Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Akirame Norwen ❯ From Bad to Worse ( Chapter 31 )

(A/n: I don't know if I'm going to keep doing these song selections, cuz I don't know if you guys actually pay any attention to them or not. Anyhow.. the only songs I can really suggest are Creed's "Who's Got My Back", and Korn's (yes, Korn!) "I Did My Time".)

Chapter 31: From Bad to Worse

Jerdania took a deep breath and approached them. "Um... hey guys..."

"Irvine was just wondering where you got off to.. you've been really quiet all day. Maybe you've got an idea?" Riku asked.

Jerdania looked down at the ground and handed over the contents of her pocket to Riku, who raised an eyebrow as he read the letter from Harid while holding the compass and surveying the map in his other hand. "What's this supposed to mean, `respect our right to privacy'? Was someone snooping around?"

Jerdania shrugged. "I...I have really no idea what he was talking about. I just found the letter and the map and compass next to one of the trees, and I thought I would check it out." She quickly lied.

Riku nodded approvingly. "Good job, Jerdania... this should help us tremendously. Now... we should probably get all our stuff together and get set to leave. We can't stay here forever, and traveling at night is obviously our best bet to beat the heat."

"Yeah... since the moon is full right now, it should be easy to see." Jerdania offered, feeling horrible for just having lied.

Irvine knew something wasn't right, from the way that Jerdania suddenly seemed to be so quiet and withdrawn. Maybe she knew more about Harid's reason for leaving than she was telling them. He decided against bringing it up now, believing that it would be better to wait until later, when Jerdania would be a little more comfortable.. if that was possible. Maybe she would confess whatever she knew on her own if given the chance.

Riku walked back to the group and announced the plan while letting them all examine the map. "So, we'll travel by night to spare the pain of the heat. We'll start out tonight... in fact, get your stuff together now, and by the time you're all ready, I should have this map figured out." With that said, Riku quickly turned around and handed to map to Jerdania. "Here, you should be able to figure this thing out."

With a raised eyebrow she reluctantly took the map and examined it. "Great... something else for me to screw up." She said under her breath.

She had little difficulty translating the map, soon located their position and then, taking a pen and scribbling on the back of the map, quickly charted out their course. Feeling a little bit better that she had done something right, she rolled up the map and tucked the pen behind her ear. "Done." She announced, picking up her own heavy backpack and slinging it onto her shoulders.

Irvine quietly chuckled at her confidence. "So, got any idea how long it's gonna take us to get out of here?" he drawled.

"I'm thinking that it ought to take us about... two weeks."

"Two weeks?! We'll fry or get lost in that amount of time!" Sora quickly objected.

"What do you want me to do about it, whisk out my magic wand and magically transport us away?" Jerdania snapped.

Sora withdrew and grumbled as he shuffled his feet.

Riku quickly handed out the waterbags that Harid had so generously left for them. "I guess we'll have to just live through this."

Once everyone was set, the group somewhat hesitantly waited while Jerdania took a small flashlight pen out of her backpack and used it to illuminate the map, then took the compass from Riku and looked straight ahead out towards the desert. Nodding her head, she began to resolutely stride across the sand. Silently the others followed behind her, many of them expecting to never make it out alive.

Five days had passed. Five long, sanity-stealing days. The moon had ebbed away to no more than a sliver, making travel by night no longer an option. "What?! No one here thought to do something as simple as pack extra batteries?!" Sora had angrily snarled when Erik, the only one with a flashlight, had told him the battery was dead.

"Well excuse us, Sora, but I don't think any of us exactly expected to be dumped in the desert and forced to travel only at night!" Kairi spat back, having lost her last nerve.

It was early morning, and everyone was gathered around Jerdania, who had decided on the change. She knew better than everyone else that it was the worst possible scenario they could be forced into. Traveling by day meant more heat. More heat meant they needed to drink more water. The odds that they would run out of water before they reached Cosmo Canyon seemed to double before her. "I know this looks bad guys, but it's only for maybe ten days. I'm sure we can hold out. We just have to grit our teeth and bear it." She tried to assure them. "Besides, it's not like we have any other choice. It's either travel by day and actually get out of here, or stumble around in pitch black by night and get lost."

No one said anything, but stared at the ground, knowing what she said was true. They would have to push themselves to the extreme, but they had to do it. There was simply no other way. With some hesitation they finished packing and starting lathering themselves with biblical proportions of sunscreen. Tan or not, none of them were taking any chances.

The sun rose in a red flame, angrily setting the white sand on fire. Without a word the group began to follow Jerdania eastward, as if they were going to walk directly into the sun's furious blaze as it slowly climbed over the horizon. Jerdania pushed the sunglasses that had been holding back her long bangs so they dropped down over her eyes. "Come on guys, we've got a long day ahead of us."

