Business As Usual

22-Interlude: The Deity's Concubine

By Miyamashi

Miya's Note: Well, this marks what I guess you could call the halfway point of my story.

As if it's not novel-length already.

Note that this section, like White Flag (Again, read if you haven't. If you haven't read it yet, you've probably missed some hidden references and foreshadowing to the ending.) is in Reno's POV. Also note that, from now on, there's going to be an intro from Reno at the beginning of each of the chapters. I'm adding those to the chapters before this, but only in the full version that I'm not posting online until the story's finished.

Sorry about that, guys. Remember that you're reading a rough draft.

But, after this Interlude is a new beginning. After, you must say goodbye to the unfamiliar and embrace what you already know.

So begins the precursor to the time of FF7.

Oh, and if you've read White Flag, you'll also see that it was in 1st person perspective, in Reno's POV. This Interlude is the same, as will be the epilogue. The new chapter intros serve to tie the perspective switches together.

It hit me hard when he'd left. He went without a word, without a warning, and I woke up to find him…well, not to find him at all, really. I never understood why he chose that moment to leave, but somehow I knew that the only thing that would be able to bring him back would be the death of his father.

I supposed that the whole ordeal had a little to do with me, and a little more to do with the loss of his mom.

It was odd not to see him there, and it was odd in Midgar, the day the news of Rufus' departure to Junon hit the slums. I was on a mission that day to track and kill a woman named Celeste Myeia, along with her husband Jacob.

She was a hacker like me, but she had made the mistake of breaking into Rufus' classified files as they were being transferred to his Junon computer. Janice was the one who had caught her. That information alone was enough to explain to me why Rufus--who always was very short-tempered with most of his employees, I've heard--kept her as his secretary for so long.

But I always did kind of admire somebody who could catch a hacker in action. All that shit about respecting the adversary and all.

I found it amazingly ironic to realize that I could've been in Myeia's place if I'd never escaped from the slums. I found it even more ironic that it would've probably been the man I that day could call my best friend who would've been on the mission to kill me.

But I doubt it would've been quite the same if it had been Rude in my place and me in Myeia's. It just would've been infiltrate, bang, dead. "Sorry, guy. It's my job."

It wasn't gonna be like that with me.

When I'd lived in the slums, I'd heard about "The Messiah", but I'd never really paid much attention to the gossip. What I did know was that the ones who worshipped this supposed savior of Midgar were the same ones who were unhappy with Shinra's tyrannical, money-happy rule and were waiting for it to be changed.

Sector 5 was lucky enough to have a big, public telescreen, and the people who lived near it crowded around it to watch their Messiah in White speak. If Shinra was a tyrant, his son was their beautiful saint. Some of them wept and grabbed the screen, leaving salty, greasy fingerprints on the slightly cracked glass as he spoke to his people. Others, like me, were caught and held in a silent stupor that kept us motionless and trapped in his web, just like he drew the others to him like moths to a flame.

One by one, he ate us and he spit us out.

Rufus had been right when he had said they worshipped him. He was the slum-people's replacement for a god. Even to me at that moment, he seemed majestic, stern…

Untouchable.

He seemed to see us all individually as his inhuman ice-eyes scanned left to right and back again. He seemed to speak to each of us alone every time he opened those full and deceptive lips of his that only I in that crowd knew could speak fantastic lies that made the truth seem incomprehensible.

I, at that very moment, gained a horrible and personal grudge against Celeste Myeia. Not only had she committed treason against my Rufus, she had done it against Midgar's Messiah. She had tried to destroy us all by going against our God, who could watch us without seeing, and who could speak to us without hearing our cries.

"They're lying to themselves," I heard. I turned to find the living version of the reference picture of Celeste Myeia standing just feet away, talking to the man I knew to be her husband.

How convenient.

"They lie to themselves by believing he's different," she said.

Jacob Myeia looked afraid of those words.

I stepped up to the two with a smile on my face, clapping my right hand on the husband's shoulder. "Why so glum, chum? I agree completely with the little lady, but you look unsure."

Jacob didn't reply. He looked at me skeptically, his eyes running over my smile and my civilian clothing.

"Mind if I light up?" I asked casually, in order to gain their trust. "I need a cig, especially after watching the stuck-up pretty-boy."

Celeste Myeia's eyes brightened. She seemed thrilled to find someone who agreed with her ideas in a crowd of people who lost themselves to worshipping Him. Jacob, on the other hand, shirked away from me.

Smart man.

