-flails- I'm a terrible, terrible author! I'm so sorry for the lack of updates on this story! Feel free to throw cabbages at me :(
FINALLY, a new chapter! I hope you all like it!
The song for the chapter is Face Down by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. Trust me, it fits.
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts D:

Kiss and I Will Surrender

Twenty Two

Face Down

His consciousness came in snatches, dancing at the tips of his fingers before flitting away again into the murky darkness behind his eyelids. He was barely aware of himself. Things which were usually important to him such as his name and where he was, they were superfluous information to him. He couldn't think past the sickening, thrumming ache in his head, in his very brain cells. Absolutely nothing else registered.

For what felt like a cursed eternity, it was just him and the pain. It pulsed maliciously, straining against the confines of his rattled skull. It was like a mutating bacterium, surging beyond its own boundaries and poisoning everything around it. And just as Sora learned to deal with it, the pain would increase tenfold, as if it had found a new way to make him hurt.

He hardly noticed at first, but after an incredibly long period of time his awareness began to return to him in drabbles. It started with the realisation that he was more than just a throbbing head, that there was a body attached to him as well. He had to push past the pain first to recover the sensations in his limbs, which were so heavy that he couldn't move them at all.

After that came thoughts. Information. Racing ideas coursed into his brain all at once, and the murkiness became blinding white as realisation hit him.

His name was Sora Leonheart. He was in love with Roxas Strife. And the last thing he remembered was a man shoving a potent smelling cloth over his mouth and nose in the bathroom.

Sora groaned at the memory of the smell of the cloth as it made his headache flare up like a raging shadow again. His heart was thumping so hard in his chest that he could feel his torso jerking with the force. He could feel now, he knew there was something rough wrapped around his wrists and ankles, limiting his movements. From the way his head kept falling forwards, he was sat up, probably propped against a wall. And as the pain in his head calmed down again, the rumble of an engine and the jolting of the floor beneath him alerted him to the fact that he was in a moving vehicle.

With a strained whimper, he opened his eyes. But everything was black. He blinked, as if to assure himself that he had indeed opened his eyes, and felt his eyelashes brush against something. And then he realised as he became aware of the tight sensation wrapped around his head, that he had been blindfolded.

Sora grunted with annoyance, biting his lip. He was scared. He had recognised the guy who had snuck up on him in the bathroom at the university. He had caught sight of him in the mirror. It had been one of the guys with the steel-capped boots from all those months ago, when on a cold snowy night in an isolated alleyway Sora had nearly been kicked to death. And that could only mean that one person was behind his predicament.

"Seifer," he croaked. His voice sounded hoarse and unused, but didn't carry any less of the venom he injected into it.

A deep laugh sounded out somewhere in front of him, and he directed his face at it with a snarl. Though he was scared, he felt brave at the same time. He wasn't going down without a fight. He knew what Seifer wanted. He wanted Roxas. And Sora wasn't going to give him that, not even if they ripped his limbs off and tore out his eyeballs.

"Rise and shine, little faggot," the familiar voice crooned, and then Sora grimaced as someone flicked his forehead, sending shockwaves of pain through his still reverberating skull. He was pretty sure that his headache was the after-effect of a large dose of chloroform.

Sora took a deep breath, keen to keep his calm.

"Where am I?" His voice was stronger this time, although it still felt and sounded like he had been eating sand.

There was hot breath on his face suddenly, and then his jaw was grasped within a stone-grinding grip. Fingers dug into his cheeks viciously. "That's information that you don't need to know."

Sora had only met Seifer once, but he was fairly sure the guy in front of him was the ex-Yakuza member. He could feel the malice rolling off the man like waves.

"Okay then," Sora replied. "What are you going to do with me then?"

For some reason, he heard the slap before he felt it. The smacking sound was ringing in his ears long before the harsh sting on his cheek flared up. His head snapped to the side and then was forcibly wrenched back to face forwards.

