There was a body on the path. Reno scrutinised it with professional eyes and snapped his PHS to his ear. "Man down, sending you a location. I'll look for the others."
Do not engage. Wait for back-up. Tseng's orders couldn't have been any clearer, but he chose to ignore them, his response simple. "No time."
Purpose distracted him. There was work to do. He pinged the relevant information over before turning back to the corpse.
It wasn't pretty. Years of dealing with this shit had stolen his capacity to be squeamish, and he hooked his boot under the man's shoulder and rolled him onto his back. It was likely the bullet to the back of the head that'd killed him, judging by the lack of… well… face. There were other wounds too, peppered across the Shinra uniform like a sticky game of connect-the-dots.
"Sorry man," Reno muttered. He acquired the corpse's firearm and wiped the gore off his boot on a clump of grass.
He wondered when it had stopped affecting him. There'd been a time when a dead body would've turned his stomach, back when he was a rookie and his outlook had been much less jaded. Now they were just meat and bones.
Reno checked out the path. Scuffed footprints were leading into the trees, so he followed them. Another body waited, slumped against a gnarled trunk, staring at him with glass eyes.
Two down.
He headed further into the forest. It was darker here, cooler. Quieter. He could hear his heartbeat, elevated by adrenaline. The near-silence had him on edge.
The last member of the security team was still moving when he found him, his jaw jerking desperately as he struggled for breath. He'd been shot in the throat and was already a goner. All the potions in the world couldn't put that much blood back inside a person, and Shinra hadn't had access to restorative materia for years.
The man's eyes widened. Reno sighed.
Far too simple; he took aim and fired. A single shot between the eyes and the man's jaw stopped twitching.
He felt something then; the all too familiar hollow ache. Guts and gore might not offend him anymore, but killing people would never be easy. Terminations, that's what they called them. Lucky for him it'd been years since one of those orders had landed on his desk. The only people he killed these days were actively trying to kill him. Self-preservation made the transaction a little easier to stomach.
A shiver crawled down the back of his neck. Something had caught his attention; a shadow on his peripheral senses, the ghost of a threat. His fingers tightened on the pistol grip.
"Hello, Reno." Her voice was soft, lyrical. He snapped his head in its direction but couldn't locate a target.
It was fucking dark.
"Did Tifa like her gift?"
"Where the fuck are you, you crazy bitch?" he muttered to himself, aiming for the trees. He was no Elena with a firearm, but he was confident enough. His anger hadn't abated and that gave him an edge.
"Don't you want to talk to me?" she purred.
"Not really." Where the fuck was she? "Actually, sure… Why don't you come out here and we can talk properly?"
"Why don't you put your weapon down?" She echoed his sarcastic tone.
He laughed coolly. "No chance."
"Are you all alone?" There was something about the way she said the word alone that was particularly unnerving. His index finger eased a little more pressure onto the trigger.
"No," he lied, craning his ears for anything that would give her location away. "I've got you surrounded."
"You're lying."
A branch snapped, loud as a gunshot. Six o'clock. He spun on his heel and fired blindly into the trees.
"Missed me," she sang. "You've got to be quicker than that babe."
The words didn't check out in that musical voice. His blood ran cold; hadn't he said that? Standing in the dust above Midgar, right after Tifa had swung for him. Right before her left-hook had taken him by surprise. How the fuck had she gotten that close?
"Are you starting to understand now?" her voice had lost its soft quality, taking on a harder edge.
He was a Turk, always sleeping with one eye open. This sick game of hers should've been an impossibility with the four of them to contend with. It didn't make sense. His hot-headed need to rush in and quell the fire in his blood was rapidly looking like a big fucking mistake. He could already picture Rude's face; his eyebrows drawn into a disapproving frown behind his shades.
"Come out," he growled, losing patience.
"How many bullets do you have?" She could've been enquiring about the weather.
Reno glanced at the gun in his hand. Standard Shinra issue, ten rounds to a magazine. He'd fired off three and didn't know how many the grunt had already used. Why didn't he think to check for ammo? An unforgivable error of judgement.
