VII. (Because for once I don’t get to save the day)

It was the worst sort of déjà vu. All the way to the top of the mountain I was recalling how it had happened to me, once, long ago – what stupid thing had I done? Stealing from the royal treasury? (Probably the first time, since that definitely wasn’t the last.) Squashing one of Godo’s precious koi in a moment of miscalculated ninja-play in our house, and making the mistake of offering to steam it for dinner? When I first tried to run away (nine years old, beat that) and subsequently came back home, fueled by equal parts love and rage? We had started one of our most impressive fights ever, which ended with me resolutely saying I would never-in-a-million-years return, let alone bear his children. Oh, that was a blow. Maybe that was it. Staniv and Chekhov had hauled me by the armpits, kicking and screaming, and secured me so that I dangled for a grand total of fifteen minutes until I started weeping and promised I wouldn’t say such horrible things ever again, tears and snot trickling down into my mouth.

(That didn’t stop me from moving out anyway, two years and a lot more training afterwards, but Godo was probably sick of dealing with me by then, so it was more of a relief than a bother.)

Having been in that position before didn’t make it any less horrible. I was hysterical. It’s not only the height, the oppressive whooshing wind, or how the eyes of Da Chao’s several heads are ridiculously big up close and really more malevolent than maternal. This is the worst case scenario for anyone born, bred and Wutai-fed, from tales and legends and the faint reminder that executions in the olden days were much more grisly than they needed to be, and here I was again, reliving the nightmare.

“You were asking for it, chickie-chick! I don’t like it when girls start messing with the Don!” He was standing on one of Da Chao’s palms, dancing on the curved fingers, swaying from side to side. I wished the fingers would crumble and that he would inevitably end up scattered on the sands below, all sizzling fat and limbs. He’d touched me, when they carried us up the mountain, smacked my bottom and pinched all over, harder and harder with a slimy vindictiveness til I could have sworn I was bruised. Elena and I did not stop running our mouths, but nobody heard us – we had been so close to the base of the mountain, in some house long abandoned, where he’d amassed a frightening amount of sake that he was planning to take back to the Manor. We were goners.

To our credit, at least, we refused to go down quietly. Elena had not stopped shouting “I’m a Turk! You can’t do this to me!” and I had rattled on about ninjas and The Wrath of Leviathan and, GROSSNESS GROSS GROSS when I’m out of here you’re gonna have to hide in your pants, you damn lecher! But it had been way too long (minutes? Like hours, dragging hours), we were weakening, my throat was raw and it was such a long, long, horrible way down.

He took advantage of a lull in our screaming. “Now if you continue to refuse me, when I’ve treated you oh so well, you’re going to go splat, and it won’t be my fault! Hohihi!” He’d added a little rocking motion to his hip-shoving dance, and was currently swinging his body forward left and forward right. “I’ve got a nice big pad waiting at the hotel, and it ain’t been used yet! What say you?”

I felt like shouting over my dead body, but the idea that it was so eerily possible. Instead I cried out, “Let me down! When my –” friends? No. No, what friends? “- Father hears about this, he’ll –”

“He won’t have time to do anything, sugar! Those aren’t ordinary ropes. Hee-haw!”

I spotted something twinkling between his fat fingers, and it was metal and square and looked suspiciously like a remote control, oh gawds – “Don’t!” I couldn’t see Elena, but her voice thundered across the mountains, loud enough to shatter glass. “No! God!” If I thought I was hysterical, she sounded practically delirious. “Whatever you – I – just – let us down!” Rattling sounds. I had strained against the binds myself, but nothing was working, and I knew my skinny arm would be rubbed down to the bone if I continued. Corneo’s evil was its own brand of putrefying.

“What’s that? You’re ready to please me now? Well, if you insight, Blondiekins!”

Elena gave a half-hearted yell, not consenting but not totally rejecting either, and to my horror I found myself weighing the options in my head, wondering if there was any way I could fall and not get my neck broken – double somersaults? Teleportation spells? But it would be too fast, I’d be screwed, they’d have to scrape me off the earth with picks –

“That’s as far as you get, Corneo!”

I could recognize that voice even through my panic, the crazy pain in my joints, my suddenly resurfacing need of a ladies’ room. Cloud had always launched into battles with rather cheesy lines, and this time was no exception.

Don Corneo had frozen in mid-gyrate, very much surprised. “Who – who’s there? What’s going on?!”

