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Seifer Almasy      Balamb Garden.

     Seifer hasn't been here in a while, but Seifer's presence remains despite his absence. Students still shy away from him. People with faces blurred in his memory walk past him, giving him a wide berth. The ever-present Faculty in their red-and-white overall-robes follow his walk from under their straw hats, their eyes shadowed, their mouths turned downwards. Nobody really says 'hi' to him. That's fine. He was never much of a 'hi' guy. Square-jawed, square-shouldered, Hyperion resting on one shoulder, Seifer walks through the Garden without really meeting anyone's eyes - less because he's avoiding them and more because they're avoiding him.

     He stops only long enough to toss a gil into the water fountain that rings the second floor dais. It splashes into one of the catfish-fountain waterfalls. Perfect aim. The thumb's not damaged. Good to know.

     It's not the longest walk to the Training Facility, but it's not short. It's enough time for him to test his limbs in little ways - in his step, in his finger-flexes, in the swing of his arm as he walks. Every so often he makes a fist, and people *really* move out of his way then.

     The Training Facility door opens. He passes through, into the hot, humid, false jungle. Buzzing Grats flick back and forth in the air. None of them get near him. Fine. He didn't want to fight small fry.

     He heads onto the long and winding path. He passes by several Grat nests, all of which avoid him, the same way the students did. They probably didn't remember, but they can tell by his presence that he's a predator not to be messed with. Better to leave him for somthing else.

     The T-Rexaurs aren't out in force today, either. They're probably asleep this early in the day. That, or they're afraid of him, too. Maybe they remember the last time he came down to kick them around. Wouldn't surprise him. The one with the scar probably still remembers.

     He can't even find the Raldos or the Granaldos. There weren't many of them in the Garden but there were enough that he *should've* come across one of either by now.

     Seifer groans and runs his hand through his hair. "Friggin'..."

     "Figures."

     He sits down against a tree, puts one knee up against his chest, and closes his eyes. Not like he needs those to see. Might as well take a rest until something decides to come at him. It'll happen eventually, right? Something'll decide to pick a fight with a theoretically-sleeping Seifer.

     And in the meantime he can actually get a little rest.
Xion There's a feeling, an animal instict about being observed. It forms the basis of intelligence and counter-intelligence, the instinct to see but not be seen. The most nuanced form of power.

Martial artists and spooks alike train this sense: to know when eyes fall upon them, and to react.

It's why Seifer feels very keenly the experience of 'being observed'. Gaze burns across the surface of his arms, the hairs standing on end. It's electric, being watched.

Hearing slow, methodical breathing.

Having someone crouch a dozen paces away, squatting, in a ripped black coat cut horizontally across the chest. The zipper is damaged, but the hood covers hair, eyes, nose. Only an impish chin and lips drawn into a just-a-hair-amused line.

"You're not sleeping. I can tell." The hooded girl chimes, rising fully to her feet as she slides her black-gloved hands out of her jacket pockets. "You're one of Riku's friends, aren't you?"
Seifer Almasy      Seifer doesn't open his eyes.

     He lets the feeling of being observed settle onto him. There's a time to act and a time to listen. But when she says that he's not sleeping, his eye opens, falling onto her in the process. "Not for lack of tryin'," he replies, "Hot 'n humid 'n full of stuff that just don't stop dronin'. Great place for a nap."

     Only Seifer or Squall could say something like that, and Squall *probably* wouldn't.

     His other eye opens at the question.

     "Depends on what you mean by that."

     He rolls his shoulder slightly. "I don't really know Riku well enough to call him *my* friend. But he's my friend's friend, so I guess he's my friend by extension." He shrugs again. "I dunno, for sake of argument, sure? More friend than enemy."
Xion "Or a lecture in summer after lunch, with the window open." The hooded girl smiles, her nose chuffleing in a gentle snort. "I don't think Sora ever introduced you to me."

The figure spins on a heel, taking swinging steps forward and away from Seifer that she rocks into at the waist and toe. "Riku's in danger. There's a darkness in him that he's let take control. The best cure is a good..."

She turns right and cranes her head over her shoulder, throwing a mock punch with a quick grin. "... beating. But you came into contact with him."

