Good day, beautiful readers! Welcome all on this fine Saturday to chapter 26 of Before: Kingdom Hearts!

Creativity: And what are we doing today, boss?

Author: Why, I'm glad you asked, my dear friend! We're FINALLY bringing an end the time spent in the cave city and moving on to the fun side of the story.

Yes, we're finally bringing all of this to an end and getting the journey proper underway, and we're all the happier for it! I seriously did not expect the confessions to take four chapters with a couple of Sora chapters to make sure we don't get sick of the city even sooner. However, with this chapter, we will get to the end of this mini arc and on our way to the fun part of the story!

However, before we get to that, let's take a look at last chapter's reviews:

CeleneTheAngel: Well, it's nice to know I gave you something to look forward to! Seeing a review pop up for this story after an upload is always a highlight to my day.

Yeah, I knew I was gonna do the 'attack from behind', but I also didn't want to make it the obvious way to go, since Sora has never flanked a Darkside in the series, save possibly the one in the beginning of KH III. As for the monster boss thing, I think you're confused. Agony was defeated long ago, while Wrath and Anguish continued their rampage. They were thought to have been defeated, but that's obviously not the case. As for where Agony is right now, well... You'll see. Also, speaking of Aqua, I'm actually working on a mini-series that will run four or five chapters that details some of her adventures in the Dark Realm post 0.2 events. Now, regarding Archive's connection to Ryo, there is definitely a connection. I've made that very apparent from day one. As for what connection he has, that's something still left to mystery.

And that's all of the reviews! Now then, when last we left Ryo, Veris, Garren and Barkos, they were just about to face down a horde of Wrath's beasts and have a rematch with the Golem from Hollow Bastion. How will this thrilling battle conclude?

Creativity: Sorry to interrupt, but we need to provide the Discord password: 5RRcGwh

Author: Right. Saturday.

Well, sorry about that interjection. Now then, let us begin the chapter proper! Allow us to proudly present chapter 26 of Before: Kingdom Hearts!

"WAHOO! WHO'S NUMBER ONE?!" Tempest shouted while he whooped in delight, leaping in the air and pumping his fist.

"Would you stop that?! It's not exactly good form to brag, you know!" Lieth hissed at Tempest, who had the grace to look sheepish, even if he hadn't managed wipe off the grin that threatened to break his face in half. To be fair, the rest of the group of six were all sporting similar smiles.

"I can't believe we all made it!" Phoenix breathed in a hushed tone as they made their way towards the terrace they loved to visit.

"And on top of that, Shiori, Tempest and you managed to go and win your section of the tournament!" Ryo added, feeling nothing but pride for his friends.

"Oh, come on, you totally would have had that if Treyr hadn't gotten that cheap shot in with that blast! You should totally have won that!" Phoenix lamented but Ryo just shrugged.

"I earned my way into the Sanctum. That's what I wanted out of this. Honestly, he probably won because he was more motivated than me. Plus, his swordsmanship is no joke." Ryo half-heartedly argued back.

"And yours is better! Trust me, having fought you both, if he hadn't gotten that cheap shot it, you would have tanned him!" Phoenix continued on. Ryo rolled his eyes.

"And trust me, I don't care about the bragging rights. All that matters is that I'm in; We're in! The Sanctum is open to us!" Ryo stated with unbridled excitement and triumph in his voice that proved to be rather infectious.

"All the knowledge of the Sanctum…" Shiori murmured as they reached the Terrace.

"Right at our fingertips" Terrek concluded. It was true. Ryo could hardly believe it. All the training, sparring sessions, blood, sweat and tears had finally paid off. And yet, Ryo could scarcely believe it. The whole tournament and his placement in it had an air of un-reality to it. He half expected to find out it was all just a wishful dream any moment now. And yet, he didn't stir awake.

"You know, for a long while I thought that getting to this point would mean I made it. I was at the end." Shiori suddenly said as she took a seat on the stone bench.

"But…" Leith prompted.

"Let me guess, this isn't the end at all. It's just the beginning." Ryo guessed. Shiori shot him a look.

"Really?" Shiori asked, looking mildly incensed that Ryo had stolen her thunder, but Ryo just threw her a rueful grin.

"Something tells me you weren't alone in that." He replied as Phoenix gave him a light punch in the shoulder.

"Still didn't have to go and step on my moment." Shiori muttered, though her annoyance was more for show. Instead, she simply turned her gaze back to the setting sun, enjoying this moment among friends.

