Rosso sat up from the thin cell bed as Cloud and Tifa entered. Her eyebrow rose as she eyed the flower pot in Tifa's hands.
"What is this?" She asked. Tifa sat the flower pot on the white table in the center of the cell. She crossed her arms and stood back.
"The girl you tried to capture to take to your crazy boss thought you would like to have these," Tifa said. "She is very forgiving. Do not take this kindness for granted."
Rosso stared at the lilies, her crimson eyes wide. She walked across the cell, dragging the reinforced metal shackles across the cold concrete floor. She looked much better today. Her infected wounds were cleaned and healing nicely and her scars metal extremities were cleaned and bandaged at the ends that met her skin. She rubbed a yellow petal with her organic hand then sniffed the flowers. She jumped back with a look of surprise on her face.
"They smell good!" She deeply inhaled the scent of the lilies again. "I didn't know something could smell this good! They smell better than food!"
Cloud and Tifa shared a look, Tifa trying not to smile. As dangerous as Rosso was, this was comical to watch. They let her have her fun studying the flowers. The only sound in the room was Rosso sniffing the flowers and murmuring to herself.
"You know, Dr. Jeal isn't my boss," Rosso said as she studied her flowers. "He sent me here and promised me my freedom."
"And would you actually get your freedom if you went back?"
Rosso looked up from the lilies, meeting Tifa's eyes. "No. I don't believe he would actually grant me it."
The cell door opened and Rosso's breakfast was brought in by a WRO soldier. He nodded at Cloud and Tifa and he left. Rosso sat down and didn't even touch the plastic fork. She ate the grits and sausage bits with her fingers. She ate lightning fast and wiped her fingers with the napkins that had come with her food.
Tifa was impressed. If Rosso was in an eating contest with Denzel, she didn't know who would win.
"Why are you here today?" Rosso asked, folding her hands on the table before her. "Sending me back to Dr. Jael? Locking me in another dark windowless cell? Cleaning my wounds? Asking me the same questions over and over again?"
"No, actually," Cloud answered. "The cell you'll be moving into is much more comfortable than this."
Rosso slowly blinked, clearly not anticipating this. "What do you mean? Why?"
"It's been discussed and agreed upon that you can learn and heal and re-enter society one day," Tifa began slowly. Rosso sat back in her chair, furrowing her eyebrows.
"But what do you mean more comfortable? And what do you mean by learn?" Rosso looked between the two, looking more and more nervous and confused as they continued to explain that she would be staying in the WRO in the hospital ward. Cloud and Tifa explained that she would have a therapist to talk to and hopefully would make friends. The goal of her staying at the WRO would be for Rosso to move on from her life in DeepGround.
"And Dr. Jael?" She asked when they finished.
"We'll keep him away from you," Tifa promised. "He sent you after our friend. If he shows up here, he won't be allowed anywhere near you."
Rosso was silent for a moment. "Can I meet the little mouse again?"
Tifa faltered.
"If she wants to," Cloud said, but he was mostly talking to Tifa. "Honestly, Lyra doesn't seem to be holding a grudge against Rosso."
"She calls Lyra 'little mouse,'" Tifa deadpanned. "That's a bit strange."
"I only call her little mouse because that is the only name I am allowed to call her," Rosso said. "We were never to call her by her name when Dr. Jael brought her to DeepGround."
Cloud snapped his attention back to Rosso. "Excuse me?"
Rosso shrugged. "She wasn't there often, just every once in a while."
"What would she do?" Tifa asked. Rosso frowned.
"The little mouse should have told you," she said. "Why hasn't she?"
Tifa opened and shut her mouth, debating whether or not she should tell Rosso about Lyra's Shinra-science-induced amnesia. Then again, if they were going with hiding what they knew so far from Lyra, then they needed to bring Rosso into the secret if Lyra wanted to meet her.
"She has a mind block," Tifa finally said. "Lyra can't remember anything. What we found about her is horrifying and she isn't exactly ready to hear about it, so if you meet her, you can't say anything."
Rosso huffed and rolled her eyes. "Yes, because this will end well."
"What was she doing in DeepGround?" Cloud asked. Rosso played with a fallen flower petal.
"Little mouse was there to play a game," she said. "She and a few others that obviously did not belong were to be chased around an obstacle course as a war game. If they were caught, they were killed. The scientists called this game Cat and Mouse."
"They obviously didn't have much of an imagination," Tifa remarked.
"Oh, they thought they were very clever," Rosso assured her. "And no one was able to catch the little mouse, though I came close to catching her many times."
