With every mile passed, Rude was more than sure something wrong was happening. Not Reno, nor Elena answered their phone. Entering Sector 4 many people welcomed him protesting.
"What is Shinra doing for us?"
"Will you be able to live three weeks without electricity? We turned into monkeys!"
"Get your ass out of here, Shinra puppet!"
"Enough!" Rude got his weapon out and people silenced. "I'm here to check the reactor activity. Anything unusual?"
"You mean except the demolition crash?" a woman among the crowd asked.
"Goddamn it!" Rude pushed people and rushed to the reactor, calling for backup on the way.
Reactor was huge, but Rude found Reno's car stopped by the west side. They wouldn't use the entrance and risk leaving marks. Keep calling on their both phones, Rude started climbing and soon reached the place Reno and Elena entered, it was completely buried now.
"That can't be!" Rude got his thermal radar and started checking. Nothing under the ruins. They probably found an exit from the other side. That must be the case.
It was impossible to reach the other side without circling the entire reactor, it's back side was buried from the last attacks.
"Come on, partner, I know you are there."
Then Rude starts digging with bare hands into the dirt.
Back inside Reno laid his back on the cold wall, ights were nervously blinking. For half an hour he was exploring the corridors, every one of them reached a dead end. Only one had a door at the end, but it was sealed years ago and he remembered well how he wrote a report about it and signed it himself.
Elena was still not waking up, his phone was dead, there was no way to tell anyone where he was.
Rude would find them, at some point. Reno was sure as much as he was sure in his name that his partner would find a way. Maybe in days, because the reactor was huge. Elena didn't have days.
Reno reached for her body and pulled her, letting her lie on his legs. She was getting cold, he couldn't say if she was breathing. Elena wasn't strong like him and Rude, she almost died after that shot.
The shot Genesis made. Reno remembered that day very well. He remembered he risked the life of his boss and Rufus was begging him to get him out of his head, or kill him trying. That Genesis shouldn't be left to rule the world, no matter what.
Many times Reno was between both choices. Was the One winged the monster they claimed, or was he survived victim of a terrible experiment? There was something about him that made people trust him, something promising. Too late his victims were able to see his real face.
Reno removed his jacket, all stained in mud, and wrapped it around Elena. She shouldn't die, she was so young, ten years younger than him. She was merely a child when she joined, a few years older than Marlene. Still, Elena never gave up and was always loyal to the company. After Kadaj attacked her and Tseng, and almost killed them, after the army took her chopper down, after Genesis shot her, and now this…How much her body could take since she wasn't exposed to mako like him and Rude?
Three hours later a new explosion came from inside the reactor. Soldier, led by Rude, drilled a hole into the wall to reach Reno and Elena. They found them at the same position, him sitting on the ground, exhausted, air was dirty and almost finished in the small underground chamber, and only his mask was helping him to breathe. Elena's body was laying in his feet.
Medics ran to give first aid to both of them and take them out of the tunnel, Rude helped his partner get out and then rushed to check on her.
"How long has passed since she is in unconscious?" the doctors asked.
"Five hours and a half."
They gave her medicine and injections right there, tried to reboot the heart, Rude was numb in his place, nailed to the ground.
"I'm sorry." Reno couldn't say anything else.
They took them with a chopper and got them straight to the base. Back at the hospital, Reno was a daily visitor there last time.
Elena was in a personal room with non-stop intensive care. Reno was sitting in the main room, having some pure oxygen and stitches for the surface wounds.
In half an hour Marlene came to see him, bringing a small origami swallow bird.
"Tseng told us what happened." She got herself a chair and sat against him. "I'm glad you are alright."
Marlene gave him the bird, he smiled, sadly.
"I'm sorry I sent you there alone the other day, it could happen the same. You could be there now."
"My reactor was a working one, I didn't have to dig. You look terrible." Marlene told him with the idea to tease something inside of him, make him answer. She couldn't deal with this Reno, sad and drowning in guilt.
"If she dies, Rude will never speak to me again."
"It wasn't your fault" Marlene lowered her voice because the nurse came to check his oxygen.
Reno held the mask on his face, the white sterile atmosphere was making his eyes hurt, he could hear the machine counting Elena's heartbeat from here.
"I can't stay here." He threw away the oxygen mask and left the hospital.
Sitting at his usual spot, at the top of the roof terrace, red haired was throwing crumbs to birds, a few pigeons and a dozen sparrows.
"Birds are magnificent creatures, don't you think?"
He never raised his eyes, he knew the voice.
"What happened, Reno, why did you suddenly start hating me?"
Akane stood in front of him, her metallic blue hair long by her shoulders, shorter front part that made her face sweeter, and those big turquoise eyes staring at him.
"I don't hate you." He said to the pigeons, fighting for the last bite.
