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Chapter XXXVIII: The Slow and Patient Knife

Naminé

Sora's back from the brink of death; a feat made possible by a combination of his own tenacity and Merlin's skill with healing magic.

He hasn't been released from the hospital yet, but he's been moved out of the ICU and the doctors are saying that he might be released tomorrow if all goes well.

All things considered, he looks like he's feeling better—his skin is less pallid, his face less gaunt, and the troubled crease between his eyes has all but disappeared..

I meet Riku's eyes over Sora's head.

Should I tell him?

Riku shakes his head almost imperceptibly.

I can feel my eyebrows knitting together, and I want to say something but then Roxas and Yuffie return to the room, carrying snacks from the vending machines down the hall.

Roxas sits down next to me and squeezes my hand gently. Even though the situation is terrible, he's been by my side every step of the way.

I feel even worse keeping this from him.

I look from Riku to Roxas, trying to give Riku another hint, but he shakes his head again.

My teeth grind against each other, pressure building in my chest. I feel horribly guilty for being this way, for not being able to keep a tighter lid on my emotions—this is supposed to be about Sora, not me, but I need to say something.

Before I can stop myself, I'm striding across the room and hauling Riku out of his chair.

"We need to talk." I hiss.

***DMS***

Roxas

Despite the fact that I know Naminé would never cheat on me, the surge of jealously I feel when she pulls Riku out of the room is intense and instinctive.

Yuffie looks at me. "What was that all about?"

I shrug. "Beats me. There's clearly some tension there though."

"Something's up. Riku's been acting weird lately…"

"Maybe he's just stressed.,.Our lives haven't exactly been a pleasure ride over the past few months."

Yuffie picks at a cuticle and nods. "Yeah. Things've been rough…On the bright side, Riku and I rescued a kid from Itami and Vanitas the other day…"

"Who's Itami?" I ask, dreading the thought of a third player in the deadly game we're playing with Kairi and Vanitas and Kingdom Hearts.

Despite my own terror, Yuffie seems relatively unconcerned. "Yeah. Kairi changed her name…"

I feel slightly more relieved now, but only slightly. "Okay…So you rescued a kid from them? How'd that go?"

Yuffie looks glad to have something else to talk about, at least for the moment.

And even I have to admit, the snippets of heated conversation seeping in from the hallway are making me uncomfortable.

"What do you expect me to do?" Naminé's voice is low and dangerous; I've never heard her talk like that to anyone, and quite frankly it's unnerving.

"Keep your voice down," Riku's response is equally cold.

"Don't fuck with me, Riku, I'm not in the mood."

Yuffie and I trade glances and shrug—no point in getting involved when things are this heated between those two, they'll have to work out their differences on their own.

"So…" I begin, breaching the awkward silence. "You were saying something about rescuing a kid…"

Yuffie blinks. "Oh, right. Yeah. Her name is Xion, and she's absolutely adorable. I mean, she's got some serious baggage from living with Vanitas, but she's a good kid."

"That's nice. I'm sure she's happy to have somewhere safe to live…"

"You know, that's the thing." Yuffie says. "One minute she's a basket case—not that I blame her, given what she's been through—and the next minute she's a cynical little demon-child. I don't know what to do with her…" she pinches the bridge of her nose, looking every bit the troubled mother hen.

I'm fishing for something to say now, but the best I can come up with is: "Maybe she's just…I dunno, adjusting or something. Or maybe it's…" I gesture vaguely, trying to get my point across without being insensitive.

"That I can handle." Yuffie waves dismissively. "This is a completely different issue."

"I'm sure things will work out…" I offer, unsure of what else to say.

"You're probably right." Yuffie responds.

We are saved from another uncomfortable silence when Riku and Naminé return to the room, both of them wearing stony, indifferent expressions.

Part of me wants to ask Naminé what's going on, but judging by her expression, it's probably a good idea to just wait until later.

