Kokoro no Hanashi
see disclaimer in the Prelude
The shriek of hatred echoing through the waystation jolted Fabula out of sleep.
Her reaction was automatic: You didn't just hear something like that and roll back over, put your pillow over your head, and forget. So, still fighting off her disorientation, she rose, struggled back into her dress, and ran outside her room barefoot, leaning over the banister that overlooked the lower floor. "What's going on?"
The other doors clattered, as well, and Fabula looked to each side to realize that Kaze and Lisa, hastily dressed, and Kiri, half-naked but with Maken in one hand and a Mist bottle in the other, had joined her, each a combination of apprehensive and bewildered.
Gesturing for them to follow her, she headed down the stairs, caution in her every movement as she sized the situation up. The waystation's lower floor was a wreck, with the debris of battle everywhere—the spare furnishings of the room had all been viciously dismantled, the floorboards were torn up in a few places, and broken arrows and gunshot residue were all over the place.
Yu's bokken lay near the bottom of the stairs. The boy himself was nowhere in sight.
Aura stood in the doorframe, shaking with badly contained violence, half-carrying and half-supporting Ai, whose left arm was bleeding sluggishly as she fought desperately to keep upright, even with Aura's help.
"What happened?" Lisa asked, looking around. "Where's Yu?"
Ai's soft sob was muffled against Aura's side, but they all heard the girl's hoarsely whispered words: "He's gone…"
"I'll get that bitch for all of this if it's the last thing I do," Aura said through gritted teeth, glaring out into the horizon. "I swear it."
There was a long silence as realization dawned on those who'd been asleep for the whole thing, broken only when Kiri swore softly, whirling in an angry flash of red to glare into the distance.
"Pacifist."
Lisa took a few steps towards Aura, biting her lip. "Yes?"
"This little one won't be able to stand soon. It'll be a while before the drugs that bitch puts on that whip of hers are out of her system. It isn't safe for us to stay here, nevertheless. Treat these wounds, and since she'll probably be asleep by then, get her in the chocobo's saddle and strap her in. We have to get out of here. Now."
Lisa nodded, and slowly fitted her arms around Ai's unresisting body as Aura loosed her hold on the young girl. As the healer carried her charge to a relatively undamaged part of the room, Aura continued to give her orders.
"Kaze-niisan, Fabula—go and get everyone's things; we'll need to pack quickly so that we can leave as soon as Pacifist is finished."
Kaze went; Fabula hesitated for a moment, giving Aura a look of concern, but eventually followed him, looking over her shoulder as she went.
"Madoushi…"
Kiri looked at her out of tired, forlorn eyes.
"I think we should stop fucking around here—and go straight to the capital this time. We'll cut east to Lake Teros, then take that road up towards the capital. That alright with you? …After all, it is just another detour for you."
Kiri sighed. "No—it's fine. We have to find that poor kid somewhere she can stay. At this going rate… she's losing everything, and too quickly. God. This is just too much." His eyes stung; he covered his face with his hand as he sagged against the wall.
"Don't you go weak on me," Aura told him, turning to him at last. "We need you—now more than ever. If it's too hard for you to deal with, don't let yourself think until you can deal. Alright?"
Kiri didn't answer, but he could see the wisdom in her words.
He admired her ability to think with cold and unforgiving logic at that moment, just as he hated her bitterly because of it.
---
When night fell, with Ai still mostly asleep upon the bewildered chocobo, the party made camp and tried to piece things together, as though making sense of the previous night's events would take an edge off the pain.
"So at least now we know why the Heartless were attacking the Hayakawas' fief. We probably should've figured that much out a lot sooner, but I guess it's too late for that now." Aura turned to Ai and shrugged a shoulder in her direction. "And you know, it's possible that Kara bitch and her flunkies also want her too, since they're twins. I just wish we could damn well figure out what they needed all these pure hearts for, anyway."
"Too many people… have come to grief because of this," Kaze said softly, staring into their small fire. "We must end it if we can."
"Especially for the sake of these poor children," Lisa agreed. "Life can't go on like this…"
"And exactly how do we plan to save the world?" Aura asked dryly, causing them both to look at her. "Sure, I think that killing that Kara bitch is a great start, but what then? We also have to go up against whatever destroyed that refugee camp, and the thing that comes out of mirrors. And there's that Azrael Astaroth guy, and the only thing we know about him is that he has the power to destroy the supposedly impenetrable seals of Mystaria." She made a short derisive sound. "And even if we manage to kill the ringleaders, there'll still be Heartless. There'll always be Heartless around."
