Desha's Reno of the Turks Fan Fiction

Chapter 51: Consequences

Most people, upon hearing something that sounds suspiciously like gunshots, would make a conscious effect to remove themselves from the general vicinity of said sound. Very few would opt to run towards potential danger. Turks, however, are not “most people”.

Tseng had been tempted to dismiss it as the airship’s machinery, at first, but training and prior experience wouldn’t allow for such an assumption to be made, particularly not with the vice president still unaccounted for. As he left the command deck and found himself passing concerned and confused crew members, it became apparent that it wouldn’t have been a valid assumption to begin with.

“TSENG!”

Rufus’ voice. He quickened his pace, weapon already drawn, and took the stairs to the lowest deck of the ship where the engines resided. There was a definite note of fear in the younger man’s summons, and he wanted to answer him, but Tseng couldn’t afford to give his own position away. Either Reno had opened fire on an unknown assailant… or someone had opened fire on him. Whatever the case, he had no way to confirm if the attacker had been neutralized, and if they were still on the loose, he wasn’t about to surrender the element of surprise.

Tseng rounded a corner and had to immediately sidestep the frantic figure that stumbled towards him as it exited the engine room. Rufus yelped in surprise, backing away from him for a brief moment before recognition dawned.

“Are you injured?” Tseng asked, voice pitched low in case their intruder was still nearby. Rufus shook his head, struggling to find his voice.

“In there…” the young executive finally managed to stammer, pointing towards the room he’d just vacated.

“Stay here,” the Turk lieutenant replied, slipping past him. He didn’t like leaving him unattended, but if the assailant was still in the engine room, the corridors were marginally safer than keeping the young man with him. He crept past the machinery, using it for cover until he could get eyes on his target.

He needn’t have bothered. At the far end of the room, two figures lay on the floor. His eyes immediately went to the rapidly expanding pool of blood beneath one of them.

“Reno…” he breathed, kneeling beside the fallen Turk. His fingers sought out the vein in his neck, probing for a pulse. It was sluggish, but it was there. The other figure twitched slightly in his peripheral vision, and Tseng instinctively leveled his gun at her, eyes narrowed.

She was wearing a Turk uniform, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one… but she was certainly not one of theirs. The young woman was Wutaiian – younger than he was, but probably not by much. Her long hair had been bleached to a platinum blonde – a recent fad, apparently, as Tseng had seen a number of young women at the festival sporting similarly colored hair – and tied back in a neat braid. Her body spasmed again in what Tseng quickly recognized as the aftereffects of contact with an EMR on a fairly high setting. And indeed, Reno’s EMR was on the floor near where he’d fallen.

The impostor Turk likely wouldn’t be capable of going anywhere for awhile yet, but it was unwise to take any chances. He retrieved her gun from the floor, and hurriedly secured her hands behind her back with a pair of handcuffs, before turning his full attention on his injured protege.

His skin was ashen… likely from blood loss, given how much of it seemed to be coating the metal floor. Tseng tapped the redhead’s cheek with the palm of his hand, calling his name, in an effort to bring him around, but Reno only managed a somewhat groggy moan and a brief flutter of his eyelids before passing out again.

Tseng had to forcibly push the fear and the anger and the panic to the back of his mind. There was no time to allow emotion to take over. He needed to get control of the bleeding. Now.

The redhead’s shirt yielded easily to him, buttons flying off in several directions as he unceremoniously yanked it open in search of the wound, and found two. One bulled had hit him in the left side. A clean shot – through and through – painful, certainly, and dangerous if ignored for too long, but probably not immediately life-threatening. The other, however…

The entry point was between two ribs on the right side of his chest. Tseng lifted the younger Turk enough to slide a hand beneath him, probing for the second exit wound, but felt nothing. He frowned, and lowered him back to the floor, pressing a hand against the hole in his chest and applying pressure. The location of the injury was concerning enough, in and of itself… but if the bullet was still inside, Leviathan only knew how much damage had been done. Gunshots with no exit wound were inherently more dangerous than ones that passed through cleanly. If a bullet went in, but didn’t come out, it often meant that it had hit something hard enough to stop it… or to redirect it.

He tried not to think too hard about that possibility. Instead he focused on the more immediate problem. Getting help.

