I... I can't really think of anything to say today... except that even though this is the twelfth chapter of Light's Growth, in reality it is the seventy-fifth chapter of The Annals of Darkness. So congrats, you're reading seventy-five chapters in!
Oh wait, I was wrong. Scotland's Rink led by their Skip, David Murdoch, defeated the Canadian Rink led by Skip Kevin Martin in the 2009 Ford Men's World Curling Championships 8-6 on the final rock in the tenth end on Easter Sunday. Congratulations Scots! If there was ever a team that I'd want to beat Team Canada, it's you guys!
And I also apologize for the delay. I know that I said either Easter Sunday or Easter Monday, but I failed to reach both. The chapter grew longer, much longer, than I had anticipated, and I misplaced not one, but two crucial pen and paper documents for the story that I had foolishly not yet transferred onto the computer. (Bows head) Gomenasai!
But, we get something cool... so catch the reference(s) if you can!
WARNING! This chapter is the true first reason as to why we are now rated 'M'. Anti is the first thing that made me want to rate it 'M' in the first place. Anti-Form's personality and behaviour in this story is one of the real 'M' reasons! Roxas and Naminé's earlier swearing bout was just a precursor.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is not original in this fanfic.
-A-D-
Light's Growth
Chapter XII: To the Ford of Bruinen
"Sora?" Kairi asked with her eyes in with terror at the person in front of her. The smile he was sending her way made her feel frightened, and quite vulnerable.
"In a way," he answered, his voice different from the one she was accustomed to hearing leave Sora's lips. It was of a higher pitch than Sora's regular voice, and seemed maniacal in its nature. He grinned and began to walk towards her slowly, and she backed away herself with every step he took, the Oblivion darkly reflecting the light from the fire where the hobbits were still huddled. "You see Kairi," he continued, "I am Sora."
Kairi shook her head slowly. "No," she said, but her declaration sounded feeble in her own ears.
He laughed. "But I am your highness," he mocked, sweeping down in a bow while continuing towards her. "I am the darkness within Sora's heart. I am what he calls his Anti-Form. In that way, I am a part of Sora, so I am him."
Kairi stumbled slightly on the slope of the dell as she backed away from Anti. Menelmon and Aiwemon flew up in front of her, halting Anti-Form in his tracks. "Don't come any closer Keys!" Menelmon cried, to the amazement of the hobbits.
Anti-Form laughed again as Kairi regained her footing and held the Oathkeeper out in front of her, pointing it at Anti-Form from between both Rookie-level digimon. "Or what?" he asked tentatively, taking a step forward. They all backed away again and he proceeded. "Or you'll attack me?" he mused. "You'd attack your beloved Sora?"
His eyes flashed blue and his body flickered back into the Sora's that they knew for an instant before returning to the black body and yellow eyes that was Anti-Form. Kairi's grip on her Keyblade became shaky and Aiwemon and Menelmon looked anxiously at each other as they hovered in front of Kairi.
"Sora?" Kairi whispered, her indigo eyes blurry with moisture. Anti-Form smirked wider and the Oblivion that he carried lashed out faster than any of them could react, striking the sides of both Aiwemon and Menelmon and knocking them away to the ground. "Menelmon!" Kairi shrieked, watching her partner fall to the ground.
"You know," Anti-Form said lightly, looking fondly at the dark Oblivion as Kairi's eyes turned back to him more fearfully than when she had faced Maleficent, "every other time that I was able to take control from him when he was Driving, I hadn't been able to use these. I had to use these!"
Kairi cried out as he abruptly swapped the Keyblade from his right hand to his left and swiped at her face with his now empty hand. She lost her grip on the Oathkeeper and collapsed onto the ground, her cheek stinging with pain. Something wet began to dribble down her cheek, and red liquid glistened on Anti's black gloved hand.
"I had forgotten how good it felt to do that," he said insanely, licking Kairi's blood off of his glove. Kairi gasped in sickened terror at the being in front of her. This...thing was inside of Sora, this was a part of Sora?
He looked at her again and Kairi flinched and drew back in a primal defensive gesture into the slope. Anti-Form's voice filled her ears with its insane laughter again, and it brought more despair to her heart. "You know, I'm very glad you survived when I tried to choke you Kairi," he said, approaching her fallen form again. "And yes," he said when he saw her freeze, "that was me you saw and felt when the darkness from Maleficent's blade stuck Sora. And you saw what happened when you destroyed my arm, you destroyed your precious Sora's arm as well!" Kairi watched him, frozen in fear, as he stabbed the Oblivion into the ground and threw off the obsidian cloak, jacket, sweater, and linen shirt before pulling off both gloves. The automail was completely revealed and was as dark as a shadow in a moonless night, reflecting Kairi's own terrified eyes back at her. The skin and hairs of his chest were completely black, but as he removed each article of clothing it returned to its previous colour, having left the darkness of the evil body behind.
Another cry of pain left Kairi's mouth as she was suddenly backhanded by the metal limb. And Anti laughed again, "But I have to thank you Princess Kairi, for the gift of this wonderfully powerful limb. Sora is a fool, he doesn't know how to properly use everything he has; from his power... to his woman!" He raked Kairi's face again, this time with the claws that came out of his right hand.
Her other cheek was bleeding now and he stood above her, and he smiled wickedly as the girl's blood dripped off of his claws. "You know," he said, slowly, and in a tone of voice that frightened Kairi even more, "I had planned on raping you until you were unable to move like the filthy whore you know you are and making you declare yourself to be my little slut and mine alone, but since you look so cute and sexy bleeding like that, I think I'll just kill you now."
"You're sick!" Kairi yelled, finally recovering her powers of speech.
Kairi flinched as the Oblivion appeared in his right hand again and he held it towards her throat, a serious look taking hold of his face for the first time.
"You want to die?" he asked, his voice low and his eyes cold and unfeeling. Kairi stayed silent for a few seconds and only stared blurrily up into those yellow eyes, completely frozen in place. She didn't know what to do! Everything seemed so distant and hopeless. He held her life in his hands, and there was nothing that she could do to stop him.
"Ice Feathers!" Menelmon cried. "Keen Sight!" Aiwemon yelled at the same time.
Anti-Form turned around at the sound of their voices and deked out of the way of the male digimon's attack, but three of Menelmon's feathers pierced his side and he winced only slightly, glaring at the digimon as thick drops of blood oozed out from between the freezing feathers.
"You pesky birds!" he roared, swinging the Oblivion at the two flying digimon. Tiny purple meteors blazed out of his Keyblade and swerved towards both hovering Rookies. But Aiwemon and Menelmon were both too small and too good with their wings to be hit by his attack, and they weaved out of the path of every single missile as Anti-Form continued to swing his blade towards them, unleashing wave after wave of the dark projectiles.
"Keen Sight!" Aiwemon yelled again, his eyes glowing a violent electric blue.
"No Aiwemon!" Kairi screamed frantically, "STOP!"
Aiwemon blinked for a second and his eyes returned to their normal colour. Unfortunately in the moment of his confusion, he was struck by one of Anti's dark blasts, and crashed to the ground.
"Why Kairi?" Menelmon asked loudly, concerned for her friend but still dodging the relentless blasts of dark energy.
Kairi looked down and nearly sobbed, her eyes stuck on the splotches of red blood on the ground, lit dramatically by the light of the fire. "You'll hurt Sora," she answered quietly. Menelmon looked at her in shock, and suddenly she too was struck down, in the back.
"Menelmon!" Kairi cried, looking towards her fallen partner. Both digimon were down on the ground, struggling to get back to their feet by feebly pushing up with their wings.
"Just you and me now again Iri," Anti said, his yellow eyes glistening mysteriously, mocking her with the special nickname Sora called her.
"Don't call me that," Kairi said quickly, her voice gaining a little strength as she held her hands out in front of her. Bright light began to shine in her palms and Anti laughed again at the determined look on Kairi's face as she stared at him.
"Go ahead Kairi," he urged, smiling cruelly at her. "Go on. Use your light against me. You saw what it did last time. Attack me with it; destroy me with it. I'll be gone forever. But not only that," he added, seeing Kairi's resolve to strike him with her light strengthening, "if you kill me now, you'll also kill your dear Sora!"
Kairi felt her limbs freeze again and the light that was glowing from her hands dimmed and flickered for a moment before dying out as her heart became clenched by fear. She couldn't do it. She knew that she wouldn't ever be able to attack Anti-Form if she'd be hurting Sora too; and after what she'd done the last time, she didn't know if she'd be able to go on.
"I can't," she sobbed, her tears finally falling down her cheeks, stinging the wounds on both sides of her face and mixing with the blood that still leaked out.
Anti looked at her in disdain as her arms were still extended towards him. "Why you still doing that Kairi? Do you not want those hands anymore?" Kairi gasped as her eyes noticed that the Oblivion was darting towards her. Kairi jammed her eyes shut and readied herself for the sudden excruciating pain that would be imminent.
But the pain didn't come. For several long seconds, the pain didn't come.
Kairi looked up and opened her eyes, surprised to see Anti standing ridged in front of her. A voice, Sora's voice, filtered into Kairi's mind.
No, he said, I won't—I won't let you hurt Kairi like that!
"Shut up you!" Anti snarled. "This body is mine now. Do you hear me? MINE!"
You're wrong Anti! Sora retorted. This is my body, and you—can't—HAVE IT!
Anti gave a sudden shrill cry and reared his head back like he was in pain. Slowly his body began to lighten and gain colour, and the cry became deeper until it was Sora standing and yelling in front of Kairi. The Oblivion became the silver sabre Keyblade Remembrance once again, and Sora fell onto his knees, dropping his weapon and letting it vanish. He was sweating terribly and his naked chest was rising and falling slowly, blood still coming out of the three feathers that were stuck in his left side. Kairi's eyes strayed over his automail towards his right shoulder, noticing a dark wound there, before resting on his tired cerulean-blue eyes. He looked at her remorsefully for a second before glancing around.
"Kairi," he began, "Aiwemon, Menelmon, Merry, Pippin, Sam... I'm sorry." He groaned suddenly and collapsed onto his right side, unconscious.
"Sora..." Kairi whispered, her eyes widening, "SORA!" She dashed towards him and propped his shoulders and head up in her arms and lap. Menelmon and Aiwemon limped towards him as he lay across her, unconscious.
"Keys..." Menelmon muttered sadly, her wing straying over his face. Kairi sobbed for a second, but took a little bit of comfort that he was back to normal for now. She looked towards the hobbits for a second, and the three of them looked nervously back at Kairi. She shook her head and glanced back at Aiwemon and Menelmon.
"Come on," she said, "let's get him closer to the fire."
The three of them brought Sora towards the heat and light of the fire, and Kairi plucked Menelmon's three feathers that had pierced Sora's side out. His automail glimmered in the firelight, drawing looks of anxious awe from the hobbits. Kairi looked towards their packs and called, "Jiminy! Do we have any elixirs?"
The cricket popped out of his hiding spot in the pack and looked towards them, again surprising the hobbits. "Oh dear!" he exclaimed, hopping out and running past the fire towards them. "What happened to you guys?" He started for a second. "Why is Sora's automail showing, and why are you and Menelmon both out here Aiwemon?"
"It looks like the Anti-Form Sora told me about came out," Kairi said sadly, glancing down at him.
"Looks like it?" Menelmon said reproachfully. "Kairi look at your face! Keys would never do that to you."
Jiminy looked sombrely at Sora. "Oh, so he's showing himself again is he?" Jiminy sighed. "I'll look around in the packs and bring you any if I find one. I think all we have are potions and ethers though."
"Thanks Jiminy," Aiwemon said appreciatively, rubbing his eyes with a wing while he looked at Sora. "Why didn't he tell me about this?" he whispered quietly, placing his white head down on his partner's chest, bare except for the now muted Crest of Valour and Sora's silver crown pendant.
Kairi looked around for a moment, and suddenly frowned. She looked at the hobbits, who did not seem quite as anxious now. "Where's Frodo?"
"He is here." Kairi and the two digimon looked up to see Strider coming back with the missing hobbit unconscious like Sora in his arms. Frodo was clutching something tightly in one hand, and Strider held the hobbit's sword underneath Frodo in one of his hands.
"Kairi I found one!" Jiminy said excitedly, popping out of Sora's pack. He spotted Strider and Strider spotted him, giving the cricket a curious look while he placed Frodo down by the fire. Strider's grey eyes looked towards Aiwemon and Menelmon for a brief second, and then Kairi's Keyblade as it still lay exactly where she had dropped it against the side of the dell. He held his curious gaze on Sora's automail longest of all and watched as Jiminy slowly came towards Kairi while carrying a bright golden bottle, looking anxiously at Strider the whole time. She took it from the cricket and looked up at Strider, her eyes pleading him to not ask any questions right now.
"Pile the fire high, and keep them warm," he instructed them before vanishing into the night. Kairi looked away from where Strider disappeared and towards the elixir in her hands. She looked at it for a second before a sound of angered sadness slipped out of her lips. Kairi took the golden stopper off the top of the bottle and looked inside at the golden liquid, swirling it around a little.
Kairi turned to look at Sora's unconscious face. He was breathing slowly and rhythmically, but his expression was that of pain. Blood was still oozing slightly out of the feather wounds, and the spot where he had been stabbed in his right shoulder was dark and also bleeding, but only just. She shuffled a little closer to his head and with one hand propped it up. She knew that the hobbits were looking at her and her gathering strangely, even as they tended to Frodo, but Kairi ignored them as she spoke softly, "Drink up Sora." She tipped the elixir bottle's mouth onto Sora's and the golden liquid began to flow over his tongue. Surprisingly, the liquid went smoothly down his throat and he unconsciously swallowed it until Kairi stopped pouring. She looked back into the bottle after she had stopped, placing his head down onto her lap while doing so. There was still about a quarter of it left.
Kairi made a face and braced herself for what it would taste like. The princess was confident that if it was anything like a potion, she'd feel horrible with the taste of it in her mouth until she'd be able to wash it all out with water from her canteen. Kairi tipped her head back and downed the last bit of the elixir down. Her eyes widened in surprise as the golden serum touched her tongue. It was warm, and held the sweet taste of honey, but it was also fiery like a hot pepper.
Kairi coughed a little bit from the bite it had after she had finished the last mouthful of the elixir. Already she could feel her cheeks growing warm from its healing properties and the skin around the cuts began to itch some. She resisted the urge to touch them as her body suddenly became flooded with a wave of energy that stole all the weariness and tiredness that had accumulated since she had woken up in the morning. Instead, she reached for her canteen and drank a long draught from it.
Kairi placed her canteen back on the ground beside her and gave the empty elixir bottle to Jiminy. He took it and looked solemnly between Kairi and Sora as his head lay upon her lap. Jiminy hopped on back to Sora's pack and placed the empty bottle back inside of it.
Merry and Pippin got up, to Kairi's immediate surprise and worry. But she needn't have done so as Pippin went into the darkness and helped Aiwemon and Menelmon in retrieving the clothing that Anti-Form had discarded from Sora's body while he had had control, and Merry set about putting more wood on the fire. Wordlessly, the one hobbit and two digimon brought back the articles and helped Kairi place Sora's jacket and cloak over him again. Jiminy emerged again from Sora's pack, struggling to drag the teen's blanket back with him. Merry (who was nearest), took the blanket from Jiminy and began to move to where Kairi was.
"Thanks," Jiminy said, looking up gratefully at the hobbit. The corners of Merry's mouth twitched up into a smile for a second before he handed the blanket to Kairi.
"Here," he said, finally becoming the first hobbit to speak since Pete made his appearance earlier. Kairi took it and smiled slightly, laying it over Sora along with his jacket and cloak.
"Thank you Merry," she said quietly, "and you too Pippin." All was silent for a minute before Kairi sighed heavily and hung her head in one hand. "I guess you have no reason to trust us now, with us hiding so much from you all." She glanced at Sam particularly while she said this, and his eyes were once again looking at her and Sora, and their new companions, with distrust.
"Well we did find you a bit odd," Pippin said, trying to lighten the dark mood for a moment. "But at least the secrets aren't dark secrets. Are they?" he asked Merry in a whisper.
Merry was about to open his mouth to answer when they heard a groan. Sora's head moved from side-to-side for a few seconds and his eyelids flickered open. He winced as the firelight struck them, but after a few moments Kairi was able to see the cerulean blue of them clearly. "Kairi?"
She smiled softly and noticed that her eyes were growing blurry again. Kairi gave a tiny nod as Sora raised his left hand up to touch her right cheek, his metal fingers running along the tracks of the dry blood. Kairi placed her hand over his and pressed the steel closer over the repaired cheek. "How you feeling?" she asked concernedly.
She saw Sora gulp anxiously. "Guilty," he answered, gently rubbing a tear that had fallen down Kairi's cheek away with his thumb. "Guilty for letting him do that to you, and call you those things."
"I'm fine Sora," Kairi answered, placing his hand down and shaking her head slightly. "Worry about yourself now." Sora looked away from her, his face pensive and lost in thought.
