There was screaming going on behind her, the disbelieving yell of at least four merchants who had suddenly realized that hundreds of gil worth of merchandise that they had brought with them to the market place was now gone. It was a sound that never got old- at least to the smirking cherub who had caused it, the common customers of the market who found themselves routinely questioned and searched might feel different about the situation. The thief cared even less about then she did about the shop keepers, because at least the keepers brought the goods she so skillfully snatched. Granted, if there were no customers, there would be no shops, so maybe every part of this equation was equally important.
She paused for a moment, dwelling on it. The only answer she could think of was 'Fuck philosophy. I have some stuff to pawn,' and so she made her way down the back alley with all the wariness of a soldier walking through a tulip garden. Shadows danced, but she wasn't in the mood for waltzing, so she ignored them utterly, concentrating only on the weight of the assorted goods in her back pack. This wasn't exactly happiness, she reasoned, but it made a good substitute.
Screams rose in volume behind her, but she ignored them, forcing herself to keep walking forward. From the sound of it, they had managed to peg someone for her crimes, probably some poor sap who had tried to walk away with a chica fruit or something and was about to get knicked for six or seven hundred dollars worth of theft. Guilt stabbed briefly at the true thief, but she brushed it off like she would a normal knife, with a stony face.
Later, she wondered how things would have gone if she had just gone along with her original plan. Kept walking until she had made it into another marketing district, where they couldn't care less about where you got the goods you were selling- in fact, if they knew they had been stolen by a rival they probably would have tossed in a few discount items just as a thank you for helping lower the competition a bit. She wondered how much money she would have made, how many more trips back and forth she would have had to make before she had earned enough to buy that new chunk of materia the senator's wife had managed to dig up from her backyard when trying to start a garden that she would have, no doubt, instantly turned over to the house keeping. Instead, she had prompted her husband to start a full scale excavation mission that was being funded by an unbelievable price tag on the piece of red crystal.
None of those questions, however, would ever be answered. Not because of any overwhelming conscience attack, and not because of anything special about the day or the market or the thief. It was, she would insist later, all his fault. At the time, however, she didn't even know it was a 'he' that had been caught. All she knew was what she had been told by one word that drifted down the alley from the marketplace.
Turk.
Spoken with score by some, awe by others, dislike by all and fear by a few with really good memories. For a brief time, the word had become a punch line among some of the more daring columnists for the international newspapers, but then reporters started disappearing and the joke had stopped being so funny to the rest. It could sometimes mean fun, but always meant trouble, and a certain level of danger came with uttering it in any context. An accusatory yell, the thief reasoned, brought potential damage somewhere between calling a Turk a 'baby rapist' or a 'nice guy'. Sighing, she turned, and began making her way back to the market a lot faster than she had left it.
He was standing there, crouched down, a wolf surrounded by rabbits who were trying to outnumber him to the point they would be able to rip him apart with their tiny teeth. The dark red hair of the man, a color that couldn't possibly be natural but somehow was, seemed to reflect the mood of the crowd that had formed a semi-circle around him, essentially caging him against the brick wall he had to his back. For his part, he didn't seem unusually flustered, just stared calmly forward and threatened anyone who advanced with physical dismemberment.
The thief started towards the growing mob, but before she could take three steps a pair of police officers emerged from the teeming masses, frowns on their faces and hands on the nightsticks that were strapped into their belts. Reno watched them coming with mild trepidation, but upon seeing the scars that laced the mans skin like spider webs the cops decided that this might be a good time to give diplomacy a try. The first one smiled, weakly, and held up both hands. "Hey there buddy, what's going on here?"
"Buddy?" Reno asked coolly, not even giving the officer the courtesy of looking at him. Instead his eyes were on the furious shop keepers that headed the surrounding mob, as if daring any of them to step up and try to take back what they thought he had stolen from them.
"Uh... well..." the police officer was flustered, which was not a good sign. Flustered men with nightsticks and pepper spray could often lead to an entertaining spectacle, but flustered men with guns was just begging for trouble. Luckily, his partner stepped in, his personality as slick as his close cut hair.
"What is your name," he asked simply.
"Turk," Reno replied, "don't you hear these people talking?"
