Author's Note: This is not a Yaoi fanfiction. Sorry people, it's not Shota either. Anyway, it takes place around 10 years before the events of the game. I write about a chapter every three days or so, however, I usually post two chapters at a time, so expect an update every week.

Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII or any of the non-original characters. -- I do, however, own this fanfiction, and any reproduction of it without my explicit consent is considered plagiarism. Remember that! Oh, and have a nice day! (Speaking of that, to post this fanfic on your website, please E-mail me (saturnkou at aol dot com) with the URL of your site and I'll get back to you with a 'yes' or 'no' answer within a few days. )

Chapter One

Tseng Jikandori, the second in command of the highly respected Turks, the youngest man ever to receive such a high position and the only Wutain to ever join the ranks of upper Shin-ra, was extremely late.

"Damn", he hissed "Why didn't Dante tell me about this meeting sooner?!"

As the second in command of the Department of Administrative Research, he could not afford to be late for an executive meeting. Especially one that he was asked to attend specifically by the CEO of the corporation. The Turk charged past the elevators. "I'd better not waste my time with them," He thought to himself "They're always so packed with people around this time." He sharply turned a corner, heading for the stairs, and almost ran into Elena Parkerson, a new secretary for some Shin- ra manager. Tseng believed she either worked in Weapons Development or the Space Program, but he wasn't exactly sure which, and in any case he didn't really care. As it was, Elena had to flatten herself against the pasty white office wall to avoid hitting Tseng as he sprinted past her.

Finding the dark stairwell, Tseng coasted up it, till he reached the 60th floor. "Damn." Tseng muttered under his breath, not even breaking a sweat as he finished running up the sixty flights of stairs. "There's no way I'm going to make it in time." He hastily pulled his keycard from his pocket as he came to the door of the 61st floor, and used it to open it. Then headed up the next few floors till he reached the 68th one.

When he finally made it to the boardroom he found that he was the first one there. In fact, he was an hour early. "Maybe you shouldn't give yourself that much time to make it up a few flights of stairs" the Secretary had advised him, upon seeing him show up early yet again. After a while, one by one people began filling in, until the President of the company himself took a seat at the head of the long, mahogany table that sat in the center of the room and the meeting started.

At first Tseng had wondered why he was even asked to attend. He wasn't an executive officer, and so far nothing that had been said pertained to his field. It wasn't until the president mentioned the newest resistance faction that Tseng took any interest in what was being said.

"They call themselves the "Midgar Owls". They've claimed responsibility for a few arsons of Shin-ra property and slayings of Shin-ra soldiers in the region. Obviously Shin-ra doesn't support these types of terrorist groups running around, and as such they need to be...." The president turned his attention to Tseng, "taken care of."

It took a moment for what he had said to sink into the other officials. Then, "Ah," came a soft murmur from the other side of the boardroom. Tseng looked to see who had spoken, and realized it was Abel, the new head of Urban Development. "So that's why he's here." Abel looked directly at Tseng, his graying hair falling in front of his brown eyes as he spoke. "It takes a killer to kill a killer. You're going to have him take out the resistance."

Tseng didn't respond to the "killer" comment, but privately asked himself why all of the Urban Development department heads had been such humanitarians.

"Gyahaha" A loud laugh resounded from directly across the table. There sat Heidegear. He laughed again and Tseng winced in spite of the fact that this was the man that the Turks directly reported to. His laugh reminded him of cheese grating on a blackboard. That is, both bizarre and unpleasant. Heidegear shifted all 300lbs of his body to sit and face the head of Urban Development "That's right. The Turks will destroy any resistance." Heidegear said. Abel met his beady black eyes.

"You don't find anything wrong with that?" He hissed. He was about to speak again, but was cut off by President Shin-ra, who continued talking as if he hadn't heard that last few minutes of conversation.

"Tseng, I'm leaving you in charge of the resistance. Also, tell Dante that he will be my son's bodyguard for the next month. We've gotten word that a few factions don't like the idea of him being named Vice President and have it in mind to make sure he doesn't become the CEO."

"Yes sir." Tseng said.

The rest of the meeting went by very quickly, as talk shifted to the war efforts in Wutai. After the meeting was over Tseng was the last to depart from the boardroom. As he headed out he realized that Abel was standing outside. "He's probably waiting for me." Tseng mumbled to himself. "Probably wants to yell at me because of what I do." As he walked by he increased his pace, not wanting to have to deal with the executive.

"Why do you do it?" Abel called out after him.

