She made her announcement to a crowd of more than five thousand people gathered on the steps leading to the palace. A temporary platform, festooned with streamers and handcrafted paper flowers, had been erected for the purpose of this announcement, and her personal organizer had taken great care to alert her subjects of the impending information.
Royal Announcement, by Princess Kiasaragi, Single White Rose of Wutai, the fliers said. Tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. on the palace steps. In addition to fliers and live watchers, a camera crew filmed her for national televising purposes. The entire world would know of her plans to wed.
A cadre of guards flanked her, including Staniv, but the most noticeable member of the royal party was Reno in his suit. He made no attempts to be subtle about his presence, hair as red as always, EMR tucked tight to his side. Reno stood to the right of Tseng, who stood beside Yuffie in full ceremonial regalia—several layers of shirts, a thick belt, flaring pants. Everything was tip top, down to his socked-and-sandaled feet. Best for him to look as Wuteng as possible at this moment. Reno's garb was a tactical decision, a show of support as well as an undercurrent of threat for anyone who might think to challenge the White Rose's choice in partner.
She stepped up to the podium and onto the box meant to boost her, short as she was. Her wooden sandals clacked as they hit the wood of her platform. She took a deep breath and launched into her speech before her nerves could find a way to overcome her will. "People of Wutai, I welcome you on this beautiful morning," Yuffie said, her voice coasting over the crowd, enhanced to great power by a microphone and speakers. She was amazed at the sureness of her own tone, of the clarity and confidence bracing it.
"And I welcome you, watchers of the world, to the steps of my palace today," she said to the cameras, staring directly into the lenses with fierce gray eyes.
"I have gathered all of you here today to make public my impending marriage. Your princess intends to wed." The crowd's murmur swelled to a roar, and after a moment, she raised her hands for silence. Her kimono sleeves fluttered in the gentle breeze. As the sweat cooled on her neck, she thought of just how many people were listening at that moment. "I know some of you may be thinking 'finally.'" She smiled like light on the river. "But I have taken so long and I have taken such great care in selecting my husband-to-be. I can have only the best for my beautiful country."
She inhaled. Time for some inspiring words. The crowd murmured and waited.
"For many long years, Wutai has struggled to stay afloat in a rapidly expanding world. Despite my father's attempts to preserve our land, the Wutai-Shinra War ravaged it. I watched as the land I knew so well, the land I love and respect, transformed from a historic place of great honor into a haven for unsavory characters and shady business dealings. I watched crime spike. I watched the streets become crowded with the homeless. Construction projects have rotted in their foundations. Roads have crumbled with time and wear. Education has been swallowed by the drain of poverty.
"With the political alliance I intend to form through my upcoming marriage, my great people, I will mend this place. I will heal this broken country from the inside out, with the help of my husband and his allies. You will see the fortune in this match, and you will accept it with a smile as I have."
The crowd rumbled. Yuffie had not simply invited them to accept her marriage. She had ordered it.
"Now, without further ado, I present to you my fiancé and your future emperor, Wei Tseng."
She stepped to the side with ceremonial robes swirling and bowed her head in respect as her fiancée stepped up to her abandoned podium. He nodded to the crowd of flabbergasted Wuteng. Underneath the Wuteng-cherished facade of respect and deference, a faint hiss of disrespect lingered—who was this man in the suit of Shinra and the skin of Wutai?
Tseng's clear, smooth voice curled through the speakers and slipped into the agitated crowd. "I am honored to be selected as the White Rose's future husband. I know of no man who could refuse such an opportunity, and I will serve this country and your princess to the fullest of my considerable abilities." His words tiptoed down her spine and rooted somewhere in her stomach, and Yuffie marveled at the richness of his voice.
He stepped away from the microphone and bowed to the audience, his black hair slipping over his shoulders and swaying in the breeze. With a smart turn on his heel, he took his place next to the more conspicuous Reno, but this time, the audience was riveted on Tseng.
