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32. Naifu – Damaged

Naifu bid goodbye to Eber at the end of their shift. She reflected that things hadn't gone as hideously as they could have with Don Corneo, but the knowledge wasn't the least bit comforting. Instead, she felt antsy, like bugs were crawling around inside her skin. She toed the floor, not wanting to go back to her empty apartment. Some days were better than others when you lived alone, but there was always an empty feeling when you got home and the place was exactly as you'd left it when you went out.

Someone spoke up behind her. "You look like you could do with kicking the crap outta something."

"Are you volunteering, mind-reader?"

Legend stepped around to stand in front of her. "Sure."

Naifu cocked her head to one side appraisingly. "Methinks you jest."

"Youthinks wrong," Legend replied. He rolled his neck. "Rough day. I'm getting kinks. I need to limber up with a good workout or I'll seize up completely."

"Old man."

"Young enough to kick your ass."

Naifu didn't argue with this. Any amount of time in this job incurred injuries, and old injuries had a habit of making more problems if you didn't keep yourself in shape. She wondered where Legend's injuries had come from.

He took one hand out of his pocket to shove his glasses back up his nose.

"Why are you wearing shades over an eyepatch?"

"Duh. To make me look cooler."

"You look like an idiot."

He shrugged, as if it didn't matter to him in the slightest what she thought of his fashion sense. "Are you okay for a few rounds in the gym?"

She shrugged, feigning indifference. "Whatever. Might be fun to kick your ass."

"Don't get presumptuous, Sureshot."

"'Presumptuous'? Ooh, look at you, using a big word like the clever dicks in the science department."

"Compare me to those bozos again and you'll regret it."

"I'm quaking in my standard issue black shoes. Seriously."

She changed quickly and joined him in the ring of crash mats. Nobody else was in the gym at this time of night, so they had the place to themselves unless other night owls decided to burn off some energy pounding the shit out of the equipment. Shinra gyms weren't for dieters trying to use up calories, or bodybuilders testing how much they could bench-press. If you were eligible to be in here, you were one dangerous person, and you were there to make yourself even more dangerous or work out your frustrations.

She and Legend started slow, exchanging a few warm-up punches and circling each other while still trading banter. Naifu wasn't great at hand-to-hand, but neither was he. They were both more comfortable with long-distance weapons, but they could hold their own in a close-up-and-dirty fight. Neither would last five minutes against Youhei or Kakatou, but compared to non-Shinra martial artists they were pretty good. At the very least they could hobble away with their dignity intact, if not their asses.

"... so then Don Corneo gave one of his patented shit-eating grins and I just knew he was – unf! – gonna try and pinch my butt on the way out."

"And you – oof! – dealt with that how?"

"The best defence is a good offence."

"You didn't – whoof!"

"Relax. He still has all ten piggy fingers and all ten piggy toes."

"And both piggy balls?"

"That sounded so wrong."

"It sounded better in my head – yow!"

"Big baby. I barely touched you."

Legend swung. Naifu ducked and socked a foot into his groin. Nobody could ever accuse her of not playing for keeps. He caught the strike on the outside of his thigh and his fist pistoned out. She sidestepped, kicking his feet out from under him. He hit the floor hard. Things were getting more serious now.

"No fair aiming for the family jewels!" he yelped.

Naifu shrugged. "All's fair."

"That's only in love and war, Sureshot." He gave her a funny look. Then he surprised her with a super-fast sweeping kick.

Naifu's tailbone met the floor. "Yowch!"

"Big baby," Legend grinned. "I barely touched you."

Naifu braced her hands, rocked back and flipped to her feet. He did likewise. They looked like something from an acrobatic circus. Four feet hit the floor at the same moment and four fists went into guard position.

"Have you had enough pain yet, or are you thirsty for more?" Naifu asked.

"You say the sweetest things."

"You bring out my poetic side." She kicked up. Legend instinctively closed his legs, managing the complicated trick of also dancing backwards, but she wasn't aiming there a second time. When it worked, it worked, but if that move was as reliable as it looked in the movies, no man would ever get the best of a woman in a fight. Instead, she swapped legs and vaulted into a somersault, coming in fast with a volley of flying kicks at his head.

"So – unf! – is Rod – hrrk! - stuck on some boring shitty detail while you're – oof! – babysitting the new guy?"

"Paperwork!"

"Sucks! To! Be! Him!"

Maybe. Naifu was actually pretty glad Rod was stuck in Shinra Tower for the time being. Not being on the streets was a Very Good Thing while he had people out for his blood. Well, out for it more than usual, and for more than just because he worked for Shinra and wore a Turk suit.

