So, I did not make this one on time. Oh well. I'll work it out eventually.

Here you all go! Now I need to bug Tea into betaing more chapters.

Finally made the Part 30 mark, by the way... Um... Yeah, I'm done.

Enjoy!

"So, how was Daath... Five-ish months ago?" –Kairi

"You know, you sound better when you aren't crying." –Asch

"Aw, shoot! I've still got to get a replacement frying pan!" –Kairi

"Is she bipolar?" –Anise

Chapter 1.8 - A (False) Peace
Part 8

"Oh, so this is where you guys wandered off to..."

Jade and I turned to see Luke, Tear, Anise, and Mieu walking in. Jade raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be with Ion, Anise?"

The girl in pink blushed and ducked her head. "Ah... Dark and I switched charges for a couple of hours... Ion wanted to talk to Dark, and I wanted to come with Luke, so it all worked out anyway," she said. I frowned, turning back away from them as I reached out for Dark's mind. I'd been keeping tabs on everyone in the back of my mind, so it took me little effort to find him.

*Poke?*

I heard Dark chuckling aloud through the connection.

"What's so funny?" Ion asked him. I got the impression of Dark shaking his head.

"Kairi. Thoughts of her pop up with about as much warning as she herself does."

*Thoughts... Very funny, Dark.*

*So you really don't want to tell them yet.*

*That was kinda the point.*

"It's getting dark... Maybe we should go find Luke and the others," Ion suggested.

*Mess hall,* I supplied.

"Kairi?"

"Huh?" Yes, very eloquent, I know. I'll admit it, I wasn't paying attention to the conversation Jade and the others were having.

"Let's head for the mess hall before all of the soldiers head in," I heard Dark say.

"Would you like to eat before the first group of soldiers?" Jade asked, apparently repeating his question. I blinked a few times before shaking my head and pulling away from Dark for a moment.

"I'm gonna give myself a headache doing that," I muttered. Jade sighed in exasperation, and I giggled. "I'll wait for Dark and Ion to join us. They're probably already heading in this direction," I added, stressing the word 'probably' as if it were supposed to be sarcastic. It was a tone Jade would recognize from when he'd asked me what Sync was doing once in the presence of Peony, who didn't know about my telepathy.

He blinked once, slow and deliberate enough for me to catch it without it alerting anyone else. "Why don't we move to a table, then?"

I nodded, hopping down and picking up the bowl Valkyria had licked clean, placing it back on the counter before wandering over to the end of the table that Asch, Sync and I had claimed while onboard. Once I was seated again, I poked at Dark's mind a second time.

*So what did Ion want to talk about?*

Dark didn't reply for a moment, and I could almost see him putting up walls around his mind, the way he retreated in on himself. *Sync.*

I took a deep breath. *I should have figured. He suspected Sync in the game, but never got a chance to confirm it until... I trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence.*

*He figured I'd met him, since I'm friends with you, and I know he's met Danté on... semi-friendly terms... He's good at putting pieces together,* Dark admitted. I smirked, the expression hidden by the fact that my head was laying in my arms.

*So was Sync, I said. Dark, I... I need to talk to you later... Alone... You're the only other one here who knows where... where I'm from...*

*Right... We're almost there. Don't give yourself a headache.*

I chuckled lightly at that one, pulling away and finally lifting my head, only for mine to collide with Tear's. "Oops, sorry!" I said quickly, rubbing the back of my head, where I'd hit it against hers. Tear smiled, awkwardly massaging her forehead, probably the unwilling victim of my lack of awareness of my surroundings.

"It's okay... But are you feeling alright?" she asked. Ah, so she'd probably been leaning over to see if I had a fever or something. I smiled.

"I'm fine, just a little tired," I told her. Luke's eyes widened.

"Still?! You were asleep for almost three hours!" I shrugged, and his eyes grew even wider at my nonchalance. "You act like that's completely normal!"

I sighed. "It is. Energies aren't as malleable as fonons, it takes a lot more to manipulate them properly, and even the slightest miscalculation can result in... well. Let's put it this way. I screwed up once and started a forest fire," I said. Jade adjusted his glasses as Luke gave him a confused look, and I rolled my eyes, wondering just what sarcastic remark my brother was going to come up with.

