Love Across Worlds - Chappie 12: Temples
Disclaimer: Don't own Kingdom Hearts, the Final Fantasy series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, Inuyasha, Sailor Moon, Rurouni Kenshin, or anything else I use in this fic...
Ghost Girl: You do own the plot, Leiko, Amaya, Leiko's Black Rose Katana, that stone Amaya has, Amarante, Amaya's otosan...
Glor: (cry) Why couldn't I at least own Inuyasha... Or the third movie... It is taking FOREVER to download! (sniff) And I want Kingdom Hearts II to come out soon! Or at least, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories... (A/N: Chain of Memories came out December 8th 2004)
Ghost Girl: Note for everyone, since not everyone knows Al Bhed or has translator handy, the translation will be right next to it in parentheses. Example: "Talk" (Al Bhed)
Leiko blinked open her eyes only to shut them again in pain, but being as stubborn as she is, she opened her eyes, ignoring the pain as she took in her surroundings. She found herself lying in debris of plaster in a small-secluded room; to her left there was a huge hole with pyreflies emerging from it and to her right a door of feathers and wisps of material that had a strange insignia on it.
Leiko lifted herself up to a sitting position and tried to get up, 'Where the hell am I?' she asked herself but she soon heard the sound of something with gears and metal rumbling in the next room.
She lifted herself of the floor and made her way slowly to the door. She stumbles then leaned on her left arm to notice there was a sharp pain in her upper arm. Leiko leaned on the wall on her right instead and looked the see the tourniquet she had been wearing had bleed through and the wound had reopened when she fell.
Leiko winced as she unwrapped the bloodied cloth the find her wound bleeding freely down her sword arm. Ignoring the blood that dripped from her arm to the floor, she went through the door, her right hand on her katana, although she couldn't wield as well with that hand because it wasn't her dominant hand.
Once into the next room, Leiko saw a huge machine that was fighting a young blond woman. The young woman looked to only to be about seventeen. She had braids and beads in her hair with a headband. She wore feather earrings, a long red, orange, and yellow scarf, a yellow bikini top with black belts as straps, cream-colored sleeves with four bows on each one, a short brown mini skirt with a strap with yellow pouches around her waist, and blue and white ankle boots with yellow string bows in the back.
It seemed as if the battle had just begun, so Leiko leaned on a wall to her right and watched the girl in action. The blonde was using strange looking red twin daggers to attack the bulky machine in succession but her attacks were rather weak. When the machine went to attack her, she dodged easily and jumped back, taking out a strange globe. With a flick of her wrist, a bright light came from the globe and she was immersed in light.
Once the light disappeared, the blonde was in a completely different outfit and sitting on the floor but soon did some back flips to get up. She had curled horns coming out of her headband but her outfit was still rather skimpy. Her feet and hands her covered in furry beast claws with leopard print on them. Blue shoulder pads that had one spike coming out of each shoulder with orange fur covering the base covered her shoulders. There's also a red piece of cloth tied around her stomach in a bow and down her bare upper legs, there are orange tattoos.
The young woman suddenly became surrounded by a red aura and she attacked the machine. After a few more swipes with her artificial claws, the machine malfunctions and come to a stop. The girl wears a big grin and does a few flips as a sort of victory dance then turns toward the door on the side the room Leiko wasn't on, to look at a blonde man with an eye patch covering right eye.
"Told you I could scrap you're 'Super Machina', Gippel!" she exclaimed as she jumped in front of him.
Gippel raised an eyebrow and looked at her chest level then to her face, "You sure you wanna be jumping like that in such a flimsy outfit, Cid's Girl?" he quipped.
The girl crossed her arms over her chest as her face reddened and she stood still, "I have a name, you know..." she complains.
The man grins and ruffles her hair, "Yeah, I know, Rikku," he says as he leaves the room and leaving Rikku blushing and speechless.
"That was quite a fight," Leiko spoke up, breaking the silence and surprising Rikku.
"Eep! Where did you come from?" she asked then noticed Leiko's bleeding arm, "Oh Spira! You're bleeding! A lot!"
Leiko stared at her as if she was the biggest idiot in the world, 'Of course I'm bleeding, miss stating the obvious,' she thought as Rikku took out another sphere, "What are those anyway? I saw you use one earlier..."
"Oh, this? It's a dressphere, but this one I'm switching to can help with your wound," Rikku stated as she was engulfed by a light then she was wearing a white robe with a hood that had some colored embroideries on it, white boot white gloves with a strange shaped staff with tassels at the bottom of it appearing in her hands as she was surrounded by white feathers, "Full-Cure!"
