Sector 0. Shinra Headquarters. Floor 64.
The doors to the Executive penthouse hissed open. Ryu strolled in. He smelled like ozone, sweat, and Wutai dust.
A silver platter sat on the mahogany desk. Next to it, Scarlet.
She wore a crimson dress that cost more than a small town. Her arms were crossed. Her stiletto tapped against the glass floor. The rhythmic clack, clack, clack echoed in the massive room.
"You're late," she said. Her voice was ice.
Ryu grinned. He pointed at the platter. "Is that the Wagyu?"
Scarlet's icy facade broke. A dangerous, possessive heat filled her eyes. She uncrossed her arms, grabbing a silver dome and lifting it. Steam rose. The scent of perfectly seared A5 Midgar beef filled the room.
"Three pounds," Scarlet murmured, stepping closer. She reached out, her manicured fingers brushing a speck of ash from his cheek. "I had the chef prepare it the moment your chopper breached Sector 4 airspace. But you didn't take the chopper, did you, Ryu? You flew."
"Helicopters are slow," Ryu shrugged, already reaching for the meat with his bare hands.
Scarlet slapped his hand away. "Use a fork, you savage."
She picked up a silver fork, sliced a perfectly tender piece of beef, and held it to his mouth. Ryu didn't argue. He leaned in and chewed.
His eyes widened. Stars quite literally seemed to sparkle around his head.
"This is amazing!" Ryu cheered, swallowing without chewing much. "The fat! The juice! Wutai rations taste like cardboard compared to this!"
Scarlet smiled. It was a terrifying smile. It wasn't the smile of a sister; it was the smile of a dragon hoarding treasure. She fed him another bite.
"You belong here, Ryu," she whispered, her voice a velvety purr. "With me. Above the dirt. Above the war. Don't go running off with that puppy Zack or that silver-haired freak Sephiroth. They are Shinra's tools. You are mine."
Ryu blinks, his mouth full of steak. Why is she looking at me like I'm a rare Materia?
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, Scarlet," Ryu mumbled, taking the fork from her and devouring the rest of the steak in three seconds flat. The silver plate clattered. He burped loudly.
Scarlet's eye twitched. "Charming."
"I'm going for a walk," Ryu announced, stretching his arms above his head. His spine popped. "The air up here is too clean. It makes me sleepy."
"A walk?" Scarlet's hand snapped out, gripping his wrist with surprising strength. "Where? The President wants a debriefing on your combat data from Tamblin Fort. Hojo has been requisitioning your blood samples again."
Ryu's ki flared, just a fraction. A millimeter of white aura pushed Scarlet's hand back without hurting her.
"Tell Hojo if he comes near me with a needle, I'll Kamehameha his lab into the ocean," Ryu said cheerfully. "And tell the President I'm off the clock. See ya!"
Ryu ran toward the floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass window.
"Ryu! Wait! The door is—!"
CRASH.
Glass rained down like diamonds. Ryu didn't stop. He vaulted out of the sixty-fourth floor, plummeting into the smog-choked sky of Midgar.
Scarlet rushed to the broken window, the wind whipping her fiery hair. She looked down at the tiny speck vanishing into the gloom. Her heart raced.
"Little idiot," she hissed, a heavy blush spreading across her cheeks. "I'll have to have the Turks track him. He can't be unsupervised."
The wind roared. The neon lights of the upper plates blurred into a streak of colors.
Ryu loved falling. It was the closest thing to flying freely he could manage right now. He navigated the massive steel beams of the city's underbelly, bouncing from a support strut to a maintenance pipeline.
He wasn't aiming for anywhere specific. He just let his instincts guide him.
Down. Past the factories. Past the train tracks. Down into the shadows where the sun never reached.
Sector 5 Slums.
He spotted a hole in a rusted corrugated roof. An old church. It looked abandoned.
"Perfect landing spot," he muttered.
He flipped mid-air, adjusting his trajectory. He didn't slow down.
CRASH.
Wood splintered. Dust exploded. Ryu hit the ground like a mortar shell, carving a small crater into the wooden floorboards.
"Nailed it," he grinned, dusting off his black gi.
"Ouch!" a voice squeaked.
Ryu froze. He turned his head.
Through the settling dust, a sliver of sunlight pierced the broken roof. It illuminated a patch of green. Actual, living green. A bed of yellow flowers.
Sitting in the middle of the flowers, clutching a watering can and looking absolutely terrified, was a girl.
She looked about his age. Twelve. She wore a simple pink dress and had warm, chestnut hair tied with a pink ribbon. Her emerald eyes were wide, staring at the spiky-haired boy who had just fallen from the sky.
Aerith Gainsborough.
Ryu stepped out of the crater. He looked at the flowers. Then he looked at her.
"Whoa," Ryu said.
