- The Turn -


Denzel awoke with a start, gasping, adrenaline igniting, but then a hand was on his chest. A woman's hand, calming him.

"Denzel… Are you alright?"

He blinked and the room came into focus. He was lying on a dark green blanket on a soft bed somewhere, but there were no windows, and the floor was concrete. It was a small space, maybe somewhere underground. And the woman… his eyes shifted over to her, sitting next to him on the bed, and he immediately smiled.

"Yuffie!" he exhaled happily. He sat up and wrapped his arms tightly around her, feeling all his panic disperse into a pool of relief as they hugged.

"Denzel, are you okay? Did he hurt you?" she asked softly.

The boy pulled away and sat silently for a second, trying to piece together what exactly had happened. He remembered running. He remembered a dead body in an alleyway… the poison from that bartender, hot and thick in his veins, dizzying, nauseating. Which also meant…

"Cloud!" Denzel bolted up from the bed fast, then regretted doing so as his blood failed to catch up with the sudden movement and his vision began to blacken. He paused, waiting for the sensation to pass.

"Yes, Denzel. Did he hurt you?" Yuffie repeated, louder, standing next to Denzel now.

But he wasn't understanding. "What? No, we need to help him! These guys drugged us! I mean, it was at some bar and I think Cloud trusted this guy but then he gave us some sort of poison in water and I think Cloud's been poisoned too! We have to help him! Do you know where he is?" The rapid need to take action held him fast, but when he glanced back at Yuffie, the older girl didn't seem concerned. Not at all.

"He needs our help," Denzel reiterated, then moved toward the door, but Yuffie grabbed his arm and stopped him. He glanced back at her, confused. "Don't you understand? Someone poisoned us!"

Yuffie's face was very still, though. "I know, Denzel… And I'm very sorry. I had no idea you were with him. That should have never happened to you."

It took a moment for the boy to fully grasp her meaning. "Wait, what? You… You are…" Then it clicked. Godo. The masked men. Cloud said they were from Wutai. And now Yuffie standing here. Denzel pulled his arm from her and stumbled back a step. "You poisoned him…"

Things were escalating much more rapidly in his head now, and he frantically looked around the room. "Where am I?" Denzel demanded, "Are we still in Junon? Where is Cloud?"

Yuffie sighed. "Denzel, what were you even doing with Cloud? Why are you in Junon? Last I saw you were in Kalm with Marlene and doing fine there."

But everything was still frantic in his thoughts. "I was, but I had to get Cloud and bring him back. I had to do it for Marlene's birthday. I'm supposed to!"

Yuffie scoffed and shook her head. "Have you forgotten what he did to you? Why would you ever, ever consider looking for him? Don't you remember how scared you were that day, when I picked you up in Icicle Inn?" She almost seemed upset with the younger boy, and the details of that fateful afternoon soared fresh in his head suddenly.

"I…" Denzel couldn't place what he was feeling. He was scared, but also determined. He needed to show Marlene he could do this, and underneath it all, he had always been hoping he'd been wrong about Cloud. And finding him in Junon again had shown, if nothing else, that the man was not simply a cold empty killer. At least not all the time. There were still parts of the Cloud he remembered in there, maybe distilled into something else now but present nevertheless.

"Denzel, things are so dangerous for you right now. I cannot believe you would do this," Yuffie sounded completely disappointed in him, but Denzel didn't want to let himself feel like a scolded child.

"I was wrong, Yuffie," Denzel spoke suddenly, "I was wrong about him."

"You hate him, Denzel. You told me so yourself!"

"I was scared! I was a stupid little kid!"

"And now you are...what, exactly? I don't think seeking out a drug lord in the slums of Junon counts as being smart."

Denzel frowned and crossed his arms, feeling his face get hot.

"Do you even know anything about Cloud anymore?" Yuffie went on, pressing.

