Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts. All I own is the plot, no matter how absent it may be.
Warnings: Yaoi, Alternate Universe, the like. If you don't approve of things like that…yadda yadda…click the back button. Thank you. :3
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Some of the most amazing authors have reviewed this ficcie. :D I'm utterly flattered.
Yeah… I can't help but write in segments. xD It's a habit.
So, yes. Thanks so so much for all the oh-so-pretty reviews. :D I read them over and over and it strokes my ego. x3 And makes me write more.
Originality's what I'm (hopefully) aiming for, so it meant a lot that some people said I was doing it right. :D If that makes any sense. o.o
I know this one took a while. I was so into writing Gutter Snipe (read that one, too:3) and studying (one week of finals left…) that I basically drafted this story for days and days. A high point though, I have the next two or three chapters outlined.
There's a few key characters introduced in this chapter. Watch for them.
And we enter some odd form of a plot! Enjoy.
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Running With Scissors
-Chapter Five-
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Leon loathed paperwork.
That was the only thought jogging circles through his psyche as he ruffled through the mess of documents on his desk.
But it came with the package. That and all the information he had to go through before the initiation date.
Leon was spending his well-earned day off reading through some outlines of the incoming students. Part of his employment was to separate those with…potential, and those without. (He just had to wait until the last day, didn't he?)
A cruel circumstance, but someone had to do it, and he'd rather not offer the job to one of the others – some of them would have looked at a person's picture and flunked them on whether the canvasser thought they looked pretty enough or not.
Most people weren't photogenic, and Leon didn't want those who weren't to be deprived because of something as foolish as that.
"Crap." His mumble interrupted his office's quiet. A swipe of the latest manila folder and a glare was set upon the thin, angry red paper cut garnishing the back of his hand.
…It wasn't large or significant enough to need the medic's help, Leon deemed. (Aerith would have made him sit and wrapped it in gauze until he couldn't twitch his fingers, anyway.) Besides, the school's nurse was too involved in that other incident with the cat – he didn't want to bother her.
Still, reasons like this were why laptops were invented.
Leon glared embers at the thin line of red – willing it to heal – while muttering obscenities in his head. (Honestly, if anyone heard the inner workings of his mind just then…)
A tan folder slipped out of his grasp and slid mockingly onto the floor.
He picked it up and held back an annoyed exhale at the name, even as he reached out and pushed a button on his computer than gave off a light glow soon afterwards. …Figures that Almasy was causing trouble, even if it was just his name file.
Seifer Almasy was the only student at the academy who had a last name starting with an 'A'. So Leon placed his file on top of the rather selective file, and didn't think any more of it. The dirty-blonde's hair seemed to emphasize his white clothing as he stared at the ceiling. Unblinking eyes unnerved him.
…It was just a picture. There was no need to turn into a poet.
He focused his energy, and the laptop's screen lit up the crown of his mahogany desk, washing the area in a suffusion of green light.
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This school was more complex than other ones he had been to. (And he had been to quite a few.) Sora had just dropped off another notice – reminding him to finish all his papers for the orientation tomorrow.
(They all had different designs, too. Who took time to make this many?)
Sora had dodged around movers as he came in, casting a curious look at the blonde doppelganger of himself rushing in and out of the bathroom.
Frankly, Cloud was lucky to have met him.
"What do you mean there are no more – where do I stay, then?" Cloud was remarkably calm in finding out he had no place to live for the rest of the term.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Strife, but all the rooms have already been booked. We had a limited amount of space at first, and we can't just take away a private room from someone who applied beforehand." The secretary genuinely looked apologetic.
"Damn…" Cloud sighed, dropping his duffel bag onto the floor. (He left the rest of his stuff on the car he had driven over to the campus in.) He looked over at Leon, raising an eyebrow and asking what he was supposed to do.
The brunette shrugged. "You're going to have to buy your own apartment, preferably near here. Or…you could drop out." Drop out. Dump all the recognition and settle for less. That's what Leon was really saying.
Sometimes, Cloud hated Leon's bluntness.
"Or find someone who wouldn't mind sharing." The secretary added, trying to be helpful. Nervous fingers smoothed out invisible wrinkles.
A sigh, then a sudden jerk and blue eyes settled on the teen leaning against the wall near the door. Sensing that he was being watched, Riku looked up and blinked at the sudden attention.
"…Can I help you?"
And it had basically gone downhill from there.