"Now, now," said slippery one, "let's not joke about anything like that. After all, no one here wants to deal with the hassle of trying to match you up with the dossiers put out on that band of criminals because you felt like being funny."
"Who's joking?" Reno asked, finally looking at the cop. The thief wondered why the officer would even bother trying to convince a Turk to claim he was something he wasn't, that band was well known for wearing their sins like armor. Then it was with a startled jerk that the thief realized that the man was, for the first time she had ever seen, not wearing the standard suit that went with such a job. Instead, he was clad in nothing but black, from sneakers to pants to a dark leather jacket over an ebony wifebeater. Even the glittering piece of jewelry dangling from his left ear had a coal colored stone at the end. The improbability of this situation had the thief briefly wondering if the dead on resemblance this man held to the Turk she knew could have just been coincidence, but there was no way... he even blinked the same way. So slowly that sometimes it was hard to tell if he was even planning on opening them again, or just figured he could fall asleep where he stood.
"All right," the cop said with a sigh, "if that's the way you want to do this." As he spoke, the man reached forward to grab Reno's wrist almost as if his last sentence counted as a declaration of arrest. The first cop began to reach for a pair of hand cuffs, but before he had touched them his partners hand wrapped around the wrist of the red haired Turk. There was a brief pause at the contact of skin to skin, and then Reno spun, driving his pointed elbow into his attempted captors ribs.
The crowd gasped, horrified at the attack on a public servant, and the thief almost drew far too much attention to herself by barking out a laugh right there. These people apparently knew the word Turk, and kept up with the papers just enough so they could recognize one, but the obviously had no idea what the three men and one women- that were known of- were truly capable of. Assaulting an officer ranked just about on the level of a normal person's jay walking.
In the time it took her to process this scornful thought Reno had reached into jacket and ripped loose his EMR, the only weapon the thief had ever seen that was capable of killing a man and popping corn... at the same time, no less. She wanted to call out some warning, not wanting the death of two government employees on her head, but apparently Reno wasn't in the mood to pull any trigger. Instead, he simply smacked the weapon across the jaw of the original cop, who just now was reaching forward from his handcuffs.
The elbowed officer, recovering quickly from the blow to his side, drove forward with the full force in his body and striking Reno in the back of the knees, taking his legs out from under him. In a flash three or four men, seeing the immediate threat taken away, darted from the crowd fell upon the Turk and pinned him down to the ground. By the time the thief had reached the event, he had been securely cuffed, an act which apparently did not satisfy the man he had struck in the jaw with the EMR. The police officer ripped his pistol loose from its holster and pointed it directly between the Turks eyes, drawing only a blank stare from his captive.
"Now Officer Malloy," the thief said quietly, but with a voice that carried. "Do you really think that's necessary? He is cuffed, after all."
For a split second, the gun was pointed at her, the policeman reacting with surprise to the mention of his own name. Then the thief let her hood fall away, revealing her soft and attractive features, and the man lowered his gun as if pointing it at her burnt his hand. His face quickly turned the color of sour milk as he tried to stammer an apology for the moment of threatening. "M-Miss Kisaragi..." he mumbled, "I did not recognize your voice."
"The prisoner," Yuffie reminded him primly, pressing her lips together, "is probably well enough detained without having a handgun pointed at his forehead. With the condition he's in, I'm surprised you even need the bracelets."
That last line came from a closer inspection of the red haired Turk. Though it would have been hard to move with about six hundred pounds of rabble kneeling on your back, Reno wasn't even twitching, he simply tracked the progress of ants crawling across the ground with severely glossed over eyes. Something was wrong to him, something serious. Whatever substance, chemical or otherwise, that had driven him to his spurt of violence had just turned against his body in a bad way. If he wasn't on something, then something was on him, if that made any sense at all.
"What are you arresting him for?" she asked suddenly, looking over at the police officers. They shared surprised looks, and the man who had first been struck spoke up.
"Shoplifting will do for an arresting charge," he said quickly, but more than a little nervously. It wasn't often that one was charged with answering the daughter of the lord of the entire continent, and he wanted to make sure he got it right.
"Someone saw him do this?" Yuffie asked.
"Well, no," the man replied, scratching his head, "but he wouldn't let us search him, and since all of this stuff is missing, we assumed..."
