Prompto and Kon were at a complete stalemate. Kon couldn’t advance because Prompto was holding you rather close to the edge of the roof, and Prompto couldn’t go anywhere because Kon was blocking his way.
“We’ve got ourselves quite a showdown.” Prompto sighed, squeezing you a bit as Kon cracked his knuckles.
Kon lunged, swiping a fist at him. Prompto easily dodged it and got closer to the edge, stopping Kon dead in his tracks.
“See? You’re just too worried to do anythi—” He stopped at the sound of breaking glass. Noctis was thrown from Ichigo’s bedroom on the other side of the house, and landed in the front yard. Ichigo jumped out after him, and climbed form one section of the roof to the next until he got to where the three of you were. Kon dashed around to the other side of you, so he was between you and the edge of the roof, and Ichigo closed in form the other side.
“Sure you wanna risk it, Kurosaki?” Prompto taunted Ichigo as he stalked a little bit closer to the edge of the roof to his right(Kon was behind him, Ichigo was infront of him, so the left and right were open for him). Ichigo didn’t say anything but his glare spoke for itself, really.
“Over here!” Kon yelled, charging at Prompto form behind, and he turned to face him. Ichigo took this opportunity to attack as well, but Prompto hit the deck to dodge them, taking you with him.
You skidded dangerously close to the edge of the roof, but that was probably what Prompto wanted. He slowly got to his feet with you, and Kon looked nervously between you and Ichigo, trying to figure out what to do. Ichigo didn’t have a plan either, you guessed from the look on his face. You decided you were feeling well enough to break the stalemate. You put your hands on the arm Prompto had crossed over your chest and stuck your nails in for good measure as you let out as much electricity as you could. It was vapid at best, but it was enough to knock Prompto off his feet. That or he jumped, because now you were falling form the roof. Noctis and the other man were waiting on the ground for you. Prompto let go of you and pushed you away from himself, right into the outstretched arms of the third guy. Noctis watched as Prompto landed, did a summersault, then sat stupefied on his ass for a moment before offering him a hand up. You tried to fight against the man holding you, but he clubbed you in the back of your head, and you were knocked clean out. He threw you over his shoulder and began to walk away, leaving Noctis and Prompto to deal with Ichigo and Kon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you next came too, you were laying on the clod floor of a dark room. It was a cell. You were leaning against the bars, cradling your aching head. The guy who brought you here was nowhere in sight, but what you found even stranger was the fact that there was a door inside your cell. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness, and things began to become familiar to you. As if to confirm your worst fears, a hand landed on your shoulder. You screamed a little and slid into a laying position and rolled away from the bars.
“Calm down, love.” A deep male voice with a hint of an accent said. You broke out in a cold sweat at that voice…your dad’s.
“What are you doing here?” You asked, your voice shaking as much as your arms as you tried to push yourself into a sitting position.
“I am where I have been for the better part of 8 years. The question is, why are you here.”
“I….I don’t know…”
“Do you know who it was that brought you here?”
“…No…”
“That was Caius.”
“No it wasn’t. Caius is dead.”
“Open your eyes. He isn’t dead. He ran away.”
“No! You killed him….I saw you….” You were crying on the ground, holding your throbbing head between your hands. You hated being seen like this, but you couldn’t keep yourself together. It was just too much.
“He told me to speak to you.”
“Why would he want that? Why would he want anything to do with you?”
“Listen to me, listen carefully, and I will tell you what really happened. You need to know.”
You slumped over onto the ground, but remained quiet.
“There was a time, long before you were born, when the experiments were first conducted, that we decided one test subject wasn’t enough. Sephiroth offered up his son, but it was then decided that there was no way to compare the results of his experimentations with those one of his son. So he had his other sons tested, to provide comparable data between them.” His tone was much different from when he was talking to you earlier, he sounded more sincere now. “His three sons displayed immediate results from the Jenova cells, the effect being a supernatural power that was harnessed aggressively for combat use. You must understand, our main goal was to create the perfect SOLDEIR. They were trained to fight, and were pitted against each other to improve and learn more of their unique abilities. Their powers grew, but they were too equal. We needed a new element introduced.
