"AXEL?"
Sora demanded, forgetting to keep his voice down. Although they had
retreated to Blythe's room so Blythe could tell what she knew of
Rika's past, Rika's room was right next to hers.
"SH!"
Blythe hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth. "You forgot that
my best friend can massacre an entire planet."
"Sorry."
Sorry mumbled through her hand.
"What do you mean by Axel
though?" Blythe asked, pulling her colourless hair out of it's
usually braid. It waved and fanned around her face.
"I knew
him. He was an evilish guy that was in Organization XIII!"
"What?" Blythe demanded, stiffening.
"He died
protecting us during our last mission." Sora said softly. Blythe
covered her mouth with her hand.
"Don't you dare tell Rika."
She hissed. Sora threw his hands up defensively.
"I wasn't
planning to!" He protested.
"Good." Blythe stood
up.
"Blythe..."
"What?"
"Are you
okay?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"You've been
upset since you discovered your past." Blythe turned to Sora.
"I'm just so confused. Blythe is slipping away and Kaia is
replacing her. I don't WANT Kaia to replace her. Kaia was cowardly
and weak. She depended on undependable people. I'm not the same
person I was before my memories. It scares me, because I'm caught
between two different people and I can't decide. If I choose Kaia,
then I will lose Rika, but if I choose Blythe, I lose my knowledge of
who makes me who I am."
"Like Terra." Sora finished
quietly.
"And my parents." Blythe added. "I-I just
want to know who they were. Their names. I can remember faces, but,
the place I remember, it isn't Destiny Islands. My actual home could
be out there Sora! I just...don't know where. That's what's been
bugging me to no end."
"Hey." Sora squeezed her
shoulder. "We'll check with Tron after the mission." Blythe
smiled.
"Thanks Sora."
"Blythe, you can still
be Kaia and Blythe at the same time you know." Sora said
encouragingly. Blythe shook her head.
"I don't think I can
be." She whispered, turning her eyes to the enormous window that
lit her room.
****
"Rika?" Blythe said softly,
sitting beside her. Rika's head was in her knees still and she was
extremely still. "It's Blythe."
"I know you
idiot." Rika said, muffled by her knees. Blythe slapped her on
the side of her head playfully. Sora breathed a sigh of relief.
"Is
everything alright?" Blythe asked quietly. Rika popped her head
up and grinned.
"Yup. Did I miss dessert?" Sora and
Blythe opened their mouths to condradicte Rika, but realized it was
pointless to do so.
"What happened?" Sora asked.
"Just
exhausted." Rika said, standing up and stretching, giving Blythe
'I'm going to talk to you later' kind of look.
****
A
couple hours later, Sora lay awake in bed, staring at the full moon
outside. He couldn't stop thinking about the mission. How would they
suceed? They hadn't even gotten to studying the map at-
"MOUSIE!"
Sora yelled, sitting up and bolting out the door. He pounded on
Donald's room, then Goofy's. They both opened their doors looking
extremely disgurntled.
"Sora..." Donald began.
"Guys,
where's Mousie?" Sora demanded. Donald and Goofy froze, panic
filling their faces. They looked at each other for two seconds before
running down the hall screaming 'Mousie!!!'.
****
"So
what is it Rika?" Blythe asked approaching Rika.
"Sh." Rika
replied quickly. "Come on. Apparently that mouse box is gone."
Rika got up and both she and Blythe ran into the hallway not seeing
or hearing anyone in sight.
"Beast have you seen Mousie?!" The
two girls twirled around seeing shadows of Adam and Sora.
"No,
why Sora?" Blythe and Rika ran over to Sora and Adam.
"Where'd
the box go?!" Sora yelled in a frustrated tone.
"It probably
found where the next attack on this world will be." Blythe
said.
"Not that we'll be able to stop it." Rika teased.
Everyone looked at her with clearly upset faces.
"Obviously not
the right time to say that." Blythe whispered to Rika without
losing eye contact with everyone else.
