A.N. Yay! I finally finished it!
(bows) I'm so sorry for taking this long to type this up and get it out. My computer went all kablooie, just like it did a few chapters ago, but I'm going to have to get a more original excuse for next time. Haha, just kidding. No, my computer actually did combust. Smoke was literally coming out of it. Scared the living shit out of me, but that's not important right now.
What is important is…the chapter's out! Riku, Roxas, and Axel…oh boy, this is going to be so much fun. That was sarcasm. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I have, actually, four different versions of this chapter, but this is the one that I decided on. I like it the best, and everyone seems to be less OOC than the rest of them. Anyhoo, R&R, because you love me.
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The rest of the month was painful for all of them. Roxas continued to avoid Riku, continually making lame excuses to leave the room when the silverhair entered, and everyone was getting irritated with him. The only time he ever really spoke to the silverhair to tell him the message that Axel had already delivered. Riku never said anything, just taking it, but falling into an even deeper depression, barely eating or talking to anyone, not really leaving the house so that he wouldn't have to deal with Roxas' constant departures. Sora and Axel had to take turns fretting over the two of them, while the Traverse Town gang just stood on the sidelines and watched, not sure what to do. All were high-strung and on alert, always jumpy and watchful of any attack. They learned quickly not to come up behind Cloud, even if you weren't trying to be quiet, as Sora found out when he'd tapped him on the shoulder and found himself two seconds later pinned to the ground with one blade at his throat and another drawn back to strike. After that, they went around to the front.
In addition, they also now had Kairi to deal with, which put everyone in a bad mood. Axel had to dive under the bed and into the bushes whenever she happened to show up, staying there until she went away. She was freaking out over their accidental meeting, and kept pestering Riku and Sora, when she could find them, to help her search for him, which was the last thing that either of them wanted to do right now. They had other things to do than to console Kairi by helping her on her wild goose chase that would obviously turn up nothing. They'd reassured her over and over again that this time, they were sure he was dead ("When a Keyblade goes through your head, I think you're pretty much finished," Sora had pointed out), but she refused to listen, ranting to them and going over plans to search him out with them, and Sora finally realized why everyone found her to be such a pain sometimes. She really wasn't that bad, but she never seemed to learn when was a good time to leave someone alone.
But now, there were only two hours until the full moon, and Axel was making a last-ditch attempt at talking some semblance of sense into his stubborn boyfriend.
"Look, just tell him that you've changed your mind, and he can come with us after all," he said desperately, but Roxas just shook his head.
"No, Axel, for the last time," he said firmly, glaring with his sapphire eyes. "He's not coming with us, and that's final."
"Why not?"
It took Roxas a few seconds to come up with an answer, and he was forced to really think about it for the first time. Why didn't he want Riku to come with them? He was just as fast as the blonde, if not more so, so he could definitely keep up with the two of them. He was an amazing fighter, and there was no chance of him starting a fight with Axel. The two of them got on better than Riku had with himself this last month.
No, it wasn't because he didn't think that Riku wasn't up to par. He was afraid that being with him, running through the forest with him again, would bring up memories of their past excursions, surfacing the emotions he'd been fighting against for so long. He didn't want to admit the fact that he was worried that, for the first time, he'd see clearly just how much he loved and missed his silverhaired ex.
He returned with a jolt to the present, and heard himself babbling, "I'm afraid his wound will—"
"Bullshit, it's been fully healed for almost a week, now, there's nothing wrong with him."
"Look, I just don't want him around me, all right?" Roxas yelled, losing his temper. "Why the hell do you have to make it anything more than that?"
Axel's eyes narrowed. "You're being a real bitch, you know that?"
"Better than being a nosy bastard who won't just shut up and leave well enough alone!"
The pyro flinched back slightly, opening his mouth to say something, then shutting it with a snap and shaking his head, exasperated. Roxas felt regret almost immediately. Sure, he'd been annoying and nosy, but he didn't deserve to get yelled at.
"Look, I'm sorry—" he started, but the pyro cut him off, not even giving him enough leverage to finish his apology.
"Fine. Whatever. It's your stupid decision."
The door shut with a snap, announcing the redhead's absence from the room. With him went the warmth that had been there up until now. Roxas suddenly shivered, shaking his head. He stared at the closed door, hopelessness sinking in to his subconscious.
'This is getting way too complicated,' he thought to himself sadly.
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A knock sounded at the door, and Riku walked downstairs to answer it, knowing already who it was, pulling on his wristband carefully as he went. He'd traded in the white one for the black, as it was easier to see at a glance, which was helpful when it was silver fighting silver.
He opened the door, and Sora grinned at him. "Hey, Riku," he said, happily but carefully, as though hoping that the silverhair wouldn't slam the door in his face. Riku forced himself to smile back, strained though it was, it was still better than just staring at him blankly. He'd had to practice his smiles, and now almost none of them were real, just hollow shells of false happiness to cover up the oblivion that he felt inside.
