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Beyond the Reflection

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII.

Summary: When Reno takes on the investigation of a case in Wutai, he gets more than he bargained for. Mainly: one obnoxious, spoiled, sarcastic, and infuriating brat. (Among other things of course.)

Trust and Loyalty

By:ClassicLit

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&Dining Hall

It was truly something to try and get information out of Reno. Everything was classified. Fortunately he had enough decency not to count the questions that he answered classified to as part of the originally agreed to three questions. Yuffie growled in annoyance and glared at the amused Turk sitting across the table from her obviously enjoying himself.

Unknown to Yuffie however he wasn't enjoying himself as much as he looked to be. He really didn't want to remember the body that was dropped off at ShinRa headquarters. It was truly mutilated beyond recognition. Actually the identification of the man was established by his fingerprints. Some scientist was smart enough to remember that ShinRa holds the records with information for everyone in SOLDIER as well as all the other employees, including their fingerprints. Of course it became quite clear who exactly was killed when he didn't show up for training the following morning. Reno sighed to himself and looked across the table at the glaring teenager. She hasn't said a word in the past three minutes and that mean that she was without a doubt very pissed.

"Fine." He said with a snort. "I will answer a classified, just one however so make it good." Yuffie lifted her head a bit but growled nonetheless.

"We agreed to three questions." She said glaring daggers. Reno simply smirked and looked away from her to the side.

"Take it or leave it." He said with the smirk spreading into a grin. Yuffie huffed but incline her head in thought. By this movement the Turk understood that she accepted the proposal. She lifted her head a moment later and smiled lightly.

"Alright then." She said taking the newspaper article about the man in the slums out of her pocket and handing it to Reno. Reno took and read over the content. After he was done his eyes widened a bit, he was certainly not expecting this considering everything Yuffie asked up to that point was on a different track entirely. "Tell me everything you know about this guy including who did this to him, who he is, and why anyone would want him dead or was it simply sadism." Reno shook his head but decided not to mention the fact that this wasn't in a form of a question and if it was there were three different one incorporated in that one run on sentence. Well, since the brat was certainly not going to leave him alone and this has something to do with HER country, he guessed he owed her at least one explanation. Plus if he was stuck two heads are better than one.

"Probably a couple of days before that article…I had too much of a hangover to remember the date or time…we got called to the president's office." Yuffie rolled her eyes when Reno gave her an apologetic grin. Trust the damn Turk to get drunk the day before he has to go talk to the president. "The beginning of the meeting is a bit fuzzy to me. I definitely remember that part of it was a lecture because of my state of dress and the inattention." Yuffie rolled her eyes again. She got used to the Turk's sloppy appearance sans tie, but now that she thought about it there was no way that the company allowed for such bullshit. A picture of Rude floated into her mind and she mentally compared the two. Needless to say she understood quite well why Reno deserved a lecture from his employer…not to mention the fact that he was probably in a drunken stupor at the time.

"Alright already." She said a bit aggravated and waved him on. Reno gave her a death glare that quite clearly said 'if you talk too much I'll stop telling' and smirked when Yuffie shrunk back in her seat.

"As I was saying before the misfortunate interruption…" Reno said giving Yuffie a sidelong glance.

&&&&&&&&&&Flaskback&&&&&&&&&

President sat in his chair staring at the clock that hung over the door that marked the entrance to his office cold as ever. The Turks sat in front of him in a semi circle waiting patiently for the president to start the briefing. Finally the man gave a soft sigh and started up.

"I need you to take care of something for me." Reno, in his inebriated state, still had enough energy to snort. The president ignored it and continued. "There is a resistance group forming in the slums and I need it gone." He looked at Tseng and Rude being the two sensible ones unlike Reno who flat out didn't care. "The organization is named FIST and it is a fast growing resistance. They have managed to raid one of the trains with good traveling to ShinRa headquarters." He froze as if in though and then with a sneer "I don't' want this to happen again." He said slowly and gave the Turks a once over. Even Reno had the brains to stay silent. No on ever wanted to see president ShinRa pissed. "As far as I understand," he continued "it's far too small to continue without a leader and that is exactly who I need you to take care of."

