The Magic of the Earth and the Sky
by Flare Haynekie
Disclaimer: …………
Warnings: AU, OOC-ness, shonen-ai
Author's note: Hehe. I don't think anyone noticed, but in the beginning of chapter 28 Sora tells Roxas that it's all Pao's fault. XD Indirect way of saying that it's the Paopu's fault! Yes, something was wrong with me when I wrote that. It makes me giggle now every time I read it.
Ahh! All the AkuRoku mushiness of the last chapter is somehow irritating! What about Riku and Sora! (grumbles) I have issues with my own fic now. XD Much fun, though!
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Chapter 29: Homework and cowboys
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"Roxaius dies in the beginning of the war along with Lae." Sora declares as they sat at Caroline's shop working on homework once again.
The comment drew everyone's attention.
"Who?" Roxas asked, slightly confused, but not really wanting to know.
Sora shifted for a few seconds before looking at Roxas. "You and Axel."
Selphie quickly spoke up. "There's a war!"
Riku nodded. "The heavenly kin and the earth kin declared war on each other after Hikari goes over to each king and rats us out."
Sora sighed. "Me and Riku ran up to Riku's castle to find out what was going on, but had to run around the place to hide from both races. It was a completely idiotic idea." He pouted, writing down another sentence on his paper.
"Who's Hikari?" Tidus asked.
"I'll give you a guess." Riku said, noticing Sora already dropped the subject. The brunet was too absorbed in what he was writing, which was namely the play.
Selphie gasped. "It's Kairi! And she was so mean! Hikari almost killed Wolf!"
"Wolf?" Tidus and Wakka asked.
"He was my wolf cub. I was allowed to keep him." Selphie smiled, happy with the memory. "But sometimes I would leave him here. And someone would take care of him for me. I just can't remember what his name was…"
"Irving." Sora murmured, looking up. "The human with the red-ish hair and the cowboy hat."
Selphie grinned. "That was his name!"
"You really had a huge crush on him too." Sora nodded to himself, going back to the papers.
Selphie blushed. "I did not… well, maybe just a little."
Roxas sighed. "I die? Why do I have to die? I don't think that's fair."
Sora looked up again. "It's not my fault. That's how things happened."
Roxas glared. "How do you know? You're the one writing the play, not retelling what happened!"
Tidus gave a nervous chuckled. "Sora is retelling what happened. His memories are the clearest of all."
Wakka nodded. "Which means that your memories, Roxas, are not completely clear yet!"
"Oooh!" Selphie smiled. "I want to make him remember! It sounds like fun!"
"I think Ro should remember on his own." Sora stated, then turned to Riku. "Earth kin had wolf genes in them…"
Riku smiled. "You remember that?"
Sora nodded, smiling too. "Your tail was fluffy." He chuckled. "Being able to cuddle it before the attack at the castle was nice."
"Yeah."
Sora sighed, turning to look at Wakka and Tidus. "Are you two going to keep cuddling under the table? Well, you two were always shy." Sora tapped the table with the pencil before writing down on the papers, muttering aloud. "Tasuke and Watari."
Tidus blushed. "We're not cuddling under the table, Sora!"
Wakka pulled Tidus to himself, whispering something to him, before letting him go, Tidus nodding as he turned to his homework. "Fine. You win, Sora. And for your information, we were not shy. Not now, and certainly not back then. We were just cautious."
Sora smiled. "You were just humans! It wasn't like me and Riku, being different races and all."
Roxas slammed his hand on the table, drawing everyone's attention. "What in the world do you mean by that!"
Sora pouted. "What do you mean what do I mean by that? It's probably because you, Selphie, Lae, Cloud, and I were heaven kin. Riku, Squall, and Yuffie were earth kin. Tidus, Wakka, and Irvine were humans. You should really shut up and try to remember instead of randomly shooting questions and getting random answers as well."
Roxas glared. "They're not random questions! Just because you know more than I do… but you really don't, do you? Because you're the one who was named different."
"That has nothing to do with this!" Sora argued, still pouting for all it was worth.
"Yes it does. It really does and you know it. And you hated me for passing you the heir rights after Cloud passed them to me."
Sora sighed. "Well, I'm glad you're remembering… but you really shouldn't hold it against me. I didn't hate you after I had the heir rights. I did a little, at first. But Cloud told me it was okay." Sora sniffed. "You two were so selfish. You only renounced to being the heir to follow your true loves and not have to marry Hikari if the earth kin lost in the war. Why couldn't you see that I wanted my own free love too?"
