Categories > Games > Final Fantasy 7 > An F in Consumer
an: thanks to meeshee and whoever rated Day Zero. Your gestures are much appreciated. :)
Day Two
Her back is sore, her front is sore, and God Almighty, why the hell does her head feel a billion times worse than those aches combined?
Yuffie groans, trying to pull her mind from the sluggish haze of confusion that accompanies awakening. She is lying face down, that she can figure out. Instead of being buried in blankets and pillows, she's cold and on a rough, hard surface, and her leg feels heavy.
Her head throbs with a foreign sort of agony. She thinks she can hear her heartbeat in her ears. She rubs the back of her neck and buries her face in her free arm, letting out a soft groan, /I don't want to go to school today, mama, I don't want to wake up today, mama/.
"Well, good /morning/, Princess."
She freezes. It's a pleasant, personable voice she can only associate with an infuriating snicker, a voice she's heard time and time again through speakers, television, almost everywhere in this stupid, stupid city. Slowly, she lifts her head, peering up through her chocolate-coloured bangs to meet those frostbite-inducing eyes she hates so much.
"Shinra!" Yuffie gets on all fours and leaps forward, ready to disembowel him, but he doesn't flinch; she hears the scraping of metal, a yielding force on her ankle, and falls unceremoniously onto the concrete floor.
She hears him laughing, as though her failed embarassment of an attack is some sort of private joke. The sound, the chain on her ankle, and his mere presence click something together in her mind.
Something terrifying.
She pushes herself into a crouch and takes a quick note of her surroundings. They are in an empty, concrete room with a wall of bars on one side. Her leg is attached to the wall via a single shackle and some length of chain. In front of her is a big player from the company that's been out for her blood since day one.
"Hey!" She yells at him. "I want out of here /right now/!" Yuffie scowls, trying to look intimidating.
"Can't help you," he informs her, brows raised in an expression that usually comes with a shrug. He doesn't shrug, though. His shoulders are straight and proper, like some perpetual soldier.
"Whaddya mean, 'can't help me'? I want you to let. Me. GO." Stupid stupid /stupid Shinra, you had better let me go, or so help me God...!/
"If you haven't noticed-" he raises his right foot and shakes it slightly; she sees the metal ring and hears the /clink clink clink/. "-I'm about as stuck as you are."
Yuffie knows that this could be some sort of strange trap, but she believes him. He's looking impeccable as always, in a white button-up that's only a little wrinkled, and dark slacks, but the metal ring around his ankle is like a neon sign flashing "TRAPPED" over and over and over again.
"Well, then, what's going on? Where are we?" She frowns, trying to recall what she could from before blacking out. Red? Silver? Bright lights. She doesn't know. Her head is aching. "What /happened/?"
"I'm sure you will figure it out.... Eventually." He adds the last word with his head tilted slightly to one side, a smug smile curving his lips.
"You shut up!" She snaps, yanking off her shoe and whipping it at his head. He moves only slightly to avoid it, raising an elegant brow.
"That certainly was a display of intelligence," he drawls, his words dripping with sarcasm. Yuffie gives a shriek of frustrated indignation and turns away from him with a huff. She's going to think up a plan to get out of here and leave him behind.
/That might be mean to the rats/, she thinks, but her snigger is short-lived; the prospect of rats drains the blood from her face. The only thing that comforts her is the prospect of vomitting on Prince Shinra.
`x---
Rufus leans back against the cold brick, his thoughts turning away from the bristling brat a few feet away. He's already shelved the topic of 'who and why,' and presses on to the how- the escape.
The rusted chain is heavy and thick; he figures that the way out is with a key. The only key will be in the possession of their captor, and their captor will be... Somewhere/. It depends on what their captor's aim is; does he- and Rufus thinks of 'he' because what female does he have to see as powerful? Scarlet? Yuffie? /Hardly/- does he want them dead? Then he wouldn't show up. Is he using them as hostages? Then sure he- or someone with access- would make an appearance to deliver food. Maybe they were going to be tortured for information, which would still be good because it entailed a face-to-face confrontation. Besides, the elder Shinra had been sure to teach his son how to handle torture. /Again and again. Until he had it right.
Rufus frowns. He has no idea why they're here. It could be anything from ransom to terrorism. He would guess a rival company is the culprit, but Shinra's most powerful rival is Wutai Enerdy- the heiress of which sits in front of him, chained. Is there some unknown third party involved? Or is this some sort of sick mind game?
