Author's Comments: I know it's been a SUPER long time but really, life has been too crazy for words. I'm so sorry for taking this long to update. However I hope that you all manage to enjoy this chapter.

On a brighter note I appreciate all the reads you guys. And ELEVEN reviews for one chapter? That's a new record on this story! Thanks a bunch! Hopefully I can get close to, or even match that number for this chapter.

Also, Poison and my other stories are NOT dead! If I can get through school this week in one piece then I promise I'll be updating more frequently.

Like last time, I'll be answering/replying to reviews at the bottom of the page.

I hope you all like the chapter!

"It never ceases to amaze me." Tifa was sorting through mail when Cloud walked into the living room.

He set down a cup of coffee in front of Tifa while she worked. "What do you mean?"

Tifa sighed and pushed back the bills before reaching for the coffee. "I thought that things would get simpler when I placed another restaurant on Radiant Garden." She smiled and looked up at Cloud. "Why didn't you tell me that I was in over my head?"

Cloud took a seat next to Tifa and pulled the chair closer to her so that their elbows were touching, an act of intimacy he would have avoided at all costs years ago.

"Why bother? You wouldn't listen to me anyway."

Tifa stifled a chuckle and fingered through the mail, spotting a smaller, out of place envelope. She stared at the blank envelope quizzically and turned to Cloud, holding it between her index and middle finger.

"Where did you get this from?" She inquired innocently.

Cloud stared at the envelope. "It was in the pile. There was nothing written on the front. I know there's something inside of it though."

Tifa was slightly unnerved by the letter and opened it with great caution. Once she tossed the envelope aside, she discovered that the note had a few droplets of (what Tifa hoped was) red ink at the bottom. However, her fears only swelled when she opened the letter and recognized the immaculate handwriting.

"It's from Sofia," Tifa gasped.

Cloud, always the calm one, looked onward. His heroic blue eyes narrowed. "It is her handwriting."

"Who delivered the mail?" Tifa demanded.

The blond pushed his seat back and politely took the note away from Tifa and read it aloud.

""While I have made many mistakes in my life, there is no greater mistake than the one where I did not love my daughter in the way that I should have. I hope you can forgive me." And that's where it ends."

Tifa's eyes were wild. Something did not sit well with her. Between the kidnappings, Vanitas' appearance and now the note, Tifa was sure that something was coming. She had no idea what that was exactly, but she knew that she and her friends were in for quite a shock.

As if they were mind readers, Zack and Yuffie burst through the kitchen door and sprinted to the living room.

"What's the problem?" Cloud asked, taken back himself by seeing Zack in such a state of panic.

Yuffie was heaving heavy breaths and she collapsed on the floor beside Tifa and rested her head against the latter's knee. She held up a smartphone and slapped it on the table in front of Tifa.

"G-Guess…where we," She inhaled sharply and tried to regain her breath, "were! Look at the photos!"

Tifa snatched the phone away and scrolled through the cellular until she came to the bottom of the page. Upon further analysis, she realized that the photos on Yuffie's phone, were actually photos of Jasmine's home on Twilight Town.

Yuffie pulled herself to her knees while Zack collapsed in a chair beside Cloud. "The only room in the house that was trashed was the kitchen," she explained.

Tifa and Cloud could see that for themselves. Everything in the Silva's home was neat and tidy as to be expected. However, when they came to the pictures of the kitchen this was not the case. There was blood splattered all over the ground and along the cabinets. The dining room table was knocked over and two out of the four chairs were smashed. Several dishes lay shattered in hundreds of pieces all over the floor and the glass door in the kitchen leading to the back of the house was hanging off its hinges.

"How in the hell could the police miss something like this?" Tifa's anger was rising.

Zack calmed himself down enough to explain. "Come to find out, it was one of the other properties that the police searched on the other side of Twilight Town. They didn't even bother with this one."

"Why?"

Zack was just as lost as Tifa was. "My guess is that the neighbors heard a struggle in the other home. Either way, law enforcement is lagging."

