Chapter 27
There weren't so many hours to kill before their mission that Yuffie even had to volunteer for one of those shifts guarding the Turks. Barret took the first of them, so she went off with Jessie, who was headed down to the pub to return the dishes, and Nanaki came with them.
Even if Cosmo Canyon wasn't any less boring now than it had been before, Yuffie was feeling pretty good about herself. Both Aeris and Tifa had made it a point to thank her after Gongaga, and Tifa had given her her own special part to play in the upcoming mission. She hadn't felt so integral to the team's success since she'd snuck them into Junon, back when it hadn't been anything but a business transaction. There was no way she could abandon them now.
...even if the thought of facing Sephiroth again at the Temple scared her, a lot.
Quickly casting about for a distraction, her eyes landed on Nanaki. "So," she said, "have you made up your mind about sticking with us? You sure keep talkin' like you are."
"I am," Nanaki confirmed, glancing up at her. His tail flicked in discomfort.
"You still don't seem too sure," Yuffie observed.
"I am worried for the people of the canyon," Nanaki admitted. "Shinra has retaliated against villages for lesser slights than harboring anti-Shinra groups. But... I spoke to Grandfather about it, and he agrees that Sephiroth is too great a threat to ignore."
"Wasn't that old guy really pessimistic about our chances?"
Jessie quirked an eyebrow at her. "You forgot his name, didn't you?"
"I did not!" Yuffie protested. "It's just weird, and he is an old guy." Seriously, who named their kid Bugenhagen?
"...at any rate," Nanaki began cautiously, "I think Grandfather wants to be hopeful. It isn't a certainty that the Planet is beyond recovery. So we must try."
"With that Holy spell Aeris was talking about, I like our chances," said Jessie.
"I still can't believe she's been hiding it in plain sight this whole time," said Yuffie.
"Yeah, it's a good thing we caught you before you made off with it."
"Hey!"
"You can hardly be offended over something you really did," said Nanaki, sounding amused.
"Besides," said Jessie, "I've got a surprise for you I think you're really going to like."
"What surprise?" Yuffie asked, immediately suspicious. Surprises were her job; she didn't care for them from other people.
But Jessie just smiled, and refused to elaborate until they'd reached the pub and she'd passed the dishes to one of the servers. Then she took a seat at a table and motioned Yuffie closer as she opened up her bag.
Inside of it, nestled between Jessie's lockpicking tools and the pilfered phones, there was no longer just the one but six shining green orbs.
"Materia...!" Okay, Yuffie could admit when she was wrong. This was a good surprise.
"Confiscated from our Turk friends," Jessie explained.
Yuffie sat down, taking the bag as Jessie offered it. She reached inside and pulled out one of the materia to inspect it. These were no duds either. Nanaki hopped up onto the seat beside her, but even if he was doing it to keep an eye on her, she didn't care.
"Man, how come you didn't tell me about this earlier?" Yuffie asked. It sure would've made for a brighter end to the mess that was yesterday.
"Well, I was gonna check in with Tifa about it first," Jessie admitted, "but she's obviously got other plans. Materia's not really her thing anyway. I still have to ask Vincent if he's any good with it, but otherwise it's down to the three of us and Aeris."
"I don't think Aeris needs it anymore," Yuffie remarked, turning another orb in her fingers.
"What?" said Jessie.
"Yeah. Back in Gongaga, she was casting all sorts of spells she doesn't have the materia for."
"It must be her Cetra heritage," Nanaki reasoned. "The rest of us only use materia because we cannot speak with the Planet."
Jessie scratched her head. "I guess she just needed to get out of Midgar so she could hear it better."
Yuffie nodded absently and closed her fingers around the Ice and Lightning materia. "I want these two," she decided.
"Remember, we should think strategically," said Nanaki.
"I am!" she said, shooting him a look. Did he think she was stupid? "I've got my own healing magic, so you or Vincent should take the other Restore, and I can take some of the offensive stuff. And you definitely have more of a fire vibe than I do."
Jessie looked amused, and she said, "Well, you can definitely have at least one of those."
