x---. The Red Letter.
--I had written him a letter, for want of better knowledge…
AB Patterson, 'Clancy of the Overflow'
Yuffie: a top assassin. Latest target: one Squall Leonhart. Easy… But Yuffie wasn't counting on having to take along a squadron of the most dysfunctional males she'd ever met…
Chapter 1: The Letter
In a house, there lived a man. Godo Kisaragi. Many feared him, and when his name was spoken, even grown men broke down and cried.
…Please note the past tense though. Lived. Feared. Was.
Godo, the most ghastly assassin in all the worlds, was dead.
Or, should it be, is dead?
Anyway. In his place, one person alone had risen to the challenge. A girl. A small girl. A small girl with a materia fetish. A small girl with a giant shuriken and a materia fetish. A small girl –
Well, you get the picture.
The girl's name was Yuffie. When her name was spoken, grown men broke down and cried again.
Most of the time, it was with laughter.
Nevertheless, this girl was still an accomplished killer, and it should be noted that she deserved her father's place as prime assassin – she worked very hard to get where she was, after all.
Still, there was something about her… something that some rude people just could not take seriously.
When Yuffie Kisaragi heard of this outrage, she flew into a blind fury, and the next night, the grown men who had broken down and cried with laughter at the hearing of her name had all vanished. In place of each of their bodies was a small toy – a moogle plushie, limited edition, with a nose that flashes when you press it just so – and a note:
All your bases are belong to us.
Needless to say, Yuffie loved practical jokes, and no one laughed at her openly after that.
She very soon rose to be what was supposed to be the greatest and most eccentric ninja assassin the worlds had ever seen. The imprisonment of Jafar? That was her. Oogie-Boogie's death and resurrection, and his consequential second death? Maleficent ain't got nothin' on Yuffie. The Huns, Guard Armor, the thousand Heartless… well, you get the picture, even though some snot-nosed little kid named Sora or something tried to take her credit. Rather grumpily, she acquiesced to his idea, only because she realized it was best for a ninja such as herself to remain in the shadows. Masterminding everything from behind. A 'shadow king', if you will.
…The great ninja Yuffie rather liked the sound of that, although she found it slightly sexist. But, she couldn't complain, as it was her idea in the first place.
But back to the plot. The narrator digresses.
-x-x-x-
There is a saying that goes, when you clap your hands, a fairy dies.
This has nothing to do whatsoever with the central theme except that Yuffie rather enjoyed clapping her hands, especially on a daily basis, and particularly enjoyed doing it whenever she visited the pirate ship of Captain Hook for more bombs and the like to use in her next little escapade. Killing Hook had been quite a profitable little maneuver; some little boy named Pan had given her a few caskets full of mermaid gold so he didn't feel the guilt himself, and she now had unlimited access to Hook's coffers within the ship and on Skull Island. Until they ran out, of course. But that would have required a very trigger-happy Yuffie in need of ammo. And that could never happen, right?
…Right.
Anyways. So, Yuffie had just returned from one such jaunt to the ship, and could now be found striding into her main hall of her personal castle of Hollow Bastion, slinky black motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm (although what she could have required a motorcycle helmet for in the first place was rather debatable), and decked all in black as befits a sexy ninja (this fact is apparently open for discussion on various web forums too).
A small monkey, courtesy of one of her many raids on Agrabah, bounded up to her, chittering excitedly.
"Abu… what?" Yuffie bent down to listen to its sounds.
Against the wall, three of her guards looked at each other and sighed.
Noting that his new mistress could not make head or tail of what he was saying, Abu pulled out a letter and handed it with considerable difficulty considering the large choke chain around his scrawny little neck that prevented any escape to Yuffie, who took it gleefully.
The envelope was white, but the letter inside was red – the author would like to kindly take this opportunity to point out that this is where the origin of the title of this work is from. And when Yuffie unfolded this letter, her eyes widened and her gasp was a very well-done imitation of various heroines in action movies when they are just about to be killed or rescued.
Then, without a word, she turned and ran, and then turned and ran the other way, up the main stairs and then to the left, a few metres away to where she came to a door which opened on to a flight of dark thin winding stairs, which she bolted up three at a time, and then out into another smaller hall which she duly ran down. And so this continued until she finally opened one door in particular, and zipped inside.
"Aury!!" Was her delighted yell as she pounced upon her favourite advisor.
"Arrgh," was his unintelligible and muffled response as the ninja's arms wrapped around his neck from behind. Standing clumsily, he stumbled backwards until he crashed into the stone wall, and rammed back several times.
Yuffie sprang off, most affronted. "That was mean, Aury," she whined, rubbing her back vigorously. "What'd you do that for?"
He narrowed his one good eye at her until he got sick of doing it and turned back to his paperwork. "I'm busy, Yuffie."
"So-o-o-o-o-o?"
"So I don't care what you have to say."
And violet eyes glinted darkly in their depths. "Even though I'm your mistress and I have long-range weapons even though you only have one piddly giant sword?"
"Exactly."
"Bastard."
"Exactly."
Yuffie sighed, crossing her arms. "Well, then, I won't read it to you." She said suddenly, fishing out the envelope from the almost safe position within her beltpurse where she'd stocked it in order to attack her advisor properly. "You can just read it!"
One eyebrow went up, and he took up the crinkled envelope, and removed its contents. Yuffie watched him out of the corner of her eye, pretending she wasn't.
There was silence for a few moments. Then Auron smiled. And it was a very scary smile indeed. "This is… good."
The great ninja Yuffie cackled. "Yuh-huh!"
"And one thousand million munny?"
"Yuh-huh!"
"One thousand million munny from an anonymous source to kill the President's son…"
"Yup!"
