::dances:: It's time to meet with Riku and Axel again. Whoo-hoo!! Hehe…I've missed them far too much, and I hope that you've missed them too…
And yeah…the song for this chapter is the whole reason as to why I changed the gate opening to London instead of New York. Hehe… The first time I heard this song it made me think of Riku in Lost Heaven as a whole, so of course I had to use it…
Enjoy!!…
WARNINGS: language…
Disclaimer: the characters and worlds of Kingdom Hearts belong to Square Enix and Disney…
"I woke up today in London
As the plane was touching down
And all I could think about was Monday
When maybe I'd be back around
If this keeps me away much longer
I don't know what I would do
You got to understand it's a hard life,
That I'm going through
And when the night falls in around me
And I don't think I'll make it through
I'll use your light to guide the way
'Cause all I think about is you…"
—"Landing in London" 3 Doors Down…
((Another Side, Another Story))
Landing in London…
I stared dismally out the window of the airplane, cursing the ocean and its vastness for quite possibly the millionth time since our plane had left Los Angeles. It was constant—a blotch of blue color that seemed to go on forever as it faded into the sky. It wouldn't have been any better if there had been some sort of entertainment as we crossed over, but alas, there was nothing to spice the flight up and that made it seem even worse.
Needless to say, I was bored, and boredom did not sit well with me. Not only that, but I was trapped inside a gigantic Boeing 747 with nothing to do but think and no way out for at least another ten hours.
Sighing in frustration, I cast a side glance in Axel's direction to see what he was doing. He was reading…again. It was surprising and slightly aggravating. Even though I had known Axel for my entire life and more, I never would have expected him to go through so many books in such a short amount of time. He was already on his third book and we had only been on the plane five hours or so.
I had only brought two books in my carry-on luggage because I had expected Axel to want to talk the entire time. Hell, I had been looking forward to talking to Axel the entire time. I wanted to talk about what each of us thought was going to happen once we crossed through the gate and how we should prepare for it. I wanted to know that I wasn't the only one who felt like an enormous hole had been torn into my chest since our plane had departed from Twilight Town. Most of all, I wanted to know that I wasn't alone in this. I wanted… No, I needed Axel to tell me that he was with me and that he would always be with me because I knew that I wasn't going to be able to handle what was coming on my own.
Sighing yet again, I ran a hand through my bangs and tightened my messy ponytail before it fell out. I cast another sorry glance out the window before I slouched down into my seat in an attempt to get comfortable and closed my eyes.
An almost silent sigh to my left made a small smile twitch at my lips, and my eyes slipped open. I looked up innocently to find that Axel hadn't sighed in response to my restlessness. It seemed that he had only reached a rather emotional part in his book. I scowled. Okay, so now I was bored and being ignored. If I had been holding onto any traces of happiness before, I let them all go right then. I was not a happy person.
"Axel…" No response. I scowled again and poked my friend sharply in the ribs. "Axel."
The redhead started briefly at the feeling of my finger against his side, and then looked at me with an eyebrow arched in vague amusement. "Did you just whine at me?" he asked, mouth stretching into a large smile as he said the words.
I tried my hardest to glare at him, but my body didn't want to listen to me. I can only imagine what kind of look I did end up giving him. Judging by the way he laughed, it most definitely wasn't the glare I had been aiming for.
"Shut up," I muttered dryly. I wasn't too sure if I really wanted to talk to him anymore or not. The gods above knew that he was going to rub that little bout of whining into my face for the rest of our lives.
Axel laughed and dog-eared his page in the book before he closed it and turned his full attention onto me. "Aw, what's wrong wifth my wittle Wiku?" he said with a sickeningly sweet smile on his face. "Why is he being such a wittle bitch?"
I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the world outside the window. Thankfully I couldn't see the ocean because of the angle I was sitting at, but the sky wasn't much more entertaining than its blue counterpart had been.
I ignored the sharp jab at my side and closed my eyes. Even though my previous "notice me, dammit!" waves had been replaced with "leave me the fuck alone!" waves, the heavy sigh Axel let out was anything but a sign that meant he was giving up. I should have known better than to think he would give up, anyway. If Axel thought there was a problem, he was usually right and he would stop at no lengths to discover what the problem was.
"What's the problem, Riku?" I shook my head and he sighed again. "Alright, fine. If you're not going to answer me, I'll just sit here and make cracks at the fact that you're a needy little bastard."