But Denzel couldn't say that he did. All he had wanted to do was find the man and replace the phantom in his head with some sort of vestige of truth, and the fact was that a tiny part of him did hate Cloud. He's always hate Cloud for that split second where Cloud had turned on him in Icicle Inn, in a morbid daze. That vacant expression. At the end of it all, however, deep in his heart, Denzel still desperately wanted things to go back to how they were years ago. In Edge. With Tifa and Cloud and Marlene. And when he saw Cloud again, at the end of that dreadful hallway while Denzel lay bloodied and beaten, and when Cloud picked him up and held him close, Denzel had wanted nothing more in the world than to hold onto that Cloud forever. A stupid little kid's dream, maybe. But it was undeniable. And now he was involved in something far worse than Cloud lost in a daze or Marlene crying on her birthday or a dead junkie in an abandoned building. Yuffie and Cloud were on opposite ends of something very serious. The drug trade. Maybe. Denzel still couldn't be sure.

"I just…" Denzel's words fell apart and Yuffie's stern face softened a little bit.

"Cloud is fine, if that's what you need to know," she said, "And you'll stay here until we can secure a safe flight for you back to Kalm. I'm sure Elmyra is worried sick."

"You won't tell her, right?!" Denzel perked up, suddenly horrified at the thought of making Elmyra upset too. "Please, she'll be so angry with me!"

"I'll make sure you get to Kalm safely, but whatever you say to Elmyra is up to you," Yuffie said with a slight wave of her hand, "I'm not getting involved with that."

Denzel relaxed slightly and finally caught his breath. "...Where am I?" he asked.

Yuffie put her hands on her hips. "Junon. We established a safehouse near the outskirts on the east side."

"...We?"

"My father's military. I'm in charge of the anti-mako operations in Wutai, and we've...gained knowledge of Junon's involvement so we setup a small unit here."

Denzel blinked. "But...it's Cloud. Cloud is the involvement. What are you going to do to him? You...you poisoned him so you could…?"

Now Yuffie crossed her arms and her usual jovial look fell away. "He won't be harmed. I'll ask my father for that much, but he's somehow become… a key player in all of this. And we need him removed. Nobody can get close to him, so poison seemed like a-"

"Are you hearing yourself right now?" Denzel suddenly snapped at her. "You're talking about poisoning Cloud!"

This was all so absurd and Denzel found his words still catching in his throat and mouth.

"I never, ever, meant to harm you," Yuffie continued, "I had no idea you were with him. The guy we paid to poison Cloud must've thought you were an associate."

"A what?"

"An assassin. He usually runs around with a few."

"...What?!"

Yuffie rolled her eyes, seemingly annoyed that the task of explaining everything awful had somehow fallen to her. "Cloud is an assassin. He runs a ring of hired mercenaries. People pay him to kill other people, and his reputation in Junon is beyond scary. He's involved with the mako trade now, too, as a sort of …." she paused, looking for the right word, "...a figurehead. There's something really wrong with him, and I think it all escalated after Tifa's death."

People pay him to kill other people. Denzel thought about Yuffie's words hard and remembered when he'd first seen Cloud in Junon, at that cafe. A frightened woman had spoken to Cloud, had given him an envelope. Was it possible she was paying for a hit? And then Cloud had killed that other man in the basement of that abandoned building. That he definitely knew was real. Cloud had been talking about mako and about a contract. Fuck. Denzel exhaled as it all fell into place in his head. Yuffie must be right.

But there was also the other Cloud that he knew. The one who had literally saved his life after his horrific episode with LS. The terrifying winged phantom that had sheltered him from the assassin with needle-teeth. The guy who had made sure he was safe, who had fed him take-out and protected him when Godo's men had attacked.

Frustrated and helpless, Denzel tried to counter, "No, no, you're wrong. It's still him. Even if he's involved in bad things, he's still a good guy."

Yuffie shrugged. "Suit yourself, Denzel. Tell whatever stories you like in your head. But right now, Cloud is dangerous and you need to stay away from him. I'm calling you an airship as soon as it's safe, then you are going back to Kalm." She stepped towards the door, then looked back at the boy. "Are you sure you're okay? The poison, I mean. It was an incredibly potent strain. Between the Jenova and the Mako, I had to make sure it would work on him."

