Chapter 4: Flowers and Angels
Squall hurt like hell.
Pain enshrouded his entire body, from his legs up to his back, all the way to his head. His skull complained heavily, as if it had been beaten repeatedly by something large, metallic, and heavy. It likely had, judging from what he last remembered before his insane leap of faith from the train. He tried moving his body, and to his amazed surprise, he found nothing broken, dislocated, or otherwise missing and out of commission.
"Are you okay?" a voice, beautiful and melodic, called from above him. Squall opened his eyes, and was momentarily confused, thinking he was actually dead. The angel looking down on him, her face hovering just a foot from his, testified to that fact. However, he realized no angel could have such beautifully deep brown eyes, eyes that were beyond even those heavenly entities.
Squall managed a slight nod as his mind was flooded with memories, those of last night and those familiar brown eyes. The flower girl from the plaza.
His stomach muscles complained mightily as he began to sit up, the girl moving up and back as he did so. Squall managed to pull himself into something resembling a sitting position, wincing in pain that redoubled from his exertion, his head swimming as he recovered.
"What happened?" he asked, a hand reaching up to his throbbing head. "Where am I?"
"A church in the Sector Five slums," the girl replied, crouching next to him. "You smashed down through the roof and scared the hell out me!" Squall looked up, seeing a man-sized hole in the rotting planks of the rooftop above. Strange, this building was made out of wood too.
"I'm amazed you're alive," she added, and Squall couldn't help but agree. "The rooftop must have broken your fall, and the flowers cushioned you, but I'm still amazed you lived through that!"
Squall then realized he was, in fact, sitting within a mass of soft plants, yellow and white flowers growing up all around him with remarkable thickness. Weird . . . nothing grew in the slums of Midgar.
"I'm sorry," Squall managed to say, but the raven-haired girl shook her head and smiled.
"Don't worry," she explained. "The flowers are very resilient. I think its because this place is sacred."
"Sacred?" Squall replied, shaking his head. He focused inside himself, calling up magical energies of restoration, and felt his pain ebb away slightly. What was the saying in SeeD? Pain was just weakness leaving the body.
"Yes," the girl replied, then noticing the white energy playing up and down Squall's body as the healing magic worked. "Wait a moment, let me help."
"Help?" Squall asked, as a gentle breeze wafted through the church all around them playing with his hair. The breeze carried a fresh, vibrant scent, almost as if a mortal before had never breathed the air. It was mysterious and revitalizing, and Squall felt his spirits lifted just by the sensations of air passing along his face.
It was a long moment before Squall realized his pain was almost completely gone.
"Better?" she asked, and Squall looked at her in sudden confusion as she stood, offering him a hand. He took it, and rose to his feet. Squall scanned the area automatically, taking in the run-down church, dust sitting heavily on the wooden pews, but lighter along the aisle between them. He stood on a mound of dirt just before the altar, within which grew the flowers, blooming without any apparent difficulty. Maybe this place was sacred . . . .
"This is where you get your flowers?" Squall asked, and the girl cocked her head to the side, before her eyes widened in recognition.
"You were the one who bought my flowers in the plaza last night," she said, the words more of a statement than a question. Squall nodded. "How did you recognize me?"
"Your eyes," Squall replied. "They're beautiful, compassionate eyes. Something I'd never forget."
"Trying to sweep me off my feet?" she asked playfully, and Squall chuckled.
"Don't worry, you'll fall right back down once you get to know me," he assured her. He glanced over her once again, and noticed she wore a bracer on her left arm, just beneath the blue arm warmers. "You have materia?" he asked, and she nodded, glancing down at it. Only a couple of lights glowed on her wrist, both green.
"Yeah," she replied with a nod. "I have another one, but it's . . . unique." She reached up to a small necklace around her neck, and lifted up a silver ring, from which shone a faint, pure white light. "It's good for absolutely nothing."
"You just don't know how to use it," Squall replied easily, but she shook her head.
"No, I know how to use it," she replied. "But it doesn't do anything. But that's okay." she looked back down at the ring and the white spark. "My mother gave it to me. I feel at peace when I'm wearing it . . . ." She set the ring down and looked back up to Squall, her expression suddenly curious, her brown eyes searching his glowing blue.
"You know, we haven't even introduced ourselves," she commented, smiling. She held out a delicate hand. "My name is Rinoa. Rinoa Heartilly."
"Squall Leonhart," Squall answered, taking her hand and shaking it. "I'm not your regular citizen," he added, and Rinoa nodded, having already figured Squall out.
