Chapter Nine: Fight With Honor

Cover: Sora is dressed as a ronin samurai and holding a katana. On the back of his haori (jacket) is the kanji for 'honor'.

"How long have been marching?" Sora asked for the zillionth time. No one responded. They haven't for quite some time actually. 'I'm not that annoying, am I?' he thought to himself.

In truth, he probably was, but the marching soldiers, Donald, Goofy, and Sekou were too tired to yell at him (though they entertained happy thoughts of shoving a shoe down his throat.) In the meantime, they ignored him, hoping that he will shut up sometime soon.

As the hours past, so did the days. It took several days to reach the mountain range. Along the way the soldiers talked about "the benefits of being a soldier" to keep up their optimism. Namely, the girl they're fighting for.

For the most part, Sora found it hard to grasp that most of these soldiers were only in this for the money or the women, not really the whole concept of saving the people that he had gotten used to over the past year. But then again, the emperor did force one man from every family to enlist.

"Well, it's hard to grasp that concept when you're forced to sign up," Sekou said when Sora told him his thoughts.

"I didn't have much choice in this either," he replied, referring to the keyblade and the heartless.

"Neither did I," the blonde countered. "But everyone is different. You could say it was the circumstances that we were under when we were all dragged into this."

Then he walked ahead slightly so that he could talk to Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po, who had once again began dreaming of the girls they'd get as war heroes.

'Wonder what his "circumstance" was,' Sora thought as he gazed at the picturesque snowcaps. 'I wonder what everyone's are…'

So engrossed he was in his thoughts, that the brunette didn't even notice that the soldiers had stopped marching until he ran into Chien-Po from behind.

"Why are we stopping?" he asked. Then he smelt smoke. Something was burning, wood and… what was that foul stench?

He peered around the wide soldier and grimaced at the sense of dread building up inside him. Wooden frames tainted black from burning fire stood as solitary skeletons as smoke riddled between the preserved wooden bones. The once pure snow was stained with crimson blood, the essence of life. Some structures were still burning with hot, glaring flames.

Scattered in the snow were broken arrows, fallen swords, burning flags, and crushed helmets. Lone relics of a battle like that of ancient lore.

There was an eerie silence. Every sound -the crackling of orange flames, the crunch of footsteps in the snow- was muffled as if a thick blanket were wrapped around them, suffocating all noise.

"Look for survivors," Shang ordered.

Immediately, they spread out, searching desperately for a lone, beating heart. Sora felt tension so thick in the air that he bet he could cut through it with a knife. He heard whispers in the wind, the same frigid wind that tickled his exposed skin in mockery. The whispers turned to howls; screams of terror and panic and cries of pain that threatened to drive him insane. A small chaos of death and suffering was flaring-up inside the youth's mind. (1)

He knew that there were no survivors.

A short distance away, Sora saw his blonde companion murmuring a prayer of some sort in a mystic tongue. He appeared very focused on what he was doing.

The ghosts' howls didn't seem quite as loud any more.

"What was that?" Sora asked Sekou. The brunette's voice sounded slightly shaky.

The blonde regarded the destructed village with a mask of indifference on his face, but with tremendous sorrow in his sapphire eyes. "A prayer for the souls of the dead," he relied with a heavy voice, and he said no more. An incredible sadness was in his eyes.

At this time, Donald and Goofy approached. Both of them had expressions of deep grief on. "No survivors," Donald said.

"Gawrsh, this place sure is creepy," Goofy said, peeking over his shoulder, as if he expected to see someone standing behind him.

They wandered back to the main group, who was once again moving out, leaving behind a small memorial to a fallen general and father.

The 'visit' to the village had left everyone in a somber mood. No longer did Yao, Ling and Chien-Po speak boisterously of glory, instead they bowed their heads and marched in a melancholy fashion.

Awhile later, the events took a surprising twist.

The army was marching along in their grim mood when suddenly a rocket went off in the wagon, blasting a hole through it. The rocket landed somewhere up the rocky face of the mountain. Mushu and the 'lucky' cricket, Crik-ee could be seen with guilty and surprised faces.

Shang came galloping back demanding what had just happened.

"What just happened!" he demaned.

Ping could only stutter a few "Uhs…" before Shang silence him. Everyone looked up to where the rocket had hit earlier. The smoke was beginning to fade and silhouettes could be seen.

Suddenly a volley of ignited arrows rained down upon the unexpected soldiers. A few caught the wagon on fire; immediately everyone rushed to save the explosive rockets inside. Sora grabbed two and ran after Chien-Po, who was carrying about ten.

Everything was happening as a blur to him, so caught up in the mêlée he was. Next thing he knew, the wagon had blown up and everyone was setting up their rockets and firing them at where the arrows were coming from.

"Hold the last cannon," Shang ordered as the smoked cleared.

Up on the ridge a lone silhouette emerged. It was Shan-Yu, leader of the Huns, and his army. His army vastly outnumbered Shang's soldiers as they began to charge down the slope. Mingled in the mass, Sora spied out heartless here and there.

