Naminé's theme: "Earth", Assassin's Creed II OST, Track #01

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Axel: That's my line!

SB Original: Shut up, pyromaniac.

And I'll have you know I wrote this the day before the finals, just for you guys because you guys are awesome. I'll repeat: you guys are f***ing AWESOME.

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANYTHING MENTIONED IN THIS STORY.

Just this story. Enjoy!

Xxx XXX xxX

The next morning, Mr. Wallace wasn't courteous enough to wake the girls individually.

He just used a foghorn.

"WAKE UP, MAGGOTS!" a familiar baritone voice thundered. "ROLE CALL!"

Naminé fell off her bunk, whimpering and clutching her shattered eardrums. She could hear Xion sobbing in pain above her, that's how loudly the brunette was suffering.

"Stupid son of a—" Xion snarled.

"DRESS AND FORM UP!"

"Motherfuck—"

"Let's hurry, Xion," Naminé hissed. "I don't want him throwing us out."

Both girls were clad in their PE clothing in ten seconds and the second after they were out in the congested corridor, attempting to line up amidst the chaos.

Out of the corner of her eye, Naminé could glimpse a girl being tossed out of her room in her pajamas. The blonde shuddered—she made a mental note never to push Mr. Wallace's patience.

Like she hadn't already, but hey you couldn't be too careful.

"That's Yuna!" Xion whispered. Her cobalt irises were wide with shock. "She's the one who invited us to that party, remember?"

"Yeah…"

Same shoulder-length brown hair, same warm smile, same…eyes? Naminé had never noticed Yuna's eyes were different colors—one was sea-blue and the other was emerald green.

The artist strode out of line, ignoring her friend's frantic protests, and bent down to help Yuna to her feet.

"Thank…you…" the heterochromatic girl whispered.

"Welcome," Naminé smiled. She walked into Yuna's dorm, retrieved the clothing on the floor, and returned the uniform to the wide-eyed heterochromatic.

"Why—why are you doing this?" Yuna asked.

Naminé raised an eyebrow. "I can't help a fellow student of mine in need?"

Suddenly the brown-haired girl looked around, noting the shocked looks of the other girls. "What?" she snapped. "You think I'm too proud to accept help from the new girl?"

The 'new girl' was taken aback by Yuna's sudden sharpness. She had seemed like a kind, harmless girl at first, but then again, Xion had, too.

Yuna sighed, rubbing the back of her head. "Popularity's a stone cold bitch," she muttered. "Don't ever be sucked into it, you hear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Naminé replied in a small voice.

"Oh come on, you don't have to be scared of me," Yuna chuckled. "Unless, of course, my boyfriend Tidus falls for you."

Before Naminé could respond to that, the voice of DOOM bespoke its judgment on her.

"GET BACK IN LINE, MIYAMOTO!"

Xxx XXX xxX

The running was a lot easier than it had been last Friday, and Naminé suspected last night's exercise was behind that. How one session could help her that much, she didn't know.

Speaking of which…

"How did I get back?" she asked Xion.

The brunette had decided to pace the blonde to keep her company, although both knew full well Xion was in tip-top shape and didn't really need the morning PE class.

"He carried you back," the traceuse grinned slyly.

Naminé flushed crimson. There were so many ways that that could be taken wrong…

"You sure you didn't do anything?"

"Xion!" Naminé wailed.

She snickered. "Sorry, couldn't resist. I mean, I did see a few marks on you…"

"Shut up!"

"And blushing after sex isn't uncommon…"

"We didn't have—"

"And neither is sleeping…"

"Stop…?"

"And Roxas looked really, really happy when he put you on your bed…"

"You're just as much of a pervert as he is," Naminé muttered.

"Oh? And how would you know he's a pervert?" Xion smirked.

"Just shut up…" the mortified blonde pleaded.

"Aw, c'mon, tell me," the brunette wheedled, bouncing in front of Naminé. "I wanna know, please, please, please…?"

"No. You're just gonna tease me about it."

"You know I'll annoy you for the rest of the day about this?"

"Good thing I don't share any classes with you then."

"And all through the night?"

"Who knows if I'll even stay in our dorm tonight?" Naminé abruptly froze as she realized the implications of what she'd just said.

"Ooohhh…" Xion whispered with a mischievous gleam in her eye.

"Can we talk about something else?"

"Sure. You wanna know what Roxas looks like naked? Oh right, you already know!"

"Please…?"

"I'm pretty sure he's got nice pectorals, and toned abs, and he must be pretty big down under too, if you know what I mean…" The last was punctuated with a suggestive wink.

"God dammit, Xion." Naminé's tone was hissed and warned of great pain to come should the girl not shut her mouth at once.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop," the traceuse laughed, holding her hands out in the universal gesture for surrender. "What else do you want to talk about?"

"What was Kairi like before she went over to the…umm…dark side?" the artist asked.

Pain again flashed across Xion's face and the brunette swallowed.

"Never mind. We can—"

"She was the kindest person you'd ever meet," Xion interrupted in a flat monotone. "She'd go out of her way to talk to freshmen and make them comfortable."

"And how does this make her 'the nicest person you'd ever meet'?" Naminé inquired.

Xion glared daggers at the blonde. "If you were there you would've thought the same of her."

With that, the traceuse ran off to leave Naminé alone with her thoughts.

