Final Fantasy XV - Kingdom Hearts
Part 37
Summary: Two warriors of Light, the Chosen King and Keyblade Master, face an unseen Darkness.
Soaring through the air, in his Strike Form and his keyblade shifting into a halberd, Sora leaps onto another dreadnaught. He throws his halberd into one of the large engines, piercing the metal and gears to rupture the machine, explosions scattering around the cylinder-shaped engine as the ship begins to slant to the right.
Sora re-summons his halberd and grips it with both hands, plunging into the ship as he cast Thundaga upon his halberd. The golden bolt from above rocketed down from the skies onto the ship, piercing it and striking the violent waters below them, the ship slowly coated with numerous explosions surrounding it. Sora dismisses his weapon as he runs to the engine that was breaking apart from the shop and leaps on the rim of the engine, then jump into the air towards another ship.
As he sailed through the air, he turns to his left to see one of the dropships flying towards him with guns firing at him. Quickly air-dashing and rolling to evade the bullets before he summons his keyblade and aims with both hands locked onto the handle. He fires a single blue beam of light at the airship's main deck (he guesses) piercing the machine and likely he must have hit something important the ship started to fall to join the ships in a watery grave.
The warrior of light dived towards a bit of land to recuperate himself and help steady him with solid ground. Once his feet touched the remains of the destroyed town, he looked to survey the battlefield he found himself in, looking for the others. Far in the middle of the ocean, he could see the faint crystal trails of light near the giant serpent. Squinting his eyes, he could barely make out Noctis flipping and warping as he fought against the monster.
Sora would have joined in and lent his strength to Noctis, but the more airships he can keep off the others the better. So far, he's the only one here among them that could do this without the aid of others, and despite how desperate he wanted to help his friend against the giant serpent this is just as important. Sora looks towards the altar to see Lunafreya standing there with the trident, likely watching for Noctis and ready to lend him something if he truly needed it.
What worried the boy however was the surplus amount of neo shadows prowling on the bridge with only Kairi being the sole protector of the Oracle. The redhead is surrounded by the creatures of darkness, leaping and flipping over them as she switched up swordplay with magic, brandishing Oathkeeper in her fight. Once more Sora would have rushed in to lend his support to her, but outside of fighting the airships, he had faith in her.
After everything they had been through, seeing her loses and wins, how strong she had become since she had first come to this world. It is a massive difference to the girl he knew back then, now he sees a warrior ready to finally hold her own and trusting her to protect the Oracle is a clear sign of that he believed.
Shaking his head, he can admire his girlfriend later as he turned to see more dropships starting to fly in. Sora lifted his keyblade and shifted into Strike Form and turned his keyblade into the Drill Punch form. He bent his knees and then shot into the air like a rocket towards the dropships. The last thing Kairi and Lunafreya needed are magitek soldiers breathing down their necks or worse. With a yell Sora punched his way through the machine, the drill ripping the metal apart as he flew out of the airship like a bullet.
In the air he fires the drill onto the other airship that pierces through it and hooks itself on the other side of it, making Sora swing low enough to go under the airship and swing himself up over it. Once he was ten feet into the air above the airship, he sends lightning down the wire of his Drill Punch that slithered down and entered the ship, covering it in lighting. It turned the ship into a Christmas light, shining all over the waters before it fell to the ocean.
Switching his Strike Form to Element Form, Sora summoned Star Shooter and changed it into the Magic Launcher. Grasping the weapon with both hands, he aimed at the airship getting close to the altar and fired a barrage of magical homing orbs at it. The magical ammunition soared like beacons towards the airship, exploding on impact and bring down another fleet of soldiers. Sora reverts into his normal form, summoning his keyblade and then dashed to more airships.
Back at the altar, Kairi slashes a neo shadow in half during a backflip, landing on her feet at the start of the stairs ascending to the altar. Spinning Oathkeeper in her hand she swings twice to toss magical arc shaped like a blade at the neo shadows, splitting several of them or destroying them in the process of her attacks. Panting to herself as she wiped the mixture of sweat and salt water from her forehead, she clutched the keyblade with both hands as more shadows crawled from the dark pools.
A neo shadow leaps towards her, Kairi swings Oathkeeper over herself, slicing the shadow in half before she parried another's claws. Channeling magic through her free hand, Kairi aimed her open palm and fires a torrent of white lightning at the group. The white searing hot bolts reduced the shadows to nothing as the light struck some of the pillars and broke them along with some of the ground being struck.
The princess of light took a breath when no more shadows began to resurface from the ground, granting her a reprieve from the fighting for a moment. Kairi reached into her pocket and pulled out an ether, given to her by Ignis, and downed it in two seconds. Feeling her mana recharged, she looked to the Oracle, using the trident to hold herself up and she could hear her coughing harshly. Checking once more if the coast was clear for her, Kairi ran up the stairs and checked the Oracle, placing a hand on her shoulders.
