Director Tuesti standing stiffly beside a drink station, arms crossed tight over his chest and rubbing his sleeves like someone braving a chilly wind on a spring day. He was nodding politely through a conversation with two board members, but his shoulders were hunched and his lips pressed into a blue-tinged line.

“Oh no,” Lavender breathed, already in motion.

In a move Tori could only describe as mediation, Lavender plucked a blazer from the back of a nearby chair—one clearly tailored for Tuesti’s narrow frame—and grabbed a bottle of mineral water off the serving cart in one fluid motion. She gave Wesley a grateful squeeze of the arm and made her way toward her charge with the practiced grace of a mother crossing a crowded sandbox with SPF 50 and a juice box.

Tori watched, stunned. “Is… is she Director Tuesti’s—”

“Executive assistant?” Wesley nodded, a proud glint in his eye. “Lavender Finchley. Urban Development. Been with Tuesti six years now. They share a similar disposition, don’t you think? Sensitive souls, big-picture thinkers, endless wells of patience. There’s a saying in our group: the admin often takes after their charge.”

“Oh?” Tori tilted her head, intrigued. “How so?”

Wesley lit up the way a proud camp counselor might before announcing cabin awards. “Let me demonstrate. Think of it like a dog show. Observe.”

He angled his head discreetly toward a looming figure near the security exit. “Rocco Rinaldi,” he whispered. “Public Safety. Heidegger’s handler.”

Tori followed his gaze—and nearly dropped a cheese cube.

Rocco stood like a slab of concrete poured into a uniform. Barrel-chested, shaved scalp gleaming beneath the overhead lights, arms folded across his broad torso like sandbags stacked before a flood. He chewed a puff pastry with the grim focus of a man reliving trench warfare.

“Looks like a jaw breaker,” she murmured.

“Yet plays the accordion at staff parties,” Wesley replied, deadpan. “Rumor has it he once carved a full bust of Heidegger from an oak log during a department retreat. As a joke. They laughed for seven full minutes. No one knows why it was even remotely funny. Some say they bonded over the shared trauma of administrative hearings. Others say blood was involved.”

Tori blinked. “Was it a nice bust?”

“Terrifyingly accurate,” Wesley said. “They displayed it in the Public Safety lobby for a week until it mysteriously vanished. We assume it was… repurposed.”

Tori bit her lip to stifle a laugh.

Next, Wesley tilted his head toward the far end of the ballroom. “And there,” he murmured, almost reverently, “is the queen herself—Brett Donahue. President Shinra’s right and left hand. Possibly also his spine.”

Tori followed his gaze and spotted her instantly.

Brett stood apart from the crowd like an immovable landmark—elegant, severe, and untouched by the chatter around her. Her chignon was sculpted artfully at the base of her neck, her navy suit so sharply tailored it looked like it could cut glass. One hand held a crystal tumbler of iced tea; the other, a slow-burning cigar she puffed like a general surveying a battlefield. She didn’t mingle. She ruled.

“Austere,” Tori whispered, the word escaping before she could stop it.

“She blackballed a Deputy Director once,” Wesley agreed, voice hushed with awe. “For showing up twelve minutes late to a donor breakfast. Rumor is, the man tried to apologize—and she told him, ‘Tardiness is the first sign of moral rot.’”

Tori blinked.

“Brett,” Wesley added, “is the reason the rest of us set calendar reminders six months in advance and live in fear of typos.”

Tori nodded slowly, her throat suddenly dry. “Good to know.”

Then came the cold chill.

“Ferris Knox,” Wesley muttered, the shift in tone so sharp it sliced the air. “Research and Development.”

Tori turned—and there he was. Ferris was standing just behind Professor Hojo, though he looked more like the professor’s shadow cast in marble. Tall, willowy, shoulder-length black curls. His lab coat crisp as white bandages. He had dark, expressive eyes that didn’t blink nearly enough, and lips so pinched they looked like they were forever forming the word hmm.

He caught her gaze from across the room and smiled—not with warmth, but with calculation. It felt like being weighed on a scale and found hypothetically interesting.

“I… assume he takes after Hojo?” she murmured.

“Oh, at minimum,” Wesley said with a hollow little laugh, “he preceded Hojo. Or maybe outlasted is the better word.”

Tori glanced at him.

“There was a containment failure a few years back,” Wesley added, his bright tone at odds with his drawn expression. “Junior scientists—completely vaporized. Except one. Ferris. Crawled out of the lab three days later. Hojo took one look and decided he’d found his new assistant. Like picking out a rare brooch at an estate sale.”

Tori blinked.

“He doesn’t really assist so much as haunt,” Wesley continued, the forced levity barely masking his discomfort. “He looms. He whispers. He once said something in Hojo’s ear that made two interns resign before lunch.”

As if on cue, Ferris tilted his head slightly—like he knew they were talking about him. His gaze locked on Tori, eyes gleaming with speculative menace.

Tori looked away first.

“He knows we’re watching him,” she said.

“Oh, he always knows,” Wesley replied, his voice low. “That’s half the horror.”

With both hands on her shoulders, he steered her to the opposite side of the room.

“Of course,” Wesley continued breezily, “the resemblance theory doesn’t always track.”

He gestured toward a petite blonde woman standing nearby, fingers flying across three separate devices with the precision of a concert pianist playing a fugue.

“Henrietta Larkspur,” he said, reverently. “Space Program. Palmer’s assistant.”

Tori blinked. “That’s Palmer’s assistant?”

“I know. Try not to stare directly at her or your brain might melt. Palmer’s over there double-fisting lobster rolls, and Henrietta’s coordinating a rocket launch, a budget overhaul, and an ethics committee hearing—with her elbows.”

As if on cue, Henrietta barked into her headset, “If the fuel ratio’s wrong, I will come down there and do the math myself.” Then she took a sip of a green smoothie and resumed typing with terrifying serenity.

Wesley gave her a fond, pitying smile. “Henrietta, sweetheart—water. Take five. What’s the motto?”

“Executives are replaceable,” she snapped, eyes still on her screens. “We are not.”

“Attagirl.”

Tori watched the exchange with mild horror. “Shouldn’t that be the other way around?”

“Oh honey,” Wesley said, gently. “If you don’t install rails early, they’ll drive you straight off the workaholic cliff. The whole lot of them—high-functioning, low-boundary, caffeine-fueled spirals just waiting to detonate.”

Tori chuckled, even as her brows pulled together. “And yours?”

Wesley lit up like a match in a powder keg.

“Scarlet,” he announced with no trace of irony. “Weapons Development.”

Tori’s smile evaporated. “Scarlet?”

Wesley nodded proudly, like a kindergarten teacher discussing his most gifted—but emotionally volatile—student. “She’s a firecracker. But once you get past the emotional detonation zone, she’s all velvet and praise kinks.”

Tori sputtered. “That’s… graphic.”

“She’s very emotionally intelligent,” he said with conviction. “Just selectively. Mostly with me.”

Before Tori could recover, the ballroom shifted like a pressure drop.

The scent hit first—an intoxicating cocktail of sandalwood, gunpowder, and something corrosive enough to strip paint. Scarlet strode through the crowd in a crimson power suit so sharp it belonged in a weapons locker. Her heels drove holes in the carpet with unapologetic precision.

“Wesley,” she purred, her voice sliding like silk over steel, “this food is absolute trash. When we get back, I want the teriyaki bento from the place on 3rd—the one with the duck. You know the one.”

“Of course,” Wesley chirped. “But before we condemn the buffet to total annihilation, why don’t you try one of the chocolate-covered strawberries you like so much? They’re seasonal.”

Scarlet paused, her gaze sweeping the table like a general reviewing enemy troop placement. One brow arched.

“I’ll eat your chocolate-covered strawberry,” she said, low and deliberate.

Tori flushed, scandalized.

Wesley simply sighed. “Now now, Madam Director. What did we say about codependency?”

Scarlet’s laugh rolled out—low, decadent, and somehow threatening. She grabbed a strawberry, bit into it like it had personally wronged her, then turned to leave.

“You always tell me what to do,” she whined over her shoulder, sing-song and dangerous.

“I do it because I care,” Wesley called back cheerfully, producing a bottle of water from seemingly nowhere. “Remember to hydrate, ma’am.”

Tori stared at him, eyes wide. “She listens to you.”

“She trusts me,” Wesley corrected, beaming. “Which is rarer. I’m the only one who holds her purse and her passwords.”

His pride glowed like a badge of honor.

Tori couldn’t tell if he was brave… or already too far gone.

Possibly both.

By now, the others had drifted closer—Rocco reached for another puff pastry, Lavender pulled Henrietta away from her holograms, and even Ferris stepped into the ring, smiling thinly like a cat observing a new bird in the cage.

Then Wesley, ever the charitable host, turned to Tori with a smile. “So, which one is yours?”

Tori seized up suddenly, almost forgetting that she was joining their ranks and owed Wesley the same courtesy as he had shown her. Setting her empty plate aside, she blotted her lips with a napkin before smiling at the group.

“I’m with SOLDIER,” she said, throwing her shoulders back. “I’m Lazard’s new assistant.”

The silence that followed was immediate.

A perceptible malaise overcame the group, almost as if the light had been snuffed from their gazes. Brett raised a single, razor-arched brow. Henrietta dropped a communication device and failed to recover it as she gaped at Tori with an open mouth. Even Lavender’s kind expression faltered, dimming to something between pity and preemptive mourning.

“Oh dear,” said Wesley, growing ever so pale. “Sweetheart, if you need a safe word—just message the group chat with a crying emoji and a coffee cup.”

Ferris broke into a dark laugh. It curled at the edge of her nerves like smoke from a leaking vent.

“Interesting,” he said, folding his arms and eyeing her anew. “I don’t recall seeing your name posted in the job portal. HR tends to keep a tight stable of candidates.”

Tori’s stomach clenched. “I came from Service Center,” she said simply.

There was a pause.

Then Brett exhaled like she had just discovered the answer to an unsolved mystery. “Ah. The redhead from the Meatgrinder.”

Tori blinked. The nickname seemed to proceed her even in the highest of company circles. That, or it was just the most obvious thing about her that prevented others from remembering her name. Regardless, it served to flatten her into a shape that didn’t quite fit anymore.

“The perky one,” Brett continued, inspecting her like a faulty invoice. “Had all the departments clamoring for you to handle their work orders. Quite industrious it seems.”

“Yes, that explains it.” Ferris grinned. “That eagerness was almost... fluorescent.”

He tilted his head slightly, a dark curl slipping across one eye as he considered her keenly.

“HR can smell optimism like sharks smell blood. Makes them twitch. Sometimes they like to throw it somewhere volatile… just to see what breaks first.”

Tori flattened her gaze, refusing to give him any inkling of her fear. Instead, she straightened.

“Thank you,” she said evenly, plucking a crab puff from the tray beside Ferris. “But I’ve worked in worse circumstances, trust me. At least here they haven’t handed me a harness, a flashlight, and a rope, then pointed to the ceiling and said, ‘Find the rotting tuna before the VP snaps.’ It’s actually a nice change of pace.”

“I’ve always admired Service Center,” Ferris mused, hands clasped behind his back like he was addressing a glass display. “So innocuous. So easily overlooked. And yet—always humming in the background. You must’ve been quite the industrious little cog.”

Tori blinked. Was that supposed to be a compliment? Or a veiled threat? There were only so many ways to dissect a person politely, and Ferris seemed fluent in all of them.

Then Brett’s gaze dipped—unhurried and cutting—tracing from the hem of Tori’s skirt to her unpolished nails, the faint gloss of drugstore lipstick, the absence of effort she hadn’t realized might be judged.

“And here I thought the rumor was a cruel exaggeration,” Brett said, voice laced with airy disdain. “About the new girl showing up to a board meeting in a state of disrepair. But now I see.”

Silence fell like a dropped scalpel—clean, sharp, and cold.

Heat rose in Tori’s neck. She could feel her blouse dampen between her shoulder blades, her heartbeat ticking up like a warning. Her spine stayed straight, her jaw tight—but inside, the certainty was already slipping. Her fingernails bit into the soft napkin in her hand, her mind scrambling to find something—anything—to anchor her footing again.

Was this hazing? Or were they genuinely horrified?

She wasn’t sure which was worse.

Wesley, thankfully, stepped in like sunshine through a raging thunderhead.

“Alright,” he announced brightly, clapping his hands. “Let’s pivot. Anyone want to place bets on how many lobster rolls Palmer can fit into his pockets before we leave?”

The shift was instant. Lavender let out a grateful huff of laughter. Henrietta arched a brow without looking up from her screen. Even Rocco snorted.

Tori breathed again.

“Don’t let them get you,” Wesley added, voice gentler now as he placed a warm hand on her arm. “Everyone starts out a little… pink around the ears.”

“And Brett only gives unsolicited grooming advice to the people she thinks have potential,” Lavender added with a smile. “She once made Henrietta cry with an eyebrow pencil.”

“I was sleep-deprived,” Henrietta muttered. “And I still use that pencil.”

Even Ferris offered something that could have passed as genuine—in his own unsettling way.

“Let’s see if you last longer than the previous ones.” He winked.

Tori shot him a reproachful look. “This is my job. Not some game.”

This drew a crooked grin from him.

“Could have fooled me.”

The group lapsed into silence as the luncheon showed signs of commencing. The main course was being served. Executives drifted back toward their assigned tables in awkward tides of charm and calculation.

Then, like a sudden gust, Lazard reappeared—frazzled, breathless, and visibly overwhelmed by some urgent message on his PHS. His tie was askew, his blazer rumpled, his features pinched with stress. “Ms. Sutton,” he said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave early. SOLDIER business.”

The group of assistants glanced at one another. Silent. Understanding.

Tori nodded. She grabbed two water bottles for the drive back to HQ, casting one last look at the semicircle of seasoned survivors.

Brett lifted her glass.

Henrietta offered a salute with a stylus.

Lavender and Rocco gave a wave.

Ferris smiled with all the warmth of a wolf in a white lab coat.

And Wesley mouthed the words crying emoji + coffee cup.

As she followed Lazard out of the ballroom and back toward the waiting car, Tori didn’t let herself look back again. Not because she didn’t care—but because she did.

Let them pity her. Let them count her out.

She wasn’t here to earn their approval. She was here to hold the line.

And she wasn’t going anywhere.

Chapter Text

“Orientation doesn’t cover poisoned coffee or executive meltdowns—but they should.”

By the time Tori returned to the office, the warmth of the Intercorp luncheon had worn off along with the last of her borrowed confidence. Despite her best effort to show up prepared and professional, she had walked straight into the matriarchal gauntlet of President Shinra’s executive assistant and been summarily flayed for her trouble.

With a single glance, Brett Donahue reminded Tori—and everyone else—that she was the off-brand version of executive competence. Her humble origins from Service Center had turned the venerable woman cold almost instantly.

It was a subtle annihilation. The kind that left bruises on the inside of your ribs.

Now, back at her desk, Tori sank into her chair while trying not to wilt. The documents she had gathered earlier that morning fanned across her workspace in tidy, expectant rows—but her thoughts were elsewhere. They remained fixated on the realization that, somehow, her first impression in the boardroom meeting had already been distributed through the rumor mill.

Embarrassment crept back in, persistent as ever.

In the black mirror of her computer screen, her reflection stared back: not messy, not inappropriate… just plain. Serviceable. A blouse that didn’t wrinkle, shoes that didn’t blister, hair pulled back in a way that suggested effort without flair. Not unprofessional—but nowhere near the high standard she had witnessed among the other assistants. Each of them had looked every bit as refined as the directors themselves. In some cases, even more so.

Tori thought work ethic came first—that grit, intelligence, and follow-through were what earned a person respect. But now, she wasn’t so sure. In this echelon, performance alone wasn’t enough. You had to be styled for the part, edited into someone else’s ideal of executive adjacency.

At this level, being competent was assumed.

But belonging had to be cultivated.

She frowned at her reflection, already calculating when she might squeeze in a salon appointment between interdepartmental memos and Lazard’s next urgent errand. Just another task to add to her growing list.

A little contour, she thought, pinching her cheekbones, a better shade of lipstick, shoes that clicked with more authority perhaps.

She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. The Second-in-Commandments were more than a clique. They were a network—a network with access, influence, and finely sharpened opinions about who did and didn’t belong. Tori did the math.

Cons: Brett was a basilisk in navy silk. Henrietta could code a satellite launch with one hand while reducing someone’s self-esteem with the other. Lavender, while kind, had the full discretion of someone who had kept secrets for years. Ferris… Ferris was an entirely different category of threat.

Pros: As Wesley had explained with syrupy kindness, they watched out for each other. Shared intel. Protected their own. And Tori had the distinct feeling that Brett Donahue’s influence spanned continents—and quite possibly the celestial planes.

If she wanted to last longer than a month, she would need more than sheer will and organizational efficiency. She needed cover. Or at least someone who would warn her before the next dagger got thrown.

She pulled out her PHS and made a note to ask Choufluer or Kovacs which salon they preferred this side of the Upperplate. Preferably one that offered after-hours booking and discreet cash transactions.

Decision made, she powered up her computer, ready to tackle the mountain of files stacked across her desk. But as she fumbled with the side drawer of her banker’s rolltop—a stout piece of wooden furniture with multiple hidden cubbies and clicky brass locks—her hand brushed against something wedged beneath a pen tray.

A folded sticky note. Faintly yellowed.

Tori opened it.

To my dear successor—

If you’re reading this, then two things are true: you have found the pen tray, and no one’s checked this drawer in over a year. That bodes… oddly well for you.

There are three rules which, if followed with even moderate consistency, may keep your tenure long—and survivable:

1. Decline any and all requests involving security badge reorders. Trust me on this.
2. Assume all communal coffee is laced with poison. Use the test solution I’ve left for you. (Next to the white out bottle in the top left cubby.)
3. Never turn your back on Ferris. Especially if he’s smiling. Especially if he isn’t.

This was the only communiqué I managed to sneak past Internal Review without it being censored, reclassified, or inexplicably converted into a pie chart.

There’s more. Of course there is. But not all at once. Consider this your first breadcrumb.

Good Luck.

—R

Tori blinked. Then read it again. And again.

It was hard to say whether the note made her feel more nervous or less. But judging by the cautionary tone and specificity of the advice, it was clear her predecessor had not gone quietly into retirement.

Tori was still holding the slip of paper when the door across the hall suddenly opened.

“Thanks for the final pass on the talking points,” said a feminine voice, smooth and strategic. “With the right cadence and a cleaner call-to-action, the press won’t know they’re being handled.”

Out stepped a tall, breathtaking woman—her heels clicking with expensive certainty. She wore a tailored cream suit, espresso lipstick, and a scent like ambition in bloom.

Vesper Navarre.

Tori recognized her from the Shinra quarterly broadcast: Senior PR Liaison from the Elite Image Strategy Unit. One of the handpicked stylists behind the company’s most curated public figures. If Scarlett was Shinra’s weaponized aesthetic, Vesper was its sanctioned seduction.

“I’ll have the revised speech notes in your inbox by five,” Vesper said lightly, casting a final glance over her shoulder. “Always a pleasure, General.”

Vesper glanced at Tori. She smiled—polite, polished, unreadable. Then turned and glided down the hallway like a cruise missile in patent leather heels.

Tori, still holding the sticky note like a talisman, blinked.

From her seated position, just past her monitor, her line of sight fell cleanly into the office across the hall. The door has been closed since her first day in SOLDIER. Just an unassuming door with an unassuming name plaque pasted to the wall above a stainless steel drop box for interpersonal mail. What was not unassuming, and startling in contrast, was the figure who inhabited the office now.

It took a second for her to register it. Not because it was hard to recognize—rather, because the man inside it looked so startlingly normal.

There he was. The war hero. The company’s silver sword.

Wearing glasses.

Reading glasses, by the look of them. Silver-rimmed and perched near the bridge of his nose. He was dressed in a simple black dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, sleeves rolled to the forearm. No armor. No pauldrons. Just slacks and desk posture. He leaned over a silver laptop like a man begrudgingly fulfilling a corporate compliance module.

And in one hand?

A half-peeled orange he was segmenting with deft fingers.

It was that—the care of it—that stopped her. His hands, as steady and lethal as legend suggested, moved with quiet grace. She found herself absurdly caught by the elegance of the motion. The contrast between myth and mundanity.

Tori froze, perplexed.

The absurdity of it lodged in her chest like static. She had seen him a thousand times in Shinra marketing collateral: flanked by firelight, serpentine and majestic, the wind catching his hair like some divine shroud.

This?

This looked like a doctor completing his residency, pouring over patient charting. Or a particularly suave adjunct professor who moonlit as a mass weapon of destruction in his free time. The absurdity of it felt like a slap to the face.

On the matter of impeccable appearance, Sephiroth had her feeling strangely morose.

She didn’t mean to stare, but the incongruity tugged at her curiosity. It was the first time she had seen him since the humiliating moment in the breakroom. Since the firm but oddly kind reassurance. Her stomach tightened. It would appear they were going to be working in close proximity, and she couldn’t afford to cower in her embarrassment forever.

Then, as if summoned by the weight of her gaze, his voice cut clean through the quiet.

“By all means, Ms. Sutton,” came Sephiroth’s voice—calm, unhurried, and maddeningly perceptive. “If you have something to say, say it.”

Tori choked. So much for stealth.

She stood, trying not to fumble the note she’d just tucked under her sleeve. “Apologies, sir. I couldn’t help but notice your office door was... ajar.” She hesitated, trying to pivot into professionalism. “May I have a quick word?”

Sephiroth didn’t stop typing. Just a subtle nod.

Tori glanced behind her. Lazard’s door was still flung open, broadcasting the chaos of a three-way conference call that wasn’t going well.

“Mind if I shut this?” she asked, hand already on the handle.

A pause. His eyes flicked briefly toward the hallway, then back to his screen. “Please.”

She closed the door with a quiet click and crossed the office, nerves catching with every step.

“Something I can assist you with?” he asked, leaning back slightly. The question sounded suspiciously like a test.

She clasped her hands, struggling to keep them from twisting into each other.

“I… had a chance to speak with the other executive assistants this afternoon. And while I don’t typically indulge in gossip…” She winced at her own wording. “It seems the Director has gone through several.”

“Several?” Sephiroth echoed, one brow arching.

“Seven—to be exact,” she amended. “I am the eighth.”

He waited.

“I thought,” she said, pinching the button of her shirt sleeve, “it might be wise to request a… tactical overview. Nothing formal. Just anything you think I should know—if I’m going to survive.”

Sephiroth regarded her, cool and unreadable. “You want intel on Lazard.”

She flushed. “When you say it like that, it sounds like espionage.”

“Are you a spy?”

Tori dropped both of her hands, mortified.

Had she overstepped?

“Ah. I've only just realized how absurd this is,” she deflected as she turned for the door, “I should have this conversation with HR instead. Forgive me.”

He stood. “I doubt HR would give you the information you’re seeking.”

He gestured to the chair. “Sit down, Ms. Sutton.”

She obeyed, carefully.

“In war,” he began, “this would be called reconnaissance.” A faint upturn of his mouth. “And you’re here to assess a high-risk target.”

She blinked. “You’re not joking.”

“No.” He nudged his laptop aside like it was a sidearm. Then he resumed peeling his orange.

“You’ve upgraded the suite,” he said mildly. “The overhead humming is gone.”

Jarred by the sudden change in subject, Tori was finding it equally distracting, watching him bring an orange slice to his mouth.

“Oh. Oh, yes—LED panels." She recovered quickly. "And I rerouted the draft from the vent column. It was interfering with the power grid by the west wall.”

“Efficient,” he said. “And quietly intelligent. That will help.”

Her chest bloomed—just a little. Praise from someone like Sephiroth felt oddly weighted, like finding a rare mineral embedded in stone.

He discarded the orange peel, leaned back, and steepled his fingers. For a moment, he studied her—not unkindly, but with the quiet deliberation of someone weighing variables.

“I imagine you’ll want to avoid stepping on landmines while you’re finding your footing,” he said, tone almost wry. “In which case, I can offer you the short version.”

He straightened slightly. A pause. Then—

“Target: Director Lazard Deusericus,” he said dryly. “Commanding officer of SOLDIER administration. High emotional intelligence. Inconsistent self-regulation. Operates under the illusion of structure. Do not be deceived.”

Tori blinked. Was he giving her a mission report?

“Seventeen calendars,” Sephiroth continued, clinically. “None of which he checks regularly. Expect requests tagged ‘urgent,’ ‘high priority,’ or ‘delete immediately.’ They mean the same thing.”

She fumbled for a pen. “Mind if I—?”

He passed her a notepad and fountain pen without looking. “Write fast.”

She did.

“Signs of destabilization include pacing, prolonged sighs, or theatrical hand gestures. Do not suggest breathing exercises. Instead: offer talking points and his preferred coffee roast.”

She scribbled. “...preferred coffee roast... got it.”

“He functions under pressure,” Sephiroth said, “but short-circuits around emotional subtext. If someone has a ‘tone’ in an email, cancel your afternoon.”

“You’re serious?”

“Regrettably.”

Tori tried to keep up.

“Introduce structure as if it were his idea. Use phrases like, ‘Didn’t you want something like this?’ or ‘Wasn’t this your preference?’ He’ll adopt the suggestion immediately.”

She nodded, furiously scribbling.

“But above all,” he said, voice even, “do not match his emotional frequency. That’s how you burn out. Stay grounded. Offer choices. Anchor the room.”

He paused. “You’re not his therapist. Just his tether.”

Tori slowed, touched by the unexpected kindness.

“And if he becomes…completely destabilized?”

“Cheese danishes,” Sephiroth said.

Tori blinked.

“And a fake deadline. Something vague but urgent. It’ll redirect him. Classic sleight-of-crisis.”

She laughed. “You’ve really good at this.”

“Years of observation,” he said. “He means well. But goodwill is not good workflow.”

She tucked the pen behind her ear. “Honestly, this is more useful than my entire HR packet.”

“Glad to assist,” Sephiroth said, resting his hands over a crossed knee. Then, almost to himself, he added, “You’ve already lasted longer than most.”

That stopped her pen cold. She glanced up. The words had been casual. But his tone hadn’t.

It wasn’t flattery. It wasn’t even encouragement—not exactly. It was something quieter, more matter-of-fact. As though he'd already measured her odds and decided she was worth the investment.

A strange warmth unfurled in her chest. Not the kind that made her giddy, but the kind that made her spine straighten, her shoulders settle. Like she’d been given a heavier pack to carry because someone believed she could.

Tori took a breath and steadied herself.

“Can I ask one more thing?”

He didn’t answer, just leaned back—giving her silent permission.

She leaned forward slightly. “What should I actually expect… being this close to SOLDIER? I only ask because, well…” She cleared her throat. “I recently learned that Hojo’s assistant survived vaporization and Henrietta Larkspur from Space is running a division Palmer has seemingly forgotten exists. I just—” she hesitated again, “want to make sure I’m not blind leading the blind here.”

His mouth quirked.

“There are hazards,” he said, “though rarely the kind that come with a training manual.”

He studied her again for another moment, his eyes bright with consideration.

“Do you have a tolerance, Ms. Sutton?” he asked abruptly, as if inquiring after a spreadsheet.

Tori blinked. “Sir?”

“For blood. Biohazards. Crashing morale,” he said, completely unfazed. “Most candidates fill out an aptitude test before being admitted into SOLDIER. Your threshold helps determine how graphic I can afford to be.”

She straightened in her seat, immediately on trial.

“I had all four wisdom teeth removed with a single shot of lidocaine,” she offered.

Sephiroth did not blink.

“I walked on a broken foot for a month before realizing something was wrong.”

Still nothing. Not even a flicker.

She squared her shoulders. “I once glued my leg shut with superglue after a razor incident. Cleaned it with Junon gin. I would offer to show you the scar, but I’ve had a long day.”

A beat. Then—

“You’ll do fine,” he said evenly.

Then, without a hint of transition: “Volatile materia. If you pass through Logistics and hear something hissing—walk faster.”

Tori grew pale.

“Sparring crossfire,” he added. “Avoid the west end of the training decks. It’s poorly soundproofed, and the Thirds get theatrical after lunch.”

Her pen resumed moving, faster now.

“Schedule volatility,” Sephiroth said. “The moment you pin down a debriefing time, someone will start bleeding. Or hallucinating. Generally both.”

Tori scribbled, “learn to mediate… limit break trauma?”

He continued, undeterred. “Exposure to classified information,” he said. “There are protocols. Some involve NDAs. Others involve lie-detector screenings held in the General Affairs Department. Do not make enemies of the Turks. Especially Tseng.”

She choked.

“You may be pulled into cleanup,” he added. “Lazard is… adaptive. If someone drops mako residue on the carpet and the janitor is on break, you may be asked to improvise.”

Her pen paused mid-sentence.

“There will be interdepartmental borrowing,” he said. “If Lazard double-books himself, you’ll attend meetings in his place. Scarlet may attempt to draft you into her affairs to sabotage Lazard. Palmer may try to expense his lunches through your authorized account terminal. Keep your eyes on the finances if possible.”

“And if there’s an actual emergency?” Tori asked, blinking.

He leaned forward slightly.

“Run.”

She blinked again.

“One hundred meters is the standard evacuation clause,” he said dryly. “I recommend training for two.”

A beat passed.

Tori nodded solemnly. “Yes sir. I’ll start tomorrow.”

Sephiroth looked vaguely amused.

“And the other directors?” she dared, voice softer now. “Anyone I should… watch out for?”

Sephiroth didn’t hesitate this time. He simply swiveled in his chair and met her gaze.

Up close, his irises glimmered like cut glass—luminescent and strangely fathomless. His pupils, sharp and slivered, made his otherwise composed features look suddenly ancient.

“Hojo,” he said, his voice noticeably quieter. “Avoid R&D if you can. Civilians don’t belong in there without proper clearance… or body armor.”

A chill crawled down her back.

This was the third warning she had received that day about avoiding a certain executive assistant and his department as a whole. And there was still the Service Center specialist in physical therapy due to a risky work order fulfilled for R&D not too long ago.

Sephiroth continued, shifting focus. “Reeve is competent. Scarlet is tolerable, though prone to tantrums. Palmer is functionally incompetent. Heidegger will bark, but only out of habit. And President Shinra…” His mouth twitched. “Just don’t interrupt his golf stream.”

She laughed, tension breaking like a wave. “Thank you, sir. This is… more helpful than you know.”

There was a beat of silence—not awkward, but thick with something unspoken. She traced a finger over the edge of his pen, then set it gently on the desk, only to fidget with the notepad instead. Her voice, when it came, was light—but not steady.

“If… if having me across the hall is cumbersome, I can request for a transfer.”

Sephiroth glanced up, one brow ticking upward with quiet amusement.

“Why would you do that?”

Tori flushed, shifting slightly in her seat. “I didn’t expect you to be office-bound yourself,” she said, half-laughing. “I just assumed… you’d prefer peace. No distractions. No crying employees in your periphery. That sort of thing.”

That earned her a pause. And a very faint smile.

“Are you suggesting you’re a distraction, Ms. Sutton?”

Her breath caught. “I’m suggesting I had a bit of a… moment yesterday. And the last thing I want is to be a spectacle.”

Sephiroth said nothing at first. Just studied her—not coldly, but as if weighing the cost of responding.

“I’ve seen worse in that lounge. Trust me.”

He let the beat stretch. Not awkwardly. Just enough to be felt.

“This office,” he said at last, “is more like a timeshare. I rarely use it.” His tone shifted, drier now. “If I ever require isolation, I have access to two secure floors and a training chamber with biometric locks.”

Tori blinked. “Oh. Right.”

He tilted his head slightly. “But for the record…” His voice gentled, the steel polished to something unexpected. “Your presence is not cumbersome.”

She stilled.

“You’ve made improvements already,” he added. “The entire floor feels more—streamlined.”

Something in her eased. But something else sparked—curious, unsure, quietly thrilled.

“That’s good to hear,” she murmured, suddenly hyper-aware of how close she was to his desk. Of the way his gaze held hers a moment longer than strictly necessary.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Besides,” he said, voice a shade lower, “if you were truly disruptive… I’d know how to handle it.”

Tori’s pulse tripped.

She smiled, faint and a little breathless. “Duly noted, sir.”

When she moved to hand back the pen, he waved her off.

“Keep it.”

Her grip paused. “Sir, I—”

“Call it a field instrument. You’ll need it.”

She blinked at the pen in her hand—its weight surprisingly balanced, cool against her skin.

A field instrument.

As if she were on assignment on the ground with the rest of SOLDIER—trusted to hold the line, not just hold appointments.

Something tightened behind her ribs. Recognition. And maybe, beneath it, something reckless like pride.

She made it as far as the doorway before she turned back.

“Sir, about yesterday…”

He looked up again, expression patient.

“I just wanted to thank you,” Tori said, bravely holding her gaze steady against his.

For a moment, he softened.

“In war,” he said quietly, “every SOLDIER is accounted for… including those who hold the line behind the scenes.”

Then, lower:

“That includes you, Ms. Sutton.”

His voice was quiet. But it landed like a hand on her spine. Steadying. Real.

Her throat went tight.

She nodded.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

And this time, she left the office with more assurance in her step. The fountain pen felt warm in her hands. Like a keepsake. Or a quiet promise.

She would survive this. Whatever it took. And for the first time since she stepped into this dumpster fire of a job—she didn’t feel alone.

Chapter Text

"All good things come in three."

Tori began her second week in SOLDIER with a single, decisive act:

She bought a holster.

Not for a weapon. (Not yet anyway.) Just the holster. A soft-grain, warm leather utility rig with a shoulder harness and padded straps that cinched smartly across her waist. She adjusted the fit twice in front of the warped mirror in the Turk Surplus Shop, then a third time before deciding she liked the weight of it.

Practical. Adaptable. A little rebellious too.

The surplus shop itself was a peculiar corner of headquarters—wedged between a vending alcove and what appeared to be a permanently locked maintenance door marked simply “DO NOT KICK.” Inside, it smelled faintly of metal and shoe polish. The floor tiles were cracked in places, but waxed to a sheen, and the racks were a chaotic blend of military fashion and excess.

Rows of jet-black field jackets lined the walls alongside modular shin guards, collapsible batons, voice-scramblers, all-weather tactical cloaks, and TURK-branded insulated thermoses labeled Brew in Silence. There was a shelf dedicated to designer eyewear with a sign displaying the image of a clean-shaven Turk flanked by two women who were posed with their sunglasses. Underneath, a tagline promised: For when eye contact is optional, but intimidation is not.™

Tori made her way toward the display marked Female Field Liaisons & Executive Adaptables. The holster that caught her eye was displayed between a pair of thigh-high materia boots and a formal trench coat lined in fire-retardant mesh. Tori spotted the holster and swooned. Made from tooled leather with faint feather-like embossing, it had two side flaps: one for a compact firearm and dagger, the other divided into slender compartments labeled in script—"matches," "ammo clips," "cyanide pills," and "chewing gum."

She slipped it on.

Something about it felt inexplicably right.

In Service Center, utility had meant Velcro name tags and stress balls with faded logos. This was different. This was utility reimagined—like competence with a dash of espionage.

Are you a spy?

Tori’s pulse raced as she thought on her conversation with the General.

The question had been rhetorical. She knew that. Delivered with just enough bite to be memorable, but not enough weight to linger. And yet—it had. The way he'd asked it, offhanded but observant, had etched itself into her ribs.

Because what was she doing, really, if not infiltrating? Her induction into SOLDIER felt less like onboarding and more like covert insertion. She had no uniform. No shield. No formal welcome. Just an ID badge, a slowly unraveling job description, and a growing stack of classified memos she didn’t remember requesting.

Maybe she wasn’t a spy in the traditional sense. But if a spy was someone who watched and listened, who pieced together patterns while pretending to belong—then she was closer to the mark than she wanted to admit.

At least a real spy received some kind of briefing. Tori had an ominous sticky note left behind by her mysterious predecessor and a workplace that needed triage in three different categories before lunch.

But reframing it like this—as infiltration, as information gathering—oddly soothed her. If she wasn’t just surviving, if she was documenting, then every weird encounter, every loose thread, every flicker of something unspoken wasn’t chaos. It was data. And that, at least, she knew how to manage.

By the time she left the fitting room, the holster held: Sephiroth’s fountain pen, a business card holder, a metal lipstick tube, a packet of facial tissue, floss, a miniature aerosol hairspray (with strong hold), and a slim notepad. It was a field kit now. A curated cache of tools.

It was entirely, unapologetically hers.

At checkout, the clerk didn’t ask questions. He wore indoor aviators and a TURK sidearm on one hip that looked too decorative to be standard-issue. His name tag read: VICE (semi-retired). He punched a little card from beneath the register.

"That’s one down, little lady," he said in a voice that matched his thick handlebar mustache. "Get ten punches and you get a free session with Quinten—our in-house tailor. He’ll optimize your rig for your vocation. Physical hazards, biohazards, interpersonal landmines. He does it all."

Tori blinked. "That’s… oddly specific."

"So are the enemies," Vice replied, eyeing her over the rim of his glasses.

Tori tucked the punch card into her new holster and adjusted the strap once more. She wasn’t ready to abandon her heels and pencil skirt just yet—but this? This felt like the first stitch into something new.

As she turned to leave, her eyes caught a flyer pinned crookedly behind the register. The paper was pink photocopy embossed in navy foil, featuring a graphic of a man and woman in martial arts poses while dressed in full business attire. The chance to win a glittering set of brass knuckles captured her attention.

Tori’s eyes lingered.

There was a sign-up QR at the bottom and a hand-drawn map to the employee gymnasium.

She helped herself to one of the flyers under the bulletin board, folding the paper neatly into one of the leather compartments in her new holster, beside the “cyanide pills” where she would keep her breath mints.

“Take care, Vice,” said Tori as she left the shop.

Vice gave her a slow, two-finger salute. “See you around, little lady.”

Her new harness creaked as she crossed the floor into the elevator bay.

As she took a lift toward Level 62, Tori collected her thoughts. Phase One: complete. Now came the hard part—people.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Tori swiveled in her computer chair, reviewing the blueprint she had drafted over her kitchen table nearly two weeks ago. Using the fountain pen Sephiroth had armed her with, she ticked off the remaining items on her list.

Phase One: Upgrade Office Suite had gone as well as could be expected—ergonomic workstations, updated team comms, and a new cadence cleaning schedule with maintenance that promised regular air filter replacements and carpet shampooing. Even the recalibration on The Demon had been successful.

She ticked each one off with a hit of dopamine sharp enough to qualify as medication. But as her eyes traveled to the next section—Phase Two: Work-Life Balance—her mouth pressed into a thin line.

That was trickier. Trickier because it required trust, not tools. Culture, not coding.

She minimized her blueprint and opened the HR time sheets in her private drive, scrolling through the PTO accrual spreadsheet—and nearly choked.

Each column told the same story: Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla had not taken a single personal day since their last supervisor resigned.

Five assistants ago.

Tori stared at the screen. Refreshed it. Stared again.

It wasn’t just a scheduling oversight—it was cruel and unusual punishment. A quiet, bureaucratic horror story. A timecard graveyard.

And now that she was thinking about it, the symptoms had been there all along.

The hyper-efficiency. The skittish, ultra-vigilant posture. The way they moved through the office like cryptids under harsh light—bright-eyed and pallid.

Choufleur had developed an eye twitch that had gotten progressively worse, to the point where she now appeared to be winking at every cadet who passed by her desk. She’d tried to play it off with a running joke about “being the office flirt,” but the effort was visibly fraying.

Orla, conversely, did not blink at all. Just folded herself into a fetal position inside the little cubby next to the copier whenever the stimulation got too unbearable.

And then, alarmingly, Kovacs had taken to dragging her almond-shaped nails down the length of her throat during status briefings with a little too much pressure to be considered a nervous tic.

The final straw came when all three assistants were caught standing silently around a mako-infusion kit prepped for a recruit, deep in a hushed discussion about the cost-benefit analysis of injecting themselves with it “just enough to get through quarterly reports.”

Still thriving, technically. But also screaming for help.

That ends today, Tori thought, clicking “Print” on the PTO report.

She found them clustered at the receptionist desk.

“Ladies,” she said, smacking the paper on the desk like it was a soul-binding contract. “Pick a day this week. You’re taking it off.”

Their reactions were instantaneous and nearly identical: stunned, blinking silence followed by an outburst of protests—mild, polite, but deeply confused.

"But… what about the receptionist desk?" Choufleur asked.

"Who will field calls?" Kovacs added.

Orla just stared at her, wide-eyed, as if Tori had suggested they all jump from the roof.

“One day,” Tori said, holding up a single, decisive finger. “Just one. Go. Live. Be human again.”

And they did.

Choufleur returned the next morning with the sun in her hair and the distinct energy of someone who had finally escaped from a haunted mansion. She wore a structured lilac dress with scalloped sleeves and a bow-tied collar that said: I’m the main character of this harlequin romance novel. Her hair had been styled into soft curls. A pair of gold-plated earrings sparkled like tiny constellations above her shoulders.

She placed a new handbag on her desk with the reverence of a ceremonial artifact.

“I bought new glasses too,” she said, voice hushed like a confession. “They make me look smarter.”

Kovacs returned the day after that smelling faintly of lemongrass and champagne. Her skin had the texture of a silk bookmark, and her cuticles were pristine enough to qualify as architectural detail. She had, she explained over morning tea, spent her entire day at an all-inclusive spa just outside Sector 4, sipping spritz cocktails while watching chocobo races in the hot stone lounge.

She offered Tori a tiny glass vial of something herbal and pink.

“For when your hands dry out from filing,” she said solemnly.

Orla came back on Thursday with temporary tattoos spiraling up her arm. She wore a moss-green poncho stitched with reflective patches and what looked like an antique brass whistle hanging from her neck. Her eyes were calmer than Tori had ever seen them—but still eerie. Still… touched.

“I volunteered in the Department of Peculiar Containment,” she said simply. “They assigned me to a snake named Kevin who responds to flute music.”

Tori blinked.

“Kevin also likes jazz,” Orla added solemnly, then handed Tori a commemorative I ❤️ KEVIN pin. “Brought back a souvenir for you.”

Tori was oddly touched.

She didn’t care how her junior assistants spent their time off—only that they came back brighter. Happier. Dare she say, healthier. And if the spark in their eyes and the rare appearance of genuine smiles were any indication, it was working.

She glanced at the trio—Choufleur tapping away at a scheduling alert, Kovacs drafting tomorrow’s comms brief, Orla getting the intuitive impulse to track down a Third Class who hadn’t turned in his physical—and felt something settle in her chest.

Maybe relief. Maybe wonder. Maybe the quiet thrill of possibility.

What she didn’t see was the way their eyes followed her after she left.

Later that week, the three junior assistants gathered around The Demon, pretending to fix a paper jam.

A tight coil of glossy printouts hissed from the side panel like a very angry paper dragon, and the scent of scorched toner hung heavy in the air. Choufleur had one hand inside the maintenance hatch while Kovacs muttered increasingly baroque obscenities in Old Wutai under her breath. Orla stood nearby, swaying slightly in her poncho, as though listening to a frequency only she could hear.

Meanwhile, across the suite, Tori could be seen in her latest act of stubborn optimism: trailing Director Lazard like an elegant but increasingly exasperated shadow.

Clipboard in hand, harness strapped over her blouse, she followed him from conference room to corridor, catching dropped files, correcting his misquotes in briefings, and scribbling last-minute talking points into her small notepad.

She adjusted the AV projector in one room, rewired the comms port in another, and at one point physically stopped Lazard from walking into a janitorial closet he’d mistaken for a briefing chamber. She did it all without complaint, with only the faintest twitch near her right eye.

From their outpost beside The Demon, the junior assistants watched her—a slow, creeping awe overtaking them like ivy climbing a trellis.

“She reset the phone list yesterday,” said Choufleur, carefully teasing out the jammed page with her fingers. “By herself. All new menu options.”

Kovacs stopped cursing. “What about the On Hold sequence?”

Choufleur shook her head. “There is no On Hold sequence. She installed a bot receptionist to handle all external calls.”

The three of them went still.

That wasn’t luck. That was competence.

“She integrated all the department data into a single spreadsheet,” Kovacs added, looking mildly stunned. “And set up a new barcode system for inventory. The spreadsheet gets updated in real time.”

“Fixed the auxiliary input for the intercom too,” Choufleur said faintly. “Which means we haven’t heard the ‘lilting flute’ hold music on a loop all week.”

“Aw, I enjoyed the flute,” Orla sighed.

Choufleur folded her arms, eyes narrowed in a kind of reverent suspicion.

“She’s different.”

They all nodded.

For a moment, the only sound was the ticking of the copy machine’s slowly recalibrating sensor.

Then:

“I thought about taking the job myself,” Kovacs said suddenly, not looking at either of them. “After Number Seven flamed out.”

“We all did,” Choufleur said. “Not for the money.”

“Definitely not for the money,” Orla intoned.

“For the survival.”

It had started as a joke. A pact made in a supply closet over half a bottle of Midgar Noir and a sleeve of thin mint cookies. If the position opened up again—if another supervisor vanished, resigned, or mysteriously transitioned into a “field placement”—one of them would step up. Not to climb the ladder. Just to stop the slow bleed of chaos from the top.

But none of them wanted to be a martyr. Taking the job meant forfeiting their PTO, their weekends, their capacity to care about anything beyond the blinking red alerts of Lazard’s operational carousel.

So when Tori Sutton arrived—hair neat, blouse pressed, posture absurdly optimistic—they’d braced for the usual trajectory: brief brightness, then collapse.

But two weeks in… and Tori hadn’t collapsed.

She was thriving. Holding the line. Rewriting the rules—with filing systems and foam-padded resolve.

“She gave us PTO,” Choufleur whispered, still stunned.

A long silence followed.

Then, without a word, Choufleur reached into her dress pocket and produced an unmarked keycard—a ghost pass capable of unlocking every Shinra utility shaft and service tunnel inside of headquarters. She found it in the SOLDIER Lost and Found bin five years ago and never returned it.

Kovacs offered a backup thumb drive. A holy grail of schedules, memos, and quietly brilliant proposals—none of which had ever seen the light of day. If given to someone of Tori’s caliber, Kovacs was certain it could be used for the greater good.

Orla, caught without an offering but wanting to be included all the same, unfastened the brass whistle from her neck and placed it reverently in Choufleur’s palm.

The pact had been unspoken before. Not anymore.

“She’s trying,” Choufleur said. “Really trying. Which means sooner or later someone is going to poach her—or worse.”

“She’s ours,” Kovacs said, fierce and unwavering.

“They’ll have to pry her from our cold, dead, bloated, rigor mortis fingers first,” Orla vowed.

Choufleur and Kovacs shared a concerned look.

Then, in perfect synchronicity, they turned as The Demon gave a single, affirming beep—

submission complete!—

and slowly, almost tenderly, began to print.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

They took the freight elevator up from the SOLDIER armory—Tori tucked neatly beside Lazard, her leather harness snug around her waist, his tie already coming undone like it had given up halfway through the day. The walls were lined in brushed steel, the kind that smelled faintly of grease and lemon cleaner, and the floor hummed like it was suppressing a larger, existential sigh.

Lazard sipped from a coffee cup so aggressively overfilled it trembled in his hand like it feared being part of whatever came next.

"Director, I need your signature to add orange juice to the vending machines near the training deck," Tori said crisply.

He blinked, as if the word ‘orange’ had just been added to his vocabulary. “Orange juice?”

She tapped the memo she’d handed him. “Yes. Citrus. Vitamins. Hydration. Very controversial.”

“Ah. Right. Yes—where’s my—?”

“Pen’s clipped to your pocket, sir. Right next to the packet of cheddar crackers you’ve been pretending not to carry.”

He looked down. Found both. Signed. With a nod so dazed it looked ceremonial.

And then the elevator jolted.

Once.

Hard.

The lights blinked. Then died.

A moment passed.

Then the emergency security lamp above them stuttered on—flooding the cabin with an anemic red pulse, like a nightclub for bureaucratic emergencies.

The elevator stopped moving.

“Please tell me that wasn’t normal,” Tori said flatly.

Lazard, without missing a beat, leaned casually against the wall. “This kind of thing happens all the time.”

“That is not reassuring.”

She crouched and pried open the maintenance call panel, thumbing the speaker button. A buzz, a crackle—and then:

“Maintenance, you’ve got Harvey.”

Tori exhaled. “Harvey. It’s Sutton.”

“Boss! How you handling the executive fire pit?”

She hazarded a glance at Lazard. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Well… might as well be. We got word a materia combustion triggered a small—technically uncontained—fire in the level below you. Shouldn’t reach your shaft if it behaves. Which it might not.”

“...Uh-huh.”

“We’re on it,” Harvey assured. “But if it starts to smell like roasted steel, brace for a ventilation override. Worst-case, you’ll be cooked slow—like a holiday roast.”

The speaker clicked off.

Tori turned slowly. “We’re stuck above a materia fire.”

Lazard took another sip of coffee. “I feel perfectly safe.”

She stared at him.

“This,” she said, sweeping one arm across the cramped metal box, “seems as good a time as any.”

He tilted his head. “For what?”

“Phase Three,” she said. “Of my plan.”

A long pause. Then, faintly: “You have a plan?”

She crossed her arms. The red light gave her cheekbones a theatrical angle. “Sir, I’d like to discuss your initiatives for SOLDIER. Not just the noise. I want to know what matters. To you.”

Lazard regarded her over the rim of his cup. The red pulse gave his face a flickering, haunted quality. “You mean… priorities?”

“I mean vision,” she replied. “Direction. If I’m going to help you execute, I need to know what you’re executing.”

He laughed—softly. “Ms. Sutton, I don’t think anyone’s asked me that in… well. In a long time.”

She held his gaze. “Then let’s fix that.”

The cabin was very quiet.

Somewhere below them, faint and wrong-sounding, something hissed.

Then Lazard said, “To be honest, I’m surprised you’re still here.”

Tori blinked. “Sir?”

“I assumed you’d be gone by now.”

“With all due respect, I didn’t take this job to collect a paycheck and burnout. If I wanted that, I would have stayed in Service Center.”

She stepped closer, the red light painting her face like a warning flare. “I’m here to help you. To be of service. To get whatever’s in your head—the plan, the thing that keeps slipping down the priority list—off the ground. But you have to let me in. You have to let me steer when the current’s too strong.”

Lazard didn’t speak right away. She watched his eyes scan her face.

“Steering a ship with no rudder,” he murmured. “You’re right. That’s what this feels like.”

“Then let’s fix that too.”

The elevator gave a low groan. The scent of something scorched began to waft up through the floor vent.

Lazard finally exhaled. “SOLDIER,” he said, voice stripped of all bureaucratic polish, “wasn’t supposed to be this.”

Tori listened patiently.

“It was supposed to be a safeguard. A deterrent. Not a televised death march. Not… whatever this has become. We’ve turned blood into branding. Mako into marketing.”

He ran a hand through his hair, casting a long shadow on the back wall. “We’ve made the performance of strength more important than strength itself.”

His gaze turned inward.

“And when I try to fix it—when I even suggest it—we get blocked. Spiked. Forgotten. They want fear, not function. Panic, not peace.”

There was a beat.

Then a clang.

And a wedge of blinding light.

“Boss?” came Harvey’s voice. “You good? You grilling like a summer brisket in there?”

Lazard looked unbothered. Tori squinted. “We’re fine. Thank you, Harvey.”

A crowbar wedged into the panel gap. A groan of metal. Then—

The doors parted.

Smoke curled around their boots like a lazy cat, sinuous and unbothered.

Tori stepped out first. Lazard followed with the unflappable calm of a man exiting a meeting room, not a malfunctioning elevator suspended above an open blaze.

Behind them, a bloom of crimson flared from the shaft—sharp and sudden—forcing Harvey to wrestle it back with a materia-charged extinguisher.

Another second inside and they would have melted like candle wax.

But neither of them looked back.

They just kept walking until they reached his office and the door whispered shut behind them, sealing the absurdity of the moment away like a secret best left undocumented.

“I want to do something real here,” Tori confided in him at last. “Something that matters.”

Lazard exhaled. Not a sigh—something more brittle, something that sounded like relief cracking through years of deferred urgency.

He raised his mug—now empty—and turned it slowly in his hands, eyes dropping to the desk between them. “You know,” he said at last, voice quieter than before, “you’ve been remarkably composed about all this.”

Tori tilted her head. “About what, sir?”

“The neglect,” he said, blunt and tired. “The lack of structure. I’ve barely spoken to you since you arrived, and when I have, it’s been mostly in passing or apologies shouted between elevators.”

He lifted his gaze again. There was no defensiveness in it. Only conflict—worn at the edges. “I haven’t been a good steward of your onboarding, Ms. Sutton. And I think… I think it’s because I’m afraid.”

That caught her off guard.

“Afraid?”

Lazard gave a dry smile. “Not of you. Of what it means to let someone in when the walls are already buckling.” He tapped the edge of the mug against the desk. “This job… what we’re trying to build in SOLDIER… it’s not just military strategy. It’s political landmines. Corporate sleight-of-hand. There are people who don’t want what I want for this department. People who’d prefer we stay chaotic and under-resourced.”

“And bringing me into it,” she said carefully, “means risking someone else becoming a target.”

He nodded, just once.

Tori stood straight, crossing arms over her chest. “Well, good thing I’m not easy to scare.”

Lazard huffed a breath—half a laugh, half disbelief. “I’m beginning to see that.”

She softened a little. “And you don’t need to apologize. The General already gave me a pretty thorough rundown of what to expect in SOLDIER.”

He blinked. “Sephiroth did?”

She nodded. “Tactical emotional patterns. Emergency evacuation distances. Interdepartmental diplomacy.”

Lazard stared at her like she’d just revealed she could breathe underwater. “He… spoke to you?”

“Quite a bit,” she said, puzzled by his expression.

Lazard leaned back in his chair, brows furrowed. “Sephiroth doesn’t… do that.”

“Doesn’t do what?”

“Help.” His tone was factual, not cruel. “He doesn’t involve himself in onboarding. Doesn’t advise. Especially not with civilian staff. And especially not with…” He hesitated, then cleared his throat. “With women.”

Tori stilled.

A faint heat crept up her neck.

She thought of the pen she kept in her holster. Of the way his voice had gone quiet when he told her to keep it. A field instrument. A gift.

She felt suddenly foolish.

Of course Sephiroth didn’t involve himself with female hires. The man probably spent every interaction dodging HR violations like heat-seeking missiles. It made perfect sense. His distance wasn’t aloofness—it was necessity.

Still, she flushed. Just a little.

Lazard must have seen the expression pass over her face, because he gave a small, knowing shake of his head. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s not you. It’s everyone else. He’s… careful. Strategic. Every move measured. If he made time for you—it means something.”

That didn’t help.

Of course she’d misread it. Of course the pen had just been a pen. The kindness—if that’s even what it was—had probably been pre-installed, like the elevator voice that said thank you.

She hated how much she wanted it to mean something. How ridiculous it made her feel now, carrying it like a talisman.

Tori rolled her shoulders. “Well. Whether it was charity or convenience, he got the message across. If he can take this seriously, so can I.”

Lazard’s expression shifted again. Thoughtful. Warmer, this time. “If Sephiroth has endorsed you,” he said, almost to himself, “then I’d be an idiot not to do the same.”

Tori tried not to let the words catch. But they did. A little.

Then he leaned forward, set the mug aside, and fixed her with the quiet conviction of someone making a vow.

“All right, Ms. Sutton,” he murmured. “Let’s chart the course.”

And just like that, the ship turned.

There was a shift in Lazard—so slight it might’ve gone unnoticed by anyone else. The slightest recalibration of posture. A pause that hummed with deliberation.

He studied her again, this time not with wariness, but the brittle gravity of a man making a decision he couldn’t unmake.

"You remind me," he said, after a moment, "of someone I knew a long time ago. Someone who believed Shinra could be more than its ambition. That loyalty didn’t have to cost your soul."

Tori said nothing. She didn’t know the name of that person, but she felt the outline of their ghost in his voice.

"You’re not just competent," he added, a thread of reverence in his voice now. "You’re… necessary. And I’ve gone too long without a partner who actually wanted to know where we’re going."

Then, with a weary exhale that seemed to echo from a deeper chamber in his chest, he stood.

Tori’s brows lifted as Lazard crossed the room—not toward the tall filing cabinets or the data terminals, but to an old antique set of drawers nestled inconspicuously into the corner. It looked like it belonged in someone’s inherited summer estate, not a SOLDIER director’s office. The wood was dark, warm, and weathered from use, the brass pulls worn dull from time.

He paused as if weighing her against the silence. As if considering whether she could be trusted with what came next—not just the content, but the consequences.

She held his gaze.

And without saying it, she told him: yes.

He bent down to the base drawer and, with a gentle twist of the middle handle—a move Tori clocked as practiced—triggered some kind of internal mechanism.

There was a soft click.

The drawer didn’t slide out. It lowered, folding outward and down into a shallow compartment—lined in velvet, of all things—and holding a single, deeply blue folder. Cobalt blue. The kind of blue not found in standard office supplies. This was custom.

Lazard lifted it with both hands.

Not reverently—but like someone removing something delicate from a climate-controlled vault.

Tori remained silent, standing straighter now. The air in the room had changed. Not tense, not fearful—just… different. Pressurized. Like the feeling just before the curtain rises.

"This," he said, setting the folder down gently between them, "is what I’ve been trying to get off the ground for years. It’s been stalled, rewritten, and shelved more times than I can count. Each revision less ambitious than the last. Each meeting met with a ‘soon,’ or a ‘not right now,’ …or worse—an untraceable veto from a department I’ve never been able to verify even exists."

He flipped the folder open.

Inside: schematics, hand-written calculations, approved yet unsigned forms. Graphs and recruitment models. Mako expenditure comparisons. And at the very top—a title printed in elegant, serifed lettering on rich stock.

The Azure Accord.

It wasn’t just a plan. It was a compass. A course. A reason to stop drifting.

She brushed her fingers along the cover, the way one might check a pulse.

She didn’t need to know what it was yet. Not in detail. The weight of it was already pressing on her chest like something sacred. Or dangerous.

Lazard's voice lowered in a sharp zeal.

"This is a redefinition of SOLDIER’s future. A shift in priorities. From glorified weapons to sustainable defense infrastructure. Less mako exposure. More education. Rehabilitation for long-serving Firsts. Field readiness training that doesn’t force you into early retirement by thirty-five."

He turned a page—slowly.

"It would also reroute a significant portion of departmental resources. Away from certain... interest groups."

He didn’t say who. He didn’t need to.

Tori already understood.

This wasn’t a proposal.

It was a threat.

To someone.

And until now, no one had been willing to touch it.

She looked at the folder, then back to Lazard.

“This is your magnum opus,” she said quietly.

Tori had known, intellectually, that the chaos orbiting Lazard Deusericus wasn’t the whole story. But now she saw the truth of it—laid out across the pages like a blueprint for an unbuilt world. This wasn’t the work of a scatterbrained executive lurching from crisis to crisis. This was the long, deliberate labor of a bureaucratic architect.

The Azure Accord wasn’t a proposal. It was a manifesto.

Meticulously drafted, annotated, revised. It bore the marks of a man who’d spent years chiseling something meaningful from within a system designed to grind down purpose. Behind the loose ties and missed memos, Lazard was a strategist. A conductor with no orchestra. Until now.

Tori’s pulse thudded. This wasn’t just a job anymore. This was something she could give herself to—fully, without irony. This was what she’d been waiting for: work that mattered.

His smile was rueful. “What’s left of it anyway.”

Another page turned. One with bullet points and timelines and so many signatures marked pending.

"It’s never gotten farther than this," he added. "Every time I’ve scheduled a presentation to the board, something goes wrong. Someone falls ill. A document vanishes. The room gets canceled last minute without a trace of request. You’d think I was trying to sneak state secrets into a lunch order.”

He gave a dry laugh. “One time, the projector cord had been sliced. Clean. Like someone had brought wire cutters.”

Tori reached down and brushed her fingertips over the corner of the folder.

“I think,” she said, “we should get this in front of President Shinra himself.”

Lazard looked up at her, his expression unreadable for a moment.

Then he nodded. Slow. Resolute.

“I entrust it to you, Ms. Sutton.”

Tori thought of the blueprint she wrote over her kitchen table. How – like Lazard – she wanted to make things better. Perhaps what Wesley had said at the luncheon was true after all. That an assistant often took after their charge. She and Lazard were much alike, even if their methods of execution were completely different.

“All good things come in three,” she murmured, adjusting the blue folder in her grip. “Let’s see if we can make this one stick.”

Chapter Text

“You won’t find the truth by chasing the spotlight. You find it by listening to the dark.”

The lights were humming again. A low, mechanical pitch threading through the studio air—imperceptible to most, but not to him. It buzzed beneath the surface, a needle dragging across the grooves of his perception, sawing just under the skin.

No one had thought to fix it.

Except her.

Most people believed that impressing Sephiroth required spectacle. That to earn his regard, they must offer him tribute in its most excessive forms. They mistook him for a creature of hunger and indulgence—someone moved by grandeur, distracted by beauty, mollified by fame and recognition.

They missed the truth.

Sephiroth didn’t crave indulgence. He craved quiet. He wanted distance from the noise, the eyes, the artificial rituals of admiration. And in that rare hush—where no one sought to flatter or examine him—he sometimes found something rarer still: consideration.

Not adoration or deference. But true regard.

The kind shown through simple gestures. Adjustments so small they went unnoticed by most, but never by him. Calibrations that respected his boundaries. The ones that said, I see you—not the symbol, but the sentience underneath.

That was what truly impressed him.

And Tori Sutton had done all three. Without fanfare. Within hours.

The fluorescent hum in the office was gone. He hadn't even realized at first. Only that his thoughts came easier, unimpeded by static. The tension behind his eyes had eased. When he noticed, it struck him—she had tuned the room without asking. As if she heard the same dissonance and corrected it instinctively.

She had offered to move her desk without hesitation, phrasing it not as an inconvenience, but as an option—his comfort made priority without explanation.

And later, she thanked him.

Not as a way to curry favor, but to simply express gratitude for a small nudge that cost him nothing.

No one ever did that.

Not all three.

Not with sincerity. And certainly not without an angle.

And now, seated beneath studio lights engineered for spectacle, drowning again in the synthetic resonance that rattled his teeth, he found himself thinking not of the camera… but of her.

The softness of her voice. The tact in her movements. The way she had extinguished the chaos without needing to ask for permission to do so.

She just knew.

In a world full of people desperate to be noticed, she had noticed him.

It did not take much to impress Sephiroth, but it was a very rare thing when it occurred.

Away from the SOLDIER office suite, he stood in the PR production studio which was awash with that irksome hum. It was back. And it was loud.

The Midgar Speaks team had staged the set like a battle command center—polished gunmetal panels, a backdrop of rotating schematics.

But no missions played across those displays. Just overlays. Decorative. Curated for consumption.

Vesper adjusted his pauldron again.

“Lean slightly to the left, General,” she murmured, brushing an invisible particle from the chrome curve of his shoulder guard. “You’re reading a touch too rigid. Like a statue. Let’s give them… presence.”

Sephiroth obliged without comment.

He knew his silhouette by heart. He had been sculpted to cast it. He knew the way the light would catch on his hair and coat, how the pauldrons gleamed just enough to suggest threat without vulgarity. Every detail, engineered. Refined.

And yet, the dull hum from the lights persisted. A war of decibels waged beneath the skin.

Across from him, Velma Reyes smiled with the predatory calm of a mantis in a silk blouse.

“Rolling in five,” called the producer. “Four… Three…”

Sephiroth exhaled slowly.

The lights kept humming.

Two… One…

“Good evening, Midgar,” Velma purred, her voice lacquered in stage polish, eyes lit like lantern glass. “Tonight on Midgar Speaks, we are joined by General Sephiroth—the illustrious commander of SOLDIER, symbol of Shinra’s strength, and the face of our continued security during these uncertain times. General, thank you for being here.”

“My schedule was clear,” Sephiroth replied.

The audience chuckled, neatly cued by the blinking red light above the camera rig.

“Let’s begin with the obvious,” Velma said, her tone laced with the practiced ease of someone pretending at intimacy—mischievous, as though inviting the audience into a private exchange. “You’ve seen an increase in SOLDIER enlistment requests following your recent mission near Junon,” said Velma. “Recruitment is up. Public interest is at an all-time high. What do you believe accounts for this sudden spike?”

Her tone was bright and full of heroic implication.

He waited—three heartbeats. A trick Vesper had drilled into him. Make the viewer lean in. Let the answer feel like insight. Not critique.

But the relentless hum of the studio lights whittled at his patience. He found himself suddenly not in the mood to placate the host.

“There is always interest,” he said. “But interest is not the same as understanding.” His tone cooled into an admonishment. “What SOLDIER represents is often filtered through marketing departments—our function, stylized. Our hardship, diluted. The truth is less... cinematic.”

Velma’s head tilted. “Which truth, General?”

He didn’t look at her. Or the camera. He looked past them to the mission still fresh on his mind.

“That the mako infusion process is painful.”

“That the training is brutal.”

“That most do not pass. And those who do… are not the same.”

He heard Vesper gasp beside him, realizing her asset was going off script.

Velma cast her a cautious glance. “And yet, you’ve remained dedicated, General. A beacon,” she continued, trying to salvage the moment. “Your valor is unquestionably the reason others are enlisting to the cause. Your heroics precede you.”

Sephiroth’s gaze drifted once again, measuring the cavernous divide between what she said… and what he had lived. Because she was wrong.

His dedication wasn’t valor. It was inertia. Manufactured and monetized.

He thought of Lazard—of the brief exchange months ago, hunched over a bottle potent enough to corrode enamel, and a folder so blue it was lurid. The Azure Accord. A blueprint with teeth. A possible future that would give SOLDIER back its dignity. A way to evolve and help others flourish instead of simply taking and destroying.

But Shinra didn’t want evolution. The Junon mission was proof of that.

Sephiroth saw the grift for what it was: corruption. The locals near the reactor sight in Junon—those who had traded their land for promised prosperity—had been cut off, their grievances ignored until desperation bred revolt. SOLDIER hadn’t been deployed to protect. It had been deployed to silence.

And Shinra had spun it into a broadcast-ready redemption story.

He’d watched the footage—his own footage—edited for inspiration. Not once did it show the vacant homes, the hunger, the torn signs begging for aid. Only fire. Only closeups of his sword.

Velma leaned in, eyes gleaming. “If SOLDIER is struggling to evolve, who’s responsible? Administration? Or the system itself?”

His blink came a fraction late.

A taut wire drew across his chest.

“A system doesn’t rot from the outside,” he said. “Someone always leaves a door open.”

The silence after snapped tight.

Velma drew her lips into a faint grimace. “That’s… one hell of a door to leave open.”

She tried to laugh. Tried to make it light. But the tone had changed. Brittle now. Transparent.

Vesper stepped in immediately. “What the General means, of course, is that Shinra’s investments in modernizing military infrastructure continue to support both peacekeeping operations and regional stabilization efforts. SOLDIER plays an important role in deterrence and reassurance.”

“Certainly,” Sephiroth said.

But his voice rang hollow. A velvet echo inside a steel drum.

The weight of his uniform felt heavier than its fabric. Not attire—costume. A leash sewn in epaulettes. His mission, marketable. His face, a placeholder.

And in that moment, the absurdity pressed sharp against his ribs. He nearly laughed.

Velma turned back to the camera, smile affixed like armor.

“A symbol of strength. A shield of Midgar. General Sephiroth—thank you for your time.”

