Lightbringer- Chpt. 15: Demon Blood

Adalai- Yea! Now we learn what happened to Strife/Riku, Ellos, and explain the pure heart thing (to an extent) and the deal with all the final fantasy characters and the age conflict. Sephiroth, Disclaimer!

Sephiroth- Ellos does not own anything. However, If any characters from Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy show up on her doorstep, I'll be more than happy to feed, clothe, house, and claim them for my own. I'm not picky, and I'll be more than willing to trade.

(mutters: and lock them in the basement so they can't get away...)

Adalai- I heard that!

Sephiroth- Eepph! (Runs an hides under the coffee table with Stinky)

Adalai- Dammit! Not again!

Ellos fell. It seemed endless and at the same time instantaneous, a vast void of nothing through which one could fall forever.

And then, suddenly, she was thrust through this...wall, and found herself back in the heartless ship. In the middle of the air. And falling...again.

This has got to stop...Ellos thought. She whipped her hands out, looking for a rope, a handhold, anything.

She looked down. A glowing river, filled with shades, was rushing up fast on her. Suddenly, just a foot from the river, her coat hooked on something.

She twisted around, finding herself face to face with a man in red and black clothes, with white hair and sea-green eyes.

What the hell? This is ridiculous...Why does everyone here look like Strife?

The half-devil regarded the woman held at arm's length from him, trying to decide whether or not to drop her. She was tall and thin, muscular, with ash brown hair and a blindfold over her eyes. Yet she still seemed to be able to see, flailing and lashing out at him. He struggles sent her sliding out of her jacket slightly, the toes of her boots aging 40 years as they came near to the river of the dead.

'Yo, Devil-boy." A voice called from the dark recesses of the caverns. "Quit playing with Sephiroth's new toy and bring her over here."

Axel was pacing. He always paced when he was irritated, thinking, angry, or worried. Right now he was all four. And he always paced in the same place; the rug in front of the bathroom. There was a long, thin hole in that rug and the carpet beneath it was worn thin. She reminded herself to get it replaced.

Meanwhile, she was leaning over the bathroom sink, engaged in an activity as age old as it was universal; putting on makeup. Drying her face, she pulled out a sponge and a stick foundation.

"I don't think that who we saw was Sora." She said, putting up the towel and opening the foundation stick. "It was probably one of the reflections. One of the Nobody reflections sent by the Enigmatic man, to spy on us." She dabbed at her face with the stick and used the sponge to blend it.

"So we have to find him before he finds anything out." Axel said. "Before he finds you out. They don't know your working with us, and I'd prefer a spy within the Nobody."

She looked at him with mock horror. "Is that all I am to you, a spy?"

"Yes." He said. "A good one, too."

She grinned at the compliment. "Now what about Ellos?"

"We can use her." Lady Axel said. She pulled out a liquid foundation and poured some on a sponge. "Ansem wants her; I know that look. He'll hesitate to kill her. All we need is to allow her to channel the dark energy from Kingdom Hearts, and Sephiroth has already seen to that. With all the Mako energy and Jenova cells she absorbed during the fight, he'll be able to control her like a puppet."

Rubbing the foundation on her face, she turned to Axel. "Any pure hearts captured?"

"Just one. The others escaped."

"Pity. I wonder why Ansem wants them."

"I've been trying to find that out for myself. No dice."

Jumping, she felt Axel wrap his arms around her waist, inhaling her scent deeply. She smelled of musk and spices. He began to kiss the side of her neck, feeling her squirm as his lips reached the sensitive spots under her ears and jawline.

"Shall we?" he said.

"You'll mess up my makeup." She joked, grinning. "But I'll do it if you..."

She heard a nock on the door. Axel growled, the red spikes of his hair shaking. "Stupid Shells. He wants you."

Disappointed, she broke away from his grasp. "I'll see to it. Tonight?"

"Definitely." He said, running his hands up her sides. She shook from repressed laughter, ticklish. But she didn't mind being tickled when Axel was the one doing it.

"Any more of these distractions and I'm going to find a room for us with soundproof walls and a foot-thick steel door with three different locks. Ones that lock from the inside." He said, irate.

Ellos screamed, struggling against the heavy leather straps that held her down on the metal gurney, more on instinct now than any calculated attempt to escape. Ellos had felt huge amounts pain before but dammit, even she had a limit and she was now about 120 miles south of it. The straps had been designed to hold down full-blooded demons; strong though she was being a half-dead, those straps still wouldn't bulge. She convulsed under them, finally shuddering and laying still.

And then the process would begin again, Dante knew. Every time a new syringe of demon blood was pumped into her frail body. His blood. He winced as he felt the tip of the needle piece his skin again and the holder of it inject that blood into the girl and wait for her body to stop it's convulsions so he could do it again.

