Chapter Six: Bloodfest
The Wutaians were a race descended from the union of Rydia and the Laeviathan. The physical manifestation of chaos. They were taught to kill without mercy or pity. Taught to use every tool and technique at their disposal. Taught that to die killing your target was the greatest glory a ninja could achieve in their life.
Or at least until Shinra turned the place into a tourist resort. One complete with orange jumpsuits.
But it did not matter.
The blood of Wutai called out for vengeance.
That could only be repaid with at least twice as much blood. Or maybe three times as much blood! Like if you went into the lifestream and it was full of blood, and that blood was on fire, and it was raining blood! And maybe that would be enough blood!
But probably not.
So Yuffie would settle for murdering everyone on the Shinra Board of Directors. All while taking all of the materia in the world!
It would be pretty easy to get off this train she was on.
All she had to do was lower the window, slip out, toss a smoke bomb, and leap out. There weren't even very many people in this back car. But she wasn't close enough to the looming figure of Midgar just yet.
There was a single witness in the seat across the aisle from Yuffie.
He sat there, reading a children's book with colorful pictures. But he was clad in red leather with silver hair and a fancy red cap. His expression was oddly stoic for a guy reading a children's book.
What a weirdo.
"Despair," said the man.
"What?" said Yuffie.
"Despair is what the Blue Fairy would have given Sleeping Beauty," said the man.
"As in, the animated movie?" asked Yuffie.
"Yes," said the man.
"Isn't despair sort of an evil fairy thing?" asked Yuffie, watching the rocky wastes pass. You could see a former lake here, now of pure black goo.
"No," said the man. "Despair is an emotion. It is a natural chemical reaction to certain stimuli. The human body reacts to a given event in certain predictable patterns.
"Sleeping Beauty was born to a world that practically hailed her as a messianic figure for no virtue. She was proclaimed practically as a goddess at once. The first fairy granted her beauty beyond compare. The second fairy granted her song to enchant and ensnare others. She had a perfect fiancee set up who was the heir to a powerful neighboring Kingdom.
"She had two rich and influential parents who would grant her anything she could ever desire. And they would."
"So how does that lead to despair?" asked Yuffie. "Sounds like she'd be spoiled rotten to me."
"But would anyone ever call her that?" asked the man. "Would she ever need to demonstrate her spoiled nature? People would grant her whatever she desired because she was a fairy tale Princess.
"Anything she could ever want would be hers.
"All possibilities would be within reach in an instant. There would be no space for improvement. No room to be anything but a false idol."
"Wouldn't the Blue Fairy want to give her hope then?" said Yuffie.
"The fairies symbolize forces of nature," said the man, shaking his head. "Green is the natural world. Red is passion. Blue is intellect and reason. The evil fairy comes about and curses the party because the King and Queen refuse to invite her.
"In this case, a metaphor for refusing to acknowledge the darker side of reality. This ignorance renders them vulnerable and leads to the events of the story.
"If the evil fairy had not appeared, the Blue Fairy would have given her gift.
"Instead of death, she would know despair."
So, the story of Sleeping Beauty was a metaphor for the contemplation of suicide? This guy had to be the most interesting person Yuffie had ever met.
"I'm sorry, who are you?" asked Yuffie.
"No one of consequence," said the man.
"I'd like to know," said Yuffie.
"Live in ignorance then," said the man. "It should serve for the moment."
Yuffie turned away in a huff.
She was going to steal his materia when she left the train. After a moment, however, she looked back. "You are by far the most interesting person I've ever met on a train to Midgar."
"How many trains to Midgar have you been on?" asked the man.
"This is the first," said Yuffie.
"And how many other train cars have you visited?" asked the man.
"Erm..." Yuffie halted. "Well, I've been sticking to this one. I figured it seemed pretty empty."
"They are all nearly empty," noted the man. "Immigration to Midgar has decreased substantially. Most of the factory jobs have since moved to other locations. The waters in the surrounding area were fouled by industry, and the land was dying. The farmers are going elsewhere.
"In a few decades, this place will be abandoned.
"It has been connected.
"Tied to those Mako Reactors up there. Like a parasite, they drain the very life from the land itself. They consume everything."
"Yep," said Yuffie. "Midgar sucks. No argument there.
"Why are you going there anyway?"
"I'm here to see my Mother," said the man.
"Oh really," said Yuffie. "She lives here?"