The red light on the camera blinked off.

Vesper was already at his collar. “What happened?”

He tilted his head. Unsure what she meant.

“Your tone. It went cold all of a sudden. You went rogue.” She touched his arm—lightly. Her bracelet chimed against his sleeve, thin silver masquerading as intimacy. “I thought we agreed on the transcript.”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t the copy.”

He didn’t elaborate.

Vesper knew better than to press, but she fixed him with her dark stair. “You used to enjoy these interviews,” she murmured, pensive. “Or… at least you used to try.”

He said nothing.

Because he didn’t remember ever enjoying them.

She sighed, exasperated. “Does this have something to do with Lazard again? You get this way whenever he falls short of departmental forecasts. Every time he drifts into one of his half-drafted initiatives, you’re left to mop up the fallout.” She crossed arms over her cream suit with a scowl. “I’ve said this for a year—he’s not focused. He’s distracted. Frankly, he’s a liability.”

Sephiroth turned to leave the soundstage, eager to be free of the damn buzzing in his ears.

Vesper fell into step behind him, voice low, polished.

“…so if you want a follow-up with Reyes, I can finesse the second half. Reframe it as a message to the troops. Something inspiring.” Her tone softened. “Or maybe what you need is a break. A drink. Just the two of us. No script. No spotlights.”

He didn’t pull away. But he didn’t look at her either.

Vesper was composed. Calculated. The kind of beauty that never slipped. She moved with precision, her touch always curated.

Most men would have said yes.

“All right,” he said.

But even as the word left him, his thoughts had already drifted—

The lights dimmed across his shoulders. The applause track faded into static.

And a different moment surfaced.

I just wanted to thank you.

Tori Sutton. That voice—plain, unarmored, real.

And for one breathless second, he didn’t want to go forward.

He wanted to go back.

To that desk. That quiet.

That voice.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Between triaging Lazard’s backlog and delegating her assistants to three separate mission-critical folders, Tori caught herself doing something she hated: drifting.

Not in focus—but in discipline.

Every quiet moment—every pause between emails, every lull between sprinted deadlines—somehow curved toward the General’s door. Still closed. Still silent. The silver nameplate across the hall caught the occasional glint of passing light. The dropbox outside his office now half-full of memos, advertisements, and mint-green coupons for “Fuel Up! SOLDIER Smoothies.”

She hadn’t seen him since that morning. Hadn’t spoken to him. Not directly.

And yet—

Every time her fingers closed around the fountain pen nestled in her holster, something in her pulse shifted. An echo of his voice—precise and unyielding. The memory of him regarding her not with warmth or curiosity, but with something heavier. Appraisal. Like he was calculating the shape of her conviction before deciding what to do with it.

It wasn’t romantic. Or at least, she refused to call it that. She’d known crushes. This wasn’t that. This was... gravity. The kind that rearranged tectonics, quietly and without permission.

Lazard had warned her: Sephiroth kept his distance from new hires as a rule. If the pen meant anything, it was protocol—a symbolic handoff and nothing more.

Still, her hand drifted toward it more than necessary. She found herself protecting its cap like it might vanish. And that, she decided, was perilous behavior.

Before she could scold herself further, Lazard appeared in her peripheral—tie loose, hair wind-mussed, holding his PHS like it had personally betrayed him.

He looked like he’d sprinted out of a ventilation shaft.

“Quarterly Review,” he wheezed, eyes wide with panic. “President moved it up. It’s in two hours.”

“What?” Tori lurched to her feet. “Today?”

“Today.” He held up the phone, displaying the calendar notice. “We have nothing finished. Nothing formatted. He’ll expect a deck. Talking points. The whole ritual.”

The chaos pressed at the edge of her vision—timeline crushed, prep obliterated. The Azure Accord had been ambitious even with two weeks' notice.

But then—

She breathed.

Not spiraling. Prioritizing.

Her hand found the pen. She twirled it between her fingers. Sharply.

“All right,” she said, already grabbing her datapad. “We can do this. You start rehearsing your talking points,” she ordered Lazard. “I’ll reach out to the girls. We’re building the house midflight, but it’ll hold.”

Lazard blinked. “You’re not panicking.”

“I’ll panic later,” Tori deflected with a wave of her hand. “In private. Possibly in the supply closet.”

He offered a weak smile.

“It’s showtime, Director,” she continued, bracing herself for war. “We’ve got to use whatever airtime the President gives us. There will be plenty of time for perfection later, right now, we need to convince him it’s the smartest investment he’ll make this quarter.”

“Yes, Ms. Sutton. Agreed.”

Lazard dashed into his office to begin preparing while Tori assessed the time on her console.

One hour and forty-three minutes until the President’s boardroom meeting. One hour and forty-three minutes to perform a small miracle.

She rushed down the hall to the receptionist desk.

“Choufleur. Kovacs. Orla,” she said.

All three turned in unison—Kovacs halfway through archiving expense reports, Choufleur balancing a mug of green tea with a stress ball, and Orla, naturally, glue-gunning a torn folder back together with her lunch fork.

“I need help.”

She waved her arms.

“Big meeting. Two hours. The President will be there and—” she gestured helplessly at herself “—I’m working with this.”

Then, more quietly: “Help.”

They blinked. Then surged to their feet like a coordinated black ops team.

Within seconds, Tori was ushered into the women’s restroom.

It was there, beneath the unforgiving fluorescent lights and paper towel dispenser labeled “Caution: May Dispense with Malice,” that the transformation began.

“Sit,” Choufleur commanded, rolling up her sleeves like she was preparing for open heart surgery.

“Blouse off,” Kovacs added, already unfastening the top button. “We’re going in.”

“I thought we were doing my makeup?”

“We are,” said Choufleur, digging through her tote bag. “But first we’re restructuring your entire aesthetic.”

“The color works with your hair,” said Kovacs, “but not buttoned like a headmistress on inspection day.”

She undid Tori’s shirt, then folded the silk like origami across her chest, tucking the oxblood fabric diagonally across her sternum and anchoring it beneath the waistband of her skirt. It became a wrap blouse—elegant, asymmetrical, and most alarmingly, deliberate.

The leather harness was strapped back over it and cinched tightly to give her bust a slight lift.

“There,” she said, folding the lapel outward to bare the clean lines of Tori’s collarbones. “A little décolletage goes a long way.”

Tori’s breath stuttered. “That’s a lot of décolletage—”

“You’re fine,” Kovacs said coolly. “Scarlet shows more than this on purpose.”

“I’m not Scarlet,” Tori whispered, scandalized.

“Of course you’re not,” Choufleur said mildly, dusting featherlight foundation across Tori’s cheeks. “But the woman knows what she’s doing in a room full of power-hungry men. You must utilize every advantage, Ms. Sutton.”

“I’m—what are you doing to my skirt?!”

Kovacs had hiked the dark wool to the small of her waist, pinning it in place with a safety pin and smoothing the hem so it landed just above the darker bands of her thigh-high hose. Her fingers moved with the quiet efficiency of someone who’d weaponized fashion like this daily.

“This is Shinra,” she said. “Your ideas get ignored until your heels click. Learn it. Use it.”

Tori’s mouth opened. No words emerged.

Meanwhile, Choufleur rolled out a small pouch lined with tubes of cosmetics and several mystery vials.

“Stop clenching,” she said from behind a mist of setting spray. “You’re radiating secretarial hostage.”

A thin line of winged liner appeared with two clean flicks. Then mascara. Then a lipstick shade that felt like velvet warfare. The finishing touch was a bit of petroleum jelly dabbed to her eyelids, the bow of her lips, and her teeth to prevent the lipstick from staining.

Kovacs tugged a comb through her bun and let it collapse into a loose twist. Wisps fell across her temples—not messy, but windswept, as if she’d just returned from brokering a ceasefire at sea.

“She needs shoes,” Choufleur muttered.

Kovacs stepped to the locker marked “Emergency Appearances”, threw it open like a weapon cache, and returned with a gleaming pair of low square heels in matching red.

“They’re power-mute. Boardroom approved.”

“They look like intimidation in loafer form.”

“They are.”

Tori sat frozen as the two of them pulled away to inspect their work. Choufleur folded her arms. Kovacs tilted her head.

Their gazes met.

Then: a mutual nod of approval.

Tori felt it before she saw it. The shift. The weight of silk and shadow. The quiet strength in the way her blouse curved like armor, in how her legs looked longer and her waist, sharpened—not loud, not provocative—just... precise. Impossible to ignore.

She stood up slowly, grounding herself in the reflection.

“Fucking hell,” she whispered. “I look like a director.”

“You look like a threat,” said Kovacs.

“You look like yourself,” said Choufleur with a soft pat. “Finally.”

The restroom door slammed open.

Orla burst in carrying three frosted glass bottles of imported sparkling water, a silver tray of lemon almond financiers, and a crystal carafe of something that smelled suspiciously like lavender espresso.

“Victory refreshments,” she announced. “Also, the waitstaff from the rooftop bar got a memo to deliver the rest of the cart to the President’s boardroom.”

“You what—” Tori began.

“Don’t worry,” Orla said, handing her a napkin with the Shinra seal scrawled in silver. “They believe I’m your events coordinator.”

Choufleur raised a brow. “And are you?”

“I am now.”

Tori looked between them—all of them. These women. Her team. Her impossible miracle workers.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, her voice quieter than she expected.

“We’ve seen seven assistants come and go,” Kovacs replied, straightening Tori’s collar with care. “You’re the first one to give us a day off.”

Choufleur patted her shoulder gently.

“We want you to win.”

Tori didn’t know how to respond. She’d survived pressure. Deadlines. Bad bosses.

But this?

This was new. And very welcomed.

Tori exhaled. Smoothed the strands framing her face. Centered her weight over her new heels.

“One more thing,” Choufleur said, handing her a small blue folder.

Inside: the Azure Accord deck. Cinematic. Color-coded. Subtly intimidating.

“Ready?” Kovacs asked.

Tori nodded.

They were late.

Not metaphorically—actually, terrifyingly, minutes-from-disaster late.

Tori was nearly sprinting, her heels biting into the carpet with every step as the executive wing loomed ahead. The lighting felt brighter than usual—clinical, judgmental. The floor stretched like a bad dream, every inch lengthened by adrenaline.

Behind her, the slap of Kovacs’ heels echoed like gunfire.

“Pick up the pace!” Tori hissed, not looking back. “We’re already cutting into our slot!”

Lazard was moving fast but looked vaguely concussed, his tie half-straightened, one hand clutching the portable hard drive like a detonator. “Choufleur, you’re launching the title slide as soon as we’re in—hard open, no preamble.”

“Copy that,” Choufleur said, barely winded.

“Kovacs?”

“Handouts go out on the first beat. Projections are in the report. If they don’t read them, I’ll summarize in twelve words or less.”

“And Orla—?”

“I enter last with the refreshments,” Orla intoned, serene as ever despite the jog. “Timed to coincide with palate fatigue and waning executive glucose levels.”

A clerk passed them going the other way, double-taked at Tori’s blouse-harness combo, and walked straight into a recycling bin. The crash was immediate and tragic.

Kovacs smirked. “You’re leaving casualties and we haven’t even reached the battlefield.”

“I feel like throwing up,” Tori muttered.

“You’ll look amazing doing it,” Choufleur offered helpfully.

They turned a sharp corner. The carpet beneath them changed—plusher now, expensive enough to silence even panic. The temperature dropped. A whiff of cigar smoke. Executive air.

Ahead: the boardroom doors.

Muted voices filtered through the gap—sharp, stylized, overlapping. The Second-in-Commandments. The Directors. And President Shinra himself, seated like a judgment rendered in flesh. The tone inside was barbed and efficient. No room for error. No appetite for delay.

Lazard staggered to a halt just outside the doors. He shoved the portable hard drive into her hand.

“You drive,” he said breathlessly. “My hands are shaking too much.”

Tori stared down at the small device in her palm.

“We’ve got eleven minutes,” she said. “Maybe less if the first slide doesn't buy us time.”

Choufleur fixed her collar. Kovacs passed her the final printout. Orla arrived behind them with the waitstaff from the rooftop bar bustling carts of refreshments.

They formed a loose huddle, breath synchronized like a countdown.

Tori closed her eyes for half a second. She could still feel the sting of the last executive meeting—the silence, the sideways glances, the crushing sense of inadequacy.

Not this time.

She met each of their eyes.

“Let’s show them what functional looks like.”

And then, together, they stepped toward the gleaming double doors—Lazard, Tori, Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla—into the room where power dressed itself in posture and policy.

The light inside was too bright.

Her heart kicked once.

Twice.

Then she crossed the threshold—toward the pitch, the gamble, and the second chance she swore she wouldn’t waste.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The President’s conference room was shaped like an accusation.

A wide, ostentatiously round table dominated the space—black ironwood, inlaid with mako-threaded glass that shimmered like circuitry beneath recessed lighting. It was built to suggest equality. In practice, it formed a hollow ring—empty at the center, as if awaiting a confession.

Or a sacrifice.

Sephiroth took his seat five chairs down from President Shinra. Not because protocol demanded it, but because the illusion of protocol mattered here. Everything about this room was artifice masquerading as empire. The strategic curvature of the ceiling to project voices. The chilled air kept just cold enough to encourage urgency. The surveillance panel hidden in the chandelier. He knew all of it. And still, he played his part.

Today, he wore standard fatigues. No pauldrons. No coat. No sword. His presence was more symbol than strategy—an apex predator, declawed and displayed for ceremony. It used to bother him less. But lately, the taste of hollow pageantry had grown bitter. Especially in rooms like this.

The Board filed in. Seated themselves. Their assistants drifted to discreet positions behind them—shadows trained in posture and silence. Someone coughed. A rustle of papers, a shuffle of chairs. The air thickened with self-importance.

The meeting, Sephiroth recalled, had been scheduled for two weeks from now. The abrupt shift had come with less than a full day’s notice—an inconvenience to some, a disaster for others. And yet, as the directors took their seats, he saw no signs of unpreparedness. No flustered faces. No scrambling aides.

They were ready.

He narrowed his eyes slightly. Was this a tactic? A pressure test? Or something more pointed—a deliberate maneuver to keep departments off balance, or better yet, to cut short any advantage Lazard might have gained by timing?

It felt engineered. Not random.

When Lazard’s name flickered onto the agenda ring, half the room visibly checked out. A few glanced at their assistants. One audibly scoffed. No one expected much. They rarely did.

President Shinra, already seated at the twelve o’clock mark like the sun that forced the rest of them into orbit, exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke that curled toward the chandelier and hung there like an omen. His gaze passed over Sephiroth and moved on.

As always, Sephiroth did not speak unless spoken to.

None of them met his eyes.

Not directly.

Not the Director of Logistics. Not the head of Finance. Even Reeve, the most humane among them, gave him a subtle nod tinged with caution, like someone nodding at a wild animal that had—so far—stayed in its cage.

They feared him. They respected him. They used him.

He didn’t know which he resented more.

Across the table, Scarlet swept into her seat with a flourish that didn’t match the tone of the room but demanded attention all the same. Her coat slithered from her shoulders in a dramatic flourish.

Wesley, her ever-present shadow, caught the coat before it hit the back of her chair. Without missing a beat, he placed a leather dossier—embossed, crimson, and unnecessarily expensive—precisely in front of her. Beside it, a chilled bottle of sparkling water on an etched glass coaster.

Scarlet offered a faint smile without looking, already smoothing her skirt, adjusting a single strand of gold-threaded hair.

“Tell me, General,” she purred, voice syruped with mock concern as she unscrewed the bottle cap, “will Director Lazard be gracing us with his presence, or did his new assistant not get the memo in time?”

She took a small sip of her water before twisting the cap back on with a little too much force. “Poor Lazard,” she sighed. “Maybe someone should buy him a compass. Or better yet, a homing device.”

Sephiroth did not dignify her with a response. He rarely took the bait. Scarlet’s barbs were ornamental—like the gilded spikes on her heels, meant to draw blood only if you stepped too close.

He kept his gaze forward. Still. Unmoved.

Silence, after all, was the sharper blade.

But he noted the barb.

Scarlet, Head of Weapons Development, was not merely amused. She was antagonistic by design—because a functional SOLDIER was an inconvenient SOLDIER. Because when men like Lazard tried to build systems of protection, Scarlet’s division saw only interference with weapons testing. Slower approval cycles. Fewer casualties to experiment on.

And then there was Hojo.

Seated two chairs to Shinra’s right, the Director of R&D sat like a spider pretending to be a man—fingers steepled, mouth unreadable, gaze flickering with clinical disinterest. His influence had already soaked into the floorboards. Where Scarlet weaponized industry, Hojo weaponized ideology. And SOLDIER, much to Sephiroth’s dismay, had been born from both.

Between them, they chipped away at Lazard’s command like termites: Scarlet demanding combat data before protocol was complete; Hojo requisitioning First Class operatives for unapproved testing under the guise of “optimization.” The dysfunction served them. It kept SOLDIER desperate. Dependent.

And the President allowed it.

Because chaos made for pliable departments.

Shinra’s latest euphemism for conquest—“Manifest Destiny”—had been scrawled in gold across the last quarterly brief. The phrase offended Sephiroth more than he let on. It was not destiny. It was resource acquisition veiled in providence. A hostile takeover with prettier words. Small nations and fragile settlements were given two options: cooperate and be protected… or resist and be pacified.

And who did the company send when the nations chose wrong?

Sephiroth sighed.

“On with it,” President Shinra said, his voice thick with oil and indulgence.

The presentation began. A quarterly review, dressed in gravitas. Charts glowed across the circular monitor ring suspended above the center of the table—population density models, reactor performance graphs, public satisfaction polls curated to look more favorable than they were. One by one, department heads spoke. Each report was polished, bloated, and engineered for optics. Meager achievements were paraded like conquests.

Sephiroth let the drone of language wash over him like rain on steel. He wasn’t here to engage. He was here to be seen. A monument placed just far enough from the center to remind the room of its own mortality.

Because the real business never happened here. The true negotiations happened in side channels, over closed-door dinners and carefully encrypted messages.

Like the mafia. Only better funded.

And if anyone dissented?

They had agents for that. Quiet men in dark coats with sharp smiles. Men like Tseng. Fixers. Watchdogs.

The Turks.

Sephiroth suppressed a yawn.

He had just begun to tune out—settling into the half-meditative fugue he reserved for these quarterly rituals—when the rhythm of the room changed.

The doors hissed open. Conversation didn’t stop—

Not right away. But they faltered.

A ripple of attention passed around the hollow ring like a dropped stone in still water.

Lazard had arrived.

What struck Sephiroth wasn’t his timing—it was his posture. His shoulders were not drawn. His gait, for once, was not a frantic collection of half-finished steps. He walked with uncharacteristic calm, as if whatever private storm he usually carried had been momentarily silenced.

Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Lazard hated the President. Not in any active, explosive way—Lazard didn’t have the appetite for theatrics—but in the slow-burning, acerbic way that came from years of being undermined and overlooked. Normally, that disdain manifested in subtle tics: a too-tight tie, a coffee cup with too little coffee. But today?

Nothing.

Then Sephiroth saw her.

The woman braced for a boardroom meeting with eyes wide open and jaw clenched tight. The same lithe shadow trailing behind Lazard.

And yet—not the same.

The impression caused a stir in him. An awareness that prickled beneath his collar.

She was walking just behind Lazard, composed but magnetic, every click of her heels reshaping the tone of the room. Tori Sutton. But not the version he remembered.

Gone was the hesitant, apologetic young woman, and in her place stood something sharper. More calculated and cunning. Every inch of her was weaponized professionalism, from the heel of her pointed pumps to the leather harness wrapped elegantly around her slender waist.

Her hair wasn’t polished or pinned. It was slightly mussed, deliberately so, with loose strands catching the overhead lights. The framing softened nothing.

But it was her eyes that did it.

Bright. Green. The vivid, luminous kind only mako could explain. Cure materia at full charge.

Sephiroth sank a little deeper in his chair and laced fingers over his mouth.

There was only one word for the smile that pulled at the corner of his lips.

Intrigue.

Behind her, the other assistants filed in—Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla—each wearing the expression of someone summoned into battle but determined to die with dignity. Choufleur’s brows were taut, eyes scanning the room with practiced diplomacy. Kovacs looked like she’d just threatened someone in an elevator. Orla… Orla appeared to be whispering into the PHS, likely dispatching one last covert signal before the theater production resumed.

Every head in the room had turned.

Even Scarlet’s pen paused mid-flourish.

Lazard cleared his throat—less an announcement than a polite incursion. He adjusted his tie and offered the board a nod that managed to look both sheepish and insubordinate.

“Apologies for the dramatic entrance,” he said, voice calm despite the faint sheen on his brow. “We were finalizing materials right up to the deadline. You know how SOLDIER likes to cut things close.”

A dry chuckle rippled from Reeve’s side of the table. Someone near Finance raised an eyebrow. No one interrupted.

Tori stepped forward, the click of her heels silencing the last few murmurs. Her hand moved to her harness—not to adjust it, but to draw something from it.

A pen.

Black. Sleek. Familiar.

His pen.

She turned it between her fingers with quiet intent, then leveled it like a conductor’s baton—her thumb resting against the cap. A gesture full of subtlety and purpose.

Then she looked at him.

Across the cavernous conference room. Across protocol and history and all the cold air between them.

Her gaze locked with his and held.

No words passed. But the message was clear:

I’ve got this. You don’t have to worry.

She nodded once in solidarity.

It kindled low in his chest. The anticipation of impact. Of potential being tested at last.

She was about to do something.

He could feel it.

And for the first time in months—no, years—he looked forward to what happened next.

Chapter Text

“She didn’t ask to be let in.
She studied the lock.”

Tori felt it first in her throat. That subtle, traitorous constriction—the kind that made breathing feel unnatural. Her pulse was loud in her ears, her nails creating half-moon dents in the file clenched in her hand. The air in the halls outside the room had been pleasant. But in here, it was cold and laced with a heavy scent of varnish.

The President’s boardroom was a monument to bad decisions—opulent in a way that felt histrionic. Mako-threaded glass gleamed beneath recessed lighting, an affectation masquerading as vision. At its center: the infamous round table. Vast. Hollowed. A cavernous ring of inlaid ironwood that screamed inclusion while enforcing distance. She had seen a picture of it hanging on the Legacy Wall where she used to dust every week and thought it grand. In person, it looked ridiculous in its proportions.

If you’re not at the table, she reminded herself, you’re on the menu.

And today, she and Lazard were the main course. Eleven minutes to pitch the future of SOLDIER to a room full of predators who preferred blood sport over pleasantries.

Her heels tapped across the floor in clean strides—a counterpoint to Lazard’s longer gait. As she crossed the threshold, a wave of attention met her. Heads turned. Some blinked in recognition. Others didn’t bother hiding their skepticism. She caught one executive leaning slightly toward his neighbor. Whispering? Smirking? It didn’t matter. The math had already been done the moment they walked in: understaffed, overdressed, and late.

But she held her ground.

Tori had not clawed her way here through pedigree. She didn’t have a legacy name or a private tutor who taught her to wield boardroom quips like daggers. What she had was something much rarer.

Loyalty. The kind you couldn’t buy. The kind forged in shared suffering, in long nights and busted printers, in caffeinated diplomacy and whispered warnings about bad bosses. Her career wasn’t built on titles. It was built on thank-you notes. On the intern who remembered how she backed him up. On the assistant who got promoted and never forgot the woman who covered her phones.

She wasn’t just walking in with Lazard.

She was walking in with every favor she was owed from every corner of the company—and the quiet, rumbling weight of being underestimated.

Good. Let them underestimate me.

Her eyes swept the room.

There was Brett Donahue—poised beside President Shinra’s chair with the elegant menace of a seasoned executioner. Her silhouette was brutalist chic: expensive tweed tailored within an inch of weaponization, gold buttons gleaming like shrapnel. One arm braced at her hip, the other cradled a lit cigar. Shinra may be the emperor, but Brett was the empress dowager behind the curtain.

Her gaze slid over Tori, absent of any interest. It was the kind of look that could sandblast a weaker woman straight to the bone.

Tori adjusted her harness a fraction. Grateful now for the precise twist of her blouse, the calculated compression that kept her shoulders back.

The rest of the Second-in-Commandments were also in attendance, regarding her with varying expressions of polite condolences.

But none of them captured her attention like the man seated five chairs down from the President.

Even in a room steeped in power, Sephiroth remained the true center of gravity. While others shifted papers or murmured last-minute figures, he sat perfectly still—fingers steepled before his mouth, gaze lowered in an inscrutable calm. He wasn’t attending the meeting so much as anchoring it, unmoved and unbothered, as if the proceedings revolved around him by design.

She hadn’t expected him here. But assumptions meant little at this high altitude of command.

When her gaze found his, he looked up.

The change was small—a subtle lift of the eyes beneath the veil of silver hair—but the force of it struck clean through. Where she anticipated indifference, she found a flicker of light behind the stillness.

Recognition.

His hands remained folded before his face, concealing whatever curve his mouth might’ve taken. But the glint in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. She might have imagined it, but for a breathless second, it felt like he was smiling.

That impossible thought landed like a match to dry timber.

Then his gaze dropped.

To the pen.

Of course it did.

It was the kind of detail he would notice. The black barrel. The polished chrome. A subtle message only he would see. Her grip tightened with quiet intention and she hoped he understood.

Don’t worry, I won’t fall.

Not this time.

If she faltered, she’d do it moving forward. But she would not stumble the same way twice.

His expression softened around the eyes. A slight release of tension. Whether it was curiosity, caution, or quiet approval, she couldn’t say.

But he was watching now.

Really watching.

And somehow, that made all the difference.

Lazard cleared his throat and raised his voice just enough to command the floor.

“Kovacs,” he said, his tone crisp, “kill the lights.”

With one fluid motion, Kovacs dimmed the room. The chandelier retracted into its socket, flooding the boardroom in sleek shadows and the blue glow of the monitor ring above.

“Choufleur,” Lazard continued, “roll the title sequence.”

The first slide bloomed across the central display in crisp, cinematic clarity.

THE AZURE ACCORD
Strategic Evolution for a New SOLDIER Era

Tori felt the breath leave her lungs and return steadier.

No one in the room shifted. No papers rustled. Even the President seemed perplexed.

She stepped forward, shoulder to shoulder with Lazard, the center of the circle now a stage—no longer hollow. No longer waiting for a sacrifice. But for the loudest, most subversive revelation the Board was about to witness in its entire history.

She had built this moment from the ground up.

Now it was time to rise.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

THE AZURE ACCORD: HOW TO REINVENT A DEPARTMENT IN UNDER FIFTEEN MINUTES

Take your seats. Secure your beverages. Adjust your expectations. What unfolds next in the President’s executive boardroom will be studied, cited, envied—and, despite many attempts, never quite replicated.

In the semesters ahead, this sequence will headline organizational seminars under such electrifying titles as S-Class Quarterly Presentation Strategy, Executive Optics in High-Stakes Environments, and the perennial crowd-pleaser: How to Get the President and the Entire Board to Sign Off on a Proposal in Under Fifteen Minutes Without Crying.

But today, it happens live.

The lights dim. Not flicker—dim. As if even the room knows to hush.

A soft wash of cobalt cuts across the faces of Shinra’s elite, rendering them—momentarily—statuesque. Cheekbones lit like sculpture, breath held in a shared silence as the round screen above the table ignites into life. Assistants go still. One gasps. Another elbows a neighbor. All eyes lift.

Two minutes and twenty-one seconds past their scheduled slot, Director Lazard Deusericus begins his departmental pitch with a proverbial BANG.

Or, more precisely—a trailer.

A cinematic overture swells—strings and percussion underpinned by a heartbeat you can feel in your bones. The kind of music reserved for planetary stakes. Scarlet uncrosses her legs. Ferris Knox leans forward, entranced. Wesley Hart squints upward, transfixed.

On screen: Sephiroth in motion blur. Blade raised. A flicker of a grin. Chrome letters: SOLDIER. Cut to parade footage—polished formation, thunderous applause. And then, a voiceover—Choufleur’s, composed and crystalline:

“In every corner of the world… there are lives worth protecting.”

The footage escalates: operatives shielding civilians, SOLDIER squads in formation, Sephiroth poised on a cliff like myth incarnate.

“In the face of danger, some run. Others rise.”

Combat sequences. Mako eyes alight. Movements synchronized like ballet rewritten for war.

“They are not just warriors. They are guardians. Explorers. Architects of peace, built in real time.”

Lazard flips through schematics. Sephiroth adjusts a cadet’s stance. Then: outreach missions. Disaster relief. The crowd parts.

“From Junon to Wutai, from the stormfront to the desert floor—

SOLDIERs carry the weight. So others don’t have to.”

The pace softens. Sephiroth lifts a fallen comrade. Lazard presents the Accord to an unseen audience, conviction etched in every frame.

“The Azure Accord is more than a plan. It’s a promise.”

Training. Diplomacy. Logistics.

“A promise that the future of SOLDIER is not forged in power alone—

but in purpose. In presence. In protection that transcends borders.”

The final swell. Sephiroth walks through a sea of infantrymen, his silver hair parting the ranks like light through water. Behind him: skies washed in rose and violet.

“This is not war without end.”

“This is vision, in motion.”

“This is SOLDIER… evolved.”

The screen fades to black.

A second of perfect stillness.

Then the score returns—urgent, exhaling into crescendo—cutting rapid-fire through deployments, mako reactors, transport fleets, aid drops. The SOLDIER logo reappears, accompanied by a sharp metallic ring.

Masamune, if it could sing.

And then—

Director Lazard begins.

No tremor. No stumble. He doesn’t pitch the Accord. He unveils it—like a recovered truth. A roadmap already in motion.

Tori stands beside him, her hand steady on the controls. She cues each visual like a conductor summoning the brass section. Each diagram lands. Each schematic hits. Each graph translates abstract to visceral.

No one fidgets.

No one dares interrupt.

They’re not just watching a proposal. They’re watching a campaign arrive.

And then—just as attention threatens to teeter into fatigue—Tori raises her hand.

A single snap of her fingers. Soft, but precise.

The room exhales.

Side doors open. Servers enter like actors hitting their marks: trays of lavender espresso, lemon-almond financiers, charcoal-smoked tartlets. Each bite-sized offering rests on cobalt napkins embossed in silver foil: The Azure Accord.

The selection—curated by Orla Zeffirelli, enigma and artisan—isn’t mere refreshment. It’s metaphor. Heat and chill. Smoke and bloom. Complexity with a palate-cleansing finish.

Meanwhile, Kovacs circulates the room, delivering folios bound in leather and authority. Blue covers. Silver trim. The custom-chartered documents, fresh off The Demon’s press.

Choufleur raises the lighting by precisely three degrees.

And then—

Tori turns the pen in her hand.

Not a flourish.

An invocation.

She places it before President Shinra with the conviction of someone who already knows the outcome.

This, dear reader, is how an executive boardroom is commandeered.

With graphics. With gravitas.

And with a grapefruit-mint aperitif.

It is theater.

It is war.

It is diplomacy—plated and chilled.

And now—

“Are there any questions from the board?” Lazard asks, bright as crystal.

The silence that follows is no accident.

It’s strategy.

And it teeters, perfectly, on the edge of a precipice.

We return.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Sephiroth leaned forward.

Something sharp caught beneath his ribs and lodged there, pulsing with the rhythm of a long-dormant instinct: the readiness before battle. Except this wasn’t a battlefield, and no sword had been drawn.

Not yet.

The boardroom—the grand theater of it—seemed to hum with a current that hadn’t been present ten minutes ago. Not ambient noise, but voltage. A kind of live-wire expectancy that pulled at the base of his skull and dared him to remain unmoved. The scent of scorched citrus and steel cut through the sterile air, mingling with the unmistakable aroma of strategy fully deployed.

He had watched the presentation as one might watch a star burst into a supernova. Unable to look away.

Because what he saw on that screen wasn’t another self-congratulatory PR reel. It wasn’t Vesper’s airbrushed pageantry or Hojo’s data-choked dissertations.

It was vision.

Unapologetic. Undistracted. And, most dangerously, it felt like truth.

Choufleur’s voice still echoed in his memory: In every corner of the world… there are lives worth protecting.

A mandate. Not cloaked in symbolism or bureaucracy—but presented plainly, as if daring the room to argue. For once, SOLDIER hadn’t been framed as a necessary evil or ornamental threat. It had been reimagined as an emissary. Capable of precision. Of peace.

And Sephiroth—so long the blade of other men’s ambitions—felt something sharp and foreign lodge beneath his sternum.

Hope.

The Azure Accord didn’t promise him glory. It promised him agency. A structure he could influence. A future he might one day answer to without shame.

And at the center of it—

Tori Sutton.

No longer the stammering desk clerk with a stained blouse and ripped hose. She stood beside Lazard as his equal, a saboteur-turned-savior, calm and precise in a room designed to unravel people more influential than her. And yet, she was executing every contingency with the unflappable grace of someone who knew exactly how power moved through a building—and how to reroute it.

Sephiroth stared openly now, unbothered by decorum. Tori was the axis around which the entire presentation had pivoted. A blade—yes—but one wielded so deftly that none of the board members had even seen themselves bleed yet.

He could feel it. The edge of something new.

And he was on the verge of rising.

Then came the inevitable resistance.

It issued from the Director of Finance with all the smugness of a man convinced he was about to shut the whole operation down.

“The budget doesn’t allow for this kind of departmental overhaul,” he said, hands steepled in mock regret. “Not without significant risk to quarterly yield.”

The statement hung in the air like a slow-moving guillotine.

But before it could fall—

A sharp chime cut through the silence.

Sephiroth’s gaze shifted as Tori slipped a sleek silver PHS from her tactical harness. She answered with the ease of someone who had anticipated this exact objection, down to the second.

“Hi Shelly, perfect timing,” she said, tone warm and unhurried. “We’re in session with the President and Board now. Can you provide a status update on our budget requisition?”

“Of course, Ms. Sutton,” came the cheerful reply over speaker. “Just confirming that the Accord’s funding has been filed, triple-audited, and formally approved. Funds are drawn from the Strategic Advancement Endowment.”

A long pause followed.

Sephiroth watched the Finance Director go pale—only slightly, but enough. That endowment had been a closely guarded reserve, a quiet privilege for departments favored by the upper echelon. Access wasn’t granted—it was bestowed.

And Tori Sutton had found her way in.

“Thank you, Shelly,” she said smoothly. “We look forward to your continued collaboration.”

Lazard cleared his throat with audible satisfaction. “Any other objections?”

There were. Of course.

“Legal Affairs,” someone interjected from the lower end of the table, his voice laced with condescension. “With all due respect, a venture of this magnitude is going to require a labyrinth of permits. Regional, municipal, foreign consulate—none of which, I assume, are—”

“You mean these?” Tori asked, her voice slicing cleanly across his.

From her side, she drew a leather folio. The cover caught the recessed lighting—cobalt stamped with Shinra’s seal in foil-pressed silver. She opened it slowly, revealing a neatly tabbed dossier of documents, each stamped and notarized.

“All permits were submitted for expedited review and approved by Shinra Legal as of this morning. With special thanks to Ms. Kovacs, who graciously volunteered her legal prowess.”

Kovacs—glowing with barely disguised pride—rose from her place and began distributing additional bound copies of The Azure Accord to the board. Even from where he sat, Sephiroth could see the meticulous presentation: tabbed timelines, cross-indexed budgets, implementation tiers mapped in cascading gradients of cobalt and ash.

He thumbed his own copy open with a fingertip. It read less like a proposal and more like a declaration of war.

Lazard raised an eyebrow. “Anyone else?”

A pause. Longer this time. Weighted.

Then Brett Donahue spoke.

She did not raise her voice, but her words rolled out smooth as poured honey, every syllable tipped in polite venom.

“My only concern,” she said, eyes fixed on Tori, “is that Ms. Sutton is exceedingly new to SOLDIER’s internal operations. An initiative of this scope demands rigorous project management, systems fluency, and executive foresight—skills of which Ms. Sutton has, to my knowledge, no formal training. She has worked as a Service Center Specialist in her previous role. Two weeks in her current role. And we are meant to believe she can deliver one of the most complex initiatives this board has ever reviewed?”

She smiled thinly.

“Ms. Sutton, what do you offer this board to justify your position at Director Lazard’s side? I’m sure we would all be eager to hear it.”

The words echoed with a deliberate sweetness. It was a challenge. No—a dismissal, masked in deference. Sephiroth knew the tone. He’d heard it before, leveled at fresh cadets and off-world defectors and anyone who dared step into the ring without legacy behind them.

He felt a lick of anger crawl up his spine.

President Shinra leaned back in his chair, one elbow braced, cigar dangling like a question mark between two fingers. A faint smile played on his lips—not amused, not welcoming. But interested all the same. That was worse. It meant he had decided to let the wolves circle and see what the fawn would do with her throat exposed.

“Yes, Ms. Sutton. Do oblige us.”

All eyes were on her now. Brett’s, narrowing with something cruel and close to pity. Scarlet’s, glinting with foxlike appraisal. Reeve sat still, unreadable, while Heidegger’s breathing grew louder in the silence.

But Tori Sutton stepped forward without so much as a tremor in her hands.

“If I may,” she began, her voice calm but firm—like a bell rung at exactly the right frequency. “I understand your concern.”

She didn’t look to Lazard for strength. Didn’t glance back at her team.

She looked straight at Brett Donahue.

“Everything you’ve said is true. I didn’t graduate from a university. I don’t have credentials in military logistics or global infrastructure. I’ve never supervised a squad or authored a white paper.”

Her gaze moved then, sweeping the room, landing last on Shinra himself.

“But that is exactly why I’m standing here.”

Sephiroth felt it. The hairline shift in the air when someone stopped being underestimated and started becoming dangerous.

“I’ve spent eighteen months in the Service Center,” she said, her voice steady, each syllable more assured than the last. “That’s a year and a half of fixing what no one else wanted to fix. I know how delays are manufactured. I know who holds the keys to whose inbox. I know that the assistant schedules the meetings and the mailroom controls the tide of war.”

A pause. Not for effect—but to give the Board time to realize what she was doing.

“I’ve seen every flaw in the system. I’ve lived in the fault lines. And I’ve spent every spare hour figuring out how to build something better in the gaps you didn’t even realize were there.”

Sephiroth leaned forward, breath shallow, heart ticking with a quiet, unfamiliar staccato. It was not battle adrenaline. It was something stranger—hope, weaponized into momentum.

“I’m not asking for an easy win,” Tori continued. “I’m asking for the same opportunity that every department represented in this room was given once—at the start.”

Her tone shifted—slightly softer, but no less grounded.

“When Shinra Electric Power Company began, the world didn’t take you seriously either. They called you a weapons factory with delusions of grandeur. And yet—here you sit. At the helm of a global empire. Because someone—maybe you, maybe your father—refused to believe the past had the final word.”

Shinra’s brows twitched.

Tori gripped the cobalt folio with both hands. She stepped across the hollow pit of the conference table and placed it carefully in front of him. Slowly, deliberately, she opened it to the title page. The signature line gleamed beneath the recessed lighting. Blank. Waiting.

“I believe in that same future,” she said quietly. “I believe SOLDIER can evolve. I believe this Accord is a way forward that honors the past without being shackled to it.”

Then came the final touch.

With a gesture that was just as symbolic as it was utilitarian, she offered President Shinra her fountain pen.

“Will you sign it?” she asked, voice neither pleading nor aggressive. “Will you give me a chance to prove my worth just as you did once?”

The room was still.

Sephiroth could feel the weight of it pressing against his ribcage. This was no longer a presentation. It was a gambit. A siege. A dare.

All that remained was the final verdict.

And somewhere, deep inside, he realized:

If she succeeded—if the President signed—it would change everything.

Not just for SOLDIER.

But for him.

President Shinra leaned back into his chair, the leather creaking faintly beneath his considerable weight. Smoke curled upward from the end of his cigar, drifting lazily toward the ceiling as if in no hurry to escape the gravity of what was about to unfold. He glanced toward Brett Donahue with the casual synchronicity of a long-practiced maneuver. A glance, brief and surgical, passed between them—wordless, exact, and deadly in its implication.

Sephiroth knew that look. He’d seen it executed on the battlefield with far less subtlety. This was no overt attack. This was strategy. A procedural kill dressed in the respectable silk of parliamentary order.

“Ah, Lazard,” the President said, his voice warm with something that wasn’t approval. “This is most ambitious.” He tapped the end of his cigar into the crystal ashtray, eyes never leaving the folio in front of him. “Shall we put it to a vote?”

A vote. Sanitized execution disguised as process. One by one, the Board would feign neutrality as they quietly strangled the proposal under the guise of collective disinterest. No one would be blamed. No one would bleed. But it would die all the same.

Sephiroth stood.

“I motion for the Azure Accord to be approved for implementation,” he said, his voice carrying through the room like a sword unsheathed.

He didn’t look at Shinra.

He looked at her.

Tori Sutton. Across the table, her gaze locked with his in mutual understanding. She had brought them to the edge. He was ensuring they didn’t fall back.

Murmurs broke out in the room once more, this time with a panicked frenzy. Sephiroth cast his gaze across the room, peering at them all with the same cold clarity of a general calling his men to heel.

“The Research and Development Department seconds the motion.”

The words came from Ferris Knox, Hojo’s assistant, his voice sharp against the hush. Sephiroth’s gaze flicked toward Hojo, who remained inert, unreadable. Calculations whirred behind those refracted frames. There would be angles in this for him—unseen ones. But that could wait.

Scarlet rose next, heels clicking like punctuation across the marble floor. Her red-slicked smile suggested she had already decided the entertainment was worth the gamble.

“Well then,” she said crisply. “All those in favor, say aye.”

A moment of silence. A breath held by the room.

Then—like a storm breaking in reverse—voices rose.

Aye.

First in pockets. Then in succession. Reeve. Palmer. The Director of Finance, reluctant and red-cheeked. Even Heidegger, whose mouth twitched like a man biting through the rind of his pride.

President Shinra exhaled long and slow, as if savoring the bitter taste of being outmaneuvered.

“Very well, Lazard,” he said at last. “You may proceed. With the full support of the Board.”

He regarded Tori’s pen for a long moment, his expression a mask of practiced dispassion. Then, with a sigh more dramatic than necessary, he reached for it, plucked it from her grip, and lowered the nib to the page.

The ink flowed like blood.

One sharp, aggressive sweep of his hand across the title page, and it was done.

He set the pen down, then leaned back with the ease of a man pretending he hadn’t just surrendered something irreplaceable.

He turned his gaze on Tori, that smile thin as paper and twice as sharp.

“Let’s see what your team delivers by quarter’s end.”

But the damage was already done.

Around the table, the Board shifted uneasily—power had just changed hands, and no one had managed to stop it. Sephiroth sat down, arms relaxed at his sides, though his pulse still hummed in his wrists with the force of everything that had just been rerouted.

He looked at Tori once more. She hadn’t moved, hadn’t allowed the moment to own her. She simply looked back, expression composed, a flicker of defiance tempered by poise.

She had taken a room built to bury ambition—and bent it to her will.

He did not smile.

But something within him settled.

Something like respect. And something far more dangerous: alignment.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The hallway outside the boardroom still hummed with residual voltage, like a theatre after the curtain had dropped, the ghosts of applause still echoing in the rafters. Carts from the rooftop bar remained parked along the wall, trays half-pillaged, silver cutlery askew, their cobalt napkins like miniature flags of conquest. The scent of candied citrus peel and smoked rosemary clung to the air.

Tori held a chilled flute of sparkling aperitif in her hand—finally. Her fingers were trembling just enough to catch the light in the bubbles. The first sip was bliss. Cold, sweet, floral. Proof that this wasn’t a fever dream.

Beside her, Lazard ran a hand through his hair and exhaled in what could only be described as exhausted euphoria. “Well,” he said, voice hoarse with disbelief, “I think we just survived a tactical assault.”

“No,” Choufleur said, swiping a lemon tartlet from a tray. “We waged one.”

“Executed,” Kovacs added, calmly sipping her own drink. “On-brand. On-budget. And without casualties.”

Orla had one arm draped dramatically across the cart she had commandeered like a pirate. “I told you fire and smoke would work. Never doubt a garnish that glows.”

Tori laughed, surprised by the way it burst out of her. Relief bloomed in her chest like spring after a siege. They had done it. Against every odd, every boardroom dagger, every strategic dismissal—they’d done it.

The door behind them opened.

Board members began to file out, murmuring and blinking like they'd emerged from a darkened theatre. Tori stood straighter, her posture reflexively composed, but her buzz made her almost lightheaded. She caught sight of Ferris Knox—Hojo’s assistant—approaching with the same elegant menace he always carried, like a man born in cufflinks.

“Well played,” Ferris said, stopping in front of her. “I must admit, Miss Sutton, I underestimated you.”

Tori offered a tight-lipped smile, unsure if she should thank him or question whether this was meant as praise or warning.

He continued, gaze flicking to the empty glass in her hand. “From busy little cog to… executive queenmaker. I believe you’ve just redrawn the map.”

There was something slippery in his tone. Something interested.

Tori didn’t reply, though her pulse was beginning to rise again—not from flattery. She started to pivot slightly toward Lazard, searching for an exit.

But then—

“Careful, Knox,” came a smooth voice, impossibly close behind her. “You're hovering.”

Tori stiffened.

Sephiroth stood just over her right shoulder, his voice lower than usual, velvet-edged with something amused—and yet sharper than steel. He was out of uniform, his long silver hair catching flecks of light from the chandeliers. His eyes—those eyes—were unguarded in a way she had never seen before. Alive.

Ferris lifted his brows, offered a parting nod, and disappeared into the dispersing crowd.

Only then did Tori let herself exhale.

Sephiroth stepped beside her, glancing once at the carts, then at Lazard, then at her.

“You’ve just outmaneuvered Shinra’s entire upper administration,” he said. “How?”

Tori blinked. “I—what?”

He turned fully toward her now. “How,” he repeated, with none of the impatience she expected. Only curiosity. Real curiosity.

“I didn’t do it alone,” she said quickly, glancing at her team, no—her friends. “Kovacs, Orla, Choufleur—we all built this. I just… connected the dots.”

His gaze didn’t falter. “No one has been able to connect those dots. Not Lazard. Not Reeve. Not anyone.”

Tori blushed, warmth crawling up her neck.

“I worked in the Service Center for almost two years,” she said, a bit more softly. “That’s long enough to learn which undersecretaries will expedite a form if you include a handwritten thank-you note… and which internal programs the Board forgets exist because they were never designed to benefit anyone but themselves.”

She glanced down at her glass. “Most of the time, I was just fixing broken calendars. But I memorized how the system breaks. And how to slip through the cracks.”

There was a pause.

Then she felt it—a brush of contact. Gentle. Intentional.

Sephiroth’s fingers touched her wrist.

Barely.

He leaned in just slightly, his voice low enough that only she could hear.

“You’ve become the most dangerous woman in the company, Ms. Sutton.”

Tori’s breath caught in her throat.

The compliment, if that’s what it was, struck deeper than she expected. And the heat of his words, soft against the shell of her ear, lit her from the inside out. His hand, still at her wrist, lingered just long enough to make her heart trip.

He withdrew it slowly.

“Departments will fight for you now,” he murmured. “But don’t defect.”

A beat.

“You’re mine.”

“Excuse me,” came Lazard’s voice, cutting through the moment with the honed precision of a scalpel. “She is my executive assistant.”

Sephiroth raised one brow, amused. “So you say.”

Kovacs choked into her drink. Choufleur had turned an alarming shade of pink. Orla didn’t so much as blink, but Tori caught the faintest upward twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Tori herself said nothing at all.

She couldn’t.

Not with the rush of blood in her ears and the taste of rose-pear bubbles still on her tongue.

She had just pulled off the greatest administrative coup in Shinra history.

And somehow, impossibly, it wasn’t the ink, the signatures, or even the power shift that left her breathless.

It was the way he’d said: You’re mine.

Chapter Text

“Some memos are never written. Only passed in glances across the room.”

Percival Dockery muttered to himself as he wheeled the cart through the stacks.

The sound of its rusted bearings echoed through the cavernous quiet, far too loud for the late hour. The Archives, at night, always reminded him of an orchestra pit between performances: poised, breathless, full of instruments waiting for the wrong hands.

"Who misfiles a Class-9 manuscript? Who?" he mumbled, elbow-deep in a stack of aging policy tomes. One by one, he slid them from the shelf and set them atop his cart, each thunk a little more frantic than the last. "And if it’s gone entirely—gone gone—what then? What happens to me? A strike? No. Dismissal? Possibly. Public flogging? Not out of the question."

He dabbed at his forehead with a trembling handkerchief, already damp. Sweat trickled behind his ear, collecting at the stiff collar of his shirt. He adjusted his glasses again. They refused to stay still, slipping slowly down the oily bridge of his nose.

"Three decades of spotless service and I go down because someone thought to grab a take-home read..."

He stepped back to survey the shelf. Still no sign. Another row nearly gutted. Documents sprawled across the cart like the aftermath of a paper war. One last binder remained, wedged stubbornly in place—its grey spine dulled to a dusky taupe. The embossing was nearly worn off.

"Come on now," he muttered, reaching.

That’s when a chill infiltrated his senses.

He froze.

Somewhere behind him, the silence of the Shinra Archives bent ever so slightly. Like a photograph unlevel on the wall. Dockery took a moment to rub his tired eyes.

"Don’t be ridiculous," he muttered, voice small in the cavernous hush. "You're alone."

The stacks stood in orderly silence. Row after row of categorized glory. Containment binders. Risk registers. The original Junon Treaty addendum, signed in fading blue ink. The air here always smelled of paper and glue. The archives were clean. Safe.

Dockery chastised himself for allowing his anxiety to work up to such a lather. This kind of nervous tension was bad for his heart.

But… he could not shake the feeling that something was ostensibly wrong.

Not out of place, exactly. More like... waiting.

He glanced at the cart beside him—a steel-wheeled behemoth stacked with returned documents, each meticulously labeled with his looping script. Only one binder remained. Its spine was worn soft by decades of use. The color: garnet red. The title: faded gold embossing.

Contingency Protocols for Extremely Unlikely Events:

What to do when normal protocols suddenly go haywire in departmental workflow

The red cover stared back at him with bureaucratic indifference.

“Unlikely, my ass,” Dockery whispered. “I’m living the footnote.”

He reached for it.

Behind him, a shape coalesced. Slow as dusk.

Dockery did not see it. Not fully. A flicker in the periphery. A suggestion of motion between the rows. Like spilled ink reassembling itself into a man.

His fingers trembled on the binder’s spine. He felt, absurdly, the need to apologize for sweating on it.

A voice, never spoken aloud, touched his mind. You know where it belongs.

He turned.

The figure at the end of the aisle did not move. It did not need to.

There was no flash. No hiss. Only the bloom of color across Dockery’s ribs as materia ruptured something vital inside him. The pain was sharp and elegant. A punctuated end.

He staggered sideways, back catching the shelf. A spray of documents toppled like birds startled from a wire. He fell to his knees.

Still clutching the binder.

Blood, bright against the parchment-grey floors, pooled with methodical courtesy.

Dockery’s breath thinned. He was going. He knew it. But still—still, his eyes searched for the right shelf. The gap. The space where the manual belonged.

His arm moved. Heavy. Dragging. He slid the binder back into place.

Filed.

And then, with almost ceremonial quiet, Percival Dockery—Senior Librarian, loyal thirty-seven years—expired.

The figure stepped forward. Examined the shelf.

And smiled.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Tori didn’t remember leaving the boardroom the day before—only the ringing in her ears, the cold sweat under her harness, the sight of her own pen as Shinra signed The Azure Accord in a sharp, ruinous line across the title page. Her legs had carried her forward on borrowed instincts. Her voice had sounded steady, her smile convincing. But now, in the supply closet, the illusion cracked.

The aftermath hit her like an aftershock.

She stood braced against the shelves of copier toner and binders, trying to breathe. Her pulse roared in her ears. Her wrist still tingled where Sephiroth had touched her—his hand warm, his voice so close. It had shocked her more than the President’s razor-thin smile or Donahue’s polished scorn.

Tori clutched her blouse, inhaling slowly. She could still hear the echo of her own voice, presenting to the board. Still see the way Sephiroth had looked at her—not like an underling, but a comrade in the trenches.

She had gone toe-to-toe with the President of the company. And won.

And yet, the gravity of it only registered now. Alone, among cleaning supplies and printer paper, she let herself feel the tremble that had been waiting to rise. Then, let the adrenaline pass.

Slowly, she straightened.

She pressed her palms to her skirt, adjusted her hair, and checked her reflection in the narrow steel panel. Her expression looked... composed. Tired, but intact.

Tori stepped back into the light.

The office was already abuzz. Choufleur and Orla were seated in the waiting room chairs in front of a glorious seven-tiered giftbox that looked like it had been engineered by an upscale patisserie. Each layer, stacked and bound in gold ribbon, was labeled in embossed cursive: Lavender Finchley.

"What’s this?" Tori asked, approaching the monolith.

"Technically, we didn’t open it," Choufleur said, popping a truffle into her mouth. "It opened itself. Like magic."

"Finchley magic," Orla agreed solemnly, holding out a sugared citrus tart.

Kovacs sauntered in from the kitchenette, a steaming espresso in hand and a caramel wafer clenched between her teeth. "We’re rationing nothing. We earned this."

Tori barely had time to process the array of confections before her phone flickered to life—one notification after another cascading down her screen. Congratulations from nearly every Second-in-Commandment across headquarters. Brief, formal, vaguely approving.

Even Brett Donahue had written.

Congratulations. Let’s see where you take this, Ms. Sutton.

No emojis. No pleasantries. Just that single, surgical line.

A message that left her flushed with something too complex to name—exhilaration tinged with unease. As though a spotlight had found her in the crowd, and she wasn’t sure whether to bow or run.

And then the tone shifted again.

Because it was Wesley who arrived in person.

"Knock knock," he said, stepping into the room with the loose-limbed grace of someone who never knocked at all. He was dressed sharply, as always, but there was a strange glint in his smile—too much teeth, not enough mirth.

"Hart," Kovacs said coolly, brushing crumbs off her lap.

"Ladies," he greeted, then turned. "Miss Tori."

She straightened automatically, unsure why her spine had staged a takeover.

With an elegant flourish, Wesley reached into the breast pocket of his cream blazer. For one blissful second, she thought it might be a congratulatory card—maybe something to strengthen interdepartmental camaraderie.

It was a gun.

“Whoa!” she shrieked, stumbling backward so hard she crashed into Choufleur’s chair. “Oh my god—no! Not like this!”

Choufleur yelped as her truffle hit the floor. Orla calmly repositioned her pastry.

Wesley blinked, scandalized by her reaction.

“What? Oh—oh heavens, no! Miss Tori, please—don’t be alarmed!”

He pressed a hand dramatically over his eyes, as if shielding himself from the sheer impropriety of the moment. “Good gracious, I’ve done it again. Pulled a firearm on a lady. Scarlet warned me about the optics.”

Offering her a helping hand, he added, “Forgive me. Working in Weapons has completely eroded my sense of civilian etiquette.”

He offered the gun with the finesse of a floral bouquet, reverent now. “I assure you, this is strictly ceremonial. I come bearing a gift.”

He placed the firearm into her clammy palms. Sleek. compact. Custom grip with rose-gold detailing. No engraving. Just elegance, pared down to function.

"Scarlet sends her regards," he said. "We noticed your holster was empty yesterday and saw an opportunity to fill it."

Tori stared at the contraption, feeling nauseated once again.

"I... didn’t think I needed one," she said, voice a touch too light for her own liking.

"You do now," Wesley replied, his tone chipper as ever—brisk, warm, and utterly unfazed. "Scarlet wanted to make sure you got the model that best suited your aesthetic. But I insisted on the Aegis M2 over the compact D-series because, well…” Wesley chuckled, shrugging his shoulders, “safety first."

Before she could respond, he plucked the gun from her hand, holding it aloft like he was presenting fine stemware.

“Behold,” he said cheerily, as Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla paused mid-snack, drawn in by the singsong cadence of a man clearly in his element. “This little sweetheart is a modified M2-Aegis. Lightweight polymer chassis, contoured grip, low-recoil chamber—notice the grip angle here. See that curve?” He angled the gun for Tori to see. “Silent, but deadly.”

He clicked the safety off with a crisp motion and rotated the gun between his fingers with the flair of a magician revealing a hidden card.

“Recoil-dampening gel core right under the slide. That’s new. Scarlet had it retrofitted. And this—” he tilted the weapon to show a barely-there switch near the trigger guard “—is the dual-mode selector. Press once for semi-auto, twice for rapid pulse. Very hush-hush.”

Orla blinked. “Pulse?”

“It’s patent pending,” Wesley said brightly. “Think bullets, but less messy. Of course, if you prefer mess, there’s an under-barrel slot for microdust dispersal. Tricky to refill, but wonderfully gruesome.”

Tori’s mouth was dry. Her junior assistants looked mildly enchanted as if live firearms in the office was a common, everyday occurrence.

“Now,” Wesley went on, stepping back and gesturing to Tori with all the flourish of a personal trainer at a boutique gym. “Go ahead. Grip it.”

“I—what?”

“Grip. It. You’ll feel the weight settle differently when you tuck your thumb across the spine.” Tori took the gun once again, her hand shaking so uncontrollably the barrel drew a jagged line in the air. “That’s it. See how your pinky just—yes! Lovely. Like it was made for you. Which, well. It was.”

Tori complied only because her body hadn’t caught up with her brain’s protests. The gun rested against her palm like it had always belonged there—cold and terrifying.

“Stunning,” Wesley said with approval. “Now, remember: always aim away from the windows.” He nudged her arm so that it pointed at The Demon instead. “Shatter one of these panels at this altitude, and the pressure drop won’t just take your breath—it’ll take you.”

He beamed.

Tori could feel Orla smirking at the absurdity, Choufleur silently mouthing What is happening, and Kovacs—ever the tactician—studying Wesley through narrowed eyes.

Wesley clapped his hands. “Now that we’re all armed and elegant, I do hope The Azure Accord turns out to be everything you imagined, Miss Tori. But if it doesn’t—if it ever becomes too much, too fast, or too treacherous—my door is always open.”

His smile softened, warm and bright as ever.

Tori nodded, her heart racing as she cradled the firearm as if it were a hand grenade.

“How… thoughtful. For this,” said Tori. breathless, “and the visit.”

Wesley’s smile didn’t falter. But something beneath it shifted.

“It was more than a visit,” he replied, tone syrupy smooth. “Consider it a gesture of faith.”

There was a beat.

Then his voice dipped—just a hair. The temperature of the conversation changed. Not enough to alarm a bystander, but Tori felt it instantly, like a blade being laid flat against the skin.

“But also,” he continued, “a gentle reminder.” His smile held, though it was thinner now. More gleaming instrument than expression. “We’ve all been watching your rise. Quite the trajectory. Rapid ascension—impressive, yes—but not without its… complications.”

Tori blinked, unsure whether she was being praised or cautioned. Or both.

“The Second-in-Commandments are excited,” Wesley said, stepping back a fraction to regard her more fully. “But also—concerned. You’ve picked a monumental challenge to prove yourself, and that’s understandable. Expected, even. You want to earn your place.”

He shrugged lightly, like the topic didn’t interest him much. “But you don’t need to carry it alone, Miss Tori. No one expects you to. If The Azure Accord becomes… more than you can manage—and it will—don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re here to support promising talent. Even when it overreaches.”

He looked at the gun again.

“Especially then.”

With a single knuckle, he tapped the top of the grip. A gentle gesture, almost affectionate. But it landed like punctuation.

Tori stood still, her mouth dry. She didn’t trust her voice.

Wesley’s smile returned to full brightness, mask reaffixed. “Best of luck,” he said, pivoting with the elegance of a stage actor exiting stage left. “We’re all rooting for you.”

He exited the office suit in a long, tailored line of cream linen and brown oxfords.

Silence settled behind him like a cool, summer breeze.

Choufleur was the first to speak. “Did he just threaten you… politely?”

“Threaten?” Kovacs muttered. “He demoed a gun like he was selling a perfume, then implied she’s going to implode.”

Orla, utterly unbothered, sank her teeth into a powdered cookie. “First time in months he’s crossed departments like that,” she said through the crunch. “It’s usually Lazard who makes the pilgrimage to Scarlet. Not the other way around.”

The implications hung thick in the air.

Tori slumped into the nearest chair and finally exhaled.

She held it up and—with more force than was strictly necessary—clicked the safety back into place.

A punctuation mark of her own.

“Guess the real work starts now,” she muttered, dazed.

The Board may have given her their blessing yesterday. But blessings were fragile things.

And she would guard hers the way Shinra taught her—

With vigilance. And a loaded gun.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Sephiroth dismissed Vesper’s calendar invite with a single keystroke.

The screen pinged politely—some thinly veiled attempt to rebook Midgar Speaks for a more “strategically photogenic” time slot. He sent a one-word reply:

Declined.

Then muted the notifications on his laptop altogether.

The public could wait. He’d spent yesterday navigating optics and influence; today, he needed something more tactile. More real.

Across from him, Angeal sat in one of his office chairs, boots planted firmly on the ground with arms crossed over his chest. He had just returned from drill rotations and was still wearing his shoulder armor, though his massive buster sword had been draped across the arms of the adjacent chair with ceremonial deference. Sephiroth eyed the thing with his usual skepticism. Such a blunt instrument.

They had spent the better part of an hour discussing SOLDIER mentorship programs, particularly the one Lazard had managed to resuscitate in the wake of The Azure Accord's approval. Sephiroth was still half-laced into his own training fatigues—black pull-over zipped high at the neck, boots still wet from the Underplate training grounds. It had been a cold and crisp morning. Perfect to let off some steam from yesterday’s coup.

“Zack Fair,” Angeal said, resuming the thread. “He’s got that thing. He reminds me of someone I knew, back in Banora.”

Sephiroth made a noncommittal sound. “Unconcerned with protocol. Reckless.”

“Optimistic,” Angeal countered gently. “Unbreakable, in spirit. People follow that kind of energy. Especially when they’re tired of bureaucratic drivel.”

Sephiroth didn’t answer right away. The boy had promise—yes. But First Class required something beyond promise. It required stillness in the face of pressure. Silence where others collapsed.

Zack Fair moved like the world would always catch him.

But what if it didn’t?

Sephiroth shifted in his chair—one long leg extended, the other angled slightly to brace against the polished floor. An elbow settled on the armrest, fingers notched beneath his chin.

His other hand hovered near the edge of the desk, two fingers idly tracing a faint ring where a coffee cup had once been. He wasn’t thinking about the stain.

He let Angeal’s voice carry while his gaze wandered—past his comrade, past the edge of the desk—toward the slight gap in his office door. A slip of space. Just enough to invite distraction.

Tori passed by.

Sharp, efficient steps. A fitted cream blouse beneath a structured pinafore, the collar crisp, the velvet skirt modest but unapologetically feminine. Yet over the garment, she wore that strange, tooled leather harness from yesterday.

The getup was as natural as the curve of her arm or the line of her spine. The dress did nothing to soften her presence. If anything, it sharpened it.

Sephiroth didn’t stare. He never did.

But he looked all the same.

There was momentum in the way she moved, as if orbiting a center only she could see. She passed again, this time mid-sentence, her voice crisp as blade against whetstone.

“No. That’s not acceptable. You tell him the infraction is non-negotiable and you will escalate if you have to—no, don’t soften it. Just say it.”

Sephiroth’s eyes lifted, drawn without meaning to. There was an edge in her tone he hadn’t yet heard from her—stern and commanding. It lanced down the corridor like a warning bell, sharp enough to turn the heads of subordinates and senior officers alike.

He wondered, with some reluctant amusement, which unfortunate soul had landed on the other end of her tongue-lashing.

And then, more darkly amused: Would she speak to Lazard that way? Could she? Would she dare?

The thought of it thrilled him more than it should have.

Angeal paused, recognizing Sephiroth’s shift in attention but not commenting.

“Captain Titov won’t budge without clarity from SOLDIER,” he said mildly. “If Lazard hesitates, we lose the angle. And if you hesitate, we lose the message.”

Outside the door:

“Well, you tell him you’re owed an explanation, and if he doesn’t like it, he can take it up with the regional postmaster.”

Sephiroth issued a breath through his knuckles, suppressing a puff of laughter.

He should’ve been tuning her out. Instead, the cadence of her speech kept brushing up against something in him like static—persistent and warm.

Then her voice changed.

“Oh! Okay, we’ll talk more later. I hope it goes well.” A beat. “You too, Mom. Hang in there. I love you.”

His knuckles flexed against the chair arm, barely perceptible—but enough. That tone wasn’t meant for him, but it lingered like a pleasant taste in his mouth.

Angeal narrowed his gaze slightly—not in suspicion, but in recognition.

The General of SOLDIER had been derailed by warmth.

“She’s effective,” Angeal offered, finally addressing the distraction in the hall. “Lazard’s entire operation would’ve collapsed without her this week.”

Sephiroth didn’t answer.

She was more than effective. She was meticulous, ferocious, yet entirely capable of threading affection into the fray as though it cost her nothing.

That, above all else, perplexed him.

He told himself it was professional interest. That she was a key component of Lazard’s strategy, nothing more. But he had always been good at lying. Just not to himself.

Angeal continued, reaching for his water flask. “The warship is ready. The Shinra-8’s crew already knows your involved, but Lazard needs a presence that’s more than symbolic. He needs command.”

Sephiroth inclined his head slowly. “Then we intercept.”

Angeal nodded, then added wryly, “While you’re at it, perhaps you could hold his feet to the fire about doing something with that damned maintenance hatch in Sector 4. I’m getting tired of traipsing through the bowels of the reactor every two to three days.”

Sephiroth’s expression didn’t change. “Noted.”

But his thoughts had tilted—unbidden—back toward the hallway.

Tori Sutton passed his door again.

Then again.

Then a third time, this time shadowing Lazard, who was visibly overwhelmed, depositing an armful of field reports onto the lip of her desk like a man drowning in the very sea he’d set out to chart.

The Azure Accord was live. But its creator looked as if he were still trying to remember how to walk.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Lazard said, flustered, halfway through what sounded like his fifth mental reboot. Tori stood next to him, their backs facing Sephiroth as they assessed the paperwork.

“You said you preferred a modular approach,” Tori replied gently, guiding him without force. “Wouldn’t it make sense to start with the first tier? Get your feet wet, so to speak?”

“I did say that,” Lazard muttered, as though surprised he’d had a coherent thought in the past year.

Sephiroth listened, the corner of his mouth ticking ever so slightly upward.

“Or,” Tori added, “we can focus on the training branch and rollout strategy, and then I can prompt you with ‘if/then’ logic until you find your rhythm.”

“Prompted agreement. I love it.”

Sephiroth recognized the tactic.

Introduce structure as if it were his idea. Use phrases like, ‘Didn’t you want something like this?’ or ‘Wasn’t this your preference?’ He’ll adopt the suggestion immediately.

She didn’t so much manage Lazard as she piloted him—gently steering without ever seizing the controls. No orders. No fuss. Just rerouted chaos, elegantly disguised as cooperation.

She made it look easy.

“And maybe have a few of your cheddar crackers before the meeting,” she added lightly. “Your blood sugar is going to crash and then you’ll start over-apologizing to everyone, and that’s exhausting for all involved.”

“I do over-apologize,” Lazard admitted, patting his coat as if looking for the crackers on cue.

