Disclaimer: Yes, this all belongs to me. Totally. I made all of it up, all of it. sarcasm

Chapter 6

Brand New Clothes

Kairi didn't sleep well that night. In fact, she didn't sleep at all.

It wasn't that she was uncomfortable; the Beast had allowed her to stay in one of the rooms on the eastern wing, down the hall from Belle. The bed she was in was soft, warm, and fully competent, but she just couldn't get her mind to settle down. It was moving at top speed, completely independent of her exhausted body.

There was too much to think about, that was all. She had missed Sora again. This journey wasn't going as well as she had planned and Kairi was beginning to get depressed. It seemed that everywhere she showed up, he was one step ahead. Two years ago, when Sora had saved her from Hollow Bastion, he had made it all seem so easy. Charging in, killing the bad guys, and putting the world right again.

It wasn't that easy at all.

What pissed Kairi of the most, however, was the fact that she hadn't really done anything yet. So why was she so frustrated? Did she expect it to be easy?

"Dammit. I hate my life."

"Then why are you so fucking intent upon making mine so hard?"

Kairi barely flinched this time. "What the hell do you want now?"

Axel hopped down from where he'd been lounging on the dresser. "You know what I want. It hasn't changed much."

"I'm not coming with you!" Kairi yelled it so loudly she wouldn't be surprised if she'd roused the entire castle.

"Calm the hell down," Axel said, all patience leaving his voice. "You have to come if I'm going to do my job, and I always do my job. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if—."

"No you won't," Kairi said blankly. "If you thought you could hurt me, you would have done it from the beginning. You can't hurt me anymore than you can force me through one of those dark, swirly thingies."

The muscles in Axel's neck worked violently, and for a moment she thought she'd overdone it. But he let out his breath in a frustrated hiss, sitting down on the lacy little stool in front of the dresser.

"No, you do kinda have this weird resistance thing going on, almost like—." He broke off. "So what are we going to do now, Kairi?"

"We?"

"I have a problem because you won't come with me, and you have a problem because you can't find Sora to warn him that I need you to come with me to make him come to us, and at the same time what I really want is him, and not you, but that's just the way things played out."

Kairi stared. "Uh, I think that made the kind of sense that's…not."

Axel narrowed his eyes. "And that sentence did?"

"Oh, forget it. Just get out."

She turned away, pulling the covers up to her ears. A few moments later she took a peek over her shoulder. Axel was still there, sitting on that ridiculous stool. "Was there something else?"

Axel glanced at the ground. "Please?"

"What?"

"Please," he said, his expression utterly blank, "Please, will you please come with me?"

Kairi was at a loss for words (something that didn't occur too often). Was this freak actually begging her to let him kidnap her?

"Do you really think that's gonna work?" she demanded. "Do you think you can get me to pity you?"

Axel leapt up from the stool, his face now full of nothing but fury. "I won't have everything we've worked for destroyed by one little girl! We're…we're so close." He rubbed is his eyes, as though suddenly very tired. "I've already lost the only person I've ever cared about in this fight, and I'm not giving it up."

"Well, then we have something in common," Kairi said quietly. "I'm never giving up until I find him." If she could have seen herself at that moment, she would have shocked to find she wasn't looking at the child that had played in the coves and beaches of the Destiny Islands. She was a warrior, a beautiful, fiery-eyed warrior.

Or at least that's what Axel saw.

He sighed. "Well then, I guess we can't count on each other backing down." He was clutching her bedpost, his knuckles turning white.

Kairi nodded.

"I won't ever back down," she whispered shakily.

"It's a deal then" Axel suddenly leaned forward, closing the distance between them to only a few inches.

Kairi jerked backwards. "What the hell are you doing?"

Axel blinked. He stepped back, just as a portal of darkness appeared and swept him away.

Kairi fell back into bed, suddenly exhausted. Finally, she was able to fall asleep, but she had odd dreams. In one of them she saw Sora. He and his friends were lying around a campfire in the middle of a green field. There was a dark-haired girl beside Sora, and they were laughing together.