"Don't." Yuffie said bitingly. "Nothing good comes from assuming anything." Inwardly, she had to roll her eyes at the proper tone her own voice was taking, but on the outside her face didn't twitch. "No one here had a warrant for his search. That isn't an assumption, officer, that's a logical conclusion drawn from the fact none is present. Do you have any other charges?"
"Yeah," muttered the second officer, rubbing his jaw, "assaulting an officer. Two counts. And aggravated assault. And hell, let's throw in assault with-"
"Since I have been watching for some time, allow me to explain what went on here," Yuffie said shortly, "a man in apparently disoriented condition resisted being searched by force without a warrant. He was approached by two men who did not flash their badges, and was faced with attempted confinement under no declaration of arrest. It seems to me that not only could he easily get off on a self defense charge, but this incident might very well cost Wutai big in law suits."
"Fine," the officer barked in reply, but incidentally checked his tone as Yuffie raised an eyebrow at his attitude, "uh, we still have him on admission of being a Turk."
"Ah," Yuffie said softly, "but that is an international law, now a Wutain one. You two gentleman, as private police, should probably allow me to take him in to seek justice."
"Uh..." the officers face fell, but he kept his anger checked behind a gritted set of teeth. Sensing the problem, Yuffie smiled compassionately and set a hand on his arm.
"I will make sure you two get the proper credit for his capture," she said.
"Oh... yes ma'am!" the officer saluted her, and was quickly joined by his partner. With a series of harsh gestures they removed all the shop keepers from their position on the Turks spinal chord and forced them back, dragging Reno to his feet and setting him down in front of Yuffie. "Will you need any help escorting him?"
"I should be fine," Yuffie said quickly, as she dragged a stumbling Reno beside her. She left the police officers to explain to the people where they thought the stolen goods might have ended up and rounded the corner into the same alley she had first heard the commotion from. As soon as they were out of side, she let go of the dazed Reno and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. If she didn't deserve an award for that performance, she reckoned, there were actors who could put on a more realistic show than real life.
"That was cute, kid," Reno said with a smirk, "you play grown up real well."
Eyes wide, Yuffie gazed at a new man. Reno was now standing erect, his movements perfectly lucid, his eyes as alive and critical as ever. He seemed to be struggling with something behind his back, and a moment later Yuffie heard hand cuffs clatter to the ground, and the Turk began to rub his now free wrists with his now free hands. "What the hell?" she asked, at a loss for any other words.
"Oh, you bought that?" he asked condescendingly. "Stoner look, or something close too it. I figured I could take on the cops, but a mob of pissed off merchants would be a little tough. I was gonna let them take me and just bust out from whatever half assed cells you people have here. You saved me the trouble, though. Thanks."
With a simple nod, the Turk turned to walk off, stopped only by a quick hand catching him by the shoulder. He turned with very little surprise towards Yuffie, who was glaring at him, his own EMR pointed at his chest. He'd forgotten about that, and it would have been a shame to walk away without it. Not that this situation was much better. "What makes you think I'm going to let you go?" she growled at him.
"...well," he said logically, "before I realized you had my beat stick there I figured it was just because there was nothing to do to stop me. I suppose appealing to your indecent side wouldn't help much here?"
"I doubt it," she replied, "I really should turn you in. You are, after all, an internationally known terrorist... and on a personal level, I owe you a good ass kicking from the Midgar sewers."
Reno's eyes widened in recognition at the mention of the battle from three years ago, and he squinted at Yuffie with an entirely new look upon his face. "The brat?" he asked in disbelief. "Well fuck. This is a whole new level of surprise."
"My name," she said, "is Yuffie. What's so surprising about getting arrested by me in Wutai, anyway? This is my homeland."
"Well yeah," Reno said slowly, walking a circle around Yuffie to her extreme discomfort, "but you look different now. Back then, you had legs and everything but you had the body of a twelve year old. I mean, I know your Wutain and everything, but from behind you looked like a guy. Now-"
"-now," she interrupted angrily, "I am the acting next in line to be the ruler of Wutai, at which point I would be installed on the top floor of the Pagoda of the Gods. Unless you want to be hurled off the top of that six story building, maybe you should rethink what you were about to say. Turkey."
He blinked. "What did you just call me?"
