There was a shuttle bus between Kalm and Midgar that some independent company had set up a few months back. Not much was really rebuilt, even after two years, but several people in Kalm and Midgar had begun the slow process of making life move forward again. Tifa wanted to take the bus; it was only fifteen gil per person and the seats were pretty comfortable. Vincent disagreed.

"It's not safe."

"HOW is it not safe, Vincent? I took it once before. It was fine!"

Vincent pushed back a hank of thick dark hair and adjusted his shirt. In an attempt to cover his prosthetic hand, he had put on a huge grey sweater that hung almost to his knees and a pair of thick black work gloves. He was also wearing sunglasses, even though it was a cloudy day and they were going to spending it in lower Midgar, where the sun barely penetrated. Tifa thought he might be overreacting a bit.

"I just don't want us to be visible, that's all."

"Yeah, but won't three people traveling alone be more conspicuous than three more passengers on a tourist bus?" Cloud asked, trying to fit his sword into a guitar case. He succeeded in getting all but the last three inches in. "Dammit, Tifa, don't you know anyone who plays the bass?"

"Try wrapping the tip in something and just closing it as much as you can," Tifa suggested, "it's a soft case."

"No," Vincent said in response to Cloud's query, "I think it would be better to stay away from large groups of people."

"Why?"

The dark-haired man remained silent. Cloud pressed on. "Vincent, do you know something we don't?"

Vincent looked askance. "It's just…that address. It's a bad part of town."

"So?" asked Tifa. "All of Midgar's a bad part of town."

"I know, but it's just…well, that used to be a building that a lot of ex-Shinra lived in. It probably doesn't mean anything anymore, but there are some people at the Canyon who just moved there from lower Midgar, and one of them told me that they've seen several rescue workers in the worst areas wearing…well, wearing Shinra Incorporated uniforms."

Cloud looked quickly at Tifa. Shock was written all over her face. "What?" she gasped. 'But…but how? Who can be leading them? Everyone who was in charge of Shinra's dead!"

Vincent shifted uncomfortably. "Everyone who was in charge, Tifa. Not everyone who could be."

"I don't get it," she said, sitting down on the couch with a thump

"We have to go either way," Cloud said. "There's no point in worrying about this right now, Tifa, okay? First we go to the address, then we can investigate the Shinra."

"Don't you get it?" Tifa asked sharply. "It's a trick. It must be! The remaining Shinra must have gotten ahold of Reeve's communications technology and are trying to lure us into a trap!"

The two men weighed this in their minds carefully. Cloud was torn between pushing ahead regardless, and taking off for some more obscure area and lying low until they knew exactly what was going on. Vincent felt the group needed to get the mission over with, but was worried enough to take as many measures as he could.

He was the first to speak. "I think we need to go."

"I want to know what you meant by 'could,' Vin." Tifa demanded.

Vincent tried to evade her suddenly steely eyes, but Tifa was insistent. "Vincent! What the hell are you trying to pull?"

"All right," he said quietly, "but I need you to promise me you won't have a conniption fit when you hear this." Tifa nodded grudgingly and adjusted herself on the couch. Cloud sat next to her. "Rufus Shinra was not the only heir to the Shinra fortune. He had a younger sister, Leslie."

Tifa's face grew grave. "I never knew that."

"She was a bit of a black sheep, from what I remember. I was quite a bit older than she was, but I remember her father talking about her. It seems there was some minor scandal with a member of the Turks who was quite a bit older than she was- my boss, actually. John Renaldo." Vincent shook his head. "I never expected her to resurface, but it seems likely that she has."

"Damn," Cloud muttered under his breath. Aloud, he said, "What makes you think she cares about us? It's been two years since we last had any contact with the Shinra. I mean, we saved the Planet. Shouldn't they leave us alone for that, at least?"

"Who knows about that?" Tifa asked.

It was a simple question, but it stunned all three into silence. They had come so far, done so much- saved an entire world, and yet here they were, anonymous, mere wastes of carbon in a sea of crushing bodies. No one knew what they had accomplished, and although none of them particularly wanted any kind of recognition, it was a sobering thought to realize that while they were responsible for the life of every person on that planet, not one soul knew where its saviour had come from. Even worse was the realization that the one group of people who may have had an inkling, Shinra Inc., didn't care one bit where their lives came from.