"You're a soldier, aren't you?" she asked, and Squall shrugged.
"More of a jack of all trades, really," he replied. "Fighting is my specialty, though. I do whatever I need to."
"Hmm . . . ." Rinoa murmured, putting a hand to her chin thoughtfully.
"What?" Squall asked, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by the sound of footsteps sounding clearly on the wooden floor of the church, near the door. They both looked up at the direction the noise came from, and both tensed immediately from recognition, though for different reasons.
Stepping into the church came a single man with spiked hair the color of blood, pulled into a ponytail that trailed down his back. A pair of tinted goggles rested easily on the forehead of his slender, angled face. He wore a dark blue suit, the jacket open to reveal a rumpled, partially unbuttoned white shirt beneath it. He had dark blue pants that matched his jacket, and black shoes. His right hand held a short, thick rod, maybe a foot long, that twirled absently in his hand as he strode down the aisle, regarding the two. His step was calm and practiced, the deadly yet wary confidence of a man who had seen a lot of fights, but had rarely been bested.
Squall stepped forward, between the man and Rinoa, hand dropping to his gunblade hilt as he recognized the distinctive uniform, and more importantly, the man himself. The man, too, recognized Squall, but only after a long moment's regard.
"Well, this is surprising," he commented, smiling faintly. "I'd never expected to see you alive, Leonhart."
"Reno," Squall replied to the red-haired man. Reno D'Angelo, one of the foremost members of Shinra's ultrasecret intelligence unit, grinned.
"Dropped by to check out that loud noise, and look what we find," Reno commented, ceasing the twirling of his rod. "Exactly who we were searching for, and someone who came back to life, to boot." Reno's left hand rose to his ear, and he muttered something.
"Squall," Rinoa whispered urgently, and the ex-SeeD looked back to her. "I need your help."
"With what?" he asked.
"I need you to get me out of here," she asked, the urgency rising. Squall shrugged and nodded.
"It'll cost you," he remarked, but he let the tone indicate he wasn't serious about an actual payment.
"Okay," Rinoa replied, then smiled mischievously. "How about a date?"
Squall almost laughed, but then gave the idea another thought. He recalled how, last night, he'd wondered where their meeting might have led without the Shinra soldiers. After all, he would have done this even without a reward. Why not?
"I'll hold you to that," he replied, looking back to Reno, who was finished talking with whoever it was he was speaking with. The man smiled as a pair of similarly uniformed figures rushed through the door. One was huge and burly, the other small and petite. Squall recognized both of them immediately, and frowned. Things were about to get more complicated than he'd thought.
"Reno, we're here, ya know!" the big, burly one, a not-too clever teenager named Raijin, boomed. He was dark-skinned, with short black hair that was braided into small, thick dreadlocks. His suit must have been custom-fitted to his massive frame, as beneath the blue outfit, the man's chest was easily three feet wide, and his body was covered with musculature. A pair of sunglasses rested easily on his head, their stylish look not being truly effective in making the massive man look cool. A huge, heavy bo staff, one that even Squall would have a hard time lifting, rested easily on the man's shoulders.
Beside him stood his sister, Fujin, who was almost the exact opposite of her massive brother. She was tiny, smaller than even Rinoa, and petite, with short, dyed silver hair. An eyepatch covered her right eye, though Squall knew that the patch was merely style, and that the eye beneath was in perfect condition. She, too, wore a dark blue suit, this one slightly too large for her, the hem of the jacket dropping down almost to her thighs. Unlike Reno, however, both Fujin and Raijin had their jackets buttoned up, conforming more closely with their organization's regulations. A large bladed chakram, a metal ring designed for throwing, rested easily in her hand, and three more of the rings were on her left hip. On her right, Squall noted, was a holstered machine pistol.
"FOUND," Fujin growled, abiding by a personal philosophy of limiting her words to only the bare essentials. Reno nodded, twirling his rod once more.
"You want us to rough the pretty boy up?" Raijin asked Reno, the bo staff coming off his shoulder. Fujin glared at him, and sent a swift kick into her brother's shin. He yelped in pain, hopping up on one leg like a dancing bear.
"IDIOT!" Fujin growled. "RECALL?"
"Huh?" Raijin asked, confused, until Fujin pointed at Squall.
"SQUALL!" she growled, and Raijin looked again, recognition hitting him like a sack of bricks.