Looking at Yuffie, he cannot believe the latter. She's huddling, muttering, and she looks so small. This wisp of a girl can not possibly be attempting to tamper with his mind- unless she is simply a pawn thrown here by her father to antagonize Rufus.
Right/, he muses, /it's more likely to be the other way around. And it's true because, everything aside, he is expendable to his father, and President Shinra did not get where he is by keeping on useless employees.
Had Rufus been any other man, he would feel sickened by the thought- but he isn't any other man, he is Rufus Shinra, and he feels little more than spiteful. If it is the case, if his father is using him as a disposable tool with which to cripple the opposing empire, Rufus isn't going to allow it.
Of course, it's still only an option. For all he knows, they could have been arrested for crimes against nature, or some trivial thing.
Rufus presses his thumb against his chin and leans his elbow on his fist, thinking back to the events leading up to their capture. The day hefore had gone relatively smoothly- in fact, Yuffie's cafeteria brawl was the only event out of the norm. He lists the people he interacted with, picking out the possibly negative effects of his choices. Valentine? No, Valentine was always on his case, it wouldn't make sense- and, besides, he was on the payroll. Scarlet? The mere notion is laughable, at best. Scarlet would have about as much ability-
Suddenly, he remembers a flash of red. Not Scarlet, but scarlet-
"You know, your name is, like, a really bad nickname-name."
Rufus blinks, looks up. Yuffie is sitting against her wall, staring at the ceiling. A second too late, he grasps at the fleeting images of his blurry recollection.
Fuck. I lost the thought.
He frowns, folding his arms over his chest. It isn't everyday that he's interrupted, and he's feeling a tad sour at the fact.
"Is that what you've been thinking about?" He scoffs, looking down at her, arms folded over his chest. He presses just the right amount of condescending incredulence into each word.
She absent-mindedly rattles off her attempts at donning him a pet name. "Ruffie... Ruff-Ruff... Fu-Fu- hey, that one's pretty good, actually," she says, grinning.
He sighs. That he is stuck here with her for God knows how long is a terrible prospect.
"Fu-Fu Shinra... Him, kinda rolls off your tongue..."
"I'm glad you're finding so much entertainment from my name, /Yuffie/," he deadpans.
She turns her head to glare at him; the blush on her cheeks brings him a strange sort of satisfaction.
"For your information/, 'yu-fi' happens to be an old Wutainese word for a type of flower." She crosses her arms in a similar stance, tilting her chin up just a bit, so that she /almost looks down on him. "What's Rufus mean, 'cockroach'?"
He gives her a cold smile. "For your information, 'Rufus' happens to be derived from the Latin word for 'barren soil'."
She stares, surprised. It's obvious to see that she's spotted the connection. "R... Really?"
"Damned if I know," he says, leaning back into the wall, smirk on his lips. He watches the emotions flit across her face, eventually settling on frustration.
"You're really annoying, Fu-Fu! When Cloud and Tifa come, we are so leaving you behind!"
He laughs, short and mirthless. Strife and Lockhart have trouble looking out for each other, let alone some flight freshman. "You really think they're going to save /you/?"
"/Of course/!" She snaps, jerking her head away. He waits, but she says nothing more.
`x---
Yuffie bites her lip, blinking in a furious attempt to keep the tears at bay. He just had to touch on that, didn't he? He just had to prod at the doubts she shied away from. Those dark little things inside her that found any opening they could to leap up and strike at her heart. The psychotic, blood-sucking, baby-killing monkey on her back.
Yuffie Kisaragi, despite being the target for kidnapping attempts- among many, many other things- has only a few fears: creepy crawlies, her mother's ghost, and being left behind.
Now, don't get her wrong; as an adventurous child, she had had more than her fair share of bug encounters, and she would give anything to see her mother again, but there were things she couldn't handle. Sleeping where icky, leggy spiders could pop out of anywhere and make a home in her ear? Grossness. Seeing her mother's disappointment in the rebellious-/although beautiful/- brawler of a daughter she had to leave? Triple grossness with fifty side orders of /'oh, Gods, kill me now'/.
/You'd think that an only child would be used to being alone/, she says to herself, glum. She never really was content with the whole thing. She would drag unsuspecting village children along with her escapades, promising them excitement and adventure and glory, and it would always result in a crying little boy or girl never wanting to see her again. She was used to that- to strangers giving her the cold shoulder, strangers running away. Strangers didn't matter. She wasn't used to people who stayed, strangers with names and friendly smiles, and, meeting such a person, she clung. It was something likeable, something to get used to- and she got used to it, which gave birth to fear number three: being left behind.
