A/N: Rated M for language and sexual content.
Want to remind readers that while this story does contain elements of Advent Children it does not take place in that world. It takes place two years after the events of the original game.
Chapter 35:
Two sets of eyes, each glowing from Mako infusion, both locked on the other, yet only one man knew why they were truly in a sudden competition.
Reno had imagined this moment quite a bit over the past few weeks, but especially in the past couple days. His original instinct was of course to antagonize Cloud about this secret with Tifa, but as time went on he came to realize that such a tactic would only serve to anger Tifa and possibly drive her away. A month ago that might not have mattered, as seeing her angry or embarrassed was a huge turn on for him, but for some reason now Reno didn't want her angry with him.
Now he planned to be more coy about the situation. He was going to do something he had never done before, actually compete for a woman's affections. Sure, he had challenged other men at bars who seemed to be interested in a woman Reno had his eye on for the evening, but this was something different. While he kept telling himself he only wanted to win Tifa from Cloud so he could screw her a few more times and maybe see what that pretty mouth of hers could do, it was getting harder for him to fool himself. He'd never considered fighting this hard for a woman before, and he was beginning to forget what this whole thing was about.
Cloud, on the other hand, was simply trying to out-fight the Turks because that was what he was used to doing. He hadn't been there when the Turks were helping Tifa defend Edge and he didn't know about them helping her with the bullet wound. They always seemed to show up wherever AVALANCHE was heading; always one step ahead.
"What are you doing here?" Cloud seethed as the two groups continued to fight the creatures along the path leading deeper into the Northern Crater.
"Same as you," Reno said with a smirk, swinging his mag rod almost wildly at the beasts with his right hand while using his left hand to shoot.
Rude, Elena, and Tseng were ahead of Reno, working through the crowd of fiends. Cloud was near Reno, with Tifa close behind and the rest of AVALANCHE behind her. Much of the Northern Crater was destroyed after the battle with Sephiroth years earlier, but some of the old path remained, though traversing it was difficult, not just because of the stream of fiends.
As they worked their way down what remained of the spiraling path, Cloud started to notice Reno was sticking close by him. At first, Cloud thought it was either a territorial thing or that the sniveling Turk was trying to slack off by staying in Cloud's wake. Cloud himself was staying near Tifa to ensure she was protected, as he had done so often on their first journey together as a group. For a brief moment, Cloud had an inkling that Reno also seemed to be closer to Tifa than the rest of his group, as if he were trying to protect her, too.
Absurd, Cloud thought. The only Turk who acted differently around AVALANCHE – specifically, Tifa – was Rude. But Rude was with the other Turks, while Reno was hanging back. Cloud chalked it up to an increased sensitivity since he came back.
"How did you know to come here?" Tifa yelled from behind Cloud, over the roar and sounds of weapons against flesh.
It was a question Cloud hadn't considered asking. The Turks were always popping up ahead of AVALANCHE, so he assumed this was no different. To Tifa, however, it was not sitting well. She knew Shinra had some useless documents she and Vincent had obtained in Nibelheim and whatever they found in the old Shinra building, but she thought they would have gone through all that weeks ago. Nanaki and the others found out they needed to go to the Northern Crater after the Turks took Tifa home, so they wouldn't have been around at the time of the discovery.
A pit formed in Tifa's stomach. How else could the Turks have known unless they were surveilling her. Was that what Reno had been doing this entire time? She had to admit seeing him here filled her with a sense of dread while also making her insides tingle. She hadn't heard from him since he asked her out on a real date. She didn't know why he hadn't reached out to her, even through a text, since that time, but it didn't really cross her mind until now because she had been so focused on taking care of Cloud. But if Reno knew Cloud had returned, it might have caused him to give her space, even though that also didn't seem like Reno's style.
"That's classified," Reno responded.
He had winced a little at her question, worried she was putting two and two together. He didn't take her for an idiot, but had hoped she wouldn't figure out the Turks had bugged her home. How could he explain that to her? He hadn't wanted to do it and he tried to get them taken out, but he was also the one who installed them in her apartment – while she slept in bed after he had pleasured her senseless.