Her joviality drops, as she returns to face Seifer fully. Raising her right arm with an outstretched hand, a soft metallic 'shwink!' heralds the summoning of a keyblade not so different from Sora's - blue-handled and with an empty star comb as the 'teeth'. A matching keychain jangles against the broad hilt-guard.

Dropping the weapon into a more casual forward stance, one handed, she levels the length and tip at the reclining SeeD.

"Do you want to get up first?"
Seifer Almasy      "Best time for a nap, lecture in summer," Seifer agrees, "Nothin' drones like a teacher."

     "No, he didn't. I can make a guess, but I'd rather not." He closes his eyes again. "'cause if I'm right or wrong it's gonna change how I go at this, an' I'm pretty sure you want me to go at this like I'm fightin' for my life. An', frankly."

     "I prefer it that way."

     She says Riku let the darkness come over him, and Seifer puts his hand over his eye. "Yeah. I know. That guy, Ansem, put me in the hospital so long I only just got out. Pain in the butt. The trouble with Sora is that everything always works out for Sora. So people believe in that moron. The trouble with tryin' to be like Sora is that the rest of us..."

     "It'll probably work out in the end." There's the cavalier attitude he's so famous for. "But in the middle, people are gonna get hurt."

     "An' that's my fault."

     She draws the keyblade out of the air. The keychain dangles, ringing in his ears. His fingers twitch against the grass. When she asks him if he wants to get up, he looks up at her, fully, for the first time, his green eyes sharp.

     "Nope."

     "Didn' I just say I just got outta the hospital?" He says, waving his hand airily, "Ain't gonna make a guy who just got outta the hospital *stand up* for a fight, are ya? Show some consideration."

     His eyes narrow. "Come at me whenever you're ready and I'll give you the introduction Sora couldn't."
Xion "If you think that about Sora..."

The hooded girl's blade-tip falls, touching the ground as her stance breaks. "You know him, but that doesn't sound right. Sora doesn't want anything but for his friends to be happy. He forgets to value himself."

The tip of the figure's keyblade shines with a bright blue light.

"Do you want my advice? Don't try to be Sora."

The light drops from her blade into the earth of the training grounds.

"It means everything around you is in danger."

Blue light, like the shimmer off the surface of a lake in spring, spreads from the tree Seifer leans against outward, shortly before the whole area gushes upward in a huge upward splash of force and pressure.

And also, wet.
Seifer Almasy      "I know that."

     "But it's not really relevant here, is it?" Seifer's voice is sharp, but it's probably directed more inwardly. "I already know what Sora's like. I know he'd go to the ends of the Earth and beyond for anybody he thought of as a friend, no matter how distantly. He's the kinda guy who don't think like normal people. The kinda guy who makes you believe in him 'cause it works out, 'cause when he attacks the problem head-on it works out, 'cause when he rams his face into the wall enough times he breaks through it an' makes friends even where it don't make sense." His hand clenches in the grass.

     "No kiddin' I'm not Sora. No kiddin' I shouldn't act like Sora."

     "You think I didn't already learn that when I tried to help!?"

     "You think I didn't already learn that anything I do puts people in danger?! That I can't be Sora?! That no matter how hard I try I can't be the guy who holds out his hand an' pulls people up!?"

     "If that's what you came to say to me, then you better be ready to *fight like you mean it*."

     The force and pressure and wet burst out of the tree. Seifer doesn't fight it. He rides it. He lets it carry him rather than resist it, lets it take him upwards. It's better than fighting against the current, better than rolling out of its way. Rolling out of the way leaves him vulnerable to a direct attack; fighting the current just breaks bones again. Yeah, this hurts, but it hurts in a controllable way. The pressure on the bones is lessened. The force is made part of your own. It's like aikido, but, with magic nonsense.

     At the apex of the geyser Seifer's blade comes snapping down. A pair of loud gunshots ring out - the blanks inside the gunblade going off. They propel him off the geyser, sending him falling straight down. His blade comes slashing downwards -

     And then at the last moment stops as he swings it into the geyser, using the burst of water/energy/somethin' he doesn't have time to figure out and the angle of Hyperion to slow his descent just a tiny little bit.

     Just enough to throw off somebody planning to get him while he can't control his motion.

