Preamble:

I was flattered by the unexpectedly positive response to the (comparatively) short interview transcript that proceeded this, and decided to continued. Unfortunately, that means for this to function as a story, some degree of "assembly" or "foundational explanation" is necessary. Why is Yuffie interviewing people from Shinra? When did she start? Even how? Which means, for the sake of this chapter, relying on wordy prose. I don't intend to only write in conventional prose, but here it's necessary (and necessarily lengthy, even after leaving much on the cutting room floor).

εγλ 0011. For her it started with a voicemail from Yuffie Kisaragi, Yuffie who'd always been the most eager to remain in contact with her and Cloud, whether or not she had a good reason. In the aftermath of the Deepground Revolt, and the political scandal that followed, she expected to hear from her, and the mystery ninja did not disappoint.

"Hey, Tifa, it's me again. You know where I could find a tape recorder? A good one? Of course you do, finding things is your whole business, isn't it? I'll be in Midgar in three days, let me see, that's…"

Even if she wasn't surprised by Yuffie herself, Tifa Lockhart was surprised by the nature of the request. Yuffie was always asking for things, harmlessly enough, it might've been what kept them in touch. But a tape recorder? It didn't sound like a very "ninja" thing to ask for.

"What does she need a tape recorder for? Something to do with Deepground, or Vincent? Has she even heard from Vincent?"

Cloud gave a very typical answer. "Probably nothing good."

"So we're going to help her?" she teased.

"Of course. It's Yuffie, isn't it?"

Yuffie arrived in Edge a day early, surprising Tifa. The regional bus network wasn't known for its swiftness or its reliability, but it was possible Yuffie resorted to some other method of travel. She didn't even know where the younger woman was coming in from. Cloud, appropriately, had started following transport news rather studiously. Shinra wants to spend forty million gil to build a new continental railroad; proof that they can make even a good idea unpopular.

Since she wasn't expecting Yuffie, she hadn't even bothered turning from the television when she entered, the door chiming after her. "Welcome to the Seventh Heaven."

"Hey Boobs! Slow day, huh?"

Ever since finances and convenience had made her switched back to her old look, Yuffie had taken to using an old nickname she, and only she, used for her. Back when they met in the forests outside Junon, when they were still in AVALANCHE and they were chasing Sephiroth.

Surprise was replaced by mild annoyance. Tifa forced a smile. "Yuffie, you're early!"

Naturally, Yuffie hadn't changed in the last few weeks, though her choice in clothing was new. She was same slender, diminutive round-faced girl in Tifa's mind, with the same short black-brown hair with a long black-and-white headband. But her ill-defined ninja look had been replaced with a sleeveless black sweater, a red cargo vest, and khaki shorts. Well, she was never all that consistent anyway, was she? Except for the shorts.

"Jealous of the vest?" she asked, as if reading Tifa's mind, while skipping to the counter.

"I've heard that one before," Tifa preempted her, offering a hand which Yuffie enthusiastically shook. Usually she could expect a hug.

She plopped into a stool, dropping her backpack. "You're really no fun, Boobs. Speaking of no fun, where's Cloud? I brought him a souvenir."

"Should be back any time now, he's doing courier work for the W.R.O. Headquarters outside of town…wait, a souvenir?"

Yuffie was already fishing something out of her kit: a large, flat photography book, the sort that were printed before Meteorfall, in lightly used condition, which she passed to Tifa over the counter.

"A Photographic History of Gold Saucer Chocobo Racing," Tifa read the title. "You're joking."

"I think he'd like it," Yuffie insisted. "I didn't steal it, I know that's what you're thinking."

"I wasn't thinking that," Tifa lied, carefully flipping the laminated cardboard cover. Yuffie gave her a wide, smug smile as she looked through the glossy pages before turning towards the television and asked about the fuss coming from the news program. "Oh, some dumb expose about an airfield outside Junon."

"Airfield?"

She closed the book. "You're in luck by the way—I found exactly what you asked for."

"Exactly?" Yuffie sounded confused as Tifa left the counter and disappeared through a door; she could hear the older woman climbing up the stairs. Looking around, Yuffie found the bar and restaurant were as slow as she had previously joked. "I'll just wait here then," she called out, turning back to the television on the wall. The 24-hour news channel who had broken the Deepground Story, T.N.N., had an investigation team outside Junon, apparently trying to make their way through a particularly obstructive chain-link fence.

Yuffie was still watching when Tifa returned, putting a large box onto the counter in front of her.

"Here you go: one professional grade field recorder." She smiled with a hint of severity. "Another gift from me and Cloud."

