NS: Final chapter today.
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of the characters related to Kingdom Hearts.
Chapter 25: Evil
Saïx slammed a fisted hand against the barrier in exactly the same height as the armoured female head was. The barrier shook slightly with the contact, which meant it was easy enough to break the barrier down by brute force. Saïx looked up in the air at the balloons floating near the cave ceiling. It didn't help much that the barrier was weak if he was paralyzed as soon as he took the first step outside of it.
"You must be one of the masters," he said to the female knight. "It has not been an exquisite pleasure to finally meet you."
"If my presence bothers you, you can always flee through one the dark corridor."
So she could follow after him into their castle? He was not that stupid. Saïx was pretty sure letting any of the keyblade monsters inside their world was and one way ticket to becoming a Dusk.
"Being paralyzed, dragged deeper into an underworld and imprisoned with a bunch of losers are what bothers me." Saïx stated. "What have I ever done to you?"
"She will come for you and she will negotiate for you."
"X'ero?" Saïx asked. "What do you mean negotiate? If you think X'ero will risk herself for me then you are less intelligent than I thought."
"She will come and she will negotiate. The one you call X'ero, her true nature has been released upon the worlds, it is no longer enough to simply defeat your partner. We need to know the location of the other half of Eraser before the Dark Lady tracks it down. X'ero is the only one who knows so we need to negotiate with her."
"Eraser is the keyblade Nihil wields, right?"
"Yes, but the Dark Lady's keyblade have never been complete because she is not qualified to wield the keyblade." The armoured head turned to Saïx with a creaking sound. "You do not know where it is, do you? We know that X'ero does not have it, but she must know where it is."
"And you think that makes it all right?" Saïx asked. "Your need to ask X'ero justifies imprisoning me and all the other combatants. And let's not forget the part where you sold us all out to Hades."
"You cannot psych me out. I support my friends. I cannot change that."
"So if he hurts innocent then it is justified because he is your friend?"
"I support my friends. I cannot change that."
The words sounded wrong, hollow and forced as if she really didn't have a choice but to follow the words of her 'friend'. Yet she didn't seem like a person who would support a case she didn't believe in.
"What are you?" Saïx asked. "A more advanced form of the keyblade monsters? A Nobody? A heartless?"
"I support my friends."
"That's not an answer!"
Saïx hammered his hand against the barrier separating them one more. It shook more vibrantly than the first time and a small crack appeared.
The knight backed away a little, but did not stop watching him. Saïx clearly got the message that the conversation was over. He turned around while he tried to clear his thoughts and figure out was his next move should be.
Then he noticed all the other prisoners watching him, they had properly listen in on the conversation too. Saïx crossed his arms over his chest and were about to tell them to go and mind their own business when he realized that they all had to be somewhat capable fighters to make it through the preliminaries.
Saïx uncrossed his arms. Perhaps they were not entirely useless.
The fog filling the underground was floating so high up in the air that it usually wasn't too much of a bother, but this day was different: The dense fog had leaked downwards covering the ground area as well making it so impossible to see and the fog was therefore also to blame for the fact that Riku didn't notice that the third member of their little group was missing. It was first when they fought a group of heartless without a single spell being cast, that it got his attention.
"Where's the girl?" Riku asked at first, but he quickly assumed the worst when he saw no sign of green hair in any direction. "So she had already betrayed us -or simply given up."
He sighed. Perhaps he was just bad at judging people.
"I'm not sure." Hercules said. "I'm pretty sure she was with us three minutes ago. Perhaps she's hurt."
Being the heroes leaving a potential wounded person behind wasn't an option, so they backtracked.
They found X'ero sitting on stone, unharmed.
She looked at the two men as they came into sight.
"All ready back?"
"Say something if you fall behind." Riku demanded. "I was worried."
X'ero looked puzzled by his words but chose to ignore them, instead she clapped the rock she sat on with a gloved hand:
"We have walked by this rock at least three times already."
"So we are walking in circles?" Riku asked.
X'ero nodded.