He paused to take stock of his physical health. Yes, he felt relatively fine now. She must've used a detox on him. He nodded slightly, then asked, "Am I … stuck here? Are you holding me here?"

Yuffie laughed apologetically. "No, no, of course not! You can leave whenever, but I think you should stay until we can call the airship to take you home. Junon is not a safe place, after all, so I'd prefer you stay here. For now."

Denzel nodded. He did still feel a little bit sick, now that his nerves were calming down. A little nausea slipping around inside his stomach. Cautiously, he sat back down on the bed.

"I'll come back to check on you in a little bit, kiddo," Yuffie said, "Bring you some food, too. I gotta go take care of something else, but don't worry. You're safe with me."

She gave him a sad sort of smile, like her mind was already on her next task, then she departed. The door creaked shut behind her and Denzel was left alone in the small bare space. He leaned back against the pillow, exhausted from the conversation, head spinning with everything Yuffie had told him. She'd never lied to him in the past, so he had no reason to doubt any of it, but it felt...off. Her and Cloud being at such odds that she would literally poison him… everything felt wrong. It was just another piece of the solid, happy past drifting away into this horrible chaotic future he'd found himself wrapped up in somehow.

But there was no way to get things to go back to how they were, Denzel knew. Wishing things were any other way was silly and would get him nowhere. Right now, he had to make a choice, and no matter what, Cloud had saved his life. He'd been stupid enough to come to Junon in some insane wish to prove his bravery to his surrogate kid sister, and Cloud had rescued him. It was Denzel's fault that Cloud had even been going that particular way on the street, towards the airship landing zone when those other men attacked, and it was Denzel's fault that Cloud went into the bar. He had been protecting Denzel.

"...Shit," Denzel sighed and tugged at his hair with one hand. If he went back to Kalm now, he'd expressly be letting Cloud down, and at the end of it all, Cloud was the only other family he still had left, aside from Marlene.

After momentarily contemplating the alternative for a few helpless moments, Denzel got up from the bed and carefully approached the door. He pressed his ear to the metal, but there were no sounds from outside. Nothing at all. Cautiously, he tested the doorknob. Unlocked. As Yuffie had said.

Slowly, he opened the door and peered into the hallway. A long narrow path stretched in either direction, sleek metal and tiled floors like maybe some sort of unused hospital facility in total disrepair. Most of Junon had ruins of one kind or another once the ShinRa money left, so it seemed likely that he was indeed still in Junon. Also as Yuffie had said.

Tiptoeing down the hall, he kept expecting to be halted by strange masked men at any moment, but the few that he saw did absolutely nothing to him. Didn't even acknowledge his presence. They stepped lightly past him in silence, and Denzel wandered forward through the hallways searching for… well, he wasn't sure exactly what. Yuffie had mentioned that they were underground, so he needed to find stairs surely.

Then, at the end of the hall, one of the metal doors was open and very clearly laying across a table in what appeared to be a miscellaneous storage room, was Cloud's sword. Denzel froze when he saw it and his heart dropped. Cloud was nearby. Had to be. At least in the same building. Quickly, he glanced around but the hallway was empty around him. Then he heard a sound. A shout. A woman yelling angrily. It sounded like Yuffie. He cocked his head slightly, trying to determine the origin of the noise.

Across from him was a stairwell leading down. The woman's voice was echoing from down there. Then it stopped. Denzel gulped and moved forward, cautiously. Slowly. The stairwell was partly tile and linoleum, dimly lit by a trail of fluorescent lights overhead. He clutched the metal handrail and descended. At the bottom, he leaned forward and examined the next corridor. It was identical to the one above, except at the far end stood Yuffie with her hands on her hips, looking extremely pissed off at a pair of men wearing all black.

"I told you not to hurt him," she hissed at them and threw her hands up, "He's under my protection, and my father will decide how we deal with him. Not you."

Immediately Denzel shirked back as Yuffie turned away from the two men. He heard her footsteps retreat along the next corridor and she angrily mumbled to herself. Peering around the corner, he saw that the two men were now gone as well. The corridor was entirely empty, but Denzel remained hidden in the stairwell for several more moments to ensure Yuffie wouldn't return. He didn't need to fear her, but she surely would not want him exploring the lower levels like this. He may be free to leave, but likely not free to do anything else.

