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Chapter 28: Tseng: Raison d'être

Tseng was floating far above the world. His mind was mild, engulfed by perfect indifference as he was looking down on them. He didn't remember what had happened before and he didn't know where he was. He was just floating somewhere in that bright, warm light above everything else. Everything else, that was at the moment a lanky man with red hair comforting a woman with blond hair that was weeping furiously. But neither did the sound of the words reach him nor did her crying. Everything else, that were those people in pastel-green coats hasting up and down, but the haste didn't touch him. Where he was, there was no need for urgency. Where he was, there was just that soft nothingness engulfing his ears in its internal rhythm.

He turned back, watching the pair in that brightly lit room below him. They were somewhat interesting. Or, maybe, he was less indifferent to them than to everything else. It was so soft and warm around him, the light so mellow, so beautiful… he supposed he was dead.

He had to be dead, he thought. He had been hit by a bullet, straight through his stomach, and it had bleed tremendously. He remembered Rufus trying to stop the bleeding. How he had begged him not to die, tears, desperation, his own fright. And then, there had been something very, very painful. Tseng supposed that this must have been the moment when he had died and in an indifferent way, he felt sorry about it. He had left Rufus alone and he had left Elena alone. Elena who was weeping below him. Somewhere, through all his indifference, both thoughts didn't leave him indifferent at all.

But if he was dead, why was he still conscious? Shouldn't he have returned to the life-stream?

He remembered a tale his mother had once told him. When he had been afraid of ghosts who would steal him, she had said he shouldn't fear but pity ghosts; they were people who couldn't leave because there was something left undone.

How strange, he thought and remembered the gibbous moon of that night, how strange that he should turn into such a ghost himself.

But what had he left undone?

Elena was crying again. And he didn't know where Rufus was. If he was really dead, Rufus should be in that room below him, too. But maybe, Rufus was in another part of the building, dealing with things. Rufus always dealt with things if he didn't know what else to do. For a moment, Tseng felt the strong urge to go, look for him, just to make sure he was safe, but he couldn't leave Elena. He couldn't just leave her sitting there, being so desperately miserable. Wasn't there something he could do to make her less miserable? Or even Reno whom he had rarely seen that worried before?

But they were grieving because he was dead. If he could cheer them up, they wouldn't be grieving to begin with, because he wouldn't be dead, then. Something close to panic rose inside him. He couldn't stand to see them that way, those who had fought side by side with him. Elena, who was just daring to look at him again. Elena, whom he had just dared to look at again so recently. Naïve, beautiful and yet so strong Elena. Elena in the pale moonlight.

It would be impossible for him to relieve them and with a jolt of sudden panic, he wanted to dart away, to look for Rufus, but in the same moment it came to him that Rufus had to be in a similar state as they were. He remembered the desperation in Rufus' face when his charge had absolutely refused to leave him for dead and save his own life and suddenly, cold fear seized him. Was Rufus really dealing with things? Why wasn't he here?

He wanted to ask, to make sure that at least, even if desperately sad, all those he cared about where alright, but he couldn't open his mouth. The indifference around him didn't let him move even his tongue and Elena was still crying below him, Rufus gone.

He had to do something. He couldn't leave things like this. What had first seemed to him like perfect happiness – the perfect indifference to all bodily needs – wasn't more than a horrible nightmare. Only being conscious, he couldn't relieve them, couldn't comfort, couldn't help. He at least had to make sure that Rufus was alright.

He tried to dart away, tried to flee the room, away from them, but in the same moment, he realized that he wasn't only incapable of speaking, he was also incapable of moving anywhere, bound to this spot at the ceiling with the perfect internal rhythm of nothingness in his ears.

No. Not rhythm of nothingness. There was a continuous beeping. The continuous sound of laboured breathing. The soft sound of a murmur of words and silent sobbing. He wasn't hovering below the ceiling although he was very much tied up.

He had never been as relieved as when he realized that he was tied to a body and that his body was hurting like hell. That the moon would shine upon him again.

Elena

"Elena."