My eyes snapped open and landed on Axel with the best glare they could muster. If his small little flinch meant anything, then I was quite certain that I had gotten the desired effect. I wasn't…needy, per say. I was just bored and had practically been ignored since an hour into our flight from O'Hare International in Chicago to LAX in Los Angeles. It was aggravating.
"I'm not a needy little bastard," I muttered dourly. "I'm an insanely bored bastard who wasn't expecting to spend the better part of a fifteen hour plane ride in silence. If I had known that I was going to be traveling like this, I would have taken the flight by myself."
When Axel's eyes narrowed dangerously, I knew that I had stepped over the fine line of his patience. It hadn't taken much, but I could only imagine how thin this patience had worn from being trapped in an oversized flying piece of sheet metal for hours on end.
"Then why didn't you go by yourself?" he whispered, a dark smile crossing his lips when I didn't reply. "Oh, that's right. It's the same reason why you weren't able to go to Twilight Town by yourself. You're scared—scared like a little puppy who managed to find itself straddling the yellow line in the middle of a busy street."
My own eyes narrowed as I felt the anger bubbling up inside my chest. It was safe to say that this conversation was starting to go in a direction I had never expected.
"I have every gods damned right to be scared out of my fucking mind, Axel. So do you, and so do they. Who knows what we're going to be up against once we step through that gate? For all we know, we could be greeted by Father just so he can throw us into the dungeons without a second thought."
There was silence for a moment, filled only by the quiet humming of the engines, before Axel sighed. When I noticed the tension leave his body, I let out my own sigh. Even though his eyes were still narrowed, I knew that this fight wasn't going to go as deep as it could.
"Who ever said that I wasn't terrified? I am scared because we really don't know what's going to be on that other side of that gate. Hell, they could be waiting for us with guns so they can get us out of the way before anything major happens. Who knows?"
He sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they weren't narrowed and I could see desperation swimming through their depths.
"I'm here because I made a promise that I would follow you wherever you went, do what ever you did. I'm here because I made an oath to protect you whenever you needed protection." He sighed again and ran a hand back through his hair. "Riku, I'm here because you're my best friend and I love you. If I had just let you come into this alone, I never would have been able to live with myself."
I smiled and patted Axel's arm lovingly. "I know. Thank you, Ax."
He looked surprised for a moment, but quickly recovered with a smile and placed a hand over the top of mine. "No problem. Someone had to be kind enough to watch your ass."
I snorted and rolled my eyes. I knew he was right, but I would never give him the satisfaction of knowing that I knew. He tended to gloat too much already. I couldn't even begin to imagine how far he would go if he knew just how much I appreciated his company.
Sighing heavily, I reached out and closed the blind on the window and tried my hardest to get comfortable in my seat. I was tired, and judging by the shifting of pages beside me, I didn't think that Axel would have a problem if I decided to take a short little nap to pass the time. Hell. It wasn't like I had anything better to do.
Darkness claimed me almost immediately after I closed my eyes, pulling me in the deep nothingness of unconsciousness.
o-o-o-o-o
As it turned out, my plans for a little nap hadn't been quite so little after all. I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time since I had been reunited with Sora. It was nice, but entirely wanted. The bump from the wheels touching the ground, however, jolted me rudely back into consciousness. I blinked blearily and looked around to see what was going on, but nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.
A small chuckle beside me brought my attention onto Axel as he was shoving a book into his backpack. When he noticed that he had my attention, he winked at me and waved jovially.
"It's about time you woke up. We're here."
Furrowing my brow, I turned toward the window and pushed the shade up so I could see outside. I gasped when I realized that he was right. We were there. We were in London, and I wasn't prepared for the things that could happen once we set foot off the plane.
As the plane slowly rolled down the runway, the pilot came over the PA system to announce that we had landed, but I didn't catch onto anything after that. I had worse things to worry about now that we were finally in the place I had been dreading the entire flight. I half wondered who was going to be waiting for us in the airport to make sure we lived up to the promise. I could only imagine, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it wouldn't be my father. No, he would save his appearance for when it really mattered.
The other passengers rose in a flurry of noise when the plane finally stopped at the gate. Some stood and grabbed their bags out of the overhead compartment while others bitched at the ones getting their luggage down because they were blocking their paths. I couldn't help but laugh. It seemed that discourtesy was an international thing.
