You want to know the best part of Half-Life, the part that I just recently rediscovered?
The cha-chun sound the shotgun makes when you pump it after burying two slugs in the skull of an offending alien grunt.
It's heaven.
There's also a Chapter XI here. It has no shotgun. I must remedy the situation.
Makoto, having sharp eyes, saw everything that was going on above the table at the Drunken Fisher King. He and Reno had been downing saké for a while now, while Yuffie nibbled on the sushi and Rei smoked a cigarette. Both of the girls watched Reno and Makoto drink, entranced.
What Makoto didn't see was Yuffie's hand on Reno's left thigh, or her index finger, which drew out four letters just above his knee: L, O, S, and E, respectively.
Reno, obviously, betrayed no surprise or emotion and asked no questions. He just kept taking shot after shot of saké, never showing any flicker in his resolve to win until he knocked back another shot of rice wine, reached to refill his cup, and hit the table unconscious.
Humorously enough, Makoto stopped with his own cup of saké halfway to his mouth and stared at Reno for a good minute before saying, "Amazing. I'm not even feeling buzzed yet and he passes out."
Yuffie suppressed a laugh, but his disbelief was not the source of her amusement. During his plummet to the tabletop, Reno had let his left hand flop beneath the table, where it landed, coincidentally, on Yuffie's thigh and quickly conveyed some letters of his own: N, O, T, O, N, G, U, and E.
"Looks like you win," she said to the black-haired biker. "So, stud, what're you waiting for?"
Makoto grinned and began lean across the table. He stopped when his nose ran squarely into Yuffie's outstretched finger.
"Nuh-uh. I think you're drunker than you look. Rei's the one you're kissing."
Reno started abruptly, then quickly covered his relief with a sleepy mutter about damned umbrellas. Apparently Makoto and Rei bought it, because neither of them paid him a second glance. Damn, Yuffie, you're a genius. I just wish I could see his face right now.
For a second Makoto stared at her and then began to protest, "But you said that –"
"I asked you and Reno to drink for me, and I said that the winner would get a kiss."
"Exactly!"
Yuffie giggled and pinched Makoto's nose, causing him to draw back indignantly before he could gather his wits. "I asked you to drink for me – like doing me a favor. I never said you were drinking to win me. And I never said who the kiss was coming from, either."
Thunderstruck, Makoto turned from Yuffie to Rei, who had turned a fine shade of pink and was smiling behind her sleeve, which draped over her right hand, while she put out her cigarette with her left. "She has you in a corner, Makoto."
"But –"
"Are you afraid to kiss Rei?"
"No! But –"
"Then do it!"
Makoto looked from Yuffie to Rei. Yuffie had a smug, satisfied smirk on her face, and Rei was smiling coyly, having just taken Makoto's cup of saké and drank it to kill the tang of nicotine on her tongue. She was drumming her fingers on the table in a gesture that clearly said I'm waiting.
Appearing to make up his mind, Makoto swallowed, visibly steeled himself, and leaned towards Rei.
The geisha's smile widened into a genuine grin and she also leaned forward towards Makoto, taking his head into her hands and tilting it just so –
Out of the corner of his eye, Makoto noticed a glint; he put it down to something moving on the table, realized that was impossible, looked in its direction, and saw one turquoise eye peering out of the shadows of the crook of Reno's arm.
"You CHEAT!"
Yuffie made an irritated noise and smacked Reno across the back of the head. He yelped and covered his head with both hands to ward off further blows. "Sorry! I didn't think he'd be looking!"
Most people would describe the color Makoto's face was turning as a fine shade of purple, and it would not be too far off. "What is this? Are you trying to help Rei seduce me?"
"'Seduce' is such a strong word," Reno drawled. "I prefer the term 'sexily persuade.'"
"What does it matter, though?" Yuffie asked. "Can't you kiss her and still be friends with her? You never really struck me as a one-woman guy, Makoto."
"An' at this rate you'll be back to zero," the redhead added.
Makoto protested, "It's not that. I certainly could kiss Rei and remain friends with her – but it would be a lie! The ideal of the platonic relationship is impossible to maintain when there's sexuality involved!"
With a slap to her forehead, Yuffie blew out a long sigh and then said, "Makoto, would you look at her? She's way prettier than I am. 'S matter of fact that she's sexier, too. Could you be any more dense? You've basically lived with her your entire life, doesn't that mean that you have a deep and unique relationship with her?"
