Chapter VI

Flower of Wutai
"Ah, Barret. We hardly know each other. Shouldn't we at least kiss first?" - Yuffie

Barret Wallace stood in the foyer of Godo's house, looking as out of place as a nun at a belching contest. Not that Wutai nuns didn't know how to have a good time. Yuffie remembered smuggling rice candies over the walls of Our Lady of Purest Waters, a convent near the base of Da-Chao. She had dropped into their manicured garden, sneaked along the pebbled paths to the pagoda gazebo. Given the hour, Yuffie assumed she would privately switch her bundle for a bottle of potent sake the nuns distilled there. (Until last night Yuffie herself had never sampled their wares, and her throbbing headache reinforced her vow never to do so again.) When she climbed over the oak railing she came upon a scene that still made her blush - though she savored the memory of bafflement on Godo's face when she had announced she wanted to become a nun, now that she knew what he did in his spare time.

Barret shifted from foot to foot. Yuffie observed from behind her screen, debating whether to leave him cooling his heels for another ten minutes. Portek, stiff as a board (except, she had heard the maids whisper, where it really mattered), stood opposite him, trying not to notice Barret's discomfort, though in the most pompous way possible. Barret, Yuffie could tell, really wanted to swear at the top of his voice but suppressed the urge out of respect for Godo. Thus he limited his protests to an occasional grunt. In place of his usual gun arm he wore a prosthetic hand. It looked real enough if you didn't look at the metal bulge where it met his forearm. (Portek could not stop staring at it, Yuffie noted with a smirk. Big black guys scared the old wisp, and big black guys who looked like mutants? Snort.) Still, it appeared Barret had listened to Aeris' advice about not spraying bullets around during social functions.

Portek coughed. Barret grunted.

Yuffie could not hold in the giggles any longer, so she stepped from behind her screen and greeted Barret with a chirpy "Hi."

"Hello." He cleared his throat, clenching his teeth. "Mind telling me what the h - " He coughed. "Why you sent for me?"

"I have an announcement to make."

Barret grunted.

"I'm going to become a nun."

Blank stare. From Portek too, she noted with a smirk.

Yuffie began to strut. "I've always felt something missing in my life, you know? Last night I discovered I lack an element of spirituality. It's never too late for salvation, don't you think?"

"I . . . "

"Anyway, Wutai nuns are known for their high quality sake. They just can't drink it themselves. Last night, oh my aching head, I discovered why, so the only way to ensure I never take another drink is to become a nun. A good idea. Don't you think?"

"I . . . err . . . "

"Besides." Yuffie blushed as she pushed back that memory of her, ah, compromised father. "Being a Wutai nun isn't all about chanting prayers and planting flowers."

"Ah . . . err . . . "

"Are you afraid you'll lose me?"

"Err?"

"It's one place Simon the Groper can't reach me."

"Who?"

"Do you know what that slime bag had the nerve to call me? He called me the Flower of Wutai. Can you imagine?"

"That, sounds, better than, anything I would call you," Barret said.

"I'm glad I smashed his Jeep."

Barret cleared his throat. Yuffie picked up a table tennis paddle from a desk. She twirled it in her hand.

"I'm glad you're here, Barret. Aren't you glad you're here?"

Barret said nothing.

"Here's what I want you to do. Take this." She handed him the paddle. "And spank my butler."

"Excuse me?" Barret stood open mouthed.

"Miss Yuffie, I must protest," Portek said. "If you persist in this disrespectful manner, I will have to speak to your father."

"Disrespectful?" Yuffie threw some snarl into her voice. Even Barret stepped back. "Barret, this man, this, sneak thief, stole my materia. Hear that? He stole, my materia. Spank him."

"Miss Yuffie, how dare you - "

"You're a lying sack of - " She stopped, a hand over her mouth. She cursed her inhibitions, cursed her father for instilling this one modicum of etiquette. Barret raised an eyebrow. She plunged on. "And a Shinra spy. Barret, surely you know what Shinra is?"