And suddenly they were all over the place, Cloud with his monster blade at the ready, and a little bit away from him, Tifa, still pummeling one of Corneo’s cronies halfway to Sunday (he’d spread them out all over the mountainside). Barrett was firing rounds all over the place, and if I hadn’t been in my position I would have probably shrieked for him to stop it because Da Chao had been hell to carve and Godo would never let me hear the end of it if he woke up one day and found that our monument had been suddenly disfigured with bullets. Red XIII’s tail, firelit and lashing as he tensed and growled at Corneo, now looking ready to piss his pants. Cait Sith shouting something useless and encouraging, bouncing in place with unabashed excitement. Aeris, rod gripped tight and glowing, and I could see clearly now, there was materia in it again, sparkly and shiny and unmistakably theirs, and –

They had come back for me? Had they come back for me? Was I hallucinating, or did Cloud really just have a bone to pick with Corneo, or could it be that Vincent -

Flowing across the rock face, cape streaming like a river, his gun out and ready to fire, and it was he who said, tombstone-gravelly, “Let the girls go, Corneo.”

“You’re outnumbered, buddy,” Tifa shouted. I was seized with the incredible urge to embrace her and squash myself against her giant breasts, but then I remembered that there was a big possibility she’d shove me away. I had betrayed them. I had stolen – but their materia was back – why were they even here?

“I remember you,” Corneo said, almost trancelike. “And you.” He looked at Aeris. “And you –” I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination, but it seemed like Cloud had suddenly been struck by a Petrify spell – “You’re the ones that killed my Apps! My darling pet! Oh, I’ll never forgive you.” The pimp had paced backwards, standing disconsolately on the edge of Da Chao’s palm, staring down into certain death in an attempt to look tragic. It didn’t work, with his quivering belly. “I suffered so much after that. Oh, you don’t know what hardships I went through. Forced to look for girlies elsewhere, and the travel fees!”

“I don’t care,” Cloud was getting more menacing these days. I was suddenly afraid as heck of being set free – how would he lecture me? What would he say? And I would rather be swallowed up by the earth then let Aeris turn a disapproving eye on me. Or Tifa. Or anyone, really. And suddenly in my head there was this voice, louder than anything - You should have thought about that before you stole their material, then, you stupidstupidstupid girl and you deserve to be on this rock face, you deserve to be crushed beneath it. “Let Yuffie and Elena go, and maybe we’ll go easy on you.”

“I see.” Don Corneo had straightened up and turned back to face AVALANCHE, who were spread out and posed pretty enough for a postcard. (That that idea could even enter my head, I don’t know, but I was so tired, and dehydrated, the sun was scorching -) “I see, oh I see.” It seemed like an awfully odd response to Cloud’s spiel. “So you’re serious. That’s good. That’s very good. This isn’t the time for me to be fooling around, either. I’ll teach you that those who kill my precious pets don’t go without paying. You’re going to play with my new precious, and that’ll make you stop interfering with my plans to get a new wh – wife!”

He’d raised his hands skyward, suddenly, and we all found ourselves craning our necks up, staring into the bright sun as he shouted, “RAPPS, COME HERE!”

And there it was, descending in front of him like some miraculous living shield, purple scales and leather-green wings, a skinny slender dragon that screeched and roared and how the hell did he breed these things? A tiny portion of my mind twittered it’s way too cool for someone like Corneo but suddenly the dragon gusted one wicked Aero spell at everyone and for a moment it felt like the wind was going to rip my face to shreds, but right before the impact something shimmered before me and I saw Aeris casting, her magic light green over everyone as she rattled off a Shell spell with unbelievable speed.

She’d saved me. But she’d saved Elena, too, probably, Aeris had a bleeding heart and could hold no grudge against the world, not against me – I wasn’t even supposed to be thinking of myself, it was a disgusting thing to be so selfish. Red XIII had launched himself at the monster, spinning and giving it a thick lash with his tail, jumping back just at Barrett pummeled a dozen bullets into it. It screeched, flailed, hovered close to Barrett and Cloud, and whipped them both across the faces with its jagged tail. Cloud cried out, the stone of Da Chao’s hand got splashed with blood, Tifa gave a yell of rage and the dragonthing was immediately struck with a fierce Bolt spell. Then she’d been attacked by another Aero, not even Aeris’ Shell could keep her from losing her footing and slipping – Caith Sith caught her just in time, and she swung herself back up again while Cloud leaped forward and slashed at the dragon.

It flew out of the way, flapped both wings out violently – one of them struck Cloud in the shoulder. He fell in a sudden burst of green as Aeris cast something curative on him. Cait Sith had blasted it with an ice spell – one wing was broken, it was flapping half-heartedly, Don Corneo was shouting at it to “KILL THEM, KILL THEM YOU STUPID THING!” He didn’t need to yell – it was already giving its best effort. Barrett doubled over after suffering two more of its lashes, Aeris was leaning over him; Cloud was glugging down a potion. Meanwhile Vincent had managed to get a good shot in the beast’s chest and it squealed, blood streaming out in jets, just as it directed its fiercest windspell at him and he sailed through the air at lightning speed. I couldn’t see him past the huge chunk of Da Chao’s nose to my left, but I heard him smack into the cliff wall, and my insides rose in an agonized chorus of oh please let him be safe.

