So, we begin to draw close to the end of the Midgar section of the story. This has been a long time coming. All of this, everything up to this point, has been to set the threads for the changes that Ranma is beginning to make in this world. Some of them are significant and easy to spot. Many of them are subtle, like [REDACTED]. There's still going to be points that touch and follow sections of the old plot, but from here we're going to be treating it... more as a set of guidelines than actual rules. :D

Mr. Haziq: We'll be seeing Ryoga again soon, don't you worry.
setokayba2n: That's more Kodachi's department than Shinra's. :P I do see your point though; in this case I think the answer would be "They didn't have a full bondage cell ready to go and setting one up would be too much extra work."
doraemax: Sorry, should have specified, "at least five girls who hit harder than Reno."

Real talk, who's looking forward to FF7R? It looks amazing, and the demo was a lot of fun. Here's hoping it is indeed worthy of the hype.

Chapter Twenty Two

Prodigal

[ ν ] - εγλ 0007, December 13

Cloud woke up.

Years of military training, and further time spent living the mercenary life, had left him with a fairly accurate internal clock, so he was surprised that it had definitely not been his customary six hours. Which meant he'd been woken up. Tifa was still on the cot, resting quietly. He moved to the slot in the door, and quietly slid it open, peering out as far as he could see.

Nothing. Nobody. A single guard stood stoically at the end of the hall, helmet down over his face, an automatic weapon sitting in his hands.

Cloud blinked, and looked again.

The weapon was not in his hands. It hung limp from his neck, and his arms were by his side. The guard was asleep. This might be their best chance for escape. He pushed himself away from the door, looking around the room, and-

Wait.

He stopped short, nearly tipping himself over with the sudden shift in motion. He turned and looked at the door carefully.

It was open.

The push had opened it.

What?

He darted back over to the door, pressing his face against it and peeking out through the now much broader view he had. He took a long and careful look at the guard.

The guard was not breathing.

He pushed the door open the rest of the way. No movement, no cry of alarm, nothing. Even the door itself seemed unnaturally silent, as if all sound in the area had died. He knew that Shinra had developed a limited antimagic field and used it to keep their cells secure. But this felt… different.

He stalked forward, and examined the guard's body. It was not difficult to determine the reason why he was no longer breathing; the man's ribcage was missing, as well as several internal organs. He was currently held up by his own security baton, which had been shoved almost all the way through the concrete wall behind him; the hand-guard was currently lodged upwards around the point of the guard's shoulders and was more or less acting as a hangar for his entire body, keeping him propped up in a grisly mockery of security. There was no sign of struggle, though judging from the long, bloody marks dragged across the floor and down the hall, the guard had not died here.

His sword lay on a table a few steps away, as did Tifa's studded gloves and Aerith's staff, in addition to everyone's materia bangles. And a keychain. He lifted his Buster Sword, placing it back home on his back, replaced his bracelet, then grabbed the other items and returned to his cell.

"Tifa," he called out.

The girl on the cot rolled sharply, nearly falling off in the process. "Bwha…?" she mumbled inarticulately.

"Door's open. Got your gloves. We need to move. Now." He tossed her the studded leather gloves and her materia bangle, and moved to the cell containing Barret and Red, unlocking it as well. "Wake up, Barret."

Barret had been asleep sitting up, his cuffs still on and locked behind him to prevent him using his gun-arm as a bludgeon. The position had effectively prevented him from achieving any comfort lying down. Red was asleep on the ground beneath the cot, curled up much like a wolf.

Barret's eyes opened. "Not gonna bother askin' how your scrawny ass broke the door down," he said quietly. "Got keys for these cuffs?"

"Let's find out," he offered, and Barret stood up to turn around. After a minute or so of testing the keys on it, one fit and sprung the cuffs loose. "Yeah, you look like you needed that," he said, passing another bangle to Barret and then to Red.

"Hell yeah, I did."

"Red, you comin' with?" Cloud asked. "We're not getting a better chance at this."

"To escape, or to fight?" he asked, padding out from beneath the cot.

"Haven't got that far yet."

Red nodded. "Seems reasonable. I shall follow you for now."

"Good," Cloud answered. "Gonna get the others. Careful of the dead body."

"The what?" Barret asked, but Cloud was already down the hall. He found the key to Aerith's cell and opened it up.

