Author's Note: What? New story? Yup. Exactly that. This is a continuation of "All the Pieces" and "Betwixt and Between." Granted, it also has it's ties to the prequel. I'm going to wrap up what I started with "All the Pieces." Who's along for the ride?
Hollow Bastion: Kairi, Age 17
Kairi stared out over the Great Maw. The darkness made her skin crawl. They were going to take care of this, and soon. They were running out of time.
If Namine were here, she'd say something very insightful, surely, because that's what Namine did. But Namine was with Riku and Roxas. All of them were recovering from a rather nasty battle that happened in The World that Never Was when they went there to check how that World was doing. Mostly they were just resting. Sora was asleep too, when she and Axel had left earlier.
However, Kairi and Axel were the only two who had gone to Hollow Bastion to see how things were going. Axel had gone by himself a week and half ago (after going first to the parallel universe and running into the Riku Replica—whom they'd all met two days ago because Vexen apparently wanted to do a science experiment). Axel and Kairi were currently with Leon, Aerith, and Yuffie; there to take notes, but prepared to fight if necessary.
"Tomorrow," Leon said, breaking Kairi out of her thoughts. "We'll go tomorrow."
"Why tomorrow?" Kairi asked. Not that she minded, she just wanted to know.
"Too late to mobilize today," Leon said, looking around. "But I don't think we have too much longer. All the plans are set. When we get back to Headquarters, I'll tell Cid to send the message out."
Kairi nodded. Leon wouldn't have to tell anyone currently residing on Destiny Islands. As soon as she and Axel got back, everyone would know. Namine probably knew instinctively already, with her pictures having the propensity to predict near future events. Kairi hoped that Namine, Riku, and Roxas would be ready for tomorrow. This was going to be a big battle. But they would have a lot of help.
"Well, if we're doing this tomorrow, I'm going to want to get some sleep," Axel said. He relaxed his grip on his chakrams. The Heartless were not attacking.
"You're lazy," Yuffie said.
Kairi snorted. All she could think about was all the times she'd called Sora a lazy bum. That morning being the most recent time.
"Let's get back to the house," Aerith said quietly. "No sense getting caught out here and be forced to fight."
At Aerith's mention of that, Kairi decided that it would be a good idea to banish her Keyblade. The Heartless were attracted to that sort of thing. And if they didn't want to be fighting today, since they'd be fighting tomorrow, Kairi didn't want to be responsible.
No one moved for a second. They were all somewhat entranced by the Heartless, growing and festering down there. Kairi's nose twitched.
"We'll come early tomorrow," she insisted. "Xion and Roxas will make sure Axel gets out of bed."
"Oi!" Axel complained.
Kairi and Leon ignored Axel. Leon nodded in her direction.
"I'll be up early," Aerith said. "So don't think you can arrive too early."
"You should sleep too, you know," Leon said, sending Aerith a wry smile. She shrugged.
"Well, let's get back," Leon repeated.
At that point, the five of them finally turned around and started heading back into town. No Heartless bothered them, for which Kairi was grateful. She got the feeling that she'd be seeing more Heartless tomorrow than she'd want to deal with in a long time.