It sure has been a while.

Edit: Holy shit, I'll never post anything at 4am ever again. I fixed a bunch of errors, and added some things that should have been in the initial draft and changed some stuff that just doesn't make sense. Also please note that I'm going to mention characters by name that won't be fully introduced for a chapter or so. So bear with me. Again. Also, Paradise Avenger saved the story again. So be grateful to her.

The room was windowless, featureless and timeless. It's the same room that exists in police stations all over the world. Plain, bare walls. Featureless concrete floor. The fittings are always the same as well: four cheap chairs, two bolted doors, a featureless metal desk and a one-way glass panel.

Sora doubted he could stand another moment in this room. And then that moment passed, and he realised he could, while simultaneously swearing that he could not idly pass the next. Then the next moment passed. Such is the passage of time marked in limbo.

A loud clang ended the eternity of boredom, the door at the other end of the room had opened. It was Lieutenant Duck again. Supposedly he'd been brought in to see this guy's boss. All he'd seen so far were Duck and Gregory. Just them.

It wasn't that bad, they were nice guys. Well Duck was. Gregory was just scary. Although he hadn't done anything to suggest he wasn't nice. Or said anything, at all. The problem was when you looked at them you felt on a primal level that they had seen and fought things from your darkest nightmares. It put Sora on edge to say the least.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been here now. It could have been anywhere between thirty minutes and eight hours. He didn't have anyway of knowing, his watch was being examined by forensics apparently. He really hoped he'd get it back soon, Kairi had given it to him when they'd moved in together. That brought him back to the harsh reality of worry and pain that was Kairi.

On that score, one thing above all bugged him. He was having real trouble grasping exactly why he was here now. Yes she was missing. Yes he was worried. But that didn't feel like on it's own it merited a major police investigation. And he was sure it was major. As far as he knew the only cops on it were Duck, Gregory and the mysterious Leon but they seemed to get priority treatment everywhere they went. This room had been in use when they'd arrived. It took them all of ten minutes to clear it out. Minutes later they'd had food brought to them by cops who were clearly unhappy doing so and were equally clearly not part of the investigation. Whatever else he'd asked for since had been brought much the same way. In fact he had everything except the meeting with Leon he'd been brought here for. The question constantly niggled at him, what could Leon possibly be doing that was more important than interviewing him?

Sora supposed he'd find out in due course but it still aggravated him that he was being unofficially held for an interview he needed to do so they could find Kairi and bring her back. Wherever she was. And whoever had her. He was sure he could tell them something useful.

On deeper reflection, Sora supposed that he was angry because he wasn't able to do anything. Patience had never been his strong suit. He'd rather have been outside looking. Kairi was still out there and still close, he could feel it in his heart. He wanted to get out and look for her but was instead stuck in this godforsaken room doing nothing but twiddling his thumbs and watching Duck and Gregory come and go.

He sighed and closed his eyes. It would be easier if he just slept. Sleeping he could do right now. It was one of his talents, when he wanted to sleep – he just slept.

Before he drifted off his last thought was "Where are you Kairi?"

"There's something familiar about this girl, Selphie," Looking up from the cards she'd been told to have a go at translating, Selphie swivelled to face Leon. He was staring intently at the photo of of the missing girl.

"What?"

"That's just it, I don't know what it is."

"You mean like Deja vu?

"Yeah, kind of, but it's more than that."

"So have you seen her before?"

"No, well, I don't think so, not in this life."

"So what is it?"

"I don't know, it's frustrating, I feel like it's staring me right in the face. There's something I'm missing, a similarity to someone maybe."

"You'll remember it if it's important, otherwise let it go. We've got to interview her boyfriend."

"I probably should, but can I feel it's possibly more important that I figure this out first."

"Well, if you're having trouble distract yourself with these cards, I'm getting nowhere."

"Alright, let's have a look."

Leon stood up and stretched, it had been a long night already and it wasn't even half begun. The first few hours after a disappearance are perhaps more critical than the first few after a murder.

