Tori sat at the counter of the bookstore, chin in her left palm, pen in her right, a sketchbook open in front of her to a page dotted with little doodles here and there. She actually wasn't paying attention to the paper at all, her gaze staring out the front windows at the rain flowing liberally down the pane. She had barely gotten any sleep during the night after she got home and was immediately greeted by Jiro, who had apologized endlessly and chastised himself for ever thinking it was a wise idea to allow Tori to go out that late at night. Tori had told him everything, including the part about the tall, beautiful-eyed man who had helped her. Hm, maybe without those words, though.
When she had told Jiro about the Turks, Jiro's expression had grown sober and he had said, disgusted, "I don't know why they're bringing those horrors back into the city. They nearly got us wiped out once. I guess it's true what they say, those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. They'll just have to learn the hard way to get the lesson drilled into their thick skulls."
Whatever "hard way" Jiro was talking about Tori didn't want to think. Midgar's first disaster had been hard enough to cope with.
A particularly loud clap of thunder sounded over head and Tori jumped, her pen suddenly dragging across the paper, creating a large streak over the surface. She glared out the window and muttered, "The heck…" before looking down to see the damage. For a good thirty seconds she just gaped at the image. It seems that she had unconsciously been drawing a picture of the silver-haired man from the day before.
Several thoughts when through her head at once. "Not as good as the original, but it'll do." "Why the heck am I drawing him!" "I didn't know I was this good…and without even looking!" Her main thought, however was that she never wanted anyone to know about this. Even if the guy was a dang sexy beast, she shouldn't go around drawing him!
She paused at that last and sighed, frustrated. Her train of thought seemed to be going from seriously pathetic, to even worse. The only thing she could think of was to dispose of the picture immediately before she was humiliated out of her mind.
She picked the picture up and was about to crumple it up when the last voice she ever wanted to hear in her position sounded from behind her.
"Hey Tori, what's that," Miya asked snatching up the picture and holding it in front of her. Tori could only stare helplessly as Miya's eyebrow's lifted up dramatically and her mouth formed a perfectly round "o". Tori would have liked nothing more than to either swallow the paper or die.
Miya grinned and said, "Wow, she's gorgeous! I didn't know you could draw this well."
Tori grabbed the sketch away and flushed. "First of all, it's a guy, and you've never seen my sketchbook."
"Oh, it's a guy…" Miya looked over Tori's shoulder. "So is it from your head, or…"
"It's the one Jiro told you about. The one from yesterday," Tori said setting the paper back down. Now that the initial mortification was over, she felt a little light-headed.
That morning Jiro had told Emiko and Miya everything Tori had told him. After lightly scolding Jiro (Tori felt a pang of guilt that she was the cause), Emiko and Miya had insisted that she not have to work at the counter that day. Honestly, Tori couldn't stand it when people fussed over her, so she had decided to go on with the work.
"Mmm, I see," Miya said, grinning suspiciously. "So, you wouldn't happen to have a little crush on him would you?"
Tori couldn't help but flush a little, "Well, I'm certainly grateful that he came when he did, and I'll admit he was extremely good-looking, but I don't know anything about him and Midgar is so large that I doubt I'll ever see him again."
Tori couldn't help but feel how piercing the words actually were. She had never really appropriately thanked him for saving her, and she hadn't even learned his name. How could she have a chance with someone who thought she was ungrateful?
"Well, you may not know much about him, but at least he knows a bit about you," Miya said, then seeing the puzzled look on Tori's face added, "He knows where you live. Especially since he brought you all the way back here; he knows the best place to find you now."
A dark cloud that had been hanging over Tori suddenly fizzled away. He knew where to find her. If there was a chance that he would want to drop by, nothing would stop him as far as she was concerned.
In front of the mirror in his room at his and his brother's base, Yazoo cleaned the last of the light tan coloring off his face and took the black ribbon out of his hair, the events of the day before reeling through his head. After he had taken that young girl back to her home, he had questioned Mother, whose voice was still freshly connected to him, whether he should go back to her or not. As soon as he had, that hypnotic voice had told him to go and send Kadaj to her instead. It was Kadaj she wanted to see.
He could have been jealous. He should have been jealous. He had come all that way to see Mother only to have her send for his younger brother. But right now, jealousy was only a grain of sand when compared to the beach of other thoughts in his mind.
Ever since the fight with the two men at the warehouse and his sheer closeness to Mother, a floodgate of emotions had been opened, immediately annihilating the passive demeanor that he had always tried so hard to uphold.
But the thing that still perturbed him the most was that girl. Why had he reacted so strongly to seeing her in danger? Why had he actually saved her? He was supposed to hate humans. He hadn't been hesitant to hurt any human other than her.