Aerith blushed. She pulled her knees to her chest. Nobody had ever dropped through her roof before. Was he an angel? A SOLDIER?
"Y-You ruined my flowers," she stammered, trying to sound brave.
"Can you eat them?" Ryu asked instantly.
Aerith's romantic internal monologue screeches to a halt. Eat them?!
"No!" Aerith protested, standing up. She brushed dirt from her dress. "They're for looking at! And selling! You can't just fall from the sky and ask if you can eat my flowers!"
Ryu scratched the back of his head, laughing. "My bad! I'm Ryu. I was just out for a walk and slipped."
"You slipped. From the upper plate." Aerith raised an eyebrow. She had spent her whole life hiding from Shinra, hiding from the world. But this boy... he didn't feel like Midgar. He didn't feel like Mako.
The Lifestream whispered constantly in Aerith's ears. It was a chaotic symphony of voices, memories, and pain. But when she looked at Ryu, the voices went quiet. He was a sun. A blazing, pure sphere of energy that completely drowned out the planet's sorrow.
She took a step closer, mesmerized.
"I'm Aerith," she said softly.
"Nice to meet ya, Aerith!" Ryu beamed. He crouched down, poking one of the yellow petals. "So if you can't eat them, what do they do? Do they shoot energy? Explode?"
Aerith giggled. The sound was bright and musical in the gloomy church. "No, Ryu. They just look pretty. And they smell nice."
"Boring," Ryu stated bluntly.
Before Aerith could pretend to be offended, a low, guttural growl echoed from the shadows of the church entrance.
The heavy wooden doors splintered inward.
A monster dragged itself into the sanctuary. It was a Hedgehog Pie, but heavily mutated. It was the size of a minivan, covered in jagged, toxic-looking purple quills. Mako dripped from its jaws, hissing as it hit the wooden floor.
"A rogue experiment," Ryu noted, his eyes narrowing. "Hojo must have dumped his trash down here again."
Aerith gasped, stepping back. "It's infected! The Lifestream inside it is screaming..."
The beast locked its glowing red eyes on Aerith. It smelled the Ancient blood. It smelled pure energy. It roared, launching itself forward with terrifying speed, jaws snapping.
Aerith threw her arms up, bracing for the end.
It never came.
A gust of wind nearly knocked her over.
BAM.
Ryu was there. He stood directly between Aerith and the massive monster. He had caught the beast's snout with one hand.
The monster strained, its claws tearing up the floorboards, trying to push forward.
Ryu's feet didn't budge an inch. He yawned.
"Hey, Aerith," Ryu said, not looking back. "If I beat this thing, do you know anywhere good to eat down here?"
Aerith stares at his broad back, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest like a drum. He's holding off a monster... and he wants a date?!
"I... um... there's a place in Wall Market!" Aerith blurted out, her face completely red. "But it's dangerous!"
"Dangerous is fine. I like dangerous."
Ryu tightened his grip on the monster's snout. His aura flared, a crisp white light illuminating the dim church. The monster whimpered, suddenly realizing it had attacked the apex predator.
"Get out of her garden," Ryu commanded.
He pulled his right fist back. He didn't use a technique. Just raw, Saiyan strength.
He punched the monster square in the forehead.
The shockwave shattered the remaining stained glass windows. The massive beast was launched backward like a cannonball, flying out the front doors and skidding across the dirt of Sector 5 until it hit a junk pile, completely unconscious.
Silence returned to the church, save for the gentle flutter of falling dust.
Ryu turned around, rubbing his knuckles. "Man, their skulls are thick. So, Wall Market?"
Aerith stared at him. Her green eyes were wide. She felt a strange, fluttering sensation in her stomach. The Cetra voices in her head were screaming at her to run, that this boy was a dangerous anomaly, a being not born of Gaia.
But she didn't care. He was pure. He was strong. And he had just protected her without a second thought.
"You're... you're amazing," Aerith breathed, stepping toward him. She didn't have her usual guarded distance. She reached out, her hands resting lightly on his chest. His muscles felt like carved iron beneath the gi.
"Yeah, I train a lot," Ryu nodded, completely oblivious to the romantic tension. "Gotta get stronger. I have to surpass the gods one day."
"The gods?" Aerith smiled, a genuine, warm smile. "You really are strange. But I like strange."
She leaned in closer. Her face was inches from his.
"Hey, Aerith?"
"Yes, Ryu?" she whispered.
"Are you gonna show me the food or what? My stomach is doing the angry rumble again."
Aerith blinked. The tension shattered. She burst into a fit of laughter, shaking her head.
"You really are impossible," she giggled, grabbing his hand. "Come on. I'll take you to the Sector 5 noodle cart. But you're paying."
"Deal! I'll just put it on Scarlet's tab!" Ryu cheered.
