A/N: This is an AU, for what should be obvious reasons. This story is also not in order, but is instead a series of fragments of different moments in time. I might write more, but that depends on further inspiration.
"I am Yuffie Kisaragi," she whispers to the mirror, to the face that isn't hers. She has said this phrase more times than she remember, whenever she wakes, alone. She says it, trying to convince herself it's the truth.
But she lies to herself. She has always lied to everyone, including herself. She is a liar along with being a thief.
She is not Yuffie Kisaragi. She has never been and she will never be.
In fact, the real Yuffie Kisaragi has been dead for thirteen years.
The first and last time she sees the child is at the pond.
The girl is alone. Unusual. She thought humans were obsessed with protecting their offspring. The child leans over the pond, making faces at her reflection, giggling to herself.
She comes towards the child silently, treading carefully over the river stones. The child cannot possibly hear her. She is pure spirit, while humans are stuck, possibilities limited by fleshy bodies. It is impossible.
Yet, somehow, the impossible occurs. The child looks up at her, eyes wide.
"Aaahh! Monster!" The child moves as if dart away into the woods, but the stones are slick. Too slick to provide safe passage for bare feet.
The fall is more of a skid. Rocks, no matter how smooth, still etch their mark in soft flesh. All over the arms, the legs, the head. Deep enough to draw blood. And in the end, no matter how far the child slides, the pond is always waiting.
The water turns red. So much red.
She moves like lightning to the water's edge. Just trying to see the child, to find the child in the depths. A brief hesitation and then she slips into the depths. The waters choke her flames, enclose her body like a vise. Trying to wash her away, into the Stream that awaits all the dead.
Water is not kind to those of the spirit.
Despite the difficulty, the things she cannot possibly see, she feels for the child. A blind creature in a world of green-blue. A pale hand...there! She grips the child's hand, trying for the surface. But she is too weak, the water sapping her strength. She has been in it too long. She cannot make it.
She is going to die.
With that panicked realization, she struggles even harder, wrapping herself around the child's body. The pond wipes away her essence like late spring frost on early blooms. There is nowhere to escape. No place to run. Only...she could hide, couldn't she? There are stories of yokai doing the impossible.
Like smoke, like water, she slips into the thick clumsy flesh against her. It is...different. Now the water is merely choking, instead of suffocating. Awkwardly, she makes her way out of the pool, flopping like a dying fish onto dry land.
There is a spark in her chest. A spark of the original owner of this flesh-and-blood. Still alive, still beating. She relaxes. The child is safe. Once that realization is made, she withdraws from the body, back to hers of spirit and flame. Or, at least, attempts to.
She can't leave this body. The body of human girl.
Already, the small spark she senses is snuffing itself out. "No, stay!" she cries out, to the empty woods, to the deep pool. "I...you cannot die yet! You are too young!" But when has death ever cared about the age of its victims? The body's dark eyes blink, she blinks, focusing on the wisp of a shadow before her.
A outline of a little girl, with dark eyes and dark hair. A reflection? No, this is something more. Giggling, the shadow waves, smile wide enough to rival the heavens, fading with a greenish light.
The child is gone. The spark is gone. And she remains, thief of this too-little, too-young body, ragged and torn.
The ocean is just too big.
"Feeling okay, Yuffie?" That blonde, Cloud asks, barely concealing the half smile on his face. Jerk.
She would make some rude comment back, but the waves moved and ohmygosh did the boat just almost flip? Instead, she limits herself to gagging over the railing. The fishes would eat it, right? Fish ate anything.
"Leave me alone! Or I'll steal all of your materia!" Not that she isn't planning to do that anyway...
Cloud holds up his hands in surrender. "Sure, whatever floats your boat." The man glances at the deck. "And I realize that isn't the best phrase to use right now."
Her stomach revolts against the very thought of boats. Or planes. Or trucks...or any moving vehicle, really. But water-travel is the worst of a bad lot. She hates it. Despises it with the heat of a thousand Fire Materia (materia that she doesn't have. Yet. But will!).
Her spirit wobbles, within her flesh (her stolen flesh). The water knows what no one else does, trying to rip the intruding spirit from its moorings. But she hangs on desperately, both inner and physical hands tightening their grip.
She hangs from the railing, over the sea. And pukes again. Grossness.
"I'm the bestest ninja ever!" she boasts, prancing on the wooden tiles.
"Very good, Princess," her teacher says wearily, "Now if you would, please come down from the roof."
She thinks about it. Really, she does. But what did they expect, giving her ninja skills and not expecting her to use them? "No way!" She sticks her tongue out and does a cartwheel. And another.
Really, there is no such thing as too many cartwheels. Especially for the greatest ninja of all time.
Unfortunately, everyone runs out of rooftop eventually. Even ninjas.
And the little girl falls. Falls off the roof, through the roof, just falls and falls.
The ground hurts but not too badly. She crawls up onto her feet, rubbing her elbows, her knees. There are long scratches on her arms, from almost hitting the earth face first. Bruises on her shins.