For after this day, things would begin to change forever…

Veris was staring sullenly into the fire she'd lit some time ago. They'd slept through the night (or at least, what they thought was the night) and when they woke up, Veris had tried to go out looking for Ryo again. However, the search had been ultimately fruitless, and she returned and had been sulking a bit since her return.

The fire was low, with only a few tongues of flame remaining. Veris half-heartedly stirred the embers and ash, watching the occasional flickering of a new flame starting, only to have it die in a matter of minutes. Eventually, she added a few more twigs from their supply and sent a tiny puff of flame from her palm to reignite the woodpile.

Garren and Barkos hadn't left the campsite since they woke up. They'd been keeping themselves occupied with doing inventory of provisions, munny, things like that. They'd also been doing maintenance on their equipment, though it was mostly Barkos doing so, since the weapons they'd taken from the tsubasa no aru tomb apparently didn't need to be sharpened, and Garren's enchanted armor didn't need any special maintenance. The only piece of equipment that Barkos really needed to keep an eye on was his bow, and his downright religious care of the weapon meant that he realistically didn't have much to do when it came maintenance.

Mainly they were just trying to keep busy without heading too far away from the camp. They'd rationalized it as wanting to keep near the camp's signal fire to keep it lit, and also just in case Ryo came back. They weren't lying, but it wasn't the whole truth either. The unsaid truth was that they didn't know what to do regarding the entire situation. After everything that Ryo had gotten… all that… stuff off his chest, they weren't sure where to go with it all. They'd suspected that Ryo had been involved in something before he'd arrived here. Barkos' initial suspicion had been that Ryo had been involved in a cult of some kind, which surprisingly hadn't been that far off.

However, now that they knew the truth; that Ryo wasn't human, that he wielded rare and incredibly powerful magic, and that wasn't even talking about what could be charitably referred to as 'baggage'.

Meanwhile, Veris was lost on her own world as she poked and prodded at the fire with a stick. Memories from Woodfell flitted about in her mind as she recalled better times; when the four of them had felt more like proper friends.

"Hey…"

Garren and Barkos turned to Veris, who was still looking into the fire, idly stirring it.

"Do you guys remember that first winter?" Veris asked quietly. Garren and Barkos glanced in between each other.

"You mean the one where Ryo nailed me upside the head with a snowball so hard that I fell into a snow pile?" Barkos asked.

"Oh yeah, and then he ended up tripping when he was running away from us and got a face full of snow!" Garren exclaimed, chuckling a little bit at the memory.

"Yeah… Then there was an aurora one night, remember? Heading to that glade, lighting a bonfire and lying in the snow while watching the lights dancing in the night sky…" Veris recalled wistfully. As it turned out, that had been the first proper winter that Ryo had ever seen. She certainly remembered the first time he looked outside after a blizzard, only to be shocked by the seemingly endless sea of white before him. He confessed that he'd seen snow before, but never in quantities like this. A small smile crept across Veris face as she remembered the many discoveries of winter that Ryo made that season.

"Hey, you guys hear that?" Barkos suddenly asked. Garren and Veris both strained their ears but couldn't really hear anything. Then they heard what sounded like some stones falling.

"Probably just some rocks coming loose." Garren replied. Barkos shook his head.

"No, I thought I heard a voice. Couldn't make it out, but it sounded angry." Barkos muttered as he slowly nocked an arrow and dropped to a crouch as he drew the bowstring back a bit. Then they heard a clattering sound again, much closer this time, accompanied by a loud crackle.

Now all three of them were on edge and had their weapons drawn. Barkos slowly crept forward and peered around the corner of the small natural wall they'd used for their campsite before he swore viciously and quickly backpedalled.

"There's a summoning stone!" He hissed to them as he started looking for a pathway to use for escape.

"How?! Where did it come from?!" Veris gasped as she readied her short sword. Garren hefted his axe and braced.

"We need to find Ryo! He has no idea those things are out there!" Garren muttered as he steeled himself for a fight. The others nodded in agreement and started to make a run for it, only for their escape to be cut off by three manticores. Suddenly, a small swarm of imps emerged from the darkness, followed by hayans and more manticores. And just like that, they were boxed in. But that wasn't the worst of it. No, the worst came when the ground began to shake in time with a distinct thoom… thoom… thoom…

From out of the shadows emerged a familiar and terrifying sight. It was a Golem, nearly identical to the one they'd fought in the catacombs beneath Radiant Garden, which they'd only beaten because Ryo had managed to close the gateway, depowering it.

