Guess what? ...The time has come... For Jade, at least. (It'll make sense here in a minute.)

Anyway, I think this'll be it for just a little bit... I need to upload Chapter 9 before I can post it. (Yeah, this is the end of Chapter 8 already.)

Enjoy...

I wasn't exactly the first person in our group that someone would point to for being an eavesdropper. -Jade

*Eh... hehe... spirit Energy.* -Kairi

Chapter 8.4 - Syncopation
Part 77

Jade's POV

I sighed and pulled on my coat. Kairi was already awake. That was to be expected, honestly. But for Asch to be awake before the sunrise meant something was wrong.

I stepped out of the room, still putting my gloves on, and noticed something odd.

Now, Anise, I can image eavesdropping. Natalia, on the other hand.

I walked over to her as quietly as I could manage, and just as I was about to make a comment, I noticed just who Natalia was eavesdropping on.

"Some day, when we're grown up, let's change this country. Change it so that no one has to be poor. Change it so that war never happens. Let's work to change our country, for the rest of our lives. Together." Asch's voice barely reached us, but if the strange semi-whimper that escaped Natalia was any indication, his words were exactly what I thought they were.

His proposal to her.

Asch's head dropped. "I didn't say that because she was a princess," he said. "But... I can't help but feel like I was a fool." I adjusted my glasses. "Not for wanting to fix things," Asch added quickly. "For thinking that I was best choice to help her."

"She still loves you," Kairi said after a few moments.

"Natalia's heart is torn," Asch replied. "And... so is mine."

Natalia's head bowed, and that was the only warning I received before she backed into me. My hand shot out and covered her mouth.

"Quiet!" I hissed. Hazel eyes blinked up at me in surprise, and it was no wonder. I wasn't exactly the first person in our group that someone would point to for being an eavesdropper.

Actually, I don't think I was in the top half of that list.

"I'm sorry... I shouldn't have brought it up."

Natalia and I both looked back at Asch and Kairi, and watched as Asch turned to leave.

Kairi didn't even seem to be thinking. Her hand snagged his sleeve, and she pulled him back, capturing his lips in a kiss that was in no way chaste.

The two pulled apart slowly, both seemingly rattled, and then Kairi ran. Asch watched her go with wide eyes, before he scrunched up his face and started muttering. Probably cursing himself for pushing her.

Natalia moved to step forward, paused, and then looked back. Not at me, but past me. Back toward the inn.

Back toward where Dark was.

She walked past me, heading back to the inn, and I looked out at the observation platform again. Asch stood there, running a hand through his hair. I considered playing the part of the over-protective older brother and confronting him, but that would mean admitting to eavesdropping. I wasn't quite ready to do that yet, so I walked past him as if I hadn't seen a thing.

Aston was just entering the meeting hall when I walked past, and something caught in my mind.

"Aston, could I have a moment of your time?"

The mechanic paused and turned to look at me. "Sure. You need something?"

I shrugged. "It's just something my sister came up with some time ago." And wasn't it amazing how easily I referred to Kairi as my sister these days? "We're a large group, and more often than not, we're needed in two places at once. You said the first time we were here that there were in fact two hoverdrives, yes?" Aston nodded. "Would it be possible to build a second Albiore? Well, a third, I suppose, since the first crashed."

He looked thoughtful. "It certainly would be possible, but we'll have to put it off until after the core operation."

I nodded. That was a given. "Would you consider it, then? The Dark Wings can only take so many people with them. It's rather dangerous, shortchanging the second group like that."

Aston nodded. "I'll talk Iemon and Tamara into it. We need something to keep us busy, after all."

"Thank you." I turned and left him to his business then, deciding to simply wander Sheridan until everyone else was awake. No use returning to an empty room, after all.

I hadn't made it far before I spotted a pair of silver-gray boots poking out from behind a well. I frowned, then took a deep breath and stepped over to them.

"Are you alright?"

Shining green eyes looked up at me. Though she hadn't started crying yet, I had a feeling it wasn't going to be long before the floodgates opened. She swallowed.

