Author's Note: Hey Kingdom Hearts X RWBY. I'm back. This story is going to live out the rest of its days here. I just wanted to thank you all again for being so supportive of this story during its stint in this section of this website. Also, as we approach the ending of this story, just figured I would go ahead a give you some more news about the sequel. I have a couple chapters written and much of it outlined. The plan is to upload the first chapter the same day I post the final chapter of this story and I will also include a bonus upload with a small snippet of the new chapter so hopefully you can come to your own decision about if you want to follow me into the next era of this story. Not too much further now. Thanks for joining me in this jouney.
~Nox
Sora slowed to a walk at the top of the hill, at the base of the Central Station and looked up at the top of the tower. He leapt forward, his feet landed lightly on the side of the building and he took off up the side of it. Sora summoned his Kingdom Key and as he reached the top he hooked the edge with his keyblade and for a moment, completely upside down with limbs fanned out, he exclaimed, "Hayner, Pence, Olette!"
"Wah!" Pence exclaimed as his Sea Salt Ice Cream slipped from his hand.
"Sora?!" Olette and Hayner both exclaimed, keeping their treats in hand. Sora's hand lashed out and caught the ice cream stick and as he sat down on the edge of the tower with them, he handed over the stick back to Pence. Sora smiled brightly at them as they all just sat stunned for a moment. Sora was glad to see that they had not changed much, even if they were all really into plaid now.
"So…?" Sora asked expectantly. The three started to recover from their stupor as he then asked, "Did ya' miss me?"
Pence simply nodded. Olette smiled finally, and answered, "Of course!"
Hayner tried to maintain a neutral look as he delivered a deadpanned, "No." He looked away to hide a smile that broke out on his face.
"It's good to see you, Sora!" Pence said finally calming down a bit. "You've been gone for awhile, we are about to have the next Struggle tournament. So almost a whole year since the last time we saw you. Where have you been?"
Sora paused for a moment and then after a moment replied, "That is a complicated question."
"Alright then," Olette accepted. "How is Kairi doing? She still training to be a Keybearer?" Sora paused and his sudden drop in mood spoke volumes to the three Twilight Town teens. "Oh no. What happened?"
Sora looked down at his shoes as he spoke, "I have been traveling. A lot recently. Kairi and Riku started this journey with me. On a world we ended up on, Kairi tried to protect someone from a monsterous man chasing after them. And when she did, he stabbed her." Sora's tone became icy. "I've tried to chase him down, but I have too much to do. But if I get my chance, I will destroy him."
Hayner seemed to get steamed to as he added, "I want to kill him. You give him one for me, yeah? Like a flying high kick to the back of the head."
"I will," Sora said with a nod. "A-Anyway. I want to introduce you guys to some friends of mine! Who I left... in the Tram Common... "
"Still head strong and hasty, huh?" Hayner asked with a big grin.
Olette looked over at him and replied, "Like you have room to talk, Hayner. I remember you almost kicking Sora out when we first met him just because he accidentally wandered back into The Usual Spot. Besides, we would love to meet your friends, Sora." The four teens made their way down off the Clocktower and soon found themselves out in front of the station where a group was beginning to approach from the Market Street direction.
"Hayner, Pence, Olette? Meet Dante, Rise, Aqua, Ruby, Yuna, and… where's Yang?" Sora began the introduction. A brief few moments after he asked, the blond appeared over the crest of the hill leading up to the station. "There she is. That's Yang."
The three locals looked at each of Sora's new friends with a variety of complicated emotions. None of them were Kairi which put a very strange pit of dawning realization in each of them. Introductions were passed around as that unease loosened and dispersed. They needed to keep their spirits up, for their own sakes as well as Sora's sake.
"Before this continues," Yang said suddenly. "I need to tell you guys something." So she recounted what happened before she could leave the tram common and how she may have accidentally signed the whole group up for the struggle tournament the following day.
This got a laugh out of Hayner as he asked, "How do you accidentally sign 7 people up for a competition?"
Ruby sighed and replied, "Yang is the champion of doing things angrily. What is a Struggle Tournament?"
Pence piped up and explained, "The Struggle Tournament is an ongoing Twilight Town tradition where people sign up to compete with each other and win bragging rights for the year. The whole town comes out and celebrates the whole event. Now that I think about it, I don't even know why we do it."
"So we just have to win fights?" Rise asked.