Squeezing the slightly stained cloth, he rested his forehead on his fist, forcing himself to calm down and try to think clearly. He had to remain passive in front of his brothers. It had already been a challenge trying to appear neutral when he had reported the events to Kadaj.
Nearly crazy with excitement, Kadaj had left to go to the old Shin-ra warehouse immediately. The mere thought that he would finally be able to meet Mother was enough to completely forget about Yazoo and Loz for the morning. Still, Yazoo hoped he wouldn't meet up with the friends of the men that Yazoo had fought.
Yazoo looked back up at his reflection. Their Master had warned them about some organization called the "Turks" that he said would try and stop them from reuniting with Mother. For a moment, Yazoo wondered if those men had been a part of the group. If they were, then Yazoo would be glad to bee rid of them. It seemed that all they would be doing would be causing trouble for him and his brothers in the future and he had the feeling that the humans would be happy to be rid of them too.
He suddenly paused and frowned when the unbidden image of the fear on the young woman's face appeared behind his eyes.
All of his sympathy for the humans felt like they were coming from her. But why did she matter so much in the first place? She was to blame for him losing the opportunity to meet Mother. Because of her, his cool stature had been destroyed. If that loss caused the brothers' mission to fail in any way, it was her fault.
Yazoo tightly gripped the sides of the small table in front of the mirror, staring down at the dusty surface, not noticing that he was trembling slightly.
His resolve had to be made now. He couldn't let the girl get away with stealing his chance to speak with Mother. She couldn't be allowed to interfere again. He had to find her and...get rid of her.
All at once, he stopped shaking and looked up to meet his reflection's green-eyed gaze. That argument certainly made sense. Killing the woman would have sounded like the best option. So why didn't it feel right?
A sudden muffled thud from outside the door made him jump. He should have been able to sense something coming earlier than this. He had to pull himself together.
Passing a hand in front of his eyes and forcing himself to remain cools, he straightened up and opened the door to the hallway soundlessly.
The storm outside made the hallway dark despite the fact that it was still afternoon. Squinting through the darkness, Yazoo saw something in front of the door to Kadaj's room.
Raising and eyebrow, Yazoo made his way over to the still object. Out of the gloom, he could just make out a glimpse of something light-colored and slightly wavy like...hair.
"Kadaj," Yazoo murmured. He hurried over to the younger man's side and knelt down. Kadaj was sitting with his back against the wall, his arms wrapped around his legs and his forehead resting on his knees. He was sitting perfectly still.
"Kadaj?" Yazoo asked, putting his hand softly on his brother's shoulder.
Instead of startling him, which was what Yazoo had expected the movement to do, Kadaj just stayed in his position a second longer before slowly raising his head to peer into Yazoo's face. There were trails of tears shining down his pale cheeks. Yazoo was astonished. He had never thought that he would ever actually see Kadaj crying. The young man always seemed incapable of expressing such an emotion. Either Kadaj was in a lot of pain or something terrible had happened to...
A lightning stab of fear coursed through Yazoo and he grabbed Kadaj's shoulders.
"Kadaj, what happened out there? Is something wrong with Mother?" He demanded, desperately.
Kadaj's eyes flashed, but he stayed silent for an agonizing few seconds until he...started laughing. Well, more like laughing hysterically and crying at the same time.
Yazoo's face heated with impatience and it was all he could do to keep from shaking his brother until he answered.
Just then, though, Kadaj relaxed and quieted almost eerily. His bright green eyes were distant and it was like he was looking right through Yazoo.
"Mother's gone," Kadaj said, leaning his head back against the wall in a trance.
Yazoo's eyes widened and his grip on Kadaj's shoulder's went limp.
"What?"
"Mother's gone," The teenager said again, eyes still glazed over. "Those men that you, the Boss's boys that Master told us about...they took her, I know it."
His eyes suddenly cleared and he raised his hand in front of his face. The black glove was off and Yazoo could see that the skin was considerably dark when compared to the pale flesh of Kadaj's face.
"At first I thought you'd gone mad until I felt some of her remaining cells there...and then Master told me..."
Yazoo watched his brother, puzzled. He seemed to be babbling now. When Kadaj trailed off into silence, Yazoo considered getting some water to splash on his face and wake him up, but then Kadaj sat bolt upright, his expression perfectly awake and wary.
Yazoo jumped back when Kadaj suddenly leapt to his feet, muttering, "What was he thinking...such a fool."
When Yazoo got to his feet as well, Kadaj looked up and met his eyes.
"I must speak with the Boss," Kadaj said, making his way towards the stairway back to the abandoned hotel's lobby.
Yazoo could only watch Kadaj's retreating back in shock at his brother's complete mood shift until he blurted out, "Shall I inform the Master of what you found?"