Riku grabbed the crying brunet, rubbing his back constantly. Roxas stared with wide eyes, the rest of the table inhabitants quiet.
"What do you mean free love?" Roxas asked. "Lae and I were going to run away before the war started. Cloud had said that he would too if it came to that matter. But you never told us you had someone you loved."
Sora nodded. "I did, I did! The day you went shopping for the white ribbon. Didn't I tell you I was going to see my love?"
"You meant him!" Roxas pointed to Riku, earning a nod from Sora. "I thought you were kidding! I… I'm so sorry. You had to be the heir and everything."
Sora shook his head. "Cloud took it back when the castle was burning. Cloud… went to fight. Cloud stopped the war."
"But… you died? I mean, I think I remember seeing Riku at the passing gates. He was waiting for you, but he was only there way after we were there."
Sora looked at him puzzled. "The passing gates?"
"Yeah, you know. The gates you pass when you're going to be reborn?"
"I found Riku there! And we crossed together. And… but I drowned…"
Riku looked down at Sora. "What do you mean you drowned!"
Sora looked up with a pout. "Why did you think I met up with you at the passing gates so fast? Well, it took a week or so to be really weak from not eating before I fell into the waters and just drowned…"
Selphie looked at him, rubbing the tears as they fell. She didn't know. She hadn't known. It was just so sad. Axel was silent, holding Roxas hand. Tidus and Wakka stared at each other worriedly, then back at Riku and Sora.
No one had known that. Then again, they had all been separated when the war started.
Sora looked up at the entrance of the store, noticing a strange man walking in, his long auburn hair tied back into a loose ponytail. He looked around, smiling at Caroline when she welcomed him, and tipping his cowboy hat in a mock curtsy. He looked over at the table where they all sat and waved before looking around some more.
"Hey, isn't that…?" Sora started, but didn't finish.
Selphie squealed for all it was worth, jumping out her chair and going over to the strange man and jumping on him. "IRVING!"
Axel laughed, Sora covered his eyes, Riku twitched, Tidus and Wakka stared speechless, and Roxas looked at her worriedly. Selphie, on the other hand, happily cuddled the one she jumped on.
"Oh, my God!" she squealed. "It's Irving! That's so awesome! We were just talking about you!"
The man looked up at her, smiling and patting her head. "It's not Irving anymore, lil heaven kin girl. It's Irvine."
Selphie blinked. "Irvine? That's such a strange name."
"I like it, Selai." Irvine held her as he made his way to the table. He smiled at the others. "Hi, I'm Irvine."
"Oooh! Look, Irvine! That's Prince Sorae, with Prince Rikue. And over here is Prince Roxaius. And your friends, Tasuke and Watari! One big reunion!" Selphie grinned, pointed to each one as she mentioned them.
"Wow. I get to meet the princes again. But, where's Prince Cloud?"
"Cloud's somewhere, probably hunting down Squally."
Irvine placed Selphie back on her chair. "Squally? You mean, the earth prince's bodyguard? Yun's brother?"
"That's the one!" Selphie was overly happy. "Cloud is currently Sora's cousin, while Yuffie is Riku's cousin."
"Yuffie?"
"Ah, that's Yun's name now. Mine's Selphie. That's Tidus and Wakka, Riku with Sora, and Axel the pyro with Roxas. And Squally's name is now Leon."
Axel glared. "What do you mean pyro? Just because my hair is red, doesn't signify anything."
Roxas laughed. "That's funny. I never thought about it before. Axel the pyro."
"Roxas." Axel whined, cuddling the small blond.
Irvine grinned at them. "And? What're you all doing here?"
Half of them replied homework. Sora said he was writing the play's script, Riku was helping Sora, and Axel was helping Roxas with their physics homework. Selphie eww-ed when she heard Axel, turning to him and asking him to help her too.
"All of you are in school?" Irvine asked, curious, dragging a nearby chair from the other table to sit next to Selphie.
Selphie nodded. "Last year of high school. Sora, Roxas, and Axel moved here from Kuri city, and Cloud's supposed to be doing some project for his university." She informed, proud of knowing.
"Is that so." Irvine tipped his hat back, letting it fall off his head and to stay on his shoulders by the cord. "I'm an university student from Kuri City too. I'm here doing a project on the Paopu fruit."
Sora rolled his eyes. "Another one. First is Cloud coming to study the legend, and now it's you, coming to study the fruit. What'll we have next? Someone studying the Fate Weaver?"
Riku grinned. "You're just asking for someone to come by and tell you that they came to study that tree."
