All Through the Circling Years (Part Two)
Part One
Some days, Aerith picks Yuffie up from her new dwellings, talks to her on the way to the castle and deposits her with a fond, “have fun!” at the doors of the library and there is no Kairi, just Grandma.
The first time this happened, Yuffie stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of what she should do. Then Grandma looked up from the book she was mending and said, “Oh good, you’re here!” She ushered Yuffie over with an enthusiastic wave of the hand. “I was wondering if you would tell me about Wutai, and let me write it down.”
It becomes a ritual for them - on those rare days that Kairi is mysteriously absent - for Yuffie to babble and swing off the stair railings and tell Grandma everything she can remember about Wutai. How the air was always cool, a little thin, the sky a blue so light it was almost white. How they raised sheep which ran rampant all over the compound because the boy who was supposed to herd them was awful at it, but everyone loved the sheep and they didn’t really do anything bad, so nobody ever fussed. She tells Grandma about Mama and her silk tapestries and Sobo and her love of tea and old maps; about Yuri and Norio and the training hall.
Sometimes, Yuffie cries when she’s trying to relay all this information. It’s never where she expects it to be, never over Mama or Yuri or anything obvious. It’s over the little things, the moment when she tells Grandma about the hallway leading to Mama’s room, or the stupid little shrubby garden, and just like that, she’s crying. It’s the great, big, ugly cries, the ones that steal your breath and hurt your throat and jaw and no matter what you do, you can’t seem to stop.
Grandma just lays her pen down, scoops Yuffie into her lap and pets her hair. “It’s alright, sweet thing, it’s all right.”
-
Yuffie is at the fence that separates Little Wutai -an awful joke from the natives- from the rest of the Garden, waiting for her morning pick up. Several of the Academy students pass by, waving good morning to Yuffie. “Where’s Aerith?” she calls out.
“She should be along soon. Don’t worry, squirt!” said Zack with a grin.
The person who eventually shows up is most Definitely Not Aerith. He smiles at Yuffie, all teeth, and rocks on the balls of his feet. “So you’re munchkin’s friend, huh? Name’s Lea, let’s go.”
Yuffie takes a big step back, crosses her arms and says, “You’re not Aerith.”
“Wow, kid. You are truly astounding with the deductive reasoning. No, I’m not ponytail, but thanks for pointing that out; it’s good to know incase I suddenly get an identity crisis and think I’m the crazy healer chick with too much hair that I am, in fact, not. Now, if we’re done, let’s go.”
Yuffie moves back again. “No. You’re not Aerith and I’m not going with you.”
Lea swipes a hand through his hair and makes a face at her. “You’re not gonna make this easy, are you, kid?”
Ten minutes later, the stand-off has reached epic proportions that have sent nearby pedestrians scurrying the other direction. This boy, this Lea has called Yuffie everything from a dirty little pumpkin seed (what kind of insult is that supposed to be) to a trout with legs. (what he hasn’t called her is refugee or homeless or orphan and the distinction is stamped into Yuffie’s mind.)
She’s returned the favor by shouting things ranging from booger brain to mud-clumps and throws in a few words in her native Wutai (she calls him soup, at one point but he doesn’t know the difference so the look of outrage is completely worth it.)
“What on earth are you two doing?”
They both glare at the newcomer for daring to interrupt and Yuffie sees a tiny familiar face clinging to his pant-leg. Kairi peeks at her from behind Bun-Bun, whispers, “You said bad words.”
And this is how Yuffie met Lea and Isa.
-
Isa and Lea are something of errand runners for Grandma. It turns out that one day, Kairi was separated from Grandma, too busy watching the reflected world in a rain-puddle - it was Isa and Lea that found her. Lea, of course, told her all sorts of wild things: that there was another world on the other side of the puddle, that clouds were really just condensed sighs from kids bored in school, that the moon is really a giant hunk of cheese and every month a huge mouse spirit in the sky eats it all up and a new cheese-moon takes its place.
Yuffie kind of loves Lea for his stories. They become fast friends after Kairi gives him her seal of approval and Yuffie spends many afternoons climbing up his back, perching on his shoulders as they bicker back and forth. She still loves Kairi, no question about it, is fiercely protective of the younger girl; but so are Isa and Lea.
Isa is almost always lagging behind, walking sedately with Kairi in hand. Kairi talks quietly to him, and he smiles and nods and responds in kind. It’s a strange little family they’ve formed, the four of them, but Yuffie desperately looks forward to their time together.
-
The boys are not allowed in the castle. There’s some sort of awful dispute between them and the castle guards, Yuffie doesn’t quite get it - just knows that there is a lot of Hostility between them when the boys drop her off at the castle in the evening. Lots of glaring from the guards and sneering from the boys, but Yuffie doesn’t mind. It’s just the Way Things Are. Then Dilan will give her a little bow and walk her to whatever meeting room Papa is hiding in that day. (They walk home together, which is pretty much the only time Yuffie sees Papa anymore.)
-
Today they are not with the boys; they had Other Things to do, so Kari and Yuffie are left to their own devices. Grandma insists that the day is too pretty to be spent inside and so the girls find themselves traipsing through the royal garden. Lord Ansem is freakishly nice and welcomes them to come play, pokes his head out every now and then to check on them and occasionally send a runner for ice-cream.
“I believe you can never have too much ice-cream,” he says with a conspiratorial wink before returning to the Things Grown Ups Do.
The gardens are crazy; no sense of order what so ever. There are roses, dahlias, daises, and bamboo - just to name a few - and they’re all kind of smushed in together. You might find the white roses next to the lilacs and red roses over by the daffodils. Lord Ansem’s gardening motto falls something along the lines of “nature is not orderly” and his garden reflects it. But everything is still trim and well taken care of and constantly green so the human influence is obvious. Still, it’s an awesome place to play in. Yuffie likes to pretend they’re on a jungle excursion, hunting rare and wild animals, but when Kairi starts tearing up, she has to concede that it’s not hunting to Kill; just hunting to Study and Investigate. And maybe find a unicorn to ride, because that would just be Cool.
There comes a sound - a slight sound - the kind made by a young person shifting or touching something unexpectedly. Yuffie jumps, moves to shield Kairi; all she can think of are the shadows, coming to finish the job they started. She’s more than a little surprised when it’s a pair of light grey eyes staring back at her instead of the expected lantern bright ones. It’s someone Kairi recognizes, though; she gives a cry of joy and tumbles her way towards him, “Ienzo!”
Somehow Yuffie is not surprised. Kairi is one of those people that seems to make friends with everyone; you just can’t help but like her. Even with as little as they have in common, Yuffie loves her so much.
Ienzo is a Very Silent Child. Kairi does all the talking, translates his various head-tilts and eye-blinks into words. Yuffie decides the best game for the afternoon is trying to make Ienzo laugh. She cracks awful puns and jokes that go over everyone’s head, including her own, to no avail. Eventually, Lord Ansem arrives looking for the adopted boy.
He takes all three of them out for ice-cream.
-
Yuffie is riding on Lea’s shoulders, tugging his hair gently to make him change directions. She taps his chest with her left foot go faster and again with the right for slow down. Sometimes it’s hard to read these leg taps, since she has a tendency to full body flail and Lea runs with it, screams, “oh no, we’re out of control, hit the brakes, hit the brakes!” but Yuffie is laughing too hard to do anything beyond flop forward and squeeze the boy around the eyes. “Urf, hey Yuff, I can’t see!” Pretends to plow them into a nearby wall but Lea does this weird thing where he falls forward, just enough for Yuffie to go tumbling into his arms before he gives a defeated sigh and lands backwards, sprawled on the pretty (hard) cobblestones. “You are the worst driver ever, seriously. I don’t even think the word reckless has a space in your brain. Captain Cid would either love you and name you a prodigy or hate you and kick you out of class before orientation even started.”
Isa makes an amused noise. “You act like General Sephiroth would even let her get that far, as soon as her application slide across his desk it would be slide right back with no transplants stamped across the top.”
Lea nods in agreement, rolls Yuffie back up to his shoulders. “Commander Loire would be her best bet, but by the time she’s old enough to go to the school, they’ll make a new decree saying you have to be able to trace your family back three generations to Radiant Garden before you can even look at the qualifying school work, so he’ll just stare at her with those lost puppy eyes and go ‘I’m so sorry.’”
The boys do that a lot, mention how this captain would respond to something, or that lieutenant, or that crazy-colonel bastard that all of the female population and half the male swoon over.
Yuffie asked about it once, about why they seem to do know so much when they never seem to go to school. Isa had immediately locked down and looked away but Lea, Lea just laughed and gave her that Scary smile and said, “Now, now. Everyone has their secrets, yes, even you pipsqueak, and it’s not polite to ask,” ends the admonition with a tweak of her nose.
Kairi is seated on her own Isa-pony, who has managed a rather stately trot to stand besides the Lea-pony. “Time for a race!” declares Yuffie, tapping Lea hard on the chest. He doesn’t move and she frowns down at him. “Yah, mule!” But he’s staring off into the distance, ignoring the child on his shoulder who has started screaming “YOU ARE THE WORST PONY EVER!” at him and his best friend who, considerably calmer, waves a hand in front of him and says, “Earth to Lea?”
“What do you think he’s up to?” Lea jerks his head in the direction of one of the castle guards, posting something on the town notice board.
Isa frowns. “Dilan? No telling.”
