Dear Journal

A Final Fantasy VII Fanfiction

Chapter 9

Kasumi

Kasumi could see the aircraft that she had probably heard; it had crash landed but seemed to be alright for the most part, it was just off to her right. Kasumi and Naminé shared a look before the cat made her way onto her person's shoulder and they headed over to the grand airship that Kasumi had seen only ever seen in a video game and a movie. She couldn't help but look over the ship with awe; it was bigger than she had thought it would be, but a game and movie couldn't really show a person just how big something really was; Kasumi was sure that some of the big airplanes of her world would be considered maybe medium sized in comparison to the massive metal and wood creation before her. I wonder if this is really one of Cid's ships; it looks so much like what I've seen of the SHERA. Kasumi thought to herself as she got closer to the ship. She suddenly stopped though and looked around. She was sure she had heard something unpleasant, a fiend maybe? To her right, she saw it; it was a fiend, dog like in appearance and an odd mix of blue, red, and purple in color. It was racing towards her.

"Watch out!" Kasumi heard a familiar male's voice call out from the ship, she knew that country twang; she had heard it in the video games (well, not all of the games, since there was one that didn't have sound) and movie, it was Cid's voice. Kasumi smirked slightly at the fiend as it was joined by another of its kind, this one a pale blue-gray. Target practice, were the words that ran through her mind as she pulled the twin guns from her duffle bag; she didn't have to wait too long before they were within range and with a single shot of her guns the fiends fell. What looked like glowing, green tentacles wrapped themselves around the creatures before disappearing and the fiends slowly turned into dust. That was easy… maybe playing all those shooter games did help me to handle these guns better. I should've thanked Yuri better for all those shooting video games. Kasumi thought before continuing to make her way over to Cid's airship, while putting her guns away.

"Hey!" Kasumi called as she got closer to the ship; she was holding her middle, it had started hurting again.

"Hey yourself, where'd you learn to shoot like that? You ain't a Turk, are ya?" The blond captain questioned as he exited his ship. The man was dressed in a blue-gray long sleeved shirt, green pants, brown gloves, brown boots, and goggles on the top of his head; his eyes were a very pretty blue color. His blond hair was kind of spikey and only came down to his ears.

"A Turk? Me? You've got to be kidding; video games are great for one's reflexes." Kasumi said with a shrug of her right shoulder; Naminé sat on her left shoulder.

"Video games… Like you really can learn from those damn things…" He eyed her up and down, noting the way she held her middle. "So you ain't from around here… got a name kid?"

"I'm not a kid, Cid, I'm twenty-one years old." Kasumi glared at him and smirked slightly at his look of surprise. "I'm Mizushima, Kasumi and this is Naminé." Kasumi motioned to her cat with her free hand.

Cid made a face. "Relax; anybody who ain't my age is a kid to me. Now I don't think we've met, so how the hell do you know my name?"

"Well, that's a long story but aren't you and Cloud and the others famous?" Kasumi asked in hopes of buying time to think of what to tell him.

"Well…" He thought about it for a moment or two. "I reckon we are… Cloud more than any of us."

Kasumi smiled, "I knew it. You all did save the world twice." Naminé meowed as if in agreement.

He smiled slightly at this before saying, "Yeah, seems that's all we ever seem to do… this whole planet is always needin' someone to save it."

"And most people are looking for someone to save them; after all, most people want to be saved by a Hero or to be a Hero themselves." Kasumi said with a sigh and a slight frown.

He smiled down at Kasumi, who was a good two inches shorter than him, before laughing. "That's some awfully big talk for someone so young. I like you kid."

Kasumi blushed in embarrassment while glaring up at Cid. "Call me 'kid' one more time and you'll understand why I'm the best bodyguard my age." Kasumi said and Naminé seemed to laugh.

He laughed even harder at this, "Damn! You're a spitfire. I like that. You and I are gonna get along real well." He looked her over once more, noticing her bags for what seemed to be the first time. "So, you got a place to stay?"

