Disclaimer - I do not own Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Disney, or any of the characters these two have spawned.
Warning - Language, blood, gore, good stuff. Just hasn't happened yet. Mostly straight pairings, though some people just HAVE to be gay. Also, I'll warn that this chapter is kinda boring. But hey, it's my first fanfic, I'm allowed to be not so good yet. D: ... I hope. oo Pairings so far: Squinoa. More to come.
Summary - Rinoa's side of the Kingdom Hearts story, told from her and "Leon's" stories beginning after the end of KHII. Rinoa never truly disappeared, and survived much of the years of the Heartless plague. Her luck just keeps her and Squall away from eachother, yet so close without ever realizing the truth...
"Squall!" A high-pitched shriek of a horrified girl broke through the air. But the boy being called for could hardly respond to the immediate cry for help, his unique gunblade simply not slicing through the glowing eyed black masses of bug creatures leaping at him from every direction. They weren't hard to kill, really; it was just the AMOUNT of them. The things were EVERYWHERE. And they clung to him. Squall was quickly becoming infuriated, his usual calm disappearing in the midst of this situation. He saw no positive outcome to this endless battle.
The girl screaming for him shrieked again, and this time Squall could pinpoint where it had come from. The leather-clad boy raced after the sound, going down a hallway towards the Training Center of Balamb Garden. Unfortunately enough this seemed to be exactly where all of the creatures were COMING from. As he ran, more and more black creatures clung to him as though he were a magnet. They were slowing him down tremendously, and every time he sliced one it seemed to make MORE appear. Growling under his breath, Squall looked up ahead of him, seeing if the girl he was trying desperately to rescue was anywhere in sight. "Rinoa, hold on!" he called, though because of his lack of actual yelling in his life, it sounded more like a command.
Led by Rinoa's screams for help, Squall fought his way through half of the circle of the Training Center. The frightening part was that the usual beasts that attacked at random in this wing had vanished, replaced only by these... things. Not even a T-Rexaur could make it's way through these bugs. If those couldn't, then how could he possibly make it through them for much longer?
It appeared he wouldn't have to. As he sliced through another wad of darkness, he saw Rinoa nearly being swallowed by the creatures. The amount clinging to himself was NOTHING to what was attacking and clawing at her. She could barely be seen through them as it was... but as soon as he noticed her, waves more of them attacked himself, putting distanc between himself and her. The girl was struggling against the masses, but was quickly disappearing into the dark black swarm. Her face, or what small glimpses Squall could actually GET of it, looked absolutely terrified. These things they could not defeat, and she had realized that fact long before Squall let himself believe it. he still couldn't let himself believe this situation was hoipeless. Rinoa was crying and in danger, he could not ACCEPT that he couldn't fix this. So he continued in vain to fight the bug creatures.
For each single one he sliced or gunned down, a new wave appeared in it's place. This was a battle, and these things were being controlled from somewhere. They would not know the strategy to defeat him so easily otherwise, they seemed relatively stupid, though harmful, beings. But they were wearing him out, Squall did in fact have a limit. And this battle had been going on for days nonstop now. It started small, with a few of these things. They should have crushed it then. But it grew, and now it was an unstoppable army of them. Not even the leader of this entire squad of SeeD could match it's combined power, though he still fought against the truth. He'd sent most everyone else in his control into different wings to fight the same thing, though reports came through that the ones in the other areas had morphed into bigger, stronger things. Some even had tales of black creatures who's hand was as big as a normal human being. But that was the first few days of this madness. No reports came through anymore.
Squall barely even cared about his duties anymore. All he knew right now was that he had to save her, had to get to Rinoa. They'd been fighting together for awhile now, but had been separated somewhere around a halfhour earlier. And now he needed to be there for her and get her away from these things.
Rinoa was struggling with something other than the bug creatures, though what, Squall couldn't even BEGIN to wonder. With how hard it was to keep attention on her and fight at the same time, all he could notice was that something bad was happening. Something worse than a MONSTER he couldn't defeat. And then it made itself apparant just what was wrong. The dark things were, well, dark, but they were a being. They couldn't destroy EVERYthing. But then, as though they had finally reached some kind of point where there were just the right amount of them to take this world, they began to morph into darkness itself. The world had grown a dark portal-looking parasite that seemed to be EATING the Garden itself from the inside out. And it was growing larger every second, enclosing around the swarm- and Rinoa.
NO, dammit! Squall thought, but said nothing. He clenched his teeth in silent worry and anger, his hope of victory falling severely as his angel began disappearing from his sight. How could he let this be happening? To the Garden, to his friends... to them? He was supposed to be LEADING these people. The others, they were all inside... he'd let them down... they couldn't have survived this. There was no way, as Squall watched the darkness grow before his eyes, that any of his friends had survived. Quistis, Zell, Selphie, even Irvine... all had to be gone by now. Those sections of the building were already dark. Squall only knew because he'd been backed out onto the balcony by the creatures, and all he could see in front of him was a mass of darkness absorbing his home, friends, and girl into itself. And now he had to stand here and watch her die. Watch her be attacked by something he couldn't protect her from... fail her... Squall made one last ditch effort to push towards her, but the creatures held him steadily in place now, even his gunblade was kept relatively motionless.
Rinoa was almost completely taken into the darkness, and she seemed to know what was going on- or at least know that she was about to die. Her screams had stopped, her fighting was to a minimum. She had no chance now to survive; she could FEEL the darkness clawing at her, dragging her down with them. Without thinking on it, the girl tore the necklace she wore always off of her neck, the one with his ring and her own, off. Slipping the bulkier of the two on quickly, Rinoa tossed the other out of the darkness bubble she was being encompassed in. If this was the end, and this was the last thing she'd ever be able to do... or give him... and he could still survive, if he didn't try to save her... then she wanted him to have it. What did she need it? She was about to become one with nothing. But still, her mind couldn't let go of the ring she'd cheated him out of in the first place that he'd just let her keep... it was too precious to her to be let go. Rinoa stopped struggling, knowing the pointlessness of doing so, though time seemed to slow down as her chain soared through the thick air.
Squall caught a glimpse of the shining metal object flying through the air towards him, and fought forward with all of the might he had left in his tired body... just enough to catch the chain with his teeth. Rinoa's ring was still attached to it, luckily enough. "Don't forget!" He heard her usually strong voice call from the darkness bubble, and in any other situation he would have loved to hear that. Rinoa, being her usual self, demanding his attention and obediance, as though she didn't already have it. This time, though, her usual confident, demanding voice was wrought with pain and fear; it didn't sound right at all to him. It made the situation even more real and horrifying than it already was.
And then, just as her face disappeared from his view for what he believed to be forever, the Heartless decided CLINGING to him wasn't much fun anymore. So they did the opposite, and sent him flying from their grasp in the opposite direction of what was once Balamb Garden, away from the center of this world... where he'd been tossed, the Heartless didn't exactly care. From somewhere far away from the dying star of a world, a dark voice muttered it's usual promise as it watched the proceedings as the world's light flickered and died out, one of a long list of worlds soon to do the same.
This world... has been connected...