She carried his chaos without hesitation—absorbing the disarray of Lazard’s scattered mind as though it were hers to organize. It was more than duty. It was instinct. The kind that wore a person down over time like waves against stone.

The kind that burned bright… and then burned out.

She put others first. That much was clear. Even now, her own coffee sat untouched while she monitored Lazard’s glucose levels and recalibrated his executive calendar with a smile. All softness and polish on the surface—but underneath, Sephiroth saw it. The strain.

He’d seen that same strain in officers who never stopped volunteering. Who confused endurance with worth.

It was a bad habit.

One he would have to break if she was going to outlast the quarter.

He returned his gaze to Angeal. “We’ll need a route that gets us airborne by next week.”

“You’re going then?” Angeal asked, one brow raised.

“I’m not risking this initiative to a misstep.”

“Hmm.” A beat. “And the girl?”

Sephiroth straightened. Not sharply. But like someone reminded of the need to compartmentalize.

He tapped once on the desk with his index finger. One beat. A subtle reset.

“She’s part of it now.”

Chapter Text

“Observation is an intimacy too few survive intact.”

The office had gone quiet, that late-afternoon lull where even the churning of her console was half-hearted. Most had gone on break or vanished into meetings she hadn’t been invited to. Choufleur was elbows-deep in a spreadsheet disaster in the conference room. Kovacs was off charming someone in Legal. Orla had declared a need for “air and something feral,” then vanished like a fae creature into the dusk.

Which left Tori alone—shoulders tense, posture curled, fingers clattering too fast over her keyboard. Vendor timelines. Asset transfers. Her screen glowed with bureaucratic momentum.

She didn’t hear the footsteps.

“You’re beginning to sound like him.”

The voice, low and sardonic, dropped over her like a net.

She startled. Looked up.

Sephiroth stood at her desk. Not in his polished ceremonial regalia or full officer’s mantle, but clad in sleek, jet-black training fatigues. A high-zipped pullover hugged his frame, lean and fitted with intent. Tactical pants with reinforced seams, laced combat boots with heavy tread—practical, silent, severe. The kind of uniform worn by operatives who didn’t announce themselves until it was already too late.

It should’ve softened him—no pauldrons, no duster. But somehow, it didn’t.

If anything, it made him look more dangerous. Like something distilled. A version of him built for infiltration rather than spectacle.

He loomed like a special-ops phantom in the late daylight, silver hair catching the fluorescent glow as he tilted his head in silent assessment. One brow just slightly arched.

He was observing her.

Her breath stuttered. Had she really been so out of it that she’d missed him approaching?

“Sorry, sir.” She rubbed at her eyes if only to give herself a quick moment to reset. “What was that?”

He tilted his head. “The way you type. The sighing. I’ve seen it before.” A faint smirk touched the corner of his mouth. “Lazard. Before he collapses.”

Her cheeks flushed despite herself. “That’s… flattering.”

“It wasn’t meant to be,” he replied, dry but almost teasing. The cadence of it brushed a line across her spine.

She turned back to her desk, adjusting the edge of her keyboard. A flimsy excuse to look away.

“Well,” she said, “someone has to pick up the pieces while he paces like a caged beast.”

“Even beasts need handlers,” Sephiroth murmured.

That made her glance up again.

He wasn’t mocking. Just watching. Like he had at the boardroom—when she’d stood her ground, when she’d handed the President that pen.

She hadn’t forgotten the way he’d looked at her then.

And now, here he was again.

Staring.

“I didn’t think The Azure Accord meant anything to you,” she said softly.

His eyes lingered. “It does.”

That was all. But it knocked something loose in her chest.

Before she could answer, her stomach betrayed her—a low, audible rumble.

Sephiroth lifted his brows. “Hungry?”

Tori winced. “I was going to grab something when I finished—”

“No,” he interrupted, not unkindly. “You were going to work until someone forced you to stop.”

Her mouth opened in protest. Closed. Because… he wasn’t wrong.

He gestured down the hall. “Come.”

“Come—?”

“We’re getting lunch,” he said, as though it were obvious.

Tori blinked. “Together?”

He was already halfway out the door, silver hair vanishing around the frame. But he paused. Glanced back.

“Unless you’d rather starve.”

And then he was gone.

She sat, stunned. Her heart a little ridiculous in her chest.

Lunch. With Sephiroth.

Not as adversaries. Not as bureaucratic collateral. But as something else.

She grabbed her PHS and followed.

The employee cafeteria housed on the 63^rd floor had the uncanny stillness of an airport terminal: nothing out of place, everything eerily clean. At the center of it grew a synthetically cultured tree—perfect in proportion, a thick, green canopy stretching across the maze of tables and chairs. It cast delicate shadows over the atrium seating, softening the otherwise sterile decor.

Tori followed Sephiroth through the main court with the kind of breathless disbelief one reserved for dreams that hadn’t quite ended. She had dined in this food court numerous times and thought nothing of it before—but it might as well have been the edge of the moon for how surreal the moment felt.

Sephiroth, General of SOLDIER. Walking beside her.

She might as well have been trailing a comet.

Employees parted in their wake like reeds in wind. Conversations dropped to murmurs. One cafeteria aide poured too long and overflowed a cup. Her old Service Center gang were there as well. Janelle Levitz stared from behind an overdressed salad, her bugged-out gaze flicking between her and Sephiroth with wild-eyed disbelief. Tori felt it like a sting.

She kept her head high.

Sephiroth, for his part, looked entirely at ease. He navigated the floor like a tactician on patrol, pausing only at the hot bar where fresh salads and crusty bread rolls were arranged in perfect symmetry.

He pointed to the roasted salmon.

“That looks passable,” he said. “If a tad overcooked.”

Not trusting her stomach, Tori settled on a bowl of squash soup and a bread roll instead.

When they finally sat—at a quiet table tucked near the synthetic tree’s canopy—Tori drew her napkin over her thighs.

“Thank you,” she said, eager to break the silence. “For this. And… for what you did yesterday.”

Sephiroth looked at her sidelong, a slight tilt of his head—like he was measuring the depth of her gratitude, or perhaps the weight of what it cost him.

“You keep thanking me like that, Ms. Sutton,” he murmured, “and someone might think I enjoy it.”

Tori straightened, scandalized.

“Sir?”

A slow curl touched his mouth—there and gone.

“Let’s just say I don’t regret backing a winning hand.”

She stirred her soup, suddenly unsure where to look. The spoon clinked lightly against the bowl.

“You realize, of course,” he said, lowering his voice just enough to make her spine straighten, “that what happened in the boardroom wasn’t a triumph. Not really.”

She blinked. “No?”

“It was a provocation.” His gaze flicked over her, sharper now. “You’ve drawn attention. More than what is probably wise.”

Tori flushed.

The praise from Lazard, the congratulations in her inbox, the celebratory confections stacked in the office fridge—all of it had suggested she’d made the right move. That she’d done something bold. Something that mattered. But the way Sephiroth was looking at her now, it felt less like a victory… and more like a breach.

Her skin prickled with a heat that had nothing to do with the soup.

She dropped her gaze, suddenly conscious of the rhythm of her own breathing. Her harness felt heavier where it pressed against her sides. She wasn’t sure if it was the weight of paperwork or consequence.

“You think I’m too eager,” she said after a moment.

Sephiroth quartered his fish, lifting his fork to his lips.

“I think,” he said, dragging his teeth against the metal tines. “Hojo doesn’t say yes unless it serves him. And Scarlet doesn’t give gifts without strings.”

He gestured with his fork to the weapon tucked under her arm.

Tori clutched at it instinctively. “Is it that noticeable?” she asked.

His gaze flicked toward her waist, then back. “Not unless you’re trained to look.”

“Do you think I should wear it?”

His eyes lingered. “You already are.”

For the zillionth time in as many seconds, Tori felt heat lick up her spine.

“May I?” he asked.

She obliged, popping the brass button and grabbing the handle, which was still warm from her body heat. She handed it to him handle first. It looked almost delicate in his hand. A quaint little trinket at odds with its potential violence.

“Scarlet is many things,” he murmured, appreciating the craftsmanship of the gun, “but she is first and foremost an artist.”

He handed it back. Their fingers brushed over the grip—an incidental touch. But it caught. Clung. The moment held too long, too deliberately, for mere accident. Something passed between them—recognition, maybe. Or quiet warning.

“I don’t think anyone should need to arm themselves,” he added. “But yes. Keep it on you.”

“Then, I will.”

He looked at her fully now.

“Good,” he said. And then, with the faintest curl of his mouth: “You follow orders well.”

Her fingers froze over the snap of her holster.

He continued, gaze steady. “You behave like a corporal at the front.”

Her throat tightened—just a touch. “Is that… good?” she asked, voice thinner than intended.

His smile was a ghost. “For me? Very.”

There was something in the way he said it. Not quite flirtation. Not quite command. It didn’t slide over her like silk—it wrapped, coiled, settled in the hollows between sense and instinct.

And that was when she felt it. The nearly imperceptible push and pull.

It wasn’t just the brush of fingers. Or the cadence of his voice, which had grown quieter, more measured—as if each word had been weighed in his mouth before release. It was the exactness of it all. The way his compliments had edges. The way he studied her not with curiosity, but with intent.

Every word he spoke seemed to hum with double meaning.

He wasn’t making conversation.

He was maneuvering.

Tori knew what it was to be underestimated. To be pandered to. This was neither. This was calculated pressure dressed as cordiality. A soft interrogation beneath the weight of admiration.

And she’d nearly let it flatter her.

She rested her hands on the table. Her posture shifted, spine straightening.

No longer casual.

No longer charmed.

“General,” she said, her tone cooling. “Perhaps you can tell me the true purpose of why you’ve brought me here.”

His head tipped slightly.

“I sense,” she continued, “you have a motive beyond acknowledging my aptitude for following directions.”

The line settled like frost between them.

She watched him closely now—watched his stillness, the way it invited scrutiny instead of deflecting it.

Whatever this lunch was, it wasn’t about camaraderie.

And if Sephiroth wanted something from her—he’d have to ask plainly.

“Ah,” he said, displaying mild contrition. “You’ve caught me.”

He leaned back slightly, legs sprawling under the table with that same unshakable confidence. The motion was deliberate. A display of comfort, command, and something else—invitation.

“Yesterday, you claimed you’ve gathered enough information on the inner workings of the company to be dangerous.” He considered her for a moment. “I’m curious to know the extent of that danger.”

She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

He gestured faintly toward the cafeteria. “We’re seated in one of the busiest floors in the building. A place where all departments merge. What can you gather from those present?”

Her gaze flickered judiciously.

I knew it. This is a test.

She crossed her legs beneath the table and reached for her bread roll again, tearing the hardened crust to pluck the warm center. As she dipped it into her soup, her gaze swept methodically across the court.

“All right,” she said, deciding to humor him. “See those engineers by the vending machines? Green emblems—junior rank. The tall one’s their lead. He’s fidgeting like mad, bouncing one leg, checking his pockets for change. That’s his third energy drink. He’s stalling. Reactor-related, most likely. I’d wager the new combustion sequence in Sector 4 still isn’t stabilizing. He’s hoping a vending machine miracle buys him more time before his check-in.”

“Sector 4?” Sephiroth murmured.

Tori nodded, nonchalant. “The maintenance hatch has been a problem for weeks,” she said, tone even but amused. “Rumor is, he’s fallen for a woman in Reactor Ops—Francesca. Apparently she complimented his coolant schematic once and it ruined him. He’s been missing deadlines ever since. Now he’s convinced that if he finishes the new combustion sequence and solves the hatch malfunction, he’ll get reassigned and never see her again.” She tore another piece of bread, dipping it into her soup. “He’s using the hatch failure to stall—buying himself time to work up the nerve to ask for her number.”

“You don’t say,” murmured Sephiroth, his brows knitting together in perplexed amusement.

Evidently, this was of some interest to him. He motioned for her to continue.

Tori took another bite. Another effortless pivot.

“Over by the coffee counter—Lettie and Lou, Logistics. Dressed in chartreuse and coral. Bold, distracting choices. They’re baiting a mark. See the guy with the neat tie and the overwhelmed posture? He’s new to Accounts Payable. If they flip him, they’ll bypass departmental routing and cut six weeks of red tape. Watch. They’ll offer to buy him a muffin before the hour’s out.”

As if on cue, a waiter from the café delivered a slice of coffee cake to the accountant, gesturing toward the two women who waved like schoolgirls.

Tori was enjoying herself, never having such a captive audience before. As her gaze continued to sweep the food court, her voice dropped, smooth as velvet:

“My old coworker, Janelle Levitz—she’s over there at the end of the bar. The one with the overly ambitious salad and the tragically underwhelming expression. She’s pretending not to look over here, but she’s already documented this lunch twice in her mental blog draft. She’ll upload it to the Silver Elite forums before her tea cools. If she has a wire, it’s stitched into that rhinestone brooch. Tasteless, but functional.”

“What else would you like to know, General?”

She wasn’t just being tested. She was hunting the hunter. And it thrilled her to realize—he knew it.

A muscle ticked beneath one cheekbone.

“You are sharp,” he said with a grudging smile.

Tori reached into her harness, brandishing his pen. “Would you like to take notes?”

He huffed once—a breath that indicated he was amused. “You pay far too much attention for someone who was a specialist not too long ago.”

Tori blushed, but more out of embarrassment than flattery.

“The signs are always there,” she shrugged in dismissal. “People just choose not to see them.”

He considered her. Then asked, quieter this time:

“What about me?”

She reached for her mug. “Pardon?”

“Indulge me, Ms. Sutton.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing arms over his chest as he fixed her with a challenging look. “What’s your assessment of me? Right now. In this moment.”

She let the silence settle, then glanced toward the atrium’s edge with cool calculation.

Was this another trap?

She took a measured sip of tea, letting the warmth settle before deciding the risk was worth it. If he’d invited her here under false pretenses, then she saw no harm in showing her hand. Let him see she wasn’t some simpering fool, easily maneuvered by charm. She could match him—word for word, move for move.

“You never eat here,” she began. “Not unless you’re cornered or curious. You prefer the SOLDIER canteen were hierarchy is strictly observed. You eat red meat. Balanced meals. Not because you enjoy it, but because it keeps the nutritionists off your back. You don’t normally eat with your right hand. You’re left-dominant, but you alternate in public to mask your form from surveillance. You’ve trained yourself to look natural with both hands so no one can map your technique from combat footage.”

She dipped her spoon, casually.

“And the most obvious? You never sit with your back to the room,” she added lightly. “Even here, you’re measuring sightlines. Two exits to the left. Kitchen corridor to the right. That tree behind you offers partial cover from a mezzanine angle.”

Across the table, something flickered. A stilled fork. A delayed blink. Surprise, too quick to hold—but there.

She could’ve sworn she saw his eyes widen factionally.

“Am I wrong?” she asked, letting the question linger.

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice had dropped:

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

A smile edged its way across her lips like the first flame on a fuse.

“I think you’ve been gauging my awareness this entire meal. Testing whether I’m more than I appear. I also think you’re trying to figure out how much of me is a facade… and how much is genuine.”

He didn’t blink.

She leaned in, just enough.

“You’re not concerned that I spoke out yesterday,” she said softly. “You’re concerned that I have no allegiance. That I’m not owned. Not bought. I’m not PR. I’m not HR. I don’t vanish after five p.m.”

A pause. Then:

“And I think you’re hoping I’ll stay unpredictable—but useful. Dangerous, even. But on your side.”

Still, he said nothing.

So she added, with a victorious crooked grin:

“How am I doing?”

The air seemed suspended, like breath held too long.

He didn’t look away. Didn’t deflect. Just studied her for a moment so long and unbroken that her confidence began to tip—just slightly—into uncertainty.

“If you can read me like that,” he said finally, voice dark as velvet, “I’ll have to start guarding my tells.”

Tori narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you already are. I just haven’t called your bluff yet.”

He didn’t smile in return. But something in his gaze sharpened.

He reached for his tea, unbothered. But his voice dropped low again as he asked:

“That person you were on the phone with earlier—your mother. Was she in trouble?”

Tori sobered instantly.

He had overheard that?

“She’s a postal worker in the Underplate,” she explained, realizing she would need to exercise greater caution. “A new supervisor tried to discard a damaged carton of mail. She was working up the nerve to confront him.”

There was a huff.

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” he said.

She shrugged. “Listen, this isn’t the first time my… inclinations have made me peculiar. Does it make my life easier, being hyperaware of everything around me? No. But I won’t leave things half-finished or unattended. So if you’re worried about my longevity in this role,” she fixed him with a solemn stare, “don’t be.”

He studied her again, but with a different weight now. Less like a superior assessing a subordinate—and more like a strategist encountering an unexpected equal.

Then, without warning, he struck:

“My turn,” he said. “You enjoy proving people wrong.”

Sephiroth rested his hands on the table, drawing forward so that strands of silver hair pooled over the crooks of his arms.

“You take pleasure in being underestimated,” he said calmly. “It’s not enough to meet expectations. You prefer to outpace them. Subvert them. Use the rules to your own advantage. Break them if necessary.”

She bristled—just a touch. “Is that criticism?”

He tilted his head. “That remains to be seen.”

The way he said it… it wasn’t derision. It was fascination. The kind that could turn volatile in the right hands. Or the wrong ones.

Tori’s pulse thudded a little too loud in her ears. The fact that he saw her so clearly, without flinching—that he could mirror her insight with such unshaken accuracy—left her suddenly unmoored.

He didn’t let her drift for long.

“Worry is the least of my concerns, Ms. Sutton,” he said softly. “If you're willing, I believe we can put that awareness of yours to good use. But it will place you in crosshairs that haven’t yet revealed themselves.”

A pause. Then, with quiet finality:

“Should things come down to the wire, I expect you to stay vigilant. Not only for Lazard’s sake—but for your own.”

Tori nodded once. “Of course, sir.”

She didn’t trust her voice with anything more. The weight of his words hadn’t hit like a warning. They’d landed like a contract. Signed without ink. Silent, but binding.

They gathered their trays in silence. Not awkward—just sharpened by the hum of thoughts neither one was willing to name aloud. Sephiroth disposed of his own while she paused at the tea station to refill her flask, buying herself ten extra seconds to collect her heartbeat from wherever it had gone.

He fell into step beside her again as they crossed the atrium. Not as adversaries. Not even quite as allies. But as something new, precarious, and undefined. When they reached the elevator bay, Tori instinctively moved to press the call button—only for him to do it first, faster, with the kind of elegant dominance that never felt forced. Just… inevitable.

The doors parted with a soft pneumatic sigh.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“No,” he said. “I have business in the armory. I’ll part ways with you here.”

Her brows ticked slightly upward. Somehow, she’d assumed he would accompany her back to the office. That he would resume whatever inscrutable routine ruled his day. But no—he was letting her go. Alone. As if whatever had passed between them had reached its conclusion. As if she’d proven something. Or perhaps nothing at all.

He lifted an arm to brace the elevator open—not dramatically, but enough to create a small boundary. She stepped into it. And for the briefest second, the air between them felt charged. Like the pause between thunder and strike.

The doors began to slide shut.

And then—just before she vanished from his view—he spoke again.

“You missed one thing, Ms. Sutton.”

Her hand twitched near the panel. “Oh?”

“I asked you to lunch,” he said, voice low, unreadable, “because I wanted your company. No agenda. No orders. Just… you.”

The elevator closed on the echo of it.

And Tori Sutton, normally so composed, found herself teetering with a heart that refused to settle and a mind already rewriting every line of that conversation… wondering just how many rules she had broken without even realizing it.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Tori stepped back into the office suite on unsteady legs, the hush of the elevator sealing behind her like the closing of a chapter she didn’t fully understand.

Just you.

The echo of Sephiroth’s parting words clung to her like static, disrupting her usual mental order. He hadn’t smiled when he said it. Not quite. And yet something had shimmered beneath the surface of his voice—something personal. Something intentional. She hadn’t had time to parse it. Still didn’t.

Her heels clicked once, twice on the polished floor before she noticed something was awry.

Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla stood clustered near the reception desk, their bodies pulled in tight, heads bent in grim alignment. The kind of posture you only see in emergency rooms. They looked up as she entered—too quickly. All three faces marked by concern.

She froze.

“What happened?” she asked, voice sharper than intended. “Who needs to be reported? Just say the name.”

Choufleur shook her head. “It’s not that, Ms. Sutton.”

Tori blinked. “Then what?”

Choufleur hesitated. Then tilted her head toward Kovacs.

Kovacs straightened, her expression unreadable save for the tension around her mouth. “I was in Legal Affairs,” she said quietly. “Picking up the draft contracts you requested. On my way out, I passed the west conference alcove—caught a few lawyers mid-conversation.”

Tori furrowed her brow. “And?” She prompted gently.

“They were discussing insurance payouts. Life insurance. Workers’ comp. Whether death on company property would qualify as accidental or… actionable.”

Tori narrowed her gaze. “Has something happened?”

Kovacs met her gaze then. Flat. Direct. “An employee was found dead this morning. In the Shinra Archives.”

Time slowed.

“Dead?” Tori repeated.

“Murdered,” Kovacs clarified. “Last night, according to what Legal pieced together. A materia weapon. No public statement’s been made. General Affairs is sweeping it under the rug.”

Tori’s chest went still. “Who?”

There was a pause. And then, from Orla: “You knew him, Ms. Sutton. Percival Dockery.”

The name cracked something open inside her.

Tori swayed on her feet, reaching for Kovacs before she collapsed.

Dockery. The senior librarian. The man who had stopped her in the main lobby just days ago, wild-eyed and trembling, clutching a folder like it might vanish. A blueprint, he’d said. Stolen. Gone missing. Not to be spoken of. Not yet. She’d humored him. Assumed his panic was misplaced.

A cold flush swept over her as she realized, much too late, that his worry had been warranted after all.

His very life had been in jeopardy.

“Why?” she whispered, horror cutting through the shock. “Why would someone do such a thing?”

Kovacs didn’t answer right away. Her expression, usually aloof, had settled into something colder. Wiser.

“This isn’t the first time it’s happened, Ms. Sutton,” she said quietly. “And it won’t be the last.”

The words rang like a toll.

But Tori was already sinking, her thoughts spiraling backward—rewinding to that day in the lobby. Dockery’s voice. His frantic eyes. The way he’d looked over his shoulder like someone might put a bullet between them just for talking.

There was a withdrawal. From Section R7. A file that shouldn’t have been touched. Blueprint classification. Cleared years ago, then buried. But on Friday morning, it vanished.

He’d said it all like a confession. Or a warning.

And she’d dismissed it.

Tori’s breath thinned, her hands flattening to her thighs, willing the floor to hold steady beneath her. But her body was already too cold. Too light. As if her center of gravity had been yanked out from under her.

The blueprint hadn’t gone missing.

It had been given to her. She had taken it home. Set it on her nightstand. Read it from cover to cover.

Simple Sabotage: A Field Manual

An Illustrated Guide to Undermining the Machinery from Within, Without Firing a Single Shot

The truth buried itself sharp and deep inside her.

Was she responsible for Dockery’s murder?

Chapter Text

“They warned her not to trust him.

They didn’t say why.”

Tori lay flat on her living room rug, arms and legs outstretched like a starfish, staring at the ceiling as though it might offer an explanation. The soft fibers beneath her felt like the only thing in her life not made of red tape or concrete. She wore comfort clothes now—soft leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with a faded Sector Five Postal Union crest peeling in spots—but she may as well have been wrapped in a straight-jacket. The silence felt heavy. Not peace. Not rest. Just the absence of answers.

To her left, her custom handgun from Scarlet glinted faintly in the evening light, half-forgotten beside a slouching pillow. To her right, the battered red book—slim, unassuming, cursed. She stared at it with the kind of loathing reserved for poorly lit dressing rooms that told the truth.

Dockery was dead.

The words didn’t make sense. They refused to settle in her mind, like a puzzle piece carved from the wrong material. Just weeks ago, they’d been side by side in the Shinra Archives, shelving binders and discussing the digitization initiative.

Dockery always muttered while he worked, half to himself, half to keep her entertained. Fridays had become a quiet ritual: fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, fatigue setting in by noon, and the two of them trading jabs to stay awake. He’d been tired. So had she. But he’d been alive. Present. Solid in a way that made his absence now feel surreal.

The idea that someone like Dockery—real, breathing, sarcastic Dockery—could simply vanish felt wrong in her bones. Like someone had crossed his name off a list and expected her not to notice.

“Shinra wouldn’t kill someone over a book,” she whispered aloud. But her voice lacked conviction. The kind of sentence people said to comfort themselves, not because it was true.

She exhaled sharply and dragged her palms over her face. What haunted her more than the missing document was Dockery’s behavior that day in the lobby—his panic, his insistence she stay quiet, his jittery breath as he congratulated her with a smile that never touched his eyes. His last words to her had been kind. And final. As if he knew something she didn’t.

She rolled onto her side and glared at the book.

“I should never have taken you,” she muttered.

It had been a mistake. An honest one. They were both rushing. And it wasn’t as though she had skimmed classified war plans or an executive diary. Just an old, strange manual with odd margin notes and a scent like sweet must and forgotten summers spent drying in the stacks.

Still, it sat at the center of this storm. Which meant, for now, it couldn’t go anywhere.

She couldn’t return it to the archives. Not with Dockery’s death hanging over everything like a security lockdown. And she couldn’t bring it to HQ either—there were too many eyes, too many ears. Orla already suspected something, though thankfully she chalked it up to the two of them having shared time in archives before Tori’s promotion, not... whatever this was becoming.

The only safe option was the worst one: keeping it hidden. In her apartment. Like a contraband flame, small but dangerous.

Tori reached for it, thumbing through the pages slowly. They whispered as they turned—thin, strange paper with annotations that danced around the text like riddles. Why was this little book so important? And why did it feel like she was being watched every time she held it?

She set it down and reached instead for her handgun. The cool metal was a sharp contrast to the warmth of the rug. She traced her fingers over the grip and wondered—again—how soon she could register for a license. The General Affairs self-defense workshop flyer still sat on the coffee table, flapping slightly with the breeze from the cracked window. Her eyes lingered on the bold title: Learn to Wield With Confidence.

She had expected spreadsheets in this role. Scheduling snafus. Maybe a stern memo or two. Not concealed weapons and the constant threat of danger.

“Dockery, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, at a loss.

Her brain wouldn’t stop spiraling.

Her chest felt tight. Like she was bracing for something and didn’t know where it would come from.

She closed her eyes.

And there it was again.

The echo of his voice in the elevator.

"Just you."

What the hell did that mean?

Her eyes flew open. “Just me?” she said aloud. “As what? A comrade? A coworker? A…friend?”

She sat up halfway, annoyed at herself now.

Sephiroth had spent half of lunch reading her like a mission brief. Then had the gall to say she was the mystery. It was disorienting, unnerving, and—worse—intoxicating. Because even though she knew better, she couldn’t stop analyzing his words.

She rubbed her temples. “Don’t catch feelings,” she muttered. “Absolutely do not catch feelings for the war hero. That was rule number three in the HR packet, Sutton.”

It wasn’t just unwise. It was borderline suicidal. The man was a tactical genius, a military icon, and a weaponized heartthrob with a glare that could flatten a conference room. He didn’t belong in her world. He belonged in wild terrain, leading a vanguard against deadly fiends in the apocalypse.

And yet.

There’d been something else in his gaze. Something curious. Almost—human.

Tori exhaled, long and quiet, eyes fixed on the ceiling as if it might offer an escape hatch.

It was the disconnect that rattled her most. The distance between the figurehead version of Sephiroth—this frozen demigod they whispered about in HQ hallways—and the actual man she now shared office space with. The myth still held: he was cold, lethal, absurdly beautiful. Every inch the untouchable general, carved out of legacy and mako.

But the man who’d made her a latte and told her to rest while he handled refreshments?

That man cracked jokes. He paid attention. He didn’t just see her—he read her, like she was a story he wanted to read slowly, word by word.

Her junior assistants certainly hadn’t expected it. Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla behaved around Sephiroth with the reverence of a live grenade. Their posture changed, their tone clipped, their protocols rigid. Lazard had warned her—tactfully—that Sephiroth kept his distance from female coworkers. The girls corroborated that unspoken code with every measured breath in his presence.

And yet... Vesper Navarre didn’t follow that code.

The General’s marketing specialist moved in his vicinity like she belonged there—confident, poised, polished to a shine. There was a familiarity in the way she spoke to him, casual and unbothered, as though she’d long ago earned the right. Tori didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but it didn’t stop her stomach from twisting in twelve different directions.

Two weeks ago, she had been a glorified intern. Two weeks ago, SOLDIER didn’t even have the Azure Accord approved. Now it did—sanctioned by the President and the full board. And sure, Tori had played a pivotal role in making it happen. But she hadn’t done it alone. Without Lazard’s strategic finesse, Choufleur’s painstaking editing, Kovacs’ ruthless legalese, Orla’s plating skills, and half a dozen secretaries who sacrificed lunch to pull it off—none of it would’ve worked.

Ferris had called her a busy little cog. Sephiroth, with that maddening tilt of his head, had called her the most dangerous woman in the company. He’d said it without irony. Like he meant it.

Was that just rapport? Some well-deployed psychological tactic?

It had to be.

Right?

Because what man—what mythic, lethal, celestial man—would look at her when Vesper Navarre roamed the halls? Vesper, and women like her. Women with degrees, diction, and windowed real estate.

Tori looked down at herself—still in the oversized postal union sweatshirt she’d inherited from her mother, the one that smelled faintly of her favorite scented lotion—and tried not to laugh.

Just to be certain, she ran an experiment.

She closed her eyes.

Replaced Sephiroth’s face with something more familiar. Average. Gave him a rounded nose, some acne scars, slightly crooked teeth. Swapped his voice for something Midgardian, maybe a bit nasal. She walked herself back through their conversation, line by line, imagining the whole thing playing out across from a Service Center desk, next to the microwave that smelled like scorched popcorn.

The experiment proved inconclusive.

Because no one—no man, no peer, no passing crush—had ever spoken to her like that.

She cursed under her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. Because now wasn’t the time. Now wasn’t even close to the time. A man had died. And the source of his downfall—the document that had somehow triggered it all—was sitting beside her on the rug, mute and merciless.

She rolled onto her stomach and groaned into the carpet.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she told herself, voice muffled. “You’re not catching feelings. You’re catching a migraine with delusions of grandeur.”

And yet the thought persisted—quiet, irrational, and curling at the edges of her mind like the scent of a lit match:

What if he meant it?

What if he truly just desired her company?

And worse—

What if he was blurring the lines of professionalism into something else that didn’t have defined edges at all? Tori was at a loss whenever there were no rules to follow. How would she navigate this?

The sudden chirp of her phone made her jolt upright.

She scrambled across the rug, nearly knocking over a stack of papers. It was her mother.

Her heart leapt with sudden guilt and gratitude. She answered, trying to sound composed.

“Hi, Mom.”

Her mother’s voice was immediate and warm. “How’d it go with that supervisor this week? You said you were heading into some kind of big meeting?”

Tori swallowed, trying to keep her tone light.

“It was... fine. Complicated.”

“Complicated like ‘good’ complicated or complicated like ‘I might be harboring corporate contraband and accidentally involved in a workplace conspiracy’ complicated?”

Tori laughed—too loud. Too raw.

Her mother paused.

“Tor,” she said, softer now. “What’s going on?”

Tori looked around her apartment. The red book. The weapon. The flyer.

And then down at herself—still in her comfy clothes, knees drawn in, heart beating in a rhythm she couldn’t quite trust.

She didn’t know how to answer. Not honestly. Not yet.

Instead, she said:

“I’m just… adjusting.”

She glanced again at the self-defense flyer. A breeze from the window flipped it over, revealing a date circled in red marker. It was soon. Very soon.

Tori stared at it for a long moment, then said into the phone:

“Remember when you had to fight off that gang of runners hijacking dropboxes on your sector route?”

There was a pause.

“Oh, Gods,” her mother groaned. “Don’t bring that up. That was years ago.”

“You rerouted your entire mail path through back alleys and power tunnels. You patched leaks in the pneumatic tubes yourself. And you carried pepper spray in one hand and overdue birthday cards in the other.”

“I also limped home for a week.”

“And every single person in Sector Six still got their mail,” Tori said, soft but firm.

There was another beat—quieter now, heavier.

“I think I’m going to need to learn how to fight.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

The engineer’s name was Edwin Harker, though based on the dramatic pause he inserted whenever introducing himself, one might’ve assumed it was a title of nobility. He was in the middle of a three-slide presentation titled Coolant Valve Logistics: A Post-Midgar Framework when Sephiroth walked into the conference room unannounced, arms folded, gaze cold.

“You.” He ordered. “Up.”

A flurry of startled blinking followed, along with a noise somewhere between a protest and a squeak. To Edwin’s credit, he obeyed, clicking off the projector with trembling fingers.

By the time they reached the transport bay, Edwin was wedged between Sephiroth and Angeal inside a company-issued maintenance ATV—a squat, whining vehicle clearly not built for First Class physiques. Sephiroth sat passenger-side, braced against the metal floor grating, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Angeal drove with the grim focus of a man who had cleared out Reactor 4's fiend-infested sublevel corridors more times than he could count.

Edwin, to his credit, tried. "I—I really don’t see how this requires me specifically," he stammered, his voice rising like steam under pressure. "We’re still in the process of finalizing—"

"You have a fear to overcome," Sephiroth said without looking at him. "We’re aware you left out the human variable."

"Human variable?"

"Francesca," Angeal said gently, as though offering a diagnosis.

Edwin made a noise like a coffee machine choking on grounds.

“What—wait—how?” he spluttered. “I never—I mean—how do you know?”

"We know," Sephiroth replied. "That’s the problem."

"We have no more time for delays," he added, fixing his gaze on the passing wall of tunnel steel and conduit. "The entire perimeter access of Sector 4 is being held hostage by your romantic cowardice."

Edwin stared at him in dawning horror.

The transport jostled violently as they passed through the checkpoint gate. Sephiroth’s presence alone guaranteed them swift access.

"Look, if this is about the maintenance hatch—I’ve solved the interference problem," Edwin said, grasping at straws. "We have someone address the infestation every few days."

Angeal finally turned, voice dry. “And who do you think gets dispatched?"

Edwin blanched.

Sephiroth's tone was biting. "Francesca has the override code. It was never ported to the updated system. You were assigned to reconfigure it. You didn’t. Because you refused to ask her."

Edwin winced. "She’s just… very sharp. She knows everyone’s names. She says things like ‘optimize perimeter routing’ in casual conversation. It’s terrifying."

“You designed a sensor matrix that mimics glacial flow logic,” Angeal said. “And you’re undone by a compliment?”

Edwin sagged in place. “You don’t understand. She’s beautiful. Not just attractive—I mean cathedral-bell beautiful. And brilliant, and fast, and terrifyingly competent. She looked at me once—just once—and it was like my entire circulatory system rebooted. I knew. Instantly. That I had just met my wife. And I haven’t slept properly since.”

Sephiroth tilted his head, fascinated.

Angeal smiled with the patience of a man used to mentoring emotionally underdeveloped cadets. “Look, all you need to do is give her a compliment. Something sincere. Then suggest coffee.”

“I hate coffee.”

“Then offer her tea,” Angeal said patiently.

“I don’t drink tea either.”

“You’re missing the point, Harker.”

Sephiroth cut in, dry as concrete. “Say: ‘You are highly competent. I respect your work. Would you like to meet off-campus for a refreshment of your choosing?’”

Edwin blinked. "You make it sound so clinical."

“It’s clear,” Sephiroth replied, bristling. “And efficient.”

“Which is not what women want to hear,” Angeal said with a harried expression. “They want to feel seen. Warmth, Harker. That’s what wins hearts. Not cold assessments and logistics.”

“I don’t do cold assessments,” Sephiroth countered. “I do accurate ones.”

“Dear Gaia,” Angeal muttered.

Edwin let out a strangled breath, glancing between them like he’d stumbled into a philosophical debate disguised as a hostage crisis.

“That’s easy for you to say, General,” he said at last, the blush spreading up his neck like a spill across linen. “I’m sure you can get away with anything. Looking the way you do.”

Sephiroth didn’t blink. But he noted the glance—quick, reluctant, and deeply conflicted—as Edwin’s eyes tracked over the matte leather duster cinched at his waist, the sleek pauldrons gleaming under the cabin lights, the double buckled chest harness that somehow managed to imply both tactical preparedness and untouchable allure.

“You have a sword longer than my rent and hair more luxurious than anyone in Cosmetics,” Edwin continued, growing more indignant by the syllable. “Women in my department practically faint when they hear you breathing on the executive floor. Do you know what it’s like trying to eat a sandwich while five Reactor Ops technicians are simultaneously losing consciousness because Sephiroth walked past the vending machines?”

“I try not to,” Sephiroth said flatly, arms still crossed. “It’s disruptive.”

“Disruptive?” Edwin sputtered. “Sir, your very presence registers as a romantic emergency. Your uniform is a war crime against office morale. You show up dressed like a forbidden knight from some steamy serialized novelette and have the audacity to offer efficiency-based flirtation advice to the likes of me?”

Angeal made a strange coughing sound that might’ve been laughter.

Sephiroth tilted his head, uncertain if he was being insulted or exalted.

“Look,” Edwin said, exasperated. “When you speak, people lean in. When I speak, Francesca thinks I’m asking about floor wax. I wear standard-issue coveralls that smell like coolant and despair. You wear black leather so fine I’m convinced it was individually buffed by angels.”

“That’s a bit much,” Angeal muttered.

“No. No, it’s not,” Edwin pressed. “He has chest straps that look like they’re holding in secrets. His gloves are more tailored than my best suit. That’s not a uniform. That’s a tragedy in motion.”

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. “What exactly is your point?”

“My point,” Edwin said, straightening like a man giving closing arguments to a jury of his nightmares, “is that if you told a woman she was ‘highly competent and deserving of refreshment,’ she would go comatose right there on the spot and never awaken again.”

Sephiroth said nothing. But internally, he filed Edwin’s words into a corner of his mind he would later choose to ignore.

“So respectfully, sir,” Edwin concluded, eyes wide, earnest, and unhinged, “your advice, while no doubt intellectually sound, means absolutely nothing to those of us cursed with average bone structure and social anxiety.”

Sephiroth blinked once.

Angeal, still gripping the wheel, let out a long, wheezing exhale of laughter.

“He’s got you there,” Angeal said.

“I fail to see how my wardrobe invalidates—”

“Straps, Seph,” Angeal interrupted. “You have… so many straps.”

Sephiroth glanced down at himself. Then back up. “They’re practical.”

“Are they?” Edwin asked earnestly. “Don’t you worry about, I don’t know, chafing?”

Sephiroth leaned his elbow against the side door, turning his gaze toward the green flicker of reactor light rippling across the glass. Beneath his armor, he felt the faintest flicker of something oddly close to... self-consciousness.

It passed quickly.

Still, he said nothing more on the matter. And Edwin, freshly unburdened by his monologue, returned to a state of nervous breathing somewhere between exhilarated and terminal.

But Sephiroth's thoughts wandered.

Not to the straps. Not to the shine of his boots or the lamentation of hallway hearts. But to the one woman who hadn’t seemed starstruck at all.

Tori had not once fluttered or flinched. Not once had she clutched her pearls or gone pink at the sight of him. She had simply… observed. Braced herself. Even challenged him.

He had complimented her, bought her lunch, offered his undivided attention. And what had she done?

Accused him of having ulterior motives.

His mouth curved into an incriminating grin, Sephiroth finding the thought highly amusing.

The whole company had ulterior motives that surrounded him like a vice, and the one time he entreats a woman to lunch – he is accused of doing the same thing. The irony.

A very curious woman, indeed. Sharp. Guarded.

Unyielding.

His fingers curled slightly at his side, brushing the edge of his coat.

Would she—he wondered—fall prey to his unwitting influence like the others?

He sincerely doubted it.

And for reasons he couldn’t quite name—

He found that an intriguing predicament.

“Best wait in the vehicle when we arrive,” Angeal quipped, adjusting the ATV’s speed as they crested a turn. “Wouldn’t want you sweeping Harker’s future wife off her feet before he gets the chance to ask her on a date.”

Sephiroth turned his gaze—slowly, pointedly—on Edwin.

The engineer, wedged between them like a diplomatic offering, froze mid-fidget.

Sephiroth studied him, unreadable. “How are you so certain she’s your future wife?”

The question was not rhetorical.

Nor cruel.

It was—genuine. And for that reason, perhaps more dangerous than any barb.

Edwin blinked. Looked down at his hands. Then forward. His voice, when it came, was startlingly soft.

“I’m not,” he said. “Not really.”

He exhaled a quiet breath. Something settled in his shoulders.

“It’s just that… we spoke once. She was reviewing thermal fail-safes on the east array, and I was updating the logic flow for the pressure relays. We crossed paths over the diagnostics hub, reached for the same stylus, and she looked at me—really looked at me. With her whole attention. Not in passing. Not like I was in the way. Like I was... there.”

Sephiroth watched him, unmoving.

“She asked about my schematic,” Edwin continued. “Said she liked the elegance of the coolant curve. That I must’ve been a mathematician before Shinra got their claws in me.” He gave a breathless, almost embarrassed laugh. “Nobody’s ever said that. Ever. She didn’t say it like it was flirtation. She said it like it was truth. Like she’d read something in my work I’d forgotten how to see.”

A silence settled. Dense. Human.

“I’ve done a lot of things,” Edwin murmured. “Saved a subgrid from meltdown. Spent eight days in a failing vent line with nothing but solder paste and stubbornness. But nothing’s rattled me more than one kind sentence from Francesca.”

He glanced down at his lap, flushed and raw.

“And I guess… maybe that’s what we’re all looking for,” Edwin murmured, his voice worn thin by the weight of his own sincerity. “Someone who makes you feel like you exist in full color. Like your name, your voice, your entire body isn’t just taking up space. It matters.”

Sephiroth stared at him.

He hadn’t expected a monologue.

Certainly not one that cracked open a truth he hadn’t yet put words to himself.

Full color.

He’d never been described that way. Not by anyone.

He was grayscale by design—sharp lines, dark contrast, a palette chosen to command fear and admiration from a distance. Nothing about his presence was meant to suggest warmth.

And yet, the memory stirred again.

That quiet tilt of Tori Sutton’s head. The way she hadn’t looked away. The way she’d responded to his compliment with quiet suspicion, as though it were a chess move instead of a kind remark.

She had considered his words.

Not received them.

And something about that felt more dangerous than any battlefield.

Beside him, Angeal turned the wheel with a casual hand and said, too lightly, “You’re thinking about her.”

Sephiroth didn’t respond.

“You are,” Angeal insisted. “Your new assistant.”

“She’s not my assistant,” Sephiroth said, too quickly.

Angeal raised a brow. “No?”

“She belongs to Lazard,” he muttered.

“That wasn’t a denial,” Angeal pointed out.

Sephiroth grew silent.

The vehicle bumped over a welded seam in the metal corridor, the engine humming low beneath them. For a moment, nothing moved but the flicker of reactor light across the cabin walls.

“You’re rattled,” Angeal said at last, his tone gentle now. Curious. “That’s rare.”

Sephiroth exhaled through his nose. “If what Harker says is true—that mere proximity to someone can inspire irrational impulse—then how does someone like me navigate that?”

Angeal blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Sephiroth said, voice clipped, “I exist in a constant state of... influence. My presence distorts perception. My glance alone sends interns into hysterics. I’ve had five different departmental guidelines drafted on how employees are permitted to interact with me.”

Edwin nodded solemnly. “We studied those in orientation.”

“I have never attempted to pursue someone,” Sephiroth continued, his voice as even as his posture. “Not seriously. Not without knowing they weren’t just reacting to what I am—whatever Shinra needs me to be that week.”

It was a rare kind of admission. The kind that didn’t leave his mouth so much as fall out, uninvited.

He shifted slightly in his seat, arms still folded, but the crease between his brows deepened. “So how would I know? If someone actually—saw me.”

There was a stretch of silence.

Then Angeal said, with the kind of diplomatic gentleness normally reserved for novice cadets who cried during sparring drills, “Well. For starters, you need to work on your delivery.”

Sephiroth blinked. “My delivery.”

“It’s... imposing,” Angeal offered delicately.

“It’s terrifying,” Edwin clarified, raising a hand halfway like he needed to file a report. “Commanding. Like you’re preparing to issue a final warning before calling security.”

“It should be warm,” Angeal added, nodding toward the windshield as if romance were a terrain to be mapped. “Inviting. Spoken in a voice you only use with them.”

“Maybe a gentle touch,” Edwin added, then panicked. “I mean—not like an HR kind of touch. Just something… non-threatening.”

“Or a small token,” Angeal said, “something personal. Something that suggests thought.”

Sephiroth tilted his head, growing increasingly perplexed.

“I’ve done all of those things,” he said, matter-of-fact.

This brought the conversation to a screeching halt.

Angeal turned to him slowly. “You… have?”

Sephiroth’s gaze remained fixed on the slow flicker of mako light outside the window, but his mind wandered—unbidden—back to the elevator bay. The hush of descending floors. The hum of fluorescents overhead. The quiet between them before the doors closed.

He thought he had made himself clear. The invitation to lunch. His full attention. No command, no assignment—just time. A small gift.

And then the parting words.

“Just you.”

A deliberate choice. Unadorned. Honest. The sort of thing people claimed to want.

But had it landed the way he intended?

At the time, Tori had tilted her head, brows pulling together in that way she did when calculating a retort. Her mouth hadn’t softened. Her shoulders hadn’t eased.

Had she heard it as he meant it?

Or had she, like Edwin and Angeal were now suggesting, braced against the severity in his voice, mistaking intent for order?

He’d said she was the most dangerous woman in the building.

He’d meant it with admiration. With interest. But maybe—just maybe—she had received it like all the others: a clinical observation delivered from a great height.

Would she understand him better if he said something as simple as “I enjoy your company”?

Or would that too sound like a formality—polished politeness from a superior too insulated to mean it?

Something shifted in his chest. Not painful. Not sharp. But uncomfortable all the same.

Edwin, oblivious to the nuance turning over in Sephiroth’s expression, looked deeply, spiritually offended on his behalf.

“Sir,” he said, voice thick with sympathy, “forgive me—I didn’t realize you would struggle in the same way.”

Sephiroth cut him a sharp look. “I’m not struggling.”

“Of course,” Edwin said immediately. “You’re simply... navigating unexpected results.”

The vehicle hissed as it rolled to a stop outside the lower levels of Reactor 4. The air shimmered faintly with mako heat as metal gates groaned open.

“Right then. Time to buck up,” Angeal said, shifting smoothly in his seat. “You have a date to secure.”

Edwin looked out the window like it might be his last sunrise. “I’m going to die.”

“Not unless you delay again,” Sephiroth replied coolly. “Then I can’t make promises.”

With an almost reverent pat on the shoulder from Angeal, Edwin stumbled out of the vehicle and onto the metal ramp, legs quivering like scaffolding in a windstorm.

Across the courtyard, Francesca turned toward him with an easy smile, her thermos cradled in one hand, the other brushing hair behind her ear as Edwin approached.

Francesca didn’t send him away.

She leaned in. Smiled. Wrote something on Edwin’s palm like it was the most natural thing in the world.

That’s how it was supposed to look, wasn’t it?

A woman, unafraid. Open. Reaching back toward someone who had reached out first. Not bracing for an order. Not tensing for a command. Just… returning interest.

Sephiroth watched the two of them with quiet calculation, something foreign pricking behind his ribs. Edwin Harker was not formidable. He was not beautiful, or infamous, or sculpted into wartime propaganda.

But he was seen.

That, more than anything, made him dangerous in ways Sephiroth was not.

Because when Edwin stood there, nervous and red-faced and human, he wasn’t being interpreted through a persona. He wasn’t being filtered through protocol, whispered about in company forums, or filed under "strategic asset."

He was just a man. With a question. And a hope that he mattered.

Angeal lingered beside him in the vehicle, one arm resting casually across the wheel. He didn’t look at Sephiroth when he asked, “So.”

Sephiroth raised a brow.

“You going to ask for her number?”

There was a long pause.

Sephiroth didn’t answer.

But his hand drifted, just slightly, toward his PHS stowed in his pocket.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Tori sat cross-legged in the staff gymnasium, facing a wall of mirrors that reflected her and twenty-two other employees back in tired, varied detail. She wore a basic cotton shirt, soft from laundering, and black leggings. No makeup. Hair tied back. The only thing on her face was the stubborn pull of focus.

Behind her, Choufleur stood stiffly near the wall, arms crossed, evaluating the other students like she’d walked into a particularly bleak gala.

Kovacs dropped onto the mat beside Tori with a groan, her bun already coming loose. “I could be home,” she muttered. “I could be microwaving leftovers and hate-watching reality tv right now.”

“Smells like fear,” Orla observed serenely, plopping down on Tori’s other side and stretching like a loose-limbed jungle cat.

“No.” Choufleur gave a pinched little sniff. “That’s body odor you’re smelling.”

“Same difference.”

Tori remained silent, letting the room speak for itself. The class was a haphazard sampling of Shinra’s internal ecosystem. One man in Facilities wore high-visibility coveralls. A mid-level accountant had showed up in what looked like his full work suit. There were interns in neon tights, a Wutai division liaison in a crisp pantsuit, and at least one Marketing exec dressed like she thought this was a Pilates studio complete with cucumber water and essential oil steamers.

It was, unmistakably, a circus.

Choufleur frowned at the crowd. “This is a Turk workshop. Why do we have to be here?”

“Because,” Tori said calmly, adjusting the laces of her sneakers, “it counts as professional development and it’s good for all of us to be up-to-date on basic maneuvers.”

“We work in SOLDIER,” Kovacs said flatly. “You know who’s across the hall from us, right? The deadliest man alive. I could throw my coffee mug and accidentally hit a First Class. You think anyone’s going to try something in his domain?”

It was a fair point. A logical one. But logic wasn’t enough anymore.

Tori exhaled slowly, eyes still fixed on her reflection.

“I’m not interested in outsourcing my survival,” she said. “That’s not a plan—it’s a liability. What happens when we’re not on the SOLDIER floor? When there’s no cadet, no First Class in sight? You can’t count on proximity to power to protect you.”

Kovacs went quiet.

Orla’s head tilted. “You’re thinking about what happened in archives, aren’t you?”

“No,” Tori said. “I’m thinking about what Sephiroth told me at lunch.”

That earned her three sharp glances.

“He said Lazard needs someone vigilant,” Tori murmured. “Someone aware. But I’m not just looking out for him anymore.”

She glanced sideways at each of them. “I’m looking out for you too.”

Choufleur blinked. Orla gave a sage nod. Kovacs squinted like she was trying to find a flaw in that sentence—and then, not finding one, looked away.

They didn’t say it, but she felt it: the quiet shift. The weight of small loyalty growing.

Something flickered in the mirrors—a ripple at the corner of her vision. The kind of ripple that made animals go still in the wild.

Then the gym door opened and Ferris Knox appeared.

Tori felt the shift before she saw him—the way attention bent in his direction, the way sound seemed to lower by a single, imperceptible decibel. He moved in that unnerving, slow-drip sort of way. Everything about him said: I don’t belong here, but that’s precisely why I’m here.

He wore a black athletic shirt that clung too precisely to have come off any standard rack, sleeves pushed to the forearms, revealing elegant wrists and the suggestion of tendon beneath skin. His loose training pants cinched at the waist with careless perfection, and his usually disheveled hair—normally a curtain of dark strands shadowing his eyes—was pulled into a sleek half-tail. It exposed the structure of his face: sharp cheekbones, cutting jaw, lips that always looked like they were keeping secrets.

Her pulse stuttered and she was instantly appalled by the betrayal of it.

Attraction, she reminded herself, was biological misdirection. Camouflage for threat. And Ferris Knox was a masterclass in deception. Darkly elegant. Disarmingly poised. A man engineered to disarm while extracting.

Every warning she’d ever received about him roared to life in her mind. Wesley’s wary undertone. Sephiroth’s sharp silence. Lazard’s careful nonchalance.

And then the sticky note left in her desk by her predecessor:

Whatever you do, don’t trust Ferris. Especially if he smiles. Especially if he doesn’t.

Tori didn’t balk at his presence. But she did straighten—spine braced, expression neutral.

Because if Ferris Knox was the snare, she refused to be the rabbit that wandered in blinking.

Trailing behind him was Rocco Rinaldi—a slab of a man in full Public Safety fatigues. Heidegger’s executive assistant and built like the gym itself had forged him out of spare steel plates. He had the shoulders of a small freighter and the expression of someone who communicated exclusively in clipped orders and training protocols.

Rocco did not belong in a Turk self-defense workshop.

Neither did Ferris, for that matter.

And yet—here they were. Crossing the gym floor like it was their typical Tuesday ritual.

“Criminently,” Choufleur breathed. “What are they doing here?”

Tori didn’t move.

Ferris spotted her instantly. Like a shark sniffing copper in the water.

“Well, well, well,” he said, stepping onto the mat as though it might bow beneath his sneakers. “If it isn’t the crown jewel of the President’s boardroom.”

Tori remained still. “Knox. Rinaldi. I’m surprised to see you both here.”

He grinned. “Ditto.”

Rocco offered a mute nod and took a seat near the wall, already pulling off his uniform top to reveal a ribbed white tank. Dog tags hung around his neck.

Ferris, however, stayed standing. Hovering. Smirking.

“I’m intrigued,” he said, circling slightly. “Two days out from one of the most successful boardroom coups in recent history, and here you are—knees on rubber matting, ready to learn how to punch.”

Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla regarded him warily.

“Never hurts to be prepared,” said Tori.

“Oh, I agree.” Ferris crouched beside her, lowering his voice. “But it’s fascinating. All that power upstairs, and you still feel the need to protect yourself. Almost like you don’t trust it.”

Tori met his gaze head-on.

“I don’t.”

Something flickered behind his eyes. Not surprise. Just… interest.

“Well,” he murmured, “I hope you enjoy the course. The Turks tend to be rather hands-on with their demonstrations.”

He rose and strolled back toward Rocco, leaving behind a smear of cologne and innuendo.

Tori’s jaw tightened.

“Nothing but trouble,” Kovacs murmured under her breath. “Should I poison his water bottle?”

“No,” Tori said. “Just watch your backs. He could be all bluster and no bite.”

Choufleur sighed. “I hate that I’m starting to find this thrilling.”

Orla cracked her knuckles.

The lights dimmed—not by much, but enough to signal that something was beginning at last.

Then they arrived.

Rude stepped forward first, silent and immovable, dressed in his standard black suit like it had been pressed by sheer willpower. His sunglasses caught the overhead glare with unwavering defiance, as though the fluorescents themselves had personally offended him. He looked less like a security officer and more like an urban legend given payroll status.

Elena followed with crisp precision—practical workout gear, hair pinned back, clipboard clutched like a restraining order waiting to happen. She had the brisk energy of someone who could file a report, disarm a suspect, and fix your posture all in one motion.

And then—Reno.

Bringing up the rear with all the reverence of a man late to his own parole hearing. His crimson hair was tied up in a haphazard tail, shirt already escaping the waistband of his track pants, and an expression that said he had either just won a bar fight or caused one out of sheer boredom. He moved like a rumor in progress, grin sharp enough to cut through protocol.

Together, they looked less like instructors and more like the reason self-defense classes existed in the first place.

“Evenin’, corporate survivors,” Reno said, shooting finger guns to the back row. “Ready to learn how to throw your coworkers to the floor without getting sued?”

Rude folded his arms and said nothing.

Elena, clearing her throat, stepped forward with professional restraint. “This course is the first in our Urban-Close Quarters Initiative, sponsored by Internal Security and open to all Shinra employees with proper clearance. Tonight’s focus: hostile workplace encounters and self-preservation under duress.”

Tori exchanged a look with Kovacs.

“Well, that escalated quickly,” Kovacs muttered.

Elena continued. “These scenarios are based on real field incidents—altercations in elevators, during parking disputes, boardroom disagreements, and the occasional death glare over shared vending items.”

“Don’t underestimate vending rage,” Reno added solemnly. “That’s where morale goes to die.”

Elena ignored him. “We’re going to start with a pressure-point takedown and shoulder-dump technique. It works on larger aggressors if you understand center mass and leverage.”

Rude stepped forward like a looming statue. Elena demonstrated how to shift her hips, anchor her stance, and roll him onto the mat with practiced ease.

“Remember this sequence,” she said, loud enough for the room. “Grab. Drop. Pivot. Pop. That’s your rhythm. Think of it like a dance.”

“A dance where the other guy ends up on the floor gasping,” Reno added helpfully.

“Exactly.”

“Or unconscious.”

“Exactly.”

Tori blinked. Grab. Drop. Pivot. Pop. It sounded like a chewing gum jingle. But watching Rude go down with nothing more than Elena’s wrist at his elbow was oddly… inspiring.

The room split into pairs.

Kovacs and Choufleur immediately claimed each other with the silent speed of people who’d already agreed to minimize bruising. Which left Tori with Orla, who smiled at her with unnerving delight.

“May the best woman win,” Orla whispered.

Tori exhaled. “We’re not fighting to the death, Orla.”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

To her right, Ferris was paired with Rocco, and the sheer contrast in body type looked like someone had placed a wine sommelier next to a bulk delivery of concrete.

And yet—

Ferris moved.

Not with flourish, but with grace. When Rocco lunged, Ferris sidestepped, got under his center of gravity, and popped—Rocco thudded to the mat with a sound that made three people wince and one intern clap.

Tori stared. Ferris smoothed his hair and offered Rocco a hand, entirely unfazed.

“Since when does he know how to do that?” she muttered.

“Since always,” Orla said, already mid-pivot with one hand hovering ominously near Tori’s elbow. “R&D has many secrets. Most of them punch.”

Tori managed to avoid being pinned, but just barely. Her technique was functional, but she held her ground. Orla, to her credit, didn’t gloat. She just observed.

“You’re fast,” Orla said.

“You’re watching me instead of blinking,” Tori replied.

“I find blinking to be a distraction.”

“Of course you do.”

Rude wandered the floor like a bouncer assessing exits. Reno offered “coaching” that mostly involved sound effects and over-dramatic applause. Elena was the only one maintaining order, reminding the room again and again:

“Grab. Drop. Pivot. Pop. Keep your stance grounded. Don’t let the adrenaline pull you off balance.”

Choufleur nearly took Kovacs out and gave a squeal of delight.

Orla nearly took Tori out by mistake.

Ferris never broke a sweat.

By the end of class, half the room looked like it had been through low-impact battle. Elena passed out vouchers for professional development credit, which Choufleur immediately tucked into her purse like it could be redeemed for gold.

“And if tonight was useful,” Elena called, “next week we’ll be covering the seven basic principles of firearm handling. Sign-ups are open. Shinra Security will supply sidearms for simulation.”

Tori perked up slightly.

She’d never had formal weapons training. Her Service Center ID hadn’t qualified her for much beyond copier repair and vending credits. But now—

Now was different.

The room thinned as students filed out. The hum of overhead lights softened under the noise of laughter, footfalls, and vending machines rebooting from power-saving mode.

Tori saw her team off in the entrance lobby, still blotting sweat from her collarbone with a towel. The adrenaline of drills was beginning to fade, but the tension in her shoulders hadn’t eased.

That’s when Ferris Knox reappeared.

He leaned against the wall like he’d been waiting for her—hands in his pockets, posture relaxed, gaze too knowing. He looked crisp. Composed. Barely winded. As though self-defense seminars were just another venue for collecting intel.

“You know,” he said, voice smooth as varnish, “I wouldn’t have expected you here.”

Tori was immediately on guard.

“But then again,” he continued, drifting closer, “you’ve always been full of surprises. Strategic. Thorough. A little too thorough.”

She sipped from her water bottle, wiped her mouth. “If you’ve got something to say, say it.”

Ferris smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m just saying… some people don’t appreciate it when junior executives start poking around things they weren’t meant to find.”

Tori’s hand froze mid-motion with the towel. Her gaze finally met his.

“You’ve got good instincts,” Ferris murmured. “Which means I don’t have to spell it out for you. Don’t trust Wesley. Don’t trust Scarlet. Between Weapons and R&D, there’s a lot to lose if Lazard’s little Azure Accord gains traction. Scarlet especially—she’d rather kill a plan than let it belong to someone else.”

“That’s strange. I’ve had plenty of people warn me about you.”

That earned her a grin—sharp, self-satisfied.

“I’m sure you have. I do have a reputation.” He broke into a knowing grin, displaying some of his wily trickster delight. But it was gone as fast as it appeared. “But I’m not the one whose name was flagged in the archive logs the night Dockery died.”

Her throat closed. Not with guilt—though that too—but with dread. Dockery’s name was no longer a memory. It was a weight. A question. And Ferris had just placed it on the table like a calling card.

“I’m not here to frighten you,” Ferris added, lifting a hand in faux-innocence. “I’m here to warn you.”

Her voice came quieter now, but steady. “Warn me about what?”

He stepped in—close enough that she could smell the faint citrus tang of his cologne and the clinical cleanliness of Shinra-issue soap. His voice dropped, smooth and unhurried, like he had all the time in the world.

“You’re being watched, Ms. Sutton. Not by Turks. Not by SOLDIER. By the people who move when no one’s looking. The ones who don’t have desks or badges or departments. The ones who pull wires from behind the curtain and never leave fingerprints.”

She didn’t breathe.

“They’ve taken an interest in you. And in Lazard. Which means you’re running out of time to pretend this is just politics.”

Tori’s breath hitched.

Ferris’s tone dipped lower.

“You think the elevator malfunction was bad luck? The materia fire in the armory? That console fire in his office? Accidents? Please. You’re smarter than that.” His eyes glittered. “Someone’s sending a message. And if he keeps pushing reforms, and you keep enabling him—there will be more. Bolder. Louder. You’re not just assisting a department anymore, Sutton. You’re becoming a target. The only question is whether you’ll see it in time.”

She tried to maintain composure, but her pulse was galloping.

“Why are you telling me this?”

His gaze sharpened. Something almost sincere—almost—cut through the artifice.

“Because I’m offering you options. The Department of R&D has… unorthodox methods, yes. But we also know how to keep people alive. People like you. People with leverage. People whose value hasn’t yet been… repackaged.”

He tilted his head, studying her expression like a specimen under glass.

“If you want to understand what’s really going on beneath all these shiny campaigns and PR meetings... if you want to survive it... we should grab coffee.”

She blinked. “Coffee?”

“Sooner rather than later.” His tone was low, earnest. “Before someone else makes the offer for me. Someone less... accommodating.”

And then—

The air drew taut, like a wire pulled between poles. Silence bent around it, the atmosphere changing in the way it sometimes did before a storm.

Sephiroth’s voice, cool and quiet, emerged from behind her like a blade drawn partway from its sheath.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Tori turned sharply. Her stomach lurched.

Sephiroth stood a few feet away, expression unreadable, his gaze flicking first to her, then to Ferris. The implication hung in the air—coffee, an intimate tone, proximity. He had walked in at the exact wrong—or right—moment.

Ferris gave a knowing little smile. “Not at all, General. Just extending a friendly invitation.”

Tori’s throat constricted. She didn’t know what he’d overheard. But she knew what it looked like. A whisper. A proposition. A choice waiting to be made. And worse—something she didn’t want him to mistake.

Tori opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her heart was hammering. All she could think about were the implications Ferris had just made.

You’re being watched.

She caught the way Sephiroth’s gaze lingered on her, the faint flicker of something unreadable behind those pale green eyes.

She didn’t know what he’d heard.

And she wasn’t sure what she wanted him to believe.

What she did know—what she felt, in the silence that followed—was the shift in air pressure. Like something weightless had entered the room and quietly claimed command.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sephiroth turned the corner with his usual pace, a quiet storm of tailored black leather and unspoken authority, when he caught sight of her.

Tori Sutton stood near the vending alcove, dressed down in workout gear and flushed from exertion. Her hair was damp at the temples, loose strands curling down her neck. She looked relaxed. Casual. Grounded in the present moment in a way that always struck him as deliberate—like even her exhaustion was efficiently scheduled.

But she wasn’t alone.

Ferris Knox leaned in close, his stance conversational, his hands moving in loose, confident gestures that disguised every edge of manipulation.

Sephiroth’s jaw ticked.

Ferris had the look of a man who enjoyed knowing things he shouldn’t and collecting debts he never planned to repay. The type who smiled during autopsies—not because he enjoyed death, but because of how cleanly things came apart.

She was listening—eyes narrowed in that forensic way she had when someone thought they were being clever. But the way her body angled, the soft flush at her neck, the slight tension in her mouth—it made something irrational tug at his chest. A misplaced impulse. One he couldn’t file under strategy or threat assessment.

Sephiroth stepped forward without permission from his thoughts.

“Ms. Sutton.”

Both heads turned.

Ferris straightened with a flick of his sleeve, his smile lacquered and cold.

“General,” he said smoothly, like the title was a party trick he’d seen performed too many times. “Twice in one week. You do have a knack for showing up right when things get... interesting.”

His tone was casual, but Sephiroth caught the edge beneath it. Meant to sound like coincidence. Meant to sting.

He didn’t answer at first. A fraction of a step. Deliberate, not defensive. Enough to place himself at her side instead of apart. Enough to remind Ferris, and maybe Tori, that some kinds of power didn’t need to be announced to be felt.

Ferris saw it.

And didn’t like it.

That alone was satisfying.

There it was again—that flicker of irritation in the assistant’s eyes, subtle as static. He recovered quickly, of course. Ferris always did. But Sephiroth had spent his life studying the subtle—twitches of jawlines, the tightening of breath before battle. Ferris was annoyed. Cornered, even.

Good.

It was the second time this week Sephiroth had disrupted whatever agenda Ferris Knox had for Tori Sutton. And he had no intention of stopping.

Ferris held his composure like a man used to being the most dangerous mind in the room—until reminded he wasn’t the most dangerous presence.

As he turned to go, Ferris offered one last glance toward Sephiroth, lips curved in mock admiration.

“You know, General,” he said lightly, “for someone so famously uninterested in administrative affairs, you seem to be developing a… rather focused curiosity.”

The subtext wasn’t buried. It was gift-wrapped.

Sephiroth remained unmoved.

He simply let the silence stretch—long and sharpened—until Ferris turned and disappeared into the corridor with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Knox was circling something.

And whatever it was—it involved her.

Tori blinked, her posture shifting—no longer relaxed, but reflexively upright. A flicker of something unreadable passed over her face.

“Good evening, sir,” she said. Still a little breathless from exertion.

Her voice—clear and steady—pulled at something sharp inside him.

“You’ve been training,” he said, eyes scanning her attire, then drifting toward the gym doors behind her. “The self-defense course.”

“Yes. We’ve all been attending.” She nodded toward the closing door behind her. “Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla.”

He didn’t respond right away, but his eyes narrowed judiciously.

All of them. Rolling around on mats. Locked into holds. Pressed chest to chest.

He didn’t like it.

“I wasn’t aware the program was mandatory.”

“It isn’t,” she said. “But after recent…events, I thought it wise.”

A beat passed.

“If you’re that interested in learning hand-to-hand,” Sephiroth said evenly, “you only need ask me.”

The words left before he considered their weight.

She froze. Her gaze caught his—too sharp, too searching—and then darted away as if she’d touched something hot. The blush came swiftly, and not just to her cheeks. It ran down her throat like light under skin.

Sephiroth’s mind stalled.

Angeal was right. Women didn’t always know how to read him. His compliments sounded like orders. His flirtation like interrogation. And Tori—sharp, capable Tori—was now blinking like she didn’t know where to file his comment.