"One?" Yuffie repeated indignantly. "Come on! All together now we've got seven, and we might only have to divvy it up between the three of us. Two is totally fair." It was downright magnanimous of her, honestly. Jessie had handed her a whole bag of materia and here she was thinking about how other people could make use of it.
"I don't really see a problem with it," Nanaki said mildly, "if you have the skill for it."
"'If'? Come on, don't insult me like that."
"I've never seen you use it. That's all."
"I haven't seen you use it either," Yuffie retorted.
"I'm sure you're both perfectly competent," Jessie said. "Nanaki, I guess we need to get you one of those bangles."
"No need," he said. "I have a clip for materia... somewhere in my room, I'm sure. I'll go fetch it."
He hopped down from the table and trotted off through the door in the back of the pub that led to his room. Yuffie watched him go, and then returned her attention to the materia in her hand. Just two. All her time away from home and this was what she had to show for it.
"D'you think I could have the rest of it, afterwards?"
"After what?" Jessie asked.
"After we beat Sephiroth."
"That's not exactly my call to make. Besides, after we beat Sephiroth, we'll be shifting our focus back to Shinra. You don't wanna stick around for that?"
Yuffie faltered. "Well... I mean, I do, but..."
Jessie regarded her sympathetically. "How long has it been since you've been home?" she asked.
"...three months? No, closer to four."
"That's a long time," said Jessie. "You got family or anything back there?"
"My dad's an ass," Yuffie declared. "I moved out a while back anyway."
She braced herself for the usual protests--that she was too young to be living on her own, that she shouldn't disrespect her father like that--but all Jessie said was, "Sorry to hear it."
"...you're not gonna tell me I should try an' patch things up with him?"
"I mean... I don't know the circumstances, but I know that family--the people you're related to by blood? Sometimes they just suck. There's no fixing that."
Yuffie blinked. That was the last thing she expected to hear. People back home acted like she was just going through some rebellious teenage phase. Lord Godo was in the right, he had his reasons for treating her the way he did, she was just being childish and stubborn. Misbehaving. But unlike any of them, Jessie was... commiserating.
"You sound like you're talking from experience," Yuffie observed.
"That's because I am."
"I always thought you lost your folks to Shinra, like just about everybody else in this crew."
Jessie shrugged. "In a manner of speaking, I did. My mom worked for Shinra--it was just the two of us--and maybe she still does, I don't know. I didn't think anything of it growing up, lots of people worked for them. But once I started to see the company for what it was, the second I acted against them--she sold me out."
"What?" Yuffie sat back in astonishment. "Are you serious? What'd you do?"
"Man, this was... almost before you were born, I think," Jessie reflected with a shake of her head. "One of my friends back then, he got killed by Shinra soldiers. They claimed he was some kind of criminal, which was complete bullshit. So, I stole my mom's company ID and tried to get to the bottom of it, but she ratted me out and got me arrested. It was Biggs who bailed me out."
"Biggs?" Yuffie thought she'd heard the name before, but she couldn't remember the context.
Jessie's face fell. "Oh, right. You never... He died, back in Sector 7. He was my real family, you know. Always had my back."
Then she really had lost her family to Shinra, Yuffie figured. She wasn't sure what to say. "...sorry you lost him," she managed.
"I'm sorry you never had the chance to meet him," said Jessie. "I think he would've liked you."
And what was she supposed to say to that? 'I wish I could've met your dead friend, too'? Yuffie chewed on her lip instead.
"Sorry about your dad, too," Jessie went on, just as Nanaki came back into the pub. "But you can still choose your family. It's kinda how the rest of us operate. Right, Nanaki?"
He was carrying a hair clip in his mouth, and he looked between the two of them uncertainly as he set it down on the table. "What?" he said.
"It's not like you and Bugenhagen are actually related," Jessie said.
"Obviously not," Nanaki said slowly. "But, he was friends with my parents."
"Right. Exactly."
"I don't really have anyone like that back in Wutai either," Yuffie said skeptically. "Not unless your family can be ten cats."