And then Barkos noticed one more detail that made things even worse. Contained within the Golem's chest cavity was the summoning stone he'd seen earlier, which was going to make it many times harder to destroy.

"Look out, here they come!" Barkos called out as a group of hayans suddenly rushed forward, followed not long afterwards by a pack of imps. Barkos let loose an arrow that took out a hayan while Garren brought his axe down on the head of an imp. The moment the head was split Veris rushed forward and unleashed two Fira spells before yanking her short sword from her belt and joined Garren on the front lines, cutting down as many of Wrath's horde as the pair of them could while Barkos was picking off the hayans that tried to flank around Garren and Veris to strike at them from behind. Garren let out a yell as he blocked a manticore's attack with his armored arm before lashing out with his axe before he lunged forward and kicked away an imp before he delivered a horizontal swipe that took out three more imps at once. Moments later, a fireball soared over his head and struck a hayan that had been gearing up to charge him, followed immediately after by three more fireballs that struck a trio of imps, blasting them into oblivion. Veris then whirled around and yelped as she slashed at an imp that had been in mid-pounce! It's claws disappearing into dust just before they could scratch her. She then lunged forward and delivered a pair of crude slashes to an imp before launching a Fire spell at a hayan that was sneaking up on Garren.

However, no matter how many of Wrath's horde they cut down, the weren't making a dent in their numbers. In fact, it seemed like there were even more of them than when the battle started. Veris jumped backwards to avoid a manticore's strike before launching another Fira spell, destroying the monster. Shortly afterwards though, she fell to one knee as she felt a brief headrush.

"You're overdoing it with your magic!" Barkos yelled before he put an arrow through a hayan before he cursed as he realized he was running low on arrows. Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to scavenge any of them, since they were currently all behind enemy lines. Veris fell back and nervously tightened her grip on her short sword before she pulled her old knife from her belt to hold in her offhand. Garren was now backed up along with them, still doing his best to keep the horde back. However, despite all their best efforts, it was obvious that they were cornered.

"How are we going to get out of this?!" Garren asked desperately as he cleaved a manticore in two.

"I can maybe manage a decent sized explosion to take a bunch of them out, but I'd be out of commission afterwards!" Veris suggested, though no one was eager to jump on that one.

"That's not a good idea in here! You could bring the mountain down on top of us!" Barkos immediately replied, shooting down the idea as he tossed his bow aside and yanked his own short sword from his belt and stabbed a manticore clean between the eyes.

"We're running out of room!" Garren managed to yell over the hissing and shrieking of the horde, which had slowed its advanced to a crawl; slowly stalking forward and eying the three of them with an unnerving look in their eyes. They were trapped and beaten, and the monsters knew it. They were taking their time with them, rubbing their victory in the faces of the three. Garren gritted his teeth and hefted his axe for the next attack, Veris summoned what magic power she had left into a fireball that she clutched tightly. Barkos adjusted the grip on his sword, holding it in both hands and knuckles turning white as drops of sweat began to bead on his forehead.

Then, all of a sudden, something dropped to the ground into the midst of the slowly approaching horde! Towering pillars of black and purple energy erupted from the ground, decimating the monsters and leaving them with much more room to breathe. Standing in the middle of the dark energy was a figure steeped in the shadowy energy, a familiar blade in their hand, blade jabbed into the ground.

"Ryo…" Veris breathed. Barkos' mouth was gaping in shock. Garren went from looking surprised to grinning like a maniac as Ryo slowly rose to his full height and pried his sword out of the ground. The three of them stared at the back of their friends head as he pointed his dark blade at the monsters.

"Get. Away. From them." Ryo hissed before he flourished the blade and sank into a battle stance. His blade was held high behind him while his left arm was outstretched, bent slightly towards the ground. His dark aura surged around him before it settled. His body was now clad in a purple light that was framed by chaotic clouds of dark vapor.

"What…" Barkos started to say before Ryo suddenly bolted forward, his blade flashing as his first slash cleaved through an easy seven assorted monsters before he began to swing is blade in a seemingly chaotic manner as he rushed through their ranks, only for lingering purple energy to suddenly mimic a slashing blade behind him, utterly eviscerating the monsters within the reach of Ryo's blade.

"Holy…" Barkos muttered, dumbfounded. He'd seen Ryo like this when he'd fought that monster in Atlantis, but that had only been one monster. Seeing him tear his way through this horde like it was wet paper was quite the sight to behold.