Four, not three. A bullet of mercy between a dying man's eyes. His heart sank.
Another sound, three o'clock. He aimed and the trigger clicked uselessly beneath his finger. He tossed the weapon aside. Shit.
His left hand reached on auto-pilot for his mag-rod and he snapped it to full-extension, the metallic click of it locking together unusually loud in the darkness. His thumb caressed the switch, eyes and ears straining to hear anything that would give her away. Without the threat of bullets, a physical attack was unavoidable.
He welcomed it. Let her try. He had enough pent up frustration crawling beneath his skin to rip her limb from limb.
Seconds ticked by, edging slowly into minutes. The foliage weighed oppressively in on him, and the air smelt of damp wood and leaf mould. There was no sign of movement within the trees and her voice had fallen silent now too, stealing his only point of reference.
He pivoted left, just in time. The knife caught the arm of his jacket, tearing the fabric but dealing him no physical damage.
Erin's green eyes were wild. He remembered her now, although her skin was sallow and her cheeks had hollowed out considerably. There was a bloody gash on her forehead and her knuckles were white on the hilt of the serrated blade in her hand.
He was disappointed. This would be too easy.
She bounced on the balls of her feet, eyes flashing in what little light permeated the trees. Nothing about her stance suggested skill with the weapon in her hand. She'd had the benefit of surprise and she'd blown it.
When she lunged again, he stepped aside easily and landed a jab to her stomach with the mag-rod. He discharged the weapon and blue sparks shot through the damp air. She cried out, bent double and shuddering as the charge surged through her tiny frame.
"I'm only going to ask this once," Reno said, circling her as she twitched on the ground. The scent of ozone cut through the rot. "Where's Garrison?"
"Edge," she spat.
Shit. He palmed his PHS, eyes still on Erin. "I've got her. He's in Edge."
Understood. Tseng wasn't a fool; he knew exactly what that meant.
Erin stared up at him, tears leaking from her eyes. Her jaw was tight, her face convulsing as her nerves continued to spasm. She looked a mess, but her cracked lips curled into a beatific smile.
Reno reacted a second too late. As he brought the mag-rod down again the ball of white energy slammed into his chest. Limbs refusing to respond, he fell backwards and landed heavily, knocking the air out of his lungs.
Erin climbed shakily to her feet. Movements laboured, she tilted her head to one side slightly, as though analysing her handiwork.
He knew the effects of time materia all too well. Shit. It'd take a few minutes for the paralysis to fade; minutes he didn't have; his muscles locked tight and unwilling to respond. He watched, helpless, as she slunk towards him.
She straddled his thighs, eyeing him sceptically. "You're a pretty one, aren't you?"
"Fuck off," he managed to grit out, the words warped by a jaw that didn't want to perform.
She reached out and traced his cheekbone with a fingertip, following the curved shape of the tattoo that cut across it. "I can see why she's so torn…"
Her fingers fisted tightly in his hair and pulled sharply. He grunted, eyes stinging.
"You've been a very bad man, Reno," she murmured, running her nails across his scalp. He shuddered. "Is that what she's into? Maybe I should ask Garrison to pay her a special visit. Especially for you."
The second he regained use of his arms, he was going to kill her.
She eyed the knife in her hand sceptically, balancing its weight in her palm. He realised her intention a fraction of a second before she moved.
Pressure. He felt the impact first, before anything else, before the electric-hot scream as his nerves took over. His right shoulder was on fire. Unable to move his head, he could just about see the hilt of the blade against his jacket. His thoughts were calmly resigned at the grim sight; this wasn't the first time he'd been stabbed, and he doubted it would be the last.
It was almost funny, he thought, gritting his teeth. His sense of humour had always needed a little polish.
Fuck.
Erin grabbed the handle of the knife and jerked it hard. Adrenaline dulled the pain, but the all-encompassing burn left his fingers full of pins. Jaw still locked, he ground his teeth so hard he could taste copper against his tongue. But being stabbed wasn't so bad, he reasoned, provided he didn't lose too much blood. It was difficult to tell, his inability to move and the black material of his jacket both working against him to conceal the evidence. The blade was buried deep in his muscle though. It didn't bode well.
