Business As Usual
Chapter 14: Roles Reversed
By Miyamashi
Miya's Note: Hello all! I've been doing lots of writing at school, so chapters should start popping up a bit more frequently again, although not nearly as quickly as they did during summer vacation.
Poof. There went the nice, happy mood that was in Chapter 13. It is pretty much demolished by the end of this installment, although there's a really goofy section in the middle where Reno is in desperate need of sleep. That's always fun.
This chapter also has a lot of description in comparison to earlier one, though the conversation is still there, and there will be even less talking next chapter.
One thing that I didn't mention earlier that I should have is that I decided that Rufus had longer hair when he was younger…mostly due to a mistake I made in one of my pictures. Plus, in the Nomura drawing from Before Crisis, Rufus' hair is longer than it was in FF7. Imagine in earlier chapters that he had between chin to shoulder length hair, k?
That changes soon enough, though, as he goes to the Before Crisis chin-length. That should alleviate some confusion in one small section in here.
Since there are some new reviewers, though, I do feel that I need to greet them!
To EternalDarkness2: Thanks for the review! I'm glad that you like my characterization. It's something I'm quite proud of.
To Rosalyn Angel: Wow! That was one of the best reviews that I've gotten so far. You're the first person to comment positively on my dialogue, too, I think!
And yes, the poor doctor. I made it so you didn't know her gender for a few chapters on purpose. :D I'm glad you like my Rufus, too. Most of the people on the site prefer Reno, while most of my friends at school prefer Rufus. I'm a Rufus fan, myself.
To blue daemon: Thanks a bunch! I'm glad you liked the pasts. It took a bit of creative thinking to come up with those.
To Sqiferfan: Thanks. It's really nice to see how many Runo (I'm still calling it that, but thanks for the info!) fans there are out there. I was surprised (and still am) at how many fans I've drawn together with this fic!
To Aisu-Hime: You and Uwe with the whole crack thing. I swear. .- By-the-by, who is Chantzy? (OY! Second Class performance this Monday! AAAH! That play is so…different! It's kind of fun, though, doing a thrust stage for a change, though, right?)
A few heads turned as a skinny redhead who looked far taller than he really was stepped into the main lobby of the Zolom's Fang. He was wearing new blue jeans and a white shirt that was only partially buttoned up. He shoulders swayed as he walked in a memorable sort of swagger as his hands, which were tucked into his pockets, moved in tiny circles with the natural slight twisting of his hips. He pulled out a cigarette, thought about lighting it before looking blankly at the "No Smoking" sign clearly posted in large, red letters above the main desk and putting it back into the pack in his pocket.
He put down his black duffel bag with a "thunk" before ringing the small bell on the desk.
"Yes?" politely asked the attendant, a petite, black-haired woman.
"I already have a reservation," stated the man a bit abruptly.
"Name?" the attendant inquired without skipping a beat.
"Zelig Morrison," replied Reno, staying calm despite his lie.
"Ah, yes." The small woman pulled a thin, plain envelope from under the desk. "Here's your key and a letter from the man who reserved the room for you."
"Thanks."
Reno took it and left the front desk in search of his temporary home. When he found the room, he ripped open the envelope, which had his old name scrawled out on it in an neat, unfamiliar handwriting which he guessed belonged to the attendant, and slipped the card key into the door.
The room was a standard, simply furnished Plate hotel room. Reno had been in many of these during his life, especially before he had gotten into SOLDIER.
After all, unlike in the slums, one couldn't just squat down in the nearest dry alleyway for the night without attracting some negative attention.
This, he knew from personal experience.
Reno plopped down on the end of the bed and pulled the letter from the envelope. It was only one page, and surprised Reno with Rufus' very disguised handwriting that neither resembled his own nor that on the envelope and with its impersonality and unusually improper language.
Zelig,
There is a plan. I'll bee there in a little bit to tell you. I already reserved a room down the hall from yours for myself. When the Pres. shows up, he won't know what hit him.
R.K.
R.K.? Reno was extremely puzzled. Why would Rufus sign a letter with his initials? Was this part of his "plan"?
"He must have a pretty complicated plan," Reno said aloud to nobody in particular before laying back and getting some much needed sleep.
"Good afternoon, Sir. Do you have a reservation?" asked the attendant to the blonde man at the counter.
The blonde man nodded affirmative.
"What's your name?"
"Reno Kiribani." The man was tall and wearing black pants and a loose-fitting white t-shirt. The attendant was a little disturbed by the fact that she couldn't see his eyes behind a pair of dark-tinted goggles.
Though she didn't know that seeing his cold, blue eyes would have been even more disconcerting.
His chin-length razor-cut hair shook slightly as he spoke, and he brushed a piece of it off of his nose, somehow managing to make the gesture businesslike, despite its simplicity and his casual dress.
