More chapters! I know you people are just positively ecstatic! I have you worried, now, with the fact that I took away Yuffie's sight. Dun worry, it ain't gonna last forever. Juss so ya don' worry.
IF YOU STILL NEED TO SEE A FRIGGEN DISCLAIMER, I SHALL PERSONALLY TAKE YOUR COMPUTER AND GIVE IT TO YOU INTREVENOUSLY—WITHOUT BREAKING IT UP FIRST! I have absolutely no patience with stupid people, as evidenced. (But that makes little sense because I'm pretty dumb, too… then again, I dun have all that much patience with myself, either.)
~*~
Leon saw Yuffie clawing at something underneath her shirt but he had no idea what was going on. He had one vague idea, and that was that something was hurting her. He slunk across the roof and pried her hands off of her chest before she did herself actual harm. She nipped at his hands.
"Yuffie, what is going on?" He demanded. He hadn't released her hands still, and another wave of pain hit her, stronger than the last. They had no idea where she was, and were using the pain to get her to go back to the fortress. The purpose of the harness in the first place was to get her to act without thinking, and sometimes it worked, but Discord and Disarray had made the mistake of using their worst punishments from it early on, and she got used to it and was mostly able to ignore it. But not now.
She plowed herself into Leon's chest, whimpering, but not making any more noise than that. The pains subsided and became a steady throb, but nothing more. She shivered and sat back, hugging her knees.
"What was that all about? How do you know that they know where you are?" He asked. "And who's 'they,' anyway?"
"Discord. And Disarray. They're the ones that brought me here—they kinda control the Unknowns. I dunno what they want me for, but I heard 'em saying they were gonna take control of the worlds."
"You mean like what Ansem tried doing?" He sounded shocked that anyone would try to do something so stupid again. Especially after what had happened to Ansem. Yuffie nodded. "So how do they know yer gone? An' how do you know that they know?"
Figuring the best explanation for his question was just to see what was causing the pain, she sat a few steps away from him and opened her shirt, not caring what else he saw (even though she still wore her own clothes under it), just as long as he got the idea of the slave harness. He remained speechless for some time as he stared at the small metal disc that had fused itself into her skin from burning so often. It was another wound that had not healed properly.
"One of them controls it," she explained as she closed the shirt. "I dunno which one. Maybe they switch on an' off, but whenever I do something that they don' like, they use it to try an' get me to stop. Like a cattle prod. Only constantly attached to my skin."
"Oh," Leon said in a small voice, not thinking of anything else to say. Yuffie turned her head behind her, suddenly alert, like a deer that had just heard something coming.
"Unknowns," she said. "Down there. Take a look." She pointed to the ground below them where a team of Unknowns left the fortress, each of them bearing a weapon. They marched out in two single-file lines like soldiers. "Damn, they've gone off looking for me…" she wrinkled her nose in distaste.
"So what're we gonna do, just sit up here and wait around to be butchered?" Leon asked. He watched the Unknowns file out. There were at least thirty in each line that had exited the fortress. Sixty in all. The ground was definitely not a safe place to be.
"Nope," Yuffie said. "We're gonna sit around up here and ait until the ground is covered with troops. Then we'll get back inside and wait until they've come back in."
"What? Have you lost your mind?" He hissed.
"No, not really. Think about it," she told him. "They know I'm missing, right?"
"Yea…"
"So they're gonna go looking for me. And they know that I'll try to escape, so the first places they'll check are outside the fortress walls. The very last place they'd look for me is inside."
That made more sense than it didn't. "So how long d'ya think we have to wait 'til we can get out?" He asked.
"Not long. They give up pretty fast." She crept over to the door that led back into the fortress. "C'mon, back down this way. Yer prob'ly gonna have to crawl in the ceiling rafters some so we can get around without bein' noticed. Think you'll be okay with it?" She pulled the door shut behind them as they began the descent down the tightly spiraled staircase.
They went back into the hallway and Yuffie closed the stone wall panel and went down a different hallways, not the one leading to the jail cell that she had been trapped in.
"Do you have any idea where you're going?" Leon asked her as they ran.
"None whatso ever."
"Thanks for the overwhelming reassurance."
