Little Wind, a Kingdom Hearts fanfic by Raberba girl

Chapter 2 - High School

"The future is always before us. Even I don't know it."

o.o.o

On Sunday morning, Ven woke up looking to be about ten or eleven years old. He peered blearily at the cot nearby, then straightened with a jolt when he realized that it was empty, the bedding neatly folded. He flopped over in a panic, but blew out a relieved breath when he saw Aqua, already freshened up for the day, moving about in the kitchen. Terra was sprawled over more than his share of the bed and snoring peacefully.

With a small, relieved smile, Ven climbed to his feet, wrapped a blanket around himself, and padded into the kitchen. "Good morning, Aqua."

She returned the smile, reaching over to ruffle his hair. "Good morning, Ven. You're getting so big!"

He looked down, his cheeks warming a little. "Um...what you said yesterday about...um, I think I need new clothes again."

"You certainly do," she agreed. "I'll see what we can do about that once we've had breakfast. I laid some of my father's shirts on that chair over there - put one of them on and then wake up Terra, will you?"

After they were all seated and eating, the subject inevitably turned to Ven's mysterious past, seeing as he was now capable of adequate communication.

"I'm not sure," he mumbled. "I know I lived somewhere else before coming here, I just...don't remember it. I know there were lots of colors." He paused. "And a man with red hair...I kind of remember him. But that was ages ago..." He shivered a little. "Mostly I remember being trapped somewhere dark, that hurt."

"Do you remember having wings?" Aqua asked.

He shook his head. "No."

"How'd you get here in that egg thing?" Terra wanted to know.

"I don't remember. It was... The master was saying something, I don't remember what, just that it was bad. Vanitas hurt me somehow, though I don't really remember that, either. And Sora tried to help me, but I couldn't hold onto his hand, and he disappeared again. Then I just...then it was your face, Aqua. I don't know what happened in between."

"Who's Sora?" Terra asked, at the same time Aqua said, "Is your master the king?"

Ven frowned. "King?"

Aqua fetched the pictures he had drawn in the library the day before. "What can you tell us about these?"

Ven frowned as he studied them. Then he laid his fingers over the menacing king figure. "Xehanort," he said softly.

Terra and Aqua both leaned forward. "Xehanort?"

"He's..." Ven shivered. "I don't remember. I don't want to think about him."

"Does he really kill anyone who's not a fairy, or did I get that totally wrong?" Terra asked.

"What's a fairy?"

The older two stared at him in astonishment. "What? You were drawing them yesterday!" Terra insisted, pointing at the flower picture. "Look!"

Ven stared. "I don't...remember." Frowning, he slowly reached for his own back, trying to feel the scars Aqua had said were there.

"What about this?" Aqua asked, pointing at the scribble box. "Yesterday, you said this was you. Like you were trapped in it."

Ven looked unhappy. "Maybe that was the dark place. I don't know. I don't know where it was, or how I got there, or why. Just that I didn't like it, and I wanted to get out."

"I really want to know about Sora," Terra said. Their half-eaten breakfasts had long been abandoned by now. "You keep talking about a Sora and a Vani. Who are they? Was one of them the little freak in the convenience store?"

"Sora is my friend," Ven said softly. "He tried to help me. I don't remember anything more than that. And Vanitas...I really, really don't want to think about him. He hurt me really bad." He put his hand protectively over his chest, looking upset.

"Let's stop pestering him," Aqua finally said. "He's obviously had a rough time, we don't need to be making things worse."

After breakfast, they went on another clothes shopping excursion. Then it was, to Terra's disbelief, back to the library, where Ven worked his way through stacks of fairy tales as Aqua continued researching their project and Terra complained that his hand was getting cramped from writing so much.

"We're almost done, Terra! We just need to put it all into a report and create a visual presentation. Here, go find some nature pictures. I'll start the report."

"Slave driver," Terra muttered. "And if that's your idea of 'almost done,' I think I need to acquaint you with a dictionary..."

"Look at this," Ven laughed. "The little elf guy is so dumb that he tore himself in two when he got mad. I don't think real fae are like that."

"Eh?" Terra exclaimed. "Disney movies scare you, but you can handle someone tearing himself in half?"

"What's Disney?"

Aqua mercilessly forbid them to leave until the poster and the report's rough draft were finished. Luckily, she eventually realized that Ven needed lunch, despite the fact that their report was still in dire need of revision. "All right, just a quick meal, and then we'll finish up this afternoon."