“I wouldn’t want to take up your time,” she said quickly, already moving to neutral ground. “You’re busy. You’ve got an entire department. World-saving initiatives. Reshoots.”

She was deflecting. Misinterpreting.

Or maybe just…guarding herself.

Sephiroth didn’t blame her. She was more discerning than most. She read people the way others read contracts—with a pen, not a heart.

It made him wonder what it would take to disarm her completely.

And why the thought sparked a flare of anticipation in his chest.

Their moment fractured.

“Ah,” came a smooth voice, laced in silk and peroxide.

Vesper.

She approached in long strides, her clipboard slung over one hip like a fashion accessory, her dark hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights.

Her eyes landed on Tori with the vague squint of someone identifying an insect on a glass surface.

“Ah, I recognize you,” Vesper said at last. “The redhead from the office. You’re Lazard’s new secretary.”

Sephiroth stiffened.

“This is Ms. Sutton,” he corrected her. “Executive Assistant to the Director of SOLDIER.”

Tori’s blush deepened.

Far too easy, he thought.

“Ms. Sutton,” he added, voice gentler, “this is my marketing specialist, Vesper Navarre.”

“Nice to meet you,” Vesper said, tone cool. “Please tell me you’re reigning him in. Lazard has a habit of derailing my marketing asset from campaign priorities.”

Marketing asset, Sephiroth thought. It used to bother him. Tonight, it felt… peripheral.

Tori’s response was smooth and neutral, but unmistakably firm. “The Director prioritizes what matters. And General Sephiroth’s duties extend beyond PR deliverables. If that occasionally disrupts the calendar, I’m confident we’ll find a way to work around it.”

She smiled. The kind of smile that cut without showing the blade.

Vesper blinked.

Just once.

Then tilted her head, smile curving into something quieter, more introspective. “Well said, Ms. Sutton. I’ll remember that.”

Her eyes flicked to Sephiroth, gauging his reaction. Looking for a cue. For ground to reclaim.

She found none.

Because Sephiroth hadn’t taken his eyes off Tori.

So she does draw blood when pressed, he thought, a faint curl of approval rising in his chest.

There was no need to step in. No need to shield. She’d done what most wouldn’t dare—put Vesper Navarre on her heels with nothing but poise and precision.

Tori adjusted her bag and gave Vesper a courteous nod before turning to him.

“I’ll let you get back to it, then,” she said, stepping aside. Then, softer: “See you tomorrow, sir.”

That caught him off-guard.

“It’s late,” he said, more abruptly than intended. “Do you have someone to walk you home?”

She stopped. Not startled—just surprised enough for the moment to catch, like thread snagging on a nail.

Before she could answer, Vesper’s voice interjected—light but deliberate.

“Oh, General,” she said with a half-laugh. “Surely she can navigate a few blocks of Midgar. Most of us do.”

It wasn’t a barb. It was a reminder. Of independence. Of routine. Of what women in Midgar learned early.

But Sephiroth wasn’t offering chivalry.

He was offering peace of mind.

And he didn’t care if it made him look archaic.

Tori gave a diplomatic nod. “Don’t worry. Should I come across anyone untoward, I’ve picked up a few tricks.”

He heard the tension beneath it. The clipped cadence. Her gaze didn’t meet his.

He hated that.

Hated Ferris lingering in doorways and speaking in implications. Hated knowing she’d walk home while he recited pre-cleared answers beneath studio lights.

If not for the damn Midgar Speaks reshoot, he would’ve walked her home himself.

This would have to do.

“Wait,” he said, quieter now.

He pulled out his PHS and offered it to her.

Their fingers brushed. Just briefly. But her breath hitched.

So did his.

“At least let me know you made it home safe.”

She hesitated. Then accepted the device, thumbs pausing over the screen like she was holding something far more precious than a phone.

She entered her contact information, sent herself a message, then returned it without a word.

“All right,” she said, voice warmer now. “I will.”

Their hands met again for the briefest second.

If Vesper noticed, she gave no indication. But Sephiroth felt her watching.

Not with amusement now, but curiosity.

Tori said her farewells, turning at last for the revolving glass doors that opened up into a darkened Midgar, tinged mako green and hissing with plumes of exhaust.

He watched her go.

The interview was rote. Answers pre-cleared. Lighting perfectly staged. He sat through the half-scripted questioning with one ear on his handler’s voice and one thought spiraling toward the woman who walked home alone.

Halfway through the segment, his PHS buzzed in his coat pocket.

[Ms. Sutton:] Made it home safe and sound. Hope your evening goes well.

A beat passed.

Then he typed:

[Sephiroth:] That depends. Will I see you again in the gym next week? I might be persuaded to demonstrate a few “advanced” maneuvers—strictly for professional enrichment, of course.

[Sephiroth:] Provided you promise not to disarm me first.

He slipped the phone away, and for the first time that evening—

He smiled.

Just slightly.

Chapter Text

“Some thresholds you don’t cross—until someone forces you to.”

Tori stared at her phone. The screen glowed softly against the folds of her skirt as she reread the exchange for what had to be the fifteenth time.

[Ms. Sutton:] That’s very generous of you, sir. I’d be grateful for the instruction—so long as you don’t mind the occasional elbow to the ego.

[Sephiroth:] Understood. I’ll brace accordingly.

[Sephiroth:] Goodnight, Ms. Sutton.

It was polite. Professional. But still came from the man who stood at the summit of Shinra’s power structure. The man who didn’t text. And certainly didn’t end messages with the kind of restrained fondness that somehow felt more personal than if he’d used her first name.

Direct access to his PHS felt… intimate in a way that suggested boundaries had already blurred. It wasn’t just a message. It was a key. A quiet invitation to a space few were allowed to enter—and now that she had, she couldn’t stop peeking through the door.

Her pulse tapped behind her knees. She wasn’t sure if it was the coffee or the warm, sparkly feelings flaring like fireworks in her chest. Either way, she was in a trance.

“Ms. Sutton.”

Kovacs’ voice yanked her back. She blinked and looked up. They were in the middle of an HR seminar. A conference room packed to the brim with admin, all arranged in neat rows facing a large screen. Emina Thorne, Director of Human Resources, was presenting at the front of the room. Something about interdepartmental relations.

Tori hadn’t processed a word.

She shifted in her seat. Choufleur and Kovacs flanked her in pastel sweaters and professional boredom, clearly itching for an excuse to tune out.

“You’ve been staring at your phone this whole time,” Kovacs whispered, leaning in. “Everything okay?”

Tori hesitated.

Both women exuded the kind of executive calm she admired—composed, unfazed, always in control. If anyone could confirm whether she was reading too much into those messages, it was them.

“Something worth skipping the seminar for?” Choufleur asked, hopefully.

Tori tightened her grip on the phone. She wasn’t the kind to share private messages. But this moment felt off-script, and she couldn’t trust her instincts—not when her thoughts were spiraling. She needed perspective. Before she saw him again.

She offered them the screen. “What do you make of this?”

Kovacs and Choufleur leaned in, eyes scanning the messages like they were deciphering ancient runes.

Choufleur immediately went slack jawed, her brows disappearing high above her bangs. Kovacs broke into a devilish grin, then looked up slowly—like someone realizing the plot twist halfway through a scandalous novel.

“Oh my,” she whispered in a way that made Tori’s heart sputter. “Ms. Sutton, no wonder you can’t think straight. It would appear you’ve caught someone’s attention.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” Kovacs purred. “No man writes ‘I’ll brace accordingly’ unless he’s expecting to get hit—in the heart.”

“And goodnight texts?” Choufluer added. “Please.”

Tori glanced between them again, unsure whether to feel vindicated or start hyperventilating. They were surprised just like her. That, more than anything, confirmed her suspicions.

“I did think it strange how you brought up having lunch with him yesterday,” Kovacs murmured, “but I assumed you were working on the Azure Accord.” She gave a small, knowing hum. “Apparently not.”

But Tori’s unease didn’t lift.

“Still—what about Vesper Navarre? She was right there in the lobby last night. They seemed—familiar.”

Choufleur waved that away. “Vesper’s been trying to get his attention for months. Keeps showing up in SOLDIER like her marketing campaigns are top priority.”

“They do work closely together,” Kovacs admitted,” but that doesn’t mean he’s interested.”

We work closely together, Tori thought exasperatedly. She and Vesper were the same in that regard. The only difference was that the novelty of having a female marketing specialist had no doubt worn off to the point Sephiroth could treat her as a colleague and nothing more. Tori had only been in his orbit for less than three weeks. There was still the possibility he was just being gracious.

She fiddled with the edge of her sleeve, her confusion returning full-force.

“Still. The General. I mean—he’s...”

“A god?” Kovacs supplied.

“An unattainable legend?” Choufleur offered.

“Not that unattainable,” Kovacs said, smug. “He’s had flings before. Usually women paraded in front of him at galas. Nothing internal. Nothing that sticks.”

Choufleur nodded. “They never last. The fandom, the pressure, his own apathy... it burns fast and dies faster. But Vesper? She’s been circling him for over a year.”

Kovacs leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs with a sly grin.

“But here he is,” she whispered. “Texting you. Offering private instruction no less.”

Tori flushed. She felt it—that flutter, dangerous and exhilarating.

Like standing at the edge of a ledge with wind in her hair and no railing to catch her.

The war hero in all those sleek media campaigns did not pursue. Did not indulge. He did not concern himself with women like her—normal, administrative, disposable. And yet... There was an undeniable thrill to it, she realized. An edge. Beneath that thrill curled something sharper.

Fear.

Because if someone like him had designs on her, it meant she had been chosen. And nothing about Sephiroth was careless. He didn’t extend attention without reason. Which meant there was a reason. And Tori couldn’t decide which terrified her more: that he wanted something from her... or that he simply wanted her.

“But why ask us?” Choufleur teased. “You already know he’s interested. Look at you.”

Tori stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“That dress?” Choufleur said, arching a brow. “That’s the ‘Maybe the General Will Notice Me’ dress.”

Tori crossed her arms, heart pounding with embarrassment.

She hadn’t slept. Not really. Not after everything Ferris had murmured in that smug, backhanded way… and not after the quiet gravity of Sephiroth offering his phone to ensure she made it home safe. Her mind had replayed it all in a loop—Ferris’s veiled warnings, Vesper’s polished derision, and Sephiroth’s unreadable glance before she stepped into the night alone.

By morning, she was running on caffeine and nerves and something between elation and dread.

She had spent too long choosing this outfit. Had debated the earrings. Had re-tied the sash twice. The dress was meant to be practical. Clean lines. Silk buttons. Long sleeves. Nothing extravagant.

The soft blue shade contrasted with the copper-red of her hair more vividly than she realized until she caught her own reflection in the conference room’s glass partition.

What had felt like confidence this morning now felt like a confession.

Before she could defend herself, Orla’s quiet voice cut through the chatter.

“I wouldn’t get too cozy,” she said calmly. “He’s been known to leverage his influence to gain intel.”

The three of them blinked.

“What?” Tori asked.

“He’s strategic,” Orla said, completely unbothered. “If he wants information, he finds the right contact. Gets close. Gains access. Moves on.”

Tori sat back slowly, feeling the straps of her leather harness dig into her shoulders.

Her mind flashed to the lunch. The probing questions. The attentiveness.

“He said he didn’t have an agenda,” she whispered, mostly to herself.

Orla didn’t shrug. But her silence said everything.

A hollow bloomed beneath her ribs.

Before she could reply, Mrs. Thorne’s voice suddenly rose above the low murmur of the room.

“And finally,” she said crisply, “let me be perfectly clear.”

The room fell silent, as Mrs. Thorne’s gaze flicked to the far-right row.

Tori felt the shift in the air before she realized it had landed on them. A not-so-subtle reminder to the cluster of whispering assistants in the third row that HR did have eyes everywhere.

Kovacs straightened. Choufleur folded her hands in her lap. Orla blinked, expression unreadable.
And Tori… Tori swallowed hard, spine suddenly too stiff against the back of her chair. She hastily hid her phone in the folds of her skirt.

“While Shinra permits professional interactions across departments, any romantic involvement between a superior and a subordinate is a violation of contract policy. Immediate termination of both parties will be enforced. No exceptions.”

Mrs. Thorne continued, her gaze sweeping the crowd like a sentencing judge. “Furthermore, any romantic relationship between two employees within the same department is also prohibited. This policy is not just protective—it is preventative. Emotional entanglements compromise efficacy. They compromise loyalty.”

Tori broke out into a cold flush.

It was as if the presentation had turned its full weight on her, dragging her out of the third row and into a harsh spotlight of scrutiny. She could feel the others stiffen beside her—Choufluer, Kovacs, even Orla. For a moment, none of them were whispering. None of them were smiling. They were just… quiet. As if realizing the stakes for the first time.

HR hadn’t just laid out a policy. They’d issued a verdict. Tori heard it like a steel trap snapping shut. If there was anything between her and Sephiroth—even the suggestion of something—it would mean the end of everything she’d worked for.

The dress. The texts. The lingering looks. The fantasies she hadn’t even allowed herself to entertain. All of it unraveled in one breathless moment. How foolish it seemed now—giddy messages and late-night thinking spiraling into dangerous territory. What she had taken for attention might cost her everything.

She had worked too hard to get here. Crawled up from nothing with grit and determination that no one had ever noticed. This wasn’t the time to fall for anyone—especially not the one man who could undo everything with a glance.

She blinked hard. Looked down at her phone again.

So long as you don’t mind the occasional elbow to the ego.

I’ll brace accordingly.

Goodnight, Ms. Sutton.

What had started as warmth now curdled in her stomach.

The seminar concluded with polite applause. People gathered their notes and filed quickly out the door.

Tori stood slowly, her limbs heavier than they should be. She was about to excuse herself when—

“Ms. Sutton,” came Mrs. Thorne’s voice.

Tori jolted, breath catching in her throat like she’d been caught red-handed.

She turned with cautious poise. “Yes, Madam Director?”

Mrs. Thorne approached with the smooth, deliberate tread of someone used to watching people squirm.

“Just wanted to check in,” she said lightly. “How’s the new position suiting you? Director Lazard speaks highly of your initiative.”

“It’s going well,” Tori said with a gracious smile. “I’ve never felt better.”

Mrs. Thorne smiled.

“Good,” she said at last, voice deceptively warm. “I hope you’ll continue to focus on your talents in administration. It’s important—especially in SOLDIER—to remain impervious to distraction. Office proximity can…” She gave Tori a long, assessing look, her eyes flickering down to her dress. “distort priorities if one isn’t too careful.”

A chill sliced through Tori’s spine. Her smile froze in place.

Mrs. Thorne turned to the others.

“Ladies,” she greeted, nodding to Choufleur, Kovacs, and Orla. “Do try to keep your eyes forward next time. You’ll find the presentation content far more helpful if you're listening rather than whispering.”

Kovacs gave a tight, noncommittal smile.

Mrs. Thorne tilted her head. “Keep up the good work,” she repeated, and glided away.

Tori stood there like she'd just been struck by a sniper dart made of protocol.

“She saw us.”

“She saw everything,” Choufleur agreed.

“Well,” said Kovacs, unfazed as she resumed walking. “She can’t exactly police chemistry. And frankly, I’d be more concerned if she wasn’t watching. Means you’ve made an impression.”

“She just reminded me of my priorities,” Tori whispered, still stunned.

Kovacs waved her off. “She does that to everyone. Scarlet’s always threatening HR citations with the way she uses her interns as ottomans. Frankly, the woman has bigger fish to fry.”

Tori wasn’t reassured by this at all.

Not when her heart was still pounding.

And not when the Director of Human Resources had just issued a veiled death sentence to the one part of her life that felt like it was starting to matter.

As the four of them stepped into the elevator together, Tori looked down at her phone one last time.

But the glow of the messages no longer comforted.

They shimmered like a warning flare—beautiful, beckoning, and wholly out of place.

She knew it now.

This wasn’t flirtation—it was danger in disguise, the kind that left women like her wondering how close they could stand to the fire before it consumed them.

. . . . . . . . . .

After lunch in the staff cafeteria with her junior assistants, Tori had barely returned to her desk when the summons came. A ping on her PHS.

[Lazard:] I need you in my office at your earliest convenience, Ms. Sutton. We have a matter to discuss.

Her stomach gave a small lurch.

Not panic. Not quite.

But the echo of Mrs. Thorne’s HR decree still rang behind her eyes like a warning bell. She could still feel the phantom noose tightening around her neck.

She smoothed her skirt. Tucked a curl behind her ear. Tried to armor herself in professionalism as she approached Lazard’s door, even as the rollercoaster of the last forty-eight hours jolted through her ribs like an aftershock.

“Sir, it’s me,” she announced before pushing the doors open.

The familiar golden glow of SHINRA ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY gleamed in polished lettering across the wall, casting its corporate dominance like a silent verdict over the room.

It always did—but today, it glared.

Lazard was seated behind the desk, his gloved hands steepled beneath his chin in quiet calculation. The glow from his console lit the lenses of his silver-rimmed glasses like twin searchlights. His expression was taut—composed but weighed.

And he wasn’t alone.

Another presence occupied the room, turning the space into something entirely charged.

Sephiroth leaned against the desk with arms crossed over his chest, one boot braced casually against the mahogany paneling. Dressed in the off-duty severity of black training fatigues, his high-collared sweater unzipped at the throat, revealing the sculpted line of his collarbone. His head was bowed slightly in thought, the silver sweep of his hair falling over one shoulder. Everything about him looked sharp and elemental—less like a man and more like something forged.

Tori’s breath caught.

The HR seminar crashed back into her mind like a gavel.

“Any romantic involvement between a superior and a subordinate will result in immediate termination. No exceptions.”

And here she was, stepping into a room where the very embodiment of that warning stood framed in irresistible allure.

At her approach, they both looked up.

And stood.

Lazard rose in welcome—but Sephiroth straightened as well, unfolding the full weight of his stature like he knew exactly how devastating he looked and didn’t mind applying pressure when it suited him.

Tori schooled her expression into one of complete calm as she approached them.

“Ms. Sutton,” Lazard greeted her with a warm nod. “Please. Have a seat.”

Tori stepped forward—only to falter a split second when she felt it:

That gaze.

Direct. Unhurried. Unmistakably his.

Sephiroth’s eyes tracked her with a kind of idle intensity. Not in the way men usually looked at her—not the cursory flick of approval or idle judgment. This was slower. Like he was tracing her logic and quietly appreciating the sum of her parts.

The dress.

Blushing, she took the offered chair, effectively placing Sephiroth outside her periphery.

Lazard resumed his own seat.

“Thank you for joining us, Ms. Sutton. I wanted to inform you—the General and I will be departing headquarters within the next twenty-four hours on a diplomatic assignment. We’ve been summoned to Junon to meet with the captain and crew of the Shinra-8 warship.”

Tori’s focus snapped to attention. “So soon?”

Lazard sighed. “Sooner than I’d like. But the Azure Accord moves faster than bureaucracy is used to. We’ll be finalizing the next phase of our plan before deployment.”

She nodded. Checklist contingencies began firing in her brain like flares.

“Of course, sir.”

Lazard’s voice softened. “We’d appreciate your help ensuring all documentation is secured and in order by morning. I know it’s last minute. Your support here is... more valuable than I can say.”

Tori responded with a genuine smile. “No need to worry, sir. We anticipated things would ramp up after the initial changes were put into place. I’ll get everything ready for your trip.”

She made to stand, eager to get her hands on her datapad when Lazard stopped her.

“If you can assist Sephiroth with document review and itinerary prep this evening,” he added, “you may go into maintenance mode the rest of the week. Flex-time. Consider it well-earned.”

Her sense of danger returned tenfold.

Sephiroth.

Tonight.

That meant hours in his company. Alone, possibly. In a shared workspace. After dark.

She hadn’t planned on another existential spiral this soon.

Sephiroth leaned against the desk, tilting his head as he caught her gaze.

“It appears we’ll be burning the midnight oil together,” he said, voice low. His tone could have passed for polite—if not for the way it brushed her spine. “I trust you don’t mind close quarters.”

Tori’s brain blue-screened.

She managed a tight smile. “As long as we’re not using live ammunition, I think I can manage.”

His mouth curved, unmistakably this time. “Noted. I’ll leave the materia in storage.”

Lazard, blissfully oblivious, tapped his keyboard.

“Sephiroth will forward the current draft. You'll find several sections flagged for review. Revisions are minor, but sensitive.”

Tori nodded again, this time more slowly.

This was it. No more theoretical what-ifs. No more wondering what those texts meant.

She would be working late. With the General. In a proximity that had already proven to disarm her common sense like a blown fuse.

She straightened.

“Understood. I’ll get started right away.”

But even as she said it, her stomach curled. Not with dread.

With anticipation.

And that was the real problem.

Because despite everything—despite Mrs. Thorne’s warning, Orla’s caution, and her own good sense—Tori was beginning to realize the truth:

Being near him was dangerous.

And worse—some secret, starved part of her didn’t want distance.

She just didn’t want to be the one to close it.

. . . . . . . . . . .

The hours unraveled in a quiet blur, punctuated only by the soft clatter of keys and the rustle of paper. Tori hadn’t moved from her desk since the meeting.

The Azure Accord documents were finally coming together. Lazard’s revisions, sharp and methodical, bore the urgency of a man long accustomed to waiting on bureaucracy but no longer willing to tolerate delay. Tori felt it too—that low, charged current humming beneath every detail. Momentum was building. Everything was in motion.

She moved through the tasks with measured focus, compiling printed addendums and finalizing the itinerary for the Junon envoy. Her desk disappeared beneath a growing architecture of documents: strategic charts, interdepartmental chain-of-command updates, proposed restructurings of navy, air force, and infantry divisions, communication maps, and tactical supply lines.

It was dense work. Exhausting, precise, and exhilarating. The kind of high-clearance intelligence she would’ve never touched under normal circumstances. But now, incredibly, it was in her hands. She wasn’t just reading it—she was helping shape the very framework of Shinra’s future alliances.

For a few precious hours, it drowned out everything else. The tension of Wesley’s cryptic warning. The shadow of Ferris’s insinuations. The shock of Dockery’s murder. Even the constant, gnawing fear of the field manual still hidden in her apartment. All of it quieted beneath the weight of purpose.

Even Sephiroth’s gaze—that unsettling, silent study of her in Lazard’s office—slipped to the edges of her mind as she typed the final header: Azure Accord: Phase III.

She paused, fingers hovering above the keyboard. Across the hallway, his door remained ajar. Light spilled across the floor.

Sephiroth sat behind his laptop, head slightly bowed, the silver of his hair catching the glow like frost. His expression was unreadable, absorbed in his work, yet impossibly still. It should have been routine by now—this awareness of his presence. But every time she looked at him, the same sensation returned.

Tension.

And this afternoon, it was buzzing.

She looked down again, forcing her eyes back to her keyboard. But as she began typing, a shiver traveled up her spine—the kind that told her she was being watched.

She glanced up.

Sephiroth’s gaze was already on her.

Bright. Curious.

They held eye contact for one breath too long—

—and then a voice broke through the stillness like a lemon wedge squeezed over an open wound.

“Delivery for Torianne Sutton.”

Tori blinked, already bracing.

Janelle Levitz appeared at the far end of the corridor—far deeper into SOLDIER administration than she had any reason to be. She carried a tall glass vase in both arms.

Tori stood automatically, blood cooling as her brain caught up.

Janelle shouldn’t be here. No one waltzed back this far without clearance. The receptionist desk acted as a checkpoint for a reason. But Janelle had bypassed it—and judging by the smug tilt of her head, she’d done so by dropping Tori’s name like a keycard.

Janelle placed the vase on her desk, an ornamental spray of flowers. Real flowers. Blood-red carnations, ivory roses, sprays of baby’s breath and scattered starflowers in a hue so blue they could have been dyed. It looked less like a bouquet and more like a tribute.

Janelle’s gaze swept the office with overt curiosity. Her eyes landed on Tori with a tight, cosmetic smile.

“Well, well,” she said, voice pitched too high, “look at you nesting. You always did have a thing for fresh paint and better lighting.”

Tori smoothed the front of her skirt, careful not to react. “Hello, Janelle. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

“Oh, I volunteered,” Janelle replied brightly, her manicured fingers trailing a rose. “Service Center got the delivery, and I thought—why not bring it up myself? I was curious to see the new setup. Executive Assistant to Director Lazard... quite the upgrade.”

Her eyes flicked toward the open doorway across from Tori, where Sephiroth resumed working on his laptop. Her voice dipped lower, teeth sinking into implication.

“Especially with a view of Midgar’s war hero. Must be hard to concentrate.”

Tori’s spine tightened. The room was quiet enough for every word to carry. Sephiroth could hear this—was hearing this, and Janelle knew it. That was the point.

“Thanks for the trouble,” Tori said briskly, edging the bouquet slightly out of view. “But next time, you’ll need to check in with the front desk. This floor has tight security protocol.”

Janelle’s grin widened. “But if I hadn’t come, I wouldn’t have seen this little slice of luxury.” She tilted her head, eyes returning to the flowers. “Real petals. That’s got to be, what—half your paycheck?”

Tori did not dignify her with a response.

“Must be a very dedicated admirer.” A pause, then faux-innocent: “Wouldn’t happen to be someone you had lunch with the other day?”

Tori met her gaze, expression unreadable.

Janelle’s voice dropped one final notch, sticky with condescension. “Not that I’m surprised. You always did have a knack for... upward mobility.”

Tori’s throat constricted—but she smiled. Pleasant. Polished. Untouchable. “Enjoy the rest of your shift, Janelle.”

Janelle lingered a beat too long, as if daring Tori to flinch. Then, with a pivot of sharp heels, she turned and strolled off—her smirk trailing behind like cheap perfume. “See you around, Sutton.”

The moment she disappeared, Tori let her shoulders drop.

Her gaze drifted back to the bouquet.

Tori studied it with a strange, suspended wonder.

She had never received anything like it before. Leaning forward, she took a breath through her nose. The scent alone was intoxicating, crisp and full, too real to be artificial.

She reached into the blooms, fingertips brushing against the edge of a white envelope between the stems.

No name. No signature.

Only a card.

She opened it carefully.

You’ve impressed us, Ms. Sutton.
Your reach is longer than expected.
We’d like to offer you a seat at the table.
Meet us at the shipping and receiving docks next Tuesday. 6:00 p.m.
Wear the pin. You’ll be found.

Affixed to the bottom corner was a gold pin in the shape of a gear, glinting coldly beneath the office fluorescents.

Her stomach dropped.

The air seemed to shift around her, warping into a tunnel. The flowers blurred at the edges. Her fingers clenched around the card as Ferris’s voice surfaced to the forefront of her mind.

You’re being watched, Ms. Sutton.

Ferris had been telling the truth after all.

Dockery’s face flashed behind her eyes. Her thoughts spiraled—back to the moment she had pulled that field manual from the restricted archives. Back to the decision not to return it. She had convinced herself it was coincidence. But what if it wasn’t?

She gripped the card harder than she meant to.

There was no one she could tell. Not her assistants. Not Lazard. Not even Sephiroth.

Especially not Sephiroth.

She was already toeing the line of propriety, already indulging a closeness she wasn’t supposed to want. Confiding in him now, when she had no idea who was pulling these strings or what her silence had already cost, would be reckless.

Her hand lowered the card slowly. She tucked it back into the envelope and pressed it into her skirt pocket, fingers trembling despite her best efforts to seem composed.

She turned the bouquet slightly, adjusting its angle with careful deliberation, the way someone might admire a lovely, meaningless gift. If there were eyes behind the cameras, they would see nothing out of place. Just an executive assistant, flattered by a lavish surprise.

She held the performance for a moment longer, letting the warmth drain from her limbs, pushing the panic down where it wouldn’t show.

But it was still there. She felt it in her teeth. In her ribs.

Out of instinct, her eyes drifted toward Sephiroth’s office. She could feel it: the unmistakable weight of his gaze. Whether he was watching her directly or merely aware of the bouquet’s arrival, she couldn’t tell. But the timing was damning.

She turned back to her screen—only to freeze again as a voice floated from the front desk. A man’s voice. Low. Lyrical. Teasing.

“Well, Delphie,” the stranger purred, “I thought of you the moment I laid eyes on it.”

Her head snapped up.

Delphie? No one called Choufleur that. Not if they wanted to live.

She focused her attention to the end of the hall where the receptionist desk was stationed around the corner. Choufluer was managing the phones while Kovacs and Orla were on assignment across the department. She couldn’t see who was in the waiting room—but she could hear plenty.

“It was on full display,” the man continued, voice slow and deliberate. “Sleek. Sculpted. Impossibly well-defined. I said to myself—‘Only one woman could appreciate this properly.’”

Tori lifted both hands from her keyboard in an involuntary gasp of horror.

Was this really happening?

“You’re not seriously doing this right now,” Choufleur replied, her voice dry. But there was something unreadable beneath it. Was she amused? Annoyed? Tori couldn’t tell.

“Come on,” the man said, his tone thick with self-satisfaction. “You know I’m your type. Exotic, dangerous, limited edition.”

Tori looked around—where was Kovacs when she needed her?

“Some things,” the man added, a little softer now, “are meant to be handled delicately. Held in the palm of your hand for just a moment before it melts on your tongue.”

That was it.

Tori surged to her feet. The squirt bottle—still nestled beside the office plant in the hallway—was in her hand before she knew it. One warning from HR and the whole building had gone feral.

She rounded the corner like a Shinra trooper with a submachine gun.

“How dare you speak to her that way—!”

PSSSHHT.

A stream of water hit the man square in the face.

He staggered back, blinking through the droplets, utterly stunned.

“What the hell?”

It wasn’t until he looked up—sharp-jawed, soaked, and very familiar—that Tori’s stomach plummeted.

Oh no.

It was Genesis Rhapsodos.

First Class SOLDIER. Known menace in red leather and undulating swagger.

Genesis turned his most accusatory stare on her. He looked like a statue someone had pelted with a garden hose.

“Is this how you welcome returning heroes now?” he asked, indignant. “Waterlogged and unarmed?"

Tori froze. The bottle trembled in her grip.

“I—I thought—” she stammered.

“Thought what, miss sniper?” He challenged her with a sharp lift of his brows. “What could possibly be running in your head to warrant such an assault on my fine visage?” He dabbed at the water dripping down his cheek with a gloved hand, gesturing grandly to Choufleur—who, to Tori’s horror, held up a delicate box wrapped in ribbon. “I was merely delivering chocolates.”

Choufleur broken into a tight grimace. “He brought me a souvenir from his mission.”

Genesis gave her an ornery look. “You treat me like your personal procurer, not a SOLDIER.”

“That’s your penalty for calling me Delphie.”

“Why? It’s cute.”

“It’s my grandmother’s pet name, not mine.”

Genesis raised a brow, utterly unbothered.

“Well then, consider it an homage to your lineage. I have nothing but respect for matriarchs—especially the terrifying ones who raised women like you.”

He flashed a grin, sharp and unapologetic. “Besides, Delphie sounds like a woman who’d poison someone with lilac cordial. I rather admire that.”

Then he turned back to Tori, one brow still lifted. “Tell me, is Lazard hiring more assistants just to keep me humble? Or are you always this… spritely?”

Tori, cheeks burning, desperately wished for the power to become mist and evaporate into the nearest air vent.

“This is Ms. Sutton. Lazard’s new executive assistant,” Choufleur introduced politely.

"Another one?" Genesis turned, still damp, and gave Tori a long, slow sweep of his gaze—one that managed to be both amused and appraising. His attention flicked from her confused expression to the soft blue of her dress, then down to the leather harness snug around her ribs, where Scarlet’s compact handgun sat discreetly holstered.

“I must say,” he mused aloud, “you’re a vast improvement on the last three. Your predecessor liked to issue citations if I so much as breathed wrong. And the one before that—” he shuddered, “—had the sensibility of a school marm.”

He stepped closer, a smirk playing across his lips. “Ms. Sutton, Ms. Sutton. Cute as a button," he said in a singsong lilt. “You storm out of the shadows and attack me like a stray alleycat.” He touched his chest. “This must be love at first sight.”

Tori retreated with the water bottle held aloft, poised for another attack.

“You’ve got gall,” Genesis said. “I admire that. We redheads are supposed to be rare in these parts—I make it a point to be the only one in the department, you know—but... I might allow it.”

He leaned forward, as if sharing a secret. “On one condition: you greet me with a sneak attack every time. It’ll keep my reflexes sharp.”

Before Tori could gather even a syllable of her sanity to respond, a voice cut cleanly through the corridor:

“Genesis.”

They both turned.

Sephiroth stood a few paces away, his broad frame blocking the light from his open office door. He looked every bit the picture of irritation—tall, unreadable, and clearly unimpressed.

His gaze shifted to Tori.

And for the briefest, breathless second, she thought she saw something colder there. A flicker of distance where there hadn’t been one before.

Genesis, ever the peacock, gave an exaggerated sigh. “Duty calls,” he murmured. Then he turned back to Tori with a wink. “We’ll revisit this later.”

And with the flair of a stage actor taking his bow, he sauntered past Sephiroth and disappeared into the office.

Tori remained frozen in place, the water bottle slack in her hand. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

She stared at Choufleur who stared right back, the grimace still affixed to her face.

“Want a bonbon?” Choufleur offered lightly, holding up the box. “From a chocolatier. In Kalm.”

Tori reached out numbly. Took one. Nibbled in silence.

She had just assaulted a First Class SOLDIER.

And worse?

She was still expected to work overtime with the other one.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Genesis flopped elegantly into one of Sephiroth’s armchairs, still dripping, still smug.

Water gleamed across his brow, catching on the fine edge of his jaw. He smelled faintly of cologne and ego. The combination made Sephiroth’s temple pulse.

He didn’t look up right away. His gaze remained fixed on the open folder before him—the Azure Accord logistics file—though the words blurred together uselessly.

Across the hallway, Tori’s desk sat quiet and neatly organized. The vase of flowers perched just off-center still glowed, lush and unnecessary. But it was her expression as she read the card—fingers trembling slightly, mouth parted in thought—that refused to leave his mind. That crease between her brows. The way she turned the card slowly, like she was trying to memorize what was written there before it could disappear.

It had to be Ferris Knox.

The insufferable little mole from Hojo’s wing had made a habit of cornering her at the first opportunity.

The irritation itched beneath Sephiroth’s skin. Irrational. Petty. But persistent.

“Things have certainly changed around here,” Genesis remarked, sweeping his damp hair back. “Office feels different. Vibrant. The junior assistants aren’t hiding anymore. Lazard’s traipsing around the department with a bit more confidence. And you…” He leaned forward, breaking into an exasperated laugh, “are actually in your office. Working. Such a rare sight.”

Sephiroth shot him a look, warning him to tread carefully.

“Something’s happened in my absence,” Genesis continued, too pleased with himself to stop. “Tell me. Has the world turned upside down or have you developed a taste for paperwork?”

Still nothing.

Genesis followed the angle of Sephiroth’s gaze—barely a twitch of muscle, a flick of focus toward the hallway outside. Where the vase of flowers was just barely visible in his office doorway. And then Genesis laughed. Low and triumphant.

“Oh,” he purred. “I see. Is Lazard’s new assistant that good?”

Sephiroth’s fingers tightened around the file in his hand, the pages warping slightly beneath his grip.

Trust Genesis to phrase things with that lethal blend of charm and sabotage—harmless on the surface but laced with implications sharp enough to wound. Sephiroth could only hope Tori was no longer at her desk, spared from overhearing this slow-motion assassination of discretion.

“Did she reprimand you too?" Genesis asked, miming spraying a squirt bottle. "Force you into submission? I can't think of any other reason why you would be here.”

Sephiroth shut the folder in front of him with military finality.

Enough. He wasn’t going to entertain Genesis’s pandering—not when the real threat still hovered in the margins of every signed agreement and conference call.

“The Azure Accord has passed preliminary clearance,” he spoke at last. “President Shinra and the board gave Lazard their blessing. We’ll leave for Junon tomorrow to finalize terms.”

Genesis blinked, the sudden pivot catching him off guard.

“You’re serious? You got it through?”

“Yes.”

“And the board didn’t gut it for parts?”

“Not yet.”

“Then congratulations are in order.” Genesis sat back, momentarily stunned. “This is huge. For Lazard. For you. For SOLDIER. But—” He raised a brow. “If the Accord’s that close to implementation, you do realize it makes Lazard a target.”

“I do.”

“And her?” Genesis’s gaze flicked toward the hallway. “Your sharp-eyed assistant?”

“She’s already been marked,” Sephiroth said, quiet. “She doesn’t act like it, but they’ve started testing her. Scarlet. Donahue. Even Hojo’s assistant is circling.”

And whoever sent those flowers.

He hadn’t intended to speak the words aloud. But once said, they lingered in the air like a brand. She was under scrutiny—and he hated how often that fact had begun to preoccupy him.

Genesis grew serious.

“Then maybe it’s not a great idea to leave headquarters.”

“I don’t like it either.”

“Then let me stay. I’ll keep eyes on things. On her. On Knox.”

Sephiroth frowned.

“You’d rather use your time spying on subordinates than helping negotiate an arms reduction treaty?”

“I’d rather not come back to find her desk empty and a flaming dart stuck in Lazard’s chair,” Genesis quipped. “Besides, I’m bored. Angeal’s knee-deep in cadets right now, and I’ve already organized my social calendar.”

Sephiroth sighed. Long-suffering.

“Fine. But don’t interfere.”

“I won’t. I’ll just supervise from a respectful distance.”

Sephiroth stood.

Genesis rose with him, brushing water off his lapel.

“One question,” he added slyly. “Has Ms. Sutton fired that pistol of hers yet? The one tucked so sweetly at her side?”

Sephiroth gave him a look that promised consequences.

Genesis only smiled wider.

“I’ll take that as a no. But I’m hoping for a yes.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

It was past eleven.

The administrative wing had shed its daytime polish, traded in its gloss for something darker—quieter. Fluorescent lights glowed at half-strength, casting silver sheen across reflective floors, their light breaking unevenly over glass and chrome. Tori sat at her desk, shoulders hunched and spine aching, a faint tremor working through her fingers as she stared at the glowing monitor.

The office felt deserted.

Her junior assistants had left hours ago. The last “goodnight” had faded into silence long before she noticed the time. Even Lazard was gone—called away on a last-minute meeting in the Intelligence Wing, his coat still slung over the back of his chair like a reminder that he intended to return. Eventually.

Only one other door remained closed.

Sephiroth’s.

A narrow beam of golden light spilled beneath it, and from behind the heavy wood, his voice filtered through in steady cadence—measured and crisp. A conference call with Junon’s military council, if the agenda held. She couldn’t hear the words, only the cadence: cold, impersonal, lethal in its precision. The sound of someone born to command.

She leaned back from her screen, rubbing her eyes. The final draft of the Azure Accord dignitary packet was complete—proofed, formatted, annotated. A six-hour odyssey now distilled into twelve printable pages.

She clicked “Print.”

Nothing happened.

Her heart sank.

The Demon—a temperamental monstrosity of a printer tucked in the far corner of the office—flashed its usual crimson light like a warning flare.

ERROR: TRAY EMPTY.

Tori slumped forward, forehead nearly hitting the desk.

“Of course,” she whispered hoarsely, standing with stiff legs. Her knees cracked as she reached for the vase of flowers still perched beside her monitor.

Their scent had grown overpowering. Sickly sweet. Stifling.

She picked up the arrangement and crossed the room to the receptionist desk, setting the bouquet down like it had weight beyond its glass and water. Distance helped. A little.

Then she turned toward The Demon.

All five trays. Empty.

“Seriously?”

Her heels clicked against the marble as she crossed to the cabinet. Orla always stocked it. But tonight, the backup reams were missing.

That was odd.

Unnerving, even. Orla’s organization bordered on obsessive. Tori checked again. Nothing.

Which meant a trip to the main supply room.

She grabbed her Shinra ID and stepped into the hall.

The air outside was colder. The corridor stretched out like a tunnel, the lighting reduced to long, darkened stripes that reminded her too much of the underplate.

SOLDIER after dark was eerie in a way no one ever talked about.

Every footstep echoed. Every surface gleamed like it had been polished for someone important and never unpolished again. Cameras turned with silent precision. She could almost feel the lenses trailing her.

You’re fine, she told herself. Just tired. Just overworked.

She reached the supply room at the far end of the corridor. Slid her badge through the scanner.

The door clicked open.

And what she saw made her stomach lurch.

The room was in shambles.

Shelves were stripped. Boxes pulled open. Binders dumped into crooked piles. The barcode scanner above the doorframe hung by a limp wire, its LED light blinking red. Weeks ago, Kovacs and Choufleur had spent an entire afternoon organizing this room down to the binder clips.

This wasn’t mess.

It was sabotage.

Tori took a step inside, slowly—half out of disbelief, half because the air felt... wrong.

She knelt for a ream of paper, fingers brushing the edge of the package.

Then everything shifted.

The temperature dropped.

A hiss.

No—not a sound. A sensation. Like something slithered just beyond her sight, the shadows twitching unnaturally against the ceiling tiles. The ream slipped from her grip and hit the floor.

She didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.

The shadows pulsed. She swore she saw movement—the kind materia makes when it discharges energy in stealth applications. But this wasn’t materia. This was something else. Something watching.

Her entire body reacted before her mind could catch up.

She ran.

The corridor blurred. Her heels struck the floor like gunfire, echoing back at her in cruel, amplified rhythm. Cold air lashed at her ankles. The elevator bay was too far. The sentries posted there wouldn’t reach her in time.

Her breath hitched.

She turned for the Executive Wing.

Her eyes locked on the golden bar beneath Sephiroth’s door—the only sign of life left on the floor.

She reached it in a sprint, nearly tripping over her own feet.

She didn’t knock.

She burst inside.

The door slammed shut behind her. She twisted the lock with a hard, shaking hand and backed away, fumbling for the handgun at her side.

The silence in the room was immediate.

No shadows. No hissing. No pursuit.

Just stillness.

And him.

Sephiroth had already risen from his desk.

He crossed the room in a flash, the call still active behind him—an entire military council forgotten.

“Ms. Sutton?” His voice cut through the silence. “What happened?”

She couldn’t answer.

Her chest was heaving. Blood roared in her ears. Her limbs trembled with cold and adrenaline.

“I think—someone’s—” she started, but the words dissolved.

The last thing she saw was his eyes—wide, alert, sharper than steel—

And then the room pitched sideways.

Her knees gave way.

She didn’t hit the ground.

Strong arms caught her, solid and fast.

The scent of warm skin and roses enveloped her. And then—nothing.

Only darkness.

Chapter Text

"Some moments strip us bare, not to humiliate—but to offer the quiet mercy of being known without asking."

The first thing she felt was the burn.

Sharp, acidic—like inhaling fire through a cracked rib. Tori jolted upright with a strangled gasp, tears springing to her eyes as the scent of ammonia scorched its way through her sinuses.

“Easy,” came a voice. “Breathe.”

The world stuttered into view.

She was on the floor, braced against something warm and solid—no, someone. The curve of a thigh beneath her spine, the steady anchor of an arm wrapped around her shoulders. The faint clink of a glass vial being capped. Silver hair curtaining her vision, strands brushing against her chest like silk threads pulled loose from a dream.

Sephiroth.

It hit her like a second rush of smelling salts.

“Oh my gods,” she whispered, trying to sit up too quickly. The room swayed in protest, her vision pinwheeling.

“Hold still,” Sephiroth said gently. His arm firmed around her shoulders, guiding her back against him. “You fainted. You were hyperventilating and barely conscious when I caught you.”

She blinked again, vision swimming. The room had dulled to quiet edges. Her own breath sounded too loud in her ears. She looked down.

A first aid kit sat open beside them, packets of gauze, antiseptic wipes, and a cold compress scattered across the floor like shrapnel.

“I’m so—” she started, mortified. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I don’t know what—”

“Ms. Sutton,” he interrupted, voice like a weighted blanket. “Stop apologizing.”

She looked up into his face.

Gone was the cold, unreadable general. In his place sat a man watching her with measured concern, not unlike how one might monitor an injured cadet behind enemy lines.

“You burst in here like you were being hunted,” he said quietly. “What did you see?”

She hesitated.

The words clung to her throat like a swallowed stone. She wanted to tell him—about the oily flicker of shadow, the curl of hunger that didn’t feel natural, the sense that materia had been watching her like it had talons.

But something stopped her. The same thing that had kept her silent since Dockery’s death. Fear. Shame. A gnawing voice whispering, You caused this. You made this happen.

“It wasn’t just one thing,” she said finally, voice tight. “I entered the supply room down the corridor and—it was torn apart. The scanner was hanging loose, shelves overturned, like someone had ripped the place open.”

She forced a breath. “But it’s not just that. It’s... everything. The pressure. The Accord. I’m surrounded by people who smile too much and say too little. I can’t tell who’s supporting me and who’s waiting for me to slip up.”

Sephiroth remained attentive, his gaze never wavering.

Tori swallowed, forcing herself to go on. “It’s like... like I’m waiting for something to snap. I haven’t slept. I can’t rest. My brain is always running—every conversation, every meeting, trying to find where the trap is.”

A tear slipped down her cheek and she brushed it away with the heel of her hand, sniffling.

“And tonight I just—I guess I cracked. I know how it must have looked.” She tried to laugh, but it came out flat. “Dramatic entrance, panic, unconscious collapse—very professional of me.”

A beat passed.

“You’re in fight-or-flight,” Sephiroth said evenly. “Your body doesn’t know how to come down. It’s trying to survive.”

She looked at him. “You’re not going to tell me I’m overreacting?”

“No.” His eyes were steady. “Because you’re not.”

The floor seemed to shift again—this time, in her chest. Something loosened.

“You’ve been white-knuckling your way through this, Sutton. It’s not sustainable. You need a release valve.”

The way he said it—measured, precise, but with a shadow of something darker threading beneath—made her pulse catch.

“A release valve?” she echoed, unsure if he meant sparring, screaming... or something more primal.

“A physical outlet,” he clarified. But there was a glint in his eye. “Fight-or-flight needs somewhere to go. Otherwise, it eats you from the inside.”

Tori glanced away, embarrassed by how much sense that made.

“Attending the Turk workshop,” he added. “Is this the reason why? You feel you’re in danger?”

She exhaled. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve never had to… physically defend myself before. I’ve always managed with words. But now?”

Her hand curled into her skirt. “Now I feel like I need to be ready. For anything.”

He didn’t dismiss her. He didn’t feed her platitudes. Instead, he nodded.

“You’re right,” he said. “And we’ll address it. I won’t let you be put in a corner.”

The way he said it—we’ll address it—made her chest tighten.

He stood, slow and fluid, and then crouched again to offer her his hand. She took it without thinking.

When she rose, the blood rushed from her head and her legs buckled.

Sephiroth caught her before gravity had the chance.

“Steady,” he murmured. “You’re still coming down.”

She clung to his arm, every inch of him a contradiction—strength and restraint, command and calm. The side of his body was solid beneath hers, and the faintest scent of cold steel clung to his fatigues.

“I—thank you,” she said, mortified all over again.

“The rest of the prep can wait,” he said. “You’re not going back out there alone.”

She blinked up at him.

“We’ll inspect the supply room together,” he added. “Then I’m taking you somewhere... off-grid. One of my restricted levels.”

Her stomach flipped.

“For what?”

He tilted his head, considering her with a slow, assessing look.

“To address your fight-or-flight.”

His mouth didn’t curve into a smile—but it almost did.

And suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so dizzy anymore.

. . . . . . . . . .

The halls of SOLDIER were quieter now—eerily so. The glow of the overhead lights bled across polished floors, gleaming sterile and cold. Tori walked a half step behind Sephiroth, her thoughts still knotted and brittle. Her pulse hadn’t fully recovered from whatever had happened, but the adrenaline buzz in her limbs told her something had occurred, whether the evidence remained or not.

Sephiroth walked with purpose, every stride soundless, every motion controlled. She wasn’t sure if he was guiding her or guarding her—but his presence had become her axis, her point of reference in an evening that had lost its rules.

Lazard still hadn’t returned. His coat had remained draped over his office chair. Leaving the office wing, Sephiroth had paused, noticing the bouquet of flowers sitting on the reception desk. Whether he thought it odd, he gave no indication. Merely noticed it.

When they reached the supply room door, Tori hesitated. The little red light above the panel blinked innocently.

Sephiroth gave her a small nod, angling his body to guard her back as he raised an arm to take hold of the door in the event that something barreled through in an attack. His shadow engulfed her as she fished for her keycard in her pocket.

She swallowed and scanned the badge.

The door clicked open.

Tori stepped in—and stopped cold.

Everything was perfect.

Shelves lined the walls, perfectly stocked. Reams of paper stacked in uniform rows. Binder clips nested in labeled bins. The barcode scanner above the frame blinked green and healthy. There was no sign of disorder, no evidence of the chaos she had seen barely twenty minutes ago.

Her breath caught. “No,” she whispered. “It was—it was torn apart. The scanner was hanging by a wire. Someone ripped this place to shreds.”

Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed. He stepped in behind her, his presence quiet but coiled with alertness.

“You’re certain?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice shook. “I— I was here. I saw it.”

“Did you see anyone? Anything?”

Tori shook her head. “No one. Just… I felt something. A brush of materia, maybe. Like a discharge. But nothing was visible. It didn’t move like materia. It felt—wrong.”

She could still feel the pressure in her chest from when she’d bolted. That animal instinct that had screamed run. She didn’t imagine that. She couldn’t have.

Without a word, Sephiroth moved to the console station tucked beside the tall shelves. The machine hummed softly as he logged in, his fingers moving with sharp efficiency across the controls. A scan of his security credentials cleared access in seconds.

Tori stayed just behind him, her gaze flicking between the screen and the nape of his neck.

Footage rolled across the console—first in fast-forward. The corridor filled and emptied with SOLDIER personnel, a blur of black uniforms, chatter, and foot traffic. Five o’clock. End of shift.

Then Sephiroth slowed the feed.

She saw herself.

There—walking alone, her posture tense, arms close to her sides, steps too quick to be casual. She hadn’t even realized how anxious she looked until she saw it from the outside. Her throat closed.

She stepped instinctively behind Sephiroth as if his frame could shield her from the past.

Onscreen, she reached the supply room door. Swiped her badge. Entered.

A beat of silence.

Then: the scramble.

Her figure burst out of the room and tore down the corridor.

And then—static.

The screen fizzed into gray-white chaos, the cameras spasming into sharp diagonal glitches. The corridor vanished under a digital snowstorm. A moment later, the footage blinked back to life.

The hallway was empty. Quiet. Clean.

Tori stared at the footage, chilled to the bone.

Sephiroth’s jaw was taut as he pulled out his PHS and placed a call with rapid precision.

“Lazard.” A pause. “I need to confirm your location. Are you safe?”

Her heart spiked.

There was a muffled answer. She could just make out Lazard’s voice through the earpiece.

“Yes, she’s with me,” Sephiroth replied, his tone clipped. “There’s been a breach. No alarms triggered. Supply wing. CCTV went out. Something scrambled the feed.”

Another pause. Sephiroth’s gaze flicked toward her.

“She’s rattled,” he said. “I’m not letting her out of my sight.”

Tori exhaled shakily. The words landed heavier than they should have.

She caught a faint murmur from Lazard’s end—concern, then something else.

“This isn’t the first time,” Sephiroth said quietly, confirming the thing that made her stomach knot. “It’s the same pattern.”

He listened again.

“I understand. We’ll finish the final preparations tonight. But I’m addressing her condition first.”

He paused, his voice dropping an octave.

“And you should move with caution, Lazard. Someone’s testing boundaries, and you may be the next soft target.”

Another beat.

“If I have to roust Genesis or Angeal to shadow you while you finish the itinerary, I will. Don’t travel alone—not until we understand what we’re dealing with.”

With that, he ended the call.

Tori’s voice found her again, quiet but steady. “What do you mean... not the first time?”

Sephiroth turned to face her fully. “There have been other anomalies. Glitches in surveillance. Gaps in footage. Minor disturbances that don’t show up in reports.”

Her pulse stuttered.

Ferris.

She remembered the way he’d said it last night—too casually, like he was testing whether she’d catch the subtext.

“You think the elevator malfunction was bad luck? The materia fire in the armory? That console fire in his office? Accidents? Please. You’re smarter than that.” His eyes glittered. “Someone’s sending a message. And if he keeps pushing reforms, and you keep enabling him—there will be more. Bolder. Louder. You’re not just assisting a department anymore, Sutton. You’re becoming a target. The only question is whether you’ll see it in time.”

She had brushed it off then. Just another Ferris-ism. A diversion disguised as concern. But now…

Now, hearing it echoed in Sephiroth’s voice, stripped of charm and sharpened with command, it landed differently.

Not random. Not inconsequential. Not isolated.

Her breath hitched as something cold laced its way down her spine. Everything suddenly felt connected—the ghosting shadow in the supply room, the static on the feed, the bouquet of flowers. She was standing inside a pattern and only just realizing she was part of it.

Her hands had started shaking again, and she crossed her arms to hide it.

Sephiroth studied her for another moment, then took a step toward the door. “Come with me.”

She blinked. “Where?”

“To burn this off.”

Her eyes widened. “Burn what off?”

He didn’t elaborate. Just held the door open, waiting for her to follow.

She hesitated—then moved. The memory of the shadows, the scrambling static, the envelope still tucked in her dress pocket… none of it could be ignored anymore.

But as she fell into step beside him, one thing became clear:

Whatever this was, Sephiroth wasn’t going to leave her unprotected.

And Tori didn’t realize how badly she needed that—until now.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sephiroth stepped through the reinforced threshold of the training deck, letting the door hiss shut behind them. The air inside was cool and sterile. The scent of forced air and disinfectant clung to the padded floors and mirrored walls. It was late—technically, early—but that was precisely the point. No audience. No eyes.

Only her.

Tori followed him in slow steps, her arms crossed tightly over her ribcage. Her eyes darted across the empty deck in open concern.

She was still shaken. The fine motor tremors in her hands hadn’t stopped since she collapsed. He hadn’t pointed it out—yet.

But she was cracking.

Not from weakness. From pressure. He’d seen it in cadets, soldiers, even field medics. She wore professionalism like armor, but tonight it had buckled. And though she’d offered him excuses—workload, stress, paranoia—he’d seen the fear buried underneath.

He didn’t buy all of it.

“Why are we here?” she asked, folding her arms tighter.

He looked over his shoulder. “Because you need to hit something.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’re caught in fight-or-flight,” he said simply. “I’d rather not have you fainting in the office again.”

“I'm not going to faint again,” she argued, growing flustered.

He turned to face her. “Then hit me.”

She stared at him like he’d asked her to juggle explosives. “What?!”

He took a deliberate step toward her, amused. “That’s the whole point. You’re vulnerable. And you hate it.”

She bristled—but didn’t deny it.

“Look,” he said, more measured now, “the fastest way to interrupt a fight-or-flight loop is to give your body what it thinks it’s preparing for. Action. Motion. Release.” He gestured between them. “You’ve already frozen once tonight. Your nervous system needs a different outcome.”

Her eyes narrowed, uncertain. He pressed on.

“If you strike—you’ll overcome some of that fear. Even if it’s clumsy or misdirected. The point is to feel it. All recruits go through this moment in their first week of training.”

He moved to the center of the mat, spine straight, arms loose at his sides.

“You need to know what it feels like to hit someone. I’m offering that.”

A long beat passed between them. He could see the gears turning in her head—logic wrestling with hesitation, pride clashing with vulnerability. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she was afraid of what it would mean to act like someone who was. To fight. To strike. It didn’t come naturally to her—and that made her feel weak.

But she wasn’t. And he needed her to see that.

She opened her mouth, then shut it. Her jaw worked.

“Come on, trooper,” he said, voice low, coaxing. “Hit me.”

Her eyes flashed. “Stop calling me that.”

“Hit me and I’ll stop.”

Tori started pacing. “This is ridiculous. This is ridiculous.”

Sephiroth stood like a statue in the center of the mat, arms kept loose at his sides, expression unreadable. He could feel her tension rising like steam.

“Hit me.”

She shook out her hands. Took a breath. “Fine. You want a punch? I’ll give you one.”

She took two quick steps and swung.

It landed—sort of.

Her fist met the dense wall of his abdomen with a muffled thud, like a thrown apple hitting stone. She staggered back a half-step, her eyes wide with shock. Her hand flared red instantly.

“Ow.”

He bit back a laugh.

“Pain?” he asked lightly.

She stared at him in awe. “You’re built like a blast door.”

“You didn’t break your thumb,” he said, reaching out. “Let me see.”

She hesitated—but then allowed it, slowly, like a cat offering its paw. Her wrist was delicate in his grip, her fingers curled slightly in tension. His hold was gentle. The way one might steady a fragile mechanism.

He turned her hand, brushing his thumb along her knuckles. “Don’t tuck your thumb inside your fist,” he instructed, voice lower. “Wrap it over the fingers. Like this.”

She nodded, distracted—though not by the lesson. Her lashes flickered as she looked down at his hand over hers. He felt her pulse jump.

“Now,” he continued, “Let’s work on your stance. Feet shoulder-width apart. Step forward with your non-dominant foot. Twist from the hip.” He arched a brow, as he took in her modified stance. “Come on, Sutton. You’re not swatting a mosquito—you’re driving through a target.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I feel inclined to take on a titan,” she muttered.

He smiled faintly, then adjusted her position. One hand at her waist, the other gently guiding her shoulder. Her body tensed under his touch—not from fear, but awareness.

She was all contrast.

The soft give of her waist beneath his palm. The heat of her skin where his fingers brushed fabric. She wore a dress that whispered when it moved, some pale shade of blue that reminded him of tempered glass or morning sky—entirely unsuited to combat.

Her heels were even worse. Weapons against her own mobility. He imagined the way she’d stagger in them if she had to run. The sound of them slipping against metal, catching on tile. If it came to an altercation, the heels would betray her before any opponent did.

And yet she stood here, slender and elegant. Her frame carried the graceful lines of someone not built for violence. Her hands were better suited to wielding a pen than forming fists. Even her mouth—now drawn in a firm, determined line—was shaped more for diplomacy than war.

But she was trying.

And it made something dark and protective coil beneath his ribs.

He caught himself staring. Shifted.

This wasn’t the time to indulge in distraction. But the thought lingered like a taste on the tongue:

If he were the aggressor…

The idea formed unbidden. Clinical at first. Tactical. He calculated her stance, her posture, the exposed curve of her neck.

Her balance was off—feet too close together. The skirt restricted her stride. One hand at her wrist, another at her hip, and she’d be down in less than a second. One twist of fabric, one shift of leverage—

And it would be over.

The realization sent a chill through him. Not because it was possible. But because he could see it. Because he had to see it. Had to prepare her for a world where someone might try.

It should’ve only felt procedural. But it didn’t.

Because it was her.

He forced the feeling down. Let the officer in him rise to the surface.

“In the event that your opponent is taller or stronger than you,” he said, stepping around behind her, voice smoother now, quieter, “you don’t meet force with force. You redirect it.”

She stood still, but she was tense—too tense. He could see it in the set of her shoulders, the way her weight shifted between feet. She was too used to thinking her way out of things. But this wasn’t intellectual. This was instinct.

“You won’t win with brute strength,” he continued, circling like a predator giving room. “So you aim for weaknesses. Soft tissue. Joints.”

He stopped in front of her again.

“If he’s coming at you head-on,” he said, gaze dipping slightly, “don’t aim for the face.”

He stepped closer.

“Go for the body. Low center. Somewhere he won’t expect.”

And then—he took her hand again.

Guided it with deliberate ease to the center of his chest.

“Here,” he murmured, his voice low and even. He slid her palm downward, over the sculpted plane of muscle beneath his sweater, until her hand came to rest just below his ribs. “There’s give here as well. Enough to knock the wind out of him. Maybe more, if you hit with enough intent.”

Her breath hitched. So did his.

She was close now—closer than protocol allowed, closer than he ever should’ve permitted. But she wasn’t backing away. And neither was he.

He studied her face. Her eyes flicked from the place where her fist pressed into his torso up to his expression, searching—curious, uncertain, something vulnerable blooming beneath her concentration. He knew that look. It was resolve battling fear. It was the realization that if anything ever did happen—if someone did try to corner her—she wouldn’t know what to do next.

“You keep saying ‘he,’” she said suddenly, voice soft but edged with something wry.

His brows lifted. “What?”

“When you talk about the attacker.” She angled her chin slightly, gaze sharp. “Why always he?”

Sephiroth paused.

His first instinct was to deflect. But she was already looking at him like she knew he wouldn’t lie.

He glanced at her sidelong. “Because you seem to draw male attention.”

Her lips parted just slightly—surprised, maybe amused. “Is that a compliment or a warning?”

He held her gaze. “Both.”

Tori dropped her gaze, as she grew silent in thought. Her fist remained against his ribs, fingers curled just slightly against the knit of his sweater. She didn’t seem to realize it. Or perhaps she did—and was daring him to call attention to it.

“If someone means you harm,” he said, stepping in just slightly, “it won’t come from a stranger in an alley. It’ll come from someone close. People who’ve learned how to walk past clearance levels and desks.”

She tilted her head, brow furrowing at the shift in his tone.

“Ferris Knox,” he said darkly.

Her lips parted—but he didn’t give her time to deflect.

“He’s Hojo’s shadow, Ms. Sutton. Which means he’s dangerous,” Sephiroth continued. “Keep him at a distance. I don’t care how charming or clever he seems—he’s targeting you for a reason.”

She stilled, and in the space of a breath, he saw it—the flicker of calculation behind her eyes. The same look she’d worn in the cafeteria when she’d dissected the room’s power dynamics with surgical precision. That quiet gleam of intelligence. Discernment. She wasn’t just listening. She was interpreting. Following the logic. Tracing it backward to its source.

And then, like thread through the eye of a needle—

“They weren’t from Ferris.”

The words landed with a cold, abrupt weight.

He blinked. “What?”

“The flowers,” she clarified, tone mild—but there was something in her eyes. Something watchful. “They weren’t from Ferris.”

Sephiroth said nothing at first.

He had been so sure. Certain, in that quiet, tactical way he trusted. Ferris had motive. Style. Theatrical timing. The bouquet had all the markings of his particular brand of provocation.

But now—

“They weren’t?” he repeated, slower.

She shook her head once, definitive. “No.”

A flicker of something unfamiliar—something irritating—stirred in his chest. Embarrassment wasn’t an emotion he often entertained, but it tugged faintly at the corner of his restraint.

He pivoted smoothly.

“Another assistant, then?” he asked carefully. “Someone outside SOLDIER?”

She narrowed her eyes, the barest smirk playing at her mouth. “Does it matter?”

“It might.”

Her gaze held his. “Why?”

He didn’t answer.

But she leaned in just slightly, like a question herself. “What if it was a handsome colleague from another floor? Maybe someone in Urban Planning. Or Materia Development. Someone with a good eye for arrangements. A thoughtful heart. Should that concern you, General?”

The way she said his title made something primal in him clench.

His jaw tensed. He stepped forward and eclipsed her space.

“It concerns me,” he said evenly, “if that thoughtful heart compromises you.”

“That sounds more like personal concern than professional interest.”

“You’re assuming those are mutually exclusive.”

Her breath caught—but she recovered fast.

She tilted her head, voice quieter now, but no less pointed. “Then tell me,” she said, “when you’re concerned about Vesper… which one is it?”

She lifted her brows in challenge.

He stilled.

The name landed like a scalpel. Small. Clean. Precisely placed.

“She handles my public image,” he said with a scoff. “She has for years.”

Tori nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Must be nice. Having someone that competent… always on call.”

He opened his mouth—but the explanation tangled on instinct. Because yes, Vesper had always hovered at the edge of implication. Dinners. Glances. The smooth choreography of proximity and insinuation. It had been convenient. Predictable. Something he tolerated for the sake of optics. But never once had he wanted it.

Not like this.

Not like her.

Not like Tori Sutton standing sharp and unsparing in the center of his training deck, looking at him as if she could see through every mask he’d ever worn.

And just as he let that truth register—

She hit him.

Hard. Sharp. Center mass.

The force knocked the breath from his thoughts more than from his lungs. One moment he was inside the memory of Vesper’s long shadow—and the next, her fist connected just beneath his ribs with a practiced, deliberate strike.

The sound landed like punctuation.

His body tensed, startled more by the timing than the impact. She stepped back with feline grace, her hands lifting in mock apology as his equilibrium recalibrated.

“Forgive me,” she said, voice airy, but with that glint of satisfaction only visible to someone watching closely. “You did say to redirect your opponent... wherever possible.”

A stunned beat of silence stretched between them—followed by the slow curve of his mouth.

“Underhanded,” he murmured, voice roughened by something darker. “But effective.”

He exhaled slowly, air trailing sharp between his teeth. Then tilted his head, eyes narrowed with something close to admiration.

“I underestimated you.”

She flexed her fingers, then turned her back on him with the ease of someone who knew she’d just won the round. He saw it in her posture—the slight lift of her chin, the relaxed alignment of her shoulders. Satisfaction, not smugness. Earned confidence, not arrogance.

“You said so yourself—I enjoy proving people wrong,” she said, voice light, almost teasing. “You were right.”

She had landed her hit. And walked away like it hadn’t cost her a thing.

Gods help him—it was maddening.

He stepped forward, each stride laden with intent, letting the space between them dissolve until only inches remained. She hadn’t turned back around. But that didn’t stop him. He filled the space behind her like heat pooling into shadow, his voice pitched low enough to catch at the edges of breath.

“Then allow me to clarify something, Ms. Sutton,” he said, his tone deceptively smooth. “If my concern could be stirred by just anyone—Vesper, Ferris, whoever else thinks proximity grants them access…”

He paused, letting the moment pulse.

“…I wouldn’t be here. With you.”

For a beat, she didn’t move. But he saw the reaction as clearly as if she had spoken: the slow flush that crept up the nape of her neck, the blush blooming across her ears like a secret blooming beneath the surface. Her shoulders drew taut, posture straightening as though something inside her had gone electric.

“Does that answer satisfy you?” he asked, his voice softer now, heavier with implication.

A breath passed. Then—

She nodded. Small. Controlled. But undeniable.

And just when he thought she might give in to the tension crackling between them, she did something that surprised him yet again.

She took three careful steps, each one widening the distance he had just closed, until there was room again to breathe—room to think. Only then did she turn to face him, the blush still visible beneath the careful lines of her expression, held like a truth beneath glass. Her eyes were clear. Composed. And that polish didn’t mask her vulnerability—it framed it.

“Then…” she said slowly, “with that concern of yours on record… may I ask for more of your help?”

Her gaze flicked toward the holstered pistol beside her, then returned to his—bright, open, and for one startling moment, entirely unguarded.

“I want to be ready next time,” she said. “To protect myself. To stand my ground.”

He didn’t speak right away.

She had just maneuvered with the same precision as her punch—choosing to redirect rather than engage. She’d felt the weight of his admission and chose, consciously, not to fold beneath it.

And that was what arrested him most.

She hadn’t given him what others always did—no wide-eyed reverence, no breathy grasp for meaning. She hadn’t treated his attention like currency. She had walked away with her dignity untouched, her hand unplayed.

Most would have tried to cash in his regard.

Tori simply appreciated it and walked.

And if what Edwin had said was true—if the women who circled him longed for just a glance, just a kind word—then Tori was something else entirely. She wasn’t reaching for him. She was measuring him. Testing the depth of what he had just defined.

And it only made him want to see more.