The woman was pale and sickly, her shoulders shaking with exertion and her eyes looked so weary it worried Kairi she might collapse before the trial was even halfway finished. 'Luna, you need healing', she says, handing her a potion from her pocket. 'I-I'm fine', she persisted, but Kairi grabbed her hand and helped her crush the item. 'Sorry for the lack of mannerisms but I would have force-fed you this if I had to!', Kairi promised as the woman glowed faintly in green for but a few moments.
They watched in dismay as Noctis was suddenly thrown to a ruined home by the Leviathan, smackdown onto his back in defeat. Lunafreya gaped in fear and nearly ran from the altar to reach him, but she couldn't even take three steps without coughing roughly and collapsing to her knees, trident still in hand with her knuckles whitening. Kairi crouched near her, grasping her shoulders to hold her steady as Naminé in ethereal form watched in worry.
'Luna, you can't get to Noctis from here!', Naminé warned, 'There's no pathway to him!'.
Lunafreya turned to her companion with strain before she grasped the trident and held it with both hands, upright like a pole. Slowly a golden light shined on the trident, bathing it in a heavenly glow as another light shined down upon Noctis in the distance. The two girls were unaware of Lunafreya's idea, but in the land of Eos, the tombs of the royal family that Noctis and company had visited had begun to glow until they all erected pillars of the same light from the Oracle.
Slowly the light levitated Noctis up into the air, straightening him upright as the weapons he's obtained throughout his quest began to enter his body. The light shines so brightly on him as he stares down the Tidemother, even Lunafreya's trident disappears into a blue light to empower him. With a cry and wave of his hand, Noctis was surrounded by the ghostly blue versions of all the royal arms he's obtained.
His weapons circled over his head as he lifts his right arm, and then aimed it at the Tidemother. The weapons flew to the creature like rockets, exploding in blue fire upon impact as the prince teleported to the astral. With the Sword of the Wise in hand, Noctis slashed the Tidemother's head, the sheer force of his attack not only created a blue line in the shape of a blade that covered from one end of the surrounding water to the other half but it even forced the Tidemother's head to face the right with a roar.
Far from finished, Noctis teleported again wielding the Axe of the Conqueror and slashed at Leviathan's head, forcing it to the total opposite direction with another cry. He threw the trident upwards as the Tidemother tried to regain its senses but by the time it could straighten itself, Noctis was above it and with trident, in hand, he dives down onto her wing-like fin and destroys half of it.
As the fin falls, Leviathan roars so loudly it shook the remaining ground to stand on yet Noctis merely moved faster than the eye could see and created a good distance between himself and the wrath of the sea.
The real battle had finally begun.
Leviathan raises the walls of water even higher than the airships, trapping everyone including the imperials that remained within her trap. She uses the waters to sail into the air and chases Noctis, but the prince would not turn tail and run. He dashed so quickly even Kairi couldn't keep up with his speed, arm outstretched and firing his royal arms like rockets. The mystic weapons of the past rulers struck the body of the Tidemother, explosions of blue flames danced on her scales as Noctis evades and dances around the mother of the seas.
Flying into the air above the Tidemother, Noctis summons the Sword of the Tall and grabs it with both hands, his body cloaked in the blue light of his heritage. With a cry he flew towards the Tidemother with inhuman speed, speeding so fast for even the astral that by the time she realized the prince had dashed past her, her second fin was decimated into nothing but broken bits of rubble. Leviathan roared to the heavens in pain as Noctis flies around her, firing more of his royal arms at her.
The trio of girls could only watch in awe of the Power of Kings being displayed before them, the power Noctis showed had not kept up with the Tidemother but he was practically dancing around her with almost minimal effort. 'He's winning!', Naminé cheered, clapping her ghostly hands together, 'If he can keep this up then the Tidemother will have no choice but to acknowledge him as the King!'.
Lunafreya smiled tiredly in agreement as she watched her fiancé fly around the air like a force of nature. Just when things turned in their favor however, the two princesses of light turned to the pathway below the altar to see more shadows had begun to swarm and gather up like bees in a beehive. Kairi quickly stepped in front of Lunafreya with her arm out and keyblade on the other hand, staring down the shadows.
Slowly the shadows all gathered up together until a black miasma of darkness surrounded them and spread to the start of the stairs, Kairi sensing a greater darkness manifesting before them. A horde of shadows explodes from the group, soaring into the air like a tower completely made from shadows. Kairi's eyes widen with shock and fear, remembering Riku had warned them about this version of a heartless.