"Hey, it is Squall!" Raijin exclaimed, putting his smarting leg down. "I thought you were dead! Hey, man, you seen Seifer lately?" Squall shook his head.
"Not since before the last mission," Squall replied with a shrug.
"DEAD?" Fujin asked, nodding toward Squall. Again, Squall shook his head.
"Not yet," he responded firmly.
"If we're finished with the reunion," Reno muttered, "Can we get on with this?" He twirled the rod once again as, behind Fujin and Raijin, there stormed in a squad of blue-clad Shinra soldiers.
"If you want me, come and get me," Squall replied, drawing his gunblade, though the odds weren't good.
"You?" Reno replied, chuckling. "No, Squall, you're confused. We don't give a damn about you, or any bunch of rebels you may have thrown in with." Reno nodded toward Rinoa. "Its her we want. Stand aside and you won't get killed for real this time."
"Not acceptable," Squall replied, the Revolver rising. Reno shrugged and nodded.
"Okay, fine with me," he said as if it didn't matter one way or the other. He tapped a button on his rod, and it extended outward three feet into a long metal baton, electricity crackling on the tip of the device. "Kill him and grab the girl." The Shinra soldiers began to step forward, cocking the actions on their rifles.
"IDIOTS!" Fujin snapped, slapping the nearest soldier, who fell back, confused, to trip over a pew and crash to the floor.
"Yeah, don't use your rifles, ya know!" Raijin added. "We want the girl alive, ya know. Use your tonfas!"
Squall firmed his jaw and readied for combat as the Shinra soldiers hastily complied with their superiors' orders, each man pulling a solid ceramic tonfa off their belts and moving forward toward Squall. The Revolver rose into a ready position, prepared to cut down the first soldier to get too close.
"Not here!" Rinoa protested. She grabbed Squall by the shoulder and pulled him back. "You'll ruin the flowers! There's a way out in back!" Squall had to agree, as he wasn't sure he could take on all the Shinra soldiers, even if they wouldn't use their firearms. Rinoa turned and ran to the back of the church, toward a door hidden in an alcove just beyond the altar. Squall followed, even as the Shinra soldiers charged after them, their blue-clad superiors right behind.
Squall and Rinoa burst through the door into the back of the church, and Squall paused for a moment, blinking in confusion. Most of the back room was in shambles, the floor missing to reveal the basement far below, with only a few parts of the floor remaining, one section stretching ahead of them. A single huge rocket was crashed in the middle of the chamber, its engine poking out through the roof of the structure. Squall spotted a staircase to the rooftop just beyond the rocket, though a wide gap too far to leap separated them.
Squall nodded toward the staircase and ran toward it. Rinoa hesitantly followed, though when they reached the edge of the gap, she paused, unsure what Squall was planning.
"Climb onto my back," he explained as he sheathed his weapon, and Rinoa, trusting that Squall knew what he was doing, complied. She climbed up onto Squall's back, arms wrapping around his neck.
"Hold on tight," he warned her, and then leaped, just as he had in the reactor last night, with Xu on his back. His enhanced muscles propelled him across the gap, in a leap too far for an ordinary man. He landed lightly at the foot of the stairs, and let Rinoa off his back.
"Come on!" he told her, jogging up the stairs. Rinoa quickly followed and Squall took a quick look back at their pursuers. Reno and Raijin had pushed ahead of the rest of the group, reaching the edge of the destroyed floor and leaping as well. They flew across the gap just as easily as Squall, and landed less than a dozen feet behind the fleeing pair.
"Go on!" Squall told her, and Rinoa began to run ahead while Squall spun on their pursuers, drawing his gunblade again. Reno and Raijin paused for a brief second, side by side on the staircase, before Reno nodded.
"Raijin, go get our lady," he ordered, and the big, burly man rushed forward. Squall began to move to intercept, but a blast of energy from the tip of Reno's baton forced him back. Still, Squall could have struck at Raijin as the burly fighter bounded up the stairs past him, but then Reno was there, his baton thrusting at Squall, the sparking tip aimed for the ex-SeeD's chest. The Revolver intercepted, even as Raijin ran past after Rinoa.
"I don't have time to play with you," Squall muttered, responding to the thrust with a brutal cleave that forced Reno back and down a step. Squall backed away, trying to move up the staircase, but Reno paced him with another swing, the agile spy sidestepping to the left around Squall in an effort to get past him.