"So what?" Kiri snapped, getting to his feet. "If there's something we can do, we should do it! Don't you care about any of this at all?"
"Of course I care, or else I'd have left you idiots to die by now," Aura retorted. "There's no use getting bent out of shape. Sit down."
Kiri stared at her. "Getting bent out of shape? A boy who's been traveling with us for weeks just got his heart stolen right out from under our noses! We can't all be like your brother, showing next to no emotion at all and never talking anyway, and we certainly can't be like you, with so little depth of feeling that you can't shed a single tear over what happened to Yu!"
Aura fixed him with a cold glare. "For your information, Madoushi, I don't cry. I never have and I never will, and I've been through a lot worse than this before. Just because someone doesn't turn into a weepy-eyed wreck doesn't mean that they don't care about things. And I'll thank you to keep my brother out of this. Besides, it's probably best for all of you that I can keep my head at times like these! Who else would've gotten you out of that place, with you all milling around like a bunch of stupid cows?"
"Stop it!"
Kiri and Aura both turned; it was Lisa.
The healer was standing up, red-faced, her hands balled into fists as she shifted her hurt-filled glare to first one, then the other, of the combatants.
"How can you even think of doing something so selfish as arguing right now? Be ashamed of yourselves! We can't afford to spend the only time we can take to rest emotionally ripping each other to pieces! Not everyone can cope with the things that have happened to us through logic or anger. We need each other, because if we don't stand together we'll be killed out here!" She sat back down and curled up, tucking her face into her knees. "I can't take any more of your hatred… I feel sick…"
Kiri stared at her, pale-faced and stricken. "I… I'm sorry…"
There was a long silence, in which Kaze reached out and set a hand on Lisa's shoulder.
"Lisa's right, you two," Fabula said softly, then got up and sat back down in between Kiri and Aura, slinging an arm around each of them. "We've got to hold on to each other, because we're all we have now."
Kiri sighed. "I-I know… it's just… I… I was his teacher. I should've been there, should've done something… shouldn't have fallen for such a stupid trap…"
"I was there," Aura said softly, hoarsely. "And I couldn't do anything."
Nothing else was spoken for the remainder of the night.
---
The next few days also went by in relative silence.
Battles were fought mechanically; camps were set halfheartedly. Kiri withdrew into himself, surrounding himself with cutting hatred and blame. All he cared to see was that with each passing day, their party drew closer and closer to the lake Aura had mentioned—Teros—and so they grew closer to the country's capital city, Ivalice… and with it, somewhere Ai could stay until the worst of the Heartless' threat had passed.
Kiri noticed in a vague way that Fabula and Aura had taken charge of the party in the absence of his usual driven leadership; the two women kept them on track as he retreated further and further into his shame, as Ai continued to ride the chocobo in a wordless state of shock, and as Kaze and Lisa held their somber silence. Ordinarily, Aura's usurping his unspoken position would have vexed him greatly—it was a sign of how far he'd let himself slip that he didn't really care.
The wide lake that pooled from most of the rivers in the country loomed on the horizon, getting closer and closer.
And their party might have continued along their path, and into disaster, if fate had not intervened.
For that was where they found the boy.
---
They'd stopped then, almost at the edge of the rough sand line, to rest before setting up a campsite when Ai broke the state of silence she'd held ever since they'd left the waystation where her brother had been taken from her.
"Hey…" Turning towards the water, she frowned. "There's… someone on the beach…!"
"What do you mean, 'someone on the beach'?" Lisa asked, staring.
"Look!" Ai insisted, pointing. "Lying in the water… I think they're hurt…"
Kiri squinted, shading his eyes against the glare of the fading light on the lake's water. "…Yeah, there's someone there… but whoever it is, I think he's dead. He's half in the lake by now, and he's not moving at all."
"No way! He can't be dead!" And just like that, Ai was off running.
Kiri groaned. "Oh, come on. You've got to be kidding."