Yuffie grabbed Zack's arm. "Show them! Show them! Show them now!"

Zack snatched away his arm before Yuffie had the chance to pull it from the socket. "Calm down!" He fished into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled up piece of paper and threw it on the table.

'Oh God,' Tifa moaned internally. "Not another one…"

Yuffie decided to join the others and took a seat at the table. "What are you talking about?"

Cloud decided to explain this one while Tifa read over the note. "Today in the mail we received a note written by Jasmine's mom."

The raven-haired, self-proclaimed ninja slumped in her chair. "Seriously? I'm sick of all these secret messages and crap."

"This will go beyond our rivalry and your child will be mine."

Tifa shivered. There was no denying the chilling tone with which the unknown write spoke. It was clearly a warning to the Silva family.

Even worse, it was a threat against Jasmine.

"We found hair at the scene of the crime and Aerith is in SOLDIER trying to figure out who it belongs to," Zack reported.

Tifa reeled back. It was so obvious.

"Clearly the DNA belongs to Vanitas," she rolled her eyes. "He's the only one who would have something against her parents."

Yuffie stood up. "That's where you're wrong, Tifa."

She batted her wine-colored eyes. "Are you saying that there's MORE than one person who has it out for the Silva family?"

Yuffie shrugged her shoulders. "Mr. Silva was a district attorney before he became a politician. While Twilight Town was no Hollow Bastion it still had its crooks. I'm sure they weren't none too happy when Mr. Silva locked them up."

Tifa realized that Yuffie was right. But it couldn't have been that bad, could it? "It has to be someone Mr. Silva knew a while ago."

"Exactly," Zack chimed in ominously, "and what's most important, is that the DNA sample has already been tested. It doesn't belong to Vanitas."

Tifa's face became a ghostly white.

"Then…who does it belong to?"

"You know this boy is willing to take a bullet for you, right?" Axel frowned. Jasmine sat across from the redhead in the office of his nightclub. She took it upon herself to come in another disguise by wearing dark brown contact lenses, a sleek black wig streaked with blond that stopped a few inches past her shoulders and a sleezy red club dress that threatened to expose her rear end should she bend over. To everyone else, she was just another clubgoer with nothing else on the brain but dancing, drinking and flirting with the men.

Axel sighed. Imagine his surprise when he spotted her yet again in his club amongst a group of boys in a booth who were too busy trying to get her to take shots with them to realize that her interest was elsewhere. They were practically eating out of the palms of her hands.

"I told Roxas that I have no intention of seeing him again, that it was a mistake seeking him out in the beginning," she batted her eyelashes and reached for her clutch purse, searching for her pipe.

Axel was still not convinced. "Look, I know that Vanitas showed up at Nam's event. Roxas called me after it happened."

Jasmine lit her pipe and smoked. "And what else did he tell you?"

His emerald eyes hardened and he leaned over the desk. "I told you not to hurt Roxas. Pointing a gun at him isn't exactly keeping your end of the bargain."

She inhaled, held it in her chest for a few seconds, tilted her head back and blew out a perfect stream of smoke. "I never exactly said that I'd kill him…." Jasmine recalled the incident as if it happened just a few moments ago. "If anything I would have knocked him out."

"Jasmine!"

She crossed her legs. "You know better than I do," Jasmine began, "that Roxas is pretty much all I have left. I wouldn't do anything to purposely hurt him."

Axel scoffed. He was friends with Jasmine, but he had no intention of tolerating her cavalier attitude any longer in regards to her interactions with Roxas. "Then why are you screwing with him? We all know that he still has feelings for you. Why do you keep dragging this out?"

Jasmine was silent.

"If you have no intention of getting in a legitimate romantic relationship with him, then you need to stop seeing him altogether and come back when you're ready to start a clean friendship. None of this "up in the air" or friends with benefits type of crap that you and he do."

