Dissidia Final Fantasy: Unus Mundus

Chapter Sixteen ~ Familiar Faces (Reno)

As Reno and Eiko flew through the skies on Valefor's back, Reno surveyed the land below them. None of it looked familiar to him, nor did they find anyplace that looked safe enough to land in, especially with the planet shifting the way it was. Along the ride, Eiko had fallen asleep, so Reno (reluctantly) kept his arms around her to keep her from falling off. Guess I'm a babysitter for now, he thought upon doing so.

It felt as if only mere minutes before nighttime was upon them, and Reno saw the two moons in the sky. One blue, and one red. It was an unsettling sight. He gently placed his hand on Valefor's neck and spoke softly. "Think you can land somewhere?" he asked. "We could all use some rest." Valefor made a gentle and kind noise as if acknowledging Reno's words, and she began spiraling downwards towards the ground as carefully as one could be when attempting such an action. Reno quickly realized that they must have been more than a mile above the ground since it took quite some time for Valefor to finally land, and once she did, the sky was at its peak darkness. Dawn would arrive soon. "Yeesh..." Reno sighed as he gently grabbed Eiko and hopped off of Valefor. "Alright, go back to the lifestream or wherever you Summons come from."

Valefor roared gently and nuzzled into Eiko, looking at Reno. Reno looked up at Valefor and scoffed a little.

"What? You don't trust me with her?" He and Valefor looked at each other for a while. Finally, Reno sighed and looked down at Eiko. "Ah, I guess you have a better chance of keeping her safe if something comes up." Valefor lowered her body to the ground and Reno knelt down, gently placing Eiko up against her. Valefor covered Eiko up with a wing almost like a blanket, and Reno couldn't help but smile as he sighed and stood back up. "What did we get into?" he asked.

Valefor began falling asleep, and as soon as she did, Reno turned around and looked at where they were. They were relatively near the coastline of whatever continent they were at, surrounded by old trees. Reno walked closer to the ocean, and in only a few steps he was walking on sand rather than grass. It didn't take long for him to realize that it was rather uncomfortable walking in the sand with black leather shoes, so he removed them as well as his socks, and he rolled the legs of his pants up to his knees as he walked towards the ocean. The sand was cold on his feet, but the breeze emerging from the ocean felt incredible. He closed his eyes and walked until the waves were at his feet.

"My first vacation in quite some time," he sighed with a bit of a laugh. "I guess it only took for the whole damn government to disappear to make it happen. Didn't expect it to be like this." Reno sat down in the sand and laid back, watching the stars in the sky as he tried to ignore the unsettling red glow of the second moon. His smile disappeared as he thought of the others and felt a little homesick. "Rude, Tseng, Elena... where did you guys go?"

He went silent, simply listening to the ocean's waves crash against the shore, and once the tide started going in further, Reno stood back up and walked towards where he set his shoes and socks. He grabbed them and walked back to where Eiko and Valefor were, and he gathered as many sticks, twigs, dry pieces of wood, leaves, and rocks as he could to build a fire. He dug a bit of a hole in the grass with his hands and put the rocks around it to form a fire pit. As soon as he did, he placed some of the dry sticks and twigs in the bottom and grabbed a lighter from his pocket, lighting one of the leaves and sticking it into the pit. The flames slowly enveloped the sticks and the twigs and he built up on the fire with more wood as it grew, sitting close to the flames to stay warm. Finally, he got drowsy enough to lay down beside the fire and he laid down, falling asleep.

Reno's eyes shot open at the sound of nearby bushes rustling just hours later. The fire had died down, and Valefor and Eiko were still there asleep. Quickly, Reno shot up and looked around. "Who's there?" he asked sternly. When he went silent, he could hear footsteps running further inland. Reno went to follow the footsteps and quickly realized that his shoes were gone. "What the hell?" he scoffed. He shrugged it off and darted into the forested area behind the coast. There was a tall and rather thin young girl with very short black hair and a headband on running away, carrying Reno's shoes, and he knew she looked familiar. "Hey! Don't think I don't know who you are! Get over here!" Reno picked up the pace, and as a result, the girl did as well.