"Turkey." She replied, matter of factly. "That is what you're called, right?"
"Cute," Reno hissed back at her, apparently in no mood for talk of that sort. "But I'm confused. Are you going to let me the fuck go or not?"
"I don't think so," Yuffie said firmly, shaking her head. "But I don't want to turn you in just yet either. I'm not a big fan on any laws forced on us from Midgar, even if I personally agree that you're a dick. I think I'll find a place to lock you up until I figure out what to do."
Reno sighed, and reached into his jacket. Yuffie raised the EMR in warning, but the Turk didn't pull a weapon, instead drawing out a pair of battered black sunglasses that he unfolded and slid onto his face, hiding his blood shot eyes. "Goody," he muttered idly, briefly wondering how much it would hurt if he tried to rush her and she managed to zap him with his own toy. "Do you know of any good whore houses with the proper chains and bars?"
"Probably," Yuffie muttered, "but that doesn't matter. I have a friend who is pretty paranoid, so his house should definitely have something that can hold you for a while. Follow me."
Reno didn't speak again as they walked through the streets of Wutai, Yuffie ever keeping an eye on her mellow captive. He seemed content just to watch the people passing by, with a half amused look on his face, almost as if he knew some secret about each one of them that was exclusive to him. Not that it was a particularly long trip, but Yuffie still found the silence somewhat unnerving from a man she knew to talk a blue streak even as he was being punched in the face.
She was much further unnerved, however, when they reached Shake's house, and they found the door to be half open. The Shake she knew was a genuinely nice, but incredibly twitchy guy, who could read a conspiracy on a box of cereal. Hoping that basic curiosity would overcome any particular need for freedom, Yuffie left Reno and sprinted inside, hoping desperately that whatever might have happened was still fixable.
Idly, Reno followed her inside, but took his time in doing so. She was already out of sight, winding her way through the house, but he figured he could follow the sound of her footsteps. His plans were faced with a serious problem when, almost as soon as he'd set off, the steps stopped, and it took him quite a while to find her. When he did, she was standing perfectly still, her shoulders slumped, her eyes wide in horror. The Turk glanced over her shoulder and winced, even a hardened killer such as himself surprised.
"Maybe he was right to be paranoid," he observed, reaching forward and plucking his EMR from Yuffie's listless grip, an act which she didn't even seem to notice. "I mean... that is a *lot* of blood."
She paused for a moment, dwelling on it. The only answer she could think of was 'Fuck philosophy. I have some stuff to pawn,' and so she made her way down the back alley with all the wariness of a soldier walking through a tulip garden. Shadows danced, but she wasn't in the mood for waltzing, so she ignored them utterly, concentrating only on the weight of the assorted goods in her back pack. This wasn't exactly happiness, she reasoned, but it made a good substitute.
Screams rose in volume behind her, but she ignored them, forcing herself to keep walking forward. From the sound of it, they had managed to peg someone for her crimes, probably some poor sap who had tried to walk away with a chica fruit or something and was about to get knicked for six or seven hundred dollars worth of theft. Guilt stabbed briefly at the true thief, but she brushed it off like she would a normal knife, with a stony face.
Later, she wondered how things would have gone if she had just gone along with her original plan. Kept walking until she had made it into another marketing district, where they couldn't care less about where you got the goods you were selling- in fact, if they knew they had been stolen by a rival they probably would have tossed in a few discount items just as a thank you for helping lower the competition a bit. She wondered how much money she would have made, how many more trips back and forth she would have had to make before she had earned enough to buy that new chunk of materia the senator's wife had managed to dig up from her backyard when trying to start a garden that she would have, no doubt, instantly turned over to the house keeping. Instead, she had prompted her husband to start a full scale excavation mission that was being funded by an unbelievable price tag on the piece of red crystal.
None of those questions, however, would ever be answered. Not because of any overwhelming conscience attack, and not because of anything special about the day or the market or the thief. It was, she would insist later, all his fault. At the time, however, she didn't even know it was a 'he' that had been caught. All she knew was what she had been told by one word that drifted down the alley from the marketplace.
Turk.
