Okay, this is my first fic. The whole Zexion x Kairi thing was the result of some interesting fanart I saw on Deviantart. Please R&R No flames, please!
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts.
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Chapter One -- Kairi
Kairi sat up in the bed with a small scream. She had had another nightmare. Trembling violently, she looked around the room. Nobody was there and everything was quiet. She was alone. Kairi felt tears coming to her eyes. Oh, man, why again?
The dream was one Kairi had been having for a year now. What was worse was that a year ago, the dream had been a horrible reality.
One year after the defeat of Organization XIII and their leader, Xemnas, Kairi, along with with her boyfriend, Sora, and close friend, Riku, had been contacted by Cloud Strife. He had been fighting Sephiroth when the Dark Angel had recieved help from another person; a person wielding a keyblade. Cloud didn't know much about keyblade warriors and their power so he had asked Sora, Kairi, and Riku for help.
Naturally, all three had agreed to help their friend and travelled to the town of Kalm, where Cloud had fought Sephiroth and the mysterious warrior. There, they had found Cloud, Tifa, a friend of Cloud's named Vincent, and Sephiroth with his keyblade warrior ally. The keyblade warrior introduced himself as Orondrin, a renegade who had been trapped in an enchanted sleep for a thousand years. Sephiroth had awakened him.
Sora, Kairi, and Riku had engaged Orondrin while Cloud and his allies fought Sephiroth. With Orondrin now busy and unable to help him, Sephiroth fell at the hands of Cloud, vanishing from sight, hopefully forever. Orondrin saw Sephiroth fall and quickly disappeared. Sora and his friends pursued the renegade and finally, on a desloate plain a week's journey north of Hollow Bastion, Sora confronted Orondrin. It was there that Kairi had watched as Sora had died.
The first thing Orondrin had done was summon a number of vicious heartless to keep a couple of the keyblade warriors busy. Since Sora was the best of the three keyblade warriors, he had engaged Orondrin. For close to an hour, the two had fought, Sora in his Final Form, and Orondrin in some dark form that was unfamiliar to the three friends. Kairi had just broken through a line of heartless when she saw Sora glide by, shooting toward a taunting Orondrin. One heartless caught sight of Sora and gave a half-hearted jump at him. The weak attack distracted Sora for a split second. That was all Orondrin had needed. With lightning speed, renegade keyblade warrior had shot forward and driven his keyblade right into Sora's chest.
Kairi had screamed as she saw Sora go rigid. Riku had already leapt at Orondrin, pure fury in his eyes. As Orondrin looked at the attacking youth, Sora had driven the Ultima Keyblade into Orondrin's own chest. Impaled on each other's swords, the two had fallen to the ground. The wild dark magic in Orondrin decimated the twisted warrior immediately. Charred ashes were all that remained of him. Sora lingered, however, just long enough to give Kairi an adoring final look before he vanished in a shower of sparks. Beside the spot where he had lain, Kairi had wept.
It was the death of Sora that Kairi had been dreaming about. How the colour had drained from his face, how he had gone so horribly stiff and rigid, how the light in his eyes had slowly begun to fade. She dreamt about his fall, his final, loving look at her, and his death.
Sora had been honoured like a king, with a grand memorial erected at the site of his death. A smaller shrine had been built where he, Kairi, and Riku had always played when they were younger. Shortly after that, however, Riku had left, going off to travel alone and deal with his own grief. Cloud's friends Aerith and Tifa had tried to help Kairi, but for the first month or so, she was inconsolable. She cried a lot and stopped visiting the island where Sora's shrine was. It was around this time that the nightmares of his death had begun.
Kairi at first thought that they would pass with time, that the pain would eventually heal. She was wrong. Whenever it felt like the pain was leaving, she would be visited by the nightmares. She sought help from Aerith, Tifa, and even Yuffie, but none of them could help her. Kairi began to loose sleep and her health deteriorated. Finally, Kairi's parents, in an attempt to help her move on, had arranged for her to go back to school in Midgar, another city in Cloud's world. The doctor who had been assessing Kairi's condition had felt that it might help and had encouraged Kairi to write home often about how she was feeling and her health. Ravaged by the pain of Sora's death and the continual nightmares, Kairi had agreed.
Kairi lay back on her pillow, staring up at the blank ceiling. After a few minutes, she felt the tightness in her stomach lessen. She got up and wrapped her stick-thin body in a housecoat and when to get a drink for her dry throat.
She was at the sink when she glanced at the clock and started. 1:24 a.m. Today she would be heading off to Midgar Academy for a three-year course in english, literature, and history. She was naturally good at both english and literature, but history had been her own choice. If her parents had found out why she had chosen the subject, Kairi doubted that they would have let her take it. She had chosen the subject with the hope of one day narrowing it down to a particular field: the history of keyblade warriors. She hoped she could find some way to bring Sora back, or at least be able to talk with him once more. She knew that she was being stupid, but she didn't care. She needed to see him again, or at least try, no matter how hopeless her search probably was.
