Battle Stance, a Kingdom Hearts fanwork: Armory Challenge by RoseOfADifferentColor, written by Raberba girl
The Next Life: Rejection of Fate (theme 73) [rough draft]
PART 2
The children were playing among the trees near the road that led to Sora's house, so they were the first to see him coming.
"It's Riku!"
"Riku's back!"
There was a patter of feet along the path, and then they were surrounding him. "What happened to your hair?" Naminé asked.
"I cut it."
"Oh."
"It all sticks up now," Roxas observed.
"It looks stupid," Kazé said.
"It looks pretty," Dawn snarled in defense of his Original.
"'Pretty' is for girls, 'handsome' is for boys," Riku corrected wearily.
"Why are you all dirty?" Xion asked, looking curiously at the huge dark stains on Riku's clothes and not realizing what they were.
"Because I had a fight." Dawn was hovering way too close. "I can't carry you right now, Dawn. My hands are full, and I'm tired."
"I didn't wanna be carried!" Dawn yelled, face flushing as he jerked away.
"Ha ha, Dawn's a baby who has to be carried," Kazé taunted, which of course led to a scuffle.
"As if you don't keep begging Ven or Aqua to carry you all the time," Riku muttered.
"You're gonna get in trouble for fighting," Roxas laughed, taking Riku's hand as they walked along.
"Maybe."
"Are you okay, Riku?" Naminé asked, looking worried.
"I'm fine. Just tired. I want to go to Sora's house and lie on the couch with a bag of chips and watch TV until I feel better."
"We can watch The Little Mermaid," Xion said in satisfaction.
Riku rolled his eyes, though he was smiling.
Sora and Kairi were chatting on the porch swing when they arrived, and immediately hopped up to greet them as soon as they were in sight. Kairi, though she had been approaching with a smile, suddenly stopped dead and screamed, startling the children. "Riku!"
"I'm fine."
"You're covered in blood!"
"Curaga!" Sora yelled frantically.
Riku rolled his eyes again as he was briefly enveloped in a cloud of green sparkles. "I'm fine. I already healed myself."
"What happened?!" Kairi cried, still looking horrified. "Did...did they cut your hair?" she asked, gently touching Riku's shorn head.
"I cut my hair."
"Did they beat you up?" Sora exclaimed in dismay.
"Look, mission accomplished, okay? It doesn't matter, I got what I came for, I'm fine, it's over." He refused to answer anymore questions. Except when Sora's mother screamed even louder than Kairi had, and actually reached to jerk up his shirt in order to check for wounds.
"M-Mrs. King," he stammered, his face heating as his flesh was so unexpectedly revealed. He diffidently reached to push his shirt back down.
"You look like you got stabbed!" she cried.
"I- I'm fine, I just- Really, I'm fine..."
"There's not a scratch on you! Why are you covered in blood?! Did you kill someone?!"
"No!"
"Is blood bad?" Xion whispered to Roxas, who shrugged and said he didn't know.
"I just- We have magic potions and things, I...can I please use your bathroom? Please? I need to shower. And I...might need to...probably will need to...spend the night...if you don't mind..."
"Of course, Riku, but what happened?! I thought you were just going to pick up some things!"
"I- I really want to watch The Little Mermaid," he said in desperation.
It was a relief when Riku was finally able to lock himself in the bathroom, where it was quiet. His ruined clothes went into a plastic bag, in preparation to be chucked into the trash. He stood under the hot water for a long time, lost in thought, then sighed and began to scrub away the last stubborn traces of blood. When it came time to wash his hair, Riku had already squirted out a handful of shampoo before he realized what he was doing. He stared at the mound of scented goop in his hand for a second, then burst into bitter laughter. It took only a fraction of the stuff to actually wash his cropped hair, and he watched the rest of it sliding uselessly into the drain with the same dark grin still cracking his face.
The children were, in fact, watching The Little Mermaid when he came out, all five singing along or talking to the characters. Whenever anyone tried to ask Riku more about what had happened at his house, he determinedly sang or talked to Ariel, too, until they gave up. Lea eventually came to pick up Roxas and Xion, Aqua came to get Kazé, and Naminé went home with Kairi, but Dawn stayed with Riku at Sora's house and insisted on snuggling right up to him when they went to bed. "Ugh, Dawn, we've got the entire floor. Give me some room."
"You're hogging the blankets!"
"Fine, here."
