My Protection

It had been a year since Sora and Riku had beat Xemnas and returned to the island. Since then, they had rescued Aqua, Terra, and Ventus from the world of darkness. Now they were all living at the island; returning to a normal lifestyle…Except the fact that Sora could still travel from world to world; visiting friends and fighting off the heartless that appeared.

Sora and Riku would let Kairi tag along sometimes, but when she was there it seemed Sora couldn't concentrate on anything but protecting her. It seemed she was nothing but a hindrance the moment she stepped into a world besides the islands. The only time he let her out of his sight on one of the other worlds was when she was taken to Radiant Garden, and even then it was only because she was stuck at Merlin's house with Leon and his gang for protection.

She felt…so…so…useless. More than anything she wanted to spend time with Sora, but not when all she did was distract him she wanted to help him, not bother him. She even had her own keyblade now, but…apparently she wasn't a very good fighter. She could hardly fight a group of shadows without someone to help her. …Heck; even Selphie could fight better than her and she had just recently upgraded from a jump rope to a real weapon.

She had met Yuffie; a hyperactive ninja-who fought fairly well-, with her odd weapons; one's she had never seen nor heard of. She always looked like she was having fun fighting, and everyone let her fight with them. She could take care of herself.

She met Aerith; a sweet girl who preferred not to fight. And yet she was welcome to join a battle if she wished to. Though she mostly went around healing everyone.

She had met Tifa, who possessed so much strength it amazed Kairi. She defeated countless enemies with only her fists. She wondered how long it took to learn to fight like that.

Kairi had also met Rikku, Yuna, and Paine; three sprites that looked like they couldn't do more than get themselves killed on the battlefield. And yet Kairi had witnessed them fight, and knew how much they could do together. Why couldn't she fight like they could?

And although they had made fast friends, Kairi knew she didn't even compare to Aqua. Kairi knew how much respect Aqua got from everyone for being such a great fighter. Even though Aqua was obviously better with magic than with physical strength…though, she had plenty of that, too.

She was so tired of being the only one that couldn't help with anything but making up excuses for Sora's parents when he left. She needed to be out there with Sora; to spend time with him, to help him, and…to make sure he didn't get hurt.

Which is how she made up her mind to find someone to train her, she automatically marked off all the girls. It's not that she didn't like them, but she wanted to be stronger than them, not their equals.

Most of the girls; like Yuffie, Aerith, Tifa, and Yuna's group; didn't use a weapon close to her own. It would be nice to spar with them, but if she needed tips or advice on her keyblade, they wouldn't be able to help.

This is how she decided that it had to be someone with a keyblade, and made a mental list of them. Sora (obviously), Riku, King Mickey, Terra, Aqua, and Ven…at least, that's all she could think of. She hoped she didn't leave anyone out.

She considered Sora for maybe half a second before deciding it couldn't be him. He might want her to be able to protect herself; so he might agree to help her, but since she was doing all this for him in the first place, she wanted to surprise him with how good she had gotten at fighting.

King Mickey would surely help her, but he was much too far away. To get to him she would need Sora's help, and she had already decided she didn't want Sora to know.

Riku was the strongest of their little group, but if she asked him for help, would he let Sora know? And Riku wasn't stupid; he would put two and two together. He'd figure out that it was about Sora. And he'd probably tease her about it. She didn't want to be teased; she wanted to be taken seriously. Besides all that; she knew that Riku used to have a crush on her, and that he was just getting over her. She saw the jealous looks that Riku would sometimes shoot Sora's way when she hung around him. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Riku, but she couldn't help it. She was in love with Sora. How would he feel about her asking for help with something that would bring her closer to Sora? She knew that Riku wouldn't object, but she didn't want to chance hurting him.

Then there was Ventus, who everyone called Ven. Having him train her would be practically perfect. It would be just like having Sora teach her, really. …But that was also a problem. How could she train with him? He had such a resemblance to Sora that if Sora himself wasn't around, she couldn't stop the butterfly's from building up in her stomach from just being around Ven. She knew she was madly in love with Sora, and that she had no romantic feelings for Ven at all, but they were so much alike that it was scary. She didn't think she'd be able to focus on training with all her concentration focused on keeping herself from blushing.

She would like to train with Aqua; really, she would. But…although they were friends; for this moment, Kairi couldn't think of her as anything more than competition. Aqua was so nice to her; so she honestly felt a bit bad for marking her name off her list simply for this, but it couldn't be helped. It was a silly reason, but she kind of considered her a rival. And people can't just go around getting trained by their rivals; it just doesn't work that way.

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And these thoughts are what brought her to the island where she had played since her early childhood; which was now where Terra, Ven, and Aqua were living at. Luckily for her, Terra was already outside practicing; despite how early it was. She wondered if he always trained at 7 a.m. "…Terra?" She asked as she made her way over to him. She had already decided he would be the one to train her, but he honestly intimidated her a little. She knew he was nice, but she always felt like a child next to him, she was never sure how to approach him.

He looked over at the sound of his name. "Yes?" She explained to him what she wanted, and why she wanted to be trained so badly. He nodded a little. "I don't mind training you. But we'll start today and see how it goes. If you want me to keep training you after today; I will, if you don't; try asking Aqua for help." Kairi agreed.

They spent the day training; mostly sparring, and Kairi knew she was hopelessly out-matched. She was tired out, getting her butt kicked, and she could tell he was holding back. A lot.

At sunset; she was exhausted and frustrated, but she wouldn't give up. She was too stubborn for that. She told Terra she wanted to train again tomorrow, but even so; the moment Terra said they could call it a day she collapsed into the sand.

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She went back to the island the next; her muscles aching. She climbed out of her rowboat and walked onto the shore. No matter how long it took to get the strength she wanted, she wasn't going to give up. Going to where she had trained with Terra the previous day; she saw him speaking to Aqua. When Terra noticed Kairi he gave her a smile, and walked away. Kairi looked to Aqua. "Where's he going?"

Aqua turned to face her. "Terra forgot he promised Ven he'd spend the day with him; so he asked me to train you instead."

"Oh…"

"Here," Aqua led her to the shoreline and sat down on the dock. "Let's talk for a while first, okay?"

Kairi nodded in agreement and sat quietly beside her. "…Did Terra tell you why I wanted to train?" Aqua shook her head.

"No, but he did say I should talk to you. Is something going on? You know if someone's trying to hurt you we'll take care of it, right? You don't have to keep practicing like this."

Kairi sighed and hugged her knees to her chest. "But that's the problem. I'm tired of being a burden on everyone. I want to help you guys. I don't want anyone to have to protect me anymore; I want to protect myself."

"I see…" Aqua put a hand on her shoulder. "Kairi, if you want to get stronger and fight on your own; that's fine, but you're not a burden on anyone. In fact, you brighten everyone's day just by being around. Everyone enjoys protecting you, Kairi. We don't protect you because we feel like we have to; we protect you because we want to. We know you can fight, but we want to make sure your safe because your our friend. You're protective of your friend's, right?" Kairi nodded. "Especially Sora?" Kairi blushed, but gave another nod. "This is exactly like that. Just how your protective of us; we're protective of you. You don't get a lot of protection because you're weak; you get so much protection because you have so many friends that want to keep you safe. Understand?"

Kairi stood, looking over at Aqua, and gave her a bright smile. "Thank you, Aqua."

THE END

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Author's note: I'm not sure I like how this turned out, but review anyway and let me know what you think please.