Emerald Crisis--Final Fantasy VII--Disc One, Mission 10

The Ruins of Midgar: Below Shinra HQ\

            Yuffie swayed and landed quietly, her footfalls silent from years of training.  Rising, she pinned herself to the wall and moved along its edges while Daisy came to a heavier landing beside her.  She switched the bracer-flashlight on, searching the area briefly, memorizing everything she saw before Daisy’s eyes had time to adjust.  Then, it was off.

            “Where are we,” Daisy asked while rubbing the ache from her arms.

            “The bottom,” Yuffie said, kneeling at the center of the elevator they stood on and flipping the hatch open.

            “And is this all it is?”

            Yufife stopped and looked up at Daisy.  She had her arms planted around the edges of the hatch and was just bout to lower herself in.  “Is this all what is?”

            “Adventures,” Daisy said.  “Are they just endless climbs.”

            “Mostly,” Yuffie said.  “And walking.  So much walking.”  She smiled.  “And somewhere in between, you manage to save the world.  Not at all like the movies make it, huh?”

            Daisy just sighed.

            “Okay, now quiet.  Time for game faces.”  Yuffie lowered herself into the elevator and landed lithely, going to the wall again.  This time, she drew her shuriken as they moved.  Daisy followed her in, nearly falling forward as she landed but being caught by Yuffie instead.  They took position beside the elevator doors, which were already worked open and partially folded inward.

            Yuffie peeked around the corner and into the room.  It was larger than she expected, two-story, with catwalks lining the walls and one bridging the walls into the center.  Expensive machinery lined the first-story walls.  Tables filled the interior, with a few more large, dusty machines spaced evenly across the floor.

            Lotus soldiers worked tirelessly.  One walked the catwalks above while others scurried about the floor. They had a vault on the left wall opened, a halo of soot showing where the explosives went off, and they were removing crate after crate of materia.  They took the crates to the tables in the center of the floor, where some of the soldiers were pulling each piece out, one by one, and making notes on nearby clipboards.

            Across the room, the wall was open.  An enormous, two-panel door had been pulled apart.  Yuffie could hardly see the tunnel beyond thedoors in the darkness, but she could make out a small tram car which waited there, presumably to haul their take away when they were done with the busy work.

            She kneeled back in the elevator with her back against the wall and pulled up the holographic interface on her bracer.  The signal was dead, which meant they were alone in enemy territory, surrounded on all sides by Lotus soldiers.  A cold sensation crept down her spine and settled in her gut.  For a moment, Yuffie thought it was fear, and then she thought it away entirely.

            She put on a weak smile.

            Daisy waited beside her, weapons drawn, safety off.  Yuffie gestured for her to wait and watch.  Daisy nodded in return and peeked out of the elevator doors.

            Sitting straight, Yuffie took a deep but quiet breath, and then ducked out into the facility.  She stopped beside one of the large machines and hid with her back to it.  The steel was old and cool to the touch.  She peeked over it, noting the movements of the sentries and the workers, and then moved on.  She wound a slow circle around the facility, stopping periodically to peek at the guards and adjust her course.

            As she approached the center, she kept a close watch on the guard on the catwalks.  If she were going to be caught, it would be by him.  Back to a machine, she peeked around the corner and caught sight of a middle-aged man with greying dark hair and a lined face.  He moved with a hunch and had glasses perched low on his long nose.  His voice was high and rough, and his manner manic but disinterested.  He spoke with a woman who was standing inside of the vault.  Her voice was deep and serious.

            “Doctor, we didn’t come here to find your pet project.”  He tone was calm on the surface but edged with malice.  Yuffie could tell from the way the woman spoke, she did not like the doctor.

            The doctor cackled.  “Perhaps, but we get what we get, darling.  Beside, I’m sure your Lotus won’t be so upset to have more powerful materia within their grasp.”

            “He isn’t looking for more materia, only a specific materia.”

            “Yes, yes,” the man said absently.  He stepped into the vault and Yuffie could hear something click.  There was a mechanical whine as a machine struggled to life.  “But you can’t outfit an army with only a single materia.”