Tifa punched a parasite clear across the crater to let out her frustration. The creature exploded in a rather impressive way against the wall of the far side of the crater, its guts dropping onto beasts below it. Cloud was too busy slashing away to notice, but Reno and a few other members of AVALANCHE saw the display.
"Shit," Reno thought to himself. "She's at least suspicious."
A little further down the path, the ground beneath AVALANCHE began to shake. Everyone, even the monsters, stopped for a moment to see if anything was going to happen. A moment later there was another rumble, and the ground began to give away. Tifa and Yuffie were able to jump toward Cloud to avoid falling, while Vincent, Nanaki, Cid, and Cait Sith were all behind the destruction. Barret, however, was caught in the middle, and while he ran as fast as he could once it was clear the ground beneath him was about to crumble, he only managed to grab onto the ledge near Cloud's part of the group. He dangled precariously above the lower part of the crater, holding onto the ledge with his good hand. He looked down, watching as several fiends had been unlucky enough to be standing on the same area and were now tumbling to their deaths.
"Barret!" Tifa called from the ledge.
Cloud soon joined them, leaving the Turks to deal with the creatures nearby.
"Well don't this feel familiar?" Barret joked once he saw Cloud.
"I seem to remember it a little differently," Cloud teased back.
Barret looked down again, wondering if he could survive the fall that had killed the beasts. Maybe. Cloud had survived a longer fall – a couple of long falls, actually – but Cloud was some kind of freak.
"Can you pull me up?" he asked his blond friend.
"You're heavy," Cloud noted somberly as he grabbed Barret by the vest and began to pull him up.
Cloud was certainly strong, but Barret was a large man, and this wasn't exactly the easiest angle to hoist someone up, especially without anything to brace against. Cloud also was not going to attempt to pull Barret up by his gun arm. He didn't care how well grafted that gun was, he found the prospect of pulling on it quite horrific.
"Well, shit," Barret said, feeling his grip slipping ever so slightly.
Barret used all of his strength to bend his arm and try to pull himself up when suddenly Cloud was joined by another set of hands gripping Barret's vest. It wasn't Tifa or Yuffie – they were keeping the monsters away from the edge – the arms were clothed in a dark blue suit jacket. It wasn't Reno, but Rude, who was reaching over the ledge to assist AVALANCHE.
"We're not your enemy anymore," Rude said as he and Cloud hoisted Barret up onto the ledge. Rude, mistaking Cloud's comment about Barret's size as an indication he was struggling, had left his fellow Turks to help.
Cloud looked at the bald Turk skeptically, but Barret and Tifa seemed to agree with him.
"What did I miss?" he asked.
"The Turks been helpin' to kill the monsters in Edge," Barret said to spare Tifa from explaining.
"Is that true?" Cloud asked Tifa, who nodded.
"It was getting worse and worse after you left, and they started patrolling the streets until Reeve built up the police force," she responded.
Cloud sighed. His concerns hadn't been allayed, merely set aside. The Turks may be helping them now, but he heard Reno's response to Tifa's question and now he was suspicious they might have ulterior motives.
"Fine," Cloud said, shaking his head. "But I'm still skeptical."
"Yeah? Well, that's what happens when you disappear for two months," Reno yelled over to them before ramming his mag rod into a master tonberry.
Cloud shot him a glare that the redhead didn't notice. He then got back to his feet and sliced the master tonberry in half. Without the constant headaches, he felt like his old self again. Rather than being envious, Reno merely shrugged and turned his attention to the next monster.
The gap in the path caused by the broken ground wasn't too far, allowing the remaining members of AVALANCHE to cross easily and return to the fight. Many of the monsters behind him lacked the skills to jump the gap, either falling to their deaths or padding at the edge in an attempt to stop those behind them from pushing them over. Vincent was the last to jump, nearly getting pushed in himself from the constant onslaught of creatures attempting to reach the depths of the crater.
At least this meant they wouldn't face too many creatures behind them as they moved forward. They were nearly to the bottom of the spiraling path, with everyone focusing on their own fiend, when Cloud suddenly noticed the dark dragon. It had managed to float over the gap and was heading toward Tifa.
Tifa remained focused on the scissors currently trying to cut her in half. She dodged one of its attacks, then spun on her heel to roundhouse kick it in the face. It staggered backwards, giving her an opening to somersault kick it off the path and to its death. She was about to help Yuffie with another parasite when she heard Cloud.
