Notes: And thus ends the first day of seven! I'd like to thank everyone for their support and kind words. I also have a very easy contest in this chapter. The first reviewer who can tell me what anime/manga the gun that Larxene shows Sora is from gets to have a cameo roll in a few chapters (most likely as a victim, but a cameo's a cameo)! Regardless, I await your criticism with bated breath. Happy reading.

The Second Day: Morning

"And here's what I was telling you about yesterday," Larxene said as she opened her briefcase so Sora could examine its contents. They had both woken up slightly later than usual, due to a particularly exhausting lovemaking session the previous night. Sora hated to sleep aroused, and so had done his best to please Larxene; the plan backfired on him, though, as his mind replaced the blonde's face with Kairi's at every moment.

Sora hefted the large pistol out of Larxene's case, examining the barrel and slide. "Kinda huge, don't you think?"

Larxene smiled and began her pitch. "It's a Jackal." Seeing Sora's startled expression, she laughed pleasantly. "I said it was something special. We managed to get our hands on one of the five hundred Jackals in the world, and I thought I'd let you make an offer before anyone else did."

Sora looked closer at the gun's slide, and wondered at the inscription: "Jesus Christ Is In Heaven Now." The entire thing was over a foot long. "It's nice, I'll give you that."

"It uses armor-piercing, explosive, thirteen millimeter bullets. Six fit in one magazine, but one's enough to take down an elephant at long range, so don't expect to reload too much."

"Those rounds must be pricey," Sora replied, gripping the gun with both hands and aiming it around the room. It was almost ridiculously heavy, and he wondered if shooting the thing was safe, or even possible. "I've heard of hunting rifles with hundred-dollar bullets."

Larxene's smile faltered a bit. It was impossible to fast-talk Sora. "Magazines are six hundred each. The gun itself is eighty thousand."

"Let me ask you something, Larxene," Sora said as he lazily spun the pistol around his fingers. "This thing is impossible to silence. It's more expensive than a nitro rifle. It's strong enough to tear apart a car. It's also strong enough to blow off my hands if I fired it. Why exactly would I need it?"

Larxene shrugged. "I didn't think you'd use it, just that it's a collector's thing, and I thought you might like it. You realize that everyone else pays double what you do."

"Gotta love that 'preferred customer status,'" Sora muttered, and grinned as he put the gun neatly back into the case. "I'll take it, and two magazines. I'll ask Cloud to write you a check later."

"Thanks, Sora!" she said as she hugged him. Sora and Cloud were Larxene's main source of income, and she hated dealing with any other customers, because, she had explained, they were almost all arrogant junkies who thought that just because they wore gold that somehow entitled them to power. "Any customization requests?"

"Yes, actually," Sora passed the briefcase back to her. "The inscription. Can you get it changed?"

"Sure. What to?"

Sora pretended to think before answering. "'Yamato.'"

Larxene fixed him with a worried glance. "Isn't that the target's-"

"Yes." Sora pondered the words. The target. He'd only known her for a day, and already, she was "Kairi" to him, not "the target" or "the objective." "I don't want to forget her after today."

"Today!" Larxene started. "You're doing it today?"

"Yeah," Sora had come to the conclusion earlier in the morning that the sooner he did it, the better. And he'd decided to go with his first plan. "She's going to see 'Phantom' this evening. I need you to make sure she sits right under the chandelier."

"What?" Now she was glaring at him. "That thing's not cheap, you know, so this better work."

"Trust me, once we get this paycheck, you can get a nicer chandelier. Hell, you could get ten nice chandeliers and we could still sit on our lazy asses for the rest of the year."

"Hey, Sora."

He looked over at her, sure that this was something important. Larxene almost never lowered her voice unless she was thinking of something very delicate, and this was definitely one of those times. The normally ruthless eyes softened to show genuine compassion. "Are you thinking of…retiring?"

Sora met her eyes as best he could before responding. The thought had of course crossed his mind, as had another one.

Fake it! it had shouted at him. Fake it!

Fake her death, fake yours! Leave! Take half the money and leave! Go somewhere no one will ever disturb you!

Is that what it comes to, said another part, running away from my duty? Not finishing this last job? Letting Sora Hikari die?

"No," he replied, his voice full of steel that he didn't really feel. "No way." He gestured to the case containing the firearm. "This is what I do, what I was born to do."

Roxas woke up pissed. It wasn't much of a shock, as he had gone to bed pissed, and, if such a thing was possible, he slept pissed as well. But slumber had done nothing to alleviate his irritation with Kairi at staying out so late with this…Hikari.

And, of course, Kairi would be going out to the theater tonight. Chances are, since Hikari knew that, he would meet her as she was leaving, and Roxas would have to spend another night worrying about her. Worrying about her safety, worrying about how she felt about him, worrying about whether or not she actually liked this Hikari person more than him. She hadn't said terribly much about him, but Roxas knew all that he needed to know.

Naturally, what he knew only made him worry about Kairi spending time with Hikari more. Would you let your kid play with matches?

A knock at his door sounded, and he yelled to come in, knowing it was Kairi.