"Don't look at me. I'm a master of fonons, not Energies. Honestly, the most I can tell you is that there are as many Energies as fonons and that spirit Energies can't be replicated," he said, barely an ounce of sarcasm thrown in. I raised an eyebrow, then smirked.

"Well, guess what, oh Non-Master of Energies? You're using them every time you cast a fonic arte," I stated. Jade raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged. "I ran into an old friend of mine, got to talking, and the two of us realized something. Fonons are really just mutated Energies."

"That having been said, you would think it would make it easier for you to use fonons," Dark threw in as he walked over. I cringed.

"Don't remind me..." I said. "I still have to deal with passive backlashes every once in a while, plus the ridiculous drain of attempting to learn new artes."

"Okay, I am completely lost," Luke stated loudly. I smiled and shook my head.

"I'll explain... Tomorrow. Morning. At a reasonable time," I said.

"When you say 'reasonable,'" Dark started. I laughed.

"Eight."

"Good."

"Grumpy?"

"Natalia's more of a morning person that he is."

"And she is...?"

"Asch at two-thirty in the morning."

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"Huh?"

Dark and I laughed at the utterly baffled looks on the faces of the people around us (with the exception of Jade, of course). Anise had been the one to speak up, having no clue whatsoever of whom we had been speaking. I grinned.

"So, how was Daath... Five-ish months ago?"

"Um... -ish?"

"Shut up, Dark," I grumbled. Anise blinked a few times.

"Uh... Well... Five months ago would have been... Oh!" she cried, apparently remembering. "The Grand Maestro was trying to catch an assassin and failed, Asch the Bloody fell into a coma for a week before disappearing with Sync the Tempest, then we got word that Asch and Sync both resigned, and... Wait a second..."

I snorted, trying and failing to hold back more laughter. "Did you forget the random stranger who showed up at the beginning and end of that week?" I asked. "I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think Van has more than a little bit of a grudge against me for dragging off two of his God-Generals."

Anise stared at me, open-mouthed, for at least two minutes before Ion leaned over and closed her mouth for a moment.

The action drew my attention toward Ion, and as it always seemed to do, Ion was replaced for a moment by Sync. The flash of worry I caught on Dark's face told me that my expression must have done a one-eighty.

I dropped my head back into my arms, clenching my fists.

"Kairi?" Ion asked softly, voice filled with worry.

'It's Ion, it's Ion, it's Ion,' I was chanting in my head. Damn it! I needed... I needed monsters. Targets. Something to slash, to shoot, to kill. Something to get my mind off of... this!

"Kairi..." Ion tried again.

"You're not helping, Ion," Dark said bluntly. "Sync is dead."

I heard the gasps around the table, picking out Luke's and Anise's, and barely hearing Tear's or Ion's. Ion's, which was so much like Sync's.

"What...? But..." Luke stumbled over his words. I didn't dare look up, but this close, even without actively connecting with his mind, I could feel the horror he was trying and failing to keep hidden from the others. "Asch...?" he asked slowly, reluctantly.

My fists tightened further as my mind returned to Van.

"Sync is gone. Asch thinks I'm dead too... That guy needs support from somewhere, and he won't accept it from Van anymore," I said, lifting my head again finally. "He's got a goal to work towards, but he's not as mentally stable as you'd think after spending time around the three of us. He's borderline suicidal. Once his mission is complete, there's nothing stopping him from attempting to join Sync."

"Kairi...!" Luke started.

I stood up, walking away from the table. "I won't let that happen. I'm not hungry right now. I'll come get something later," I said, not looking back.

I felt Dark following me at a distance, but didn't care. Everything was just crashing down on me, now.

My father's death. Sync's. Asch's suicidal tendencies.

I'd been aiming for the maintenance deck. I never made it that far, and ended up sitting out on that little platform you find Jade and Ion on around this point in the game, usually. My legs hung over the edge, tucked into two of the spaces between bars, head firmly planted against the bar separating them.

My dad was gone... I don't think it had really hit me yet. Just like it hadn't hit me until just before landing in Keterburg that he was dying.

I didn't care that Dark was standing behind me, hovering near the door awkwardly. I didn't care that there were soldiers walking past me to get their dinner.

I just broke down and cried. For my dad, for Sync, for Asch, for my mom, when she came into my mind. A bit of my crying was in pain, not sorrow. My body seemed to be on fire again. I guess I'd missed the last round of this.

