A/N: I wanted to write Yuffie with a completely different personality than what we see that COULD be possible and this is what I came up with. I hope y'all like it... It took me around an hour and a half to write. Oh, if you hate angst, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of the Final Fantasy games.

Not everybody knows
That everybody goes
To a better place
And not everybody knows
That everybody could be living their last days
But the hard times will come
and we'll keep movin' on
We're moving up
Keep movin' on
- Good Charlotte, "Moving On"

-----

It was all too much.

Everything. It was just too fucking much.

I'm strong, yeah; I can move on and make a better life for myself, yes, but... I just can't take it anymore. All of this hiding, running, pretending that I'm still the same me as I was BEFORE the heartless... I just can't fucking do it.

They expect me to, Avalanche does, but then again, what the hell do they know? More than half of them died that night for Kingdom Heart's SAKE! None of them know ANYTHING that I've been through or what Cid's been through, much less what Cloud has been through. They try to understand, to help us, by telling us that it wasn't our fault and that we should try to move on and that there are other things we can do besides act like slimy little shadows crawling in the light trying to find safety.

They don't understand.

We're not the shadows in the light searching for safety; we're the pinpricks of light in the darkness searching for their comrades. We've lost so many...

We've lost so many that I can't even count anymore.

In the beginning, the first heartless takeover, we lost all of Avalanche besides Cid, Cloud, and myself, as well as the rest of the PLANET. I watched Tifa, Barret, and Marlene get slaughtered by the shadows. I watched Red get crushed by a giant heartless' foot and end up in a bloody heap on the ground. I watched Vincent being eaten away by the darkness, leaving behind only his cape and claw, making him scream out bloody murder for the torment put upon his soul. And I watched my father, Kisaragi Godo, as he tried to fight the shadows in his old age, only to end up with his heart ripped out, bloody and still pumping, dripping onto his still, lifeless corpse.

However, despite all of these atrocities I witnessed, I moved on.

Whether it was the gracious Planet that did it to us, or Ansem himself, I thank whoever changed us back into children, but I despise them for their timing. Being changed back into children helped Cloud and I tremendously, because though we still remembered, the memories were shoved into the back of our minds to make way for the pleasant and not-so-pleasant memories of childhood. Having Aerith with us helped too, I think. But it was too short-lived. We should have known that even childish happiness couldn't last that long.

The heartless came there too and wiped out everyone that we had met and had begun to love. The people I considered my parents were murdered in front of my very own six year old eyes.

The only person besides Aerith and Cid I had left after that was Squall. Squall was seemingly much older than I was and he was very reserved, but back then with my childish views on life, I figured that I could change him, bring him to love people almost as much as I did.

I was dead wrong if I ever thought that.

Squall Leonhart wasn't like me. He couldn't let go of his past at Balamb Garden, where his love, his friends and even his rival had died before his very eyes. He couldn't give up the past in exchange for a new future, one with friends, family, and me. He couldn't. He wouldn't. And it fucking pissed me off.

He started going by the name of Leon after good ol' HB was destroyed for fuck knows what reason, but still, I called him Squall, because with my stupid childish views, I figured that I could get his sorry ass to love. He only said things when they were necessary and usually it was only information that was needed at the moment, not emotional comfort or anything. I hated him for it and I don't think I'll ever actually forgive him for closing up like that.

Nine years passed. I grew up again. I moved on.

A little snot-nosed fourteen year old showed up on Cid's doorstep after losing his world, looking for his friends. Eventually he ran into us, after Cid had told us his story that is. I didn't have the heart to tell him they were probably dead. He believed that they were still alive in any case and to top that, he was the wielder of the keyblade, which made him heavily wanted by the heartless, and caused the whole town to be covered in them.

Squall, in all of his stone-cold glory, and me, in all of my blazing-hot fury, went around town and fought off hundreds, no, thousands of heartless that had congregated in our small haven of Traverse Town to try and capture the keyblade master's heart. We stopped them all of course and Sora, the snot-nosed fourteen-year-old, along with two of the mousy king's lackeys defeated the largest one.