“We decided that Caius would be tested, and when he began to show signs of pure Geostigma, we knew that he would provide the data we needed. Hojo conduced experiments of his own, giving each test subject a different element of Jenova’s power. He ran out of test subjects, so we brought in more. The boy, Ventus, was only meant to partake in Hojo’s side experiments, but he took to the disease so astoundingly that he became one of the primary test subjects. Sephiroth’s sons began to deteriorate, and Riku was brought in to replace them. After them, we brought you in, hoping to see a difference in female adaptation, but it was almost the same…I suppose the data doesn’t matter, the result was the broken lives of 7 children.”
He paused, and reached forward to brush some of the hair that fell over your eyes out of the way, but you shrank away from him. He sighed, and spoke again, “Your brother, he was supposed to be the end of the experiments if he was a success. He became a destructive force, but an utter failure as far as our research was concerned. When Hojo gave him his element of Jenova, he turned on the researchers. He tried destroy everything, so we sent the other three on him. When he was brought down, we wiped his memory and yours, and started over with the experiments…you were never supposed to be hurt be this again.”
“Why don’t I remember any of this?”
“You were young. Your mind blocked much of it out, a built in security blanket that kept the painful memories at bay.”
“You’re my father, how could you do this to me?” You weren’t as angry as you had been earlier; now, you were just sad. “I trusted you….you were my dad….”
He didn’t answer you. He stared at the floor for a moment. He finally looked up, but showed no desire to answer you.
“The time is coming, where you will be challenged by Sephiroth. He seeks to destroy the worlds that have forsaken him. He needs you to do this, so he will come after you. You can’t oppose him, he will just overtake you. But you must not join him…I am asking you, as my daughter, do not leave here. Stay here, obey me. I have been grieving for the son I sent on a road to a sad and painful death. I will not see the same for you. You must not fight. Not with Sephiroth, not against him, not at all. You wont save anyone. You would be fighting for a people who refuse to comprehend that by ostracizing those with the stigma, they are sealing their fate.”
“Why should I listen to you?” You sat up, wiped your tears away, and fixed yourself up, “Who are you to decide what I should do with the curse you have given me? You will sit there and watch the world come down around you for what you have done.”
“Look at you, girl. What chance could you stand against an army, you can’t even face me.” He argued, and you shot him a pricing glare. He looked away, unable to bear looking into your eyes, knowing what he had done to you.
“I see what you think of me. You’ve always treated me like I was made of glass, always holding the hard information over my head. I’m different now. I don’t break so easily. And if you dared to look at me then you would see that I have been carrying the weight of your burdens as long as you have.”
“If you do this, you will be making the biggest mistake you possibly could. Your mistakes are mine to bear, do not add to the list.” He said, still unable to meet your eyes.
“Am I supposed to apologize for your mistakes?” You sneered.
“I know…I know that you resent me, but everything I did had a propose.”
“I can almost understand all the experiments, but the drinking? The abuse at home?”
“How would you handle the knowledge that you sent your children to their deaths?”
“If your conscious couldn’t take it, maybe you shouldn’t have done it.”
“I didn’t—”
“Grow a spine. You should have stopped things if you knew—”
“I did try to stop things.”
“By trying to kill us?”
“I would rather have seen you both dead then used by Sephiroth.”
You stood up and may your way to the door, “If I never trust anyone again, it will be because of you.” You breathed and he stood up from the bench inside the cell he was sitting at and walked over to the bars and grabbed them.
“Do not leave. Sephiroth will find you, and will use you to destroy everything.”
“You never fail to comfort me. You ask me to stay in this town, that’s for me filled with the memories of violent fathers, cheating mothers, and angry brothers?”
“You forgot ‘damaged daughters’.” He spat, seeing your defiance.
