Lost Fragments - The Traverse Town Cup Battle Series

Part 4

Kydran's eyes followed Leon as the black-clad warrior paced back and forth. The man was very visibly agitated, as was made apparent to Kydran not only by his actions but by his eyes, which were now filled with a mix between worry, thought, and, if Kydran wasn't mistaken, a little anger.

The boy turned away from Leon, curiosity still edging at the back of his mind. Perhaps Aerith or Yuffie knew something about it. They would still be up in the stands. He had finished his fight, so he would be free until the next round was called. The boy's boots carried him out of the fighters' waiting area, away from Leon, and toward the stands.

The crowd was a little less dense in the time between fights, and the last, brutal fight had ended only a couple minutes earlier. Kydran's emerald eyes scanned faces as he moved through the crowd, and it hadn't taken him too long before he caught sight of Aerith's pink dress. He smiled. Pandora was with her. The girl's violet eyes met his.

Pandora jumped up from her seat and dove at him, wrapping her arms around him. He caught her, grinning. Aerith turned to look at the two of them, and her eyes softened. Pandora pulled away, and looked up at him.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "You had me scared to death! What happened?"

"It's no problem. I… can't remember much about it, but I'm all in one piece."

"Not that I couldn't tell. It's alright. Your memory's not all that great, anyway," grinned the girl, and Kydran shook his head, bearing a lopsided grin.

"Which fight is next, Kydran?" asked Aerith. "The fight listings are out in the courtyard, but I didn't read them."

"Leon versus Seifer."

At the mention of the second name, Aerith's eyes were suddenly filled with concern. She turned away from him, and looked out into the battlefield.

"What's wrong, Aerith?" asked the boy. Pandora moved away from him as he stepped over to her. The flower girl looked to the ground.

"Seifer… you're still alive…? How…?"

Pandora moved around Kydran, to Aerith's other side, and sat down next to her.

"Who is he, Aerith?"

"Seifer… we all thought he was dead. We… I, at least, thought that Leon had killed him…"

"I don't understand," said Kydran, taking a seat next to the flower girl.

"He was… he is, a servant of Darkness now. At least, he was when Leon fought him and destroyed him."

"Please explain, Aerith," requested Kydran. Aerith raised her eyes, and looked straight ahead.

"Seifer grew up with us while we were still living in Hollow Bastion. Squall, who we all call Leon now, and Seifer never really got along," Aerith began. "Growing up, Seifer never had much consideration for others, only a will to dominate and succeed. He had a supreme confidence about him; where Leon was cool and calm, Seifer was fiery and furious. He always seemed unstoppable.

"The two trained all the time, Seifer doing it to gain power, and Leon… I never understood why Leon trained so hard. I think it was because he felt he had to protect us from Seifer. I don't know. The two would spar every now and then, getting in fights because Seifer never knew when to leave people alone. Seifer would peck at Squall, and Squall wouldn't give, and they would end up fighting. Seifer also had a habit of picking on poor Yuffie; he wouldn't ever leave her alone until Squall finally put his foot down.

"When they had finally grown up, their understanding of each other had grown as well, and they had almost become friends. They both continued to train, and eventually King Ansem, the ruler of Hollow Bastion, selected both Squall and Seifer to work as his bodyguards. Soon after, Ansem was visited by somebody from another world, another King… King Mickey. After that, Ansem disappeared into his labs, and was rarely seen, even by Squall and Seifer. As the two continued to work together, their comaraderie grew, and they eventually came to be close friends.

"Eventually, Seifer was seen less and less, as well as the King. Reports of missing people began to reach Squall's ears, but he could not find King Ansem. After the missing people… stories of monsters, made of shadow, crawling within the darkness of the dungeons. Then people who traveled into the castle's lower levels disappeared, too. Squall descended to see what was happening. When he returned, he told us that Seifer was in control of the monsters below. I've never seen him as hurt as he was that day… he looked so betrayed. He had trusted Seifer."

