I stretched out lazily on my perch. Tree branches weren't the most comfortable spot to sleep on, but when you happened to be waiting around for unsuspecting victims, it was certainly the best place to pounce from.
Speaking of unsuspecting victims, I see a few right now.
Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
I jumped down in front of them and initiated the fight. I had my good 'ol 4-Point Shuriken out and ready.
Man, these people looked dumb. And what was with that guy? A giant head of gravity defying spikes? He had some pretty blue eyes though… URGHH! What am I saying? I'm gonna rob him blind!
The spikey dude in question swang his crazily big sword at my HEAD and, oh baby, then it was ON!
The great ninja Yuffie was NOT ABOUT to lose a fight to some beautiful blonde man, his big-busted friend, and a friggin' cat.
I used Ice a couple of times until I realized that I was OUT of Hi-Potions! Noooo!
Big Boobs used her limit break on me and I was flung to the ground, beaten.
The great ninja Yuffie was not suppose to lose! Damn, but they had some good materia on them. Really good.
The blonde spikey man came up to me, kneeled down and looked at me.
I jumped up and he stepped back.
"You spikey-headed jerk! One more time, let's go one more time!" I yelled.
"Not interested," he said.
Hehe, oh I SEE how it is. I SEE.
"You're pretty scared of me, huh!?"
"…Petrified."
Pssh, sarcastic piece of blonde-ness.
I turned away from him and called out, "I'm really gonna leave! REALLY!"
"Wait a second!" he said, jogging up to me.
Hmm, does he…?
"You want me to go with you?"
"…That's right."
"All right! I'll go with you!"
"…Let's hurry on."
Then he turned around and started to walk away. I stood there, dumbfounded.
"HEY! Don't you want to know my NAME?! It's YUFFIE!"
Nyuk nyuk nyuk. Oh yes. Really good materia.
---
We traveled pretty silently to Junon. I must say, I've been there a couple of times since I've been on this continent and I think it's a piece of trash. What kind of people want to live in some exhaust-smelling, rust covered bucket of bolts? Not me. These people probably have lung cancer and I bet they don't even smoke!
We stopped for awhile in Junon while Spike and Boobs and Pretty-in-Pink looked around. The Cat made his way over by me and decided to give me the 411 on this whole thing.
"Hello," he said, sitting over by me.
"Hi," I said, "So, are you, like, a cat or something?"
"Not really. I'm the last of my kind. A beast, if you will. You humans are referring to me as 'Red 13'. What's your name?"
"Kisaragi Yuffie. So, who is everyone else? They recruit me and then leave me hangin'."
So I come to find out everyone's name.
Spike is Cloud. (What kind of name is Cloud? Spike suits him much, much better.)
Gigantic Boob Lady is Tifa. (I hope she never tries to hug me because I'll be assaulted by those boobs in my face. Not cool.)
Big and Black and Foul Mouthed is Barret. (He's got this gun grafted into his arm. So weird! I wonder how he clips his fingernails on his good hand? With his feet? Or does Spike do it for him?)
Pretty-in-Pink is Aeris. (She's kind of hard to look at with all the bright pink clothing. I am not a fan of pink. Not to mention every time I HAVE looked her way she looks RIGHT AT ME and GIGGLES. It's crazy. She knows something. I think I should ask around if anyone thinks she's psychic.)
And they were APPARENTLY trying to catch up to this dude named Sephiroth. (What a mouthful. Let's dub him: Sephy.) Anyway, Sephy is all big and bad and evil and he destroyed Spike's hometown some odd years ago and blah blah blah, I stopped listening.
Anyway, my conversation with Red is cut short when Spike drags us down by the beach to fight this…this…thing. (How else should I describe it? Flying dragonfly fish? A giant mosquito out of water?)
We beat it's ass, (of course! The great ninja Yuffie!) and then I see Spike bend down and start…making out with this 7 year old?!
SPIKE WHAT--?!