Her momentary distraction was all the opening Legend needed. He blocked and twisted, turning into the curve of her next kick and deflecting it along his side, so that she ended up almost slinging her leg around him like a tango dancer. A jab to her shoulder set her off-balance. He followed with a palm-strike that had her pirouetting to the ground. Naifu tried to roll into a shoulder-stand again, but Legend was there to stop her. He jammed his hands down on her shoulders, knees either side of her waist, pinning her down.

"Say uncle," he grinned.

Naifu tried to work her hips to boot the back of his head, but he shifted his weight backwards so she couldn't bend properly. She tensed her waist and abdominal muscles, but it was no use: she had been checkmated.

"Say uncle," Legend said again.

"You wish. I'm not done yet."

"You are from where I'm standing."

"You're not standing, and I still have to the count of five before I'm out."

"One, two, three, four –"

She ratcheted her neck forward to head-butt him. Legend fell back, clutching his nose. She realised belatedly how close his face had been to hers. Snapping upright into a sitting position, she chopped the sides of both hands down on either side of his neck. Legend folded like a cheap suit and she twisted him around, thumping his back against the floor. Suddenly their positions were reversed and she was on top of him, pinning him to the ground instead.

"Say … uncle," she panted.

He stared up at her, blinking his own good eye in surprise. "Should've seen that coming."

"Should've, would've, could've, didn't. Declare me the victor so I can go shower already. Your kinks are plenty worked out by now and I want to leave on a high –" She was cut off by him raising his head off the ground and covering her mouth with his.

Too late she realised why an experienced pro like him had been caught by a basic head-butt. She couldn't believe was he was doing. It froze her into inaction. For about two seconds. When she could move again, she did. She released his shoulder and her fist shot out.

"Owwwwww! Fuck!"

She jumped off him and backed away. "What. Do. You. Think. You're. Doing?"

Legend clasped both hands over his face. His voice came out muffled and wet, as if he had a cold. "Shit, Sureshot, I think you really did bust my nose that time!"

"I should bust your freaking head."

"What?"

"Don't you ever do that again. Ever!"

He peered up at her from the floor, hands shifting below his nose to catch the blood before it ran down the sides of his face. "Wasn't that big a deal," he slurred, indistinct but understandable enough for her to hear the sullenness in his voice, like a kid who had been promised the brand new hot-ticket toy, only to be handed a yo-yo with a broken string.

Hot anger flared through her shock. She resisted the urge to stomp on his head. She settled for grasping the front of his t-shirt and yanking his bloodied face close to hers. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? You're the one who just smashed my face in! I didn't think you were so –"

"You just didn't think," she interrupted. Rage was a mineshaft filled with lava boiling up inside her. Her spine heated from bottom to top and her skin prickled. Her vision started to spackle with grey-black flecks, so keen was her fury.

He didn't understand. Well, why would he? She couldn't make him understand, either, so instead she lashed out, wanting to wound in some other equivalency but not in control enough to know how. "You never think when it comes to pussy. You just see what you want and you try to take it. Sometimes it gets you into trouble, but you don't learn, do you? You never even consider that maybe –" She tried to keep yelling, but found herself verging on tears instead. Not good. She needed to get away before she started to blub. She couldn't let him see her like that. "You idiot. How could you?"

She let go and ran out, but she didn't get far. Legend caught up with her at the gym door. It was a pull door. As she tried to yank it open, his flat palm slammed against it, holding it shut. She whirled and glared up at him. His face was bloodied and thunderous.

"Let go."

"No."

"Let go or I'll break your arm." She would, too. She hadn't been so angry since … well, in a long time. Her lips still tingled and her chin prickled where his stubble had rubbed.

"You damn near broke my nose. That entitles me to an explanation about why you went apeshit over one little kiss."

"It's not just –" She stopped herself. Regaining her self-control was like reeling in a heaving fishing net filled with electric eels. She blinked furiously and rattled the door under his hand in frustration. "Fuck!"

Legend coughed and spat out a gob of bloody mucus. It landed on his foot. "Aw, damn it. This just gets better and better."

"Let. Me. Go."

"Will you just –"

"Let me go!" It came out as a scream.

Legend's expression slammed shut. "No."

"Let me go or I swear I'll –"

"You'll do what?" He gazed levelly at her. "C'mon, Sureshot. Time to put your cards on the table."

