A/N: Alright, as compensation for the absurdly long wait and for the short chapters before, and even though it is already October, I grant you a behemoth of an end to Sora's summer vacation. Thanks to all the people who have stuck with this story. It's bound to get even better- I just need to find the time to upload. Keep reading, liking, favoriting, and especially, reviewing!
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Chapter Ten
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Sora clutched Hacky to his chest in an effort to still his hammering heart. The Moogle was milking a kupo nut Sora had traded several synthesized items for at a market in the valley earlier that day. By some miracle, Sora had kept him from hacking. But the more time passed, the less likely his endured silence became. When Sora glanced towards the clock above the hall, he bit his lip and steeled his soul.
It was the eve of Reno's return. Tomorrow morning, Reno, Eraqus, and the rest of Shinra and Organization Thirteen would return from summer vacation to minister the next school year at the Land of Departure Key blade Academy. Everyone still within the building was exhausted from preparing for their arrival. Sora crossed his fingers in the hope that all lay asleep but himself. He had waited till the sound of Terra's snores pierced his ears to sneak into the electrical room. Though it had been a struggle luring Hacky out of his nest, he agreed to help Sora when he saw the pleading look in the boy's eyes and the kupo nut in his gloved hands. Sora had thrifted an outfit of complete black for the heist: pants, turtleneck, gloves, and ski mask. He pulled reinforced socks over his sneakers in order to creep soundlessly through the halls. His gloves reduced the chance of fingerprints. Now, as he stood crouched behind a trashcan outside Reno's office feeling rather badass, he waited.
Marluxia had left for bed two hours ago. Hacky had told Sora. Turned out the Moogle operated a network of tunnels running through the entire building that he used for messing with the lights and wires. But there was no harm in being certain. When Sora felt the time was right, he asked Hacky to use his pom-pom. Hacky gave a somber nod and trundled down the dark hall on two donut hole legs.
When Hacky reached Reno's office door, he felt around the handle and threshold with his little claws. His pom-pom vibrated soundlessly over his head. After ten minutes, he gestured Sora over. Sora dodge rolled all the way to the door, emptying his lock picking tools from his pockets and driving them into the handle. When the door clicked, Sora opened it and let Hacky crawl through.
"Signal me when you're ready," Sora gestured. Hacky nodded and fluttered around the office chamber. Sora waited for what felt like hours, his eyes trained like searchlights upon the empty staircase leading up from the great hall. Finally the Moogle tapped the door three times from within. Sora busted through and glanced around. Hacky emptied three destroyed bugs and wires into his lap, along with several magical devices Sora did not know the names of. Sora thanked Hacky with a kiss to the forehead and dashed on all fours to the filing cabinet drawer marked M- N. Hacky had already fiddled with the locks. Sora picked M- N easily, shoving it open and scooping out his own and Riku's files. When he got them in his hands, he spread them across the floor and flew for Reno's desk. As he stood before its smooth frame, he bit his lip in remembrance. Reno's pre vacation filing routine returned to his mind. When he went for the right lower drawer, Hacky sat on his hand and shook his head. Sora understood. There were magical devices inside the desk, as well. He bit his lip, remembering the passages from Cheato on breaking wiretaps. Then he signaled for Hacky to stand by and cracked his fingers.
Sora picked the lock as gently as he could. Right as it clicked and Sora pressed the drawer open, Hacky swooped down and attacked the wire inside. When the Moogle finished, Sora swept by and scooped up the binder labeled, "Record Keeping." When he tucked it safely under his arm, he charged with it down to his and Riku's folders. Once everything was spread in a halo around his knees, he leaned forward and started to read. Riku's file was relatively small. Sora's was enormous, filled with probation meeting and mission reports, expulsion slips, teacher signatures, scathing notes on conduct, payroll information, and pod files. When Sora stumbled upon the last stack of notes, penned by Naminé Winter, he stifled the urge to eat his hat.
"Day 5:," the file read, "Sora has begun his vision quest into a universe I am labeling Kingdom Hearts. It is a stylized version of our own universe, replete with existing worlds, creatures, and people herein. Today he met alternate versions of Yuffie Kisaragi, Squall Leonhart, Aerith Gainsborough, and a person he has never encountered named Cid Highwind.