He'd worked homicide for a while, not long after the first Prophecy saga's tragic end. Fine detectives they may have been but they were a superstitious bunch. They always talked about the first forty-eight hours after a murder with particular reverence. Leon had thought it sounded almost childish, but experience remedies foolishness. It quickly became apparent that after forty-eight hours a lot of options went dead. Witnesses disappeared or were simply never found, biological evidence began to erode and the murderer's location becomes more and more uncertain. Inside forty-eight hours everything was easier. Now he was back heading up a missing person's case. The problem was, he reflected, that public misconception seemed to be that Missing Persons were expressly unable to act inside of forty-eight hours. That was a left memory of an outdated and over-ruled policy from older, less sinister times. It had been changed a long time ago but it was still common to believe that one had to wait a certain period of time to report disappearance. This differed from twelve to seventy-two depending on who you were talking to. Unfortunately the average was forty-eight. This meant that often by the time the police were informed much of the trail had gone cold. If only the people knew they didn't have to wait if there were serious concerns. They had tried in the past to get the message across, but it was constantly set back by bad TV serials and reality TV. How reality TV managed to constantly get it wrong was beyond him. Hell there was one playing right now on Channel Seventeen called "48 Hours Later- Inside the Missing Persons Unit,". They had tried to get it cancelled or at least to change the title, but it had a thick skulled producer, a cult following, some really good lawyers and splashed enough money around that they never quite got around to changing it. What it all came back to though was that he wasn't going to be able to stop working for a long time. If he stopped they didn't have a hope in the world until the next victim. And there would be another, this Leon knew for a fact. Prophecy had too much ego to stop at just one.

Part of Leon told him they couldn't catch Prophecy. A larger part than he liked to admit. They hadn't caught this particular sick bastard before and back then they'd had better men than him. Hell he'd been a thirteenth wheel on the original squad. They'd had Zack. They'd had Cloud. And Tifa, Vince and Seph. They had the best and the brightest. He hadn't been picked for his abilities, be they what they were. He'd been picked because he had instinct. That was what his transfer order had said in about fifteen times as many words. That wasn't what it meant though. What it meant was he was lucky.

The rest of the Trinity City Police Department was just as superstitious as homicide. He supposed that was why Prophecy had chosen his modus operandi, it played to the superstitious. As for himself Leon had completely midrange abilities everywhere but his ability to guess. He fluked what others did had to work hard for, and while he did as much work as everyone else he seemed to get more results. The keyword in that sentence to Leon was seemed. If there was a mugging in progress that he could stop it more often than not happened that it was right where he happened to be having lunch, and a senior journalist at the city's newspaper just happened to be walking by. And the victim happened to be the mayor's daughter. And so on.

As it became more and more apparent that this happened around him he gained more of a reputation in the force as a good luck charm. He would rather have been known for the work he had actually done, which was not inconsiderable. But in this city good luck was valued at about ten good men. So he'd been transferred onto Divination to bring the others luck. Some luck. It had been him that had picked the warehouse out of a list of possible sites and chosen to investigate it.

Then Leon had found out he was worth twelve good souls. That never left him. All the others had missed out on the rest of what could have been long, happy lives because he was luckier. He'd survived. On days when he was a bit more lenient with himself, Leon would admit that Cloud, Tifa and Seph hadn't been his fault. And Vince definitely wasn't. That didn't stop the pain though.

He sighed, long and deep and looked over at his new partner. She, he mused, was the sole thing that gave him hope at the moment. She was a good detective. Even if she didn't get the specifics of the cards yet, she was learning fast. And the fact she was still sitting here after finding out what this case entailed amazed him. He supposed it was different for her, she hadn't bee there. She hadn't lost everyone she ever cared about, yet. Still she was infectiously positive. He knew it wouldn't do her any good, this case was sure to end in heartbreak for all, but it gave him something to fight for. He was sorely lacking in reasons to carry on right now.

Leon got up and went over to Selphie. Prophecy's dark message was on the table in front of her. It took him a couple of seconds to figure out exactly what his old enemy was saying this time.

