Woohoo! New chapter. This one was fun to write. By looking at my other stories, you can probably tell that I don't write humorous stuff very often. This is my best attempt at a lighthearted chapter, and I hope at least some parts of it make you smile. It helps that Yuffie is such a cheerful and, well, teenager-ish type person. She makes bringing humor into a story much easier.
The story is finally taking shape. The next few plot events are set in stone. Hope you guys enjoy this one!
Chapter Three: Hollow Bastion
"You want a room? I mean, you've never had a proper stay here, have you?" Yuffie chuckled as they made their way through the winding halls.
"This here's my room…there's another empty one, with a door in between the two. We can be roommates!"
She turned an old-fashioned key in the lock and the door creaked open. Inside was a four-poster bed with green velvet hangings, a tall wardrobe, a cheerfully crackling fire in a large hearth, and a large oak desk in the corner. The stained-glass windows cast colorful patterns on the intricately woven rug on the polished wooden floor. Various weapons and clothes were strewn all over, the chair functioning mainly as a pincushion for her many ninja stars.
"Eh, it's nothing spectacular, but it beats that cramped little house in Traverse Town," she said, shrugging, making Kairi smile. She remembered it all too well.
"Can I borrow some pajamas or something?" Kairi asked, gazing around the room with interest.
"Of course you can. What are you wearing, anyway?" Yuffie said, rummaging through an open drawer.
Kairi looked down, scrunching her nose. If she had a choice, she wouldn't have shown up in her school uniform. Though she did love her ribbed blue sweater…the only piece of clothing the school allowed without a monogram.
"My school uniform," she replied with a little noise of disgust. Yuffie laughed and tossed her a pair of flannel pants and a tank top.
"Guess you weren't prepared, then?" she asked, grinning, pulling on an oversized t-shirt over her tank top and stepping into the wardrobe, closing the door to change.
"Nope, guess I wasn't," Kairi answered, pulling off her sweater.
"Wait!" Yuffie said, bursting out of the wardrobe so fast that Kairi shrieked and fell off the bed in fright. "I have an idea!"
Kairi picked herself up off the floor, putting her elbows up on the bed and kneeling.
"Talk to me," she said cheerfully.
"You're not planning on staying here forever, right? I mean…you're gonna go look for your friends. For Sora," Yuffie mused, tapping her chin with one finger and cocking her head.
"And Riku," Kairi asserted.
"Well, then, you're going to need a killer outfit, aren't you?" Yuffie asked excitedly, grinning and stepping out of the wardrobe.
Kairi raised her eyebrows. Now, come to think of it, she couldn't exactly fight her way through anything in her school uniform, could she?
Yuffie padded over to the heavy door, turning the doorknob and sticking her head in the hallway, looking back and forth.
"There's no one here to walk in on us…and the night is young," she said, closing the door. "Now, what have we got to deal with here?" She turned back to Kairi and put her hands on her hips, cocking her head.
Kairi stood up and revolved slowly on the spot, before striking an exaggerated supermodel pose, making the older girl laugh.
"Well, these sleeves'll do you no good, not if they get caught on something. I learned that the hard way," she began, picking up Kairi's sweater where it lay discarded on the bed. "And take that tie off. You'll strangle yourself."
Kairi grinned and yanked the plaid tie off, tossing it on the bed. She reached up and took her hair out of its ponytail holder, and there was a knock on the door.
"Kahin," Yuffie said, her teeth working on a stubborn thread near the seam of the sweater's sleeves and muffling the intended "Come in."
The door opened slightly and Aerith's head poked in. Her green eyes brightened.
"Is this what I think it is?" she said cheerfully, smiling.
"If you mean a fashion consultation, then yes," Yuffie chided, with a little noise of satisfaction when the sleeve of the sweater came clean off.
"I need all the help I can get!" Kairi said, playing along, standing up and brushing her hair back from her face. She shivered slightly, the fire being inadequate to keep her from getting a chill in her thin school blouse.