As the passengers around us began to filter out of the plane, I refused to budge from my seat. Even when Axel stood and threw his carry-on bag over his shoulder, I wouldn't move.
"Come on, Riku," Axel said. "We gotta go."
I shook my head and stared up at my friend with wide, pleading eyes. I didn't want to go. I wanted to be back in Twilight Town with Sora and Roxas, not here in some foreign European city I had never visited before. Axel wasn't going to deal with my reluctance, though. He grabbed onto my arm and forced me to stand up before he reached down and grabbed my bag from the floor. When he got the bag situated on my shoulder, he grabbed onto my shoulders and shook me.
"We didn't come all this way for nothing, Riku," he said firmly. "And we can't turn around and run away now. Who knows who's going to be waiting for us when we step off this plane? The moment they see us, they'll surround us and won't let us out of their sights. We're fucked, Riku. I thought you knew that already."
I shook my head. "I did…I do. I just… I know things aren't going to turn out the way we want them too."
He laughed heartily and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and what a time to start realizing this. We damned ourselves the moment we left Twilight Town. Besides, they always say you can't see the sunshine without a little bit of rain. Or something like that."
I nodded, but didn't have the heart to tell him no one had ever said that. Just like no one had ever been forced to return to a home they never wanted to see again, knowing that it was only to be locked away in dungeon or killed. Just like no one had ever had a father who had been main face behind the humans' creation of the being known as Satan.
Axel was right. We were fucked.
But instead of sitting on the plane and moping about it for a little bit longer, I nodded quickly to Axel and followed him down the aisle. We still had time before we had to think of something to do, and there was no way for anyone to monitor our mental conversations. Axel and I would come up with some kind of plan before we had to go through the door.
I could say that I was surprised to see Sephiroth waiting for us in the terminal, but that would be a lie. The moment I had stepped off the plane, I felt his aura overcome me with a sickening force. But to see him there with a twisted smile on his face was almost too much to handle. He was so much like our father that sometimes it made me sick. The only difference was that Sephiroth didn't have the kind of control over me and Axel as our father did, but he made up for it often enough by threatening to tear us apart with his sword. And if you're threatened by someone with a six-foot sword, you tend to listen.
"Brother, Axel! How nice to see you!" The fake cheer in his voice was disgusting, but I couldn't walk past him when he held his arms out for a hug.
"Hi, Seph. It's nice to see you again too," I said as I barely embraced him and moved before he could crush me with his arms.
"Yeah, hi, Seph," was Axel's rather unenthusiastic response.
Sephiroth's smile became even faker with Axel's words, but he kept his temper in check and directed us toward the luggage claim. I was proud of him, even though I knew he was smart enough to know that he would have caused quite a scene if he had just launched himself at Axel right in the middle of a crowded airport terminal. We really didn't need to have the cops on top of us right when we landed in London.
We managed to grab our luggage and get out of the airport without making a scene. Sephiroth kept his mouth closed until we were closed in the privacy of the back of our limo. Only then did he let his temper go and pin Axel down to the seat.
"Did no one ever teach you respect?" he spat, his face mere inches away from Axel's.
Axel laughed and shrugged, even though I could see the coldness creeping into his eyes. "Yeah, I listened to Aretha Franklin when I was younger. You know, 'R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me' and all that shit."
Sephiroth growled and smacked Axel hard across the face. I winced at the sight of my friend's face snapping to the side as such a vicious speed, but I knew that Axel would recover. He always recovered. But I can't imagine that he hadn't been expecting being hit for his sarcasm in the first place. He knew Sephiroth better than that, at least I hoped.
"You are a disgusting piece of filth. I don't understand why Father put you in the Organization in the first place."
"I don't know, either. Why don't you call your daddy up and ask him?" Axel shouted. "It's not like I chose to be in the damned thing anyway. It was join or be killed."
Sephiroth snorted as he pushed himself away from Axel. "Too bad you didn't pick the latter."
"Yeah? Well, fuck you, asshole."
Sephiroth shrugged and moved to the other side of the limo. Axel moved to follow him, but I grabbed onto his arm and gave him a serious look when he tried to fight me. I knew that he would be killed without a second thought if he pushed matters any further than he already had and I wouldn't be able to deal with that.
'Just let it alone.' I begged.
