Author's Note: OMG 300 reviews! I could die of happiness. (Okay, not really, but still.) I want to thank you all for your support and input. Just, thank you.
And so my lovely readers, the battle continues :)
"Remind me never to turn into a Heartless."
"You'd be surprised what people let slip when they think no one is listening."
"Oh him? Him we can kill."
xx
Yuffie and Sora were in the middle of fighting their way to any other group of people. Sora wanted to get to where Kairi and Leon were, but that was sort of impractical. Cid was actually the closest one to them. Yuffie was attacking Unversed left and right, Sora too. Sora had even considered pulling out a second Keyblade by now. However, the situation—despite the large amount of Unversed—didn't really seem all that dire. Besides, that would mean drawing out a third Keyblade, since Kairi really had his second. At that point it would really be like showing off.
"Cure!" Yuffie shouted, Curing both herself and Sora.
"Thanks!" Sora said. He and Yuffie were taking turns Curing each other.
"Oi! Isn't that your friend, Axel?" Yuffie exclaimed, pointing up to where Axel and Xigbar were standing.
Sora squinted, then nodded. "Yeah, that's him."
"What's he doing up there?" she asked.
"Fighting Xigbar, from the looks of it."
"The old dude with the eye-patch?"
"Yup, that's the one. They hardly look like they're fighting," he mused. "Those attacks are half-hearted at most."
"On both sides?" Yuffie questioned. "Or just Axel's?"
"I've fought both of them," Sora said. "Neither is giving that fight their all."
"Maybe they don't really want to fight," Yuffie said, trying to come up with an explanation.
"That could be," Sora said. "I don't know Xigbar very well…"
They don't want to fight each other, Roxas said, giving his input. I know them both. That fight is for show. It's almost like they're just practicing…
"Roxas says that they don't want to fight," Sora said, bringing Yuffie up to speed.
"What?" she asked flatly.
"Roxas," Sora replied, tapping his head. "He's my Nobody."
"That's disturbing. He's in your head?"
Sora shrugged. "Pretty much."
"Remind me never to turn into a Heartless," Yuffie said, frowning.
"Sure thing," Sora said, turning his attention back to the Unversed.
xx
If there was one thing that was drastically different about the way Leon fought as compared to Sora and Riku, it was that he did a lot of summoning—something Sora and Riku never did. Kairi now wanted to ask them about such things. The summons that Leon had weren't half bad—especially the Ice Princess who kept kicking severe Unversed butt.
"Looks like the Xehanort crony's gotten side-tracked," Leon mused, looking up at the still-fighting Axel and Xigbar.
"What is Axel up to?" Kairi wondered.
"Helping us, I would hope," Leon replied.
"They don't appear to be fighting very hard," Kairi said.
Axel did used to be one of them, Namine said. Perhaps this is an awkward situation for the both of them…
Yeah, but he sure took on Saix really quickly that one time…
There is more to Axel and Saix than any of us care to acknowledge. The two of them used to be friends, then they became Nobodies and things changed.
How do you know these things?
You'd be surprised what people let slip when they think no one is listening…
"Watch yourself," Leon said, taking down a Chrono Twister that was about to clobber her. "What were you doing, talking to yourself?"
"You could say that," Kairi said. "Sorry."
I didn't mean to distract you… Namine said apologetically.
Not your fault, don't sweat it.
Kairi went back to taking out the hordes of Scrappers and Floods that accompanied every single group of Unversed that came their way. She also took to dealing with the Red Hot Chilis, as they were just plain annoying.
Satisfied that Kairi wasn't going to space out again, Leon began to focus on the Unversed as well. He was actually enjoying himself a little—something he wasn't particularly accustomed to. Perhaps it was the slight change of pace.
Yet another drove came their way. Leon sighed. He held up his arm, which glowed red.
"Diamond Dust!" he shouted.
With a flash of light, his Ice Princess showed up and took them all down with massive amounts of Blizzard magic.
xx
Cid had worked himself into quite the rhythm. Fire cannon, wait a minute, fire cannon, wait, fire, wait, fire, Cure. Rinse, lather, repeat.
If the cannon didn't kill the Unversed the first time around, it certainly dazed them and would kill them the second time around.
The only thing the canon couldn't help with was attacks from behind as he was firing it in another direction. Those Unversed were taken down with his spear. They were the lucky ones.
"Yo, Cid, watch out!" he heard Yuffie call.