The convulsions where getting steadily worse. Unconsciously, he placed a hand on her forehead so she wouldn't bash her head against the table and knock herself out. It seemed to help a little. The girl quieted and bit her lip, trying to stop from screaming and drawing blood. He was amazed that she had not passed out yet; most people did, by this point. Unconsciously, he began to stroke her forehead, the girl now shivering and letting out a few, small, muffled sobs.

How many more syringes worth would they need?

Ellos sunk again into the depths of unconsciousness. A memory surfaced; her mother's hand on her forehead, soothing her and putting her to sleep. But that hand became hard and painful as her body woke and demon blood came into her once more. Already damaged from Mako and Jenova cells, it struggled futilely against the liquid fire introduced to her veins.

Ellos' wing shot out of her back, arched in another seizure, feebly struggling under her weight and the restraints. As Dante watched, demon blood poured into the newly born veins and arteries of the wing, deeper black lines against black. Slowly, the purples and yellows where leeched out, leaving only the deepest sable imaginable. Moaning, she turned partially over, revealing her right shoulder. A long, equally black demon's wing ripped though the wounded skin, blood seeping from the hole where it came through, bits of green crystal still embedded in her back flying loose.

Finally, she shuddered and lay still. He turned her over on her back and picked up a pair of tweezers. He began to dig out the green crystal shards embedded in her back.

As he worked, the wings on her back moved and twitched, newly formed nerves and blood vessels connecting with old ones. They were hardly matched; because of the claw, the tip of the demon wing was slightly above the angel wing, and the demon wing was several inches shorter than the angel wing. Asymmetry was a trait reserved for monsters and demons. And yet in the same sense, they were symmetrical. Light to dark; angel to demon. An odd combination.

"What do you want?" Lady Axel spat.

We found a man sneaking into the ship. He is odd...he is a Nobody and yet he is not. I don't know exactly how to describe it.

Lady Axel was tired of this nonsense. He is either a Nobody or he's not! There is no In-Between!

You need to see him for yourself. The shell replied. Tired of fighting with it, she merely followed it to where it was headed.

Every Nobody was granted their own set of rooms on the ship. Most used them as bedrooms. Axel simply slept in her rooms and used his rooms as a training room. That was where the Shells had brought their prisoner.

Lady Axel stepped in the room, eyes wide upon seeing the prisoner.

He was tall, over 6 feet, with an oval face and triangular jaw. He had pale skin and whitish-silver hair, with a blueish tinge. His body was lithe and muscular; the body of a warrior. He was slumped over, hair hiding his face, long chains covering his entire body; arm, legs, and torso, small, spiked balls made of pieces of metal fused together attacked to the chains. They where special chains, designed to hold Nobody and keep them from manifesting their other bodies and teleporting away.

Crossing the room, She grabbed him by his hair and tilted his head back, getting a good look at his face. Yes, it was there; the same triangular jaw and oval face, but the features where different; striking, ethereal, angelic almost. His slightly spiky thick silver hair framed his face like a halo, pure white tipped and streaked with silver, with a blue tinge throughout, slightly darker near the roots where the hair was thicker. He would be striking one day, even more than he already was. They type that turned heads when they entered the room. But under it she felt a strange kind of darkness burning, the same that she had felt in Ellos.

A magnificent creature. It was true; he had managed to become immensely powerful in terms of Nobody abilities without actually becoming a Nobody himself. His heart should have died, but instead fed off the darkness in Kingdom Hearts and became whole and strong again. Beneath the angelic façade, she could feel raw anger, hate, loneliness, emptiness, shame and shattered self confidence, guilt. At his own weakness, at himself, at the darkness that had saved his heart. And yet, to have come so far, to have become so strong even in darkness, he also had a strong light in him. He had such potential and power in him, just by who he was, to go untapped...She could feel the threads of fate around this one, a catalyst, someone who was pivotal in the scheme of things.

She would guide him to his full potential, but she needed to blind him, destroy the light inside. Strong and full of light was a dangerous combination. But how? Usually the best way was to destroy those close to him; but she didn't who those people were.

Possibly Ellos? They where both Forgotten; they had probably known each other from their time in Kingdom Hearts.

She smiled. They had two possible people able to kill Ansem; This Ellos, with an even stronger darkness in her than this boy, and this boy, who, if she was right...

She shook her head. Let's not jump to conclusions. Anything found on him?

The shell spoke. Just a scroll. He handed said scroll over.

She looked at it. She knew this language; she could probably translate it in a day.

Keep him here. She said to the shell, walking back to her and Axel's rooms with the scroll under her arm.

You're only as old as you feel.

Right now Ellos felt about a hundred and eight.