Yuffie doesn't want to think about Tifa and Cloud abandoning her, but she knows it's a possibility- she's sure that they don't need her as much as she needs them. They've got each other, and Aerith and Zack. Two boys, two girls- where's her place in that, in the grand scheme of it all?
"Are you /crying/?"
She doesn't know what's worse- the fact that she is or the suppressed laughter in his voice. She turns her back on him and hugs her knees.
"No! I'm not/." She wipes at her face; her cheeks are burning. "I just... /hate being here with /you/." It's not a complete lie, and that's more than enough for her.
"I'm flattered," is his dry response, and she thinks every little itty bitty thing about him is positively dry. His emotions, his mind, even his very veins. Gritty, harsh and blank. Rufus made of sand. It feels so fitting to think of him like that, instead of the handsome asshole bastard who's probably the very reason they're in this mess.
Her stomach hurts. Her entire body is sore, and there is a dull throb of pain in her head. She keeps thinking about black and silver, but her thoughts are too jumbled, too incomplete.
"Fu-Fu..." she mumbles, "what's the last thing you remember?"
She doesn't expect an answer, but she gets one. It's the only answer she doesn't think of, and it's the one she would never want to hear.
"/You/, Kisaragi."
`x---
She doesn't scream at him. She doesn't turn around to glare at him. No, she simply sits, stockstill. He's not even sure he can hear her breathing.
Then, suddenly, she turns around and whips her shoe at him. It hits him in the chest, but she continues. She shoves her hands in her pockets and flings random, small objects at him- coins, marbles, crumpled playing cards, and for some reason, a strange, mutated-chicken keychain. He holds his hand up over his eyebrows, palm out, protecting his head from the worst of the attack.
"You saw me," she shrieks, "and you didn't do a /thing/!?"
He moves his shoulders up a fraction. "I didn't really have the time to think about it."
"You had to think about it- about /calling for help/!?"
"Mm-hmm."
She growls at him and points a shaky finger his way. "As soon as this thing's off my leg, Rufus Shinra, I am going to fuck you up /so bad/...!"
Despite everything, despite her small stature and the pitiful sniffling and the tears on her cheeks, her voice and her eyes tell him that this is a promise she'll die to fulfill. He should be intimidated, but he's not. Of course not. So he brushes her set-in-stone threat off as easily as he would dust on his clothing.
"Right."
And she's frustrated. He can see it in the set of her jaw, in her clenched fists, in her eyes. She's such an expressive girl, much too easy to read, really, it shouldn't be quite this entertaining.
"No wonder your dad doesn't like you! You're a terrible person!"
Rufus knows that it hurts so much more when the weapon that wounds you is your own, so he turns her scathing remark back- which is also much too easy to enjoy doing, but something inside him does.
"I am no less terrible than someone who merely stood by while her mother was murdered."
Her lip quivers. She shouts at him through her tears, her voice high with hysterics. "What could I have done/?" She sounds heartbreakingly helpless, as though she is back in that little room that was plastered all over the newspapers and televisions. "I was three /fucking years old! Three years old, mama told me to stay put, and I couldn't move anyway and I saw as they- as he-!"
Rufus does nothing but watch as her shoulders wrack with sobs, and the cynical part of him wonders if this strange, annoying girl in front of him is not the result of the obvious trauma she suffered. Another part is almost envious of her mother's devotion, having never experienced such a thing himself.
It is the part of him he inherited from his father that, when he is tired of her crying, makes him say what he does.
"Stop blubbering. You're supposed to be an heiress, aren't you? You look like a fool."
Yuffie cries harder. Rufus thinks that there's a long, long night ahead- and then he realizes that he has no idea what the time or day is. He begins to feel uncomfortable.
`x---
The televisions are screaming with accusations (SHINRA ACCUSED OF KIDNAPPING WUTAI HEIRESS! WUTAI DEEMED INCOMPETENT BY SHINRA! JUNIOR SHINRA OVERSEAS FOR BUSINESS!) and the two are not at school. Reno and Rude were pulled out of class today, Tifa had said. Zack had told them that Tseng didn't even show up. Out of breath, Cloud informed them that he couldn't find Yuffie anywhere.
Aerith is worried. She wishes the others luck as they head down the street, bent on a meeting with Godo Kisaragi. She wishes she could accompany them, but there isn't any other help at the shop.
