Final
Fantasy VII: Lost Advent Child
Chapter 4:
Extremely Early the Next Morning….
Beep!...Beep!...Beep!...
Wait, what the hell is that?
Beep!...Beep!...Beep!...
Well, whatever it is, it's annoying.
Beep!...Beep!...Beep!...
Why the hell won't it stop?
Beep!...Beep!...Beep!...
Wait, I think I know what that sound is... And it means its time to wake up… Damn it. I don't wanna get up…
Reno finally opened his eyes and slammed his hand down on the alarm clock's snooze button. What time is it anyway? He looked at the alarm clock and sat straight up in bed. "What the hell? Its 5:30!" Reno jumped out of bed and walked across the hallway to Rudes room. There he pounded his fist against the door.
After a few moments, Rude came to the door, fully dressed in his Turk uniform.
"What the hell? Why are you up so early and more importantly: why did you reset my alarm clock?!"
"President Shinra has been yelling at us for months about getting up on time." replied Rude calmly.
"But I don't wanna get up!" Reno whined.
"Sucks for you. Your up." Hela said. She walked out of her and Yumi's room dressed in a tight black t-shirt with black gloves that covered her arm even under the sleeves of her shirt, tight black jeans, and black boots.
Reno glared at her. "For someone who doesn't show emotion, you talk a lot."
"Hn." Hela replies simply, taking no note of Reno's comments
"And you're mean." Reno continues
"Hn."
"And annoying."
"That's you." Rude interrupted simply.
"What's me?" Reno asked.
"You're the annoying one." Rude elaborates.
"…Jerk. Is Yumi up yet?" Reno asks, changing the topic.
"No." Rude rolled his eyes behind his glasses at the stupid question.
"See!" Reno was clearly trying to validate his 'we should always sleep in' argument.
"She had a heat stroke. You're just lazy."
Yumi's door opened, stopping the conversation. "Hi," she said brightly. "Why's everyone standing around here? And Reno, how come you're not dressed yet?"
Reno glances down to his boxers and hesitates. "Uh… I'll…Uh…Go get dressed now. Bye…" He rushed back to his room and slammed the door behind him.
"Weird…" Yumi stared after him, confused. "So, what's up?"
"Hn," Hela said quietly. Suddenly, something zoomed into Yumi's mouth and she unconsciously swallowed, surprised.
Yumi frowned and stared at Hela. "What the…?"
"Pill." Hela held up the medicine bottle for an added explanation, then tossed it to Yumi.
"Oh, right, thanks. I forgot; telepathy…"Yumi chuckled under her breath.
"Telekinesis." Hela corrected.
"What the difference?" Yumi shrugged simply.
"Telepathy is mind- to-mind, telekinesis is mind- to- object." Hela explained. "Like this." There was a crash from Reno's room.
"WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!" Reno yelled, storming out of his bedroom. Clearly unknown to him, he was only wearing pants.
"Hn." Helas reply was barely audible.
"Why d'you keep picking on me?!" Reno demanded, his voice dangerously close to a whine.
"Who said I did it?" Hela interjected defiantly.
"Oh, sorry, I know about a million people who can throw me into a wall with their minds!!" Reno snapped.
"Good for you." Hela teased
"That was sarcasm!!" Reno explained.
"Whatever."
Yumi blushed and looked away from Reno. "Uh, Reno, could you get dressed?"
Hela raised an eyebrow. "Look who's talking, Miss Heatstroke."
"Huh?" She realized she was still in the outfit from yesterday. "Oh! Sorry…" She and Reno went back to their rooms, mildly embarrassed. There they got dressed then came out again, fully clothed in clean clothes.
Rude sighed at the antics of his new partners. "Let's go out."
"Oh, right, breakfast!" Reno said, leading the way to food.
They all went to breakfast in the cafeteria in the Shinra building. Tseng and Vincent showed up too, and sat with them.
Reno glanced over at Hela, clearly ignoring their new guests. "Hey, do you always wear your hair like that?"
"I never go out." she replied.
"But you could at least do something with it!" Reno protested.
She sighed. Her hair clip floated out of her hair to the table, and slowly her hair unraveled to ripple gently down her back so it would have been about to her mid- thigh if she was standing up. "Hn."
"Well, it looks nice, but you didn't do anything. You didn't even move your bangs." Reno frowned stubbornly.
"Hn." Hela replied simply.
"Yumi listened when I told her to move her bangs out of her face!" Reno replied, almost insulted.
"If you try to flirt like you did with her, I'll blow you into next century." Hela threatened.
"I wasn't flirting when I told Yumi she was pretty!" Reno paused, processing the comment. "How did you know…?"
"Telepathy." Hela explained.
"Oh. Uh…" Reno hesitated.
Hela's bangs moved to the side of her face, then her hair started to braid itself. "Better?" She asked sarcastically.