"...I'm still cold."
"Seriously, Dawn? And you'd better not be kicking me all night, either."
"I don't kick! You do!"
"Stop yelling in my ear!"
"You guys are loud," Sora mumbled sleepily from the bed.
Riku lowered his voice to a whisper. "Go sleep with Sora."
"No," Dawn said stubbornly.
"What? He won't mind, and the bed's more comfortable than the floor, anyway."
"No! I hate beds!"
Sora rolled to face the wall and pulled a pillow over his head to try to block out the noise.
The next day, Kairi came to pick up Dawn in the morning, so that she could drop off him and Naminé at the kindergarten on her own way to school. Riku and Sora, who had dropped out of school, took a day off from HSE studying to go look at apartments. Sora, who was easily distracted and overly optimistic, wasn't much actual help, but Riku was still grateful for his company.
"Oooh, this one has a fireplace!"
"Yeah, a little kid plus a fireplace. That'll end well..."
Or, "Hey, look, Riku, you can see our island from here!"
Riku's attention was instead caught by something in the alley below. "There's a dumpster down there...why am I getting visions of Dawn falling out the window straight into that thing and getting carted off to an incinerator somewhere...?"
"Heh, you sound kind of like a fussy mom."
"I'm not his mom, I'm his brother!"
Riku eventually decided on an apartment that was fairly close to Sora's house, the kindergarten and elementary school, and a shopping center. It had two bedrooms and wasn't too expensive, so even though Riku still hadn't financially recovered from helping his friends defeat a certain munny-eating boss near the end of the war, he could still afford the rent if he either found a full-time job or killed enough Heartless every day to make ends meet. HSE studying might have to drop a bit lower down the priority list, but he'd worry about that later. "Yeah, I can afford the deposit. Where do I sign?"
By the time that was done, the kids' school had let out, so Riku and Sora went to go pick them up. As soon as Naminé saw Sora enter the playground, she ran to cling to him, and his laugh had a questioning edge to it as he scooped her up in his arms. "You okay, Nami?"
"Dawn's in trouble," she whispered.
They both stared at her. "What do you mean?" Riku asked sharply.
Naminé's eyes filled with tears. "The other kids were being mean to him, and he hurt them. Then everyone yelled, and they made us go inside and then I didn't see him anymore, so I think he's gone."
Riku immediately made a beeline for the nearest teacher. Sora, still holding the girl, hurried after him. "Where's Dawn?" Riku demanded.
"D-Dawn? Um...you're here to pick him up? We called his contact number, but..."
Riku realized that they must have tried to reach his parents' house. 'This is why I wanted to use my cell phone number,' he thought furiously.
Kazé came trotting over. "Dawn used his Keyblade at school," he said gleefully. "On other kids. He was really bad, but I was good today," he said proudly. "I'm gonna tell Ven and Aqua I was good and he was bad."
"Where is he?" Riku demanded.
"They took him away to the elementary school."
Riku whirled and marched off.
Sora shook his head and held out his free hand to the little boy. "Come on, Kazé. I'll take you to my house and you can wait for Ven or Aqua or Terra to pick you up, okay?"
"I was better than Dawn."
"Uh...well, I'm glad you were good, Kazé."
As soon as Riku strode into the elementary school's front office, he attracted attention. People stared at him, wide-eyed, and one secretary raised a walkie-talkie to say into it nervously, "Mrs. Reyes?"
"Yes?" a woman's voice crackled from the device.
"One of the Crescents is here..."
"Where's my brother?" Riku asked tightly.
"Come with me." She led him out of the office.
Riku soon heard, in the distance, a child's shrieks and a sound of pounding or beating. He passed up the secretary and followed the noise until he reached the classroom it was coming from. 'Welcome to BMC!' a sign on the door proclaimed cheerfully. Riku pushed the door open, and the noise seemed to double.
The inside of the classroom was a mess. Tables and a shelf seemed out of place, a couple of chairs were knocked over, and the floor was littered with books and papers. There were no students in the room, but three women and a man stood clustered near what looked like a closet door with a small window in it, most of them with walkie-talkies.
The screams and pounding were coming from within the closet. Riku shoved past everyone and yanked open the door, which had no lock.
"I TOLD you-!" Dawn shouted, starting to fling himself out while swinging his Keyblade. Upon seeing Riku, he froze, his gleeful look shifting to horror.