The bleeding on her stopped but the wound stayed, scarring. Rikku tilted her head at this, "That's strange there shouldn't be a scar..." she muttered as she scratched her head.
Leiko pulled her arm way rotated her shoulder, moving her arm with no pain, "Hm, it doesn't matter... I've never taken to white magic well..." Leiko answered as she pulled out her katana with prominent hand and slashed at the Experiment machina.
Rikku gasped as the machina falls apart in two pieces. Leiko smirked and replaced her katana in its sheath, "Good, not out of practice," she said to herself.
"Tysh!" (Damn!) Rikku cursed, "Ruf dra ramm tet oui tu dryd!?" (How the hell did you do that!?)
Leiko raised an eyebrow at her, "Speak English," she said bluntly.
"Uh... How did you do that?" she asked in a quieter voice.
Leiko shrugged nonchalantly, "Wasn't that difficult," she stated.
Rikku grabbed Leiko's right arm and pulls her towards the door, "You're amazing! C'mon, let me introduce you to everyone!" she said enthusiastically as Leiko as dragged behind her, trying futilely to escape her iron grip.
'This girl is annoying...' Leiko thought as they went down on the stone platform elevator in the next room.
Leiko was pulled along though some rooms and then down a flight of stairs where at the bottom the man from before, Gippel, stood with curious look on his face, "Who's she?" he asked bluntly.
Rikku beamed, "Gippel, this is uh..." she hesitated then turned to Leiko, "What is your name by the way?"
Leiko glared at Rikku, "And why should I tell you a thing?" she asked, "It's not like you can do anything to me. You saw how I sliced that machina in half with one swing of my katana, when you needed help from those spheres you use,"
The Al Bhed who were in the room as well began to whisper to each other and one spoke up, "You destroyed the 'Super Machina'!?" he exclaimed.
Leiko rolled her eyes, "Yeah, now I have no time for this. People to see, things to kill," she said as she shoved the Al Bhed technician out of her way headed for the exit of the temple.
Before she could open the double doors, she ran into the man she saw earlier with Rikku. Gippel looked her up and down as Leiko jumped back and put her left hand the hilt of her katana to prepare for an attack, "Whoa! Calm down, I ain't gonna hurt you," he said with his hands up in the air in defense.
Leiko tilted her head to the side, with a small sadistic grin, "You move and I won't kill you," she said in a fake sweet voice, "But if you don't move, I'll slash you in two,"
Gippel looked at Leiko and laughed. Leiko stared at him as her hands dropped to her side with her eyes wide; she just could not wrap her mind around how her threat had amused him. Did she seem weak to him? With that thought she narrowed her eyes and she drew her katana, "Cocky bastard," she said as she pointed her katana at Gippel.
"Gippel! Stop being an ass, and say sorry!" Rikku exclaimed from the side.
Gippel looked over to her with an exasperated look, "Cid's Girl! She's the one pointing a sword at me!"
Rikku shot him a look and if looks could kill Gippel would be dead twice over, "You laughed at her! It's rude! And I have a name! And ugh!" Rikku exclaimed throwing her arms in the air and turned to Leiko, "Just go ahead and kill him!"
Gippel's eye widened and Leiko had smirk on her face, "My pleasure," she said as she drew the katana closer to his neck.
"Rikku! C'mon, I was kiddin'. Don't have to be so pissed off!" he exclaimed as he was backed up into a wall by Leiko's katana, "You don't want me dead, do you, Rikku?"
Rikku's face softened for a second and Leiko put her katana away that elicited a sigh of relief from Gippel, "I'll be going now, who am I to get in the way of a lovers' spat?" she said as she began to walk away.
"Lovers' spat!?" Gippel and Rikku exclaimed in unison.
Leiko chuckled as she left the temple, leaving the two Al Bhed looking at each other then turning away after they noticed they were both staring. When Leiko made it outside, she turned back to the temple to see rocks flying around in electrical bolts surrounded it.
"Where do I go from here?" she muttered to herself as she walked the bridge and turned right, towards the rockier road.
"Hey, kid, wake up!" the commander said as kicked Cloud's rather motionless body.
"Maybe, he's dead, sir," the soldier said, who looked to the other man as a superior, as Cloud's eyes shot open, which frightened both men to stumble backwards.
"I'm not dead..." Cloud muttered as he used his sword to help himself to his feet.
"An u-unsent!" the second man stuttered.
