Gravedigger: A Toy Soldier

Summary: They would look at him like they understood. He knew better. They couldn't possibly. Because, hey, even he didn't know what the hell was going on. Rate T: violence, gore, adult themes and mild language.

A\N: Inspired by the song by Dave Matthews Band of the same title, "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah, Remembrance Day '08, and muses on Crisis Core.

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or its characters.

Edited version: May 30/09

It was hard to take himself seriously at times. He liked to look at himself in the mirror at times and just muse silently about his current state. Such a pitiful man, he would attempt to read his reflection's mind, look at him; a constructed toy soldier. Where would they hide his wind-up knob, then? Was his flesh the new fangled mythril alloy? Who enjoyed the little shows he played for them?

Most of his silent bashing was due to his mind being drawn out over long periods of time without the promise of sleep. At times, when the lamps were dimmed to allow most of his platoon to sleep, he would rather write out reports. It wasn't that he was a workaholic, by any means. He didn't have a life to give up to an addiction anyways. If he couldn't manage to fall asleep, then by gods he was going to make use of it. At times he would go days on end without sleep. He wondered at times what that did to him. At times, when "times" had no use at all to him, they were wasted away in the confides of his mind.

But on the battlefield, he was freed completely. He knew that they held his strings somewhere on a different continent, but on the battlefield, he wasn't thinking about that. No, he had his mind concentrated on the task ahead, the mission placed (what felt like) on his shoulders alone, the enemies he needed to defeat, the things he needed to forget to get the job done... He was honest to himself (when the timing was right, of course); he knew that some sentimentality got in the way of his objectives, his mind was at time clouded by strange thoughts and he at times couldn't squeeze Hojo grating laughter out of his mind. He was cursed, like the other men, he was sure. But at times it felt like he was the only one aware of it.

They reassured him, patronizing him like some damned child. Every one of them. He was tired of them. So he told (yes, told) Shinra that he refused to walk into any one of their offices anymore. That was all right with him, he was sending him to Wutai anyway. There was no need for psychiatrists there. No need for the undeserved pity they fed him or the bottles of those disarmingly coloured pink and soft cloud grey pills they prescribed. He was a SOLDIER anyway. A GENERAL. Who were they to tell him what would make him feel better? What could make him sleep at night? What could make the water running from his showerhead stop turning red? What would make his empty bedroom inviting?

The terrorist attacks got to him, he didn't tell the psychiatrists, because they probably already took that into account. He was desensitized to the maimed victims, the burned victims, the decapitated victims, the scarred victims... It was to make him efficient when they sent him out. He didn't mind them, really; they didn't wake him from his sleep when they leaked into his subconscious. They kept him company at times. But he started to think only about them. Those poor bastards. They probably had families. He assumed they had their husband and wives, maybe with them in the rubble. He assumed there were children underneath the broken pillars of this building and that. He would sit in his office, alone (which proved dangerous on many occasions), looking at his blank reports; just making names for them. He remembered this girl, Sally, she was fifteen, maybe, not much younger than he was. She had her backpack on. There was a school down the road, he remembered from the Upper Plate map he committed to memory. It was three fifteen. She was probably going home to see her parents. She was studying pre-Calculus. She had ninety-five on her last test. He was secretly impressed. He hated maths of any sort. He wondered if that belonged in his report. He decided not to write anything about Sally.

They started when he graduated, in great successions, these attacks. They were usually caused by faceless characters, sending shady videos to the Shin Ra building, making claim after claim. Once he graduated, Shinra became overly self-confident about his company's military strength. They boasted, usually by means of invasions. He read about the occupation in Wutai the week of his graduation ceremony. That was the week they made him GENERAL. He aided them with strategies, plans of attack, not knowing full well what was going on. He didn't ask; he wasn't there to ask, none of them were. But after those meetings, he caught wind of another terrorist attack, so much collateral... He didn't know that collateral damage included civilian life. He started to call Sally and the rest of them "collateral damage" after his discovery. And then they started to disappear from his dreams.

He was in a ditch, he believed, a rice field ditch. He wondered if the propaganda posters depicting him would change once he returned. Would they have a couple of him crouching in some ditch in some gods' forsaken country? Battling mostly countrymen armed with outdated weapons? Ordering villages to be torched? Mud sullying his pristine leather outfit? He leaned back onto one of the mud walls, looking up to the grey clouds, pregnant-looking. He smiled. It was going to rain again.

He adjusted the handle of Masamune; he had been neglecting it. The black threading wasn't in line like it usually was. He loved taking care of Masamune, usually in front of his comrades, who looked at the spectacle of a sword with awe and admired the grace the wielder used when presenting it. He oiled and sharpened it as often as permitted. Changed the handle padding when needed. He took care of it, as it took care of him, countless times. So when the war claimed most of his free time that he usually took to take care of Masamune, he would secretly apologize and promise another time. Masamune didn't seem to mind. It still watched out for him as much as it could. He wouldn't start talking to it, talking about his problems in hopes of saving some sanity. That would be insane.