"I have never been to this specific area of the underworld before." Hercules admitted.
"So we are lost," Riku stated. "This is not good. We don't know how much time we have."
"Not enough." X'ero said. "Time is always running out."
Riku looked interested at X'ero.
"Is the negative attitude something that comes from losing your heart or from tingling with the darkness?"
"It's innate." X'ero said, her disaster-smile immediately showing. She's was about to ask how Riku could tell her affinity when she remembered that Riku too once had walked on a dark path.
"Might I ask you something?" X'ero hesitated as they started walking again. She wasn't sure if she should ask. She would personally find such a question noisy, but she couldn't fight her professional curiosity. "Zexion told me that you wield darkness - at least used too. Why did you seek that it out?"
Riku didn't answer her at first and X'ero thought that she might had offended him, but then he threw her question right back at her.
"Why did you do it?"
"I was a crazy power-hungry witch. Besides it wasn't unusual where I was from and no one was really surprised that I chose that path so..." X'ero shrugged. "I guess I followed the true desire of my heart." She snorted. "Just goes to show how a pathetic thing it was."
Riku heard the bitterness that permeated her voice without X'ero herself being aware of it. He didn't say anything about it.
"I sought power too." Riku said. "I thought it was to save a friend, but... there was also some rivalry and jealousy involved. Do you think that the 'why' of it really makes a difference?"
"No." X'ero admitted. "I guess that it is how you use your power that is important – Not that I care about stuff like that anymore. I just wanted to know another the motivation of another person to see..."
To see if she had been so little human in her heart as the rest of the people of her world had claimed. X'ero mentally scolded herself: That question was no longer relevant!
"You're different than I imagined." Riku suddenly said out in the blue.
"How?"
"Well you're a... more decent person than I thought you would be"
Riku stopped his speech as they crossed by the infamous rock a fourth time.
"This is a trap." He stated. "Even if we are lost and are wandering around in circles it is unnatural to return to the same place so quickly."
"I agree." X'ero looked at the rock. "This thing has to be the key, but it looks so ordinary."
"Let me try." Hercules bowed down and placed his hands on each side of the rock, but no matter how much he tried to heave it up from the ground the rock didn't budge.
X'ero summoned her gloves.
"Move!" She said as she clasped her hands together. "Double dark-fire."
The huge blue fireball collided with the stone and the air was for a moment filled with dust instead of fog, but when everything had calmed down the stone still stood there – mockingly unharmed.
"I guess we can conclude that neither magic nor force works." X'ero said. She tugged at the long side of her hair. "I'm open to suggestion."
Riku crossed his arms.
"I have been wondering about this." He explained. "Do you feel that you powers are limited in some way?"
"My powers?" X'ero shook her head. "No, I don't think so. Why?"
"Because I don't feel the effect of the curse, and that worries me."
Saïx hadn't told X'ero anything about curses, and X'ero regarded herself as such a good witch that she should be able to tell if she was cursed or not.
"I'll try to go into a limit break." X'ero said.
"Isn't that a last resort?" Riku asked.
"We don't have time to be going in any more circles." X'ero said. "I have to do something."
X'ero closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, but it was hard for her to focus. Her the limit break was tied to her mental state and her recent break down made her uneasy about applying any sort of pressure to her psyche.
What if she lost it again? What if she had a mental melt down in front of Riku - an enemy? For some kind of reason X'ero thought of Saïx. She could easily imagine him glaring her down: 'I have expected more of you.'
X'ero smiled for herself. He would definitely say something like that. Then it was decided. X'ero reached into her mind, to the part where the darkness seeped out from her memories. This time there was no irritating cat talking in riddles while she was pressed for time, so X'ero had to do it herself.
X'ero took a deep breath and finally allowed to let go of a little of her self control – just enough to allow a little more of her darkness to flow through her body. The effect was immediate. Unable to contain the powers in her gloves, X'ero allowed the gloves to burst into the black feathers. With her now red eye X'ero scanned the area.
A cold and draining magical energy was spreading from the rock and into the fog.