Even the Oracle was in horror of the sight of such darkness as it charges to the girls. Kairi quickly shoves Lunafreya to the side before the tower tackled her and sends her to the skies. Lunafreya fell to her side as the tower raced up to the skies, taking the keyblade wielder with it like a horde of crows snatching their prey. Lunafreya reached her hand out in vain and cried her sword's name as the tower flew away.
Within the tower, Kairi thrashes wildly like a caged animal as the heartless swarmed all over her, kicking and swinging her keyblade madly as her vision was a mixture of the darkness and yellow eyes.
She feels the darkness slowly trying to infect her, the stinging of their claws cutting into her skin and the darkness threatening to swallow her whole, but her pure heart and light kept it at bay. Even still Kairi is in no hurry to test out how long she could last in this vortex of shadow but no matter how ferocious she tried to fight they held her trapped within the darkness. In her panic, she starts to feel weaker as her limbs went from wild thrashing to trying to wad her way through neck-deep in sand.
Her strength begins to wane as her will weakens despite her desperation to fight for freedom from this tower of darkness. As she starts to still, an image forms in her mind, a memory not belonging to her but to Sora. She saw him fighting creatures resembling heartless yet could tell they weren't, but that was irrelevant because she witnessed him aiming his keyblade upwards and cried a word that spoke to her.
Mustering her will to fight, Kairi grabs her keyblade with both hands and thrusts it into the air with a cry: 'FAITH!'.
Suddenly the girl was surrounded by five pillars of white light that spins around her so quick it cuts the tower like a chainsaw, splitting it and giving the girl the space, she needs to escape the tower. Kairi quickly dashed through the horde and escapes the tower, falling to one of the rooftops of the near sunken buildings, landing on her feet before she stumbled to her knees, coughing and panting from the toxic place she found herself at.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the dizziness, Kairi turned to the tower that now leaned over her, staring at the princess of light. Kairi glared at it the tower as she held Oathkeeper over her head, allowing the tower to bear witness to its majestic light as her clothes glowed in heavenly glow. With a cry, Kairi changed into her Element Form.
Her outfit is now dark blue with star patterns around her back and torso, Oathkeeper shifted and warping into a new weapon for the princess. Now in her hands is a beautifully made Bow, using the blades of the keyblade to form the body while the teeth changed into a quiver strapped to her back with glowing whitish-blue blessed arrows, the string glowed white. Finally, on her right hand holding the string is a glove that only covered her two fingers, silvery pink.
Feeling the magic coursing through her like a river, Kairi quickly grabbed an arrow from her quiver and aimed it at the tower, letting it soar into the air with lightning speed. The arrow struck home in the tower, encasing it in flames that quickly spreads along the tower. It thrashed about in pain before it charged to Kairi, the princess quickly running away as it did.
Kairi hops over several debris of ruined buildings around her, skipping and flipping around them using Flowmotion. This was not the end of her movement however she discovered as she was still sliding on the walls as if she defied gravity and the wall held her up. She jumps to a fallen pillar and rides it while she fires arrows that sought out the tower, glowing beautifully as they soar.
The arrows struck the tower with golden explosions that threw several shadows off its body and destroyed them, Kairi leaping on the floating bits of Altissia and using them as stepping stone to ascend higher and higher as the tower starts to destroy her stepping stones, demolishing the bits of rubble as Kairi flips and fires arrows mid-flips and jumps. Each arrow hitting the tower broke off more and more shadows from the tower.
Kairi jumps to another platform but during her jump the tower's speed increased and caught her mid-jump and smacked her in her stomach, knocking out all the wind in her as it dives to the ground with Kairi first. The princess quickly used the tower to hoist herself over it and land on the body of the tower. She slides down it like a railing while firing arrows behind herself, firing explosive arrow after explosive arrow that broke more and more of the tower in her descent.
Kairi slides off the tower and turns herself to place two arrows on the bow, charging them with light as they glowed so bright it made the shadows close their eyes in fear. The tower charged towards her, glowing in a darkish red light like a meteor charging down from the skies. Kairi fires the two beams of light, swirling and twirling together until they combined into one large ray of light that struck the tower head-on. The collision of the opposing forces sent a shockwave so great Kairi was thrown back to the ground, bounced off a rooftop of a ruined home and then tumbled off it and onto the ground.
Slamming onto her side with a heavy thud, Kairi's weapon bounced out of her hand and skidded across from her. Grunting to get back up, Kairi looked up to see it was raining shadows. Many of them evaporated into nothing while some fell into the raging seas or fell onto the ruined land before vanishing into nothing, the tower nowhere to be seen nor could she sense it's darkness. As she slowly got back to her feet, her clothes glowed for a moment before she reverts to normal, Oathkeeper changing back to its blade form.