"Still can't get these cards?"

"Yeah, it's not that I can't find the meanings of each individual card, it's that I'm finding it hard to figure out his intended meaning from them,"

"Alright, I think I can help, close your eyes."

"How will this help, Leon?"

"Prophecy is not about knowing, Prophecy is about sensing. Humour me." She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Alright Selphie, now tell me what you remember about the cards,"

"You sure this will help? I don't think I can remember all the interpretations like this"

"I'm not asking for a perfect recollection, just tell me what you remember."

"Well, this time he used more of the minor arcana. I'm not quite sure what that means yet, but I do remember the pictures he changed and..."

"Stop. You're thinking it over too much. Card by card analysis is only truly effective if you know what he's trying to tell us in advance. What do you think it all meant?"

"Well, I think he's doing the equivalent of giving us the middle finger."

"Very good."

"What? That's it?"

"Yep, it's the same pattern I saw in some of his messages last time, especially his earlier ones. See he's using cards to tell us what he's done. The Eight of Swords is effectively all he needs to tell us that, the illustration of the captive girl in the prison of swords is pretty much his message. He throws in a description of the girl, using cards like The Empress. The Empress is his way of tell us that he's doing terrible things to her. The other four cards, especially The de-Suited Queen mean much the same."

"The de-suited queen? I thought that looked like the queen of swords?"

"It used to be, but he cut the sword from the picture. Effectively, he took her identity. Which if what happened to his victims last time is anything to go by, is pretty much what he's doing to poor Kairi Lamb right now."

"I see. Leon, how do you do that?"

"Practice."

"Were you the one who translated these... you know, the first time Prophecy was here?"

"No, no. I wasn't this good back then. It was actually Vince who did that, he had a way of cutting through all the bravado and the bullshit. He was something truly impressive. I'm still not as good at this as he was back at the time."

"It doesn't look like it from here."

"You never saw Vincent in action," It was a statement of fact, put cuttingly.

A brief silence fell between the two embattled officers

"I didn't, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend." Selphie said sincerely.

"No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't over react like that."

"You're forgiven as long as I am too, deal?"

"Deal." Leon chuckled. He was seriously beginning to like his new partner.

Selphie hesitate a few moments before speaking again, like she had something difficult on her mind.

"Leon, I know you said it could wait, but I've been thinking and it could be important, what happened to the rest of the survivors from that day?" Leon's face darkened.

"I knew I'd have to tell you this sometime, it's just painful. So bear with me, yeah?"

Selphie nodded.

"Well, the other three squad members who made it out of that warehouse were Cloud, Tifa and Sephiroth, who everyone just called Seph." Leon paused as if weighing up options."I need to try and explain to you what they were like, so you can understand exaclty why what happened happened. Cloud was a nice guy, once you got through the bravado. He was basically good, even if he had issues to work through. He was on the squad because he worked hard and got results. Tifa, was the squad counsellor. She was a trained police officer, but her main job was to keep everyone functional in the face of something that hurt us all. She was sorely needed though, when we eventually got to that warehouse moral was at an all time low. Finally, Seph was the criminal-psychologist on the squad. He too was a nice guy, but the Prophecy case, well, it got to him. He obsessed over it. I'll explain more as I go, but those are the basics for now, still with me?"

"Yes."

"Good, alright. Well, after the fire, a lot of things happened. Cloud seemed the least affected by it, which is to say he was the most available, it seemed like working through all his own problems meant he was more prepared for tragedy. Regardless, he handled most of the paper-work in clean up and kept the squad going. Tifa, well Tifa was put in charge of the victims, after the doctors got through with them. And Sephiroth, well, he was more motivated than ever. He really wanted to catch Prophecy. He helped Tifa figure out how to de-program the surviving girls. Well three out of four of them. The fourth disappeared without a trace. Anyway, the two of them worked through this together. Sephiroth became quite enamoured with Tifa. But Tifa, well she only had eyes for Cloud. In fact that's something I forgot to mention, Cloud and Tifa became an item shortly after the fire. That's important, so keep it in mind.

