Midgar Region: W.R.O. Hunter’s Lodge\
Yuffie woke
again in the Lodge’s hospital. A splash
of pain followed her into reality, starting in her stomach and spreading out
like a wave. It hurt to open her eyes,
and it hurt more to realize that she was back in the same bed as a week
ago. She hadn’t felt this low since the
fight with Nero and Deepground.
She stared
at the ceiling, counting the tiles. The
light hurt still, but she kept her eyes open and breathed through the
pain. Each intake made her want to
vomit. Each exhale brought her a fit of
coughs. She took some comfort in knowing
that it could be worse—she could have not woken up at all.
A few
minutes passed before Tifa entered the room.
She had been waiting there.
Knitted fabric was left in the seat where she had been. She yawned as she approached, and she smiled
when she saw Yuffie. “Oh, you’re
awake. That’s good.”
Yuffie
turned to see Tifa. Denzel and Marlene
were trailing after, both looking tired, but they smiled at her, and Denzel ran
over to see her while Marlene waited patiently.
Yuffie smiled back. “I am awake,”
she said, pushing herself to sitting with extreme effort. Her entire body felt like pudding. “Mind telling me exactly what happened?”
“Of course
not.” Tifa pulled her chair over and
folded the knitting on her lap. “What do
you remember?”
“Cid’s
airship exploding and a big guy with sideburns.” She looked Tifa in the eyes. “He hit me, didn’t he?”
“He did,”
Tifa said. “Shelke called me after
giving you the info, and I decided to go in as back-up.”
“That little—still,
I guess I owe her.”
Tifa
smiled. “You do,” she said. “I found you and Hollis. Shortly after, Reeve showed up and searched
the tunnels.”
“Did he hit
you?”
“No,” Tifa
said, sweeping her hair back. Yuffie
rolled her eyes.
“Of course
not,” she said, sighing. “I mean, good
job, I guess. Was there anything in the
tunnels?”
“Nothing.”
“Damn.”
“That’s not
all. Apparently, the floats around town
were rigged to blow, so as we were trying to figure it all out, the city was
blowing to bits. Right now, we’re trying
to figure out where the floats came from, but no one is talking. It seems like everyone is either too afraid
or too loyal to say anything.”
“Loyal? To those guys?” Yuffie shook her head. “If that’s the case, then the world has gone
nuts.”
“Whatever
it is, it’s working. Reeve is getting
nothing.”
“Something
will come up,” Yuffie said. “They’re
terrorists, after all.”
“Regardless,”
Tifa said, packing away her things. She
pointed at Yuffie, “For now, you need to worry about you and rest. Everything else can be taken care of later.”
“No. No time for rest.” Yuffie, groaning, forced herself to standing
through sheer force of will. It hurt,
initially, but it was nothing she hadn’t dealt with before. She braced against the bed until the pain
eased.
Tifa closed
in. “Yuffie.”
“Anything
else I need to know?”
Tifa,
rolling her eyes, shook her head. “Well,
apparently the Emerald Lotus has officially declared war on the W.R.O. There will be more attacks, and they’ll be
bigger next time. He said that he wanted
to show people how powerless the W.R.O. really is.”
Yuffie
scoffed and crossed her arms. “The guy’s
a lunatic.”
“Maybe but
we should be careful.”
Disbelief
turned to anger, and Yuffie scowled.
“Oh, trust me, I know. I’ve had
first-hand experience with him.” Yuffie
sat on the edge of the bed and held her side.
For the first time in her life, she felt tired. Rest was the last thing she wanted but, with
her mind so foggy and her head so hot, it felt like the only thing she
needed. She looked sternly into Tifa’s
eyes. “And Hollis? Who the hell is he?”
Tifa
shrugged. “I don’t know much. They’ve brought him in for questioning, and
that’s all I’m allowed to know.”
“Brought
him here?”
“Apparently,”
Tifa said. “I remember there being some
heated arguments about it, but Reed insisted.”
“Why? Edge has its own holding cells, and its own
security. It’d be the best place to
trust.”
“I think
Reed just wanted him out of town,” Tifa said.
“The city is tense right now, after everything happened.”
“His good
intentions don’t make it any less stupid.
This facility is too small to put up a proper defense and too localized
to survive bombardment, and clearly the Emerald Lotus isn’t shy about
collateral damage.”
“Calm down,”
Tifa said, squeezing Yuffie’s shoulder.
“Everyone is doing the best they can, and Reed is as scared as everyone
else. The peace we’ve all fought for is
crumbling around our feet.”