Ryo let out a shout as he leapt into the air and slammed his blade into the ground, sending out a wave of dark energy that cut down yet another swath of the horde before he turned his attention to the Golem, which had very quickly taken notice of the newcomer that was now making mince meat of its soldiers. The Golem let out a groaning roar as it raised its mighty limb and swung it down at Ryo. In response, Ryo's body dissolved into black mist surrounding a shimmering purple energy sphere that quickly darted out of the way of the Golem's limb before it transformed back into Ryo. He then delivering a one-handed upward swing that carved a gash through the floor as a purple crescent of energy surged through the air from the blade. The crescent struck the Golem's arm, carving a long gash across it that began to leak crimson energy and causing the Golem to let out a groan of surprise before it turned its attention to Ryo, who was already on the move again, sprinting towards the Golem, slashing his way through several of the Golem's minions and delivering a hard slash to its ankle before he leapt into the air and reared back his open hand, dark energy gathering it before he thrust is arm forward!

From his palm erupted an orb of darkness that struck the Golem's back and detonated in spectacular fashion. There was evidence of damage, but it appeared to be merely superficial. The Golem let out a frustrated roar before it lifted its massive foot, crimson energy gathering around its rocky limb before it stomped on the ground, sending a massive wave of crimson power rushing out from the foot! Ryo leapt over the wave and rushed in again, leaping into the air and slashing through the Golem's leg once more before he whirled around, gripping the blade with both hands as he sent another crescent of dark energy towards the Golem that carved its way through any of Wrath's horde that was foolish enough to not get out of the way. The crescent was aimed at the creature's chest, specifically at the summoning stone, though it ultimately didn't find its mark as the Golem covered the stone with both its arms. Ryo snarled angrily as he raised his blade and began to charge again. However, the Golem was already preparing its next move. The summoning stone in its chest began to glow brighter and brighter before it suddenly spat out roughly a dozen hayans that all immediately began to converge on Ryo, along with whatever monsters remained alive from Ryo's rampage.

Meanwhile Veris, Garren and Barkos were watching as their friend darted about, attacking the Golem viciously as he cut down any of the monster's minions that tried to intervene.

"We gotta help him." Veris muttered as she moved to join the fray, only for Barkos to grab her shoulder.

"Woah wait a minute. Since when does he need our help? Do you see him out there? What part of that says that he needs help? Is it that he's gone untouchable so far? Or that he's shredded his way through three quarters of that thing's forces in a matter of seconds?" Barkos argued, only for Veris to brush his hand off and look back to the fight.

"Look, I don't care how much more magic power he has than me, there's no way he can sustain that that… form or boost or whatever it is for very long. If he runs out of magic before he brings down the Golem and he's just as worn out as I am when I overdo it with my magic, he is going to die. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to take that chance." Veris shot back before she turned to head back to battle.

"Wait!" Barkos called to her.

"I'm not going to stay out of…" Veris began to shout as she turned around, only to quickly reach up to catch something that Barkos had tossed at her. It was a High Ether.

"You'll need all the magic you can muster if you're going back in there." Barkos told her as he walked over to his discarded bow and drew one of his remaining arrows from its quiver. Veris nodded at him and downed the high ether before she turned back to the battle and rushed in, cutting down the Golem's forces so that Ryo could focus his efforts on bringing down the Golem.

"Remember, conserve your magic! We might need it for the Golem!" Garren advised as he cleaved through a small group of imps. Veris nodded as she cut down an imp before she flinched as she heard a familiar whistling noise pass close to her head. A moment later a manticore fell to the ground and dissolved, leaving behind only an arrow.

"Nice shot!" She called out before she spun around and stabbed a hayan before swiping the blade through a manticore that hadn't been paying attention. Sparing a glance, she could see Ryo was busy trying to damage the summoning stone in the Golem's chest, though he just couldn't seem to get through to it. The Golem had long since realized what Ryo was up to and was constantly keeping at least one limb at the ready to defend the stone. Meanwhile, it was also busy belching out whatever troops it could muster, though the increased frequency was leading to smaller and smaller groups of monsters, leading Veris to assume that the stone could be overtaxed. Of course, that didn't really mean anything so long as they were still trapped in here with the Golem.

"Barkos, you have any ideas?!" Veris called out as she cut down another imp. Barkos had traded bow for short sword again and was busy cutting down a manticore.