Hayner then said, "Well you have to win them under certain conditions. Every hit will knock loose Struggle Orbs and whoever has the most orbs at the end of the fight win. You also have to use a Struggle Bat for the fight." Hayner held out the blue padded weapon out to the people in front of him to get a closer look.
"So we're gonna be pummeling people with wiffle bats?" Dante asked.
Yuna giggled and said, "Sounds like it could be fun."
"You're not mad?" Yang asked.
Aqua shrugged and said, "If the guy was even half as bad as you described, I am just surprised that you only signed us up and not the rest of the town."
"You guys got any extra Struggle Bats? I think I want to run some of my teammates through their paces," Dante joked. Hayner nodded and signaled for the whole group to follow behind. They ended up in the secret place where Hayner proceeded to pass out Struggle Bats. Dante gave a couple of practice swings and then turned to his friends. "So, who's first?"
After about an hour of fighting, Dante stood tall with a loud and triumphant cheer as the only other two people still standing were Aqua and Sora. Aqua ran forward and jumped over a dizzy Ruby and slid under Dante's swing. A fancy flip from Dante and a parry from Sora later, the three of them all decided to call it a draw and rest.
"Seems like fun," Dante said with a satisfied sigh. Yuna got herself into a seated position and stood up. She walked over to the three sat down on a nearby bench.
She plopped down next to them and said, "You three are really intense. That was almost scary at times."
Yang stood up with a small stumble and turned to them, "Alright, maybe fighting with a weapon I am not familiar with is a bad idea. Why can't I just punch everybody tomorrow? That would be so much easier."
"Gotta follow the rules for the competition you signed up for," Ruby commented laying in the middle of the Sandlot.
Sora laughed and added, "If Seifer fights this year like he did last year, you should be fine. He has some skills, but he doesn't hit very hard."
Rise got to her feet and offered Ruby a hand. "Well that went better than expected," she commented hopefully. She pulled Ruby onto her feet and the two of them readied up for another bout. The two of them exchanged a nod before they went after each other again.
Aqua walked over and offered Yang another fight. Dante and Sora stayed seated. As the two of them watched their companion continue to train Dante said, "So how are you doing Sora?"
"Better," Sora answered curtly. After a moment he then added, "But better than terrible is still not good." Dante scoffed. "But improvement is improvement, right?"
Dante nodded and said, "Guess you got a point there." The two of them sat quietly again.
"Dante," Sora started. "I think I can take us to the next place we need to go."
Dante raised his eyebrows and asked, "You think you got enough control over that power now? Where we going?"
"We have to find Ventus. His heart is connected to mine. I might be the only option that Aqua has to try to get to him now. If I can control it, then I need to do it," Sora answered.
Dante turned to him and said, "Then we'll do it. I got your back, you know that. Still here for you Daycare Kid."
"Thanks, Dante," Sora replied. "But we'll do it after the tournament. Give us all a moment to just calm down." The two of them watched as Yang battled with Aqua near Rise and Ruby running through training sets. "So how well do you think they'll do tomorrow?"
"Well, I have no worries for Aqua. But Ruby seems really uncomfortable with a weapon that isn't her own. Rise is taking to it much faster than I expected her to, but she has been really focused since Remnant. She could go far as long as she stays this focused. Yang still has a bit of an anger problem. But she seems to be glad to have a job to focus on. Half the reason she wanted to come with us was to get away from home and leave behind a tarnished reputation. Can't say I blame her. Yuna will perform fine as well. She is multi-talented even without her dresspheres on hand. She's had good teachers." Dante ran down the list of their allies. "Now you, are strong and fast. You know it, too. But you let yourself be overwhelmed by skillful fighters. So a suggestion to you, use this tournament as a means of practicing responding to enemies."
Sora nodded and thought about Dante's advice. "I did have some problems fighting that guy Roman," Sora commented out loud.
Dante added, "You are insanely powerful at times, your abilities are some of the craziest I've ever seen. But all of that means nothing if you just swing wildly. So focus and work on that during the tournament."
Sora thought about this as Dante got up to have Yuna go another round with him.
Olette took his spot as she tapped Sora on the shoulder. Sora looked over at her and was surprised when she suddenly hugged him. At first he thought that it was to comfort him, but then he heard her first sob. Sora hugged her back as she cried. "Sora," Olette whimpered. "I can't believe she's gone. But that could've been you, too! When does it end? And what do we do if something happens to you?"
