melodiesoflife | Hidden Truth [Log]

What: A log for everyone to gain the information in the Hidden Truth video tape.
Where: The Observatory.

There had been a flurry of letters sent out from Jack and Chiaki, first to Zelda to ask to borrow the Observatory, and then to every Hero of Light, alerting them that they had uncovered some intelligence received in the Heran Empire before the Capital had fallen to Crystal, and that everyone needed to see it immediately.

Jack, Chiaki, and a few others brought in a screen connected to a machine that some would recognize as a VCR. "With our peace mission to the Imperial Capital over Christmas, we returned with a recording made on 20th-century Earth technology, the kind that doesn't have an analogue on Crystallis. It took us time to build a machine to be able to play it. This information comes from Kalki, recorded what appears to be years ago. We obtained it from the Imperial Spy, Jenni. As of right now, we still have no reason to believe that Kalki is alive. But this comes from her, and I apologize to everyone who might be upset by seeing her again."

With that, Jack plays the recording. He stands by the screen and repeats the words for everyone to hear, for those who cannot understand English. Since Kalki's first words are to explain why she is recording it this way, it makes sense why he has to do this. He keeps his own emotions in check throughout, until the explanation of the Bard song that everyone gets to hear. That seems to upset Jack.

Once the recording is over, Jack pauses. "We will need some help from any other English speakers to create a written transcript of the recording so that anyone can access this information at any time. The tape and player will remain here for any Heroes to review. We ask that you please be careful with the machine."

Finally, Jack sits down to let the room descend into the inevitable chaos.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yuffie was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her chest while her thoughts remained safely inside her head. She almost had 10 jobs maxed out and she wondered if she might be able to perform one of the roles out of Kalki's long 'to do' list. She hated Kalki but that didn't mean that the video should be disregarded.

It had a surprising amount of useful information in it.

She'll talk to anyone who wants to but she's still thinking everything over. It's sort of hard to form an opinion with so many conflicting emotions and the longer she stands there the more her opinions shift and change.

Cloud was lagging a bit behind Yuffie in terms of Job power. In fact if he heard her list he might be shocked at how far along she was. Still, he was moving along at a good pace as well and would likely have ten jobs Mastered or close to it before the year was through.

Wandering through the crowd of murmuring Heroes he popped out of the mingle a few feet away from her. "Oh....Yuffie." He looked at her and then gestured back at the tape. "What do you think about all of this?" He didn't want to say it directly but Yuffie had suffered at Kalki's hands and he felt like she deserved to have a say in all of this.

Yuffie looked over at Cloud hearing her name being called by the familiar timber. She raised a hand and flashed the SOLDIER boy a smile.

"A lot of things..." That wasn't an answer but it was what she currently had. "I still don't like her if that's what you're asking but that doesn't mean I think she's lying."

Yuffie didn't consider herself stronger from that incident but then... maybe she was? Wouldn't that have been Kalki's point?

Cloud watched Yuffie's face for a moment before nodding and looking back to where the video was played. "No...I don't think think she is either. At least I believe she thinks she's telling the truth."

His face wrenched a bit as he tried to work his way through his thoughts, trying to put a finger on them. "If she wanted to help us then why did she have to do...everything the way she did? And why does everything she said in that video sound like last chance options?"

If she's been studying the Calamity for so long he can't believe that these are their only options. He didn't want to see everyone laying down their lives to try to stop Garland. Not like this. Especially not if they didn't know if it would even work.

Yuffie shrugged. “I don’t have any answers Cloud.” If he remembered her then he’d know that she was the doer sort of person not the thinking sort of person. She had her traps but even those who like stock photos. She just had to put them together and quickly form a plan; she didn’t do this sort of puzzle thing.

“Honestly, the one person who has answers is Kalki and she isn’t here.”

Which in hindsight now sucks.

"Yeah, I know." He did know. He didn't mean to be pushing all of this on her. "It's just the part where she said she didn't know which aspect of the Calamity she was that bothers me. Like maybe all of what she did wasn't actually her."

He glanced carefully at Yuffie again. He wasn't making light of the torture that she was put through. Rather it was how different Kalki had been in the past compared to when she was clearly their enemy. Maybe some of what she did was because the Calamity made her think it was the right thing to do.

But if Yuffie remembered anything from her time in that lab then clearly this wasn't doing anything to rouse her memory. Setting that hope aside he looked at the rest of the room. The other Heroes.

"We'll figure this all out. And we'll do it without using that song." He managed to sound confident even with his doubts. He didn't want to see people sacrifice themselves but he knew he couldn't stop them. What more had his attention was the mention of the Shadows and conquering himself. He didn't care about becoming God or anything like that, but he did want to surpass his own limits and blocks. He'd be a Hero for this world. He'd save it.

Yuffie looked over at Cloud quizzically before talking again. “She did fall down a really big hole that was directly connected to the calamity. She probably isn’t the woman that we met in the past but considering we have no bases of comparison I don’t think it matters. She is who she is now be it a person or just another part of the Calamity.”

She didn’t know how she was taking this so calmly. She didn’t want to get riled up about it and she knew yelling and screaming won’t help. Her time as Kalki’s prisoner only haunted her in her sleep, she wasn’t going to let it bother her waking hours too.

“That song will get us killed. We should probably save it for last.” Not that Yuffie minded dying, if it was between her and her friends she’d gladly take that roll but she knew the other heroes. She knew that more than a few of them would volunteer.

“We aren’t any help to this world dead. So we’ll do what we can first.”

"Well, yeah. I mean obviously. I don't think anyone would come out the same after being thrown into something like that." He blinked as he got a sudden sense of vuja de but shrugged it off.

"And I'm not saying we forgive her because of it either. I guess I just pity her." It was complicated. But he definitely wouldn't wish what happened to her on anyone. And in the end she wound up sacrificing herself to save them, or at least she thought she was. That had to mean something.

"But yeah, definitely a last resort." And one he hoped wouldn't be needed at all.

Yuffie shrugged at Cloud, it wasn't that she didn't have an opinion on Kalki but that's what he was getting from her. Their relationship was complicated and she didn't want to talk about it.

"Looks like we have that decided."

She looked out other the others gathered and sighed.

"Now we just wait to see what others have to say."

Hidden Truth [Log]

Yuffie | OPEN

Re: Yuffie | OPEN

Yuffie | OPEN

Re: Yuffie | OPEN

Yuffie | OPEN

Re: Yuffie | OPEN

Yuffie | OPEN

Re: Yuffie | OPEN

Yuffie | OPEN