Kingdom Hearts - Blades of Three Realms

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

it wasn't long before Shiro had started to bring out breakfast, there were beignets and normal doughnuts, and lots of pancakes and sausage and bacon and eggs.. wait, how the hell did he cook as much food as he did? probably through one of his lesser known spells that probably Crystal never saw due to him internalizing it, Time Alter: Double Accel. of course, it hurt like a b***h to do, but he handled it well enough with some well popped hi-poitions and thel ike in the kitchen while they talked, and just smiled, wearing an apron over his PJ's saying 'i am the bone of my Skillet' of course, this was just a joke from his mentor's friends who saw Shiro had the same aptitude for cooking as his mentor did and all "eat up everyone, there's plenty." he said while going to fetch the next various plates and all full of food. Roveth of course knew what Shiro did, but seeing Shiro doing fine he narrowed his eyes only faintly, before shrugging and digging in to the food, giving off a low moan of contentment from the damn good food Shiro was pulling out. "so good... anyway, hopefully there's nothing strange going on in town aside from Seifer's insistence on trying to goad my light side into participating in the Struggle Tournament, since that will be his downfall." he said, clearly having not seen the UFO crash or the gummy block house out in the forest outside of the mansion and all.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"Aside from your overnight renovations on the mansion, Roveth, about the strangest thing any of us have seen was Shiro's surprising natural talent for singing during karaoke last night," Roxas mentioned rather vaguely. "He had Demyx totally freaking out."

"Shiro? Singing? Really?" Sora stared in considerable surprise.

"Don't be so dramatic Sora," Riku rolled his eyes at him.

"Crystal had a go at it too," Roxas went on. "But with Shiro he was swearing it was the first time he'd ever even attempted to sing."

"Wait, Crystal sings too?" Sora was less surprised than he seemed to be about Shiro, but he was still fairly surprised sounding.

"Yes Sora," Riku brought a palm to his forehead. "Apparently she does."

"If it hadn't been so late already we probably would have forced Shiro to sing a few more songs," Crystal added. "But, as it stands, he managed to sneak away after only two."

"I'm sure we'll have another chance to hear him sing though," Xion pointed out. "It shouldn't be too hard for Roveth to find a karaoke machine for here at the mansion after all."

"If he hasn't already," Crystal agreed.

Obviously, aside from all the friendly banter, everyone was diving into the food brought in by Shiro and enjoying every bite.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Roveth and hummed mid bite, and raised an eyebrow a bit before looking to Shiro, who seemed to be looking away blushing in embarrassment over his own voice and all "really now? this is new to me, because as Shiro said, he hasn't ever even hummed a note in his head, mostly in fear of sucking badly." of course this led to a dirty look coming from Shiro before Roveth continued "as for a Karaoke Machine, wouldn't be hard to find one, hell, i could probably fully outfit one of the rooms in the higher floors as a full recording studio." he said, shrugging a bit lightly "might be nice to put it on like a radio or something if Shiro's that good." he said before resuming his eating, and Shiro of course looking scandalous at his dark half "why i never! i feel so used and abused by my own dark side!" of course roveth smirked a bit, looking over pointing his fork at Shiro "you're -My- Light, aibou, and don't you forget it." he said in both a joking but also -slight- possessive manner, the same manner he probably sounded when he said he was going to take the mansion for the groups (#himself) uses and all.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"If you put in a recording studio, you're going to have Demyx mooching off of you in a heartbeat. He's been begging Axel to let him install one in the apartment for ages now," Roxas pointed out. "Come to think of it... you've added a ton of rooms to this place. Too many if it's just for you, Shiro, Crystal, and I guess maybe Wolfwood might bunk here with you guys if you invited him."

"It does seem like Roveth might have been secretly plotting to get us all under one roof," Crystal agreed. "On the plus side, Demyx wouldn't have to worry about rent or the landlord ever again."

"That's a good point," Roxas realized. "Maybe that's something I should run by Axel later."

"He might get a little upset after all that work he put in yesterday arranging furniture at the apartment," noted Xion. "But he'll be plenty surprised when he sees what Roveth's already done with this place."

"Well, in any case, it's nice to see you guys finally taking it easy for a change," Riku pointed out with regards to Crystal, Shiro, and Roveth. "It seems like ever since we met you guys you've just been off from one world to the next, fighting those Heartless Generals and whatever else would come your way without ever taking a break except when you were too severely injured to continue for a while."

"We had a lot of work to do because of them, but things are definitely much more peaceful now," Crystal responded sounding thoughtful. "Besides that, recent events have kind of forced me to re-evaluate what exactly I plan to do with my life." She looked directly at Roxas with a smile and only a slight hint of a blush. "Even if we believe we're doing the right thing, there are still more important things than fighting all the time."

Roxas returned the smile with a slight blush of his own, although he kept quiet for now and decided to focus more on eating some of the delicious food that Shiro had prepared. Not even Sora could have missed that wordless exchange just now. He hadn't really seen it, even though it was a pretty big subject of discussion up at the tower yesterday, but what Sora had seen just now more than confirmed that it must be true. He'd never seen Crystal look at Shiro that way ever. And Roxas really did appear to be genuinely happy.