"I'm with you on that one," Aura said flatly, rolling her eyes. "Does she absolutely have to play Little Miss Good Samaritan now? It could be dangerous, but does she even stop to think about that? Noooo…"
"Let's at least be glad that she's responding to things again," Lisa attempted with an awkward smile. "And what if that person really is alive, and needs our help?"
"Whatever…"
"Hey, you guys, come on!" Ai yelled from the water's edge. "He's still breathing! Somebody help me over here!"
The person in the water turned out to be a boy who appeared to be in his early teens—about Ai's age, or maybe a little bit older. He had light teal hair just a little bluer than the waters of the sea, arranged almost as Yu's had been but with a soft wave to it that stopped just short of a flounce. His complexion was soft but deadly pale, with a child's perfect, translucent skin and highly expressive-looking lips and thin brows. There was strength in that face that kept him from seeming too delicate, even in his helpless position. Though his clothes were soaking wet and torn in places, Kiri could tell that they had originally been very well-made—they seemed to be some kind of uniform in deep blue, consisting of pants and a waistcoat over a white shirt, as well as sturdy black boots. Even soaking wet, Kiri could see that the pants had once had a razor-sharp fold; the waistcoat had beautifully wrought buttons of a metal he didn't recognize with a bright gold sheen, as well as gold braid over the shoulders and a lovingly stitched insignia along the collar, on either side of the white ruff it framed—it looked to Kiri almost like a heart, but it was black with what seemed like a red, serrated X through it. In his hand, the boy clasped the hilt of a very strange-looking sword with a black and twisted blade, and cords of an unusual material wrapped around and around it straight to its killing point.
"I don't see any injuries…" Lisa said slowly, gently probing the boy's body after tugging him out of the water's reach. "Still, there seems to be something wrong with him. I'll see what I can do." And she took out her staff, lowering its crystal to his chest and closing her eyes in concentration.
But just as the crystal started to glow, there was a sudden flash, sending sparks of power crawling all over the staff as though the healing Lisa had tried to emit had been reflected. Lisa herself let out a short, surprised cry and jerked back.
"Lisa, what's the matter?"
Lisa turned her suspicious gaze on the boy. "There's something… something inside him, that won't let me do anything to heal him. I couldn't even maintain contact long enough to find out what it is that's causing him so much pain. All we can do now, it seems, is try to nurse him back to health manually, and try to dry him down."
Ai sat by the stranger's side all through the work everyone else had to do to get camp set.
Despite himself, Kiri had to smile.
---
Darkness had fallen several hours ago when the strange boy stirred.
"…Father…" he half-moaned, shuddering into wakefulness, then giving a slight gasp.
"It's okay," Ai said instantly, worry a hard knot in her chest. "You're in a safe place."
"Who… are you…?" he asked, blinking, still very disoriented.
She tried a smile, but it trembled. "My name's Ai Hayakawa. We found you on the shores of Lake Teros and you've been at our camp ever since." She turned around and waved to the others. "Hey, he's awake!"
Lisa, on the other side of the fire, gave her a brief smile. "I'll be there in a minute," she called, then turned back to Kaze—apparently she'd been in the middle of giving him another change of bandages, though the injury to his shoulder had almost healed by now.
Kiri, who'd been the closest, scooted over and crossed his arms, glancing down at the boy with his eyebrows raised and a distinctly unimpressed expression. "Good morning, or should I say good night. I was just about ready to write you off when we found you half-drowned earlier today, but there you go. Guess it just goes to show you, it's not always good to assume things."
"Kiri, knock it off." Fabula shoved him out of the way. "Don't mind him. We're glad to see you awake—Lisa, our healer, thought it would take longer for you to recover. How are you feeling?"
The boy edged up on his elbows and gave her a wan smile. "Well enough, thank you. …What are you doing all the way out here, if it's not too much to ask?"
"We're headed for Ivalice," Kiri informed him. "What about you?"
The boy's face fell; his voice became suddenly grave. "I… don't think it's safe for anyone to go there. Not anymore. The town was overrun by Heartless quite some time ago… and after my father disappeared, they took the bastion as well."
Silence fell as his audience absorbed the impact of his words. It was Aura who caught the peculiarity of them, and frowned as she looked at him.
"…Your father?"
He blinked at her.
"You lived in Ivalice?" Lisa ventured.
"I… yes. Yes, I did," he said, taken aback.