"Dawn," Riku started to say. Dawn tried to slam the door shut again, catching Riku painfully on the hip. "Ow! Dawn!"
The sudden anger in Riku's voice sent Dawn into a panic; he practically ripped open a dark corridor and started to leap into it. Riku managed to catch him and drag him back out. "No! No!" Dawn screamed.
Riku was gaping at the inside of the closet, which was blackened and still smoking a little, with holes in the walls and the inside handle beaten into a misshapen lump. Dawn himself didn't appear to have any noticeable injuries. Riku was incredulously starting to realize that rather than being abused, Dawn, who obviously could have escaped at any time yet hadn't, might be in here not as a punishment, but rather for the protection of whoever had been around when the classroom was being wrecked. "Did you do all this?"
"I HATE SCHOOL! I HATE YOU! I WANT KAIRI! I WANT SORA! I WANT KAIRI, NOT YOU!"
"Dawn-"
"LET ME GO!"
After a fierce scrabble for the edge of the door, Riku managed to pry Dawn's fingers off it and slam it shut, closing them inside. Dawn pounded at the carpeted walls with his fists. "I want Kairi," he sobbed. "I want Kairi..."
Riku finally noticed the wad of gum stuck in his young replica's long silver hair. The sight gave him a sick feeling as childhood memories suddenly surfaced. "Dawn...who did that to your hair?"
Dawn suddenly went still.
Riku looked at him for a while. "Dawn, talk to me," he finally said.
The little boy didn't say a word, but he did lean into Riku, put his arms around his neck, and begin to cry into his shirt. Riku held him until he calmed down. Then he got to his feet and, grasping Dawn's hand firmly in his own, he opened the closet door again and emerged. "What happened," he asked flatly.
"No one really-"
"It was on the playground-"
"Severe damages-"
Their chorused voices drowned each other out and made Riku's temples pulse with the beginnings of a headache. "Never mind," Riku snapped. "Let's go, Dawn."
Riku had calmed down and Dawn had cheered up by the time they got to Sora's house. Naminé anxiously ran to ask Dawn if he was all right, and Sora and Kairi were not far behind.
"We're fine. Come on, Dawn; we need to get that gum out of your hair."
Riku was astonished to see Dawn panic as soon as the boy saw scissors in his hand. "NO! DON'T CUT MY HAIR! DON'T CUT MY HAIR!"
"Dawn- Dawn! Shut up, I'm only cutting that little bit with the gum."
"Noooo!"
The noise attracted attention. "What's going on in here?" Sora's mother exclaimed as she came into the room with the others.
"He's freaking out over nothing. Here, Sora, hold him."
"NOOO!" Dawn screamed.
Sora looked uneasy, but he dutifully gripped Dawn's arms as Riku tried to hold Dawn's head steady enough to snip out the wad of gum.
"Riku," Kairi said, seeing the tears now pouring down the little boy's face, "hold on."
"It's just hair, Kairi!" Riku said in frustration. "It grows back. Dawn hasn't even MET my family, he doesn't have any reason to be as freaking obsessed with his stupid hair as they are!"
Sora, who didn't have the heart to hold the child captive for long, let out a grunt as Dawn finally wrenched free. The boy ran straight into Sapphique's arms and sobbed as she held him protectively.
Riku rolled his eyes and slammed the scissors down. "Fine, whatever. Just go around with gum in your hair for all I care."
"Perhaps if you try-" Sapphique started to say, but Riku cut her off.
"We're leaving. Sorry for all the trouble. I just need to get my stuff." He retrieved his backpack and suitcase, shoved Dawn's few possessions into a bag, and dragged his little brother out of the house.
"I hate you!" Dawn yelled. "I hate you! I want ice cream!"
"Shut up."
Riku-" Sora and Kairi started calling after him.
"I'm fine! I'll see you guys later, I've got too much to deal with right now."
"Bye, loser," Kazé called after Dawn, and grinned when he blocked Dawn's retaliatory Strike Raid.
"PUT THE KEYBLADE AWAY," Riku thundered. "Let's go."
They dropped their stuff off, a pitiful looking heap in the middle of the empty apartment. Then Riku spent about half an hour exchanging heated words on the phone with one of Dawn's kindergarten teachers and the elementary school's BMC teacher. Apparently, no one had seen how the incident started, and one other little boy was also in trouble, though not as much as Dawn was. "But that's what you're saying, isn't it?" Riku growled. "You're kicking him out."
