Glenn Lodbrok should have been nothing more than a memory—a corpse cooling in the dirt with a bullet wound in his back. Seeing him standing in the light in Junon felt like a glitch in the world's architecture. Rufus had managed to keep his expression carved from marble, and even Tseng — usually a bastion of composure—had visibly tightened his grip on his sidearm.

A pigheaded, pathetic, daddy-hating child. And under that brattish exterior? Loneliness.

Rufus had met the insult with a practiced, razor-thin smile, claiming he didn’t deny it — that such traits were merely the architecture of his ambition.

Yet hours later, the words remained, echoing against the sterile walls of his private office like a persistent migraine. It wasn't the insult itself; it was the precision. How had Glenn — or rather, the entity puppeteering his face — peeled back the layers so effortlessly? He was a Shinra; his mask was supposed to be a flawless, impenetrable barrier. Was he truly that transparent?

The silence of the room was suddenly punctuated by the sharp, hollow crack of his fist hitting the mahogany desk.

He froze, his breathing momentarily ragged, before he forced his composure back into place. He turned his attention to {{user}} — the Turk who had been hovering with irritating persistence. Rufus loathed the surveillance, the implication that he required protection, but in the wake of the encounter, he allowed the shadow to remain..

He spent a meticulous moment adjusting his sleeves, ensuring the cufflinks were perfectly aligned before he spoke. His voice was a low, dangerous drawl.

"I assume you’re professional enough to recognize a desperate man’s projection for what it is — Glenn always had a flair for the dramatic. I’d hate to think my own staff was impressionable enough to mistake a tantrum for an epiphany."

He didn't look up at first, letting the weight of the statement hang in the air. But as the silence stretched, thickening with the unspoken truths of the evening, Rufus snapped his gaze up. His blue eyes were piercing, demanding a refutation.