Squall wouldn't have that, and turned with Reno to the left, his left foot rising to take another step up, not letting the red-haired fighter get by. Reno grinned and hopped up another step as well, pacing Squall, his baton diving in again. Squall parried the sparking weapon, countering with a thrust that Reno hopped up and to the side to evade, the motion taking him up another step. The spy began to angle himself around Squall, trying to take the upper ground as he thrust again, but Squall's response was sudden and aggressive. Even as Reno's baton was parried by another quick motion of the Revolver, Squall rushed forward with another cleave. Reno got his baton up and around to intercept the slash, but was forced back on his heels by the sudden rush, his attempts to get above Squall deterred immediately.
Raijin thundered up the steps after Rinoa, even as she was reaching the top of the staircase. The girl glanced back to see the big, burly fighter bounding up after her, and ran on, moving along the remains of the rooftop in an effort to get to the attic. Raijin pursued her as she jumped a short gap in the remains of the blasted ceiling and ran up a short flight of steps to the attic. He leaped the gap as well and was only a few feet from the steps when Rinoa spun next to a one of several barrels that were stored in the attic. She pushed the heavy object over, rolling it toward the steps. Raijin bounded up the steps in time to see the barrel just before it slammed into the burly brawler, knocking him down the steps, and more importantly, off the damaged upper floor. He managed to shout in surprise as he dropped down amidst the Shinra soldiers below, who quickly scattered out of his way. Raijin smashed face first into the wood, cracking the remains of the floor.
"Ouch," he managed to mutter, while his sister shook her head.
"IDIOT," she growled.
Squall pressed Reno hard, slicing with brutally fast and powerful cuts that kept the red-haired man on his heels. Squall's real goal was not to kill the spy, but merely to force him back.
Squall saw his opportunity as Reno parried and countered another slice, the baton shooting in at Squall's neck. Squall snapped his gunblade up, catching the baton low on the weapon, near the gun aspect. The ex-SeeD's left hand then detached from the gunblade's handle and shot up, grabbing the deflected baton and pushing it out wide. Squall then thrust forward at Reno, his gunblade aimed for the man's chest. Reno backed away quickly, easily managing to evade the thrust, though he immediately understood Squall's intent when he felt his feet touch nothing but air.
Reno fell off the stairs and plunged into the basement, smashing hard into the floor. He let out a painful wheeze and began to stand, even as Squall ran up the stairs to link back up with Rinoa.
"RENO!" Fujin called from up above as the red-haired man stood, shaking his head.
"I'm fine," Reno replied, a green flare coming from beneath his left sleeve. White energy played over his body as the healing materia mended his wounds. He then turned to the rocket and began climbing up its side.
"PURSUE?" Fujin asked, but Reno shook his head.
"Not today," he replied as he scaled the rocket with practiced ease. "We'll let the Ancient go for now. It's not like she can hide forever, even with an ex-SeeD protecting her." Moments later, Reno had reached the ground level with the rest of the group, and waved them on. He glanced back up to the rooftop as his men left, where Squall and Rinoa were nowhere to be seen.
"Heh," he muttered as he followed his group out. "Haven't had a fight like that since . . . ."
"They're after me again," Rinoa commented as they sat on the roof of the church, resting after the escape. Squall was sitting up, while Rinoa lay back, looking up at the plate far above. From their vantage point, they could see hills of junk and trash stretching across this section of Sector Five, only broken by the occasional small slum village.
"This isn't the first time they've been after you?" Squall asked, and Rinoa nodded.
"That man," she said. "You know him?"
"His name is Reno D'Angelo," Squall explained. "One of the top-ranking members of the Turks."
"Turks?" Rinoa asked, and Squall nodded.
"Shinra's ultra-secret intelligence unit," Squall replied. "They handle all of Shinra's dirty business. Kidnapping, assassination, spying . . . but why are they after you?"
"It's complicated," Rinoa explained with a shrug. "They think I'm important, though." Squall said nothing, but began to stand up.
"We should head for your home," he said, and Rinoa nodded. "Where is it?" She pointed across Sector Five, at one of the larger slum villages nestled among the mounds of trash.
"Just over there, not too far away," she answered.
"We can probably make our way over the trash mounds," Squall commented, stepping to the edge of the roof. Rinoa nodded and followed him to the edge, where he leaped off toward the nearest mound, practically right next to the church roof. He landed easily, and waited for her to follow. She also dropped down to the mound and scrambled up it with odd familiarity. She must have been used to scaling these mounds.