Rubbing her head with her free hand, it was only when the adrenaline had worn off from her did, she take note her body was home to many more scratches and bruises thanks to the tower. Her arms were cut in several parts, legs adorned with bruises and a scratch, her clothes cut and roughed up and she feels something run down her cheek and upon touching she flinched. Kairi tries to use magic to heal herself, but before she could utter a single word of healing, her blue eyes fell to Naminé and Lunafreya, the latter on her knees.
Kairi took a breath and willed herself to ignore the pain in her body before she starts to make a run for the Oracle, using Flowmotion to get there.
The trek was short and mercifully forgiving on her body as she leaps from one bit of land nearly sinking into the ocean and lands on the pathway to the altar. Quickly she scales the stairs to see Naminé trying to comfort the Oracle, hacking and coughing. 'Is she ok?', Kairi asked, kneeling to her. 'No, she's getting worse! Whatever she did to help Noctis is taking its toll on her!', Naminé revealed, her voice was full of desperation.
Kairi nodded and lifted her keyblade, casting Curaga on the Oracle. Despite the power of her magic, however, the Oracle hadn't recovered nearly as much as the spell would ordinarily have done. It may have calmed her breathing and healed her throat but that was trivial compared to what she could have healed. Kairi looked at her in fear as she attempted to repeat the spell, mana be damned but Lunafreya grabs her wrist in protest.
'Don't…you…you'll only waste your energy on me', she says, coughing. Kairi looked at Naminé for answers, only seeing the exact confusion on her nobody's face that likely remained on her own. Shaking her head, Kairi helped Lunafreya to her feet, 'Then we can take you back to the others! We'll leave the Leviathan to Noct and Sora!'.
'Going somewhere my dear?'.
The three turned to see sauntering towards them on the pathway was none of then the chancellor, Ardyn. With a smug on his face with that loathsome smile, he merely bowed to them as Kairi stepped in front of Lunafreya. Keyblade in her hand as she stared down the man with fiery red hair, Kairi tried to gauge this man like Aqua had taught her before, yet nothing was springing up on her, nothing stuck out from this man. An enigma to her, and she did not like it.
'I'm afraid leaving here isn't much of an option, you're going to miss the show', he said with a smirk. 'Stay away from Luna!', Kairi yelled, 'Or you're not gonna like what happens next!'. Ardyn raised an amused brow at the girl, comically opening his mouth. 'My word, with such vigor and ferocity, how could I be so bold as to even take another step?', he says with theatrical movement, like he was addressing some form of divinity before him.
Until his smug look turned sinister as he mockingly took a step closer to the princesses of light. Kairi glanced between him and Lunafreya, then ultimately back to him. 'Luna, stay back', she said, 'I won't let him near you'.
Without waiting for Lunafreya to reply, Kairi leaps towards Ardyn with a cry, bringing Oathkeeper down onto him. The chancellor just jumps back from the girl just in time before Oathkeeper could tear into his flesh. As the man of no consequence stared down the redhead with a smirk, Kairi readied herself before she ran to him.
Jumping into the air in his Second Form, Sora wildly swings his keyblade as he cuts through the dreadnaught, slicing everything cleanly and perfectly. Above the falling apart dreadnaught, high in the air before he dives towards a bit of land.
When his feet touched the ground, he staggers and places his hand on one of the broken walls nearby to catch his breath as his shoulders shook and knees wobbled in exhaustion. Sweat running down his forehead, body drenched with it and saltwater, the many scrapes he's taken to his body thanks to the ships and him tearing through them all. Switching in and out of so many forms in rapid succession had pushed him to limits he never knew he could break.
Yet even with shaky hands and a weary body, he pushed himself off the wall and stumbled slightly before he looked to Noctis, soaring through the air and blasting Leviathan with the royal arms. His strikes had worn down the goddess enough to rest her head on the broke buildings, giving Noctis a chance to land a devastating blow to the goddess by blasting her horn and breaking it off her, making her roar in pain.
Sora lets himself breath a sigh, at least Noctis didn't need his help to fight that thing. Then when he managed to refill his lungs with air, he looked to the altar and narrows his eyes, seeing Ardyn dancing around Kairi's strikes. Why the chancellor of all people was here fighting he didn't know, but if there was any lesson Sora had taken from his journeys, it was to never underestimate those of the darkness.
And there is no chance he was going to risk Kairi.
Sora swiftly leaps into the air, hopping on several floating platforms and some on the sea to make his way to Kairi and Lunafreya. Close to his goal, Sora jumps onto one more platform that floats over the altar, crouching down to prepare himself for one more jump. Leaping into the air and towards the altar, he had no time to protect himself from a sudden punch that knocked the air from his lungs. A cry from his throat, the hero was thrown across the seas so fast and far it was as if he was shot from a cannon.