Yuffie took command of the stage once more. "People of Wutai, we mean to rebuild long-burned bridges. We mean to forge ties with the rest of the world and begin a new age of modernity and communication in the rapidly-expanding economies around us. Wutai can no longer be left in the dark, and this marriage will mark the beginning of a new era—an era of forgiveness and peace, of progress and change. As you have named me your Single White Rose, I will spread my roots in our floundering land and reinvigorate the soil from which I have grown."
A cheer, somewhat hesitant in tone but quickly speeding toward triumph, went up at her words. She smiled with all the practice of etiquette classes and stepped down from the podium. She would leave it in the hands of palace- and law-enforcers to clear out the crowd, which would no doubt be bustling with activity after all this new information.
She felt a hand on her back as she began moving toward the palace and was surprised to find Tseng at the end of the comforting gesture. Staniv, to her right, leaned into her ear as they filed into the huge front doors of her childhood home.
"You did very well," he said. "I am proud of you."
"Couldn't have done it without the note cards, Staniv," she replied, voice too quick and so light as to seem thin.
These words, from the stoic man who had so often seemed like a distant uncle to her, filled her with an emotion so sudden and so thick she almost choked on it. Tseng's hand at her back felt like an anvil, and he did not look into her eyes as she turned her sharp gaze to him.
When they went their separate ways, she felt the sizzling brand of his handprint, down to the whorls of his fingerprints, linger on her back.
.
After the speech, she got her first personal AVALANCHE call.
Yuffie had been heading down to the kitchens to grab a quick lunch and then hole herself up in her room playing solitaire when she heard Cid's unmistakable call. "Hey, kid!"
Should've known there'd be no escaping the Good Intentions Squad, she thought to herself, torn between dismay and genuine relief that she wouldn't have to wait anymore for the inevitable confrontation.
She managed a pivot that didn't look too hasty. This left them standing in the narrow hallway, just far enough apart that it seemed awkward. "Hey, wheezey. How's it going?"
This venue would not do at all. Cid's arms hung limply at his side, a cigarette dangling from his lip, in some absurdly lending him a lost-little-boy manner. She could tell he had no idea what to say to her, and she supposed accepting her adulthood was going to be a hard transition for the man. There were times in her life when Cid had been more of a guiding figure than her own father. He was no better at expressing his feelings than Godo, but Cid had been there through the most defining period of her existence. Her own father had not.
"I gotta talk to you."
"Oh, yeah? 'Bout what?"
She was surprised when he closed the gap between them in a few quick strides and took her by the shoulders, steering her into a nearby room. Cid was not really a touchy person—she had only ever seen him kiss Shera in public on a select few occasions, and he almost never touched Yuffie.
He released her, shutting the door behind the two of them. They were in one of the guest rooms. The occupant was not present, but his clothes had been strewn partway out of the open suitcase lying at the foot of the bed. Yuffie guessed by the size of the pants that they were currently in Barret's room.
She turned when Cid said roughly, "You sure you know what you're doing?"
A hint of acid crept into her voice. "Will it really matter if I say yes or no?"
Blue eyes going flinty, he scowled at her. "What'd I do to deserve that much sass?"
She glared and crossed her arms. "I dunno, maybe manhandling me into a secret talk against my will. We can start there."
They remained at a standoff for a tense moment, Yuffie with her arms crossed over her chest and her chin tipped back defiantly, Cid with his hands in his pockets. After a moment, though, the lines around his eyes softened and he began to chew on the end of his cigarette. It was a habit she recognized.
"You're worried about me."
He shrugged, giving up on pretense. "I'm not the only one."
Yuffie fell onto the bed behind her, feeling exhausted beyond compare already. Cid was only the first in a long procession, she was sure. "I don't like it very much either, but… better the devil you know."
"The devil we know's done a lot of bad shit."
She flushed. "AVALANCHE started out as a bunch of bomb-happy terrorists, remember?"
"That's different," he protested.
"People change."
"Who are you trying to convince? Me or you?"
She sat as he stood, and his height over her seemed skewed and too tall in this charged conversation. Yuffie bounced a little on the mattress to dispel the feeling. "He can help me, Cid. He has the skills to help me find the people who poisoned my father."
