Author's notes: This is gory. Violent. And was labeled by a friend of mine as "disturbing." Be forewarned. (FF7, no spoilers.)
Assasination
Rufus Shinra and his speeches, thought the dark figure in the crowd as he watched the blonde young president walk around the stage, his voice calm and level, yet filled with determination. Rufus was a charmer, most certainly. His speeches were long, filled with hair-flipping and shoulder shrugging, yet everyone seemed to love them.
Well, almost everyone.
This odd fact was evidenced a moment later, when Rufus stopped talking and almost the entire crowd of thousands burst into applause. The eyes of the dark man in the crowd never left the bright figure on the stage, and was one of the few -- five, to be exact -- not clapping.
He began moving backwards through the crowd. If Rufus noticed that there was someone moving against the flow, he made no sign.
"D.P. Alpha, come in. Come in, D.P. Alpha." The voice came over the miniscule radio piece in his ear. His own voice, when he spoke, was so low that it was only heard by the invisible patch-transmitter on his throat.
"Alpha returning. Read, Beta?"
"I read you Alpha. Do you have a clear line of sight?"
"Affirmative. Commence distraction whenever you will."
"Understood. Beta out." As the transmission ended, D.P. Alpha pulled a small object from his pocket. It was a gun that had been constructed specifically for this day. About the size of his hand, it would fire two compressed air bullets that made an exit hole five times the size of the entrance hole.
Alpha lifted the gun to aim it as he heard yelling and fighting from both edges of the crowd....
The SOLDIER whose job it was to escort Rufus back to Shinra Headquarters after the speech stood at the edge of the stage. He could see Rufus's back and the entire crowd from where he stood. He could see the four brawlers as well, two on each edge of the crowd.
He could see that the President was thrown slightly off balance by the fighting, but the SOLDIER made no move to stop them. His job was to protect the President, and the brawlers were no immediate threat. Besides, security should be taking care of the situation. Where was security, anyways?
Everyone heard the gun go off. No one saw who fired it. No one saw where it hit until someone noticed the stunned expression on Rufus Shinra's face. The neat red hole in his forehead. The blood turning his white coat red.
Only the SOLDIER saw that the back of the President's head was all but gone. Blood had splattered onto the curtain behind them. On the arm of the SOLDIER's uniform.
When the gun went off, everything had stopped. Now, as if in slow motion, Rufus Shinra's body crumpled and collapsed to the blood-slick boards of the stage. His Mako blue eyes stared disbelievingly at the bright blue sky. There was no sound but the distant chirping of birds. His mouth moved, the throat mike he wore carrying the faint sound of his voice through to the speaker by the SOLDIER.
"But... I... s-stopped... them..." And then he died. And the SOLDIER came over and knelt beside his body, gently closing his eyes and smoothing the frozen disbelief from his face. And a dark figure slipped through the crowd and away, unnoticed.
And it was over.
