LIFE AFTER AYTO.

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love's like a barbed-wire fence.

Comments

for ash!

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[The game's over, and the portals across dimensions open up between all of its contestants. Lucky for Rufus, who had expected to keep a few connections live across worlds -- but none so important to him as Ash. He would discard all the rest for him. Makes sure that he's the first to grace Shinra's halls.

Or rather, his office.

It's large and sprawling, with glass windows couched behind an intimidating desk to allow for view of Midgar behind him. At night, it's quite a sight, a darkened city of steel looming yet shining in the ethereal green mako-light. Pulsing, like a thing alive. Rufus sits at the desk that was once his father's (it's his, now), legs crossed and waiting. And when his guest finally arrives, he stands with a grin spreading across his face, blue eyes bright.]

You made me wait.

[He's clearly glad to see him.]

for miss blaze

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[A little more than two years has passed since he sought out his perfect match in a game well beyond the borders of time, space, and the very planet he stands on. And after he had returned, it had been like no time had passed at all. Rufus had deigned to tell his Turks about the experience once, but only once — after they looked at him with varying shades of skepticism (Reno even had the audacity to ask if he was feeling alright, boss?), he decided ease their concerns by never mentioning it a second time. When the inter-dimensional portals did not open up as expected, when his phone could not contact his new set of connections as promised, he thought he had, maybe, dreamt it. Maybe they were right. A fever dream, whipped up from Gaia’s own discontent — or something. It had been difficult to know. So much had happened then.

So much has happened, since.

Midgar is now a shell of its former glory. Its skeletal, steel framework still stands, but so much in-between had crumbled and fallen during the meteorfall and Holy rising up to meet it. Two incomprehensible forces colliding barely above the Planet’s stratosphere; the destruction was inevitable. Thorough. His newly-acquired empire had crumbled, just like that.

So many had lost their lives in the chaos, and Rufus had nearly been one of them. When he had pulled himself from the rubble, freeing himself from detritus of HQ bearing down on him, he saw Midgar in a new light — ugly, shattered, and exposed. For all of Shinra’s power, in the end, it accounted for nothing. It was not him or his own who had put a stop to Sephiroth. And when the world was ravaged by disease not soon after, and Rufus had become ill and weak, he knew then: things had changed for good.

And his perspective shifted accordingly. Maybe for the sake of his pride, maybe still a little self-serving, but he had to adapt; the world swept away the old Shinra establishment with a furious rage. It left him with a clean state, and he would rebuild his reputation brick by brick if he had to. His legacy, well and truly crafted by his own hands and none other.

Midgar would be rebuilt. The people, aided in ways they could never expect from Shinra before. It would be a project that stretched well into his lifetime, but he took it on with what fervor he could. With what time he could carve out of the day. Needless to say, Rufus keeps a busy schedule between the ruins of the once-great city and Edge, the one built from its remains.

One day, he’s summoned down to the first floor of where he keeps headquarters, a clffside medical facility which has been quaintly dubbed The Shinra Cabin. Rufus stubbornly takes the stairs, but no one wastes their breath in telling him otherwise these days. He’s no longer wheelchair bound; though he needs the aid of a cane to walk particularly long or cumbersome distances, his strength will eventually return fully — and faster, if he pushes himself. And he does.

When he arrives at the entrance, he sees the straight-backed form of Rude standing at attention, expressionless as ever and questioning someone beside him. This someone is a woman: tall, built, with a shock of pink hair. Recognition barrels into him, stilling him in his spot. Like a piece of the past, risen from the dead, or a so-called figment of a dream existing in the waking world.]

Blaze?