Chapter Eleven
Blood and Honor
" 'Lady Death'?!" Cloud and Yuffie
squawked simultaneously, managing to make a fairly good impression of the
chocobos they had just been riding.
Cid nodded. "Yup. The wanted flyer
Midgar sent out said that she's wanted for the murder of President Rufus Shinra
and his father, the ex-President Shinra."
"But wasn't Shinra killed by
Sephiroth?" Tifa wanted to know, managing to keep her head on despite Cloud and
Yuffie's reactions.
"That's what you guys said, and
that's what I thought. Which is why I let the girl stay in Rocket Town under a
different name and working for me. See, I don't even know her real name. Just
her nickname and the name she's going under right now. But I do know that she
used to work for Shinra as a Turk a long, long time ago, probably around when
Vincent was still working for them, too. I mean, she's not that old. Probably,
oh, say…twenty-four?"
"That's the same age as Zeno!"
Yuffie commented instantly.
"If she worked for the Turks, then
that means that she was no pansy of a fighter and she had a brain, too," Cloud
mused. "She probably specialized in sneak attacks and assassin tricks, seeing
as that's what most of the Turks did—carry out the dirty work for Shinra.
And…murdering Rufus? I would've said that he died when Diamond Weapon hit the
Shinra Headquarters with that last blast. We know for sure that Sephiroth
killed Shinra, at least. Who issued this wanted note, anyway?"
"Reeve, believe it or not," Cid
replied grimly. "Here." He fished around in one of his pockets and withdrew a
tattered piece of paper, handing it to Cloud.
Pasted there was a picture with a
very young girl in its center with short black hair and dark brown eyes that
fairly shone with cheerfulness, despite the stillness of the faded color
picture. She was waving at the camera in her Turks business uniform, mouth open
in a carefree grin. To one side stood another man in the selfsame Turks
uniform, face the epitome of seriousness and hands held behind his back. His
hair was a short black as well, and his eyes were a matching inky black shade.
On the other side of the girl, almost cut out of the picture, was another man
wearing the immaculately white lab coat of a scientist, too-short black hair
framing a pale, thin face topped by glasses that hid staring yellow eyes.
Tifa drew in a breath as she stared
down at the picture. "Cloud, isn't that the Icicle Area in the background?"
Cloud recognized the permanently
snow-covered place as well, memories flashing back to him. Layers of snow were
spread around the people in the picture with a clear image of one of the many
mountains located in the cold region that made snowboarding so popular there.
Yuffie gave a low whistle. "Wow.
Would you read that description? Reeve makes it sound like she's a walking
Death machine!"
Cloud moved his eyes down to the
summary below, feeling his own glowing sapphire eyes widening in disbelief.
Everything Cid had told them was
there, right from the girl being an ex-member of the Turks to her reward for
her dead-or-alive defeat. Her crimes were almost anything a criminal became a
criminal for, and her reward was astonishing.
"Does Reeve even have that much gil?" Cloud breathed in astonishment. "I know that
he's been working on Midgar, but…"
Yuffie grabbed the flyer out of
Cloud's hands, squinting as she looked down at it. " 'Lady Death,' all right. Hey, those guys in the picture with
her…don't they look familiar?"
Cloud leaned the picture towards him
and into the light. "That guy in the lab coat…Tifa, does he remind you of
Hojo?"
"That is Hojo!" Tifa exclaimed as she caught a glimpse of the man. "Well,
in his younger days, anyway."
"Then who's the other Turk?" Cid
tapped the unidentified man's face.
"No idea," Yuffie muttered. She
frowned and leaned closer to the picture. "Although he does look a little
like…"
"Cid?"
The group bounced away from each
other as Shera entered the room, carrying a tray of tea. Behind her was a young
woman and Zeno.
"Hi, Dusk," Cid announced, giving a
quick glance to Cloud. "How's the mechanics room coming along?"
The girl nodded. "I'll be back on it
soon. There's two more to go."
Once more, Cloud was stunned. If Cid
hadn't identified her, he would have never guessed that this ice lady was the
Turk in the picture. Her eyes were no longer dark brown; instead, they were a
threateningly glowing red, reminding Cloud of newly spilled blood. Her
complexion had lost the warmth in the picture; now it seemed as though her skin
belonged to a corpse's.
Yuffie quickly squirreled the wanted
flyer away into one of the pockets on her khaki shorts. "You're Dusk? Cid's
told us a lot about you!"
Dusk turned her eyes onto Yuffie;
eyes that uncannily reminded the ninja of a bird of prey eyeing up its next
meal. "And you are…?"
"Um, I'm Yuffie Kisaragi. This is
Cloud Strife, and that's Tifa Lockheart. We're sort of…Zeno's family."
Dusk shrugged. "I'm Dusk Hart. I
work for the Captain."
Cloud raised an eyebrow at that. She
hadn't even twitched an eyelash at the mention of their names, and her eyes,
the most expressive part about her, remained quiescent. Most people had heard
of the saviors of the Planet before and had ended up quite tongue-tied when
introduced to them.
Dusk turned back to Shera. "If
you'll excuse me, I should be going back to work now." She nodded politely to
Zeno and left the cockpit, heading back to wherever she came from.
