Night 49: Group Therapy Room 2

[thatdamnedninja]

[From here]They were still in the building, Yuffie could tell that much. But the room they'd ended up in was totally unfamiliar. She stared around, squinting through the darkness for anything she could use to identity it. Good thing she had ninjalicious eyesight, huh? Yup. Double-good that by this point, she was well-adjusted to how dark the

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[notthistrain]

Cloud was feeling a little woozy from all the room hopping as well, but he kept his mouth shut about it and instead watched Yuffie with mild concern. He didn't think there was much to worry about, as she had a tendency to be over-dramatic about things. Thankfully, she seemed no worse after this next move. Where were they now, anyway?

He smiled a little at her next complaint. "Would you rather we dumped back into the middle of a bunch of zombies?" These typical rooms might not hold anything of interest, but neither were they teaming with danger. They could use a breather, anyway, to think over their next move.

...Or to lecture Zack, apparently. Cloud focused his attention on checking out the room with his flashlight while his friend became the subject of Yuffie's irritation. Hopefully it would be too dark for the other man to see how amused he was by this situation. He shouldn't have been, really. After all, thinking about the amount of time that had passed from when Zack and the ninja had met was very sobering. Still, Yuffie lecturing anyone would have a tendency to get interesting.

[zack_fair]

Luckily for Zack, he didn't have as much of a problem with the nausea as the others did. He felt weird whenever he stepped through a door, true, but that uncomfortable feeling didn't stick with him. For that reason, he was more than willing to jump from place to place. It was kind of like playing a game at the Gold Saucer or something: you never quite knew what you were going to get.

Unfortunately, Yuffie was right. The places they were ending up didn't really match that first jarring trip back to Gaia. None of them needed any extra exercise (though it certainly wouldn't hurt -- doing squats didn't require any sort of exercise machine, though!), and this place just looked like it was meant for lounging around or something. They did enough of that during the day.

He might have considered going to get a drink of water from the cooler in the corner, but that was when Yuffie suddenly turned an accusing eye on him. She had a funny way of putting it, but he realized what she was getting at. He sighed, shrugging his shoulders as he gave a shake of his head. "Sorry, it's just... a force of habit. I've only known you at this age for a day or so." And they had only met here at night, which wasn't the best setting for drawn-out conversations. Not that he was sure he wanted a heart-to-heart with Yuffie, but it was clear that there was a whole lot about her that he didn't know. He was working with what he had, which was a brat who spammed his email and sent him on wild goose chases.

[thatdamnedninja]

"Well, hurry up and get used to it," Yuffie told Zack, ignoring Cloud's quip. Looked like he was already busying himself doing nothing much, anyway. "Wastin' time trying to baby me isn't gonna help any of us."

The hand at her neck drifted to her hair. Yuffie ruffled it, slim fingers sliding through thick black strands. She knew that it was easier said than done, knew it, but that really wasn't the point. "I get that you need time," she said aloud, after a moment. She dropped her hand back to her side and rested it, loosely fisted, against her hip. "But when we're out here on a night, I'd really appreciate it if you resisted those urges. Not exactly helpin' us work together, y'know? I can't do my job if you're tryin' to drag me by the hand."

Not the most eloquent spiel she'd ever launched into, but, hell, this wasn't the easiest subject to put into words. "Don't guess it'd help if I told you what I am now," she said, almost offered. No way was she gonna jump through hoops to prove herself, least of all to guy like him, but Yuffie wanted this all out of the way yesterday. It was just like she'd been thinking earlier during the nightshift, and something in Yuffie twisted in bitter irritation.

At least the goons in the W.R.O hadn't had all those age-old memories of a waist-high ninja on their minds when they'd first been getting used to her. They'd had other stuff; that she's Wutaian, that she's a Kisaragi-for those who remembered the war, and for those who remembered the power in her family line-that she's AVALANCHE, and that she's nineteen and skinny to boot. They'd learned quick-sharp that guns weren't the be-all and end-all, and that age didn't necessarily mean experience. Zack, he was-well, he was Zack.

Yuffie puffed out her cheeks, then hop-skipped to smack Cloud on the arm. "What's the plan now?" she asked. "Go-time, or are you old geezers wantin' to take a breather?"

[notthistrain]

Oh, so he was holding her up now? Cloud smirked at the question, flicking his flashlight off and on again. "There doesn't seem to be anything else for us here. I don't know if we'll be able to find any answers if we keep moving around, but that's a better option than doing nothing."

Would they be able to find themselves back in their home world again, he wondered? And if so, would it be the same as it was before, devoid of people? Was it even really their home world to begin with, or just an impressive duplicate? A replica would explain the Tonberry being where it shouldn't have been, but what was the point in the long run? Just to throw them off?

He tried not to think about it too much, instead focusing on Yuffie, Zack, and their current situation. It was highly doubtful that anyone would oppose moving on, but it was only polite to make sure everyone was on the same track anyway.

"What do you think, Zack?"

[zack_fair]

She was really lecturing him, wasn't she? While Zack could understand her point, that things were largely different now and he was living in the past, it wasn't that easy to kick the instinct. Still, he knew how to be professional, and so he tried to look at it from that angle. Yuffie was no longer the snotty kid who was calling him out to random parts of Gaia in order to hunt for treasure. Cloud clearly saw her as a comrade, and so Zack was just going to have to learn to adapt.

Yuffie would just have to deal with the times that he slipped up in the meanwhile. They were wasting more time standing around here talking about it, right? Zack raised an eyebrow when the girl made a cryptic statement (what was she?), but he didn't know if he was supposed to take the bait or not.

Either way, she immediately turned around and pressed them to leave, getting a dig in at the same time. "Y'know, if you don't want us to treat you like a kid, maybe you shouldn't call us geezers," he advised with a quick smile. He thought that was a pretty valid point, but he got the feeling she wasn't going to listen to him regardless of how much sense he made.

At Cloud's question, Zack straightened and grinned. "You know me! I'm always ready to get going." It wasn't like this room had much to offer, and he wasn't dying of thirst or anything. Eager to take the lead seeing how the other two had done so the past few times, Zack didn't hesitate to step back through the door.

[To here.]