"That is a curse." X'ero confirmed as she looked around. "The stone is acting as the center of it. If we go left or right or try to jump over the stone the fog will turn us around. We can only go back."
"To keep Hercules out until Hades is ready." Riku said.
X'ero nodded:
"Properly – but I should be able to get us through."
"How?" Riku asked.
X'ero chose to answer his question by action. The black feathers circling around her arms spread out and encircled the other two. Even though it was a curse cast by a god that affected the area, the echo feathers should be able to cancel the magic.
"We should hurry. I can't keep this up forever."
Riku nodded.
The fog was thick and even without being turned around it was hard to find the way through. X'ero began to fear that they would not make it through before her stamina ran out, but eventually the group heard the sound of running water. The fog thinned out and they arrived at a riverbank.
X'ero cancelled her limit break right away and leant up against the cave wall to prevent herself from dropping to her knees. Riku glanced her way, but didn't say anything which she appreciated. Then again, Riku properly understood too well that any power lent from the darkness came with a price, and becoming tired was properly the lowest price she could pay.
"Is this the river Styx," Riku asked.
"No I think it is Lethe. The river the dead drinks from to forget their former life." Hercules explained. "But this is something Phil told me about, I have never been this deep down before."
"Let's not drink from it in any case." X'ero commented from her spot at the wall. She was not fond of her memories of her former life, but she still preferred to have them.
A loud thunderous sound suddenly shook the cave walls on the opposite riverbank.
"What was that?" X'ero asked.
"It came from that passage." Riku said and pointed to a dark narrow corridor.
X'ero looked left and right to see find a bridge, but there was none in sight and the river was too wide for any of them to jump over.
"It is unwise to swim in this water, but we need to get over." Riku concluded. He looked at Hercules who nodded. Before X'ero could give her opinion Hercules lifted her up.
"Wha...!"
X'ero was suddenly flying through the air and landed ungraceful on her butt on the other riverbank.
"Ow! You could have asked me." She complained as Riku landed beside her – a lot more graceful on his feet.
"We got over, didn't we?" Riku said as he helped X'ero to her feet. Then he turned around to speak to Hercules. "We'll stall Hades. Find a way over!"
"We better hurry," X'ero said impatiently. "That sound can't be a good thing."
Riku and X'ero arrived at a battle scene. Humans (Who X'ero recognized from the preliminaries) were trying to hold their ground against the keyblade monsters. There were the irritating dogs, but also some plants that looked like yellow four-leafs clovers of metal and of course the balloons in the air. Light beams were shooting left and right, roots were coming out of the walls trying to entangle those that came too close.
"What are these?" Riku asked.
X'ero didn't answer. She was busy searching through the mess.
"He's there." Riku pointed.
Saïx was in the farthest end of the cave, crouch down behind the rubble left from a cave in. Two others of the combatants were there with him. They were clearly talking, but there was too much noise for X'ero to hear what they were saying. She noticed Saïx keep glancing upwards and suddenly he lifted his hand up.
"Aeroga!"
The spell was activated from five or six different person and even though none of them were as strong as X'ero in spell casting the sheer number of casters was enough shake the room and blow every one of their feet. Saïx signalled a group of fighter and they quickly ran to the cave in were Saïx was positioned.
Riku grabbed X'ero's arm.
"Now is our chance!"
He dashed through the room while dragging X'ero with him. When they were about half way through the dissolved keyblade monster had been reassemble and Riku had to let go of X'ero to block a light beam in the last second.
"Reflectoga!"
X'ero too had her guard up in the last second. Something cold and hard wrapped itself around her legs, she looked down in time to see some roots creeping up at her legs like evil ivy. She quickly put them on fire and then she had to duck as another beam shot through the air.
X'ero looked upwards. Hovering in the air above them the balloons had swollen so much up that they were close to popping. This weren't good. If they were paralyzed in the middle of the battlefield they were doomed. Closer this time, X'ero heard Saïx's voice shout over the battlefield and from the corner of her eyes she saw him lift his hand again:
"Aeroga!"