She removed the wig and smirked. It seemed like everyone was questioning her virtue nowadays. "I haven't slept with Roxas."

Axel smirked. "That much I'm sure. I don't think either of you two could handle that at the moment." He reached for the half glass of gin and downed the rest of the contents. "So what are you going to do?"

"About what?" Jasmine finished off the batch of paopu and tapped the ashes into a nearby ashtray. "I'm going to do some more research on Vanitas. Plus I guess I need to start looking for my parents."

Axel wasn't surprised by how little Jasmine seemed to care about her parents' disappearance. However he had a sneaky suspicion that the situation was bothering her way more than she was letting on.

"I meant the situation with Roxas. Let's be honest, at the end of the day we all know that you want to be with Riku who, from what I heard, is having a tough time with you leaving."

Jasmine's mood flipped and she was glaring at Axel. "Think again," she snapped viciously. "He's off having fun with his new girl to care."

It was painfully obvious that the redhead had struck a nerve with the girl. As much as she tried to hide it there was no denying that she still had intense feelings for Riku. Axel could only imagine how much it killed her inside to see him with another woman.

"Let's get back to the blond one," Axel shifted in his seat, "so what are you going to do about Roxas? Like Sora and his little group, he cares about your safety. However the difference between them and Roxas, is that Roxas happens to be in love with you whether he wants to admit it or not.

"I'm really not fit to be in a relationship," she responded simply, having composed herself from her earlier outburst.

'Well no shit,' Axel quipped mentally. "That's not a real answer."

Jasmine opened her mouth to speak when the door flew open. She swore mentally. The person standing in the doorway was the same blond that she and Axel were talking about.

"Jasmine?" Roxas stared at her incredulously. "What are you doing here?" He shut the door behind him as he entered and then locked it.

Axel rubbed his hands over his eyes. "I didn't sign up to be a relationship counselor."

Jasmine stood up and cracked her knuckles loudly. "And I have somewhere else to be," she added as she quickly walked past the blond.

Roxas snatched Jasmine by the arm, earning a curious glare from the girl. Her eyes demanded that he release her but Roxas would not budge.

"We need to talk," he said flatly as he dragged her out of the room. Once the door was slammed shut, Axel shook his head and went back to monitoring the patrons of his nightclub.

"Those two need to get their shit together."

Roxas pinned Jasmine to the brick wall outside of the nightclub in an alleyway.

"I don't remember you being so aggressive," Jasmine said coyly.

The blond was not amused. "What were you doing here at Axel's club?"

Jasmine's body language made it clear that she didn't want to be there. She had a lot to do given that Vanitas had finally made an appearance. Plus (as Prompto and Ignis reminded her earlier) she had some research to do on finding out where her parents were.

"I could ask you the same thing," she returned, removing Roxas' hand from her shoulder. "Last time I checked you weren't the type of guy to sneak into a club with a fake ID to party. You need to stop worrying about what I'm doing and worry about yourself."

Jasmine attempted to pull away but Roxas pulled her right back, this time pinning both her shoulders against the cold, uneven brick wall.

"I may not have a gun on me," she warned, "but I can knock you out without it."

"Are you looking for your parents?" Roxas fired at her, demanding to finally have answers. "You guys have worked together before. What are you up to this time?"

Jasmine sneered. Sora and the group must have been snooping in on her business. They were getting way too close to her situation with Vanitas for comfort.

"C'mon Roxas," Jasmine rolled her eyes. "You know you won't be able to keep up with all this. Let me do my own thing and I'll leave you alone. It's that easy."

Roxas listened on even though he was rebelling against everything she was telling him.

"You could go back to the way things used to be, before I came to the island. You and Naminé and Sora and the group—you guys were happy then." Jasmine stared deep into Roxas' perfect blue eyes and for a moment showed him her softer side. "You know I've got some pretty heavy vices. Go back to your friends and let me go."

Before Roxas opened his mouth to speak, a group of men stopped to stare at Jasmine and Roxas.