"Yeah…I still don't get why they'd be pissed." Cloud said."I mean, it's not like they're watching us through the windows or anything. Why get paranoid now?"

"Well, I'm still against going," Tifa replied stubbornly. "There's clearly some kind of trouble waiting for us. It would be stupid to run into it head-first. I say we wait and try to figure out what's going on!"

"Oh, so waiting for something to come and get us is better than facing it?"

"I didn't say that, dammit, I just meant—"

"And I'm going whether you two are or not," Vincent said with a vehemence that surprised the other two. "Do you understand me? I have better things to do than listen to people bicker." Cloud and Tifa stared at him, open-mouthed. "Got it? Good." the older man finished.

The group remained angrily silent for a moment before Cloud, heaving a massive sigh, picked up the guitar case. "Fine," he grumbled, "but take off those stupid gloves, okay?"

Cid was looking over plans for a new store some local farmers wanted to build in Highwind when the phone rang. "Shera!" he yelled. "Hey, Shera, you by the phone?"

"Yes, Captain," came her reply.

"Call me Cid, goddammit!"

Shera didn't say anything in response. Cid mumbled a little to himself as he surveyed his paperwork. Highwind was shaping up to be one hell of a town, in his opinion. It had blossomed in the two years since the Jenova crisis, and he was rather proud of his work. Of course, his friends accused him of having a massive ego, but Cid preferred to think of it as unflappable self-confidence. It was also quite pleasant, having a town named after him. That hadn't been his doing, either, but he liked the compliment just the same.

"Cap…err, Cid?"

Cid looked up, irritated at being interrupted at his work, but his irritation was suddenly struck very still. Shera was standing in the doorframe between the main room and the hallway, her hands outstretched, fingertips touching either wall. The back door had been left open, and the afternoon sun was streaming in. The golden rays illuminated every swirling mote of dust in the air, and lit Shera from the back, turning her brown hair bronze and lending a delicate rosiness to her fair skin. Cid had never before seen Shera as beautiful, had always thought her mousy and plain, but something about the way her colouring responded to sunlight struck him as suddenly as lightning.

"Cid?"

He shook his head. "Jeez, Shera, I don't know where my mind is. Who's on the phone?"

She came out of the light and stood nervously in the cooler darkness of the main room. "I…I don't know. It was a man's voice, but it was all garbled."

"Prank call?"

"No, it was…he said he had a message for you. Whoever it was, they said, 'tell your friend Highwind to keep his papers in order. We'll be by to pick them up shortly.' Then they hung up." Anxiety was plain in her face. "What should I do?"

"Don't do a damn thing," Cid said roughly. "I'll take all the calls today, all right? Cancel my meeting with the Shopkeeper's Guild; tell them I'll let them know when I can reschedule." He stood up and started violently stacking papers.

"What do you think it means?" Shera asked, uneasily tugging at a strand of hair that had fallen from her ponytail.

"I don't know," Cid said grimly, "but I'm sure as shit not leaving my papers around until I do. Get the rest of the files and hide them."

"Where?"

"Anywhere!" he roared. Shera jumped a bit, but nodded and ran into the storeroom. Cid heard her rapidly opening and closing the drawers of the filing cabinet, then realized something. Arms filled with documents, he ran in. "Wait, don't take them all out."

Shera paused, a messy sheaf of papers sliding from her outstretched hand. Doubling over to pick it up, she said, "What do you mean?"

Cid was thinking madly. "Take out the important shit- the Defence League contracts, the records of how we run this place without Mako reactors. If someone does show up looking for my stuff, they won't find anything significant."

"Okay!" Shera started scrabbling in the drawer. "Got 'em. Should we leave financial records?"

"Yeah, okay. Take out anything related to the stuff I just mentioned, and leave everything else in there- and lock that cabinet!" Cid started looking around for a hiding place.

Shera picked out the rest of the files, slammed the drawers shut, and started fumbling in her pants pocket for the key. Cid ran out into the hallway and looked around frantically. What wouldn't be obvious? The television stand? The kitchen cabinets?

"Captain!" Shera was behind him, panting. "I have an idea! We can put them at my place!"

"Your place?"

