Yuffie set her chopsticks down with a clatter and sighed the loudest sigh she thought she had ever sighed.
For his part, Tseng lifted his eyebrows and turned to her as if to say, "Is there a problem?" He did not vocalize, however, merely wiped his mouth with a napkin and settled his hands in his lap.
"You know, for all your straight-faced crap, you can be kind of dainty sometimes," Yuffie said, feeling a foul mood settling somewhere between her shoulder blades.
"You are restless," he shot back.
A thousand different replies clamored behind her lips, but instead of unleashing them she tipped her head back to stare at the ceiling. After a moment of silence, she said, "Meet me in the dojo in an hour."
"The dojo?" Surprise tinged his voice but did not touch his impassive face. Suddenly, Yuffie wanted to slap him. She wondered at her sudden tendency toward spousal abuse.
"That's what I said," she snapped. Without further ado, she stood and exited the room.
She didn't expect Tseng to be there after how she had spoken to him; he didn't seem the type to be ordered around by just anyone, but when she entered with training bag in hand and saw him, she almost grinned. The foul mood from the day before remained, but Yuffie was surprised and pleased to see him there already dressed in sparring clothes, standing quietly to the side.
Shake had considered the dojo his domain since he was old enough to declare it in words. He spent a good portion of his time each day in the large main room, which had been strewn with mats for ease of sparring and exercise. There were six circles painted throughout the room, with space around each one for spectators and, in some cases, referees. Some days, Yuffie found him in some of the smaller side rooms, training guards or young children taking classes at the palace. Shake gave a discounted fee based on income, and she knew that he waived some of the poorer children's payments entirely.
Shake caught her eye as several guards filed toward the locker rooms, their deep voices a hum of conversation. "What's he doing here?" he hissed, and her back stiffened at his tone.
"He," she said, not enjoying the twist of defensiveness in her tone, "is here to spar with me."
"Why?"
"Because I said so," she replied sharply. He scowled mightily at this and stalked off to the locker rooms.
Yuffie changed quickly and returned, not wanting to leave Tseng alone in the main room any longer. She was afraid if she did that Shake might decide he wanted Tseng gone for good and chop his head off with one of the impressive collection of antique weapons lining the far wall.
She met Tseng's eyes from across the room, and he dipped his head. Leading him to a mostly empty corner, she stood tall and confident as she tried not to let Shake's behavior get under her skin. After a month of his open hostility toward Tseng, she was starting to lose her patience.
It was hard to redirect her eyes when she caught sight of his slightly open shirt. His white throat beckoned to her before disappearing into his collar. Trying to avoid giving into the attraction, she made eye contact with him and bowed to signify commencement of their match. She wasn't sure of Tseng's formal training, but Yuffie had an inkling that she need not underestimate him or she might get herself hurt.
Yuffie assumed a stance Shake's youngsters would have learned first and watched Tseng mirror her.
"So," she said, excitement surging through her limbs at the calm, almost commanding aura emanating from her opponent, "how much training have you had in the martial arts?"
His mouth thinned and he cleared his throat. "I'm the head of the Turks." His words were innocuous, but she got the impression she had just been insulted.
"I think you mean former head of the Turks. You're the Emperor of Wutai now."
A small, devious smile crept across his face, and her breath fled her. He chose that moment to strike.
Tseng intended to sweep her legs out from under her, but she leapt over his foot and darted to his other side, aiming for his neck with a chopping motion. He whirled and blocked with his forearm. She noticed a flair and particular cadence to his movement that belied his foreign training. The thought occurred to her that he might not stick to the rules of traditional Wuteng martial arts, and she decided to watch for that before he blindsided her.
"Looks like you know more than I gave you credit for." Yuffie grinned, then launched into a flurry of jabs designed to find any opening in his form.
"You often give me too little credit, your highness."
At his formal title for her, she felt a ghost of her earlier irritation, and her attacks increased in fervor. He dodged them all with seemingly no effort, but then she noticed the sweat beading on his forehead just at the edge of his hairline.
"Why won't you call me Yuffie?" At this, she sent a slashing hand toward his face, and he caught her. When her other arm swung up to take advantage of his vulnerability, he caught that one too. They stilled, arms crossed over each other.