            “If we get what we’re looking for, we won’t need an army.”  The woman moved.  Her footfalls were heavy and her gait wide.  Yuffie imagined her, tall and stocky, in her mind.  “Enough games.  Is it here?”

            “Who knows.  If not, then we will find it elsewhere.  There are files, dear, and they’re still here, I am sure.”

            The woman took a deep breath.  “You made us certain promises.”

            “The day hasn’t ended, dear.”

            “Don’t call me dear.”

            The doctor laughed again, this time more quietly.  “You just leave me to my job, to the materia.”  He stepped out of the vault.  His hands were inside of his pockets now.  The doctor was the only one who didn’t wear a Lotus uniform.  He had on slacks and a yellow-turtle neck sweater. “And you take care of your own job.  We have company.”

            Yuffie went stiff, she held her breath and ducked around the machine, her back pressed hard against the cold steel behind her.  The woman followed the doctor out of the fault.  She had drawn a weapon.  “Where?”

            “And here I thought you SOLDIERS were the elite.  Veterans.”  He chuckled again.  “The elevator, dear.”

            Yuffie cursed to herself and listened as the woman called over one of the lotuses and whispered an order into his ear.  Then, she heard a blade being drawn, a large, sharp one, and didn’t wait any longer.  Standing, she hurled her shuriken overhead, aiming for where she estimated the woman to be and rolled to take cover behind another machine.

            A flash of fire was followed by a cloud of dark smoke.  Flames surged across the floor, between the machinery, the heat of it forcing the steel to glow and bend.  Yuffie conjured a materia shell from her bracer to hold the flames at bay and waited for the flames to recede before lowering her arm.  The Lotus scrambled around her.

            “She’s here,” the woman shouted, and gunfire echoed across the room.  Yuffie moved around the other side of the machine again, to flank her enemy, and she finally caught sight of the woman.  She was tall, with glowing green eyes and curly blonde hair.  Yuffie recognized her from the rally.  She was the woman who stabbed Daisy through the stomach.

            More gunfire, this time from Daisy, who kept the Lotus at bay with well-placed shots.  The female SOLDIER took the doctor by the sweater and dragged him away, tipping a desk and dropping him behind it.  She shouted orders from her crouched position, ordering the Lotus soldiers above to cover their retreat.  A particularly stout male Lotus on the floor approached her to receive direct orders from her.

            “We’ve been compromised,” the SOLDIER said, and she glanced at Yuffie, who was handling a few ground soldiers while they spoke.  “If she’s here, then the W.R.O. won’t be far behind.  I’ll take the doctor and what materia we have and return.  You clean up and grab whatever you can before following after.”

            The Lotus nodded and turned to three others who were awaiting his command.  Yuffie was gone.  She had handled the two Lotus who got to her and knocked them unconscious, and she returned to moving along the walls, out of sight of those above.  She meant to cut off the SOLDIER’s retreat but didn’t move fast enough.  A sniper shot from the catwalk hit with enough force to knock her back even as the barrier stopped it.

            Daisy shot the sniper from below, and Yuffie made another effort to intercept the SOLDIER and the doctor as they made their way across the room.  This time, a Lotus soldier stepped in front of her.  She was a skinny thing carrying a big, dark automatic rifle, and she unloaded on Yuffie, who lifted her bracer and charged through the gunfire.  Yuffie leapt into the woman, feet-first.

            The woman fell back and rolled into a nearby materia canister, knocking materia across the floor.  Yuffie landed on her back and kicked up, planting both feet firmly on the steel and preparing her second assault.  The Lotus met her again, this time with a baton in hand.  It sparked whenever she pressed a button on the grip.

            The woman lunged and Yuffie pivoted.  She pushed away the woman’s arm and struck her in the face, cracking the ceramic of her mask.  The woman staggered back, and Yuffie rolled over a nearby table, meeting the woman on the other side with her foot.  The woman stumbled forward and caught herself on one of the machines.

