Final Fantasy XV - Kingdom Hearts
Part 24
Summary: Two warriors of Light, the Chosen King and Keyblade Master, face an unseen Darkness.
'And…another dead end', Donald bemoaned, slumping at the sight of the wall.
'Aww man…this is like the third time!', Sora groaned, pouting at the wall.
Their search for the ore along with their separated friends hasn't exactly gone well, Sora's impressive navigation skills that somehow ensured they always found their way to their goals had ultimately decided to take a back seat and instead the three were getting lost left and right. Since they resumed their exploration, they unluckily had found themselves in a maze of sorts where everywhere they seemed to go it would either be a complete circle or a dead end, like so.
Running his hand through his spiky locks, Sora looked around for a pathway as opposed to going backwards. The spot they found themselves in was nothing special or particularly different compared to the other parts of the ruins. Most of the architecture was destroyed by monsters and the passage of time, pathways blocked by collapsed ceilings and debris everywhere.
'Gwarsh Sora, what ever happened to your navigation skills?', Goofy asked with a laugh, 'You used to be able guide us through everywhere'.
'Hey come on! They only work when I'm not in a new world that long!', Sora replied, putting his hands behind his head. 'But sure, it would be nice if I knew where the exit was…'.
'We could just blast our way out!', Donald said with an impatient look, staff out and judging from his stance he'd looked ready to commit the act. 'Hold on Donald, if you start using magic like that, you'll bring the whole place down on us!', Goofy said, waving his hands. Looking up at the cracked and crumbly looking ceiling, Sora pursed his lips and hummed in agreement to Goofy's words. Even the duck could see that they'd have a better chance of being crushed than finding an exit through reckless construction work.
'Well what do we do then?', Donald asked, dismissing his staff. 'Maybe we could keep looking around, there's gotta be a way out of this place', Sora offered, gesturing to the path they came from. Seeing no other way, the duck let out a huff before he walked down the path they originated from, Goofy and Sora following him in tow. As they walked Sora's thoughts drifted back to Kairi and the others, an uneasy feeling reeled in his chest. No matter how confident he is in her and the others, there is always that "overprotective" nature in him.
Part of him almost wished she fell with them, then he could have at least kept an eye on during their navigation. Maybe he should just be grateful she's with friends who could at this point handle the heartless, better than being on her own.
Back to the centre of the maze, he sees Donald scorching a spot on the corner where they came from to mark it. After the first time Donald had been making marks distinguishable for them to see that they had come from that path. North and south had been cleared with north only taking them twenty minutes to explore while south a total of ten. 'Which way now? East or west?', Goofy asked, standing in the middle of the two directions.
'Guess we could try east?', Sora said, crossing his arms. 'Better than nothing', Donald said, heading to the east direction. Exploring down the corridor with Donald using his magic to keep the light on for them as the torches from above were far dimmer than the ones higher up. 'I wonder how everyone else is doing', Goofy said. 'I'm sure Noct and the others are ok, they've got Aranea with them', Sora said confidently.
'Oh, I know…but I was thinking more of the King, you know?', clarified Goofy, looking worried. 'I mean, we've got no way to contact them without the ship'. Sora and Donald glanced at each other, sharing the same expression as the captain before Donald said: 'Yeah…he's probably worried about us being gone this long'.
'I'm just hoping Ventus and Axel are ok…I mean, we've only just woke Ventus up and now Aqua's so far from him', Sora lamented, a sense of guilt was creating itself in his heart. Seeing how happy the two of them were after nearly twelve years of being apart, Sora wouldn't even pretend to know how it'd feel if he was separated from Kairi or Riku for that long. 'I wonder how they're doing', he said.
'I'm sure they're looking for anyway to come and bring us back', Goofy said with smile, 'Besides, they're gonna need us to help save the worlds!'. Sora and Donald smiled back in agreement, before Sora grinned cockily. 'I mean, we did save the worlds twice before. Not bad for someone who wasn't picked by the keyblade off the bat and two guys without keyblades', Sora bragged.