Yuffie stared at the box inquisitively. It was made of cardboard, and remarkably plain, except for the large, faded diamond-shaped logo of a Shinra company and bold text. Her neck bent at she read it.

"TC-5500, Portable Tape Recorder, Professional Quality Open Reel. Shinra Video and Sound Products Company." She blinked. "I guess it is," she declared, as though it had been previously in doubt. Tifa rolled her eyes.

"Where'd you get this anyway, unclaimed delivery?"

The answer took a moment. "I think I took it off the Highwind, before Cid lost it."

"Why?"

She blushed. "Honestly, it was small and sounded valuable," she confessed.

"Tifa! I'm so proud of you, I could…" Tifa gave her a look to stop while she could. "That makes sense, Shinra equipment on a Shinra airship. Does it work?"

"I told you, it's unopened." Tifa cocked her head. "So yes, probably."

"Okay, so I'm gonna' be honest with you…I've never used a tape recorder that was bigger than my head before," she admitted.

"Try taking it out of the box first."

With surprising care, Yuffie did so, laying the box lengthwise against the counter, pulling open a cardboard flap, and revealing the protectively-wrapped contents. She took out a small metal microphone with a bundled length of cable, then a matching metal stand. Finally, she lifted the actual device out of its shaped foam packaging and set it next to the box. Tifa impatiently tore open another layer of plastic wrapping.

"Another way Shinra was killing the planet," she half-joked.

"It looks like everything's here," Yuffie muttered, looking back and forth from the included paper manually. "But it's huge," she repeated. "And not in a good way, like your…"

Tifa cut her off. "It's reel-to-reel, which means everything's recorded on the magnetic audio tape, like inside a cassette. Apparently the quality's excellent, better than a lot of modern machines," she explained, pulling out an unopened reel of recording tape, which she waved in Yuffie's face. The ninja was still consulting the paper manual, her brow furrowed.

"How do you know that?"

"My dad had one of…" Tifa paused. "My family in Nibelheim owned a home model, big one. Part of a HIFI set, they used to call them. Guess you didn't have them back in Wutai," she added with some levity.

"I guess not." Yuffie sounded worried.

"If it is anything like the HIFI, read the instructions," she warned her. "Don't break it even before you use it once, I could probably sell it for a few thousand gil."

"I won't, mom," Yuffie groaned sarcastically. With care she poked and prodded the machine, pressing down on inactive mechanical switches and feeling the angular, die-cast housing.

Tifa was tired of waiting. "Why do you need it? Seriously, why a tape recorder?"

Yuffie looked back at Tifa, wide-eyed, so much so that she almost regret asking the question. There was no snappy, silly comeback or attempt at a disarming joke. Instead, the ninja's eyes wandered away from hers and towards the television on the wall. The broadcast showed the news team had gotten through the fence.

In the center of the camera's view, the newswoman in the field was ecstatic. "Can you see that? Be sure to get that!" She addressed the audience again, while pointing at desolate landscape behind her. "Since before Meteorfall, this whole fenced area was sealed off by the Junon Army! With their departure, we can actually get the first look the public has since the Continental War."

They watched as she gestured around excitedly. "This airfield…is mostly empty, unlike the Junon Airport, of course, and it looks like most of the contents have been cleared out, but…but look at this!" She and her camera crew ran a dozen meters, equipment dragged after her, and pulled an ancient canvas tarp off of a strangely shaped, cylindrical object with flat surfaces branching out perpendicularly from the main body. "Look at this!"

"Look at what?" Tifa asked, as if responding.

I'm told this was called all-metal monoplane attack aircraft!" she cried out, as the camera adjusted itself. Under the tarp, presumably like its neighbors, was a rusting metal monoplane, its glass canopy cracked and cloudy with the years, its large radial engine and propeller blades sticking outwards. It didn't look like any plane Tifa had ever seen, including the Tiny Broncho. "This machine, and thousands like it, were used first by Midgar Confederation and then the Wutaian Empire, dropping bombs from the air! Since the end of the war, the Shinra Corporation disbanded all existing military air forces and maintained a monopoly on practically all aviation. Most of the Eastern Continent's, in fact, most of the world's air travel, comes out of Junon…"

"See what they're excited about? A hundred-year-old plane that doesn't fly?" Yuffie raised a hand and scoffed. "Cid's gonna' finish repairing the Shera one day, he swears it."

Tifa almost laughed. "He sure does."

"Not to mention Shinra still has a thousand of those damn helicopters."

"Don't remind me."

"And they repossessed the Highwind."