"Woman, your heart is made of stone!"

"Don't you want to be finished with this project so that we don't have to worry about it anymore, Terra?"

"My butt's sore from sitting for so long, my eyes are all swimmy from staring at tiny text, and I've got a paper cut."

"You have my sympathies," she responded briskly.

"I don't think I'm a fairy," Ven decided. "I'm too big. And I'm not an elf, because I don't have pointed ears, and I don't think I'm ugly enough to be a goblin or big enough to be a troll."

"Well, that narrows it down," Terra joked. "All that's left is alien, mutant, cyborg, werewolf..."

Ven looked worried. "So I have to look up even more books?"

Aqua kissed the top of his head. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart. We love you no matter what you are."

"Just don't be a vampire," Terra remarked, "'cuz if you turn out to be a sparkly bloodsucker, I'll disown you."

"Really?"

"Terra!" Aqua scolded.

"It was a joke! ...Really though, Ven, don't be a vampire."

"What is a vampire, anyway?"

They went to Terra's house for lunch, since his parents were getting suspicious of him being gone for so long. There was some awkwardness about Aqua not being Terra's girlfriend, and an inquisition about Ventus.

Terra confidently clapped his arm around the boy's shoulders. "Ven's my little buddy. Aqua and I're lookin' after him for a while."

"I see," Mrs. Bane said with a frown, studying the boy closely. "Ven, was it? Who did you say your parents were?"

"...Axel. And...Larxene," Ven said, wincing. The names had just popped into his head, but he felt vaguely uneasy about using them. However, even though he felt like Terra and Aqua were his parents, it seemed somehow even more dangerous to say that.

"Axel and Larxene? That doesn't sound familiar. Did you all just move here?"

"Uh..."

"Ven is my cousin," Aqua said firmly.

"And Aqua is my classmate," Terra added smoothly. "So we're like one big family."

His mother sighed. "Well, I've held you up long enough... Come along into the dining room."

They did not dare stay too long, for fear Mr. and Mrs. Bane would notice Ven's unusual growth. Terra actually used schoolwork as an excuse for them to escape as early as possible, though when they went back to Aqua's house, he somehow managed to draw Ven into a game of football as Aqua got the report into shape.

"Ice cream!" Terra declared as soon as she appeared in the doorway, an automatic defense against the stormy look on her face. "My treat! To celebrate the completion of our darn project and our first real date!"

"It's not a date," Aqua snapped.

"Aw, come on, Aqua. How else am I gonna get to see you now that I can't use homework as an excuse?"

"I think that Ven is a perfectly legitimate excuse for me to have to tolerate your presence some more," she said haughtily, pulling Ven into her arms.

"So we can't even be friends?" Terra whined, wrapping his own arms around Ven so that the three of them stood huddled together.

"Maybe we can be friends," she relented. "If you keep being nice to my baby."

"Hey, he's half my baby, too."

"You weren't there when he hatched."

"I was the one who hauled his sparkly eggy butt to your house."

"Guys?" Ven said uncertainly from where he was squashed between them, "What are you talking about? Did I do something wrong?"

They broke apart, laughing uneasily. "Terra's being silly, Ven," she told him.

"And Aqua's just too stubborn to admit that she's attracted to me."

"Appreciating your help with Ven does not mean I'm...that I think you're...that I like-"

"You're really cute when you blush," Terra told her slyly.

"You certainly think highly of yourself, don't you!" she cried, blushing harder than ever.

To the supreme relief of all three, no golden-eyed creepers showed up at the ice cream parlor. At one point on the way back home, Ven did suddenly shy away in fright and accidentally knock over a trash can in the process, but Terra and Aqua could see nothing out of the ordinary, and he soon calmed down.

The real problem ended up being what to do with Ven the next day. "We could skip school," Terra suggested.

"Of course you would want to do that," Aqua shot back. "Only as a last resort." She surveyed Ven critically. "At the rate he's growing, he could probably pass for a freshman by tomorrow morning."

"Oh, cool!" Terra exclaimed. "So we get to bring him to school with us?"

Aqua sighed. "The problem is that he won't be able to just follow us around. The teachers will notice that he does not belong, and we don't have any paperwork for him."

"You're not gonna leave me, are you?" Ven asked fearfully. He was so darn cute that Aqua hugged him, and Terra ruffled his hair.