'Yeah, you would've blown it without us!', Donald teased. Sora gave the duck a smirk. 'Sorry? Who's the one doing most of the heavy fighting?', he challenged. 'Excuse you, who's the one keeping your sorry butt out of the fire?', Donald retorted. 'Goofy! He's the one with the shield!', he laughed. 'WAK!? I saved your keister plenty of times with my magic!', Donald shouted.
'Who was the one who froze me into a block of ice because *somebody* wasn't looking at where he was aiming?', reminded the boy. 'And who spent *two* hours melting that ice!?', Donald shouted. 'That was me Donald', Goofy said playfully, 'I had to use a hairdryer because you were out of mana'. Donald opened his mouth to argue with that, but nothing came out of his quill but silence. He grumbled and crossed his arms, walking in angry silence. The other two chuckled at him before resuming their walk. Sora looked down at the path his mind wandered back to Aqua and her keyblade. 'Hey guys, is there a way to fix a keyblade?', he asked.
'I dunno buddy, I mean, me and Donald didn't know keyblades could be broken', Goofy hummed. 'The King told me his own wasn't strong enough so he and Riku got new keyblades from Merlin', Donald revealed, 'But he didn't tell me how'.
'Maybe he just changed the keychain to it?', Sora hummed, adding his own two munny. 'But that was the keyblade from the realm of darkness, imagine what they fought to be strong enough to dwarf it', Donald said with a finger wagging. Sora nodded, contesting to that point. 'That keyblade Aqua used though belonged to her master, didn't it?', Goofy asked, looking at Sora. 'Yeah, Kairi told me it belonged to Eraqus…but when she sacrificed her keyblade to save Terra, she had to use it from then on out', Sora explained.
Donald rubbed his chin in thought then he clicked his feathered fingers. 'Hey, did Aqua ever say where she lost her keyblade?', Donald asked, looking at Sora. Sora rubbed his neck to remember if Kairi or Aqua had mentioned it, before he hummed. 'I think she said the last time she fought him was…was back in…', he said, before he grinned. 'Radiant Garden', he said.
The two of the King's friends smiled back at him. 'Then once Cindy fixes our ship, we can take her there and get her keyblade back', Goofy said. 'And her armour!', Sora said, turning to them. 'Remember, she, Ven and Terra had armour with their keyblades too! So, if she lost her key there, then her armour's gotta be there too!'. 'Perfect! Then that'll be the first thing we'll do once Cindy's done', Donald stated. '…after I uh, give her blueprints…'.
Further on, they came to another clearing with fortunately a flight of stairs just a head of them. 'Oh boy oh boy! We found our exit!', Donald said, hopping up in glee. 'Great! Let's go before…', Sora said, but then just before he could finish, flames of darkness appeared in the air before them, seven tall pillars with daemons reaching out from the ground. What transpired from the flames were an old set of heartless the three hadn't seen for a very long time, invisibles.
One of the strongest pure blood heartless, human form with heart shaped holes in their chest with long broad swords. Two reapers spawned from the ground before the trio as a barrier erected behind them and in front of the stairs. 'Looks like we gotta fight our way out!', Sora said, summoning his keyblade. 'Then what are we waiting for?', Donald said, staff at the ready. With his two loyal friends by his side, Sora ran in first as the invisibles swooped to the boy.
He did a front flip over a sword that swept at him, fired three spheres of light at the two soaring to him. The spheres smacked them in their faces, though only one was deterred from the attack being hit twice while the other brushed off his attack like it wasn't anything. The shadowy creature brought down its massive sword on Sora but Goofy intervened in time to repel the strike, barely moving an inch from the force.
Donald casted a spell ironically Sora had taught him, and it was "Balloon". The yellowish orange ball appeared in front of the reappear and then when the skeletal being touched it, it burst into six coloured spheres and then they all charged towards the reaper. Each impact caused it to stagger backwards until the final one slammed into it and finished it off.