Smiling, she sells a pair of roses to a man with dark hair and blue eyes.
Day Two
Her back is sore, her front is sore, and God Almighty, why the hell does her head feel a billion times worse than those aches combined?
Yuffie groans, trying to pull her mind from the sluggish haze of confusion that accompanies awakening. She is lying face down, that she can figure out. Instead of being buried in blankets and pillows, she's cold and on a rough, hard surface, and her leg feels heavy.
Her head throbs with a foreign sort of agony. She thinks she can hear her heartbeat in her ears. She rubs the back of her neck and buries her face in her free arm, letting out a soft groan, /I don't want to go to school today, mama, I don't want to wake up today, mama/.
"Well, good /morning/, Princess."
She freezes. It's a pleasant, personable voice she can only associate with an infuriating snicker, a voice she's heard time and time again through speakers, television, almost everywhere in this stupid, stupid city. Slowly, she lifts her head, peering up through her chocolate-coloured bangs to meet those frostbite-inducing eyes she hates so much.
"Shinra!" Yuffie gets on all fours and leaps forward, ready to disembowel him, but he doesn't flinch; she hears the scraping of metal, a yielding force on her ankle, and falls unceremoniously onto the concrete floor.
She hears him laughing, as though her failed embarassment of an attack is some sort of private joke. The sound, the chain on her ankle, and his mere presence click something together in her mind.
Something terrifying.
She pushes herself into a crouch and takes a quick note of her surroundings. They are in an empty, concrete room with a wall of bars on one side. Her leg is attached to the wall via a single shackle and some length of chain. In front of her is a big player from the company that's been out for her blood since day one.
"Hey!" She yells at him. "I want out of here /right now/!" Yuffie scowls, trying to look intimidating.
"Can't help you," he informs her, brows raised in an expression that usually comes with a shrug. He doesn't shrug, though. His shoulders are straight and proper, like some perpetual soldier.
"Whaddya mean, 'can't help me'? I want you to let. Me. GO." Stupid stupid /stupid Shinra, you had better let me go, or so help me God...!/
"If you haven't noticed-" he raises his right foot and shakes it slightly; she sees the metal ring and hears the /clink clink clink/. "-I'm about as stuck as you are."
Yuffie knows that this could be some sort of strange trap, but she believes him. He's looking impeccable as always, in a white button-up that's only a little wrinkled, and dark slacks, but the metal ring around his ankle is like a neon sign flashing "TRAPPED" over and over and over again.
"Well, then, what's going on? Where are we?" She frowns, trying to recall what she could from before blacking out. Red? Silver? Bright lights. She doesn't know. Her head is aching. "What /happened/?"
"I'm sure you will figure it out.... Eventually." He adds the last word with his head tilted slightly to one side, a smug smile curving his lips.
"You shut up!" She snaps, yanking off her shoe and whipping it at his head. He moves only slightly to avoid it, raising an elegant brow.
"That certainly was a display of intelligence," he drawls, his words dripping with sarcasm. Yuffie gives a shriek of frustrated indignation and turns away from him with a huff. She's going to think up a plan to get out of here and leave him behind.
/That might be mean to the rats/, she thinks, but her snigger is short-lived; the prospect of rats drains the blood from her face. The only thing that comforts her is the prospect of vomitting on Prince Shinra.
`x---
Rufus leans back against the cold brick, his thoughts turning away from the bristling brat a few feet away. He's already shelved the topic of 'who and why,' and presses on to the how- the escape.
The rusted chain is heavy and thick; he figures that the way out is with a key. The only key will be in the possession of their captor, and their captor will be... Somewhere/. It depends on what their captor's aim is; does he- and Rufus thinks of 'he' because what female does he have to see as powerful? Scarlet? Yuffie? /Hardly/- does he want them dead? Then he wouldn't show up. Is he using them as hostages? Then sure he- or someone with access- would make an appearance to deliver food. Maybe they were going to be tortured for information, which would still be good because it entailed a face-to-face confrontation. Besides, the elder Shinra had been sure to teach his son how to handle torture. /Again and again. Until he had it right.
Rufus frowns. He has no idea why they're here. It could be anything from ransom to terrorism. He would guess a rival company is the culprit, but Shinra's most powerful rival is Wutai Enerdy- the heiress of which sits in front of him, chained. Is there some unknown third party involved? Or is this some sort of sick mind game?