"You're in no position to be cocky, you disgusting little queer."

Sora winced under the grip on his face. The calloused fingers were biting into his jaw hard enough that it felt like it was going to unhinge at any moment. And he believed Seifer could do it as well. Which only made him more scared. A whimper was trying to claw its way out of his mouth, but he clamped it down for fear that it would only make his predicament worse.

Seifer seemed to approve of Sora's silence, because he loosened his grip on Sora's face and the hot breath that had been ghosting over Sora's nose and cheeks vanished. Sora swallowed thickly around bile, and licked his parched lips, waiting.

"I'm fairly sure you know why you're here, considering you realised straight away who had kidnapped you," Seifer said, his voice carrying easily over the rumbling sound of the vehicle's engine. There was a pause, which Sora took to mean that he had to agree. He inclined his head in the barest shadow of a nod, not quite courageous enough to speak again yet.

"Then I'll tell you straight up what's gonna happen," the gang leader continued. He let go of Sora's face completely, and the brunet gave a barely perceivable sigh as he rolled his jaw, feeling it crunch before settling properly in his head. "We're taking you and the other precious people of that damn band to a safe location. Safe meaning, nobody will be able to find you." Seifer laughed, cold and chilling. "Its cliché and overdone, but we're gonna use you as a lure to bring Roxas and his little friends out."

"What will you do with him?" Sora ventured, bracing himself for more pain. It didn't come. Seifer was gracious enough to answer his question.

"We'll kill him. Him and his stupid ShinRa buddies who had the nerve to chase us out of Midgar. And then," Seifer leaned in close again, breathing harshly on Sora's blindfolded face, "We'll kill you, and all the other hostages."

It was only then that Sora latched on to the fact that he wasn't the only person in trouble. He had been so concerned with Roxas that he had completely missed when Seifer had mentioned other 'precious persons'.

"Who… who else is here?" His voice was barely a whisper.

And then the blindfold was being wrenched off, and Sora was cringing away from the bright, painfully blinding halogen lights lining the van he was in. He squeezed his eyes shut and drew his knees into his chest, as if curling inwards would stop the light from reaching him. He didn't know if he was ready to add sight to his growing list of fear-inducing senses.

Curiosity is a powerful thing though, and Sora succumbed to it eventually. Seifer wasn't saying anything, not even laughing now, and so Sora assumed that he had lost interest in him for the moment. Taking his time, he cranked his eyelids open a little; wincing when light flooded his retina. The headache was back in full force now, but he fought past it desperately, frantic to see who else had fallen victim to Seifer's sick revenge.

At first, all he saw was light and dark. Blurry shapes swam in front of him, gradually sharpening into focus and he blinked and let his eyes adjust to the light. He came to realise the he was on the floor of a van, sat opposite a bench where several thuggish looking guys were reclined, sleeping or staring into space. Seifer was sat at the end of the bench, grinning psychotically at Sora. The blond gang leader nodded at the wall Sora was leaning against, indicating for Sora to look to the side.

He felt his stomach clenching in horror at what he saw. The first, and most obvious person was right next to him, her pregnant stomach swelling up under her rumpled and torn clothes. Aerith was unconscious; a blindfold over her eyes and her shoulders slumped as she slept through a chloroform induced slumber. That Seifer would have the nerve to kidnap a heavily pregnant woman was enough to make Sora sick. He glared at Seifer venomously.

"You…" he started, but the dangerous glint in Seifer's eyes was enough to keep the rest of a particularly rude insult from being spoken. With a frustrated growl, Sora leaned forward a little to look around Aerith. His stomach dropped even further at the sight of Tifa and Kairi slumped against each other, also unconscious and blindfolded. Kairi had a large bruise forming on her cheekbone and dried tear tracks running down her face, indicating that she had put up a pretty big fight.

