Wow… I can't say I din' like the attention I got with my last (or I suppose you could call it my first) attempt at a romance fic. In fact I'm writing another. (Duh.) This time however, things are a little different: it doesn't take place in Traverse Town (except at the beginning and at the end), Yuffie and Leon start out as a couple (this is not a fic in which they can't get over their differences and have trouble telling each other that they're in love), and there won't be very much fluff 'til the middle/and, but when it does, I'll try an' add extra fluff for making you wait. Enough of my blathering. I talk too much…
If I owned Kingdom Hearts, I would long since have taken the glory. Unfortunately, Squaresoft beat me to it. Dang.
~*~
Darkness… it was always dark in Traverse town, but now it was nearly pitch black and impossible to make out anything with unaided eyes. It only meant one thing—the Unknowns were on their way into the town again. Ever since the Heartless had disappeared, these things had shown up, and proved to be more terrifying than the Heartless had been. They had no distinct characteristics; they came in a wide range of sizes, from the size of a small rodent to the height of two full-grown men standing atop one another. They had no other definite traits. They were disgusting things, never holding one shape for long, molding their bodies into parts of different creatures, holding it for a moment, and shifting again. They could sink down like puddles of shifting colors and flow easily across the ground, winding themselves around unsuspecting victims and devouring them.
Yuffie stayed hidden behind an alley wall, glancing at the door leading to the town. People were panicking, trying to get themselves inside and away from the danger, although they didn't seem to realize that the Unknowns would follow them or find them if they wanted to. She waited for them to come, knowing that outside was the safest place for her to be—inside she would be a sitting duck, easy to corner, easy to kill.
She didn't have long to wait—the doors burst open, blowing a sharp wind, debris, and lumps of various sizes into the streets. Unknowns began their assaults, shifting their forms and selecting targets. She hid herself back in the alley and shivered. She couldn't watch this—the shifting shapes and colors made her feel ill. Very ill. And she was terrified of them. With the Heartless she was scared, but not so scared that she didn't fight them. At least she had a clear target. But with the Unknowns, they changed their shapes and flowed from one place to another very quickly, making them difficult to hit, even for someone like her.
She heard Cloud yelling and charging after them—he wasn't scared of them. Through the unnatural, sickening cries of the creatures, she also heard Leon's Gunblade as he, too, joined the fight. She looked, now, hoping that they would be all right, that nothing would happen. She looked just in time to see him slice in half one Unknown that was his size, shaped with a snakes' head, lions' forequarters, bears' hindquarters, and legs like a giant lizard. It dissolved into a puddle and melted away, just as they all did when killed. She felt something behind her, turned around, and shrieked.
Another Unknown had crept up behind her. It towered seven feet tall with a serpentine head with teeth far too big to fit into the mouth. It had too many arms, each like an octopus, but instead of suction discs on the bottom, lined with heavy spines. The body was unrecognizable—a cross between a giant spider and something with hooves. It reared, leashing at her with two of it's many arms.
The things' size slowed it down, giving her the advantage of her speed over it, but quick as she was, she couldn't escape being lashed by the spines lining the underside of the tentacles. She barely noticed it and rolled out into the street, whipping one of her shurikens at it and hitting it in the stomach. It screamed loudly and came after her, lashing at her again, but, thankfully, missing her. She threw more of her ammunition at it, getting it once in the shoulder, slicing one leg off, and hitting it low on its' body. It was still coming. Yuffie whimpered, climbing backwards onto some crates to escape it, but it was no use—it had her cornered.
"Please," she whispered. "Please, just go away. Give up. Go away." She was shaking so badly that she almost couldn't access her weapons. One last hit got it between the eyes, and it fell to the ground, where it thrashed, spilling multicolored blood onto the ground, changing shapes rapidly. It loosed one last, agonized, piercing scream that made her nose bleed before it stilled and melted away. A handful of small ones had heard the racket and came to get a free meal—most of the little creatures were smart enough to know that they couldn't get meals by themselves, but they could scavenge on what their larger, stronger counterparts had weakened or killed. This time, she was a little more ready.
The steadily shifting bodies moved closer to her, one taking on a pair of batlike wings and flying up to catch her in the back of the neck with talons that were too large for its' diminutive size. She swung her arm around at it, shoving it into a wall and crashing the place where its' skull was at that point. It melted on her arm, burning like acid. She cursed blackly but had no time to tend it—two more had climbed the crates. One she kicked off; the other went with a swipe of a shuriken across the throat.
With her share of Unknowns out of the way, she listened for what was happening out of her sight, but things had quieted. She heard Cloud yelling out Aeriths' name, running to find where she had hidden. Yuffie prayed to anything listening that everyone was safe. She heard someone running in her direction.
"Yuffie!" The footsteps stopped, turned around, and came back again. "Yuffie, dammit, where are you? Please be all right…"
"Define 'all right,'" she called back, indicating to Leon both where she was and that she was still in one piece. She started inching down the crates. Her back and shoulders throbbed where she had been hit several times, and her arm still burned where the acid of the dead Unknown had seared her. She missed her footing and fell to the ground.