"Sora, what are you gawking at?" Riku prodded him mildly to signal that he was still staring with his mouth gaping. Sora quickly shook his head to look somewhere, anywhere else while looking slightly embarrassed. Once he managed to shake it off he started wolfing down his own share of the food again.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro just shook his head with an amused laugh given he saw the interactions and lightly sat down himself to eat as he hummed a bit gently in thought, only narrowing his eyes at the mention of the heartless generals, he really hadn't seen them or their ilk in a while, sure Wolfwood's one, but at the same time he also told the armies to ******** themselves if they thought he was going to fight for them, the others.. well, they had managed to defeat and if he remembered correctly, killed a few, but the majority of them were still at large, so who knew when they might show up again "yes well thankfully i haven't seen hide nor hair of Xehanort himself or that god-awful clown guy again, so things have been much calmer." he said, chuckling a bit, while Roveth almost thought to needle Sora about the fact that he could tell Sora was a bit blue screened in the face and all, but the food kept his attention away from it and more on the food.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

Roxas would be with Shiro in the simulated training dojo that Roveth had constructed. Come to think of it, he hadn't really been alone much, if at all, with Shiro before now. Usually, Crystal or Roveth would have been somewhere nearby. Granted, Roveth might have been able to monitor the simulation from the outside terminal, but he was going to be pretty busy working on those other projects too.

"So, I'm assuming you at least know the basics of how the Struggle Tournament works, right?" Roxas asked while holding up his Struggle bat. "The match is over once time runs out or one combatant has collected all of the requisite point orbs that drop during the battle. Basically, there are two ways you can humiliate Seifer. You can beat him into the pavement and run around to collect all the orbs that drop as quickly as possible for an absolute and total victory. Or, you can just continue beating on him until you run out the clock and you will still win as long as you possess the greater number of orbs in total. It's really not too complicated."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro had taken up a single bat himself since he would not be able to dual wield like he normally did "hmm.. so two ways of victory, my thought is let him keep one point orb and continue wailing on him until the last possible second, then take the last point orb for a total victory." he said out loud while nodding "and i'll assume no lethal attacks are allowed, hence the make of the struggle bats." he said, holding his up in emphasis before settling into a one-handed sword stance, having judged a similar style he had seen as the best way for the moment "which is fine, as much as i want to put Seifer in the hospital i'm not going to cripple him during a public tournament." he said while smirking "though.. i guess Crystal has already been talked to by Axel about you, given he's your best friend.. so as a sister figure to me i have to do something similar." he would immediately turned stone-faced cold, and the cold killer like presence started to seep out of him "if you think you can get away with ever hurting Crystal emotionally or physically.. i will make sure to rip you apart from inside out with my very own swords, and -no- one will stand in my way. is that clear?" he said in the dark, cold, almost -glacial- level of dead-toned voice he'd muster, showing he was -dead- serious in taking out -anyone- who harms his allies or family, with no remorse or guilt behind it.


Roveth of course would be working on getting the materials and gear set up to make crystal's private server, and naturally mesh it into the wall for proper workspace and all, and not be too inconspicuous or stand out too much as well as going out into town to get the furniture and appliances crystal had asked for for her own room, which was fine to him, stuff that kept him busy meant it kept him from the computers for a bit which was a good thing, but he did leave Pence and Olette to watch on Hayner at least to make sure he does his training while he was out, of course, when he returned, he'd leave it to the monsters he summoned to help rebuild the place to install things properly and resumed his vigilance back in the computer lab and also continuing to go through various data worlds he was creating to search for and deal with bugs, erroneous data, so on.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

To say that Shiro's cold killer presence made Roxas uncomfortable would have been an understatement. As intimidating as Shiro's presence was, however, Roxas held his ground and managed to regain his composure readily enough. "Like I would ever even think of hurting her!" Roxas stared Shiro down. Had Axel really had a conversation like this with Crystal about him? Axel wasn't as intense as Shiro, probably, although he had been the Organization's assassin and all so he could probably crank up the intimidation factor if he wanted to, but Axel wasn't that person anymore. Roxas wasn't surprised at all that Axel might be overprotective though. Roxas was still traumatized by his time with the Organization even if he had gotten much better at coping with those memories. The memories weren't all bad, of course, but he was still broken beneath the surface because of the worst ones. It made him vulnerable, particularly because he didn't really know how to properly express himself about it. Crystal had understood that about him and kept her distance to avoid causing him even greater confusion by pursuing him right away. Not that she'd had the time for it, of course, with the Heartless Generals having posed a constant and very real threat to the stability of the worlds. And even if she'd had the time for it, it was pretty clear to Roxas now that she wouldn't have known how to express herself either. After all, she was pretty broken on the inside too. It was for entirely different reasons, but she had also been severely traumatized by her past and her method of coping was to suppress certain feelings, the ones that would have made her appear weak and vulnerable, almost entirely.