Sora clenched his teeth and ducked his head, trying desperately hard not to throw insults at Seifer. The man was cackling softly at Sora's distress, as if the whole thing was some sort of sic dramatic comedy on TV. The man had to be out of his mind to be able to look past all the moral discrepancies in his actions and laugh at what was happening. Sora's fists clenched where they were bound behind his back and he dropped his head on his knees, his entire body shaking with fear and rage.

"Oh, looks like the faggot is angry," one of the thugs commented, and he kicked out with a steel-capped boot, catching Sora in the side. He fell on the floor of the van with a grunt of pain, glaring up at the big men who were all guffawing down at him.

"You!" he hissed at Seifer, whose gaze sharpened at the vicious tone in Sora's voice. "How sick could you be to kidnap defenceless women, especially one who's pregnant?"

Seifer eyed him with dangerous bright eyes, and then got off the bench and crouched down on the floor next to Sora's head. He grabbed a fistful of chocolate brown spikes and yanked Sora's head up so that they were nose to nose.

"Listen up, you little shit. You may think that 'cause you're Squall Leonhart's little brother that you can mouth off and talk tough. Well here's a newsflash for ya." And with sickening speed, he slammed the side of Sora's head down into the metal floor, the bang it made echoing around the entire van. The goons cackled and whooped as blood began to pool rapidly around Sora's head. Seifer lifted him up again by his hair, thick red liquid dripping onto the floor.

"Mouthin' off equals a world of hurt, got it?" the blond man hissed at Sora, whose eyes were glazed over with pain. God, if he had thought his chloroform headache before was bad, he was sadly mistaken. It was all he could do just to stay conscious.

Seifer let go of his head and it smacked wetly into the pool of his own blood. The gang leader was just straightening from his crouch when Sora's coughed violently and spoke.

"Let… the girls… go."

Seifer paused and looked down at the pathetic brunet at his feet, whose chocolate hair was rapidly turning scarlet. "Oh?" he questioned, grinning. "And what will you give us if we do?"

Sora was trembling with blood loss, but he coughed and spoke again. "Hurt me… in their place… do whatever you want. Just let them go."

He winced as Seifer kicked him so that he was lying on his back. The blond man stood over him, grinning down at him. "Okay," Seifer said. Sora blinked in surprise. "You can take all their beatings for them if you want." He kicked Sora again in the side, making the brunet cringe with pain.

"Doesn't mean I'm letting them go though!" Seifer laughed, and then his boot connected with Sora's head, and Sora lost his desperate hold on consciousness.

The bland white walls of Roxas's apartment complimented the deathly silence perfectly.

Roxas, Cloud and Zack sat on the large white couch in a near comatose state, staring blankly ahead with unseeing blue eyes. The television was on, but nobody heard it.

Zack was dealing with the situation the worst. Although his eyes were empty and vacant looking, his hands were shaking and clenching and his brow was contorted with a mixture of rage, fear and panic. Seeing someone as strong and determined as Zack coming undone so easily was the breaking point for everyone else.

Cloud had barely said two words about the entire ordeal. He seemed to be coping through shutting down. Though he was noticeably more calm than Zack or Roxas, you could see his spirit slipping away from him, as though losing Tifa was killing him from the inside. And he was painfully wracked with guilt, for knowing that because of his feelings for Tifa, Zack had to lose not only his fiancée but his sister as well.

Roxas was the middle ground between the two. He couldn't decide whether to collapse in tears or scream and punch something. Preferably Seifer.

Once Roxas had failed to keep Sora safe from Seifer's clutches, he had frantically called Riku, and together through their panic they had managed to arrange to meet with the others at Roxas's apartment to decide their next move. Roxas, Cloud and Zack had all arrived within ten minutes of each other, the two older boys having screeched up on their motorcycles at a frightening speed. Now they were waiting for Riku, who had apparently gone back to Kairi's quickly to let Xion know what was going on with her roommate.