"My Father is keeping her, yes," said the man. "He never allowed things to take their proper course."
"I hear you," said Yuffie. "My Old Man just refuses to do what needs to be done. He just completely checks out and does what he wants while letting people walk all over us."
"Is he a scientist?" asked the man, raising an eyebrow.
"Eh, more like a politician these days, I guess," said Yuffie. Before realizing she was a little too close to the truth here. "The guy is practically afraid of his shadow these days and hides behind contracts and such. He's uh..."
"A walking mass of complexes," noted the man.
"Yes, that's him!" said Yuffie. "That is exactly him!
"Uh... complexes?"
"Read more," said the man. "I don't have time to give you the proper education."
"What are you, some kind of ex-chemistry teacher with a chip on his shoulder?" asked Yuffie.
"Something to that effect," said the man with a smile.
Yuffie shrugged. "Anyway, this is my stop." She began to open the window, pressing down the lock and sliding it. Pollution-filled air poured in as they neared the outskirts of Midgar. A place of abandoned stone villages mixed with wire fences.
"We are nowhere near a train station," noted the man.
"Don't need one," noted Yuffier. "This is the day you will remember as you meet the Great Ninja Yuffie!" She turned around, and he was gone. "Um...
"Where did he go?!"
There was a note on his seat. Yuffie moved over to it and read it. "Is that a note?"
"The Great Ninja Yuffie has holes all over her defenses," It said. "She would never have survived in this world.
"In the end,
"You are on your own."
Yuffie hurled the note at the wall in a furry. "THAT JERK!
"YOU'RE MATERIA IS MINE WHEN WE MEET AGAIN!"
And she leaped at the window.
Slipping through it, she backflipped into the air and landed on the stoney earth beyond. Seeing Midgar very near, she hurried toward the outskirts. The wastes yielded to derelict slums, and Yuffie walked with her hands in her pockets. She was feeling very ill-used.
In the end, you were always on your own.
Yes, Yuffie was going to meet with her contacts in Avalanche, but that hardly changed a thing. She wasn't really sure she could rely on them at all, and her contact wasn't sure either. Actually, Yuffie wasn't sure she could rely on her contact either.
What kind of moron chooses a moogle hat for identification anyway? Seemed kind of conspicuous.
"Who am I kidding," thought Yuffie. "I'm going to have to handle this all alone, aren't I? Fine, I can do that. I survived fighting Zack Fair and the monsters he hunted.
"I can handle this."
But her sour mood did not improve, especially as she looked around for the meeting spot. It was supposed to be an old warehouse in the southern town, marked with a moogle poster. You followed the train tracks as far as you could, and eventually, you'd come to it.
Yuffie was sure she should be enthusiastic about the prospect.
But she was a little distracted by the fact. Her homeland had been forced into humiliating peace terms. And nobody cared.
"Well, this is a great start," muttered Yuffie, spinning her huge kunai.
As she drew nearer to the plate which loomed overhead, the sun began to beat down on her. She missed the air conditioning on the train and began to hate the moogle cloak she'd been wearing. It was far too thick and fuzzy, designed for mountains and not for walking under the hot sun.
But Yuffie also knew that having the sun shine directly down on her head could be far worse. The planet was dangerous, and so went the teachings of the Leviathan. Who had taken Rydia to the realm of spirits?
And then there was a click.
Yuffie halted in place and looked up to see a machine. A huge machine, standing on two feet with two machinegun arms aimed at her. She halted as it buzzed visibly, and she saw it was partially rusted.
"Um..." Yuffie halted. "Are those machines? Why are they active? I don't remember getting...
"Identified..." She noticed the bent metal and the fact that it was buzzing erratically. "Hang on a sec, are those machines possessed by ghosts?!"
The machine clicked, and Yuffie leaped into the air. That was a moment before machinegun fire chewed through a rock behind where she'd been. Splinters of stone went everywhere as it wheeled its guns on her. Landing, Yuffie sprinted for cover behind a stone wall. Heavy ammunition poured into the stone. Sitting down there, she remembered Fort Tamblin.
When Shinra had overrun the mobilized conscripts. Zack Fair had carved a bloody swath through them. All their best techniques hadn't been enough.
Not this time.
Drawing up her kunai, Yuffie raised a mirror as the guns continued. Getting a lock on her enemy, she hurled the kunai. It spun through the air to one side, winding around to slice through the machinegun arms. The machine buzzed visibly as it saw its weapons had been disarmed.