“Sir!” Tseng called out, casting a look over his shoulder towards the door. Rufus, in spite of being instructed to stay where he was, had crept close enough to peer inside. He jumped when Tseng addressed him, but a moment later recovered enough to cautiously make his way back over to the bloody scene. As one hand was presently employed in an effort to prevent his protege from bleeding out, Tseng reached into his jacket with his only free hand, and extracted his PHS. He quickly selected Veld’s contact. As he waited for his mentor to pick up, he turned back to Rufus. “Were there any others?”

Rufus’ eyes flickered first to the impostor and then to Reno, where they remained, staring.

“Rufus!”

“I… I don’t know,” he said, shaking himself from his daze, “I only saw her.”

Tseng nodded.

“I need you to go to the command deck. Inform the captain of what has happened. Have him lock down and search the ship. Take her weapon with you… just in case.”

The vice president bent down and somewhat shakily reached for the gun sitting on the floor near Tseng’s knee, before snatching it up and all but running for the exit.

“Veld here,” the senior Turk finally answered.

“Sir… We have a situation…” Tseng stated, his voice wavering slightly as he glanced down at his protege’s unconscious form.

---

Given that the Highwind had yet to be properly searched, Veld ultimately decided that the President was safer where he was for the time being. Rather than interrupt the tour, Kai and Rude had been ordered to return to the airship and assist. As they approached, they spotted Rufus Shinra on the observation deck… He quickly vanished upon seeing them.

“… He waiting for us, you think?” Rude asked.

“Could be. He does occasionally do what Tseng tells him to, after all. Maybe he had him watching so he could tell him when we got here,” Kai replied with a shrug.

Rude frowned. Details on what had happened, exactly, had been a bit sparse. All he knew for sure was that there had been an intruder on board, and that Reno had been wounded in the process of apprehending her. They two Turks hurried up the gangway, only to be confronted by a sealed hatch. Locked down, apparently. Rude swiped his ID card through the reader, granting them access.

As they entered, Tseng emerged from a passage off to their left, Rufus trailing close behind him. Rude’s eyes widened behind his sunglasses.

The Turk lieutenant was covered in blood.

“Tseng? W-what the hell?! Are you okay?!” Kai stammered, stopping short upon seeing him.

“It’s not mine,” Tseng replied, and Rude felt a chill run down his spine.

“Sir…?” he queried, not quite able to voice the question he wanted… needed… to ask.

“Reno is… stable,” said the senior Turk, “But seriously injured, and in need of a proper medical facility. The ship’s medical officer is treating for him for the moment, but the sooner we deal with this situation, the sooner we can get him the care he needs… so let’s not waste time on pleasantries. We have one known intruder, secured in the the ship’s hold. A full, top to bottom search is currently underway to make sure she didn’t bring along any friends. Kai… find out who she is, why she’s here, and how she got access. She’s still recovering from a encounter with Reno’s EMR, but I’m sure you can manage to get something useful out of her.”

“Count on it,” Kai replied, and quickly departed to pay her new interrogation subject a visit.

“Rude… Take the vice president to his cabin, secure it, and stay there with him until the crew has determined the ship is clear. I’ll be assisting in the search.”

“Yes, sir…” Rude answered, eyeing the Shinra heir who, he noted, looked somewhat shell-shocked at the moment. He would have preferred to accompany the Turk lieutenant… if only so that he could ask him what in the name of Hades had happened… but now wasn’t the time. Tseng was right. This was no time for pleasantries. The Highwind wasn’t going anywhere without the President, and the President wasn’t going anywhere until the Highwind was completely secure.

Reno’s life depended on them doing their jobs swiftly and efficiently… and not getting distracted by the fact that one of their number had been hurt.

That in mind, Rude wordlessly guided the executive towards the passenger cabins, escorting him into the one designated for his personal use, and barred the door behind them.

---

It had taken far too long to cover the necessary ground… but Tseng had to be thorough. Just because he wanted nothing more than to get this Leviathan-forsaken ship in the air, didn’t give him leave to shirk his duties. The Turks’ first duty was to the Company, and he served the Turks. The fastest way to get Reno to a competent surgeon was to ensure that the Highwind was safe for the President… because until he was on board, the airship wasn’t going anywhere.

He had only just received word that the crew had swept the last section and passed that information along to Veld.