"Maybe that explains why he's so gruff," mentioned Asher. Aerith carried on.

"When Hollow Bastion was overwhelmed, Squall found and faced Seifer as the Darkness was engulfing it all. He was determined to stop him, to save Hollow Bastion. I didn't see the fight; I was pulled away to find a way out as the two began fighting. When we found him again, Leon had that wound across the bridge of his nose. He said he had cut Seifer back, across the face, and thought he had killed Seifer.

"After we had gotten away from Hollow Bastion and arrived at Traverse Town, Squall left his name behind him. He told us that when his friend, Seifer, and his home, Hollow Bastion, had died, Squall had died with them, and in his place was the Leon you see today. We never saw Seifer again. We all assumed that Leon had killed him; he never mentioned it, and we never brought it up.

"When we found out that Ansem was the one who brought the Darkness down on Hollow Bastion, we all realized something; Seifer had been working for Ansem, follow his orders. Seifer was Ansem's right-hand man. And, from reading the 'scientific reports' Ansem made, the Ansem Reports, we also learned that Seifer was, ultimately, abandoned by his master and left to die on Hollow Bastion with the rest of us.

"I know Leon doesn't want to face Seifer again. I don't know what's going to happen… I hope Leon will be alright…"

Both Asher and Pandora were silent, instead turning to watch as the gates lifted.

Leon stood facing the man he had seen consumed by the Darkness two years before.

Seifer was about the same height as Leon, maybe a little taller. He did not look as though he had taken much care of himself, as his complexion was paler than before, and his hair reaching down to his shoulders, unkempt and tangled. His clothes were ragged; when Leon had seen him last, he had been wearing a pair of loose pants, boots, a stylish vest, and a white longcoat which bore his symbol, the Fire Cross, on the back, all of which had been very well-kept. Seifer had always been adamant about his appearances.

Now, his boots were worn, the pants torn in many places, and his coat was ragged at the tail, the ends of the sleeves just as worn. His clothing was burned in some points, and he appeared as though he had been in more than one fight, though the man bore no visible scars save for the one across the bridge of his nose. In his hand, he held a gunblade.

Leon and Seifer had each received their gunblades from Ansem; whereas Leon had been given the Revolver, a revolver-sword hybrid, Seifer had been given the Hyperion, a .45-sword hybrid. The sword, at least, was well-kept; it appeared as clean as the day Leon had last seen him.

The two had walked to within about three meters from each other. Leon's gray eyes looked into Seifer's now-orange oculars, then to the scar across Seifer's face, and then to his eyes again. He was silent. His opponent broke the silence.

"Squall."

Leon grimaced at the name. It was different than when Yuffie called him Squall; it still hurt, but not nearly as much as it did now.

"My name is Leon."

"When I read the listings, I never thought it would be you I would be facing. Small world."

"I…"

"You what? You what, Squall?" harassed Seifer, his voice bitter.

"Leon," growled the warrior through gritted teeth.

"You want to take care of unfinished business? You want to blame me for Hollow Bastion? You want to apologize to me, for abandoning me? What, Squall?"

"My name is Leon!" cried the Griever as the bell tolled, starting the match. His feet braced into the ground, and he launched forward, turning his weapon over in his hand, arm forward as he charged his foe.

Seifer only smirked, lifting his blade, pointing it at his old friend and enemy.

Their blades clashed. Squall brought the weapon down, full-force, to cleave into Seifer, tears streaming from his eyes. Seifer moved to the side, parrying the weapon down his the gunblade his master had given him. With Squall's blade pinned to the ground, Ansem's right-hand man pulled his arm up full-force, bringing the back edge of the Hyperion toward the brown-haired man's face.

Squall grunted, releasing one hand from the Revolver and leaned back, placing it against the flat of the Hyperion with a black-gloved hand, pushing it out of the path of his neck. He pulled his weapon up from the ground and swung toward Seifer's exposed legs.