"I'm not going with you!" Aerith yelled as the door opened, then saw Cloud's face. "Oh my goddess, I didn't mean… How did you get out?"

"No time," he said, tossing the staff to her. "Get yourself ready." And moved down to the last door in the hall.

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Ranma was sitting cross-legged, meditating on the cot, somehow having balanced herself there despite the cuffs and leg-chains, as the lock on the door clacked to open and Cloud entered the cell. "'Bout time we got outta here," she said, her voice soft, eyes still closed.

Cloud stared at her, confused. "You okay, Ranma?"

"Thirty seconds," she said in the same soft tone. "Others?"

"They're out here too. And there's… a mess. Not one of mine. Let me know if you need help getting past it."

Ranma nodded, expression serene. A moment later, she took a deep breath, and blinked her eyes open. "Meditation," she said by way of explanation, rotating her body slowly to show her back to Cloud. "Takes a minute to come back. Get me outta these cuffs already." Cloud nodded and stepped forward, unlocking the cuffs on her wrists before kneeling down to unfasten the ones around her ankles.

"Maybe a stupid question," Cloud asked, "but if you'd been male when they'd cuffed you, and then got splashed…"

Ranma shrugged. "Those didn't leave a lot of room to spare," she said. "In general, though, yeah, if I'm bound in a way that doesn't account for the shift in body structure I can get out pretty easily."

"Good to know," he responded. "Face the wall when you come out, trust me on this."

"Thanks, Cloud."

The two stepped out of the cell, Ranma carefully angling herself to avoid seeing the 'mess' as Cloud had put it. In doing so, she saw Aerith, who gave Ranma a quick hug. She heard the others discussing who might have done such a thing, and Red padded down the hall to check for any more guards. Ranma sidled quietly to one side, facing the wall with the cell doors they had escaped, until she saw the trail of blood leading down the hall. "Cloud…" she took a deep breath. "I know I'm going to regret this, but I'm gonna look at the mess. Just… Don't judge me if I lose it, okay?"

"I won't," Cloud said.

Ranma turned slowly to follow the lines of blood. Against the wall was a body in a Shinra uniform. She took in as much of the wounds as she could, and turned away. "Yeah, that's a big fat no," Ranma said, shutting her eyes.

"I warned you," Cloud said, but left it at that. "Hang on, Red's coming back."

Red was indeed coming back down the hallway at almost a full run. "All of you, quickly!" he shouted, gesturing with his head. He turned and started back down the hall, not waiting to see if the others followed. All five began moving down the hall.

Red stopped in front of a familiar half-sphere tank, which now had several changes from only a few hours ago. Most prominent among them were the door having been torn free, the pool of sticky blood coating the floor, and the absence of any lifeform within the tank. The trail of blood continued past the tank and to the service elevator.

"Where's the Jenova specimen?" Cloud wondered aloud. "It didn't seem as if anything like that could have burst out of there on its own, let alone done all this…"

"Cloud..." Ranma said in a nervous tone, carefully taking in the surroundings in short glances. "This is… far more blood than should be in a single human body." The implications of that statement hung in the air unpleasantly.

Tifa looked at Cloud for a moment. "Shouldn't we be leaving?" she asked.

Cloud's gaze flicked between the empty security tank that had held the Jenova specimen, the smears of blood leading further into the Science Department's reaches, and the hallway leading out to the stairwell, and possibly to safety. After a long moment of contemplation, he shook his head. "Something's going on here," he said quietly. "It might be dangerous, and it could end up getting us in more trouble. But... I have to know. This feels too much like... Nibelheim."

Tifa stared at him, her eyes wide. "You... could he be here?"

"I hope not," Cloud said quietly. "But I need to find out."

Barret glanced between the two of them. "I don't like this," he said simply. "But let's go get it over with..."

The trail of blood led further. Smeared across the walls of the science department on the 68th floor, out to the stairwell and up again. The security doors no longer required any badges for access, as they had been crumpled into scrap and torn free from the walls. The continued lack of anybody, living or dead, added to an already dread atmosphere as they proceeded up to floor 69.

The carpets, already red and plush, were now matted and drenched with even more blood. Several civilian workers were dead behind their desks. Two had made it a few steps beyond that. Something had struck them dead. More blood, leading up the south stairwell. One corpse, sans head, laying at the foot of the north stairwell.