"In ordinary cases, we willingly accommodate any student with special needs, but the fact that he has constant access to a weapon we can't confiscate poses a very serious danger to the other children-"
"Don't tell me Kazé doesn't have that problem, too! Are you kicking out him?"
"When there is a specific incident of this nature, the procedure is..."
Riku finally hung up when he couldn't take it anymore. Dawn had apparently stopped rolling around the floor yelling because he'd found Riku's Nintendo DS, and was now playing a game on it.
"Dawn, put that down, we have to go shopping."
"This game's boring."
"So put it away, like I asked you to."
They had to make more than one trip. At the general store, Riku just went through every aisle, tossing things into his cart. Dishes and cookware, towels, a book of bedtime stories for Dawn, cleaning supplies, a radio with an alarm clock feature, a couple of sleeping bags and some pillows...
Riku spent longer than usual in the aisle of hair products. He stared at all the bottles, but of course a place like this wouldn't have anything from the brands his family used or at least approved of, including the hair oil that Riku, as a child, had used to get gunk out of his own hair whenever jealous classmates had bullied him or his brothers had tormented him. The only products here were the inexpensive kind that people like Sora used.
"..." Riku slowly reached out and grasped a bottle of shampoo. Its labeling proclaimed that it could practically work miracles, but when he snapped open the cap and inhaled, he could smell the cheapness of it. '...Buy it, Riku. You barely have any hair left, anyway. And even if you did, it doesn't matter. It's just hair. There's no reason it has to look its best. This is normal shampoo, the kind normal people buy. You can't get your old hair products anymore, anyway, even if you wanted or needed them, which you don't. So just buy this one, Riku. Buy it. Buy it.' He dropped the bottle into his cart.
Dawn trailed after him whining half the time, and disappeared the rest of the time. Riku eventually found him in the toy aisle. "Dawn, put that ba-"
Dawn looked up at him, still clutching the box of soldier figurines.
Riku remembered that Dawn barely had any toys - just a stuffed animal that Kairi had given him, and a Lego set that Sapphique had bought for him. "...Never mind. Come on."
At the apparel store, Riku was too tired and Dawn too cranky for them to spend much time there or even try anything on. Riku simply grabbed a few outfits and shoes in their sizes, then went straight to the register.
Last was groceries. Again, Riku went through every aisle, throwing things into the cart. 'I'm almost out of munny. Probably should have come here first.' "Put it back, Dawn. We're not getting Rainbow Puffs."
"I want it!"
"Doesn't matter. I can't afford it."
"Rainbow Puuuuuuffs!"
"No."
"Waaaahhh!"
Of course people were staring, and Riku was even a little embarrassed about his replica throwing a tantrum on the floor, but he was too tired to care much. He tried scooping up Dawn and dumping him in the cart with the food, but Dawn put up a fight, even summoning his Keyblade.
Riku wasn't about to hit a five-year-old with his own Keyblade. "...Fine. Stay there, then; I'm going home." He started pushing the cart away.
"Riku!"
"..."
"...RIKU!"
"..."
"Rikuuuuuu, don't leave meeeee!"
Riku grunted as Dawn crashed into his legs and clung, nearly knocking him over. He bent down to pry Dawn off his legs and put him in the cart. Dawn twisted his fingers into Riku's shirt and cried into it as Riku continued on his way. "I hate kids," Riku muttered. He never had before, but now that he thought of it, he'd almost never actually dealt with kids before. "Seriously, Dawn..."
They were both miserable by the time they returned to their new home. Riku didn't have the energy to do more than warm up some soup for dinner. "Time for bed. Go brush your teeth and put on your pajamas, Dawn."
"No! I'm not sleepy!"
Riku had very little patience left. When Dawn continued to put up a fuss, Riku knocked him out with a Sleep spell, brushed the unconscious boy's teeth, cut the gum out of his hair, changed his clothes, and wrapped him in one of the sleeping bags. Dawn was so tired that he never woke up throughout the entire process, transitioning straight into natural sleep as the spell wore off. Riku took a long, hot bath, then crawled into his own sleeping bag and fell asleep almost instantly.
He was awakened before 6:00 a.m. by the sound of Dawn's screams.
"Noooooooo! Noooooooo!"
Riku stumbled to the bathroom, Keyblade in hand, before even fully awakening. "What?! What happened?!"
