But it's still considered to be an honourable duty. Defend your country, fight for your home and family. Be brave, courageous, and you'll get some nice medals to put on your uniform.

I never had a home and family, though. Not in a very long time atleast. Maybe they were killed in one of the bomb raids I was apart of.

Yes, I fought my own country, and I did it on the orders of their worst enemy, Shinra. But I have no regrets. Nightmares, yes, there are some. Scenes that plays before my eyes constantly in the sleepless dark. Not for what I did, but for what we all did. Men killing each other out on the burning rice fields, raping women in the almost abandoned villages. Slaying children and mothers. Lining up little boys and executing them so that they won't grow up to be soldiers.

I might have been spared all these sights if my plane hadn't been shot down right over enemy territory.

I must have killed more people from the air, and in one single blow, than the SOLDIERs on the ground did.

I pushed one button and I killed whatever was beneath me right then.

They think all pilots are heroes. I think that's bullshit, although, I must say, it's quite nice bullshit. The kind of stuff you need to tell yourself sometimes when you're riding on the edge of madness. After countless sleep deprived nights.

They put you in a plane and tell you to go out and be a hero. Is it how many you kill or save that counts? I never got that cleared out.

Moral, justice and courage, you wrap that up and you've got yourself a hero. But I tell you, it's not so fucking easy living up to that when you're sitting in one of those machines. You concentrate on keeping it above ground, airborn, make one mistake and you'll be nothing but a nice burning wreck somewhere in the middle of nowhere. That's what you've been taught since the day you first got into an airplane and lifted it to the skies.

Suddenly, that's not enough anymore. You've got some extra cargo, high-explosive. You don't want to mess up then.

Enemy fighters on your tail. You expect them to get a hit any second now. But you still keep your eyes focused ahead. Don't want to lose control over the plane.

Keep it in the air. Don't get shot. Drop the bomb. Shoot down the enemies. Stick to the route, don't want to run out of fuel, that would be a real bitch.

Planes everywhere, who could ever have know that the sky could be so small, so crowded.

And of course there are mountains, endless, stretching upwards. An inmobile obstacle, always there to look out for. I used to play at the foot of that holy mountain when I was a kid.

But that was such a long time ago now.

Going through clouds of smoke and fire. My bomb has hit it's target. The people on the ground, so small, so far away. Why do their screams still reach me?

And then, I'm finally hit. I'd expected it for so long but when it happened I was totally unprepared for it.

I never thought I'd survive a plane crash, but I did.

Even when I lay there on the ground I thought I'd die. A lonesome SOLDIER behind enemy lines. Who'd have mercy on me?

I'm not sure anyone did. I'm not sure anyone gave a fuck. They all thought I was dead when they saw the explosion of the plane. But I'd crawled out long before that.

I was found three days later by a group of SOLDIERs, out on some secret mission, marching through the damn jungle. They were a nothing but a bunch of thugs, I came to realize withing the next days, but still, they were my saviors. I stayed with them, watched silently as they raped and murdered.

That's when I first came to see how protected I'd really been in that plane. I'd been spared all of these things. I'd never had to walk among bloody corpses and the smell of burnt flesh.

I know they didn't like me, mostly because of my wutan looks. It was hard for them to see me as one of them. But they had heard of me, knew that I was part of the Highwind squadron, and that's why they'd let me come with them. I had every intention of leaving at the first given chance, though.

One day we came to a village, nothing but smouldering ruins, really. But there were some people left. And they had a gun.

One of us got shot, in the arm, the other bullets missed.

They made the mother watch as they raped and killed her daughter. Then they held down boy, ripping at his clothes.

That's when I left. I didn't stop them or anything, I just left.

When they came back to our camp a couple of hours later they said nothing.

I didn't sleep that night. I'd seen the look in their eyes, I knew what was going on.

One tried to hold me down by my shoulders, an other by my legs. The third one was towering above me, sitting with his knees between my legs. I sliced his throat. The others were so shocked they let me go, and no one tried anything with me again that night.

But I knew I couldn't stay.

The next day we walked into another SOLDIER camp. It was Sephiroth and his squad.

He didn't want to let me stay, said that their mission was top secret, he didn't have time nurse any fallen pilots. But I convinced him.

That night I spent in his tent. He covered my mouth with his hand as he moved above me, a pale ghost in the blue wutan moonlight. His thrusts were deep and sharp, but his kisses were sweet, comforting promises of salvation. I didn't mind sleeping in his arms, not that night and not any of the nights that followed.

