Learning How To Breathe
By Faronon Star Wolf
21/?
Wordcount: 991
"Yuffie..." Aeris said hesitantly, and I rolled over to find her and Tifa crouched next to me.
After we ran into the silly hat guy, we ended up chasing him through the stairway room--do I even have to mention how freaky that place was? And, um, sickness inducing. Yeah. But I think that was a given.
Anyway. Eventually we cornered him--her--it--in a room. Thankfully the room was a just a room--that was a relief.
And when we got there? We found out the freaking hat guy thing was a Cetra--operative word being was. As in, dead. For a long time. A really long time.
Aeris was the only one who was really able to hear the person...thing, but I could hear little bits and pieces. Understanding, however, was a different matter. Didn't help that I didn't hear much of what it said. Might have been the shields Aeris had on me...
Right, anyway. We were in a normal-looking room, so Cloud went all leaderish and said we'd take a rest.
Which is why I had been laying there until Aeris and Tifa came up.
"Yuffie," she said again, "you've been--snappish--with everyone except Vincent. Do you want to talk...?"
...My mind is probably my worst enemy. That is, I think too much. Way too much.
Aeris stared at me, with Tifa looking over her shoulder in concern, and I huffed and rolled back to face the wall. "Vinnie's the only one who didn't think I decided to up and run off to give Shinra the keystone."
But, I couldn't help thinking that Vincent hadn't been there when Cait Sith had told the others--
For that matter--"Didn't Vincent tell you what happened?"
"Yuffie--" There was enough unease in Tifa's voice that I looked over my shoulder at her. "When--when Vincent was a Turk, he--stopped a strike that a group of Shinra employees had started at one of the plants."
"Cait Sith didn't tell us how, but Vincent--" Aeris glanced across the room, where Vincent was leaning against the wall. "He was a Turk, so he probably..." Her voice trailed off.
I knew what she was thinking--I was thinking the same thing.
But with the source of the information--
"You believe the person who told you that I gave Shinra the Keystone?" I couldn't let that go--not yet.
"We apologized," Tifa said, sounding hurt and angry.
I thought of things I wanted to have said, later--things that were sharp, and hurtful, things that would satisfy a childish urge to hurt them as much as they had hurt me--
But at that moment, words just didn't come. I looked back at the wall, and said nothing.
I didn't even reply when they left. I wanted to forgive them, but--
It hurt, knowing that the people I had considered friends could believe that I would do something like that.
--
It took a long time to get myself into a better mood--or at least, the appearance of a better mood. But as I'd found out in the forest, if I put a smile on my face, I ended up being cheerful at some point after that. I don't know how, but--it worked.
By the time I had done that, our break was over. So we went back into the stairway room, and had to work our way out--it was a relief when we managed that.
So then we found ourselves in a room with boulders (!!) rolling along a narrow path.
No, I don't get it either.
Every so often there was a longer pause between one boulder and the next, but it wasn't long enough for all of us to get through to the part of the path where it widened up. I considered using Cloud--no, Vinnie would probably be a better choice, he's taller--as a boost to get myself up and over the boulders, but how would that work out after the first one?
Besides, I don't know if I would even land right--the ground was still evil uneven stuff.
Anyway. The funny people go marching one by one, hurrah~
What? No, I don't know either. It seemed like a good idea.
So once all of us got to the wider part (It took Barret several tries, because he's slow), we stood and talked for a few minutes.
Half of us were ready to just leave, and half wanted to go on, and this time it wasn't Cloud who was sitting on the fence--it was Vinnie Vinnie Valentine.
Eventually we decided to go on--some with more enthusiasm than others. There was something here, apparently, that Sephiroth wanted. And what Sephiroth wanted, Cloud wanted to keep away from him.
So, after another fun game with rocks, we saw a creepy dude with white hair down past his ass slash Tseng. In a pool. Then we had to do one more round with the rocks before we were finished.
And then we got to play on a clock.
Know what? I don't even know why I'm talking about this part. Nothing really important happened--okay, so maybe we got a key and then a hat-dude stole it, but we got it back, and who really wants to hear about our chase of it through weirdly connected caves?
Well, I don't care if you want to hear about it. Go ask someone else.
After we got the key back, we entered the room and looked around. There was no one there, but there was a feeling--a presence there. It wasn't a kind presence.
"Sephiroth!" Cloud yelled, glaring around the room. "Where are you?" His voice had gone chilly and angry--and I was suddenly glad that I wasn't the one he was angry at.
"So cold," someone murmured. "S-so cold. I am always by your side... So come, come to me, come..."