After he was certain nobody would return, Denzel stepped forward, sneaking down the hall towards the end where Yuffie had stood. There were several doors ajar along the way, but when Denzel peeked into each, they held nothing of interest. Finally he reached the door that Yuffie had been standing near. It had a deadbolt on the outside, a recent addition from the looks of it. Sliding the deadbolt open, he very carefully turned the doorknob, and the door swung open.

At first it looked like just another half-empty abandoned hospital room, with stacks of wire shelving and papers everywhere. Then Denzel saw him.

Cloud was lying on the ground, facing away from the door, with hands restrained behind his back. Motionless. Fresh panic spiked in Denzel's chest and his hands began trembling. Shit, get a hold of yourself, he prayed. Cloud lay very still, and Denzel worried that the man was unconscious or worse. He tiptoed into the room and closed the door behind him with a soft click.

"Come back to apologize?" Cloud's voice nearly scared Denzel half to death, then the boy let out a sigh of relief and rushed forward.

"Cloud!" Denzel rounded quickly in front of him then fell back a step, not entirely prepared to see Cloud's face bruised and his bottom lip bleeding. Denzel paused, taking in the sight. In the past, he'd thought he'd wanted to hurt Cloud himself, he'd held so much hatred towards the man. The one who'd generated countless nightmares. But those feelings only had the intensity of an adolescent foolishness, and actually seeing Cloud hurt like this did nothing but scare him. Suddenly, he only wanted to help Cloud, and all those stupid prior wishes in his head vanished like a frightened flock of geese.

"Oh. Denzel." Cloud gazed up at him in genuine surprise, but his voice was still soft and low. "I thought you were… Yuffie didn't hurt you, did she?"

"What? No, why would she?" but he gave Cloud no time to answer that, "I'm fine. I'm here to get you home."

Cloud laughed, a short hollow sound, then he spat some blood to the floor. "This again. I'm not going back to Kalm with you."

"I can't leave you here," Denzel said, but when he examined the restraints he found they were thick woven mythril. No way he could untie them. He'd need to cut them off, but as his eyes frantically scoped the room, it was clear there was absolutely nothing that could help him. Of course they wouldn't keep Cloud in a room with sharp objects, Denzel chided himself for thinking so carelessly.

"Go home, Denzel," Cloud said weakly, "This is already too much for you. You shouldn't be here…"

"Your swords!" The idea hit him. "I saw them before! I can bring them and cut you free!"

"No, Denzel... " Cloud coughed and more blood came from his mouth, then he swallowed and looked up at the boy. "Please just leave. I can handle whatever happens here. Things are fine. Yuffie and I are… just having a disagreement at the moment."

A lethal disagreement, Denzel wanted to say, but his mind was tripping around itself trying to remember exactly which room the swords had been in. Upstairs, for sure. Denzel stood.

"I'll be right back," Denzel replied then made for the door.

"Wait," Cloud called to him. Denzel paused obediently. "You can't carry the whole thing," Cloud said, "Do you remember how to remove the two near the center of the base? The smaller ones?"

Denzel didn't want to remind Cloud that he'd actually never shown him how to do that explicitly. When they were training together, Cloud would always remove one of the lightest pieces and hand it over. Denzel was never allowed to touch the entire assembly. Too dangerous, was always the reason, though Denzel couldn't understand why. It's not like he would cut himself, or anything. He wasn't that careless.

"No…" Denzel answered, but suddenly there was noise in the hallway. Loud footsteps. Someone was approaching. He needed to go and fast! Without looking back at Cloud, Denzel opened the door and slid out then replaced the deadbolt. Then he ran across the hall to a vacant room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him so as to make it look as though nothing were misplaced.