The buzzer on the door went, and Roxas let Riku in. Xion, Axel, Reno and Rude all followed in after him, looking angry and determined.

"Why are you here?" Roxas asked them, and winced at how dead his voice sounded. Xion eyed him sympathetically.

"We're helping you, idiot!" she said, stomping into the big white lounge and turning the television off. This seemed to startle Cloud and Zack to a state of near awareness, because they blinked and looked around to find the members of the Nobodies stood there with determined expressions.

"Seifer has gone too far this time," Reno spat, and Rude nodded in agreement. Axel clenched his fists open and closed, looking furious.

"That measly little rat is going to pay for hurting lil' Kairi!" Xion growled. Riku looked at her with an expression that was weary and panicked, but eternally grateful at the same time. Xion continued, "And if he lays a hand on my favourite queer, he's dead!"

Roxas blinked in surprise, realising that she was talking about Sora. And for some reason, he couldn't keep a grin from splitting his face. Xion's energy had suddenly revitalised the entire room. Cloud looked lucid, and Zack didn't look like he was about to explode with rage anymore. Somehow, the tiny black haired girl (who was wearing an extremely revealing outfit as usual) had managed to calm everyone down and cheer them up at the same time. She seemed to realise this, because she grinned ferally.

When Sora woke up again, he was no longer in the van. Beyond the smell of his own blood, the stench of mildew reached his nose, and he could hear the faint dripping of water somewhere. The room was dark, but he could sense that it was fairly large. And it was cold, chilling him to the very core.

He was sat up against a concrete wall, his hands bound with rope to a metal hoop above his head. His legs were free, but the rope was tight enough on his hands that he couldn't get the proper leverage to stand up anyway. From what he could feel, someone had patched up the huge gash on the side of his head with some sort of gauze that stretched right up to the corner of his eye. At least they weren't intending to bleed him to death.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness (which was far more welcome than the harsh halogen lights in the van had been), Sora came to understand that he was in some sort of warehouse that looked to be abandoned. It was extremely cliché, as Seifer had said earlier, but made sense. Seifer had said after all that they were being taken somewhere that nobody would be able to find them, and what better than some abandoned warehouse outside of Midgar?

He glanced around at the dried husks of decrepit furniture that randomly littered the room, and picked out the forms of three hunched individuals against the wall to the left of him. Aerith, Kairi and Tifa were not bound to the wall, although their hands and feet were still tied. Their blindfolds had been removed, and all of them were awake and looking around in terror.

"Guys?" he croaked, wincing harshly at the scraping sound in his throat.

All three girls' heads whipped around to look at him, their eyes widening with relief.

"Sora?" Kairi asked tremulously. She sounded like she was on the verge of crying, and Sora had to admit that she was very brave not to have started already. In fact, none of the girls were crying yet, something which gave Sora hope that Seifer had kept to his word and not harmed them.

"Hey Kai," he grunted, using Kairi's nickname to try and keep her calm. He could hear that her breathing was very ragged and panicked.

"Oh thank god! We thought you were dead!" Tifa gasped with relief. "You've been unconscious for hours; we thought they had killed you!"

Amazingly, Aerith sounded extremely calm. "I told you he would be fine," she said softly.

"Aerith," Sora choked. His throat was full of what could have been bile or blood, he wasn't sure. "The baby-"

"Is fine," Aerith finished. Her bright green eyes pierced the darkness with reassurance. "They didn't harm her. I felt her kicking just ten minutes ago."

Sora sighed with relief. "Thank goodness. They haven't hurt you at all, have they?"

"No, we're all fine," Tifa chimed in, sounding surprisingly chipper. But then, Tifa was an outrageous optimist. Sora found himself grateful for it though, because it kept him from hyperventilating. "They were a bit rough getting us out of the van and up the stairs, but they didn't hit us. It looks like you got a raw deal though."

"I made Seifer promise not to hurt you," Sora said. He yanked on the rope holding his arms above his head, testing its strength. It was made of a very thick cord, and the knots looked incredibly intricate. He cursed.

