Um, so it's been over a month, and I'm kind of to blame for that, I guess. But I'm back, and I hope you'll enjoy this new chapter!

Disclaimer: Don't own. But guess who got Dream Drop Distance for her birthday?


"Who's the girl?" Sora asks as he follows Riku into the downtown ice cream parlor.

"Uh, you'll find out." Riku walks over to the round, white table where Kairi sat with the girl, Xion. Xion's lips are pressed in a hard line as she stares at her sea-blue ice cream bar. "So, did you find anything else out?" Riku asks as he slides into the chair across from Kairi and next to Xion. Kairi shakes her head.

"Not exactly. She hasn't really said anything."

Riku nods and leans back in his chair, accepting her answer even though he is unsatisfied.

"So, Kairi," Sora says. "Who is she?" He blatantly points across the table at Xion, who is eating her ice cream.

"Sora, it's rude to point!" Kairi looks mortified as she pushes down his outstretched hand. "This is Xion."

"Oh, is she a transfer student?" Sora asks, not considering that this girl could be anything besides a normal human being.

"Um, kinda. She's not from Destiny Islands."

"Oh, that's cool." Sora eyes widen, clearly interested. Not a lot of people move to Destiny Islands. "Where are you from?" He asks Xion. She doesn't answer.

"Um, that's the thing." Kairi shakily laughs. "She's not from this world."

"Wait, what?" Sora tilts his head in confusion.

"Yeah, what?" Riku shoots a glance at Kairi that says, You didn't tell me this. "I thought you said she hasn't talked!"

"She hasn't. Naminé told me all this." Riku stares back at Kairi blankly.

"I'm sorry, I still can't get over the fact that you can talk to your Nobody," he says.

Kairi rolls her eyes and turns to Sora. "Sora, do you think you can ask Roxas about Xion?"

Immediately, Sora freezes up in panic at Kairi's question. "Roxas? Uh, I can try. . ." He scrunches his face up in concentration.

"Don't hurt yourself, man." Riku snickers at Sora's effort.

"Shut up." Sora blindly bats at his silver-haired friend, fairly insulted. Um, Roxas?

What?

"Whoa!" Sora yells in surprise, almost jumping out of his seat. "It worked!"

"Be quiet, Sora," Kairi hisses. "People are staring."

"Right, sorry." He sheepishly rubs his head. Again, he closes his eyes in concentration. Roxas, do you know a girl named Xion?

Xion? I don't think so.

Sora's face visibly fell. Okay. "He doesn't know anything," he announces disappointedly.

"That's fine. Naminé said that she erased any memories of her," Kairi says. She nonchalantly spoons a scoop of her Paopu ice cream into her mouth. "So, long story short, Xion is your, or Roxas', imperfect clone created by Organization XIII."

"Wait, clone?" Sora's mouth hung open from both astonishment and horror. "But she's a girl!"

"I said, 'imperfect,' Sora." Kairi sighs. "Anyways, she was with the Organization for a bit as their sort of fourteenth member. But she held some of Sora's memories, so you, Riku," Kairi points to her silver-headed companion, "had to retrieve her so Sora could regain all his memories."

"How come I don't remember any of this?" Riku asks.

"I did say that all memories of her were erased," Kairi states, irritated that none of her friends understand the concept of erased memories.

"Wait, if she's here, does that mean the Organization is back?" Sora asks.

"I don't think so. I don't understand any of the mechanics behind it," Kairi self-consciously taps her index fingers together. "But I'm pretty sure her appearing has to do with you getting struck by lightning."

"Struck by lightning?" Sora is surprised to hear this and rushes to examine himself for any signs of damage.

Riku slams his face down on the table at Sora's stupidity. "I swear, if you forgot every stupid thing you did, we'd have a lot of explaining to do." His annoyed statement comes out muffled. He quickly pulls his head up from the table. "Don't bother looking, Kairi healed you."

"Ooh, really?" Sora turns to Kairi with wide, bright eyes. "I didn't know you could use magic. That's so cool!"

"Yeah, Aerith taught me a little." Kairi tries to cover her blushing cheeks. She turns sideways in her chair, away from Sora. "Um, let's get some ice cream now." She stands and heads for the counter, her eyes avoiding Sora.

"Okay!" Sora grins, happy to finally get ice cream. "You're paying, right?" He asks as he follows Kairi to the counter, remembering her promise from the other day.

"Um, yeah." She stares at the ice cream, not looking at Sora when she talks. "Excuse me, can I have a scoop of Paopu fruit ice cream in a cup and . . . Sora, what do you want?" Kairi finally turns to look at Sora, but looks at his nose, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

"I'll have Paopu too! But two scoops, and in a cone."