"Don't sweat it, Ven," Terra said reassuringly. "If worst comes to worst, I'll skip class and keep you company."

"We might have to end up doing that," Aqua said unhappily, "but let's at least try to get him into class first. The principal might be willing to let him stay with me if we stick with the cousin-from-out-of-town story."

Although Ven did not make nearly as much of a fuss as the night before, he still looked so unhappy as bedtime approached that they ended up repeating the same sleeping arrangements. He did, indeed, look like a high-schooler by the next morning, and although Terra's spare clothes were a bit baggy on him, he seemed pretty comfortable and did not look unduly odd.

He was cheerful at first, but the closer they walked to the school, Aqua noticed that he grew more and more fidgety. "Ven? Is something wrong?"

"...Are you sure your school is in this direction?"

"Yeah," Terra said. "It's at the corner of Dominion and Castle."

"What's wrong, Ven?"

"I dunno...I just wish we were going the other way."

At the school's front gates, he stopped and stared up, his mouth hanging open.

"Now what is it, Ven?"

"That...that symbol," Ven gasped. "I know it. Why is it here?"

"What does the symbol mean, Ven?" Aqua asked worriedly.

He looked down and shook his head. "I don't know. I just..." He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. "It makes me feel cold."

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," Aqua murmured.

Terra put a hand on Ven's shoulder. "Ven, are you gonna be okay with this? Should we go back home?"

Ven hesitated, then looked up and spoke decisively. "No. I can handle it. Let's just keep going."

When they got to school, Aqua insisted on checking in at the front office, even though Ven was just as insistent that they should not. "I promise you, no one will notice me."

"Have you looked in a mirror and seen that hair of yours lately?" No amount of effort on Aqua's part had gotten those outrageous spikes to lie flat. "Trust me, they will notice you."

"Aqua...I'm telling you, this is a mistake-"

"Let's just try the cousin-from-out-of-town story, for goodness' sake!"

They pushed through the double doors. The secretary closest to the front looked up and smiled. "Hello, may I help you?"

"Yes," Aqua said. "I just needed to sign in a visitor. My cousin Ventus is visiting from out of town, and he wanted to accompany me to my classes, just to observe."

The lady frowned. "Ventus?"

Terra realized that she was staring straight at him. "Huh? No, I'm Terra Bane, I'm enrolled here. This is Ven." He laid a hand on Ven's shoulder.

The secretary was now giving them a strange look. "Pardon me?"

A little exasperated, Aqua took hold of Ven and maneuvered him up in front of her. "This is Ven."

Frowning harder than ever, the secretary began typing and clicking around on her computer. Finally she said, "Ah, here you are. Aqua Reinfell and Terra Bane." She looked back at them. "I still don't understand this Ven thing. Are you saying that your cousin is at home and wants to visit the school tomorrow?"

Aqua opened her mouth, then suddenly closed it again. She and Terra shared a long look. Then she looked down at Ven, who was grinning a little impishly. She frowned and pinched him, though he went right back to grinning as soon as he had rubbed reproachfully at the afflicted spot.

"I'm sorry...never mind, we were just practicing for a- um, an improv project. Sorry to bother you." Aqua dragged Ven out into the hall and then grasped his shoulders hard. He gave a hysterical little giggle, like a child who knows exactly how much trouble he is in. "What did you do?" she hissed.

"What do you mean what did I do?" Ven sing-songed.

"You know what I'm talking about!"

"Um...Aqua?"

"What?" Aqua snapped, glancing impatiently over her shoulder at Terra. Then she paused.

Terra was still standing in the office doorway, staring at them with a strange look on his face. "Aqua...is Ven still with you?"

"Of course he is!"

"...Aqua, come here for a second. Ven, stay there."

"Okay," Ven gasped, obviously trying hard not to explode with laughter. His expression seemed a little odd. For the first time in what felt like a long time, Aqua truly remembered that he was not human.

She went over to stand by Terra, then gasped. The hallway looked empty, except for the occasional student or teacher passing by. Ventus was gone. "Ven?"

"Still here," a disembodied voice called quietly.

Aqua surged forward, and there he was again. "How did you do that?"

"I'm...really good at handling light," he confessed, finally starting to look uncomfortable. "I just...kind of let it go through me if I have to. It's hard to explain." He took a deep breath. "I told you. No one will notice me."

