Chapter 12 ~ Experimentation

The bell rang.

I looked up, startled at the sound and realized that I had actually understood everything that we went over in class today without trying to pay attention. My mind was actually on the Organization and the World that Never Was, but when I asked myself what I learned today, I could split the english lesson apart, minute by minute.

While I was packing up, a group of people came over to me and greeted me.

"Hey," they said in unison.

"Hi," I said, uninterested. "What do you want?"

"Um..." one of them started.

"If you want me to introduce you to Rion, forget it," I said bluntly.

I almost added on a "he's mine" at the end of the sentence, but I decided against it. It would be a bit too awkward at this point in time.

I stepped around them and out the door.

Outside it was.

I was walking down the hallway when I was interrupted by another group of students who asked me the exact same thing as my classmates.

"Do you think we could..." they started.

"Hm..." I said, "let me think about that...um...no."

They stood there, dumbfounded.

I was rummaging through my locker when I felt another tap on my shoulder. Furious, I turned around, fully ready to strangle the person.

"What do you WANT?" I half-yelled.

Time stopped. The whole hallway turned to look at me and I stood there, arm-raised, smiling.

"Sorry," I said quietly.

I waited until the people started to move again and it was only then that I paid attention to the girl in front of me.

"Um..." she said. "I was just wondering if..."

I slammed the locker door, hard. I was really tempted to pulverize her.

"Look...what's your name?" I asked.

"N..N-Nina," the girl stuttered.

"Alright, Nina," I said. "I don't really want to..."

Wait.

Oh joy, why interrupt me now?

She's different.

What?

She's different from the rest of her. Talk to her and you'll know.

And then he was gone again. More importantly, she was important enough for Zexion to make a mental trip just to tell me about her. I decided to take his advice and hear her out.

"Alright, what do you want?" I asked as politely as possible.

The words came out a bit harsher than I expected.

"If you're busy now, I'll come back later," she said quickly.

"No, that's alright," I said, trying to sound comforting.

It didn't really work well, since I'm a harsh-sounding speaker by nature.

"Um..." she said timidly. "Could we not talk here?"

"What?" I asked.

"Could we go somewhere more private?" she asked.

"What for?" I asked again.

"Please!" she pleaded, looking at me desperately.

What was her problem?!? Why would Zexion even bother to pay the slightest bit of attention to someone like her? I speculated about it for a minute. She's probably decently intelligent, but she doesn't have an "in-your-face attitude." She's also clearly lacking self-confidence. Hm...

"Alright," I replied. "Let's go outside."

I led her outside the school doors, the whole school turning to watch our exit. We walked slowly, in silence, towards the meadow where Zexion and I first entered this world from. I didn't know why I was going there. I just had a strange feeling that was tugging me towards that area.

After a while, we passed a large tree with an extraordinarily strange shadow. I looked at the shadow, then, without looking back, I called for him.

"You tricked me," was my first comment.

He chuckled.

"I messed up your sense of direction," he said. "But that's not even close to constituting as a 'trick.' Regardless, good job."

I turned around, looking up on the branches of the tree. There he was, sitting on one of the lower branches, violet eyes staring down with solemnity.

"Hello Nina," he called.

"Um...hello," Nina stuttered.

I stood, lip pursed. I tried to simultaneously keep 2 conversations going at the same time. Surprisingly, it wasn't that hard.

Care to tell me what the deal with her is?

"So, we're eating lunch in a tree?" I asked.

Why don't you talk to her, you'll see how she's different.

"Why not?" he responded casually. "Get up here."

Don't climb of course. Don't worry about her seeing anything strange. I've got you covered. It's a nice test.

"You're really demanding," I said, thinking the same thing.

He chuckled quietly.

Who should I try?

Xigbar. Teleportation. Marluxia. Flowers. Go for displacement...a teleporting effect, maybe?

I closed my eyes, concentrating on the name. Xigbar. It just didn't really feel right. There was just a strange empty feeling when I tried to think about teleporting. Hm...Marluxia. Then I ran a picture of me standing on the ground, and a picture of me sitting in the tree through my head.

Something clicked within me. There was a strange sensation. Like I was being blown by the wind and whisked to another place without realizing it. The truth was I didn't realize it.

I opened my eyes and was extremely startled to see myself disappearing. I nearly screamed, until I noticed that I was transforming into pink flower petals and blowing upwards towards the tree branch.

Wow...

Zexion's eyes opened wide with acknowledgement.

Most exceptional.

I found myself sitting in a tree branch a few seconds later, a couple meters above the ground.

Well done. That's a lot of progress for today.

I beamed at him. And strangely enough, I didn't feel that tired.

Hm...you combined the two ideas and...hm...

He went off into one of his thinking sessions. I didn't really care. I enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment.

"Wow!" Nina yelled from below. "You climb trees like a monkey."

A monkey? Was that supposed to be a compliment or an insult? I couldn't help but stare at Zexion's direction.

You made me look like a climbing monkey?

No response.

Oops sorry. No interruptions. Right.

I immediately shut up, or more like stopped thinking to him (does that even work?). Instead, I swung downwards, keeping my legs hooked on the branch. Concentrating on Lexaeus, I tried to keep my balance and strength to properly grip the branch with my feet.

"Climb up on that first branch there," I said, pointing at one of the lower branches of the tree. "Then I'll pull you up."

"Okay," Nina said, clearly happy that I was talking to her now.