Jiminy sighed audibly and took his top hat off to wipe his forehead. "Well, we're certainly in a pickle this time Sora." Sora looked at him, surprised that the Royal Chronicler was out in the open. Aiwemon slowly came closer to the side of Sora's head and nuzzled his cheek comfortingly. He smiled slightly and moved his shoulder to let Aiwemon in underneath him, but gasped nearly as soon as he began to move it. His left hand flew to the place where the Rider's knife had stabbed him and he sat up quickly, his face twitching in pain as his blanket, cloak, and jacket fell off of him.
"What is it?" Pippin asked concernedly.
Sora blinked and stared at the hobbit. "You're speaking to us?"
Pippin shrugged. "There is no point not too," he said. "We've been travelling together since Bree, and we still have a long way to go by what Strider has told us." Sora continued to stare at Pippin for a few seconds and then he smiled slightly. Sora's gaze fell onto his shoulder and he lost his smile.
"It hurts," he whimpered.
Kairi felt her face go funny for a second, and she placed a clenched hand to her chin for a moment before bursting out into giggles. Sora looked at his girlfriend, affronted, but no words were able to escape from his flabbergasted lips. "Is that all you can say?" she asked, smiling. "That being stabbed hurts? Let's see, you've been: shot, pummelled, electrocuted, burned, cut, bashed, whipped, bitten, pierced by feathers now, and thrown into buildings."
Sora frowned at Kairi. "And what about you, my princess? I can remember a little of your not-so-spotless record: whipped, cut, electrocuted, ravaged by darkness, scratched, shot by an arrow, slammed into buildings, choked, and nearly drowned."
"Don't bring that one up," Kairi said quickly. She shivered and could almost feel the Kraken's tentacles around her body once more. They both paused and looked at each other. "Wow," Kairi muttered in realization, "we sure are reckless aren't we?"
"All because of our line of work," Sora sighed, looking at his shoulder again. He only now noticed something. "Wait a second, why am I shirtless?"
All of them started suddenly as Frodo sat bolt upright. "What has happened?" he asked wildly. "Where is the pale king?"
Sam's face beamed at his master. "Oh bless me you're awake!" he cried happily, laughing in joy. Merry and Pippin too came to Frodo, intensely glad that he had woken up at last, and Sora and Kairi couldn't help but smile weakly at the hobbit themselves even though both of them and their digimon had also been hurt.
Frodo looked at Sora and Kairi after gathering as much information as he could from Sam about what had happened since the vague shadowy shapes (as he had seen them) came into the dell, with Sam not telling him what had happened between Sora and Kairi and the other creatures, and Frodo's eyes swiftly passed from them to the two birds and cricket dressed in a tailcoat and top hat, to Sora's automail left arm.
"What happened to your arm Sora?" he asked, his gaze fixed on the steel appendage.
The fivesome sighed and hung their heads. "We'll explain later," Sora said quietly. "We'll explain everything later after Strider has come back."
"You should start explaining now," Sam said crossly, folding his arms and looking at them all. Clearly he was having doubts about them again.
There was a sudden sound from the other side of the dell and Sam and Kairi both stood quickly and protectively over their charges. Sam drew his sword (it was a dagger, but to a hobbit it was a sword), and the Oathkeeper vanished from where it had lain abandoned and reappeared in Kairi's hands as she called out, "Who's there?"
Strider appeared in the firelight and swiftly bypassed them to kneel at Frodo's side. "I am not a Black Rider," he said gently, "nor am I in league with them. I have been trying to discover something of their movements, and more about their companion Pete; but I have found nothing. I cannot think why they have gone and do not attack again. But there is no feeling of their presence anywhere at hand."
"That is good," Frodo said quietly. Strider looked at him curiously and Frodo began to tell them all of what had happened to him. He told them that he had been overcome by a desire to put on a ring, and that when he had all around him had become dim and dark, but that he could see the shadows underneath their cloaked wrappings with terrible clarity. He did not describe to them what they looked like underneath, but they must have been terrible. The lead one he said bore a crown upon its helm, and in his hands it bore a sword and a knife. Both the knife and the hand that held it glowed with a pale light. Frodo had drawn his sword and slashed at the foot of the figure, and then he felt a pain like a dart of poisoned ice pierce his left shoulder. It was after that that he saw Strider, Sora, and Kairi, both teens glowing brightly with an intense light that confused him, rushing forward with weapons in hand, and he was at last able to slip the ring he had put on off of his finger before he lost consciousness.
After Strider had heard what Frodo had to say, he looked to Sora's right shoulder and found the wound he had been stricken with. "I got stabbed by the same knife," Sora said, watching Strider's face anxiously as the Ranger noted that the skin had not yet healed over this wound while the ones on his side from Menelmon's attack had already closed thanks to the elixir.
He rose with a grave expression on his face and ordered Merry and Pippin to heat as much water in their kettles and to bathe both Frodo's and Sora's wounds with it. "Keep the fire going well, and keep them both warm!" he said. "Kairi, Sam, come here a moment." Kairi looked at Sora for a second before he nodded at her. She rose and followed Strider with Sam as the man walked a distance away.
"I think I understand things better now," he said to them in a low voice. "There seem only to have been five of the enemy. Why they were not all here, I don't know; but I don't think they expected to be resisted. They have drawn off for the time being. But not far, I fear. They will come again another night, if we cannot escape. They are only waiting, because they think that their purpose is almost accomplished, and that the Ring cannot fly much further. I fear, that they believe your master, Sam, and your friend, Kairi, have deadly wounds that will subdue them to their will. We shall see!"
Kairi watched as Sam choked with tears at the news and Strider began to comfort him, but she shook her head in disagreement to Strider's expectations of what was going to happen to Sora. She caught him saying that he was leaving and stopped him before he could hurry away too far. "No."
Strider halted and turned slowly to face Kairi. "What?"
Kairi held Strider's grey eyes and slowly began to speak. "Sora will not succumb to the Riders' will, because that is not what the wound is doing to him."
"What do you mean?" asked Strider, taking a step towards Kairi in curiosity.
She looked away, suddenly feeling very vulnerable under the man's eyes. "I think that it's calling out to the darkness within his heart, and feeding it and making it stronger. I think that what it wants to do, is to take Sora I know; the Sora I love," she added, admitting it directly in words to Strider and Sam the extent of their relationship, "away from the Realm of Light that we reside in, and to replace him with the darkness in his heart."
"How?" Strider asked, now standing right over Kairi. She gasped at the sudden closeness and looked up at his blurry face. She had tears in her eyes again, and wished that she could stop crying tonight.
She began to shudder, and her lower lip quivered as she looked up into Strider's eyes. "The only way that I could ever lose Sora forever, by destroying his soul!"
"Then I will be swift," Strider told her. "Guard them well while I am away!" With that he vanished again into the night.
They both returned to the fire and saw that Sora had been placed a little closer to it, next to Frodo. His cloak and blanket were spread over him, while his jacket and linen shirt were underneath. The wool sweater rested underneath his head as a makeshift pillow.
"What was that all about?" he asked of her as Kairi returned to kneeling by his side. She shook her head.
"Hush now," she said softly, a pot flying out of Sora's pack at her silent call of accio. "Water." Streams of water slowly cascaded out of her fingertips as she held one hand above the pot, filling it up until it was nearly full. Getting up, Kairi placed it over the fire with the hobbits' kettles before returning to Sora's side. "We're going to take care of you now, so get some rest."
"But—"
Kairi interrupted him by placing her finger to his lips. She gently forced his head back down and looked him straight in the eyes. She began to sing softly.
"Try not to get worried, try not to turn onto
Problems that upset you, oh.
Don't you know?
Everything's alright, yes, everything's fine.
And we want you to sleep well tonight.
Let the world turn without you tonight.
If we try, we'll get by, so forget all about us tonight."
She smiled as she saw Sora smile slightly and close his eyes. He sighed softly and mumbled. "Alright, I'll try and sleep. Goodnight."
They were all quiet for a time as the water in the hobbits' kettles and the pot slowly heated up. Frodo began to doze as well, Kairi's sweet singing voice having influenced him too, and the silent air was suddenly punctuated by a snore from Sora as he finally fell asleep.
"That's the Sora we know," Aiwemon said fondly, watching his partner from Kairi's side while Menelmon sat upon her shoulder. Kairi and Jiminy both nodded, the cricket on Aiwemon's white head. Both digimon were weary and they ached from what they had suffered at Anti-Form's hands, but they wouldn't admit it to anyone or anything.
Kairi leaned in slowly, so as not to upset Menelmon, and lightly kissed Sora on the forehead, light enough that she could barely feel his skin against her lips so that she wouldn't wake him. "Goodnight, my prince."
-A-D-
Sora looked around apprehensively. Instead of the blank nothingness of peaceful sleep, or the waking world of dreams that usually centred on Kairi, he was standing upon his platform. He looked down at it and found that it looked exactly the same as it had the last time he had been upon it. His image was lying upon the bent trunk of the paopu tree, looking up into a starry sky with a blue cloak with golden trimmings on him, and his automail arm prominently displayed. The seven blue circles with Riku, Roxas, Naminé, Donald, Goofy, Max, and Aiwemon in them were all still there, and the heart in the case of Kairi was present too.
There was a gasp that drew Sora's attentions away from the stained glass upon which he stood and made his gasp himself.
"You're gal's pretty hot Sora," Anti-Form said, standing on the other side of the platform directly across from him, his completely black face with his beady yellow eyes leering at him in an insanely pleased way. "And this one's not so bad herself."
"Get away from them!" Sora shouted, anger bubbling within his chest as Anti held onto the spirits of both Kairi and Naminé that dwelled within his heart. "Let them go!"
Anti didn't answer him, only smiled devilishly as his tongue entered Naminé's ear on his left. She shivered in disgust as the black thing began to wiggle around in it, and Anti's right hand began to stray to a place on Kairi's upper body that made her gasp as he squeezed.
Sora looked away angrily for a second before he roared in rage and summoned Remembrance to his hand. His cerulean eyes burned and he ran towards Anti, taking two powerful steps before springing into the air. His sabre-like Keyblade gleamed beside him, shining with silver energy as the curved and sharp blade cut the air even as he held it. Sora yelled and brought it above his head with both hands and swung down as he descended, ready to cut Anti into two!
Anti-Form had only smirked and withdrew his tongue from Naminé's ear and his hand from Kairi's breast before pushing both of them roughly to the ground. He held out his hand as Sora came down and caught the Keyblade in his clawed hand. Sora's eyes widened in surprise as he was stopped, his sword not even cutting the palm of Anti's hand. The silver glow in his Keyblade died as Anti held him hovering there above him, the eyes of the spirits of Kairi and Naminé as wide as Sora's.
"Do you honestly think you can get rid of me that easily?" Anti asked patronizingly. He held up his left arm and pointed the metal of it at Sora's face. A blast of darkness barrelled out of the dark automail and struck Sora dead in the face. He yelled in sudden pain and surprise, and lost his grip on his Keyblade. Sora flew backwards across the stained-glass platform and landed hard on his bum, bouncing and sliding a foot before stopping.
Kairi and Naminé rushed towards him while Anti stood exactly where he had been, smiling at Sora and holding Remembrance by its blade. Sora scowled and sat up, glaring at Anti as Kairi and Naminé reached opposite sides of him.
"Bastard," he growled in a low voice. "Where's Roxas' and Aiwemon's spirits?"
"Anti beat them," Naminé said sadly. "Aiwemon's spirit couldn't digivolve without you here, but he still wanted to fight. They're both resting now to recover."
"Why didn't they call me in to help keep both of you safe from him?" Sora asked.
"It would have been too awkward for you to dive into your mind, considering what's happening out there," Kairi answered.
"What about Donald and Goofy and Max?"
"They tried too," Naminé said. "But they were down even faster than Roxas was."
"Riku?"
"He didn't want to come out," Naminé said. "There are some things that Anti could do to him that would be even worse than simply beating him up. Don't worry about us Sora, we'll be fine. We aren't really Kairi and Naminé you know."
Sora grumbled and got to his feet. "It doesn't matter to me that you aren't really Kairi and Naminé, you're still my friends, and you're still worth protecting. And I'll do it myself if I have to." He stared at Anti as his darkness smiled insanely at him, still holding onto the Keyblade.
"We can fight," Kairi reminded him.
"He'll grope both of you again if you get caught by him," Sora said, causing both Kairi and Naminé to look at each other uncertainly. "Get yourselves into the deepest, most lit recesses of my heart and stay there."
Before they could move they were stopped by a cackle from Anti-Form. "There isn't much light left in your heart Sora," he laughed. "And all that's left will soon be overcome by darkness."
"Over my soul," Sora retorted.
"That's the idea," Anti said. "But as Naminé said, they are only spirits that reside in the heart. They aren't real like you and I are. So why should it matter what I do with our toys?"
"Our?" Sora asked heatedly. "You are not me!"
"On the contrary, I am your darkness Sora," Anti said, slowly beginning to walk towards him. "I am part of what you are. So it is my heart as well, that means that they also belong to me. Mother taught us to share didn't she?" he asked, stopping and extending his left hand towards Sora as both Kairi and Naminé moved behind him, afraid of Anti. "Hand them over. I still want to have some fun with them."
"I'll tell you why it matters to me," Sora said, moving towards Anti. "Because they aren't toys, and my conscience tells me that what you want to do isn't right!" He made to summon the Keyblade from Anti's grasp and into his hand, but his eyes widened in shock when he found that for the second time it wouldn't come.
Anti laughed as the other three looked at Sora's empty right hand in bewilderment. "It's a rather funny thing," he said, holding Remembrance by its blade still. "The Keyblade chose you, and since I am you, that meant that it had chosen me as well. But it would never come to me before when I was able to intercept you Driving and take control. Now though," his beady yellow eyes glinted with maleficent nature as the blade in his hand became covered with darkness and appeared in his hand, the Oblivion.
"It looks as if I am the stronger one," he finished. He raised his left hand and Sora saw and felt dark chains of steel come out of the darkness surrounding his platform and ensnare him. His stomach lurched and he gasped as he was lifted up into the air and a choker encased his neck, forcing his head to look down upon the platform.
Anti smirked at Sora's predicament and fired a purple meteor at Sora's enchained body. The Keyblade Master howled in agony as the blast struck him in the chest, and the chains tightly restrained him to keep him from flying backwards. They pressed into his neck and cut off his air, and his hand and ankles were in pain as the metal sides cut into the skin. Sora gasped for breath and panted heavily, glaring at Anti-Form from his position. He tried to summon the Keyblade into his hand again, but again it would not come to him; it wouldn't even budge from Anti's clawed hand.
Anti bent his neck to one side until there was a loud crack that came from it. He righted it again swiftly and looked towards the spirits of Kairi and Naminé. "Now, where did we leave off?" he asked. They summoned their Keyblades to their hands and stared uncertainly at Anti, not wanting to go through more of the same before Sora had shown up.
"Leave them alone!" Sora yelled. "Your fight is with me!" Anti-Form pointed the Oblivion at Sora and a black bolt of lightning raced out of it, red light humming all around the bolt. Sora writhed silently in pain, biting down on his teeth to keep silent through it all. When it had toned down into the dull, throbbing reminder of what he had just been subject to, he was able to look up again. Anti was fighting with both girls, his black Keyblade a flurry as darkness flew out of it almost as much as he physically struck towards them with the blade. Kairi and Naminé didn't look like they could hold out against him much longer, he was both fast and strong. Sora struggled against his bonds, but the moment he did his body was racked by pain as the choker against his neck sent jolts of electricity coursing into him. Soon the air around Sora had ceased reverberating with the sounds of clashing steel and had degraded into screams and then into horrifyingly agonized shrieks.
Sora closed his eyes and turned his head away as far as he was able to, but no matter what he did, he was unable to shut off his ears.
-A-D-
The night passed slowly and wearily as they looked after Frodo and Sora. Frodo woke several times over, and informed them that his left shoulder had grown deathly cold, and that the cold was spreading. They did their best to warm him, but Sora remained asleep through the night and into the early morning. He ceased snoring after only two minutes of it, and then his face was inexplicably difficult to read for the remainder of the night. Dawn was growing in the sky when at last Strider returned.
He paused and stooped near the ground. "Look!" he said, picking up a burned black cloak that had lain on the ground, hidden by the darkness of the night. A foot above the lower hem the cloak was slashed. "This was the stroke of Frodo's sword," he said. "The only hurt that it did to his enemy, I fear; for it is unharmed, but all blades perish that pierce that dreadful King. More deadly to him was the name of Elbereth."
"And more deadly to Frodo and Sora was this!" he cried, stooping down again to pick up a long thin knife. Its blade shone with a cold light. Kairi looked at the knife intensely, knowing that this was the weapon that had pierced Sora's shoulder and had probably brought out Anti in the first place. Near the end of its edge it was notched on both sides, and the point of broken off. But even as Strider held it in the morning light, the blade seemed to melt and vanished like smoke in the air, leaving the hilt alone in Strider's hand. "Alas," he lamented. "It was this accursed knife that gave the wounds. Few now have the skill in healing to match such evil weapons. But I will do what I can."
