Emerald Crisis--Final Fantasy VII--Disc One, Mission 6

Midgar Region: W.R.O. Hunter’s Lodge\

            Yuffie returned late in the evening, squinting as she approached.  The airfield surrounding the Lodge glowed in the twilight, pale ghostly bulbs that illuminated the stirring dust.  The rain had soaked her through and she shivered in her approach, feeling more sick and fatigued than she had been before she left.  More than that, she felt despondent, disconnected from the world and from herself.  Aside from the storm, she was accompanied only by silence.

            At her approach, she noticed something wrong.  There were black helicopters settled on the field and soldiers moving about.  In the distance, she saw them moving, precisely and strategically, in small squadrons.  She paused and kneeled down, watching their movements.  The rain had covered their approach.

            The lights dimmed and flickered before going out entirely.  In the distance, she heard an explosion and felt it rumble in the ground.  Yuffie cursed to herself and ducked down further, approaching carefully in the fading light.

            The Emerald Lotus had been quiet since the attacks.  The interrogation of Hollis hadn’t turned up much, from what she knew.  Files on him told of a North Corel survivor turned mercenary.  He had as much reason to hate Shinra as anyone else in the world, and he told them that the W.R.O. was nothing but history repeating itself.

            Lotus himself was a complete mystery.  Theories in the mess hall had said that his trail went cold in the old Midgar sewer system.  The attack itself had been planned for months before.  The threat wasn’t as new in the making as they thought.  It had been a wound festering for years.

            This new attack led Yuffie to know something else: the parade was a feint.  Edge was terrified, and the W.R.O. was just as shaken.  It all proved to Yuffie that the Emerald Lotus was on no one’s side, but they still seemed to be gaining support.  New people disappeared each day.

            She stopped behind a steel crate outside of the building and ducked beneath it.  She took the time to check her phone but found no signal.  The Emerald Lotus was being careful here, but this sort of interference wouldn’t be permanent.  They were moving quickly and striking quickly, and then they would be moving back out.  Inside, she spied the emergency lights coming on, their red glow appearing in flashes in through open doorways.

            She took a deep breath, and she charged the front door.

            Smoke filled the halls.  Gunfire echoed around her.  Yuffie could see only by the flashing of the emergency lights, which blurred everything into a haze.  She sprinted first toward the infirmary, to check on Daisy, but she found no one there.  The room was as empty as the halls were.

            She left the infirmary, going deeper into the facility.  The Lodge held only one thing of worth—the materia vault.  If the Emerald Lotus were attacking for any reason, it would be for that, she was sure.  She found the stairs and took them down.

            The first floor of the Hunter’s Lodge—basement 1—was the entrance.  It was a web-work of offices.  The second floor, deeper below, held the more secured parts of the base.  The prison was down there, and so was the vault.  Buried beneath concrete and steel, it was the safest place within miles of Edge or Midgar.

            She came to a stop, kneeling beside a stairway wall and peeked out.  The holding cells were one way and the vault the other.  Smoke and flames rolled away from the vault and poured down the hall, and she could see flashes of green uniforms moving among the chaos.

            Another deep breath.  Yuffie doubted Lotus would be there himself, but she knew Hollis would already be free.  The vault was under attack, too, which also meant he wouldn’t be alone.  It occurred to her for the first time in her life that she might want to wait, leave the trouble for someone else, but she didn’t like the thought.  She pushed it away, focused on the task at hand, and fingered the throwing knife in her belt as she turned the corner.

            Entering the vault, she stepped over two broken bodies of W.R.O. soldiers.  The smoke helped to hide her approach, made it easy for her to move.  The first Lotus soldier she struck didn’t have time to react.  Yuffie had their arm behind her back and their head against the wall in a matter of seconds.

            A second soldier nearby reacted to the subtle noise their partner made.  They had their rifle up as she approached, but Yuffie seized them, hands on the soldier’s shoulders, feet planted into the soldier’s chest, and flipped them overhead and into a nearby wall.  They landed heavily, unconscious.

