Family Portrait

by Galaxia Alpha

Six years after Meteor the world is still broken, plagued by mako addiction and memories of the past. On the outskirts of civilization the remnants of SOLDIER are uniting, and Cloud and Denzel must learn the meaning of family to survive. CloTi. Winner of a 2008 Genesis Award (Action/Adventure Category).

11. Standing at the Edge

Chapter 11 – Standing at the Edge

A/N: Because, despite all his indecisiveness at times, Cloud always does whatever it takes in the end…

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Tseng leans back in the unsteady chair of the small coffee shop and hears the metal creak around loose screws. Back right leg. If he were to twist it just so, it could be disconnected completely and used as a weapon. In his estimation, it only weighs a kilo, because the leg is hollow inside, so he would have to swing it hard to cause any real damage. This would be the kind of weapon used only when looking for the element of surprise or when in complete desperation.

In his lap, there's a newspaper that he isn't reading and a cup of cold tea on the small table in front of him that he isn't drinking. Instead, he's looking out the large picture window beside him, eyes sweeping back and forth across the entrance of the ShinRa tower.

One thin, elegant hand absently adjusts the small, inconspicuous headset clipped onto his ear.

"Did you see that one Rude? Over by the flower shop. She's at least an eight," Tseng hears Reno say over the headset.

"Green dress?"

"That's the one."

"A six."

"Are you crazy? Get a look at that body! You're blind, yo. I think those sunglasses are too dark."

"Perhaps I simply have higher standards."

"Perhaps you just don't have any taste. Come on Rude, look at her."

"I'm looking."

"And?"

"She's a six."

"Hopeless man, you're completely hopeless. I don't know why I even bother."

"Neither do I."

"It's not worth it really."

"No, it's not."

"You're lucky I'm such a nice guy or I wouldn't bother, yo."

Tseng hears a snort and then Rude's voice: "I don't deserve such luck."

Tseng finds Reno's figure out the window walking casually across the street, hands in his pockets and the collar of his long trench coat pulled high. The ponytail of bright red hair makes him easy to spot, even with the baseball cap he's wearing. But Tseng has to give him credit. He looks just like any other citizen of Midgar taking a casual walk, and he never once catches Reno glancing at the girl in the green dress, which, by the way, Tseng silently rates a seven. Rude is in a restaurant on the other side of the ShinRa building, out of Tseng's line of sight, though obviously still able to see the girl on the street between them.

"We're looking for SOLDIERs, not girls," Tseng comments, turning the page of his newspaper as if he's actually reading it.

"I'm multi-tasking," Reno replies. "Multi-tasking is the best way to fight workplace complacency, right Rude?"

"You made that up."

"Well, yeah, but it sounds good. The crazy bastards won't think of attacking until nightfall anyway."

Tseng knows it's probably true. As maniacal as the SOLDIERs may have become, their original training isn't likely to have been forgotten. The SOLDIERs had always been taught to use every advantage available. If possible, that meant using the cover of night to aid the element of surprise and minimize the visibility of brutality to an unsuspecting public. But staying alive as a Turk meant being careful. "Thoughts like that get men killed," Tseng says curtly.

"I know that." And all the humor has left Reno's voice, leaving something sharp and cold behind.

Tseng has known Reno long enough to recognize that this is the closest the man ever gets to fear anymore. None of them like the idea of going against the SOLDIERs. Men ravaged by mako use. Men driven over the edge of insanity.

Mako. The word slithers in between Tseng's thoughts, through his veins, around his chest. There's a dose in a pouch at his waist, next to a gun holster, and he knows that before nightfall he'll have to excuse himself to the bathroom to use it. A sour taste fills his mouth and he thinks of Elena, of the look on her face every time she sees him using. Weak. That's what her eyes tell him. He is weak.

There are five guns, three daggers, and eight grenades hidden on his person under the cover of a heavy, long coat. He knows exactly how long it would take to kill a man with each one and exactly how quickly he can switch between weapons. The grenades have a blast radius of twenty-five feet. Counting all five guns and the extra clips he is carrying, he can kill as many as fifty men in less than two minutes.

But if someone were to steal that mako injection from the pouch at his waist, he would be a convulsing, incapacitated mess within 24 hours. Weak.

He'd known when he woke from his coma after Meteor was defeated, lying back on a white cot in a nondescript room, staring up at the proud features of Rufus ShinRa, that there was a price to pay for his life. "You're bought and paid for, Tseng. You belong to me now," Rufus had said. Glancing at the IV in his arm and the emerald-tinted fluid trickling through the plastic tubing, he had understood. He was a prisoner.

Just like all the others were.

"We'll probably recognize some of the SOLDIERs when they attack. We're the ones who recruited them." Tseng says, surprising himself with the sound of his voice. He'd forgotten for a moment where he was. That sometimes happens to him.

