Final Fantasy XV - Kingdom Hearts
Part 73
Summary: Two warriors of Light, the Chosen King and Keyblade Master, face an unseen Darkness.
*Secret Forest: First Month*
Using her Dual-Blades, Kairi combines spinning her weapons around her while she flips and dances around the charging balls of light. Flipping over one that narrowly misses her back, she performs a front flip, splitting her blade in two and starts to jump around, cutting and slicing through the armada.
The princess of light skids beneath a row of six and aimed one blade at the source of these attacks, fires a burst of light that condensed into a single ray of light. The powerful beam struck the attacker's divine barrier harmlessly, the shockwave from the collision destroys the balls of light surrounding the two and blows the trees leaves so forcefully branches snapped and broke apart. Kairi scrambled to her feet as she switches keyblades and brings out Oathkeeper, runs towards Lunafreya.
The Oracle taps the end of her trident onto the ground and when Kairi's foot touched the ground, a holy glyph appears beneath her and stretches out into a large radius. Kairi gasped as in a pattern of a star, balls of light shoot up from the corners and entrap her, shining brightly like bombs. She raises her hand and shouts: "Mighty Guard!".
A brilliant golden dome closes around her just as the balls detonated around her, shaking the ground and nearly taking her hearing with them. The barrier shook and bore the full brunt of the point-blank attacks, though Kairi didn't even hiss from this attack. Gone were the days something like this would make her headache like someone took a hammer to her skull, even Lunafreya's magic couldn't even slow down the wielder of the keyblade.
Kairi then pushes both arms out and yells, the dome expanding and blasting away the balls of light. As soon as the barrier goes away, Kairi propels herself forward and swings her keyblade against Lunafreya's barrier. Her newly refined strikes were more than enough to shatter even Lunafreya's barrier, shattering it like glass.
The two royalties stared at each other, Kairi aiming her keyblade at the woman while panting from all the moving she had performed. Lunafreya sweating slightly from her use of magic and even using more powerful spells against her soon to graduating apprentice before both relaxed the moment she nods. Kairi slums on one knee, dismissing her keyblade and pants heavily. "H-How was that?", she asks, looking up at her master with a confident smile.
"Far greater than I had expected, I underestimated your reaction speed and strength", praised the Oracle, pulling out two bottles of ice-cold water from her pocket dimension and hands one to her student. "Your barrier has reached a new level of strength along with your previous test results", she lists as Kairi downs her beverage. More parched the older woman, the princess wipes her lips with the back of her sweaty arm while her grace uses her magic to heal any sustaining wounds.
"Soon enough there will be nothing left for me to teach you", Lunafreya says, pride mixed with a touch of sadness, "A pity too, I enjoyed our time as master and student".
"I guess there's only so much even you can teach me", Kairi teases as they walked to their campsite, "I'm just glad I managed to get all the spells down before my brain exploded with all the tests you've been given me".
While cleaning herself from the sweat from her rigorous training, Kairi watches as Lunafreya settles down on her chair. "So there is no other spells or tricks you've got for me to learn?", Kairi asks, sitting down on her chair and facing the woman. "I'm afraid so, I have taught you everything I can, and even still your training is far from done", Lunafreya says with a touch strictness, "Remember you are still a novice compared to the other wielders of the keyblade".
"Bar Axel", Kairi teases with a cheeky smile. In turn, Lunafreya giggled and affirms the innocent jab. They both giggle, then Kairi looked at her hand with a smile. "I can't wait to see what else Aqua's got for me…wonder if she'll teach me the Ultima spell", she muses to herself. Lunafreya hums in thought but then frowns and shakes her head. "I do not doubt future she will, but now it would be an impossibility", she said.
When Kairi looked at the Oracle with a questioning look on her young features, Lunafreya settled into her seat and says: "Ultima is one of the most powerful spells in all forms of magic, very few have been able to use it without destroying the world or killing themselves. However, even someone as adept to the magic as king Mickey and Aqua, it requires every fiber of your strength. It would take years of mental training and fortitude to even cast it".
Kairi pouts at the information, a tad deflated that the gap between herself and her master's magic was still at such a distance. Then again Aqua was training far longer than the girl, and even then she was still not a grandmaster of the spell herself. She shrugged and sighed good-naturedly, smiling. "Good point, aww well. Not like I don't have my own super spell", she bragged innocently, "If I can get the hang of using that Holy spell, even Xehanort wouldn't-
"No, absolutely not".