"How did you get him to agree to that?" Kairi asked incredulously.

It was Aerith who answered. "He volunteered to take our beatings for us."

There was a harsh silence. Sora chuckled awkwardly. "You heard that, huh?"

"No, but it was easy enough to guess why you were bleeding to death and we hardly had a scratch on us."

"WHAT?" Kairi exploded, and Sora winced as her voice reverberated angrily around the room. "You did WHAT, Sora?"

"Are you stupid?" Tifa shouted. "You almost died of blood loss, you idiot!"

"I know!" Sora shouted back, and the tone in his voice made them fall silent. "I know," he said again, more softly. "I just didn't want you guys to get hurt… especially Aerith… I don't know if Zack would be able to cope if you lost the baby."

"The baby is fine," Aerith repeated reassuringly. "Megumi is a fighter, like her mom and dad. She's not going to go down easily."

"Even so, I'd rather none of you got hurt," Sora said stubbornly. Tifa sighed explosively.

"Boys! Why do you all have to be so damn chivalrous?"

"That's just Sora for you, always taking everyone's burdens onto his shoulders," Kairi groaned. Sora grinned weakly through the throbbing pain in his skull.

"What can I say, I look out for the ladies."

"Very funny," Tifa muttered.

"So I am assuming you have already talked to Seifer a little bit, seeing as you made this disagreeable bargain with him?" Aerith questioned.

"Yeah, I woke up when were still in the van and he explained what he wanted us for."

"Well that much is obvious!" Tifa replied, "He wants to get to the boys! He's looking for revenge after getting kicked out of Midgar by Roxas and the ShinRa lot."

"We're bait, aren't we?" Kairi asked tremulously.

"Damsels in distress, as it were," Aerith added.

"Hey, I resent being referred to as a damsel."

"Shut up Sora, and tell us what else he said."

"Well I would if you would let me speak!" Sora grumbled. They were silent, and he scowled. "He wants to lure out the boys so that he can exact revenge on them."

"And what do you mean by revenge?" Tifa asked. It sounded like she was struggling with the rope tying her hands behind her back.

"Meaning, he's going to try and k… He wants to…" Sora couldn't say it. Not in front of Kairi. He couldn't say the word "kill".

"We get it, Sora," Aerith said gently. "And I am assuming that if he succeeds, we'll face the same fate?"

"Y-yeah," he muttered, staring down into his lap. He had never felt so powerless in his life. A shiver of cold crept over his bare arms, which he clenched futilely against the ropes binding him in place.

They were silent then, for quite a while, just mulling in their own thoughts. Wondering if they would live to see their loved ones again. Contemplating on whether they were ready for death. Sora certainly wasn't. He had a thousand things to do before he could even think about kicking the dust. He had to prove to his father that he wasn't taking some worthless degree and that he could be happy dating a boy. He wanted to celebrate an anniversary with Roxas, and many more after that. He wanted to watch Squall and Rinoa walk down the aisle. He wanted to see Roxas get the record deal he had always strained for, had nearly ruined his relationship with his family for, and he wanted to make his name in the manga industry.

Sora absolutely could not die yet. And he wasn't going to go down with a fucking good fight.

"So let me get this straight," Xion said after they had explained the situation to her for what felt like the fiftieth time, "Roxas and this Seifer dude used to be homebodies in the Yakuza?" Roxas flinched at the mention of his less than clean past, but nodded. Xion continued, "And when Roxas took his head out of his ass and decided to go straight, Seifer went crazy and ShinRa chased him out of town?"

"Pretty much," Zack said. He was a lot more calm and collected than before, and was sat on the sofa with a serious look of concentration on his face.

"And now he's back, wants revenge on Roxas for 'betraying' him," Xion made inverted commas with her fingers, "And has taken the girls to lure ya'll out and kill you?"

