Chapter V: Someone To Fight For
Kairi stood with her keyblade drawn, locking her eyes on the figure that stood before her. He said his name was Cloud, a name Kairi vaguely remembered hearing around a few years ago.
"So Cloud huh? Why are you here?" Kairi asked.
"I think I deserve to know your name first....keyblade master" Cloud replied.
"The name's Kairi. Glad to know you now recognize me as the keyblade master and not just a girl."
"Well sometimes things can surprise you I guess. People can surprise you as well. Tell me, how did you get that keyblade? Sora never mentioned anything about a female keyblade master" said Cloud.
"To tell you the truth, I really don't know" Kairi responded. "I came here through the darkness from my home world. When I got here a man said he found it lying near me and took it in with me. As for why the keyblade choose me, I haven't a clue. I think it had something to do with me and Sora's destinies."
"Your destinies?" Cloud asked. "How so?"
"Well, I know it might sound crazy, but we shared a paopu fruit together. Sora told me in my dreams, what our destinies were intertwined. He said his destiny was now mine."
"A paopu fruit?" Cloud laughed. "Don't tell me you believe such tales."
"Sounds out there huh?" Kairi smiled. "Now tell me, how did you know Sora?"
"He sort of helped me out a while ago, kind of helped me get closer to a girl I was looking for. It didn't help prevent it though" Cloud said. "I need to find him again. I need his help."
"Prevent it?" replied Kairi. "Couldn't prevent what?"
"It's a long story" said Cloud. "A story I want forgotten."
"Well, it seems I have time. So why don't you tell me before you forget this story? I may be of some help."
"You have no idea" warned Cloud. "But if you really want to know, so be it."
*****
"A little higher" said Yuffie standing in the middle of a huge thrown room. The room was in a castle, it was Hollow Bastion. She was motioning for Leon to raise a picture that hung on the wall a tiny bit higher up. Aerith, Cid, and Cloud were also in the room with them. Cloud stood with his arm around Aerith watching Yuffie and Leon fight about the picture. Cid was just standing around doing nothing but watching the others.
"Is this good?" Leon yelled down to Yuffie. Suddenly, the ladder in which Leon stood on collapsed and Leon fell to the floor.
"Perfect!" Yuffie laughed. The others joined in on the laughter as well.
"Wasn't that funny..." Leon protested.
"Oh Leon" said Aerith. "Can't you ever take a joke? We were only having some fun with you."
"Yeah, like don't be such a %&#@*" Cid chimed in. "I think I'm going to go make some tea, anyone want some?"
"That's alright, I'm fine" said Yuffie.
"I said I was going to make some tea, which meant all of you are sitting your &^%@*'s down and having some &$@!$^ tea!" screamed Cid.
Cid began to walk off when suddenly the castle began shaking. A few objects sitting on some nearby bookcases began to fall off and crash to the floor as the books on the shelf even fell. The picture that Leon had just hung crashed to the ground. The entire group began looking around and formed a huddle around one another still confused of what was going on. Just then, the floor began to crack open penetrating a large hole in the floor. The gang began to edge closer and closer to the hole when suddenly a handful of black cloaked men appeared from it. Cloud drew his sword as Leon did with his gunblade. Cid pushed the women aside and stood there with his lance to the figures.
"What the hell is going on?" hollered Leon as the figures began lining up.
"I haven't a clue, but these guys are just itching for an ass kicking!" yelled an angry Cid upset that he didn't get to go have some tea.
The figures began circling the group as Yuffie and Aerith got pulled into the mix. Cloud lunged at the one figure with his sword but the figure caught the sword and pushed Cloud back. Leon fired a few shots at another one but the cloaked man absorbed them into a huge blue energy ball. Yuffie began firing a few sharpened pinwheels at a group of the figures but to her surprised they hardly harmed them.
"Our attacks aren't doing anything towards these guys!" yelled Leon going to attack another one. He slashed one of them with his gunblade but the figure only looked back up at Leon revealing his bright yellow eyes. He held his hand out in front of him as suddenly Leon went flying across the room hitting the wall.
"What was that?" shrieked Aerith still confused. "These guys are too strong for us, we have to leave!"
In the meantime, Cloud was still at odds ends battling one of the figures. The cloaked man was dodging almost all of his attacks. Cloud swung his sword over his head one more time but the cloaked man only laughed as he disappeared right before the sword came in contact with him. Cloud turned around and was greeted by the same man with a punch landing Cloud across the room into a wall.
"Too strong..." Cloud murmured. Aerith ran over to Cloud helping him up. "What are these things?" he asked.
"I don't know, but we have to leave. NOW!" Aerith yelled at Cloud.
