Ai: Hey! Okay, I'm glad to say.... TARGET ACHIEVED FOR THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER! Exeeded, in fact. 3 reviews and 3 polls! Yaaaay~~~! SEE! We CAN achieve 3 reviews per chapter! I see no reason why your mices(? mouses?) are still hovering off the Review Button now, then! Quick, click it!

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, because if I did, there'd be more Keyblades!

Falling… Falling…

I fell from the sky, watching the many clouds with my eyes half-closed, not really taking in the breathtaking sight.

My hair and coat being blown about wildly. My eyes stinging from not blinking for too long. I parted my dry lips to whisper something, but whatever I said was drowned out by the fierce howling of the wind.

The journey seemed endless.

After what seemed like a century, my feet finally touched the ground surprisingly gently. I looked around, noting the several hundred pink petals drifting about, twisting and turning in the cool breeze. A single petal landed on my outstretched hand.

"Sakura…"

The breeze died out for a second, then picked up again, blowing the Sakura petal off my palm and up into the air once more.

"It's pretty…"

A wave of malice or something similar to it, passed through the scenery, shocking me as the bright petals suddenly disappeared from the air and the trees all died, their remaining leaves littering the base of the roots. The grass, similarly, had all withered, turning the scenery which had been so beautiful just a moment ago into a place of which its stench of death was so strong I could hardly even breathe.

I could feel something clutching at my heart and squeezing it tight.

"What… is this…"

But deep inside me, I already knew the answer.

The beautiful plains with the Sakura… that was my peace. My peace was going to die.

And it wouldn't be very long from now.

******

"Shut up!" Axel roared and grabbed me by my shirt.

"Axel-senpai!" Ray shouted.

"Oi, I've had enough of this," Axel continued fiercely. "So I'll just say one thing. You can't survive doing everything by yourself. Sometimes you need to rely on others too. It's all because you refused our help back in your world that both of you ended up like this. Face it, Calix, you're weak. You're strong, but you don't focus on the battle at hand when you're fighting, and you don't realize that your surroundings and even your allies are your weapons too. Instead, you rush straight into your opponent and start attacking mindlessly, which only ends up getting you nearly killed. That's what makes you weak. So if you still consider us your 'senpais', then start relying us more, okay?!" With that, Axel released me.

"…I can't. I want to, but I can't. There's no one I can rely on besides Ray and myself. 'Trust'? Pfft, who needs such a thing?"

"Cal!" Ray tried to stop me from continuing, but I pushed on, ignoring the silent faces of Axel, Demyx and Roxas. "Do you know how it feels to be betrayed by someone you really trust? It's happened to me before. Way too many times to count. That's why I can't trust other people. If I trust them, they'll just betray my trust again. It's pathetic," I spat and turned away, dashing into a dark portal I had quickly opened before anyone had a chance to react.

"I don't need your help, so you can keep it, okay?"

******

I threw myself onto the orange sand and lay down on my back, using my arms folded neatly behind my head as a head rest, careful not to put too much weight on my heavily bandaged left arm. It was lucky that I could still use it, but it felt numb. The glaringly bright blue sky, along with the hundreds of pure white clouds drifting lazily, reminded me heavily of my dream.

"Hmph."

Axel-senpai. I finally woke up after an entire week of being unconscious, and he's already demanding things from me. He didn't know the slightest thing about me, yet he acted as if he did. It pissed me off to no end. 'Relying'? Was he telling me to rely on him? That's almost the same as 'trusting' him, isn't it? 'Trusting' and 'relying'… these words don't exist in my dictionary. Maybe they used to, many years ago, but now they're all sleeping in my memory. Maybe they'll wake up one day. And maybe they won't. But one thing's for sure.

I don't want them to.

I told them, didn't I. If I trust people, I'll just get hurt all again. The only people I can really, honestly, trust, are myself, obviously, and Ray, because he's, in a way, one half of me, and the only other person who hasn't betrayed my trust before.

Mom? She died. In order to help Ray-nii and I. But she just ended up making our lives more miserable. Maybe it would have been better if we had died instead. That way, we wouldn't have had to be hated by everyone in our country and had to go through such a blood-filled life. Actually, I was pretty fine with that. What had really crushed my heart were her last words to us.

'………'

I don't think any young child would have had continued living with such a hopelessly optimistic personality if he had heard that. But I did. Because I managed to convince myself that I had heard Mom wrongly.

That old geezer and Akihiko-nii-san? They used to be really good to us. Akihiko-nii-san used to always be more than happy to play weird games with Ray and I even though he was in midst of training. He could have refused, or told us to play with the servants instead, but he didn't. In fact, sometimes, it was he who skipped training and asked us if we wanted to play instead. The old geezer… We hardly saw him much, but when we did, it was never an unhappy moment. But ever since Mom's death, they suddenly turned really cold towards us. No, they started to hate us. They blamed us for her death. …I can't blame them. But we never asked Mom to help us.

The citizens of our country… they were the ones who caused us both to be like this.

And then, there's that person… Idiot. I trusted him the most, but he went and… I clenched my teeth tightly together at the thought of it. The final moment… how could I possibly forget it? It's burned into my memory. He's the reason I can't trust anyone anymore.

A drop of water suddenly splashed onto my cheek. "Rain…?" The clouds were now slightly grey in color and more water drops were making their way to the ground. I knew that it wasn't safe to stay so close to the ocean when it was raining, and that I should seek shelter in case I caught a cold, but I ignored all of that and remained fixed in my position. The rain became stronger and eventually had me soaked to the skin. I still refused to move. I could somehow sense that the rain would not last for very long. True enough, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had come. I flicked my wet hair out of my face, then returned to using my arm as a head rest.

Rainbow.

The sight of a pale rainbow made me jerk up, memories flashing through my mind, one by one.

'Wow, so the both of you really are a prince and princess?'

''Cos I'm your friend.'

'I won't let you down.'

'So open up, okay?'

'…Yeah! It's a promise!'

A boy just a bit younger than my current age, his slightly long blonde hair tied tightly into a small ponytail at the back of his head. With aquamarine-colored eyes and an infectious grin, his hand was extended to me. It had just finished raining as well, and there was a clear rainbow behind him.

'Just like rainbows, you know? After the storm and the rain, a rainbow always follows. I'll bet that you'll see the rainbow one day! Maybe your lives aren't great right now, but it'll definitely get better! That's for certain!'

******

I returned to the room I had fled from more than an hour ago. Everyone else was still there.

"Calix---" Roxas-senpai tried to say something, but I interrupted him.

"I'll trust you," I said, my face set in a scowl. "I don't want to, but I remembered… He often told me to trust people more too."

"He?"

"I'll tell you our past. Then maybe you'll understand why I can't trust people."

"C- Calix, you don't have to! T--- He…" Ray automatically knew who I was talking about.

"He said that you shouldn't keep secrets from people you trust, right?"

"Yes, but…" My twin was still reluctant about letting me recount our past, but when he saw my determined expression he nodded slowly. "…Okay, but if you can't continue, then just stop, got it?"

"Yeah." I turned to face our 'audience'. "I'll tell you everything."

Author's Note:

AND HERE CONCLUDES~~~~~ THE STORY!!! Yeah you wish. It's still ongoing. WATCH OUT FOR CHAPTER 15 PEOPLES!

Oh wait, so as to encourage more reviews, I'm not gonna post it until I get the same number as/more than the number of reviews I got for the previous chapter (AKA 3 reviews of more). I'm serious, yupyup.

Come on, every writer needs reviews as nourishment!