Title: The Threads Tighten Around Us

Author: NexustehULF0o

DISCLAIMER: I STILL DO NOT OWN TALES OF SYMPHONIA. Maybe one day I'll save up the money and buy it. But for right now, nothing. :3

Nexus: Well, checking in again, trying to come up with this at some kind of interval…Enjoy Chapter Two!

~Chapter Two~

Large-branched trees oversaw the peaceful forest, occasionally dropping autumn-colored leaves that blew in the light breeze. It had started to get colder at night as the season progressed more into winter – longer nights where the full moon would turn this peaceful wood into something out of a horror story…wolves would howl off in the distance and owls would hoot lowly, as if warning you to retreat.

But thankfully, the sun had only just started to set.

"Well, I can tell you one thing."

Sheena Fujibayashi's brown eyes fluttered open, frantically taking in her surroundings.

If she was dead, and Zelos was here too, then she DEFINITELY didn't end up where she thought she was going to.

But then her brain worked its way to full attention.

"I am certainly liking where this is heading."

An ear-to-ear smirk plastered itself on the nicked, blood-flecked face of the Chosen, who, now simply straddling her, had shielded her from the harm of falling through the tree brush. Of course he'd gotten cut by branches and scraped by pointy ends of limbs himself, but she…she was unscathed.

…That didn't make up for the fact that he was straddling her.

And smiling.

She firmly placed her hands on his chest, forcefully pushing him from atop her with an unwilling "Oof!" on his part.

"Hey, what was that for, Sheena?" He asked bitterly, rubbing the back of his head after reaching a sitting position. "What kinda thanks is that for saving your life?" He winced when his hand passed over a large bump he received while falling out of the tree.

Sheena, now standing, swirled around to face him. "Yeah, well, look at the idiot who got us stuck here in the first place!" She retaliated, extending her hands on either side of her as if to intimidate. "If you hadn't rocked the Rheiard, I'd be in Mizuho right now! Not stuck in the middle of nowhere with some idiot who can't even tell a…a… I don't even know anymore!" She shook her head, letting her hands fall and slap against her thighs in frustration. She turned away again, looking towards the Rheiard that now lay in pieces on the forest floor. She walked purposefully over to it before scanning the machine intently.

Zelos, staring after her, sighed and stood, brushing off his puffy white pants. Running his fingers through his red hair, he stepped forward until he was adjacent to his accompaniment, looking at her from the corner of his left blue eye.

"So what's the consensus…? Think it can be repaired?" He asked, clutching the fragments of Sheena's earlier mood for dear life. The ninja placed her hands on her hips, annoyed, but not willing to whack him over the head with a stray piece of metal just yet.

"I really don't feel like talking to you right now." She mumbled, still surveying the Rheiard's battered frame.

"Aw, come on, Sheena – I've done stupid things before, and you've forgiven me eventually. Why don't we just skip the 'eventually' part?" He smiled sweetly, hoping that she would look.

"Heh, how about not?"

She didn't.

He stopped grinning, folded his arms, and looked upward. "Hey, it's not like it's ALL my fault. You were provoking me and I –"

"Nope." She said loudly, standing erect, but her hands still firmly placed on her hips. "Looks like it's busted."

"Sheena, I mean, I'm sure that if we just get one of your ninja scout-y guys to come around –" He glanced over at her. She was a ninja, I mean, come on! She should know that people tend to lurk around in creepy forests at dusk! What's she doing, going and revealing their position for?

"Hm…" Sheena continued to talk loudly, walking away from the Rheiard, and from him. She kept her head down, taking big flamboyant strides.

Oh, he got it now.

She was ignoring him. Blatantly ignoring him.

"All right, Sheena! You can stop ignoring me now~!" He sang, waving his arms.

"Well," The ninja surveyed, "since it's almost dark, I think I'm going to camp here for the night."

"Camp here?" The Chosen whined, slowly walking after her. "I thought you wanted out of here! Sheena, you seriously need to learn to make up you're mind – you're giving me, like, mixed signals and I don't know whether you want to go home or stay here or - " Although she wasn't looking towards him, he lifted his hands an began gesturing between them, as if giving her a diagram to look at.

