Chapter 3
Cloud woke up the morning after his encounter with Reno and Tifa to his empty apartment, far too large for him without the addition of another body where she would have been, a year ago. This apartment had been given to him as part of the bonus for becoming ShinRa, for him and Aerith to live in, together - but he found himself more often than not, now, missing the quiet anonymity of the barracks. This place was filled with ghosts of his own making.
He got up and got dressed silently, watching the early morning sunshine filter through the dust and fog, when his solitude was interrupted by a rather loud and vigorous rapping on his door.
"Cloud? You up yet?" came the voice from the other side, disturbingly cheery despite the time of day. The blonde groaned internally, knowing exactly who it was and for what purpose they had arrived.
"Yuffie, what are you doing here so early?" he asked, disgruntled, as he opened the door to let the day flood his apartment.
"For encouragement, of course!" she said exuberantly, taking a few bouncing steps in to survey his living arrangements. "After all, today's a pretty big day for you."
She really was quite something - he hadn't said a word to anyone about his promotion to captain, and yet she was announcing this as if it were public knowledge. But then again, Yuffie Kisaragi had never been what one might call normal; in order to avoid the burden society placed on women, she dressed like a man - or a boy, more accurately - and chopped off all her hair. She didn't seem to miss it at all and, miracle of miracles, she actually pulled the disguise off. She was now a street thief of top quality, but she was dependable, despite that.
Cloud knew about her gender simply because he once had the misfortune of walking in on her changing one day in the back room of Tifa's bar - but after she calmed down, the sharing of such a secret had bonded them together, improbable as it might have been, until she was as constant a presence in his life as anyone had ever been.
"I wonder how everyone keeps finding out about that," he said with a small, wry smile that seemed almost half-rueful.
"Easy enough to do if you know where to look," she responded brightly. "Just because you don't tell anyone anything doesn't mean that it can't be found out."
He made a noncommittal noise in response as he picked up and slung on the other pieces of the array of weaponry he carried on a regular basis. He still had something of a sentimental attachment to the sword he carried on his back, even though it was far more practical most of the time to use a pistol.
"Really, Yuffie - why are you here?" he asked at length, not because he wanted her away, but because he very much doubted that her stated purpose was her actual one.
There was a long pause, during which Yuffie sat herself down on Cloud's bed, of course without permission. She was quiet for a bit as she watched him, probably determining whether or not to speak.
"Well… I'd think it was kind of obvious," she said after a moment. "I'm here to see if you're alright," she said with a little half-smile. She didn't say any more than that, but it was clear enough - Aerith's death hadn't been easy on any of their small group of friends, but it had hit Cloud the worst for many reasons.
It occurred to him then that of course that would be why she was there - Yuffie had always worried a little bit about the blonde, and the fact that she was also friends with Tifa probably made it even worse. Tifa was an old childhood friend of Cloud's, and she couldn't seem to help but worry about him, even to the point of sending other people to ask when he wouldn't endanger her by being with her.
"Did Tifa send you?" he asked after a short pause.
"No, she didn't," the girl responded, "But… I'm sure she would be happy if I told her you were ok."
"So… I can tell her, then?" Yuffie asked happily. Though she never agreed with Cloud's decision, she never fought it either, and he was grateful for that.
k." There was silence for a moment. "Can I, Cloud? I mean, I know that…"
"It's fine," he cut her off. He tried to keep away from Tifa, as much as she would allow - but despite everything, despite Aerith's death due to her connection to him, she wouldn't just leave him be.
"Yeah," he said while moving out the door - after all, he had someplace he needed to be in half an hour. He was trying not to think about it, as much as he could manage.
"Hey, 'm I interrupting something?" came a voice from around the corner - where were they all coming from, all of a sudden? - and he noted that it was far too familiar for his liking.
"Axel," he said, face betraying nothing in the way that he had mastered. "What brings you here?"
They hadn't seen each other in a good six months or so - they had been acquaintances since Axel's ill-fated stint in the military, which lasted all of about a month, and though the man used to turn up randomly to requisition a place to stay, those times had become fewer and farther between now that Aerith was gone.
