So Reno and Rude walk into a bar. You'd think the two of them would have seen it coming.

Ba-dum psh.

Chapter XXII. Site was down last night so this is about seven hours late. Apologies, mes hypocrites lecteurs.


Reno's cell started ringing.

He was driving himself and Yuffie back to her house, while Rude thundered along beside them on his bike. Grandpa Souta had said that Reno's bike was parked on the curb in front of Yuffie's house, and that it was quite impervious to theft for obvious reasons. Night had fallen, the stars twinkling merrily in sharp contrast to the somber tones of the latest proceedings.

Acting with prudent caution, Reno pulled his cell and checked the number of the caller. His eyes widened when he saw Rufus' home phone listed and he shoved the cell at Yuffie. "Take this."

She eyed it and then asked, "Why?"

"Because I don't feel like getting my head blown off over the phone while I'm driving."

Wondering what could be going on, Yuffie flipped the cell open. "Hello?"

"Yuffie? It's Rufus."

"Hey, stud. What's up?"

"Why isn't Reno on this line?"

"He's busy," the ninja-girl replied in her trademark blasé voice. "Whatcha need? And isn't it, like, three in the morning there?"

"Four. And I don't need anything much, really. Just an explanation of how nearly a half-million gil has managed to disappear from my account – and all towards people or organizations in Wutai, no less."

He wants to know about the money, Yuffie mouthed to Reno.

Lie your ass off, Reno mouthed back.

"No idea, Rufus," Yuffie lied cheerfully. "You'd have to ask Reno about that."

"That was my intent. Put him on."

"But I already told you, he's busy. You don't want to interrupt his, er, duties, right?"

There was a crackling sigh from the other end of the line. "What duties are we talking about, here? Is it something I really want to know?"

"Reno's just giving me a foot massage. Nothing big."

One of the redhead's eyes twitched. There were a lot of good excuses in the world for why people were too busy to come to the phone. A foot massage was not ranked amongst them.

"Unless your feet are going to fall off without this precious treatment," Rufus drawled, "I suggest you put him on. Right now. Or he'll want to investigate making a living as a masseuse, as he seems so able at it."

Putting her hand over the mouthpiece, Yuffie told Reno, "He says that if you don't get on right now you might want to consider being a masseuse as a full-time job."

"Great." Reno took the phone back from Yuffie, forced good cheer into his voice, and then said, "Boss, long time no speakie! I tell you, she's got the tensest feet since –"

"Since mine, when I was informed that four hundred and fifty thousand gil had been subtracted from my personal account," Rufus' voice cut him off coolly. "Unless you're going to try to tell me that it wasn't you?"

"Would you believe me?"

"I've reformed, not gone soft in the head," Rufus snapped. "What did you spend it on?"

Thinking back, Reno finally said, "Bikes would account for three hundred seventy-five grand, and the other seventy-five would be going to an ex-Turk to get him on our side."

"I hope he's been a worthy investment."

"Well, he's told us a lot that we needed to know. Incidentally, Boss, I'd say don't let Reeve handle shipment of weapons or other dangerous variables like that. Our guy here set up Karsk with a shipment through the WRO to make him a scapegoat for when the government goes up in smoke."

A pause, and then, "I ought to write that down."

"I'm being totally serious here, Boss."

"So was I – but that's beside the point. What's this ex-Turk's name?"

"Deman Jobs."

In his well-appointed home in Edge, sitting in a leather-bound chair by the fireplace, clad in a rich maroon robe and slippers, Rufus frowned. "Strange. I don't recall anyone by that name. How long ago did he retire from the Turks?"

"Back before Tseng joined up – Veld let him go for some illegal stuff that he was conducting behind the company's back."

"You're sure of this? Why haven't you run a background check on our Mr. Jobs?"

"We just learned his name today, Boss. You're the first guy from Shin-Ra that we've talked to in a while."

"It's about time that that situation was rectified in any event, then. Call up Tseng and have him tell you anything he knows about Mr. Jobs – things Veld may have said, material he may have read, anything. You have to learn to be more careful when taking help from potential threats."

"Yeah, because we had so much choice in the matter," Reno growled, swerving a bit to avoid a drunk van driver in the opposite lane. "Or we could go ahead and pass up a golden opportunity to recruit someone who used to be in our enemy's pocket. Real reasonable."

"Don't give me any lip," Rufus said, only half-amusedly. "Contact Tseng and get some background information on Jobs. If and when he double-crosses you, I want you ready with some sort of counter."