"I plan to kill them before I get a chance to look at their faces. Even Rufus said he doesn't care how much of a mess we make, just as long as we get them all. I see one of those freakish swords coming at me and I'm blasting a hole through the bastard's head, yo. I don't care if the guy was my brother once."

"Besides, thoughts like that get men killed, Tseng," Rude adds. There isn't any mocking quality in his voice, just the unemotional detachment of facts.

Mako. Slave. Weak. Tseng is silent.

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

Road. A stretched out and shimmering stone lake in the afternoon sun with the sound of the motorcycle's engine rumbling smoothly. Somehow, the sound resembles the fields of wavering grass on either side of him. Cloud smells oil and gasoline and the sharp green flavor of pollen in the air and he thinks of the first time he showed Denzel how to give the motorcycle a tune-up. They'd gotten into a wrestling match as they put away the last of Cloud's tools, and soon after they were rolling on the ground, grass sticking to the grime and motor oil coating their skin. When they'd come home, Tifa had looked at them critically and asked what crime they had committed to earn a tar and feathering. Denzel looked confused. Cloud smirked.

"Well, you know, I'm quite the rebel," Cloud said, smiling with one corner of his mouth as he sat down at her bar. It was late afternoon, and the after-work rush of customers was still at least an hour away. They had the place almost to themselves.

Denzel gave a thumbs up with a dirty hand, the nails lined with black, as he plopped down next to Cloud. "That's right. Me too. So ya better be careful!"

Hands on her hips, Tifa raised an eyebrow and leaned forward to examine them critically. "Is that so?"

"Yeah, you got a problem, Toots?" Cloud drawled lazily, lifting both arms over his head.

"What if I do?" It was obvious Tifa was trying not to laugh. "You gonna clean my bar after you're done tracking dirt all over it?"

"No way, Woman!" Denzel shouted defiantly.

Cloud stifled a laugh in the form of a snort. He leaned toward Denzel conspiratorially and whispered, "Hey, Denz, there's a pretty high chance we will. It's best not to provoke her."

"Oh." Denzel looked crestfallen.

"But…" Cloud added, "we might be able to distract her and delay it." He turned back to Tifa again as Denzel perked up. "You know what the punishment for harboring a rebel is?" Cloud asked in full voice.

"I don't like that look, Cloud…"

"The punishment for harboring a rebel is sharing in their punishment," he continued, his tone official. "Denzel, you get the flour and I'll get the cooking oil. That should be close enough…Unless we have feathers somewhere…"

Tifa's eyes grew wide. "I'll kill you, Cloud Stife. I really will."

He got up slowly. Denzel mimicked his movements.

"You know, Cloud, sometimes I wish you'd had a normal childhood so you could have gotten all this out of your system then." She was backing away, angling toward the kitchen door.

"Ready Denzel?"

"Yup!"

"Then let's go!"

All three bodies moved at once. By the time the first harried customers came through the doors of the Seventh Heaven, looking to unwind after a long day of work, Marlene had joined in the battle and all four of them were covered in oil, flour, frozen peas (Cloud's idea), catsup (Denzel's idea), and tuna fish (Tifa and Marlene's revenge).

Cloud catches himself smiling as he remembers, but the expression fades quickly as he realizes where he is again, and tries to decide whether the memory should make him happy or sad. He fingers the wolf's head amulet at his shoulder. The force of the breeze above the lip of his glove is cold on his exposed wrist, and all he can think is that it feels like handcuffs of fire. Strands of wind-abused hair tickle his ears. He imagines the feather-light touch of Tifa's kisses and the grating of nails against metal all at once. Everything is a fitting contradiction and his mind is an adrenaline induced mess.

Mako gives you power.

He squints toward the horizon-line of empty road, at the buildings of Midgar less than an hour away, the ShinRa skyscraper rising like an obelisk to an ancient god of war. But it's the old ShinRa tower he sees, not the new, smaller, revival. What he sees is the extravagant lobby and the blue-clad SOLDIERs and the bored face of that first secretary on that first day he entered the building, just an awe-struck kid from some hick-town called Nibelheim.

The substantial weight in his pocket slaps against his leg as his motorcycle pitches over a pothole and the impact shatters through his mental meanderings and smothers them in a cloud of dust. How far will you go?

Zack had asked him that once, in a very serious tone, as he sat on his bed with a mako needle in his arm. He'd looked up at Cloud with crystallized ice in his glowing eyes, and had asked, "How far will you go Cloud? How far do you really want to go to be the best?"

How far will you go?

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"He couldn't have gotten far. He was on foot."

"Unless someone met him," Cloud had responded with a steady gaze before he turned and pushed out the door of the HHI laboratory to find the boy he considered a son.

