50
By: Aviantei
Act II: School Life/Loneliness
Scene VI: "I don't think we'd get much of anywhere if we tried and sit them down together, do you?"
Axel had assumed as much, seeing Reha's general antipathy for those around her was pretty telling. Sure, he wasn't judging her for being so touchy—he sure as hell wasn't a bastion of complete and utter rationality in the face of strong emotion—but he did have a couple of choice thoughts whenever said antipathy was about to get away in some of the first bits of information on Roxas's state that he was able to have in a while.
After all, hanging around just puts him on edge, which I don't need to see to be told. It still stung, yeah, but that didn't mean it was anywhere close to surprising these days. Might as well talk with whoever else treats him like a friend and see where that gets us.
You know. Assuming understanding Roxas did them any good whatsoever. Axel was going to hope.
The brunette girl that had approached didn't seem as hopeful, however, her expression a bit wary as she regarded Axel. He tended to have that effect on people. Whenever he flashed a grin, the girl seemed even more concerned. "Um, Rhea…?" she asked. "This guy a friend of yours?"
Rhea's face twisted in a way that made it clear that friend wasn't the word she would use to describe their relationship, and she didn't even bother to change her expression once she noticed Axel was looking right at her. She could be a piece of work whenever she wanted to be, and she sure seemed to want to be. Whenever she and Axel had stared for long enough for him to get his point across that, no, he was not just going to leave, Rhea sighed. "Olette, this is Axel. Axel, this is Olette. Play nice."
"Come on. Don't I always?" Rhea didn't bother to give an answer to that, and Axel turned his attention to Olette, who'd just gained the status of Most Useful Person in the Room. "I'm afraid I'm not caught up to date on all the gossip around here. You and Rhea know each other?"
Olette still looked wary, but she nodded, which was a step in the right direction. No matter what other people thought of him, Axel was capable of diplomacy, thank you very much. "We met 'cause we're classmates. Roxas introduced us." Hm, no acknowledgement of how weird it was that Rhea manifested out of nowhere. This girl must be a Temperies native. At the very least, in Axel's experience, not noticing the strange attributes of the world seemed to be common amongst those who'd originated there. "A friend of a friend is a friend, if you ask me!"
The world would be nice if things were that easy, but bringing that up wasn't likely to get them anywhere. At any rate, Rhea was huffing enough for the both of them, so Axel nodded along with Olette. "So that means you've known Roxas even longer than she has?" Maybe even longer than Axel had, though it wasn't like it was a competition or anything—and if it was, it wouldn't be a close one, anyways. "I bet you have some interesting stories."
"I mean, I don't know if I know anything too interesting…but I do know that Roxas hasn't been acting like himself the past couple of days, and he won't say why. And now I guess he doesn't want to talk about Rhea, either, so it's obvious something happened, and I wanna know what!"
"Quite the sleuth we have here. I think we'd like some answers, too. As far as Rhea can tell, he just started acting up out of nowhere. Ain't that right?"
Rhea let out a grunt, and Axel considered it a victory that she wasn't calling his sudden arrival out for tanking Roxas's mood. Still, from Axel's perspective Roxas had started acting strange before then, so any clue was a good one.
Olette frowned, concern shining in her eyes. "That's not good. If he didn't tell you, Rhea, then that means he's really holding back, huh?" With the table in the way, Olette wasn't able to see Rhea's hands twitch, but Axel could. "I was hoping I could learn something by talking with you, Rhea… I do think you should try and make up with him, though. I'm sure it would help both of you feel better."
Girl, that was not the right thing to say.
Rhea's nostrils flared as she squared her shoulders and glared at Olette. "Yeah, that sounds great. He's the one that snapped at me, but I'm the one that should try to make up with him." She tossed a hand into the air. "Roxas couldn't even be bothered to talk to me whenever he dropped my stuff back off at my dorm, for your information, so I don't think I'm going to have much luck if I try to approach him."
Ouch. Guess we have the answer to why she's so spicy today. We'll definitely have to take advantage of that with some practice later on. You know, a productive use for all that energy instead of chasing off their prime opportunity for clues. Axel was trying not to feel too satisfied that Rhea was facing the same sort of thing as him, but schadenfreude was an emotion that reared its head with no mercy. "As you can see," he said, trying to diffuse at least a little bit of the situation, "emotions are still running high. I don't think we'd get much of anywhere if we tried and sit them down together, do you?" Olette didn't say anything, but she didn't need to, not with that look on her face. "Great. Glad you see it our way. You can leave Rhea to me, and if you keep an eye on Roxas, we can play it by ear from there. Sound good?"
"Can I trust you with Rhea, though?" Olette asked, and, if Axel were a weaker man, he'd be offended. Instead, he had nothing but praise for the girl's skepticism. "No offense, but I don't even know who you are."
