6H:Welcome to chapter 35! Man, almost chapter 40! It seems like I just got to chapter 30 and now I'm almost ready for another party!
Anaretsu: NO!
6H:Maybe I'll just have a small party. And maybe another short story. Well, here's chapter 35.
Kingdom Hearts-Shattered Fragments
Fragment 35-Tifa
Cedeile slowly sat up and looked around. They were in some kind of cave. Tifa layed on the ground near her. Cedeile stood up and brushed off her clothes. She decided to explore a little bit. At the mouth of the cave, she could see they were in some kind of swamp. Strange sounding birds made noises overhead, and there was a potent smell emitting from the green swamp waters. Tifa slowly got up and walked over to her.
"Hey Tifa. You okay?" Cedeile asked. The guardian nodded. They both looked at the swamp. "I guess we've been sucked in to some kind of book."
"Not just any book. This one's called 'The Demon War.' I've read it before in my studies of forbidden books."
"So this is one of the evil books at Book Mountain?" Tifa nodded. "Damn, we're screwed. No doubt their are gonna be alot of heartless milling about."
"We'll have to move from here. There must be a way out." Tifa said, proceeding into the swamp. Cedeile followed carefully, trying to ignore the strange things around her.
"So, I guess we got seperated from the others." Cedeile said, looking around nervously.
"I hope Yuna is alright. The hopes of Book City are riding on her, and if Kana kills her, then she can become high book master. They'll be no one to stop her."
"That would really suck." They walked a little ways further till they found a path spanning over the swamp. The followed it as it sunk downward, swerving down a hill, and then leading out of the swamp and onto a beach. Cedeile looked out on the ocean. 'Wow...it's almost like home...' she thought, looking out into the distance of the horizon. Tifa stopped with her as they both watched the view.
"Should we move on?" Tifa asked.
"Do you know what happens in this book, Tifa?"
"Well, the demons all fight a big war with each other and in the end, the whole world is destroyed and reborn again." Tifa explained.
"I hope we got transported to the end of the book."
"No, we're on page 5."
"WHAT? We gotta get out of here before the battle starts!" Cedeile cried.
"Don't worry, we got transported to this page. It's not like we can go through the book's pages-we can explore the world as it is on this page."
"Is there any fighting on page 5?" Suddenly, a huge horde of heartless surrounded them.
"There will be!" Tifa shouted as some of them charged forward. The two girls did back flips to dodge them and then landed. Cedeile called out the heartblade and started purifying them left and right. Tifa punched them out, slaming the metal knuckle guard into them. Cedeile drew a cross in front of her.
"HOLY PURIFICATION!" she yelled, wiping out the rest of them. Tifa kicked one into the ocean where it drowned. They both sighed, resting after their battle.Tifa wiped the sweat off her forehead and walked back next to Cedeile.
"That was tough."
"Yeah. Do you know how to get out of here?"
"We have to find the passage off this page. There are three-one to the next page, one to the previous page, and then the one to the outside world."
"How do we find them?"
"We'll have to travel around this whole world to find them. And even if we find one, it might not be the one we want."
"This is gonna take a looong time, isn't it?" Tifa nodded. Cedeile sighed.
"Might as well move then."
The walked across the plains, getting into several more heartless battles. Finally, a portal appeared before them. Cedeile looked at it hopefully.
"All right! Let's go!"
"Wait Cedeile. I'll go check it out first. Then I'll come back for you, okay?" Tifa stepped forward and slowly walked into the glowing red and black vortex. She disappeared for a few seconds, then came back out, shaking her head.
"Well?"
"This one goes to the next page." Cedeile sighed and the fell on the ground in frustration.
"GRRR! Why can't we just get out of here!" she yelled at the sky.
"Come on, Cedeile, let's keep moving." Tifa said, beginning to walk slowly. Cedeile shot up and walked behind her. They walked across the plains and enetered a dense jungle. A mystical bird of some sort was flying overhead.
"I really want to get out of here." Cedeile whined. "We're not doing any good in this stupid book anyway." Suddenly, Tifa stopped dead. Cedeile crashed into her. "Ow! Tifa, hey, warn me next time, okay? Hello! Tifa?" Cedeile looked over the girl's shoulder. A giant lizard demon of some sort loomed before them. It hissed at them, flicking out it's long golden tounge. It's body was black, scaly, and sticking looking with rough spikes sticking out of it's back. It's red eyes looked at the prey before it, leering manicly at them. Cedeile stood her ground, and Tifa slowly raised her fists to defend herself. The lizard eyed them more carefully, wondering if a fight was worth it. It decided it was.
It stomped forward on it's stubby legs and lashed out at them. The girls jumped back, and Cedeile came forward, wacking it with the heartblade.