Tseng leaned in toward her, his nose just a bare inch from hers. At her failure to struggle or move away, he advanced, his breath stirring the hair just above the shell of her ear. He said in a low voice, "Do you feel we've reached that level of companionship, Yuffie?"
She just barely managed to contain the shudder that shot through her. Her heart was beating so fast, and she knew it wasn't from exertion. "I don't know, Tseng. Do you?"
The last question from her mouth like a dagger, and she shoved off him. Their brief power struggle concluded with her spinning backward, then returning for a high kick toward his face. He snared her ankle, but she deftly wrenched it out of his palm and targeted his waist with her hands.
The pull as she escaped his grip threw him off balance, and her fingers connected. He spared a moment to grunt, then struck her hard in the solar plexus. She moved quickly away to recuperate, and they began to circle one another.
"I don't know jack shit about you," Yuffie said, and she was angry suddenly.
An entire month of politics—posturing, posing, smiling, baby-kissing and picture-signing and verbal volleying, and she was angry. She had virtually no friends in her own country, no one who truly knew her. After returning from years of adventuring, after saving the entire world three times over, the only people who saw past her skin and into the real Yuffie, saw the ruler and the woman and the friend, was AVALANCHE. But they weren't here now. No one was here now. No one but jealous Shake, the Mighty Gods, and her cold husband.
Yuffie wanted to scream.
"Why don't I know anything about you?" Her voice was a hard whisper which carried across the space between them. "Because I feel like you know everything about me."
Her furious movements connected again, with a kick to Tseng's shins that actually made him falter. One fist crashed into his back, but he caught her body and held. Chest to chest felt intimate and somehow crass, so she wiggled in his arms until she was pressed back to his chest. She heard a word start from his mouth, but the anger overtook her and Leviathan shifted somewhere just beneath her skin. In that moment, she felt the godlike power within her reach out and touch the places where Tseng's skin connected with hers.
His grip slackened. Yuffie took that brief opportunity to slam her hips back into his and slip from his arms like water. She turned with an arm cocked and ready to hit, then stopped short. An expression she had never seen before flashed across Tseng's face. He stared at her with wide eyes, eyebrows high, and she found herself so surprised she could not make another move.
"What was that?" he asked, his voice barely audible.
"What was what?"
He came close to her, reached out to touch her arm with a strange expression, and she flinched away.
"You must have felt that," he said, then another strange expression twisted his face.
"I didn't feel anything," she spat. "What the hell are you talking about?" Before he could answer, she whirled toward the shower rooms. "Whatever. I'm done here."
As she left feeling unsatisfied and confused, she did not notice Tseng's eyes following her, narrowed in calculation.
.
Yuffie stood in the hallway before their bedroom door that night, trying her best to rein in the butterflies in her stomach.
Since the incident that afternoon, she had done her level best to avoid Tseng. Not that there had been any need to avoid him-he had made no appearance after she stormed from the dojo. True to her inability to predict him thus far, her husband had done the exact opposite of what she expected. He had not come to ask her questions, he had not pursued her.
The elaborate doors to her room seemed more imposing now than ever before. The carved figure of a water dragon twined around the perimeter of the doors, coming to an end at the door handles, whose knockers were carved brass shaped like roaring mouths with curved fangs. She stared into one of these brass Leviathans for a few moments, gathering herself, then entered.
Tseng was nowhere to be found. She checked hesitantly behind the screen, just in case, but found nothing. Uneasy for some reason, Yuffie stripped and changed, then slipped into bed. Before she knew it, the day's events weighed on her, and she succumbed to sleep.
She awakened abruptly when the mattress dipped. She realized she must have fallen asleep and almost asked Tseng where he'd been, but then she thought better of it. Maybe if she acted like nothing had happened, he would not question her.
He greeted her the next morning normally, no behavior out of the ordinary. Now she was really feeling uneasy. Surely he must be curious at what he had felt-the rise and surge of Leviathan's power within her. Yuffie knew for a fact the dragon had connected with Tseng on a palpable level, even if only for a moment. And she knew for a fact that he had felt it by the pure astonishment on his face afterward.
A day passed. Then another, and another. Still, he asked no questions. Yuffie began to grow suspicious. In her mind, there was no way the head of the Turks would not have further questions. No way in all the hells.