"Here is your key and a letter from the man who reserved your room," said the attendant, repeating the words she had earlier used to the real Reno, pulling a nearly identical envelope to the one she had given the redhead from below the desk.
Rufus took the envelope casually and strode out of the lobby and to his room with what the attendant noticed was a peculiar kind of grace and moved to his room, ripping the paper of the envelope with one skinny finger and pulling out the card key. He slipped it into the door lock, and, without ever stepping into the room, threw his bag through the entrance and let the room close with a click.
There was no need for him to read the letter, as he had been the one to write it. He had taken great care to reveal just enough to arouse suspicions, as he knew that the message would be read (in accordance with Midgar policy that had been initiated by his father) and it would help him in his plan for the attendant to know some small key information.
He walked down the hall, stopping a few doors down and knocking on the door. It took a couple of minutes before a voice inside replied.
"Whaddayawan?" came the groaning, irritated voice of the true Reno Kiribani.
"Open the door," was the answer.
"Drama-queen? Izzat yoo?"
"Yes. Open the door."
Rufus could hear a shuffling from past the door before it opened to reveal the redhead behind it, his eyes drooping with lethargy. Rufus pushed past the other man, who was leaning against the doorframe, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Now I understand," Rufus said, looking Reno over from under the goggles.
"Eh? Whaddaya unnerstahd?" Reno slurred sleepily.
"Now I get why your clothes are always crumpled up like you slept in them." Rufus paused. "It's because you…slept in them."
"Funny," the Turk said sarcastically, closing the door and stumbling over to the bed, cracking his eyes a little more, just enough to see the blonde. "You cut your hair," he stated, seeming to wake up a little bit in his lover's presence as he sat on the bed beside him.
"Yes. I was too easy to recognize. Plus, I needed a change."
"Damn. Now, if I take you to a bar or something and somebody asks who you are, I can't just, like, tell them that you're my flat-chested girlfriend."
"Good one," Rufus said dryly, punching the redhead in the arm.
"I thought so. Why the sunglasses?"
"They're goggles, and they're yours." Rufus took them off and handed them to the redhead, who turned them around in his hands. "I needed to cover my eyes for a bit, since they're a bit…shall we say, memorable, and I figured that, since you broke your sunglasses on my desk, I should get you a replacement. And these won't fall off of your big head."
"You didn't have to do that for me. I would have just bought new sunglasses anyway."
"Reno, I'm the planet's second most wealthy man. My treat."
"Point taken." Reno laid back on the bed. "I need more sleep."
"You need to learn how to function without it," Rufus said with a slight tilt of his head. "The Turks have been known to go on mission that last for weeks with little to no sleep."
"Oh, yeah. I'm one of those, aren't I?"
"Yes, Reno. You're a Turk."
"Ugh." He grabbed a pillow and threw it over his face. "How the hell do you do it Rufus?" he asked, muffled slightly. "You went to sleep after I did."
"I have years of practice…and caffeine."
Reno groaned in response.
"It's your own damn fault. You're the one who woke me up for quality conversation time."
Reno groaned again.
"Fine, I'll let you go to sleep. I was going to tell you the plan, but I guess that all you need to know is that now you're Reno again, not Zelig, and you're staying in room 28, so don't let anybody see you leave this room."
"I'm me in room 28. Got it."
"And I'm Zelig Morrison and am staying in room 24."
"Right. You're old me in room here."
"Good night, Reno."
"Night, old me in room 24."
And Reno was asleep, the pillow still over his head and his legs hanging off of the end of the bed, before Rufus had gotten out of the room.
"Zolom's Fang, how may I help you?" asked the same attendant that had checked Reno and Rufus into the hotel just days before as she picked up the phone and held it to her ear with her shoulder.
"I need to know if you have a Reno Kiribani in your registers."
"Who is this?"
"This is the President."
"Of what, Sir?"
"Of Shinra Electric Power Company"
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I need verification of your identity."
"The SOLDIERs standing outside of the building should be verification enough."
"Sir, I am sorry, but that's not going to work. I'm not that gullible."
As if one cue from the other side of the line, about ten fully armed SOLDIERs First Class streamed into the room.
"I assure you. I have other ways of accessing the registry if you won't tell me."
"My apologies Sir," replied the attendant, a shaking in her voice as the gun of one SOLDIER swung around the room, pointed at her for a split second.
"I ask again. Is there a Reno Kiribani in your registry?"
The attendant scoured the electronic books for a moment before replying. "Room 28. He was registered at 5:25 two mornings ago."
"Excellent. Was there anybody that registered with him?"
"There was a very shady-looking blonde man who registered and came in just a couple of hours after he did. There was a letter addressed to him from the other man. I think they were trying not to be found out."
"What was the blonde's name?"