The duck turned to the invisible that loomed over him with a yell, just ducking below the sweeping blade, his hat still in the air from the wind of the sweep. Grumbling the duck grabbed his levitating hat and smacked the heartless in the knee before he leapt backwards from another swing. 'Donald!', Sora yelled, turning to the duck with a grin. Seeing that familiar grin, the duck joined his side quickly as they raised their weapons in the air. 'Time for some magic!', the duck announced.
Levitating in the air and spinning around, the two mystic heroes fired off a barrage of fireworks that flew and exploded all around them. The invisibles that were close to their attack were met with colourful rockets that upon impact exploded. The power was great enough to bring one down and severely wound another enough for Goofy to crushed them with his shield and weight.
Back on their feet Sora and Donald split up to take on the rest. The reaper was Sora's next target, running towards as it aimed it's bony hand at the boy, firing a dark blast of magic at him. Sora slides underneath the attack, just missing his hair. He aimed his keyblade at the reaper and fired an electric chain at it, the lighting encasing it in golden chains as it roared in pain.
The invisible nearby swooped in however to catch the boy off guard, firing a barrage of violet dark energy at the boy. Sora quickly leapt and hopped over the attacks, eventually Sora started to even swipe at the attacks deflecting them. The hero hopped over a pile of rubble before he tossed his keyblade at the invisible like a spear. The mystic weapon of light managed to pierce through the invisible's head and strike at the reaper's chest, breaking it apart like a pile of sticks.
Re-summoning the keyblade in hand, Sora turned to see Goofy being ganged up by two invisibles. Sora sprinted towards his friend as an invisible flew to the boy, only for Donald to fire an aero spell in front of Sora, who used this to not only leap over the attacking pure blood, but he was high enough to touch the ceiling above them. Flipping upside down so that his feet touched the ceiling, Sora felt the magic of the ability he gained in the sleeping worlds.
As his body glowed with light, he bounced off the ceiling like a torpedo and dived towards the invisible, spinning around like a drill. His keyblade struck the back of one invisible as he spun into it, destroying the body and then he dived into the ground creating a light-based shockwave that blew the other invisible away from Goody. Giving his buddy a thumbs up in gratitude, Goofy turned to the invisible that staggered in the air before he gave Sora a smile. 'Batter up pal!', he said, spinning his shield with his long finger and then tossing it up in the air.
Taking up a baseball player's stance, Sora swung and smacked the shield directly into the invisible. The power behind Sora's swing and Goofy's shield were more then adequate to slay the invisible as the shield pierced it and struck the wall. Goofy re-called his shield and gave the boy another smile off approval, they together turned to Donald hopping around the two invisible's swords, looking like he was trying to get some distance from them. They ran to the duck but were then blocked by two more portal appearing below them, and slowly spawning from them were jelly like daemons the flans.
The violet creatures hissed at the two, one even enlarged themselves to dwarf the two and lunge forward to try and gobble them up. Quick as lightning Sora and Goofy hopped back from the greedy creature. 'Hey, don't they look like those heartless with fruit?', Sora asked, looking at Goofy quickly. 'They kinda do…just more, ya know, scary', he confessed.
The flans slithered towards them, which Sora struck at them only for his keyblade to sink into the gooey creatures and when he yanked it out the monsters weren't remotely bothered by it. Shaking the goo off his key with disgust, Sora looked to the captain for advice. 'Try magic!', Donald shouted, ducking under another sword. 'Like what?', Sora asked, side stepping another lunge.
'Light maybe!?', Donald yelled again as if that was obvious.
'…oooh!', Sora said.
Raising his keyblade upwards, a swirl of light formed on the tip and then he aimed it at the flans. Sora fired a pure beam of light at the two globs for enemies, piercing them and instantly disintegrating them into nothing as the darkness that surrounded them faded into nothing. They turned back to the duck, using a barrier to protect him from the strikes of the invisibles. 'A little help here!?', he yelled. Sora looked at Goofy who nodded and raised his shield up, and with that Sora jumped onto his shield. From his feet, Goofy rocketed them both into the air, Sora grabbed his hand and with a spin, he flung Goofy towards the invisibles.
