DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Kingdom Hearts nor Fire Emblem Three Houses characters, Square Enix, Nintendo, and Disney are the owners.
Antex-The Legendary Zoroark: You got me excellent ideas so I will take them into account, given to Byleth's great commands and other factors, it's more likely that Ingrid and few others join the house. Of course Sora will learn few new things that will help him throughout his stay in Fódlan.
FabledLife: Yes, Sora will go all out when facing Death Knight, his keyblade powers will help him deal strong blows and prevent taking a lot of damage.
RedRat8: I do, I'm thinking of writing the arc, the plot will be as same as in-game but with obvious differences.
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CHAPTER 17 – ASSAULT AT THE RITE OF REBIRTH
Tuesday – 7/8 Blue Sea Moon – Cathedral
While the plot to assassinate the archbishop shook the monastery to its core, Sora, Byleth and Edelgard suspected that the enemy could have a different motivation that didn't have to do with murder but stealing a valuable relic from the mausoleum.
"The goddess's Rite of Rebirth is about to begin." Spoke Hubert asking if they all were ready to begin the operation. "Are we going to move forward with our plan?"
"I believe so. How confident are you in our theory, Byleth?" Edelgard shook her head willingly and asked her if she was confident with their plans.
"It could go either way, guys. We must be cautious with anyone who we mess with." said Byleth advising her students to watch their backs if they encountered somebody.
"Oh… I don't like those odds at all." Bernadetta looked nervous upon hearing that answer.
"We will get through this, Bernadetta, don't worry." Sora replied seeing optimistic, to the girl's surprise.
"All that matters is how our enemy makes their move, not how our teacher feels about the plan." Hubert stated leading them to understand that the enemy's movements were more important than their teacher's feelings about the plan.
"You guys seem too relaxed for my liking." Seteth approached them with a dry but harsh voice, like always. "The Goddess's Rite of Rebirth is about to begin. While we are in the Goddess Tower, we are relying on you to secure the locations that are lacking in defense."
"May I let you in on something, professor Byleth?" Flayn said. "My brother can be a bit… callous. He told me that he was concerned about you, and hinted that perhaps you would be better off patrolling a coffin!"
This blushed Seteth as he helplessly watched her little sister say those embarrassing words in front of everyone. "I-I said that it was a joke, Flayn, alright? Just remain by my side and do not cause any more troubles, okay?"
"Sorry." Flayn apologized for her words she said earlier.
"As a professor, you would do well to remember that is your duty to command your students and guide them down the path of the righteousness." Seteth reminded her role as a professor and how to handle her students and provide them safety measures.
"Please excuse us, we shall see you again after the ceremony has concluded." Flayn said before taking her leave with her brother.
"Inside a coffin… how fascinating…" Hubert laughed a little evilly, something that Sora found quite creepy.
"Sora, Byleth, shall we hurry and hide ourselves and guard the stairs to the Holy Mausoleum?" Edelgard advised them to head to the mausoleum and defend it. "If the enemy moves as predicted, we should be able to cut off their escape path and capture every last of them."
"Sounds like a good idea." Sora accepted her classmate's suggestion and headed to the mausoleum along with the others.
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HOLY MAUSOLEUM
Byleth and her whole class, including Ingrid as their guest student, headed to the mausoleum, and, as expected, they saw the enemies appear too.
"We were right. Unwanted guests have come to visit." Edelgard stated upon noticing their soon-to-defeat rivals gather around that place.
"You were not lying after all." Sora agreed with her getting ready his weapon.
"Getting over-confident, huh?" said Ferdinand in a slightly arrogant tone.
"Well, we had an anticipated suspicion towards these people coming here." Edelgard defended herself pointing these mages.
"I see, you seem to be more smart than I thought." He sighed in defeat getting his lance ready. "I guess we have no choice but to deal with these guys."
The enemies the whole class had to defeat were few white mages, western church soldiers yielding bows and another mage who was guarding a casket.
"Those Central Church bastards have spotted us… Buy me some time while I open the seal on the casket!" the mage commanded his minions to try to defeat them in order to buy him some time.
"Looks like they want to open the casket, are they after her remains or what?" said Sora in disbelief and suspecting of these guys.
"Looks like it, they are attempting to go after the tomb of Saint Seiros in the back. It would be the best to defeat them before they achieve their aim." Edelgard replied affirming their doing, suggesting to hurry up and fast.
"Got it."
"Okay, guys, we need to reach that mage who is standing beside that casket before he successfully opens the seal." Byleth indicated her students some kind of measures to take. "Petra, Caspar and Ferdinand take the left side. Hubert, Linhardt, Bernadetta and Ashe go to the right side, we'll go straight to that mage who is guarding the casket."
