Title: Sum Total
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters: Yuffie
Genre: General
Rating: K

Other: Short piece done for demeter918 for the Meme of Five on the theme: "5 things Yuffie keeps with her at all times." All standard disclaimers apply, most important being no profit.

It was often said that parting Yuffie from her material possessions would be like trying to remove the fires of heaven from the Da Chao. It was possible, yes, but it would take the will of a God to accomplish, and generally wasn't worth the trouble.

Yuffie knew, however, that in reality it would be much easier than that. She wasn't actually all that attached to her material possessions, not even the materia she owned, if you wanted to split hairs about it. After all, material possessions were replaceable – almost anything could be easily bought for the right price – or stolen, for the right thrill.

There were, however, five small possessions which the ninja would never be caught without. These she treasured above all other things she owned, because to Yuffie they were something more than simple objects.

The casual bystander might have disagreed on the spiritual importance of a pack of tranquilizers, but to Yuffie, those little pills were Shinra's most important contribution to civilization, ever. After all, it was hard to uphold the ideals and behaviour of a true ninja of Wutai when one was too busy trying to expel her internal organs from her esophagus. No, those tranquilizers were precious, sacred things, blessed by Leviathan himself.

Yuffie knew this, because she carried Leviathan himself right next to them. She had earned Him, tamed the god fair and square after all, with her own sweat and blood. Leviathan was more than a simple piece of materia – He WAS Wutai embodied. Of course she could never part with Leviathan; He was the heart and soul of Wutai, and she was His child. What child could ever abandon her parent?

That was also why she was never without her headband. Leviathan might have been her spiritual father, but the late Lady Kisaragi was still her mother. Yuffie didn't remember very much of her mother; she didn't even know if her mother would have approved of Yuffie's carefree lifestyle. But that wasn't important; her mother had given Yuffie life, at the cost of her very own. The blood debt was only strengthened by their direct relation; there was no way she could not honour the memory of her mother, and still call herself a daughter of Wutai with any pride at all.

If the headband represented her family in Wutai, then the pink scrap of cloth that was wrapped around the handle of her weapon represented her family in AVALANCHE just as faithfully. Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Cid, Reeve, Nanaki and even Vincent – they had all earned a place in Yuffie's heart, one that went beyond the bonds of mere friendship. Maybe they didn't understand the way of the Ninja, but she owed each of them a life debt several hundred times over. They had saved not only Wutai, but the entire world. And they had done it at the cost of one of their own – of Aeris. And so, the ribbon stayed with her always – to remind her of the family she had lost, and those which she still had.

All those things, Yuffie kept, because they represented other people, other places that she found to be important. But her last, and most precious possession of all, was her four-point shuriken. It was old, and beaten, and certainly outclassed by several of her other newer, shiner throwing stars collected during the course of her wanderings. But the shuriken held a special value for Yuffie, despite its plain design and slightly rusting blade. It was dull, rough around the edges, and generally as plain and underappreciated as any weapon could possibly get. But, when wielded in the right hands, it could be deadly. It had helped save the world; it had tasted the blood of the planet itself. It had saved Vincent from the hands of a Tsviet; it had failed to save Aeris from the sword of a SOLDIER. It was damaged, but it was loved despite all of its failures. And occasionally, it managed to surprise people. It wasn't every ninja that was fortunate enough to be able to wield her life story as a weapon. What else could she do but keep it close?

She supposed it could be seen as pathetic – the sum of a life, contained in five brief, careworn items which lacked any real monetary value at all. But appearances had never bothered Yuffie, after all – these were the things which defined her existence. Scraps of cloth would invariably rip and tear, only to be replaced by fresh ones. Tranquilizers could be used and replenished, shuriken could break and even Leviathan himself would give birth and die with time. But the sum of these parts would remain, no matter how time changed them. For she was Yuffie Kisaragi, and these things were her heart, and her soul – so she knew she would carry them with her always.