"Let's talk somewhere more…private. I'm sure you know how dangerous it is to express these ideas in public," I whispered to the woman in my arm. "Is he one of us?" I pointed to the shaky-looking man beside us. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"That's my husband. He would never turn against me."

"Good," I drawled out, sliding my hand into the small of the traitor's back, watching the way her husband's face turned from fear to anger. "Let's go." I wrapped my arm around her thin waist, pulling a cigarette from my pocket and lighting it with the other.

Jacob watched us. His eyes grew wide with a mixture of rage and sadness. Celeste sunk into my grip and gazed at her husband lazily. I got the impression this had happened many times before.

"We can speak at my house," she said, her voice turning darker with a kind of sultry flair. She ignored Jacob completely, walking with me toward a small house. The husband followed reluctantly.

The Myeia home was nicely furnished for a slum place. The first things I noticed were the new slipcovers on the couch that stood out against the rest of the room and the slightly faded photos on the walls that showed a happy couple with the faces of the unfaithful woman in my arms and the dreary man she called her husband.

I pulled away from the traitor and latched the door. Jacob watched my every move. Celeste seemed ready to burst, and her voice hissed with a message that made me smile at its odd irony.

"I tell you, any man with the name of Shinra is bad news."

"Oh, I agree. Believe me." I leaned in toward the woman and curled my fingers around the back of her neck. I whispered into her ear. "But what happens when a Shinra forsakes that name?"

"What?" she asked quickly, her eyes widening. She broke from my grip and backed away from me.

I continued on, so that both of them could hear. "A man who forsakes the name of Shinra becomes something more. He becomes twice as great, with eyes that reach across Midgar, even when he is away from the city."

"What do you…?" the woman stammered.

"I'm an eye." As I reached toward my pocket, Jacob flinched.

"Celeste, run!" he yelled, the first thing he'd said since I'd seen him.

How valiant, to defend a woman who would throw you to the dogs if she found a more attractive man.

Valiant, but stupid.

For the first time in my life, I pulled out a gun and pointed it at my enemy's head.

"I thought you were on our side!" Celeste screamed.

"Stop thinking. You're prettier when you don't."

"You can't shoot her! Who are you?" Jacob demanded, stepping in front of his wife.

"I'm a Turk, and you have both committed treason against Rufus and will die for it, by orders from both him and my boss."

Celeste shirked behind the man before her. That coward.

"You will have to kill me first," said Jacob.

"Fine." And I did.

"Please, don't kill me, Sir. I am just an innocent woman who was trapped in the traitorous ways of my husband."

"Shut up, you stupid bitch. Do you really think I'm that gullible?"

"I'll give you anything. I'll get you money, sex…"

"I said to shut up. I can get all of that and more when Rufus comes back. Even if I couldn't, I do my job, and my job is to kill you."

"Please, Sir," she pleaded fretfully, sobbing. "Spare me…"

"You're not helping yourself, Lady. In fact, the more you talk, the more I'm gonna enjoy pulling the trigger.

"But I…"

And I shot her. Good riddance, the damned slut.

I nudged her body off of her husband's with my toe. The poor shmuck still stared up at the ceiling. Why that guy was so devoted to her, I'll never know--She didn't deserve it, if you ask me--but I still pity him for it to this day.

I shot Celeste Myeia again for good measure, and stepped out the door.

The telescreen was replaying Rufus' speech. I stepped through the crowd, which was almost as large as it had been the first time, to get a closer look. The only ones in front of me were the men and women who grasped at the screen, most of whom were disturbingly young. Their faces were drawn and their bodies bony, like they had lived twice their ages in half the time.

I remembered suddenly what it was like to be that way. Compared to my days in the Slums, I realized, I was living in luxury, especially after Rufus had come along.

I pulled the goggles out of my hair, which flopped into my face. I shoved them into my back pocket and stepped even closer to the screen.

And I joined them. I dropped to my knees next to a pregnant woman who smelled like her own vomit, and I raised my hands to the screen.

I felt like grease was being poured over my palms and fingertips. It'd been a long time since I'd felt that dirty.

But it didn't matter, because my hands were on his face.

And he was dirty too, but he still moved with that same grace, that same strength, that same all-knowing sweep of the eyes and tilt of the head that he used to show that he was and always would be above us.

Feeling inferior to someone never felt so good.

It was my apartment now, I realized when I returned there after the mission. When he'd given me that offer to live with him that he knew damn well I couldn't refuse, I had thought that he was sharing his quarters with me.