He stepped back—not in dismissal, but as a signal. One unspoken equal to another.

“Of course,” he said at last, voice smooth again but no less sincere. “Let’s start with your grip.”

She moved toward the wall that was draped in target panels, unsnapping the firearm from her holster. Her stance had changed—firmer now, balanced, spine aligned. Whatever tremor had taken hold earlier was gone. The training had rooted her again, pulled her back to herself.

Still, he watched her.

The way the light caught in her hair. The quiet determination in her brow. How she filled the space around her—not by demanding it, but by holding it with grace and deliberation.

The blush was fading now, but it had already left its mark.

Because behind every intentional shift in her posture, he saw the truth: the more she resisted him, the more she chose sovereignty over surrender, the deeper his fascination grew.

. . . . . . . . . .

Several involuntary yawns later, Tori sat on the upholstered bench Sephiroth had dragged into his office from the waiting room area inside the suite.

He’d carried the thing slung over one shoulder like a rolled carpet, then rearranged the office chairs to form a makeshift cot beside his desk. Tori had watched him with quiet eyes, nursing a cup of hot soup from the emergency rations tucked in the kitchen alcove. He’d handed it to her with no grand explanation—only a low, practical suggestion that she should eat something.

The moment the warmth hit her stomach—salty and rich—her limbs had begun to unwind, her frame softening like a coiled spring finally given permission to rest.

Now, he rose from his desk and crossed the room, pressing his hand to the wall panel. The hidden closet slid open with a quiet hiss, revealing a neatly organized stash of survival gear. He retrieved a folded thermal blanket and placed it at the end of the cot as a pillow.

“You’ll rest here,” he said, taking the empty mug from her hands and setting it aside. “It’s too late for you to walk home alone.”

And too dangerous, though he left that part unspoken. Her calm was hard-earned. He wasn’t going to shatter it.

“I’ll complete preparations and wait for Lazard to return. For now, try to get some sleep.”

This was more than he ever afforded an orderly—or even a junior officer—but Tori wasn’t either of those things. And more than that, she had no natural armor for the kind of dangers stalking headquarters lately.

He hoped she understood this was out of concern for her safety.

But Tori gave no indication that this arrangement made her uncomfortable in any way.

Instead, she nodded, lashes fluttering. Her posture shifted as she stood, the exhaustion trailing her every motion like a shadow. Her hands moved to the harness buckled at her waist, and with a metallic click, the clasp released. The sound was clean, soft, yet sharp enough to snap across his nerves.

She peeled the holster from her shoulders like a garment she trusted she wouldn’t need at the moment. Then came her heels—slipped off one at a time in her unthinking elegance, toes flexing against the cool floor with a sigh of relief.

And finally, she reached up and loosened her bun.

Copper hair spilled down her back in gentle waves, catching the overhead light like a bolt of red silk.

He marveled at the sight.

He’d grown so accustomed to the clipped efficiency of her presence: the measured speech, the tidy hair, the ironed seams. This was none of those things. This was the version she didn’t show to anyone. Not out of secrecy, but self-preservation. And somehow, she had let it fall here, in front of him.

It struck him as more intimate than any touch.

She ran her fingers through the curls once, freeing them fully, then laid down on her side with her arms folded near her chest, curled instinctively toward warmth.

He turned away, his movements sharper than necessary, and opened the secondary gear panel. Another blanket. Another task. Something to ground him when her nearness did not.

When he returned, she looked up at him through a haze of sleep. Her voice was quiet, blurred by fatigue. “You keep all this field gear in your office?”

“Would you prefer to go without?” he asked, brow arching faintly.

She gave a soft huff of laughter. “No, General.”

He draped the blanket over her slowly. She nestled deeper into the fleece, her cheek brushing the rolled edge.

Her warmth rose beneath his fingertips as he adjusted the fabric across her shoulder and down along her waist. The contact was barely there—but enough to feel the residual heat of her trust, pulsing quiet and steady beneath layers of wool.

Her gaze stayed on him. Sleepy. Open.

“You’re being terribly kind.”

“No,” he said quietly. “I’m being pragmatic. You’re no use to me dead on your feet.”

Her lips curved.

“You’re also warm.”

He stilled.

“Should I step away?”

She blinked at him, confused. Then broke into a genuine smile. “No, stay. It’s helping.”

He returned to his desk, but not without hesitation. His focus slid back to the documents he’d been reviewing—maps, schedules, terrain data for Junon—but it was dimmed now, the edges less sharp. Behind the steady tap of keys and the hum of the power grid, her presence folded gently into the space beside him like a quiet tide.

He glanced over—just to be sure.

Tori Sutton. Curled in his office. Sleeping beside his desk as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

His chest tightened around the sight.

He resumed his work. Let the office settle around them like the quiet of snowfall.

But his gaze wandered. Often.

To the blanket.

To the curls.

To the gentle rise and fall of her breathing, deep and slow and finally at peace.

The office had never felt like this before.

But tonight, it was warm and tranquil.

And he didn’t mind the distraction.

Not tonight.

Chapter Text

“There are people who save the world by wielding swords.

And there are people who save the world by noticing the fine details.”

Tori couldn’t recall when she fell asleep. Only that the tension had finally loosened—the tightwire strain stretched between her shoulders slowly unspooling the moment she let herself surrender to it. Her body had curled sideways on the makeshift cot, wrapped in the blanket that smelled faintly of lavender.

It had been a long, harrowing night. But somehow, in that quiet hour, she finally felt safe.

As Sephiroth moved about the office, she had observed his ministrations with curiosity. The words had slipped out before she could catch them, softened by the haze of exhaustion and the subtle, steady comfort of his presence.

He had shifted back, the faintest crease forming between his brows.

“Should I step away?”

Spoken with genuine, slightly baffled concern—like someone who had never been told they were warm before and wasn’t sure how to hold the compliment without dropping it.

That surprised her.

Not the kindness. She’d already begun to understand that about him, even if it was sheathed in armor. But the hesitancy. The way he recoiled from something as simple as tenderness.

It made her wonder, not for the first time, if all that stoic reserve wasn’t just a product of Shinra conditioning or martial discipline—but also a quiet, unspoken defense. A way of sparing himself the discomfort of being misread. Of getting it wrong. Of revealing too much in a world that expected nothing but perfection.

The thought struck her as deeply, achingly human.

And in that glimpse of awkward vulnerability, she saw the man behind it all. Guarded and earnest in a way that made her chest ache.

Sleep claimed her at last, lulled by the sound of his typing. And in that rhythm, she’d found a kind of solace she hadn’t known she’d been craving—one she wasn’t sure she could ever put into words.

Somewhere within the velvet murk of sleep, voices surfaced in her mind.

They didn’t speak so much as murmur, the cadence reserved for unlisted priorities and early-morning briefings. Their tones rose and fell, brushing against the edge of her dream, never loud enough to wake her fully, yet persistent enough to thread into her half-conscious thoughts.

Sephiroth’s voice reached her first, his timbre drifting through the room. He was moving, she could tell—each sentence sounding like it was spoken mid-stride, a thundercloud rolling across soft terrain.

Then Lazard. Polished and direct, with the practiced enunciation of someone accustomed to speaking from behind podiums and closed-door conference tables.

And then another voice, deeper still, tempered and calm. Angeal Hewley. There was a sureness in his tone, something that steadied the air between the others, like bedrock anchoring a shifting tide.

Tori stirred beneath the blanket.

She wasn’t fully awake, but her mind began to animate the sounds with dream logic. Her subconscious spun up a warped simulation of the office—paperwork fluttering from The Demon, compliance memos pirouetting like snowflakes, and an unholy amount of color-coded drawer labels.

“Mmm. No, no…” she murmured, voice thick with sleep. “The grenades go in the left drawer. Snacks go right. It’s color-coded, Orla…”

A breath.

“Kovacs… let Choufluer have a turn with the gun. It’s only fair…”

The words tumbled from her lips in a soft, mumbled trail—nonsense threaded with the sleepy cadence of someone who’d spent too long buried in departmental logistics. They hovered in the quiet, a strange and unintentional artifact of the day’s unraveling.

A moment passed.

Then warmth found her again.

A hand settled gently on her shoulder. The touch was deliberate, not startling but reassuring, imbued with the kind of quiet certainty that bypassed the mind and spoke directly to the body. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know who it belonged to.

Even submerged in the fog of sleep, her mind knew the shape and stillness of him, the precise, quiet gravity of his presence. There was no hesitation in his touch—only a calm, wordless assurance. A signal that nothing was demanded of her. That it was safe to let go.

Her brow relaxed. The disjointed dream faded into silence. And with a soft exhale, she surrendered to the weight of that unseen spell—the warmth of his hand, the hush of his voice drifting once more across the room—and slipped back into deeper sleep.

By the time Tori surfaced, full morning light streamed through the office windows in warm gold sheets, chasing away the last of the gray. Sunlight glinted off the glass partitions and metal filing racks, turning the office’s cold angles into something momentarily radiant. Tori shifted, groaning softly as her spine protested from sleeping curled on her side all night.

Something moved beside her.

Not something—someone.

Her eyes blinked open fully, and she turned her head—only to freeze.

It wasn’t Sephiroth.

A broad-shouldered figure sat casually beside the cot, legs slightly spread, one elbow resting against his knee, the other hand scrolling through a datapad. A dark ribbed tunic stretched across a chest that was solid and grounded, not unlike a marble statue someone had brought to life just to pull sentry duty. His posture was relaxed. His attention, focused. Until he sensed her looking.

Angeal Hewley glanced up—and offered a small grin.

“Well, good morning.”

Tori lurched forward. The blanket tangled around her hips as her hands darted to her lap, smoothing her dress with bureaucratic urgency.

“I—uh—the General allowed me to rest my eyes for a moment,” she said, voice pitching a little too high. “We were finalizing the Junon packet and got through the executive summary at around—uh—well, I lost track of time, actually.” She hastily slipped on her heels. “But it was all accounted for. We had the documents tagged for transport, the intel annotations are in version three-point-oh-five, and—”

“It’s alright, Ms. Sutton. Relax. You’re fine.”

Angeal’s grin deepened, as if watching a kitten try to climb out of a filing cabinet.

“You don’t need to justify taking a nap,” he added. “You’ve been through hell.”

“You—you know about last night?”

He nodded, glancing briefly to his datapad, then toward the corner of the room where the first aid kit still sat on a glass credenza, its contents mostly put back save for the vial of smelling salts.

"I got Sephiroth’s message just after midnight," Angeal said. "He called directly—asked me to shadow Lazard in the Intelligence Wing. Said he didn’t want anything slipping through the cracks."

“He also asked me to watch over you this morning,” he added, almost offhand—but something in his tone shifted, as if repeating an order that meant more than he was saying. "He left with Lazard about half an hour ago. They’re wrapping up pre-departure in the hangar now."

“Oh.” Tori nodded, covering her face to mask her embarrassment. “Very good.”

Angeal gestured toward the desk without getting up. “Those were left for you.”

Tori followed his nod to a mug on the corner of the desk—deliberately placed. Beside it, resting on a paper doily, sat a chocolate croissant.

She reached for them hesitantly. “This is...?”

Angeal smirked. “Lazard insisted on pastries—his idea of an apology for last night. But the coffee?” He nodded toward her mug. “That was Sephiroth. Said you’d want something with caffeine.”

Tori cradled the mug between her palms. The faint aroma of cinnamon curled into her senses, familiar and comforting, absurdly indulgent for this hour of morning. She took a sip.

It was lightly sweet and dusted with cinnamon. Exactly like the one he’d made for her on her first day.

Her throat tightened, humbled all over again.

Her eyes drifted toward the floor, her voice quieter now. “I must look awful.”

Angeal chuckled. “Like someone who has hit their limit. It happens.” He leaned back slightly, gaze unreadable. “Frankly? I think Sephiroth was relieved you didn’t pretend otherwise.”

That surprised her. “Relieved?”

“He gets tired of masks,” Angeal said. “Even his own. Most people don’t realize that.” His tone softened. “But you… you seem to have a talent for seeing through things like that.”

Tori felt heat creep to her ears again. She busied herself unwrapping the croissant.

“I heard voices earlier,” she said lightly. “When I was half-asleep. I think I heard the three of you talking.”

“Yeah,” Angeal confirmed. “Sephiroth was bringing us up to speed. We were debating contingencies, whether or not the itinerary’s been compromised.”

“Has it?”

“Not as far as we can tell. Everything’s still moving ahead.” He nodded toward the windows. “They should be in the air within the hour.”

Tori let that sink in. Relief washed through her—but it didn’t last.

“Mr. Hewley,” she said cautiously, “what’s happening? Between the armory fire and the supply room last night—none of it feels like coincidence. Is there… something going on with our materia stores? Some kind of instability?”

The smile faded from Angeal’s face.

He didn’t look away. But his expression shifted—just a touch too careful.

“There’s been… mishaps,” he admitted. “Small anomalies. System errors that don’t show up in diagnostics. Materia that act like they’ve been tuned—then surge without warning. It’s happening more often than we’re comfortable with.”

Tori’s pulse quickened. “Do you think someone’s tampering with them?”

Angeal didn’t answer right away.

“I think someone’s testing the edges of what they can get away with,” he said. “And I think what happened to you last night might’ve been them… pushing a little further.”

A chill slid down her spine.

“But don’t worry,” he added, softer now. “You’re not alone. And Lazard made it very clear you’re not to lift a finger today. Unless it’s for a ride home.”

He grinned again, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Why don’t you stop by medical for a vitals check?” He suggested. “Then take the rest of the day off.”

Tori clutched the coffee closer, its warmth suddenly not enough.

The storm was gathering. She could feel it.

The kind of storm that would follow her home to be added to the growing tumult that was Dockery and the missing field manual. There was no such thing as taking a day off. Not now when she was morally obligated to do something about it all.

Angeal leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees as his datapad dimmed to sleep in his hand. His voice shifted, lower now. Warmer.

“By the way... I owe you.”

Tori peered at him curiously.

“For the maintenance hatch in Sector 4,” he clarified with a half-smile. “Sephiroth never said your name outright, but I connected the dots. Turns out, your intel solved more than just a mechanical backlog. You made two people very happy.”

She furrowed her brow, confused—then the image clicked into place like a puzzle snapping shut. “Wait... the thing with the lead engineer?”

Angeal nodded, and there was something wry in his grin. “Sephiroth pulled him straight out of the Systems Division like a defective fuse. We escorted him down to Reactor 4 ourselves. Said it was now or never.”

“You what?” she said, stunned.

“Harker looked like he was being sent behind enemy lines,” Angeal said, laughing under his breath. “I gave him the courage he needed. Sephiroth, on the other hand…” his grin deepened, “used Masamune as leverage to ensure Harker didn’t desert the mission.”

Tori covered a hand over her mouth. “That’s unhinged.”

“That’s Sephiroth,” Angeal said, completely deadpan. “And yet… it worked. According to diagnostic output, the Systems Division has never been more productive.”

Tori stared into her coffee, perplexed. “I just… I only mentioned what I observed in the cafeteria.”

But even as she said it, the memory reassembled itself. She could see it clearly now—Sephiroth sitting with that silent stillness of his, the way his gaze had drifted from her to the engineer’s retreating form. He’d tilted his head slightly, almost imperceptibly, as though something quiet had clicked into place. At the time, she had assumed it was amusement over her commentary. A private smirk at her expense.

But maybe it wasn’t that at all.

The realization settled slowly, like sunlight breaking through cloud cover. Sephiroth hadn’t reprimanded the engineer. He hadn’t written him off or escalated his name up the chain of command. Instead, he had done the strangest, most unexpected thing Tori could imagine: he had helped. In his own terrifying, overcorrected way, yes—but helped nonetheless. He had taken her casual observation—her offhanded note about a man paralyzed by personal fear—and turned it into a direct intervention. Not because it benefited the company. Not because it was strategic. But because she had noticed. And he had listened.

Her throat tightened around a rush of feeling she couldn’t name.

“You identified something no one else had,” Angeal said, tone shifting again. “Something human. While the rest of us were too buried in chain-of-command nonsense to notice.”

He looked at her then—not as a First-Class SOLDIER. Not as a war hero. Just as a man grateful for the quiet fixing of a problem that had festered too long.

“You didn’t just get that hatch cleared,” he added. “You got me back a week’s worth of sanity, and you gave two awkward techs the nudge they needed to stop suffering in silence. That’s no small thing, Ms. Sutton.”

Tori swallowed, the warmth creeping into her cheeks. “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me,” Angeal said, standing slowly and stretching the stiffness from his shoulders. “Just keep doing whatever strange, uncanny magic you’re doing. Because whatever it is... it’s working.”

And for the first time since the night before, Tori smiled.

The quiet that followed felt well-earned, like a moment of stillness after a storm. She might’ve let it linger a little longer if the universe had any mercy. It did not.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

Genesis Rhapsodos strolled into the office with a flourish. His eyes gleamed the moment he spotted Tori sitting on the cot with a mug in hand and her hair slightly mussed.

“Oh Sephiroth,” he sing-songed, “you absolute deviant.”

Tori stiffened. “No. Wait—it’s not—”

Genesis gasped, mock-scandalized. “You spent the night? Gods, it all makes sense now. And here I was, wondering what possessed our dear general to go full office drone yesterday—working like a man possessed. I thought it was a sign of the end times.”

He gave her a sly look. “Now I see—it wasn’t administrative zeal. It was you.”

Angeal rolled his eyes. “Genesis.”

“Don’t Genesis me,” he said, striding closer. “This is positively delicious. Sephiroth has himself a proper executive assistant—fallen asleep at her post, a croissant left as tribute. What is this, a dating sim?”

“Executive assistant to Lazard,” Tori countered. “Director Lazard. I am Director Lazard’s assistant.”

Genesis blinked, entirely unrepentant. “Then why aren’t you in his office, Ms. Button?”

Tori scrambled to her feet, cheeks flaming. “We were working.”

“Oh, I have no doubt,” Genesis said with a wicked smile. “The man works best under pressure.”

Tori may have felt guilty for her onslaught with the squirt bottle, but today she felt perfectly vindicated.

“Enough,” Angeal said with a note of warning, though there was an amused flicker in his gaze.

Genesis relented only slightly, raising both hands in mock surrender. “Relax, I’m just keeping things lively. Sephiroth asked us to stick around in case anything else decides to happen while he's away.”

Tori exhaled in relief at the shift in subject. “You’re both staying?”

“Per his request,” Angeal confirmed. “We’re to shadow SOLDIER operations while he and Lazard handle Junon. If anything looks even slightly out of place, you can report it to us directly.”

“Think of us as your very attractive, heavily armed fire marshals,” Genesis added with a wink.

Tori gave a strangled laugh and mumbled something about needing to change before stepping out of the office, coffee and leather holster in hand.

In the women’s restroom, Tori gripped the porcelain edge of the sink and exhaled. The overhead light was clinical and unflattering, but she welcomed the harshness. It grounded her.

Get it together, Sutton.

She splashed cool water on her face, letting the cold shock jolt her out of the fog. Her reflection stared back: dark circles under her eyes, sleep-creased cheeks, and a smudge of mascara under one lid. She wiped it clean, ran her fingers through her hair, then twisted it back into a no-nonsense bun.

Then she remembered.

The cabinet.

She crossed to the small closet tucked beside the changing area—normally used for spare uniforms or emergency attire. Tucked inside were a variety of options: backup blazers, pressed skirts, spare heels, even tights in vacuum-sealed bags.

Thank the goddess.

She slipped out of the wrinkled dress from the night before and changed into a clean black pencil skirt and a crisp cornflower-blue blazer. It wasn’t her best look, but it passed for composed. That was all she needed today.

She reached into her pocket for her phone.

Three messages.

One from Sephiroth. One from Lazard. One from Kovacs.

Sephiroth’s was brief, of course:

Rest today. We’ll reconvene after Junon.

Lazard’s, more formal:

Ms. Sutton, your contributions to this operation are invaluable. Take today to recover. Next week, we move forward with a vengeance.

And Kovacs’:

WHERE R YOU???

Tori blinked. Her stomach dropped.

She turned toward the door just in time for it to swing open.

“Ms. Sutton!” Choufluer practically shouted, breathless.

Behind her stood Kovacs, dark hair half-clipped back with two roses tucked behind both ears, and Orla—wearing a full-blown flower crown like it was standard Shinra issue. Choufluer had a single red carnation pinned to her lapel, slightly askew but unmistakably proud.

Tori blinked. “What’s with the—?”

“They were on the front desk,” Kovacs said in a rush. “Real flowers. Can you believe it?”

“Someone’s got taste,” said Orla.

“But that’s not why we’re here!” Choufluer cut in, shoving a file case into Tori’s hands. “Tell me these aren’t what I think they are.”

Tori’s stomach plummeted.

“It was sitting on the front desk,” Kovacs explained. “Underneath this half-eaten pastry. No one thought to—until we went to admire the flowers. That’s when we saw it.”

Tori stared at the file case like it had personally betrayed her. The Azure Accord. The very document she’d been babysitting like an overcaffeinated governess for the past twenty-four hours. The formatting, the signature logistics, the security clearance logs—every ounce of bureaucratic finesse they’d squeezed from an exhausted department to make the envoy to Junon airtight… had been left behind. Under a half-eaten cream cheese Danish.

Lazard.

She could feel her brain trying to climb out of her skull.

“They forgot them,” Tori hissed in horror, realization crashing in. “All that preparation and they left documents behind.”

For a single, silent second, the weight of it sank in. The files. The fact that everything they’d worked for might literally fly away in a puff of rotor wash.

Tori clutched the case, mind already racing.

“Hangar,” she barked. “Now.”

And then, without another word, she turned and sprinted toward the elevator bay—

Because if they could still catch that chopper, they had a mission to complete.

. . . . . . . . .

INTERMISSION III: NEVER DISCOUNT THE POWER OF TEAMWORK

It is precisely 08:46 A.M. Standard Midgar Time, in which our stage is perfectly staged for a corporate miracle to be performed.

Let us observe Exhibit A: Miss Torianne Sutton. High-level executive assistant. One-time Service Center employee of the month. And, as of this morning, the sole woman within a five-mile radius attempting to intercept a Shinra-grade aircraft armed with nothing but a document case and a curse.

It is precisely 8:45 A.M.—forty-five minutes into the morning shift—on Floor 66 of SOLDIER HQ. Miss Sutton, hair hastily pinned and blazer askew, has just discovered that the Azure Accord—the very diplomatic linchpin she spent eighteen sleepless hours formatting, notarizing, and triple-collating—is not currently aboard the chopper ferrying Director Lazard and General Sephiroth to Junon.

Instead, dear reader, it is in her arms. Forgotten beneath a half-eaten pastry on the front reception desk.

“Men,” Orla mutters. And frankly, it’s difficult to disagree.

Tori doesn’t scream. She doesn’t panic. She simply exhales, lips puffing a lock of hair off her forehead, and begins to run.

You may be asking yourself how she plans to reach the hangar in time.

Enter Miss Delphine Choufluer.

“Not that way, Ms. Sutton! We’ll never reach it in time if we take the elevators. Allow me—”

She brandishes an all-access white keycard, retrieved years ago from the dusty depths of the Lost and Found. With it, Choufluer scans them through security doors, stairwell hatches, and a baffling series of janitorial hallways that no one has dared travel until now. They cut through the underbelly of Shinra like a seam ripper through silk—quiet, direct, and still accompanied by the faint scent of lemon cleaner.

Around the corner from Storage Room D and past the maintenance lockers, they nearly barrel into two First Class SOLDIERs mid-conversation. Genesis and Angeal freeze, blinking at the sight of four women running full tilt without so much as a nod.

“What in the seven hells—” Genesis says. His coat is already billowing.

“What’s happened?” Angeal asks, scanning Tori like she might be wounded.

Without breaking stride, Tori gasps, “They left the Accord behind! We’re headed to the hangar!”

Angeal’s jaw tightens. Genesis scoffs.

“We’ll try to intercept,” Genesis replies, already unsheathing his rapier with more theatrical flair than strictly necessary. “Carry on, Ms. Sutton.”

And just like that, they break off. Two SOLDIERs disappear down an auxiliary stairwell.

Tori and her comrades complete their shortcut through the utility halls.

“Now you know how I always make it back from the lobby in less than five minutes,” says Choufluer, kissing the keycard like a good luck charm.

But upon arrival at the hangar—a space so massive it registers its own weather patterns—Tori falters. There are dozens of aircraft. Rotor wash thunders. Staff scurry like ants in coveralls. Which one is theirs?

Gwendolyn Kovacs steps forward.

No drama. No flourish. Just a small, unassuming thumb drive that might as well be a key to the kingdom.

“Encrypted departmental schedules,” she explains, slotting it into a nearby console. “Includes flight IDs, personnel logs, and the snack preferences of every Shinra pilot assigned this week.”

Seconds later, they locate the launch bay: E4.

Just in time to watch the chopper lift from the tarmac.

And here, dear reader, is where it might all fall apart—if not for Orla Zeffirelli.

She is their resident wildcard.

With the air already thick from thrumming rotors, Orla pulls the brass whistle from her lanyard and takes one long breath.

The sound is ungodly. Unholy. It rings out like a summoned banshee wailing into the void.

Several flight crew members scream. One combat engineer nearly drops his breakfast burrito. But it works.

Greg, the technician—yes, that Greg from Chapter Six, still recovering from his recent encounter with administrative timekeeping standards—looks up from his sandwich.

Tori descends on him like a hawk.

“We need a delivery capsule,” she says, producing the documents and the slightly mangled croissant with the composure of a field commander.

Greg blinks. “Like… artillery?”

“Yes,” she replies crisply. “But for paperwork.”

Together, they retrofit a standard payload shell with foam insulation, pressure clamps, and Kovacs’ thumb drive for flight path validation.

At 09:00 A.M. on the dot, the capsule is loaded. The launch trajectory is calibrated.

Tori steps forward, blazer flattened and sleeves rolled, and raises one hand.

“FIRE!”

The capsule launches.

It cuts through the morning sky like a vengeful courier of bureaucratic justice—rising, arcing, vanishing into the clouds above as the hangar below erupts into stunned applause. Greg, quietly, sits down.

And somewhere far above, in the ascending belly of a Shinra military transport—

The sky hums.

The air smooths.

The world narrows into silence.

. . . . . . . . .

Sleep was a luxury Sephiroth no longer trusted. It blurred the line between focus and vulnerability, and right now, he could afford neither.

The chopper’s whir had settled into a low, mechanical purr beneath them. Altitude rising. Morning light filtered through the reinforced windows, casting a dim gleam across his pauldron. He sat still in full regalia, the weight of his armor matched only by the weight behind his eyes. His body obeyed the demands of routine. His mind did not.

Across from him, Lazard scanned the mission docket with all the enthusiasm of a man trying to mop up an oil spill with a napkin. Between the folds of paper and the occasional sigh, Sephiroth could hear the comm chatter bleed forward from the cockpit. Reno’s irreverent banter. Rude’s efficient confirmations. It was background noise—white static against the roar of unease threading through his chest.

Something was wrong.

Not here, in this moment. But elsewhere. Behind him.

Tori.

The thought surfaced again, uninvited and sharp, pulling him back to the last image he had of her. Still curled up in his office. She hadn’t woken when he left—just continued to mumble sleepily about artillery demonstrations and... raisins, of all things.

Her brows had furrowed, even in slumber, with the kind of sincere concern that Sephiroth was beginning to understand was an innate part of her. He’d meant only to brush a loose curl from her cheek. Nothing more. But his hand had lingered—at her temple, then lightly on her shoulder. Not possessive. Not even protective. Just... grounding. The kind of touch that said: Sleep. You’re safe.

And he’d meant it. Even if he didn’t understand why.

It disturbed him—how natural the gesture had felt. How instinctive. As if some part of him, long dormant, had stirred just for her.

Tori Sutton was everything Shinra had burned out of him. Honesty. Earnestness. That staggering, defiant clarity of someone still choosing to believe in the possibility of good. She was raw in a way his world punished. In a place governed by ambition and subjugation, where even integrity was a threat to efficiency, she walked unarmored.

It made her fragile.

It made her dangerous.

She reminded him of a flame—small and absurdly fleeting. And yet she persisted. Not despite the storm. But because of it.

And he, somehow, had become the hand shielding her from the wind.

And he’d left her behind.

His eyes flicked toward the floor, jaw tightening. He didn’t trust what waited for her in the wake of last night’s sabotage. Didn’t trust whoever had tampered with their supply logs and materia caches. Didn’t trust how easy it had been to walk away when she was still recovering from the aftershocks.

He told himself she was safe under Angeal’s watch. That SOLDIER operations were secure. That his departure was necessary for the Accord. For progress.

But deep beneath all that reason, something curdled.

This was how it started. If someone wanted to destabilize SOLDIER, they wouldn’t start with the front line. They’d start with someone irreplaceable. Someone honest.

They’d start with her.

A silence settled between him and the low drone of the cabin, taut and fraying. Then—

“Tell me you have the briefcase,” Lazard said suddenly, his voice a sharp knife against the quiet.

Sephiroth turned. “I assumed you had it.”

A pause. Sharp and absolute.

From the front: “Yo, you two alright back there?” Reno’s voice cracked over the comm. “We’re hitting altitude now.”

“No,” Lazard muttered. “No, we’re not alright.”

Sephiroth reached for the comm switch. “Abort takeoff. We need to return to—”

A hiss.

The cabin door yawned open with a pneumatic wheeze just as a gust of high-altitude air curled into the hold. A young technician appeared at the threshold, wind-raked and breathless. One gloved hand gripped the frame of the open hatch, the other cradled a metal capsule still warm from launch, its sides faintly hissing from residual friction.

He’d caught it.

From the launch bay below, someone had fired the capsule through a narrow atmospheric corridor straight toward the ascending aircraft. And the technician, strapped in and watching from the portside hatch, had leaned out into the roar of wind and caught it midair with the kind of precision that made SOLDIER proud.

“Special delivery,” Ludo announced, stepping inside with wide eyes and steady hands.

“Ludo,” Sephiroth said quietly, recognizing him. Third-class. Reliable.

Lazard cracked the seal.

Inside: the notarized Azure Accord documents, folded with obsessive precision and nestled in foam. And atop them—absurdly unbothered by the flight—sat his half-eaten pastry.

“My breakfast,” Lazard breathed, delighted.

Sephiroth rose slightly, turning toward the window just in time to see the hangar falling away beneath them. There—small but unmistakable—stood Tori. Flanked by her junior assistants like a proud little battalion adorned in flowers. Her posture was stiff. Her blazer immaculate. Her bun, impossibly intact. Even from this altitude, he could feel the steel in her stance.

“She never lets us fail, does she?” Lazard said, lifting the pastry toward his mouth, beaming.

Sephiroth didn’t answer. His eyes hadn’t left the window.

Perhaps… he was wrong.

Maybe he had been too quick to worry. Too quick to assume fragility where there was only force of will. Tori didn’t appear rattled or sidelined. She looked like a commander at ease with the aftermath of battle. Even now, she stood as though the entire morning had gone precisely to plan.

He'd underestimated her. Again.

She would be fine.

And when he returned from Junon, perhaps she would have questions. About the words he shared in the training deck. He wanted to know how long she would try to shield herself behind formality. How far she would let him pull her past it.

He was still watching the hangar fall away when something in the cockpit cracked through his thoughts.

A sharp voice. Reno.

“The hell is that—?”

Sephiroth’s attention snapped forward.

The controls hissed. Then bucked.

The whine of the engine shifted—a pitch too high, too fast, laced with something foreign. Not failure. Not turbulence.

Interference.

And then—

The sound.

Not a bang. Not even an explosion at first.

Just a rupture. A mechanical groan like a giant exhaling smoke through broken teeth. It coiled down the spine of the aircraft before anyone could react.

Then came the fire.

The starboard side detonated in a violent bloom—blinding orange-white heat ripping through steel. The shockwave slammed Sephiroth against the bulkhead, the force stealing his breath and shearing the clarity from his vision.

Alarms shrieked.

Metal screamed.

The floor twisted beneath him.

He heard Lazard shout—but the sound dissolved under the chaos. A chorus of ruptured pressure, snapping cables, and a high-pitched whine that rang like a death knell behind his teeth.

Instinct seized him.

He pushed off the buckling floor, boots scraping for purchase as the chopper spun on a broken axis. Smoke funneled through the cabin. Sparks skittered like lightning across the walls. Heat bloomed at his back.

He located Lazard—pinned near the comms relay, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath him, blood already soaking through his cuff.

Move.

His body obeyed.

One step. Then another.

Gravity shifted. Debris clawed at him. The wind howled through the gaping wound in the fuselage.

But Sephiroth didn’t stop.

His thoughts narrowed to a single, white-hot command:

Protect the Director.

Even if the sky fell.

Even if the world cracked wide open beneath him.

Even if it meant burning for it.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tori never heard the blast.

She felt it.

A jolt in her sternum—sudden and seismic—followed by the sickening rumble of the explosion overhead. The hangar shook. Windows rattled. A fiery bloom lit the far end of the sky like a war flare splitting the morning wide open.

Tori turned just in time to see the black shape of the SOLDIER chopper shudder midair, one rotor blade spinning off like a severed limb. It tilted violently, screaming through the clouds, smoke pouring from its undercarriage as it veered—spiraled—fell.

A cry tore from her throat before she knew it was hers.

“No—!”

Her hands flew to her mouth. Her breath caught as the chopper pitched over Midgar, blades locked, tail rudder sputtering against the pull of gravity. It was coming down. Fast. Toward the city.

Lazard… Sephiroth…

Her pulse lurched. Cold sweat beaded across her collarbone. This wasn’t a mistake. This wasn’t a misfire or technical fault.

Someone wanted them dead.

“Ms. Sutton!”

Angeal’s voice snapped her head around. He and Genesis had appeared at the edge of the hangar, swords slung, faces taut with understanding. They didn’t need to ask what had occurred. They saw the fireball, the plummeting shape, the faces Tori wasn’t sure she’d ever see again.

“We’re on it,” Genesis barked, already scanning for transport.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, loud and certain.

“No,” Angeal growled, stepping in front of her. “It’s too dangerous—”

“That’s my director!”

Her voice cracked, not from volume but desperation. Genesis hesitated—just long enough.

“Fine,” he said. “But you hold on like your life depends on it.”

She didn’t argue.

Genesis mounted the nearest Shinra motorcycle with feline speed, one fluid motion of coat and confidence. Tori rushed after him, but the tailored cut of her pencil skirt made straddling the bike a logistical impossibility. With no time to waste, she hiked it just enough to swing both legs to one side and climbed on behind him in the most dignified side-saddle sprint seating she could manage. Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, the scent of gunmetal and expensive cologne sharp in her nose as the engine roared beneath them.

The platform ahead yawned open—no time for lifts, no time for protocol.

They launched.

The bike screamed over the lip of the hangar, free-falling for a breathless moment before the wheels caught tarmac with a violent skid. Angeal followed close behind, the two of them tearing through headquarters, past startled infantry, and out into the city. The streets of Midgar blurred. Sirens rose like howling ghosts.

They reached the wreckage in under five minutes.

Tori nearly tumbled off the bike as Genesis braked hard, parking alongside the sea of flashing lights and emergency barriers. Smoke curled in great black ribbons above them, acrid and gut-wrenching. The chopper had fallen in the middle of a busy intersection. One wing had carved through a delivery truck. Civilians were being ushered back by first responders waving batons and shouting into radios. A large privacy screen had already been erected—but not fast enough.

Genesis and Angeal cut through it with practiced efficiency.

Tori followed in their wake.

Her heart thundered.

The wreckage was total. The chopper’s side had crumpled inward like paper. Fire crews were dousing hotspots. Paramedics shouted for triage and clearance. Twisted metal steamed on the asphalt.

Then—movement.

Reno and Rude stood near the curb, bruised and bloodied, Rude’s sunglasses hanging crooked off one ear. Reno was barking into a comm unit, voice sharp and ragged.

And then—

A shift in pressure. A sudden, visceral hum in the air.

The rescue crew stepped back from the wreckage, tools frozen mid-cut as the twisted cabin door shuddered—not from their machines, but from within.

With a screech of ruptured bolts and grinding metal, the crumpled hatch lifted.

Not peeled. Not pried.

Lifted.

Steel groaned against itself as the crushed door was hoisted like it weighed nothing at all, sheared cleanly from the twisted frame and hurled aside in a smoking arc. It slammed to the asphalt with a thunderous clang, sending debris skittering in every direction.

And through the smoldering wreckage, framed in flame and ruin, Sephiroth emerged.

Wreathed in smoke, blood streaking the left side of his face, hair charred and clinging to his jaw in damp silvery ribbons. His coat was shredded at one shoulder, scorched fabric peeled back like the wing of some wounded god. Beneath his right arm hung Lazard—limp but breathing. The file case remained miraculously intact in Lazard’s grasp, clutched to his chest even in ruin.

Tori’s knees nearly buckled.

The rumors had never done him justice.

Here was the Silver General—no, the General—dragging his commanding officer from a downed aircraft, face half-shadowed in blood and ash, the ruined intersection bowing around his footsteps like myth made manifest.

Her breath stuttered.

He looked terrifying. Inhuman. And yet—

She ran.

Shouldered past Genesis before he could react, feet flying across cracked pavement as adrenaline surged like fire in her veins.

“Director—!”

Lazard stirred, eyes fluttering, lips chapped and blackened by smoke.

“Not to worry, Ms. Sutton,” he rasped faintly, voice hanging somewhere between wry charm and mild concussion. “I feel perfectly safe.”

Tori’s hands reached for him instinctively, steadying his weight as Sephiroth lowered him to the ground carefully.

Only then did she see the blood.

A bright gash sliced across Sephiroth’s left brow, cutting a crimson path through the soot-streaked sharpness of his cheekbone.

She reached for his arm.

“You’re—” she choked. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” she snapped, too panicked to temper her voice. “Hold still.”

She was already moving. Tugging the ribbon from the collar of her blouse, fingers fumbling with the knot. Her hands shook—useless, desperate—but she didn’t stop. She stepped into his space, lifting the makeshift cloth to his brow.

He stilled.

Not in defiance, but in… allowance.

His eyes locked on hers, vivid and unreadable, yet something in them flickered at her closeness. The tension in his shoulders eased.

She dabbed gently at the wound, catching the fresh blood before it could slip past his cheek.

“Don’t try to be heroic about this,” she murmured, still shaking. “You scared the hell out of me.”

His lips twitched.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said lowly, shifting his gaze to the others. “She shouldn’t be here.”

“I decided to be here,” she said simply, still blotting the blood from his temple.

The firelight cast him in strange, sepulchral hues. And still, she stood close.

That, at last, seemed to disarm him.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I can take care of the rest.”

He inhaled slowly, and the glow of green materia ignited in his palm. Gentle and controlled. He passed it over his own form first, the wound sealing beneath her ribbon, the blood fading from his skin. Then, he pressed it against Lazard’s ribs, drawing a long breath as the faint hum of healing passed between them.

But the moment of peace shattered in a snap.

Behind them, the chopper groaned—metal straining from internal pressure. A panel on the fuselage burst loose with a sharp crack, the heavy shrapnel flying toward them like a missile.

Tori turned too late.

Sephiroth didn’t.

Masamune sang through the smoke like lightning.

One clean, impossibly fast strike—and the shrapnel cleaved harmlessly to the ground in two molten halves.

Silence fell.

Tori stood frozen, inches from where the metal would have struck. The sword hovered just past her shoulder, still humming with kinetic heat.

Sephiroth looked at her.

Then, softly, as if to tether her back to the moment:

“You’re safe.”

Her lips parted, but no sound came. She felt weak in the knees all over again.

The commotion swelled like a tide.

First, murmurs. Then the low hum of voices rising in alarm. Then came the glint of camera lenses—one, then dozens—angled over shoulders and through gaps in the crowd like predatory eyes catching the first scent of blood.

A flurry of shutters fired in rapid succession.

They were drawn to Sephiroth for there was no mistaking him. Not with the silhouette, the sword, the staggering stillness. He was the evening news headline if they could just get their shot.

Angeal was the first to react. His head turned sharply, eyes narrowing at the sea of press filtering through the barricades. “We need to move. If we don’t ghost now, this turns into a week-long PR disaster.”

Genesis snapped his fingers. A plume of brilliant fire ignited behind him—not destructive, but distracting—casting a veil of heat and haze across the nearest camera angles. The crowd flinched back, momentarily disoriented by the sudden blaze of light.

“We take the alley,” he said crisply. “Get off the grid until further notice.”

Lazard, brushing ash from his jacket sleeve, surveyed the scene. “This is certainly one way to test the Accord’s resilience,” he muttered. “I imagine our friends in Junon will be thrilled.”

He was doing it again. Speaking in a manner that suggested this was just another mishap to be sidestepped without addressing the severity of the situation.

Tori stepped forward, deliberately placing herself between the wreckage and Lazard’s line of sight. She pitched her voice low—flat, almost clinical—but the words dropped like lead.

“Director—forgive me, but I feel it’s imperative you know that someone is actively trying to murder you,” she said gravely. “This wasn’t mechanical failure. It was good old-fashioned, premeditated sabotage!”

Everything stopped.

Not visibly. But she felt it in the air. A shift beneath the surface.

Angeal’s jaw set. Genesis stopped in his tracks. Sephiroth’s gaze, still edged in blood and smoke, locked on hers with terrifying clarity.

It was Lazard who shifted, dropping his levity.

“Yes, we’ve begun to suspect,” he said quietly, his face creasing with guilt. He stepped closer, his hands settling on her shoulders with rare softness. “I didn’t want to burden you with that knowledge. Not so soon after joining us in SOLDIER.”

That sobered her for a moment.

But only a moment.

“That’s noble, sir,” she said, voice tight, “but you’re being unfair. Keeping me in the dark while someone lays traps under our feet only compromises our efforts.” She took a breath, rounding her shoulders. “When was the last time you took a self-defense course? What are your emergency protocols? Do you carry any form of defense?” She motioned to herself. “How about a gun, for starters?”

Her words landed harder than even she anticipated. The SOLDIERs straightened slightly, surprised.

“She’s right,” Genesis said, a flicker of admiration softening the edge of his tone. “No point in playing cloak-and-dagger when the daggers are already out.”

Sephiroth followed. “She has a much stronger tolerance than anyone gave her credit for,” he said without looking away from the wreckage. “An oversight that shouldn’t happen again.”

Tori fought a blush and failed miserably. He had a way of saying exactly enough to send her spiraling into self-awareness.

“If they’re this bold in the daylight,” said Genesis, “it’s only going to escalate. We should fold her in.”

“Then let’s not be here when the trap sets,” Angeal added, scanning the crowd. “There are more reporters than medics. This whole street is compromised.”

“I know a place,” Genesis said. “It’s a dive, but it’s discreet. Back entrance, no cameras, two drink minimum. Worst wallpaper in Midgar, but it has the best scotch on the east side.”

Lazard didn’t hesitate. “Perfect. Let’s move.”

Angeal moved to his bike, pulling Lazard’s arm around his shoulder without comment. The Director winced but allowed it, clearly too sore to protest.

Genesis looked at Tori. “You’re with me again, little lady. Sorry—still no sidecar.”

Tori glanced down at her skirt. “I’ll manage.”

She climbed aboard the motorcycle, forced to swing her legs sideways due to the restrictive cut of her skirt. It wasn’t elegant, but she gripped Genesis tightly and nodded once. Her heart hadn’t slowed since the blast. The world was still humming at an unnatural pitch.

Behind them, Sephiroth relinquished Masamune, sending it back into the mysterious ether from whence it came. He turned toward the alley, eyes scanning the rooftops above.

“You’re not coming?” Tori asked, confused.

“I’ll follow,” he said, meeting her eyes.

And then, in one fluid motion, he leapt—vanishing upward like a shadow cast in reverse.

Tori stared after him, breath caught in her throat.

“Showoff,” Genesis murmured as he revved the engine.

He gave a curt nod across the clearing. Reno, standing near the remains of the chopper, responded with a two-fingered salute and a half-hearted smirk. Rude simply adjusted his comms earpiece and stepped out of the way, already scanning the crowd for civilian interference.

Neither man looked alarmed. If anything, they seemed resigned. Like they’d witnessed this exact vanishing act more times than they could count. The downed helicopter, the imminent press storm, the evasive escape—it was all routine, just another Tuesday in the upper decks of Shinra’s corporate theater.

And somehow, that silent exchange made Tori feel even more like an interloper. A bureaucrat hurled into a covert world where even chaos had choreography.

They peeled off toward the alley.

Chapter Text

“Sometimes, it’s more than just a drink.”

Tori cradled her phone between shoulder and ear as she stood near the bar’s window, thumb grazing a faint nick in the paint on the sill.

“Yes,” she murmured. “The Director and General are both fine. There were no casualties at the wreck site—just a fireball and a crater big enough to feed the media for a week.”

Kovacs’s voice crackled through on the other end, equal parts frazzled and relieved. “We’ve been watching the lines light up since the broadcast looped on the Shinra News Network. You’d think the world ended in Sector Three. The phone bot’s doing overtime.”

“Glad I set that up when I did,” Tori replied, pinching the bridge of her nose. “What about press? Has anyone walked through the doors?”

“Vesper Navarre,” Kovacs said dryly. “Stiletto heels, red file folder, that look she gets when the building’s about to burn down. She’s camped in your chair. Choufluer’s bringing her tea.”

Of course she was. “Please inform Ms. Navarre she will have to come back at a later time. We’re off grid until further notice.”

Kovacs snorted. “Will do.”

Tori took a breath and pressed her palm to her temple, eyes scanning the room’s dim interior. “You, Choufluer, and Orla hold the line. Keep tabs on any names that come through, especially anyone asking for Lazard or Sephiroth by title. If it’s internal—anyone with clearance—mark for triage. If it’s external? Calm and de-escalatory responses only. We’re not confirming anything yet.”

“Got it,” Kovacs replied. “And Ms. Sutton? Please be careful.”

Her throat tightened briefly. “You too. I’ll check in later.”

She hung up.

And finally allowed herself a breath.

The bar was quiet at this hour, steeped in a tired kind of hush. The kind that knew how to keep secrets. A flickering pendant lamp swung slightly above her, casting warm arcs across the cracked vinyl stools and terrazzo floor. She paced in slow loops across it, the hem of her blazer catching on the worn upholstery. The room smelled faintly of varnish and citrus cleaner—a detail she clung to, because it was the only thing in her immediate reality not threaded with suspicion.

Her companions had spread themselves along the waxed counter with the weary elegance of soldiers who had long since stopped performing. Lazard sat between Angeal and Genesis, his gloves still singed at the cuffs, eyes half-closed behind steepled hands. Sephiroth stood off to the side, back braced against the bar, arms crossed and head angled in watchful silence. He was scanning the exits. Or pretending to.

She could feel his eyes on the back of her neck.

But she didn’t acknowledge it.

Upon their arrival, the bartender had smartly switched the news broadcast. One look at the wreckage looping across the screen—and the profile of the man who had emerged from it like destruction incarnate—and the channel had clicked over to a harmless STAMP commercial instead.

"He’s got a bark that’s brave, a tail that’s true,
With a helmet green and armor too!
From Reactor One to Sector Eight,
STAMP’s your hero—strong and great!"

"So join the fight, enlist today—
With STAMP to lead the SOLDIER way!
Courage, honor, service, gold...
Shinra’s pride is brave and bold!"

Tori barely registered it. Her mind was elsewhere—still trapped in the stuttering frame of the downed helicopter, in the quiet suspicion that had been threading its way through her skull since the supply room incident. It didn’t add up. The timing, the drastic difference in severity—it wasn’t the same flavor of sabotage. It lacked the same precision. The same intent.

Ferris had been right to warn her.

Her eyes flickered once more to her companions, growing increasingly wary.

They had known all along.

Her brain played the chaotic highlight reel of her first three weeks in SOLDIER, identifying every missed opportunity to see it plainly for herself: Sephiroth suggesting the console fire in Lazard’s office was arson, Lazard’s heavy answers surrounding the Azure Accord, Sephiroth’s trip to the armory after their lunch in the cafeteria, the cryptic phone call in the supply room shortly after reviewing the security tapes.

None of this was isolated.

And Sephiroth had kept that information from her.

She exhaled sharply, only to hear the soft scrape of a barstool swivel behind her.

“You’re awfully pensive, Ms. Sutton,” Genesis remarked, tone feathery with faux concern. “Does it have something to do with our chosen refuge? You seem unimpressed.”

Tori ignored him, pivoting cleanly on her heel.

He watched her pace another lap, then added, “This place may lack your preferred oat milk and ambient playlist, but it has its charm. Mold, low lighting, and exactly zero paparazzi.”

She halted mid-step.

Genesis caught the shift in her expression and smiled—sharp and knowing.

“Ah. There it is. The Sutton scowl,” he drawled lowly. “So, you are mad with us.”

Her look of displeasure deepened before her voice did.

“I’m not mad,” she said, arms folding tighter across her chest. “But I am disappointed.”

Her eyes flicked to Sephiroth briefly—then away.

Genesis tilted his head. “Disappointed?” he echoed, as if tasting the word.

“You knew someone was trying to kill the Director,” she said, nodding to Lazard without looking at him. “And instead of warning me, you let me believe he was just… forgetful? Reckless? I built systems to protect him against himself when I should’ve been guarding him against someone else!”

Genesis shrugged one shoulder, his voice softer now. “That knowledge comes with risk, Ms. Sutton. Ignorance, in some cases, is a form of protection. Particularly for civilians.”

Her nostrils flared. “Civilians?”

He nodded. “You clock out at five. Draw a paycheck. Enjoy your weekends. We don’t have that luxury. Why would we trust someone who could vanish at the first sign of fire?”

His words were measured, not unkind. But they struck a nerve all the same.

Her jaw set.

“Ignorance is not bliss, Mr. Rhapsodos,” she said sternly. “Imagine how stupid I feel, believing the Director has a talent for administrative negligence. We could’ve been burned alive in that elevator if I hadn’t acted quickly.”

Genesis considered her.

“You’re right,” he said, after a beat. “But you’re still avoiding the question.”

“What question?”

“Why are you this invested?” He challenged her. “You’re not one of us. You’ve got no skin in this game—and I mean that with respect,” he added, halting the retort burning on her tongue. “So what is it, exactly, that makes you fight this war like it’s yours?”

Lazard turned slightly in his seat, his gaze settling on Tori with something closer to concern than calculation. But he was listening intently. They all were.

Tori felt heat rise up her chest, her mind working too fast and too slow all at once.

Because of Dockery.

Because of the way she hadn’t seen it in time. Because of the memory of his face when he asked her for help, and she had betrayed him instead.

But even that wasn’t the full truth.

Her jaw tightened. Another memory flickered—sharp, familiar. The fluorescent buzz of the cubicles in Service Center. Janelle leaning across her desk, eyebrows raised with that half-sneer, half-smirk of someone who thought they were doing her a favor.

“You really think they’re gonna notice all this?” she had said, nodding at the color-coded schedules, the automated briefings, the quietly brilliant system Tori had rigged together out of overtime and sheer willpower. “You’re burning out just to impress people who’ll never see you.”

Tori had just smiled, tight-lipped. Pretended it didn’t sting.

But it did.

Because what she hadn’t said then—and couldn’t say now—was that she was tired of being small. Of being quiet. Of watching those with titles and rank dismiss the ones who held their departments together by paperclips and pressure.

Because somewhere along the way, wanting more had become something to be ashamed of.

So no, she couldn’t answer Genesis outright.

She couldn’t explain that her loyalty came from the same place her anger did—from a bone-deep refusal to be overlooked. From the guilt that Dockery’s name still brought to her throat like a swallowed stone. From the way Sephiroth had trusted her, in a world where trust was everything.

So instead, she said, "There’s no such thing as a low-stakes role—not in a system this dangerous."

There was a beat of silence. Then, Genesis leaned back on his stool, swirling the liquid in his glass as if weighing the truth of her words against the burn of good scotch.

“Funny you say that,” he murmured, eyes flicking to hers with something like quiet amusement. “We’ve had our fair share of danger. Your predecessors—each one sharp, capable, efficient in their own way. But they all came to the same conclusion in the end.”

He raised his scotch to eye level, peering at her through the etched glass.

“They chose their own safety over departmental loyalty.” He paused, lowering the glass. “Because the truth is—SOLDIER doesn’t stay confined to business hours. It bleeds into everything. It becomes your life.”

His gaze flicked sideways to Sephiroth, then returned to her. “You sure you want to trade your safety for danger, Ms. Sutton?”

Tori swallowed. The truth in his voice rang louder than the mockery, louder than the flickering television overhead. He wasn’t challenging her out of cruelty. He was warning her.

And still—

She turned to Lazard then, her tone formal but tight.

“Sir. If we’re going to work together, you need to treat me like your partner. I may lack your experience, but I learn fast. You can keep appearances if you must, but behind closed doors, we should be aligned. At the very least, I deserve to know when I’m being left out of the loop.”

She hadn’t meant for her voice to tremble. But it did. Just barely. And for a second, she wondered if she’d gone too far. She could feel Sephiroth’s eyes on her—watching. It unsettled her more than Genesis’s questions did. Had she overstepped? Or was he waiting to see if she’d hold her ground?

Lazard’s gaze met hers, and for a moment, something unguarded slipped through—guilt, maybe, or reluctant agreement. He nodded in understanding.

But it was Genesis who spoke again, eyes still bright with curiosity.

“And what’s in it for you?”

That question—it was the gatekeeper’s test. The one that asked: Are you willing to bleed for it?

Before she could answer, Sephiroth’s voice broke the quiet.

“I believe what Ms. Sutton is trying to communicate,” he said smoothly, “is that we no longer have the luxury of working in isolation. She shares our vision for SOLDIER. Her insight is valuable. Her loyalty—proven.”

Genesis turned, eyebrow arched. Then, slowly, he smiled.

“Well,” he said, leaning back, “look who’s earned a referral from the General.”

Tori’s pulse spiked, a low thrum in her throat she pretended not to feel. Sephiroth’s voice hadn’t changed—but she’d heard it. That almost imperceptible shift in tone. Not just acknowledgment. Something softer. Something closer to contrition.

She kept her expression measured, letting the words settle without reaction. She could still feel the heat of her earlier disappointment flickering just beneath the surface. Whatever guilt laced his admission, it hadn’t erased the fact that he’d kept her in the dark. That he hadn’t trusted her enough to loop her in before things spiraled.

Still, the echo of his defense—her loyalty, proven—clung to her ribs like an aftershock.

Genesis reached across the bar, plucked up the cocktail intended for Lazard, and slid it down the counter toward the empty stool beside him.

“Sit,” he said. “Have a drink. You’ve earned it.”

Tori didn’t move right away.

The gesture appeared casual on the surface, just one drink among colleagues and a seat offered in passing. But beneath it, there was a quiet shift in the terrain. She could feel it. This wasn’t merely an invitation to share in their exhaustion; it carried weight. It was a symbolic nod, an unspoken acknowledgment from those who had previously kept her at arm’s length. Genesis’s tone, Lazard’s silence, and even Angeal’s unreadable glance all echoed the same message: You’re closer now than you were before.

Sephiroth cut in, tone low and cool. “You don’t have to take it.”

She turned toward him, surprised by the softness threading through his words.

She gave a small nod, then stepped forward and took the seat.

The barstool was cold against the backs of her thighs; the glass, colder still in her hands. She turned it once, twice, studying the way the amber liquid caught the light. Tori wasn’t a heavy drinker. She rarely had anything stronger than a glass of white wine on special occasions. But declining would draw attention, and right now, appearances mattered.

She lifted the glass and took a sip.

The scotch hit hard, with sharp citrus layered over slow-burning smoke. She had to fight the urge to cough. The second sip was easier, though no less jarring.

“Lazard’s favorite,” Genesis remarked, raising his own glass with a half-smile. “Surprisingly refined, considering the decor.”

Tori didn’t smile. She took one more sip, then set the glass down gently. That would be enough. Just enough to acknowledge the moment and accept the gesture.

It was barely 10:30 on a Friday morning, after all.

Yet, as the thought occurred to her, the light overhead already seemed brighter. Or maybe her pupils had dilated. The voices around her shifted in tone and texture. Genesis’s baritone and Angeal’s steady cadence began to stretch and distort, like sound filtered through water. Somewhere between the clang of the STAMP jingle and the silver gleam of Sephiroth’s pauldrons catching the light, the room shifted.

She blinked.

Just three sips.

It shouldn’t have hit her like this.

Her hand lifted to her forehead as her stomach tightened with a growing sense of wrongness.

Genesis and Angeal were still talking, their words muffled and indistinct. Lazard was speaking into his phone. Sephiroth had excused himself, heading for the restrooms.

Tori swallowed, uneasy.

Her fingers slipped beneath her blazer for her leather harness. Inside, tucked into one of its many compartments next to the cyanide pills, was the small brown bottle she’d inherited from her predecessor.

The solution.

She didn’t know why she reached for it now. Only that something was off.

The light above her flickered again.

And then the room began to tilt.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sephiroth swiped a paper towel across his brow, watching soot vanish into its rough, fibrous grain. The texture rasped against his skin—sterile and unyielding. Not at all like the soft, perfumed cotton of Tori’s necktie, which had earlier blotted his temple with an almost disarming tenderness. He shouldn't have remembered that. And yet, the contrast was too stark.

The man in the mirror was clean now—technically. But the reflection remained grim. Blood still shadowed his hairline, a thin discoloration where healing materia had sealed the wound without mercy. His eyes looked sharp, yes—but bloodshot at the corners, ringed in something that wasn't quite exhaustion but perilously close.

His PHS buzzed.

He fished it from his coat, thumbing open the message without ceremony.

[Tseng]: Requesting your eyewitness report. Explosion now classified as internal jurisdiction. HQ delaying Junon deployment pending full investigation. Expect further orders within the day.

Of course, they had delayed Junon. Shinra could spin catastrophe faster than it could patch a reactor leak. He could already see it unfold: the bullet-point briefings, the redacted summaries, the press release with language so sterilized it could be packaged with trauma gauze. And somewhere, on a screen far removed from reality, footage of him dragging Lazard from the flames would be slowed and reverently color-corrected into a heroic soundbite.

Strength Under Fire. That would be the tagline.

He deleted the message. Slid the PHS back into his coat pocket.

But his mind settled on another issue, one that was not so easily dismissed.

Tori was upset.

And it wasn’t just at Genesis for his provocations. Or Lazard for his omissions. She had looked at him too—briefly, yes, but with a flicker of disappointment that registered more sharply than anything else had that morning.

He told himself it was only natural. She was new. She didn’t yet understand the calculus of what was withheld and why. Lazard had made the call to keep her out of the crosshairs, and Sephiroth had upheld it. It was logical. A means to keep her safe.

And yet, logic did little to blunt the weight of her disapproval. It sat uneasily in his chest—foreign and persistent. Not because she had challenged him, but because part of him wondered if she was right to.

Genesis had asked why she fought so hard. A fair question.

But Sephiroth already knew the answer. It was in her eyes, in her voice—when she’d stood in that boardroom, spine straight, facing down the President like a crusader in heels. It was in the care she showed Lazard. The fear she wouldn’t voice. The cause of which he hadn’t pried open yet.

And her voice. That clipped, lecturing tone she used when she was angry was compelling.

And yet, even knowing the thought was indulgent, he couldn’t quite will it away. It lingered—her voice, that fire—and for one brief second, he found himself wanting her fury less than he wanted her forgiveness.

Sephiroth turned from the mirror with his usual precision, but the gesture lacked finality. There was a tension in his chest he couldn’t shake—one that had nothing to do with the wreckage outside or the PHS message burning in his pocket.

He could feel it settling over him like a quiet vow: if he wanted to keep what little trust had formed between them, he would have to repair what had been cracked. Not with protocol or orders. But with something far more unfamiliar to him.

He would have to make amends.

Because once Tori Sutton learned how easy it was to be dismissed, she might never offer him that trust again. And this time, Sephiroth wasn’t certain he could bear to be on the receiving end such silence.

He straightened his coat. One final glance in the mirror. Then he left the restroom.

When he returned to the lounge, the STAMP infomercial was still running, a clamor of cheerful noise and exaggerated movement that felt almost hostile in its brightness. A beagle in a green military helmet bounded across the screen, leaping into a technicolor trench to the sound of clashing cymbals and marching-band fanfare. Children cheered in unison, and somewhere behind the noise, a narrator extolled the virtues of national service in a voice just shy of cartoonish.

It scraped against his senses.

Sephiroth ignored the television, passing his gaze across the empty venue instead. The bartender was no longer the man who had served them minutes ago. In his place stood a woman, tense in posture, short hair tucked behind one ear. She was in the midst of fending off Genesis’s dramatics with a brittle smile. Angeal and Lazard had their heads bent together over the bar top, speaking in the kind of hushed urgency reserved for classified fallout.

The only one not speaking was Tori.

Genesis, meanwhile, had taken it upon himself to romance the new bartender with the full dramatic arsenal of a SOLDIER First Class.

“I’ve spent years perfecting the art of making dangerous choices,” he said smoothly, one elbow draped across the bar. “But tonight, I’m thinking of outsourcing my recklessness. Starting with you, gorgeous. What do you say? Wanna be the cowgirl who tames my chocobo—or at least holds the reins while I make bad decisions in your honor?”

The bartender blinked once.

Undeterred, he pressed on.

“No? Something more cerebral, then?” He tapped the bar, leaning in with exaggerated gravity. “I’m not saying I’m husband material, but I do have a respectable body count, full dental, and a fan club with its own merchandise.” He tossed his hair with a flourish. “Frankly, I’m the total package.”

Tori shot him a look so flat it could’ve leveled Midgar.

The bartender shared that look. And silently reached for a bar towel like it might become a weapon.

Sephiroth considered intervening.

He did not.

Instead, he turned to Lazard and Angeal, his tone clipped.

“Lazard, headquarters has already grounded us,” he said quietly. “General Affairs has launched an investigation. We’re to submit reports before the day is out.”

Lazard removed his glasses to rub his eyes. “Yes, I was afraid of that happening. This will set us back.”

“They’ve never moved that fast,” Angeal added with a frown.

“They were waiting,” Sephiroth replied.

He let the silence stretch before continuing. “If this was an attempt on your life, it wasn’t subtle. But why now? Why with me on board? No one knew I was accompanying you last minute.”

“Unless they did,” Angeal said.

“Or unless the attempt wasn’t on your life at all,” Sephiroth added, glancing toward Lazard. “What if the goal was to stall the Azure Accord?”

The implication settled in the air with plausible truth.

Sephiroth’s gaze sharpened. The chopper explosion, the tampered supply room—too close together to be coincidental. One might have been dismissed as chaos or opportunism. Two, within hours, suggested coordination. Someone wanted to keep Lazard grounded. Or rattled. Or compromised before the Accord could be cemented. And now, with a second attempt executed in plain sight, they were no longer dealing with theory. They were in the middle of a strategy.

Was it Shinra? A faction within? Or something external with access to internal clearance?

His jaw ticked once. Either way, the timing was too precise. The pattern too deliberate. Whoever they were, they didn’t just want to disrupt—they wanted to stall progress before it could take flight. Literally.

And Tori Sutton, of all people, had been caught in the blast radius.

Behind them, Genesis cleared his throat dramatically.

“They say I’m lethal with a blade,” he purred, swirling his drink lazily. “But I assure you, my real weapon is stamina—and a deep commitment to mutually assured satisfaction.”

There was a beat.

Tori stood abruptly, glass rattling against the bar. Her stool squeaked.

Then—

“Don’t you talk to her like that!”

Her voice cracked like a whip—sharp, slurred, and righteously indignant.

Sephiroth turned.

And saw the gun.

Tori. On her feet. Arm raised. Pistol aimed directly at Genesis at point-blank range. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and glassy, cheeks flushed in a haze of fury and whatever was coursing through her veins.

The bartender froze. One hand flew to her mouth.

Genesis took a measured sidestep and raised his hands slowly.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he said. “Take care where you point that thing. That’s not a toy.”

“You’re being highly inappropriate,” Tori slurred, voice trembling. “She’s not a conquest!”

Sephiroth was already moving.

He reached for her, one hand wrapping around her wrist, lifting her arm skyward.

The gun fired.

plink!

A single round embedded into the plaster ceiling. Dust and white fragments rained down onto the bar like confetti from a failed celebration.

The bartender screamed—a sharp, panicked sound that fractured the silence—and dropped low behind the bar, bottles clinking wildly as she ducked out of sight. Something fell and shattered in her wake. Sephiroth didn’t look away from Tori.

Her breath hitched.

She blinked as though coming back to herself, uncomprehending, as if surprised to find her feet still beneath her.

Sephiroth kept hold of her wrist and looked her over. She was shivering—barely. Her pupils blown. Her skin too flushed.

“Ms. Sutton,” he said low. “Look at me.”

She did.

And he saw it – the telltale signs of someone under the influence.

His gaze dropped to the glass on the bar, sitting in a ring of condensation. Untouched. But next to it—an amber bottle. Dropper-style. The neck sticky with residue.

He tilted the glass, catching the iridescent sheen of dark blue where the solution had met the alcohol.

The realization struck him immediately—not just that the drink had been tampered with, but that Tori had been the one to drink from it. That whatever was in the glass had made its way into her system.

“Genesis.”

He slid the etched glass across the bar to Genesis who immediately grew serious. He took it with a frown, sniffed it, tasted a bare drop.

“Brizaphine,” he cursed, setting the glass down with unusual care. “Gods. It’s laced.”

He stood, the last remnants of bravado draining from his expression. “Probably meant for Lazard.”

Lazard flinched as though struck. His gloves creaked as his hands curled into fists. “Damn it! There’s no end to this!”

Sephiroth turned his gaze to the bartender.

The woman stiffened as their attention shifted. Her mouth opened, then closed again. She looked from face to face—recognizing the insignias, the stature, the severity—and knew, without needing to be told, that something had gone terribly wrong.

“I—I didn’t serve anyone,” she said quickly. Her voice trembled, but her words came fast, trying to get ahead of the weight pressing down on her. “I just came out from the back. I was restocking vermouth. I swear. You’re the first customers I’ve seen this morning.”

Genesis stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “Then who was behind the bar five minutes ago?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied, visibly paling. “I clocked in late. The bar only just opened. I didn’t even realize anyone was here.”

Sephiroth studied her with quiet intensity. She wasn’t lying—not convincingly, at least. The fine tremble in her hands, the heat still lingering in her cheeks, the disorientation… either she was a world-class actress, or she genuinely had no idea that someone had been impersonating a bartender under her shift.

“Describe him,” Angeal said.

She shook her head helplessly. “There was no one. I was in the storage room sorting inventory. When I came back, the register was untouched. I assumed you all helped yourself to the bar.”

Genesis’s brow furrowed. “No wonder he was so accommodating when we walked in.”

“It was all coordinated,” Angeal murmured.

Sephiroth said nothing. His focus remained fixed on the bartender, who looked like she wanted to evaporate.

“I—I’ve worked here for two years,” she stammered. “There’s never been an issue. I’ve never seen anyone else behind the bar during my shift. If someone was pretending to be me—”

“What kind of bar loses track of its own staff?” Genesis added, pacing a slow half-step forward. “Do you also leave the liquor cabinet unlocked and the fire exit propped open? Or was that part of the plan as well?”

The woman’s voice failed her. She looked ready to cry.

“Enough,” came Lazard’s voice.

