Emerald Crisis--Final Fantasy VII--Disc One, Mission 3

Midgar Wastes: W.R.O. Hunter’s Lodge—Infirmary\

            Yuffie remembered the night in flashes.  She remembered falling in the dirt.  She remembered swallowing blood.  She remembered Daisy bent backward, neck exposed, blade jutting from her opened chest.  She remembered the blinding light, brilliant, burning her eyes, whiting her vision.  Then, she remembered nothing.

            She woke up later, with bruised limbs and I.V.s fixed to her flesh. It hurt to open her eyes.  The white walls and white sheets blinded her.  The mechanical beeps split her ears.  She winced and tried to move, but her body wouldn’t comply.  She was too tired and too stiff.  Bound by lethargy and by hurt, she was stuck in bed for a time.

            She blinked existence into definition.  The curtain was pulled.  A small monitor to her right showed her heartbeat.  It hurt to breathe.

            Lotus’ voice echoed in her head.  It was a faint whisper, a faint warning, and a proclamation all at once.  She tried to remember him, to hold onto his voice, to his body, and to everything that happened.  It echoed through her, a memory with more value to it than she could truly understand.  Somewhere, in the back of her head, she remembered it, remembered him.  They were connected, she simply didn’t know how.

            She could smell flowers and, turning her head with difficulty, found a vase sitting beside her.  It housed a splash of color that carried her away to another time.  Once, when she was young, she stood on the edge of a cliff outside of Wutai and stared into the village.  The flowers grew up to her waist.

            On that day, she wasn’t alone.  Someone was there with her, a boy or a man, she couldn’t properly recall.  She did remember his voice.  He spoke with her calmly, clinically, careful with his words, careful with her.  More than that, he cared deeply, and when she turned to face him, he wore a robe and a mask, and she could see dark eyes through slit holes in his mask.

            He spoke to her of Wutai requiem.

            The hurt brought her back.  Lotus’ blows had been quick and hard, and she could still feel them in her bones.  He hadn’t killed her, but he could have.  He wanted to use her to send a message, and he wrote that message in her wounds.  She closed her eyes to ride out the humiliation and the hurt.

            A shadow appeared against the curtain, a human shadow, and beside her the heart monitor made its mechanical bleat.  Yuffie sat up, slowly and with effort, ignoring the pain that rippled through her. Her body hurt so much that it transmuted her memories; she could hardly remember a time when she didn’t hurt.

            She breathed, though, and she endured.

            With slow, careful movements, she removed the catheter from her arm and slid across the bed.  Holding the railing, she lifted herself and braced.  The world spun for a moment.  She breathed through the hurt, gave her body the time it required to steady.  Then, she removed everything attached to her and turned off the monitor before it could alert anyone.

            Holding the wall, she made a series of small, unsteady steps toward the curtain.  Stopping, she balanced against the wall and tugged the curtain to the side, revealing Daisy.  Her dark hair was a mess of curls.  Her body was one giant bandage.

            Yuffie took another deep breath.  This time, she looked away.  She found her clothes in a nearby bin, washed and folded.  She dressed, slowly, pausing at regular intervals to cringe, and she left her gown draped across the bed.  On the way out, she made sure not to look at Daisy again.  One time was enough.

            A nurse met her in the hall, a dark-haired woman with bright blue eyes and a gentle, trained smile.  Yuffie passed calmly.  She didn’t make eye contact, but she did offer a strained smile.  Behind her, the woman turned and followed her.  Yuffie staggered away, faster, until her legs gave out.  The nurse was there to catch her when she fell.

            “Ms. Kisaragi, wait!  What’re you doing out of bed?”

            “I’m fine.”  Yuffie pushed the woman away and braced against the wall. She shouldn’t be so weak, she thought, even with her injuries, and she wondered if it were the drugs.  She shook her head, trying hard to ignore the way the lights sparkled and swayed.  Pain jumped up her spine, and her vision went dark briefly.

            “Ms. Kisaragi, you need your rest.”

            “No.”  Yuffie pushed along the wall, stumbling forward, staring fixedly at the end at the exist.  Reed entered from there, smiling at her, speaking taunts.  He moved like the air, gliding toward her.

            “Can’t listen to anyone, can you?”

            “Shut up!”  She swung at the air, staggered, and fell back against the wall, panting.

            “Ms. Kisaragi...”

            “It’s just like you,” Reed whispered in her ear, a taunt in his voice, “Swinging at ghosts.”