That done, he could finally take a moment to… process what had happened. Tseng leaned back against the wall of an empty corridor, and looked down at his hands. They were still covered in Reno’s blood… mostly dried, now, but still a deep red. His uniform was likewise stained, and he wished he’d thought to bring a change of clothes.

He was stuck with this reminder, however, until they returned to the capitol. Not that he needed one. He had a feeling that it would be a very long time before he was able to forget the sight of the redhead lying there on the floor, a pool of red spreading out underneath him as he’d begun to struggle for breath. By the time assistance had arrived in the form of the ship’s medical officer, there was blood staining Reno’s lips, as well, and Tseng could feel tiny air bubbles escaping from the bullet hole he was so desperately trying to plug with his own hands.

Tseng had been injured enough times himself to know what that meant. The bullet had torn through Reno’s lung. It was filling with blood, or perhaps simply collapsing, making it harder and harder for him to breath. He’d been in and out of consciousness while the medical officer had worked to stabilize him enough to move him. And once he had been moved, it quickly become apparent that the volume of the blood loss was going to become an issue.

Of course, there was blood on board for emergencies. Both the President’s and the Vice President’s type, neither of which matched Reno’s… because of course they wouldn’t. Tseng had never been more grateful to have been born a universal donor… though the process of having a not insignificant percentage of his own blood volume extracted to be infused into the redhead had delayed him in joining the security sweep.

Now, however, it was done. The Highwind was secure, Rufus was safe, and Veld was on his way back with the President and Lord Godo. They would be leaving shortly, and Reno would be alright. He would be. He was strong, and stubborn, and not about to let some evil little infiltrator in a knock-off Turk uniform take him down.

Tseng took a shuddering breath, and silently wiped away the wetness he suddenly realized was making its way down one cheek. He would not fall apart now. Reno was in good hands. His injuries were serious, but they could be repaired, and they would be back in the capitol soon where they would do just that.

He was not going to lose him, too. Not today.

It took him several minutes to fully compose himself, and by the time he managed it, the President, Lord Godo and his daughter, along with the rest of the team were making their way inside. Tseng quickly ducked out of sight. He was in no state, either emotionally or in terms of appearance, to greet them. He stood there, hidden from view, waiting for the VIPs to pass by on their way to the passenger cabins, before reporting to Veld.

“Sir…”

“Tseng…” Veld breathed, taking in his bloodstained uniform and shaking his head. “How is he?”

“Alive,” the Turk lieutenant replied. “And I would very much prefer to keep him that way.”

“I’ve already sent word to the pilot. We’ll be lifting off momentarily. What in Odin’s name happened?” the senior Turk demanded.

“I’m afraid I haven’t had time to piece together the entire series of events. Rufus, from what he was able to tell me, went to the lower decks to retrieve an item he’d dropped earlier in the day… where he was confronted by our intruder. She was dressed like one of us, and he initially mistook her for one of the rookies he’d not yet met. She was about to fire on him when Reno arrived and intervened. He took her down, but apparently not in time to avoid being shot himself.”

“Do we know who she is?”

Tseng shook his head. “I sent Kai down to find that out, along with just how she managed to breach our security. She hasn’t reported back yet.”

Veld frowned, but nodded. He took a step towards his protege, and placed a hand on either shoulder.

“And how are you?”

“I would be far better if we were closer to a full medical team,” he replied, a hint of the anger he felt towards the whole situation slipping through, and then sighed, “I… will be fine.”

“Here,” Veld said, handing him a key. “I have a clean uniform in my cabin. Get out of those clothes.” He managed a somewhat forced smile, “You would think that, by now, you’d have learned your lesson on that…”

“Yes, sir,” Tseng gratefully replied. He hadn’t relished the idea of spending the entire return trip covered in Reno’s blood, “Will you check on Rufus for me, sir? He was rather shaken by everything that’s happened. I left him in his cabin, with Rude.”

“Remy and I will deal with all of the VIPs,” the Turk leader added, “Once you’ve cleaned up, go see if Kai has made any progress, and then… see to your protege.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tseng made his way past the more luxurious passenger cabins to the smaller ones intended for lower level staff, unlocking the door to the one assigned to Veld and slipping inside. In short order, he’d stripped off his bloodstained clothing and changed into the spare uniform tucked into one of the cabinets that lined one wall.