"Yes – I mean no!" Makoto looked less angry and more flustered, while Rei sat mutely beside him, eyes fixed on her hands, which lay lifeless in her lap. "It's not the same, Yuffie. I am in love with you!"
"You really, really sure about that?" Reno asked the bike gang leader. "What would you do for her?"
"I would kill for her," Makoto replied without hesitation.
"Alright then, who would you kill?" Intensity blazed in Reno's turquoise eyes. "Would you kill Karsk, to make sure you're the only suitor?" He didn't bother mentioning Rufus; no doubt Godo would send messengers out to Karsk and Makoto the next day to inform them of the development.
"I would never do something so low… but Karsk is not in love with Yuffie. I can tell that much."
"Of course not, he's gay. And he sure as hell isn't willing to kill for her. But you haven't really answered my question, have you?" Reno jerked a thumb at himself. "Would you kill me for her?"
No words came to Makoto. He simply sat silently, frowning, unable to answer the question.
"What about…" Reno stopped to consider for a moment, then leaned forward and whispered in his ear. "What about… Rei?"
Makoto violently sat straight up, accidentally banging his head against Reno's, who pulled back with a slightly miffed expression. "Never!"
"You really sure about that?"
"Of course! Rei means… she means…"
"Too much to you."
With a glare, Makoto snapped, "It's not the same, Reno. Yuffie and Rei aren't comparable."
"I say we are," Yuffie interrupted, "'cause I think I sure as hell can decide who you can compare me to and who you can't. Is it too much to say that you love Rei, Makoto? The way you might love a sister?"
Makoto looked down for a moment into the cup of saké sitting in front of him before replying. "I can't say that I love her as I would a sister, because she never has been a sister to me. Siblings fight and feud; Rei and I never have."
"And what does that tell you about what you feel for one another?" Yuffie pressed.
Angrily, Makoto downed the saké and licked his lips. "Is this really the time and place to discuss this?"
Yuffie looked as though she was going to speak further, but Rei, silent all this time, held up a hand. "I appreciate what you two are trying to do, but Makoto is right. This conversation is best held elsewhere."
They all exchanged glances and slightly reticent nods, then paid their bill and left.
"Rude's probably gotten tired of waiting out in the rain," Reno observed. "I'd say he's back at your place, Yuffie." He looked over his shoulder at Makoto and Rei. "You guys heading back to Grandpa Souta's place?"
"I don't much feel like it, no," Makoto replied. "If you like, there's an inn nearby – the Kanbe-ya. Good rooms, well-priced; you two can have privacy for the evening, and Rei and I can get some sleep."
"Sounds good," Yuffie yawned, stretching languorously. "It's been a long day."
The moment after Reno and Yuffie stepped into the room they'd gotten for the night, Reno checked his watch and announced, "It's about half an hour to midnight. I figure now's as good a time as any to go plant the Leviathan materia in Karsk's compound."
Yuffie flopped down onto one of the floor mats. "You want me to come? Just give me a minute and I'll be up an' about."
"Probably not a good idea for you to come with, sugar. It might be dangerous."
The ninja-girl hauled herself into a sitting position and snorted. "You really are lame sometimes, Reno. You think I'd wanna miss a dangerous night op with my boyfriend?"
"Might compromise the mission if the monks find us in the middle of tempestuous passion on the floor in front of the shrine," Reno laughed.
"We'll get to that part after we plant the materia," she replied, waggling a finger at him. "The temple's still a temple, after all. It's a fifty-fifty chance that Seiryū is real, and not just a summoned creature, so it's better to not piss him off."
"The Great Ninja Yuffie, scared of blasphemy? Next thing you know I'll get struck by lightning."
Yuffie raised an eyebrow. "You looking to tempt Fate, Reno?"
He plopped himself down next to her and said, "Sure, why not? After all, if we're talking fifty-fifty chances, there's one that the lightning bolt might hit you instead of me."
Giggling at that, Yuffie drew him into a kiss, thinking that if they really were struck by lightning it wouldn't be all that bad. A moment after Reno began to warm up, she disengaged and put a finger to his lips, trying not to grin too widely.
"Something the matter with my breath?" he asked, looking confused.