The first sensation that Tseng had was a pounding headache. Actually, it was a hangover, but he'd experienced so few of those in his life that the sensation wasn't immediately familiar to him.

His head seemed to throb and twist to some strange and awful rhythm, and after a moment Tseng managed to identify it: his cell's ringtone.

I must have done something in a previous life to deserve this.

Rolling over to grab the phone off of his nightstand, Tseng's eyes went very wide and his head cleared up remarkably when he felt warm, naked flesh beneath his fingers. It all came flooding back to him: he and Elena had gone out drinking after a long day, they'd decided to go back to her place and open up a bottle of sparkling wine that she'd been saving, and…

Oh, Gaea. No wonder I feel so terrible. The sugar content must have been larger than Reno's ego.

Lucid moments flashed out at him from the darkness, and his fingers twitched as the sensation of deliriously unbuttoning the front of Elena's blouse came back to him. So that was why he was lying nude in her bed.

In that case, his phone would still be in his pants pocket, and his pants were probably on the floor in the bedroom. Or in the hallway leading up to it. He didn't remember too much, but what he did recall was fun, heated, and distinctly without pants on either of them.

Tseng hauled himself, gently as he could, out of Elena's bed and groped for a robe, finding one a moment later. In the dark his eyes kept receding up through his head into his memory and bringing forth the creamy white beauty of her thighs, and he accidentally banged his head into a wall before he managed to immerse himself in the present and get his bearings. Some Turk I am.

That pounding melody, lashing out at him in the dark and beating twin mallets against his skull. It was closer, and he groped for it until his bare feet felt the smooth cloth of his pants leg.

Close enough that it felt like it was driving his eyes into the back of his skull with a pair of drills. Good god the sparkling wine must have had a lot of sugar.

Tseng located the phone in his pants pocket, flipped it open, and said, "This is Tseng. Who's calling?"

Or at least he tried to. What emerged was something more like "His s s'n. O's cking?"

"Are you drunk?" Reno's voice thundered into his ear.

"Not so loud!" Tseng hissed.

"Oh, hung over. Right." The redhead dropped his voice to a raspy whisper that was bearable for Tseng to listen to. "Listen, I need you to think back. Did Veld ever talk about a guy named Deman Jobs that he let go?"

Blearily, Tseng stared across the room at Elena's sleeping form, the light sheet on her bed resting tantalizingly across her curves. "Wha?"

"Deman Jobs. Does the name ring a bell?"

"Why?"

"We've entered into what Rufus would call a business contract with him. He's a former Turk, apparently, that Veld let go for illegal activities even before you joined up." Tseng struggled and focused, recalling times he'd fought off powerful sedatives for hours, keeping himself awake and alive. If his enemies had poured sparkling wine down his throat he'd have been screwed, no doubt.

"Yeah. Deman Jobs." The leader of the Turks racked his brain. "Well… I'm about as awake as Rufus during a WRO board meeting, but I vaguely remember Veld mentioning him once." He brought the incident into further clarity, and then swore. "Shit, he didn't mention him. I actually met him on an assignment."

"Tell me what happened. It could be important in the future."

Tseng opened his mouth again to tell Reno about the incident, and then Elena rolled over and blinked sleepily at him. "Tseng?"

"Tseng? You there?" Reno asked. "Where is 'there,' anyway?"

"Who are you talking to?"

"Reno," Tseng told Elena. "He needs information on a man he has to deal with in Wutai. Go back to sleep, I'll rejoin you shortly."

The Turk returned his attention to the phone to hear "…know that Rufus doesn't like Turks to be playing pelvic pinochle with one another."

"He likes us playing pelvic pinochle with someone he has to do background checks on even less," Tseng snapped, some of his mind shrugging off the alcohol with indignation. "And it's really none of your business, Mr. Dating-A-Wutainese-Princess."

"You get so damned articulate when you're drunk," Reno chortled. "Okay, so you met Jobs. Spill the beans."

"It was at the funeral of one of Veld's old army buddies – Veld was in attendance in an official capacity, so he wanted me to handle security. During the course of the funeral, on a hunch I had a couple guys pull Jobs aside for acting suspicious. To this day it was the best hunch I ever had – after the funeral when I took Veld to where I had a pair of my men holding him, I found two corpses and a note."

"What'd the note say?"

Tseng swallowed, Elena's lovely silhouette lost to his sight for a moment as he saw the note rise out of the darkness before him. "I still have the occasional nightmare about it, Reno." Stupid admission, but he was still half-drunk; they'd laugh about it later, with the tacit understanding that it had been good for Tseng to get out and was not to be poked fun at. "I've seen cold-blooded people before, but Jobs… If there was a cake to be taken, well."

