Greetings once again, readers. I return from Pittsburgh - I actually returned on Thursday, but I'm lazy, so the update is today, as promised.

Incidentally, the "upgrade" to this site is not so much a blessing as an annoyance. Drop-down menus randomly stop functioning, and best of all, the button to insert a ruler in the document editor is broken. I have to stick them in via HTML. What a pain.

Anyhow, Chapter XIII.


The great clawed hand rushed in at Reno, fingers spread, the world shaking from the volume of the beast's roar.

All Reno's life passed before his eyes. His childhood, his first mission, Sephiroth…

Yuffie.

Reno's eyes refocused and he snapped up the N17B, firing. Three-round bursts thudded into rock-hard jade and sent shrapnel flying. The dragon reared back, snarling, and Reno started to back up –

It struck again, with both hands, closing jade fingers around Reno and lifting him into the air, seizing Yuffie with its other hand. "ONE REASON," it rumbled, "WHY I SHOULD SPARE YOU. GIVE ONE TO ME."

"'Cause I know something you don't," Reno immediately shot back, throwing a desperate sideways glance at Yuffie. Let me handle this – you'll know when to move.

She raised her chin slightly in an affirmative response.

"AND WHAT KNOWS A MORTAL BUG THAT SEIRYŪ DOES NOT?"

"The answer to a riddle." Divine creatures are supposed to love stuff like this. They want to tear your head off? Tell them a riddle. Always works in the books.

Then again, those same books did call for the employment of flaming torches when hunting spirits, lanterns while hunting smugglers, and pitchforks while storming a keep housing a resurrected monster and/or vampire. But Reno figured fiction had a ring of truth to it.

Sea-green glass eyes, blazing with emerald fire, narrowed at Reno. "RIDDLES DO NOT AMUSE ME."

"This one will," Reno replied. "Guess it, and we'll give ourselves up. Lose, and let us go."

Almost unconscious of the ninja-girl in its clawed grip, the dragon stroked its whiskers with a pair of massive talons. "YOUR PREMISE IS INTRIGUING. THERE WILL BE AN ADDITIONAL CONDITION; I WILL FORGIVE DEFILEMENT OF MY SHRINE, BUT MY MATERIA REMAINS."

"Fine," Reno replied, scouring his brain for the riddle that he'd read as a kid. "Here's the riddle.

"Neither morning frost

Nor evening heat

Though this can be felt

Thou payest one coin's cost

For on the barge a seat

To cross over, before the ebon throne knelt

In abject grief.

"What is it?"

The dragon closed its eyes in contemplation and opened them a second later.

"DEATH."

"'Gratulations," Reno laughed. "You win the prize."

And he let the materia drop.

Howling, the dragon let both Reno and Yuffie drop as he dove for the materia. It certainly wouldn't shatter if it hit the ground, but as a holy materia it was supposed to never touch the earth.

Reno launched himself forward as soon as he hit the ground, knowing Yuffie would make her move.

The claws of the great dragon began to close around the tiny, falling orb when a silver flash spiraled through the air and smacked it into a line drive. Yuffie had thrown Reno's prod with unerring accuracy, and Reno, jumping, snatched the materia out of the air.

He pointed the barrel of the N17B at it. "HOLD UP!" he screamed.

For a moment, the dragon kept rushing at him, and he tightened his finger on the trigger, but it froze the second precisely what he was holding the materia up against resolved itself in whatever passed for its mind. Its eyes swiveled between the materia, Reno, and the gun.

"You know what this is?" Reno asked, hefting the assault rifle meaningfully. He didn't do anything further; the blasted thing weighed a ton and he was holding it with one arm, after all.

"YES."

"Let us go or the materia gets blown into pretty dust."

"THE CLIP IS EMPTY," the dragon snarled.

"I still got the grenade attachment. I'll lose a lot more than an arm if you go for us, so I'll do it – no question."

Its eyes narrowing again, the dragon stared levelly at Reno, evidently gauging him. Reno stared back, not bothering to fix a grin on his face.

Finally, the dragon blew out a massive snort. "I SENSE YOUR COMMITMENT. IT IS FOR THIS GIRL, NO? THE DAUGHTER OF MY OLD SUMMONER?"

Reno nodded, slowly.

"I EXPECT THE MATERIA RETURNED."

"'Course. We're not selling it or nothing."

Satisfied, apparently, the dragon sank back into its old pose over the shrine, and the fire went out in its eyes.

Yuffie gave a sigh of monumental proportions. "You were great, sugar."

"Thanks." Reno tossed her the materia, picked up his prod, and got a firmer grip on the N17B. "Guess he isn't such a bad guy after all."

Smiling, Yuffie pulled Reno into a long, sweet kiss.