Kairi finished taking a drink and started to head back to her room. As she walked back, she heard a noise behind her. She gave a startled gasp as someone grabbed her and turned her around. She found herself face to face with Riku.
"Riku!" she gasped, pulling away and trying to calm her beating heart, "What are you doing here? Where have you been?"
Riku had not changed much. He still wore his silver hair long and he still had that moody, pensive look about him. His clothes were different though. As if still mourning Sora, Riku wore dark leather armour. He looked at Kairi with an apologetic expression.
"I'm sorry I scared you, but I didn't want your parents to wake up. I just arrived back here and I wanted to see you before I left again."
"Your going to leave again?" Kairi asked, trying desparately to sort through her thoughts. Why is he here now, in the middle of the night? "Where have you been? Where are you going? I haven't seen you for a year and now you suddenly turn up in the middle of the night just to tell me you're going away again?!" Kairi was growing angry. Riku looked even more apologetic.
"I'm on a job Kairi." he said, softly, "I'm working for Leon right now." Kairi started. Leon was a close friend of Cloud's, but when she had seen Cloud yesterday, he hadn't mentioned anything about Riku. Maybe he didn't know.
"I'm confused." Kairi said. She walked into the living room and sat down on the couch after turning on some lights and dimming them so as to not wake up her parents. "What have you been doing?"
"Looking for anyone who had been involved with Orondrin."
For a second time, Kairi started. It was the last answered she had expected, but in looking back, she realized that she should have seen this coming. Of course Riku would try to deal with Sora's death by finding anyone else who could have been involved. She, Kairi, should have stopped him.
"Riku . . ." Kairi began, reaching over and placing her hand on his arm, "why didn't you tell me, or anyone, for that matter? Why did you just have to run off like that with hardly an explanation?"
"I told Cloud and Leon." Riku said, "Cloud thought that Orondrin, because of his power, might have had a cult following in Kalm. I went to Kalm to investigate and found traces of some sort of group that had something to do with Orondrin, so I followed the trail. It doesn't matter now, though. I found out recently that the group had committed mass suicide following Orondrin's death."
"Why are you leaving again, then?" Kairi asked. Riku looked down.
"I can't stay." he muttered, "The pain is too sharp the closer I am to Destiny Islands. The farther away that I am, the better. Fighting evil keeps me busy. I don't have to dwell on the past."
"But it won't make the pain go away." Kairi argued, "You have to move on with your life." She stopped, surprised at herself. Those were the words the doctor had spoken to her the same day that he and her parents had decided to send her back to school. Look what I plan on doing when I reach school. Saying something like that only shows what a hypocrite I am. Kairi took a breath to steady herself.
"If you can find peace, Kairi, then I'm happy for you." Riku said, looking at her in earnest, "But for me, the only way I can find peace is by keeping myself busy. Fighting heartless, fighting Maleficent, fighting anybody, so long as I'm fighting against evil, I am, relatively speaking, happy."
"So you're leaving again?" Kairi asked. Riku nodded.
"What have you been doing?" he asked. His words brought a strange reaction. Kairi started. What have I been doing? Crying mostly. Moping around perhaps.
"I'm going to school in Midgar, today in fact." she said. Riku looked surprised, then somewhat pleased.
"You're moving on, Kairi." he said, "It's more than can be said for me, but maybe that's because of all the time I spent in the darkness. I'm happy for you." Riku rose and Kairi rose with him.
"You're leaving, already?" she asked, "You've only been here for ten minutes! Can't you stay?" Riku shook his head ruefully.
"Like I said, I'm on a job and I don't really have time." Riku said, "I did want to see how you were doing, though. I also want to see the shrine. Maybe it will help, maybe not, but I have to see it." Kairi came forward and gave Riku a hug.
"I'm glad you came, Riku." she said, kissing him on the cheek. Riku hugged her back.
"Bye, Kairi." he said. With that, Riku left, disappearing into the darkness outside.
For another hour, Kairi sat in the living room, deep in thought. Of everything Riku had said, one thing stuck with her: "What have you been doing?" What had she been doing? She had been sitting around, mourning Sora's death. Nothing had changed that over the last year. Kairi looked up as a new thought came to her. Is this what Sora would want? Would he want me to be miserable? Of course not! Kairi could almost hear Sora telling her to move on, not to mourn him anymore. Kairi smiled to herself. Oh, Sora, I'm sorry. I've been acting like a total fool. My heart was broken when you died, but maybe time can mend that, if I give time a chance and not mope around continually. With that, Kairi headed back off to her room. She noticed that the pain seemed to have lessened after that.
----
Kairi was up at eight the next morning, getting ready to head off to Midgar Academy. Kairi was neat by nature and had already packed most of her belongings. A few things only remained. Kairi paused with a picture of Sora in her hands. After a minute, she placed it back on the dresser. If I'm going to get over this, I'd better not bring that picture to constantly remind me of his death. She did keep a small picture of him in her purse, however.
