Chapter 1: Limits.
A shadow flickers between the trees. A presence is felt but only for a moment. Unwary travelers feel a chill down their spine but shake it off to the gloom of the forest. Unbeknownst to them their packs are a little lighter, their weapons a little unbalance, and their purse slashed. What fiend causes these new conditions? A young girl with a big smile and sneaky heart: Yuffie Kisaragi, heir to the Wutai throne.
Small in stature, but large in heart and schemes, she leaps silently from tree to tree; her ninja abilities serving less than honorable intents. She smiled with glee at the new material she had just "acquired" from some lazy traveler not wise enough to watch their bag. Soon she reached her hideout.
A small pond rippled in a clear glen. A tent that bent in on itself was roughly tied together next to the water. There were articles of clothing scattered about, desperately needing to be washed. Yuffie ignored them completely. She strolled lazily to the edge of the pond for a much needed drink. After a few swallows she decided she was still to warm and dunked her head in as well.
Yuffie finally came up for air and looked at her now soaked self, soaked but much cooler! As she looked at her own stormy eyes, her round face, her short brown hair currently stuck to her face almost as a picture frame. She laughed at herself and slowly stood up. She fixed her armguard, straightened her green sweater, and posed for herself. "I look totally awesome!" she suddenly exclaimed.
As quickly as her mood had been raised it just as suddenly knocked into the pond. Yuffie came up sputtering water and other things. She looked around for what had knocked her in the pond. A creature half her size arced gracefully in a half circle intent on its victim.
"You #$!#$. How dare you think you can attack the Great Ninja Yuffie! Now you're gonna pay with that $# head of yours!" She hollered as the bird-monster came around for another attack. In a blink of an eye the monster went from nearly sinking its talons into her soft flesh to skipping across the water with the sound of the airborne Yuffie's laughter. "Now yer gonna burn!" she yelled as she reached to touch the fire materia in her armguard. She felt nothing. She reached for it again and again she found the smooth indent where the materia was absent from. "Crap!" was her only reply as she landed in the pond once again.
She almost began to throw a fit when the monster dived at her from behind, leaving gashes in her back that slowly tricked blood down her pale back. This last straw broke her back and her limits. She turned on the bird monster and charged. The monster turned on what it thought was helpless prey. It never thought again, in an instant Yuffie had sliced the monster in two. "I think I'll call that one Greased Lightning, cause that was so slick!" she said to the now twitching corpse of the monster. Her glee was cut short by the increasing pain in her back and her worry over her lost materia.
"Aw man, first dunked, now with one less materia, and a pain in the back! I'm glad that guy had a cure materia on him." She sighed as she concentrated her mind through the green orb activating the magic. Small sparks of green light drifted from the orb towards her back, they slowly seeped into her wounds. 'This always tickles' she giggled to herself. The wound seemed to reverse in time and seal themselves leaving only the lost blood. 'Great,' she sighed, 'Now I have to get back in the pond again! This is not as good a day as it started out to be.'
She sighed again as she slowly stripped and threw her now clothes in the pile with the rest of them. She touched the water with her toe. In the fading light of twilight she slipped into the water. She chuckled to herself 'Today may not of not been so good, but tomorrow will be!'