Then it charged.
Yuffie leaped into the air and caught her kunai as the wall was smashed beneath her. The machine ground to a halt, and she turned around to slash it from behind. Her blade cut through steel and armor alike, and it stiffened before collapsing.
"Honestly!" said Yuffie. "Why would Shinra throw away a perfectly functional battle mech in the junkyard? These things are dangerous!"
Click.
Came a noise.
Yuffie looked up and saw several more such machines nearby. All of them had fully functional machineguns pointed at her.
"...Why didn't they unload the machineguns. Before they tossed these machines into the slums?" asked Yuffie. "Isn't that a safety-"
The machines opened fire, and she ducked. The noise, like thunder, reechoed as the nearby building was chewed up. Rolling away to what cover was left in the wall. Yuffie scrambled up, leaped through a window, and sprinted away. She felt I machinegun fire rake the area behind her, and shrapnel tore through the sides of her cloak. She headed for the cliffs.
That was close.
She saw a cave nearby and dove into it without thinking.
"Whoever is responsible for waste disposal should die!" shouted Yuffie
She sat up against the drywall, relieved to be in the cool shade of the cave. Panting for breath, she checked and saw the machines seemed to have lost interest. Now, they were just patrolling like zombie robots.
"Okay..." muttered Yuffie. "Okay, I think I lost them. It says I'm supposed to meet a guy in a Moogle Hat.
"Why a moogle?
"Well, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'll just wait safe in this cave until the evil robots go away-
"Um...
"Oh."
Yuffie noticed a lot of worms.
Worms which were big enough to stretch as far as her left, with maws like an abyss. And very, very pointy teeth. There were about half a dozen of them, and they looked hungry.
Yuffie drew out a fire material, and it flared.
There was a flash of light and fire, and two reeled back as they jumped. They screeched as they burned, and Yuffie sprinted up out of the cave.
The monsters followed, and Yuffie made the threshold with them snapping at her heels. Thinking quickly, she headed for the machines. Those machines were designed to hunt monsters as well as people. And why would a rogue, psychotic machine be programmed to ally with monsters? And why would monsters ally with them just to kill some girl in a moogle hat?
"Moogle hat-wearing target acquired," said the machine. "Initiating alliance with local monster population to exterminate crime against fashion."
"WHOEVER MADE THIS CITY SHOULD DIE!" screamed Yuffie.
Then she ran for it as fast as she could, dodging and weaving as bullets were unleashed. Around her, monsters chased her. Seeing an electricity tower, Yuffie sprinted for it and leaped onto the ladder. Going up it, the ladder was chewed up behind her as she reached the top. It fell away, but she caught the top and pulled herself up.
Drawing out a heavy cloth, she threw it over the wire and hung off it, sliding down and away. For a moment, the wind was on her face as she soared right over a gorge to the other side. Reaching the next tower, she let go and slid down the ladder as quickly as she could.
Moments before, the sound of machine gun fire came to her.
Looking back, she saw one of the machines at the gorge's edge explode. Another one turned around, only for a spikey-blonde-haired guy to leap out of nowhere. Wait, was that Cloud? The guy who kept relaying Yuffie's messages to Zack?
He was holding Zack's buster sword.
The blade cleaved off the limbs of a machine before cutting the legs from it. A moment later, the body was cut in half. Another turned to fire on him, but Cloud spun away, making small movements that kept him again. Machinegun fire tore into the machine from the side, and Cloud passed the machine.
It fell into two pieces lengthwise and exploded. A moment later, a huge black man in a brown vest with a gun for an arm came forward. Monsters surged at him, but his gun flared to life and mowed them down in controlled short bursts.
"Well, what do you know?" said the man. "There are mechs out here. How'd you guess, Cloud?"
"The sound of 50 calibur gunfire reechoing across the cliffs helped, Barret," said Cloud.
"Well, we were heading this way before the shooting started cause of your hunch," noted Barret. "But I guess that's just a sixth sense for danger."
"You pick things up," said Cloud, spinning his sword exactly how Zack used to and shutting it. "Let's go."
"Fine by me," said Barret.
"Wow, these guys are cool," noted Yuffie. "But are either of them wearing a moogle hat? Should I approach them?
"Probably best to stay out of sight."