Vincent hadn't been a Turk for a long, long time, but her attempts to successfully steal his favorite materia had become somewhat of a running joke among AVALANCHE. Even at her best, she had trouble sneaking up behind him, and the few times she'd managed to snag his mastered Hade, he'd questioned her no less than ten minutes afterward.
Tseng was hiding something.
Yuffie began to formulate a plan. She would have to spy on him, definitely. At least it would be something she was good at, unlike posturing and ruling a country. But could she pull it off without Tseng catching her? And as she schemed, excitement, the kind she had not felt in a long while, took root in her.
Finally, she would have some insight into the workings of Tseng's brain.
Yuffie had planned this perfectly. With no outside help—for people might talk, and she couldn't have that in these delicate times—Yuffie had excised all the flaws from the timing and execution. After some discreet observation, she noted that Tseng took lunch at the same time every day, and every day he locked the door to his small, private office behind him before he left. He had no posted guards per his request, but the lock he had installed looked complicated, high-tech, definitely made by the combined efforts of the WRO's brainpower and the Shinra's money.
After a week of surveillance of her husband's previously mysterious day-habits, Yuffie hid her favorite lockpicks in her kimono and strolled merrily down to his wing of the castle, projecting the image that she belonged there. And she did. It was her palace, she reminded herself. She had every right to be wherever the hell she wanted, including her husband's private office.
Accessing his office without damaging the lock, however, proved more difficult than anticipated. The thing was definitely built to withstand the assault of even someone as freakishly skilled in the art of burglary as Yuffie. She knew, though, that she most likely only had one chance to get in without being seen, so she called on all her years of burglary prowess. The most difficult locks she had ever picked came to mind (the door to Reeve's room had been a doozy), and she thought once she might drop the pick for how hard her palms were sweating.
After a heart-hammering five minutes, the lock gave with a quiet snick. Yuffie slipped inside the dark office. He must keep the shades drawn. Paranoid. She flipped on the lights.
Rubbing her devious little hands together, the ruler of Wutai and the best thief around began rifling through the drawers on Tseng's polished black desk.
Her initial glee dissipated after about two minutes. Despite Tseng working from this office on a daily basis, she could find nothing of consequence. There was Wutai-related paperwork and a surprising number of very detailed charts detailing the country's economic process, but she could find nothing that looked remotely inappropriate or suspicious.
"God, Tseng," she muttered, "not even a coded calendar? And I thought I had you pegged."
Yuffie turned to other places in the office. The filing cabinet in the corner beckoned to her. After thorough inspection, nothing interesting came to light. She eyed the official-looking safe in the corner. It would take some doing, but she might be able to crack the five-digit code if she worked at it.
Unfortunately, her watch showed that Tseng would be coming back in about ten minutes, and she needed ample time to get away. She didn't want him to catch her lurking around this wing any more than she wanted to be caught in the office.
She scanned the room to ensure nothing was out of place. She could tell by the pristine, almost untouched look of the place that Tseng was anal. He would know if she didn't use the utmost caution. Everything seemed right, so she dashed from the room on tiptoe and closed the door behind her.
.
Yuffie accidentally got an eyeful as she entered the room one random evening. When she opened the doors and her eyes landed on Tseng's sculpted back. They then trailed almost of their own accord down to his bare backside and the muscles of his thighs and calves, she froze in place. On hearing the door open, he swiveled, blinked, and simply stood there.
"Sorry," she stammered, slamming the door behind her faster than Cid when Shera suggested Spring cleaning.
She almost slid down to the floor in the carpeted hallway, but Tseng opened the door behind her, upsetting her balance. Before she could topple and crack her skull on the floor, he caught her and righted her, smoothing the fabric at her shoulders briefly before withdrawing. To her relief, a swift look informed her that he was, in fact, dressed.
"Are you all right?" he asked, amusement rippling in his voice.
Yuffie said, "Uh, yes," then scurried past him to the privacy screen. She stepped behind it partly to conceal her own embarrassment and partly to tear herself from the feeling of his arms holding her.
"I'm really sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. I lost track of time in the bath and thought you would not be finished with your evening meditation for some time. If I had known, I would have been behind the screen."
She could not see him, but she could still hear the smile in his voice. In the past few weeks, she had noticed that he rarely smiled outright, not unless she saw a newspaper with his expression schooled into a professional, pleasant expression. Sometimes, though, she could hear his pleasure in his voice. Yuffie wondered if she were unique in this ability.
