Chapter 14 – Scar-Free

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Rude looked around the darkened room, Tseng behind him scanning quietly. To the both of them, the Turks private lounge had never looked so unfamiliar and menacing.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Reno's voice sprang up from a dark corner near the back.

Tseng flicked the light switch beside him before speaking. Reno winced at the light. "Fine. We're more concerned about how you're doing."

"Me? Oh, I'm great." Reno beamed. "The President even promised me an assassination mission if I was good this week."

Rude and Tseng exchanged a quick look. Reno had never been one to follow his moral barometer too closely, but he'd certainly never been a sadist before. Tseng turned quickly from the room, telling Rude to stick around and watch Reno. Marching quickly down the hall towards the elevator, Tseng's mind was working feverishly. Taking the elevator to the 69th floor, Tseng strode quickly past the receptionist, despite her startled cries for him to stop. Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Tseng found President Shin-ra casually perusing a report of some kind.

"Sir, we need to talk."

President Shin-ra looked up with boredom over his features. "Can't it wait Tseng? I'm a little busy."

"I will not allow myself or Rude to undergo this treatment. And furthermore, Reno Will be taken off it as well, until the methods can be subdued or improved."

The President raised an eyebrow curiously. "You would give me orders, Turk?"

"If you do not comply, you will not have a Turk to be superior to." The two men met the others' eyes with steely gazes for a few long moments. Finally, the President gave out a bark of laughter and pushed the report aside.

"And what do you suggest?"

"Reno cannot operate to his full potential in this state of mind. He's no longer capable of thinking on the run, an asset that first led us to recruit him. Now he'll follow the order directly as prescribed, even until his death."

"Just like a good Turk." The President sneered.

"And a wholly useless one." Tseng retorted before continuing. "Should Hojo be able to produce the same effort at a much more reduced level for Reno alone, I will have no more objections." And with that punctuating his entire speech, Tseng turned about and left the room. Shin-ra called after him.

"Fine. It will take some time. In the meanwhile, you might want to keep an eye on your boy. He's got a taste for blood."

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In his sleep, Reno moaned softly and shifted, trying in vain to shake the dreams from his mind.

"Would you fucking hurry up? I hate waiting for supplies to get loaded before me an' my baby tear up the skies."

"Cid…" Cloud looked up at the frustrating pilot. "Barret is Not a supply." He continued helping the wounded man up the ladder with the support of Rude.

"Whatever, dead weight is dead weight." Cid spoke with a bark of laughter.

"Boy, when I can walk," Barret growled. "I am gonna slap the hell outta you."

Cid smiled as he tossed away the remnants of his cigarette and walked over to help his massive friend onto the airship. Below deck, Tifa walked over and shook their prisoner until he awoke in his chair. "Hey there Jonny boy. Have you ever been to Cosmo Canyon?" she asked with a sweet smile on her face.

"Uh… no?" the confused soldier asked, struggling futilely with his bindings for only a moment.

"Well, good. You can think of this as a vacation then. We're leaving you with the Canyon guard on our way." Tifa walked back to the door and winked at Jon. "Have fun." As Tifa exited, she turned out the lights leaving Jon in absolute darkness.

"Hey…"

Tifa laughed softly to herself as she heard his cry of indignation. Looking up, she saw Yuffie stumble in from the deck, still rubbing the sleep out from her eyes. Elena soon followed, a large personalized mug of coffee in hand. Tifa smiled brightly as she waved at the two.

"Good morning, you guys. How's it going?" Tifa expertly blocked the fist thrown at her by a groggy Yuffie, instead looking on as Elena drained the rest of her coffee.

"Well, it had been fine." The blond Turk looked dejectedly at the now-visible porcelain bottom and sighed. Tifa reached out for the empty mug, only to have it violently jerked away protectively. A moment later, Elena relaxed and apologized meekly. Tifa slowly took it from her.

"I've got a fresh pot on, let me go get you some. Milk, Sugar?"

"Black this morning, please." Tifa nodded and left the room. Elena turned to Yuffie. "You know, she wouldn't be As weird if we hadn't all nearly been killed last night. What has her so bouncy?"

"Yuffie looked up at her. "Are you kidding me? She's got most of her friends here, and we're off on an adventure. She's probably been waiting years for this..." Yuffie paused. "Well, that and she's one of those fucking morning people."

