at last, the long awaited chapter in which...! hell, i'll just let you guys find out yourselves.

Cid scratched the back of his head guiltily. No doubt something was up that was going to make this extremely difficult journey much harder than it already was. He sighed and replied with an uneasy grin on his face, "Well, not that it won't land per se…"

Reno folded his arms, rolling his eyes. "Just spit it out, Highwind," He said shortly. It couldn't get worse. Kir Facaz was Zack Fair. He probably just screwed his only friend on this journey last night. And he had one of the worst hangovers in… about two months. Yeah, it couldn't get any worse.

Cloud searched through his mind for the worst possible situation that Cid could give them since all he got in return was silence anyway. "Is the plane going to blow up?" He blurted out randomly. Well, not very realistic, but hey, it was Cid.

"BINGO, SHORT STUFF!" Cid yelled ecstatically. "Er, I mean," He cleared his throat, "Yes, that's correct. Okay, I might as well just tell you guys. Bluntly put? I screwed up. All my planes are in the shithole so the only one I could dig up was this piece of crap. Problem is… well, the engine's the fucking problem."

Okay, he was just going to keep thinking to himself that it wasn't going to get worse. Reno almost exploded from the suspense of the whole moronic situation. "What?" He said in an attempted steady voice.

"It's a bomb."

"WHAT?" It just got worse. Reno clutched his head, nearly having a seizure, "FUCKIN-WHAT? A bomb. A BOMB? What kind of plane has a fucking bomb for an engine?"

Cid gave a guilty smile looking from side to side, anywhere but the furious Turk's face, "Er, mine?"

Reno yelled incomprehensible curses in reply.

"Calm down, Reno," Cloud said rolling his eyes, unusually calm about the whole dilemma.

"CALM? It's a fucking bomb! How am I supposed to be calm? ARGHHH!"

Cloud sighed and continued, now turning away from the man he now had absolutely no acquaintance with, "Okay, Cid. It's a bomb, but I don't care because I need to get across this ocean. So, tell me what we got to do."

Cid patted his long-time friend on the back heartily, "Never straying from your real goal, Blondie. You haven't changed." He bent down and picked up the cardboard box of random objects, which Cloud dropped spontaneously somewhere in the middle of the entire conversation, and handed it to Cloud once again, "Near the grasslands surrounding Wutai, you're going to have to use these parachutes and jump off the plane before it so much as touches land again. I know what you guys are thinking. Why the fuck is it a bomb? WELL, those goddamn Shinra bastards wouldn't get me proper engines for my damn planes so I had to take some from war zone scrap yards and tweak them."

Evidently recovered, Reno decided to join in to the conversation and muttered cynically, "They had fucking engine bombs during the last war…?"

Cid shrugged, leading the pair towards the lethal plane. "Well, they were decoy planes, equipped with artificial intelligence and engines that would blow up on impact. It's not very common, but not exactly unheard of either." He kicked down the ladder leading up to the cockpit. "Perfect for surveillance of enemy territory. Or just for the fun of blowing things up," He grinned and gestured towards the circular hatch, "Well, get the hell in there, guys!"

Cloud looked at the plane suspiciously. Now that he knew what it really was, he started noticing the obvious signs of the decoy plane. War propaganda printed all over the sides, not to mention all the warning labels that just riddled the hatch over the engine. This was getting steadily more and more ridiculous. "Go ahead, Reno," He nudged the red-head closer to the plane, completely reluctant to get on.

"Yeah, sure. Ahead to my death…" Reno muttered as he warily climbed into the cockpit, closely followed by the blonde. He edged forward and sat his rear down on the pilot's seat scrutinizing the controls. He knew a plane's controls were obviously different from a helicopter's, but he didn't even know what the hell these were! Not only was everything in the wrong place, it was a completely different language! Just goes to show the difference between humans and A.I…. none. This was just pure stupidity. With raised eyebrows, he decided to just flick on a couple of switches that looked most like they were going to do something that would actually get the plane to start working. Evidently he failed because his next few words were, "What the fuck? This plane doesn't even start!"