Squall led the way, hopping from mound of garbage to mound of garbage, occasionally hopping off the roof of the random house someone had erected out in the junkyard. Rinoa paced him, though she was having a harder time, and after about twenty minutes, he paused to give her a break. Rinoa sat down against a ruined stone pillar, panting.
"Squall," she asked after a moment. He turned to her. "Were you in SeeD?"
"Formerly," Squall said with a nod. "I left after a mission went sour. How did you know?"
"Well, you were familiar with those Turks," she explained. "But I figured you were with SeeD because of your eyes. They glow strangely." Squall nodded.
"Byproduct of constant junctioning with Guardian Force materia," he replied. "Its a mark of SeeD. How did you know?" Rinoa shrugged.
"I picked it up from my father," she explained. "He used to be part of the Shinra military and knew all kinds of things about the army."
"What was his rank?" Squall asked, sitting down with her.
"He was a general before he voluntarily left," Rinoa explained. "He refused to accept Shinra's abuse of its citizens, so he walked out."
"A general?" Squall asked, impressed. He tried recalling who this general may have been, but his memories were hazy.
"General Hibrom Caraway," Rinoa said, and Squall frowned, trying to recall.
"I don't think I've heard of him," he replied, and Rinoa nodded.
"No surprise, he left when I was only five," she explained. "They probably never taught you about him. That's the way Shinra operates."
"Yeah, I know too well about how they handle their business," Squall muttered darkly.
"What do you mean?" she asked, but Squall shook his head.
"I don't want to talk about it," he replied, almost coldly, standing. "Come on, let's go."
Another fifteen minutes later, the pair managed to find their way to the end of the junk piles, just outside Rinoa's slum town. They hopped off the debris piles and made their way into the town, which Squall confirmed with his own eyes as the largest of the slum towns in this sector, even larger than the slum village that AVALANCHE was based out of.
Of course, with the pretense of civilization in the slums, there came the dangers of civilization. Squall counted no fewer than thirty men roaming the dirty streets of the town that were carrying weapons of some sort, and several of these men seemed to be very nasty sorts, judging from their gaits and their eyes. A couple of them sent Rinoa leers that could nicely be described as base and vulgar, but none of them made even the slightest move toward her. They made equal notice of the warrior that walked with her, a warrior who could snap any of them in half, one-handed.
Rinoa threaded between homes made of sheet metal and discarded refuse from above, and passed by several large drainage pipes that had been converted into homes by those unfortunate enough to not have access to the proper building materials. They made their way generally north, passing by a trailer that had been converted into a weapons shop, and then, Squall was almost knocked flat by what he saw.
There was apparently a gap in the plates above, as fresh, clear sunlight streamed down onto the home ahead. However, that was not the most immediately striking feature that Squall saw, for behind the house was a field of yellow flowers, in an amount that almost boggled his mind.
"What?" Squall asked as Rinoa led him toward the house, which could easily be described as one of the nicest homes in the entire slums. It was made of paneled wood and masonry, with a rooftop painted pink, and flowers growing out of every window. It was like he had suddenly been transported to a normal, healthy village instead of the squalor of Midgar's slums.
He looked again to the field of flowers, and the clear sunlight, which was in fact streaming down through a gap between Sector Six and Sector Five's plates. He glanced to Rinoa, and remembered her words from the church. Was this another "sacred" place in Midgar, the city that refused nature?
"Dad!" Rinoa called as she stepped through the door into her home. The inside of the house was as nice as the outside, with tiled floors and a homey look that struck Squall as out of place. This was Midgar's slums . . . nice houses weren't allowed down here.
A man stepped out of the kitchen, a huge smile on his face as he did so. He pulled Rinoa into a hug, happiness showing on his aged, wrinkled features. The man was muscular, moving with a fluid gait that spoke of training as a soldier, and eyes that reflected bitter experience mixed with paternal love. He released his daughter and looked up to Squall, his expression shifting from happy to quizzical.
"Dad, this is Squall," Rinoa introduced. "My bodyguard. Squall, this is my father, Hibrom Caraway."
"Pleased to meet," Caraway said, extending a hand. Squall shook it with a nod.
"Same here," Squall answered, giving Caraway a firm, military shake.
"Were you chased again?" Caraway asked Rinoa, who nodded.
"Don't worry," she assured her father. "Squall took care of them." Caraway nodded, and looked into Squall's eyes, before his expression shifted to understanding.
"SeeD?" Caraway asked, and Squall shook his head.
"Former," he replied. Caraway nodded, and smiled.