Strider sat on the ground and took the dagger-hilt and laid it upon his knees, and he sang over it a slow song in a strange tongue. Then he set it aside and turned first to Frodo, and in a soft voice he spoke words the others could not hear. He then did the same to Sora as the boy still slept, but as soon as he had finished, Sora jolted awake, suddenly perspiring quickly. The others looked at him in sudden fright. His blue eyes were wide and frantic, and he seemed to carry a great pain in his heart.
"Sora what's wrong?" Aiwemon asked swiftly, even beating Kairi to the question. The Keyblade Master appeared to have not heard his digimon partner, and his gaze swept around them all quickly before resting on Kairi as she kneeled next to him. She was alarmed when his arms flung around her and clutched her tightly to him. His shoulder had to have hurt him when he did that, but he appeared too distressed to have noticed.
"You're alright..." he muttered, nearly choking on the words as she felt him shiver. "You're alright..."
Kairi looked at Sora nervously and peeled him off of her, but not without care. "Sora what's this about? Why wouldn't I be alright? You're the one who got stabbed."
Sora gulped and looked down. "Never mind, it isn't important. Just a dream." Kairi cocked her head only slightly to the side in anxiety. She caught something in Sora's voice that didn't make his assurance believable, even less than it had been the previous morning. A dream shouldn't have shaken Sora up this much; the last time he had looked like this was after they had first encountered Cossex at the party Yuffie had thrown for them over a month ago on Destiny Islands.
"Then do not let it trouble you for now," Strider said, withdrawing from the pouch on his belt long leaves of a plant. "These leaves," he said, "I have walked far to find; for this plant does not grow in the bare hills; but in the thickets away south of the Road. I found it in the dark by the scent of its leaves." He crushed one of the leaves in his fingers, and the air became filled by a sweet and pungent fragrance. Kairi thought that it was familiar, but she couldn't place where she might have smelled the herb before.
"It is fortunate that I could find it," Strider continued, "for it is a healing plant that the Men of the West brought to Middle-earth. Athelas they named it, and it grows now sparsely and only near places where they dwelt or camped of old; and it is not known in the North, except to some of those who wander in the Wild. It has great virtues, but over such a wound as this its healing powers may be small." Strider threw the leaves into the boiling water and bathed Frodo's shoulder first. The fragrance of the steam was refreshing, and Kairi felt once again as her mind became calm and clear that she had been under the effects of this plant once before, but she could not recall where or when.
Strider then turned to Sora, and began to bring the bowl and cloth towards him. Suddenly the boy's skin, breeches, boots, automail, hair, pendant, tag and crest turned completely black and his eyes became wholly yellow and animal-like.
Strider stopped short and looked at Sora in amazement as he hissed at Strider. "Get that poison away from me!" he snarled, his voice now that of Anti-Form's once again. He lashed out towards Strider with his clawed right hand. "GET RID OF IT!" Anti's claw struck the bowl the water had been in and turned it over, spilling the hot water and athelas leaves.
Kairi came to her senses and snapped out of the horror of so suddenly seeing Anti back as soon as he began to hiss and lash out towards Strider. She extended her hand quickly towards the overturned bowl and the hot water stopped and hovered above the air.
"No Anti," she said sternly. "It's time to take your medicine." She waved her hand towards him, and the steaming water struck Sora's black body across the face, chest, and directly upon the wound left by the knife. Anti hissed at her and writhed in pain, clapping his hands over his face and yellow eyes.
Radiant Garden's auburn-haired princess raised her hand towards Anti and closed her eyes while biting her lip as light began to glow across her palm. The soothing scent of the athelas bath calmed her mind and allowed her to think clearly. I don't want to hurt him. I just want to bring our Sora back.
She felt her heart bubble in her chest as if answering her desire, and words came into her mind. But unlike the previous times when they had come, rushing out in a torrent of her emotion, she was able to calmly examine them, and this time she could understand.
Kairi opened her indigo eyes and a clear white light began to shine from them as the light from her glowing palm began to intensify and stream towards Anti-Form. "Vadeneln Anti. Sáut i umûl."
Anti-Form hissed and held the automail arm out towards Kairi in an attempt to shield him from the light that shone from her palm and threatened to engulf him. "No," he moaned. "No, NO! I won't go back like this! A hot princess like you wouldn't do this to your Sora!"
Kairi's took a breath and did not allow herself to get angered by Anti's comments. The threat of what would happen if she did become angry weighed heavily upon her conscience. Instead, she spoke slowly and purposefully. "You are not my Sora, Anti; I'm bringing him back, now return to the darkness!"
The light surged and engulfed Anti-Form for an instant before it dimmed and lessened, slowly coming back to Kairi's outstretched palm. There was a high-pitched shriek that filled her ears and made the hair on her neck stand on end as the light overwhelmed Anti, but it faded away quickly. Kairi lowered her hand and breathed in heavily, it had unexpectedly taken more strength than she'd thought to send him back, but she smiled when she saw that the boy in front of her had returned to his normal coloured state.
Sora passed a shaking hand over a scared face. "He really has gotten stronger," he whispered, but only insofar as Kairi and Aiwemon could here.
Sam frowned at them all and folded his arms. "Alright, I think this has gone on long enough. Just who are all of you and what is going on with you? And I am not going to let you leave here until you lot have told me what I want to know."
"Do you care for your master Sam?" Kairi asked suddenly, giving Sora a sympathetic look before turning her indigo eyes onto the hobbit. Sam seemed to be caught off-guard by her question. "Because if we stay in this dell to tell you our story, we won't leave this place until nightfall."
"We cannot have that," Strider said quickly. "The Riders may come again, and we will need to make for Rivendell with all the light that is given to us. It is neither you, Sora, the cricket or the birds that worry me, unless that strange evil takes hold of Sora again, it is Frodo. The wound he received from the knife is draining his strength, and he is now too weak to stand. The Enemy has likely been watching this place for some days. If Gandalf ever came here, then he must have been forced to ride away, and he will not return. In any case we are in great peril here after dark, since the attack of last night, and we can hardly meet greater danger wherever we go."
"Unless we bring it with us," Menelmon said apprehensively, glancing at Sora as he continued to shudder weakly.
No questions were yet asked of Sora, Kairi, their digimon or Jiminy, and instead their time was spent preparing a hurried breakfast and repacking their supplies. Sora dressed himself again, finding his injury now closed and still giving his shoulder a sore ache, but it was manageable. His gloves, too, he put back on, hiding the automail that Strider and the hobbits now knew was there. Frodo proved to be completely unable to walk, so they took a great deal of the baggage off of the pony and divided it up as best as they could amongst the rest of them. Aiwemon was annoyed that they'd taken Frodo's pack off of the hobbit and placed it on him instead, and he had reason to be annoyed because Menelmon would be able to ride contently on Kairi's shoulder while he'd be forced to either run or fly with a load he certainly wasn't used to tiring him and weighing his little body down! He loudly complained when Sora had apologetically placed the pack on him that he wasn't the baggage animal.
Speaking for the pony, in the last few days it had been improving wonderfully. Already it seemed fatter and stronger than it did before; and it seemed to be gaining affection for its new masters, especially Sam. Its treatment at the hands of Bill Ferny had to be cruel very hard for its hard journey in the wild to be better than its former life.
Strider started them off in a southerly direction as soon as daylight was in full. It meant crossing the Road, which would almost certainly mean that they'd be marked as they left, but it was also the quickest way to wooded country, and they needed fuel; for Strider said that at least Frodo needed to be kept warm, especially at night, where fire would also serve as protection for them all. It was also his plan to shorten their journey by cutting across another great loop of the Road: east beyond Weathertop it changed its course and took a wide bend northwards.
They went slowly and cautiously around the south-western slopes of the hill, and in a little while they had reached the Great East Road. There was no sign of the Riders, or of Pete. But even as they hurried across they heard two far away cries: a cold voice calling and a cold voice answering. Kairi held Sora steady as he shook terribly at the sound, and for a moment Anti-Form flashed into existence, but he was gone as soon as he'd come, like the moment of time in which a person blinks. They sprang forward at a run and made for the thickets ahead of them. The land before them sloped southwards, but it was wild and there were no paths to follow; bushes and stunted trees grew in dense patches, but they were left with wide barren ground between them. The grass was scanty, coarse, and grey; and the leaves in the thickets were fading and falling from the trees.
"This is depressing," Aiwemon sighed, flying at Sora's shoulder level and constantly bobbing up and down as he continued to work on carrying the pack he had been landed with.
"This land is," Strider said. "But let us try to fill our hearts with thoughts other than the gloom of this country. Come, Sora, and Kairi. Tell us your tale as we walk, so we might all know you better."
-A-D-
Documents and files were strewn across a long dark table in an underground room, the room appearing smaller than it actually was by the number of wooden bookshelves and office mailbox-esque filing shelves that were attached to the walls. At the head of the table stood Maleficent, the firelight from wall-mounted torches lighting the room and throwing flickering shadows to the floor.
She did not appear to show any exterior emotion, but inside the witch was frustrated. She had been able to control dozens of different types of Heartless, and yet the ability to turn the heart of a world into a Heartless was eluding her. For more than two weeks now she had been delving into more experiments and tests concerning the darkness of the heart, moving steadily upwards into heart of increasing strength. Each experiment produced a powerful Heartless underneath her influence, some stronger and some weaker than the Heartless produced by the Charr from Tyria, but every time she attempted to turn the heart of a fallen world over into a Heartless, the experiment would fail, and nothing would come of it. Worse, there were no explanations or reasons as to why it would fail that she could infer from each experiment.
And so now she sat here, pouring over her notes and entries from her previous years of experimentation with the Heartless and copies of the Ansem Reports written by Xehanort in hopes of finding a clue to something that she might have overlooked. But it was not only the failure of her experimentation that was annoying her now. The task that she'd set Gantu three days ago had ended in disarray. For some reason, he'd met bearers of the Keyblade, who by all accounts should have given up their foolish false hope of defeating her, and one of the stronger Heartless from her experiments that she'd given him for his mission had been soundly defeated by the meddlesome children. Those two blondes were more trouble than she had anticipated.
She lifted her horned head at the sound of a portal of darkness opening, and finally allowed her displeasure to reveal itself a little when it was Pete that stepped through. He had a grumpy expression on his face, and she waited for a second for the portal to close. When it didn't, she spoke. "Why have you come here Pete? I am busy at the moment."
"I know that Maleficent," Pete said quickly, suddenly fearful at the tone in her voice. "But I figured that I'd better report this to you."
Maleficent scoffed her head and turned back to her notes. "Why would there be a reason for you to report anything to me? Unless that is, Sauron's servants have succeeded in finding and retrieving his ring?"
Pete shook his head. "It isn't that Maleficent. They've found the little ring, but they haven't gotten it yet. And I am glad to be away from those guys for a while anywho, they give me the creeps."
"That you are scared of the Nazgûl had better not be your only reason for returning you blundering buffoon," Maleficent said, her tone brokering that Pete should explain his behaviour and explain it now. "I had told you to help them in retrieving his ring, did I not?"
Pete fumbled a little on his words as he tried to make up. "Oh, of course you did Maleficent. You know best and all that. And we would have gotten that ring too, if it weren't for the guys the ring was with. I tell yah, those two runts with their Keyblades can be—"
He was cut off as Maleficent suddenly looked up at him sharply. "Wielders of the Keyblade are on this world?" she asked in an icy tone. "It would be best for your sake if you were not lying to me Pete."
"But of course they're up there!" Pete said. "The punk who was such a pain last time and his spunky red-headed princess too; they're both helping out the little squirt what's holding onto that petty ring."
Maleficent's eyes narrowed and she looked away for a moment. "The Keyblade Master and the Princess of Heart are both here in Middle-earth?" she whispered. "Then why was it that I did not sense their presence?"
Pete seemed to take Maleficent's self contemplation to his advantage. "But that's not all I came to tell you about," he continued, noticing that Maleficent did not look his way. "The kid Sora's got some kind of freaky dark thing inside of him, and it came out while he and the princess were duking it out with the Rider guys."
Maleficent pondered what Pete said for a moment. She recalled her earlier plans before she had gained the powers of darkness that lay within the keyhole to Kingdom Hearts, and heard the inconsequential prophecy that the light had sent. She had wanted to attain her revenge upon Sora by making him into a Heartless, and then have him kill those that he loved, and now she had the power to control darkness in any person's heart no matter where they were. Or any person that she knew of and had met at any rate; faceless and nameless nobodies on far-away worlds were still as far out of her grasp as those shielded by the Cornerstone of Light, though that obstacle would likely soon become trivial as her power grew.
If there was a powerful dark being residing within Sora's heart, then she could attempt to use it to her advantage. But she would need to proceed with caution. Hearts were unpredictable.
She looked up at Pete and nodded her head. "Thank you for informing me of this interesting development Pete. You may return to your hunting with the Ringwraiths. And Pete," she added, seeing him beginning to walk back into the portal, "you may use Heartless as you see fit. Do not fail me."
Pete nodded wordlessly and vanished into the portal before it disappeared. Maleficent looked down at her notes once more before glancing at the spot where Pete had left. Perhaps she'd be able to gain some valuable data from the darkness within the Keyblade Master's heart.
-A-D-
It took the majority of the daylight since they had made it away into the thickets to tell their tale in full, and everything they spoke of was reacted to by the hobbits with a sense of awe and (sometimes) fear, while Strider was able to nod his head in understanding as the five explained about the subjects of their discussion that he found greater interest than the hobbits in, such as their enemies and their understanding of the workings of the heart. Greater too than the hobbits was his interest in Sora's Anti-Form, but he admitted to them after having it explained to him again that he was regretful that he had not the skill to drive Anti out of Sora's body. Of special note to all of them, was Sora's automail, for they had never seen such a work before, and could not hope to match it in all the days of their lives.
"If you want one so badly," Sora muttered darkly, "lose a limb and I'll call up Winry and we'll see what she can do." That quickly ended the subject.
The Sun had dipped down to the horizon not long after Sora, Kairi, Jiminy, Aiwemon, and Menelmon had finished speaking, and they hurriedly made camp while the light lasted. Merry and Pippin both urged for Sora and Kairi to show them magic, and while the Keyblade Master's mind and thoughts appeared to be turned inwards, not even noticing the lessening amount of light, Kairi obliged to show them a little.
She and the three hobbits quickly set about gathering fuel for the fire that they would need for the night, with Kairi summoning her Keyblade and making quick work of cutting the wood with the enchanted blade. They piled it up and ready for a fire and Sam was about to fetch out his tinderbox when Kairi told them to stop. She pointed the Oathkeeper at the firewood and said, "Fire." Tongues of flame began to curl around the white blade as she produced a little bit of a show for the hobbits and a curiously watching Strider. The fires rose from the edges of the blade and into the air, and began to swirl around and around as a spiralling double corkscrew. They ceased moving up after they reached the level of Kairi's head, and instead they bent down and slowly continued to curl around until they had surrounded the pile of firewood. Then suddenly, all the fire, from that that was still upon the Oathkeeper to the tongues of flame that flickered in the air beside the cut wood, all burst straight into the heart of the pile of firewood and flared like a wind was blowing on it until all of Kairi's fire had been collected. Immediately afterwards the fire settled down, and proceeded to crackle merrily as if it had been burning brightly already.
Pippin and Merry both clapped enthusiastically; Sam had his eyes open in wonderment, and Frodo smiled appreciatively and came as close to the fire as he could manage by himself in the darkening hours.
Strider looked up from the fire to Kairi. "I suppose it was your magic that lit that fire in the Marshes that Sam had struggled with then?" Kairi blushed slightly and nodded her head.
Sora came up to her and gave Kairi a fond smile. "Good job," he said, patting her on the shoulder before sitting down in front of the fire.
"It was more than good," Aiwemon said excitedly, sitting on Sora's shoulder once more, "that was great Kairi!" She giggled faintly at the compliment and sat down next to Sora.
They began to set double watches that night, staying up in pairs. Sora offered to spend the whole first night awake, arguing that he didn't feel tired, and that there was a lot that he needed to think about. Kairi wondered, but didn't press Sora while it was her turn to sit watch with him. The Oathkeeper was out and in her hands at all times while she was up in the dark of the night, and she half-expected to see the black shapes of the Riders, or even worse, the forms of Heartless, stalking them in the dim grey light, what was left of the moon hiding behind the clouds. But she saw nothing, and heard nothing but the sound of withered leaves and grass rustling in the wind.