            From her periphery, Yuffie noticed another Lotus approaching from behind her.  He had a gun in one hand, pointed at the floor, and a dagger up in the other.  The woman in front of her lunged again, aiming for Yuffie’s stomach.  Yuffie twirled around and threw the woman into the second Lotus.  The baton touched his chest and sent him rigid as electricity crawled through his form.

            The woman turned as Yuffie leaped off of a nearby machine.  They met, knee-to-face, and the woman’s mask shattered into pieces as she fell backward into another machine and slumped onto the ground.  The male Lotus fell beside her, gun discarded and knife clattering against the steel panel flooring.

            Another Lotus opened fired as Yuffie landed.  She lifted her barrier and caught the bullets before ducking behind a machine.  More gunfire and Yuffie hardly had time to react as bullets gathered around the floor.  She grabbed materia from the floor and focused her energies and ice formed around the Lotus’ gun.

            He discarded it and charged forward, reaching for the knife on the ground.  Yuffie met him part way, planting a kick to his chest and then again in his stomach.  As he staggered back, she conjured ice around him in a solid block that swallowed his body up to the neck.  His arms dangled from the sides.

            Another Lotus was taken down by precision shooting from the elevator, and Yuffie smiled and dropped the materia she held.  She turned and found the large Lotus from before making his charge.  He swung over head with both hands, and she caught it with her bracer and her legs gave out.  Daisy fired, but he took Yuffie by the arm and lifted her barrier to block the bullets.

            They danced together, spinning as they fought for control.  Yuffie tried to rip her arm free, to counter his movements.  She wove their legs together, struggled to get a firm grip on his neck or shoulders, to angle his body in a way that gave her leverage or exposed him to Daisy’s keen eye.

            He lifted her and slammed her down on the table.  Air rushed from her lungs and left her coughing as he kept a firm grip on her.  She parted her legs, clamped them around his head and rolled, bringing him face-first into the table.  His head bounced off and mask fractured, revealing one eye underneath.

            The grip he had on her loosened, and she stumbled back while she fell from the table and caught herself on the floor.  She scrambled away before his head cleared and took refuge out of sight of him, taking time to catch her breath while gunfire echoed around her.

            She peeked around the left of corner of the machine where she hid, where she left him, but saw nothing.  To the right she found him searching for her.  She pressed one hand to her side, where her body ached, and the cure materia in her bracer flared to life before she stood to charge him.

            They met, and she made a series of swift, precise strikes at his chest and face.  He dodged them, ducking and swaying with her movements before stepping in for his own attack.  Yuffie bent backward under it and then seized him by the arm.  Pushing off of the machine beside them, she used the momentum to carry her up and bring her knee up into his face.  He stumbled back but held his footing.

            She wiped sweat from her brow and smiled.  “You’re pretty good,” she said, and the Lotus smiled as another chunk of mask fell from his face.  He lifted a device and clicked the tip of it, and she felt the draw of her materia slowly fade away.  The faint glow of her barrier faded with it.  She glanced at her armguard.  “A jammer?”

            He nodded and dropped it beside him before drawing two large, curved knives and twirling them in hand.  He held them backhand and sunk into a low stance.  Yuffie frowned and unfastened her guard, leaving it on the floor and stretching her arm while hopping in place.  She felt winded, but she could fight.

            “Just so you can’t say I tricked you afterward, you know who I am, right?”

            “Yuffie Kisaragi of Wutai.”

            She smiled.  “That’s the Great Ninja Yuffie, the White Rose of Wutai, actually.”

            “Won’t be white for long,” the man said.  His knives gleamed.

            “Clever.”

            The Lotus grunted and lunged forward, and Yuffie ducked under the charge.  They met, him stabbing down at her and missing entirely as she rolled away.  His knife hit the steel flooring and left a thin scrape across its surface.  He turned to stab again, but she caught him by the back and drove her knee into his gut.  It knocked him to his side, but he barely seemed to feel the blow as he rolled back to his feet.

