A/N: Christ, this chapter took for-goddamn-ever to finish. Aside from the obvious... it's the longest chapter to date, there is also the matter of mundane life intruding into my writing time. I'm in the Navy folks, and right now my command is preparing for a big AMI inspection. Basically, its like finals for you college folks, only this is my job. I'm deeply involved in all manner of navy programs that are inspected during this phase, since I'm a workcenter and divisional Training Petty Officer, so I really have to sweat this.
What does this gibberish mean? It means that right now I'm usually working until late at night, and then sleeping when I get home. So less time for writing.
Still, here's the next chapter to Why Me? The epic that expanded beyond my control. Since this chapter was written in several sittings rather than just one or two like my other chapters, the narrative may change tones alot. I tried to avoid this, but whatareyagonnado, huh?
Hopefully it's enjoyable. It was hell getting this finished with so much on my mind. It's still pretty rough, but I swear I just can't stare at this any longer... I NEED to post this. So if it seems unfinished, I deeply apologize.
In any case, on with the show!
"It's twilight and I wake up hot. My body's soaked in a cold, cold sweat. I reenact the lurid scenes, and clawed engravings in my head. Oh, I can't punch hard enough. I can't kick high enough. I can't shoot straight enough. I can't hold on enough. I can't stay down enough. I can't take pain enough. I can't bleed fast enough. I can't die dead enough." -Megadeth, Die Dead Enough
Yuffie sat back in the modest tub the Greasy Monkey had managed to produce and soaked in the hot water. To the untrained eye she appeared to be the picture of relaxation, but in all actuality, she was listening very closely for any sounds just outside the small chamber set aside for bathing, a very short distance from the Inn's bathroom.
This was exactly where she needed to be to put the final touches on Operation: Ditch Vinnie.
It may not have seemed as such. In fact, most people, upon hearing what Yuffie's chosen profession was, after having met her, found it very difficult to reconcile her image with said profession.
This was, of course, the point.
When asked what the word ninja meant to them, most idle speculators would, invariably, give the description of a shadowy, quiet, patiently creeping guy in a black outfit with a penchant for two toed socks and a tendancy towards deviousness and stealth.
Yuffie, of course, appeared as a colorful, loud, easily distracted, in-your-face young girl in an outfit that could, if one were being kind, best be described as slightly noisy, complete with sneakers.
The deviousness and stealth are about all one can attribute to her... at first glance.
Yuffie was a master ninja however, and in order to understand just HOW masterful, one must first understand the true nature of the ninja. A ninja is, no more and no less, a practicioner of ninjitsu (go figure, since the literal translation of ninjitsu is, art of the ninja). Ninjitsu is a term used to describe not only the collected hodge-podge of fighting arts that is more commonly known as Da Chao, (literally from Chao, after the province which originated the art) but also to describe the philosophy in which said arts are applied.
Anyone who has ever practiced martial arts knows that the philosophy is the groundwork from which a fighting style is built, and that it applies not only to the art itself, but also to how the practicioner approaches life.
Still not clear? We're getting there, just keep reading.
There are five principles behind ninjitsu, and these five principles, if followed properly, result in the total domination of ones foes in combat, or life.
The first principle is known as Establishing the Circle of Death. Since at its most basic level this is applied during a combat situation, this is how it will be described. A person's circle of death is how far from themselves they can affect an opponent without a large amount of movement. An untrained, unarmed opponent can only threaten an area as far as he or she can kick or punch, whereas a trained martial artist or someone with a weapon (or a trained martial artist WITH a weapon) can threaten an area considerably beyond themselves. Da Chao originated on a battlefield, in which there are many opponents each using different weapons and at different skill levels, so on and so forth. The battlefield is a fluid place, and in order to remain effective, the Da Chao master determines, through establishing death circles, who or what is the biggest threat, and therefor must be dealt with first. Even without actively appearing to, Yuffie is using this particular tenet in her plan against Vincent, just by having a plan at all.
Obviously the root of her antagonism with him is Godo and Wutai, but as the first principle dictates, due to his proximity he is the bigger threat, and thus must be dealt with accordingly.
The second principle is known as Defending the Area Not Attacked. This is a difficult principle to understand, and many laymen never progress beyond the level of novice because of this fact. When an opponent who is not trained in Da Chao attacks, they inveritably tend to focus on a very small area, such as the point which they are currently punching or kicking at. When attacked, such a person defends the area on themselves which is being attacked, which leads to a linear sort of approach towards combat. This works just fine as a rote reaction to an expected attack from a single opponent, but what happens to said martial artist if they are fighting an unorthodox opponent, or multiple ones, or just something simple, like fighting in a narrow alleyway or in the dark? Obviously linear thinking causes rigidity of thought and reaction, which then leads to rigidity of the body in the form of rigor mortis. A Da Chao ninja never defends, they feel out their opponents reactions and then attack from an unexpected angle. While their opponent is busy focusing on that small area, the ninja lets him have it and attacks from every other angle.
A ninja never retreats, they attack in an unexpected manner. How does this work? Have you ever tried beating the crap out of someone who isn't there? Or chased after them to beat them up and then got ambushed when you weren't expecting it?
Vincent was very focused on preventing Yuffie from escaping, or wheedling her way out of her duties. He certainly wasn't going to expect her to attack him from an unexpected position. Namely his own solitary nature.
The third principle is Capture the Mind. This sounds simple, but it can be very complex. When faced with the unexpected, such as unexpected pain, or a sudden noise, or the introduction of a distraction, an opponent can't help but focus on the unexpected situation at least a little bit. At the instant of receiving a sharp blow, an opponents eyes dilate, or blink entirely. This is a reflex, and unavoidable. At that instant, they are most vulnerable to attack. Of course it doesn't just have to be physical pain... an opponent who shouts in one's face, or begins to laugh uncontrollably for no reason, or who simple ISN'T THERE, also captures the mind.
Phase 1 of Operation: Ditch Vinnie would apply this particular principle in the form of distraction.
Lots of them.
Once the mind is captured, the ninja need only apply the fourth principle, Unbalance the Circle. Physically, it is almost impossible to attack when one is in the state of falling on one's ass. Once a ninja unbalances an opponent, they simply continue to unbalance them, and their foe is at their mercy.
This leads to the last principle, Capture, Persuade, Maim or Kill. Which of course, is what you do to a helpless foe. Yuffie had no wish to maim or kill Vincent, she wasn't THAT annoyed with his uncommunicative ass. She'd tried to persuade him, he wasn't listening to reason.
So that left Capture.
As you can see, Yuffie was so much of a Da Chao master that she applied these principles without much conscious thought, which is, of course, the whole point of being a martial artist. If one has to think about what one is doing during the split second reactions needed for a life or death fight, one is about to get one's ass handed to them.
Gift-wrapped. With a little red bow.
As stated before, if all of these principles are applied, the ninja cannot fail to succeed. It is when all of the variables have not been worked out that the attack fails.
Or, you know, if the ninja herself is starting to have second thoughts.
Yuffie was annoyed at Vincent, and, truth be told, a little hurt that after their "breakthrough" he'd become a stone wall again. Of course, if she analyzed the situation a bit more deeply, she'd realize that it probably hadn't seemed like a breakthrough to Vincent, who was unaware that she'd spied upon him while he was bathing, and that this was simply business as usual for him. Yuffie has, due to years of it from her father, an annoying tendancy when hurt to see active persecution where there is really just ignorance, and reacts accordingly.
Still, some part of her realized that this deception, a tactic that was alien to Vincent himself, had a good chance of lessening her in his eyes. However, this only bolstered her reserve to see it through... Yuffie was a complicated young woman, and while there was that part of her that had misgivings about doing anything that might make disillusion Vincent towards her, there was also that fiercely independant part that said that if something like this REALLY made him like her any less, then he wasn't the man she was... you know.
Fortunately for Yuffie's already overtaxed emotional state, most of these thought processes were taking place subconsciously.
Of course at this point, you, dear reader, are probably wondering what this terribly sneaky plan was, and why Yuffie had taken the time to take a bath right in the middle of it.
Well, aside from the obvious answer involving personal hygiene, it did actually serve her purposes. For instance, the baths are very close to the toilets.
What does this have to do with anything? The police officers drinking it up downstairs were almost certain to need to relieve themselves, (anyone who has drunk several pitchers of beer knows this is a cold hard fact of life) and when they did, they would be away from where Vincent's keen senses could detect her manipul... er, convincing them of the rightness of her cause.
Namely, getting the hell away from Vincent and his mission to her bring back in her father's clutches.
Her keen ears detected the stumbling up the stairs of one particularly inebriated individual. She waited the appropriate amount of time, then...
Show time.
For those of you with weak stomachs for large amounts of sappy melodramatic overacting, I suggest you turn away for a little bit, lest you find yourselves in search of a bucket.
A large one.
Though in her defense, it's kinda hard to convince someone of any particularly abstract situation when the target audience is piss drunk.
It started with the sobbing. Yuffie was a master at sobbing, it made for good bait. She could lend it that woebegone, "there is not a hope in the world for this poor sufferer", air that immediately engendered the need, in the male sex, to comfort and protect the poor maid.
Please.
Of course, our poor target in question, an upstanding sod by the name of Sergeant Marley Jenkins, never knew what hit him. One minute he was making room in his excrusiatingly full bladder for more alcohol, the next, he was blinking in dismay at the sound of some girl crying her eyes out in the next room.
"Wuzzat?" He announced blearily, this being the extent of his diplomatic repetoir at this point.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, this was exactly what Yuffie was waiting for.
"W-who's there?" She said, mock fearfully.
"Uh, me." Marley confided smartly.
"Who's "me"?" Yuffie said, exasperation just bearly detectable in her voice. To the observant.
Which Marley was not.
"Er... Marley?" The guard Sergeant asked, half questioningly.
"Marley? Please sir, leave this place quickly... if HE catches you talking to me, I fear what he might do..."
This was a bit too much information in one sentence for Marley to handle at this point. He blinked. "Who?"
Yuffie sighed inaudibly. "The tall, dark man in the red cloak who I came in with... he's a mercenary... a particularly nasty one too."
Marley straightened a bit. "What're you doin' with a mercenary?" He was beginning to remember a standoffish individual with a particularly evasive and unpleasant manner downstairs. He vaguely remembered he'd had a girl with him... a girl who'd looked desperately at them for a split second before the tall stranger had turned her way. Marley's very slowed thought processes began to revv up to full throttle. Hey... maybe she was in some kinda trouble... maybe... she didn't wanna be with that guy!
"I wouldn't be around him if I had a choice, good sir guard. I am an upstanding citizen ill used to such a disreputable character (man, she's laying it on a little thick...) but I have little choice in the matter... he said he'd hurt me... terribly if I didn't do what he said."
Marley reddened. This was terrible. Still, something about this didn't make sense. "But why is he tryin' to-"
Yuffie wasn't about to let him start THINKING. He might do something intelligent. Like smell the bullshit. "It's a sad tale, and I hate to burden you with it..."
Marley bought it. Secretly, he was a reader of dime novels, particularly romance ones, though he'd swear on his mother's grave he never read more than the graffiti on the bathroom stalls. "Naw, what's going on?"
"Have you ever heard of Wutai?"
Marley snorted. "Sure, who hasn't? Bloody tourist trap. A'course there's an awful lotta those little guys runnin' around here of late... some kinda trouble back there-"
Yuffie didn't want him to get sidetracked. Of course, this was information she might have wanted to hear, but then, she was on a roll, and wasn't particularly listening to him.
More's the pity.