'Incoming!', he yelled as he slammed his shield first into the ground, donating a decent sized explosion that the invisibles stood little chance of surviving, the fiery explosion consuming them.
After that, the two barriers that held the three there disappeared as they dismissed their weapons, Sora clapping his hands together to knock off the dust. 'Done, and done', he said cheerfully. His companions looked at him with nods, then turned to the stairway. 'Hope this is the exit, I've had enough of this place', Donald groaned.
Climbing the stairs out of their maze, the trio of experienced world explorers see a luminescent light ahead of them, shinning on the ceiling and the walls ahead of them in the colour blue. 'That light could be the water ceiling…', Sora hummed in thought. '"Water ceiling"?', Donald asked with a raised brow. 'Well what do you call a ceiling that's made of water? A ceiling pool?', Sora asked. 'Do you think you could swim in that?', Goofy asked.
'Maybe?', Sora said, looking thoughtful.
'Why don't you try it out?', Donald said with a smirk, crossing his arms.
Sora rolled his eyes as they reached the top of the stairs at last to see they were indeed beneath the "water ceiling", with a clearing just ahead of them. The ground glowed with the light from above with a long bridge just above the end of the clearing. The three ventured forth, looking around and taking in the visuals while looking out for the other members of their party. 'Gee, we're probably at the bottom of this place', Goofy commented, looking around.
'So, the mythril should be around here, right?', Sora pipped up, looking for the ore in question. Looking further into the clearing, he narrowed his eyes when something sparkled ahead of them from the light above. 'Maybe ahead?', Donald said, walking ahead. Following close by the duck, the three other worlders looked to the bridge and narrowed their eyes when they see a silhouette ahead of them. 'Huh? Hey fellas, do you see that?', Goofy asked, pointing to the bridge.
As he did, a large beast slowly raised its massive wings above it and flapped them to raise above the ground. With a shriek so loud, it forced the three to cover their ears in pain, the beast flew behind them and landed at the entrance, snarling at the trio just as they summoned their weapons. It breathed a breath of lightning at them, making Donald and Goofy run away while Sora leapt into the air to evade the shocks.
While in the air, Sora fired a hailstorm of ice upon it, shards of frozen pikes rained down from his keyblade and covered the beast in a storm. The beast let out a roar as some of the icicles pierced it's body, spreading its wings. The wind howled behind the wings blew the shards away and sent Sora flying off from the force. He flipped in the air and his feet landed upon one of the pillars, which he used to bounce off and fly straight to the monster as it took flight.
'Donald, give me a boost!', he yelled as he charged to the monster.
Donald waved his staff and created a bigger vortex of air for Sora, the moment his feet touched it he was sent even higher into the air just as the monster flew up. Now on the same level of height Sora air-dashed to it and started to wail on it with his keyblade. Three strike on its hardened shell of a skull was enough to make the beast roar in pain as Sora flipped over its head and landed on its neck. He staggered as the monster was thrashing to throw him off, making him grab one of the spikes on its mane.
As it flew around the space with an unwanted passenger on its back, Donald and Goofy looked up at the battle taking place in the skies. The monster then performed a roll in the air, which was enough for Sora to lose his footing and his grip on the spike. As he fell the beast charged towards him with its talons ready to tear him apart.
Goofy threw his shield directly at the beast as Donald shot a bolt of lightning at it. Both attacks luckily managed to strike it hard enough that it started to thrash and zoomed past Sora and smashed into one of the pillars. Destroying it and crashing onto the ground as Sora landed back on his feet and stared down at the beast with his friends. The monster got back up though, likely more furious than hurt from the battle as its body started to cackle and glow with lightning. Lightning burst from it's back and covered the space it occupied with it.
Sparks of lightning raced through the ground towards the trio breaking the ground beneath it wildly, sending the rocks and dirt scattering around the place. Donald aimed his staff at the monster as the lighting charged towards them, glowing in a faint cream coloured light. 'Flare!', he shouted. He fired a large beam of pure heat that rocketed towards the monster, hitting it straight on and consumed it. The lightning dissipated with one more faint cackle.