The second day was little different from the first, excepting that they talked very little except for a question here or there from the hobbits to Kairi, Jiminy, and the digimon, as Sora had barely spoken at all during the night or morning, and was behaving distant even to her and Aiwemon. The issue of food had again been debated in the morning, what with Aiwemon and Menelmon and Jiminy Cricket now formally joining the group. Jiminy had before been able to scrounge a little food from within Sora's pack, and he'd had some of whatever scraps the two teenagers had been able to sneak away from their meals, so he'd gotten by comfortably with how small his own stomach was. It was the digimon that worried Kairi. They each had the capacity to eat more than an average Shire hobbit would eat when presented with an 'all-you-can-eat' birthday party; and Aiwemon even more so. And since the male bird digimon was carrying Frodo's pack to make it that little bit easier on the pony, he was unable to do as he had before, hunting mice and voles and other small rodents he happened to come across while also foraging with Menelmon for edible berries and nuts.
That night the fire was lit by conventional means, and Sora again volunteered to start with first watch. Kairi shared looks with their companions. Something was bothering Sora, enough to make him forgo sleep for two nights in a row, and no matter how old you were that was not something to be undertaken lightly.
She intended to talk to Sora before she went to sleep, but he wouldn't open up to her, and so with a saddened heart, Kairi fell to sleep with the intention of getting him to talk to her when she had been woken up for her watch.
That never came. When Kairi woke up it was to find that it was already morning, and Sora was working on cooking their breakfast. Strider had already been roused, and was seeing to waking up the other hobbits and the digimon. It appeared as if Kairi had woken up by the sound of sizzling ham alone.
She rubbed her eyes for a moment before remembering what she had planned to do before falling asleep. Instantly her indigo eyes hardened and she flung her blanket off of her body, rising to march straight for her boyfriend. Her dusty dark brown cloak rustled about her back as a piece of wood suddenly gave a crack and a plume of sparks shot out from it.
"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked Sora agitatedly.
He didn't look up from the pan he was holding above the fire in his gloved left hand. "I didn't want to wake you," he answered. "You looked so peaceful, lying there asleep."
"It would have been better if you'd woken me," Kairi continued. "Maybe I'd have liked to spend time with you."
"You need your sleep Kairi," Sora answered, still not looking at her. "And besides, we already spend every waking minute of the day together."
Kairi felt a slight twinge of hurt erupt in her heart from the way he said that. "But it's not like before when we were always together," she said quietly, still standing while he squatted in front of the fire, now turning the ham with a flipper. "It's not like when we were in the Digital World together, or the New World, or Radiant Garden, or even while we were still with Max, and Roxas and Naminé were still our Nobodies and lived in our hearts. Or even before we reached Weathertop."
"There's nothing wrong," Sora said abruptly, looking up at Kairi.
"I didn't say that anything was wrong," she answered quickly, feeling suddenly put down. Her heart skipped a beat and she placed a hand to her chest. Kairi's cheeks began to grow a little red as she felt flustered and at the same time, annoyed with how Sora was acting.
"Well, there's still nothing wrong," Sora affirmed her in an irritated tone. He tensed for a second before his brow furrowed and he looked like he was concentrating intently, but with the way his body shook for a moment, wobbling the pan, it looked more like he was locked in a struggle. A few seconds later his body relaxed and he gasped, taking a few long breaths before bringing his right hand to his face, wincing at the pain his shoulder still gave him.
Kairi pursed her lips and walked the few steps it took her to get back to where her pack was. Sora's voice and words said it all. Something was definitely bothering him, and Kairi had a shrewd suspicion of what it was after his little episode. But he was not opening up to even her about it, almost like he was building a wall around himself, keeping his pain inside.
Kairi sat down on a rock and sighed, placing her right leg over her left. If she were sitting in class at school had Cossex not shown up on the Islands she'd have never done so, but as she was wearing long pants the motion no longer bothered her. She didn't know what she could do to help him, didn't know if there were any words she could say to try and help him get over Anti-Form coming back, but Kairi did at least know that Sora was still as pig-headed as he'd been back when he'd broken up with her after she'd destroyed his arm. Only this time it looked like he wanted to try and keep his pain to himself so that his problems wouldn't be a burden to others and worry them. But could he not see? Could he not see that trying to keep everyone else locked out was also making them worry about him?
Staring at Sora as he cooked the ham, Aiwemon on his shoulder now and looking at the stuff in the pan hungrily, Kairi slapped her ankle in frustration. She widened her eyes with curiosity for a second as she saw tiny specks of blue dust fall off of the bottom of her boot.
-A-D-
The third and fourth days from Weathertop were almost as bad as the last two. The land was still riddled with dense copses of trees, separated by wide expanses of barren land with grass that looked like it needed a couple of good thunderstorms to rain down on it. They continued to dread the approach of the Riders in the dark hours of the night, but each night there was no sign, and it was too much to hope that the Riders had lost their trail. Frodo's pain had grown again, and again, Sora was spending the whole night on watch, and rarely did he wake the others for their turns. It became so bad that on the morning of the fifth day the other three hobbits, Strider, Kairi, and the digimon agreed that whoever was sitting watch with Sora would have to wake the next one, as the Keyblade Master seemed to be able to suddenly go for many days without sleep.
It was a shock for Kairi to see him still going on the fifth day from Weathertop as he had on the first. All her life that she had known Sora he was the one that she would always find taking a nap, lazing around, or goofing off. He loved to go to sleep almost as much as he loved to eat, and after days without sleep he was still finding the ground easy to manage without stumbling from weariness in a drunken state.
How could he be finding the energy to keep going without allowing his brain to rest? Kairi thought, watching Sora as they continued in front of the pony as it carried Frodo. Even when I had to cram for exams last year I wasn't able to keep this up for even three days, no matter how many energy drinks I had that I probably shouldn't have. Sora should have the biggest migraine headache from sleep deprivation ever by now, and if he does he shouldn't even be able to move; but, he's still moving as if he had slept all of last night! She looked intently at his face and swiftly studied it, her eyes passing over every centimetre and quickly taking it all in. He acts like he has slept, but he looks almost like a zombie!
She stumbled suddenly and cursed under her breath. Sora didn't even notice or turn to help her. The ground was rising out of the wide shallow valley they had descended into, and Strider turned them back north-eastwards.
That night was much the same as the previous four, except that the moon had returned, now waxing with a slim silver crescent. Merry and Aiwemon woke Kairi and Menelmon for their watch, as Sora had officially been discounted from their calculations after that night's evening meal, which he barely ate any of. Both females tried to get Sora to talk to them, but as soon as Menelmon accidentally mentioned the name 'Anti', Sora clammed up, and they may as well have been talking to a stone wall. Kairi hadn't been told earlier about the confusion Sora had had upon the crown of Weathertop, and so according to her it was the Sunday night of October the twelfth, a day and date she struggled for a few minutes to add up. That meant, at least to her, that it was Wakka's seventeenth birthday. She tried to mention this to Sora, but he would do nothing more than grunt after Menelmon's slip-up.
On their sixth morning she again was able to find traces of blue dust around the fire, and Kairi made a note to watch for it every morning hence, worried that it could be what she thought it could be. Those thoughts fled from her mind however as they reached the top of a long slope that took them a while to climb, and saw far ahead a huddle of wooded hills. Away below them the Road swept round the feet of the hills; and to their right a grey river gleamed pale in the thin sunshine. In the distance they glimpsed yet another river in a stony valley half-veiled in mist.
"I am afraid we must go back to the Road here for a while," announced Strider. "We have now come to the River Hoarwell, that the Elves call Mitheithel. It flows down out of the Ettenmoors, the troll-fells north of Rivendell, and joins the Loudwater away in the South. Some call it the Greyflood after that. It is a great water before it finds the Sea. There is no way over it below its sources in the Ettenmoors, except by the Last Bridge on which the Road crosses."
"What about that other river?" Aiwemon asked, flying a little higher to try and see it clearer. Over the days of carrying Frodo's pack both by air and land his little wings and legs had grown stronger, and he could now propel himself either way with only a little difficulty, though his stamina while with the pack was still not what it had been before.
"That is Loudwater, the Bruinen of Rivendell," answered Strider. "The Road runs along the edge of the hills for many miles from the Bridge to the Ford of Bruinen. But I have not yet thought how we shall cross that water. One river at a time! We shall be fortunate indeed if we do not find the Last Bridge held against us."
Kairi smiled slightly as they began to head for the bridge over the Hoarwell. "So we shall cross that bridge when we come to it?" she asked.
Strider allowed himself to laugh. "Though there is no bridge over the Bruinen, Kairi, yes we shall cross it when we come to it."
Sora groaned. "Jack O'Neill," he muttered, "why did you have to say that?"
Jiminy emerged from within the hood of Kairi's cloak. He had been in the hood of Sora's cloak after being introduced, but he switched to being with Kairi, saying that he was getting all moody and depressed lying in Sora's hood. "Now there's no need to be such a pessimist Sora," Jiminy said. "You've still got your friends beside you."
"It doesn't matter," Sora replied, "because the Last Bridge is held against us."
"And how can you tell?" Frodo asked quickly, with very noticeable fear in his voice.
Sora turned away from the eyes that had fallen upon him. "Because I can feel it," he answered.
-A-D-
They did not make the Road that day, and again the night passed slowly with no sign of pursuit. For the sixth night in a row Sora stayed awake, staring into the fire or into the darkness for the entirety of the night hours, and during her time of watch with Pippin Kairi saw occasionally flashes where he would become Anti-Form for a second or two before becoming himself again, and always in a cold and terrible sweat as if he'd just run a marathon. But he refused to talk to them about it, saying only that it was his burden to bear, and that he did not want them to worry about it. Kairi looked around the fire in the morning and found the blue specks of dust once more, and watched Sora all the more anxiously. He was beginning to look as if he had two black eyes rather than simple bags underneath them from a lack of sleep. But the fact that he seemed unable to make a physical fault, however aesthetically unappealing he was becoming, while moving still astounded her.
The next day saw them to the borders of the Road in the early morning. Strider took Sora ahead with him to scout out the Road, in an attempt to get the boy's mind off of whatever he had been worrying about and teach him a little of the tracking skills he had asked about back on Weathertop before he had been stabbed by the Black Rider. It worked, and Strider was able to teach Sora how to look for the signs if anyone passed by recently. As luck would have it, there was a track to see, looking about a day old by Strider's estimate, made by what looked like very large sneakers according to Sora. Strider told Sora that it had rained in this area, and he judged the rainfall had occurred two days previously and it had washed away all footprints except for this set, also explaining to Sora his reasoning for the two days' delay between the rain and their arrival. No horseman had passed since then, as far as he was able to tell.
Sora and Strider returned and conveyed this news to their companions, and at once they hurried along with all the speed they could make. After a mile or two they were able to see the Last Bridge ahead, sitting at the bottom of a short steep slope. After Sora's words they feared to see black figures waiting there, but they saw none. Instead they saw a large person standing on the bridge, but Kairi was unable to make out who it was at this distance.
"It's Pete," Aiwemon said, his keener eyes allowing him to glare at the large anthropomorphic cat that stood upon the Last Bridge as if waiting for them.
"We'll handle this," Kairi muttered, looking towards Strider and the hobbits. "You wait here." Strider nodded and held the hobbits and the pony back. They dropped off their packs and Kairi led the way down the slope towards the bridge, Sora following a step behind. The digimon flew beside them.
Pete guffawed at them as they came into earshot of each other. "Well, you slowpokes certainly took your time," he said. "Been having a little trouble finding your way?"
"As long as we're with Strider we'll always find our way in this world!" Menelmon said.
"Huh, who's this Strider guy?" Pete asked, looking around with a hand above his eyes. "I don't see anybody."
"He's back behind us," Aiwemon said, landing on the ground and stalking forward on his feet to stand in front of Kairi. "But you aren't about to see him, 'cause we're gonna knock you off of this bridge."
Pete laughed again. "And how do you suppose that you bird-brains are gonna do that without paying the toll first?"
"Toll?" Menelmon asked in confusion. "What's a toll?"
Pete's face shone with astonishment. "The toll you have to pay for crossing my bridge," he said, pointing down at the bridge.
"Like we're going to pay you anything Pete," Sora said, finally moving up and speaking with a little bit of his old flare.
Kairi smiled slightly at him before looking curiously at Pete, one hand resting lightly on her hip. "What is the toll anyway? Do we have to pay you a beating or what?"
"Nope," Pete answered smugly. He pointed at Sora. "You just have to show me that dark thing inside of you."
Sora looked at Pete in shock and began to tremble. Kairi looked at him worriedly as Sora's voice dropped into a frightened whisper. "No," he said, shaking his head. "No, I won't do that for you."
"Then I guess I'll just have to fight him out!" Pete said, waving his hand. Eight massive dark swirls formed around them, completely surrounding the huddled group of four and separating them from both the Last Bridge and their escape to Strider and the hobbits. Out of the dark swirls stepped large bipedal beasts that Kairi had dreaded she'd see again. They each stood at around seven and a half feet tall, with fur as black as pitch and eyes that glowered yellow at them like all Heartless. Black iron helmets embossed with the Heartless insignia that fitted around their bestial heads like skull caps crowned five of them, pieces of plates of the same black armour scattered on the chests, arms, and legs of the same five. All five of those held shields of differing forms, the Heartless insignia on them as well, and two bore swords while the other three brandished axes in their feral and clawed hands. Two of the others had no armour, carrying black wooden bows, and the final one protected its upper chest with bands of what looked like wooden armour and a strip of black mail was hanging down over its hips; and it carried a long and wooden black staff.
Pete laughed again, seeing the hopeless looks on their faces at the prospect of facing eight different Charr Heartless at once. Kairi looked past the two Heartless in front of her, both brandishing shields while one held a sword and the other held a fiendish-looking axe, and glared at Pete as he stood upon the bridge. Maleficent's stooge did not seem to be fazed by her look; her eyes were still clearly showing her fear.
"I think you guys had better digivolve," she said, glancing between Menelmon and Aiwemon.
"I think you're right," Aiwemon gulped. He dropped his look of fear and replaced it with a brave one. "Aiwemon digivolve to, Ohtarmon!"
"Boy are the hobbits in for a surprise if they're watching," Menelmon said, now giving the Heartless around them fierce looks. "Menelmon digivolve to, Soronmon!"
Ohtarmon gripped his mace firmly with one hand as Soronmon flew above them on her giant wings, the white eagle-like digimon giving an intimidating shriek from the air above them. Kairi smiled slightly when she saw Pete's confidence vanish with the sight of the two Champion-level digimon. He shook his head and grunted at them. "Charge!"
The Charr Heartless that bore melee weapons rushed towards them while the ones that bore the other weapons fell back slightly. The Oathkeeper appeared in Kairi's hands in a flash and she raised it quickly to defend herself against both the falling sword and axe of the Heartless that stood in front of her. Her biceps strained and her knees almost buckled as their massive size and weight pressed down on her Keyblade. Both black weapons came off of her Keyblade and the Charr Blade Warrior roared; its weapon came down on her fast and hard. Kairi found herself backing up as the black sword slashed repeatedly towards her, connecting with jarring force against her Keyblade as she blocked or barely missing as Kairi ducked or deked out of the way. The Charr Axe Warrior wasn't far away, its axe forcing Kairi to twist out of its path and back into the assault of the blade.
The Blade Warrior raised its weapon high and brought it down with a bellowing snarl at Kairi's head. With both hands Kairi raised the Oathkeeper up to block it, but the sheer power in the Blade Warrior's arms shoved the Keyblade back into Kairi's chest, eliciting a pained gasp from her lips as the princess crashed to the soft ground and skidded backwards on her cloak, dropping her Keyblade in the process.
Kairi grimaced and began to try and get back to her feet when she suddenly felt the pain. Her right hand clutched at her left shoulder and she could feel her own blood seeping between her fingers out of a gash the sword had left from the top of her shoulder to just beyond her armpit. She tried to raise the arm, and was startled when she found that the appendage had gone completely limp, and a hiss left her mouth as the wound assailed her mind with the overbearing sensation of icy pain. Kairi looked at the wound, and she nearly lost her stomach when she could see the white of bone, the cut cleanly going into her shoulder.
The auburn-haired girl forced the sickness back down and tried not to panic. She kicked and pushed her way back onto her feet, crouching low with her body pointed towards the Heartless advancing upon her. Her right hand slowly stretched out and picked up her Keyblade, her gloves tightly grasping its grip. The adrenaline that was now coursing through the rest of her system did its best to mask the pain from her now determined mind.
"Light," she intoned in a quiet voice, "give me power; strengthen my sword."
The Heartless both charged towards her, not noticing or caring that the weapon they feared so immensely was now glimmering with a pale light. Kairi shifted herself so that she was able to spring forward, and her legs propelled her towards the two Heartless that continued to dash for her.
The sword of the Blade Warrior leapt out towards Kairi, but it missed, just above her wounded shoulder. Kairi swept her faintly glowing Keyblade across her body in a slash towards the Charr Blade Warrior Heartless, and her weapon was just able to slip underneath the round shield it held. The Oathkeeper cut right through the left half of the Blade Warrior's body, great wisps of darkness flooding out of the wound and pouring onto the ground before dissipating into the air.
