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The way Reno figured, atonement was essentially a pile of chocoboshit. If he'd felt guilty, it wouldn't raise anybody: nobody he’d killed for fun or profit or self-defense or orders would ever come back because of Reno. If he'd been sorry about it, they'd be just as dead, and anyway nearly everybody he'd killed was Midgar and probably would've died from Meteor or the Geostigma, creeping in everywhere like leaking mako.
So the Chief talked about making up for Shin-Ra's sins and Tseng worked like he thought he had to pay to somebody (to her; sometimes Reno considered tying a ribbon on his wrist where nobody would see) because he'd lived, and Rude tried not to kill much these days, unless he had to. (Elena watched all of them and mimicked, but Reno could see she didn’t get it, even if she’d smartened up and sharpened up and calmed down during everything. She was probably better off that way.)
Reno went along with it. If he watched out for Cloud's orphan some... wasn't because of the kid's accent. … Much. Reno was pretty sure, anyway. No reason to.
Because atonement wasn’t shit. Just words. Reno always knew how little those mattered.