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"Hayner, wait up!" Xion called out as she chased after her boyfriend into the woods.
"Just a little further!" Hayner replied from up ahead. Xion gave follow until eventually she was led into a round clearing in the woods, which had become her and Hayner's favorite spot for practicing struggle.
When she reached the clearing he was waiting there for her, as usual. "Darn it, Hayner" Xion said between breaths, "Do you really have to make a race out of everything?"
"If you were a little faster you'd understand why!" Hayner said. Xion wanted to kiss him just to get that victorious smirk off his face.
"Well, we'll see how well spending all that energy on running serves you when we start our match!" Xion said before lifting her struggle bat, "Are you ready?"
"When am I not ready?" Hayner responded as he lifted up his own struggle bat. He counted down from three and at once the practice match begun, with Xion making the first move as she thrust her bat forward.
Hayner reacted quickly and dodged out of the way, then punished Xion's decision to overcommit with a counterattack to the side, the soft bat tickling her more than anything on impact. Before he could further press his advantage Xion lifted up her bat to block Hayner's next strike, then jumped to the side and landed a hit on Hayner's arm.
Recovering from Xion's successful hit, Hayner stepped back to a safe distance then came running with his struggle bat held high, but just as Xion raised hers to block his attack he crouched down and brought his bat low to hit her leg. Caught off guard, she tried to make distance between them but Hayner had already followed up into a sideways swing which found his bat hitting her side.
Having landed three strikes first, Hayner was the winner of the practice match. He dropped his bat and gave Xion a hand to help her back onto her feet.
"What was that about having spent all my energy?" Hayner said, smirking again as he had done before. Now Xion really wanted to kiss that smirk off his face.
"Oh just be quiet and come here," Xion said before pulling Hayner into a kiss, which he returned as he slid his arms around her back. They continued like that, with Hayner moving a hand up to stroke Xion's hair while she moved her hands up and down his back.
After finishing smooching with Hayner, Xion let go and took a moment to admire him; his smoothed-back blonde hair, his striking brown eyes, toned muscles and good few inches over her... Xion was lucky to have Hayner as her super hot and awesome boyfriend. Even moreso given how popular he was among the girls at school, though that attention died down pretty fast once Xion started dating him and wearing a matching golden X-shaped necklace just to make sure everyone knew who she belonged to.
The couple continued practicing afterwards, and although Xion lost a relatively close second match, the third match ended heavily in Hayner's favor. Not very surprising given that Xion had only taken up struggle that year whereas Hayner had been playing pretty much his whole life, not to mention that Hayner was the best struggle player she knew, even if being his girlfriend made her a little biased.
"One day I'll be as good at struggle as you are, Hayner" Xion said while wiping sweat from her brow, "Then it'll be me with the stupid grin after winning, you just wait!"
Hayner laughed. "Woah, woah! Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, you've still got a long way to go!" Hayner said, amused, "But I know you will after seeing you improve so much, and I can't wait for the day you get there. But I wonder, what'll I do when you've gotten even better than me?"
"When that day comes, you'll bake me a cake!" Xion said, jokingly. Hayner didn't actually know how to bake. "Or, something like that. We'll see some day, right?"
"Right." Hayner said with a nod of his head before taking Xion's hand, the two of them intent on heading back to town.
They were about halfway back to town when a movement of shadow caught Xion's eye. She initially passed it off as the moving of foilage when she saw the shape move from one tree to the next, and when she slowed down her eyes followed it to a closer tree. Finally she stopped to get a better look, and that's when she saw a small, pure-black Heartless emerge from the tree and slowly start advancing towards her and her boyfriend.
"Hayner, over there!" Xion cried out, pointing at the shadowy creature.
"One of them?!" Hayner said as he put a protective step forward, "But I thought they were supposed to be gone from Twilight Town!"
"Hayner, w-what do we do?!" Xion asked in a panic, having instinctively held onto Hayner for protection, her legs beginning to shake.
For the first time ever, Xion began to cower. After the Real Organization's defeat, she wanted nothing more than a simple life as a normal girl, and when she became part of the Twilight Gang and started dating Hayner, she had normal friends and a normal boyfriend. As such she fully gave up her Keyblade and all powers and magics that came with it, after all she never asked for all of the misery that came to her and others from having it, and as long as she possessed it Heartless and other malevolent beings would come after her and put her friends in danger.
But how then, Xion wondered, was she going to keep her friends safe in situations like this, let alone herself, now that she was just an ordinary girl?