Oh, okay. CPR. I think I learned how to do that, but I forgot like a million years ago. Whatever. She's awake now.
Then some more stuff happens that I totally don't even pay attention to and then Spike leaves.
Where'd he go? I ask around, but I can't find anyone else either! What a drag. Left behind.
So I just beat the tar out of this ShinRa solider or whatever and use the lift up to Junon.
Man, there's so many shops! Good thing I lightened good 'ol Cloudy-boy's wallet before he did the disappearing act.
Lesse, lesse…
I find the weapon shop to be a little disappointing; however, they had a boomerang in stock, so I figured what the heck?
I equip it and run along to the materia shop. Man, I don't have any of these materias yet…
I can afford the Restore and the Heal… Sense is worthless… and I bet I can swipe that Revive while he's not lookin'.
Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
Another successful shopping day for Yuffie-chan!
Now, seriously, where did everyone go?
…
WHOA!
Suddenly, I'm being dragged towards a ship!
"WHO THE--"
"Shut up girl! Is just me."
Stupid Barret. He didn't have to kidnap me from the spot I was standing in. He could have just said, 'Hey Yuf, this way!' Not pull a 'I'm possibly a rapist/murderer/ShinRa Turk who is going to beat the living CRAP outta ya!'
"Jeez!" I said, getting loose of his grip, "Scare the living daylight outta me…"
"Sorry, girl. Gotta make sure we ain't lookin' suspic'us now."
"And dragging off a 16 year old girl doesn't look suspicious?"
"…No."
"…"
"Put this here thing on. Aeris took this one fo' you."
In his outstretched hand he held out a while sailor's suit for me. I grabbed it and examined it. It already looked a little big.
SIGH, not that it mattered 'cause Barret was already walkin' away.
So I hurriedly hid behind some giant crates and changed into the sailor suit. Somehow I imagined sailor suits to be a bit cuter and a lot less itchy.
"Hey Cloud!" I said, seeing him for the first time in hours, "What's going…ughh…is this boat moving? Oh, grossness. I get motion sickness…blerghh…I need a tranquilizer…"
Cloud, being fearless leader Cloud, says (and I quote) "We'll need our tranquilizers for later when someone gets Fury on the battlefield."
Great. Grand. Wonderful. THANKS Cloud. I'll remember that when I steal your materia. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
So, the boat ride from HELL continued, and luckily I did not retch anything up, although I felt like it. After I went on deck I felt a little better though. Breeze always helps.
When I do get up top, it turns out that something is going down and Spike needs a couple of team members to go with him.
Thankfully, I was not one of the lucky ones chosen. He took Aeris and Tifa. What's Cloud playing at anyway? He should know he can't have two girls at once.
I admit, I thought he was cute at first, but there is NO WAY I'm going to be involved in a love rectangle.
When we finally dock I kneel down and kiss the beautiful concrete. Land, how I love thee!
And even better! We're in Costa Del Sol! I've always wanted to vacation here. It's all sunny and bright and the water is warm and everything is yummy and – ooo, is that a materia stand? I must investigate.
A Few Hours Later
This materia stand guy is a complete creep, but he says that if I work for a few hours for him that he'll give me a good deal on that Seal materia.
A Few MORE Hours Later
Haha, I am finally done! He sold me the Seal materia for 1000 gil and I stole his Lightning when he wasn't looking. Serves him right for trying to squeeze my butt. He thought I didn't notice, but OH I DID! Complete creep.
On a good note though, Spike bought me a Platinum Bangle and a couple of Softs. Needless to say, I am speechless.
He must want me to do something.
Several Minutes Later
I knew it. Spike wants me to go with Barret and Red to some place called Corel while he and Aeris and Tifa make up the other group.
I can see that I'm not pretty enough to be dubbed as 'one of Cloud's potential soul mates', but whatever. It's not like they're going to like me once I steal their materia anyway.
