Chapter 2: The Devil’s Incantation: Okay! Form Pairs!
YUFFIE was originally going to enroll in the Academy of Magic as a user of healing magic. But that didn’t happen. When she was six years old, she saw the Saint come to the village and ran into the forest.
“I want to be able to use magic like the Saint…”
And with that thought, she imagined a spell. What came out of her outstretched hands was a raging flame that almost burned down the whole forest.
KABOOOOOOSH!
“Wha-?!”
The explosion blasted her off her feet and was so strong that it blew a crater in the ground, not to mention the damage it did to the trees. She staggered up and stared at the hellish scene of trees blazing. For a moment, Yuffie was stunned—unable to understand what had happened—but she soon realized what she’d done.
Mother is going to be so mad!
She was panicking. Yuffie remembered the time she had broken a vase and received the scolding of her young life. Even for a six-year-old, Yuffie already knew that you shouldn’t break things. It was common sense. Except here, not only was she breaking things, she was burning everything to ash, so she understood how bad this situation was.
“Um, um, ummm… What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?!”
Yuffie was growing nervous. Then she suddenly remembered what happened when her mother accidentally started a fire in the kitchen—she had doused it with water to put it out.
“Water! I need water!”
She thrust her hand out in front of her again, palm facing forward, and imagined a lot of water.
SPLAAAAAAAAASH!
Water appeared out of nowhere and crushed the raging flames from above.
“Bluuug…!”
The deluge swallowed her up and swept her away. Coughing up water, she turned around and saw the fire was out. Though there were more blackened trees and the large hole in the ground remained (a crater that would later become one of the Seven Wonders of the village of Millil), overall, she had managed to contain the damage. It should be fine.
Okay, she knew she probably wouldn’t be fine, but she decided not to think about it too much. In hindsight, maybe Yuffie’s tendency to avoid reality had blossomed at this point.
“I won’t get in trouble for this…right?” The relief she felt triggered a wave of fatigue in her body. She instinctively rolled over on the ground. Looking up at the clear sky, she muttered, “I used it…”
She could use magic. Yuffie was so clumsy that she couldn’t even do housework properly, so she trembled at this new kernel of knowledge.
Accomplishment, fulfillment, and happiness, various emotions swirled through her heart. Her magic had been really different from what the Saint had used, but it was still magic. It shone just as brightly, beautifully.
“Now I can…become a Saint…” She was so sure of it that her heart leapt with joy. “I’m going to tell Mom and Dad!” She was sure they’d praise her. Yuffie stood up, her heart pounding, but then froze. “If I can do that much, even though it was my first time…”
Other people must be able to do more. Come to think of it, she’d always been last in foot races and studying. There was no way someone like her could beat others in magic.
Everyone else can use more amazing magic than me, magic I don’t know…
Yuffie’s low self-esteem and lack of knowledge about magic made her believe that. This was a good reminder that she had almost let herself get too cocky. She shook her head vigorously.
“Let me practice a bit more…”
From that day on, her magic training began. After she learned how to move at high speed using wind magic, she moved her training to a mountainous area far away from the village, afraid of burning down the forest near it.
“Fire Flame!” BOOM!
“Water Shoot!” SPLASH!
“Wind Slash!” WHOOSH!
“Grand Wall!” RUMBLE!
“Stun Shock!” ZAP, ZAP, ZAP!
It was easier to imagine the spells by saying them out loud, so she gave them names befitting of what they did and practiced magic as she pleased every day for seven years. By the time she turned thirteen, she was able to use magic powerful enough to blow away entire parts of rocky mountains if she tried hard enough.
“Maybe…it’s okay to tell them now…?”
Yuffie finally decided to reveal her ability to use magic to her parents. But first, she told her mother about her dream.
“Mom.”
“What is it, Yuffie?”
“I want to be a Saint.”
Her mother stopped washing the dishes. Then she turned to Yuffie and said with a strangely gentle smile, “If you want to become a Saint, you have to learn recovery magic.”
“Recovery…?”
Recovery… Recovery… What does that mean?
The universe spread out beneath her feet, behind her, and above her—Yuffie in the cosmos. Images flashed in her mind of the magic she had practiced up until now. Burning down forests with fire, washing away earth with water, exploding rocks with lightning…
Recovery? What is that? Some kind of food?
“That’s right. To become a Saint, you have to master recovery magic… In other words, healing magic that heals people’s injuries and illnesses.”
In an instant, blackness obscured her vision.
“Then what about the kind that makes fire and water…?” she asked gingerly.
“Ah, that’s offensive magic. There are two types of magic. One is recovery magic, and the other is offensive magic… The latter is magic that manifests elements like fire and water and uses them as a means of fighting.”
Yuffie felt like fainting.
“Sweetie? You look like you’re going to faint. Are you all right?”
“I-I’m fine…”
She wasn’t fine at all. Yuffie had thought that if she could use magic, she could become a saint, but that was a big mistake on her part. To become a Saint, she had to learn healing magic. Despair engulfed her. She wondered what the past seven years even meant now…
“By the way, only women can use healing magic, and only men can use attack magic.”
Her mother was saying something incredibly important, except her words barely registered at all. In the remote village of Millil, there was no inflow of knowledge about magic. Not to mention, Yuffie didn’t have any friends to even ask for information from. It was then that she learned what everyone already knew—gender determined the type of magic someone could use.