Konohagakure no Sato, Saturday Afternoon (Fandom Time) / Feb. 15th (Konoha Time)

[intraspective]

Really, it had been a month and a half now and Ino had to admit that she was—feeling better. Between her father teaching Zack (and water walking had proved to be quite a hilarious thing to watch) and her father teaching her, she was feeling useful and busy without it being anything too taxing.

She hadn’t seen either of her previous teammates, which stung, but Ino stomped down firmly on that as she disentangled her mind from her father’s and ignored his look. It wasn’t the first time she’d avoided… whatever it was he’d wanted to talk about.

And she doubted it would be the last.

“That’s enough for now,” he said, after a moment. “How about you go and get some air?”

It was phrased as a suggestion, but Ino was well used to her father’s orders. With a quick kiss to his cheek, she left the room, went down the long, dark hall and out into the sunshine. It was a lovely day—February, already, which made her head hurt if she thought too hard about the days and how they related to Fandom—but, Ino thought, as she leaned against the balcony and pulled out her phone, hitting speed dial, maybe all that time had been what she’d needed.

And, across universes, her phone call reached…

[For ze raspberried one. Mwahaha. NFB.]

Comments

[raspberryturk]

Oh, hey, that sounded way better than Reno had been expecting!

"What, did you want a Merry Christmas outta me? Ain't my holday, Rookie," Reno informed her, laughing and shaking his head a little. "Unless you count eggnog, zoto. I'll celebrate weird Earth holidays for the eggnog."

Preferably with a large amount of rum in it. Reno would still be Reno, after all. Especially when left to his own devices.

[intraspective]

"But I'm not on Earth," she replied with a snicker. "Wishin' me the best for a holiday like that ain't going to do me much good."

[raspberryturk]

"Well, then happy day that I get eggnog," Reno decided. That worked well enough for him, anyhow. "What you up to? Skipped island, did you?"

[intraspective]

"Mmmhmmm," she hummed. "Skipped island a month and a half ago!"

Which, amongst other things, explained why she was in far better spirits. Yes.

[raspberryturk]

"Whoa, no kiddin'?" Reno raised an eyebrow at that. Yeah, that explained a lot about the tone of this current conversation. "It ain't been three full days since I saw you last, yo. Your hometown get thrown into fastforward or somethin'?"

[intraspective]

"Guess so," she mused, "or maybe Fandom slowed way down and so everything else looks like it's just going faster."

[raspberryturk]

"Never really can tell with this place," Reno mused. "Shit, if that's what happened, I might get more mileage outta my trip to Edge than I thought. Uh. If I make it on time."

That would be the kicker, there. If Fandom was in slow-mo, the last thing he wanted was to hold up the Turks' move more than necessary.

[intraspective]

"You're headin' to Edge?" she asked curiously.

A beat.

"...Am I botherin' you in your preparations then?"

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah," Reno replied, casual as ever. "Turks are finally makin' their move to Junon. Figured I ought to be there... That's sometin' I don't wanna miss, yoto."

A pause. "You ain't holdin' me up, though. Turks pack light."

Really, now. His biggest dilemma had been the socks.

[intraspective]

"Ooooh." Ino glanced over the bustling crowds and smiled slightly. "You excited? Or--sad?"

Or something that was harder to define?

[raspberryturk]

Really now, Reno wouldn't admit to being sad if his life depended on it.

"Glad to be gettin' our business the hell outta Edge," he admitted. "You seen the place, Ino. It's... It's somethin'. Sittin' on the border of Midgar, sure. But it ain't home. Somethin' like that, I don't think it ever really could be."

... He was blaming that hint of mush on the eggnog. Of course he'd been into it already, why?

[intraspective]

She'd have expected him to do nothing else but be into it already.

"And Junon's a better place for new beginnings," she murmured, "and letting memories go where they ought to go."

[raspberryturk]

"It's a mess too," Reno said, sighing a little. "But there's a difference between sittin' in someone else's mess, and lookin' over the ruins of your own, yo. Anyhow... Junon's always been a military city. ShinRa's coastal port. The locals there don't hold grudges against ShinRa like Edge does. They are ShinRa."

Or, rather, were. There wasn't much in the way of ShinRa anymore.

[intraspective]

"And people don't let go of that sort of thing so easily, no?"

If she sounded a bit wistful, well--she'd been thinking for six weeks about everything. There'd been some decisions to consider carefully, choices to make.

Picking an identity. "When you're part of somethin'... people like that. And most don't give it up easily."

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah, that's part of it..." Reno flopped backwards onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully.

