DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Kingdom Hearts nor Fire Emblem Three Houses characters, Square Enix, Nintendo, and Disney are the owners.
CHAPTER 12 – RED CANYON STRUGGLE
RedRat8: Yep, Sora is eventually gonna make friends through bonding with anyone, Sothis is waay sassy and direct with him and Byleth.
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SATURDAY – 5/31 Harpstring Moon | Zanado, Red Canyon.
The entire Black Eagle class headed for the canyon to take the bandits down, this was their first real battle but not for Sora due to having life-or-death experiences during his whole journey including his final battle against Xehanort, but still, he had to be careful to keep his classmates alive.
"Where are we?" Byleth after making it to the said mountainous zone.
"This is the Red Canyon… Looks like sort of ruins converged this place, anyways, let's finish quick." Edelgard replied putting her axe out readily. "The thieves must have been driven back, we must be careful or the cornered mice might bite us."
"Stay alert, guys, the thieves could be up to something." Byleth instructed them as they were willing to set the feet on the bridge they noticed at their eyes.
Elsewhere, Kostas was visibly mad after they learned that they were being chased by the knights and were almost out of choices to handle their precarious situation.
"Shit! The knights chased us all the fucking way here?!" Kostas was mad and stepped on the floor in frustration.
"Chief, let's get out of here! We cannot win against them!" one of the bandits was too scared to face the class, something that made the thief leader become even angrier.
"You dumbass! Where would we go at this point? You can't be a thief if you fear death so shut the fuck up!" Kostas cursed aggressively showing a big disgust by his coward attitude.
Back to the group, Byleth and her class were thinking about their actions to take, until Edelgard came up with a plan.
"Byleth, Sora, I hear there's a back road to the west. How about we split up in two groups and attack from both west and the front?" the future ruler of Adrestia suggested to carry out the plan. "If we proceed tactfully, we can attack our enemy from both flanks. I leave the rest of you."
"Sounds like a good plan!" Sora seemed enthusiast with the idea.
"Alright, Edelgard, this is how it goes, you, Sora, Dorothea, Caspar and I will go to the front, and the rest of you will head for the west and watch our backs while you're on it, regardless, we have to cross the bridge first." Byleth addressed the plan to annihilate the thieves and complete the mission.
"Right, professor!" all the students agreed with her instructions.
Sora's team proceeded to push forward encountering few thieves who were waiting for them.
Sora and Caspar charged towards them and struggled to take them down until Sora accidently stabbed one of the thieves through his stomach with his recently acquired steel sword, as soon as he saw blood coming out from the thief's wound and got frightened, he pushed the near-dying thief off the bridge, killing him.
Sora wasn't cutting down a heartless, a nobody, or neither an unversed, nope, it was the first time that he killed someone, a human being.
"It can't be… I… I killed a person." Sora was shocked for his own actions, and horrified of course.
"Sora, we had no choice! Those guys were trying to murder us!" Caspar made him see that they had to ensure their survival no matter what happened.
"But, they still are human beings!" he was trembling and looked disturbed for taking somebody's life.
"Listen to me, Sora!" Edelgard was upset and grabbed tightly him by his shirt. "People die every day in many ways, I understand you don't want to take any person's life but what will you do if an unscrupulous person tries to murder you and you own? Even if it is a human being?"
Sora was lost and shocked at her words, on one hand, he had met evil people throughout every world he traveled to but never resorted to kill anyone. But on the other hand, he had just run into a few thieves and accidently killed one of them. He was hesitant and scared to keep on his dream of becoming an excellent mercenary like Byleth, or even become the right-hand for Edelgard. His eyes looked away and locked in the floor in doubt.
His motivation was sunk deeper than he thought which could compromise the mission and everyone would surely meet the worse humiliation they had never imagined in their lives because of him.
"What? Giving up already? What a shame… I thought you were stronger than that..." Edelgard said coldly in disappointment. "There's only one rule you must always follow if you want to keep your partners alive… Kill or be killed… If you can't do that… then get the hell out of here…!"