"Let's get back to the Kanbe-ya."


Rude came awake as he heard movement. Rolling over, the Turk saw Karsk sitting up on his floor mat, staring at the bundle next to him.

"Expecting a call?"

Karsk started. "No. Well – yes, but I shouldn't be."

Rude raised an eyebrow.

"It's nothing."

"Tell me. We went out drinking together, call it returning the favor."

After a moment's hesitation, Karsk replied, "My men are the only real family I have. Every night I expect to get a call hearing one of them's dead. Accident, health failure, et cetera… but especially a mob looking for a foreigner. We're strangers in a strange land, and just because they've grown accustomed to us doesn't mean that's changed."

"It doesn't look that bad. The bike gangs're the worst."

"It's them who got the populace riled up about foreigners and nationalism in the first place. They embrace the old Giang Hu ideals – strength, independence, kill or be killed. The fact that foreigners made them relinquish those ideals for survival, even for a few years, infuriated them, and now they hold every one of us responsible."

Rude pursed his lips slightly and considered that, then decided not to bring up any question about it, turning back to the issue of Karsk's men instead. "Your men were military elites, right? They're not SOLDIERs, but they can take care of themselves."

"If they do, they get accused of attacking citizens – in the courts, even. It's why I have them keep to themselves in the condominium most of the time, but they still have to go out occasionally – they can't be cooped up in there forever." The Sub-General's expression hardened. "That's why the bike gangs have to be eliminated."

About to respond, Rude cut himself off as he heard footsteps outside the window. They came purposefully closer and Rude quickly drew himself up, ready to strike. Opposite him, Karsk moved to the side of the window and motioned for Rude to do the same.

Two shadowy figures burst through the shutters, and Rude and Karsk each clotheslined one. An N17B and a materia hit the floor half a second before the figures did.

"Wrong room," Reno said weakly.


"You were planning to do what?"

Reno mustered the best grin he could and reiterated, "We were going to plant the materia in your compound, then det an explosive in your trash bin to pull the police to you."

Karsk stared at him, then flipped open his cell and speed-dialed something. "Ayaro? It's Sarge. Sparkler disposal in our trash. Miniature." Pause. "Roger." He flipped the cell closed and resumed staring at Reno. "This was so Godo would declare me a liability and end the contract with me, no?"

"Yeah."

"Wouldn't Makoto then, by default, marry Yuffie?"

"You'll officially be told tomorrow, I guess, that Rufus is a suitor now too, and I'm representin' his interests."

The Sub-General's mouth twisted into a grim smile. "I applaud your strategy, and rest assured I take no offense – none of this is personal – but Yuffie is the most direct path to the elimination of the bike gangs and through that this isolationist sentiment."

"You can't just band together and strike out against the gangs?" Yuffie asked.

"Only when we're officially employed by the government of Wutai can we have an effective shield against nationalistic sentiment from the populace."

"Sounds like a load of one hundred percent bullshit," Reno countered. "Government employees or no, you're still foreigners. The populace won't take any more kindly to you enforcing order than they would any other non-Wutainese."

"But the police and the courts will not be able to look the other way, in favor of the isolationists, if complaints are lobbied. They are bound by law to investigate to the fullest extent all accusations against appointed protectors of Wutai. I know all this; I've studied it extensively."

Rubbing his chin, Reno said, "Okay, suppose for a sec you got me. I still say you've got an ulterior motive."

Karsk glared at him, and it was a withering effect – the great brows creased down over penetrating, brown eyes and the mouth turned downward into a fierce, compressed shape. "Don't we all, Mr. Reno? Your throwing Mr. Shin-Ra's lot into this marriage may well earn you a promotion if it goes off."

"The Boss's got no interest in marrying Yuffie. I did that to try to push back the date of the marriage, for one, and to have a backup plan in case we couldn't." Reno leaned forward and tapped Karsk's chest with his finger, several times. "I'm in this for Yuffie. I got no stake in this shithole of a town, Karsk. They throw me out, I go back to Edge and just get any assignments I might have here relegated to the delicious dyad."

"Tseng and Elena," Rude corrected him.

"Whatever. They're closer than Cid and his smokes is my point. Both pretty, both fairly professional, both up to their necks in lovey-dovey for one another."

Karsk's frown decreased slightly in magnitude. "Then why are you doing this, Mr. Reno? Certainly Yuffie's impending marriage concerns you, but if it was so pressing you might have simply left town with her."

"I'm the one who said we stay," Yuffie interrupted.

"I never said that you had to be conscious when you left," Karsk replied mildly.