"Guys," Ranma said, trying to hold herself together, "I just want to let you know… I'm doing my best over here, but where I come from, there's a horror movie that starts like this. If those stairs start dripping blood on their own, I will run and I will not wait to see if you're following me."

"Ranma," Aerith chided. "That's not helping."

Red looked up at Ranma. "'Where you come from'?"

"Long story," she admitted. "We make it outta here, I'll catch you and everyone else up on the whole thing."

Red nodded his agreement as they crested the top of the stairwell. The trail of blood led to the desk where the president had met them earlier.

The president was there now.

And a sword, narrow, curved, and nearly two meters long, had pinned him to the desk, like a bug to a collection sheet.

Rupert Shinra, President of the Shinra Electric Power Company, was dead.

"Oh, goddess…" Aerith whispered, and turned away.

Barret looked across the penthouse office. "The leader of Shinra… dead. Whoever did it, I wanna shake their hand."

"Cloud…" Tifa breathed. "That sword…"

Cloud saw the length, the curve of the blade, the finely wrapped handle. "That's Sephiroth's blade, Masamune. He was the only one who had the skill to use it in combat."

"He's alive?" Tifa hissed under her breath, barely daring to make a sound, her eyes frantically darting around.

"Who cares who did it?" Barret strode forward into the middle of the office. "This is the end of Shinra! Without their leader we can tear the place down!"

There was a long moment of pure silence, followed by an...

"...uh…"

The sound was small, but in a space this large, without anything else to mask it, it may well have been a scream. A portly man in a cheap mustard-colored suit peeked out from behind one of the pillars on either side of the room. He ran. "No, no, no, don't…"

"Grab him!" Tifa yelled.

Aerith watched from the other side of the room as the man in the yellow suit ran towards the stairwell, chased by Tifa, Barret, and Cloud. She watched as Ranma stepped forward from her position near the stairs and twisted her body, almost lazily, through a full circle. Just at the end of the spin, she crouched down on one leg, and extended the other through the space in front of the man's legs. He tripped suddenly, sprawling face first onto the marble floor. She continued through the motion, unperturbed, as graceful as a ballerina and stood upright, bowing slightly. Judging from the executive's sudden trip and faceplant, Aerith supposed it must have been like running ankle-first into a steel girder.

Cloud stepped forward and drew his sword, turning it 90 degrees and driving the tip straight through the marble, mere centimeters from the man's head. "Don't move," he said firmly, "or I'll put it somewhere else."

"It's Palmer," Barret said. "He runs their air force."

"A-A-AVALANCHE…" Palmer whimpered. "Please don't kill me…"

"Tell us what happened."

"Se-Sephiroth!" he shouted fearfully. "It-it was Sephiroth… he came… he killed the president…"

Cloud crouched down to one knee, looking Palmer in the eye. "You really saw Sephiroth?"

"I-uh-I… wouldn't lie to you at a time like this!" Palmer stammered out, closing his eyes, trying not to move. "He spoke… he said something… about not letting us take the Promised Land… I came up here to see what the president wanted my team to do… please… let me go…?"

"Wait, does that mean the Promised Land really exists?" Ranma asked. "Is this Sephiroth guy trying to protect it?"

"Is he one of the good guys?" Barret wondered out loud.

"'Good guy'? 'Protector'?" Cloud spat the words as if in accusation, then waved one arm dismissively. "No way. Sephiroth's goals might include destroying Shinra, but he is definitely not on our side!"

There was a sound from outside. A sound of machinery, growing closer. A light in the distance, slowly growing in intensity. "Is that a helicopter?" Ranma asked.

Cloud pulled his sword free of the marble floor. Palmer made a wurbling sound of terror and scampered towards the helipad doorway. A small helicopter was touching down on the landing pad outside. A man stepped out, short blonde hair and a clean white suit, with a large black dog behind him.

"Shit!" Barret shouted suddenly. "It's Rufus! Forgot about him."

"The hell is Rufus?" Ranma asked.

"Vice President Rufus Shinra. The son of the dead guy over there. Heard he'd been sent overseas a couple years ago. Wonder what he's doin' back now."

"I've only ever heard the man's name once," Red said softly.

"I've heard nobody has ever seen him cry or bleed," Aerith spoke almost reverently.

"I wonder what kind of person he is," Tifa peered at him as Palmer stumbled in front of the man, appearing to talk to him as the helicopter lifted away.