            She kept attacking, using her speed to her advantage.  Most swings landed, but he kept his arms up to soak the blows.  He fought carefully, conserving energy and taking quick, powerful strikes, holding his blades to in a way that left shallow gashes along the machines that flanked them.

            Yuffie avoided severe injuries by staying mobile.  Her barrier had left her drained to start and the use of the ice and cure materias found her fatigued.  Her knees buckled when they should have held, and she could feel her reaction slowing.  A few sweeps of his blades left thin gashes along her arms and shoulders.  One caught her in the cheek just before she could retreat.

            He caught her with a punch to the gut, the base of his knife knocking the air from her, and then jabbed down at her with the other blade.  Yuffie shuffled away, falling into a nearby table and rolling across its surface.  Materia spilled off around her, and she caught one as it fell and tried to cast as she stood but nothing happened.  The materia was inert in her palm, its light stolen by the nearby jammer.  So, she threw it at his chest and watched it fall harmlessly to the floor.

            He grinned bloodily.  “Looks like the legend ends today,” he said, sauntering forward and twirling his blades.  She could see blood on their polished surface, her blood.

            A bullet ricocheted nearby and drew the Lotus’ attention.  He ducked down and looked over his shoulder to find Daisy charging, guns up and cursing as she continued pulling the trigger.  Bullets bounced off around him harmlessly as he kept low, with his back to the steel machines.  He peeked around once to gauge her movement and then rose to hurl one dagger at her.

            The dagger spiraled through the air and caught Daisy in the shoulder.  She fell to the ground, holding the blade and cursing as blood gushed from the wound.  Both of her guns fell to the ground beside her, one empty and the other with its clip out as she was reloading.

            Yuffie took the opportunity to attack from behind.  She leaped onto him, pummeling him in the back of the head until he reached up and pulled her back down.  The machine caught her fall, and she bent over it, her spine straining.  Lifting her, he tossed her again, into the nearby table, which skidded backward and toppled as she fell onto the ground, groaning.

            He stood over her then, one big booted foot resting on her chest.  The world kept spinning as a deep ache spread through her.  She strained to focus on him, and he tapped her chin with his boot before pinning her face to the floor.  From his holster he pulled out a pistol and cocked it.  The mechanical sound focused her some, but she could only barely see him past his boot.

            “You know,” he said, chuckling as he pointed the gun at her head.  He moved his foot down to her chest so she could turn to face him.  “For all your boasting, I thought you would be better.  But, I guess even heroes have to die someday.”

            “Not the good ones,” she rasped, grabbing him by the ankle.  He smiled as she coughed up the blood pooling in her throat and closed her eyes.  It hurt, all of it hurt, her body and her pride.  She could taste the blood, feeling it congealing on her chin and lips, feel the swelling aches in her back and the broken bones.

            Then there was a pulse.  In the very core of her a light flashed into a spark of adrenaline and then something more.  She was desperate and tired, and she had no one to save her, so she would have to save herself.  It was hard for her to admit, but she was at her limit, and she had to break past it.

            With the last of her energy, she pushed his leg to the side and rose from the ground.  Something greater than herself filled her with endless force, endless energy, and she put all of it into one final, wild swing.  Her first coalesced with a shining blue light and caught him across the face and a gust of wind exploded around them, toppling tables and folding the steel panels of the machines around them in.

            Light and fire followed as he flew across the room, landing in a materia ben and knocking it backward underneath him.  It went skidding across the floor as he rolled to a stop against the far wall, materia scattered around him.

            Yuffie took a deep breath and folded, falling to her knees, and she panted for air.  On her hands and knees, she crawled through the debris to find the jammer and turn it off.  She dropped it into her pocket before returning for her guard and grabbing the cure materia from it.  On the way to Daisy, she mended her own wounds as best she could before helping to remove the dagger from her partner’s arm and healing her after.

            “I’m sorry,” Daisy said as she held her arm just below the gash.  She watched the skin folding shut beneath the blood.  The wound itched as it wove back together.