They mill around pointlessly, it takes several promises of ice-cream to get Yuffie to shut up long enough and as soon as Dilan vacates the scene, they scurry over.
It’s not hard to figure out which sign it is that Dilan just posted. It’s huge, easily the size of four regular notices together; cream colored with an ornate loopy script on it.
“Read it out loud!” demands Yuffie. “I can’t understand that.” She gives a sharp yank on Lea’s hair to punctuate her Displeasure at this.
He winces beneath her. “It’s called cursive, you little imp.”
“It’s stupid.”
“Anyway,” says Isa. “It says a lot of stuff, but basically boils down to Radiant Garden isn’t Radiant Garden anymore.”
They all pause, letting that information soak in for a moment.
“Can they do that?” asks Kairi.
Lea snorts. “Well, they just did.”
Yuffie leans forward, squinting at the funny lettering. “So where do we live now?”
“Hollow Bastion.” Confirms Isa.
“Does it say why come?”
He shakes his head. “It just says per Lord Ansem, we are living in a new era and it is time we became a new people.”
Today is the annual Star Festival. It’s been explained in brief bits and chunks to Yuffie; the story of the five friends who went their separate ways to find their fortunes, but found each other again by following the star that guided them home. It’s a lovely story - no, really it is - but once they started explaining the food stalls and games at the festival, Yuffie really couldn’t care less about the legend.
It doesn’t even take any whining on her part; Isa and Lea readily agree to take the girls, which is great because Papa has Things to Do and Grandma is too tired. She manages to find time to sew new dresses for the girls, soft lavender for Kairi -along with a complimentary tie for Bun-Bun -and deep cobalt for Yuffie.
“It matches your eyes,” says Grandma. She slides a little star clip into Yuffie’s hair, straightens her collar out for her.
It’s nothing Yuffie would pick to wear herself; normally she can’t stand dresses, but it’s by far the nicest thing she owns nowadays, and there’s love tucked in with every stitch. So she wears it, and even manages to be happy about it, even if it does mean she can’t roll or tumble or climb all over Lea.
Grandma gives each of them a little pouch jingling with munny. “Have fun,” she says, “and bring me back the biggest stuffed animal you can carry!”
Isa and Lea show up, wearing the same grungy clothes they wear all the time. It’s kind of not fair, but Yuffie waits until they’re out of Grandma’s earshot to question it.
“Because, shrimp, we wouldn’t look nearly as precious in those dresses,” says Lea. He moves to ruffle her hair but pauses when he sees the hair clip. “Wow, it’s almost like you’re a real girl now!” (She kicks him in the shin for that.)
The festivities are set up in a field, just on the edge of the Garden (no, Yuffie thinks, the Bastion) and pressed up against the trees that mark the beginning of the forest. Yuffie is all energy at the counter where they receive their passes (little plastic red bracelets that will refuse to come off for days) and it’s all Lea can do to keep her with them. “Stay with the group, I don’t wanna have to explain to the high wazoo of Wutai that I lost his daughter.” He makes a face at her. “I guess I should be a responsible adult and hold your hand, huh?”
They come to an agreement. Lea wins a stuffed monkey at the first game they come to (tossing a ping-pong ball into a plastic cup. He shakes his finger severely at Yuffie and Kairi, “If we ever find out you’re good at this game, you’re going to be in so much trouble.”) and he holds on to one paw, and Yuffie’s hand is wrapped around the long tail. “You’re on your honor, kid. Don’t let me down.”
Yuffie thinks they must make quite the group, her and Lea clinging to a toy monkey and Isa and Kairi sharing Bun-Bun between them. But no one teases or hollers anything, and a vendor of spun sugar asks if Mr. Monkey or Mr. Bunny would like a stick of candy, so Yuffie feels confident that they’re among friends.
The whole evening passes in a sugar-induced blur. Yuffie has just started an internal debate about how much dignity she’s willing to sacrifice by asking Lea if he’d carry her back home when they stop abruptly. Yuffie looks around, blinking. “What happened to the lights?” The little patch of space they occupy is dark, and the sounds of merriment seem to be queerly muffled.
Isa frowns. “We need to turn back. The fairground ends here.”
Lea rolls his eyes. “Gimme a break. IfI don’t get away from all that noise for a few, I’m gonna go crazy.” He stretches his arms over his head and pauses to scratch at his hair. “Kind of freaky quiet, though, I guess.”
“Lea.”
“Seriously, Isa, chill out; even she’s not dumb enough to try anything during the Star Festival.”
Yuffie tugs at Lea’s hand. “Who are you guys talking about?”
He squats down next to her, still plucking at the stick of spun sugar, and says, “C’mon kid, you’ve heard about the bad fairy that lives in this neck of the woods. What’s her name? It’s something weird, even by fairy standards. Pernicia, Mediocre, something like that.”
“Maleficent,” says Kairi, her voice barely a whisper. All eyes turn towards her as she slips behind Isa’s leg and stares off at the dark patch in their little world of light. “Grandma said she came by the castle the other day. She poofed herself right into the middle of the hallway and demanded a meeting with Lord Ansem. Grandma says she’s up to no good, ‘cause that’s all she’s ever up to.”
Isa kneels down, tucks a strand of Kairi’s hair behind her ear. “She didn’t try to hurt you or Grandma, did she?” Kairi shakes her head, and holds Bun-Bun in front of her face. Isa turns towards Lea. “I thought Ansem had shields in place so you couldn’t teleport inside the castle grounds.”
“Grandma says some forces are too strong to be stopped by connectical means,” quotes Kairi.
Isa smiles at her. “Do you mean conventional?”
She nods her head emphatically, sending her hair into disarray again. “That’s what I said, connectical.”
Isa and Lea exchange a Look, a sliding flash of something secret that they aren’t letting the girls in on, and then Lea is clapping his hands, declaring it’s time for more funnel cake. “Let’s get going. C’mon, Yuf, I’ll race you!” He takes off without even calling go.
Yuffie squeaks, “That’s not fair, I’m in a dress!” She takes after him anyway, losing a shoe in the process and man, Grandma is going to be mad about that.
She hears Kairi call out behind her. “Look, a shooting star!” but by the time Yuffie thinks to glance up, the sky is still.
-
Papa is home today, wearing a frown of consternation. “I was told the Lord Ansem is indisposed today,” he tells Yuffie when she wakes up. “So I will not have any meetings.” She hesitates, looks longingly at the door. Papa laughs at her. “Go, kiyomo. Tell the little Kairi I say hello.”
It’s the same thing the next day, and the next.
-
Kairi and Yuffie are curled on the floor of the library, coloring the copied pictures Grandma found, no doubt remnants from some student’s project. The pictures aren’t the most interesting, as far the girls are concerned, lots of historical looking figures holding flags or muskets or boring things like that.
Grandma keeps picking up the same book, turns it over in her hand and sits it back on the stack. “Girls, did something happen at the festival?”
“Yuffie lost her shoe,” says Kairi, not even looking up from her coloring sheet.
“You promised not to tell!” gasps Yuffie.
Grandma smiles indulgently. “I already knew that, dears. What I mean is; did you and the boys get in a disagreement, or something along that line?”
The girls pause, look at each other and shake their head in unison. “Are they okay?” asks Kairi.
Grandma fiddles with the book again, turns to look out the window. “I’m sure they’re just being teenagers. Probably found something that caught their fancy and made them forget about an old lady and two little girls. They’ll be back in a few weeks, I’m sure of it.” She stands, yawning. “What do you say we call it a day and go find ourselves some cookies?”
-
Something strange is going on. The palace guards don’t smile at Yuffie anymore, or joke, or offer sweets. They are silent, oppressive, and the most she ever hears them say is “move along.”
She carries that flavor of Not Rightness with her into the library where Grandma is too busy trying to re-catalogue books from a study session to properly assuage her fears. “I’m sure they’re just tired.” Grandma says, immediately followed by, “And I think you girls have been locked up in here with these books for too long. Why don’t you go play in the garden today?”
“Can we play hide-and-seek?” asks Kairi, all but bouncing with excitement.
“Fine, but I count first!”
They don’t quite race to the doo. Yuffie knows she can out-strip Kairi and where’s the fun in that.
-
The garden isn’t in nearly as good a condition as it was when Yuffie first arrived: the grass is uneven and up to her knees, and there are weeds sprouting between the plants. Yuffie parks herself near the entrance, presses her hands over her eyes and leans against a nearby tree and counts out loud, tracking Kairi’s whereabouts by the sound of the kicked-up underbrush and quiet giggles slowly fading away.
“Ready or not, here I come!”She turns, coming face to face with Ienzo. He looks wrong, somehow. It’s not a physical change but there is an air about him and Yuffie doesn’t like it.
“Run,” he says. The first words she’s ever heard from him in all the months she’s known him and his voice is strange, a tone she can’t quite place and she wants to ponder it, but isn’t given the time. A mass of shadows surge forward,scrabbling across and around him, lunging right for Yuffie.
She doesn’t scream, doesn’t have time for it. She takes off running - feet slipping on the soft grass - in the direction she knows Kairi headed. Yuffie can’t fight them, not even if she had a weapon; it’s been weeks since she’s had anything approaching lessons and right now all she wants is to find her friend and escape. She cries out for Kairi, sliding around corners and trying to ignore the feel of sharp, cold claws on the back of her leg.
