Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This story is mine, as are the OCs. Some new developments in this chapter, some small, some big, and a new character gets mentioned in passing. More on that later. Enjoy!

..:-X-:..

134 – Hand to Hand

"Timeout! Yield! I yield! Uncle!" Rinoa lifted her hands, looking up from where she'd landed sprawled on the floor.

Yuffie stopped her advance, looking disappointed but stopping the exercise. "You won't be able to yield in a real fight, you know."

Rinoa dropped her hands to the floor with a slap that echoed in the enclosed room of the training center. "Well, this isn't a real fight, is it?"

Yuffie smirked, offering her a hand up. "It could be."

She accompanied the words with a sudden lunge forward, mimicking an attack. Rinoa yelped and rolled away, blindly kicking one leg out. Yuffie side stepped the counterattack easily.

"You're supposed to be teaching me." Rinoa grumbled, angrily getting to her feet and wiping the sweat from her brow. "Not beating the crap out of me."

"How do you think I learned?" Yuffie lifted an eyebrow. "Leon was a harder teacher than I am, trust me. And I was half your age. And we were practicing against Heartless."

Rinoa balked. "I've fought Heartless. Your group wasn't the only ones roaming the worlds for ten years, remember?"

Yuffie whistled, "Then you've gotten soft, chickadee. I'm barely even trying."

"I fought with long range weapons: crossbows, grappling hooks…I asked you to help me with hand-to-hand stuff." Rinoa shot back.

Yuffie slid into a defensive stance, "Then bring it. I'm right here." She spread her hands in a goading gesture. "Come at me, bro."

Rinoa narrowed her eyes and attacked. Her right hook was obvious and easily avoided, and her footwork was messy, so Yuffie was able to duck and roll away from it. As an added bonus, she swept her left leg out, taking Rinoa's knees out from under her and sending her back to the floor.

"DAMMIT." Rinoa grunted as she landed, rolling hard and coming back up onto her feet. "You fight dirty."

"Because the Heartless won't?" Yuffie offered a teasing grin, trying to get her riled up, and offered a hand to help her to her feet again.

Rinoa scowled but took the offered hand. Just as their fingers closed around each other, however, Rinoa jerked Yuffie forward, wrapping one leg around Yuffie's torso and slinging her to the ground. Yuffie curled her shoulder inward to roll with the impact, and the momentum sent her back up to her knees. Rinoa tried to let go of Yuffie's hand at that point, but Yuffie reversed the grip, grasping the woman's wrist and twisting her entire arm. With a cry, Rinoa was forced onto her stomach on the floor, pinned there. Yuffie was immediately on top of her, her knee pressed between Rinoa's shoulder blades.

"Ugh, get off me." Rinoa wriggled.

A slow clap distracted them both, and they looked up to see Aerith standing in the doorway, looking nonchalant and casually applauding them. Yuffie stood away from Rinoa, and Rinoa refused her help up this time, standing on her own.

"I don't remember Leon teaching you like that." Aerith looked amused.

" 'Course not." Yuffie snorted, puffing out her chest. "I did have SOME formal training before the Heartless attacked Radiant Garden the first time."

Aerith canted her head and looked to Rinoa. "You shouldn't let her pick on you."

Rinoa looked affronted. "I'm not LETTING her. She's not teaching me anything except how to get bruises." She tugged at the torn fabric of her clothes from the tussling.

Aerith stepped into the room. "There are other ways to defend yourself if you find yourself in a fight or a battle…safer ways, ways you might be more skilled at."

Rinoa huffed. "Like what?"

"Liiiiiiiike…" Aerith turned to Yuffie.

Yuffie groaned, "Ugh, Aerith, can we not—"

Aerith flicked her wrist, lifting her hand and muttering the incantation. As she did so, ice formed through the air and hurtled toward Yuffie. The spearheads of ice went rigid in mid-air within a meter from the ninja's body, hovering there under Aerith's control. Rinoa gasped, but Yuffie stood where she was, deadpan.

"From a safe distance," Aerith said, slowly twirling her fingers and making the ice spears rotate around her friend. "You can eliminate almost any threat."

Yuffie snorted, "Almost." She unleashed a Fire spell, evaporating the ice and lunging through the flames at Aerith.

Aerith hopped to the side and deftly touched her palm to Yuffie's shoulder as she passed, uttering a Stop spell that made Yuffie go rigid in place. Rinoa applauded.

"Show me how to do THAT!" She said but then grew serious. "Your nose is bleeding."

Aerith voided the Stop spell and Yuffie regained her balance, grumbling under her breath. Aerith touched her face and quickly tugged out a tissue to dab it away.

