Final Fantasy VII · Aerithwiki

Tseng's feelings for Aerith

Tseng → affection → Aerith

Tseng's love for her

When Cloud and the others left her side, Tseng seized Aerith and carried her away in a helicopter (Shinra's multipurpose helicopter); he is the leader of Reno and the other Turks. In this incident he beat Aerith mercilessly, but in fact he harbored what could be called love toward her — complicated feelings.

Tseng converses with the party at the Mythril Mine. If Aerith is in the party at this point, she will notice that Tseng harbors what could be called love toward her — complicated feelings.

Tseng is one of the few people who knew Aerith in her childhood.

Aerith's special feelings toward Tseng

Seeing Tseng cut down by Sephiroth, Aerith could hardly hide her shock.She holds special feelings toward Tseng that differ from the others'. When she speaks with Tseng before heading into the depths of the temple, he murmurs: "I... am still... alive..." But after that there is no response from him. Considering that the temple will collapse afterward, his chances of survival seem hopeless...?

Aerith says nothing in front of Tseng and hides behind a pillar,holding back her tears。

Special feelings

Leader of the Turks. Though young, he has been active on the front lines since ten years ago. Currently he often gives orders to his subordinates Reno and the others, and rarely has opportunities to go to the front himself. He is courteous and always calm, rarely showing much emotion, but he holdsspecial feelings。

In the commotion over the Sector 7 pillar, he seized Aerith in exchange for Marlene's safety. While transporting her by helicopter to the Shinra Building, she appeared before Cloud and the others atop the pillar. When Aerith tried to tell them Marlene was safe, Tseng slapped her and cut her off, playing the part of a villain.

He has special feelings for Aerith, but he also performs his duties faithfully.

Deep feelings

Leader of the Turks. Although the Turks are under Heidegger's chain of command, in practice they carry out missions under Tseng's direction. He is a veteran who has been involved in the search for Aerith since her childhood,and though he is an enemy, his feelings for her seem very deep。

Has known Aerith since she was small

Leader of the Turks, active on the front lines for many years. When he was young he sometimes acted on emotion, but he learned the ropes from Veld, the Turks' previous leader, and became able to assess situations calmly. After Veld withdrew from the Turks, he succeeded him as director, overcoming many hardships. He has also carried out missions to hunt the Cetra, and has known Aerith since she was a child.

Tseng's past behavior

The shocking discovery that the leader of the group was once someone Aerith knew. At this stage we still don't know what happened in the past, but this is the key link between the Turks, who had almost no connection to Aerith, and Aerith herself, and I'm very curious about what develops afterward. Judging from Tseng's behavior, he doesn't hate Aerith from the bottom of his heart. However, from the way Aerith is puzzled by Tseng's kind words, her memories of him may not be good ones...

Dying Tseng and Aerith's memories

Monitoring Aerith, the descendant of the Cetra, and waiting for a chance to demand her cooperation with the company had long been Tseng's daily duty. At times, his subordinates would apply pressure with rough methods, but by Shinra's standards it was, on the whole, a peaceful operation. The reflection on the past failure—attempting to control Aerith's birth mother by force and only losing her in the end—formed the basic policy of this operation. Aerith, the only Cetra descendant in the world. Tseng felt that he, who seemed to embody the dark side of the company, was unworthy of approaching such a solemn presence, and simply protected her quietly day after day. The one who first spoke to him was the young Aerith。

"Thank you for everything you've done all this time."

Tseng doubted his own ears at the girl's words. Aerith continued speaking to the silent Tseng.

"Haven't you always been protecting me?"

Considering the nature of his mission, perhaps he should have let the misunderstanding stand. Yet Tseng honestly told her the truth. It was the most honest moment of his life.

"I am Tseng of the Shinra Company. There is something I must tell you."

"I hate Shinra!"

Watching the small back running far away, Tseng felt at ease that this had been the right thing to do.He thought that even if the day came when he had to take her away by force, he must never deceive her.

Later, as the years passed and for reasons no one quite knew, the situation took a sudden turn when the grown-up Aerith came into contact with the anti-Shinra organization Avalanche. Shaken inside for failing to grasp the situation, Tseng acted toward Aerith in a villainous manner that his subordinates would later tease him about. Whenever his subordinates brought it up, Tseng would think:

I wasn't playing the villain. To Aerith, Shinra is evil. Evil must act like evil—.

In the end, even knowing he was going to die, Tseng chose to face Aerith as a Turk.

"Damn it. Ever since Aerith left my side, I've had nothing but bad luck."

And yet Aerith shed tears for such a Tseng. Not just as an enemy, but as someone she had known since childhood. At this unexpected turn of events, Tseng felt that dying wasn't such a bad thing after all, but what came out of his mouth was a half-joking, sarcastic remark.

"I'm not dead yet."

After Aerith left, Tseng quietly waited for death. But death was slow to come. Even as his consciousness seemed to drift far away, he did not feel his spirit about to merge with the Lifestream.

It was Yuffie who saved Tseng's life. A strange cat doll—riding atop a large Moogle—operated with astonishing skill appeared before his eyes. The task assigned to Yuffie by the company was to infiltrate Aerith's group with this cat doll called Cait Sith and find out their movements.