Day 10: Sora has met another person he never knew in life: Alice Liddell, whom I believe may be a princess of heart. On instinct I linked Kairi, Sora, and Riku's vision quests to the same universe and plot. I think Kairi's heart connection is leading Sora to meet unknown princesses. I am making the connection stronger by linking Sora and Kairi's limbic systems into his body. I authorize Kairi's in pod status to vegetative state until further notice.
Day 45: The fusion of Kairi and Sora's limbic systems has led us to Alice Liddell and Jasmine Abbas, two alleged princesses of heart not currently in attendance at Land of Departure Key blade Academy. I authorize their acceptance into Land of Departure Key blade Academy next year.
Day 100: I have forbidden Memory Chain interference with Sora's dream interactions with Riku no matter how dangerous they become. I believe his heart is coming to terms with his loss of Riku's friendship. When they meet they run fevers. I have lowered the pod and room temperature accordingly.
Day 160: Sora and Riku have dueled for the final time; Riku handing over his body in-dream to what I believe is a manifestation of the darkness in his heart. I have styled it, "Ansem: Seeker of Darkness." Sora's temperature spiked to near fatal levels. For ten minutes he regressed to vegetative state. In those ten minutes, I believe his mind retreated into Kairi's limbic system, as she regained minimally conscious state. After ten minutes, he returned to his own body with a low fever, breaking the limbic chain I forged between himself and Kairi at the beginning of the vision quest. Kairi is now in a minimally conscious state. I am no longer able to tamper with her limbic system or use her to locate princesses of heart through Sora. As of now, three alleged PoH have been located: Alice Liddell, Jasmine Abbas, and Snow White.
Sora flipped over to Day 160 in Riku's journal.
"Day 160: Sora and Riku have dueled for the final time. Riku handed over his body in-dream to what I believe is a manifestation of the darkness in his heart. I have styled it, "Ansem: Seeker of Darkness." After the duel, Riku's temperature spiked to fatal levels. Strong dark energy in the form of black mist seeped from his pod into the room surrounding. Air vents activated to eradicate the darkness, disturbing the vision quests of surrounding pod inhabitants. I followed protocol and started in-pod ventilation, but the darkness would not dissipate. Riku's temperature fell from 110° F to 88.9° F. I turned in-pod temperature up to 100° F to compensate. Marluxia has authorized the complete limbic separation of Riku and Sora. From now on, they will never meet in-dream.
Sora flipped back to his own entries.
"Day 180: Sora is midway through his journey into Castle Oblivion, a world I believe is a manifestation of his mental projection of worries over events to come, and his fight to save Riku from vegetative state. I was surprised to find myself present in Sora's new vision quest. Marluxia has authorized my exploitation of this development to extract information and guide Sora's hand. Sora has correctly surmised our genetic development of a puppet Riku. This Riku Replica is now a regular character in his dream quest."
"Day 180: Though Riku's body is still shielded from view by a blanket of darkness inside his memory pod; I am receiving images of his journey through Castle Oblivion as clearly as I am Sora's. Though it took severe reprogramming to destroy the manifestation of Riku's darkness, otherwise styled Ansem: Seeker of Darkness, Marluxia has authorized his deliberate reinvention to battle Riku without Sora's help."
"Day 195: I have terminated Sora's vision quest through Castle Oblivion and am masking his memories of the events herein on Marluxia's authorization. Under Axel's permission I am linking the code WAYFINDER for the retrieval of these memories. In my exploration of Sora's memories before his time in the pod, I came across a sensitive, locked image. Should Sora read the WAYFINDER code, he will remember it and everything else."
Sora skimmed down to the bottom of the page. A drawn picture of a paopu fruit good luck charm stared back up at him, with the words WAYFINDER scrawled in blue ink beneath. As Sora read it he clutched his head.
Memories jumbled upon him like crashing waves. Faces morphed together into one monstrous being against a pulsing black sky, with thunderous voices that snaked and overlapped in a garbled, ugly speech. All of it ended with the crunch of gravel, the pounding of music, and two pools of gold. When Sora finally shook the memories off and peered at the office surrounding, he noticed Hacky had torn a hole in the arm of his black turtleneck.
"Hacky?" Sora croaked. "What are you doing?" Then he heard it.
Footsteps climbing the stairs outside the office door. With a gasp Sora scrambled up and swept the binder and folders together, dumping them back into the M- N cabinet and bottom right drawer of Reno's desk in the blink of an eye. When he noticed Hacky standing like a buffoon at the room's center, he told him to escape. Hacky shook his head. Sora whined in terror.
