Nanashi

Nanashi

Haven't we met?

You're some kind of beautiful stranger

You could be good for me

I've got the taste for the danger

If I'm smart then I'll run away

But I'm not so I guess I'll stay

Haven't you heard?

I fell in love with a beautiful stranger

"Beautiful Stranger"

Madonna

Reno watched the nameless girl out of the corner of his eye as he drove the car at breakneck speed down the street of Sector Five, steering expertly around fallen heaps of rubble with the ease of long practice, trying to ignore the stretchy feeling that the wind roaring in his face left on his skin. He still had no windshield; his car hadn't grown another one since the shoot-out with the Stalker half an hour ago. Piece of shit car. And now it had dozens of not-so-attractive bullet holes all over its formerly spotless chrome body.

I'm gonna have to ask Rude to drive me to work until I can get this hunk of junk a makeover, Reno thought grumpily. Just great. My car's a big piece of crap now, and I still have this weird-ass, mute chick with me. She still hasn't said a word to me, and I just risked everything to save her ass. Now isn't that gratitude for you, boys and girls?

But it was more than sour feelings that kept Reno from leaving the girl unobserved for more than a few seconds. He was actually afraid that she was going to suddenly jump out of the car or do some other crazy thing; that's why he was driving so fast. In the short time he had "known" her, Reno had already come to the conclusion that his silent companion was no ordinary female, and the fact that she had seemed eager to shake him off before was only making him more paranoid that she would ditch him if given half a chance. And Reno wasn't about to lose her now that he had gone through so much trouble just to keep her safe.

So far, however, she had shown no signs of wanting to escape. She just sat there on the other side of the front seat with her seat belt buckled around her waist and her hands folded neatly in her lap. She seemed completely oblivious to the wind tearing at her inky hair, and though she was squinting instinctively to keep the wind from ravaging her tender eyes, she appeared to be relatively at peace. The streetlamps, as Reno sped past them, cast their harsh light on her unnaturally pale skin, flickering yellow and ghostly blue-white dancing across her exposed flesh like invading imps in heaven. And not for the first time, Reno was inundated with the thought that she wasn't an ordinary human being, if she was even human, that is.

"Who are you?" he suddenly demanded, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the wind.

The girl turned her golden gaze to him, eyes staring at him with seemingly unshakable calm. "My identity is of no concern to you," she said calmly.

Reno snorted, dissatisfied with her answer. "Better watch it," he threatened half-heartedly. "Or I just might make it my concern."

"May I ask where we're going?" the girl inquired of him, abruptly shifting subjects. She appeared to be undaunted by his threat.

"No, you may not," Reno answered matter-of-factly, steering around a corner so sharply that he nearly capsized the car.

"Then I demand to know where you are taking me," she said coldly, eyes drilling holes into the side of his face.

That made Reno grin for some reason. "You're a real feisty one, aren't you?" he asked of her. "Tread carefully, honey. Men like feisty women, but there's a fine line between feisty and bitchy, and you're straddling that line, baby girl."

"Don't call me that," she suddenly hissed, that strange natural glow in her eyes suddenly intensifying as she narrowed her eyes into slits.

Whoa…that got a reaction out of her. Memo to self: call her "baby girl" when I want to piss her off.

Reno still had the audacity to send a smile in her direction as he steered his battered convertible into the parking lot of his apartment complex. "We're here, sister," he told her with mocking cheerfulness as he killed the engine. He noticed in passing that he was taking up two parking spaces, but he didn't really give a damn.

The girl didn't say anything, but she folded her arms across her chest in a clear expression of defiance and turned her cold gaze forward, refusing to look at Reno. For his part, Reno exited the car as quickly as possible, still fearful that she would make a run for it when he was walking around the vehicle to her side. However, she didn't even budge from her spot or bat an eyelash as he strode around the front of the convertible in long strides, glaring at her mute figure the entire way.