She stepped carefully around the tree and found an easier spot to climb. She barely made it to the branch, carefully standing up on it. I reached out and caught her hand, immediately throwing her upwards and catching her by her feet. She burst out screaming in terror.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

I think she was too shocked to reply.

I started swinging for momentum while keeping my feet gripped on the branch.

"Um...don't you think that this is too dangerous?" she asked timidly, hands dangling in mid-air.

"Not even," I said, enjoying myself now.

After playing with a giant Heartless, swinging on a branch didn't seem so dangerous at all.

"Grab the first branch that you see," I said.

"What if I don't?" she asked.

"Well, that's hope that doesn't happen," I said teasingly.

I wasn't very concerned with that problem. I thought that it would've been pretty hard to miss the branch. I swung us in a circle, using the branch as an anchor.

Zexion's eyes flashed open.

You idiot.

He jumped from his branch up to the next branch...or rather it looked like he "jumped" but he actually disappeared and appeared simultaneously. As far as I knew, Nina couldn't tell.

Lowering his hand, he caught Nina before she slammed face-first into the branch and she dangled there in mid-air, with a horrific expression on her face.

I sat upright on the branch, staring at the two above me.

"Oops, sorry," I mouthed.

Zexion pulled Nina up and sat her down on the branch. Then he "jumped" back to his original branch and sat back down again.

"Thanks," Nina mouthed.

"It's fine," he said.

It was silent for a moment.

"I guess I messed up there," I started.

Humans are fragile creatures. Don't expect them to emerge unharmed when you slam them into tree branches at amazing speeds.

"You think?" he asked with a hint of sarcasm.

I don't remember being that fragile.

Well you were. Paper cut across cheek ring a bell?

"No, don't blame yourself, I'm fine," Nina said, clearly a bit shaken.

Zexion stared at me accusingly. I looked away.

"So," I said, changing the subject, "what did you want to talk to me for, Nina?"

"Huh? Oh...that..." she said. "Well, to be honest, I've always kind of liked you as a person."

"What?" I sputtered in shock.

Zexion chuckled. I snarled at him.

"It's just that, you never really talked to anyone at school. You kind of just kept to yourself, and it was a bit scary, really. But then, when Rion tried to talk to you, and you responded, I thought maybe I could...um...you know...too," she said.

I stared at her in disbelief.

"Could you stop that? It's a bit unnerving," Nina said.

"Oh sorry," I mumbled, immediately looking away.

She's different from the rest.

No really?

She earnestly wants to be my friend, and she's not getting close to me for you either.

Zexion chuckled again.

I thought you might like an anchor to humanity. I've been sensing that since you first went to our world. She's a perfect person to use.

Please. Not use, to make friends with.

I don't have feelings, remember?

You know as well as I do that it's not true if you don't want it to be.

He stopped talking. So did I.

"Nina, was it?" I asked.

"Yes?" she responded.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Ino," I introduced. "This is Rion."

"Hello," she said politely, her voice tingling with joy.

"Hi," Zexion greeted coolly.

We spent the whole lunch hour, sitting there, just enjoying the view and talking.

"So, Rion...why did you transfer to our school?" she finally asked. "Aren't you from a noble family?"

"Not really," he explained. "I've been homeschooled for most of my life. I just want to see what the outside world has to offer. That's all."

The lie just sounded so convincing. Even I was almost convinced, which is sad because I knew the truth.

When the bell rang, we groaned in unison and picked up our books to get back to class. Zexion and I both just "jumped" down to the ground (me using flower petals, him using portals of darkness). We started walking back to the school when we realized that we forgot something.

"Um, help?" Nina asked as she looked down.

I quickly ran back to help her down.

Let's do some practice while we're at it. How about a cushion of air?

Some practice with her life? Are you insane?

a) You need deadly motivation. b) If you don't make it, just hold your hands out anyways. You can shift from Xaldin to Lexaeus if need be and catch her.

Hm...that sounded reasonable.

Alright.

"Just close your eyes and jump," I said. "I'll definetly catch you, it's a promise."

"Easy for you to say," she yelled back.

Even so, she trusted me, closed her eyes and jumped.

Xaldin, I thought. A large gust of wind blew past me and seemed to float right above the palm of my hands. Nina landed right in the middle and I willed the wind to slowly subside until she was in my arms.

"Good job," Zexion said. "Now hurry along Nina. I have a spare so I should be fine."

Nina nodded.

"Thank you very much...Ino, Rion. Really appreciate it," she said, bowing.

With that she turned on her heels and ran towards the school.

Zexion turned to me when she was out of sight, materializing his lexicon.

"You idiot. I'm afraid we may need some discipline, throwing humans around in trees," he started, ripping a page out of his lexicon.

He moved towards me, aiming to scratch my cheek, like when he first met me, but something was different this time.

I saw the page in slow motion as he attempted to swipe it at me. My first reaction was to grab the page with my hand, and so I did. Except the motion was so fast that even Zexion didn't expect it. I caught the page in between my two fingers.

He looked at me in utter disbelief.

"A combination...Luxord and Larxene," he said slowly.

Then he chuckled quietly.

"This is proceeding much faster than I would've thought," he said quietly, to himself more than anyone.

I stared at him, oblivious to what I had just done.

"Oh..." he said. "Come on, let's go back to school."

We walked back together, sharing fragile illusions of happiness with each other.