'Sorry.' He sighed and I saw the coldness slowly disappear from his eyes. 'You know I can't stand that prick.'
I laughed mentally. 'I know. I know. I just don't want you to go and get yourself killed. You should know Seph better than that.'
He shrugged, but didn't supply me with any other reply. I could only hope that he had learned his lesson and wouldn't try to do anything stupid like that again.
Faster than I had imagined, the limo was slowing to a stop outside a posh hotel and the chauffer was pulling the door open so we could climb out with our bags. For some reason, Sephiroth took it into his own hands to inform the desk of our arrival and then led us up to the suite.
The entire five storey ride in the elevator, I was preparing myself for the worst. I knew that Sephiroth was going to lash out at Axel for his defiance in the limo once the door closed behind us and left us in privacy. I just knew, and then I was going to be alone. Or I would be killed as well for trying to defend Axel. Neither of the choices was very high on my list of things I wanted to happen.
An anvil dropped into the pit of my stomach when the elevator stopped on our floor and the doors dinged open. I broke into a sweat as we stepped out of the elevator and started down the hall to the suite. When Sephiroth stopped outside a door and stuck a key into the lock, it was growing increasingly difficult for me to breathe. I felt like I was going to pass out by the time he turned the key and pushed the door open.
But it was all for nothing. Sephiroth silently walked into the room and went into one of the rooms, where the closed and probably locked the door behind him. I stared at the closed door with wide eyes and felt my entire body start to shake as the tension became too much for me to handle. When my knees gave out, there was nothing to grab onto, but Axel managed to drop his bags and catch me before I hit the ground.
Axel picked me up and carried me to the couch. He laid me down gently and sunk down to his knees on the floor, brushing my bangs back out of my face. My vision went in and out from darkness and the bright light of the room, and it took everything I had just to try and take a breath.
'Calm down, Riku. Breathe. 1, 2, 3, breathe.' Axel let his mind brush gently against mine and I felt him siphon some of the tension into himself as he did. 'Close your eyes and center.'
I nodded and did as he told. I closed my eyes and sunk deep down within myself. I started with a few slow and deep breaths before I imagined the quiet, glowing spot just below my belly button. I knew that it was a perfect calm place that no one could take me away from. No one could touch me or hurt me as long as I was there. I took a long, deep breath and sunk into the feeling of security and comfort seeing that place gave me, forgetting about everything in the outside world for a moment.
I held onto the feeling of security as I opened my eyes and released a breath. I would usually follow centering with grounding, but I knew that centering would have to do for now. And that single, short exercise had done wonders for my mind and body. I felt calm and collected, and my vision had cleared so I could see Axel's face hovering above mine perfectly.
"I forgot how good that feels," I muttered as I moved to sit up. "I haven't done it since the night before the Halloween party."
Axel smiled and moved from the floor to sit on the couch beside me, lifting my legs so they would lie across his lap. "No wonder you've acting so strange lately. You know you're supposed to do it whenever you feel yourself getting off balance."
I sighed and snuggled into the comfortable chenille of the couch. "What can I say? I wasn't exactly thinking about keeping myself balanced while Sora's life was on the line."
He laughed. "I know. I just wanted the chance to harp on you."
"Yeah, yeah…," I said with a small roll of my eyes.
Axel laughed again and playfully shoved my legs off his lap. "I guess I should get our luggage out of the doorway and into our room, huh?"
I nodded and pushed myself up from the couch. "Yeah, I'll help."
"No, I can get it," he said and pushed me back down. "Don't worry about it. Just sit down, relax, and get a hold of yourself before you start to freak out again."
I sighed and pushed myself up from the couch, ignoring the glare Axel threw at me. "At least let me carry my carry-on bag or something. I want to go lay down on the bed so I don't have to deal with the spawn of Satan whenever he decides to come out of his room."
Axel laughed and shrugged, then led the way to the door. I don't know how, but he managed to gather all of the luggage except my carry-on bag into his arms and carried it to the room without dropping a thing. I watched him in awe for a moment before I grabbed my bag and followed him in, laughing as he unceremoniously dropped all of our things onto the floor.
"I'm glad we didn't pack anything that was too fragile," I muttered as I dropped my bag beside the bed and collapsed onto the mattress.
He shrugged halfheartedly. "What can I say? It was heavy."