"Goddammit Yuffie! What the hell you bringin' me out here for? What the hell kind of game are you playin'!"

Yuffie smiled her 'gotchya' smile. "I don't like Shinra spies. Especially when they steal my materia." She stomped on Portek's foot. He winced and leaned back against the wall.

"Hmm," Barret said. "I seem to recall a certain brat who stole my materia. Yes, I believe it happened around here somewhere."

"That was different. I was on a mission to revive the spirit of Wutai. I didn't know you then and besides, I gave it all back. This creep here, he's worked for my family for years, probably passing secrets to Shinra the whole time. Haven't you? Now he's even buddied up with Simon the Groper."

Barret took a deep breath. "Yuffie, what makes you think your butler stole your materia?"

"Do you think, I, don't know who stole, my, materia?"

"Yuffie, what is the real point? Why not turn him over to your father? Why have me come all this way on a rickety plane and a damn temperamental chocobo just to find out you had a taste of your own medicine?"

"Barret, Barret. I thought you came because you wanted to see me."

He stood unmoved by her sweet smile.

"You want proof he's a spy?"

"Proof would be a start."

Yuffie walked to the desk. She pulled out a drawer. "I still think I should become a nun."

Barret tapped his foot.

"As that doofus John told me, it's okay to kiss a nun, just so long as you don't get into the habit."

"Yuffie!"

"Keep your socks on, big fella." She pulled out a manila folder.

"You know?" Barret said. "I've made up my mind. Rather than spank your butler for stealing your materia, I think I'll spank you for being so damn careless with it."

"Ah, Barret. We hardly know each other. Shouldn't we at least kiss first?"

"Are you going to tell me what's in that damn folder?"

"I was on the computer last night. It's a good way to sober up. And yes, I can use a computer. Just because I'm sixteen doesn't mean I'm helpless. You remember being a teenager? Like, you go into a store, and everyone stares at you because they think you're going to rob them blind?"

"Yuffie, they don't stare at you because you're a teenager. They stare at you because they know you will rob them blind."

"Better be nice, if you want me to tell my story."

"I'm waitin'."

"I expect a kiss when this is all done."

Barret shook the Ping-Pong paddle.

"I found an e-mail. Do you know a woman named Carmine?" Yuffie checked Portek, who looked ready to bolt. Barret shook his head so she continued. "She took over that nasty Scarlet's job at Shinra. Older cousin or something. Anyway, this loser here got an e-mail from Simon, thanking him for setting me up at the beach the other day. What's more, this Simon creep forwarded an e-mail he got from Carmine. He was probably just showing off how he has the hots for the ice queen? Anyway, in the e-mail she was asking him for help with Operation Black Wind, whatever that is, except it has something to do with all those Takeo fighters."

Portek tried to leave but Barret's prosthetic hand shot out and seized his arm.

"Cool," Yuffie said. She stalked over in front of them both. "Want to know the clincher?"

"What? You might have convinced me your butler might be a spy. We'll have Cloud talk to him, and then decide."

"Take a look at this."

"I have my hands full. Can't you just tell me?"

"I did some digging. Portek here has high level access into Shinra's system. More than a simple butler, you know? I think Simon's the new goat, if you ask me. Anyway, I found a briefing about the sabotage at the Corel reactor."

At that, she saw Barret stiffen. Portek winced in pain. Good, she thought. Just wait till you hear what comes next.

"Turns out it was Carmine's idea to make an example of the town. Scarlet insisted on running the mission, the hyperactive bunny. Anyway, it was Carmine's brainstorm and it was she who made out the list of people on the terminate order. A list, I might point out, I found on the computer of our favorite butler right here."

Barret snatched the sheet with his good hand. He began to read. "Terminate with prejudice. Operatives on the attempted sabotage of the Corel mako reactor, the resistance cell hidden in the town of Corel. Sister Sufi Kobayashi? Who is she?"