When she came out from behind the screen dressed in her nightrobes, she stopped walking and stared at him for the second time that evening. His damp hair gleamed in the ambient light of their bedroom, and his face had a clean, fresh look that stunned her. She recognized her attraction to him with dismay.
This is a very bad idea, Yuffie, she chastised herself. She tore her gaze from his and fairly dove into the blankets on her side of the bed. Tseng, taking his cue, switched off the table lamp and threw the room into darkness and moonlight. She felt the weight of his eyes and the impression of his body still, though, and the look of him lingered with her until she fell asleep.
"Lady Kisaragi," Gorki started, "I have something you'll need to see today."
Startled at the direct address upon entering the conference room, Yuffie stared at him for just a moment before taking her customary position at the head of the long, heavy table. "Gorki, have you run into any problems with the heavier patrol?"
"Recently, we've discovered… an issue."
At his hesitation, Yuffie's eyes narrowed. In attendance were four of the Mighty Gods: herself, Staniv, Chekov, and Gorki. Shake was absent, as he had classes to train at this time. Staniv was the official historian for each meeting, so Shake would hear about the meeting later.
Eyeing her speculatively, Gorki passed a standard filing folder down the table. Chekov passed it to her. "What's with the atmosphere here? Should I be worried?"
The others exchanged looks, and Gorki cleared his throat. "It seems, your highness, that we have some illegal activity going on in Wutai."
"Tell me something I don't know." She stopped talking, eyes widening. A small bag of fine, silver-white powder had slipped from the file. It was no bigger than the end segment of her thumb, but as she held it up toward the window, the substance sparkled and threw shards of radiant blue light on the walls. "Gorki, this is…"
"Yes, your highness."
"I knew Edge and even Costa del Sol were having some trouble with this, but Dust here? In Wutai?"
Gorki nodded solemnly. "WPD has stumbled upon a few deals in the past weeks, and we have reason to believe someone might be importing the drug."
"What reason?"
"A cargo ship was detained in our primary southern port. Initially, it seemed to be a shipment of fabric, but false bottoms in all of the crates revealed compartments hiding thousands of pounds of Dust."
Yuffie's eyebrows lifted. "Why did you detain the ship?"
"We got an anonymous tip. We believe rival gangs might be outing each other."
Briefly indulging herself, she put her face in her hands and scrubbed her eyes, heedless of her companions' gazes. She sighed. "Okay. So we'll have to be on the lookout for this stuff now. Up surveillance in likely areas, Gorki. The slums, ports, stuff like that. I'm going to make a phone call to the WRO."
After a few more exhausting hours with the Mighty Gods, Yuffie gave Reeve a call from her personal phone. He picked up with a surprised and please, "Hey, Yuffie."
Reeve was always excited to speak with Yuffie. She knew better than to believe that he was all boyish smiles and diplomatic handshakes and making sure she didn't choke on her own vomit after a night of heavy drinking and strip poker, though. The kind of mind it took to run the WRO under Rufus Shinra had to be a sharp one. The kind of mind it took to operate in old-school Shinra with your own personal goals in mind and not wake up one morning with your entrails four feet across the room—well, that was a complex and intriguing mind.
She respected Reeve all the more for knowing he was a shark.
"Hey, Reeve. How are you?"
"I'm fine," he said, voice suddenly on guard. "I take it that you're not just calling to chat, though. What's up?"
"I need you to fax me any files you have on Dust, its side effects, its major uses, and all that junk. Think you can do that for me?"
"Oh, no. You don't mean there's a problem with this crap in Wutai, too?"
She sighed and ran her free hand through her hair. It was getting shaggier than she liked, and it needed cutting. "Gorki's goons busted some trade ship carrying a couple thousand pounds of Dust. So, when can you get the information to me? I know you have some. You're Reeve."
"Check your fax."
True to Tuesti Form, the papers were printing in steady mechanical rhythm in her office, landing in the tray ready for her to read. "Reeve, you're always awesome."
"I know," he said, with a genuine smile in his voice. Unable to help herself, she grinned. Reeve had an infectious nature about him, part of what made him a great politician.
"Anyway, I'm gonna take these to read over, so I'll smell ya later," she said. Reeve murmured a goodbye and a good luck, and the line clicked silent in her ear.
