Yuffie's Guide to Everything

By:

Mystwalker

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII.

A/N: Wow, this one turned out long. I wasn't expecting that, but apparently, Yuffie felt that Cissnei was complicated. Hope you guys enjoy it! Thanks go to Erilin-chan, JazzQueen, Draconic, Gohan Roxas, and DJ Meltdown of Ground Xero for their reviews. (And nope, not revealing the results of the poll yet! I set this collection in Disc One, so it wouldn't matter for a Vincent pairing either way.)

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Subject 03: The Cissnei

Also Known As: Ciss, Cissy, Shuriken, Turkey, Black Suit, Turkette. (None of these are her real name, but since she refuses to tell me what it is, I'm gonna assume it's Turkey).

Can Be Found In: Right behind you! No, don't look—ah, you looked! Why'd you do that? I told you not to—BANG! (In all seriousness, the Cissnei can be found everywhere. But chances are, you can find her hanging out with the Sephiroth or the Zack, or micromanaging something or another. She's got a knack of knowing when people are looking for her, so if you can't find her...then you probably shouldn't be looking.)

Physical Characteristics: The Turkey—sorry, The Cissnei has reddish brown hair that makes her look like a redhead in the right light. She's a little on the tiny side, with pretty standard brown eyes. She doesn't wear a suit anymore, instead choosing to wear dark clothes and a bulletproof vest, because—why the heck not? Honestly, it's kinda hard to describe what she wears because she can change that at a drop of a hat depending on who she's pretending to be. She's also probably got a million and one weapons hidden somewhere on her. Good luck.

She has a (admittedly, flippin' sweet) custom-made four-pointed fuuma shuriken called Rekka, which she uses as her main weapon. It's a shade somewhere between Vinnie Cloak and Genesis Rapier red, and with the right combination of Materia, can be lit up like a fiery Catherine wheel of death because if your problem can't be solved in some way by a steady application of more and more fire, you're probably screwed anyway.

Notable Behavior: The Cissnei is a slippery one. Her talents include trolling, sneaking around, spying on people, throwing a shuriken, breaking and entering, obtaining black mail material, and the occasional purchasing of items at a five-finger discount.

...So basically, she's a less skilled, less pretty, less cool, and less original version of the Yuffie.

She likes to act friendly and sweet, with a side of coy and some wit, all while being pretty solid and reliable on the job. Yeah, don't be fooled. The real Cissnei is one-part hitman, one-part drama queen, one-part workaholic and one-part troll, all sprinkled with a healthy dose of paranoia and all the issues that come with learning how to slit throats before you lose all your milk teeth. If you've met her, she probably already has a plan to kill you. Nothing personal.

Favorite People: Oh, boy this is a loaded question. Well, first of all, the Cissnei loves her some Sephiroth. Seriously, the amount of tension between them is so high that they shouldn't handle gasoline in case they blow us all sky-high. But unfortunately, the Sephy has no freaking clue what's going on and the Cissnei's lying to herself pretty much out of some twisted sense of duty that only the Vincent understands and makes me think there's something in the water down in TurkTown. (Translation: Gaia, kiss already!)

Yuffie looked up from her seat on one of the crates outside a warehouse in Rocket Town, listening to the voices coming from inside the barred door. She spared a glance for the sword and shuriken beside her, making sure they were still there. Not even Sephiroth could tear through metal with his bare hands.

"Maybe the air vent?" suggested a female voice.

"No. Too risky. If the fan is on, it would cause more harm than good."

"I could try picking the locks again?"

"We would still run into the problem of that deadbolt. What about your phone?"

"No signal..."

"Very well, take a moment to survey the perimeter. We may find something useful."

Yuffie's face fell at the sound of them walking around looking through the boxes. Seriously? She picked up her pen and scribbled frantically.

Also, locking them in a room together doesn't do any good. They just spend their time planning a military operation to break out. Yuffie's diagnosis: Hopeless.

The Cissnei and the Zack also have a really close friendship, enough that I'm amazed the Aerith isn't more worried—but then again, she has the Zack wrapped around her little finger. The Zack treats Cissnei like one of the guys—he sees her as a colleague and a comrade, and one of his best friends. I think he actually did try to get her to go out with him at one point while they were still working for Shinra, but that ship has sailed. (Asked the Cissnei about it. She admits to considering it but thought the whole creepy spying on him as part of her job and virtually stalking him would have been an unhealthy start to a relationship and then Aerith happened so whatever. Responded with: Oh, but SEPHIROTH...the guy who had his every move monitored by Shinra at one point...that's okay? Awaiting response. I think I broke her.)