"Anyway, weeks passed. The witnesses were returned to normal and packed off back to their families. They were all really good friends with Tifa by then. She had that effect on people. The investigation went nowhere though. Sephiroth obsessed over Prophecy. He said he'd get inside Prophecy's head. Cloud was promoted to the head of the task force, we'd lost our original commander in the fire. Tifa got pregnant, and she and Cloud announced wedding plans. All this had a nasty effect on Seph. He got quiet, and distant. But he just kept trying to crack the case. He just wouldn't give up.

"Then they shut down the task force about 6 months after the fire. They were confident that Prophecy wasn't going to strike again and we were chewing funds so they called the whole lot off. Seph took that the hardest. He told me that he'd never give up though. That was... at the after-party the night we shut down. Honestly the rest of us didn't want to look any more. Except for Seph, of course.

"More time passed, Cloud and a heavily pregnant Tifa married at long last. A small ceremony, just Divination. No one had much in the way of family. I was best man. That was the last time we were all happy.

"I don't know what sent Seph over the edge or when. He'd been having problems, but he simply stopped showing up for work, His mother died around the same time apparently, and he was still obsessed with catching Prophecy. But I still don't know exactly what did it. All I know is what happened next.

"Around nine months after the fire, I woke up one morning to a phone call telling me that Cloud had been shot dead in his home. There was no sign of Tifa anywhere. I investigated, the short version of the story is Sephiroth did it. I don't know why exaclty, I can think of a few reasons he might have but I didn't know he hated Cloud that much. I went to confront him, rather stupidly, I went alone. What I got for my trouble was this." Leon pointed to the scar on his face. Selphie winced. "He hit me with a coffee-table as I kicked his front door in..."

"A coffee table?" Selphie interrupted.

"Yeah that's exactly what I thought before it hit me in the face. It was a glass-topped wooden number. Believe me it hurt a good deal more than it sounds like it did. Sephiroth had some serious swing power. I don't think it was his first choice of weapon, but it's apparent to me looking back that he didn't want to kill me. Just Cloud and Tifa. I think the table was just the nearest swingable object on hand."

"Point taken, what happened next?"

"Well when I came to, he was gone. There was still no sign of Tifa. In fact there wasn't for another month.

"We eventually found them. Both shot and then charred to a crisp in a house fire. We had to use blood we found nearby and hair samples to identify them. I don't know which of them tried to kill the other, but it doesn't matter. They're both dead now."

Selphie sat for a moment in shock. How much tragedy could one man have in his life?

"Leon, I'm sorry."

"I said it before kid, there's nothing you can do about it. It's not your fault." Leon said this with infinite patience conferring infinite sadness."

"I know, but shit, that's awful. I'm sorry I asked."

"I'm sorry it happened."
Selphie didn't know what to say to that. She wanted to get out of the office though, that much she did know.

"We should go see that boyfriend,"

"Yeah, let's go... Oh."

""What?"

"You know, I just figured it out."

"The thing with the girl?"

"Yeah, I guess it wasn't as important as I thought."

"Well what is it?"

"It's her eyes. They remind me of Cloud's. That's all it was."

"Cloud must have had some beautiful eyes."

"I'll show you a picture some time. When you looked into them you felt like you could have drowned in them. Come on, the poor kid's been waiting too long for us and time doesn't pass quickly in the interview room." Leon got up and left. Selphie lingered a few seconds, wondering how Leon was still functional after all that he'd been through. The answer came to her like a knife through her heart.

He still functioned because he had to, because if he stopped there'd be no one left who could do hat he did. He was their only hope.

The prisoner wanted to stop thinking, to stop existing, anything to forget. But her betrayal was burned into her brain. She couldn't undo it. She couldn't forget it. She could only relive it, weep and curse herself.