He stood slowly, putting his glasses back on. His expression was unreadable—cool, distant, but his posture had shifted. Authority returned to his shoulders like a coat shrugged back into place.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said, directing the line toward Genesis, though the rebuke was quiet.

Genesis straightened, unoffended.

“I need to get back to headquarters,” Lazard continued, grabbing the file case as he stood up from the bar. “General Affairs will need to begin a sweep, but we can’t signal to our enemies that we’ve discovered their scheme. Not yet.”

He looked to Sephiroth, then Angeal, then finally Genesis.

“Which means we continue forward under the pretense that the Accord is unshaken. Meanwhile, you find out who this impostor was working for. Quietly.”

Genesis’s eyes lit faintly with renewed purpose. “Understood.”

“No dramatics,” Lazard warned, already pulling on his coat.

Genesis gave a dour sigh. “No dramatics,” he echoed. “Just quiet devastation.”

Angeal moved to Lazard’s side. “I’ll get you there safely. We should avoid surface routes.”

They had a solid plan, but it failed to account for one thing: Tori Sutton.

She stood blinking in the center of the bar, her posture rigid now, as though only just realizing her own body was still armed. The gun remained slack in her grip, barrel lowered, but her fingers curled around it like she wasn’t sure how it had ended up there. Sephiroth reached out, pressing his hand gently to the weapon until she released it without resistance.

“I—” she started, then stopped.

Her mouth opened again, but no words came.

She looked down at her hands as if they might answer for her.

Then she whispered, hoarse: “I meant to grab the squirt bottle. The one by the office plant. In the hallway. I left it there after… after Choufluer. Genesis said something rude and—”

She winced, her hands lifting to her temples. “I thought I had time to correct it. To scold him like before. But this time it wasn’t water.”

Her voice cracked, horror dawning slowly like a slow cloud overtaking a windowpane.

“I reached for my gun,” she realized in horror. “I pointed it at him. I almost shot him!”

The bartender, still frozen near the shelves, let out a tiny whimper at that.

Tori caught the sound and turned toward it, suddenly ashamed. “Gods. I scared her.”

“You scared all of us,” added Genesis glibly.

Sephiroth gently stepped into her line of sight again. “You’re not in your right frame of mind,” he said quietly, voice dipping low so only she could hear. “Your drink was laced.”

“I know,” she said.

That gave him pause.

She looked up at him with that same foggy determination he had witness last night. That uncanny clarity she summoned under pressure—only now it was warped by chemicals.

“That’s why I tested it,” she said.

He blinked. “You what?”

“I tested it. I had the solution. In my holster.” She turned to gesture vaguely toward the bar. “I used the solution to test the drink. It turned blue, so I didn’t drink the rest of it.”

“Where did you get that?” he asked carefully.

Tori hesitated, blinking too slowly again. Her expression shifted—confusion, then guilt.

“…From my predecessor,” she said finally, almost in a whisper.

Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed. “The one who held your post before you?”

She shook her head. “Not that one. She gave me a list of things to watch for. How to use the solution to check the communal coffee in the office for poison.”

A silence passed between the others.

Genesis raised his brows. “Well. Looks like we’re not the only ones with secrets. Apparently Ms. Sutton has been playing a longer game than any of us gave her credit for.”

Sephiroth looked at her again—longer this time. With new weight behind his stare.

“General,” she mumbled, her voice thinner now, “please stop spinning. You’re going to make me sick.”

Her balance faltered again. Sephiroth caught her elbow before she could sway too far, steadying her with a hand to her back.

She sagged slightly, her weight momentarily leaning into him as if her body had forgotten its own limits. Her breath came uneven, and her forehead pinched in discomfort. Sephiroth adjusted his stance, grounding them both without thought.

The others stayed silent, giving her space, but he could feel the collective tension in the room recalibrate.

She stirred.

“Oh gods,” she whispered. “What have I done? I pointed a gun at a SOLDIER.”

“You aimed it at Genesis,” Sephiroth said calmly. “And he knows how to duck.”

At the bar, Genesis lifted two fingers in a mock salute. “A fact I’ve proven far too often.”

Tori groaned and covered her face with both hands. “I’m going to be fired.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m going to be sued.”

“You won’t.”

“I’m going to jail!”

“You’re not going to jail,” Sephiroth said. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “You’re fine.”

She peeked out between her fingers, eyes glassy. “Do I need to throw up? I can. I’d rather not. I only took a few sips. After what I said… declining felt rude.”

Her words blurred toward the end, soft and spiraling. Then her legs gave a lurch. Her hand landed squarely on his abdomen, palm splayed like she was testing the structural integrity of a wall.

“Blast door,” she murmured with a frown.

And then, without warning, she leaned into him, folding like a collapsible chair. The top of her head just brushed his sternum. She sagged into his frame—unguarded and unaware.

Sephiroth went still.

Across from him, Genesis tilted his head in undisguised interest.

“Well,” he murmured, “she’s gone full reboot.”

Angeal cleared his throat. “Probably shouldn’t come back with us to headquarters.”

“No,” Sephiroth agreed flatly.

“She also shouldn’t be left alone,” Genesis added, drumming his fingers along the bar. “She’s already mistaken a Glock for a spray bottle. Imagine what she would do with a paper shredder?”

“She didn’t drink the full dose,” Sephiroth said. “But her system’s still reacting.”

Lazard hesitated. “Would it be safer to take her to the medical bay?”

“Unwise,” Angeal said, sounding regretful. “She might compromise our intelligence while under the influence. If we want to keep things under wraps, she should lay low.”

“Can we disguise her as a cadet and smuggle her through the parking garage?” Genesis offered instead, already half-serious. “Put a helmet on her, maybe armor. No one questions armor.”

“No,” Sephiroth replied. “And you’re not helping.”

“Technicalities,” Genesis muttered, folding his arms.

Sephiroth glanced at Tori again. She had become increasingly groggy, her cheek pillowing against his chest while her arms were folded up in front of her by his arm. She let out a frustrated sigh.

“This is absurd,” Genesis said. “We’ve been trained to neutralize enemy combatants, for crying out loud—coordinate counterstrikes—infiltrate hostile infrastructure. And we’re stalled by a five-foot-four administrator who’s high as a kite?”

Tori blinked slowly. “I can hear you, you know.”

Genesis lifted a hand. “Respectfully, Ms. Sutton, I assumed your brain was in safe mode.”

Sephiroth exhaled once through his nose.

He knew where this was going. He could feel it, unspoken, drifting in their direction like the powder dust still settling in the air.

“Someone will need to monitor her,” Lazard said. “Until the sedative clears her system.”

All three turned toward him.

Sephiroth stared back.

Genesis grinned, far too pleased. “Well, since you’re the one with all the medical certifications—”

“I’m not,” Sephiroth cut in.

“—and the most experience with field triage—”

“Still not.”

“—and since she so obviously trusts you,” Genesis finished, eyes glittering with mischief.

Sephiroth said nothing. He could feel the migraine beginning to bloom behind his right eye.

Angeal clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

“She’s harmless,” Genesis added. “If you keep that gun away from her, that is.”

Tori, still dazed, raised a hand politely. “I don’t feel so good.”

Sephiroth held her upright as she bobbed, and in that moment, the decision was made.

Lazard nodded once. “Good. Then we proceed as planned.”

And just like that, Midgar’s most feared weapon was left holding their poisoned administrative assistant, as they vanished into the morning light.

Sephiroth exhaled through his nose.

His gaze slid to the bartender, who had gone very still—half-crouched near the lower shelves, trying to blend in with the liquor bottles like prey in tall grass.

“Don’t cause any trouble,” Sephiroth said quietly. His voice was calm, but it cut through the space like a drawn blade. “If you’re smart, you’ll forget all of this. Understood?”

She nodded so quickly her hair fell loose from behind her ear.

Satisfied, he turned his attention to the woman in his arms.

“Come on, Ms. Sutton. Let’s get you home.”

Chapter Text

“Power doesn’t raise its voice. It lowers its guard.”

Genesis had performed a small miracle by leaving his motorcycle behind.

Sephiroth suspected it was intentional—the keys conspicuously resting atop the saddle, the engine still warm, parked at an angle too precise to be casual. A silent nudge from a man who preferred drama over practicality, but who knew when to make an exception.

He mounted first, then braced Tori between his arms, easing her onto the seat in front of him. She swayed once, then settled, her hands awkwardly clutching the front of his coat. Her head lolled forward against his chest. From this vantage, she looked less like an administrative war hawk and more like a sleeping flame—soft and dangerous in equal measure.

He leaned down, voice near her ear.

“Where do you live, Ms. Sutton?”

Tori blinked sluggishly. “Mmm… Pendrel.”

“And?”

“…Fifth Avenue.”

He committed the details to memory, surprised by how close it was—barely a stone’s throw from headquarters. Close enough that she could commute on foot or catch the public shuttle in under ten minutes.

He gunned the engine.

The motorcycle cut a clean path through Midgar’s morning congestion, weaving between stalled sedans, delivery trucks, and pedestrians like a needle pulling thread through city fabric. No one challenged them. People moved aside instinctively—for the stream of silver hair across his back, or the speed of his bike.

Shinra Tower loomed behind them, casting long shadows that swallowed everything in its periphery. Her neighborhood was a crush of competing ambitions. Law offices, architectural firms, and skyrise apartments all grappled for prestige. Her complex, nestled between them, was modest by comparison.

Sephiroth pulled into a narrow alley flanking the building, tires skimming loose gravel as he brought the motorcycle to a slow stop. The engine ticked faintly as it cooled.

He dismounted first.

Then, wordlessly, he reached for her.

Tori came to him without protest, her limbs heavy with exhaustion, one arm draping his shoulders as he guided her upright. Her heels scuffed against the pavement, the fabric of her blazer catching against his gloves as he adjusted her weight.

“Is this the right place?”

A monument sign near the entrance read The Railspoke.

She nodded. “I’m on the third floor.”

Sephiroth assessed the complex, trained to read the shape of a building as easily as the posture of an enemy combatant. As he stepped beneath the iron trellis, he shifted his pace to accommodate Tori as she leaned against him for support. From a diffuser nestled near the mailboxes, the scent of synthetic rosemary curled through the air, blending uneasily with the sharp tang of motor oil and the humid trace of warm concrete rising from the alley. It was a fragrance that didn’t quite belong—a perfumed veneer layered over the swill of Midgar’s industry.

The building was old, unmistakably civilian. Unlike the utilitarian severity of Shinra’s posh apartments or the featureless barracks assigned to Second and Third Class recruits, this place bore the imprint of daily life. He was accustomed to metallic keypads, elevators so smooth they made no sound, and quarters so impersonal they could be sterilized between occupants without ever disturbing a thing. Field camps were even more austere: a canvas tent, a bed roll, grey linen that smelled faintly of plastic and nothing else. Those accommodations were not meant to be inhabited, only endured.

This one, though, was inviting.

Inside, the air was warm and fragrant, tinged with worn wood and a note of something herbal. Threadbare rugs softened the creaking hardwood beneath their feet, their patterns faded from time. The lighting cast a golden haze, gentle but imperfect. Art lined the walls in mismatched frames: a pressed print of Wutai in bloom, a watercolor of chocobos grazing at twilight, and what appeared to be a child’s painting, carefully matted in construction paper and proudly displayed like a relic.

He said nothing as they ascended the stairs, but his attention drifted from detail to detail, not out of vigilance but fascination. He had never been inside a woman’s home without pretext. What encounters he had were contained within hotel suites, buffered by cocktails and intent too shallow to outlast the sunrise. They were curated, clinical, and ultimately disposable. There was no curiosity in those rooms. Only an efficient indulgence, followed by swift departure.

And for the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt the unfamiliar tug of hesitation—like standing at the threshold of something he wasn’t entirely prepared to enter.

They reached her door, the last along a narrow hallway flanked by two other apartments. The paint had chipped at the corners. A brass number plate tilted sideways, as if it had long since abandoned the ambition of formality. A welcome mat lay askew at the threshold, its edges curled from use. Stamped across it in fading letters were the words Bless This Mess.

Beside the door, a ceramic planter hung by a jute cord. It held a modest arrangement of dried lavender and something suspiciously artificial—brightly colored and vaguely floral, the kind of addition meant to signal whimsy or optimism in a place that otherwise demanded neither.

Sephiroth looked at it all—the mat, the planter, the door that sagged slightly on its hinges—and understood immediately. This was hers. Not in the abstract sense of mailboxes and utility bills, but in the small, tangible details that said someone lived here with intention. That someone returned here each day and, for better or worse, let the world fall away.

Tori approached the door with purpose, pulling a keycard from her holster. She held it up to the deadbolt, tapped the metal twice with all the certainty of a woman scanning clearance into a secured vault.

Nothing.

She tried again—slower this time, more intentional—her brow furrowing like she expected the lock to catch on and apologize for the delay.

“I doubt your ID badge works this far from the office,” he intoned wryly.

Tori froze mid-scan. She looked down at her badge. Then at the lock. Then back at the badge.

Her eyes widened in slow, dawning horror.

“Oh no,” she whispered, as if Shinra Tower itself might hear. “Oh gods, no. My house key!”

She turned to him, stricken. “It’s in my purse. At the office. With my backup key. And my everything key!”

There was a beat.

“Do you think,” she added gravely, “you could take me back?”

Sephiroth stared at her.

“To headquarters.”

He blinked once.

“To get my purse.”

Sephiroth exhaled.

The quicker they got inside, the less likely they were to encounter a nosy neighbor with prying eyes and probing questions.

He stepped forward and tested the knob. One firm twist, a flick of pressure beneath the plate, and the lock gave with a soft crack.

Tori gasped. “You broke my door.”

“Yes.”

“You’re porcelain in a bull shop.”

He glanced at her. “You mean a bull in a porcelain shop.”

“That’s what I said.”

He pressed the door open. “Yes, you did.”

Inside was warmth. The kind of warmth no mako reactor could imitate. The scent of crushed herbs clung to the air. Tea tins lined the windowsill in the kitchen. Paperbacks leaned together like sleeping animals on a low shelf. Nothing about it was curated or sterile.

He ducked to pass through the open doorway, pauldron grazing the frame. The walls closed in around him like a second skin. The closeness of the space was startling.

Tori made a valiant attempt for the floral couch placed in the center of the room, but her body veered in the opposite direction. He caught her gently, adjusting her path.

“Bedroom?” he offered.

She nodded, lifting a hand in a vague gesture toward the single doorway beyond the sitting area.

Her bedroom was small but not cramped, softened by light filtering through gauzy curtains. Sunlight pooled across the bed in a warm, golden wash, catching on the folds of a featherdown comforter. Sephiroth guided her forward until the bedding gave beneath her weight with a soft sigh.

Almost immediately, Tori began fumbling with the buckle cinched around her waist. It was obvious she would need to remove the blazer first before she could even begin to work the harness free—though that logic wasn’t quite reaching her through the haze. Her fingers tugged without coordination, stubborn but ineffective.

“I have too much stuff on,” she huffed, exasperated.

Sephiroth lingered, fingers flexing at his sides.

Bringing her home and putting her to bed should have been a perfunctory task. But Tori was not some charming ninety-year-old lady in need of assistance, nor a drunken cadet on liberty.

She was young. Beautiful. And, in this moment, utterly and categorically off-limits.

Her skirt had ridden up, revealing the dark band of thigh-high stockings snug against her leg. Her blouse hung open at the collar—the same one she’d unfastened earlier to tend to his wound. Now, in the stillness, he could see the delicate line of her throat, the pale slope of her breast where the fabric gave way. He should have looked away.

But he didn’t.

He stood frozen—not with lust, but something murkier. Fascination. The kind that didn’t just want her but wanted to understand her. The kind that made him wonder what she would remember, come morning, and what she would think of him when she did.

He swallowed hard.

“Would you like help getting more comfortable?” he asked, his voice too calm to be natural.

It was a test. An offer he hoped she would decline, sparing him from his own torment. From the way her nearness softened everything he was trying to keep cold and detached.

But Tori didn’t decline.

She hummed thoughtfully, and said, “Yes, please.”

He remained where he was. His gaze dropped to the button of her blazer, then returned to her face. Heat filled his chest. Not from desire, but from the weight of her trust. She had given it to him without question and that, somehow, felt heavier than any temptation.

Tori, half-lounged across the bed, watched him through heavy lashes. There was amusement in her eyes. She was lucid enough to recognize his hesitation, and playful enough to exploit it.

“Come on, Trooper,” she coaxed him lightly.

The taunt hit him like a jolt—teasing, impertinent, far too casual for the tension crackling under his skin. His pulse flinched in his throat.

He exhaled once, sharp and controlled, and reached for the switch buried deep in his conditioning. The one that suppressed emotion and narrowed his world to the task at hand.

SOLDIER mode.

With a slow, clinical assessment, he focused only on what needed to be removed to ease her discomfort. Aware that any actions he took now might cause her regret when the haze wore off.

He unfastened the button of her blazer and slipped it down her shoulders, one arm at a time. Then her shoes, undoing the delicate buckles, freeing them from her ankles.

“You should invest in better footwear,” he murmured absently.

“These are the better ones.”

She said it with such casual finality that Sephiroth assumed the conversation had ended there.

It had not.

Before he could rise or shift his focus, she moved. Without warning, she hooked her thumb beneath the band of her thigh-high and began peeling it down. The pale column of her leg filled his field of vision in a flash of movement—unexpected and absurdly intimate.

She thrust it toward him, unabashed.

“Ms. Sutton—” he said sharply, voice catching in his throat like he’d been ambushed by a flash grenade. His eyes darted up—not down—trying to reclaim the high ground of decorum he was rapidly losing.

“See?” she declared, tone oddly triumphant as she extended her leg higher, toes touching his pauldron. “I told you I had a scar. Ran past a razor when I was little and it caught me here.”

Realization dawned on him.

“I once glued my leg shut with superglue after a razor incident. Cleaned it with Junon gin. I would offer to show you the scar, but I’ve had a long day.”

That was weeks ago when she had sat across from him in his office, requesting reconnaissance on Lazard and the vocational hazards in SOLDIER. She hadn’t wavered when he rattled off threats, everything from lie detectors to mako spills.

She had asked for the truth. And he had withheld it.

“You didn’t trust me enough to tell me then, did you?” she murmured, her voice softer than before—but carrying the weight of something bruised.

Sephiroth said nothing at first.

He gently caught her ankle and lowered her leg back onto the bed. His gaze lingered for a moment on the faint scar just above the outer edge of her knee.

“It was your first week,” he said, “You can’t blame me for wanting to spare you the darker truth.”

As he spoke, his hands moved to the clasp of her harness. The leather was worn in places from daily use. He unbuckled it, avoiding contact with her as best he could. When the final strap came free, he eased the weight from her torso and brought the harness to rest over his thigh.

The handgun was still in his pocket from earlier.

Without a word, he withdrew it and tucked it back inside its leather compartment.

“It wasn’t a reflection of your aptitude,” he added, voice quieter now. “We were protecting you.”

She huffed, sharp and bitter. Her hand reached for her hair and tugged the tie free.

“General,” she muttered, “I’ve been poisoned.”

“Drugged.”

“Same thing.”

“No,” he replied. “If you were poisoned, you would be rushed to medical for a toxicology intervention. Your fast thinking prevented that scenario. Likely, you’ll be able to sleep this off with a minor headache.” Sephiroth paused, remembering the amber tincture bottle. “Earlier at the bar, you said your predecessor left you instructions on how to test for poison.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“How?”

Tori reached toward her harness for a small inner pouch. She tugged it open and retrieved a scrap of yellowed paper—folded, softened at the edges, the ink faded but legible. She held it out to him wordlessly.

He took it, unfolding the note.

To my dear successor—

If you’re reading this, then two things are true: you have found the pen tray, and no one’s checked this drawer in over a year. That bodes… oddly well for you.

There are three rules which, if followed with even moderate consistency, may keep your tenure long—and survivable:

1. Decline any and all requests involving security badge reorders. Trust me on this.
2. Assume all communal coffee is laced with poison. Use the test solution I’ve left for you. (Next to the whiteout bottle in the top left cubby.)
3. Never turn your back on Ferris. Especially if he’s smiling. Especially if he isn’t.

This was the only communiqué I managed to sneak past Internal Review without it being censored, reclassified, or inexplicably converted into a pie chart.

There’s more. Of course there is. But not all at once. Consider this your first breadcrumb.

Good Luck.

—R

Sephiroth read it twice, eyes narrowing.

Ferris Knox. Badge reorders. A hidden solution tucked beside a whiteout bottle.

Someone had tried to warn her. Or perhaps, more accurately, someone had tried to warn whoever came after them—and Tori had simply inherited the consequences. A quiet alert passed through his system like the slow tightening of wire. He would need to ask Lazard if he remembered any prior assistants with a name starting with “R.”

Because whoever this woman was, she had been aware of the situation before even he or Lazard recognized the pattern.

And now, clearly, so did Tori.

He glanced at her again—her face slack with drowsiness, but her expression simmering beneath it. How many nights had she stayed awake rereading that note? How many coffees had she tested with a pipette, alone in that too-bright office? How much fear had she swallowed because no one had given her a reason to trust them?

He felt the weight of that misstep like a blade balanced wrong in his grip.

“You were right to be upset,” he said finally.

Her anger crackled softly in the space between them.

“Do you think I’m overstepping?”

The question was pointed. But it wasn’t about the note. It was about Genesis. About the bar. About that brief, volatile exchange where loyalty had been called into question.

Sephiroth tensed.

He hadn’t appreciated Genesis’ provocation, though he understood its purpose. The deeper Tori ventured into their world, the more blurred the line between outsider and operative would become. Genesis wanted her to feel that blur. To recognize it early.

Still… it had been unnecessarily cruel.

“Genesis lacks tact,” Sephiroth said evenly, voice devoid of judgment. “But he wasn’t wrong. SOLDIER bleeds into everything. It changes the shape of your life. It’s unfair to expect a civilian to bear that weight.”

Tori’s eyes met his. Heavy-lidded but startlingly clear, even beneath the haze of Brizaphine.

“Is that all I am?” she asked, her voice quieter now. “A civilian?”

The question landed harder than he expected.

There was pain in it.

The pain of someone who had done everything to prove they belonged, only to have it discounted with a single word.

“No,” he said quickly. “Not at all. If anything, you’re an enigma.”

That stopped her short. She parted her lips to respond but faltered. Whatever she had intended to say dissipated beneath a flicker of uncertainty, her brows knitting in thought.

His expression softened.

“It’s been a difficult morning,” he offered. “We can discuss this more when you’re lucid.” He paused, then added, “You can scold me later if you wish.”

He rose, shifting his weight as if to give her space.

But her hand stopped him.

“Wait.”

Her fingers caught the hem of his boot, slipping just beneath the leather as if she could hold him in place by will alone. He stilled.

She looked up at him, entirely unguarded now.

From where he stood, she was devastating. Red hair spilled across her shoulder in tousled waves. The warm lamplight gilded her bare skin in a soft, golden glow. Her fingers curled loosely under his boot, like a ribbon attempting to anchor him in place.

Something in his stomach turned—hot, weightless, and dangerous.

He swallowed against it.

“I’m not angry with you,” she whispered, her gaze fixed on his. “I understand why you chose not to tell me. I do. I just—” She faltered, eyes flicking to the space between them as if searching for the right words. “Genesis asked me why I cared so much, and I couldn’t answer him. But…”

Her breath hitched softly.

“I could tell you… if you’ll listen.”

Sephiroth knew he should have stopped her right there. To remind her that anything said under the influence might cause unnecessary heartache later. He had already exhausted the limits of propriety and had no business sifting through her mind in this compromised state.

Yet he remained, suspended between instinct and impulse, arrested by the trembling sincerity in her voice. Part of him, perhaps the part he kept most protected, wanted to hear it. To know who she was beneath the polished veneer.

Carefully, he unhooked her fingers from the hem of his boot. Her palm was warm through the leather of his glove, her grip light but instinctive. As if part of her still feared he might vanish if she let go.

He sat on the edge of her bed, slow and controlled. One hand braced to the far side of her waist, close but not touching. His presence hovered, a fortress just shy of contact. It was the most he could allow himself.

“The reason I care…” she began, faltering.

She stared at him for a long moment.

And then—slowly—she reached for him.

Sephiroth went still. Every nerve in his body tensed like a tripwire. This was it. She was going to do something she would later regret, and he would be forced to bear the consequences. He cursed himself for sitting this close. For not standing. For every decision that had placed him within arm’s reach of a woman on Brizaphine with nothing to lose and too much honesty.

But her hands didn’t reach his face.

They passed his collar.

And without warning, she gathered his hair and swept it forward in a way that reminded him of curtains drawn against the sun. The silver strands spilled across his chest, partially obscuring his skin and buckles.

“There,” she murmured, almost to herself. “That’s better. Less distracting.”

Sephiroth blinked, visibly thrown.

A beat passed.

“If it were just your looks,” she added, quieter now, “this would be easier.”

Her gaze drifted lower, to the line of his chest where she’d laid his hair, as if that simple gesture had allowed her to speak what she had been holding back.

“I tried to ignore it,” she murmured. “Tried to reframe it as professional admiration. I even told myself it was temporary. That it would fade once I got my bearings. But then you spoke to me in the training deck the way you did last night, and…”

Her lip caught between her teeth. She exhaled once, then blurted:

“At the risk of annihilating any regard you have for me, sir, I feel you should know that… I have a mutual interest in you.” Her words came out in a rush, as if the sentence itself might combust if she let it breathe too long. “Maybe even more so from my end.”

A pause.

Then, as if horrified by her own candor, she reclined against the pillows and dragged a hand over her face, hiding behind her fingers like a child caught in the act.

Sephiroth blinked.

Of all the scenarios his mind had gamed out—confrontations, projections, awkward misunderstandings—this wasn’t one he had prepared for. It was too direct. Too honest.

“I realize that makes me a walking HR violation,” she continued, hiding behind her hand as a soft rogue spread up her neck, “and one among your countless admirers whom you keep at bay. My thought was that if I stayed professional, it would burn itself out quietly. But it’s not. It’s only getting worse.”

He didn’t speak.

Not right away.

The moment called for stillness, and he gave it—letting her hide behind her hand, letting her heart race and second-guess the courage that had brought her this far. Her hand stayed fixed like a makeshift shield, but he could still see the faint flush blooming at her cheek.

She had not meant to hand herself to him so plainly, so unguarded. And yet she had.

He let the silence cradle them both.

Then, gently—

“...Is this your way of saying you’re a super fan?”

Tori made a sound of pure mortification, turning from him abruptly as she yanked a pillow over her face with the desperation of someone trying to disappear altogether.

A real smile softened his gaze.

“Ms. Sutton,” he said, shifting slightly on the bed to face her more directly, “may I ask something?”

She didn’t emerge from the pillow, but he continued anyway.

“You said earlier that if it were just my looks, this would be easier. What did you mean by that?”

There was a beat of hesitation. Then the pillow shifted, lowered—just enough for her eyes to peek out from behind it, wary but willing.

She exhaled through her nose.

“I meant,” she began, “that attraction would be simpler if it were only skin-deep. If it started and stopped at your face, or your rank, or… the way you move when you fight.”

She glanced away for a moment, collecting herself. Then met his gaze again, softer now.

“But it’s not that. Not for me.”

She hugged the pillow to herself, turning to face him.

“You’re kind,” she said at last, the words small but meaningful. “Not in the way people think you would be. It’s quiet. Earnest. You notice things most people overlook.”

She smiled faintly.

“You’re also fair. And yes—gods help me—you’re perceptive to the point of being infuriating.”

That drew a sharper breath from her, a laugh almost, but it dimmed quickly into something quieter.

“But more than any of that… you show up in the ways that matter. Something I’ve begun to rely on.”

Sephiroth tilted his head, the corner of his mouth lifting with something that tried to pass for amusement but didn’t quite make it.

“Everything you’ve just described,” he said, “that isn’t me at all.”

His eyes stayed on her, steady and unsparing.

“I’m not kind—or fair. And I don’t show up unless I’m ordered to.”

Tori paused.

Then she let out an incredulous snort.

“Please,” she said, almost disparagingly. “If you’re going to lie to me, General, at least make it sound convincing. I may be intoxicated, but I’m still as sharp as a marble.”

“You mean a tack?”

“That’s what I said.”

That startled a laugh out of him—real and unguarded.

He leaned back slightly, covering his eyes with a hand, fingers slipping through his hair as if to ground himself. When he looked at her again, the smile had faded, but something raw lingered behind his expression.

“Well,” he murmured, voice quieter now, “I’d be remiss if I didn’t confess—if there’s kindness in me, or fairness, or any trace of patience… they don’t exist in the wild.”

He held her gaze.

“They only surface around you.”

The silence that followed was heavy, but not cold. It pulsed between them like a wire drawn too tight.

Tori didn’t fill it immediately. She studied him instead—her brow faintly furrowed, like she could see the mask he had just confessed to breaking.

“If it weren’t for you stepping in that day… in the breakroom,” she added, “I would’ve asked for my old position back in the Service Center. I had high hopes about my promotion, but as Bret Donahue kindly pointed out, I lack experience and credentials. In short, I’m a nobody trying to be a somebody. I suppose that’s why Genesis got under my skin at the bar. He’s right in a lot of ways.”

“No,” Sephiroth said, the word firm enough to still the room. “He’s not. And he’s not allowed to get under your skin. From this moment onward, you are to ignore him exactly as I do.”

“Sir?”

“Ms. Sutton,” he said quietly, “it’s precisely your honesty in moments like this that grip me. You forget—I’m in your debt, too. Without you, the Azure Accord would’ve died in committee. Lazard might’ve died in that elevator fire. And I…”

He hesitated, but only for a breath.

“…I might still be operating under the illusion that this life has to be sterile just to remain intact.”

She blinked up at him, her lips parting.

“You’re genuine,” he continued. “That’s rare in my world. You might try to blend in with my countless adoring fans… but I’d still spot you in the crowd.”

Her cheeks flushed, vivid and lovely in the low light.

“Is this all that holds you back?” he asked quietly. “Fear of blurring the lines?”

She nodded, slower this time. “It has to,” she murmured, her voice softening with fatigue. “If I give into my feelings, it’ll only complicate matters. We have responsibilities to uphold.”

Her eyes drifted shut for a moment as she spoke, then fluttered open again—heavy-lidded, glassy with sleep.

He brushed a knuckle along her temple, then let it trail gently into her hair.

“If that’s the only wall between us…” he murmured, “I’ve leveled worse.”

Her eyes widened faintly, startled by the boldness of his tone—but her reaction was delayed, like she was trying to process the words through thick fog.

He softened it with a small smile.

“I’m not afraid of red tape. Or scandal. Or anyone who thinks I should be.”

She let out a small laugh that tapered off before it fully landed. Her hand curled slightly in the blankets, fingers twitching.

“You shouldn’t…” she began, but it came out as more breath than sound. She blinked, trying to fight the pull of sleep. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why?”

Her eyes barely opened. “Because I’ll be more inclined to hope,” she whispered, already drifting. “And you’ll be stuck.”

He exhaled softly.

“I’ve been stuck since that moment in the breakroom,” he said, low and sure. “You’re just now catching up.”

And then, gently, Sephiroth rose from her bedside, folding the comforter securely over her body before quietly adjusting the corner that had slipped from her shoulder. The room had dimmed slightly from an overcast sky, gold giving way to a deep blue haze. He cast one final glance toward her, chest rising in a slow, steady rhythm, her lips parted slightly in sleep.

She looked peaceful.

He shut the door behind him with care, turning the handle so it wouldn’t click. The noise in the living room felt distant. Cotton-wrapped. As if the whole world had drawn back its claws.

But his thoughts…

They were in fifty places at once.

Tori’s voice. Her hand in his. That quiet, defiant confession: Maybe even more so from my end. Her warmth. Her blunt honesty. That damn blush up her neck.

It was… a lot.

And “a lot” was not something Sephiroth often admitted to feeling.

He moved through her apartment not as a tactician, but as something more precarious—a man caught off his axis, untethered from the rhythms that usually held him together. Her voice still echoed in his mind, every syllable settling like dust on a battlefield he hadn’t realized he was crossing. Whether it was the hours of adrenaline, the absence of sleep, or the unfamiliar weight of something dangerously close to feeling, he couldn’t tell. Only that he wasn’t ready for any of it.

His instincts screamed to act—to do. Fix the lock he’d broken, replace the door entirely. Embed the frame with protective wards, call Lazard about the note in her desk, organize a sweep of the office and the surrounding facilities. Assign a driver. Ensure her safety. Archive and eliminate whatever threat had placed her in harm’s way. He wanted to run across the rooftops just to burn off the irrational pull to fortify her life against the world.

But none of that made it to his hands.

Instead, they hung loose at his sides as he drifted into the living room like a ghost, brushing past the hutch and the threadbare rug. The floral sofa met him there—humble, lopsided, too mauve for its own good.

He stared at it for a moment, then lowered himself carefully, one hand braced against the cushion as if it might buck under his weight. It didn’t. It welcomed him like something that had seen long days and longer nights.

The silence closed around him.

A blanket was slung across the arm. A book, dog-eared at the halfway point, sat beside a teacup still stained faintly at the rim. Everything in the room reminded him, with quiet certainty, that this space belonged to someone who lived, and tried, and hoped.

He sat deeper.

The tension unspooled from his shoulders in slow, reluctant increments. He closed his eyes, just for a breath, and felt the ticking of a clock behind him, the hum of a neighbor’s pipe. Somewhere outside, a windchime rang—too delicate for Midgar.

He ran a hand through his hair, sweeping it back and letting it fall where it wanted, a silken wave trailing down his side. His other arm crossed over his chest. He sat like that for a while—centered, leaned back. As if trying to contain something too large for the moment.

Then…

A smile.

It crept in, almost without his permission. Small, private. The kind of grin a man allowed himself when no one was looking. He shook his head slightly, as if chastising the warmth pooling in his chest, but he didn’t banish it.

Not this time.

And slowly, irresistibly, the weight of exhaustion overtook him.

Chapter Text

“Scrimper meals are the poetry of the working class—

improvised, resilient, and made with the kind of devotion

 no silver spoon could ever serve.”

Tori woke in a haze.

The first thing she registered was the heat. Her comforter was stifling, thick as a weighted cloud pressing against her limbs. She groaned and kicked it off with a sluggish jerk, blinking up at the low-lit ceiling as the pounding in her skull caught up with her.

Gods, her head.

She turned on her side and squinted at the blurry digits of her alarm clock.

5:36 P.M.

A strange pang settled in her stomach. That couldn’t be right. Had she slept through the whole day? The last thing she remembered was—

Wait.

Her holster lay on the floor beside the bed, neatly placed next to her heels. That wasn’t like her. She had a designated shoe rack and hanger by the front door. And the white blouse she wore was rumpled against her body. Not her usual sleep wear. She wasn’t even in her own clothes.

“What the hell,” she croaked, cradling her forehead.

Each movement made her brain slosh unpleasantly in her skull. She staggered upright and padded barefoot to the bedroom door, throat dry as ash. Water. She needed water and maybe six painkillers. Then, and only then, she would unravel how she had gotten home without any memory of doing so.

The apartment was cloaked in amber, the kind that blurred edges and deepened shadows. Rush hour traffic rumbled beyond her curtained window, muffled by the walls but still insistent. She moved on instinct, half blind and faintly buzzing, toward the kitchen, her mouth already salivating in anticipation of an ice-cold glass of water.

But something made her stop.

A shape.

A shadow, too large for her sofa.

Her body caught up before her brain did—every nerve freezing in place, her breath hitching in her throat.

Someone was here.

Someone was sleeping here.

Her lungs remembered how to function just long enough to make a strangled noise. A sharp, involuntary gasp that tore itself from her chest like a fire alarm.

That was all it took.

In a blur, the shadow surged upright.

Purple-black vapor erupted from his palm, and a longsword exploded into being with a low, visceral hum that made the walls rattle and shake. The blade swept upward—far too long for the cramped space—and impaled the corner of her hutch with a dull thwack.

A figurine wobbled precariously at the edge. Her Sector 5 sunbathing moogle teetered.

Then tipped.

Tori’s instincts launched her into motion. “Oh no—!”

She lunged, but her foot caught the edge of the rug—just enough to send her forward with momentum she couldn’t redirect. Her shin clipped the coffee table with a painful thud, and in the chaos, her bare foot struck the falling figurine with a soft but decisive punt.

It sailed.

Clipped Sephiroth’s wrist guard with a ceramic clink.

He reached for it. She reached for it. Their hands collided midair, both scrambling in vain.

Too late.

The moogle hit the floor and cracked clean in two, its sunhat rolling away like the final insult.

Then, silence.

A hot, humming silence, thick as fog.

Tori froze. She was suddenly, acutely aware of just how close they were.

In her periphery: the glint of silver buckles running along the parted leather, pale skin sheened with sleep-warmth, the muscled dip of his torso half-shadowed by his coat. Her eyes flicked to his hand—to the great length of his sword still embedded in her furniture. And then to the ceramic at their feet, bisected neatly in two.

She was barefoot, in one disheveled stocking. He stood tall, composed, deadly—his boots bracketing her feet against the rug, dwarfing them in comparison. Her pulse skipped.

For a moment, Tori wasn’t in her apartment at all, but a dream. One where she was waking up to find a panther in her living room. Handsome. Barely awake. Confused why she was standing there, gaping.

Her brain offered no appropriate protocol to salvage the situation. What protocol did one rely on when discovering Sephiroth in their living room with his sword rammed through their décor?

The absurdity and unreleased fear cracked all at once.

Tori let out a strangled sound that, somehow, became laughter. Not a polite chuckle, but full-bodied, uncontainable mirth that doubled her over as tears pricked her eyes. She clutched her stomach, wheezing.

Sephiroth tensed, dislodging Masamune from the hutch with a subtle jerk of his arm. A few paperbacks slipped from the shelves, incriminating him further as he quickly evaporated the sword into smoke.

Cautiously, he reached for her.

She hiccupped between peals of laughter, waving a shaky hand. “It’s alright. I’m okay. I hated that thing.”

Another wheeze. “It was supposed to be ironic.”

Sephiroth remained tense. He brought one hand to his face, dragging it down slowly, as if unsure whether to look sheepish or scandalized.

His boots angled for the door.

“Wait,” she wheezed, reaching out blindly. “Wait—It’s alright. Really.” She wiped her eyes, still laughing, breath catching. “Forgive me. I seem to have misplaced my manners.” Another peal escaped her, sharp and winded. “And my sanity,” she squeaked, voice pitching halfway to a wheeze.

Her chest heaved once more, then steadied.

“What are you doing here?”

His eyes searched hers. Wary. Assessing.

“You don’t remember?”

Tori clutched at her blouse, feeling her heart race wildly.

“I remember the wreck… the bar…” she murmured, voice thin with effort. “Having a drink.”

She sobered instantly as the rest came crashing back. “The drink!” she gasped, one hand flying to her temple. “It was drugged!”

“Yes.” He gave a slow nod. “And?”

“And?” she echoed, confused.

“Is that all you remember?”

The way he asked made her pause. It wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t concern. It was caution—measured and deliberate, like someone feeling for the edge of a fracture they weren’t sure had set. A test. And suddenly, Tori had the awful sense that something had happened. Something she should remember but couldn’t.

Her mind scrambled to fill in the blanks. The chopper crash. The wreckage. The adrenaline that had carried them through it. The bar. The confrontation. The poisoned drink. But everything after that unraveled into fragments—snatches of motion and sound that felt more like dream residue than memory. Still, something in Sephiroth’s tone lingered, carrying an implication she couldn’t shake.

Something else had transpired.

She studied him now, eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“I… I remember some heated words with Rhapsodos?” she offered, her voice hitching with uncertainty.

Sephiroth paused. A beat too long.

Then, dryly: “You pulled a gun on him.”

Tori gawked. “I what?”

“You shot the ceiling.”

“I what?” she repeated, strangled.

“I drove you home on Genesis’s motorcycle.”

“You what?” she whispered again.

“Your door was locked. You didn’t have your key, so I broke in and—” He gave the faintest clearing of his throat. “—assisted you to bed.” His gaze drifted, not quite toward the ceiling, not quite toward her. “You ingested enough of the drug to be compromised, so I remained. For your safety.”

He gestured vaguely between them. “Now, we’re here.”

Tori’s pulse was in her throat.

She recalled the way her heels were neatly placed beside her bed, along with how the comforter had been folded over her. Her blazer, the holster, the missing hosiery…

A flush crept hot across her cheeks.

“You… took me to bed?”

“Assisted,” he corrected, voice overly composed. “I assisted you. As stated.”

The words were clipped. Almost bureaucratic. But to Tori, the formality only amplified the silence between the words. He was redacting the narrative to protect her dignity in some way. It was enough to make her stomach pitch.

If she had pulled a gun on Genesis—what else had she done? What else had she said? She had been under the influence the entire way from the bar to her apartment. Being escorted into her building. Undressed, probably—at least partially. Gods. Had she tried to fight him too? Flirt with him? She had no memory of any of it, only that his presence now filled her apartment like lightning before a storm.

This, she realized with a jolt, was what it meant to get what you wanted. To claw your way into SOLDIER’s inner circle and plant your flag among the elite. You earned the right to be seen—truly seen—even when you weren’t at your best. Even when you were stripped of your posture and pinned in the harsh light of your own consequences.

And right now, she wanted nothing more than to vanish into the floorboards.

Broaching the subject was off limits.

Without thinking, she bent and gathered the broken shards of her moogle from the floor, brushing a thumb along one fractured edge. She set them on the hutch, pretending she wasn’t dying inside.

Then, too fast to be casual:

“Well. Seems our good fortune keeps on giving.”

The words were meant to be dry. But they caught in her throat.

She straightened, giving him a glance over her shoulder—a smile laced with modest humor. Her voice came out airier than intended. “And just think, General. If circumstances had gone as planned, you’d be enjoying a perfectly scheduled deployment in Junon right now. Far away from here.”

There. Neatly reframed.

She hoped the sarcasm masked the heat still radiating from her cheeks.

But Sephiroth didn’t take the bait.

His gaze lingered on her, unreadable. Then, the smallest curve pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“Good fortune, indeed.”

Tori faltered.

She had meant it as a throwaway line, something light to pierce the tension. But he had caught it, turned it over, and answered with a sincerity that shook something loose inside her.

Before she could form a response, his gaze shifted to the window as if remembering the responsibilities he had neglected. The burden of obligation passed across his features like a shadow. When he turned back to her, something raw flickered behind his eyes.

“I apologize for startling you,” he said quietly. “I don’t usually sleep that deeply.”

It was the hesitation in his voice that struck her. The way his words held too much weight for something so small. The faint furrow at his brow, the uncharacteristic dishevelment, the edge of weariness around his eyes—it all told her more than his apology did.

Tori’s heart pulled.

“You’ve been staying vigilant this whole time,” she murmured, softer now. “Mostly for my sake.”

She saw it clearly now. He had been running on empty, stretched thin by the wreck and whatever danger he hadn’t yet named. He had taken all of it on without hesitation. And somewhere in the quiet between her safety and the next inevitable crisis, he had finally allowed himself to rest.

Something in her melted.

“You must be starving.” she said, stepping closer. “Allow me to make you something to eat.”

He hesitated, not from pride, but with the look of someone who didn’t quite know how to accept. As if no one had offered him anything freely in longer than he could remember.

Tori lifted her chin a little. “Please.”

At last, after a breath, he nodded.

It wasn’t much. Just a small gesture. But to her, it felt like being trusted with something rare.

And this time, she would carry it. Even if all she had to give in return was a warm plate and an open chair.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tori had spoken boldly earlier, but she had forgotten the sorry state of her groceries.

“Jam… flour… half a stick of butter… a can of luncheon meat?” she muttered, squinting into the dim recesses of her refrigerator as if something respectable might be hiding behind the expiration dates.

She closed the fridge with a soft thud and turned to the pantry. “Some nuts. Cinnamon.” She shoved aside the cornstarch and reached for a brightly wrapped tin. “Pumpkin puree.”

Behind her, Sephiroth stood in profile against the counter, long frame relaxed, glass of water cradled in one hand. He hadn’t said a word, but she could feel his gaze on her. Watching.

Tori stepped onto the small wooden stool tucked beside the pantry, steadying herself with the cabinet handle as she reached for the top shelf. Somewhere behind the waffle iron and an empty mason jar was the bottle she reserved for emergencies.

She found it, still half-full, and wiggled it free.

“This feels like an emergency,” she said under her breath. She uncorked it and took a sniff.

“If you’d prefer,” Sephiroth offered, “I can have dinner delivered.”

“No,” she replied, recorking the bottle and setting it aside. “You’ve already done enough.”

She saw the flicker of protest on his face and softened her tone.

“Besides,” she added with a wry grin, “I happen to be most creative when supplies are low. All I need is a moment.”

She folded her arms and scanned the countertop like it was a puzzle to be solved. Her hands pressed together before her lips in quiet invocation. Then something clicked.

“Waffles,” she declared, snapping her fingers. “Pumpkin waffles. With praline syrup. And hash.”

Sephiroth lifted a brow. Then, to her surprise, gave a small nod of approval.

Tori reached for her apron, looped it around her neck, and tied it neatly at the small of her back. “It won’t take long to throw together. You’re welcome to rest if you’d like.”

But he stepped forward. “Do you have tools? I’d like to repair your door first.”

She blinked, then nearly tripped over her own feet trying to look casual as she crossed the kitchen into the living room. Crouching at the foot of her coat closet, she dragged out an old toolbox wrapped in duct tape with “SUTTON” scribbled across it in faded marker. Inside was a tidy row of screwdrivers, a hammer, wire cutters, and a few rogue wrenches. She handed it over with too much ceremony.

Sephiroth examined it. Then gave her a look that managed to be both deadpan and faintly amused.

“Very good, Ms. Sutton.”

She flushed. It was ridiculous how much warmth bloomed from those four words.

“I also want to ward your apartment,” he added, as though mentioning he needed to change a lightbulb. “With your permission. Given the timing and severity of our situation, I would feel better if you had something beyond a single deadbolt between you and whatever threat might follow you home.”

Too late, she thought, flustered.

One was already standing in her living room. Holding her toolbox no less.

“I’ve never handled materia like that,” she said, brushing her palms along her thighs. “Is it dangerous?”

“Not to you,” Sephiroth said without pause.

The quiet focus of his gaze shimmered like heat above asphalt. Whatever he was thinking, it had little to do with materia and everything to do with her.

She cleared her throat, trying to recenter the moment. “I do have a gun, you know. And shot it with some finesse this morning, yes?”

He inclined his head slightly. “You retained a great deal from our lesson.”

His voice, low and composed, carried a warmth that slipped beneath her skin like sunlight after shade. “You pay very close attention.”

Tori’s breath stuttered in her chest. The current between them hadn’t dulled—it had deepened. Her pulse responded instantly, alert and unsteady. It wasn’t just tension anymore. It was gravity. Magnetic. Inescapable.

Every joke she threw up as a shield was returned to her dressed in silk and heat. Every deflection unraveled in his hands and came back as something that stole her breath.

Since when had he become so impossible to parry?

Since the wreck? The bar? Since she found him asleep on her sofa like a storm pretending to be still?

Now, even silence felt like a dare.

Every word was a wire. Every pause, a pulse. Her body felt tuned to him, nerve by nerve, like they shared the same grid and were waiting for the next flash.

She turned abruptly, the movement sharp and reflexive.

“Dinner,” she blurted. “I should… I need to start dinner.”

Sephiroth turned his attention to the door, and Tori took the opportunity to slip from the living room with all the grace of someone retreating from a handsome devil. Flustered and bewildered.

Back in the kitchen, she flicked on the stove and braced herself against the counter, trying to steady her breath. The burners glowed to life, warming the pan—but all she could hear was the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

She risked a glance into the living room.

And immediately wanted to die.

It wasn’t a disaster—just… her. Laid bare. A half-folded cardigan slumped across the couch like a collapsed body. One lone sock, pink and damning, orphaned near the foot of the coffee table. Three mugs—each in its own stage of caffeinated decay—were stacked beside the armchair in what now resembled a concerning shrine to coffee dependency.

And then she saw it.

The field manual.

Her soul nearly fled her body.

There it was. Its bright red cover peeked out from beneath a dainty floral teacup like it was just another book club pick. Not, in fact, classified contraband stolen from the Shinra archives.

Not the reason a man had been murdered.

She froze.

It had been there the whole time. In plain view. While Sephiroth—Shinra’s war hero, SOLDIER’s highest-ranking operative, the living embodiment of internal compliance—had been sleeping just feet away.

If he’d so much as nudged the cup…

If he’d flipped even one page…

The thought was a needle to the lungs. This wasn’t some forgotten romance paperback or an embarrassing diary entry. This was a smoking gun. Evidence of a cover-up. Of Dockery’s final warning. Of rot threaded straight through the steel bones of Shinra Headquarters.

And she had left it out like a magazine in a waiting room.

Guilt surged so fast she nearly bolted back into the living room—to retrieve him, to confess, to say: I have something I need to tell you, if only to loosen the noose tightening around her neck.

But the words died before they reached her lips.

Because the truth was—she didn’t know what Sephiroth would do with that knowledge.

He had extended her a rare and burgeoning trust. But would this cross the line? Would he see her as a liability? A threat? Worse—would it implicate him for not reporting her?

Would it put him in danger?

Her hand moved before thought could intervene. She snatched the manual like it might bite her and shoved it beneath the nearest cushion with a whispered, frantic, “Nope.”

She patted the upholstery twice. As if that could erase its existence.

The couch looked normal again. Innocuous.

But her guilt did not.

Tori stood there a moment longer, breath shallow, hands slack at her sides.

This went deeper than Lazard.

Deeper than the assassination attempt.

She was in a game she no longer understood. And if she wasn’t careful, it wouldn’t just be her job on the line. It would be everything.

Swallowing hard, she turned back to the kitchen.

Waffles, she told herself. Just make the damn waffles before the world finds another way to collapse.

She cracked eggs into a bowl and told herself this was fine.

The kitchen had grown warm. Humid with spice. She used the end of a wooden spoon to coil her hair into a twist and rolled up the sleeves of her blouse. Flour clung to her apron in soft smudges as she folded pumpkin puree into the batter, working quickly, efficiently.

The mixture smelled like autumn—real autumn. The kind with trees. Leaves. A chill. Not the seasonal perfume they pumped through Upperplate markets.

She spooned the mixture onto the waffle iron.

It hissed as it hit the metal, the sizzle echoing faintly through the quiet apartment.

Sephiroth’s footsteps were muffled by the rug as he crossed to the far wall. Blue light pulsed briefly beneath his hand, followed by a whisper of sound—materia being embedded into the frame behind her bookshelf. Tori could feel the ward settle, a second heartbeat beneath the walls.

She turned back to the stove. The sliced lunch meat was already sizzling in the pan, crisping up at the edges like makeshift bacon. In a small pot, she warmed a handful of crushed nuts in the berry chutney, stirring gently until the sugar thinned into a dark syrup. Her kitchen filled with the scent of warm spice and browned edges. It felt oddly celebratory, like this was some kind of special occasion.

They hadn’t eaten anything since pastries that morning.

Her stomach was growling with a vengeance as she sampled the hash. By the time she plated the last waffle and set out ceramic mugs on the table, Sephiroth had approached her window overlooking the courtyard below.

Another sphere of pale blue materia hovered at his fingertips, casting a soft luminescence against the faded wallpaper. It pulsed once, then drifted forward, embedding itself directly into the plaster. A breath later, lines of light fractured outward in elegant patterns—like veins in marble, or circuitry tracing across a motherboard—before the glow vanished completely.

Tori swallowed down the feeling rising in her chest and straightened the fork at his place setting.

“Dinner’s ready,” she announced, just as she always had when calling her mother in from a long shift at the post office. It had been a nightly ritual between the two of them before Tori moved to the Upperplate.

Sephiroth turned, the amber light catching on his pauldrons. He paused, seeming to take it in as though the moment required admiration.

“It smells… excellent.”

She gave him a faint smile and gestured to the chair across from hers. “Have a seat.”

He obliged without remark, folding himself into the modest wooden chair with practiced economy. His frame swallowed the space—shoulders too broad for her table, knees tucked awkwardly beneath—and yet, he made no complaint.

Tori approached him and began to fill his plate. Two pumpkin waffles hot from the press. Thick pats of butter. A spoonful of the crisped hash from the pan, browned at the edges. Then, finally, the warm syrup from her cruet—glossy and fragrant with cloves—poured generously over the lot.

Sephiroth remained silent. Only watched as his plate filled with unexpected bounty.

She retrieved the kettle from her stove, pouring a slow stream of chamomile tea into the mug beside his plate. The steam rose in curls, floral and quiet. Then she uncorked the bottle of whiskey.

“Would you like yours topped off?” she asked, tilting the neck expectantly.

She looked up—and stopped.

He had been watching her. The whole time.

Not the way men sometimes watch women, with veiled intent or idle curiosity.

His gaze tracked her movements with unguarded interest. As though the tea, the plating, the way she presented the meal, was a ritual he was wholly unfamiliar with.

The bottle hovered mid-air.

“Please,” he said, indicating for her to continue.

Tori poured whiskey to the rim of his mug. Then filled her own before sitting down.

Together, they ate in silence at first. The waffles were pillowy and spiced. The hash had the right amount of crisp. And still, her nerves buzzed. Without the batter to stir, the pots to watch, the ingredients to fuss over, she was left alone with the realization of who was sitting across from her at her table.

“This is nice,” he said suddenly, his voice quieter than usual. “I don’t normally get to eat like this.”

Tori smiled. “A scrimper meal? Some of the finest cuisine in Midgar.”

“It certainly beats field rations.”

A laugh slipped out of her before she could help it.

“It’s not much,” she said, nudging a piece of waffle with her fork. “I’ve mostly been surviving on conference room leftovers and cart-side noodles. Adjusting to the new role has… not been without casualties.”

“I understand,” Sephiroth replied. “I’m often at the mercy of takeout myself. Though with the salary you’re bringing home, delivery could become less of a burden.”

Tori gave a small nod and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “True. But I’d rather send what I can to my mother. Help with her expenses.”

Across the table, his fork paused.

“She’s been a courier most of her life,” Tori explained. “I keep hoping the extra gil might give her the option to retire early. Or at least slow down. Not that she’ll take it,” she added morosely. “She’s probably using the funds to replace battered mailboxes along her route.”

“Pride,” Sephiroth said, knowingly.

“Stubbornness,” Tori corrected, a fond lilt in her voice. “I inherited it wholesale.”

He tilted his head slightly, eyes unreadable. “And your father?”

“Hmm.” She took a sip of tea. “Decided two stubborn women was one too many. I like to think he fled out of survival.”

Sephiroth nodded once, slowly. As if filing the information somewhere private.

No further explanation was necessary.

“Is that why you joined Shinra?” he asked. “To help her?”

Tori’s expression sobered.

“Yes,” she said softly. “But… not just for her.”

Her eyes dropped to her plate, suddenly too aware of the meal between them. One of the many scrimper recipes she’d invented to stretch groceries into something warm. Something comforting. The sight stirred a bittersweet ache in her chest.

“We didn’t have much when I was growing up,” she continued, voice quiet but steady. “But our life was never empty. Never joyless.” She smiled faintly, more to herself than to him. “My mother taught me that the ground beneath your feet could be just as worthy as the view from the top—if you were willing to put the work in.”

Tori picked up her fork and took a bite, letting the silence hold.

“She believed grit could rival privilege. That decency wasn’t weakness. That you didn’t need a title or legacy to make something of yourself.” Her gaze flicked up to meet his. “I’ve built everything I have on that. The belief that honest work can still get you somewhere. Even in a world designed to keep people like us at the bottom.”

Sephiroth studied her for a beat longer. Then, more gently:

“But why Shinra?”

Tori frowned at the question.

“You’re perceptive,” he went on, carefully, “and more honest than most who make it above the plate. You must know what kind of company you’re working for.”

Tori set her fork down slowly. “I’m aware.”

“Shinra acts on its own interests,” he added, watching her. “The entire system is built on that premise. It doesn’t matter who benefits on the way up—or who breaks on the way down. The Board, the departments, the military factions—every cog turns for one outcome: power. If that power happens to help people, that’s incidental.”

Her pulse flicked upward at his tone. Not cold, exactly, but removed. Like he was citing a truth so ingrained in his life that it no longer stung.

“And you think I’m… what? Too naïve to know that?” she asked, quieter now.

“No,” he said. “But from their perspective… you’re untainted. You still believe this place can be better. Which makes you shine.” He paused. “And terribly vulnerable.”

Tori’s breath caught. He wasn’t warning her. He was speaking from experience.

“They’ll try to shape you,” he continued. “Twist your strengths until they serve someone else’s purpose. They’ll flatter you, overwork you, give you just enough rope. And if that fails, they’ll corrupt what you love.” His gaze darkened, though he never raised his voice. “That’s how they ensure control.”

For a moment, Tori said nothing.

She could hear the hum of a neighbor’s pipe in the wall, the faint ping of cooling metal in the waffle iron behind her. The weight of his words pressed against her chest, but not with fear.

“You’ve watched it happen,” she whispered.

He didn’t respond right away. His gaze flicked to the table. Then to the faint steam rising from his tea. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower, steadier. But heavy with something unspoken.

“I’ve lived it.”

The silence that followed stretched taut between them, delicate as thread.

Tori sensed the deep chasm between them, recognizing instantly that this was a side of the immaculate soldier who was far more complex than his public image ever allowed. Rumors circulated headquarters of a silver-haired child raised in Shinra as a modern-day marvel. A boy who devoted his life to serving the people with his marvelous gifts. It was draped in the beautifying language of selflessness. A living, breathing testament to Shinra’s righteous claim of the planet and its resources.

But she saw now that it had little to do with virtue and everything to do with greed.

Tori reached across the table.

Her fingers brushed over his hand, bare where he had removed his gloves for dinner. She laid her palm gently across the back of his, the way one might press a note into someone’s hand without words.

She looked up at him, her voice soft.

“The fact that you’re still kind… after everything… tells me exactly who you are.”

That gave him pause.

“If a system needs fear to function,” she said, “it’s already failing. If it needs to extinguish hope just to stay standing, then it’s rotting from the inside out.”

Sephiroth stared at her, but his focus turned inward. Like she had reached into a part of him he had long stopped expecting anyone to touch.

“I know how it sounds,” she added softly. “Like foolish optimism. But I’ve lived without power. I’ve seen how easily it’s abused. I know what happens when people stop believing they can make it better.”

She sat straighter, folding her hands on the table. “What if more people like me got inside? Not to burn it down—but to reshape it. Quietly. Slowly. From within.”

Sephiroth’s expression remained guarded, but something in the angle of his gaze changed. A stillness overtook him. Not the indifferent silence of disinterest—but that watchful, searching quiet she had come to recognize. A quiet that gathered meaning like gravity gathered mass.

“You mean to infiltrate Shinra with sincerity,” he said, at last.

Tori smiled faintly. “Something like that.”

His eyes lingered on her in the way one might study an improbable thing in motion. A rare species never meant to survive in captivity. Tori felt it settle over her again: that invisible tether between them, stretched tight and whispering with the friction of possibility.

She reached for something safe to say. Something to break the silence before it curled too intimately around her ribs.

“Would you like another waffle?”

She rose from her seat, her hand reaching instinctively for his plate.

But before she could touch it, his hand caught her wrist.

“Ms. Sutton.”

His voice was soft, but the command beneath it shimmered.

“Are you sure you don’t recall anything beyond the bar?”

She blinked, pulse thrumming wildly at her wrist. The table edge was suddenly pressed against the back of her thighs, supporting her, but also cutting off retreat. Sephiroth hadn’t moved from his chair, but somehow, he was closer. The sheer focus of his attention collapsed the space between them.

“Sir?” she asked, but the word came out breathless. She could hear it now, the pounding rhythm in her ears, the way it pushed heat to the surface of her skin.

“You said some things to me in confidence,” he continued, his thumb brushing lightly over the bone of her wrist. “Things I would… regret losing to the fog of Brizaphine.”

His other hand remained rested on the table beside her hip, palm open, fingers relaxed. She could feel the warmth of it—ungloved, steady, and so close it made her stomach flop.

“It would disappoint me,” he added, face angling slightly, “if you didn’t remember.”

“Things,” she echoed tightly. Her mind flared with alarm. Dockery? The book? The flowers?

“You showed me your scar,” he said. “You were very upset with me. For withholding information.” He paused, his eyes fixed on hers. “Are you still upset with me?”

Tori tried to swallow. “No, sir. I—”

Her voice faltered. She wasn’t sure if it was from the question or his proximity. His hand still circled her wrist, loose but unmoving, while her free hand gripped the apron at her waist like a lifeline. She could feel the linen beneath her fingertips, rough and utterly domestic against the surreal moment pressing around her.

“You also accused me of having certain tendencies,” he said, and now a faint smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Ones that are quite outside my character.”

“I accused you?”

There was amusement in his eyes now, sharp and infuriatingly unreadable.

“You made me out to be quite the menace.”

She gaped at him. “Did I—? Did I insult you?”

“You were…” He considered the word like he was tasting it. “Bold.”

“General,” she whispered, utterly mortified. “Forgive me. If I said anything to upset you—”

“I find myself wondering… “ His voice dipped lower as he leaned in, no further than a breath, but it sent electricity shooting up her spine. “What else you might confess… under different circumstances.”

Tori made a sound she had never made before. Somewhere between a gasp and a squeal strangled deep in her throat. Her hand flew to her face, covering her eyes like she could disappear behind her own fingers. He was doing it again. Disarming her by weaponizing his allure.

Even now, he tilted his head, just slightly. The movement was subtle, feline, assessing.

“Such charming secrets you keep, Ms. Sutton.”

He was teasing her.

She could feel the hum of tension between them, the way his presence wrapped around her like a net. Every part of her was screaming with heat. Startled and cornered in the best possible way.

She was about to hurl herself into an apology—or possibly out of the nearest window—when:

His PHS buzzed.

Once.

Then again.

And again.

Sephiroth released her wrist as the buzz intensified into vibration. He exhaled slowly, breaking the spell. The arm beside her withdrew. He reached into his coat and pulled the device free with a soft click.

The light from the screen illuminated the sharp planes of his face.

“I have to return to headquarters,” he said darkly.

Tori wavered, the moment rushing toward its inevitable end. “The Director?”

“He’s fine. It’s General Affairs. They’re requesting my report.” His brow wrinkled. “Incessantly.”

Tori leaned against the table, her fear settling somewhat.

“Will you be alright on your own?” he asked.

“I… yes.” Her voice barely made it past her lips.

He rose from the table, retrieving his gloves from where they rested on the counter. As he moved through the apartment, Tori watched him silently, his broad frame passing through the narrow layout with ease, his movements precise but unhurried. At each corner, he paused to inspect the protective wards he had embedded into the walls. A faint blue glow pulsed beneath his palm, lingering like the ghost of a heartbeat before dimming again.

When he reached the hutch, his steps slowed. He looked at the jagged hole where his blade rammed through the wood and let out a quiet sigh.

“Allow me to supply you with a replacement.”

“That’s not necessary,” Tori said quickly, waving a hand. “Think of it as… ‘shabby chic.’ Adds character.”

She couldn’t see his expression—his hair had fallen forward, veiling most of his face—but she heard the unmistakable sound of a soft chuckle, low and brief.

Then he turned back toward her, expression sobering.

“I don’t like this arrangement,” he said at last. “But it will have to suffice until we can coordinate something more secure.”

He paused, gaze tightening with something like regret before continuing, “From this point on, you’ll be treated as a potential security liability. I strongly advise you not to speak of Lazard’s situation—or any suspicion of an assassination attempt—to anyone. Not even your mother.”

He looked at her then, fully.

“If she becomes entangled, Shinra will not distinguish between blood ties and operational breaches. The fewer civilians involved, the fewer lives we risk. That includes your own.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a moment where it seemed he might say more. But instead, he added quietly, “If this escalates, you may be asked to relinquish a degree of autonomy. We’ll address that if and when it becomes necessary.”

Tori’s brows drew together. “What kind of autonomy?”

“Transportation. Housing. Security.” He listed them carefully, like one naming variables in an equation. Then, seeing the alarm on her face, he added, “Nothing that would restrict your personal freedom—only measures meant to ensure your safety. Discreet ones. The kind that dissuade threats without announcing we expect them.”

Tori crossed her arms, rubbing the heat from them as if trying to shake off a chill.

“You’re insulated, for now,” he continued. “But I suggest laying low.” He glanced at her, gaze weighing heavier than it had a moment ago. “Rest, if you can manage it. Lazard and I will fill you in the moment we’re able to.”

He turned toward the door. Tori followed, reluctant but composed.

“Is there anything I can do?” Her voice came soft, almost shy.

He reached for the handle and paused.

Slowly, he turned to face her again. She looked up, suddenly aware of how much taller he was without the lift of her heels. He still hadn’t put his gloves back on.

“Thank you,” he said, voice low. “For dinner. And… for the respite.”

He took a step closer.

“There is something gratifying,” he added, gaze dropping briefly, “about seeing you like this…”

Tori blinked, her breath catching as he took her in—the wooden spoon still twisted in her hair, the frilly apron dusted with flour, one stocking, one bare foot. His eyes moved slowly, appreciatively, as if memorizing the state of her appearance. When they rose again, they landed squarely on hers.

“You look…” He stopped, as if deciding whether to speak the truth aloud. “Lovely.”

Tori flushed, dropping her gaze just as her heart leaped inside her throat. She tried to turn away, hoping the break in eye contact might diffuse the heat pooling between them.

But instead, he leaned in, his voice brushing the shell of her ear.

“You always do that.”

She froze.

“Shrink away,” he continued. “Tuck yourself out of sight. As though it might save you from being noticed.”

A shaky breath escaped her lips.

“But it never works,” he murmured, brushing a curl from her cheek. “At least… not with me.”

His presence crowded her, drawing her in, and every sense in her sharpened.

“I know your loyalty to Shinra weighs on you,” he continued, tone still infuriatingly composed. “But surely… there must be ways for us to spend time together that won’t cost you anything more than what you’ve already given.”

Tori drew in a breath, slow and steady, willing herself not to falter.

“That’s a bold assumption, General.”

“Oh?” His tone dipped with interest, the word soft but coiled. “How so?”

She met his gaze, pulse pounding in her ears, but her voice didn’t waver.

“You speak as though my feelings are guaranteed. As though I already return your regard.”

His eyes glinted, the faintest trace of amusement blooming in their depths. The smile that softened his mouth was devastating. A shade darker than charm, and infinitely more dangerous.

“I’m going out on a limb,” he said, “but I like to believe I had some cause for hope—when you showed up at the wreck site this morning.”

The memory struck like a flare: her heels crunching across the scorched intersection, the sharp relief in his eyes when they landed on her. She had gone. Without thinking. Without hesitation.

Softly, he asked, “If a man were inclined to deepen his relationship with you—how would he gain your favor?”

The words were eloquent. But beneath them was unmistakable intent.

Her mouth parted, but her voice betrayed her. She had to swallow once, twice, before it came out.

“In my world,” she said, breathless, “a woman is courted. Before anything else.”

Sephiroth tilted his head. “Courted.”

“Dating,” she supplied quickly, hoping the formality of the answer might build a wall around the chaos inside her chest.

A date.

With him.

Sephiroth, the man women would crawl over glass for just to be in the same room with, the man who could take whatever—or whomever—he wanted without lifting a finger. He’d never need to bother with courtship. Not when affection, lust, and obedience were offered to him daily.