"Oh, sure, Rhea doesn't get to make choices on her own. Sure, that's cool of you." Rhea ran a hand through her hair in a failed attempt to calm down, but at least she was trying. "Look, Olette, I get it, but can you not try and hover around me? I promise Axel is fine." Olette and Axel both raised an eyebrow at the same time, though for what he assumed to be different reasons. Rhea shot him a look, and he gestures for her to take the floor. "Can you trust me on this one? I'll be okay, but I need some breathing room first."
It was the first time since Olette had shown up that something like a note of sincerity had entered Rhea's voice, and that seemed to have hit the mark. "Okay. If that's what you're asking for, I'll trust you. But!" Olette added, holding up a finger, "If anything happens, you tell me right away, got it? You have my number, so use it. I'll send you checkup texts, so make sure you answer and I can know you're alright." Rhea looked beyond bewildered, but she seemed to be caught off guard enough that all she could do was nod, rather than argue. "Just because we met you through Roxas doesn't mean we're not your friends, too, you know. Make sure you remember that!"
The rest of the day passed with nothing else interesting to report, so long as you didn't count Roxas keeping a wide berth from Rhea or Axel whenever they were in the same vicinity. It seemed that Olette had done a little bit of groundwork so that the other two boys that were with their little cluster didn't press the issue, instead giving Rhea her space. After classes were over, Axel took up his job as a combat tutor, catching Rhea way more up to speed now that she had her actual daggers in hand. Her total level of skill was still amateurish, but at least she was shaping up well enough that she could keep herself safe, which was kinda priority number one.
In the end, though, there was just so much practice could do to make Rhea ready for actual combat in the Castle. The Heartless and the Nobodies were erratic little critters, and, despite some of them having human-like figures, they didn't quite fight like a person—let alone Axel—not even on the higher floors whenever the Castle got more dangerous. While Rhea wiped the sweat off her forehead post training, Axel propped himself against a nearby tree and said, "There's no class tomorrow, right? Why don't we swing by the Castle, then?"
Rhea's head popped up from where she'd been hunched over (an awful habit that Axel had considered least worst offender of all of Rhea's awful combat habits) to gape at him. "You think I'm ready to go back in?"
"I think you're going to learn a whole lot more against real opponents than me." Rhea's brow furrowed in that way Axel was starting to recognize meant she didn't appreciate the implications, but she also couldn't deny it. "Besides, you survived as long as you did. You can manage some practice on the lower floors." Besides, the both of them were feeling impatient, and any proof of progress would be good for Rhea, who'd gotten kicked enough while she was down already. "I'm surprised, though. I thought you'd wanna get going after all of this." Axel was kind of impressed that she'd put up with not doing anything as long as she had, all things considered.
"Of course I want to go! It's just…all of this made me realize how much I sucked." Well, she'd said it, not him. Still, she wasn't the worst combatant he'd ever seen, plus the past week showed she could improve with the proper instruction. "Wouldn't you just be better off going on without me? With how I am, it's no wonder Roxas—"
"Hey, hey, don't go saying shit that there's no point in saying." Could Axel empathize with those sort of thoughts? Yeah, he'd had them himself. But, so long as the two of them were together, he could do his level best at keeping Rhea from saying those thoughts at all. "You and I both know that what Roxas is doing has nothing to do with you." Can't say what it does have to do with, but I feel confident in that one.
He kinda had to, otherwise it would suck for the both of them.
Not that Axel had expected her to, but Rhea didn't look convinced. Axel got ready to go to bat, but Rhea sucked it all up and put on a determined face that couldn't hide the shimmer of almost tears in her eyes. "Even if it's not, it doesn't change the fact that I sucked. Don't try to tell me that I didn't."
"Okay, then I won't."
"Jerk," Rhea said, and Axel grinned. She rolled her eyes. "Point being, I've had enough of feeling like a useless leech nowadays, and I would like to not go somewhere that that fact's just gonna get shoved in my face all over again."
She had a point, since a blow to the morale like that could do a number on someone, but Axel wasn't all that worried about that. "Come on, do you think I'd set you up for failure like that? I'm confident you'll be able to handle the lower floors once you shake off your nerves, and that shouldn't take long, either, since you've been in live combat before—and I'm talking about on your own, mind you. We can't improve your strength right away without some time investment, but technique is just as important. With the two of us, we'll be able to make some decent headway, and you'll improve as you go. I've just made the luckiest stone throw possible with all the birds I'm hitting with this one."
"What does that even mean?" And yet, for a moment, Rhea's lips had twitched in amusement. "But, okay, sure, I'll bite. But if I end up falling on my face and wallowing in my sorrows, you're the one that's gonna have to clean up after me."
"That's easy. I'll just drop you off in the Fifty Minute Room and call it a day."
"You're the worst."