"Eh, just some shit I've been doing in the area, decided to drop on by. How is your spiky-haired ass, anyway? And who's the friend?"
"I'm fine," he said shortly, not entirely thrilled that the other man was back, to say the very least.
"And I'm Yuffie!" the girl exclaimed, taking care that her voice not sound too high. "Nice to meetcha. You're Axel, then? I've heard about you." Her name being Asian, most of the people living in the city would have no idea that it was a girl's name, which was quite alright by her.
Axel gave her a long appraising look and Cloud was afraid for just a moment that he had realized the girl's deception, but the expression faded quickly into a more genial one - he hoped that he was just being paranoid, but rather suspected not.
"Only good, I hope," the redhead responded silkily with that overtone that made it seem like he was always mocking the other person, no matter what it was that he was saying. Despite that, Yuffie seemed to be having a little bit of trouble keeping herself from staring at the man, which he took completely in stride, of course.
"Tell me what you want," Cloud finally interrupted quietly, meeting the other man's eyes.
"Eh, I can't even get a proper hello?"
"I'm leaving." He took a few steps forward before Axel turned around, hands up in a placating gesture.
"Aw, fine then," he responded with a grin, amused at Cloud's reticent nature. "Look, I need a place to crash. It ok with you if I sleep here?"
"No," he said after a moment - he had no desire whatsoever to deal with someone like Axel right now. Yuffie shifted beside him, holding her tongue uncharacteristically well.
"Come on, I need a place to stay." He paused, then took a breath, and Cloud knew exactly what the other man was going to say, because, of course, he'd said it before. "You know Aerith promised me a place to stay whenever I needed one," he drawled with the smirk of someone who knew, already, that they had won.
There was another long silence, interrupted only by the indignant little noise that Yuffie made beside them which went ignored.
"Fine. I want you out by tomorrow."
No matter how nice Axel used to be to Aerith, Cloud never really liked the way he grinned.
XXX
It took only seconds from the moment Zexion walked in through the door for Demyx to realize that something was very wrong. The look on his lover's face was dark and brooding - as angry as he had ever seen the other man be - although, perhaps, to someone else, it might have seemed like he was perfectly calm. He was good at that - and it was a trait that had probably kept him alive more than once, so Demyx wasn't arguing.
"Zexion? Did something happen?" he asked, though he knew that something must have - the assassin simply did not get his feathers ruffled by anything of less than catastrophic import.
"Yeah," he responded, words quiet but seething underneath with a freezing fury - but despite that, he was impossibly still, like any one movement might break his forced calm. "They killed Lexaeus," he finally spat, and it wasn't quite clear who he was referring to or whether he even knew.
Demyx flinched as the other man spoke, maybe not so much because of what had happened to Lexaeus - though he had been a good man, and a friend as much as he was able - but because it occurred to him that any given day, in a week or month or year, that could be Zexion that was lying dead somewhere.
But that look on his lover's face - the veneer of absolute calm, almost a dead calm, over the roiling anger - was enough to pull him back to the present, to Zexion's loss.
"I'm sorry," he said, because there was nothing else to say, and because he wanted so desperately to do something and couldn't, instead gripping the careful mahogany of his chair tighter as he stood, and took a step forward.
The other didn't respond, staring stone-faced at the wall behind his lover, expression still tight, in that way that he did when he didn't want Demyx to understand what he was thinking.
"The bastard who did it, I think I-" The blonde knew exactly what the other man was going to say - Zexion knew who had done it, or at least had a feeling, and he could probably find out if his instincts were true.
"Don't," Demyx interrupted - he had more presence of mind than most people gave him credit for. "Don't say it. I mean, what are you going to do, go out and kill him? What then? What if someone decides to come back and kill you for it." He paused. "Really, sorry for saying this, but - this is the world you live in. Revenge just isn't worth it." He paused. "For me. Please, just let this go."