Back-up would arrive soon. They'd cart him off and stitch him up. Tseng would likely be furious. You win some, you lose some.
He wouldn't kill her, he decided. The very second his muscles started to co-operate he was going to discharge his mag-rod straight into her stupid fucking jaw.
His head was spinning. She pressed the hilt, driving a little more of the serrated blade into his shoulder and the burn intensified.
"We're going to have a little fun," she said conversationally, regarding the scene with a disinterested expression. "Garrison doesn't like you, you know? He'd want me to kill you..."
She leaned forward, her hair tickling his bare chest where his unbuttoned shirt parted.
"But I need you to give a message to Rufus," she whispered in his ear. "Think you can do that for me?"
"Fuck. Off." His teeth were relaxing, ever-so-slightly. The effects of the materia were slowly wearing off.
When he tried to move his hands, pain flared through his shoulder. His mag-rod was within easy reach, but his fingers refused point-blank to obey him.
"I want everything Shinra owes me," she growled. "Every. Fucking. Thing."
He managed to crook his index finger. His arm was on fire.
Erin sat up, shifting her weight to sit heavily on his thighs. She rolled back the sleeve of her shirt to reveal a slender bracer around her forearm. The orbs of materia glowed prettily in the low light. Hindsight was a wonderful thing, he lamented; if he'd been thinking more clearly he'd have realised what a stupid fucking idea this was.
He succeeded in touching his little finger to his palm. Almost there.
She spread her fingers. Light washed over him, Mako-blue and of eye-watering brightness. His desperate attempts to bring life back to his hands ran away from him, as though his brain was now no longer in charge of his already useless body.
He knew this feeling; the chill slid through him like icy water. Everything went black.
This is bad...
The door was closed. He stared at it, confused. The dark-haired man stood beside him, weapon in hand.
"Sure you're ready?" he asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Reno quipped, twisting the silencer onto his gun. The heady cocktail of nerves and adrenaline made his hands shake. He willed them to stop, not wanting Tseng to see.
Sixteen and fresh out of training… His first termination; a real rite of passage. He suspected Tseng had argued against the order; he wasn't confident in Reno's temperament and had voiced his concerns to the Director at length. The man was a fucking robot.
The wary look in Tseng's eyes confirmed his internal monologue. He didn't believe Reno was ready.
He was ready. He'd been born ready.
He wasn't, and he never would be.
He opened the door. A simple hit, selected purposefully so the rookie could get stuck in. Reno wasn't a saint, and he knew all too well what death looked like. His start in life hadn't been a picnic on any man's terms. But this was different; this wasn't an act of retaliation. Kill or be killed. This was a business transaction, for which he'd be handsomely paid.
The mark had spent most of his night in a grotty slum bar, and a skinful of Wall Market moonshine found him passed out at the kitchen table. He'd never seen them coming. The air in the apartment was fetid; liquor, stale smoke, vomit.
He remembered it clearly; the stink had stuck in his throat for days.
It was a simple task to press the tip of the silencer into the greasy hair at the base of the man's skull. He snored on, oblivious to the angel of death that hung in the shadows at his back. Reno's finger shook as he pulled the trigger, the death-knell a suppressed phut, and the pool of blood leaked slowly across the table.
His stomach turned.
"Outside." Tseng's order was simple; pre-meditated. He'd known it the second he'd seen the rookie's shaking hands. He dialled it in while Reno sprinted out into the grimy corridor on unsteady legs.
He threw up on the sticky carpet. If anything, it improved the décor.
Tseng left the apartment. The look in his dark eyes took Reno by surprise, not disdainful pity but something closer to genuine care. "Some advice?"
Reno nodded shakily.
"Nil-by-mouth before a termination." Tseng squeezed his shoulder, an unusual gesture of solidarity. "It'll get easier."
It never had.
The world spun.
The mag-rod. He tried to curl his useless fingers and they refused to aid him… Fucking MOVE!
He could see Erin hovering over him, silhouetted in the blue glow, and her lips were moving but he couldn't make out the words. His bearings turned violently; the world tilted. He felt as though he was going to fall off the floor.