"So I guess we can take your words on this, then…" She frowned. "I don't believe I caught your name—I'm sorry."
"I didn't say… it's Clear. Everyone knows me as Clear."
Lisa and Fabula exchanged bewildered glances, then turned back to the boy, visibly impressed.
"Did we miss something?" Kiri asked sardonically.
"Clear? You're… the Clear?" Ai said incredulously, looking down at their charge with something that was almost disbelief on her face.
The boy sighed. "Yes."
"Clear who?" Aura wanted to know.
Fabula covered a smile with one hand, and pointed at Clear with the other. "Clear Omega—the son of King Ansem the Wise, and crown prince of this land."
---
"Actually, Ansem the Wise isn't my birth father," Clear said almost apologetically. "He married my mother when I was very young—my real father died before I was born, or so I've always been told. But even after my mother passed away, he's always treated me like I was his own son… he's been very kind to me."
After helping Clear to sit against several rolled-up blankets and bedrolls, the party had arranged itself around the young man in order to listen to his tale.
"As you probably know, my father… has done a lot of research on the Heartless these past years, ever since they began attacking our people. He's done as much good as he can, and I think a lot of people have their lives to thank for the things he found out.
"But just a few years ago—about when the Heartless started attacking en masse, and we started to lose word of other cities—strange things began to happen. My father had always put a lot of effort into his research, but around then he started to completely bury himself in it. Days went by sometimes without my ever seeing him once, and when I did catch sight of him, he always seemed distracted somehow. He was acting so oddly, I just couldn't figure it out. He seemed like an entirely different person sometimes—he was so obsessed with learning about Heartless, the darkness and the light, something he called Nobodies, and the true nature of hearts themselves.
"About a month before the bastion fell, he disappeared completely…
"When the Heartless attacked us, I was trapped in a room with them, and I thought it was all over… but here I am now, and I'm alive and well. I don't understand it. Everything from then up until now is just a big blank… but I know that a lot of time has passed, because the day the Heartless finally broke through our defenses, it was snowing outside.
"I don't know what's going on, or what's happened to me. But I do know that you can't go to Ivalice—it's just not safe there for anyone anymore."
---
"So what do we do now?"
Clear had lapsed back into sleep; Ai was still hovering anxiously at his side. Everyone else had gathered back into a circle around the fire, speaking in hushed tones.
"Well, now that Ivalice is out of the question, we'll have to head back south—Conkram is closer to where we are than Port Bellebane, so we'll head there for starters," Fabula said after consulting their map. "But right now, what we really need is a place where we can stay for Clear to rest. I don't think he's up to traveling just yet—what about you, Lisa?"
The healer shook her head. "It doesn't seem so," she agreed, sounding doubtful. "Then again, I still can't use my magic to see what's really wrong with him, and my Kigenjutsu isn't doing much good here either."
"There should be some kind of theater not too far from here," Aura said, taking the map from Fabula and pointing to a smaller dot close to the right edge. "It's just a little ways out of the way to Conkram, and it'll be little more than a pit stop if we decide to stick to the road. Two to one it's abandoned, and it's not exactly the kind of place you'd expect travelers to stop, so I don't think that bitch and her cohorts will have set up any nasty surprises for us there."
Kiri shook his head. "Well, I certainly hope not. We've all got enough to deal with already." He turned to Kaze. "What about you? Do you have any problems with this?"
Kaze considered him for a long moment before replying. "…No."
"Good. Then it's settled. Let's get going as soon as morning rolls around."
---
She'd been sitting and staring into the distance, brooding too deeply for sleep to come, when he finally approached her.
"What's wrong?"
Lisa started, then whirled around where she sat to see that Kaze was now beside her, looking down at her with concern in those fathomless blue eyes.
"What do you mean…?" she asked a little nervously, unable to keep herself from the habitual awkward laugh with which she tried to deflect anything she wasn't comfortable with.
Kaze just gave her a look, then reached out to touch her face. "Stop that," he said softly, though not unkindly. "Don't laugh when you're worrying."
Lisa fell silent, utterly dumbstruck, and blushed deeply. It took her a few moments in order to regain enough composure to speak, even after Kaze removed the hand. "It's that boy… Clear. Something about all of this just isn't right… I know it. Even with the corruption in your heart, I can still work with you if I'm careful. But something… something is tainting that boy so badly that none of my power can reach him; when I tried to heal him before, it felt forcing magnets with the same charge together, or trying to mix oil and water. It's scaring me. I've never experienced anything like this before, and I don't know what to do.