In spite of himself, Reno laughed. "Nice. But why am I doing this?" Something in his eyes flickered, and Yuffie felt her stomach leap into her throat. Reno was still here, but he was different; here was the Reno that she'd glimpsed as they left Karsk's compound, the cool, professional killer who gauged things on only how vulnerable they were.

That can't be all.

"I'm doing this because I don't think it's right to marry someone off and give them a life they don't want," Reno said, the words hissing from his lips. "And anyone who says otherwise is in the way."

Karsk took the blatantly obvious threat in stride, and Reno flickered back to his normal self.

"You haven't considered that this might be what Yuffie needs?" Karsk asked, no longer frowning, voice level. "That she might be better off?"

"Of course not. I don't care if her marrying you, or Makoto, or even Rufus would make her happy, I'm not lettin' it happen. All I know is that I'm doing what registers as halfway right on my broken, crapped-out moral compass. I done a lot of bad stuff in my life, Karsk, and a lot of it I don't regret at all. Hell, the only real regret I got is that I didn't hook up with Yuffie earlier." She blushed obligingly at that, and he grinned roguishly before continuing. "That's the whole thing. Sure it might be selfish, and even plain wrong, but I don't want to have any regrets. And if I give Yuffie up, that I'll regret, sure as the nose on your face."

Silence hung in the air as Karsk closed his eyes and very obviously mulled over what Reno was saying. Finally, he swallowed to clear his throat and said, "That's your ideal, is it? Life without regret?" He opened his eyes. "You'll be disappointed, Mr. Reno. That, as far as I know, is impossible."

"You can never know that until you've tried."

Karsk stood up, collected his things, and walked towards the door. "I'll leave the three of you in peace, then. Obviously, Mr. Reno, your reasons are no better and no worse than mine – merely different. But we are both doing what we are doing for our ideal, and that I can respect." He opened the door and inclined his head, back facing Reno, Yuffie and Rude. "Good day."

And he was gone.

"What ideal," Reno murmured, "d'you figure he was talking about?"

Rude gazed after the Sub-General, a distant look in his eyes. Then he put on his sunglasses, took up his umbrella, and replied, "The same one as yours. Just about a different thing, and different people."

"That's not the same one, then!" Reno protested.

He cut himself off as Yuffie teasingly put her forefinger on his lips and clucked softly. "Think about it for a sec, sugar, before you run your mouth off."

The redhead began to snort indignantly, then abruptly caught up with everyone else.

"I see."

Yuffie smiled and graced his lips with a gossamer kiss. "Let's go back to bed, Reno. It's early."


It was four in the morning, but Rude felt like being outside for a bit. The rain pattered softly on his umbrella, discouraging any stargazing – not that you could see the celestial sphere through the clouds. Karsk had disappeared, no doubt heading back to his condominium. Rude sighed in his head – he never literally sighed if he could help it, it seemed rather a poor thing to do. Wedding's day after tomorrow, and both our plans to screw with it have gone off the deep end.

He shifted slightly and thought on the meeting that he would be attending the next day. We might be able to get the gangs to start firing off warning signals, get Godo to change the location or the date.

And then there was the question of who had hired the team to go into the temple and steal the materia, and for what reason. Whenever Rude wasn't talking – and that was often – he was probably thinking, and throughout Reno's and Karsk's conversation he'd been trying to figure out who besides them would have an interest in the materia.

The conclusion that the Turk kept arriving at was that the person, whoever he or she was, that had hired the team knew as well as he and Reno did that Karsk being caught with the materia in his possession would prove fatal to his chances in the marriage.

Question then is how they would plan to get the police to investigate the place.

Rude stopped and more carefully considered the situation. Maybe this guy's not trying to just stop Karsk from interfering with the marriage. Maybe he wants him dead. Or maybe he does want him dead, but only in the interests of keeping him from marrying Yuffie.

If Tseng had been planning an op like this, with him, Elena, Reno, and Rude under his command, Rude knew precisely what the man would do.

No, actually… Better to be sure.

Rude pulled out his cell.


It was evening in Edge, and Cloud Strife was staring frustratedly at a game board.

He sat in the upstairs lounge in Tifa's bar, and across from him, on the other side of the table, was Denzel. Between them was a Go board. Cloud was white, while Denzel was black.

Black was whooping white's ass.

In his life, Cloud had fought the most powerful being alive, traveled through time, learned much about himself, found sorrow, found love, saved the world several times, but never had he been beaten at Go. In actuality, he had never played Go until recently, but to his eye that meant he had a perfect record, zero-zero. Undefeated and untied. He'd never won, but he had a firm belief in the ideal of anything other than a loss being a victory, especially when the idea was as convenient as it was now.

His record was now zero-five.

Soon to be zero-six.

Denzel was smirking, waiting for Cloud to make his next move. "You could surrender, Cloud."

