Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Akirame Norwen ❯ Tenshi no Ai ( Chapter 36 )

Chapter 36: Tenshi no Ai

"It's... just a coincidence, right?" Riku nervously asked.

"I don't think so. The very date of your arrival and the date on which Time began to rebel are the exact same, you just happened to arrive mere minutes after it began."

"So... you're saying.. I shouldn't be here? Like.. I'm dead or something?"

"Do you remember dying?"

"....No."

"Then apparently you were still alive when you ended up here. Most peculiar... shouldn't have worked out that way at all..."

Riku sat in stunned silence, unable to believe what he was hearing. Completely shocked, he stared at the floor in dumb silence. "So... who all from the past is here now?" Akira asked, a few pieces of the puzzle starting to fit together in her mind.

"As far as I know, Sephiroth is back, as well as Cloud... but there is a third person. I don't know if you have run into him or not... but Lord Seymour was spotted at the Ancient Ruins a month before Sephiroth returned."

Erik felt his heart stop. The icy blue eyes, the ones that had stared into his soul from under that dark hood, back on the airship... everything from his past had come back in that one instant. And most of it had gone just as fast... except for one thing... He quickly shook his head to clear his mind, never wanting to remember any of it. But.. Seymour... a name he had never even heard until now... what did *he* have to do with any of it?

Akira looked between the two boys. Riku and Erik, the two boys she was closest to, completely submerged in thought. Suddenly she was very, very tired. She looked up at Tristen with barely open eyes and tried to focus, but couldn't. The Guado gently smiled when he noticed her head weaving back and forth. "You all must be very weary. Why don't you rest in the guest rooms for tonight? After all, dreams can reveal many things."

The guest rooms were just as lavish as the rest of the Guado manor, the beds were huge, worthy of royalty. The four ornately carved posts bore curtains that swung closed to create walls of velvet around the sleeper. Akira stepped out of her shoes but didn't even care enough to change into her pajamas, and flopped onto her back on her bed. She sighed and closed her eyes, feeling the silky softness of the top blanket with her cheek, then pulled back the corner to reveal the down comforter underneath. She ran her hand over the comforter, feeling the cool, smooth cotton and the feathers underneath. It was all too much. This huge room and this giant bed were far too big after weeks of sleeping in a sleeping bag, surrounded by her friends. Now strangely restless, she rolled onto her side, feeling lonely, and her heart gave a cry at the thought of joining Riku for the purpose of having company. "So inappropriate," she thought to herself as she sat up, "but... I've done it a couple times before, so what's the harm?"

Reaching towards the curtain to part it, she nearly jumped ten feet when Riku's head suddenly popped in. "Hyne! Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" She curtly asked, placing a hand over her chest while regaining her breath.

"Sorry, everyday manners are too confusing for me." He said, inviting himself in and crawling onto the bed.

"Yeah, come on in, make yourself at home." Akira sarcastically said, rolling her eyes and giving an exasperated sigh.

"Don't mind if I do." Riku smugly grinned as he popped off his shoes and socks and tossed them away.

"That is so gross." Akira said, staring at his sizable feet, which were at least two inches bigger than her own. "Ugh, they're huge!"

"What, you just figure that out or something?" Riku teased, proudly placing a foot next to one of hers for comparison. "Dang... they *are* big. Wonder how much bigger my hands are than yours..."

"Hmm... dunno... let me see." She idly said, taking his wrist as he spread out his hand, and she quickly tugged off his glove. "Geez, I hope you don't sleep with them on."

"Hey, my gloves are my own business."

"Thank Hyne. Now shut up, I wanna see how big your hands are." Akira managed to keep a straight face and forced herself to seem disinterested as she placed a hand over his, feeling how warm and rough his palm was.

His fingers stuck up a good inch over hers. Then she realized that she liked big hands. His hands. Ideas began to slowly crawl out from the back of her mind, and she realized that she had been quietly sitting there with her hand touching his for too long. His fingers slipped between hers and curled over her hand. She couldn't look up, but tried just to concentrate on breathing, on something to say or do to break this... thing she was feeling. A few dark, dusty memories returned to her, images of her early childhood. She couldn't even make out the faces anymore, but she knew that it was her father, the person who was shouting at her, threatening her, raising his hand to strike her. Her entire life, that was the image of a male that had been seared into her mind. A raging voice and blood-shot eyes. Tears worked their way to the surface, and she was unable to hold them back. She took a deep, shaky breath and the first few drops of pain trickled through her eyelashes and slid down her cheek. "Akira..." Riku softly said, forced to temporarily release her hand as he sat up and moved so he was facing her.

Akira let her head hang downward and her hair formed a messy, exhausted curtain around her face. She closed her eyes, and felt the warmth of his hand as he cupped her cheek. She couldn't stand it, this warmth that she felt coming from a boy's touch. There was just so much... love, and it was scaring her so badly that she wanted to just run and hide. But she couldn't run, Riku wasn't going to let her, as he had taken a firm grip on her hand. Finally she stopped holding her breath, and let all her pain out in heavy, shaky sobs. "Riku, I'm so sorry." She choked out.