"Good, then you know how backwards and hopelessly old fashioned it is. I recently fled that Kingdom. My evil father wants me to carry on in the family tradition, he even has a husband picked out for me, so I cut my ties with him to pursue my own life. My father wouldn't accept this, and hired the mercenary to capture me and take me back to Wutai. Please! You have to help me!"
It's amazing how a simple twisting of an actual situation can paint such a drastically different picture of the actual events taking place, isn't it? Of course, good bullshit has a tendancy to do that.
Marley frowned. "Well... that ain't right."
Yuffie sounded unconsolable. "No it's not, but what can I do?"
Marley sounded thoughtful. "An' you say he's kidnapped you?"
"He is holding me against my will..."
Marley had an epiphany. "Well, that's against the law!"
Yuffie rolled her eyes. Duh, she thought. Then she sighed for effect. "What can I do? Will no one stand up to this m-"
She started say monster, then remembered a recent memory of Vincent's accusatory glance upward at her when he thought she was applying that word to him. She hadn't been, but she couldn't quite bring herself to call him that, even behind his back. Even if she was just laying it on thick for a mark.
"Madman?"
That's better. Sort of. Well he WAS a sociopath. Kinda.
Marley stood up suddenly, full of righteous anger, almost tripped over his pants which were still around his ankles, (hey, it's hard to think of things like that when you're getting indignant over a girl's sorry situation) stopped, pulled up his pants and frowned, his face hard.
"Don't you worry none, miss. Me an' ma boys'll sort this out."
Yuffie toweled her hair dry and grinned triumphantly. "Oh would you? I can't stand up to him, but a strong brave guard like you... maybe..."
Marley stood up straighter and puffed his chest out, which was ridiculous because Yuffie couldn't even see him. Of course, no one ever accused the guard of being overly perceptive.
Not even when he was sober.
"We'll have that bastard locked up tighter'n a drum, mark my words, miss."
"Be careful... he's a dangerous criminal."
At least, he's about to be, she thought.
The Sergeant went charging downstairs as Yuffie dressed and congratulating herself on a job well done, considered her next move.
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As previously stated, Vincent felt comfortable in an inn's social setting. He liked to listen to the human drama going on about him without actually being a part of it, sort of living vicariously through the rest of the room.
Since he was so observant, and because he had a natural understanding of an inn's social structure, he knew almost instantly that something was wrong.
Of course, the man barreling down the stairs was something of a dead giveaway.
Vincent didn't move from his seated position, but he did pay attention to what was happening by virtue of his peripheral vision, as well as the dingy mirror that hung behind the bar. What he saw made his lip tighten imperceptively.
The man had stopped barreling down the stairs and assumed a studiously, overexaggerated (though the overexaggeration was probably because he was obviously drunk) calm demeanor, all the while glaring in Vincent's direction. He stopped at the table that held his companions and whispered fiercely to them.
Several of them looked at Vincent and scowled. The others studiously avoided looking at him at all.
Several other details immediately came to Vincent's attention, details that he'd missed before, or dismissed as unimportant.
The mirror wasn't a mirror, it was stainless steel polished to a mirror shine. In some places, it was dented, and had been hammered back into shape ALMOST perfectly. The beer and liquor that was out on the bartop or on the shelf under the mirror was all cheap, easily replaceable stuff. The more expensive stuff was locked up behind a metal grate just under the shelf that held the cheap stuff. The tables were all bolted down, the chairs uniformly cheap, and obviously had been repaired numerous times.
Also, the bathroom and bathing room were both upstairs.
Vincent sighed and shook his head.
He got up and started to go to the stairs, his usual quiet, "handle things in house" self, presumably to head off whatever trick Yuffie was trying pull...
And walked RIGHT into her trap.
The men in uniform stood up as one and blocked off the stairway...
Just as Yuffie started down, looking, without her armor and weapon, decidedly waifish and miserable.
Vincent blinked.
"Hold on there, partner." The man with the mustache who had come back down the stairs said reasonably. He looked a bit unsteady. "Me an' my boys wanna share a drink wit' ya."
Vincent regarded the man cooly. "I don't drink... wine." He didn't know why it came out like that, he just felt compelled to respond that way.
The man responded in kind, looking at his men in confusion. "We ain't drinkin' that pussy shit neither. I was talkin' 'bout a beer."
Vincent sighed. "I definately don't drink that."
He flicked a glance at Yuffie, who was currently (barely) repressing a smirk of victory.
"I don't know what she told you-" He started.
"You know, 'round here, we got a word for what yer doin'." The man interrupted.
"-I am doing this for the girl's own safety-"
"We call it kidnappin'." The guard finished, glaring at him.
Vincent blinked. He looked at Yuffie, then the guard. "She's not being restrained in any way."
The man grinned. It was not pleasant. "Oh I gather she ain't bein' held right now. There's more'n one way to hold someone 'gainst their will, though."
"She's not being held against her will." He looked at Yuffie. It was a hard look. She at least had the grace to avoid his gaze.
Of course, this was misinterpreted.
"Then I guess you won't mind if she leaves, will ya?"
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "She can't do that. It isn't safe."
"Who'd hurt her?" The man said reasonably. Then he said something in a tone that wasn't so reasonable. "You?"
Vincent compressed his mouth into a thin line. He had no intention of hurting her, ever. He said nothing.
"I think y'all need ta come with me, sir." The way he said sir was intoned with such venom that Vincent narrowed his eyes even further. He was starting to get angry.
"This is none of your concern. I am a registered bounty hunter and I have been tasked with bringing in a target by a legitimate authority. You have no jurisdiction here."
The man grinned unpleasantly and cracked his knuckles. "I beg ta differ, sir. Ya see, we're a poor lil' township here out inna middle of the jungle, an' we're simple folk. Them big city rules an' regulations, they just take such a LONG time ta get to us, what with computers an' the like all goin' the way o' Shinra. So maybe you ARE a "registered bounty hunter" an' maybe you ain't, how am I gonna verify anythin'? An' if you AIN'T legit, well then I jus' let a nefarious criminal with a poor lil' gal slip right through ma fingers. So what I'm gonna do is give you a nice place ta stay while we try an' verify whether what you say is true. Shouldn't be more'n a few weeks. Tops."
Vincent went still. Dead still. "What about the girl?"
The man took a slight step back, no... not a step back, he widened out his stance a bit, like he was expecting to take a blow. The other men fell in with him, eyeing Vincent eagerly.
"Well, did she commit a crime?"
Vincent frowned. "I'm not at liberty to discuss it."
Nor was he. Godo had implied that Wutai didn't need this kind of publicity. Not to mention the fact that it would be dangerous for Yuffie if such information became known.
"Well I can't lock her up fer nothin' now, can I?" The man said, easily.
Vincent's expression didn't change. "If you lock me up, she'll be gone before you can turn around."
The guard's eyes twinkled. "Kinda gives you the impression she don't wanna be around you, don't it?"
Yuffie was finding it difficult to keep a straight face. Good ol' Vinnie was so predictable.
Of course, he then chose to do something that completely flew in the face of that. Though in his defense, he was pushed to do so.
The guard started forward, reaching out one burly hand to take Vincent's shoulder...
Before anyone could blink, the guard was staring cross-eyed down the barrel of the largest damn revolver any of them had ever seen. He gulped.
"Don't." Vincent said, in one sharp consonant.
The other guards started to move forward. They stopped when Vincent cocked the hammer back on the single-action revolver.
"I said... don't." Vincent said calmly, his eyes like twin cold pools of blood. "I don't know what is going on here, but I am not going to allow you to put her in danger, however noble your intentions are."
Yuffie was confused. What the hell is he going on about? She thought. This had taken a decided turn for the worse. Vincent wasn't supposed to put up a fight like this, he'd never been this confrontational before, at least, not unless somebodies' life was on the line. Now it looked like this was going to turn into a bloodbath, and that was most certainly NOT what she wanted to happen. Particularly if it happened to be Vinnie's blood.
It might be a good idea to defuse the situation before-
Two very important sounding clicks drew everyone's attention.
The bartender, who had dropped behind the bar at the first sign of trouble, currently had a very large looking sawed-off double-barreled shotgun pointed at Vincent's back.
"I think you'd better do what Officer Marley says, stranger. I don't want no trouble." The bartender sounded scared, but very, very serious.
Dead serious.
Vincent weighed the situation.
He was perfectly capable of dealing with all of these men. Certainly, when he was a Turk, he would have killed any man who pointed a weapon at him on general principle, immediately followed by anyone who obstructed his mission. He would have had no reservations about doing so.
Vincent's eyes snapped to Yuffie. She had paled considerably, and her look of triumph had changed to one of tension and fear.
What is she afraid of? Vincent thought to himself.
-You.- The demon chortled.
He frowned.
The bartender was getting antsy. His finger tightened on the trigger ever so slightly. "You hear me, son? I'll blow you away, don't think I won't."
"Now now... there's no need for this... we can... end this situation peacefully, don't nobody panic." Marley sounded very calm for a man with a .60 caliber revolver pointed at his forehead. He was literally drenched in sweat, however... the pleasant warmth of the day's drinking quickly dried up in the tension of the moment.
Once again, Vincent found his eyes drawn to Yuffie. She was staring at him, frozen in the process of calling out to him, afraid that any sudden noise would set the bartender off.
Of course, he only SAW her deer in the headlight's expression, staring at him.
In the end, she left him no choice at all. Somehow the thought of killing six innocent men, especially in front of her, made the bile rise in Vincent's throat.
He closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, then holstered his revolver in one smooth motion and very delibrately raised both of his hands.
Everyone let out a breath of relief.
Yuffie most of all.
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It disturbed her to watch him be manhandled like that.
Oh he wasn't being mistreated. She wouldn't have stood by and watched that happen, especially since it would have been her fault. Still, Vincent was a remarkably solitary person, he didn't touch anyone unless it was absolutely necessary, nor did he seem to like being touched. Watching him be pushed and shoved along with his hands cuffed behind him was decidedly surreal. She walked behind him and the ring of guards who followed him, glad she couldn't see his face.
She was almost certain she'd be ashamed at the recrimination there.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, she thought to herself.
It was all supposed to be no big deal, just like when I tattooed ol' Sung's butt. Vincent is rubbing off on me, she thought miserably.
She was starting to lose her sense of humor.
No, perhaps it was just that planning and actually going through with this felt like... like a betrayal.
She walked with the group in a daze, and it was a pretty good indication of the town's civic pride that no one even raised an eyebrow. Marley, only recently over the shock of having that huge revolver pointed at him, said something to the effect of, "I won't feel safe 'til that scary fucker is behind bars," and so with a quickness that made Yuffie's head spin, she found herself staring at Vincent sequestered within the confines of a secure, if modestly appointed, jail cell. As the cuffs came off and the door slammed shut he turned quietly and looked at her, his expression unreadable.
Then he sat down just as quietly, not even causing the poorly made, rack-like bed to squeak on its obviously rusty springs, his forearms resting against his knees, hands down between his thighs. He continued to look at her.
"Come on, Vinnie you had to know something was up. I told you I wasn't going to Wutai."
Vincent said nothing. His expression didn't change.
"What, did you think I was just going to let you drag me back to Godo without putting up a fight?" She scowled at him. "I'm not a child." Even to herself, it sounded bitchy and... whiny.
Again, silence.
"I'd say you were giving me the silent treatment, but this is normal for you, Vinnie." She said, covering up her discomfort with a flippant attitude. "Besides, you aren't going to be in here forever. They'll probably release you in a couple of weeks or so, so-"
"I'd leave if I were you, Yuffie." He said suddenly, turning his gaze away from her. "I don't... like you very much at this moment."
She gulped on the sudden pain this statement brought to her. It hit her like a kick in the gut. She also felt just a small twinge of fear. Vincent was pissed, and her probably had every right to be so. No, he was worse than pissed, he was fucking angry.
