onepassingnight | Report V: Maybe Everyday is Saturday Morning

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Report V: Maybe Everyday is Saturday Morning

Tseng's breath was ragged as he stared in to the house. It had been a home, but the door ripped from it's hinges and destroyed furniture wrecked that.

He'd tried so hard to keep the two halves of his life from colliding.

On one hand he was Turk, a killer, a man not opposed to using any means necessary to get the job done. Interns avoided using the elevators alone with him.

On the other, he was a father and a husband. He'd stepped on legos in the dark and smiled at crudely drawn crayon artworks. He'd worn macaroni necklaces.

His professional life had no business invading his private life and ripping it to shreds.

He pulled up a board in the porch and withdrew a crowbar and a heavy looking revolver before pushing inside the house. He had to make sure his family was still alive, and if not... well... whoever it was who'd done this would find themselves on the receiving end of a pissed off Turk Director's wrath.

[OOC: SO. YES. Tseng's wish? Lovely home family, kids, spouse, etc. TOO BAD HE IS A TURK AND THAT IS AN EXPLOITABLE WEAKNESS. He'd never told his family what it was he did for work and someone decided to go after them instead of him directly.]

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It had all happened too fast, even for her. A kick of adrenaline as the house was invaded and the next thing she knew, Ami felt the cold press of metal against her temple. Her heart beat quickly.

Her captor wasn't that interested in talking, not to her. All she gathered was that he was here for Papa, ready to tear down everything in her that had so deeply wanted a whole and intact family. And she was helpless. By the time Tseng arrived, he'd find his daughter in the hands of the enemy, gun to her head, a hostage and a bargaining chip. He didn't want the pretty girl hurt, did he?

It was a nightmare.

Edited 2012-03-18 02:43 (UTC)

Tseng's entire demeanor was likely a polar opposite from what Ami had seen her entire life aside from during global cataclysms. Every motion of his body screamed of frozen murderous wrath, from the hard glint in his eyes to the ease with which he held the two weapons in his hands as if they had simply sprouted there naturally.

He paused in the doorway of the room, calculating whether or not he could kill the man holding his daughter without doing the same to her. He'd prefer to avoid wounding her to begin with, but the Full Restore he carried made it a viable option should the situation need it.

"Give me one good reason not to use your brain as wallpaper paste." He said, tone flat and void of emotion.

This was the man she'd always thought of as strict and with high expectations, but fair and kind? There was nothing but coldness in her father's eyes right now.

Ami was ready for it. There were secrets she'd kept from him in turn - the senshi, most notably. Her own fighting skills. They made sense now; not just some relic of the past, but a tie to her father in this time, too. She understoof hard choices more than he knew, and doing what must be done for a greater goal. She trusted him to shoot straight, and even if she were injured in the process, if the target was taken out, too, she'd hold no ill-will against him.

Not against him. The man holding her, however, had moved from sparking her fear to growing a deep, cold hate of her own.

The man holding her made the mistake of sneering. "She'd be dead before you pulled the trigger," he boasted.

He wasn't as fast as Reno; Tseng knew full well he couldn't close the gap and use the crowbar against the man. He wasn't VIncent either; who could have already shot the man.

He was, however, fantastic at finding loopholes and had been warming up an ice materia.

"Not a good reason." He stated flatly, the sharp icicle appearing above the two of them with a crack and plummeting. The house was already trashed, any more damage at this point didn't matter.

Ice. Another commonality. How had she never known, never noticed, so much?

There was no time to think about that right now. When she sensed the ice, Ami gave Tseng a subtle nod. She understood. The second it materialized, she pushed her captor with all her strength, right into the path of the hanging danger.

He, unprepared for both actions after mistaking Ami's calm wait for her best chance for passivity, didn't even manage to fire the gun before the icicle hit, pointed enough to be deadly. He took it in the arm and grasped at the weapon shakily, struggling to aim.

He'd been a monk, once upon a time a million years ago. Maybe she hadn't connected the dots, him knowing more about Shiva's sects than the others at the temple when they visited on holidays.

He flew across the room at the man, tossing the gun towards Ami as he did. He was going to maim the man with the crowbar for what he'd done.

Nervousness made her fumble the gun, but she soon brought it back under control. With a deep breath, she held it firm. (She'd never used one before, never held one before. No; it was useless to get nervous over that. The principle wasn't difficult, but she'd need a steady hand. No nerves.)

(Why did he have a gun? No; time for that later.)

She didn't shoot, not while Tseng was putting himself so close to the intruder that would have been her target.

He always had a weapon of some sort on his person, and there were guns and blades tucked in the walls and floorboards of the house in nearly every room and even within some of the furniture.

Crowbars were decidedly optimal melee weapons, with a long enough reach and weight enough to be swung and deal excessive damage. He swung in a downward motion at the man, seeking to catch the top of his sternum and smash it open. It would be bloody and painful but not an instantaneous death.