"Whatever, it was a JOKE.
Shouldn't we be looking for that box right now?" Sora turned away
with Adam and Blythe following. Rika stood where she was and watched
as they all walked away searching for the box.
"Come on Rika!"
Blythe yelled back at Rika.
"Oh relax; I'll look for it on my
own. You'll just slow me down anyways, especially with such a dense
kid like Sora." Sora shot a nasty glare back at Rika. Rika chuckled
oddly then turned around and entered the nearest room.
"How can
you stand that girl!?" Sora fumed.
"Sora, control your
anger!" Adam roared.
"You're the one to talk. What happened
to you anyways, how could you have changed so much?" Sora continued
to stare at Adam filled with inspiration.
"This has always been
me. However when you're put in a dark situation you can lose
yourself…at that time only someone special can pull you out of that
darkness." Adam stared up brightly, you could tell he was thinking
of his special person. Blythe looked down at her feet…-someone
special- she thought. At first she thought of her best friend, Rika.
However she knew Rika all to well. Rika was and had been keeping her
from falling into the darkness which Adam was talking about. Both her
and Rika knew she couldn't completely save Blythe from herself
though, the only one who could save her would have to be.
"Terra…is
that your special person?" Sora asked. Blythe blushed.
"N-no!
Ew, no way he's just a childhood friend!" The group walked in
silence for a while. "And Kairi is your special person?" Blythe
asked looking at Sora, hoping he would make a fool of himself just as
she embarrassed herself.
"Yeah…that's my special person. I
wonder when I'll see her again." Sora looked up at the shining
lights, smiling childishly and thinking of all his timed with Kairi.
Blythe looked at him in envy, how he could act so normal. She began
to think of Terra, what was he to her in the past? She couldn't
even remember him clearly. What were her parents like? Her home time?
Could all those things make her right again? There were too many
questions and she started to get a headache.
"Where's the
other girl?" Adam asked looking around.
"She went looking for
Mousie on her own." Sora replied, annoyed.
"Why do you
dislike her so much?" Adam said looking back at the now foul mood
Sora.
"It's not that I dislike her." He said stubbornly.
"She's just so…"Sora stopped and thought for his choice of
words. "I don't know, she's just always in her own thoughts
doing what she wants, when she wants to. She's also so detached
from everyone else. How could anyone possibly get along with a girl
like that?!" Sora asked to himself mainly.
"A-hem." Blythe
said with her hands on her hips, staring at Sora.
"Sorry…"
Sora apologized, thinking of saying that Rika wouldn't have
apologized and would have instead blamed it on them. He decided to
lay off that thought.
"She's not like that." Blythe said
matter-of-factly. "You all don't know it, however every time she
makes a rude comment she hurts most likely triple times worse than
what you felt. She really always had tried to protect everyone she
knows." Sora thought this over and couldn't possibly have thought
that to be true.
"Yeah…right. Probably she just does that for
you or your dragons." Sora nodded to his own logic.
"No, she
does it for everyone. Whoever she thinks deserves it at least."
Blythe continued looking around and calling every once in a while to
Mousie.
"How did she ever protect us?" Sora questioned, he
would need proof for him to believe it. Blythe turned around and
faced Sora.
"There really isn't any evidence to show you, she
does it in a…well her own way and it's always subtle!" Blythe
stopped talking, with wide open eyes, yet again she realized
something.
"Rika?!" She ran back the way they were coming from
and ran towards the room Rika had entered.
"What is it Blythe?"
Sora was panting as he ran after the speedy Blythe and Adam trailing
behind them silently.
"There's a barrier! I knew it! See this
is her stupid way of protecting people! There must be something like
a bomb in there! RIKA!" Blythe screamed and attempted to kick the
door however an invisible reflected her foot back. A flash of the
colours seen in a painted sunset washed over the inside of the
barrier. Destroying everything there, all that was left behind when
it subsided was Rika. She was sitting in the middle of the empty
barrier holding a green box filled with lime green, vibrant symbols
floating around Rika. She was smiling to herself as she wiped her
face leaving a black oil smudge, smear across her face. It came from
what looked like the box she was holding. She was all alone in that
room however seemed to be showing the most serene smile she had ever
showed.