I laughed and closed my eyes as Axel flopped down onto the bed beside me, letting my thoughts drift over the past half an hour. So far things hadn't gone too horribly wrong. Sure, Axel had almost gotten himself killed because he couldn't control his mouth around Sephiroth, but that wasn't anything new. And knowing that things were going completely different than we had planned was just making me nervous. I couldn't stop wondering just when things were going to start going downhill and if there would be any kind of warning before it happened.
Axel sighed beside me and I felt the bed shift as he moved before a finger was jabbed into my side. "So…whatcha thinkin' 'bout?"
I cracked an eye and looked to the side, only to laugh at the look on Axel's face. "What's it matter?"
He frowned and shrugged. "I just don't want you to sit around a mope for the rest of your life. So talk to me. Tell me what's on your mind."
I snorted and rolled my eyes, but knew better than to think that he would leave the subject alone. So, instead of ignoring him, I moved so I was on my side, facing him. "Aren't you worried that things have been…calm since we've landed?"
His frown deepened and he cocked his head to the side. "I dunno. I've been too glad that I'm still alive to really think about it. Why?"
"I just…" I sighed and rolled onto my back so I could stare at the ceiling. "Maybe I'm just being overdramatic. I mean, you saw how I just started to shut down when Seph went into his room and didn't do anything. I had spent so much time preparing myself for him lashing out that my mind and body went into overdrive."
The bed shifted a bit and I knew that Axel had rolled onto his back as well. "I dunno, man. I know how you feel about preparing for Sephiroth to lash out, but I guess I'm just so used to it that it didn't affect me like it did you. You know how often I piss your brother off, so I'm always preparing for him to hurt me."
I laughed. "You need to learn to get control over your mouth. It's going to get you killed one day."
He snorted quietly. "Oh, well. At least I'll know that I seriously pissed some people off by the time they decide to off me."
"Yeah, because that's closure," I said sarcastically.
"It is for me."
I laughed and shook my head, rolling back onto my side so I could see Axel's face. He held a hand up in the air and moved it back and forth as he stared at it, his eyes thoughtful.
"Okay," I said and poked him in the side, "now it's your time to spill."
I thought he ignored me because he kept staring at his hand, but then he sighed heavily and let his arm fall down to the bed with a quiet thump. His answer sent a bolt of sadness surging through my body.
"I miss Roxas." His voice was so sad and I could hear the tears lingering just below the surface.
I moaned quietly and moved closer so I could wrap my arms around him. "I know you do, Ax. I know."
"It's not fair! We were good in our past lives. We never did anything to hurt anyone unless it was for self-defense. We never killed when we took blood because we usually took it from each other." He punched the bed and choked on a sob. "Why us, Riku? What did we do that was so fucking horrible to deserve this?"
I tightened my arms around him and sighed when he wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my hair to muffle his tears.
"You have no idea how many times I've asked myself that question, Axel," I muttered weakly. "I miss Sora more than anything in the world, but we should have known better than to think that things would work out in our favor. History repeats itself, right?"
He sighed and pulled away from me. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I don't know anymore, Riku. I really don't."
He stood and went to his suitcase to pull out some clean clothes. When he had a pair of sweaters, boxers, and a tank top in his hands, he crossed the room to the open bathroom door.
"I'm gonna take a shower," he muttered, and then closed himself away in the bathroom.
It took a lot for me to not get up and follow after him, but I knew that he needed to have some time to himself so he could calm down and find his center. I was still shocked from seeing the tears on his face just before the bathroom door had closed behind him, anyway. If I had gone after him, I would have pried and only made the situation worse.
Sighing quietly, I reached over the side of the bed and unzipped my bag so I could grab one of my books. When I found it, I settled down into the bed and opened to the first page. It didn't take long before I was lost in a world of fantasy and mystery, a place that pulled me in and let me forget about reality…if just for a little while.
o-o-o-o-o
Being locked away in a hotel with Sephiroth for a day was horrible, but staying locked away in a hotel with him for a week was hell. He refused to let me or Axel leave the building without being accompanied by him and refused to tell us when and where Father was going to open the gate. The bastard strode around the hotel with a pompous air around him and didn't think twice about beating either of us if we said anything about it. By the third day, I was so sick of bandaging Axel's wounds that I refused to let him leave the room whenever Sephiroth was in the main area of the suite.