"Tifa!" he yelled as he bolted at breakneck speed toward the dragon that was preparing to attack her.
The creature reared its head and prepared to swipe her, but its claws met with something solid. In an instant, Cloud was upon it with omnislash, slicing the creature eight ways from Sunday. When he finished, he realized Tifa was trapped behind a yellow-tinted wall. As she banged on the pyramid to try and break free, Cloud turned to Reno to shout at him.
"You idiot! You missed!" he scowled.
Reno shrugged, not missing a beat in attacking the creature in front of him.
"Did I?" he called back to Cloud, who was already attacking the pyramid to release Tifa.
"Yeah, you did! Now I have to hit this thing instead of another fiend!" Cloud slashed wildly at the pyramid, as Tifa attacked it from the inside.
When it first formed around her, she thought as Cloud did, that Reno had missed the dragon, but when she turned to glare at him and scream obscenities (even though she knew the pyramid was soundproof) he gave her a quick wink.
Reno was quick, maybe even as fast as Cloud, but he certainly wasn't faster than Cloud and wouldn't have been able to get to the dragon before the swordsman, so he did the only other thing he could to help Tifa. It was a win-win for him, he was able to gain points with Tifa while pissing off Cloud. He decided not to respond to the blond's latest taunt.
Reno's smugness dissipated when Cloud freed Tifa from his pyramid and gave her a quick embrace. Reno could see the blond's lips moving close to Tifa's ear just before she nodded at him with a simple smile. The redheaded Turk wanted that attention, but he knew that even though several members of AVALANCHE had seen them interact and may or may not be suspicious – especially the big oaf – he knew he couldn't act the way Cloud could around her. He had to be more devious for this challenge. Still, his ears tinged pink and his nostrils flared whenever he would witness Cloud display even the slightest hint of affection toward Tifa. What was worse, Reno hated the fact that he felt heat in the back of his neck whenever he saw Tifa and Cloud interact.
What was this feeling? Jealousy? Reno had never been jealous of anyone in his life, but ever since Cloud came back he had been getting this weird feeling he couldn't pinpoint and he didn't like. It was like something would flare up inside him at the thought of Tifa being with Cloud, and he'd never felt that before. Whenever he wanted a woman, he got her. He had Tifa just a few days earlier. Normally he really would be done with the woman. Normally, by now, he wouldn't want to see her face again, yet he had to force himself not to look in her direction. He was staying closer to her, which caused him to bump into Cloud occasionally, but even if he couldn't flirt with the brunette beauty, he would at least try to keep Cloud away from her.
Even at the bottom of the spiral path, the monsters continued on. Cloud had managed to work his way to the front of the group with Tseng and Elena, while Tifa and Reno were close behind, followed by Rude and the rest of AVALANCHE. Cloud was the first to jump down to the next area, a series of short drops between rock ledges, some of which had collapsed after AVALANCHE escaped from the crater two years ago.
"How is this place not backed up with fiends?" Tseng asked when he joined Cloud and Tifa on the ledge below the winding path.
"I have no idea," Cloud replied.
"You'd think they woulda run outta room down here by now," Barret chimed in as he dropped down to join them.
Most of the ledges in the upper part of the area weren't large enough for creatures to bunch up and fight, so the group had a bit of a break from fighting. Once they reached the lower ledges, however, the creatures started piling up again. A pair of allemanges blocked the group from traveling deeper into the crater.
Cid leapt into the air and drove his spear directly into the eye of one of the flying beasts, causing it to fall to the ground. It writhed in pain and screeched, kicking its useless little legs and flapping its wings until Cid placed a foot on its eyelid and pried his spear out of its body, making a gross squishing sound and splattering some blood as he did so.
Cid had been bringing up the rear of the long line of fighters ever since they left the Highwind. While walking practically backwards, he managed to get some of the creatures to stay back from the group by jabbing the Venus Gospel at them. He had to kill a bunch of fiends in the beginning, but eventually they started keeping a distance from the group. Occasionally one would lurch forward at him, but it would fall back in line when he moved to strike with his weapon. Even then, he and Vincent, who was just ahead of him, still had to take on some of the beasts that decided to take a chance.