Kairi's rambled ceased and she is taken aback slightly when she saw the dead serious and even a bit of the "Yen Sid" glare. Not since their encounter with Ardyn in Altissia had Kairi seen how so serious and dead set on something.
"You are NOT to use Holy, no matter what happens", Lunafreya stresses. "But that spell helped me take down the Horned King and save Radiant Garden!", Kairi argues, "And if it can help us in the battle, why not?". "Because you will be exposed", Lunafreya states. Kairi rolled her eyes and placed a hand on her hip. "And you think Sora is gonna let anyone near me if that happens? Or Noct? Gladio? Aqua?", she challenged.
Lunafreya shakes her head and sighed. "Your body being exhausted is not what I meant, Kairi", she clarifies. "Tell me, do you even know where that power came from?". "My mana?", Kairi tried, but Lunafreya shook her head. "No. That spell draws power from the pure light within your heart", Lunafreya explained, placing a hand on her own heart, "Spells like Holy are the result when we use the purest light to combat the darkness, as you saw with your own eyes it dwarfs even some of the most powerful vessels of the darkness".
Then her eyes hardened and turned steely. "But at the cost of exposing our hearts to everything around them. Once cast, the spell takes every bit of light within us to vary results. Your time asleep was your light replenishing but were you in the hands of the heartless or worse…then your heart would have absorbed darkness".
Lunafreya stands up and approached the girl, placing a hand on her shoulder as her steely look shifts into one of concern and almost motherly. "In a place like a graveyard, the darkness may be at its worst, and should you use that spell, not even Sora's light can keep you safe", she warns. "You must promise me, Kairi, you will not use that spell. No matter what happens". Kairi frowns and looks away, hating this. A dear friend of hers, asking her not to risk it all to save those she held dear to her heart for her good.
"Luna…you can't ask me to do that. Especially if it means losing Sora", Kairi pleads. "And I am forced to stay behind while the king of my heart is forced to fight for our future", Lunafreya counters, "We all must make sacrifices Kairi…please. Promise me".
Kairi looks down before she takes a deep breath and faces her master. "I promise".
The Oracle smiles gratefully and squeezes her shoulder once more before she offers to make them some tea before they turn in for the night. Kairi hums in agreement, her face showing guilt and remorse. Behind her back, her fingers were crossed.
"I am sorry, Luna", she apologizes in her mind.
*Keyblade Graveyard, present*
Keyblades clashing within the forgotten battlefield, the sounds of battle ringing out across the maze, light fighting against the darkness.
For the first time since she had ever picked up her keyblade, Kairi stood against one who wielded the divine weapon in the name of the man who obsesses with the darkness. The girl who wields the symbolic weapon in her gloved hands fought the princess like a wild and enraged animal, her strikes followed with cries and grunts of rage as her weapon collides with Kairi's.
The princess meets her fury driven attacks with trained deflections and careful footwork, using all the hard lessons Aqua had put her through to counter against such an opponent. Reframing from using magic to conserve for a more lethal opponent, she hopes that if she could win this fight with just using on physical combat as opposed to her usual mystic style. While she and her friends were looking for the others, she felt great points of darkness appear for moments but then vanish as quickly as they would appear.
There is no doubt in her mind Sora and the others must have defeated some of the vessels that were hunting them, or, in this case, waiting for their arrival. Five in total so far, meaning if they could keep this up, and if she were right in thinking Aqua is already fighting Terra, then chances of them reuniting again before confronting Xehanort would greatly increase. At least, she truly hoped so.
The girl's cries of fury brought her out of her calculations, her keyblade swung with both hands into the princess' guard. Kairi's feet are launched off the ground for a second before she lands a few steps from the girl. When she tries to rush the guardian, Prompto jumps in front of Kairi with his triple-barrel gun and fires nine bullets at her. The organization member deflects them all with several swipes of her keyblade, now her target went from Kairi to Prompto.
Prompto quickly dismisses his gun and calls for his switchblade in time to parry a strike from her, letting out a yell when she unleashes a wild flurry of swings at the gunner. Kairi quickly re-joins the clash and takes over the battle immediately, striking back at the girl's furious assault. With a single thrust, Kairi plunged her keyblade at the enemy keyblade and with the precision of a sniper, her tip gets caught within the ring guard of the keyblade.