The word wasn't more than a whisper on a breath, nearly drowned out by the beeping of the instruments and rasping of the machine which pumped air into his lungs. It hurt to move his lips. Out of the edge of his eye, he saw the heaving, slender shoulders in the dark Turk's uniform.

"Elena," he repeated. He tried to reach out with his hand, for her shoulders, to stop her from sobbing, a touch that, under the silvery moon, had been sufficient when only long enough, but all his body could manage was to barely move his lips, breath a little more moisture against the mask that covered his face. Pain was raging through his side. His mind was puffy from the fading morphine. They were preparing him for an operation, he thought.

He asked himself why his entire side hurt as if it had been torn away by a wild beast.

He asked himself why he was still alive.

For a moment, the world went black again in front of his eyes, but when they flickered open again, he saw Elena looking at him, eyes reddened, the trace of tears on her dirty face. She looked tired, desperate, exhausted, but when their eyes met, she smiled at him as if there was no worry in the world.

"Tseng! You are awake! I'm so glad you are awake! I'm so glad you are…" She stopped herself, turned her face away, then back to him and even through the clouds of floating pain he saw her hiding a sob. "…alive."

"Rufus?" He mumbled. Under the pale light of the moon, she hadn't hid her sobs and it had been much better that way.

"What are you saying?" Elena leaned closer and Tseng could almost feel her hair on his face.

"Rufus?" He repeated again, had to force himself to move his lips.

"Na, Elena, don't lean on Tseng, eh!" he heard Reno drawled from the other end of the room. "What's he saying, yo?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell!" She answered and leaned even closer, so close that Tseng's eyes couldn't focus, and he closed his eyes to summon enough strength to ask again, closed his eyes to feel her close again. But even before he could move his lips, he felt a slight whisper on his ear conch, strangely intense, strangely soft, a faint trickle of her warm breath. "He's alive. Don't worry."

Even before he was sure of the words, Elena had moved away again, smiling at him, her eyes full of worry herself. "I'm sorry, Senpai, I really can't tell what you're saying." She said it in such a soft voice as if she was caressing him with the words.

"Maybe he's in pain?" Reno suggested. Tseng only caught half of it, pain surging high, the relief great enough to close his eyes again. From somewhere far away he heard Reno suggest that he could get a doctor for more morphine and Elena explained to him that they had to wait until he had stabilized before they could perform an operation and use more materia.

Drifting slowly away again, he asked himself why he would need so much materia and why his entire side was hurting – he had only been shot through the stomach and the operation should have been straight forward. But then again, it was a miracle to be alive anyway.


When he opened his eyes again, most of the pain had ceased. He felt the slight dizziness of recent treatment with materia, the slight dizziness of too much blood lost and the exhaustion of an operation. His focus was much clearer and both the beeping of the machines and the mask on his face had disappeared.

Elena was still sitting next to his bed. She seemed to have fallen asleep, head on his blanket, and he felt her hand around his. Careful not to wake her, he slowly closed his hand around hers, too, regretting that this wasn't anything he could ever do when she was awake. A superior officer and his employee dating, that would never answer. In the harsh light of the hospital, he could see lines on her face, draw before her years. Her face was still slightly dirty although she seemed to have washed it. Her hair was falling into her face, uncombed. He could have watched the slight movement of her hair in her breath for hours without end.

They couldn't talk, but Rufus was okay.

He was hospitalized and badly hurt, but his Turks were alright.

Elena was asleep, but that gave him all the time in the world to just look at her.

It was strange how few things it needed to be happy when 24 hours before, he had been sick with worry.

Now, he had no idea what had happened. Well, after the conversation he had overheard from Rufus' mobile, he had a pretty good idea what must have happened and yet, he didn't care.

He wasn't even sure he was angry at Rufus. Of course, Rufus in his endless unthinking had been reckless enough to follow a bunch murderers right into a trap although he had made very clear that he hadn't wanted him to do anything reckless. But in essence, it was his job to keep Rufus safe and not only had Rufus paid a high price for his recklessness, he, Tseng, had also nearly failed to protect him. He shouldn't have agreed to let him go to that party. He should have seen it coming, even if Rufus had promised.