Cloud looked at them incredulously then pushed them aside to leave the chamber, "Whoa!" the soldier exclaimed as he almost fell backwards into the big hole, that seemed to go on into an endless abyss of darkness.
Cloud had grabbed the man's hand and stopped him from falling, "Be careful," he warned as he let the man fall on his butt, "I'm not an unsent, whatever that is..."
"Sir, what should we do?" the fallen man said as he got up.
The first man scrutinized Cloud, "Where did you come from and what are you doing in the temple?" he asked.
"Dunno," Cloud answered as he started to leave, "So this is a temple... Great..." he muttered to himself as he left the two men speechless.
Cloud had left the temple only the end up in a forest filled with fiends. They were weak fiends so he plowed right through them. Once out of the forest, Cloud came to a rather big port town. He jumped off the platform onto the wooden boardwalk. It seemed that town was on top of the water and the only thing supporting was its small platform connection to the forest and wooden beams holding it up underneath the surface of the water.
"Would you like a boat ride to the other side of Kilika, sonny?" a man asked from his small boat which was in the middle of two boardwalks which created a small river-like water passage in the middle of the town.
"Sure..." Cloud answered as he got in the boat and the man used a pole to move the boat down the canal.
"You don't look like you're from Kilika. Are you from one of the big cities, like Luca?" the boatman asked as the reached the end of the line.
"Not exactly..." Cloud replied as he got out of the boat and turned to walk away but then turned back, "Hey, would you happen to know how I can I get to this Luca?"
"Oh sure, sonny," he replied then pointed to the big boat at the end of the dock, "Take the S.S. Winno to get to Luca. It'll take you there in about an hour,"
"Thanks," he said as he walked towards the S.S. Winno.
Leiko got to the end of the rocky road she was just on only to find another long road. Once she stepped onto the new road, she saw people who were offering rides on machina and on huge yellow birds. Leiko thought about talking to ask if she could ride one but she opted to not. While the rental person for the chocobos was preoccupied, Leiko hopped up on one and took off.
"HEY!" the voice of the rental woman faded away as she rode down the road.
'She should have been watching her merchandise better,' Leiko thought as she began to get to the end of the road only to see another rental person for the hovers and chocobos. Leiko brought the stolen chocobo to a halt and jumped off. She left the chocobo behind and ran down the steps then ran down the next flight of steps.
Soon she entered a city square filled with children laughing and getting balloons. Her expression changed from stoic and cold to disgusted and bitter as quickly as she had entered the square. Ever since a few months before the Heartless first attack on Japaneho, she had despised when the people around her were happy. It was the reason she disliked Amaya so much.
Leiko soon left the square and passed by an area with a fountain. After walking through the small strip of sidewalk pass the fountain, she entered an area that seemed to be a circular path that led to the boat docks.
She turned right onto the path towards the docks. When she got to the second dock, she saw there was a boat docking. Curious, Leiko walked onto the dock to see who was arriving.
After it seemed that all the passengers had left the ship, Leiko saw a blur of blonde hair as she turned to leave the dock. She turned back to see Cloud had just gotten off the ship, "Spiky?" Leiko asked, dumbfounded.
"Leiko?" he said as he walked over to her, "What happened?"
"I think we got pulled into some weird portal," Leiko stated, "I ended up in a small chamber with a huge endless hole in the ground in some temple. I think the people called it D'jose temple,"
Cloud's eyes widened a bit at the coincidence, "I woke up in a chamber like that too. I heard people call it Kilika temple," he said then added, "This world seems to like their temples, hm?"
Leiko nodded, "I guess you're going to want to find the others, huh?" she asked rhetorically.
A piercing scream shattered the conversation. Cloud and Leiko exchanged looks then ran towards the sound of the screams. The screams came from in front of the blitzball stadium that was right before the circular path to the docks. Before Cloud and Leiko's eyes, people's hearts were disappearing into the air as they were mercilessly attacked by Heartless, which were shaped like Sinspawn.
Leiko pulled out her sword and charged for the Heartless who were attempting to take more people's hearts. Cloud then took care of any Heartless trying to flee, "Everyone, get out of here if you want to keep your heart!" Leiko yelled out to the remaining people that still had their hearts.
The people heeded her warning and ran out screaming. They screamed to get away from the blitz stadium. Some were saying that Sin had returned becausethey had defied Yevon. Others just ran without looking back.
Cloud slashed through the last of the Heartless then put his sword down on the ground to lean against it, "That was a good work out..." he muttered.