Ranma shrugged. "I got nothin," she admitted. "But if he gets in the way, I'll kick his ass too."

"Come on, let's figure this out," Cloud said, shouldering his sword.

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Rufus looked down at Palmer, trembling on the ground. "So… Sephiroth was actually here, then."

"Ye-yessir!" Palmer answered, still terrified. He glanced behind him, and saw the approaching group. "..ulp…"

"Go," Rufus said. "Get to the Weapons department. Activate the Gunners, and send them up. I want this vermin removed."

"Yessir!" he whimpered, and began running past the approaching party. Ranma looked at Palmer as he passed, and he tripped almost on reflex. Ranma grabbed his arm as he passed, keeping him from faceplanting on the narrow walkway, or worse.

"Watch your step, Palmer," she said. "It's a long way down."

Palmer straightened up, appeared to consider thanking her for her help, and then saw Rufus staring him down. He shuddered, turned sharply, and continued back inside.

"By the way," Rufus said casually, "who the hell are you guys?"

Cloud stepped forward. "Ex-SOLDIER, First Class!"

Barret lifted his gun-arm. "I'm from AVALANCHE!"

"Same here!" Tifa declared, punching the air.

"I'm a flower girl from the slums," Aerith said quietly.

"I'm the flower girl's bodyguard," Ranma boasted.

"I was a research specimen," Red finished.

Rufus glanced between them, then gave a genuine-looking smile, and clapped. "What a crew!" he shouted over the sound of the wind coming up the building. "Well now, I'm Rufus Shinra, the new President of Shinra Electric Power Company."

"Only cuz yer old man kicked the bucket," Barret indicated the corpse still resting inside.

"Just so," Rufus agreed, then gestured at the group with one hand. His motion stopped as his arm lined up with Ranma. "And you must be the girl who's given my Turks such a difficult time. What was it you said to them..." he reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a small flipbook of paper, covered in handwritten notes. "Ah, here we are. I believe it was, 'Ranma Saotome doesn't lose.' Yet you managed to get yourself captured and thrown in the prison cells. Tell me, what is that, if not losing?"

Ranma gritted her teeth, glaring at the man, but said nothing. "Very well, if you won't answer that," Rufus continued, "perhaps instead you'll enlighten me to what an outsider like you would be doing with these... cretins. You appear to be a fighter of the highest caliber. And yet you stand amidst these others. I won't bother asking you to work for us, you seem to have developed some bad blood with Reno and I couldn't dream of the two of you working together on anything. But I would like to ask... what is it you want? What are you getting out of fighting us?"

"Buddy, your goons had their chance to ask me questions when I came here," Ranma spat, her gaze turning hard as she clenched her fists. "They didn't wanna be social back then either. I was even nice to them, only dislocated joints, no broken bones, and nothin' that needed serious help. And now you wanna ask me questions? Sorry, but you had your chances, and ya wasted 'em. You wanna know what I want? Yer gonna hafta ask a lot nicer than that."

Rufus shrugged, some of the cheer draining out of the smile on his face. "Well, it was worth a shot, I suppose. And now it seems I have an audience for my inauguration speech. Would be a shame not to take advantage of such an opportunity." He strode forward, meeting the gaze of each of them in turn. "My old man tried to control the world with money. It seems to work, on the surface, anyway. Everyone thought that Shinra would protect them if they signed up. You work, you get paid. If some group of terrorists tries to start making a mess of things, Shinra sends in their army to help clean it up."

Barret glared at Rufus hard at that last statement. "It looks perfect from the outside, doesn't it?" Rufus continued. "But it's not perfect. Nowhere close. You lot are proof of that. And I do things differently. I control my world through fear, and through power. It's just too much work to do it like my old man. Fear will keep the little people in line. And power," he said, drawing a double-barrel shotgun from a holster beneath his suit jacket, leveling the weapon directly at Ranma, "will eliminate anyone else like you."

Tifa crossed her arms over her chest. "You sure do like to hear yourself talk," she declared. "Sure you're not doing it like your old man?"

Cloud's expression had been darkening steadily as the speech continued. "Enough of this," he said, drawing his sword and stepping directly between Rufus and Ranma. "Barret, get everyone else out of the building. I'll take care of this."

"Oh, hell no!" Barret and Ranma both shouted, almost simultaneously.

