Chapter One


The smell of incense was thick in the air. Using my sleeve to mask a cough, I sat quietly on the other side of Lady Kisaragi's screen. Fevered and groaning, she had called for her husband to see her in her final hours, but see her, he would not. She was unloved and discarded as any woman was when her husband finally lost interest in her. When he finally stopped loving her.

I swallowed hard at such thoughts, but it was the way of things here. Wutai may be great; full of ancient traditions and forbidden knowledge, but its customs would forever remain, especially when it came to royal women. Those that failed to bear sons were put aside and expected to fade. In Lady Kisaragi's case, a debilitating illness spared her that humiliation. She would die as an Empress with full honours in her burial, yet even in her last moments, her work was never finished.

Gingerly, I gripped the thick fabrics of my yukata and waited until the Empress's servants had made her presentable. She did not want to appear haggard or exhausted when speaking her final commands to a Wutaian princess

"You may come," she said quietly as she dismissed her servants. Carefully I schooled my expression to one of neutrality and held on to it with great trouble when I took in Lady Kisaragi's appearance. Despite the makeup, the dressings and she being propped up like a proper monarch on silken cushions, she looked nothing like herself. The sickly yellow pallor of her skin was still evident under the thick white foundation coating her face. The yellow was in her eyes and they were sunken. Such a ghost of her former beauty.

"Sit," she said and I obliged.

"The Continentals will be at the Imperial city any day now. The final showdown. Do you know what will become of you if you lose?"

I bit my lip. There were countless possibilities, but I decided to name the most obvious ones so as not to seem foolish or cowardly.

"Death I suppose. Hostage or ransom. Ruin by rape. I do not know Your Grace. It depends entirely on the General and President Shin-Ra."

Lady Kisaragi nodded at that and continued on uninterrupted.

"Yes those are all possibilities. Or you could take matters into your own hands and to save your honour, end your own life as is custom. But that is not the fate I would have for you. Lord Godo is a sly man and against custom has prepared for defeat. If you understood the power of their General and his soldiers, you would understand why."

She stopped midway to cough, but refused when I offered her a cloth to wipe the blood from her mouth. She did so with her own and continued.

"Princess Yuffie is the royal heir as you know. Though only fifteen, in the event we lose, we hope to save her from a marriage alliance with those heathens. There is no doubt in my mind that the President will want her for his son."

I listened intently, quite aware of this. Such strategic alliances were either used to avoid a war or bring about its end with one side conceding to defeat. Since Yuffie was born a girl, she was vulnerable to being under the thumb of power to any husband she wedded. It would be a disaster for Wutai for the princess to marry into Shin-Ra. The nation did not want its culture eroded or its heir presumptive at the hands of an enemy.

"This is where you come in. It all depends on the nature of our defeat. If treaties are made, we mean to offer you in marriage to the President, his son or the General. You are princess of royal blood. Daughter of Lord Godo's sister. The fact that you have mixed blood in your veins may add to your appeal. I am no stranger to the rumours about the royal family or what they say about us in the media. There is plenty about you and much of it positive."

Wisely I held my tongue in case I said something I would regret. All these years I had wanted my recognition and now I was getting it, but not in the way I wanted. I had been much ignored by the royal family and Wutaian nobles. My birth was considered a disgrace among them and it was often said I should have been drowned at birth. My mother, a Wutaian princess and sister to the Emperor had married a foreigner without royal permission long ago. An irrelevant nobody of no importance or consequence from a town in the mountains no one had heard of called Nibelheim.

The marriage was brief. In eighteen months of the wedding, she was dead after giving birth to me. My father was paid a sum of money to relinquish me and leave Wutai for good. And thus I was raised in the shadows like some terrible secret everyone wanted to forget.

It was only my service to Lady Kisaragi and her daughter that I got any recognition at all and it was mostly for being a good body guard and proper lady in waiting.