"Hacky, I can't lose you!" he cried. "Let me handle this on my own!"
Hacky hesitated until Sora shooed him towards the loose screws on the air vent above the desk. For a moment Sora watched with bitten nails as Hacky unscrewed the rest of it. When the Moogle finished disassembling, he let the air vent cover crash to the floor and shimmied through it into the ceiling. On instinct Sora followed him, leaping from the scalp of Reno's desk and grabbing the metal ventilation pipe as he raised himself towards it. When the office door and light slammed on and a strong hand caught him by the foot, Sora screeched. Before he could protest he was wrenched over and off the desk onto the ground. His wrists were cinched together in front of him and he was heaved upwards. Someone ripped his mask off. When he sputtered and blinked into the eyes of his captor, he gritted his teeth.
Marluxia towered over him, teeth bared in rage. When Sora whimpered, the man cracked a malicious grin and pressed him close until they were nose to nose.
"If you wanted a tour, Sora," he hissed. "You should have asked weeks ago." With that, he wrenched the ski mask into Sora's mouth and shoved him kicking and screaming through the office door, down the hall, through the exit stairwell, and to the elevators. Marluxia used his elbow to press the down button astride the sliding doors, grunting as Sora tried stomping on his foot. When the elevator opened and Marluxia dragged Sora halfway in, Sora hooked his legs around the archway outside and attempted wrenching himself away. Marluxia managed to press the lowest basement number. The doors closed. Sora had no choice but to take in his legs. As he and Marluxia tumbled against the elevator's back wall, he relaxed into the man's grip like a rag doll. Gentle elevator music played through their ten minute descension. Sora attempted pushing the ski mask from his mouth with his jaw and tongue. Marluxia sniffed and wiped his nose on his shoulder. When the doors finally opened, Sora jammed his heel into the arch of Marluxia's foot and spit the ski mask from his mouth when Marluxia let him go. As the man howled in displeasure, Sora tumbled into a hall of sterile white, a hall he had not even known existed until now.
Gasping for breath, he looked to either side of him. Then, seeing no other method of escape, he charged forward. For a few blissful moments he lunged ahead as if unstoppable. The wind from his acceleration whistled in his ears as his eyes centered on Marluxia's bent, wailing form. As Sora glanced over his shoulder, a grin plastered his face. He began turning his head, wondering if there was another elevator at the other end of the hall. Instead of making contact with a wide corridor or metal sliding doors, though, he ran smack dab into another black uniform. Two strong arms caught him by the elbows and pressed him back. When Sora looked into his new captor's face, his mouth gaped and his eyes pulsed wide.
Axel. As Sora stared at him, he felt Marluxia's shadow fall over his back. The man's hand clamped around and dug into his shoulder. Sora gritted his teeth. Marluxia bent close to his ear.
"Door to your right," he hissed. Sora stifled a groan as Axel wrenched him towards a white sliding door on his right side. After the three of them entered together, the door slid closed behind and the stark inner chamber's inhabitants glanced towards them. Standing several feet ahead was Larxene. Hunched before a tiny Memory Chain computer with Riku at her side, sat Naminé. When Sora stepped forward, she glanced up at him and gasped.
"Wh- what, why," she started. Then her face glowed with excitement. "Did WAYFINDER work?" she chirped.
As Sora attempted a response, Marluxia reached for a stray soda can on a white lab table by the memory pod's side and pinged it at Namine's head, harrumphing as she yelped and ducked. Then, grabbing up a stool and grasping Sora's collar, he shoved seat and boy towards Naminé's feet and told Axel to hold his hands. Sora screeched in defiance. Axel wrenched Sora's arms behind his back and clamped them together with strong wrists. Sora curled back his head and glared into Axel's eyes. Axel ignored him. The sound of swiveling metal wheels circled towards them. When Sora looked down, he noticed Marluxia wheeling towards his knees in stately strides. When the rosette situated himself, he grabbed Sora mid thigh and squeezed. Sora winced. Marluxia extended his hands.
"Welcome to Organization Thirteen!" he cried. Somewhere behind, Riku clapped and cheered. When no one joined in, his raucous celebration died to nothing. There was a sniff. A loud cough. Then silence. Sora glanced into each of his captors' faces in befuddlement. When nothing informative reflected within, Sora bared his teeth and stomped his foot. Larxene snorted. Axel glanced towards a crack in the wall. Naminé pursed her lips. Sora demanded to know what happened to the real Riku.