Spoken with score by some, awe by others, dislike by all and fear by a few with really good memories. For a brief time, the word had become a punch line among some of the more daring columnists for the international newspapers, but then reporters started disappearing and the joke had stopped being so funny to the rest. It could sometimes mean fun, but always meant trouble, and a certain level of danger came with uttering it in any context. An accusatory yell, the thief reasoned, brought potential damage somewhere between calling a Turk a 'baby rapist' or a 'nice guy'. Sighing, she turned, and began making her way back to the market a lot faster than she had left it.
He was standing there, crouched down, a wolf surrounded by rabbits who were trying to outnumber him to the point they would be able to rip him apart with their tiny teeth. The dark red hair of the man, a color that couldn't possibly be natural but somehow was, seemed to reflect the mood of the crowd that had formed a semi-circle around him, essentially caging him against the brick wall he had to his back. For his part, he didn't seem unusually flustered, just stared calmly forward and threatened anyone who advanced with physical dismemberment.
The thief started towards the growing mob, but before she could take three steps a pair of police officers emerged from the teeming masses, frowns on their faces and hands on the nightsticks that were strapped into their belts. Reno watched them coming with mild trepidation, but upon seeing the scars that laced the mans skin like spider webs the cops decided that this might be a good time to give diplomacy a try. The first one smiled, weakly, and held up both hands. "Hey there buddy, what's going on here?"
"Buddy?" Reno asked coolly, not even giving the officer the courtesy of looking at him. Instead his eyes were on the furious shop keepers that headed the surrounding mob, as if daring any of them to step up and try to take back what they thought he had stolen from them.
"Uh... well..." the police officer was flustered, which was not a good sign. Flustered men with nightsticks and pepper spray could often lead to an entertaining spectacle, but flustered men with guns was just begging for trouble. Luckily, his partner stepped in, his personality as slick as his close cut hair.
"What is your name," he asked simply.
"Turk," Reno replied, "don't you hear these people talking?"
"Now, now," said slippery one, "let's not joke about anything like that. After all, no one here wants to deal with the hassle of trying to match you up with the dossiers put out on that band of criminals because you felt like being funny."
"Who's joking?" Reno asked, finally looking at the cop. The thief wondered why the officer would even bother trying to convince a Turk to claim he was something he wasn't, that band was well known for wearing their sins like armor. Then it was with a startled jerk that the thief realized that the man was, for the first time she had ever seen, not wearing the standard suit that went with such a job. Instead, he was clad in nothing but black, from sneakers to pants to a dark leather jacket over an ebony wifebeater. Even the glittering piece of jewelry dangling from his left ear had a coal colored stone at the end. The improbability of this situation had the thief briefly wondering if the dead on resemblance this man held to the Turk she knew could have just been coincidence, but there was no way... he even blinked the same way. So slowly that sometimes it was hard to tell if he was even planning on opening them again, or just figured he could fall asleep where he stood.
"All right," the cop said with a sigh, "if that's the way you want to do this." As he spoke, the man reached forward to grab Reno's wrist almost as if his last sentence counted as a declaration of arrest. The first cop began to reach for a pair of hand cuffs, but before he had touched them his partners hand wrapped around the wrist of the red haired Turk. There was a brief pause at the contact of skin to skin, and then Reno spun, driving his pointed elbow into his attempted captors ribs.
The crowd gasped, horrified at the attack on a public servant, and the thief almost drew far too much attention to herself by barking out a laugh right there. These people apparently knew the word Turk, and kept up with the papers just enough so they could recognize one, but the obviously had no idea what the three men and one women- that were known of- were truly capable of. Assaulting an officer ranked just about on the level of a normal person's jay walking.
In the time it took her to process this scornful thought Reno had reached into jacket and ripped loose his EMR, the only weapon the thief had ever seen that was capable of killing a man and popping corn... at the same time, no less. She wanted to call out some warning, not wanting the death of two government employees on her head, but apparently Reno wasn't in the mood to pull any trigger. Instead, he simply smacked the weapon across the jaw of the original cop, who just now was reaching forward from his handcuffs.
The elbowed officer, recovering quickly from the blow to his side, drove forward with the full force in his body and striking Reno in the back of the knees, taking his legs out from under him. In a flash three or four men, seeing the immediate threat taken away, darted from the crowd fell upon the Turk and pinned him down to the ground. By the time the thief had reached the event, he had been securely cuffed, an act which apparently did not satisfy the man he had struck in the jaw with the EMR. The police officer ripped his pistol loose from its holster and pointed it directly between the Turks eyes, drawing only a blank stare from his captive.