"Rude's a morning person."

"What? Really?"

"Yep. Actually, you really can't tell if there's a difference in him in the morning, but he is up way before me or Reno..." She trailed off looking to the side.

"Weird."

"Yeah." At that, Tifa re-entered the room carrying two cups of coffee, handing Elena hers, who drank deeply from it immediately. Ignoring the 'fuck me, that's good' murmured beside her, Yuffie looked over to Tifa.

"So where do we go now?"

"First off, we want to get Barret back to Corel and Marlene. He's in no condition to help, despite what he thinks." Yuffie nodded in agreement. "Then, we go to Wutai." The young girl paled slightly at the mention of her hometown.

"We need some things from there and to..." Elena hesitated. "Take care of something."

Yuffie forced back the stinging at the back of her eyes and looked back to Tifa.

"Plus, you might want to let Godo know what you're up to." This time, Yuffie just bit her lower lip before Tifa continued. "After that, we stop at Cosmo Canyon for the night. All in all, it shou- oh, wow."

Elena stood with her head down, holding out her massive mug to Tifa. In a small voice she asked, "Can I have more please?"

Cloud silently thanked the Gods that the act of bringing Barret down a ladder was much easier than carrying him up it. Relatively easily reaching the ground, Tifa had a wheelchair and a little girl waiting for them.

"Daddy, are you alright?" Marlene cried out as she leapt into her adoptive father's arm while he settled into the wheelchair.

"Yeah, pumpkin, I'm fine. Jus' gotta take it easy for the next week or so is all." Barret gave Marlene an extra little squeeze before setting her down. Looking at Cloud and Tifa, he asked "Are you sure you're gonna be fine without me?"

Cloud laughed and replied with "The better question is, are you going to be fine without us?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be good. You guys just get going already."

"Ok." Tifa bent down and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "You take care of yourself, alright?" Both Cloud and Tifa gave Marlene a quick hug goodbye and boarded the Highwind.

The jolt of the landing was finally enough to wake Reno from his deep slumber. Standing up and stretching, he wondered just where the hell he was. Opening up the door he had originally come in, Reno stepped out onto the ladder and took in Da-Chou mountains. After a brief sigh of relief for being in a familiar location, he quickly scrambled down the ladder as the first few drops of rain splattered about him.

"So this is where you guys work now, huh?" Cid asked.

Vincent walked into the building and looked around. "It is no Shin-ra Tower, but I suppose it does the job."

Rude nodded at the ex-Turk's supposition. Soon after, Elena and the rest of Avalanche came in. Yuffie went straight for the kitchen.

"So, what do you guys need to get here?"

"There are a couple weapons, equipment and supplies that might prove useful in this kind of situation." Elena answered. She and Rude worked quickly to pack all they needed. Giving some of the load to AVALANCHE, Yuffie watched as Rude loaded a small personal backpack and flung it over his shoulder, nodding to Elena. "Alright," she said. "Let's go."

Having loaded their supplies into the Highwind, the Turks led AVALANCHE through Wutai in the pouring rain. Reaching the base of Da-Chou mountains, Yuffie sped up to walk beside Elena.

"Hey, where are we going?" Yuffie asked, clearly confused.

"You'll see." The cryptic answer revealed nothing as Elena and Rude climbed the ancient paths expertly. Entering the now quenched fire caves, Rude reached into his backpack and pulled out a flare and continued along.

"Finally." Cid let out a sigh of relief for being under some real cover from the rain and reached for a cigarette.

"Stop that." Yuffie's voice froze his hand.

"What?"

"This is sacred ground, and we don't need you leaving behind your smoke and ash."

"Bah, everything is sacred to you guys." But despite his implied criticism, Cid quickly returned the cigarette to his pack.

Rude moved past as sharp corner in the cave and stepped back out into the rain. The group found themselves looking out over the whole of Wutai from the very top of Da-Chou mountain.

"Oh, wow..." Tifa's voice trailed off as she looked down upon the city. Stepping to the edge, she took in the beauty of the scene. She couldn't help but appreciate the thick, lush grass at her feet, even as the rain fell about. Walking to the other edge of the plateau, the woman looked out over the ocean, staring down the nearly-vertical drop off the back of the mountain into the water below. "This is incredible."