Kairi is pale, wide eyed, and clutching Bun-bun close to her chest. The shadows are dancing around her in a tight little circle, not quite sure what to do with her just yet. Yuffie rounds the corner just as the shadows pounce, swarming over Kairi. There is a scream cut short, a bright light, and then both the shadows and the girl are gone. All that remains is the stuffed rabbit; pale and well-loved and still smelling faintly of vanilla.
Yuffie picks Bun-bun up, holds him tight against her, takes half a second to breathe in the smell of Kairi, and takes off running again. She’s not sure where she’s going to go; the shadows are everywhere. She can hear the scratch of claws against trees and leaves and soft ground. She slams into the door leading into the castle proper, doesn’t bother closing it behind her. Doors do not deter these things, nothing deters these things, and Yuffie wonders how long one can be expected to out-run death.
The castle is in pandemonium. There is the sound of screams, of things breaking and people dying. Yuffie wants to get away - needs to get away - runs down the hall, dodging bodies and shadows and doors being flung open. She throws herself into the wall, bounces off and shoots down the next hallway. She is blind with panic, doesn’t now where she’s going, she’s never been in this wing of the castle, and all she can do is run, run, keep running little rabbit.
Someone collapses in front of her, beaten and bloody, and reaches out to grab her by the cheeks. “The world is ending,” he wheezes, right before a shadow alights on his chest and daintily plucks his heart from beneath his ribs.
She’s never seen a death before, never imagined it anything like this; she watches horror stricken as the man’s body shrivels and blackens and then, another shadow crawls from the carcass. The heart has disappeared, the original shadow scurried away, and this new one watches Yuffie with lantern bright eyes.
She screams then, long and piercing and she can’t run anymore, what’s the point anyway? So she screams and waits for death to claim her.
It doesn’t.
Yuffie is more than a little confused when she finds herself swept up in strong arms. It’s a girl in the Academy uniform, one Yuffie’s never met before, but the girl takes a moment to smile down reassuringly at her. “Hi there!” she chirps, “I’m Tifa.” Twists around and kicks out at one of the shadows. “And who might you be?”
“Y-Yuffie.”
“And who is that you’re holding?”
Yuffie looks down at the bunny rabbit squished tightly between Tifa and herself. “He’s Bun-bun.”
Tifa hums, punching out a shadow with her free hand while managing to keep Yuffie cradled safely against her chest; and yea, the ride is a little bumpy. Still, Yuffie has a great view and these things don’t stand a chance and how is this girl even moving, Yuffie’s never seen a girl shaped quite as dramatically as Tifa. But she is, moving. A lot, in fact, and when Tifa executes a back flip and lands on top of one of the shadows Yuffie is just on the verge of professing her undying love to the older girl when she hears a semi-familiar voice.
It’s Aerith, standing at the end of the hall with Rinoa and Rinoa’s dog, Angelo. Aerith smiles and waves them over.
They reach Rinoa and Aerith safely. Aerith’s hands glow green and she gives Tifa and Yuffie a compulsory pat-down, Yuffie feels something on the back of her leg tingle a little but by the time she turns to look, there’s nothing to see.
“Just a scratch,” Aerith sighs.
Rinoa is shooting down the hall, gives a muttered noise that may be something along the lines of great to hear nobody’s limbs are falling off yet. She flicks one wrist and Angelo leaps forward, snapping at any shadows he thinks is getting too close.
“We need to regroup with the others,” says Rinoa, backing up slowly.
Tifa, who hasn’t bothered putting Yuffie down yet, round-houses another shadow into dust - she’s coated now with a thin, tacky black film - and nods in agreement.
The courtyard is hardly in better shape than the castle proper, Yuffie can see buildings on fire in the distance, taste the acrid smoke in her mouth. There is a scraggily group of teenagers, most unknown to Yuffie but she quickly picks out Zack and Zell.
Zell is practically dancing in place, shifting his weight from foot to foot every few minutes and shadow boxing at nothing in particular. He takes in the girls as they exit the castle and swears under his breath. “Where’s the guards? Where’s Lord Ansem? What the heck is going on here?”
Yuffie looks back at the building they just vacated, watches as someone flings themselves out of a fourth floor window, and thinks, was Papa in there?
Rinoa says they can’t leave, not yet, they have to stay. “It’s part of our duty, as students of the Academy.” There’s a grumbled dissent throughout the ranks, and a great many eyes on Yuffie, watching carefully.
She stands a little straighter, drops Bun-bun to her side. “I’m not leaving without Papa.”
And all those people, all these Mostly Strangers smile at her. Like they know her, like they expected her to say that, expected her to stand with them despite the fact that she’s only barely six. Rinoa leans over, pulls a small dagger out of the side of her boot, offers it to Yuffie. “Can you hold onto this? If those things come at you, cut at them with it, okay?”
It’s not pretty enough to be decoration. It’s an ugly, self-sharpened thing, a little too big for her tiny hands, but Yuffie can adjust to it quickly; one thing she’s good at is weapons, and she grins at Rinoa. She moves Bun-bun behind her, protectively.
She couldn’t save Kairi, but she can keep Bun-bun safe.
Zack and another boy - someone named Squall - are dispatched to the guardhouse to see if there’s anyone left who can claim command, and given a long string of instructions about What To Do if Not, none of which Yuffie really pays attention to. She’s too busy shifting the knife in her hand, trying to get a feel for it.
It’s Rinoa and Zell who volunteer to head back into the castle, to check for survivors. Angelo stays obediently with Aerith, Tifa, and Yuffie, pacing impatiently as his master scales the long staircase and disappears through the front door. They are all tense, wound tight; waiting for something, anything to happen. Waiting for their friends to return, empty handed or otherwise, all unprepared for the truth of the situation.
Someone calls out from below, from beyond the castle gates, and it’s a voice Yuffie is intimately familiar with. She takes off, ignores Aerith’s shout of alarm, and all but slams into the barred gate.
“Papa!”
Papa stumbles forward, his face tacky with black dust and sweat.
“Kiyomo,” he breathes, grasping Yuffie’s hand through the gate. “You are alive.” There are gouges in his face, his arms, blood sticking to his tunic.
Yuffie grips his hand, swallowing back tears. “Aerith! Aerith, come quick! Papa needs help!”
The healer trips her way down to them and makes quick work of Papa’s injuries. “What’s going on out there?” she asks as the spell fades away.
Papa shakes his head. “It’s mayhem, death everywhere. My people are all gone.” He looks away, back towards the shanty town. “All I accomplished was delaying their deaths by these creatures.”
“There’s still hope,” says Aerith, gently. “We can fight back.”
Something shutters shut in Papa’s eyes. “I have never seen a more futile battle. I will not risk my daughter again, and I urge you not to risk yourself. Come with us; you have been kind to my kiyomo. Perhaps we can escape this place.”
“Thank you for the offer, sir, but my friends are still inside.”
“Then I wish you the best of luck and hope that we may meet again.” Papa looks towards Yuffie. “Come, kiyomo, I will not see this place as your grave, too.”
Aerith gives her a brief hug and a kiss on her forehead. “Be safe,” she whispers before Yuffie scales the gate. It’s tall, but an easy climb and she only gets hung up once at the very top when the ornate decoration there catches the back of her shorts.
Papa can’t carry her, the creatures are too numerous and he has to fight to clear a path for them. “Stay close, Yuffie,” he says, just before charging forward. Papa’s moves are controlled, precise. There is no wasted energy and he moves forward, confident that Yuffie is nearby.
She is, of course she is, clipping along behind Papa as close as she dares. A nervous energy has settled in her belly, she never imagined it would be like this. Battles, war (massacre), it had all seemed so much… cleaner in her head. But it’s not, it’s really, really not and there is so much noise, chaos and Yuffie doesn’t think she’s ever going to get the smell of charred flesh out of her system.
Papa pauses at a clear intersection, turns to her with a smile. “Are you alright, kiyomo?” She nods, too exhausted to speak and he smiles at her, eyes full of affection. “We’ll be okay, don’t worry.”
Then, the creature attacks.
Yuffie has no idea what it is, some sort of malformed floating ball of darkness. It plows into Papa, propels him backwards, through an already fractured storefront. The dark ball glows violent and slams itself so hard into the building that it collapses.
“Papa.” She means to scream but can’t seem to find the air. Yuffie trips forward, touches the rubble that was moments ago whole.
He’s going to rip through the rubble, any minute now. He has to, because he’s Papa and he can’t leave her. He can’t. He can’t but everything is still and she doesn’t even know where to begin.
Bun-bun slips from her numb fingers. She trips forward in stilted moves, waiting for Papa to rise from the destruction because this isn’t real. This isn’t.
She doesn’t scream or fall into hysterics, just talks quietly to herself; a stream of nonsense and she’s crying, but she can’t really feel it and the stupid building won’t move. She’s too small, the chunks are too big, she’s just not strong enough, she’s just not enough.
Yuffie is picked up again, not nearly as gently this time, and the person that has her practically squishes her against his side. She can’t see much, he’s holding her under his arm and running. All she can see is the road behind them, the dwindling pile that covers Papa’s body and then she realizes what’s happening.
She screams, kicks, flails and tries to twist around to bite the person holding her. “Papa!” she does scream now, so hard the word almost doesn’t make it out. “Papa!” but the person doesn’t stop running, doesn’t even acknowledge her protests. Just keeps moving with a steady gate, long practiced, and even breath. It’s like he’s running in a marathon or something, not running for his life with a strange young child tucked under one arm.