Quiet footsteps reached my ears, but I'd drawn my mind in as completely as I could. And I just kept crying.

When the arm wrapped around me on my left, I thought it was Dark. I didn't bother to look up or even feel around to see if I was right.

When another hand took a spot on my left shoulder from someone on my right, I assumed that Jade had joined us. But it was the arms that wrapped around me from behind that made me start thinking again.

I finally let my mind uncoil, and realized that both of my initial guesses were wrong. It was Ion to my left and Luke to my right. Dark knelt behind me, holding me close, and another wave of tears pushed past me.

Koran. How could I have forgotten Koran?

I took a deep breath, forcing it to even out.

"I~ hear your voice... on the wind... and I~ hear you call out my name... Listen my child, you say to me... I am the voice of your history. Be not afraid, come follow me. Answer my call and I'll set you... free!"

"You know, you'd sound even better if you weren't crying."

I couldn't help it. Sobs suddenly turned into laughter at Tear's words. I felt out a little further. Jade was there, between Luke and Dark, and Anise and Tear were a little further out. I finally let the laughter and tears die down and started wiping my eyes.

"Asch told me the same thing, once," I said. "Outside St. Binah, before I met Jade the first time."

"You know, you sound better when you aren't crying."

I gasped and turned to look at Asch. He paused a moment, walking over and sitting next to me. "What happened?"

I shook my head, turning my eyes back up toward the sky. I couldn't see a lot of stars because of the trees, but there was no doubt in my mind that they were there. So I closed my eyes, letting my memory and imagination take flight.

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

I let a small smile slip onto my face before reaching out with my mind and linking into his, effectively drawing him into my imagination. I heard the sharp intake of breath as Asch looked around.

"Where are we?" he asked. I shrugged, already flat on my back in the grass in the false-vision.

"I dunno. But I can see more stars here than where we really are."

Asch chuckled, following my lead and laying down nearby. It was quiet for a while as I picked out constellations I recognized. Orion, Cygnus, Sagittarius, Scorpius, Ursa Major and Minor... I smiled, while Asch sighed.

"You know, I've never really done this before?" he said. I giggled and scooted closer to him before pointing at a bright star above our heads.

"See that bright star, and the four going this way in a line?" I said, pointing them out. Asch nodded, and I grinned. "Alright, now see the smaller ones running this way in a line?"

"Huh... It looks like a cross..." he muttered. I giggled.

"Or a bird with a long neck." I added, before pointing out more constellations, never once giving him the actual names for them. Asch joined in the 'game' after a while, and I had to admit, he did find a few that were real constellations.

I smiled at the memory. I'd fallen asleep after a while, effectively kicking both of us out of the imaginary field.

"Kairi?"

I giggled and gently pushed Dark away so I could get up and turn around. "I'm okay now," I said. Ion smiled, then gave me a hug.

"I'm sorry about Sync," he whispered. I returned his embrace for a moment before pulling away, still with a smile.

"He believed in me. I'm not going to let that belief prove to be misplaced," I said firmly. Jade adjusted his glasses, just the slightest smirk on his face.

"Then we can assume you'll be back to your usual psychotic self?" he teased. I laughed and nodded, then froze up for a moment.

"Aw, shoot! I've still got to get a replacement frying pan!"

Dark gave in and started laughing, while Luke groaned. I'm not sure if he was exasperated, concerned, or happy I was back to normal, but somehow he managed to get it all out in that one groan.

"Rather than bashing our heads in, why don't we go eat, hm?" Jade suggested. "Same direction either way."

I grinned, grabbing my older brother with one hand and Dark with the other. A yip let me know that he'd almost dropped the baby liger in his surprise, but I didn't exactly slow down, forcing the others to almost have to run to catch up.

"Is she bipolar?" I heard Anise ask as they caught up. Dark just laughed and turned his head to look at the girl.

"No, she just bounces back a lot faster than you'd expect," he replied.

"Meow."

I grinned. "You got that right, Valkyria!"

The kitten looked like she was rolling her eyes as she fell into step beside me.

Because I bounce back strong, too.

Fun Fact: Kairi did a LOT more singing in the original version of A Ripple in the Abyss than she's done so far throughout the entirety of the rewritten series (including what's been written so far but not posted).