"That's because you're doing it wrong, dumbass!" Cid yelled from the ground. He edged around the backside of the plane to the front by the engine. "You should have told me you guys were all set, then I'd start it from the outside!"

"Your fault for not mentioning that to us earlier," Reno grumbled in his seat, cursing. But his bad-mouthing was suddenly interrupted by the loud clang of what sounded like Cid's foot against the hard metal of the plane. What in the world?

"Hey! Hey, Cid!" Cloud leaned out of the cockpit to peer at the underside of the plane at exactly what the hell the former pilot was doing. His hands grabbed the edge of the plane so he hung suspended upside-down against the side. He raised his eyebrows at the violent actions of his former friend, who seemed be abusing the thing more than getting it to work. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"Dammit, stupid plane!" Cid merely gave the plane one last kick before taking out the huge wrench he had in his back pocket. "Get back into the plane, short stuff!" He yelled, raising the wrench high over his head, "I swear to Shiva's holy ass, this thing is gonna blow any second!"

"Oh shit!" Cloud swung himself over the edge of the plane back into the cockpit, nearly colliding with Reno along the way. Not a second after he shoved the safety belt into its latch and slammed the glass cover down over the cockpit, he heard the loud clang of the wrench followed by the sudden lurch of the plane shooting forward faster than even Cid's old rocket.

Without the warning to buckle up to his seat, Reno could only hold on for dear life. "FUCKING SHIIITTTTT!" He hollered, nearly flying off the pilot seat entirely from the force of the plane's propulsion. He attempts to help Gaea from certain destruction and this is what he gets, huh? This is what he gets? Fucking flying towards who knows where! This is exactly why Turks never work for the good of mankind. Or for Cloud, but he was just an exception and a rare one at that. Wait, for Cloud? For mankind! …Mankind? Yeah. Yeah, that was right. Wait, what?

As Cid slid his wrench back into his pocket, safely on the ground. He barely had even a millisecond to look up before the plane was already flying out of sight. The pilot just folded his arms and sighed, looking up into the deep blue sky at the tiny speck that was once his beloved plane, "Have a great trip, guys!"


"Okay, I stuck it on auto-pilot," Reno unbuckled his belt and started crawling over the pilot's seat to the back where the blonde lay dozing off, "Hey, Cloud!" He didn't even flinch, despite the volume at which Reno yelled his name. The red-head's heart involuntarily skipped a beat as his hand inched forward to… to do what? To wake him up right? So why was his hand starting to caressing the soft skin of the blonde's cheek instead? Argh, stupid body! He should be focusing on saving the world, not his non-existent love life! His hand flinched and ended up smacking Cloud over the side of the head, "Wake up, chocobo-head! We're almost there, yo."

"OW!" Cloud jerked to a sitting position with a hand over his smarting head, "That was so uncalled for!"

Reno rolled his eyes, "Well, you wouldn't wake up, so what else would I do?"

Wouldn't wake up? Cloud grimaced as a guilty feeling enveloped his body and settled in his stomach. No wonder he couldn't hear the Turk, he was dreaming about Zack again. For some weird reason, he was actually getting more and more of those dreams. The closer he got to the Wutai Continent, the more vivid those dreams got. More vivid than ever… He shook his head fiercely and crawled over to the pilot's seat. "You go ahead and get those parachutes ready, Reno. It's too crowded back here," He mumbled, face red. Too crowded as in, not wanting Reno to burn his ass off from the evident heat radiating from his body. How embarrassing.

"Uhh, yeah sure," Reno looked oddly at the blonde. What was his problem? He shrugged it off and grabbed the two packs of parachutes from the box of junk. "We didn't even use half of this crap that pilot gave us. What a waste of the time he spent organizing this crap. Waste of stuff too, since it's going to end up blowing up anyway," The red-haired Turk muttered as he pulled the two packs apart from each other. As he tweaked the parachutes to a working condition from the rough flight over the ocean, he noticed as small tear in one of the chute bags. He held it up to his face, scrutinizing it, "Hey, Cloud, I think we have a defect here-"

"I'll take that, thanks," Cloud ripped it out of his grasp and strapped it to his back, looking away from the red-head, "Looks fine to me."