Another door, this one wooden. Reno was bored, shifting his weight from side to side. Tseng shot him a glare and received a charming smirk for his trouble. Reno wasn't sure why he'd been selected for this job; they all knew he didn't like waiting around.
It felt as though they'd been out here for hours. The sun beat down overhead; a rarity in most parts of the slums that only featured here due to the damaged plate overhead. His suit was uncomfortably hot and sweat was making his collar stick to the back of his neck.
Tseng looked as cool as ever.
"This blows."
"Reno…" Frowning, Tseng checked his PHS, waiting on an order that didn't seem to want to arrive.
"It does." He scuffed the dusty pavement with the toe of his boot. "Can't we just—"
"No."
"Not even—"
"No."
"Fine." He folded his arms and leaned against the door. "You're the boss."
Silence resumed. What'd they even been waiting for?
A chime; the order was in. "Come on."
"Thank fuck for that." Reno grinned and shoved the door open.
The church was half-empty. Two-dozen slum-dwellers in their Sunday best, turning to watch the newcomers with surprised faces.
He sauntered down the aisle, tapping his mag-rod on his shoulder, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face. "What a beautiful wedding."
She stared at him, eyes wide. Her lacy white dress could've easily cost a year's pay down here, and her blonde curls had been intricately styled to highlight a heart-shaped face and the elegant curve of her neck. She was certainly a looker. It was a shame, but they had a job to do.
Tseng followed closely behind him. Reno didn't have to look back to know Tseng's gun was in his hand. The horrified expressions in the room gave the game away.
"President Shinra's got a bone to pick with you…"
The scene lurched sideways.
He already knew what happened next…
His hand slammed into the metal table. She jumped out of her skin. Tears had bled inky black tracks down her cheeks, and her blonde curls were tumbling around her face. The white lace was now ripped and dirty.
He couldn't turn away.
Reno's skin was crawling. He'd got plenty of experience with performance enhancers, dealt on dodgy street corners and cut with substances he'd rather not acknowledge. Nothing beat the rush of the bonafide article; the shit Shinra produced knocked the socks off the competition and the high from the Hyper had been quick to take hold. His eyes were twitching, his heart thudding erratically against his rib cage; the invincible feeling was difficult to resist and made certain aspects of his job a damned sight easier.
The come-down would sting, it always did, but this was Veld's idea. They usually picked him for the tough nuts; the ones that refused to talk. He had the kind of fucked up imagination that could twist the thumbscrews with skill in an interrogation. This broad was topside money that'd fallen hard in the gutter; used to turning her pretty little nose up at sophisticated gentlemen like Tseng. What better way to shit her up than by sending wild-eyed slum-trash in to knock some sense into her.
We were only supposed to scare her.
Tseng was stood silently in the background, hands clasped behind his back.
Reno stood behind her, grabbed her hair roughly. Forced her terrified blue eyes to look at him.
Why had they had to do this? What had she even owed them?
The Hyper was boiling his blood now; the anger surging through him. He'd been posturing around the tiny cell for a good half an hour and she still wasn't talking. He didn't really want to hurt her; her pretty face would be a difficult one to shake later on when the drug wore off and his conscience slid back into focus.
He couldn't even remember what she'd said…
Her lips moved. An offensive remark that fuelled the fire in his veins like a finger on a trigger. Rationality fled and fury took hold. He wrenched her out of the chair by her hair, the violent rise and fall of her chest betraying her state of absolute panic.
"Reno." A warning from Tseng to dial it back, cutting through the red haze like cold water.
He released her, the rage cooling down into a simmer. But she stumbled, mouth opening and closing like she couldn't draw breath, eyes staring blankly at a spot just above and slightly to the left of him. The hairs rose on the back of his neck and he twisted, trying to work out what the fuck she was looking at.
She fell and hit her head. He hadn't reacted fast enough to stop her and neither had Tseng.
Ripped and dirty white lace and a pretty face stained red. Her heart had given out, they said. She'd been that fucking terrified of him.