Someone knocked on the door and Tifa opened it. A soldier smiled and stepped inside.
"The room is ready for her," he said. "You done?"
Cloud and Tifa left the room as four WRO soldiers and a medic entered the cell. They brought her out. She was still shackled and the medic had sedatives ready in case Rosso would try to escape. One of the soldiers held the flower pot.
"Now obviously there are some conditions," Reeve started as they brought Rosso out. He had been listening to the conversation from the dark room attached to the cell. Rosso narrowed her eyes at him as he continued, holding his hands behind his back as he followed her through the halls.
"You have a curfew and a set schedule. If you are unruly or try to leave without permission, you will be sedated. If you continue to misbehave, we will bring you back to these cells."
They loaded into an elevator. Rosso made a muffled whimpering noise as the doors slid closed. The soldiers tensed and the medic looked serious as she readied a needle. Rosso was pale but she shook her head.
"I'm fine. It's just- there isn't much room in here," she insisted angrily. "Don't look at me like that. I'm fine."
The ride was short but very awkward and tense. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. The soldiers filed out, bringing Rosso with them. The halls were empty as the people who worked on the floor had locked themselves in empty rooms as a precaution. Reeve led the way to Rosso's new room and stepped to the side, holding the door open for her.
"You'll be under constant surveillance," he said. "And if needed, we will physically restrain you."
A soldier undid her shackles. They fell to the floor and Rosso stared at them, rubbing her organic hand with her metal one. She took a step into the room. It was plain and standard for a room in a hospital ward, though there were no heart monitors or IV drips. There were few differences between Rosso's room and the other hospital rooms. Rosso's windows were barred and her mattress was a bit thicker than the standard hospital bed. She even had a quilt from one of the donation rooms.
Rosso cautiously studied her room, flipping on the light and opening the dresser drawers and looking under the bed. She opened the bathroom and poked her head inside, seemingly expecting someone to be inside. She turned to the bed and sat on it. She seemed pleased with how comfortable it was. She bounced a little, then walked to one of the two windows. She peeked through the thin curtains and gasped.
"The sky is so cloudy today," she murmured.
"There was a storm last night and half the city lost power for a while," one of the soldiers said. Rosso didn't seem to hear, and the soldier placed the flower pot on the desk in the room.
Rosso turned to the group outside her door. "When can I meet the little mouse?"
"Alphabetical order," Shalua reminded Lyra as she gave her another stack of documents. Lyra smiled and continued to sort the documents she had laying around. A lot of the yellow folders had the Shinra insignia on the front, and when Lyra asked Shalua about it, Shalua had said that the folders had been confiscated from surviving Shinra personnel after Meteor.
Lyra was glad to have something to do and she was glad that her task let her sit. After the nightmare the night before, she hadn't been able to fall asleep for a long while. When she woke up the next morning, her head was killing her. She was dizzy and exhausted. This dizziness wasn't as disturbing as the strange tug she felt deep in her chest.
She thought it was strange when she woke up and it hadn't left. She had noticed that the tugging seemed to move directions while she sat on the bus with Tifa and the kids. If the bus turned to the right, the source of the tugging seemed to be coming from the left, behind her. At one point, the tugging seemed to be coming from in front of her.
Lyra didn't tell Tifa about the tugging. She didn't even feel comfortable enough to tell her about the nightmare.
Lyra sorted the folders as she listened to the music coming from a radio Shalua had lying around. Shalua had been happy to hear that Lyra wanted to help around the lab. As hard as she worked, she wasn't very organized. She had stacks of paper and notepads and tech strewn about the tables around the computers. Shelke was hooked to a VR machine when Lyra and Tifa had entered the lab, but she had said hi and Shalua immediately put Lyra to work.
"What are Cloud and Tifa doing again?" Marlene asked. She and Denzel had their own kids table in a corner with books and coloring pages. They even had a small crate of toys and board games to keep them busy when they stayed at the WRO. Denzel was reading a history book while Marlene practiced her writing.
"Cloud and Tifa are checking on Rosso," Shalua said. "They'll be back after lunch."
"Oh." Marlene was silent for a moment. "Rosso was with Shelke, right?"
Lyra looked back from her work. Shalua nodded and continued to mess around with her machines. Lyra wasn't entirely sure what she was doing, but it wasn't her business anyway.
"I'm gonna make her a card," Marlene announced.
Shalua smiled but she didn't look up from her work. "You do that, honey."