In a few seconds, Leon appeared at the entrance to the alley, becoming a long shadow and an ominous silhouette. He ran down to the edge of the alley to meet her as she stood up. He didn't look as though he were in very good condition, either, but he wasn't concerned about himself. He stumbled over on the damp ground to see her. She looked up at him, struggling to smile.
"Give me a hand up?" She asked. He took both of her hands and pulled her up, going to support her back with one hand, only to have her yelp and plowed her face into his chest. He frowned and looked at his hand: it was covered in blood. Her blood. He looked over her shoulder at huge lashes dripping blood all down her back, and starting to trickle down her thighs. He also noticed the burn on her arm.
"Don't ever do that again," he whispered, holding her around her shoulders where she wasn't scratched up. She pulled away.
"Do what?" She asked, confused.
"Whatever you did to get yerself hurt like this. I dunno what the hell you did, but don' ever do it again." He kissed her forehead, then traveled down further to her lips. When he tightened his grip around her, she tore herself away from him, eyes clenched shut. Without having second thoughts about anything, he took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders, leading her back to the hotel where Cloud, Aerith, and Cid already waited.
"There you guys are," Cid had a relieved tone in his voice as he spoke to the pair. "We was starting to get worried 'bout you." He was in good shape—better than good shape. He must have hidden for this round. Aerith, too, bore no signs of confrontation with the Unknowns. She usually did hide from them—on Clouds' orders.
"What happened to you?" Cloud directed his question at Leon after seeing the blood on his hands, arms, and shirt, but it mostly wasn't his—it was Yuffies'. The blonde also bore combat wounds from his fight with the Unknowns—a heavily bandaged shoulder that bled on both sides (he must have been speared through) and a hand held a cloth to a cut on his forehead that kept dripping blood into his eye.
"Ferget me—Yufie needs some patching up." He gently pulled his jacket from her shoulders. When the girl turned a little to look at him, Aerith saw her wounds.
"You can swoon later," she informed her. "Let me clean you up before those get infected!" She pulled her away, finding her a shirt to put on just her arms to cover up as Aerith cleaned out the wounds. Having stripped off her own shirt so that her back (and her wounds) were accessible, Yuffie kept the shirt on her arms and pulled up and keep herself decent.
"Where do those things keep coming from?" Aerith asked as she worked.
"I've told you before—I dunno. No one seems to know. They just kinda… popped up. Uninvited." Cloud replaced the blood soaked clothed with a new one. "It seems like someone keeps makin' more of 'em, or else there's some world or unknown place where they're being transported from."
Cid sighed heavily. "I'm outta here. I'd like to get some sleep 'fore those things come back an' I gotta go hide or fight." He left the Red Room to go to his own room down the hall. The rest of them stayed silent for a while as Aerith finished her work on Yuffie. Although she had used Curgra on her wounds and Clouds', the injuries sustained during fights with the Unknowns didn't heal easily. The nasty gashes were sealed, but were still heavily bruised and painful.
"That's the best that I could do," she said apologetically. Yuffie gave her an overly grateful smile.
"Don't be so hard on yerself," she told her friend. "I feel so damn much better now than I did a few minutes ago." She slid the shirt on the rest of the way and picked up what remained of her old shirt. When she stood, the thick cotton shirt came down to her knees. She looked at Cloud. "You prob'ly want this back."
He looked at it. "Keep it as long as you need it," he said. He leaned his head back and took the cloth from his cut again. It wasn't bleeding so badly anymore, but blood had matted itself into his hair and onto his skin, staining him. Aerith looked at him, extremely worried, but she said nothing and stayed where she was. Yuffie looked at Leon and jerked her head towards their door, mouthing the words, "Come on." Unnoticed, they slipped away. As she shut the door, Yuffie saw Aerith fall into Clouds' lap with her head buried in her arms.
"Geez," she whispered, leaning on the door as much as she could without hurting herself. "Poor Aerith. She's so scared…"
"And you aren't?" Leon asked coolly.
"No, actually, I'm not," she answered, just as nonchalantly. He stared at her, and she continued. "I'm completely, utterly terrified. I just hide it better." She shivered and closed her eyes. She felt very sleepy suddenly and almost nodded off.
"Go to bed, Yuffie."
She stumbled over, falling onto the mattress as her knees gave out. She looked up at him as he watched out the window. "You comin'?"
"Eventually." He looked over at her as she drifted off to sleep. "Sweet dreams."
~*~
How have I written so freakin' much? Ah well, who cares. You people love reading my stuff—admit it! Aren't my made-up villains, like, sooo awesome? I thought they were creepy. Remember how much reviews speed up chapters? Well—review! Yes, this is L/Y, but most of it won't take place in Traverse, and the fluff scenes will be on and off until the middle/end. You'll see what I mean later. I don' wanna ruin the s'prise!
*holds self against the door to hold Leon/Aerith fans at bay* Geez, these guys dunno when to stop! We gotta get a tranquilizer gun and some water buffalo sedatives.