Barret raised his gun-arm and took aim. "If you're takin' on this pansy-ass, I'm gonna be right here with-"

"I ain't runnin' away from this scrawny piece of-" Ranma began at the same time.

"No," Cloud cut them both off, his tone firm. "Ranma, you have someone here you need to keep safe. And she needs your help more than you need to fight here." Ranma paused, grimaced, but gave a nod of understanding as the wisdom of his words sunk in. "Barret, what's going on right now is the real crisis for this planet. If you want to see it done, this is where it starts!"

Barret's gaze faltered for a moment, and he cocked his head. "Cloud, what on Gaia's green are you talking about?"

Cloud shook his head, turning the Buster Sword to a defensive posture as Rufus leveled his shotgun at Cloud. "Gonna have to take my word for it," Cloud answered. "It's too much to go into now, I'll explain later, I promise! Now go!"

Barret grumbled something to himself, but nodded his head, turning his aim back at Rufus. "All right, boys and girls," he growled, "start back inside, I'll cover ya 'til it's time to run." He stepped to one side, closing the gap between himself and Cloud, giving a clear window for the others to move as his towering bulk obscured the others from sight. "Hope you know what you're doin'," he said quietly to Cloud, before backpedaling slowly down the walkway. He moved slowly and deliberately until he was certain all the others were inside, and then turned and ran for it.

Rufus didn't so much as twitch during this entire exchange, his arm steady and pointing straight at Cloud, who in turn held the flat of the Buster Sword up as a wall. "You seem dead-set on fighting me," Rufus called out, "but for the life of me I don't understand why!"

"Because you're after the Promised Land!" Cloud answered. "And you want Sephiroth!"

"Why, yes, I do," Rufus said, feigning nonchalance. "He's an Ancient. He'll bring us to the Promised Land. And then I will kill him, as he did to my old man."

Cloud shook his head. "He won't lead you anywhere except death," he said. "And I'm not going to let you get to any Promised Land."

Rufus shrugged. "I suppose that means we won't be friends." And fired.

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Floor 69

A gunshot sounded from somewhere above. Aerith stopped for a moment, looking up. "Cloud…" she whispered. "Is he going to be okay on his own?"

Tifa paused, considering the question. "I'll wait for him. You four go, clear the path, and get us a way out of the building. We'll meet you in the lobby!"

"You sure, Tifa?" Barret asked, but he could see the answer in her face. "All right, stay safe and make sure that spiky-haired idiot gets down there with ya." He gave her a quick embrace, and then turned towards the elevators. "Everyone in! We're leavin' this time!"

"Damn it, Barret, haven't we had enough trouble with elevators today?" Ranma commented, but reluctantly piled in with the others.

Tifa stood and listened as the battle above became frenetic. "Cloud…"

A/N: I always thought the timing of Rufus' arrival to Shinra HQ was... suspicious, to say the least, in the original story. "I'm banished because of prior treason, but I'm going to show up on my daddy's doorstep, less than a half hour after his death." That always felt like a gaping plot hole to me. This way, he had a reason. He was coming to find out what was going on with this Ranma woman his Turks had told him about. That actually feels like a motivation that might have flown under the radar, had Shinra the Elder not taken an arrow to the knee- I mean, a sword to the chest.

The Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits introductions was a scene I decided months ago that I was definitely including. I ran through almost a dozen iterations of the exchange before I found one I liked. Actually slotting Ranma in there in a way that felt organic took a few tries. Most of this scene's dialog is inspired directly by the game script. Despite my changes elsewhere, a lot of this last scene stayed more or less intact from the game, largely because it was such a good scene, and also because how it plays out is important. I cleaned up some of the awkward dialog bits, but beyond that, it's pretty straight.

Ranma learned some basic meditation exercises at some point that I haven't fully detailed out yet. I've had experience with meditative and trance states, and they can be very interesting and useful. A good meditative rest can replace sleep in the short term (think 'power nap'), but has diminishing returns after a couple hours have passed. The best way I ever heard it phrased is that, in place of sleep, an hour's deep meditation will make you feel like you just had a full eight hour sleep, but only for the next two to three hours. I can attest to that line of effectiveness personally.

We are nearly off the railroad. Once this story gets out of Midgar, there will be far more liberty taken with how the story begins to progress, even as we touch on main plot points.

Hope you like it! Comments and feedback welcome.