He froze, figuring what was coming. Sure enough, he felt the wind the shuriken made as it passed very closely by the back of his neck, taking a Blue Sea Salt out with it as it went. The shuriken boomeranged around in front of the canon and Yuffie jumped up to catch it.
"Glad to see ya worked yer way over here," Cid said, nodding at both her and Sora.
"Tsk, tsk," Yuffie clucked. "What would Leon say if he found out you weren't with a buddy."
"Buddy, smuddy," Cid barked, firing off his cannon again. "Mine left me."
He jerked his head in the direction of Axel and Xigbar. Their fight actually seemed to be winding down.
"Well, I won't tell him then," Yuffie said, chucking her shuriken again.
"Right, well stay outta the canon's fire," Cid said, repeating his warning.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Yuffie replied, rolling his eyes.
"That was mostly for Sora's benefit," Cid grumbled, jerking a thumb in Sora's direction.
"Thanks for the warning," Sora said, taking out some Red Hot Chilis. "Hopefully the others can work their way over to us."
"Safest place to be," Cid said proudly. "I make quite the dent."
"Oh, when are they going to stop?" Yuffie wondered. "This is the longest attack yet."
"It's like he knew we had more help," Cid muttered.
"Sorry?" Sora said.
"Not yer fault, it's that blasted Xehanort I'm angry at."
"Who isn't angry at him?" Sora asked rhetorically.
Cid laughed at that. "Good one, kid."
Sora took out a Mandrake that had snuck up on Cid. "How many times to I have to tell you? I'm no kid."
xx
"You're not fighting at your best," Xigbar taunted, lazily jumping out of the way of a chakram that Axel had only slightly chucked at him.
The chakram got stuck in the rock-face behind Xigbar. Axel sighed and snapped his fingers, setting the chakram on fire. He summoned another one to him.
"You're not really fighting either," he said, sounding bored as he ducked out of the way of way of Xigbar's laser bullets.
"True, I don't particularly want to kill you," Xigbar admitted. "I actually enjoyed having you around—you can make light of a situation."
"I'm going to take that as a compliment," Axel said, chucking another chakram in Xigbar's direction. It was easily dodged.
Xigbar laughed. "It's like back when we used to practice," he said. "All those years ago."
Axel frowned at the mention of this. True, he and Xigbar often trained deep in the rooms of the Castle that Never Was, but now didn't particularly seem to be the best time to mention it.
The sound of another dark corridor appearing brought both of them to a halt.
"Ah," Xigbar exclaimed. "There you are, Xaldin."
"I see you've found a traitor," Xaldin mused, looking at Axel.
Xigbar grinned manically, but didn't vocalize a response.
Axel backed away, not liking this turn of events.
"That's my cue to leave," he said, trying to sound cocky. "I've got some more Unversed to kill. And maybe a Xehanort Replica while I'm at it. Got it memorized?"
"Where are you going to go?" Xaldin asked.
"Down," Axel replied simply, jumping off the cliff-face.
"Do you think he'll survive that?" Xaldin asked.
"He wouldn't have jumped if he thought otherwise," Xigbar said. "Forget about him for the moment. He'll come back, he always does."
"It's like he looks for trouble."
Xigbar laughed. "Don't we all?"
Xaldin shrugged. "What are we doing with the Unversed today?"
"Just making sure they wreak havoc. If we're lucky, they'll take out the Restoration Committee's Headquarters. I mean, it's not like we can do much more than direct them…"
xx
Moments Previously
Leon and Kairi began working their way to where Cid, Yuffie and Sora were. The Unversed actually seemed to be dying down a tad. Or perhaps they were just killing them off faster. Regardless of why there were less Unversed now than there were moments ago, both Leon and Kairi saw fit to go to where Cid was using his canon.
Or maybe it was just that Kairi was determined to be where Sora was.
"Hey, since when were there two men up there with Axel?" Leon asked, looking up.
Kairi followed his gaze and caught the unmistakable figure of Xaldin. She frowned, she had only met him once, but he had not left the best of impressions. And even though she had barely met Xigbar, she liked him better than Xaldin.
"Oh my gosh, did he just jump!" Kairi exclaimed.
Leon squinted at the swan-diving Axel.
"Yes," he mused. "Yes he did."
Kairi's eyes widened in shock. She knew that Axel was nimble, but he was significantly less indestructible than he used to be. How in the worlds was he going to survive this?