Sora groans, and in that moment, all our previous concerns are pushed aside—Sora's recovery progress has kept us on the edge of our seats for the better part of a month now, and it looks like we might finally have a chance to get out of this gods-forsaken hospital.

It's about damn time.

"Where am I?" Sora's speech is slow and hoarse.

"Take it easy, bro. You're in the hospital…You've been out for a while." Riku says slowly.

Sora blinks wearily. "How long was I out?"

"About two and a half weeks…" I tell him.

Sora forces himself to sit up trying—and failing—to hide a pained grimace. "Shit," he groans, dragging a hand across his face. "What about Kairi? Is she…"

"She's gone rogue, Sora. She's working with Vanitas. I'm so sorry…" Naminé gushes.

Sora gives Naminé a long, level look, like they're sharing some kind of secret, and after what just happened with Riku, I'm beginning to feel incredibly out-of-the-loop.

This whole not-being-informed thing is starting to piss me off, but Yuffie looks just as lost as I feel, so at least I'm not alone…

"I remember." Sora says, though now his voice has a dangerous edge to it. "She's the one who fucking put me here." His voice is already a snarl, and I reach out to stop him as he tries to get up.

"Hey, man, hold on a sec. I know you're pissed as hell right now, and I don't blame you, but you really aren't in any kind of shape to be going after her. Kairi fucked you up pretty bad, dude. Merlin's been in here for the past three days trying to help you along with some healing spells, but he isn't a miracle worker. He took care of the worst of your injuries, but he said you needed to rest to get your strength back…"

"A lot's been going while you were under the knife, Sora," Riku's voice is grave, and I wonder if he's going to tell Sora about his promotion now, but he just leaves it at that. "Vanitas and Itami—Kairi changed her name—have taken over Destiny Islands…We think they're planning to make a move on Kingdom Hearts."

Sora heaves a weary sigh. "I leave you people alone for a few minutes and the world goes to shit. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised; to be honest, I was starting to worry about that when I found out about Kairi and Vanitas…Kairi's been exposed now too, so we have to consider that when we plan our next move."

Riku holds up his broken wrist in response. "We know,"

My nose twinges painfully at the memory—it's mostly healed now, but it's still pretty tender.

"Damn, When did that happen?" Sora wonders.

"Kairi came back to town the day after you were admitted to the hospital." Yuffie jumps in. "She texted to see how you were doing, which is massive dick move in my opinion; anywho,
Riku sent me to check on her to make sure she was alright. I had just gotten there when he called me and said you were awake…"

Sora nods. "I vaguely remember that—I was doped up on all kinds of drugs at the time,"

"Right. Apparently, you were coherent enough to tell Riku that Kairi was the one who did this to you, and so I brought her in for questioning…You can see how well that turned out." Yuffie shrugs, almost like she feels responsible for the beating Riku and I received from Kairi.

"You took her out by yourself?" Sora seems impressed.

"Yeah."

"How'd you manage that?"

"I mean, I'm a pretty awesome ninja, if I do say so myself, but I think the main reason I beat her is because she was injured at the time, and she's inexperienced in fighting with something other than her Keyblade…That might not be the case anymore, though."

"So, any ideas on stopping them from getting their hands on Kingdom Hearts?" I ask, trying to keep us on track while Sora's awake.

Apart from Riku, Sora's the only one with enough experience around Kingdom Hearts to have any clue where to go from this point. I was exposed as part of my Wielder initiation, but I don't have anything to go on beyond that.

Sora frowns thoughtfully for a moment. "The doorway in Destiny Islands is kind of like a shortcut on a computer; you can move it to different places, but no matter where you put it, clicking on it will still take you to the same place."

"So, you think we can move the access point out of Destiny Islands?" Riku folds his arms. "That would give us a huge advantage, not to mention the fact that we're pretty much fucked if they get to it first."

"Exactly. At least, that's how Terra explained it back in the refugee camp while he was training me. " Sora admits.

