Chapter Twenty

Midgar. It loomed before him, a dirty smudge on the otherwise lush landscape. Cid tossed his spent cigarette to the deck of the Highwind II and ground it with his heel. He hated Midgar. He hated everything it was, everything that had ever happened in it. And now he had to go back in there, to find a man he despised just a little less than the city itself.

Damn Cloud. Damn Reeve. And damn this city! Cid grunted, having mentally vented his feelings, and turned to look up at the bridge. Gyrn was out of sight, directing the ship to landing as close to Midgar as possible. Cid supposed that Gyrn would be fine handling the ship alone, but he would have preferred to have let Gyrn speak with Reeve and not have to leave the Highwind II. But doing what he preferred had been taken out of his hands. Damn Sephiroth…

The ship landed smoothly under Gyrn’s piloting, taking a position about hundred yards from the main gate at Midgar. Cid disembarked quickly, checking for the tenth time his supply of cures, materia, and cigarettes. The ship took off again once he was a safe distance away. He watched it until it was a unremarkable speck in the sky, then turned his attention to the city.

Midgar had not returned to its former glory after the devastation of the meteor and holy attack. In fact, it was never going to be restored to its former state. The people that lived in Midgar now only did so to salvage books and knowledge that might benefit people in some way. And, of course, destroying any material concerning mako reactors they came across. Cid knew that Reeve had been instrumental in directing the dismantling of the mako reactors in the city, but he still didn’t like the former Shin-Ra worker.

Cid walked through the gates of Midgar unchallenged, and, as far as he could tell, unnoticed. It was half an hour before he found a person to inquire about Reeve’s whereabouts. That man pointed down the thoroughfare that Cid had been traveling down.

“There be only one place for him to be, eh?” The man seemed amused at something. “If ye ain’t have already come across him, then he must be down the road yonder. It’s the only way through the city.” Cid frowned at the man’s yokel accent and unhelpful demeanor, but he nodded his thanks and headed on.

It wasn’t long before he came across a decent looking structure that was designated, originally enough, Headquarters. He asked a man who was sitting on the stairs reading a book if he knew where Reeve was.

“Aye, last I checked, he was in,” the man said, not even looking up.

“Thanks,” Cid said, walking on in.

He found Reeve sitting at a desk in the main room of the “Headquarters.” The place actually looked more of disaster than the city around it, if such a thing was possible, and seemed more like a junkyard that a “headquarters.”

“Reeve,” Cid said, fixing his gaze on the greasy-haired man sitting at the desk.

“Cid!” Reeve jumped to his feet, very nearly knocking down several stacks of papers precariously balanced on his desk. “Oh my! What a surprise!” Reeve’s hands hurriedly ran over the stacks of papers, straightening them without even looking, preventing the danger of their falling as if he had done this every time he stood. He probably does, Cid thought to himself after a moment’s consideration.

“What brings you here, Cid?” Reeve stepped from behind his desk, running his hand through his greasy mat of hair as if trying to neaten it before offering the same hand to Cid for a handshake. Cid glanced briefly at that hand, then put his own hand in his pocket, retrieving a cigarette.

Cid lit a cigarette, taking a deep draft before answering Reeve. “I need another PHS,” he said succinctly, “for Yuffie. You got any?”

Reeve stared at him a moment, snatched his hand back, then returned back to his seat behind his desk. “Well, I see some things don’t change. The only time any of you ever bother to see me is to ask for something.” His voice was full of irritation, but Cid found it petulant.

“We have our reasons for wanting to stay away from this filthy place,” Cid answered, releasing a long stream of smoke in Reeve’s direction.

“So you do,” answered Reeve, “so you do.” He began flipping through papers in the stacks, glancing at them for brief moments before moving on to another stack. “Why do you need another PHS? As far as I know, there isn’t really a need for them.” Reeve did not look up as he asked this, keeping his eyes on the papers he sorted through.

“We have a problem,” Cid said, trying to decide whether Reeve needed to know the truth of the matter. He was ex-Shin-ra. But, Reeve had switched alliances long ago, foreswearing Shin-Ra at peak of the corporation’s power.

“What problem?” Reeve held his hand in place, marking his place in the stack of papers, but his eyes searched Cid’s.

“Sephiroth is back.” Cid took another long draw from the cigarette.

“So,” Reeve said in a quiet voice, his face going very pale, “the rumors are true.”

“You heard?”

“Some time ago, yes, I heard. I had thought… well… you know, particularly after Meteor, there were those alleged Sephiroth sightings all over the world. I thought, at first, that this might be the same thing. I guessed…” Reeve to a deep breath, looking away from Cid for a moment. “I had thought that if it was Sephiroth, I could count you people to come to me, either for help or to blame.”