"Oh, for the love of Pete!" an angry voice sounded from out of the dining room. Kairi started at the angry voice of her father. She left quickly to find out what was wrong.
Her father, a tall man with shaggy dark brown hair, was sitting at the dining room table. There was a cup of half-finished coffee beside him and an untouched plate of bacon and eggs. Kairi's father, however, was staring at a letter that had just come in the mail.
"What's wrong?" Kairi's mother, a beautiful woman with auburn hair, asked from the kitchen.
"It's this letter from the Midgar Academy." he responded, "It reads: "Due to a construction incident, the Midgar Academy has been deemed temporarily unsafe. All students who were to attend the academy will instead be heading to the Balamb Garden Academy!" I knew that something like this would happen."
"Balamb Garden Academy?" Kairi's mother asked, looking at the letter, "Isn't that a military school?"
"There was an incident a while back." Kairi's father replied, angrily eating his bacon, "I think you're friend Leon was involved somehow." He nodded at Kairi, "Anyway, after all the trouble was over, the academy was slowly transformed into more of an academic centre. They still have some military programs I believe."
"Well, there's no major problem." Kairi's mother said reasonably, "It's only a little farther away. We'll leave at eleven instead of twelve."
"That's not the point." Kairi's father responded, "Why was there an accident in the first place. Haven't they been able to fix Midgar up from that Bahamut attack?"
"The place is still unstable and workers are limited." Kairi said, joining the conversation. Kairi's father looked at her.
"Then they shouldn't have opened the academy in the first place." he argued, "What if at you're first dance, a chandelier falls on you're head?!" The idea was so comical that Kairi laughed. Her father started and her mother gave a small gasp.
"What?" Kairi asked, a little unnerved.
"You laughed!" her father said, staring at her like she had just sprouted wings, "I haven't heard you laugh since . . . " he broke off. Kairi's mother was beaming as she came around and gave Kairi a hug.
"My baby," she said, hugging Kairi tight, "this is a good sign." she said to Kairi's father.
"Mom, I can't breathe." Kairi said. Her mother let go.
"Well, maybe the Balamb Academy won't be so bad." Kairi's father said. Kairi's laugh seemed to have dulled his desire to argue about the unstability of the Midgar school.
"I'll be alright." Kairi said, smiling at her parents, who beamed back.
A couple hours later, Kairi and her parents were in the car heading toward Twilight Town, where Kairi would board the train for Balamb. Kairi sat in the back, looking out the window at the endless fields and plains, thinking of Sora. Sora had driven her out here occasionally. They would sit on the roof of the car and watch the stars come out. Sometimes, Riku would come with them. It was in these fields that Sora had first confessed that he loved Kairi. The thought of his confession brought tears to her bright blue eyes.
The pain isn't totally gone. She thought, But I don't think that it will ever totally go away.
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Twilight Town was bustling with activity. All the students who were going to school elsewhere had come to the train station in Twilight Town. A large number of these students were signing up for the train to Balamb, having, like Kairi, been relocated. Trains were already filling up with students and several were already leaving. Kairi's father went to get in line at the ticketmaster's booth to get Kairi a ticket. Kairi's mother got caught up in a conversation with a friend she had just spotted. Kairi stood there patiently, waiting.
"Hey, Kairi!" someone yelled. Kairi looked around and her face broke into a smile as she spotted Hayner, Pence, and Olette. The three friends lived in Twilight Town and had helped Sora and Kairi enter the World That Never Was to confront Xemnas.
"Hey." Kairi said by way of greeting as the three ran up to her.
"How've you been?" Olette asked, looking slightly concerned. Hayner, Pence, and Olette had all heard of Sora's death and had been at the funeral. Kairi gave them a smile.
"Better than I have been." she said, "I saw Riku last night. He helped me somewhat." Olette smiled.
"So where are you going to school?" Hayner asked, "Not Midgar I hope, I heard that they have been having some trouble keeping the school standing. All the students from Midgar are being rerouted to Balamb." Kairi nodded.
"That's where I'm headed." she said. Hayner and Pence high-fived each other.
"Perfect!" Pence said, "That's where we're going! It going to be friggin' crowded though, what with all the Midgar students coming there."
"Are they all coming to Balamb?" Kairi asked, "I thought they may have spread them out a bit among several schools. I know that Balamb is only one of several Garden academies in that area."
"Balamb is big enough." Hayner replied, "I guess that the school is usually half-empty anyway." Just then, Kairi's father walked up with her ticket.
"Here you go, sweetheart." he said, "I want to you to be careful and don't hang around with any riffraff. Send us regular e-mails about how you're doing and how you have been."
"Don't be afraid to call either, dear." Kairi's mother said, walking up and giving her a kiss. Kairi smiled and hugged her mother and father.
"I'll be careful." she said. With that she headed off with Hayner, Pence, and Olette toward the train.
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There: first chapter done. Please tell me what you think. I know this chapter was all about Kairi, next chapter is about Zexion.