The Axe Warrior that was next to the Blade Warrior had stopped as soon as Kairi started her sprint and twisted its body around in a spin, swinging its axe in a complete circle. The blade caught Kairi's side and cut through her layers, leaving only a shallow, and slightly ripped, wound in her right side. Kairi ignored it and turned clumsily on her heel as she completely passed by the severely wounded Blade Warrior Heartless. She jumped into the air, driving down the Oathkeeper onto the back of the black helm. There was a bright flash of light as her glimmering Keyblade struck against the metal protective, and after a moment's hesitation the metal rent apart with a flurry of white sparks and the Keyblade cut from the back of the head to the small of the Heartless' back before coming out of its black body, which faded away with a howl of agony a moment later, its pink heart rising into the sky.
Kairi turned and leapt back as the obsidian axe of the Axe Warrior sliced through the air to cut her in half. The Princess of Heart panted with scant weakness as she felt a little more of her strength leave her, the blood pouring out of the deep wound in her shoulder and leaking from the cut in her side. She glanced around. Soronmon was flying in the air, icicles the size of watermelons sticking out of the ground and raining down upon one Charr Stalker Heartless as it fired its bow at her. Kairi couldn't see the other one, so she assumed it had been impaled by one of Soronmon's icicles. Her heart flinched when she saw at least one arrow in Soronmon's chest. Ohtarmon had been forced to battle the three other Blade and Axe Warriors, and so far he had knocked his number of opponents down to one, holding an advantage in both size and strength and defence over them, but lacking a little in the speed department. Sora had been left with the Charr Heartless that held the staff, and the ground around the Keyblade Master was charred by fire and in some places it still burned intently. The ground immediately around that Heartless was scorched black and covered by searing flames, but it seemed to be completely uninjured and unharmed. Sora appeared to be sporting a burn on one leg underneath slightly blackened leggings, but what surprised Kairi was that he had not even called his Keyblade!
Her distraction at Sora's lack of preparedness or fighting spirit nearly cost the girl her life, as out of her peripheral vision she was only just able to catch sight of the axe head sliding towards her head. Her Keyblade acted faster than she could think in a purely defensive reflex and vertically blocked the strike from slitting her face in two. The Keyblade flashed with light again and Kairi was not pressed too far back, despite the lack of strength in her block, being forced to use only one arm.
I need to finish this, she thought haggardly as the Axe Warrior spun around in a quick circle, its axe driving a little lower this time. And quickly, she added, dodging to the side. She struck out with her Keyblade, but it was blocked by the shield the Heartless carried. Light flared once more as it connected with the shield, and it seemed to buckle and deform from her blocked attack. The axe came down towards her left side and Kairi twisted away from it. Kairi suddenly got an idea. Using her smaller size, she waited until the Heartless made another sweep towards her with its axe, and she ducked underneath it when the attack happened. The Oathkeeper flashed out in a slice and cut a gash right into the thigh of the Axe Warrior's leg. Kairi smirked as darkness began to seep out of its furry hide from the wound, but her eyes widened when she realized that she had come too close. The Axe Warrior snarled and struck her head with its shield, bashing Kairi a good seven feet further away.
Her head felt like it had been split into two, and Kairi desperately wanted to place a hand to it as it throbbed. Blood trickled down her forehead and she had to blink it out of her eyes as she looked up at the Axe Warrior Heartless, now charging towards her again, seeming to ignore completely the gash she had left in its leg.
There was suddenly a great flash, or rather the opposite, as all the light around that Heartless seemed to disappear before flaring back, and the Axe Wielder moaned suddenly and collapsed onto its knees, soft earth shooting up and pelting Kairi as it crashed into the ground. Her eyes drifted up to its back and she was shocked at first to see an onyx blade piercing it in the back, with an equally dark figure standing atop it with a black metal arm pointed right at the Heartless' back. It faded away, a pink crystalline heart rising into the sky and doing nothing to illuminate the black face of the one who had slain the Heartless.
"Looks like we meet again Princess," Anti-Form said, grinning at her. He pointed the Oblivion's obsidian tip towards her, and a dark purple bullet of darkness shot out from the tip and struck her in her right arm.
Kairi screamed for an instant at the burning pain of the darkness against her skin. A second later the sharp pain was gone, but it left a lasting burning sensation on her arm. Kairi shook the shock of seeing Anti's face again off and rubbed the blood out of her right eye with her hand. She picked the Oathkeeper up again and staggered onto her feet. Holding the white blade out towards him as it continued to glimmer faintly with light she said, "Go back Anti," trying to sound as commanding as possible.
Anti-Form laughed, for her voice was weak. "Not this time Princess," he said, taking a step towards her. "There are some things I want to say to you. For one, do you know how dead sexy you look without any clothes on?"
Kairi's face flushed with anger and she gripped her Keyblade all the more tightly with her one usable hand, her left arm still hanging lifeless as blood continued to leak out of the wound. "What did you say?" she growled.
"You and your cute blonde sister," Anti chuckled insanely. "Or rather, I should say the spirits of you and her that are within my heart. You both make good whores."
"Blizzard's Bite!"
Anti-Form looked up to see an icy image of Soronmon's head screaming through the air towards him. He casually jumped back as it struck into the ground where he had been standing not a second before, freezing it and creating a large crystal of ice jutting up from the ground.
Soronmon's brown eyes were as icy as the crystal that was now on the ground as she glared at Anti-Form. "Never call my partner that again!" she snapped.
Anti studied the large digimon for a second before his yellow eyes lit up. "Oh yes, this is your Champion level isn't it Menelmon?" he said. "Good, I was hoping to get some revenge on the one who shot those feathers at me."
"To get to Soronmon you'll have to go through me," Ohtarmon said, moving forward to stand in front of both Kairi and Soronmon, even as the giant eagle hovered above them in the air.
"You'd fight your own partner?" Anti asked, grinning. "Then I think I have a plan now. Beat you up, kick your birdie friend's tushy, then rape and kill Sora's precious Princess Kairi. And after that, I can go on to his brother Roxas and his little bitch Naminé, and then Riku and sweet Yuffie, and then maybe his friends and cousin, and after that I can destroy everything!"
"We're not going to let you!" Kairi yelled, bringing the Oathkeeper back up to threaten him with it. "You're insane!"
Anti shrugged. "Maybe," he said slowly, looking naughtily at Kairi, making her shiver. "Maybe I just want to watch the world burn."
"Then I can't stand by and watch!" Soronmon said, furling her wings in front of her. "Polar Chill!" She unfurled her wings and unloaded a barrage of thick icicles at Anti-Form. He smirked and even placed one hand behind his back as he began to cut the icicles that came right at him in half. Anti brought his left hand out from behind his back, and Kairi saw with surprised horror that the metal hand was encased in a dark sphere. He thrust it towards Soronmon and she flew out of the way. The orb sailed past her wing and Soronmon looked back at Anti-Form. He smiled and the sphere in the air suddenly shattered, breaking into more than a dozen tiny comets of darkness.
"Soronmon, look out!" Kairi yelled, her Keyblade no longer in her grasp. Soronmon looked a moment too late and shrieked as the dark attack struck her repeatedly in the back. Anti opened up with more blasts that struck her in the female digimon's chest. She suddenly glowed with golden light and shrank, reverting back down to a weakened and unconscious Menelmon.
Anti smirked at his victory, but his yellow eyes suddenly grew wide in surprise as a large feathered fist connected with his skull. Anti flew backwards head first and slammed into the crystal of ice. He broke about halfway through before stopping and slumping down into an icy chair. He did not get back up.
"Sorry about that," Ohtarmon muttered, checking his fist. He looked over and swiftly rushed off to pick up Menelmon and see if she was alright.
Kairi limped towards the fallen Anti-Form, still bleeding from her head, shoulder, and right side. His black skin and garments shifted back into those colours they normally were, and his brown hair wafted over an unconscious face, a little bit of blood from striking the ice dribbling through it. She glanced behind them. Pete was gone.
She was sickened at the things that Anti had said, but tried her best to put them out of her mind as she felt her strength leaving her legs. Kairi removed her hand from her shoulder and held it out in front of her, creating an orb of light directly in front of her face.
"You can get down here now," she said into the orb. "And Jiminy, I need a Hi-Potion, like right freaking now!" The orb whizzed away to the top of the slope and Kairi collapsed onto her knees. She hadn't been able to keep all of the anger she felt to Anti-Form out of her voice, it was like a sucker-punch to her gut to know that something that was a part of Sora was doing... that to the spirit of her within his heart! And not only her, but Naminé as well!
Her eyes dimmed a little, and it seemed like hours until Strider and the hobbits arrived at the bridge. Jiminy hopped out in front of Kairi and presented her with the Hi-Potion she had requested. She wearily took it in her right hand and used the spray on the top to cover the wound on her left shoulder with the more powerful healing liquid. She couldn't concentrate enough to cast a curaga spell, and she wasn't sure if she had the strength to do so anyway. The spray moved to her forehead where the skin had been ripped by the Axe Warrior's shield, and she could feel the itch of it already growing back. Slowly, her fingers began trying to unscrew the cap on the top until Merry took it from her hands and took the top off for her. Kairi thanked him and braced herself for the awful taste; and drank the potion as it slowly slipped across her tongue and down her throat. Gasping, she emerged from the bottle while pulling a face.
"We should leave this place as quickly as possible," Strider said, looking around. "I am anxious to be on the Road."
Kairi stood up and nodded, but her legs swayed beneath her in weakness and she fell back onto the ground. "I can't walk," she said apologetically. "And Sora's been knocked out."
"Should we wake him?" Frodo asked, riding on the pony. He clutched his shoulder suddenly, as if in pain.
Ohtarmon came forward and spoke to them first. "No," he said, shaking his head. "Sora has not slept for nearly a week, and even though it is unconsciousness, his body needs the rest it deserves. He's been keeping himself up by using ethers to restore his strength."
Kairi sighed in understanding. "So that explains the blue dust then. I thought he was doing something like that."
The hobbits looked upon the eight-foot-tall digimon with wide eyes. "And who might you be?" Pippin gulped, his eyes flickering to Ohtarmon's giant mace.
He chuckled. "Why Pippin, I'm shocked. I am Ohtarmon, the Champion level of Aiwemon."
"So, you're Aiwemon," Merry said, smiling in interest and nodding his head. Strider looked curiously at him, but Ohtarmon did not notice.
"I am, and I'm not," Ohtarmon said. He slung his mace over his shoulder and tenderly placed the unconscious Menelmon down next to Frodo, saying to the hobbit, "Look after her until she wakes." He picked up both Sora and Kairi, and their packs, and carried them in his arms while the packs hung off of his elbows.
"How long can you carry such a burden?" Strider asked him.
Ohtarmon's answer was a gruff laugh. "Ha! These two haven't been eating much recently. Despite the bit of muscle strength in their backs and legs they gained, they've still lost weight. I can barely feel them."
Kairi raised her head weakly, as she lay on top. "You're lucky I'm so weak, otherwise I'd hit you Ohtarmon."
Ohtarmon chuckled. "And I'd probably deserve it, especially after complaining about being a pack animal when we left Weathertop," he said quietly. "Now don't talk; save your strength for healing and get some rest. I promise you Kairi, you will both be safe."
-A-D-
Anti-Form growled as he strode up to Sora, the young man lying on his back on his platform. "You're digimon partner's a real, fucking, bastard you know that!" he asked Sora angrily, his stride becoming fast and irritated.
Sora couldn't even manage the weakest of smiles at the look of fury Anti-Form was sending him. The Keyblade was nowhere to be seen or found, but that didn't matter to Anti as he grabbed the front of Sora's jacket with his black automail and yanked the Keyblade Master's head up. Sora's eyes spun for a second. His face stung with sudden pain as Anti's claws raked over his cheek and nose before the black fist reared back and punched him in the face.
Anti let Sora's jacket slip through his fingers as the boy skidded away across the platform, but he still stared angrily at the injured one. "I'm so fucking pissed off that I won't even be able to enjoy raping your slut princesses today!" he swore, getting onto his feet and calling the Oblivion to his hand as it shook with rage. He began to walk towards Sora. "And I so dearly love hearing their screams when my dark body smothers their light."
Sora looked up at the advancing Anti-Form, his eyes fearfully drawn to the black Keyblade within his pitch hand. It gleamed with a dark light, and Anti's speed began to pick up. "This would all end," he said, the beginnings of an insane smile coming back onto his face, "if you were no longer around. So I think I'll just have to kill you now."
"Reflega!" Sora cried, erecting the defensive dome between him and his darkness. Anti-Form made one slash with the Oblivion and shattered the magical defence. Sora shuffled backwards, but Anti was far quicker and stopped him by placing a black foot on Sora's chest. The Oblivion's point went right in front of Sora's nose and his eyes struggled to look at it clearly. The left side of his face was still in pain, but in this place he could not bleed.
"Ah, so you are the Heartless that Pete was rambling about."
Anti-Form looked behind him and his face became neutral as he spotted Maleficent appearing upon the platform in a surge of green fire. "Maleficent," he said, his tone completely emotionless, "what are you doing here?"
"I wanted to study you of course," she replied. "But I had not expected Sora's darkness to be so close to engulfing his light and soul."
"I'm about to kill this weakling right now," Anti said, smiling at the sudden recurrence of the thought. "And then, I'll be the one in complete control of this body. Sora's name will become synonymous with death and destruction, and I will finish what Xehanort started, ridding the worlds of every last Keyblade Wielder! But instead of desiring to rule the universe, I will destroy it all!"
Maleficent gazed coolly at Anti-Form before turning aside. "Fine then," she said. "Kill him."
Both Anti-Form's and Sora's eyes widened in surprise. "What?" Anti growled.
"My revenge will be completed upon Sora either way," Maleficent said. "Whether he should survive and defeat you, and then meet his death at my hands, or if his darkness should consume him and destroy him, my revenge will be carried out. So kill him."
Anti stood ridged over Sora's body as he once again began to quake as Anti's sword still lay between his eyes. Their position stayed like that for a whole ten seconds before the Oblivion slowly rose away from Sora's head. "No."
Maleficent turned back to look at Anti-Form. "Perhaps you didn't hear me," she said, her eyes narrowing at him. "Kill him."
Anti-Form took his feet off of Sora's chest and walked away from the Keyblade Master. "No," he said definitely.
"I am the Mistress of all Evil," Maleficent said, her voice growing louder and more commanding as her green flames began to grow around the base of her black gown. "I am the Queen of Darkness and command it in all its forms. You will obey me!"
"And I say NO!" Anti-Form said, slashing out towards Maleficent with his Keyblade. Maleficent blocked it with her staff and both of them held looks of fury towards the other.
"And why do you dare attempt to defy me?" Maleficent questioned him angrily. "Your own goals will be achieved by doing as I say, and you were even about to kill him before I arrived. Why do you now turn away? Could it be—?"
"Do not think this as an act of compassion!" Anti-Form snapped at her. "I do not care for Sora's soul, but something he once said rings true for both of us in our heart, within both the darkness and what weak little light he foolishly still holds on to! I don't take orders from you!" He stabbed suddenly with the Oblivion and the blade would have sunk its way into Maleficent had she not suddenly vanished.
"Whichever of you succeeds in defeating the other," her disembodied voice echoed, "you will rue this day you insulted me!"
Anti turned his head to the side. "Tch, whatever bitch." He looked at Sora and stared at him for a second before looking away. "Take control again," he said indifferently to Sora's surprise. "I'm not in the mood to kill you just yet."
Sora looked at him curiously. "You're stronger than me Anti," he said quietly, but his voice growing louder in his confusion. "You've proven it a lot, and you could have killed me already a hundred times now, or taken control and done whatever you wanted, and I can't stop you. Why haven't you done it already?"
Anti-Form smiled and looked back at Sora. "Isn't it obvious Sora, I love fucking your mind up! You can't think straight anymore. Your brain is always thinking about me, wondering, 'Is he going to come out now? What's he going to do if I fall asleep? Will I have to watch him screwing Kairi and Naminé for the fifteenth time? Is he going to call me into my heart to show me that he's screwing them? Will he hurt Aiwemon if he comes out? Will he hurt the hobbits? Will he hurt Kairi?' I'm always on your mind now Sora. You can't even kiss your girlfriend anymore or show her that you love her in even the little ways. And do you want to know why?"
Anti's voice lowered into a husky whisper and he came right up to Sora's ear. "It's because you are afraid of me."
Sora's face hardened and he glared at Anti-Form as his darkness began to walk away from him. "I am not scared of you Anti!" he yelled.
Anti chuckled and turned around again, fixing Sora with a stare from his cold yellow eyes. "Keep telling yourself that, coward."
-A-D-
Maleficent smiled when her consciousness returned to her body, many hundreds of miles away, and she nearly laughed. The experience was both troubling, but very revealing to her mind of her mistakes. Now she had a lead on she could create her World Heartless; all that remained, was figuring a way to make it possible.