And indeed the day was long, full of tormenting heat and wandering thoughts. As was the next few days. Finally the monotony was broken by a loud shout. "What?!"

Heads snapped up. "What is it, Sora? What's wrong?"

"You're not going to believe this but... my waterbag has a hole in it, and it's been leaking this entire time! I'm already out of water!"

"No way!" Erik quickly approached the panicking youth and quickly surveyed the bag. "I can't believe it... if your bag has a hole in it... then maybe..." he quickly dropped his words as he investigated his own waterbag. To his dismay, his bag was leaking too, and it itself was almost empty.

"This is awful... we're not going to get much further without water..." Riku muttered, closing his eyes and trying to think as the others slowly began to become anxious.

"Well... we've gotten this far... if we just quickly use something to patch up these holes, we just might be able to squeeze out enough to last us a few more days." Jerdania suggested, placing her bag on the ground and digging through the contents.

After rummaging for a few minutes, she finally pulled out a roll of gray duct tape. "Hehe... the handyman's secret weapon- duct tape!" she happily declared, tearing off a piece and patching Sora's bag. " `If they don't find you handsome,' or in my case, gorgeous, `at least they'll find you handy'."* she quoted, finishing up the patch and taking Riku's bag.

Akira shielded her eyes and looked out over the endless horizon, suddenly confused. "Is that a mirage?" She asked, pointing out the huge cactuar-shaped shadow in the distance.

Irvine stood next to her and narrowed his eyes. "I have no idea... it seems to be heading in our direction, though...."

A huge dust cloud rose up over the dunes as the gigantic creature approached them. Riku's jaw dropped as the two-story-high cactuar slid to a stop right in front of them, and no one moved as the dust cloud settled around them. For a moment, no one moved. The cactuar pivoted on one of its legs, as if scanning the area, before finally bending its head down and looking straight at them with blank, beady black eyes. Silence. A breeze lifted some sand off the ground and carried it over to another dune. More silence. Suddenly there was a loud clicking noise as thousands of sharp, black needles erupted from the surface of the cactuar's smooth green body, giving it a Rambo-like appearance. Everyone immediately leapt and dove into the sand, trying to avoid the thousands of needles that whistled around them.

Riku shouted in pain as several of the inch-long needles pierced his shoulder. He tried to raise his sword to defend himself, but found that the immense pain kept him from so much as moving his arm. He looked up and watched as Akira swiftly loaded an arrow into her crossbow and fired it at the giant green attacker, which lodged itself right between the cactuar's eyes. But alas, this made the giant even angrier. With a loud cry it started to fall forward, and everyone hastily tried to scramble out of the way as it plopped upon the sand, intending to flatten them all. Riku screamed out in pain as the arm of the creature pummeled him into the ground. Unable to move, he cried out uselessly and struggled against the immense weight driving him even deeper into the sand. He then sharply looked up when he heard Akira scream his name. "Riku! Just hang in there, I'll get you out!"

With a great effort she picked up his sword, swung it into the air, and using it like an ax she started to hack at the monster's arm, causing what seemed to be water squirting out of the wound and soaking her. With two well-aimed blows, she managed to slice halfway through the limb. The third and final strike sent the sword through the remaining thick, juice-squirting cactus flesh, and the giant arm slid off of Riku's back and settled into the sand with a thud. With a loud screech the cactuar righted itself and angrily stomped the ground, sending a shockwave that sent everyone tumbling to the ground. Once more the inch-long needles peppered its body, and shot out and flew through the air like thousands of bullets. Riku looked up and instantly expecting the attack, he quickly threw himself across the sand and wrapped himself around Akira, trying to shield her.

This time no one was spared the relentless attack, and all were hissing loudly in pain as the cactuar gave one last earthquake-causing stomp before finally retreating and disappearing in the vast desert.

Once she had managed to rise from the ground, Akira's eyes at once fell upon Riku, who lay face-first in the sand, not moving. "Riku?....Riku?" She quietly said, clutching her heavily needled arm and crawling across the sand towards him. "Riku, wake up." She gently shook him with her good arm, trying to ignore the dozens of needles sprayed across his back and legs. An immense wave of relief washed over her when he gave a low groan and tried to push himself up.

With a struggle he managed to roll himself over and looked up at her with a lopsided smile. "Nice job Akira... I can't believe you could even raise my sword, let alone use it like that." He said with a raspy voice.

Akira smiled back at him. "Thanks... just hang in there, I'm gonna go get Kairi, okay? We're going to get rid of all these needles, and you're going to be okay..."

Akira looked up to see that Kairi, fortunately enough, had been the least injured, and despite a few needles sticking out of her hand, she was already opening her pack and rummaging through the contents. Within a few minutes she had already set up a small station with a blanket spread over the ground, a pair of tweezers, several rolls of bandages, a pack of band-aids, some disinfectant.... Thank Hyne she had come so prepared.

