The Shinra transport chopper shook like a tin can in a hurricane. Anti-aircraft flak exploded outside the reinforced windows, painting the Wutai sky in flashes of angry orange and black. The smell of burning fuel and fear was thick in the cabin.
A dozen Shinra infantrymen sat strapped into their jump seats, knuckles white around their standard-issue assault rifles. They were sweating. Praying.
Ryu was eating.
"Hey, you gonna finish that?" Ryu asked, pointing a chopstick at the pale, shivering soldier sitting across from him.
The soldier blinked, looking from Ryu's eager face to the untouched ration pack in his own trembling hands. "A-Are you insane? We're taking heavy fire! We're dropping into the Tamblin Fort perimeter!"
"Yeah, I know," Ryu mumbled around a mouthful of rice. "But Scarlet packed me this premium Midgar beef bento, and I already finished it. I'm still hungry. Fighting takes a lot of calories, you know."
He swallowed, licking a grain of rice from his thumb. He wore his custom black gi, a distinct lack of heavy armor setting him apart from the Shinra grunts. His spiky black hair seemed entirely unaffected by the violent turbulence. His tail swished lazily behind him, occasionally bumping the soldier next to him.
The soldier next to him wasn't shivering, though. He was moving.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
Ryu turned his head. The kid was young, maybe thirteen or fourteen, wearing a basic infantry uniform that looked a size too big for him. He had spiky black hair too, though not nearly as gravity-defying as Ryu's, and a puppy-dog intensity in his bright blue eyes. He was doing deep, rapid-fire squats right there in his seat, his safety harness straining.
"Ninety-eight! Ninety-nine! One hundred!" the kid panted, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Ryu's eyes lit up. He shoved his empty bento box under his seat. "Whoa! You train your legs before a drop too? That's smart! Keeps the fast-twitch muscles warm!"
The kid beamed, flashing a grin that could rival the sun. "Heck yeah! Name's Zack. Zack Fair! I'm from Gongaga. I'm gonna be a First Class SOLDIER one day, just like Sephiroth!"
"I'm Ryu!" Ryu held out a hand. Zack grabbed it. They shook. Hard. "I don't care much about ranks, but I'm looking for strong guys to fight! Sephiroth is on my list too!"
Zack's eyes sparkle with absolute awe. Finally, someone who speaks my language!
"A list? That's awesome!" Zack cheered. "We should totally spar after we secure the LZ! If we survive, I mean."
"Deal," Ryu grinned.
A sudden, violent explosion rocked the chopper. The cabin lights flickered and died, replaced by bathing red emergency strobes.
"Direct hit to the rotor!" the pilot screamed over the intercom. "We're going down! Brace for impact!"
Panic erupted. Soldiers screamed, fumbling with their harnesses. The ground was rushing up fast—a jagged landscape of Wutai pagodas and rocky cliffs.
Ryu didn't panic. He felt the shift in gravity. He unbuckled his harness.
"Zack! Grab my shoulder!" Ryu yelled over the screeching metal.
"What?!" Zack yelled back.
"Just do it!"
Zack lunged, grabbing a fistful of Ryu's gi. Ryu kicked the side door of the chopper. Not the latch. The actual metal door.
CRANG.
The steel door blew off its hinges, spiraling into the misty air. The wind howled into the cabin. Without a second thought, Ryu leaped into the sky, dragging a screaming Zack with him.
"AHHHHHH!" Zack wailed, his legs kicking in empty air. "WE DON'T HAVE PARACHUTES!"
"Don't need 'em!" Ryu laughed, thoroughly enjoying the wind in his face.
He couldn't fly yet. True Buku-jutsu required a finer degree of Ki control than he currently had under the heavy, Mako-rich atmosphere of Gaia. But he could fall with style.
Ryu spotted a massive stone pagoda below. He shifted his weight, dragging Zack through the air. As the roof rushed up to meet them, Ryu flared his Ki. A faint, white aura rippled around his body. He slammed feet-first into the curved clay tiles of the pagoda roof.
BOOM.
The roof cracked, a small crater forming around Ryu's boots. He absorbed the kinetic energy perfectly, his knees bending just right. Zack, however, tumbled out of his grip, rolling down the sloped roof and crashing into a decorative stone gargoyle.
"Ow," Zack groaned, rubbing his head. "Okay. Note to self. Practice landing."
"You'll get it!" Ryu chirped, stretching his arms.
A sharp crackle erupted from the earpiece hidden beneath Ryu's hair.
"Ryu? Ryu, are you there? The transport signal just flatlined!" Scarlet's voice was frantic, bordering on hysterical. "If you have a scratch on you, I will personally gas this entire continent!"
Ryu tapped the earpiece. "I'm fine, sis! Smooth landing. Didn't even drop my dessert. Oh wait, I didn't have dessert."