There’s a weapon flashing in his other hand, a massive sword thing that he doesn’t bother trying to holster - and really, Yuffie can’t imagine what kind of holster would fit it anyhow - just swings it back and forth, back and forth, occasionally cutting down a shadow in his path with it. She’s still screaming at him, obscene things and some things that she thinks she may have just made up but he still ignores her, which just makes her angrier.
Something is coming; the ground shakes and Yuffie can taste a darkness in the air, thicker than it was just previously. The shadows are still coming, but now there are new things mixed in, things that fly with broad wings and a strange symbol on their chest. They look a little like dragons, she thinks, the ones from the picture books. The dragon swoops down and she has no time to cry out a warning to the boy carrying her before it grabs him by the shoulders.
He drops Yuffie and she hits the ground awkwardly, jarring something in her arm. The boy swings his sword wildly over his head - she sees now it was that boy from earlier, Squall - and the dragon tosses him farther in the air, catching him on the descent. It’s playing with him, she realizes sickly, like a cat batting around a mouse before he eats it. The dragon throws Squall again, kicking its feet in his face and letting him fall a little closer to the ground before catching him again.
Yuffie lost the dagger Rinoa gave her, probably somewhere back with Papa, so she snatches at a rock and throws it; pegging the dragon right in the head.
“Leave him alone, stupid!” Her throat is sore, her voice hoarse. She feels a tight knot of anger at the boy and she wants to keep it focused there and she can’t do that if he gets eaten.
The dragon growls, dives for her. Its mouth is open, the boy flailing behind it. Yuffie tries to face this death unnerved, forces her eyes to stay open and clenches her small fists tightly closed
She is more than a little surprised when the dragon explodes in a cloud of dust and Squall drops unceremoniously on his head, his sword clanking to the ground somewhere nearby.
There is Aerith and Tifa some yards away. Aerith’s mouth is open in a little o of surprise, the remnants of a fireball spell still flicking across her fingers. Tifa gives a whoop of joy and comes running over to check on the others.
“Good to see you again,” she chirps at Yuffie. “Are you alright?” Yuffie nods, struck mute by the events of the last few minutes. Tifa gives her a nod and turns to Squall. “Cadet Leonhart, right?” She frowns at what she sees, rips her bow off and dabs it against his face. “You got a pretty nasty scratch there. Any potions on you?”
Squall presses the bow-rag to his forehead, mumbles a quiet no and Yuffie watches as his face goes chalky pale and he leans over to vomit. Tifa winces sympathetically, pats his back and all Yuffie can do is stare off in the distance, the way they had come, wonder if her father is still alive.
Tifa ushers Aerith over to come heal things up when the ground rumbles and splits. A great horned beast comes crawling out of the crack, growling lowly at them.
“We need to move!” shouts Squall. He can’t walk on his own, so Tifa loops his arm over her shoulder and helps him stumble away. His sword is still on the ground, clattering gently with the force of the beast’s steps. Yuffie doesn’t want to save it; she wants him to lose something and hurt and wonder about the way things could be Different if it was still in his life.
But even if he did let her father die, he saved her and Yuffie feels compelled not to owe him. The stupid thing is too heavy for her to pick up, let alone carry, so she ends up dragging it behind her. It makes an awful noise, metal on stone and she has to grit her teeth against it.
It’s only when they get to where they’re going that she realizes the awful truth: she’s lost Bun-bun. He’s too far away though, back at the wreckage that now houses her father’s body. Tifa won’t let her run back for it, holds her back and Yuffie is back to thrashing and screaming and this is it, this is the last of everything.
They’re in the very center of town, a small depression and the buildings swarm up around them. There is the unmistakable hiss and clatter of claws, coming towards them, seeking out their hearts.
“What now?” slurs Squall, still bleeding copiously from his face wound.
They fold back, press into a tight little triangle, Yuffie braced in front of Tifa, Squall’s sword still hanging loosely from her hands.
“We agreed to meet here,” says Tifa. “We said we’d save who we could and then we’d rendezvous here.” She tightens her grip on Yuffie’s shoulder, it’s just a reflex, but Yuffie can feel the bruises already forming and doesn’t quite have the heart to tell her it hurts.
There comes, as if from a great distance, the whine of an engine. They are all in mild shock as a disgustingly colorful little ship peeks over the eaves of the houses and heads in their direction. The ship’s intercom crackles to life. “Ya’ll need a lift?”
Aerith waves enthusiastically as Tifa calls out, “Captain Highwind!”
“Heartilly and Dincht found me said there should be some people gathering here lookin’ fer a ride outta town.”
Which is great, really, the best news anybody has heard all day. Except Rinoa and Zell are nowhere to be seen.
“We have to wait for them,” says Aerith, bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she looks around anxiously.
“No can do, girlie. This is the appointed time, and I ain’t stickin’ around a whole helluva lot longer.”
“Those are our friends, we can’t leave them!”
“Lookit,” snaps Captain Highwind. “I ain’t anymore fond of this than you, but those cadets knew what they were getting into. Now start moving your asses on board. I can give them that long to get here.”
They try to delay as much as they can, shuffling feet and moving slowly, but the shadow creatures are closing in and it’s not just the small ones. Those strange flying ones, the great big ones that makes sparks off the edge of their feet just by existing, and more. Shadows dressed like soldiers, great fat things that repel everything thrown at them and stare around stupidly, like they forgot what they’re there for.
There’s too many of them with no sign of Rinoa or Zell or even Angelo; Aerith tries whistling for the dog several times and nothing comes.
Captain Highwind finally loses patience with them, belts out a string of swear words worse than anything Yuffie’s ever heard from Lea. He tilts the aircraft and sends out something that looks like a giant crane arm that snatches them right off the ground and drops them, unceremoniously, inside the ship.
Tifa and Aerith are instantly distracted by a vaguely blond lump in the back of the craft who is staring, blank-eyed at nothing.
From the way Tifa and Aerith keep muttering “Cloud” at him, Yuffie guesses that’s his name. He won’t respond to anything and Aerith has already half drained her healing abilities before she remembers Squall. He’s at the front of the craft, arguing with Cid, his face closed-off and stormy, his words never shouted but they can hear him rumbling darkly throughout the tiny ship.
Captain Highwind hits a few buttons and they are informed via a robotic voice that all the air-locks are now sealed. It’s obviously exactly what Squall didn’t want to hear. He lets his displeasure be known by slamming an unhappy fist into the side of the craft.
There is a sudden upsweep, and Yuffie’s stomach feels like it’s dropped somewhere around her knees. A shouted warning to “hold on ter yer hats, kiddies!” and just like that, Hollow Bastion is zooming away. They’re gifted a brief bird’s eye view of the carnage that lay below before they are too high to see anything.
There is an eerie silence as everyone realizes exactly where they are: space. There is no Bastion, there’s not even a planet. They watch, with nothing else to do, as the world they knew blackens and crumbles away.
It seems to Yuffie that she will never get the taste of “refugee” out of her mouth.
Squall’s cuts are fairly awful; three long gashes that cut diagonally across his forehead, over the bridge of his nose, and skate across his cheek. It’s a miracle he didn’t lose an eye, and Aerith doesn’t hesitate to tell him so.
“I’m just an apprentice healer,” she warns, touching one hand to the outer cuts. By the time she’s finished, she’s pale and shaking but the wounds are healed perfectly over. She moves on to the center one, the worst one, with one hand placed at either end of it.
“It’s fine,” says Squall. Aerith is about to protest when he waves her off. “It’s fine.” Two words with an edge sharp enough to cut. Yuffie hates him a little more in that instant, stares at him hard to try and catch his head on fire.
Aerith kneels next to him, places a gentle hand on his knee. “I’m so sorry, Squall.” He stands up, ignores her, and walks away. The ship isn’t too big so there isn’t far to go, but he stands in the little doorway leading to the cockpit. As clear a dismissal as any that might exist.
Captain Highwind tries the little radio on his console, spits a bunch of lingo that Yuffie can’t pretend to understand, and waits for the white noise to fill with a different kind of silence. Nobody responds. If there are any other vessels that made it out, they can’t get in contact with one another.
Tifa has Cloud’s head cradled in her lap. She cards her fingers through his hair, hums nonsense things to him. Yuffie stares at him and he has yet to blink. She has, several times, because her eyes have watered up and she couldn’t handle it anymore, but he just lets his eyes leak out; not quite crying, not responding to anything.
They are a broken little group. Everyone is too physically and mentally exhausted to talk much. Tifa falls asleep in her sitting position, one hand still tangled in Cloud’s hair. Nobody can tell if he’s asleep or not; he’s still breathing but that doesn’t mean much anymore. Aerith curls up close by them; she passed Yuffie her healer’s robe as a blanket earlier in the evening, and she’s fast asleep with her head on Tifa’s shoulder.
Yuffie is bundled up in the robe, hood pulled low over her head. She breathes in and out quietly, trying to suppress the shudder running through her body. She’s cold, that’s all. It’s just the cold and this strange place and these strange people and the fact that everything and everyone she has ever known or loved or even thought about fondly is dead now and she was completely useless to save them. But she’s not crying. She’s a ninja of Wutai. Papa told her so, and ninjas don’t cry.
Squall is still standing in the doorway to the cockpit, still wide awake; and Cid is, too, even if he’s scrubbing at his eyes a lot and muttering dark words under his breath. Once in a while he talks to himself, sits up and looks around and says things like, “What the fuck do we do now?”
