Usagi: Hi guys, long time no see.
Zakura: Holy bunny, how long do you plan to wait next time?
Usagi: Hopefully not too long… I only have a couple of more plots I need to wrap up before I can finish this fic.
Sora: HURRAY!
Usagi: and start with the sequel.
Sora: F***!
Zakura: I didn't know you could swear…
Sora: yeah like Disney would let me say that… Besides not even THEY let me through half as much crap as fanfiction-writers do.
Usagi: They did turn you into a heartless.
Sora: only for a couple of minutes. And they didn't to out of the way to humiliate me while doing so.
Usagi: aw but you were so cute…
Sora: (Glare)
Usagi: fine… I bet you'll be glad to know there's no Sora-torture in this chapter.
Sora: it's a start…
Usagi: Instead it's the time to give Demyx a hard time. But he's a nobody so he won't care.
Demyx: just because I'm a nobody doesn't mean I don't have feelings!
Usagi: … that's exactly what it means.
Demyx: oh right…
Usagi: Decided to put an end to the kids summer break too, as in real time it's lasted for one and a half year…
Sora: How long is that in this fanfic? A week?
Usagi: I've completely lost count… TIME-SKIP TIME!
Sora: of course…
Usagi: DEYM-TIME!
Demyx: OH GOD NO!
Chapter 26
Fish Tale
All good things must come to an end, which included Summer Vacation.
Despite how much they wanted to save the world, for some reason Sora and Kairi's parents (namely Kairi's mom) seemed to think it was more important to finish their last year at school.
At least Kairi managed to convince her mom to let her finish at her old school, instead of starting over at Radiant Garden only for the final year, so she was allowed to stay with her adopted parents on Destiny Islands on school-days, Nanami herself lived in their guest room, while Ienzo volunteered to stay at Radiant Garden to water her plants (her one cactus).
Thankfully the heartless activity seemed to be slowing down.
Several people on various worlds had reported that they had seen some heartless, seemingly in a hurry to go somewhere, but they weren't causing as much problems as they usually would.
This meant that even the ones who didn't have to go to school (Axel, Demyx, Samehada, Ienzo and Riku who quit the year before) didn't have much to do during the days.
But despite the apparent peace, a certain beaver still seemed anxious.
"Hey relax! We've finally got a vacation from saving the world!" Axel said, as he was lazing on the beach (lying just above where the water would come in with the high tide, despite it being hours away). "Ironic that it had to come just as the summer vacation ended though…oh well its not like anyone here would hire an Ottsel for any work anyway. Got it memorized?"
"I can't…I have a nasty feeling something terrible is about to happen" Demyx said.
"You don't feel" the Ottsel reminded him.
"Not that kind of feeling" Demyx sighed.
"What is it then?" Samehada asked, he crawled up on the sand to the other two.
"What's bothering you guys?"
Sora, Riku and Sora had showed up at the beach. Kairi, who had just been speaking, sat down and looked at Demyx.
"You're just gonna think it sounds stupid… but I keep having a hunch that my heartless is about to do something… something bad" Demyx said.
"Doesn't sound so stupid to me" Sora said.
"Yeah, since when did heartless do anything good?" Riku said.
"I was really talking about the "having a hunch what your heartless is doing"-bit" Sora said. "Have you had any funny dreams lately?"
"Actually I started getting the hunch earlier today so no" Demyx said. "Whatever he's planning it has to be a spontaneous idea."
"There went the hope of him getting murdered by Laharl or someone for blowing up the Netherworld" Axel said.
"But he can't die like that right? Wasn't that what Vexen said, that he can't die unless his nobody does?" Kairi asked.
"Oh yeah…that complicates things a little" Axel said and gazed at Demyx.
"You don't have any idea of just what Deym is planning then? Or where he is?" Sora asked.
"No… did you ever… as a nobody…feel what your heartless was planning?" Demyx asked.
"Yeah…sure …planning" Sora said.
"Alright bad example" Demyx sighed. "What am I going to do?"
"Take a nap?" Sora suggested.
"I'm being serious…" the beaver muttered.
"So am I. Trust me, it could help" Sora replied. "If you do, maybe you could get a better idea of what he's doing, or at least where he is."
