A/N: Okay, I have the rest of this fic typed up and ready to go, but I gotta wait for school to start because my friend Rebecca has my bloopers, and I wanted to add them to some chapters!
Teek: Minus the random yaoi-hentai-ness, right?
Me: Yeah, I don't really want to scnadalize the readers any more than I already do by pairing RIku with Mizu.
Mizu: Is that a shot at me!
Me: Do you want it to be?
Teek: ((beans me and Mizu)) Behave, children.
"Kage, Sora, this is Aerith," Squall said, indicating a young woman with brown hair and a pink dress.
"Aerith," Yuffie said to the girl, "this is the girl we told you about. She calls herself Kage, but we think she might be Mizu. And this guy here is Sora, the Keyblade Master."
"Riku calls me Mizu," Kage said absently under her breath, but Squall and Yuffie both heard and exchanged that look again. Aerith walked up to Kage and leaned down so they were both looking into each other's eyes. After a second, Kage's eyes widened and she lurched back a few paces, one hand darting to her daggers, the other up as if to ward of an attack.
"You're dead!" she exclaimed. "You died! How the f--! I mean--! Holy SHIT!" Sora's jaw dropped, but Aerith only smiled sadly.
"In a sense," she said quietly to Kage, "yes, I did die. My body returned to the Planet's Lifestream, but I was reborn because my task was not yet complete." Kage relaxed slightly, and took her hand away from her dagger, though Squall noticed that it never strayed far from the hilt.
"Okay, I guess," she said. "Something tells me you're telling the truth. Excuse me, I need to be alone for a while..." Kage turned and walked away, a lot calmer than she was when she had run into Squall.
After seeing Sora, Donald, and Goofy off (A/N: I'm gonna skip that part because I'm just lazy like that!), Squall, Aerith, and Yuffie stood around outside the Item Shop's lower entrance.
"What do you think, Aerith?" Yuffie asked.
"She's definitely Mizu," Aerith replied. "Give her a little time. I'm sure she'll remember eventually."
"She doesn't seem to really want to remember, though," Yuffie said.
"With a past like hers, who can blame her?" Squall asked. Everyone was silent a moment before Yuffie spoke up again.
"Aerith," she asked, "you and Mizu were so close, closer than sibs. If she barely remembers you, what makes you so sure she'll be able to remember anything at all?"
"Her memories are still there," Aerith said quietly. "Burried deep in the darkest part of her heart, where all forgotten memories go. And despite what you may think, we weren't really all that close. Cloud, Red XIII, Vincent, and Cid were a lot closer to her than me. Actually, Yuffie, you were closer to her than I was. She thought of you as a kind of older sister. She really looked up to you."
"Really?" Yuffie asked, touched in spite of herself judging by the look on her face. "I never knew that." Aerith nodded.
"If I had to," she continued, "I'd probably rank the members of AVALANCHE she was close to in this order: Cloud, Red XIII, Vincent, Cid, you, Cait Sith, Tifa, me, then Barret."
"I knew Cloud meant a lot to her," Yuffie said. "And she meant a lot to him. I almost never saw those two apart." Yuffie laughed and leaned her head back, staring at the stars. "I remember, she used to always call Cloud 'aniki,' and he'd call her 'shisuta-chan.' It was kind of cute, now that I think about it. And you she always called 'nesan.'"
"She called you 'Theif' a lot, didn't she?" Squall asked. Yuffie nodded, and he laughed. "Yeah, she told me about it once. She used to call me 'jikei.'"
"And Cid was 'otosan,'" Aerith continued. "And Vincent was 'ojisan.' Tifa was... Now that I think about it, Mizu sometimes called Tifa 'Mom,' or 'okasan.'"
"Yeah, I guess Tifa was kind of a mother to Mi-chan," Yuffie said thoughtfully. "She never really had any nicknames for Red XIII, Cait Sith, or Barret, did she?"
"She was a fairly odd child, wasn't she?" Aerith asked.