Yuffie and Cid were being surrounded and circled by six of the figures. Cid pulled out his lance and charged at two of the figures. Both figures began to disappear and reappear before Cid's eyes. Upon reappearing, one of the figures clocked Cid in the stomach landing Cid down on the ground. The figure began to get closer and closer to Cid but Cid was able to grab his lance and pummel the figure down. Cid got to his feet and grabbed Yuffie by her arm and ran over to the rest of the group. Leon was now up and with Cloud and Aerith standing by the door.
"Where to?" asked Yuffie.
"I know a place, you guys have to follow me" Leon said out of breathe.
The gang took off led by Leon into a long dark hallway, as the cloaked figures began to chase after them. They were running through hallway after hallway, as if it was some kind of maze. They finally reached a lift stop and the gang got on the leaving lift just as the cloaked men appeared. The lift slowly raised into the sky leaving the cloaked men behind them.
"What were those *&$%* things?" asked a tired Cid. "They almost *$^%&* killed me!"
"Calm down!" roared Leon. "I don't know what the hell those were. I never saw one before in my life."
"You think they could have been heartless?" Aerith proposed.
"If they were, they were stronger than any heartless we ever fought before" chimed in Cloud.
"This doesn't make any sense. Sora closed the keyhole here, so how were they able to enter?" Yuffie wondered.
"That's right, Sora did close the keyhole. The keyhole was what let heartless in and out, so if the keyhole is closed, it means these guys aren't heartless." Leon contributed to the conversation.
"That's all fine and dandy, but where the &^#$% are we going?" asked Cid.
"Well, this is going to lead us to another part of the castle" Leon uttered. "From there, I know of a secret passage way that will lead us to safety."
A few minutes passed by, and the gang sat on the lift in silence. Everyone was still curious as to what had just attacked them. It seemed as if it all went by so fast, too fast. They needed to learn more about whatever these things were. Another platform came into sight as the gang all stood up looking over to it. The lift came to a stop and one by one they all got out. They were in another lift stopped, but everyone besides Leon knew where they were. Leon picked up a torch which hung on the wall and gestured for the group to follow him.
"So how come we never knew about this place, Leon?" asked Aerith.
"Ansem showed it to me when I was only a little boy" Leon said. "It was incase there was ever an attack on the castle, we had somewhere to hide."
"Wait a second!" hollered Cid. "If Ansem showed this to you, and he is a baddie, and these guys are baddies, wouldn't they know about it?"
"I doubt it" said Leon. "Ansem controlled heartless, and these guys really don't seem like heartless to me." Suddenly Leon stopped in the middle of the hall looking at the bricks the wall was made out of. He ran his fingers along some of them and suddenly pushed one in, revealing a staircase. "In here" he said.
Cloud, Leon, Aerith, Yuffie, and Cid walked down the long steep stairwell. It was closed in and the only light was that which came from Leon's torch. The ground walked for a few minutes until they finally reached the bottom of the stairs where only a small room laid concealed. Leon lifted up a carpet which was on the floor revealing a wooden latch. He picked up the latch and a ladder leading into a dark abyss was seen. One by one the group began climbing down the ladder until landing in water.
"Ewwww, where are we?" asked Yuffie.
"Sewers" Leon responded.
"Couldn't you tell by the *&%^& smell?" yelled Cid.
"So the all mighty Ansem was planning on hiding out in the sewers?" asked Cloud in a non pleasant voice.
"We still have a ways to go" Leon replied. He glanced at Cloud but all Cloud could do is return a dirty look. Something was bothering Cloud, but no one knew what.
BAMMMMM!
A large explosion went off as the sewer ceiling fell to pieces. One by one, cloaked figures began to drop into the sewer tunnel.
"What the?" screamed Aerith.
The cloaked figures immediately attacked but the gang was ready this time and struck back. Cloud drew his sword from behind once again and him and struck at a figure taking him down. Another figure dove towards Cloud but Cloud impaled him with his sword. Cloud took his sword out of the body and looked on it. No blood, only a black liquid. Cloud turned around and was greeted by another figure. Cloud bolted toward him but the figure did his vanishing act, then reappearing behind Cloud. Cloud knew the game by now, and swung his sword behind him puncturing the figures arm.
Leon and Yuffie stayed close to each other as they took on the figures in a fist fight. Yuffie kicked the figure to his lower regions and then kneed his face in. Another figure ran at Yuffie but Yuffie saw him coming and jumped up leaving the figure falling into his comrade. Leon took out his gunblade and began firing at the ceiling. Bricks began to fall leaving a group of the unknowns in the debris.
Aerith used her staff and batted at a few of the figures but to no avail. One of the figures grabbed her and swung her over his shoulders. Cloud saw this and ran towards her but got held back by a few of the figures.
"Nooooooo!!!!" screamed Cloud in agony. "Aerith!!!!"