Her other dream was off another visitor to her room. An old man. For a moment, she thought it was Merlin, but when she caught sight of his face she saw it was darker, the eyes crueler. She sat up in bed, watching him cross to her closet, stepping inside. He never came out again, and Kairi found the dream slipping into another.

She woke the next morning almost as tired as she had been the night before.

And no wonder, she thought as got out of bed, it wasn't exactly a relaxing evening.

It had been filled with a depressing talk with the Beast, a disconcerting visit from Axel, and a load of unsettling dreams. Kairi checked her appearance in the mirror. Her dress was crumpled (she had been wearing it for three days now) and there were dark circles under her eyes.

"God dammit," she muttered, but was then greatly heartened to find a bathroom with a fairly modern shower adjacent to her room. She turned the water on very hot and stood there for about half an hour, letting the grime of three different worlds run off her skin and down the drain. Afterwards she spent about ten more minutes coaxing the tangles out of her hair with a comb she found on the dresser.

She then turned to her dress and grimaced. True, it was the only thing she had, but it was so fricking disgusting. It was covered in sweat and dirt, and there was a pretty hefty rip on the right sleeve. She was about to suck it up and put it on, when she happened to glance toward the closet.

Maybe there was something in there she could borrow…

Kairi gripped the gold handles, pulling open the surprisingly heavy doors. A depressingly empty rack greeted her. There was only one thing in there. Kairi blinked in confusion, reaching for it. The moment her fingertips brushed the material she felt a surge of power, like an electric shock.

She drew the clothing out and put it on carefully, still feeling that constant flow of power. The clothes consisted of a pair of tight black pants that went down just past her knees and had pink straps that criss-crossed behind. The top was odder still. It was blue and black, the sleeves different lengths. All of it fit perfectly.

Kairi surveyed the entire effect in the mirror. She didn't look like herself, that was for sure. Still, they were clothes, and they looked good on her. She was just about to turn and head out into the hall, when she noticed a pair of black gauntlet-like things lying on the bed. They fit as well, covering her hands from the knuckles to a little past her wrists.

"Hey," she said, flexing her fingers. "Cool."

She met Belle in the dining hall for breakfast where the two of them were served by a hopping, talking candelabra.

"I am happy to welcome you to our humble home," it told Kairi in a heavy accent. "Please be our guest!"

She decided not to ask.

"I have to tell you, these are some pretty groovy clothes you guys gave me," she commented between bites of cinnamon roll.

Belle's eyes traveled over her odd outfit. "I didn't leave those for you. I've never seen anything like them."

"Really?" Kairi asked, slightly unsettled. The clothes were awesome, but she didn't want to wear them if there was a chance they'd go crazy and start trying to choke her to death. What if they had been left by Axel…?

"Do you have to leave today?" Belle asked her, jerking her out of her reverie.

"I wish I could," Kairi said moodily, "But I don't really know how. I've gotten to every other world by accident, like I was in the right place at the right time."

Belle smiled encouragingly. "Well, maybe you'll be in the right place again soon."

After breakfast, the two girls decided to take a walk through the grounds. Kairi still wasn't sure why Belle lived with the Beast, but she didn't seem to be a servant and she had a free run of the castle and an entire herd of talking appliances and furniture to wait on her.

"Don't you ever get lonely here?" Kairi asked, as they crossed the front hall.

Belle smiled in response. "No, not really. It's usually quite nice when…"

"The Beast isn't being a complete asshole?"

Belle nodded mournfully. "He's just in a mood."

"You really like him, don't you?"

It was incredible. Belle's face seemed to visibly light up. "Of course I do! I wish I could do something for him. He's under that horrible sp-."

"Do you hear that?" Kairi asked, holding up her hand.

A shuffling sound. Like hundreds of tiny feet.

"Crap," Kairi said.

Next Chapter: A Pirate's Life for Me