"Unless he just gets a totally unrelated nightmare. It wouldn't be the first time" Riku said.
"To nobodies even get nightmares?" Kairi asked.
"Yeah but without emotions they're not as scary as they should be" Axel said grinning. "At least that's one advantage to it…unless of course you're the melodious nocturne."
"Riku does have a point… how would I know if it's not just any other bad dream?" Demyx asked.
"Oh believe me, you'll know" Sora said.
--
"Now this is surely something for the history books" Riku said. "And so the fate of the world depends on a nobody taking a nap, what will our kids think if they read that in their school books?"
They were all back in Sora's house, his parents were out at the moment, while Demyx was sleeping on the couch. All things considering he didn't seem to have any problems falling asleep.
"I suggest we leave that part out if anyone asks" Sora said. "For all we know maybe it was a false alarm after all, and Deym is still trying to boss around the demon heartless."
"Speaking of demons… do you think it could have something to do with Morty? Or whoever he was working for?" Kairi asked.
The mothman still hadn't revealed any more information on his mysterious employee, and despite several attempts, Vexen hadn't been able to remove the headband that prevented him from doing so, not without slicing open his brain anyway.
Even the Organization's resident "mad scientist" was disgusted by some of the modifications Morty had to go through, and considered it a miracle he had even survived (being a demon had probably helped.)
"You might have a point…you don't think…?" Sora wondered out loud.
"No way! Deym can't be THAT smart" Axel said. "If he was, he wouldn't have turned Laharl into a heartless. It doesn't look like he had as much control over demon heartless as he thought he had. Those things are though… with the exception of that giant snake they wouldn't even listen to Xehanort!"
"Yeah, demon heartless do seem a lot different from the normal ones" Kairi said. "But I wonder if that's a good thing… On one hand they don't seem too fond of Xehanort, but on the other hand well…"
"They're demons?" Samehada said. "We're not all bad you know."
Kairi was about to apologize when Demyx's eyes suddenly shot open.
"It can't be…" he started, before he ran out of the door before anyone had time to ask "What can't be?"
--
A doorbell was ringing.
"Ain't that typical, always when you're in the shower" a woman muttered, she had just gotten out and was about to dry her hair, and hastily took on her clothes.
She gave up on getting her hair completely dry, and instead tied a towel around.
"I'm coming already. Gosh!" she said as the doorbell rang again, and again soon after.
Whoever it was they should be able to wait for just a minute, all of her friends and family knew she liked to take a shower after coming home from work.
She walked through the hallway towards the door, passing an aquarium where the fishes swam up to the glass to see who was making all the noise.
Whoever it was, they were tired of waiting.
The door flew open, seemingly pushed by an enormous blast of water.
The girl covered her eyes automatically as the blast came, and as the door fell just a few feet away from her she looked up at who was in the door.
It couldn't be… it was him! But it couldn't be right! He disappeared years ago, still there he was, and looking no older than when they last saw one another.
The day they broke up.
"Honey, I'm home" he said with a sinister grin.
--
"How fast can that beaver run?" Axel asked. "Hey Demyx! Mind telling us where we're going?"
The party had followed Demyx out of the house and were now running down the street.
It had to look pretty stupid to bystanders, three teenagers, one with a large two-toned blue fish trying to hang on to his back, the other a bright red weasel-like creature on his shoulder, chasing a blonde beaver.
"No time" Demyx said exhausted. "He's already…pant…there. I know it!"
"Where?" Axel asked Sora (who's shoulder he was currently clinging too) like he had any answers.
But Demyx didn't say more, he just kept on running down the street towards the beach.
Sora wondered if that was where he was going, the children's island perhaps? But what would Deym be doing there?
But then Demyx took a new turn and ran up behind a line of houses just above the shoreline.
He finally stopped in front of a door; someone had obviously just tried to break into, as the door was knocked over, he ran inside.
"Wa… Wakana are you there?" he cried. "Please, if you can hear me, just say something!"
No one answered. The only sound to be heard inside the house was the sound of the aquarium's filter.
"Who's Wakana? Your girlfriend?" Axel said.
"Ex-girlfriend" Demyx said shortly before he disappeared of into the living room to search more.