"We need to take out the stone if we're going to survive this, but the Golem is guarding it too much for us to get through to it! We need to break its guard and take out the stone before it can recover and counter us!" Barkos quickly assessed as he started trying to figure out how to bring down the Golem.

"To break its guard properly we need to disable its arms, but to do that is going to require a lot of power. Of all of us, Ryo has the best shot of disabling its limbs, but he hasn't had any success with that so far…" Barkos continued to mutter as he stabbed a manticore in the side.

"I might have something that could bring down those arms!" Veris told him as she cut a hayan in half that had been swooping down at her.

"Could you be more specific?!" Barkos requested as he leapt out of the way of an imp's claws before lunging forward with a stab.

"I got a spell that should do the trick if I can hit the Golem with it! I'll only be able to do it once though, so we gotta make it count! Also, it'll take some time to charge, so I need you to thin out the horde a little so I can charge this up!" Veris called back to Barkos.

"Why do I feel like I'm going to regret this… Alright, you heard the lady! Let's clear these things out!" Barkos called out to Garren and Ryo, who didn't say a word and started cutting down the Golem's forces with new intensity. In the meantime, Veris extended her arm out in front of her, palm facing towards the Golem before she grabbed her wrist with the other hand. A ball of fire materialized in her palm and began to grow, blazing stronger and stronger before it began to compress in on itself. Small orbits of fire began to form around it as she concentrated, sweat beginning to bead her forehead as she poured more and more magic into the attack.

Ryo, despite being occupied with cutting down any of Wrath's horde within reach of his blade, could sense the immense effusion of magic coming from Veris, all gathering into a singe spell. The amount of power concentrated into a single attack was incredible, but also concerning. He knew that Veris was capable of a couple of Firaga attacks, possibly a Firaza if she really pushed herself, but this was going beyond that. Last he checked, Veris physically didn't have enough magical power to power a spell this power! Where had all this power come from?!

However, he didn't have an opportunity to figure out where it was coming from. The Golem seemed to be figuring out what Veris was trying to do, and was now lumbering towards her, rearing back one of its limbs to strike! Eyes wide, Ryo turned and rocketed towards the Golem as he reared back his blade. Dark energy began to wrap around the blade, which began to trail an etheric purple energy! With a bellowing war cry, Ryo swung his blade forward and slashed at the Golem's limb! There was an explosion of dark energy that sent the Golem reeling back with a massive glowing purple gash on its arm.

"IT'S READY!" Veris shouted.

"GET DOWN!" Barkos shouted as Ryo dropped to the ground. With the path clear, Veris' pupils locked onto the summoning stone embedded in the Golem's chest with a wild look within her eyes.

"MEGAFLARE!" Veris screamed as she unleashed the raging inferno from her palm. It rocketed towards the summoning stone and the Golem recognized the threat and raised both its arms to defend the summoning stone. The Megaflare spell struck the arms of the Golem and the results were something that not even Veris had anticipated.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The explosion from the Megaflare was so strong that everyone was sent flying backwards (sans Ryo, who'd jabbed his sword into the ground to anchor himself). However, that wasn't even the half of what happened. The force of the blast was so powerful that the arm that Ryo had wounded while protecting Veris had been blown clean off of the Golem's body and the other arm was incredibly cracked and damaged, likely to break if the Golem tried to strike anything. Ryo recognized the opportunity and yanked his sword from the ground and shot through the air towards the summoning stone, sword clutched in both hands as he let out a howl of intent. The Golem desperately raised its remaining limb to protect the stone, but it wasn't nearly enough. Between the massive damage to its limb and the amount of energy that Ryo had poured into the blade, Ryo was able to plow his way straight through the limb and swung the blade down like a hammer on the summoning stone!

The stone was crumbled under the might of the blade and the effect was instantaneous. There was an explosion of red and black energy that sent Ryo flying out of the cavity in the Golem's chest and sent skidding across the floor. Somewhere in between the explosion and his collision with the ground, he'd dropped out of whatever magic state he'd been in and appeared to have been knocked unconscious. He wasn't the only one. Veris had collapsed almost immediately after she'd unleashed the Megaflare attack. Garren had dragged her to safety and Barkos was in the midst of doing the same for Ryo, and it was a good thing as the Golem began to shudder and shake before there was a loud THOOM and it burst, large and small fragments of ash-colored stone erupting from the Golem and began to crash to the ground around them! If Garren and Barkos hadn't moved their unconscious companions out of the way, it was quite possible that they would have been crushed by the creature's remains.