--
Well, it turns out that nobody in Corel likes Barret. This one guy actually threw a cabbage at him. Barret didn't even MOVE. How wimpy. If someone threw a cabbage at me I would totally duck, if not lunge at them with something sharp. (pain a la kunai) But whatever. That's just me, I guess, 'cause I'm a great ninja and all.
Corel is probably the dirtest town I've been in yet. What's with all this crap? There's more tents than HOUSES! Man, these people are gonna be so screwed if there's a sudden tornado or hurricane or whatever. So screwed.
So then there's this big ropeway thing that we take to the Gold Saucer. (YES YES YES!) It's a long ride up and all I see is people staring at me weird. Excuse me for speakin' my mind about Barret and his 'situation'. ShinRa is evil! Eeeeevil! It's not my fault that he was duped into believing them.
OKAY! The ugly looks have been lifted and I'm gonna have some F-U-N! Of course, Cloudy grabs Aeris and Tifa and they scamper off. Well, I'M gonna do some serious game playing while I'm here. So I hop in the Wonder Square tunnel and zoom! I'm here!
And now I'm currently being assaulted by a big white moogle thing with some sort of cat dancing around on top of it.
"Would you like me to read your fortune?" it says.
"Outta my way mog! I wanna play the snowboarding game!"
"Wait," it says, moving to stand in front of me, "G-Give me a chance!"
"A ninja does not repeat herself!" I said, and then preceeded to drop kick the stupid thing. As it lay there, dazed, I made my escape into the Wonder Square.
I see my beautiful arcade snowboarding game and squee happily that it is unoccupied. I walk up to it and gently run my hands over the beautiful machine. I'm just about to stick in my GP coins as—
"Ma'am, you'll have to come with me," some men say as they scoop me up.
"Hey! HEY! I didn't even do anything yet! What's the big deal?! LEMME GO!"
I think my luck is worsening the more I hang around these people. I'm in the Corel P-R-I-S-O-N thanks to these people! I've heard bad things about this place.
Oh yuck and there is this ugly guy following me. His tongue is lolling out of his mouth. …I seriously am starting to think that he plans on eating me.
Is that Red over there? THANK LEVIATHAN!
"RED! THIS GUY IS GONNA EAT MEEE!"
"Calm down Yuffie," Red said, growling at the cannibal stalking around behind me, "I'm sure that we are much stronger than the likes of him."
"Why are you down here? OH GOSH! Did you try to try to go on that Gondola ride? I heard that pets aren't allowed on it. They might have thought you were somebody's pet or something and then I betcha started to talk to them and they had a heart-attack so then you accidently caused someone's death and they were all like "ARREST THE CAT!" and nobody was around and you meowed like a widdle kitten and – OH RED I'M SO SORRY I WASN'T AROUND! I woulda totally given up the ninja wrath for ya. Just, like, a quick upper punch to the first guy and then, maybe, I duno, a roundhouse kick in the--"
"No, Yuffie," Red said, trying hard to remain calm, "We're all here by mistake."
So then Red fills me in, yet again, and, yet again, I don't listen. Something about Barret and another man and…heheh…that sounded funny in my head. BARRET AND ANOTHER MAN! I bet the 'other man' has a gun arm on his OTHER arm and they clip EACH OTHER'S nails. Aw, that is so cute. I WANT A GUN ARMED MAN TO TRIM MY NAILS! Okay, maybe not a gun arm. That would be a little weird. But maybe like a shiny claw or something? That would be pretty cool.
Hey! They're letting us go now! Sweet Leviathan… Seems like we got a buggy outta the whole deal too. Not a bad switch. We get some downtime in some rank, dilapidated house, and in return we get a buggy!
That crazy mog-like thing is following us around now too. He attacks with a megaphone. How ridiculous is that. 'I'm going to shout at the enemy and it'll be so loud it'll hurt them!' Plus, he makes faces at me when he thinks I'm not looking. A NINJA SEES ALL! I'm sooo going to enjoy stealing his materia.