"Okay, get purified!" she yelled at it, wacking it nonstop.
"Cedeile, it's not a heartless! It's not like you can just purify it."
"Watch me, Tifa!" Cedeile yelled back. Tifa watched as Cedeile created a blue flaming cross in the air. "HOLY PURIFICATION!" It hit the lizard with imense force, killing it instantly. She looked back at Tifa.
"You killed it."
"Yes. Yes I did."
"Okay, whatever. Let's just get out of here." Tifa said, walking along again. They walked along a little further and came upon another portal, this time with black and green. Tifa stepped forward while Cedeile waited anxiously. Tifa returned a short while later, looking sad and shaking her head. "It goes to the previous page."
"NO!" Cedeile screamed at the sky. "This isn't fair!"
"Come on, Cedeile. There's only one more portal left to find." Tifa said.
"I know. This is just so frustrating. I'm tired of this book-I wanna find Kana and destroy her to save this world." She stood up, and the two walked along through the jungle. "I wonder what happened to Ryu and Aru and Yuna. Do you think they're okay?" she asked as a few leaves fell from above. They both looked up. A swarm of ghost heartless sat in the trees. They floated down, surrounding them, their glowing searchlight eyes shining. Cedeile called forth the heartblade and charged at them. Tifa punched them out, really letting them have it. Cedeile got surrounded by five as they all moved in for the attack at once. She got hit in all five directions, screaming in agony. They were about to trying the same tactic again when she jumped up onto a nearby branch. They ended up attacking each other and were all destroyed. Cedeile shielded her eyes from the blast. She hopped down, only to have some more heartless appear-this time a Reverse Guard Armor. It loomed up before her, towering above her head. She waved sheepishly at it as it stared her down. "uh...hi?" It brought one of it's huge fists down onto the ground, which she narrowly avoided.
Meanwhile, Tifa was having her own problems. Some flying book heartless had appeared. They looked just like books, but had heads and were black. The heartless symbol was emblazed on both 'covers' of their book body. They flew up in the air, diving down for attacks when they felt like it. On the ground, there were Book Mage heartless-they carried gold staffs and had book hats on their heads. They swung their staffs at Tifa while she was trying to dodge the Flying Books. They jumped around her in a circle, waiting for their chance to attack, and biding their time. Her HP was getting dangerously low, and she was restricted from attacking to defend herself. She clenched her brown eyes in pain.
'I don't think...I'm gonna make it...!'she thought. Cedeile jumped in the center of the circle and in one swipe purified all the Book Mages. The Reverse Guard Armor stood before them. Cedeile lanched herself off the ground and onto it's head.
"HOLY PURIFICATION!" she yelled, pointing her staff directly at it. A small burst of light formed as it was engulfed in it. Cedeile fell off it and landed on her knees on the ground. The Reverse Guard Armor crumbled piece by piece on the ground and they faded away. She sighed, resting after the tough battle. Tifa fell to her knees. Cedeile turned."Tifa?"
"I was almost...and now I..."
"Are you okay, Tifa? I have some potions on me if you need them."
"I'm fine. Sorry, I guess I'm just worn out."
"Those heartless had you in a tight bind, didn't they?"
"I should've been able to stop them."
"Don't be so hard on yourself. I would've done them same thing in your situation." Tifa looked up at her angrily.
"What? You mean nothing!" she yelled at her. "Cloud didn't train me to do nothing!" Tifa wiped away her tears and sniffed. "Sorry, I guess I just felt kind of useless."
"Tifa...who's...Cloud?" Cedeile asked. Tifa stood up, turning her back to Cedeile.
"I'm...not really from Book City." Tifa confessed.
"What! You mean you're from?"
"Yeah, another world. But my world was taken over by the heartless. Cloud also lived there with me, and there were others too...Squall, Yuffie, Aerith, Cid..."
"Leon? All those guys...they're back at Traverse Town!" Cedeile exclaimed.
"Cloud trained me to fight when we were younger. He was very hard on me and wanted every attack I had to be perfection. He had so much faith in me, and I was never supposed to back down in a battle. That's what he said."
"This Cloud guy sounds like a real bastard to me." Tifa laughed at Cedeile's remark.
"Yeah. He can be sometimes. But he can be nice too."
"Tifa, Leon, Yuffie, and all them are back at Traverse Town!" Cedeile told her happily.
"Even Cloud?" she asked hopefully. Cedeile shook her head.
"I haven't met this Cloud person yet. I don't know where he is." Cedeile said. Tifa sighed.
"He was always out and off on his own. I'm not really surprised. Maybe, when this is all over with, I could go to Traverse Town. But then, Yuna would be all by herself."
"I guess she's from Book City, though, huh?" Cedeile said.
