destinystrings | (no subject)

It didn't really take long to get ready at all, and soon enough Xehanort was waiting outside of his neighbour-and-facetwin's door. He'd given a light knock to let Terra know he was there, but was content enough to lean against the wall and wait rather than go inside.

Hearing the approach of someone, he looked up from where he was contemplating to see the blue-haired young man he'd spoken to earlier. "Hello," he said in greeting, giving a little wave.

When Terra opens his own door, he's dressed like he's prepared for the colder temperatures outside, with a brown scarf, dark brown leather gloves, and a simple dark gray coat. He starts to wave briefly at Isa, but pauses when he sees Xehanort's state of dress and frowns, not liking the implications. "You don't have a coat, do you?"

Or... anything to keep yourself from freezing. ... Facetwin, why.

Isa frowns when he sees the sight. This was escalating from confusing to outright wrong, in ways Isa can't quite articulate. Isa shook away those thoughts and approached the men.

"Am I too early?"

"Nnno," he replies, blinking for a moment. Weather... Terra looks as though he's dressed to be warm. "Is it terribly cold outside?"

At least Isa has a coat, even if he dislikes it. If nothing else, perhaps he could borrow it when new clothes had been obtained for him. Isa had no attachment to it, after all.

For the time being... "Shall we be off? Or is there anything last minute that needs to be taken care of?"

"It's January," he answers bluntly. He tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. "Outside of the mess with the Pyro Jacks and Jack Frosts, winter's usually cold."

He sighs, and turns right back around. "I'll see if I have an extra coat you can use."

At least he knows it's guaranteed to fit.

Isa doesn't really say anything to this. He just faces away and rubs the back of his neck.

He was never good at small talk and even if he was, what's there to talk about with Xehanort? Though he found himself awkwardly glancing back at Xehanort, wondering if he had anything to say.

"It's all right. If nothing else, if he" And a quick gesture to Isa "gets a new coat, I could just use his old one. If it fits, I suppose." He gives both of them a rather pleasant smile. "There's no reason to bring along more coats than we need. Let's just go quickly so we're not outside for too long."

Terra almost freezes when he hears Xehanort's suggestion. Somehow, the idea of him getting one of the trademark coats of Organization XIII just sends a chill down his spine.

Right. Listen to those instincts of yours, Terra. Don't let him get that coat. And since Isa didn't want the thing anymore, what could be done with it?

He heads to his closet and grabs a spare coat--tan in color instead of the dark gray he was wearing, and heads back to the two waiting outside his door. "Isa can figure out what to do with it after he gets a replacement."

A beat, then he hands Xehanort the extra coat and continues speaking. "I wouldn't be opposed to burning it."

You're not the only one who is disturbed by the thought of Xehanort getting his hands on the coat.

"You don't want to be associated with the people who wears this coat, trust me on this." Isa says, matter of fact, Xehanort probably wouldn't understand, but they didn't need him to have anything related to his future

"I'll decide what to do with it later, though... burning does sound like a plan." It would be cathartic, if nothing else.

That... seemed a rather... intense reaction to the fate of the coat, and Xehanort couldn't help but give them both a rather odd expression. "Isn't that a little... extreme? You could just donate it..."

With a bit of a sigh he slipped the coat that Terra provided on. "What sort of people were they? If you were part of them at one point, they couldn't have been that bad... right?" Yellow eyes suddenly fixed on Isa curiously.

Terra almost smiled once Xehanort accepted the extra coat, but his question just made him... pause again. And frown thoughtfully. How could either he or Isa answer that without opening a can of worms?

Carefully, he chooses his wording, and then replies. "From what another of their number told me a while ago, it isn't the people as much as it's the one in charge. He told them he was trying to help them, but he was only trying to trigger the destruction of the universe."

There. That... should hopefully drive the point home. It covered what he had heard from Axel in Promenade about Xemnas, and what he knew would happen if Kingdom Hearts were ever to be summoned, while explaining why being associated with such a group (even by proxy) would be a bad thing.

"He's right."

Isa crosses his arms and looks away, he wants to put the Organization behind him, not discuss them, or rather dwell on it, at least not at the moment. Let him settle in first, then he'll be able to talk about it.

Isa brings a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, "Wasn't there somewhere we needed to be?"

Edited 2013-01-11 19:59 (UTC)

An odd expression crossed Xehanort's face, and he shook his head. "Why would someone want to destroy the universe? That seems a little..." With a half-hearted shrug he turned back to Isa. "I can see why you want to divorce yourself from them. Being duped into that sort of scheme is definitely not something one would want to remember. Let's get you something better to wear right away!"

With that, he surged forward determinedly, starting for the stairs.

Well. That was... something.

Once Xehanort heads for the stairs, Terra can't help but look at Isa with a somewhat bemused expression on his face. "That went well."

Understatement of the year. He starts to make for the stairs himself, since letting Xehanort out of his sight during this little trip isn't a thing he wants to do. "C'mon. We shouldn't let him get too far ahead of us."

The sooner Isa gets a new coat, the better, right?

That sure was something alright.

"Yeah, well."