     His foot swings around in the process, aimed at her face. He's less good at kicking by a wide margin, but he's just using raw momentum at this point. Don't have to be *good* to use raw momentum.

     He hits the ground, skidding backwards. "Everything around me's always in danger. You think he's any different from anybody else? Only thing that changes is who's gunnin' for ya."

     Hyperion comes up, pointed squarel at her. He waves his hand. The Multiversal 'come get some' motion.
Xion There's a lot of things that the figure expected Seifer to do. Many, many possibilities, but the reality is a bit different.

The foot connects cleanly, the figure nigh-gormlessly just standing there intently waiting. Head cracked around by the boot, her whole figure corkscrews about. Pivoting involuntarily on one leg, her coat flares out as zippers jangle, and the hood sweeps off her head to reveal short, red-auburn hair and bright blue eyes.

When she drops, though, she stutters through the air and disappears, reappearing midfall across the walking path a handful of steps away, landing with bladetip planted on a knee.

Her jaw visibly smarts, and she spares a hand to touch where she was hit gingerly. "No, you're exactly like Sora. Sora and Riku and Seifer."

Righting, the stance she takes hunches at the shoulders and squares out at the knees, both hands into the grip of her blade, eyes lightly over her facing shoulder.

"You're most miserable when you're alone. But you always seek it out, rather than letting anyone else in."

Her head cocks as she smirks. "Am I close?"

He gestures, and she charges, each step eating up too much ground with each footfall by far.

Transitioning from a running thrust, she rotates her body around her arm with a spin to repeat the rolling chop, step-adjusts against Seifer's front, and swings horizontal against his chest.
Seifer Almasy      The thing about Seifer is that, based on his personality archetype, people might think him the type to get smugly self-satisfied about a good hit, and get cocky and overconfident. While he absolutely gets smugly self-satisfied - there's the little bit of not-quite-a-sneer not-quite-a-smirk that tugs at the corner of his mouth - Seifer never gets cocky. He's much too good to lose himself over a single hit. He knows too well how easy things can get reversed.

     Ha, ha.

     When the hood comes off, all he says is, "It's a good thing you got me all worked up, or this might be a lot harder'n it is."

     She stutters through the air. He blinks. He's seen some weird shit before, but he wasn't expecting it out of her. It momentarily throws him for a loop. He was prepared for the Keyblade. He wasn't prepared for that. He also wasn't prepared for her to take Sora's stance as she tells him he's just like Riku. That he's just like Sora.

     He sets his jaw.

     "And?"

     Seifer slashes Hyperion to the side, flicking bits of water onto the ground. There's a 'tch' of annoyance at her smirk. "OK. I tell you what."

     He points his gunblade at her again. "You tell me everything you got goin' on. You tell me all about your feelings an' your messed-up issues an' all the stuff you're hidin'. You tell me how you feel about Riku an' Sora an' all the stuff we went through t' try an' find you."

     "That's the problem with your kinda person." Seifer's jaw tightens up a little more. "You always say 'open your heart,' 'you're miserable alone but you go lookin' for it', an' then you go right on bein' alone an' cryptic an' full of yourself."

     "So how about you practice what you preach, huh!? You went learnin' a keyblade while we were lookin' for you?!"

     "While Sora was desperate t' find a trace of you, you couldn't even give him a friggin' postcard, an' you wanna lecture me about bein' open an' honest?!"

     "You ain't even got the excuse of memory issues."

     She comes running at him. She's faster than he thought. He'd estimated her being slower; she's short, and she teleports, and he'd expected a rapid teleport attack. This is distorting - it throws him off enough that he gets hit right in the chest, *almost* full-on but for Hyperion swinging down at an impossible angle to blunt the blow. It still sends him flying. He crashes over one of the benches strewn throughout the training center (he's still not sure why - nobody but him and Squall would sleep here, and the make-out spot's all the way on the other side) and takes a tumble.

     He pulls himself up on a tree, his eyes narrow.

     His fingers click together.

     Snap.

     Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap.

     Each snap of his fingers is accompanied by a burst of gunpowder flame, eruptions that stink of the stuff blasting into being around her. Smoke lingers, clouding vision only slightly, but enough for Seifer's purposes. He's not trying to hit her. He's trying to disorient her.

     He doesn't need to see to fight.

