onepassingnight | 001; Wutai

Entry tags:

001; Wutai

On the mountain of Da Chao sits a lone girl, her legs swinging off the ledge as she contemplates the town below.

It's her home - Wutai, a once proud nation that has been reduced to nothing more than a cheesy tourist attraction. By none other than her father, a man she doesn't exactly get along with in the best of times.

Something's off though.

Yuffie squints as she studies the town, telling herself her eyes must be deceiving her.

Usually there are people strolling through the town, children playing tag in the streets. The ones who had recently been infected with Geostigma are recovering, and there is a jovial air about the town. Now, though, there is no sign of life. Not even a stray dog roaming through, begging for scraps.

This just isn't right, and Yuffie has to investigate.

Standing up, she brushes the dirt off her legs, then plants her fists at her hips.

"Only one person can get to this bottom of this mess!"

She pauses without looking back, shifting her weight as if she wants to fidget.

"You can come too. Having an extra pair of eyes wouldn't hurt," she says this with a little hesitation. The truth is, she's a little bit worried at the absence of people, and could use a little support as she tries to find them.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yuffie made a face at his back, telling herself to remember to start leaving him singing voicemails when he didn't pick up. Her voice left a lot to be desired in the musical department, but she was pretty sure she could injure an eardrum if he didn't pull away too quickly.

"If there's a chocobo at the top of this tower, I'm going to eat my left shore," she declared, absolutely positive there would be no big stupid birds on this trip.

As she started to go on about some childhood story tied to chocobos and tying up a pet dog to one and making it run, she paused. Yuffie had caught sight of the fog, and she could see something was definitely wrong. Infinitely wrong. Wordlessly, she goes into an empty room, pressing her face to the window before turning back to Cloud, absolutely bewildered.

"Since when has the fog been this creepy? Seriously, I thought it was just misty but this is seriously freaky."

Cloud had to agree about the possibility of a chocobo - and he would have disagreed if he'd know of her evil designs on his voice mail. It was distracting though and he didn't mind distracting. As they'd shown earlier, stealth wasn't really their thing when they were together and he'd rather hear her voice than the ones just out of range of his hearing at all the windows. When Yuffie slipped into one of the side rooms, he followed, curious, but when she pressed her face to the window too close, much too close to that fog he reached out an instinctive hand to her shoulder to pull her back. It was his bad hand. He hadn't been thinking. Luckily she turned back to him before he touched her with it though and so he withdrew it, letting it drop against his side.

He'd been trying his level best to not notice the fog. Though, if Yuffie was catching it too, maybe it wasn't just him?

"Fog's been creepy since we hit the tower. Maybe before." As he spoke the window creaked the littlest bit. As if something on the other side of the glass was trying to press inward past it, even though they were too many floors up for anyone to be there with nothing to support them.

The creak of the glass made Yuffie jump a bit, whipping around in a readied stance. What for, she didn't know - maybe to fight, or maybe to run. It was hard to fight an enemy she'd yet to see at this point, and that was the part that freaked her out the most.

Her mind had waffled this entire time, from worry over Wutai, to confusion about the situation in general, to that creepy crawly sense that someone was watching her. Yuffie's mind was a multi tracked one, and she was usually all over the place with most things, but this was different.

The glass did not make another noise, but Yuffie was quiet as she listened for any sound in the building, anything at all. The silence was engulfing, like it could swallow her whole, and that wasn't a pleasant feeling at all. Her ears had started to ring before she turned back to Cloud, rubbing her right ear.

"Okay, we get fog here sometimes, but this is not the norm here. Maybe that crazy cat lady cast some spell over the place and she's waiting for me. Boil my bones for bread or whatever it is crazy cat ladies do."

"Boil your bones for cat food maybe. Not that there's enough of you to feed all her cats."

It's a distraction and he doesn't mean it any more seriously than she does. They just like to reassure each other with the sound of their voices - one of the very few people Cloud actually is that way with. He's tired of not knowing what's going on though and tired of jumping at shadows. He's never been very good at being patient. So his eyes slip hard and he jerks his chin over his shoulder before heading for the door. His voice is their battle leader's when he says:

"Come on, Kisaragi. Let's finish this thing."