Sora held onto her as she continued to cry. Her fears were real. Sora had always operated under the assumption that he would win, but failure is always an option. He wrapped his arms around her tighter as he said, "It'll never happen. I promise. The Organization isn't getting rid of me anytime soon, Olette."
"Will you come back to us when you're done?" Olette asked quietly.
Sora hummed in affirmation before he said, "I'll come back to you. I promise."
The following day, the city was abuzz with excitement. The sandlot now had an elevated wooden platform where they would let the summer gladiators battle it out. Setzer, former champion vying for his position at the top of the stack once more, and Seifer current champion had the whole town ready for a rumble. Hayner the hopeful underdog was always a welcome addition. However, the news of seven new contenders was a completely unprecedented event.
"Welcome everyone to this year's Struggle Tournament!" a voice announced over the speakers in the sandlot. "Today is quite the day as we have our competitors arriving on the scene. Would all Struggle Participants please come to the stage!" Seifer climbed up on the platform and the cheers erupted for him. Soon after he was followed by Setzer and Hayner. Many other young men and women joined them. The final ones to climb on up was the seven newcomers to the tournament.
"As a brief reminder of the rules, each competitor will have 100 orbs in their possession at the beginning of the match. Every hit you land will force your opponent to drop orbs however you still have to pick them up for them to count on your score. If either competitor has all 200 orbs or can knock the other enemy out of the ring, then they will automatically win the match. Final scores for fights that are decided by the buzzer will determine who wins," the announcer explained. "However, as we have so many competitors this year, we will be having to re-enact an old rule. The tournament bracket only has room for 16 competitors, so your score will be added up to determine your place against all other competitors. You will have to have one of the top 16 scores to participate in the actual bracket, and your ranking will determine your seed on board. With all that out of the way, let's struggle!"
The first rounds of the tournament were underway and it very quickly became apparent who was going to be leading the pack into the actual brackets. Dante very quickly found himself set as the number one seed having scored just one orb short of a perfect score after the eighth round, ending with a total score of 1599. Shortly behind him was Seifer in the number two seed with a total of 1460. Number three seed was Sora at 1432.
Perhaps unsurprising to them, the 7 Guardians all got into the bracket. Joining them there was Setzer, Hayner, Vivi, Fuu, and Rai. Dante found himself paired off with the tiny Vivi. He was immediately off put by the idea of fighting such a tiny person. So Dante ultimately decided to throw the match, though just barely. As he stepped off the platform, he looked to Vivi and said, "You got a mean swing, kid. You keep going, yeah?"
"Yes, sir!" Vivi replied happily.
The following fight featured Seifer against Ruby. It was clear that Ruby was a skilled fighter, but she had no experience fighting with a weapon like the Struggle Bat. This inexperience was made more evident when she was eliminated by the current struggle champion. Ruby hopped off the platform and sat down next to Dante.
"Stupid bat," Ruby muttered.
Sora fought Fuu and found a relatively easy victory. She had a few gimmicks he had not been expecting, but with his focus being on reacting to his enemy, he learned to deal with it. The rest of the first round would see Yang, Aqua, Yuna, and Rise moved forward as well. The next match showed Seifer thrash Vivi thoroughly. For many, it was hard to watch.
Sora and Yang met each other in the arena. Whichever one of them won the fight, would move on to face Seifer in the quarter finals. Sora however knew that they were all in this situation because of her previous interaction with the guy. Especially now that Seifer had beaten Ruby, Yang would really want to fight him.
"Well Yang. Here we are. You want at Seifer," Sora said with a smile. "Come and take him if you can."
"Oh," Yang replied coyly. "I'll try not to hurt you too bad."
The match began. The two regarded each other carefully. This fight was much different than most of the fights prior for both competitors. When Yang made the first move, Sora simply moved to block. This pattern would continue for several clashes until Yang made her big move. She dashed forward and lunged the blade at Sora. His usual block was just as she expected, because she was ready to press her new advantage. A second lunge pushed him off balance and Sora found himself on his back out of the ring.
"Oh," Sora said as he finally remembered himself. This was followed by a big laugh from him as he laid on the ground. "Well, guess you just wanted it more."
Yang laughed as well while joking, "You could have at least 'Struggled' a little bit longer. Good fight, Sora."
Sora got up on his feet and walked over to sit with Dante and Ruby. Dante patted him on his back and said, "I told you so, kid. But good job showing that much restraint just to work on improving yourself. You are a hell of a lot easier to teach than Nero, that's for certain."