Vincent was scary when he was angry.
It was only a little bit of fear, though. Even though she'd never seen him this angry and still in control of himself, the fact that he WAS still in control of himself spoke volumes to her. Besides, his anger was very quickly subsiding... or maybe... no, maybe it wasn't really anger at all. When she thought about it, mostly it sounded like tired, resigned disappointment, and THAT was what hurt. People had been angry at her before, and they'd been disappointed in her before, but never Vincent, not really. The most she'd ever gotten from him was annoyance or mild disapproval. Never outright censure.
Well, as outright as he ever was with anything so private as an opinion.
She hid it behind bravado. "You're just pissed 'cause I got the drop on you Vinnie, it'll pass."
He continued to look away from her. "I suppose you did surprise me. It's my fault. I trusted you." Then he looked at her, his expression hard.
That hurt worse than the previous statement, but it also confused her. "Look, I'm..."
Vincent continued to watch her. "I suggest you use this time to get a head start, Yuffie. I won't make the same mistake again."
She froze for a second, then lifted her head angrily. "I'm not going back to Wutai, Vincent." She hissed. "Get it through your skull. Don't make me out to be the bad guy in this, just 'cause I did what I needed to do to get away from you. You didn't leave me any choices!"
His expression went blank then, and she knew the conversation, from his side at least, was over.
Damn him anyway, she thought. This was supposed to be her opportunity to gloat at him for getting the best of him, but as usual, Vincent managed to make her feel something completely opposite what she had intended to feel.
Suddenly she needed to be away from him. Needed it like air.
So she left.
-Why stop there, Vincent? You were getting good and angry! You're right, too, so it can be RIGHTEOUS anger! That's your favorite kind, isn't it?-
Vincent said nothing.
-Of course, it doesn't matter at all that she's just trying to keep away from others trying to run her life... after all, you're keeping her SAFE aren't you?-
-Don't try to twist this, Chaos. She's in danger. I was justified. I shouldn't have hesitated.-
-Then why didn't you do it?-
Vincent sighed. -I didn't... want her to see me like that.-
-But if you were justified in doing it, wouldn't you have been able to convince her of that after the fact?-
-It isn't that simple, Chaos, and you know it. Stop-
-Twisting this? My dear killer, I'm not the one twisting things here. You're just falling back on your old habits, like I told you you would. All you need to start killing is the right justification, no matter how weak it might be.-
-But I didn't kill anyone!-
-True. But tell me something, would you have, if she wasn't there?-
Vincent, alone in his cell, if not his own mind, looked at the ceiling and sighed.
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Yuffie found herself running in a random direction from the jail, and had to force herself to start walking like a normal person. It wasn't like he was going to come busting through those doors and after her in a dark cloud of sullen, silent determination, pistol in hand, but she had to literally force herself not to look back to see if he was doing just that.
Vinnie kinda had that effect on you.
Of course, Vincent had quite a few other effects on her, she thought, and wasn't that exactly why this was such a bitch and a half to do?
She had to face the facts. Vincent was fast becoming a fixture in her thoughts, if not her life. Maybe it was the close proximity to him over those long weeks they spent traversing the jungle crevasse, maybe he'd always been a point of interest and she just hadn't thought about it deeply enough, whatever the case may be, Vincent was no longer just that creepy stranger she sometimes traveled with.
No, now he was the creepy stranger she sometimes traveled with who annoyed the shit outta her, and who was fast becoming something of an obsession.
Cripes, I'm friggin' HOPELESS! She thought to herself.
Why did he get under her skin so easily? It wasn't like he'd betrayed any real interest in her... and when you compared him to her first crush, Cloud, there couldn't have been a greater disimilarity between them than if you compared her to Sephiroth. Cloud was all light and easy good nature, whereas Vinnie was... well... Vinnie.
That's when it hit her like a bolt out of the blue. An epiphany. It stopped her dead in her tracks.
All this time she'd been annoyed at him without really knowing why... she'd said she wanted people to stop treating her like a child...
...and he HAD.
He listened to her, and acknowledged her viewpoint without derision. He talked to her in a manner that expected her to react in kind.
She'd just gotten angry at and ditched ol' Vinnie for doing exactly what she'd been saying all along she WANTED from everybody.
She felt like a total heel. She started to turn around, then hesitated, and finally walked to the inn, gathered her armor and equipment slowly, as though looking for an excuse to stop, then wandered aimlessly around Gongaga town for a while. Pride was an important thing to the young ninja, and though she could admit her mistake to herself, admitting it to Vincent was another thing entirely.
Not that the fucker would rub it in her face... which would only make her feel even worse about it.
"Why'd you have to be such a good loser, Vinnie?" She muttered to herself.
Let it not be said that Yuffie was completely oblivious. Granted she was certainly distracted, and this might account for how she managed to walk into the middle of where she was without noticing, but she wasn't SO distracted that the... curiousness of her surroundings didn't eventually catch her attention, and so, without immediately realizing why, she looked up, a sense of strange familiarity reaching her.
She had wandered into a ramshackle, dirty part of town obviously quite new, considering its temporary nature. It was a neighborhood of tents and clapboard buildings, squalid and muddy to the extreme, but there was a homeliness to it, a certain familiar air about it, that immediately caught Yuffie's attention.
She looked around her, caught sight of an elderly woman in a kimono sweeping the front of her rundown hovel with diligant, brisk authority, and the kids running about in little more than loin clothes, and she suddenly realized...
It was like she stepped into one of the poorer villages of her home country of Wutai.
Confused, she approached the elderly lady and bowed before launching into her native tongue.
"Honored elder, what is the nature of this place, why are you all settled so far from home?"
The older woman stopped sweeping and eyed her confusedly, looking her up and down. Yuffie spent alot of her time absent from Wutai, and so the woman didn't recognize the heir to her countries' throne, but she did see she was talking to a confused Wutain native, if... outlandishly dressed. She grumbled a bit, then shrugged.
"Where have you been, that you don't know of our troubles, child?" She said gruffly.
Yuffie blinked. "Forgive me, I have been... abroad. What is going on here?"
"War." The matron spat out, looking away. "The honored Lord Kisaragi lies in his deathbed. The lady Kisaragi cannot be found, and so the Lady Choshu has seated one of her clan's brats on the Throne as Regent. Until the lady Kisaragi can be found, they say." She snorted. "The other clans have risen up against her... and now all of Wutai suffers."
Yuffie stared at her, dumbfounded. There were so many impossiblities in what she'd just heard that she couldn't possibly keep up with it.
The matron must have seen Yuffie's reaction, though she misinterpreted it, not knowing who Yuffie really was. "Not to fear young Miss, the Clans will fight for a time, then decide who is to rule, and life will continue as usual. It will be strange, not to be ruled by a Kisaragi after so long, but it will be no different."
"No..." Yuffie muttered, turning away. Godo, dying? Choshu, regent, war... refugees... it... it wasn't possible!
What the hell was going on?
Her thoughts racing, she sped through the alleyways and streets quickly, finally taking to the rooftops in order to speed her journey through the congested streets. She found it highly unlikely that her father would just hand over the throne, no matter how sick he got, unless he was completely incapacitated. In that case, sensing weakness, the Choshu might have made some sort of power play, and the other clans had resisted it. The Choshu were powerful though, almost as powerful as Kisaragi, and they had made no attempt to hide the fact that they wanted to place one of their own on the throne.
Suddenly Vincent's comments made sense. He WAS protecting her... because Choshu... hell, the other clans as well, had undoubtedly sent agents after her.
Suddenly, she realized, one of them HAD caught up with her. Sung had confronted her in the arena at the Gold Saucer... at the time she thought he'd been just a bit overzealous in his attempts to defeat her, but now...
He had SAID he was trying to bring her back to Wutai, but...
But she'd gotten the feeling that he'd been honestly trying to hurt her. She'd attributed it to a less skilled martial artist's attempt to compensate, but maybe...
Holy shit...
Then something else hit her, belatedly. Something that made all other considerations completely unimportant.
She was being followed.
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Vincent waited for the sun to dip a bit lower in his lone barred window. Contrary to what Yuffie might have thought, Vincent had no intention of waiting until his jailors decided to let him go. Of course, that necessitated him releasing himself, since no one else was going to do it, and he didn't particularly feel like ripping his way out of the sturdy jail.
As previously noted, such an overstated reaction to relatively simple problem simply wasn't Vincent's style.
Vincent listened intently, attuning his senses with the ambient noise in the small jail. The cell he was in was suitable for locking up the occasional drunk or two, the city having grown alot faster than it's police force could compensate for. A small passage way leading to another cell, and a heavy metal door was all the room contained. No guards were back here at the moment, though Vincent thought he could detect one's presence just outside the jail room containing the two cells. Bending down, he removed the bit of metal that capped his boot and from it removed a sliver of metal with notches on it. Setting this on the bunk next to him, he then grasped the golden digit that had replaced his pinky finger, twisted it completely around, then removed it entirely.
Picking the two pieces up, he moved to the cell door and got to work.
Anyone who has ever picked or tried to pick a lock, knows that it isn't as easy as alot of movies make it look. It takes fine manipulation and a sensative touch, which unfortunately, Vincent lacked in his golden prosthesis. However, he was a gunslinger, and his human hand was more than equal to the task.
Of course, it is a testiment to his skill that he managed to even attempt it, with his arm awkwardly bent around into position, manipulating the lockpicks ONE-HANDED.
Coincidentally, Vincent is also an ace with a pair of chopsticks.
Of course, patience is also required of a lockpicker, and Vincent had that in spads. So it was only a matter of time (around 16 minutes or so) before the lock unlocked with a satisfying clicking noise, and Vincent swung the door open easily.
He closed the door behind him as he stepped into the small passage way.
Reattaching the finger, he flexed it to ensure its proper operation, then continued with his plan of escape.
He eyed the metal door, then walked up to it and, in a serious and unassuming manner, knocked soundly on it.
The guard had been nodding off, so hearing a knock from a room supposedly empty of free roaming individuals damn near made him soil himself. He slipped off the wooden chair he'd been kicked up in groggily, then stepped up to the door and opened the sliding metal portal that allowed the guard on duty to look into the room without opening the door.
The room inside was dark (Vincent had put out the candles in the room).
The guard cursed and cautiously opened the door, revolver in hand.
A golden clawed hand clamped down on the revolver, fingers around the cylinder, and thumb against the hammer. It then yanked the guard inside with brutal force.
The door quietly shut.
All was peaceful.
-----------------------------------------------
"I ain't tellin' you nothin'." The guard stammered, vincent's booted foot holding his bulk down over his own arms, preventing his escape.
"You ain't gettin' outta here, merc." The guard growled. Still, a hint of fear betrayed his tension to Vincent.
Vincent stared at him long and hard, then cracked open the cylinder and popped out the shells, one by one, letting each one tinkle to the ground right next to the guard's head.
All but one.
He leaned down and looked the guard in the eyes. "My weapons. Where are they?" He said softly.
The guard looked away, his lips tightened into a grimace.
Vincent sighed and positioned the bullet as the last one to fire in the cylinder order, leaving all of the other chambers empty.
With a flick of one long finger he spun the cylinder, then in one smooth motion, flicked his wrist and extended his arm, closing the breech and stopping the cylinders rotation, then pointing the revolver at the guard's rapidly paling face.
Then he pulled the trigger.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
The guard had started crying after the third click. He opened his eyes and looked at Vincent like he was crazy.
Vincent looked back like he just didn't care.
"Where are my weapons?"
The guard gulped. "I-"
Vincent sighed, cracked the cylinder again, then spun it with the same motion. He snapped it back into position and pointed the gun-
"Fuck! Shit! Inthegoddamnweaponslockercombo14352justdon'tdothatagainyoucrazyfuck!"