"Like hell." The backs of her eyes stung. Don't-don't-don't-don't-cryyyyyyy …

"You went from hunky-dory, to violence, to wailing banshee, all in sixty seconds. That ain't normal. Even for girls who don't like guys, that ain't normal."

"I – what?"

"You're telling me you're not?"

"Not what?"

"Batting for the other team."

"How dare you! Where do you get off? Just because I reject your attempt at tonsil hockey, I must be gay?"

"So you're not?"

If anything, that just made her see red even more. "Are you high on some weird testosterone overload? It's none of your damn business whether I like men, women, animals, minerals or vegetables! I just object to being pawed by your greasy mitts."

"I wasn't pawing you. I kissed you. Once."

"It's the same thing!"

"No it isn't."

"It is to me!" She was back to screaming. Calm down. Calm down. Quit losing it. Her breathing hitched. Yeah, this didn't look at all bad or suspicious. "Let me go," she gritted. Almost in a whisper, she added, "Please."

Legend regarded her. "No."

"Damn it!" She kicked his shin.

He didn't even flinch. Nor did he move. All the intensity that should have gone into two eyes pooled in his one. It stared balefully at her, hard, assessing, and … troubled? "Sureshot," he said softly. "Talk to me."

"Fuck off."

"Naifu."

"That isn't my name."

"So what should I call you?"

"Don't call me anything. Just let me go."

"What happened to you?" He didn't add the rest of the question, but she sure as hell heard it: to make you react so badly to something like this?

Intellectually, she knew being offended at him changing the terms of their friendship couldn't justify her reaction. It was one kiss. He hadn't pushed his luck, he had just failed to ask and she hadn't expected it. Was that any justification for hurting him? For a regular girl, sure, an overemotional outburst might have been acceptable – if she was a hormonal teenager. However, Naifu was neither regular nor a teenager. Her reaction was out of character for both her personality and her station as a Turk. She knew that. She just couldn't help herself. She had gone overboard – completely over the top, histrionic, melodramatic, out of control, whatever you wanted to call it. Hey had both crossed a line, just not the same one.

She held herself steady only through supreme self-will. Legend continued to wait, but she was too keyed up to recognise the things in his stare.

"I didn't think you could cry," he said eventually.

She dropped her gaze. All at once the fight went out of her. Her shoulders slumped into roughly the shape of a rainbow stretched across the horizon, only there wasn't any pot of gold in her voice. "You saw my scars," she whispered. "Can't you figure it out?" Why didn't you figure it out before you kissed me?

"I should've," he said. It was close to an apology. Apology's cousin. Through marriage. Several times removed.

"Can I go now?"

For a second she thought he was still going to hold the door. Then he removed his hand, but he didn't step back. If she opened it she would clobber him. Again.

She took a moment to look at the damage she had done to his face. Two separate strikes had left his nose in pretty bad shape. She hesitated before raising her hand towards him. This time he did flinch. She hesitated again.

"You're all gross," she said.

"I really do bring out your poetic side, don't I?" The small reference to a simpler moment between them spoke volumes – more than they could put into words otherwise.

Naifu shouldn't have reacted so badly. She had thought those old feelings were firmly dealt with. She had thought she had expunged the demons of her past and that the wounds had scarred over inside as well as out, tough and impenetrable. Apparently they hadn't. The unhappiness that she could still be blindsided by memories of her past was as paralysing as her anger had been. She felt raw, made freshly vulnerable by her own grief and anger.

"I'm sorry." The heat in his voice shocked her. He was pissed.

She realised after a second that he wasn't angry at her; he was angry for her. He was looking at her in a way nobody had ever looked at her. His expression said he wanted hurt whoever had hurt her. Never mind that it had happened years ago, or that he didn't even know the full story; he wanted to fix her and it was killing him that he couldn't. It was such an alien expression for him. Yet, thinking back to all the time she'd spent with him, it wasn't so very weird. Legend wasn't as straightforward as she used to think. No, as she had wanted to think.

Like she was one to talk about not being straightforward once you got past the surface?

She shrugged. "Not your fault." Now who sounded like a sullen teenager? "It was a long time ago."

"Like that matters? I was out of line. I knew something wasn't right, but I kissed you anyway."

"It's no big deal."

"Yeah, it was. I screwed up. Timing, opportunity, signals, permission – I screwed up everything." He was holding his face with his other hand. He wiped at the mess with the bottom of his tee-shirt. It only made things worse. "And this really fucking hurts."

"Uh, sorry about that." She found that she meant it. All anger had leeched from her, leaving just exhaustion and a hint of guilt, like a dirty bath ring around the inside of her heart.