Aerith entered and closed the door, pulling her boots off and using the desk as support. She eyed Kairi critically, sizing her up with her piercing gaze.
"You'll probably need gloves. If you're going to have a sword, which I'm sure we can hook you up with," she said, grinning slightly, "your hands will get so calloused you won't even want to look at them."
She rummaged in one of Yuffie's open drawers as the ninja began yanking frustratedly at the other sleeve of Kairi's sweater. Aerith looked up and tossed Kairi a pair of fingerless leather gloves that fastened around the wrist. She put them on, flexing her long fingers and stretching the broken-in fabric.
The next two hours were spent with Yuffie and Aerith holding up various articles of clothing to Kairi's slim frame and tossing the rejects every which way, as the three girls chattered cheerfully and critiqued every combination presented. At one point, Aerith even had Kairi sit at the desk so she could give her hair a trim. It was nearly midnight before the ninja and the mage stood back with sighs of satisfaction, with Kairi completely dressed in their new arrangement.
She turned around in front of the mirror. Yuffie had somehow cleaned up the frayed edges of her blue school sweater, which was now sleeveless over her white blouse. Aerith had convinced the ninja to part with a pair of her favorite khaki shorts that fit Kairi with a bit of work. A white belt was fastened loosely around her hips, which as a special touch, had been touched up by sewing on a large piece of Kairi's old purple skirt with the scalloped hem that had come with her in the school duffel bag. She wore her warm navy knee socks she had come in, and Aerith had run to her room to fetch her a pair of high-laced brown boots that reached her mid-calf. All in all, she looked completely mismatched, yet inexplicably stylish.
Kairi leaned close to her reflection, brushing her now-shorter bangs out of her eyes. Her hair was nearly as short as it had been during the summer when she was 14, but she liked it that way now.
"Wow," she breathed, her voice making the mirror cloud in its close proximity. "How'd you do it?"
She turned to Yuffie and Aerith, both of which were standing triumphantly with arms crossed.
"Is any of this supposed to match?" she asked, laughing.
"Of course not!" Yuffie replied jauntily, putting her hands on her hips and grinning at Aerith.
"But that's okay," Aerith reassured her. "You're ready for anything in this outfit. Doesn't matter if it clashes."
Kairi beamed at them, and tried to strike what she thought of as a fearsome battle stance, making all three of them collapse on each other laughing.
Leon rummaged through the castle armory, pushing aside large metal shields and ridiculous-looking hinged helmets. All the swords he'd found were too big.
Finally, he saw it: a three-foot-long sword, curved and somewhat elegant, curling around once to form a pointed tip. Its hilt was silver and wrapped in toughened leather, a large green stone set into its crown. Black carvings drew in lazy circles upon the mirrored surface of the dulled blade, spelling out words he didn't know nor cared to translate.
He picked up a sharpening-stone and forced his way back out of the musty and darkened chamber into the entrance hall.
Leon cursed under his breath. Squirming and sniveling near the fountain was a dark creature…yellow eyes, twitching antennae. His face curled into a scowl as he watched it shrink into the floor, a splash of darkest night moving like a shadow on the polished marble floor. The swordsman made a few quick strides across the hall before it emerged again. With a cry of fury, he hacked at it with the new sword until it exploded into wisps of darkness, leaving no trace behind.
Grunting, he lifted the blade and braced it behind his shoulder as he had always done, and pulled himself up onto the ledge, ignoring the stairs. He pushed into the library and closed the door securely behind him. No Heartless dared venture where more than one of the residents of Hollow Bastion gathered.
He ran up the stairs to the upper landing, where Cloud sat in the desk chair, leaning back so it supported him on two legs and his feet on the desk blotter, reading a beat-up old book on sword lore. His tattered red cloak masked the lower half of his face as his blue eyes flitted back and forth across the page. He looked up at Leon as he approached, a small grin tilting the corner of his lips when he saw the aggravated look on the other man's face and the rusty old sword over his shoulder.