"I'm the real Riku, booty meister!" the not-Riku called from the other end of the room. Sora ignored him and stared into Marluxia's shallow blue eyes.
"What did you do with Riku's brain?" Sora's voice quavered.
"I will answer any questions you have after you sign this contract," Marluxia responded in a chirp. When he snapped, Larxene scowled and shuffled around the lab table behind for a stack of papers. Once she handed the pile over, Marluxia rested it in Sora's lap and thumbed through each page, tapping several circled signature boxes along the way. Just as the sound of shifting paper and tapping skin proved unbearable, he chuckled and shook his head.
"I regret that your induction into our company's folds had to happen in this way," he sighed. "But I'd venture to say being dragged into a bright room after theft of private documents and vandalism of a school official's office is ample retribution."
"What happened to my friend?" Sora insisted. Again, Marluxia ignored him.
"To think, had I not remembered I left my throat lozenges on top of the A-C cabinet, I might never have discovered your plot," he said. "I shall marvel at your feat for years to come. Next time I'll trust Axel when he tells me a student is intelligent, even if the student masquerades as a twat."
As Marluxia snorted, Sora glanced up at Axel again. The redhead shrugged unapologetically. A sly grin broke across Marluxia's cheeks as he nudged the man in the ribs.
"Until Axel's insistence on your genius, I thought you were nothing but a little twit," he sang. "An enticing little twit, but excruciatingly dim nonetheless. I readily admit I was wrong. As Naminé showed me more and more of your memories, I often wondered what changed you at the end of your first semester to make you into the boy you are today. I'd say that you know yourself better than anyone else, but as I recall, Naminé dug up a few rather strange images forlorn deep in the folds of your conscious. I suppose it is these little pushes in our lives that force us to grow up."
"Grow up."
Vanitas' words echoed in Sora's mind. The memory of cold, salty air mixed with rubber, alcohol, piss, and smoke. The creak of a sliding metal door. Crunching gravel. A warm body. The taste of water and the snap of an apple's broken skin. The sensation of peeing on the side of a rusting steel wall. Talking in a slur about Riku. Being kissed. Kissing back. Being shoved to the ground. The sting of sharp stone on skin. The glow of two golden pools with black teardrops at the center. Wearing a skirt hiked up to the waist. The feeling of a cold hand. The trail of a finger. A burning, piercing sensation.
Instinctively Sora's legs cinched together. He shut his mouth and stared at his knees, running his tongue over his teeth behind closed lips. It was as if every bit of moisture within him had been sucked out. His throat itched. His mouth ran dry. He coughed. When he chanced a glance into Marluxia's eyes, he shrunk. A grin draped across the rosette's features. Sora's shoulders sagged as he glanced towards everyone else. None but Axel met his eye. Had all of them known except for him?
"What did you do to Riku?" Sora's voice echoed in his head. As he forced himself back to reality, he shoved the old nightmares from his mind. Marluxia pressed the contract further up Sora's lap. Sora bucked it away with his hips and screeched that he would not sign a page until he got answers. As Naminé pressed her fingers over her ears and Riku stared on with a dumb glance, Larxene hissed for Sora to hush as Marluxia bent close at his elbow.
"Sora, I like you," he insisted. "But we are down to brass tacks. I am giving you a choice. Become a member of Organization Thirteen and be told everything you want to know within the next five hours, or be given a spiritual lobotomy by my dear assistant Naminé."
"A lobo-what?" snapped Sora. His trips to the library had not stretched his grasp on the english language that far.
"She'll wipe your memories," Larxene drawled. Sora snapped towards Naminé with a gape. When he stared her down, she avoided his gaze and picked the skin surrounding her nails. In disbelief Sora ogled at the white walls encasing him, wondering why he had ever wanted to be a hero in the first place. Everything wrong in his life had started the moment he set foot off Destiny Islands. With teary eyes and a final glance of desperation, he whispered Naminé's name. She winced at the sound of his voice.
"Please," he begged. "I just want to know what happened to my friends. I have the right to know."
Naminé bit her lip as she hesitated. Marluxia rose to standing. When he shoved the contract under Sora's nose again, Naminé balled her hands into fists and screeched, "alright!"
Marluxia and Larxene turned to Naminé in shock. Naminé's eyes blinked wide with fear. With a deep breath she murmured that Sora did have a right to know.
"You have to promise me that you will sign this form if I tell you," she amended with a glance of terror. "Please promise."
