Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven is the property of Square Enix. Support the game now. I hereby disavow any attempt to claim or profit anything in the venue of this series.
A/N: A triple tribute and a Beta-Acknowledgment. Mystic 777 thank you for all your hard work. Everyone, enjoy and review.
Cloudy Sunshine
"We're a different breed of people, kid." Zack Fair had once said to her. "People like us don't cry where others can find us. Though there is always that one exception to the rule."
Yuffie's brow had scrunched upwards at the statement. "What does that mean, SOLDIER-dude?"
He had laughed and ruffled her hair. "You'll understand when you are older."
She had been nine when he said that. Right before he came up missing on some mission his superiors had given him. She was fourteen when she found him again. Cold and stiff atop a hillside full of more holes than she dared count. She had closed her eyes, sniffed loudly, and promptly set to work on burying the man's body.
Yuffie had long ago noticed the trail of a stumbling figure headed towards Midgar. By the time she'd buried her former treasure hunting partner, the ninja had made up her mind to follow him. It was a miracle he could walk, considering how out of it he was. She took out the monsters in his path, and left him at a train station for someone to find. By the time he made friends with Avalanche, she had already planned her next step.
To avenge her people.
With a well thought out disguise and a borrowed sword she carried out her country's justice.
It was laughable at how the fat man ran around screaming about the nightmare from Wutai returning from the dead. Her lips had quirked upwards at that as she'd skittered around the ventilation shafts of the Shin-Ra Tower to make a break for her freedom. Dressing up like Sephiroth had been poetic. Their own SOLDIER returned from the dead to take carry out his revenge.
All of that was a childish adventure.
Now, she stood alone in the shadows of her old home while somewhere far away her companions and allies got on with their lives. For a time she had lingered, smiling and keeping monsters at bay so they could heal. After the battle with Deepground, Vincent Valentine disappeared.
He hadn't returned until Shelke went in for him.
He came back with a smile.
She'd grinned broadly at the sight for a time. However she slowly drifted apart until work gave her an excuse to get away. Out in the wilds of the forests surrounding Mideel, Yuffie fell apart. There in the dark green forests so far from friends and foes alike she cried like a small child. Her heart breaking from the dark horrors of her sins.
As a ninja, she had killed her heart before she could understand what a treasure life was.
"It's all that damned vampire's fault." she blubbered into her palms. No one had told her the heart could come back to life. And the words of an enemy who really wasn't a foe returned to her.
People like him and her were sunshine.
It wasn't right for them to share their tears unless it was with the exception to the rule. Yuffie's heart restricted at the thought. Burying her head into her knees, she cried out loud to the grief and stress that had lingered for far to long.
She let herself cry for dead friends, lost innocence, and mostly...
Because her exception to the rule hadn't even noticed her need for him.
A time would come when she'd have to laugh for them again.
But not now...
(break)
"Reeve said it's been been a while since he gave Yuffie that her last mission. You don't think something happened to her, do you?" Tifa asked, leaning across the bar to set a drink down in front of her guest.
Slowly bringing the glass to his lips, Vincent shook his head. "Yuffie is more talented than we give her credit for. Perhaps she has merely set off on another of her adventures."
"Yeah, you're right." she answered, setting another glass down in front her of house mate.
Cloud's lips thinned as something from ages past slipped through the stern barriers of self. A memory so vague he couldn't quite grasp it. "I have a delivery in the morning." he stated.
Pushing the glass around for a moment, he quickly tossed the contents down his throat and left the room.
The false memory gave him chills as foreign words eagerly leaped to his brain.
"People like us don't cry in front of others. We're the sunshine when the rain comes. Though there is always an exception to the rule, kid."
Zack's words, he knew, without having to think about it. There were very few people in the world that could have made the SOLDIER let down his guard like that. He had only guessed a few times but recent events had revealed a dark aspect to their ninja companion's past.
Yuffie was a trained killer.