(A/N: I'm writing this part purely by memory from the movie, so sorry for any screw-ups)

"Draw your swords." Shang said. "If you die here, you die with honor."

There was a metallic whistling as they drew their swords. No one noticed Sora and Sekou's keyblades make their appearance.

"Aim for Shan-Yu," Shang ordered to Yao, who had the last cannon.

In a flash, though, before the rocket could be lit, Ping shoved him aside and grabbed the cannon and ran up the slope, towards Shan-Yu. There was a moment of brief chaos before a loud bang signaled the rocket being fired. Sora saw it hit a huge peak of ice and snow not far away. Briefly he wondered what must've gone through Ping's mind for him to waste the last rocket and miss the target. ("You missed! He was three feet in front of you and you missed!" Mushu could barely be heard shouting as he flew away with the rocket.) Sekou, on the other hand, saw right through Ping's plan, having pulled a stunt similar to this some time ago.

"Run!" he shouted to the others, who were simply standing there like idiots as the wall of ice and snow rushed down the slope, sweeping up anyone unfortunate enough to be caught up in it.

The Imperial soldiers (minus Shang and Ping) all managed to squeeze behind a rock conveniently shaped so that the downhill facing side was completely safe from the pseudo avalanche Ping created. Sora, Sekou, Donald, and Goofy all managed to run to some large cliff-rocks and climb up them for safety, though their feet were partially submerged into the snow.

Meanwhile, Ping, Khan (the horse), Mushu, Crik-ee the lucky cricket, and the unconscious Shang, unable to resist the flow of the avalanche, were forced over the edge, literally. Luckily, Ping caught an arrow shot by the now woeful Yao, who thought he had failed them, and fired it back. Yao caught it, but t took all of the soldiers to pull the horse and two humans up (and Mushu and Crik-ee).

…And for that I owe you my life," Sora heard Shang say to Ping as he and his companions approached. "From now on, you have my trust."

"Ah!" Ping gasped as the wound in his side flared up with pain as he tried to stand.

"Get a medic someone!" Shang ordered, to Ping he said, "Hold on. It wil be alright."

Hours later, as the sun began to set, the doctor finally emerged from the shabby tent that was being used as a makeshift hospital. Shang, who was pacing worriedly outside, listened to the whispered words of the doctor, words, which none but he heard.

Sora watched curiously as Shang entered the tent without a word. Next to the brunette, Sekou had begun to doze off. Sure, he was worried about Ping, but there was nothing he could really do at the moment, so why not sleep while you can? Abut him Donald and Goofy were quietly discussing something in hushed tones so no one could hear them.

"I knew there was something wrong here!" Chi Fu was suddenly heard shouting.

The pompous man stormed out dragging Ping by the wrist, shortly followed by a despondent looking Shang. "Look, a woman."

There was an audible gasp from the soldiers as he threw Ping, a woman in truth, on to the snow-covered ground.

"My name is Mulan," she said.

"What's so wrong with her being a girl?" Sora asked ling, the closest person by.

"Women aren't supposed to fight in the army," he responded. "It's high treason and it dishonors the army. The punishment is death."

Author's Notes About the Chapter

I was trying to do a little bit of Stephen Crane (the Red Badge of Courage) style writing with a lot of analogies/ descriptiveness, a lot happens mentally, but not a lot happens physically. It was fun to write even if I did fail miserably.

I'm not particularly proud of this chapter, but it has some highlights, I guess. The last part was difficult to write, but I managed to blunder through it somehow.

I am most definitely wrapping up the Mulan world next chapter.

I'm thinking of having more made up worlds than I originally planned to, so if you want to feature any of your own OC's or even worlds, send me a description (appearance, personality, fighting style, dialect, etc.) via review.

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Oh, joy! I finally get around to writing! Let's see, these past few weeks have been horrendously busy. And my birthday was on February 26th, so the festivities got in the way too…not really, but yeah…it's been nearly 2 months so I can't really use that excuse can I? Sigh. I'm sure you can sympathize with me, right?

Please review. (puppy dog eyes)

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P.S. Oh yay! KH2 is finally out! I'm so happy. But right now I'm stuck with fighting Demyx in Hallow Bastion. How can you kill ten forms in ten seconds! I'm sad, huh?

Oh, yeah, it's had its memorable moments, too. Like Atlantica…oh sweet oil of olive I laughed so hard there, and in Port Royal when Will and Elizabeth are making out. ("Sora, why is your face turning red?") Oh, and how can you forget Land of Dragons? ("Play nice you two!")

My friend says I have a twisted way of thinking at times. I just like to think that all Sora's been dreaming of while he's been asleep is Kairi, so his head is still in the gutter.

And I've been officially dubbed a Roxas fangirl. You have to love him with all those emo-depressing things that keep happening to him…I LOVE ROXAS!