But, no. He'd given them to me without my ever knowing it, and I had a sudden realization of what that meant.

He'd known all along that he was gonna leave, and he'd been planning it all right under my nose. The sudden urges to give me shooting lessons, the way he had agreed to take a pet when I knew he never would've otherwise…everything. Now, Dark Nation was his only company. His mother was gone, and I was left in Midgar. I still didn't know why he did it. If all of the shit he had to go through had happened to me, I would have wanted someone there to help me through it, but he made himself more lonely instead.

He did the same thing to me. I realized how much I missed him at that moment.

I hadn't watched the signs, and now look where it had gotten me: Here, alone, in this Rufus-forsaken wasteland of an apartment.

I really looked around there for the first time. The place had always seemed expensive, but I'd never really noticed why.

Everything in Rufus' room was made of wood, not metal.

Midgar, the dead city of steel, held an oasis in its palm. It was organic. It was real.

It was scary as hell.

It was oddly nice, and, in a way, grotesque and out of place. It just absolutely wasn't right. It was kind of like Tseng in that way. It was completely foreign, and it somehow looked trapped in a world that wasn't quite its own.

And, in a way, it was impossibly beautiful, and that reminded me altogether too much of Rufus.

I ran my fingers over the wood on the bed frame. It was polished and smooth, and it went well with the silk sheets and soft mattress. It was a bit warmer than metal, and a lot softer. Not that it was squishy or anything, but more that it was more rounded and natural, instead of being cut into the normal squareish kinda shapes you find in metal.

I spent a good bit of time just walking around the room, running my hands over the furniture. At first, I got this weird feeling that it was alive. Then, I realized it was dead. Not like metal, which was never living in the first place, but really dead. It was pulled straight out of the ground, killed, and chopped up to make tables and chairs and shit.

Just like Rufus, to live in an apartment with a bunch of dead trees.

As I slid my fingers over the top of a shelf, I passed an open book with a short note written straight on the page. I recognized the handwriting. It was neat and controlled, but at the same time it flowed over the paper kind of the same way its master glided over the ground when he walked and his words danced out of his lips when he spoke. That handwriting couldn't have been anybody's but Rufus'. The message said this:

"Reno,

My mother gave me this book when I was little, and now I'm giving it to you. It's an anthology of Cetra mythology. I don't see you as the reading type, but I hope that you will take the time to actually go through this, particularly the opening story. Perhaps it will speak to you in the same profound way it did to me.

Sorry Sima's a girl. You'll get what I mean when you read it.

-Rufus"

So, he was right, I didn't really like to read, but this was a gift from him. I looked at the time, and remembered that I was scheduled for a meeting with Tseng to go over the mission report. I left the book where it was and left the room.

The meeting went by without me. I sort of remember walking in and out of Rufus' apartment--My apartment. Sorry, I keep forgetting.--and Tseng's office, but before I knew what had hit me, I was back where I had started with the old little book in my hands, hoping it wouldn't fall apart before I could see what the hell Rufus was talking about by "Sorry Sima's a girl."

So, I sat down on the wooden-framed couch and began to read. This is what I read:

"In the beginning, there was one soul--the Great Soul--Simayahme, who would birth all other souls. These souls would form the Lifestream, and the Lifestream would form the earth, who Simayahme named Gaia. The sons and daughters of Simayahme were to transcend onto Gaia as its people, the Cetra, and they were to make it fertile and beautiful, a place where the web of souls given life by Simayahme would live and learn as mortal beings, to eventually die and return to the Lifestream and its creator, and then to be reborn again. Only in this way could Gaia, the Great Soul's greatest and most prized creation, live on to transcend the existence of Simayahme itself.

As it grew old and tired, Simayahme sent its first son, which it named Yu Yahme after itself, onto Gaia to teach its dying words.

'You, my Cetra,' said Simayahme to it's son, 'must not make the mistakes of the ones before you, who, through war, hatred, and unpardonable Sin, wiped out their world and their souls, leaving me as the only emissary who could begin the world again. I leave you the beginnings of Gaia so that you may start anew, but beware that what lies dormant within me is the key to the last remnant of my people's corruption. In dying, I leave Gaia and you, my Cetra, but beware of the darkness that my return will bring from within you, for no soul dies forever, and each of you contains a part of their Sin that lies, waiting for the day of my return. But I ask one favor of you, children of Gaia, that you remember me as Simayahme, but that you give my Sin another name.'