The chase went on for just a moment until they were eventually out of the forest. The sun was just barely rising over the horizon as the girl stopped in what looked like an open field with a damaged Airship. Reno caught up to her and forcefully turned her around. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked sternly, grabbing his shoes from her arms. It was Yuffie Kisaragi of the Wutai.

"Just wanted to get your attention," Yuffie said in a tone of false innocence. She put her hands behind her back and turned around. "It's a good morning exercise, too. No doubt you could use the exercise."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Reno, but Yuffie just started walking towards the damaged Airship at a brisk pace without another word. Reno simply scoffed and quickly slid his socks and shoes back on before following after her. There were three people at the Airship with Yuffie, all people that Reno became rather familiar with—Cid Highwind, Tifa Lockhart, and Barret Wallace.

"I found him!" Yuffie said to the group cheerfully. All three people turned around to face Reno, and as they did, he felt rather overwhelmed, especially by Barret's death gaze. 

"Y-You're not here to kill me, right?" Reno stammered nervously as he backed up.

"I wish I could," Barret said in a very low tone of voice. "But we ain't here for that." Tifa gently placed a hand on his back and looked at Reno with a solemn but kind expression.

"We saw you here last night when we flew over this island," she said. "Cloud is missing, and so is Barret's daughter Marlene. We've been looking for them ever since, and when we saw you, we were attacked. We had to land here for safety so Cid could repair his ship, and we sent Yuffie out to find you."

"We saw ya with a girl," Cid commented as he turned around to continue working on his ship with a cigarette in his mouth. "A girl and a big bird thing. You have a daughter or somethin'?"

Reno shook his head and he crossed his arms. "She's a Summoner," he said. "I encountered her yesterday, and she summoned that bird thing, uh, Valefor. Doesn't look like she used any Materia, though, so she's something else. My friends are missing too. Hers are as well, so we just sorta came this way together, and we landed here to rest for the night."

"I'm surprised you have emotion," Barret scoffed. "Fuckin' Shinra scum. Ain't ya trained to have no emotion for your job?"

"Barret..." Tifa sighed and pat his back a bit, walking towards Reno. "Come on. Let's talk over here."

Tifa and Reno backed away from the rest of the group until they were back into the forested area. "Someone's got a stick up his ass," Reno said quietly, nodding towards Barret, but Tifa shoved him back.

"His daughter's missing," she replied. "And, I mean... you were basically part of Shinra's secret service. We never had a very good relationship with Shinra, so that doesn't exactly help, but cut him some slack. We've all been going through a lot ever since the planet started shifting around the way it has been."

Reno was quiet for a moment before nodding in response. "I guess... but why did you want me over here?"

"We figured you and that girl would want a ride once Cid's got the Airship up and running," said Tifa. "Considering that we're essentially stranded in an unknown location, it would be best to work together rather than fight, right?"

"Can't argue with that." Reno smiled a bit and turned around. "Well, let's get Eiko and go."

"Is that the little girl we saw you with?"

"Yeah. A little rambunctious as you'd expect, but she must be quite talented if she's summoning at that age."

They walked further into the forest, but as soon as they got to the fire pit Reno created, they noticed that neither Eiko nor Valefor were there anymore.

"Wait... where did they go?" he asked. He looked around in a bit of a panic. "Eiko? Valefor?"

"Reno..." Tifa knelt down and placed her fingers on the bent grass where Valefor slept. "Look."

Reno hastily turned around and saw where Tifa was pointing. There was a small pool of blood that had seeped into the soil below the grass. "Who did this...?" he whispered silently, feeling anger building up inside him. He saw some footsteps in the grass leading further into the forest. "Whoever they are, I'm gonna kill 'em." Reno went to run off, but Tifa grabbed his arm and stopped him.

"Don't go rushing into it!" she said. She pulled a pair of black leather gloves from her back pockets and slipped them on, clenching her fists. "Not without backup, at least."