Guys, seriously, I cannot tell you how sorry I am for being gone so long. I totally understand if you're pissed. But I am still writing this, and I have not dropped it, I swear.
On a good note, I got a DeviantArt account (Larutanrepus, you should check it out. Or not, whatev).
On a bad note, I'm more or less under house arrest. I didn't do anything illegal, promise….
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Riku carried Axel's lanky body through the forest, ignoring the blood soaking his own clothes, while Sora kept guard over the other two, his nerves so tightly stretched he thought he'd snap from the lack of action, if nothing else.
"We're almost there, Sora," his partner called, making him jump. "You don't have to be quite so tense."
The brunette nodded, taking a deep breath. He'd faced Heartless and Nobodies…but wandering around in a forest with a bunch of werewolves running around was something out of a bad horror movie, and he saw what happened to the people in those flicks.
"So," he said, trying to distract himself. "What are we going to tell everyone?"
"About what?"
"Well, about…finding Axel like that. Dumped along with an ex-Thirteen member, with one of their cloaks on."
Riku hesitated. To be honest, he really had no idea what to tell everyone else about how or where they'd found him. Hopefully, they wouldn't get asked too much.
Not that he'd have a problem with—
'Stop that,' he thought to himself, closing his eyes. 'You're not allowed to think like that.' He shook his head slightly in a vain effort to clear it.
"I'm not sure," he replied. "I guess we'll just answer whatever questions they have. I don't think lying would be the right approach."
Sora shook his head, too, though it was for a different reason. "Yeah…besides, Cloud and Leon would know if we were lying anyways."
"True."
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Demyx yelped in pain as Roxas slammed him into the wall, teeth bared.
"Don't you even think about saying something like that again!" he snapped, and the sitar player shrank visibly, looking like he'd rather run and take his chances in the forest rather than face a kid who was half a foot shorter than him.
Tifa pulled Roxas away, but her normally soft eyes were no less sharp than the blonde's.
"You expect us to believe your words over his?" she asked, her voice deceptively quiet.
"Y-yes…well, no…I-I…." Demyx stammered, very much wishing by this point that he hadn't opened his idiot mouth like this. He tried to control himself, taking a deep breath.
"C-can I go and heal Zexy—Zexion? Please? He's better at talking than me, and I don't really want to be—"
"No," Roxas growled, making Demyx flinch. "Because he'll just try and play stupid mind games with us, while you're stupid enough to give us a straight answer."
"Axel's a traitor to you!" Demyx blurted, his words coming out in a rush. "He's been spying on you fro Sephiroth, telling him how ready you are and what your plans are and stuff…I mean, how do you think they all found you so fast?"
Neither Roxas nor Tifa had an answer, and neither of them even looked like they were going to speak, so Demyx just kept on babbling, finding himself completely unable to stop.
"He's been leaking information the entire time. The last time was this morning, but Sephiroth got mad and nearly killed him for blowing his cover. He was also partly here to make a rift between everyone. He wanted to make you so unsure or so depressed or so in love that you couldn't see what was happening right under your noses, either…and that's why Sephiroth said he should go and—"
"Shut up," the blonde snarled, and Demyx grabbed that opportunity with relief, clamping his mouth shut. Still, Roxas kept going. "Just…shut up, it's not true!" He reiterated, almost stubbornly. "Axel couldn't…"
"Roxas," Tifa said gently, trying to make him stop.
"He wouldn't—"
"But he is!" Demyx said, "and he's going to continue if you don't—"
"No!"
"Yes!" Demyx snapped back, beginning to lose his own temper.
Tifa reclaimed control of the entire situation. "Both of you, calm down right now."
Roxas turned, stalking away from the group in disgust. They all watched him go, and when they couldn't see him anymore, they all turned on Demyx, who shrank away as though they were all running at him with drawn weapons.
"C-Can I go see Zexion now?" he stammered.
Again, Leon and Cloud shared a long look, until the blonde nodded almost imperceptibly. Leon turned to the hapless sitar player. "Yeah, go on. Try anything, and we'll kill you."
Demyx nodded. "Fair enough," he blurted with a slight shrug, and scuttled into the next room. A long silence followed his departure, and no one really wanted to break that unbelievably heavy silence.
Finally, Leon said quietly, "I guess we have something to talk about."
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Riku, by this point, was getting fed up with the prickling sensation that was assaulting the back of his neck.
'Shit, either attack us or go the hell away,' he thought irritably. Saying it out loud required having a death wish, but it was still pissing him off. And it wasn't helping that Sora was noticeably jumping and flinching, whirling about at the slightest noise, making the silverhair even more tense than he already was. Not only that, but Axel was no lightweight. Despite his bony frame, the redhead had plenty of muscle that weight a lot more than it looked.
Sora turned quickly, again making Riku tense up, only to relax just a tiny bit as the brunette turned back around slowly.
"Hey," the older one said quietly, his teeth grinding together. "Can you please stop doing that?"
"But Riku, I think we're being—"
"We are."
Now, Sora was looking about ready to jump out of his skin. "What?" he hissed. "Are you serious?"
"Shh! Keep it down just a little, idiot."
The brunette looked abashed, scuttling closer. "How can you tell?"
"I…I just can,ight? And they're close, too, so don't talk too much. I'm pretty sure that they can hear us. Then again, it wouldn't really matter. They've been here the whole time."
"The who—Really?"
"Yeah."
Sora thought about it for a few seconds, then smirked.
"What?" Riku asked nervously. He hated it when Sora had something to be all smug about. That was his job.
"I knew that something was bothering you. I knew it."
The silver-haired teen sighed. "Yeah, yeah…"
They continued walking for a few more minutes, and now the tension had been broken some, despite the fact that someone was tailing them.
Sora finally broke the silence. "Is it just me, or is it getting lighter out?"
It wasn't just him, in fact. They were finally reaching the edge of the trees, and sunlight, what there was of it, had begun to stream through the branches, a relief from the gloom of the deep forest.
"Thank God," Riku muttered, hefting Axel in his arms.
"About freakin' time," Sora said at the same time, and they grinned at each other for the first time since they had set out, despite the fact that they had to give the bad information to the rest of the crew who were still waiting for them.
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Larxene perched in the branches, her hard sapphire eyes narrowed in both concentration and utter hate at the three figures, only two of them walking, as they made their way out of the dense forest.
God, she hated these…people. Granted, she hated everyone that was on 'her side' too, but she couldn't stand watching people actually caring about each other. Helping each other. Disgust welled up in her as she watched them go. She wanted to kill them so much. But of course she couldn't, otherwise they'd be dead by now.
But her orders had been to observe.
So she had.
But when all of this was done, she was getting the hell out of here. She didn't care how scary Sephiroth was.
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Sora had been expecting some kind of joyful reunion between Axel and Roxas, with concern from the others and mass hysterics from his Nobody over the redhead's condition. Something along those lines. What he had not been expecting was a solemn council of grim-faced fighters, with Roxas being nowhere in sight.
"Well," Riku said, still holding Axel in his now-bloody arms. "No sunny faces in here, huh?"
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A.N. There. First chapter in a very long time (which I'm still sorry about, but at least I didn't drop it altogether, da?)
Anyways, read and review if you want. If not…well, yeah. Sure. Okay.
Ha, I don't mind, actually.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Sorry for the wait! DX
I still love each and every one of my readers, and thanks to Mary-sama (anonymous reader) for helping me get back on my writing feet with her awesome reviews!
~Chris