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Roxas came in as he usually did, through the window. Naminé was there to tug him inside.

"Good morning," she chirped.

He raised an eyebrow. "You're—what happened?" he asked suspiciously. "From what I've seen you're not too much of a morning person."

"What?" she shot back. "I can't say 'Good morning' to my own boyfriend?"

Several people began whispering at that apparently unexpected development. Both whipped around to glare at the class and the murmurs fell silent.

"Alright, settle down class," Ms. Lockhart barked. "Role call!"

"How was your night?" Roxas whispered. He leaned forward to toy with a flaxen lock of her hair.

"Great," Naminé replied. "How was yours?"

"Even better. Did Xion tease you about yesterday?"

"All through morning PE." The artist decided not to bring up how Xion had run off after extolling Kairi's former benevolence.

"Ouch. She did this so many times to Sora when he was still with Kairi."

Naminé shifted. "Um, Roxas? Speaking of Kairi…"

"Yeah?" he murmured.

"We talked for a bit about her and Xion said she was the—quote—kindest person you'd ever meet—unquote," she said. "Why did she change?"

He sighed, ruffling the tresses in his hand. "She was an even better person than 'kindest person you'd ever meet', and nobody knows why she changed."

"That's pretty much what Xion told me," Naminé muttered.

Roxas leaned back, releasing her hair. "And I presume she told you Kairi had turned into a total bitch?"

"Pretty much…"

"I don't get her actions, either," the blond traceur growled. "She and Sora were perfect together, Kairi said it herself, and then they're apart out of the blue."

"And I assume the very next day was when she got together with Seifer?" Naminé asked.

"The very next day was their first date. The day after that was when they became an item," Roxas explained. He shook his spiky head. "Kairi, with Seifer. And she used to call him the biggest douche in existence."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Naminé muttered. She rubbed her head. "The very thought of that bastard Seifer gives me a headache."

"Likewise," he said. "So, I on the way here I heard some people talking about how you helped out Yuna Braska."

"So that's her last name?" she murmured.

"So, for once, the gossip is true?"

"I'd never have thought you'd be the type to listen to gossip!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" he whined, his eyes morphing into puppy caricatures.

"Okay, okay!" she giggled. "Yeah, it's true. Mr. Wallace threw her out of her dorm because she was apparently too slow to dress."

"And I assume you got her clothes for her?"

"Yep."

He smiled and ruffled her hair. "That's my girl," he whispered.

She smiled back. "Same time, same place?"

"Maybe an hour earlier—children need their sleep, after all."

"Hey!" she laughed, and playfully poked him.

Xxx XXX xxX

"Where's Roxas?" Naminé asked. "And Axel and Xion?"

Only Zexion and Larxene were at the lunch table today. The brunette traceur looked distinctly happy at this development, though.

"They're out at the clock tower," Larxene yawned. "God, it's so boring without Axel here…"

Zexion's face darkened considerably at that, but Naminé noticed it before he could say something stupid.

"I feel horrible about what I said to Xion this morning," she mumbled, plopping down on a chair.

"Don't be," Zexion muttered. "She told me to tell you she had no hard feelings."

She buried her face in her hands. "Still, my conscience is yelling at me," the artist grumbled. "Why is the subject of Kairi so touchy to everybody?"

Larxene leaned back, balancing herself with a single hand. "Kairi was the—"

"Nicest person you'd ever meet, I know, I know," Naminé interrupted, ignoring Zexion's annoyed glare. "And what nobody gets is why she did a personality one-eighty."

The other blonde twirled an antennae lock in one finger. "Best not to think about morbid stuff like this," she said grimly. "What's done is done—the real Kairi isn't coming back, not while she's with that asshole Seifer."

"I still don't think her being with Seifer is logical," Naminé argued. "Roxas told me she used to call him the 'biggest douche in existence'."

"Nobody understands why," Zexion replied. "And everyone still calls him that."

"In my opinion, she's been blackmailed," the petite girl declared, her ice blues suddenly lighting up with the electricity of sudden comprehension. "Maybe Seifer threatened to beat up Sora or something, and she left him to protect him!"

"Come to think of it, Xion did say Sora was assaulted by a group of thugs the day Kairi broke up with him…" Larxene recalled, drumming her fingers on the table.

Naminé noticed that Zexion almost seemed mesmerized by the traceuse's hand, his eyes rising and falling in time with her fingers.

"Zexion?"

"Hmm?" he murmured.

"Why are you staring at Larxene's hand?"

A scarlet haze bloomed across the bookish traceur's cheeks and he looked down at his own hands, clearly embarrassed. Larxene just stared at him.

"Back to Kairi," Naminé said a bit loudly. "Larxene, you said Sora was beaten up the day Kairi dumped him?"

"Yeah," the other blonde answered, still giving Zexion a confused look. "Well, he wasn't beaten up, per say—more like intimidated."

The artist frowned, tenting her fingers and leaning her small chin on the makeshift platform. "Maybe Seifer wanted to scare Kairi into getting with him…?"

Zexion sighed. "Perhaps," he admitted. "It fits with my own theory, but one thing prevents it from being validated."

"What?"

"Kairi broke up with Sora before he was attacked."

Xxx XXX xxX

I believe this is called 'rising action'. DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUNNNN!

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