Jessie stared at her. "You... You don't really have ten cats, do you?"
"Well, it used to be six, but then one of them had kittens and what was I supposed to do? Turn 'em out? Those are my cats."
Nanaki was looking at her funny, too. Was it weird for him that people owned cats? What if there were tiny humans who didn't talk and people kept those as pets? Man, that was a weird thought.
"Who is looking after them now?" Nanaki asked her.
"They mostly take care of themselves," Yuffie said, "but I asked the old lady next door to look in on 'em while I'm gone."
"Good to know," said Jessie.
"Come on, it's not that weird!" Yuffie protested, and at that Jessie grinned at her.
"No, I think it is. I think you're going to have to face the facts, Yuffie: you're just as weird as the rest of us. Maybe even weirder than me."
"No way! You're the one who's into Vincent."
Jessie was unfazed. "Mmhm. And you're the lucky one who gets to team up with him to steal a car."
"...shit." Yuffie had been too happy about Tifa liking her idea to think too hard on that part of it. She'd have to work with Vincent... who now had the added creep factor of turning into a monster sometimes. She'd seen how even the Turks were scared of him just standing there.
"You know, maybe you'd feel better about it if you tried talking to him," Jessie suggested. "He can be a little intense, but he's not so bad."
"He's creepy and depressing," Yuffie maintained, "and I'm not having any more to do with him than I have to."
Jessie exchanged glances with Nanaki and then shrugged. "Well, as long as that doesn't get in the way, I guess."
Yuffie could totally work with people she didn't like. That was how she'd started this gig, wasn't it? Of course, her opinions of the AVALANCHE crew had improved a lot since then... but that didn't mean the same was going to happen for Vincent. There were just too many reasons not to like him, and he'd have to deal with that.
They left Cosmo Canyon in the late afternoon and headed south towards the river crossing. They blindfolded their prisoners, and Yuffie and Vincent kept quiet the whole drive, so the two Turks would never even know they'd come along. Which was easy, since Vincent never talked anyway, and Yuffie was too busy trying not to puke.
There was still plenty of time before sundown when they reached the river, and no sign of the Shinra. Yuffie sat on the bridge while the others finished scouting the area, because the water rushing beneath calmed her, and she needed her stomach to settle.
Once she was ready, she hopped up and made her own inspection of the area.
"I guess it really is good cover," Aeris remarked to her, looking around at the trees on either side of the river. It wasn't wide here, and the overhanging branches meant she'd have a path across besides the bridge.
Yuffie nodded. "They'll never know I'm there."
Not knowing which direction Tseng would be coming from, Yuffie took up a hiding place within sight of the bridge, and Vincent did the same. Jessie, too, hid herself in the brush, rifle out and ready in case of any trouble.
Yuffie saw Nanaki's ears prick up before she heard the motor on the approaching vehicle--coming from the south. It was still faint when it came to a stop out of sight of the bridge, and Yuffie heard doors slamming.
A minute later, Reno appeared from up the road, walking a step behind another suited man who must've been Tseng. Two soldiers flanked them, and the group came to a stop just shy of the bridge. They looked around, but their eyes didn't land on any of the hidden AVALANCHE members.
Tifa exchanged glances with Barret, and started forward with Aeris, closing the distance enough to speak easily.
Tseng spoke first. "Are you all right?" he asked Aeris. "I heard about your encounter with Sephiroth."
Gross, Yuffie thought. What was with this guy, trying to sound all friendly?
"I'm fine," said Aeris. "Not that it's any of your business."
"Rude and Elena?" Reno asked, and Yuffie thought it was fine if he sounded a little worried about them.
"They're all right," said Tifa. "They're back in the truck."
Yuffie decided she'd watched enough of this, and it was time to do her part. Carefully, she made her way through the branches, dropped down to the ground out of sight, and crept along the road until she spotted the truck they'd come in.
She didn't know a lot about cars, but it was obviously nicer than what AVALANCHE had been driving around in, and definitely military. She could remember a lot of similar trucks carrying soldiers into Wutai, after her father's surrender.