"Come on, sister," Reno ordered, opening her car door. "Get your ass outta the car."

"Only if I may walk away freely after I do," she said coldly, staring at the dashboard as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. The streetlight in front of Reno's apartment building flickered on and off, sending flashes of synthetic light dancing across her red-black hair and her unnaturally pale skin.

"You ain't going nowhere," Reno said firmly, gripping the metal of the car door in a white-knuckled grip. "You're going to stay at my place with me."

The girl shifted her gaze to glare up at him, golden eyes flashing like yellow fire in the dark night. "If you're expecting some sort of reward for your rescuing me, then I would advise you think again. I have nothing at all to give you."

Reno grinned as he heard the hidden meaning in her words. "You still think I wanna bang you, huh?" he asked, using the most stinging terminology he could think of.

The girl just glared daggers at him.

Reno leaned casually against the car door, ignoring the way its creaks protested his added weight. "Honey," he said. "I know you ain't no whore. I never thought you were in the first place, you know."

"And you seriously expect me to believe that?" she asked coldly, lifting a dark brow.

Reno snorted. "Those clothes aren't yours, are they?" he asked, eyes roving over the fishnet hose, the slinky dress, and the heeled boots.

The girl was silent for a moment, then she said quietly, "No."

"You stole them," Reno stated.

"Borrowed them," the girl corrected icily. "There is a difference between stealing and borrowing. I intend to return these as soon possible."

Reno rolled his aquamarine eyes towards the night sky, briefly allowing his sardonic gaze to flick across the starry sky before reverting his attention back to the girl still seated in his passenger seat.

"I'm sure you do," he said sarcastically, eyes glittering down at her with wicked humor. "Now, get outta the car before I have to force you outta it."

The girl turned her face away from him, her gaze falling to rest once more on the now-tattered dashboard. She didn't budge.

Reno felt anger slowly rising in his heart. Shit, this is gonna be harder than I thought. She's so hell-bent on showing who's in charge here…well, I'll show her that I'm the boss around here, not her!

He suddenly lunged forward with the intention of grabbing her by the arm and hauling her out of the car. Though he had left the Turks and Shinra behind to burn in the fires of blackest hell, Reno knew that he got into enough fights to keep his reflexes sharp. Before this mysterious girl, he was under the impression that no civilian could evade an attack from him.

That's why he was stunned out of his mind when he suddenly felt the girl's hand strike his attacking one with a stinging slap that startled Reno so badly that he withdrew his hand back to his side, a red welt forming on the pale skin. For a moment, all he did was stare at her, completely dumbfounded that she had actually hit him when he hadn't even seen her hand move. And now she was glaring at him as if he had done something to violate her!

A deep scowl formed on his face as he fought to keep a damper on his temper, knowing that he should have learned that brute force wasn't going to work on this girl. Reno didn't know who or what she was, but she had quicker reflexes than he did, apparently.

Ok. Plan B: try being…nice. Gag me, but here goes.

Reno smiled sweetly, the expression of decorousness not quite reaching his eyes. He stepped back from the side of the car and held the door wide open, bowing and making a sweeping motion with his arm as he did so.

"Please," he said as politely as he could. "Your Most Royal Highness, it would give me great pleasure if you would step out of the car, please."

"Ok."

"What?!" Reno practically screeched, dropping his chauffeur act as easily as he dropped the women he dated. Anger smoldered in his aquamarine eyes as he watched the girl calmly unbuckle herself and step gracefully out of the wartorn convertible, sliding the car door from his limp fingers and shutting it quietly behind her. She straightened her dress and clasped her hands together in front of her, staring up at him with something that might have been humor flickering in her eyes.

For a moment, all Reno did was stare at her dumbly, his gaze darted from her calm face to the empty seat she had just abandoned readily, as if that had been her intentions all along.

Playing with me. She was playing with me!

"You bitch," Reno cursed, eyes flashing angrily as he glared down at her. "You just wanted to make me say 'please', didn't you?"