A handful of men walked past, talking quietly amongst themselves, but they didn't pause at Denzel's door or even glance his way. They were, however, distinctly discussing Godo. The old man was arriving very soon, one of them said, and Denzel realized he was now running against the clock. No matter what Yuffie had said, Denzel wasn't so sure Godo would be agreeable to letting Cloud live, if the stories about him were even half true. The footsteps receded, so Denzel slipped back into the hallway, momentarily catching his breath and straightening his mind to prepare for what he would need to do next.

Upstairs. Slowly — carefully! — and then back along the hall. Where was that open door? The storage room. There, at the next corner. The door still gaped open and the sword was untouched in its sheath. Luckily, Denzel hadn't run into anyone else. He shut the storage room door, then stood in front of the massive weapon.

Cloud takes this apart all the time, he reminded himself. There must be a way to remove the lighter piece that he'd used in the past. He leaned over it and examined the hilt. Nothing there. Nothing obvious anyways. With both hands he held the hilt and pulled. The steel slid out, bluish under the buzzing lights, and once the blade cleared the sheath, his eyes fell on the assembly just above the hilt, a confusing mess of parts cleanly fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle. And how was that second hilt buried? There were several hilts nestled in there, but Denzel still couldn't see how to release any of them. They all seemed completely inaccessible, yet Cloud often withdrew them in quick succession, so there was a trick, some mechanism Denzel was overlooking. He reexamined the hilt, but it looked entirely ordinary. Shit, figure it out, he commanded silently.

Then there was another sound in the hallway, a sudden commotion. A few men were talking loudly to each other as they rushed past. Apparently, Godo had arrived in Junon and would be here shortly. Denzel's panic escalated. Fuck it, he would just drag the whole sword back to Cloud then Cloud could just tell him how to release the other blades. That would take less time than anything else at this point. Denzel gripped the hilt, intending to slide the blade back into its sheath, but it was heavy and as he struggled his hands slipped, twisting the handle.

And the entire sword popped open. Like a claw expanding its grasp, the hilt locked into some sort of secondary position which propped the assembly up and slightly apart, allowing completely unobstructed access to the multitude of things within. Denzel blinked, trying to figure out exactly how he had done it, then immediately grabbed for one of the two smaller weapons resting along the others. The new blade slid up and out with little resistance, then Denzel flipped forward the hilt of it like he'd seen Cloud do and immediately, he was armed. A smile spread across his face at the victory, and he left the rest of the sword lying on the table, then rushed back towards Cloud.

Slinking along the hallway and back downstairs, he had to hide two more times to avoid detection on the lower level before approaching once again the room where Cloud was being held. The piece of Cloud's sword in his hands felt powerful, like he'd solved some great mystery and now had the badge to prove it. He opened the door, ready to cut Cloud free, but he was met with a terrible surprise.

Cloud was gone. The rest of the room looked untouched, except for a smattering of blood drops around the space where he'd been laying.

"No…" Helplessness once more choked the boy. "No, that can't be."

But it was, and now Denzel was filled with utter dread at the thought that Cloud was in even greater danger somewhere else. Backing into the hallway, he glanced all around looking for some sort of clue, anything to point to where Cloud had been taken. There was nothing, though. The halls remained empty. Denzel wasn't about to give up. He still had Cloud's sword and now if anyone stopped him it would be extremely difficult to explain away his intentions, so he figured he might as well keep going at this point. At the very least, he needed to find Yuffie again and beg her to let Cloud go, and if he found Cloud, he'd just keep trying to convince him to come home to Kalm. Swallowing his panic, Denzel continued down the hall, away from the stairs, towards where he'd seen Yuffie disappear before.

As he rounded the corner, however, there were two masked men standing guard near a pair of doors along one wall. Seemed to be some sort of entry to another wing or maybe towards an operating room in its previous life. Either way, the two men immediately spotted Denzel.

"Hey, kid! You can't be down here," one of them shouted.

"Who the hell is that?" the other asked his companion.

"I don't know, but we have orders," the first replied.

Denzel held the sword tighter, but immeasurable fear was once again creeping over him. Almost unbearable.

"Get back upstairs, kid," the second one menaced and drew a katana from the sheath low on his back. "Don't be stupid."

