TRIGGER WARNINGS: past sexual assaults

Chapter Six

It's decided that Namine and Lea will catch a ride on Sora and Kairi's gummi ship so Namine can help heal Sora and Lea can fly it while Kairi and Sora get cleaned up. Aqua will take hers and Namine's by herself with the Matron locked up inside it. Riku will take his and Lea's by himself, with Duke Gautier imprisoned on it. The coachmen and guards are left for Phoebus to deal with, and the kidnapped girls go with Esmerelda and her people to heal, rest up, and start looking for their families. Kairi takes some time to hug the girls she'd encountered before she was taken from the brothel, and says a bittersweet goodbye.

Unfortunately for one of the guards who'd attacked Kairi in the Red Room, he let slip that he missed getting to, "take a dive in the redhead's cunt," and asked her how her, "tits were feeling after having his hands all over them."

Sora didn't like that much.

He managed to slip out of everyone's eyeline and mysteriously, so did that guard. When Sora appeared again, Kairi could swear there was a bit more blood on him than before, but so much of it was his own and the Duke's that she can't be certain of what she saw.

What she knows is that the guard didn't come back with him.

Once all is settled and calm, they bid Esmerelda and Phoebus good-bye, Riku tells them to give Quasimodo their well-wishes, everyone loads up, and they take off.

"Do not use the autopilot," Kairi whispers to Lea in the cockpit.

"Why not?" he whispers back, green eyes glittering up at her. He's seated, and she's standing.

"Sora has a thing with it. And trust me—it's a big deal to him. Just don't do it."

"Damn. Okay, then."

Lea snorts and turns on the autopilot.

Kairi rolls her eyes and descends the steps into the comfortable, familiar foyer. Sora's standing in the kitchenette, getting blood all over a glass of water that he's drinking. Namine's waiting on the couch.

"Are you ready?" Kairi says.

Sora looks at her, his eyes flitting over her body. She's still bruised and covered in her own blood, but her tattered dress still clings to her body like a physical reminder of her ordeal. She glances down at herself.

"We need to get those splinters out of your fingers so Namine can heal you," she says. "I can shower after."

Sora sneers, reminding Kairi of his terrible attitude from before this all happened. "Fine."

He stalks over to the couch and sits down next to Namine. Kairi goes to the bathroom to retrieve some tweezers and returns, taking a seat on the coffee table in front of him. The long back of her ripped skirt pools on the carpet, and her knees are bare. She takes Sora's left hand and turns it palm-side up. Holding it in her hand, she takes the tweezers and starts plucking at the splinters.

"Who sent the Moogle?" she asks.

"That's Blinko. He always comes to see us when we're on this world. And Riku remembered, so we went and found him where he usually is. Sent him to look for you."

"It was definitely a surprise and a relief," Kairi says, tossing aside the blood-stained splinters as she goes along. "I thought you guys might not be able to find me."

"Where was he taking you?"

"His chateau," she says with a sneer that could rival his. "It's a day away. You guys wouldn't have known and would have been searching the city for days. He planned to keep me there for two weeks."

His fingers twitch and he grits his teeth, biting out a, "Why?"

Kairi's quiet. She doesn't want to talk about it, and she won't.

"He didn't say. He just said he had plans."

It's silent for a bit, enabling Kairi to focus on what she's doing. She nearly forgets he's a human being when she starts to notice that his eyes are on her.

"Why are you staring at me?" she mutters without looking up from what she's doing.

"You know why."

For some reason, Namine gets up at that moment and goes up to the cockpit. Kairi realizes that she's giving them some privacy, and Kairi isn't so sure that's a good idea. She has no intention of talking about what happened to her in that brothel or that carriage.

Kairi doesn't speak, remaining stubborn in her shame and desire to keep it secret.

"Kairi," he growls in a threatening way, his fingers curling shut to hide his bloody fingers in his fist.

She scowls and lifts her head, meeting his eyes. "What, Sora?"

"What was he doing to you?"

"Nothing."

"When I looked into that carriage and saw you two, it didn't look like nothing."

"Well, it was."

"What did he do to you?"

"Nothing!" she whines, tightening her hold on the back of his hand. "Will you just drop it and let me finish?"

"No," he hisses. "What the fuck did he do?"

Kairi scowls, her bones aching and her body throbbing, reminding her that she's still wounded beneath her bandages. Her skin crawls with the thought of all the hands she's had on her private areas tonight. She doesn't want him to know. He'll look at her like she's disgusting. Dirty. Ruined.

