Door of twilight, rewrite
Chapter 2
Crossing paths
The rhythmical tapping of a walking stick was the only sound that was heard deep within a cave on a small backwater world. If someone bothered to venture back far enough into the cave, you would see what appeared to be a small camp sight set up. Standing in the middle of the small camp sight was a large person standing at almost ten feet tall, wearing a dark blue cloak, hood covering the person's face. In the person's hand was a large spear, which was currently being used as a walking stick. In the person's other hand was a small crystal orb, which was currently glowing a bright green color.
"It's time," the person, voice easily being recognizable as that of a man's, spoke just above a whisper.
Ever since the fall of Xehanort's heartless, the world of Travers Town had been a fairly peaceful world. Having no real reason to go there, the heartless had mostly stayed away from Travers Town, preferring to go after larger, more populated worlds. It was because of the lack of danger that the people were so startled to see a bright beam of light come crashing down in the middle of the second distract. The people were even more surprised when a human man with long white hair, one black angle wing, and a sword roughly ten feet long rose from the center of the impact zone of said beam of light.
But what surprised people the most is when they actually recognized the man with the wing. It was Sephiroth, the most talented swordsman the Radiant Garden, or almost any other world for that matter, had ever seen. Unsheathing his freakishly long sword from its equally long sheath at his side, Sephiroth raised his blade, the legendary Masamune, into the air above his head. Then, pausing slight for dramatic effect, Sephiroth slowly pointed the blade at a person standing across the Distract.
The person that Sephiroth was pointing at was a woman who looked to be around the age of twenty four, possibility twenty five. She had long black hair that fell down just above her waist, and had very light blue eyes. Her semi-pale skin was brought out by her black knee-length skirt and matching tank top. Over her tank top, she had a long-sleeve, zip-up light blue sweater, that was unzipped, and fell down to around her knees. Upon seeing that the legendary swordsman Sephiroth was pointing his blade at her, the woman started backing up, not knowing the white-haired man's intentions. However, she was stopped when she ran into the cement wall behind her.
In a flash, Sephiroth was lunging at the girl, sword raised over his head for a quick strike. The woman, as well as everyone else in the Distract, was frozen in their place, unable to move. The sound of metal hitting metal could be heard throughout the Distract.
Before Sephiroth knew what had happened, he had one person blocking his sword strike at the woman, and another standing next to him pointing a rife at his head. The person in front of him was a man who looked to be around twenty three years old. He had light blonde hair that was spiked straight up, and light blue eyes. Across the left side of his face was a jagged black tattoo that started on his forehead, arced out, came back in sharply near his eye, and then went straight down towards his jaw. He was wearing a pair of blue shorts, a black t-shirt, and black vest. On each of his hands was a glove, with a metal bar across the knuckles that the man was using to keep Sephiroth's sword from cutting the girl in half.
The other person was also a man who looked to be around twenty six, with auburn hair that was tied back in a ponytail. On the person's head sat a black cowboy hat. The man was wearing a purple t-shirt with a kaki colored long jacket over that, as well as a pair of black jeans, and tan cowboy boots. In the man's hands was a high power double-barreled rifle, with a laser sight and high power scope attached to it.
Upon seeing the two men clearly ready to fight, Sephiroth spoke up. "And just what do you two think you are doing?" Sephiroth said in a slightly smug voice, looking into the eyes of the cowboy. "That's what we should be asking you," The blond spoke up, still holding Sephiroth's blade away from the girl behind him. "Oi, Rinoa, get out of here already." The cowboy spoke up, taking a quick glance at the girl standing behind the blond, Rinoa.
Hearing this, Rinoa's eyes went wide as she stared at the two people in front of her. "You heard Irvine, get going!" The blonde yelled over his shoulder, which caused Rinoa to snap out of her trance-like state, and start running towards the gate that led to the Third Distract. Seeing Rinoa flee, Sephiroth started to chuckle slightly, before turning back towards the two in front of him. "You two are either really full of yourselves, or just plain stupid," Sephiroth said with a slight smirk on his face.
"Go to hell," The cowboy, or Irvine as the blonde had called him, said before he pulled the trigger of his rifle, which caused a thunderous "boom."
"My lord, it is as you predicted: the last of the Chasers are gathering at Disney Castle, and the Key Bearers are currently enroot to said location." The armored dark knight spoke as he bent down to one knee. "Very good, it will not be long before they begin the search for the Lost Two." The booming voice came, again seemingly coming from every part of the room. After waiting a moment to make sure that his master was finished speaking, the knight spoke up once more. "My lord, I have completed the task you have given me, what do you wish me to do?"
"Nothing yet Xan, nothing yet."
Poor Irvine never had a chance. As the rifle's blast came flying out of the barrel, Sephiroth had already been enveloped in an orb of darkness, which dispersed as soon as Irvine's shot made contact with it. Then, still moving at an incredible speed, Sephiroth warped out of the dark portal behind Irvine, thrusting the long blade at said cowboy. Before Irvine knew what had happened, Sephiroth had plunged his blade into the sharp shooter's right shoulder, electing a scream of pain from said person. Then, adding insult, as well as a large dose of pain to the injury, Sephiroth literally lifted Irvine off the ground using the sword that was still impaled in the cowboy's shoulder, and swung his sword in a wide arc, causing the blade to tare out of Irvine's shoulders, sending the cowboy crashing through a near by store window.