He ended up spending the morning with Aqua, making plans to join Terra in the afternoon. Ven found school fascinating, particularly math, once he figured out the basics. Literature seemed to be more fascinating when he didn't understand the basics. Science class rather frightened him, and it was with relief that he entered the cafeteria with Aqua and spotted Terra saving them the end of a table at the far side of the room.

"Aqua," Terra laughed as they sat down with him, "I hope you know how much it warms my heart that you made a lunch for me today with your own two hands." He had ditched his usual table, knowing that Aqua did not enjoy his friends' company and that the football team's loud antics might make Ven nervous.

"It's just a boxed lunch," Aqua mumbled, ripping hers open with undue force. "It's nothing special, I didn't even bother to give it a decent arrangement."

Terra was already chewing on his first bite. "Mmmmm, so delicious! I've been waiting my whole life for this!"

She kicked him under the table.

"Ow! What's with those shoes? They have, like, sharp edges!"

"This really does taste delicious, Aqua," Ven told her.

"Thank you, Ven."

"Hey, how come my compliment didn't get a 'thank you'?" Terra demanded.

Their banter continued for about fifteen minutes. Then a shadow passed over Ven, and there was a clatter as a lunch tray was dropped onto the table next to him. "Mind if I sit here, buddy?"

The three friends stared up at the newcomer. He smiled at them, beautiful blue eyes in a sweet-natured face, topped by a loveably unruly mess of spiked brown locks.

Ven began to raise his hand, a wondering expression on his face. Then he gasped in fear and flung himself away, stumbling behind Aqua and Terra.

The age discrepancy had thrown Terra off, but now he finally recognized the young man in front of him. "You! You're not-Sora!"

Vanitas grinned again, this time in cruel delight. His glamour melted away, revealing the golden eyes he had hidden. "Bit slow, aren't you boys." He held out his hand, into which a black sword materialized. "You're not getting away this time, Ventus."

As if they had planned it, Aqua whipped her leg up to kick at his hand at the exact same instant Terra threw himself headlong at the dark fae. Vanitas's weapon flew out of his grip as he went tumbling to the floor with Terra on top of him.

"Ven, run!" Aqua shouted. The boy needed no more urging, he fled at once.

Terra got in a couple of good punches before Vanitas shouted angrily and shoved him off. His strength was incredible - Terra was no lightweight, but he found himself sailing through the air and then coming to an abrupt, painful halt when he crashed into a vending machine. He flopped to the ground with a grunt, and looked up hazily to see Aqua seizing something and grinding it into their attacker's face.

Ever since Ven came into her life, Aqua had been doing quite a bit of reading on the supernatural in between school-related research. As soon as she had the chance, she knew to go for the extra packages of salt on her tray, which she ripped open. At the touch of the grainy substance on his bare flesh, Vanitas screamed again as if struck by acid.

"What'd you do to him?" Terra gasped as they ran together for the closest exit, dodging gawking students and alarmed teachers alike.

"Salt purifies," Aqua panted, crashing through the doors. "He's a fairy - in the old sense, a fae; and a dark one, too. The touch of salt is poison to-" She broke off in horror. Terra followed her line of vision and swore.

Ven was on his knees in the middle of the courtyard, his neck cradled in the crook of a huge scythe gripped by the hooded figure who stood before him. Aqua's heart hammered in her chest as she took in the awful sight - Ven would clearly be decapitated if the scythebearer merely shifted.

They were not alone. The golden-eyed driver was watching, and he now turned at the commotion, a wide grin spreading over his face when he saw Terra and Aqua. "Well, if it ain't the mortals who thought they could hide our little teind. Bad move, idiots. Your time's up." He raised one of the crossbows he held, pointing it straight at Terra's heart.

"NO!" Ven screamed. He flung out a hand in desperation. There was a blinding flash of light, and when Terra and Aqua could finally see again, both Ven and the two black-cloaked figures had vanished without a trace.

To be continued...

Author's Notes: Axel & Larxene aren't really Ven's parents, they were just the first names that came to his mind.

You guys, I actually did research on the phrase, "if worst comes to worst." Turns out that both versions are fine...the one I used is the original quote (and it is a quote, FTR), but "if worse comes to worst" makes more grammatical sense and is more common nowadays. So...yeah, whatever. ^^;

Compliments - In Japan, it's polite to deny them and rude to accept them (considered arrogant if you do). In America, it's the exact opposite (other person feels like you're insulting their judgment if you're too modest). Since I consider all the original KH characters to be half-Japanese and half-American, Aqua gets to do it both ways.