"I'm not really sure. Some of my memories were gone when I landed here. And if we were from the same world, than Yuna would've said something by now, but she hasn't. I never told her I wasn't from Book City."
"I guess you should when we get out of here. Right?" Tifa nodded.
"Let's get going then. We still have to find that portal." They walked along, dragging their feet, exhausted from battle.
They left the forest and climbed up a huge mountain range. There were hundreds more Flying Book heartless and some Flying Novel heartless-they were like the flying books, only much bigger and with talons. They somehow made it through and went down the other side of the mountains, slipping and falling several times. At the bottom they found themselves back on the beach they had been before. Cedeile threw herself down in the sand.
"Great, just great. We're back where we started." she cried. Tifa sat down, thinking hard.
"I don't get it...where could the portal be..."She looked up and became very quiet. She stood silently and slowly walked to the edge of the sand. Cedeile sat upright, looking at her questioningly.
"What is it?" she asked. Tifa turned to face her.
"I found it. The way out of here..." she said softly. Cedeile stood up and walked to where she stood. Indeed, under the water was a shining light, deep below the surface.
"Are you sure, Tifa?" Tifa nodded.
"Yes. It has to be it!" They began to walk out to it when hundreds of heartless rose up out of the water. Some of them looked like clear gooze with a black ball inside. On the black orb were two small yellow eyes and the heartless symbol. They were the Goo Morphs, and they could form almost any shape-usually the shapes of other heartless. Shadow heartless danced around in the shallow water, surrounding the two girls. The goo morphs started reaching their oozy forms out to them.
"What do we do?" Cedeile asked.
"We have to fight them." Tifa replied determinedly. Cedeile called forth the heartlblade and went forward, slashing into heartless left and right. Tifa began using her special punch on the goo morphs that came close to her. Cedeile wiped out a group of them, but more rose up from the ocean.
'No good! I kill one, and ten take it's place! There must be millions now!' she thought. She looked back at the portal and saw it getting smaller. "Tifa! What's happening to the portal?" she yelled. Tifa looked over at it.
"It's...closing! It must be the heartless!" she said, crying out as goo peiced through her shoulder. Cedeile threw a heartless off her back.
"We have to fight these heartless to get to it, but they're endless!" Cedeile called, walking over to Tifa in the water. The brown haired girl looked at the heartblade master sadly.
"You have to go through." Tifa said without hesitation.
"What? You can't fight the heartless by yourself!" Cedeile said, cutting through a shadow that jumped up at them. It disappeared in a flash of light. "What about protecting Yuna?"
"This is just a different way of completeing that goal. If you go through and defeat Kana and banish the heartless from Book City, then she will be safe. Now go through to the other side, and I'll fight off the heartless. When you do get out of here, I want you to purify this and the other forbiddon books so that they can never be used like this again!"
"Tifa I won't leave you here! What about seeing all your freinds again? Leon and Yuffie and Aerith and Cid are all back at Travere Town waiting for you! Cloud is out there somewhere!" Tifa smiled faintly.
"This is what's important now. As a last act, I'll save the heartblade master." she said.
"No! I'm not gonna let you throw away your life just to get me through that portal!" Cedeile yelled.
"You don't understand. You are the saviour of the universe. You have the power to purify the darkness, and to save everyone. You are needed out there, and you know it. You can't die yet, because there are people depending on you to defeat this evil. That is your task, and this is mine. If I am to be a sacrfice so you can complete your destiny, then let it be so. Besides...you can always pruify me and bring me back, if we ever met up as heartblade master vs. heartless, that is." Tifa said. Cedeile stood there in silence. She wasn't sure what to say. The portal was nearly closed and the heartless were getting ready to strike. "Cedeile! Go!" Tifa yelled, pushing her into the water. Cedeile fell into the portal, reaching out to Tifa.
"NO! Tifa!" she yelled, but her cries were muffled and the portal fully closed as she slipped through to the real world. Tifa smiled and turned back to the heartless. They sneered at her and closed in around her. She dropped her hands to her sides and peacefully closed her eyes, smiling to the end as they came and destoryed her, stealing her heart and throwing her into darkness. Her body glowed as it disitigrated, a calm wind blowing as she disappeared.
"I know you can do it, Cedeile...I'm sorry, Yuna. I'm sorry...Cloud..." and that was it.
Tifa was gone.
At the colloseum, night had come and Cloud sat alone on top of the walls, looking out at the vast, starry sky. A star blinked out suddenly and he felt a pang in his chest. He wondered what that meant.
6H:Hah ha! Cliffe! And sadness at the end! Not that I don't like Tifa-I think she's really cool! But this makes the story a little more interesting, eh?
Anaretsu: No.
6H:Oh, be quiet! So, give me a review, why don't ya?