"You wanna' do that?" Tifa asked skeptically, returning to the subject. "Search for old…airfields?"

A man on the news team was trying to climb up some footholds in the side of the fuselage towards the cockpit, only to slip and almost fall. "Not exactly that."

"Because it looks like a really glamorous job."

"Tell me about it." Yuffie turned back to the TC-5500, now holding the unused reel of tape in her hand, as if trying to picture how one actually loaded it into the machine for use without the benefit of a cassette. Tifa watched her move it back and forth around the machine, before managing to open the transparent shutter cover over the reel spindles themselves. Well, this is different.

Yuffie finally broke her silence. "What was the Deepground?"

"Sorry?"

"What was it, really? How did it start?"

Tifa had no idea and she continued. "The story goes that it was the failed medical division for Shinra's SOLDIER Corps. That there were human experiments, that there was revolt, and that Shinra cut their losses and cut them off under Midgar. They didn't surface until Meteor destroyed the city." Yuffie's frown grew. "How did we even come to that point? How did nobody know it was coming? Were they all dead?"

Tifa tried not to look helpless. "I…I don't know."

"Don't feel bad, I don't think anyone knew. Or almost anyone. If there were hundreds of ex-SOLDIERs underneath Midgar, you don't think someone at Shinra would've, I dunno', used them to fight Sephiroth or something? Or us? But that never happened, did it?"

Yuffie looked back at the television broadcast, having now returned to T.N.N.'s studio to discuss the importance of a few rusting aircraft sitting abandoned outside Junon.

"What else don't we know about it? What if the next time, it's not just a bunch of stupid junk airplanes abandoned in a field? What if it's the next Deepground?"

"Or the next Jenova?"

Tifa had been so engrossed in Yuffie's explanation that she hadn't heard the door open: standing there was Cloud Strife, closing the glass door after him, an empty courier bag draped over his unarmored shoulder. Tifa heaved a sigh of relief as Yuffie jumped out of her seat to give Cloud an awkward half-hug while laughing.

"Sorry I'm late," Cloud announced politely as Yuffie unnecessarily dragged him over to the counter.

"How long were you listening there?" Tifa asked suspiciously.

Cloud looked at Yuffie. "Is that really where the Deepground came from? According to Shelke?"

Yuffie took a moment to answer. "When she was here last, the Worldwide Network wasn't completely accessible. Or hadn't been restored, I don't really know which. But last I heard from her, yes, that's the gist of it." Tifa's face looked unconvinced and she shared her sentiment. "How did they even find Jenova in the first place?"

Cloud considered it carefully. "Shinra's research expedition into the Northern Crater. It's the same story that you would've heard." His head tilted a little, blond hair shifting, before removing his goggles and courier bag. "Or maybe not."

"Cloud?"

He looked at Yuffie directly, leading her to twitch slightly. "I think it's a good idea, or at least a good place to start. Deepground shouldn't have happened, we shouldn't have let it come to that point. I don't know anything about the Worldwide Network, or half of what Vincent might know, but Vincent chose his own way."

"You can't really blame him," Tifa added quickly, getting a glance from Yuffie.

"I don't," Cloud amended his statement as he sat down. "Everyone involved has their reasons."

He paused. "Or they're dead," he corrected himself. "But you've seen the news," he said, gesturing at the television on the wall.

Yuffie gave a sigh and an exaggerated shrug at Tifa.

"If there is another Deepground, or even another Jenova Project, somewhere, there's a very obvious lead where you should start—with the Shinra." He stood up from the counter and approached the television, reaching for the volume keys. "Reeve—I spoke to him—couldn't say much due to 'sensitive information', but he did say that Shinra plans to permanently seal off what's left of the Central Pillar and everything in or on it."

"Which would mean the Shinra Building and whatever's left of the Deepground bunker," Yuffie added.

Raising the volume, they could hear four T.N.N. personalities engaged in a debate on in a public affairs forum: half saying that the Shinra Corporation shouldn't be allowed to do anything in Midgar, in spite of the reality that they did almost everything in Midgar at present, and half that if the W.R.O. was incapable of doing anything in Midgar, as they seemed to be, something had to be done for public safety.

"They've been talking about it since they put up the Meteorfall Monument. After Deepground was defeated, now they're actually capable of doing it, apparently."

"Shinra's been busy," Tifa announced distastefully.

"Shinra's always been busy," Cloud announced. "Our mistake was thinking that with Sephiroth, they didn't matter. After I...fell into the Lifestream, they launched their war against Sephiroth, or probably before that. After Rufus…supposedly died in Midgar, they moved the whole government to Junon. We discounted them too often, us and Reeve."