Then there was a large flame of darkness roared where the monster once stood, an intense heat washed over the three as they held their arms up to protect themselves from the heat as Donald's beam was destroyed.
As the flames vanished, the beast was reborn as a heartless.
Larger than before with wings coated in violet mist with venom dripping from its talons, its blue scales now violet and red with eyes yellow as a shadow's, black mist lingering around its maw as the heartless emblem proudly stamped on its chest glowed with power. Purple lighting danced around its body as its wings flapped again, the wind it created almost knocked the three off their feet. With a cry from its maw, spewing black mist and dark lightning. The combined attack tore the ceiling apart, collapsing near the trio as he flew towards them. 'Look out!', Goofy said, grabbing the two and running to the left in time to be blow by the force of its speed, a shockwave knocking them all aside.
As it soared into the air, it flies around the small space and fires streams of lightning at the trio, making them all run in several directions the violet lightning tore the ground apart. Sora ran up a pillar while the heartless focused on Donald and Goofy, his clothes glowing and once he jumped off the pillar, he cried: 'Here goes!'.
Sora's clothes shined brightly before a burst of power exploded all around him, turning his red and black clothes to green with flame patterns on his pants. On his wrists and feet were icicles shaped like ice skates and greaves. Blitz Form had been awakened once more.
In the air Sora dashed towards the heartless as it turned around to see Sora kicking it in below it's jaws. The force of his kick made the heartless look up, but Sora wasn't finished. He dashed to the left and kicked it in the head again, dashed above its head and performed a stomp on its head with both feet. This time the attack made the heartless stagger and shake its head in pain, flapping its wings insistently to keep itself airborne. The boy dashed away from the head when it tried to munch on him, creating distance from it and them aimed his iced greaves at it, he fired a blizzard spell at it.
Several shards of ice spewed forth from Sora's greaves but the heartless fired a breath of mist that instantly melted the ice and evaporated the waters. Quickly dashing away from the cloud of toxic mist, Sora kept up this dance of moving and evading while below Goofy handed Donald their last ether. 'He can't keep this up for ever Donald!', Goofy said worryingly. Donald rubbed his chin in thought while watching the heartless flutter weakly in the air, before nodding. 'We've gotta bring it down first, we're no good to Sora while its in the air!'.
Donald lifted his staff up and swirled it around, creating a faint blue chilly fog around the tip while concentrating. Goofy looked up to see two faint mists manifesting over the heartless' wings, slowly solidifying into large chunks of ice. Sora must have seen them because he was dashing all over the place in the air, kicking the heartless to keep its eyes focused on him long enough for Donald to finish what he was doing.
With a yell, Donald's staff shined a brilliant blue-ish white and the chunks of ice that were formed quickly fell on the wings of the heartless. The chunked smashed into the wings and the beast fell to the ground with a heavy thud that shook the place while Sora dashed to the ground with it, landing on his feet as Goofy and Donald joined him. 'Nice work!', he praised, 'Now we can take it down for real!'.
However, the heartless raised its head once again, lightning and black mist gathered up around its maw as the pebbles and small broken rocks began to levitate from its power. 'I don't he's going down without a fight…', Goofy gulped, lifting his shield up. 'Sora lend me a hand!', Donald shouted, aiming his staff at the heartless and channelling more ice magic into his staff. Nodding to his idea, Sora placed both his wrists together, the ice skates evaporating and channelled all to his greaves.
Slowly Sora's body glowed in a faint light as he returned to his normal clothes colours as in his palms was a whitish blue magic. Together they both yelled: 'BLIZZAJA!'. Together a beam of magic ice burst from the staff of Donald and hands of Sora, combing into a much larger and denser beam that struck against the mist-lightning attack from the heartless. Despite the initial struggle at first, the combined magical force between Sora and Donald proved to be more than the heartless could contest with, as the beam started to freeze the lightning and turn the poisonous fog into frosty air.