Riku had refused to gasp at the sheer amount of foreign objects Cloud had deigned to bring with him. Boxes upon boxes of clothes, supplies – were those hair-care products?
Unknowing to his plight, Cloud happily brought in another wrapped package and bounced it onto Riku's well-made bed. He grinned at the distraught expression on the younger's face.
"You're lucky my room's so big."
Another grin, somehow seeming wider than the first. "I really am. And lucky to have almost tripped you yesterday." He tapped the box he had placed on Riku's bed, bringing it to light. "Moving in present."
He waltzed out of the room before Riku had a chance to arch his eyebrow in his famous disbelieving expression.
His gaze drifted to the box. Sitting there all innocent and square, who did it think it was?
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Leon looked up Cloud's file. (Out of curiosity's sake.) The computer made things so amazingly easy – why hadn't he thought of it sooner?
'Cloud Strife. Attended three schools previously – all focusing on increasing swinging strength. Also majored in psychology for a year.'
That was interesting.
The computer continued to list a bunch of statistics that meant nothing – such as how often Strife spent more than 300 dollars from his bank account.
It was scary how far technology had advanced, sometimes.
'Has mastered custom weapon summoning.'
This of course, led Leon to thinking upon his meeting with the blonde the other day. And the unexpected, but not unwelcome, tag along.
"You look like Sora's brother."
"…Who's Sora?" And Cloud did look baffled, staring at his silver-haired companion. His foot tapped a beat only he could hear on the tile flooring.
"…This guy I met yesterday. Or two days ago, not sure." And it was odd how Riku could talk perfectly around the spoon he had stuck in his mouth.
Leon tried to look up Riku, but he could only go so far without knowing the kid's last name. The laptop came up with two different spellings. 'Riku' or 'Rikku'.
Male of female?
A beep made him blink and open his e-mail. (He was so exultant that day when some prominent company had replaced the famous 'You've got mail!' catch phrase they had going. The nice, new beep was much less trying.)
From the headmaster again. Ansem. Or Xenmas – he had never told the staff his real name.
It made him think twice of who he was working for.
The forwarded letter stated the time and place of the meeting tomorrow.
All the instructors were to gather at one of the lower mezzanines. He'd love to see how that turned out. Kids being taught by others that weren't any older than themselves – it'd cause some fighting, Leon was sure.
In any case… In the end, documents on paper didn't tell a thing about a person's abilities.
He switched off the light and retired to bed.
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"So how's life over there?" Zell asked. Riku could imagine him lounging on his bed, flipping through the latest motorcycle magazines while balancing his miniature cell phone on his ear.
"Not too bad." Riku replied. He toed off his shoes and sat on his bed, debating on whether he should open the box Cloud had given him, or wait until he felt like getting up for a scissor to get the packaging tape off. "I met a few people."
"Yeah? No one's treating you too badly, right? Cause if…"
"No worries. They're nice – it's been fun. Better than those other schools, anyway."
A sigh from the speaker. "Guess you'll be staying there a while, then?"
"Probably." Riku frowned at the new bed across the room. Cloud hadn't tidied up yet. "Anything interesting happen?"
"…Your mom swung by the other day."
He stopped himself from making the short walk across the room. "What?"
"Yeah. We were surprised too. But you never really talked about her, so we didn't interfere or anything." A pause. "Should we have?"
His best friend was fiercely protective.
"No…no. She's…all right. She cares – in her own little way." Broke up with his dad ages ago, Riku knew. So she couldn't be too bad.
"Ah, all right." There was a knock on Zell's door through the phone, and Riku heard someone say something, but couldn't make it out. "I have to go – we're going out for dinner."
Riku felt his first pang of homesickness, because that was a place that he had really considered home. Not really a pang, more like a ping.
They almost always ate dinner together. …Maybe it was just the change in schedule that bothered him.
"Oh, okay. Have fun."
"Will do. Quis and Selph send their love. Barrett said he'd keep your bike for you."
"Tell him thanks. Take care." Riku hung up the phone.
He'd barely returned his arm to rest on the bed before it rang again.
"You take forever to hang up, you know?" Kairi. Her voice was a lot different from Zell's slightly deeper speech.
"Sorry. It was one of the friends from home."
"Oh. Do you miss them a lot?" He liked the way she phrased that sentence. It wasn't too prying – just a yes or no answer.
"Yeah – we were pretty close."