They all were taken aback by Edelgard's cold and stern voice aimed towards the keyblade wielder, it was like every word of her had stabbed his heart and made his self-esteem go down, in other words, Edelgard was calling Sora a coward and he didn't have a choice was about to withdraw from the mission and give up on his dream when…
"Sora, you don't believe that… I know you don't." Sora came to remember Riku's words when he fell in a big despair sometimes. "Giving up already? Come on, Sora. I thought you were stronger than that."
And then he thought how far had gone to fight and save his friends, and the way he sacrificed himself to rescue Kairi, if he backed out at that moment, he wouldn't be able to see his friends' face because he knew that they would be disappointed if he did so.
"That's it, ge—" Edelgard was about to disown him when she felt a hand placed on hers and her eyes were locked on Sora's dead serious face.
"I'm not running away, Edelgard…" Sora looked serious while he let those words come out of his mouth. "It's true I have been an idiot as you said… but let me tell you this, I have busted my back to become a student like you and everyone else, the reason that I'm not willing to back out is because I made a promise to Byleth… To keep all you guys alive and ensure each other's survival in order to not let her and all you down. I don't enjoy taking somebody's life but you are right on something, either we kill, or we die, I prefer the first choice, but only when it comes to bad people we meet."
"Sora…" Edelgard was astonished and let her anger go down to express a subtly smile at him. "That's what I wanted to hear." With those words, she let go of him.
"Now, shall we face these thieves and get this over with?" Byleth smiled on his determined gaze.
"With pleasure." Sora got his spirits back and proceeded to continue the mission.
With his confidence back and understanding what he had to do, Sora and the entire class proceeded to cross the bridge only to encounter few more thieves to deal with.
He and his team went on to clear the area killing them to give the rest of their classmates a go so they could proceed to the west flank.
Dorothea casted the thunder spell and killed a thief in the process, that made her feel bad like Sora and hesitated.
"Making us to experience a real battle like this… I wonder if this is part of the church teachings." she looked concerned after getting her first kill, questioning herself if those actions had to do with the church doctrines.
"I dunno, I kind have a bad feeling about this too." Sora had the same feeling.
"You are suspecting of the Archbishop, aren't ya?" Dorothea could tell that he wasn't willing himself to trust Rhea.
"I'm not sure what she's up to, but Byleth, mister Jeralt and I feel that something is not right with the church teachings." Sora gave his opinion while taking down few more thieves together.
"Then, for what you suggest in regard to the archbishop, I can't bring myself to like this." Dorothea figured out Rhea's questionable actions.
"Me neither, but Rhea must not know it." Sora stated his disgust putting the last of the thieves down, aside of asking to keep the secret from her and the church staff.
"Got it." Dorothea shook her head understanding his friend's words as she herself hated rich and high class people who were arrogant and looked down on the others who were part of low class.
It wouldn't be unusual for her to hate the high commands who made people's lives a hell or something like that.
At the west side, Ferdinand, Hubert, Petra, Bernadetta and Linhardt successfully took the thieves down as they knew best, like Sora, they were taken aback and quite shocked after they killed them, but they had no choice if they wanted to survive and defend themselves.
"I never thought we would get to see dead people and some others bleed out to death." Linhardt seemed emotionally disturbed due to the metal smell.
"We didn't have a choice, Linhardt, okay? Look at Sora, he was about to give up because of the same action we all did and he made a comeback." Ferdinand tried to calm him down.
"I guess you're right." He replied letting out a sigh.
After they finished with all the thieves, they soon ran into somebody who didn't expect to meet again.
"Well, well! Sending bunch of brats instead of knights means that they have underestimated me! Big mistake!" Kostas made fun of the class.
"Hello, you thief bully! Do you recall our first meeting?" Sora greeted him in a challenging tone summoning his keyblade.
"You… you bastard." Kostas clenched his teeth holding his grudge against him, his teacher, and Edelgard. "So you have become acquitted with that mercenary bitch and that noble whore."
"Insulting my teacher and my friends… it's unacceptable." Sora express disgust for messing with people he relied on and prepared his keyblade.
"I'll fucking kill you and your stupid pesky people!" Kostas roared in rage charging towards him to clash their respective weapons.
[INFORMATION: Defeat Kostas!]