-A-D-
Sora and Kairi woke within fifteen minutes of each other, but when they did wake they were surprised to find themselves underneath a stony shelf with a rock-wall behind them, at night, in the rain. Kairi looked at her shoulder when she woke up, and was glad and surprised when she saw that the Hi-Potion's power had healed the bone and nerves, and that she was now able to move her arm again, albeit gingerly and slowly.
"It is good to see that you are both awake now," Strider said, awake and smoking on a pipe. "You have both been asleep for three days, and we have been harried and chased by the Heartless for the last two. It has rained since they appeared, and we have not been able to light a fire. I am concerned for Frodo; his wound has grown more painful. Our stores are also growing low."
"I'll get a fire going," Kairi said, moving slowly towards a pile of wet and cold wood that they had tried to kindle a flame in a few hours previous. She took a piece of wood in her right hand, doing her best to move her left one as little as possible, and spoke the word, "Fira." The fuel burst into flame, steam rising from the wet wood and bringing sudden light to their campsite. She placed the wood back in the pile, with the fire underneath the rest of the wood, and was about to begin shifting the wood around when two tiny fireballs blazed past her arm and into the fire that was already burning in the heart of the wood.
Kairi looked in surprise as Sora came and sat next to her, having sent the fires in himself. They looked around for a moment, and found their digimon near the tired hobbits and pony. Ohtarmon had removed the armour he always digivolved in, and they could now see that his body was indeed humanoid underneath his protective coverings. His chest, arms, and legs were covered in brown feathers, darkened by the wet rain, and his head was mostly the same shade, except for a strip of white that went from the top crest of his yellow beak and flowed up between his eyes. It broke apart into three at the top of his forehead, and then they lost sight of it against the rock. Menelmon was sleeping on his snoozing lap.
"They held the Heartless off of us every time the creatures appeared," Strider said. "And I think I will always be amazed at their strength." Sora and Kairi looked at the digimon and nodded in agreement.
Kairi looked up suddenly, feeling something, and she looked thoughtfully into the raining night. She drew the hood of her cloak over her head. The fire sparked and steamed in front of them, but its heat seemed to be holding its own, maintaining enough energy to keep burning while boiling away the water inside of the wood. She glanced at Sora, and saw the look in his eyes and face, before she looked down into the fire. The flames danced in front of her as the rain fell, but the flickering shapes of orange, red, and yellow seemed caged by the wet wood standing in the tipi style while the fire burned, obscured, at its heart.
She felt something next to her and saw Sora suddenly flash into darkness for an instant before returning to normal. He sighed quietly, but not quietly enough for her to not hear his breath. Kairi's indigo eyes scrutinized his face, and she did not like what she saw.
She opened her mouth for a second, determined to try and get him to talk to her this time, but then she shut it again. It was futile. Sora was never going to open up about his darkest fears, not even to her. He was being as stubborn as a mule, and was becoming the same and yet different as when he'd lost his arm and feared he could no longer protect her.
But she could see that it was a little different this time. She could see that he was still afraid of not being able to protect his friends, but it wasn't a question of his physical ability anymore.
Kairi looked back at Sora, forcing herself to become furious with him. She had succeeded the first time in Port Royal, when she'd slapped him, but she hadn't been so successful when she'd given herself up to Maleficent. He'd stopped moping and came out, but he'd still lacked the confidence he needed in order to call the Keyblade back to him.
Subtlety was wasted on Sora now. She'd given him the better part of ten days to open up to her, either waiting for him to talk to her about it or trying to get it to work into a conversation. But that was futile, and she would have to get as angry and with as much spunk as the first time.
And she would not feel guilty.
Kairi looked at him again. "Hey, Sora!" he looked up at her, and she could see that he was surprised by the fierceness in her face and eyes. He had only seen her face for a second before her fist flew into his face between his eyes.
Strider looked up from his pipe in amazement as Sora skidded on the rocky ground, his cloak bringing up the mud and making the dark brown wool look even darker. The rain pounded down on his now exposed face and he angrily growled at Kairi. "Dammit Kairi! What the hell was—?"
"What's with that wimpy look on your face!" Kairi retorted, cutting him off. Sora froze for a second, but that was all the time Kairi needed to close the distance between them and grab him by his hair.
"What are you—?" Sora began to ask, pained and annoyed at the sudden turn of events.
"Come with me!" Kairi barked, dragging him along behind her as she ran away from their campsite and into the wilderness.
She ignored Sora's complaints and questions as she ran, dragging him along behind her by his hair. The rain pelted both of them, and Kairi created orbs of light that hovered by her head and illuminated the darkness with a pale light, so that she might find her way, and soothed her mind. Kairi could feel their presence now, she was getting closer to them, and they were getting closer to her and Sora.
She was just frustrated that Sora didn't feel them too.
After a minute changed her grip on Sora's hair so that she wasn't dragging him as much, allowing him to run. He let out an exasperated groan. "Kairi, where are you taking me?"
"Just shut up and keep running Sora," she answered, pulling him past the ruins of a crumbling wall. "They're close."
"Huh? What's close?" Sora asked, struggling to maintain his footing as Kairi continued to half drag him to their destination.
Kairi smiled sadly to herself, knowing that Sora couldn't see her face. Even though she had decided not to feel guilty, decided that it was necessary, she couldn't help but not feel a little sorry for him.
Until she spotted her quarry.
Sora gasped slightly as he saw them. "Heartless?" Milling about near the bottom of a small slope they were standing on the lip of, there looked to be around twenty Heartless. Neoshadows were easily seen in the pale light cast by the orbs Kairi had called, and with them were a few Armoured Knights and another one of the Charr Heartless as their leader. It carried a sword and a shield like a few of the last bunch they had fought, but unlike them it seemed stronger, like the first Charr Heartless they'd faced in the Pride Lands. A Charr Blade Storm Heartless.
"Yeah," Kairi said, gripping his hair tighter. "Now go get them!"
Sora yelled in surprise as Kairi threw him through the air towards the group of Heartless. He crashed into the ground with the sounds of the rustling foliage and splattering mud following his soft thump.
"Jeeze Kai," he groaned, wiping the mud out of his eyes, "that..." His voice caught as he looked right up into the yellow and curious eyes of one of the Neoshadows, "...hurt?" The Neoshadow appeared to snort at him after a second and its claw leapt out towards his chest. "Whoa!"
Sora leapt back to avoid it, stopping in the mud as his boots got a good grip on the soft earth. Kairi watched as another Neoshadow came at him with its claws and beside it an Armoured Knight spun along the ground, its sword-arm slashing for his legs. Sora ducked underneath the claw and leapt backwards over the sword. He landed again and twitched his neck and shoulders to avoid a swiftly falling sword-strike from the strong Charr Blade Storm.
Annoyed at his evasive tactics, Kairi called out to him. "What are you doing! Fight them Sora! You aren't going to lose to Heartless this weak are you?"
Sora sidestepped away from another Neoshadow and ducked under the sword of an Armoured Knight. "Cool it Kairi!" he retorted. "I was just about ready to take 'em out anyway—" His words stuck as he suddenly flickered into Anti again, and then returned to his normal self with barely enough time to get out of the way of the Blade Storm's sword.
"And what was that?" Kairi yelled at him, watching as Sora jumped twelve feet to land on a thicker branch of a tree.
"Shut up Kairi!" he yelled back, the hood of his cloak fallen back and the rain soaking its way into his hair and face. The black sword of the Blade Storm glistened in the light and it jutted up to try and catch Sora in the tree.
He jumped up further, landing heavily on a branch more out of reach. Kairi scowled. "Don't think I haven't noticed Sora," she said, loud and clear enough to be sure to reach his ears. "Ever since you got stabbed on Weathertop, you haven't summoned your Keyblade once! Not even when we were fighting with eight Charr Heartless three days ago! What are you afraid of?"
"Our digimon got hurt!" Sora replied from his tree, his eyes on the Heartless below him. "You got hurt!"
"SO WHAT!" Kairi roared, throwing off her hood and parting her rain-soaked dirty hair from her face. Even from the distance between them she could see Sora's shocked eyes clearly. "We've all been hurt before Sora; have you always been a man who loses his spirit over little things like that? Are you going to become one!"
"No way in hell!" Sora snapped back, leaping away from the tree he was in as the Neoshadows on the ground began to scramble up it towards him.
"You never really lost before Maleficent sent Cossex to the Islands Sora," Kairi continued in her tirade. "And it's been pretty downhill from there, but you've still managed to stand tall in the end! Is it scary to lose! Is it scary not being able to protect your friends! Or is it scary to face the Heartless inside of you?"
Sora's feet landed him on the tree he had jumped to and he looked at her, stunned by her words.
"He's stronger than I am Iri," he said, only just loud enough so that she could hear, but she could still hear the fear in his voice.
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. The wind whipped around her revealed and vulnerable head, her hair barely moving as it soaked in the falling rain. But she didn't even feel it as her heart burned in her chest. "Did that matter with Xehanort's Heartless or Xemnas?" she asked. "If you're afraid of losing, just get stronger. If you're afraid of not being able to protect your friends, swear to get stronger until you can protect them. If you're afraid of the Heartless inside of you, just get stronger until you can crush him. If you don't want to listen to me, then hold your chin up and yell those words to yourself!"
Kairi snapped open her eyes and fixed Sora with a fierce stare as she spoke her final piece. "Because when it boils right down to it, that's the kind of man you have been in my heart Sora!"
Her profound speech seemed to strike Sora right in his heart, and a look she hadn't seen a lot of over the last long while claimed his face as he leapt down from his tree to stand directly in front of the Blade Storm Heartless, the rest of the Neoshadows and Armoured Knights forming a ring around them. His back was turned to her as he shoved his wet wool cloak off and threw it into the wind behind him.
"Tch," he said as his right hand flashed suddenly with bright light. His Keyblade, Remembrance, gleamed with silver light as he held it in his hand, surrounded by the Heartless. "I guess I can't be a lazy bum anymore."
Kairi smiled and folded her arms in front of her, prepared to watch him take down all of the Heartless there.
And this time, I think he's back to stay.
The black sword of the Blade Storm Heartless came down towards Sora's head, but he deked away to the side to completely avoid it. His feet connected squarely with the iron-clad chest of an Armoured Knight and used it as a springboard. Sora kicked off of the Heartless, sending it crashing backwards into four other Heartless, and he soared into the air towards the Blade Storm. As skilled as it was, it could not have expected such a swift and surprising counter, and was too slow to counter Sora's gleaming silver Keyblade. With a deft stroke, Sora beheaded the Heartless before he fell back down to the ground, the mammoth dark creature already dissipating into darkness with its pink heart rising into the sky.
The Islander rolled on his arm and shoulder before rising back onto his feet, Remembrance cutting cleanly through the whole torso of a Neoshadow that stood in front of him. He gripped his blade in both of his hands and spun around in a half-circle, and his sword destroyed four more Heartless in front of him. Something was glowing with silver light underneath his jacket and shirts, the signs just barely visible against his neck. He looked up and saw two Neoshadows high in the air above him, their sharp claws coming down towards his body.
Sora yelled and threw his Keyblade into the air, its spinning blade ripping through both Neoshadows. While it was out of his hands Sora ran forward to a small group of three Armoured Knights and his left fist began to glow with silver fire. He swung it out in front of his body before thrusting it, open-palmed, towards the trio of Heartless. Meteors of blazing infernos of his silver fire came from the automail and struck two of the Armoured Knights directly in their heads, exploding in sharp, silver blasts that quickly reduced the Heartless into defeated clouds of darkness lit only by the light of their released pink hearts and the pale light that reached the area from Kairi's orbs. The third one missed, and struck an ancient and broken stone wall. The vines that grew creeping over the stonework burned away and shrivelled up in the area the fire struck, and the stone cracked and broke as the small magical meteor of Twilight made a deep crater within the wall. The Armoured Knight that Sora had missed ran towards him and brought its sword arm down towards his head.
He jumped high over the Armoured Knight's oblivious head and grasped the spinning Remembrance's hilt moments after it tore the second Neoshadow into a cloud of darkness. Sora flipped in the air and his Keyblade crackled with electricity. "THUNDAGA!"
Kairi still smiled and watched from her position on the slope as a dozen thick and brightly shining columns of lightning streaked out of his weapon and struck each of the remaining Heartless. The tiny orbs of light she had conjured were illuminating her rain-soaked face as well as the sudden light and fire from his spell. Underneath her cloak, jacket, sweater, and light shirt, she could feel something warm and soft against the skin of her body, and knew that her crest was glowing brightly. Kairi looked down slightly in the electric light and fingered the slightly pink crown pendant that hung around her neck.
-A-D-
When they finally got back to camp it was to find that the rest of the wood that had kept the flame caged inside had caught fire, and was blazing brightly against the night. The rain was lessening, but Strider still sat awake, smoking his pipe.
When they returned, side-by-side and hand-in-hand with smiles on their wet but happy faces, Strider looked at them both with an interested smile. "You appear different Sora," he said.
"I feel different," Sora answered. He then gave Kairi a swift kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for the kick in the butt Kairi."
Kairi smiled a little bit more and even blushed at the kiss. "Don't make me do it again, because I don't know what else I could try," she said, trying and failing to be stern as a giggle escaped her lips.
The three of them stayed awake and kept watch the remainder of the night, and whenever Sora or Kairi sensed approaching Heartless, one of them (usually Sora since Kairi's shoulder was still causing her much more discomfort than Sora's) would go out with Strider, who would enthusiastically observe the young warrior with amazement while critiquing and giving pointers and reminders that only one who had truly studied and had many years of experience could give, like any good coach would.
But those incidences were few throughout the night, and indeed, they only happened four times after Kairi had dragged Sora away from camp. The morning dawned grey and full of clouds, and the rain had ceased completely a few hours before. The wind was shifting, and the clouds were beginning to break, pale but widening strips of blue sky appearing between them.
When the hobbits, Ohtarmon and Menelmon awoke it was with surprise to see Sora up and smiling and joking as he had before Weathertop happened. Ohtarmon de-digivolved back to Aiwemon as soon as he was confident that they'd be alright walking and carrying their own weight and packs again, but he still grumbled when Sora, laughing, attached Frodo's own pack on his back again.
Their breakfast was hot from the fire that had burned since Kairi lighted it, and it was comfortable by all rights. Both Sora and Kairi ate the small portion of food they had ravenously, having not eaten anything for the three days they had been asleep for.
"Come on, let's get going," Sora said enthusiastically, after they had repacked and gotten ready. "Rivendell isn't that far away anymore is it?"
"In a minute Sora," Strider said, smiling at the young man's returned spirit. "I am going to climb, if I can, and get a look at the lie of the land."
Sora looked at Strider for a second. "Then... I'll come with you!"
"And I will too," Aiwemon said, flying up to reach Sora's shoulder. In the end, Strider was unable to convince them to stay with Kairi, Menelmon, and the hobbits, and the three of them set off.
When they returned, their news wasn't all that reassuring. Strider had led them too far to the north, and they would need to find a way to turn south again, lest they wind up in the Ettendales to the north of Rivendell, and that was troll-country, and unfamiliar with Strider.
The rest of the day they spent scrambling over rocky and difficult ground. Occasionally they would be beset by Heartless, but every time Sora and Kairi would leap into action with their Keyblades and digimon partners, vanquishing the attacks within minutes. They managed to find a pass between two hills that brought them into a valley that led in a southeast direction. Towards the end of the day, however, they found the path blocked by a high ridge; its dark edge against the sky was broken into many bare points like teeth of a blunted saw. Two choices were before them: to go back, or attempt the climb.
They attempted the climb, but it was difficult.
"Mahna Mahna!" Sora swore, tripping and falling down for the third time within the first half-hour as they struggled up the ridge.
Kairi looked at him quizzically and began to mutter quietly, "Do-doo-do-do-do."
Sora looked up and behind him at her. "Mahna Mahna."
"Do-do-do-do."
Their heads began to bob slightly and tiny smiles appeared on their tired faces. "Mahna Mahna."
"Do-doo-do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do!" Quiet sniggers came from their lips at the little inside joke that only they understood. Fortunately, they were the only ones to have heard each other, and so did not receive strange looks from their companions apart from Aiwemon and Menelmon.
The climb was long and arduous, and soon after Sora and Kairi's little pop-culture break Frodo was forced to dismount from the pony and their hearts fell slightly. They began to despair of getting the pony up the ridge, or even finding a path for themselves. Sora stubbornly threw himself forward, determined not to let something like a ridge stop him now that Kairi had finally gotten him to come out of his funk. The light was nearly gone and all of them were exhausted when they reached the top. They had gotten into a narrow stretch between two higher points, and the slope fell away steeply again just a short distance ahead of them. Kairi clutched at a painful stitch in her side and watched as Sora threw himself onto the ground.
"I'm bushed," he said tiredly. Frodo dropped down and lay next to him, shivering horribly. Kairi took a few deep breaths and tried to ignore the pain in her side before kneeling down next to Frodo.
"Are you alright?" she asked worriedly. The wound he had received on Weathertop was affecting him much differently than it had affected Sora, and she attributed that to their not being from Middle-earth.