Struggling for the final time to sit up, she only fell down again with a flop, unable to balance with the extra wing on her right shoulder, pulling her down. So she simply sat there, breathing shallowly, mind still racing to find a way to help her up, even though she knew it was hopeless. But she wouldn't give in. It just wasn't in her nature. She had a talent, a relentless drive, for survival, which would not let her give up.

Every muscle in her was tired, and her back ached from the crystals that had been yanked from it with a not too skilled hand. Or a gentle one. She was still broken and battered from her fight with Sephiroth, broken bones not yet set. That burning felling was still present in her veins from before, and she felt as if acid had been pored into her cells, sick and weakly. She didn't know that it was from Mako energy bonding with her nerves and Jenova cells replacing her human ones.

"Up, Sleeping Beauty?" A voice asked. Ellos turned around.

She was face to face with a tall man with grey-blue skin, yellow eyes, and...fames? For hair?

He laughed. "Hades, Lord of the Underworld, King of the Dead." He said grandly, expecting her to be impressed.

She wasn't.

"Oh, one of those types." He said, crossing his arms. "Great. Just what I need, another Dante, badass of the Underworld. I think you got some of his personality through his blood. You're name's Ellos, right?"

She didn't correct him, so he assumed he had gotten it right. "Touche. Why can't Sephiroth send anyone good down here? First that irate blonde guy, then you. If I had to get a girl, why couldn't it have been someone with beauty and an agreeable personality? Sure you're a real catch, but you're not much of a talker."

"All the better for you to ramble on, I expect." Ellos said, not really feeling up for conversation now. This Hades was getting on her nerves. "Where am I?"

Hades grinned. "Welcome to Hell, Ashy!"

"Oh. Yeah, you don't know. Well it all started like this. Almost 20 odd years ago, the Final fantasy worlds were destroyed by heartless and mindless invasion. All the people you see here are from those worlds. Something happened to us then. We died and latter simply showed up on various ages, as kids. We grew up, not remembering our past on the Final fantasy worlds, and then our worlds where attacked again, and we were thrown in here. We met people from our previous lives in here, and then we started to remember them."

Kairi still looked confused. Tifa tried to clarify it for her. "Kairi, about how old do I look?"

"About 20."

"Yeah, but I have 35 years worth of memories. I remember growing up outside of Midgar, Moving into Midgar and working as a barmaid, jointing AVALANCHE, Meeting Cloud and fighting Sephiroth with him, seeing Aeris die, all of it. But it just suddenly ends. Next I remember myself at five years old, In another age. I remember growing up, our world getting destroyed by heartless, going on my own adventure through the ages, and then meeting with Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka and settling down on Destiny Islands. Then I was captured, and met Barret, and remembered my first past, on Midgar." She laughed. "I'm living proof of reincarnation, I guess."

Barret looked at Tidus, who was just starting to stir. "Sometimes the process of remembering is harder on some than it is on others."

One hand on his head, Tidus sat up. "What...Yuna?" he said, seeing the brunette hovering over him, a worried look on her face.

"Are you ok?" She asked.

"Yeah...I think. I remember you...but...this doesn't make any sense!"

"It's like you have two different sets of memories, isn't it?" She inquired. "We all do, when we came here and saw people from our previous lives. We don't know why we have them."

"We only know it had something to do with the heartless invasion 20 years ago. We all come from worlds destroyed by them. Their leader, this guy called 'Ansem', calls us 'Pure Hearts', whatever the hell that means." Barret muttered.

Ansem survived? How? Kairi wondered. And more importantly, what happened with all these people? How do they remember two different sets of lives, of memories?

"I didn't think that you had survived. After you disappeared, I guess that's when they got you, huh?"

"No, They didn't catch me on Destiny Islands. When we were fighting the heartless..." He told her the story of how he had met the Endless, gotten to Twilight Town, and meeting Sora, Riku, and Ellos, about the Nobody, and about the attack.

After he stopped, there was a moment of silence. Then he was bombarded with questions.

"You saw Cloud, Aeris, and Yuffie!" Tifa yelled.

"You saw Squall!" Irvine, realizing Squall by his description, pushed her aside, only to be smacked upside the head by Tifa, cowboy hat flying in his face.

"You saw Sora and Riku?" Kairi said, pushing aside both of them. "What had happened to Sora and Riku? Why did Sora try to destroy the keyhole? How did Riku get out of Kingdom Hearts and become a Nobody?"

"Woah, Woah, Woah! Calm down!" Tidus said, throwing his arms up in the air.

Kairi opened her mouth to say that Sora would never do anything to hurt the worlds, or the keyholes, until she was cut off by the sound of stone against stone.