Ren stops mid-stride, blinking the memory away. Elena is standing in his path, blocking the hallway, fingers hooked in a loose utility belt around her waist. He notes the multiple holsters and pouches attached to it. She is a woman who likes to be prepared. "Sir!" she says officially, inclining her head. "Sir, I have an update from one of my contacts."

"Your contacts?" She was a Turk once. Is she still? He swipes a hand along his hairline. His fingers come away wet. He's exhausted. So utterly exhausted. It feels like he's been raided by a cascade of bombs, leaving him barely able to stand.

"We'll find him, I promise," he'd told Cloud.

What is he doing promising such things?

"Sir, the SOLDIERs have Denzel."

And just like that, his dazed despondency evaporates with the heat of her words. "Say that again."

"The SOLDIERs have Denzel. There's no mistaking it either, sir. My source is reliable. It's definitely true, so we have to do something. I recommend we attack, sir." She nods her head, as if to reaffirm her speech, but something in the brown of her eyes looks too soft. Her expression is a collection of slight curves—her mouth, her brows, the wrinkled 'j' in her forehead—lines meant to be straight with sureness but weighted with a wavering uncertainty.

"Attack with what?" he says, tone incredulous.

"Well… with everything we've got, sir!"

"A handful of half-trained kids?" He's an idealist, but not an idiot. Or at least, he likes to think this. He'd thought she was the same that night when they met at that run-down bar in Midgar. Then, she'd seemed hard and strong. Unbreakable. But with a stubborn determination simmering under the surface. Is it still there? Is it still there in him?

Cloud was supposed to support him. Instead, he'd walked away disgusted.

"We have to try!" she says.

Ren blinks, shakes his head, and smoothes his hands over his rumpled dress shirt. "Do we?"

Squirming a little, she adjusts her snug top. "Of course!"

He lets his gaze fall over her, swinging around the curve of her hips and down the slant of her legs, planted wide, as if she needs the extra support. It confuses him. The clothes don't match the person he thinks she is, and it makes her looks discordant. That suit he first met her in—it fit her, pulled everything together neatly. Looking at her is a distraction now that grates on his nerves. "Why?" he asks.

Because you promised, he answers himself. You promised to get his kid back. Will you give up so easily?

Would Zack give up so easily?

Stop it! Zack is dead!

He sucks in a deep breath at his own mental outburst. The fabric of his shirt is bunched between his hands.

"Excuse me sir, but I don't understand. The SOLDIERs are a threat. I thought you wanted to protect people."

"What people? Why? I try to imagine who, but all I get is nothing. Everyone I want to protect is dead already."

"Midgar. You said you would take over where your brother had left off. What changed? Just this morning, when I told you Denzel was gone, you were determined to find him. I don't get it, sir. What happened?" She looks genuinely confused.

For a moment, he simply stares at her, too tense to speak. He wonders if he could turn to stone. A statue. A monument. A monument to what? Lost causes?

"I gotta join SOLDIER, Renny. I gotta do something meaningful… like Maggie always wanted to."

Ren imagines the sincerity in his brother's eyes as he said those words, the way the light reflected off the thin film of water on deep blue. But the SOLDIERs had killed him. Why? His fellow heroes had killed him.

"Were the SOLDIERs ever good?" Ren asks, and is voice sounds tiny in the large hallway.

Elena tilts her head downward, expression thoughtful. "Yes… I think they were. They were loyal. They followed ShinRa's orders. My sister used to tell me stories of how they would die for the company. That's pretty courageous."

"Follow orders. Even if those orders were wrong? Were bad?"

"But, they had no choice. There are no good and bad orders. There are simply orders. Part of SOLDIER training was loyalty conditioning. They were trained to die for ShinRa… but I guess that means maybe they weren't so courageous after all. I mean, at least, not consciously."

"You've told me that before. When I first met you. You said the SOLDIERs had been conditioned for violence and for loyalty."

"So? What's the problem then?"

"Was it always bad? Was ShinRa always bad?"

She hesitates, and he watches the clouds of a mental battle stormy her expression. "I joined ShinRa because I believed in the company's purpose."

"And what was that?"

"To unite the world. All of it. All the wars and the ugly things were to unite the world." She says it with vindication, with vigor, and with clenched fists.

"You still believe that," he says as a statement.

But suddenly, her confident poise slackens, and even the rigid line of her back seems to bend slightly. Her eyes turn toward the wall. "It was a good cause. It still is."

He's staring at her, because he's shocked by how broken she suddenly looks, and he has to wonder what the trade-off was for being a Turk. How many unspeakable things has she been asked to do in her life? How many has she done without question? She doesn't seem like one to ask questions. She seems like one who simply does her job as efficiently as possible. Again he wonders why she would leave the Turks. It seems out of character for her. And so he asks, "Elena. Are you still a Turk?"