It was decidedly ill-fitting. Veld was taller and broader across the chest than his protege was, and – though he would almost certainly deny it – had put on a pound or two around the waistline in recent years, as he spent more time managing the day to day minutia of the Turks than he did actively out in the field. Tseng immediately missed his perfectly tailored suit, that had been made to compliment his exact measurements. Over the years of his service to Shinra, it had become almost a second skin to him, and suddenly being without a uniform – or at least without his own uniform – inexplicably made an already terrible day even worse.

He glanced in a nearby mirror and did what he could to make himself presentable, but regardless of his efforts, it was plain that the uniform didn’t fit. Tseng sat down on the foot of the bed and pressed his hands to his face.

He’d very nearly lost Reno today. For that matter, until the redhead was safely in a hospital, the possibility that he still might continued to linger. And if Reno hadn’t been there, Rufus would almost certainly be the one fighting for his life, or worse. If Reno had hesitated… or if he wasn’t as predisposed towards occasionally shocking speed of movement as he was… it might have even been both of them.

Tseng sighed and shook his head. He’d allowed himself to get far too attached. To both of them. It was almost impossible to treat either young man objectively anymore, and though the nearly-paralyzing fear of losing one or both that had rendered him virtually useless for a time following the tragic death of his sister had been largely contained… he still struggled against it now and then. Especially on days like today.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to consider that attachment to be a mistake, even when he was well aware that most people would. It ultimately made him a more dedicated Turk. He would do whatever he had to to keep them from harm.

The unfortunate drawback to that, however, was the pain he felt when he failed. One day… hopefully still years from now… his responsibility would increase ten-fold. One day, he’d be responsible for not only the safety of his former First Rookie and a stubborn and occasionally rash executive… but for the entire team and the executive board of the Company. He had big shoes to fill… and a part of him worried that they would ultimately fit him as badly as Veld’s spare uniform.

Tseng sighed and stood up. He didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity right now. He still needed to check in with Kai before he could return to Reno’s side. That thought in mind, he left Veld’s cabin and hurried down to the lower levels of the ship once again, making his way to the forward hold where they were keeping their prisoner.

As he reached the deck he was looking for, Tseng suddenly found himself accosted by very a wide-eyed and concerned-looking Liam.

“Sir? Is… Reno going to be alright?” the rookie asked, “No one wants to tell us anything!”

The Turk lieutenant’s eyes briefly glanced over the young man’s shoulder, where he spotted both Sykes and Petra lingering in a nearby hallway… ostensibly on guard duty, though they seemed far more focused on their comrade’s conversation at the moment.

“He… is doing as well as can be expected,” Tseng replied, somewhat hesitant to make promises regarding the redhead’s continued health that he had no way of keeping. “We’ll be back in the capitol soon.”

It wasn’t really an answer. He knew it, and so did Liam… but it would have to suffice for the time being. He wasn’t clairvoyant. He couldn’t predict the future any more than the rookie could, no matter how much he might wish it possible. The rookie, somewhat unhappily, stepped aside and let him pass, and Tseng gave the other two-thirds of the trio a nod as he slipped into the cargo hold, pulling the hatch shut again behind him.

It was surprisingly quiet inside. Save for the hum of the Highwind’s engines, in fact, he heard nothing at all… which was, to put it mildly, unusual for an interrogation. Frowning, he found his way to the foremost part of the deck.

Kai was seated on the floor in front of the closed compartment they’d commandeered as a temporary holding cell for the intruder. Her knees were pulled up tight to her chest, head bowed and pressed against her clasped hands, eyed squeezed tightly shut.

“Kai?” Tseng asked, in alarm. His friend slowly raised her head, and he instinctively recoiled at the devastation he saw in her eyes.

“It’s all my fault…” she whispered.

---

Rufus folded his arms over his chest, glaring out one of the the small windows along the far side of his cabin. He huffed in annoyance and stalked across the room, planting himself in a chair and snatching a book from the side table, before reading all of two sentences and tossing it aside in favor of migrating back to his previous position.

“Don’t you ever say anything?!” he snapped, angrily, at the Turk seated by the door. Most of the Turks, at the very least, were capable of conversing. Even that blasted Remy could be coaxed into saying more than two words at a time. This one, though… this one said almost nothing.

“Yes, sir…” Rude replied, simply, and when it became clear that that was all he was going to get, Rufus scowled and returned his attention to the scenery on the other side of the ballistic glass.