"Hm…" Reno inspected the difference carefully. "Not as pretty as Yumi." He replied, completely honest.
Rude sighed and shook his head as Reno went flying across the room, through a wall, through another room, through another wall- you get the point.
"Idiot.." Rude muttered under his breath.
Yumi got up from the table and went to help Reno. She got there just as he had recovered enough to look up. Smiling, she held out a hand. "Need some help?"
He looked up at her, dazed, then slowly nodded and reached out to take her hand. She smiled and pulled him up. With the momentum they lost balance for a second and unconsciously hugged each other for balance. When they were balanced they looked at each other and laughed shyly. Slowly their laughter faded away and they just stared into each others eyes…
"Are you two done yet?" Rude interrupted.
At Rude's voice they jumped apart. "Uh- sorry- yeah- um-" they both stammered.
"Your food is getting cold." Rude commented off-handedly.
"It is? Really? That's so amazing." Yumi said as she returned to the table and sat back down. She looked over at Tseng. "So, what are we doing today?" She asked as Reno and Rude sat down as well.
Tseng put down his coffee, watching Yumi. "Nothing. You're free to do whatever you want today." He paused, thinking of a suggestion. "Why don't you explore the Shinra building today?"
"No. I think I'll just go to the weight room or something. I feel lazy. I haven't done any real training or workouts in months." Yumi stretched, yawning as she spoke.
"But you seemed to do just fine on yesterday's mission." Rude commented simply.
"Yeah. Right." Yumi shook her head. " I got caught and drugged. You know, in my book, that's not a good thing."
"Well, you're not dead." Rude shrugged.
"Rude!" Reno scolded. "Don't say things like that!"
"Would you prefer it if she was dead?" Rude questioned.
"Never! I wouldn't want Yumi to die! And that's not what I meant!" Reno said.
"So what did you mean?" Rude asked, a small smirk pulling at his lips.
"Stop talking about death!" Rude exclaimed
"Stop talking about death, or stop talking about Yumi dying?" Rude asked, feigning obliviousness.
"You guys, I'm still here…" Yumi muttered.
Reno blushed slightly. "Will you just shut up?!"
"Why do I have to?" asked Rude.
"I'm right here…" Yumi stared at the plate, bangs falling into her face.
"Because I told you to damn it!" yelled Reno, biting at Rude's bait.
"Since when have I listened to you?" inquired Rude innocently.
"Well… Never, but now you should!" Reno stumbled momentarily.
"I haven't left yet…" Yumi muttered to herself.
"Why?" asked Rude, quickly becoming amused.
"Cause I said so!" replied Reno.
"You mean cause you embarrassed?" Rude teased.
"No!" Reno objected loudly.
"Still here…" Yumi said sighing.
"Yes, you are embarrassed." Rude chuckled under his breath. "Look, your turning almost as red as your hair." Rude mocked.
"Am not!" Reno protested, his face heating up even more.
"Yes you are. Do you want a mirror so you can see for yourself?" Rude smirks.
"Not true! And I don't need a mirror!" Reno yelled.
"Yes you do."
"Do not!"
"So you believe me?" Rude questioned, attempting to twist Reno's words up.
"Of course I don't!" Reno replied blindly.
"So, you're admitting you do need a mirror." Rude asks simply.
"No I'm not!"
"But that's what you just said."
"No its not!"
"Well, you don't believe me, so you do need a mirror. I can prove I'm right."
"You're not right!"
"Yes I am. And I have proof." Rude smirked.
"Your wrong. I'm not red, and even if I was red, it wouldn't mean anything!"
"Sure it doesn't mean anything, you flirt."
"I am not a flirt! I'm just being polite!"
"You're the only one who actually thinks that."
"I don't think-" Reno started.
"Hmm. You actually admitted you don't think. I'm so proud of you." Rude mocked, pushing Reno's buttons.
"That's not what I was gonna say! I was gonna say I don't think I'm the only one who thinks that." Reno corrected, his argument falling quickly down the metaphorical drain.
"Well, you are."
"Am not!"
"Are too."
"Am not and I'll prove it! Yumi, you believe-" Reno glanced around the nearly empty room. "Hey. Where did Yumi go? And Tseng, and Vincent," Reno asked, seeing no one around.
"They left awhile ago." Said Hela.
"They did?! Where did they go?" Reno asked quickly.
"Well, Yumi got fed up with you two talking about her like she wasn't here. So she asked Tseng if he would show her to the training room. Vincent finished eating and went with them." Hela elaborated.
"And you're still here because...?" asked Rude.
"I haven't finished my juice." Hela replied simply
"Your juice?" asked Reno, confused.
"Do you have any idea what kind of food they feed you down in the lab?" Hela asked.
Reno and Rude both cringed at the thought.
