Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII

SOUL STILL WROUGHT OF TERROR CORRUPT

It Never Ends

"It was because of you," said the stoic gunman to the crystallization.

"You were my reason," with that the man left the cave missing his beloved's tears fall to the ground.

A grin touched his lips as he gazed upon the young woman waiting for him at the entrance

The whirring of the helicopter disturbed him from his reverie. As the helicopter neared his position, his cape began to flutter violently. Looking into the cockpit he caught a glimpse of a tuft of red hair. The careening motion in which the helicopter swayed did not give him comfort. Gazing at his reflection in a puddle before him he could see a mirror image of himself while he was a turk. Where his claw once formed one of his hands, now replaced by a fully gloved hand. His eyes were now filled with green colored contacts. Seeing his reflection begin to twist he looked back up at the helicopter.

Groaning he looked through the windshield and stared at the person sitting in the copilot seat. There sat an eager young woman waving frantically at him as if trying to get his attention. She seemed to have changed her appearance as well. She no longer adorned short hair, it reached the small of her back and was dyed a light brown. Her choice of attire seemed to have changed as well; she wore longer clothing covering her midsection and legs, it appeared to be a normal Wutai kimono. He stared at the woman and then at the phone currently in his hands. It was the same woman that had left those twenty messages prior to the arrangement of his pick-up. She had personally met with Reeve, the chief executive of operations of the newly conjoined Shinra/WRO Corporation entrusted with the task of overseer for all alternative fuel suggestions and operations, to volunteer to pick-up Vincent from the contact point.

A smirk graced the CEO's features.

"Why Miss Kisaragi I thought you were afraid of air travel?" said a seemingly innocent Reeve.

"Well its…um he owes me some materia," said a somewhat blushing Yuffie.

Regaining a bit of composure she managed to say, "After all it was the Great Ninja Yuffie who saved his life countless times."

Vincent had made it adamant enough that he held no romantic interest in her. Vincent was going to kill him for this. Figuratively or literally he didn't know.

"Will you calm down, damn it? Your going to vo…?" said a slightly more then annoyed Reno.

Much to his chagrin the floor was soon sprayed with a foul smelling yellowish mixture.

"Damn it Yuffie I just got upholstery refinished after you did it the last time."

Clenching her stomach she soon picked up one of her hands and continued waving at Vincent albeit at a slower pace. He seemed to be smirking.

Hearing the pace of the helicopter's blades lessen Vincent walked over to see the helicopter touch ground in front of him. A somewhat recovered ninja more or less ran over to him enveloping him in a firm embrace. From his view in this one-sided embrace he could make out the flakes of vomit adorning the corners of her mouth. Trying the ease the awkwardness of the embrace he clumsily draped his arm over her upper back.

"Yuffie, give the man a break you wreak of vomit," shouted Reno climbing out of the chopper. With that said Yuffie broke her awkward embrace with Vincent.

"Shut up!" yelled Yuffie while directing an obscene gesture toward Reno.

After rolling his eyes Reno made his way over to Vincent withdrawing a manila folder from the inside of his jacket.

"The mission specs are in the folder. Yuffie will brief you on the details," explained Reno.

"Ahem," coughed Reno.

"Well go on," continued Reno.

"Huh…"

After a minute of waiting for Yuffie to speak, he blurted out, "Damn it Yuffie. The briefing!"

"Oh…"

Yuffie's gaze turned to face Vincent and took on a more professional stare. "Approximately 7:00 p.m. tomorrow we will be arriving near the Midgar Slums to meet with our contact. The mission is to infiltrate an occult suspected of injecting highly concentrated mako into some of its members and into their attack animals guarding their compound. They've also been targeting some civilians in adjacent buildings. That's not all; samples of the concentrated mako were collected by our contact and sent to our researchers. The mako contained traces of Jenova cells infused with it. Our mission is to figure why this is happening and to put an immediate end to it, we will be given name assignments. Your assumed name will be Kazuya Horaki, long time gene splicing researcher. I will accompany you on the mission under the assumed name Natsui Horaki. I'll be acting as your…" A blush became apparent on her face as she paused.

"Fine, only on one condition you'll be portraying his '17' year old daughter,"

"What? I read the mission specs and I know it calls for him to be married," blurted a frustrated Yuffie.

"Ha… Yuffie, be serious you, you won't even look the part. I also remember you dismissing any little crush you had for Vincent to Cloud and Cid. Could you be changing your mind Miss Kisaragi?"

As much as he wanted to further embarrass the young empress, he had other matters to attend to.

"Besides, that position is already filled by our contact that is awaiting her husband and daughter to reunite with her. The daughter was originally intended to be Shelke but I guess she'll understand." Explained Reeve.

"Shelke, wait who's suppose to be his wife then?" questioned Yuffie.

"Hello, wake up Yuffie," half shouted Reno already fed up with the shinobi delaying the mission.

"I'll be acting as your daughter," spoke Yuffie at last. A burst of laughter could be heard from Reno.

"Ha..ha… you're going to…" panted Reno before continuing his fit of laughter.

Undeterred from Reno's laughter Yuffie continued. "We'll be meeting with our contact in a local bar. She'll be acting as your wife and my mother. Her assumed name is Yoshina Horaki."

"Is the contact someone we know," spoke Vincent at last.

"Well…Yeah. She's…" stuttered Yuffie before being interrupted by a laughing Reno.

"Tell him already." Snickered Reno.

"She's Tifa," blurted Reno while clutching his stomach.

This earned Yuffie a raised eyebrow from Vincent. Vincent then strode past her, clenching one of his fists, and walked toward the helicopter. Yuffie could see small droplets of blood dripping onto the side railings of the chopper coming from his clenched fist. A glare made its way towards Reno coming from Yuffie.

"What the hell Reno?" shouted Yuffie while taking quick glances of the already seated gunslinger and looking back to Reno.

Scratching the back of his head Reno offered an apology. "Sorry, I didn't think he'd take it up the ass. He was bound to find out eventually. I didn't know he was still sore about the subject."

"You could've waited for me…"

A sudden buzzing sound could be heard coming from Reno's front left pocket. Turning around he pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and held it before his ear. Yuffie then stared at Reno in disbelief. That's when she noticed his face suddenly change into a scowl.

"What? Code Red? Elena, what the hell does that even mean? I haven't read the manual. Who reads it? Tseng. I don't care. Just tell me. Are you sure? Son of a Bitch! Okay, so the drop off point has been changed. Got it, well goodbye." Seeing a worried Yuffie out of the corner of his eye he turned halfway and let out a breath of air.

"Change of plans our contact's identity has been compromised."

Yuffie then felt her stomach do a back flip as she was fed this piece of information. She then turned her head toward the uninformed gunslinger seated in the chopper waiting for takeoff. Streams of tears could be seen riveting down her cheeks.

"Damn it."

Hoped you like this chapter. Feel free to leave comments.

Next Chapter:

The Afflicted