Frodo gasped and his right hand clutched at his left side. "My arm is lifeless," he said slowly, his voice and teeth chattering, "and my side and shoulder feel like icy claws have been laid upon them."
Kairi looked at him sympathetically before she turned away. She took Sora's pack off of him and opened it, beginning to rummage through it.
Sora looked up at her suddenly, his eyes quickly gaining a look of discomfort. His voice was unable to hide his apprehension. "Kai, why are you going through my pack?"
"I'm getting a pot," she answered. Her face beamed. "Here's one!" She pulled it out and then she spotted something underneath where the pot had been. It looked to be an auburn-leather bound book, the leather the same colour as the jacket Sora had worn for a time after they had been on the Flying Dutchman, but it could have held anything inside of it. "What's this?"
She pulled it out and was about to open the book when it was suddenly snatched out of her hands. Kairi looked up with surprise to see Sora clutching it tightly. "Nothing!" he said.
Kairi raised an eyebrow in amusement. "So it's 'nothing' huh? Come on, tell me."
"No," Sora replied. Kairi jumped up and made a grab for the book, but Sora deked out of the way and hid it underneath his brown cloak.
"Aw, come on you lazy bum," Kairi whined, grabbing his arm and tugging on it. "Tell me!"
"No," Sora repeated, beginning to laugh.
"Why don't you want to show me?" Kairi asked shrewdly, folding her arms in front of her chest. "What is it? Your secret porno stash?"
Sora's face turned beet red and Kairi laughed loudly at his flustered and annoyed expression and promptly turned around before he could begin to successfully articulate a counter. Jiminy even rolled right out of Sora's hood, laughing himself silly. She picked up the pot and filled it up halfway with a water spell. She came and kneeled next to Frodo again and placed her hands along the sides of the pot below the water's level. "Fire."
Frodo looked at her curiously as her area around her gloves began to glow with a red light. Merry and Sam came over to her after speaking with Strider, and Sora was hurriedly trying to get out of explaining just what porn was to a bewildered and curious Aiwemon, Menelmon, and Peregrin Took.
The Kairi heated the water with her fire spell until it was steaming and just beginning to boil before she placed a cloth in it. While removing her glove, she got a sudden idea and softly poured light into the grey cloth as it soaked in the hot water. Sam helped Frodo remove his layers and she began to bathe his shoulder over where he had been struck by the morgul knife. The wound had been small and had closed, and there was nothing to be seen of it but a cold white scar.
Frodo sighed as Kairi tenderly bathed the spot in the dying light with the cloth. The light she had put into it seemed to be healing him somewhat of the pain, and she could almost feel a bit of warmth that wasn't from the steaming water creep back into the skin underneath her hands.
"You would make a good mother when you're older Kairi," Merry said, nodding his head slightly as he watched her motions.
She gasped and stopped for an instant. Her left hand went up to wipe away a sudden tear from her eyes and she continued bathing Frodo's shoulder. "Thanks Merry. That means a lot."
-A-D-
The night was cold, and the wind blew chills into their bodies as they huddled round the fire that Sora had lit under the roots of a gnarled, old pine. But the morning dawned bright and fair, and the light was pale and clear. Strider took Sora with him again to survey the area, and when they returned the sun was shining brightly, complimenting Sora's wide grin and Strider's small smile. They were heading in the right direction again, and they had caught a glimpse of the Loudwater again. Strider knew that the Road to the Ford was not far from the River and lay on the side nearest to them.
"We must make for the Road again," he said. "We cannot hope to find a path through these hills. Whatever danger may beset it, the Road is our only way to the Ford."
They ate before setting out again, hardening their encouraged hearts for the descent down the southern side of the ridge. But the going was much easier than they had expected, and the slope was far less steep on this side. Before long Frodo was able to ride the pony again, and Sora was laughing as he risked breaking an ankle by leaping down sections twelve feet at a time. Kairi scolded him every time he foolishly made the jump, and she ignored the fact that she was jumping down one extra foot from being slightly behind and higher up in order to reach him so that she could scold him.
As for Strider and the hobbits, Bill Ferny's poor old pony was developing a knack for picking out a path, and for sparing his its rider as many jolts as possible. Their spirits all rose in the sun's light as the knowledge that they were nearing their destination sunk into their hearts, and the tomfoolery of the two teenage lovers using their abilities erupted to a level that hadn't been witnessed since they left Bree, and the sounds of their laughing rang through the immediate area of the woods. And no Heartless came upon them.
Pippin was a little ahead of the others after they had finished descending the ridge. Suddenly he turned round and called to them. "There is a path here!" he cried. When they caught up with him, they saw that he had made no mistake: there were clearly the beginnings of a path, that climbed with many windings out of the woods below and faded away onto the hill-top behind. In places it was now faint and overgrown, or choked with fallen stones and trees; but at one time it seemed to have been much used. It appeared to have been made by strong arms and heavy feet. Here and there old trees had been cut or broken down, and large rocks cloven or heaved aside to make way for it.
They followed it down, for it gave them much the easiest way down, but Strider advised that they moved cautiously, and their anxiety increased as they came into the dark woods, and the path slowly grew plainer and broader. Kairi's fingers twitched occasionally until she was sure she was having a spasm, and almost wanted to summon and hold onto the Oathkeeper just to keep her mind off of calling it. Suddenly coming out of a belt of fir trees it ran steeply down a slope, and turned sharply to the left round the corner of a rocky shoulder of the hill.
When they reached the corner they looked around and saw that the path ran on a level strip under the face of a low cliff overhung with trees. In the stony wall there was a large door hanging crookedly ajar on one great hinge.
They stopped outside the door. There was a cave behind, but in the gloom inside it was impossible to see anything. Strider, Sora, and Kairi, pushing with all their strength, were able to open the door, and then the Ranger and Princess went in. They didn't go far, and Kairi winced when she stepped on something and her boot crunched something underfoot. She looked down, and stepped back in sudden disgust to see that she had crushed one of many small old bones that lay scattered over the floor. The only other thing of interest they could see from the sun's light that filtered in around the entrance were a few massive, empty, jars and broken pots.
Pippin looked in from the outside. "Surely this is a troll-hole, if ever there was one!" he said. "Come out, you two, and let us get away. Now we know who made the path—and we had better get off it quick."
Strider came out first with Kairi quickly following him. "There is no need, I think," he said. "It is certainly a troll-hole, but it seems to have been long forsaken. I don't think we need to be afraid, but let us go down warily, and we shall see."
Pippin, not liking to show Strider, Sora, and Kairi (but especially Strider) that he was still afraid went on ahead with Merry, while Strider and Sam walked on either side of Frodo's pony, as the path was now wide enough to accommodate them, and Sora and Kairi brought up the rear just behind with Menelmon on Kairi's shoulder and Aiwemon flying beside Sora, still carrying Frodo's pack, though it was lighter now.
"I wonder what a troll actually looks like," Sora said to Kairi, glancing at her as his hands were folded behind his head in his customary pose.
"I don't know," Kairi said. She spotted Pippin running back with Merry, both of the hobbits looking terrified. "But, I think we may find out very soon."
"There are trolls!" Pippin panted, breathless. "Down in a clearing in the woods not far below. We got a sight of them through the tree-trunks. They are very large!"
"We will come and look at them," said Strider, stooping to pick up a stick. Sora and Kairi called their Keyblades into their hands and made their way up to walk just behind Strider and Sam. Frodo said nothing, but Sam looked scared.
The sun was now high, and shining down through the half-stripped branches of the trees and lighting the clearing with bright patches of light. They stopped suddenly on the edge of the clearing and peered through the trees, holding their breath. There in front of them stood the trolls: three monstrous trolls. One was stooping, and the other two stood staring at him.
Kairi gulped, she certainly hadn't expected trolls to be larger than Ohtarmon was, but there they were, the standing ones at least more than twice her height. Strider drew her attention as he walked forward unconcernedly, brandishing his stick. "Get up old stone!" he said, and broke his stick upon the stooping troll.
Nothing happened. There was a gasp of astonishment from the hobbits, and then even Frodo laughed while Kairi, Sora, Menelmon, and Aiwemon shared puzzled looks with each other. "Well," Frodo said. "We are forgetting our family history! These must be the very three that were caught by Gandalf, quarrelling over the right way to cook thirteen dwarves and one hobbit!"
"I had no idea we were anywhere near the place!" Pippin said.
"Gandalf turned them into stone?" Kairi asked, surprised. "Wow, he must be one powerful wizard to do that."
"His is a powerful wizard Kairi," Strider said, smiling broadly as they all came out to examine the stone trolls, "but Gandalf did not turn them into stone. He is not so cruel. The light of the sun turns any troll caught in it into a stone statue like these three. You are forgetting not only the history of your uncle, Frodo, but all you ever knew about trolls as well. It is broad daylight with a bright sun, and yet you, Pippin, come back trying to frighten us with a tale of live trolls waiting for us in this glade! In any case you might have noticed that one of them has an old bird's nest behind his ear. That would be a most unusual ornament for a live troll!"
They all laughed, and settled down right there in the sunny glade for lunch, right underneath the shadow of the trolls' large legs. Frodo told the story of when his uncle Bilbo came through this very stretch of wood with Thorin Oakenshield and his twelve companions on Bilbo's own journey many years before, and how
"Won't somebody give us a bit of a song, while the sun is high?" asked Merry, when they had finished. "We haven't had a song or a tale for days."
"Not since Weathertop," said Frodo. They all looked at him. "Don't worry about me," he said. "I feel much better, but I don't think I could sing. Perhaps Sam could dig something out of his memory."
Kairi, remembering when Sam sang about Gil-galad, looked with a broad smile at the hobbit. "Come on Sam," she said, urging him on. "Sing us something!"
"Aw, I don't know Kairi," he said, blushing and rubbing his head. "You could sing us something couldn't you? You do have a lovely singing voice if I remember rightly from Bree."
Kairi smiled a little wider and shook her head. "You wouldn't know any of our songs, and I'm sure that there are a lot that you wouldn't like."
"Come on Sam!" Aiwemon prodded.
"Yeah," Sora added, cheering, "Peer Pressure!"
Sam nodded his head in resignation. "Well, how would this suit? It ain't what I call proper poetry (Sora gagged again at the word), if you understand me, just a bit of nonsense. But these old images here brought it to my mind." He stood up, his hands behind his back as if he were a kid in school, and he began to sing an old tune.
Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;
For many a year he had gnawed it near,
For meat was hard to come by.
Done by! Gum by!
In a cave in the hills he dwelt alone,
And meat was hard to come by.
Up came Tom with his big boots on.
Said he to Troll: "Pray, what is yon?
For it looks like the shin o' my nuncle Tim,
As should be a-lyin' in graveyard.
Caveyard! Paveyard!
This many a year has Tim been gone,
And I thought he were lyin' in graveyard."
"My lad," said Troll, "this bone I stole.
But what be bones that lie in a hole?
Thy nuncle was dead as a lump o' lead,
Afore I found his shinbone.
Tinbone! Thinbone!
He can spare a share for a poor old troll,
For he don't need his shinbone."
Said Tom: "I don't see why the likes o' thee
Without axin' leave should go makin' free
With the shank or the shin o' my father's kin;
So hand the old bone over!
Rover! Trover!
Though dead he be, it belongs to he;
So hand the old bone over!"
"For a couple o' pins," says Troll, and grins,
"I'll eat thee too, and gnaw thy shins.
A bit o' fresh meat will go down sweet!
I'll try my teeth on thee now.
Hee now! See now!
I'm tired o' gnawing old bones and skins;
I've a mind to dine on thee now."
But just as he thought his dinner was caught,
He found his hands had hold of naught.
Before he could mind, Tom slipped behind
And gave him the boot to larn him.
Warn him! Darn him!
A bump o' the boot on the seat, Tom thought,
Would be the way to larn him.
But harder than stone is the flesh and bone
Of a troll that sits in the hills alone.
As well set your boot to the mountain's root,
For the seat of a troll don't feel it.
Peel it! Heal it!
Old Troll laughed, when he heard Tom groan,
And he knew his toes could feel it.
Tom's leg is game, since home he came,
And his bootless foot is lasting lame;
But Troll don't care, and he's still there
With the bone he boned from its owner.
Doner! Boner!
Troll's old seat is still the same,
And the bone he boned from its owner!
"Well that was quite silly," Sora said, smiling at Sam.
"And so ends 'Silly Songs with Sam'," Aiwemon laughed, flapping his wings, "the part of the adventure where Samwise sings a silly song."
"And so too does it give a warning to us all!" Merry joked. "It is as well you used a stick, and not your hand, Strider!"
"Where did you come by that, Sam?" asked Pippin. "I've never heard those words before."
Sam mumbled something inaudible. "It's out of his own head, of course," said Frodo. "I am learning a lot about Sam Gamgee on this journey. First he was a conspirator, now he's a jester. He'll end up by becoming a wizard—or a warrior!"
"I hope not," said Sam. "I don't want to be neither!"
They went back on down the woods in the afternoon, likely following the very track that Gandalf, Bilbo, and the dwarves had used many years before. After a few miles they passed by a stone in the grass, the signs of withered dwarf-runes and secret marks still visible. It was the stone that marked the place where the trolls' treasured gold had been hidden by Thorin Oakenshield and his companions. Frodo said that there was none left of the share allotted to Bilbo, as the hobbit had given it away, feeling that it wasn't his since it had been taken from robbers.
It was evening when they reached the Road, and the trees bordering it cast long shadows across it. There was no sign of any other travellers to be seen. As there was now no other possible course for them to take, they climbed down the bank, and turning left went off as fast as the smaller hobbits could manage. Soon a shoulder of the hills cut off the light of the quickly westering sun. A cold wind flowed down from the mountains, and Kairi shivered horribly and brought her cloak and jacket closer to her body. She had lived most of her life on Destiny Islands, a place that was broiling in the summer heat and comfortably warm in the 'winter' months; if she even so much as took her cloak off she'd become cold, especially since she was sweating from jogging down the Road.
They were just looking for a place off the Road where they could camp for the night, when they heard a sound that brought sudden fear back into their hearts: the noise of hoofs behind them. They looked back, but they could not see far because of the many windings and rollings of the Road. They quickly scrambled off the beaten way and up into the deep heather and bilberry patch of a thick hazel thicket. They could see the Road as they peered out from the bushes, faint and grey in the failing light, some thirty feet below them. The sound of hoofs drew nearer. They fell fast, with a light clippety-clippety-clip. Then faintly, as if it was blown away from them by the breeze, they seemed to catch a dim ringing, as of small bells tinkling.
"That does not sound like a Black Rider's horse!" said Frodo, listening intently. The other hobbits agreed hopefully while Kairi shared anxious looks with Sora and their digimon. She had no idea what the horse of a Black Rider would sound like, but she expected that any horse would sound similar to their pony. They were in fear of pursuit for so long that any sound from behind was ominous and unfriendly. But Strider was now leaning forward, stooped to the ground, with a hand to his ear, and a look of joy on his face.
The light faded, and the leaves on the bushes rustled softly. Clearer and nearer now the bells jingled, and clippety-clip came the quick trotting feet. Suddenly into view below came a white horse, gleaming in the shadows, running swiftly. In the dusk its headstall flickered and flashed, as if it were studded with gems like living stars. The rider's cloak streamed behind him, and his hood was thrown back; his golden hair flowed shimmering in the wind of his speed. Kairi saw him and it looked to her as though a white light was shining through the form and raiment of the rider, as if through only a thin veil.
Strider sprang from hiding and dashed down towards the Road, leaping with a cry through the heather; but even before he had moved or called, the rider had reined in his horse and halted, looking up towards the thicket where they stood. When he saw Strider, he dismounted and ran to meet him calling out: Ai na vedui Dúnadan! Mae govannen! His speech and ringing voice left no doubt in their hearts, even in the hearts of those not from Middle-earth, he was of the Elven-folk. No others that dwelled in the wide world had voices so fair to hear.
"What did he say?" Sora asked Kairi. "And why did he sound like he was a little afraid?"
"I don't know," Kairi replied.
"I did not catch the first phrase," said Frodo, watching anxiously as the elf and Strider spoke to each other, "he spoke it too quickly for me. But the second part, 'Mae govannen', means 'well met'."
"Sounds like a beautiful language if just saying something like 'hello' can be said like that," Kairi said, sighing. "I wish I could speak it."
"If you did I'd have to learn it too," Sora said suddenly, his eyes going wide. "You'd probably prattle on in it so often I'd never be able to understand you again!"
Kairi and Menelmon both giggled.
Soon Strider beckoned to them, and they hurried down to the Road. "This is Glorfindel," said Strider, "who dwells in the house of Elrond."
"Hail and well met at last!" said the Elf-lord to Frodo. "I was sent from Rivendell to look for you. We feared that you were in danger upon the road."
Frodo's face brightened. "Then Gandalf has reached Rivendell?" he cried.