"Mm… I'm just calling to remind you about the message tomorrow."
"…Message?" His eyes drifted to a pile of papers sitting on his drawer, on top of his bag of markers.
Oh right. Sora. Notices. Assembly tomorrow.
"Rikuuu. You didn't forget already, did you?" He could imagine Kairi rolling her eyes over the phone.
"No no. Course not."
"Great. We'll meet you there tomorrow – do you knew where the terrace is?"
His head drew him a mental map, and he traced a line from his dorm to the place previously mentioned. "Yeah, I know where it is." A chuckle. "Don't worry so much, Kairi. I'll meet you guys there."
"Don't be late." She replied, before they respectively hung up.
It was surprising how fast he had taken to the duo's friendship. They were a lot more open that others he was used to – they wore their hearts on their sleeves.
But he'd learned not to do that, so Riku wasn't sure where to go from there.
Cloud didn't snore, Riku was happy to find out later that night. He breathed deeply, but it didn't cause him any discomfort, so Riku ignored it and concentrated on the fact that he didn't feel any different with someone sleeping in the same room with him.
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It took almost three-quarters of an hour to gather everyone necessary for the assessment.
Leon observed the examinees, some standing rigidly that spoke of extreme guidance or overworked protocol. Others stood relaxed. Yet others had turned a fraction sideways and had one hand brushing the top handles of various artillery.
They were…promising. Some of them could easily be undiscovered prodigies.
The staff didn't take roll calls. Those who weren't there yet didn't deserve his attention.
Leon waited for quietness to settle, as it often did during extended periods of time, and gave the call to begin, directing two of the taller trainees to a pair of instructors sitting astride Leon himself.
And the sky erupted in a flurry of fire and maelstrom.
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Riku looked up in the middle of his conversation.
He heard someone throw out a loud call, and saw a blonde flash from the side perceptive of his left eye, before instincts forced his hand to raise and defend with the blunt side of his decorative sword.
His packet of papers scattered on the ground in front of him.
He barely heard Kairi's shocked gasp and Sora's rushing curse before he was forced to turn and defend from another angle. Riku briefly caught sight of his attacker, a current of silver that he found inside his own mirror image.
A cut appeared on his shoulder, where his sword, so unsuited to himself, failed him and snapped.
Riku held up the blade's handle, its knifepoint having been flung off into the crowd. And as he interpreted his sudden disadvantage, a conflagration detonated over his back, the burn singeing end brushes of his hair.
A blade resembling a gun flung a ball of fire at his assailant, and as if that were a silent call, others raised their hands at this blur he called an opponent.
A few yards away, cold, storm-gray eyes comforted him before they turned away.
Leon. But he didn't have time to think about him.
And as he felt another rush of heat, a rush of magic exploding onto the skin of his forearm, his right hand dove into his rather deep pocket and pulled out a faded, ochre scroll. Even as his other limb cringed a deep red, then black.
Riku's mind found a slight widening of eyes, then a faint upturning of lips from his aggressor, and that moment froze for a period, allowing him to go over every detail, before time started and he raised the scroll to his mouth.
He tore off the string with his teeth, faintly noting a bitter, sharp taste running off the twine, into his mouth. A disparity, in which he knew he wasn't meant to use…
There was a flash of bleak utter whiteness that, while stopping the burn near his arm, granted him blindness for a split moment in which other needed to win.
When he shook it off, neon spots adorning his eyesight, his features disappeared as a black wing shadowed his eyes from the sun. Glowing and slit, green eyes so similar to his own, obscured his view.
He heard words that caused his throat to boil before he was knocked unconscious, to the beautiful ringing of other weapons being brought out and meshed against each other.
"You'll do."
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When one stops in the middle of an act, and runs away, the one left behind has to wonder what he did wrong.
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-End Chapter Five-
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It's been almost a month since I updated this one, hasn't it? Sorry about that. --; Finals and everything is finally catching up with me.
…But there are only two more weeks of tests! Then it's summer for two whole months. x3 Cheers. :D
So, a bit more drama in this chapter. The next one's in the midst of typing up, so it may take a while. But I've got the gist of it already. And…there may be some CloudxRiku floating around. Ignore it – it might go away after a while…
About that summary… The LR stands for LeonxRiku. The SphRC…
Rikku works in that store from last chapter, yes, but she's also a student.
Anyway. Hate it? Questions? Take a few minutes and drop me a review?
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