"…Nice."
"I know." The ninja leaned forward suddenly, in a stroke of inspiration. "Hey, Auron, got a statfile on this guy?"
There went the eyebrow again. The girl watched its progress with fascination, barely registering the crimson-robed man's words. "–eon Leonhart."
"Whut?"
"One 'Leon Leonhart'." The eyebrow went up and down like a seesaw a few times. "You wanted to know about the President's son."
Yuffie laughed. "What a loser. The President named him that?"
"…his real first name is confidential…"
"–which means we have access to it, right?" Yuffie practically shone, and Auron smirked.
"Right."
And so, a very merry few hours were spent during which Yuffie gave inane suggestions as to what the guy's name could be and Auron wracked his brain for every possible combination and password he could think of to get into the top-secret government files.
It was, unfortunately, embarrassingly and most unusually for the heroine of the story and indeed any such story and her current sidekick, a complete and utter failure.
Yuffie and Auron both pouted.
"…Oh well." Yuffie said at last. "Got a picture of 'im?"
Auron nodded at that, and pulled out a newspaper that was sitting just beneath his desk. Yuffie chose to ignore the implication that one of her most trusted staff was relaxing on the job, and instead leaned on his shoulder as he flipped through until he found a half-page coloured photograph. The ninja bent forward for a closer look.
"…Hel-lo," she breathed quietly. "I'd tap that."
The caption read: 'President Laguna Loire speaks at the dais. Behind; Leon Leonhart, son of the President, and Demyx Iglesias, a member of the Secretariat headed by Commander Leonhart.'
"And that's his dad?" She mumbled, half to herself as she surveyed father and son. "Hell, I'd tap his daddy too. And the assistant, the guy from the Secretariat too. Is it just me, or are they all seriously hot?"
Auron snapped the paper shut, a frown creasing those incredibly expressive and interesting eyebrows. "Foo'."
-x-x-x-
There was a note sitting on his desk, he noticed, and decided to open it as it appeared nothing like the various notes he was usually given.
It had a black border, jagged and curled a little as though burnt, and written in red ink (blood, his mind thought, snorting a little), were these words:
SQUALL LEONHART Haha, no, just kidding. I am, however, planning on killing you. WATCH IT. Your death will be coming for you shortly. Be sure to greet it with chocolate cookies and punch, okaaaay?
…I am out to suck your blooood!
The note was completed with a half-stick figure, half chibi-face-thing waving cheekily at him from the bottom right corner of the page.
His left eyebrow twitched.
And twitched again.
"…Aerith?"
A head popped over the side of the small dividing wall in the office. "Yes, sir?" An altogether too cheery voice chirped at him.
"…What the fuck is this?"
Straightening her black-rimmed glasses, the pink-clad secretary walked briskly around the wall and took the document, scanning it quickly with lively green eyes. When she was finished, she pursed her lips, a light smile in place. "Uh, it appears to be a death threat, sir."
"…Okay. Just wanted to get that straightened out." He took it back and slowly folded it, placing it in his pocket with a ponderous expression, then seating himself.
Aerith Gainsborough, Secretary to Commander Leonhart, giggled, clasped her hands behind her back and began traipsing – a very odd thing to do in an office, fo' sho', but there you have it – began traipsing away, when she spun suddenly, long brunette braid swinging. "Sounds like interesting times before us, Squall," she sang out, bursting into giggles.
"…It's Leon." The dark-haired man lifted disapproving storm-eyes to her face, obviously wondering at how such a sweet, demure young woman had turned out like this, then went back to his paper. "Whatever."
A fading giggle floated back to answer him, and probably haunt his dreams for the next few nights.
In a dark, dark corner, above a cabinet within this very same office, Abu breathed a sigh of relief at a job well done and scampered off, glad to have finished the final task his mistress-no-more had told him to do. With this one, he was free, and he rubbed at his little wrist… paw… things, before escaping silently into the night.
-x-x-x-
"Rightio, Aury, I'm off!" The ninja declared cheerily, waving back at the castle and turning to skip off to her Gummi Ship.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Oh… dang. Hi, Cid!"
Cid grimaced around a straw at her. "Plannin' on leavin' so soon?" Asked the military airforce commander, Cid Highwind. Yuffie cringed as he continued. "Or did you forget that one clause of the letter there –" he nodded to the envelope she still carried "–the one that says you must take a squadron of your best in order to complete this mission and earn th' reward?"
More cringing. "But, Cid, you know I don't work with other people –"
"I know, and don't care."
Yuffie curled up in a ball on the ground, looking piteous, and started rocking back and forth. "I don' wanna, don' wanna, don' wanna, don' wanna…"
Cid Highwind's lip curled. "Get up."
She sprang up in a second, beaming. "Okay!"
Unfortunately for our dear ninja here, the blond caught her by the scruff of the neck before she could zip away to safety.
"But Cid –"
"Been through this. Now. Here's your new squad."
-x-x-x-
I think I'll leave it there. It amuses me so far. The squad consists of ten people, not including Yuffie. Go on, guess who they'll be… xD Kyah ha, I think I'll have to put more of 'Aury' in in the future… and a bit more on Cid, too. Poor Leon, dealing with one miss Aerith… the other people he works with are worse.
Well, I should head off now, go get some lunch and get stuck back into my homework. So many assignments and stuff when you're starting your final year… dammit. So, next installment should be up pretty soon, especially if I get a nice response to this chapter. This is on x-hail.ee because it will have yaoi currents running all the way through it. A fic of mine without yaoi nowadays? Please. What were you on, thinking that was possible? But I'm thinking, maybe a squffie for this as the main pairing. Uh… enjoy!!
Tally.