Reno swung the one left in his hand onto his back and buckled it in as well, "If you say so, yo." He looked even more bizarrely at the blonde. He was acting completely out of character today. Whatever that meant. Could Cloud actually get anymore anti-social than he usually was? The Turk tightened the belts on the parachute pack and slowly raised the glass roof of the cockpit, tensing himself from the sudden change in air pressure and strong winds. With one hand holding tight to the top edge of the plane and a leg on the bottom edge bracing himself, he leaned over the edge and bent down, ready to leap out, "Okay, let's get out of here!" His fingers let go and-!

"WAIT, DUMBASS!" Cloud lunged out and grabbed the red-head around the waist in mid-air before he fell, and they landed in a heap on the floor. The blonde slowly let go of Reno panting, "Do you even know where we're supposed to jump? What if you dive down and land in the middle of nowhere? Kir Facaz would kill us before we even get to Wutai for shelter!"

Reno smacked the back of his palm in realization, "Oh yeah, that's right. But wait, where are we supposed to jump? This stupid plane doesn't exactly have any radar or anything." He paused for a moment in realization. "WOW, THIS IS A SHITTY PLANE."

He just noticed? Cloud shrugged and peered over the edge of the plane at the land growing steadily closer to them. "Hell if I know," He said loudly over the wind, "Maybe right when we see Wutai?"

"Well, maybe… before we crash into that GIGANTIC IN COMING MOUNTAIN! JUMP!" Reno grabbed Cloud by the collar and dived out of the decoy plane just moments before it collided into the mountain with a brilliant explosion that bloodied the dark, overhanging clouds with a fiery, red light. They plummeted down to earth, the heat of the explosion just licking the skin exposed on his face and hands. But despite the obvious flaming ball of fire on the mountain and the evident thousand feet drop to the ground, all Reno's mind could think about was the fact that the PLANE WAS ACTUALLY A FUCKING BOMB. Hey, Cid sounded like he was serious and all, but Reno didn't actually believe him when he said the plane would explode and completely disintegrate into the air in flames back on the safe and secure ground of Rocket Town. Evidently, it was, and it did.

This was fucking insane. Reno spread out his arms and legs to slow his fall somewhat because who would want the adrenaline from skydiving to end any sooner? He looked through his goggles at the blonde some meters below him, his ridiculously huge sword slung vertically on his back under his chute and his gear piled on his slender body. No wonder he fell faster than Reno. With all that armor and shit, he probably weighed roughly the size of a baby killer whale. Okay, exaggeration.

"Ah, shit!" The red-haired Turk was so focused on Cloud's weight that he completely forgot to check the meter around his wrist for the minimum height for his parachute. "Dammit, it's already in the red zone," Reno muttered, "Cloud! You're way past red! Hey! CLOUD!" He yelled at the blonde still meters below him. Of course, he couldn't hear him from his distance through the wind. What the hell was he doing? Did he pass out or something? Reno's hand hovered over his own tag as he shouted through the wind again, "Cloud! Idiot chocobo! Pull your fucking tag!"

No recognition.

"CLOUD!"

Still falling.

"PULL YOUR CHUTE!" Reno shook his head furiously, "What are you trying to do, kill yourself?" Then at those words, he froze in the air, thinking back to the moments before in the plane.

"Hey, Cloud, I think we have a defect here-"

"I'll take that, thanks. Looks fine to me."

"If you say so, yo."

He took the defect parachute… that idiot. Dammit! Reno ripped his hand away from his tag and dove down for the blonde, he had no time to lose. "Fucking… is this a suicide wish?"


The ground was growing steadily closer. And Cloud was falling hundreds of miles per hour towards it. The hard earth. And Cloud's (in contrast) extremely fragile body. Both were going to connect within minutes. Alright then.