"You mean to use me as a political pawn?" I tried to sound flat, but it was hard to keep the bitterness out of my tone. For all the many slights, I loved Wutai. Even though I had foreign blood in my veins, I considered myself as patriotic and loyal as one of the five mighty Gods of Wutai. To be sent away married to the enemies that were pillaging through our nation was the biggest insult I could think of.

Lady Kisaragi was hardly fazed by my outburst.

"Watch your tongue. I could have had you sent away in disgrace. Branded a bastard like Hitomi's child was or worse."

I wanted to say something in retort. Like pointing out the fact Hitomi's bastard had long ago left Wutai, selling its secrets working for top brass in the Shin-Ra company, branded forehead and all. I wanted to inform her that my mother had done the right thing and married at the very least, but I knew it was useless. Within the last year, Lady Kisaragi had stopped being kind and had little patience on her death bed.

I remained silent as I was taught to by my tutors and martial arts trainer. Learn in silence and suffer in silence. It was the way of the Wutai woman.

"What I am about to tell you, you are to use with the upmost discretion for you are to be given the greatest of missions. While men war and fight for thrones, women work behind the scenes and wage their own battles. You were raised a princess, a warrior and a woman with a wealth of knowledge. It is time to put it to good use. To use your beauty, wit, woman's wiles and cunning kunoichi arts to take down an empire."

I reeled back in shock. It was finally dawning on me on what the Empress was saying. Mixed feelings began to stir. It was an opportunity for me to do something great for my nation and get revenge on those who sought to destroy us, but at what cost?

If I was successful what would become of me afterwards?

"I am honoured you think me capable of this task."

Lady Kisaragi dismissed me with a wave of her hand.

"I don't think, I know. You would never been called to be a companion to my daughter otherwise."

I felt the corners of my mouth tug into a slight smile. For all of Lady Kisaragi's firmness and no nonsense attitude, she seemed to sense potential when she saw it.

"I understand and in the event I succeed and escape back to Wutai, what will become of me afterward? If I am married to any of those men, my prospects may be ruined even if I am deemed a hero."

The Empress scrutinized me as if searching for a hidden meaning and sure enough she realized what I was implying. My services would not be for free or come cheap given the extent that I was to go to, to save Wutai.

Lady Kisaragi let out a short laugh.

"Zangan taught you well. When the time comes you may have your pickings of worthy males for your choosing. Or you may take compensation and go where you wish. Perhaps even reunited with your father. Whatever you wish Tifa."

I raised a brow when she used my birth name. The name my parents had given me, not in the Wutaian tradition, but in the way of the Continent. When my father had relinquished me, Lord Godo had decided to call me Tomoe to cover this extra insult. I had rarely been called Tifa since.

"Am I to be wholly Shin-Ra now? They may find it suspicious," I reasoned.

Lady Kisaragi simply shrugged.

"I'm sure you will put on a grand performance. Just share with your husband a story of how ill treated you were because of your mixed blood. Men are easy to fool when it comes to the art of seduction. Powerful men are no different. Feed their egos and you can whisper as much poison in their ear to do your bidding."

I knew the wisdom in the Empress's words. Despite female subservience being a virtue in Wutaian culture, between the lines, using feminine wiles and whoreish tricks to allow the man to believe he was in control was like divine teaching. Royal women knew it well.

I could see on the Empress's face that she too was remembering how she had been able to charm the most powerful man in Wutai and have her cleave to her every whim.

The only flaw was that, such a thing didn't last once the man lost interest.

I bowed respectfully.

"Then My Lady, I will serve Wutai and destroy Shin-Ra from its very foundations."


A/N: I have always been a fan of historical fiction, medieval fantasy and classical works of Elizabeth Gasket, Bronte sisters etc. More for the themes of women behind the scenes using sly tactics, their looks and their wit to manipulate their male counterparts. It was something deeply entrenched in our own history before feminism when women had to rely on wit and beauty to command the men that 'owned' them to do as they wished. I thought it would be a fancy idea to adapt this theme in an ff7 fanfiction.