Suddenly, the other man's phone buzzed once in his pocket.

"Shit," he sighed and withdrew the phone, glancing down at the incoming message. "Godo is here. I need to get upstairs."

"Go, I'll deal with this kid."

With a nod, the other man departed further down the corridor and disappeared around the corner. The man with the katana glared at Denzel.

"Get the fuck out of here, kid. Are you deaf?"

Closer and closer, he stepped towards Denzel, but the boy didn't move. Denzel held Cloud's sword out at the proper offensive angle as best he could remember and forced his arms to stop shaking.

The man in black was within reach now, lowering his katana and extending one arm out towards Denzel, towards the hilt that Denzel clutched tight, about to grab it clean away. Time moved slowly. The boy was paralyzed, entirely unsure what to do or how to react. He was certain of only one thing. There was no way anyone was going to take Cloud's weapon away from him.

In a flash, Denzel tensed his muscles and stepped forward, cutting towards the outstretched arm. Faint resistance echoed through the shaft as the blade hit bone then severed the man's arm clean off in one single nearly effortless slice. The man screamed. Anger transformed his face into violence. Blood poured from the stump, and Denzel breathed out, amazed at how incredibly easy the weapon had cut through skin and bone. Like the man was made of nothing at all.

Already, the katana was coming up, swiping through the air, and Denzel fell back a step, bringing the sword up in defense. The two blades sung off each other and the man struck again, though it was clear his missing arm was completely destroying his ability to properly use the katana. It sliced past Denzel as the boy continued moving away, still trapped in the slow space of time, watching each millisecond pass as a series of tiny moments and movements.

The sight of blood gushing from the wound made Denzel ill, and suddenly the wall was behind him and he was trapped. Shit! Don't panic, his mind raced. The man clutched his damaged arm against his stomach and raised the katana. In that instant, Denzel snagged the faintest piece of bravery within himself and ran with it. He shoved Cloud's sword forward, into the space above the man's stomach, right as the katana was coming down, and it buried deep into the man's chest with a horrific crunch. Blood slid immediately down towards the handle, but Denzel couldn't let go. He didn't want to let go. The katana hadn't stopped, however, despite its owner being impaled, but the muscle behind the attack was suddenly unresponsive and the blade fell onto Denzel, cutting superficially across his left shoulder in a sharp sting.

All at once, the man fell and his body slid from the sword in Denzel's hands. Blood was everywhere. All over his shirt and shoes. His hands. Denzel suddenly couldn't breathe. He couldn't even think. Run, his body told him.

And he obeyed. Without a second to spare, he took off running in a random direction just to get as far from the dying man as possible. Just to get away from the terrible thing he'd done. It was an accident, he told himself. He never meant to kill him! How would he explain this to Yuffie? She'd definitely be upset. More than upset. She'd be downright furious, or worse… frightened.

A loud bang broke through his thoughts and Denzel halted, skidding to a stop in the center of another hallway. This place was like a maze or maybe it was because Denzel couldn't think straight that he was running in circles, but regardless he froze at the sound coming from around the corner. Footsteps.

Exhaling, Denzel raised the sword again. The footsteps were running, approaching fast. This is it, Denzel knew he'd been caught. He'd never be able to explain the blood and then they'd kill him for sure. As vengeance. Isn't that how these things worked?

Tensed for the worst, Denzel glanced around the corner, sword held tight, ready to face whatever monster greeted him. Three other men, all wearing black, all holding sharp weapons were coming towards him. The sight of the boy with the bloodied sword caused them momentary pause, but Denzel didn't want to wait and find out how they would treat him. Once again, he ran, lungs burning with short rapid gasps.

Along the halls he kept going, hearing the train of footsteps behind him. The shouts from the other men seemed to only be getting closer no matter how hard he pushed his legs forward. Surely they would hurt him, or even kill him. Denzel pushed through some double doors, desperately rushing without direction or awareness, then he turned another corner and his heart sank.

Everything in him despaired. He had reached a dead end. There was nowhere to go. No doors, no windows. It was just nothing. He'd somehow managed to get himself completely cornered.