Kadaj turned and gave Yazoo a strange look before saying, "Yazoo, Master already knows. Didn't I just say that?"
Yazoo looked down and nodded.
Kadaj suddenly started laughing again, this time a humorous laugh instead of the hysteria of before. Yazoo looked up to see the younger man walking towards him.
"Don't worry your pretty little head over it too much, Sherlock" He said, fingering the collar of the coat that Yazoo was still wearing. "You and Loz just find something to occupy yourselves with whi;e I'm talking with the boss."
Kadaj grinned when Yazoo relented and nodded. Patting Yazoo's "pretty little head", he affectionately added, "Good. Now then, if you'll excuse me, I mustn't keep the Boss waiting.
Kadaj left Yazoo in silence, with only the sound of the rain against the window to give any sense of motion to the dark hallway.
He really didn't know what had spurred him to mention Master. For a second, it had seemed odd to him that Kadaj had been able to get to Master in that short a space of time before Yazoo had heard him. It was almost like Kadaj and Master had a constant connection to each other. It suddenly occured to Yazoo that he had never actually seen their Master before...that it had always
been Kadaj who had reported to Master. Loz had probably never seen him either.
At this strange revelation, Yazoo raised his head and stared at the window. Why hadn't he realized this before? It was just like feeling the new emotions in his room. He was questioning everything around him.
This had to stop. Nothing good could come from his questioning if it continued. And in order to stop it, he had to stop it's source.
Yazoo reached into his coat and fingered the smooth handle of the Velvet Nightmare, his mind suddenly calm and focused. He would figure out what to do with Kadaj and Master later. Right now, while he still had time, he had to deal with the one thing that was afflicting him the most.
As Tori closed her sketchbook about and hour after her chat with Miya, she suddenly found her face smothered with something yellow and furry. She pulled away, gasping for breath and found herself looking into the impossibly huge eyes of Patsy, Jiro's large, ginger cat.
She chuckled with relief and scratched the cat's chin. Whether the cat was inside the store or out was often unpredictable, and after the events of the of the past night, Tori had forgotten about the cat entirely.
Patsy jumped onto Tori's lap and curled up, purring madly. Tori wrinkled her nose a bit at the unpleasant feeling of having a soaking wet cat on her lap. Patsy must have been outside for hours.
Tori sighed and looked around the main room of the bookstore. No one had come in all morning, leaving the room with a dark and lonely feeling because of the rain. Well, if no one was going to come in now, she saw no reason why she had to sit there with a wet cat.
She gathered the purring mass in her arms and headed off to the bathroom where she grabbed a towel and started scrubbing Patsy dry.
When a knock suddenly sounded from the front door, Tori looked down at the front of her shirt and her muddy hands in dismay. She wouldn't exactly look appealing to a customer, but she didn't want them to just stand there while she cleaned up.
The knock sounded again and this time, Miya suddenly appeared at this bathroom's doorway. When she saw the mud on Tori's shirt, she giggled and said, "Don't worry, I'll take care of this one, you just get cleaned up."
Tori nodded her thanks and dried her hands on a clean towel while she listened to the muffled sound of Miya opening the door and exchanging a few words with the customer. She frowned a little when she abruptly heard quick footsteps coming towards the bathroom.
She gave Patsy a little pet on his head and stood in the doorway curiously only to have Miya nearly bowl into her in her haste. Tori jumped back to give Miya room and was about to say something about not running around when she stopped short, seeing Miya's sudden excitement.
For all the years she knew her sister, Tori knew that seeing Miya giggle like this probably wasn't a good sign for her.
"Someone's here to see you," Miya said, grabbing Tori's arm and pushing her towards the front room before going before standing in the middle of the hallway as if determined not to let Tori escaped.
Tori stared at her sister before shrugging and heading off to the front of the store. There were times when she seriously questioned Miya's sanity.
When she stepped into the entrance of the store, Tori nearly tripped over Patsy, who had decided to follow her and had darted between her legs. She grabbed the door frame to keep her balance and said, "Dang cat..." under her breath.
She received a bigger shock, however, when a familiar, low voice said from beside her, "Are you alright?"
Tori whipped her head up and her breath caught in her throat when she looked up to find herself looking directly into the exact same pale features and green eyes from the night before.
A/N: Alright, after a decade of nothing, I'm back. Truth is, I was a little nervous about continuing the story after I heard that quite a few people had seen it and I was wondering if mine would be close to the storyline or not. At any rate, I'm going to stick with this thing until it's done. I would never discontinue an of my stories that I post.
I really hope I'm not drawing this out again. I'm seriously trying not to!
Disclaimer: All of this besides the new characters belong to Square-Enix.