Then almost too quickly the dragon was falling, tumbling down, unable to keep itself airborne any longer. I didn’t know who dealt the finishing blow. Tifa and Red had both fallen flat against the rock surface, to keep the wind of its last frantic wingbeats from wiping them off. Aeris had cast something over herself and the knocked-out Barret. Cait Sith, like Vincent, was nowhere to be found. Cloud’s sword was all smeared with red, but he was standing, hardly shaking, and he was walking closer to Don Corneo, who raised both hands and squeaked “Wait! Just a second –“

“SHUT UP!” Cloud roared, and I felt so miserable and guilty they had had to suffer that battle while I just hung there dangling like the worst set of eyelashes Da Chao could ever have.

Don Corneo refused to stop yabbering. “No! Wait. You think I’m going to plead for my life, don’t you? You think I’m going to swallow my pride and get down on my knees and grovel – don’t you?” Clearly, his unfaltering boldness confused everyone, myself included. Cloud was advancing on him, but I could see Corneo's hand raised, his fat button closing down tight around something in his fist. “Well I would never do that, you bastards and bitches. Because I’m still going to win!”

Suddenly I found myself spinning sideways, rotating around in a circle, hands and feet still perfectly bound. Instead of staring at the cliffbottom I was suddenly staring up at the sky, all blue and sunlight and it was Wutai’s fresh cleansweet atmosphere, all wrong now that my blood was rushing to my head. I could see my kneecaps just barely, and my boots. Elena still had the energy to scream, somewhere on the other side of Da Chao’s face. I was dizzy. I was gonna vomit all over my own forehead. Was that even physically possible?

“If I push this button they’re going to fall upside down, and well have Squashed Girly Tomatoes. You won’t be able to tell their heads from their necks!”

“Damn!” I couldn’t see him anymore, but that was Cloud, always so easy to read. I don’t even know why he parleyed anymore. AVALANCHE. They were all a big bunch of tender idealistic hearts and I knew, I knew they knew, they were still doing this for me. For me, and I hadn’t been with them four months, I’d poked fun at everyone, I’d gotten seasick and useless on every single vehicle we’d ridden, I’d forced them to brave Wutai’s cliffs and mountains without any magic. For me, and for Elena, their enemy, who’d turn them in to authorities ten seconds flat and counting.

“You’ll give me your women too,” I could practically hear him dribbling for Tifa through his words, “Or it’s Goodbye, Girly-girlets, Hello Cliff Bottom! You understand?”

Somebody shifted.

“Don’t move!” He squealed, and there were traces of panic in his voice.

“You’re the one who shouldn’t move, you fat bastard. We’re going to make you so sorry you came here and got us involved –“

“Reno!” Elena shouted.

“Too late!” Corneo screamed in reply, and there was an almost comical chorus of “NO!”

Suddenly I was tumbling through the air, freefalling, white numb, spit spiraling from my mouth as I went to join dear old Rapps down below, and it had been a brief but rather eventful life, even if the last few hours of my life had been craptastic. Goodbye mother, whom I never knew, goodbye o absent father of mine, goodbye Pagoda, goodbye AVALANCHE, goodbye future involving Nibelheim and coffins and someone tall dark and dead, goodbye sweet country, Wutai, blessed earth that is mine, I killed myself for you and you never knew. I was sixteen.

I was freaking sixteen and shit I was going to die the worst way possible –

“NOOOO PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GAWDS I DON’T WANNA DIIIIIEEEE -”

I sang through the air. I sank through the air. Something caught me and we rushed down towards death together, it was all red wind whipping around me only it wasn’t wind. I wasn’t sinking. I was floating not quite like a feather but it was still better than hurtling towards certain doom, and there was only one thing that wore red like blood and destruction and beauty.

“Stop screaming, Yuffie, you’re going to turn me deaf.”

It was probably the most embarrassing thing I had ever done, ever, and with the last person I wanted to be caught doing embarrassing things by (with?), but I had just missed death by milliseconds, none of those dumb things mattered. Knight in leatherblack vampiresilly armor he wasn’t, and I’d already ditched the princess dream eons ago, but I was alive, he was apparently not dead, and Corneo wouldn’t stand a chance with everyone up there. I flung my arms around his neck and wept like the biggest baby this side of Gaia.

Thank Leviathan he let me.