Chapter XXI
Firion is in some of the worst pain of his life. Terra has her hands pressed against his chest, healing energy emanating from them, but he can tell he won't be on his feet for a while now.
Sephiroth is a short distance away from the two of them. Even from behind, Firion can tell that the man is wounded – perhaps as badly as he is. Still, there is something unusual about Sephiroth, something unnatural; whatever it is, it lets him stand and bear injuries that would most likely have killed a normal man.
And the man in red, the one Sephiroth called Auron…
Even though Firion is a master of all conventional weaponry, what he sees defies the logic of battlefield armaments. There is no way that the whirling collection of swords and chains surrounding Auron should pose more of a threat to his enemy than to the man himself – and yet Jecht staggers under blow after blow while Auron stands tall, the eye of a storm of blades. Firion tries to make sense of what he's seeing, but his vision blurs and he realizes he has lost a great deal of blood.
Terra gently pushes him back against the pile of rubble; he doesn't even remember leaning forward. His mind growing dull, Firion surrenders himself to her efforts, knowing she's doing all she can.
We're counting on you, Auron.
As he fights Jecht, Auron experiences doubts similar to Firion's. While the five swords hanging from the chain look very impressive, he is using all his improvisational skill to fight with them. This kind of weapon was never meant to be wielded by someone with only two arms, so why does his Release Form have this many blades?
Whirling the chain around his head to strike Jecht from a distance is effective at keeping him out of the blitzer's zone, but the strikes don't have enough power to shatter Jecht's bones, which is, Auron thinks, the only way to defeat him. He can go back to wielding one sword in each hand as he did before, but the three other swords prove unwieldy and hard to manage despite their lack of weight.
There must be an ideal form, but what is it?
Auron leaps over a spinning charge from Jecht, his friend's sword cleaving great furrows in the battlement walls as the blitzer moves. With less than a thought – more a reflex – Auron extends the length of the chain as he hurls his left-hand sword down at Jecht. The blade sinks deep into Jecht's back, between his bony protrusions.
As Jecht turns to face Auron again, Auron drastically shortens the length of the chain, taking a gamble. It pays off – he is yanked sharply toward Jecht, as his left-hand sword is buried too deeply in the blitzer's back to come free. A quick mental effort augments this already-impressive speed with a dash, and Auron is suddenly descending on Jecht at incredible velocity.
At the last possible second, Jecht recognizes the trouble he's in. He brings up his sword in front of his chest as Auron thrusts with his right-hand blade. Auron's weapon blows clean through Jecht's, but doing so slows him down. When he stabs Jecht square in the chest, the force of his attack has already been blunted. He can feel the solid mass of Jecht's ribs actually crack for a moment, but then his sword slips, shearing off to the side along the bone. For a moment, it is oddly quiet; Auron realizes the power of his attack has blown all the air out of a large area around the two of them, leaving a noiseless vacuum.
The air rushes back in just in time for Auron to hear the thunderclap of Jecht backhanding him across the face with his steel gauntlet. He flies back from the blow, smashing right through the battlement wall, but his left-hand sword is still anchored firmly in Jecht's back, so he doesn't fall. Auron is stunned for a moment, but recovers his senses swiftly enough to see Jecht's chest flaring with the telltale power of yet another sword.
Not this time. Auron takes another gamble – he extends the length of the chain, then hurls his right-hand sword away from Jecht before shortening the chain again. The sword's momentum, combined with the chain's sudden decrease in length, wraps the chain firmly around Jecht's chest, the other three swords slashing at him as it does. So I can control the length of the chain without touching it.
Jecht strains against the chain, but it holds fast, resisting even his titanic strength. Auron grabs hold of his right-hand sword, lengthens the chain just enough so he can wrap it fully around Jecht's front side, and plunges it into the blitzer's back next to his left-hand sword. He takes hold of both swords, keeping them firmly embedded in Jecht's back.
Then he shortens the chain again.
The roar of pain Jecht lets out as he is slowly and inevitably constricted chills Auron's blood, but he keeps hold of the swords, not letting them slip out. The other swords hanging on the chain bite into Jecht as the chain tightens, edges snapping inward seemingly of their own accord.