            “SHUT! UP!”  She lunged forward, kicked at the wall, and fell.

            She lied there, breathless, weeping to herself.  Sickness stirred in her gut.  She pushed herself to standing, or tried, but she was pale and weak.  The nurse seized her by the arm and cradled her waist.  She was careful to avoid Yuffie’s injuries.

            “This is ridiculous,” the nurse said, hauling Yuffie up and helping her back toward the room.  Somewhere, in the back of her head, she was sure Reed was laughing at her.  For a time, she was also sure he was real.

That certainty faded as the nurse dragged her away, and her vision faded with it. She felt the nurse stumbled under her weight, braced against the wall to support both of them.

            Yuffie dreamt, then, of a field of flowers, of the dry Wutai mountain air, and of the blue sky above the peaks.  She stood among the clouds, watching herself in the flowers, a small girl with a man behind her.  She watched herself, decades later, fighting ineffectually, surrounded by people.

            “You know me,” a voice said to her, and she turned to find no one there.  A ceramic mask hung, suspended in the air, a thin scar left across its surface.  “This is the message.  You know.”

            “Who are you?”

            A laugh, muffled by the mask.  “Do you want to know so badly?”

            “You said I already know.”

            “You do.”  The mask smiled, revealing behind the face of the mountain, stone shifting, expelling dust.  Yuffie grabbed the mask, removed it, and found nothing behind it.  After that, the dream faded, and she slept, dreamlessly, thoughtlessly, through the night.

-Disc One-

            Yuffie slept soundly, aided by drugs and materia.  When she woke, she found Reed waiting.  He was watching her in cold, clinical manner, made all the worse by the sterile white walls that surrounded them.  He wore a broad-shouldered business suit, black in color, with a green tie and a folded green cloth in his breast pocket.  His hair is comb back.

            When he saw her eyes open, he spoke immediately.  “Ms. Kisaragi.”

            Yuffie winced and pulled herself up.  “Reed.”  The pain was gone now, the ache missing, but she felt light-headed and sick to her stomach.  “What do you want?”

            “Don’t get smart.”  He said it calmly, but there was rage in his voice.  “You’re in deep enough as it is.”  He glanced toward the curtain, toward where Daisy’s shadow resided.  “I hope you are proud of the work you’ve done.”

            “I was doing my job.”

            “You were disobeying my orders, and it almost got you and your partner killed.”  He leaned over on the bed, holding the guard rail tight.  She was sure he was just seconds from throttling her.  “Your job is find materia, to control the flow of and stop the illegal distribution of it.  It is not, nor will it ever be, espionage or infiltration.  All that will do is get you killed.”

            “The Emerald Lotus ARE smuggling materia!  And they’re getting out of hand.  They’ve been behind all of the illegal activities around Edge recently, and rumor has it that they’re going even bigger than that!  You say I’m supposed to stop the illegal distribution of materia in this area?  That is what I am doing!”

            “This is not in your hands,” Reed said calmly.  He stood straight and adjusted his tie.  “If you can’t do this right, Ms. Kisaragi, then maybe we should relocate you.  The W.R.O. has a peacekeeping force and an organized military.  We are neither of those and they don’t need us to be.  Anything beyond materia is beyond us, and you seem unwilling to remember that.”

            “Oh, please!  If they were so good at their jobs, then the Emerald Lotus wouldn’t be a problem in the first place!”

            “You,” Reed growled, his jaw tight and his eyes narrowed, “You and your hard head You think that you can solve everything and prance around pretending to be a hero.  But you’re no hero, and you never were.  You are just a tag-along kid who gets in the way and gets hurt and leaves the mess for others to clean up.  Daisy spent her time cleaning up after you like that, and this time it almost got her killed.”

            Yuffie jerked forward, fists balled, and she stopped short.  Behind him, behind the curtain, Daisy slept, and fighting him here could only cause more trouble.  So, she glared, but she lacked the animosity from before.  Somewhere, in the depths of her, she could feel the bitter truth rising in her gut.  Images of Daisy, impaled upon a long, flat blade came to her, as did memories of being captured and pinned to the mountain ranges of Wutai.  She hated Reed, but this time, she knew he was right.

            He leaned forward, bracing the wall as he loomed over her.  “And, as things stand now, the Emerald Lotus have gone into hiding without a trace.  Leaving only you two behind, presumably as warnings, and nothing else for us to track them by.  Congratulations.”