Surprisingly enough, Cloud wasn't scared. Not at all. I mean, seriously, he's felt worse. Okay, that was a lie. Nothing's exactly worse than getting flattened like a pancake. But at least it was getting flattened like a pancake on a journey to save the world, uhh, all over again. What was this, his destiny or something? He seemed to just magnetically attract all worldly disasters everywhere.

But at least he was with Reno. He'd die with Reno. And once he died… He'd finally see Zack again.

Cloud broke through another layer of clouds and braced himself. This was it. This was…

Then suddenly a hand grabbed his shoulder and unceremoniously flipped him over in the air to see- "RENO! THE HELL?"

The red-head swung his other arm around and grabbed Cloud's other shoulder. "What the hell were you thinking, blondie? HUH?" He yelled over the deafening wind, "What the fuck is going through that screwed up mind of yours, you idiot? ARE YOU TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE HERE?"

Commit suicide? So that's what he thought. Figures… Cloud glared at the Turk through his goggles. "How ironic, you're calling me an idiot? You didn't pull the tag either, screwed up person!" He paused and then yelled again, "AND I'M NOT COMMITTING SUICIDE!"

"Yeah, says the moron who took the defect parachute, yo!"

"Well, what was I supposed to do, huh?"

"You could've tried NOT BEING A MORON!"

If Cloud wasn't gripping onto Reno's jacket so tightly, he would've knocked the wind out of this ungrateful jerk. "Fuck you, Reno! Now thanks to you, we're both gonna die!"

"Shit!" Reno yelled to himself in realization. If they were in the red those few minutes ago, it was nothing compared to now. Argh, whatever! The Turk wrapped his arm around the blonde's waist, pulling him closer and yanked his tag down as hard as he could.

Cloud saw the parachute barely open above him before then seeing the green of the ground and then feeling a huge "OOF!" The impact felt bone-breaking, but that wasn't all. Once they seemed to connect with the extremely solid ground, the blow was accompanied by several others before the two slowed to a halt panting at still with the parachute wrapped around them like a straightjacket.

Or was it really the parachute? 'Cause it was really white… And the last time Reno had a meeting with death, white meant, er, not living anymore. And he felt strangely… good lying there, wherever he was. He felt warm. And felt no pain. Man, whatever this was, it felt good. Damn goodDamn-"Owww."

The "damn good thing" groaned and moved an inch on top of the red head. Oh duh, it was Cloud, who else? But that slight movement of the blonde eased much of the pressure off of his chest, finally letting the full extent of the pain rip the breath right out of his lungs. "Ow, shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit! Damn, Cloud. I know you're a stick and all, but right now that weight is freakin' killing me, owwww. Get off, yo! Get off, get off, get off!" Reno yelled, not caring whether he sounded like a whiny little girl or not.

"Agh, sorry!" Cloud said quickly, trying push himself off of the red head. Fail. Because the parachute was so tightly wound around them two, Cloud was unfortunately stuck in his… odd position. Or was it fortunate? His position being him straddling the Turk around the groin with his chest pressed against the other's. How awkward. And this whole turning red thing was pissing him off. "Ah, don't-This is weird, sorry." Cloud stuttered out, "Wait, I'll try and get us out. Er, sorry. Wait, don't move, sorry. This is awkward…" Why was he saying sorry again?

"Uh, yeah, tell me about it, yo," Reno muttered, noticing the embarrassing position only moments before as well. Stay for about a minute longer and the Turk was going to get fucking aroused or something. Yeah, if the position itself wasn't mortifying enough, just wait. Just fucking wait… Seriously.

"Here, I got it." With great difficulty, Cloud reached behind his back, grabbed his sword, and sliced an opening behind him in the parachute. "Finally, some air," Cloud groaned as he immediately jumped off the red head, brushing the dust off his clothes. He reached out a hand to pull Reno up, but the Turk just smacked his hand away.

"Dammit, Cloud! What the hell was that back there?" Reno yelled at the blonde again. Yes, again. Whatever the chocobo-head did up there was an act of total stupidity! Or nobility… Stupid nobility!