"Now Officer Malloy," the thief said quietly, but with a voice that carried. "Do you really think that's necessary? He is cuffed, after all."
For a split second, the gun was pointed at her, the policeman reacting with surprise to the mention of his own name. Then the thief let her hood fall away, revealing her soft and attractive features, and the man lowered his gun as if pointing it at her burnt his hand. His face quickly turned the color of sour milk as he tried to stammer an apology for the moment of threatening. "M-Miss Kisaragi..." he mumbled, "I did not recognize your voice."
"The prisoner," Yuffie reminded him primly, pressing her lips together, "is probably well enough detained without having a handgun pointed at his forehead. With the condition he's in, I'm surprised you even need the bracelets."
That last line came from a closer inspection of the red haired Turk. Though it would have been hard to move with about six hundred pounds of rabble kneeling on your back, Reno wasn't even twitching, he simply tracked the progress of ants crawling across the ground with severely glossed over eyes. Something was wrong to him, something serious. Whatever substance, chemical or otherwise, that had driven him to his spurt of violence had just turned against his body in a bad way. If he wasn't on something, then something was on him, if that made any sense at all.
"What are you arresting him for?" she asked suddenly, looking over at the police officers. They shared surprised looks, and the man who had first been struck spoke up.
"Shoplifting will do for an arresting charge," he said quickly, but more than a little nervously. It wasn't often that one was charged with answering the daughter of the lord of the entire continent, and he wanted to make sure he got it right.
"Someone saw him do this?" Yuffie asked.
"Well, no," the man replied, scratching his head, "but he wouldn't let us search him, and since all of this stuff is missing, we assumed..."
"Don't." Yuffie said bitingly. "Nothing good comes from assuming anything." Inwardly, she had to roll her eyes at the proper tone her own voice was taking, but on the outside her face didn't twitch. "No one here had a warrant for his search. That isn't an assumption, officer, that's a logical conclusion drawn from the fact none is present. Do you have any other charges?"
"Yeah," muttered the second officer, rubbing his jaw, "assaulting an officer. Two counts. And aggravated assault. And hell, let's throw in assault with-"
"Since I have been watching for some time, allow me to explain what went on here," Yuffie said shortly, "a man in apparently disoriented condition resisted being searched by force without a warrant. He was approached by two men who did not flash their badges, and was faced with attempted confinement under no declaration of arrest. It seems to me that not only could he easily get off on a self defense charge, but this incident might very well cost Wutai big in law suits."
"Fine," the officer barked in reply, but incidentally checked his tone as Yuffie raised an eyebrow at his attitude, "uh, we still have him on admission of being a Turk."
"Ah," Yuffie said softly, "but that is an international law, now a Wutain one. You two gentleman, as private police, should probably allow me to take him in to seek justice."
"Uh..." the officers face fell, but he kept his anger checked behind a gritted set of teeth. Sensing the problem, Yuffie smiled compassionately and set a hand on his arm.
"I will make sure you two get the proper credit for his capture," she said.
"Oh... yes ma'am!" the officer saluted her, and was quickly joined by his partner. With a series of harsh gestures they removed all the shop keepers from their position on the Turks spinal chord and forced them back, dragging Reno to his feet and setting him down in front of Yuffie. "Will you need any help escorting him?"
"I should be fine," Yuffie said quickly, as she dragged a stumbling Reno beside her. She left the police officers to explain to the people where they thought the stolen goods might have ended up and rounded the corner into the same alley she had first heard the commotion from. As soon as they were out of side, she let go of the dazed Reno and leaned against the wall, breathing hard. If she didn't deserve an award for that performance, she reckoned, there were actors who could put on a more realistic show than real life.
"That was cute, kid," Reno said with a smirk, "you play grown up real well."
Eyes wide, Yuffie gazed at a new man. Reno was now standing erect, his movements perfectly lucid, his eyes as alive and critical as ever. He seemed to be struggling with something behind his back, and a moment later Yuffie heard hand cuffs clatter to the ground, and the Turk began to rub his now free wrists with his now free hands. "What the hell?" she asked, at a loss for any other words.