"You seem like the kind of person who needs to learn some manners," she responded flatly.

Reno's eyes widened. "W-W-What???!!!" he sputtered, resisting the urge to stamp his foot into the pavement so hard that he would make a hole to the center of the Planet.

"I'm sure you don't believe that you're the most decorous person in this world," the girl continued. "At least I hope you don't think that, because if you do then I'm afraid you might be delusional."

"Shut the hell up!" Reno snapped, his blood boiling with anger. No one had ever told him that he was an asshole in such an elegant fashion before. "You have absolutely no right whatsoever to tell me all that shit! You don't know me!"

"Precisely," the girl said flatly. "That's why I should leave right now…"

Reno immediately snapped to attention. "Oh no you don't," he seethed, anger still running its course through his system. He stepped to the side and pointed firmly to the building behind him, his eyes drilling holes into his rebellious companion. "Up those stairs," he ordered. "Now."

The girl didn't move.

Oh God…not again…

"Please," Reno said, giving her a smile that more like a grimace.

By the time the dynamic duo had reached Reno's apartment door, Reno was ready to blow his top and start raising Cain in a blind rage. He'd never met any woman as difficult to deal with as this one! He had saved her goddamn life, and she STILL didn't trust him for crap! He had spent more time arguing with her about who was going to walk up the stairs first than he spent actually walking up the damn things. The girl had insisted that she didn't want to go first because Reno would look up her skirt. Well, she hadn't actually said that, but Reno had inferred it from the deathglares she kept sending him whenever he had ordered her to go up the stairs in front of him. Five minutes of arguing had only resulted in Reno raising his voice to a level loud enough to break the sound barrier, the girl glaring at him calmly and the landlady storming out and yelling at Reno for making so much racket. He had flipped the old lady off and walked up the steps side by side with the girl. He now had several bruises on his hip to show for all his troubles. The stairwells in his shitty apartment complex were as narrow as hell.

"I hope you appreciate all the trouble I'm going through for you," Reno snapped as he inserted his key in the lock and twisted it so hard that he nearly snapped it in half.

The girl didn't say anything. She only stood there staring as Reno cursed and jangled the doorknob when the door refused to open.

Damn…I hate my life.

"Is this your house?" she suddenly asked, examining the cracked wooden door and the soiled wallpaper that surrounded it on all sides.

"This is my apartment," Reno grunted, a bit surprised she had asked. "I ain't got enough money to buy a goddamn house. There!"

With a triumphant grin, Reno heard the lock click. He yanked the key from the keyhole and shoved the door open, bracing it with his arm and gesturing firmly for the girl to enter before him.

Okay, if she argues with me this time, I swear I'm gonna…

But to his surprise, the girl walked right in, and for the first time, Reno noticed that she had a light, slightly tropical scent to her that tickled his sense of smell as she passed by. He'd never smelled that kind of perfume before, and the women he dated usually bathed in all kinds of scented oils and soaps. You name it, they wore it, anything to cover their true scents and their true selves.

Reno stepped into the dark apartment and flipped the light switch next to the door, illuminating his pig's pen living room for all to see. The girl looked around curiously, her eyes roving over every dirty corner and surface, seemingly undaunted by the mess lying everywhere. Reno was suddenly embarrassed that she had to see his place looking like a hurricane had blown through it. He hadn't even thought about the mess he left in his apartment until now. He usually didn't give a damn what he dropped on the floor or the couch. Rude and Elena were the only ones that saw his apartment, and he didn't care what they thought. They both knew that Reno was too lazy to clean up after himself, and they – or Rude at least – didn't bother him about it. And as for Reno's "lady friends," not a single one of them had ever seen his apartment. They always "entertained themselves" at a hotel or some other place, never his.

"Do all apartments have all these objects lying on the floor?" the girl suddenly asked, touching a discarded dress shirt with the tip of her boot.