"Any time." Yuffie grinned in spite of the danger they were in. She stopped short. Leon crashed into her from behind, knocking her down.
"What now?" He helped her up.
"Discord and Disarray and a few guards are coming," she barely whispered. "Quick, find somewhere to hide!" She took her own advice and found a nice in the wall where torches were kept, but this one was empty. She braced herself in it by putting her feet on one side and pressing her back to the other and holding herself up at the very top of the torch slot. Leon, being none so good at climbing, hid in a rather clever place, where no one would look for him—out in the open, having found a loose stone on the side of a bench, removed it, and crawled beneath it, he looked out through a small crack and held his breath.
"—found solid evidence that someone else has made it into out fortress! Discord, you've much to answer for! It was a terrible idea to use the Unknowns to guard the outside gates! They're so stupid they would let anyone in!" A shrill voice said. Yuffie recognized it immediately: Disarray.
"They'll follow my orders," a smooth male voice answered. "They would not let anyone into the fortress. Whomever it was had obviously just gotten lucky—no need to worry, my dear. I have sent troops out to look for the girl. Eighty more Unknown are patrolling the perimeter, searching for her and whomever found their way into the fortress."
"And if they're still here?" Disarray hissed. "You haven't thought of everything, yet! If something goes wrong, the Unknowns could lead to our destruction!"
"They wouldn't dare. I created them. They will not turn on their creator."
"How do you know?"
"Because. I created them. I know them inside and out."
"Things don't always turn out exactly according to a master plan, Discord. Remember Sorrow and the Heartless? He created them, designed them to follow his every order, and they broke from his control and led to mass destruction—including his own."
"Sorrow was a fool. I am far more careful than he was."
"I don't care!" There was an extremely exaggerated huff. "Fine, have it your way. Double the troops on the outside. I don't want her getting away." Their voices faded as they left. Leon and Yuffie waited a long time after the silence before they came out of their hiding places.
As Leon replaced the stone he'd taken out, Yuffie approached him.
"They're the ones. Avoid 'em like anthrax."
"Oh, don't worry," he said, dusting himself off. "I 'ave every intention of doing so." He slipped an arm around her shoulders. She seemed not to notice—she was deep in thought about something.
"The Heartless… one of them created them? But how is that—?" She clenched her fists in agitation. "This is getting more and more complicated as time goes by."
"I know," he murmured, holding her close. She shrugged him off.
"No now. The sooner we get outta here, the better." She paused. "Which gets me to this question: how did you get here?"
"Stole a Gummi ship from Cid. Totaled it, too." When she wrinkled her nose and screwed up her face in disgust, he added, "Sorry."
"No problem. There's other ways to get back. I think I know how, actually." Her lips curved into a sly grin.
"Don't smile like that, yer givin' me ideas."
"Steady, Leon. Cool yer hormones 'til we get outta here." She took off again down the halls, apparently trying to find something. "I'm gonna need you to do me a favor."
"What's that?" He kept behind her.
"Yer gonna have to be the only pair of eyes between us. I need you to look for a large gathering of Unknowns—not the big ones, the smaller ones—the kind that we found all the time in Traverse."
"Um… all right," he stammered. "What for?"
"Those are the ones they send to the different worlds. With luck, we kin get back to Traverse with them." She shuddered. "Hopefully, it'll work."
"How will we know where they're going?" Leon asked.
Yuffie stopped short. "Hadn't thought 'a that…"
"Unless the only place they've been sending 'em is Traverse."
"We can only hope."
Doors began slamming; heavy footsteps sounded from all directions. Yuffie had been right: Unknowns gave up their search relatively quick, and were looking for her inside, now.
"Run," Yuffie whispered.
"What?"
"Run!" She grabbed his hand and sped off like a bullet, getting as far away from the Unknowns as possible. Hiding was useless when there were so many—they were marching after them, trying to catch them. Now their only hope was the moat, and swimming across it.
~*~
'Nother cliffy. Sorry, guys, but my dad wants the computer, and I want to get a new chapter posted now. So I'll start on the next one once I get the computer back. Sound fair? Good. Please review!
Ellyrianna: I dunno what happened to the format, but if you want, I can email you the chapter. It looks fine to me, but maybe it's the computers. *shrug* Me no know.
REVIEW!!