Vincent shrugged, then tapped the revolver soundly against the man's head and put it into one of his own pockets. He then drug the now unconscious and snoring guard into his former cell and locked it with the guards keys.
No one even saw him leave the building.
----------------------------------------------------------
Yuffie was in trouble.
If it had been your average, bunch of yokels indignant over missing property she could have dealt with them. Bandits, or mercenaries, even your average bounty hunter, she could have dealt with those too.
The man who was following her was good. Damn good. In fact, if it weren't for his constant, dogged persistance behind her, she'd have thought his presence was merely a coincidence.
He was tall and thin, and had a washed out, grizzled look, from his dusty, metalshod boots and large, concealing grey greatcoat to his thin, predatory, lined face topped with pulled back grey hair. He looked old and rawboned, but he wore it with an air of deadly competance and scary maturity. This was further heightened by the ease with which he moved through the crowds, always right there, just at the edge of her perception, but not hurrying like she was, the bastard was taking his time. Even when she took to the rooftops to speed her travel, she'd think she'd lost him, only to spot him a street corner away, slipping through the crowd with a disturbingly familiar gait.
A gait she'd seen somewhere else.
Worse still, he KNEW that she knew that he was following her. Every once in a while he would grin at her, hard and predatory like an animal. She couldn't shake the feeling that he was stalking her, hunting her, like prey.
Further, he was, slowly but surely, cutting off her options, pushing her, herding her away from the town's center, towards the less populated areas.
Alright you son of a bitch. She thought. You want me out of town, that's what you'll get.
There were some tricks in her book that she just couldn't use on a crowded street, not without running the risk of hurting someone, and certainly not without calling attention to herself. His goal suited her own purposes as well.
Of course, a nagging voice told her she should head back and find Vincent, but she quashed it.
She could handle this.
She'd always handled it before.
The town gave way to clear cut plains where jungle had once stood, this being the only way of keeping the various creatures of the jungle at bay. She found herself heading west, with the ocean to her left and the jungle to her right, quickly eating up the distance along the beach. She'd been through this way before, and up ahead, the ground got rocky, with scads of places to hide and strike from.
The perfect place for an ambush.
Soon she was heading at an upward slope, and the land became rocky and broken up, and the beach receded on her left, replaced by rocky cliffs dropped off to cave pocked, jagged rocky bases. She scrabbled up into the rocks and waited, watching her trail for her pursuit.
She didn't have long to wait.
He came up her path, his eyes flicking, assessing the ground before him. Then he stopped and put his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, grinning in her direction.
"There is no need for this, frauline. I wish only to... talk with you, ja?"
She blinked. Frauline? Ja? Where was this guy from? She'd been all over the place, but she'd never heard his outlandish sort of speech before. He eased around her position, and she eased along the rock, watching him.
"You are quite skilled at this schattenspiel, girl. This sneaking around. It makes you quite a nuisance."
He stopped, his back to her.
"However..."
Her instincts screamed at her. "Shit!" She shouted, leaping upwards...
He spun around, two sleek, deadly looking handguns in his hands. The rock where she had been a moment before exploded as she arced up, twisting in mid air to throw Conformer.
The deadly bit of silvered metal spun towards him and he darted back, quicker than her eye could follow. Conformer passed through the point he had been standing moments before and arced back to her, as she ended her flip behind an outcropping.
"Schiest. You are not going to make this easy, are you frauline?" Despite his words, he sounded as though he were enjoying himself.
"What happened to talking?" She shouted, irritated. She eased towards the edge of the outcropping.
Silence.
She peeked around the edge. A scrape just above her made her instinctively dive aside, as puffs of dirt and shards of battered stone followed her flight from the bullets striking her path. He was on TOP of the outcropping she'd been skirting.
"We ARE talking, Frauline, are we not? I get bored easily, this passes the time!" He grinned, using her panicked dive behind another group of rocks to reload his pistols in four quick, practiced movements.
"Works for me, psycho!" She answered, winging Conformer at him. It start spinning vertically and ended its flight spinning horizontally, in a move that had buzzsawed the head off of many a confused foe before. The gunman simply skipped back quickly, watching the shuriken spin just behind him as he traveled just ahead of it.
What the hell is that asshole doing? She thought confusedly.
She got her answer, though it was NOT the answer she ever would have expected.
He stuck his right pistol up carefully, somehow passing the barrel into the hole in the center of HER Conformer, and CAUGHT the damn thing. Then he spun and used the centrifugal force to WING it back at her.
"You gotta be shittin' me!" She shouted, ducking her own weapon for the first time in history before watching it sail out into distance, over the cliff, dropping out of sight.
She followed it to the edge disbelievingly, watching as it clattered among the rocks at the base of the cliff.
The double click behind her made her turn around. Slowly.
He grinned at her, both pistols looming in her vision, the barrels looking impossibly huge and black from fifteen feet away.
"That was... entertaining. Now, I suggest you stay put, frauline. You and I both know you are outmatched."
"T-that's... that's not possible." She said, still in shock.
"There is always someone out there who is better than you. Though I will admit that I had an unfair advantage."
She waited for him to elaborate, but when he did not, she frowned.
"You are the Kisaragi girl, ja?"
She frowned. "And if I'm not?"
His grin widened. "Then I shoot you, now. I dislike frustration."
"I'm her." She muttered.
He frowned. "I had heard Vincent Valentine was traveling with you. Where is he?"
What did this guy want with Vincent? She was beginning to get confused. If this guy was tracking her, why was he looking for Vinnie? She had a bit of a brainstorm. Maybe he was tracking her because he thought she could lead him TO Vinnie.
"Oh I ditched him a while ago."
His grin disappeared, and he looked coldly infuriated. She gulped.
"That is... unfortunate."
"What the hell is going on here?!" She blurted out, completely confused.
He sighed. "You are nobility, ja? Surely you are not so dense as to misunderstand your position?" He clucked his tongue. "I had heard you were a clever girl. Assassination is a time honored tradition, ja?"
She narrowed her eyes. "What does that have to do with Vincent?"
He shrugged. "I suppose nothing, now. I was looking forward to facing him. I'll just have to console myself with the large sum of money I'll receive for bringing in your head."
Another click caught her attention and she glanced towards it, while for his part, the gunman simply froze, frowning deeply.
She drew a deep breath, eyes wide. "V-Vinnie! How the hell did you-"
Vincent Valentine stood, Death Penalty raised to his shoulder, sighted in on the other gunman, stock still, having apparently teleported to the scene. In actuality, the small homing device he'd planted on Yuffie during their travels together (he had trusted her, but not THAT much) had led him to her amazingly quickly. The three stood in a silent triangle, with the gunman pointing both his weapons at Yuffie, Yuffie looking confusedly at Vincent, and Vincent aiming at the gunman.
"Not now, Yuffie." He said quietly.
"What do you mean, not now! Gods, I HATE it when you-"
"Vincent! How good to see you! You are looking... well. Not so well, as well. Tell me, did it hurt?" The gunman was grinning at him, still frozen in place.
Vincent's face went momentarily blank, and then recognition flickered in his eyes. "Jaeger... what are you doing still alive?"
Jaeger grinned. "You DO remember me. I am very flattered, Schwartzer Tod. Very flattered indeed."
Vincent's eyes went cold. "I told you never to call me that."
"You KNOW this guy, Vinnie?" Yuffie interjected, quite pissed off at having been ignored.
"Not now, Yuffie."
She gave him a look that could have killed him at fifteen paces. Fortunately he was sixteen paces away.
Jaeger grinned. "Not to point out the obvious, Vincent, but we are at a bit of a stand-off, ja?"
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "Not from where I'm standing. I shoot you, we leave. End of stand-off."
"I don't know, Vincent. I am pretty fast. Can you shoot me before I shoot her?"
Vincent narrowed his eyes further. "You shoot her, and you're a dead man."
"Hey! Nobody's shooting anybody, least of all me!" Yuffie shouted.
"Shut up, Yuffie." Vincent muttered.
"YOU SHUT UP, YOU DICK!"
Jaeger chuckled. "I think I can understand why you are carrying riot shells, eh, Vincent?"
Vincent had the decency to look somewhat embarassed, at least. Barely.
Yuffie reddened. "Hey, fuck you!"
Jaeger snorted. "Well, this is all very amusing, ja? I am not a patient man, however, and I think I've had enough Dummheit for one evening."
Vincent's finger tightened on the trigger. "Don't even think about-"
"Vinnie!" Yuffie's urgent shout interrupted him. She suddenly realized what Jaeger had meant when he mentioned an unfair advantage.
"Not now, Yuffie." Vincent hissed, trying to diffuse the situation from descending into bloodshed.
"VINNIE, GODDAMN IT BEHIND YOU!" She shouted... just a split second too late.
"Timely as always, Schattenblum!" Jaeger shouted gleefully.
A small, fast moving form had darted up on Vincent from behind, sword flashing with preternatural speed. Vincent had no time to orient on the target and fire, especially not with a rifle.
A normal man would have been immediately bisected.
Vincent, obviously NOT a normal man, spun so fast the air hissed, desperately throwing his golden prosthesis in front of the blade.
Sparks shot from the clash of metals, and Vincent was forced back a step, his golden arm dented from the impact. The figure confronting him followed up with a hissing slash that he only barely avoided losing his right leg below the knee to.
Jaeger grinned and oriented his right pistol at Vincent, looking in Vincent's direction.
Time slowed down to a snails pace as everything started to happen at once...
Jaeger's finger tightened on the trigger, his target the small of Vincent's back...
Yuffie eased a fighting knife free of her armored bracer and flung it desperately at Jaeger's outstretched arm, the bit of steel somehow, amazingly, cutting into the slide of the weapon, causing it to misfire...
Jaeger cursed in that strange language of his, dropped his ruined pistol and turned his attention back to Yuffie...
Vincent spun at the sound of the cursing, leaping towards Yuffie in great, galloping strides, rifle firing one handed back at the figure chasing him, causing it to dodge and weave...
Jaeger's finger tightened on the trigger, the gun bucked in his grasp...
Yuffie started to close her eyes...
Just as Vincent slammed into her from the side, having shouldered into her at the last minute.
Yuffie OOOFED loudly as the air rushed from her lungs, then screamed as she toppled over the edge of the cliff. She fell about fifteen feet, then somehow amazingly managed to catch an outcropping before she fell any further.
Panic took hold of her as her white fingered grip began to slip, the sharp rock cutting cruelly into her grasp. She glanced upward, searching for Vincent...
He swayed dangerously at the top of the cliff, then jerked once... twice... three times... blood foutaining behind him in great gouts.
He toppled bonelessly after her, following her into the night.
"VINCENT!!!" SHe shrieked, and then her grip failed, and she found herself freefalling screaming his name.
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Vincent was feeling strangely numb. He'd never been shot quite so many times before, and he'd always thought it would hurt. Amazingly, he felt no pain at all. Time became meaningless... it felt like he was floating instead of rushing to his death on the rocks below.
-That's because you're dying, you jackass.- Chaos snarled at him.
-You... too... Chaos.-
-What could you have possibly been THINKING!?-
-Girl...-
-Well you just killed her as well as yourself, so even NOW you're a failure!-
-No... your... fault..-
-What?-
-You... can... save... her...-
-Why would I do that, pray tell?-
Vincent was losing his grip on consciousness.
-Hypocrite. We both die, you prove yourself... the bigger monster. I... win.-
Chaos was silent for a long moment. Then it snarled in his head.
Vincent descended into darkness.
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A sudden sound like the snapping of two leathery sheets in the wind caught her attention and she stopped in mid shriek. A sudden, looming shape with two coal red eyes burned at her.