"Come on Riku, get up, you're first." Akira said, trying to help him up.

Riku shook his head and waved off her attempts to move him. "Look," he said, pointing with a hand that resembled a pin-cushion. "They're hurt worse than me."

Akira followed where his hand was pointing, and saw that Irvine, Sora and Jerdania looked a lot more banged-up than he did. "All right... but I'm staying right here with you, okay?"

Once again Riku tried to wave her off. "No, go help Kairi, she needs you more than I do, now go."

Biting her lip, Akira sighed and gave in to his request, and assisted Kairi in removing the hundreds of needles and spraying disinfectant before gently wrapping up arms, legs, shoulders, backs and other numerous body parts. The sun was already getting ready to set by the time Riku was ready to have his injuries doctored.

Akira walked over to where he was still laying, and gently roused him from his feverish sleep. "Riku... come on and get up, I can't carry you." She said, feeling a little better when his long eyelashes parted. She gave him her hand and helped him as he gingerly walked over and collapsed on top of the blanket.

Hesitating, Akira took the tweezers that Kairi handed to her, and together they began the painstaking task of removing the hundreds of individual needles, and when the light began to fail them, they paused for a break while Erik quickly started a fire with whatever little wood he had packed for the trip. After pausing to stretch her badly shaking hands, Akira turned back to Riku and resumed plucking out the deeply embedded needles, silently cursing under her breath whenever she came across a particularly stubborn one.

By the time they had finally finished removing Riku's needles, Kairi and Akira were both thoroughly exhausted, as well as Riku, who had had to endure the painful removal stage.

"Half-way done, now we just need to disinfect and bandage him." Kairi tiredly said, rolling up Riku's pants legs so they could quickly get it over with.

Akira made a hasty job of spraying the soothing gel-like substance onto a clean wipe and rubbing it into the small holes in his leg, then took a bandage, wrapped it around his (admittedly) well-built leg and taping it down before pulling the pant leg back down. She then looked up at Kairi, who was pausing to yawn and stretch. "Why don't you go ahead and rest, I'll finish him up." Akira suggested, waving her away.

Kairi smiled gratefully and yawned again while cleaning up some of the mess, then walked away and unrolled her sleeping bag, upon which she instantly collapsed. Akira felt strangely relaxed now that no one would be watching her work. She quickly helped Riku sit up and waited for him to remove his shirt. Her intentions being purely medical or not, she felt the heat rise to her face as soon as his shirt came over his head. Keeping her eyes and face down so he couldn't see her embarrassment, she sprayed the disinfectant onto the cloth and began to rub it onto his back, her mind growing a little foggy as she focused on making small circles with the cloth. She could hear every single breath Riku took as he innocently leaned forward, probably not noticing that she had slowed down considerably. Shaking her head to clear it, she finally placed the cloth in her other hand so she could work on his....chest.... swallowing and taking a deep, shaky breath, she watched as he leaned back onto his hands. He wasn't too badly hurt, just a large bruise covering his... smooth, flat stomach.....area... hesitating again, she reached out with a shaky hand and tenderly pressed the cloth his skin, and her heart began to pound in her chest. "Why am I so nervous?" She angrily asked herself in her mind, trying to find a way to shake it off.

She looked up at his tired face. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be on the brink of collapsing. She felt a pang of sympathy for him. It very well could have been her in his place, bleeding from a hundred tiny wounds in her arms, back and legs. Looking away, she picked up a roll of bandaging and, leaning over him, began to wrap it around his waist. When the roll ran out, she held it down in place and picked up the tape, ripped off a piece and used it to hold everything together while she sought out a new roll. She finally looked back down at her hand when she felt it touching feverishly warm skin instead of gauze. He gently shivered from the contact, but otherwise showed no sign that he knew she was touching him. Her hand lay just above the bandages, right below his collar bone.

"Are you looking for something?" He suddenly asked, making her jump. He sat up and reached up with his hand, which he lay over hers.

Akira's mouth went dry. "N-no.. I mean.. yes... um... I need some more bandages so I can do your back." She hastily said.

Riku gave a sigh, picked up a roll and handed it to her. Her hands slightly shaking, she quickly patched up his back and handed him his shirt. Her eyes practically devoured him as he carefully pulled his shirt back on. She couldn't explain it, but something inside of her wanted more than anything just to tightly wrap her arms around him, to feel him, to kiss him... even more. She shuddered and forced herself to look away. Those were feelings she shouldn't have... after all, he certainly didn't feel the same now, did he?

Feeling utter exhaustion, she finally crept away from him and pulled out her sleeping bag, and fell upon it, dreams invading her mind seconds after her eyes were closed.

* quote taken from The Red Green Show