            Yuffie smiled weakly.  “Don’t be sorry.  You took out an entire army on your own.”  The materia stopped glowing, and Yuffie kneeled down beside her, exhausted and pale.  “Still,” she sighed, “I could have done without you missing that last shot.”

            “I crumbled under the pressure,” Daisy said, and they both laughed.  She felt light-headed, and her shoulder was still bruised, but she could move.  She reached for her guns and finished reloading them.  “Are you okay?”

            “Please.”  Yuffie wiped sweat from her forehead and blood from her lips.  “I’ve faced worse than the big guy.”  She pushed herself to standing after a few more deep breaths.  “No time to lick our wounds, though.  We’ve got a tram to catch.”

            Daisy nodded and slipped the clip into one of her guns with a definitive click. Then, she holstered both weapons before rising with Yuffie.  “Then lead the way.”

            Yuffie nodded and went to gather her shuriken before they left.

-Disc One-

            They followed the tram tunnels to an exit and could smell the sea in the distance before they saw it.  The tunnels were dark, and this darkness, combined with their fatigue, made the journey feel endless.  When they saw a light at the end, they ran forward to find the mountain ridges rising behind them, dark grey and stabbing the sky.  There was a beach to their right, pale sand being swallowed regularly by the shifting tides.

            Daisy paced the beach, kicking the sand, while Yuffie walked the high grasses nearby.  The stalks were flattened across a wide area and bent outward from a gust of wind.  An airship had landed there.  Grooves were worked into the soft dirt where it had touched ground.

            Yuffie joined Daisy at the beach.  They sat together, staring into the grey horizon.  A pink blush was forming at the rim of the sky.  The sun would be rising soon, and night was finally coming to an end.  They breathed and felt very tired suddenly.  All of the damage they accumulated came to life, and they really just wanted to rest.

            Daisy leaned into Yuffie and put her arms around her.  She held her close.  “You okay?”  Yuffie frowned, and Daisy shook her gently and squeezed her at the shoulder.  “Listen, this isn’t over.  We’ll get them later.”  She ruffled Yuffie’s hair and sat up straight.  “You’ll see.  We won’t stop, and they can’t hide forever.”

            The wind was cold but growing warmer.  The air smelled strongly of salt and wet.  They stayed there as the first rays of sunlight spread across the water.  Yuffie laid back, head in her hands, and she stared up at the sky, shivering as the cool air danced across her bare midriff.  Daisy stood and stretched and rubbed her arms for warmth.

            “Come on.”  She offered Yuffie her hand.  “We should go back and look around, see if we can find anything before the W.R.O. guys figure out where we went.”

            Yuffie opened her eyes.  She stared up Daisy’s arm, up into her dark eyes.  Both looked tired and beaten up, but Daisy had something that Yuffie was lacking.  There was vitality still there.  Yuffie kept replaying their failed battles in her head.  Even fighting that single soldier had been a challenge.  She wondered how many times the others saved her over the years, and then pushed those thoughts away so she could force herself to take Daisy’s hand.

            The walk back was long and quiet.  Neither was moving quickly and neither had the energy to care.  The soldiers were still unconscious.  Daisy set out to tying them and marking them for W.R.O. pick up, sending coordinates to Shelke while Yuffie searched the vaults and the files stored inside.  The facility still had power even after years of neglect.

            She found files and downloaded them to her personal database and then left through the tram tunnels.  It was a long walk back to Midgar, but Yuffie was happy for the exercise.  She needed to stretch the sores out of her and work out the nervous energy left over from the battle before she went to rest.  It also gave her time to look through the files.

            As they passed through the ruins toward Daisy’s car, they caught sight of a W.R.O. airship drifting overhead.  They would be arriving soon and start their search, and Yuffie wanted to make it back to Edge and get a few hours of rest before they came calling on her.

Emerald Crisis--Final Fantasy VII--Disc One, Mission 9

The Ruins of Midgar: Shinra HQ Top Floor\

            Daisy stared out the fractured window.  From where they were, she could see the stars clearly.  The dirty remains of the plate gleamed in the night.  Far below, she knew there were people gathered around fires, hunched in the cold, wrapped in dirty rags.  From the top floor of Shinra’s HQ, however, she couldn’t’ see them.  Suddenly, it made sense to her how people at the top can be so callous.

