[Sector 7 — False Night]
Midgar didn't sleep. It only dimmed.
From Seventh Heaven's upstairs window, Revenhart watched the city's green pulse throb in the distance, as if the reactors were giant hearts beating on borrowed time. Below, the slum's alleys were veins—thin, clogged, and stubbornly alive.
Something's watching.
He didn't move. Emotion suppression filed the sensation under observe, not panic, but it clung like a cold hand on the nape.
No lens glint. No drone hum. Whatever watched didn't use eyes.
Footsteps stopped in the doorway. Cloud leaned against the frame—half shadow, all vigilance.
"You're up early," Cloud said.
"Or late."
Cloud's gaze flicked toward the window. "Plate patrols doubled. Turks, too."
"I noticed."
"They're not moving on you yet." Cloud's voice was level, not reassuring. "Which means they don't understand you. That's when they're the most dangerous."
Revenhart's mouth angled faintly. "Sage advice."
"Tifa's setting up." Cloud straightened. "If you're going to scout, don't do it alone."
"Narberal will be with me."
"I said don't do it alone."
A leash disguised as concern. Or concern disguised as a leash."Very well," Revenhart said. "You can play tour guide."
Cloud grunted. Accepting.
[Turks — Rooftops]
Two rooftops away, Rude glassed Seventh Heaven through binoculars, adjusting his tie with his free hand. Reno crouched on an AC unit, tapping his EMR against his shoulder; the metal made a patient clack.
"Cool, calm, and strange," Reno said. "The new guy, not Spiky."
Rude: "He's leaving."
"Good. Boss wants the quiet kind of answers." Reno smirked. "Let's whisper with the city."
[Under-Plate Rails — Access Tunnel]
The rail tunnels were cramped arteries carved through Midgar's underbelly—constellations of rivets and chalk, echoing with drip and distant engine-throb. Cloud moved like he knew the screws by name. Revenhart and Narberal followed a half-step off his flank, their footfalls forgettable by design.
"Shinra uses these for quick troop shifts," Cloud said softly. "If they test you, it'll be here. Few witnesses. Short cleanup."
"Comforting."
Stale wind pressed against Revenhart's cheek. It tasted wrong—like air that had been indoors a century. His magic pricked. Not a spell. Not materia. Attention.
There it is again. Watching without eyes.
"Hold," Revenhart murmured. Cloud froze without asking why. Narberal's staff tilted a hair—enough to turn a throat into a target if needed.
Silence stretched.
Tremor. The far lights flickered—once, twice—then steadied. Gravel rippled as if something had exhaled beneath it.
Narberal's voice was barely sound. "Three ahead. Two left alcove. One above, crossbeam. Fourth behind, late by nine breaths. Drones… two."
Cloud's palm settled on the Buster Sword. "Security or Turks?"
"Security," Revenhart said, listening to the rhythm of their nerves. "Their fear is louder."
"Good," Cloud muttered. "Turks make you regret living. Security only makes you late."
A scout drone drifted into the light—standard Shinra issue, lens winking green. Revenhart lifted two fingers. The drone bumped a phantom breeze—then another—and drifted into a web of cable as if wires were pillows. The lens crackled, went blind. The second drone, eager to help, flew face-first into a support beam.
"Show-off," Cloud said under his breath.
"Economy of effort," Revenhart replied.
Boots scraped. Security stepped out—shields up, rifles low. Their sergeant spoke like a man reading instructions on a bomb.
"Hands up. On your knees."
Narberal smiled—almost. Revenhart didn't.
Cloud stayed flat. "We don't want trouble."
"Too late," the sergeant said. "Orders are orders."
"What orders?" Revenhart asked, genuinely curious.
"Bring the sorcerer in alive."
A beat.
Cloud flicked Revenhart a look: Told you.
Revenhart raised his hand slowly, palm outward—as if surrendering. The officers tensed—then sagged minutely as the air softened around them like a warm bath. [Calm Emotion]—a minor effect, draped over trained men like a blanket over a wolf. Aim wavered—not from fear, but from the sudden, unprofessional desire to relax.
"Don't," the sergeant hissed, feeling the scene slide. "Don't—"
Revenhart pinched the air. The floor beneath the front rank's boots turned to glass—slick, skinned with a frost no eye would catch. Two shields skidded. Knees met steel. Intentions reconsidered their career paths.
Cloud took two precise steps—clang—clang—and he was through, hilt-smacking helmets, kicking rifles aside, always nonlethal, always decisive. Narberal moved like a guillotine with manners. Staff tap there, palm flick here, and wrists forgot how to grip.
The sergeant raised a sidearm—classic mistake. Revenhart glanced. The gun sighed and decided to retire; its slide locked back with a cough. A whisper of [Grease] kissed the trigger. The sergeant stared at his traitor weapon like it had joined a different union.
"Stop," Revenhart said—quiet, weighted. The word fell into their bones like law remembering itself.
They stopped.
Cloud breathed once, twice, and released the sword. "Nonlethal. That's new for this city."