There were sounds of a scuffle from the far side of it, and Yuffie climbed up to get a better view in time to see one soldier carefully easing another to the ground and taking a sniper rifle from him. Two men already lay crumpled beside the truck, leaving the traitor as the last one standing. He stepped away from them and looked up towards the bridge. As Yuffie watched, he pulled off his helmet, revealing a mess of black hair.
Zack!?
Her heart thudded in her chest, and she tried to look around for Vincent, but it turned out he was pretty good at hiding, too, even wearing bright red. She wasn't prepared for this. This guy had already taken out three soldiers like it was nothing, and while that had probably done them a favor, it didn't mean he was on their side. What if it was Sephiroth again, and he got the jump on the others because she didn't do anything?
The guy who looked like Zack set his helmet down atop the hood of the truck and started forward up the road.
Yuffie panicked and jumped down in front of him, unslinging her shuriken to brandish it at him.
He backstepped, holding up his hands instead of reaching for his rifle. "Woah, woah, hang on. I'm not with Shinra."
"I know that," she said. "You're Zack-- or at least, you're pretending to be Zack."
Vincent stepped out of the woods from the other side of the road, and Yuffie never thought she would've been so glad to see him. Now there were two of them, in case it was Sephiroth.
...would Vincent fight Sephiroth? He at least wouldn't let Sephiroth kill her, right?
"What?" said maybe-Zack, looking between the two of them in confusion. There was no recognition on his face, but she wasn't about to trust that. "Look, is Aeris here? Are you AVALANCHE?"
"I'm asking the questions here," said Yuffie.
"You haven't actually asked any--"
"Are you really Zack this time?" she interrupted.
"...yes?" he said, looking even more confused. "When was last time?"
"We ran into you in Gongaga, but it turned out you were really Sephiroth. I'm not about to fall for that again."
"What?" He grimaced when she said the name Sephiroth, and now he sounded a little angry on top of the confusion. "You think I'm Sephiroth?"
"Can you prove you're not?" she demanded.
"I don't look anything like him. This isn't even a SOLDIER uniform. Have you never seen him before?"
Finally Vincent stepped in. "Sephiroth has the power of illusion," he explained. "He can disguise himself as anyone, and Zack was evidently someone he knew quite well."
The man who might have been Zack stared at him. "Oh-kay," he said. "That's new. Um... Shit. Look, Aeris will know it's me. Can you please just take me to her?"
Yuffie looked to Vincent, unsure. "What do you think?"
"I can't see what Sephiroth would gain from this charade. He already has the Temple's location, and it would be more to his benefit to remain in Tseng's entourage, rather than expose himself."
"So you think it might really be him?"
Vincent shrugged. "Perhaps."
"Oh, come on," said possibly-Zack.
Yuffie studied him cautiously. He was acting different from the Zack they'd met in Gongaga. Straight to the point of wanting to see Aeris, but not so smooth. Nothing practiced about his words or gestures. Maybe that just meant Sephiroth had improved his acting, but Vincent had a point, too. It was Tseng who had the keystone, and Aeris had told Sephiroth where the Temple was, so there wasn't anything more that he could want from her. It'd be stupid to try the same trick twice anyway.
And, Aeris was still the best person to know for sure, besides Cloud.
"Vincent's gonna take your weapons," Yuffie decided, "and then we're gonna tie you up. That's the only way I'm letting you anywhere near Aeris."
Zack looked between the two of them and then let out a sigh. "If that's how it's gotta be, I'll take it."
Vincent pulled a set of keys off of him as he searched him for other weapons besides the rifle, and Yuffie remembered their original mission of stealing the truck. The three real soldiers still lay beside it--unconscious, not dead. Sephiroth would have killed them, she thought. Vincent had a rifle trained on Zack, so Yuffie went to have a look inside.
There was some gear in the back, but nothing remarkable. Certainly nothing that looked keystone-like, but she figured Tseng would be too smart to bring it along. She did find some rope, which was lucky because she actually didn't know how they would've tied Zack up otherwise. This mission was supposed to be about releasing prisoners, not taking new ones.