Riku softly shushed her and whispered something so softly she couldn't even make out his words, and his hand lifted her head and brushed the hair away from her face, which was wet from her tears. "Don't be sorry, Akira... you've been holding this in for so long, you need to cry."

How could he have known? She had been forcing the pain into a corner of her soul for so long... he couldn't possibly have known about her father, as the man had simply abandoned her and her mother one day when she was maybe four or five years old. She hadn't met Riku until she was six... "How do you know?" She asked, calmer now but the tears were threatening to come back.

"I've always been able to see pain in people's eyes... and I've seen it in yours for so long... what... what happened to you? What hurt you?"

Akira took a deep breath to calm herself down, and finally looked him in the eyes. "My father. The only thing I can remember about him is... him yelling, always being angry... I always had bruises covering the back of my legs and on my shoulders... Riku, I've never had a boy love me before... and...and I'm scared." She said, causing him to lean back and gently release her hand to give her room. Akira panicked and quickly reached out and grabbed his hand with both of hers. "I'm not afraid of you loving me... I'm just... afraid that you'll abandon me."

Riku gently shook his head. "I'd never leave you Akira, you know that..."

"I know.... but... what if something were to happen to you and I lost you? You heard Tristen... what if, when all is said and done, you have to leave us?"

Riku sighed. It was the same question he'd been wrestling with not too long ago. The question had begun to win, threatening his sanity. So he'd come to her, seeking refuge. And she was looking for the same thing. A safe haven. He craned his neck back and raised an eyebrow when she suddenly parted her arms and held them out in front of her. "....what?"

"I.... was... um.... aren't you going to hug me?"

Riku smiled and mentally slapped himself. He gently took hold of her wrists and ran his hands up her forearms and looked into her eyes. "Do you want me to just hug you.... or would you like it if I held you?" He found his mind fumbling to keep up with what his heart and mouth were doing. He was going too fast, he was going to scare her off, he would offend her...

"Do you... want... to hold me?" She slowly asked, looking up at his face.

Riku felt his heart leap and before he knew it it was answering her. "So badly it hurts." Did it really? He asked himself. Looking inside, he could see the empty hollow in his heart, and knew that no other but Akira could fill it in. And it hurt. It hurt deeply.

Akira looked into his eyes and slowly leaned forward into his arms. She stared into the material of his loose white, cotton T-shirt's collar. Right above it she could see the tan skin of his neck. Everything was so soft. The blanket beneath her, Riku's arms, the shirt that he wore... She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and the scent of Paupu was deeply embedded in his shirt, but as she leaned her head a little bit upwards she found that a gentle breeze almost seemed to waft from his skin, carrying the ocean's mist to her. She didn't mind when she felt him laying down, didn't protest when he softly stroked her back. Whatever dull ache from homesickness that had eaten at her heart before was now gone.

She found herself in a familiar round stone room. Everything was concealed in shadow, except for the very center, spotlighted harshly by an unseen light fixture. A cloaked figure stood in the silvery light, its back turned to her. She watched as a second cloaked figure walked right past her, unaware of her presence. "You're late." The figure in the center spoke in a soft, overly calm and controlled voice.

"I apologize. Without the presence of Mother I am only skilled swordsman, not the superhero you somehow expect me to be. I can't fly or walk through walls, I have to travel on foot and use doors just like everyone else." The second figure responded irritably in a sonorous voice.

"Why do you continue to hassle them? They are doing a good job of getting here on their own."

"Once again I apologize ---"

"Please, no formality, speak as you normally would."

"Speak as I normally would? I *am* speak--- Fine then. It's the scout, I don't trust him. He has ties to the group now. When the time comes, do you really think he'll be capable of betraying them all like he said?"

"But of course." There was a wicked smile on his lips.

"And what of the reward he requested? Will we really go through all that trouble just for his services?"

"Now, what sort of person would I be if I didn't see to it that every honorable person got their just reward?" The tone of his voice spoke of some dark evil act.

"Ah... I see then. What would you ask of me now, Master?"

"Please, I've asked already that you not use formality. I've never enjoyed putting on airs for society's sake."

The deep-voiced figure growled in frustration. "I told you already, I *am* speaking as I normally would! Now tell me what you want already!!"

"Temper, temper."

The deep-voiced figure visibly tensed. "Yes... sorry. What do you want me to do now?" Came the strained reply.

"Keep tabs on them. If they come across something too difficult, feel free to assist them, but keep strictly anonymous. Do you think you can handle that?"

"Yes, I can handle it," came through clenched teeth.

"Very well then. By the time they reach the ruins, I should have the hieroglyphics translated. Take care."

The second figure bowed his head and turned to leave. " `Take care'? Who does he think he is, my mom?" he muttured under his breath as he walked down the hall past Akira, who was holding her sides and biting her lip to keep from laughing.

The other figure had apparently heard what he said, but didn't do anything. He finally sighed and walked down the hall after him. Suddenly he paused right in front of her, sensing something. He turned his head and looked straight at her.