'Beware, and prepare yourselves and your hearts for the coming of Jenova.'

And, with those words, Simayahme broke from the Lifestream, pulling Yu Yahme with him, and it left the earth, leaving its destined son on Gaia's surface.

But, as Simayahme had severed bonds with Gaia's souls, so had he done to his child, leaving Yu Yahme a stranded, immortal being without means to return to the stream from which he came.

Knowing nothing else but the last words of Simayahme, the son began to travel, spreading that dying confession to the open ears of the Cetra. But, as the years went by, Yu Yahme began to grow old and weary of the idea of spending all eternity telling the words of his creator, and it wasn't long until he came upon a new discovery that would further separate him from the Cetra: Anger.

Seeing this new emotion rage within Yu Yahme, and in realizing that he hadn't aged visibly in his pilgrimage, the Cetra grew to fear him, and, eventually, to worship him.

Yu Yahme, whose anger had begun to consume him, relished in this fear and this veneration, and began to regard himself as a god. But, though he was content in his immortality, he soon began to fear the coming of Jenova, and the fact that it would compromise his newfound power and the kingdom that he ruled. So he built weapons in his own fear, earthly Weapons that would protect Gaia--his Gaia--from invasion.

And he built himself a tall fortress, where he locked himself away from the Cetra, which only served to let them forget his face and body and to remember him as the Yu Yahme; the name that ruled them from the sky.

But the Yu Yahme's own delusions of godly grandeur began to fade, and he started to yearn for the simplicity of the people he watched and ruled over every day.

One day, as Yu Yahme stared angrily over his kingdom of Gaia, he found a small, peaceful family and became entranced by the undying devotion and love that its members showed each other. Even more, he began to grow jealous of how that devotion surpassed their reverence of him.

In a fit of rage, he stole the leader of their household, a Cetra woman named Sima, away to his fortress, fascinated that a mere mortal would have the other half to the name that Simayahme had passed onto him.

Yu Yahme enslaved that Cetra, and declared Sima to be his concubine, who would give to him the only physical pleasure that would serve to tie him to mortal beings. For a while, Yu Yahme was content to leave his godly mask behind, indulging in earthly pleasures, but, even as the concubine of a deity, Sima grew weary without true love and a family, and, as mortals do, began to die.

Her master quickly became desperate, unwilling to let the being who completed his name go, believing Sima to be his destined partner for eternity. Remembering what Simayahme had done to him, Yu Yahme grasped Sima's soul as she drifted out of life to keep it from entering the Lifestream. In this way, Yu Yahme made Sima immortal like himself.

The Cetra wept bitterly at this, for immortality meant that Yu Yahme could keep Sima as his concubine for all eternity. For Sima, this meant having to watch family and friends die off while the only one to live would be her captor.

But, in seeing Sima's tears, Yu Yahme had a sudden spark of regret. For sorrow was a new emotion to him. He asked Sima for the meaning of those tears, and she said to him, 'They are pieces of my soul that are trying to die as my body cannot.'

This further perplexed Yu Yahme, for why would Sima wish to die? In his anger and jealousy, Yu Yahme had grown to know life as the only means of existence, and he asked Sima why she yearned for that which he had never known or wished to know.

She replied, 'Without death, I cannot truly live, as light cannot exist without shadow. This is false light; false life. That I live is a lie, and it is the same with you.'

Angered by the woman's accusation, Yu Yahme, knowing he couldn't kill her, felt that he had to find the worst means to punish her possible. He asked her, 'What is it you value most in the world?'

To which Sima replied, 'There is nothing I value which you have not already taken.'

The self-proclaimed deity stared into his concubine's now tearless, unwavering eyes, and what he saw there frightened him. For, though Sima had lived only a fraction of his time, an ancient spark of life showed through that spoke of the wisdom of another world.

This spark had never been his. From him it was missing. He looked into his reflection in water and in glass and found nothing, and it quickly began to drive him mad.

Sima was the only witness to this transformation, and in seeing it she realized the pain that had lain dormant under Yu Yahme's cruelty.

One night, after he had taken Sima and fulfilled his carnal desires, she spoke to him, softly and without anger. 'In you I have felt the way that I have been mistaken. I thought that you had trapped me here, but I now see that I was wrong. You are the one who is imprisoned, here in the walls you built and the body that you cannot leave. Now, I see that you brought me here as an attempt at salvation from yourself. I am now ready to fulfill my task. All that I ask in return is that, when you are free, that you free me as well.'