"But even though I know there's something strange about all this… I really do want to help him, Kaze, and it hurts when I can't…"
Lisa felt the hot, bitter tightness rise in her throat and gave a short, pained sigh, covering her eyes with her hand. Frustration and embarrassment wrestled with that dark, insidious sense of failure inside her; her desperate attempts to fight back tears felt as pathetic as trying to blow out a bonfire.
A sharp pulse of surprise like an electric shock hit her full in the chest as she found herself pulled into a gentle one-armed embrace. Perhaps that surprise was what kept her from pulling away like any sane person who didn't want to get involved with her patient would've done; instead, she leaned into Kaze's shoulder, winding her fingers into the soft fabric of his mantle and relaxing into the reassuring solidity of his chest.
She sat there for a long time, nearly clinging, as Kaze held her patiently, the tips of his fingers in a calming, almost absentminded stroke through her hair, until the memory of the old habit surfaced, making her smile. Feeling the weight slide off her shoulders, she sat up and gave Kaze a warm look. "Thank you. You know, back when I was still going to the healers' university in the south, I had a friend who always used to do the exact same thing when I had a breakdown, and it always helped. You remind me of him right now." Seeing the bewildered look come over Kaze's face, she couldn't help but giggle at the purely male helplessness of his expression. "Oh—he wasn't that kind of friend! We did go out once or twice, but we decided it wasn't working and decided to just keep things the way they were. He stayed with the Hayakawas for a while like I did, but he left not long after the Heartless started to appear." Lisa sighed. "I wonder sometimes what happened to him, but I'm sure he's all right. He can take care of himself, after all." Catching herself, she shook her head and laughed again, starting to blush. "I'm sorry. I must really be boring you with all this—never mind me."
Kaze shook his head and smiled. "No. It's fine."
Lisa knew she shouldn't have, but the rest of her seemed fine with her heart's deciding to ignore that nagging voice in the back of her mind. Knowing that she was going too far towards destroying the healer-and-patient relationship that she and Kaze were supposed to have—and not caring in the least—she eased back against his side and closed her eyes.
She knew that so long as she had his support, she would be able to weather out the storm of the pain that they were all going through.
And deep, deep down inside her heart, the tight bud of affection began to bloom.
---
"Are you sure about this?" Clear asked for the umpteenth time, looking down from his perch atop the chocobo. "I'm sure I could walk, at least for a little while…"
"Don't worry about it," Ai insisted, shaking her head and tugging at the big bird's halter to keep it moving along the road. "You need the rest more than I do, anyway."
"But—" Clear shook his head, now starting to seem distinctly embarrassed as the slightest hint of a blush crept across his pale face. "This just doesn't feel right…"
"Don't waste your chivalry," Kiri advised him, coming up to walk beside Ai. "This one's too stubborn. If she wants to walk, she'll walk, and if you waffle about it too much, she'll probably plant an arrow in your butt for good measure."
"Shut up, Kiri!" Ai yelled, her face as pink as her hair.
"Besides, just think how undignified it would be to try to walk just to impress the lady, then end up falling on your face," the red-haired swordsman pointed out, ignoring Ai completely.
Fabula, ahead of them, smiled and shook her head at their banter. Turning to Aura, she tapped the other girl's shoulder and pointed, grinning. "And normalcy returns."
Aura snorted and rolled her eyes, but that crooked smile started to twist her lips nonetheless.
"I'm glad, though—I really was starting to worry about them this time," she continued. "They both took it so hard."
"Well, it's only natural," Aura said with a shrug. "Of course you'd expect it from the kid, but you know, Madoushi's a pretty emotional guy when you get down to it."
Fabula hid a laugh behind her hand. "True!"
"Hey… is this the place?" Lisa asked suddenly, pointing and drawing everyone's attention.
"Looks like it," Aura replied at length. "…But wow, what a wreck."
Kiri frowned up at the big building. At one time, he supposed, it truly must have been magnificent—between brick and wood sections of the walls and the large sign out front in a language he couldn't read, and what had obviously been an attempt at landscaping, in its heyday this theater or whatever would've been beautiful. But the paint on the sign was fading and peeling, the bushes and flowers were overgrown, and ivy had crawled over the brick parts of the walls.