There was a long silence, and Zexion's eyes fell downwards to meet his own.
"Alright," he said quietly, and Demyx knew that he meant it as much as he could mean it. Which was, all things told, not much.
XXX
Axel left Cloud's small apartment only an hour or so after having arrived, with the intent, of course, to return as soon as his next job was done. Although he'd never really wanted a home - all safety issues aside - he did like having a base to work from, because if something went wrong, he didn't have to spend the time looking for another place to hide out when there was someone on his ass, and Cloud's place worked quite nicely - even if it was a hell of a lot less welcoming, now, with Aerith dead.
His job, this time, was on quite the opposite end of the city from where he had accepted Xaldin's hit - it was in the corporate section, where all the real bigshots worked. The buildings were tall and clean - traits that were really quite something - and Axel let himself hope for just a moment that he would be paid really fucking well for this job, too.
Gambling could really run out your money supply pretty damn quick.
He arrived at the front of the building he was looking for within about a half-hour of wandering, and acted suitably unimpressed for the sake of the guards watching - though honestly, he couldn't remember the last time that he'd been somewhere so nice. He generally worked his little side of the world, and they worked theirs - and though occasionally some politician or other would hire him, mostly he lived and killed in the rough mid-sector of town, or the lower end. He liked it there, anyway.
He began to whistle casually as he put his hands in his pockets, giving a nod to the guards at the front door.
"Yo," he drawled, and they jumped rigidly to attention - they were fresh-faced and young, though one of them appeared to be even older than Axel, and the thought made him laugh.
Some people just never got a taste of the real world.
"I'm here for a job. Here to see-" he searched around for the damn name for a moment, but came up with nothing "-your boss. Outta my way."
"Sir, we have to check that with-"
"Fine," he cut in, "do whatever you want, but I'm going inside."
Fuck, one of these days he was just going to shoot these people.
He shoved them aside with only a minimum of roughness - it could almost be called positively gentle by his normal standards - and opened the heavy doors with a bit of effort. The inside of the building was nice, in a clean and whitewashed sort of way, with more metal in the furniture than was probably good for them and only tiny attempts to break the stark feel by the placement of potted plants here and there.
He took a few steps in and admired it - inconspicuously, of course - before walking into the manned elevator. The elevator-man - what the fuck did you call those people, anyway? - gave him a smile so thin it looked painted on and asked him what floor he wanted to go to, to which he responded derisively, as he tended to do, and waited as the machine took them up to what was very nearly the top floor.
But the sight that greeted his eyes as the elevator slowed to a stop was much more unexpected, and also more interesting, than the goons that he could push around with little to no effort. The door opened with the screech of poorly-oiled metal, and he instantly, unbeknownst to the people standing in front of him, walked straight into someone else's argument.
"Excuse me? What in hell is he doing that's so much more important?" yelled the smaller of the two, a little blonde boy - fucking hell, Axel's mind interrupted, he's gorgeous - of about sixteen, maybe a little older - but damn, I'd hardly mind a little trouble with the authorities to tap that ass. He was small, though tense - but he carried himself with a presence that was rare in someone so young.
The fact that he was grabbing the - much larger - door guard by the shirt also gave him some points in Axel's estimation.
The door behind the redhead closed, and he leaned with a comfortable smirk and crossed arms on the wall, watching the scene play out.
"I'm sorry, Rox - sir. You know that the boss -"
"I don't really give a damn what he's supposed to be doing," the blond snarled. "Mother is sick and Sora is halfway to hysterics even if he's trying to take care of this whole goddamned family. Sora, Jacob," he snapped with a glint in his eyes that Axel rather liked. He was really quite the headstrong little sonovabitch - but it didn't take much brainpower to put two and two together and come up with this gorgeous little blonde as the son of the man he was about to sell his own services to.
Ah, damn. That tended to make things a little complicated.
Well, he had always been exceptionally good at avoiding consequences, and he only hoped that would hold true on this count, too.