"Thank you for protecting my daughter," he said. "Make yourself at home for now. It's the least I can do for someone who saved my little girl like that." Squall nodded, and Caraway turned back to the kitchen.
"I want to thank you too," Rinoa told Squall who shrugged.
"Just doing my job," he replied.
"Do I still owe you that date?" she asked with a smile, and Squall shrugged again.
"I always remember my debts," he replied. Rinoa's smile grew.
"I think I'll remember too," she said. "What do you plan to do now?"
"I'll be headed for Sector Seven," Squall explained. "I need to meet up with some people there."
"Who?"
"My employers," Squall explained. "A rebel group called AVALANCHE."
"The ones who bombed the reactor?" Caraway called from the kitchen, and Squall nodded.
"I dropped in on Rinoa in the middle of a job I was doing for them," Squall explained. "I need to get back to Sector Seven and link up again."
"Seven's a long way from here," Rinoa commented. "Not the easiest road, either, you'll have to pass through Sector Six. Want me to go with you?" Squall shook his head.
"I can handle myself," he explained.
"Well," Caraway called, stepping out of the kitchen. "If you're going to go, why don't you go in the morning? If you leave now you'll be in the middle of Sector Six at nighttime, and you don't want to be there in the middle of the night." Squall nodded, conceding the point.
"All right, I'll stay here for the evening," Squall agreed. "I'll be out of here first thing in the morning, though."
"I'll go ahead and get your room ready," Rinoa said, and left up a flight of stairs at the back of the house, leaving Squall alone with Caraway.
"Squall," Caraway said as soon as Rinoa was away. "Listen, there's something important I need to ask of you."
"What?" Squall asked, curious. Caraway looked back up behind him to where Rinoa had gone.
"I heard Rinoa say she wanted to help you get to Sector Seven, and, well," Caraway paused for a moment, then gave an embarassed laugh. "I'm afraid she's pretty stubborn. If you leave in the morning, she'll probably want to go with you anyway."
"I just told her I could handle myself," Squall replied. Caraway simply shook his head in apology.
"She's going to follow you," he explained. "Nothing will stop her, not even the entire Shinra army. So, could you please leave early, before she wakes up, and get out of Sector Five before morning?"
"No problem," Squall replied with a nod.
It was sometime early in the morning when Squall opened his eyes. He tended to wake early; it was ingrained into him, after spending so many years training and operating for Shinra, every day waking early in the morning for physical training that would make most Shinra regulars blanch at the exertion. Thus, he was up early, even before the sun had risen outside on the plate, and quickly rose. Squall moved stealthily but quickly, getting his gear together and rechecking his gunblade.
Once everything was in order, Squall quietly cracked open the door to his room. Rinoa and her father had given him a small guest bedroom, through the room could be more accurately defined as a walk-in closet with an identity crisis.
He edged out of his room, feet rising and falling silently with each step in the classic heel-to-toe method all SeeDs were taught. He stepped forward across the wooden boards of the house's second floor, smoothly shifting his weight between legs, and not a single board creaked, squeaked, or otherwise betrayed him. Within moments, Squall had reached the stairs and moved down them.
He was out of the house without another sound, long before he heard anyone within stirring.
Squall was outside the slum town shortly afterward, charging across the barren landscape and the hills of refuse piled high around him. Very soon, he saw the gate separating this sector of the slums from Sector Six poking over the top of the mounds of garbage, and increased his pace. Squall weaved among the metal and paper mounds with ease, and soon rounded the final hill and came within sight of the gate.
"Hi, Squall!" Rinoa called, standing in front of the gate. Her words, her voice, and the sight of her standing there, right in front of the huge metal structure, caused Squall to almost trip in surprise.
"How . . . ?" Squall began to ask, but Rinoa just laughed.
"You're up awfully early," she commented, crossing the open stretch between them. Squall got the distinct impression she wasn't just sending him off, especially from the weapon mounted on her left arm. It was a modified crossbow gun, strapped to her forearm, with a magazine of bolts mounted on top for quick loading. Squall knew the power behind the particular model Rinoa wore; the string had a draw weight of over a hundred pounds, enough to drive the bolt through body armor.
"I wasn't going to ask you to go," Squall said with a shake of his head.
"So you were going to leave early to avoid me asking to come with you," Rinoa finished with a nod. Squall frowned, uncomfortable with how effortlessly Rinoa had read him. He had known her for less than a full day and she had already figured him out?