As the two children walked out of the ruined church, hand in hand, they were entirely unaware of the figure watching them from the rafters.
A man in a sharp, dark blue suit adjusted his earpiece. Tseng of the Turks.
"This is Tseng," he spoke quietly into his lapel. "Target Aerith is secure. However... an anomaly has made contact with her."
"Identify," Rufus Shinra's voice crackled back.
"It's the Executive Director's ward. Ryu," Tseng reported, his dark eyes tracking the boy's spiky hair. "He just dispatched a Class-B mutation with a single physical strike. No Materia. No Mako enhancement detected."
"Keep observing," Rufus ordered. "Do not engage. If Scarlet finds out we touched her pet, it will cause a political nightmare inside the company."
"Understood."
Tseng vanished into the shadows.
Wall Market was a neon-lit cesspool of vice, crime, and incredible street food.
Ryu was in heaven.
"Twelve skewers of chicken! Eight bowls of ramen! And... what is this?" Ryu pointed at a greasy, unidentifiable meat stick.
"Rat, probably," Aerith said cheerfully, sitting on a crate next to him.
"I'll take five!" Ryu tossed a handful of Gil onto the vendor's counter. He had stolen it from Scarlet's purse before jumping out the window.
Aerith watched him eat. She had never seen anyone eat with such ferocity. It was almost hypnotic.
"So, where are you from, Ryu?" Aerith asked, kicking her legs. "You don't talk like someone from Midgar."
"A planet far away," Ryu said between bites. "Planet Vegeta. But it blew up. So I came here in a spaceship."
He said it so casually, like he was explaining a bus ride.
Aerith tilts her head, utterly confused. He's a space alien? Wait, why do I believe him?
"A spaceship," Aerith repeated. "Like... the Shinra rockets?"
"Nah, a round pod. It crashed a long time ago. Scarlet found me." Ryu swallowed a chicken skewer whole, stick and all. He coughed. "Oops."
"Scarlet. The Shinra Executive." Aerith's tone darkened slightly. She knew what Shinra did to people. What they did to her mother. "Is she... mean to you?"
"Mean? No way," Ryu laughed. "She's great! She gives me food, a place to train, and buys me heavy clothes. Sometimes she gets a little weird and says she'll destroy the world if I leave her, but I think that's just a joke. Probably."
Aerith frowned. Her feminine intuition, sharpened by the Lifestream, flared. That woman is dangerous. She's trying to trap him.
Aerith looked at Ryu's innocent, grinning face. He was strong enough to punch out monsters, but he clearly didn't understand the darkness of the people around him.
"Well," Aerith said softly, reaching over to wipe a drop of broth from his chin. "If you ever get tired of Shinra Tower... you can come back to the church. I don't have fancy steaks, but I can grow vegetables."
Ryu stopped eating. He looked at her. Really looked at her.
Her green eyes were bright, filled with a gentle, stubborn strength. She wasn't a fighter. She couldn't throw a ki blast. But her spirit was massive.
"Vegetables are good for training," Ryu nodded seriously. "I'll come back. That's a promise."
Aerith smiled, a warm flush returning to her cheeks. "It's a promise, then."
"Hey! You brats!"
A harsh voice interrupted them.
Three men stepped out of a nearby alley. They wore tacky leather vests and had terrible haircuts. Don Corneo's lackeys.
"That's a lot of Gil you're throwing around for a kid," the lead thug sneered, pulling a butterfly knife and flipping it open. "And that's a pretty girl. The Don likes pretty girls. Hand over the money and the girl, and maybe we won't cut you."
Ryu sighed. He set down his bowl of ramen.
"Hold my food," Ryu told Aerith.
He stood up, turning to face the thugs. He didn't take a stance. He just let his arms hang by his sides.
"You guys," Ryu said, his tone shifting from playful to slightly annoyed. "You're interrupting my dinner. That's a crime on my planet."
"Your planet?" The thug laughed. "What are you, crazy? Get him!"
The three men rushed forward.
Smack. Thud. Crunch.
It took exactly 1.2 seconds.
Ryu blurred. He kicked the first man in the stomach, sending him flying into a dumpster. He backhanded the second man, spinning him like a top before he collapsed. The leader with the knife blinked, suddenly realizing he was alone.
Ryu was standing an inch from the leader's face.
"Boo," Ryu said.
The leader shrieked, dropping the knife and sprinting down the alleyway, screaming for his mother.
Ryu picked his ear, looking bored. "Weak. Not even worth a warm-up."
He turned back to Aerith, his bright smile instantly returning. "Okay, back to the ramen!"
Aerith held his bowl, her eyes sparkling. He was reckless. He was loud. He ate too much.
But as she watched him slurp his noodles under the flickering neon lights of the Slums, Aerith made a quiet decision.
Shinra wasn't going to keep him.
She was going to make sure of it.
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