Still, Auron quickly realizes that the chain will grow no shorter. It is not that it has no room to, or that it is refusing him; Jecht's bones are just too strong. He will not break like this.
What will it take?
The stalemate will not last forever. Auron can see the energy of their wills exploding into the world as Jecht struggles against the chain, most of it immediately rushing back into the blitzer's body. For his part, Auron can tell his own well of power will not soon diminish, but he denies Jecht whatever he can.
Then Jecht does something Auron doesn't expect. In a burst of light, the Final Aeon vanishes, leaving only a battered human being in its place. Before Auron can figure out why Jecht would make himself so vulnerable, he realizes that Jecht is much smaller without his Final Aeon aspect; therefore, his swords are not embedded quite so deeply in his back any longer.
In that instant, Jecht erupts into a spinning flurry of limbs. Auron's swords go flying as he takes a kick straight in the face. Even as he commands the chain to tighten, Jecht bursts back into his Release Form, the power of the transformation sending Auron's weapon flying away in a disorderly mess.
The transformation also gives him a fresh sword, one he doesn't have to waste time pulling out of his chest. He brings it down in a devastating two-handed chop against the stone, splitting the battlements in half all the way down to their foundations. As Auron gets hold of his weapons again, Jecht does it again, separating an entire section of the battlements from the rest of the castle.
Auron knows better than to try to repeat his constricting trick; Jecht will be ready for it. He tries something simple, a chop at either side of Jecht's head with both his swords.
Jecht ignores the incoming attack completely, instead exploiting the large opening it gives him. As Auron's weapons close in on him from either side, he scythes his steel gauntlet right at the guardian's head through the blind spot in front of him. Auron sees the gauntlet coming, but he is already committed, there is no way he can stop the attack or dodge it –
Another length of chain materializes between the grips of his left- and right-hand swords. Jecht's gauntlet crashes right into it, his blow stymied, as Auron's swords spread cracks through both sides of his skull. Too stunned to try to grip the chain, Jecht instead stumbles away, teetering on the edge of the battlements. Auron, almost as shocked as Jecht is, can only watch as his old friend tumbles off the wall.
What is this? He stares at the chain that now links all five of his swords together in a circle. Will I ever understand this thing? A thought from him dismisses the new length of chain, freeing his swords from one another, but now Auron has to wonder if he's been using the weapon correctly at all.
His train of thought is derailed by the severed section of the battlements shooting skyward, shedding rubble as it goes.
Jecht rises up beneath it, kicking and punching at the enormous slab of stone he has somehow thrown into the air. With each blow, bricks crack and tumble free, but a vast vortex of burning power has begun to gather around Jecht, drawing the stones back into it. In a matter of seconds, what was once a wall has begun to resemble an enormous molten sphere. Another second, and it solidifies into a burning, solid mass of rock.
Not a sphere, Auron realizes, watching Jecht's familiar, choreographed movements. A blitzball. He's going to perform the Jecht Shot.
Auron has seen Jecht play more than once. When he is not surrounded by water, Jecht can kick an ordinary blitzball so hard it can break a man's ribs.
And this blitzball weighs ten tons.
Jecht gives the ball one final smash with his fist, sending it spinning up into the sky, then hangs poised in midair, suspended by his own power. He's preparing to drop-kick it.
Auron knows there is no way he can dodge. For that matter, even if he runs, Jecht might target his allies – there is no telling what he might do in his Final Aeon aspect. He has to somehow block this attack, but it's impossible. There is no way he can muster the strength to stop it cold. He wastes a split second to glance at Sephiroth in the desperate hope that the other man might have some idea how to fight this, but the SOLDIER's gaze is riveted to the sight of the descending ball, a look of morbid fascination on his face.
He feels a knife twist in his gut. Fear. He hasn't felt this way since before he died. The helplessness, the total inability to fight something of this magnitude – the impotence –
"AURON!" Sephiroth shouts. "THINK OF SOMETHING!"
Jecht rears back his foot.
There's nothing he can do. How can he possibly fight this kind of power? It's ridiculous. All he has is these five swords, these five chained swords that can't even break the Final Aeon's bones.