"Maybe since SOME PEOPLE have lived in a city almost their entire lives and wouldn't know how to survive one minute in the forest on their OWN, with or WITHOUT having stayed outside during the Journey of World Regeneration, they should stop COMPLAINING and actually get their asses OVER HERE so the people who DO KNOW how to survive in the forest can HELP THEM."

The look on her face when she turned to him – simply put, it was the closest to Niflheim that Zelos ever wanted to come.

He nodded sharply, walking towards Sheena in a timely manner.

A purple-clad ninja poked a small, twig-like stick into the now-smoldering fire, as if tending to the already flaming wood, but taunting the fire with more as well. She stared intently into the flames, reluctantly reminded of a certain red-haired menace sitting across from her. As if in the doghouse, the Ex-Chosen of Tethe'alla watched her sadly, his hair covering his cerulean blue eyes that seemed to only reflect light pleasantly when staring her direction. She didn't dare look at him any more – she was only feeding his ego, in essence. One look could mean anything in the eyes of Zelos Wilder.

Her gaze softened. Maybe she shouldn't have yelled at him so much. He was just joking around…and she was playing too, so she shouldn't blame him ENTIRELY…

"Hey, I'm sorry about…"

They both stopped, snapping their gaze to each other – one looking surprised and the other confused.

"…mouthing off and getting mad at you for a stupid reason…"

"…being a jerk and an idiot and rocking the Rheiard and crashing it and getting us into this mess…"

Zelos trailed off, leaving the two of them in silence. They stared quietly at each other, not shifting an inch.

Someone snerked. It was probably Sheena, judging by the smirk now plastered across her face.

The two both burst out into laughter, mending the wounds that had ensued between them earlier.

"Zelos…wake up."

The redhead Ex-Chosen turned the opposite way, breathing in heavily through his nose.

"Zelos…!"

She shook him lightly, but he didn't wake.

"Zelos - "

"Hmwhathuh? I'm awake!" He stammered, light flooding into his eyes upon his eyelids uncovering them. Zelos sprung upward, almost slamming his head into his 'alarm clock'.

Sheena backed away quickly to avoid knocking heads with the Chosen, scowling when he turned and looked at her. He smirked boyishly, silently reminding her that he would rather remain alive for the time being.

"It's morning." She told him, looking toward the sun with a sigh.

"Guh, already?" He moaned, sitting up properly before leaning back on one of his hands and yawning. "I barely got any sleep – the ground is so cold and wet and just plain icky…"

Sheena stood while taking everything the twenty-two-year-old said with a figurative aspirin.

"Yeah, well," She started, brushing off her clothes. "If we're going to make it out of here, we need to find some food. Before you woke up, I strayed away from camp to see how deep we were into the brush…" Upon seeing Zelos' frightened expression, she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, grow up. You're really scared of being alone for five minutes? I don't think bears or wolves could find you that fast, if they didn't find you all night." She muttered, placing her hands on her hips.

"Sheenaaaaa…" Was all the Chosen could muster, hanging his head.

"Anyway," She looked up from her accompaniment. "I moved about two-hundred paces in every direction, and the trees still went on for as far as I could see. Looks like the Rheaird decided it wanted to drop us smack-dab in the middle of this forest."

"Aw, really? This sucks." Zelos commented, taking a moment for a massive upper-body stretch and a large, exaggerated grunt before standing.

"Royally." Sheena agreed. "So, we'll have to rely on Mother Nature for what we need. Keep a sharp lookout for shelters we can stay in - with this wind picking up, there's almost certain to be rain."

With that, the ninja set off, into the forest brush.

"Rain?" Zelos whined, trailing dejectedly off after her. "How could there possibly be rain? Oh, great…"

As the mouthy red-haired man followed the scary ninja woman into the woods, he turned his back to a massive tree stalk, as to be sure not to be seen.

They could be the ones she had been talking about.

What do you think, Andreyella? He thought, placing his hands to the bark of one of the many sturdy-trunked trees in the forest. Are they who you're looking for? Are they the ones you need me to take care of?

Nexus: Chapter 2. :D I've been busy, but I still found time to finish this...now, for chapter 3. :D

Please review? :3