"We could help you with that," Cid said.
"I know you could. But you have lives you have to get back to at some point. I don't know how long it's going to take to track down these people."
He took his cigarette from his mouth, then sat down next to her on the bed. "I got a bad feeling about this."
She didn't know what to say to him to convince him she was making the right decision. Truth be told, she wasn't entirely sure she was. The further this whole thing went, the more she felt as if she were walking a long, thin plank with the ocean churning below.
Her stomach growled in the silence. She popped to her feet and said brightly, "Wanna get lunch?"
She stood, and he said, "Just be careful, kid."
"I'm twenty-three years old, Cid."
He left the bed and followed her to the door. "You'll always be a kid to me."
"Careful, or I'll usurp Rocket Town and exile you. I can do that now, you know."
His reply was littered with four-letter words, but she heard the laughter underneath.
.
That evening, after giving her guards the slip with the ease of a long-practiced habit, she went for another late night wander to the liquor cabinet. She wondered offhand if she would have another dreamlike encounter with her new Turk acquaintances. Sweet Da Chao, I need a drink.
Opening the door into the liquor room revealed no Reno, no Rude, and no Elena, however. She stepped into the darkness, groping for the light switch. Renovations to the palace when Yuffie was a child, which had included the installation of electricity, had proven to all involved that Wutai was criminally behind the times. All the switches had been placed just far enough into the room to cause bother when searching for them in the dark.
"Damn it," she hissed, and just under the noise of her own fumblings, she heard something else. Instead of freezing, her first instinct, she continued to feel around. Her hand had touching the plastic of the switch plate a few seconds before, but she continued her actions in what she hoped was a convincing manner.
With her other hand, she reached inside her kimono, where ten tiny throwing stars had been secreted in subtle places. Palming two of them and taking a deep breath, she flipped the light and dropped into a crouch. The artificial glare drenched the room. At first, she thought she saw no one, then something flickered behind one of the wine racks. She threw the shuriken there, shattering one bottle and embedding the second star into the wood.
"Who's in there?" she barked. "If you're trying to kill me, you're really bad at it."
She cursed the limited mobility of her clothing and her terribly uncomfortable geta-with-socks-combo. At the same time she cursed those, she thanked her mother and father for providing her with battle training that most other princesses had not.
On some instinct, some soundless but tangible ping within her which had no name but always existed, Yuffie rolled to the right and sprang backward into the hallway. She heard the thud-thud-thud of a projectile hitting the section of wall behind where she had just been standing. She snagged one shuriken from a chest pocket and flung it, slamming the door behind her.
Yuffie extended her awareness to the materia bracelet encircling her left wrist and felt the warmth of magic spread through her blood. A hum encompassed her, and she welcomed the familiar feeling.
Between each finger on her right hand, she squeezed three sharp throwing stars, with which she almost killed Tseng when he materialized at her side.
"Holy shit, do not sneak up on me like that," she hissed. "I'm in the middle of something here!"
"I can see that," he said, tone clipped and unamused. A handgun looked snug in his right hand, and his left hand hovered over something on his hip. She didn't want to know what, as long as he was prepared.
"Someone's in there. Haven't managed to catch a good glimpse of them. Too busy closing the door before I got a couple new chest piercings."
"I'll open the door on the count of three," he said, his voice quiet but possessing the authority of a man used to being in charge. "One."
She inhaled.
"Two."
She spread her feet.
"Three."
He opened the door and stepped back in a quick movement. Nothing happened for several moments.
She could see nothing in the total darkness beyond the doorway. She wondered about it until she recalled the sound of breaking glass and concluded the assailant must have shattered the lightbulb. Tseng put out a hand to her to stay, his expression brooking no argument. Miffed at him ordering her about, she raised her wrist bracelet as he crept into the room and whispered, "Fire."
A plume of flame bloomed in the middle of the room, and she saw Tseng drop to a crouch. When nothing happened besides the crackling fireball which illuminated their surroundings, he looked back at her with furious eyes. She tried not to blanch at the intensity of his anger. He looked worse than Barret on a bad day.