Smashing through one of the buildings and landing behind it with several bounces off the ground until he managed to get to his feet and dig his heels into the ground to stop the momentum, Sora halts himself before he could fall into the ocean behind him, tensing his body before he fell onto one knee in pain from the shock of the forceful attack. He coughed and spits out some blood, splattering on the ground before him before he glared up to see from the ruined building is none other than Terra.
Smirking cruelly at the young boy, he brandished his keyblade and aimed it at Sora. 'Been some time since I saw you, kid', he greets snidely. Sora grunted as he stood up to face him despite the pain his body took on, gritting his teeth as Terra jumped down to face him on the field. The storm the Tidemother created grew worse as the rain fell heavy from above, the wind rushing loudly and harshly. Sora stared down this impersonator of Terra, wielding the Darkgnaw keyblade like he had when he fought Aqua before, a student of Eraqus.
'Ya know looking back, I might have made a mistake in just choosing Riku as my successor', Terra mused, eyeing Sora, 'A boy not chosen by the keyblade, yet somehow far more proficient and powerful'. Sora narrowed his eyes as Terra laughed. 'Yet you stand before me not a master, so I suppose in the long run I made the right choice picking the former vassal of the Seeker of Darkness'. Sora's eyes darkened with anger, his memories of those days where he and Riku stood on opposite sides of light and darkness.
Terra continued to smugly taunt the boy, rolling his shoulder. 'I know how that feels kid, knowing you put so much heart into making yourself worthy to become a master. It was a dream of mine', he mused. His eyes darkened as his smile twisted into a snarl. 'Until the master decided I wasn't good enough to be a master, instead he chose Aqua above me!'. Sora's eyes showed a morsel of sympathy to the man knowing he spoke at least half the truth about Terra's dream.
Sora wouldn't ever forget Aqua's tale of her youth and how she and her brothers were involved in the battle between light and darkness, how Terra's darkness was manipulated by Xehanort himself to plant the seeds of doubt within him and put him on that dark path. Another moment in someone's life Xehanort's influence had turned out for so much worse. Sora shook his head and said: 'Xehanort was the one who manipulate your darkness!'.
Placing a hand on his heart, Sora faced him. 'Terra, you know this isn't you! I know you're still in there!'. For a moment it looked as if Sora's words had reached him because he could see the faint glimmer of blue in his eyes and a look of hope that nearly convinced Sora, he had awakened the slumbering heart. It faded quickly as it came however as Terra growled before he chuckled. 'Xehanort freed me Sora, he showed my true power can grow with the darkness'.
Shaking his head, Sora persisted. 'You know that's not true! Think about Aqua and Ven, what he did to them!', he pleads. 'Ven's waiting to see you again, Aqua's here now! You don't have to face this alone!'. As he spoke from his heart, Sora could see more and more of Terra's will was starting to fight back, even the dark keyblade looked as if his light was trying to turn it back to a weapon of the light.
Shaking his head, Terra just laughed. 'Nice try boy, but this body belongs to the darkness, just as Riku's once did and will in time!', he promises, aiming his keyblade at Sora as the boy readied himself for combat. ' "Terra" won't be alone for long Sora, after all, Aqua and Ven experienced the darkness Xehanort granted him', he promised. 'In time so will Riku, the king, those fools of his, Axel…'.
'And eventually…Kairi…'.
Before he knew it, Terra was suddenly on the receiving end of Sora's keyblade, just barely managing to block it before Sora slammed the teeth between his skull. The attack startled the slave of the darkness and because of that, he couldn't keep up with Sora's sudden burst of speed as he swipes the keyblade into his side and knocks him into the stairs on the right.
Terra slammed into the stairs with a heavy thud, breaking several bits of the stone stairs. He grunted and looked to see Sora had already prepared his Ragnarök attack, glowing golden red and orange. The boy fired twenty bending and twirling beams at the man, forcing Terra to throw up his armored arm to create a wave of dark fire to act as a barrier for himself. The beams were halted as Terra rose to his feet just in time to see Sora burst forth from the flames, striking at him.
Terra swings his keyblade with full force as both hands grasped the keyblade to smack Sora away. He underestimates Sora's power however as both ended up in a deadlock that halted all the momentum Terra had put into his attack. Unrelenting Sora quickly flipped himself over Terra and leaps onto the rooftop while firing several spheres of fire at the man. Terra quickly swipes at the pesky spheres of fire before jumping to meet Sora on the rooftop.
Standing there, facing each other down, Terra grunts in frustration. He had been completely caught off guard by Sora's display of power despite pushing himself to the brink of exhaustion, and dare he say it he felt that strike. Sora's own blue eyes glowed with an intense fire within them as his keyblade was surging with power. As he watched the boy, the words of one of the members of the previous Organization had rang within his mind as he smirks evilly.