"You bastard!" The blonde yelled as he lunged at Sephiroth, pure furry behind his eyes. Raising his right fist, the blond threw a powerful punch at Sephiroth's face, clearly intending to take the swordsman's head off. However, by the time the blonde's fist even came close to Sephiroth's face, the swordsman had already teleported away from the blonde. Hearing the sound of Sephiroth's blade cut through the air behind him, the blonde threw himself to the ground, using a shoulder roll to end up in a crouch. Quickly standing to his feet, the blonde continued to glare at the white haired swordsman.
"I'm going to offer you a way to save yourself a lot of pain: turn around and leave now, and I won't kill you or your rifle wielding friend." Sephiroth said with a slight smirk, as the blonde was clearly getting madder by the minute. "Like hell," The blonde yelled as he rushed at Sephiroth again, attacking with a spinning kick this time. Despite moving at speeds any normal human would have had trouble avoiding, Sephiroth wasn't a "normal" person. By the time the kick was within two feet of Sephiroth, said swordsman had already teleported behind the blonde.
The blonde quickly spun around, expecting to find Sephiroth's Masamune already on a collision course with his body, instead, the blonde found Sephiroth holding his right hand forwards. The blonde got over his initial shock when he saw a dark red light form in the center of Sephiroth's palm, but by then it was too late. A dark crimson flame erupted from Sephiroth's hand, completely engulfing the blonde in the dark magic attack. When the smoke cleared, the blonde slumped to his knees, all while coughing up a large quantity of blood.
Sneering down at the fallen fighter, Sephiroth quickly turned around, before entering another dark portal.
After Irvine and the blonde had screamed for her to run, Rinoa had run as fast as her legs to carry her towards the Third Distract. Trying desperately to block out the sounds of her friends screaming as they battled Sephiroth, Rinoa had only one thought on her mind. Get help. "Irvine, Zell, please be alright," Rinoa thought as she rounded the last corner in the small ally way that lead to the Third Distract. However, she rounded the corner just in time to see Sephiroth emerge from a dark portal, the swordsman already thrusting his long blade at her. Not having time to do anything else, Rinoa closed her eyes and waited for the killing blow to come.
And suddenly found herself flying back into the hard brick wall behind her, without a stab wound anywhere on her body. Let her gaze drift down, Rinoa noticed something strange: she was holding a sword of some type. However, this was by no means an ordinary sword. The blade itself was roughly three and a half feet long, with the hilt adding about another foot in length. The blade consisted of two long, circular bars that ran parallel to each other until the tip of the sword, where they each bent inwards ninety degrees to make a rectangle like shape. Extending from each side of the box like tip were two white angel wings, one branching out off each point where the two bars bent inwards. The hilt was a light gold color, which oddly seemed to go with the solid white blade and angel wings at the top. At the top of the hilt there were two more white angel wings that went out about five inches, then turned ninety degrees and went straight down until the bottom of the hilt, where the bent in another ninety degrees and connected back to the hilt. Dangling from the bottom of the hilt was a small keychain that looked like a solid white heart, with a pair of angel wings coming out of the "back" of the heart.
"Wha-what is this?" Rinoa asked in a state of shock, momentarily forgetting that the only person close enough to hear her was currently trying to kill her. So imagine her shock when Sephiroth answered her. "That would be a Keyblade; a weapon of near limitless power and potential." Sephiroth said as he stared at Rinoa with a cold glare, "A weapon that shouldn't be wielded by children who have never fought a day in their life." Sephiroth said as he raised his Masamune, and thrust it at Rinoa, cutting off whatever she had been planning on saying.
Acting on pure instinct, Rinoa raised her newly acquired weapon up in a clumsy attempt to block the strike. However, she found that it was enough. As soon as Sephiroth's blade was within six inches of Rinoa's body, a bright white field of energy flashed for a brief second, deflecting Sephiroth's attack, and sending Rinoa crashing back into the wall with a thump. "So its true that each Keyblade has a unique ability," Sephiroth said to himself more then Rinoa. Taking several steeps back, Sephiroth raised his blade again, before slashing at Rinoa in a horizontal slash. Again there was a bright energy field that flashed just before the blade hit her, however this time she was thrown back down the ally that she had just ran through to get to where she was now.
As Rinoa flew down the ally, Sephiroth lunged after her, having to thrust his blade straight forwards because of the lack for room in the ally. Hit the energy field with as much strength as he could muster, which was a lot, Sephiroth hit Rinoa's barrier hard enough to send her flying out of the ally, and crash into the brick wall of the lower part of the Second Distract. As Rinoa fell to the ground, Sephiroth walked forwards, casting a quick glance over towards where he had left the blonde, or Zell as Rinoa had called him.