The area was once more filled with the magical wind attack, and even with her high magical resistance X'ero actually lost her balance. X'ero quickly jumped to her feet and saw that all the monsters had temporarily dissolved into the tiny keys. She followed closer behind Riku to the cave in.
"Quickly!" Riku said as he gave X'ero a helping hand in climbing over the rubble. As soon as X'ero was over he leapt over the rubble himself just in time to avoid another beam.
"X'ero!" Saïx said as he noticed her. "It is good to see you here... Is that Riku with you?"
X'ero fumbled with the long side of her hair.
"Hopefully you didn't expect me to travel through a world of the dead alone, did you?"
Saïx shook his head, but in a short second X'ero thought she saw a hint of a smirk on his lips.
"You never change."Saïx said and turned to one of the human beside him. "Is everyone here now?"
"All who is still alive and in a moveable condition."
"Then we retreat."
"Retreat where?" X'ero asked.
Saïx pointed to a hole in the rubble that some of his allies were beginning to crawl through.
"When we broke the barrier down the knight retreated upstairs. She broke the cave wall so we couldn't follow her and then proceeded to summon the monster from the other entrance so we decided up to split up in two teams. One team kept our 'friends' here busy while the rest of us dug our way through." Saix quickly glanced over the barricade. "They are reassembling." He said. "Get out of here now."
The hole they had dug was narrow and dark, X'ero coughed as the dust irritated her lungs. As the third last she crawled through to the other side closely followed by Riku. Saïx's height made it hard for him to fit through, but he too managed to escape. As soon as he was out, he summoned his claymore and lifted it.
"Wait!" Riku said. "I'm not leaving anyone behind."
"The only one left out there is the one who as stopped breathing." Saïx coldly claimed. "Out of my way!"
"Can you prove that they are dead?"
"No! Move or crawl back!"
Riku showed no intention of doing so. X'ero quickly jumped between them.
"Can we please postpone this ridicules fight? This is not the time nor the place. You just have to trust Saïx when he says that all the survivors are here. It is not always possible to save everything."
Riku hesitated.
"It's better to save something than saving nothing." X'ero pleaded.
"Typical moral of a Nobody." Riky said, but he finally stepped aside.
Saïx struck the rubble with the hilt of his claymore right above the hole and the small tunnel collapsed with a crumbling sound.
It appeared that not even the plants could dig their way through and with a moments break from the fighting Saïx pulled X'ero aside.
"They will take some time to dig the way through that." He whispered. "We should open a corridor and hurry back before..."
"Excuse me," it was one of the persons Saïx had fought with. "But what is our next move?"
"Are you asking me?" Saïx asked surprised.
The other shrugged:
"You were the one who took control of the situation. We just assumed that you were our leader right now."
"...We don't have much other choice, but to follow the stairs upward. Be sure to be alerted there may be others traps waiting for us."
The man nodded and ran to the other survivors to pass the message on. X'ero looked at Saïx. He showed no expression as usual, but in the way he almost unnoticeable straightened his back and held his head little higher it was clear that he was a little pleased with the situation - Pride, it was something X'ero had never understood.
"Do you want to see this through?" X'ero asked.
"...This is not our mission." Saïx answered. X'ero wanted to roll her eyes. That was not an answer to her question.
"I would like to see it through." X'ero said. "I want to find out why they are targeting me in this weird way."
"They want to negotiate." Saïx almost spit the last word out.
"Then I have to go." X'ero said. "If I can stop them chasing me..."
"I seriously doubt that." Saïx said. "But we'll go." He sounded pleased with their decision.
The stairs seemed unending and long, they were narrow and didn't seem to have been used in a long time. This frustrating situation didn't help to make X'ero less tired. She rubbed her eyes and tried to hide a yawn, but Riku noticed it.
"Are you all right?" He asked.
"I'm fine."
"If you say so..." He didn't sound like he believed her. "What were those monsters?"
"I think we have sort of named them keyblade monsters. They are very dangerous."
"I noticed."