"You are the fire that feeds Sora's anger".
'Did I touch a nerve? Is someone worried about their significant other?', he sneered. Sora growled as he ran at Terra, closing the distance between them almost in nanoseconds as they started to clash. Keyblades sparking with light and darkness as the two opposing sides dueled for supremacy, Terra's more aggressive and powerhouse style against the smaller but far faster Sora became a fight on equal footing.
Terra brought down Darkgnaw on Sora only to be parried by a skillful retaliation from Sora, knocking his keyblade aside and allowing Sora to slash his chest with light and throwing him back despite him digging his feet into the tiles of the roof, breaking them apart. Terra glared at the boy, smirking still. 'Those eyes, they remind me of Aqua's…on that day when she realized she couldn't do anything for me', he gloats, 'And her sacrifice to save me only brought ruin and destruction onto the world's she swore to protect'.
'You shut up! You're nothing but a coward! Hiding behind Terra's body and using it to hurt Aqua!', Sora yelled, his anger slowly growing to a boiling point. Never could he forgive Xehanort for a lot of things he's done over the years but using two friends to fight each other like this sickened him to his core. He knew that agony of fighting that person close to your heart, and to learn he and Riku had been in the same situation as Aqua and Terra broke his heart.
He at least managed to save Riku before losing him…
'And what does that make Kairi I wonder? Constantly being saved by you, again and again, didn't you lose your heart because of her?', he taunted. Sora yelled in fury as he suddenly appeared in front of Terra and started to wail on him with the keyblade. Terra grunted and groaned in pain with each strike of Sora's keyblade, amazed he could even feel that pain despite the vast difference in power between them. Or at least, he thought he knew who had the greater power.
Sora slashes Terra into the air, jumping towards him and striking at him with golden traces of light following his strikes until he slammed the man back down to the ground and onto the broken walkways with a heavy thud that left a small crater in the ground.
Sora landed a few steps from the man as Terra got back to his feet slowly but laughing none the less. 'Amazing! Such power! Such ferocity!', he praised madly, getting to his feet, laughing. 'But it still pales in comparison, you're still holding back your full potential boy!'. His grip in the keyblade in hand tightened, Sora forces himself to restrain the anger that dwells within him. Even if the man before him carried the darkness of the same man who ruined so many lives, putting Sora in one bad scenario repeatedly, and of course his numerous crimes, this is still not his body.
Destroying Terra now would mean his heart would have no place to go back to, making their rescue of him pointless. Yet still, hearing him planning on putting Kairi, his Kairi, through the same horrible ordeal as he did with Aqua and her brothers, it fuelled the rage that Sora feared he possessed within the depths of his heart. 'Terra stop this! Come back to Aqua and Ven! You're stronger than Xehanort's darkness!', Sora pleaded despite the strain of anger in his tone.
Terra snarled, growling at the boy like a wild dog. He nearly went to strike the boy but instead, heartless began to swarm over them like a plague of locusts. Shadows covered the entire island of land, trapping Sora as he looked all around him to find he is indeed trapped. 'Can your heart survive all this!?', Terra challenged, sending the heartless to swarm the boy. The shadows dog-piled onto Sora as he starts to slash and hack his way through the growing horde.
Sora's wild struggle did not go without a hitch however, many shadows managed to strike him and scratch at his body, some even managed to pin him down for the others to strike. Sora only escaped using reflect to blast some away and took the chance to leap onto the rooftop to grant himself breathing space. But he falls onto his side in pain, his limit finally reached as he was physically exhausted and magically drained.
The shadows start to swarm him as his attempts to fend them off him were futile. The shadows started to pin him down, their combination of numbers and his exhaustion were enough to hold him down as the darkness washed over him. He thrashes and struggles with a yell, his strength waning.
At the altar as the battle between Noctis and Leviathan grows closer to a conclusion, Kairi struggled against the chancellor's inhuman evasive abilities. As much space as her attacks could cover between magic and physical, Ardyn is seemingly untouchable to Kairi, even covering the entire pathway in magic did nothing to slow him down.
As she swipes her keyblade at him, he dances and saunters around her like a master toying with his apprentice, the difference in skill and experience clearing showing between them. She leaps backward to create distance between herself and him, panting tiredly with her wounds and fatigue getting the best of her at long last, her mana empty and her libs aching as if she is grinding them to dust. Ardyn, however, wasn't even sweating with all his dodges.
'Is that all you can do, princess?', he teases, 'I expected to have at the very least a small paper cut by now'. Kairi musters all her will and strength into this one attack, grabbing her keyblade with both hands as it glowed from the tip. 'Rays…of Light!', she cries.