To all appearances, the place was completely abandoned.
Still, it was best to make sure.
Slowly, Kiri turned to the others. "…Well?" he asked with an expectant expression.
Lisa closed her eyes and held out her hands. "I can sense the spirit of something living inside that place, but it doesn't seem malevolent."
Aura cocked her head to the side and frowned, looking like she was listening for something. "…There're a few Heartless, but I can't feel anything really bad in there."
Kiri sighed. "Okay, then, we'd best get in there before something nasty comes up on us standing around and decides it's a nice opportunity." With that, he headed down the path towards the old theater; in twos and threes, the others followed him.
---
Once the party was safely inside the building with the doors closed behind them, Lisa held up her staff and said a few words which caused the crystal to glow softly, giving them enough luminance to see by.
Slowly, carefully, Clear slid out of Chobi's saddle, then promptly stumbled once he had his feet on the ground. Luckily for him, Ai was close enough to reach out and steady him.
"See? I told you so. You should still be riding."
"But he needs a break," Clear protested feebly, pointing at the tired-looking chocobo. "I appreciate your concern, but I'll be fine… really."
Ai shook her head at him, but didn't say anything.
"The architecture really is beautiful," Fabula murmured, looking around. "I would've liked to stop by this place while it was still running, if only to see what it looked like in its glory days."
"I think it was a pretty popular place once," Lisa volunteered. "I remember hearing something about it a long time ago. And after all, it's the only theater marked on the map."
As the rest of their party looked around, Kaze happened to glance into the corridor ahead, and let out a short cry, lurching back.
"There's… someone there…" he said, wide-eyed, as the others turned to look at him.
"What do you mean?" Ai asked, but Kaze was already heading deeper in.
Wearing expressions that ranged from worry to exasperation, everyone else followed him.
"I don't see anybody here, Kaze-niisan," Aura told her brother doubtfully.
Kaze was standing in the wide parlor, looking around with an uncertain frown on his face. "For a moment I thought…"
"What is it?" Lisa asked gently.
Kaze hesitated, then shook his head. "…No. It's nothing."
Aura gave him a look. "Kaze-niisan, need I remind you of the last time you said 'it's nothing' when something was bothering you?" she asked him in razor-edged tones.
Kaze didn't respond.
"…You're impossible," she pronounced irritably, flinging her arms up in the air.
"At any rate, let's head up to the second floor," Fabula suggested. "There might be somewhere we can rest there. Okay?"
"Sure—let's take the staircase over there," Kiri said, pointing to one of the sweeping sets of stairs that flanked the open hall, then immediately began to take his own advice.
Circling around the doors that led into the theater shell itself, the group came to a corridor which seemed to lead to the personal quarters and practice rooms of the performers who had worked and in some cases lived there. Having found nothing of interest yet, they trailed inside, with Kiri back in the lead, to the unspoken relief of quite a few of his companions. It was definitely good to see him taking charge again…
The silence of the corridor was broken when something clicked.
Kiri had just enough time to come to a halt and start to frown when a good portion of the floor gave way beneath him, and he dropped to land in a deep pit that had lain beneath the floorboards with a sharp yelp of surprise and pain.
"Kiri, are you alright?" Lisa called, kneeling at the edge and looking down at him.
Kiri's only reply was a low, disoriented groan.
"Look at this," Aura said, pointing to a part of the floor. As the others watched, she knelt and pressed down on the spot she'd pointed to with both hands; part of the floor depressed with the same clicking sound they'd heard before. "It's a switch—I bet someone stepped on this right before that trap opened up."
"Why would anyone booby-trap a theater?" Ai demanded shrilly, staring. "That's just not safe! This place isn't normal!"
Clear, meanwhile, had gone over to peer down at Kiri alongside Lisa. "Madoushi-san, can you stand?"
Fabula joined them. "Yeah, Kiri—if you aren't hurt, you might want to get back up here. You should be able to fly back up, right?"
"Y-yeah… okay." Down at the bottom of the hole, Kiri started to stand, but as soon as he tried to rest part of his weight on his left foot, he gasped and crumpled, clutching at his ankle. "Oh, God…"
"What's wrong?"