Resolving to ignore him and amazed at her new control over the magical elements, she shivered as Leviathan twitched in her consciousness. The brilliance of the fire had something to do with the god, she was sure.
Without a word, she tiptoed into the room behind him, hugging the wall. Her hands bumped against something embedded in the wall. A quick glance revealed . From underneath a far shelf, the one embedded with a dagger and dripping white wine from a broken bottle, she caught sight of a pool of some liquid. The fire's light flickered on it, making it impossible to determine its identity, but she had her suspicions already.
Tseng once again gestured for her to wait. She blew out a skeptical breath, fluttering her bangs, but stayed in her place. Not because he had ordered her to, but because it would be good to hang back in case he got a faceful of knife.
After a short moment, he came back around the damaged wine rack. His expression betrayed nothing. "There's a throwing star lodged in his neck."
"Guess my aim's a little better than I thought," she said brightly.
Her sandal crunched on the ground, and she looked down. Amidst the remains of the overhead light fixture, she saw one of the tiny knives the man had been chucking at her. She must have hit him mid-throw, sending his shot wide. Yuffie rounded the rack and saw the damage she had done. Her throwing star had torn into his throat like wet paper, stuck halfway through the jumbled remains of his neck. Tseng kneeled beside the body, peeling a cloth mask back from the man's face.
"Do you recognize him?" he asked, using one finger to turn the assassin's face toward the light.
Yuffie did not respond immediately, taking the time to study the man's slack features. He looked mostly nondescript, the perfect face for an assassin. "I've never seen him before."
He let the man's head fall to the side again and stood. "Thanks to your impeccable aim, we won't be able to question him."
Yuffie thought he might still be angry for catching him off guard with the fire trick earlier. "I was saving my own skin."
"I will have the Turks comb the scene of his death."
"In that case, I'm going to hit the hay. It's been a long day."
Tseng had not put away his weapon at any point. "I will escort you back to your room."
"I really don't need—"
"To ensure your throat isn't cut on the way back," he said impatiently.
"No, really, I'm fine. I took care of this, didn't I?" She stepped gingerly around the puddle of blood soaking into the woven floormats and headed for the hall.
She stopped abruptly when Tseng stepped into her path. He did not touch her, but he stood very close, and his proximity made her suddenly nervous. His eyebrows were bunched, and Yuffie could tell he was ticked. "I'll walk you back to your rooms," he repeated after a long pause.
She stopped herself before she bit his head off. In a few days, this would be a partnership, and as much as she didn't like the arrangement, she thought she might as well try to get on her husband-to-be's good side. "Fine."
He followed closely at her heels on the way back to her rooms, making her feel jumpy. When they reached the door, two very surprised guards stammered out questions. She silenced them both with a wave of her hands, but before she could escape into her room, Tseng said, "Keep a better watch on her. She was almost killed when she escaped your notice."
Yuffie's nostrils flared, but she quickly schooled her features and clamped down on her anger. Tseng could still refuse her. While she was angry with him for talking down to her in front of her guards, she also needed to demonstrate her control. He could easily still back out on her, and she needed to play it safe. "Thank you for your assistance, Tseng. I won't need you for anything else."
If he took the last part for the jab it was, he made no indication. "Good night, Princess," he said, bowing. She watched him make a sharp, quick exit, then retired to her rooms for the night, ignoring the guards' furtive glances. The whole palace would have heard about it by morning.
.
After Cid and an assassin, Yuffie thought, maybe, the best plan would be to actually listen to her cranky ex-Turk fiancée and stay in her room until the wedding. Not that being wed to Tseng would be a magical cure-all for almost being whacked in her own home on a regular basis, but at least she'd be alive until she officially ruled the country.
Plus, hiding in her room kept her away from her questioning friends. Or so she had been thinking until a knock sounded at her door.
Her stomach growled in anticipation. Finally. Lunch.
"Open the door! I got food for ya!"