"I'm a tourist," Revenhart said dryly. "Souvenirs, not corpses."
A speaker crackled—old tunnel PA, dead for decades, suddenly remembering how to talk. A man's voice, amused, warm:
"Cute trick with the drones."
Cloud's expression flattened. "Turks."
"Reno," the voice went on, smug. "Pop quiz, part two. Don't worry—Security brought the wrong pencils."
A high whine spooled up—heavier than drones, lighter than trains.
"Stun mechs," Cloud said.
"Back," Revenhart murmured.
Narberal stepped forward, eyes bright with joy you weren't supposed to see in civilized places. "Finally."
Two tripods rolled in—carapace faces, hazard stripes painted by someone who loved irony. Lightning spidered across their prongs.
Revenhart drew a small, private circle. The air pushed outward—polite, firm. The lead mech's friend-or-foe sensors met [Null Trace] and decided the world was a rumor. It pivoted, confused, and discharged into its partner with the civic-minded efficiency of an employee review. Ozone snapped; the second stuttered.
Cloud moved—three motions, one answer. He cut a power coupling like he'd been born to insult machinery. Narberal flicked two fingers; black motes crawled a leg, eroding servos into sand. The mech went to one knee to contemplate humility.
Silence returned, framed by honest breathing.
Reno sighed through the speaker. "Okay, you're fun. Boss says we're still observing." Click. Bored sensors resumed being bored.
Cloud sheathed by an inch. "They'll try something else later."
"Good," Revenhart said. "I dislike repetition."
Narberal's eyes still sparkled. "Permission to obliterate their headquarters."
"No." Revenhart clasped his hands. "We collect interest, not fury."
Cloud shook his head—barely. "You two are going to get me fired from mercenary."
[Seventh Heaven — Late Morning]
Tifa poured coffee that could brace a bridge. "You're taking the long way round to staying out of trouble."
Cloud accepted his cup. "Turks made contact—by speaker. No face."
"Which means tests, not arrests," Tifa said. "For now."
Barret loomed, scowl abundant. "I don't like ghosts in my tunnels. I like the kind that go boom."
Revenhart sipped water like compromise. "They want to measure me. We gave them a ruler they don't understand."
Jessie thumped a crate closed, eyes bright. "And you made drones cuddle power lines. Ten out of ten, would watch again."
"Please don't encourage him," Tifa muttered.
Narberal, serene: "I require no encouragement."
Cloud's gaze lingered on Revenhart. "They'll escalate."
"Yes." Revenhart filed the thought neatly. Escalation is a language. I will be fluent.
The air tasted green for a heartbeat—faint, vegetal, attentive.
Listening again, are you?
A ripple brushed the edge of his thoughts like a curtain lifted by a hand that wasn't there.
Foreign stone. The not-voice felt… amused.
A river with teeth, he thought back.
Silence, the shape of a smile, withdrew.
Tifa squinted. "You spaced out."
"I was deciding not to cause a minor earthquake."
Jessie perked. "Schedule it for later? I have lighting plans."
"Jess," Biggs sighed. "Boundaries."
[Shinra HQ — Board Floor]
Heidegger's laugh was a brass tuba falling down stairs. "Security says they were gentle and he still made 'em sit like puppies."
Scarlet's smile cut. "Send him to me. I'll find his settings."
Reeve shuffled reports. "We poke him, he doesn't break how we planned, so we poke harder. Sensible."
Tseng's voice carried from a wall screen. "Observation continues. He prefers minimal force. He can be baited, but he wastes nothing."
Hojo's glasses caught sterile light. "The Lifestream shies from him yet tolerates him. An anomaly coexisting with the patient. Fascinating."
Palmer raised a hand half-heartedly. "Do we… ask him about rockets?"
Heidegger stared. "What."
"Just… wondering."
Scarlet stretched. "If he won't come, we lure. Dangle something… someone."
Reeve's jaw hardened. "Gainsborough is not bait."
Scarlet's eyes glittered. "Then perhaps we dangle Strife."
Tseng: "We won't authorize overt extraction while the board disagrees. For now—small pressures."
Heidegger grunted. "Make him trip."
[Rail Spur — Afternoon Scout]
Cloud led them along a disused spur hugging Sector 7 like a belt. Kids used it as a secret path; Shinra used it as a reason to nail cameras to bad angles. Most cameras were older than the kids.
"Why are we practicing collateral avoidance?" Revenhart asked, stepping over a nest of cables the way a man steps over an argument.
"Because when you finally cut something in half," Cloud said, "it'll be obvious you tried not to."
Revenhart's mouth tipped. "Your ethics are very presentable."
They reached a service alcove overlooking scaffolds and catwalks. Midgar groaned under its own weight like a sleeping beast with bad dreams.
Cloud jerked his chin. "Security anchor point. If trouble starts, it starts there."
"Then we make trouble enjoy a scenic detour," Revenhart said. He traced three sigils beneath the rail—small, tidy misdirections. Footsteps would echo the wrong way. Radios would whisper bad directions. Shortest paths would seem full of stairs that never existed.