Her gaze flashes to him and there is the quick glint of horror before she ties her expression into a careful weave of shock. But it's enough. He knows the answer. Even though she says, "Of course not, sir!" with the high pitch of surprise.

He smiles. He wonders if that comforts or unnerves her. It doesn't matter. As long as she's helping him, it doesn't matter who she works for. And then he realizes that he is just like her, just like the SOLDIERs were. He chuckles humorlessly, muttering, "The ends justify the means," to himself.

She examines him carefully. "I think that depends on what your ends are, right?"

This time his smile is more genuine. He nods. "Yes, that's right." And what are his ends? He remembers wandering through the forest with Maggie and Zack, searching for monsters because Maggie was determined to protect the town from them.

There's something pulling at his thoughts, snatching him from his memories. Something he's been wondering in some neglected corner of his mind. "Elena?" he asks suddenly. "What do you suppose happened to the remnant of the SOLDIERs to make them what they've become?" It's the part the makes the least sense to him. Whatever their faults before, they are something very different now. The one he met with Jenkins… there was no sanity in those eyes.

Elena shrugs and crosses her arms. "Once ShinRa collapsed after Meteor, the SOLDIERs lost their purpose, I guess."

"They lost their purpose?"

"Yeah. You know… they were supposed to protect the company, but to them it probably looked like there was no company."

"They lost the thing they were protecting."

"Huh?" She twists her lips in a confused expression.

"Heroes without a purpose. That's what they became." And he realizes that's what he's almost become. He thinks about how lost he felt the moment Cloud turned his back and left, how lost he still feels. Is that how the SOLDIERs felt? How they feel now?

"Sir? What are you talking about?"

"What Cloud said. What Zack said. I understand now. We have to have a purpose. Something specific. What are we protecting?"

"Isn't our purpose to save Denzel, sir? We have to protect him, which means we have to attack the SOLDIERs." She says the words like they are a rehearsed script.

"No." The truth was that Midgar had never really mattered to him enough. Protecting the world, protecting people, being a hero… it had never really been his dream. But he had held on to it for so long because of the one thing that had always mattered to him…

"What do you mean?" Elena asks, clearly confused.

"Would Zack have ended up like them if he had been around after Meteor?"

"Your SOLDIER brother? It depends. Not all of the SOLDIERs took to the ShinRa loyalty conditioning to the same degree. It's hard to say."

"Be he could have."

"I guess so."

"Then that's enough. Elena, I cannot kill the SOLDIERs, because they are what I choose to protect."

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

The thing in his pocket feels like it must be alive. It radiates such warmth across his right thigh. Cloud braces himself on the motorcycle with his left hand, slipping the other into his pocket to touch the smooth plastic of the vial, the narrowing point leading to a capped needle, the plunger at the other end like a round beacon.

He remembers standing in the mad scientist lab of HHI where the mako injections were given to the children. Children—they were only children, with no idea what was being done to them. It didn't matter that many were as old as Cloud had been when he joined SOLDIER, because one of those children was Denzel and Denzel was too young, too young to be throwing his life away for some idealistic maniac's dream.

Is he too young, or were you too young?

And the mako Ren was using… it was obvious just by the color that the stuff was refined, purified, ultra-high quality… In a word: expensive. He'd seen the underground mako dealing operations that wove through Midgar and Edge, had spent considerable time trying to shut some of them down. They all helped in their own way. Barret used guerilla warfare to destroy the mines. Cloud wandered out later at night than any sane person should to terrorize any junkies he could find—an elbow to the chest and a glimpse of his sword generally had the desired effect. Tifa weaseled out all the information she could about the dealers from her alcohol-imbued patrons.

But never had he heard of Life's Blood this pure being sold on the streets. This wasn't intended for a drug addict. It was intended for scientific experiments.

Holding a large canister of the stuff in his hand, he'd looked at Ren with bewilderment written in his eyes and said, "Denzel ran off with this stuff?"

"Yes." A hesitation, and then, "that container you're holding is a liter. He took five of them. A dosage is 5 mililiters."

"This is pure."

"It doesn't get any more refined," Ren confirmed with a nod, kneading his hands tensely.

"Where did you get this?" Cloud demanded.

Another hesitation. "Well actually, I'm not entirely sure."

"You're what?"

"He's never given me a name."

"Then how does it come?"

"A delivery boy brings it."

"I'm a delivery boy. No one ever asked me to deliver to you."

"It's the same man every time. Long black hair, blue eyes, narrow face. Not very descript really."

"You're a piece of work. I can't tell you how disgusted I am."

"I was only trying to hel—"

"You're handing these kids a death sentence. Do you really think you're concerned about the well-being of the world?"

"Of course I am!"

"So in order to create heroes to save the world, you're willing to destroy the planet. You know where mako comes from, don't you? I'm starting to sound like Barret."