"Well, multiply that by 10 and you now know what one bite of lab food tastes like." Hela explained, blunt and emotionless.
"I think I'm gonna be sick." Reno exaggerated, pushing his plate of half-eaten food away.
"Oh. By the way, Yumi told me to give this to you-" Hela started.
At that, Reno flew across the room and hit a wall, then flew up to the ceiling. Finally, he flew back down into the table, smashing it in half. The remaining dishes on the table crash and break, shattering everywhere.
"Yumi told you to do that?" asked Rude, a little impressed and standing back from the broken table next to Hela.
"Surprisingly enough, she did. If it would have been up to me, he would have crashed through the floor. But Yumi said she didn't want to get me into trouble. You know; for the bill for the repair work and everything." Hela explained, her voice light and almost humorous. Almost.
Reno groaned in pain as he tried to get up. "Are you sure Yumi told you to do that? Even though I didn't go through any walls this time, it hurt more than last time!" Reno complained.
"Should I show you what I would have done?" Hela offered.
"No! I believe you! Yumi told you to do it! But why? I don't remember doing anything." Reno hit the ceiling again then came crashing to the floor.
"I'm suppose to do that if you ask 'what did I do?'." Said Hela as she made some juice lift out of her cup and gently go back down.
"I think it might have been the whole us arguing about her like she wasn't here thing." Muttered Rude, not even bothering to help Reno get up.
"She must be very angry about it." Reno said gasping out in pain.
"You should go apologize." Said Rude smugly.
"Me?! You were in it too!" complained Reno.
"You started it."
"No, you did when you told Yumi, 'Well, at least you're not dead.'!"
"You were the one who persuaded the idea by complaining about it. And you were the one talking like Yumi wasn't there first." Rude sighed.
"Why are you almost always right?!" Reno grumbled.
"'Almost.'?" Rude raises a single eyebrow in question.
"The chibi dolls…" Reno mentioned.
"Alright. Shut up. Lets go see if you can go and apologize to Yumi." Rude waved off the memory.
"Why don't you have to apologize?!" Reno objected.
"Because its not my fault."
Reno tried to think of a way to counter this, but too much of his mind was thinking about what he was going to say to Yumi. "Fine." He sighed as they headed for the door. "Hela, are you coming with us?"
"To come and watch you get murdered? Alright." Hela's voice was still as emotionless as ever as she followed the two Turks.
She stood up and followed them to an elevator and they went to the training room. They spotted Tseng and Vincent right away. They were sitting in two fold up chairs and were watching something a few yards away. Yumi had changed clothes. She was now wearing loose, straight leg grey sweatpants and a light blue tank top that had a rather low cut and showed both her shoulder blades and a tiny bit of cleavage. She had her hands wrapped in a white cloth up to her elbows. She was punching and kicking a dark red punching bag. A chain strapped the bottom half of the bag to the floor. Her hair was tied back in a low ponytail except for her bangs. They swayed back and forth as she moved. Tseng turned to the others as they walked up.
"Hey. Go ahead and have a seat." Tseng pointed to three more fold up chairs next to him. Everyone sat down and looked over at Yumi. "So I guess you figured out she's upset?" Reno nodded solemnly. "I decided to stick around not only to watch you get your ass kicked, but to see what kind of a fighter Yumi is. She aggressive. Very aggressive. She's fast too. I think she could easily adjust to any situation."
"Do you think she's still mad at me?" asked Reno.
The sound of Yumi beating the hell out of the punching bag stopped. She stood quietly for a moment, looking down at the ground, her eyes hidden by her bangs. Then in one swift motion, she kicked the punching bag so hard that the chain ripped out of the floor and it flew into the ceiling, busting a hole in it and getting it stuck. A few pieces of plaster from the ceiling fell on Yumi's head. She inhaled deeply trying to calm down.
"Yeah, she's still mad as hell." Said Rude.
"Don't die." Said Vincent.
"Your joking right? She's going to slaughter him." Said Tseng.
"Probably." Said Vincent, Rude and Hela almost in unison.
"Thanks for the support you guys." Muttered Reno bitterly.
Yumi walked over and completely ignored Reno. "Vincent, do you know if there are any swords I can practice with?"
Vincent thought for a moment. "I'm pretty sure we have some." Vincent got up and stared at Yumi for a moment.
"What?"
"You've got rubble and chunks of the ceiling in your hair."
"I do? Oh. I didn't even notice."
"I'll get it off." He gently brushed off the top of Yumi's head and brushed off her shoulders as some of the rubble fell off. "There. Its all gone. The swords are over here."
Yumi followed Vincent and found a sword she liked. It was long and had a purple, blue, and white handle with the same colored ribbon hanging off it. The steel blade had a fierce dragon etched into it. Yumi looked the blade over and swung it a few times. "Thanks Vincent. This ones perfect."
