If One More Shows Up
By Rhino7
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. I don't normally write missing scenes, but this one was just nagging at me. During the raid before the 1000 Heartless, Cloud and Leon are back to back and fighting in relatively the same zone. But in the next scene, ol' Seph shows up and causes a tiff and Leon is nowhere to be seen. This bugs me because if he got wind of a winged, silver haired guy running around with a super-long sword, he'd investigate. So…tada…
..:--X--:..
"You think you can handle this many?"
"Well…it might be tough if one more shows up."
"Then that will have to be the one I take care of."
"What, you're fighting too?"
Leon grunted at that.
Both soldiers paused a beat, and then in unison launched forward, slashing at the surrounding Heartless. The monsters in this sector were grunts, small fry compared to the larger Heartless running amok in the Bailey and the Marketplace. Merlin and Cid were supposed to be holding down the fort there, though.
Leon blasted a fireball at two nearing Heartless and watched them explode in flames, disappearing. Turning back slightly, he saw Cloud vanish around the corner, in pursuit of the larger Heartless filling the rocky corridor. Letting him to it, Leon headed North on the Ravine Trail, slicing through all the Heartless in range.
It seemed like for every three he cut through, another five appeared.
Where were all these Heartless coming from?
Wham!
If the blow hadn't caught the blunt side of the gunblade, Leon knew it would have sliced him straight through. Instead, the force of it knocked him off his feet, skidding into the rocky wall of the Ravine Trail. Gathering his wits quickly, Leon got up on one knee and turned to face his attacker.
"If you knew what was good for you, you would stay down." The cool voice remarked.
Leon found himself face to face with a wall of black and purple feathers. He stood completely and backed up a step. "Who are you?" He demanded.
In hindsight, that was a really dumb question. Silver hair, long sword: it pretty much fit the description Cloud had rattled off around town. Strife had never mentioned wings…a pretty defining characteristic, really.
"What are you doing here?" He grunted, gripping the hilt of the gunblade.
Sephiroth ignored the question and was already walking away. Leon bristled and looked down at the rock abrasions burned into the skin of his upper arm. This mysterious man…creature…wasn't a Heartless, but he was still a threat to Radiant Garden.
Narrowing his eyes, Leon grasped the gunblade with both hands and charged at the winged man. Just as he pulled into a swing, Sephiroth turned abruptly and caught the gunblade against the masamune. Leon skidded to a stop and before he could readjust, Sephiroth shoved him back. The length of the masamune screeched across the gunblade with enough force to drive Leon off his feet.
Leon allowed himself to fall back, rolling into a backward somersault and ending up on his feet again, gunblade lifted. Sephiroth saw that this one was going to be a problem and squared his shoulders, deciding to engage Leon fully in order to get rid of him more quickly.
"Apparently you don't know what's good for you." Sephiroth said coolly.
"I'm a slow learner." Leon snarled, lifting the gunblade and attacking again.
It was an aggressive, forward slash. The silver haired man deflected it with an almost effortless motion. Leon side stepped to keep his balance and pulled his blade away from the other man's sword, slinging the gunblade around to connect squarely with Sephiroth's hip.
Soundlessly, Strife's nemesis disappeared in a purple flash accompanied by a few black feathers. Leon staggered, the tip of the gunblade flirting with the ground as he looked around. Strife hadn't mentioned anything about teleportation. Grinding his teeth, Leon turned in a terse circle, scoping out the area. This changed his whole fighting strategy.
He barely registered the soft flurry of wings behind him before the masamune sliced across his back, the blade carving a deep line from his left hip to his right shoulder. The force behind the attack knocked Leon off his feet and sent him hurtling into the air.
Most people drop things when they're shocked. Leon was one of those whose grip tightened. It had been trained into him. So as blood flew off his back and he tumbled into the air, his knuckles went white around the handle of the gunblade and he straightened himself out, reorienting himself in the air. He pulled the maneuver off just in time to meet the ground.
Having braced himself for the impact, Leon exhaled rather than have the wind forced out of his lungs as he slammed into the stone earth. That didn't stop several ribs from groaning and cracking and he rolled sharply from his stomach to bloody knees, his jaw bleeding from face planting and tasting blood from biting his tongue.
The winged demon was halfway across the Ravine Trail from Leon now. His lips were moving but Leon couldn't make out his words. He forced himself back up to his feet, resetting his stance and gripping the gunblade with both hands. Sephiroth dropped his arm from his beckoning gesture, triggering whatever incantation he'd been spouting.
It felt as though all of the strength had been drained from Leon's body. His knees wobbled and he locked them to remain upright even as his fingers wavered on the warm steel of the gunblade. His vision slurred and he blinked repeatedly to try and clear it. Sephiroth was coming in for another blow. Leon retreated one step, loading up for a counter attack and holding his weapon aloft.
He blocked just as Sephiroth slashed with his ridiculously long sword. Leon threw his weight into the block and shoved Sephiroth back. The winged man gave an inch and then pulled into a lightning fast upper cut. Before Leon could prepare for the next attack, the masamune's blade connected with Leon's knee, tracing a red path up his thigh and slicing across his torso.
Grunting in pain, Leon drove the gunblade up, glancing off the hilt of the masamune and drawing both warriors into close combat. Leon found himself staring up into the icy jade pools of Sephiroth's eyes. With an expressionless composure, the taller man gripped the handle of the gunblade and wrenched it out of Leon's grip.
"You are a persistent one." He hissed. "But you should have just stayed down."
With that, he threw his shoulder against Leon, who was now unarmed. He staggered one step away and Sephiroth unfurled his wing at him so that the rigid bones and feathers caught him in the midriff, sending him to the ground again. Leon rolled twice, blood splattering to the stone as his wounds were stretched farther open.
