Chapter One – Descent from the Mountain

The man ran through the steel pylons and wires, gunshots sounding behind him and the brief whizzing noise and a small brush of air when the bullets went by. The bullets that were about to hit him he deflected with his sword and slashed at the men that appeared in front of him to stop him. As he ran he heard the all too familiar "whoosh" that an RPG makes after it's fired he turned to see what had happened and saw the rocket flying towards him and ran faster, but he knew the rocket would eventually catch up and turn him into Jelly. As he ran he heard a kiai and a whirring sound and saw a glint of steel flash by and heard a grinding noise followed by an explosion which forced the man off his feet. He flew through the air, landed on the ground with a thud and skidded to a halt in front of a pair of orangey-yellow boots.

"You really need to learn how to take care of yourself Cloud!" The girl offered a gloved hand to Cloud. He took the hand and got back on his feet.

"Yeah, thanks Yuffie. Why are you here? I didn't tell anyone I was going up to the reactor." A round of machine gun fire broke the conversation and the two ran towards the exit of the reactor.

"Well," Yuffie said as she ran "much as I'd like to continue this compelling conversation I think we should get to safety first right?" The two ran through the reactor, dispatching of anyone who got in the way and eventually got rid of all the SOLDIERS.

As they walked out of the reactor, night had fallen over the Nibelheim Mountains. Yuffie pulled herself closer to Cloud.

"Ah, maaaan!!! Why did it have to be dark!! I hate the dark…" Yuffie wailed, clutching Clouds arm. Cloud rolled his eyes and turned to Yuffie.

"Well, the quicker we get down the mountain the quicker we can get back to the inn and get some sleep."

"And you'll be able to hide the thing you took from the reactor right?" Cloud spluttered and turned to Yuffie with an extremely fake look of nonchalance and a rather forced grimace plastered on his face.

"I… well… what… uh… what are you talking about? I haven't got anything…" the way Cloud said this didn't wane Yuffie's suspicion. She stopped and turned to Cloud.

"Well then, what's THIS?!?" As Yuffie said the sentence she stuffed her hand down Cloud's pants.

"Hey! Wh-wh-wh-what are you doing?!?!" Cloud blushed and stammered as Yuffie rummaged around his pants, eventually pulling out a small envelope.

"Aha! Ah, hahaha! Thought you could hide it from me huh? You can't hide nothing from a skilled ninja like me!!!" with a large, smug grin on her face Yuffie began to open the envelope. Just as she was about to open it to see what was inside, Cloud reaches over and snatches it back.

"Ah! Hey!"

"You know it's rude to steal things. I would have though you had learnt your lesson at Wutai." Cloud jumped down a small ledge and signaled Yuffie to follow.

"Come on, hurry up or I'll leave you up here. And no more trying to take my stuff. It's my own business."

"All right All right! Jeez!"