Narberal watched, approving. "Elegant."
"It's rude to be obvious," Revenhart murmured.
The temperature dropped three degrees. Hair didn't rise—he'd trained his body to stop performing—but his mind noticed.
A weight pressed the Lifestream down and forward, as if a giant hand leaned on a table.
Cloud's hand tightened on his sword. "You feel that?"
"Yes."
The world dimmed—not to the eye, but in the part of knowing that measures exits. The green hum sharpened into a chord with a knife in it.
And then—
—a presence brushed Revenhart's mind.
It did not knock. It simply was, where existence felt like trespass.
Not words. Not even the planet's impression-chords.
Cold interest. Old. Certain.
Revenhart's thoughts reflexively arranged into a fortress—runes, walls, the old mental architecture of a player who had needed to keep secrets from gods and guildmates.
The presence drifted along the wall and found no door.
An image pushed through, not gifted but understood: silver hair flowing in unmoving air. A blade too long to be ridiculous. Cat-green eyes that never blinked because nothing had earned the right.
Cloud's breath went thin. He wasn't looking at anything—and exactly at it. "Sephiroth," he said, the word a cut.
The pressure receded a fraction. Not gone. Not gone.
Revenhart did not let his thoughts stumble. You smelled the shard in the river and came to see if it cuts.
He shaped a thought carefully, a greeting to a sovereign without bowing. Seen.
Silence answered—better than interest; worse than indifference.
The weight lifted—as if a finger left a page.
Cloud exhaled. "He's not here."
"No," Revenhart said, easing his inner fortress by degrees. "But he knows I am."
Cloud's jaw flexed. "Then he'll come."
"Yes."
Narberal, perfectly calm: "Would you like me to remove him?"
"Eventually," Revenhart said. "For now, let's not start a holy war with a ghost."
[Sector 5 — A Quiet Thread]
On a church's broken threshold, Aerith knelt and listened to dirt as if it could answer.
The song dipped—then swelled—like laughter from a room she hadn't entered. A foreign note tangled the melody, and through it, a shadow like moon-silver on water.
"Be careful," she whispered to the air, not sure which you she meant.
The flowers rustled as if they agreed.
[Turks — Wiretap Evening]
Reno sprawled across a duct like it owed him rent. "So. He spooks Security, teaches drones to hug girders, and makes the air feel like church when the priest walks in."
Rude: "Sephiroth noticed him."
Reno stopped tapping his EMR. "That's new."
Tseng's voice in their ears stayed even. "It changes nothing. Watch. No contact. If he leans toward threat, close the door before he realizes there is a door."
Reno grinned—carefully. "You got it, boss."
He watched the bar's door breathe light and shadow. Revenhart moved like a secret. Eyes slid off him like rain off good leather—unless he wanted to be seen. Reno respected that. Men like that didn't die easy; they made decisions that got other men's pensions discussed.
"Let's hope he's bored easily," Reno said to the evening. "Bored people don't burn cities."
[Seventh Heaven — Night Again]
The bar exhaled its last customer. Tifa flipped chairs onto tables. Biggs and Jessie argued about whether a fuse could be a character flaw. Barret counted ammo and called it accounting.
Cloud took the upstairs shift on the pretense of not sleeping. Revenhart returned to his window and its honest lie of a sky.
Narberal stood at his shoulder, silent. The old boards kept her footfalls out of history.
"You're quieter," she said eventually.
"I met a man without meeting him."
"Do I remove him?"
"Not yet."
She tilted her head. "He is like you," she said. Then, precise: "Not like you. Like a mirror in a dark room."
A mirror that reflects only what it wants you to think you are.
"I need leverage," he said. "Information. Allies. Places to turn my weight."
Narberal's gaze softened by a molecule. "You have me."
"Always."
The reactor pulse painted the room green, faint and patient. The planet's breath brushed his thoughts—cautious, curious, grudgingly not hostile.
We are noticed by gods and men, he thought mildly. Try not to trip over both at once.
Something tapped the glass. He looked down.
A single silver filament—hair? impossible—rested on the exterior sill, caught by nothing, moving in air that didn't move. He reached out. It dissolved like frost when warm breath finds it.
"Cute," he murmured.
Cloud appeared in the doorway, a shadow remembering it had a body. "Something wrong?"
"Someone left a calling card," Revenhart said.
Cloud's knuckles tightened. "Then he really was here."
"Or he wanted us to think so."
"Same result."
Tifa lifted a hand from the hall in a half-wave. "Try not to fight legends in the dining room."
"I prefer the kitchen," Revenhart said.
Jessie called up from the stairs, "If you are fighting legends, warn me—I need better lighting."
Barret: "Y'all better fight legends outside."
They smiled—small, real, not safer.
Boredom is not on the table, Revenhart told himself. Good. I work best when someone decides I'm a problem worth solving.
He extinguished the lamp. False night settled like a blanket that never warmed anyone. Somewhere above, a man in a suit planned a plan. Far away, a man with a very long sword decided to wait.
And deep below, the planet breathed in, held, and did not exhale.