Then, like a vice, something coiled around his chest. Feeling the invisible tendrils constricting his torso, Leon struggled in vain as Sephiroth's magic lifted him off the ground and slammed him into the rock wall of the Ravine Trail like a ragdoll. Instead of surrendering him to gravity and letting him crumple to the ground, Sephiroth held Leon with his back against the wall with his magic.
The younger man, bleeding and feeling any unbroken ribs beginning to fracture under the pressure of the stone wall, spat out a mouthful of blood and glared across the gap to Sephiroth, who pointed masamune at him daringly. The gunblade was angled toward the ground in his other hand.
Disgusted that the bastard was touching HIS weapon, Leon writhed against the magic pinning him to the wall, his boots dangling six inches from the ground. The effort was useless and only served to exhaust him further. His vision began to tunnel and then Sephiroth was directly in front of him.
Without a word, the winged man grabbed Leon by the throat and pulled him forward before bodily slamming him against the rock wall again. Light exploded across Leon's fading vision and all of his limbs twitched. The blunt force trauma sent an echo of pain ballooning over Leon's head and crashing over his shoulders, lighting every nerve on fire.
Then he was free and his opponent was gone. Leon slid down the rock wall, boots contacting the ground. His legs folded under him and he collapsed in a heap to the earth. The wounds on his back and across his midsection stretched and more blood stained the blue-purple stone under his body. Lying on his side, Leon grunted, nauseated at the coppery liquid coating his teeth.
He rolled onto his stomach and managed to get his arms under him, levering himself up to his elbows. It was as far as he got. Shoulders unable to stay straight, he sank back slowly to his chest and turned his face away from the rock wall, where his blood stained his descent from the middle of the wall to the ground. Yellow spots danced across his sight and he blinked several times in rapid succession. He was barely able to make out the broad side of the gunblade, standing upright just two meters in front of him, its tip ground into the stone.
Coughing and feeling the movement make his ribs shudder, Leon tried and failed again to push himself up. The right side of his vision was tunneling again and his palms slipped on the bloody surface of the rock. He dropped to his belly again and this time didn't rise.
"Oh! Leon!"
He didn't respond immediately, shifting his knee to push himself back onto his side. When he did open his eyes forcefully, Tifa was skidding to a stop in front of him and dropping to her knees. Her face was all horror and wide, hazel eyes.
"What happened?" She asked, but her lips' movement wasn't matching her words.
"Silver…" Leon managed in a garbled mess of words. "Cloud…"
Something flickered behind Tifa's eyes. "Sephiroth."
Letting his eyes fall closed again, Leon tried to focus on taking in enough oxygen to stay conscious. It hurt like Hell…not that he'd ever admit that aloud. He settled for clenching his jaw…hard.
"Here." Tifa was saying.
Cool liquid splashed against his chest and over his head and then against his back. The elixir bubbled and spread over his wounds, stitching the skin back together and mending the broken bones immediately. His vision cleared and his nerves all came back to life and alertness with stunning clarity.
The feeling of massive blood loss lingered, however, and Leon could do little but roll onto his back. He felt shamefully weak and vulnerable, feelings he'd sworn to never experience again. His vision started to go hazy again, but Tifa flattened her palm over his chest, drawing him back to reality.
"Hey, are you with me?" She snapped.
"Yeah." He ground out hoarsely.
"Okay, good." She hooked one arm under his shoulder and physically dragged him over to the rock wall, propping him up against it.
Leon's eyes fell open to see Tifa wrench the gunblade out of the stone ground and carry it over, setting it beside him so he could defend himself.
"Cid is on his way." She was explaining. "Which way did Sephiroth go?"
Leon tilted his head against the rock wall, fighting his body's demand to black out. "Ravine…Cloud…" He swallowed, his breath hitching slightly in his throat. "Go get the bastard."
"Right. Stay here and hold on. Cid's coming." With that, she stood and gave chase in the direction Cloud had gone and presumably the way Sephiroth had followed.
Leon watched her dart around the corner and out of view. Oh, this sucked so much ass. If this battle could go any more wrong, he wasn't sure how—
A soldier Heartless morphed into shape in front of him. Didn't that just ironic the shit out of Strife's earlier line about 'one more' showing up?
"Oh come on." Leon groaned, heaving the gunblade across his knees and hoping the show of attacking would scare the thing in Tifa's direction so it could get its skull bashed in.
The hope was unnecessary though, as the Heartless exploded into blackness with a bullet from Cid's pistol. The older man hurried into the wake of the Heartless's demise and scanned the area for more threats.
"You bleeding anywhere?" He asked gruffly.
"No. Tifa healed me…Took off after Strife and that winged bastard." Leon growled, lifting an arm.
Cid swore and shoved his gun into his side holster, grasping Leon's arm and pulling him to his feet. Leon swayed and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. Cid snatched the gunblade away and moved under Leon's shoulder, pulling his arm across his shoulders to keep him from falling over.
"Come on, soldier. Merlin's got a blood replenishing cocktail with your name on it." Cid said, assisting him up to the Bailey and to the old sorcerer's house.
"But—"
"Cloud's a big boy; he can handle that Sephiroth character. Not that you're not a big boy too." Cid snorted. "Maybe finally running into the fucker will get Blondie to shut up about it."
Frowning on default, Leon let Cid help him into Merlin's house, where the tottery sorcerer just shook his head, made fretting noises, and whipped up a container of the special post-battle cocktail for him. Cid snuck a decent portion of whiskey into it also and that made a lot of difference for calming his nerves.
As the drink worked its magic, Leon changed into clothes that weren't bloody and shredded and took up the gunblade, standing and marching out of Merlin's house as soon as he was steady enough. If Cloud and Tifa didn't finish that bastard off this time, Leon promised himself he'd be ready for round two.