She pushed her glasses back onto her nose with one finger of her free hand. "Yes; I still have that apartment in Rocket Heights. I've been storing my winter clothes there."

"Shera!" Cid grabbed her and enveloped the startled woman in a massive bear hug. "You're goddamn brilliant, you know that? Great! Go now!" He released the blushing Shera and thrust the documents into her arms. "Stay there, okay? If somethin' bad's going down, I don't want you to be in danger."

Shera blinked twice, nodded, and ran out. Cid slammed and locked the door after her, then rushed to the back and did the same. "Sons of bitches!"

He picked up the phone and dialled Tifa's place in Kalm, but there was no answer. He let it ring eight times before slamming the receiver down, then picking it up again and dialling Barret in Corel.

Barret picked up after three rings. Cid started talking before he could even say hello. "Barret, it's Cid. We need to talk in person?"

"The hell you talkin' about?" Barret's voice crackled over the phone. "What's going on? You okay?"

"I think so, but I need to see you. We can't talk over the phone. I'm going to fly over to Corel, all right?"

"Yeah, okay…when can you be here?" Barret sounded wary.

"Be there by nightfall, all right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Bye."

It was late afternoon by the time Cloud, Vincent, and Tifa arrived, sweaty and tired, at the gates of Midgar. The sun had peaked and the day had become extremely warm in spite of the morning's sullen coolness. Vincent had by then shed his massive sweater and one glove, and was carrying them in his prosthetic hand. Tifa had donned a hat and a bulky, long-sleeved shirt herself, but she rolled up her sleeves halfway from Kalm and the hat was long discarded. Cloud was feeling fine, mainly because he refused to overdress just to disguise himself. "It's just going to be more conspicuous if we look like we're hiding something," he had argued. Tifa and Vincent had just rolled their eyes in response, but still felt his idea was the best one.

Now Tifa bent over, stretching her back. "Uggh," she moaned. "My spine feels like it's been permanently twisted." She dropped the bag of items she'd been carrying and dropped her head forward, raising both arms to the level of her shoulders and, clasping her hands together, pulling them forward. "How many Turbo Ethers do we really need?"

Cloud laughed, looking at Vincent to see if the older man was amused. However, Vincent wasn't laughing. He was staring at Tifa with an expression Cloud had never seen before- that is to say, an expression. Period. "Hey, Vincent."

"Hnng?" Vincent seemed far away.

"Vincent!"

"What!" the taller man said sharply, too sharply, whipping his head around to face Cloud. Taken aback at his vehemence, Cloud took a step back. "Err…nothing. Nothing. How…you doing?"

Tifa turned around to give Cloud a perplexed look. Vincent cocked an eyebrow. Embarrassed, Cloud coughed into his hand. "Well…let's mosey."

Vincent turned away, staring to put his sweater back on. Tifa shook her head as she faced Midgar and began walking again. "You guys are weird."

After Tifa had moved a few feet ahead of the two men, Cloud playfully grabbed Vincent's shoulder. "Hey, Vincent."

"What," Vincent said flatly, looking straight ahead as he walked.

"Vincent, I hate to ask, but were you just…"

"No," Vincent hissed. Taken aback, Cloud moved his hand from his shoulder.

"Hey, it's okay, I just—"

"Cloud, I am finished with this subject." With that, Vincent sped up until he was walking a few steps behind Tifa, his shoulders hunched unhappily around his ears. Cloud stood still for a minute, surprise washing over him.

Vincent had a thing for Tifa. Why hadn't he seen it before? Cloud looked back over the time Vincent had spent with the group. Now that he really thought about it, Vincent had always treated Tifa differently. He was less cold, much less likely to dismiss her and actually listen than he was to anyone else. She was pretty much the only member of AVALANCHE he kept in close contact with, and ever since Cloud and Tifa had started living together Vincent had treated him differently. Before, Cloud would have counted the older man as a good friend. Things seemed to have changed since them. He still thought of Vincent as an ally, but Cloud suddenly realized how far the rift was between them…and why.

As the trio reached the gate, Tifa reached into the sack and pulled the Key to Midgar out of the secret compartment the group kept their more important items in. "Think we'll need this?" she asked sceptically, turning it over in her hands.

"Doubt it," Cloud said, raising one foot. He aimed a solid kick right at the high iron gate.