Kasumi and Naminé as one lowered their heads to look at Kasumi's feet as she kicked the dirt and sand around slightly as if the words she needed were buried under it, "Well…that's the thing… recently, very recently... I, uh, lost my home." Kasumi's bangs were hiding her eyes from Cid, but her voice told him that she was hurting and she didn't like admitting what she had.

He frowned, "Alright, tell you what, Spitfire, you and your furry friend can stay with me for a while… as long as you want… so long as you pull yer weight and do whatever I ask of ya."

Kasumi looked up at Cid with disbelief and a hint of suspicion clear on her face. "But you don't even know me. Why give a girl you just met, and her cat, a place to stay when you can't say if she's friend or foe? Besides I-I don't… want to impose…"

He grinned. "There are a lot of things I ain't, but I'm a great judge of character. Besides from the way you took down those beasties, if you wanted to hurt me you'd a done it by now. Besides I got a big ol' house and I'm by myself." He nodded towards Naminé. "I hate ta see little critters sad or the people that own 'em for that matter."

Kasumi smiled slightly, "I suppose I could've, but I'm not really that kinda gal." Cid raised an eyebrow and she continued as she looked away. "I prefer to protect, not destroy, but often when I was supposed to be protecting something or someone I had to hurt and/or end someone else." She turned to her bag, "That and I don't usually fight with my guns, more of a swords person really," she said as she opened her bag, one hand holding it in place as the other tugged on the zipper. Cid's eyes had moved to the rip in her shirt where he could see bandages that were starting to take on a red tint.

"We better get that re-bandaged… can't have you bleedin' out on me." Cid said with a nod at Kasumi's stomach.

"Eh?" She turned her attention to Cid with a confused look. He motioned towards the tear in her shirt and the reddening bandages over her abdomen "Oh, it's no big deal; I'm perfectly fine." She said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Fine my ass, you're comin' with me." Cid exclaimed in his southern drawl, his hands on his hips and a look claiming that he would not take "no" for an answer.

Kasumi crossed her arms over her wound, as if to hid it from view, and glared at Cid; it was a battle she wasn't going to win, but damn it all if she was going to let go of her pride and let someone who was thirteen years older than her take care of her. They stood there for a time, just glaring at each other, both refusing to back down. Naminé looked back and forth between the two with a look of concern on her face, as much of one as a cat could have. "Meow," Naminé called as she grew tired of the two humans' staring contest.

"Naminé," Kasumi said with a groan as she tore her gaze away from Cid to look at her cat; Naminé looked pleased with this before giving the blue haired girl a pointed look. Kasumi rolled her eyes and sighed before returning her attention to Cid, who looked a bit confused. "Fine, fine; I know when I've been had."

After Kasumi's bandages were changed, Cid gave her a tour of his ship. Kasumi was in awe, the ship was breathtaking in her opinion. When she asked Cid if he had made the ship himself, he grinned and said that he had; Kasumi commented on how the airship was a work of art and how she thought it to be awe-inspiring and Cid turned red at the praise.

After the tour, Kasumi began asking about what had happened to make Cid's aircraft crash in the area just outside of Bone Village, not really all that far from the Forgotten City; Cid told her what he could and she asked to see the engine room. Upon entering the engine room, Kasumi took on a more business like persona. She looked closely at everything and if she didn't get something, she asked about it; after sometime Kasumi and Cid got the problem figured out and got the crew members that worked there to fix it.

"Ya know, for a spitfire kid, you sure know a lot about machines." Cid said as he glanced at Kasumi as they walked back to the bridge, that was what Cid called the control room. "Where'd you learn it all?"

She just shrugged, a small smile on her face, "Like I said before, I'm the best bodyguard my age; a bodyguard needs to be prepared for anything… I learnt some of it in school and the rest I learnt in the field." Kasumi's smile turned sad. "Mom did always say that one day I'd be glad to know about machines and Dad did love his computer programs…" Kasumi shook her head a few times, in an attempt to rid herself of her sorrow. "Anyways…" Kasumi looked up at Cid with an almost bitter smile on her face, "One needs to learn all that they can as quickly as they can, right? A child isn't a child for long in some cases…"

Cid nodded sadly, "Yeah, suppose that's true."