     As he keeps snapping he starts running. Hyperion drags along the ground, sparking furiously. The sound masks his footsteps, the screech of metal against metal. The explosions further muffle him, further obscure his progress.

     When he arrives, the explosions abruptly stop as he grabs Hyperion's hilt with his other hand and swings it upwards like a hockey stick for her face.

     He did mention that he loved hockey.
Xion "You really are just like Sora!" Kairi shouts back, her brow furrowing as Hyperion wards her away, skip-stepping back with her guard up. Her tone is rough, throaty. The hoarse sound of a nerve being hit. "There's no point in telling YOU, Seifer! You're the one who won't bother to remember!"

"'My kinda person'." She spits, her smirk as tanked as her mood, spinning her keyblade in her hands as they stare-off. "You think I wanted to be the damsel in distress? That I planned for it? Just... traipsed off into the darkness? That I could leave a bunch of breadcrumbs for that goofball to gobble up? I had other things going on!"

The snaps of explosions draw her eyes, the first few having her shy away from the explosions involuntarily.

"You don't know the first thing about what I went through. The feeling of loss. Of someone you-" The pops obscure her word with perfect narrative timing. "-betraying you and trying to kill you."

"And the keyblade? A keyblade is the weapon of the heart. It's-"

He's there, inside her guard, drawing up his blade against her face. He is, after all, the better swordsman.

A spray of dark-red as the tip passes across her cheek, her nose, her brow.

She plants her backfoot, as an intangible 'tug' hooks at Seifer's heart, a blazing red aura flickering into Kairi's black-gloved left hand. She closes her fist around the fire, and for a moment, it flashes gold.

Her stance changes, a sudden frame-shear of her guard being broken into a planted downswing across Seifer's face, Kairi shoving into Seifer as hard as she can with the blade-press.

A curtain of blood falls across Kairi's face, lingering along her cheek and dripping down her chin. "My heart's feeling plenty mad at YOU!"
Seifer Almasy      "An' you think it was fun for me, huh?! To be the sidekick on Sora's little Find-His-Girlfriend Adventure?!"

     "You think there weren't a million things I'd rather be doin'? You think I was happy to be assigned to protect him?"

     "T' see that my dream of bein' a hero got handed off to a moron like that?!"

     "T'see that he deserved it more than I ever did?!"

     He shoulders his blade as they square off, slowly pacing his way around the metal floor like a predator. His eyes don't leave hers. "You got no idea what I went through, either. You wanna know my life? You want me to open up? Huh? That it?"

     His voice is low and dangerous. "You wanna play that game with me? You, miss Destiny Island? You, miss Happy Childhood with two boys who both want you safe so bad they're willin' to go divin' into darkness t' get you? You think I don't know loss?"

     She grabs something from him. He's seen Gilgamesh do it enough times to have a good idea of what it is, but he doesn't know *what* she took. His explosions? Some stance of his? Something to do with Greg? -

     -oh.

     The keyblade hits him right in the face. Funny. It's almost the same place as the scar.

     There's a spray of blood. He stumbles backwards. His fingers go to trace the wound. The gloves drip.

     Seifer's lips twist upwards in a savage grin. Whatever she knows about him, she's probably never seen him look like that. *Caster* hasn't seen him look like that. Most of the *Concord* hasn't seen him look like that. Sora, Molly, they've never seen him look like that.

     But one man has.

     "OK."

     "Sure."

     His voice has gone from low and annoyed to something much, much darker. "You wanna know what's in my heart?"

     And then he surges forward.

     The first blow comes swinging down wrong. It's fast, but it's not fast in the way fast is supposed to be. Seifer's one-handed style is hard to track at the best of times but now it's something that almost feels like it's skipping steps in the swing, like it's producing afterimages but the afterimages are in front of the swing, like you can't tell where the swing starts and where it ends. It comes down for Kairi with a savage ferocity, an uncharacteristic anger. Seifer is a bully. Seifer is a jerk.

     This is the Seifer that shows when he's pushed to the limit.

     This is the Seifer Squall gets to see.

     "There's only two memories I cling to from my childhood," he says, his voice eerily, disturbingly calm as his blade snaps to the side in the middle of a swing, then snaps back, a weird, sideways slice that turns into a downwards one midway through in a physics-defying nonsense swing. "Just two. Did you know that?"