He grabbed a damp palm tree leaf, rubbing it up and down the flat edge of the sword, taking away "unwantables". That's what his staff sergeant called it when he was studying. Hojo called it innards particularly that of the upper torso, if he was doing his job right. It looked like blood to him.

"GENERAL?"

"I'm here FIRST CLASS."

He managed to get separated from his squad. He would have to report that incident, lest he be accused of AWOL. That was a riot in itself. Where would he go? The sunless beaches? The dense rainforests? His tent? No, he wasn't going anywhere, and they knew that.

"It's getting worse and worse out there, Sephiroth."

"Genesis, where are we?" The FIRST CLASS smiled at his GENERAL's sarcasm he had come to learn was the only way he could express humour.

"You know, when I get back, I'll bathe in Loveless. I'll see every single showing of that play until I believe I'm living it."

Sephiroth let a weak smile leak through, still paying attention to the work at hand, "remind me to lock you out of my office."

"Will do, GENERAL." He noticed what occupied his comrade so much, "love the handy work, Sephiroth."

He looked up to his second for the first time since he joined him in "the ditch". He was covered in mud, the edge of his crimson leather jacket was seared possibly by the blast that separated them in the first place, he would imagine. He met Genesis during his academy days. The man was a romantic. He never met a romantic before. Hojo said he hated those whiners. So Sephiroth made it a point to meet him. He reminded him of his first taste of chocolate mousse, or his first sip of tequila; it caught him off guard and made him wonder if he liked it or not. So he tried again, bumping into the man and the man struck up a very casual conversation. He remembered it to be about the strange humidity Midgar was suffering from. It lasted them nearly two hours. He liked the man. He was clean, had the mentality of a prestigious man, and didn't bother much with formalities. It was a wonderful change of pace, Sephiroth noted. Even his constant vomiting of Loveless was appreciated. The man knew how to recite, that much the GENERAL could say.

"What is it?"

"You've got mud... everywhere."

"Thanks. Pretty much three quarters of the population on this damned island do." Genesis, suddenly becoming self-conscious, began rubbing his face with the back of his gloved hand, which, of course, made the matter worse.

"Forget it, Genesis; you're just making it worse."

"Well, I suggest you keep your comments to yourself next time, Sephiroth."

"You asked, Genesis."

He stopped, looking at the man with a mockery of severity in his eyes. Sephiroth knew that that could possibly mean only one thing, he was about to break out into a Loveless monologue. But he didn't. He didn't utter a word.

"Not going to say something "Loveless-esque"?"

"Thought about it but decided not to."

"Thought about saving me the trouble?"

"No, I thought that this country doesn't deserve it. It ate my original copy." Sephiroth watched as his face fell, as he remembered his previously felt heartbreak.

"The one the actress signed?"

Genesis nodded in response. "Well, at least I still have her letters to look to for autographs." He smiled, this time slyly.

"No one expected you to be a pig, Genesis." The FIRST CLASS only managed to shrug at the comment. It would be pointless to point of the fact that the GENERAL was acting rather prudish, but that wasn't much of a statement. He was bred to be efficient; sex was dissected for him in terms that he could understand. Find a woman, bed her, have her bare your children, your genes live on. Efficient causality.

Genesis pushed himself to his feet, surveying the baron battlefield. He shoved his hands into his pockets; he hated those moments and Sephiroth knew how easily he became restless and how his restlessness affected him so. It was worse off when he was in the academy. He would pick fights, Sephiroth remembered, at whim, with the THIRDs and the FOURTHs, whom thought was an honour. But Sephiroth knew what troubled him, that restlessness burning, like a closed in beast bred to hunt and do nothing else. He was a SOLDIER now, a FIRST CLASS even before he batted an eye lash. Sephiroth saw it in his eyes, when they were studying from texts, strategies and such. He saw it when Genesis would dare him to join him at the training simulator, and he would just lose himself. At times, almost entirely... Sephiroth wondered what Genesis would do after the war. Would he finally exhaust his seemingly unquenchable thirst? Or would it only intensify? So, Sephiroth had to ask: "What do you think of this war so far?"

"Fuck this war." And he continued down to the rice field.

Sephiroth didn't know whether to take that as reassurance or to be frightened. Did it mean that this war exhausted him to no end or did it mean that this war was nothing more than child's play to him and didn't meet his standards? He hoped for the first; for Genesis' sake.

Sephiroth got up as well, tying the end of his black thread in a large loop. "Where to next, GENERAL? We aren't staying here, are we?"