"Don't step on that," Reno snapped before he could stop himself. "I wear those to work."

The girl suddenly whirled around, her hair whipping behind her. A strange emotion hardened her eyes. She backed up a step from where Reno was standing. "Work?" she echoed, her voice suddenly gone cold and flat. "And just what is your occupation?"

Though the sudden change in her personality had freaked him out a bit, Reno pushed himself away from the door and dropped his keys on a crappy little wooden table where he always put all the junk he didn't want to carry. "I don't see why it concerns you," he said flatly, enjoying the fact that he was able to fling her own words back at her.

He instantly regretted his little game, however, because it only seemed to anger the girl. Every muscle in her body went rigid, and both of her hands curled into fists of rage. Her eyes seemed to gleam, catching the light and throwing it back at him, full of violence and the smell of battle. The thought then occurred to Reno that the girl actually might know how to fight. Her stance certainly suggested that she did…

"I'm a bodyguard," he said, watching her reaction to his words. "I protect people, sister."

She lifted an eyebrow at him, but something seemed to relax in her demeanor. "And this is why you saved me tonight?" she asked.

Reno snorted and removed his jacket. "Honey, I don't know why I saved your sorry ass tonight. You've been nothing but thorn in my side." He started to drop his jacket on the floor, but suddenly hung it up on the back of the table's equally crappy wooden chair instead.

Sighing and rubbing the back of his neck, Reno suddenly felt the toils of his little adventures that night catch up with him. He hadn't had to fight a battle like that in months, and the effects of his inactivity were just starting to kick in. His legs ached as he kicked his shoes into a corner of the room, trying to ignore the mysterious girl staring at him.

Let her stare all she wants. I don't care if she thinks I'm a weirdo or something. Great, I have a hole in my sock. Just perfect.

Refusing to look at the girl, Reno turned into his kitchen and saw that it was just as messy as his living room. Funny, how he had never noticed such a thing before until he knew that someone else would be seeing it. Dirty dishes with some food still left on them were piled up in the sink, and there were odd items like magazines, razors and even an old toothbrush from who knows where lying on the counters. Reno scratched the back of his head just above his ponytail, trying to remember just when all this crap had gotten there.

Why the hell am I worrying? Who gives a damn?

Wincing at how cold the floor was beneath his thin socks, he crossed the filthy kitchen and flung open the refrigerator door, only to be brutally disappointed that no new food had materializes since he left for work in the morning. But, of course, he still had his endless supply of beer to keep him company. He had just pulled one out of the side rack when he heard the click of a heeled boot on the kitchen floor – a cautious click, one that was not meant to be heard. Reno smiled without even turning. He had been wondering if he girl was going to follow him around instead of wandering off on her own. If she followed him into the kitchen, it meant that she trusted him in the slightest bit, if she wanted to be with him. He was strangely pleased to see that he had been partially right, even thought it had taken her longer to react to the absence of his presence that he would have liked.

"Wanna beer, sister?" Reno asked, as he popped the cap off of the brown bottle and took a deep gulp, enjoying the bitterness of the liquid as it coursed down the length of his throat.

"No thank you," the girl said clearly.

Reno shrugged and turned to plop down at the kitchen table, nearly breaking the old chair as he did so. "Your loss," he told the girl, watching with carefully disguised interest as she examined everything in the kitchen with the same thoroughness that she had the living room. Her observations were all visual, though; she didn't run over and pick things up like some annoying people Reno knew. All she did was stand in the center of his kitchen like a goddess from another time, her golden eyes roaming ceaselessly over everything they could reach, drinking in their environment. And for the first time, he noticed that his new "friend" seemed to be quite a curious creature, an aspect of her personality that he hadn't taken note of before.

You'd think she'd never seen a kitchen before, Reno thought as he took another swig from his beer.

He waited until she seemed done with her examination to say, "Sit down, honey." He gestured to the chair across the table from him. Then as an afterthought, he added, with a disgusted snort, "Please."