     His hilt comes forward for her face, an attack from the butt of the gunblade that simply wouldn't be possible with a weapon like Revolver. He pulls the trigger at the optimal time, shaking the weapon furiously.. "One of them is A Sorceress's Knight. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that big, angry Seifer's got a romantic dream about bein' special. About bein' somebody's hero. Went off an' married a woman he barely knew so he could live out his fantasy."

     "You know what the other is, you spoiled little brat?"
Seifer Almasy      "Crouching behind an overturned desk in the middle of a burning building, listening to the sound of gunfire from the next room."

     His gunblade comes swinging in low. It's like Hyperion just changed lengths, but it hasn't - he's dancing the blade on the end of his palm, guiding its momentum without really touching it as he goes for a leg strike. "I don't know why I was crouching. Don't know why I cling to it. All I remember is the fire, and the fear, and the powerlessness, the powerlessness that comes when you can't help somebody, when you can't save somebody you care about. I don't remember anything else. It got sacrificed on the way to finding you. You know how many memories I lost to find you? How much I spent to get Sora where he needed to be? How much I burned to help somebody else's dream come true?"

     The gunblade drops to the ground. He stomps on it, sending it whirling upwards like a pinwheel, and snatches it out of the air. "Why don't you tell me again how I don't know about loss."

     "How angry you are with me."

     "Why don't you tell me how much it hurts to have somebody you care about try to kill you."

     "You spoiled little princess from Destiny Island."

     His eyes flash. The grin. The horrible grin. The grin matched in blood. The predator's grin. The shark's grin as it closes in. This is what Squall sees because this is what Squall deserves - the knowledge that Seifer will give him no quarter, nothing less than try to kill him to push him higher.

     This is what Kairi is seeing for entirely different reasons.

     "Go on. Tell me how hard you have it, Princess."

     He ejects a cartridge from the gun and moves to punch her straight in the gut. This isn't a fighting move. This is a bully move. "Tell me how all your little plans in life got wrecked and you're the only one who knows how much things hurt."
Xion The first strike comes down with fervor born of ferocity, and as she catches the blade with a bracing hand, skipping the frames of motion between her step-press and her sword held high with her left hand bracing the length.

That much force to bleed off, though, and she's driven to a shaking knee as bulk and leverage work through her arms and k-TANG off her keyblade.

Her supernatural riposte skips her into position rotationally, but Seifer's backswing catches her in executing her swipe, and he presses his fist and the butt of is weapon, with the rest of his elbow, into her face.

Recoiling, with her stance broken, the leg shot connects cleanly and her boot is speared with the tip that he stomps in, carving out from her foot in another spray of blood. The feeling is grisly, but Kairi grunts and bites back a scream. Her automatic response is a fierce hurl of Starlight against Seifer, an unreasonable maneuver that is rendered dangerous by the absurdity of the keyblade's design.

Waveringly, she stands there, eyes downcast, her fists at her side as she breathes. Waveringly, she stands there as Seifer clears his gunblade. "Are you... done...?" Kairi begins, a shaking hand moving to wipe the blood that had curtained under her nose with the back of a gloved wrist. "... gatekeeping trauma?"

Her eyes flick up, and where there was a mirror reflection of his murderous determination and ferocity during the attack-and-response flurry, now her blues are cold and empty without a single impression of a spark.

The bully move is a punch, driving his fist into her black-clothed gut, feeling her muscles tense and the air be forced from her lungs. She's lifted by the off her heels and 'k-crunch'-es back to the dirty path in the wake of the force. She doesn't to him, staggering and listing forward. Her foot steps into his guard. Her eyes stare over his shoulder.

It was the bully move - not the duelist's move. With an audible 'shwink', Kairi rematerializes her keyblade into her hand, tip past his chin and jagged star under it. It'd be an awkward up-thrust, and so it is check, not checkmate.

"I know what nonexistance feels like. Choosing to exist - to be here, trying to beat some sense into you and the darkness out of you while you mansplain how real trauma rates is making me pretty angry though. Can we be done now?"