"My haaaaiiiir!"
"...Seriously?"
"YOU CUT MY HAIR!" Dawn screamed.
"It was one lock, you can't even tell. And shut up, the neighbors'll complain."
"My haaaaiiiir!"
Riku didn't bother with breakfast or with trying to get Dawn dressed. He simply shoved his legs into the closest pair of jeans, tossed Dawn over his shoulder, and lugged the still shrieking boy over to Sora's house.
Sapphique answered the door in her bathrobe. She stared.
"If I can't leave him here," Riku growled, "I'm going to throw him in the ocean."
Sapphique held out her arms. Riku shoved Dawn into them, then turned and marched away.
"Riku cut my haaaiiir!" Dawn wailed pathetically. "He cut it! He cut it!"
"Oh, ohhh, baby, but it still looks so beautiful, I hadn't even noticed."
'SERIOUSLY?' Riku thought, but Dawn's cries almost instantly died down to sniffles in response to Sapphique's reassurance. 'Whatever.'
There was a sound of a window opening upstairs, and Sora's voice called down sleepily, "Riku?"
Riku paused and looked up. "Sorry for waking you, Sora."
"Was that Dawn...?"
"Ugh, yes. Sorry for dumping him on you, but I kind of hate him right now."
"Oh..."
"I'm going to Radiant Garden. I don't know how long I'll be gone."
"Can I come with you?"
Riku considered, then shrugged. "Sure."
It wasn't until they were actually walking through the Garden's streets that it occurred to Sora to ask, "Hey, Riku, why are we here?"
"My brilliant replica got himself kicked out of school," Riku grumbled, "and now no one on the Islands will take him. I have to see if I can get him into a school in a different world..."
"Hey, let's visit Roxas!"
"Huh?"
"And Xion and Axel. They all live here in Radiant Garden, right?"
"Yeah..." It wasn't even seven o'clock in the morning yet, they'd all likely still be home. Riku shrugged. "Sure. Why not."
The Hayes household was bustling. Mrs. Hayes was stacking mounds of eggs and pancakes onto plates, as her husband showered in one bathroom, the girls fought loudly over use of the other bathroom, and Zeph slept right through his insistently beeping alarm clock. Lea was trying not to curse out loud as he fought to drag a comb through Roxas's untamable spiky locks. Roxas was vehemently protesting the operation, and Xion was happily dressing herself in clothes that were all inside out.
"...Wow," Riku remarked. "I thought I had it rough with Dawn, but maybe all that was just normal..." Not that he'd know. His family was only partially human.
"Hi, guys!" Sora said.
The sea-salt trio all paused to look at him. "Sora!" Xion cried in excitement. She ran to glomp him, and he laughed as he knelt down to hug her back.
"Good to see you, too, Xion! You need some help with those clothes?"
"I can get dressed all by myself," she said proudly.
"Eheheheh..."
"Make him stop," Roxas ordered Riku, pointing dramatically at Lea.
"Aw, come on, Roxas," Lea said in exasperation, "you can't just not comb your hair every morning. If I'd known that's what you'd been doing in the Organization rather than actually styling it that way, I'd have made time for a few extra Life Lessons..."
"I hate combs!"
Riku marched across the hall to the bathroom, ignored Lea's squabbling, semi-dressed sisters, rummaged through the cabinets, and marched back to Lea's room. Then he dragged Roxas out of Lea's hands, sat down on the bed, held the struggling boy still with his knees, sprayed Roxas's head with detangler that smelled like strawberries and tangerines, and mercilessly raked the comb through the boy's hair.
"AXEL! HELP ME! HELP ME!"
"Why does my kid flip out if you mess with his hair," Riku grumbled, "and your kid flip out if you fix his hair...?"
"Riku, let go, you're hurting him!" Lea cried.
"He's fine." Riku made one more swipe, set the comb aside, artfully ran his fingers through the boy's hair a few times, then released him. Roxas fled into Lea's arms and glared at Riku over his shoulder.
"Wowww, Roxas looks like a movie star!" Xion cried in delight. "Do my hair, too, Riku!"
"Leave Roxas alone," Lea growled.
"Yeah," Roxas said.
Riku shrugged, went to fetch more hair products, and set to work on the much more appreciative Xion.
After a rushed but entertainingly lively breakfast, Riku and Sora went with Lea to drop the kids off at their kindergarten, then simply accompanied Lea to his own high school as if they were enrolled there, too.