The prisoner had been excited about it, to her shame. The smiling demon had given her an alternative to the game and she had foolishly accepted. "Better the evil you know than the one that you don't," that had been a favourite saying of Rikku's. Though she supposed he did it deliberately, manipulating her into taking the option he wanted.. Recent games had punished her fivefold for each incorrect answer and even the prisoner was starting to crave an end to it. She was proud however about one thing, now she had fifteen facts. Each one payed for in blood. Beaten into her bruise-mottled and pleasure-stained body. But that was not the source of her pain, not any more.

Something new had seemed alright at first. He had asked her about Kairi. Simple questions, like the name of her mother. In fact it was all names. Her mother's name, her father's name, her brother's name, the names of her friends, her boyfriend's name. The prisoner knew that he would beat her if she didn't answer. Or if she lied. He would know if she lied. Fearing reprisal she gave them away willingly. So she told him of Rikku, who had adopted Kairi and how sad Kairi had been when she died. And of Axel, who had pretended to be Kairi's father but she loved anyway. And of Terra, Kairi's step-brother by an unknown father. Of Kairi's collection of friends. And of Sora, who Kairi had loved more than the world. The words flowed freely and without hesitation, and with every name it seemed as if the Smiling One leaned closer to her.

Then he used her own fuel to burn her alive.

"What do you think Sora would think of you if he saw you now?" The Smiling One used the tone he saved for lecturing her, his pain-bringing voice.

The prisoner was confused until she remembered that she was secretly Kairi. She had to fumble around in her own head for an answer that would satisfy. He waited patiently as if he knew what was going on inside her. She wasn't sure that he didn't know.

"I think he wouldn't care what I looked like, he'd still love me. And he'd want whoever had hurt me dead." She spoke with conviction.

"Would he now? Would he want you if he knew what I know, that you're just a common slut."

"That's not true!" She blurted, the riding crop landed before she had finished speaking. She yowled in pain.

"Let's try that again, would he want you if he knew you were a common slut?"

"Yes," she breathed. Again the riding crop struck.

"You don't seem to get it," He wasn't angry, he never got angry, only more condescending, "Would Sora want this?" He pulled a framed picture out of his bag. In it was a terrifying, melancholy vision. Within the shadow of the shiny surface, a wretched being writhed, a pale, emaciated form with tangled shoulder length hair like blood. It was beaten and broken. It was wrecked. It had once been beautiful, she could tell by the way the imperfections marred it. Ugly blotches of varying putrid shades covered it from head to toe, turning the pale of it's skin from advantage to blemish, it was far too white. It hadn't been in the sun for too long, a creature of the light like it should not be in such a dark and dismal place. Worst of all were it's eyes, sunken and dull blue, full of fear, unused tears and sadness. She wanted to help the pitiable creature, until she connected the dots and realised that it was her in a mirror. Her on her harlot's throne, plugged and sated by a machine, kept and terrorised by a madman.

"N-no". She said with some consideration, Sora wouldn't want her now. Not like this. Sora didn't deserve something as awful as the thing in the mirror. For this, she wept. Never again would she hold his hand, or stare into his beautiful cerulean eyes. He'd never hold her to him and tell her it would be alright. He wouldn't want anything to do with her. His warmth was out of reach forever.

"You're right, stupid creature that you are. And it's not because you were wrong about him, he hasn't changed. You changed. You are the one who failed. What you are today is you, it's what you always wanted to be. He believed your lies before but now with all pretense of decency stripped away you know the truth, he'd never want what you are at heart. He was wrong about you all along, wasn't he?"

"I don't know," the prisoner sobbed, tears rolled down her cheeks and landed on the slope of her too-thin stomach. The riding crop cracked and she cried out.

"Liar, you do know, you just can't bear the truth. Sora was wrong about you. Everyone was wrong about you. Everyone except me." His hate-lined fallacies hid between layers of conviction and beauty. For the prisoner, it was as good as the truth.

"It's true," she sobbed,

"Say it, free yourself from your lies, tell me that you proved them wrong, all of them. You'll never redeem yourself a lifetime of lies, but maybe you can make a start," the words struck at her heart and filled her brain. She couldn't think, she didn't want to think. She just wanted the pain gone before she burst.