"Excuse me," he cut in smoothly, like he always did, ignoring the stares he was getting from the two other members of the room and conveniently forgetting that this was something he had absolutely no business in. "If I can interrupt for a moment?"
There was an incredulous silence from the both of them as they turned to stare at him, which Axel pretended stood in for approval.
"I'm here to see your boss - your father, kid-" he said towards Roxas, "and though I like your fight-" a fucking hell of a lot "-I think you can rest assured that your dear old dad is doing everything he can for your poor, stricken mother at the moment."
It was really a mark of how distracted he was that he didn't even notice how much information he was giving away about himself or about his job with that statement - and even more telling was the fact that, even if he had noticed, he wouldn't have cared.
The blonde just stared at him, the utterly bewildered - and vaguely adorable - expression slowly turning into one of frustration.
"Who in hell are you?" he asked - demanded - with equal parts anger and frustration.
"Wait a minute, kid-" he started placatingly, but was quickly cut off.
"It's Roxas, not 'kid,' and what makes you think you have the right to come barging in here and talk to me like that?" He took a few long strides forward, until he was directly face to face with the redhead, and Axel couldn't help but grin.
Holy fuck, this kid is hot.
"You walk right into the middle of a very private conversation and offer your advice like it means something. Well, I don't want it, and you can go-"
"Whoa, whoa, ki - Roxas. Roxas-"
"-fuck yourself and head back to whatever hole it is you came from!"
Axel's grin just kept growing wider, as his astonishment multiplied exponentially. He couldn't remember the last person who'd had the guts to talk to him like that, and he loved it.
"Would it make you feel better if I offered to buy you dinner for my carelessness?" he offered, careful to keep the leer out of his voice and face. After all, he hardly wanted to scare this one off so early. He probably wasn't interested in men, anyway.
Now the astonishment had switched back to Roxas's face - it was hardly normal for someone to respond to such vehement anger with an offer of dinner, but Axel didn't give a damn.
"I can afford better places than you, anyway," he responded, eyes sliding to the floor and voice low in what Axel expected might be embarrassment.
"A bar, then. Bet you've never been to one of those." The blonde's - Roxas's - flinch told him that he was exactly right, and the uncomfortable noise that the almost-forgotten door guard made told him that it was not something that the son and heir of such a large corporation was exactly allowed to do.
Excellent.
He usually used his talent for reading people to know exactly how to scare the ever-loving shit out of them, or take everything they ever owned, but it was nice to know he could still use it for other things.
"What would make you want to do that?" Roxas asked, a bit perturbed, most likely.
"Because I like you. Because you impress me."
"What, because I yelled at you for inserting yourself into our conversation?"
Axel grinned.
"Yes. Exactly."
There was a long pause, during which Roxas gave a sidelong, almost invisible glance back towards the guard who watched him disapprovingly.
"I'll think about it," he responded, trying to keep his voice diplomatic, to keep the interest out of it - and the guard behind the blonde relaxed, which was doubtless his intention.
Fuck yes. He wanted out, wanted a little bit of freedom, and Axel was more than willing to give it to him.
"Alright, if you insist," he responded nonchalantly, pretending that he didn't know exactly what Roxas meant by that. "If you want to find me, you will." He paused. "The name's Axel, by the way. Ask for me on the street and word will make it around."
And he grinned as he walked through the door into the boss's room, because images of Roxas's face wouldn't leave him alone. Not, understand, that he particularly wanted them to.
XXX
Cloud struggled to maintain his proper breathing as he stood, alone, in one of the nicer ShinRa conference rooms. His heart was pounding like mad, which didn't help much, but it was hard to fight when just a few minutes away - a few steps even, maybe - was the General Sephiroth.
They had met only once before, when both of them had been a part of the government military rather than a part of the ShinRa forces, when the blonde had been just a nervous cadet - like now he was a nervous captain, he noted with self-deprecating amusement. The glimpses he'd been lucky enough to have of the General didn't do anything to deter the admiration - Aerith, with a knowing look in her eye, had called it worship - of the man who seemed immobile and invincible under all circumstances. Almost, perfect.