"Isa!" Lea called, galloping over to where his friend was reading a book on the steps outside the library. "What's up, man?"
"You're late. As usual." Isa shut the book and surveyed Lea's companions. "What are they doing here?"
"Dunno." Lea stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced curiously at the other two. "Why did you guys show up, anyway?"
"We're looking for a school for Dawn," Sora explained brightly.
"For Dawn?" Lea echoed in confusion.
Isa frowned. "Doesn't he live on the Islands with you?"
Riku sighed. "I can't even keep up with one kid, and you've got two of them, Lea...I don't know how you can stand it." 'Though you do have your entire family to help you, unlike me...'
"You're talking as if they're a pain," Lea said warily.
"Well, Dawn sure is. I've never really thought about having kids, but if I had, Dawn would definitely have cured me of that by now."
"Awww, but he's so cute!" Lea laughed.
"Maybe he can go to school with Roxas and Xion," Sora said.
Lea winced. "Good luck with that... Man alive, the paperwork's been a nightmare, and I'm not even close to sorting out that mess. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get Nobodies enrolled in school? They only let the kids in at all because I made Ansem write a letter about it, but Rox and Xi still don't actually exist yet as far as the records are concerned..."
Riku found this to be true in Dawn's case as well. He spent the entire day flying around the multiverse, trying to set up some records for Dawn so that the Radiant Garden kindergarten that Roxas and Xion attended, which charged a myriad of fees and was much more formally run than the Island schools, would accept him.
"But it's in process. I told you I can't actually show it to you yet, but I just talked with Destiny Islands' town hall a couple of hours ago, and they said his birth certificate will be ready in a couple of weeks. I HAVE to get him in school before then, or he'll drive me crazy."
Riku was very tired when he finally returned to Sora's house that evening. The last thing he wanted was for Sapphique to greet him by taking both his hands in hers and saying apprehensively, "Riku, sweetheart, take a few deep, long breaths."
"What'd he do?" Riku demanded immediately.
"Breathe first."
The children were playing in the backyard. As soon as the adults came out, Dawn's laughter died and he protectively crushed all his hair into a bun, staring up at Riku with a mix of defiance and apprehension.
"I would have tried to get it out, but he wouldn't let me touch it," Sapphique said unhappily.
"Show me," Riku said in a flat voice.
"No," Dawn growled.
"Maybe you should do what he says," Naminé suggested timidly.
"It's MY hair! I can do whatever I want to it!"
"Dawn chewed gum and stuck it in his hair on purpose," Kazé eagerly informed Riku.
"SHOW ME," Riku commanded.
"You're not allowed to touch it! It's my hair and I can do whatever I want!" Dawn insisted, and slowly lifted his hands until his hair sagged free again. Nearly a quarter of it was tangled in the vicinity of his left ear, the gooey pink center of the knot almost completely hidden within the silver strands.
Riku gazed at it ominously.
"I put it back because you cut my hair and I hate you," Dawn declared nervously.
"...Let's go," Riku finally said.
"Where?" Dawn demanded.
"To find some scissors."
"NO."
Riku seized the front of his shirt. "Oh, so I guess you prefer for me to rip it out with my bare hands."
"NO! DON'T TOUCH IT! IT'S MY HAIR!"
Riku reached out; Dawn frantically jerked free and summoned his Keyblade.
"Don't tempt me," Riku growled.
"Leave me alone!" Dawn swung the Keyblade at him.
Riku summoned his own weapon in a flash of light and blocked the strike, then raised his Keyblade high. He managed to check himself enough to allow Dawn to block the attack, but it was hard to hold himself back. He swung again, and again, but then the growing dissatisfaction of having to pull his punches got overwhelming. Riku whirled away. "Sora!" he shouted.
Luckily, Sora figured things out just in time to counter the incoming attack. "Riku-"
"Fight me or I'll kill him," Riku snarled.
"Okay, but-" Sora didn't have time to finish, he needed all his concentration to handle the flurry of blows raining down on him. Their growing audience hurriedly backed away, giving the two combatants room to maneuver.
"RAAAGHHH!" Riku bellowed, bashing away at his best friend without restraint.
Sora was starting to break a sweat. "Whoa, wow, okay, angry Riku, help, forgot my shortcuts, where's my, ack, whoa, okay okay hold on Riku, ah...!"