It wasn't supposed to end like that.
He'd take the look of fear in her eyes to his grave.
His chest shuddered; the trees snapped back into focus. Erin was peering down at him intently, a sly smile spreading across her thin face. His fingers curled around the hilt of his mag-rod but the power in his muscles wasn't there. He could barely raise the weapon an inch off the ground.
Reno was no stranger to methods of torture but this was cruelty he'd never endured. Aided by the powers in her bracer, she picked ruthlessly at wounds that had lain dormant, congealed and infected for years. The manipulation was skilled, her presence insidious inside his head and his stomach turned, acid cutting at his throat. His heart was trying to beat a hole through his damned chest.
Stab him, shoot him, fucking burn him for all he cared. Physical pain he could deal with but this was too much.
The darkness rolled again.
Wrestling in the gutter of a Wall Market alley that stank of piss and bad decisions... The kid couldn't have been more than fifteen; a skinny waif with junkie eyes and matted black hair. Two thin red tattoos adorned his face.
Reno wasn't stupid. The tattoos meant something around here. The kid had pointed at Reno's cheeks, hollow-eyed, demanding leniency. We're the same, you and I. The law of the slums, carved in ink on his face. Reno answered to a different law now.
He was fast for a junkie. His knuckles caught Reno sharply and the pain that exploded through his eye-socket promised he'd be waking up to a black eye. He had a date tomorrow for fuck's sake. And the punk wouldn't drop it, wouldn't stop, wouldn't yield despite the odds that were rapidly stacking against him.
The blade was rusty, glinting dully in the low light. He hadn't realised it'd found its mark until he'd noticed the scarlet stain on the corroded metal.
He still had the scars.
Dirty gutter water soaked into his suit. Sharp jabs were thrown desperately; elbows, feet, knees. The knife slashed so closely to Reno's face he swore he saw his eyes reflected in the blade.
A vague awareness, his body persistent in its cry for attention… A piercing, burning sensation in his gut and bloody fingers from his sopping wet shirt. The kid had gotten lucky. If Reno had been armed he wouldn't have. Fucking Corneo and his fucking rules…
He'd had enough.
His forearm found the kid's neck, Reno's back pressed to the wall. Sat in the dirty gutter with the boy's skinny body pulled against his chest. An oddly devoted scene, should anybody walk by. His hold tightened…
The kid was thrashing around, fighting against the death-grip on his windpipe. His legs kicked out with far more power than he should've been able to deliver. A glancing blow to Reno's thigh before the knife skittered across the concrete told him more stitches would be required. And he was still fighting…
He pressed harder still. The matted hair in his face smelt of cheap liquor and even cheaper cologne. The movements became more erratic, jerking and twitching like a broken marionette.
He was just a kid…
The boy fell still. Reno released his grip and pushed the corpse away from him. The exertion left him weak.
The world lurched again. His head felt as though it was being split in two. He was vaguely aware of Erin speaking again, though her words fell on deaf ears; he barely knew which way was up anymore. When her fingers twisted the hilt of the knife he didn't feel it at all.
He felt nothing, save the white-hot pain in his skull. Erin was still smiling, satisfaction clear in her expression. The cool light intensified, washing over him yet again.
I can't do this again…
Reno was warm and bone-achingly comfortable. His sleep had been blissful and dreamless. He hadn't had a night like that in a long while, not without the lull of the liquid anaesthesia to send him on his merry way. Waking up minus the dry mouth and woolly head was a bonus, he couldn't deny that.
The breath of the woman stretched out beside him had altered tempo a little while ago, suggesting her current state of exhaustion was, in fact, a show. He suspected she was trying to avoid an awkward conversation; he'd been in this position enough times to know how the morning-after dynamic played out.
"Go back to sleep," he mumbled. It was too damn early for her to be overthinking things, and he was far too comfortable to consider the trek back to his cabin.
Acting on impulse, he wound himself around her, an arm and leg pinning her in place. With the full length of his body pressed against her, he felt the heat of her skin diffuse into him, and he buried his nose in the crook of her neck. She smelt so sweet.