She groaned. Barret.
"Come on in," she called. Even hiding in her room all day she couldn't avoid them.
Barret pushed open the door with his flesh hand, precariously balancing a tray of delicious food on his gun arm. Springing up from the bed in her haste, Yuffie snatched the tray from him before he could spill her mushu pork all over the antique rugs.
He stuck out a hand and mussed her hair, compressing her spine almost three inches with the force of it. "Hey, Barret," she grumbled.
"You better be more excited to see your old pal Barret. Else I'll have to whoop you."
"Hi, Barret!" she chirped, infusing her voice with false cheer. "It's so good to see you! Would you like to join me for lunch, Barret!"
"I'll pretend that wasn't fake as hell," he said, seating himself awkwardly on her bed. There was a low table meant for dining in the corner. She imagined him hunched over it and decided to let him sit where he wanted. She settled next to him cross-legged, sinking into the mattress.
They dug in without speaking. One thing about Barret she never got tired of, which she had grown to miss since they had stopped traveling together, was his respect for the first few, crucial minutes of a meal. When you spent your day wondering if you would even live to see dinner, you savored what you got.
After a silence, Barret swallowed noisily and said, "This is almost better than Tifa's fried chicken."
"Almost?"
He leaned in close, his voice a low growl. "Nothing's better than Tifa's fried chicken, and if you tell her I said different, I'll take you down with me."
She nodded seriously. Tifa's wrath was as legendary as her cooking.
"My lips are sealed."
"Good." He took another bite, then said with his cheeks full of food, "You sure you know what you're gettin' into?"
Yuffie thought she might try the direct approach. She pasted on a huge smile. "Yes."
He crossed his arms and pinned her with a hard stare. The effect was somewhat ruined, in her mind, by the three pieces of rice stuck in his beard, but she pretended not to notice that. "You don't have nothin' better than that?"
She sighed. "Look, unless your daddy was Wuteng and you hide it really well, I don't have much of a choice."
He laughed, practically rattling the windows. "I wouldn't marry you no how, no way. Well, wait, now, maybe I could save some money on babysittin' fees with Marlene. You think I could forge some papers sayin' I'm half-Wuteng?"
She spluttered with laughter. "You look about as Wuteng as Nanaki."
He sobered suddenly, staring at some point over her shoulder with a stubborn set to his jaw. "I don't like it," he said. "I don't like you marryin' one of them Shinra dogs."
Of all the former members of AVALANCHE, Barret had had the most difficulty adjusting to Rufus Shinra's revelation that he was, in fact, alive and that he had switched allegiances. He had protested vocally at Rufus's funding the WRO, and only in the last year or so had he begun to relax in the presence of the Turks.
"I tried. You should've seen some of the candidates I interviewed. They made Tseng look like a respectable businessman."
He frowned. "You know he's doing this on Shinra's orders," he said. "He wants to know how Wutai works from the inside."
"I hope he doesn't expect to find anything exciting here," Yuffie half-joked. He wouldn't have much to report to Rufus. Wutai was exactly how it looked—broken and in desperate need of repair.
"Yuffie," he said, and she knew whatever he was feeling was rare. He never said her first name. "Just be careful."
"Don't worry so much," she said, "he'll just be telling Rufus what a terrible ruler I am."
He put a fist down on the table so hard that the cups and bowls clattered in their saucers. Yuffie had to scramble to catch their plates before they fell from the table. "Every leader has doubts. You just can't let 'em get in the way of you leading." His eyes shone with an emphatic light, and she thought this was the Barret she knew best.
She knew, though, that he would get wound up in a speech if she didn't intercept him. "Thanks for the sage advice."
"Your jokes are bad, but I trust your judgment." He dug into his food again. "Don't look at me like that, brat. I do."
Of all people, Barret had the most reason to believe she had lost her mind. Yet here he sat, looking at her plainly, as if he wasn't terrified she would screw up and kill them all in the next few minutes. In that moment, she felt that she might just be able to pull this whole thing off.
"Thanks," she said quietly.