"Hey," he replied. "What's up?"
Sora shrugged. "Not much, really. Just wanted to see you before…well, you know."
Riku winced. "Yeah. I do know." He stepped back, allowing Sora to enter the house, which the brunette immediately noticed was darker than usual. He had a slight panic attack inside, knowing his friend's tendency to lean towards the darker side of life.
"Thanks," Riku said quietly, jerking Sora out of his reverie.
"For…what?" he stuttered, taken aback for a second.
There was a slight moment of hesitation, and then the words came tumbling out. "For…for trying. For actually caring about me…and…trying to help me…to cheer me up when I've been kind of…a wet blanket, to put it nicely. And…I also wanted to say I'm sorry….for not...I don't know, thanking you earlier, I guess."
Sora shook his head, stalling any further words from the silverhair with a few of his own. "Riku," he said, firm but gentle. "You are my friend. This is what friends do. I know that you would do the exact same thing for me if our positions were switched, believe me. And, if anything, I should be the one apologizing. I guess I hate to see you so down, but…I guess I've become kind of a nuisance to you."
Riku was the one who had to interrupt this time, ruffling the brown locks fondly, a real smile, the first one in what felt like forever, gracing his features. "You could never be a nuisance, Sora. Not to me. Not when—"
His words were abruptly cut off turning into a bark, and Sora looked down at the silver wolf. Even though he'd changed, he managed to pull off an irritated look, obviously annoyed at having been cut off mid-sentence. Sora laughed at his expression, taking the time to ruffle Riku's head in return.
"Let's go," he laughed, and Riku huffed quietly, the two heading out.
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"All right," Tifa said, sitting back in a chair. "So, we all get the point that it's not a good idea to go into the forest, but we're doing it anyways, right?"
There were nods and quiet barks of consent from around them room.
Tifa nodded, satisfied at the response she'd gotten. "And let's not forget that they have more than double the numbers that we originally thought they did. So, yeah….we're going to have to be a bit more careful with that, but now we have Axel, so that should give us some kind of an advantage."
The pyro definitely made the most odd-looking wolf that any of them had ever seen. His body was much too anorexic to be healthy for any kind of canine, and his bright red hair made it look even more unnatural, standing our brilliantly from everything else, and it made his luminous green eyes stand out even more.
But probably the most disconcerting fact was that the tip of his tail continually burned with a tiny flame that smoldered gently, not even singing the red hair at all. Everyone's gaze, even Cloud's, kept wandering to it, slightly unnerved, but Axel didn't really seem to notice, keeping his emerald eyes on the black-haired woman currently talking, even though she, too, was preoccupied with staring at him with an expression that one could describe as 'worried,' to put it lightly.
"U-um, anyways, yeah," she said quickly, pulling herself back to reality as she felt the red wolf's gaze on her, and Cloud snorted, making everyone shoot him a short glare that he returned with a vengeance. "So, anyways," Tifa continued, giving Cloud a Look that he blew off, "basically, we're going right now to judge…well, their strengths. And to find if we can get to where they hang out when they're not…well, furry. So we're avoiding, if at all possible, a direct confrontation. If you manage to find yourself in an inescapable battle, call for backup. I think we all know how to do that by now."
They all waited for a second, before deciding that she was done and heading out, with Cloud pausing for a second to hiss, "How long did you practice that little speech?" in Tifa's ear and avoiding her subsequent punch before ducking out the door. Cid stayed in his seat, bitching about how he felt "fuckin' useless," and "why the hell should they keep me around, I wonder," but most ignored him. They all knew, as well as he did, that he was their backup, and they needed him there to pull them out of an emergency.
The groups split up as they reached the edge of the trees. Roxas and Axel yipped a goodbye of sorts, but Riku, standing by Sora, didn't even raise his head, keeping his now-dull cerulean eyes on the ground firmly, and they left without another sound.
Yuffie, Tifa, and Sora broke off from the remaining three—Leon, Cloud, and Riku—and the two groups simply nodding to each other, trying to avoid any excess sounds, wanting to go unnoticed. Unfortunately for them, it was far too late. Though they were miles apart, lupine heads twisted simultaneouly, a growl rising like a demon's chorus through the obscurity of the woods.
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Saïx fidgeted restlessly, looking between the silver wolf and the forest continually, a seemingly neverending, purring growl comng from the depths of his throat. Kadaj paced back and forth, chunnering to himself without pause, his eyes fixated on some point beyond the distant horizon currently out of view of anyone else. Yazoo and Xigbar were pushing each other around for lack of anything better to do. Zexion and Demyx were asleep, and Marluxia kept dozing off where he sat. Everyone else was doing whatever they could to entertain themselves, tired of just sitting around and waiting.
An almost indiscernable bark had them all on their feet instantaneously, silent and waiting, like sled dogs (pardon the pun) at the starting line.
The second soft bark came, and before the echo had even begun to fade away, still hanging fresh in the air, they were gone, disappearing into the woods without a trace of them left behind.