((ooc: did you have an idea for what's upstairs or would you like me to run amok with it?))

Yuffie found the time to make a face at Cloud for his insinuation of her skinniness. She was a little coltish - all arms, legs and sharp elbows. She is also pretty sure she would never reach Tifa proportions in her lifetime, but maybe one day she'll look more female and less 'underage boy'.

About to fire back a good retort, Yuffie notices the abrupt change in his demeanor, and reigns it back in. It definitely isn't the time, a fact she sometimes had difficultly noticing. She's gotten better at reading visual cues, though Cloud's was more of a visual declaration of war than a silent cue.

"Right. To the top, then."

[ooc: run amok with it, I really had no specific plan in mind!]

He thinks she looks just fine the way she is. She's a ninja. They're supposed to be small and slender. If she looked like Tifa that would just be... disturbing. But, being Cloud, he'll always tease her about not eating enough anyway. It's a bad habit he picked up from his mother - worrying about someone else not eating enough - and it's because he thinks of her as his little sister so it's okay to tease without worrying about getting in trouble or her not understanding what he really means when he does it. Which is another reason he stays in front to take the brunt of any attack as they finally reach the upper floor as if access to it has been waiting for them this whole time. The room is dark and so empty the air hurts his ears as he steps in, sword at the ready. He's about to say something to her when something huge drops down from the ceiling, filling almost the entire room. Cloud has time for a lowly muttered:

"oh shi-"

Before Leviathan sends him into the nearest wall with a Tidal Wave like a giant sledge hammer.

((ooc. done. but it may not be kind to Yuffie))

Yuffie gapes at Cloud before she ducks, Leviathan's tail just barely whipping by, almost taking her head off. As she tries to stand, in order to get her weapon and attack, the tail whips back around, taking her legs out from under her and knocking her to the floor.

Her legs are a little wobbly as she pushes herself up, intent on rushing Leviathan to get this over with quickly. As she darts forward, Leviathan hits her with a second Tidal Wave, and it slams into Yuffie with the force of a herd of frantic chocobos. Pain radiates through her body as she struggles to push away from the wall.

"How the hell can it fit in here?" She takes a moment to ask before dodging another tail attack. She doesn't remember it using its tail so much before, and she definitely isn't in top form right now.

Even as Cloud shakes his head, coming up from the dent he's left in the wall that technically should have just broken, something inside him is calming, clearing. All the doubt, the pain, the confusion and the hopelessness just - disappears. His thoughts crystallize and he's leaping forward without having to think. Without having to doubt. This is what he does. This is what he's here for. Protect. Defend. Destroy.

Leviathan is fast, faster than it should be, and in the small enclosed space it's everywhere, teeth, tail, water. Cloud meets it head on, moving with habits that are ingrained by now and so used to fighting with Yuffie that he's always aware of where she is in the room and doesn't hold back out of worry. He won't hit her. They're a better team than that. Something lashes out at him and he brings his sword up and around to meet it. Part of a whisker or tentacle or whatever those are near its mouth goes flying. And as his blade parts the rubbery flesh a familiar voice booms from the wound:

"Style...? Dictate...? Throwin' around all those fancy words... You're a miserable excuse for a daughter!"

Yuffie freezes at the sound - for a split second before she has to dodge an attack. She's sufficently distracted, though, and instead of fighting back she dances around the creature. Words pour out of the wound in her father's voice, and she's extremely disturbed at this new development.

"Take your things and get out of here now. To protect Wutai, we cannot afford to stand up to Shinra."

As weird was it was to hear Godo in this room that Godo was obviously not in, she felt herself getting pissed off once again. There were times she would fight with her father, but when she was traveling with AVALANCHE she hardly spoke to him. It was a miserable time, and she had a lot of anger still left over from that.

Glaring at Leviathan, she rushes it and swings down her shuriken. One of the sharp ends cut through the skin, slicing a deep cut.

"He was such an ass!" This burst out of her without warning - she didn't even realize it was inside her until she blurted it. Not exactly the best time for a conversation like this, but she really just couldn't help it.

