Chapter Ten - Strong Enough To Cry
Scarlet didn't send a battalion of soldiers, she sent butchers.
Fresh blood trickles in a strong procession down the clay-packed hill, snaking around the fractured stone and cracked earth to pool among the rocks and corpses. The ground, once a light, sandy gray color has been stained deep crimson, almost black in a permanent testimony that a battle didn't occur on this ridge…it was an outright massacre.
It began raining well before I found a semi-level location to land my helicopter. A pure, cleansing rain that is such a rarity around Midgar now-a-days. Perhaps, when those first droplets began striking the windshield, I knew. I knew what I would find up on this ridge. Despite the reality staring back at me in the lifeless, cloudy eyes of fallen Shinra infantrymen, their helmets crushed by devastating blows, and the charred corpses belonging to once proud SOLDIERs strewn around the ridge's base, a part of me doesn't want to believe any of this is real right now.
Rainwater soaks the woolen fabric of my dark blazer, drenching every part of me, and mud streaks my trousers, but right now, that is the least of my concerns as I climb. I just have to make it to him. I have to know the awful truth.
Slick stone grates against my leather half gloves as I climb, my boots slipping in the blood and mud mixed mire coating the entire ridge, forcing me to my knees more than once. This ridge is difficult enough for one healthy person, let alone one who was injured and carrying a burden such as Cloud. My fingers wrap around a sharp crag of stone, split by the mako-infused bullets that riddled this ridge earlier.
"Holy shit yo…"
I hear Reno and Rude making their way in this direction as quickly as they dare, both looking like they're going to be sick right now too. Whatever fate befell Zack and Cloud atop this ridge is my business and Tseng's right now, not theirs. They were sent here to assist, not to do my job for me. And part of my job is to identify and confirm—god forbid—the death of my target.
Except he's not 'just a target.' He never was. He is my friend.
An infantryman lies draped over the edge of the stone to my left, a jagged slash across his torso. There are plenty more around him, each bearing the same markings of the battle. I locate level ground and move a little bit faster toward the form of a man resting at the edge of the ridge.
"Please don't be him," I force myself to keep moving, that awful feeling settling in with the cold. Be another infantryman, or a drill sergeant. But not him.
As I draw closer, I see the barest hint of his raven hair resting in a pool of blood and reality stops me as if struck down by extremely cold lightning.
I have seen a lot of death over the years. Some victims died quick and clean, others were gory enough to give me nightmares still to this day. I've cleaned up my fair share of crime scenes over the years and have seen several of my fellow Turks who didn't make it back alive from missions. It's 'part of the job,' as it goes. But even the worse of those could never have prepared me for something of this caliber.
I can't even look at his body for more than a few quick seconds at most. It's too much, the nausea threatening to overtake me. There are too many bullet holes with the congealed blood still oozing at the discretion of the rain's will. Far too many patches of blackened, charred skin along his strong arms and hands where he had once held Angeal's sword in his final stand.
Monsters. The ones who did this were cruel, inhuman, barbaric monsters. They didn't just shoot him, they outright butchered him. How many thousands of rounds did he have to suffer against before someone finally put him out of his misery with that gunshot to the head? How long did he lay on this ridge, bleeding and in agony, knowing he was dying, but refusing to yield to their cries for his blood? They put him down as if he wasn't even a human being, but an animal. He suffered at their hands.
An inhuman trembling seizes my body and I take a step in reverse, the heel of my boot connecting with the flesh of an unknown soldier. I need to get out of here. Now.
"Hey." A steady hand grasps my trembling shoulder, drawing me close in a protective embrace. "You sure you're up to this, 'Nei?"
The towering presence of Rude appears on my other side, concern in the way he stands, as though to shield me from the horrific truth right in front of me.
Zack Fair, the soft-hearted, innocent hero of a young man I was once honored to call a friend, is dead, murdered in cold, cruel blood by the same company that employed him.
"I…I have to Reno." My voice feels foreign, broken even. This can't be right.
Reno draws me closer and rests his chin atop my auburn hair. For several minutes, he holds me close, making no move to let me go as the rain soaks his jacket and the scalding sensation blurs my vision. The foreign liquid seeps with the raindrops into the left shoulder of his jacket, but he doesn't move.