“Yeah,
yeah.” Yuffie sighed, breathing through
her pain, her nausea, and her confusion.
Then, she laughed. “Think this is
how Shinra felt when everything was falling apart?”
Tifa
allowed a small laugh. “Probably,” she
said, “But this isn’t a permanent solution.
H.Q. will be in soon, and that will be the safest place for him.”
Another
deep breath, and the battle replayed in Yuffie’s head. Hollis was a tank, an impenetrable shell
housing explosive power. With strength
like his, she couldn’t imagine transporting him anywhere he didn’t want to
go. It reminded her of Deepground, of
the attack on W.R.O. HQ, of Azul the Cerulean, and of all the carnage.
Tifa was
there with them, though, and Reeve would be there soon. It felt good for Yuffie to have her friends
around again. With them there, she
wouldn’t be kept on the sidelines anymore, and she could take the war to the
Emerald Lotus without fear of being reprimanded. They would remind everyone watching exactly
how they beat Sephiroth and all of the fools who followed after him.
Then,
Yuffie thought, she would have the opportunity to personally rip the mask off
of Lotus’ face and feed her fist to him in front of everyone.
-Disc One-
Yuffie
drifted off to sleep with Tifa watching.
When she woke, Tifa was gone and the children had left with her. This left Yuffie alone in the hospital room,
with only the gentle buzz and beep of machines to keep her company. The lights were dimmed. Shadows clung to the ceiling, staring back at
Yuffie as she stared at them.
She
breathed and relived each punch as she exhaled.
Hollis was unstoppable, a force of nature in human flesh. Her stomach ached. Her chest rattled. Her pride was hurt most of all. She remembered her father saying once that
her pride would get her into trouble.
Sometimes, she felt like trouble just followed her around, waiting to
kick her down whenever she built herself up too high.
Lotus
followed her, too, in her dreams and in waking.
He hid behind his mask, even in her thoughts, stabbing at her with words
that echoed endlessly inside of her.
Another lost battle, another night spent in a hospital room. It was beginning to feel useless. She was more than weak, being saved by
everyone. Tifa, Daisy, Vincent, Cloud,
and everyone else, the only thing she consistently managed to do on her own was
get in over her head.
Her
thoughts made her restless. She stood,
legs unsteady, stomach churning, and pulled the catheter from her arm. Her clothes were in a nearby dresser. They had been freshly washed and folded. She removed her gown, felt at the tender
bruises still lining her body, and then dressed. On her way out, she checked the bed where
Daisy had been. It was empty.
Outside,
she found Reed waiting. He had his head
down, his hands folded neatly and put held up as if in prayer. As she left the room, he opened his eyes and
met her with a tired glare. She returned
it as best as she could.
“Ms.
Kisaragi,” he said, “Excuse me, but I don’t think you’ve been discharged yet.”
“I have.”
“By whom?”
“By me,”
she said. “I gave myself a clean bill of
health.”
He had been
leaning against the wall, but he pushed off to stand tall and block her
path. “Return to bed. You need the rest.”
“I know my
body, Reed, and I’m fine.”
“I wasn’t
asking, Kisaragi.” His glare sharpened
and his body grew tense. “I am telling you. Get back to bed. Now!”
Yuffie,
still shaken and still tired, had to lean against the door frame for
support. She swallowed a fit of coughs
that were threatening to erupt. Bracing
against the doorway with one arm, she stretched herself to full height and
stared up into his eyes. “Make me.”
“Always the
petulant child, aren’t we? Rebelling against any authority you can find.”
Reed
approached her, seizing her tight by the arm and dragging her back into the
room. He threw her back down onto the
bed and, when she tried to stand, struck her hard in the gut. She curled up, coughing and holding herself,
as he stood over her.
“Well, if
you insist on fighting me, then you had better be up to the challenge!”
Writhing
and wheezing against the bed frame, Yuffie said, “You’re a real bastard,” and
then squealed as he lifted her and tossed her onto the bed proper. Then, she watched him smooth back his hair
before he dragged a chair over. He sat
calmly, folding his hands and sitting forward to stare her in the eyes. Yuffie stared back, holding her gut,
breathless. “What do you want now?”
“To talk,”
he said, without humor. “And, as always,
you make it difficult for me.”
“Stuff it,”
she said, and she used the wall to push herself up. It hurt to move as pain crawled up her spine
and spread through her. After the way he
moved her, it hurt to even breathe. “If
you’re going to lecture me, then just stuff it, because I don’t care to
listen.”