"You're over-simplifying things."

"If you weren't Zack's brother, I'd punch you. I'm going to find my boy. I'll be back to deal with you after."

"But—do you know w-w-where to look?"

"No. But I have suspicions. ...I'll follow those for now."

That's when the conversation had ended. That's when he'd left the room, Ren trailing behind him sputtering explanations and pleading with him to understand.

Adjusting the goggles over his eyes and shoving stray hair away from his temples, Cloud hugs the contours of his bike. He didn't leave that lab empty-handed.

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Tifa Strife leans forward in a red cushioned chair, arms braced across her thighs as she drums her fingers against her knees. She's been here in the ShinRa Headquarters lobby for only five minutes, but still she feels eager. Antsy. She can't get Cloud's voice out of her head.

He'd sounded so scared. When was the last time she'd heard him that way?

Denzel had been injected with mako.

She shivers and clenches her fists, the leather of her gloves creaking. There may not be blood between them, but Denzel is her son in every way that counts. This man—Ren—when they get Denzel back, she's going to personally show him exactly what motherly protectiveness means.

"Ahem!"

Tifa's head jolts up suddenly. The young secretary sitting at the high oval desk in the center of the room is staring at her, pointy nose held high under thick-framed glasses. "Mr. ShinRa will see you now Mrs. Strife," she says in an overly sweet voice.

Tifa nods, smiling politely as she stands. "Thank you."

"Fortieth floor. It's the top one."

"Yes, I know," Tifa replies, as she walks toward the elevator bank along one wall of the room. The center of three doors is already open and waiting to receive her. She presses the button for the appropriate floor and listens to the air sweeping by as she rises, remembering when seventieth used to be the top floor. But everything in Midgar is smaller now. She wonders how Rufus still manages to have the tallest building in the city, even after everything that's happened to the ShinRa Corporation in the last half a decade.

He's standing there when the elevator door opens, hands causally in his pockets and a humorless look on his face. The dark blue of his suit is framed by the deep purple of the hallway walls. He smiles amiably and nods his head when his eyes meet hers, bringing his chin up a little too quickly to flick long blond bangs out of his eyes.

"Tifa," he says, holding out a hand for her to shake, "So nice of you to come."

She can't tell if he's being sarcastic or truthful, and it unnerves her, so she looks down at his hand and back at his eyes, thinks about the time he offered the help of Reno and Rude to fight Kadaj a few years ago, and tentatively reaches out her own hand. His grip is firm as he shakes it and his already tempered eyes harden.

"Why did you ask me here, Rufus?" she says, and she tries to keep the distain out of her voice, but it's hard, because she's thinking of Denzel and how this man might be connected.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he turns ninety degrees and bows slightly, gesturing for her to walk down the hall. With a narrow-eyed look, she obeys.

The hallway is long, a large, ornate, wood door at the end carved with the ShinRa crest. It's a sign of wealth and power. Though things have gotten considerably better, wood still isn't cheap, and she knows for a fact that Rufus built this hallway with its wooden trim and magnificent door at the end while wood was still an untouchable sign of kingship. Did all this money come from the power generation business? Burning coal and natural gas isn't cheap and she can't imagine the ShinRa Corporation makes nearly the profits now that it used to when mako was the energy production fuel.

Her eyes dart from wall to wall as she walks toward the door, bouncing between the framed pictures of wildlife. Mostly leopards and large cats with yellow, alert eyes and sharp teeth. She hears Rufus' steady breathing and rhythmic steps behind her and is reminded of the stalking of a predator. She clenches and unclenches her gloved fists, tingling with the sensation of the materia imbedded in them. By the time she reaches the door, her senses are on full alert. "Cloud saw Elena at the Holding Hands International Headquarters," she says, because she doesn't like the tension in her chest, "What do the Turks have to do with HHI?"

"One step at a time. You Avalanche members always want to run before you walk." He reaches past her to open the door and waits for her to enter.

"After you." She eyes him warily.

He smiles and inclines his head. "As you wish."

She follows him inside, studying the calm gait of his walk, startled when the door slams closed behind her. Is it automatic? With suspicious eyes she studies the room—his office. There isn't much to see. One side looks like a lounge area, with thickly padded navy couches around a glass coffee table. A blank screen that could be used for presentations is on the wall nearby, the rectangular outline in the wood-paneled wall beneath it hinting at a door with media equipment behind. The walls on the other side of the room are lined with cabinets, also wood and intricately carved. In the center, is Rufus' desk, by far the centerpiece, vastly oversized and glaringly empty. Nothing, not one paper, not a single knick-knack, no pictures of treasured memories, no sign of a life inside or outside of this office… Nothing. He sits behind that desk of nothing in a high-backed black chair and folds his hands, a meaningless smile on his face that is simply an expression he's chosen to wear, like one might choose a pair of shoes to match an outfit.