Tseng shook the thought off. It didn't matter. Begin alive mattered. Rufus' desperation mattered. Elena's tears. Her calm face now. The feeling of her warm hand in his.

He heard steps and looked up, saw Reno entering. Rude was leaning to the doorframe. He must have been leaning there for quite some time already. It always surprised him how calmly the Turk could become one with his entire surrounding only by not moving.

Tseng carefully let go of Elena's hand so they wouldn't see and forced himself to put his finger onto his lips to stop Reno from waking Elena, but the movement itself must have woken her for only when he had managed touch his lips, her eyes drowsily flickered open. When she realized that he was looking at her (as was everyone else, but he supposed that his gaze mattered especially to her), she darted up, blushed, smoothed her hair back and tried to look awake.

"I'm sorry, Tseng-san! I… I, um…. Good to see you awake! – I wasn't sleeping or anything!"

"Cause not, Sis!" Reno laughed from the other end of the room. "You know, Senpai, she's been here like – the whole night – never closed an eye before they hadn't fixed you up, yo! Stayed here since dawn, too. Tugged your blanked nice, opened the curtains, arranged the flowers – even bought you a get-well-card, yo!"

Elena blushed even more, looking from Tseng to Reno, Tseng noticed she didn't dare to look back at him for more than a tiny second. "Reno! Don't talk like that!" She was crimson by now.

"I appreciate it." Tseng tried to say but his voice was somewhat sluggish, his throat felt as if he had been in a burning building for too long, but what he said wasn't close to the happiness he felt. It was so typical Elena to fuss even when she was half asleep herself. The flowers looked like being far from well arranged. He tried to sit up to get a better view of them and the get well card of which he was sure that both Reno and Rude had signed, too, after they had made Elena write it, but the movement was far too laborious to even start the movement. Besides, his left arm was hellishly painful, still, and he couldn't move it. It had to be badly wounded and strapped to his body. But he wasn't quite sure how that related to the shot that had hit him through the stomach. "What happened?"

Suddenly, even Reno was wearing a serious expression and the cheerful atmosphere in the room died as fast as a man with cyanide-poisoning.

"Uhm…," Elena started at last, looking at him and looking away again. "Well…"

"Yo, Senpai," Reno started in the same instance and cut her short. "Things downtown've gone pretty bad!" He straightened up. "Yesterday night, a riot started. I mean, not that tiny thingy we had the last few weeks, yo, but a real one. Someone just got up somewhere, guy called Scipione, some high-society shit-head, Reeve says, made some calls 'round town and suddenly, streets were full. First, they just, you know, killed all those white-spotted poor devils they got and then, no money, no better life, no wonders happening, they got really angry, went downtown, started looting and stuff and then, some weirdo called them, told them 'Shin-Ra's done all that sh… ehm… Shin-Ra's responsible for all that sh… ehm… mess, yo, go, get 'em'. I mean, I don't know what they was thinkin', but they went downtown and just sieged the tower. Took them, like, hours, but, I mean, that tower ain't from diamante, so they got in, burned it to the ground, all the papers on the street on fire. We did evacuate, right after we picked you up, and only just in time, yo! And Reeve like 'yes, already sent everything we got downtown, but can't use fire-weapons, not wanna kill no one'. You ask me, he send in them police-forces way too late. Till they beat the sh- mess – out of them rioters, tower was burnin' already, like a bonfire. Reeve sent in fire fighters, too, but too late. Tower's gone, yo…. Everything just – gone. Burned. Nothing left…killed anything with Shin-Ra on it…" Reno didn't sound very cheerful anymore. His entire account hadn't been really cheerful and now, he looked as cross as everyone else in the room.