Cid had also been out of the loop compared to everyone else and was confused as to why AVALANCHE was seemingly okay with the Turks tagging along on this mission instead of once again fighting them. The last he remembered, he had flown Tifa back to Edge after the Turks stole what she and Vincent had found in the basement of the Shinra mansion in Nibelheim. He'd pretty much been working on the Highwind ever since. He suddenly felt very left out of whatever was going on. Not that he wanted anyone else to call him just to shoot the shit or gossip, but a little "hey, we don't hate the Turks anymore" notice would have been nice.
He hadn't really noticed anything suspicious between the two groups until after he crossed the broken gap in the spiraling path. With the monsters mostly contained behind him, he was able to move further up to the group to help with what was ahead of them. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw Reno wink after he encased Tifa in the pyramid. Something about that particular Turk always bothered Cid. Maybe it was just professional jealousy from one pilot to another.
And Cid may have been rather curmudgeonly for his age – and out of the romance game – but he didn't think he would have lost the ability to tell when one person liked another. That wink he thought he saw in Tifa's direction did not carry the malice that an expression from Reno usually carried. Cid, however, did not want to make any assumptions based on that one single interaction, even if it did make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He soon found himself catching other odd interactions that seemed to provide him more evidence, though he still wanted to dismiss it. Reno seemed to be fighting closer to Tifa and Cloud than his fellow Turks, and by the time Cloud moved up to where Tseng was leading the group, Reno fell in line just behind the two leaders – along with Tifa. Each one of those things could have easily been explained away by coincidence, but all together, along with the wink, and he was suspicious. Or maybe he was just longing for the relationship drama of the past, when Tifa and Aeris were oh-so-obviously into Cloud and he seemed rather oblivious. Cid would never admit it, but that little side story was his guilty pleasure during their days chasing Sephiroth.
He'd also felt a special kinship with Tifa, since she grew up in a town not too far from Rocket Town and had everything taken from her by Shinra, so part of him wanted to see the girl getting her due, though he wouldn't exactly call Reno a gentleman. Rapscallion was more like it.
Reno seemingly trying to protect Tifa wasn't the only strange connection Cid noticed once he was able to view the rest of the group. Elena was almost joined at hip with Tseng, the two working together to keep the fiends away. It was after Cid's mind started considering there was something between the two Turks that he thought he might just be overanalyzing everyone else because his own heart was full of love.
He hadn't told anyone yet, but if everything went well on this mission and the world was saved once again, he was going to propose to Shera. He had bought a ring months ago when the monster situation wasn't yet out of control. He had planned to propose to Shera that night, but when he returned home, he found she had been injured by a fiend. It wasn't serious and she recovered quickly, but the fact that she had been hurt for the first time made Cid uneasy. He knew back then something worse was coming and didn't want to propose while the world struggled. When Tifa called a few days ago asking for him to take her and Cloud to the Forgotten Capital, and then learning they were headed to the Northern Crater to bust up Jenova's head again, he felt encouraged. As he stabbed and slashed creatures with his spear, he thought about how much closer he was to getting back home to Shera.
Ever since he had actually gotten to go to outer space – with her help – their relationship had gotten back on track. No longer burdened by the anger of losing his life dream, Cid softened. He was still a hothead with a foul vocabulary, but not toward Shera anymore.
When Tifa and the Turks left the Forgotten City, Yuffie wouldn't shut up about them. It grated on Vincent as he continued to scour the library for the information they needed to solve the monster population problem. Yuffie at first tried to wrangle Nanaki into her gossiping, but the red beast hacked up… something… when the conversation started and Yuffie thought it best to keep her distance. So, she plodded on over to Vincent and tried to get him to engage.
"What's going on with Reno? He seems to like Tifa, doesn't he? Think Cloud's gone for good?" and more questions flooded out of Yuffie's mouth. Vincent's expression didn't change at all, but inside his head, he was practically screaming, "SHUT THE HELL UP!" He had to read the same sentence about three dozen times before he finally tuned her out. Thank God she tired herself out and went to sleep shortly after.