"Let me check." The only sound that went over the line for a long while was that of a clicking keyboard. "Zelig Morrison, Sir."
A laugh could be heard from the President's end. "So, he had the nerve to take another name…"
After about an hour of intense silence, the SOLDIERs finally left the Zolom's Fang lobby as a large man in red stepped through the doors.
"Is this him? Is this the man named Reno Kiribani?" asked the President forcefully, holding up a company photograph of the Turk.
"Yes, Sir. This is the man who came in earlier."
Two floors up, a tall strawberry blonde man leaned over the railing and smiled briefly and confidently before stepping back into his room.
The door to room 28 burst open from a hard kick from one SOLDIER. The small platoon of troops stepped out of the way as the President walked into the room, his gun pointed at the head of Reno Kiribani.
But Reno Kiribani, also known as Zelig Morrison, and more commonly as Rufus Shinra stared calmly down the barrel of the gun, his feet propped up on a table and a glass of vodka swirling lazily in his right hand.
"Must you always be so brash, Father?"
"Where is he, boy?"
"That was a stupid question." Rufus took a sip of his drink. "How'd I know that you would fall for my little scheme?"
The President responded by firing a shot through the glass and Rufus' hand.
To watch the younger blonde look lazily at his hand without even flinching sent an involuntary shiver down the father's spine. Rufus' face formed itself into a bored, impatient frown.
"So violent. Always resorting to violence." The Vice President stood, shaking blood, alcohol, and glass from his hand. "I'm going to have trouble doing your paperwork for you, you know, with a hole through my hand."
"What is wrong with you, boy?" Shinra asked, unable to keep himself from stepping backwards as Rufus moved closer to him. "You're not even human, boy. You're just another one of the monsters, the way you always insist on going on, no matter how much closer it brings you to death."
Rufus struck like a snake, his bloodied hand closing around the thick throat of his father, the long, thin fingers shaking slightly from the pain of injury. "How else could I survive? Not allowed to live, I had to settle with mere existence." The young blonde's teeth ground together as his whole arm pulsed with agony. "This was your biggest mistake, Father, creating a monster that you weren't prepared to face."
The sound of seven disengaging safeties broke the silence that followed.
The grip on the President's throat only tightened. A few streams of new blood began to flow from where surprisingly sharp fingernails pierced through flesh like claws.
"I'll rip your fucking throat out, you bastard, even if it kills me," growled the beast.
But he couldn't do it, as three shots ripped into his body.
The President caught his breath as Rufus fell. "Stop firing!" he yelled to the soldiers. "I will deal with the boy on my own terms. Leave now."
Rufus collapsed fully to the floor. "You're a pathetic excuse for a man, Father," he said, his voice growing faint.
"Shut up, you monstrous whelp!" Shinra hissed, kicking his son in the gut.
Rufus let out a tortured screech as the kick sent a nearly unbearable pang of anguish throughout his body.
"Do you feel it now, Son? Do you feel the pain telling you I'm the one with the power here?"
Rufus took those words as a personal challenge, pushing himself to a sitting position, then onto his knees. Though it was a struggle, he finally managed to stand. He stumbled toward his father, his cold eyes glistening like caves of ice.
"I told you, boy. I'm the one with the power here." He fired another shot into Rufus' stomach, and the blonde collapsed once again with a shriek.
Reno leaned with his back against his door, biting his lip and wincing as he hear the sound of another shot, followed closely by a muffled scream.
The scream was Rufus'.
He was dead. Rufus was dead. He knew it was true, and that there was nothing he could do about it.
And the last thing that Reno had said to the blonde he couldn't even remember because he was half-asleep at the time.
There was nothing he could have done. Shinra had brought a troop of armed SOLDIERs with him who wouldn't hesitate to shoot him on sight.
But the guilt nonetheless managed to consume him. Perhaps there was something he could have done, after all? Wouldn't Rufus have tried everything in his power to save him if their positions had been switched?
But it was no matter anymore.
Rufus had died for him.
Rufus was gone.
Biting down hard on his lip, Reno opened the door and looked out, knowing that he would probably forget it. After all, if he were caught, wouldn't that make Rufus' sacrifice in vain?
But there were no SOLDIERs. No President. No Rufus. Just a maid steam-cleaning the floor in room 28.
He walked down the hall and stared into the room where members of the cleaning staff scoured the blood, the vodka, and the glass from around the room.
Reno stood there and watched silently the whole time, and, by the time it was done, it was as if nothing had ever occurred there.
"I don't know if I can salvage him this time, Sir," hissed an older, sickly-looking man with long, stringy black hair, who adjusted his glasses on his nose in a strangely disconcerting fashion.
"You had better, Hojo, or it'll be on your head. And he'd better not come out stronger again, because he's enough of a problem already," said the President impatiently, lighting a cigar, which Hojo snatched from his mouth and put out on the table, never losing eye contact with the larger man.
