So I just realized that I totally screwed up two chapters ago with Riku explaining the concept of worlds to Laura... where it was already explained in chapter 9! I'm working on fixing that. Bad, bad, bad. Anyways, here's the next chapter! I promise the story will get moving after this chapter.
Disclaimer: I only own Laura and this story.
A shadowed, hooded figure tread down an old alley, accompanied by silver blades laced with red scraped along narrow walls. The circular chakrams which the blades belonged to were diced around back and forth as their owner grew more and more impatient with his search.
"This was the place. I was finally lost here... but where?" The cloaked man ruffled his hood, half expecting long red spikes of hair to react to the action. He emerged from the alleyway to find himself in a large sandlot, abandoned for the night. Trying to grasp at an idea, he grabbed the shadow of where his face should have been in frustration.
"I just don't remember... Think, think, think! What happened then?" the act of recalling his memories racked his lack of being so. The thought of being reduced to a bodiless shell tormented him to great extent. Now alongside his inability to remember, it only worked to worsen his anger.
"I don't have time for this! Why can't I just remember..." After a great deal of mental torment, he found a shard of confidence within himself at the concept of a large place that appeared within his mind. A gate appeared with a wall, encompassing the large area.
"A large place? What's that supposed to mean? Was that where I lost myself? Wait..." His mind seemed to drift back to a voice that rung in his head like chiming bells. It was his voice, a figment trapped in a version of the large place kept within his memories.
"You really DO remember me this time? I'm so FLATTERED!"
His own words of anger flew into his mind, rushing back a vaguely shaped picture of raging flames that surrounded him. A boy stood before him, an intricate weapon in each hand: one emanating pure light, the other, opaque as a shadow.
"Those Keyblades... auuugh! What the hell!" the hooded man stood silent for a moment before groaning in frustration, holding his head with both hands.
"Are you lost?" a suspicious voice called out behind him.
Once he turned around, he was met with two teenage boys. One stood up tall and confidently with wavy blonde hair pointing backward. The other stood slightly behind him, slouched, out of shape with black hair piled up by a headband. The man's first instinct was to turn and run, yet he recognized their statures. They were part of the gang that he made friends with. This could work to his advantage. Could they jog his memory?
The two distinct weapons disappeared from his hands, earning even more suspicious looks from the two boys. The man cleared his throat, and regained composure.
"Uh, yeah, actually... I'm looking for a large place. Somewhere big, around... here?" the man gestured the concept of big and large with his arms, encompassing the space around him. The pudgy boy found this to be slightly comical, and stood up straighter with confidence to reply.
"Oh, you mean the big mansion over-" the taller boy quickly covered the pudgy boy's mouth, silencing him.
"Hey now, hold on a sec - why do you ask? Who are you anyways?" the taller boy became quite inquisitive, which served as more fuel for the hooded figure's growing frustration. He tried to keep calm with a sigh.
"I'm asking the questions here. To be honest, dude, who I am is none of your business. Just tell me where this mansion is... got it memorized?" the two boys exchanged glances, finding the catchphrase to be familiar. The man was losing his patience. The tall boy gave him a glare.
"Fine, let's say that I'm looking for someone, and that someone is currently waiting for me in a large place. Maybe that mansion? Come on. Help a poor guy out here!"
"Hayner... Why don't you just tell him so that he goes away?" the stout boy complained, scratching the back of his neck to quell the hairs that were raising on it. The air around them began to change temperature dramatically, before it subsided once the man rubbed his hooded head.
"Pence..." Hayner growled. He did not enjoy that he wasn't getting his way or the answers he wanted from the strange figure.
"Yeah, I wanna go away, too, Hayner. All you gotta do is just point me in that lovely direction." the man began tapping his foot impatiently. He began to approach the two boys. Pence gulped, taking a few steps back. Hayner stood his ground, his fists clenching and ready at his sides.
"Look, kids, I don't have a lot of time. This case is time-sensitive, okay? You, short and stout. Mind showing me the way?" Pence sighed and pointed over the man's shoulder toward some stairs in the distance.