The president's son arrived first, as the President Shinra himself was out on other business - or simply uninterested in dealing with such rote business as the promotion of a captain - followed swiftly enough by a line of other captains and commanders, in dress outfit.
And then, of course, Sephiroth.
He walked in with a fluid grace that was so much a trademark that even mentioning it anymore became almost superfluous, feet making no noise even in the large boots that he seemed to always wear. He, along with the other higher ranks, had the privilege of ignoring the uniform if they so desired - so the silver and black trench coat that was his preference stood out among the sea of blue, and Cloud couldn't say that he minded.
"If we're all here then, you may be seated," he said in a voice that rolled through the room in a way that was patently, if unintentionally, sexual. It was a blessing, or a bane, that even when his voice was icy with his own steely brand of anger, it still felt like velvet down the back of the listener's neck.
Or maybe it was just Cloud. He'd never asked anyone else before, and he never really intended to.
Everyone did as Sephiroth asked, including himself - though formalities said that the General had to arrive before the room could sit, he was not particularly interested in speaking to a group longer than was strictly necessary. No one really wanted to tell him otherwise, so Rufus - the president's son, and a real asshole when he wanted to be - had the honor of swearing new commanders in, including Cloud.
"I'm sure you know why we're all gathered here today," he began in a clear baritone, a voice which commanded authority. "To swear in a new Captain of the Guard, Cloud Strife. Strife, if you would stand and raise your hand -" he did both, carefully not looking at the figure seated next to Rufus even as perfectly green eyes bored into him "-and repeat after me."
He didn't notice much after that, only vaguely going through the motions that would result with him officially sworn in, officially responsible for the lives of the men serving under him, and only one level below Sephiroth in the chain of command.
He didn't really like to think about what that might mean, because the idea of holding a conversation with the General left him frozen.
Before he knew it, he was sitting down again, and Sephiroth had begun to speak about assignments and requirements - talking to him, he noticed with astonishment - and his brain nearly stopped entirely when he realized that his first assignment was under the "relations" category. Under the General's direct command.
"Strife, you will be accompanying me to negotiate-" oh god, accompanying him? "-with the state government and the organizations listed. As I'm sure you have heard , the head of our research department was assassinated two days ago, and it will be our job to find out who and why."
Sephiroth never went on these missions alone, of course - his people relations skills were less than admirable, but when it came to a measure of sheer intimidation, nobody could hold a candle to him.
Cloud didn't no how to respond, so he focused instead on not showing his fear. Men like Sephiroth could practically taste it.
He closed his eyes as the meeting ended, and prayed to whatever god was listening that he would please, please not fuck this up.
XXX
"So, you wanted to speak with me," drawled Axel as he stood in front of a large desk that was probably intended to be imposing.
"Yes, of course. I'm glad you were available." The voice belong to a rather lightweight man with a clean-cut moustache, and a beard that was graying lightly, though his hair still was untouched by frost. Not an altogether impressive figure, truth be told. Clearly his son had gotten his looks from his mother.
"Really, now. Good, that makes two of us." The only things he was particularly glad about at the moment were the possibility of massive monetary gain, and the probability of stealing this man's pretty little son away from him. In a not so literal sense, of course - Axel wasn't about to force this one. It occurred to him momentarily that maybe, this time, he was looking for more than a quick fuck - but he pushed that thought away to be examined at a later date.
"My job for you involves killing the man who poisoned my wife."
Ooh, tough one. On the plus side, he kind of wanted to be able to tell Roxas that yeah, he'd killed the son of a bitch who'd killed his mother (the thought made him feel vaguely like a pedophile but he was ok with that). On the flip side, killing other assassins was gonna get you into a shitload of trouble.
"Yeah, I gathered as much from the man you sent to find me," he responded with a thinly veiled sarcasm. "But I kind of wanted to say - if it's the same guy I'm thinking it is, he's almost as good as I am." That was a lie. "It'd hurt the Organization to lose the man in question -" not a lie "-and I dunno if I'm willing to get my ass in that kind of shit for something like that." He paused, and gave the man a level, pointed stare that made his grin that much more frightening.
