Chapter 224: up with
Roxas took them to the Main Room of C.O., not sure if there was a better place to go. It turned out to be a good idea, Roxas realized, as 29 came rushing over.
"Ah! There you are!" 29 said. "I was just about to go after—" He paused, looking first at the sniveling Joseph then at Roxas with Toby slung over his shoulder. The color immediately drained from his face. "What happened?"
Joseph said something, but Roxas couldn't understand it through the sniffling. He shook his head and gave 29 the rundown himself. How Joseph and Toby had shown up out of nowhere, followed by Toby's attack, and how Toby'd collapsed.
"I can see he collapsed," 29 said, quite plainly. Had it been any other moment, he might've laughed with it.
Roxas shrugged, careful not to displace Toby in the process. "I'm not sure if he passed out or what, but he's not exactly breathing—then again, that's not exactly a bad sign for a Replica, is it?"
"It's not a good one…" 29 swallowed. "But, I suppose it's not the worst." He sent a hesitant glance at Joseph, then reached up to his ear to turn on his comset. "7?" Pause. A nod. "Yeah. The sooner the better." He pulled his hand away from his ear, then looked apologetically at Roxas. "Can you hold him for just a bit more?"
Roxas nodded. "Sure."
29 turned his attention to Joseph now, slowly squatting down so he was on eye-level with the boy. "You know, this is why I didn't want you to go."
Joseph nodded and rubbed his eyes.
"I kn-know I'm sor-sorry I'm s-so sorry."
"I'm sorry, too." 29 reached into his pocket and produced a handful of tissues, which he promptly handed to Joseph. Joseph took them thankfully and blew his nose. He ended up dropping a few of the tissues, but 29 picked them back up and held them until Joseph needed them.
"I should've gone after you sooner," 29 continued, with a distraught sigh. "I figured you were up to something, but I also wanted to… to try and give you the benefit of the doubt and trust you'd be true to your word…"
The words didn't appear to comfort Joseph in the slightest.
"I'm s-sorry I-I'm sorry," he stammered through a new set of tears. "I'm sorry th- th- I'm an awful li-liar I'm sorry I have su-uch terrible ideas I'm sorry I—"
"No, no!" 29 interrupted him, grabbed him by the shoulders. The suddenness was enough to jolt Joseph's tears to a halt. "No," 29 repeated. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that it's my job to keep you safe and I failed."
"…I was- was the one who- who went….."
Someone else cleared their throat, and Roxas looked up. It was 7. 7's eyes shifted nervously between Roxas's face and Toby's body.
"What happened?" 7 asked. Roxas opened his mouth to speak, but 7 held up his hand to stop him. "Besides the obvious Joseph and Toby snuck off without permission."
Roxas nodded, took a second to re-gather his thoughts, then explained it all again. How they'd been fighting Saix. How Toby'd let out the large attack—large enough to all but kill Saix—and then collapsed. He told 7 why he thought Toby'd collapsed, too. That he may have just used too much of his energy. Maybe it was a failsafe to keep him from using too much energy.
7 asked a few more questions, and Roxas did his best to answer them. Of course, he only knew as much as he'd seen—which was only so much. There hadn't been much to see.
"Alright," 7 said, finally. "Hand him here."
Roxas handed Toby over. 7 sent a look at 29, who was still comforting Joseph, and then sighed and headed off.
"I j-just wa-wanted to help Vexen," Joseph sobbed, the catch in his voice even worse now. "N-no one was goin' after- goin' after him and I- I just thought… y'know…"
Roxas cocked his head to the side. Clucked his tongue. "Would me going 'n saving Vexen make you feel better?" he asked.
Joseph looked up at him for a long moment, bewildered. Then he nodded.
Roxas nodded back.
"Okay. Great. I'll go do that."
It couldn't be that hard, right? Last he checked, it was only Xigbar—or maybe his clone—guarding him, and if it wasn't Xigbar, it was just a pair of Replicas. Which two depended on who was available, but Roxas was fairly confident he could take them.
"Wait a minute." 29 looked up at him, squinting. "Are you on our side, now?"
"I thought that'd be obvious…" Roxas replied.