Isa shoots Terra a look of great uncertainty before following after Xehanort as well. Something about this just didn't feel right to Isa, but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

The group may or may not have gained +1 Shadow, somewhere between Libra and Virgo wards.

Because, as much as Riku is glad that things have been peaceful since Isa's arrival, as much as he trusts Terra to take care of himself... he doesn't trust Xehanort. He doesn't trust Isa. And he won't risk history repeating itself.

And so he hangs back on one of the rooftops, hood of his new cloak drawn into his face - it's not magical like the one he used to have, won't cloak his presence, but... hopefully that won't matter too much, if he just keeps enough of a distance between himself and the group.

Watch out, ~~Big Brother~~ Master Riku is watching you. 8|

It was a bit of a trial, deciding what particular store to go to, how they were going to proceed, and more or less anything that could be questioned reasonably. Even in transit, keeping Xehanort focused was difficult, as he found the most random things to be interesting and would wander off for a moment or two to inspect. It was no doubt a relief when finally the arrived at the mall.

Even so, there was something on Xehanort's mind. His roving eye had caught something... that he wasn't certain of. He was sure that it was a similar shape just out of the corner of his eye... of course, when he turned to look it was always gone. For the time being, he was content to see if he could keep an eye out for it... and potentially find a way to give whatever it was no escape.

As long as the group had stayed outside it had been easy to follow them (mostly?) unnoticed, to duck away on rooftops, and linger close to invisible while not losing sight of his target.

Inside? All those advantages are lost.

It takes him a moment to decide to follow them, to slide down from his watching spot into an empty side alley and slip into the mall from there, his cloak's hood pulled down now (because is nothing more attention drawing then hiding his face inside a building) - but in the end there really isn't much to choose, not when he is worried about Terra and the combination of Saix(?/Isa?) and Xehanort alone.

He does his absolute best to utterly casual as he takes the elevator some floors up and enters the kiosk, pretending to brows the magazines as he stretches his senses for the trio.

Surely they can't be that far already.

There! It wasn't too hard to follow, the person had an odd colour of hair that stuck out in his mind... like how Aqua was easy to track due to her blue hair. Even if his head didn't move his eyes would rove, watching out of the corner easily.

Being rather recognizable is definitely one of the downsides of his hair color, especially when he's trying to be as inconspicuous as he can possibly be, but well... (On the other hand he'd rather not have it any other way; sometimes he still leans forward just so that his bangs fall right in his eyes and he can be absolutely sure that he is himself... though the times he has to reassure himself like that have grown fewer and further in-between and nowadays they are pretty rare. Thankfully.)

Riku doesn't move from where he is standing, lips twitching up in relieve when he recognizes the scent of Xehanort - found you. He keeps glancing over the pages of the magazine he is holding, not really processing any of the words or pictures, then puts it back and strolls out again, keeping himself busy by looking at the displays; he's here for he same reason as everyone else and not possibly because he is following anyone. Nope.

Xehanort frowns a little. He doesn't like this very much... is this person tailing them as a group, or...

Well. There's only one way to find out. He quickly excuses himself, with the bathroom as a reason. There's one nearby, but it's around a corner. He begins to head in that direction, laying the foundations of a trap.

There's a flicker of a frown flashing over his face as he senses Xehanort separating from the other two, but it smooths away quickly and he just keeps continuing his way, not following after two, but rather searching for the next escalator to ge up to the next floor.

Xion and Sora were out shopping. At least that was the simple version. The more complex one involved picking up some things they needed, a then a bookstore to grab a cookbook, and then finally stop by a grocery store and pick up some supplies to make Aqua cookies or something. Except that it was lunchtime, and Sora was hungry, and truth be told Xion had felt her stomach gnawing at her too.

So they'd stopped by the food court in the mall of the bookstore they were going to head to afterwards, and picked up some food. It was afterwards, trays in hand and Xion leading the way, that they moved to the tables looking for seats.

And then Xion looked up and saw something that made her blood freeze. Or rather, someone. There was no mistaking the blue hair, the face, even though she wasn't standing right in front of him.

Instincts - ones that had kept her alive for the past year and a half before she'd come to Hinoto-Ri - kicked in almost instantaneously. Her tray of food fell from her hands with a crash, and she began to back up, ready to bolt.

Hungry? More like starving, as far as Sora was concerned. Especially after doing all of that grocery shopping. How could you feel anything BUT hungry after spending all of that time looking at food?

He was following closely behind Xion, but he was so focused on the thought of finally getting to eat that he didn't notice her stopping until he was already nearly running into her. That meant that when she back up she was backing up right into him, and he instinctively grabbed her shoulders to stop her from going up any farther. He had dropped his own tray, too, but he could worry about that in a minute.

"Xion? What's wrong?" He glanced around, but he couldn't see what was scaring her.

Isa looked up at the sound of clattering of dishes and trays. Many patrons in the mall's food court did, but most turned their attention back to their food, Isa's gaze lingered on the two teenagers who made the racket. One of them was Sora and the other...?

The other was...?

Someone... someone he didn't know.

Well that "someone" was pretty much trying to not visibly panick and doing rather badly. In hear head, she was mentally berating herself. How, how had she let herself get so complacent? How had she let her guard down so much she didn't even notice that he was there until he was less than fifty yards away?