She glances around at her surroundings curiously. Ribbons hang from the ceilings, tiny prayer chimes jingling in a gentle breeze. The painting on the wall before her is of the Leviathan, roaring as he brings the life-giving rain. But the paint is faded, the ribbons torn. Dust coats the floor in a second layer. She coughs slightly, to clear her lungs of the rising dirt cloud.
A shrine. An old temple to the Leviathan, forgotten in the mess of war and the resulting ShinRa assimilation. She takes a step back, remembering. Her fingers reach up to tug at long ribbon dangling bell-free. A bright pink, an unusual color in the mix of red and yellow.
"Oh, who visits me now, in my exile?" An ancient voice wheezes, out from a far dark corner. An old woman shambles into view, still in the rags of a blue robe. A priestess's garb.
The girl takes another step back. She may be the greatest ninja ever, but she isn't stupid. Everyone knows that old people in old temples meant bad stuff for enterprising young ninjas falling from the roof. That step back, however, backs her into a whole strand of bells. The prayer bells ring loudly, declaring to everyone and anyone listening that someone is there, in this forgotten shrine.
The old crone's fuzzy eyes focus on her like a hawk's. "A little girl?" The disdain is clear.
The small girl puffs out her chest. "Not litte! I'm the ninja master Yuffie Kisaragi!"
The response to that is completely unexpected. At the first, the crone merely looks confused before enlightenment finds its way on her face. She cackles in the way only old, batty witches can. "You're a Kisaragi? Is that what you're claiming, spirit?"
The woman bares her nubby rotten teeth. "I know better. Be gone, spirit! I cast you out, demon!"
"Go die in a hole, you batty old hag!" The little girl shrieks back, even though she knows you're not supposed to act like that towards a priest of Leviathan (even if they're crazy old people). Said crone spits on her, raising her hand. She tosses a handful of dust at Yuffie and for a moment, when it hits, all the girl knows is pain. She shrieks again, but this time her voice not of a human's, but a crow's aching caw, a tiger's coughing roar. The woman's eyes light up. "I knew you could not hide from me, monster!"
The girl flees the way she came in, through a hole in the roof, old woman shouting curses after her. "You may fool the people, spirit, but you will never fool the Leviathan. He will cast you under his floods to be devoured! Monster!"
Her cheeks are wet and she doesn't know why. Her face burns still from the strange powders, and from horror at the awful sound that has come from her. She runs, blood thundering in her veins, breath hissing from her lungs. Monster.
"...boring story number one!" she yawns. Vampire, emo, sadness, dead girlfriend...who cares? Least of all her.
She doesn't like him. At all. Not even a little bit.
His eyes give her look-over. The teen barely conceals a shudder as the laser-point red takes in every detail about her. She feels exposed, like that one time Cid (that old pervert) had walked in on her shower (not her fault the lock didn't work right!).
There are things hiding behind those eyes, inhuman things. She would know, being an inhuman thing herself.
Surely he can't see the truth about her. He's still human, no matter the creatures crawling through his mind. Humans can't see her real body all curled inside of this human one, as snug as a rug bug.
"I feel as though I have seen her somewhere before..." the man says at last, turned towards Cloud. Cloud, the tough blonde he is, gives an awkward half-nod in response to the strange statement. He exchanges glances with Barrett and Tifa respectively. The statement, the way it's worded almost give her a heart attack. But hey, she isn't gonna let a vampire-wannabe win this. Not in a long shot.
"Why are you talking about me like I'm not even here?!" She blows up, to say the least. She forgets her fear, marching right up to the emo vampire, finger in his face. "The name's Yuffie Kisaragi and don't you forget it!"
She gives the vamp a small shove, just to show him who's boss, when she freezes. Freezes at the seething, bubbling dark swarm of demons she can feel under her touch. All fighting each for the grandest prize of all: control. But it is not a demon that sits in the driver seat, but the human soul, still proud and tall, despite the destruction that awaits him should he falter. It takes her breath away, the level of fire in this man's body. Only for a moment, only briefly.
Please don't let him notice. She draws back briefly, hopefully quick enough that no one has noticed her hesitation. "Got it?"
The man nods solemnly. "I understand."
"Good," she mutters, hand fingering her favorite shuriken. "Or you'll regret it, vampire." Mutters to hide her sudden interest in the man who is constantly fighting a war in his own mind, not giving an inch.
Maybe this 'Vincent Valentine' wouldn't be so bad after all.
She comes home covered in mud and weeds. Servants, family, they all scold her.
She does nothing but take it calmly and go to bed. Most uncharacteristic of the girl, they whisper, shaking their heads. Perhaps she is just tired.
That night, she dreams. A nightmare of water drowning her, of watching the bubbles of her last breath escape her lips to the surface. She struggles but her clothes are too heavy, her limbs too weak. And then, she dies.
She wakes up screaming. After many promises, after comforting hugs from her mother, after a warm sip of tea, she sleeps once more.
In the morning, the small girl is her normal hyperactive self. Curious and all over the place. The Drowning is just a dream, after all.
If it were real, she would be dead.