Kiri shuddered violently, shaking his head as he looked back up at his companions. "I… can't stand. Think I've sprained it, or worse." His breath was coming in jagged gasps, and he was speaking through teeth gritted against the pain. "God…" It was half-sigh and half-sob.
Back up in the corridor, Lisa shook her head. "This isn't good. I don't know if there's any way we can get him up out of there… I don't suppose anyone has any rope, do they?"
Fabula sighed. "Well, Kiri and I brought some from Mystaria, but that was in one of the bags that got left behind in the Heartless attack at Garoh. We should've gotten more somewhere, damn it. And it could take days to go find some somewhere else."
Just as Aura was about to speak, the sound of footsteps made them all turn towards the opposite end of the long corridor, and the figures that were approaching them from around a bend in the hallway there.
Down in the pit, Kiri wasn't aware of much but the wrenching pain that had started in his ankle but was now screaming all through his left side where his second fall had cramped his muscles. But the unfamiliar voices drew even his attention, and through the haze of agony he looked up to see vague impressions of strange faces with fair coloring as those voices called out in turn.
"Mon Dieu! Raoul, hurry!" A girl's voice, with a soft accent that Kiri didn't recognize, peaked with shock and worry.
A man's voice came next, but Kiri couldn't make out words this time. However, he heard the sharp sliding sound that followed it, and stared incredulously at the thick, knotted rope that slowly descended to a level where he could take hold of it.
Grateful but puzzled, Kiri did so, pulling himself into a standing position. Able to support his weight with his handhold, he didn't wait for the strangers to haul him up, but carefully pushed off, feeling the stagnant air below him slowly catch beneath his cloak as he drifted back to his companions. However, landing with one foot was even more difficult than his takeoff had been, and he found himself sprawled across the floor with Fabula, Lisa, Ai, and Clear all hovering over him.
"Are you alright?"
It was the girl who he'd heard before. Still half-wincing, Kiri turned until he could look back across the wide gap in the floor.
She was young, and crouched there with her small white hands clenched on the folds of her long, full skirts. Her dress looked secondhand and its pattern was faded and indistinct, but the long blonde hair and sleet-blue eyes that dominated her slender, earnest face were clearly very beautiful. Kiri judged her to be about Kumo's age—maybe seventeen at most. There was a lot of genuine worry to her countenance, but Kiri didn't miss the guilt in the way she gripped her skirts. Guilty for what? he wondered. Does she have something to do with this hole in the floor?
The man next to her was her senior by a few years, with gray-blue eyes under dark hawkish brows and straight dirty-blonde hair pulled into a horsetail. His clothing looked a little more worn than the girl's, but Kiri could tell that the original quality had most likely been better. He, too, looked concerned, although his stare was wary and his eyes flickered along Kiri and his party as if to determine whether or not they posed a threat. There was a thin silver rapier thrust through the side of his belt, and from the way it rested there, Kiri was willing to bet that he knew how to use it, too.
"Kiri, let me see your ankle," Lisa murmured.
"What? Oh, yeah." Very carefully, Kiri rolled into a sitting position, and tore his attention away from the strangers to Lisa as she gently laid her fingertips along the sides of his injured ankle, wincing as she probed it and unable to completely bite back the cry of pain that tore out of him as she tried to rotate it.
"I thought so… you broke it when you fell." Sighing, Lisa brought her staff around. "Let's see if we can't start this off to a good healing, now."
"Will I be able to walk on it then?" Kiri asked uneasily.
"No, but you can ride on Chobi-chan, seeing as Clear has been able to walk just fine so far."
Kiri sighed and head-slumped. "Why does this stuff always have to happen to me?" he complained in aggrieved tones.
"I'm sorry," the girl from across the gap said to them. "We've kept ourselves safe from the Heartless so far with these traps, but we never thought that humans would come this way and get hurt here. My name is Christine—I used to be a performer here. This is my old friend Raoul."
"Charmed," Raoul said stiffly, still sizing up the intruders to his domain.
"You worked here?" Ai asked, intrigued. "Is there anyone else still here, too?"
Christine shook her head sadly. "No… it's just the two of us now." Looking from face to face, she stood up and curtsied to them. "I think we owe you an explanation—come across and we'll take you upstairs, where we can talk to you safely. You look like you need the rest."
(TBC)