"You saw that, didn't you?"

I forced myself not to react. I hadn't noticed her field... Then again, it may simply have been the fact that I found her so soon afterwards that had tipped her off.

So I nodded.

Kairi let her head drop again, and I put a hand on her shoulder. "Asch didn't mean to push you."

She shook her head and looked up at me again. "That's not it... I..." she stopped, closed her eyes, and then opened them again. "Sit down, and join me on the second plane. There's... something I need to show you."

I frowned, but reluctantly did as she'd asked. Well, demanded, really, but with the mental state she was in, I wasn't going to complain about it. Having had a considerable amount of practice now, it was nothing to reach for my center and slip out of my body. At first, I'd found it strange that I was adapting so easily, but Asch had written it off as me having six spirit Energies.

Kairi's spiritual form looked at me and opened her mouth, only for something to catch her eye. *Yeek! Mine!*

I'll admit it. I was completely baffled when she rushed off around the corner. She came back just a moment later, but it still left me confused. Once she was near me again though, she seemed to realize the absurdity of what had just happened.

*Eh... hehe... spirit Energy.*

Ah. That explained a lot.

Kairi sat down, and I raised an eyebrow when she gestured for me to join her. Just what was she up to...?

Energies flowed around us as Kairi closed her eyes. Earth, and moon.

And then everything shifted.

Fingers danced across a keyboard, faster than I could be bothered to really track. I wanted to finish this. I had the motivation to do so, and I was going to do it.

I reached over toward the corner of the tiny little table my laptop sat on, lifted the glass there, and huffed in frustration when I realized that it was empty.

I took a moment to pause and read over what I'd been writing, and I couldn't help the grin that spread across my face. For so long, I'd been without inspiration, and now that I had it... I nodded, appreciative of Rabecah's spontaneous supplying of Monster Energy drinks.

I stood and headed for the little fridge in the hallway, wondering if Richard had remembered to bring home a Mountain Dew. Though, why I was going after a drink with that much sugar and caffeine at nine at night, and on a Wednesday, no less, was beyond my brain's capacity for reason at that point. And so, after finding the object of my search and calling a 'thank you' toward the living room, where I could see the white-haired man responsible for the soda's presence sprawled out on the couch, I returned to my room, slipping my legs under the rickety table that held my laptop carefully.

Then everything changed. One minute, I was sitting there, typing away happily, and the next...

'What the hell am I doing in a fucking snow drift?!'

That thought was followed up by some rather creative cursing as I stood there, trying not to freeze to death.

"Oh my! You look like you're half frozen!"

I looked over my shoulder.

I gasped as the world came back into focus. That woman had been...

*Nephry... But...* I stopped and actually started thinking. Wherever Kairi had been before being dropped in that snowdrift, it hadn't been any place I knew of on Auldrant. Not with the technology I'd seen.

Kairi watched me silently as I slowly worked everything over. Then, just before I could question her on what she'd shown me, I was thrown into another of her memories. It couldn't have been anything else.

I paused and held a hand to my chest in shock. A wave of emotions tumbled over me: sorrow, pain, anger, hopelessness… I had no idea what to think. What was going on?

"Kairi?"

The feeling of being needed elsewhere came upon me, and I stared up blankly at Sync, his face almost right in front of mine. His lips continued moving, but I didn't hear anything more, and my body was numb already. My vision followed my hearing, and the world went completely dark.

It faded quickly, leaving me to open my eyes and blink repeatedly. But the fogginess wasn't fading. I frowned and looked around, trying to see through the blur, and that's when my hand touched against something. I didn't pick up the glasses though. I didn't need them to figure out where I was.

My room. I was sitting in my bedroom, my journal open on the bed next to me, and my glasses sitting just a bit off. And, judging from my sore eyes and the tissues littering the corner of the bed, I'd been crying. Why was I crying?

I grabbed my glasses and slipped them on. While I'd gotten used to not feeling them across my nose, my body obviously was still used to it, because I forgot they were there a moment later. Now then, what was going on? I glanced down at my journal, picking it up and reading through it. There were more than a few smudges from where my tears had landed on the pages.