"There's a slight difference between helping Joseph out and actually being on our side," 29 said.
Roxas supposed he couldn't exactly deny that.
"Well, I guess I am," he said, with a shrug. "More or less."
"More or less…?" 29 repeated.
"See ya!" Roxas waved, and opened a dark corridor around himself.
xxx
Sora ran and didn't dare stop, despite the fact he was being forced to run around in circles and was starting to get dizzy. Xigbar'd manipulated the space around them so Sora was confined to a small square of ground that was hardly enough to run a full circle in. Xigbar was… who knew where, shooting more bullets at Sora than should've been possible. He was going for amount more than accuracy, though, so as long as Sora kept moving he wouldn't be hit. Probably. It was still the ten most terrifying seconds of his life.
But then the onslaught stopped and in a flash the space around them returned to normal. Sora sent a glare at Xigbar.
"Are you trying to kill me?"
"Kill you? As if! More like, hmm…" Xigbar reloaded his guns as he searched for the word. "Incapacitate you," he settled on, smirking. He was upside down again, making the smirk even more unpleasant. "See, we need a fresh scan of your data and that's easiest to get when you're out cold."
"I don't believe you."
"What? About needing a fresh scan of data?"
"No, about not trying to kill me."
Xigbar laughed. "Trust me, kiddo, if those bullets had hit you, they'd knock you out long before killing you."
Xigbar unloaded both of his clips at Sora. Sora rolled out of the way.
"What do you want me for?" he demanded as he came up out of his roll.
"Need another Replica of you," Xigbar shrugged, reloading again. Sora wondered where he even kept all the extra ammo… or was it magic? But then why did he even have to reload? Just for the show of it? Regardless. "Roxas ran off again—no surprise."
"Aha!" Sora laughed. "So you don't have a Keyblade w—oh." He glared. "I won't let you have me! My data! Whatever!"
He bared his blade and rushed forward, as Xigbar laughed. The laugh cut off into a grunt. Sora'd hit him roughly in the face—the downside to hanging upside down in mid-air. He warped away before Sora could land a second blow.
"I won't let you have Kingdom Hearts, either!" Sora shouted, rounding to face Xigbar.
"Didn't you hear your mouse friend?" Xigbar called. Sora couldn't quite see his grin, but he could hear it. "It's not the real Kingdom Hearts."
"I still won't—mm!"
Sora broke off, as Riku rushed in and attacked Xigbar from behind. He was able to deal a total of three blows before landing and rolling out of the way of Xigbar's bullets.
"Kingdom-what-now?" he asked, taking his fighting stance. Quite frankly, Sora was relieved to see him. He was pretty exhausted, having not rested after fighting Luxord. And at the rate he and Xigbar were (not) fighting, he was going pass out before Xigbar was anywhere near dead. Not to mention he wasn't even sure if he wanted to kill Xigbar… he couldn't let Xigbar have his data but….
Sora shook his head and focused on a more pressing issue. "You don't know what Kingdom Hearts is?" he asked, Riku. Once he'd said it, though, he remembered he hadn't known what it was until very recently. Oh well.
"Maybe I do." Riku shrugged. "Axel might've mentioned it. Dunno. Don't care." He looked at Xigbar. "Here for Namine. You. In my way. Best move."
That's right. Namine. She was in danger, too. Another reason Xigbar had to—why they had to get Xigbar out of the way.
"Hey! Look who finally showed up!" Xigbar replied. "I was waiting for you—supposed to stall you. Kiddo here said he was gonna try and go after Namine, though. Plus I need him for something."
"Don't care," Riku repeated. "I said move." He sounded tired. Irritable, too—obviously—but… tired. It was a strange thing to hear in Riku's voce.
"Ain't gonna happen anytime soon!" Xigbar readied his guns, fired.
The next minute or so when by in a blur of attacking, Riku screaming, and dodging bullets. Sora was quite sure he was going to pass out from exhaustion when he heard footsteps. He didn't recognize them at first, but once he saw who it was he about kicked himself.
"Kairi!?" he gasped. His heart was somewhere in his throat.