"I think you carved open my foot."
Seifer Almasy      "Shove off." The blade at his neck doesn't seem to have him worried. His eyes just stare down at her, cold and hard. "I'm tired of people with magic Chosen One powers tellin' me how hard their lives. I'm double tired of people tellin' me what I should an' shouldn't be like. I'm *triple* tired of magic Chosen Ones tellin' me what I should an' shouldn't be like. You know why I can't be like Sora? 'cause he's a better man than I am. 'cause when he reaches out to people it doesn't backfire in his face."

     "Look at me," he says, grabbing the keyblade and yanking it up past his cheek, "I'm oh-for-two on Sora's friends hatin' me 'cause I call 'em on their crap so I might as well keep goin'. You think I'm like Riku? Nuh-uh, lady. Riku pulls that 'you can't understand' crap all the time, gets pissy when anybody else has bad feelings, an' loses his temper at the drop of a hat. An' then when I try an' understand him he turns into a friggin' monster. You gonna monster out too, huh? 'cause I told you what you wanted t' hear? 'cause I opened my heart an' you didn't like what you saw? 'cause you pushed me till I got mad an' heard my side of it?"

     "'Gatekeepin' trauma.' You ever say that to me again an' I'll punch you in the face so hard you'll wake up with a trauma alright."

     His hand tightens around the keyblade. "We're done. You're not Squall. You won't kill me. But I already told you that I'd kill you. Ain't personal. That's how I live. 'show Squall lives, too. Every day, for me. Every single day, I put myself on the brink of death 'cause I don't know any other way t' be alive. 'cause everything I am gets eaten away at every night and it's a trade I made to get my dream. You know about nonexistence? So do I. Not the same shape but definitely the same idea. Only difference is I chose it. Bet you didn't. But in the end it's the same thing. Little bits that just fade away."

     He shoves the keyblade to the side, shoulders Hyperion, and turns around. The gunblade taps once on his shoulder. "I ain't bein' figurative, by the way. About the memory thing. About it bein' eatin' away. That's literal."
Seifer Almasy      He rubs his nose. "Dang, what is it about spellcaster girls an' me. Just like Molly." There's an irritated sigh.

     "I really wanna tell you the same kinda thing I told Riku, so if you're gonna turn into some kinda Mesna, Lady of Evil or somethin', do me a favor an' gimme a heads-up before you put me back in the hospital for two months, huh?"

     "I'm sorry."

     He shrugs his shoulders. "I know what I'm like. I know what I am. I'm not good at this an' I'm never gonna be good at this. It ain't that I try an' be alone 'cause I'm miserable." His fingers curl into a tight fist. "It's 'cause every time I try to get close to people I mess up. Got close t'...t'..." He stumbles over the names. "...two people, an' now I can't remember their names. Only got close t'Squall 'cause we understood each other the moment we looked into each other's eyes - don't take that how it sounded." He scratches the back of his head, embarassed.

     It fades a moment later. "Got close to Sora an' Molly, failed them. Tried to get close to Riku, failed him. Seein' the pattern here? It's me. I'm the pattern. I'm the failure. I'm the guy who can't ever be anything but a bully. So when somebody shows up an' tells me t' try harder, you know what I hear?"

     "I hear 'all these failures don't mean anything an' you should keep tryin' 'cause eventually maybe at some point somebody relyin' on you won't have somethin' bad happen.'"

     He shakes his head.

     "Why d'you think I married somebody I barely knew? It was there. I didn't even know I'd failed them at the time. I just knew I was a failure. Path of least resistance, right? Shortest way t' my romantic dream without anybody else gettin' hurt. Not that I don't care about her. Just...obvious, when you put it in context, y'know?"

     "You don't gotta beat the Darkness outta my heart. It's mine to carry. Just like the Light. Like the part'a me that keeps wishin' that I can be better, that I can be like Zeifer, that I can be a real Knight in all the ways it matters."

     He whirls, and he points at her. "But you know what I'm gonna beat?!"

     "I'm gonna beat the *heck* outta that Ansem guy. An' then I'm gonna beat the heck outta whoever made you like this. An' then I'm gonna beat the heck outta *nonexistence itself* so we can pull you back."

     "I might be a bully who only knows how t' beat things up but I'm *real good* at that. An' I'm gonna make sure you get to smile on Destiny Island with Sora an' Riku again."

