This is sooooooo late! Basically I got a job a few days after my birthday so I've been super busy not to mention school graduation, work, just starting college. Plus major computer problems which resulted in not having a computer for pretty much a year. But I continued to write whenever I could at the library and school.

But anyway it goes like this; Reno, Zack, surprise guest, Mika. The next chapter will be up as soon as I can, gotta proof read.

Rain poured down soaking everyone to the bone. It's been like this for the past week, ever since she was found. Everyone who knew her was here. Some the Seconds and First, the Turks, the director, even the President's son was here. I held Kristof in my arms, trying to shield him the best I could. Even though it was raining, nearly everyone had tears running down their faces. The new recruit she became friends with and danced with at the ball couldn't come. I knew he must have wanted to but he wasn't cleared to. The setting was perfect... well, almost perfect.

Mika's coffin was black made out of some type of granite. Two medium sized flags were draped over it. One was white, with the ShinRa logo on it. The other was black with the gray SOILDER insignia on it. Surrounding it were different types of flowers, all either black or white. Her rod-like weapon was inside the coffin with her. Rain began to pour down with an almost wave like motion as the wind began to blow. The only thing missing, or rather the only person, was Zack.

No one knew why he didn't want to come to Mika's funeral. He was shocked to hear it of course but refused to pay his respects. Angeal tried to change his mind for days to no avail. I wonder if something happened between them before she died. It was too late to find out, with Mika gone and Zack refusing to talk about her I wouldn't know. His girlfriend didn't come either, which was odd since she was Mika's only family. Even stranger that she was found inside the girl's church and she didn't even care. Everyone thought it was odd that her only family couldn't even be there, but ignored it all because she was in morning and attending the funeral would be "too much to bear". I think that's a load of bull and I know something went down. (1)

After she was missing for a few hours they decided to track her through her phone. Each member of SOILDER had a GPS tracking chip in their phone. From what I heard Mika was covered in her own blood when they found her. When they got to her she was already dead and couldn't be brought back, no matter how hard they tried. There were no wounds on her, so the doctors figured she coughed it up because of her illness. Everyone was shocked beyond belief that she died so soon. After doing an autopsy, they discovered that she went through a huge amount of stress. Whatever was stressing her out caused her body to react in a bad way and the result was her death. (2)

A death like that was hard to forget. When I returned from my mission I nearly broke down crying when I heard the news. The last I saw her she was so happy, even though she was clearly too weak to even walk to her kitchen and back without getting dizzy. I made it to my room just before the tears began to fall. When I got there I noticed her little wolf, Kristof, in my room. Since then I've taken care of him. No one knew what caused her to go into such a huge amount of stress. Because of where her body was found they wanted to question her cousin. Considering that it was her church she became suspect number one. I managed to convince Rufus to give the orders to leave the girl alone. If she wasn't Mika's only family she would have been dragged in for questioning immediately.

None of that really mattered though. She may be dead now but I knew she wouldn't be forgotten. She was still the first girl to ever join SOILDER. Came out on top during the exam to just be officially accepted, even if she had to disguise herself and Zack had to help sneak her in. Hell, Mika skipped being a Third and went straight to Second that very day. She may have gone to join the Lifestream, but at least she wouldn't be in pain anymore. Even if she never got to tell Zack how she felt, at least she would finally be at peace. If only he knew how much she loved him...

I knew today would be her funeral, but I couldn't go. Aerith knew too, but she didn't go either. I told her everything that happened that day. She was shocked, but mostly heartbroken. Aerith forgave me saying that it wasn't my fault, but it was impossible to figure out where her feelings for Mika now stood. Her death added on to the confusion. Were we supposed to feel sad that she was gone, or angry at what she did? Should we forgive her because she was dying? Or hold a grudge because of her betrayal? Ever since that day back inside the church, I haven't been able to think straight. I've tried not to think about it, but it was too difficult.

(Flashback)

I couldn't understand this, how could my best friend do this to me? A disguise materia? I gave it to her, I gave her the tool to do this. My chest hurts; it almost feels like I can't breathe. My best friend...

"M-Mika? How could you do this to me? To Aerith?" I yelled at her grabbing my clothes.

"Zack I-"

My best friend betrayed me... Made me betray the girl I love.

"I thought you were my friend Mika! Why the hell would you do this?"

She isn't my friend...

"Zack, let me explain-" I didn't wait to hear her answer. As soon as my clothes were on, I stormed towards the doors of the church.