Naminé meowed and rubbed her fur covered cheek against her human's cheek. "I'm fine, Naminé, really."

Cid smiled, "You and that cat of yours are really close, ain't ya?"

"Naminé is the only family I had left with me at home; Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Spica, Uncle Russell, Aunt Reya, and Uncle Yamino all live in a different country." Kasumi said, bitterly, as she petted her kitten.

"Oh, I'm sorry Spitfire… If I'd a-known I wouldn't have brought it up." Cid said as he patted her back.

"It's alright," Kasumi spoke. "It's not like there's a way to return to that time or place. "What's lost is lost and can never be regained." I am forever lost to them, and they to me."

"I see." He said, before adding with excitement in his tone. "Say how'd you like to meet my friends?"

"Huh?" Kasumi blinked, "You mean, meet Cloud and the others?"

"Yup; Lu, Spiky, and the rest of them," Cid had a light pink tint to his cheeks when he said 'Lu'.

"Who's 'Lu'? I get 'Spiky' to be Cloud, but 'Lu'?" the expression on Kasumi's face was a confused one. Then an image of the girl that had been standing next to Vincent came to mind, but that couldn't be her, right?

He smiled slightly, "Luxaria Rose… She's a Spitfire just like you… She's a short little thing." He was smiling in the same way anyone would when talking about something or someone they were fond of. "But feisty… She showed up here 'bout a month ago. She's got dark red hair and eyes well… they kinda make me think of snow."

Kasumi's lips turned into a knowing smile, she could tell that Cid liked this Luxaria girl. "Really? Sounds like we'll get along great."

"So what you say, Spitfire?" Cid grinned, "Want to meet my friends?"

"Uh… Of course," Kasumi said in a no-duh tone.

"Alright then; let's go." Cid said as he moved to stand behind the wheel that controlled the ships direction. It wasn't long before the airship was in the air and they were on their way to Seventh Heaven, the bar that Tifa Lockhart owned and lived above with Cloud, Marlene, and Denzel. Kasumi was looking at what one of the crew members was doing at one of the computers; the man turned to look at her and when he gave her a once over and a small smirk, she blushed and turned and walked away. Kasumi glanced out a window, seeing the clouds were level with them and that the land below was quite a ways away. This made Kasumi gulp, she was never one for airplanes… but then again she had never actually been on an airplane before. Slowly, Kasumi looked down at herself and realized she was still wearing the same clothes she had been in when she died.

"Hey, Cid?" Kasumi asked to get his attention, "Is there somewhere I can change?" She had turned to face the Captain and was pulling slightly at the hem of her shirt. Cid called for someone to take control of the wheel and after telling the boy their destination, showed Kasumi to the Captain's right hand man's room; the room didn't have any signs of being used anytime recently, meaning Cid probably didn't have a right hand man. "Are you sure that I can use this room?"

"'Course I'm sure." Cid retorted as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Gotta problem with it?"

"N-no, just thought that every Captain had a right hand man." Kasumi said as she entered the room. Kasumi heard Cid say something about going back to the bridge and left, she was looking at the room. There was a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a closet, and a bathroom; the bathroom had a sink, medicine cabinet, a toilet, and a bath/shower. After a quick shower, Kasumi re-bandaged her wounds and got dressed in the least revealing outfit of the two she had in her bag. Then dressed in a green, sleeveless T-shirt, black slacks, and black flats, she made her way back to the bridge.

"So tell me 'bout yourself, Spitfire." Cid said when he saw her, her hair was still wet from her shower.

"Well, where to begin?" Kasumi muttered as she tried to tie her hair that came down to mid-thigh in a high ponytail. "I'm not sure where to begin, Cid." She said in a louder voice.

"Where are you from? Is that your natural hair color? What's your home like? Where did you grow up? What's your family like? What's your name?" several of the crew asked, in hopes of helping.