Chapter 165: The Treasure

It took him a bit to find a book, seeing as quite a few of the books were either medical/healer handbooks of some sort or instruction manuals for canons. And as for actual novels… well… none of them sounded very interesting. Riku slowly made his way over to the other bookshelf—the short one by the window.

He squatted down in front of it so he could get a better look at the titles, but something caught his eye before he could even look. On top of the bookshelf were various knickknacks and a few framed photographs. It was one of the photographs that caught his eye. It was a photo of Aerith and a boy with black hair that stood up in spikes, a little like Sora's did. Neither of them looked much older than Riku.

The boy was grinning a large goofy grin, and had his arm around Aerith, leaning on her like he was about to fall over (and knock her down in the process). Aerith was half-glancing at him, half-glancing at the camera. She looked a little annoyed, but Riku'd never seen her smile quite this large before. She seemed happy. She probably was.

Riku slowly smiled. Namine'd never have let him get away with something like that. Nor did he think he'd try…

I wonder who he is, though, Riku thought. That boy…

He was probably a friend. Or a brother? But… they never talked about him. At least Riku didn't remember hearing them say anything about him. Then again, he seemed to miss half of what they said around here if it didn't involve him. Maybe it wasn't a surprise he hadn't heard about this boy before. Maybe he'd ask about him. Of course, when someone was up that he could ask, anyway.

Riku directed his attention to the books again, and, after a bit of consideration, pulled out a book that had something to do with dragons and princesses. Sora used to go on and on about stories like this, and Riku figured he might as well see what the fuss was about.

The book actually turned out to be not that bad, and Riku finished it within a few hours. He was about two chapters into the sequel when Aerith came downstairs.

"Oh." She seemed a bit startled to see him, but got over it fairly quickly. "Good morning, Riku."

"Morning," he replied, turning his attention back to the book.

"Whatcha reading?" Aerith asked, coming over.

He paused just long enough to show her the cover. She smiled.

"That's a good one! You read the first one, right?"

He nodded.

"Do you want breakfast?"

Riku shook his head.

"No thank you," he said, remembering his manners at the last second.

"Alright. I figured I should offer." Aerith started towards the kitchen, but then paused. "Can I ask why you're pacing?"

Riku froze, flushing. "Uh… don't like sitting still…" he mumbled. In all honesty, it'd been easier to get into the book once he was up and moving.

Aerith laughed. "Well, I'm not sure if you'll be able to keep the pacing up once Yuffie's awake, but, if you want to read all day, no one's stopping you. Leon and Cid plan to head out and work on fixing up the town, but, of course, you don't have to go. I'll probably stay here. Whether or not Yuffie goes depends on what kind of mood Cid's in…"

Riku nodded, trying to be polite but very much wanting to get back to the book.

Aerith laughed again. "I'm sorry, I'm bugging you, huh? I'll stop." She started for the kitchen again, but, pause halfway there like she did last time. "One more question?"

Riku grunted a yes in response.

"Is your head feeling better?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

There was still a very dull throb in the back of his head, though, but it wasn't as bad as it'd been a few hours ago.

"Alright," Aerith still seemed worried, but she finally headed to the kitchen.

Riku let out a sigh of relief and went back to reading.

xxx

Sora frowned at Roxas suddenly changed direction. "I thought we were—" he began.

"We still are," Roxas assured him. "There's a Treasure Chest."

"A…" Sora paused, staring at him. He couldn't be serious. "Wait, what?"

Roxas paused, too, turning around to look at Sora, slowly frowning in confusion himself. "You don't know what a treasure chest is?" he asked, seeming appalled. Or maybe he was laughing… Sora couldn't quite tell.

"No, I know what a treasure chest is," Sora said. "I just- there are actually treasure chests just lying around in Worlds? Just waiting for someone to come by and open them?"

Roxas nodded. "Yeah." He chuckled. "Here, I'll show you. Over here!"

Sora followed Roxas over to the corner of the plaza. Sure enough, there was a little chest wedged up next to the wall of the house.

"So… there's actually stuff in there?" Sora asked.

Roxas laughed. "You really are new to this, huh!" He pulled out his Keyblade and tapped the lid of the treasure chest with it. The treasure chest popped open immediately. Roxas reached down into it and pulled out its contents.

"See? This one had a hi-potion." He held it up for Sora to see. "A lot of treasure chests contain items, but sometimes there are other things in them. Why don't you check the one up there?" he pointed up at the treasure chest sitting on a ledge above them.

"How do I reach that?" Sora asked, staring.

Roxas gaped at him. "You can't jump that high?"

Sora shook his head no, wondering how anyone could jump that high.

Roxas stared at him a moment more, but then sighed. "Look, just jump and try and grab onto the ledge. It looks low enough for you to do that."

Sora looked at the ledge, then back at Roxas, then back at the ledge. Well… what could it hurt? He took a running start, and jumped up towards the ledge. He missed. And he missed the next few times he tried. Roxas didn't say anything, but he was clearly trying to suppress laughter. Sora scowled, but tried one more time to grab the ledge. He got it this time.

