Disclaimers: FFVII and DNAngel are legal properties to the owners and companies, so I'm filching off them.
000
Chapter Five:
Wending his way around the mess that seemed to clutter up the pathway, Daisuke could almost feel the depressed state this part of the land was in. Shinra had completely crushed whatever spirit that they had left, and there was no future for them. They were going to die here, and they knew it. It was so sad. The redhead sighed to himself, disturbing Dark slightly, who grumbled in reply.
(Sorry, did I wake you?)
((Ngh… zzzz…))
Taking that as a 'no', Daisuke continued on his slow trek back to the hideout. He hadn't been in there for a while now, as Jessie had talked to him outside of the place, but the noise had been quite alarming in terms of racket. That, at least, was a good way to distract people from thinking that a rebel group would reside in there. Then there was the fighting and the yelling and being told to shut up by the other residents… oh yes, it was quite fun and amusing in the end.
Gravel and dirt crunched under his boots as he walked moodily on; in a way he didn't want to go back. Maybe it was just the reality of how bad Shinra had become, or he just wanted some time to himself, he didn't know. But his attention was broken by a giant pillar that was soon lost from sight by the mist above. He approached the tall iron gates that had warning signs stuck on it. It looked rather run-down, but strong enough to keep rowdy children out of it, but at the same time it was incredibly forbidding and seemed to beckon people to climb up it for reasons unknown.
By the fence was a single child, who looked rather unkempt yet his clothes were quite clean. He brushed some dirt off his shorts and stared up at the redhead, who merely stared back. Running a hand through his hair, the child suddenly gave the ex-SOLDIER a grin, which surprised Daisuke for many reasons.
"Have you ever wondered what was up there?"
"Eh?" Daisuke blinked.
The boy gestured to the large pillar, "Up there is the actual city, isn't it? It's funny because up there it's all great with the lights and all, and it's not all polluted like it is here. Isn't that really funny, mister?"
"I guess…" the redhead looked up. It seemed to reach far beyond the sky, but it was hard to tell.
"But the even funnier part is the fact that is the pillar collapses, then everyone in this part of the slums gets crushed," he said this with a nonchalant air and waved a hand around, "I wonder why they do that to us…"
"How is being killed so funny?" frowned Daisuke.
"It's not, that's the irony in the end," he shrugged, "I mean, they don't even know we exist down here, and while they're living their lives away, here we are trying hard to get somewhere but we'll never make it."
"You're… not all that optimistic, are you?"
"I'm just practical or given up, I guess. No one else seems to care."
The kid obvious had some sort of problem, that was obvious, "I see… well, I should get going now."
"Yeah, see ya…"
Walking away quickly, Daisuke knew for a fact that he was being watched by that child and suppressed a shudder. He didn't know why this was so – it was just a kid and all – but something about what he had said about the pillar had been gruesomely true. If the pillar was damaged in any serious way, the people living in the slums would be crushed below; and that was a lot worse than just having to live in tragically horrible conditions for as long as they did live for, which obviously wasn't all that long, and so forth.
This was just another reason as to why Shinra should have been dealt with years ago. This is what the innocent people got, and they couldn't do a thing about it. They weren't strong enough and they had no one to turn to; they had given up, lost hope. That was how it was.
And this was the exact reason as to why AVALANCHE had been formed, or that was what he assumed anyway. Argentine had finally blown a fuse or something, gathered people of a like mind and the group was formed and now their main objective was to hit Shinra where it hurt the most. At this point it was the reactors that pumped all the energy into the large city, but if they were destroyed, it meant they were wide open for a crisis that they could never deal with. The other aim was to somehow get into Shinra HQ; but they had yet to work out how they were going to do that.
Shinra had hurt people; destroyed their lives and hurt the people around the, close or not. It was a sentimental sort of thing that the rebel group AVALANCHE had, but all for the right reasons. Not that that didn't mean people wouldn't get hurt, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made.
Heading down a pathway that was lined with rubble and broken machinery melded together, it wasn't hard to find where the rest of the team now was; or was that because of the familiar gun shots being set off by Argentine as he cleared the place up? Going into a quick jog, he entered the slums and was met with the most depressing sight ever.
'Slums' was definitely the kind term for the place. The air was a rank stench and the housing was beyond poor, with everything haphazardly thrown all together for the sake of trying to stay alive. It was most surprising to see that there was some form of lighting present, but the hanging air that life would have been better dead was so clearly stamped in this place. A couple of men staggered about, some looking more sober than others, while the redhead noted a man currently hitting a steel door and begging for entrance.