Sora pursed his lips. He had never been good with ultimatums. As he looked from the memory pods, to his surrounding enemies, to the white room shackling him, he decided there was really no choice at all. Finally, he caved and muttered that he would sign. Naminé's shoulders fell with relief. Marluxia sighed. Axel let go of Sora's arms. Sora folded his hands in his lap, waiting as Naminé tiptoed to a stark white filing cabinet at the back of the room and pulled out a booklet marked Complete Account of Universe Kingdom Hearts. When she dropped the massive spiral booklet into Sora's lap, he glanced up at her in awe. She pointed to the cover.
"It's all in there," she murmured. "The complete, unabridged Jiminy Journals of you, Kairi, Riku, and Ventus."
"Ventus?" whispered Sora. Naminé nodded. "His vision quest occurred in the same fantasy universe as yours. Only the timing was off. Ten years off."
"So Ventus remembered a quest set ten years in the past of the universe I was in?" Sora confirmed. Naminé nodded.
"You must have made an impression on him," she chuckled. "Or he, you. People don't just decide to dream up the same place."
"Where's Riku's brain?" asked Sora.
"Which one?" asked Naminé. Riku stepped to her side, fidgeting his toes.
"The one belonging to the Riku I left Destiny Islands with!" shouted Sora.
"That Riku is gone," responded Naminé. When Sora failed to reply, she continued, "On Day 170 of his vision quest, dark matter bubbled from the skin of Riku's chest and engulfed him. His body was hidden, but we still received memories from his limbic system. On Day 195 the memories stopped. When we opened the pod, Riku was gone."
Sora opened and shut his mouth in confusion. He stared from Naminé to the Riku standing at her side. How could there be two of the same person?
"This Riku is a puppet created by the leading scientist of Organization Thirteen's cloning program, Vexen," Naminé anticipated.
"Howdy," the Riku replica greeted with a sheepish wave of his hand. Sora blinked at his silver hair. His sharp teal eyes. The curve of his eyebrows. His grin. His soft pale skin. Though the whole idea seemed absurd, Sora believed it. In a way, he had known it from the moment he noticed the replica speaking with Vexen outside the electrical room. He had so hoped for the real Riku. As disappointment crushed him, he managed to ask where the real Riku was.
"We have no idea," responded Naminé in a whisper. "We believe he opened a portal of darkness inside the memory pod that transported his body into an unknown location."
"A portal of who-ha?" snapped Sora.
"It's complicated magic," responded Larxene. "Riku is now a Class B Fugitive of the State."
"Meaning we'll find him!" beamed Naminé.
"We can give you the tools to help us, Sora," Marluxia added, filtering the contract back to his hands. "There's so much you don't understand. None of this must make any sense to you, but it will! Friends have a habit of coming back to us when we search for them in the right way. Just think of how easy it was for us to use Kairi to locate more princesses of heart."
Sora wiped tears from his eyes. "It sounds like you killed my best friend and I can't do anything about it," he whimpered. Naminé's shoulders sagged. Larxene rolled her eyes. Axel gazed towards the clock above the pod room's entrance door with a narrowed glance.
"I know it sounds hopeless, Sora," Marluxia intoned. "But what other choice do you have? And what other choice would you want? Deporting yourself to Destiny Islands for the rest of your life? Think of all the places you could go, the worlds you could see! Riku is out there, somewhere! You saw a shadow of the universe's breadth inside your memory pod, an invention that lead to the retrieval of all seven princesses of heart in the span of several weeks! Do you know how revolutionary that is? If we can find seven girls out of a universe of millions, think of what we can locate with more refined techniques!"
"Will the rest of the school know what really happened to Riku?" Sora asked.
"No," responded Larxene. "No one connected to Xehanort or Shinra can know."
Sora pursed his lips and took one last glance around the room. Then, sighing, he clutched the stack of papers in his hands and asked for a pen. Marluxia extracted one from the pocket of his jacket in the blink of an eye. As Sora read through the first page and moved to sign his name in the circled boxes, he asked why Riku's real whereabouts had to be kept a secret. Marluxia glanced towards Axel and Larxene with a satisfied smile. When he patted Sora's shoulder, he chuckled, "I don't want them losing our trust."
"Little late for that, Marluxia," called a nasal, singsong voice from over Sora's shoulder. Sora glanced around to see if Axel had suddenly moved. But the redhead remained directly behind him, staring him down with a sly grin. Sora furrowed and glanced further back, trailing his gaze from the white marble floor to the pair of patent leather clad feet standing over the threshold of the open chamber door. When his gaze moved from patent leather, to black slacks, to baggy zip up blazer, to green feline eyes, he gasped.