She didn't get a chance to see him land, for Leon pushed her out of the way of a pair of Bruisers. When she looked back, Axel was gone.
"Did he just…?" she wondered.
No way… he couldn't have… Namine thought.
"We've got to keep moving," Leon said, dragging her along.
Kairi took one last look at the cliffs to see Xaldin and Xigbar both grinning.
"Keep clear of the canon fire," Leon warned Kairi. "The closer we get to Cid, the more dangerous it is."
"Naturally," Kairi replied, not wanting to let Leon know that he had merely just stated the obvious there.
"Yo! Get outta my way!" Cid shouted.
Leon grumbled and dodgerolled out of the way of Cid's next cannon blast.
"Lousy swordsmen…" Cid grumbled. "They think they're all that…"
"Kairi!" Sora shouted, grinning. "Glad to see you're alright!"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Kairi said, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Not so sure about Axel…
xx
"We should probably work our way back to the others," Aerith said quietly as she and Riku continued to clear up the Unversed.
Riku looked over to see that everyone else had gathered around Cid's Unversed canon. Everyone except Axel. Riku looked up to where he had last seen the pyro, but he was no longer up there. Instead, Xigbar stood up there with Xaldin. Riku frowned, what had happened in the two minutes he hadn't been paying attention to that section of the battle.
"He jumped," Aerith stated.
"What?" Riku asked, casually taking out some Scrappers as he turned to face her.
"Your friend, Axel, he jumped."
"Then what?" Riku said, his gaze darting back and forth between the cliffs and Aerith. A Mandrake attacked him from behind and he chucked his Keyblade at it to kill it.
"I'm afraid I didn't see," Aerith said with a frown. "But I'm sure he's okay."
Riku frowned, knowing that it wasn't like Axel to go down without a bonfire that he lit himself. So he could figure that he was alright, but that didn't answer the question of where he was.
He frowned more when he realized that they would probably have to deal with Xigbar and Xaldin later.
"What was it you were saying about going back to the others?"
Aerith smiled. "Follow me."
Riku was about to protest, but it was about then when she froze every single Unversed around them.
"Oh yeah!" he heard Yuffie shout. "Target practice!"
"Well, that's one way of doing things," he muttered, taking out every Unversed he walked past.
"It will only last for a bit," Aerith said, taking out Unversed with her staff. "But it will make our lives easier for the moment."
"Ima gonna send off a big one!" Cid called. "Git outta the way! Fire in the hole!"
A large blast from the cannon went off and Riku and Aerith found themselves taking shelter from the shockwave in the rubble.
"Let me guess," Riku said. "This is normal."
Aerith nodded with a smile. "Cid is just that way."
"Figured, c'mon, let's go."
He offered out his hand to her and the two of them quickly made their way to the others.
xx
"That's everyone," Sora said. "Well, except Axel…"
"He can take care of himself, I'm sure," Cid said.
"Well, now what?" Riku asked.
"We clear house and then survey the damage," Cid said. "Aerith, how long till they start movin' again?"
"You've got two minutes, tops," Aerith said.
"Right, fire!"
Sora, Riku and Kairi launched themselves into the frozen Unversed. Leon followed suit without much second thought. Yuffie grinned and tossed her shuriken about. Aerith first took the opportunity to Cure them all, before taking her staff to some others. Cid fired his cannon in the directions that the others weren't, trying to get rid of as many Unversed as he could before they started moving again.
Xigbar and Xaldin saw that this batch of Unversed was almost eliminated. Xaldin frowned, Xigbar sighed.
"It's like we expect a difference, man," Xigbar said. "But they somehow manage to fend them off every time."
"Do you think we should fight them ourselves this time?" Xaldin asked, his hands itching to summon his lances.
"That would be against orders," Xigbar said, lazily resting an arrowgun on his shoulder.
"But if Axel shows up again…"
"Oh, him? Him we can kill."
xx
All the Unversed had been cleared, save for one Bruiser.
"I'll get him," Sora said, rushing over to it.
However, the Stop spell wore off and the Bruiser came crashing down to the ground, knocking Sora back.
"What are the odds?" he mused, picking himself back up.
He was about to take another shot at the thing when a flaming chakram fell from the sky and killed it.
"Vertical dark corridors are so disorienting!" Axel shouted, falling out of the corridor after his chakram.