"...You jumped out of a crashing helicopter and you're thinking about dessert?" Scarlet sighed, though the overwhelming relief in her voice was palpable. "Just... proceed to coordinates Alpha-Seven. The Crescent Unit is holding a choke point. Clear it out. And Ryu? Don't let those Wutai savages touch you."
"Got it. Out." Ryu tapped the comms off.
He looked over the edge of the pagoda. Down in the courtyard below, a platoon of Wutai soldiers—dressed in lightweight armor and wielding naginatas—were setting up an ambush line. They hadn't noticed the two boys on the roof yet.
"Alright, Zack," Ryu cracked his knuckles. "Let's see what you've got. The guys with the pointy sticks are mine. You take the ones with the swords."
Zack drew his standard-issue broadsword. It looked heavy, but he swung it with ease. "You're on, Ryu! Loser buys dinner back in Midgar!"
"You shouldn't have bet food," Ryu smirked. "Now I have to win."
Ryu dropped off the roof. He didn't bother using stealth. He landed in the dead center of the Wutai formation with a heavy thud, throwing up a cloud of dust.
The Crescent Unit soldiers spun around, weapons raised.
"Who the—?!" a sergeant barked. "A Shinra kid? Kill him!"
Three soldiers lunged, their naginatas thrusting toward Ryu's chest in perfect synchronization.
Ryu didn't draw a weapon. He simply stepped forward. He vanished.
Smack. Crack. Thud.
The three soldiers collapsed, their weapons clattering to the stone floor. Ryu reappeared behind them, his fist smoking faintly.
"Too slow," Ryu said, a hint of Saiyan arrogance bleeding into his tone. "You guys rely too much on your weapons. Your stances are wide open."
A Wutai soldier drops his jaw, rubbing his eyes. Did he just teleport?!
The courtyard erupted into chaos. Zack dropped in a second later, swinging his broadsword with wild, unrefined, but incredibly powerful arcs. He was yelling a battle cry, knocking two Wutai swordsmen off their feet.
"Fire Magic!" the Wutai sergeant roared, realizing close combat was failing.
Five soldiers pulled glowing red Materia from their pockets. They began to chant.
Ryu watched them with a mix of curiosity and boredom. Magic. It was the cornerstone of this world's combat. But it was so... inefficient. They had to draw Mako from the Materia, shape it, and cast it. It took whole seconds.
In a fight against a Saiyan, a second was an eternity.
"Fire!" the Wutai soldiers yelled. Five torrents of flame erupted from their hands, converging on Ryu.
"My turn," Ryu grinned.
He cupped his hands at his side. He didn't need to chant. He didn't need a rock. He just needed his own life force.
"Ka... me..."
A brilliant, pulsing blue light flared between his palms. The air around him crackled with static electricity. The incoming flames seemed to stall, pushed back by the sheer atmospheric pressure of his Ki.
"...ha... me..."
Zack paused his fight, staring at Ryu. "Whoa. What kind of Materia is that?"
"HA!"
Ryu thrust his hands forward. A beam of pure, concussive energy blasted outward. It didn't just meet the flames; it parted them like Moses parting the Red Sea. The blue beam slammed into the Wutai mages, obliterating their cover and sending all five of them flying backward into a stone wall.
They slumped to the ground, unconscious but alive. Ryu had held back. No need to kill if they couldn't fight back.
"Ha! That was a good one!" Ryu laughed, blowing on his palms. "Still a little unstable, but the output is getting better."
Zack ran over, his eyes wide as dinner plates. "Ryu! That was incredible! You didn't even use a spell name! You just yelled some gibberish and shot a laser!"
"It's not gibberish, it's a martial art," Ryu puffed his chest out proudly. "Turtle School style."
Before Zack could ask what a turtle had to do with shooting lasers, the ground began to shake.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The loose stones of the courtyard vibrated. A deep, guttural roar echoed from the mountain pass adjacent to the fort.
"Uh oh," Zack gulped, tightening his grip on his sword. "Tell me that's your stomach, Ryu."
"Nope. I am hungry, but that's not me," Ryu said, his tail twitching in anticipation.
Smashing through the wooden gates of the compound was a massive, serpentine beast. It was a local Wutai guardian monster—a lesser dragon, roughly forty feet long, with scales like rusted iron and a maw dripping with acidic venom. It roared, a sound that rattled Ryu's teeth.
"A dragon!" Zack yelled. "They unleashed a bio-weapon! Fall back, Ryu! We need heavy artillery for that!"
"Fall back?" Ryu's eyes narrowed, a feral grin spreading across his face. His Saiyan blood was singing. The weak soldiers had been a warm-up. This? This was a real fight. "Are you kidding? I bet its meat is super tough, but if you roast it right..."
Ryu dropped into a fighting stance, his aura flaring white again. He prepared to launch himself at the beast's jaw.
But before his boots could leave the ground, the air temperature plummeted.
A shadow fell over the courtyard.
