CH 20
"Riku decided to do WHAT?!"
Axel raised his hands in surrender and backed away from Namine's wrath and Kairi's worry. "It was his descision to stay behind. Heh...he set up a room for himself, can you believe it?!"
"I don't see what's so funny." Roxas snarled at the person he considered a brother, who was trying to chuckle the situation's tension away during the last statement. "I think he's turned on us. Come on, we all know his history with the witch!"
Kairi clutched her hands together "No. That's not it. Riku's sending a signal to us."
Everyone turned to her, and she stood and began to pack a small knapsack. "I wasn't sure before, but I've thought about it from another angle now."
Roxas snorted "What're you talking about?"
Namine's eyes went wide as her Somebody began packing for the others as well, and as she worked, she explained in a bit of a hurried way, the tension easing even more as her words sank in to the Nobodies around her.
"Don't you all see? The past three days, Riku's been playing scout. Scoping out the situation and determining his next move. Well, the next move he's chosen happens to be to get closer to Sora."
"That was never part of the plan!" Axel argued
"Not part of your new plan, Axel." The princess of Heart shot back as she tossed him a knapsack "If you remember, Riku did mention in your original strategy that all of us had to stay the three weeks at the celebration, not here hiding. I think something happened tonight that triggered him to go with this approach. He has history with Maleficent yes, Roxas, but he's hjad his eyes opened to the many quirks of danger and Darkness since then."
Namine nodded slowly, beginning to see what her somebody was saying "He must have read something in that witch's undertones that signaled she was getting ready to say we didn't keep our end of the deal. He wouldn't risk Sora's life on the chance that maybe she meant just showing up for three weeks."
"So he's having us go all out. We'll stay at the castle, then she'd have no excuses at the end of the party." Roxas finished the thought, "Clever bastard."
Kairi smiled "He really is. Now, Riku's given us the go-ahead, so let's go and get it done."