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Riku flew along the ground, with Cloud and Leon doing the same overhead, their feet making almost no noise as they struck branch and soil. The silverhair had slowed his pace, the two men being slightly ahead, though not by very much. He'd done this purely for tactical purposes—their scent ahead of him would tell the wolf if they changed direction or stopped—but they were both nervous about it. Actually, all of them were nervous about it. Cloud and Leon didn't want Riku behind them under any circumstances, and Riku knew how edgy they were, and in turn it made him fidgety as well. Well, about as fidgety as you can be while running through the forest and trying to keep track of someone's smell. Which is quite difficult to do, in case you haven't tried it for yourself.
But the problem was, they weren't really watching him.
Something slammed into him, knocking him to the side without giving him any time to react. They tumbled over and over, finally coming to a halt in a tangle of limbs, both of them snarling already, trying to get a hold on each other.
Riku was up first, staring down with his lips drawn back in a growl, his cerulean eyes taking in the sight of the dark silver wolf whose lean, sinewy frame gave him away as Yazoo. Another lupine form, a darker shade of silver than the other two had taken Riku's place, running where the silverhair had been not a second before, following Cloud and Leon, not missing a beat. And even as Riku watched, taking his eyes off Yazoo for a second, the shadows gathered around the running form, the fur lightening, body becoming more muscular, the black wristband shimmering into existence. Having taken Riku's place flawlessly, if someone hadn't been watching closely, they wouldn't have thought that Riku had ever stopped running.
Riku took a step towards his receding twin, but Yazoo cut him off, lunging at the smaller wolf. The silverhair danced back, avoiding the slashing ivory teeth, a retaliation already prepared. Unfortunately, before it could be executed, something else slashed into his back. He whirled, coming face-to-face with a lupine face…that was upside-down. It was, in fact, belonging to an entirely upside-wolf, standing in midair, all four paws pointing straight up towards the full moon above. Ebony fur, streaked heavily with a greyish-white that gleamed in the moonlight, bristled as Xigbar snarled, glaring at the silverhair with his one good eye. The other was still covered by a jet black patch, though it was altered a bit to fit the now-lupine face.
Riku barely had time to tense as they both sprang at him, and then everything flipped into a whirlwind of fur, blood, and teeth.
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The brunette heard the noise of the fight first, and called out to the other two to stop, listening to the growling and snarling and yelping.
"What the hell is that?" Cloud muttered, and Leon shrugged.
"No point in speculating about it," he replied, voice low. "We should just go see, I guess…"
But what they saw when they did go back to look took them by surprise, because Riku was apparently putting up a vicious fight against Yazoo and Xigbar, as the other two snapped at him, the fight going first one way and then another, mostly in the favor of the two. And yet, Riku was also sitting below them on the ground, watching the fight with an intense interest.
"What…" Leon muttered, looking between the two. "What the fuck is going on here?"
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Two lupine forms streaked through the forest side-by-side, matching each other's speed comfortably, but still, one was feeling off.
It wasn't that he didn't want to be running with Axel, but Roxas felt odd…off-balanced somehow. He had gotten too used to running beside Riku, and Axel had the constant fire, making him easily the most noticeable thing in the forest. Usually, the shadows were enough to cover even his golden fur, but fire was a whole other story. It illuminated them, a beacon in the darkness, lighting their way, and lighting them up for others, as well. Not only that, but it succeeded in making Roxas incredibly jumpy, and he was skittish and uncomfortable. He felt completely exposed, and kept wishing that there could be some way to put it out.
Axel, of course, paid no attention to it whatsoever, obviously used to it, and Roxas could do nothing but put it out of his mind as best he could. It wasn't working at all, so far, but there was only so much that he could do.
But he did have other things to ponder over. Like, why they were out looking for the stupid hideout when Axel could tell them about it. But whenever they'd asked, he'd just shrugged and changed the subject, obviously uncomfortable. So far, they had gotten nothing out of him but a lot of shrugs, as if that were a clue. It had taken both Leon and Tifa to keep Cloud away from him.
"I don't blame him," Roxas thought to himself. "It…kind of is a pain in the ass. There's definitely something weird about this." He whipped to the right, barely missing an elm that had snuck up on them. 'Could…Axel be a traitor…? No. No way. He changed sides for me, he loves me, dammit!' Pushing his nagging doubts to one side, he decided that maybe thinking about the fire for a change wasn't such a bad idea. But now, the thoughts wouldn't leave him alone.
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A.N. Well, there you have it. All done. And yes, I made Zexion do his shape-shifting for this chapter, because I love him so. And I know that he can. So bleah. If you don't like it…nyeh. Too bad. I don't think….wait, okay, there is one version of this that doesn't have him in it (I think he's the one that goes after Sora and them, but I'll be damned if I can remember exactly.) Anyways, tell me what ya think!
XOXOXOXOXOXOXO—Because I love y'all!
BlackFalcon002, aka Chris/Christ/Potstickers/Procrastinator