"Of course!" Sora nodded, tapping the table with the pencil a few times before practically jumping on the papers and writing.
Tidus and Wakka continued doing their homework. Axel kept trying to explain a complex formula to Roxas, who was spacing off a lot. And Selphie was entertained playing with Irvine's hair as Irvine tried to convince her to finish her homework.
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To Be Continued!
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(Author's rants)
Oy vey, I would like to know what in the world was I smoking when I wrote this. Clearly it was a weird chapter! Okay, so most of the legend has been brought to light, but since I know almost every detail of it, I still don't know what I've missed explaining here. So if anyone would be so utterly kind as to point out things that might be missing, I would finally finish.
(Things you should know)
With Irvine's apparition (finally), and most of the legend explained, I am proud to say that the fic might end in five more chapters…. I think. MAYBE! I'm saddened in a way that it's already ending. I'm really fond of this fic.
(Things I was hearing and/or working on while writing this chapter)
Here's a fun new section, mostly because I do so many random things between writing the fic itself, it's interesting.
First the hearing:
1. Two Final Fantasy AMVs one with the song "Lost Complex" by Iceman, and the other with the song "Bomflink MCS" and either the artist is Freestyler, or that's part of the title. I'm not entirely sure.
2. A lot of DDR music and anime music. I've been trying not to hear "Passion – after the battle" because the images I have for this song are of Cloud dragging Riku away from Sora while the castle is on fire, Cloud stopping the heaven kin from attacking, Sora drowning, Sora meeting up with Riku at the Passing Gates, and then lots of images from the entire fic. Trust me, to me it's such a sad song, it makes me cry (OMG, pathetic much?)l.
3. I actually put "Final Fantasy: Advent Children" at one point in Japanese, and just typed away while hearing it. Much fun.
4. Trying to finish the second season of QaF. Sigh. Such a complicated series.
Second, the other working:
1. The Albel/Fayt fic "A little bit of love". I already have six chapters of this, two are posted here on the site, and the rest are hogging my computer.
2. A title-less Riku/Sora vampire fic (which is lots of fun) on a notebook I carry around everywhere. This is a very, very weird fic. I assure you. And once I finish Earth-Sky, I'll start passing this one. This is where Roxas is Sora's cousin, Riku was sorta raped, Axel is perverted like crazy, and Squall is bitchy. Insanity ensues every night.
3. A present for Yans, who is in California and will visit her hometown (cough island cough) for a while soon! Whoot! But it's her b-day present, so it's for August.
4. Looking for a part-time. I'm money-less. Sob, sob.
That's all! Whoot! Oy, I'm crazy. XD
(Reviews)
1. Prozacfairy – so far the title that's been stuck in my head for the actual book is "Kuusai" which I think it mean "the point where the earth and the sky meet". Sounds like ubber fun, tho!
2. kingdomhearts222 – ahh. Okanawa-ish. Yeah, that's what I thought it might be. XD I'm glad you liked the Roxas chapter.
3. losthimagain – you're welcomed? Yeah, AkuRoku is adorable!
4. Largo-sensei – that's because I live in the Caribbean! And it's hot like crazy here. It's funny that Axel's so sweet here because in my vampire story he's so perverted! XD Whoot! Party! OMG, plushies! Yum.
5. Kayrana – um, yeah, I updated again… how do I do it so fast? Um, it's summer vacation, I have nothing to do, and I have ideas for fics a lot. Update more! Please your fans! Uh, no, not me. I haven't read it yet.
6. AngelicOrgueil – I'm glad you liked the chapter. BTW, what were you on when you reviewed! The song was funny, tho. Hmm… talking about smex…. I have the word "smexy" stuck in my head… oih.
7. Bonnie Mizuhara – TidusxSelphie WOULD be really cute, but what can you do when WakkaxTidus poked it's head first? Lol. Yay! I'm glad you like the story! Yes, Roxas is the twin brother, and yes… Sora and Sion just up and left. It was so random! And I think it's pretty normal to be furious if you get home to a note and money, the house being completely empty with no water, electricity, phone! XD
Thanks to everyone for the reviews!
Now a mission. Whoever wins, wins… uh… hmm… a mention in the play! Yeah, that's it!
Here's the mission: the song MI-RA-I by Run&Gun, is it an anime song or just a j-pop song? And if it's from an anime, which one?
First one to answer wins. Um, that's it. Oh, and specify the name you want for the character. Now that's it!
Why the mission? Because I'm lazy to look for it myself! XD What? You don't want to do it? Aww! Please? For the love of yaoi? (and gaiaonline? XD)