"Would you like a seat?" he asks, gesturing toward a chair offset from the front of his desk.

She shakes her head, widening her stance. "No thanks. I just want answers."

"I figured. So Cloud saw Elena, eh? Forget about that though; it doesn't matter. I didn't ask you here to talk about HHI. There are more important things."

"Like what?"

"Like the SOLDIERs and their connection to Denzel."

It feels like someone has punched her in the stomach. With a dry throat and wide eyes, she says, "Connection?"

"Yes." He stands suddenly, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk. The low sun outlines his profile. "This city," he glances out the window and then back at her, "it thrives on mako. The whole world does and it always has. No matter what Avalanche does, people will always crave it for the same reasons they crave a fountain of youth. Do you know what that reason is, Tifa?"

She doesn't answer, choosing the reaction Cloud would give in a situation like this, keeping her expression steady and unreadable.

He looks away, back down at the buildings of Midgar outside. "Because people want to believe they can be something more than what they are. They're never satisfied. Even if you give them everything, they won't be satisfied."

"You're a madman, Rufus."

He runs a hand through his hair to smooth the sleek blond strands and chuckles. "Somebody has to be. It keeps things interesting, don't you think?"

"How is hurting people interesting?"

"Who have I hurt?" he asks innocently. "I've never given anyone anything they didn't want all along anyway."

She doesn't respond, because she doesn't know how to. It's obvious Rufus is tied up in the mako market, but she has no real proof. Nothing more than suspicions and his own cryptic hints. But it's not important right now anyway. Only one thing is: "What do you know about Denzel?"

"I'll tell you a story, Tifa… Once upon a time, my father ran ShinRa Corporation. Then, ShinRa was more of a nation than a company, and nations need protection, so he created SOLDIER. The ultimate warriors. Fearless. Brave. Loyal."

"I know all this already."

"Ah, but did you know that we used to brainwash SOLDIERs as part of their training? We'd teach them to tolerate violence and even to love it. No, not at first, you know. My father wasn't sadistic. At first we just modified the body with mako, but we found that their minds couldn't handle what their bodies could do. They got squeamish with the effects of their swords and shied away from their full potential. Something about the human mind wants to avoid brutality, but it was necessary to break down that block to create the perfect SOLDIER. However, we didn't just teach them to be comfortable with blood. They were taught to believe that they were building a better world. Do you know what that means, Tifa?"

She is silent, glaring.

"It means that every SOLDIER wants to be a hero, but we'll get back to that. Let's continue with the story. I said it was human nature to want to be something better than we are, so it was only natural that we would try to improve on the SOLDIERs."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Ultimate SOLDIER, Tifa. Something more powerful than anything we had ever managed before. It was Hojo's idea really, but it didn't take much convincing for everyone else to get on board with it. Not many people understand how mako really works. It integrates itself into a person's cells, super-powering them, but over time, the effects fade and the exhausted cells are left to disintegrate. Unless, of course, they are given more mako. The purer the mako, the longer the effects last. A well-done mako conditioning like what the SOLDIERs went through will last twenty years or more without further injections, though the strength of the SOLDIER will decline over that time. But Hojo had an idea. What if the SOLDIER didn't need mako injections? Mako is only manufactured Lifestream, right? And the Lifestream is all around us, right? So what if a SOLDIER could absorb the life stream directly? His power would be infinite…"

She's staring at him with wide eyes, not breathing.

"What would that be worth?" he says softly. He turns to her then, hands held out in an imploring gesture. "Huh, Tifa? What do you think?"

"Stop talking in circles. Just tell me what you mean…"

He walks over to his desk again, standing in front of his chair, palms flat on the shiny, polished wood. He stares down at his warped reflection. "We did it." He tilts his chin upward, flicking his bangs out of his eyes. "We made the Ultimate SOLDIER…"

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

There's a way to find Denzel. Cloud knows it instinctively. There are the less-talked-about effects that mako has on a person, effects that can only be known by someone who has experienced SOLDIER-quality mako. As mutilated and artificial as the final product might be, mako still comes from the Lifestream. And that means a connection with life itself.

Zack had described it as a temporary psychic link, only obtained at the height of the initial rush of an injection. It didn't last long, but it left lasting impressions. Impressions deep enough for Cloud to forget who he was once. SOLDIERs used to play games when they took their mako treatments, sitting around their barracks searching for dirty secrets in the brains of their friends. It wasn't very easy. The mako link wasn't that precise; images flooded into the user's mind like shapes in an abstract painting or like a ream of papers scattered by the wind. Making sense of it all was nearly impossible. That was how Zack had described it, before Cloud knew for himself.

And as unreliable as the mako link is, it is even less so with someone who isn't already connected to the Lifestream by their own mako high. Cloud wouldn't even be entertaining this line of thought if he were searching for someone clean.