Leaned against the frame of the door with a dozen Shinra suits and the rest of the Organization flanking the hallway behind him, was Reno Flynn. When Marluxia caught his eye, the rosette blubbered like a goldfish. His face crinkled with a plastic grin.
"You- you're back early!" he squeaked. The color drained from his face. The whispering snarl he gave Axel was palpable.
"You- you double agent!" he hissed under his breath.
"Now, don't blame my brother for your stupidity, Lush," Reno drawled as he waltzed forward. "I just like getting back early."
Marluxia's face transformed from white to green. Reno slipped a court summons from his breast pocket and set it in the rosette's hands. Then, he rattled off the man's rights as four other Shinra members gathered around him. Another four surrounded Larxene, and another four, Naminé and Riku. Axel kept Sora clamped firmly in his swiveling white chair. When one of the Shinra suits wrenched Naminé by the arm, Sora stood and called for them to stop. When he attempted following the suits and their captives out of the pod room door, Axel stopped him and held him back until the only people left inside were himself, Reno, Sora, and a man with orange gold eyes and long blue hair. Vexen's terrified voice rang down the hall, demanding that no one touch the Riku replica without his approval. When the shouts and demands disappeared through the elevator in the hall outside, Reno rubbed his eyes, sighed, and smacked Axel a high five.
"Couldn't have done it without you, bro," he sighed. "You got tapes?"
Axel nodded and brought out a tiny black cube on the palm of his hand. When he pressed a button at its side, it played Marluxia's previous conversation. Reno grinned as he picked it up. Then he brought Axel in for a hug. When he was finished, he dangled the recording device before Sora's eyes and winked.
"Trust Axel to look after things, Sora!" he sang, snatching the device away when Sora attempted reaching for it. It was soon safe within the redhead's pocket. He sighed and shook his head. "You get assigned to a fucker for an entire summer and he slips up the week you leave for Costa Del Sol. I've never appreciated you telling me to get lost more, bro."
"Lush is careful until he thinks he's smarter than you," sighed Axel, giving Sora a wink. Though Sora did not quite know what to think, he could not help but smile.
"Onto business," sighed Reno with a clap. "What to do with him."
"Trial," responded Axel. "All of them."
"What's your professional opinion, doctor?" quipped Reno in an amused way. Axel snorted and shrugged.
"Lush was on a personal vendetta against Riku for Sice's expulsion."
"You think he wanted to gain control of the Organization?" asked Reno. Behind them, the man with the blue hair and orange eyes chuckled. Axel shrugged. "It's not illegal to want a promotion," he said. "But he did have Naminé tamper with Sora's memories unauthorized."
"Were Naminé and Larxene accessories?" asked Reno.
"Larxene was. I enlisted Naminé's help the week after you left. For crimes before that, she can argue coercion."
"Zexion, Vexen, and Lexaeus?"
"Unaware of specific tampering with memories, but aware of Riku's disappearance. Vexen was working on the cloning to begin with. Any excuse to further his research he would have ran with, besides his fear of demotion should he fail."
"And the replica?"
"As far as I can tell, he did nothing he was criminally aware of."
"Sora?"
"Me?" snapped Sora. Axel grinned.
"Well, breaking and entering," he explained. Then he winked. "But all in the name of justice."
"I was trying to find information," Sora snapped. When Reno asked how he did it, Sora hesitated, muttering that he was good at lock picking.
"Should have guessed from your midterm performance," Reno responded. When Sora blushed Axel gave a throaty laugh. Reno patted them both and glanced towards the clock with a whistle.
"Two uncovered plots, one damsel in distress, seven arrests, and not even dawn," he sighed. Sora grinned and asked who the damsel in distress was. Reno snorted and said it was him.
"Me?" Sora cried in horror. Axel threw back his head and laughed. Reno winked and waved, telling Sora he may be called in as a witness to the faculty trial. Sora acquiesced. Reno glanced towards the door.
"Well," he sighed. "I shouldn't leave them waiting too long. I expect you two want a moment," he added, turning from the blue haired man to Axel with a pointed glance. Before he left he gave Sora one last pat on the shoulder. When Sora gazed up at him, he winked.