She gasped. Two clawed hands caught her painfully and clasped her to a ravaged and black chest.
And she knew fear.
For she was in the embrace of Chaos.
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What does this gibberish mean? It means that right now I'm usually working until late at night, and then sleeping when I get home. So less time for writing.
Still, here's the next chapter to Why Me? The epic that expanded beyond my control. Since this chapter was written in several sittings rather than just one or two like my other chapters, the narrative may change tones alot. I tried to avoid this, but whatareyagonnado, huh?
Hopefully it's enjoyable. It was hell getting this finished with so much on my mind. It's still pretty rough, but I swear I just can't stare at this any longer... I NEED to post this. So if it seems unfinished, I deeply apologize.
In any case, on with the show!
"It's twilight and I wake up hot. My body's soaked in a cold, cold sweat. I reenact the lurid scenes, and clawed engravings in my head. Oh, I can't punch hard enough. I can't kick high enough. I can't shoot straight enough. I can't hold on enough. I can't stay down enough. I can't take pain enough. I can't bleed fast enough. I can't die dead enough." -Megadeth, Die Dead Enough
Yuffie sat back in the modest tub the Greasy Monkey had managed to produce and soaked in the hot water. To the untrained eye she appeared to be the picture of relaxation, but in all actuality, she was listening very closely for any sounds just outside the small chamber set aside for bathing, a very short distance from the Inn's bathroom.
This was exactly where she needed to be to put the final touches on Operation: Ditch Vinnie.
It may not have seemed as such. In fact, most people, upon hearing what Yuffie's chosen profession was, after having met her, found it very difficult to reconcile her image with said profession.
This was, of course, the point.
When asked what the word ninja meant to them, most idle speculators would, invariably, give the description of a shadowy, quiet, patiently creeping guy in a black outfit with a penchant for two toed socks and a tendancy towards deviousness and stealth.
Yuffie, of course, appeared as a colorful, loud, easily distracted, in-your-face young girl in an outfit that could, if one were being kind, best be described as slightly noisy, complete with sneakers.
The deviousness and stealth are about all one can attribute to her... at first glance.
Yuffie was a master ninja however, and in order to understand just HOW masterful, one must first understand the true nature of the ninja. A ninja is, no more and no less, a practicioner of ninjitsu (go figure, since the literal translation of ninjitsu is, art of the ninja). Ninjitsu is a term used to describe not only the collected hodge-podge of fighting arts that is more commonly known as Da Chao, (literally from Chao, after the province which originated the art) but also to describe the philosophy in which said arts are applied.
Anyone who has ever practiced martial arts knows that the philosophy is the groundwork from which a fighting style is built, and that it applies not only to the art itself, but also to how the practicioner approaches life.
Still not clear? We're getting there, just keep reading.
There are five principles behind ninjitsu, and these five principles, if followed properly, result in the total domination of ones foes in combat, or life.
The first principle is known as Establishing the Circle of Death. Since at its most basic level this is applied during a combat situation, this is how it will be described. A person's circle of death is how far from themselves they can affect an opponent without a large amount of movement. An untrained, unarmed opponent can only threaten an area as far as he or she can kick or punch, whereas a trained martial artist or someone with a weapon (or a trained martial artist WITH a weapon) can threaten an area considerably beyond themselves. Da Chao originated on a battlefield, in which there are many opponents each using different weapons and at different skill levels, so on and so forth. The battlefield is a fluid place, and in order to remain effective, the Da Chao master determines, through establishing death circles, who or what is the biggest threat, and therefor must be dealt with first. Even without actively appearing to, Yuffie is using this particular tenet in her plan against Vincent, just by having a plan at all.
Obviously the root of her antagonism with him is Godo and Wutai, but as the first principle dictates, due to his proximity he is the bigger threat, and thus must be dealt with accordingly.
The second principle is known as Defending the Area Not Attacked. This is a difficult principle to understand, and many laymen never progress beyond the level of novice because of this fact. When an opponent who is not trained in Da Chao attacks, they inveritably tend to focus on a very small area, such as the point which they are currently punching or kicking at. When attacked, such a person defends the area on themselves which is being attacked, which leads to a linear sort of approach towards combat. This works just fine as a rote reaction to an expected attack from a single opponent, but what happens to said martial artist if they are fighting an unorthodox opponent, or multiple ones, or just something simple, like fighting in a narrow alleyway or in the dark? Obviously linear thinking causes rigidity of thought and reaction, which then leads to rigidity of the body in the form of rigor mortis. A Da Chao ninja never defends, they feel out their opponents reactions and then attack from an unexpected angle. While their opponent is busy focusing on that small area, the ninja lets him have it and attacks from every other angle.
A ninja never retreats, they attack in an unexpected manner. How does this work? Have you ever tried beating the crap out of someone who isn't there? Or chased after them to beat them up and then got ambushed when you weren't expecting it?
Vincent was very focused on preventing Yuffie from escaping, or wheedling her way out of her duties. He certainly wasn't going to expect her to attack him from an unexpected position. Namely his own solitary nature.
The third principle is Capture the Mind. This sounds simple, but it can be very complex. When faced with the unexpected, such as unexpected pain, or a sudden noise, or the introduction of a distraction, an opponent can't help but focus on the unexpected situation at least a little bit. At the instant of receiving a sharp blow, an opponents eyes dilate, or blink entirely. This is a reflex, and unavoidable. At that instant, they are most vulnerable to attack. Of course it doesn't just have to be physical pain... an opponent who shouts in one's face, or begins to laugh uncontrollably for no reason, or who simple ISN'T THERE, also captures the mind.
Phase 1 of Operation: Ditch Vinnie would apply this particular principle in the form of distraction.
Lots of them.
Once the mind is captured, the ninja need only apply the fourth principle, Unbalance the Circle. Physically, it is almost impossible to attack when one is in the state of falling on one's ass. Once a ninja unbalances an opponent, they simply continue to unbalance them, and their foe is at their mercy.
This leads to the last principle, Capture, Persuade, Maim or Kill. Which of course, is what you do to a helpless foe. Yuffie had no wish to maim or kill Vincent, she wasn't THAT annoyed with his uncommunicative ass. She'd tried to persuade him, he wasn't listening to reason.
So that left Capture.
As you can see, Yuffie was so much of a Da Chao master that she applied these principles without much conscious thought, which is, of course, the whole point of being a martial artist. If one has to think about what one is doing during the split second reactions needed for a life or death fight, one is about to get one's ass handed to them.
Gift-wrapped. With a little red bow.
As stated before, if all of these principles are applied, the ninja cannot fail to succeed. It is when all of the variables have not been worked out that the attack fails.
Or, you know, if the ninja herself is starting to have second thoughts.
Yuffie was annoyed at Vincent, and, truth be told, a little hurt that after their "breakthrough" he'd become a stone wall again. Of course, if she analyzed the situation a bit more deeply, she'd realize that it probably hadn't seemed like a breakthrough to Vincent, who was unaware that she'd spied upon him while he was bathing, and that this was simply business as usual for him. Yuffie has, due to years of it from her father, an annoying tendancy when hurt to see active persecution where there is really just ignorance, and reacts accordingly.
Still, some part of her realized that this deception, a tactic that was alien to Vincent himself, had a good chance of lessening her in his eyes. However, this only bolstered her reserve to see it through... Yuffie was a complicated young woman, and while there was that part of her that had misgivings about doing anything that might make disillusion Vincent towards her, there was also that fiercely independant part that said that if something like this REALLY made him like her any less, then he wasn't the man she was... you know.
Fortunately for Yuffie's already overtaxed emotional state, most of these thought processes were taking place subconsciously.
Of course at this point, you, dear reader, are probably wondering what this terribly sneaky plan was, and why Yuffie had taken the time to take a bath right in the middle of it.
Well, aside from the obvious answer involving personal hygiene, it did actually serve her purposes. For instance, the baths are very close to the toilets.
What does this have to do with anything? The police officers drinking it up downstairs were almost certain to need to relieve themselves, (anyone who has drunk several pitchers of beer knows this is a cold hard fact of life) and when they did, they would be away from where Vincent's keen senses could detect her manipul... er, convincing them of the rightness of her cause.
Namely, getting the hell away from Vincent and his mission to her bring back in her father's clutches.
Her keen ears detected the stumbling up the stairs of one particularly inebriated individual. She waited the appropriate amount of time, then...
Show time.
For those of you with weak stomachs for large amounts of sappy melodramatic overacting, I suggest you turn away for a little bit, lest you find yourselves in search of a bucket.
A large one.
Though in her defense, it's kinda hard to convince someone of any particularly abstract situation when the target audience is piss drunk.
It started with the sobbing. Yuffie was a master at sobbing, it made for good bait. She could lend it that woebegone, "there is not a hope in the world for this poor sufferer", air that immediately engendered the need, in the male sex, to comfort and protect the poor maid.
Please.
Of course, our poor target in question, an upstanding sod by the name of Sergeant Marley Jenkins, never knew what hit him. One minute he was making room in his excrusiatingly full bladder for more alcohol, the next, he was blinking in dismay at the sound of some girl crying her eyes out in the next room.
"Wuzzat?" He announced blearily, this being the extent of his diplomatic repetoir at this point.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, this was exactly what Yuffie was waiting for.
"W-who's there?" She said, mock fearfully.
"Uh, me." Marley confided smartly.
"Who's "me"?" Yuffie said, exasperation just bearly detectable in her voice. To the observant.
Which Marley was not.
"Er... Marley?" The guard Sergeant asked, half questioningly.
"Marley? Please sir, leave this place quickly... if HE catches you talking to me, I fear what he might do..."
This was a bit too much information in one sentence for Marley to handle at this point. He blinked. "Who?"
Yuffie sighed inaudibly. "The tall, dark man in the red cloak who I came in with... he's a mercenary... a particularly nasty one too."
Marley straightened a bit. "What're you doin' with a mercenary?" He was beginning to remember a standoffish individual with a particularly evasive and unpleasant manner downstairs. He vaguely remembered he'd had a girl with him... a girl who'd looked desperately at them for a split second before the tall stranger had turned her way. Marley's very slowed thought processes began to revv up to full throttle. Hey... maybe she was in some kinda trouble... maybe... she didn't wanna be with that guy!
"I wouldn't be around him if I had a choice, good sir guard. I am an upstanding citizen ill used to such a disreputable character (man, she's laying it on a little thick...) but I have little choice in the matter... he said he'd hurt me... terribly if I didn't do what he said."
Marley reddened. This was terrible. Still, something about this didn't make sense. "But why is he tryin' to-"
Yuffie wasn't about to let him start THINKING. He might do something intelligent. Like smell the bullshit. "It's a sad tale, and I hate to burden you with it..."
Marley bought it. Secretly, he was a reader of dime novels, particularly romance ones, though he'd swear on his mother's grave he never read more than the graffiti on the bathroom stalls. "Naw, what's going on?"
"Have you ever heard of Wutai?"
Marley snorted. "Sure, who hasn't? Bloody tourist trap. A'course there's an awful lotta those little guys runnin' around here of late... some kinda trouble back there-"
Yuffie didn't want him to get sidetracked. Of course, this was information she might have wanted to hear, but then, she was on a roll, and wasn't particularly listening to him.
More's the pity.
"Good, then you know how backwards and hopelessly old fashioned it is. I recently fled that Kingdom. My evil father wants me to carry on in the family tradition, he even has a husband picked out for me, so I cut my ties with him to pursue my own life. My father wouldn't accept this, and hired the mercenary to capture me and take me back to Wutai. Please! You have to help me!"