"Yeah," Sora agreed. "Though knowing that Yang really wanted to beat Seifer made it easier to focus on my own goals."
By the end of the round, Rise lost to Hayner and Aqua decided to forfeit. As she put it, "It didn't feel right to keep going if half the group was already eliminated. Yuna would knock Rai out of the running.
"Using a weapon you aren't used to is difficult," Rise complained as they waited for the semi-finals to begin.
Ruby looked over at her and exclaimed, "Right? Like I would have whooped him if I had been using Crescent Rose."
"There is something to be said about being able to adapt," Aqua said holding her chin in thought. "Have you considered that you might be able to do your work as a Huntress better if you understand your opponent?"
"Yeah, yeah," Ruby replied. She was used to being proven unwise by those around her by this point. She looked over at Sora who seemed to be spacing out a little bit. She shook him lightly, "Sora? Earth to Sora? You in there?"
"Huh?" Sora asked. "Oh, sorry. What's up Ruby?"
"It is going to be a little while before the next round. I was wondering if you wanted to take a little walk around town," Ruby said.
Sora nodded. "Sure, I have been hoping to talk to you about something."
The two of them made their way to the Tram Common where Sora decided to go ahead and introduce her to Sea Salt Ice Cream. They sat on the bridge that filled the gap between the central buildings and the back alley, outdoor theater. The tram passed underneath them and Sora watched Ruby's face as she got her first taste of Sea Salt Ice Cream. At first she pulled back from it, but then felt the sweetness overtake her taste buds.
"Whoa! That is so cool!" Ruby said with wide eyes as she went back for round two. Sora laughed and dug into his own. "So what did you want to talk about?"
Sora nodded and then turned towards her, "I saw you shaking when we confronted those Organization creeps back on Spira. Are you going to be alright?"
Ruby sighed and said, "This stays a secret? I am scared of Vergil. Even with my speed, I could barely keep up with his moves on Spira, and I wasn't even the one fighting him. I can't even imagine how Aqua must have felt."
"I know that feeling," Sora commented.
Ruby looked at him and asked, "How are you doing? You seem happier these days. But are you actually feeling better? Or are you just getting better at hiding it?"
"It comes and goes," Sora replied honestly.
Ruby was quiet for a moment. "Well, I want you to be happy. Like you used to be."
"Right, your dreams. What is it like? Seeing a person's life like that?" Sora asked. "I just can't really imagine it."
Ruby hummed and thought. How did you describe seeing someone's life like you were watching a movie in your head? Least of all how do you describe it without seeming completely creepy and invasive? She finally just decided to go with honesty. "It is like I was there, but no one ever knew, y'know? I remember they started around the time you, Kairi, and Riku were building a raft to leave the island. It took some time for me to piece together that Kairi was not actually from the islands originally. You were rivals with Riku in everything. Racing and fighting. And the fighting with the other kids. It is like being an audience member."
Sora's eyes went slightly unfocused as he pictured the things she told him. "I remember that," Sora said with a smile. "Wow, life was really different back then. We thought we were going to float away to another world back then."
"You know, you still could. Remnant is so much more than just Vale, Patch, and Beacon," Ruby said with a smile. "There is Atlas, Mistral, Menagerie, and Vacuo. Remnant is a huge place. There is bound to be more out there than just your little string of islands on your world. You just need to have the time to go looking for them. When all of this is over, I'll go with you. We'll find them."
Sora looked at her and just said, "I'll be looking forward to it." He stood up and offered her a hand. "Let's go watch Yang beat up Seifer." She took it and he helped her up. The two of them walked back to the Sandlot as they finished their ice creams.
Aqua waved them over as they could see that Yang was hopping up onto the platform giving her weapon a few practice swings.
"Good talk?" Rise asked with a wink. Ruby turned red and wildly shook her hands to signal Rise to stop teasing. "Why, you being so shy about this? You were willing to talk about it a couple days ago with me and Yang."
Ruby turned a deeper shade of red as she blurted out, "You're just lucky you already have Yu, cause then this would be you too!" Rise laughed as Ruby tried to justify herself.
"Ladies please, you're both beautiful in your own blah, blah, blahs," Dante said as he guided Rise away from the blushing Ruby. "Nothing wrong with it by the way," he called back over his shoulder. Sora tapped Ruby on the shoulder and pointed towards the platform. She was grateful for the distraction but could not help but notice the faint shade of pink on his face. A small smile crept back on her face as she looked over at the platform.