Cloud and Barret began walking across a nearby bridge, and Yuffie listened in. Their voices carried out this far as she crouched in place. As she did, however, she halted and saw a skeletal corpse. It was riddled with bullets and looked to have lost an arm.
Ouch.
These things had been out here a while, hadn't they?
"Pretty nice hit there," noted Barret. "You know your stuff."
"I trained in the use of swords," said Cloud. "Though I used a gun for most of my career in combat."
"When did you pick that one up?" asked Barret.
"When Zack and I were ambushed," said Cloud. "He gave it to me. Said I'd be his living legacy. I don't know what he meant by that, but I needed a weapon. I wish I'd been able to bury him, but there were helicopters inbound.
"And I didn't trust the Turks."
Wait, so Zack was dead?
Yes!
Zack was dead!
Months of luring him into more dangerous monster hunts. All the items she stole from Shinra finally paid off! Yuffie had sworn she'd avenge the loss of Fort Tamblin and the deaths of Wutai's finest! And she had done it!
Although, she hadn't lured him into the ambush that killed him. Or been there when he died.
That wasn't the point.
Yuffie had gotten him into the habit of walking into ambushes. Victory for Wutai!
"Smart move," said Barret. "Their kind are all polite and reasonable until they've got a reason to butcher you. Then they send you straight to the slaughterhouse."
"That's a bit of a mixed metaphor," said Cloud.
"Do you know how they treat slaughterhouse animals, Cloud?" asked Barret, taking off his sunglasses. "It ain't pretty. Your hotdogs are a torture victim."
"Yeah, but you can buy them cheap, and they taste good," noted Cloud.
"Not anymore at the rate prices are hiking," said Barret. "You know the price of eggs has doubled in the last year. They say it's because Genesis hit the farms, but I know he didn't. They're just using it as an excuse to raise prices now that they control the food markets."
"That's a really bad idea," noted Cloud. "If people start going hungry, they'll riot."
"Well, nobody ever accused Shinra of being an effectively run corporation," said Barret. "They should never have let them get all those monopolies. Guess a lot of politicians liked having their palms greasy."
Hmm, was there some way Yuffie could use the food supply to start a revolution? If she could just destroy it...
No, that was a little bit too psychotic.
Yuffie didn't want anyone to starve. And it wasn't like people had a choice about who their government was. Shinra had taken over this place, and people here had to put up with it. March of progress, yeah, right.
"They didn't know what they were getting into," noted Cloud. "Neither did we."
"Guess not," said Barret bitterly. "Why the hell are these robots still in possession of loaded machine guns?"
Good question.
"This model is equipped with an onboard, mako-fueled factory," said Cloud. "The bullets are basically produced within the machine using raw materials from outside. There isn't actually a clip.
"I used to be part of the assembly line that made their joints."
"Well, why not just disable the machine?" asked Barret. "You probably would only have to cut a few wires."
"You'd have to pay someone to take the chassis apart and disconnect it all," said Cloud, shaking his head. "If you just throw it out here, you don't have to pay anyone."
"Yeah, but this could cause problems for Shinra down the line," noted Barret. "Seems kind of sloppy."
"Maybe," noted Cloud. "But it won't cause problems for Scarlet."
Barret halted and looked at him. Yuffie wondered what he meant by that. "What do you mean?"
"Scarlet works in the weapons development department," said Cloud with a shrug. "Her factories don't operate in Midgar anymore; they operate in Junon. The only thing she had up here was a lab in which she did experimental techniques. Mostly because Hojo runs the scientific department, all the R&D sections need to hit one another up for information."
"How do you know so much about Scarlet?" asked Barret.
"The point," said Cloud, dodging the question. "Does she compete for funding with other Shinra executives? She gets nothing if she pays a little extra to disable these machines properly.
"Whereas, if she just throws them out here..."
"They could cause a mess for her competition," realized Barret. "Who cares if a couple of slum dwellers get shot? Typical Shinra."
"Pretty much," said Cloud. "Zack and I worked out how all this operated while we were working down here. Though, uh, he was a bit more optimistic. Didn't exactly work out for him."
"One thing I love about the free market is how it encourages progress," said Barret in disgust. "Fuck Shinra."
"Okay, I've only listened to these people for two minutes. And they are the most badass people I have ever met," said Yuffie, hurrying off. "Let's call them plan B. Cloud and Barret.
"Now, where is that guy in a moogle hat?
"I think the meeting ground was around...
"Here."