The girl stared at him for a second, golden eyes absorbing his figure as if the image of a red-haired man slumped at a wooden kitchen table chugging a beer went perfectly with the backdrop she had been looking at with such curiosity seconds before. Then, without a word of rebellion, she strode over to the table and seated herself stiffly in the chair Reno had indicated earlier, the wood creaking in protest even though she was a small slip of a creature.

Reno studied her in silence for a while, enjoying the way the lights illuminated her black-red hair and made her skin look even paler than it did in the darkness of the night. The same light reflected and danced in her golden eyes, and Reno noticed that she had a ring of black around each golden iris, making them rather unnerving to look at. He hadn't noticed the dark rings in the night, but now that she was under proper lighting, their sheer inhumanness seemed to leap out and scratch him on the face.

And not for the first time, Reno had the thought that this was no human sitting across from him.

"So," he said, trying to ignore the shudders that were coursing down his spine. "What's your name, honey?"

The girl stared at him blankly, but Reno got the distinct impression that she wanted him to mind his own business.

He sighed melodramatically and said, "And don't tell me, 'It doesn't concern you' or anything stupid like that. I saved your life; I think the least you can do is tell me what your name is."

"With all due respect," she said, and Reno thought he heard a strange sad note in her voice. "I didn't request that you save me."

In an amazing feat of self-discipline, Reno held his tongue and took a cool swig of his beer instead, his aquamarine eyes glaring at her the whole time. She had to be the most impossible person he had ever met…

"Look," he said coolly, brushing away a strand of blood-red hair as it flopped into his eye. "If you don't give me your name, I'll have to give you one myself, honey." He smiled mischievously.

"And what name would you give me?"

Reno took a thoughtful gulp of his beer and stared at her for a while, thinking of all the kinky, stupid names that his devious little mind could come up with, but in the end, he settled for a simple one that he hadn't heard in a while.

"Nanashi."

The girl blinked. "What?"

"Nanashi," Reno repeated, still studying her with an out-of-place thoughtful look on his face. "It's Wutainese. It means 'No-name.' Not very flattering either, sweetheart."

"Are you Wutainese?" the girl asked, the curiosity returning to her face.

Reno shrugged his shoulders in dismissal. "My last name is Sasuki, if that means jack shit to you. It's Wutainese."

"And what is your first name?"

A grin spread across Reno's scarred face as his eyes glittered with amusement. "Ah, ah, ah," he chided, wagging a finger in the girl's direction. "Until you tell me your name, I'm Sasuki and you're Nanashi. So 'fess up, sister, or you're going to be 'No-name' the rest of your life."

The girl surprised him by falling silent, sinking down slightly in the chair as if falling into the depths of memory. Her golden eyes became misted, the preternatural luster less prominent, but still captivating in its own right. Reno had expected the girl to snap at him, but his words appeared to have made her thoughtful, if not a little sad.

Suddenly, those golden eyes locked onto his with gentle intensity. "I don't have a name," she said in a rather quiet tone.

Reno blinked at her in surprise, though he had been expecting as much. "Then you truly are Nanashi," he said, drumming his fingers against the wooden tabletop, his gaze thoughtful.

"I do not wish to be called Nanashi," she said firmly, though the fire was absent from her voice.

Reno shrugged and watched the condensation drip down the side of his beer bottle until it pooled on the tabletop in lonely little puddles. "So give yourself a name, then," he said simply.

"But I was under the belief that names were given to you by others."

This Reno dismissed with a snort before taking another chug of beer. "Learn to take charge of your own life," he told her, liking how he was sounding all philosophical. "If you want to be sentimental and crap like that, then name yourself after some that is special to you."

The girl was silent, but her eyebrows knitted as a flash of pain crossed her face, as fleeting as a ghost in the mists of memory and gone just as quickly, leaving a contemplative, pensive look on her face.