            She turned and regarded the office.  They found it thick with webbing, and Yuffie used her materia to burn it away.  Then, she cleared a spot on the floor and started fiddling with the files on her bracer’s holographic interface. 

            “Find it yet?”

            “I’m looking,” Yuffie said.  “I’m trying to find some older blueprints, maybe see if I can figure out where the hidden door might be.”

            “How hard can it be? Find a hollow wall or something.”

            Yuffie frowned at her.  “You’ve obviously never infiltrated a place before,” she said while sifting through more files.  “Most walls have wiring behind them, especially in a place like this.  It isn’t about hollow walls.  It’s about looking for something that doesn’t belong.”

            “What doesn’t belong, huh?”  Daisy folded her arms in front of her and approached the wall.  The paint was chipped, the wall fractured.  An old bookcase was folded in, the glass desk melted and warped.  She walked a small circle and then came to a stop.  The webbing had been burned away and soot was gathered on the walls.  From where she stood, she could see a small gash in the wall.

            Her brow knitted, and she leaned forward, and she listened.  Beyond the wall, she could hear voices, indistinct whispers that were, undoubtedly, human.  She stood straight and readied both pistols, and she whispered Yuffie’s name once, twice, three times before getting her attention.

            Yuffie looked up.  “What?”

            Daisy nodded at the wall. 

            “The wall?”  Yuffie frowned, then went wide-eyed.  “Oh, the wall!”  She closed the files on her bracer and stood.  Reaching back, she readied her shuriken.  “And we’ve got company?”

            Daisy nodded.

            Yuffie smiled.  “Then, let’s go introduce ourselves.  You first.”

            A nod, and Daisy leaned into the wall, throwing it open.  There were four Lotus soldiers, standing huddled in a narrow hallway thick with dust.  At the very end was the rounded shaft of the elevator, the doors worked open.  The four soldiers reacted immediately when they see them.

            All four wore masks and the green military uniforms of their organization.  There were two men in the fore, ready and waiting, one being tall and wiry and the other stout around the midsection.  Behind them were two women, one small but toned and the other being a big woman with strong shoulders.

            Daisy kneeled and readied her pistols while Yuffie stepped in and hurled her shuriken.  It spun through the air and landed between them.  A wall of ice swelled around them, spreading from the shuriken and pinning two, small-but-toned and stout-around-the-midsection, to the walls.

            “Your turn,” Yuffie shouted, and Daisy took two shots.  The gunshots echoed down the hallway, but the bullets came into contact with a blue flash and a hexagonal barrier that formed from the air.  Materia glowed brilliantly in the darkness from armbands they wore.

            Shoulders drew two daggers and ran along the wall, twirling through the air as she came to landing.  She attacked from the side, stabbing at Daisy’s torso but being met by Yuffie instead.  Yuffie caught the woman by the arms and fell back, tossing her into the office.  Shoulders hit the ground hard and lost hold of her daggers as she slid across the glossy floor.

            Tall-and-wiry staggered forward and swung down at Yuffie, who met his fist with her arm guard and then knocked him away.  She planted a kick to his gut and then another to his chest.  He stumbled back, and she leapt up, pushing off the wall and driving both feet into his chest again.  He fell backward into the ice and then slumped to the ground.

            Flipping overhead, Yuffie yanked her shuriken from the floor and the ice disintegrated into slush.  The Lotus soldiers fell free.  Tiny-but-toned grabbed hold of the shuriken and pulled Yuffie down into a kick.  Her knee met Yuffie’s gut and sent both women into the slurry.  Beside them, thick-about-the-midsection drew a gun but had it shot from his hands by Daisy, who was then grabbed from behind.