Seven beams of light soared from the keyblade, flying towards the man of the empire. Ardyn narrowly dodges four of the beams while two of them scrape his shoulder and leg, but one finally struck him in the chest and bathed him in an explosion of light. A solid hit that made him stagger backward and fall onto his knee in pain. Risking everything to finally be rid of this meddler, Kairi ran at him with all her remaining energy and brought down her keyblade on him.
Ardyn just looks up with a smile as he stood up easily without even grunting in pain and raised his at the girl. Kairi's eyes widened in shock, not seeing a single scratch on the man nor sensing she did any damage to him. It was as if all her attacks had missed him. Her thoughts were halted as darkness swirled around Ardyn's hand and then a blast of dark fire struck Kairi full force. The princess was thrown into the air with a cry before she slammed onto the ground on her back.
Her keyblade fell from her hand and into the raging waters, sinking into the abyss as she laid on her back, her body wracked with agony. Kairi gasps as the pain raced through her, the embers of the dark flames disappeared quickly from her clothes' magic. She tried to get to her feet, but the combined might of the agony from Ardyn's attack and her exhausted form is too much for her to bear. 'Unfortunate for you, my dear princess', Ardyn tittered with a sigh, 'If only you and Noctis shared more than royal blood, you might have harmed me'.
Standing over her, Ardyn leaned over and grabbed her arm and hoisted her up to rest on her knees, making her yelp out in pain. 'Ah my dear, I believe you have a spectator', he says with mirth. Kairi looked to his gaze and saw Sora being swarmed by the heartless, her eyes opened wide in horror as she watched helplessly at the sight. 'What a horrible way to die, isn't it? Being eaten away by those vile creatures?', Ardyn gasped, reveling in Kairi's horror. 'Wouldn't you do whatever it took to save him?'.
'Perhaps what Sora needs is some…motivation'.
The next thing Kairi felt, was something cold piercing her stomach. Suddenly she felt numb as her breath let her, a horrible cold consumed her body as she froze, the sounds disappearing into the void. Moments of her life flashed through her eyes, her childhood, her training, her adventures and those moments with Sora.
Kairi could only look down in dismay to see Ardyn's hand holding a dagger, plunged into Kairi's body as a coat of red began to spread and taint her clothes. 'KAIRI!', Naminé cried as Lunafreya watched in utter horror.
Over on the building, nearly consumed, Sora's eyes shot open in pure unbridled horror at the sight. Ardyn pulled the dagger out of the girl and dropped her to her side, smiling at Sora and waving. 'Sora! Your dear beloved needs you! Might want to hurry to her aid!', he says cheerily. Sora felt his blood run cold when Kairi fell onto her side, unmoving save for her desperate breaths, eyes looking into his even from this distance.
He sees fear running wild within those eyes, tears unshed from the fear as Ardyn saunters off to leave her with the shadows returning to finish off the girl
As the darkness of the shadows swarmed Sora, his panic disappeared as he watched Ardyn saunter away, awakening a deep darkness within the boy…
His rage…
With a cry of rage, Sora's body glowed red and then in a burst of darkness, the shadows that tried to consume him were obliterated when a large wild tower of dark flames rose up like a volcanic eruption. Standing there as the heartless were eradicated into nothing, a lone dark figure stood tall with rage unchained. Sora's clothes, keyblade, and skin were deep black with glowing red eyes and with an aura of darkness and fluorescent white swirling pattern on his pants.
Like a wild animal, Sora charges towards the altar, leaping from flying platform to platform with speed greater than he had ever displayed. He jumps over to the altar just as the heartless swarmed the dying princess, his keyblade ripping them asunder. As the shadows gathered, Sora just snarls like a beast gone berserk and starts to rip and tear them all, keyblade and claws used to destroy them all. He grabbed a shadow by its neck and crushed it, his keyblade plunging deep into a neo-shadow's stomach to the hilt of his keyblade.
He throws his weapon at the horde as darkness swirled around it, cutting them all like a buzz saw while he rips the shadows with his claws and crushes them with his boots. Yet even with his heart swallowed by rage and the darkness, he refused to leave Kairi, ferociously destroying any heartless that came close to her. A neo-shadow slashed at his face, but he leans back to evade it and with a single thrust of his claw he pierces through its torso.
One more neo-shadow torn apart, Sora snarls and roars but then he feels something grabbing his leg. He turns around, ready to rip apart that filthy shadow, only to see Kairi facing him with tears in her eyes, desperation within those beautiful orbs. 'D-D-Don't…let it…consume you…', she pleads, desperate and heartbroken. Sora's rage dwindled, he could feel his strength disappearing and power wane, slowly his eyes turned from dark red to blue as the darkness evaporated from his body.
Exhausted beyond human limitations, Sora's final sight was him collapsing near Kairi, her calling out to him weakly just as more shadows began to reappear, the final assault on the two.