Someone that's special to me, she thought to herself. Her surroundings seemed to vanish, those words running through her mind quite freely until they finally rammed into and tore down the wall the girl had placed between herself and her recent memories – memories she wanted to forget. Cold, dank cell with hard cement floors and moss-covered walls. Sound of dripping water in the darkness. Smell of death and madness drifting to her cell, like acid in the air. No, the girl didn't care to recall those things, those horrid things…

"Sister," the red-haired man across the table from her called, his voice interrupting the flow of memory. "You gotta name yet?"

"Hold on," she whispered, eyes riveted on the table without seeing it. "I'm thinking."

Back to the memories, back to the dark place she had been birthed into. A face floated in front of her. Wild, untamed black hair that lay against pale skin and coyly obscured Mako blue eyes that had long ago lost the sparkle that the girl had loved to see in those luminescent orbs.

Name? Zack. No, she could not use that name. It was not a name suitable for a female, and though she was sure Zack wouldn't mind if she took on his name, it just didn't suit her well. Zack was Zack, and that was that. There would never be another like him. For a moment, the girl's heart ached terribly when she thought of him still locked in that cell, forehead resting dismally against the bars as he dreamed of freedom and violently cursed Fate for all it had done to him. She remembered his young male voice, full of life and passion, ringing through the silence in their cell, until a softer, accented feminine voice rose up with its own power to console him.

Another face swam into the girl's vision. Chocolate brown skin that sharply contrasted with the whiteness of her smile and the vivid liquid green of her eyes. It was these eyes that soothed the girl when she was pained by her loss of purpose, pained by the bars keeping her imprisoned. And though this woman must have felt that same pain, she lent the girl her endless amount of inner strength, infusing her with courage, the courage she needed to escape. It was this woman that first called her "baby girl."

"Serena," the girl whispered under her breath, and though she was sure that the man across from her had heard a phantom of the name, he was wise enough not to question her.

Serena? Do I dare take on the name of such a majestic woman? the girl wondered. Well, I won't take on the whole name, no. But I will take on a part of it. Then end of her name…yes…

"Rena," the girl said clearly, her eyes snapped back into focus as she raised her gaze to the man across the table from her.

Reno lifted an eyebrow, amusement filling his eyes and curving one corner of his mouth into a smile. "Rena?" he repeated, trying to keep the laughter out of his voice.

Of all the names in the freakin' world…

The girl now known as Rena narrowed her eyes at him, obviously thinking that he was mocking her choice of names. "Rena is a good name," she insisted. "I did just as you instructed and chose the name of a person that means a lot to me."

Reno laughed and held up his hands in mock surrender. "Don't worry!" he declared with a grin. "Rena is good name. A very good name."

Rena leaned forward. "And what is your name, Mr. Sasuki?"

"Reno."

She blinked in surprise. "Come again, please?"

"My name is Reno," Reno said slowly, unable to stop the grin that was spreading across his face. The situation was so entirely ridiculous that he felt a bout of hysteria coming on.

"Oh," Rena said, looking innocently puzzled, as if she couldn't believe that his name was so similar to the one she had chosen. "Reno and Rena," she suddenly said in a sing-song tone, as if announcing the winners to some grand prize.

"Oh yeah, sister, what a mismatched pair we're going to make. Reno and Rena."

Aquamarine eyes met golden ones, and suddenly the tension that had been shoving the two strangers apart gave way a little bit, and they both stared laughing, the pure sounds of mirth, true rarities in both characters, filling the kitchen like a welcome breath of spring after a long winter.

* * * * * * * * *

Author's Note: ::yawn:: This chapter was more plot than action, but I didn't want to make it sure long by adding a bunch of other stuff to it. That will come in future chapters! ^^ By the way, "Nanashi" is actually Japanese for "No-name." Oh, and you'll have to excuse any spelling or grammar errors! It's very late at night and I'm… ::falls asleep on keyboard::