ix. he who breaks

There was nowhere else to hide. Not in his mind, and nowhere on the Planet.

There was nowhere else to run. No corner to back himself into, no place he could run to if he closed his eyes.

Cid chose to hide on Cactus Island. They were aware of the dangers outside, and so they remained in the airship. Marlene would practice summoning on the deck, ordering Bahamut to strike whatever passed outside. She could maintain the beast quite well. Yuffie, though, showed annoyance at the material being taken from underneath her nose, proclaiming, "You could've just asked; I would've given it to you!"

A lie through her teeth.

Reno, who could hear again, turned away from the scene and headed to the operation room, where he intended to hide away from Tifa. He refused to look or speak to her in the days that had followed, instead choosing only to be with Cissnei or check up on Marlene. The split was noticed, but largely ignored by Cid and Yuffie, who thought it was for the better.

"He's a bad man," Cid growled one day, stubbing out his cigarette beneath his mighty boot, "What he's done to us, we can't forget. Not two years on, not twenty years on, and not for whatever deed he does for the Planet. I can't fuckin' believe you're so stupid, Tifa."

Of course, he heard everything, but as always, chose to ignore it, instead tending to Cissnei if she had a problem. At one point he swore she almost remembered something, so that cheered him up temporarily. Bottling things up were never good, Marlene mentioned, but he ignored it, because what would she know? She's a fucking child. She's lived a good life with – with good people – and she's not sick.

If Rude was here, then he would reply with something that'd annoy him, something like, "Then she has a better idea of it than you do, yo."

What.

"Look at me," he began, voice descending into another fit of laughter, "I'm fuckin' talking to myself."

Sleep was not easy. It was turbulent. The airship groaned occasionally against the wind, and the ringing in his ears was as relentless as ever, and present in his nightmarish memories. He kept shifting from one position to the other, and was always half-woken by his own movements. All of his dreams were about the Turks, and even when he decided to lose sleep and stay awake to avoid remembering, his mind, his stupid, crazy mind would not allow it.

Cissnei would wake him if they got too bad, smoothing hair from his eyes. Sometimes it helped. Other times he felt worse, because he wasn't there to protect her. Another failure.

He saw things that happened, and things that could've occurred. He saw himself being interrogated by Sephiroth, missing a limb. He saw Tseng and Elena recovering from AVALANCHE's attacks. He saw fire swallow many Shinra rooms, and inevitably Rufus – and then in a twist in his demented mind, he had entered and seen a charred corpse. But he knew that Rufus had escaped, at least until Sephiroth seized control.

He saw famine. War. Hate. He saw himself and Cissnei be chased to the very ends of the earth, captured and tortured again. She died before him, for she was practically useless and knew nothing. But that didn't stop the fear ripping through her eyes as they catapulted from their sockets.

Maybe when everything was over, he should see a psychiatrist.

And then he laughed.

Before Marlene... before Tifa and all of this bullshit about cohesively trying to stop Sephiroth that occurred, he had no nightmares. They did not visit him as he slept, and memories did not traumatise him. That's why it had been so easy to move past their deaths just like those he and they had killed before. Because it was nothing.

And now Tifa told him that Cloud lived. That those deaths... were nothing.

That man was not here to make their deaths meaningful. That stupid, fucking clone was not here to make the difference everyone needed; and as much as he hated him, hated that he himself could never really make a difference, he knew that somehow they had to find him. After all, it was only Cloud who ever really had the power to make a difference.

To make a difference.

A chill crawled up Reno's spine until it reached the base of his skull. The feeling remained, causing Reno to reach around behind his head and scratch at the skin to try and get rid of it. Instead, it slid down his arms, to the tips of his fingers until they trembled and he saw fit to punch the ground. Nothing changed.

"A new symptom?"

Reno glanced up for a fraction of a second, finding the shadow of Marlene was not far away from him. He clenched the fist he had hurled into the metal, hearing the knuckles crack and feeling the muscles squish around and give way, "No." At least, he didn't think so, and he was in no mood to answer to a child.

"Tifa told me what your sickness was," she continued, approaching with feather-light feet. The shadow gradually grew over him the closer she got, "Or at least, she tried to explain it to me as best as she could. I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything."