Suddenly, Cloud's whole body was whipped into the air. The guitar case holding his sword went flying, and before Tifa or Vincent could react, he hit the dust and was run up against the gate. "Shit!" he yelled, scrabbling on the ground.

"Cloud!" Tifa cried, running over to him. She grasped both his hands and started pulling with all her might.

"It's got me!"

"What has?"

"I don't know! Some kind of—awp!" Cloud's body was lifted again, shaking Tifa off and sending her tumbling across the ground. She raised her head to see the blonde man held aloft by some kind of thick, dark cable. Just as Tifa had gotten to her feet and begun running towards it again, there was a bang, a screech, and Cloud was unceremoniously dropped into the dirt. The cable snaked back behind the gate as quickly as it had appeared. Tifa turned to see Vincent, his gun aimed at where the thing had been, a small wisp of smoke rising from it.

"Good job," she said breathlessly.

Cloud had picked himself up and run back over to where the other two stood. "Thanks, Vincent," he said, a note of panic in his voice.

Vincent holstered his gun. "What in hell was that?"

Cloud shook his head. "I didn't exactly get a chance to look."

"It was some kind of snake or tentacle or something," Tifa said. "It has to have been. Where did it come from?"

"Behind the wall, certainly." Vincent said. "Other than that, I couldn't tell."

All three stared back at the gates, but they were as silent as ever. "Weird…" Tifa said in a low voice. "What do we do now?"

"Well, I'm sure as hell not trying to go in that way again," Cloud responded, rubbing a bruised arm.

"Let me see if I brought a rope," Tifa said, rifling through the bag. "We could try scaling the wall that way."

It turned out that Tifa had indeed brought some rope, but after fifteen minutes of futilely trying to catch the loop over one of the support poles a ways from the gate, it wasn't quite long enough to reach the ground.

"Okay, so now what?" Cloud asked.

Tifa thought for a minute. "Vincent, can you turn into Chaos? You could fly up and grab the end of the rope, and we could sit on your shoulders."

Vincent sighed. "Yes, that would work. Give me a minute, please." He walked a little ways away from the other two and sat down on the ground, staring out towards the sea.

Tifa put her hand on Cloud's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Cloud nodded and put his hand over hers. "I'm all right. Mostly, that just scared the hell out of me." He looked down at her. "Tifa, have you ever talked to Vincent about Lucrecia?"

Tifa looked surprised. "No, of course not. I thought it would make him too sad." She looked over at Vincent, who was hunched over with his hands over his ears. "I remember when we found her in that cave, he had this look on his face like everything might turn out all right. Then when we went back to get her later, when she was gone…" Tifa lowered her head. "I thought he was going to have a heart attack. That was the first time we saw him transform into Chaos, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"I thought to myself," Tifa continued, "after that happened, I mean, I thought about it, and I decided that maybe she was the catalyst for that. His morphing into Chaos, I mean. So, I just never thought it was a good idea to bring her up."

A snarl from where Vincent had been sitting made both of them snap their heads up. The Chaos beast was coming towards them. "Okay," Cloud said, "we'd better do this quickly."

Just before Chaos reached them, it made a sharp turn and stood still for just a minute. Knowing the level of mental control Vincent must be exercising in order to remain master of his movements, Cloud and Tifa grabbed ahold of the monster's arms the minute they could. At their touch, Chaos took off immediately, running in bounds towards the rope, almost too fast for the others to keep holding on. They weren't far from the wall, so it wasn't long before Chaos leapt up and grasped the rope, scrambling up the wall and flapping its wings. Cloud got a good faceful before they had reached the top of the wall. The beast stopped for a minute, looked around, then jumped down into the murk of the Midgar streets.

"It was a stupid idea to take this bus," Elena grumbled, pushing her sunglasses up to her forehead.

Reno pushed them back down harshly, so that the young woman squeaked in pain. "It's a stupider idea to show your face," he said in the quietest voice he could muster.

Reno and Elena, wearing the garb of peasant farmers, had caught the Midgar-Kalm shuttle bus from Sector 3. It hadn't been Reno's idea- he would have much preferred to walk over being crowded together with a hundred smelly strangers on a crowded bus- but President Shinra had insisted, on the off chance one of their targets was travelling with them. Rude had been permitted to take a motorbike and explore the general area, in order to track down anyone who might be going back and forth on foot. There were to meet in Kalm the following evening.