"Perhaps we should go back to the pacific base." Genesis noticed the tired dark circles around the man's most prominent feature: his mako induced eyes. He nodded in agreement, not bothering to argue with him. Not because he was only a FIRST CLASS and Sephiroth was the GENERAL (that never really stopped him before), but because the man couldn't go on any longer.

"They say this war is over."Genesis attempt to offer in terms of hope for the young GENERAL, "they say it's only a matter of time."

Sephiroth didn't bother letting out a sarcastic "hmph", but then again, if Genesis was thinking of the end...

They walked in silence the rest of the way, paying attention to their surroundings like good little SOLDIERs. Sephiroth held Masamune in a tight grip, an action that had become second in nature to him over the years. He was ready for them, just as ready as they were for him. Only, he felt like he had an edge, every moment he felt stalked or shadowed. They could attempt to match him or think they could fight near or on par with him, but that was an exercise in futility.

He looked up to the sky once more to feel droplets on his face, caressing his nose. Genesis pulled his collar tighter around his neck and pulled his jacket closed. He knew it was just a fleeting relief from the stifling humidity, he knew and yet he loved it even more. Sephiroth loved the rain. He told that to Genesis once and he just laughed. "And you call me a romantic!" He wondered if Hojo would agree; was he too a romantic?

"Hey." Genesis called to his comrade, noticing he was strangely falling behind. "You okay? You seem a little... lost, my friend."

"No, I know exactly where we are heading. If we continue on this path, we'll be south east to the pacific base."

"That's not what I meant." Sephiroth and Genesis locked in stares, waiting for one of them to say something. But neither of them did. Genesis didn't know how to say it without his GENERAL having, basically, a hissy fit.

"Fine then, Genesis—"he walked on.

"You know, I've been thinking. A lot. Too much sometimes."

"Have you talked to your therapist about it?"

"No, not really." Sephiroth understood the man's position on the matter. You just didn't talk to the company psychologists about anything. They were always documented. "Thought I'd talk to you about it."

"Oh?" This was highly unusual. Even for Genesis. You just didn't talk about your "issues". Especially to your commanding officer whose duty was to ensure that his SOLDIERs were nothing other than capable.

"Mostly about death. Morbid, am I not?"

"No." Sephiroth thought about how to phrase his next sentences without sounding like he was encouraging such thoughts. It was dangerous to be absorbed in death when you were surrounded by it. "What of death?" All he could muster was placing the spotlight back on his second.

"That I'm tired of seeing it, I suppose." He leaned on a tree, looking up at the sky, "and I'm so fucking tired of this country. Raining all the time—" Genesis was caught off guard when he saw the GENERAL following his suit and looking up to the sky with a grin on his face. Not a noticeable grin, but a grin nonetheless that Genesis picked up rather easily. His long dark eyelashes batted the droplets from his eyes, the rain running down his face...

"It doesn't taste like poison."

"Sorry?" Genesis didn't want to mishear his friend, so he made him repeat himself.

The GENERAL slowly drifted back down, "I said, the rain doesn't taste like poison. Not like Midgar."

"Funny we have to come all the way out here to taste some good rain." Genesis flopped down onto the ground, placing his sword between his knees, twirling the tip into the ground.

"We shouldn't rest here."

"Oh, what's the point? We could kill the entire Wutaian army. So what's a few shadowers?"

"We're tempting them, Genesis. Let's just move on." He followed his GENERAL's orders like a good little SOLDIER boy. He noticed that this war was taking its toll on him as well.

"It scares me sometimes."Genesis said through the rain attempting to coat his lips and suffocate him.

"What does?"

"Thinking about death. I'm so frightened that it will be the only thing that I can think of clearly."

"Don't be ridiculous," he knew how dangerous those thoughts could be, squeezing out the little sanity you have left, "I doubt Loveless will take second place to death in your mind."

Genesis chuckled, "you might have a point there, GENERAL. But what about you, my friend? Angeal told me about 'Sally'."

"Did he now? Well, she's just like the rest of them, a causality, collateral damage. I know how to put them aside, Genesis. I know how to continue on."

He wished he could pressure further, but some things weren't meant to be dug up, Genesis thought. "Speak of the devil," he gestured up the path where Angeal stood, morose about something that much was apparent. "Angeal?"