            Yuffie coughed and pushed herself up.  Tiny closed distance, using a series of swift jabs to drive Yuffie to the wall.  Pinned, Yuffie tightened her posture, pulled her arms close to her torso and darted around the quick strikes.  When she saw an opening, she punched Tiny in the solar plexus repeatedly and then elbowed her in the face.  Then, seizing the small woman by the shoulders, Yuffie flipped over her head and used her momentum to toss the other woman into the wall.

            Daisy choked and clawed at shoulder’s arms.  She coughed and watched as Yuffie ducked under a punch from thick and grabbed her shuriken.  Without even a glance, she spun about and drove the shuriken deep into the steel panels of the wall, wedging it in around his neck and holding him in place.  Then, she tossed a shining green stone that flashed with light as it approached.

            A roar of fire sounded from the entrance.  Daisy put her head down and closed her eyes.  The woman behind her was blown forward, uniform smoking.  The smell of burnt flesh filled the room.  Before shoulders could recover, Daisy was on her, striking her repeatedly in the face with her pistol butt.  She kept swinging until the woman stopped but took care not to kill her.

            After, Daisy and Yuffie stood together.  They were mostly unharmed, though Yuffie was holding her side.  “You okay,” she asked, and Daisy nodded, so Yuffie turned to the thick, who was trying to pry the shuriken from the wall.  He stopped when he saw Yuffie staring.  She put her hands on the shuriken and kneed him in the crotch, then she pulled it from the wall and let him crumple to the floor.

            Daisy picked up her pistols and held them at the ready as she approached.  Yuffie stood over thick, foot pinning his head to the ground, and rested her weapon perched on her shoulder.  “Okay, let’s do this fast: there’s more than you four here.  Talk.”

            “Greene,” he coughed.

            Yuffie smirked and glanced at Daisy.  “And here I thought all the Lotus folks were too stupid to do this easy.”  She tapped his chin with her shuriken and pulled his mask off.  He was crying on the floor.  “It’s okay, sweetheart.  You’re okay, so long as you give us more.”

            “He was a doctor, worked for Shinra, works for us now.  He’s crazy but smart.”

            “Sounds like Shinra’s M.O.,” Yuffie said.  “And how many does he have with him?”

            “Twenty more.”

            “Soldiers?”

            “All of them,” he said.  “When you join Lotus, you get trained.  We’re all soldiers,” and with a hint of pride she added, “We’re fighters.”

            Yuffie looked around the hall, at his three friends.  “Not very good ones.”

            He gritted his teeth, his rage getting the better of his fear, and started shouting.  “The W.R.O. will fall, and we will be free to live as we like.  No more corporations to run us, no more governments to collar…”  He went quiet when Yuffie kicked him across the face.  His nose was bloodied, but he was breathing

            Daisy stared at Yuffie, who blinked in response and asked, “What?”

            Daisy shrugged and safetied her pistols before holstering them.  She tiptoed over the water on the floor and the bodies around it to stared down the elevator shaft.  “I think there’s power,” she said, and she looked back at Yuffie, who followed.  “What’re the chances we can take this done.”

            “They took it down it looks like,” Yuffie said.  She fastened her shuriken to her back and then felt along the darkened elevator interior.  When she found the cords leading down, she took hold of them.  “We won’t be using it, though.”

            Daisy frowned.  “And why not?”

            “Can’t let them know we’re coming.” 

“More climbing?”

“More climbing.” She met Daisy’s frown head-on.  “Look at it this way, we won’t have to hit the gym for a week.”

            “Fine, fine!”  Daisy smacked herself in the cheeks and took a deep breath.   In front of her, Yuffie stepped away from the floor and hung in the center of the shaft.  Daisy adjusted her ponytail again.  “How is it holding?”

            “Good,” Yuffie said, and she started shimmying down.  Above her, Daisy followed.

            “I’m really, really starting to regret my decision to come along with you.”

            “Aw, don’t be like that,” Yuffie said as they descended into the darkness.  “Someday, we’ll laugh about all of this.”

            Daisy groaned.  “That’s assuming we survive.”

Emerald Crisis--Final Fantasy VII--Disc One, Mission 5

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.