"See those stairs? Umm... take them upward and keep to your right. Pass the trams and walk up the ramp to a broken wall. There's an alley... that m-might be blocked off that will bring you to a forested area..." Pence trailed off, slightly intimidated by the man slowly approaching them both. Hayner picked up the slack.
"Go through the fores,t following the trail, and you'll come up to the mansion. It's haunted, so good luck, buddy. Now leave us alone!" He took a step back to turn around and run away. Pence stumbled and ran away behind him.
"H-hayner! Wait for me!"
The man sighed in ease of his questions having been answered. He was grasping at a small amount of certainty: he now had a destination.
"I've found you now, baby, I've found you."
Laura opened her eyes slowly, careful not to injure them from the glimmering sunlight entering her room from her window. It covered every inch of the lightening guest room, shutting out all possible shadow. She began to understand the concept of the light's power in the castle; it seemed to consume every inch of space in the daytime. The white walls and brightly coloured comical trim and tiles were only more complimented by the sun's shining light, glimmering with great pride. It made the castle all the more welcoming to her.
Looking to her left, she noticed strands of silver that belonged to a certain boy beside her, still fast asleep. She smiled.
'Guess he's not used to waking up with the sun.'
She carefully and silently got herself up and out of her bed, making sure she hadn't woken him. It only took her a second to realize the circumstance of his presence in her room, still, from last night before nearly inducing a seizure from panic. He was still in her room. From last night. She allowed him to kiss her after no more than two days. They slept in the same bed. She mentally kicked herself, hard, but sighed in relief once she took a fistful of her white nightdress. With clothes on.
'What... had happened?'
Last night, she ran back to her room, upset, frantic, confused, frustrated, homesick, alone... But he followed her. He comforted her, and showed her a small glimpse of what lay waiting within him. He...
Laura blushed slightly, grazing her fingertips down her lips. Coming to the conclusion that nothing out of context had happened, she allowed her shoulders to slowly lower from their tensed state. She hadn't ever experienced a feeling quite like she had the previous night. Through their kisses she had vaguely felt all of his fears and reservations of his darkness, as well as a darkness he knew all too well. It confused her how strong the forces of light and darkness were to the people (and animals) she had very recently met.
Their sudden and intense connection had made her mind banish her fears and ill memories of her dark past. He made her forget about her father. He never left her mind at any time before then.
Making her way to the small bathroom connected to her room, she found a brush and ran it gently through her now wavy, tousled hair. Something was coming, and to have shaken his core as it did the night before, it wasn't something she could have taken so lightly. Her mind then continued toward what his Majesty had revealed to her the day before: her light.
Light was always a concept affiliated with the greater good, or divinity on her home world. It wasn't something any mortal could obtain; it was absolute and it was the higher governing power to religious groups. Religion would affiliate an almighty being to the concept of light yet that never made enough sense for Laura. How could they be so certain? What if it was just... a source of power? A side of a pole?
Placing her hand on her heart and closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and concentrated on the concept of light in a heart. After waiting for several seconds, she felt nothing.
Sighing in failure, she fixed her bobby pins pinning her long bangs to the side. She took a disapproving glance at her plain white nightdress. Giving herself a quick turn-around in front of the mirror, she decided it was time to seek out some real clothes.
'Maybe I'll find out soon.'
"Uhh..."
Laura jumped at the stupefied sound from behind her and turned around immediately to find that Riku had awoken. Her mind immediately rushed back to the events of the previous night, which caused her body to freeze up in an awkward state of panic. Riku simply sat there, as the two exchanged blank and embarrassed looks. Riku was the first to budge, moving his hand to his head to scratch it.
"So, um... how... are you - I mean, well, Good... morning?" Laura could tell that waking up in a stranger's guest bed wasn't a common procedure for him. She was just as unfamiliar as he was with the whole concept, and managed to gulp out a reply.
"Oh, you know, I'm.. uh, good... Good morning?" she nervously shifted in place on the other side of the larger-than-average guest room, weaving her fingers together and inching her knees back and forward.
Riku nodded, swallowing. "That's good... I think." A few more moments of silence ensued.