            Yuffie adjusted her grip on her dagger before she rose.  Stopping beside the vault, she looked in and found Hollis inside, flanked by three Lotus soldiers.  Materia was scattered around them, glittering in the dim light.  Six more soldiers inside were, busy loading materia into large trunks they had brought with them..

            Hollis snorted a laugh and turned.  He had his big arms crossed over his chest.  There was a wild look in his eyes.  “Well, well, look who’s here.  Hey there, girly.  Thought you’d still be in intensive care.”

            Yuffie winced.  Seeing him made her body ache, her stomach tense, but she forced herself to stand straight.  “I was getting a good rest, but I heard all the fun down here and thought I’d join in,” she said, flashing her dagger as she entered the vault.  “Things are getting out of hand though, big man.  Get back in your cell.”

            “Ms. Kisaragi, I thought I told you to leave.”

            Yuffie went stiff, her throat tight.  Reed entered behind her, his suit jacket open, revealing a black vest beneath.  His neat hair was a mess, and there was blood splashed across his face.  An electric rod sparked in one hand.  A bracer of materia gleamed on his wrist.  “We’ve been compromised,” Reed said, looking past her.  “The W.R.O. will be here soon, and we’re not equipped for a full battle.  Take what we have and go.”

            “Wait,” Yuffie said, looking between them.  Her eyes fell on Oliver, waiting in the hall way, who stared fixedly back at her.  “Wait...”

            “I’ve waited so long for this,” Reed said.  Lotus soldiers filed past the two of them.  Hollis lingered in the hall, beside Oliver, staring back at her.  The two of them left then, while Reed undid the cuffs of his jacket and tossed it to the floor.  “I’ve always hated you.  Hated your impulsivity, your insubordination, and your insistence on getting mixed up in everything around you.”

            “Traitors.”  Yuffie breathed the word.

            “Pick yourself up, Kisaragi.  Now isn’t the time to cry,” he said.  “I want to break you—kill you at your best!”

            Yuffie’s disbelief turned to anger.  She glared.  “The only thing you’re going to break is your hip, old man.  Now, get out of my way.  Oliver has some answers to give.”

            Reed gave a sour smile.  The materia on his wrist glowed brightly.  “You always did have a smart mouth.”  The rod in his hand sparked again as he gripped it tight.  “Time to teach you some respect.”

            He struck first, swinging his rod swiftly, stabbing it forward.  Flashing arcs of light danced along the shaft.  Yuffie ducked under the rod and then rolled across the floor, evading a spreading tide of flame that followed her.  Heat washed over her back.

            She jabbed at Reed and swiped with her knife, hitting only the air.  He sidestepped and brought his rod around in return.  They danced together, stepping through flame and debris, narrowly missing with each strike.  He landed a punch on her cheek, and she kicked him hard in return.  They parted, smiling

            Yuffie felt her tender cheek and grinned.  Reed growled in response, hitting the floor and sending a sheet of white ice spreading across its surface.  Yuffie leapt over it, landing steadily as the flames were swallowed.  Steam and smoke choked the air.

            They met again.  Reed blocked two jabs and caught Yuffie in the stomach with his rod, sending a shock through just after she escaped. Before she could retreat completely, however, he caught her again in the stomach with a sharp kick that knocked her into the wall.

            She grabbed his ankle as he tried to retreat and pulled him back toward her, forcing her knife into his shin.  He screamed and as he was tipped back, falling flat on the ice with her landing on him, her knee in his stomach.

            Wheezing, he rolled away, leaving his shock rod and clutching his gut.

            “I’ve fought worse than you as a kid.”

            Another growl, and he pushed off the ice, swinging with a wide haymaker, his bracer sparking.  Yuffie pulled back, watching his fist glide by, and punched him again, this time in the nose.  She felt the cartilage give.  Warm blood spread across her knuckles.  Yuffie shook the blood from her fingers as he retreated to the wall.

            “You bitch,” Reed shouted.  “I will kill you!”  He reached for his bracer only to find it gone.  Yuffie smiled back at him, holding the bracer up for him to see.

