Chapter 14

Star, Kirin, and Ariaz: the battle for lylat

The dream realm to Kirin was a beautiful place, now it was a horror show, corpses with rotting flesh lied everywhere, the stench of death had covered the whole universe of this realm, Retrievers, holding spirits in their jaws, feeding the spirits to Star, increasing her power, but luckily, the demon spirits had kept these creatures at bay, cutting off Star's power source, hopefully this will end the Chaos that Star had inflicted and everything would be normal again…would it? The team landed on a small island, grouping together for a plan.

"Alright, Ariaz and I will go after Star. Bone, Carol, Boris, I want you to protect the ships anyway possible from these "Retrievers". Now lets go."

The Vulpine and Human raced towards the clearing in front of them, Star stood there, in the center of the great field, her staff in her paw, but her clothing was different, black leg boots, a loin cloth, a black bra, and two skull shoulder pads, she looked at Kirin with a smirk on her face.

"One last chance Kirin. Be with me? Or be destroyed?"

"No! When are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours!"

"Alright Kirin, that's sure to piss her off…wait…that's not a good idea."

Star just sighed and clashed her staff to the ground, beneath her rose up a black Retriever, it was huge, then Star started to sink into the top of the creatures second head and fused with the creature, combining their strength together.

"Oh shit!" The two thought in unison.

The Retriever swung its arm at the two, but they easily dodged it, it was stuck to the ground, so it wasn't going anywhere, but if they tried to escape from the fight, Star would strike them with one spell before they got away. They had no choice but to attack head on.

"Alright! Ariaz, attack the Retriever! I'm going for Star!"

"Can do!"

As Kirin made his way to the enormous beast, Ariaz had to fight the creature alone, he knew this was his final battle, the Retriever was even more deadly then the one he fought in the spirit world, the creature brought up its mighty arm and swung it down upon Ariaz, smashing him into the ground.

"Ariaz!"

Ariaz lied on the ground unconscious, the Retriever was about to devour the swordsman's spirit until an axe flew right into the creature's eye, dropping Ariaz into Boris's arms.

"Ariaz, are you okay?"

"B…Bo…Boris?"

"Yeah its me little guy."

Boris received a swift punch to his head by the angered human, his face was red as though he came out of a steam room.

"I AM NOT SMALL!…I am six feet tall, not small."

"Height doesn't matter right now, lets take care of this Retriever first, and maybe after all this fighting, we can get ourselves some spiced wine."

"Boris…don't you know anything else besides Drinking?"

"Fighting and origami."

Ariaz sighed, then quickly pushed Boris out of the incoming arm of the Retriever, Boris ran towards the head of the Retriever and pulled his Axe from its head, then gave it a swift blow with both axes, smacking the head upwards.

"Yeah! Teaches you for keeping my Axe!"

Ariaz hopped onto Boris's shoulder and leapt on the Retrievers head, jamming his Ascalon into the creatures eye, blood spew out and onto Ariaz's face, his hair was blown back from the splash, like something gelled his hair backwards, making it spiky.

"…gross."

Ariaz shook his head of blood, getting the unholy blood of his face and out of his hair, he pulled the Ascalon out of the eye and started to slash the top of the head, digging into its skull. The Retrieverreeled in pain, trying to shake Ariaz off his head, Ariaz was losing balance, holding onto the ear for dear life.

"I'm coming Ariaz!"

Boris rushed forward and grabbed the two front fangs of the beast, gripping hard to keep the head in place long enough for Ariaz to cut into the head. Ariaz could finally move on the head, he quickly zzomed towards the scar and plunged the Ascalon into the scar multiple times, trying to break the skull. He plunged it for a final time and sent a shockwave through the body as the sword struck its brain, the lower head had been killed. Ariaz looked up at the next head.

"Alright Kirin, now it's all up to you."

On the top

Kirin climbed onto the top of the head and looked up at Star, her spirit self fused to the Retriever, her flesh self…ready to fight.

"Alright, Star…I shall give you the opportunity to bring my friend back to life, and you to relinquish your powers."

"I don't think I will, I like having immortality, and once I absorb the lylat system of its power, I shall create a new system, where dreams come true, and nightmares…become reality."

Kirin lunged at Star, but she disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Kirin to strike nothing. He sniffed for a while, clearing his thoughts of everything around him, she was right on top of him. Kirin swung up, striking Star with a fierce slash, launching Star many feet away from him while she landed with a loud thud.

"Damn…how did you know I was there."

"All I had to do was look up."

Star held up her staff and it started to shift into a long spear, wide spear head, Kirin wasn't worried…but he should have been, when the spear struck him, he felt like it was the planet Cerina had struck him along with something sharp, he fell to his knees in pain, Star smiled down at the pain filled vulpine, her staff returned to its normal form, she knelt down beside him.

"Kirin…you can't win…I have the power of a planet, and he souls of those magic wielding fools."

Now the last words Kirin heard triggered something inside him to strike her with his metal fist, launching her over fifty feet into the air and a loud crash for a land. She held her face in pain from the strength, she looked at Kirin's metallic arm, something was happening: his flesh was started to grow over it, along with his leg, but he still had the strength of that arm and that leg, to bad it would only last in the spirit world, his dream, other then Katrina, was to have his limbs back, and in the dream realm, like star said, dreams come true.

"My ancestors were not fools…you were driven by power into madness, and killed them all, absorbing the strength of those Cerinian's…Star…You may have life, a realm, and souls to empower you, but you don't have a soul to call your own. You…are an empty corpse."

Star lunged forward at Kirin, clawing at his flesh, her teeth shining with anger, her eyes a blaze, but Kirin pushed her off his clawed and bleeding body and threw against the ground, skidding her across the head of the Retriever.

"No matter what you do…you'll always remain…empty."

"SHUT UP YOU BLUE VULPINE!"

Star was rushing at tremendous speed, ready to unleash another fury of swipes at him, she screamed with anger, then became still and silent, her face became shocked with sadness, as she looked down, the Soul Edge was plunged into her chest, on the back of her, her heart was beating slower and slower on the Soul Edge, until it had finally stopped, she looked forward at Kirin, and she slowly slid off the blade and onto the ground, her spirit disappeared from sight, Kirin looked down at the staff, picked up, and smashed it against the ground. A light Radiated from the shattered orb and then shot out into the lylat system, in the distance, Kirin's tears rolled down his face with happiness: Cerina, and next to him, Katrina.

Katrina ran up to Kirin and hugged him, tears rolling down her face along with his.

"I knew you could do it Kirin…I knew you could destroy the darkness."

Kirin looked down at Katrina's stomach, it was huge, but why?

"Uh…Katrina? Have you been eating too much?

"Of course not."

"Then...why such the wide stomach, she torture you to get fat?"

Katrina smiled and whispered in his ear, then Kirin was shocked of what she told him, he smiled at her, a tear rolled down his face, he picked Katrina up and jumped down onto the ground, informing his group about the death of star. Leaving with his group, he knew something he was grateful to hear from Katrina, that would alter his life.

He was going to be a father.