"I was just wondering, Mr. High-and-Mighty, if you had any idea how much shit you would be in if I take it?"
There was a long silence.
"Should I find someone else, then?"
"If you like. But nobody but me is even gonna have a chance at taking this - you'd have to be batshit insane to go up against the Organization."
And that, of course, is what he'd have to do in order to take down the man in question. Lucky for the man - Gabriel Tolgar, Axel remembered belatedly - the redhead had been losing interest in regular jobs. There just wasn't anything challenging enough for him anymore on the normal level - and taking on the entire fucking Organization would definitely be a challenge.
Possibly his last. But probably not.
Not knowing was what made it so interesting.
"So you'll do it?"
"Haven't decided yet." There was a silence. "You know that someone hired this guy, right? Why not go after the big fish? I mean, take down the bugger who fucked you over, and take out a business associate, all in one smooth move. Wham, you've got revenge and you've cornered the market." The man flinched, probably more at his crude language than his ideas.
"Because," the other responded slowly, " we don't want to work that way-" like hell they didn't, Axel had worked with way too many businessmen for that to fly "-because we want to send a message to the world, that that behavior is not acceptable. We don't want to take down the opposition, simply to make steps to a cleaner world."
Ah, so he was afraid of repercussions for hitting the man who hired the poor shit.
Well, that was his problem.
"Just one last thing," Axel said, not exactly dissuading but making sure the man knew exactly what he was getting into - partly, at least, because he had a son who was quite possibly the coolest little fucker he'd ever laid eyes on.
"There's kind of a code that says assassins shouldn't target others of their kind - not, you understand, out of some kind of sentimental bullshit, but to prevent revenge and retribution until we're all wiped out. That means that they'd go after you." The redhead worked without a trace, so it wouldn't be his problem, really. They'd never find out it was him - but they'd know who'd hired him.
To the man's credit, he didn't go white at the thought, though he did get tense in a way that was vaguely amusing.
"I understand that there is a risk, but I want that man out of the world."
Axel shrugged, grin never faltering.
"Alright then, suit yourself."
XXX
Once he quietly found out who had performed the hit - John Hutchinson, as he'd suspected, because only he worked in quite the style of the hit described - it was easy enough to perform. This time, at least, he knew exactly where the man could be found.
Of course, the fact that the idiot somewhat trusted him helped, too.
This time, at least, Axel decided not to use his favorite pistol and bullets, because they were someone recognizable to those who knew the business. Instead, he decided that a shotgun would do the trick - sawed off, of course, for use as a close-range weapon. It would create the most destruction for the least money and effort of any gun he knew how to use. That meant, of course, that it would also leave behind the strongest message. And that was what this hit was all about, right?
Besides, it was so far the opposite of his normal clean and silent method that it would just deflect suspicion from him further, and that was perfectly alright by Axel.
Hell, he'd even pretend to help Marluxia look for the culprit if the need arose.
It was a hazy dark, at about seven o'clock the next evening, when Axel decided to follow the man home. It was easy, almost too easy, when they had a distinctive home that they went back to every night. The pavement was wet from the light drizzle they'd had that afternoon, but not wet enough that Axel made any particular noise following.
Once the man had gone inside, checking quickly for visitors - Axel, of course, was hidden - it was simple enough to open a window and wait in the bedroom until his mark arrived.
It took less than thirty seconds for the hale and hearty man who walked through the door to turn into a pile of blood and entrails on the carpet. Not just the carpet, really. Also the walls, and door - the redhead cursed vehemently when he realized that a piece of the man's intestine had landed on his new coat.
He never would be able to decide whether that hit was the best or worst thing that ever happened to him.
XXX
A shorter chapter than the last one, for which I apologize, and also it took me longer to finish… but I've been busy getting ready to move, so I sincerely apologize.
I love you all so very much, I have no words to express it…
333
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