Sora and Kostas engaged a tremendous brawl between their respective weapons' blade, Kostas looked way gritty and rough as he was trying to cut Sora down but the keyblade wielder was able to dodge the diagonal swing stepping aside and managed to land double swing to stagger him.
It was at this precise moment that Sora transformed into his Limit form, his shirt turned black with yellow buttons, and his pants were recolored in red.
"What the…? Did he just… change his clothes or what?" Edelgard was surprised and shocked at Sora's form changed.
"No… it's more than that." Byleth was rather intrigued like everyone else. "Take a look."
Edelgard was feeling sort of potential coming out of the keyblade wielder, and so Byleth and everyone else felt the same.
"Ha! It doesn't matter if you change costumes, you won't make it out alive along these greedy bastards!" Kostas wasn't willing to go down that easily.
"Try it!" Sora replied in the same manner.
The two brutally clashed their weapons letting few sparks come out throughout the battlefield giving each other intense and gritty glare.
Then, Sora resorted to use the Sonic Blade ability, which consisted in performing a number of strong thrusting attacks, leaving Kostas without any time to react and dodge.
"Fucking shit…" Kostas muttered feeling too wounded clenching his teeth.
"What are you all waiting for? Let's take him down!" Sora gave them the signal to join the battle.
"You don't have to ask twice. Everyone, let's go!" Byleth commanded them to join in.
The entire class joined the battle and surrounded Kostas making sure he didn't have a way out of his impending death.
"So these assholes are watching your back, huh?" he laughed madly at everyone. "Oh, so you joined to, you noble bitch, you've never known hardships!"
"So if one knows hardships, they get to kill their enemy? Despicable." Edelgard was not happy to hear those words. "Let's get him, guys."
Each and every one of them landed their best hit on the thief leader, Caspar axed brutally him sinking his weapon into his clavicle, thus forming a crack in that place.
"YOU'RE ALL DEAD!" Kostas screamed at the top of his lungs charging towards the sky blue-haired guy, intending to kill him.
"Back off!" Sora stopped him by performing Strike Raid, which consisted in throwing his keyblade at his target five times.
He threw his keyblade at Kostas over and over until Sora landed the most powerful blow that left the thief stunned and exposed.
"Sora, leave it me, I'll kill him myself!" Byleth had made her choice to get this over with.
She walked few steps towards a dying Kostas, who was visibly angry and holding a huge grudge against her and the students.
"You motherfucker… to think you are pals with the knights and this scumbag kid…" Kostas cursed feeling cold due to the severe wounds he sustained. "I should never have listened to that idiot… What a mistake…"
"You won't mess with everyone anymore." Byleth ran her sword through his stomach killing him in the process.
With struggles and hard work, the entire class completed the mission and the professor cleaned her sword up making sure that there was no bloodstain on her blade.
"Thank you for leading us, Byleth." Edelgard thanked her for her assist. "There's no way we could have lost against a familiar foe, right?"
"Absolutely." Byleth nodded her head.
"Sora, I'm glad you understood what you will do from now on." The future empress congratulated him for overcoming his fear of killing people. "I'm sorry I acted like this before."
"Did you guys see Sora's power? He really broke that thief's bones easily!" Caspar was astonished for his classmate's way of dealing with the now dead Kostas.
"That's right, Sora. Where did you get that power?" Ferdinand asked the question as he was curious like everyone else.
"Well, it's hard to explain but I obtained the Limit form sometime during my journey as you can see. If I hadn't transformed into this, who knows how long it'd have taken for us to put that clown down, right?" Sora half clarified his actions using his humor sense.
"You never cease to amaze us, Sora." Dorothea expressed her surprise with a smile on her face.
"You did fine in joining our class, partner." Edelgard was glad to have him in her team, if it wasn't for him, maybe the rest of the class would not have been able to make it out alive.
"Thank you, guys." Sora was happy with their praises. "It means very much for me."
"I have to admit you have the courage to move forward." Byleth was also content for his courage to overcome the problems that he and the others had.
"Anyway, don't you guys sense something strange going on in this canyon?" Edelgard had a weird feeling in regard to that place.
"I'll go check it out." Byleth decided to investigate the ruins of the whole zone.
END OF CHAPTER 12