Lyra turned back to the documents, suddenly feeling the tug sharpen. She felt dizzier and was suddenly nauseated. She stumbled from her chair and told Shalua that she needed to use the restroom. She didn't wait to hear Shalua's answer as she staggered out of the lab and down the hall.
Lyra found the ladies' restroom and locked herself in a stall, taking deep breaths to keep herself from throwing up. She hoped that she didn't have a stomach bug.
Eventually, the nausea subsided. Lyra stayed in the stall until she felt well enough to leave. She washed her hands for good measure and almost peed her pants as the alarms startled her. She heard shouting.
"Oh great. What now?"
She poked her head through the door. The halls were dark save for the emergency lights and red exit signs. She jumped out of the restroom. Lyra heard gunshots. But where were they coming from?
She cautiously inched down the hall and peeked around the corner.
Nothing. No one was there.
Lyra sighed in relief and stepped around the corner, hoping to make it to Shalua's lab without running into trouble.
She, of course, ran right into trouble in the form of Kadaj barreling down the hall. He didn't see her until the last second. She froze in alarm. His eyes widened and he wasn't able to stop. He barreled right into her, the two of them falling into a janitor cart.
"Ow, what the hell?!" Lyra sat up and glared at him. Kadaj scrambled up and stared down the hall behind him. Lyra heard yelling, but she couldn't make out what was being said.
"How the hell are you here?" Lyra demanded. Kadaj didn't answer. He jumped at her voice and helped her up. The tugging felt even worse now and the direction the tugging was coming from was right in front of her. She rubbed her chest and scowled.
"Hello? You going to answer me-" Lyra flinched as a bullet hit the cart, ricocheting off the metal and hitting a wall. She stared wide-eyed down the hall at the soldier that had shot at them. Kadaj swore loudly and pushed her in front of him. The soldier continued to shoot as they ran down the halls. Kadaj ran in front of her at some point and pulled her into a nook under some stairs.
"Are you okay?" He asked, panting. Lyra stared at him in disbelief.
"You aren't in the Lifestream anymore."
"Yeah. I noticed."
"But you're-"
"Alive? Yeah." Kadaj glanced around the corner. "Okay, I think we lost them." He smiled at her. "Sorry about that."
Lyra blinked. Then she smacked him on the shoulder. "I was just shot at! Saying 'sorry' isn't going to make it better!"
He smiled at her, shaking his head. "I missed this."
Lyra's frown deepened. "Missed what?"
He glanced down the hall again. "Talking. We used to be friends." He looked back at her again. "I really wish you remembered."
They were silent as they listened. The alarms were still blaring, but they were muffled in the hall they had found themselves in. Under the alarms, Lyra could hear people yelling and running about. They seemed to be coming closer. She stared at the exit sign pointing further down the hall in front of them.
"If you need to find a quick escape, there's an exit somewhere down there," she said, pointing. Kadaj followed her finger and shrugged.
"Yeah, I know."
Lyra stared at him. "What are you doing here?"
Kadaj shrugged again. "I thought I could come here for help. I'm looking for my brothers, but instead of listening to me the dumb secretary called security and they chased me around."
A door opened down the hall behind them. Shouting filled the hall. Kadaj swore again and was about to run. He stopped and grinned at Lyra.
"Hey, your favorite color is still green, right?" He asked. Lyra smiled and shook her head. She ignored the anxiety she felt as the people came closer.
"No, I like purple."
Kadaj snorted and rolled his eyes. "That's just what you tell people."
"What do you mean?" They were almost upon them now.
"Well, liking the color green seems a bit expected, all things considered."
With that, he turned and disappeared. She heard the emergency exit open and close and a group of soldiers appeared, aiming their weapons at her. They lowered them when they saw it was just her.
"Sorry ma'am," a woman said. "I'll escort you back."
Lyra stared down the hall where Kadaj had disappeared. "Yeah. Thanks."
The soldier escorted Lyra back to Shalua's lab, making small talk.
"You alright? Lyle said he didn't see you there at first, and he wasn't aiming for you," she said. Lyra shrugged.
"I'm fine," she mumbled.
"If it makes you feel any better, we were shooting tranqs," the woman said. Lyra grimaced.
"I've got a scar on my leg from a tranquilizer bullet."
The silence became awkward.
"Did you hear that storm last night?" The woman asked, breaking the silence. The alarms were suddenly cut off.
"Yeah. It was scary," Lyra answered. "It woke the whole house up and then the lights went out."
"Oof, I lost power too," the woman said. "My daughter slept through it somehow. I swear, she sleeps like a rock!"