They were very near the capitol now. The flight to the other end of the island had been a leisurely one. The return trip, on the other hand, was being conducted with urgency. And still, he was annoyed that they were not moving faster.

Why it annoyed him was anyone’s guess. He didn’t want the blasted Slum Rat to die, of course. It would be an utter waste of a good employee… One that the Company had already sunk a lot of funds into training. But why should he be so agitated? He didn’t even like the little street urchin.

… No. That wasn’t true.

Reno was irritating, uneducated, and bordered on uncivilized under even the best of circumstances. But he wasn’t… unlikable. True, Rufus could only tolerate him in small doses, but… there were times when the redhead’s company wasn’t wholly disagreeable. Occasionally, he even welcomed the diversion the Turk inevitably provided.

And even at his most obnoxious, Rufus would never have wished death on him.

Particularly in this instance. It never would have happened if he hadn’t insisted on going back for that Leviathan-be-damned offering pouch. A stupid, idiotic superstition, and his willingness to partake in it, had resulted in a man taking a bullet that was meant for him.

He could still clearly remember when Tseng had done the same thing. Rufus had been only nine years old at the time, but the clarity with which that memory could be recalled, even now, was quite astounding. He could still see the face of his mother’s murderer, clear as day. Could hear her frantic screams as the bastard’s partner had attempted to drag him off to Ramuh knows where. Could smell the gunpowder as both she and another Turk died before Tseng could do anything to prevent it.

He could still remember the feeling of his would-be abductor clawing at his expensively tailored jacket as he broke away from him in the confusion, and being shoved roughly to the cold tiled floor of the department store as Tseng shielded him from the retaliatory gunshots.

… And he could still remember the blood. The coppery smell of it. The stickiness. The bright red that stained his hands and his clothes after he’d dared to wriggle out from beneath his fallen protector. He remembered Tseng lying there after the gunman had fled, in a pool of it… just like the Slum Rat. Rufus had been thoroughly convinced that they were all dead. He’d only been right on three counts. His mother, the other Turk, and one of the two assailants had died… but Tseng had survived. Though how Rufus couldn’t even begin to imagine. There had been so much blood…

Seeing things repeat themselves like that… it had all come back to him, as if it had happened just yesterday. If Reno survived, he, like Tseng before him, would be recovering for weeks. Maybe months. Tseng had been gone for so long, that, as a child, Rufus had assumed he wasn’t coming back at all.

And then, one day, he did.

One day, Tseng had simply reappeared, waiting to accompany him to the doors of his private grade school, instead of his usual escort. From that point on, Rufus demanded his presence anytime security was needed, and as his father’s only son and future of the Company, no one dared tell him no. There was simply no one else who would do. Tseng had saved him. Rufus had learned later that the man had technically died doing so, only to come back to life not once, but twice. Tseng was the sort of person who never conceded defeat, even when staring down death itself, and that was exactly the sort of person Rufus wanted protecting him.

And though Rufus found the Turk lieutenant’s choice in protege’s to be questionable at best… he couldn’t help but hope that the Slum Rat was that sort of person, as well.

---

“Kai, none of this is –” Tseng began, only to be cut off.

“It’s my fault!” Kai repeated, her voice cracking with emotion. She slowly unclasped her hands and held up a black leather wallet. “She had this on her… It’s how she got aboard.”

The diminutive Turk dropped her gaze as he reached for the object. Tseng flipped it open, revealing a Shinra Company ID card… belonging to one Kai McNamera. He shook his head.

“Kai… You can’t blame yourself. We knew your credentials had been stolen… You informed Veld as soon as you realized –”

“No… You don’t understand,” Kai said, miserably, “I know her. I met her two nights ago. I…” She exhaled a shaky breath, shoulders slumping in remorse. “I… spent the night with her,” she continued, a note of disgust in her voice, “She used me to get access to Highwind. That was her plan from the moment I showed a little interest in her.”

“… Kai,” Tseng breathed, taken aback.

“She’s a Shiva-be-damned Zenshou!” the younger Turk continued with an anguished sob. “They were waiting for us. They were waiting until everyone was at the shrine, and then they were going to steal the Highwind. She’s been on board for days, pretending to be me. She was supposed to let them in. She took my Shiva-be-damned ID, walked in like she owned the place, and she’s been on board, hiding, since… since I… since the morning after we…”

Tseng knelt down as Kai trailed off, pulling the younger woman into his arms.