In the Northern Crater, Vincent was more at peace. Yuffie wasn't gossiping since she found out Cloud was back, and everyone was so focused on the intense battle that they didn't have time to chit chat. Just the way Vincent liked it. He was helping Cid keep the monsters at bay as they traveled to the center of the crater, shooting as Cid jabbed at any fiend that tried to move up to their blockade. After he jumped the gap, he found himself focusing on Cloud, Tifa, and Reno as they continued on their path. He hated it and refused to accept that anything might be going on to justify Yuffie's theories. Maybe Cloud and Reno were battling the monsters closest to Tifa as she fought on her own, but it could have all been a spatial coincidence. Vincent really couldn't be bothered with the personal lives of his teammates, even if they were considered his friends.
Reeve was only slightly less out of the loop than Cid. He was vaguely aware through his dealings with Rufus Shinra that the Turks were looking into the monster situation. He had also heard rumors that the investigation involved a certain famous barmaid, but when Reeve confronted Shinra, the man denied everything, assuring Reeve that the company was no longer in the business of hassling his AVALANCHE friends. Reeve wasn't completely convinced, which is why he wanted to send Cait Sith along with the group to the crater.
Through Cait Sith's eyes he was able to see Reno trap Tifa in a pyramid while Cloud killed a dragon, but that was the extent of any involvement between the Turks and the barmaid. Like Cait Sith, everyone was focused on trying to clear a path to the bottom of the crater.
Nanaki was able to breathe better since Tifa and the Turks left the Forgotten Capital and now in the Northern Crater, where the stench of fiends was much more acceptable to him than the human smell of love or whatever. He had been conflicted ever since his phone call with Tifa where he learned that Cloud was back. While usually he was interested in studying the interactions between those of two legs, he now worried that his friend would be hurt or that the group might suffer based on certain developments.
He didn't like the Turks; didn't trust them and didn't know why Tifa would grow close to any of them. They had helped at the Forgotten Capital, but they had also stolen information – not to mention everything they had done during AVALANCHE's last adventure. Still, Nanaki didn't want to judge Tifa. He knew how badly she had been crushed when Cloud left and the months before when he was ignoring her and keeping to himself. He previously had no doubts that the two would always be together, but after Cloud broke her heart, Nanaki had looked at him a little differently.
Hearing the summary of what Cloud went through while he was away assuaged those doubts quite a bit, leading Nanaki to want to wash his paws of the whole situation and focus on destroying Jenova's head. This was not a human interaction of which he wanted to be a part.
Barret was ecstatic that Cloud was back, though he would always harbor some slight resentment toward him for the way he left Tifa. Tifa was like another daughter to him even though they were only 15 years apart. He didn't like hearing her cry or watching her suffer because some idiot broke her heart, especially when that idiot didn't even know what was good for him.
He'd seen the way Reno looked at Tifa when they were on the beach that day, and he was noticing hints of those looks as they fought their way through the crater. From his perspective, having witnessed what he had witnessed at the beach, Reno was trying to show off in front of Tifa. Barret had seen the redhead fight before, and he always had an agile, efficient utility to his style, but here in the Northern Crater, he appeared to be adding extra flourishes. He was spinning around and flying through the air like Cloud, taking on multiple foes and bringing down creatures before Tifa could get to them or those that were prepared to strike her. The poor girl seemed to be struggling to find something to fight with both Cloud and Reno protecting her.
The only thing that made Barret rethink his suspicions and think that, maybe Reno was just trying to show up Cloud was the fact that he kept using his mag rod dangerously close to Tifa. Reno seemed to be relishing the fact that his weapon made Tifa flinch, and was sparking creatures within her line of sight, sometimes mere inches from her. This made Barret wonder if Reno's sadistic side was showing and if maybe he was just taunting Cloud by threatening Tifa? Barret really couldn't see any other explanation.
He tried to ignore what was happening between his friends and focus on getting down the ledges and helping others down those that had been broken after they defeated Sephiroth. He reached up one particularly high ledge to allow Yuffie to hop down into his arm, but the young ninja refused the help, opting instead to land after doing a flip in the air. She looked up from the kneeling position in which she landed as if she were expecting some kind of applause for her acrobatics. Barret just rolled his eyes and assisted Vincent and Cid in getting Cait Sith to the lower ledge.