Nothing. Reno was waiting patiently for Tseng to conclude.

Taking a deep breath, Tseng finally blurted out, "It said, 'My replacement has good gut instincts and observational powers. He'll go far.'"


Jobs' phone rang.

Normally he'd have glanced at his clock, seen it read ten-oh-four, and ignored whoever was stupid enough to call at this hour and expect a response. However, he had a feeling…

"Apartment 194, Mr. Ro speaking."

"I'm disappointed in you, Mr. Jobs."

Sucking in a breath through clenched teeth, Jobs finally said, "I can't imagine why. I've put myself in the perfect position for you to raise your bid for my services and have me double-cross them."

"You have, have you?" If the synthesized voice could carry tone, it would be dripping with sarcasm. "I told you I have eyes and ears, Mr. Jobs. I know precisely your motivation behind this defection, and it will not go unpunished."

Immediately, Jobs was checking dark corners, looking up into light fixtures, opening cabinets. Impossible. I swept this place thoroughly. He can't have any monitoring devices in here.

"Look all you like, Mr. Jobs," the voice buzzed. "You'll never find them until they are revealed to you."

"In that event, why did you call?" Jobs asked, the slightest hint of his anger seeping into his voice. "You can't have simply wasted thirty seconds of your life to promise me that retribution will be delivered and other lofty espousements."

"I have no ideals to communicate to you, Mr. Jobs, because the only ideal you follow is that of lining your own pockets."

"Free enterprise," Jobs protested.

"Oh, please." No scorn, just cold machine inflection, but Jobs felt the heat on his skin in spite of himself. "How many millions do you have in your accounts, Mr. Jobs? You could retire a happy man, to never have to work again. You could have retired a happy man two years ago, as a matter of fact. You'll simply never admit to yourself that you love your job more than is reasonable."

In a sudden burst of irrational anger, Jobs gave a heave on the phone, snapping the cord straight out of the wall. He made no sound, no roar, but whirled to the open window and hurled the whole apparatus out of it to smash against the pavement below.

I have one other ideal that I hold, he thought, teeth clenched so tightly they hurt. The right to privacy. Nobody should know more about you than you do – or even remotely approach it.

"Privacy is paramount to the function of the individual," Vincent Valentine had once confided in Jobs. They'd worked together for a short time, before the young man had been dispatched to Nibelheim to assist some scientist or other. Years, years ago… It seemed like a lifetime. "My father always told me that, and I figured he had to be right. If you have no secrets, what sets you apart from anyone else? It's secrets that make you who you are, I think. Not your face or your mannerisms – those are up for grabs, if you think about it. Secrets."

It was the single finest piece of advice Jobs had ever received – and from someone younger than him, no less. His many years of life had begun to weigh on him, but never once had he considered quitting. Always being on the move, never having attachments; never sharing his secrets. He was the only true individual he knew – everyone else shared their secrets and became co-mingled with another, even Valentine, from what he'd heard – the poor, stupid lad.

"You possess a few secrets of mine too many," Jobs growled. "I'll retrieve them with interest."


Heaving a long, drawn-out sigh of relief, Makoto finally shut the door to his chamber in the basement of the Shinsengumi headquarters behind him, crossed the room, and flopped onto the couch.

He probably wouldn't see Rei until tomorrow; regardless of how tired she was, the geisha had to show up at The Jade Dragon tonight or risk losing her job. The management was rather forgiving when it came to long stretches of absence, as long as they were infrequent, but stretching things out too far was still risky.

Wanting to just fall asleep in front of the television, Makoto grabbed the remote and flipped it on. He channel-surfed for a while, the glare reflecting off of his sepia eyes, moving from one pointless show the next.

Finally he settled on just watching the eleven o'clock news. As had become the norm lately, there was more discussion and deliberation on Reno's speech and the mysterious foreigner's motives, as well as a minor story noting some of the aftereffects of the conflict that had taken place earlier in the day.

Kosuke had told Makoto that a shopkeeper on one of the nearby streets had come with a complaint that "one of you bikers" had apparently managed to blow up his shop, along with three other bikers, using a rocket-propelled grenade. When Makoto asked Kosuke how he'd handled it, the young man said that he'd told the plaintiff that the culprit was a foreign devil and servant of the Shin-Ra company that would probably cut him down without batting an eyelash.

The man had withdrawn his complaint.