He was ignoring the indignant quack of the duck. It wasn't his fault that it had been sleeping on his bed.

"I think it's mostly that they don't got nobody to blame but themselves, zoto."

Junon had been hit pretty damn hard too, after all. That whole Sister Ray thing hadn't worked out so well for it.

[intraspective]

"And that's why they're still ShinRa?"

Forgive her, Reno, for sounding sceptical.

[raspberryturk]

"They ain't," Reno corrected. "Neither are the Turks. ShinRa's just a memory, now. Maybe there are some people still workin' under the name... but if anything, that's them lookin' for atonement, yo."

His lips pursed a little, and he flopped over sideways, reaching out to give the duck a little scratch on the head. Why the hell not.

"There ain't really no makin' up for this, though."

[intraspective]

"So everyone in ShinRa was evil?" she chided. "The receptionists? The lady in the viewing room? Those who're in the space development department? The janitors? They're all ShinRa too."

[raspberryturk]

"And any one of 'em could'a chosen to quit," Reno sighed. "Any single one of them had the option, knowin' full well they were workin' for a dirty company, zoto."

He shook his head. Bad topic to get on, especially considering who her boyfriend was, so now it was time to steer somewhere different.

"Whatever they're stickin' around for, the job's gone all different now anyhow. There ain't no mako, ain't no great conquest to be a part of. It's just pickin' up the wreckage. Clearin' the bodies away as you find 'em."

Even in Midgar, there were still bodies. Junon was a little better off, in that regard. Midgar had nowhere to bury their dead. Junon had kind of perfected the phrase "burial at sea."

[intraspective]

Ino sighed, biting her lip at the end of it because there was more she could say there, but--what was there to do? He saw things differently than she did.

You could love something that was bad. Take pride in it, still wish and identify yourself as part of it.

Even if it was bad. Awful.

"Nice," she said, very dryly. "But the people left, they're all still the people who once upon a time were loyal. That don't make them bad people for their devotion, Reno."

Even if he painted the world and ShinRa with his need to atone. Not everyone's situation was the same. "ShinRa did a lot of good too," she said, softly. "It's easy to forget that, I bet, but they did. Junon still bein' functional means there's still people who might want to keep on doing good--but under ShinRa's name."

[raspberryturk]

Reno heaved a sigh. Again. Good night for sighing.

"You'd have to see it to get it, Rookie. Midgar's ruins ain't where this mess begins and ends. Junon didn't get the brunt of Meteor, but WEAPON took a huge friggin' chunk outta it. They all got guilt, but it's different guilt. They got survivor's guilt, lookin' at the way their sister city ended up. Still plenty of bodies, sure, but it ain't the same, bein' blown up by a monster the planet made."

Instead of a monster ShinRa made.

[intraspective]

"Ain't goin' to be everyone who thinks the way you do," she said, keeping her voice level. "Turks--they did things that the janitors and the receptionists ain't done. Living might leave guilt but that guilt when you ain't done nothing but go 'bout your life like normal before and after... how does guilt people're expected by rote to feel 'cause they're supposed to feel that hold up to the fact that every day they get up, they breathe, and things get a little better piece by piece."

Ino toyed with her hair.

"Ain't just them that's got to put away their guilt either."

Wallowing was not an attractive look for him.

[raspberryturk]

And yet he did it so well!

Usually under the influence, when there wasn't anyone around to witness it. Rikku was off in Spira, so...

"Maybe they got less to be guilty for," he said, frowning deeply. And then, because he figured it was a word that could temper just about anything, he added, "Whatever."

No, Reno. That one worked better for people from other games.

[intraspective]

"I won't say you don't got things to be guilty for," Ino replied, eyes narrowing. "But what you did and what ShinRa did aren't all one and the same. The janitor ain't got the same situation you do."

And that was when a flicker, barely perceptible, rippled across the sky.

Ino leaned out over the balcony and peered up, squinting.

[raspberryturk]

Reno, unfortunately, couldn't see that flicker. He was blissfully unaware of what was going on over on the other end of the conversation.

"Maybe not," he allowed, but barely. He had his doubts, always would. ShinRa was ShinRa was ShinRa. You couldn't go to work every day and not notice what the company around you was doing. If you stayed with it, you condoned it. That's what his brain sized it up as. After all, they had the option. His way out, until after Meteorfall, was in a coffin. If there were enough pieces left to warrant one. "Funny they don't take it somewhere else, then. Maybe they ain't in it to atone, but why keep the name, if the company's dead, and the President's rumored to be?"

He knew better. Most of the world still didn't.