     "You got me?! Huh?!"
Xion "Ugh." Kairi grumbles as Seifer grabs Starlight by the 'blade', lifting it easily like the strange rod it is with her grip fully released. Instead, she slouches, really leaning into her light sigh more with a tension-bleeding pain exhalation than any strongly felt frustration. "I thought you just had hearing problems. Cura."

She incants, pointing her left index finger at her foot as white-green sparkles limn the ruined boot. She produces a white handkerchief to start wiping the copious amounts of blood off her face - and her everything else, but the face is pressingly annoying. Curative sparkles spiral up her leg to linger against her stomach, then migrate straight up to whisk about her face, closing the wounds and ceasing the bleeding.

"You didn't... really call me out on my crap, Seifer. I couldn't... Be there for anyone, I got kidnapped and obliterated. I drifted for a while, or no time at all, and the I wake up, and Riku's there. But then he tells me he's going to kill me."

"I ran away, sure. I had to figure stuff out. The reason why I'm back is because the people I have precious memories about need my help. Riku, Sora. The people around them, who paid the price for..."

Kairi starts stripping off her black coat, disappearing it into her magic sorcery inventory shortly and trying to clear the spatter of blood of her top with her finger. It It's only hard to see because the top is black. "... Well, the whole chosen one situation. You can't *understand* what I've gone through, but I'm fine telling you about it; I can't understand what you've gone through, but I'm willing to reach out my hand and try to feel the shape of your heart. But... You know, seriously, it's not a trauma competition. It doesn't really..."

Kairi brings a gloved hand to close her fingers around her bicep. "... Need to be comparitive?"

She watches him draw the keyblade across his face, and dim shock fails to register fully on her face.

"You're right that I'm not going to kill you - that's the last thing I'd do. I wish, so badly..." Starlight disappears in the air as he tosses it away. "... that you'd remember that all hearts have light and darkness in them. My heart..."

Her hand lifts from her bicep to her chest. "Is cold and full of darkness. Some 'Princess of Light' I am, right? Riku's *sick*. He's got an evil... darkness ghost in his heart, and using the power it gives you is like smoking for your..."

The metaphor gets away from Kairi. "It's like magic smoking. For your magic heart. It makes your heart black and tarry. It's..."

"It's bad. But you can hit it out of people, if you care. You can make them right by being a thug."

Seifer's talk of another man, knowing his soul from his eyes flicks her expression like a light. A finger pops out, with a starry smile. "Manlove?"
No.
"Aww."

"Fighting harder, trying harder... That's too dangerous, for someone like you. Isn't it?" Kairi wonders, with Seifer's back to her. "I know you like to fish, Seifer, but maybe you should fish with your heart a little more."

He whirls, and makes his declaration. Kairi fingerguns at him with a tired smile. "I get you, sure."

She reaches to her wrist, peeling off one of her gloves and stepping forward to peel Seifer's fingers free and rest her smaller palm against his. "You should just slow down and take a little more time. You're hot like a flame, and some people are going to burn themselves on you - you can't help that. But going a hundred and ten percent at everything will just wear you out. Try giving your eighty percent, Seifer, and you can crank it up as you need to. You can't cook marshmallows on a rocket engine, ya goof."

Kairi breaks into a fit of giggles. Her fingers close around Seifer's hand. "I'm Kairi, by the way. Nice to finally meet you. It means a lot you knew me by face."
Seifer Almasy      Seifer takes her hand. "Nice to meet you, Kairi. Yeah, well."

     He fishes out his phone and produces the picture.

     "I've had this on my phone for a long time. Pretty hard to forget a face you see that often, yeah? An' you're important to him. You're crazy important to him. The two of you are."

     "I'm not sure even you guys know how important you are to him."

     He sits down on a bench and looks her in the eye. "OK, so, the Princess thing, that sounds Capital Letters important but I don't remember it at all. I'll hafta ask Riku once I kick his face in."

     "Ansem's first, then Riku's. He's had it comin'."

     "Or maybe he just needs it t' get his head on straight. I was a stupid teenager too. I remember what it's like."

     He shakes his head. "But yeah. I met Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. Y' can tell he's important 'cause I remember his name. I don't remember names that good. They slide outta my head real, real fast. So when I remember somebody's name, it means somethin'. When I remember their face, it means somethin'."