Cid noticed Aerith being taken and threw his lance at the cloaked figure penetrating his back causing him to fall over. Aerith got up and removed the lance then used it against two more figures that came towards her. More and more of the figures began jumping down from above and the group became quickly outnumbered. Leon was fighting off a group until they struck him down. One of the figures picked up his gunblade as a few figures held him. The figure raised the gunblade over his head and went to land down at Leon but Cloud came from behind overtaking the figure. Leon punched his way out of the rest of them and took his gunblade which fell from the other unknown figure's hands.
Cloud and Leon got up and grabbed the girls by their hands and began running down the sewer tunnel, followed by Cid. The unknowns looked off and then slowly began to fade away. Cloud and the group got to another ladder and began to climb up it. Leon pushed up a latch and the group was outside in the woods.
"Where the *&%$*^*&^ are we?!?" bellowed an impatient Cid. "You were suppose to lead us to safety, now we're outside in the &*@&* woods!!!!!"
"Chill out, Cid!" yelled Aerith. "Leon said he was taking us to safety, and I'm sure he is. Right?"
"Yeah" said Leon. "It's a cave; it's up here in the mountains. It's about a ten minute walk from where we are now."
Leon turned and began walking up a hill, as Cid sighed and decided to follow along with the rest of the group. The walk went well, they didn't encounter anymore of the weird figures and they seemed alright. They finally saw the cave opening and rushed into it.
"Home sweet home, for now at lest" said Leon. "I know it's not much, but there is food and weapons here. It's more towards the back."
The group began walking towards the back of the cave as Cloud separated himself and stayed near the entrance sitting on a rock. Aerith looked back and saw him. "Aren't you coming?" she asked. Cloud looked at her, he didn't say anything. He didn't have to, because Aerith already knew his answer. She turned away, and followed the others into the cave.
In the back, the group made a fire as the night began to settle in. Cloud still wasn't with them; he remained in the same spot he sat in when he first entered the cave. Yuffie threw some twigs that were near the wall onto the fire as Leon bandaged up a wound he got while fighting the cloaked guys. Cid became overjoyed when he was searching around the supplies and found a few bags of instant tea.
"He worries me.." Aerith said sitting close near the fire.
"Cloud?" asked Yuffie.
"Yeah" she responded.
"Don't worry, he'll come around eventually" Yuffie comforted. "He's probably just a little confused as to what these guys are, just like we are. I guess sometimes people just tend to take something worse than others."
"I don't think that's it" Aerith replied. "He was like this before what happened today. Everyday it seemed like I was losing him more and more everyday. I don't know what to think anymore."
"Maybe you should go talk to..."
Yuffie got cut off when Cid came running through to the fire with a cups of instant tea. He put the tea over the fire on a grilling rack which they found inside the supplies in the cave.
"Cid!" Yuffie yelled. "Me and Aerith were talking here."
"Well now you could talk, and have some nice, warm, ^&*%$ tea too. My god, I try to do you guys a favor and you don't even care. Damn ingrates."
Aerith got up from her seat. She turned around to the entrance of the cave and began walking out. She got to the entrance and saw Cloud standing outside of it looking over the hill. Aerith ran up to him and surprised him from behind.
"Chaos, it's all that's left" said Cloud.
"Huh?" Aerith asked not understanding.
Cloud took Aerith's hand as they walked a little farther up the hill until they were on top of the cave, He then pointed out over the distance. It was the town of Hollow Bastion, what was left of it that was. The sky was now completely black as this unknown horror invaded the town of Hollow Bastion. The cloaked men set houses on fire, as the fire spread from house to house. The screams of villagers echoed all the way up to the mountain cave that the group was in. Even the forests were set on fire that surrounded the town. Cloud looked back at Hollow Bastion castle, as it too was being set on fire. Towers of the castle began crumbling, brining the rest of the castle down with it.
"Why didn't you tell me?" cried Aerith. "We have to do something!"
"There's nothing we can do. Don't you see, we failed. We can't stop this."
"NO!" screamed Aerith. "Get away from me. You AREN'T Cloud"
Cloud looked up at her confused. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Something happened to the Cloud I knew. The Cloud I knew was strong, he was willing to do whatever he could to stop something like this. He didn't give up, he believed in us. Even if we were stacked with odds like this, the real Cloud would never give up. Now that Cloud is gone, and I'm just waiting for him to come back." Aerith said, then walking away from him. She turned around and stared at him. "We all need the old Cloud back."
Aerith walked off leaving Cloud standing alone of the top of the cave. He peered back over looking down at what once was his home. The more he thought about what Aerith had said to him, the more it began to eat at him inside. A few tears dropped from his eyes, as he covered his face with his hands. He collapsed to the ground. "I can't be that Cloud anymore..." he cried.
Aerith walked back into the cave and sat back down at the campfire. Cid was happily drinking his tea, as Yuffie looked at her wondering if she was alright. Leon was lying down in the back, a little weary about the wound in his arm.