"Then you are showing your affection in a very strange way." Akane joked.
She took a few steps and touched his arm. She was missing that touch.
Reno pulled his arm back, that was the last thing he needed after what happened today. He was still wearing the shirt and pants stained with mud, his face was scratched.
"Why?" tears came into the girl's eyes.
"Please, leave me alone."
"You need to tell me why!" she screamed at him.
"You died in my arms, that's why!" he already took his legs down off the railing and looked her in the eye. "I've been through hell, I've compromised my job, endangered my friends, fucked up my decisions. That's why!"
His blood pressure suddenly rose and made him dizzy.
"Is my death that affects you, Reno, or my returning?"
Akane was looking at him, crushed, rejected, small and sad. Wind blew through her hair, she took a step back.
"It's not returning." He decided to say it out loud, at least it would stop eating him from the inside. "It's the reason why he turned you back."
"What does it mean?" girl's lower lip trembled.
"Three times he tried to manipulate me with this, telling me he would turn you back, three times I told him to screw himself. Now he did it, I told him you don't have to suffer anymore…"
"Oh spare me the good intentions." Akane burst. "It's just you don't want me in your life, not that Genesis did it. He did it for you!"
"Yeah. Because he knew once you are here this will be the remote, the controller that would make me do whatever he wants."
The slap in his face came as expected, but it was harder than he thought, blood rushed into his mouth.
"How dare you!" her eyes were literally burning with anger right now. "Genesis is doing all this for you, trying to save this planet, giving you a chance to start doing the right thing!"
"He is not my creator to give me chances!" Reno yelled at her, also mad. "I don't serve fallen angels! I don't serve monsters!"
"So I am a monster too, right?" tears start running down on her cheeks.
"He possessed my boss to the point he begged me to kill him! Yes, he is a monster, and if you support him, you are too!"
He passed her by, going to the door.
"Don't cross me again." He turned back. "I don't wanna hurt you. But if you are a treat for my people, I won't have a choice."
"We all have a choice!" she screamed at him. "Stop making excuses, Reno! Just say you don't care about me anymore!"
He stopped at the door and looked at her.
"I do care. That's why I'm leaving now. If I stay, I will become like you. I still know who I am and have the ability to make my own choices."
Walking back to his room Reno couldn't hold it and hit one of the decorations in the corridor, some ugly abstract sculpture. It fell on its stand and got broken in two. Obviously this wasn't the effect red haired wanted, so he hit it one more time. And one more, till it turned into small pieces of clay and dust.
Sometime later Rude found him, sitting at the ground, his hands were bleeding.
"What the hell, Reno?"
"I'm not in mood…"
"Come on, hot head." Rude helped him get up. "You need a drink. Or five. And a shower."
Half an hour later they were sitting at the cafeteria and drinking dry the alcohol reserves of Shinra.
"You did right, man. Stop blaming yourself."
"She will never look at me again."
"Reno, we both know she is loyal to Genesis. He is an enemy to us, you said it yourself."
Reno drank down another glass and passed hand through his hair.
"I don't know…"
Rude drank in his turn and got another.
"You belong in here, you idiot, not with the One winged, you are a free man. Sadly she is not."
"She died to save me, man."
"Not from Genesis, but from his copy. Who do you think she would pick if it's you against him?"
"I wish I didn't know."
Cafeteria wasn't empty, it was early evening, but a strange thing, Reno couldn't hear any of the people talking around him. He knew them by face. The physicians' department chef with a few female doctors, on the next table were sitting a Soldier, a trainee working as a guard and some other guy. Three people from the electrical team on the next one.
And both of them, Turks, the entire Shinra knew them. Rude was dark, worried for his partner, and Reno was mad at himself, drunk and willing to drink even more. He wasn't wearing his uniform; staff got it to clean it from the mud, if that was even possible. The shirt he was wearing now was long sleeved with folded sleeves, dark red with graphics of haunted forest, he was wearing black jeans and sneakers.
"How's Elena?" he asked, just to say something, anything.
"Still the same" Rude sighed.
Reno covered his face with both hands and wished to hide somewhere. In his glass with scotch would be nice.
Just at that moment the door opened and someone he didn't expect headed directly to their table. It was Tifa Lockhart.
"You lost?" Rude mocked her.
"You look fresh" she paid him back.
"What is it?" Reno drank maybe the tenth drink and poured another one.
"Cloud went to talk to Rufus. Genesis blew away two more reactors. Sector 7 is on fire."
"What?!" Reno and Rude said together.
"Marlene told me you have some nice weapon down there. If you bring it now, it would be nice!"
"Goddamnsonofabitch!" Reno drank the next glass and hit it on the table.
He and Rude followed Tifa out.
"You still have doubts about your decisions, partner?" Rude held the door for the girl and rushed after her.
"Not a word!"