"Excuse her attitude," Shera
apologized. "She's usually like that, even to people she knows." She set the
tray down on a nearby console. "Zeno, come on. There's still more to show you."
Zeno turned to Cloud. "Am I privy to
what you were discussing?" he inquired.
Cloud shook his head casually.
"Sorry, kid. Adult stuff."
"Ah." Zeno left with Shera.
Cid waited until the door slid shut
before letting out a loud breath of air. "And he's supposed to be four and a
half years old?" he asked incredulously.
"Um, yes. But I told you that he has
the mentality of a twenty-four year old," Cloud explained. "And he reads a lot,
too, so he picks up on vocabulary."
"And that's the girl who was in that picture?" Yuffie demanded, barely
waiting for Cloud to finish his reasoning. "That icicle that just left is the
Turk girl?! No wonder she's called Lady Death! Yeesh! What an attitude! It's
even worse than Vincent's, if that's possible!"
Now it was Cid's turn to explain.
"Well, you see…I think she's sort of been through a lot. She was chased all the
way from Midgar to here by who knows what, and she arrived with a long sword in
one hand that was completely covered with blood, both fresh and old. Dusk also
collapsed as soon as she arrived. I didn't really want to press her for
details."
"Long sword?" Cloud asked,
unconsciously stiffening his spine. The memory of his most hated enemy and the
destruction that man had caused with his weapon, which had happened to be a
long sword, surfaced once more in his mind.
Cid shook his head. "Not Masamune,
Cloud."
Cloud relaxed a slight bit. "Hmm.
Hey, weren't we supposed to check in with the Shanghai Inn? What time is it?"
Cid glanced down at the watch he
wore over one wrist. "Uh, five minutes 'til seven."
"Damn. Well, we've got to check in
with the guy in five minutes. Are you coming, Cid?" Cloud asked.
"Um…let's talk again tomorrow. I'm
not ready to close up yet. Oh, and I'll send Zeno over once he and Shera are
done touring the Highwind. So don't worry about the kid, okay?"
"Thanks!" Cloud grinned at his
friend and stepped out of the room. "See ya tomorrow!"
* * *
Dusk rose from her flat-on-the-ground
work position, rubbing the back of her neck and stretching. With audible
cracks, she proceeded to pop her stiffened vertebrae one by one from the bottom
to the top of her spinal column.
Ahh…well,
Motor Eleven is done, at least. I guess I'll get Twelve done tomorrow.
She sighed, slipping out of her
coverall and hanging it back up on its hook. Moving over to the doorway, she
deftly turned the power switch off and shut the door behind her, locking it
securely. As Dusk padded down the rickety stairs that led deeper into the
Highwind, she slipped the key over her neck on its chain next to another
necklace that already lay there. It was a charm made from a deformed crystal of
materia, no bigger than her thumbnail and the color of snow. She had found it
long ago and had had it for as long as she could remember…
…Which wasn't very far back.
Dusk opened the door to her little
room within the depths of the Highwind, which accommodated her resting place.
The Captain had provided it for her when she had adamantly refused to set foot
outside of the Highwind, where a suspicious town that she had never visited
before awaited. She didn't know why, but she got a distinctly uneasy feeling
whenever she saw that place—as if she could still sense Shinra moving about.
She closed the sliding door behind
her and collapsed onto her pallet, kicking her boots off and lying completely
on top of it. After a moment of complete silence, she rose again and scooted to
a corner that held a small chest and had a long, wrapped object lying against a
side of a wall. Dusk sat down and opened the chest, staring at the contents.
She fingered the pile of clothing,
then slowly pushed them aside until she reached the very bottom. Carefully
folded and shielded from the faint light emitting from a flickering lamp was a
navy blue business outfit. She picked it up and shook the top out, smoothing
down the buttons and touching the blouse underneath.
Memory hit her like a punch, both
painful and strong. Just two months ago, this same outfit was completely
covered with splashes of blood. It was almost hanging off of her, too, due to a
large sword swipe that had not only scored on her but on this article as well.
She had barely managed to crawl into the nearest shelter she could find,
dragging herself through thick grass and leaving a trail of her own blood mixed
with other's behind. Scared and shaking with the loss of blood, she had fallen
unconscious only to awaken with two people bending over her. One was a woman,
the other a man, both faces unknown to her.
…I
couldn't find him…But…he promised that he would be there for me when I woke up…
Dusk abruptly shoved the old uniform
back into the chest, covering it with layers of her donated clothes and closing
the lid. She leaned against the wall, staring at the slender object covered in
swathes of cloth that leaned in sympathy with her. She searched her memory,
trying to go further back, to before she fell asleep and woke up alone. But she
couldn't do it—all she remembered was her lifelong friend's face staring down
at hers as she sunk into a watery fluid, mouth moving in a soundless promise
that she could still make out before her eyes closed.
"Don't
worry…I'll be waiting for you, right here, when you wake up."
"…I
promise…"
Tears, the first that Dusk had
experienced in a long time, trickled down the sides of her face, running along
the edge of her jaw before meeting at the tip of her chin and dripping into her
clasped hands.
You
promised…But where are you…?
Am
I…all alone…now?