They then left us in the dust to travel to other worlds to search for the mousy king and Sora's little friends. Needless to say it made me mad. I had wanted to go with them, to see other worlds and maybe reclaim the ME that I had lost somewhere along the way, but Aerith and Squall stopped me. They trapped me in that little shithole of a hotel and told me I wasn't allowed to hamper the keyblade master's mission, that we had our own mission to complete, and that mission was there, in Traverse Town. Cid was all with me, he wanted to leave too, maybe search for the long lost Planet, see if we'd find anything there that could be of use, but Aerith somehow convinced him that we were needed here, not anywhere else in the universe.

Months passed by us and coliseum tournaments were the only way to be free for even a few days. Squall and I saw Cloud again, but he was far different from what I remembered. He dressed in those old rags he wore during our journey to defeat Sephiroth back on the Planet with a quite a few belts and pieces of armor attached. I was sickened though, by the fact that he had what looked like the remnants of Vincent's cloak swathed around his shoulders as well as the lower half of Vincent's inhuman metal claw in place of his left hand. It made me wanna hurl all over him and beat him senseless for even daring to desecrate Vincent's memory like that.

I couldn't bear to tell Aerith what Cloud was like now, though I seriously thought about it since I wasn't exactly harboring pleasant feelings for the pink-clad healer. I think it would've broken her faltering spirit if I had told her that.

Eventually, Sora cleared Maleficent and any of her lackeys that might have been there from Hollow Bastion, which caused Aerith to decide that it was time for us to move back. I can't say I was happy. I definitely wasn't, but it was better at any rate than stinky, rinky-dinky Traverse Town. I could explore, be free again, and that's what mattered at the moment.

Sora defeated Ansem too, and Cloud, with the last shreds of Vincent's cloak and the lower half of his claw still upon his person, returned to Hollow Bastion. Aerith was surprised that he was still alive, and even more so that he had worn Vincent's remains in battle and gotten more blood on the already bloody claws and cape.

We started rebuilding, because Aerith felt a disturbance in the air and felt it necessary. Within a year, Hollow Bastion had become a safe haven once more due to the heartless that were back with even more power. We didn't remember Sora, because for some odd reason he had been erased from our minds as had the keyblade. I wasn't mad at him anymore, because there was nothing really to be mad at, but still I longed for the freedom he had, the freedom to travel to any world he desired.

I didn't hear much about his new journey to defeat the heartless except for the fact that there was some crazy organization out there trying to kill him and that he had to save Riku and Kairi, his friends, STILL.

We eventually got news that he had killed whatever evil was plaguing the universe and that everything was finally going back to normal through the process of going home.

We were just at HB, doing our regular daily tasks, when our bodies started to fizzle and flicker. It shocked me at first, because I didn't know what was happening. But then... But then a voice called out to me, sweet and reassuring, telling me that finally, finally we were coming home, home to her, the Planet. The rest after that was a blur. All I remember is waking up in a bar in Midgar, lying on a couch placed in the back room next to Cloud. Neither Aerith nor Squall were anywhere in sight and Cid was missing too.

I woke up Cloud, who looked just as dead as I'm sure I did and we decided to see what the fuck was going on. It turned out, that the entire of Avalanche that had died all of those years ago, were in the front room awaiting our awakening.

Which is where I am now.

I just can't take it.

I just really, really can't take it.

Cid had a heart attack I heard, when he woke up and saw Avalanche for the first time in about 14 years. It doesn't surprise me. It really doesn't.

They questioned us, and being in the state of shock that we were in, we explained it all to them. Every last detail. Most of them turned a sickly shade of white when they heard how they had died and turned an even sicklier shade when they heard all of the things that had befallen us. Except for Vincent. He left the bar as soon as we had come in from the back room, saying he was going for a walk, and that he'd be back shortly.

They told me to move on.

Do you hear that? They told ME to move on!

I have been moving on since I was fucking born. I'm SICK and TIRED of moving on. That's why it came to this.

After they were done 21 Questions, all of them retired for bed to dwell over their new information and maybe to contemplate dying again just to see our reaction. Cloud returned to the back room to get some rest and maybe to try and move on this time. I, on the other hand, walked straight out the door and into the forgiving gunfire of Vincent Valentine, who had pity placed upon my tortured soul.

- Owari -