I'm so sorry about the long wait, but this just started writing itself and then someone ended up blowing themselves up. I'm so sorry, that was bad writing. But I'm getting this back under control starting hopefully this chapter and definitely by the next

Finishing Business

Sitting at his hopelessly cluttered desk in his office, Cloud was signing and tossing slips of paper describing various jobs he had finished near the full trashcan. He looked over what seemed to be the thousandth and seventh request for him to deliver an unmarked package, signed it as done, and tossed the crumpled paper next to his trash pile.

Cloud's cellphone rang and he answered, "Hello?"

Reeve's voice came through from the other end, "Cloud, I need you and Tifa to come see me. My men have got the Blood Bullets cornered, but I can't finish them with what I have."

"Understood. And you'll watch Marlene, Denzel, and Shelke while Tifa and I are helping?"

"Of course. But you do know that Shelke is more than capable of taking care of herself?"

Cloud nodded, "Yeah. But she's fought a lot in her life. I don't want her to fight anymore if she doesn't want to."

Reeve scoffed, "Says the man who's been a soldier since he was 15, and hero since he took up his sword."

Now it was Cloud's turn to scoff, "I'm no hero."

"Stuff it. A hero isn't the guy who lets absolutely no one die. He's the one that uses that grief to help everyone else."

"Seriously, Reeve?"

Reeve laughed into the phone, "Just meet me at my place within the hour. Oh, and remind Tifa that she still hasn't made everyone that dinner she promised. That might even get Vincent out in the open."

Cloud chuckled and hung up, "Tifa!" he called, heading out of his office.

"Huh?" Tifa called back from the downstairs bar area.

"Reeve's got 'em. And he also said that you still need to make dinner for everyone."

Tifa sighed, "Finally. I was getting worried that they were going to start attacking again soon. And I totally forgot about the dinner," she added sheepishly, "We'll have it whenever everyone is here, promise. I haven't cooked a big meal for everyone in so long," she said with a smile. The last time had been during the First Mission. "Kids! Shelke! We're going to go see Reeve! Get ready to go!"

A moment later, two pairs of feet ran downstairs, "Why are we seeing Reeve?" Denzel asked upon landing from his 4-stair jump.

"Careful. You're going to break something, I swear. You, Marlene, and maybe Shelke are going to stay with Reeve while Cloud and I go take care of who bullied us before."

"You mean the gangs?" Marlene asked once she finished hopping down the stairs.

Cloud nodded, "After we're done, 'there won't be a single sucka standing!'" he proceeded to "shoot" bullets out of his left arm.

Marlene laughed, "Sure, Papa."

"Very humorous, Cloud," Shelke smirked as she came downstairs. Cloud lowered his arm and put his hands in his pockets, embarrassed. Tifa nudged him in the side and shot him a glance.

Not missing a beat, Shelke nodded, "Tifa is right. You have no need to be embarrassed. We were going to Reeve's residence?"

Cloud nodded, "Yeah. Let's go," he led his odd little family out of the house.

Once Marlene and Denzel were safe at Reeve's place (Shelke had decided to fight with the others), Reeve sent Cloud, Tifa, Shelke, and a Cait Sith to back up the police force preparing to storm the Blood Bullet base.

They went deep into the slums, the area closest to and touching Midgar, and prepared their attack.

Cloud glanced behind him at the group of police officers, Tifa, Shelke, and Cait. Leading the cat, Shelke and Tifa didn't bother him, but leading a gaggle of cops felt extremely odd and ironic, "So everyone knows all the details of the plan?" he asked one final time.

Cloud's group nodded solemnly and Cloud waved the first group away. The clutch of 5 officers ran forward and disappeared. They might meet up later, but it was unlikely. Group one was made of the most experienced cops in the group and in charge of distracting and creating mayhem. Cloud turned to the girls and robot behind him, "When the bomb goes off, that's our cue."

"I am aware." Shelke nodded.

"Got it." Tifa smiled. Oh the irony that a bomb would be the signal of the Blood Bullet's end.

"Gotcha, Cloud!" Cait Sith gave a salute.

The leader turned toward the rest of the group, "Once we've thinned out the ranks, you guys come in and sweep the rest away.

"Sir!"

Everyone waited for several minutes until a huge explosion announced mission start.

"Go!" Cloud yelled as he, Tifa, and Shelke jumped from their hiding places as a second bomb went off. They ran into the gang's hang out and happily saw it looking like a kicked ant pile.