"Good! Now hoist yourself up!"

Sora gritted his teeth, but did as he was told. It was hard to hold on, though—the stone was rough, which provided a good grip, but it also hurt. Not to mention his arms gave way when he was halfway up, and he dropped back into a hanging position, bashing his nose against the wall as he did so.

"Aaagh," Sora groaned, squeezing his eyes shut with the pain. He pulled himself up again anyway, this time pushing off the wall with his foot for an extra boost. He was able to make it onto the ledge this time.

This treasure chest better be worth the effort, Sora thought. He summoned his Keyblade, like Roxas had, and tapped the treasure chest on the lid. The chest popped open.

Inside was a small glowing ball of… light? Sora reached down and picked it up. "What's this?" he called down to Roxas, turning the ball over in his hands.

"That's an ability!" Roxas replied.

"And… what do I do with it?" Sora asked.

"You learn it!" Roxas laughed.

Feeling like an idiot, Sora asked:

"Ah… How do I do that?"

"Look, you should be able to see something in your mind's eye, when you hold it," Roxas explained. "Like, an image of you performing the ability. Yeah?"

Sora closed his eyes, focusing his attention. The ball of light felt warm in his hands, its energy seeping into him. "I see…" he said, slowly. "I'm rushing at an enemy, and then attacking it."

"What do you mean 'rushing'?"

Sora shrugged. "I don't know how to describe it!"

"That's alright," Rosas said. "Describing it's useless anyway. You really need to put it into action. Hop on down here, and you can try it out!"

Getting down, at least, was much easier than getting up had been. Sora jumped from the ledge and landed on his feet without a problem—he'd been jumping from high things since childhood. Those high things had just… been easier to climb.

"Alright," Roxas rubbed his hands together, excitedly. "Let's see that new ability!"

Sora gripped his Keyblade in both hands, prepared to attack, but paused. "I'm not sure how to do it if I'm not attacking something…"

Roxas shrugged like it was no big deal. "Then attack me!"

Sora must've looked horrified at the thought, because Roxas burst out laughing.

"I'm sure you won't hurt me!" he said. "And, even if you do, it's nothing a hi-potion can't fix. C'mon!" He braced himself, but didn't summon his Keyblade.

Sora swallowed, nervous and very much not wanting to hurt Roxas, but threw himself into the attack, anyway. He rushed at Roxas, his feet barely touching the ground, and attacked; landing one, two, three hits before Roxas pulled out his Keyblade and blocked him.

"I recognize that attack!" Roxas said, throwing up a Cure for himself. "Sliding Dash."

"Really?" Sora asked, straightening.

"Yup." Roxas grinned. "Congrats on learning your first new ability!"

Sora chuckled, scratching his head, a bit embarrassed.

"Let's try it out on some Heartless," Roxas said, nodding over at a group of Heartless on the other side of the area. He readied his Keyblade and charged toward them. Sora was quick to follow.

xxx

Riku'd spent most of the morning reading, hardly even noticing when Cid and Leon left to fix up something in the town. Yuffie stayed behind, but Riku just avoided her so she couldn't comment on the fact he needed to pace to focus on his book.

He'd started the third book in the series about noon, but put it down after a chapter because his head was starting to hurt again. It was hard to read when the pain kept distracting him every other sentence.

He sat down at the dining room table and closed the book in frustration. This was ridiculous.

"You okay?" Aerith asked, poking her head out of the kitchen so she could look at him.

He nodded, trying not to rub his head, since she'd start fussing over his headache again if she noticed that it was back. Aerith seemed to notice something was up, because she paused in drying the plate she was holding, eyes narrowing with concern.

"You sure?"

"Just… worried about Namine," he said. It wasn't totally a lie. He was worried about her, of course, though he hadn't thought much about it with all the reading he'd been doing. It was hard to worry about anything when one's thoughts were caught up with fictional characters.

"I'm sure she's alright," Aerith assured him. "They'd send someone over here if anything serious had happened, right?"

Riku nodded. He'd been told that they'd do that, anyway.

"Well, we haven't heard from anyone, so she's probably fine."

"Right."

There was silence for a moment, as Aerith finished drying the plate and then set it down.

"You miss her?" she asked, quietly.

Riku chuckled, though it was a bit hollow. "It hasn't even been a day," he said. It'd only been nineteen hours and—he checked the clock—thirty-two minutes.

"I don't think that makes a difference."

Riku shrugged. Maybe it didn't. He hadn't really been thinking much about missing Namine—he'd been thinking about that as little as he'd been worrying about her. Not that he hadn't been thinking about her. He ended up thinking about her nearly every other page; something in the book would remind him of her, and he'd pause and think about her for a bit…

Not that he… missed her. A lot. Maybe he did a little.

"Well, the week will be over soon," Riku said, quietly.

There was some comfort in that thought, at least.