No one was here in the warehouse. Yuffie hurried up a broken set of stairs and nearly fell through them when they collapsed. There were posters of moogles and other things. She checked the time on her watch and saw it was well within acceptable parameters. "The time is right.
"The location is right.
"Well, maybe he's just a little late."
Yuffie waited two hours. She did so with patience and experience.
"HE STOOD ME UP!" screamed Yuffie in fury. "I HATE MIDGAR!
"I HATE IT!"
Then she halted as more monsters showed up. Yuffie's eye twitched.
"That's it," said Yuffie. "I'm gonna kill them all."
And that was how Yuffie went berserk.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD CHOCOBO! SKULLS FOR THE CHOCOBO THRONE!
Her special ability was called bloodfest for a reason.
She remembered but a haze of red. And when it passed, she was covered in blood and surrounded by the corpses of hundreds of monsters. Taking off her moogle cloak, Yuffie looked at it stained red.
"Oh, come on, now I have to dry clean this again!" said Yuffie in disgust. "This AVALANCHE group had better be worth it!"
Then she saw the note.
It was on one of the moogle posters and featured a set of directions. Tearing it off, Yuffie read it and saw an address for their base of operations. With a shrug, she stalked off into the beating sun, hoping to get under the shade of the plate. Her clothes were soaked in sweat and blood. Every so often, flesh-eating monsters would come out.
Now and then, she'd have to stop to fight them off or do acrobatics to escape them. Soon, her clothes stink of gore and travel. She used up virtually all her water in the canteen and didn't dare use any water pumps. By the time she got under the plate, she was pissed.
But she had to calm herself.
A ninja must remain alert in all things.
So Yuffie walked off, following the directions as far as she could. Slipping under a chainlink fence. She wished that Cloud and Barret had been her contacts. They weren't even associated with her, but they hated Shinra. And Cloud had always relayed her messages to Zack.
So maybe he sympathized.
Then again, he'd been at Fort Tamblin, too.
Yuffie still remembered the site of Shinra troops getting mowed down by the dozens. Or caught in traps and torn to shreds by kunai. Or devoured by the summoned monsters that Wutai Summoners utilized. They did the power of the Leviathan. Shinra had used them like disposable pawns.
Some commanders were halfway decent, but Heideggar liked human wave tactics. The waves had broken on Fort Tamblin time and again. Then Zack Fair and Angeal had shown up like devils out of hell. Zack had torn through the defenders by himself, killing people by the dozens and smiling as he did it.
The guy was a psycho.
The thing was, he almost seemed like an ordinary, nice guy when he was out of combat. The problem was that they kept acting like an ordinary, nice guy. All while he was chopping up sentient, thinking beings like salami.
The slum dwellers saw her and didn't give her a second glance.
Nobody even asked if Yuffie was okay. Or if she was hurt.
So a teenager covered in blood and entrails walking out of the desert was not considered notable? Then again, Yuffie spotted a corpse in a nearby alley with their throat cut. So dead bodies were commonplace.
Shinra propaganda portrayed the Midgar slums in an almost idyllic light. The hardworking people of wherever banded together in a libertarian utopia. Wonderful teachers put together schools and genuinely cared about the children. And probably moonlit as prostitutes in the Honey Bee Inn and liked it.
Speaking of which, a woman was being dragged into a police while screaming at the top of her lungs. Knowing the kind of people Shinra was, she was probably going to get raped and murdered.
Should Yuffie do something about this?
Hurling a kunai, she slashed the guy's hand. He screamed and let go of the woman, who broke free and ran for her life.
Yuffie walked on. "...I don't think the slums are a very nice place to live."
The cleaning bill for this was going to be horrible.
She found the door around the time the sound of broken glass and gunfighting had started to die down. At the very least, it meant people had cleared the streets when she got to the hideout. Yuffie knocked politely and waited a moment.
No one answered.
She knocked politely and put on her best manners.
The door opened, and a woman wearing what looked like a blue and brown schoolgirl outfit looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw Yuffie. "Oh, uh... are you the contact?"
"Yeah," said Yuffie. "I'm the contact.
"Do you have a washing machine? I'm covered in the blood of my enemies."
"... I'll get you a change of clothes," said the woman.
"Thank you," said Yuffie with a bright smile. "Now, where are the explosives, and how are we planning to bring death to our enemies?"
What she found out next was disappointing, to say the least.