As I read the first few lines, I understood, and that understanding brought new tears to my eyes. I closed the journal and set it on the bed before getting up and walking out of my room, taking the familiar path out to the living room. My body was on autopilot while my mind tried to reconcile with the new information.

"You're back…"

This time, when the memory faded, I was shocked to find that the both of us had tears trailing down our cheeks. I reached up and brushed them away automatically, while Kairi hugged her knees and rocked back and forth.

*You're from another world.*

Kairi nodded, though it was barely obvious, with her rocking. *Yeah. This body... It's a doppelganger body. My Energy Core is mine. And my real body is back on Earth. But...* She stopped there and looked up at me. I took a deep breath, ready for the next memory.

It was well into the morning by the time Kairi was done, and while I'll admit to being irritated by the fact that she'd been lying to me all that time, not only did I understand her reasons... I was more concerned about the effect it was having on her. With each memory, her feelings had gotten stronger, harder to control. While I wondered at how it was she was projecting her feelings to me, I knew that now wasn't the time to ask.

Instead, I pushed her—gently—back into her body before dropping back into mine.

I'd never been the ideal older brother. Especially as a child. Nephry and I had only drifted further apart with time.

But Kairi needed someone. I had the feeling that Asch knew everything she'd just told me. Sync too, at least. Perhaps Dark. I doubted she'd gotten the chance to tell Reighn. Asch was out of the question, given what had happened earlier. Dark was wounded; not in a position to be comforting her. Sync was emotionally awkward. He'd probably just make things worse.

I pulled Kairi into my lap—the only semi-comfortable position we could be in, given our limited space—and wrapped both arms around her. I let her cry, because it wasn't often I saw this side of her. Not often... or rather, not at all.

That she'd not only 'told' me the entire truth about herself, her world, and my world (wild as the idea of being a fictional character was), but was also letting me see her this weak told me that she trusted me more than I'd thought. Which meant she was also trusting me not to push her away upon learning all that I had.

I took a deep breath, and found that the words I whispered came so much easier than I'd thought they would.

"Shh... Doppelganger or not, you're still my little sister."

I'm honestly not sure how long we sat there, but I know that it took Kairi longer than I'd expected to calm down. Well, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. If what I'd gathered was right, she hadn't seen any of her friends, or her mother, for that matter, in over a year by their calendar. Over a year...

"Are you nineteen or twenty?" I asked as Kairi sniffled, trying to make it look like she hadn't just spent the last hour having an emotional breakdown. She looked up at me and blinked, before frowning and thinking over it.

"Nineteen," she said after a moment. "My birthday would have been just a week or so after Van and Zion captured me in the Meggiora Highlands."

Glad that she'd finally recovered, I gave her gentle nudge, and she blushed as she finally realized the position we were in. The next thing I knew, she was standing over me, one hand held out to help me to my feet as well.

"We should probably get going..." she said, brushing her bangs behind her ear. They just fell back in front of her face again, but she didn't seem to care. "The others are all standing outside the meeting hall. They're probably wondering where we are."

I nodded and adjusted my glasses, taking a moment to compose myself as well.

Dealing with my own emotions was one thing.

Having my sister's emotions thrust onto me was entirely different, if for no reason other than the fact that she simply felt so much.

"I'm sorry. You're an earth affinity, with a water secondary..."

I looked down at her, wondering just where that had come from. She giggled a bit. "Water is balance. Wind is freedom." She paused a moment. "Fire is passion. Earth is stability. Wind and fire counteract earth and water. That's why you're feeling a little off. It's because I'm fire, and you don't actually have an element that doesn't counter mine."

I blinked for a moment while that settled in. Then I decided that it was best left alone.

"Shall we be going?" I suggested.

Kairi grinned and started walking off.

I couldn't help but smile as well.

Fun Fact: Well. Jade took that well. Reighn? Nah, he's not gonna be quite so collected right afterwards. (Then again, Kairi was pretty emotional for this chapter, so...)