It was silent after that. The dust slowly began to settle as Garren and Barkos tried to figure out how to revive their friends, only for them to suddenly lurch awake before they simultaneously groaned and put a hand to their heads.

"Oh, sweet HELL, what is wrong with me?" Veris moaned as she continued to massage her forehead.

"Best guess is acute mana disorder, onset by mana taxation. Oh Springs, I haven't felt this terrible since I tried to shadow dash from home all the way to the sparring hall when I was six." Ryo groaned as he slowly managed to sit up.

"Ugh… Is this what a hangover feels like? Also, what's the non-textbook translation of that?" Veris asked, her tone communicating the immense discomfort she was in.

"We both overdid it with our magic and now we've gotta ride out the consequences… Which can last between twenty four to forty eight hours… Give me my sword. I'm going to put myself out of my misery." Ryo replied before he started weakly pawing at the ground for the weapon in question.

"Okay, note to self; keep sharp objects away from them until this passes." Garren muttered as he set about doing just that.

"Can't you guys just use an ether and get your magic back?" Barkos asked as he managed to get Ryo on his feet, supporting him as he half-dragged his magically hungover friend out of the area where they'd fought the Golem.

"Not if you want to see us vomit blue. We just gotta ride this out until our magic has replenished naturally. Besides, it's only our magic that is affected for the twenty four hours or so. Our heads should be roughly back to normal in about twelve hours or so…" Ryo muttered as he was laid down on a bedroll.

"I'm not gonna make it… I think I'm gonna be sick…" Veris groaned out, a hand on her stomach as Garren carried her to where Barkos was setting up their new camp.

"I've heard that can happen. Don't try to ingest anything for a while." Ryo suggested as he shut his eyes and tried his best to ignore the accursed throbbing in his skull.

"Well, we'll keep watch until you guys can actually function. Try to get some sleep in the meantime." Barkos assured them. All he got were a couple of miserable groans in response.

"That's about the response I expected." Barkos muttered as a rueful grin danced at his lips.

"If you joke about this mental hell again, I swear on the Six Springs that I will murder you when the colors go away…" Ryo groaned out, shakily raising a hand up to point at Barkos, only to get about halfway before his arm dropped pathetically to the ground.

"I wonder if they'll even remember this when they come around." Garren mused as he set about getting a fire going. They'd been a little bit spoiled by Veris' fire magic, but Garren still managed. As he and Barkos idly stirred the embers and watched the flickering tongues of flame dance in the darkness, they were eventually greeted by a pair of snores that echoed throughout their haphazard camp. This managed to drag a few snickers, building to hushed chuckles before they managed to reign in their amusement. They didn't want to wake their ailing friends, after all. Then, after a few minutes, Barkos got to his feet.

"I'm going to go scavenge as many arrows as I can. You think you can hold down the fort? I shouldn't be long." Barkos asked. Garren nodded.

"Just be quick. I don't want to think we have nothing to worry about after the Golem, but you never know..." Garren replied.

"And just when our big guns are out of commission…" Barkos muttered as he hurried off to retrieve his arrows. Garren turned his gaze to an unconscious Ryo and frowned.

"Not sure how many more long conversations our group can handle, but I think we're due for one more. We better make it a good one." Garren murmured before he adjusted his sitting position to be more comfortable and leaning his axe against one arm, idly thumbing the flat of the blade as he waited for Barkos to return.

"I think I know what you intend to do next. If I do know, then we all need to go with you. Doesn't matter what you say, even if we could get in the way, we deserve to come with." Garren muttered to himself as he suddenly gripped the handle of his axe hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.

"We have to avenge Woodfell."

You know, I thought I'd have thought that I'd have gotten the big resolution I was going for into this chapter, but apparently not! So, I'm going to either run a Sora chapter next, or just go straight to the conclusion. Probably the latter. I don't want to go through too many interludes with Sora.

Creativity: Perhaps we could do interludes with other characters?

Author: Hmm… That's not a bad idea. If anyone has any suggestions for what characters and/or moments for me to document as interludes, let me know! Though, please, keep your suggestions relevant to the story.

Anyway, like I said, we've got at least one more chapter to write. Unfortunately, we're a bit swamped with college right now, so writing will have to take a bit of a back seat for a bit.

Well, there isn't much we can do about that aside from getting all that work out of the way. So, until then, we're going to be real busy.

Well, that's about it from us for now! Thank you for reading, please review, hope to see you on Discord and we'll see you next time!