            “We’re messages,” Yuffie said, sinking into herself and feeling very small.  She hugged her knees.  “Not warnings.”

            “A message?  And what were they trying to say?”

            She met his eyes and looked away.  “Their leader, he wanted me to tell you, to tell Reeve, that they’re coming.  Whatever that means.”

            Reed sighed and rubbed his hair, messing it briefly before smoothing it back.  He leaned against the wall.  “Of course, they air.”  Then, standing straight, “However foolish it was of you to go there, it is still very bold of them to go so far as to hurt you.  I fear our time in Edge may be coming to a premature end.”

            Yuffie sat up.  “What?  Why? What about the materia smuggling here?”

            “As you said yourself, all of the Materia here is tied to them, and they’re much more than a simple smuggling ring.  The hard truth is, they’re too much for us to handle.  This is best left to the military.”

            “But...!”

            “And as for you, I’ve finished looking over your file.”  He pulled a folder from the edge of the bed and tossed it onto her legs.  Yuffie picked it up and glanced over it.

            “I’m fine now.”

            “No, you’re not.”  A smile cut its way onto his face.  It was humorless and cruel.  “Starting today, you’re on medical leave due to the injuries sustained in the line of service.”

            “Reed!”

            “Don’t say I can’t, because I can and I have, and if you continue this insubordination, I will have you removed from the Hunters entirely.”  Reed turned then and made for the door.  He stopped with the door open, his hand resting on the doorknob.  “Take the time to gather yourself, Ms. Kisaragi, and really think about what it is you should be fighting for.”  He looked her in the eyes.  “Because, whatever it is you’re fighting for now, it’s not enough.”

            It took everything in her to hold the folder until he left.  Then, she threw it at the door as hard as she could and rolled over, hugging herself tight and fighting hard not to scream or to cry.

-Disc One-

            The conversation with Reed left Yuffie feeling restless.  So, she rose from the bed and pushed her way past the attending nurse and out into the hall.  She walked, aimlessly, to stretch her limbs and clear her thoughts.  After a few minutes, she found herself standing in front of the training room.

            Like the rest of the Hunter’s Lodge, the training room was located underground.  It was a large, circular room with reinforced cement walls and padded floors.  The ceilings had a series of large, rounded, reflective disks that could be used for a holographic interface.  By taking a right at the entry way, she could find her way into the weight room.  To the left was an area for live firearms.

            Yuffie started on a treadmill to work the kinks from the body.  It had been a few days since she was really up and around, and while the ache was gone from her bones, she still felt tired and stiff.  When that was solved, she went to run basic drills in the training room.  Holographic enemies attacked in waves.  By this point, she knew the patterns and matched them precisely, dodging attacks, striking at expected openings.  The enemies dissolved into particles each time her limbs passed through them.

            It was a light workout but rewarding, stretching her limbs and clearing the cobwebs from her mind.  More than that, it gave her time to really think about everything that had happened to her.  The harsh truth was that Reed wasn’t her real problem.  He was only an exacerbation.  The real problem was the rally, the Emerald Lotus, and Lotus himself.

            The damage done to her that night was more than physical.  Her pride was wounded, and something was haunting her.  Something intangible lingered at the back of her mind, like a whisper she couldn’t quite hear.  She knew him, recognized him in his voice and his movements.  He was Wutai to her, but she didn’t know why.

            She stopped to adjust the program, upgrading the battle parameters to a higher setting.  After, she sunk down into a battle stance and waited.  Since childhood, Yuffie has practiced stealth.  She was a more a spy than a soldier, but during her adventures with the team, she learned what she could from them.  When assigned to the Hunters, she took time away to train under Tifa, and she had thought that would be enough.

            Lotus proved her wrong.  He taught her that there was still so much for her to learn.

            Yuffie tried to emulate Tifa’s style as best she could, but there were differences between them.  Tifa was focused and quick.  Her movements were efficient and strong, and no matter how hard Yuffie punched, she lacked the raw striking power Tifa had.  So, she adapted it, focusing on precision and speed.  Tifa could turn a glancing blow into a killing strike.  Yuffie, on the other hand, couldn’t allow for glancing blows.

            She lost herself to exercise.  She worked her body hard, perhaps past its limits, and she continued pushing herself harder and farther.  Sweat dripped from her body, and by the end she was bent over and panting.