There's nothing really interesting for me to say about our trip to Gongaga…
And our stupid buggy bit the dust right outside Cosmo Canyon. So it looks like we'll be bummin' a room in the inn.
Turns out that Cosmo Canyon is really Red's hometown. Weird, but not totally unexpected. We were runnin' outta places that he could be from in the first place. He seems to want to stay here too. Well, that's kind of a relief. Red's always been nice to me from the first place. I didn't really want to steal his materia.
Well, might as well look at the materia shop here.
…The dude is SLEEPING. He's just asking to get robbed. Lucky for him, I happen to be able to fufill his wish.
Too bad all his materia is CRAP! I think the HP Plus is the only thing worth mentioning as the rest of it I left behind.
I bought a Pinwheel from the weapon shop and equipped it. It's been awhile since I got a new weapon.
After shoppin' I sat around the Cosmo Candle with everyone else.
I'm not really sure where Red, Spike and Aeris vanished off too, but Tifa looks sad/jealous. So I decide to sit over by her.
"Hi Yuffie," she said, still attempting to act cheerful, "What's up?"
"…Why don'tcha just give Spike a good glomp and tell him how you feel?"
Tifa blushed, like, purple, and made a weird laughing noise, "I don't know what you mean, Yuffie."
I shrug, not feeling like pushing it, and went back to staring at the fire.
When Spike and Co. returns I see that Red's got some new weapon, and he looks kinda…happy? Weird. And now he's coming with us again.
"Let's mosey!" Spike said, and everyone shuffles out to the buggy, which miraculously works again. I bet Red messed with it so that we'd have to stop in his hometown on purpose.
Now we're in some creepy town called 'Nibelheim'. And Spike wants ME and RED to go with him into that BIG, DUSTY, SCARY, OLD, CREAKY mansion!
Spike, you're slowly becoming my least favorite…
But I get all my stuff equipped and ready…and I huddle close to Red as we enter the mansion.
AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! EW! LEVIATHAN!!!
I freak out a little bit as I realized that I walked into a spider web or something. Spike is looking at me very strangely.
Heh, I bet he wishes he woulda took Aeris or Tifa now.
I extract most of the spider web from my face and we trudge forward.
There's all these weird notes and stuff. I found a Twin Viper in one of the treasure chests though. That makes me happy. I will equip it later with some nifty materia that I'm working on mastering.
Ooo, there's a safe here. I wonder how much gil is in there?! Or better yet…MATERIA!
I rub my hands together greedily as Spike enters the combination.
He opens the door cautiously and out pops a…monster?
ARGH! I AM GOING TO GO CRAZY ON THIS THING! How DARE it fool the GREAT ninja Yuffie?!
Haha, I sooo kicked its butt. I stick my head into the safe to make sure we didn't miss anything, and, sure enough, there's some sort of key and, SCORE, a summon materia! Odin, you are MINE!
What?! Now we're going into the BASEMENT?! NOOO! More spider webs! Ugh, I'm mummified as it is!
So here's the door that the key is obviously to. We open the stupid door and we're greeted by a bunch of skeletons and coffins.
I can tell that the previous owner of this place was a real optimist who loved daisies and sunshine.
What's Spike doin'?
HEART ATTACK!
Spike opened a coffin and this GUY popped out of it! Leviathan, still my heart!
I clutch at my chest for awhile, making crazy deer eyes, as Spike converses with the previously dead…or currently dead…or currently alive…or vampirism man… I give up. He's pale with long pretty black hair and red eyes. I think his favorite colors must be black and red.
The dude tells us to go away and he climbs back into his coffin. What a weirdo…
So, we're about to leave, but I guess the dead/alive/vampire man decided to change his mind 'cause now he's walkin' RIGHT NEXT TO ME!
Nobody unnerves a ninja… He deserves some serious wrath.
I glare at him out of the corner of my eye, but it immediately softens. TRAITOROUS EYE! Well…he is kinda…pathetic looking. He looks like a puppy that's been kicked and molested by his owner.
Poor vampire man.