Continuing with the Shinra trend, the Cissnei and the Kunsel get along surprisingly well. I...think? It's kinda hard to tell because they're both kind of private people, but they seem to get along well, and occasionally talk about information and things like that, because the Kunsel can be sneaky too. It seems like they've both formed a friendship/alliance built on keeping Zack out of trouble, and they make a pretty good team.

She likes to tease the Cloud. I think she likes him and thinks he's got a lot of potential in him, but even through she's only a year older than him, she kind of treats him like a kid brother, someone she has to look out for. There's definitely respect on both sides, though. I get the feeling she's just waiting for him to take off and succeed.

There's a lot of mutual respect between her and the Tifa. The Tifa follows her recommendations almost all the time, and the Cissnei takes Tifa's side whenever Tifa decides to step in and lecture the guys for something. They make a pretty good team on and off the battlefield. With the Aerith, they're not really as close. They both like each other, and they talk to each other, and they don't fight, but you get the feeling sometimes that they have kind of a "friend of a friend" relationship. Like they're friends, but only because they have common friends, otherwise they wouldn't have much in common.

Things are pretty good with the Barret as well. Apparently they started out distrustful, because come on, you're signing a freaking Turk onto your organization, but after the whole Sector 7 incident, things have been pretty swell between them. In fact, one time, the Barret even shocked everyone by being the first to suggest that we all chill out at the edge of a town while we let Cissy go in and poke around first to make sure it was safe, which, if you know anything about the Barret at all, you'd know that that was a huge mark of personal growth. Things are pretty cool with the Red too. Not much to talk about between them, but no issues. They get along fine.

The Cissnei and the Vincent get along pretty well—I know...big surprise there, right? They aren't exactly the kind of close friends that spill their secrets to each other, but there's a lot of respect and friendship between them that can only be described as "The Turk Effect". Seriously, being a Turk is like being a member of this secret club where you get automatic brownie points. I've actually heard the Vinnie correct her on some of her methods before. I think he secretly enjoys the fact that he's the senior Turk here, because she'll actually let him treat her like a rookie. I actually heard Vinnie warn her not to make his mistakes, which I guess is Vinnie-speak for "If you like that, put a ring on that before that marries crazy and freezes himself in crystal, goes crazy, or dies and you become an angry emo pile of regret forever". I'd consider that pretty solid love advice.

And speaking of the Turk Effect, oh dear Gaia, the ACTUAL TURKS. The words "its complicated" were made for this situation. Basically, the other Turks pretty much have orders to kill her, that cause them to become massively incompetent whenever they try to carry them out—except some don't want to kill her and instead try to secretly help her—except none of them really want to kill her, I mean it's nothing personal it's just Tseng's orders—except TSENG HIMSELF circumvents those orders when convenient and no one is looking, except, except, except.

Long story short, it's the sort of relationship where she and, say, Reno can have a long drawn out battle to the death in the morning where they both sincerely try to kill the other, fail, get cleaned up, and then go out for drinks after work, drop off each other's drunk asses at their respective houses, grouse about hangovers in the morning, and then go for another round of attempted death once the pills kick in. ("Oh, yeah, I know you just tried to kill me yesterday, but yes I will babysit your cat—should we do this before or after your next murder attempt?")

Least Favorite People: The Cid doesn't trust her. This is a common theme for her and something that she's totally not offended by at all, but it does kinda put a strain on their relationship. He once suggested that she might rat them out to Shinra/Tseng, and even though Cissy doesn't usually take things personally, that did kind of set her off. I think he secretly thinks she's a spy, but is sort of willing to let it go after Zack pointed out that nobody hides out in a glorified refrigerator with Sephiroth for four years on the off-chance that they might get to spy on an anti-Shinra situation—a fact that I agree with. However, she is a Turk, and even she'll admit it's a reasonable assumption.