"Intruders! Get 'em!" one of them shouted over the noise and several rookie gang members charged the trio. Others, upon noticing their comrades running in a specific direction, joined the charge. Undeterred, Cloud drew his sword and took a smaller hand sword from the side and began cutting his adversaries down, always aiming not to kill. He'd had far enough killing in his life. Accidents happen, though. Cloud blocked a small sword and flicked it out of its wielder's hand before being hit in the back with a club and cleaving several gang members almost in two. He winced at the fallen bodies and moved on, wiping some blood from his face.

Tifa bashed her way through the room, leaving destroyed furniture and crushed bones in her wake. Looking only to immobilize, her primary targets were arms and legs. With each bone to give way under her gloves though, Tifa felt guilty, but reminded herself that these people had done much worse to others.

Shelke weaved through Cloud and Tifa's lines cutting down any who were about to attack the pair and not bothering to leave her victims alive. In a massive ratio against them such as this, it was simpler to know that their adversaries were truly felled. With a scowl, Shelke jabbed one of her blades in the throat of one of Cloud's victims as the man aimed to shoot Tifa in the back.

"Cloud! Tifa! If you're going to let these criminals live, then properly immobilize them," the small girl scolded.

The pair glanced back at Shelke, then at each other uneasily before pressing ahead.

once a second big room was cleared, Cloud made a hole in the roof with a Fire 2 spell and shot a small Fire 1 flare out of it, signaling the rest of the police officers (mostly officers who were training to become a specialized police force) to come inside, then caught up with Tifa and Shelke before they left thhim behind. By now, most any rookie gang member had fled or had been incapacitated, and the group of fighters and police officers made their way unopposed through the surprisingly complicated gang hideout. They came across several traps, fake hallways and paths, and secret passageways.

"Jeez, did Yuffie design this?" Tifa exclaimed when she nearly tripped another deadly trap, "And how did they keep the rookies from killing themselves on these?"

"They probably didn't care that much," Shelke shrugged, remembering how many of Deepground's rookies didn't make the cut.

A group of police officers ran across a hallway bisecting Cloud, Tifa, and Shelke's hallway and started firing. The trio ran to catch up and helped engage a large group of thugs gathered in front of a door. The brawl lengthened into a battle and several police members were felled.

Cloud frowned and split his sword. He worked his way into the middle of the battle to pick out their focal point. In every fight with a group, there will always be one soldier who holds the morale of the others. Whether they be a mentor, like a sibling, or just a personality that draws others. Cloud realized with a sigh that he was looking for the man here who held his own status among friends: the leader. Well, it takes one to know one. After his little epiphany, Cloud picked the man out almost immediately. He was surprisingly small compared to the other fighters, but he fought ferociously. He had a dark tan, short hair dyed dark blue, and probably a sunny personality, judging from the huge smile he wore. His eyes were bright…mako blue. Cloud blinked in surprise at the eyes that mirrored his own before he attacked. Cloud and the small tanned man clashed gun to sword, and Cloud's opponent stared at Cloud's eyes for a moment before blowing him back with undeniably mako-enhanced strength. Cloud used the momentum given to him to knock several weaker thugs down and get to one of his nearby allies.

He found and stood back-to-back with Shelke.

Protecting the whole of her back easily, Cloud yelled over the noise, "There's a man here with mako enhancements. He's small and tanned with short hair dyed dark blue. If we take him down, the rest will follow."

"Good. Do the others know?"

"I don't know."

Cloud and Shelke separated to tell the rest. While Cloud slashed his way through the thugs, he came face to face with the mako-enhanced man again. He fired straight between Cloud's eyes and Cloud brought his sword up instantly to block, knocking the ricocheted bullet into a foe who was then put out of his misery by a police officer's bullet. The mako infused men glared each other down, each searching for the other's weak spots in the midst of battle. The smaller man flashed a grin, "You ain't gonna go down easy, are ya?"

Cloud remained cold and expressionless in a perfect poker face. This person was much younger than Cloud originally thought.

"You talk at all?" the small man asked.

"…When I feel like it."

"Hmph. You're just as bad as the Boss, man. Lighten up!" he flew through the air and used his gun as a club, smashing it hard against Cloud's sword and jumping away before Cloud could finish a retaliatory stab. Cloud's arm was yanked after the other man and Cloud mentally berated himself for not noticing the small rope at the gun's end. Finally being bigger than his opponent, Cloud grabbed the rope and yanked it towards himself, but only unraveled the cord from its coil in the gun further. He frowned and uncoiled his wrist before chasing after the small mako-infused man, using the cord locked in his fist to keep an eye on his opponent and to distract or trip thugs. He caught up with him and grappled for a moment before Tifa flew past and jabbed two knuckles into a sweet spot on the man's temple. He immediately slumped forward into Cloud, unconscious. An inexperienced mistake. This man was probably no more than Cloud's age when he first started getting mako...treatments. 18 or 19 at most. Cloud hefted the smaller man onto his shoulder and swung around, cutting down a couple of the remaining thugs. Those who saw their best fighter go down blanched. A few ran, but most of the remaining group fought harder to make up for their fallen moral leader. The police officers and the fighters saw the end and happily finished the fight. Once all of the Blood Bullets had been incapacitated, several police officers stayed behind to arrest those still alive and to search for those who ran off.