Looking at Yuffie, he cannot believe the latter. She's huddling, muttering, and she looks so small. This wisp of a girl can not possibly be attempting to tamper with his mind- unless she is simply a pawn thrown here by her father to antagonize Rufus.
Right/, he muses, /it's more likely to be the other way around. And it's true because, everything aside, he is expendable to his father, and President Shinra did not get where he is by keeping on useless employees.
Had Rufus been any other man, he would feel sickened by the thought- but he isn't any other man, he is Rufus Shinra, and he feels little more than spiteful. If it is the case, if his father is using him as a disposable tool with which to cripple the opposing empire, Rufus isn't going to allow it.
Of course, it's still only an option. For all he knows, they could have been arrested for crimes against nature, or some trivial thing.
Rufus presses his thumb against his chin and leans his elbow on his fist, thinking back to the events leading up to their capture. The day hefore had gone relatively smoothly- in fact, Yuffie's cafeteria brawl was the only event out of the norm. He lists the people he interacted with, picking out the possibly negative effects of his choices. Valentine? No, Valentine was always on his case, it wouldn't make sense- and, besides, he was on the payroll. Scarlet? The mere notion is laughable, at best. Scarlet would have about as much ability-
Suddenly, he remembers a flash of red. Not Scarlet, but scarlet-
"You know, your name is, like, a really bad nickname-name."
Rufus blinks, looks up. Yuffie is sitting against her wall, staring at the ceiling. A second too late, he grasps at the fleeting images of his blurry recollection.
Fuck. I lost the thought.
He frowns, folding his arms over his chest. It isn't everyday that he's interrupted, and he's feeling a tad sour at the fact.
"Is that what you've been thinking about?" He scoffs, looking down at her, arms folded over his chest. He presses just the right amount of condescending incredulence into each word.
She absent-mindedly rattles off her attempts at donning him a pet name. "Ruffie... Ruff-Ruff... Fu-Fu- hey, that one's pretty good, actually," she says, grinning.
He sighs. That he is stuck here with her for God knows how long is a terrible prospect.
"Fu-Fu Shinra... Him, kinda rolls off your tongue..."
"I'm glad you're finding so much entertainment from my name, /Yuffie/," he deadpans.
She turns her head to glare at him; the blush on her cheeks brings him a strange sort of satisfaction.
"For your information/, 'yu-fi' happens to be an old Wutainese word for a type of flower." She crosses her arms in a similar stance, tilting her chin up just a bit, so that she /almost looks down on him. "What's Rufus mean, 'cockroach'?"
He gives her a cold smile. "For your information, 'Rufus' happens to be derived from the Latin word for 'barren soil'."
She stares, surprised. It's obvious to see that she's spotted the connection. "R... Really?"
"Damned if I know," he says, leaning back into the wall, smirk on his lips. He watches the emotions flit across her face, eventually settling on frustration.
"You're really annoying, Fu-Fu! When Cloud and Tifa come, we are so leaving you behind!"
He laughs, short and mirthless. Strife and Lockhart have trouble looking out for each other, let alone some flight freshman. "You really think they're going to save /you/?"
"/Of course/!" She snaps, jerking her head away. He waits, but she says nothing more.
`x---
Yuffie bites her lip, blinking in a furious attempt to keep the tears at bay. He just had to touch on that, didn't he? He just had to prod at the doubts she shied away from. Those dark little things inside her that found any opening they could to leap up and strike at her heart. The psychotic, blood-sucking, baby-killing monkey on her back.
Yuffie Kisaragi, despite being the target for kidnapping attempts- among many, many other things- has only a few fears: creepy crawlies, her mother's ghost, and being left behind.
Now, don't get her wrong; as an adventurous child, she had had more than her fair share of bug encounters, and she would give anything to see her mother again, but there were things she couldn't handle. Sleeping where icky, leggy spiders could pop out of anywhere and make a home in her ear? Grossness. Seeing her mother's disappointment in the rebellious-/although beautiful/- brawler of a daughter she had to leave? Triple grossness with fifty side orders of /'oh, Gods, kill me now'/.
/You'd think that an only child would be used to being alone/, she says to herself, glum. She never really was content with the whole thing. She would drag unsuspecting village children along with her escapades, promising them excitement and adventure and glory, and it would always result in a crying little boy or girl never wanting to see her again. She was used to that- to strangers giving her the cold shoulder, strangers running away. Strangers didn't matter. She wasn't used to people who stayed, strangers with names and friendly smiles, and, meeting such a person, she clung. It was something likeable, something to get used to- and she got used to it, which gave birth to fear number three: being left behind.