Part Three
Some days, Aerith picks Yuffie up from her new dwellings, talks to her on the way to the castle and deposits her with a fond, “have fun!” at the doors of the library and there is no Kairi, just Grandma.
The first time this happened, Yuffie stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of what she should do. Then Grandma looked up from the book she was mending and said, “Oh good, you’re here!” She ushered Yuffie over with an enthusiastic wave of the hand. “I was wondering if you would tell me about Wutai, and let me write it down.”
It becomes a ritual for them - on those rare days that Kairi is mysteriously absent - for Yuffie to babble and swing off the stair railings and tell Grandma everything she can remember about Wutai. How the air was always cool, a little thin, the sky a blue so light it was almost white. How they raised sheep which ran rampant all over the compound because the boy who was supposed to herd them was awful at it, but everyone loved the sheep and they didn’t really do anything bad, so nobody ever fussed. She tells Grandma about Mama and her silk tapestries and Sobo and her love of tea and old maps; about Yuri and Norio and the training hall.
Sometimes, Yuffie cries when she’s trying to relay all this information. It’s never where she expects it to be, never over Mama or Yuri or anything obvious. It’s over the little things, the moment when she tells Grandma about the hallway leading to Mama’s room, or the stupid little shrubby garden, and just like that, she’s crying. It’s the great, big, ugly cries, the ones that steal your breath and hurt your throat and jaw and no matter what you do, you can’t seem to stop.
Grandma just lays her pen down, scoops Yuffie into her lap and pets her hair. “It’s alright, sweet thing, it’s all right.”
-
Yuffie is at the fence that separates Little Wutai -an awful joke from the natives- from the rest of the Garden, waiting for her morning pick up. Several of the Academy students pass by, waving good morning to Yuffie. “Where’s Aerith?” she calls out.
“She should be along soon. Don’t worry, squirt!” said Zack with a grin.
The person who eventually shows up is most Definitely Not Aerith. He smiles at Yuffie, all teeth, and rocks on the balls of his feet. “So you’re munchkin’s friend, huh? Name’s Lea, let’s go.”
Yuffie takes a big step back, crosses her arms and says, “You’re not Aerith.”
“Wow, kid. You are truly astounding with the deductive reasoning. No, I’m not ponytail, but thanks for pointing that out; it’s good to know incase I suddenly get an identity crisis and think I’m the crazy healer chick with too much hair that I am, in fact, not. Now, if we’re done, let’s go.”
Yuffie moves back again. “No. You’re not Aerith and I’m not going with you.”
Lea swipes a hand through his hair and makes a face at her. “You’re not gonna make this easy, are you, kid?”
Ten minutes later, the stand-off has reached epic proportions that have sent nearby pedestrians scurrying the other direction. This boy, this Lea has called Yuffie everything from a dirty little pumpkin seed (what kind of insult is that supposed to be) to a trout with legs. (what he hasn’t called her is refugee or homeless or orphan and the distinction is stamped into Yuffie’s mind.)
She’s returned the favor by shouting things ranging from booger brain to mud-clumps and throws in a few words in her native Wutai (she calls him soup, at one point but he doesn’t know the difference so the look of outrage is completely worth it.)
“What on earth are you two doing?”
They both glare at the newcomer for daring to interrupt and Yuffie sees a tiny familiar face clinging to his pant-leg. Kairi peeks at her from behind Bun-Bun, whispers, “You said bad words.”
And this is how Yuffie met Lea and Isa.
-
Isa and Lea are something of errand runners for Grandma. It turns out that one day, Kairi was separated from Grandma, too busy watching the reflected world in a rain-puddle - it was Isa and Lea that found her. Lea, of course, told her all sorts of wild things: that there was another world on the other side of the puddle, that clouds were really just condensed sighs from kids bored in school, that the moon is really a giant hunk of cheese and every month a huge mouse spirit in the sky eats it all up and a new cheese-moon takes its place.
Yuffie kind of loves Lea for his stories. They become fast friends after Kairi gives him her seal of approval and Yuffie spends many afternoons climbing up his back, perching on his shoulders as they bicker back and forth. She still loves Kairi, no question about it, is fiercely protective of the younger girl; but so are Isa and Lea.
Isa is almost always lagging behind, walking sedately with Kairi in hand. Kairi talks quietly to him, and he smiles and nods and responds in kind. It’s a strange little family they’ve formed, the four of them, but Yuffie desperately looks forward to their time together.
-
The boys are not allowed in the castle. There’s some sort of awful dispute between them and the castle guards, Yuffie doesn’t quite get it - just knows that there is a lot of Hostility between them when the boys drop her off at the castle in the evening. Lots of glaring from the guards and sneering from the boys, but Yuffie doesn’t mind. It’s just the Way Things Are. Then Dilan will give her a little bow and walk her to whatever meeting room Papa is hiding in that day. (They walk home together, which is pretty much the only time Yuffie sees Papa anymore.)
-
Today they are not with the boys; they had Other Things to do, so Kari and Yuffie are left to their own devices. Grandma insists that the day is too pretty to be spent inside and so the girls find themselves traipsing through the royal garden. Lord Ansem is freakishly nice and welcomes them to come play, pokes his head out every now and then to check on them and occasionally send a runner for ice-cream.
“I believe you can never have too much ice-cream,” he says with a conspiratorial wink before returning to the Things Grown Ups Do.
The gardens are crazy; no sense of order what so ever. There are roses, dahlias, daises, and bamboo - just to name a few - and they’re all kind of smushed in together. You might find the white roses next to the lilacs and red roses over by the daffodils. Lord Ansem’s gardening motto falls something along the lines of “nature is not orderly” and his garden reflects it. But everything is still trim and well taken care of and constantly green so the human influence is obvious. Still, it’s an awesome place to play in. Yuffie likes to pretend they’re on a jungle excursion, hunting rare and wild animals, but when Kairi starts tearing up, she has to concede that it’s not hunting to Kill; just hunting to Study and Investigate. And maybe find a unicorn to ride, because that would just be Cool.
There comes a sound - a slight sound - the kind made by a young person shifting or touching something unexpectedly. Yuffie jumps, moves to shield Kairi; all she can think of are the shadows, coming to finish the job they started. She’s more than a little surprised when it’s a pair of light grey eyes staring back at her instead of the expected lantern bright ones. It’s someone Kairi recognizes, though; she gives a cry of joy and tumbles her way towards him, “Ienzo!”
Somehow Yuffie is not surprised. Kairi is one of those people that seems to make friends with everyone; you just can’t help but like her. Even with as little as they have in common, Yuffie loves her so much.
Ienzo is a Very Silent Child. Kairi does all the talking, translates his various head-tilts and eye-blinks into words. Yuffie decides the best game for the afternoon is trying to make Ienzo laugh. She cracks awful puns and jokes that go over everyone’s head, including her own, to no avail. Eventually, Lord Ansem arrives looking for the adopted boy.
He takes all three of them out for ice-cream.
-
Yuffie is riding on Lea’s shoulders, tugging his hair gently to make him change directions. She taps his chest with her left foot go faster and again with the right for slow down. Sometimes it’s hard to read these leg taps, since she has a tendency to full body flail and Lea runs with it, screams, “oh no, we’re out of control, hit the brakes, hit the brakes!” but Yuffie is laughing too hard to do anything beyond flop forward and squeeze the boy around the eyes. “Urf, hey Yuff, I can’t see!” Pretends to plow them into a nearby wall but Lea does this weird thing where he falls forward, just enough for Yuffie to go tumbling into his arms before he gives a defeated sigh and lands backwards, sprawled on the pretty (hard) cobblestones. “You are the worst driver ever, seriously. I don’t even think the word reckless has a space in your brain. Captain Cid would either love you and name you a prodigy or hate you and kick you out of class before orientation even started.”
Isa makes an amused noise. “You act like General Sephiroth would even let her get that far, as soon as her application slide across his desk it would be slide right back with no transplants stamped across the top.”
Lea nods in agreement, rolls Yuffie back up to his shoulders. “Commander Loire would be her best bet, but by the time she’s old enough to go to the school, they’ll make a new decree saying you have to be able to trace your family back three generations to Radiant Garden before you can even look at the qualifying school work, so he’ll just stare at her with those lost puppy eyes and go ‘I’m so sorry.’”
The boys do that a lot, mention how this captain would respond to something, or that lieutenant, or that crazy-colonel bastard that all of the female population and half the male swoon over.
Yuffie asked about it once, about why they seem to do know so much when they never seem to go to school. Isa had immediately locked down and looked away but Lea, Lea just laughed and gave her that Scary smile and said, “Now, now. Everyone has their secrets, yes, even you pipsqueak, and it’s not polite to ask,” ends the admonition with a tweak of her nose.
Kairi is seated on her own Isa-pony, who has managed a rather stately trot to stand besides the Lea-pony. “Time for a race!” declares Yuffie, tapping Lea hard on the chest. He doesn’t move and she frowns down at him. “Yah, mule!” But he’s staring off into the distance, ignoring the child on his shoulder who has started screaming “YOU ARE THE WORST PONY EVER!” at him and his best friend who, considerably calmer, waves a hand in front of him and says, “Earth to Lea?”
“What do you think he’s up to?” Lea jerks his head in the direction of one of the castle guards, posting something on the town notice board.
Isa frowns. “Dilan? No telling.”
They mill around pointlessly, it takes several promises of ice-cream to get Yuffie to shut up long enough and as soon as Dilan vacates the scene, they scurry over.