"She was a nun, believe it or not."

"Why so many nuns popping up all of a sudden? Tamiko Norton? Was she a nun too? Wait, her husband's on the list. Brett Norton? I knew him. Damn. He ran the hardware shop. All these guys - "

Barret's breath stopped, and Yuffie knew exactly where.

"Myrna Wallace!" Finding his late wife on the list, Barret shook Portek like a rag doll. "You son of a - "

Portek braced himself. The oaf had some muscles after all. "Unhand me you pathetic ox!"

"I'll un-head you, you goddamn - " Barret aimed his fist at Portek's head but the Butler ducked, smacking the edge of his hand against Barret's mechanical wrist. The prosthesis slipped free, still gripping Portek's elbow.

"The hell!" Barret aimed his handless arm but alas, it had no gun on it.

Yuffie lunged for Portek but the spry butler aimed a roundhouse kick at her midsection. She dodged but he used the opening to slip away.

"My hand!"

Yuffie raced into the hallway after Portek. Barret's swearing gonged through the thin-walled house. When she spotted her butler, she snapped off an Ice spell, clipping his shoulder. Slippery weasel. He slipped around a corner. She hurried to it but pulled up short. Never present yourself as an easy target. Her caution paid off. Yuffie jumped back to avoid the sheets of flame that blew the hall door off its hinges and ignited Godo's 'Darling Rice Farmer' wall tapestry. Yuffie caught the reflection of an orange horned figure hovering over the blackened courtyard. The bastard had also stolen her mastered Ifrit materia! Yuffie unleashed her mini-Leviathan, thankful she didn't need to flatten her father's house with the full summon. The fire went out but it would take weeks to air out the smell of soggy burnt fabric.

"He's getting away!" she called.

Barret bounded up to her. "Your father will have your head for ruining his tapestries."

"He's used to it. It's what he gets for hiring a Shinra spy. Besides." She motioned to the scorched wall. "I hated that picture. Big-eyed swimsuit models working in the rice paddies? Give me a break."

"He's got my goddamn hand!"

"Let's go to his room." Yuffie pointed. "Before he makes it to Shinra and they kick him out of their computer system."

"You a big time hacker now?"

"It helps when he writes down his password under his desk." Yuffie grinned. "And I changed it."

"I gotta call Nanaki about this. Damn!"

"I know. We'll set the police on him. Also, I'll alert the Wutai underground. They'll keep him from slinking through the alleys."

"There's a Wutai underground? How many members?"

"I know of three and one of them is me. Unless you count my cats."

Barret snorted. "We call Nanaki, then I'm goin' after that bastard. But first," he glared at his truncated arm, "I'm puttin' on my goddamn gun."

"Are you feeling better, Cloud?"

He shuddered. Actually sniffled. Though if he felt embarrassed, he didn't show it.

Tifa continued. "It has to be a trick. I know it looked like her, but how can it be? After all these years?"

"She's, she's just as I remembered, when I . . . "

"Easy. These things can reopen fresh wounds."

They had holed up in the Jolly Sand Dollar Inn on the cheap side of Costa del Sol, not to spare the expense, but to stay out of the spotlight. Cloud had looked catatonic when Tifa and Vincent had led him here late last night.

"Did Vincent," Cloud said, "hurt her?"

Vincent unfolded himself from his perch on the windowsill. "I don't believe so. She shielded herself with Barrier magic and she is heavily mako enhanced. Also, she carries the scent of Jenova."

"Mako enhanced? Jenova cells? Sounds like Hojo's work," Tifa said.

"I sensed something else," Vincent said. "Another presence. However, I don't think she is alive."

"A zombie then? Hojo would do that." Tifa shuddered. "I wonder who else he has shuffling around."

"She didn't look dead," Cloud said. "Her hair even had that little curl at her temple. It's all, so, unfair!" He buried his face in his hands and shuddered.

"Has to be Hojo."

