Sephiroth had been defeated. Shinra Corporation, reformed. Meteor, destroyed. The Planet was finally at peace.

Whoop-de-fucking-doo.

In the ninja village of Wutai, Yuffie Kisaragi stealthily crept her way from shadow to shadow, avoiding any practiced eyes. It had been a few years since her journey with Cloud and co—no longer a teen, she was now a young woman in the flower of young adulthood, her nineteenth birthday scarcely a week past. She was finally an adult, finally mature.

But despite it all, she was still petite. Tiny in figure. Normally that wouldn’t bug her, but hanging around a girl like Tifa Lockhart would make any woman feel incomplete. Yuffie just wanted a bit more… presence. She wanted to turn heads, like Tifa.

Thankfully, poking around the village archives told her about a hidden, nigh-forbidden materia kept secret by the village elders. And after her extremely polite request to ‘borrow’ it had been rebuffed, she’d decided there was only one course of action remaining.

Doing what she did best: taking every last materia she could get her sticky fingers on.

She vaulted over a rooftop, hiding herself under an easement when she thought someone might have spied her. Well, not every last materia. Wutai was her home village; in fact, the whole reason she’d picked up a pilfering habit had been for their sake. But since she had done so much for them, was it too much to ask for one teensy little forbidden spell in return?

Yuffie didn’t think so.

Making her way to the temple near the rear of the village, she crept in from a secret passage underneath the floor. In the second-to-last room, she knocked on the wall until she heard a hollow sound. Pressing slightly, she found it—a hidden panel leading to an even more hidden room.

The forbidden materia were all there, arrayed in a tableau of blues and golds and purples. Yuffie was mighty tempted… but no. She didn’t have anything to gain from a special summoning materia or a vigor-inducing spell. She wanted the one in the back, an emerald bauble glowing slightly on a soft cushion. Picking it up gingerly, she smiled down at it. FERTILITY MATERIA, the dust-veiled placard said; it had been used by her people’s shamanesses in ancient times. She could almost feel the power coursing through her just from her fingertips.