"So, looks like its just you and me," Seifer said smugly.
Yang shook her head and replied, "No, it's just me."
"STRUGGLE!"
"Kneel, loser!" Seifer called out. The two of them charged each other. Yang weaved her torso around Seifer's attacks. She hopped up and brought down the bat on his head. Collecting the orbs as she dodged around him, Yang was clearly in the zone. Seifer leapt into the air and came down at a sharp diagonal angle. Caught off guard by the move, Yang took the hit and bounced back to avoid a follow-up. "Quit dancing around!" He leapt forward and with a spin tried to keep the pressure on her. Yang flipped her weapon into an underhanded grip and she ducked low under his attack. Coming back up with a devastating swing, Seifer did a full backflip before he fell backwards. A long groan escaping him as Yang casually strolled around the platform to collect her orbs.
"Y'know, I tried to walk away," Yang said with a mocking smile. "But you had to keep pushing buttons. So as soon as you lose this match, my work here will be done and I can retire from my struggle career knowing I made a difference. Even if it just means that you stop being a total jerk to random strangers."
Yang then began to roll the groaning champion towards the edge of the platform and then, right off of it. Declared the winner by ring-out, Yang walked back towards the center of the platform and with a big triumphant cheer walked over to the tournament proctor and talked to him quietly. She walked over to her friends and said, "So should we get going? We have a lot of Town to see and probably not a whole lot of time to see it before we get going again, right?"
Yuna walked over to the ground and said, "I can agree with that. Hayner will be champion and more importantly, you all got to have some fun and unwind."
Aqua nodded and said, "It was a very welcome diversion. I haven't had that much fun in a long time." The group left the sandlot and found themselves sitting on the edge of a building. "So, where do we go from here?"
"If you'd like, you can help us with something around here!" called the cheerful voice of Pence. "We've been investigating something we're calling the 'other Twilight Town.' It is a strange data simulation of our town."
Sora suddenly seemed to remember something as he hopped down, "Wait, you must mean Roxas's Twilight Town."
"Roxas?" Olette asked from the distance. "I've heard that name before."
"You were friends in the other Twilight Town," Sora explained.
Dante asked, "Roxas?"
"His Nobody," Ruby answered.
Yuna tilted her head, "What's a Nobody?"
Sora quickly explained the creation of Heartless and Nobodies. With everyone on the same page, they could continue. "Roxas used to live in a world made of data that was a copy of this town. A perfect copy because it had all of you in it as well."
"That would explain the files we found on the Mansion's computer. Down in that creepy basement," Hayner said as he finally showed up to the party. "Thanks for inviting me to the party by the way."
"Not like you didn't find us," Yang said with a smirk. "Congrats on becoming champion, by the way."
"Yeah, yeah," Hayner replied. "Still want to fight you, feels kinda hollow knowing you made Seifer do a full back flip and didn't even fight me."
"Just didn't feel right to me, y'know? Not my place I guess," Yang answered with a shrug. "I mostly entered just beat him in a fight to make him think twice about harassing a lone girl again."
Olette put her arms behind her back coyly and said, "Was going to be either you or me."
This got a good laugh out of everybody there.
"Anyway, what did you need?" Sora asked Pence.
Pence raised his finger as he remembered the point of the conversation. "Right, we were trying to activate the transporter to the other Twilight Town but the program is protected now. It can't be activated anymore. It happened shortly after you, Donald, and Goofy had gone into the fake town. When the portal closed we couldn't get it started again," Pence explained.
"Yeah, I am pretty bad with computers so I don't think I'll be much help," Sora commented.
Dante laughed when eyes turned to him. "I can't even get a jukebox to play correctly every time, what luck am I gonna have with a computer?" he joked.
"Yeah, computers were more Naoto-chan's thing. And even then, she wasn't like an expert or anything," Rise mentioned.
Aqua shrugged.
"I am more technologically literate than Yang, but we didn't even have, like a home computer," Ruby answered for her and her sister.
Yuna shook her head, "Sorry."
Olette simply smiled and said, "It is fine, you guys have the fighting skills down at least. We'll keep trying to get things to work on our end. You guys just keep saving the day, alright?"
Sora felt a familiar sensation. But he suppressed it. "We will. Next stop is Ventus."
"Wait," Aqua said. "What?"