"They will properly come for you too." X'ero bluntly said. "Because of your past with darkness."
"But I'm no longer..."
"That doesn't matter...besides that not the truth." X'ero summoned her gloves. "You are no Princess of the Heart so you don't have a pure heart. You have gained the knowledge of how to wield darkness, so if you really wanted to you wouldn't be stuck here. Look at me. I no longer have a heart, but the darkness of my original self still resides in my memories and refuses to release its grip on me."
"I see."
"Hey, there's a door in the ceiling." One of the persons walking in the front said.
"We might as well open it," Saïx said.
The good thing was that the door proved to be a hidden short cut back up to the arena - unfortunately was Hades waiting for them.
"It's not nice to leave when you are being told to die." Hades said.
"We are going to disappoint you there." Riku said. "We'll beat you right here and now."
"How? You lost something?"
Riku and X'ero looked at each other as they both realized that had forgotten Hercules down in the underworld. .
"Spread out and circle around him," Saix commanded. "Don't let him take everyone out at once, and if you see the chance to escape to the Olympic Coliseum then take it. Don't be heroes."
"Wait!" The new voice was feminine and all too familiar to X'ero.
"You..." X'ero said as the female knight appeared. "Do you really wish to negotiate?"
"Where is Eraser?" The knight asked. "Your half. Tell and I'll let you and the rest go for this time."
"But I don't know it." X'ero truthfully answered. "I lend it out. He lost it. End of story."
"You do not lose a keyblade." The knight claimed.
X'ero froze and glanced at Saïx, but he showed not surprise of the fact that X'ero was associated with a keyblade. X'ero couldn't shed the dreadful thought that Saïx already knew.
"It backfired." X'ero shrugged. "You guys really have a bad memory, you were there!"
As soon as the words passed over her lips X'ero saw what she had been too blind to see before. The whole situation, the hostages, the deal with Hades, all the death following where ever these knights went.
X'ero or rather Niil had only encountered the persons beneath the amours briefly, but that encounter had been enough to tell her that they would never do such terrible things. Unlike X'ero they were good persons – Heroes. This was not them. Whatever it was that filled these amour it was not living human beings.
"Eraser was always unstable... When everything collapsed, I saw it dissolve. It literally melted into him."
"Melted?"
"Yes. So it is lost. You have nothing to fear. Nihil won't get the whole blade."
"I see. Then our deal is on. I'll let you escape."
X'ero was rather surprised that the knight believed her - just like that. Unfortunately Hades wasn't about to let them off the hook that easily.
"Ah ah..." Hades said. "We had a deal. I get everyone, but the green haired. I want these warriors dead so I can take over Olympus."
The armoured knight turned around and looked Hades.
"Our deal is off. I have what I wanted."
"Ha ha... Little girl, that just means that you are fair game as well."
"Wrong answer Hades."
A slight rumble came from the corner of the arena, and the floor was soon overrun by the Light Hounds.
The dogs had soon surrounded Hades. They charged up abd began to shoot theirs light beam at Hades.
Saïx wasn't late to react. In silence he signalled the other warriors to run for the stair that would lead them to their freedom while Hades was preoccupied.
"Come!" He said to X'ero. She shook her head.
"No!" She said. "I want to see how this end. I want to see if these... things are strong enough to take out a god."
"Yes," Rikun agreed. "I want to see that too."
Saïx said nothing, but he didn't leave.
"Do you really think that you can defeat me?" Hades laughed at first, but his laughter began to fade as the beams were kept constantly on him.
"What is this... no!"
The impossible happened Hades actually began sounding weaker, but then the god charged up in anger, getting redder and redder in anger. He engulfed the dogs in flames.
It was a grotesque scene Hades constantly being pierced by light beams and the metal of the dogs attaining the same scorching red as Hades had as they began to overheat.
X'ero was the first to see the danger and she did the most sensible thing she could think of and hid behind Saïx. He didn't pay attention to her but had his claymore up in a blocking position. Riku too had his guard up.