His feet picked up the pace as he forewent the night's sleep. Gathering his gear, his phone, and the keys to Fenrir Cloud rushed down to his motor bike. The sooner he began tracking her, the sooner he would find the rogue ninja.
(break)
Finding a deluded madman who was supposed to be dead at the crux of her last mission had darkened and soured the ninja's mood beyond measure. It was like someone stealing and breaking her favorite materia.
She poked one Professor Hojo in the forehead.
"Hey doc." she said a bit to cheerfully. In her free hand she dangled a thin piece of wire looped in odd circles. "We've got a lot of catching up to do."
Professor Hojo sneered at the ninja as she held the wire up. "So you've found and caught me, little girl. There isn't much you can do with a little piece of wire."
"Ohhh. I wouldn't know about that. See, traditional training for a ninja includes all sorts of nifty tricks." Yuffie answered with a grin. "Science should be used for good things. Like making medicine that helps people. Not science that hurts them. You destroyed Vinnie, Spiky, and a lot of other people. Most importantly... You killed Zacky."
Her grin vanished as she looped the wire around the scientist's fingers. "I hate people like you."
Hojo snorted in contempt. "Like that can keep me from completing my work."
Yuffie hummed darkly as she tightened the wire until the thin metal began to cut into the scientist's fingers. "Ninjas and scientists have a lot in common." she whispered. "We kill our hearts to make the job easier. Bet that's what makes us all a bit crazy too."
She released the wire, leaving it tight around Hojo's fingers as she did so. Reaching into the pouch at her side, Yuffie withdrew a small pack of slender needles. "Poison tipped senbon." She explained. "These have a non-lethal paralytic that doesn't affect the nerves in the body. You'll be able to feel everything that happens to you, but you won't be able to do anything about it."
Hojo had to smirk at the ninja's ingenuity. "With thinking like that, you would have made an excellent partner. We're exactly alike."
"Eww. Gross." Yuffie gagged. After that, she set to work on convincing Professor Hojo of the error of his ways. It only took a few minutes before she had the mad man screaming, without a voice, of course. That had been the first thing she took from the scientist.
In her own way, she replicated the sufferings that all of Hojo's victims had suffered. It took her less then three hours to complete the job. After which she slit his throat, cut out his heart, and stuffed his guts full of ash. The flickering of a campfire was all the light she needed before she threw the scientists still pumping heart into the flames. Despite the acrid smoke rising from the flames, Yuffie's lips slipped into a cold smirk.
That was, until the sound of motorcycle broke the silence of the night. Cursing, Yuffie leaped to her feet just in time to see the Fenrir roar into the middle of her camp. Weakly, she toed the body at her feet and cast a guilty look at Cloud as he dismounted the bike.
The SOLDIER examined the scene silently until his eyes alighted on the twisted remains of Hojo's face.
"Yuffie..." he whispered.
"He had it coming." she snapped. "He hurt everyone."
Before she could really start, the blond SOLDIER reached out and dragged her away from the flickering fire and into a protective hold. "Not you. Never do anything like this again."
"I had to." she defended. "I was the only one who could."
Cloud's eyes darkened as he looked at the split and mutilated corpse. Everything he knew about the girl had suddenly been set off kilter. A sense of deja vu trickled down his spine. "You've done this before."
"Yeah. Sometimes I had help for afterward. I used to get really sick after carrying out an extermination. It was never this personal though." she whispered into the cloth covered arm. Without bidding them, the tears sprang up from somewhere she hadn't even known existed. Burying blurry eyes into Cloud's chest, the cheerful ninja suddenly began to bawl.
"He killed him, Cloud. He killed Zacky." she blubbered.
And then he understood.
She had been a missing echo in his memories shared from Zack. The little girl he had run off to help on treasure hunts at the oddest moments. His arms tightened as he slowly led her away from the scene of her justice. In her own way, she had been trying to protect them all.
"It's alright." Cloud whispered. "I'm here."