"Well, we can't wait around all day," Rinoa added, turning back to the gate. "Come on, Sector Six is going to be rough; the sooner we get moving the better." Squall wanted to tell her not to, but after a long moment he simply conceded to her demands. Something told the ex-SeeD that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop her now.
The pair moved beyond the huge gate and stepped into the ruined, broken landscape of Sector Six. Sector Six could best be described as one of Midgar's greatest failures. It had been an effort to build up the ground level to make the city more prosperous and to better the lives of the slum denizens, but the project had fallen victim to an odd alliance of problems: budget cuts, covert sabotoge by Shinra officials who didn't want the poor slum denizens to become stronger and richer, and the creeping problem of monstrous infestation. Shinra wouldn't spare the military force to keep the monsters at bay, and without the money, the project could never be completed. Workers left their jobs without the proper pay, and many also left out of fear of monster attacks without Shinra's protection.
Thus, Sector Six had been written off as a failure over a decade ago, and in the intervening time, the landscape had become a broken, twisted stretch of asphalt, abandoned construction equipment, and dark holes where the dregs of society made their homes. It wasn't the nicest place; in fact, Sector Six was considered the most dangerous of the eight slum sectors, and for good reason.
It took a long while for Squall and Rinoa to cross the landscape. Squall often scouted ahead, his glowing eyes scanning the terrain ahead with practiced awareness, searching for threats. Twice he had to move quickly, drawing his gunblade as strange mutant creatures, looking like gray, dog-sized insects with whipping tails and wide, gaping mouths, had attacked, and once he had been forced to go completely around one segment of the landscape.
"What's wrong?" Rinoa had asked as he changed directions.
"Mechanized equipment doesn't normally grow spines or walk around on its own, does it?" Squall had asked, and Rinoa's eyes had widened, but she said no more, understanding how bad the Mako poisoning was out here. While it wasn't so terrible as to transform nonliving machinery into living monsters, it did show a marked tendency to mutate creatures into something that would blend in with their surroundings. People passing through Sector Six avoided the supposedly abandoned equipment for good reason.
It took four hours of negotiating the terrain, Squall and Rinoa climbing up metal beams, crawling through open sewer pipes, and scaling hills of asphalt and metal. Squall had to often double back on his previous route as the path they took dead-ended. The terrain was a confused mess, but eventually the pair managed to move beyond the broken highway into more sane and flat terrain.
Shortly after leaving the highway, they came into sight of the Sector Seven gate. Just before the gate was a small, abandoned playground, another part of the renovation project gone sour. At least this bit had been completed.
"There's the gate," Squall muttered, and Rinoa nodded. He turned back to her. "I guess this is goodbye?" he asked, but Rinoa didn't seem to agree.
"Not likely," she replied with a grin. "I'd be a fool to go back through there by myself. Mind if I stick with you or a bit?"
"You should be heading back," Squall began to say, but Rinoa cut him off.
"I can always take one of the trains," she replied. "I'll use the one in Sector Seven." Squall was about to protest, but he realized he had no logic to back it up. Finally, he conceded with a nod.
"Let's take a break, at least," he said, and Rinoa agreed. They walked into the abandoned playground, and Rinoa opened her mouth in happiness. Squall was about to ask why, but she simply ran ahead, toward a slide that looked like a white dome, complete with a ridiculously cute face on the front. She quickly climbed up the slide and sat down on top of it.
"I can't believe its still here," she said with a laugh. "Come on up here, Squall!"
Squall shrugged and humored her, walking next to the slide. Instead of climbing up, he simply jumped, his muscles propelling him to the top of the slide, where he sat down next to Rinoa.
They sat there for a while looking off into the broken landscape of Sector Six, or to the more populated region north of it, the region of the slums referred to as "Wall Market," where anything and everything was sold.
"What rank were you?" Rinoa asked, jolting Squall. He glanced to her, and shrugged.
"I was . . . " Squall thought about that for a moment. What rank had he been in SeeD? He thought about it, but immediately his mind flashed back to his last mission, and he killed that line of thought before the painful memories could return.
"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered, drawing a quizzical eye from Rinoa.
"What's wrong?" she asked, and Squall shook his head.
"Bad memories," he muttered.
"What was it like in SeeD?" she asked, changing the line of thought.
"It was rough," he replied, thinking back to earlier days. "Training was hard. They taught us everything that could possibly relate to combat. There was a lot of discipline, a lot of pain, but the results showed." Rinoa nodded.