Reed
snorted, laughed, and then turned a sharp glare on her. His tone was harsh, acerbic, but he
smiled. “Always the same. You’ll never change, will you?” He stood.
“Fine. If you want it that way,
then this is how you do it.” He slid the
chair back against the wall. “You’ll be
discharged tomorrow,” he said.
There was a
pause, pregnant with meaning, and then Yuffie said, “And?”
He stopped
at the door, his hand on the knob, and feigned surprise. “Oh, now you want to talk?”
“What are
you doing to me?”
“What I
should have done long ago,” he said.
“You’re suspended. Effectively
immediately. You will not be in contact
with anyone from the Hunters...”
“You have
no right!”
“I have
every right,” he shouted. “What were you
even doing there, chasing down Lotus? I took you off duty, put you into forced
leave!”
“And I was
there off duty,” she said in return, shouting back at him. It hurt her stomach to do it, but she felt it
was important to match him word for word, shout for shout. “Someone had to protect the people!”
“Is that
what you call running, blind, into danger and nearly getting yourself
killed?” He laughed as he said it.
“It’s what
I call doing your job for you,” she said in retort, and she felt smug
afterward. That smugness didn’t last
long. A bitter laugh ended it quickly as
Reed threw his head back gave an empty bark.
“And a
fantastic job you did, injuring everyone around you.” He looked her in the eyes. “There are
people—an entire military worth of people—who are already hunting Lotus for us,
but you think you are the only one equipped to do it. Except you’re not. Hell, you weren’t even fit for duty, and all
you managed to do is get in the way.”
“I got us
that Hollis guy.”
“Tifa got
us Hollis, and she saved you in the process.”
Yuffie,
angry and hurt, stepped from the bed.
She wasn’t sure what she was doing or why, but she took a swing at him,
and she missed. He knocked her hand away
and struck her in return, once in the chest, before grabbing her around the
throat and dragging her back to the bed.
Then, he stared her in the eyes.
He was close, so close that she could smell his cologne, thick and
pungent.
“Which is
what you do best—act recklessly and expect other people to come in and clean up
your messes. You claim to be a hero of
the Jenvoa War, but you nearly cost your allies everything when you took their
materia, didn’t you? You’re no hero,
Yuffie Kisaragi. You are a selfish
little girl who takes whatever she wants and expects to walk away with the stories.”
“I...”
“And the
W.R.O. has so many other things to worry about than satisfying your personal
fictions. It has cities to watch,
nations to run. We, the Hunters, have
more to do. Our job is to find materia and
to control its distribution. To keep it
out of the hands of those who would use it for negative ends. That it is.
That is all. And while the
Emerald Lotus may have their hands in some materia, I assure you, they are so
much more, which makes them someone else’s problem.”
“But if we
all work together...”
“We won’t
have time to do our jobs properly,” Reed snapped, releasing her onto the
bed. “Maybe, if we unify, we can solve
one problem—the Emerald Lotus—but at the cost of other problems cropping
up.” He took a deep breath and adjusted
his jacket. “And then who will fix
that? Do we solve each problem as it comes,
one at a time, or do we do our jobs as they are assigned and trust others to do
their own jobs on their own?”
Yuffie
slumped into the bed, staring silently ahead.
It hurt to breathe and, increasingly, to think. She hated Reed, hated every hair on his head
and every word from his mouth, but she didn’t have the energy to argue
anymore. It wasn’t that she thought he
was right. The problem was that she
didn’t immediately think he was wrong.
She turned
her gaze downward and stared—glared—at her feet, and she tried hard not to
cry. It reminded her of childhood and of
being scolded by her father. “Well,
they’re not doing enough,” she whispered.
“We’re
doing what we can,” he said calmly and without his previous venom. “And they’re doing more than you ever could
on your own. Running ahead into danger
may look heroic, but all it does is get you hurt.”
“Whatever,”
Yuffie breathed, and she curled up on the bed and hugged her knees tightly.
Reed tugged
at his cuffs. “I expected as much. And, for the record, you ARE suspended from
service, for your safety and for the safety of others. Should you continue on this path, then I will
take matters up with the Director myself.
This is your last warning, Yuffie.
No contact, no service, not unless we contact you ourselves.”
Reed left
the room, calm and collected, and that hurt worse than if he had screamed at
her again. Alone, Yuffie pulled the
blanket over her and turned her back to the door. Her body hurt, but her broken bones would
mend. She wasn’t so sure about her
broken spirit, however. Unable to hold
back, she cried like a child for the first time in years, and she kept crying
until she fell asleep.