There was a sickening crack and a gurgle of pain. Ami stepped closer, gun held firmly now. Her eyes stayed on the downed man and the doctor made no move to help him. The soldier remained with her weapon trained on him.

That was when she finally had time to notice she was alright. More importantly, to her, she finally had time to dwell on what it meant that Tseng had come, even revealed himself like this, to help her. It was an effective balm to a hurt spirit.

"This didn't go as you planned," she informed their prisoner. "Do you have some last words you want to say?" Let him sweat out what might be his last moments the way she'd had to face hers.

He was certainly more of a coward, caught somewhere between writhing in pain and gibbering in fear now that he was on the weapon's other side.

Tseng didn't actually want to hear whatever the man had to say; using the crowbar to hook in to the man's jawbone and pull, one boot on his ruined chest for leverage. The carpet was quite officially ruined now, it would be far too much of a pain to get the staining out of it.

"Was your mother home?" He asked, glancing at Ami. There was blood on his face and staining his shirt.

Irrelevantly, Ami's mind drifted to what it would take to replace the ruined furnishings and clothes. There was nowhere to put her eyes that they wouldn't be looking at blood. There was nothing to put her mind on that didn't raise questions.

She settled for answering his first. It was simple and easy. Ami shook her head wordlessly for a moment before voicing, "No. She was working late." This was far from unusual, of course.

He nodded, toeing the man's now limp body idly before calmly taking a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaning the crowbar off. "Right, it's thursday and there are new residents. She'll probably stay the night depending on the amount of paperwork. I'll have Elena head up the clean up team, where do you want to go for dinner?"

He'd need to change his shirt, but he had a spare in his locker at work for just such emergencies. "I'm sure you have questions."

She did. Despite being unsettled by the surprise, it was hardly the first time she'd seen blood, even gruesome sights akin to this, between her own fights and her work at the hospital. She remained serious, businesslike - and inquisitive.

"I do," she admitted. "I'll make tea after dinner." They could talk then, when she'd had time to prepare herself and he'd had time to decide what to say. Ami left the restaurant unnamed. It didn't quite feel like a special occasion.

She'd probably dealt with his handiwork in the hospital, to be honest or that of one of his Turk's anyway.

"We're not having this conversation in the house. There's the pho place down the street, it's plenty safe."

The owner already knew, and had appreciated the lack of hooligans that having a Turk in the neighborhood gained him. Tseng paused at a hallway closet, grabbing a sweater and quickly replacing his jacket with it and taking off his tie.

"...put the gun in your purse. I'll teach you to shoot it tomorrow after you get out of school."

She understood and, as a rarity, didn't even think of arguing. She only nodded. It was beginning to become clear that she would no longer live the same way after today. After today, she would become a girl carrying a gun in her purse who knew what Papa really did for a living. Ami slipped the weapon into her bag.

"I'm ready to go now."

The thoughts coming one after another were staggering, all the little realizations, all the ways everything would change. She could barely believe it had only been minutes, hours.

She'd been told some of it, mostly during career days at school growing up but they'd usually been somewhat sideways explanations suited for the audience. He protected ShinRa's assets, recruited for the military arm of the company and did an awful lot of paperwork.

"How did your presentation at school go?" he asked as they walked down the street towards the restaurant. He was still tense and decidedly annoyed at the reason he had to tell her so soon. He'd been hoping for at least another few years, long enough to do it slowly.

It took Ami a second to remember that the presentation which felt like it must have been last week, had in fact only been that morning. "We received our grades already," she said inconsequentially, going at once to the end result. "It was an A."

A perfect score, actually, but that wasn't precisely new for her. She had a place in this family as much in her own work habits and achievements as by her birth.

"Good job, Ami." He smiled, patting her shoulder.

"What did you learn in school today?" It was something he'd asked her every day since she'd started school, even when traveling for work he'd call within an hour of her getting home to ask it.

Those phone calls make all the difference to the girl who misses her parents when they're busy or gone. She knows he's thinking of her. Ami warmed to the question enough to begin to relax. Being the type of student who paid close attention to the class lectures, she gave Tseng a brief overview without difficulty.

"It was an interesting lesson," she concluded. "But I would have liked to work with more difficult equations."

"I could talk to someone in the science department if you'd like, I'm sure they could put some together for you." He offered, holding the door open for her.

"I'd like that." And, being used to both getting her way by now, and being able to do whatever she put her mind do, she made a challenge of it. "I'd like to see if I can resolve some of the difficulties with their current research."

"I would advise against getting too deep in to that department." Tseng sighed, settling in to a table in a corner.

This was going to be tricky, he didn't want her to hate him for what he did for a living.

"Alright, ask away."

She wouldn't hate him. If anything, it would ease her fears about what he might think of her if he knew everything. But with neither of them knowing the other's thoughts, there was an awkward, long silence.

"You don't work an office job," she stated the obvious. Or rather, he did, but it included what she'd seen back at the house. No one could have been prepared for that without training and experience.

Tell her more.