"Yes! Teacher!" all of them said in unison understanding her instructions and went to both sides to deal with the enemy soldiers while facing them at some advantageous positions.
Sora, Byleth, Edelgard, Dorothea and Ingrid went straight ahead heading towards some soldiers in the middle of the room, until they ran into an unusual and mysterious black knight mounting a horse of the same color with red eyes wielding a scythe.
"What the… what is this thing?" Sora looked shocked just like everyone else, the enemy seemed as powerful as Master Xehanort was. However, Sora somewhat sensed sort of recall on battling his biggest nemesis and the others, and anyhow assumed that the mysterious black knight was not so different from the others.
"Death Knight! Prove your strength and scatter these fools!" the mysterious mage tried to command the black knight, but to his surprise, the latter refused to comply his orders.
"I don't take commands. Or waste my time on weaklings." the Death knight replied with slow but menacing voice and then he looked at Sora. "Oh… I sense sort of a powerful aura within you…"
"That knight is a powerful enemy, Sora, I think we should avoid him." Edelgard suggested him to get away from him, otherwise, he could get killed, but he reminded her something.
"I have met way more powerful foes beforehand…" Sora said while giving the Death Knight a serious glare. "Somebody has to take care of this, guys."
"Does that mean…" Dorothea looked concerned for his wellbeing. "Sora! He's going to kill you!"
"Don't be reckless, this guy will tear you apart!" Edelgard was also worried as well and tried to tell him to back off."
"I'll be fine. Go get that mage and stop him!" Sora was determined to face the Death Knight, who was amused at his reaction.
"Please… don't die on me…" murmured Edelgard with a saddened face, but she felt the necessity to believe in him.
"He will survive, I can feel it." Byleth stated while looking at his student and believing on his strength and power. "Come on, let's stop this mage from opening the tomb."
The girls nodded their heads to deal with few soldiers and head where the mage was standing, leaving Sora to fight the strongest foe he ever met since Master Xehanort and the other versions of his nemesis.
[INFORMATION: Defeat the Death Knight!]
"I have to recognize your courage to face a rather deadly and powerful enemy as me…" said Death Knight preparing himself to slay him down, no, what he actually wanted was to test the keyblade wielder's strength.
"I have faced way stronger foes before you…" Sora replied him preparing his keyblade, but not before changing weapons with another one: the oblivion keyblade, to his rival's subtle surprise.
"I see… So you changed your weapons… nice strategy." said Death Knight in that state, before getting into his attack stance. "Get ready, kid. Because I will go all-out so you shouldn't hold back if you want to live."
"Same. Let's see who's the best!" Sora was eager to face his foe as well.
The two charged at each other and brutally clashed their respective weapons creating sparks everywhere.
Both of them shared an intense glare at each other while colliding their weapons a lot of times.
Death Knight tried to swing his scythe across Sora's face, but the keyblade wielder managed to dodge the deadly attack while having one of his cheeks mildly scratched by the weapon's edge.
This left Death Knight opened and Sora didn't waste his time to land a strong blow with his keyblade across his torso and make him fall off the horse, something that left the knight astonished.
"Nice… you avoided it… now we can have a serious fight." said Death Knight getting up and being ready to fight him.
"I'd like to see you try." replied Sora while transforming into dark form, turning his uniform all black.
With that, both started to clash with each other's weapons again, however, as Death Knight was about to lay a deadly blow on the boy, Sora casted a force field that was surrounded by some chains and prevented him from taking the blow that could have gravely wounded, or killed him.
With that, Sora's shield swayed Death Knight leaving him exposed to be attacked, immediately, Sora performed the Arcs Arcanum combo attack on his rival by going all-out and not holding back.
Right after, he transformed into Double Form, turning his uniform not only black but white too. However, he was not only wielding the Oblivion keyblade, but also holding another keyblade on the other hand, the Oathkeeper. Leaving everyone speechless.
"Holy shit! Did you guys see that?!" Caspar expressed surprise while watching his classmate in that state.
"Yeah! I never realized that Sora was capable of facing such dangerous enemies... none of us could have survived that deadly fight." Ferdinand was also stunned while giving his honest opinion about his classmate. "I have never thought he that was stronger until now…"
Being in that form at this moment, Sora and Death Knight engaged an all-out brawl clashing and hitting with each other without holding back, something that the dark knight was awaiting.
"Now this is a fight!" said the Death Knight while giving each other an intense challenging glare.
He didn't care about the mage's commands nor the others, all he had wished was to fight a worthy foe, and that was Sora, who willingly accepted his challenge.