"So Aerith, you talk to 'em?" Yuffie asked.
"Yeah.." she sighed. "Let's not talk about it though."
"Good!" laughed Cid. "This little soap opera between you two sickens me! We need to talk about something important, like whatever the ^%^&*%* these things are!"
"I agree" said Leon walking over to the fire. "These things are strong, we never fought anything of this sort before."
"So if these aren't heartless, what are they?" asked Yuffie curiously.
"We don't know that they aren't heartless for sure. They could just be a stronger type of heartless. That's why we need to find out more about them." said Leon. "Tomorrow we are going back into the castle, we are going to go into Ansem's library and read everything he had there. He may have known what these things were."
"We won't be able to.." sighed Aerith. "The castle was destroyed."
"What!?!?!" yelled Leon sitting up. "Destroyed? What are you talking about?"
"The entire town, the castle, it's in chaos and ruins" she said. "I just looked at it from outside, fires are braking out everywhere. The castle is crumbling. Everything is just out of control."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Leon shouted.
"I don't know" Aerith said turning away. She got up and pulled out a sleeping bag from the supplies. She laid it out on the cave floor and got inside of it, taking herself away from the rest of the group.
"We go tomorrow, either way, tomorrow we fight!" Leon said grabbing himself a sleeping bag as well. Soon, the entire group drifted off to sleep.
Cloud woke up during the middle of the night when he felt rain drops on him. He was sleeping outside where we last saw him. Suddenly, a scream was heard from the cave. "Aerith?" he said to himself getting up fast and grabbing his sword. He ran to the back of the cave to see a fire roaring and four empty sleeping bags. "Aerith? Leon? Cid? Yuffie?" he yelled running around the back looking for his friends. Cloud turned around and saw a cloaked figure. It wasn't like the figures they had fought before, he was in a red cloak.
"Who are you? Where are my friends?" he yelled to the figure drawing his sword.
The figure stood still, not replying to Cloud.
"Answer me!!!" Cloud yelled to the figure.
"Darkness.." the figure said in a deep darkening voice that echoed through the cave. The cloak slipped off the figure, revealing the shape of Aerith. Aerith turned to Cloud laughing. "Awe, Cloud a little heart broken?"
"Aerith?" he asked.
"No hunny, but I can rip your heart out just as good as she can." the figure laughed maniacally. "You see Cloud, you are nothing. You are just a pawn of something you know nothing about, something you never will know. You can't even hold on to something dear. You lost her once, shame on you. You lost her twice, now she is mine."
"Nooo!" Cloud screamed. "What are you?"
"See Cloud, you my friend are doomed to live a life alone. You push your friends away when you should be helping them. You practically gave me your friends on a silver platter" the dark Aerith said. "Now that they aren't here, you cry. No, No, No Mr., that won't do. You see Cloud, I have something big in mind. Something that will shake this world up. You see what I did to Hollow Bastion? That was NOTHING! Just wait until you see what I have in store for you."
Suddenly Aerith began fading away. Total darkness replaced her shape as it began to surround Cloud. He swung his sword, but he was swinging at nothing. The darkness slithered up his arms, down his legs, and around his body. He was now only floating in a dark abyss. "Aerithhh...." he yelled out, but it was too late. Darkness was all that was left.
*****
"What happened then?" asked Kairi.
"I woke up in another world. I wasn't sure where I was, if I was even anywhere to be. I finally made it here though because I felt in my heart that a keyblade was present. I thought it would be the boy, but it was you."
"Yeah, just a girl, right?"
"Yes" he replied. "A girl that was chosen by the keyblade, that is."
Kairi smiled. "I will help you find your friends."
"No. I see now I have to do this by myself. You have your own destiny you have to fulfill. I can't let you forget about yours just to help me. I think I will do fine on my own. I don't know why I wasted time to come find the boy when I should have been looking for them all along. I now see this is something I have to do, for myself. I have someone to fight for now" Cloud said turning to the exit of the Traverse Town cavern. "Kairi, we'll meet again."
Cloud walked slowly out of the cave as Kairi stood there not sure what to do next.
"Sora, I'm going to find you" Kairi whispered under her breath.
*****
Wow, long chapter here, but this is going to be nothing compared to the length of the chapters where Kairi visits different worlds. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, my god did I enjoy writing the Cloud story. Don't worry, Cloud will be popping up in the story later on, so don't think his story is done just yet. Once again, thanks for everyone who reviewed the story from before. Not much now to do but give you the preview for the next chapter.
Chapter 6: Near
Release Date: April 30, 2003
Preview: Kairi meets up with two other characters that
also have been searching for Sora, but what will their reaction be when they
find out Kairi is the new keyblade master? Also, a whole lot of trouble is brewing
when the black cloaked figures give Kairi a visit, and a wide awakening.