She melted into his embrace then, and his lips formed a helpless smile against her shoulder. He knew he needed to leave but he couldn't bring himself to pull away. It was rare for him to experience such a perfect moment of calm…
His mind clamoured desperately to deny the intrusion.
Don't fuck with this one.
Please…
He inhaled deeply, sighing contentedly against her skin.
She smelled sweet; that surprised him. The salty tang of exertion was there, but her dark hair smelled unmistakeably feminine. He inhaled deeply as his fingers tightened on the hilt of his weapon, an odd moment of intimacy up here in hell.
She was wearing a cropped vest, her athletic torso bared to his calloused fingers. He discharged the mag-rod against her ribs and heard her shuddered cry as sparks rained through the air around them. She dropped to her knees on the cold steel at his feet, eyes wide. The intensity of the attack had taken her by surprise and her naivety was refreshing. Didn't she know who he was?
Reno only just managed to dodge a blow from First-Class; the ridiculously large sword sailed towards him and he leapt aside with seconds to spare. Vengeance for the girl on the ground before him. The anger made him sloppy.
Reno had learnt a long time ago how to wear his anger in a fight. It could easily make or break a man, an added edge or a liability that would swiftly bring defeat.
Sweat stung his eyes. It was hot as hell; the damned pillar was already on fire and smoke made the air acrid and difficult to breathe. Every mouthful choked him, but physical exertion made oxygen even more of a necessity. His muscles were screaming at him, desperate for a reprieve.
The local kids were putting up one hell of a fight; he had to give them that. Everything hurt. This would take more than a couple of potions and a half-bottle of liquor to fix. The whole damned thing was a mess from start to finish and their desperate fight for salvation only made the Turks' orders more difficult.
Beside him Rude was grappling with the big guy, doing his best to stay out of the line of fire. He had a machine gun welded to the skin of his forearm. What the actual fuck? Rude had a tough job on his hands; the line of fire appeared to be everywhere.
First-Class was tending to the girl, still on her knees on the ground. She was a stunner, he'd give her that. He'd almost felt guilty the first time his weapon had glanced off the back of her thigh. Almost. She'd landed a nasty kick to his gut that had knocked the wind out of him, and the sharp jab to his jaw she'd followed up with had soured any further attraction he felt.
Almost...
He just needed to get close enough. Flick the damn switch and get the fuck out of there. There wasn't space to grow a conscience now.
There had always been space for a conscience.
He couldn't find a clear path to the control panel and Rude didn't appear to be faring any better. Luck and time were rapidly running short. A significant part of him wanted to fuck this off as a bad job and split…
More than a significant part; Reno wanted nothing to do with this shitshow.
Splitting wasn't an option. Defeat would've been a sound enough excuse, but he didn't fancy turning up at HQ in a body bag, and downright refusing to follow an order? Not acceptable; they'd learnt that the hard way.
He could've stopped this.
He managed to avoid another salvo from the big guy, fucked if he knew how. He lunged to the right, rolling awkwardly across the ground. Pain blossomed through his shoulder. Maybe he wasn't so lucky after all.
Boots rang out on the steel below his ear. She was up and heading for the control panel, dark hair trailing behind her as she sprinted across the steel platform. Her desperate cries for assistance chilled his blood.
She was too late. Nobody could stop it.
He reached for his mag-rod; time to end this. Reno was a skilled teacher and these punks needed to learn who was running this show.
Could they have stopped this?
Could they have found a truce in this steel inferno that would've allowed them to bite their master's hand?
Reno stared at the steel blade in confusion, head spinning.
The rot ran too deep. He was a Turk, through and through. He'd never be anything else.
Some stains couldn't be shifted, no matter how hard you tried.
First-Class stood in front of him, Mako-eyes glowing eerily in the light of the flames. The sword in his hand cut Reno's broken body off from the weapon he desperately sought. His mouth was dry.
He could see the darkness now in his peripheral vision, rushing up to spirit him away. This was going to end badly.
"How do we stop it?" the man demanded, the tremor in his voice echoing the turmoil Reno felt in his heart.
The darkness swallowed him.
Who knows…