"I love you, Zack..." I heard her say quietly. I stopped in my tracks, hands almost touching the handles of the doors, but didn't turn around. "I've always loved you, I've should have told you sooner. I'm so sorry Zack." I could hear her voice breaking as she spoke, but I still didn't turn around.

"So that makes it OK for you to disguise yourself as Aerith?" I turned around and yelled, tears were forming and building up in her eyes, threatening to fall. "To trick me into believing you were her just for a quick fuck? How do you think Aerith, your own family, would react to this when I tell her?"

"Zack..." her voice broke even more, I could hear the sadness and pain in her voice, but I didn't care.

"Aerith is the one and only person I love and care about now. I never want to see you anywhere near me or Aerith. You mean nothing to me Mika, not anymore. You could drop dead right now for all I care. I wouldn't shed a single tear for you." I turned and pushed through the doors letting them bang shut behind me. As I walked away I could hear Mika's sobs. I never turned back.

Maybe I was too harsh. I was upset, but the whole drop dead part was over the top. Especially since she actually WAS going to die. When Angeal first told me about her death, he said that it came on so suddenly because of stress. Stress...

Wait, a huge amount of stress is what caused her sudden death. She was found in Aerith's church, hours after I left her there crying. After she told me she loved me, and I told her she could just drop dead. They estimated her death to be about an hour after the time I left her there.

Then it hit me, it was me. I told her that she meant nothing to me. She could drop dead for all I cared. She told me she loved me, and I pretty much told her I never wanted to see her again. I caused all that stress that killed Mika. Was her death, all my fault? (3)

If I had known that stress would end her life so suddenly, I never would have said any of that. Would it have been so hard for me just to listen to her? Would it have been so hard if I had just let her explain why she did this? Everything I told her was out of anger, I knew after some time that I could forgive her for what she did. Everything that I said to Mika was a lie. I even told her I wouldn't shed a tear for her; it looks like that was the only thing that was true. (4)

Hojo

The next time I want something done I really should just do it myself. These idiots that I regrettably call my assistants couldn't come up with a faster way to get the girl. Changing her medication may have been easier and safer but it was also a long shot. It wasn't until I yelled at the morons to move things faster did anything really got done.

A special type of drug was slipped into her medication, a kind that with a side effect that fakes death. The heart will appear to stop beating and it will appear that the person isn't breathing. Unless you've used the drug before or know specifically how to test for it in the bloodstream, no one would even know its there. Plus considering that this drug is my own creation, I am the only one who knows how to look for it. The subject however will have some sense of what's going on. Their hearing and sight won't be up to par but they can still feel things that are happening to them. Of course once the medicine went into effect the subject would be in an unbearable amount of pain, but they would still survive and that's all that mattered to me.

I had to wait nearly four months for this test subject. A few months prior to this however I discovered something very interesting. While looking into some old notes a found something new, but it was hidden in some kind of code. After another month of doing nothing but trying to decipher the code I found it. Someone or something that was somehow related to one of my other, older experiments.

After I made this discovery I realized that I had to somehow turn this old legend into a reality (hint hint). I spent weeks trying to find the perfect test subject. All had failed. I even went as far as to send out fake mission reports and kidnap other SOILDERS to try my experiments on. It wasn't until I heard about a ShinRa SOILDER who was close to death that I realized that she would be perfect.

Somehow the amount of mako in the other SOILDERS reacted in a bad way when I tried to test out my experiment. Those few who never had any mako in their system never lasted more than a few hours. This SOILDER however didn't have the required amount of mako in her system. To be honest I highly doubted that she would last for very long and only gave her a little over half the required amount. That proved to be a mistake on my part. Considering her situation she should be an interesting and worthy test subject for my experiment. But of course there is always a drawback.

Unfortunately I was not able to switch out her body with someone else's before they buried her. As I was preparing for the experiment, four of my assistants came struggling through the door carrying the girl's coffin. Once they made it through the door they set the coffin down in the middle of my lab. Needless to say they tracked mud all over my clean floor. One of them used a crowbar to pry open the coffin; a loud pop sounded once it was off. Each assistant took an arm or a leg and lifted the girl out of the coffin and carried her to my lab table.

The drug that had faked her death wouldn't wear off for another few hours. I wouldn't have to sedate her for a while. As they hooked her up to a special heart monitor that would be able to find her heartbeat and strapped her down I filled a syringe with a combination of different things. The same things I used for my older experiment. It was time to start; picking up a syringe I walked over to the lab table. I stuck the needle into the girl's arm and emptied the contents of the syringe. As soon as I did the heart monitors went off the charts. None of my test subjects reacted like this, I needed to record it immediately.