"Maybe we should ask him," Vincent said.

"Hojo? Are you serious?"

"I don't want to see him," Cloud said. "If I do, I'll cleave him with my sword."

"Perhaps we can find his lab. It must be around here. We can backtrack the creature."

"She's not just a creature!"

"Cloud." Tifa laid a hand on his shoulder. "I miss her too. She was always nice to me, brought over her famous peach pie after my mother died."

"My mother," Cloud said. "I killed Sephiroth to avenge her. Now Hojo. How could he do this to her? How did he even get - arrgh!"

"He had his pick of victims from Nibelheim. He had you and Zack. He would have had me, except for Zangan." Tifa shuddered, recalling how close she had come to death or worse before her sensei Zangan had rescued her from the reactor. "I wonder. Could my father's body be stumbling around out there too?"

"Oh Tifa." He put his arm around her shoulder. She returned his gesture and they sat there a full minute.

"Cloud, I, ah . . . "

"Don't apologize. I feel better now. It was just the shock of it. My mother. I miss her so much, and to see her like that, oh Tifa." He took a shaky breath. "At least, at least I'm not slipping back into, you know, my old self."

"You are doing very well. You're supposed to feel emotion. Before, you were always such a statue, at least until Aeris. At the lake. That, was awful for all of us."

"Vincent," Cloud said, disengaging himself. (So much for a rock-free personality.) "Where is my mother now? What is she doing?"

"The creature - we might as well call her Raine - veered away from the city and was last spotted moving west. She appears not to like populated areas. Good thing for her, since this city was planning on meeting her with serious hardware."

"So she's, where?"

"If she stays on course, she will wind up in the Corel mountains. Alternately, she may turn southward toward the Gold Saucer."

"Toward Hojo," Tifa said. "Maybe it's a Jenova homing thing."

"She might even be trying to reach the North Crater Reunion, like all those Sephiroth clones we saw. Or she's just wandering around confused."

Cloud said, "I don't think so. She has a destination but I don't think it's Hojo. None of Hojo's other experiments wanted anything to do with him. Myself included."

Vincent also nodded. Tifa knew he had his own dealings with the mad doctor.

"Shall we follow or backtrack?" Tifa said.

"Follow. I will ask Nanaki for his opinion but for now, let's not lose her. What kind of attack is she using? What is she doing to all those animals? I've never seen anything like it."

Vincent considered. "She doesn't kill them. It's as if she drains them, perhaps feeding off their life energy. Though when she met us, her appetite seemed sated."

"Creepy," Tifa said.

"All the more reason to follow," Cloud said. "We need to head her off if she aims for another town. We may need more of our team to stop her but I do not want her killed. We must find another way."

"You will have to face the fact," Vincent said. "She is not your mother anymore, at least in mind."

"It may also be an illusion," Tifa said. "A mind game of Hojo's or a Jenova trick. Remember when the first Jenova appeared to the Cetra?"

"Our dead mothers, our dead brothers," Cloud recited. "I'll take that chance. We follow, and observe. Intervene if necessary. If Shinra were to get their hands on her, it could be a disaster."

"I agree," Vincent said. "If they somehow harness her, she would make a potent weapon."

"Everything's a weapon with them," Tifa said.

Cloud stood up. "Let's get some food, call the others, and go after her."

John awoke to a new light, the previous night's events jumbling in his mind like one of those carnival rides with names like the Zipper, rides that shake you up and flip you around until you turn as green as the salad your mama always told you to eat. Salad, though, sounded good to him now. His eyelids felt like day old pizza dough, his tongue like a cracked brick, and his arms like two dead carp flopping across a hot sidewalk, but he also felt, strangely, alive.