The deeper the group moved into the crater, the less there was left. What had once been a vertical labyrinth of ledges, walls, and caves was now barely recognizable. Some of the caves had collapsed when the crater was damaged, and there were few ledges left to traverse. Monsters were just falling straight down to the large rock formation below that used to provide a split path down into the crater. The center of the formation was gone, leaving only the straightforward path.
Tseng was carefully navigating the remaining ledges to get to the old fork while dodging falling beasts. He reached out for Elena's hand, urging her to jump. As she was crossing to him, a bandersnatch fell from above and took her down with it.
"Elena!" Tseng yelled instinctively before quickly making his way down to the rock formation where she landed.
He pulled the bandersnatch off of her as it kicked its arms and legs to right itself, clawing at Elena in the meantime. The creature ran to catch up with the other fiends continuing lower. Tseng again offered Elena a hand to help her stand. Her suit was dirty, and a little blood trickled from her busted lip, but she otherwise seemed fine.
Cloud jumped down from the lowest ledge to the rock formation, which was a pretty formidable distance. He looked back up to see Tifa attempting to climb down the rocky wall rather than risk a leap. Cloud kept his eyes on her as she carefully made her way down, his muscles tensing each time she found a foothold that seemed less than steady.
Reno wasn't too far behind her on the wall, finding it a less objectionable option than jumping forty feet down. He too, kept his eye on Tifa, and quickly made his way beside her. She clearly wasn't used to rock climbing, but with Reno's agility, he was a natural.
"You okay there?" he asked her as he slowed to match her speed.
"Just dandy," she responded, lamenting the fact that they would probably have to climb back up the wall on their way out.
"Just go at your own pace," Reno offered. "Don't worry that I'm about to smoke ya."
With that, he pressed on, soon lower than her on the wall, a fact he did not let go to waste. Several times as he hastened to the ground he looked up to see up her skirt, first noting that Cloud's eyes were locked on her – possibly for the same reason – and so he probably wouldn't notice Reno's leering. The red head hopped the last few feet to join Cloud, Tseng, and Elena, putting his hands in his pockets and joining his comrades away from the wall. Elena gave him a sorrowful look, to which he rolled his eyes and turned to the trail of monsters heading deeper underground. Better to get a head start on the fighting than stand around and get caught gawking or deal with Elena's emotions. Rude, thankfully, soon joined him, as Tifa stayed behind to wait with Cloud, killing any creatures that fell in the meantime.
Reno was disturbed when they entered the glowing green cavern. The sight of raw Lifestream made him anxious. He had heard about what happened to Cloud and Tifa in the Lifestream, and he did not want anyone to see into his mind. Especially not Tifa. Thankfully, for him, they soon entered another dark cave that didn't glow. It was another grind, as rock ledges that had once existed had been either smashed or blown apart. Not that the Turks would know, since they hadn't been this deep in the crater. Tseng had been leading on instinct at first but had now fallen back to let Cloud and Tifa show them the way.
Yuffie was trying to keep toward the front of the group. For one thing, she found Vincent and Nanaki quite boring after spending so much time with them in Cosmo Canyon and the Forgotten Capital. She was much more interested in what was going on with Tifa and her boys. Yuffie didn't presently have a real crush on anyone at the moment, so she was living vicariously through her brunette friend. Her father had been trying to set her up with men from respectable families in Wutai for the past two years, but the guys bored the young ninja. No one could excite her like she had been while traveling with AVALANCHE to fight Sephiroth. She needed someone who could inject that kind of excitement into her life again. To be honest she had, at one point, a little crush on Cloud during their adventure, but that quickly disappeared when she realized he wasn't interested.
While she didn't want Tifa ultimately to get hurt, she wanted to see what would happen when Cloud and Reno were in the same room – or crater – together. Tifa obviously hadn't told Cloud about Reno, or the redhead would probably be dead, Yuffie thought. She kept up with her friend and watched as the two boys competed for her attention. Cloud had been busy slashing anything that came within feet of Tifa, while Reno tried to dodge the Ultima Weapon and carve out his own protective space for the bartender. Yuffie could also tell that it was agitating Tifa, who was trying to contribute to the mission but kept finding herself with nothing to fight since Cloud and Reno were killing everything near her. It was annoying Yuffie, too, who was left to take on the creatures behind Tifa that the boys weren't killing. She was thankful for the rockslide that destroyed part of the spiral path since it significantly decreased the number of fiends behind them.