It’s not hard to figure out which sign it is that Dilan just posted. It’s huge, easily the size of four regular notices together; cream colored with an ornate loopy script on it.
“Read it out loud!” demands Yuffie. “I can’t understand that.” She gives a sharp yank on Lea’s hair to punctuate her Displeasure at this.
He winces beneath her. “It’s called cursive, you little imp.”
“It’s stupid.”
“Anyway,” says Isa. “It says a lot of stuff, but basically boils down to Radiant Garden isn’t Radiant Garden anymore.”
They all pause, letting that information soak in for a moment.
“Can they do that?” asks Kairi.
Lea snorts. “Well, they just did.”
Yuffie leans forward, squinting at the funny lettering. “So where do we live now?”
“Hollow Bastion.” Confirms Isa.
“Does it say why come?”
He shakes his head. “It just says per Lord Ansem, we are living in a new era and it is time we became a new people.”
Today is the annual Star Festival. It’s been explained in brief bits and chunks to Yuffie; the story of the five friends who went their separate ways to find their fortunes, but found each other again by following the star that guided them home. It’s a lovely story - no, really it is - but once they started explaining the food stalls and games at the festival, Yuffie really couldn’t care less about the legend.
It doesn’t even take any whining on her part; Isa and Lea readily agree to take the girls, which is great because Papa has Things to Do and Grandma is too tired. She manages to find time to sew new dresses for the girls, soft lavender for Kairi -along with a complimentary tie for Bun-Bun -and deep cobalt for Yuffie.
“It matches your eyes,” says Grandma. She slides a little star clip into Yuffie’s hair, straightens her collar out for her.
It’s nothing Yuffie would pick to wear herself; normally she can’t stand dresses, but it’s by far the nicest thing she owns nowadays, and there’s love tucked in with every stitch. So she wears it, and even manages to be happy about it, even if it does mean she can’t roll or tumble or climb all over Lea.
Grandma gives each of them a little pouch jingling with munny. “Have fun,” she says, “and bring me back the biggest stuffed animal you can carry!”
Isa and Lea show up, wearing the same grungy clothes they wear all the time. It’s kind of not fair, but Yuffie waits until they’re out of Grandma’s earshot to question it.
“Because, shrimp, we wouldn’t look nearly as precious in those dresses,” says Lea. He moves to ruffle her hair but pauses when he sees the hair clip. “Wow, it’s almost like you’re a real girl now!” (She kicks him in the shin for that.)
The festivities are set up in a field, just on the edge of the Garden (no, Yuffie thinks, the Bastion) and pressed up against the trees that mark the beginning of the forest. Yuffie is all energy at the counter where they receive their passes (little plastic red bracelets that will refuse to come off for days) and it’s all Lea can do to keep her with them. “Stay with the group, I don’t wanna have to explain to the high wazoo of Wutai that I lost his daughter.” He makes a face at her. “I guess I should be a responsible adult and hold your hand, huh?”
They come to an agreement. Lea wins a stuffed monkey at the first game they come to (tossing a ping-pong ball into a plastic cup. He shakes his finger severely at Yuffie and Kairi, “If we ever find out you’re good at this game, you’re going to be in so much trouble.”) and he holds on to one paw, and Yuffie’s hand is wrapped around the long tail. “You’re on your honor, kid. Don’t let me down.”
Yuffie thinks they must make quite the group, her and Lea clinging to a toy monkey and Isa and Kairi sharing Bun-Bun between them. But no one teases or hollers anything, and a vendor of spun sugar asks if Mr. Monkey or Mr. Bunny would like a stick of candy, so Yuffie feels confident that they’re among friends.
The whole evening passes in a sugar-induced blur. Yuffie has just started an internal debate about how much dignity she’s willing to sacrifice by asking Lea if he’d carry her back home when they stop abruptly. Yuffie looks around, blinking. “What happened to the lights?” The little patch of space they occupy is dark, and the sounds of merriment seem to be queerly muffled.
Isa frowns. “We need to turn back. The fairground ends here.”
Lea rolls his eyes. “Gimme a break. IfI don’t get away from all that noise for a few, I’m gonna go crazy.” He stretches his arms over his head and pauses to scratch at his hair. “Kind of freaky quiet, though, I guess.”
“Lea.”
“Seriously, Isa, chill out; even she’s not dumb enough to try anything during the Star Festival.”
Yuffie tugs at Lea’s hand. “Who are you guys talking about?”
He squats down next to her, still plucking at the stick of spun sugar, and says, “C’mon kid, you’ve heard about the bad fairy that lives in this neck of the woods. What’s her name? It’s something weird, even by fairy standards. Pernicia, Mediocre, something like that.”
“Maleficent,” says Kairi, her voice barely a whisper. All eyes turn towards her as she slips behind Isa’s leg and stares off at the dark patch in their little world of light. “Grandma said she came by the castle the other day. She poofed herself right into the middle of the hallway and demanded a meeting with Lord Ansem. Grandma says she’s up to no good, ‘cause that’s all she’s ever up to.”
Isa kneels down, tucks a strand of Kairi’s hair behind her ear. “She didn’t try to hurt you or Grandma, did she?” Kairi shakes her head, and holds Bun-Bun in front of her face. Isa turns towards Lea. “I thought Ansem had shields in place so you couldn’t teleport inside the castle grounds.”
“Grandma says some forces are too strong to be stopped by connectical means,” quotes Kairi.
Isa smiles at her. “Do you mean conventional?”
She nods her head emphatically, sending her hair into disarray again. “That’s what I said, connectical.”
Isa and Lea exchange a Look, a sliding flash of something secret that they aren’t letting the girls in on, and then Lea is clapping his hands, declaring it’s time for more funnel cake. “Let’s get going. C’mon, Yuf, I’ll race you!” He takes off without even calling go.
Yuffie squeaks, “That’s not fair, I’m in a dress!” She takes after him anyway, losing a shoe in the process and man, Grandma is going to be mad about that.
She hears Kairi call out behind her. “Look, a shooting star!” but by the time Yuffie thinks to glance up, the sky is still.
-
Papa is home today, wearing a frown of consternation. “I was told the Lord Ansem is indisposed today,” he tells Yuffie when she wakes up. “So I will not have any meetings.” She hesitates, looks longingly at the door. Papa laughs at her. “Go, kiyomo. Tell the little Kairi I say hello.”
It’s the same thing the next day, and the next.
-
Kairi and Yuffie are curled on the floor of the library, coloring the copied pictures Grandma found, no doubt remnants from some student’s project. The pictures aren’t the most interesting, as far the girls are concerned, lots of historical looking figures holding flags or muskets or boring things like that.
Grandma keeps picking up the same book, turns it over in her hand and sits it back on the stack. “Girls, did something happen at the festival?”
“Yuffie lost her shoe,” says Kairi, not even looking up from her coloring sheet.
“You promised not to tell!” gasps Yuffie.
Grandma smiles indulgently. “I already knew that, dears. What I mean is; did you and the boys get in a disagreement, or something along that line?”
The girls pause, look at each other and shake their head in unison. “Are they okay?” asks Kairi.
Grandma fiddles with the book again, turns to look out the window. “I’m sure they’re just being teenagers. Probably found something that caught their fancy and made them forget about an old lady and two little girls. They’ll be back in a few weeks, I’m sure of it.” She stands, yawning. “What do you say we call it a day and go find ourselves some cookies?”
-
Something strange is going on. The palace guards don’t smile at Yuffie anymore, or joke, or offer sweets. They are silent, oppressive, and the most she ever hears them say is “move along.”
She carries that flavor of Not Rightness with her into the library where Grandma is too busy trying to re-catalogue books from a study session to properly assuage her fears. “I’m sure they’re just tired.” Grandma says, immediately followed by, “And I think you girls have been locked up in here with these books for too long. Why don’t you go play in the garden today?”
“Can we play hide-and-seek?” asks Kairi, all but bouncing with excitement.
“Fine, but I count first!”
They don’t quite race to the doo. Yuffie knows she can out-strip Kairi and where’s the fun in that.
-
The garden isn’t in nearly as good a condition as it was when Yuffie first arrived: the grass is uneven and up to her knees, and there are weeds sprouting between the plants. Yuffie parks herself near the entrance, presses her hands over her eyes and leans against a nearby tree and counts out loud, tracking Kairi’s whereabouts by the sound of the kicked-up underbrush and quiet giggles slowly fading away.
“Ready or not, here I come!”She turns, coming face to face with Ienzo. He looks wrong, somehow. It’s not a physical change but there is an air about him and Yuffie doesn’t like it.
“Run,” he says. The first words she’s ever heard from him in all the months she’s known him and his voice is strange, a tone she can’t quite place and she wants to ponder it, but isn’t given the time. A mass of shadows surge forward,scrabbling across and around him, lunging right for Yuffie.
She doesn’t scream, doesn’t have time for it. She takes off running - feet slipping on the soft grass - in the direction she knows Kairi headed. Yuffie can’t fight them, not even if she had a weapon; it’s been weeks since she’s had anything approaching lessons and right now all she wants is to find her friend and escape. She cries out for Kairi, sliding around corners and trying to ignore the feel of sharp, cold claws on the back of her leg.