"Sora, please. Please leave it alone."

"Kairi—"

"Stop it!" she cries, unable to stop the tears from gathering in her eyes. She beseeches him with a look. "Please drop it. I'm begging you."

Sora's stern expression doesn't weaken. He opens his fist and wraps his hand around hers, holding it against his warm chest. She can feel his heart beating, slamming against the cage of his chest.

"No," he says in a much gentler tone. "What did he do to you?"

She turns her head, squeezing her eyes shut and taking deep breaths. She can't tell him. She simply won't.

But she'll tell him something.

"He just touched me. Looked at me," she whispers, facing him again, but keeping her eyes down. There are tears clinging to her eyelashes, growing cold. "That's all."

"Kairi."

His voice cracks. There's something there—some sort of emotion she can't place—and it makes her look up at him. His expression is devastated. Like he can't fathom what he's just heard, or what he's looking at.

"Why won't you talk to me?" he asks.

"Because!" she cries, pulling her hand out of his hold. "I don't want you to know! And—and if you don't drop it, I won't forgive you. I'll walk away right now, and I just won't forgive you!"

It takes him a few moments, and then his expression returns to stone. Wordlessly, he gives her his hand. She continues pulling out his splinters. The silence is tense as she finishes his left hand and asks for his right. She takes the tweezers to it, nipping each one out one-by-one.

"You killed that man, didn't you?" she says. When he doesn't reply, she repeats herself. "Didn't you?"

"Yeah," he snaps. "And?"

It doesn't surprise her, and it doesn't scare her. In fact, there's a sick part of her that's glad the man is dead. His fingernails broke her skin tonight. Her breasts might be scarred by him. Ugly.

"He was a man," she says.

"Again—and?"

"He wasn't a Heartless."

"Correct."

"You can't just murder people. He was a human being."

"Yeah, and now he's fucking dead."

The walls. They're closing in on her. A centimeter at a time, racing inward from all sides. From the top. From the bottom. Her lungs are being throttled, squeezed into dust. The pace of her breathing increases, getting faster and faster, until she's hyperventilating. Her arms and legs shake. She drops the tweezers and her vision blurs from tears for the umpteenth time that night.

Sora's brow furrows. "Kairi? What's wrong? Why are you breathing like that?"

She can't hear him. All she can hear is the horrific grunts and snarls of the guards in the Red Room. The Matron's cold, icy order. The crack of the whip as it lashed through the air and tore her back open.

The pain. The horrible pain.

Blood everywhere, on her face and in her mouth.

The way she fought and struggled and couldn't protect herself.

Hands on her breasts. Between her legs.

"Kairi!" Sora says firmly, curling his fingers beneath her jaw. "Kairi, look at me, all right?"

She blinks until she's focused on him.

"I tried," she says in a small voice. "I really did."

"I know," he says softly, his eyes sincere.

"I fought. I swear on everything I know that I fought as hard as I could."

"I know you did, sweet girl." He wipes her tears away, even though it gets blood on her already-bloodied cheeks. His touch is like an anesthetic. "You did so well."

Kairi likes the way "sweet girl" makes her feel. Like she's good and she's not bad, or dirty, or worthless. Like she matters.

"You saved all those girls," he continues, his voice low and only audible to her. "You."

Kairi closes her eyes and nods. She has to remember that. It's the reason why she did the mission in the first place. To save those poor girls who had been taken from their family. Who were being sold to men like the Duke, and the guards, and worse. She saved them.

Slowly, her breathing calms and she falls into a nonverbal state. She has words, but no energy to say them. Sora doesn't say anything, either. He lets his hand fall from her face and holds it out to her. She finishes pulling the splinters out. They both stand.

"Go shower," he says. "I'll go get Namine to heal me."

Without a word or acknowledging nod, Kairi turns and walks to the bathroom.

She can't take a normal shower, what with her bandages, but she manages to wash her face and arms, her decolletage and her legs. But when she washes between her thighs, the soap doesn't clean her well enough. She can still feel the Duke.

So she washes again.

And again.

And again.

Kairi scrubs and she scrubs, until her skin is raw and it hurts to the touch. And she washes it one more time after that.

She's still dirty down there, so she gives up. She might never be clean.

She gets out and wraps a towel around her waist. The bandages cover her chest and abdomen, so there's nothing to cover. Opening the door, she exits into the hallway like an emotionless robot, exhaustion weighing heavy on her soul.