But Denzel stole 5 liters of mako. And he has already had treatments before.

It's a thought Cloud doesn't like, a thought that makes him feel sick somewhere under the hardened layers of adrenaline and cold, taut, determination. It's very possible Denzel is high right now.

How far will you go?

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

Tifa blinks, lips parted. The temperature in the room is cool and she shivers. "It's Denzel…" she says. "He's your ultimate SOLDIER, isn't he?"

Rufus thrusts his arms forward, straightening to his full height from his previous position of leaning over his desk. He smiles and makes a show of applauding. "Congratulations."

"But… how… he had parents, a home… He was just a kid…" Wrinkling her brow, she shakes her head, strands of dark brown hair falling loose from her ponytail.

"Are you forgetting already? Humans want only to believe they can be better. Who wouldn't want that for their son? His father worked for ShinRa anyway, and he got quite a promotion out of the deal." Rufus slips his hands in his pockets and walks casually out from behind his desk. "It was the mother who made a big deal. Oh, at first she was fine. I know, because Denzel was my project, given to me by my father as a coming of age test, I guess you'd say. But then came the seizures and suddenly she was worried all those tests and modifications might not be good for her son. She started threatening to run away and hide him."

"But his parents died in Sector Seven…"

"Yes. They did." The emotion sweeps out of his face as if a bucket of water had just washed away the painted mask of his expression. His lips form a thin line against pale skin and straight brows frame deep-set blue eyes, but they mean nothing. They are only the form of his features with no feeling revealed.

Her breath catches, and her first attempt to speak is a strangled gasp.

Reanimated, Rufus claps again. "I see you understand. Bingo. You win the grand prize."

She speaks quietly, in sarcasm-coated tones. "Somehow, I don't think there's much of a prize."

"No. I guess not." He shrugs. "But I commend you for catching on faster than Cloud probably would."

Glaring at him, she says, "Cloud catches on faster than you think."

"I hope so…"

And Tifa is startled, because Rufus sounds sincere, and she's not sure she's ever heard him sound that way before. "What do you mean?"

"When Denzel escaped Sector Seven, his special abilities had been repressed. It was standard procedure to do that whenever he left a session at Hojo's lab. Of course, the side effect was the seizures. But it wouldn't do to have an invincible kid running around on the streets breaking the neighbor's bike with his bare hands…" He pauses, as if he is waiting for something, then says, "You're not laughing."

She's not sure how to respond to that. Does he really think she could laugh? For the last five years, she has raised Denzel like her own son. But Rufus doesn't understand. She almost feels sorry for him as she says, "It isn't funny."

"You just need to look at it the right way."

"If by right way, you mean your way, then no thanks." She hesitates on the last word, a sudden question sparking into her mind. "Why are you telling me all this? I mean, you've never exactly been forthcoming before. And why now? Why tell me this now?" She's trying to resist the urge to leap forward across the short distance that separates them and punch him in the face.

He sighs heavily and crosses his arms, tapping a finger against his chin. "Because I need you to do something… Do you want to know where he is?"

"Tell me."

"He's with the SOLDIERs."

"He's… how? Why? …Hold it. How do you know?"

"It's my business to know. I've been watching the remaining SOLDIERs for years. They've always been a threat."

"But you said so yourself, they're loyal to ShinRa."

"They're loyal to what they remember ShinRa being. And more importantly, they're addicted to mako. Even that is more powerful than ShinRa loyalty conditioning."

"But why would Denzel follow them? I don't understand!" Her emotions are building, bubbling over in her impatience. She takes a step forward.

"Because when he went to Holding Hands International he was injected with mako. Before we lost him in the chaos of the Sector Seven aftermath, his powers had been sealed, locked away, if you will—inaccessible to him. A mako injection was the key."

"And now?"

"And now he is becoming the ultimate SOLDIER like he was always meant to be."

"But why? Why go to the SOLDIERs? Why not to us? To his family?"

"Remember what I said before. Every SOLDER wants to be a hero. And that includes Denzel. In his mind, joining the SOLDIERs means being the hero."

"And you want us to get him back."

"The SOLDIERs will be invincible with him leading them. They will destroy everything."

"So why not get him yourself? You made this mess."

"Because I can't. Only one person can, and that's Cloud, but only if he does the thing he'll imagine is unthinkable. Cloud was singled out by Hojo for special treatment and that means he's stronger than the average SOLDIER, that is, he would be…"

"Rufus," she says steadily. "You are a very sorry, very pathetic man, and I feel bad for you. But maybe, not quite bad enough." She knows she should hold back, knows that she should wait and see what other information she can get from him, but she can't. She can't because her chest is too tight and her muscles are too tense with the need to hug the boy that isn't here because of the man standing in front of her.