As he flashes her another signature Sora grin, Kairi can't help but think about shared Paopu fruits and intertwined destinies.

"Miss? Miss!" The worker pulls Kairi out of her romantic daydream when he holds out the cup and cone to her.

"Huh? Oh, thank you." Kairi takes the ice cream from

the worker. "Hey, Sora? Can you hold these while pay?"

"Okay."

Kairi places the ice cream in his outstretched hands, blushing when her skin brushes Sora's. She quickly turns back to the counter to hand the cashier the money.

"Thank you very much. That will be 800 munny."

Kairi nods and hands the man a 1000 munny bill. As he hands back her change, she hears a voice eerily similar to her own yell, "Hey, give that back!"

"Mmm, this is actually really good!" She hears Riku say soon after.

Kairi slowly turns around to face their table, and sees Riku holding Xion's ice cream cone away from the girl. He manages to take one more lick of the salty-sweet treat before Xion snatches it away.

"Mine," she claims before happily licking her ice cream.

After hearing Xion say something, Kairi rushes back to the table with Sora trailing behind, holding the ice cream. "So, she speaks." She stares at the black-haired girl hard, making her squirm uncomfortably.

"Um, can you stop staring? You're making me uncomfortable." Xion momentarily stops eating her ice cream to voice her request to Kairi.

"Don't worry, she does that to everyone." Riku snickers and rolls his eyes. "Hey!" He jumps out of his seat to avoid a fist from Kairi. "What was that for?"

"I don't make people uncomfortable!" She huffs. "Right, Sora?" She turns to Sora, her eyes daring him to disagree.

"U-um, no! You don't!" Sora grins, but it seems forced. It is obvious that Kairi made him uncomfortable as well. Well, it was to Riku. Kairi doesn't seem to notice.

"See?" She looks smugly at her silver haired companion, satisfied that she has seemingly won this battle. Riku just rolls his eyes.

"I see that you made Sora uncomfortable, too. That's what I see." He smirks as Kairi fumes.

"Shut up!" She pouts and leans back in her wrought iron chair with her arms crossed. To her comfort, it seems that Sora has seemingly forgot all about her interrogations in the past three minutes, and was in the mood to compliment her.

"Hey, Kairi, you look nice today." Whether it is because she looks particularly nice this day, or if he is trying to butter her up is debatable.

"Really? Thank you." Kairi tucks a strand of auburn hair behind her ear while Riku scoffs. "But who you all should really be paying attention to is Xion. I spent all morning working on her."

"Working on her? What is she, a car?" Riku's eyes widen in horror, scared and feeling sorry for what the poor black-haired girl had to go through.

Kairi glares at Riku and walks around to put her hands on Xion's shoulders. "What she is, is super cute."

"Huh?" Xion stops eating her ice cream with a panicked look in her wide eyes.

"Stand up!" Kairi tells Xion. She doesn't give a choice as she pulls her up by her shoulders. "Observe." Kairi uses her hand to present Xion to the boys. Riku finally gets a look at the petite girl. Xion shifts uncomfortably under the silver-haired bishi's gaze and pulls at the rolled up sleeves of her gray-tan button up shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned, revealing her olive green tank top. A pair of white shorts held up by a brown belt completed the look. It was an excellent look for the black-haired girl, or so Kairi thought. Unfortunately for Kairi, the outfit she spent all morning putting together only looks like a shirt and shorts to the boys.

"Observe what? She's just wearing clothes." Riku stares blankly at the small girl. His lack of reaction makes Kairi boil in fury.

"Just clothes?" Her brow twitches as she fumes beside Xion. "I spent all morning looking for the right pair of shorts that would showcase her legs perfectly. See?" She shuffles Xion over to the space right beside Riku. "Even though her legs are actually pretty short, they're slim, so shorts this length are perfect for her!" She gets on her knees and faces Xion to get a better look at her, and Riku disappears from her vision. When she fails to hear any reaction from Riku, she jumps back her face to scold him once again for his absence of expression. Instead, she is greeted with a slightly red faced, silent Riku.

The proverbial light bulb lights up in Kairi's head. Needless to say, she has come up with a plan for much needed revenge against Riku Gallagher, and that plan included a certain black-haired newcomer.


It's a little short (like me), but I'm already working on the next chapter.

Also, shameless self plug here, if you like the RoxasxNaminé pairing, I have an AU story, Take a Dance on Me. If you like this story, or even if you don't, go check it out.

Random Fact: I uploaded this the day after my birthday.