Did Turks even have hearts? Stupid question. Of course they did. She was a Turk, and she could feel every crack, fracture and splinter, both old and new, in her heart.

Legend shook his head, but winced. "It was my own damn fault."

"The dent in my forehead and the blood on my knuckles say different. Here, let me take a look."

"It's fine."

"C'mere –"

"I said it's –"

"I said come here."

It was a battle of wills. She won. Legend's heart wasn't in it. He let her look, prodding experimentally at the swelling skin either side of his nose. He reared back like a small pony instead of a fully grown stallion.

"No nearly about it, that's a break. Sorry," she added awkwardly.

"Don't be. I was asking for it."

"Y'know, I don't think I like this humbled, apologetic Legend. It's just not you." Naifu let out a heavy breath, still grabbing for that overfull fishing net. "How about we draw a line under this whole episode and pretend it never happened?"

She expected him to agree, so she was surprised when he said, "I don't want to forget that this happened."

"Why the hell not? I beat you up for getting fresh with me. What's not worthy of forgetting – the insane embarrassment, the humiliation, or the pain?"

"The part where I'm sorry for my timing and misreading your signals, but not for actually kissing you."

She sucked in a breath. "I'm not that kind of girl, Legend." What she really meant was: I'm not your kind of girl.

"I'm not asking you to be."

"I know how you think about women –"

"You know how you think I think about women."

She paused, processing that one. "Huh?"

"Not about you," he finished. The tee-shirt he had raised to cover the lower part of his face was really good for also covering his expression. She could have sworn he was embarrassed, except that to Legend embarrassment was what altruism was to cats.

Whatever. He couldn't be any more mortified than her.

She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready. Her shoulders tensed until she was practically wearing them as earmuffs. Her temper flared once more. It was hard to describe, but even harder to remember those weeks after her life changed. She had never known pain like it – not just the physical kind that had left her riddled with scars like tiger stripes, but the internal kind that grew like mildew, filling the corners of her mind and soul, and blackening inward. Nowadays she had taken that grief and buried it in a box deep inside – which Legend had unearthed with the equivalent of a landmine. No slow digging up the past for him. A few experimental jabs with a shovel in the Costa del Sol, and now this. The explosion he had caused had blown open the box and flung all her most painful memories into the air.

She remembered weeks of swirling, half-awake nightmares. She remembered waking, only to relive the whole ordeal again every time she thought about it. The hazy, painkiller-fuelled days under her old name had passed like an eternity, until Veld came and gave her a new one and a new purpose with which to block it all out. That was a dark place. She had never wanted to go back there again.

She stepped away from Legend. "I … I can't." She sounded young and stupid. Revolted with herself and her memories, she wrenched the door and ran through it.

She almost crashed into two people outside. She hadn't been expected anyone to be there, so only her excellent reflexes saved her.

"Bloody hell!" laughed a warm, aristocratic voice. "Whoa there, Nelly. Where's the fire?"

Richie and Helena stood like the least similar identical twins in history. Both had short blonde hair, blue-eyes, pale skin and Turk suits, but nobody could ever mistake one for the other – and not just because Richie was male and Helena was female. That in itself was misleading: Helena had a masculine air about her at all times, probably even while she slept, while Richie was so effeminate Naifu couldn't believe he wasn't gay. Richie had spoken. Helena just stared with that unnerving intensity she used on both friend and foe.

"Are you all right, Naifu?" Richie asked. "Or are the flying monkeys after you?" He laughed at his own joke. He always did. It never bothered him when nobody else laughed.

"Peachy keen. Couldn't be better. 'Scuse me." Naifu edged past them.

Helena barely turned her head, but her eyes followed Naifu like a portrait in an empty gallery. Naifu tried not to shudder. Helena wasn't easy to get on with at the best of times. Wind chill factor personified, that was her – which made it all the more startling that she and the garrulous Richie were such a good team.

"You have blood on your hand," Helena observed.

"Uh, whoops?" Naifu wiped her hand on her leg. "I gotta go … do something. Someplace else." She made her escape before they could protest.

She didn't slow until she had bolted her front door behind her. She leaned her forehead against it and took several deep breaths. It took every scrap of willpower to hold back the tide that had threatened to consume her once before and nearly destroyed her. Once upon a time, she had lost everything and everyone she ever cared about. She had worked hard to forget that, but with one kiss, Legend had opened her old wounds and poured salt into them.

"Thanks," she muttered. "Thanks a lot."