Disclaimer: I do not own Yuffie and Godo Kisaragi, Vincent Valentine, AVALANCHE, all characters and concepts related to AVALANCHE, or, in fact, anything that is from Final Fantasy VII (that honour goes to the wonderful bunch at Square-Enix).

Claimer: I DO, however, own the concept of this story, the name Phe Tsen Shu, the rest of the Shu family, the concept of North Wutai and South Wutai being separate countries, the city of Le Phe Tan, the bastardization of the name Leviathan into Le Phe Tan, and other things not found in FF7. I also own the concept of Heavenly City Da Cha O, the bastardization of the name Da Chao into Da Cha O, and the concept of the Wild Ace's Deuce's Wild Casino. Feel free to use my ideas and original characters, but please give me credit. If you don't give me credit, Tsen Li will turn into a Gary Stu, ruin your story, and then eat your liver.

And When that Day Comes

Dig my head down deep so I can't hear the cars

Outside on the street, and the stars are laughing

They get a kick out of my misery.

I've tried everything short of Aristotle,

Dramamine, and the whiskey bottle,

I pray for the day when my ship comes in

And I can sleep the sleep of the just again

—Insomniac, Straight No Chaser

Chapter Seven

Two Hours Later

Aboard the Highwind

"Damn, how long did it take them to get those gates closed?" Cid asked, looking at the gates.

Vincent didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. Cid had watched with he and Cloud as the guardsmen of Da Cha O closed the city gates.

Just what had Cloud said? He wondered. Prompting such a vividly negative reaction from a society that was highly tolerant of the mistakes foreigners made took work. He couldn't think of a single thing that would have prompted Mao Li to close the gates of Le Phe Tan.

Of course, Mao Li was probably a lot bitterer, now.

"Cloud, does this usually happen when you attempt Wutaian?"

"This had nothing to do with my Wutaian," Cloud snapped. "Yuffie got pissed at us and kept telling us it wasn't any of our business. She actually said she didn't have a choice. I can't believe it."

Vincent looked over at the still-unconscious Tifa. "Did Yuffie do that?"

"No. It was..." Cloud made a mockery of the syllables.

Really, no wonder his Wutaian did him more harm than good. If Cloud couldn't say something as simple as Division Six, Vincent shuddered (well, not really. But he would have shuddered, if he didn't loathe physical reactions to emotion) to think what he might do to a simple request for a night in an inn.

Wait. Division Six?

What had they done?

"Cloud… What did you do?"

"I don't know. I have no idea why she got so mad at us. We were just trying to help!"

"It may be that she has set herself on this, Cloud. It would seem that we cannot convince her."

"Okay. So you give up, too. Well, I'm not giving up on her. I'm going to bring her back to her senses, damnit!"

It wasn't that he'd given up on her. It was that he knew how stubborn she was. After all, he'd spent most of his time in AVALANCHE with her. Cloud had taken Cid and Tifa along with him on almost every mission, leaving Barrett, Aeris, and Cait Sith as the auxiliary party, with he, Yuffie and Nanaki as the third party. Nanaki had joined Barrett and Cait Sith after Aeris' death.

Vincent had spent almost his entire time with AVALANCHE in Yuffie's company. He knew her best out of all of them, probably.

He knew what little good Cloud was going to do.

"Cloud, if she has closed Wutai's gates because of you, do you honestly think she is going to listen to anything you have to say?"

Cloud glared.

"I'm going to see if I can't gain entrance to the city."

"And if she's not going to listen to me, what makes you think she'll listen to you?"

"I will be the listening one, Cloud."

Cloud continued to glare