"Leave this small fry to me!" Hayner exclaimed, running towards the shadow as it replied in kind.
Part of Xion demanded her to take action, to fight, but she had nothing to fight with. She continued cowering as Hayner ran forward, believing that since she no longer had any capability to fight, she'd only get in the way. She felt like she was in Olette's shoes when Axel came to drag Kairi away, and the helplessness couldn't have felt any better for her either.
Hayner dodged to the side when the shadow jumped at him, then when it tried to regain its footing he ran forward and delivered a swift upward kick, sending the dark creature flying and into a backwards roll.
The shadow rebounded and fled from its combatant and towards Xion, who turned and started to flee despite how much her legs were shaking. That's when Hayner sprinted forward and grabbed the shadow by its arm, shouting "Stay away from my girlfriend!" before swinging it to the side and straight into a tree. The creature hit the tree hard, and faded back into darkness.
"Xion! Are you alright?" Hayner called out as he ran towards her.
"I-I'm fine" Xion said, "I should be asking you if you're alright, that thing could've really hurt you if it got its claws on you!"
Hayner shrugged, "With all due respect Xion, I'll have you know I drop kicked a freaking lord of darkness once. A little squirt like that was nothing in comparison!" he proclaimed. Xion remembered hearing about that; it was so reckless and stupid of him to have confronted someone like Xehanort's Heartless, yet it was so brave of him too...
"As long as you're okay," Xion said, "I'm just... I'm sorry I had no idea what to do..."
Hayner shrugged, "Ah don't worry about it. We're both fine, aren't we?"
"But Hayner, what if I can't--" Xion said before interrupting with a gasp, "Look, behind you! There's more!"
Hayner looked behind him at the soldier heartless, "Aw crap, those guys are too big to deal with both! Come on Xion, we need to run!" He said, taking Xion's hand, "And if anyone asks it wasn't running, it was a tactical retreat!"
And so Hayner and Xion made a tactical retreat, running all the way back to Hayner's house.
Xion plopped down onto the couch and took a moment to catch her breath, "I don't understand," she said, "The Heartless were supposed to be gone from Twilight Town, we shouldn't be seeing them anymore! Why are still here?"
Hayner sat down next to her, "I don't know either, maybe they were just stragglers?" he suggested, "I mean, they were supposed to be locked out of finding their way here but that doesn't mean anything for the ones that already did. That would make sense to me, at least."
"That's possible, but even for the ones wandering around aimlessly, there's nothing I can do about them," Xion said, holding her arms around Hayner and resting her face on his shoulder, "Like earlier, I couldn't do anything other than sit around being useless and getting in your way... I'm sorry, Hayner."
Hayner turned to Xion and held her in return, lifting her head to meet his eyes, "Oh Xion, you're still thinking in terms of how your life was before," Hayner said, "You don't have to be the one who always has to protect everyone else, special powers or no. We're a couple, remember? We'll look out for each other."
Xion could feel Hayner's words in her heart. She wasn't a Keyblade wielder anymore, and not only was it was okay to not be the one in charge of taking everything into her own hands, it was what she wanted. It was okay to be the one getting protected, and who better to protect her than her boyfriend? He'd look after her when she needed it, and she'd look after him when he needed it...
Tears started filling Xion's eyes. She tightened her arms around Hayner into a big hug, which he returned by holding her closer. "Thank you, Hayner. I... I needed that."
"I'm just being there for my girlfriend like any good boyfriend would," Hayner said with satisfaction, making Xion smile. They stayed like that for a while longer before Hayner said "You know, since we're already cuddled up on the couch together, why don't we put on a movie?"
"I would like that." Xion said, her expression brightened. Hayner nodded and stood up to fetch snacks for the movie, but not before taking off his vest and helping put it onto Xion. It felt warm and reassuring and simply right on her.
While her boyfriend scavenged around the kitchen, Xion grabbed her phone and sent a text to Roxas and Kairi telling them about the stray creatures lingering around Twilight Town and asking if they could help. They were quick to agree to deal with the problem as soon as possible, which was a relief knowing no more of her dates with Hayner would get interrupted by a bunch of unasked for weirdness.
Hayner returned and put the snacks on the table in front of the couch before sitting down next to Xion. She gave him a quick kiss as thanks for the snacks, and when he started the movie she leaned against him as he held her close to his side with an arm around her. No longer was her mind clouded with worry and uncertainty, instead she felt content to simply enjoy a quiet and ordinary evening with her boyfriend. It was the sort of thing she had always wanted, after all.