"Can you guys pretend you never saw her smile like
that?" Blythe asked Sora and Adam.
"Why? She actually looks
like a proper person there." Sora remarked.
"I know, but don't
you think she doesn't show that side of her for a reason?" Blythe
had always been scared of Rika's reaction to others knowing her
true self. She didn't want Rika to change, she was afraid Rika
would lose her inner self if it was exposed to the others. Sora
looked at Blythe in the eyes and decided Blythe knew best.
"Oh
there's Rika!" Adam boomed, acting as if they had just gotten
there.
"Rika, what did you do to this room?" Rika disarmed
the barrier and walked towards them.
"Oh, I found this box and
it started a countdown until it would explode. I managed to solve it
in time so it just destroyed all inanimate objects." Rika smiled.
Blythe sighed, Rika had left her explanation filled with holed.
Blythe knew the truth. Rika must have known what was in that room and
decided to make everyone leave, just in case it was something too
dangerous. That was the kind of person Rika was Blythe thought.
"So
I guess we didn't fin Mousie anywhere." Sora said.
"Not
true." Rika pulled Mousie out of her pocket, releasing it into the
air.
"MOUSIE!" Sora yelled happily, dancing around with the
little mouse box.
"That's what lead you to that room, wasn't
it Rika?" Blythe had a feeling that was how Rika thought there was
something dangerous in there.
"Y-yeah. You always find this sort
of stuff out." Rika scratched her head and then stopped abruptly.
She pulled out the blue liquid from her other pocket and released the
liquid. Like always a flash of light almost exploded from the bottle
until little bits of white, sparkly lights floated around the room.
"It looks like Maleficent is moving again." Blythe said to
Rika.
"We should move again. We can head back to the Radiant
Gardens, since I know you want to." Rika looked at Blythe with
knowledgeable eyes. Sora stared at the two of them, watching how they
both understood each other so well. Donald and Goofy walked up to
Sora, standing beside him. Blythe smiled at Rika.
"Rik,
I have all the time in the world after the mission to find out the
same things that I would during the mission. I want to wait." Rika
nodded, a serene comprehension filling her face.
"Man, they're
so lucky. It's like they both can read each others mind. You think
I'll ever find a friend like that?" Sora leaned back on one foot
and raised his arms, with his fingers crossed together on the back of
his head.
"What do you mean by that?!" Donald asked
furiously.
"Gwarsh Sora, you already have me and Donald!"
Goofy placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled. Sora started to
laugh.
"Yeah, we're the three musketeers." They all laughed
together, this time Blythe and Rika looking at them, however in an
un-amused way.
"If you EVER act like that I'm going to have to
hit you." Rika said while watching them. Blythe started to laugh
like everyone else.
"Yeah, I know." After laughing they all
headed back to the front gate of the castle.
"Next time I'm
going to venture out to the town." Rika warned.
"Of course
we'd be happy to have you a next time." Adam countered. Rika
smiled dangerously. She would have picked a fight however instead
Blythe started to push her towards the ship.
"Nice to meet
you." She waved good bye and then the two of them disappeared onto
the ship.
"When will you come next?" Belle asked sadly.
"Soon,
real soon." Sora said with a smile.
"Yeah, and if anything
happens we'll deal with it!" Donald raised a fist and flexed a
scrawny arm muscle. Belle giggled while Adam laughed whole-heartedly.
"I'm sure you will." Adam teased.
"Tell us if anything
happens to ya!" Goofy hollered to them as the three of them went on
the ship as well. As the ship started to lift off the ground the
three guys waved good bye to Belle and Adam, holding hands as the two
of them waved back, shielding their eyes from the gust of wind.
