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Dance While You Can


Chapter 2: Bloody Knuckles and Changes of Plan

In which there is much bickering.

His knuckles were bleeding. That was new.

"Ow—ow! Okay, hold the walkie for a second!" He dismissed his Keyblade and held both hands up, frantically making a time out signal, and Kairi huffed, propping her free hand on her hip. Lea glowered fiercely at her and rubbed at his bruised, bloodied hand before casting a low-level Cure spell to dull the pain. "Sheesh, you don't pull your punches, do ya, Princess?" he asked. "Stop hitting so hard."

"Then try hitting me back," Kairi countered, and Lea stared at her expression a moment. There was something familiar about the angry look on her face, something that made everything behind his ribs seize up and ache for some reason, and he shook his head quickly.

"I can't just hit you," he said, folding his arms and popping one hip, "you're a girl."

"Excuse you," she snapped, stomping her foot, "but you didn't seem to have any trouble kidnapping me."

"But I didn't hurt you!"

"All right, you two, that's enough."

Both redheads turned when Riku's voice cut through the bickering, and Kairi dismissed Destiny's Embrace, rolling her eyes and folding her arms. Lea couldn't tell if she was mocking his posture or if she just also stood that way when she was pissed off, but it didn't really matter. His lip curled in something like contempt as Riku deliberately stepped between them, like a hall monitor breaking up a fight between the lockers, and he rolled his eyes at the look he was being given. Why did Riku always make him out to be the bad guy?

"What's the problem here?" he asked in his best no-nonsense I'm In Charge Here voice, and Lea rolled his eyes harder.

"She wants me to hit her," Lea blurted, and Kairi made an indignant noise.

"I want you to take me seriously," she corrected, and Riku just made a loud wordless noise and lifted both arms, positioning his hands in front of both of their faces as though blocking them from one another's line of sight would help.

"Enough," Riku repeated, looking from Kairi to Lea and then back to Kairi. "What happened?" he asked, and Lea just rolled his eyes again. (He was going to get dizzy at this rate.) Of course he would ask Kairi what happened.

She shook her head. "He's holding back," she complained, putting both hands on her hips. "He dodges my attacks and redirects my advances, but he won't strike back."

Lea growled and sliced a hand through the air. "You really want me to hit you?" he asked. "Seriously, what kind of man just hits a girl?"

"The enemy," Riku provided, nipping any response Kairi might have had in the bud before reaching out and grabbing Lea's wrist. Lea made a startled noise and fought the urge to recoil reflexively as Riku examined the bruising on his knuckles. "What'd you do to yourself?"

"She did it," he insisted sullenly, yanking his hand away and cradling it against his chest, and Riku sighed long-sufferingly, kneading his forehead with one hand.

"Merlin said you two were having trouble," he muttered, obviously more to himself than to them, "but this is ridiculous."

"You're ridiculous," Lea echoed quietly, mockingly, before he thought better of it, then stiffened where he stood, a comically severe expression on his face, as if daring Riku to deny it. Riku mostly ignored him, which just made Lea angrier.

"Kairi, take a quick break, okay?" Riku absently rubbed at his left wrist and then gestured behind him toward the doors of Yen Sid's tower. After Lea had complained for the seventeenth time about the claustrophobic nature of the room out of time that Merlin had been training them in, they'd been sent to the yard. The truth was Lea wasn't claustrophobic at all, he just hated the old wizard's eyes on them the whole time. "Master Yen Sid wanted to talk to you about your magic performance anyway."

She grimaced, looking uncertain about this, and Lea took a brief moment to look smug. Kairi was actually a barely passable mage, and he found this hilarious. Wasn't it some unspoken rule of battle that girls were always the mages? Every video game he had ever whupped Isa at when they were kids, the girl in the party was the healer, and somehow Kairi being even worse at Cure than he was struck his funnybone right on the head. She could swing that Keyblade as hard as any of them, and he was pretty confident she could kick like a mule (she could bite like one, in any case), but even if she had pulled ahead on the Keyblading half of their training regimen, at least he still had her bested in magic.

Not that Riku seemed too impressed by that.

Lea took a half step back as Riku moved to stand directly in front of him. It was remarkable to him that this kid who was a good half a head shorter than he was could still manage to be so damn intimidating. It was his eyes, Lea decided: they were so bright he swore they had to glow in the dark, and they made him look really intense.

"… What?" he asked, folding his arms defensively again, and Riku stepped back and summoned his Keyblade. Lea threw both hands up in front of him. "Whoa, whoa, hey, take it easy!" he gasped, backpedaling. "Come on, man, I'm on your side, remember?"

"Right," Riku said with a nod, "and your sparring partner is me now."

"Hah?" This wasn't part of the plan. Lea knew Riku could kick his ass, and getting his ass kicked was not on today's agenda.

"You wouldn't attack Kairi because she's a girl," Riku said, shifting into his usual stance, with his Keyblade drawn up and his left arm extended, "so I'll be your partner."

Lea made a face like he'd eaten something hideously sour.

"Hell no," he said, crossing both arms in an X in front of him. "Not interested, nope, no way sorbet, I am so not putting myself on the receiving end of your Keyblade of my own volition. No, thank you."

