Yuffie Kisaragi wasn't your average girl.
First of all, she was a ninja in a world where technology ruled and the old ways of stealth were disappearing.
She was also a young teenager that often bit off more than she could chew, like when she joined Cloud on his quest to save the planet. Sounds hard, right? It was.
And last but certainly not least, Yuffie Kisaragi is the Princess of Wutai. And this Princess is on a quest to restore her land's glory.
Yuffie hummed a tune that her mother used to sing to her when she was younger as she stepped bouncily through the streets of Wutai. She descended the stairs from her bedroom and snuck quickly past her father's room, before entering- well, exiting her house and entering the outdoors.
Sephiroth was gone, so were his remnants, and the world was restoring itself. It had been that way for about a year now. Cloud had his memories intact, but he was pushing himself away from everyone. With that thought in mind, Yuffie pulled out her PHS and dialed Cloud.
Only to get his answering machine.
The man didn't even personalize his message, for Gaia's sake! "Why don't you ever answer the damn thing?! Seriously! Call me when you get this, if you get this. You're such a stiff sometimes, geez! In case you haven't noticed, I'm bored. So, again, call me when you get this and make me un. . .bored." She finished lamely. With a nonchalant shrug, Yuffie hung up and tucked the PHS away.
She wandered around until she met with two boys, sitting on a stone wall. One was reading a book, while the other was messing around on his Qac MyPod. The apple glowed white against the black back.
The one who was reading looked up, Noire designer glasses graced his eyes, and he had black hair and deep red eyes. "Konnichiwa, Yuffie-hime." He said softly.
"Yo, Hikaru." She waved cheerily at him. "Hey, Ryuu." No answer. "Ryuu. Ryuu!" She yelled, yanking a green earbud out of his ear.
"Wazzugoinon?" Ryuu asked, looking around, thoroughly bemused. "Who died?"
"You will soon if you don't put your MyPod away." Yuffie threatened, dropping the earphone as if it was trash.
Ryuu wound his earbuds around the MyPod and shoved it into his pocket for further use. Hikaru took off his glasses and cleaned them with a cloth he produced. Yuffie looked between them, still amazed by their identical-ness even after all these years of knowing the twins. Same black hair (Hikaru's neat and Ryuu's bedhead) and the same maroon eyes.
In the silence they heard the slow song of a violin. The three looked up, bewildered, but also enamored with the beautiful sound.
"Let's investigate." Yuffie said, leading the twins away.
The trio stole away from the small area they were in and followed the sound. It lead to town square, a bustling place where people bartered for goods. Above all the hubbub was the clear sound of a violin.
"Spread out and find out where that's coming from," Yuffie ordered, taking out her PHS and putting it on vibrate. The twins did the same. "Call when you find them." They split up and started to walk around. Unable to see over heads, Yuffie went around back and scaled a building.
She hid on the side of the sloped roof that faced away from the square and peered over, trying to stay incognito. She scanned the crowd, looking for them, but came up with nothing. The princess searched more in detail, splitting the square into quadrants and examining everyone she could see carefully.
She even caught sight of Hikaru and Ryuu a couple of times. Then, she spotted who she was looking for. There was a man, looked to be late-teens, early twenties. His hair was black, save for a small part of fringe that covered part of his face, only along his nose. That was silver. She couldn't see his eyes. His frame was tall and thin, and his fingers gave her an eerily familiar feeling.
Her PHS vibrated in her pocket, and she opened it quickly. "I found him." Ryuu said quietly, "He by the-"
"Confectionary." Yuffie nodded, "I see him too. Meet you there." She hung up and slipped easily and stealthily down the roof. She weaved through the crowd of people until she was in the inner rim of the semi-circle that had formed around the violinist, standing in between Hikaru and Ryuu.
The violinist finished a song, and bowed as people clapped. That's when Yuffie noticed his eyes. Those cat pupiled, mako eyes.
He was back.
This wasn't Sephiroth, though. The hair was too short, and the violinist's build was too feminine. That ruled out Loz and Sephiroth; the cry baby and the madman himself. Then it left Kadaj and Yazoo; the unstable teenager and transgender, trigger-happy gunslinger.
The violinist's hair was too long to be Kadaj, so it left Yazoo. The gunslinger. But how could it be so? He had been blown up with his brothers that day in the ruins of Midgar. Yuffie walked away, furiously dialing Cloud. She stopped, thumb hovering over the Send key. The man never answered her calls, so why would he answer this time?
Clearing Cloud's number, Yuffie scrolled through her AVALANCHE contacts, and weighed on who to call. Cid: no, he hated her. Vince: same deal. Cloud: didn't we just explain why we weren't calling him? Tifa: yes, she's the most level headed.