They stopped before Shalua's closed and locked lab. The soldier knocked in a rhythm and the doors slid open. Marlene and Denzel were nowhere to be seen and Shelke had her EM sabers in her hands and Shalua was loading a pistol.
"Hey kid," Shalua called. "Never a dull moment, huh?"
Lyra smiled at her and the doors shut behind her. She tensed up when a panel on the wall opened. She relaxed as Tifa left through it, Marlene and Denzel crouched inside the wall with a small flashlight. Tifa waved at Lyra and handed her a drawstring bag.
"Just before all the excitement started, I stopped in a donation room," she started. "Follow me and get changed, kid. You're learning some self-defense today."
Kadaj made his way back to that sketchy neighborhood he had come across in the early hours of the morning, trying desperately to ignore the tugging. He was starving and needed a place to stay and the WRO were absolutely no help, though the homeless couple he had come across had advised him to try there. They had glowing reviews for the place, but he didn't feel any hospitality during his visit.
As he wandered around asking the people he came across if there was a place to stay for only a few gil, he thought back on his last few moments in the Negative.
He was never sure when Lyra would come back. Being dead, he didn't have a way to keep track of time. She hadn't been gone long after pulling him from the pit when she visited again, but after that visit, it felt like an eternity until she was back again.
He had been wandering around, avoiding the pits and craters of tar-like the plague and trying to avoid the souls floating about. While Lyra seemed unbothered by the souls, Kadaj was very bothered by them. They never stopped whining and crying out for help.
Kadaj was just minding his own business when suddenly the loose brown dirt turned to soil and flowers and the air went from thick to light. He looked around in shock, seeing that the starry sky was gone and with it the souls.
"Surprised?" A familiar voice asked. He spun and came face to face with a woman. He relaxed and she giggled. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
Kadaj blinked. "Alright. What did I do now?"
The Flower Girl tilted her head, the corners of her mouth twitching with amusement. "Nothing. Did you do something wrong?"
"Not recently," Kadaj said. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm dead and miserable."
Aerith nodded and knelt down to tend to her flowers. Kadaj rolled his eyes. The flowers weren't going anywhere, and they wouldn't die off in the Positive Lifestream. The Positive was teeming with life, even though it was just an expanse of white in all directions.
"Why'd you bring me here?" He snapped. Aerith stopped and scowled at him.
"Don't use that tone with me. I'm helping you," she scolded him. He crossed his arms and she stood. "Well?"
"Well, what?"
Aerith rolled her eyes. "You know, most people apologize when they've been caught."
Kadaj narrowed his eyes. He mumbled an apology and Aerith rolled her eyes again, pacing away from him and groaning.
"You have so much to learn," she groaned. She suddenly turned and quickly faced him again. Kadaj found himself stepping away from her, but she grabbed his arm and held him in place.
"I need you to listen to me very carefully," The Flower Girl said in a serious tone. "There are bad times ahead."
Kadaj nervously looked around them, but he saw nothing but white empty space and the flower bed. "What's that mean?"
Aerith shook her head, her brows furrowing. "I'm not entirely sure, but something is going on with the Planet."
Kadaj went silent, biting back the sarcastic remarks bouncing about inside his head. She continued.
"It won't tell me straight. It's still healing from DeepGround, and I'm helping the best I can," Aerith said. "I need you to behave, try not to kill many people if you can help if you want the Lifestream to like you."
"What?"
"And come back to the Church every once in a while, if you want to find your brothers."
"Aerith, what the absolute hell-" Kadaj started. Her nails dug into his arms.
"You're being sent back. The Lifestream can only hold you and your brothers here for so long, thanks to Sephiroth and Jenova and that whole mess."
Kadaj flinched at the mention of Jenova, suddenly afraid that he would hear her voice again. Thankfully, he didn't.
"When you get back, I need you to watch Lyra. That's your punishment. You're her bodyguard." Aerith smiled as if this was a private joke. Kadaj just continued to stare at her.
"Bodyguard?"
Aerith nodded. Kadaj swiped her arms away and she stepped back, still smiling.
"You want me to-"
"Of course, you probably won't be able to watch her right away," Aerith said, crossing an arm and rubbing her chin. "That would be stalkerish, too creepy."
"Then how-" Aerith interrupted Kadaj again. Kadaj scoffed and rolled his eyes, but he let her continue, knowing better than to anger Aerith, who had been kind despite everything he and his brothers had done when they were living.
"Unfortunately, the way Cloud and everyone is going about with hiding things from Lyra, she won't be with them for long," she said. Kadaj frowned.