They walked up to well-aged SOLDIER, lamenting silently over his Buster Sword. He sighed gravely, swinging the hunk of metal over his back. Sephiroth didn't understand how he managed to defy the laws of physics with that thing. He knew that Masamune was a sword only he could wield. But his sword only weighed 20 odd pounds. The Buster Sword was a massive sword, a sword kept tucked away on Angeal's back. At times, the young GENERAL would amuse himself, trying to figure out if he could wield it t all. When they had first met, Sephiroth commented on Angeal's sword which caused the SECOND, at the time, to chuckle and reply that he only used his sword twice since their meeting. At least he had used it. One night, when Genesis was rather ill and throwing a graceful fit in the medical ward because of his condition, they snuck away to the training simulator and had a go of it. He had hoped that Angeal would have used the Buster Sword against him, be he hadn't. He had respect for the man; he did have the gall to use some Shin Ra left over against Masamune and put on a hell of a show. But something nagged at him. It was apparently apparent because Angeal revealed, without prompt, that his Buster Sword represented his honour. He came from a poor family, whose savings went into that one sword. His father, a Shin Ra scientist, wished nothing more than his child to join SOLDIER. It was a misconception, but everyone believed that Shin Ra could provide happiness to everyone willing to sell themselves to the electrical corporation. He wondered if he still believed that, even now. Even after meeting the GENERAL, who seemed a little less godly and a little more like a cold-hearted bastard?

"What's the matter, Angeal?" Genesis asked, sounding almost like a condescending mother.

"The bastards scratched the Buster Sword."

"You used it?"Sephiroth asked, eyebrow raised and everything.

"No... They shot at it. Shinra didn't tell me they had access to firepower."

"It was only a matter of time." Genesis shrugged.

"And they've mastered it pretty fast." Angeal commented, fingering a fresh wound on his shoulder.

"They shot and hit you?"Genesis poked at the wound, a cat-like smirk on his face, causing Angeal to smack him upside the head.

"We should get you to the base." They moved on, but something caught Sephiroth's eye.

A recently killed Wutaian soldier was lying on the edge of the path, just before the beginning of the thick forest. He was facing the ground, his back sliced open from shoulder to hip. Angeal was always thorough when it came to bringing down an enemy; he was one to cause only momentary pain. Sephiroth noticed from experience that SOLDIERs never became fond of guns and such. Actually, Shinra condoned it in his own subtle way. No FIRST CLASS he ever met boasted the fact that he could hold a gun, shoot a 50 foot target, or used a gun on a daily basis. Actually, if you didn't wield a sword as your primary weapon, you just didn't become a FIRST. There must have been something almost poetical that Shinra wished to convey. And it seemed to resemble something like a dismembered body.

"Sephiroth?" He leant over to pick something from the man's pocket. "Sephiroth." He examined it closely and nodded in conclusion. "GENERAL!"

He showed the item to the seemingly worried SOLDIERs, "I think this may be familiar." And he tossed the item to Genesis who seemed more capable of catching it.

"Loveless? My Loveless?" Genesis' face seemed so incredibly repulsed. He tossed the item and continued walking on.

"What's that for!"Angeal scolded, "Isn't that your signed copy?"

Sephiroth held up his hand that caused a silence most profound to emerge, as if all the ears in the world were on him and their lives depended on the words he was about to utter, "they are like the rest of us, Genesis. They read. At times love what they read and other times they don't. They can appreciate a work of art like the rest of. To ignore that and continue to kill them is to ignore that what we are doing here is so terribly wrong. Whether it is necessary or not, I won't ever be certain."

He continued to walk up the path like nothing had happened, as if he had said nothing at all. Their GENERAL was a strange man. They knew this well and it seemed to suit them just fine.

He reached the peak of the hill they were attempting to conquer, the rain beginning to pour now. He laughed to himself. The Wutaian soldiers were becoming more desperate; attacking his SOLDIERs so close to base. There was a sudden crash and then rapid gunfire. And smoke... it seemed to suffocate the rain clouds themselves. The camp was ablaze, just like that, in a matter of a blink of an eye. Well, that's how wars went. They came at you in a blink of an eye. And then dragged on and left when it clearly overstayed their welcome.

The GENERAL sighed, asking Angeal if he still had the radio on him. He didn't. He had left it with a commander in SECOND CLASS and ordered him to take care of all communications for that attack they held earlier, the one that caused them to separate. GENERAL nodded, walking further down the path. They didn't understand. Why were they heading back? They hadn't seen that the pacific base they all worked so hard to obtain was lost to a raging fire that was likely claiming Wutaian and Shin Ra soldiers alike. Let them see for themselves, Sephiroth thought half-heartedly. See what Shinra managed to be so blind from.

He caught a reflection of himself in a puddle down the path. He chuckled inwardly. It was hard to take himself seriously at times. The great Shin Ra GENERAL soaked from head to mud plastered toe. Walking, back weighed down by some unknown force, walking in some gods forsaken country. Eyes encircled by deep dark hues. Whistling some little piano piece that somehow reminded him of rain. Of course he wasn't really whistling, but he fancied himself doing so.

fin.