Cid didn’t answer, feeling unaccountably guilty for how obvious Avalanche’s feelings were toward Reeve. He took a last draw from the cigarette, then dropped it to the floor, grinding it out with his heel. “So,” he finally said, “do you have a PHS or not?”

“Do you even know where Yuffie is?”

“Well, no,” Cid admitted.

“How many functioning PHS units do you have left?”

“I think all of them, but Yuffie’s.”

“I don’t have any more PHS’s to help you with,” Reeve said, shrugging. “If you wanted to leave one with me, I might be able to duplicate the technology, or I might ruin it. I’m sorry, the knowledge to make them is lost, like so much else.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?” Cid asked, irritated he had wasted his time. Reeve met his gaze again, but did not answer.

“Last I head, Sephiroth was at Condor,” Reeve said, “I am not sure what he is doing there. Condor might very well be destroyed in his wake, or they might have killed him, or they might be allied to him. Be cautious, should you decide to go there. I have a contact there, but they are not friendly to me or anything that has to do with Shin-Ra.” He paused, chewing on his lip for a moment. “And, of late, they are not real happy with Avalanche, either. It is my understand that the Academy has been not been very friendly toward them, and Condor is ready to fight, it that is what the Academy wants.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Cid said, trying to assimilate all the Reeve had just told him. If he told Cloud about this, Cloud would immediately send all his warriors to Condor and cause a slaughter that may or may not be necessary. Cid felt it was more important to find out what Sephiroth was doing there first. Cloud’s approach of kill first and ask questions later would cause too many problems and leave too many questions unanswered. “Thank you, Reeve, for your help. If you see Yuffie, tell her to meet me in Junon.”

“Why not just tell me yourself?” A woman’s voice asked from behind him. Cid jumped, turning fully around in the air and pulling his staff to attack position.

“Well, hello there,” the woman said, a haughty smile coming to her face. Cid paused, barely breathing, even though his heart was pounding. The woman’s dark, tilted eyes filled with laughter as she watched his expression change from fear to recognition.

“Yuffie?” Surely this couldn’t be Yuffie. Cid’s mind struggled to the put image of the gawky girl he had known together with this mature woman that now stood before him. Her body was clad in a long, black jumpsuit made of flexible chocobo leather. It clung to every curve and hard line of her body, giving the image of both a hardened warrior and a woman. She still had her outrageously-sized shuriken, which was currently strapped across her back. Two belts were slung across her waist, across each hip, holding a variety of small pouches. Her hair, no longer boyishly short, was pulled back neatly into a thick braid that just grazed the top of the belts.

“That’s me,” she said, obviously impishly delighted by his response to her. “Do you like the new outfit?” She cavorted in a circle so that he could appreciate all angles of her garb.

“What… you were.. I mean…your leg was…” Cid struggled for the right words. How had she changed so much? Had it really been that long since they had last seen here? He realized, belatedly, that actually, none of them had actually seen her since the fall of Midgar. Until her PHS had been lost, they had all spoken with her on a fairly regular basis, but she had never actually visited any of them in person, even when she had been traveling the world in search of material.

“I got the leg fixed,” she said, nodding at Reeve. “When Barret got his arm done, remember?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that she was here?” Cid asked, suddenly rounding on Reeve in irritation.

“You didn’t ask me where she was,” Reeve answered, sly humor in his voice.

“Dammit, Reeve, do you always have to be told every little thing in detail?” Cid slammed his first on the desk to try to get the man’s attention. The desk gave an ominous creak, and Cid quickly lifted his hand away from it.

“Now, Cid,” Yuffie protested, but he cut her off.

“This is serious, Yuffie. Don’t you realize what is going on?”

“Well, Reeve did mention that Sephiroth might be back, but there have been a hundred times when he was supposedly resurrected and walking the planet again that have proven to be false. What got you guys so riled up this time?”

“Vincent saw him,” Cid said. “He saw Sephiroth, in the flesh. There is no question, no doubt.”

“Vincent?” Yuffie asked, suddenly very interested. “He’s been missing for years. I thought he was… what happened to him? Is he OK? He actually saw Sephiroth? Where?”

“I’ll explain later,” Cid said, turning he attention back to Reeve. Reeve was clearly miffed about the damage done to his desk, but didn’t look willing to reprove Cid for the action. “Is there any other information you have forgotten to tell me?”

“Well,” Reeve said, glancing at Yuffie, “it seems that Sephiroth is tracking down artifacts from the Ancient’s city.”

“How did you learn this?” Cid contained his irritation at the information Reeve was finally giving him. Better late than never, he thought.

“My contact in Condor told me this,” explained Reeve. “He also told me that Sephiroth seemed different. That is why I questioned the rumors that it was actually Sephiroth. I assumed it was a pretender. But I have not heard from him since our last communication, even though I have tried to contact him several times since. I am worried what happened to him.”

“How long ago did your contact inform you?”

“About a week,” Reeve replied.