Mika

Pain was the only thing I could feel. After Zack left the church I just stood there, heartbroken and ashamed of myself. He was right and I knew it, but I was too selfish to think about how he might feel about it. How Aerith might feel. Silently I got dressed as tears still poured down my face. I sat on one of the pews of the church just thinking, no, regretting what I had just done. Neither Zack nor Aerith would forgive me for this. The minutes slowly turned into an hour, I knew one of them would be back soon. And I wasn't ready to face either of them. Wiping my tears away the best I could I stood and headed toward the doors of the church, still slightly in pain from Zack and I did earlier.

I started to cough, the pain in my chest started to increase tenfold. It was becoming hard to breathe. When I pulled my hand away I saw that my entire palm was covered in blood. I didn't have much time to react before another coughing fit hit me. I closed my eyes as I was hit with more pain, more blood, and less air being taken in. My lungs aced from the lack of air and the constant coughing. Everything felt like it was caught in my throat as I vomited a large amount of what I knew had to be more blood blood. My legs wobbled beneath me and I fell to my knees. When I opened my eyes I discovered that I was right; my clothes almost looked like they were drenched in blood. My blood.

More coughing fits hit me, I wasn't sure how much time had passed or when I went from my hands and knees to lying on my stomach. I tried to force myself to get up, only to fail. I felt lightheaded and my vision was blurry. All I could make out was a figure standing near the doors. The figure made its way towards me but it didn't seem to be in much of a hurry. At least I couldn't tell. The pain in my chest was so unbearable it hurt even to take in the little amount of air I desperately needed.

I felt something touch my forehead and turn my body over so I was lying on my back. I tried to get a look at whoever it was but I couldn't make out anything. I coughed a bit more and felt small drops of blood fall onto my chin and cheeks. The soft sound of someone's voice came to my ears but I couldn't make out any words. The pain in my chest slowly lessened, but it never went away. Whoever was touching my forehead sounded like they were, chanting? I tried to get in one last breathe before… nothing.

xXxXx

The next thing I knew it felt like I was being dropped. I couldn't move and had no idea what had happened or where I was. My chest lung and throat burned terribly, it was a little hard to breathe. After a minute or two I felt a rush of cool air hit my face. I wanted to open my eyes and see what had happened, but my eyelids didn't want to open. It almost felt like there was something on my arms and legs, but I could barely feel it. Something slightly cold was underneath me. I tried to move my arms, my legs, anything, but soon discovered that I couldn't do it.

Then out of nowhere I felt a burning pain appear. With each passing second it felt like I was being lit on fire, only from the inside out. I thought I could feel tears starting to brim in my eyes but I couldn't tell. I wanted to scream, jump up and run, to do something, anything. The pain only seemed to increase as time went by. I could tell something bad going on. I had a feeling something bad would happen to me. I wasn't sure what it was but I didn't like it one bit.

1. Yes, Reno knows something had to have happened, even if no one will tell him what it was. He's a smart Reno.

2. I have no idea if it's possible that someone with lung cancer can die like that. I did read that it was possible for someone with this disease to cough up blood though and in my mind, Mika's death has to be tragic, but has to be related to a real disease. No idea if stress can cause that or not but let's just go with it.

3. Zack starts to wonder if he caused her death... In real life, this most likely will not cause someone to die like THAT just because of stress. But in my imagination, and since this is a fanfic and set in the Final Fantasy world, anything is possible.

4. Yes that seems heartless that Zack realizes he was most likely the one to cause Mika to suffer through all that stress and in the end caused her death and he doesn't even cry about it. He will but it won't be mentioned till the next chapter, maybe.

I try to not to make so many notes but when my friends proof read this and they have questions I get the feeling others will too. If I have any new readers, thank you so much for reading! Obviously the first two or three chapters have to be rewritten because it's just so off. But I will work on those later so I can get some more chapters up. Chapters will be shorter than usual because I don't have as much time to write as I usually do.

I will also be writing a short little thing about Mika taking the exam to get accepted into ShinRa which I mentioned in an earlier chapter, but now I think instead of making it into a separate mini story of its own I would combine the would be three or four chapters into one big one, throw it in here and make it a flashback. What do you guys think? Review or pm me to let me know what you guys think because I'm torn between the two!