The day our world crashed down came as a surprise. Axel and I were lying quietly on the bed, each lost in our own books, when Sephiroth strode through our door with a shit eating grin on his face. We closed our books and sat up, and I bit my tongue for Axel in hopes that he would keep his mouth shut.
"I thought I locked that door," the redhead spat, making me groan quietly.
The sound of Sephiroth's laugh made me groan again. He hadn't even made a move to hurt Axel before he'd started to laugh. That only meant one thing. He had bad news for us, which was good news for him.
It was time for us to go home.
"Gather your things. We'll be leaving in ten minutes," Sephiroth said and left the room without another word.
Silence filled the room for a couple of seconds as Axel and I took some time to absorb what was getting ready to happen. When the shock wore off and reality set in, Axel broke the silence in a very Axel-like way.
"Fuck!" He shouted it so loud our neighbors probably could have heard him. "Gods dammit it all! Shit!"
I sighed and put a hand on his arm to catch his attention before he hurt our neighbors' possible virgin ears with anymore curse words. He jumped slightly and turned to look at me with wide, fearful eyes.
"Breathe, Axel. Don't freak out over this, please!"
Axel's eyes grew even wider and he stared to laugh. "Well, excuse me for freaking out over the fact that it's time for us to go home and be killed." His voice was so shrill it made my ears hurt. "I guess it's not really that important, huh?"
He was taking a deep breath so he could say something else when I jumped up and clamped a hand over his mouth. He was saying some rather sensitive things just a little bit too loud, and I didn't want to risk having the neighbors call the cops on us or something because of what they were hearing. He shouted against my hand and tried to wiggle out of my grasp, but I refused to let him go, even when he bit my finger.
"Listen to me, Axel. You can't do this, not now. Later, yes, but not now. Right now we have to be strong. We can't show weakness because they'll take advantage of it, and then we will be killed. Do you want that? Do you really want to die?"
He shook his head, his eyes wide and fearful once again. I glared at him for a couple more seconds before I slowly took my hand away from his mouth.
"We're gonna make it through this, okay?"
He nodded and continued staring at me with those big eyes. I smiled sadly and moved forward so I could hug him. He sighed and returned the embrace almost immediately, clinging to me for dear life.
"We're gonna make it through this," he repeated. "We're gonna do it. We'll make it. We have to make it or else all this will have been for nothing."
I pulled away and held his face gently in my hands. "Exactly. We'll do it. As long as we're together, we can do anything."
He smiled and I kissed him gently between the eyes before climbing off the bed to gather my belongings. Axel followed close behind and we packed in silence. We were just zipping our suitcases closed when Sephiroth came back into the room with the same shit eating grin on his face.
"It's time to go."
Axel and I nodded and gathered our luggage before following Sephiroth out of the suite. We retraced the steps we had taken seven days before and entered the limo in silence. The limo was different this time, though. It seemed that Sephiroth had paid to have all of the windows inside the limo blacked out so we could see outside. The only light inside the limo was the small overhead light in the center of the ceiling and the rope lighting of the empty bar. It was kind of creepy.
"Where are we going?" Axel finally asked once we were all settled down into our seats and a quick jerk let us know that the limo was moving.
Sephiroth shrugged and smiled. "You'll find out when we get there," he said in a sing-song voice.
I gulped. Sephiroth never used a sing-song voice. Apparently things were going much further away from me and Axel's plans that we could have ever imagined.
The ride continued for another ten minutes in a tense silence. I spent the time trying to center, but for some reason I couldn't feel the warmth and security of that ball of light. Everything was cold. It was almost as if the light knew that the world was getting ready to crash down around my ears.
When the limo pulled to a stop, my breathing was getting rapid. When the chauffer pulled the door open and we were met with nothing but darkness, I felt myself start to be overcome by fear. Axel stood and crouched down on his haunches, moving closer to the door in an attempt to see outside.
"What the fuck, man?! Where are we?" he shouted.
Sephiroth moved closer to me and Axel's end of the limo, taking a seat just behind Axel with a smile. "Welcome home." With that he kicked Axel in the back.
"What the hell?" But then Axel tumbled out the door, through the portal, and was gone.
I stared at the dark opening with wide eyes, just noticing the deep purple and blue lines that moved through the darkness. I don't know how, but Father had turned the door of the limo into the portal back to Kurai. There was no way out of the car without going back home.