Cid considered the information for a moment. He should probably contact Cloud with the new information on Condor, but he felt a slight worry in the back of his mind that if he did so, Cloud would order all of the Academy to converge on Condor and reduce it to dust. Cloud’s current frame of mind would find the mass destruction and the possible slaughter of innocents a welcome price to pay to purge the planet of Sephiroth’s influence. Cid truly believed Cloud would seize on any information that would allow him to remove the last traces of the Shin-Ra cooperation that existed in Condor. Perhaps the better choice would be to join Vincent and Red and investigate Condor themselves before telling Cloud.

“Yuffie, I need you to come with me, we are going to Condor,” Cid said.

“Why Condor?”

“Because I need to find out what Sephiroth was doing there,” Cid said, glaring at Yuffie for her lack of seeing the obvious. “And Cloud needs to know where the alignment of Condor stands. If they are a threat, if they are backing Sephiroth, then we need to know now.”

“Why not contact Cloud and the others first?”

“Vincent and Red are already on their way there, so we can meet up with them there.”

“Oh. Vincent and Red? I haven’t seen them in a long time,” Yuffie said, suddenly seeming to warm to the idea of going to Condor. Cid’s frown deepened at her changes in mood. She was just as difficult to predict as she had been before. No, actually, she’s worse now. Now she looks like…. He cut the thought off. He didn’t really want to think too much about Yuffie’s new appearance. Perhaps when they met up with Vincent and Cid, he would leave Yuffie with one of them. She was entirely too distracting for him to focus on the job at hand.

“Good, we will go to Condor then,” Cid finally said, taking his eyes off Yuffie. He turned to Reeve, considering the man’s diminutive structure. “Are you coming?” Cid finally asked, hoping Reeve would say no.

“I cannot,” Reeve answered, to Cid’s great relief. “There is too much that I must do here. You can, of course, always come by and visit.”

“Right, well,” Cid fidgeted slightly, feeling uncomfortable. “Let’s go, Yuffie.”

“Hey,” she protested rushing to follow him out of the Headquarters building. “I’m not a kid anymore; you can’t just order me around like that!”

“I noticed.” Cid continued walking, not looking back at her.

“Noticed what?” Yuffie huffed as she finally caught up to him.

Cid stopped, turning to her and taking a long look at her from head to toe. The ninja stood quietly under his searching gaze at first, then seemed to realize what he was doing and blushed furiously. “I noticed that you ain’t a kid anymore,” Cid finally said, smiling bemusedly at her discomfort. He resumed walking, leaving her flustered behind him.

A few hours later, Cid and Yuffie were well on their way to Condor. They had left Yuffie’s chocobo at Midgar, as it was a small creature that could not carry them both.

“So, tell me about Vincent,” Yuffie said after they had walked many miles in silence. “Is he well? Where has he been all this time?”

“Well, I guess he’s well,” Cid said, considering. “About the same as before. Still moody as hell. He wandered off when we were coming back from the city of the Ancients and we had a hell of time finding him and Red. That really made Cloud mad.”

“What? What were you all doing up there at the city of the Ancients? Where all of you up there?”

“Well, that’s where Vincent said he say Sephiroth.”

“At the city of the Ancients?” Yuffie gasped. No wonder Cloud was so upset. He had always been so protective of Aeris, and anything about the now-deceased flower girl. It was really too bad he hadn’t noticed how much he hurt Tifa with that protective concern.

“Well, no, actually not there.” Cid spat out the spent cigarette he’d been chewing on and pulled a fresh one out of his pocket. “Actually, Vincent said they were up at a cottage that was northwest of the city.”

“They? Who?”

Cid sighed, lighting the cigarette and taking several long pulls from it. He stopped, considered the time of day, the fading sun, then looked back at Yuffie. “This is going to take a while to catch you up, ain’t it?”

“How much do I need to be caught up on?” Yuffie’s face lit up with a mischevious grin. “Surely you could not have too much fun without me, now could ya?”

“You would be amazed,” he answered. “Why don’t we stop here for the night, and I will try to catch you up.”

Yuffie agreed quickly and soon they had set up for the night, with a nicely banked fire to warm them. Cid told her of Vincent’s original meeting, including how Cloud and Tifa weren’t going to come originally. He went through the destruction of the village, then the subsequent return to the Academy.

“So,” he said, finally having caught her up, “we now are all split up looking for the loot that was taken from the City of the Ancients. And, if Reeve tells me right, Sephiroth is looking for it as well.”

“You think that maybe something really important was taken?” Yuffie considered the whole story. Something about the story was really bothering her, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on it. “That maybe Sephiroth is after something very powerful that was taken from the city of the Ancients?”

Surely not another meteor materia, Yuffie thought with a shudder, not even I want that materia on my person!