It was really too much of a harsh reality that he never wanted to face. But it had always been like that, hadn't it? No matter how hard one person tried, it was near impossible to try and help them all. For wasn't one person's good fortune another's misery? It was all part of the balance of life; and the negative half was taking over it all.
Walking past it all and trying hard not to get too nauseated by the thought, he soon caught sight of an irate Argentine, who had both arms crossed and glaring at nothing in particular in front of him. Some of the staggering people kept shooting glares at him, but he paid them no heed. The sounds within the rickety-like building – with a giant sign reading 7th Heaven – was a restaurant and bar mixed together and Daisuke concluded that the brunette had cleared out the place pretty fast to allow the rest of the team entrance. Stifling a smile at that thought – it was rather comical, he had to admit – he approached him.
"You took your time," snapped the brunette, giving the teen a glare.
"We weren't supposed to be suspicious," the redhead shrugged, before being given another glare and allowed to pass into the restaurant/bar without another comment passing between them.
The double doors swung as he pushed past them and a strangely comforting warmth hit him as he entered. There was something more homely about this place, so unlike the slums outside. True, the technology wasn't all that great and it was quite dreary looking, but the mark of people coming and going and just seeing the rest of the team now arguing and eating reminded him of something far back.
Home? Yeah, how long had it been since he had been there?
His ears picked up the sound of someone small running, over the din and the yelling – in which Jessie was telling Biggs off – and he scanned the room and noticed a small blonde girl with wavy hair running towards him. Or at least towards the entrance of the place.
"Daddy!"
"Eh?" Having never seen her before, Daisuke could only look down with a confused expression. The child gasped when she noticed that she did NOT know the person and bolted off into a darker corner like she'd just been burnt. This, of course, baffled the teen more so and he blinked; just then a voice he recognized immediately floated through the room. Not only that, but Dark seemed to stir as well, making a random comment in the process.
((So when are we jumping off that building again?))
(… You know, you could stop making such random comments,) Daisuke shot back as he watched a very pretty brunette run from behind to the counter and towards the girl. "…"
"Misaki-chan, you shouldn't be so rude to guests!" she chided playfully, calming the distraught child down. It wasn't long before the blonde five-year-old was clutching the brunette around the neck in a piggyback as the older girl walked over to meet the redhead. "Daisuke, it's been a while, hasn't it?" she smiled.
"Risa…" smiling back, he could almost see Dark's knowing smirk within his mind. If it had been awkward after the rejection, he wasn't feeling that now and he knew that things between them as friends would never change. Since she was carrying the child on her back, he dug around in his pocket and pulled out the flower that Dark had bought. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"I suppose so," Risa bounced a bit on the spot, Misaki laughing a little, but obviously still conscious of the stranger before her. "Daisuke, I'm so glad to see you so well. After all those years training with…" she trailed off at this, lost in thought and he scratched the back of his head with his free hand, feeling the tension building up.
"Yeah, so how've you been and all?" he held up the flower for a moment, inspecting it, and then held it out to Risa. "I picked this up for you, though." He ignored Dark's snort of indignity as the brunette took it from him.
"Oh, thank you so much Daisuke; how thoughtful of you," she beamed, "It's so hard to find anything with remote colour here these days."
"It was nothing," he said lightly, ignoring Dark's rather loud comments on the matter of the fact that HE was the one who bought it, not Daisuke himself; all the usual quarrels they had. "It's just great to see you again."
"And--" began Risa, but was cut short as Argentine suddenly barged in and Misaki gave a shriek.
"Daddy!" jumping off the brunette's back, she charged to the team leader and he swept her up, smiling. "I missed you."
"…"
((Whoa, that jerk has a kid? Has the world gone completely insane?)) asked Dark, surprise lacing his voice.
(Maybe to you, but what are you going to do about it?) Daisuke replied as he watched father and daughter laughing and talking to one another like there wasn't a care in the world.
"Pass it over here," Wedge called from the table.
"Come on, you have to stop eating so much," muttered Jessie, rolling her eyes as she passed whatever item he'd wanted.
"Everyone into HQ," Argentine suddenly barked out, returning to his evil-leader-like-whatever routine. Everyone jumped to obey as he stormed towards a lone pinball machine by the wall, Misaki sitting on his shoulder. Pulling a lever, the entire contraption shuddered and began to sink downwards where the basement was likely to be located. When he was out of sight, Jessie, Biggs and Wedge jumped down after him.