Tseng stopped and turned around to face him. "Damn.... Oh well. No emotion." He thought to himself. "Show him no emotion"

"How can you just kill innocent people without a second thought?"

Tseng shrugged and repeated the speech he had rehearsed so many times in his mind "It's not like I enjoy killing. It's just something I've been doing all my life. It doesn't strike me as being 'bad', or 'wrong'. And it's not like I'm psycho, and get a thrill out of doing it. It's just something I do. It's a part of my life."

Abel stared at him, an obvious look of disgust on his face. "That makes it even worse! You don't realize what you're doing is evil? Don't give me that 'I grew up with it, it's a part of my life' shit either! You're what, 17? It's not a part of your life yet because you don't even know what 'life' is!"

Tseng rolled his eyes. He wasn't into that philosophical stuff. "I'm a Turk" He replied simply. "I'm not supposed to question what's 'right' or 'wrong'. That's not what I'm paid to do."

"Dante does."

"Hmm?" Tseng's mind raced back to the Dante, leader of the Turks, and he raised an eyebrow.

"He questions it." Abel said, narrowing his eyes.

Once again Tseng shrugged. "I sincerely doubt it." With that he walked away. After all, he had a mission to do, and in order to do it he had to meet Dante down in the cafeteria, and then be at the helipad by 16:00, and that was only a few hours away.

---------

"So then she was, like, totally hitting on me."

"Can we please get back to work?!" Tseng was annoyed. There he was, sitting in the cafeteria with Dante, trying to have a civilized conversation, and his boss kept changing subjects. If he didn't hurry up he would be late for his helicopter departure.

"Eh? Jeez, with you it's all business isn't it?" Dante cried, an exasperated look on his face. "We haven't actually spoken in what, a month, and all you can think about is your job? God, you're going to go crazy!"

Tseng ignored the comment, "Anyway you're to look after the President's son." He started, as Dante turned his attention to the large tree that loomed over their table in the cafeteria. "I'll be- Dante, are you listening?!" The leader of the Turks stopped picking the leaves off the tree and faced Tseng again.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm guessing you got a mission, and I'm also guessing that it involves a certain resistance faction. Has it ever occurred to you that they probably haven't even done anything bad?"

Tseng snorted "Except for arson and killing."

"Which, may I remind you, we do on a daily basis."

"Dante, you're too sentimental."

Dante smiled at Tseng sadly. "And you're too much of a Turk." A long silence filled the cafeteria, and Tseng realized that they were the only people there. Dante must have realized it as well.

"You know," Dante murmured "I could shoot you right now. No one would know." His smile changed, and became sadistic. "No one would care."

Tseng met Dante's eyes before standing up. "What's gotten into you?" Dante didn't reply, and Tseng started to walk away. He stopped when he heard his superior's low voice coming from behind him.

"Oh, yeah." Dante smirked, remembering that Tseng had specifically asked him to relay information as soon as he received it. "The President wants to see you in his office at 13:00."

Tseng stared at him blankly for a minute. Then checked his watch. It was 10 till 12:00. Thought began to flow rapidly in his mind. He was on the 61st floor. The president wanted him to meet him on the 70th floor. If suddenly a strange phenomenon occurred and people started caring about their health and therefore began using the stairs then there might be a wait to get up the stairs and... and...

"Oh God!" Tseng cried "I'm never going to make it in time!" With another cry of outrage he sprinted away, heading for the stairwell, hoping to get there before people realized that it might be beneficial in the long run to use them as opposed to the elevators.

When Tseng finally made it to the President's office the first thing he noticed upon entering the room was that there were no executives. There wasn't even a secretary present. It was just him and the CEO.

"Take a seat" The president gestured to the chair positioned in front of his spacious desk. Tseng sat down. "What is this about?" He thought to himself. He had never been called to the President's office by himself before.

"Tseng.' The President began, stroking his blonde mustache "How long have you been with Shin-ra?"

"All my life, sir."

"Hmmm," The President seemed to be in deep thought, though what about, Tseng could only guess.

"Tseng," He began yet again, "New information has just started developing." He paused awkwardly, "I would like you to take care of my son, Rufus, and leave the resistance faction to Leon. He's the newest of your ranks, right?

Tseng nodded, but couldn't help but be a bit confused by this request. Why would he be telling this to him and not Dante, especially since Dante was their leader, and the information involved him?

"My son can be a bit of a hassle," The CEO smiled. "But I'm sure he won't be too much to handle for a Turk. I expect you to treat him with the same respect you would treat me, he is the Vice President of the company after all."