"They were wrong about me," She admitted.

"Who? Who was wrong about you wench?"

"Everyone," defeat hung heavily from the word.

"That's not enough, I need names, redemption require names," the prisoner knew just what to say next but the words froze on her tongue. Something inside her held her back, maybe because she knew deep down it wasn't the truth. Maybe it was because the rest of her spirit hung in the balance. She shrugged the strange force off.

"My friends were wrong about me,"

"Good, there may be hope for you yet," His smile almost seemed to widen.

"Terra was wrong about me, Axel was wrong about me," Each announcement flowed more easily out of her, like a weight had been lifted off her chest.

"Keep going,"

"Rikku was wrong about me," This one tugged something deep within the prisoner. She payed it no heed.

"Almost there,"

"S... So..." The mysterious force returned with gusto, the words tripping on her frozen lips. The prisoner could feel that there was something about this last one, something permanent, something irreversible.

"SAY IT!" The Smiling One struck the floor with the riding crop, causing the words to spill from the prisoner's mouth.

"Sora was wrong about me,"

The words feel from her mouth and shattered on the floor, there was something irrevocable about them, and it was only after they were gone that she realised just how much they meant.

"Foolish girl, so easy to break and so eager to please. That was a test, of resolve and of loyalty. Apparently, you lack both. Not only are you a dumb slut, but you're a treacherous one. There's no hope for you now, you who so easily and eagerly betrayed your "loved ones". Pathetic." He spat the last word, like a curse. It was then she realised she'd condemned herself. He was right, she'd betrayed them. Offered them up without a second thought. She was bad. She was evil. She was poison. She cried for her soul. She wept. She begged forgiveness. Her whole being ached under the weight of her betrayal.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." The prisoner sobbed brokenly.

"No, no you're not, you stupid whore. I know you meant every word. You betrayed those you say you loved. Not that you ever loved them. If you'd loved them you wouldn't have given up so easily, and you wouldn't have said it at all. About any of them. But you did. And I can tell you that all you've done is to shatter the illusion that you thought was your life. They never loved you either. They never thought you were worth anything. You were always a worthless burden on them. You were never loyal to them and they knew it. They never liked you. I can see that it's true. You know it's true. And now that you've betrayed them you can ask them and they will tell you it's true. You know you're not worth anything to anyone. You never were."

The prisoner sobbed louder tears streaming down her cheeks. The twin tracks down her face formed the dark river in which she was drowning. It was an ugly place, coloured black and full of pain, guilt and shame. She wished she was playing the game. She wished she was being raped. She wished she was dead. She wished she hadn't said it. But she had. And no-one would ever forgive the prisoner. She wasn't getting out of here and even if she did no-one would want her back. She had betrayed them. Sold them down the river for her own selfish desires. Her insides hurt, her outsides hurt. Everything hurt. She was ashamed. She was guilty. She was a worthless traitor. She was wrong. Everything about her was just wrong.

Kairi didn't try to stop the prisoner thinking these thoughts. The prisoner wasn't sure Kairi was here any more. Kairi didn't want her either. The prisoner didn't want herself. She was just a stupid, treacherous slut.

She didn't feel him leave her. It was only later when she finally looked up that she realised he was gone. She was almost sad when she did figure it out. At least he still kept her, even though she had failed him. At least he still wanted her. Her weakened soul latched on to that. She had failed everyone, but she could make it up to him. She'd do her best. She'd do anything to remove the ache that vexed her very essence. The ache that told her she was wrong in every way.

Well as most of you hopefully know, FF has been giving authors in this fandom the run around for a couple of days. Still this chapter is overdue even considering that. I hope it meets all your expectations and raises more questions than it answers. *Evil Smile*.

Also, I keep forgetting to say this. To all my reviewers so far, thanks a bunch.

So

Read, Review and most importantly: Enjoy!

Yours Sincerely

Everhopeful83