The pinball machine slowly rumbled back into place before becoming still once more. Risa gave her childhood friend another smile before returning behind the counter that she began to wipe down.
In a way, the redhead wanted to stay behind and talk to her some more, mostly about what they had missed and done during the years, but the idea of being told off by Argentine again for being late wasn't exactly what he was looking forward too.
He approached the pinball machine and did exactly what Argentine had done; it shuddered slightly as it slid down a large sort of bar and he turned away from the wall to see where he was being led to. The bar soon disappeared from sight and he was faced with a large metal-like room with sacking for chairs and most likely accommodation. There was a computer in one of the corners and a large television screen dominated one of the walls. The low-leveled table sat near the center of the room, and the rest of the place had boxes and crates around.
Jessie was currently focused on typing someone out on the computer while Biggs and Wedge stared blankly at nothing in particular as they sat on the sacking. Argentine was currently beating the hell out of a poor red punch bag while his daughter sat on the crate; watching curiously.
As the pinball/elevator ground to a halt, Daisuke stepped off and noticed that the screen was on a recent report on a 'terrorist attack'. The reporter was a glasses-wearing-looking-more-like-a-nerd and just rambled on about how President Shinra had reassured everyone that everything was under control. Argentine, despite beating the punch bag into a pulp, snorted at this declaration.
"Think they're so good… poisoning the earth… we'll get them…" he grumbled.
"I think we made the all clear this time, and none the wiser," Jessie said as Daisuke passed her, "Although we can't use the same IDs twice, I should have them ready by tonight for the next mission."
The redhead nodded vaguely at this, not paying all that much attention to what was being said as part of his mind was telling him to leave already, or to just go and join Biggs and Wedge in their marvelous staring at the wall… whatever it was. But before he could come to a simple conclusion, Argentine suddenly focused his attention on him.
"You see that?" he asked, turning and smirking slightly, "Shinra can't cope with these types of things, no matter what they say. Even those losers they hire in first class couldn't take it. They didn't even know what was going on until it was too late." The smug look on his face was beginning to get annoying, like he was teaching a disagreeable five-year-old his times tables.
"And what's that got to do with me?" Daisuke asked, crossing his arms and returning the look coolly.
((Is he saying that we're stupid or something?)) growled Dark dangerously, ((Because if he is, I'm going to have to teach him a lesson he'll never forget.))
(Dark…)
"What do you think?" barked the brunette, smirk gone as he walked up to the much smaller redhead, "You joined the bloody company that are polluting the place and that's all you can say? You didn't know, they never do. And this is all you're going to tell me!" he seemed to be getting himself into the sort of mood that one would not want to be around to witness and Daisuke took a step back, frowning slightly.
"It's not about what I know and don't know," he said back, "Shinra don't tell us a lot of things, first class or not. You have to dig a lot to find out, and that alone is a task you don't want to have to do."
"Are you trying to get out of the fact that you were once like them?" Argentine took a step forward and the other little voice in the redhead's mind (that was neither Dark or the one at the reactor) told him to run far, far away unless he wanted to get caught into a brawl. But the stinging insult of being compared to the other mindless SOLDIER zombies made him stand his ground.
"I'm not like them."
"Yeah?"
Biggs, sensing the danger, jumped up and attempted to restrain the brunette, but was thrown back forcefully into the wall. Groaning, he cast a glance over at where the pinball machine was located, as if praying for a miracle before HQ became a blood battleground.
His prayers were answered quite rapidly as Risa made the scene by jumping down the platformed area and getting in between both Argentine and Daisuke; both looking ready to brawl.
"Stop it right now! You know that you're not supposed to hurt people during a meeting!" she snapped, "And he helped us get rid of the reactor! How could you be so rude?"
"I think you know the reason to that--" grumbled Argentine, but the brunette cut past him.
"I've known him for years and this is how you treat him? Why do you think no one wants to get involved with AVALANCHE anymore? What kind of leader are you anyway!"
(We're going, Dark.)
((Really?)) the thief perked up at this; it was clear that he wanted away from Argentine as soon as possible as well.
(Yeah,) ignoring the yelling that was getting louder by the minute, Daisuke went over to the pinball machine and switched it so that it began to rumble upwards. It wasn't like he had wanted to return in the first place, anyway.
There were just too many memories.
000
… Might not have another chapter for a while now. Although, with holidays and all… enjoy.