Now they were facing the narrow rock path that ran alongside a waterfall of Lifestream. The weaker parts of the path had broken two years ago, causing some minor gaps that were easy enough to jump across. Because the path had narrowed since they dropped into the crater proper, it was easier to contend with the fiends. The groups were now able to conserve strength by switching up who was leading, since it no longer took twelve people to cut through the hordes. Cid, Nanaki, and Cait Sith were currently taking the brunt of the beasts, while everyone else caught stragglers.
It had been an exhausting grind into the crater thus far, and the young ninja wanted a break. She knew they were close to the bottom, and since the monsters were thinning out (she supposed a lot of them were getting pushed off ledges into the Livestream below), she plopped down on a smooth rock just off the fiend trail.
"Can we take a break, please?" she asked before the others noticed her absence. Vincent shrugged and walked over to lean against a nearby wall, supposing now was the only time they could take a break before they encountered Jenova. Cloud and Tifa soon joined, as did Barret.
The Turks looked at AVALANCHE skeptically. Reno decided it was best to stay away from his old enemies, as any time near Cloud and Tifa may prompt him to say something he would later regret. In his head he could see himself casually walking up to her in front of all her friends, bending her over, and ramming her from behind. How he'd love to see the look on blondie's face were that to happen.
Fighting alongside AVALANCHE had been a real struggle, as he had to fight every instinct not to make belittling comments toward Cloud or suggestive remarks toward Tifa. It was exhausting. Well, at least it was slightly better than the helicopter ride from Midgar, where Shotgun chewed him out non-stop for all of his misdeeds and his most recent sin of trying to teach her how to fly the chopper properly.
Reno stuffed his hands in his pockets, slouched his shoulders, and walked languidly to an area a few feet away from the goody-two-shoes group. His fellow Turks followed.
Rude had cringed when Reno trapped Tifa in the pyramid earlier, thinking for a moment that his friend was taking his frustration out on her. The look in the redhead's eye as he turned back around to keep fighting, however, let Rude know Reno had matured. A few months ago, the hotheaded Turk would have been boasting to Cloud about how he bed "his woman," but Reno had been tame. To Rude, it was yet more evidence that the past two months chasing Tifa had softened his partner in ways he hadn't thought possible. Reno was now playing a very different game. Still dangerous, but one he had no experience in winning. Of Reno's many vices, gambling had never been a successful one.
Elena had been torn. She had lied somewhat to Reno when she had told him the other day that no one wanted him to change. While she meant what she said about wanting him to be happy, she did like the more subdued Reno that had been growing the past two months. For starters, she was glad not to hear about all the sick things he did to random women on a nightly basis. Not that she enjoyed literally hearing the things he did to Tifa, but Reno hadn't been bragging about his time with the brunette barmaid.
She had been rooting for him when she told him not to give up, but after hearing Cloud's story of nearly dying in order to get back to Tifa, well, she didn't think Reno stood much of a shot. Reno had shown himself to be a little thoughtful, maybe even romantic, but Elena just didn't see how he could compete with Cloud at this point. She, like the other Turks, had assumed Cloud left because he was really in love with that dead Cetra girl, or simply didn't love Tifa enough. But, now…
She didn't know what would happen to Reno if Tifa chose Cloud over him. She had assumed, like the other Turks, that he would be taunting Cloud over his relationship with Tifa, but he wasn't. She had never seen Reno heartbroken, never known Reno to have been heartbroken. Would he have a burn-it-all-down attitude? Would he try to destroy Cloud and Tifa? Would he… cry? She would have assumed he would make it his life mission to bag every woman in Edge and beyond (present company excluded – she hoped) to get back at Tifa, but maybe the whole experience would soften him, open up to the idea that there was more to life than sex and alcohol.
Her descent into the crater was not spent thinking too much about Reno, however. She was instead mostly focused on making sure Tseng wasn't hurt. She knew her boss kept up with his training, but he had been doing mostly desk work the past few years, overseeing her and her colleagues. It didn't look like he had missed a step though, but she wasn't about to take that chance.