Marlene nodded for a moment before watching him carefully. Now that it had been explained, she could see that compared to everyone else she was familiar with, he really was... different. She spoke carefully, aware that she was treading on dangerous ground; but it had to be said, and she knew that nobody else would, "I think you're doing this to yourself. As punishment for not being able to help those you cared about."

He twisted his knuckles into the floor.

"What I mean is... You... never stopped to mourn them and let go of your sadness. You just kept going, because surviving is all you know how to do," she offered him a small smile, "Your sadness is ma... manifesting into this insanity. Holding everything in will just make it worse over time until you don't know yourself anymore."

Well, he hadn't known himself for many years already. But what was more frustrating was that Marlene was scarily accurate, and making way too much sense for him to be comfortable. He dragged his knuckles across the ground and raised them, thereafter inspecting them. They were dirty and a little bloody, grazed from the pattern on the floor.

"See, you're doing it again," she chimed, approaching and pointing at him, "You're holding it in. Please let it go."

What gave him away, he wondered – at least until through the heightening ringing and the sound of her voice he noted that his breathing was ragged and harsh. He noted that his teeth were pressing together with an impossibly tight strength. He noted that the fist he was holding near his face was trembling, and it was swarming through to the rest of his body.

She came closer, her voice growing softer with every word, "You can overcome this. I believe in you."

He lost control, then. He saw red. He heard voices in his mind, many that he did not know, and few that he did. And they were all saying the same things, the same demeaning things – how can she talk about belief and faith – in you, no less?! How can she talk about moving past everything you have ever seen? Everything you have ever known? Everything you have ever done?!

Reno stood and hit her across the face with an open hand. Marlene cried out, stunned.

His blue eyes glanced at the door, where he saw Tifa dart across the room and punch him in the stomach. A kick to his ribcage followed, and another to his leg – she was too fast for him and he couldn't defend himself. If he weren't inflamed with his pathetic emotions, maybe he could've, like the Turk he was trained to be. But he wasn't focusing on her anyway – Tifa was boring.

He was thereafter thrown against the wall, and her forearm was pressed against his throat. Despite this, despite Yuffie coming in and checking over a crying Marlene, he was still struggling to get to her, as though she was the enemy. To him right now there was no difference between that tiny, fragile girl and the man who was ruling the world. No difference.

But there should've been.

Stop, Rude would've begged.

He cracked.

"You don't know anything..." Reno growled at the child, "What I've seen. What I've ordered. What I've done. What I've been through. You're just a naive, stupid fucking child! Newsflash, kid – I'm not who you think I am! You can't fucking fix me! I'm not the person to put your goddamn grubby faith in!"

Marlene continued to cry, even as she was finally led away by Yuffie. Once she was out of the room, he redirected his gaze at Tifa. The pain in her eyes was apparent – and it was only when he gazed for long enough, when he felt her forearm tremble did he realise exactly what he had done.

The cracks grew. He began to panic. The air became much too thick.

"Let's be clear here," Tifa began coldly, pushing harder before letting go entirely. With her eyebrows furrowed, she pulled down on the gloves on her hands and shifted her weight onto the opposite leg, "You just pushed away the only person on this entire ship that legitimately cares about you. And why? Because she showed you your true self. Your rotten heart."

As she turned and began to walk away, he choked, "I don't know what happened."

"You are no different to who you once were!" she seethed, slamming the door closed behind her.

"I never claimed to be," he replied to no one.

There was a brief reprieve from the sounds he could hear in his head. The room was too quiet. The silence was very unfamiliar and unwelcome – for once, the distraction of those delusional noises would've been a nice thing to focus on. Instead, he could only feel the weight of his failure drape over his shoulders and push him down into the earth.

Yes, he failed Shinra. He failed Rude, Tseng, Elena and Rufus. He failed Cissnei, even. He failed every Turk, those who left before Meteorfall and those who remained hidden away. He failed the citizens of the Planet, both in assistance and protection. He failed to better himself. He failed to change.

Truly, Reno could do nothing right; and now, more than ever, he doubted that he ever could.

And after so long, he shattered.