"Shhh. There's no hurry, 'Nei."
I continue to tremble, unable to control the tears. He continues to stand there, a firm pillar of strength within this cruel world. A solid sense of understanding swirls within those impish, yet honest green eyes. If anyone knows how I feel right now, it is my fellow Turks standing with me this day. They are not going to try to tell me that everything is going to be okay. They aren't going to sugar coat any of this, that he did not die in the fashion he did, and that this is not my fault.
And for that, I am grateful.
Rude begins walking towards the body, a shovel clasped with white knuckles. If the sight of such bloody carnage bothers him, he doesn't show it. But the hesitance in his step does not leave him unaffected. He'd met Zack a few times as well.
I feel Reno loosen his grip ever so slightly to look at his comrade. "We'll bury him, 'Nei. Let's get you out of the rain first."
Get out of the rain…
I draw away from Reno's embrace completely and shake my head.
"No." I close my eyes with a soft whisper. "Please don't send me away right now. I need to do this, Reno."
The red-haired Turk's eyes soften because he knows this is as close to closure as I'm ever going to get and you don't deny that to a Turk. "Okay. If you're sure this is what you want to do, then I will not try to stop you."
"Thank you, Reno." I draw a shaky breath and turn toward Zack's body. Reno places a comforting hand on my shoulder, walking alongside me to the edge of the hole Rude has begun to dig, and hands me a shovel.
I'm sorry, Zack. I'm so sorry for allowing you to die out here like this. I should have done something more to help you. Please forgive me.
The sandy, gritty earth clings to the shovel with stubborn persistence, each inch dug stained with blood, mud, sweat, and tears. Reno keeps a watchful eye on me as we work, the hole gradually becoming deeper.
They even took the Buster Sword from him. His honor. Is nothing sacred to the dead? And Cloud, poor, sweet, timid Cloud. Did they shoot him too and lay his body somewhere for the wolves to devour? Or did he even make it this far?
Wherever they are, I pray they have found peace. A land without war. A land without pain.
Their promised land. Aerith is going to be devastated when she finds out...if she doesn't already know.
I am forced to look away when we transport his body to the grave. Hands trembling from the frigid rain and sore from grasping the shovel so hard, I close his vacant eyes forever and allow Reno and Rude to lower him into the makeshift grave. It is not much, but it will shield him from the monsters that will no doubt descend upon the corpses the moment we leave.
Forgive me, Zack, for not being able to look at you in this state. I don't want the memories of your bloodied, broken body to be what I think of whenever you cross my mind, but those of the times when we met in the world of the living—your youthful, excitable presence dominating your every movement. I don't want those memories lost by the sight of your body now.
The first shovelful of earth to hit his body is the worst. With each one thereafter, a part of me wishes for him to fight back, to prove to us that he is not dead, but very much alive. After all, are not the elite first class of SOLDIER immortal in their own right?
The last shovelful rounds the grave and breaks my thoughts. Reno is at my side once again, guiding me down the rocky embankment towards the helicopters. We have to return home. There is work still to be done. Reports to give. Tears to be shed.
I could have sworn I saw a thin line in the mud, as though someone had dragged something heavy away on the trail to Midgar while burying him. But I dare not stop to look closer as we pass it. I don't think I can handle the sight of the blond infantryman's body if it is even still in this area. Callous and cold as it sounds even to a Turk, I'm not going to sift through damn near a thousand bodies to find another one. Not after all of this.
A heavy thunder in the distance rumbles on the horizon. It's going to storm again.
"You sure you're going to be okay, 'Nei?" Reno's voice harbors a sadness of its own. "Want me to ride back with you?"
"I'll be okay, Reno." I whisper, my throat raw from crying. "Let's just go home."
"Just be careful, okay. It looks like the weather is going to get pretty rough."
"We've flown in worse." I step toward my helicopter. "I'll be fine, Reno."
With the rain cascading through our helicopter blades, we fly side by side toward Midgar from the unmarked grave of Zack, the hero.