The Yuffie will admit to having a bit of a rivalry with her because COME ON! She refuses to admit that I'm totally the better ninja, even though that's like, the most obvious thing in the world! She thinks she's the better spy because she's the "professional". Grr! I'm telling you, one of these days, I'm gonna knock her off of that high chocobo. I can kick her butt any day of the week, just watch me!

Yuffie groaned, wincing as she brushed her fingers against the bruise on her face. "No fair..." she whined.

"You're the one who told me I could fight dirty," said Cissnei with a small smile, walking forward and holding a hand out to her. "Are you okay?"

Yuffie glared up at her. The two of them were standing in a clearing, their shurikens embedded in the ground a few feet away from her, points down. She thought she had won when she managed to knock Rekka out of Cissnei's hand with her own shuriken, then proceeded to slash at her with a small knife she had procured from the ex-Turk's own pockets. Apparently dead branches were a thing that could be used as a weapon.

No fair.

...Alright, any day but Monday. I'll get her tomorrow! This time it'll be inside a building, WITHOUT BRANCHES.

On the Tsviet's side of things, she's got a vendetta on Nero the Sable—you know, for nearly killing her. Now she's in no way tough enough to take on Nero, but it's my personal belief that dreaming up creative ends for him is how she gets to sleep at night. But hey, you know what, I don't think anyone will be really bummed out about this. Speaking of vendettas, Hojo better watch out. She doesn't say as much, but she's secretly gunning for him too. Think she'll leave this one to Sephy and Vinnie, though.

Cloud and Zack can help too.

Hard to say what she thinks about Genesis considering its usually Seph or Zack that ends up fighting him when he comes around. I think so far, she's pretty ambivalent about him. You know, in a, "nothing personal, but if I found you while you were sleeping, I would shoot you" kind of way. (Yuffie's note: The Yuffie has a personal theory that they're related, because let's look at the facts: Same hair color, Gen's got mako so eye color doesn't count, same colored weapons, same touches of pyromania, same flair for the dramatic—Cissnei doesn't recite LOVELESS but some of the things she says can make her sound a bit like a space case, I mean come on, just ask her about WINGS one day, same ability to get single mindedly obsessed over something, and, AND AND AND! They're both adopted...sort of, in Cissy's case, and neither of them knew their real parents. Coooooonspiiiiiiiiracyyyyyy~)

Oh, and then there's Rufus. Let's call this another "It's complicated". Because on one hand, she's gunning for Shinra and all they represent—on the other...eh, years of conditioning are kinda hard to uproot. But I think she's pretty set on this. As in, Rufus is another one of those "if I find you, I'll shoot you", people. In fact, if he wasn't watched constantly by Tseng, I've got a pretty good feeling he'd already be facing down an angry redheaded ex-Turk.

Recommendation: The Cissnei will be perfectly cordial. She'll greet you, help you out, and along the way, ask several oh-not-leading-at-all questions meant to tease out your motivations and determine whether or not you'll make it home that night. Relax. If you're not trying to meet her to get information on us or on her or on Sephy, you will be fine. But she'll have contingency plans for your assassination. Don't worry, that's par for the course.

If you get into her inner circle, she'll start opening up. But I can't tell you what to expect when she does. Because the real Cissnei is still opening up. She's learning all sorts of new ways to deal with the world, so...you never know how she'll turn out.

Final Conclusion: Alright, let's be real here. Cissy's a basket case. She's gone from abandoned child to abused, starving street urchin, to Shinra pet project, to contract killer before most other girls stopped playing with dolls and keeping stuffed animals in their bedrooms, and that sort of thing is murder on the psyche. Because of that, she's got this weird, iffy, hard to describe "I am who you want me to be" personality going for her. Before joining the Turks, she didn't have an identity, and after that, her identity was "Turk". Now that that's been pulled out from under her, her identity's a pretty solid "I dunno".

But that's the thing. She's changing, and I don't even know if she realizes that herself. She's not going with the flow anymore—she's actually challenging people's opinions and making her own, and caring enough about them to see them through. So maybe someday she'll actually work up the guts to walk up to Sephiroth and kiss him senseless (because Leviathan knows that sorry excuse for a mass-murderer ain't gonna make the first move), and maybe someday Turkey won't be such a great nickname for her anymore. (I think Vinnie hopes so too).

Bottom line: The Cissnei's not a bad person.

Just a bad ninja. (:-P)!