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Going for thoroughly complete would be difficult. Even if it's not ideal and leaves a lot out, I think I'm best off with the oversimplification. Categorizing people just based on their profession seems like it might go badly.

[Would he want to be judged on all the killing he does? Nope.

Sephiroth does have a sense of humor, it's just terribly dry. Did he catch hers? It's hard to tell!]

Explaining to your target you just needed a bit more lore to replace a pair of boots with sounds like it'd be a terribly awkward conversation, best to avoid that too.

Not that I was planning on killing anyone for a pair of boots.

Can I ask for some practical advice, given your previous career? It's fine if not, it's not a pressing issue at all.

[ And that is exactly why she is not going to let this go. ]

Oversimplification leads to inefficacy. Categories are only containers for information; people are complex. What we do becomes a part of who we are, and it would be dangerous to ignore that. You can ask. Although I think you should tell me your name at this point before it becomes too awkward to ask. I'm Natasha.

[.........names. AGAIN.]

I don't know how I keep forgetting that. This isn't even the third time. I'm Sephiroth.

I don't mean to suggest it should be disregarded entirely, just that it shouldn't carry the most weight in deciding what someone's like.

Nice to meet you, officially. What do you think should carry the most weight in deciding what someone's like, then?

What they do. Not their profession, what they actually do, every day. What someone's like outs itself in every interaction. The cruelest, most vicious person can still be a doctor, after all.

That's certainly true. But those people don't tend to be the kinds of doctors that help others. You're right, though. Every interaction matters.

[ Even the ones that are done under the guise of a job. ]

What did you want to ask me?

[He's pretty sure every doctor is the same, some just hide it better. It's a deliberate choice not to write it; her world might be different after all.]

I want to be clear, I am in no way in danger or anticipating that changing, this is not a live scenario.

But if I were contending with an assassin, what would be the best way to not get horribly dead? My education tended to be more open conflict.

The best way not to get horribly dead by a competent assassin is to convince them to not try to kill you. Assassination is nothing like open combat. There are hundreds of ways to eliminate someone subtly, drastically, or from a distance, and the methods depend on the practitioner and occasionally the kill order. The second best way is to convince the person who paid the assassin to rescind the kill order, or eliminate the assassin's motivation for killing you. The third best way is to remember to look up when clearing a room. Most people forget to do that. What do you know about the preferred methods of the assassin who is in no way currently putting you in danger?

[ You absolute CHILD, you brainwashed MENACE, what the HELL is this? ]

[It's purely a hypothetical, surely. Except this is all getting written down for later.]

Sometimes I wonder if this is why we're never allowed cross-training with other departments, then we don't know what to do with them if we face them.

I suppose finding ways to convince them to go away would also vary wildly depending on the assassin in question? It's probably not a good idea to meet up with your target for a friendly chat over dinner so they can plead their case. I know what I'd do if it were my assignment.

But I was being truthful, I'm not currently in any danger at all! Sometimes people assume otherwise, so I thought I'd try to clear that away immediately. Did I do it wrong?

The scenario, live or not, engenders concern by its very nature. Most people don’t bother to try and take precautions against an assassination unless they’re concerned it’s going to become an issue. You didn’t do it wrong. There was simply a very slim chance of success, and that depended on the person you were asking, not on how well you said not to worry about it.

[ So yeah. Ask a sociopath and you probably would have been fine. Sociopaths are very limited tools; the Red Room avoided cultivating them. They wanted someone who’d be able to feel and do it anyway. At least, that’s what they’d wanted for her class before she dropped a building on their heads. ]

This person is from your world? Do you know if the vendetta is personal or professional?

Most people don't take precautions against most things, I've found. I admit I never really thought about being attacked before, they were always a complimentary skill set to our own.

[SOLDIER too had no use for sociopaths. They couldn't pass the rigorous tests needed to be certain the process wouldn't turn them into literal bloodthirsty monsters.

Doing a terrible job of raising the children in their care, that's completely different.]

This one in particular is, yes. I believe it would be professional; I would at this point qualify as a lost asset, which would if it became an issue, make me a high priority target for retrieval or removal.