It's amazing how a simple twisting of an actual situation can paint such a drastically different picture of the actual events taking place, isn't it? Of course, good bullshit has a tendancy to do that.
Marley frowned. "Well... that ain't right."
Yuffie sounded unconsolable. "No it's not, but what can I do?"
Marley sounded thoughtful. "An' you say he's kidnapped you?"
"He is holding me against my will..."
Marley had an epiphany. "Well, that's against the law!"
Yuffie rolled her eyes. Duh, she thought. Then she sighed for effect. "What can I do? Will no one stand up to this m-"
She started say monster, then remembered a recent memory of Vincent's accusatory glance upward at her when he thought she was applying that word to him. She hadn't been, but she couldn't quite bring herself to call him that, even behind his back. Even if she was just laying it on thick for a mark.
"Madman?"
That's better. Sort of. Well he WAS a sociopath. Kinda.
Marley stood up suddenly, full of righteous anger, almost tripped over his pants which were still around his ankles, (hey, it's hard to think of things like that when you're getting indignant over a girl's sorry situation) stopped, pulled up his pants and frowned, his face hard.
"Don't you worry none, miss. Me an' ma boys'll sort this out."
Yuffie toweled her hair dry and grinned triumphantly. "Oh would you? I can't stand up to him, but a strong brave guard like you... maybe..."
Marley stood up straighter and puffed his chest out, which was ridiculous because Yuffie couldn't even see him. Of course, no one ever accused the guard of being overly perceptive.
Not even when he was sober.
"We'll have that bastard locked up tighter'n a drum, mark my words, miss."
"Be careful... he's a dangerous criminal."
At least, he's about to be, she thought.
The Sergeant went charging downstairs as Yuffie dressed and congratulating herself on a job well done, considered her next move.
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As previously stated, Vincent felt comfortable in an inn's social setting. He liked to listen to the human drama going on about him without actually being a part of it, sort of living vicariously through the rest of the room.
Since he was so observant, and because he had a natural understanding of an inn's social structure, he knew almost instantly that something was wrong.
Of course, the man barreling down the stairs was something of a dead giveaway.
Vincent didn't move from his seated position, but he did pay attention to what was happening by virtue of his peripheral vision, as well as the dingy mirror that hung behind the bar. What he saw made his lip tighten imperceptively.
The man had stopped barreling down the stairs and assumed a studiously, overexaggerated (though the overexaggeration was probably because he was obviously drunk) calm demeanor, all the while glaring in Vincent's direction. He stopped at the table that held his companions and whispered fiercely to them.
Several of them looked at Vincent and scowled. The others studiously avoided looking at him at all.
Several other details immediately came to Vincent's attention, details that he'd missed before, or dismissed as unimportant.
The mirror wasn't a mirror, it was stainless steel polished to a mirror shine. In some places, it was dented, and had been hammered back into shape ALMOST perfectly. The beer and liquor that was out on the bartop or on the shelf under the mirror was all cheap, easily replaceable stuff. The more expensive stuff was locked up behind a metal grate just under the shelf that held the cheap stuff. The tables were all bolted down, the chairs uniformly cheap, and obviously had been repaired numerous times.
Also, the bathroom and bathing room were both upstairs.
Vincent sighed and shook his head.
He got up and started to go to the stairs, his usual quiet, "handle things in house" self, presumably to head off whatever trick Yuffie was trying pull...
And walked RIGHT into her trap.
The men in uniform stood up as one and blocked off the stairway...
Just as Yuffie started down, looking, without her armor and weapon, decidedly waifish and miserable.
Vincent blinked.
"Hold on there, partner." The man with the mustache who had come back down the stairs said reasonably. He looked a bit unsteady. "Me an' my boys wanna share a drink wit' ya."
Vincent regarded the man cooly. "I don't drink... wine." He didn't know why it came out like that, he just felt compelled to respond that way.
The man responded in kind, looking at his men in confusion. "We ain't drinkin' that pussy shit neither. I was talkin' 'bout a beer."
Vincent sighed. "I definately don't drink that."
He flicked a glance at Yuffie, who was currently (barely) repressing a smirk of victory.
"I don't know what she told you-" He started.
"You know, 'round here, we got a word for what yer doin'." The man interrupted.
"-I am doing this for the girl's own safety-"
"We call it kidnappin'." The guard finished, glaring at him.
Vincent blinked. He looked at Yuffie, then the guard. "She's not being restrained in any way."
The man grinned. It was not pleasant. "Oh I gather she ain't bein' held right now. There's more'n one way to hold someone 'gainst their will, though."
"She's not being held against her will." He looked at Yuffie. It was a hard look. She at least had the grace to avoid his gaze.
Of course, this was misinterpreted.
"Then I guess you won't mind if she leaves, will ya?"
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "She can't do that. It isn't safe."
"Who'd hurt her?" The man said reasonably. Then he said something in a tone that wasn't so reasonable. "You?"
Vincent compressed his mouth into a thin line. He had no intention of hurting her, ever. He said nothing.
"I think y'all need ta come with me, sir." The way he said sir was intoned with such venom that Vincent narrowed his eyes even further. He was starting to get angry.
"This is none of your concern. I am a registered bounty hunter and I have been tasked with bringing in a target by a legitimate authority. You have no jurisdiction here."
The man grinned unpleasantly and cracked his knuckles. "I beg ta differ, sir. Ya see, we're a poor lil' township here out inna middle of the jungle, an' we're simple folk. Them big city rules an' regulations, they just take such a LONG time ta get to us, what with computers an' the like all goin' the way o' Shinra. So maybe you ARE a "registered bounty hunter" an' maybe you ain't, how am I gonna verify anythin'? An' if you AIN'T legit, well then I jus' let a nefarious criminal with a poor lil' gal slip right through ma fingers. So what I'm gonna do is give you a nice place ta stay while we try an' verify whether what you say is true. Shouldn't be more'n a few weeks. Tops."
Vincent went still. Dead still. "What about the girl?"
The man took a slight step back, no... not a step back, he widened out his stance a bit, like he was expecting to take a blow. The other men fell in with him, eyeing Vincent eagerly.
"Well, did she commit a crime?"
Vincent frowned. "I'm not at liberty to discuss it."
Nor was he. Godo had implied that Wutai didn't need this kind of publicity. Not to mention the fact that it would be dangerous for Yuffie if such information became known.
"Well I can't lock her up fer nothin' now, can I?" The man said, easily.
Vincent's expression didn't change. "If you lock me up, she'll be gone before you can turn around."
The guard's eyes twinkled. "Kinda gives you the impression she don't wanna be around you, don't it?"
Yuffie was finding it difficult to keep a straight face. Good ol' Vinnie was so predictable.
Of course, he then chose to do something that completely flew in the face of that. Though in his defense, he was pushed to do so.
The guard started forward, reaching out one burly hand to take Vincent's shoulder...
Before anyone could blink, the guard was staring cross-eyed down the barrel of the largest damn revolver any of them had ever seen. He gulped.
"Don't." Vincent said, in one sharp consonant.
The other guards started to move forward. They stopped when Vincent cocked the hammer back on the single-action revolver.
"I said... don't." Vincent said calmly, his eyes like twin cold pools of blood. "I don't know what is going on here, but I am not going to allow you to put her in danger, however noble your intentions are."
Yuffie was confused. What the hell is he going on about? She thought. This had taken a decided turn for the worse. Vincent wasn't supposed to put up a fight like this, he'd never been this confrontational before, at least, not unless somebodies' life was on the line. Now it looked like this was going to turn into a bloodbath, and that was most certainly NOT what she wanted to happen. Particularly if it happened to be Vinnie's blood.
It might be a good idea to defuse the situation before-
Two very important sounding clicks drew everyone's attention.
The bartender, who had dropped behind the bar at the first sign of trouble, currently had a very large looking sawed-off double-barreled shotgun pointed at Vincent's back.
"I think you'd better do what Officer Marley says, stranger. I don't want no trouble." The bartender sounded scared, but very, very serious.
Dead serious.
Vincent weighed the situation.
He was perfectly capable of dealing with all of these men. Certainly, when he was a Turk, he would have killed any man who pointed a weapon at him on general principle, immediately followed by anyone who obstructed his mission. He would have had no reservations about doing so.
Vincent's eyes snapped to Yuffie. She had paled considerably, and her look of triumph had changed to one of tension and fear.
What is she afraid of? Vincent thought to himself.
-You.- The demon chortled.
He frowned.
The bartender was getting antsy. His finger tightened on the trigger ever so slightly. "You hear me, son? I'll blow you away, don't think I won't."
"Now now... there's no need for this... we can... end this situation peacefully, don't nobody panic." Marley sounded very calm for a man with a .60 caliber revolver pointed at his forehead. He was literally drenched in sweat, however... the pleasant warmth of the day's drinking quickly dried up in the tension of the moment.
Once again, Vincent found his eyes drawn to Yuffie. She was staring at him, frozen in the process of calling out to him, afraid that any sudden noise would set the bartender off.
Of course, he only SAW her deer in the headlight's expression, staring at him.
In the end, she left him no choice at all. Somehow the thought of killing six innocent men, especially in front of her, made the bile rise in Vincent's throat.
He closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, then holstered his revolver in one smooth motion and very delibrately raised both of his hands.
Everyone let out a breath of relief.
Yuffie most of all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It disturbed her to watch him be manhandled like that.
Oh he wasn't being mistreated. She wouldn't have stood by and watched that happen, especially since it would have been her fault. Still, Vincent was a remarkably solitary person, he didn't touch anyone unless it was absolutely necessary, nor did he seem to like being touched. Watching him be pushed and shoved along with his hands cuffed behind him was decidedly surreal. She walked behind him and the ring of guards who followed him, glad she couldn't see his face.
She was almost certain she'd be ashamed at the recrimination there.
It wasn't supposed to be like this, she thought to herself.
It was all supposed to be no big deal, just like when I tattooed ol' Sung's butt. Vincent is rubbing off on me, she thought miserably.
She was starting to lose her sense of humor.
No, perhaps it was just that planning and actually going through with this felt like... like a betrayal.
She walked with the group in a daze, and it was a pretty good indication of the town's civic pride that no one even raised an eyebrow. Marley, only recently over the shock of having that huge revolver pointed at him, said something to the effect of, "I won't feel safe 'til that scary fucker is behind bars," and so with a quickness that made Yuffie's head spin, she found herself staring at Vincent sequestered within the confines of a secure, if modestly appointed, jail cell. As the cuffs came off and the door slammed shut he turned quietly and looked at her, his expression unreadable.
Then he sat down just as quietly, not even causing the poorly made, rack-like bed to squeak on its obviously rusty springs, his forearms resting against his knees, hands down between his thighs. He continued to look at her.
"Come on, Vinnie you had to know something was up. I told you I wasn't going to Wutai."
Vincent said nothing. His expression didn't change.
"What, did you think I was just going to let you drag me back to Godo without putting up a fight?" She scowled at him. "I'm not a child." Even to herself, it sounded bitchy and... whiny.
Again, silence.
"I'd say you were giving me the silent treatment, but this is normal for you, Vinnie." She said, covering up her discomfort with a flippant attitude. "Besides, you aren't going to be in here forever. They'll probably release you in a couple of weeks or so, so-"
"I'd leave if I were you, Yuffie." He said suddenly, turning his gaze away from her. "I don't... like you very much at this moment."
She gulped on the sudden pain this statement brought to her. It hit her like a kick in the gut. She also felt just a small twinge of fear. Vincent was pissed, and her probably had every right to be so. No, he was worse than pissed, he was fucking angry.
Vincent was scary when he was angry.