"Oh, you bought that?" he asked condescendingly. "Stoner look, or something close too it. I figured I could take on the cops, but a mob of pissed off merchants would be a little tough. I was gonna let them take me and just bust out from whatever half assed cells you people have here. You saved me the trouble, though. Thanks."
With a simple nod, the Turk turned to walk off, stopped only by a quick hand catching him by the shoulder. He turned with very little surprise towards Yuffie, who was glaring at him, his own EMR pointed at his chest. He'd forgotten about that, and it would have been a shame to walk away without it. Not that this situation was much better. "What makes you think I'm going to let you go?" she growled at him.
"...well," he said logically, "before I realized you had my beat stick there I figured it was just because there was nothing to do to stop me. I suppose appealing to your indecent side wouldn't help much here?"
"I doubt it," she replied, "I really should turn you in. You are, after all, an internationally known terrorist... and on a personal level, I owe you a good ass kicking from the Midgar sewers."
Reno's eyes widened in recognition at the mention of the battle from three years ago, and he squinted at Yuffie with an entirely new look upon his face. "The brat?" he asked in disbelief. "Well fuck. This is a whole new level of surprise."
"My name," she said, "is Yuffie. What's so surprising about getting arrested by me in Wutai, anyway? This is my homeland."
"Well yeah," Reno said slowly, walking a circle around Yuffie to her extreme discomfort, "but you look different now. Back then, you had legs and everything but you had the body of a twelve year old. I mean, I know your Wutain and everything, but from behind you looked like a guy. Now-"
"-now," she interrupted angrily, "I am the acting next in line to be the ruler of Wutai, at which point I would be installed on the top floor of the Pagoda of the Gods. Unless you want to be hurled off the top of that six story building, maybe you should rethink what you were about to say. Turkey."
He blinked. "What did you just call me?"
"Turkey." She replied, matter of factly. "That is what you're called, right?"
"Cute," Reno hissed back at her, apparently in no mood for talk of that sort. "But I'm confused. Are you going to let me the fuck go or not?"
"I don't think so," Yuffie said firmly, shaking her head. "But I don't want to turn you in just yet either. I'm not a big fan on any laws forced on us from Midgar, even if I personally agree that you're a dick. I think I'll find a place to lock you up until I figure out what to do."
Reno sighed, and reached into his jacket. Yuffie raised the EMR in warning, but the Turk didn't pull a weapon, instead drawing out a pair of battered black sunglasses that he unfolded and slid onto his face, hiding his blood shot eyes. "Goody," he muttered idly, briefly wondering how much it would hurt if he tried to rush her and she managed to zap him with his own toy. "Do you know of any good whore houses with the proper chains and bars?"
"Probably," Yuffie muttered, "but that doesn't matter. I have a friend who is pretty paranoid, so his house should definitely have something that can hold you for a while. Follow me."
Reno didn't speak again as they walked through the streets of Wutai, Yuffie ever keeping an eye on her mellow captive. He seemed content just to watch the people passing by, with a half amused look on his face, almost as if he knew some secret about each one of them that was exclusive to him. Not that it was a particularly long trip, but Yuffie still found the silence somewhat unnerving from a man she knew to talk a blue streak even as he was being punched in the face.
She was much further unnerved, however, when they reached Shake's house, and they found the door to be half open. The Shake she knew was a genuinely nice, but incredibly twitchy guy, who could read a conspiracy on a box of cereal. Hoping that basic curiosity would overcome any particular need for freedom, Yuffie left Reno and sprinted inside, hoping desperately that whatever might have happened was still fixable.
Idly, Reno followed her inside, but took his time in doing so. She was already out of sight, winding her way through the house, but he figured he could follow the sound of her footsteps. His plans were faced with a serious problem when, almost as soon as he'd set off, the steps stopped, and it took him quite a while to find her. When he did, she was standing perfectly still, her shoulders slumped, her eyes wide in horror. The Turk glanced over her shoulder and winced, even a hardened killer such as himself surprised.
"Maybe he was right to be paranoid," he observed, reaching forward and plucking his EMR from Yuffie's listless grip, an act which she didn't even seem to notice. "I mean... that is a *lot* of blood."