Cloud glared at Reno for refusing his helping hand and then muttered irritated, "Okay, fine. It was a stupid move. But it wasn't like I was going to die or anything. I'd walk away with a few broken bones, no big deal." Yeah, as if pancake status wasn't death. But Reno didn't need to know that.

Little did Cloud know, Reno knew it very well. And was dead pissed about it. "NO BIG DEAL? You would've fucking died, yo!"

"Well, it was for you, okay?" Cloud found himself yelling back. Uh oh. Didn't mean to say that.

Reno paused in all his anger and stared up at the blonde. "Wait… what?"

"Er," Cloud stuttered. Well, might as well finish his bold statement. "Well, I… You know, you know more about the mission than me and, well, since there was a defect parachute, I thought that, well, it'd be better if I took it so you would walk away unscathed and could still carry out the mission since it was really important and all. And… yeah. I was just, I mean, I just… didn't want you to get hurt." He said quickly and quietly. This was fucking embarrassing. It sounded so much cooler in his head.

Reno just looked wide-eyed at Cloud with a look of surprise plastered on his face. "What, really?" He asked hopefully. Or, er, kind of hopefully? Hopeful for what…

Cloud blushed. "I meant, I didn't want you to fall flat on the ground with that weak body of yours! I'm hella buff so I'd probably walk off after the impact, but you're just a limp fat ass! You'd die before you knew you touched the ground!" He yelled red in the face, trying to cover up for all evidence that he would ever be even remotely worried about the Turk.

"Oh my God, you jerk! You did not just say that…"

"Er, well-Well, I just did! What now?"

Reno put his hands on the ground behind him, ready to pounce at the blonde. "I'm gonna beat your blonde butt right back to Edge, that's what I'm gonna do, yo!" Empty threat. Unfortunately, Reno was completely unable to get up.

Cloud raised his eyebrows at the statement with no action. "Yeah, ouch that beating really hurt, Reno," He said sarcastically.

"Shut up! My bones are all broken because of you!" Reno yelled.

Cloud winced at those words. Did he really…? "Wait a minute," The blonde bent down next to the Turk and ripped off the red-head's shirt.

"W-Whoa, what're you doin', yo?" Reno jerked himself out of Cloud's hands, blushing.

Cloud just rolled his eyes and grabbed Reno's arm, spinning him around so he was facing away from the blonde, "Stop resisting, let me see." But he almost regretted that statement altogether. Once he saw the injuries taken to Reno's back, he grimaced and nearly had to hold back a gasp. Reno's entire upper back was tainted a disgusting shade of black and purple, and more than one rib was poking out at his skin like it was threatening to break through. The Turk was lucky to get away from such a fall just with injuries like these. But… Reno actually protected him?

"Done looking?" Reno grumbled over his shoulder.

"Ah, yeah," Cloud said quickly, startled out of his thoughts, "Here, have your shirt back. I'm taking you to Wutai." He threw the white shirt and black jacket at the red-head and started to pull him up from the pile of parachute.

Reno grabbed his shirt and started slipping it on. "Yeah, yeah, alright. Just wait a second while I get this stupid shirt on-Wait, what? Wutai?" He suddenly said as Cloud's words sank in. "No, man. We gotta get Kir Facaz, yo! The faster the better!" He wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. Though the main reason was because he wanted to kill Kir Facaz himself before Cloud found out it was Zack Fair. Blondie had enough riding on his shoulders.

Cloud sighed and continued dragging Reno off the ground, "Yeah, let's see you fight the world's most dangerous human weapon with all your broken bones. You gotta rest up first. And fast." He slung Reno's arm around his shoulder and slid an arm around his waist. "I'm surprised Kir Facaz didn't find us already. We're pretty vunerable out here."

"Y-yeah, that's what I meant! We gotta, you know, get over to the lab and find Kir Facaz and kill him before he gets us, yo! Or get to Wutai really fast before he finds us!" Reno paused in all his logical reasoning. The word logical was at odds with the truth, since what he just said didn't make sense at all.