Five…
Auron blinks his two eyes. Two eyes, two hands, two swords. That much he's sure of; it makes sense. But he received the other three, and this wellspring of power, when he took it upon himself to protect his allies. His three allies.
Guardians protect.
Jecht slams his foot into the ball, sending it hurtling at Auron, and Auron realizes almost too late that this weapon isn't a weapon at all, not really, it's a shield –
Even as he performs a reverse dash away from Sephiroth, Auron also flips his right-hand sword into a reverse grip and changes the structure of the chain. He links the other four swords to the one he's still holding, rather than having them all linked to one another. A flick of his wrist and a command to lengthen the chain is all it takes to send the four swords whirling into the oncoming missile; they stab into its rocky surface and hold fast, just as Auron knew they would.
Auron performs another reverse dash away from Sephiroth while shortening the chain, pulling with all his might.
It would be impossible to block the Jecht Shot, but Auron doesn't need to. All he needs to do is alter its course. The ball, pulled by both the dash and the shortening chain, begins to swing around in a wide arc. Auron locates Jecht, who is landing heavily on the grass at the base of the castle. He performs a dash toward him, still tugging on the chain and shortening it.
Jecht looks up to see Auron heading straight for him, pulling the ball behind him. Their eyes lock, something wordless passing between them.
Auron lets go of his sword, simultaneously dashing toward Sephiroth. He just barely clears the edge of the ball before it slams straight into Jecht, crushing him into the ground. Huge fissures erupt through the stone foundations of the floating castle; the already-weakened battlements crumble in a storm of debris. Auron, still going at breakneck speed, grabs Sephiroth as gently as he can, getting him clear of the destruction. Terra follows with Firion a short distance behind.
The four of them alight on a distant tower just in time to watch the entire floating castle collapse in a hail of stone and dust.
Sephiroth lets out a long breath, holding his chest. "That was insane."
Auron doesn't respond, instead picturing Jecht's face in his mind. He feels the dash propel him toward the shattered platform, which is visibly wobbling above the void.
Jecht's shattered body is buried in rubble far too heavy to lift. Auron can see a splintered limb here, a broken rib laid open to the world there, but the full extent of the carnage is hidden beneath a layer of rock. Somehow, this does not make him feel any better.
His breath catches in his throat as Jecht opens his right eye – his left is sheared straight through by a piece of shrapnel.
"Hard… talk," Jecht croaks. "Lungs're mostl' gone."
Auron grits his teeth against the feeling of tears welling up in both his eyes. "Dammit, Jecht. I'm sorry."
Jecht gives a harsh cough that is probably supposed to be a laugh, spraying a fine, bloody mist as he does. "Happens," he whispers. "Now… make it… right."
"I will." For lack of a better place to lay his hand, Auron rests it on Jecht's brow. "Chaos, Cosmos, Shinryu, I'll kill them all if I have to."
Another cough, much weaker this time. "Good t' see… your eyes…"
Auron closes them as Jecht expires. When he looks again, only his left eye works.
Sephiroth mutely watches Auron return to the tower. He has never seen the guardian look so angry.
"Terra," Auron says, approaching her as she kneels over Firion's prostrate form. "Could you please go and quickly burn Jecht's body? It's less than he deserves, but all we can offer." The girl nods before dashing off toward the remains of the castle, which continue to destabilize; Sephiroth estimates the entire structure will collapse within ten minutes.
Before Sephiroth can decide whether he should thank Auron for saving their lives or apologize for forcing him to kill his friend, Firion sits up. The gash in the young man's chest is no longer bleeding, and his face has regained some of its color. "I'm sorry," he says. "He was your brother, wasn't he?"
Auron nods.
"But still… you fought to protect us." Firion gestures at Auron's blade, which the guardian retrieved before returning to the tower. "I saw your Release Form hit its peak when you stepped in front of his sword. That must be your ideal – protecting others."
"You're a perceptive one," Auron says, his voice still tinged with bitterness.
"But why was he so powerful?" Firion asks. "What was he fighting for?"
"Firion," Sephiroth says sharply, but Auron holds up a hand.
"It's simple," Auron tells Firion. "He was fighting for his son."