But I had to know what had become of my Captain, if he was still alive. I asked Sephiroth for news. At first he gave me some bullshit story about it being too dangerous for any radio transmissions. I told him that I had to go back to my squadron, had to find them so that I could recieve new orders, fulfilling my part in the war. That he understood, he was, after all, a soldier. It was easier for him to understand war than to touch upon something so close to the heart. For him, there was only admiration, something that stretched far beyond mutual respect for one and other, but there was no love. He had never known such a thing, and he never would. He wouldn't let it come close enough to touch his soul.

I told him about my Captain, the man who'd taught me how to fly. The man who'd been my mentor, teaching me to fly anything with wings, and doing it damn good, too, and with a hell of a lot of style. I had sworn to follow him in battle, and I couldn't brake that promise. Not to the man I admired, could I?

"No," he said, "of course not." And he had some news for me that same evening.

The Captain was in Junon, and so was the rest of my squadron, or at least what was left of it. He was going over to Wutai tomorrow, then he'd pick me up.

Sephiroth looked up at me, those burning green eyes piercing me for a moment. "Good night," he said, and left. He didn't ask me to stay with him that night, but I knew that I would anyway.

"Tseng," he gasped into my mouth as our lips parted. It was different that night. Not only violent need, but something soft and gentle sneaking it's way into our act. Something you won't allow until the end is clear in sight. Just one more night and then it would be over.

And Cid would never find out.

The next day he came, saluting me as we met out on the grassfield. He spoke briefly to Sephiroth but I could feel his eyes wandering over to me the whole time. Sephiroth didn't cast me one last glance. Not until we were about to board the plane. Then he looked at me, simply said good bye and left.

When we got back to Junon Cid took me to his room and embraced me. It felt good, but it was not the same as it had been before we had went into the war. Something was different now, I wasn't sure what, but I thought it was me.

Less than 24 hours since I'd been in Sephiroth's arms, I was now in Cid's bed.

I didn't feel quilty, I didn't see any reason to.

I'd only done what I had to do to stay alive in the war. And I have no regrets. In all that chaos and destruction Sephiroth had been the only light to lead me. The Captain had not been there, even though he was supposed to have been the one that I should follow. But I've never blamed him for that. I had done what I had to to get out of there and to get back to him. And now I was back. How was I supposed to know that everything would have changed after the war, that I wouldn't be the same person anymore?

It was only a couple of weeks later that I told him that I did not want to fly anymore. Atleast not in the Air Force. He shrugged and said that it was just a fase, the aftermaths of the war running through my system. He went out on the balcony to have a smoke.

I sat silently in the bedroom, wondering why it felt as if I was slowly dying. The war was over, I should be happy, relieved. But I wasn't.

I felt restless.

Cid was at peace, up to his ears in his space program. He knew how to enjoy a war-less world. I didn't.

When he came back in I got up and kissed him fiercefully. "Why do you alway think of me as an innocent little boy?" I asked him.

He looked at me, confused. "What are you talking about, Tseng?"

And right then, I felt like telling him about Sephiroth. About how I'd let him take me, every night we had spent together in his tent there out on the grass plains far outside the city of Wutai.

I wanted to tell him that I would never let him do something like that to me. Never would I give myself so freely.

But I didn't say any of that. Instead I just pushed him down onto the bed and fucked him for one last time. Afterward I just got up and dressed. I left without looking back.

That's always the best way to go.

I quit the Air Force, Shinra was slowly but surely dismanteling it, they had no need for it any longer, the war was over and with the weapons they were building they didn't need to rely on airborn fighters.

They knew about me, they said, and apparently I was just what they were looking for.

I signed a lifelong contract that day.

I was now a Turk. Never again would I have to go restless, be of no use to anyone. There was always a mission for the Turks.

No more talk of heroes, or honour. No more hypocrism. I kill, but not hundreds, maybe even thousands of nameless people with one push of the button. It's face to face, I look them in the eyes as I pull the trigger. I know their crimes.

And I know the name of every single one of them.

Even this one.

Cid Highwind, former employee at Shinra Inc. now a member of Avalanche. Traitor.

I am a killer, an assassin. I murder for money. I kidnap children and I threaten their parents. I follow orders, but not blindly, I do it my way. My loyalty has a price, and the check is signed by Shinra Inc. I do what you pay me to do and I do it good. I don't believe in justice, I believe you get what you pay for. As for courage, well, I do whatever it takes to stay alive. It might not be courage to you, but 'thou shalt not judge.' After all, you are not living by my standards. Do I have moral, I'd definitely say so, yes. But you wouldn't understand. And Cid was right, I have innocence. For after all the shit I have seen in this fucked up world I still believe in love. And I'm capable of loving.

So I put the gun back in it's harness, and I walk away.

The End

©Starla

Characters, places etc (in other words, FFVII) belongs to Square.