Seifer's legs lifted off of the ground as he hurled himself forward into a roll. The rubble-covered floor was hard, but he came to his feet without incident. He whipped around to face Squall, who was already charging, weapon cocked back for a thrust.

The sound of gunblades clashing rung out through the air, only to be drawn into the roiling void where the world's heart had been. The two battled beneath the void itself, within a room in which, in the future, Sora would first encounter one of the black-robed Unknowns.

Squall didn't know where Yuffie or Aerith or Cloud or anybody was, or whether they were safe; all of his focus was on Seifer, who he knew had to have brought this down on them all.

Blades clanged out once more as Squall bore down on his friend, Seifer responding by interceding with his gunblade. Squall roared, the tumult within him finding no other way out. With a burst of strength, Squall shoved Seifer forward, ever-closer to the wall of the room within which they fought. Seifer, having lost ground, braced his foot into the floor and resisted. Squall's angry gray eyes glared into Seifer's green eyes, and the fighter only glared in return.

"Why, Seifer?" growled Squall through gritted teeth. "Why did you do this to everybody? To our home?"

Seifer only smiled, and this infuriated Squall further. With another release of pent-up rage, the brown-haired warrior screamed and shoved as hard as he could, sending his foe reeling back toward the wall of their circular battlefield. He cocked his weapon back and launched forward to impale Seifer while he was regaining his posture.

Squall lunged forward, the tip of the weapon screaming toward Seifer's chest. Suddenly, long before his weapon would ever connect, he felt something grab his leg in a tight grasp and pull. Squall's leg was yanked out from under him, and he unceremoniously fell flat on his face.

Seifer wasted no time on the advantage he had been given. He raised the Hyperion and prepared to drive it into Squall's prone body.

If the black-clad fighter had rolled to his left rather than his right, he would have been slain. Rather, he rolled onto his back away from the now-gathering Shadows and the Hyperion that would have impaled him. Looking down, he recognized one of the monsters that had been present in the dungeons of Hollow Bastion. It examined him through hollow yellow eyes, flicking its antennae at him. Squall drove a foot into the Shadow's face, sending it flying, and parried Seifer's next thrust with his Revolver.

Squall popped his feet into the air, flipping onto his feet, narrowly avoiding another of Seifer's assaults. He dove forward, rolling out of danger once more, and came to his feet in time to sweep his gunblade into a Shadow before turning to face his blonde-haired adversary.

Seifer simply stood, smiling sublimely, arms raised toward the heart-void. His voice boomed outward, bolstered somehow by the Darkness.

"Oh, Squall… if only you knew! The gift my King has given me… while he has transcended his body to seek the Darkness, I accept it into my own heart, not to be controlled by it, but controlling it! If only you knew the power, Squall!"

"That power has destroyed everything we once had, Seifer! It will destroy you, too!"

"Nonsense! I control the Darkness, not the other way around," smirked Seifer, lowering his arms. Leon glanced about himself, seeing that he had been encircled by the Shadows. Seifer continued. "Join me, Squall. There are so many worlds beyond this one, and with our power-"

"It doesn't mean anything! You'll only destroy them, too! And when everything's gone, the Darkness will destroy you too!"

"You're a fool, Squall. You're unworthy. I offer you a gift, and you continue to be ignorant. You disgust me."

Seifer's form was engulfed in a green haze. He launched himself forward, laughing, at a speed that the black-clad gunblader had never though possible.

Squall defended himself as well as he could, but Seifer's strikes were too fast. Leon watched as Seifer's Darkness-infused weapon sliced his clothing to ribbons, laughing the entire time with malicious joy. The longcoated fighter pulled back, and pointed his gunblade at Squall, who could only back away, dazed.

"This is the power, Squall. It can be yours. I offer it only once."

