Penance
©®™ Lt. Commander Richie
((Disclaimer: I only own the character design of Mira, and her last name. Her first name belongs to a friend of mine..))
Chapter 4
"I smell breakfast! Hey Teef, wotcher makin'?" Mira watched in wonder as a cat bounced down the stairs in a cape and crown. She squealed in delight, having not been introduced to Cait Sith yet.
"C'mere little kitty!" She called overjoyed that there were more cats in the room. Cait paused and turned to the girl, and then continued on to the kitchen. Mira looked a bit put out, her fingers no longer running through Nanaki's mane. The red lion turned to her, concerned.
"What's the matter?" He asked, and Mira sighed a large and dramatic sigh.
"Li'l kitty didn't wanna play." She said, sniffling. Nanaki nodded, settling his head back down.
"The food's ready." The lion heard Vincent say a moment later, and before Mira could get up off the monstrous cat he stood up, passenger and all. She squealed in delight as Nanaki walked into the kitchen, hugging him around the neck to keep from falling with her large eyes screwed shut. Gentle hands lifted the girl from the lion's back, setting her down at the breakfast table next to Marlene. Cloud sat down on her other side, ruffling her hair and pulling the red ribbon around her forehead back onto the top of her head.
"You need a haircut." Tifa said, spearing a sausage with a fork as Yuffie sat down a platter of various fried meats. Mira's large eyes got even wider, and she shook her head wildly.
"No I don't! The last time I had one, I didn't have any left." She said, mortified. Her scared demeanor quickly turned to glee as Vincent set a plate of eggs and a plate of hash browns on the table next to the bacon and sausage. The tiny six-year-old practically had to stand in her seat to use the spatula to put a large pile of eggs on her plate, followed by a heap of hash browns and many strips of bacon.
"Can you eat all that?" Vincent asked the girl, who was carefully removing his red cloak and folding it so as to not get food on it.
"It's okay, I eat a lot." She said, shifting a bit so as to put the cloak behind her on the seat. She turned and looked in awe at the equally-large pile of food on Cloud's plate, which he was already digging into. She took this as incentive, grabbing her fork and shoveling eggs into her mouth. Cloud paused for a moment, eying the girl closely as she speared an egg and raised towards her mouth only to have the large piece of breakfast slide off the fork and hit her plate with a wet smack.
"You shouldn't eat so fast, kid." Cid said chidingly, leaning slightly over the table while pointing his fork, trying to make a point to the girl. Mira nodded noncommittally, maneuvering a slightly smaller piece of egg onto her fork with one finger.
"Don't use your fingers in your food! That's yucky." Marlene made a face at the younger girl's methods of eating. Mira made a face back at her, and and more breakfast foods disappeared into her mouth.
With the dishes put away, the food all eaten and everyone satisfied, Tifa rummaged through a drawer next to the sink. She sighed in exasperation, straightening her back with a pop and smacking her open palms onto the counter.
"Cloud, I can't find the scissors!" She yelled, turning and closing the drawer with her hip. She opened a cupboard, but it didn't hold the desired item either.
"Did you try the knife rack?" Was the slightly muffled reply. Tifa turned and looked at the magnetic knife rack screwed onto the open side of the cupboards, not seeing them there either.
"They're not there!" She called, only to have Cloud's second reply drowned out by a bout of frenzied giggling from the top of the stairs. She sighed, heading for the voice.
"You should just take the haircut, Mira." A soft voice chided around the bend of the second floor landing. "It will be much easier than if you struggle. Tifa knows what she's doing."
"But I don't want my hair cut!" Mira protested against her apparent captor vehemently, and as Tifa made her way to the very last step, the petite six-year-old rocketed past with the scissors held firmly in her grasp. The brunette made an attempt to grab her, but the little girl was just too fast.
"Stop running with the scissors!" She yelled after her, afraid that all it took for Mira's tiny feet to be tripped up was a slightly uneven board. Her worst fears realized, she slipped on the rug at the corner of the hall and began her decent for the floor. There was a smacking sound, and several yeling voices.
"Get off me!" An angry voice said, and Mira began to sniffle as she was apparently thrown backwards off whoever she had fallen into. Tifa ran for the scene, picking the crying girl up off the floor and taking the scissors from her.