And of course her outburst had attracted his attention, and the only thing keeping her from bolting outright is Sora grabbing her shoulders. She knows that this is Hinoto-Ri. She knows that maybe this Saix isn't like the one she knows (he may not even remember her).

But she isn't really willing to take that risk.

"I-it's Saix," she squeaked, trying to tilt her head in the vain hopes of hiding her face, "We have to go."

"Saix?" The name didn't ring any bells, and Sora wasn't sure what to do. It had to be someone bad, though, for Xion to be this shaken. "Who's that?"

It was in the brief pause after he said that when he finally noticed someone familiar nearby. It was the guy with the blue hair that Sora remembered meeting over the network, who said he used to be in the Organization but wasn't anymore. Sora still wasn't really sure what to think about him, but...could he be the one Xion was talking about?

No, Sora remembered. His name was Isa, wasn't it? At least, that's what he had said. So what was going on?

Isa, who had ditched the coat for something far more mundane, stood up and walked over to where Sora and his friend were.

He didn't say anything to them, he didn't even really look at them. He only stooped down and started picking up the dropped trays.

Xion shot back a still panicked and slightly disbelieving look. Sora didn' know?

"He's from-" But that moment, Saix started to make his way over, and Xion froze, her entire body stiff as a board. There was something very, very off here. The outfit was different, he wasn't even looking at them or saying anything or...

What was going on? Xion didn't say anything herself, standing stock-still, like a tightly-coiled spring that could be set off at the lightest touch.

Sora knew of the Organization, but he didn't know much of anything at all about the individual members themselves. Technically, he had never even met one of them, much less learned their names. That just made this whole mess a lot more confusing for him.

He's a little surprised when Isa starts walking their way, and especially when he begins picking up the dropped trays. A little unsure, too, since he was kind of hoping he wouldn't find out Xion was there until Sora could learn a little more about him, but...hey, he was trying to help, at least! That was a good sign, right?

"Oh...thanks." he said to Isa, though he was still keeping an eye on Xion. She was only getting more tense, and meanwhile Sora just didn't really know what to think.

Isa stands up and places them on a nearby table.

"So... who's your friend, Sora?" He keeps his voice even and calm, and turns to look at the girl who curiously looked like a black haired Kairi.

What... What...

He didn't know her. He didn't recognize her. And... and he wasn't acting like Saix. Her eyes were wide with shock and lingering fear as she glanced from the person in front of her to the one behind her.

And at that point she was finally able to take in some of the differences between the Saix she'd known and the person in front of her. The casual clothing was a big difference of course, but the most striking thing was the eyes. Green, instead of gold. And just as importantly, not narrowed with disdain at her presence.

She finally glanced back at Sora, her shoulders no less tense than before, but no worse either.

"What's going on?" she stammered.

"Uh..." That was a weird question to hear directed at him, of all people, especially since Sora felt entirely lost right now. For a second, he's not sure if trying to answer Isa or Xion will help the situation more, but he's more inclined to try to explain things to his little sister first.

He just had to figure out what and how to explain it all.

"When I talked to him on the COMP awhile ago, Isa," He gestures towards Isa's direction, indicating who he was talking about. "Said that he used to be in the Organization, but wasn't anymore. Do you know him?"

He was pretty sure that she had to know him, but that was as good of a place to start sorting this out as any.

"I'm trying to put my time in the Organization behind me, I'm not that person anymore," Isa added as an explanation.

He doubted it would be enough for anyone who knew him during his time as Saix, but it was all he could say at the moment.

Isa. She knew that name. Of course she knew it, since Lea had (over time) told them - not all, but pieces - of his history in Radiant Garden, and most specifically his original friendship with Isa. It... hadn't been the easiest thing to hear at the time, that Axel and Saix used to be friends and all that entailed but... it had been okay. She and Roxas had accepted it and gotten past it.

She doesn't know what to think, or believe. There's definitely something different. If what he was saying is true she should be happy for Lea's sake because Lea had told them how much Saix had changed and yet neither Axel nor Lea were even here and all she felt was this festering pit of surprise and suspicion.

"Y-yeah, I do... sort of," she said finally, in response to Sora's question, before looking Isa square in the face, "But you don't remember me."

It's not a question.

"He-" Sora is about to ask why he wouldn't remember Xion, but then the obvious occurs to him. Did she mean that this was...well, like what happened with Riku? Did she think that Isa was from a place where she had disappeared?

That thought makes him uneasy all over again. But it's not as if they know for sure yet, right? Sure, Isa wasn't really acting like he recognized Xion, but...

He turns to Isa, directing the question at him.

"You...don't?"

"I..."

He looks from the girl, to Sora, and back again. Who was this girl? Why was she acting as though she knew him? She couldn't have been right, that he had forgotten about her. Someone who was friends with Sora and resembled Kairi? The Organization would have at least been aware of such a girl.

"I don't know her."

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Stalker thread. I mean-

OH BOY I JUST LOVE MALLS

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Did someone order a wild panicked heartbaby

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Ignore the OU account

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