Yuffie bound Zack's hands behind his back and then motioned him into the back of the truck. "Get in."
"Aren't they meeting up that way?" Zack asked, nodding in the direction of the bridge.
"Yeah, but we're appropriating this truck, and I'm not letting you get in the way of that."
"You're just gonna... drive it right past them?"
"No, stupid. There's another bridge east of here. We're just gonna have to take the long way around."
Zack glanced skeptically up the road. "I'm not, you know, getting myself kidnapped by two random strangers who don't actually know Aeris, am I?"
Yuffie rolled her eyes and gave him a shove to get him to climb into the truck. He sat down on one bench, shifting uncomfortably. She sat down across from him, pulling her shuriken back out. "I bet I know Aeris better than you do," she said. "She's told us all sorts of stuff she's never told anybody before."
"Yeah, like what?" Zack asked as Vincent started the truck.
"Do you know who her dad is?"
Zack opened his mouth, and closed it again.
"That's what I thought," Yuffie said smugly. Unfortunately, the feeling didn't last, as Vincent pulled the truck around and her stomach lurched.
"You okay over there?" Zack asked.
"Fine!" she lied, and swallowed hard.
"Y'know, a good friend of mine gets motion sick sometimes. Not too much you can do about it sitting back here, but he said talking helped distract him."
"...are you talking about Cloud?" Yuffie asked.
Zack sat up in surprise. "You know Cloud?"
"Yeah, he's a real jerk."
"But is he an alive jerk? An okay jerk?"
Yuffie regarded him with a frown. Even not knowing him, she was pretty sure at this point that this was the real Zack. And if that was the case... he didn't seem like a bad guy, she reflected. "Yeah, he's okay," she answered. "He's back at Cosmo Canyon, so as long as you check out with Aeris, you'll get to see him soon."
Zack's shoulders sagged with visible relief. "And he's really okay? Walkin' and talkin'?"
"Not that he talks a lot, but sure."
Zack chuckled softly, a sound nothing like the one Sephiroth had made back in Gongaga. "Yeah, he's kinda on the shy side. Where'd you run into him?"
"Back in Nibelheim. We were there a few days ago."
"That's right. That's what the Turks were saying."
"Have you been following them around?" Yuffie wondered.
Zack nodded. "I've been shadowing Tseng the past couple days, hoping I could figure out what the heck's going on. Never expected he'd get a call from Aeris about some kind of hostage negotiation."
Yuffie couldn't stop a grin coming to her face. "Oh, man. And she sounded like such a badass on that call!"
"Yeah, uh. What exactly is going on with her these days? I heard AVALANCHE is some sort of terrorist organization, and they killed President Shinra?"
"No, no. That was Sephiroth," Yuffie corrected.
"Disguised as somebody from AVALANCHE?"
"Uh, no. I don't think so." Yeah, that was right; Elena had blamed it on Sephiroth, too. "Anyway, AVALANCHE is an anti-Shinra group. And I guess Aeris joined up not long before I did."
Zack looked her over dubiously. "And... how long have you been a member?"
"I've been anti-Shinra since I was born," Yuffie replied, because she still wasn't sure she was a member, officially.
"Are you guys mostly from Wutai?" Zack wondered, which seemed like a weird question until she realized that Vincent did sort of look it, and Zack had only seen the two of them.
"Not really," she said.
Zack nodded, and then he ventured cautiously, "Seems like you're pretty strongly anti-Sephiroth, too."
"Yeah. Yeah, you could definitely say that."
"Does that mean you know what's going on with him?"
Yuffie's caution returned. Even if this was the real Zack, she remembered, Sephiroth might still be able to spy on what he was doing, like with Cloud. She had to be careful about what she said. "Maybe. But it's not my call, telling you any of that."
"Is it Aeris's?"
That wasn't anything Sephiroth didn't already know, but Yuffie decided against telling him. It might be a good test, seeing how he reacted to seeing Tifa after all this time. "You'll find out," she said.
