[KH/FF] Treachery of Fate: Imperfect Imposter

Chapter 47

You blinked, opening your eyes.

It had been a long time since the mission.

...Had it?

You sat up, confused, with your last memories being the assassination you had done for the Turks in the Midgar slums. You looked at yourself momentarily, at your hands, legs, and touched your face: everything was there, but something felt off. You realized too, you were still in your mission uniform—the pink lolita dress—and it was covered in blood, ripped, and even dampened from the last battle you had in it against a—now dead—Hyugo Valentino. Yet, your mind seemed hazy, and even light, and you remembered finishing the job, but not the ride home.

Was there even one?

You were in a well-lit room, or rather, it seemed to be. Three walls, the ceiling and the floor were dark green, and felt metallic, with wiring embedded into the surfaces themselves, as if they were all part of one microchip block, held together by more concise wiring. Electrical currents ran through them, ones that didn't harm you, but still made the whizzing, mechanical noises as they moved. As you glanced over to the fourth wall, you noticed it was different; getting up from your position—as you were apparently, laying down before awaking here—you touched the wall, finding it was glass. It was too dark outside to see where this was, but you made out the frames of furniture pieces against the wall, clothes on the floor, on the other side, making you guess it was a room.

However, something about it seemed odd to you. You, entrapped inside this cubical, seemed smaller than the object on the other side of the glass. The furniture pieces, were unnecessarily large, and you momentarily thought you were inside a fun house instead. Yet, tapping on the glass, the noise echoed, and in response, the electrical currents of the wiring began to roar louder, buzzing at a more constant rate until becoming a full, non-stop vibration. The noise shook the entire cubicle you were inside, and you groaned, voice drained out by the it as you covered your ears and shut your eyes in pain.

The noise slowly started to die down in its volume, and lowered once again to a small murmur of whizzing from the electrical currents. However, the glass in front of you had changed, and as you opened your eyes, you came face to face with a background, fully lit, and white. You reached forward, in an attempt to touch the screen, when a slight increase in the whizzing sounds once again increased, and bracing yourself for another outburst from it, you turned to the source, watching as the electrical currents fizzed and popped out of the wiring, eventually flashing into an outline of a person.

You sighed in relief, jogging over to the person," Reno!"

The redhead sat up, revealing he had landed in a slumped position on the ground, looking around as he then stood, and turned to you, curiously. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing," you said, furrowing your eyebrows. You gestured to the walls, and the now white one which continued to glow," What...is all this?"

"I..." He thought for a moment, narrowing his eyes. As he did, you noticed he was in the attire of the guards from the earlier mission, and his hair was disheveled, a cut on both cheekbones. "Um...I don't exactly know how to tell you this but...this is my mind."

"WHAT!?" you gasped, eyes widening in shock. "B-But how!? I...WE, were just in Midgar! I-I didn't do anything to you I—"

"Shh, shh," Reno smirked, amused, as he waved you off, and began taking steps to the white wall. "I didn't think something like this could happen," he murmured, placing a hand on it, making you realize that it was a screen.

As Reno did so, multiple smaller screens flashed, as if security cameras. When taking a closer look, you were able to recognize some of them: overhearing Terra forcing herself on Kei, defending you within the Shinra building a few days ago, and even the last mission, as he came in with intent on helping you, instead getting thrown into one of the materia holds. It dawned on you as another thing as you looked up, seeing events as far back as before last summer, and you realized: these were Reno's memories.