            Oliver watched from the entryway.  He was leaned against one wall with his arms crossed.  He wore a dark tank top and a pair of grey sweats.  “Shouldn’t you be resting?”  He asked it as he approached her, carrying a green gym bag over his shoulder. 

            Yuffie righted herself and gathered her breath.  “That’s what they think, but I know better.”  She stretched with her arms overhead.  “I can’t stand lying around in a bed all day.”

            “I guess I understand that.”  Oliver opened his bag and pulled a bottle of water from it.  He tossed it to her.  It was still cold to the touch, and she held the bottle to her skin before drinking deeply of it.  “Be careful, though.  You wouldn’t want all of their hard work to go to waste.”

            “Their hard work,” she muttered, and she drank again.  She sprayed some across her face for good measure.  “I’ll be fine.  I’ve taken worse beatings, believe it or not.”

            “That doesn’t mean that this one wasn’t bad.”

            “It wasn’t,” she said.

            “Maybe not for you,” he said quietly.  They made eye contact.  He looked away first and scratched his chin.  “Listen, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

            “No,” she said, looking fixedly at the ground.  “You’re right.  Daisy got hurt because we—because I—was careless.”

            “Sounds to me like you were right for the first time,” Oliver said.  “You both were.”  He dropped his bag to the ground, against the wall.  “But what were you thinking?  Why didn’t you call for back-up?”

            “We didn’t expect things to go so bad,” she said.  “Reed wouldn’t have helped, anyway.”

            “Then you should have called me.”

            “Please, you wouldn’t have been any more help.”

            “That’s not fair,” he said.  “I would have told you it was a bad idea from the beginning, yes, because it WAS a bad idea, but I would have been there.  I would have helped.”

            “You wouldn’t have...”  Yuffie stopped and went quiet.  She felt tired, finally, and she didn’t have it in her to fight.  She traced her left thumb along the water bottle’s cap, felt the cold, damp shape of it in her palms.  “You’re right,” she said.  “Sorry about Daisy.”

            Oliver, quiet now, rubbed the back of his neck.  He looked away.  “Yeah.  Me, too.”

            Silence settled.  Oliver went to the control panel.  “You done?”  He saw Yuffie nod and started fiddling with the information, adjusting the parameters for his own workout.  Yuffie dropped the water bottle against the wall and met him at the console.

            “You know, you shouldn’t waste your time with this stuff,” she said, reaching past him and clearing all of the work he had done with a single press of a button.  “It’s always better to have a living opponent, don’t you think?”

            Oliver looked at her.  He sighed.  “Yuffie, that isn’t a good idea.”

            She made a face, with her eyes rolled back and her tongue protruding.  “Yuffie, that isn’t a good idea.”  She snorted.  “Sorry, I didn’t know that you were a coward.”

            He frowned.  “You really want this?”

            She paced away from him, widened her stance, and sunk low.  Lifting her hands with balled fists, she smiled.  “I need a real work out, and I think you’ve got some aggression with my name on it.  Seems like it would do us both a little good.”

            Oliver eyed her for a moment longer, shook his head, shrugged, and then he joined her in the center of the room.  There, he eased into his fighting stance.  He kept tighter and more mobile, rocking on his feet, almost bouncing back and forth.

            “And no holding back because I’m ‘injured,’” she said.  “Enemies don’t hold back.”

            “You think I’m your enemy?”

            “Let’s just play pretend.”

            He nodded.  “Fine, if that’s what you want.”

            “And one more thing.”

            “Yeah?”

            “No complaining when you lose.”

            “Same goes for you.”

            “Look at that,” Yuffie said, laughing mirthlessly, “Looks like someone found their sense of humor.”

-Disc One-

            Oliver held his own.  Yuffie was faster, but her injuries left her slow and hesitant.  Oliver never exploited these weaknesses.  He fought skillfully, with expert precision and care, and he kept pace with her as she attempted to dance around him.

            They finished side-by-side, winded and slightly bruised.  After, they went to the surface patio outside of the cafeteria and shared the shade offered by one of the umbrellas.  From this side of the building they could see the distant sea.  It was a dark black line that covered the width of the horizon.  A warm breeze carried the smell of salt to them.

            Yuffie was hunched over the table, hugging her knees, sitting with water Oliver gave her earlier.  It was mostly empty now, and she chewed the cap.  The fatigue left her feeling productive and, thus, contented.  A towel was draped around her shoulder, another gift from Oliver.