"Not at all. But isn't it the motto of the Turks to put business before pleasure?"
"That's motto number two. Motto number one is to shoot them before they shoot you."
"Fair enough. But we do have business – two pieces of it, actually."
Reno began to ask what the second might be, then caught on and kissed her again.
"So, here we are," Rei sighed quietly.
She and Makoto had gotten the room one over from Reno and Yuffie's – the man at the desk had said a pair of gentlemen had rented the one in between. Now she stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling in the dark, eyes searching the wood for some semblance of familiarity.
Makoto was across the room from her, curled up on his side. His breathing seemed steady, but Rei heard the hitch in it when she spoke. A geisha's training wasn't limited to dance and how to be beautiful, after all.
"Mm."
"I should apologize for earlier," Rei found herself saying. "I had some inkling of what Yuffie was planning to do."
"You did, did you?" Makoto rolled over and looked at her, slightly adjusting his bedrobe. "How?"
Should I? At length, Rei decided that it was best for him to know. If I'm to ever make it possible, he has to know. "Yuffie promised me that she'd get you to… notice me."
A slight lowering of the brows brought a cooler, more calculated expression to Makoto's face. "I see. If she wants me out of the picture she could always just choose to marry Karsk."
"No, that's not it. She likes you, but she doesn't want to marry you any more than she wants to marry Karsk. She doesn't understand how you can be in love with her when you barely know her." Hesitating, Rei added, "And neither do I."
Makoto rolled back over, away from her. "You wouldn't understand."
Something within Rei gave way, and she sat up and slammed an open palm down on the floor. "Wouldn't I? You'll never know unless you give me a chance to try to understand! You've never given me any sort of chance, Makoto, and this is as good a place as any to start!"
That got his attention. He, too, sat up and stared at her. "What are you saying?"
"We'll talk about that later. Give me a chance. Make me understand what's possessed you to fall in love with a girl you only met once previously, when you were still a child."
Drawing a long breath before replying, Makoto finally said, "She represents… a sort of ideal. Independence through power and self-ability. Yuffie's never let herself be pressured into a role she doesn't want. Just looking at her, you can tell that."
"So you're in love with her because she represents an ideal? What is wrong with you?"
The fire in Rei's tone made Makoto start instinctively. "What can you mean?"
"You're not in love with Yuffie, Makoto," Rei said, her voice half-raging and half-pleading. "You're in love with her ideal. That's all you care about; ideals. Independence, power as a means to an end, Aku Soku Zan. You've let them shape your whole life!"
"And what alternative did I have?" Makoto snarled, eyes blazing. "What other forces could I trust to guide me when the war took my parents and my brothers? Grandfather, Father, Mother, Zheng, Jubei…"
His eyes watered and he stared hatefully down at the floor, unable to look at Rei in anger. "Jubei." The corners of his mouth quivered and he looked back up at Rei, his expression no longer angry but instead intensely sad. "He taught me about loyalty and devotion, Rei. He taught me to honor Father and Mother, and help little Zheng, and support the country, and to be pious and filial. And he taught me courage – and honor. I watched him ride out to meet Sephiroth in the open field, just after the silver-haired demon killed the late Lady Kisaragi. He was intent on retrieving the materia of Seiryū, even if it cost him his life, and Sephiroth slaughtered him." Makoto swiped furiously at his eyes, angered that they would betray him like this. "What else can I do besides follow his example?"
Regretting that she'd brought the subject up with him, Rei disentangled her legs from her bedsheets and moved to his side, gently placing her hands on his shoulders. "There was nothing you could have done, Makoto."
His closed fist smashed a splintered dent into the hardwood floor. "Of course there wasn't! I wasn't even ten years old! But I can never let that happen again." The biker looked defiantly at her, almost daring her to comment on the tears that now streamed down his face. "I will never again passively stand by and allow anything I love – whether it be a person or Wutai itself – to fall. I must have the power to stop it from happening."
Makoto froze as Rei wiped his face with the hem of her sleeve. "That's not reasonable, Makoto," she murmured. "You can't be the invulnerable shield for everything. As trite as it sounds, bad things happen, and there's nothing that can be done about it." Gently, she wrapped her arms around him, bringing her hand around to the back of his head and putting it against her shoulder. "Ideals don't make the world better. It's what people do with them that counts."