Cloud and the others went inside what was presumably the Boss' room. Cloud and Tifa's jaws dropped.

"You!" Tifa cried.

Cloud went white and glared across the room at Don Corneo. "When will you learn to stay dead, you damn cockroach?"

The Don laughed nervously and glanced around at the room full of police officers, "No one told me I'd have company today…"

Tifa glanced behind the Don and frowned at the sleepy girl holding the sheets over her chest. "I see you still haven't given up your old habits, you sick bastard. You guys can leave," Tifa turned to the police officers, "We can handle him on our own."

The police nodded and carefully left the room.

"Well, well…fancy seeing you here, Claudia." The Don looked Cloud up and down, as if remembering the pretty "girl" who had been there once before. Cloud pulled a short blade off of his sword and threw it an inch above the Don's head, shaving a few thin hairs. The Don paled."Eep…"

Tifa crossed the room and stood next to the girl in bed with Corneo. "Do you have clothes?"

"Yes? But why are you in my house?"

Tifa blinked, "Your house?"

"Yes. I don't really appreciate you attacking my husband."

"Husband?!" Cloud looked over at the girl, totally shocked.

Tifa was similarly shocked. She put a hand on the girl's shoulder, "Did you have any say in this?"

The girl, Mrs. Corneo as it turned out, looked taken aback by this, "Of course I did! Don and I have promised each other we would get married since I was a little girl!"

Tifa blinked. How entirely revolting. "Well, er, Mrs. Corneo. Your husband is going to jail."

"I figured as much when I heard the fight outside. That's why I had this planned." Mrs. Corneo lunged at Tifa, knife in hand, and slashed out at her. Tifa knocked the girl's hand to the side before scooping her wrist into a lock and making her drop the knife. Tifa winced at the cut on her wrist. As soon as Don Corneo's wife attacked Tifa, Cloud snatched hold of Corneo and held a sword to his throat. Tifa turned Corneo's wife to face Cloud and her husband. Mrs. Corneo went white.

"There isn't much keeping me from killing him, so I wouldn't push any buttons," Cloud growled.

Corneo swallowed and tried to keep some of his fat neck from resting on Cloud's blade.

Tifa held Mrs. Corneo still, "You're both going to jail now, though your crime was incredibly less severe, so you'll probably get out before the Don."

Tifa couldn't help but wonder if that was Mrs. Corneo's intention in the first place.

After all of the gang members and a (clothed) Mrs. Corneo was escorted out with the Don and piled into trucks, Tifa sat down and looked at the Cait Sith doll next to her. "So where were you during the whole fight, Reeve?"

There was a moment while Reeve took control of the cait's speaker "Gathering information, of course. This will help me take the rest of the gangs down."

Tifa nodded, "I see, alright. So have you let everyone know about dinner?"

"Haha, that's on me now?"

"Well, you're the one who brought it up," Tifa said with a smirk, "Tell you what, I'll help you let everyone know. How does that sound?"

"Absolutely lovely."

Cloud came over and sat down. He put his arm around Tifa and held her close.

Tifa leaned into Cloud, "You like hugs, huh?"

Cloud smiled, "Hmph."

"Me and Reeve are going to let everyone know that I'm making a big dinner. You wanna help?"

"Sure."

Hello! Thank you for reading! So I don't know if any of this got through in my writing, so I'll just make a little list of Did-You-Knows

Mrs. Corneo was the little girl next to the slums playground in Crisis Core who was waiting for Uncle (the Don, it said so in the game) to come home so she could marry him

The song from the last chapter was Angel by Depeche Mode if anyone would like to look that up (Awesome song)

Denzel wanted to watch Godzilla (Which totally has my vote, but Cloud needed to watch Frozen) :)

Tifa knows somebody for anything (Cleaning a bloody corpse from in front of the house for example) and could probably be an awesome crime boss if she was evil

And Thank you to everyone who has reviewed my story! I think the main part will be coming to an end fairly soon, but I'm wanting to put in epilogue chapters, so let me know what you think of that? They will more or less be snippets of Cloud and Tifa's life after the main story is over, but what I have written now is really good, I think :) if you think the epilogue should get its own little story arc, then let me know

Hugs and Kisses! XOXOXO