There's a sharp gasp from the foyer.

"Oh, my God!" It's Namine. She comes dashing over. "Kairi, what happened? Why do you have all these bandages? And why are they soaked in blood?"

Kairi hangs her head. She doesn't turn around. She doesn't want to see the look in their eyes.

Namine starts to weep.

"Oh, Kairi. What did they do? What did they do?"

"Kairi," comes Sora's quiet yet firm voice as he approaches. "What happened here?"

She sighs. Her adrenaline had dissipated in the shower, like the end of a rain shower. She won't tell them everything that happened, but she can tell them this.

"I was whipped," she says, trying to sound like she doesn't care. Like it doesn't hurt. "Ten lashes. It had a barbed tip and I bled. The girls bandaged me up."

Sora places his hand on her shoulder, heavy and present. "Why?"

"Because I fought back."

"Okay." He turns her around and glares down at her. "And who exactly did you fight?"

"The guard you killed," she says in a monotone. "So there's nothing you need to worry about, right?"

To his credit, he has the decency to look taken aback. Beside him, Namine's staring up at him in horror.

"Sora, you killed someone?"

Kairi doesn't stay to hear his answer. She walks down the short hallway, disappears into her room, and locks the door behind her. As soon as she's safe in the dark, she feels the tears starting to build. She wills them away. Forces it all to stay locked up in a chest in her mind.

She just wants to sleep.

A knock comes at the door.

"Go away, Sora," she says angrily.

"It's not Sora. It's me," Namine replies, her voice muffled through the door. "I should heal your back."

"Oh. Okay."

Kairi turns on her lights and unlocks and opens the door. She steps aside so the teary-eyed, red-nosed Namine can enter. They sit on her bed, Kairi's back to Namine as she helps her get the bandages unwrapped. As the ragged, painful wounds greet the air, Kairi hisses in pain.

"These are terrible," Namine says, sounding impossibly sad. "I'm so sorry you had to go through this."

"I saved those girls," Kairi says. "It was worth it."

Namine sighs. "I don't know if it was. What else happened in there? Can you at least tell me?"

"I'm sorry. No." Kairi shakes her head. "I don't want to talk about it. Ever."

"Okay," Namine whispers. "I'm here for you, though. If you ever need to talk. I love you."

Kairi reaches back and squeezes Namine's knee. "Thanks, Nami. I love you, too."

They're quiet as Namine finishes removing the bandages. While she incinerates them with a small Fire spell, Kairi looks down at her breasts. They're splotched with red and green and blue bruises. Her nipples are so tender she can barely stand to have the air brushing against them. There are wounds around them where the guard's fingernails cut her.

Namine will need to heal them.

The warm feeling of Healing magic settles over Kairi's skin. It's a powerful Curaga that knits the gashes on Kairi's back together, pulling the edges to meet each other. It also heals the other bruises on her body, including her bruised ribs, and the dull, persistent ache in her head disappears. Namine tells her that unfortunately, she has some light scars on her back that Curaga couldn't stop, but she's healed.

Kairi takes a deep breath.

"I need you to heal one more area," she says. "But promise me that you won't ask questions."

"Okay."

"Promise, Namine."

"Yes, yes. I promise."

Kairi slowly turns around, closing her eyes and turning her face away. Namine's silent as she looks at her breasts, and then she starts to cry again.

"I don't understand," she sobs. "I don't understand how they could do this to you."

"You promised," Kairi whispers.

"I know. I won't ask. It's just…it looks like it really hurts, Kairi." Namine wipes her eyes.

"Please just heal them."

Namine casts a Curaga. By the time Kairi looks down at them again, they're healed. They don't hurt anymore. Any pain she feels is phantom—a ghost of the nightmare. She sighs in relief.

"Thank you, Namine."

Namine nods, looking miserable.

Kairi gets up and rummages through her dresser. She puts on a pair of pajamas pants and an old tee shirt that she thinks once belonged to Riku when they were still teenagers. Her hair, still stringy and damp, hangs to her elbows. She feels like a drowned rat.

"Can I sleep in here with you?" Namine asks.

"Sure. I'm going to sleep now, though."

"All right. I'll just go get my pajamas from my bag and be right back."

Namine leaves the room, turning off the light behind her. Kairi climbs into her bed and scoots over to the wall so Namine can get in easily. She lays on her side, facing the wall and staring at it until it blurs. There's nothing in her head.

Nothing but the color red.

She's asleep before Namine returns.