Tori expected him to recoil. Laugh. Consider it beneath him.

Instead, he hummed in quiet thought, intrigued.

The sound made her insides twist.

Before she could recover, he reached out again—this time slower—and took her hand in his.

He lifted it gently, brushing his lips against the back of her fingers in a kiss so chaste, so impossibly soft, she almost didn’t feel it.

Almost.

“Thank you, Ms. Sutton,” he said, eyes lifting to hers. “I’ll be in touch. Keep your phone close.”

She nodded, dazed.

And then, without another word, he turned and slipped through her door.

It clicked softly shut behind him.

Tori stared at the wood.

Her hand was still floating midair. Her breath hadn’t returned. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

And then, as if the moment had caught up all at once, her legs gave out.

She sank against the door and slid down it, back pressed to the cool surface, her apron wrinkled in her lap, her chest rising and falling in shallow waves.

The room felt empty without him. But the air buzzed with his imprint.

Her hand still burned from his lips.

She closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and muttered to the ceiling:

“…I am in so much trouble.”

Chapter Text

“Some trails are not left behind. They are laid ahead of you.”

The steel corridors of Shinra Headquarters felt sterile under the cold buzz of fluorescent lights—sharper, somehow, after the warmth of her kitchen. Sephiroth walked them with practiced grace, the faint echo of his boots lost in the hum of climate control. The comfort of discipline did nothing to settle the restlessness simmering just beneath his skin.

He had already filed his statement with Tseng. The Turk’s questioning had been clinical, unobtrusive. Tseng never asked more than protocol required, but Sephiroth saw the flicker of something else in his gaze—curiosity, perhaps. Suspicion. The suggestion that something had shifted in the General’s composure. Sephiroth deflected it without effort. He was accustomed to scrutiny.

But not this kind.

Not the kind that came from within.

He stepped into an empty briefing alcove, pulled out his PHS, and began replying to the backlog of messages. Most were routine: security updates, reports from Junon, delayed diagnostics on the downed chopper. Angeal had sent two brief check-ins from Lazard’s side, shadowing the Director as he coordinated from the executive terminal. Genesis, by contrast, had sent no fewer than six messages in half an hour—most of them less than helpful.

Bar’s clear. No sign of our phantom, but I found a jacket in the dumpster.

And, wouldn’t you know it? Look what was pinned to the lapel.

Attached was a photo: a small, golden gear-shaped pin. Sephiroth narrowed his eyes at the image.

Tech faction? Underground, maybe? Thoughts? Also—

How’s our valiant admin?

Sephiroth didn’t respond to that part. Not immediately.

Instead, he leaned against the bulkhead, scrolling to the real cause of his interrupted departure: Vesper Navarre. Five messages, each more insistent than the last. The final one read:

If you do not provide a public statement by nightfall, the speculation will become policy. You died in that chopper crash seven hours ago and were revived by the sheer force of Shinra propaganda. Please advise.

Sephiroth exhaled through his nose.

He had told Tori it was General Affairs pestering him. In truth, it had been Vesper, relentlessly demanding he quell public panic. His name had trended within twenty minutes of the crash—#SilverDown. The spin would worsen the longer he waited.

He tapped a curt reply.

Will issue a statement shortly. Stand by.

Then he turned back to Genesis’s message and typed:

Meet me in strategy bay. I want to see the pin.

Less than three minutes later, Genesis appeared, suave as always, but tempered now by fatigue. He flicked the pin between his fingers and handed it over.

“Dumpster gold,” he quipped. “Straight off the streets of Sector Five.”

Sephiroth turned the pin in his gloved hand. Golden gear. Industrial craftsmanship. High-quality. Not mass-market.

“Symbolic?”

“Could be a faction,” Genesis offered. “Could be a single fool with flair. But it doesn’t match anything I’ve seen from Avalanche or the Sable Hounds.”

“Then it’s new,” Sephiroth murmured.

Genesis tilted his head, tone overly casual. “How was your afternoon playing nursemaid? Is our brave little administrator faring better?”

Sephiroth said nothing.

That, apparently, was all Genesis needed.

His eyes lit with delighted suspicion. “No denials? No clipped retorts? You didn’t even flinch. Oh, something happened.”

Sephiroth looked at him sidelong, calm and composed.

“Genesis.”

“You’re radiating something. Don’t lie. It’s not rejection.” Genesis frowned. “Which would’ve been easier to mock. No, this is worse. You’ve got that look.”

“What look,” Sephiroth asked dryly.

“The one people get when they start planning a future.”

That gave Sephiroth pause.

In truth, he had felt it—the shift. The moment Tori Sutton, still in her apron, still warm from the stove, had looked at him not with reverence or fear or flirtation… but with that steady, devastating gaze of hers and called him kind. Something inside him had cracked open.

Not in the way it did on battlefields or when pressed by politics.

But in the way Edwin Harker had once described in the utility truck under duress, recounting how he’d known Francesca was the one. “I’ve done a lot of things. But nothing’s rattled me more than one kind sentence from Francesca,” the lead engineer had said. “And I guess… maybe that’s what we’re all looking for. Someone who makes you feel like you exist in full color.”

Sephiroth had dismissed the sentiment then. A quaint indulgence. A civilian’s illusion.

But now…

He could still feel her palm over his, the warmth of her hand anchored in his memory. He remembered the scent of spiced waffles, the ridiculous pink sock beneath her table, the flicker of surprise in her eyes when he called her lovely—and the rouge that colored her cheeks in response.

He was in no danger of forgetting any of it.

Genesis was still watching him, arms folded.

“Well?” he asked.

Sephiroth tucked the golden pin into his coat and turned toward the main corridor.

“I need to find Vesper,” he said, voice low. “The public thinks I’m dead.”

“Are you?” Genesis asked, smirking. “Because you look like a man freshly resurrected.”

Sephiroth stopped in the doorway, then glanced back just once.

He grinned.

That shut Genesis up.

In the seconds that followed, Sephiroth could see every response the other man was biting back. Jokes, prodding, teasing commentary. But for once, Genesis said nothing.

He simply inclined his head—an acknowledgement, maybe even approval—and leaned against the doorway as Sephiroth walked out.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sephiroth had cleared the floor where the PR department housed its war room, but at the last minute changed direction. An overwhelming impulse to visit the Engineering Department overcame him as he glanced at the clock hanging in the lobby of the elevator bay.

7:02 P.M.

It was late for a Friday workday, but there was still a chance.

The corridor was nearly silent, save for the low mechanical hum that accompanied any corner of Engineering. Most had gone home hours ago. Lights were off in the hall. Terminal screens blinked on standby behind the frosted glass of empty offices.

But Edwin Harker was still here.

Sephiroth stood just outside the half-ajar door, noting the light streaming through the crack, the familiar scratch of drafting pen to blueprint. Edwin’s office was a mess of half-built schematics, spindled wires, solder residue, and the telltale scent of graphite and machine oil.

Sephiroth stepped inside soundlessly. Edwin hadn’t noticed.

He stood for a moment, watching the man work. His posture was canted forward, completely absorbed, muttering equations under his breath while one elbow nearly toppled a bottle of ink. The engineer’s desk was angled toward the small window—an unspoken signal that he hadn’t expected visitors.

“Harker.”

The man screamed.

Or very nearly did. His pen jerked, the bottle of ink flipped, and chaos ensued. Blueprints scattered like panicked birds as Edwin launched backward in his chair, knocking his knee against the desk and narrowly catching the falling bottle before it soaked the plans.

“GODS ABOVE—!” he wheezed, clutching his chest like he'd been shot. “What the—You can’t just appear behind a man like that!”

Sephiroth said nothing.

Edwin, panting and red-faced, turned.

And blanched.

“General—Sir—I didn’t—Why are—?” He stumbled upright, knocking over a pencil tin. “Is something wrong with the hatch? I told them I’d secure it! I triple-welded the brackets myself!”

Sephiroth studied him for a beat. “Relax, Harker.”

“I—yes, of course.” Edwin snapped to attention, standing rigidly beside his half-ruined desk. “No need for you to come all the way down here, really, I swear it won’t happen again—”

“I’m not here about the hatch.”

Edwin blinked. “You’re not?”

Sephiroth’s expression didn’t change. “I’m here about Francesca.”

A silence bloomed in the room.

Then—

Edwin reached for the nearest straight edge on his desk like it was a dagger and leveled it between them with trembling hands.

“F-Francesca is spoken for, sir! Happily! T-taken! Committed to a deeply fulfilling—!”

Sephiroth blinked once. “Put the ruler down, Harker. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Edwin’s legs gave out. He collapsed into his chair like a man reprieved from execution. “I thought I was about to join the Lifestream.”

Sephiroth approached the desk like one might approach a startled animal. “You two are dating.”

Edwin was already sweating. “Sir, I—Yes. Yes, we are going steady.”

“Define steady.”

“Exclusive. Committed. Within the bounds of mutual understanding and—Sir, is this… is this about reactor efficiency?”

Sephiroth tilted his head.

“Because I assure you, I would never let emotional compromise impact the functionality of the load-bearing stabilizers. I keep work and personal relationships completely segregated—Francesca sits on the opposite side of the room—”

“How many dates?”

Edwin blinked. “I—what?”

“Since the courtship began. How many.”

“Uh. Five. Technically six if you count the joint troubleshooting marathon in Sub-Reactor B. But I don’t know if that counts, since we were both stuck—”

“What kind of dates?”

Edwin fidgeted. “Well. We went to a robot cage fight in Wall Market. She loved that one. Took her to the Observatory Deck next. We ran calculations on meteoroid velocity. And then there was the build-your-own-synth-lunch place in Sector 6? She got so excited when they let her program the fryer to simulate lunar gravity—”

He trailed off as Sephiroth’s expression remained impassive.

“You’re… not judging me, are you?”

“No,” Sephiroth said simply. “Your date planning appears tailored.”

“Oh.” Edwin straightened. “Yes. Absolutely. Personalized approach. I figured out what she enjoyed, then tracked down locations and activities that aligned with her interests.”

“How.”

“What?”

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes. “How did you determine her interests. How did you know what would please her.”

“Oh! Right.” Edwin rummaged through a drawer. “Pamphlets. City-wide guides. There’s this whole bundle they sell for mid-level daters. It’s got categories: interactive, educational, sensory—here.” He shoved several folded trifold brochures across the desk.

Sephiroth took them with careful fingers.

Top 25 Creative Dates in Midgar That Don’t Suck!
Lunch with Altitude: Sector 7 Rooftop Eats
For Thinkers in Love: Logic Puzzles & Wine Bars

He flipped through them slowly.

Edwin beamed. “You can keep them. I’ve got backups. Plus Francesca annotated the good ones.”

Sephiroth nodded once. “I’ll review them.”

There was a pause.

Then Edwin—curious, hesitant—asked, “And you, sir? How are things… on your end?”

Sephiroth looked up from the pamphlet.

“She confessed,” he said simply.

Edwin gaped, startled. “Francesca?”

“No. Not Francesca.” Sephiroth’s eyes gleamed, almost smug. “The woman I’m pursuing.”

Edwin’s mouth formed a perfect O. “Oh! She! Well done, sir! That’s wonderful news—truly!” He looked ready to break into applause. “Congratulations, I—”

“But then,” Sephiroth added, calmly flipping a page, “she forgot she confessed.”

Edwin froze. “…She forgot?”

“Yes.”

The color drained from Edwin’s face. “Ah.”

“I find myself in a rather particular quandary,” Sephiroth continued, tone perfectly even. “I now possess the knowledge of her true feelings but must proceed as though I don’t. Otherwise, I risk compromising the authenticity of our developing rapport.”

Edwin stared at him.

“Sir,” he said slowly, “I say this with the deepest respect… but that sounds less like courtship and more like espionage.”

Sephiroth nodded solemnly. “I’m aware.”

“And you’re okay with this?”

“I am… intrigued,” Sephiroth replied, his mouth quirking faintly. “If she thinks forgetting will slow me down, she clearly misunderstands the nature of pursuit.”

Edwin rubbed the back of his neck. “Right. Sure. Perfectly normal. Confession amnesia. Happens all the time.”

Sephiroth returned to his pamphlet, unbothered.

“She sounds… very peculiar.”

Sephiroth considered that.

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “She is.”

Peculiar. Unconventional. Unpredictable in ways that pried open something long dormant inside him.

His thoughts strayed to the things he had learned about her. She liked reading people. Not just their faces, but their postures, their subtext, their unspoken tics. She thrived on pattern recognition, the kind of deep observation that required presence of mind and empathy. She was drawn to complexity, to puzzles. To locked rooms and hidden safes. To men who didn’t open easily.

She lit up when someone taught her something new—whether it was the coffee machine, security protocols, or the perfect angle to wield a sidearm. Eager. Engaged. Not for the sake of performance, but from a genuine desire to improve, to prove herself, to belong.

Over dinner she had confessed to living her life with diligence and restraint. Her stories painted a woman shaped by scarcity, yet unbowed by it. She was creative before she was indulgent. Practical before she was spoiled. She found meaning in effort, not embellishment. And that meant something. It meant a typical evening of cocktails and chauffeured taxis across the Upperplate would likely feel alien to her—like trying to don someone else’s skin.

No, if he was going to do this properly—if he was going to win her—he would need to discard everything he knew about strategic seduction and start fresh. Tori would not be entranced by pageantry.

But perhaps… by precision.

What resources did he have at his disposal that could be recalibrated? What gestures might reach her in a language she understood? Not grand, but sincere. Not sweeping, but specific.

He would review his assets accordingly.

This—whatever it was—demanded the utmost care.

A new battlefield.

“…Are you enjoying this?” Edwin asked, voice pitching upward.

Sephiroth blinked out of his thoughts. The phantom taste of praline syrup still lingered on his tongue. He could see her clearly in his mind’s eye—cheeks flushed, apron tied too loosely, her fingers trembling when they brushed his.

Her hand had rested over his.

He had held her wrist to his mouth.

“I believe I am,” he said.

And then he left.

Pamphlets in hand.

. . . . . . . . .

Saturday arrived with silence and too much space.

The kind of space where thoughts could stretch out and circle back on themselves. Dangerous space. Unforgiving. And Tori had never been very good at being still.

She had tried. She really had. She’d curled up on the couch, mug of herbal tea in hand, fuzzy socks on her feet like armor against the tide of memories—but her mind refused to stay quiet. Every time she blinked, she saw him. The brush of lips on her knuckles. The gentle reverence in his voice. The impossible sentence that played on repeat:

“If a man were inclined to deepen his relationship with you—how would he gain your favor?”

She had nearly fainted.

And the worst part? The very worst part?

She had answered.

Tori sat up abruptly and slapped her own cheeks. “Nope.”

Doing nothing was clearly not working.

Ten minutes later, the apartment hummed with purposeful chaos.

She vacuumed. Dusted. Scoured. She reorganized her spice rack alphabetically, color-coded the contents of her fridge, and polished the brass hinges on her coat closet.

She even pulled out the foldable step stool from beneath the kitchen sink and cleaned the blades of her ceiling fan.

Yes, the ceiling fan. Because clearly Sephiroth—Commander of SOLDIER, wielder of Masamune, possibly interested in courting her—was going to casually reach up and inspect for dust.

By the time she collapsed onto her couch three hours later, she was equal parts gleaming and deranged. Her cheeks were flushed, her loose tank top clung damply to her back, and her sweatpants had streaks of lemon oil down the thighs.

She flung an arm dramatically over her eyes and sighed like a swooning opera heroine. “This is absurd.”

Of course she had done something to encourage him. She just didn’t remember it. Somewhere between the confrontation at the bar and the fog of Brizaphine, she must’ve said something. Or looked at him in some telling, traitorous way. Whatever it was, it had changed everything.

He had eaten in her home. Taken off his gloves. Kissed her hand. Asked about dating.

And she’d let him.

Tori groaned into a couch pillow, equal parts flustered and furious. How was she supposed to function? How could HR possibly expect her to resist him? The man who made her feel safe and seen and—goddess help her—cherished?

And beneath all that softness, there was the hard edge of reality. She was still awaiting further instruction. Her phone sat silent on the coffee table like a taunt. Sephiroth and Lazard were likely buried in bureaucratic stall tactics and diplomatic spin-outs.

Which meant she had time to think.

Too much time.

Her eyes drifted toward the couch cushion—specifically, the one under which a certain red-covered manual still lived.

She hesitated only a beat before snatching it free, flipping to the dog-eared pages she had combed through twice already.

But this time, she didn’t just read. She analyzed.

She cracked open the coffee table drawer, pulled out a legal pad and a pen, and began to diagram what she knew.

The console fire. Supply room chaos. Delayed correspondence. “Accidental” scheduling overlaps. Then, escalations: the tampered mission to Junon. The imposter at the bar.

The pattern was there, if she looked hard enough. Two forces. One subtle. One blunt. Someone wanted to sabotage SOLDIER slowly, rot it from the inside. Another wanted Lazard gone.

And the only person who’d acknowledged that danger aloud—had warned her, even—was Ferris Knox.

Tori paused, pen hovering mid-air.

He had told her to remain alert. He had spoken of Archives, of Dockery, of truths buried deeper than most dared dig. And yes, he scared her. But fear wasn’t always a warning. Sometimes it was a compass.

Maybe it was time to follow it.

Even if Sephiroth wouldn’t approve.

Even if she had to lie.

She bit her lip, then scrawled FERRIS KNOX at the bottom of the page and circled it twice.

She was about to fold the legal pad shut when—

Knock knock.

Tori nearly levitated off the couch.

Her heart tripped over itself. He knows. He knows I’m planning something. She bolted upright, stuffing the field manual and notepad back under the cushion with frantic fingers.

The knock came again.

She lunged toward the mirror above the hutch, slicked her hair back into something passable, adjusted the sagging collar of her tank top, then opened the door—fully prepared to see silver.

Instead—

“Kovacs?” she breathed.

“Hey, girl,” said Kovacs, smiling with one hip cocked and a rotisserie chicken cradled like a newborn.

Behind her stood Choufluer, beaming as she held up two wine bottles and a lavish charcuterie box. Orla brought up the rear, expression unreadable as usual, cradling a whole Chantilly cake with both arms like it was the Grand Prize winner at the local bake-off.

Tori blinked. “What… what is this?”

“A girl’s night,” Choufluer sang. “Obviously.”

“You disappeared on us yesterday,” said Kovacs, brushing past her into the apartment like she owned it. “And we figured you were due for a proper decompression.”

“We brought protein,” Choufluer added, lifting the chicken. “And carbs. And emotional support frosting.”

Orla tilted her head consideringly. “Your aura is looking a little threadbare, Boss.”

Tori stared at the three of them. Her kitchen still smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and cinnamon. She hadn’t had colleagues in her home since… well, ever.

And now here they were. Unannounced. Toting snacks and cake and concern like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Tori?” Kovacs prompted. “You good?”

Something lodged in her throat.

Then, all at once, she stepped aside. “Come in.”

And they did.

Just like that.

And for the first time in a long time, Tori felt like she wasn’t just surviving the world of SOLDIER—

She had allies in it.

. . . . . . . . . .

Tori sat cross-legged on the rug in her living room, a wine glass balanced in one hand, her other draped over the back of the couch where Choufluer lounged upside down, legs slung over the cushions, hair cascading like spilled chiffon. Orla had taken up position at the coffee table, already dissecting the rotisserie chicken with medical dexterity. Kovacs claimed the armchair, one boot off, one still on, leaning lazily over the side to spear cheese from the charcuterie box with a cocktail sword.

The room was a patchwork of laughter, crumbs, and half-empty glasses. They had draped themselves around her apartment like they belonged there.

Tori couldn’t remember the last time her space had felt like this.

“You should’ve seen Vesper’s face,” Kovacs said, swirling her glass like a goblet of victory. “All Friday morning, she kept checking her PHS like someone owed her money. When no one picked up, she stormed out and handled the press herself.”

“She wasn’t scheduled to go on air,” Choufluer added, popping a fig into her mouth. “But once the footage hit the airwaves, she had no choice. People were panicking. Conspiracies everywhere.”

“Enemy forces, sleeper agents, internal coups,” Kovacs ticked off on her fingers. “You name it.”

“Shinra stock jumped ten points,” Orla said dreamily, like she was narrating the weather. “Turns out nothing stirs public confidence quite like watching Sephiroth cut down a steel beam mid-air with one swing of Masamune.”

Tori blinked. “Wait—what footage?”

“Oh, girl.” Choufluer reached behind her and pulled out her phone, tapping it awake. “We saw it with Vesper. The footage from the wreck site.”

Tori froze.

“You can barely see anything,” Kovacs assured her, “It’s mostly smoke and rubble. But… there’s this silhouette.”

“You,” Orla said, eyes glittering. “Stepping over a beam like some silent desert spirit. And then the glint of a sword. You didn’t see him move—but he was already in front of you.”

“It was like watching a movie,” Choufluer whispered.

Tori stared into her glass.

That moment had felt surreal enough from inside her body. Seeing it from the outside? She couldn’t imagine. And Vesper… had seen it too?

“She didn’t say anything,” Orla said, cutting into her thoughts. “But she left right after. Snapped her compact shut, issued a few orders, and walked out like the building was on fire.”

Tori tried to school her expression. It wasn’t jealousy—not really. She didn’t blame Vesper. Who wouldn’t want to orbit Sephiroth?

But a flicker of something sharp and quiet curled low in her stomach.

Because he had chosen her.

Not in an official sense, not in any way she could claim with absolute surety—but still. He had eaten at her table. Brushed his thumb across her arm. Kissed her hand like it meant something more than a passing fancy.

No degree of polish or protocol could fake what she saw in his eyes.

“You alright?” Choufluer nudged her with a toe.

Tori blinked and nodded. “Yeah. Just… surreal, that’s all.”

They let it sit for a moment, sipping wine and picking over the last of the Brie.

But then the conversation shifted direction.

“You know it wasn’t an accident,” Kovacs said. Her voice had changed—lower, grounded. “The crash.”

Tori went still.

“I mean, officially, they’re spinning it as weather malfunction and engine failure,” Kovacs continued, “But we’ve been here long enough to know what a cover sounds like.”

Choufluer leaned in. “We think someone’s targeting Lazard.”

“And maybe you,” Orla said. “By proximity. Or principle.”

Tori’s heart thudded.

Sephiroth’s voice echoed in her mind, quiet but unmistakable. Don’t speak about Lazard. Don’t involve anyone else. Not unless you absolutely have to. That had been the unspoken directive beneath everything he’d said—beneath the kiss to her hand, beneath the protective wards he’d placed at her door. She knew what that kind of language meant. Damage control. Firewalls. If the wrong people found out, her friends—these girls—would become collateral. He had warned her not to entangle any more civilians.

But what if they had already entangled themselves?

Kovacs, Choufluer, and Orla had already put the pieces together. They saw through the corporate smoke screen and drawn the right conclusion. She hadn’t dragged them into anything. They had arrived at this place on their own.

So, what now?

Confirm their suspicions and risk making them targets?

Downplay it and insult their intelligence?

She had taken on this job believing her role was administrative. Schedule this. File that. But somewhere in the chaos of the last few weeks, she’d started seeing them differently—not just as coworkers or subordinates, but as her people. They looked to her now. They followed her lead. That meant the weight didn’t just stop with protecting Lazard or managing the General.

It meant protecting them, too.

She forced a small laugh, but it came out brittle at the edges. “Okay. You three watch too many spy dramas.”

Kovacs didn’t smile. “You think we’re wrong?”

“No,” Tori admitted. “I just… didn’t expect you to be the ones telling me that.”

“People assume we don’t notice things,” Choufluer said, twirling her stemware. “An assumption we go out of our way to maintain. It’s safer that way. But we’ve worked in SOLDIER long enough to recognize the pattern.”

Orla, still kneeling at the coffee table, spoke without looking up. “Your predecessors were strong. Sharp. Good women.”

“They were hand-picked. All of them,” Kovacs agreed. “But eventually… something changed.”

“Overnight,” Choufluer whispered.

“They stopped trying,” Orla said.

Kovacs’s gaze was steady. “And then, almost like clockwork, they were gone.”

“What happened to them?” Tori asked.

“Blackmail,” Orla said simply. “At least, that’s my working theory.”

Kovacs nodded. “It always starts the same way.” She got up from the armchair to pace the living room. “The Second-in-Commandments welcome them into the fold, offering their support. There’s a grace period in which everything improves in SOLDIER, but eventually—"

“Inevitably—” said Choufluer.

“Something happens to cripple their ability to continue working,” said Orla.

Tori’s breath caught.

Dockery.

Ferris had said as much. That the field archivist was being used against her. Leverage.

“Every department has something to gain if Lazard is removed,” Choufluer said. “Even the nice ones.”

“Tuesti. Palmer. Heidegger,” Kovacs counted. “No one’s innocent when succession is on the table.”

“And if you do your job too well?” Orla’s eyes lifted to hers. “You become the next threat.”

Tori swallowed, her throat dry. “You shouldn’t know all this. Not for your own safety.”

“We already do,” Kovacs said.

Tori stood as well, her hand covering her mouth as the full weight of it settled. She had already drawn her own conclusions about the Second-in-Commandments—those shadowy department figures who operated with the same silky venom as powerbrokers in eveningwear. Their reaction to her appointment still played behind her eyelids like an old reel: a collective tightening of expressions, not quite surprise, not quite concern—just... resignation. As if they’d seen this film before and knew how it ended.

Her mind drifted, not to them, but to her predecessors. Women she only knew by trace—discarded badge names, out-of-date forwarding memos, whispered anecdotes in break rooms. All except one.

The woman with the looping “R.”

She asked them about her.

Kovacs, Choufluer, and Orla exchanged a glance that was louder than words. A beat of shared breath passed between them, and when Kovacs spoke, her voice had dropped an octave.

“Rutherford.”

Tori turned, heart beginning to pound. “That was her name?”

“Not officially,” said Choufluer, arms folding like she was trying to contain the memory. “She signed everything with a single letter. We never saw a first name. But the script was always the same. Precise. Flourished. Almost… antique.”

“I thought it was Rhea,” Orla added. “Or maybe Reese. But Kovacs just called her Rutherford.”

“She looked like a Rutherford,” Kovacs said with a soft shrug. “Sharp as glass. Unbreakable.”

Tori sank back onto the couch. “What was she like?”

A reverent hush fell over the room. Even the traffic outside her apartment seemed quieter.

“She was the real deal,” said Kovacs finally. “Smart. Self-possessed. Not warm exactly—but she cared. You could feel it in how she handled everything. Like she was holding chaos by the throat and daring it to blink.”

“She never flinched,” Choufluer said. “Even when things got… weird.”

“Always wore navy or charcoal,” Orla added, dreamy again.

“She was the only one we thought would outlast the job,” Kovacs admitted. “The rest… they came and went like interns. But Rutherford? She was in it.”

Tori frowned. “What happened to her?”

The air cooled. Like someone had opened a door to the past—and something cold came spilling out.

“She was there on a Monday,” said Choufluer. “Like always. Early. Organized. We’d just helped her prep the morning boardroom materials. Lazard thanked her personally.”

“That was the last time anyone saw her,” Kovacs said. “She left for lunch. Never came back.”

“No memo. No call. Her badge was dropped in the return box,” Orla said. “Her lease was terminated that afternoon. Payroll file scrubbed. Emergency contacts locked.”

“HR said she transferred departments,” Kovacs added bitterly. “But I checked. Status: Discharged. Non-Rehireable.”

Choufluer’s mouth twisted. “They erased her.”

Tori’s spine stiffened.

“I came across a note from her in my desk,” she confessed softly. “A list of things to watch for.”

All three women froze.

“You found one of her notes?” Orla breathed, her voice like a candle catching light—excited, reverent.

Choufluer’s eyes widened before she broke into a grin. “Rutherford strikes again. I was beginning to think we’d found the last one.”

Tori blinked. “You mean, you’ve come across others?”

Kovacs plopped back into the armchair, exhaling through her nose as she leaned forward to refill everyone’s glass. The bottle clinked against the glass in her hand.

“That was her way of doing things,” she said, a small wry smile tugging at her mouth. “Little tests. Encrypted sticky notes. Odd errands that didn’t make sense until days later—like asking Orla to deliver a sealed envelope to Payroll under the pretense of a coffee run.”

Orla nodded. “Or leaving us messages in the margins of printer logs. I once thought she was having a breakdown.”

“We used to think it was paranoia,” she murmured. “Now… we think she was preparing us.”

A hush settled over the group.

There was a quiet, bittersweet pause. The warmth from the wine and shared laughter cooled as their expressions sobered in tandem. Tori watched them each recede briefly into memory.

Choufluer reached for her glass, her gaze distant. “There was this one note I found tucked behind the filing cabinet. All it said was: ‘If the copier jams twice, someone’s watching.’ I thought it was nonsense. But two days later, I caught a Turk standing outside the admin suite pretending to fix the printer.”

Orla chimed in, her tone quieter now. “She left me a note in the spine of the expense binder. Just one line: ‘Never eat what you didn’t unwrap yourself.’ I thought she meant cafeteria sushi. But after that reception in Urban Planning, I got sick. Everyone else skipped the hors d’oeuvres.”

“She was like… a future echo,” Kovacs said, swirling her glass. “Leaving warnings where no one else would think to look.”

And then… their eyes drifted slowly, almost in unison to Tori.

The look was subtle. Wistful, yes, but filled with something deeper. Concern. Affection. Recognition. Like they were seeing her for the first time not as the new assistant… but as the next one.

“You remind us of her,” said Kovacs quietly. “Not in how you look, or talk. But in the way you see things. The way you move through the building like you already know which floor is going to cave in first.”

Tori’s pulse faltered. She wrapped her fingers tightly around her glass, not trusting herself to speak. Her thoughts spiraled back to the drawer. The note. The bottle. The sense—no, the certainty—that Rutherford had seen something coming. That she had left breadcrumbs not for whoever sat at that desk next, but for someone who would understand them.

Her.

The realization settled like a stone in her chest. Cold. Heavy. Undeniable.

Kovacs leaned forward. “Whatever came for Rutherford is circling you now.”

Choufluer gave a faint nod, her posture no longer relaxed but coiled. Alert. “We didn’t recognize the signs then. But we do now.”

“We watched the others come and go,” Orla murmured. “We told ourselves it was just a tough job. That not everyone could handle it. But it wasn’t that. Something was pushing them out.”

“And Rutherford,” Kovacs added, “was the only one who tried to fight it. Quietly. Smartly. We didn’t realize that until it was too late.”

They shared another glance before Orla nodded.

“We don’t want the same thing to happen to you,” Kovacs finished softly.

Tori stood. She didn’t mean to. Her legs just… moved. She crossed the room slowly, set her glass down on the edge of the coffee table, and looked at each of them in turn.

There was still time.

Still some time.

Her voice dropped. “Your suspicions regarding Lazard are correct. There is no confirmed evidence yet, but the First Class have already launched an investigation. Things might get… more complicated in SOLDIER.” She took a breath. “I have it in my power to see each of you transferred somewhere safe. I can write to Mrs. Thorne, offer letters of recommendation to anyone, anywhere you would prefer to be stationed. I doubt things will calm down anytime soon.”

Choufluer’s answer came before she could finish. “We’re not leaving,” she said, fierce and immediate.

Kovacs rose too, stepping up beside her. “You’re not fighting this alone, Tori. You don’t have to.”

Orla gave a little shrug from the couch, perfectly calm. “We’ve already made our decision.”

“But I—if something were to happen—”

“It already is,” Kovacs said flatly. “You’re already in it. So are we. We’ve been playing pretend long enough.”

Choufluer stepped forward and placed a hand on Tori’s arm. “You make SOLDIER feel human again. You look us in the eye. You care. That’s all Rutherford ever tried to do. That’s why she left the notes. That’s why she left them for you.”

Tori felt a lump rise in her throat. Her eyes burned.

“And now,” Orla said simply, “we leave ours for someone else—if we have to.”

Tori looked at them. At their open faces. Their steady eyes. These three women, who had every right to walk away, to choose safety over risk, comfort over duty.

And yet they stood with her. Just like that.

Three silent oaths in a wine-soaked living room.

Tori took a breath, squaring her shoulders. “Alright. But if we’re going to do this… we do it the right way. We arm ourselves. We become invisible to the system while sharpening every edge we’ve got.”

“Undercover femme fatales,” Choufluer whispered.

Kovacs raised her glass. “Let’s raise some hell.”

“We start with the Turk Surplus Shop,” Tori said, her voice steady now. “I’m booking an appointment with Quinten first thing Monday.”

Four glasses clinked.

And in that moment—beneath the wine, the Chantilly frosting, and the ghost of a woman erased—SOLDIER admin rose from the sidelines.

This time, they were going to fight back.

Chapter Text

“Sometimes, it’s better to give the enemy what they want.”

Monday morning, Sephiroth moved through the glass-bright corridors of the PR wing, the echo of his boots swallowed by polished marble and hushed voices. Disquiet followed him, a reminder of how little had been resolved since the helicopter crash on Friday. The Department of General Affairs had combed through logs and camera feeds all weekend. The results, predictably, were hollow. Tseng was adept at demanding information, even more so at withholding it.

“Our investigation is ongoing,” he had relayed without inflection. “The wreck site has been secured and cleared. Civilian infrastructure has been restored. All passengers have completed medical evaluations and been released. Cause of detonation remains undetermined. Until a final report is authorized, no further speculation is warranted. You are to remain onsite.”

No more, no less. The wreckage had been scrubbed from the intersection as though it had never happened. The cadet who had caught Tori’s capsule, Ludo, had been discharged back to his unit without incident. Yet the essential truth—the why—remained buried in the same bureaucratic fog Tseng always seemed to cultivate.

Sephiroth had not been content to wait. He remained at headquarters, combing through records, pursuing connections in ways the Turks either could not or would not. Among the evidence was the gear pin Genesis had retrieved from the dumpster near the bar—its gold teeth finely cut, its casing unmarked by any manufacturer’s stamp. Sephiroth ran it through Shinra’s parts registry, then again against black-market inventories buried in the Turk archive. Both searches returned nothing. Nothing. As if the object had been engineered to exist without a trace. That absence carried its own kind of signature, deliberate and unnerving.

That was the rhythm of it: small details that appeared inconsequential until set beside larger wounds. Printer outages, requisitions misplaced, communications that stalled or vanished—incidents dressed as inefficiency, slowing the department to a crawl. And laced among them, sharper strikes: the armory fire, the elevator malfunction, the helicopter crash. Together they drew a pattern too precise to be coincidence. These were not accidents. They were eliminations, designed to remove Lazard.

The more he studied the sequence, the clearer the division became. One hand was content to strangle SOLDIER slowly, bleeding it dry through bottlenecks and delay. Another reached directly for Lazard’s throat. Whether those hands belonged to the same orchestrator remained uncertain. The result, however, was the same: a weakened SOLDIER.

Lazard, too, had read the pattern. Over the weekend he weighed his position carefully, then summoned Sephiroth in private. His composure remained intact, but his words carried a new gravity.

“If General Affairs continues to delay their report, we proceed as if we are under fire. Assume every step forward is contested.”

Sephiroth laid a single sticky note on the desk between them, the one he had taken from Tori. The ink was smudged, the handwriting feminine but rushed. Only one thing stood out: the initial R.

Lazard’s face tightened, his knuckles whitening against the edge of the desk. “Rutherford.” The name left him like a weight. “Where did you get this?”

“From Ms. Sutton,” Sephiroth replied evenly. “She found it in her desk, tucked with the reagent she used to test your drink. Why would Rutherford leave behind such things?”

Lazard leaned back slowly, dragging a hand across his mouth as if buying time he didn’t have. Color drained from his features. “She helped me draft the first framework of the Azure Accord. That was some time ago. She was brilliant—sharp as any strategist I’ve worked with. Director material, if she’d stayed the course. Then one day, nothing. No resignation, no warning. Simply gone.” His voice dropped, brittle against the silence. “I told myself it was the pressure. Burnout. But I’ve never believed it.”

Sephiroth’s jaw tightened. “And now another assistant is entangled in matters that put her at risk.”

A shadow crossed Lazard’s expression—something close to regret, sharpened by fear. “Yes. Sutton mirrors her in too many ways. Competence is its own liability in this place. Rutherford reached too high, saw too much, and the moment she became indispensable, she vanished. If the same pattern repeats…” His hand clenched into a fist atop the desk. “I won’t have it happen again.”

He fixed Sephiroth with a look, sharper than any order. “Guard her. Where I failed Rutherford, I expect you to succeed with Sutton. If someone means to make her disappear, I need her protected—even from herself if necessary.”

Sephiroth inclined his head, but the directive only reinforced what he had already decided. Duty demanded her safety. Something quieter, more primal, demanded it too.

That resolution stayed with him. If SOLDIER’s upper ranks were to move under the assumption of siege, then so would he.

He sent Tori a message late Sunday afternoon that unsettled him more than it should have: a quiet request that she not walk to headquarters alone. To await special escort. She had replied quickly, her acknowledgment a curious mix of courtesy and ease.

[Ms. Sutton:] I’ll be ready by seven. Thank you, General. Don’t worry—I can take care of myself.

She could, to a degree. But resilience was not immunity, and he would not gamble on it. So he sent Kunsel. The young Second was to arrive at her apartment first thing Monday morning with her purse in hand, providing her the house key she would need to secure her door. He had been told to check the materia wards at her entry points, confirm no tampering had occurred since Friday, and report back without delay. Kunsel had been almost delighted by the assignment when briefed—loyal, sharp, and perhaps a little too intrigued by the unusual trust placed in him.

He took the purse with a large smile.

“Happy to oblige, sir.”

Sephiroth sent another message to Tori, this one more personal.

[Sephiroth:] How are you holding up?

Her reply had been lighter than expected:

[Ms. Sutton:] Better than you think. Whiskey helps.

Resilient indeed.

He would have preferred to ensure her safe return to the office himself. But the obligation he had deferred since the crash loomed before him.

Vesper was waiting in her glass-walled office, immaculate in a dark sheath dress that seemed designed for the camera rather than paperwork. She had been tasked with managing his recovery statement, though her true focus never stayed on the page.

At his arrival, she remained cold.

“The wording is simple,” she said, placing the draft before him. “You assure the public you are well. Grateful to Shinra, grateful to SOLDIER, grateful to your comrades. Sterile and unassailable.” Her gaze lingered. “But then there is the matter of optics.”

He read the sheet in silence.

“I saw the footage,” she continued, her tone casual, as if she were discussing stock prices. “That young assistant—Lazard’s new girl. She reached you before even the medics. The Silver Elite have already clipped the frames and passed them around. They’re… inventive with their captions. It would be wise to get ahead of it.”

“She was performing her duty.”

“Was she?” Vesper leaned against the desk, tilting her head so that the light caught in her dark hair. “Most assistants manage schedules. They don’t throw themselves across burning wreckage for a man they barely know.” Her gaze lingered, sharp and unblinking. “Unless, of course, they want to be seen.”

He let the words pass without acknowledgment. He would not give her the reaction she sought.

Her smile softened, though it carried no warmth. “You know I only want to protect you, General. The public adores you—too much, perhaps. If whispers begin about who has your attention, we will spend months scrubbing it from the press. And if those whispers involve Lazard’s assistant…” She let the sentence trail off, the implication deliberate.

He folded the statement and set it aside. “Then you will do your job.”

That earned a low laugh, smooth as wine. “Always so curt with me.” She shifted closer, brushing her hand against the edge of his sleeve as if by accident. “I was here, you know. Waiting. All day Friday. Worried about you. Considering everything we’ve built—the rapport we’ve established—you left me to manage the fallout in the dark.” Her chin tilted, her elegance as rehearsed as any soundbite. “I have gone to exhaustive lengths to guard your image, General. I’ve intercepted stories, censored photos, even managed the tabloids when they circled too close. I do it to protect you. All of you.”

Her eyes narrowed, turning cold once more. “But I can’t do my job if you won’t let me.”

He could have told her then. Could have told her that the matter had nothing to do with her remit, that his attention was already claimed by someone she had just named with such veiled hostility. The words pressed at the back of his throat, but he did not speak them.

Tori’s fear echoed too clearly. It’ll only complicate matters. We have responsibilities to uphold.

She had been adamant, and he understood why. Her position was precarious enough without rumors of favoritism or scandal tying her to him. To reveal his feelings here, in this office where every expression was an act and every silence a strategy, would be reckless.

Vesper was adept at shaping whatever face the moment required. He had seen her too many times on live broadcasts—concern flicked on like a switch, admiration bent to whatever angle the camera demanded. Her loyalty was to optics, not to him. He could not trust that the truth would remain hers to keep if she heard it.

So he buried it. He let the pressure of it burn against his chest and kept his tone even. He would give her nothing she could twist, nothing she could file away for later.

“If I find myself in a situation where I need your expertise,” he said, tucking the statement into his coat, “you will be the first to know.”

He rose, already turning toward the door.

Behind him, her voice followed, honeyed but sharp. “I hope so. If Lazard’s little assistant ever grows from a distraction into a liability, I anticipate a proper warning. It would be… unfortunate if she were allowed to compromise you further.”

His jaw tightened, a flicker of irritation flashing before he smoothed it away. She had meant it to wound, to prod, to see if he would defend the woman she feared. The instinct was there—quick, dangerous—but he caged it, remaining silent.

He did not respond.

The door closed behind him, and the sterile quiet of the halls replaced her perfume-laden air. He carried no illusions about what Vesper wanted—for herself, or for those who had placed her near him. Her polished discernment was a blade the company prized, but he would not let her cut him with it.

He moved swiftly through the outer corridors of the SOLDIER complex, his presence alone enough to scatter loitering cadets back to their stations. The hush that followed was absolute, broken only by the faint vibration at his side.

Sephiroth drew his PHS from his coat pocket, the light of the screen flickering against his gloved hand.

[Lazard:] We’re ready to begin.

His reply was efficient, stripped of anything but acknowledgment.

[Sephiroth:] On my way.

He slid the phone back into his coat and resumed his pace.

The conference room lay ahead—nondescript, utilitarian, the kind of dull space usually reserved for onboarding recruits before their intensive training. Today, it served an entirely different purpose: hiding SOLDIER’s highest officers from prying eyes. Angeal and Genesis were already in full discussion, their low voices carrying the weight of Friday’s crash. Sephiroth did not need to check the walls to know the wards were in place; they would have seen to it, ensuring no detection, no eavesdropping, not even the faintest whisper slipping beyond the room.

“Every time we begin to make headway into what’s been happening around Lazard,” said Angeal as he crossed his arms, suspicion tightening his voice, “the mission docket comes calling. You notice how rarely the three of us are kept here at the same time? Always one gone, sometimes two. If it isn’t by design, it’s a convenient pattern.”

Genesis swiveled lazily in his chair. “Pattern? Try orchestration. They sent me to Kalm to oversee customs disputes at the depot. As though my blade were needed to arbitrate tariffs. The Turks could have managed it in half the time.” His expression hardened, amusement curdling into disdain. “They’ll contrive some reason for deployment by the end of the week. Especially after Friday’s spectacle.”

Sephiroth joined in on their discussion. “The Azure Accord was written to prevent precisely this. Greater oversight in First Class deployments, authority over where and how we are dispatched. A safeguard against fragmentation.” He let the words hang, heavy with implication. “Which is why our enemies would see it stalled. Divide us, and SOLDIER remains vulnerable.”

The truth pressed against his ribs, cold and inescapable. Until the Accord was fully enacted, they were susceptible to the whims of President Shinra’s dogs—sent away one by one, leaving Lazard exposed.

And in his absence, Tori would be exposed as well.

He scanned the table.

“Where’s your assistant?” he asked, turning to Lazard.

“She arrived with Kunsel earlier,” said Lazard as he poured over his datapad. “Then took her team to the Surplus Shop. Mentioned something about an appointment with a tailor.”

“The Turk tailor?” Genesis leaned back in his chair, lips curving in faint amusement. “How very… resourceful of your assistant, Director. Does she plan on fitting her entourage for the front lines?” His eyes flicked to Sephiroth, a spark of mischief there. “Perhaps she means to start her own unit.”

At that exact moment, a brisk knock sounded at the door.

Tori stepped in, sleek in a black pencil skirt and crimson blouse, her poise sharpened by the light. For the briefest instant, she looked at Sephiroth directly. Composure carried her through the doorway, but he did not miss the fractional pause in her step—the faint flush at her throat. It was quickly smoothed back into professionalism.

She was not alone. Kovacs followed with a gleaming silver tray of coffee service, the cups rattling only slightly as she set them down. Choufluer entered next, her arms burdened with a pastry box. Orla came last, carrying binders with the gravity of a court clerk presenting evidence. The trio moved with a conspiratorial ease.

“Err… Ms. Sutton.” Lazard rose partway. “We were about to begin.”

“Yes, sir. Apologies,” Tori said brightly. “Our fitting took longer than expected, so we opted to bring provisions. Kunsel’s watching the office in our stead.”

Genesis straightened, eager. “Finally—someone in this department understands hospitality. And might I add—” his eyes flicked to Tori, gleaming with mischief—“you look far better than the last time we crossed paths. Less murderous intent in your eyes.”

A ripple of awkward silence followed, broken only when Tori replied, smooth as silk: “And you look better for not being on the wrong end of a firearm, Mr. Rhapsodos.”

Genesis grinned outright. “Touché.”

Sephiroth remained focused on her, unable to hide his amusement. “This meeting was called under strict confidence,” he said, courteous but firm. His attention flicked briefly to the young women before settling back on Tori. “I believe I cautioned you against involving others. Doing so places them at risk.”

For a heartbeat, her expression shifted—acknowledgment, then defiance. She clasped her hands, spine straight. “You’re right, General. I went against your counsel. But you never said what I should do if others came to me first.”

Her three assistants waved sheepishly then, as if owing up to their crime.

“Really.”

Sephiroth felt the edge of his certainty falter. Perhaps he had miscalculated. He had not factored in Lazard’s auxiliary team, those junior assistants who seemed, until now, little more than background fixtures in the administrative wing. Kovacs, Choufluer, Orla had coasted so quietly under his radar that he had dismissed them as inconsequential. Yet he remembered, belatedly, that they had stood with her in the hangar on Friday, handling the payload situation with surprising competence. That level of precision did not align with the harmless, almost ornamental roles they had cultivated for themselves.

Now, under his scrutiny, they shifted uneasily—not toward him, but toward her. It was not his approval they sought, but hers. Every nervous glance, every small motion, curved back to Tori as though she were their axis. That, more than their sudden initiative, gave him pause. They had chosen her. And she had chosen not to refuse them.

Tori reached for the coffee pot and poured a cup, holding it aloft. “Sugar?” she asked him lightly. Sephiroth shook his head, taking the mug. Only then did she continue.

“My team and I have worked through the weekend, pulling together enough evidence to prove that sabotage inside SOLDIER didn’t begin last week—or even last month.”

As if choreographed, Orla stepped forward, placing a binder at Lazard’s elbow with a heavy thud.

“We traced incidents far enough back to suggest two years of quiet, systematic undermining. Slow enough to appear harmless, sharp enough to aim for your throat, Director.”

“If that’s true,” Sephiroth said at last, addressing the three junior assistants, “why are you coming forward now? Why was this not brought to our attention sooner?”

Kovacs shifted first, the rhythmic tapping of her crimson nails stuttering against her thigh. Choufluer’s composure wavered, a flicker of unease softening her steady posture. Even Orla—still as a blade—tightened her grip on the remaining binder. None of them moved to answer. Their silence was telling: not ignorance, but hesitation. They knew more than they had shared, yet had chosen to stay hidden until now.

Sephiroth regarded them with the same quiet intensity he reserved for cadets under inspection. In his world, failure to act carried consequence. Why had they waited? Why risk allowing sabotage to fester unchecked? The measure of their loyalty was not yet proven—and hesitation could just as easily mask cowardice as prudence.

But before the weight of his scrutiny could crush them, Tori cut in, her voice steady, shield raised on their behalf. “Because until now, there’s been no leadership to turn to. They were afraid, and not without reason. Those lower on the pay scale can’t afford mistakes, can’t afford the kind of exposure that would paint them as liabilities. Reporting something like this could have cost them their jobs—or worse. So they did what they could under the circumstances. They kept themselves safe. They kept each other safe.”

She looked across the table, her chin lifted, her words sharpening. “But they don’t want to live under fear anymore. Not when it’s clear that the threat won’t stop until it swallows us all. That’s why they came to me.”

They flanked Tori instinctively, a formation as natural as any drilled unit.

“Which brings me to my next point. Up until now,” Tori continued, meeting each officer’s gaze in turn, “SOLDIER has not acted as one. Information is scattered, communication fractured. Swords on one side, administration on the other—two halves working blind. That division is exactly what they’re exploiting.” She poured the last cup, setting it before Lazard with deliberate care. “To root this out, administration must stand with its elite. The enemy will not expect that.”

The silence that followed was weighted with consideration. Lazard’s knuckles tightened against the binder. Angeal’s jaw shifted, the frown still etched across his face. Genesis leaned back, half a smile curling as though the theater of it all amused him.

“So,” he drawled, tapping his mug with a gloved finger, “judging by the weight of those binders, I assume there’s more than breakfast on offer. You have a plan.”

The spark in her eyes dimmed, just slightly. “I don’t,” she admitted. “But Orla does.”

All eyes shifted. Orla stepped forward and let her other binder fall onto the table with a dull whop. “It’s simple. We give them what they want,” she said. “If someone wants SOLDIER collapsing into chaos, then we let them see collapse. We go back to showing up late to meetings, letting the office fall in disrepair, getting our directives mixed up. Meanwhile, the Accord advances right under their noses.”

A sharp silence followed.

Tori leaned in, steady. “It’s a classic feint. You let the enemy believe they’ve cornered you—drawn you into their trap. In that overconfidence, they reveal themselves. Their trap becomes ours.”

Sephiroth absorbed her words. Deliberate phrasing, pitched for men who thought in campaigns and stratagems. Ruthless in its simplicity, undeniable in its cunning: let the enemy overreach, while they built strength unseen. Incompetence weaponized. Weakness turned into strength.

The silence that followed stretched in deliberation. Lazard broke it first, leaning forward with slow deliberation, his cuffs catching the sterile light.

“It would buy us cover,” he said, voice measured but low. “If the company believes SOLDIER is crumbling, the attempt on my life may not be repeated. They’ll assume they’ve already won.”

Genesis’s eyes glinted with relish, fingers drumming against the table. “And meanwhile, we sharpen in the shadows…” His tone was velvet, threaded with intrigue.

Angeal’s arms stayed folded, but his frown deepened. “It’s reckless,” he said flatly. “If this deception is uncovered, the board will brand it conspiracy. We won’t just lose the Accord—we’ll lose SOLDIER itself.”

“True,” Lazard conceded, but his gaze did not leave the binder before him. “And yet if we remain as we are—fragmented, reactive—we invite worse.”

Sephiroth sat back, weighing their words in silence. Reckless, yes—but there was an artistry in it, subtle and noninvasive. A quiet redirection, taking the enemy’s desired outcome and bending it back upon them. It carried the elegance of a feint perfectly executed. Weaponizing dysfunction itself—turning weakness into camouflage, collapse into cohesion. In that inversion lay their advantage.

Across the table, Tori leaned over Orla’s binder, her fingers slipping to a tabbed section marked in red. “We’ve already accounted for the next step,” she said, voice even but unwavering. “Director, you’ll undergo a third-party medical evaluation. The physician prescribes two weeks’ bedrest. Surely, no one would blame you for being rattled after Friday's incident. It makes the perfect cover. Think about it: No board meetings. No public presence. To anyone watching, you’ve been sidelined. In truth, you’ll be freer than ever to move the Accord forward.”

Lazard’s brows rose, the faintest spark of surprise shading into admiration.

“You’re right. If I were given just a handful of days, I could cover quite a bit of ground.”

“What about daily operations?” Angeal asked him.

“We’ll pull our weight in that capacity,” said Tori. “Kovacs has most of daily operations where we could monitor the most essential. Choufluer and Orla have prepared systems that will help streamline everything further. Though we’ll be giving off the appearance of dysfunction, everything else will be guaranteed to run business as usual.”

“You’re certain you can handle that?” Lazard asked, directing his question to all four women.

“Yes.” Tori assured him. “There will be a steep learning curve, sure. But at the very least, I can provide you cover by operating in your stead.” She flattened her gaze. “Besides, it will further the illusion that SOLDIER’s no longer a threat if they see your hapless assistant struggling like a fish out of water.”

“You’re not hapless, Ms. Sutton,” Lazard argued. “Or a fish out of water.”

Tori smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

The table went quiet, the silence stretching long enough for Sephiroth to recognize it as agreement of a kind. Not spoken aloud, not formalized, but there in the set of shoulders and the way no one sought to contradict her further. The assistants remained steady, their posture betraying not a trace of retreat despite the enormity of what they had just volunteered for. Lazard, though outwardly composed, could not hide the faint shift in his tone—a concession that he would allow them to carry this burden. Even Angeal, ever cautious, had not moved to protest.

He understood then that the moment had crystallized: their course, however precarious, had been chosen.

Sephiroth thought carefully before he spoke, indicating that they had a decision to make. “If we proceed with this deception—even for a fortnight while Lazard’s on ‘bedrest’—it will grant us enough time to get a grasp on who is working against us.” His gaze moved deliberately across the table, weighing each of them in turn. “But understand this: if we choose this path, it requires vigilance. We develop our own channels of communication. We tighten security. And we minimize exposure. There is no margin for error. If we are caught, this becomes conspiracy.”

A quiet tension followed. Sephiroth could feel the measure of their resolve in the silence, could see it in Angeal’s tightened arms, in Genesis’s sharp amusement, in Lazard’s guarded eyes. Even the three assistants remained steady, their posture unflinching despite the stakes being laid bare.

They were all prepared to risk it.

Tori inclined her head. “Understood.” She hesitated, then reached for her PHS. “If we’re all in agreement… I’ll go ahead pull the trigger.”

Genesis leaned back, amused. “Trigger?”

Her sigh was long-suffering, dramatic as any curtain rise. “Observe.”

With a flourish, she wrote a quick message and turned the screen for them to see: a single crying emoji beside a steaming coffee cup. She pressed the button, and immediately proceeded with a countdown.

“Three… Two…”

The device buzzed almost before she finished the count. Tori steeled herself and accepted the call on speaker.

“Miss Tori?” Wesley Hart’s voice exploded into the sterile chamber, syrupy and booming. “My dear girl, what’s happened? Are you alright? No—don’t answer, I can hear it in your silence. Exhaustion. Strain. You’ve been wrung dry, haven’t you? It’s written between the lines of your text.”

Tori pressed her palm to her forehead, shoulders slumping, voice pitched into a trembling register of fragile distress. “It’s just… it’s been so much, Wesley. Ever since the crash on Friday—I haven’t been able to get answers from anyone.” She cast a knowing gaze to everyone at the table. “No reports, no clarity. The pressure, it feels like everything is—”

“Shh, don’t upset yourself,” Wesley cut in, full of agitated authority. “You sound near collapse. Have you eaten today? Tell me you’ve eaten something.”

“I—well, I—”

“That’s what I feared. Starving yourself on top of trauma. Honestly, Miss Tori.” His voice swelled, as if giving a lecture to a wayward child. “We’ll sort you out. Chai lattes, plenty of sugar. Pastries. No, you’ll have soup, you need something restorative. And tissues, of course. Perhaps a shawl, in case of a draft.”

Across the table, Angeal’s brow knit, the faintest wince betraying secondhand embarrassment. Genesis, by contrast, leaned back in his chair, lips curling in disbelief. He muttered just loudly enough for Sephiroth to catch, “This is Scarlet’s right hand? I’ve seen cadets handle themselves with more dignity.”

The corners of Sephiroth’s mouth threatened to tighten, but he kept his face unreadable. It was almost absurd—the overindulgent, saccharine litany spilling from Hart’s mouth while Tori performed her fragility with near-perfection. And yet, even in the midst of the charade, she managed to flick Genesis a warning look, sharp enough to silence him. The message was clear: do not ruin this. Not when the ruse was already taking root.

Tori breathed shakily into the receiver. “Wesley, I don’t mean to—”

“You don’t mean to trouble us, I know,” he barreled over her, positively gleeful now. “But it’s no trouble, Miss Tori. That’s what we’re here for. You’ve held yourself together longer than I thought possible, frankly. I’ve been waiting for this call since Friday. It’s a relief, finally, to hear you admit it.”

Her face drew into a sharp scowl, yet she maintained the slight quiver in her voice. “I just don’t know how much longer I can—”

“Enough,” he interrupted again. “No more. You’ll meet me at the executive café in fifteen minutes. I’ll alert the others at once. We’ll make a proper intervention of it. Don’t argue—I won’t hear another protest. You’ll sit, you’ll sip something warm, and we’ll take care of you.”

“Alright,” she whispered, meek.

The line clicked off.

Silence reclaimed the room, humming with the absurdity of what they had just overheard.

Orla raised a languid thumb, her tone bone-dry. “Convincing.”

Kovacs smirked. “Maybe too convincing.”

Tori let her shoulders fall, the mask slipping as she holstered the PHS. “There. My incompetence is officially on record.” Her voice was flat, her expression tight. “And now, thanks to Wesley, the rumor mill will be churning by sundown.”

Sephiroth studied her, the thought pressing hard against his chest: she had bent herself into weakness she despised, endured humiliation for their sake. Not to shield herself. To shield Lazard. To shield SOLDIER.

Brilliant, he thought. Painful, but brilliant.

Their enemies would laugh, would circle like carrion, convinced SOLDIER was rotting from within. And while they celebrated their illusion of triumph, SOLDIER would be sharpening its blade in silence.

By the time truth surfaced, it would already be too late.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

The coffee shop gleamed, every detail echoing the polish of the executive wing—brass fixtures burnished to a mirror sheen, marble counters cool under the light, leather armchairs arranged with the exclusivity of a private club rather than a café.

Tori sat at the center of a semicircle, her cappuccino cooling on the low table. Around her, the Second-in-Commandments closed ranks, indulgent relatives staging an intervention. Wesley Hart leaned forward, hands clasped, voice warm but pitched loud enough to carry across three tables.

“You’ve been through so much, Miss Tori. It’s a wonder you even made it in today. The crash, the endless demands—truly, no one would blame you for falling behind.”

She lowered her lashes, doing her best impression of utter bewilderment. “I… I just keep thinking I’ll forget something important. Or miss a deadline. And the Department of General Affairs—no word yet on the cause of the explosion. Everything feels… stuck.” She let her voice tremble just slightly.

It was almost alarming how quickly they ate it up. Wesley looked positively gleeful, as though her collapse confirmed every condescending prediction he’d made at the luncheon. Lavender cooed. Henrietta scribbled. Rocco shook his head with mock sympathy. Even Bret, who rarely wasted time on gimmicks, had shown up, her sharp gaze fixed on Tori like a hawk assessing a new fledgling.

Only Ferris Knox remained unreadable. When their eyes met over the rim of his cup, Tori remembered the warning he had given her in the lobby, low-voiced and unsettling. She held his gaze for a breath, long enough to silently confirm her decision: she would speak with him again, privately, away from this performance.

It was Bret who changed the topic suddenly. “There’s a benefit dinner this Wednesday,” she said, her tone smooth. “With Lazard on medical leave, it would be best if you attended in his stead. The President and his benefactors will expect representation.”

A dinner. A long evening of corporate small talk and bland hors d’oeuvres. Tori forced a smile. “I’d be honored. Though I have nothing suitable to wear.”

Bret’s lips curved. “Then we shall remedy that. Join me tomorrow at noon. A business lunch, followed by a tour of my favorite shops. Consider it a way of getting you back on your feet.”

Her words sounded kind, but Tori felt the barbed hook beneath.

Her junior assistants had been right: the Second-in-Commandments were not allies but opportunists, looking for the softest place to sink their teeth. Kovacs, Choufluer, and Orla had arrived like comrades, shoulders squared beside hers. These colleagues, by contrast, clustered as vultures waiting for her inevitable fall.

But Ferris unsettled her most. He hadn’t joined their chorus of indulgent pity, hadn’t leaned in with false warmth or cheap comfort. He had simply watched, silent and steady, the same way he had in the lobby when he’d warned her. He knew. Or at least suspected. And that made him dangerous in a way the others weren’t.

When at last she escaped the suffocating circle of sympathy, Tori’s head buzzed with frustration. Playing the hapless administrator had been harder than she imagined; biting her tongue while they trampled her competence was humiliating. None of them had shown the genuine loyalty of her junior assistants. They had delighted in her supposed fragility.

She was still replaying their hollow encouragements—head bent in thought, steps distracted—when his voice drew her sharp attention.

“Ms. Sutton.”

She jolted, colliding with a banner stand advertising immunizations. The frame rattled noisily before she caught it, cheeks heating as though the sign itself had accused her of some indiscretion.

“General—” Her voice came out breathless, flustered. The memory of Friday night must have surfaced as sharply for him as it had for her: the quiet gravity of her apartment, her hand in his, the kiss pressed to her skin before parting. Boundaries had blurred there, and both were acutely aware.

He studied her, and she felt the weight of it—a flicker of humor in his expression, but not mockery. Something closer to the look he had given her in the conference room when she had dared to defy him. It unsettled her now, the sense that her disobedience had not pushed him away but drawn his attention sharper, closer.

She glanced at their surroundings. The narrow hall seemed to draw tighter around them, her smaller frame pinned by his height, by the mako-glow of his eyes, by the quiet pressure of his voice when he finally spoke.

“How did it go—with the others?”

Her lips thinned. “As expected.” A glib edge to the words, brittle and unimpressed. “They relished every second of my supposed unraveling. Donahue’s even arranged to take me shopping tomorrow. Lunch and a wardrobe overhaul.” Her tone made clear the prospect pleased her about as much as a root canal.

Sephiroth’s brow inclined, faint amusement sparking in his gaze. He could see plainly that the performance cost her more than she wished to admit. “You endure it poorly.”

“Wouldn’t you?” she muttered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“No. I suppose not.” His expression softened. “But then—I’m not in the habit of pretending to be less than I am.” His pause lingered. “Neither are you.” And then, with the smallest pause, he tilted the current of the conversation, steering it back to where he intended it to land.

“Have you given what I said some thought?”

Her pulse stuttered. She knew what he meant. The words from Friday night echoed like an incantation: In my world, a woman is courted. Before anything else.

She swallowed. “About…?”

“Spending time together.” His tone was smooth, unhurried, as if there was no possibility of refusal. “Forgive the insistence, but I may be deployed soon. I’d rather not waste the chance.”

The casual certainty nearly undid her. “You’re still on about that,” she said, voice thinner than she intended.

He leaned closer, and she caught the faint scent of leather and steel, clean and electric. His voice brushed her ear, pitched low for her alone. “I thought of you.” He let the silence stretch, his voice lowering until it brushed her ear. “Concerned for your safety… among other things.”

Her breath caught before she could stop it.

His gaze held hers, mercilessly steady. “Did you think of me?”

The heat that bloomed across her cheeks was answer enough.

“Behave, General,” she warned, acutely aware of the SOLDIER operatives moving along the hall who might read too much into the closeness of their stance, into the way her voice faltered.

But he didn’t move back. His presence pressed in on her, disarming in its focus. “Wait for me in the office later this evening.”

She blinked, pulse hammering. “For what?”

The look he gave her then was devastating, half promise, half challenge. “For our date.”

Her heart gave a traitorous lurch. Against her better judgment—and with curiosity pulling harder than caution—she found herself nodding, unable to deny him.

. . . . . . . . . .

By the time the workday drew to a close, she was restless. She excused herself to the bathroom, closing the door on the hum of the office, and stared at her reflection.

Her face looked the same as always—freckled, pale, a little tired—but her thoughts had been rewired, derailed by a single word she still couldn’t reconcile: date.

She dabbed powder over the faint pink still warming her cheeks, as though cosmetics could camouflage the storm beneath her skin. She smoothed her hair, fussed with the collar of her blouse, trying to polish details that felt suddenly inadequate. The motions were automatic, absurd, like a girl sneaking lipstick before a school dance.

Except this wasn’t a dance. This was a date. With Sephiroth.

She spent hours in a silent tug-of-war with herself, trying to imagine what exactly a man like Sephiroth thought a date entailed. Dinner? Did he even dine out, or would restaurants collapse into chaos the moment he walked through the door? He’d admitted once to living on takeout—an oddly ordinary confession. Did he have a favorite dish, tucked somewhere between his impossible routines?

A museum? Impossible. A concert? Even less so.

Her imagination betrayed her with increasingly outlandish images: Sephiroth seated at a candlelit table, posture so immaculate it would shame the silverware, a glass of wine untouched while the waiter scurried to fetch another, pricier vintage. Sephiroth at a movie theater, Masamune clattering against every seat in passing, turning with clinical solemnity to ask whether she preferred action or romance.

She nearly laughed aloud at her desk. Nearly.

So far, this was outside convention. She hadn’t been given the ritual other women might expect. The ritual of a sleepless night, selecting the perfect outfit, armoring oneself in lipstick and perfume. He had told her simply to ‘stay back at the office’. The command left her feeling as though Lazard had once again shoved her into one of those impossible meetings without warning.

Her appearance wasn’t the thing that rattled her most. It was the deterioration of her willpower the moment his attention turned fully, inescapably, to her.

The true crux of her restlessness was knowing she had been the one to set the terms—laying down conditions she hoped, wildly, desperately, would discourage him. She had counted on his indifference, only to be caught unguarded in the company hallway, his answer delivered with devastating certainty. It wasn’t the trappings of a “date” that unsettled her. It was the implication threaded beneath the word itself—the shift in ground, the reframing of them not as professional allies bound by circumstance, but as something far more nebulous.

It left her wondering what he meant to do. What scenario he might create that gave him the advantage. Would he overwhelm her with opulence she couldn’t mirror? With intensity she couldn’t match? Or would it be something quieter, sharper, where the weight of his gaze alone left her breathless?

The idea both terrified and thrilled her. Because buried beneath all her resistance was a truth she hated admitting even to herself: some small, reckless part of her wanted to be swept away.

When she returned, his office door stood ajar. Sephiroth was inside, speaking quietly with an aide who scurried out with unusual haste.

He looked at her then, and the thought of turning back became impossible.

“Stay a moment,” he said, gesturing for her to come in as he finished his notes with the economy of a man tying off loose ends. “Then, come with me.”

Her heart executed a neat somersault.

They left the administrative wing together. She matched his stride, trying to appear collected even as nerves and wild speculation danced in her stomach.

When the elevator doors closed and Sephiroth pressed for Level 49, confusion pricked at her. She had no business on the lower SOLDIER floors.

The doors slid open to reveal a broad corridor lined with reinforced glass. Beyond it stretched a cavernous training chamber—polished floors, vaulted ceilings, and walls threaded with gleaming panels. It didn’t resemble the sparring rings she had seen in passing. This space was expansive, immaculate, almost theatrical.

She blinked. “…This is your idea of a date?”

The words escaped before she could swallow them back.

Sephiroth glanced down at her, calm as ever. “Not the kind you’re imagining, Ms. Sutton.”

Her brows knit, uncertainty prickling through her. “Then why—”

“Because,” he interrupted gently, “after some thought, I decided you might enjoy it. Something to lift your spirits after a day of… theatrics.”

Her pulse jumped. She had spent all afternoon trying to map the man against the myth, to predict what the General might conjure as an evening engagement. And here he was, handing her something unexpected, something she hadn’t seen coming.

“What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked cautiously, following him inside.