"Not entierly, no. I do spend a good deal of time in an office but there is definitely more to it than that. I assume you've heard of the Turks." He nodded, lacing his fingers together.

There were few who hadn't heard of them; either as warnings, jokes or stories.

Dinner was looming, but she had much more interest in what Tseng had to say than in whatever she wanted to order. Ami focused on him, hands folded in her lap after she draped the napkin across it.

"They're very well-known," she said. "I've heard of them, of course." It was a word away from academics, though.

"So you're one of them," she gathered easily.

"The Director." He nodded. "I've been once since I was about seventeen, when the Wutai War was still just a conflict."

He was here often enough that he didn't actually need to order anymore, getting the same thing whenever he was in had it's bonuses.

"It was foolish of me to think that it would never affect your or your mother's lives."

This was probably when she was supposed to say she wasn't hurt, so it was fine. Or that the family members were all in it together, so he should have trusted them. At worst, it was time to scold him that leaving them uninformed had been what put them in danger.

The trouble was that those sayings applied to herself, too.

It made her ask a question instead. "Why did you keep it secret?"

They would have been in danger either way, truth be told.

"...because I'm selfish. I wanted a family more than anything, you and your mother are..." he didn't have the words for it.

"It's dangerous for a Turk to fall in love, let alone have a family. I can be ordered to kill you both, and I would have to. Just like I've killed people before; the Sector Seven plate didn't drop because of terrorists or weak support structures. We were ordered to drop it to make an example." He explained, unable to meet her eyes.

It was a polar opposite from working in a hospital to save people.

"I kill, kidnap and torture people for a living Ami. I send people to be killed in science experiments. I'm not one of the good guys."

She's supposed to be the sword that can strike down anyone. Things have gone wrong, people have been attacked, and she can't take the time to think the victims are people who deserve lives, too. She has to make the choice that will lead to her goals.

But a part of her knows she'd balk if it came to her family. She can understand the conflict, and understanding makes it harder to be angry.

She says it in the most indirect way possible. "I'm not that good of a person either." There's no tears, no sorrow to the words. It's a simple statement, here where there's no more hiding.

Tseng smiled weakly, "You're still young yet, kiddo."

It was fine, he'd support her in any endeavor she strove after in her life. "You're my daughter, and there's nothing that can change that."

"I'm a part of this family," Ami says clearly. "I'm beginning to understand that better today." Not just in putting together the pieces of the truth about her father, but in realizing where those pieces are shared between them.

She was every bit as pissed as Tseng. Being a Turk might have been something of a family business for them, in its way, but that didn't mean all the family should have to deal with this shit.

Even if Tseng's family (her own extended family) was still alive, Reno would make sure whoever was responsible suffered a great deal before they died. She'd enjoy every minute of it, making them pay.

She had her rod with her as usual, following at his heels, silent and professional, not wanting to give any additional warning to whoever might be inside.

Reno would have to get in line behind Tseng, they had been something that had taken him years to actually admit to wanting and just as long to actually find. If whoever had done this was dead he'd simply bring them back again and again until he was satisfied.

A line had been crossed, and Reno was likely going to see a side of Tseng that she'd likely only heard of in passing.

He made his way systematically through the rooms, checking closets and under furniture for signs.

He would have first go at them, as that was his right, but she'd like to cause them no small amount of pain herself.

Reno followed him into the house, quietly taking up the search with him. It was in one of the bedrooms that she found one of the children. Her father's daughter, the state of the room showed that she'd put up a good fight. She was unconscious, covered in blood, but she was still breathing.

However, there was no sign of the other children, though they must have been there when the attack came. Then where were they now?

Frowning, Reno knelt at her niece's side, applying pressure to her wounds as she pulled out a potion. She was badly hurt, but it looked like she would live. "Tseng." She didn't raise her voice, but she knew Tseng would hear her in the silence of the house.

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Report V: Maybe Everyday is Saturday Morning

have a not-daughter ready to kick butt together. you know, once she's... not about to die.

You will not be "kicking the butt", we will be relocating.

but daaaaaaaad D: i -like- buttkicking!

LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

YOU NEVER LISTEN! /stamps foot

Oh. I do. You just use too many words.

Fine. "Me buttkick". :P

Speak as your age not your shoe size.

Then you claim it's too difficult for you to understand >D

I don't speak teenage girl sweetie.

You should learn.

Elena's bad enough.

Please, I'm way out of Elena's league.

...I need to teach you how to hold a gun properly, don't I?

Probably. Yeeeep.

It's not too hard! Reno can do it drunk!

Drunk is Reno's default state :P

Or pretending to be drunk anyway.

That's a perfectly valid choice.

Of course it is, nobody thinks the drunk is paying attention to your conversations.

y e p. >D /has used that with OCs elsewhere. XD

Same with pretending you don't understand the language they're speaking!

Done that, too. XD was useful as an Inquisitor character.

oh yes, or a spy.

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How about a younger sister?

cool with me! Up to you what gets found~

Excellent