He was different from the others.

Most of the people that had taken her in had an attitude of peace. Not that they didn't react to things sometimes violently, but that was just it, reaction. This boy didn't operate on reactions. He seemed focused on something, far out beyond what Elfe could see.

And she could understand that. This was why she was in Wutai instead of Cosmo Canyon, with a lot of other young people learning how to fight. It was strange how easily she'd been able to pick up a sword especially, almost as if there was something in her muscle memory already. She'd always been the sort to train her body, go on runs, but no one held weapons in the Canyon. It simply wasn't done.

But the serious boy didn't have any weapons, and merely watched.

"What are you looking at?" Elfe finally asked, impatient at her own lack of understanding.

He was slight of build, and she had to wonder if he was really supposed to be there. At sixteen she wasn't going to be huge, especially considering she was female, but her arms and legs were certainly muscular from all the training she had done. And that was even before she'd joined up with AVALANCHE, since then she'd gained even more definition. This boy was pale for a Wutain and his slightness seemed a result of being inside constantly, probably reading or something equally non-physical an activity.

"Reflexes, response times. Those two are quite evenly matched, over there," he pointed, "but the girl has the advantage."

She liked his eyes, despite the glasses hiding them.

"Why do you say that?"

"She anticipates more. Her brain communicates better with her muscles, if you want to be general."

Elfe plopped down beside him. "That's something you learn with training, though, right?"

"Yes, but I've always wondered if you could augment the process."

"With what?"

He seemed hesitant for a moment, as if he weren't used to people actually listening to him. Elfe never had a problem with listening; it was saying the right things she had issue with.

"You really want to listen?"

"Well, I want to be stronger. Maybe you know some things that could help."

He smiled, a little hesitantly. "I'm Fuhito."

"Elfe."

"Have you ever heard of Materia?"

ooo

The leader introduced Fuhito to the rest of the group later, telling them that he was a strategist and would be helping them plan their attacks. Elfe realized then that Fuhito, for all his slightness was probably actually older than her. Then again, he certainly sounded like it, composing theories about life energy and materia while they took their meals.

Even if she didn't understand half of it, she liked the way he talked about it.

"We can enhance people directly with materia. Why put it on weapons? Weapons can be lost or destroyed in the heat of battle. If your body fails, you're dead already."

"But wouldn't that cause people to get sick?" Elfe chewed thoughtfully, making sure she had said the right thing by his reaction.

"Well, no. Maybe. It really doesn't matter." His brows furrowed and he seemed a little... flustered?

"A little more thought, maybe."

He brightened. "No, a little more experimentation!"

She laughed. Fuhito could be cold sometimes, but there was always a light in his eyes on the right subjects. In some ways she envied that, and wanted to emulate it in her own way; aside from deciding to fight, she really had no passion.

"Maybe some day you'll help make me stronger."

He looked over at her, in a way that she recognized from other Cosmans around her age, but with a hint of something else. And she had to admit, the something else made her want to blush and shiver at the same time.

"Maybe."

ooo

For some reason, a lot of the others deferred to her and looked to her when they were unsure. Elfe took it as a sign that she had to train harder, finding herself too exhausted to do much more than lay in her bunk at the end of the day.

After nearly three weeks of this, he sought her out.

"You missed dinner."

"Oh yeah, I thought I forgot something."

Fuhito set the plate down, and she could tell he'd overdone it on the portions without even moving her head. There were a few minutes of somewhat awkward silence before he cleared his throat.

"Why do you work so hard, Elfe?" He finally asked.

She sat up, and took the spoon he'd set next to the bowl. "I think it started as revenge. For my parents. Like a lot of the others."

The stew was better this evening, the cook must have stopped trying to fight with the local ingredients and learn to work with them.

"I thought you had parents."

"Adopted ones. Shinra killed my biological ones."

He seemed a bit uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. She took another bite and wiggled her spoon at him.

"But revenge is a stupid reason to do anything. So I decided I was going to keep what happened to them from happening again. Keep kids from waking up at age eleven with no idea where they are and no one they know..." Elfe was quickly starting to lose her appetite.