Reno was being an idiot again about this whole Kir Facaz thing. What's new? Cloud just sighed again and continued walking, "Yeah, yeah, why don't you just shut up and let me drag you to Wutai, alright? I bet you have brain damage along with your broken ribs…"

"Hey, ungrateful kid! I saved you back there!"

"Just shut up and move, cripple."


If a exploding plane wasn't extraordinary enough, the two injured men were met with another surprise the moment they stepped through the gates of Wutai. That surprise also being accompanied by black hair, a high-pitched voice, and, er, shortness?

"Whoa, what the hell are you guys doing at Wutai?" Yuffie yelled loudly, pointing at Cloud and Reno with her jaw-dropped.

"Well, it's kind of complicated-" Cloud started to say, but was immediately interrupted by a loud "YOU!" as Reno pointed at the Oriental ninja and then another "YOU!" as Yuffie pointed right back.

Reno pushed himself off of Cloud and shouted again, "YOU! You're that annoying short Asian kid!"

"YOU'RE that crazy, cynical Turkey with the ultra bad hair-do!" Yuffie glared right back.

"Hey! What was that?" They yelled simultaneously.

Cloud raised his eyebrows and looked from one angry person to another, "What, you two know each other?"

"Knowing doesn't even begin to cover the half of it," Reno muttered through gritted teeth.

Yuffie just sneered at the red-haired Turk, "Yeah, it was nice doing business with you, I have to say. I made tons of money that day. And you were the easiest client I ever stole from hands down!"

"WHY YOU LITTLE-!" Reno charged at the girl, ripping out his Electro-Mag Rod all in one go. He slashed down at the ninja, but was only deflected by Yuffie's quick moves to grab her signature unusually large shurinken. "I'll get you for all that materia you stole from me… Those were rare, kid. Plus, they cost me a fucking hundred thousand gil!"

"Well, all the better for me, huh? And I got a hundred thousand G in profit too! Good deal, wouldn't you say?" She stuck her tongue out at the Turk, only annoying him even more.

"You annoying little brat!"

Cloud watched the scene with increasing irritation. He originally thought it was a lifetime enemy thing or something, but it was just a little quarrel over expensive materia. Figures. He let out a sigh and then yelled at Reno, who was just about to let out a spell on the obnoxious ninja, "Hey, cut it out, you guys! And Reno, aren't you injured?"

Reno stopped mid-spell and dropped his EMR in realization, "AGH! FUCKIN-DAMMIT, IT HURTTTSS!"

"Stupid…"


"Here, lay the idiot red-head on the futon," Yuffie called to Cloud from across the room in her house. Or rather, the empty house she was "borrowing" for the night. It wasn't like she didn't own a freakin' mansion already, life was just more fun this way.

"Don't need to lay me down, yo," Reno groaned as he pulled himself out of Cloud's arms and collapsed on the futon, "I'm not a fucking princess."

"Psh, if you say so, girly man," Yuffie called out nonchalantly.

"What was that?"

"Just go to sleep, Reno," Cloud pushed the half-up Reno back onto the bed, "You better get some rest tonight. We're probably leaving early morning tomorrow."

"Yeah, you think I can calm down after all that adrenaline from that fucking parachute stunt?" Reno grumbled, swinging his arm over his head to cover his eyes, "Still your fault by the way."

Cloud rolled his eyes, "Alright, alright, whatever helps you sleep at night." He looked over at Yuffie, "Do you have any sedative so he could get some shut eye?"

"Yeah, probably," The ninja snapped open a pouch on her waist and rummaged through the contents for a minute before pulling out a little velvet bag, "Yup! Got it!" She took out a small pill and flipped in the air like a coin right into Reno's open mouth. "Wait here, you two. I'm going to go out and get some bandages for the stupid Turk over there." And with that, she left the room.

