Standard disclaimers apply to the characters of Final Fantasy VII, property of SquareEnix. I don't own them, so don't sue.
I was originally debating between a prequel and sequel for Touch, and ironically, Christmas Tradition came before this and therefore, that is the sequel to Touch even though this was preplanned months before. So I decided to turn this into the sequel of Christmas Tradition, except rather than the one-shot trend, it's actually a short series in three parts. Enjoy!
Part I,
By Winterwing3000
Vincent stared down at the festivities just outside of the doors of Seventh Heaven from his perch on the slant of the roof. The streets were relatively quiet and lights glowed from the windows of other buildings. The air was filled with the scent of burnt out matches and the gleeful giggles of Marlene and Denzel.
He could see Cid's wheat colored hair, illuminated by the lamps decorating the front, and Shelke and Reeve's long shadows were thrown across the ground. Tifa was inside, preparing the desserts, and Cloud was most likely sitting nearby with Barret, watching the children play with their sparklers. He spotted Red XIII's fire-tipped tail swaying to and fro, amusing the children as they waved their sparklers in tandem.
Yuffie was nowhere to be seen or heard. He expected her to be playing alongside the children with multiple sparklers in her hand while jumping all over the front of the bar. But her presence was lacking. It was an unusual form of quiet, even for him. Her loud and boisterous voice usually carried the conversations amongst them. Over time, he became comforted by the sound of her Wutainian accented Midgarina. Her speech was crude and rough at times, but when she spoke in normal conversations, the words flowed smoothly like river waters washing over pebbles at the shores.
He shifted his gaze to the clear navy skies lit sparsely by random stars. Over the past months, he continued to on missions under WRO with Yuffie as his partner, for the most part. But Reeve did give Yuffie the option to withdraw from the field as she recovered from her injuries after finding out from the mission report.
But Yuffie as Yuffie, adamantly refused to take up the offer and instead insisted that her "ultra-awesome-ninja-skillz would get rusty and that Vinnie would not be able to save his own ass and is directionally challenged and would not be able to kick some eww monster butt by himself and that she was the utmost important asset on field working anyway so it would be extremely bad if she wasn't getting ridge of those said eww monsters."
Vincent still wondered how she managed to say all that without breathing in between given her small size.
There was a sudden change in atmosphere when his ears picked up the squeak of the hinges on his bedroom door. There was no other sound afterward. While the festivities continued below, Vincent closed his eyes and remained still, counting to ten slowly.
By the time he reached six, a pair of cool and rough hands clapped across his eyes, making a audible 'slap' sound as flesh met flesh. "Yuffie," Vincent said neutrally, his body unmoving.
He heard a huff and the hands were removed from his eyes. The said woman sat down next to him, a pout visible on her lips. "You're no fun Vinnie. I didn't even get to say 'guess who'!"
An unbidden smile made way to the corner of his lips. "I apologize."
Yuffie grinned. "It's fine. Just let me do it next time and I'll call it even. What are you doing up here all by your lonesome though? It's so much more fun downstairs!"
"I was," Vincent sought for the proper phrase. "Enjoying the scene from above."
The self-declared ninja snorted. "Better to be part of the fun."
They lapsed into a silence, staring out at the liveliness below. A spring chill swept the rooftop, rustling their hair. Yuffie laid on her back, arms crossed beneath her head and legs stretched. "I have to head home soon," she stated out of the blue.
The gunslinger looked over his shoulder, staring directly at her. Yuffie refused to meet his gaze and kept her eyes trained on the endless dark sky above. Slowly, he tipped his head downward, averting his garnet eyes to the scene below, not truly seeing what is happening.
She was the heir of an ancient country, the future sovereign of Wutai, and for obvious reasons cannot extend her trips away from her homeland forever. It had been a long while, Vincent faintly looked back, since she went back to Wutai from what he could recall. She stayed in Midgar almost since the Omega incident, even though she made a few trips between the two places throughout this long period of time.
It was time that she decided as to where her true place was.
"Chichi-ue for once didn't throw a fit and sent Gorky or Chekov over to kidnap me back. He wrote me a letter instead," Yuffie told him after a few moments of collecting her thoughts. "It told me that I should at least be there for my people and that I've done my part in this 'saving the world' adventure. Of course, I don't really think anyone could live without the thrill of saving the world over and over again. Not me at least, don't know about Chocobo head down there."
Vincent closed his eyes. He could hear the wry grin growing on her lips as she spoke.
"But, for once, I think my old man's right about going home. As much as it sucks for me to agree with him, I think… it's about time I went home. I mean, I'm not really needed around here and I'm not really enjoying the idea of freeloading off of Tifa forever. Not to mention that I kinda made a deal with him, I've had my time to see the world… And the intelligencers that I've been training at the WRO can easily replace me, so that Reeve isn't short one employee really. And of course, he has you to handle things in my place!" She poked him lightly on the shoulder.
"Just don't miss me too much, okay Vinnie? I mean, I can definitely leave you a nice, framed sexy picture of me on your cubical if you want, don't know how Reeve will take it though! And I'll send you texts every day to if you want, especially those long chains of—Oof!" The shinobi blinked, dumbfounded as she suddenly found herself smothered by red, black and warmth.
Vincent held her as close as he could possibly have her with his gauntlet arm secured around her waist. Her upper body was turned toward him and pressed tightly against his side, with her arms on her lap and her face against his left shoulder. He felt her exhale as the surprise wore off. Slowly, he placed his right hand on the back of her head. Words did not leave his lips and a sigh of content left hers.
End Part I
AN: Well, there you have it! First part in three. Hopefully, I did it some justice and didn't butcher anyone… in particular. Comments?