"I've been reading this brilliant man-this professor's work. And I think I can do better, bring us all a lot closer to the Planet, stronger in ways beyond your imagination. Maybe then people won't want to burn cities and leave only ash and orphans in their wake. You'll see. They'll see."

Fuhito stopped suddenly, as if just realizing he'd been ranting. It took Elfe three seconds to consider and one second to act on kissing him. Maybe she had always wanted to do that, or maybe the situation just called for it, but it was nice to do something that she really wanted to for a change.

And two kids-nineteen and sixteen-could do a lot of damage to each other in a barracks alone.

ooo

"A whole hundred bandits, really?" Fuhito gave the man before them a look that suggested the impressed tone of his voice was meant to be both ironic and sarcastic. Then again, he was taking this tone more and more with people.

The man had said his name was Shears. Odd name, really, and even odder was the fact that he was obviously older and felt the need to challenge them. Elfe hadn't considered herself a child for quite some time, but outwardly, people still did sometimes.

"You'd better not get in our way," Shears said, with a look that suggested he thought he had the upper hand.

Elfe and Fuhito exchanged a glance before she stepped ahead and drew her sword. They'd fallen into the pattern where he talked, and she fought, and it worked out just fine.

She danced.

Well, Elfe liked to think of it that way. She never felt particularly elegant about anything she did, merely correct. Step, doge, step, step and so it went. Fuhito stood back, like a noble waiting patiently as the knight errant did what they were supposed to.

In more gender conscious tales, perhaps he could have been thought of as a noble lady. Elfe barely dodged a club as she chuckled at that image.

It didn't take long for the supposed hundred bandits to disperse or find themselves incapable of moving, their numbers dwindled down to just one.

"Are we still in your way, Shears?"

She pointed the tip of her blade at him and his eyes opened wide a second before he took a knee, head bowed.

"Whatever you are a part of, I want in."

Elfe hadn't expected that. Fuhito snorted behind her and replied, "I think we have enough well-intentioned losers with little strength."

She glanced back and him and made a gesture to quiet him. From the tenseness of Shears's kneeling form she could see that there was indeed quite a bit of strength in the man. If they had fought, it would have been close. And it wasn't as if she could explain her own strength, training was one thing, but it was almost as if she'd been blessed by something.

And mere mortals were no match for blessings.

"All we're trying to do is save the Planet from evil people that want to exploit it. Can you devote yourself to such a cause?"

When Shears looked at her, she saw nothing but complete trust. It was unnerving, because he wasn't yet one of them not quite a part of the family.

"I'd follow you anywhere."

Fuhito choked on a laugh, and Shears scowled. Elfe was going to have issues with those two.

ooo

"He follows you around like a puppy because he expects something from you."

They rarely had time to lay around like this, nearly uncomfortably snug in her bunk. AVALANCHE made no effort to separate anyone who ended up in a bunk with someone else; they were about freedom. They ran drills like a military, but they most certainly were not one. This kind of war wasn't fought in neat rows. It was fought in the back forests. In the back of people's thoughts and hearts.

"Fu, Shears is just as lost as any of us were at first. He's adjusting better than you did."

He ignored her, like he tended to when she said something he didn't like to hear. Instead he took her right hand and turned it so he could kiss her palm. He'd been almost fixated on it, as of late.

"Besides, everyone expects something from everyone. That's how connections work."

"If we were all one, we wouldn't need such energy wasting connections."

She frowned. But he continued.

"I would flow into you and you into me and you wouldn't have to worry about being left alone. Of course, that's all crack philosophy. Dribble, really." His dismissal was half-hearted.

Elfe stared at the bunk above hers and wondered just what he'd been reading now.

ooo

The pain started in her hand.

It had been nothing but chaos the first few weeks after their leader died. But she'd picked up where he'd left off as best she could. She could barely sleep, let alone pay attention to a dull ache in her hand. Not her sword hand, though. It would be death if she couldn't grip her sword.