It was only a little bit of fear, though. Even though she'd never seen him this angry and still in control of himself, the fact that he WAS still in control of himself spoke volumes to her. Besides, his anger was very quickly subsiding... or maybe... no, maybe it wasn't really anger at all. When she thought about it, mostly it sounded like tired, resigned disappointment, and THAT was what hurt. People had been angry at her before, and they'd been disappointed in her before, but never Vincent, not really. The most she'd ever gotten from him was annoyance or mild disapproval. Never outright censure.
Well, as outright as he ever was with anything so private as an opinion.
She hid it behind bravado. "You're just pissed 'cause I got the drop on you Vinnie, it'll pass."
He continued to look away from her. "I suppose you did surprise me. It's my fault. I trusted you." Then he looked at her, his expression hard.
That hurt worse than the previous statement, but it also confused her. "Look, I'm..."
Vincent continued to watch her. "I suggest you use this time to get a head start, Yuffie. I won't make the same mistake again."
She froze for a second, then lifted her head angrily. "I'm not going back to Wutai, Vincent." She hissed. "Get it through your skull. Don't make me out to be the bad guy in this, just 'cause I did what I needed to do to get away from you. You didn't leave me any choices!"
His expression went blank then, and she knew the conversation, from his side at least, was over.
Damn him anyway, she thought. This was supposed to be her opportunity to gloat at him for getting the best of him, but as usual, Vincent managed to make her feel something completely opposite what she had intended to feel.
Suddenly she needed to be away from him. Needed it like air.
So she left.
-Why stop there, Vincent? You were getting good and angry! You're right, too, so it can be RIGHTEOUS anger! That's your favorite kind, isn't it?-
Vincent said nothing.
-Of course, it doesn't matter at all that she's just trying to keep away from others trying to run her life... after all, you're keeping her SAFE aren't you?-
-Don't try to twist this, Chaos. She's in danger. I was justified. I shouldn't have hesitated.-
-Then why didn't you do it?-
Vincent sighed. -I didn't... want her to see me like that.-
-But if you were justified in doing it, wouldn't you have been able to convince her of that after the fact?-
-It isn't that simple, Chaos, and you know it. Stop-
-Twisting this? My dear killer, I'm not the one twisting things here. You're just falling back on your old habits, like I told you you would. All you need to start killing is the right justification, no matter how weak it might be.-
-But I didn't kill anyone!-
-True. But tell me something, would you have, if she wasn't there?-
Vincent, alone in his cell, if not his own mind, looked at the ceiling and sighed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuffie found herself running in a random direction from the jail, and had to force herself to start walking like a normal person. It wasn't like he was going to come busting through those doors and after her in a dark cloud of sullen, silent determination, pistol in hand, but she had to literally force herself not to look back to see if he was doing just that.
Vinnie kinda had that effect on you.
Of course, Vincent had quite a few other effects on her, she thought, and wasn't that exactly why this was such a bitch and a half to do?
She had to face the facts. Vincent was fast becoming a fixture in her thoughts, if not her life. Maybe it was the close proximity to him over those long weeks they spent traversing the jungle crevasse, maybe he'd always been a point of interest and she just hadn't thought about it deeply enough, whatever the case may be, Vincent was no longer just that creepy stranger she sometimes traveled with.
No, now he was the creepy stranger she sometimes traveled with who annoyed the shit outta her, and who was fast becoming something of an obsession.
Cripes, I'm friggin' HOPELESS! She thought to herself.
Why did he get under her skin so easily? It wasn't like he'd betrayed any real interest in her... and when you compared him to her first crush, Cloud, there couldn't have been a greater disimilarity between them than if you compared her to Sephiroth. Cloud was all light and easy good nature, whereas Vinnie was... well... Vinnie.
That's when it hit her like a bolt out of the blue. An epiphany. It stopped her dead in her tracks.
All this time she'd been annoyed at him without really knowing why... she'd said she wanted people to stop treating her like a child...
...and he HAD.
He listened to her, and acknowledged her viewpoint without derision. He talked to her in a manner that expected her to react in kind.
She'd just gotten angry at and ditched ol' Vinnie for doing exactly what she'd been saying all along she WANTED from everybody.
She felt like a total heel. She started to turn around, then hesitated, and finally walked to the inn, gathered her armor and equipment slowly, as though looking for an excuse to stop, then wandered aimlessly around Gongaga town for a while. Pride was an important thing to the young ninja, and though she could admit her mistake to herself, admitting it to Vincent was another thing entirely.
Not that the fucker would rub it in her face... which would only make her feel even worse about it.
"Why'd you have to be such a good loser, Vinnie?" She muttered to herself.
Let it not be said that Yuffie was completely oblivious. Granted she was certainly distracted, and this might account for how she managed to walk into the middle of where she was without noticing, but she wasn't SO distracted that the... curiousness of her surroundings didn't eventually catch her attention, and so, without immediately realizing why, she looked up, a sense of strange familiarity reaching her.
She had wandered into a ramshackle, dirty part of town obviously quite new, considering its temporary nature. It was a neighborhood of tents and clapboard buildings, squalid and muddy to the extreme, but there was a homeliness to it, a certain familiar air about it, that immediately caught Yuffie's attention.
She looked around her, caught sight of an elderly woman in a kimono sweeping the front of her rundown hovel with diligant, brisk authority, and the kids running about in little more than loin clothes, and she suddenly realized...
It was like she stepped into one of the poorer villages of her home country of Wutai.
Confused, she approached the elderly lady and bowed before launching into her native tongue.
"Honored elder, what is the nature of this place, why are you all settled so far from home?"
The older woman stopped sweeping and eyed her confusedly, looking her up and down. Yuffie spent alot of her time absent from Wutai, and so the woman didn't recognize the heir to her countries' throne, but she did see she was talking to a confused Wutain native, if... outlandishly dressed. She grumbled a bit, then shrugged.
"Where have you been, that you don't know of our troubles, child?" She said gruffly.
Yuffie blinked. "Forgive me, I have been... abroad. What is going on here?"
"War." The matron spat out, looking away. "The honored Lord Kisaragi lies in his deathbed. The lady Kisaragi cannot be found, and so the Lady Choshu has seated one of her clan's brats on the Throne as Regent. Until the lady Kisaragi can be found, they say." She snorted. "The other clans have risen up against her... and now all of Wutai suffers."
Yuffie stared at her, dumbfounded. There were so many impossiblities in what she'd just heard that she couldn't possibly keep up with it.
The matron must have seen Yuffie's reaction, though she misinterpreted it, not knowing who Yuffie really was. "Not to fear young Miss, the Clans will fight for a time, then decide who is to rule, and life will continue as usual. It will be strange, not to be ruled by a Kisaragi after so long, but it will be no different."
"No..." Yuffie muttered, turning away. Godo, dying? Choshu, regent, war... refugees... it... it wasn't possible!
What the hell was going on?
Her thoughts racing, she sped through the alleyways and streets quickly, finally taking to the rooftops in order to speed her journey through the congested streets. She found it highly unlikely that her father would just hand over the throne, no matter how sick he got, unless he was completely incapacitated. In that case, sensing weakness, the Choshu might have made some sort of power play, and the other clans had resisted it. The Choshu were powerful though, almost as powerful as Kisaragi, and they had made no attempt to hide the fact that they wanted to place one of their own on the throne.
Suddenly Vincent's comments made sense. He WAS protecting her... because Choshu... hell, the other clans as well, had undoubtedly sent agents after her.
Suddenly, she realized, one of them HAD caught up with her. Sung had confronted her in the arena at the Gold Saucer... at the time she thought he'd been just a bit overzealous in his attempts to defeat her, but now...
He had SAID he was trying to bring her back to Wutai, but...
But she'd gotten the feeling that he'd been honestly trying to hurt her. She'd attributed it to a less skilled martial artist's attempt to compensate, but maybe...
Holy shit...
Then something else hit her, belatedly. Something that made all other considerations completely unimportant.
She was being followed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vincent waited for the sun to dip a bit lower in his lone barred window. Contrary to what Yuffie might have thought, Vincent had no intention of waiting until his jailors decided to let him go. Of course, that necessitated him releasing himself, since no one else was going to do it, and he didn't particularly feel like ripping his way out of the sturdy jail.
As previously noted, such an overstated reaction to relatively simple problem simply wasn't Vincent's style.
Vincent listened intently, attuning his senses with the ambient noise in the small jail. The cell he was in was suitable for locking up the occasional drunk or two, the city having grown alot faster than it's police force could compensate for. A small passage way leading to another cell, and a heavy metal door was all the room contained. No guards were back here at the moment, though Vincent thought he could detect one's presence just outside the jail room containing the two cells. Bending down, he removed the bit of metal that capped his boot and from it removed a sliver of metal with notches on it. Setting this on the bunk next to him, he then grasped the golden digit that had replaced his pinky finger, twisted it completely around, then removed it entirely.
Picking the two pieces up, he moved to the cell door and got to work.
Anyone who has ever picked or tried to pick a lock, knows that it isn't as easy as alot of movies make it look. It takes fine manipulation and a sensative touch, which unfortunately, Vincent lacked in his golden prosthesis. However, he was a gunslinger, and his human hand was more than equal to the task.
Of course, it is a testiment to his skill that he managed to even attempt it, with his arm awkwardly bent around into position, manipulating the lockpicks ONE-HANDED.
Coincidentally, Vincent is also an ace with a pair of chopsticks.
Of course, patience is also required of a lockpicker, and Vincent had that in spads. So it was only a matter of time (around 16 minutes or so) before the lock unlocked with a satisfying clicking noise, and Vincent swung the door open easily.
He closed the door behind him as he stepped into the small passage way.
Reattaching the finger, he flexed it to ensure its proper operation, then continued with his plan of escape.
He eyed the metal door, then walked up to it and, in a serious and unassuming manner, knocked soundly on it.
The guard had been nodding off, so hearing a knock from a room supposedly empty of free roaming individuals damn near made him soil himself. He slipped off the wooden chair he'd been kicked up in groggily, then stepped up to the door and opened the sliding metal portal that allowed the guard on duty to look into the room without opening the door.
The room inside was dark (Vincent had put out the candles in the room).
The guard cursed and cautiously opened the door, revolver in hand.
A golden clawed hand clamped down on the revolver, fingers around the cylinder, and thumb against the hammer. It then yanked the guard inside with brutal force.
The door quietly shut.
All was peaceful.
-----------------------------------------------
"I ain't tellin' you nothin'." The guard stammered, vincent's booted foot holding his bulk down over his own arms, preventing his escape.
"You ain't gettin' outta here, merc." The guard growled. Still, a hint of fear betrayed his tension to Vincent.
Vincent stared at him long and hard, then cracked open the cylinder and popped out the shells, one by one, letting each one tinkle to the ground right next to the guard's head.
All but one.
He leaned down and looked the guard in the eyes. "My weapons. Where are they?" He said softly.
The guard looked away, his lips tightened into a grimace.
Vincent sighed and positioned the bullet as the last one to fire in the cylinder order, leaving all of the other chambers empty.
With a flick of one long finger he spun the cylinder, then in one smooth motion, flicked his wrist and extended his arm, closing the breech and stopping the cylinders rotation, then pointing the revolver at the guard's rapidly paling face.
Then he pulled the trigger.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
The guard had started crying after the third click. He opened his eyes and looked at Vincent like he was crazy.
Vincent looked back like he just didn't care.
"Where are my weapons?"
The guard gulped. "I-"
Vincent sighed, cracked the cylinder again, then spun it with the same motion. He snapped it back into position and pointed the gun-
"Fuck! Shit! Inthegoddamnweaponslockercombo14352justdon'tdothatagainyoucrazyfuck!"
Vincent shrugged, then tapped the revolver soundly against the man's head and put it into one of his own pockets. He then drug the now unconscious and snoring guard into his former cell and locked it with the guards keys.