She quickly yanks both keys out of the girl's hand and throws it over their heads behind her and Prompto. Disarming her adversary with Prompto by her side, Kairi stabbed the keyblade towards the mysterious girl. The girl ducks under the stab, using her right arm to sway it aside underneath the blade while spinning as she takes a step closer to Kairi. The girl grabbed Kairi's wrists and flings her over her shoulder and slams her on her back with a loud thud.
Kairi gasps in pain just as the girl catches Prompto's armed hand and aims it aside just as his finger pulled the trigger. The nobody elbows Prompto in his stomach kicks him in the knee and forced him to collapse thanks to the attack. On one knee, Prompto was blown away by a force spell the girl performs, turning around and aimed her hand at Kairi likely perform a more lethal spell, but Kairi aims her keyblade at her and blasted her with a gust of wind that sends her flying into the air.
Kairi rolls onto her feet as Prompto scrambles to his feet in time to barely evade a wave of blue fire nearly swallow him up. Saix rushes toward him, eyes turning completely yellow with his scar larger and more jagged, even his hair is spiky and unruly. The wild man swung his giant weapon down onto Prompto, forcing him to roll away and take shots at him. His bullets, much to his shock just bounced off the man as if he were covered in armor.
Saix swings his weapon at the gunner, slamming the top of it onto the ground and creating shockwaves of blue flames that almost turned Prompto's boots into toast. Swinging his weapon to Prompto's waist, Saix almost struck the man and likely would have broken him in two, except Prompto backflips from his attacks, and during a flip, he swaps out his robotic limb for his gatling gun. One a knee, he quickly raises it and unloads a barrage of bullets upon the berserker.
Saix remains unfazed by the bullets, raising his claymore to block them as they harmlessly bounced off his steel. Prompto keeps on shooting however, getting to his knees as he unleashes the storm of bullets, smirking. Saix catches that smirk and spins around to quickly block Axel's keyblade from slashing his back. Back-stabbing, of course, Axel would use that tactic.
The pyro and berserker strike each other's steel, despite Saix's superior strength Axel parried and keeps up with the man. Saix was knocked back by a surprising display of strength from Axel's swing during a guard. His feet dig into the ground, but the pyro splits his key back into his chakrams, opens his arms out like a "T" as his chakrams roar with fire. Axel begins to throw several large balls of flames at Saix just as Prompto gets out of the blast zone, each time they met Saix's weapon they would explode into larger balls of explosions.
Even if the blue-haired warrior shares the same element as his former best friend, the flames burn him as much as they would burn anything else. He feels the roaring determination of the man before he had grown stronger. He snarls, and then a burst of light releases around him, the shockwave from this blows out the flames and repels the hurling balls of fire.
Saix's enraged eyes bore into Axel, grunting as he switches back to the keyblade again. Joining his side is the mysterious girl, keyblade in hand and now staring down the trio as Kairi and Prompto join Axel's side.
Wordlessly the girl turns to the entrance of the labyrinth, prompting everyone to see what caught her gaze. Walking towards his friends is none other than Sora, roughed up but otherwise ready for more. Kairi smiles in relief as Prompto and Axel waved the boy down, the gunner grinning. Sora smiles back at them, then turns it into a glare when he stares down Saix and the girl, keyblade already summoned for more.
"Already in need of back up?", Saix taunts calmly, "Thought you were above that".
"Says the guy always getting me to do the dirty work", Axel retorts bitterly.
Before more words were exchanged, the girl unleashes a scream of rage and rushes for Kairi, completely catching everyone off guard and unable to react when she suddenly is right before Kairi. Kairi had nothing less than a second to react and raise her keyblade to prevent a more devastating wound. The keyblade struck hers and throws the girl into the skies, the shadow girl chasing her with fury rivaling a wild animal.
Sora calls for Kairi but isn't able to join her because he was rushed by Saix, nearly crushing him with his massive weapon. Prompto tackles Saix in time with a lunge to save the boy while Axel rushes in to lend a hand to the gunner. Leaving Sora free to give his girlfriend a hand, quickly leaping into the skies to duel the unknown girl.