Yuffie doesn't want to think about Tifa and Cloud abandoning her, but she knows it's a possibility- she's sure that they don't need her as much as she needs them. They've got each other, and Aerith and Zack. Two boys, two girls- where's her place in that, in the grand scheme of it all?
"Are you /crying/?"
She doesn't know what's worse- the fact that she is or the suppressed laughter in his voice. She turns her back on him and hugs her knees.
"No! I'm not/." She wipes at her face; her cheeks are burning. "I just... /hate being here with /you/." It's not a complete lie, and that's more than enough for her.
"I'm flattered," is his dry response, and she thinks every little itty bitty thing about him is positively dry. His emotions, his mind, even his very veins. Gritty, harsh and blank. Rufus made of sand. It feels so fitting to think of him like that, instead of the handsome asshole bastard who's probably the very reason they're in this mess.
Her stomach hurts. Her entire body is sore, and there is a dull throb of pain in her head. She keeps thinking about black and silver, but her thoughts are too jumbled, too incomplete.
"Fu-Fu..." she mumbles, "what's the last thing you remember?"
She doesn't expect an answer, but she gets one. It's the only answer she doesn't think of, and it's the one she would never want to hear.
"/You/, Kisaragi."
`x---
She doesn't scream at him. She doesn't turn around to glare at him. No, she simply sits, stockstill. He's not even sure he can hear her breathing.
Then, suddenly, she turns around and whips her shoe at him. It hits him in the chest, but she continues. She shoves her hands in her pockets and flings random, small objects at him- coins, marbles, crumpled playing cards, and for some reason, a strange, mutated-chicken keychain. He holds his hand up over his eyebrows, palm out, protecting his head from the worst of the attack.
"You saw me," she shrieks, "and you didn't do a /thing/!?"
He moves his shoulders up a fraction. "I didn't really have the time to think about it."
"You had to think about it- about /calling for help/!?"
"Mm-hmm."
She growls at him and points a shaky finger his way. "As soon as this thing's off my leg, Rufus Shinra, I am going to fuck you up /so bad/...!"
Despite everything, despite her small stature and the pitiful sniffling and the tears on her cheeks, her voice and her eyes tell him that this is a promise she'll die to fulfill. He should be intimidated, but he's not. Of course not. So he brushes her set-in-stone threat off as easily as he would dust on his clothing.
"Right."
And she's frustrated. He can see it in the set of her jaw, in her clenched fists, in her eyes. She's such an expressive girl, much too easy to read, really, it shouldn't be quite this entertaining.
"No wonder your dad doesn't like you! You're a terrible person!"
Rufus knows that it hurts so much more when the weapon that wounds you is your own, so he turns her scathing remark back- which is also much too easy to enjoy doing, but something inside him does.
"I am no less terrible than someone who merely stood by while her mother was murdered."
Her lip quivers. She shouts at him through her tears, her voice high with hysterics. "What could I have done/?" She sounds heartbreakingly helpless, as though she is back in that little room that was plastered all over the newspapers and televisions. "I was three /fucking years old! Three years old, mama told me to stay put, and I couldn't move anyway and I saw as they- as he-!"
Rufus does nothing but watch as her shoulders wrack with sobs, and the cynical part of him wonders if this strange, annoying girl in front of him is not the result of the obvious trauma she suffered. Another part is almost envious of her mother's devotion, having never experienced such a thing himself.
It is the part of him he inherited from his father that, when he is tired of her crying, makes him say what he does.
"Stop blubbering. You're supposed to be an heiress, aren't you? You look like a fool."
Yuffie cries harder. Rufus thinks that there's a long, long night ahead- and then he realizes that he has no idea what the time or day is. He begins to feel uncomfortable.
`x---
The televisions are screaming with accusations (SHINRA ACCUSED OF KIDNAPPING WUTAI HEIRESS! WUTAI DEEMED INCOMPETENT BY SHINRA! JUNIOR SHINRA OVERSEAS FOR BUSINESS!) and the two are not at school. Reno and Rude were pulled out of class today, Tifa had said. Zack had told them that Tseng didn't even show up. Out of breath, Cloud informed them that he couldn't find Yuffie anywhere.
Aerith is worried. She wishes the others luck as they head down the street, bent on a meeting with Godo Kisaragi. She wishes she could accompany them, but there isn't any other help at the shop.
Smiling, she sells a pair of roses to a man with dark hair and blue eyes.
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