"You okay?" Yuffie asked.

"Oh, yeah, yeah," Aerith waved her off. "The air in the clinic is so dry…" She crossed the room. "I'll let you get back to your training."

Rinoa spun back to Yuffie, "I changed my mind. Teach me spells like THAT."

"Ugh. Fine." Yuffie tugged off her sparring gloves. "First, let's get a fire extinguisher in here…just in case."

..:-X-:..

135 – Unhelpful Advice

Leon held the little black box, staring at the engagement ring that was tucked inside. It was a thin silver band with the single diamond cut in a square. He turned the box so the light would catch the stone.

"It's tiny." Cloud muttered, looking like a reprimanded dog where he sat across from him in Leon's office. "It's too small, isn't it? I should have gotten a bigger diamond. But all the bigger ones looked so gaudy."

"It's fine." Leon cut him off before he rambled too much, handing the box back.

"Fine?" Cloud's eyebrows shot up. "It's not supposed to be 'fine.' It's supposed to be perfect. You're supposed to be helping."

Leon lifted his shoulders, "I am helping. You're getting too worked up about this."

"Easy for you to say."

"Easy—I didn't even have a ring when I proposed." Leon pointed out. "And I could barely stand up. It was raining. We both looked like banshees. Tifa still said yes."

"Yeah, well, you two are weird." Cloud mumbled, studying the ring in his hands.

"That's the pot calling the kettle black." Leon grumbled back at him. "Look, Cloud. You could have a plastic ring from a gumball machine, and I promise that Aerith would still say yes."

"You're a bastard."

"I'm serious." Leon snorted. "She might pester you for a real diamond later, but in the moment, she's not going to care about the ring."

Cloud's knee was jumping nervously as he stared at the ring. Leon noticed the twitch and tried to hide his amusement.

"When are you planning on doing it?" He asked.

"I don't…know." Cloud grunted.

"Yeah you do." Leon narrowed his eyes.

"Well, I'm just not telling you because you'll give me shit until then."

"I'm going to give you shit anyway. It's my job."

Cloud shot him a nasty look.

"You want McCallister to look at it? She's a woman; she might have better insight than me. She's a vault; she won't let the secret slip." Leon offered.

Cloud looked horrified. "No."

Leon lifted an eyebrow, "Watch it. She helped me pick out Tifa's." Then, just to irk the man, he added. "How are you going to do it?"

Cloud glared. "Better than how you did it."

"I would hope so." Leon smirked.

Cloud seemed to see that Leon wasn't going to mock him too badly, because he shifted in his seat. "We've been living together for about a month now, but there are still a few boxes lying around half unpacked. I was…going to finish the unpacking for her as a surprise. Then…do it." He shrugged, looking to Leon self consciously.

Leon, for his part, just returned the shrug. "Sounds fine."

"Fine." Cloud huffed, sitting back. "Not perfect."

" 'Perfect' and you are never going to co-mingle, man." Leon said flatly. " 'Fine' means just that: fine. Grand gestures and over-the-top romantic set-ups are great for the movies, but when have you ever seen any of that happen in real life?"

Cloud impatiently popped up onto his feet, looking like he was trying hard not to start pacing out of anxiety. "I don't know what I'm doing." He muttered.

Leon didn't comment on that, idly turning through some unrelated Alliance files. Cloud took that as indication to continue.

"Am I supposed to…kneel? Do people still kneel when they propose? What do I say? 'Tada?' If I kneel and she doesn't answer immediately, do I stay down there until she does? Would that be awkward?" Cloud rambled.

"Do whatever you want." Leon said, not looking up from his files. "Tell you love her and you want to spend the rest of your life with her and all that mushy stuff." He made a vague hand gesture as he trailed away.

"You suck." Cloud spat. "Have you even MET me? I won't make it through that."

"Cloud." Leon's patience was wearing out. "Maybe you should practice first." Before Cloud could respond, Leon tapped the call button on his desk phone. "McCallister, my office."

Cloud looked at him in horror, and ten seconds later, the soldier appeared in the doorway. Cloud glared at Leon, and Leon just made a shooing motion. She wore a deadpan expression.

"What makes you think," She said flatly, "that I could have any possible insight into marriage proposals?" At Leon and Cloud's perplexed expressions, she sighed, "I overheard."

"I'm not mock-proposing to McCallister." Cloud grumbled.

"Damn straight you're not." She snapped. "I've got half a dozen reports to write."

As she about-faced and left the office, Cloud blinked and looked at Leon, "She's started to get sassy lately."

Leon's patience had run out. "Get out of my office."

..:-X-:..

