Finding the Secret Waterway (Prequel ch46)

Yes, I know the chapter title on fanfic is obnoxious.  I was like, missing Avatar.

Link to the Tumbl

So I was watching my youngest sister play KH1, (mind you, this was several months ago), but I was reminded of the secret waterway and how sometimes Leon used it to train.  It got me thinking about how they even found out about it in the first place.

cosplay by yu-kisaragi

But of course, the Great Ninja Yuffie would find it.

Young!Yuffie is a bit hard to write for.  I think I've mentioned this before.  For some reason, her head's really hard to get into, especially because there's this whole alter-ego of the Great Ninja Yuffie that is also in her head.  I think this gets better as she grows older, like the different personalities resolve themselves within her.  Regardless, this is the first chapter where I've done an entire chapter with JUST a kid.  (I wasn't even doing full chapters with just Kairi!)  I think it went very well.  It helped that the Great Ninja Yuffie had a mission.

But yeah, as my tumbl says, writing the chapter without being at the leisure of just turning on my PS2 and wandering around Traverse Town made it a little bit hard.  I didn't have access to KH1 at that particular moment, so I was reduced to walkthroughs and the wiki.  And, as great as the KHwiki is, it was failing me for this one, because it failed to mention the entrance to the secret waterway from the alley.  It only mentioned the one by Merlin's house.  So I got SO confused.  It's cool, I figured it out, obviously.

Also, rar and I got into this intense discussion about the locations of boxes in Traverse Town.  Thankfully, boxes are not like buildings and can move around over the years.  Then we also had an intense discussion to figure how Yuffie gets through the bars.  I think we determined there was a hatch for maintenance, but Yuffie's small enough at 10 to just fit through the bars.  Later, she'll probably loosen a bar to move aside as she gets through.  Later, when other people know about it, I think they'd either use the aforementioned hatch or be able to slide through with one of the bars missing (ala the Little Mermaid 2, probably.)  Then, Sora'll show up in, like, 6 years and just break the whole thing with a Trinity because... well... Sora.

Overall, a pretty fun chapter to write.

Yes, KKBeckett, her relationship to school is very amusing.  She really doesn't want to be doing school, but she knows if she doesn't, Aerith will get disappointed, and Yuffie really doesn't want to disappoint Aerith.  So she just keeps going, waiting for the day when Aerith tells her she can be done with school. (Something that is certainly a few years off.)

Here's some up-and-coming quotes:

"If I wasn't sure, I wouldn't be saying it.  Will I miss you? Absolutely.  Do I know that you and I may need to do separate things for a while? ... Absolutely."

"What, no hug?"

"I think my adventuring days are over, I'm getting too old for it."

"I know your family's not technically a real family, but it sounds like a really nice family."

"Cid's asleep! Goodness, how late is it?"

Have a completely unrelated, but slightly nifty video:

And that's all, folks!