She hardly spared him a glance. "Yeah. Hi. Battle. Talk later."
She was about as eloquent with her words as Riku was. As in, not at all.
"Ohho! So your girlfriend's here, huh?" Xigbar couldn't have sounded more amused.
"Wha?" was all Sora could get out, still trying to process everything. Riku's continued screaming and attacking and Xigbar warping to avoid him only made it more difficult.
"I am not his girlfriend!" Kairi snapped. "Also don't pull that!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about!"
Kairi groaned. "Sora I swear if he starts purposefully shooting everything at me to get you to protect me or whatever instead of attacking him ignore it," she called over to him, too busy dodging bullets to send a look his way. "I'll be fine."
"Uhm? Okay." Sora stammered, a little confused. Kairi was here. Why was she here? When had she gotten so good at fighting—well she wasn't exactly good but she wasn't bad either. Hadn't she hated fighting when they were kids? And more importantly shouldn't she be mad at him? Or had that just been… had he just…
He pushed the thought aside. It hurt his head too much to think about. "Why are yo—"
"SORA I SAID NOT NOW!" Kairi interrupted, sending a glare at him. "There is a battle plus a ticking clock we can talk later!"
She sounded angry. But that was at the circumstances. Right? Sora swallowed.
"S-sorry," he stammered. "Sorry. You're right. Sorry. I- I knew that. I- s-sorry."
Kairi looked at him again, pausing, frowning.
"Are you okay?" she asked. The anger was gone from her voice, replaced by concern.
"Yes," Sora replied, automatically. Then paused. "No? I'm…" This was Kairi he was talking to. He needn't be so… worried. "Exhausted," he said. "Absolutely exhausted."
Kairi sent a look over at Xigbar—thankfully, he was more than occupied with Riku. Or, he appeared to be, at least.
"I've got an ether if you want it," Kairi told Sora, reaching for her bag.
"Well if you've only got one, you better make Riku drink it," Sora said. He didn't look at her. Couldn't, now that her attention was on him. He knew Riku was worn out, too. He could see it in the way Riku fought. It wasn't as precise as normal. "He needs it more."
"I've got more than one," Kairi said. Sora looked at her long enough to see her roll her eyes.
"Riku still needs one more."
There was no question about it. Riku was the one who needed to go on. He needed it more than either of them.
Kairi sent a miffed look at Sora. "Yeah, and how the hell am I gonna make him dr—hang on." She turned and started rummaging around in her bag.
"I'll cover you," Sora said. He didn't even think about it. The words just fell out of his mouth and he moved closer to her so he could block any bullets Xigbar might send their way. Xigbar was still pretty focused on Riku, though—obviously, Riku was his primary target. Apparently stalling Riku was more important than that scan Xigbar'd needed of Sora's data…
Sora sent a look over his shoulder at Kairi. This was weird. Well, it was natural, like they'd been doing this forever, and that was weird. He hadn't expected to fall back into this rhythm with her right away. Actually, he'd anticipated for so long that she'd hate him that he'd never once considered the fact that things might ever be the same between them again.
And yet here they were.
He chuckled a little, in disbelief. Standing here now, next to her, it was almost hard to remember why he'd ever thought she'd be mad at him. But if he thought about it too much, it'd all come rushing back to him. The yelling. Avoiding her. All the things he'd said—
Sora shook his head and pushed those thoughts aside. Later. He'd think about it later, like Kairi'd said. They had a battle to worry about now.
"Aha!" Kairi exclaimed, producing a bottle from her bag. "Thank you, Aerith," she sighed, and downed it immediately. Sora wasn't quite sure what it was, but judging by the color it was some type of ether.
The moment the liquid hit Kairi's lips, Sora felt energy flooding through him again. He started to feel less tired. A little stronger, too, but maybe that was over-confidence…
"What was that?" he asked.
"Mega-ether," Kairi said, grinning. "Means Riku got it too."
Sora smiled, a little. "Thanks."
"Uhuh. Now back to fighting what's-his-name!" Kairi tossed up a Cure for all of them, and then rushed at Xigbar, light burning at her fingertips. Sora tried not to stare as he rushed in to attack, too.