There was an ear-piercing shriek coming from the basement. The sound could be heard anywhere in the house, and five-year-old Sephiroth began to cry almost as soon as he heard it. She told Vincent to take Sephiroth down to the Inn and leave him there and she would see what the noise was.
She was holding the gun Vincent had given her shakily as she opened the door. She found Hojo locked carefully away, playing his violin.
“Where– how– your violin?” Lucrecia sputtered.
Hojo smiled at her. “Someone snapped my strings.”
Vincent had, Lucrecia remembered, one of the first times they came to see him and found him awake. He’d begged for something to do to pass the time, a notebook to write in or his violin. Anything. Vincent was the one who’d gone to find the violin and brought it in its case, and left it for Hojo to discover that he’d cut the strings and the bow.
“It’s not nice to break other people’s things but it’s okay, Lu, I improvised, I compromised.” He drew the bow over the strings and the instrument wailed.
“How did you…” she began, but couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.
“It was easy. I did it the old fashioned way.”
“What?”
“Bows are made with horsehair. There’s no horse, but I figured my own hair would work just as well. It’s not quite the same, not quite, but I rosined up the bow and it makes such a lovely sound.”
“How did you… I mean, you’d need to find strings.”
“You know, Lucrecia, violin strings, good ones, are handmade.”
“What does that have to do with…?”
“I made these strings.”
“With your hair? I thought violin strings were metal.”
“Strings aren’t made with hair, Lucrecia,” he explained, enough disdain in his voice to push her along the continuum from fear to anger. “Before they used metal, violin strings were made from intestines. They’re called gut for a reason.”
Lucrecia grimaced as he continued, “I tried using rat guts, but they’re really much too small, so I found myself thinking. Problem solving. I really have too much time to think these days, not enough to do. Nothing to experiment on except myself. You’re really missing a fascinating subject here.”
“Hojo, I’m not a monster like you. I don’t experiment on people.”
“No, you waste them!” he shouted, his face contorted horribly, but before Lucrecia could blink he was back to speaking quietly. “I’ve noticed that I heal in an unusual manner. An expected effect of the project, you know. But I wondered how much I could heal from, so I set about finding out.”
“What does this have to do with…” Lucrecia’s voice trailed off. “Oh, that’s disgusting.”
“Oh, calm down, it could be much, much worse,” he said, stepping close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. His clawed hand brushed the front of her shirt and lingered, and her breath grew short. “I could decide to use your–”
“Don’t you dare touch her,” Vincent interrupted, pulling Lucrecia back into his arms.
“I’ve touched her in ways your can’t imagine,” Hojo said, laughing.
“What?” Vincent asked, confused. He looked at Lucrecia and she shrugged.
“Put him back to sleep and let’s go,” he told her.
Lucrecia shook her head. “I need to finish talking to him. I’ll be fine, Vincent, I have the gun you gave me. Go wait upstairs, I’ll scream if anything happens.”
Vincent hesistated, obviously not wanting to leave her there, but finally did as she told him. After the door shut, Hojo giggled. Lucrecia decided that it was a very disconcerting sound, all things considered.
“You like this,” Hojo said, smiling. “Your little danger zone. So ironic, you run off with your dangerous Turk and in the process you make me into what you really want. I suppose I should take it as a compliment.”
“I don’t want…” she said, hesitating.
“And yet, and yet, and yet,” Hojo snipped the buttons off her sweater one at a time with his claw as he stepped closer. “And yet you keep coming back down here.” He was nearly on top of her again now and he grabbed a yank of her hair tightly in his good hand, pulling her face up so he could kiss her.
Lucrecia sputtered and pulled away, fumbling in her pocket and nearly dropping the gun as she brought out a small tin. “At least have a breath mint first. You taste rancid.”
“Such pillow talk,” he said, but took the tin from her and chewed one of the mints. “You could always take me upstairs and housebreak me if you really wanted to.” She was in his grip again without realizing how it happened, with his sharp claws on the bare skin of her stomach, and much as she hated to admit it to herself, she really did still…
When Vincent asked her later about the sweater, while Sephiroth settled into her arms, she said Hojo had pulled on it while she was giving him the tranquilizer. Vincent didn’t argue, but there was a shadow in his eyes.
She felt guilty, and snapped at him because of it. “Let’s get out of here. I hate this town.”