"Axel stood in your corner quite a bit this summer," he murmured. "You have a lot to thank him for."
Sora glanced towards Axel in surprise. A hint of a blush graced the redhead's cheeks. Glancing from the blue haired man to Axel with a grin, Reno called a final farewell and disappeared down the hall. The pair of Organization employees remaining watched him go in silence. When Reno's footsteps died to nothing, the blue haired man turned to Axel and asked for a copy of Marluxia's conversation. Axel muttered an answer Sora could not hear. When he broke away, the blue haired man asked if he was coming to Xemnas' preliminary meeting. Axel pursed his lips and glanced towards Sora with a frown. Then he turned to the blue haired man and shook his head.
"No offense, Saïx," he sighed. "But I think I deserve an hour's vacation."
"Are you going to speak with Sora?" Saïx asked. Axel nodded. Saïx returned the favor. Then he reached up and squeezed Axel's shoulder, murmuring that he would see him after dawn. After his hand fell to his side, he turned to Sora and gave a curt bow.
"Sora Nomura?" he intoned. Sora snapped to attention and nodded. A grin tugged at Saïx's cheek as he dipped his head. "I look forward to meeting you officially this semester."
"Likewise," Sora murmured. Saïx gave Axel a final goodbye and disappeared through the door as well. For a moment Axel and Sora watched the empty hall. Then, Axel turned and asked if he wanted to sit in the forecourt. Sora shrugged and followed him out.
After taking the exit door by the elevators, circling around the side of the school near the maze, and sauntering over the mosaic in dusk, they leaned against the wall beside the archway to the mountain path and folded their arms before them to guard from the chill. Their breath billowed before them against the pre morning dew like smoke. As they sat in silence, Axel chuckled.
"Safe to say this is the weirdest summer vacation of your life?" he asked. Sora nodded and rubbed his eyes in exhaustion.
"For a minute there I felt helpless," he sniffed. Axel pursed his lips and shrugged, apologizing for leaving Sora in the dark for so long.
"Reno's return had to be a complete surprise," he insisted. "Otherwise Lush might have opened a portal of darkness and escaped."
Sora nodded like he knew what Axel meant. He kneaded his hands together in deep thought.
"Would I have been able to change the way this school works if I'd joined the Organization?" he asked. Axel snorted and glanced around. "Off the record?" he whispered, "There are better ways."
Sora sniffed and wiped his nose. "Maybe with Marluxia gone the academy will get better," he tried.
Axel harrumphed and shifted his other leg. A gentle mist was settling around the valleys, rendering everything below the mountain path invisible. Sora glanced over the forecourt edge and traced stars around the stone. Then he asked if Axel knew all along what Vanitas had done to him. Axel blinked in surprise. He shook his head. Sora glared at him in suspicion until the man rolled his eyes.
"I knew something happened as soon as it did," the redhead muttered. "I told you I heard rumors from other kids saying you went out back together at a party. Seemed out of character for you. Didn't hear anything else until midway through your vision quest. Marluxia kept mentioning some memory with Vanitas."
"He never told you what it was?" asked Sora. Axel snorted and gave him a knowing glance.
"Don't you remember anything I taught you?" he asked. Sora blushed and shrugged. Axel sighed. "Marluxia likes holding information over people's heads. And Naminé never told me when I asked her."
"Honest?" Sora demanded. "You don't know what happened at all?"
Axel shrugged, murmuring that all he could do was guess. Sora bit his lip in contemplation. Then he sat back.
"He, uh…" he mumbled. "He kissed me. And then…" Sora held his fore and middle finger up together. "And then, just, his fingers..." He stared at his hand with narrowed glance, running over the grooves of his fingerprints with his palm. Then he let his hands disappear into his lap, rubbing them as if rubbing away dark stains. "I said... no," he added in a mutter.
"Oh," Axel blinked. His eyes widened in realization. Sora covered his face in embarrassment at the ensuing silence.
"I guess it's... hardly anything now," he croaked. "All of a sudden it seems stupid when I say it out loud, but I... I can't..."
When Sora whimpered Axel reached out his hand and patted him on the back. Sora scooted towards him. Axel sighed and rubbed his shoulders in circular motions like he had done on the pier. Sora started to cry. Axel pursed his lips. Then he murmured that he was sorry.
"I really didn't know what actually…" he trailed off.
"Do you think things like that make people smarter?" Sora asked. Axel reeled back and scoffed. When Sora reasoned that, "Marluxia said," Axel interjected that Marluxia was a poison.