"No. He had not when I departed; but that was nine days ago," answered Glorfindel. "Elrond received news that troubled him. Some of my kindred, journeying in your land beyond the Baranduin, learned that things were amiss, and sent messages as swiftly as they could. They said that the Nine were abroad, and that you were astray bearing a great burden without guidance, for Gandalf had not returned. There are few even in Rivendell that can ride openly against the Nine; but such as there were, Elrond sent out north, west, and south. It was thought that you might turn far aside to avoid pursuit, and become lost in the Wilderness."
"It was my lot to take the Road, and I came to the Bridge of Mitheithel, and left a token there, night on seven days ago. Three of the Servants of Sauron were upon the Bridge, but they withdrew and I pursued them westward. I came also upon two others, but they turned away southward. Since then I have searched for your trail. Two days ago I found it, and followed it over the Bridge; and today I marked where you descended from the hills again. I wonder what occurred to you upon the Bridge, for there were signs of a battle, and I apologize for not being there to aid you. But come! There is no time now for further news or explanation. Since you are here we must risk the peril of the Road and go. There are five behind us, and when they find your trail upon the Road they will ride after us like the wind. And they are not all. Where the other four may be, I do not know. I fear that we may find the Ford is already held against us."
"If the Ford is held against us," Sora spoke up resolutely, "we'll just have to take it back like we did the Bridge of—the Bridge of Mith..." He folded his arms and looked down in thought for a second. "How do you say that again?"
"Mitheithel, Sora," Kairi said.
"Yeah, that!" Sora said, unfolding his arms and smiling at his girlfriend. "Thanks Kairi."
Glorfindel surveyed Sora closely for a few seconds before his eyes switched onto the bird upon his shoulder. Next his gaze fell upon Kairi, and a strange feeling fell upon her, as if the Elf-lord was boring his eyes into the depths of her very heart and soul. It was an uncomfortable feeling, but it soon passed as his eyes switched onto Menelmon as the small bird digimon rested upon her own right shoulder.
"I can see that you have strong hearts," Glorfindel said, now looking to the four as a whole, "and that you have great strength within you, for both good and evil. But your power will not save you if the Nine are all gathered together under their fell chieftain. You are not strong enough to survive another encounter with him; his mark already spreads discord through one of you."
Their heads turned towards Sora, but he stared resolutely ahead of him. Kairi saw his eyes boring right into the Elf's, but when he spoke his words were profoundly directed only at himself. "I won't let him take me again. I will prove to him that I am stronger than I seem; that I am stronger than he is. The next time we meet, I will face him; I will crush him."
Glorfindel couldn't possibly know all of what Sora was talking about, but Kairi nodded at Sora, proud of him. He really had gotten his confidence and drive back, and all it took was a little forceful pushing and prodding to get him to go in the right direction.
The shades of evening were deepening as they spoke, and Frodo gave a sudden gasp that drew their eyes as he swayed and clutched at Sam's arm.
"My master is sick and wounded," said Sam angrily. "He can't go on riding after nightfall. He needs rest."
Glorfindel came up and caught Frodo as the hobbit sank to the ground, and taking him gently in his arms he looked into Frodo's face with grave anxiety. Strider briefly explained of the attack on Weathertop, and of the deadly knife. He took out the hilt, which he had kept, and handed it to the Elf. Glorfindel shuddered as he took it, but he looked intently at it.
"There are evil things written on this hilt," he said; "though maybe your eyes cannot see them. Keep it, Aragorn, till we reach the house of Elrond! But be wary, and handle it as little as you may! Alas! the wounds of this weapon are beyond my skill to heal. I will do what I can—but all the more do I urge you now to go on without rest."
He searched the wounds on both Frodo's and Sora's shoulders with his fingers, and his face grew graver, as if what he learned disquieted him. But Sora felt something dark inside him squirm, and he knew that the Elf-lord somehow held some power over Anti, and Sora felt a little bit calmer than he had before.
"You shall ride my horse," said Glorfindel to Frodo. "I will shorten the stirrups up to the saddle-skirts, and you must sit as tight as you can. But you need not fear: my horse will not let any rider fall that I command him to bear. His pace is light and smooth; and if danger presses too near, he will bear you away with a speed that even the black steeds of the enemy cannot rival."
"No, he will not!" said Frodo. "I shall not ride him, if I am to be carried off to Rivendell or anywhere else, leaving my friends behind in danger."
"Good answer," Sora muttered, smiling.
Glorfindel smiled as well. "I doubt very much if your friends would be in danger if you were not with them! The pursuit would follow you and leave us in peace, I think. It is you, Frodo, and that which you bear that brings us all in peril."
Frodo had no answer to Glorfindel's argument, and he was persuaded to mount Glorfindel's white horse. The pony was laden instead with a great part of the others' burdens, so that they now marched much lighter, and they made good speed. But the hobbits began to find it hard to keep up with the swift tireless feet of the Elf, and a good deal after the hobbits began to have trouble, Kairi felt her own feet beginning to stumble. On he led them, into the mouth of darkness, and still on under the deep clouded night. There was neither star nor moon; that was something that Kairi found troubled her greatly for the first time. It was not until the coming dawn that he allowed them to halt. Pippin, Merry, and Sam were by that time nearly asleep on their stumbling legs, and Sora and Kairi were not much better; and even Strider seemed by the sag in his shoulders to be weary. Frodo sat upon the horse in a dark dream, and the only ones who seemed to get any form of rest at all were Aiwemon and Menelmon, who somehow managed to fall asleep on the rolling shoulders of their digidestined partners.
As soon as Glorfindel allowed them to stop Kairi broke away from the Road and dropped unceremoniously into the heather a few yards away, breathing in deeply the scent of the pink flowers and the rest of the plants around her before falling instantly into sleep. The vain thoughts of the state of her face and hair had not occurred to her once for the last two weeks, and they did not come to her now. But it seemed like she had only just closed her eyes when Glorfindel was shaking her awake. The sun had now climbed far into the morning, and the clouds and mists of the night were gone.
"It's got to be at least eleven," Kairi moaned quietly to herself after seeing the sun's position, rubbing her eyes awake. The realization hit her after a moment and she smiled slightly in misplaced teenage pride. "Even though I only went to sleep a few hours ago, I slept in till eleven! That's a new record." She looked towards Sora and found that Glorfindel had roused him before her. His cerulean blue eyes were smiling at her and he chuckled slightly; he appeared to have had a completely untroubled sleep. "What?"
"Mine's one in the afternoon," he said quietly. His smile only widened and he laughed as Kairi punched him in the arm.
"Then you're still a lazy bum and you'll always be my lazy bum!" she said, hugging him tightly.
Glorfindel broke them apart after the others were up. "Drink this," he said, pouring for each of them in turn a little liquor from his silver-studded flask of leather. It was clear as spring water and had no taste, and it did not feel either cool or warm in the mouth; but strength and vigour seemed to flow into all their limbs as they drank it. Eaten after that draught the stale bread and dried fruit (which was all that they now had left) seemed to satisfy their hunger much better than even the tables in Radiant Garden's castle. Kairi knew that Helia would never forgive her and take it as a personal offence if she told the poor cook that.
Sora made a sound as his teeth crunched down on the stale bread and Kairi looked at him. He was staring at the horse of Glorfindel. "You know," he said, his voice a little low and filled with awe, "I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful animal before in my life." Kairi looked at the horse and nodded in agreement.
The golden-haired Elf smiled.
It had been less than five hours since they had stopped and slept before Glorfindel had them going again. He allowed them only two brief rests all day, and this caused them to travel nearly twenty miles before the night fell again. They had come to a point where the Road bent to the right and ran down towards the bottom of the valley, now making straight for the Bruinen. So far there had been no sign or sound of pursuit that she could see or hear, and Heartless hadn't appeared to hinder them since they'd reached the ridge two days previous. Pete had probably gotten lost in the wilderness and could no longer find them or their trail to send Heartless after them. Or maybe he'd attempted to climb the ridge after them and died; Kairi couldn't care less so long as he never mentioned their domestic situation again. It was the Black Riders and Anti that worried her now. He hadn't made a move on Sora since she'd thrown him at the Heartless that night, and it seemed now as if he might be scared to try again, but it was too much to hope for that he would give up and leave them alone. And the Riders still gave her fear, no matter what protection she had placed over her heart. The fear of the Riders also seemed to be affecting Glorfindel, for he would often halt and listen, if they lagged behind, and a look of anxiety would cloud his face. Once or twice he spoke to Strider in the elf-tongue.
Kairi had never done so much walking and jogging in all her life before she came to Middle-earth, and before she had met Glorfindel, she thought that she had become accustomed to it. But the Elf-lord put both her and Sora, and the hobbits, through their paces on a new level of physical strain, and none of them had the endurance yet to last. However anxious their guides were, it was plain as day that the youth and hobbits could go no further that night.
They were still weary when they set off in the early morning, and there were still many miles left to go between them and the Ford, miles that made Kairi's sore feet ache at the very thought of them, but she plodded on along with the rest without verbal complaint as best as she could.
"Our peril will be greatest just ere we reach the river," said Glorfindel; "for my heart warns me that the pursuit is now swift behind us, and other dangers may be waiting by the Ford."
The Road was still running steadily downhill, something which Kairi's booted feet were grateful for, and in the late afternoon they came to a place where the Road went suddenly under the dark shadow of tall pine trees, and then plunged into a deep cutting with steep moist walls of red stone. Echoes r along as they hurried forward; and there seemed to be a sound of many footfalls following their own. All at once, the Road ran out again from the end of the tunnel into the open. There, at the bottom of a sharp incline they saw before them a long flat mile, and beyond that, the Ford of Rivendell. On the opposite side was a steep brown bank, threaded by a winding path; and behind that the tall mountains climbed, shoulder above shoulder, and peak beyond peak, into the fading sky.
Kairi looked behind her suddenly. She felt a dreadful chill beginning to attack the defence she had placed over her heart at Weathertop, and still an echo as of following feet drove into her ears from the tunnel behind; and a rushing noise like the wind rising and pouring through the branches of the pines. Glorfindel turned and listened too, and then he sprang forward with a loud cry.
"Fly!" he called. "Fly! The enemy is upon us!"
His white horse leaped forward and Kairi and Sora summoned their Keyblades while running after the horse as quickly as they could. Aiwemon and Menelmon both took off from their shoulders and were able to keep pace with the swift hooves of Glorfindel's horse. They outstripped the hobbits while Strider and Glorfindel came behind the little people as a rear-guard. Kairi noticed Sora slowing and looked at him, matching his speed.
"Why are we running?" he asked her. "Why aren't we behind them to hold off the Riders?"
Kairi blinked and she quickened the pace. "Because the Black Riders are after Frodo, not the others. If they can make it past Strider and Glorfindel, then wouldn't we be the best shot of keeping him and whatever this 'ring' that he's carrying safe?"
Sora sped up himself and caught up with her, both of them ignoring the pain in their throbbing feet. "Way to keep our priorities straight Kai," he said. "I'd forgotten that. But I'd still like to make sure that Strider and Glorfindel are safe too."
"They're—"
"They're smart, and they're strong, I know," Sora interrupted her, reminding himself. "I really shouldn't worry about them really. I should be worrying about me."
"Why?" asked Kairi, looking at him.
"Anti is tugging at me."
They were only half way across the flat, when the noise of horses galloping reached them. Out of the gate in the trees they had just left rode a Black Rider. Whereas Glorfindel's magnificent horse was a sight to behold, and a joy to look at, the black horses the Riders mounted were gaunt and terrifying, their vicious red eyes clearly visible even from this distance. The Rider reined in his horse, and halted. He swayed in his saddle a moment, and then another Rider followed him, and then another; then two more.
"Ride forward! Ride!" cried Glorfindel to Frodo.
Kairi brought her eyes forward to look at Frodo as he still rode ahead of them. He was not immediately obeying the Elf-lord's command. He checked his horse down to a walk, and turned and looked back. He stared at the Riders for a moment, and then his hand left the bridle and went to the hilt of his sword, and with a red flash he drew it.
"Ride on! Ride on!" cried Glorfindel, and then loud and clear he called to the horse in the elf-tongue: noro lim, noro lim Asfaloth!
At his master's cry the white horse sprang away with speed that Kairi knew their Rookie-level digimon could not hope to match, and neither could they even with the aid of a haste spell. But still they ran, and Kairi's ears were suddenly pierced by a terrible cry. It was answered; and out of the trees and rocks on the left the remaining four Riders came flying out on their black steeds. Two rode for Frodo, and two galloped madly towards the Ford to cut off his escape.
Kairi looked behind her as the thundering of hooves grew louder and she saw with horror that the five Riders who had been on the hill were nearly on top of her and Sora. Grabbing his arm, she threw them both and leapt off the Road. She was not a moment too soon, for less than three seconds afterwards the Black Riders had swept past them like a gale, pale swords glittering in the sunlight in their cold hands.
As soon as they had passed, both Kairi and Sora growled. "Let's get them," Sora said. She nodded. Fire engulfed both of their Keyblades and they rushed back onto the Road and ran after the Black Riders on their swift steeds. Aiwemon and Menelmon were ahead of them and high in the air, having flown up to avoid being overtaken by the Black Riders, and the two bird digimon were flying towards them. They shrieked through the air as they passed overhead before flying up and making an Immleman turn. They dived down until they were about two metres above Sora and Kairi, and they suddenly began to glow with bright golden light as the digivices clipped to the waist of the pants of both digidestined began screaming.
"Aiwemon digivolve to, Ohtarmon!"
"Menelmon digivolve to, Soronmon!"
The warrior-bird digimon landed hard on the ground on his powerful feet, and he landed running with his large mace held lightly to his side and trailing a little behind him to his right. He and Soronmon were both faster than their partners, but they slowed down to keep pace.
Sora swore suddenly and Kairi looked at him. "Fuck!" he cursed. "I think Anti's deciding that he wants to try and kill me now!"
"What, now!" Ohtarmon yelled from beside him.
"Damn," Sora apologized, looking forward to the Ford. Frodo had managed to make it across the river and away from the Nine, three of them advancing into the water after the mounted hobbit. "I guess I won't be a part of this battle. And right when it's most inconvenient too."
"Then get in there and crush him!" cried Kairi. "I don't want you always worrying about him anymore. When you're upset about something, it hurts me too, no matter how much you try to not let it get to you."
She winced mentally and Soronmon glanced down at her. Like I can even say that, she thought in a quiet voice.
Sora stopped and the others halted a moment later and turned to look at him. "Don't worry," he said, giving them a cheesy grin. "Losing isn't an option, because if I lose, then he wins. So all I've got to do is beat him." He held his grin for a second, and then his eyes rolled back into his head for a second. Sora's eyelids closed and he collapsed onto the ground, his flaming silver Keyblade vanishing from his grasp.
Kairi caught him as he fell, and quickly laid him on the side of the Road. Her hands were still beneath his unconscious body when she looked back up towards the West. Out of the gate between the trees she had just seen a breathless figure make his way into her vision. His mammoth hands and pug face were unmistakable. Pete had caught up to them at last.
Kairi grimaced and lifted Sora up again. She looked between the Ford, where the Riders were, and Pete, clearly caught in a crossroads. Kairi closed her eyes and bit her lip for a hard second before she opened the indigo again and looked up to Soronmon. The winter-eagle digimon landed and she jumped onto Soronmon's back before laying the Keyblade Master down between her wing-joints.
"Take Sora across the Bruinen," she said to Soronmon, getting off. "Ohtarmon, go on to the Ford."
"And you?" Soronmon asked, already knowing the answer.
Kairi looked at her flaming white Oathkeeper for a second before speaking in resigned resolve. "I'll deal with Pete." Both Champion-level digimon nodded. With great flaps of her snow-white wings that lifted up the dust of the Road, Soronmon took off, and Ohtarmon rushed towards the Ford beneath her. Kairi looked up at Pete as the exhausted cat and stooge of Maleficent began to come slowly towards her.
Kairi was really beginning to hate this day.
-A-D-
So I came out a week later than my first estimate, again, gomenasai! But, did anyone catch the references? Like, 'Mahna Mahna'? And now I got that stuck in your heads again!
Is it just me or do these things keep getting longer? Oh well, it should be enough to satisfy you all for a couple of weeks, because I'm going to concentrate my efforts for the moment on the rewrite of the early portion of The Beginning.
I'll let you know how far I've gotten on that when I update this again, which shouldn't be too long from now. But when I do update, it'll be the part of the story where we play catch-up with the other characters' timelines.
See you later!
Oh wait, I might as well translate stuff for people that don't know what they've said.
Translations:
Vadeneln Anti. Sáut i umûl. (Kairi. Quintessence. "I banish you Anti. Return to the darkness.")
Ai na vedui Dúnadan! (Glorfindel. Sindarin. "Ah, it is at last the Man of the West.")
noro lim, noro lim Asfaloth! (Glorfindel. Sindarin. "Ride fast, ride fast Asfaloth!")
May the Grace of the Valar Protect You
Shire Folk