"Your welcome Yumi." Vincent walked back over to the others and sat down.
Yumi swung the sword around some more as she practiced. She moved easily and lightly on her feet. Her movements were quick and fast paced. She also swung the sword amazingly close to the body. For a moment, it looked as if she would cut herself. She soon started to throw the sword high in the air and caught it. She turned back to Vincent again, calling across the room. "Do you have another sword like this one?"
"Actually, we have a twin." He got up and got it for her. The sword was an exact replica of the first. Vincent sat back down and they once again watched Yumi practice.
While Yumi continued, the door opened and a man walked in carrying a katana with a red hilt. He was tall and had black hair. He was wearing black framed glasses. He too was also dressed in a Turk uniform. He looked over at everyone who was sitting, then at Yumi. She hadn't even noticed that he had come in. He then glanced back over at Tseng who nodded at him. He pulled out his katana and walked over to an unsuspecting Yumi. He swung his katana at Yumi and made it crash against hers. Yumi jumped and turned around startled.
"Oh my God, you scared the shit out of me!"
"Sorry…" he muttered.
"Yumi, you do remember Mazaki from the other day don't you?" asked Tseng.
"Oh, yes! I do remember you."
"I'm sorry I startled you Yumi." Said Mazaki bowing low.
"Oh no, its alright. I guess I was so focused on my practicing that I didn't even notice you. Its really my fault that I was so startled."
"I didn't know that you used a katana."
"Oh, I don't usually. I'm not very good at it anyway. Just some of the basics I learned and perfecting my own style. I'm not much of a sword fighter. I use another weapon."
"I don't see why your not a sword fighter. Your very light and graceful on your feet. And you move fast. You seem to be able to swing your sword with great ease and confidence. I love your beautiful style. The way your body moves is flawless."
Yumi blushed slightly. "Oh. Uh. I don't think I'm all that good…"
"Oh, but you are." Mazaki took a step closer and seemed to tower over the short blushing Yumi. Yumi's eyes went to the floor and her bangs covered her eyes completely.
"Now don't do that." Said Mazaki. "Now I won't be able to see your beautiful face at all. And don't cover up your eyes. I want to be able to see them."
Yumi blushed even more. "Please… My face is nothing to see. Neither are my eyes. I see nothing special about either of them."
"Oh, but it is. Don't be so modest. Don't tell me you can't see your own beauty."
Tseng sighed. "Yumi, Mazaki has a soft spot for beauty. It's a habit he can't help."
"Oh, I see. That explains a lot." She laughed nervously. In the background, Reno seethed in his chair, completely ignored by everyone.
"Yumi, would you like to fight me?" asked Mazaki.
Yumi's eyes traveled down to Mazaki's katana. "Alright. That sounds like fun." She quickly swung one of her sword at Mazaki. He blocked easily. "So you move fast too?"
"If I moved slow, I would be dead by now." Replied Mazaki, smirking down at Yumi.
"True. Very true." She swung her other blade. He blocked again and attacked Yumi. She ducked and tried to cut him from below. He did a flip over Yumis head and landed behind her. He aimed for the center of Yumis head and landed behind her. He aimed for the center of Yumis back, but she stopped his sword by getting it caught between both of hers. Things went on like this for a while. The others watched amazed. (Except Hela. No emotion, remember?) Soon Mazaki knocked Yumi down to the ground. He placed his blade in front of her neck. She glared up at him, panting.
"I win." Said Mazaki.
Yumis glare turned to a tiny smile. "Alright. You win. Now help me up." Mazaki helped.
Yumi up. "Hey, where are you going?"
"I came up here to practice a little bit. You, however, gave me a lot more than the workout I was looking for." said Mazaki as he put away his katana.
"Sorry about that…"
"Besides, it took like its time for you to leave."
"Huh?" Yumi looked around the room.
"See you later guys." He left quietly.
Yumi stood there for a moment and thought about what Mazaki said. "He's right! It is time for me to leave." She ran up to Vincent. "Put them away for me." She rushed to the door.
"Hey, where are you going?!" asked Rude.
"To the lab! No more pills! I gotta go see them now. I'll be back whenever! Bye!" She hurried off.
"I didn't even- I didn't even get to… Say sorry…" Reno bemoaned.
"You'll get your chance." Tseng comforted half-heartedly.
"Too bad. You were going to get your ass kicked too…" shrugged Rude.
Reno glared at him. "Now what do we do?"
"Wait for her to come back." Said Vincent.
"You know how the scientists hate for us to be in the lab when there's nothing wrong with us." Added in Tseng.
"Fantastic. Now I'm stuck with you guys all day." Muttered Hela. She had slight sarcasm in her voice. All the windows in the room shattered.
"You really should be careful with that." Said Rude as they all left the training room.