"Hey!" One of the men called, stepping towards the pair and eying Roxas dangerously. "What are you doing to that girl?"

However, just as the blond pulled away, Jasmine grabbed Roxas by the front of his shirt and pulled him into a deep, heated kiss. Roxas, initially caught off guard by the action immediately played along and returned the kiss.

Jasmine pulled away and held tight onto Roxas. "Relax boys," she called out, adding a wink. "My boyfriend and I just made up. Don't worry about me."

Roxas' eyes popped open. 'BOYFRIEND?'

The trio passed curious glances at one another before moving on, seemingly satisfied by Jasmine's response. Once their footsteps faded back into the night, Jasmine exhaled.

"Who knew chivalry was still alive," she thought out loud.

Snapping her out of her thoughts was Roxas' grip on her waist. When she turned her head to meet Roxas' gaze, she was startled by the intense look in his eyes.

"You know how much I love you. Why would you do that to me?"

Jasmine's lips were parted but nothing came out of her mouth. She'd suspected that much but she had never imagined him actually coming out and saying it.

"But you know what else I know?"

Silence.

Roxas released Jasmine who stared at him curiously, waiting for the answer. "I know that part of you still has feelings for me too." Jasmine placed her hands on her hips but didn't bother masking the shock on her face. "Let's be real: we all know how much you love Riku. But there's a reason why you don't reach out to Sora and the others."

Jasmine bit her bottom lip. As much as she hated to admit it, Roxas was right.

"You're not screwed up enough to string me along. There's something there. I know you well enough to figure that out."

She shifted her weight and leaned back against the wall. "Even if that was true, you know how this would end."

Roxas chuckled darkly, startling Jasmine. "Exactly. I do know how this ends…and it sucks," he deadpanned.

The emotions Jasmine had thought she buried away were beginning to surface. On the outside, it did appear as if she were using Roxas. She was aware of the fact that he still liked her. It was true. However there was a reason why she often would sneak out and defy Vincent's orders to see Roxas. She cared about him. She really did. And in truth there was a part of her that did have some lingering feelings for Roxas.

He'd been there for her since the very beginning when she arrived on the island years ago. Roxas was her first friend. Her first real boyfriend and no matter how many times she'd warped, he was always there for her without a doubt.

In addition (something which she'd never told a soul) Jasmine also knew that if things had been a little bit different she would have gotten back with Roxas and started another relationship with him.

"Things would have been a lot simpler with you," she told him, masking her emotions. "They would have been easier had I of given you a second chance."

Roxas agreed. "You and Riku clash a lot."

Jasmine pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest. "But I still love him. We just can't be together. Neither can you and I under these circumstances."

Roxas already knew this and yet it hurt him immensely to hear Jasmine say those words to him. Perhaps if he'd fought harder for her, things might have turned out differently. Their group wouldn't be so broken now. He and Jasmine might actually have had a normal relationship. Things would be normal.

Jasmine sneaked up to Roxas and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. Roxas immediately returned the embrace and buried his face in her shoulder.

"Maybe we could be good friends one day," she mumbled into his ear. "But until then, let's promise to cool it, okay?"

Roxas only held her tighter. He knew that things were about to take another dramatic turn for the worst and this time, Jasmine might be in serious danger. He was scared. Not for himself. But for her. Even though Roxas knew that she wasn't his, he still couldn't stand to see her go.

They'd had their goodbyes before, but this one felt more…permanent.

"I love you so much," he told her sadly. "I don't want you to get hurt again."

Jasmine pulled back slightly and held his face in her hands. She smiled ruefully and had to fight the tears building back up behind her eyes. "I've already accepted what's probably going to happen to me. I don't have an easy life and it'll probably get worse."

Roxas felt his heart drop but kept his emotions in check.

"Pray for the best, expect the worst. That way, if something good does happen, it becomes a gift and you appreciate it that much more," she advised wisely. "That's just with life in general."