Tseng could not be bothered to care about Reno's relationship with a member of AVALANCHE any more than he had already shown by playing him the tape. He was here on a mission – his first one involving intentional fighting in years. He needed to concentrate on that – and making sure Elena stayed safe, which he briefly failed at just a few hours ago. He knew from experience that fraternizing with a target was a bad idea. He thought he was keeping Aeris safe by refusing to do his job and take her to Shinra. After she died, however, he wondered if maybe she would have been safer at Shinra. The thought had crossed his mind regularly over the past two years since her death, but each time he came to the conclusion that Hojo would have tortured her likely to death long before she would have ever met up with Cloud and AVALANCHE. Her death still weighed heavily on him, so part of him commiserated with Cloud in that regard. And just like Cloud, Tseng had someone else in his life now to care about.
"I'm staying here until that thing is really dead this time," Cloud said to no one in particular, though his voice was low enough so that only the nearby AVALANCHE members heard him.
Tifa looked up at him with understanding eyes and a supportive smile. He hadn't needed to say it; they all felt the same way. There would be no mistakes this time. They hadn't thought they had failed the last time they were here, what with witnessing Sephiroth's destruction, but clearly, they had missed something.
"I think when we fought Sephiroth it was his will and his cells that we fought, even though Jenova was a part of him," Nanaki said, lifting his head from the ground. "We destroyed the Sephiroth part, while the Jenova part remained separate."
"As long as it's really over this time," Cloud said, looking straight forward.
He let his teammates rest a few for minutes before he rose to his feet. The Turks took notice as well.
"Everyone," Cloud said, looking at his friends and then back over his shoulder to the Turks, "we've been through this before, but Sephiroth was a human injected with Jenova cells. Jenova is an alien – one we've fought before – so we know what we have to do. But I don't want anyone thinking this will be easy. We're all here for a reason. Keep your guard up, look out for each other, and don't back down."
Reno rolled his eyes as Cloud spoke. Was this what AVALANCHE did before big fights? Have they always done this? He stifled a laugh as he thought of those saps – even Tifa – all sitting around gaping at Cloud while he gave lame pep talks. All Tseng said before a mission was "Don't get killed," and that was good enough for him. It'd worked so far.
Reno slowly stood up along with his fellow Turks. They filed into the next cave along with AVALANCHE, but with an arrogance about them – they didn't need their leader to get them ready for a fight. Reno wore a grin on his face until he saw what awaited them in the next cavern. The rock was a different color – golden brown – than what he'd seen before down here, but while AVALANCHE spread out along the path that ran around the wall, Reno stopped in the entranceway, mesmerized by the almost blinding green light coming from the hole in the center of the cavern. Below, he could see floating debris and what he could only imagine at this point was the core of the planet. Hell, he didn't remember Gaia-science class, for all he knew the planet could be hollow or filled with molten rock, or, inhabited by an alien that crashed into it thousands of years ago. As he continued to gaze to their next destination, he realized he was pressing himself pretty heavily against the rock wall. Now he was thankful for that break – it was his last few minutes of peace before he not only would have to fight Jenova, but fighting it in that.
The members of AVALANCHE silently nodded to one another, prepared to retrace their steps from years ago and battle Jenova where it still lived. It was here where they realized why the monster trail never stopped. Those that made it this far were simply… falling into the crevasse and getting absorbed into Jenova, which was considerably larger now than they had ever seen it before. It did not look like the versions they had fought while chasing Sephiroth years ago. It most resembled Jenova-SYNTHESIS, but much more frightening. The freakish head was attached to a round but armored body about three times larger than SYNTHESIS. The two tentacles in the front had been joined by dozens of others protruding from all over its body, each one with three long, slender, and sharp fingers. It was quite horrific, resembling some kind of mutant puffer fish just waiting for its prey. A new tentacle would appear after enough monsters were absorbed, and the group of fighters wondered how much bigger it could get if all of its cells were rejoined.
Cloud took a step toward the center of the cavern but fell to his knees with the pain of another migraine. He hadn't suffered one since his speech on the Highwind. He thought he wouldn't get one while in the Northern Crater. Perhaps Jenova had that ability. If so, he was going to be useless during this fight.
Tifa crouched next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. When he was able to, he reached his hand across his chest to rest on hers and rolled his head so that his forehead pressed against her own.
"Stay with me," he whispered.