"I don't think Sora would take to kindly to being referred to as a girl, but that's the general gist of it," Roxas said. Xion grinned wickedly.

"So we need a plan, right? Because we can't just let Seifer do everything his way! We've gotta teach that little bitch a lesson!"

"More like put him six feet under," Reno muttered darkly from the corner where he was swigging from a bottle of beer. Rude grunted in assent and Axel snarled his agreement. The three boys from Xion's band were particularly riled up for some reason, and all of them looked ready to draw blood.

"And what plan is this, exactly?" Cloud asked coolly. His usually quiet and subdued demeanour was gone, as was his zombie-like state from earlier, revealing the wolfish aggression he shared with Zack but very rarely showed.

"Well, first of all, we have to assume that they're no longer in Midgar," Xion said, hooking her index fingers together and pulling, a sign of nervous tension. Her knees were bouncing, making her short skirt bounce. "They're gonna want to lure you out for a fight, and they'll want to do it somewhere where they won't have to worry about police.

"Secondly, assuming the first point is true, they will have to have a safe house somewhere outside of Midgar, probably in the far outskirts in the desert area. This'll be where they've taken the girls… and guy." Roxas snorted before he could stop himself.

"So, if we take the first two points to be fact, and then factor in that we've practically got access to ShinRa satellites, we can probably pinpoint where they are without having to wait for a call telling us where to meet them," Xion finished smartly. Everyone stared at her incredulously.

"I didn't realise you had so much brain behind all that make up," Reno said, sounding a bit stunned. Xion beamed proudly.

"So, if we know where they're keeping the hostages…" Riku started thoughtfully.

"We can storm the building and ambush them before they get a chance to call us out for a fight!" Zack finished, smacking his fist down on the coffee table in triumph. Roxas and Cloud jumped, but both looked riled and ready for action. In fact, the entire room was now buzzing with anticipation.

"Xion, I fucking love you," Axel laughed. Xion just grinned in a slightly manic way.

Zack stood up with a flourish, knocking over the vase of flowers on the coffee table. "Then it's settled! We should get to ShinRa headquarters right away and start locating that safe house!"

Riku nodded. "Zack, Cloud, Reno and Rude, you guys head down to ShinRa now and access the satellites. I'll go and see my boss, Professor Ansem, and see if he can access any CCTV footage and find the registration of the van Roxas described. Roxas, Axel and Xion, you're in charge of weapons."

"Why me?" Roxas asked.

"Because you used to be part of the Yakuza," Axel answered for Riku. "You're bound to know who to contact to get some guns."

"Why do we need guns?" Xion asked, sounding a bit hesitant.

"Fight fire with fire," Reno said, pulling on his blazer as the ShinRa team got ready to leave. "Seifer is bound to have a lot of firepower, and there is only so much we can snag from ShinRa."

"Besides, Seifer's had it coming for a long time," Zack spat out as he shrugged on his leather riding jacket.

Riku and the ShinRa team departed swiftly, leaving Xion, Axel and Roxas in the apartment.

"Who are we gonna call then, Roxas?" Axel asked, bouncing on his toes with energised excitement.

Roxas stared around the apartment helplessly. He had cut all ties with his Yakuza contacts when he had left the gang. "I don't know…" he said powerlessly.

"There must be someone you can call," Xion urged. "Anyone!"

"I…" Roxas stuttered, still looking around the apartment in hopes of seeing something that would help him in his predicament. His eyes fell on a photograph Sora had put up on the wall near the French windows. It was of Sora, Roxas, Squall and Rinoa outside Sora's parents' house.

Roxas felt his lips curling into a grimacing smirk. "Actually, I think I know just the person."

Oh the excitement! Three guesses for who Roxas is going to call. It's not that hard. Someone else's dirty past is finally gonna get fully revealed! :O
If you aren't totally mad at me for neglecting this story, please leave a review. Otherwise, continue to pelt me with cabbages.