"But what about you?"

She was silent.

That was all the answer Roxas needed. He reached for his car keys in his pocket and stepped to Jasmine again, kissing her softly on the lips.

Jasmine felt her chest tighten.

After Roxas planted another kiss on her forehead, he turned on his heel and began walking away.

"I love you too," she called out softly, watching him vanish into the night. "Goodbye, Roxas."

Noctis and Prompto jumped when they heard the door open. The blond looked over his shoulder and stared at Jasmine incredulously.

"Just where have you been young lady?" He teased. "Who said that you could go out clubbing and partying?"

Jasmine kicked off her shoes and held them in her hands, not bothering to respond.

Initially thrown off by the air Jasmine emitted, Noctis hopped off the couch and approached her. Jasmine had an almost unreadable expression on her face. What's more, Noctis faintly caught the scent of someone else on her body. He sniffed the air.

She'd been with a boy.

"I'm doing to bed," she whispered, keeping her head low. "Good night you two," she said cordially, speeding past the two and locking her bedroom door tightly behind her.

Prompto's face became a mask of concern.

"What's wrong with Miss Valentine?"

Noctis said nothing. As she sped by him, just before she ran to her room, Noctis caught a glimpse of her face.

More specifically, her eyes.

'Were those tears?' He thought.

Author's Comments: As promised guys, I'm replying to all the reviews now. Tell me what you guys think of this chapter. I really wanna know what's going through you guys' heads. You're all amazing and I thank you for the support. Take care and see you soon!

animechick247: Haha I just HAD to mention Mr. Slender Man. I think I'm a tad bit obsessed with his character. As for the books, teehee things are not always what they seem ^_^ Thank you for the review. You're such a great source of inspiration.

Sarah K.R: Right? I'm still waiting for Versus XIII. I hear they even pushed it back…again! Sheesh man. I'm so happy that you liked the chapter. And yes haha I always put a calm before the storm so to speak. I hope you liked this chapter. Thanks for the review!

Amaya-vamp: I think a great deal of people will roast me if I put Aria with Riku permanently. Lol we shall have to wait and see. Thanks for the review!

Kira Carmen: There is nothing wrong with wanting that pairing. To be honest, I have this horrible itch to do a one shot with those two. However there will definitely be more Noctis/Jasmine in the future. I'm flattered that you like the story so much. Thanks for the review!

Sayonara Yasashii Akumu: I'm kinda with you. I miss the old days where it was more high school drama. How did you feel about Roxas/Jasmine in this chapter? As for the rest of the cast of BBS, there is a slight chance that a few of them will pop up. It all depends on whether or not (huge spoiler) I decide to do a sequel to this story. Thanks for the review!

LouFF13KH2: Aww thanks a lot. Hope you liked the chapter!

Sookdeo: Haha I can't tell you. But let me just say this: things aren't what they seem. Yeah lol Sora seems like the dense one but (spoiler alert) Sora might just be on par (intelligence wise) with a few of the more notorious character in the story.

OmraxXV: Noctis/Jasmine would be interesting. But Noctis is still a mystery. Let's see how well his demons clash with Jasmine's. And no. Aria and Riku are still together. I can see how she annoys people though. Personally, I like her. Granted she's a bit dense but she isn't a character I want people to outright hate (like Larxene lol). We'll learn more about the book soon. Just you wait and see!

Frooky90: I'm glad you liked the chapter! Hopefully the next one will be just as good. How did you feel about this one? Take care and thanks for the review!

Unwritten Memory: Whoo! A Faye/Riku lover! I swear with time more people seem to shift to Faye/Noctis. Riku deserves to be happy. He's just having a rough time. I hope you liked this chapter.

Hopefuldreamer1991: Oh wow! I'm glad that you posted up your story! I'll be sure to check it out ASAP.

I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter. PLEASE tell me what you think about it. The next chapter will be MAJOR. In fact, it might just be another turning point in the series. I hope you all take care and see you later!