Sephiroth saw a blonde all right, but not the one he was expecting. While Zell was still lying on the ground where he had been before, standing in front of Zell, band-aid wrapped sword in hand, was Cloud. Letting out a chuckle, Sephiroth spoke up, "Well it looks like this is going to be more fun the I thought." Acting on some unknown signal, both swordsmen lunged at each other, freakishly large sword held back ready to strike. However, Cloud was about to learn that something drastic had changed since the last time the two swordsmen had fought.
As the two residents of Radiant Garden rushed towards each other, Sephiroth suddenly accelerated in speed, moving about three times as fast as he was a split second ago. Having been caught off guard, Cloud switched from offence to defense, pushing off against the wall next to him, thus pushing himself to the side, and away from Sephiroth's attack. However, by the time Cloud looked behind him, he saw that Sephiroth was already behind him, launching another attack.
Having no time to bring his sword around to block the attack, Cloud was forced to lean backwards to the point where his feet were off the ground, and he was completely parallel with the ground. As Sephiroth's blade went flying over him, Cloud brought his own sword around to knock the white haired man's to the side. Then, after pulling his legs in close to his torso, Cloud rotated backwards, making a "back flip" of sorts, landing on his feet. Then taking advantage of the opening he had made by knocking Sephiroth's blade to the side, Cloud struck with a quick thrust at Sephiroth's chest.
Cloud was shocked at how fast Sephiroth had managed to move through the dark portal. Sephiroth had disappeared through another dark portal a spilt second after Cloud had launched his attack. Realizing that Sephiroth would most likely take advantage of the fact Cloud was open to a counter attack from behind, Cloud quickly spun around, sword ready to strike. However, he just hadn't been able to move fast enough. Almost as soon as he had turned around, Sephiroth's blade was tearing through Cloud's right shoulder, causing a rather large amount of blood to be sprayed in all directions.
"If I hadn't turned around, that probably would have ended up going through my heart," Cloud thought to himself, still in a slight state of shock. "What the hell is going on? Sephiroth was never this fast before," Cloud thought as a large wave of pain hit him, causing him to have to fight back a scream. With a large amount of difficulty, Cloud lifted his sword back into his battle stance, trying to ignore the red-hot pain coming from his shoulder. "You should really learn when to give up Cloud," Sephiroth said with a sneer of his face as he watched the blonde swordsman struggle to hold his sword.
"Don't forget you could have walked away," Sephiroth said as he swung his sword backwards, then his entire body seemed to disperse into a billion partials of darkness. The next thing Cloud knew, he was on his hands and knees screaming, with blood gushing out of his body from two long cuts, from his waist to shoulders. When Cloud managed to look up again, he saw Sephiroth standing in the same place as a minute ago, smirking at the fallen swordsman. Coughing a large amount of blood up, Cloud could feel his vision going blurry as he stared at Sephiroth.
"Now lets make things a little more interesting," Sephiroth said, trying to hold back a laugh. Walking backwards about twenty feet, Sephiroth held his blade into the air, which promptly started to glow a dark crimson color. Taking a glance back at the burnt Zell, Sephiroth saw that Rinoa had made it over to the blonde during the course of the battle between himself and Cloud. "Will you save yourself, or the girl?"
Taking a glance back at Rinoa with blurring vision, Cloud's eyes widened briefly. "That's…she…Leon." Cloud thought, his body having all but shut down from blood loss. "What the…hell, no…one else…is…going to…do it," Cloud thought as his head slumped down to the ground, eyes closing. Seeing this, Sephiroth continued to sneer at Cloud's fallen form. "Well, looks like you both die," Sephiroth said to himself with a chuckle. However, Sephiroth wouldn't be laughing much longer.
Just before Sephiroth launched whatever attack he had in mind, a powerful energy seemingly erupted from Cloud, who was suddenly surrounded in a light blue aura. Sephiroth was even more surprised when Cloud stood up, blood no longer gushing from his wounds. Holding the Buster Sword over his head with just his right arm, Cloud opened his eyes, which now seemed to be glowing a bright, light blue color. "I'll kill you," Cloud said, his voice sounding like two different people had said it at once.
Once again acting one some unknown signal, both swordsmen brought their swords down, causing a dark crimson and light blue blast of energy to be launched from each respective sword. When the two blasts of energy collided in mid air, there was a flash of light that could have drowned out the sun, along with an ear-shattering explosion. When people could finally see again, what they saw amazed them. A large, twenty by twenty crater was in the middle of the Second Distract, starting right where the two attacks had hit. As for the two people that had launched the attacks, Cloud was lying on the ground, blood once more gushing from his wounds.
As for Sephiroth, he was looking down at the bottom left corner of his leather trench coat, which had been blasted clean off by Cloud's attack. Closing his eyes, Sephiroth reheated his sword, glancing at Cloud's fallen form. "Next time Cloud, next time," Sephiroth said, before opening a dark portal and steeping through it.
END CHAPTER
Man, it took me a lot longer then I thought it would to write this. Anyway, I like the way this chapter turned out, the way it had a more game-ish/anime-ish fell to it. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and your reviews are always appreciated. (I try to respond to every review I get.)