Yu Yahme looked into those eyes again, and saw that they were still unwavering and sincere, and he nodded slowly in reply.

Sima leaned forward slightly and brushed her lips against his. This gesture confused Yu Yahme greatly. For, though Sima was his concubine, he had never asked for a kiss, knowing that to be a sacred pact between her and the family he had stolen her from.

Sima simply smiled and left the room.

From his bedchamber, Yu Yahme heard a terrible scream. He ran toward where Sima had left, finding the Cetra woman face-to-face with a horrific beast. The creature looked at him and let out a screech that sounded of the cries of a world in flames.

But Yu Yahme was not afraid, as he had looked into the beast's eyes and found a trace of Simayahme.

'It is me that you seek, Jenova,' said the Yu Yahme. The beast looked at him, and anger showed in its eyes where love had once reigned.

'You know this creature?' asked Sima, terrified.

'Yes, this beast is Sin.'

Jenova moved quickly toward the confused and startled Sima, but was stopped by Yu Yahme, who stood in the way of the beast and barred its path.

This was a move that Yu Yahme knew would end his life, robbing him of his immortality. Still with the great, deadly arm of the beast through him, Yu Yahme reached toward his concubine.

'At this moment, I free you. Your words alone were enough to save me from my prison. The compassion that you showed me was undeserved, and for giving it to me, I thank you.'

'You are dying,' said Sima, but her eyes were tearless.

'I am free.'

Jenova pulled from Yu Yahme's body, and the dying man fell, his mouth smiling, the light that Sima had given his eyes fading.

'You are human,' said Sima to her lover as Jenova killed her, too…"

It was then, after reading that story, that I realized the only things making me human were that I feel, that I sin, and that I will, one day, die. It was a depressing, oddly sobering realization.

I had never read so much in my life as I did that day, when I found myself completely absorbed in that book. It's really kinda funny, now that I think about it, that I was so fascinated with these legends. They were against everything that I'd ever learned or believed, and I guess that's what made 'em so damn interesting.

But they made perfect sense, in a weird kind of way, and that's what was scary. I had read a lot about Cetra. I knew they existed. It's a historical fact. But, I always just thought they were people--some dying race--who had a bit too much tradition and religion and shit. But that had never really explained the descriptions I'd read of 'em in papers and that I'd seen in the news when the science department released info on one that they'd captured for experimentation.

Every little thing I'd ever read or seen described them as idealistic, naïve, and completely emotionally unstable. Any little depressing thing would set them off into crying fits, nervous breakdowns, or even convulsions.

And then, they just kinda died out. The reports disappeared from the news. Poof. No more Cetra. I had no pity. They needed a reality check.

But, after reading that book, I really started to feel sorry for 'em. That Jenova thing, it said, was the reason for us humans. It corrupted them and turned them into us. If that book's right, we aren't just a different culture from the Cetra, but we're actually different on the inside. It's like we're sick.

The Cetra who were left just kind of had to hide in their nice, safe little Jenova-less world until we closed in on them like the poverty of the slums does on kids.

It sucks, really.

I also realized, after reading and re-reading that one story why Rufus apologized to me about that Sima chick. He had wanted me to read that thing because he related to it personally. He was the deity, and I was his concubine. I mean, it wasn't exactly like us, since, yeah, my character was a girl and shit, but there were some things that made it kinda scary.

I mean, think about it. Rufus' father is the one who killed him and had him brought back by Hojo. That made him kind of immortal, and he's talked to me so many times about feeling trapped. He said I made him human, more than any other person, and that's kind of what Sima did to that Yu Yahme guy.

Creepy, I tell ya'.

But the worst part about it is that, if Rufus really feels a connection with Yu Yahme, that means that he sees himself as being like the first of the humans. He sees himself as the worst of us all, and the most corrupt. He was corrupted, and he died and poisoned the Lifestream, screwing the rest of us over. Like his very existence meant the whole world's suffering.

I was suddenly afraid that I might never see Rufus again, because he would try to "free" himself again.

It took eight years for that fear to go away, and, even then, I was always on edge.

Miya's Note: Sorry these past few chapters have been coming so slowly. At this rate, it'll be another year-and-a-half before I finish. Oy.

Also sorry this one's shorter than they have been lately. It's a lot closer to the shorter length of the earlier chapters.

But, nonetheless, I hope you all liked it.

Next chapter is partially written already, and I just need to type the beginning up before I can keep going with it. Expect drama and some new characters, especially the ones I was teasing you about a few chapters ago. :D