Tseng gave a weak nod. He would have preferred it if Elena had told the story, Reno being quite difficult to keep track of, but he wasn't really surprised, not after the conversation he had overheard on Rufus' phone. He had expected something like that. Perhaps not that bad – he had hoped Reeve would be quick enough, have enough of a spine, to also defend Shin-Ra tower. But still, it took him a few minutes to get over the fact that everything they had built up, everything they had worked for in these last few months was nothing more than a smoking pile of ashes. Again. Everything they and especially Rufus had worked for, just gone again. He only hoped that those copies of all the contracts they kept in Junon were worth something.

Rufus had to be devastated.

"Where's Rufus?" He asked, more for the show then for information. His Turks were not worried about him and the soft 'he's alive' Elena had whispered into his ear was still with him. He wasn't that stupid, he could add up one and one and thought he had quite a good idea who might have volunteered to look after Rufus. And certainly, that wasn't a bad choice. Nobody would suspect her. It certainly was a good idea to stay under cover as long as people were witch-hunting New-Geostigma-infected. And Reeve would be a lot more cooperative if Rufus was missing – his company needed Rufus' money.

Rude just shook his head but it was Elena who spoke this time. "I'm sorry, Senpai… we don't know where he is. – He wasn't there when we found you and Tifa."

Tseng nodded. So Rufus was definitely with Tifa. He suspected very much that he was in Reeve's hospital and although he knew Reeve felt above ears dropping on conversation, he might not feel above listening to conversations that had been recorded already and were 'important'. So, it was a good idea of his Turks not to have told him openly about Rufus, yet.

"We are doing our uttermost to find him and Reeve has already offered help."

Tseng gave another nod, trying to look cross which wasn't too difficult when he thought about the second destruction of Shin-Ra.

"How did I get her?" He asked slowly. Why am I still alive? "What happened?" He turned to Elena.

Again, his question wasn't meet with any cheerful expressions, even Reno looked more than serious.

It was Elena, however, who started, and this time, Reno didn't interrupt her. "I got a call from Tifa when I was waiting for you. You know, after you sent me to pick you up. Reeve's people had started attacking the front by then and there was a heavy fire fight going on, so I just took a grenade and blew a hole into the fence… you know…make an escape route. And then, I waited but… you didn't come. There was only a big explosion and I grew worried, so I called you, but you didn't pick up and then, I called Tifa. I mean, she was like, cool, but somehow, she was frantic, wanted materia. Told me you were badly hurt. There was no materia in the car, so, I called Reno, told him to get a medical team. But our medics couldn't come, Reno said. So, he and Rude came with a helicopter. I was really worried by then, because there had been this huge explosion and Tifa didn't call back and the fire fight was still going on. When we got there, everything was burning, still, and Tifa was with you. You were really in a bad state and everything was burning around you. But Reno and Rude had materia and so, they took you here. Tifa told me that Rufus had disappeared after he had tried to… to… to cauterise …" Elena's voice broke off and Tseng had no clue why that was the case. Or why there were tears on her face. But then, slowly, evil understanding clawed itself into his mind. Rufus, bloody, unthinking fool that he was, must have wilfully caused another materia-attack to close his wound. He remembered well what Tifa had told them about these New-Geostigma attacks and that Rufus had had one only shortly before. And that they could leave their victims in a terrible state. He had mistaken. Rufus wasn't hiding with Tifa so the mob and everyone else – including maybe Reeve – could think him dead. He was incapable of going somewhere else. How could Rufus be so foolish as to risk his own life – ruin his own life – just to safe him?

"I'm… I'm sorry," Elena brushed some tears away, Rude was already standing at her side, holding a tissue towards her. "It's only…. The doctors say Rufus really did save your life, but…," she gave a sob again, "I'm so sorry about your arm, Tseng-san! They really did everything, they said…!"

In the same moment, it came to Tseng that, for his arm to be strapped to his body, underarm and hand should have been lying across his stomach and that they weren't. Nor did the blanket show any sign of any arm on his left side.


I hope you liked it. The next chapter is going to be from Tifa's point of view, so we'll at last find out how Rufus is doing presently.

Please review if you liked it and also if you didn't.