So she lunges forward suddenly, slips a gloved hand out from behind her back, and punches Rufus in the face.

"I don't care about your mako, or your SOLDIERs, or your quest for power. I don't care about any of it. Only one thing matters, and that's my family," she says. Then she turns abruptly on her heel and leaves him gasping on the floor.

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

Cloud answers his cell phone in one swift movement, pressing his forearm against the handlebars for balance as he uses his other hand to push the phone against his ear as hard as he can. The roaring of the bike surrounds him, the extreme noise matching his insane velocity.

"Hey." He's yelling, because otherwise, he wouldn't be able to hear himself.

"Cloud?" Her voice evokes images of heat wavering off burning concrete, distorted and intense. "I saw Rufus. There's so much. I don't even know where to start. Cloud, where are you?"

His gaze wanders toward the still distant derelict towers of the old mako reactors, backlit by the low evening sun. "Almost passing Zack's cliff, just outside of Midgar. What happened?"

She pauses, and then: "It's better if I just say it, isn't it?" But she doesn't continue right away and he wonders if she's speaking too quietly for him to hear. He moves the phone against his ear, the warm plastic biting into his skin. Then her voice is back and she's saying, "Rufus thinks the left-over SOLDIERs have Denzel. But there's more… I mean, how could there be more after something like that? But there is and I'm not sure what's worse…"

"Tifa?" he asks in strangled tones. He blinks and realizes he's staring at the cliff ledge just ahead. He can barely see the hilt of Zack's sword far above. Now she knows what he couldn't tell her before.

How far will you go?

"Cloud… they… ShinRa—Hojo—they experimented on Denzel, when he was just a kid. Before Sector Seven. His parents let them do it. They were trying to make the Ultimate SOLDIER. They experimented on him and then they repressed all the effects so that he would seem normal. But those mako injections you told me about, the ones HHI gave him? They unlocked it all."

Cloud isn't sure he can speak. And if he could, what would he say?

"Hey, are you there?"

"Yeah."

"Please, talk to me. I need you to talk to me right now. I don't know what to think. Rufus said Denzel is invincible. He said with Denzel the SOLDIERs can't be stopped unless you… I don't know what he meant. Cloud?"

"I'm here."

"What do we do?"

How far will you go? How far Cloud? How far will you go for the love of the people important to you? His leg flinches involuntarily, the vial in his pocket bouncing against it. "We save him. There's nothing else we can do."

"But how?"

"Don't worry. I might have an idea. I'm almost at Midgar. Meet me in the alleyway next to the flower shop by the ShinRa building."

"Okay. I'll be there."

"Hey…" He hesitates, tipping his head to the side as he pushes himself to continue, "Remember Denzel's first birthday with us? Remember what he said he wished for?"

She lets out a slow, shuttering breath. "That he could stay with us forever."

"Yeah." Cloud thinks of the shy smile Denzel gave him just before puffing his cheeks out with a deep breath. Marlene cheered as he blew all the candles on the cake out, little wisps of smoke spiraling upwards. Then Denzel smiled again but this time it was an expression of pride and Cloud didn't know how to react because it was the first time he'd seen Denzel look whole and not broken. "Do you think we taught him well, Tifa?"

"Yes… I think we did."

He nods to himself. "Me too."

"We'll find him." And her usual hopefulness is back, lightening her voice.

Cloud smiles. "Right. I'll see you soon."

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

Cloud didn't mean to stop, but here he is, pulled over to the side of the road under the shadow of the high cliff ledge. He's too close now for even a slivered view of Zack's old buster sword wedged into the ground at the peak, but he doesn't need to be looking at it to see every single line of hard metal and disintegrating rust. It's a memory from a time long ago now, and with every passing year, a little more flakes away.

How far will you go?

It never really was a question. Maybe just a method of denial. He would have given his life for Zack. He would have given it for Aeris. He would have given it for any member of Avalanche. By the time Meteor hit, he would have given it for the planet.

How far will you go?

The answer was always simple: all the way.

With the earthquake-rumble of his motorcycle engine, he leaves Zack's cliff in a cloud of rising dust.

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

7*7*7*7*7*7*7

A/N: I think these chapters have been getting longer and longer… I'm worried will start forcing me to split them up. I'm averaging about 20 pages now. I'd make the chapters shorter, but it wouldn't flow right then. I like to have some sort of significant character development in each chapter and that can take quite a few pages sometimes… Anyway, I think I'm trying to say I hope the length doesn't overwhelm anyone.

Thanks for your comments, reviews, and critiques. Sorry I've been a little slow in responding to some of them. You guys have stuck with me for a while and now we're finally into the exciting parts. Next chapter: Cloud goes after Denzel and Tseng makes some important decisions.

And yes, Rufus is pretty evil. But he's not evil just to be evil. He's evil because that's what happens to make sense to him.