"No smoking in the lab. This is a controlled environment, and a new variable could have adverse effects on my experiments."
And though the President could have easily broken Hojo's back for that (which he had already done once, giving the scientist a stoop to his step--it had only paralyzed him for a week before he had figured out how to repair most of the damage) he just stood in front of the man, steaming angrily.
Because nobody ever did anything to Hojo and got away with it unscathed.
"If you want me to keep the boy alive," Hojo snarled vehemently, "it's going to take a lot of Mako, and if I siphon Mako into him, it's going to make him stronger. If you want him to be weak, then stop trying to kill him, and then regretting it. I thought that I told you that the last time. What did you get? A son who can shoot a shotgun one-armed. Maybe this time, I should make him strong enough for a rocket launcher." Hojo paused for a long while, taking off his glasses and contemplating the possibilities, forming his mouth into a thin, wide smile. "Although, there is something that I could try, if you give me the order, but it'll be highly risky and very experimental." The last word came out with almost a manic joy, and the eyes of the scientist seemed to have a fire lit behind them.
"Just do it, you fucking madman, and do it quick."
"That's Mr. Fucking Mad Scientist to you, Sir." Hojo paused, the grin widening, white teeth showing through the gap between the thin lips. "I'll get right to it. You know how I love a new experiment."
"Reno, where the hell have you been?" Tseng asked annoyedly in the Shinra H.Q. lobby.
"Sorry, Boss. Been at the Zolom's Fang, staying alive."
"Shinra still after your head?" asked the black-haired Turk leader, softening slightly.
"Yeah, but I think that may have changed, though I'm not sure."
"How'd you afford a room at the Zolom's Fang. You're paycheck's not that high yet."
"Rufus. He paid for it."
"Why are you back? Did Shinra give up on you already?"
"No. My source of money's gone."
"What happened between you two?"
"Nothing. Rufus is dead." Reno was expressionless. "Do you think Shinra'll still try to kill me, now that I can't sleep with his dead son?"
"I…don't know."
"He was shot. Five times. I didn't see it, but I could still hear it from my room. There was a scream after the last one, and then he went silent."
"Are you sure he's dead?"
"It was Shinra and a troop of SOLDIERs. From what I understand, Shinra'd been wanting to kill him for years and had been coming closer to doing it every day. I guess he finally did."
"So that's it, then? The Vice President is dead now? The Shinra legacy will end the moment the President dies?"
"If I get the chance, I'll make sure it ends soon."
"I know you're angry, Reno, but you can't go risking your life like that."
"But if I kill his father, he'll be able to rest. We'll both have our vengeance."
The large screen behind the two Turks flickered to life, as if answering a cue, and an important notice flashed across it.
"Special Notice: After being attacked at the Zolom's Fang Hotel, Vice President Rufus Shinra has reportedly disappeared from the face of the planet. His father, the honorable President of this great company, had this to say:"
"Shut up!" Reno screamed at the screen, as Shinra made a series of false statements about his son.
"…possibly assassinated, judging by the Junon attempt…"
"You killed him, you son of a bitch!"
"…but no body was found, so I retain hope that my son is still alive, and will show up unharmed…"
Tseng had to restrain Reno as the redhead lunged at the screen, but the subordinate managed to grab his electro-mag rod and fling it at the enlarged projection of Shinra's head.
The screen blacked out as the mag-rod lodged itself between the President's eyes.
Reno broke free from Tseng's grasp, pulling his weapon from the screen by its lightning-proof handle and storming off to Rude's room.
"Yes, this is Tseng," said the Turk leader through an intercom on the wall. "I need somebody down in the lobby for cleanup and repairs on a tele-screen."
Miya's Note: YAY! Sorry it took so long for me to get this up here! I've had this chapter written for almost a week (or maybe even more), but hadn't gotten the chance to type it up until now. Ch. 15's already finished, so that one should be up FAIRLY soon, if we're lucky. I do have quite a bit of homework this weekend, so I don't know for sure.
Prepare for more Hojo! The next Chapter name: The Million Gil Macabre.
Oh, and I can't wait until I write Ch. 16! I've had the idea for it since the end of writing this one. It's going to be called "Sensuality", though the word'll have a slightly different meaning than you probably think. It's already my favorite chapter, and I haven't even written it yet!
One interesting thing that I found out while writing this chapter was that the word "blonde" is only used for females, and that I should have been calling Rufus the "blond" the whole time.
But guess what...I'm still calling him a "blonde", whether it's right or not (it just adds to his innate femininity)! He's everyone's favorite blonde widow! XD
Oh, and another big mistake that I made in a couple of the earlier chapters was the use of the word "venerable" (meaning "to be revered") in place of "vulnerable" (meaning weak, prone, and powerless). Oopsies. Just overlook that.