Tifa looked at Yuffie and was surprised to see her blushing a little. Cloud sighed in resignation. "Though I suppose without Shinra, Reeve wouldn't have a job."

"It's…it's not as bad as all that, Cloud. History isn't repeating itself. Even Barret…"

To her surprise, Cloud interrupted her. "You should start with them. Talk to Rufus."

Tifa blinked. There was a rumor, a ridiculous one she thought, that Rufus Shinra had actually met with Yuffie in person, at least once, before what passed as his return to public life when Kadaj kidnapped him during the Jenova Reunion. Tifa couldn't really fathom why, but Yuffie had never done anything to leave her suspicious of her intent. Cloud was right: Reeve Tuesti wouldn't have a job, the leadership of the W.R.O., without Rufus Shinra's personal intervention, and admitted as much. Barret Wallace, never one to forget the past, worked alongside ex-Shinra employees every day as part of the W.R.O.'s oil industry campaign. But Yuffie, the ninja from Wutai, had never had any meaningful link to Shinra that she knew of.

"I'd rather not," Yuffie muttered in response. Tifa felt some relief. "Man, I really rather not."

Tifa gave a sympathetic smile when Yuffie turned to her. "But…I bet he'd talk. Not on tape, but I gotta' start somewhere. Maybe he likes to brag."

"Would he?" Cloud gave a discreet shrug. Tifa wasn't sure what Rufus Shinra liked. There had been a few attempts to reach out to Cloud since Kadaj, regarding the condition of Geostigma, all of them fruitless. Cloud had met him once, and that was it. Tifa thought he might try again during the Deepground Revolt but he hadn't.

"I can't say anything about him that doesn't just make him a copy of the last President Shinra," she confessed. "And I don't know anything about him either."

Yuffie gave a helpless shrug. "I have to start somewhere."

"And you know where to find him," Cloud reminded her. That was no longer a secret, at least. "But most importantly, if you actually are able to find people from Shinra who're willing to talk, Rufus'll find out. So you might as well try and get ahead of him then."

Yuffie nodded in agreement. "You're right. I'll start with Rufus. Even if I can't get any sort of lead from him, at least I can really annoy him." Cloud almost laughed at that, and the three of them returned the large open reel tape recorder and its accessories to the box.

"So, Yuffie Kisaragi, globetrotting journalist," Tifa teased her. "You'll give anything a try, won't you?"

"Why do you think I joined you in the first place, Boobs?" Yuffie countered, grinning.

"To rob us," Cloud answered after making sure the cardboard box was securely shut.

"Just for that, I don't think I'll be interviewing you," Yuffie retaliated. "You just wait, before you know it I'll have a program that puts those talking heads on the television to shame."

"Oh, I'm definitely looking forward to that," Tifa jibbed. "What'll you call it? So I can look it up, first thing?"

Yuffie cocked her head. "How about the Yuffie Kisaragi Interviews…Cloud, what's with that look?"

Cloud presented her with the large box, which was heavier than she expected. "Well, then it sounds like you're the one being interviewed."

"So what, then? The Shinra Interviews?"

"It's not the best name, but it works, I guess."

Yuffie sighed. "Why am I even asking you, Spikey-Headed Jerk?" She erupted into laughter at her own nickname before soliciting another hug from Cloud and a particularly long one from Tifa, who tried to laugh with her.

Yuffie Kisaragi, she thought, the White Rose of Wutai, the conqueror of evil, and the champion of the earth and sky. And, apparently, someone Rufus Shinra would be willing to talk to. Tifa couldn't say why.

Author's Notes:

Wordy, wordy prose. And no interview in this chapter, hence, no transcript. But aside from wanting to have Cloud and Tifa (particularly Tifa) present in at least one chapter, this chapter does do a few things to set where we are in the (new) Calendar Year 11 (or just the old year of 2011). You may've already deduced my difficulties with how to reconcile the tone of the story with some of the more outlandish elements of Dirge of Cerberus, core to the Yuffie Kisaragi story, but occasionally contradiction previous story events (on top of...let's say, differences of artistic opinion?). I don't want to think about how the entire army that was Deepground went unnoticed for a decade (or more) underneath the biggest city in the world, and survived its destruction, and I don't want to take the stated intent behind Deepground, particularly the sheer villainous impracticality and absurdity, and extrapolate that into Shinra's own history. But I don't want to wholly write it out either. So hopefully you'll appreciate the judgments I've made, for the sake the story. If you do, or don't, I hope you'll let me know as always, and thanks for reading.