"What happened to you?" he asked, shutting the book and swinging his feet off the desk.
"Heartless," Leon said curtly, pulling up another chair and sitting down to sharpen the blade.
Cloud frowned, folding his arms. "Where were they this time?" he asked, regaining seriousness.
"Entryway," Leon said shortly, running the stone along the edge of the blade, sparks flying with the friction.
"Ah…and are you going to start answering with more than one word or can I ask what that thing's for?" Cloud asked, grinning sardonically and dog-earing the page of the tome he had been reading.
"It's for Kairi," Leon answered, bringing the blade up close to his face and closing one eye to inspect his work. "I figured it couldn't hurt for her to have something to fight with, too."
Cloud grunted his agreement and looked around as he heard the loud crash that accompanied a lift stop's arrival. Yuffie came pelting out of the darkened hallway that led to the lift.
"Morning!"
She grinned at them jauntily, her hands at her accustomed place on her hips.
Leon stopped his work on the sword to look sarcastically up at Yuffie, grinning darkly. "What are you so hyper about? It's too early for you to be this energetic."
"Oh, nothing. We had a pajama party last night…that is, Aerith, Kairi, and I. Maybe we had a bit too much sugar," she said, giggling.
Aerith emerged from the lift stop, the heavy step of her boots preceding her entrance. She cleared her throat and put her hands behind her back.
"Presenting," she said regally, her seriousness getting the better of her and grinning. "Her royal majesty and princess of heart, Kairi!"
Kairi came out of the lift stop blushing furiously, as Yuffie ran over to her and clasped her hands in a the shape of a gun, putting back-to-back with her and making the two of them look like a bizarre parody of gun mages locked in battle.
Despite himself, Leon laughed and Cloud whistled. They had done a good job making Kairi look battle-ready, what with the gloves and the new haircut. Yuffie had even taken the liberty of fastening a kerchief around the crown of Kairi's head, making her look uncannily like her ninja friend.
Leon reached up and tugged at the knot at the base of Kairi's neck, making the kerchief slide off her face and onto the floor. "That's the only part she can do without," he said, grinning.
Yuffie gave a huff of indignation. "Hey, that was my idea!" She rounded on Leon, crossing her arms and leaning close to his face, a stern frown creasing her brow. Kairi leaned out behind the ninja, raising her eyebrows and mouthing "Thank you!" to the swordsman. Leon's lip twitched, and he gave a small smile.
"Eh, you look good enough without it," Yuffie conceded, turning her head to Kairi, but cuffing Leon behind the head with one gloved hand and receiving a sharp poke in her bare stomach in retaliation.
"You look great," Cloud said generously, sitting back in the desk chair.
Aerith stepped forward. "Why, thank you, sir. So do you," she said cheerfully, leaning forward and putting her hands on her knees and gazing into Cloud's face.
"I wasn't talking about you," he said sarcastically, catching on and smiling at Aerith. She gave him a wounded look in jest, and he patted his left knee. She grinned and sat in his lap, his hand finding hers and interlacing their fingers.
"I'm starved. Who wants breakfast?" Yuffie asked, stretching.
"I do!" Kairi piped up.
"Wait…first, this is for you," Leon said, standing up and passing the sword to Kairi, holding its hilt out to her.
Kairi gaped at the gleaming blade. She reached out and grasped the hilt, the leather of her gloves curving around it. It dropped slightly as Leon let go; she hadn't anticipated its weight. She held it up, her startlingly blue eyes looking over every inch with wonder.
She swung it tentatively, making Yuffie jump back to avoid the swipe, even though it hardly would have made a scratch with the force which Kairi struck.
She looked up at everyone incredulously, the look of astonishment on her face honest. "How do you use this thing?"
Everyone laughed, and Kairi smiled sheepishly.
Eh, it turned out all right. I would love reviews. This was a bit of a filler chapter--I promise, big plot events are coming very soon. Interlude Two will definitely show up in the next chapter. Please use that little purple button below!