136 – Missing Pieces

"Y'know…" Beverly said in a droll tone, "…when you make a surprise visit to my bar, my first thought isn't whether you're going to ask me about other women."

Across the counter from her, Cid held the picture up more prominently. "For science, Beverly. Have you ever seen this woman?"

Beverly sent him a flat look and then squinted at the photo. "That's not a woman; that's a girl. Early teens. I don't see a lot of teenaged girls in my bar." She lifted an eyebrow.

Cid hmphed and set the photo on the counter, taking a drink from his beer bottle. The picture was twenty years old. The teenaged girl would be in her late thirties in the current day. Cid was well aware of how much a person could physically change in twenty years, but it was the only photo that he had been able to find of the mysterious person.

"So…?" Beverly questioned, mixing a drink for another customer. "Why is the Alliance interested in a girl who went missing two decades ago?"

"The Alliance isn't. Me and Merlin are." Cid tugged a cigarette out of the pack. "This person disappeared twenty years ago from Radiant Garden, and two months ago, she came back." He snapped his fingers. "Out of fucking thin air. Her family's dead, her friends are gone, no one in the Alliance knows who she is except her doctors—"

"Doctors?" Beverly's other eyebrow lifted.

"Whatever happened to her for those 20 years…She's not right up here." He tapped his temple. "Merlin was one of a very select group of people who talked to her after she turned up. He said she would hardly speak for hours and then just start babbling, and anything she did say was just…nonsense. He lent me the recording of the session with her." He held up a tape recorder. "I been listening to this gibberish since that black out event in the Sun Kingdom. Merlin thinks this woman is the key to figuring it all out. Woman's in a straight jacket…and for good reason…"

To prove his point, he turned on the recorder, pressed play, and set it on the counter between them. Static crackled briefly, and then Merlin's voice started.

"We're reaching the four hour mark, Beth, and while it's been very kind of you to listen to an old man tell his stories, I'd like to hear some of yours now." He paused. "Would you like to tell me anything? About what happened to you?"

There was a long, breathy silence, before the second voice began, hoarse from disuse.

"…Word like a ravine…ravine-ravine-ravine, but not. What is it? Not? Canyon, like a ravine…ravine-ravine-ravine…" The woman's voice was scratchy, barely above a whisper, and rapidly paced. "Tear open the sky…I saw it, you know, I was there. I felt it."

She giggled: a dissonant, throaty noise that made Beverly grimace.

Merlin spoke again, "Where were you?"

"Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, it goes. I saw the boy. He didn't see me. They never see me. Did you like the flashing blue lights? It was so messy…Shh!" She hissed, as though someone was trying to interrupt her, though no one else was speaking on the recording. "You know it's a cage…They're all in cages. Light, the realm of light…locked away. Keyblades like toothpicks, hehehe…" Her giggly voice abruptly shifted to seriousness. "Darkness has no cage. Put everybody to sleep. Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum."

She trailed away after that, and Merlin cleared his throat some moments later.

"Beth…tell me more about the cage…"

When the subject, Beth, spoke again, her voice was low and level, almost threatening. "I don't want to talk about that anymore."

Cid turned off the recorder and looked to Beverly, whose eyebrows were sky high.

"That…is some fucked up shit." She poured herself a drink.

Cid puffed on his cigarette and pocketed the recorder. "There's another two hours of these sessions with her talking…Just more of that mess…blue lights and cages and light and darkness…Merlin thinks it's some brilliance or genius bleeding through whatever insanity has gripped her…I think the poor woman's traumatized and she's babbling nonsense."

"And he thinks that it relates to the Sun Kingdom incident…how?"

"Only he knows…but he's no fool, and he's adamant about finding her." Cid exhaled smoke. "She broke out of the institution where she's been living since she was found. Left behind four words written in marker on her room wall." Cid lifted his hands to showcase the message. "Nowhere. Cage. Chasm. Bomb."

Cid watched Beverly thoughtfully mouth the four words, and she came to the conclusion about the obscure message that he had: bupkiss. She shrugged in defeat.

"So…I'll ask again…" Cid held up the outdated photo. "Have you seen this girl?"

The smiling teenager in the picture, with her curly brown hair, freckles, and brown eyes, hardly looked the type to speak in that hoarse, rapid voice from the recording. She looked completely ordinary, but if Merlin's gut was saying that her madness had a connection to the mysterious black out and missing satellite, then Cid would be damned if he didn't find her.

..:-X-:..

A/N: (rubs hands together excitedly) Ooh, more hinty-hints for Sentient Midnight are sneaking into this story as we get closer to the end. Things are about to get really interesting really fast.

Preview for next week: "Don't push me away. Please."