Seek the Stars

XIV

“You opened a Door without having an exit?” Naminé asked Kaoru. The silver-haired boy shrugged. “Can you even get us out?”

“Of course I can.” Kaoru snapped. “I don’t know where. That’s our problem.”

Sora leaned back against the rock Kairi was sitting on and sighed. “Do they always do that?” he asked, watching Naminé and Kaoru bicker.

Kairi hummed. “Sometimes.” She toyed with the hammer of her pistol, smiling absently. “See, Kaoru can open a direct path between point A and point B. But he has to know where point B is to get point A to connect to it. If you don’t know where you’re going, odds are you aren’t going to get there.”

Sora nodded as if it made perfect sense to him. “When’d you learn how to use a gun?”

“Oh, this thing?” Kairi grinned. “Xigbar taught me how to shoot.”

Sora was speechless for a moment. “Xig-Xigbar?”

“And Demyx taught me how to use water spells, Marluxia showed me how to use curative magic, Saïx growled at me a lot, Zexion helped me with that biology question we never answered, and Axel appointed himself my pain in the ass big brother.”

- Sora was sure Kairi was enjoying is stricken look -

“And I have a new pet, but he couldn’t come because he would have caused too much of a disturbance.” She finished as she slipped the firearm into its holster.

“As if we didn’t do that on our own.” Quipped the dark brunette boy sitting against her back. “It’s not just Kaoru’s fault. We didn’t even know where we needed to go.”

“And the longer we’re in a Corridor, the more dangerous it becomes.” Roxas added. “We need to get out of here, and we need to get out of here now.”

“That’s going to be next to impossible of Naminé and Kaoru keep arguing like they are.” Riku added.

The teenagers heaved a group sigh.

Riku looked toward Sephiroth. “You’re the adult here. What would you do?”

Sephiroth’s glowing green eyes focused on his youngest son. “I would move.”

Riku’s aquamarine eyes narrowed slightly at the older man and Sephiroth shrugged.

“I’m a SOLDIER General. I wasn’t made to play nice with others.”

“Yeah, fine excuse, Dad.” Riku rolled his eyes.

Sephiroth’s heart seized.

-“I don’t play well with others.”

“Yeah, fine excuse.” A dark head tilted to the side. “If you don’t want to, just say so. You won’t hurt my feelings. You’re just hurting yourself, Seph.”-

“–ad? Dad? Dad.”

Sephiroth blinked down into Riku’s eyes. The silver-haired youth frowned. “We’re going now.” He let his gaze roam his father’s face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” -I just remembered the sound of your mother’s voice.-

Riku nodded slowly. “Okay. If you say so. Come on, we’re falling behind.”

Sephiroth moved at a more sedated pace than his son, trying to catch the memory and failing. He remembered the sound of his lover’s voice. It was upbeat, youthful, cheerful even if it seemed like there was some unseen pain beneath the inflections. But it seemed voice alone wasn’t going to jog any memories of a face or a name, so Sephiroth put that voice-information away for later review and lengthened his stride to catch up to his son and his son’s friends.

But being as paranoid as he was wont to be, Sephiroth felt fairly sure someone’s eyes were following him. And if not him, then someone in that group of teenagers, and if that was the case then Sephiroth wasn’t going to stand idle. Riku was his son, his blood, and by default that group fell under Sephiroth’s protection. He’d screwed up once before and it had cost him something dear. He wasn’t going to screw up again.


“Elena, Reno, what are you doing here?”

Elena gave a relieved sort of sigh at the sound of Vincent’s voice. “Do you want the epic or condensed version?” she asked, accepting the mug of sweet-smelling tea Aerith handed her.

The crimson-eyed immortal stared at her for a moment. “Condensed. Otherwise Reno will do something stupid.”

Elena swallowed the tea – ech, chamomile – and ignored Reno’s indignant sputter. “We were sent home. But it wasn’t home like we remember. It’s like one hundred or so years into the future, and we found Denzel. Well, he found us. And we opened a Door and got stuck between Enigma packs. So Denzel and Spot grabbed us and jumped off the Corridor path.” She took another sip. It didn’t taste much better the second time around. “Now we’re here.”

“And Denzel?”

“Pissing contest with Cloud.” Reno muttered. “Took one look at one another and you’d think the fate of the universe was at stake.”

“Maybe it is.” Vincent uttered.

Elena gave him a hard look. “What do you mean?”

“Sunrise has lost all contact with Naminé and her guardians.”

“All contact?”

“Last known whereabouts was Twilight Town. A Dark Door was opened and that’s the last we know.”

Elena looked to Reno and they shared a frown. “Is anything being done?” Reno asked Vincent.

The immortal nodded slightly. “Everyone has orders to say put. They might end up on an occupied world.”

“That’s if we’re lucky.”

“Let’s hope we’re lucky then.” Elena finally gave up on her tea. “We ought to send a report to Tseng. Let him know we’re safe.”

Vincent smiled, or twitched his lips. It amounted to the same thing. “I already took care of it. You two are to remain here. Get some rest.”

With that, the elder Order member left Elena and Reno alone. The two Turks heaved a sigh together and Reno leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Elena replied quietly. “I wish I did. Maybe we could actually do something.”

“Well.” Reno paused. “What we can do right now is wait for orders. There has to be a reason why the Leader wants us to stay put, and it’s probably better than ‘the kids are lost’.”

Elena sighed and looked at her teacup. “Wherever they are, I hope they don’t run into too much trouble.”

“Even if they did, one hit from Naminé and those things would be sorry they messed with that group.”

“I hope you’re right, Reno.” Elena whispered. “I hope you’re right.”