From the sky, a figure descended. He didn't fall clumsily like Ryu and Zack had. He drifted down like a falling leaf, defying gravity with casual elegance.
He wore a long, black leather coat with silver pauldrons. His hair was long, silver, and perfectly straight, shimmering in the dull Wutai sunlight. In his hands, he held a sword that was absurdly, impossibly long—the Masamune.
The dragon lunged at the newcomer, its jaws snapping shut.
The man didn't flinch. He didn't shout a battle cry. He simply swung the blade.
It was a single, fluid motion. So fast that the human eye couldn't register the steel, only the silver arc it left behind in the air.
Shing.
The dragon froze mid-lunge. For a full second, nothing happened. Then, a thin red line appeared down the exact center of its snout, running all the way to its tail.
With a sickening splat, the massive beast split perfectly in half, collapsing into two ruined heaps on either side of the silver-haired man.
The man slowly sheathed his sword, the metallic clack echoing in the sudden, dead silence of the courtyard. He turned his head, his cold, slitted green eyes locking onto Ryu and Zack.
Sephiroth. The hero of Shinra. The Angel of Death.
"Infanry," Sephiroth spoke, his voice smooth, deep, and devoid of any emotion. "You are out of position. The main assault force is two clicks south."
Zack immediately dropped his sword and stood at perfect attention, his entire body trembling with fanboy excitement. "Sir! Yes, sir! General Sephiroth, sir! I am Zack Fair! It is an honor to watch you fight, sir!"
Sephiroth barely registered Zack. His green eyes drifted past the ecstatic puppy and settled on Ryu. He looked at the smoking crater Ryu had made, then at the unconscious Wutai mages, and finally, at Ryu's tail.
"You," Sephiroth murmured, his gaze analytical. "You are the Executive Director's pet project. The anomaly."
Ryu didn't stand at attention. He didn't salute. He walked right up to Sephiroth, craning his neck to look up at the towering seventeen-year-old.
"Pet? No way. Scarlet's just my sister. Well, kinda," Ryu corrected him, scratching his chin. "But man, you are strong! Your energy feels completely different from these guys. It's... dense. Cold, but dense."
Sephiroth's eyebrow twitched infinitesimally. "Energy? You speak of Mako as if it is a scent."
"Nah, not Mako. Ki," Ryu smiled, pointing a thumb at himself. "I'm Ryu. And you completely stole my kill just now."
Shot: Zack gasps, horrified. Did he just accuse Sephiroth of kill-stealing?! He's gonna die! We're both gonna die!
"Your kill," Sephiroth repeated, the words sounding foreign on his tongue. "You intended to fight a class-A bio-beast barehanded?"
"I was gonna blast it," Ryu corrected. "But whatever. You're strong. I like strong guys."
Ryu took a step back, dropping his center of gravity. He raised his fists, settling into the classic Turtle School stance. His eyes burned with an innocent, yet terrifyingly pure battle lust.
"Hey, Sephiroth," Ryu grinned. "Fight me."
Zack nearly fainted. "Ryu! Stop! You don't challenge the General!"
Sephiroth stared at the boy. To anyone else, Ryu looked like a cocky twelve-year-old with a freakish mutation. But Sephiroth was born from science, honed by war. His enhanced senses picked up on the subtle, vibrating aura around Ryu's body. The air pressure was warping. The boy wasn't just arrogant; he was a compressed reactor of unknown power.
A very faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched the corner of Sephiroth's lips.
"A challenge," Sephiroth said softly. "How... novel. It has been a long time since someone looked at me without fear."
Before Sephiroth could accept or decline, Ryu's earpiece crackled violently.
"RYU!" Scarlet's voice shrieked so loud that Zack and Sephiroth could hear the tinny echo. "I am tracking Sephiroth's transponder! Are you near him? Do NOT engage him! He is a Shinra asset, you idiot! We are on the same side!"
Ryu sighed, his aura dissipating instantly. He slumped his shoulders. "Aw, man. Scarlet's yelling again. Sorry, Sephiroth. Rain check?"
Sephiroth turned his back, his coat billowing dramatically in the wind. "Focus on the enemy, child. If you survive this war, perhaps I will indulge your... curiosity."
With a single leap, Sephiroth launched himself fifty feet into the air, disappearing over the fort's walls to continue the slaughter elsewhere.
Ryu watched him go, his fists clenching and unclenching.
"He is so cool," Zack breathed, starry-eyed.
"Yeah," Ryu nodded, a massive grin returning to his face. "I can't wait to punch him in the face."
Zack blinked, looking at Ryu. "You're a weird guy, Ryu."
"I get that a lot. Now come on!" Ryu turned, jogging toward the ruined gates. "I saw a noodle stand before we crashed. If it's not destroyed, you owe me a bowl!"
As the fires of the Wutai War raged around them, Ryu's mind wasn't on the tragedy, or the politics, or the impending doom of the planet. He just had two goals.
Get stronger. And get lunch.