Then the blast came as the overheating dog exploded. The sound was deafening and the room was filled with a blinding warm white light for a second.
When the explosion was over all there was left was silence. No Hades, no Light Hounds and no knight. But secretly, despite their differences, the three warriors that stood left in the underground arena all thought the same: The explosion hadn't killed anyone off, which meant that the keyblade monsters could compete with a god in strength.
Saïx looked sternly at X'ero over his shoulder:
"I'm not a shield." He pointed out.
For some kind of strange reason that sentence lifted the mood in the room.
It was a good thing that the rest of the warriors had managed to escape up to the Olympic Coliseum, but they were all curious as to what had happen in the underground coliseum and bombarded Saïx with question. Riku took the opportunity to pull X'ero aside and ask her some question.
"I need to go back down and find Hercules." He started. "But I have to ask. Why is anything relating to keyblades so... evil?"
"... I don't think they are evil." X'ero honestly answered. "They are just single minded."
"Single minded?"
"There is a constant war in the heart of you humans. A war between light and dark, good and evil. That war... you can call it a war of morality... that war never ends in normal human's hearts, but in the heart of these 'keyblade' monsters – in their heart the war has ended and the light has won."
"And that is not a good thing?"
"...Only one of the seven Princesses of the Heart has the strength to carry such a purity. All other people... their heart collapse and I think the keyblade monsters is the result."
"But how does that happen? How does a person who is not a Princess of Light become so pure?"
"They don't... it was an accident that happen to my world. I was lucky to be a Nobody." X'ero smiled her disaster-smile. "The ironic thing is that I'm not sure it would have affected my original self, even if I had had my heart at the time it was already so corrupted by darkness that there was no light left in it."
"You are wrong. Nobodies are shell – a weak reflection of their former self. You are a decent person X'ero so you original self can't be that bad."
"Funny hearing that from you, considering that it was my other that...Mmmpf!"
Saïx had somehow succeeded in creeping up from behind and silence X'ero by placing his large hand over her mouth:
"That classified information, X'ero."
Riku sighed:
"I'm guessing that I won't get any more out of you two." He turned around and began walking back towards the underground. Before he disappeared behind the large doors he waved to X'ero.
"Watch out for yourself in that group, all right? Nobody else in the Organization will."
With that Riku was gone and Saïx found it safe to allow X'ero to speak again.
"What was that for?"
"I would have been very unwise of you to tell Riku that it was your heartless that killed Kairi."
"Why?"
Saïx seemed uncomfortable with discussing the subject with X'ero, and he answered her question with another question.
"How would you react if I succeeded in removing Zexion from my path?"
X'ero looked confused as Saïx.
"You won't." She simply said.
Saïx narrowed his eyes at her.
"Good to know I'm respected," he said sarcastically. "Just try to imagine that someone makes Zexion fade."
"I can't..." X'ero said after a few seconds. "Zexion is the first person to... matter to me. I can't imagine him not being there."
"Then I cannot explain it to you." Saïx opened a portal. "It is time to go back."
As X'ero took the first step into the portal Saïx stopped her.
"Out of curiosity: Since you seem to think that it is impossible that Zexion lose. That must mean you assume that he will be able to extract revenge on me?"
"I guess so..." X'ero had gotten so used to being in the Organisation that she had stopped thinking deeper over it. She had just taken the hostility between Zexion and Saïx as a part of everyday 'life' in the Organization and had never really thought about that eventually that everyday situation would one day come to an end.
"How will you react then?" Saïx asked. "If Zexion succeeds..."
X'ero didn't answer. She had no idea what to say.
Ns: And here it is. I'm never writing such a long chapter again - or so I said. The truth is there is much longer chapters in the fic now.
X'ero:...
Ns: What's wrong?
X'ero:I don't want to answer that question. It's not my problem.
Ns:If you say so... Any way. Things a back to normal again, so I should be able to have the next chapter up in a week. Which much mean... next Thursday.
Saïx: As if you can keep a deadline.
Zexion: For once I agree.
Ns: The next bunch will be up in a week.