Axel looked a bit surprised at being right. As Sora looked at him he even thought he saw some regret in the furry face.
"Do you think she was turned into a heartless?" Kairi asked as the trio slowly walked past the aquarium, and Samehada crawled up on Riku's shoulder watching the fish with great interest.
"Well it depends on how much Deym cares about her I guess" Sora said. "But since he also seems rather disturbed…well."
"Why don't we ask them?" Samehada asked and pointed at the tank.
"Sorry to break it to you Sammy, but we can't talk to fish" Riku said.
"Duh, I knew that" Samehada said. "But in case you haven't noticed I AM a fish!"
"So you can talk to any fish?" Kairi asked, Demyx came back from the living room too, his search obviously fruitless.
"Of course, but put me in the tank, it's too hard to speak to them through the glass" Samehada said eagerly.
Kairi walked up to the tank and tried to open the small lid.
"Be careful, Wakana always loved her fishes" Demyx said.
"And some girls like fuzzy animals… I can see why you two hooked up" Axel said.
"So your girlfriend was living on this very island the whole time and you never went to visit her?" Sora asked.
"It's not that easy! I'm a nobody, it can never be the same… besides she's probably better of without me, and otherwise she wouldn't have broken up with me" Demyx said.
"Didn't you say you left her because you turned into a nobody?" Kairi said, having finally opened the aquarium lid successfully.
Demyx sighed. "She broke up with me on the same day, just a couple of hours before… She left me with nothing but a scribbled note".
"Well maybe if you save her from…yourself…you can get back into her good books" Riku suggested. "I hope you can fit in here Sam, I don't think this gap was made to put in a fish your size."
He pushed the fish into the aquarium, and he only just got in. Thankfully he was quite slippery, or he probably would have gotten stuck in the small gap on the top of the aquarium.
The fish tank itself was rather big thankfully, Samehada was able to fit in it just fine, however he didn't have much freedom to move around, being so big, and even if he tried to move he would probably push over the largest ornament, a plastic volcano covered in glowing red lights and with bubbles coming out on top.
Oh come on, I've seen underwater volcanoes in the Netherworld and they're not covered in glowing plastic he thought to himself.
Of course his appearance in the tank didn't go un-noticed by the other inhabitants, he could see at least three or four other fish and some sort of shrimp hiding behind the volcano, but one fish swam up to him, watching him suspiciously.
The fish was flat, almost moon-shaped if you ignored the tail sticking out. He had black and white stripes with some yellow patches on the white. It was a Moorish Idol, not that Samehada knew much about fish from outside the Netherworld.
Samehada noticed that his right fin was broken, and he had a scar on his right eye.
"And just what are you supposed to be?" the Idol asked. "Certainly these humans can't assume a fish your size can fit in this tank?"
"Oh don't worry, I'm not planning on moving in" Samehada said. "I just need to talk to you."
"He's a strange one Gil" said a muffled voice.
A pink starfish was hanging on the glass, she disconnected two of her feet to reveal a face that had previously been squashed against the glass, so she could see the other fish, and talk more freely. "I saw him hanging on to that boy's shoulder, and he even talked and breathed out of water" she said.
"Oh yeah, that. I'm not really a "normal" fish by your standards" Samehada said. "I can stay out of the water for quite some time, as long as it doesn't get too dry… My name is Samehada."
"I'm Gil" the idol said. "The starfish is Peach and those are Gurgle, Bloat, Deb, Bubbles and Jaques."
"You forgot my sister, Flo" said one of the fish who came out from behind the volcano, a blue and white-striped damsel fish, who pointed towards the glass to introduce Samehada to her sister, who turned out to be her reflection in the tank wall.
"Don't get too close Gil, you don't know what kind of germs he may carry from outside the tank" said Gurgle, a long royal gamma, half his body was purple but his tail was yellow.
Samehada sent the fish a strange look; suddenly he wasn't so sure it was a good idea to ask them, he was just wondering if they were all equally crazy which seemed to be confirmed as the yellow tang Bubbles swam over to a treasure chest announcing "My bubbles!", Bloat the Porcupine fish inflated himself for no reason and got swept away with the weak current from the aquarium pump, and the shrimp barely gave Samehada one more look, muttered something in French, and hid inside an ornament resembling a diver's helmet.