"I think for the most part we have retained our numbers with as little attrition as possible, but there is another issue."

Elfe wasn't sure if it was their new responsibilities or something else that let the cold creep more into Fuhito's voice. But she was too tired and too focused on AVALANCHE's needs to worry about that. Lasting things were supposed to stay. He'd stayed. Somewhat.

"Is it food?"

"More than that. We have... a cashflow issue."

Money. She really hated money. It made everything more difficult.

"I could get a group together, do some raids..." Shears offered, in that helpful tone of voice of his.

"Steal it? And draw more attention before we get any proper hits on Shinra itself? That's moronic." Fuhito clipped the last word, as if it had bubbled forth without bidding and he needed to contain it. Shears glared back.

"No Shears, we shouldn't steal it. The only people worth stealing it from would be Shinra anyway."

"Then where do we get it?"

Fuhito smiled in the way that only she found endearing. "From Shinra, of course."

Her hand throbbed, and she was too tired for cleverness. "Fu, get to the point and stop showing off your brain."

Something disappointed flickered across his features. "President Shinra has a son, one that is getting tired of how the company is being run. He'd like to fund us. Provide information. All sorts of things."

Well that certainly woke Elfe up. Shears was already sputtering, trying to form into words the exact reasons why he hated the idea, but words weren't his gift as much as brute force and loyalty were.

Elfe sighed. "If we do this-and I'm not sure if we will-this knowledge cannot leave this room. No one can find out even that we considered this. It would divide up AVALANCHE in ways I don't think we're prepared to handle."

The boys started arguing with each other again, and she sat down, wondering if she really had a choice in the matter at all.

ooo

Fuhito kissed the back of her hand before they entered the back room of the restaurant, though for comfort or possessiveness, she had no clue. Elfe regretted not bringing Shears along; even if he was a little hot-headed, she had no idea if this was some complicated assassination attempt or not, and for good or ill she was the leader of AVALANCHE now. She had to think about these kind of things.

But there was only one man-boy really, they were all just kids-standing in the room, with a large black cat lounging somewhere behind him. Elfe was immediately struck by the same sort of feeling she'd gotten when she'd first met Fuhito, that there was something different about this one.

"I half expected you to be built like a tank from what I've gathered about you, Elfe."

She couldn't help but notice Fuhito suppressing a smile, which seemed to trigger a headache almost as much as the Shinra's tone of voice. Elfe was supposed to be the leader, not some curiosity to be gaped at.

"And I expected you to be taller. How old are you, thirteen?"

Elfe was never meant to be a politician or a diplomat, and if she weren't the leader she would have asked Fuhito to handle this all on his own. As it was, she had hoped to merely meet the boy and be back at the barracks, handling things as they should have been handled.

And it was obvious that Fuhito was about to interject for her rudeness. But the Shinra held up a hand to stop him before he even started.

"Fifteen, actually. Isn't that the average age of your recruits? You're no gray hair yourself."

There were times she forgot her age; now eighteen, it'd only been a couple years, hadn't it? But the Shinra clearly wasn't seeing her as young, because he didn't see himself that way. To make a fifteen year old a member of a board of a corporation was some kind of sad parody, not unlike giving a child a gun and telling them which way to point.

"Fuhito said you have money, what do you want in return?"

The boy looked over at Fuhito, probably referencing some conversation she'd not been privy to, of course, and responded for him. "Rufus only wants what's his."

Elfe slammed her fist-the one that didn't ache-on the table, and glared at each of them in her turn. "This is not a game!"

To his credit, the Shinra didn't even flinch, even if Fuhito looked a little spooked. What sort of person reacted to anger with disinterest?

"Elfe, my problem is that my inheritance is taking too long to kick in, and by the time it will happen, my old man is likely to run the company into the ground. Your problem is that you have quite a few mouths to feed and no resources to speak of."

He paused, to pet his cat which had perked up at her little outburst. "Frankly, we need each other if we are going to survive."