Spike is seriously dense if he thinks that, after all this yucky spider webs in my face and all the monster guts I have on me, I'm seriously going to climb a giant mountain. Apparently, he is that dense.
"No way, Spike!" I argue, "I'm all gross and I'm tired! I have, like, 650 hit points left! Can't we just rent some rooms for tonight?"
Spike gives me a Leader's Word Is Final look, but I give him my Ninjas Don't Give A Crap look and he wavers. Hehe.
"Fine, but I'm going on tonight," Spike announces, "Aeris, Tifa, you're with me. Barret, Cait Sith, and Red, if you want to rest, go ahead, but if not, follow about two hours behind us. Vincent, would you mind watching out for Yuffie?"
The vampire man looks over at me, and then back at Spike, and gives him a curt nod.
"Alright. We meet up in Rocket Town. I'm going to negotiate with a pilot there. Don't be too long Yuffie."
I do a little victory dance, and give him my honor as a ninja.
"Me an' Cait Sith are all rested up Red. Unless you want to stay with Yuffie, I think we're gonna head out."
"I feel fine. I was leveled up sufficiently that the trek through the mansion didn't wear me out," Red replied.
My mouth hangs open, "It's not like it's my fault! Spike hasn't bothered using me in battle since he met me in Junon!"
Red did a cat's version of a shrug, and followed behind Barret and Cait Sith up towards the mountains.
Then I realized that I was all alone with the molested puppy dog.
I looked up into his eyes and he held my gaze.
"Were you molested as a kid?" I asked innocently.
The guy barely blinks, but finally gives me a "No."
"That's good," I said, "Just makin' sure."
He turns and walks into the inn and I follow behind him. As he's getting a room I ask, "Were your parents alcoholics?"
I can almost SEE his shoulders become EVEN MORE rigid as he answers back, "No."
The innkeeper is starting to sweat bullets as he sees my mouth open again.
"Were they abusive?"
"No."
"Did you get kidnapped as a kid?"
"No."
"Did you ever almost drown?"
"No."
"Did you stick your finger in a light socket?"
"No."
"Are you just depressed?"
"No."
"You know they have anti-depressants available. I bet they have regular screenings in Rocket Town. Or are you on some other drugs?"
"No."
The innkeeper looks extremely relieved when he finally hands the keys over to Puppy and makes a mad dash for the back room.
"Which room did we get Puppy?"
"…Puppy?"
"Er, well, what's your name?"
"Vincent Valentine."
"WHOA! VV! What's your middle name? Does it start with a V? Was that an intentional initial thing? I'm pretty sure my initials were an intentional thing by my dad. He likes to think he's funny, but he's really not. He's really just a stupid old fart who really stinks. My middle name's Ayame, which makes my initials YAK. What sort of crap is that, I tell ya?! I bet my old man laughed until juice came up his nose or somethin'. The great ninja Yuffie's initials should NOT be YAK."
I can see Vincent's face twitch, and I wonder if he's trying to smile or something.
"Your face is twitchin' Vince. Are you havin' a seizure?"
His face continues to twitch, "No."
"So what's your middle name?!"
"Victor."
"REALLY?! VVV. So weird, but cool. I would sign my letters or whatever 'VVV' if I were you. Of course, I'm not you, and I would never in a billion years sign my letters 'YAK.'"
"Since, we're discussing names, I never did catch you're first name," he said.
"Yuffie! Kisaragi Yuffie! An incredible, wonderful, fantastic, super-cool ninja! But I'd letcha call me IWFSCN Yuffie. Actually, since you're cooler than some of our other team members, I'll just letcha call me Yuffie."
"Thank you, Yuffie."
"Yeah! No problem! Now, let's get some sleep. And tomorrow you're gonna have to explain to me why the heck you were sleepin' in a nasty coffin in a spider webby, bat-infested basement. Night!" I said, swiping my key from Vince and then high-tailin' it to my room.
Sleep has never felt quite as good.