When the beam came into contact with the heartless, it's entire body was slowly being in cased with ice, slowly covering its body an turning it into a perfect ice sculpture. Once the two finished their spell, Goofy finished the job with one more final shield toss. The shield smashed the sculpture into pieces for a few moments before the darkness disintegrated into nothing but smoke.
The trio slumped, panting tiredly as Goofy caught his returning shield, Sora and Donald sitting down, drained from their combined attack. '*Pant* *Pant*…D-Donald…we need to…to…talk about doing that again', Sora panted. 'I'll think on it…once I get some air in my lungs…', Donald wheezed, almost ready to faint. As the darkness disappeared, a crystal heart fluttered from the disappearing ice and disappeared into the sky.
Sora took one more deep breath before exhaling and looked to where the ore was waiting for them. With a nod from his friends, Sora walked to the ore and after some digging, he managed to find the pure pinkish crystal amidst rubble that collapsed from the ceiling. He took out his keyblade and after some whacking, he managed to break a large chunk of ore from the ground and picked it up.
'Sora, we've got guests!', Goofy yelled.
Turning around to the others, to his relief their guests weren't heartless or any more daemons. Instead it was thankfully Noctis and the other two of the retinue. They looked roughened up with some soot marks on their cheeks along bits of their clothes ripped and torn in several parts, even Ignis' glasses were cracked slightly.
'You guys ok?', Noctis asked, looking at the weary looking duck and boy.
'Absolutely…', Donald sighed tiredly, 'But hey, we got the ore'. They looked to see Sora waving at them with the item in his hand, getting smiles and nods from the trio. 'Wonderfully done boys', Ignis praised, 'At least now the yacht will soon be sailing and our journey to Altissia will reach its end'.
Then he frowned when he looked around the area, before looking at the worried keyblade wielder. 'Where's Kairi and Aranea?', Sora asked, looking at the three. 'We got separated from them, much like how we were separated from you three', Ignis said. 'Aww phooey! So where could they be!?', Donald said, getting to his feet. 'We were hoping down here or at the very least they've found you three', Ignis said with huff. 'Then we're not leaving here until we find them', Noctis announced.
'There's gotta be somewhere we didn't look yet'.
*Elsewhere*
With one more strike from her keyblade Kairi brought down the reaper, splitting it's rib cage open and letting it fall backwards, sinking into the darkness from whence it came. Panting to herself, Kairi leaned against a wall for support with one arm against the wall.
'You doing alright, Red?', Aranea asked, kicking a goblin off her spear. 'Never…better', Kairi panted weakly, pushing herself off the wall and dismissing her keyblade when she knew there was no darkness around them. Looking around the corridor they were currently in, seeing the bones of the deceased skeleton and reaper daemons, marks on the wall thanks to her magic hitting them and several debris.
Ever since they walked down this corridor it had been nothing but fighting. Heartless and daemons were plentiful in the corridor, and every time that got further inside the more they would spawn. It had been nothing but walking and fighting since then, it reached a point that Kairi had considered they just turn back and look around for another pathway. Even the dragoon was starting to feel the fatigue of the constant fighting.
Popping what seemed to be her last potion, Aranea downed it and then turned to the girl. 'You need a break?', she asked. 'Nah', Kairi said, standing up and stretching, 'The sooner we get out of here the better'. Looking down the corridor she walked on with the dragoon behind her, Kairi took a breath as she felt the slight ache in her body but ignored it. She had only one hi-potion left and wanted to conserve her magic for battle, last thing they needed was for them to be wounded or in precarious situation requiring some healing.
"Just keep going, find Sora, get the ore, then out of here", she thought to herself, "And maybe a nice hot bath after all this".
'Hey Aranea, how long do you think this corridor is?', she asked, hoping to make some conversation between them to fill the silence and keep her distracted from the ache. When the dragoon didn't respond to her, Kairi turned to her with her mouth opened but paused.
The dragoon was frozen in place in a mid-walk stance, her left foot just about to touch the ground. Kairi looked at her with worry and approached the dragoon. 'Aranea?', she asked softly, waving her hand in front of her face. No response. Not only that but Kairi looked around to see something about the place had drastically changed.