Makoto had been irritated; certainly, this took the blame off of the Shinsengumi, and in a properly diverting way as well, but what good were any of them if they condoned the rampant isolationist sentiment rushing through Wutai? He'd demanded twenty gil from every member present, right then and there, and sent a man with the sum total of fifteen hundred gil or so to the shopkeeper. Just because it wasn't their rocket didn't mean it wasn't their fault, Makoto had said.

His men had nodded approvingly and gone back to their drinks.

Was it all for naught? Could Makoto actually make any sort of difference in this fight, or was Wutai consumed by a sweeping change that no amount of reactionary movement could halt? Were all his actions in vain?

That's stupid talk, Jubei said.

He didn't actually say it; he was dead, of course. Makoto's eyes unfocused, staring past the news into years gone by. Makoto had given his parents lip about tidying his room, saying that it would just get disorganized again.

That's stupid talk. The world isn't black and white, tidy and messy, Makoto. There are shades of grey. Something can be sort of tidy, or sort of messy, but not perfect or perfectly chaotic. If you don't catch messiness when it's only sort of messy, it'll get really bad, and then making it tidy again will be more difficult.

"You were a good man, Jubei," Makoto murmured. "You really knew how to dispense worthwhile advice."

Every action he took against tyranny, regardless of how small, was still worthwhile, because it took a step up the long stair to a state of freedom. If you never mounted the first of a thousand stairs, you could never mount the second or the third.

Makoto fell asleep in front of the glow of the television, content.


As Reno pulled up to the curb in front of Yuffie's house, he saw a vaguely bike-like shape beneath a large tarp in front of him. He stopped well short of it, deciding to inspect his bike in the day tomorrow.

Rude pulled up behind them, parked his bike, locked it down, and said, "Going to bed. See you tomorrow."

"Night, partner," Reno replied. "Pleasant dreams."

"You, too."

After a moment, Reno made to get out of the car and Yuffie impulsively laid a hand on his shoulder and restrained him. "Wait up a minute, hon."

"Sure. What's up?"

Chewing at her bottom lip, Yuffie finally said, "I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow, Reno. I just have a really bad feeling about it – like we don't know what we're walking into."

"I'm walking into my own tomb if you end up betrothed to Rufus," Reno laughed, expression turning somber again quickly. "In all seriousness, though, we can't know what tomorrow's going to bring. I think that's part of life – if we all knew exactly what the future held, where the hell would be the fun? It's what you do getting to tomorrow that counts, not tomorrow itself."

Yuffie smiled wanly at him. "You're real deep sometimes, you know that?"

Returning her smile, Reno drew her to him across the seat and kissed her. "It's sorta spontaneous. I don't really try to be a genius, it just comes naturally."

She kissed him again. "An' modest, too. Real modest."

Another thought occurred to the redhead, and he said, more quietly, "As long as we're talking seriously… This could be the last opportunity for us to just be together, like this. I know I just told you not to be afraid of the future or whatever, but… That idea scares me. It scares the everliving shit out of me."

The ninja-girl regarded him with her head cocked slightly, eyes wide with wonderment. She saw no deceit in his eyes and heard none in his tone. Reno, being honest?

"This isn't some sleep-with-me-now-for-tomorrow-I-may-die thing, Yuffie. That's a load of bull. This is me, telling you that you're a hell of a lot more important to me than anything else in the world – my job, my company, my life, basically. You remember that talk we almost had about what would happen if one of us was going to die?"

Yuffie nodded. "Yeah. If one of us was going to die, like say someone was going to shoot me, would you try to take the bullet for me?"

"I don't like that scenario. It's lose-lose. If I don't, you die, and that sucks. If I do, I die, and you'll be real bummed – I hope. Plus, that's not even taking into account that the guy could just shoot twice. Sort of a catch-twenty-two. But let's break the rules here." Impulsively, Reno squeezed her hand and stared hard into her grey eyes. "If it came down to you or me, Yuffie, I'd sure as hell make sure it was me – and not only that, I'd make sure that I lived through it, so you wouldn't have to be sad."

At a loss for words, Yuffie pulled Reno to her, not to lean her head on his shoulder, but to let him lean his on hers – she felt his lean body quake slightly as he fought down a sob. This wasn't the cocksure sunuvabitch Reno or the silent killer Reno, but the little boy who'd probably never had a real family and who'd lost what little innocence he had left to a slut at an official function for his company.

He'd sort of broken down when he'd told her about that, too, but not like this time.

Yuffie held him, and dared tomorrow to come and interrupt them. It would show up eventually, but not now.

Tomorrow, everything would come together.