In the skies, the two wielders of the keyblade clashes with sparks raining down from above, the girl's attacks more aggressive and ferocious with each strike of her keyblade. Kairi was thankful for all the sparring sessions she had with Gladiolus, it made dealing with these runaway truck worthy attacks more manageable for her. But the more she fought the girl, the more she feels a strange connection to her like she somehow knew her.
Her trains of thought were kicked aside when she sees Sora quickly arriving at the occasion and kicks the girl away from Kairi. The organization member backflips as they all descend to the ground, taking the fight back to their familiar territory. The couple quickly retakes their stances, but the girl grabbed her head with both hands and unleashes a wail of anguish and rage, darkness bursting around her like a horrible aura.
Kairi quickly retorts this potentially lethal assault with a spell of light, her free hand bathed in the golden light. She yells: "Banishga!".
Beneath the girl's feet, a burst of light that outshines the darkness erupts and blasts her, making her wails cease into yelps of pain. She is struck several times by the eruption, battered left and right before Sora rushed in and strikes her several times with his keyblade before with one final strike, sent her flying across the field. The girl bounced off the ground and flips in the air, but suddenly teleports from their sight and behind Sora.
He is unable to react in time to defend himself; she strikes him in the back and knocks him up to the air, spins on her heels in time to deflect a ball of magic fired by Kairi. With the ball cast aside, Kairi is immediately on her with her keyblade brought down upon the girl. Their keyblades entered a deadlock, eyes bored into each other as Sora falls on his stomach with a thud.
With Axel and Prompto, Saix is in the air throwing multiple claymores at the two jokers. Each time a claymore strikes the ground, a burst of fiery energy covers the field and forces the two to run around dancing through the explosions. The two guardians of light constantly take shots at the man, Axel throws his chakrams while Prompto shoots at him, but all their attacks seemingly were no more effective than trying to use a glass of water to put out a house fire.
Saix grabbed his weapon of destruction and dives down upon Axel, the pyro swung his keyblade to meet his weapon. It wasn't a fruitful move however, Saix easily brings down Axel's weapon to the ground and when his claymore hits the ground, it makes an eruption of blue fire that sends Axel flying while burning at once. On his back, Axel grunts out and sits up in pain as his former best friend jumps into the air and brings his weapon down.
"Get back here!", yells Prompto, firing the hook-wire from his robotic limb. The sharp spike from the wire pierces through Saix's hood, and with one powerful yank from the gunner, Saix is yanked roughly back to the blonde. He is then roundhouse kicked by Prompto in the jaw, sending him into a wall of their arena with a thud. Prompto then calls for his bazooka and aimed it. "See if you can brush THIS off!", challenges the gunner.
The rocket flies towards Saix and explodes upon impact, covering him temporarily in fire and the entirely in smoke. With a grin, Prompto turns to Axel with a thumbs up, but frowns when Axel gave him the "are you serious look". A yell catches his attention and quickly returning where his gaze was previously, Prompto sees the nobody was mostly unharmed save for a few soot stains, burnt cloth, and some bruises on his face.
"Did you really think that was gonna be enough?", Axel asked impatiently as he gets to his feet. "How many people do you know who can survive a rocket!?", Prompto asks exasperatedly. Axel groaned in response, not bothering to remind the boy about their legion of friends who could survive a house falling on top of them. Saix summons another claymore and grips it with his free hand as his body glows in his lunar light, Axel sensing his strength had reached its peak.
The blue-haired warrior rushes towards Prompto and slammed one weapon right into his stomach. Prompto's lungs are emptied before he is thrown across the arena like he was made of nothing and slammed into the wall with a loud and heavy thud that shook the entire field. The impact so powerful it sent a large crack spreading upwards to the top, the gunner falls off the wall and lies on his stomach, out cold.
Kairi calls his name out in horror while Sora duels the nobody, Axel staring at the fallen comrade in disbelief. He turns his eyes back to Saix, staring back at his friend while dismissing his second weapon, almost unamused. Axel grits his teeth, his grip on the keyblade tightening to the point where his knuckles turned white with rage. Saix raises a brow at him, somewhat surprised he was already this angry over someone he had barely known.