"Was it something I said? I thought we were starting to get along."
"I'm just exercising some caution. That's all."
But he was right that talking had been a distraction, and the rest of the drive was pretty miserable. It was a relief when the truck came to a stop, and Yuffie knocked on the window separating them from the cab.
"Are we at the rendezvous?" she asked Vincent.
He looked back at her and nodded. "They're here already."
Not surprising, considering they hadn't had to make the same detour. Zack started to get up, but Yuffie pointed her shuriken at him.
"You stay put."
"...yes, ma'am," he said, and he sat back down, but the tension never left his muscles. He really wanted to get out of the truck, a feeling Yuffie generally related to, but for him it wasn't about hating trucks.
Yuffie climbed out to find the others waiting with the old truck just ahead of them on the road. Vincent got out, too.
"Looks like it was a success all around," Aeris said, smiling at the sight of them.
"Everything went smooth on your end?" Yuffie asked, looking them over. Everybody seemed okay.
Tifa nodded. "Surprisingly, yes."
Yuffie wondered how much of that had to do with Zack taking out those snipers before they even left the truck. Had Tseng just brought them along for insurance, or had he meant to go back on the deal and attack them? No way to know, really.
"Did you get the files?" Vincent asked.
Aeris nodded, and turned to reach into the truck bed. When she turned back around, folder in hand, her smile had faded. "You won't like it," she said, holding it out to Vincent.
"I expected as much," he said, taking the file from her.
Barret, Yuffie noticed, had a pensive frown on his face, meaning he'd already read up on Dyne, though Yuffie couldn't guess what it might've told him. Aeris and Tifa, on the other hand, didn't seem particularly affected by whatever the Turks had had on Zack. Nothing new, maybe.
"We've, uh. Got some news ourselves," Yuffie said. She glanced at Vincent, but he was already absorbed in reading, and he probably wasn't that great at breaking news either. "Don't freak out, but we got some unexpected help. I think it's really Zack this time."
"What?" said Aeris. "Are you sure?"
"Not a hundred percent," Yuffie admitted. "I mean, I didn't know the guy. But if it's Sephiroth, he's really stepped up his acting game. We've got him tied up in the back."
Aeris exchanged glances with Tifa, and Yuffie led them around the back of the truck to see for themselves.
"Aeris!" Zack exclaimed as she came into his line of sight. He got to his feet, and the look on his face... No, Yuffie didn't think he was faking it. He really was glad to see her, in that way where your face didn't know quite what expression to make.
"Zack," Aeris said, hands clasped to her chest. "Is it really you...?"
"Yeah. Yeah, it's me. I know there's been some doubts about that from your kidnapper friends, but give my brain a minute to start working right, and I'll prove it however you want."
A smile worked its way across Aeris's face, and she shook her head. "No. I can tell."
"You sure, Aeris?" Yuffie asked.
She nodded and started forward, but Tifa caught her arm. "Aeris," she said, and shook her head.
Zack blinked, noticing her for the first time. "Wait a second... Tifa? Is that you?"
"Yes," Tifa said, looking back at him warily. "It's me."
"You're... Shit, I thought you were dead!" A grin split his face, the complete opposite of her reaction. "Look at you. You... have definitely been working out."
Tifa's expression didn't change. "Yuffie and Aeris might think you're you, but I'm not convinced yet, and... I need to be sure. So, I want you to explain, from the beginning."
"The beginning?" he repeated.
"Nibelheim," she said. "What happened that day, when Sephiroth burned it to the ground? Where have you been since then?"
Zack drew in a long breath, not grinning anymore. "We really gotta get into that, huh? Not exactly how I pictured a reunion." He looked back at Aeris, brow knit together, and then he nodded. "I guess I owe you that explanation anyway. I promised I'd be back a lot sooner."
Aeris shook her head. "It's all right. I have a pretty good idea why you weren't. But, why don't you come out, and we'll all get caught up together."
Zack nodded, and he stepped down out of the truck.