            Oliver sat in the chair beside her, reclined back, legs folded, holding his own water.  He had a towel draped over his armrest.  He had only wiped his face once before folding it up and leaving it there.

            They were there for a few minutes before Oliver spoke.  He said, “For what it’s worth, I do agree with Reed.  You need your rest.”

            “Of course, you do,” Yuffie said, eyes fixed on the distance.  “You’re a suck up!”

            “Hey!  I am not!”

            “You are,” she said.  “If you don’t want to be one, then stop sucking up.”

            “I’m not a suck-up, Yuffie.  I’m just worried.”

            “Then you’re a worried suck-up,” she said.  “And there’s nothing to worry about.  I’ve been through...”

            “Way worse.  You keep saying that.”  He leaned forward in his seat.  “Listen, I know you’re a hero of the Jenova War.  Everyone does.  You talk about it all the time, but that was a long time ago, and things have changed.  The world has changed.  And so have you.”

            “I’m not talking about the Jenova War.”

            “Then what are you talking about? The Deep Ground Incident?  And how much help were you to Vincent in the end?”

            Now, Yuffie sat up, and she glared at him.

            “I’m just being honest, Yuffie.  Sure, you’ve been in some dire situations, but you’ve never been in one alone.”  He held her gaze, unflinching and unafraid, his disapproval written in the set of his jaw and the fire in his eyes.  “But this time you’re alone, because all of us are out of our depths.  We’re not heroes.  So, what if YOU’VE made it through worse.  We haven’t.  I haven’t, and Daisy hasn’t.  And I don’t know if you have what it takes to drag us out like they dragged you.”

            Yuffie opened her mouth to speak and closed it when she had nothing say.  Daisy’s wounds weighed heavily on her, as did the bloody bandages and the sight of the other woman, torn in half by a massive blade.  Unable to speak, Yuffie chewed her cap lid and glared at him like a toddler.

            Oliver took his towel and shoved it away in its bag along with his water bottle.  Then, he stood, slipping the bag up onto his shoulder. Then, he waited there beside her.  “And it’s not that I don’t believe in you—either of you.  It’s that seeing Daisy torn up like that...” His voice shook.  “I just want you to be safe, okay?”

            “Thanks,” Yuffie said, her pout lingering.  “But I can take care of myself.

            “I know, and we’ve talked about that, but this the Emerald Lotus we’re talking about,” he said.  “Listen, I’ve been looking into them, after what happened to you two, and they’re big trouble, Yuffie.  They’re gaining momentum, and what they are saying sounds good to a lot of people.”

            “Stupid people,” Yuffie said, but she remembered the rally.  She frowned around her bottle.  “They’re crazy.”

            “Stupid people?  Or maybe they’re scared, Yuffie.  Look at the world! At the W.R.O.!  There’s a lot of unchecked power there.”

            Yuffie glared now.  She pulled the water away from her lips and slammed it down on the table.  “Oh, come on!  You can’t be serious here.  What? Do you think Shinra was better?”

            “No, and I don’t think the Emerald Lotus does, either.  I just think—maybe there should be more than just the two options.”

            “Where in the world is this coming from, Oliver?  What, are you so scared that you’re going to start doubting us now?  We’re doing good work, saving people, protecting them from the bad guys who would use them or use materia to hurt them.  Think about all of the things Shinra did, that they did with Materia, and what could be done if it’s not under control.”

            “Exactly, and now the W.R.O. is hoarding it for themselves.” He shook his head and stepped away from the table.  “It doesn’t matter now, though,” he said, adjusting his bag and stopping at the door.  “This is what it is.  So, what are you going to do with yourself now that you’re off active duty?”

            Still frowning, Yuffie tossed her bottle away into a nearby trash bin.  “What do you think?”

            “Knowing you?  You’re going to keep going just to spite Reed.”

            A small smile blossomed onto Yuffie’s face.  She chuckled to herself.  “Probably, but not JUST to spite him.  I mean, the spite helps.”  She looked him in the eyes.  “Why? You going to tattle?”

            Oliver, smiling as well, paused.  He shook his head, and the smile faded.  “No, but I will warn you to be careful, if for no other reason than this Lotus guy sounds dangerous.”

            “He is,” she said, and she looked out into the distance.  The sun was dipping, burning the sky into a brilliant orange.  “But that’s all the more reason that he needs to be stopped and stopped hard.”