Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Between the Lines ❯ No Stone Unturned ( Chapter 8 )

Between the Lines

 

Description: What happened to Reno and Rude in Advent Children during the times they were off camera. How and why they showed up where they did when they did. Rated T for language and descriptions of torture.

 

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and its characters are the property of Square-Enix. Everything in this fic is just speculation on my part. I have no insider information. I also have no money, so suing me would be pointless.

 

Eight: No Stone Unturned

 

Reno clomped down the stairs ahead of Rude, clearly annoyed at Cloud's lack of response. Rude had to admit he was disappointed as well; the way he had slammed the door behind himself attested to that. Cloud had shown no gratitude for being rescued, no concern for the missing children, and absolutely no drive to run out and start saving the world.

 

At the small landing where the stairs turned to the left, Reno had walked forward into a room rather than continue on to the first floor. Just inside the door, he turned and waited with crossed arms for Rude to follow him in. Rude stepped into a room almost bare of furniture. A simple bed sat against the wall, obviously unused for some time. Pieces of paper lay scattered on the lone desk like a thin coating of snow. The sickly light that filtered through the shaded windows added to the general feeling of cold solitude. Cloud's room.

 

"So," Reno said, drawing Rude's attention back to their mission, "what do we do now?" He kicked absently at a few stray pieces of paper.

 

Rude shrugged, at a loss. His eyes wandered again -- Why did Cloud have a tire in here? -- and eventually found a small framed photograph on the desk. He took the few steps across the room and picked it up. Tifa smiled at him, Cloud ignored him, and two small children regarded him with mixed expressions of shyness and innocence.

 

"Cute kids." Reno had moved to peer over his shoulder.

 

"You hate kids," Rude commented.

 

"True." He threw a glance at the closed door up the stairs and leaned back on his heels, plunging his hands into his pockets. "'Course if I had some, I think I'd be worried if they got kidnapped by a psycho."

 

Rude suppressed a wry smile. How many parents' children had Reno taken away over the years? "We don't know Kadaj took them, Reno. They could be out playing."

 

"In Edge?" Reno asked incredulously, turning his eyes back to Rude. "Where they gonna go? The local park?"

 

"Kids will find a way to be kids," Rude replied, looking at the little girl's eyes. They sparkled with a happy optimism that made the whole frozen scene warm and bright. A single sunbeam captured and kept within a cold plastic frame. A child like that could make the dreary world of Edge more than bearable with the power of her spirit.

 

Reno's slightly annoyed voice pulled him from the picture. "I'll bet you 500 gil Kadaj has them. I told you I heard him plotting with one of his gang -- on my phone, you know."

 

"I'll pass on that bet." Rude turned, photograph still in hand, and began walking towards the door. "Let's see if we can find out for certain what happened to them."

 

"You think someone saw them?" Reno asked, following.

 

"It's possible. We can start around here and then --"

 

The door at the top of the stairs slowly opened; Rude stopped in the lower room's entranceway, waiting. Cloud stared at them for a long moment before moving down the steps. Then, his eyes caught the photograph, and his feet stopped. Slowly, Cloud's gaze lifted to Rude's face and tried to burrow inside him.

 

Briefly, Rude debated with himself whether or not to engage in a game of silence chicken with the other man, but he quickly decided it would not be worth the time lost. "We're going to look for them," he explained.

 

His eyes betraying a small glint of relief, Cloud nodded in response. He half-turned up the stairs again, but paused, eyes staring off at a point somewhere beyond the wall. In a soft voice, he commented, "The girl's name is Marlene. The boy is Denzel."

 

Behind Rude, Reno spoke, and the sharp clarity of his partner's voice, compared to Cloud's vague quietness, made Rude jump. "Okay. We'll find them." He pushed past Rude and continued on down the stairs, clearly unwilling to deal with Cloud a minute longer. Rude turned to follow him when Cloud unexpectedly spoke again.

 

"Thank you." He climbed the stairs he had just descended and returned to the room where Tifa lay still unconscious. Rude watched him go, extremely pessimistic about the assignment Rufus had given them. Once the door had closed again, he followed where Reno had gone. Together they left the bar to start their search.

 

One extremely frustrating hour later, they still had found no trace of the two children. They had, however, found a dozen worried mothers similarly trying to locate their offspring. Rude had quickly realized that Reno would have won his bet, but without proof and without a clue as to where Kadaj had taken them, they had no hope of convincing Cloud to take action.

 

The gray-and-black-clad man in front of him handed back the photograph and shook his head. "Sorry," he said before walking away.

 

Unemotionally, Rude turned and looked for someone else to ask. He had shifted into automatic mode so that he could handle the constant disappointment without becoming dejected. Reno, who had no such switch, had burned out after only twenty minutes and now stood grumbling behind him, leaning against a building and looking like hellfire. Perhaps that was what attracted the unfortunate young man who appeared from nowhere to stand at Rude's elbow.

 

"Excuse me?" A well-scrubbed and painfully enthusiastic face beamed at him. "Would either of you gentlemen be kind enough to peruse some of our group's literature?" He boy thrust a paper at Rude who had to lurch backwards in order to avoid it.

