A/N: Sorry I took so long. I had so much work to do. We get projects everyday now. And it doesn't help they're due like a day after they are given. I had lost the will to write for some time too. Please be sure to alert me about "out-of-character-ness" Thank you!

Mage of the Many

Because I'm a Turk people think of me pretty much heartless sadly enough I think myself heartless too. But music never seems to discriminate. Music is a comfort it always has been along with rain. The rain makes it easier for a man to cry. Yes sometimes it's better to cry than blow things up and smash the mirror with near by objects when things get harder. I can't desire anymore pain so I just stand in the rain. When your standing there your eyes feel dry and your body feels cold. You can't notice if you're just huffing or actually tearing. And that icy feeling inside saturates you and it's all over so it kind of leaves you alone.

Music is another way to say what you feel without people knowing what the hell you're saying. There is no way anyone can interpret your view on art without adding theirs, so they are interpreting art how they think it. It becomes their voice when they explain or try it. They'll hear my voice but never really judge me by what I have actually said.

Three weeks after coming back to work I was in my room working on a musical piece on a guitar I had recently bought. On the night table to my side my abandoned bowl of Cocoa Cereal laid. It was two in the morning. I didn't know why I was driven to this. My grey pajamas were very consoling and helped inspire me. At the crack of dawn I was showering and there I was putting words together to the tune but nothing would really sound right…

That day was a Saturday and that meant no work. I went out of Edge or New Midgar. I went to the Grasslands. So much concrete, metal and iron was beginning to get sickening, oddly enough.

Alas there were a few random encounters which left me a bit weary on top of the motorcycle. The new scent felt homely and familiar. Red ribbons swayed gingerly across my pale face. My vision was blurred with tranquility. Green and red went so well together. And the blue above went even better in the mixture. I closed my eyes there and heard myself sing.

"Sometimes your silence carries me away." My voice began to shake and a lump of held back tears grew in my very throat. "Sometimes I wish I knew what those eyes of yours hide away... Oh, my dreamer of red ribbons with a soul so blue sometimes your silence caries me to an unknown space." I sung that part until I began to fade into an illegitimate slumber.

In the distance I heard a small noise that sounded like those overgrown chickens they call chocobos. I didn't care for it but did open my eyes to look. Because of instinct one looks to see who intrudes in their peaceful moment, especially if one was about to doze off. I was unable to see anything and let my guard down; falling back into song.

"…with a soul so blue sometimes your silence caries me to an unknown space. I don't comprehend why my chest begins to race when I meet your mysterious stare." A while passed me by. Still, like a broken record I repeated the same verse, it just felt right.

"Tell me what's behind the glossy film because sometimes your silence carries me away?" a voice inquired. It was so sudden. I jumped off of the motorbike and whipped out my- cell phone? I didn't care for the moment and stared at the keeper of the sudden vote. I stared with a dropped jaw and furrowed brows.

"So what were you going to do with that?" He asked. I couldn't believe my luck. Vincent Valentine stood before me with a huge ride-able chicken. Snapping out of it I looked at my hand and gave a nervous laugh in an attempt to play off my embarrassment.

"You caught me by surprise." I said placing the device into my back pocket.

"My apologies, for startling you, Reno." He sounded sincere but something told me he was amused.

"I wasn't startled, just surprised," I lied. He said nothing. "So what are you doing here?" He explained he was getting a chocobo for Cloud. "You mean he came back?" He shook his head and said that Cloud was staying in the church still. I nodded. He looked at me and I looked at him. We were back at the beginning. From a distance this'd look like a show down but we knew exactly what that was somewhere… His gaze shifted.

"Shinra?" He asked. "You work for Shinra?" There was a slight amount of horror in his raspy voice. I nodded and knit my brows in confusion again with some panic.

"Yes, is there a problem?" He just buried his face into his cape's collar and walked away. I stood there for a while contemplating.

"Hey wait up!" I shouted waving my arms up high. He never once turned back and I fought the desire to run after him. After he was out of my sight 'To go after him' won the debate and so I mounted my bike and went his way.

I ran out of fuel somewhere near Kalm just before I rode over some monsters. I left the bike where it was and ran. I ran all the way to the Seventh Heaven but didn't go in because I recalled him saying he was delivering the creature to Cloud. To the church it was. My mind was set to a goal. I had no idea what I wanted to say or what I was going to say. This was a pointless plan in progress.

I skidded into what once was a church losing my balance but regaining it with a swift hand. Cloud was leaning against a fallen column with the creature. I treaded lifelessly to him. He wasn't glad with my presence I could see it in his face. "Yeah, no, this has nothing to do with Shinra." I assured. He didn't care he was still annoyed. "I'm not armed. I'm on foot and all alone. This is just me, business aside!" I tried. He gave me that 'well what do you want look'. "I'm looking for Vincent Valentine…"

"You just missed him," he confirmed monotonously. I nodded catching my breath. I slapped my thighs! Damned Fuck I swore. "Why are you looking for him?" I sighed and let myself fall to the unclean floor.

"I don't know," I said honestly. My face was burning red when I looked up at the spiky haired man. "But I swear to you this has nothing to do with Shinra orders." His expressionless expression smoothened, which was quite baffling. I frowned deeply and hugged my knee.

"So does Tifa know you're back here?" He shook his head. "I support you Cloud," I sighed. "I understand what it feels to lose a girl you really love, but I was under the impression you and Tifa had something together."

"That doesn't concern you, especially you." I huffed.

"Fine, I'll leave you be… Your long lost cousin is dieing to talk with you either way!" I teased running off. At the entrance I looked back flipping him off and there was a red figure standing by his side. Lowering my hand I shouted! "Red, me and you'll talk some other time! I assure you we'll talk again!"

A red shadow, too fast to catch and see, too quiet to hear, too perfect to not stop and wonder about. But I was unpredictable just like him. That was why I was one of the last remaining Turks. That's why I had made it to the age I had. Vincent Valentine had deceived me, played me. This was some kind of game a chase of a sort. I was confused about everything except for, when I seek I find and when they run I hunt…