You shot a glare over your shoulder as you pulled the handle of the large vault style door to the outside of the cell.
“Goodbye, my sweet. Surly you will die because of this. Know that I love you, dearest.” He said as you began to walk out.
“I swear to you, I’ll never love again.” You said lowly as you shut the door behind you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once you made it out of the prison and onto the streets, you began to make your way back to Ichigo’s house. Along the way, you saw him running toward you. He ran right for you, pulling you up into a tight hug. You could tell by his heavy breathing that he had been running for a while, but he was nowhere near as exhausted as you were. You didn’t let go of him when he tried to ask you where you had been, and what happened to Caius, all you could do was cling to him. You didn’t know the answers any better than he did. You had it in your mind that Caius just dumped you in the cell to mess with you. He wasn’t the same as your memory. There was nothing in that tall, dark man that resembled your brother.
Ichigo carried you home, and put you to bed once again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You woke up with a small group of people surrounding you. As your eyes opened, the first person you noticed was Ven. He had a hand on your forehead, so it was hard not to see him. You also noticed Axel and Reno—Axel was standing by Ven, and Reno was sitting at the edge of the bed—and Kon was in the lion doll laying beside you, and Ichigo was standing near Reno at the foot of the bed.
“Yo, she’s waking up!” Reno said happily sitting up a little.
“Yes, now shut it.” Ven mumbled, not moving.
“I’m okay Ven, you don’t have to do any of this.” You said, trying to sit up and push his hand away. He flicked you in the forehead and pushed your head back down. It didn’t matter what you thought, he wasn’t done with his med-check yet.
“You had us worried there, ≈≈≈≈≈.” Axel said with a smile.
“Sorry.” You said, and Ven quickly shushed you.
“Don’t talk.” He scolded, and you rolled you eyes.
There were a few more minutes of silence as Ven worked before Reno couldn’t take the quiet anymore.
“Come onnnn!” He whined, wanting to leave. Ven sighed, but pulled his hands away.
“Fine, but you should know, there’s som—” Axel cut him off midsentence by reaching forward and pulling you out of bed.
“Get up sleepy head, it’s time for us to leave this cramped city and head to good ol’ Halloween Town for the annual Halloween party!” He said, pulling you into a bear hug and spinning around with you. Ven smacked Axel and pulled you away from him, sitting you gently on the bed.
“What did I tell you before we came here? She might be hurt. Keep your big dumb hands to yourself.” Ven fussed at Axel.
“She said she was fine.” Axel sighed.
“Man, for a guy as obnoxious as you, you sure get pissy.” Reno chuckled. Ven contemplating throwing them out of the room so he could finish his med-check, but when he reached for you, you swatted him away.
“I’m fine, let’s go!”
“Yeah, we’re going to miss the ship!” Axel added.
“Whatever.” Ven sighed, and Reno got off the bed and you looked over at Ichigo.
“Are you going to see us off?”
“Do I have to?” He smiled slightly.
“No, I wouldn’t expect you to.” You said, walking over to him.
“Good, I’m sore…kicking Prompto’s ass got a little tiring.” He said, holding out his arms for a goodbye hug.
“I’d like to give him a kick or two.” You laughed, hugging him.
“Now that I would like to see.” He said, giving you a squeeze.
“I hope I can see you again. I’ve missed having you around.” You sighed, letting go.
“I’ll see you sooner then you think.”
“You ready?” Axel asked.
“I guess.” You shrugged.
“Good!” Reno exclaimed, grabbing you and carrying you out of the house. He later let you get on his back in a piggyback ride, saying that he didn’t want you getting hurt at the risk of Ven yelling at them for not letting him finish his healing session.
“Yeah, well, when your stupid ass wanders out into traffic and you both get hit by a car, don’t come crying to me.” Ven said, walking with his hands behind his head.
“So, what’s the ‘Halloween Party’ business?” You asked, trying to get your mind off your thoughts as you exited the city that brought up so many painful memories and questions.
Axel got a smirk on his face as be began to explain….