Leiko turned her attention to Cloud as she wiped the sweat of her brow, "As I was saying before we were interrupted, where should we start?"
"Maybe you should start with how you knew how to kill those 'heart snatchers,'" a voice said from behind Leiko.
Leiko drew her sword as she whipped around to see a strange looking man behind her. He didn't look like much of threat since he had a metal cane and one of his legs were replaced with metallic one, but looks can be deceiving. The man had long light brown hair that was tied back with a strangely twisted ponytail and he wore glasses on his face. Even with what would seem like disabilities one would get from many years of living, this man seemed no older then twenty-one.
"Who the hell are you?" Leiko asked bluntly.
The man raised his eyebrow slightly, "I should be the one asking you two that question," he retorted, "Now, who are you and what do you know about those 'hearts snatchers'?"
Leiko stood still stubbornly and wouldn't answer him.
There was a slight awkward silence passing between them as they neared the end of the almost endless maze, although they did not know they were almost out, "We've been walking for hours, Riku! I don't think we're gonna make it out of here..." Amaya whined and breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over them since that kiss on the cheek, that was over an hour ago.
Riku came to a sudden stop, causing Amaya to run into him since he was in front of her. She looked over his shoulder to see why he stopped. The reason was the exit of the labyrinth, which was a lift to the upper level of building that they were in the bottom level of. Amaya blushed in embarrassment, "Oh..." she muttered as a smile tugged at Riku's lips.
"C'mon, let's leave this maze," Riku spoke up as the pair climbed onto the lift.
The lift went up abruptly, causing Amaya to grip onto the railing of the lift. Soon the lift came to a stop on the upper level, which had priestly type people standing idly. When they saw Riku and Amaya hop off the lift, the priests began to converse among themselves.
Amaya looked at the priests warily then decided to ask one of them where they were. She left Riku's side and tapped the shoulder of one of the men who didn't seem to be the same as the other priests. He was no older then eighteen with tanned skin and white blonde hair. He wore robe similar to the rest of the priests, which were made up of yellows, reds, oranges, greens, and blues, but his robes seemed to stand out as if he were a leader. What also made him different from the others was that he had a headband across his forehead but the other priests were bald.
"Uh, excuse me, sir, but my friend and I are a bit lost and we'd much appreciate if you would tell us where we are..." Amaya asked politely as the young man looked her with a slight confused look.
"You're in the main hall of the temple in Bevelle," he answered then added, "If I may I ask, how did you get in here without using the main entrance?"
"Uh..." Amaya stuttered, "Actually, we truly have not the faintest idea, but we both woke up on a platform above this huge hole that seemed to go on forever..."
The man seemed to accept this answer, "I am Preator Baralai, and I'd ask if you two would follow me to my chambers," he said smoothly.
Amaya glanced back at Riku with a look saying 'What should we do?' Riku looked suspicious of the preator but nodded anyway. She turned back to Baralai, "Alright,"
"Please come this way," he said as he headed to the lift Riku and Amaya had just gotten off of a few minutes prior. When all three boarded the lift, the lift changed its course and ascended to another upper level. Once off the lift, Baralai gestured for Amaya and Riku to follow him outside, onto a narrow balcony, which led to yet another lift. This left finally brought them to Baralai's chambers.
"Sora!" Kairi exclaimed from the stairs leading to the deck of the Celsius, the name of the airship they were on, as the Keyblade master ran across the deck and peered over the edge.
"It's alright, Kairi-" he said and the ship suddenly shook and Sora lost his balance.
Kairi gasped, "Aeroga!" she exclaimed the spell and a gust of wind balanced Sora so he would not fall of the airship's deck.
Kairi breathed a sigh of a relief and ran to the messy haired boy. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. Sora was surprised by the sudden hug but quickly returned the embrace.
Soon Kairi broke the hug and then whapped Sora in the back of the head, receiving a yelp of pain from Sora, "Ow... Kairi that hurt..." he replied as he rubbed his head.
"It should! You could have been hurt..." she said the last part quietly.
Sora smiled and gave Kairi a reassuring hug, "I'm fine, see, Kairi?" he said as he broke the embrace, "Let's go back in the airship, we must be to this Bevelle place soon,"
Glor: Eh... Bad ending but why does it matter if no one is reading? (sigh) I half the money for KH:CoM by not eating my lunch... But I may end up spending that on my friends' Christmas present or I'll buy manga. Ugh, stupid presents... Well, unless they're for me. Heh. Review please.