Kalm welcomed the pair's arrival with an assault of the senses. Folk music fought for air space amongst the smell of bonfires and walking culinary vendors. Bodies clad in traditional Festival garb brushed against Aria as she slid through the streets behind a red shock of tattered fabric.
"Where's the fire?" she called to Vincent, longing to take in the sights of Kalm while he rushed through the town.
"I just want to check in," he mumbled over his shoulder as they approached the inn. She smirked and rolled her eyes.
"You know, you enjoyed a festival once!" she fired back.
Within minutes, they stepped into a small bedroom decorated with handmade wooden furniture and local-made art. A bottle of red wine and two glasses had been placed next to the small television. Aria pointed to the bottle and raised her eyebrows.
"Hey Kalm, stepping up your game," she joked, dropping her backpack on the dresser as Vincent sat on the bed next to the window. He pushed the glass open, and looked to Aria as the music and laughter from the street flowed up into their room. She smiled and crawled onto the bed at his feet, looking out the window at the revellers below.
"When are you meeting Reeve?"
"He'll contact me, I suppose."
"Well, 'til then…" she trailed, sitting up and reaching for the wine. Despite his refusal of her offer, she poured him a glass and set it on the dresser, taking her own glass with her onto the bed. His eyes were drawn to the elongated form at his feet, and the slender fingers wrapped around the thin glass.
"This doesn't feel right."
"What doesn't?"
"I don't know. I just…"
"The contrast is a bit off-putting. Everyone in town is celebrating, and we're here to find out why people are disappearing in Midgar. Our agenda is likely the darkest."
"You should go out there. Enjoy the festival. It might…" Words failed him as he turned back toward the window.
"This might be it for a while? Maybe. Who knows what the hell we're getting into?" She pushed herself up the bed and nuzzled the crook of his neck. "But we'll be fine. We've got each other, and we're a hell of a team."
He nodded silently and stroked the brown strands that covered her shoulder. They allowed their minds to privately wander for several moments. A buzz pierced the quietude and Aria sat upright.
"That's Reno," she predicted, pulling her phone from her pocket.
"Go meet him. Enjoy the festival," Vincent said, straightening his back. "But...can I make a request?"
"Don't take drinks from strangers?" she kidded, swallowing the last of her wine.
"That, and...stay together."
Her smile fell. "Is there something I should know?"
"No," he replied quickly. "Just a...feeling. Nerves, perhaps. But I would prefer that you not take on the streets by yourself."
She nodded and climbed over his lap, planting a firm kiss on his cheek as she did so. Slipping on her backpack, she consented. "You got it. No lone wolfing. Call me when you're on your way back, I'll-we'll-pick up some dinner and bring it back. Tell Reeve I say hello."
He nodded once and watched her leave before turning on the television and resting back against the headboard.
"You certainly didn't waste any time!" Aria called upon finding Reno holding a gourd full of sweet liquor with floral garland draped around his neck. He greeted her with a wide smile, raising his drink.
"In town a whole five minutes and I must be the most popular man here. They just gave me these," he bragged, pointing to his flowers.
"Yeah, that's what they do. It's a festival."
"Then let's get festive!" he shouted over the music playing in the street. His hand locked onto her wrist and they disappeared into the crowd.
An hour passed quickly, and Aria found herself mimicking a local folk dance while Reno cheered. The sweet drinks had ignited old fires in the former coworkers, and they rattled down the sidewalks taking in the smells and tastes of countless food carts, stopping only briefly to dare one another to consume the most exotic offers.
As Reno was swallowing a final bite of fried heg, he proudly declared, "It's not bad. A bit...chewy. Not how I typically prefer my snake, but…"
"Oh, you're disgusting," Aria laughed, turning her head from the sight. As she did so, she caught a flash of light in the sky. "What...Did you see that?"
Reno shook his head, swallowing from a new gourd. When Aria did not return his gaze, he stepped up to her side in concern.
"Should we be concerned?"
"I...guess not," she replied, unable to find the source of the flash. "Hallucinating, I guess."
Reno nodded, but did not believe her dismissal.
Meanwhile, a news report repeated on the television in Vincent's room. He had listened to the report twice already and noted the few missing details from the publicized story. As the news droned in the background, his mind strayed back to an all-too-familiar setting.
