loooong chapter

"Hey Leon? What was up before? You looked like you saw a ghost when we were at the Rising Falls." Yuffie asked the brunette.

Leon turned to the bookcase next to him and pulled a random book out. He opened it and didn't answer. What was there to say? 'Oh yeah, I heard a voice when we were out there.'

Aerith looked worried at Leons dismissal of the other teen's question. She too had noticed the wide eyes and frown before.

The door on the upper level of the Library opened and Cid stepped through it. "Hey Aerith! Look who I found!" Aerith looked up at Cid and saw a flash of a red cloak. Her eyes widened and a large smile graced her face. She rushed up the stairs and just about stopped herself from colliding into the stoic blonde.

Cloud lowered his gaze, looking shy but Aerith moved into his vision and smiled.

Leon allowed a small, rare smile to appear on his lips.

"Why are we here again?"

"To collect the Mesmerize Blades, silly!" Selphie pointed at bag holding the blades on Seifers back.

"Yeah...But why?" Selphie sighed and giggled.

"Because Quisty needs them for a class. We told you before Seify!" Seifer sighed and grinned. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't do or say anything to wind up Selphie. It had become a sort of game with them; see if Selphie could ignore Seifers moaning or if Seifer would get bored before then.

"All right Selph, you win this time." Selphie punched the air jokingly and smiled widely. "How many more do we need?" Seifer asked, pointing to the blades on his back. Selphie counted the ones they had.

"Well we needed 20 so we only need 7 more, then we can go back to Garden. Hey Seify?" She asked in a curious tone. "Isn't this the place that you and Squally used to train…?" Seifer nodded sadly.

"Yeah Selph, we always came up here because it was banned so we weren't disturbed by anyone…" Seifers eyes roamed the make shift battlefield and his eyes rested on two stains not that far away.

A long, rounded stain of blood was to the right and in front of it was splashes of Seifers blood.

Yeah Selph, this is where me and Squall marked each other.

Leon was at the Base of Rising Falls training in his old area. Yuffie was sitting on one of the floating rocks talking to him, or at least at him. Leon tended to zone out while he trained with the silver blade.

"Well Aerith seems happy again. She always seemed sad when we didn't know where Cloud was, but I guess we should have found him earlier I mean, he was at Olympus Coliseum, I mean how many times did we compete there? I guess we must have just missed him or summit. Did you hear anyway? While Cloud was there this big blue bad guy hired him! And he tried to take out Sora so that he could find Aerith and us. At least that's what the blue guy told him. I bet he was lying though 'cos he was a Meany." (1)

Leon sighed and stopped training, there was no way he could train with Yuffie constantly chatting, no matter how much he tried to zone out and concentrate on the sweeping arches of his blade.

Crossing over to where Yuffie sat, he rested his sword on the rock that held Yuffie and slumped down next to her.

Yuffies attention went to the Gunblade next to her and she stared into it with an interested expression.

"Hey Squall?" she asked tentatively. Leon was staring up at the sky and at first didn't seem to hear her. Yuffie was about to try to get his attention again when he closed his eyes, his face still tilted upwards.

"It's Leon…" He said simply.

Yuffie shrugged. "I like Squally better…. Anyhow, is your sword supposed to do that?" Leons eyes opened and he looked down at his sword, it seemed to be going in and out of focus. "Umm, no…it's not supposed to do that…"

Yuffie suddenly yelped and jumped away from the rock. "It's happening to you too Squall!" Leon looked down at his body and watched in horror as it blurred then became solid again.

A pink bubble emerged from out of the water and Aerith, Cloud and Cid materialised next to Leon and Yuffie. "Hey kids." Cid said as he took a drag from his cigarette. (2)

Aerith looked concerned at Yuffie.

"Yuffie? What's wrong sweetie?" Yuffie said nothing but pointed at the blurry and thoroughly confused Leon. Aerith gasped and stepped back. Cloud and Cid just stared at Leon. "Um…What the hell!" Cid managed to say as Leon came back into focus again. Yuffie walked up to Leon and tried to put her hand on his shoulder, her hand passed through the intended shoulder and Yuffie cried out. Leon stared at Yuffies hand in disbelief.

A little flash of light to his left alerted them to the fact that Leons sword had just vanished.

'I'm going to get you back Squall, the Time Compression will work this time.'

Leons eyes widened at a strange yet familiar voice in his thoughts. A pulling feeling about his midriff made him look down. The middle of his body looked like it was being stretched backwards. He looked like a television with bad reception as he blurred again. The pulling feeling came more violently and he lashed out to grab hold of anything to stop him from disappearing. Aerith, Yuffie, Cloud and Cid all shot forward at the same time as they reached for Leon. A bright white flash appeared as they reached Leons hand and when the whiteness disappeared, Leon was no where to be found.

"Come on Seify! Only one more Mesmerize blade to go!" her eyes scouted the area, either for fallen Mesmerize blades or for actual Mesmerize. A glint of Silver not far away caught her eye. "Aha!" she cried out happily. "Found you!" She bounded over to the Silver and Seifer followed her slowly, considerably tired of carrying all the Mesmerize blades on his back.

"Hn? Hey Seifer…? Isn't this Revolver?" Selphie lifted a silver Gunblade into the air, a roaring lion emblazed onto the edge. Seifer's eyes widened at the sight of the familiar gunblade. Before he had a chance to answer, Selphie had cried out and ran off. "Seifer! Oh Hyne! Seifer come quickly!" Seifer rushed over to where Selphie was kneeling and looked down upon an unconscious brunette.

"It's Squall, Seifer! He's come back!"

(1) Kweh! Beware the Yuffie ramblings!

(2) Hahaha XD I made the Kingdom Hearts Cids the Final Fantasy Cid with cigarettes…cos that Cid was so much cooler than a guy with a tooth pick in his mouth ¬¬;;

R+R! D