Kairi is pale, wide eyed, and clutching Bun-bun close to her chest. The shadows are dancing around her in a tight little circle, not quite sure what to do with her just yet. Yuffie rounds the corner just as the shadows pounce, swarming over Kairi. There is a scream cut short, a bright light, and then both the shadows and the girl are gone. All that remains is the stuffed rabbit; pale and well-loved and still smelling faintly of vanilla.
Yuffie picks Bun-bun up, holds him tight against her, takes half a second to breathe in the smell of Kairi, and takes off running again. She’s not sure where she’s going to go; the shadows are everywhere. She can hear the scratch of claws against trees and leaves and soft ground. She slams into the door leading into the castle proper, doesn’t bother closing it behind her. Doors do not deter these things, nothing deters these things, and Yuffie wonders how long one can be expected to out-run death.
The castle is in pandemonium. There is the sound of screams, of things breaking and people dying. Yuffie wants to get away - needs to get away - runs down the hall, dodging bodies and shadows and doors being flung open. She throws herself into the wall, bounces off and shoots down the next hallway. She is blind with panic, doesn’t now where she’s going, she’s never been in this wing of the castle, and all she can do is run, run, keep running little rabbit.
Someone collapses in front of her, beaten and bloody, and reaches out to grab her by the cheeks. “The world is ending,” he wheezes, right before a shadow alights on his chest and daintily plucks his heart from beneath his ribs.
She’s never seen a death before, never imagined it anything like this; she watches horror stricken as the man’s body shrivels and blackens and then, another shadow crawls from the carcass. The heart has disappeared, the original shadow scurried away, and this new one watches Yuffie with lantern bright eyes.
She screams then, long and piercing and she can’t run anymore, what’s the point anyway? So she screams and waits for death to claim her.
It doesn’t.
Yuffie is more than a little confused when she finds herself swept up in strong arms. It’s a girl in the Academy uniform, one Yuffie’s never met before, but the girl takes a moment to smile down reassuringly at her. “Hi there!” she chirps, “I’m Tifa.” Twists around and kicks out at one of the shadows. “And who might you be?”
“Y-Yuffie.”
“And who is that you’re holding?”
Yuffie looks down at the bunny rabbit squished tightly between Tifa and herself. “He’s Bun-bun.”
Tifa hums, punching out a shadow with her free hand while managing to keep Yuffie cradled safely against her chest; and yea, the ride is a little bumpy. Still, Yuffie has a great view and these things don’t stand a chance and how is this girl even moving, Yuffie’s never seen a girl shaped quite as dramatically as Tifa. But she is, moving. A lot, in fact, and when Tifa executes a back flip and lands on top of one of the shadows Yuffie is just on the verge of professing her undying love to the older girl when she hears a semi-familiar voice.
It’s Aerith, standing at the end of the hall with Rinoa and Rinoa’s dog, Angelo. Aerith smiles and waves them over.
They reach Rinoa and Aerith safely. Aerith’s hands glow green and she gives Tifa and Yuffie a compulsory pat-down, Yuffie feels something on the back of her leg tingle a little but by the time she turns to look, there’s nothing to see.
“Just a scratch,” Aerith sighs.
Rinoa is shooting down the hall, gives a muttered noise that may be something along the lines of great to hear nobody’s limbs are falling off yet. She flicks one wrist and Angelo leaps forward, snapping at any shadows he thinks is getting too close.
“We need to regroup with the others,” says Rinoa, backing up slowly.
Tifa, who hasn’t bothered putting Yuffie down yet, round-houses another shadow into dust - she’s coated now with a thin, tacky black film - and nods in agreement.
The courtyard is hardly in better shape than the castle proper, Yuffie can see buildings on fire in the distance, taste the acrid smoke in her mouth. There is a scraggily group of teenagers, most unknown to Yuffie but she quickly picks out Zack and Zell.
Zell is practically dancing in place, shifting his weight from foot to foot every few minutes and shadow boxing at nothing in particular. He takes in the girls as they exit the castle and swears under his breath. “Where’s the guards? Where’s Lord Ansem? What the heck is going on here?”
Yuffie looks back at the building they just vacated, watches as someone flings themselves out of a fourth floor window, and thinks, was Papa in there?
Rinoa says they can’t leave, not yet, they have to stay. “It’s part of our duty, as students of the Academy.” There’s a grumbled dissent throughout the ranks, and a great many eyes on Yuffie, watching carefully.
She stands a little straighter, drops Bun-bun to her side. “I’m not leaving without Papa.”
And all those people, all these Mostly Strangers smile at her. Like they know her, like they expected her to say that, expected her to stand with them despite the fact that she’s only barely six. Rinoa leans over, pulls a small dagger out of the side of her boot, offers it to Yuffie. “Can you hold onto this? If those things come at you, cut at them with it, okay?”
It’s not pretty enough to be decoration. It’s an ugly, self-sharpened thing, a little too big for her tiny hands, but Yuffie can adjust to it quickly; one thing she’s good at is weapons, and she grins at Rinoa. She moves Bun-bun behind her, protectively.
She couldn’t save Kairi, but she can keep Bun-bun safe.
Zack and another boy - someone named Squall - are dispatched to the guardhouse to see if there’s anyone left who can claim command, and given a long string of instructions about What To Do if Not, none of which Yuffie really pays attention to. She’s too busy shifting the knife in her hand, trying to get a feel for it.
It’s Rinoa and Zell who volunteer to head back into the castle, to check for survivors. Angelo stays obediently with Aerith, Tifa, and Yuffie, pacing impatiently as his master scales the long staircase and disappears through the front door. They are all tense, wound tight; waiting for something, anything to happen. Waiting for their friends to return, empty handed or otherwise, all unprepared for the truth of the situation.
Someone calls out from below, from beyond the castle gates, and it’s a voice Yuffie is intimately familiar with. She takes off, ignores Aerith’s shout of alarm, and all but slams into the barred gate.
“Papa!”
Papa stumbles forward, his face tacky with black dust and sweat.
“Kiyomo,” he breathes, grasping Yuffie’s hand through the gate. “You are alive.” There are gouges in his face, his arms, blood sticking to his tunic.
Yuffie grips his hand, swallowing back tears. “Aerith! Aerith, come quick! Papa needs help!”
The healer trips her way down to them and makes quick work of Papa’s injuries. “What’s going on out there?” she asks as the spell fades away.
Papa shakes his head. “It’s mayhem, death everywhere. My people are all gone.” He looks away, back towards the shanty town. “All I accomplished was delaying their deaths by these creatures.”
“There’s still hope,” says Aerith, gently. “We can fight back.”
Something shutters shut in Papa’s eyes. “I have never seen a more futile battle. I will not risk my daughter again, and I urge you not to risk yourself. Come with us; you have been kind to my kiyomo. Perhaps we can escape this place.”
“Thank you for the offer, sir, but my friends are still inside.”
“Then I wish you the best of luck and hope that we may meet again.” Papa looks towards Yuffie. “Come, kiyomo, I will not see this place as your grave, too.”
Aerith gives her a brief hug and a kiss on her forehead. “Be safe,” she whispers before Yuffie scales the gate. It’s tall, but an easy climb and she only gets hung up once at the very top when the ornate decoration there catches the back of her shorts.
Papa can’t carry her, the creatures are too numerous and he has to fight to clear a path for them. “Stay close, Yuffie,” he says, just before charging forward. Papa’s moves are controlled, precise. There is no wasted energy and he moves forward, confident that Yuffie is nearby.
She is, of course she is, clipping along behind Papa as close as she dares. A nervous energy has settled in her belly, she never imagined it would be like this. Battles, war (massacre), it had all seemed so much… cleaner in her head. But it’s not, it’s really, really not and there is so much noise, chaos and Yuffie doesn’t think she’s ever going to get the smell of charred flesh out of her system.
Papa pauses at a clear intersection, turns to her with a smile. “Are you alright, kiyomo?” She nods, too exhausted to speak and he smiles at her, eyes full of affection. “We’ll be okay, don’t worry.”
Then, the creature attacks.
Yuffie has no idea what it is, some sort of malformed floating ball of darkness. It plows into Papa, propels him backwards, through an already fractured storefront. The dark ball glows violent and slams itself so hard into the building that it collapses.
“Papa.” She means to scream but can’t seem to find the air. Yuffie trips forward, touches the rubble that was moments ago whole.
He’s going to rip through the rubble, any minute now. He has to, because he’s Papa and he can’t leave her. He can’t. He can’t but everything is still and she doesn’t even know where to begin.
Bun-bun slips from her numb fingers. She trips forward in stilted moves, waiting for Papa to rise from the destruction because this isn’t real. This isn’t.
She doesn’t scream or fall into hysterics, just talks quietly to herself; a stream of nonsense and she’s crying, but she can’t really feel it and the stupid building won’t move. She’s too small, the chunks are too big, she’s just not strong enough, she’s just not enough.
Yuffie is picked up again, not nearly as gently this time, and the person that has her practically squishes her against his side. She can’t see much, he’s holding her under his arm and running. All she can see is the road behind them, the dwindling pile that covers Papa’s body and then she realizes what’s happening.
She screams, kicks, flails and tries to twist around to bite the person holding her. “Papa!” she does scream now, so hard the word almost doesn’t make it out. “Papa!” but the person doesn’t stop running, doesn’t even acknowledge her protests. Just keeps moving with a steady gate, long practiced, and even breath. It’s like he’s running in a marathon or something, not running for his life with a strange young child tucked under one arm.