Being back in the Castle shouldn't've felt as comforting as it did, but that sure was what Rhea was feeling. Put that on the list of things that she would set aside and never ever pick back up again to examine.
Nothing about the place's atmosphere should have been inviting. Not the dark stone walls, not the damp smell of earth and moss, not the flickering torches, and sure as hell not the Heartless skittering about. But Rhea had her knives in her hands and Axel beside her, and the sound of two pairs of boots echoing against the stonework felt just enough like the days spent there with Roxas that there was something pleasant against the experience.
She couldn't even complain about the fighting. Where Rhea had always been the support while Roxas handled most of the combat, Axel forced her to switch up those roles as the little shadowy blobs of enemies began trooping towards them. Anxiety swirled her stomach, but it was more like a soft current than the raging whirlpool she tended to experience. She took the same cycle of breaths that Axel made her do before every practice session, her mind sharpening as instinct began to loosen the tension in her shoulders.
"Atta girl," Axel said, sounding almost proud. Now go show 'em what all your practice has been for."
Rhea didn't bother to respond, instead finding the Heartless that was furthest ahead of the other two and deciding to single it out. While it didn't matter as much with such weaklings, the whole point was to give her practical combat experience, so she was trying to use the theories Axel had given her as much as possible. And for someone with a smaller weapon range and lower level of strength, there wasn't much other option besides divide and conquer.
Using the momentum of her dash forward, Rhea kicked the Heartless head on, making it fly back and knock into one of the other ones approaching. The two of them tumbled from the impact, leaving just the third to plod forward, leaping at Rhea once it was close enough. Rhea jabbed one of her knives forward, hoping to catch the Heartless on the blade, but her aim was off, and the creature headbutted her instead. Rhea grunted, but the impact was negligible, and so she was able to swing her other blade down to catch on the Heartless while it landed. Her blade slipped through the shadowy form with the slightest bit of resistance—and then the creature disappeared in defeat, the glow of its bulbous yellow eyes leaving faint impressions before they, too, disappeared.
One down.
The other two Heartless had recovered from their tumble, and they were heading Rhea's direction with determination—which was just Rhea projecting, because she didn't know if the creatures even had minds, let alone if you could understand how said minds worked if they did exist—but what she needed to do was the same. Taking advantage of the fact that her height allowed her to cover more distance in a single stride than the Heartless, Rhea didn't meet them in the middle, but instead went right past them before making an about face and bringing both of her blades down on the closest creature, it, too, returning to nothing but shadows.
Her attack was successful; Rhea keeping her balance was not, and she stumbled a bit since the Heartless was no longer there for her to lean on. That gave the last little shadow enough ground to swipe at Rhea with its claws drawing thin scratches on her cheek. Axel shouted something that Rhea didn't quite process, too busy jabbing with one blade to pin the Heartless to the ground and following up with her second weapon to deal the final blow.
Heartbeat pounding in her ears, Rhea looked around, checking just in case the Castle had chosen to drop any other enemies on top of them. It hadn't, and she took another long series of inhales and exhales to center herself as she stood.
Whenever she sheathed her knives, her hands were shaking, and so were her knees, but she was still there, still alive, and she'd done so on her own merit.
"See? What did I tell you?" Axel asked, walking over to clap a hand on Rhea's shoulder. With the adrenaline still pumping through her, Rhea almost lashed out, but even she wasn't so far gone that she couldn't recognize Axel was an ally. "You're more than capable of handling this much, and even more if we keep going up. You're not gonna be dead weight or anything." He gave another smack to her back, urging Rhea forward. "We can do some more drills for technique later on, but right now, we should get as much in the field experience as we can, so come on. Too bad all the fights here are more in your face; I bet you'd be able to make a pretty good assassin."
"Wanna test that and find out?"
Axel barked out a laugh, looking the lightest Rhea had seen him since they met. "Now you're getting into it. Come on, let's go find your next unfortunate victim. We've got a whole weekend before you gotta be back at school, so no sense in wasting it." Rhea agreed, and so she followed Axel's lead, one step forward at a time.
And somewhere, in the dark, a voice asked, Can you hear me?
Rhea whipped around, looking down the hall, but there was no one there.
[Author's Notes]
I meant to try and finish this chapter up for the fic's anniversary on the sixteenth, but it didn't quite pan out that way. I did finish it up, though, so I wanted to share it! Things have been busy, so sorry if there are any silly typos this time around. I needed the W of getting it done and getting it posted.
Tomorrow will be the season four premiere of of Moriarty the Patriot fic, you could have my heart (and i would break it for you), so I'd be super pleased if you checked that story out as well!
If all goes well, I'll likely be posting the next chapter for this fic in December for my holiday posting hours (again, assuming all goes well).
Next time will be Act II, Scene VII. Please look forward to it!
-Avi
[20 September 2024]