"It's your turn, little brother," Sephiroth said before he grabbed onto my arm and hoisted me up out of the seat.
I struggled against his hold as much as I could, but I knew that there was no way to escape.
"Have a good trip." His laugh followed me through the dark void and echoed in my ears as I fell though nothing.
The trip was just as painful as I remembered. It felt like I was being torn apart from the inside. Even though I screamed for Axel as loud as I possibly could, I didn't hear anything leave my mouth and echo in the darkness. Coming to the realization that I was alone, I curled up into a ball and resigned to my fate.
Seconds later, I tumbled out the other side of the door and hit the hard ground with a heavy thump, causing white pain to flash across my closed eyelids. I groaned quietly and held my head in my hands for a couple of seconds before I even dared to try and sit up and examine my surroundings.
I was in Kurai, there was no doubt about that. It was nighttime and the stars twinkled brilliantly in the sky above me. The dull, flickering glow of several fires served as the only other light in the area. When I opened my ears, I could hear the sounds of people talking in hushed voices around me. I didn't notice the sounds of footsteps nearing my body until it was too late, and a harsh kick to my side brought the rest of my senses tumbling back into place.
"Get up!" a deep voice commanded.
"Go to hell," I gasped, clutching my side in pain.
The person kicked me again. "Get up!"
I groaned and curled into a tight ball. I sensed the man's feet shifting on the ground to kick me again and prepared myself for the pain, but another loud and familiar voice erupted over the area before he could nail me again.
"Stand, Riku." When I didn't move, I felt my father's anger grow and engulf me. "Now!"
Tendrils of his power wrapped around my arms and lifted my limp body up from the ground. I was barely able to lift my head to watch my father stalk toward me with anger flashing intensely behind his amber eyes. He stopped in front of me and grabbed a handful of my hair, wrenching my face upward so I would look him in the eye.
"Welcome home, son," he sneered.
I narrowed my eyes and managed to gather the strength to spit in his face. "Fuck you," I rasped.
I expected him to lash out at me in anger, but instead he laughed. "Yes, yes. I know. You hate me, I despise you. I'm glad to know that the feeling is still mutual."
I frowned and he laughed again, turning his back on me. I tried to call out to him when he started to walk away, but was cut off when he lifted an arm and snapped his fingers.
A mind-numbing pain erupted across my senses and forced me to cry out. The power that had been holding me aloft earlier broke and sent me tumbling unceremoniously to the ground. My head connected with a sharp rock and white stars of pain flashed across my vision.
The last thought to drift across my conscious mind was one of Sora and how much I loved him, and then I was lost to darkness.
TBC…
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A/N: Yeah…so you all probably hate me right now. ::hides:: Sorry, but that was as good a place to end it as anywhere else… I really do hate writing Seph as such an evil character. Other than that, I really don't have much else to say about this chapter except…DAMN!! A lot of stuff happened in this chapter…stuff that will shape the story for the better and for the worse… And most of that stuff happened once Riku landed on his ass back in Kurai…
I want to thank everyone who reviewed last chapter, and those of you who continue to give me your feedback and support. It really means a lot to me. I love you all! ::hugs::…
I'm sorry for any typos and grammar errors. It's hard to edit something nine pages long while you're being distracted by a kid asking for food and wanting to have a sword fight…LoL…
OH!! I have another name drop for a movie...If you haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth, you totally should. OMFG!! It's freakin' amazing. It's kinda sorta like a twisted adult fairy tale and is also focused on the Spanish Civil War in the 1940s. Yes, that means it's in Spanish…and it's rathergory. It also has the best monster I have ever seen in a movie. I call it…Baby-Eater. It really doesn't have a name, but there are pictures of it eating babies on the walls of the room, so yeah… Original, huh? LoL…
KINDA SORTA IMPORTANT NEWS!! LoL. Yeah, there's a good possibility that I'm going to be heading back home to New York on Sunday for a week. It shouldn't be too bad, but I dunno how much time I'm going to have to write and there's a good chance that I won't have Internet unless I have a second to jump onto my grandma's computer. ::sighs:: For readers of "Solitude"...I'm gonna try my damnedest to get the next chapter done and uploaded by Saturday. If that happens, there's a good chance it won't be edited unless it's just a quick skim edit, but let's hope I can do it anyway. LoL...
Well…with that, I guess that's all I have to say. Until next chapter, adieu…