Fancying herself a bit of a late lunch to read the file over, she rang the kitchen for some udon and headed over to the small dining room she and Tseng had taken to sharing for dinner. When she arrived, however, the room was already occupied. Tseng looked up from his lunch - an oddly out of place sub sandwich and potato chips - and nodded to her.
"Good afternoon, your highness."
Yuffie gave him a small, tight-lipped smile, then sat, thumbing through the file as she awaited her noodles. She had wanted to be alone while she contemplated this latest problem, but then again, things had rarely gone her way as of late. Sure, Wutai had strengthened with surprising alacrity after years of decay, but her personal life blew chocobo chunks. She sighed at her own selfish needs.
A few moments of quiet passed, and Tseng cleared his throat. "What are you reading?"
She jerked, startled, having forgotten about him during her reading. "Uh. Sorry?"
"May I ask what you're reading?"
Shrugging, Yuffie pushed the file across the table toward him. "Here, look for yourself."
His keen eyes scanned the opening summary page quickly. "And why are you reading about Diamond Dust?"
"Because Gorki busted a trade ship carrying a couple thousand pounds of it in our southern port," she said, already tired of telling this story.
Tseng's calm, contained voice filled the room as he read aloud, "'The physical side effects of long-term or improper use of Diamond Dust include minor mutations, diarrhea, bleeding from the orifices or pores, and paralysis. The mental side effects include but are not limited to violent mood swings, megalomaniacal delusions, and schizophrenic tendencies.'"
"So apparently, Wutai's got a Dust problem I had no idea existed."
Named for Shiva's beautiful and terrifying attack, Diamond Dust was an illegal drug that had been gaining popularity in Edge and Costa del Sol recently.
"What are your plans to combat this?" Tseng, straight to the point.
For the second time that day, she put her head in her hands. A servant entered then, gracefully serving her udon and retreating. The aroma of the dish suddenly turned her stomach.
"Right now we're just going to up surveillance in the likely areas and pass some laws on punishing possession and distribution."
He hummed, a thoughtful noise, continuing his perusal of the file. "I suppose there's nothing we can do at the source."
"I don't think so. Patrolling the damn things is impossible, since new hotspots form and randomly disappear all the time."
Natural mako springs occurred all over Gaia, especially in hotspots like the Nibel Mountains and the Mythril Caves. Dealers and creators of Diamond Dust harvested the mako and diluted it, turning it into a glittering powder that could be smoked or snorted, depending on preference. However, the dilution process was not always foolproof, and long-term mako abuse or improper dosage could lead to serious consequences. Just when the planet discovered alternative power sources in order to quit mucking about in the Lifestream, another problem popped up.
"I suppose posting guards in hotspots is not plausible," Tseng mused. "Even just navigating the Nibel Mountains can kill the unwary."
"The runners are crazy to go there."
"This file says that every one in three of them is injured or killed."
"Trust Reeve to have all the gory details. When you're done, I need that back. I have a feeling I'm gonna be reading it all night long."
When he handed the file back to her, she asked, tentative, "How was your day?"
His eyes darted from his plate to settle on her face, unblinking. She found his stares unnerving. "Acceptable. And yours?"
She shrugged. "Lots of boring paperwork to get through before we can implement the new road-building committee." She wound noodles onto her chopstick and reached over the table to get at a serving plate.
Eyebrows lifting, he passed her the entire platter. "And is that proceeding smoothly otherwise?"
"We're hoping once we get it in order, it'll provide enough jobs to help alleviate unemployment. Maybe it'll tide people over until we can generate some more public work programs."
Tseng took the time to chew and swallow with a grace Yuffie envied. "I wasn't aware you had a fondness for economics, your highness."
She shrugged. "I don't, but it's my job. Not like they didn't shove it down my throat in royal training school, anyway."
"Royal training school?"
"You know, balancing books on your head, having good posture, knowing how to kill a man with just a chopstick, that kind of thing. What, they don't teach you this stuff in the Turk Textbook?"
To her surprise, his eyes glittered with amusement as he sipped his water. "They don't teach you how not to talk with your mouth full in royal training school?"
Yuffie gaped, too stunned to laugh, and after a moment of this, Tseng lifted one hand and gently eased her mouth shut. She could swear she saw a smile hiding behind the rim of his glass.