She didn't smile as she walked in, and for a brief instant, Roxas hated her for that. She used to smile and laugh with him all the time, but more and more frequently, his attempts at conversation had been ignored, and his own bright smiles unreturned. Her happiness used to bring so much joy to Roxas…but now she seemed to be edging closer and closer to depression with each passing day.

"Morning," she said distractedly as she walked over to a chest on the other side of the room. "We should probably do some recon today, see who we can see."

Roxas nodded his agreement, ogling her as she bent over to open the chest. His CIA training never deserted him, though, and he proved it by catching a sheathed switchblade that Kairi absentmindedly tossed to him before picking one out for herself. "You think he'll turn up today?"

"I saw him yesterday, I'm sure he'll be around again."

"You saw him?" This was news to Roxas. "When you were with Hikari?"

"When I was with Sora, yeah." Kairi didn't seem very put off, and so Roxas decided not to push a matter she clearly wasn't interested in. Still, her insistence on using Hikari's first name annoyed Roxas, but he tried not to let it show.

"What did he look like?"

"Exactly how he was described. I think it's kind of hard for him to disguise himself."

"Hm."

There was silence as they both concealed their knives as best they could. Communication between the two had deteriorated to the point where it had almost completely broken down, and small talk didn't come easily. Sometimes, it was hard for Roxas to even meet her eyes. He couldn't help but notice, though, that Kairi never attempted to break the silence herself. Yet, he couldn't bring himself to just not say anything for too long.

"Where should we go while we wait for the show to start?"

Kairi shrugged. Her pointed lack of a spoken response hit Roxas' heart like a dead penguin being used as a bludgeon.

"Can we stop at church?"

"Fine," she said as she turned to the door, and Roxas followed.

"So," said Cloud over a cup of tea. "Yamato."

"Yamato," Sora agreed, forcing himself not to refer to her by her first name.

"Nice," Cloud commented, taking a sip of his tea and watching his partner for any reactions.

"Very nice," was all Sora said as he blew on his tea, the steam coming off it in thick wisps which dissolved before they went very far.

"Smart," Cloud continued. "Funny. Pretty. Sorta girl anyone would like."

"Yeah," Sora responded wistfully. Cloud heard the longing in his voice and correctly interpreted it as such.

"You thinking of backing out?"

"No!" Sora shouted unexpectedly, an incredibly angry look on his face as he glared at Cloud. "Why does everyone think that!"

Cloud set down his tea and raised his hands in the air, a sign of regret. "Sorry, sorry, just wondering. It's not like this is the only job we'll ever have again, though."

Sora calmed down a bit and took a sip of tea, savoring the taste as it scalded his tongue and throat. "I've never missed a mark before, and I'm not about to start."

With each passing second, that odious little voice in his head, the one that spoke of love, was being pushed further and further away from his conscious line of thought. He had almost forgotten it when Cloud spoke next. "But don't you want her?"

Sora raised an eyebrow. "I have Yuffie and Larxene. What more could I possibly 'want,' when I'm content to have things most would kill for?" And I did kill for them, if you think about it.

"I don't mean sexually wanting her," Cloud rambled on, "I mean, do you want to spend more time with her, could you picture yourself living with her?"

Here's the windup, thought Sora.

"Do you think you might-"

And the pitch.

"-love her?"

Sora laughed. It was a bitter laugh, probably more so than he'd intended, and Cloud cringed when he heard it. After regaining control of himself, Sora answered the question with another question: "This isn't like you at all! Who put you up to this?"

"Yuffie," said Cloud simply, not feeling like trying to lie. "She was going on and on about how you'd fallen in love with Yamato, and that's why you didn't shoot her."

"I didn't want to ruin dinner." This was a lie and Cloud knew it, and Sora knew that Cloud knew, because the denial lacked any real conviction. Cloud continued.

"I didn't think so at first, but then I started thinking about it. You stared at her almost incessantly, you were really polite, you blushed a bit whenever she looked at you, you were like a different person. Someone…" he struggled for the word.

"Simpler?" Sora offered.

"Cleaner," Cloud finished.

Their eyes met, and Cloud was certain that the expression in Sora's eyes now had never been present in them before, at least never when he'd been around. Was it…regret?

"I haven't been clean in a long time," Sora said, lowering his eyes slightly.

"And that's another thing!" Cloud cried, anger for some reason overtaking him. "Since when are you so damn introspective? A week ago, if I'd said you loved Riku, you would have cackled and punched me in the arm. Whenever we talked about him, you were carefree, because you knew you'd kill him, you were just playing with him. Now look at you! Getting bent out of shape because of a woman!"

Sora tried hard to think of what Cloud wanted as an answer to this. He finally grinned and offered a cheery, "Out of shape? So you're saying I'm fat?"

It worked. Cloud grinned too, and they both laughed heartily together. "I'm sorry, Sora, it's just that you seem to really like her, and, well, I don't want you getting hurt."

"What, are we thirteen years old?" Sora bantered. "So vulnerable that asking a girl to dance takes every last bit of willpower?"

Cloud laughed again, relieved to have a bit of the old Sora back. The 'old Sora?' he thought. This just started a day ago!

What'll happen before the week's up?