-Disc One-
The next
day, Yuffie wandered down to the cafeteria before she was dicharged. Slumped down alone at one of the long, steel
tables, she picked mindlessly at the mushy rice they had served her. The damage done to her was primarily internal
and the cure materia had done all it could for her. Now, she would have to rely on her own
faculties to recover.
She hadn’t
slept well. The conversation with Reed
was hurting her more than Hollis’ fists had.
She didn’t think of her betrayal of the team in Wutai often, keeping it
in the same box she used for the battle with Nero and, more recently, Daisy and
the Lotus rally. Reed, however, had
managed to pull it out and leave it open in her sight, and she wasn’t so sure
that he was in the wrong anymore. Half
of what she did, she was realizing, was being saved by others.
She closed
her eyes and focused her breathing. Her
lungs felt bruised, but the pain was clarifying, and she used it to keep dark
thoughts at bay. When she was alone and
on her back in the bed, sometimes, it felt like she was floating unsteadily on
water, like she would drown in all of her reveries.
“Yuffie?”
A familiar
voice pulled her back into reality, and she sat up and found Daisy wheeling
toward her. Daisy wasn’t in the gown
anymore, instead wearing a black tee and a pair of green medical scrub
pants. Her long hair was back in a
ponytail, and she greeted Yuffie with a tired smile. Oliver walked beside Daisy, carrying two
trays of mushy rice. Once Daisy had
pulled up, he set her tray on her lap.
“Daisy?”
“What’re
you doing out? I thought you were
injured.” Daisy knitted her brows. “Actually, you okay? You don’t look so well.”
Yuffie
scoffed. “Like you have room to
talk.” She cast her gaze down and
stabbed at her rice.
“At least
she’s taking the time to get better,” Oliver said, seating himself. Yuffie blew him a raspberry.
Daisy
laughed. “Honestly, just be careful,
please. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
Yuffie
waved them off and leaned back. She
stirred her food absently. “So, Daze,
how is your recovery coming along, anyway?”
“The medics
have done what they can,” Daisy said, and she raised her top enough to expose a
large, clean bandage taped across her torso.
She gave a glowing smile as she lowered it. “I should be fine and back to service in a
few days, though.”
Looking
Daisy over, Yuffie frowned. “Then what’s
with the chair?”
Daisy
nodded toward Oliver, who gave his own frown in response. “This one.
He also got me this.” Daisy
reached back into the satchel that hung over the back of the wheelchair and
produced a box of chocolates. Opening
it, she let Yuffie pluck a few.
“Well,
isn’t that sweet of him.” Yuffie smiled,
toothily. “And why, exactly, don’t I get
chocolates, Oliver?”
Oliver’s
frown deepened.
“So, you’ll
be back on soon,” Yuffie asked, stealing a few more chocolates.
Daisy
leaned back in her chair, stretching.
“I. Can’t. Wait. I’m going nuts
hearing about everything that happened in Edge.” She sat forward and looked Yuffie in the
eyes. “And what exactly DID happen
there, anyway? No one around here will
tell me anything worth hearing.”
“Just a lot
of noise,” Yuffie said, slouching again.
She rested her head on her arms like an agitated child. “Reed gave me a talking to, doesn’t want me
involved. So, he’ll probably put you on
something else, I’m sure, while he sweeps everything else under the rug. Or into someone else’s hands.”
“He’s
trying to keep us focused on our job,” Oliver said, and he earned a glare from
Yuffie for it. When he looked at Daisy
and found her glaring, too, he sighed.
“I’m just saying, we’re here to deal with materia and materia smuggling,
not counter-terrorism. We’re not a
military, and with two failed attempts to stop them, I feel like it’s pretty
clear that we’re in over our heads.”
“Maybe if
we had more support, then we wouldn’t be,” Yuffie countered.
Oliver
rolled his eyes and looked to Daisy for support. “Come on, you’re more level-headed than
this. You just got out of the
infirmary. Yuffie’s been there twice
already. They have numbers, and we’re
just three people, fit for infiltration and subterfuge, not war. Reed may come down on you hard, but he’s
right this time.”
Daisy
frowned. “Oliver.”
He looked
between them, stared at Daisy, and took a deep breath. “I’m just worried about you two.”
“We’re
fine,” Daisy said, taking his hand and giving a squeeze. She looked across the table at Yuffie and
smiled imploringly. “Right, Yuffie?”
“Yup.” Yuffie stood from the table and felt unsteady
on her feet for a moment. Even after all
of her rest, her head still wasn’t on straight, but she wouldn’t admit that in
front of them. Instead, she took up her
tray and said. “Listen, I want to
stretch my legs before I’m shipped out.