 

"Look, kid--" Rude began gruffly, but Reno leapt at the paper, taking it with an encouraging smile.

 

"I'd love to," he said in a tone so bright and fake that any half-intelligent person would have turned and fled. This kid only smiled more. Rude snorted at his partner and moved back to watch.

 

"I wonder," the victim continued, "if you have ever truly contemplated the importance of your eternal soul."

 

Reno crinkled his brow theatrically. "My eternal soul?" He paused a moment before crying, "Oh yeah, I remember that thing. I didn't have much use for it, so I got rid of it." He pretended to study the pamphlet.

 

The young man's eyes widened. "You … got rid … ?"

 

"Yeah," Reno continued, his evil enjoyment evident to Rude's ears. "I gave it to a hooker with a heart of gold. Twenty-four carat and everything. She kept it in a box."

 

Rude swallowed a laugh at the kid's horrified expression. "Um … well …" he stammered, backing away, "thanks for … I have to …" He gestured incoherently for a bit, then ran off in the opposite direction.

 

"You really need to stop doing that," Rude commented as Reno rejoined him.

 

"Normal people piss me off," he replied, crumpling up the paper and tossing it aside.

 

"Hey."

 

Rude pivoted on his heel to see another fresh face staring at him. What was this? Had all the stupid ones come out today? But as he looked at this boy, a few years younger than the previous one, he saw a great deal of knowledge and experience looking out at him from two icy blue eyes.

 

"You the guys looking for the Geostigma kids?"

 

"Yeah, that's us," Reno answered.

 

The boy quickly sized them up. "You're Turks," he informed them with a frown. "What do you want with them? Planning on experimenting on them?"

 

The accusation pricked at Rude's conscience. Just last week Morgan had told the President that most of his test subjects had succumbed, and Rufus had suggested plucking new ones from the streets. "No," he answered. "We're just looking for two of them. For a friend."

 

He held out the photograph, and the boy took it. The suspicion in his face turned to surprise. "Denzel and Marlene?" He raised his eyes to them. "You're friends with Cloud and Tifa?"

 

"Let's just say they're old acquaintances. Do you know where they are?"

 

The boy appeared to debate with himself for a minute; then he handed back the photograph and said, "Not Marlene, but I know where Denzel and the other kids with the stigma went. A couple of guys showed up with a truck. They went with them."

 

"What did these guys look like?" Reno asked.

 

"One was big and bulky. Short hair. Don't know what his name was. The other one, he talked to me and my little brother. Said his name was Yazoo. He was kinda skinny, and his hair was really long, like a girl's. Both of them had silvery hair and these weird green eyes."

 

Reno smirked at Rude. "See? Told ya it was them."

 

"Yes," Rude replied patiently, "but now we know for certain." He returned his attention to the boy who was regarding them with interest. "Do you know where they went?"

 

"Not exactly." He ran a hand nervously through his blond hair. "Jimmy -- my little brother -- he didn't want to go with them. Our mom's sick. But I told him I'd take care of her and that he should go. And Yazoo said he'd get to see these pretty white trees and houses made out of giant seashells."

 

Rude's heart sank, and Reno commented, "Great. Cloud's gonna love that."

 

The boy shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and Rude noticed a fair amount of worry creeping into his young face. Rude replayed the boy's last few sentences in his head and discovered something odd.

 

"You said you encouraged your brother to go. With two strange adults. Why?"

 

Doubt-filled blue eyes gazed at him. "Well, they told the kids they could cure their stigma." When both Reno and Rude pulled back in shock, the boy continued sadly, "But that was a lie, wasn't it? I kinda thought it was. But if there was even a tiny bit of a chance it wasn't … and if they kill him, well, he was going to die anyway." He raised his eyes to Rude once more. "Are they going to hurt him, you think?"

 

"Honestly," Rude replied as gently as he could, "we don't know."

 

"Okay." After a moment's pause, he suddenly perked up and said, "I've told you all I know. If you're going after them, I'll wish you good luck. Although if it was me, I'd tell Cloud to get off his mopey butt and do it himself."

 

Reno laughed, and even Rude couldn't contain his smile. "I like you, kid," Reno told him. "What's your name anyway? How old are you?"

 

"Aaron. I'm fifteen."

 

"Well, Aaron, in a few years if you're in the market for a job, come look us up."

 

Aaron smiled slightly. "Thanks but no thanks. I'd like to keep my soul, and not in a box." He turned and began to walk away.

 

"Hey, it was the heart she kept in the box, not the soul. Get it right, kid!"

 

"Reno," Rude interrupted, placing a hand on his partner's shoulder. "Let's go."

 

"Yeah, sure."

 

As they walked back to the bar, Rude noticed the sun had nearly finished setting and darkness had begun to fall over the city. Here and there little lights popped into existence. They reminded Rude, to his dismay, of the floating glints of light in the Forgotten City. It had been two years, but so many things still seemed to come back to the girl Ancient, as if she had not just returned to the planet but had become it. As if she were guiding events to go the way she wanted.

 

In front of him, Reno opened the door to 7th Heaven and held it for Rude to pass through. As he did, Rude brought up the girl's face in his mind and quietly asked for her forgiveness.