“It’s my fault she got in. It’s my fault Reno got hurt,” she said in a quiet voice.

A part of him wanted to be angry. A part of him wanted to shake her and scream at her and demand to know how she could have been so foolish. And if this had happened two years ago, he might have done just that. Now, however, he just felt like a bit of a hypocrite the moment the thought entered his mind. Given his own rather devastating and life-altering error in judgment, he was finding it hard to condemn Kai for a similar mistake.

“Say something…” Kai pleaded.

Tseng pulled away, getting to his feet and helping her up as well.

“I know how it feels. I know how you must feel,” he said after a moment. Tseng shook his head and fixed his gaze on his long-time friend. “But our first duty is to the Company. Reno was injured protecting the vice president. Who or what is to blame doesn’t matter right now. Right now, we need to ensure that it cannot happen a second time.”

Kai nodded somewhat shakily, wiping a hand across her eyes. “Just… give me a few minutes to compose myself. I’ll find out everything that scheming little bitch knows… even if it kills her.”

“No. Head back upstairs. Have Remy take over the interrogation,” Tseng replied.

“What?! No way… I’m the best interrogator on the team! You can’t just pull me out like that!”

“I can, and I just did.” The senior Turk sighed. “It’s not a punishment, Kai. She lied to you. She used you. She stole from you. And you’re angry, but that anger won’t last forever. You’re too personally involved with this woman and I’m not about to force you to interrogate someone you’ve been intimate with. You and I both know that nothing you might do to her will banish the guilt you’re feeling. It will only add to it.”

The diminutive Turk’s shoulders slumped in defeat, as she reluctantly nodded and started towards the exit. As she reached the hatch she glanced back at the senior Turk.

“I’m so sorry…”

“… I know,” Tseng replied. She turned and resumed her retreat, and Tseng closed his eyes, forcibly repressing the urge to stalk into the prisoner’s cell the moment he was alone again and demonstrate precisely how angry he was at the moment. Not only had the Zenshou nearly killed his protege… she’d inflicted painful emotional damage on one of his closest friends. It was tempting… so very tempting… to make an example of the one they’d taken prisoner.

The only thing that stopped him was the fact that Reno was badly injured… and if the worst should happen, Tseng intended to be with him, not exacting revenge on the person who’d pulled the trigger. Revenge could wait. His protege could not.

Steeling himself for that vigil, he made his way back up, towards the rear of the airship, where the Highwind’s tiny infirmary was located. It was little bigger than one of the passenger cabins, really. The Highwind wasn’t, strictly speaking, a military aircraft, even if it was under the care of the Shinra army in Junon. It was a flagship, designed to transport people of great importance to the Company from one end of the Planet to the other in comfort and style. It was a veritable floating fortress, yes, but that was intended to protect, not to engage. As such, high casualty rates were hardly a concern. The infirmary was meant to handle minor injuries… not major trauma.

Not that the medical officer that crewed it was unqualified should there be an emergency… but he worked largely alone, with only basic equipment, resorting to conscripting other crew members as support staff when needed.

Which was why, when Tseng saw a young private darting out of said infirmary towards the supply room in a very noticeable hurry, he was understandably concerned. The senior Turk quickened his pace, stepping inside just in time to see…

Frankly, he wasn’t certain he wanted to know what he was seeing. It was enough to know that things were bad. Reno was, for lack of a better descriptor, corpse-like. His lips were tinged with a faint blue, eyes cracked slightly open but staring blankly ahead. At some point while he’d been gone, the doctor had intubated him, forcing a plastic tube down his windpipe. The doctor himself had one hand almost fully inside of Reno’s chest, having widened the initial bullet wound enough to access the internal damage directly.

“Oh, thank Typoon… you’re back…” he breathed upon seeing the Wutaiian Turk standing in the doorway. “He hemorrhaged again. I’ve got it back under control, but he lost a lot of blood before I could manage it. We put a call out for donors, but frankly, we’ll be in the damn capitol before we get any volunteers screened for blood type.”

Tseng had already tossed his jacket aside and was rolling up a sleeve before the man finished speaking.

“Take whatever you need…” he replied, eyes fixated on younger Turk, a growing sense of desperation welling up inside of him.

~end chapter 51~