Sora quickly used the Curaga spell to heal his wounds and clashed his keyblades with Death Knight's scythe. The black knight attempted to bring him down by cutting his head off, but Sora was quick enough to dodge it and brutally counterattack Death Knight with a massive and overwhelming number of slashes using the power from both of his keyblades and Sora shot him a number of light rays and quickly airstepped onto him to finally strike the Death Knight down with a last combo and ended it with a Zanketsuken, finally defeating his most dangerous rival.
After an intense brawl, Sora emerged victorious and survived his most dangerous encounter with a deadly enemy like Death Knight, who lost to him and was on his knees, but looked rather satisfied with his actions.
"How'd you like that?" said Sora after defeating him.
"I never realized of how stronger you are until now… you have impressed me… Nobody else would have had courage to challenge me. Hope you're ready when we meet again…" Death knight stated that he was more than willing to face him should they reunite for another battle.
With that, the Death Knight took his leave disappearing from his sight with a kind of transportation technique.
"Looking forward it." Sora murmured understanding his words, before turning back to normal and heading to where the women were fighting the mage.
[Sora has learned the Dark Aura Signature]
Meanwhile, Byleth and the girls were fighting few western church soldiers remaining and struck them down with ease thanks to the teacher's strategies. Now, all that it was left was the mage who guarded the casket.
"It's not use! The seal is broken. I'm gonna open this casket at this moment!" the mage appeared to successfully fulfill his ambition.
"Say what?!" Sora expressed frustration and annoyed due to seemingly failing to protect the mausoleum.
"Give it up you fools! I have opened the coffin. You can't-." said the Mage being carried away when he saw something weird lying inside the casket. "Huh? A sword?"
The mage found an unusual but seemingly powerful sword, he was about to have it as his own until…
"Drop it!" Byleth shouted as she charged towards the mage and gave him a strong swing, making him drop the sword and let it fall to the ground.
"Shit…!" the mage muttered in shock and pain after seeing the sword slip away from his hands and reach the woman's.
Byleth catched the sword leaving the mage frustrated, and in rage, he tried to attack Edelgard with a fire ball, but Byleth was able to tear it apart with ease protecting her.
"What the…?" said the mage surprised about Byleth's power.
"What is this weapon?" Sora felt the same way as everyone else.
"I don't know… but she seemed stronger than we thought." Ingrid replied having the same reaction.
The mage did everything to attack Byleth using his magic skills, but she countered him with ease and make him shake in terror.
"You wanted to steal this relic, didn't you?" Byleth said preparing herself to give him the final blow. Showing herself to be intimidating.
"Pl-Please! I can explain!" the mage begged for his life trying to get her to stop her action, but she didn't have time to deal with foolishness.
"Save your excuses for later." Byleth stated before giving him the said final blow breaking through his energy field and finally, killing him with a slash across his torso.
"That sword… Why is it-" Edelgard expressed shock after seeing Byleth kill the mage.
"That's the sword that was in the casket. Seems to be shimmering, almost as though…" Hubert had the same feeling after seeing what the mysterious sword did.
"Anyway, now you have a new weapon to defend yourself with, right Byleth?" Sora smiled between his teeth at her teacher.
"Ye-Yes… We did protect the weapon that the enemy wanted to steal." She replied feeling a little blushed at his words.
"Sora, you never cease to amaze us, do you?" said Edelgard praising him about his actions against the Death Knight. "I saw the way you… how do I say it…? Kind of changed forms and summoned not only one keyblade, but two as well. I have to recognize that you were able to fight that guy without dying."
"I never knew you were capable of doing such things… looks like you have some skills that help you to survive harsh encounters like this." Ingrid gave her opinion about Sora's strength.
Edelgard had her cheeks turn slightly red upon saying these words and showed her shy side while looking away, but what it surprised her was his fighting will against the most powerful foes, no one else would have had the courage like Sora did.
"When I told you guys I have faced way powerful enemies, I wasn't lying." Sora clarified her that he was telling the true when he did say that.
"I see, but I would like to ask you to be careful, Sora." Byleth replied asking him not to be reckless with whoever he runs into.
"I will, Byleth." He understood her words.
Deep inside, Byleth was rather curious about Sora's powers and the way he defeated Death Knight without falling in battle. After all, she did fine in having him as her student and take part of her whole class group.
After successfully defending the mausoleum, Catherine and her men came in and took the rest of the western church soldiers to get them judged by Rhea and the others.
END OF CHAPTER 17
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AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Sorry to keep you guys waiting, I have been doing a lot of things lately like hanging out with my family and dealing with lockdown status.
Anyway, Death Knight in this fic was not a superboss like in-game, but still a tough-but-not buffed man that Sora has ever faced and struggled with.
Well, the next arc will be the Cindered Shadows, I have to tell you that I'm really eager to write this, really eager.
Anyway, see you guys next time.