"Denzel, be a bit nicer to her." Tifa chided, waving the newly-procured scissors at the tween with a stern look.
"Why should I? She ran into me." He muttered, rubbing the back of his head where he had been thrown into the wall.
"Just because, alright? She's six, for crying out loud. You're supposed to be older than her, so act it." Tifa said, and turned on her heel to go back downstairs. Reeve was still where he had been talking to Mira at the top of the stairs, now talking into his PHS. It seemed as though the matter was important, but as she passed him with Mira in tow, the blue-clad man pulled the phone from his ear and covered the receiver with a hand.
"If you give her a haircut, I'll be able to finish this and then see if I can find anything on her." Tifa nodded and headed down the stairs, setting Mira on the counter and pulling the scissors from where she had placed them in a pocket.
"Please don't." Mira said, wiping one eye with the back of her hand. Tifa sighed, putting the scissors down.
"Why not? I'm not going to cut off all your hair. I'm just going to get all the burnt parts and the split ends." She asked, and Mira shook her head, pulling her hair into her hands.
"Because! Then if you cut it, I can't hide!" Mira shrieked, burying her face onto her now-bunched knees.
"What do you mean?" Someone asked, filtering from the kitchen. Yuffie made herself known, coming out to the counter where Mira sat.
"I can't look like an Aminal no more! Then the scary guys in black won't try to hurt me like they hurt my friend Kyra!" Mira yelled. She was beginning to attract attention from upstairs, Marlene was coming down to see what was wrong. Tifa reached forward and took the tiny girl into a hug, rocking her back and forth.
"It's alright." She said, nodding her head. Mira pushed her off with a hearty shove, which sent Tifa nearly stumbling backwards from the strength behind it.
"No, 's not! I'm gonna get got by the guys with the white hair!" Mira sobbed, and tried to jump down from the counter to run. Yuffie lunged forward and grabbed her, sitting down behind the counter.
"Kiddo! We got rid of the guys with the white hair!" Yuffie yelled over Mira's frantic screaming. Tifa jumped forward, taking the girl by the hands and hauling her from Yuffie to set her back on the counter. Mira began to calm down slightly, hiccuping every so often.
"Did you, really?" She asked, between choked-back sobs. Tifa and Yuffie nodded, Yuffie from the floor.
"Yeah!" Yuffie yelled, pumping a fist into the air as she jumped to her feet and began re-enacting the battle that AVALANCHE had faced against the Remnants. "They were all like, talking about their Mother and how they were going to have a Reunion or something, but Cloud totally kicked them outta the park!"
"You fought in a park?" Mira asked, inquisitively. Tifa chuckled and left Yuffie to her devices, content on letting Mira calm down for a while before trying to cut her hair again.
"Nope, we fought all over Midgar! Their leader, this guy named Ka-boing or something, he summoned a giant evil dragon!" Yuffie accentuated the word 'giant' by throwing her arms as wide as they would go, and then giving herself fangs when she said dragon.
"Really?" Mira was inquisitive as to pretty much all of the conversation, her hiccuping slowing until it stopped as she watched Yuffie re-tell the battle with the Remnants.
"Are you sure?"
'Yes sir, we've gone through every database we could find, searching description, name and DOB range. There is no Mira Leirbach her age and description anywhere on the planet.'
"Impossible. Are you sure, Major?" The voice speaking was harried, tired of going through dozens of procedures in his own organization.
'Yes sir, Mr. Tuesti. If we knew the names of her parents, sir, that could help.'
"I'll look into that, and keep you updated. In the meantime, Major, keep searching." Reeve said, and removed his PHS from his ear before flicking it off and stowing it away in a pocket. He sighed and brought a hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching hard in an attempt to get rid of his blazing headache.
What now? He thought, and for a moment Reeve could almost see the steady deterioration of his mental capacity, even if it was only ten thirty in the morning. We could run a blood test, run the kid's DNA against the living SOLDIERs left, see if there's any matches. But that might not work, plenty of people other than SOLDIERs have Mako... Vincent has Mako, he was a Turk. The Remnants had Mako, but they were clones of a SOLDIER. Reeve paused his mental tirade for a moment, mulling things over as he leaned against the wall in the upstairs hallway. Mira Leirbach, you're becoming a big pain for such a small child.