Heat. He had gotten hot. His mind and vision cleared. Luckily, someone had set up a pink parasol pup tent to shield his albino skin from sunlight. The blankets lay strewn across his legs, sticky as leather pancakes. He pulled an arm loose into the relative coolness of the desert air. His hand lolled on its wrist but as he shook it, feeling returned to his fingers. Prying his other arm free, ensuring that yes, he still possessed opposable thumbs, he kicked off his shroud of blankets, cringing at how his sweaty pajamas stick to him like soggy wallpaper. What had Nanaki said? His body had issues retaining heat? No problem now; he had enough heat to help a dozen city blocks cook eggs on their sidewalks.

He glanced at the Eternal Flame. Someone had dialed it back down and removed the iron soup pot. They had also taken the standing mirrors, though guttered candles, crushed fruit, and other litter lay strewn about the courtyard. Beyond this, the stacked pueblo buildings sat silent in their daybreak sunlight.

John pushed himself to a sitting position, shocked by the lack of effort it took. His energy. It had returned. He wanted to leap and whoop. He rose to his feet. Too fast, it turned out, as he still wobbled and had to grasp a collapsing deck chair to stay upright. He paused, breathing in the clean spice of the air. His senses felt sharper. Above all, he felt hungry. Ravenous. He used the wooden chair as a walker to pick his way across to Hiro's tavern.

The door stood open, braced by an empty mop bucket. Its mop lay discarded in a corner where it had trailed a slug trail of mud (and things best not pondered) from under a table. Most of the booths still contained snoring bodies. Empty and part-filled mugs, some overturned, sat in clusters on the tables. Apparently Hiro had not swept his drunk patrons out after lugging that huge cooking pot back to his kitchen, where John could see it even now, a scrub brush lying across its brim like a politician's toothbrush. The tavern's center tables had a covering of discarded flowers and fruit garments. Had Hiro's dance troop undressed in here before slinking off to bed? What kind of party had he slept through last night, anyway?

"Ah, it's our famous celebrity. How are you feeling today, young one?" Hiro emerged from his store room looking fresh from the farm. Apparently he kept his nose out of the sake. And pear juice.

"I'm beat, but in a good way," John said. "Also famished. But above all, I need a shower."

Hiro sniffed the room. "You aren't the only one. I think I should break out the hose for my guests."

"Looks like they partied hard and died young. I didn't know I was such a celebrity."

"Don't take it personally, but those mountain folk will hit the pear juice just to celebrate Grandpa Fran buying a second goat."

"I heard about that pear juice."

"I once used some to fly my light airplane over to Wutai. I also used some this morning to dissolve the sludge in the bottom of my pot. Look inside it if you like. It looks good as new. But I warn you. Hold your nose."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Tell you what, kid. You get cleaned up and I'll warm up some Wutai oyako don for you. It is popular, even with those who don't drink the pear juice."

John nodded his thanks and headed toward the guest quarters. On the way, he nearly tripped over a passed out form in the hall. The man lay as a featureless, snoring lump under a sticky blanket. He looked like he had crawled toward the bathroom in search of a warm place to vomit but from the look and smell of things, had fallen short. Ugh, no wonder the floor felt so sticky. Cool chunks oozed between his bare toes.

"Gross." He tried to scrub his foot. He yelped when something sharp jabbed the arch of his foot. Reaching down, he picked out a tarnished pendant wedged between two floorboards. He hurried into the bathroom to examine it under the light and the added bonus of breathable air. A diamond shaped lattice of tarnished metal, perhaps bronze, surrounded a flat green stone, perhaps a jade. Across both sides of the stone, the metal formed a criss-cross shape, an X on top of a long stem. It reminded John of the chi-rho he had seen on some churches, except this was more like a "chi-iota." He held the amulet by its grimy chain and watched it spin, smiling at the mild hypnotic effect.

"Wash me," a voice whispered.

John looked around. Shrugged.

He undressed for the shower. Looked at the amulet again. Had it grown larger?

"Take me with you."

"Gah."

He held it up. It spun again, the other way this time.

"Whatever." Stepping in with the amulet, he hung it over the shower head. Might as well clean it while he cleaned himself.