"SO! It's morning, so we should probably..."
Riku nodded a few more times, getting up in a jittery manner towards the door. "We should probably meet up with everyone else in the hall..."
Laura joined into the nodding game, gesturing toward the door acknowledgingly, "Definitely! Sure! Yeah, let's do it - I mean, let's go," and as she went in front of him to open the door, he caught hold of her hand from behind her. Once again she froze.
'Oh, no... What am I going to say-'
"Laura..." inside, Laura wanted to disappear. All of her thoughts of panic, and unfamiliarity, and boy rules that she'd broken ran rampant through her mind and conscience. It also dawned on her that he had been her first kiss. Combined together it made her want to spontaneously combust into a hopeless pile of ashes.
"Laura, before we go, I want to talk about last night." she stood the same way, still frozen half in fear and in shyness to the touchy subject.
"Sure, what's to talk about?"
"Well, you know, I just wanted to say..." Laura closed her fingers around his hand firmly, as if to gain some confidence leverage.
"Thank you, Riku."
He turned Laura to face him. He stood a full head above her, forcing Laura to look up to his eyes. She then noticed that at the angle she stood, standing so close to him, his eyes were completely free of his long silver bangs.
"There's... no need to thank me. It calmed me down, too. It was like..." Riku paused, looking up toward the ceiling in attempt to think up a proper metaphor to describe how he felt. Laura pitched in.
"Like... discovering sliced bread for the first time!" she slimed a toothy grin, feeling proud of her metaphor - accurate to her, yet Riku gave her a stupefied look.
"Huh? Sliced bread... But you can do that yourself." she scoffed, insulted.
"What are you talking about? It saves sooooo much time in the morning! Like one whole minute of sandwich making time. You know what? Forget it," she huffed, turning her back to him and extending her arm to open the door.
"It's a Manhattan thing, you wouldn't get it anyways!" she taunted, quickly running out of the door and down the hallway.
Riku sighed, completely confused. "Sliced bread... hey! Get back here!"
Riku began to run after Laura, darting down the hallway. Her speed baffled him. He had been monitoring her general capability compared to him and Sora, even Kairi, who had been exposed to more-than-minor dangers here and then. Compared to Kairi, Laura's endurance and stamina had increased twofold to his fellow Redhead.
Compared to Sora's growth, she was about on-par in terms of improvement, yet he couldn't entirely judge between himself, Sora and Laura since he'd never seen her fight. On their island she could barely hold her own in the forest during a storm, yet two days later she could sprint to no end.
Turning the corner, he had to struggle to catch up with her light-footed speedy pace. Laura had mentioned to him about having participated in sports on her homeworld, something called Hockey - the name seemed too womanly to him for much interest to spark. If she were to wield, he'd imagined her fighting style to be focused on agility and acrobatics -
'Whoa, whoa, whoa. Laura, wield a Keyblade? Get real, Riku.'
He chuckled to himself as he swung himself around a pole to tackle the blonde via a cut corner, leaping toward her with arms wide open. As he closed the distance between them (in an unadulterated manner), he trapped her torso in his arms and dove over the railing and into the courtyard below. Laura shrieked his name the entire way downward while he laughed and gave a loud "woo!" in accomplishment.
Together, Sora and Kairi watched the event unfold from the other side of the courtyard's overlook on their own way to the hall. Sora store in pure disbelief toward his normally cool and collected friend, while Kairi store towards Sora.
"Wow, uhh... well, then. That was something." Sora pushed his jaw upward back into place, and Kairi smiled and shook her head. Her mind remained bewildered but her heart felt warm at the sight of the golden haired girl and her silver haired friend crashing into a carefully cut hedge of a hippopotamus.
"She's perfect."
Sora turned to face her. "What do you mean?"
Giving him a peek of her tongue, she skipped away toward the hall. "Come on, we're going to be late! Let's go," Kairi sang brightly as he ran after her, flustered. Laura and Riku could be heard in the courtyard laughing together, having rolled out of the hedge and onto the grass below.
"Kairi, not you, too! I'm always in the dust..."