The large door into the kennels, to heavy to be shifted by any but a God, was pushed open by a single figure, stepping from the darkness beyond. And from Kairi's nightmares, light gleaming on ash-brown hair and rough black blindfold.

Predator and Prey looked at each other for a moment, unsure which was which. Shooting her legs out, Ellos pushed off the White Darkside's chest and swung around in an arc, sliding down the chain till she got enough slack to touch the cavern walls. Running perpendicular to the rock sides, she ran circles around the thing, tying it up with the chain. At the end, she pushed off and upwards from the wall, using the left-over centrifugal force to slingshot onto it's back. Silently thanking Newton, she began to slash at the creature's wings, now pinned to it's back by the chain, and yelled at the top of her voice;

"Strife! Get your ass in here NOW!"

She felt a jerk as the chain started to give way under the weight of the Mindless, it's slashed and torn wings not longer able to help support it. Taking a few more slashes at it's back, she jumped up and wrapped her legs around the monster's neck and attacked the portion of the upper neck and head exposed between it's face plate and back armor. She brought down her twin blades in a version of Ars Arcanium, modified for her weapons and each individual move preformed twice, once for each blade. Spinning them around to bring the spiked staff ends in front, she stabbed and sliced even more into the flesh, finally plunging both into the neck and casting a firaga spell through the staff-like end of the white weapon, jarring both loose. Then bringing both blade ends back up front, she stabbed them straight into the heartless' flesh, all the way down to the hilts. She pulled the trigger of the gun, causing a muffled explosion and a bullet with a Thunder spell in it bursting out the front of the heartless' through, dislodging the weapons halfway from the Mindless' wound.

And not a second too late. The chain finally gave, Mindless and ground rushing to meet each other. Hanging onto her submerged blades, the mindless managed to cushion Ellos' fall. Reacting quickly, it rolled over, crushing her beneath it's weight. For a second all she could see was white mindless flesh, and then heard a hideous screech as a Master Charter mark of fire and Sunstone light burned away its arm and half it's torso, freeing Ellos.

"Hey ulgy! I got something for you!"

(Bang bang bang bang bang)

Wondering what in the 10,000 hells Strife was doing, she turned over on her side to see him smashing in it's head with one of the heavy tongs from the smith. Nailing it over the head again and again, muscles tensing on his arms, white hair trailing in his face and the sunstone on his pendant flickering like a dying candle flame, exhausted from the spell, He looked as if he was some possessed by a demon. Blue ichors spurted and leaked from the crushed, mangled mess that had once been a Mindless head, it shuddered and lay still, it's body starting to drift off.

But he continued to hit it. Standing up, she ran over to him. "Strife, Strife, stop hitting it, it's dead!" She yelled, shaking his shoulders from behind.

He whirled around, tongs held over his head, a look of fury and hate on his face, swinging it at Ellos. Throwing her weapons up in her X-shaped block, she prepared to get hit, knowing that these weapons where to light and brittle to provide any real defense against the heavy cast iron ready to slam into her face and kill her.

But the death she expected did not come. Strife dropped the tongs, a look of horror on his face. "God...I'm sorry, I didn't see...I thought you were..."

Strife wished she would scream at him for being such an idiot, shake him, back off in fear, anything. Instead, she just stood there with a deadpan look in her face, as if looking upon a complete stranger, a possible danger to her or enemy, broken trust and shattered view of him in her eyeless gaze. Cold and distant, suddenly shut out.

She backed off, watching him slowly, as if expecting him to leap up and try and hurt her. Disappointed, betrayed, and hurt face looked back as if to say "Why? What happened to you? I thought you where my friend, but you just tried to kill me. How can I ever trust you again? How can we ever go back the way we were? How can I forgive you?"

Slinking back into a crevice in the rock, she hid from him, fearful and confused. He did not try to follow; Ellos knew every inch of the cave like the back of her hand, and if she didn't want to be found, he knew he wouldn't be the one to find her. Tongs in hand, he marched slowly back to the smith, not wanting to think how similar Ellos' face looked to Sora's when he had found out that his best friend had betrayed him.

He seems filled only with shadows. Where does his strength come from?

- Orim

Adalai- okay, sorry for the delay. I got lazy again. Seems I get more and more lazy as the beginning of school gets closer and closer. Instead of my normal 3 days to write a chappie in the summer, the schedule for the school year will be every week, posted during the weekends. Just so you know. Sephy, Read!

Sephiroth- R&R, please.

Adalai- Sephy?

Sephiroth- What? And don't call me that.

Adalai- why do the Brazilians call April the month of pain and suffering?

Sephiroth- because that was the month you where born, Stupid.

Adalai- ok, that makes...hey!

Sephiroth- (snickers)

Adalai- grrrrhhh... I'll get you for this...someday...