"Okay, so we know, or at least we know it's a possibility that the access door can be moved." I recap. "But what do we do about Vanitas and Itami? As long as they're still running around, no one is ever going to be safe, and we're eventually going to run out of places to hide the door…"

"You're right." Riku concedes. "Vanitas and Kai—Itami—are both serious threats, and they need to be dealt with, but if we want to really stand a chance against them, we need to force them to face us on our terms. And I really don't like our odds right now. We're just going to have to be patient."

"You're forgetting something," Yuffie adds. "We have Vanitas' sister. That's more than enough leverage to buy us some time. If anything—and I know this sounds terrible, but bear with me—if we use Xion as bait to distract them, they'll be too focused on getting her back to pay attention to Kingdom Hearts…" Yuffie pauses, looking around the room.

It sounds incredibly risky, but it just might be crazy enough to work.

Sora looks completely blindsided by this news, but Riku and Yuffie are too involved in their discussion to notice.

"It's a long story," I tell him quietly.

"You want to use the kid as bait?" Riku asks. "I don't know about that, Yuffie. As much as I don't trust her, I don't think it's a good idea to take that kind of chance with her. Vanitas obviously isn't just going to stand by and let us kidnap his little sister, and I'm not overly confident that we can hold him off from her long enough for us to actually do anything."

"What other choice do we have?" Yuffie counters. "I don't like it either, but you know as well as I do that nothing else is going to distract them more than her. It's risky, especially since we'll have to split up to do it right, but it's also our best option."

"I think it might work." I say finally.

"I agree." Sora weighs in.

Riku sighs and turns to Yuffie. "What do you have in mind?"

"We use Xion to draw them out, meanwhile Roxas and Sora can go move Kingdom Hearts. As soon as they contact us to let us know it's done, we get the hell out of dodge. Once that's done, we can lure them out again with Kingdom Hearts, and then finish them off for good." Yuffie smacks her fist into her open palm for emphasis.

And just like that, we have a plan.

It's quick and clean simple enough to carry out without having to worry about the little details, and bold enough to catch them completely off-guard.

Still, a knot of dread curls in my gut all the same.

I have a really, really bad feeling about this.

***DMS***

Naminé

Yuffie's plan seems pretty cut-and-dry, but I know by now, that when the Wielders are involved, things are never that simple.

We leave Sora alone to rest after a few more minutes, and Roxas and Yuffie both excuse themselves to use the restrooms.

Riku turns to me, and I know from the look on his face that he isn't happy about the way things turned out earlier, but I don't really give a damn how he feels about anything at the moment.

"I'm sorry, Naminé." He says, almost sounding like he actually means it.

"Bullshit." I snap. "Sorry doesn't mean anything, Riku. You're asking me to lie to everyone. Do you even understand what you're asking me to do? And then, on top of that, to ask me not to tell anyone about it."

"I know it's not easy," Riku offers, but his patronizing sympathy just makes me angrier.

"You're right. It isn't. And you're making it a thousand times more difficult! You want to talk about making sacrifices for the greater good, and you don't have the stones to handle this on your own? You're the fucking leader now, Riku. For gods' sake, grow a spine."

"That's not fair, and you know it." Riku answers icily

"Not fair? Not fair, do you hear yourself, Riku. You ask me to do this and you want to talk about fairness? Gods, you're such a selfish asshole."

Tears are streaming down my face now, and I dash at my eyes, trying to avoid smearing my makeup so Roxas doesn't see.

But, the damage is done.

Roxas looks between the two of us, with murder in his eyes as he locks eyes with Riku.

"What's going on?"

"It's nothing," I swipe at my eyes again and push past him, tears blurring my vision as I head for the exit. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas on what's up with Naminé? Review!

Sorry if this chapter seems kind of fillerish, but I need to set up some things to get ready for the final arc of the story. I'm actually kind of interested to see what you guys think of what Naminé and Riku might be up to—I'm trying really hard not to make it too obvious, but I'm not sure how I'm doing with that, so if you guys could let me know what you think, that'd be great!

See you next chapter!

~Script