No one even saw him leave the building.
----------------------------------------------------------
Yuffie was in trouble.
If it had been your average, bunch of yokels indignant over missing property she could have dealt with them. Bandits, or mercenaries, even your average bounty hunter, she could have dealt with those too.
The man who was following her was good. Damn good. In fact, if it weren't for his constant, dogged persistance behind her, she'd have thought his presence was merely a coincidence.
He was tall and thin, and had a washed out, grizzled look, from his dusty, metalshod boots and large, concealing grey greatcoat to his thin, predatory, lined face topped with pulled back grey hair. He looked old and rawboned, but he wore it with an air of deadly competance and scary maturity. This was further heightened by the ease with which he moved through the crowds, always right there, just at the edge of her perception, but not hurrying like she was, the bastard was taking his time. Even when she took to the rooftops to speed her travel, she'd think she'd lost him, only to spot him a street corner away, slipping through the crowd with a disturbingly familiar gait.
A gait she'd seen somewhere else.
Worse still, he KNEW that she knew that he was following her. Every once in a while he would grin at her, hard and predatory like an animal. She couldn't shake the feeling that he was stalking her, hunting her, like prey.
Further, he was, slowly but surely, cutting off her options, pushing her, herding her away from the town's center, towards the less populated areas.
Alright you son of a bitch. She thought. You want me out of town, that's what you'll get.
There were some tricks in her book that she just couldn't use on a crowded street, not without running the risk of hurting someone, and certainly not without calling attention to herself. His goal suited her own purposes as well.
Of course, a nagging voice told her she should head back and find Vincent, but she quashed it.
She could handle this.
She'd always handled it before.
The town gave way to clear cut plains where jungle had once stood, this being the only way of keeping the various creatures of the jungle at bay. She found herself heading west, with the ocean to her left and the jungle to her right, quickly eating up the distance along the beach. She'd been through this way before, and up ahead, the ground got rocky, with scads of places to hide and strike from.
The perfect place for an ambush.
Soon she was heading at an upward slope, and the land became rocky and broken up, and the beach receded on her left, replaced by rocky cliffs dropped off to cave pocked, jagged rocky bases. She scrabbled up into the rocks and waited, watching her trail for her pursuit.
She didn't have long to wait.
He came up her path, his eyes flicking, assessing the ground before him. Then he stopped and put his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, grinning in her direction.
"There is no need for this, frauline. I wish only to... talk with you, ja?"
She blinked. Frauline? Ja? Where was this guy from? She'd been all over the place, but she'd never heard his outlandish sort of speech before. He eased around her position, and she eased along the rock, watching him.
"You are quite skilled at this schattenspiel, girl. This sneaking around. It makes you quite a nuisance."
He stopped, his back to her.
"However..."
Her instincts screamed at her. "Shit!" She shouted, leaping upwards...
He spun around, two sleek, deadly looking handguns in his hands. The rock where she had been a moment before exploded as she arced up, twisting in mid air to throw Conformer.
The deadly bit of silvered metal spun towards him and he darted back, quicker than her eye could follow. Conformer passed through the point he had been standing moments before and arced back to her, as she ended her flip behind an outcropping.
"Schiest. You are not going to make this easy, are you frauline?" Despite his words, he sounded as though he were enjoying himself.
"What happened to talking?" She shouted, irritated. She eased towards the edge of the outcropping.
Silence.
She peeked around the edge. A scrape just above her made her instinctively dive aside, as puffs of dirt and shards of battered stone followed her flight from the bullets striking her path. He was on TOP of the outcropping she'd been skirting.
"We ARE talking, Frauline, are we not? I get bored easily, this passes the time!" He grinned, using her panicked dive behind another group of rocks to reload his pistols in four quick, practiced movements.
"Works for me, psycho!" She answered, winging Conformer at him. It start spinning vertically and ended its flight spinning horizontally, in a move that had buzzsawed the head off of many a confused foe before. The gunman simply skipped back quickly, watching the shuriken spin just behind him as he traveled just ahead of it.
What the hell is that asshole doing? She thought confusedly.
She got her answer, though it was NOT the answer she ever would have expected.
He stuck his right pistol up carefully, somehow passing the barrel into the hole in the center of HER Conformer, and CAUGHT the damn thing. Then he spun and used the centrifugal force to WING it back at her.
"You gotta be shittin' me!" She shouted, ducking her own weapon for the first time in history before watching it sail out into distance, over the cliff, dropping out of sight.
She followed it to the edge disbelievingly, watching as it clattered among the rocks at the base of the cliff.
The double click behind her made her turn around. Slowly.
He grinned at her, both pistols looming in her vision, the barrels looking impossibly huge and black from fifteen feet away.
"That was... entertaining. Now, I suggest you stay put, frauline. You and I both know you are outmatched."
"T-that's... that's not possible." She said, still in shock.
"There is always someone out there who is better than you. Though I will admit that I had an unfair advantage."
She waited for him to elaborate, but when he did not, she frowned.
"You are the Kisaragi girl, ja?"
She frowned. "And if I'm not?"
His grin widened. "Then I shoot you, now. I dislike frustration."
"I'm her." She muttered.
He frowned. "I had heard Vincent Valentine was traveling with you. Where is he?"
What did this guy want with Vincent? She was beginning to get confused. If this guy was tracking her, why was he looking for Vinnie? She had a bit of a brainstorm. Maybe he was tracking her because he thought she could lead him TO Vinnie.
"Oh I ditched him a while ago."
His grin disappeared, and he looked coldly infuriated. She gulped.
"That is... unfortunate."
"What the hell is going on here?!" She blurted out, completely confused.
He sighed. "You are nobility, ja? Surely you are not so dense as to misunderstand your position?" He clucked his tongue. "I had heard you were a clever girl. Assassination is a time honored tradition, ja?"
She narrowed her eyes. "What does that have to do with Vincent?"
He shrugged. "I suppose nothing, now. I was looking forward to facing him. I'll just have to console myself with the large sum of money I'll receive for bringing in your head."
Another click caught her attention and she glanced towards it, while for his part, the gunman simply froze, frowning deeply.
She drew a deep breath, eyes wide. "V-Vinnie! How the hell did you-"
Vincent Valentine stood, Death Penalty raised to his shoulder, sighted in on the other gunman, stock still, having apparently teleported to the scene. In actuality, the small homing device he'd planted on Yuffie during their travels together (he had trusted her, but not THAT much) had led him to her amazingly quickly. The three stood in a silent triangle, with the gunman pointing both his weapons at Yuffie, Yuffie looking confusedly at Vincent, and Vincent aiming at the gunman.
"Not now, Yuffie." He said quietly.
"What do you mean, not now! Gods, I HATE it when you-"
"Vincent! How good to see you! You are looking... well. Not so well, as well. Tell me, did it hurt?" The gunman was grinning at him, still frozen in place.
Vincent's face went momentarily blank, and then recognition flickered in his eyes. "Jaeger... what are you doing still alive?"
Jaeger grinned. "You DO remember me. I am very flattered, Schwartzer Tod. Very flattered indeed."
Vincent's eyes went cold. "I told you never to call me that."
"You KNOW this guy, Vinnie?" Yuffie interjected, quite pissed off at having been ignored.
"Not now, Yuffie."
She gave him a look that could have killed him at fifteen paces. Fortunately he was sixteen paces away.
Jaeger grinned. "Not to point out the obvious, Vincent, but we are at a bit of a stand-off, ja?"
Vincent narrowed his eyes. "Not from where I'm standing. I shoot you, we leave. End of stand-off."
"I don't know, Vincent. I am pretty fast. Can you shoot me before I shoot her?"
Vincent narrowed his eyes further. "You shoot her, and you're a dead man."
"Hey! Nobody's shooting anybody, least of all me!" Yuffie shouted.
"Shut up, Yuffie." Vincent muttered.
"YOU SHUT UP, YOU DICK!"
Jaeger chuckled. "I think I can understand why you are carrying riot shells, eh, Vincent?"
Vincent had the decency to look somewhat embarassed, at least. Barely.
Yuffie reddened. "Hey, fuck you!"
Jaeger snorted. "Well, this is all very amusing, ja? I am not a patient man, however, and I think I've had enough Dummheit for one evening."
Vincent's finger tightened on the trigger. "Don't even think about-"
"Vinnie!" Yuffie's urgent shout interrupted him. She suddenly realized what Jaeger had meant when he mentioned an unfair advantage.
"Not now, Yuffie." Vincent hissed, trying to diffuse the situation from descending into bloodshed.
"VINNIE, GODDAMN IT BEHIND YOU!" She shouted... just a split second too late.
"Timely as always, Schattenblum!" Jaeger shouted gleefully.
A small, fast moving form had darted up on Vincent from behind, sword flashing with preternatural speed. Vincent had no time to orient on the target and fire, especially not with a rifle.
A normal man would have been immediately bisected.
Vincent, obviously NOT a normal man, spun so fast the air hissed, desperately throwing his golden prosthesis in front of the blade.
Sparks shot from the clash of metals, and Vincent was forced back a step, his golden arm dented from the impact. The figure confronting him followed up with a hissing slash that he only barely avoided losing his right leg below the knee to.
Jaeger grinned and oriented his right pistol at Vincent, looking in Vincent's direction.
Time slowed down to a snails pace as everything started to happen at once...
Jaeger's finger tightened on the trigger, his target the small of Vincent's back...
Yuffie eased a fighting knife free of her armored bracer and flung it desperately at Jaeger's outstretched arm, the bit of steel somehow, amazingly, cutting into the slide of the weapon, causing it to misfire...
Jaeger cursed in that strange language of his, dropped his ruined pistol and turned his attention back to Yuffie...
Vincent spun at the sound of the cursing, leaping towards Yuffie in great, galloping strides, rifle firing one handed back at the figure chasing him, causing it to dodge and weave...
Jaeger's finger tightened on the trigger, the gun bucked in his grasp...
Yuffie started to close her eyes...
Just as Vincent slammed into her from the side, having shouldered into her at the last minute.
Yuffie OOOFED loudly as the air rushed from her lungs, then screamed as she toppled over the edge of the cliff. She fell about fifteen feet, then somehow amazingly managed to catch an outcropping before she fell any further.
Panic took hold of her as her white fingered grip began to slip, the sharp rock cutting cruelly into her grasp. She glanced upward, searching for Vincent...
He swayed dangerously at the top of the cliff, then jerked once... twice... three times... blood foutaining behind him in great gouts.
He toppled bonelessly after her, following her into the night.
"VINCENT!!!" SHe shrieked, and then her grip failed, and she found herself freefalling screaming his name.
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Vincent was feeling strangely numb. He'd never been shot quite so many times before, and he'd always thought it would hurt. Amazingly, he felt no pain at all. Time became meaningless... it felt like he was floating instead of rushing to his death on the rocks below.
-That's because you're dying, you jackass.- Chaos snarled at him.
-You... too... Chaos.-
-What could you have possibly been THINKING!?-
-Girl...-
-Well you just killed her as well as yourself, so even NOW you're a failure!-
-No... your... fault..-
-What?-
-You... can... save... her...-
-Why would I do that, pray tell?-
Vincent was losing his grip on consciousness.
-Hypocrite. We both die, you prove yourself... the bigger monster. I... win.-
Chaos was silent for a long moment. Then it snarled in his head.
Vincent descended into darkness.
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A sudden sound like the snapping of two leathery sheets in the wind caught her attention and she stopped in mid shriek. A sudden, looming shape with two coal red eyes burned at her.
She gasped. Two clawed hands caught her painfully and clasped her to a ravaged and black chest.
And she knew fear.
For she was in the embrace of Chaos.
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