"You don't get smart because someone hurts you," Axel insisted. "You get smart because you want the best for yourself. And the best for your friends..." As his voice fizzled to nothing, he ran his fingers through his fire red hair and asked Sora if he could hug him. In surprise Sora nodded. Axel scooted until their sides touched. Then he wrapped his arms around Sora and gave him one of the tightest hugs the boy had ever received. As the sweet smell of Axel's skin and hair brushed against the tip of Sora's nose, his heart fluttered. The man's arms were much bigger than his own. His skin was hot. Sora shut his eyes and nuzzled his face into the groove of the man's neck, willing his beached whale breath not to interrupt. All of a sudden he had the terrible urge to press himself as closely to his professor as possible. But as soon as he wished it, the hug was over, and Axel broke away. Sora blinked in surprise, shivering as what once had been sheathed in warmth was blasted with cold morning air. Axel chuckled and shifted from side to side. Sora asked for the time. Axel muttered that it was near three in the morning.
"Pretty soon everyone will be arriving for their next year of hero school," he drawled.
"Everyone except Riku," Sora muttered. Axel's smile faded. He pursed his lips.
"We're going to find him," he reassured. "I promise."
"How can I trust you?" Sora asked. Axel scoffed.
"Never trust me," he said. "Trust the Organization's need. They need to find Riku. If they don't, they're in trouble. He's one of the most powerful students going here, and he's missing because of them."
"Where did Kairi go on her mission?" asked Sora. Axel bit his lip. Then he grinned.
"Well…" he sighed. "Maybe it's best if she tells you."
"Tells me what?" asked Sora. But Axel shook his head. Voices welled up from the great hall. One of them sounded like Eraqus. A young girl's voice warbled with the rest.
"Will Naminé be okay?" Sora asked.
"She'll be fine," returned Axel. "She's taking classes next year, you know. That was one of her conditions."
"She… she's taking classes?" Sora breathed.
"Yup," responded Axel. "She'll be in the year below you."
Sora blushed madly, muttering, "oh." Then he bit his lip.
"I think… I think I like her," he whispered. Axel laughed and leaned back, murmuring that she would be on campus if Sora ever felt like telling her. Then he narrowed his eyes and asked how Sora broke through all the security in Reno's office.
"Well, I didn't," Sora responded. "He caught me."
"When did you go in there?" Axel asked. Sora pursed his lips as he thought, settling on, "about eleven forty five."
"You were in there for an hour and a half before anyone came near you," Axel drawled. "By all rights you should never have gotten in in the first place."
Sora begged with his eyes for Axel not to pry. When the red head saw his expression, he snorted and asked if it involved a Moogle. The color left Sora's face. Axel clapped his hands.
"You used the Moogle in the electrical room to break into Reno's office? By gods…"
"If you hurt Hacky, I'll kill you," Sora warbled in desperation. Axel stared at him. Then he burst into laughter. When Sora asked what was so funny, Axel grinned.
"I finally understand," he murmured. "What you meant in your interview when you said your friends were your strength."
"Friendship is important," Sora returned. Axel chuckled and rubbed at his eyes. Then he asked Sora to do him a favor.
"Don't join the Organization," he intoned. When Sora asked why, Axel said it was not his place to say.
"Just know I'm looking out for a friend," he said. "I'm trying that compassion thing you're so fond of." As Axel chuckled, Sora nodded to himself. When the redhead glanced down at his watch, he whistled.
"About three ten," he muttered. "Reno will be hosting an emergency trial before five, if I know him at all. I expect you'll need to be there. Want me to get you something to carry you through?"
"Like drugs?" said Sora.
"No. Like eggs from the kitchen," Axel responded.
"Oh," muttered Sora with a blush. He nodded and said he would come in with Axel. The red head told him he would be happy to wait on him if he wanted a moment alone. Sora decided it was best that way. Axel patted him on the shoulder and told him he would meet him outside the great hall. As he trudged back to the school, Sora glanced over the grounds in sadness. The places where Axel's breath and body had touched him warmed. He hugged himself to stop from shivering.
He had a feeling it was going to be a strange year.
~X~
End of Part One
~X~
A/N: Part two will come as soon as it is able. Hope you enjoyed Sora's summer vacation. Now to the business of the new school year! Thanks to everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed so far. Your devotion keeps me writing! (lol) As Sora stated, it's going to be a strange, interesting year for him!