There’s a weapon flashing in his other hand, a massive sword thing that he doesn’t bother trying to holster - and really, Yuffie can’t imagine what kind of holster would fit it anyhow - just swings it back and forth, back and forth, occasionally cutting down a shadow in his path with it. She’s still screaming at him, obscene things and some things that she thinks she may have just made up but he still ignores her, which just makes her angrier.
Something is coming; the ground shakes and Yuffie can taste a darkness in the air, thicker than it was just previously. The shadows are still coming, but now there are new things mixed in, things that fly with broad wings and a strange symbol on their chest. They look a little like dragons, she thinks, the ones from the picture books. The dragon swoops down and she has no time to cry out a warning to the boy carrying her before it grabs him by the shoulders.
He drops Yuffie and she hits the ground awkwardly, jarring something in her arm. The boy swings his sword wildly over his head - she sees now it was that boy from earlier, Squall - and the dragon tosses him farther in the air, catching him on the descent. It’s playing with him, she realizes sickly, like a cat batting around a mouse before he eats it. The dragon throws Squall again, kicking its feet in his face and letting him fall a little closer to the ground before catching him again.
Yuffie lost the dagger Rinoa gave her, probably somewhere back with Papa, so she snatches at a rock and throws it; pegging the dragon right in the head.
“Leave him alone, stupid!” Her throat is sore, her voice hoarse. She feels a tight knot of anger at the boy and she wants to keep it focused there and she can’t do that if he gets eaten.
The dragon growls, dives for her. Its mouth is open, the boy flailing behind it. Yuffie tries to face this death unnerved, forces her eyes to stay open and clenches her small fists tightly closed
She is more than a little surprised when the dragon explodes in a cloud of dust and Squall drops unceremoniously on his head, his sword clanking to the ground somewhere nearby.
There is Aerith and Tifa some yards away. Aerith’s mouth is open in a little o of surprise, the remnants of a fireball spell still flicking across her fingers. Tifa gives a whoop of joy and comes running over to check on the others.
“Good to see you again,” she chirps at Yuffie. “Are you alright?” Yuffie nods, struck mute by the events of the last few minutes. Tifa gives her a nod and turns to Squall. “Cadet Leonhart, right?” She frowns at what she sees, rips her bow off and dabs it against his face. “You got a pretty nasty scratch there. Any potions on you?”
Squall presses the bow-rag to his forehead, mumbles a quiet no and Yuffie watches as his face goes chalky pale and he leans over to vomit. Tifa winces sympathetically, pats his back and all Yuffie can do is stare off in the distance, the way they had come, wonder if her father is still alive.
Tifa ushers Aerith over to come heal things up when the ground rumbles and splits. A great horned beast comes crawling out of the crack, growling lowly at them.
“We need to move!” shouts Squall. He can’t walk on his own, so Tifa loops his arm over her shoulder and helps him stumble away. His sword is still on the ground, clattering gently with the force of the beast’s steps. Yuffie doesn’t want to save it; she wants him to lose something and hurt and wonder about the way things could be Different if it was still in his life.
But even if he did let her father die, he saved her and Yuffie feels compelled not to owe him. The stupid thing is too heavy for her to pick up, let alone carry, so she ends up dragging it behind her. It makes an awful noise, metal on stone and she has to grit her teeth against it.
It’s only when they get to where they’re going that she realizes the awful truth: she’s lost Bun-bun. He’s too far away though, back at the wreckage that now houses her father’s body. Tifa won’t let her run back for it, holds her back and Yuffie is back to thrashing and screaming and this is it, this is the last of everything.
They’re in the very center of town, a small depression and the buildings swarm up around them. There is the unmistakable hiss and clatter of claws, coming towards them, seeking out their hearts.
“What now?” slurs Squall, still bleeding copiously from his face wound.
They fold back, press into a tight little triangle, Yuffie braced in front of Tifa, Squall’s sword still hanging loosely from her hands.
“We agreed to meet here,” says Tifa. “We said we’d save who we could and then we’d rendezvous here.” She tightens her grip on Yuffie’s shoulder, it’s just a reflex, but Yuffie can feel the bruises already forming and doesn’t quite have the heart to tell her it hurts.
There comes, as if from a great distance, the whine of an engine. They are all in mild shock as a disgustingly colorful little ship peeks over the eaves of the houses and heads in their direction. The ship’s intercom crackles to life. “Ya’ll need a lift?”
Aerith waves enthusiastically as Tifa calls out, “Captain Highwind!”
“Heartilly and Dincht found me said there should be some people gathering here lookin’ fer a ride outta town.”
Which is great, really, the best news anybody has heard all day. Except Rinoa and Zell are nowhere to be seen.
“We have to wait for them,” says Aerith, bottom lip tucked between her teeth as she looks around anxiously.
“No can do, girlie. This is the appointed time, and I ain’t stickin’ around a whole helluva lot longer.”
“Those are our friends, we can’t leave them!”
“Lookit,” snaps Captain Highwind. “I ain’t anymore fond of this than you, but those cadets knew what they were getting into. Now start moving your asses on board. I can give them that long to get here.”
They try to delay as much as they can, shuffling feet and moving slowly, but the shadow creatures are closing in and it’s not just the small ones. Those strange flying ones, the great big ones that makes sparks off the edge of their feet just by existing, and more. Shadows dressed like soldiers, great fat things that repel everything thrown at them and stare around stupidly, like they forgot what they’re there for.
There’s too many of them with no sign of Rinoa or Zell or even Angelo; Aerith tries whistling for the dog several times and nothing comes.
Captain Highwind finally loses patience with them, belts out a string of swear words worse than anything Yuffie’s ever heard from Lea. He tilts the aircraft and sends out something that looks like a giant crane arm that snatches them right off the ground and drops them, unceremoniously, inside the ship.
Tifa and Aerith are instantly distracted by a vaguely blond lump in the back of the craft who is staring, blank-eyed at nothing.
From the way Tifa and Aerith keep muttering “Cloud” at him, Yuffie guesses that’s his name. He won’t respond to anything and Aerith has already half drained her healing abilities before she remembers Squall. He’s at the front of the craft, arguing with Cid, his face closed-off and stormy, his words never shouted but they can hear him rumbling darkly throughout the tiny ship.
Captain Highwind hits a few buttons and they are informed via a robotic voice that all the air-locks are now sealed. It’s obviously exactly what Squall didn’t want to hear. He lets his displeasure be known by slamming an unhappy fist into the side of the craft.
There is a sudden upsweep, and Yuffie’s stomach feels like it’s dropped somewhere around her knees. A shouted warning to “hold on ter yer hats, kiddies!” and just like that, Hollow Bastion is zooming away. They’re gifted a brief bird’s eye view of the carnage that lay below before they are too high to see anything.
There is an eerie silence as everyone realizes exactly where they are: space. There is no Bastion, there’s not even a planet. They watch, with nothing else to do, as the world they knew blackens and crumbles away.
It seems to Yuffie that she will never get the taste of “refugee” out of her mouth.
Squall’s cuts are fairly awful; three long gashes that cut diagonally across his forehead, over the bridge of his nose, and skate across his cheek. It’s a miracle he didn’t lose an eye, and Aerith doesn’t hesitate to tell him so.
“I’m just an apprentice healer,” she warns, touching one hand to the outer cuts. By the time she’s finished, she’s pale and shaking but the wounds are healed perfectly over. She moves on to the center one, the worst one, with one hand placed at either end of it.
“It’s fine,” says Squall. Aerith is about to protest when he waves her off. “It’s fine.” Two words with an edge sharp enough to cut. Yuffie hates him a little more in that instant, stares at him hard to try and catch his head on fire.
Aerith kneels next to him, places a gentle hand on his knee. “I’m so sorry, Squall.” He stands up, ignores her, and walks away. The ship isn’t too big so there isn’t far to go, but he stands in the little doorway leading to the cockpit. As clear a dismissal as any that might exist.
Captain Highwind tries the little radio on his console, spits a bunch of lingo that Yuffie can’t pretend to understand, and waits for the white noise to fill with a different kind of silence. Nobody responds. If there are any other vessels that made it out, they can’t get in contact with one another.
Tifa has Cloud’s head cradled in her lap. She cards her fingers through his hair, hums nonsense things to him. Yuffie stares at him and he has yet to blink. She has, several times, because her eyes have watered up and she couldn’t handle it anymore, but he just lets his eyes leak out; not quite crying, not responding to anything.
They are a broken little group. Everyone is too physically and mentally exhausted to talk much. Tifa falls asleep in her sitting position, one hand still tangled in Cloud’s hair. Nobody can tell if he’s asleep or not; he’s still breathing but that doesn’t mean much anymore. Aerith curls up close by them; she passed Yuffie her healer’s robe as a blanket earlier in the evening, and she’s fast asleep with her head on Tifa’s shoulder.
Yuffie is bundled up in the robe, hood pulled low over her head. She breathes in and out quietly, trying to suppress the shudder running through her body. She’s cold, that’s all. It’s just the cold and this strange place and these strange people and the fact that everything and everyone she has ever known or loved or even thought about fondly is dead now and she was completely useless to save them. But she’s not crying. She’s a ninja of Wutai. Papa told her so, and ninjas don’t cry.
Squall is still standing in the doorway to the cockpit, still wide awake; and Cid is, too, even if he’s scrubbing at his eyes a lot and muttering dark words under his breath. Once in a while he talks to himself, sits up and looks around and says things like, “What the fuck do we do now?”
Part Three