Once again, Yuffie's finger hovered over Send. Why should she call Tifa? The man wasn't hurting anyone, it seemed to her that he was just trying to make a living. "Yuffie-hime, are you okay? You left so suddenly, it worried me." Hikaru said, appearing next to her. Yuffie shook out of her thoughts and flipped the PHS closed, putting it back into her pocket.
"I'm fine." She replied. "Just thinking, that's all." Yuffie didn't dare tell them about the fact that the violinist was Sephiroth's remnant. Hikaru and Ryuu were skilled martial artists, if one word got to them, the remnant would be beaten to a pulp by everyone in Wutai, led by the twins.
"I saw him come into town last night," Ryuu said thoughtfully. "But he had a little girl with him. Her hair was just as black as his. A daughter perhaps?"
He has no daughter, Yuffie thought, right? For some reason, the fact that he might have a daughter stung her. Maybe I should do some investigating before I call Teef. . . A large clock chimed three times, saying it was three in the afternoon. Ryuu and Hikaru bid her goodbye, as they had to leave for lessons.
Yuffie climbed up to the roof of the Confectionary and waited until dusk, when the violinist started to pack up. That's when she followed him. He swung his case over his shoulder and started walking towards the wood. Yuffie followed him, ducking in bushes and behind trees, always keeping watch for tree branches that would snap.
He led her to a small cottage where a little girl with black curls and bright gold eyes was waiting outside the door. "How are you, Ari?"
"I'm well, Yazoo." The girl asked, but to Yuffie it seemed she whispered. "How did today go?" Yazoo took a roll of gil from his pocket, and showed it to the girl.
"I think I did good." His voice was so soft, as was the little girl's. Perhaps they were related, and she just looked like her mother? And Yazoo had just dyed his hair so they look more like father and daughter?
They went inside, and Yuffie quickly peeked in. The room was threadbare, a small bed, and fireplace, a stove, an old fridge and sink was all she could see. There were a couple doors that were shut. Noting the darkness, Yuffie went home.
.~:*:~.
One week later, Yuffie saw that exact same violin in the window of a pawn shop. Apparently, the people of Wutai had become disenchanted with the man's playing, and he hadn't made much gil.
Squaring her shoulders, Yuffie walked in. An old man sat at the counter, counting money. "How much for the violin in the window, old man?"
"How dare you- oh, hello, Yuffie-hime. What can I do for you today?"
"How much for the violin in the window?" She asked again, quickly losing her patience.
"200 gil." He said uninterestedly.
This is it, Yuffie. The Princess thought to herself. Choice time, are you going to help your former enemy or not?
Yes.
"I'll take it." She said, handing over the necessary amount of cash to the man and taking the violin and its accessories. Perhaps a care package was in order. Yuffie skipped back home and started rifling through old stuff. Soon enough, Yuffie had clothes, money, food, and things they could sell put together.
But no materia. She wouldn't give up her materia for anyone. Ditching her normal outfit, Yuffie pulled on black pants, a navy blue top, black sneakers, and a black trench coat. She hid her face with a hat and stole away into the night. She set the things in front of the door and was just getting up when a stream of light split through the darkness. "Hello there."
Yuffie's head shot up to look at the person standing at the door. "Yazoo." She gasped, saying his name out loud for the first time ever.
"It's good to see you again, Princess Yuffie." He gave her a gentle smile that she never thought a remnant of Sephiroth's could pull off. "Why don't you come in?"
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy, though I do own Ari. Okay, so this is kind of open ended. But what I had planned is that she would go inside and have tea, and AVALANCHE wouldn't find out. My focus right now is on a Harry Potter story I'm writing, so that's why this isn't up to my usual style. But I got this idea while I was in the shower one night and ran with it. Does anyone else get good ideas in the shower?
This is the my entry for forgiven4ever's Yazfie contest. I don't think it's anything much, I whipped something up for this. If I win, great. If I don't, well, hey, I had fun with it! So, yeah, that's basically it. I hope you liked it.
EDIT: I realize that Ari was thrust upon you without much of an introduction or backstory. When I envision the three remnants, and their creation, I think of the three remnants being kidnapped and experimented on, and it wasn't just them as human experiments. That's where Ari comes in, when she first met up with our fav three SHM, she was a toddler of two. She was supposed to be a perfect FemSOLDIER, much like Sephiroth, but a female. She and Loz were close friends, and in turn Yazoo and Kadaj started to adore her as well. After AC, Yazoo was picking around the Midgar ruins, and found Ari again, albeit now nine years old. Basically, Ari is something like a daughter to Yazoo, as he started taking care of her again when he found her in Midgar.
. . . And if you wonder about my crazy long words, I'm working on a story where many of the main characters have this oddly formal way of speaking, they reuse words from the colonial era, only sometimes use contractions, and I'm getting into the spirit myself. Plus, I need a shirt that says 'I don't know any words small enough for you to understand.'