            “Looking for this?  Geeze, seems like you’ve grown senile in your old age.”

            “You...”

            “Me,” she said.  “What, Reed, did you forget who you’re fighting?  Let me remind you.”  She dropped the bracer, stopped smiling, and stared him hard in the eyes.  “I am the single white rose of Wutai, the hero of the Jenvoa War, and I just kicked your ass.  I am the Great. Ninja. Yuffie.”

            Reed stared a moment, and then laughed.  He laughed so hard that his entire seized, and he held his stomach, laughing and laughing until he started to cry.  “You?  You’re nothing but a fool.  The biggest fool I’ve ever met!”  He scooped up a materia from the floor, smiling with blood in his teeth and dripping from his lips.

            The air went tense and smelled of tin.  Yuffie dipped down and sprinted across, her feet leaving prints in the melting ice.  Heat moved through her, as a tickle of energy moved up her arm in a flash of light.  She leapt through it, sailing through the air, and landing in his chest knee first.  Bone gave, and so did his body.

            The materia hit the floor and rolled to a stop at a far wall.  Yuffie held him, braced against the wall, wheezing and twitching as the electricity teased her nerves.  A deep breath, and she dropped him to the floor and kneeled down beside him.  He was unconscious, breathing shallowly, and he was broken, not her.

            He wheezed beside her, slow and steady, and she was glad for it.  She hated him, but she still wouldn’t have like to see him die. She stood, and grabbed his bracer on the way out, and she sprinted down the halls, to the stairs, and up toward the surface, where Oliver and Hollis were making their escape.

-Disc One-

            Towers of smoke suffused the air, the wind stirring them into a murky cocktail that darkened the sky.  Clouds parted to reveal a helicopter settled on the asphalt, Lotus soldiers hauling enormous trunks into the interior as well as bags from other soldiers that were working elsewhere.

            Yuffie ran as hard as she could, her lungs burning from the smoke.  She was halfway to the helicopter as it started to lift, smoke swirling around it, fire writhing and swelling.  The anti-air turrets burned like beacons in the darkness.  Two more helicopters, white in color, hummed in the distance, making their slow approach.

            Screaming, Yuffie touched one of the materia fixed to Reed’s bracer and drew power from it. She hurled a ball of flame high up and it broke harmlessly against the helicopter’s underbelly, causing it to sway in the air but doing little else.  She ran hard, bent her knees, and jumped, letting one of her own materia carry her through the air.

            The wind whipped at her hair and she landed in the open doorway of the helicopter.  Two soldiers drew guns on her, but she had her protection spell ready before landing.  She ducked around, kicking one out and disarming the other.  A safety cable caught the first, while the cold steel of the helicopter interior caught the other.

            The helicopter rocked as she fought, stirring her stomach.  The glow of her materia faded.  Hollis sat back, crouched in a seat, watching with a smile.  His big body took up more room than two people would, and when he did rise, she could feel the vibrations of each footfall passing through the steel.  “Knew we couldn’t trust Reed to finish you off.”

            Oliver caught Hollis by the shoulder and pulled him back.  “No.”

            Yuffie braced against the interior walls and tried not to vomit.  She watched the two of them, watched the joy drain from Hollis’ face, the anger and disappointment that took its place.  There was a brief disagreement, and Hollis backed down, letting Oliver step forward to meet her.

            He looked her in the eyes, appearing almost sorry, and then pushed her out with his foot.  His movements were gentle, tender, without hate or malice, but she didn’t have the strength to hold.  The movement of the helicopter had sapped everything from her.  She fell, limp, and watched the helicopter disappear into the darkness.

            Just before landing, she conjured her protection materia to soften the blow.  The pavement broke, but she held together.  Only the wind was knocked from her as she recovered.

            She laid there a moment, on the hot asphalt.  Fire and smoke rose and spiraled as she listened to the whipping of the Emerald Lotus’ helicopter disappear, replaced by the approach of the W.R.O.  Vaguely, Yuffie thought she could hear Daisy calling for her, but she didn’t have the strength to respond.

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.

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.”