She felt him shudder at her words, a great wracking movement that moved down his body in a spasmodic wave and ended in a muffled, strangled sob against her neck.
"You…" he whispered. "Have I been wrong this entire time?"
"No," Rei assured him. "You've been doing what you thought was right, and at great personal cost. How could anyone condemn you for that?"
"But… what about…"
That. Rei applied a tiny amount of pressure to his shoulders and Makoto moved back slightly, bringing his head up to look at her. "Did you really think I was Yuffie?" Rei asked, softly.
Makoto chewed at his bottom lip for a moment, pain flashing through his sepia eyes. "I was half-conscious at the time," he said, slowly. "I… was faintly aware of a presence – you – by my side. When you began to draw away I reached out and took your arm, and when I opened my eyes I thought I was looking at a divine spirit."
Rei stifled her disbelief before it could surface. This was all truth, insofar as he knew, and Makoto, though he never worshipped at Seiryū's shrine, was a firm believer in the supernatural – what lay beyond magic, beyond the explored realms.
"I thought that surely this must be Yuffie's guardian spirit, or something of that nature, and when you stroked my face… I obviously took it as an invitation. I don't recall much else, except suddenly seeing your face where I thought the spirit's had been and withdrawing abruptly." He blinked several times and took a shuddering breath, then continued. "I didn't allow myself to think on it. I went back and examined everything that I've just now told you, and concluded that I was still delirious… and that I might have –" he swallowed – "tried to take advantage of you."
"Take advantage?"
Makoto looked at her hollowly, and he suddenly felt light and frail in her arms. "I don't know what to say, Rei. I have always had feelings for you, but I never wanted to act on them. I thought it was better to fixate myself on someone else, someone who represented something – something –"
"More," Rei finished for him, a statement rather than a question.
He flinched at the word and then nodded. "Yes, more. I thought I could love for a nobler purpose, not for useless lust."
Rei pulled him tighter into her embrace, unconsciously stroking his hair with one hand. "You idiot," she said softly, no hint of accusation in her tone. "Why?"
"In my darkest moments, when reality seemed clearest and harshest, I looked at myself and found nothing of worth. An orphan with grandly spanning ideals and no way to effect them – what could he offer an apprentice geisha who might one day find herself a rich and powerful danna, or even a husband? And then, later, after I discovered and studied Shiranui-ryū – what use was it to a geisha? What could a killer, however powerful, give her? In my estimation, that's when I became even more fixated on Yuffie – a girl I could love wholeheartedly, knowing she needed nothing from me because she would have more than I could ever give her."
"And then you painted on your ideals," Rei murmured, continuing to stroke his hair. "Convinced yourself that you were in love with her and not the ideal, which wasn't even the original factor that drew you to her in the first place."
Makoto drew back from Rei and looked at her, no longer crying but instead feeling oddly renewed, as though his very being had just moved through a waterfall – cold and biting, certainly, but cleansing.
"I was right about one thing," he said softly. "I can never give Yuffie anything to match what she, however inadvertently, has given me. I can only imagine what might have never come to pass if she didn't suggest going out tonight, or promise you that she would make me notice you."
"Don't worry about it," Rei replied. "I don't want anything from you, Makoto, except just you. Everything else is secondary."
Makoto drew her into a kiss, and all the self-hate and deception that he had built up within himself, like a great fortress around his heart, seemed to be washed away in her tide.
"Mission accomplished," Yuffie whispered to Reno as they both peered through an almost invisible crack between the wall and the door to Rei's and Makoto's room.
"So you figure he's not going to be looking to marry you anymore?" Reno asked.
Yuffie shrugged. "I dunno what they were talking about, just that they're obviously not playing dumb anymore. I keep my promises – mostly."
They withdrew from the door, moved back into their room, and exited through the window. "Alright," Reno said, tasting the night air with relish. "We pick up the Orochimaru jackets from the dumpster near the temple where we left them, steal the materia, and plant it in Karsk's compound. You sure you're up to this?"
She shot him a look and grinned, her teeth shining in the moonlight. "The old guy wouldn't survive two days as my husband. Let's do him a favor and take him out of the equation, Reno."
Reno wrapped his arm around her shoulders and they exchanged a brief good-luck kiss before they effected semi-genuine drunken swaggers and disappeared into the shadows of nighttime Wutai.