She wanted to laugh at his use of the word 'survival', for what did he really know about that? But the last thing Elfe wanted to do was go back to the barracks and tell her troops, her family that they were going to have to start stealing from their neighbors or starve.

"I reserve the right to come after you if you cross us."

"I reserve the right to disavow you and cut off my aid if you cross me."

His hand was a strange mix of hard and soft; a gunner callous, but the obvious softness of someone that never had to dig ditches or play any dirtier than he wanted to. He and Fu could have gone to the same school of genteel bastards, and she wanted to lecture herself for finding that comparison while looking him in the eye.

ooo

Either Elfe was that discreet or Fuhito really was blind, but he'd never foreseen or known what would happen if he left her and Rufus alone for enough time that they actually started to talk. Some things were inevitability, and others were just so obvious.

At the very least, she was having some genuine fun again.

ooo

She never wanted to believe Shears, even when she'd gotten to the point she could barely stand up. Fuhito was a lot of things, but he had cared once and enough times.

"He's seen how sick you've gotten and he acts like it's nothing. Elfe, why did you keep him with us so long, didn't you know he would betray us?"

"In his mind, he's doing what's right."

Shears looked at her with rage-pity, like she'd lost her mind and he was sad about this. But she hadn't. The Zirconade had weakened her body, not her mind, couldn't anyone see that?

"Like hell he is."

"You don't know him. We still have to stop him, but he did everything out of a false sense of duty to the Planet. A misheard passage or a mixed up fairytale. His head grew faster than his heart and crowded out everything else."

Not unlike the rest of them, in their own way. Once the Ziroconade consumed her and she reincarnated, she hoped she came back as someone with actual power. Maybe that's what it had been all along with her; Fuhito, Rufus, she couldn't help but be drawn to that kind of magnetism. Were the powerless always so jealous that they wanted to consume it? Was that what AVALANCHE really was, under her guidance?

Maybe the Zirconade had gone to her brain.

"You need to get some rest."

"I knew you wouldn't understand. You never do, Shears. You never listen to me, just what your image of me says. I'm not a saint or a savior, I'm-I'm pissed off!"

Elfe shouldn't have been angry at Shears, but her father-now that was something she didn't want to think about-was off white knighting for her and the man-boy she most wanted to talk to was probably cackling over his master plan. Shears had only been loyal and done everything she'd asked, why couldn't she just accept that simple token?

"I only want what's best for you."

She turned away on her cot, knowing that any words she had would only make it worse. Shears had the face of someone that would martyr himself for any cause that made him believe. Elfe wanted to break his faith so that maybe it wouldn't turn out to be a waste.

When he'd left the room, Elfe realized that even she didn't know what was best for herself. How could anyone else make that claim?

ooo

Elfe should have felt something when he died, considering she was his first major experiment. But she'd only been told about it long afterwards, when she could maintain consciousness for more than an hour at a time.

ooo

Ten years.

Her hand still sometimes ached when it was going to rain, but for the most part Fuhito's misguided gift to her had left no traces. Maybe Elfe's skeleton would like up like the dead city used to under certain scans, but she'd not been anywhere near medical equipment in that time. She could still swing a sword of the variety she favored, but no one would assume that she was a one-woman battalion anymore. It was much better this way.

She hadn't been conscious for most of that year, and no two sources agreed on where the battle had occurred. But Tseng had told her that it had been a great fight, and she would have been proud of how her troops had fought in particular.

But Elfe didn't really care about that. If she didn't know where it ended, she certainly knew the location of where it had begun. The old AVALANCHE grounds were overrun by weeds and someone had a fishing hut on the shore now, but it had only taken her a short while to find the spot.

"Fu, you deserved a better future than this, you stupid fool. I guess I'll just have to make a better one for you."

Her father had helped her paint the proper characters onto the lantern, and had given her a spare Fire materia from his arsenal for her to light it. But he'd had the sense to let her come out to this remote part of Wutai alone.

Fuhito probably would have liked the fact that she didn't cry.