"Left the room" meaning Cloud and Reno were now all alone. "Damn, this sedative works fast," Reno heard himself mumbling. He shifted his arm for a split second and in that moment he looked at the blonde just in time to catch the reddened look on his face. Oh shit. What a thing to say in this situation. But damn was that medicine strong. Wait. He should stop thinking about it before he did something stupid… AGAIN. Last thing he wanted was to have a repeat of the bar incident. Lies, it was the first thing he wanted…

Cloud looked away from Reno's resting body, but not before he thought he caught the red-head's eye for a second. My God, that Turk was such an idiot. Maybe he should've just given the defect parachute to the guy and just let him fend for himself. Actually, that would've been bad since Cloud didn't exactly know shit about the details of the mission. Well, at least that was the reason he told Reno… Why did he take the defect anyway? Was it really to save that idiot of a Turk? Was it really because he was willing to risk his life for another guy? Was it because he loved him?

Fuck, what was he thinking? Cloud distracted himself by looking back to Reno and asking quickly, "Hey, Reno, how you feeling now? You asleep-" Bad idea.

Reno slid his arm off his eyes and looked at the blonde with a dazed look in his eyes, "Cloud."

Shit. The gaze was strangely erotic. "W-what?" Cloud ended up stuttering out.

"I don't know why, but I really want to kiss you again."

WHAT? Okay, Reno was seriously on drugs. What the fuck did that Yuffie give him? Mental note. Never trust ninjas with pills… This Turk was fucking high. For all he knew this could be ecstasy or something. Sedative, his ass… "Wait, what? You're not serious are you?" Cloud laughed nervously, his body growing hot.

Reno reached up and grabbed the blonde by the back of the neck, "Why don't you tell me whether I'm serious or not." And with those words, he leaned up slightly and pressed his warm lips on the blonde's.

Shocked or not. High or not. Hot as hell or not. Cloud found himself once again kissing the Turk back. Whether or not it was a fucking coincidence that Reno ended up doing these things to him while he was drunk or on drugs, it didn't matter at this moment. Right now Cloud wanted to kiss Reno back. He wanted the red-head's tongue in his mouth touching him like nothing before. Strangely, the idea of a continuation of the incident at the bar didn't sound like such a bad idea. At this moment, no Zack flashed in his mind. Only Reno. Reno's touch, his hands roaming his back and under his shirt, fingering the buckle of his pants-

"Hey, guys, I got the bandages! Coming in!" Yuffie slid open the door and threw the bag of bandages on the floor in front of her. "So, you guys mind finally telling me what the hell you're doing her-What are you doing over there, Cloud?"

In the short timespan of one millisecond, Cloud managed to push Reno off of him, back onto the futon where he promptly passed out, and jump from his place by the bed to the farthest corner of the room. It was pretty impressive, really. "Er, nothing!" Cloud said quickly, "I was just, er, trying to get some sleep over here in the corner." Lame excuse.

Yuffie raised an eyebrow, "In a corner? Oookay, glad to see you're an anti-social freak like usual, Cloud."

"Er, yeah."

Brushing the suspicion off, the petite ninja pranced over to the blonde side and repeated her question, "So, you gonna tell me what you're doing here?"

Finally, with a distraction from his repeated incident with Reno and the moment to talk to Yuffie in private, Cloud explained the whole Kir Facaz situation in detail. Well, the details he knew at least.

The moment he ended and looked up at the ninja, she had a rather thoughtful look on her face. "Hmm, wait, wait," Yuffie said slowly, "Now that you mention it, some villagers were talking of a rumored abandoned lab around the east side of the mountains over by the temple. Some farmer saw it a couple of months back, but was killed before he could make it back to Wutai. Another villager was fortunate enough to find out what happened to him in his last breath though. You think that's the place you're looking for?"

Cloud nodded gratefully, "Yeah, that has to be the place. Thanks, Yuffie." He heaved a long sigh and leaned back against the wall, "Well, we'll probably leave early tomorrow morning so us being here won't bother the other villagers. It's going to be a long night."

Yuffie laughed despite herself, "Saving the world again, huh Cloud? You always get into these situations somehow."