I’ll talk to you later, Daisy.”
“Okay. We should meet up and compare notes soon.”
Yuffie
nodded, waved, and left. Normally, in
this sort of mood, she would pick a direction and walk. She spent most of her life never really
knowing where she was going, just that she was going, but lately it didn’t seem
like enough. Lately, she wanted a
destination, but everywhere she landed felt unstable, unsafe. It was like she has nowhere stable to plant
her feet, nowhere that she could truly call home.
As she left
the cafeteria, she thought of Edge, and of Wutai, and of all the people she
knew and loved, and she thought of what they all, truly, meant to her.
-Disc One-
Yuffie
walked the halls absently for a moment and then soon left the building
entirely. She went beyond the front
gate, into the grasslands between Midgar and the sea, and she came to rest in
the warm sands beside the ocean. Dark
grass grew in patches nearby. The pale
sky drifted by, cloudless, but she could feel a charge on the air. A storm was coming.
She
shivered. It was warm, but she could
feel a cool breeze stirring and it left her hairs on end. Alone, she thought
about the recent battles in her life.
She thought of Lotus and of Hollis, and she thought of Reed and of her
cold, lonely nights in the infirmary.
After the
attack on Edge, she knew that Reeve would take interest in the Emerald Lotus
problem, but she wasn’t so sure that he still supported her. He would call on those he really trusted, on
Cloud, Barrett, and Vincent. He would rely
on them, like he always did.
Normally,
it would leave her angry. She was a
soldier, a great ninja from Wutai, but after her recent battles—her recent
failures—she wasn’t so sure anymore. It
hurt to admit it, but the others were reliable, and she wasn’t anymore. There was a certain veracity to what Reed had
said: she never saved the day; she was just there when the day was saved. Her fame was earned only through proximity.
The W.R.O.
had Hollis, and that meant answers about the Emerald Lotus, and despite all of
her effort, she wasn’t the one who did it.
Though she was first on the scene, it was Tifa who won the day, Tifa who
had traded her leather gloves for a wet rag and an apron. Tifa, the team mother who never had a taste
for combat to begin with. And all Yuffie
did—all Yuffie ever did—was get in the way until someone else could come in and
win the fight.
Her phone
rang and pulled her from those thoughts.
Yuffie sat up slowly, her body cold and racked with shivers. The light had faded from the sky without her
notice, and the wind was whipping up the sand.
The air was thicker now, and she could smell the storm mixing with the
salt in the air. Another ring and she
answered. “Yeah?”
“Yuffie
Kisaragi.”
Yuffie
curled up for warmth. She hugged her
legs with her free arm. “Who else would
it be, Shelke?”
“I am just
being careful,” Shelke said in her empty tones.
“You do not sound well.”
“I’m...” Yuffie wiped her eyes. She couldn’t remember crying, but her cheeks
felt warm. She sniffed and hoped Shelke
couldn’t tell anything was wrong. “What
do you need?”
“I have
information for you.”
“I thought
I was suspended.”
“You are,”
Shelke said absently. “I will forward
you the files for you to read in full later, but there is something which you
should know right now: the Emerald Lotus is preparing to make another move
soon.”
“Then tell
Reed,” Yuffie said. It felt wrong in her
mouth, but she couldn’t think of anyone else to help. “Listen, I’m not on the case anymore. I’m kicked out of the Hunters if I try.”
“I have
already informed him, as well as others,” Shelke said. “Regardless, take care, Yuffie Kisaragi.”
The line
went dead. Yuffie, alone on the beach,
shouted into her phone before slamming it shut and tossing it a few feet
away. The sky was going dark, the colors
of the sky—a bloody red and bruised purple—fading into the approaching slate of
the storm clouds. She hugged herself
tight to keep the cold away but found it ineffective.
Closing her
eyes, she thought about home. She
remembered the warm sea waters of Wutai, the way the water glittered from the
mountains in the evening, the cool mist that rose in the mornings. She remembered the pagoda towering in the
distance, almost touching the sky. No
matter where she went when she was a kid, she could always see it and always
find her way home. When she was really young,
she used to visit her father at the very top of the pagoda, and she never told
anyone, but she also used to think that he was the one who held up the sky.
Her wounds
throbbed, but her reveries eased the pain.
Old memories kept her warm, even as the clouds swallowed the sky. She met the rain alone, shivering in the
dark, a distant childhood memory the only thing she had to comfort her.
