A/N: This will be my last attempt at Yuffentine. A bit short, but this is done as a bit of a pilot episode. How many reviews I get will determine if this idea is worth pursuing in the future, so do read and review, would you kindly?

{Play: "Keeping Pace", from "Darksiders"}

[Somewhere on the Oceans]

Storms raged as the waves crashed against the ship like a god making his wrath known on the open seas. It was bad news for one person on the ship, as she was trying her hardest to avoid getting sick all over the deck. She was a young, stick-like thing in her teens with a boyish appearance. While her skin would normally be of a healthy tan, it was currently pale from motion sickness. At her side was a large four-point shuriken that she was more than proficient with, but she kept a heavy combat knife and a revolver with a quick trigger for emergencies.

"Don't you dare barf on the floor Princess," warned a crewmember, "you may be an important officer in the rebellion, but the captain will kill you for that."

"Tell me something I don't know." the girl snipped back, before emptying her dinner into a bucket. For all the advancements brought about by steam power, there was no technology designed to fight motion sickness.

The war between Midgard and the AVALANCHE Rebels had taken on an ugly turn after the latter had managed to secure an alliance with the Empire of Wutai. This was mainly due to the fact that the Rebels had revealed to Emperor Godo that the empress's death was an assassination orchestrated by President Shinra of Midgard. They did not find out about this scandal until a few months after he signed a peace treaty and a trade agreement with Shinra, but the implications had infuriated the emperor . As furious as he was, he knew that breaking off on the peace treaty and trade agreement would spell death for his country…and so Godo assisted the AVALANCHE Rebels in secret as a form of revenge for his slain wife.

This meant that officially, Kisaragi Yuffie, crown-princess of the Empire, was not on an AVALANCHE steamship, fighting battles with her fellow Wutainese warriors against Midgard while disguised as Midgard sailors. In any case, due to her status as a princess, she was not even supposed to be in this war at all. But seeing as she was too far in the war to be pulled out by her father, he had no choice but to allow her to continue the fight as her presence had brought morale up for the rebels.

Yuffie's thoughts were cut short the second she heard sailors rushing around

"What's going on?" she asked, catching a crew member's attention.

"The storm's too strong. We're going to have to land on a nearby island."

"What's the problem with that?"

"We're in Pirate Kingdom waters."

As she let the idea sink in, Yuffie's eyes had widened in shock. The Pirate Kingdom was a cluster islands between that marked the halfway point between Wutai and Midgard. As the name implied, the area was home to a few colonies of pirates that banded together and formed an unofficial nation. In general, if one were forced to land on any island in that region, their best hope was that the pirates didn't notice their arrival and that the island in question only had wildlife on it. Unfortunately, the storm was so bad that all choice had flown out the window. "Do we know where we're landing?"

"If we're lucky, we'll land on Port Samael to re-stock and recruit."

Yuffie knew that the crewman was using the word 'lucky' very lightly. Port Samael was located on Skull Island, the 'capital' of the Pirate Kingdom. The location was literally an island in the abstract shape of a screaming human skull, and the port in question was situated on the 'teeth.' There were so many ways to die there, that it was no surprise the place used to be a penal colony: Death Gigas gorillas that could hug its victims to death, Hellmasker octopi with highly toxic venom, and even weak spots the ground hid underground caves with sharp stalactites at the bottom.

Rumor had it that Port Samael was born when the prisoners broke out, struck down the guards, and then rebuilt port. Now, it became the center of a wretched hive of scum and villainy that took on a good number of pirates, exiles, and even fugitives among their number. While there was no law in that part of the world, there was only one person that nobody dared to mess with. The so-called "Pirate King" ruled from Skull Island, and it was said that he reigned over both the people and the beasts of the island. Very few people outside of the Pirate Kingdom ever saw his face, and even fewer things have escaped the notice of his spies. If one considered the library of highly valuable secrets he supposedly held, and the blood spilled to keep them safe, they could consider him the greatest information broker to ever live. It was because of this spy ring that neither Wutai, Midgard, nor AVALANCHE dared to lay a hand on Skull Island; the information the Pirate King held was worth more than its own weight in gold, and they were willing to pay through the nose to buy those secrets.

That's be just great, Yuffie thought to herself, grinning at the prospect, If I can meet with the Pirate King, maybe we can discuss terms for buying information. The only question is, where can I find him? But first things first; we've got to land at Port Samael.

A/N: And we're done.