The Griever watched the Shadows moving across the ground, at his clothing. Seifer had not cut him; his attack had been meant to scare him, to warn him, to display his newfound power in the Darkness. In his heart, despair ate away at his hope.

"Come with me. Please," offered Seifer once more, extending a gloved hand. The Darkness flowed about him, pulling at his legs, trying to draw him into it.

The gray-eyes fighter looked up, and those eyes narrowed with fury as the despair neared his core, threatening to defeat him, to destroy him, to eradicate his hope.

"Never, Seifer. Never."

Seifer was taken aback by the sudden blaze in his foe's eyes, but smirked regardless.

"Very well."

Seifer was before Squall in a heartbeat. Before the black-clad warrior would react, Seifer struck the inside of his wrist with the flat of his blade, forcing Squall to drop his. As the gunblader stumbled back in surprise, he looked up only in time to see Seifer bring the tip of his weapon down on him. The fighter dropped back as his vision exploded into bursts of agony, a large cut having made its way across the bridge of his nose.

The longcoated man loomed above the fallen warrior, his expression one of supreme victory. He had won. He had defeated Squall.

The Griever's vision was still blurred, but in the moment where the despair had reached his core and he had acknowledged that the Darkness was too great for him to overcome, he had attained a certain clarity. His life flashed before him. All of his friends, everybody he had known growing up; despite his aloofness, despite the appearance he always gave that he never cared, he cared very much for each other person in Hollow Bastion. As the memories became recognized, Squall felt power surge through him.

Seifer's expression faded instantly as he saw his foe lift himself from off of the ground, grab his dropped weapon, and bring the edge upward. Squall's weapon was bathed in an azure-white energy, and the tip made connection with Seifer's face. The blonde-haired warrior cried out as the force of the blow carried him into the air, with the help of the drawing power of the vortex. His boots separated from the ground, and the blast of light released from Squall propelled him into the heart of the vortex.

The warrior stood and watched as Seifer disappeared into the Darkness, and looked at the Heartless surrounding him, the Light still engulfing him. The vortex grew.

"I swear now… I will find a way to destroy you. Every single one of you.."

He was lifted into the air, toward the abyss, and did not resist.

"I will find a way."

The gunblades flashed in the sunlight, echoing out through the arena as they clashed; the fight had continued for a solid six minutes, which was an eternity on the battlefield. The crowd was cheering madly, driven to a fever of excitement by the duel between old friends made enemies. The previous fights had been disappointing, but this one had practically made up for the wasted time all by itself.

Seifer parried away Leon's sword-stroke with his own gunblade, sending it out of the path of his body and into the ground. He drew back and lunged at the Griever, who responded back dropping down beneath the strike and thrusting a palm out at Seifer's abdomen. Flame gathered about Leon's hand as he channeled magical power into it, and before Seifer could react, the fireball blasted him backwards. He cried out in pain and landed first on his legs (which crumpled beneath him), and then on his back, his vest smoldering.

Leon moved over to where Seifer lay, struggling to get up. His gray eyes bore down on him, and his lips turned downward in a display of his disgust.

"Seifer… without the Darkness, you're nothing. This is what you've become."

Seifer's teeth gritted, and he strained to get to his feet. Getting his balance, he hobbled backwards, having sprained one of his legs in the previous fall. The fighter lifted the Hyperion, pointing it at Squall.

"Seifer… just give up. Come back with me and Aerith and Yuffie and everyone. Wounds can heal, given time. As long as Sora keeps fighting the Darkness, we'll have time."

The blonde-haired fighter shook his head.

"Some wounds run too deep."

Seifer sprung forward, blade cocked back to pierce into Leon's chest.

Leon moved to the side, and focused power through the Revolver. The weapon doubled in length, a shining blade of azure light engulfing it. In the same motion, Leon both turned Seifer's weapon aside and brought it down through his old friend's body, cleaving him apart. Seifer's body fell to the ground in two, and Leon, not wishing to look back, only kept walking.