"Yeah," Yuffie spoke with pride in the beauty her country still possessed. "They found access up here after we put out the flames when we came through here last. Though usually only tourist groups and the occasional climber are led up here to take their little pictures home to show the neighbors." The malice in her voice was unmistakable. "So why are we up here?" She looked over to Rude and Elena, only to find them walking a fair distance away. Curious, AVALANCHE followed them nearly to the very western edge. "What's that?" Yuffie asked, spotting a stone marker set in the ground. Before she could get her answer, she was distracted by the sound of a tour guide emerging from the cave.

"And here we find one of the most recently discovered and beautiful sights of Wu... Oh!" The guide exclaimed sharply as she noticed the group, noting Yuffie in particular. "Lady Kisaragi, I apologize for the intrusion." She turned back to the group, few of the tourists recognizing the Lady of Wutai. "We'll return in a while, don't worry. We just need to give these people some time." Slowly, and a little confused, the group filed back into the cave to see the rest of the tour first, except for one man in a dark hood covering his features as the rain splattered on it. Paying the stranger no attention past a second glance, AVALANCHE looked back to the Turks.

"Tseng?" Yuffie read the simple engraving on the stone marker, again confused. "You have Tseng buried here?"

Elena shook her head. "No, not buried..." Rude kneeled down and pulled a similar marker out of his bag. "Turks don't seem to leave us bodies to bury. Still, this was Tseng's favorite spot. He had shown it to all of us before the Temple of the Ancients mission. I think he knew..." Elena either wiped away a tear or an annoying raindrop from her eye. Either way Cloud couldn't tell, but he began to understand.

"Elena, Rude, Yuffie..." He addressed them all individually. "Take all the time you want. We won't go anywhere until you're done here."

Rude nodded his thanks, and finished securing the second marker into the ground, neatly beside the first. After standing, Elena gave him a quick hug and cleared her voice. "To Reno I was always a rookie, and he never really let me forget that." She smiled softly. "But ever since the fall of Midgar, it stopped being so insulting. It was more... affectionate. Even when it was included with an insult. While Reno was never anything resembling a good person, he was a good friend. Perhaps his final actions speak more about his character than his life of crime and evil ever could. To ask Reno why he did what he did would get you nothing but a cold laugh and a colder answer. But I think his life revolved around necessity. To survive in the slums, sacrifices must be made. I don't intend to defend his actions, only to attempt a justification and to appeal to whatever God that would listen that he, Tseng and his sister are reunited in a better place... Scar-free..." Elena finished, tears streaming freely as they mixed with the falling rain. Yuffie dropped down to her knees and put her hand over Reno's name engraved in the stone, her fingers running lightly in the grooves.

"I never really knew how Reno felt about me. Between the insults, the innuendoes, the dismissals and the inviting winks, it was impossible for me to know what he was thinking. But I'm ok with that, it had made things interesting. What I can't stand is that he died believing I had betrayed him, and I never had the chance to correct that, to say sorry. More importantly, I never even had a chance to tell him how much I liked having him around." The sobs broke out of the young girl's body. "How much I actually cared."

Cloud stepped up to Yuffie and knelt down to hug her. She turned around and buried her face into his shoulder. Rude adjusted his sunglasses. "Reno and I met in the Shin-ra building. We'd been best friends ever since then. I don't think he ever realized just how funny I thought he was. I had a hell of a time never laughing."

And with that, Rude fixed up his wet tie and began walking. Without a word, he and Elena passed through the ranks of AVALANCHE, who quickly joined them. Walking at the very back of the group, Red began to sniff the air furiously, and with a gasp of surprise, snapped his head around towards the mysterious figure they had all ignored. Calmly, the cloaked man reached his hand up and placed a single finger over his lips. Red, confused but trusting, nodded once and padded off to rejoin his friends.

"What was that about?" Vincent asked.

"Just a familiar scent. Likely someone who had recently visited the Canyon. It was nothing."

Vincent looked skeptical for but a moment while Red reached him. Turning to walk beside his friend, they began their descent down Da-Chou mountain.

A.N. I wanted to apoligize to anybody who was actually following this. I'll try to update on a more regular basis... Maybe