"Yeah, kind of pisses me off."

"You're destined to save this world one more time, Cloud, and you know it," Yuffie laughed again, "Well then, I have a present for you, Cloud." She reached for the bag she threw into the room minutes before and took out a shining pouch of…

"Materia…" Cloud muttered as he opened the bag and fingered the shimmering magic balls lightly, "A bit of a weird moment here, you giving me materia."

Yuffie smacked him across the arm pouting, "Hey! I've been out of that business for a while now! You know we're world-saving buddies and stuff!" She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the sleeping figure of Reno and continued, "On another note, just remember to throw some at that idiot too. He's going to need some in his EMR if he wants to defeat a calamity. Oh, speaking of Reno!" She narrowed her eyes at Cloud suspiciously, "Why are you working with him anyway?"

"What?"

"Why are you working with a Turk? You two are, like, sworn enemies. What's going on here?"

"Er," Cloud looked away, "I, uhh…"

Yuffie scrutinized her friend's expression as he tried to search for the words to explain and then smirked understandingly, "Ohhh, you and Reno are, ohhhh, well, why didn't you say earlier, dummy?" She smacked him on the arm again, "I mean, I never really took you for the, you know, guy kind of guy, but can't judge a book by it's cover, eh? Congrats, Cloud! I mean, ditching Tifa is a pretty bad move in my opinion, but you know, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do!"

Cloud turned a brilliant red and said defensively, "WHAT, NO! I'm not together with Reno! And what do you know about guys?"

"Hey, don't gotta be all in denial about it, Cloud. I get it. I get it," Yuffie shrugged understandingly with a smug look on her face.

"What? You've got it all wrong! I don't like Reno!"

"Alright, alright, you don't like Reno," Yuffie gave in, rolling her eyes, "I'll your word for it. Methinks he doth protest too much…" She added under her breath grinning.

"What was that?"

Yuffie coughed, "Nothiing, nothing." But then her face turned into a sincere grin. "But all jokes aside, Cloud. I know how you look at him. Reno, I mean."

"What are you talking about?" Cloud muttered, still red in the face. He didn't like Reno. It was impossible.

Yuffie sighed in an obnoxiously all-knowing manner, "Well, you know. I used to like you, you know? Like when we went on that date at the Golden Saucer, and you act differently with Reno. I mean, I would know. I went on a date with you! Not to mention saved the world together too."

Cloud looked at her aghast, "Are you saying I actually like him?" This couldn't be happening. No. Way. And how does he act differently around Reno anyway? He blushed a lot more, sure, but… Wait, that could be it…

"I'm saying you guys could work out, really," Yuffie grinned even broader.

"You've got to be kidding me…"

"No, really, I'm serious!"

"Well… maaaybe-What the hell?" Cloud looked around the room, more specifically the completely pitch dark room. Somehow all the lights went out.

Yuffie jumped up and pulled out her giant shurinken, "Who's there?"

But no sooner than she yelled her battle cry did the deafening sound of sword against wood ring out in the room. The wall Cloud was leaning against was suddenly slashed apart littering the ground with wood splinters. Cloud jumped up into a fighting stance against the intruder, but then froze at the sight of silhouette of the attacker against the dim light from the outside.

He had broad shoulders and long gangly arms and legs, muscular yet rather thin. His hair stuck out at all angles long and untamed, but strangely familiar. The sword in his hands was huge, way bigger than the blade a man of his size should be wielding. Cloud felt like his heart was beating so fast it was going to rip out from his chest. This couldn't be. Not now. He couldn't see the man's face, but he knew exactly who he was. Kir Facaz… No, no, it was-The word came out in barely a whisper.

"Zack…"


finally, cloud finds out kir facaz is zack fair. it really is a pity reno didn't get to break it to cloud before he found out on his own. then again, life's tough for reno; getting drunk, getting laid, getting broken and bruised, getting drugged. guess the guy just didn't have the chance to.

then again, if he did get the chance, where's the fun in that?

my updates are getting farther and farther apart, forgive me! ...review anyway?