"Just gimme a second!" The blond man stared with glowing eyes at the board, willing it to make some spatial sense. He had a sword composed of six different blades that he could take apart and put back together with one hand in his sleep, but he couldn't figure out how to gain an advantage here. It was worse than when he'd realized that a dress had a very nice, slimming effect on him.

It wasn't a secret he'd shared with many people.

Standing behind Cloud was Tseng, dressed in a dark red suit, black undershirt, and a ruby red tie. The ensemble was completed with smart black leather shoes and gloves that matched his raven hair. Overall, he looked impressive and striking.

He also looked nervous as hell.

Cloud himself was dressed in a modest black suit, looking nowhere near as striking as Tseng but still good-looking. Denzel was obviously not going out for the evening with the adults, so he was in his normal tee-shirt and jeans.

"What's the delay back there?" Cloud shouted over his shoulder.

"Elena and I will be ready when we're ready!" Tifa shouted back. "We've planned this for a week, now, Tseng and Elena have flown down from the Northern Continent, and she and I want to look good!"

"You're not getting out of this so easy, Cloud," Denzel snickered. "We finish this before you leave."

Tseng's phone rang. He offered up an oath to whatever deities might be listening and flipped it open. "Tseng. I'm off-duty, this better be good."

"It's Rude."

Raising an eyebrow, Tseng said, "Rude. What time is it there?"

"There were complications with the evening's plans, so I'm awake. I need your advice."


Karsk collapsed onto his floor mat. His mind told him to shuck the boots he'd hastily put on as he walked to the car, and also that he was only going to get another three hours of sleep or so, but he didn't particularly care, because of that… person that had surfaced.

Obviously, Reno is far more than he seems. For the briefest moment, Karsk had seen something in the young man – something normally buried that had come into the light and shouted "I" at the heart of the world. It was… Sephiroth.

No, obviously it was still Reno. That man has no more of Sephiroth in him than I do. But… that chill, that piercing awareness and power! Here indeed is an immeasurable man.

"Fighting for his ideal, is he?" Karsk murmured. "If only my ideal was so clear-cut, General."

He wants this city purged.

Karsk saw the flames in his mind's eye. Homes burning, people screaming and fleeing. They'd broken through the last lines of enemy defense, and the soldiers…

The soldiers were out of control.

"COME TO ATTENTION!" Karsk screamed. "I WILL NOT TOLERATE INSUBORDINATION, NOR WILL I TOLERATE SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENTS! CEASE YOUR ATTACK AT ONCE!"

The three soldiers he was screaming at, ten feet away from him, were hefting a heavy machine gun and centering their aim on the backs of a crowd of fleeing women and children. In the light of the flames Karsk could see a manic glee in their eyes, and knew instinctively what was going through their minds. Revenge for their lost comrades, for their plundered youth, for Shin-Ra… Whatever they could avenge, they were bent on doing it.

Karsk went for his sidearm. He knew he'd never draw in time to take down all the three of the bastards, the insane men. Other members of the platoon screamed at them, and Arcturus barreled forward from behind Karsk, holding an empty rocket-propelled grenade launcher like it weighed nothing, ready to bash off the heads of the men who were so possessed by bloodlust.

And then came the General.

He fell from the sky like a horrid angel, smeared with the blood of the enemy, silver hair blackened by soot and smoke and powder. Never afterwards was Karsk sure of where he'd come from, precisely, but at that moment it looked to all present as though he descended upon the men like divine punishment, personified in the visage of the most powerful young man Karsk had ever known.

The heads of the three flew and the heavy machine gun was cut in two within half a second.

"STAND DOWN!" the General roared. "YOUR SUB-GENERAL GAVE YOU AN ORDER, ALL OF YOU! I DON'T CARE IF ONE OR A HUNDRED OF YOU CHOOSE TO DISOBEY EVEN THE MOST TRIVIAL COMMAND OF HIS, I WILL PERSONALLY DECAPITATE YOU IF YOU DO! IS THAT PERFECTLY CLEAR?"

A terrific hush descended upon the gathered soldiers, as though invisible hands had seized them about their throats, and the General inclined his head, a smile on his face. "Your silence tells me my example was well-taken." He snapped his gaze up to Karsk. "Sub-General, see to the dousing of those fires. We're here to conquer Wutai, not reduce it to a smoking crater."

Karsk saluted. "Yes, sir."

As he strode past Karsk to issue orders elsewhere on the battlefield, Sephiroth came side by side with the Sub-General and said, quietly, "You were doing the right thing, Sub-General. We can't have wanton murder."

"Yes, sir."

Karsk blinked tears out of his eyes as the scene flashed before him. What happened to you, General?