In the air, panting and exerted, Noctis stared down the Tidemother with a desire to finally be done with this battle. Just a few more pushes he thought to himself, only a few more to finally end this fight. Channeling his armiger, Noctis readied for the final strike, yet before he did, he looks to his bride and sees his two companions on the ground as the heartless surrounded them.
'Sora! Kairi!', he cried in fear. He turned to Leviathan as she readies herself for her final attack, but with both her and the heartless, Noctis gritted his teeth. There was no chance he could finish her off without losing the others to the heartless, nor could he stop the heartless without the goddess sweeping them away with a tsunami. Attacking one would only delay protecting the others, and none of them looked able to protect themselves.
"Call the light".
Noctis looked up to see no one, but the voice sounded familiar to him. "Call the light and bring out your full power".
Looking at his hand, a sense of trust was placed within the voice as he clenched it. The desire to protect those important to him, for all the ones he could not protect. Using this power within him, Noctis opened his eyes as they shined bright blue as if he was blessed by the crystal of the kingdom. His body glowed in a fiery blue aura that licked his form, slowly his weapons glowed with ghostly flames as he lifted his hand.
The weapons spun around his body like a barrier of arms, spinning faster and faster until they were invisible. With a cry, Noctis shouted with all his might: 'ONE HUNDRED ARMS!'. The weapons rocketed up into the skies, a large circle forming and spinning above the city before firing off one hundred ghostly weapons from the heavens.
At least seventy-five of those weapons charged down to the heartless like arrows from the heavens, striking them all that hunted for the warriors of light, striking everywhere the shadows lied be they near or far from them. Twenty-four of the weapons struck Leviathan, however, forcing the serpent to stagger as Noctis formed the hundredth weapon within his own hands. A pure blue crystal light in the shape of his engine blade, and holding it together with both hands, body glowing in blue, Noctis charged forth like an arrow and struck Leviathan.
As Leviathan throws her head to skies, letting a cry of defeat, Noctis' body no longer glows in the fiery blue light but now a dimmer and weakened one as he loses his strength to fight any longer, slowly descending to the altar, smiling tiredly before he loses consciousness and embraces the silence of sleep. Lowered to Lunafreya and the two keyblade wielders, the Oracle cradled her prince in her arms as Leviathan readied herself to strike once more.
Then as the Oracle prayed, a single golden light shined down in the water in front of the altar. Rising from the waters, the astral, Titan stood up to defy his fellow astral. The astral of the earth roared challengingly at the astral of water, but this battle went unseen for even the Oracle had finally succumbed to exhaustion.
The battle had finally ended…
Three days later…
Flinching in dull agony, the weariness he never knew tugged at his body, yet Noctis persisted in opening his eyes willing for the first time in year. The lull of sleep had left him as he sees and feels he is no longer in battle; he feels warm and softness around his body. Slowly he takes in his surroundings, then he begins to sit up with ache. Ahead of him resting in a lounge chair, he sees Ignis. 'I-Iggy…?', Noctis croaks.
Turning slightly, Ignis says: 'Back with us, Noct?'. In a pace never seen from Ignis, the man slowly stands up and even more so turns to face his prince. When Noctis shook his head to stay off the dizziness and weariness, he looks to his advisor. His heart broke.
No longer wearing his usual glasses that earned several nicknames from the others, Ignis now wears dark shades that completely hides his eyes from the world, horrible scars adorned his face now. One long enough that it nearly reached his forehead and below his cheekbones on the right side of his face while he couldn't make out much from his left.
'Ignis…w-what happened to you?', he squeaked, tearing up. Ignis glanced away from him, almost ashamed that is was the first thing Noctis had seen since he awoke. '…a minor sacrifice, for the greater battle', he says, sullen and quiet. Shaking his head Noctis quickly attempted to get out of bed. 'What about Luna? Sora? Kairi!?', he demanded.
'Noct…', Ignis started.
'What happened to them!? What happened to you!?', he demanded.
Ignis turned to his prince, his face contorted into misery. 'I'm so sorry Noct…', he whispered.
A/N:
Well here we go, diving into the tragedy side of XV. So Altissia is done…at least for Noctis' side, so next time it's the start of Episode Ignis and Riku! What else happens while our heroes dealt with Leviathan? How else did Ignis lose his sight? What happened to Ravus? Find out soon!
Question time!
Q1: How did you find this chapter?
Q2: Did you like Noctis' Limit Break of sorts?
Q3: What did you think of the Oathkeeper form change?
Q4: Excited to see Riku and Ignis have the spotlight for a while?
Q5: Was Sora's power properly displayed to your liken?
Thanks for reading this as always everyone! Stay awesome but more importantly stay safe!