"Yeah, she was," Yuffie acknowledged, an odd glint in her eye. "She could forgive anything. I remember asking her once if she hated Sephiroth, and she just stared at me like I'd grown another head or something and said, 'No, I don't hate him, I pity him.' Hojo, however... That girl was out for his hide when she found out that he was Sephiroth's father. Using his own son as a labrat just really ate at her. I understand that, but sometimes I just don't understand her in general."
"She was always so much older than her years," Aerith said. "She had the soul of a grown woman, poor baby. To go through all that at such a young age and still be sane, it's remarkable. And to be able to forgive Sephiroth, when he was the cause of so much of her pain..."
"No," Squall said thoughtfully, then looked up at the two women, "she told me something once that I don't think she ever told you two. If I remember right, her exact words were, 'when you get right down to it, it all boiled down to Hojo.'"
"Is that all she had to say about him?" Yuffie asked.
"No, she proceeded to insult his family back about twelve generations with words no thirty-year-old pervert would be caught dead using." Squall started laughing at the memory. "I was scrubbing for ten hours straight after that little chat and still felt dirty, let me tell you!" After a little bit of heartly laughter, which slightly worried Aerith and Yuffie, Squall regained his usual composure, though a smile still hinted at the corners of his lips. "She brought out the best in all of us," he said quietly. "I never used to listen to anyone. I didn't want to get caught up in their problems, even after all my team and I had been through. Then Mizu came along and..."
"Everything changed," Yuffie said, a slight smile on her face. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I used to only care about myself and my village, never mind the rest of the world, then MIzu came along and proceeded to turn my life upside down and backwards." Yuffie sighed then said "I really miss that kid..."
"Give it time," Aerith insisted. "Just a little longer and you won't have to miss her anymore."
"I haven't seen her for nine years before today, so I guess I can wait a little longer," Yuffie said with a sigh.
"Hey," Cid called, walking over to the trio from his shop. "Anyone seen a kid, looks like Mi-chan, acts like Mi-chan?"
"Kage?" Squall asked.
"Yeah," Cid confirmed. "You seen 'er?"
"She went off somewhere a little while ago," Yuffie told him.
"You let her wander around alone!" Cid exclaimed.
"Relax, old man, Mizu can take care of herself," Yuffie said. "Don't have a cow, jeese!"
"I know Mizu can take care of herself," Cid snapped impatiently, "it's Kage I'm worried about!"
"Who, me?" Kage asked sweetly from behind Cid, causing him to nearly jump out of his skin. "I'm fine, Cid, I can hold my own in any fight. What's up?"
"Yer ship's ready," Cid said.
"Cool," Kage grinned. "How much do I owe you?" Cid named his price and Kage dug into her pockets and came up with the necessary amount of munny. "Thanks, Cid, I owe ya one."
"Wait," Yuffie said, "you're not leaving town, are you?"
"Yeah, I am," Kage said coolly. "It's obvious Riku and Kairi aren't here anywhere, so I might as well try looking somewhere else, right?"
"I guess," Yuffie said. "But..."
"Besides," Kage continued, cutting Yuffie off in mid-protest, "even though I'm positive that you guys can fill in my memorie for me, I want to find them on my own, so I'm gonna look for them after I find my friends. And that also requires getting out of here."
"I guess you have a point..." Yuffie said doubtingly. "But..."
"I've made up my mind, Yuffie," Kage snapped. "I appreciate your worry for me, but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself." She turned to Cid now, and said in a much calmer tone, "I'm not sure if I'll know how to fly the ship. Think you could give me the basics?"
"Sure," Cid said. "Come on, it'll be easier if you have the controls in front of you."
Mizu nodded, then turned to Squall, Yuffie, and Aerith. "See you guys later, then," she said, then left with Cid.
"If she's not Mizu, I'll eat my boots," Squall said with a chuckle.
"I wonder," Aerith said thoughtfully.
"Wonder what?" Yuffie asked.
"If Cloud made it. If anyone could reawaken her memories, it would be him..."
A/N: Dun-dun-dah!
Teek: You gotta lay off the Sprite, Twerp.
Me: Don't I know it! I still want my bloopers back... Oh, and readers: beware the eventual twisting of the FF7 story-line in a later chapter, not to mention the spoiler or twenty.