“We really don’t know,” Cid answered. “What does it really matter, anyway? It’s Sephiroth. He’s walking the planet again. He has to be stopped. Before he starts… whatever, all over again. I don’t think the planet can take another battle like before. And we don’t have…”

“We do have Aeris this time,” Yuffie finished for him. They both fell in silent contemplation for some time.

“Wait a minute,” Yuffie said. “You said Sephiroth was traveling with a woman? A lover?”

“Yes, that is what Vincent said. We haven’t seen her, of course.”

“If they left the Northern Continent after Vincent…” Yuffie trailed off, mentally ticking off the days in her mind. When was it that she had made that voyage from Bone Village herself?

“Did Vincent ever say what the woman looked like?” She asked finally, with a feeling of dread beginning to gnaw at her gut.

“No, I don’t think he did. Just that she appeared to be a very good fighter.” Cid gave her a curious look. “You look like you just swallowed a mouth full of chocobo droppings. What’s the matter?”

“I… I think I might have been on the same boat as them coming from the Northern Continent.” Even as she said this, Yuffie could feel the blood draining from her face. Tiny, shining spots suddenly floated across her vision. Was it true? Could it possibly be true? Had she traveled on the same boat as Sephiroth? Had he been there? Was the strange, warrior woman that had comforted her on the deck during a furious moment of seasickness this mysterious lover of his?

Surely not! Her mind completely rebelled against the idea. I would have known. I would have known!

“Yuffie!” Cid shouted. Yuffie jumped, realizing suddenly he had been calling her name several times.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Are you ok? You looked really pale there for a bit. Here,” he handed her the half-burned down cigarette, “take a pull on this. Always helps calm my nerves.”

Yuffie stared at the burning butt offered to her, actually considering the offer for a moment. Then she scowled up her face and shook her head. “No thank you, I’d like to live out my days with a hacking cough.”

“Suit yourself,” Cid said, returning the cigarette to his mouth. “Now,” he continued, “what you mean that you might have been on a boat with them?”

Now it was Yuffie’s turn for a story. “Well,” she said, considering how much she should tell him about why she had been on the Northern Continent. She seriously doubted he, or any of Avalanche, would understand that her relentless search for new and exciting materia had brought her to the city of the Ancients herself. No, they would not understand that at all. Especially Cloud. He would accuse her of looting. Or worse. But I didn’t loot, she thought defensively to the image of Cloud in her head, I was acquiring. That’s different. She smiled ruefully. That sounds lame even to me.

“I was on the Northern Continent about a month ago looking for materia,” she said, not meeting his eyes.

“Once a hunter, always a hunter, huh?” Cid asked with a laugh. “None of us expected that to change in you, not really.”

“Really?” Yuffie felt a little relief. Still, she was not going to mention where specifically her leads had brought her in the Northern Continent. “Anyway, I was headed back to Junon once the ships started running again. And on that ship, there was this woman… she was a clearly a warrior; she just radiated power. And… and I remember, now that I think about it, that the ship crew had mentioned something about a passenger that was traveling with her that no one had seen. I just didn’t think about it at all.”

“You hadn’t gotten the summons from Vincent at that time yet, had you?” Cid asked, very intrigued by Yuffie’s chance encounter. If she really had met up with Sephiroth’s lover…

“Well, no, I hadn’t,” she admitted. “So I wasn’t even thinking about Sephiroth or anything like that.”

“What did she look like? This warrior woman?” Cid asked, suddenly curious. It seemed like he remembered that Vincent had mentioned she had red hair… or was it black? He couldn’t remember.

“Well, she had incredible red hair – it was done up in a many wild braids. She had… oh I don’t know. I really wasn’t paying attention to her at the time.” Yuffie blushed, too embarrassed to admit she had been so seasick at the time she could barely remember meeting this woman. “But she did say her name was Jyleth. I remember that.”

“I should relay this information to Cloud and the others,” Cid said quietly. “But I imagine it’s very late over there, so I will wait until tomorrow.” Yuffie nodded at him blearily, suddenly feeling very sleepy.

“You get first watch,” she declared, rolling herself up snugly in her sleeping roll. Cid watched her fade off in the sleep, contemplating why exactly he was hesitating to call Cloud immediately with the information he had. I’d have to tell him about Condor, he thought bitterly, and when I tell him that, he’s going to send the whole damn Academy there and start another war. Which is the last thing we need right now. DAMN HIM! Why does Cloud insist on keeping up this enmity with the Condorians all this time? This is one time we could really use their aide. He sighed and shook his head. He wanted to talk to Red about this. And he could not do that until he met up with the wise feline and Vincent, as the PHS system connected all units at all times – there was no way he could communicate with the others without Cloud hearing the whole conversation.

Cid frowned, unsettled to no small degree with the direction his thoughts were taking him. Equally unsettling to him was that he could see no alternate course for his thoughts to follow.