Those Best Laid Plans (Closed)

[Neku Sakuraba]

At that moment, as Lea was poring over his letter, brow furrowed in concentration and slight confusion, and Izzy was looking over his shoulder, brain running a mile a minute, that I came through Veil's door.

As always, I stood out; it's hard not to with hair like mine. Half the Network's Watcher staff was sitting around the table, looking over letters, and I got the feeling that Lea's call wasn't simply a social one. I walked up, grabbed a chair.

"Who's this?" I asked, nodding at Vaan. "What'd I miss? I got here as soon as I could, but..." I shrugged.

[Shiki]

She'd pulled up a chair to the table and mumbled a hello to everyone, curious for the first time in a while. When Vaan handed her the letter she nervously ran her finger across the edge before reading it, eyes focused entirely on the page. Under the table her hand was clenched into a fist, though her face didn't bear much expression until after she finished. 

The force of Sora's absence hit her again, along with all that he'd said, she missed him more than ever. She was vaguely aware of Neku entering the conversation, and only glanced up for a moment before her eyes went back to the letter, reading it over again. Then she said, "He's a friend of someone we all know. Someone who hasn't been around for a long time."

[Aqua]

Aqua takes her letter and frowns to herself before opening it. Her eyes flash over the page before she's smiling and crying softly, "Oh, Sora."

Namine takes one quick read, jaw drops, and then she re-reads her before setting the paper face down on the table, "Asshole." She turns her head to glare, sipping on her coffee. Of course when Neku shows up she turns her glare onto him and adds onto what Shiki said. "Step up the program, Boss! He's Vaan, much more epic than you ever can be."

Aqua then looks to Vaan with a soft smile, whipping her tears away, "If you ever need me, I'll be there."

[Vaan Shepard]

Vaan went red at Namine's statement and cleared his throat uncomfortably, "I am Vaan, Vaan Shepard."

He did turn his attention briefly to all the letter recipients, "What did they say?"

[Lea]

"He said we should help you out. That you might be the key to getting us all outta this mess," Lea said, setting his down. "Didn't you also have one for Neku, by the way?" he added, nodding at the orange-haired kid in question. "Sorry, just realized we forgot to introduce him."

[Vaan Shepard]

Vaan's eyes widened and he quickly pulled the letter out from Neku's end and handed it over, "Yeah that would have been great to know first."

Neku's letter was similar to the others:

4

Neku,

First, lets get something outright and in the open: I do not think you're the best leader for the Network. You rely too much on people being there and when the moment comes down to it, you can't rally the lesser Network members at all. I worry your heart is going to get to your head and get everyone killed...however, I suppose that heart is what we're going to need right here and now. My effort to save the Otherborns from extinction may only have been a way to delay it: there is a terrorist, an Otherborn one, I do not know his name yet...but he's making Otherborns look bad - very bad. The boy who gave you this letter is Vaan Shepard, he is a friend of mine - we grew up in the same orphanage. The items he is hopefully now wearing are called the Arms, to make a long story short it is a magical device that has a collection of well known and legendary weapons that famous warriors and infamous demons used. You need to do all you can to guide him, Vaan is the key to getting me out of the situation and maybe past this Fire that is about to rise.

Rally the ones who received the letters and anyone else willing, you're going to need them. This is your chance to prove me wrong about you Neku, use it.

Sora

[Neku Sakuraba]

It wasn't really anything I hadn't heard before. Heck, it wasn't anything I hadn't thought before. I knew I wasn't the right guy for the job when I took it, but someone had to do it. And so... I would get better. Do the best that I could for the Network. For my Network. Because no one else was going to do it.

Come to think of it, I never really needed Sora's approval in the first place. But... no. I had to listen to his advice.

Whatever I might think of his method of opening a letter, the news inside was just plain disturbing. An Otherborn terrorist, a real one. That was not good, especially not now.

I set my letter down, looked up.

"What's the matter, Boss?" Izzy asked, cocking his head, and I shook mine.

"There's evidently a bad apple on the loose," I said. "A terrorist, one of us. It looks like my job's about to get ten times harder."

[Vaan Shepard]

Now that Vaan was certain all letters were open, he finally opened his, unlike all the other letters this one had two simple sentences:

Do you remember that game we used to play? With all those strict rules?

Vaan blinked, that game? What game? Vaan slowly set the letter down and began to think, thinking back to the orphanage...and all the things they did. They played a lot of games...but what game would fit this situation? Rock and Run? No...Kings and Knights? No...

Then it hit him, there was one game they played that may be what he meant. "Guys, I need your letters, give them to me."

[Lea]

"Huh? What's up?" Lea asked, but handed the letter over. "What's yours say?"

[Aqua]

Aqua hands hers back, she had folded it and had been holding it close to her, "Figure something out?"

Namine on the other hand humph and shoves her letter back, "Keep it, lot of good it'll do me anyways." Although she is biting her lip, some shit may be going down and she personally has had enough of this stuff to last her a life time.

[Shiki]

Shiki gave back her letter, raising an eyebrow, and mumbled, "Hope you're not going to read these..."

[Vaan Shepard]

"Sorry Shiki, I sort of have to," he apologized, mumbling an apology as he took Riku's letter from his pocket. He noted the numbers and laid each letter in it's order, taking a small piece of paper he looked at the first letter -Aqua's- and his eyes trailed over the other letters.

A smile cracked over his face and he circled certain letters in the opening of each letter, once he did he wrote them down in the order of the numbers and read out the word it spelled.

"Ascension."

[Lea]

"Ascension?" Lea asked, looking at the word. "What's it mean?" A sharp glance from Neku, and Lea rolled his eyes. "I know what the word means. Just.... what does it mean for us? Why'd Sora send it?"

He tapped his fingers on the table, claws making clicking noises against the wood.

[Vaan Shepard]

Vaan tapped the pencil on the table, trying to figure out if there was something else he missed....

With all those strict rules?

Vaan suddenly remembered a kid at the orphanage like their little word game and created a whole set of rules, the younger ones didn't like it but Vaan and Sora managed to memorize how it works.

Only one way to find out, Vaan recalled how the rules worked and began moving from letter to letter, circling a letter of even a whole word every now and then until he combed through every letter. He looked at his finished sentence, he frowned as he read the completed sentence out loud.

"Ascension for the Otherborn and the fall of humans is inevitable, if the Lebeau family loses all their money."

[Lea]

Lea blinked.

"....What?"