"What? What's that mean?"
"This means that they are lying to her, and what they are lying about isn't very good," Aerith said. She shook her head sadly. Then she appeared unfocused as if she was listening to something that Kadaj couldn't hear. He shivered. He loved being Lyra's friend, but he always found this part of being a Cetra creepy. Aerith sighed and shook her head, appearing to need to clear it of whatever she had heard.
"It's time," she said. "I need you to focus, otherwise you'll end up all over the place and you'll come right back."
"That won't be good?" Kadaj asked. The Flower Girl winced.
"That won't be good," she guaranteed. Kadaj nervously swallowed, trying his hardest to focus, but on what? He asked Aerith this and she said to focus on himself. She instructed him to close his eyes, relax, and focus. She had him think of a Church in the slums. He remembered the Church. The healing rain had stung at the time, and he could still remember everything that led to his death.
It hadn't been pleasant, and it definitely hadn't been painless.
Aerith's voice started to fade as he heard her tell him not to stand on the flowers or grab them, and the light grew darker behind his eyelids. He started to feel heavier and heavier and he felt as if he were floating down. Then, in a flash of blue-green, he found himself in the pond, sinking to the bottom.
When Kadaj awoke in the morning, it was still dark out and the storm had subsided. He was sore all over and he slowly rose from the church pew. His pockets were heavy, but when he emptied them, he just found a handful or two of gil and water. He shook out his jacket and wandered out of the ruins until he had found the neighborhood.
Kadaj snapped out of his thoughts in time to jump out of the way of a car. The driver blared the horn and yelled, but Kadaj ignored him.
He continued to ask around, coming across a gang or two and countless homeless people until he found a somewhat decent apartment complex. The landlady was sitting at the front, stroking a cat and eating a sandwich. He had mistaken her for a homeless woman until she told him that she owned the building and she had empty rooms for just a few gil.
She showed him an empty apartment six floors up. It was dark and small and smelled like water damage and dust, but he took it. Kadaj didn't need much room, and he could make do with what the woman had available.
She grumbled at him as he gave her the gil to cover a month and made her way back down. To Kadaj's surprise, the last tenant had left pieces of furniture. They likely were unable to get the recliner and futon and dresser down the narrow stairs, but Kadaj wondered how they were able to get them up. Likely, the previous tenant was just lazy.
Kadaj locked the door and made his way to the bathroom. It was small and stained, but surprisingly clean. The mirror was warped and cracked and the light flickered, but the water came out scalding hot from the showerhead. The pressure wasn't that great, but he couldn't complain.
After a while, he left. He locked the apartment and made his way back to the Church. Hopefully, his brothers were waiting for him. The sun was setting at this time, but he wasn't worried.
He finally found the Church but was disappointed to find no one there. He waited about half an hour in case Aerith would drop them while he was there. Kadaj wandered about the pews, looking through the rubble for anything useful. He came across a black duffel bag in the front by the pond. It was tangled in vines and flower stems, but he was able to extract it. He was surprised to find a note attached to the bag, the handwriting large and messy.
Thought you could use some help. Use your sword wisely. – Zack
Kadaj's brows shot up his forehead as he unzipped the bag. He had only met Zack once before in the Lifestream, just before she pulled him into the pits.
Inside the duffle bag were changes of clothes, cans of food, and a wallet of gil. His sword was wrapped in rags and nestled underneath the clothes. Kadaj found a burner phone inside a pocket beside a toothbrush and toothpaste.
"Thank you, oh powerful spirits," he said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. He was thankful, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to know how Zack and Aerith were able to get him his sword, let alone the clothes and money.
He thought his sword was lost with The Calamity.
He made his way back to his new apartment, the streets dark and dangerous. No one messed with him as he found his way back to his apartment. He felt the tug pull behind him as he walked down the street and he almost followed it before he remembered just how disastrous the day had been.
And Aerith was right about the whole thing being creepy. Even if Aerith wanted him to watch his friend, he didn't want to be a creep about it.
Kadaj passed out on the futon, listening to the tenants in the apartments around him pace back and forth and argue.
This place was even more lonely than the Negative.
Author's note: Hey guys! Sorry this upload is really late compared to how I had been uploading. I've been kinda stressed out from finals and life in general, and the stress gave me a writer's block. Yipee. Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter! Things are starting to get interesting. I watched Infinity War last weekend and I have ideas for this story. *insert evil smile here*
Be sure to Favorite, Follow, and Review! I'll try to upload this weekend if I have time. Thank you for reading!