He pushed the files on the left corner of his desk towards the Turks and gave a wave of his hand signaling them to take the files. Tseng and Rude nodded while Reno simply shook his head looking at the file that resided by this time in his hand.

"Dismissed." The president said while picking up a paper off his desk and turning his attention to it while the Turks filed out of the office.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&End Flashback&&&&&&&&&&&&&

"Needless to say" Reno continued "this had to be done before that night so that the train that was arriving at ShinRa headquarters at midnight would be safe." Yuffie flinched a bit. Reno gave her a strange look.

"So you did all this to him?" she asked while her eyes widened a bit. Reno decided to joke it off.

"I thought I was only answering one question." Unfortunately for Reno Yuffie was not joking around. In fact she was absolutely serious about that question. She narrowed her eyes and was about to start pouring the Turk with all the dirt phrases that she learned from Cid before…

"I didn't get the chance." Reno said more seriously. He could see Yuffie relax back into her chair and let out a sigh of relief himself. He didn't feel like dealing with her bitchiness right now. The momentary relief was replaced with a puzzled look on Yuffie's face.

"What do you mean by you didn't get the chance to?"

"Well, perhaps if you didn't interrupt I could tell you."

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&Flashback&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Tseng was positioned on a roof of a very old looking building. At some point in time it might have been a weapon shop, but certainly not anymore. Added to the fact that time turned its back on the poor looking shop it looked haunted. If you're wondering, this description is leading up to the fact that the immediate area surrounding it was absolutely abandoned. Rude and Reno were positioned on the other side of the street about a block up. The train was supposed to come through the west side of sector 5 and the Turks were waiting patiently for any sign of FIST members attacking it.

Reno checked his watch for the third time in the past five minutes and saw that it was five minutes to midnight and sure enough Rude elbowed him in the stomach lightly jerking his head toward the direction of three silent figures standing on the left side of the train tracks between Tseng and Reno+Rude's location. Reno looked up to the roof of the building where Tseng was and by the fact that the Turk leader looked like a statue he understood that Tseng noticed them too.

The three figures stood silently next to the tracks not exchanging even a look. Reno got very unnerved by this. What kind of a raid team is so distant towards each other? Aren't they partners? Rude and Reno exchange a quick glance. It made no sense. Reno's question was soon answered however. The two men standing a bit behind, was Reno assumed to be, the leader slowly took out clubs. Before any of the Turks could react they started fighting the man in front of them. The truth being it wasn't much of the fight. Their leader obviously wasn't expecting an attack. They simply knocked him out and started dragging him away.

Needless to say the Turks were quite confused so they reported back to the president. They man simply waved them off as if he was expecting for this to happen. You can imagine their surprise when they found the article in the newspaper discussing the man's state of being.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&End Flashback&&&&&&&&&&

"With little trouble Tseng was able to find out that along with the Turks the president sent two spies into the organization who we saw when we were on the mission. Tseng also found that mostly the president sent us to see through that it happens. This of course raised another very interesting question. Did he trust these SOLDIER members to get the job done? They obviously did, but..." Reno hesitated while Yuffie nodded her head for him to continue. "This is when I met Demetri. He was one of those SOLDIER members that the president didn't trust." He stopped and sighed. Yuffie nodded again hoping that he won't stop there. Actually he opened his mouth to continue until one of the servants burst through the door and ran up to Yuffie.

"Milady, His Majesty requests you're presence in the Temple of the Ancients." Yuffie waved him off and turned back to Reno. The servant didn't leave however. "He said that it's an emergency." Reno and Yuffie glanced at each other and without exchanging any of words started out the door.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&Temple of the Ancients

Godo sat in his usual spot staring at the wall in front of him. Staniv was the only other person in the room. He was sitting to left of Godo lost in thought.

"Why would anyone need it?" Godo asked Staniv not looking at him directly. "Who would remember such a trivial detail?" Yuffie and Reno picked that particular moment to Bust through the door.

"What's going on?" Yuffie asked through her jagged intake of breaths.

Hoped you enjoyed. Please review if it of no inconvenience.