Although Reno didn't like much about Leslie Shinra- besides her figure, that is- he had to admit he respected her. The woman had appeared out of nowhere, fresh from her family's private beach house at Costa Del Sol, and had assembled the fragmented corporation within a matter of weeks. Before she came into Midgar, Reno, Elena, and Rude had been living in the old train tunnels and eating canned food. A few former Shinra employees had found their way down there as well, and the group assumed the form of an autonomous collective for a month or so. The Turks were nominally in charge, but Reno privately believed that the little community would have disbanded if Leslie Shinra had not come looking for them.

Reno was slouched against a concrete post in the tunnels, half-dozing. The people scraping by in the tunnels took turns keeping a lookout for monsters and looters, and it was his turn to stand guard, although he wasn't paying much attention. He had just begun the slow slide into a wary sleep when he heard someone clear their throat directly in front on him.

His head lowered, Reno opened his eyes and saw a pair of tanned woman's feet, the toes an immaculate field of shiny red, shod in expensive-looking gold stilettos. Reno's gaze traveled up, taking in a pair of long, tawny legs, a nicely-shaped lower half clad in a pricey green suit, breasts like cabbages crammed into a matching jacket, and, finally, a haughty, yet familiar face topped with strawberry-blonde hair. The first words out of Reno's mouth were, "how much do you charge?"

The mysterious woman's eyes were hidden in the dimness of the tunnels. "I doubt very much that you could afford me," she said in a scratchy voice, "but I happen to know your annual salary is three hundred thousand gil, Mr. Reno."

Reno's sleepy eyes snapped open. He took a second look at the beauty in front of him. Yes, that shade of blonde in her hair, the pale blue of her eyes…"Leslie Shinra?"

"Madame President to you, please." She took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her gold chain-mesh purse and lit one. Reno's nose twitched and he inhaled reflexively as the smell of tobacco smoke reached his nostrils. "Oh, would you like one?"

Reno's mouth was watering. "Yes, ma'am, please," he said, hoping she couldn't hear the desperation in his voice. It had been two weeks since his last cigarette, and he had been craving them ever since.

Leslie Shinra handed him the pack and the lighter without a word. Reno's hands were almost shaking as he flicked the lighter and inhaled a lungful of nicotine for the first time in a long time. When the sweet haze of relief had abided some, he asked, "how did you find us?"

She shrugged. "I still have connections, Reno. The one thing my worthless brother did properly was put all our information in order and send it to me, in case of emergency. I knew there were still Turks in Midgar when that White Materia incident happened, and I knew all the escape routes from the Shinra Building led down here. It was a matter of time and money, and I had enough of the latter to make the former not matter." Leslie held out her hand, and Reno dropped the cigarettes and lighter into it with a feeling of regret. "So. Is your little adventure in the underworld over with? Are you ready to get back to work?"

"Yes, ma'am," Reno said, his voice betraying a little more relief than he had wanted.

"Excellent."

...and they had come out of the tunnels, first in secret, then flagrantly. Two weeks after everyone had grudgingly come to the surface, she had convinced some of the more attractive former secretaries to go to the local areas and ask around, seeing who was willing to join a rebuilding corps. The girls didn't mention Shinra Inc., and the workers didn't' say anything about where they came from, once they found out who they were working for. After a couple months, when the Shinra Relief and Rebuilding Force had become familiar and trusted faces, then they started wearing uniforms with the Shinra logo on them. Some people began objecting, but most residents were grateful enough for the food and shelter the new Shinra Inc. provided that the Turks very rarely had any problems.

However, that sure as hell didn't mean that Reno enjoyed being stuck on a two-hour bus ride next to Elena.

"How are we gonna sniff them out?" Elena asked, brushing her bangs back from her forehead.

Reno shrugged. "Not the way we used to be able to, that's for sure. We're gonna have to be nice to people. Ask around the local shops and taverns, maybe try to get ahold of some of the real estate establishments in town. If they're in an apartment, we'll find out which buildings those are. If there's a house, we'll try to get the location." He slouched in his seat and pulled the tacky straw farmer hat over his eyes. "I'm going to sleep now."

Elena sighed and looked out the window.