Roxas's expression softened a bit. "I don't want to see her hurt anymore. And I especially don't want to let her keep hurting herself. I don't know what it is Crystal sees in me, but somehow she has it in her to love me even though I wasn't even originally meant to exist. We've blown off so many second chances not realizing how much we really wanted to be able to know each other. I'm not going to waste this chance now that we're finally together."  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro kept up the intimidation for at least a bit longer while hearing Roxas's answer to it, before the pressure of his killing intent dissipated, and shiro's eyes lightened up with a warm smile showing on his face "good, that's what i wanted to hear." he said while rolling his shoulder "now shall we?" with that, Shiro would charge forward aiming for strong yet fast strikes, though he definitely wasn't aiming to actively make bruises on Roxas, so he was holding back from also reinforcing both the bat and his own body which normally was reflex.

Roveth just chuckled as he glanced in on the dojo, seeing the threatening of Roxas and shaking his head a bit, knowing full well no one could probably intimidate Shiro more than an angry Tifa at least so Axel and Roxas had their work cut out if they wanted to intimidate Shiro over seeing Xion, should it take off. of course roveth continued to work, making sure the worlds are maintained and all the firewalls are up to code since he was -not- allowing another Nobody invasion from the Castle that never was if he could help it.either way, as for everything else, he had finished up, and was now just monitoring Hayner's training while making sure everything ran smoothly for the two groups inside.  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"You know something, Shiro, you can be a surprisingly scary guy when you want to be," Roxas had to admit before he then readied his Struggle bat. Roxas had no trouble keeping up with Shiro's speed and kept to mainly deflecting Shiro's strikes with his own showing he certainly wasn't lacking when it comes to brute strength. His actual fighting style was a bit more on the cautious side though, being as the whole time he was with the Organization he'd had to hone his skills in battle while primarily fighting alone on his missions which meant he couldn't afford to act carelessly. He relied more on speed and precision while avoiding taking damage as much as possible. Of course, since he was supposed to be helping Shiro to practice for the Struggle Tournament he was fighting somewhat more aggressively to make sure that Shiro was feeling the pressure to defend himself as well.

"Okay, so from what I remember, Seifer mainly fights on the ground and likes to use taunts to get his opponent to attack him at close range, which can put some combatants at a disadvantage because of Seifer's better reach, but he also has an aerial attack where he'll launch into the air and then lunge at you at high speed and that one is pretty tough to avoid if you aren't quick enough or don't accurately predict his trajectory," Roxas explained while focusing on trying to keep Shiro on his toes while attempting to emulate the aforementioned attack himself as a sort of demonstration, although it was certainly quite a bit slower and more floaty because of all those extra jump, glide, and air dash abilities making him substantially lighter in the air than a combatant such as Seifer. Even so, it would probably manage to get the point across.  

[Kuukyo_Fushichou]

Shiro nodded as he continued to spar with roxas, of course when Roxas decided to pull the flashy attack, Shiro had to snort a bit before his body nudged him, and soon enough, Roxas would soon see Shiro bend b ack out of the way of the incoming struggle bat, and then when going onto his hands, would push himself up into a back flip, using the struggle bat of his own to tap Roxas's head once he laded in a way that would show behind him, before landing in the direction opposite of where the nobody would turn, and place the struggle bat on Roxas's shoulder, showing right then and there Shiro just pulled off some wicked Reaction Command or something that'd definitely piss seifer off once the b*****d recovers from the obvious massive combo that would've been.

Axel at the moment finally chose to get his a** up out of bed to get himself some food, and upon looking at the fridge to see the note, he'd give off a hum a bit, before glancing outside, before popping his back a bit "hmm... guess i need to check out the mansion... Oi, Demyx! wake up!" he called out through the apartment, causing the water wielding sitar player to stick his head out with a groan "what flame brain, can't you see i'm trying to sleep in?" he said, clearly still having -not- gotten over the fact that Shiro had much better talent singing than Demyx himself did and all. Axel snorted a bit with amusement "let's go check on Roxas and Crystal, they're over at the mansion." he said, with Demyx raising an eyebrow a bit, before sighing "well it beats fighting in any case.. fine." of course, once the two got properly dressed (Demyx in some jeans and a blue shirt with the runic symbol for water, and Axel's 'older self' variation of his Lea outfit, modified to have the color silver in it, would head off for the mansion since they had nothing else to do, and Isa was still a bit wiped out by their guesstimates. Axel totally blamed Demyx though, the slacker.

Roveth of course, had been busy setting up security cameras and so on for security measures around the fence to make sure no one that they didn't know would come in uninvited, though he did make sure that the older three former nobodies would've had access to the mansion much like he had Hayner, pence, and Olette in the systems as well  

[[XIII] Roxas]

"What the heck?" Roxas was caught entirely off guard by Shiro's sudden bizarre movements. He was moving so fast he had left behind after-images or something and even Roxas couldn't quite keep up at that point, at least not without using one of his Limit Breaks to move at light speed. "Okay, you got me. If you can pull off that move again against Seifer in the actual tournament, then I'd say you're pretty much guaranteed the victory and Seifer won't know what hit him."