She spits into his face and grins when his teeth bare. It takes so much effort to wince when he raises his hand, and she can hardly sit back up when he backhands her into the wall. But she does. A new bruise forms over the old ones.

Letting a whimper escape, she cries, "I know where they took her!"

It's almost funny to watch both their eyes light up with hope. She allows herself a quick glance at Tseng, who shakes his head sadly.

Doesn't he know it'll take a lot more to break her?

Elena tilts her chin up and says, with a crooked grin, "Try to make me tell."

The long-haired one smirks and she almost shudders, almost sobs out that it's a lie and she has no idea where Jenova is. But the only thing keeping them alive now is the fact they think Elena and Tseng know, and she'll be damned before she lets these Sephiroth wannabes kill Tseng.

He's too important to die. He's the brain, the leader, the god, the everything of the Turks.

So she looks at Yazoo with her good eye and laughs loud as she can. Because Tseng has to survive, even if she doesn't.


She's not a rookie anymore and this isn't a training simulation. He can't make it stop, and he knows it.

But that doesn't make it any easier when she struggles to sit back up only to say, "I know where they took her!" Her voice is high and thin and desperate and on the verge of tears.

Tseng knows better—this trick always worked on Rude when they were preparing her for just this sort of situation. Turks have to be prepared for the worst and then some. Bad things, as the saying goes, can always get worse.

She meets his eyes—a reassurance, a promise. She knows what she's doing and they won't break her.

"Try to make me tell," she says, with her eyes shining and her grin defiant.

For a split instant, when Yazoo smirks, true fear ripples through her, starting in her eyes and ending at her feet. But then she laughs, somewhat hysterical but she laughs nonetheless. When Yazoo unsheathes his gunblade, already dark with either his own or Elena's blood, Tseng has to shut his eyes.

Because if either of them end up dead, it'll be his loud-mouthed partner with that same noble streak in her that got her sister killed.