[ …how long has this kid been active? He can’t be much more than sixteen. Yelena had been active while still a child, but assassination and combat training were very different asks. Most child soldiers were given some training, but considered disposable by the bastards who ‘recruited’ them. This kid said he’d been in charge of his whole unit? What kind of a messed up… ]

Is that your opinion or was that relayed to you by your potential assassin? Because only a moron attempts to retrieve someone when there is no way to actually bring them anywhere else. If he’s stupid, your life is about to get a lot easier.

[ She does not actually think the assassin is stupid, but she wants Sephiroth to have to look at the actual evidence. ]

If anyone could figure out how to violate the barriers between realities, it would be Shinra's scientists. We only believe Folkmore is inviolate because its capricious creator says it is.

I don't really consider that to be foolproof evidence.

Is the assassin also a scientist?

I don't know how things are done on your world, but if you're attempting to imply that if he's not a scientist it can't be possible, I regret to inform you our scientists don't use themselves for those kinds of experiments. They find disposable people in case something goes wrong, like SOLDIER. Or Turks.

You have to know something exists to be able to work on the problem it presents. Unless you think your scientists back home already know of the existence of Folkmore, there’s not a lot they can do. What’s a Turk?

There's many departments and many realms of study, I won't dismiss it as impossible. Especially as it wouldn't surprise me if I have a tracking device. All the others in my type as well.

If you were from Gaia, you'd be a Turk. It seems like a very similar profession.

[ At this point she’s not sure if he’s reaching out to this thought of being tracked and returned as a thing of hope, necessity, or just… conditioning. It’s hard when they train you to think they’re all-powerful to realize that their necks snap like everybody else’s.

(Incredibly satisfying, though, when that realization comes.)

So she doesn’t point out that tracking devices have a range. ]

A former Turk, perhaps. Do you want to be returned to Gaia? If answering truthfully over the network makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to answer.

[ She just wants him to think about it. ]

[Surely they can cross entire realities.]

If it's true that time is paused here, which I have zero actual evidence of right now, then no. There's much I want to get done first so I'm better prepared.

However if it is NOT, then I've been derelict in my duties, and the team I'm assigned to keep alive may be getting into trouble. I should return if the opportunity arises, before someone gets eaten by a baloir.

[ …huh. Okay. ]

In that case, if his purpose is to return you, then your purposes are aligned. That should present you with little difficulty.

[ Or, you know, NOT, depending on if that actually is why he wants to kill you, which she very much doubts. ]

That's a fairly sizeable "if", and why I wish to take precautions. Being shot isn't very pleasant, I'd like to avoid it.

If nothing else, it's not like it'll kill me for long. I'm sure sooner or later even a master assassin will get bored of trying to eliminate the same target over and over, and then we can have actual dialogue. Thank you for the suggestions.

[Nope, it's pure revenge and he hasn't really clued into that yet. You can't reason away revenge easily.]

…again, I hope you can see how statements like that are a reasonable cause for concern.

[ Natasha has already thought of over a dozen ways of dealing with someone who she wanted dead if they showed up here. The most pleasant of them involves a deep dark pit and spikes. She’s sure anyone else with similar training could come up with similar solutions. Sephiroth is not safe.

But she’s only met him via text. She’s seen the extent of his conditioning. She’s listened to the confidence with which he speaks of his own skills. She knows exactly how dangerous child soldiers can be, and the way he speaks of scientists makes her cautious. Natasha has seen too many unspeakable things to assume Earth holds the sole patent on them.

Still, he asks good questions. He’s a child. ]

Whatever other precautions you take, your best bet is still going to be finding out if he wants to kill you, why, and then working to see if you can eliminate that cause. Hopefully you’re right, and he will not engage in a futile exercise.

[..Clearly his wording needs work, of all the things left out of his education, simple things like interacting with strangers really could have used more time. Another thing to try out at school, practice was obviously needed.]

I don't, but I'll try to remember it for the future. I'm sorry if it's alarming, I'm really quite okay.

The rest will have to wait and see. This "trial" currently going on is remarkably distracting.

[ She's starting to seriously doubt his definition of 'okay' is standard. ]

Would you like me to explain why it's concerning? It may involve asking personal questions. What aspects of the Trial have been distracting?

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