He's not sure why Godo's words are pouring from the monster's wounds but the second Yuffie's blade cuts through more of the creatures hide Godo's disembodied voice is shouting:

"You keep acting like that! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

He slides in the way as another Tidal Wave crashes out, bringing his sword charged with energy thanks to a wall earlier, forward to release a surge of power that slices outward from his weapon and breaks the water harmlessly in two.

He's probably the last person in the world equipped to deal with father related issues. So instead he grunts to show he's still listening as his sword swings out again, catching Levithan's open jaw, teeth and metal scraping horrendously against each other. "Didn't you two ever not fight?"

Yuffie dodges another attack, scrambling to a safe corner to catch her breath. His question makes her pause longer than she really should, and she has to jump up in the air to grab one of the lower hanging beams in the room.

"We always fought. I wasn't what he wanted me to be, and it pissed him off pretty bad," is her explanation as she pulls herself onto the beam, climbing higher than Leviathan so she can attack from above.

Hearing her father's voice is a little unsettling but she is determined to kill this thing and be done with it. So, with that thought in mind, she flies off the beam, aiming her shuriken at Leviathan's neck. Her intent is to slice it's head off, and she manages to cut through most of it.

Leviathan is wiggling, it's mouth gaping open like a goldfish, the head bobbing to the side. It is a little funny, in that extremely grotesque way, and Yuffie stared at it with a mix of disgust and confusion on her face. This seems to be her default setting at this point.

Godo's voice still poured from the wounds, but amplified as all the words mixed together to create a cacophony of her years growing up. It was hard to remember any good times with all the bad shoved in her face at once.

Yuffie gets in the killing blow and so Cloud steps back and straightens, sword still at the ready in case there's a last minute lunge. I wasn't what he wanted... Yet another thing he feels close to Yuffie with. He doesn't think he's ever managed to be what anyone wanted from him either. No matter what she says, he thinks that's a hard thing to live with. To him it sounds like it's not just Godo's voice but dozens of others pouring accusations from the dying creature's skin as well. For a second, he even thinks he hears his own in there, not caring why she stole the materia, more interested in his small team than her country's problems. Unnoticed behind him, the fog of earlier shrinks down and drifts back toward town. On the wooden floor, Leviathan finally dies, a thick black oily cloud rising from the body.

When it clears the room is empty except for a man in traditional Wutai robes lying in the middle of the empty floor.

Cloud hasn't seen him often but he recognizes Yuffie father.

The voices are somewhat chaotic, but they don't really bother her too badly.

Well, maybe a little. She didn't know if people doubted her because she was a scrap of a girl, or if her obnoxiousness hid the deep pools within her. (Maybe not so deep, but she isn't a total moron. She knows how people can see her). At sixteen, she'd been brash, rude, and as big as life. At nineteen she's seen too much and encountered a lot of weird in her life. It mellowed her, naturally, but some things still stuck with her.

Seeing Godo's body was a surprise and she crept over quietly, nudging him with her toe. He seemed to either be knocked out, dead, or fast asleep. She knelt beside him, a hand under his nose to see if he was breathing.

It was shallow, but he was definitely alive.

Standing up, she rolls her shoulders, giving Cloud a 'what now?' look.

"As weird as this whole thing has been, I'm sure we've seen weirder," she nudges her father's body with a toe again, and shakes her head. "Maybe. I don't know." She grabs some rope from her bag, and proceeds to tie her father's hands and feet together.

Cloud's eyebrows go up a little when Yuffie ties up her own father and it's only belatedly that it kicks in for him that something like that really is the sensible thing to do.

It still wouldn't have occurred to him.

He waits until she's done though before resheathing his sword at his waist, glad the older man is at least alive. He doesn't want Yuffie to lose her only surviving parent. Not now, and if Cloud had his way, not ever. It's an impossible wish but with the short time Cloud figures he's got left on his own life, it's not a wish he can't live to see last at least his lifetime. Once Yuffie's done, he kneels down and scoops up the old man. It's no problem for him even if it does sent the jolt of fire down his bad arm. He's still makofied though, still ex-SOLDIER or close enough and Godo doesn't weigh enough to slow him down. He turns to Yuffie once he's straightened up and uses words that are magic in his world.

"Let's go home."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

001; Wutai

Good idea - blaming LJ forever!

Sound plan

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

sorry, lost my tag to this one