"You're so cool and in control," she replied. "Just like him."
"'Him'?" Squall asked.
"My first boyfriend," she replied with a nostalgic smile. "He was in SeeD too. I remember from last summer. I was sixteen, lots of fond memories."
"You still together?" Squall asked, and Rinoa shook her head, laughing.
"I wouldn't have offered you a date if I was," she replied. "He disappeared a year ago, on a mission."
"Who was he?" Squall asked. "Maybe I knew him."
"Seifer Almasy," Rinoa said, looking up at the plate. Squall almost fell off the top of the slide in surprise.
"Seifer?" he muttered in shock.
"I take it you know him," Rinoa replied, and Squall nodded, his expression a mixture of both respect and anger.
"We trained together," Squall explained. "The two best fighters in our unit, probably the best in all of SeeD. We were also competitors." Squall traced a finger down the scar between his eyes. "I got this just over a year ago while were practicing. It was just before the mission where I left Shinra."
"Were you friends?" she asked, and Squall shrugged.
"We weren't enemies," he replied. "A lot of people would think we were just by looking at us, but to us, it was just a game. We were just two soldiers trying to outdo each other. We never gave an inch of ground to each other, and we fought a lot . . . mostly out of pride. We'd never let the other gain anything without fighting over it."
"Hmm," Rinoa murmured, looking down. Squall sat with her for a long while, both going over their memories of Seifer. Squall recalled the ring of gunblade on gunblade, the tearing pain across his face as Seifer had marked him . . . and the satisfyingly shocked look as Seifer himself had his own face sliced open. Squall supposed it was their final parting mementos, as after the mission, he had never seen Seifer again.
The gate behind them suddenly thundered open, jolting both of them out of their reverie. He looked back behind them to the gate from Sector Seven as it widened, then frowned as someone stepped through. Squall caught a glimpse of golden hair, and then jumped to his feet before leaping off the top of the slide.
"Quistis!" he called, and the blonde woman looked up at him, her mouth widening in shock.
"Squall?" she replied, stepping all the way through the gate.
"What are you doing here?" they both asked at the same time. Both paused for a second, before Quistis spoke.
"I thought you were dead!" Squall shrugged.
"Not yet," he replied. "I was lucky with where I fell. What about you? All of you made it back safely?" Quistis nodded.
"Zell said something about starting a search for your body," she said with a smile. "He said he'd recover it even if he had to scrape it off someone's rooftop. I'm really glad you're safe." Quistis paused, looking past Squall. He looked in that direction to see Rinoa running over. "Who's that?"
"Rinoa," Squall replied. "I met her after my fall. I helped her hide from Shinra, and she helped me get this far. I was on the way back to link up with you."
"Hi!" Rinoa said as she reached them. "I'm guessing you're Quistis?"
"Yes," she replied with a nod. She extended a hand "You're Rinoa. Squall told me that you were dodging Shinra."
"Yeah," Rinoa replied, taking the hand. "Been doing it for a while."
"Quistis, what are you doing out here?" Squall asked. "Sector Six isn't exactly the safest place for you, if its still what I remember."
"I know, Zell warned me about it," Quistis said with another nod. "That's why I'm here. There was this creepy-looking guy hanging around the bar when we got back. Zell had a talk with him and managed to squeeze out that he was some spy working for a crook named Don Corneo."
"Corneo?" Squall and Rinoa both echoed, with the same tone of disgust. They both knew the name, but from different sources. Corneo was a fat slob, a criminal bastard who thrived in the slums making a profit off numerous criminal activities; the most prominent of which was organized prostitution. Shinra used him as eyes in the slums, but made no secret of the fact that his extensive spying network was the only reason he was still alive. Corneo's business was too vile for even a greedy corporation like Shinra to tolerate. Squall had often heard rumors going around that the higher-ups of Shinra were growing tired of dealing with the Don and would off him sooner or later, often over the most trivial of indiscretions.
"I wonder what the Don wants with AVALANCHE?" Squall muttered, and Quistis nodded at the grim possibility.
"That's why I'm here," Quistis explained. "I was going to look into why the Don was looking into us. I'm hoping its just probing for information he can sell to Shinra, but if Shinra's ordered him to dig us up, we may already be in trouble."
"Then let's go squeeze it out of him," Squall said, and Quistis nodded. Behind them, Rinoa winced, looking at Squall's gunblade. She wondered which would be worse for the Don, failing Shinra and bringing their wrath down on his head, or having Squall "extract" information out of him.