Tseng nodded again.

"You're to meet him on the helipad in ten minutes, and from there go directly to Junon where you'll meet his mother. You're to stay there for a month, then we'll see how it goes from there."

"Ten minutes, sir?" Tseng questioned. A prickling of the same panicky sensation that he got whenever he believed he would arrive late for a meeting was already forming in his stomach. How in the world was he going to make it the helipad in ten minutes?

"Yes, everything you'll need has already been loaded on the helicopter, and the helipad is stationed right outside my office. In fact, you probably won't need the ten minutes at all."

"Oh." Tseng answered dumbly, looking past the President, and outside the floor-to-ceiling office windows to see that there was in fact a helicopter stationed outside.

"Well, go on then."

An awkward silence filled the room as Tseng stood up, and headed outside. He half expected the President to follow him, after all, his son would be waiting outside, and if rumors were true they hadn't spoken face to face in quite some time.

However, when Tseng glanced back he saw that he was alone. He walked around outside of the office, not exactly sure what to do. He assumed Rufus would be arriving on a helicopter, yet there was only one helipad stationed there, and it already contained the helicopter they were going to use to depart.

A few minutes passed and Tseng had half a mind to go back inside and ask the President where his son was. After a moment he realized how bad that would sound, especially since he was supposed to be protecting him, and decided against it.

Instead he walked over to the railing, and looked over. Below him lay the city of Midgar, with all of it skyscrapers (though no building was quite as large as the main Shin-ra headquarters) and activity. Looking at the city from above, it would be hard to imagine that there would ever be terrorist groups bent on destroying Shin-ra. Upper Midgar was a truly beautiful place. Tseng knew, though, that there was a whole other side to Midgar, and underneath the "floating" city, lay slums almost the size of Upper Midgar, or "the Plate" as it was referred to by many.

"It's really gloomy isn't it?" The Turk turned and looked down at the source of the small voice. There stood the Vice President. "It'll all be mine someday. You know that right?" The VP asked, gazing up at Tseng with piercing cerulean eyes.

"Yeah, I know."

"Good, just making sure." Rufus paused, and looked at his bodyguard with little interest. Tseng smiled kindly at the child. It was hard to imagine that he would grow up to be the most powerful man in the world. Rufus was a small kid. Skinny, with large blue eyes and light strawberry blonde hair that fell about his pale face.

"Do you know who I am?" Tseng asked the ten-year-old, bending down so he was at eye level with his superior's son.

Rufus smirked. "Daddy's bitch, right?"

Tseng was taken back by his answer. He quickly regained his composure, however, and kept his voice calm as he replied. "No, I'm Tseng, your bodyguard."

Rufus continued to smirk. "Hmmm?" He raised an eyebrow and studied Tseng pensively "Yeah, you're a Turk. You do whatever father asks. A 'jack of all trades'. A bitch to the system." The older man stared at Rufus for a while, not sure exactly what to make of the jaded child. Rufus took this opportunity to question Tseng in the same patronizing voice the Turk had used when he had asked his first question. "So, how did you become a Turk?"

Tseng shrugged. "I was captured by Shin-ra during a raid on my village in the Wutain War when I was five, then trained with Shin-ra to become a Turk." He paused, and then added, "What I am now," for good measure, as if the boy hadn't already realized that. "Ahhh," Rufus chided, "You mean, 'not much'?"

Tseng winced, and ran his slender fingers through his dark hair. He tried to respond, but found that he had nothing to say. "What's with this kid?" He thought. He hadn't decided whether he liked the boy or not. He had an attitude a mile thick, but he also seemed to have a certain wit that Tseng liked in a person. "Damn." He finally muttered sheepishly.

Rufus laughed, and a playful smile crossed his usually cold features. "Hey, Tseng, can I ask you something?"

Tseng turned back to face the boy, still not exactly sure of what to make of him. "Yeah, sure."

"What's with the dot?"

"Dot?"

"Yeah." Rufus continued, ignoring the confused look on his bodyguard's face "That little black dot on your forehead. Is it magical? Can you see out of it? Can you move it to random parts of your body?"

Tseng grinned, "Naw, it's just a birthmark."

"Hmmm..." Rufus' eyelids drooped a bit "How boring..."

The Turk continued to grin, while turning back around, "Sir, we should probably get going, the helicopter's waiting."

Rufus nodded, and flipped his short blonde locks of hair out of his eyes. "Yeah. I guess." With that they both headed to the helicopter for the long flight to Junon.