The air was still, the gentle hums of the wind had ceased around her and even her footsteps made no noise. Kairi cupped her chin, looking around as she pondered this change. Curious she summoned her keyblade and after she lifted it up to point at the ceiling, she said: 'STOP!'.
Nothing happened, her magic didn't even appear. Blinking in confusion, Kairi repeated this again and again until she lowered her keyblade and looked at it. 'What's going on? If I didn't cast that spell, what did?'.
'Not what dear, who'.
Kairi turned around to see leaning casually against the wall was Master, looking at her. Kairi let out a gasp before steeling herself and readying for combat. 'Who are you? One of Xigbar's?', she accused, eyeing him. The Master just pushed himself off the wall casually, smirking at the girl. 'Hey now, no need to be so hostile, princess', he said coolly. 'Don't assume every guy you met wearing a black coat is part of Xiggy's groupie, it'll make an ass out of ya'.
'Well how many people have *you* seen wearing that coat outside of the Organization?', Kairi asked. Master raised a finger and wagged it. 'One, but he's not important now', he said casually. He sauntered around the place, the princess never taking her eyes off him and her grip on her keyblade tightened. 'Are you doing this? Stopping time?', Kairi questioned. 'Well sure as heck not your doing now is it?', he asked, his tone was playful and friendly, but it did nothing to assure her worries.
'So you, my dear, might be wondering "who is this guy, why is he sauntering around stopping time and why he's so interested in little ole me?" Well I'll tell you my dear', he said, spreading his arm theatrically. 'I'm here to see if you're more of what I'm looking for, since dear old Noctis didn't exactly live up to my expectations!'.
Kairi lifted her keyblade in a defensive stance, narrowing. 'Why are you after me and Noct?', she questioned. The Master however walked towards her casually, which Kairi in turn stepped backwards from him with a grunt. There was something severely off about this man's presence, it was nothing Kairi had ever sensed before fore it wasn't the purest darkness like Sephiroth or anyone from the Organization, but his light was something alien to her.
'Stay back!', she demanded backing up again when he got closer to her. 'No can-do princess, you're the first princess of light that not only didn't pass on your light but also carry a keyblade', he said, his tone had changed into an analytical one, like a scientist fixated on results regardless of what must be done. The subject's comfort be damned.
With a yell Kairi swung her keyblade at him, but he just raised his hand and suddenly Kairi's arms stopped moving, the momentum disappearing like it never happened and she couldn't move her legs. Panic started to surge within her as she struggled against whatever this paralysis was, her eyes bore both fear and anger. 'If I'm right about you, then how things will play out in the future may not come to pass', he mused as he reached out for her.
'D-Don't touch me!', Kairi screamed, struggling to move her head from his leathered hand. 'Don't worry, princess. If you pass the test, that is', he said.
As his hand reached closer to her, Kairi started to struggle more wildly. When he placed his hand on her head, her vision grew hazy as she felt her body shut down. 'See you soon, princess Kairi', was all she heard before she was swallowed by the darkness…
A/N: …sorry for delay.
I was meant to try and get it done earlier, but after posting two chapters in the space of a day, I burned out. So, I'm gonna take the pace at a slower rate, sorry if that disappoints a few but I'd rather the content be worth the wait as opposed to shilling out garbage.
Next time we're gonna have Riku and Iris, but also Cindy! With Kairi entering the Master's test and see what he has in store for her.
As always please leave your questions and thoughts if you have any, and I'll do my best to respond to them.
Q1: Who do you think was the hardest character to write for in battles? Can you guess mine?
Q2: Did you enjoy the banter with the trio?
Q3: Was Blitz-Form done well? Or did you think I over-dashed it?
Q4: Is there any character you feel like doesn't get enough attention in this story?
Also…if some of you remember, I asked you all who would you ship Aqua with? Well…I have decided who…and you're probably not gonna like it…ah well, maybe you will!
Thanks for reading! Stay awesome but more importantly Stay safe!