Riku grinned and Lea felt his heart sink.

"You say that like you've got a choice!"

With a squawk of alarm, Lea leapt backward as Riku swiped his blade through the air, very nearly missing slashing the front of his coat open.

"Hey, watch it, I can't replace this anymore!" he complained, ducking low and then snapping one leg out to maybe sweep Riku's feet from beneath him.

"Oh come on, is that really the best you can do?" Riku taunted, easily jumping over the sweep and twisting in the air. Lea threw himself to the ground and rolled, but Riku was too fast, and the redhead found himself staring down the feathered wing of Way to the Dawn where it was positioned alongside his neck.

Dismissing his Keyblade, Riku gave Lea a pointedly unimpressed look.

"Well that was pathetic," he said, shaking his head. "You're thinking too much, and you're way too focused on everything around you instead of me—you need to learn to take in your surroundings without being distracted by them."

Lea glared at him. "I wasn't ready," he huffed, and Riku's expression darkened.

"You really think Xehanort's gonna wait for you to be ready?" he asked, offering a hand to help Lea back to his feet. "He knows he's got us outnumbered and outgunned; he's counting on us not being ready. You really wanna give him that?"

"No." Lea's reply was churlish and petulant, and he brushed Riku's offered hand away with a grunt, getting to his feet and dusting off his rear.

"Then you need to start taking this seriously," Riku said, and Lea all but snarled at him.

"Don't tell me I'm not taking this seriously," he snapped, jabbing an accusatory finger at the younger man. "If you think I wasn't serious as drowning when I told Yen Sid I was on board with this then you've got another thing coming, Riku."

Riku folded his arms, his brow furrowed. "Then what's the problem?" His inquiry was vexingly plain, infuriatingly benign, and Lea averted his eyes.

"I suck," he said, sulking. "I can barely get the damn Keyblade to listen to me, let alone do anything useful."

"Ax— er... Lea."

Lea tried not to bristle. He failed.

Riku regrouped. "We all sucked at first," he said, and Lea scoffed bitterly.

"No you didn't," he said, shaking his head. "You and Sora, Kairi, the king, even Xehanort, you were all chosen. The Keyblade came to you."

Riku abruptly looked down and away, his hands curling into fists. "That isn't—"

"Isn't it?" Wasn't that the whole point? "It deemed you worthy without being asked! Me, I had to force it. Square peg in a round hole, you know?"

"Lea, what matters is it did accept you," Riku said, holding his hands up then, obviously trying to diffuse the situation. "You know Sora wasn't its first choice, either."

Lea arched one thin eyebrow. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"What do you want me to tell you, then?" Riku asked, folding his arms again and regarding Lea sternly. "Nobody's born a master at anything. You had to learn how to use your chakrams, right?"

"Well, yeah—"

"So how's this any different?"

Lea hefted a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck. "'Cuz I got used to actually being good at stuff," he admitted with candor, and Riku somehow looked both forgiving and surprised at the same time. "I was good at being a jerk."

"You still are," Riku snorted. "Now you just have to learn how to be a jerk who's good with a Keyblade."

Lea gave him the dirtiest look he was capable of. "And how do you propose I do that, Master Riku?"

Riku's eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the sarcastic use of his title, but didn't acknowledge the jab. Instead he just extended his hand.

"By training with a jerk who's already good with a Keyblade."

There was a beat of silence, and Lea looked suspicious. "I thought I was training with Kairi," he said, and Riku shrugged one shoulder.

"She'll need to work with us too," he said, "since Sora's not here and we don't have an even number to pair off. You're gonna need to get over your fear of hitting girls, Lea."

"I'm not afraid of hitting girls," Lea snapped, and Riku snorted a laugh.

"Uh huh." He didn't sound convinced. "Whatever you wanna call it, it's a luxury you're not going to have, either way."

Lea examined Riku's hand a moment, like he expected there to be a buzzer in his palm or something, then sighed. Well, Riku did make a compelling argument: he was a jerk. He shook Riku's hand firmly, then refused to let go for a moment, pulling him forward a step.

"Don't you ever pull that surprise attack crap on me again, you hear me?" he snarled with mostly mock menace, squeezing Riku's hand as hard as he could, "or I'll light those oversized shoes of yours on fire."

He released Riku's hand (watching with a degree of satisfaction as Riku wrung said hand and rubbed at it with a frown on his face) and folded his arms. He did want to learn, he really did. He wanted to fight alongside Sora and Riku and the rest of them, he wanted to take Xehanort down. He wanted to find a way to get Roxas back.

He wanted to save Isa.

He just had no idea how the hell he was going to pull any of it off.

"So what now, maestro?" he asked, watching Riku's eyes narrow again. What? He hadn't even been sarcastic that time!

Riku hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans and frowned, then nodded.

"Now I think we go shopping."

Lea twisted a finger in his ear. "Come again?"

"You're one of the good guys now, Lea," he said, turning to head back into the tower, "so quit dressing like a villain."

Lea made an indignant noise and gestured at his coat. "Hey— come on, this is functional!" he said, jogging up the stairs after Riku. "I sure hope you're not my fashion consultant; vests are so six months ago."

He had a feeling this was the beginning of a very long, very annoying chapter in his life.