Sora, hampered by a lack of motivation, was having a difficult time holding his own against the enraged Riku, who was focusing so much on aggressive physical attacks that Sora never had a chance to shift onto the offensive. Ven finally came to his rescue, flying in to help split Riku's attention just when it looked like Sora was about to go under. Rallying at the appearance of an ally, Sora downed a Hi-Potion and leaped back into action refreshed.
The battle was now more evenly matched. Ven's lightning-fast attacks provided Sora with more openings, and the brothers' spells tended to instinctively complement each other even though they had no opportunity for verbal coordination. Riku's merciless assaults on one would give the other time to recover, so they were able to keep switching off as long as they timed it right.
The pace of combat increased until only Aqua could still tell what was going on. Kairi and Kazé only saw a rush of cool-looking but incomprehensible action, Sapphique was trying not to have a heart attack at the sight of her babies involved in such intense violence, and Naminé got bored and started drawing pictures of the 100 Acre Wood. Dawn had already sneaked away and was now searching the pantry for junk food.
"HAH! Rainbow Puffs!"
o.o.o.o.o
Later, when they were back at the apartment, Riku and Dawn faced each other down as they waited for their supper to cook. "...Dawn," Riku said, trying hard to stay calm. "What are you planning to do? How are you going to get the gum out?"
Dawn shrugged sullenly.
Riku sighed. "Remember how I told you that kids used to do that to me, too? We had all kinds of fancy hair products at our house, and I'd use one of the hair oils to get it out. But I don't have all that fancy hair stuff anymore, Dawn. When I moved out so I could take care of you, I left all that stuff behind. I don't have any way to help you now unless you let me cut it."
Dawn crouched down and burst into heartbroken tears, covering his head with both arms.
Riku watched him cry, but minute after minute passed and Dawn showed no sign of stopping.
Riku finally gave up. "Whatever... Let's just eat. Come on, get your plate."
To be continued...
Author's Notes: To clarify about the "closet" - it's a specially-designed area in some types of special education classrooms, where a child who's violently upset can vent without causing damage. It's not meant to keep them 'prisoner' or whatever, and I've never seen it used like that; most kids actually prefer to take refuge in there. (Sometimes I have a hard time digging them out when they try to waste time in there without actually needing it. XD) Dawn made a bigger mess of things than usual because of his Keyblade and stuff. Though...I actually have, a few times, seen kids get so upset that they do shove around furniture and knock things over. *sweatdrop* (In this case, they'd evacuated the other students to different classrooms, since it was getting so dangerous with Dawn swinging his Keyblade around and firing off attack spells.)
Basically, it's not an uncommon thing to see in special education (minus the Keyblade and magic XD), and there was nothing inappropriate going on in this story from the administrative end. Riku's perspective is parentally biased, and he wasn't actually present to see what happened, all he saw was the aftermath; plus, he wasn't familiar with special education before this. *sweatdrop*
And note that the behavior unit is only ONE branch of special education. There are lots of different branches, since there are tons of widely varying special needs; not all kids are going to need a quiet room. (Man, I don't know how much to explain...I'm familiar with this stuff because I've worked in special ed for so long, but I don't know how it looks from an outsider's perspective. *sweatdrop* Basically, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea; I am very supportive of special education, but it might not look that way because I'm not writing this fic from the teachers' perspective, the way I did in Welcome To Our World. :/)
I decided on "Crescent" as Riku's surname, since that's the closest thing any of his family has to a surname in FF7. *sweatdrop* (Sephiroth's biological mother is Lucrecia Crescent.)
I have a fairly large family, and we tend to leave the bathroom door open or at least unlocked if we're doing something that doesn't require privacy (so that someone else can come in if they need to fetch something or use a mirror or whatever). The idea of Lea's sisters getting ready in the bathroom at the same time and not minding Riku popping in and out seems normal to me, but it might be different for different sorts of families, I dunno.
The idea of it being very difficult to enroll Nobodies in school is a reference to my fic Beyond the War: Existence. :p And the stuff about Sora & Ven being brothers is in my fic Before Sora, as well as Sapphire Eyes and some other stories.
I actually looked it up and found several methods for removing gum from hair without having to cut it. I already knew about ice, but I didn't know you can also use peanut butter, baby oil, mousse, toothpaste, and more. Riku wouldn't know about those because he's used to doing things the expensive way. XD