Gazing from these and back to Gil, Sam was half-expecting him to do something strange too, but Gil just sighed.
"Don't be too hard on them. They've been living different aquariums their entire lives, fish aren't meant to be stuck behind glass walls" he said.
"You have a point. I'd probably go nuts too if I had to be locked up… and you're not?" Samehada asked.
"I came from the ocean. Our current "owner's" father picked me up on one of his diving trips. He was a notorious fish collector" Gil said with a scowl. "I tried to get out. I managed to get out of the tank back in his office where we lived before, but I landed on a table full of dentist equipment… I was aiming for the sink."
"So that's why your fin is broken… hey tell you what. I can talk to humans, so maybe if you help me find your owner I can ask her to give you a bigger habitat? Maybe even release you!" Samehada said. "And if she doesn't… Hey, I'm a demon! I can probably find a way."
"That doesn't sound so bad does it Gil?" Peach said.
Gil didn't seem that convinced.
"Might I add; your owner might be in grave danger. Either you help us, and I'll ask her to cut you some slack, or you slowly starve to death here. It's your choice" Samehada said.
"He really is a demon" Gurgle said.
Gil just sighed again, before turning to the starfish.
"Peach, how much did you see?" he asked.
"Well, just a short while ago I heard someone knock the door" Peach said. "Whoever it was must have been very impatient, as he suddenly knocked the door in. It must have flown at least ten feet."
"Yeah we kind of noticed it is lying ten feet into the hallway here" Samehada said. "Did you see who knocked? And what happened to Wakana?"
"It was some strange blonde guy" Peach said. "Wakana did seem very surprised to see him. Apparently she knew him and thought he was dead… He wanted her to come with her somewhere but she refused, so he knocked her out and some strange creatures carried her of… then they just sort of…vanished."
"As in a black puff of smoke?" Samehada asked.
"Uh-huh."
"Dark corridors…I should have known… but there's no way of knowing where he had taken her" Samehada muttered to himself.
"Uhm. He did say something about going to "the normal place" wherever that is…" Peach said.
"Okay… well that's something at least… thanks for the help" Samehada said.
He swam back up to the top of the tank, and crawled up from the open lid.
"Hey Demyx, did you and Wakana ever have a standard meeting place for your dates?" he asked.
"Yeah…there's an old abounded port by the edge of town" Demyx said. "We always went there."
"Then that's where we need to go" Samehada said. "Also if there's a box of fish food anywhere, please put some in the tank."
Zakura: Something's missing from this chapter…
Sora: good story-telling?
Axel: fire?
Demyx: music?
Riku: Action?
Kairi: kittens?
Ienzo: Kittens??
Zakura: no… clown fish.
Usagi: it fell in the sink and got reunited with his dad and forgetful friend Dory.
Gil: no fair…
Usagi: Relax. At least Wakana isn't going to give you away to some crazy cousin of hers without telling the girl that shaking the bag of the fish is a bad thing…
Zakura: I sense a rant about Finding Nemo coming up…
Usagi: (takes a deep breath)
Sora: We get it! Stupid kids shouldn't have animals! I think we all learned that with Annie.
Usagi: Point taken…
But yes, as you should have guessed by now, the fishes in this chapter are all characters from Finding Nemo. As a bit random trivia I decided to make Wakana related to the dentist who's the previous owner of these fishes. He's now retired and gave the fish to her; because she loves fish like most girls loves horses…
Riku: aha. So that's why Demyx brought Samehada with him from the Netherworld.
Demyx: I didn't "take him with me!" He just followed me home!
Riku: riiiight.
Samehada: That's alright. I don't mind being used to attract girls, as long as they're cute.
Demyx: don't even think about it… Deym is going to murder you.
Samehada: Jikes…
Usagi: I should give some credit for this chapter to Rilaveke, who actually wrote a suggestion for Wakana's introduction scene in this chapter. A lot of it is based on that:3
Zakura: and Deym himself… How did Demyx get such a badass heartless anyway?
Usagi: Patience young dwarf rabbit… all will be revealed in time…
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