     "I figured he was some kinda spiritual cancer, some kinda...woodly-woo weird stuff." He wiggles his fingers at her. "I didn't think it was Riku's. Riku's just a dumb teenager. Like I said, been there, done that. Beat up dumb teenagers all the time. I'm an expert."

     He doesn't sound especially *proud* of it.

     "Anyway." His feet kick around on the bench. "I didn't get where I am by turnin' the stove down. It's what it comes down to. Been around gifted people my whole life. Where geniuses and Chosen Ones - no offense - an' all that kinda people give fifty percent, you gotta give sixty. They give eighty, you give ninety. It's how I stay..."

     He looks up at the ceiling. "Not 'ahead'. Just...'...in the game.'"

     His fingers knit together. "I don't know how t' turn it down. Never worried about bein' worn out before 'cause I just keep goin' ahead. I guess I'll figure it out at some point."

     "Also, 'fishin' with yer heart'? What, like I'm gonna put it on a hook an' let somebody eat it? Your metaphors are *weird*. I get what you're goin' for, but that's *weird*."
Xion The picture gets an 'oh'. Well, that does make sense! "I think Sora literally killed himself for a chance to get me back. So..."

Her shrug, and smile, are a helpless and weary pair. "... Maybe I get it. Maybe not. That's a lot."

She rolls her eyes at Seifer. "You called me princess, like, three times. How can you not know?"

She lets him talk, settling on the other end of the bench as him, letting her legs stretch out and her head to loll back. "I meant, you know, slowng down and just being for a bit. Plus, the chosen one thing's a little..."

She raises a keychain - the exact keychain that dangled from Starlight during their fight, with an empty star motif - and swings it around like a set of keys on a lanyard, looping it around her fingers one way, than reversing to have it whap into her palm. "There's a ton of keyblades, you know, right? I met a keyblade master on Destiny Island. I think the whole 'only one' thing's made up."
Seifer Almasy      "I honestly think you mean even more to him than that."

     She asks how he couldn't know. He says, "It's just somethin' residual, knockin' around in there. I don't remember the details. I know it's important, I know it's related to ya, I dunno what it is. Just sounded right."

     "I'm super not kidding about that not bein' figurative." He taps the side of his head. "I burned *a lot* outta here to help him. An' you. Just scraps left. A few names an' faces I managed to save. That memory of the burnin' house. My first time seein' The Sorceress' Knight. Most of the rest is just...gone."

     "Yeah, I know what you mean. I haven't gone finishing in a long time. Promised to take somebody. Probably gonna be good practice."

     "You ever been fishin'? I don't mean, like, off the shore, I mean like deep-sea, you an' a boat an' the wide wide ocean."

     "'sthe only way I've ever known t' just be. Anything else, I can't just lay around an' *be*. An' be awake, I mean." He looks up at the ceiling, over the drone of the monsters' wings.

     "I did not know that, no. I probably woulda been less hard on him in the beginnin' if I had. Then again that dope just took it with a grin, so maybe not."

     "Guh. Friggin' prophecies. Oughta find whoever made *that* up an' give *them* a good punch in the face, too."
Xion "I think I'd hurl myself out of the boat after hour one while screamig about 'I won't cease to exist again!' or 'this time I'm ready, sea of darkness!'. Something sufficently maniac." Kairi decides, having remained silent while Seifer explaied matters of value and memory.

"Apparently they all got twisted up on the inside and killed each other for really dumb reasons. Now there's only a few left. But if anyone's a chosen one, it'd probably be Sora. He somehow gets through everything. I keep expecting him to show up with his big stupid grin and say something that sounds like a complete cheese-head, like 'didja miss me?'."

Kairi brings her head up, sticking her finger through the hollow star and spinning the chain against her hand now with a whup-whup-whup-snak rythmic sound. "I think fighting to live is much stronger than fighting like you're going to die. But if it works for you...

Kairi favors Seifer with a winning smile. "... Try to stop going oh for two with chosen ones?"

She laughs lightly again, hopping out of the chair. "Might want to get your stuff looked at. I think your scar looks cool without any more. Too many, you just look sloppy."

Walking backwards while waving both hands at mid-chest height, she disappears after a few steps with a obvious dark-sworling portal siletly yawning behind her.