The cave floor was cool beneath him as he stared into the flawless, frozen face. Unable to hold a steady gaze, his eyes moved rhythmically between the soft face and the stony ground. Ethereal apologies sliced like razors through his internal silence. I'm so sorry…
Why? he asked himself, returning to reality. I'm the one who should apologize…
His contemplation was severed by a harsh chill spreading up his spine. Just as he turned to look out the broad window into the streets below, missile struck a row of houses several blocks away. The explosion lit the sky red. As he reached for his gun, his ear caught the sound of helicopters filling the air.
Reno froze in the middle of the street, watching flames flare into the clouds, barely noticing the screams of the villagers around him. Only as the pointed gaze of violet eyes registered did he shift focus to his immediate surroundings. Hundreds of flowers lay trampled and crushed on the stone street, an instant symbol of the panic unfolding around him. His thoughts swirled from one nearly-coherent thought to another too quickly for him to move into action. Long fingers closed around his bicep and dragged him out of his cloud.
"MOVE!" a voice both familiar and foreign in its volume cried. In a flash, he was on the move, following Aria down an empty alley.
"Should we not follow the crowd?"
"Were you too stunned to notice the soldiers running after them? We're not getting in the middle of the herd."
"Soldiers? The hell…"
As they came to the end of the alley, she stopped, carefully leaning out to assess the chaos in the street while Reno leaned against a cool brick wall.
"WRO?" he asked, baffled that they would attack Kalm in such a manner.
"No. I don't recognize them. Gray and...Mako-infusion blue. I don't know," she answered, turning back to lean against the opposite building. "They have...dogs? Some kind of armored beasts."
A barrage of gunfire caused the pair to flinch.
"Warning shots?"
Aria raised an eyebrow. "Doubt it. We've got to get back to the inn."
Reno sighed, then nodded, chancing a look out into the street. "If we can cross, we can take that alley behind the food cart, climb the fence, and take the rooftops. The helicopters seem to have dispersed for now."
Moments later, the pair caught their breath on a rooftop one street from the inn. Aria struggled to inhale over the knot in her chest at the sight of the bombed building. An hour earlier, she had left Vincent in a room that was now only burning rubble.
"He's fine. He's fine; you know he is," Reno panted, following her line of sight to the flames. On the street below, a group of masked soldiers herded terrified men and women into a metal boxcar-sized crate. Reno extended his hand to silently grab Aria in warning, but met only air. Before he could turn to look for her, a dull thud drew his eyes just beyond the soldiers to the sight of Aria taking off down the street toward the ruined inn. Almost instantly, two soldiers took off after her.
"You idiot," Reno sighed, resigning himself to the pursuit.
He caught up to them cornering Aria against the destroyed inn. As the shorter of the two stared her down, he shook his head. Reno made eye contact with Aria and put a long finger up to his lips. Her eyes flamed in return.
"I can't get a read on her," the smaller man muttered.
"Me neither. Nothing at all. Fire anyway."
A sing-song voice warned them otherwise. "I wouldn't…"
The men simultaneously spun around into a swinging rod. Electricity sparked through their suits, knocking them to the ground in a jolting heap.
Aria approached the men and tore the helmet from the taller man's head, bringing its screen down over her own eye. A clear image of Reno appeared before her, glowing green.
"You're in here. They know who you are. Blood type, everything. And apparently you're 'clean.'"
"Of what?" he asked.
She removed the helmet and handed it to him. "I don't know."
He looked through the lens at her, and saw no color change. "You don't even register. I guess they followed your footsteps? What source does it use? How do they know me and not you?"
"Lifestream? It doesn't matter. I have to find Vincent. There's a chance he'd already left to meet Reeve...where would that happen?"
Reno bit his lip in thought, then offered, "There's an old office on the other side of town Shinra used for training. I don't know if it got handed over to the WRO, but in the attack, it might be a safe spot Reeve would run to. Start there?"
"I'll check there…"
"Nope," Reno interjected, sliding the helmet under his arm. "We don't know what the hell's going on, and we're hardly armed. We're not splitting up."
Aria furrowed her brow at his sound logic and extended an arm, signaling him to lead the way.