The faintest curve touched his mouth. “You’ll see.”

Her stomach dropped. “…You’re not going to throw me into combat, are you?”

A low sound, almost a laugh, reverberated from his chest. “No. This isn’t about combat.”

He stepped closer, his presence enough to settle her nerves and unsettle everything else.

“The system hosts a full catalog of modules. Some of them… I thought you might enjoy.”

She blinked at him. “Enjoy.”

“The Turk recruitment module, specifically,” he said, as if it were the most natural suggestion in the world. “It tests for a variety of things. Candidates are placed in controlled scenarios under time constraints and evaluated on how they perform. Think of it as… a puzzle.”

She was still processing when he moved to a paneled closet, retrieving a sleek white headset that gleamed like porcelain in his hand.

“Are you sensitive to flashing lights?” he asked, voice even but quieter now.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Motion sickness?”

“No.”

“Good.”

He returned to her, the device cradled with a kind of care that made her heartbeat lurch. “The visor must sit flush against your skull. May I?”

His fingers hovered just above her hair.

Her throat went dry. “…Yes.”

Sephiroth’s touch was careful as he undid her bun, red strands tumbling loose around her shoulders. She felt them brush down her back in a cascade, felt the heat rise in her cheeks as he guided the headset over her eyes.

His nearness was disarming—the faint graze of his fingers at her temple, the brush of knuckles against her cheek, the low steadiness of his voice right at her ear.

“In a moment, the room will change,” he murmured, adjusting the band with precise movements. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be there on the other side.”

Shivers ran down her arms that had nothing to do with nerves.

He pulled his PHS from his coat, punching in a code. “Our phones will link us. If we’re separated in the simulation, we can communicate here.”

The headset buzzed faintly. Then her vision flared.

The chamber dissolved around her. In its place rose a vast industrial complex, lit by the warm amber of twilight. Screens flickered across a security console in front of her, each one tinted in Shinra’s familiar architecture, every angle washed in orange light and deep green-blue shadow.

Her breath hitched.

She was dressed differently. A polished black suit tailored perfectly to her frame, crisp white shirt beneath, tie knotted neatly at her throat. Sleek. Corporate. She was a Turk.

And beside her—

Her heart lurched.

Sephiroth stood in a matching suit, dark and commanding. His gloves were leather, open-backed, unmistakably his—but the suit lent him an entirely different aura. Sleeker. More dangerous. He wasn’t the General now. He was something sharper. Cooler.

A wolf in a boardroom.

Tori stared before she could stop herself. He looked devastating. The crisp lines of the suit, the way it stretched across his shoulders, turned him into something myth made flesh. She was used to the General in leather and steel; this version felt more dangerous precisely because of its unobstructed sleekness.

Her throat tightened. She had never wanted to look away less.

Before she could find her voice, a holographic screen materialized before them. Tseng’s face filled the display, perfectly composed.

“Candidates,” he said, voice smooth and unreadable, “welcome to the assessment.”

Tori felt her breath catch.

“You will have one hour,” Tseng continued, his tone betraying nothing, “to locate a set of files housed somewhere in this facility. They are highly classified, and retrieval will require more than speed. Caution, discretion, and control will decide your success. You are to complete the mission without compromising your cover.”

The pause that followed made her pulse quicken. She almost swore Tseng was staring at her alone, as if he could already see whether she would fail.

“There is more than one path to victory,” he added softly, almost amused. “But there are far more ways to lose. I will be watching with interest.”

The screen vanished.

Tori’s pulse hammered. This was no dinner date. No candlelit table or polite conversation. This was a puzzle designed to test her—and the idea of it sent a thrill down her spine.

She turned to Sephiroth, but he was already watching her.

“You’ll take the lead,” he said simply.

Her mouth went dry. “Me?”

“Yes.”

The smallest flicker of satisfaction crossed his face, as though he had known all along this would delight her. “After all, this is your mission.”

Chapter Text

"A simulation does not change who you are.

It only reveals who you might become, if unshackled."

It was hard to imagine the world around her was a simulation.

The blue wash from the spotlights, the high-gloss marble with its hairline cracks, escalators climbing toward a pantheon of executive floors beneath a sky of glass—rendered so precisely Tori’s mind refused to separate it from the real thing. Even the long crimson banners hung with the same austerity.

This was Shinra Headquarters.

She and Sephiroth stood in the alcove above the main lobby, the shallow overhang giving them a panoramic view of the crowd below. From their vantage, the place bustled with activity: men and women traveling with folders, briefcases, cups of coffee. They looked familiar in the wrong ways.

Janelle Levitz, for instance, bustled through the lobby in a plum suit, barking orders to three nervous interns. They trailed her like ducklings, arms piled with lighting equipment destined for some unseen press staging. This version of Janelle was noticeably more commanding. Unlike the version in real life who was much more indolent and prone to gossip.

Tori frowned, studying the scene further.

Lettie and Lou from Logistics had been reassigned too—no longer bickering over freight schedules in the sublevels, but dressed in dark uniforms, standing ramrod straight by the entrance as security guards. Their faces carried the same faint boredom, only now their hands rested on sidearms instead of clipboards.

And there, inside the visitor kiosk, sat Bret Donahue. The Bret Donahue. Only she was transformed—her hair, usually drawn into a sleek, severe twist, had become a wild perm subdued by a headband. The crisp pantsuit was still there but softened under the bulk of a peach-colored cardigan, and her smile carried a rosy eagerness that felt impossibly wrong. This was the matriarch of the Second-in-Commandments, the President’s hard-boiled assistant, recast as a kindly receptionist.

The sight nearly made Tori gasp—until her gaze slid to the far corner, where Orla pushed a mop across the gleaming floor, her usual eccentricity pressed flat into the guise of a janitor. It was uncanny: familiar colleagues recast in borrowed roles, their movements slightly off, their dialogue a shade too rehearsed, as though the simulation couldn’t quite mimic the truth.

Tori drew a sharp breath. “This is…” She trailed off, unable to pin the right word.

Wrong. Hilarious. Disturbing. All of it at once.

Sephiroth moved beside her. “The company uses employee data to populate its virtual reality system. Every Shinra hire signs a contract. Buried in the fine print is permission for likeness and behavioral imprinting. Efficient for training modules.”

He leaned on the banister, torso angled toward her, surveying the space with unhurried calm. In that instant he didn’t seem like himself at all, but a hidden spymaster. One whose reach extended into every dark shadow. The impression unsettled her almost as much as it drew her in.

“You mean… all of us are in here? Everyone?” she asked, her voice softer than intended.

He inclined his head, the motion smooth, almost feline. “Everyone who passes through Shinra’s onboarding. It keeps the data current. Staff are recycled into new roles as scenarios demand.”

Her stomach dropped. She had skimmed her contract. Glossed the legalese like everyone else. The thought that she had essentially volunteered herself as training fodder—her face, her mannerisms, wandering around simulations like some half-conscious marionette—made her skin crawl.

“Wait,” she said, lowering her voice. “Even you?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “I am a frequent variable. Particularly in SOLDIER evaluations. Second Class is often tested with me.” His gaze narrowed. “Or against me.”

Her lips parted. “So I could run into… another you?”

His gaze kindled faintly, amusement sparking like a hidden ember. “It’s possible. You may even find yourself as an officer in this simulation, commanding your own battalion. Meanwhile, I’m a ground trooper polishing rifles in the armory.”

Tori gave him a look, half disbelieving, half charmed despite herself. The very idea of Sephiroth cast as anything other than himself was absurd—yet the way he said it, dry and faintly teasing, sent a ripple of warmth through her despite the uncanny crowd below.

“Very funny,” she huffed. “I doubt they would do that to you. Even in a simulation.”

“Why not?”

Heat rose up her neck. She fumbled for the right words. “Because it would be a waste of your… influence,” she said finally, cheeks warming. “If Turk candidates are meant to train with Shinra’s best, hiding you would be pointless.” Her laugh came softer, betraying more than she intended. “Even dressed down as a trooper, you’d still draw every eye in the room.”

His gaze caught hers, steady and unflinching. “So,” he murmured, “what you’re saying is… even if I were nothing but a construct, I would not escape your notice.” One gloved hand eased along the rail, as though testing the boundaries of what she had just admitted.

Her lips pressed together, not trusting herself to admit it outright, but the answer was plain enough in her silence.

His amusement lingered. “Then remember this: appearances here are malleable. Even mine. It’s best to keep your guard up.”

The warning settled in her chest, more thrilling than she anticipated. She steadied herself with a quick inhale, then asked, “Does this module involve… hand-to-hand? Or weapons?”

Before Sephiroth could answer, the simulation itself did. A disembodied female voice, warm and corporate as an HR rep, filtered through the air:

“Weapons are prohibited. Use of hand-to-hand combat is permitted if circumstances require it. However, physical engagement will deduct points from your stealth score. Proceed accordingly.”

The sterile cheer of it made her skin prickle, a parody of a game. Like she was playing dress-up against a system designed to devour her if she slipped.

The voice continued, almost conversational in its artificial brightness:

“Please be advised: a classified dossier housed within Shinra Headquarters has become the target of an outside threat. Identify the infiltrators. Track their movements. Determine their access point. And above all—secure the intelligence before the enemy does. Stealth and subtlety are paramount. Failure to interfere without exposure will result in immediate termination of your assessment.”

The mission parameters bled across her vision, each letter winding a coil of tension through her spine. Locate, track, intercept. Prevent the enemy from stealing something that didn’t belong to them. This wasn’t only about securing a file; it was about outmaneuvering a rival who didn’t know she existed—yet.

A puzzle, indeed.

Sephiroth leaned close, his voice a low press at her ear. “You should make your first move.”

“How?”

“Likely, we’re here to observe. If this is an intel location assignment, someone here in the lobby must be our first lead to its whereabouts.” He tilted his chin toward the lobby floor.

At first glance, everyone seemed absorbed in their own business. Then she saw it—just the faintest snag in the pattern. A man in an ill-fitted suit walking briskly across the lobby with a briefcase chained to his wrist. Nothing outwardly suspicious… except for the way his head turned too often, scanning the crowd, his gait carrying a tension that had everything to do with his covert errand.

Her stomach fluttered. “Him?”

“The module will tell you when you’ve chosen right,” Sephiroth said, voice smooth but colored with an unmistakable energy. He was indulging himself in the chase as much as she was.

Tori drew in a breath, refocusing on the briefcase man weaving through the lobby crowd. Her nerves prickled with adrenaline. She wasn’t a Turk. She wasn’t even trained for espionage. And yet, with Sephiroth at her shoulder, she felt a reckless kind of confidence spark.

Think. Not just what’s in front of you, but what doesn’t belong.

She recalled a passage from Simple Sabotage: A Field Manual—clues of inefficiency and disruption, the way deception so often disguised itself as banal.

Her instincts caught fire.

The obvious: the man in the black suit, briefcase chained to his wrist. Too much scanning of the crowd, too much haste in his stride. He was almost too suspicious.

Her attention flared wider. Two executives collided near the stairs, scattering files across the marble like confetti. Hands fumbled, voices rose, pages shuffled—chaos camouflaging something else, perhaps something planted. Her gut prickled, but she held back.

Then, at the edge of the lobby, her gaze snagged on Orla. A mop in hand, janitor’s cart rolling beside her—but her body language didn’t match the menial role. She was aware. Every turn of her head felt calculated, measured. And in a blink, Tori caught the sleight of hand: Orla’s wrist darting, fingers slipping a badge cleanly from the reception desk as Bret Donahue greeted a visitor, oblivious.

Tori grew keen.

“Orla,” she breathed. “She’s our lead.”

As if in confirmation, the simulation chimed in her periphery—an unobtrusive ping, the kind a Turk candidate would relish to hear.

“Correct lead identified. Candidate awarded points for observation. Please proceed.”

A digital timer appeared at the corner of her vision, numbers bleeding down from 59:00 to 58:59 in blaring red.

They were on the clock.

Below, Orla wheeled her mop bucket past the escalators and nudged open a panel almost invisible against the wall. A utility corridor. She slipped inside without pause.

Tori’s attention sharpened. She had seconds to decide how to follow without drawing every pair of eyes in the lobby. The escalators were too exposed, the stairs too far. If stealth was the assignment, invisibility was paramount.

Her gaze drifted over the cavernous lobby, past the moving crowd below, until it snagged on the suspended fixtures hanging between the balconies and the mezzanine. Industrial light rigs, each one strung on thick steel cables. They swayed faintly in the air currents, slick with polish, but broad enough to hold weight.

Not beneath the crowd. Above it. A hidden route, stretched like a line of stepping stones across the open space.

“Look,” she whispered, excitement threading through her nerves. “If we use the lights, we can cross the lobby unseen, then drop down near the visitor kiosk.”

Her pulse spiked at the audacity of it. Normally, she wouldn’t have dreamed of such a stunt. But the memory struck her sharply—Sephiroth surging to a rooftop in one impossible leap when he had followed her and Genesis from the chopper wreck. For him, this kind of maneuver was effortless. And tonight, in the simulation, he was her partner. Why not have a little fun?

Sephiroth considered her plan, the faint crease at the corner of his eyes telling her she had chosen well.

“Inventive,” he said at last. “Let’s go.”

Before she could second-guess, Sephiroth vaulted over the railing, black-suited body cutting through the air with the grace of an assassin. He dropped onto the nearest hanging light, knees bending as he absorbed the impact, balance perfect. The cables barely trembled beneath his weight. He turned fluidly, extending a gloved hand toward her.

This was wild. Impossible. And yet—

Tori planted one heel against the chrome banister, braced herself, and leapt.

The air punched out of her lungs as the lobby floor rushed away beneath her, the dizzying gleam of marble and the blur of the crowd below. She landed against him with a jolt, his grip tight around her waist, pulling her firm against him until her balance aligned.

Her heartbeat thundered.

“Careful,” he whispered, low enough for only her. “You did well.”

She wanted to squeal in terror, but forced herself to nod instead, clutching at the cable with trembling fingers. “I’m fine,” she whispered, though the giddy tremor in her voice betrayed her.

The climb was quick, precarious. Every shift of his body was controlled, but she remained woefully inept. On the second fixture she moved in closer quarters with him, the brush of his shoulder against hers sending a hot rush through her veins, sharper than the risk of a fall. By the third, he was behind her, guiding her balance with a firm hand at her lower back before dropping her lightly onto the flat top of the visitor kiosk.

She dropped into a crouch, breath shivering in her chest.

Bret Donahue spun in her chair, brows lifting in polite surprise. Tori forced a smile, leaning forward as though confiding in harmless gossip.

“Can you—uh—pull up the visitor schedule for today? I heard an exec from Junon was supposed to tour the upper floors, and I want to know if the rumor’s true.”

For a moment she was startled by herself—lying so cleanly, so effortlessly to Bret Donahue’s face. Even a facsimile of Bret. It sent a sharp flicker of guilt through her chest, but braided with it came something darker, headier: the illicit thrill of pulling it off.

Bret brightened at once, clearly delighted by the excuse to poke around. “Of course,” she said, turning back to the terminal, fingers dancing eagerly across the keys.

The instant her attention shifted, Tori’s nerves spiked. Behind her, she could feel Sephiroth standing close enough that his presence pressed at her spine. Not a word of guidance, only his awareness wrapping around her like a challenge: Show me what you can do.

Her eyes dropped to the lanyards hanging behind the kiosk. Tori’s fingers ghosted over the counter, slipping a keycard stamped with upper level clearance into her palm. She tucked the lanyard beneath her suit jacket, the motion quick and practiced.

“Found it!” Bret chirped suddenly, tapping the screen as if the phantom schedule entry had always been there. She swiveled back with a grin. “Looks like there will be an envoy from Junon scheduled to arrive later this afternoon.”

Tori straightened, forcing a casual smile even as guilt flooded her chest. “Knew it,” she said lightly, before stepping away from the desk. The badge burned against her ribs, hotter for the fact that she’d lifted it under his gaze.

Sephiroth fell into step behind her.

“Breaking so many rules,” he remarked wryly. “I wonder what other risks you might take, given the right motivation.”

Her breath caught, heat rising into her cheeks. “This is a simulation. Normal rules don’t apply here,” she deflected, but the spark in his eyes told her he’d seen right through her.

They moved on without pause, slipping through the panel Orla had opened into the utility corridor.

The lighting dimmed instantly, the walls closing in to industrial gray. Tori’s shoes clicked against polished concrete as they quickened their pace, the echo of the janitor cart rattling somewhere just ahead.

“I know this place,” Tori whispered, half to herself. “Staff run deliveries through here. We’re trained to be invisible—‘out of sight, out of mind’—so we don’t get in the executives’ way.”

“Fitting,” Sephiroth said quietly, his eyes scanning the dark.

“A liability though.” Tori realized. “This is the tower’s main artery.”

At the corridor’s end, three maintenance elevators waited, doors scuffed, indicator lights dim. Orla’s cart had vanished. One elevator ticked downward, glowing faintly red. Destination: Sublevel Thirteen.

“I know where she’s headed.”

Without hesitation, Tori strode to another lift, swiping the panel as if she’d never left this job behind. She keyed in the descent to the same floor, her fingers steady with practiced familiarity.

Sephiroth’s gaze lingered on her, appraising. She pretended not to notice, focusing on the hum of machinery as the lift carried them down.

When the doors opened, she stepped into the shadowed cubicle bay of Service Center, her pulse tightening with memory. The sight was too faithful: forty glass-partitioned cubicles lined in neat, suffocating rows. Fluorescents hummed overhead, casting their anemic glow across identical desks littered with papers, pens, and the occasional personal trinket. At the far wall, the floor-to-ceiling screens dominated everything: schematics scrolling in real time, new assignments flashing in bold color, each task tagged to a specialist by sequence.

Dozens of employees bustled between the partitions, their movements brisk and absorbed in the endless churn of work. The sheer press of activity forced her and Sephiroth to cling to the fringes, staying in the shadows so their presence wouldn’t break the illusion.

Her chest clenched. “This is where I started,” she admitted quietly, almost without intending to. “Every request came through here. We call it the Hub.”

She pointed toward the glowing wall of screens. “See the color codes? Each specialist had a sequence. When your color flashed, that was your job. Once you finished, the board scored you. Points went public to the entire department—like a scoreboard. The higher your score, the better your privileges. Clearance to higher levels, priority departments, even first right of refusal for special requests. Everyone started at the bottom, though. Odd jobs, mostly—the ones no one else wanted. Scrubbing motor oil in the mech lab. Removing biohazard waste from Medical.”

She remembered her first week vividly: seven back-to-back “odd jobs” that had her trudging from one end of Shinra HQ to the other until her legs ached, only to be told she was “too slow” and scored down. The humiliation still prickled in her chest.

Beside her, Sephiroth absorbed it all with the measured sharpness of a man surveying foreign terrain.

“Efficient,” he said finally. “If a bit merciless.”

His gaze tracked down the endless partitions. “Which one was yours?”

Her throat closed. She lifted a hand, pointing to the third desk in the second row. “That one.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. And suddenly she felt it again: the gulf between them yawning wide open. Him, forged in mako and steel, vaulted straight into legend. Her, nameless and buried in the grind of clerical obscurity.

She wished she hadn’t told him. Wished she hadn’t opened this part of herself. But then his voice cut through, low and smooth, curling through her like smoke.

“Had I known you then,” he said softly, “I would have been your most devoted client.” His eyes slid back to the glowing board as though already plotting it. “Every flickering light, every jammed comm, every petty inconvenience in SOLDIER—I would have filed it here. Directly to you. Again and again. Until the board could only send me you.”

Tori gripped the lapel of her jacket as if it might quell the sudden racing of her heart.

He tilted his head, lips curving faintly, mock-serious. “And of course, I’d have left glowing reviews. Lavish praise. ‘Specialist Sutton: indispensable.’ ‘Specialist Sutton: irreplaceable.’ Even if you’d only changed the bulbs in my office.”

The air of the Service Center seemed suddenly stifling, suffused with a charge that hadn’t been there moments before.

“You would have abused the system,” she countered, voice thin with forced levity.

“Abuse?” He folded his arms, leaning in just slightly, the very picture of amused innocence. “No. Efficiency. Why settle for anyone else when I could monopolize your time?” His glance slid sidelong to her, eyes glinting with mischief. “No one would have dared deny me.”

She brushed past him, trying to regain ground. “Don’t be so sure. Specialists aren’t allowed to interact with Shinra’s elite—especially you.” She added. “Most likely, Lazard’s assistant would have seen to your needs.”

A sudden thrill overcame her as his gaze pinned her in place.

“How fortunate, then, that you ended up precisely where I can reach you.”

The words stole her air, leaving her chest tight. She imagined it then: herself still at that cubicle, oblivious, while Sephiroth filed phantom requests to tether her closer, pulling her into his path long before she ever knew his intent.

It was a dangerous thought. An intoxicating one.

Before she could gather herself, a movement to their left caught her eye.

Orla stood across the corridor, just past the edge of the cubicle farm. A shadowed figure approaching from the opposite direction. He moved with purpose, his head angled down as though reluctant to be seen, but the navy suit and clipped stride gave him away the instant he stepped into the dim light.

The sight jarred her. Ferris Knox, who she had grown accustomed to seeing in a white lab coat and his signature mystique, now looked every inch the corporate operative. The suit was plain enough to vanish among Shinra’s sea of middle management, his dark hair tied neatly back, his face smoothed of all cunning. Nothing about him drew the eye—and that was what made it dangerous.

Tori pressed herself closer into the shadow of the wall, Sephiroth’s stillness a heat at her side. Together they watched as Orla reached into the folds of her uniform and produced the stolen lanyard, handing it to Ferris.

“This will get you up without anyone blinking,” said Orla. “Level clearance—straight from the visitor kiosk. Don’t lose it.”

Ferris slipped the badge into his breast pocket, his wristwatch glinting as he checked it with impatience. “Ten minutes. That’s all I’ve got before the handoff in the cafeteria. If I miss the trade, the whole plan unravels.”

Orla’s gaze darted toward the overhead cameras before narrowing on him. “And the file?”

“The condor’s nest,” Ferris muttered, keeping his tone low enough to force her to lean closer. “Locked in his wing for good reason. Just think. One document, one set of codes—and the entire city goes dark.”

The words hit Tori like a live wire. Her breath snagged, but she forced herself still, ears straining.

Orla’s lips tightened. “We’re gambling with more than just Midgar’s lights, you know.”

Ferris gave a thin smile, cold and humorless. “Exactly. Once we have it, Shinra will pay through the nose to keep their empire humming. If not, the people choke first. A blackout buys us leverage—and leverage buys us everything else.”

His eyes flicked to his watch again. “Time to move. How do I look?”

“Like a clerk on break,” replied Orla. “Move fast and get out of there. I’ll meet you at our checkpoint.”

They split without another word—Orla vanishing back into the Service Center crowd, Ferris striding for the elevators with the pass burning like contraband in his pocket.

Tori was overcome with adrenaline. The simulation had raised the stakes into absurdity, yet her chest still throbbed with real fear. Emergency codes that could black out Midgar in a heartbeat. Sabotage dressed up as ransom, with every soul in the city hung in the balance. Unreal. And yet—it felt all too real.

She angled her head toward Sephiroth, catching the hard focus in his expression. He was unruffled, even faintly entertained, as though watching her wrestle with the false weight of saving a city delighted him.

No words passed between them, but the message was unmistakable: if Ferris reached the information first, the mission was already lost.

. . . . . . . . . . .

They shadowed Ferris at a careful distance, their footsteps timed to the rhythm of his so that the echo blurred into one sound. At the elevator bay, he swiped the stolen pass and slipped inside without a backward glance.

Tori’s chest tightened as she and Sephiroth entered the next cabin. The doors shut with a heavy seal, and the ascent began. Numbers ticked upward in silence, each floor a reminder of how high they were climbing—and how little margin for error remained. Her ears popped with the shift in pressure, her stomach swooping as the lift jerked to a sudden halt. The silence pressed close, broken only by the faint hum of machinery and her own unsteady breath. No other passengers had joined them, but she couldn’t shake the thought that higher up, the tower would only grow more crowded, more dangerous.

The doors parted. They stepped into the staff cafeteria.

It was uncanny in its detail. Soft carpet cushioned her feet, the glow of hidden lighting spilled across leather sofas and low tables, the air fragrant with roasted beans from the café. In the center of the room, the glass-encased tree rose like a sculpture, its branches threaded with tiny lights that shimmered faintly in the filtered air. It was so perfectly rendered, so flawlessly ordinary, that her nerves only sharpened.

Sephiroth guided her behind a partition thick with ferns, the foliage shielding them from view. Tori crouched low, heart hammering, her eyes snapping toward the counter just as a familiar figure came into focus.

Ferris.

He stood in line as if he belonged there, posture bland, expression unremarkable. And then—her pulse jolted. Ahead of him was Director Reeve Tuesti, ordering his lunch, wallet and security badge clipped carelessly at his side.

Tori clutched the fern’s edge so tightly her knuckles whitened. Ferris moved—subtle, practiced. A brush of his shoulder against Reeve’s, a murmur lost to the background chatter. By the time Reeve turned back to collect his tray, the swap was done. Their badges had traded places as smoothly as a card trick.

It had taken seconds. Barely long enough to blink.

Two steaming cups slid into his hands moments later. Ferris passed the counter with creamers and sugars, evidently using the cups as nothing more than props. An excuse to travel through the executive wing uncontested. Tuesti wouldn’t notice his badge missing for twenty minutes at least, and by then Ferris would already be past critical checkpoints.

Tori grew anxious. They had to act now.

Sephiroth leaned closer, his voice a low blade against her ear. “Shall I end this quickly?”

She turned, hissing under her breath. “That’ll cost us points.”

“You wish to follow the rules now?” he asked. “A victory is still a victory. Even if Ferris loses a few teeth.”

Tori seized a fistful of his lapel, preventing him from making good on his intent.

“No,” she whispered. “I want a fair score.”

For a moment he simply watched her, his mako-bright eyes narrowing with unreadable thought. Then, with the faintest incline of his head, he relented. “I’ll create a diversion then.”

Ferris stepped away from the counter, both cups balanced in his hands, his pace clipped as he turned back for the elevators. He never saw it coming.

Sephiroth moved. He cut across Ferris’s path with the unhurried certainty of a man who owned the floor. Their shoulders collided. Liquid sloshed. Coffee sprayed across black wool in a ruinous spatter.

Ferris froze mid-step, the mask slipping just for a fraction before he slapped it back into place. “Sir—! Oh, Gods—so sorry, I didn’t see—let me—let me pay for the dry cleaning—” His voice pitched high, the image of a flustered middle manager, but Tori caught the crack in his veneer: the sharp flicker of anger under the act.

Sephiroth didn’t so much as glance at the stain. His gaze fixed on Ferris with a weight that stilled the air, his voice low and venom-smooth. “Watch yourself.”

Ferris went paler by degrees. Napkins fumbled from the counter, his hands shaking as he tried blotting the mess. “Please—I didn’t mean—”

And in that moment, while Ferris drowned in Sephiroth’s shadow, Tori struck. One clean pass of her fingers into his pocket, swift as breath, the badge sliding free and palmed before his fumbling eyes ever left the jacket.

Ferris stammered out another apology and retreated, his shoes scuffing on the carpet as he made for the elevator bay, two half-empty cups trembling in his grip. He didn’t look back. He didn’t dare.

Tori ducked into cover again, fingers sparking with adrenaline.

Moments later, Sephiroth rejoined her. Wordless, composed, he peeled his jacket from his shoulders in one fluid sweep and discarded it on a nearby sofa. The suspenders beneath cut severe lines across the crisp white of his shirt. He unfastened his sleeves at the cuff, folding them back.

Her throat went dry. He looked less like a Turk and more like a gangster, dangerous and decadent all at once, as if the simulation itself had stripped him down to temptation.

His eyes lifted suddenly, glinting with wicked amusement. “So quiet,” he observed. “Is it me unsettling you—or the thought of what comes next?”

Tori dangled the keycard between them on its lanyard, using it as a shield.

“Focus. We have what we need.”

He smiled. “Where do we go from here then?”

Her mind began to whirl. She thought of the hushed exchange between Ferris and Orla earlier. The condor’s nest. Her stomach sank. There was only one person in the entire company who warranted being likened to a condor.

“The President’s office,” she whispered, suddenly daunted.

His expression brightened, sharp with eagerness. “Ah. We must be approaching the endgame.” With the faintest tilt of his head, he gestured for her to move. “I hope you’re ready for the final boss. Come on.” The phrasing should have been playful, but there was a dangerous undertone to it—thrilling and unnerving all at once.

They slipped from cover, picking up their pace. Tori half-jogged to keep up with Sephiroth, Tuesti’s badge hot against her palm. The ride upward was stifling with anticipation—her nerves climbing with every floor the numbers ticked past. Her ears popped, her stomach swooped, and she silently prayed no other employees would step in and delay them. It felt like the very air inside the lift was pressing down, thick with expectation.

When the doors parted, the air itself seemed altered. Heavier. More guarded.

The executive wing was nothing like the rest of Shinra Tower. It felt less like an office and more like a citadel. Brutalist walls of black-veined marble stretched skyward, pierced by recessed pools of white light that only deepened the shadows. The architecture reminded her of Shinra Manor, a grand portrait hanging in the trophy hall—cold, cavernous, a mausoleum of power.

Every sound seemed amplified, their footfalls echoing across the wide expanse. Tori had been here only once before, presenting to the board, but she’d been too rattled by nerves to notice the grandeur. Now, stripped of distraction, she felt it pressing against her chest. She didn’t belong here. No one from Service Center ever would. The realization made the privilege of Turks stark and terrifying. They were allowed to move anywhere, even here, in the President’s inner sanctum.

Sephiroth walked as if he owned the place. His stride steady, unhurried, his gloves brushing the marble once as if to mark a turn only he knew. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t falter. He had the wing memorized, every shadow and corner. It struck her again how different their stations were—how many worlds apart their places in Shinra’s hierarchy stood. Yet here she was, pacing his shadow like she belonged to it.

The grand double doors of the President’s office loomed ahead, framed in steel and gold.

Two troopers flanked the entry, rifles slung, posture rigid with vigilance.

Tori barely had time to suck in a breath before Sephiroth’s arm swept her into a recessed alcove. Her spine pressed cold stone. His body closed the space, shielding her from view.

Her vision filled with him. His chest. The subtle flex of muscle beneath the white of his shirt. His hair brushed her cheek, perfumed faintly with roses and vanilla. His hand braced the wall above her head, anchoring her where her feet slotted between his.

Too close. Too intimate.

Her pulse skittered wildly, and for one reckless heartbeat she forgot it was all simulation—the danger, the closeness, his warmth pressing into her from every angle.

The guards shifted, boots ringing against the marble.

Their voices carried down the hall, grumbling with fatigue:

“Shift change’s late again.”

“I’ve got dinner reservations. If I miss them because of this, I’m putting in a grievance.”

“You think the President cares about our grievances?”

Both laughed under their breath, bitter and resigned.

Tori’s breath caught. She dared not move. Sephiroth bent closer, lips brushing just beside her ear.

“Steady,” he whispered. Then, playful: “How about now, Agent Sutton? What would you have me do?”

Her face went hot. The phrasing was deliberate—double-edged—and she scrambled for focus. “Another diversion,” she whispered back. “Draw them off, and I’ll slip inside unseen.”

His head angled, mako-lit eyes glinting in the dark. “Another?” His voice was soft but dangerous. “Why waste time when I could end it here? Two guards. It would be so simple.”

“While I appreciate your enthusiasm—” she began, but the protest strangled in her throat. He was already sliding away, shadows bending around him as if drawn to his presence.

Her stomach dropped. “Wait—” she hissed, but he was gone.

One sudden movement cracked the silence. Clean. Devastating. The first trooper hit the marble before the second even registered motion. The second barely raised his rifle before Sephiroth tore it from his hands and drove him to the ground with bone-shaking force. Both lay unconscious before Tori could even gasp.

The sterile female voice chimed overhead: “Physical engagement detected. Assessment score deducted by ten points. Time penalty imposed.”

The timer in her periphery bled faster.

Five minutes left.

Tori’s throat went dry. She should have been furious—her score mattered, right?—but awe rooted her where she stood. He moved with a predator’s grace, efficiency so precise it unsettled her. These weren’t caricatures. They were trained guards. And he’d dismantled them as if they were nothing.

Thank the gods he’s on my side.

Sephiroth turned back, calm as if nothing had happened, holding out a stolen badge. “All yours.”

Her knees finally unlocked. She sprinted forward, swiping the card through the reader. The doors unlocked with a heavy click, swinging wide into the sanctum of Shinra itself.

The President’s office was vast and palatial. A mahogany desk loomed at its center like an altar, leather chairs fanned around it. One wall was nothing but glass, floor-to-ceiling, overlooking Midgar glittering like circuitry below. The reactors glowed, casting the city in a sickly green haze.

Tori stepped inside, awe prickling her skin. This is it. The seat of power. Every choice that had shaped her city—made right here.

The clinical voice chimed: “Candidate has five minutes remaining. Secure classified document to clear module.”

Her eyes swept the room. The desk. The shelves. The glowing monitor. Then—she caught it. A black steel safe, discreet at the desk’s corner.

Of course.

She darted forward, crouching. Fingers flew to the dial. Her breath quickened. How could she possibly crack this in time?

Sephiroth’s shadow fell over her. His voice pressed against her ear, urgent, too sharp. “Do it quickly.”

“I’m trying,” she whispered hoarsely, sweat pricking at her hairline. Her fingers slipped against the cold steel.

“You must hurry.” His tone darkened, sharper still. “We need that dossier. Before reinforcements arrive.”

Something twisted in her gut.

We.

The word snagged her like a hook. Her stomach lurched.

Sephiroth had never cared about the clock. Or the penalties. Or shortcuts. At every step he had steadied her, warned her to be deliberate, to think. That composure, that predatory patience—that was him.

This urgency, this breathless drive to get the document at any cost was wrong.

Her hands froze on the dial. Slowly, carefully, she straightened, pressing her back against the safe. She turned—

And the certainty hit her like a strike to the chest.

The man standing over her was not the one who had entered this simulation with her. He was flawless in detail—every strand of silver hair, every gleam of porcelain skin, every sculpted angle of his face. And yet the essence was absent. His presence was hollow, his stillness rehearsed, his stare a little too flat.

Too perfect.

Her mouth went dry. She forced the words out, steady despite the thunder in her chest. “You’re not you.”

The declaration cracked the air.

He tilted his head, lips curling faintly, cold. “I’m not?”

Static shimmered faintly at the edges of his outline. The office itself seemed to tremble, as if straining to hold the illusion together.

Her heartbeat rattled her ribs. Think, Tori. Think.

Her gaze flew across the office until it snagged on a recessed panel beneath the President’s desk. A security override. An emergency alert.

Instinct surged, fierce and immediate. She bolted sideways, reaching for it.

The false Sephiroth moved with predatory speed, voice dropping to a hiss. “Do not waste time—open the safe.”

Her palm struck the panel.

A sharp click echoed—then the entire world froze.

The office fractured, light splintering into shards. The false Sephiroth flickered, his form dissolving into static before vanishing altogether.

A triumphant fanfare burst overhead.

“Assessment complete. Candidate has passed with highest marks,” Tseng’s voice intoned as his holographic figure shimmered into being. “Well done. Awareness is your greatest weapon. This module was never about opening the safe. It was about vigilance. At some point in the scenario, your partner was replaced. You saw through the deception. You acted to protect the intelligence—even against your own. And that, above all else, is the mark of a Turk.”

The walls of the office melted away in a wash of white.

And then—he was there. The real Sephiroth. Leaning in the doorway as though he had been waiting for her all along, silver hair gleaming like tempered steel, his presence undeniable. His eyes met hers, alive with something sharper, more dangerous, than the simulation could ever imitate.

His mouth curved, the faintest flicker of approval.

“Well done.”

. . . . . . . . . . .

The night air was cooler than she expected, rushing across her cheeks as she stepped onto the balcony. It was a sharp relief after the stifling buzz of the simulation chamber. Below, Midgar sprawled in endless rings of steel and light, arteries of traffic pulsing through the dark. From this height, she felt both untouchable and impossibly small.

She couldn’t stop smiling.

The reactors glowed faintly across the skyline, haze painting the city in eerie green. Normally, the sight pressed cold against her chest—a reminder of Shinra’s dominion. Tonight it only heightened her giddiness. Her hands were still trembling, the adrenaline of the simulation refusing to ebb. She gripped the railing hard, grounding herself in the cool press of steel, needing its steadiness to counter the jitter in her fingers. She felt braver than ever, as though the whole world had tilted closer to him.

“That was… incredible,” she said, leaning against the railing until the bars pressed into her ribs, chin lifted toward the city’s glow. “The lobby, the marble, the banners—even the smell of the coffee roast. It felt so real I kept forgetting it wasn’t. And seeing people I knew cast in new roles…” She laughed softly. “It was like walking through a dream version of headquarters where anything could happen.”

And in that dream, she had become someone else—someone who could scale light fixtures, slip a badge from right under Bret Donahue’s nose, break into an office she’d never dared step foot in. Someone who lied without stumbling, thought fast on her feet, and, most impossible of all, kept pace as Sephiroth’s shadow. The memory of it lit her blood as much as it unnerved her.

“Everyone should try that once,” she declared, then paused. “Although… maybe not. Breaking into the President’s office shouldn’t be available to just anyone. Even in a simulation. A Turk candidate who made it that far would practically be guaranteed clearance.”

The idea stuck, equal parts awe and unease. She glanced back over her shoulder. Sephiroth approached her from behind, his coat whispering against the cool draft wafting from the metal grating.

“What would’ve happened if this had been real?” she asked. “If I’d been a candidate taking the assessment? Would I have passed?”

He joined her at the rail. Where it reached her chest, he leaned slightly forward so his body aligned with hers. The adjustment brought him close enough that the reactor glow caught along his jaw and in the spill of silver hair. Gone was the suit from the simulation; he was once more the vision of SOLDIER, leather gleaming, pauldrons stark against the night.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “With your score, you would have passed. Perhaps even excelled.”

Her pulse leapt, warmth filling her chest before doubt tugged her back. “And then? What comes after passing?”

“Placement into aptitude progression,” he answered. “Combat and flight training. Instruction in materia, infiltration, tactical deception. Controlled mako exposure—dangerous, but necessary.”

“Oh.” She gave a weak laugh. “That sounds… extreme. Remind me not to get carried away with hypotheticals. I’ll keep my feet planted firmly in SOLDIER.”

For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the city below, their shoulders nearly brushing. Then his voice broke the quiet, low and curious.

“How did you know?”

She turned slightly. “Know what?”

“That the duplicate was false. You identified him without hesitation. How?”

Her breath caught. Her gaze dropped to his mouth before she could stop herself. Don’t tell him. Don’t you dare tell him. But Sephiroth was a master of silence, and the weight of it pressed like a blade.

Slowly, she lifted her hand, her fingertip hovering near her lip. “Because he was missing this. A mark.”

His head tilted. “A mark?”

She forced herself to meet his gaze. “You have a birthmark. Just here.” Her finger lingered at the corner of her mouth. “The system made an imperfect copy. That’s how I was able to know for sure.”

His brow furrowed, then smoothed as understanding flickered through him.

“How perceptive.”

He shifted, and Tori felt unsteady in her heels.

“When,” he asked, his voice velvet-edged, “did you become so well acquainted with my mouth?”

Before she could retreat, he stepped into her space, catching her against the balcony railing. The city lights burned at her back, but all she could see was him—his gaze, sharp and insistent, the impossible nearness of him pressing her pulse to a breaking point.

She could hardly breathe.

The truth barreled through her in silence: she had loved every second of the simulation at his side. Loved the spontaneity, the trust, the way they had moved together as though cut from the same cloth. His “date” had exceeded anything she had imagined. And now, here, he was studying her with the same thoughts brimming in his eyes.

“Did it please you?” His voice was quiet, but it slid down her back with noticeable heat. “Our date.”

“Yes,” she said, the word leaving her before she could temper it.

“What did you like most about it?”

“Climbing the light fixtures,” she said, heat sparking in her voice. “Seeing Bret Donahue at the reception desk instead of tormenting me in real life. Watching Orla mop floors as though she wasn’t the sharpest person in the room. And you…” She exhaled, the admission rushing out. “You in that ridiculous suit.”

The confession left her breathless. She had given him everything in that moment, and when she dared to glance up again, his gaze was molten—eager but threaded still with that rarest of things: vulnerability.

The wind tugged at her hair, strands slipping loose across her eyes. Before she could push them back, his hand lifted, gloved fingers threading gently against her temple, smoothing the hair away. His palm lingered, warm against her face.

She covered it instinctively with her own, a breath spilling from her chest. “Thank you.”

His eyes narrowed, something unguarded flickering there. “I’ve been feeling something peculiar,” he admitted. “A strange kind of sadness. You live so close to all of this. You worked in the sublevels, buried behind requisitions and endless noise. And I never knew.”

His eyes returned to hers, mako-bright but raw. “So many strings had to be pulled—Lazard’s misfortune with assistants, SOLDIER’s carelessness, your own drive to climb higher. All these things had to align just right to bring you into my awareness.” His voice dropped lower, taut with frustration. “And I had no hand in it.”

A faint crease touched his brow. “It feels… wrong, somehow. As though you could have slipped past me entirely, and I would have gone on never knowing what I was missing.”

He drew a slow, steady breath, his jaw tight, then softened. “But you’re here now. Real, in a way nothing else in my life has ever been. You’ve brought a clarity I didn’t realize I craved. And…” His words faltered, uncharacteristically hesitant before resuming, rougher. “I want to see you happy. More than surviving this place—thriving. Achieving something that belongs to you.”

His thumb brushed her cheek as if the contact itself steadied him. “You’ve already altered my world without trying. And I—” His voice broke into silence, the restraint hanging by a thread “—I can’t stand the thought of letting you slip away.”

And then, without warning, his mouth was on hers.

The kiss was searing and exploratory, hesitant at the edges, as though neither of them fully believed they dared to allow it. Tori was stunned by the act, her eyes wide until instinct forced them closed. His lips pressed with aching intensity, softer than she had imagined, warm enough to make her body tremble. Each brush carried hunger balanced by restraint, a question threaded into the contact as if he were waiting for her reply. She yielded, her mouth slackening against his, and the world shrank to the taste of him—clean, electric, devastatingly human. The clarity of it shook her to the core.

Her knees weakened, and the rush of adrenaline gave way to something more perilous. She folded before she realized she was falling, one hand catching desperately at the railing while the other slid down until it pressed against the top of his boot.

Heat flared up her cheeks, mortification colliding with the dizzy rush of want. She ducked her head, collapsed at his feet, trembling from nothing more than a kiss.

The sight undid him. She saw it in the crack of his composure, the shift of his breath as hunger stole across his face. For a heartbeat he looked almost feral, as though her collapse had roused something he had fought long to keep buried. His eyes swept over her flushed skin, her legs, her ragged breath.

“Such a reaction,” he said softly. “You never fail to surprise me.”

He crouched with deliberate slowness until he was level with her again. His hand found hers, lifting it gently before pressing a hot kiss into the center of her palm. The contact lingered, searing her nerves, making her shiver.

“What am I to do with you?” he sighed, mouth still grazing her skin.

Her heart thundered, every nerve alive and overheated. She knew then, with terrifying clarity, she was already lost to him.

His lips lingered too long against her palm, as though tasting the temptation of devouring her whole. When he finally drew back, his eyes were half-lidded, their molten gleam unreadable in the glow of Midgar’s lights. The sight made her chest clench—he could have taken her then, claimed her utterly, and she would not have stopped him.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he exhaled slowly, steadying himself with the iron control that made him who he was. His gloved fingers released her hand carefully, lowering it back to her lap as though she were fragile.

“You test me,” he said, quieter now, tempered—but his restraint only made the promise in his voice heavier. “More than you know.”

Then he rose, unfolding to his full height with a grace that left her small beneath him. His shadow draped over her, silver hair shifting in the breeze, his gaze warm as he finally extended a hand.

For a beat, she hesitated—then slid her trembling fingers into his. His grip was firm, grounding, yet she still felt the faint scorch of his breath when he drew her easily back to her feet, steadying her against the rail.

“Another time, perhaps,” he murmured in thought. “When the world doesn’t watch so closely.”

Her heart hammered against her ribs. The words stuck in her chest, equal parts promise and peril.

He stepped back finally, giving her the space she hadn’t realized she needed. The distance steadied her, though the echo of his kiss still thrummed in her bones.

“You’ve proven yourself capable tonight,” he said, his tone smoothing back into something that resembled professionalism. “Adaptable. Resourceful. More than I anticipated.” His gaze lingered a moment longer, softer now, before flicking back to the city below. “But you must remember—you are not a Turk. Desertion is not an option. You are mine to keep in SOLDIER.”

As they turned back toward the door, the echo of his words still thrummed through her. Mine to keep. Her pulse stuttered at the claim, but what shook her more was the taste of the kiss still alive on her lips, the memory of his hand closing around hers. For the briefest, most reckless moment she let herself imagine what it would be like to strip away all that control. What it would mean to discover how Sephiroth moved not just as a commander, but as a man. The thought was dangerous. Forbidden. And yet, it blazed through her so hotly she could barely breathe as she followed him back inside.

Chapter Text

“Favor is a currency they spend for you, then collect from you.”

“I’ve replicated everything from your office,” said Tori briskly, fingers skimming across the polished desk as though checking her own work for a third time. “Console, datapad, charging station. All files copied from the Shinra servers. Even the monitors are set to your preferred resolution. The only thing missing is the garish yellow company logo, which I doubt you would miss.”

Lazard stood in the middle of his study, pinstriped pajamas and a quilted robe draped across him like the costume of a stage actor. His blond hair was slicked back beneath bandages that crossed his brow, and the sling on his arm completed the portrait of a man on enforced bedrest.

He turned a slow circle, taking in the transformed room. “You’ve remade my entire office,” he said, half in admiration, half in disbelief. “All so I can shuffle papers in secret.”

“So you can work on the Azure Accord in secret,” she corrected, sliding a pen into its cup holder along with the rest. The desk carried the same disordered habits she had come to expect from him at headquarters: half-filled notepads, memos wedged between books, and an uncapped fountain pen lying forgotten. Lazard’s absentmindedness clearly reached beyond office walls. Only his housekeeper’s weekly visits kept everything from tipping into total chaos. Without her, Tori imagined the place buried under mounds of clutter.

The sight was oddly endearing. Despite his rank, Lazard had chosen to live modestly. His townhouse, tucked into the quieter streets of the Upperplate, was comfortable but unpretentious, with warm wood paneling and little in the way of extravagance.

That unassuming charm gave her more reason to linger. She had been anxious that morning, arranging with the IT department for a maintenance vehicle to ferry equipment across town, careful to keep the coordination quiet so no one would question why a Director’s assistant was requisitioning half an office’s worth of hardware. Angeal had helped her unload it, his steady strength making short work of consoles, monitors, and files that left her arms straining before the sun had even lifted above Midgar’s haze. If he found it odd that she had asked him rather than Sephiroth, he never mentioned it, offering only his quiet presence. The moment they arrived she had thrown herself into the task. Anything to keep her mind from slipping into more dangerous territory.

“For the next two weeks, SOLDIER will look as though it’s stalled, waiting on your recovery,” said Tori, resting hands on hips. “Meanwhile, you’ll be pressing forward without interference.”

Lazard let out a faint hum. “And these bandages. Are they really necessary?”

He gestured loosely to himself, the edge of his slippers peeking from beneath the cotton pants. With the robe and his thin glasses perched low on his nose, he looked less like the calculating Director of SOLDIER and more like a scholar in his study, distracted and bookish. The sight tugged a faint smile from her despite herself.

“I’m afraid so, sir. In case the President himself calls to check on you,” she said firmly. “Right now, optics matter.” She reached for the cane propped against the desk and offered it to him. “And so does this.”

He took it gingerly, testing its weight. “A cane? Oh, Ms. Sutton, I’m not that fragile.”

“Not a cane.” She thumbed the hidden release Vice had shown her in the Turk Surplus Shop. The shaft split with a tidy click; an orange glow ran the length of the blade, humming as the materia came alive. For those who need a little motor assistance, but are still loyal to the cause, Vice had told her with his usual solemnity. Hidden steel for hidden battles. Grip it firm, don’t flinch, and the materia charge will do half the work for you. A gentleman’s blade for those who refuse to go gentle.

Angeal paused from embedding the walls of Lazard’s office with protective wards, his gloved hand still pressed to the glow of a sigil. He let out a low whistle, brows lifting. “Clever.”

Lazard, by contrast, looked faintly ill. “A sword disguised as a walking stick?” His tone hovered between disbelief and dismay, as though she had just handed him a coiled serpent.

She disengaged the blade with practiced ease, folding it back into its unassuming shape, and placed it firmly in his good hand. “I have my gun,” she reminded him. “Mr. Hewley has his sword. Now you have this. Keep it close. Always.”

He stared down at the cane, fingers tightening reluctantly around the handle, then sighed. “It makes me feel… old.”

“Perfect,” Tori grinned, earning herself an affronted look from Lazard. “I mean—not that you’re old, sir. That’s the effect we want. Frailty sells the illusion. In truth, you’re fit as ever. But if we want the ruse to hold, sacrifices have to be made. Even I’ll have to dull my own edges.”

That earned her a faint, reluctant smile.

“Very well. I shall keep it close.” Lazard accepted the cane with a short sigh. He leaned into it as though it had always been his, his weight tilting slightly with the posture. “And your plans this week? You won’t dull your edges too much, I hope.”

Tori hesitated only a fraction before answering. “Bret Donahue has invited me to lunch this afternoon. She wants me to attend a benefit dinner near where the Intercorp luncheon was held. Tomorrow evening.”

That drew a visible reaction from both Lazard and Angeal, subtle enough to notice yet sharp enough to set her nerves prickling. “Why do you both look so wary all of a sudden?”

Lazard tightened his grip on the cane, his expression flickering with recognition. “Ah. The benefit.”

Angeal offered him a strained look. “You forgot.”

“Yes, well.” Lazard winced, a faintly sheepish smile tugging at his mouth. “I’ve grown far too used to being summoned into these things at the eleventh hour. It didn’t occur to me that Ms. Sutton would naturally be expected to attend in my place.”

Tori hesitated, wondering what unspoken perils she would be facing on his behalf. She had assumed it was a corporate fundraiser, maybe even something vaguely philanthropic. The kind of event where speeches filled the air and polite applause carried the evening.

But the way Lazard said it—flat, weary, with Angeal watching him as though to make sure he took the matter seriously—made her pulse skip.

“It’s held every year,” Lazard continued, adjusting the drape of his robe as though even the subject were tiresome. “All the department heads line up like clockwork under the President’s gaze, forced to rub elbows with one another and a handpicked guest list. Politicians, foreign envoys, financiers, anyone Shinra deems useful. Rufus will be there, no doubt.”

She imagined chandeliers overhead and the steady click of cameras, Scarlet and Hojo bent close in false conversation. Still, the picture rang false.

Lazard must have read her expression, because his mouth curved wryly. “Don’t be fooled. It isn’t charity. It’s corporate theater. The President uses the gala to measure alliances. Every toast, every laugh, is watched and tallied.”

Her stomach sank. She had presented to the board just once, and even that had been dizzying. The thought of being on display in a hall full of power-brokers, every word weighted, every glance interpreted—

“If Bret Donahue is insisting you attend, it means the President is keeping tabs on our department,” Lazard added, voice sharpening. “Bret is his eyes and ears, so we must assume he has directed her to take a special interest in you.”

“Me?”

Lazard began to pace the length of his study, this time fully adopting the cane as though he’d been walking with it for years, the rhythm of its tap-tap punctuating his thoughts. The other hand rubbed at his chin as though the motion could conjure a solution. “It’s rare for anyone to best the President. And yet we—you did in the quarterly review. You appealed to his humanity, Ms. Sutton, and he had no choice but to yield. If he’d denied you in front of the entire board, it would have blemished his image. That is not something the President allows.”

Her pulse ticked faster. She remembered. The silence in that room, the weight of every stare when she had all but forced the pen into his hand. The way the President’s jaw had tightened before he relented.

“Perhaps he allowed SOLDIER its leeway with every intention of sending Bret to… balance the scales,” Lazard continued. His mouth twisted, his voice souring on the name. “There are other ways to apply pressure to those he deems troublesome. And Bret Donahue is an instrument he has wielded many times.”

The idea lodged like ice in her chest. “If that’s true,” she said carefully, “then letting her ‘mentor’ me might be useful. I could play the ingénue, let her think she’s guiding me, while I listen. Watch. Use the gala to measure the temperature among the President’s circle.” She forced a steadiness she didn’t feel. “It could give us proof of internal sabotage.”

Lazard stopped mid-step, turning toward her with a scowl. “You would put yourself directly in her hands? That’s reckless, Ms. Sutton. Far too much to ask of you this soon.”

But she straightened. “I can handle it.” After all, she had done that exact thing in the simulation chamber. The memory of vaulted ceilings and stolen keycards was still fresh in her mind. If anything, she was primed for such an operation. “All I need to do is play the part, stay aware. Even if Bret Donahue means to make an example of me at the event, I’ll ensure our cover isn’t blown.”

Lazard’s frown deepened, but before he could protest further, Angeal looked up from the faint glow of the materia orb he was pressing into the wall. “She won’t be alone, Lazard. Genesis and I will be there. And Sephiroth.”

Heat rushed to her face, her hard-won composure crumbling with a single name. She ducked her head at once, feigning interest in the console’s calibration as though the numbers required her utmost concentration.

Lazard, oblivious, patted her shoulder in what he clearly thought was reassurance. “Don’t worry, Ms. Sutton. I’ve given the General express orders to keep you safe in my absence. He’ll do everything in his power, I can assure you.”

Safe. In his power. If only Lazard knew what those phrases conjured. A strangled sound escaped her, which Lazard mistook for nerves over the benefit, but Angeal caught on more quickly.

“You look a little flushed,” he said, gentler than the words implied. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Perfectly fine,” she replied too quickly.

The datapad on Lazard’s desk chimed, the alert flashing bright. He reached for it, but Tori was faster.

“Sir, wait! You’re supposed to be on bedrest. Let Mr. Hewley take it, or I can—”

She faltered, the rest of her words catching in her throat as the alert flashed across the screen: General Sephiroth incoming call… She wasn’t ready—for his face, for his voice—yet there he was, inescapable.

Lazard answered the call in her stead.

“Perfect timing,” he said cheerfully. “We were just talking about you.”

On the screen, Sephiroth appeared with his usual composure, though something faintly amused glinted in his eyes. “Were you?” His tone was smooth, almost lenient. “I hope I’m not intruding.” There was a loud pause as he took in Lazard’s attire before he went on. “Amusing as this is, the morning’s orders are already in motion. Allow me to brief you.”

Before Lazard could catch her within frame, Tori darted sideways, half-turning toward the shelves as though suddenly enthralled by his collection of leatherbound classics. Anything to avoid that voice caressing down her spine. But even muffled by distance, it filled her, curling hot and invasive, reminding her of the outlandish thoughts that had been spurred by a single kiss.

The memory flared unbidden, vivid enough to make her cringe all over again. The motorcycle had thrummed beneath her thighs, every vibration humming through her bones, while the press of his shoulders in front of her had been her only anchor against the rush of Midgar’s night air. The ride itself had been intoxicating, reckless, and far too intimate, and yet it was the ending that haunted her most.

When they pulled up to The Railspoke, she’d slid off the seat with all the grace of a startled colt, nearly catching her heel on the curb. Her legs wobbled so fiercely she clutched her purse as though it might steady her, desperate to keep the rest of her body from betraying her too. Words tangled in her throat, spilling out as broken fragments instead of the polished composure she was known for: “Right. I’ll see you—later. Tomorrow. Thank you. Yes. Goodnight.”

Mortification had already heated her cheeks, but then her body betrayed her entirely. Before her mind could stop it, she had leaned forward, pressed the quickest, sharpest kiss against his cheekbone—more a darting peck than anything worthy of the moment—and bolted into the lobby of her building without daring to look back.

Now, the memory made her want to bury her face in her hands. Who did that? Who kissed the most intimidating man in the company like a flustered schoolgirl, then fled as if she’d set herself on fire?

The shame of it burned hot, tangled with something sweeter that wouldn’t release its grip.

Angeal moved quietly along the wall, pressing another glowing orb of materia into place, the faint blue circuitry spreading out beneath his palm. He cast her a sidelong glance as she bent over Lazard’s book spines with exaggerated interest.

Sephiroth launched into his report, his voice dropping into command with practiced ease. “Security protocols are being reinforced as of this morning. Genesis is covertly embedding materia wards at every major junction in SOLDIER. If tampered with, the failsafes will lock the perpetrator inside until we arrive. CCTV feeds are being shielded from interference as well.”

“I’ve also assigned a select taskforce of Seconds to augment surveillance and review entry logs,” Sephiroth continued. “Kunsel is already compiling reports from the last seventy-two hours. Zack Fair has been added to the taskforce, but his enthusiasm may prove… counterproductive.”

Angeal stepped into the frame, holding a materia aloft. “He’ll keep his mouth shut.”

“I hope so,” said Sephiroth, clipped but satisfied. “The Seconds won’t know the purpose of their vigilance. Only that it is by my order.”

Tori swallowed hard, her pulse stuttering at how matter-of-factly he spoke of secrets within secrets.

“Your auxiliary team has played its role well,” Sephiroth added, turning back to Lazard. “The chain email went out this morning, convincing the wider office that SOLDIER’s servers have been compromised by a phishing scam. And the printer…” A faint pause, like the ghost of humor. “…has been dismantled beyond repair. The appearance of chaos has been reinstated.”

Lazard inclined his head, eyes bright behind his glasses. “Excellent.”

For a moment Sephiroth said nothing, his gaze lingering on Lazard. The robe, the sling, the bandages slicked into his hair—it must have looked absurd to someone so exacting. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if debating whether or not to comment.

“Lazard,” his spoke at last, “For someone on bedrest, you look worse somehow.”

“Yes, I feel quite frail,” Lazard replied, performing his feebleness with academic poise. “Ms. Sutton has thought of every possible contingency. You might say she’s ensured my malaise is beyond dispute—down to the smallest detail.” He lifted the cane into view. “I have little excuse to complain.”

There was a beat of silence, the kind weighted with attention. Then Sephiroth’s voice again, smooth and tinged with something warmer than command. “Is she there?”

Tori tensed, hand hovering stupidly over a book spine.

Lazard glanced over his shoulder. “Yes. She’s investigating my shelves as we speak.”

Her head snapped toward him, wide-eyed.

Another pause, then the request came, deceptively mild: “Put her on.”

Tori shook her head once, quick and vehement, mouthing no. But Lazard was already turning the datapad, entirely unbothered. “Go on, Ms. Sutton. He insists.”

Angeal took one step forward and gave her the gentlest nudge between the shoulders. Enough to topple her excuses.

Cornered, she swiped damp palms against her floral skirt and accepted the tablet with trembling fingers.

“Good morning,” said Sephiroth. The feed framed him somewhere deep in the complex—concrete walls, low piping, the dim industrial hush of a maintenance deck below the plates. He wasn’t in his usual uniform but in black fatigues, the collar of his tunic falling open, silver hair brushing against his chest. His eyes found hers and held, and for a moment the distance between them seemed to vanish. “Did you fare well last night?”

Harmless words. Utterly harmless. And yet her pulse wouldn’t stop tripping, her voice threatening to catch before she forced it steady.

“I—yes. Thank you.”

He studied her, and she felt the weight of it. His eyes lingered, taking in the ribbon in her hair, the scalloped collar of her cream sweater, the brightness she hadn’t been able to suppress when she dressed that morning. His mouth curved enough to make her breath catch.

“And today?” he asked softly, his tone carrying the faintest lilt. “Are you doing well?”

Her mind scrambled for words, but all that came out was a faint, tepid, “Mm-hmm.”

“Mm-hmm?” His brows lifted just enough to suggest amusement. “Is that all?”

Behind her, Lazard appeared concerned: “This is the quietest she’s been all morning.”

Angeal’s helpful aside followed. “She’s very flushed. Might be coming down with something.”

“Mm—no,” she stammered, trying for firmness but landing somewhere closer to panic.

Sephiroth tilted his head slightly, the faintest trace of amusement sharpening his features. “Flushed and evasive,” he murmured, the words sliding close as if meant only for her. “You must have a great deal on your mind.”

The deliberate tease left her nerves blazing.

And then, as though twisting the knife just a little deeper, he added, “I only hope you are not overexerting yourself, Ms. Sutton. Don’t spend yourself needlessly.”

Lazard cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses with that absentminded professorial air. “Speaking of exertion—there’s the benefit tomorrow evening. Sephiroth, I trust you’ll keep tabs on her during the event. Should anyone attempt to corner her unduly, I expect you’ll intervene.”

Sephiroth did not hesitate. “Of course.” His eyes lingered on her, glinting with unmistakable promise. “She will have my fullest attention.”

Her stomach flipped. That was not what Lazard meant, but it was precisely what Sephiroth intended her to hear. Heat surged so fiercely through her cheeks she thought Angeal might step in with another comment, but he wisely kept silent, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Lazard, blissfully unaware, nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Then that’s settled.”

Tori tilted the tablet slightly toward her chest, shielding the screen from Lazard and Angeal. She bent her head, voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur meant only for him. “General, perhaps you ought to get back to work,” she said, forcing a veneer of composure over the heat in her cheeks. Then, lower still—her lips barely moving—“before you give up the ruse entirely.”

The corner of his mouth shifted, sly, as though he had caught every layer of her meaning. “Very well,” he said, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Have a good day, Ms. Sutton. If you can.”

She ended the call without further comment and handed the tablet to Lazard.

“I should get back to headquarters,” she blurted, her words tumbling faster than she intended. She straightened her skirt as though the fabric might anchor her composure. “I trust you have everything you need, sir?”

“Yes. Thank you,” Lazard replied with polite gravity.

“I’ll come with you,” said Angeal.

She nodded too quickly, gathering her things as if speed could smother the heat still clinging to her skin. The moment they stepped outside into the crisp morning air, she drew a steadying breath, but it did nothing to calm the tempest inside her. Her pulse still chased itself, her thoughts still tangled in him.

The streets of the upper tier were quiet, the sky washed pale above Midgar’s steel horizon. Angeal said little on their drive back to headquarters, his presence protective without being overbearing. Tori was grateful for the silence, because her mind was anything but still.

How was she supposed to face Sephiroth in person again, after this? His voice still lingered against her skin, velvet and merciless, teasing her with a gentleness that left her hyperaware. She had wanted to melt straight into the floor under Lazard’s roof. And yet—beneath the embarrassment, beneath the nerves—something warmer burned.

Desire. Anticipation. The dangerous thrill of being wanted.

She pressed her hand to her chest as though she could will her heart into quiet. It was hopeless. The rhythm belonged to him now, and the thought of their next meeting left her both terrified and breathless.

She didn’t know how she’d look him in the eye again. She only knew she wanted to.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Waiting in the main lobby of Shinra Headquarters felt uncanny after swinging from its simulated chandeliers the night before. The midday lull unfolded before her with a strange double vision, as though the projection still lingered over reality. For a fleeting moment she half-expected to see Bret Donahue manning the visitor kiosk with that uncharacteristic cheer, but instead it was only a secretary in a citrine scarf arguing with the reception terminal.

Tori sat on a bench beneath one of the towering banners, purse balanced on her thighs. Angeal had left her with a nod and the reminder to “keep steady”—easier said than done.

She reached for her phone, thumbing open the private thread with her team.

[Kovacs:] The Demon's making screeching noises again. Back to her full glory.

[Choufluer:] Is it strange that I feel nostalgic?

[Orla:] Update: the flute music is back!

[Choufluer:] Should I spill coffee on the carpet in the waiting area? Make it look extra shabby?

Tori bit back a laugh and typed:

[Ms. Sutton:] Please don’t actually ruin the office. Illusion of chaos only.

Her lips twitched despite herself. The absurdity of it all, her assistants orchestrating staged disarray while Lazard “recovered” in his townhouse, almost made her forget who she was waiting for.

Her phone pinged again.

[Orla:] Don’t worry, boss. Place looks like it’s circling the drain. No one will suspect a thing.

She was about to reply when movement caught the corner of her eye.

Bret Donahue swept through the entrance like a cold front, her pale blue overcoat perfectly tailored, silver-blonde hair coiffed into an immaculate crown. Eyes followed her without daring to linger. She was every inch the aristocrat Midgar’s upper echelon liked to claim as their own.

“Ah. There you are,” Bret greeted her, keeping her hands in her coat pockets. “Shall we?”

Tori rose, tucking her phone hastily into her purse.

They left through the grand glass doors where a car waiting for them in the portico, its black exterior polished to a mirror finish. “Good afternoon, Ma’am.” The driver greeted as he held out the door for them. His eyes cut to Tori and he bobbed his cap. “Miss.”

Tori expected to follow Bret inside and exchange a few stilted pleasantries on the way to lunch. What she didn’t expect was the woman already seated within.

“Hello,” greeted Vesper Navarre, looking up from the tablet resting on her lap. Her bronze skin caught the light as though she had stepped from a magazine spread. A camel wool coat hung loosely over a pinstriped ensemble, her long legs crossed, one heel dangling over her toes.

Tori faltered, unable to mask her confusion.

“I asked her to join us,” Bret explained. “For some media training for tomorrow night.”

Tori pursed her lips in response. She should have known that Bret’s offer to help “get back on her feet” would include some hidden agenda. But she never imagined it would entail Vesper of all people. Lazard was right to be concerned.

Inside, the car interior was spacious, yet Bret’s decision was immediate: she slid into the seat beside Vesper, leaving the opposite row for Tori alone. The configuration forced her into the role of audience, her back to the driver, facing the two women aligned like twin portraits of Midgar’s aristocracy.

The effect was deliberate, she was sure. From this angle, she couldn’t miss the symmetry between them: both elegant and composed, their expressions carrying the same faint air of boredom, as though life rarely surprised them anymore.

She folded her hands in her lap, not sure if this was still a lunch or the opening move of an interrogation.

Bret glanced at Vesper. “How is your office managing with event preparations?”

“You know how it is.” Vesper slipped her tablet into her bag with a sigh. “We’re working overtime to meet donor quotas before the award ceremony. The President wants every table filled and accounted for. And after Friday’s incident…” Her features tightened. “Public discourse around the General has consumed most of my focus. The Silver Elite hasn’t stopped buzzing since footage of the crash aired. I’ve been splitting time between damage control and the benefit. Every rumor spreads like wildfire.”

Bret inclined her head, sympathy softening her expression in a way that seemed almost maternal toward Vesper. But then her eyes slid to Tori, and the softness honed into something else.

“Yes, that is something I wanted to raise with you, Ms. Sutton.” Her tone was polite but corrective. “You may have been trained a certain way in Service Center, but when working in close proximity with the Firsts, restraint is paramount. Support staff—especially an executive assistant—cannot afford to embroil themselves in the public eye. It reflects poorly, not only on SOLDIER, but on the Director you represent. Presentation is part of your duty.”

Tori was unprepared for the sudden heat that prickled beneath her skin. She told herself she had done nothing wrong, and yet the reprimand struck all the same.

“It’s unfortunate we must even consider these things,” said Vesper consolingly. “But you should know: the Silver Elite believe any woman within arm’s length of the General is romantically motivated. I trust that is not why you ran to the wreck site.”