The steady rhythm of a fist hitting heavy canvas fills Riku's ears as he enters the Disney Castle gym. He stops, momentarily contemplating turning right around and walking out before the large room's sole occupant can sense his presence. But then the door slams, almost deafening in the silver-haired young man's state of heightened sense. He scowls, silently cursing himself.
"Wouldn't have mattered," Azlyn calls from across the room, pausing her sequence. She turns toward Riku, wearing a smug grin. "I could tell it was you the second you stepped up outside the door."
"Oh, I'm sure," Riku replies, rolling his eyes. In the spirit of in for a munny, in for a pound, he walks towards the blonde. She's gone back to punching, finishing off with a kick that rattles the bag's chain so hard Riku actually has a moment where he thinks it will go flying off. "Show off."
The knight snorts, caring little about how harsh it sounds. "Well, not all of us can hide behind our big fancy magic keys."
"Who's hiding?" Riku steps up onto the mat, folding his arms confidently as Azlyn turns to face him.
She quirks up an eyebrow. "Really, Rik? Think ya got what it takes? I seem to remember another fight between the two of us that only ended with Sora begging me not to lay your ass flat."
The silver-haired young man just nods, subtly stretching out his muscles in preparation. "That was two years and a metric ton of psychological problems ago. I didn't spend all that time in the Realm of Darkness catching up on my reading, ya know."
"Mm." Without warning, Azlyn takes the heavy bag in both hands and swings, sending it hurtling towards the older man. He deftly spins out of the way, hands up in preparation.
A good thing, as Azlyn is immediately diving toward him, fists clenched and ready. He catches the first blow, turning her aside and snapping his knee up. The knight's own knee deflects it, and she cartwheels to the side and out of range.
For a handful of seconds the two stay squaring off, getting ready for the next flurry of combat. Riku fakes left and darts right, punching for his opponent's stomach. She can't avoid the hit, but manages to turn aside and weaken its impact. Her elbow goes for his face, and he barely snaps his head back.
She punches low, and he deflects. Riku moves up for her face, succeeding in landing a solid hit. Azlyn stumbles back, oddly enough chuckling to herself.
"Good on ya, man!" she congratulates, settling back into ready stance. "You managed to beat level one. Game on, then!"
Before Riku can fully figure out the girl's absurdity, she's charging forward with a brazen yell. He gets ready for her, widening his stance to gather power. But that turns out to be the exact wrong move, as the knight drops into a slide that goes right underneath him.
She pops up fast, Riku barely turning before taking a trio of hits to the torso. The fourth rockets up, a solid chin hit that has the Keyblade wielder's teeth clacking together. It's a bona fide miracle none of them chip or crack.
As he moves back, Riku brings up his foot into Azlyn's vulnerable knee. The knight grunts in pain, her whole stance suddenly crumbling. Ignoring his own pain, the silver-haired young man reverses his momentum and charges her hard.
But Azlyn is on one knee, and with a reaction time that would shame a snake, she turns the negative positive. As Riku comes in, the knight wraps her arms around his body. She stands, lifting him right off the ground. Using his own momentum against him, Azlyn flips Riku over. Their backs hit the mat within seconds of each other.
They just lay there for a while, each one trying to catch their breath first. But even once they're under control (Azlyn edges Riku out by less than a heartbeat), neither combatant can think of any good reason to continue the fight.
"Sorry," Azlyn finally says, after a long silence. Curious, Riku turns his head to give her a questioning look. She only maintains eye contact for a second, before turning her gaze up toward the ceiling. "I shouldn't have brought up your whole evil bitch period."
He shrugs. "Eh, no problem. It's not like I don't have ammo of my own in that department now."
The knight winces, sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest. "Yeah," she admits with a short, bitter laugh. "I guess that's true." Her fist slams into the mat, the sound of its impact echoing throughout the room. "Ugh, damn it!"
"It's gonna feel like that for a while." Riku sits up himself, scooting next to the knight. She almost instinctively slides away an inch. "And when I say 'a while' I really mean pretty much every time it crosses your mind. But, it gets easier, once you can really accept that the people you did wrong to can forgive you. Still hurts, but not quite as much."
"And what happens when forgiveness makes you feel worse?"
The silver-haired young man can only shrug. "Hey, I'll tell you all about getting through that once I manage to figure it out." The next few moments pass in an oddly companionable silence. Until a thought strikes Riku that he just can't ignore. "So, why munny?"
Azlyn does a double take. "Huh?"
"Well," Riku continues, shrugging, "it's just, y'know, you grew up in a literal castle. I can't really figure why you'd be so hungry when it comes to munny."
"Yeah, I guess I'd be asking that question too," Azlyn admits, taking a deep breath. "Well, actually you just hit the nail on the head. I grew up in a castle, I was raised by a kind. I had wealth and taste coming out the wazoo. I mean, the king and queen weren't the kind of people to flaunt it, but… Well, let's just say nobody could compete with my birthday parties growing up."
"You're, uh, really not making me see the hardship here," Riku says. "My seventh birthday party ended prematurely when we had to resuscitate the clown after he nearly drowned. My uncle was the clown, by the way."
Azlyn grimaces at the thought, but presses on regardless. "Yeah, well, everybody has to deal with different stuff, alright?" She pauses to shake her head before continuing the story, noticeably more surly than before. "I guess I had friends, I mean people always liked coming to the castle. It felt good to be included, I mean I was the only freaking human in the world besides Tel. For years, I thought I really had friends who liked me. Until the day I overhead two girls, one of them was basically my best friend, talking. About how hard it was to put up a front around the weird girl. But it was worth it for the perks, right?"
Riku winces, sympathetic once again. Not one hundred percent, but enough. "I guess you didn't take that well, hm?"
"Not really," the knight replies with a chuckle. "I wanted to run in and start bashing heads, but I held off. Still, that was the day I realized something. People may not like you, but they respect you if you've got enough stuff to keep them interested. From then on, I realized that you can buy love. So…"
"So," Riku repeats. There's not much else to say. Except, "You realize that's crap, right?"
"Now, yeah," Azlyn admits, grinning just slightly. "But the lust for gold, for stuff, stayed strong. Like I didn't even realize they were connected. I guess even curing the disease doesn't always stop the symptoms."
"Yeah, it really does," Riku shoots back, teasingly bumping her shoulder with his. "You suck at metaphors."
"I suck at a lot of things."
The silver-haired young man shrugs. "Yeah, but everybody does. The key is to find people who don't mind, and can pick up your slack."
Azlyn snorts again. "Or kick your ass?"
"Yeah," Riku replies, standing up with a grin on his face. After a moment of hesitation, he offers the girl his hand.
She, predictably, scoffs at the gesture, springing up entirely on her own power. "Yeah, right." But at the same time, there is a smile on Azlyn's face. "Screw you, Rik."
He nods, smiling right back. "Screw you too, Az."
Just another something that should have been finished a long time ago.