It didn't matter though; he wouldn't last much longer without aid. He huffs and runs towards him, dragging his claymore in the ground before he brings it above his head to crush Axel once and for all. Except Axel changes his keyblade back into his chakrams and bathes them in such blazing heat he was glowing himself with a bright red fire. With a shout and out-stretch of his arms, Axel unleashes a roaring barrier of flames that acted like pillars, surrounding him and blowing Saix back.
The man flips and lands on his feet and looks to see Axel already within range with his keyblade roaring with flames. He reacts quickly to clash with his heated weapon, the two exchanging blows as their steel rings out across the battlefield, red and blue flames roaring around them as Axel's attacks started to go from concentrated and well-timed to him just lashing out wildly and angrily at the man he called a friend.
Saix deflects a swing from Axel and aimed his palm at him as it burns with energy. But Axel quickly slammed his palm against his with burning heat, locking their hands as fire surrounds them both, red and blue clashing as their arms are cloaked in flame. The green-eyed assassin stares down his yellow-eyed enemy, gritting his teeth as the flames burned him. Saix starts to push him back with a single step forward, prompting Axel to swing at him again.
Saix kicked Axel right in his stomach, making him groan out in pain as he loses his grip on Saix's burning hand. This allows the scarred warrior to thrust his claymore at him and only thanks to Axel quickly reacting in time to put his keyblade in front of him was he able to prevent himself from being impaled. The attack knocks him off his feet and forces him into the air for a moment, bent down, and nearly falls to his knees from the attack.
From the distance, while combating with the girl, Kairi spots Axel's bind and after she parries another swing of the keyblade, she struck her in her stomach to knock her back. When at the right distance, Kairi aims her hand and yells: "Bind!". Three large hoops of light appeared around the girl and quickly tightened around her, effectively binding her. The girl thrashes and struggled to break free but her efforts are fruitless.
With her taken care of, for now, Kairi nods to Sora and together they raced towards Axel to lend a hand.
Saix glances at Kairi and Sora running to him and responds to their foolish attempts to help Axel by spinning around on them, swinging his weapon over his shoulders. Slamming his weapon into the ground and fires off six waves of blue fire at them. Caught off guard, Sora and Kairi had no time to dodge the attack and were both struck by the flames. Thrown off their feet and slamming onto the ground, wounded, Saix takes this chance to rush in finally be done with this fight.
"Stop this, Isa!", shouts Axel. A wall of flames roars to life, cutting off Saix from Sora and Kairi. Leaping from the wall of inferno, Axel swings his keyblade once more to try and land a hit on the man. Except without any form of restraint, Saix retaliates by slamming his weapon as hard as his berserker strength could muster into Axel's stomach. Even using the keyblade to soak up the force and damage wasn't enough to stay the attack, forcing Axel to bend the knee and be subdued.
Panting from the pain, Axel glares heatedly at the man, his yellow eyes hiding his emotions and thoughts. His weapon rises, likely to deliver the final blow, but a dark corridor opens behind him. And who else would appear to witness the demise of the traitor to the organization, other than the previous leader of the organization?
"Xemnas…", gritted Axel, glaring.
Xemnas walks up to Saix's side, staring at Axel. "In the past, I once counted on you to deal with traitors", he reflects, giving the red-haired fire user a look as he passes by Saix to stand before Axel. "Now this betrayal outstrips them all. You know what the penalty for betraying the organization is, correct?", he asks. Axel makes a pained smirk, scoffing. "What? Becoming a dusk?", teases Axel. Unamused, Xemnas sighed while shaking his head. "Fool…even that is too good for a man of your dishonesty", he says.
"What final words do you have for your superior?", he asks, morbidly curious. Axel chuckled ruefully, resting a hand on his knee with a shake of his head. "Ooh I've got plenty of words to choose from, but bet'cha want some profound? Something like your human-self would say?", taunts Axel, mocking the man's habit for long-winded speeches. "How about: "You were never my superior"? Would that suffice as final words worthy?".
Disgust etches itself on the "superior's" face, the gale that this traitor still carries even in the face of his execution was admirable indeed, however, misplaced it was. "The rogue pawn, as always. Knocked from the board early in the game", dryly lamented Xemnas. Axel huffs in response as if the idea were too maddening to even be thought of. "You kidding me? Do you know how many people I got rooting for me?", he asks with a cocky smirk.
"I'm even more popular than Iggy, and that guy probably got a legion of fans for him. So sorry boss man…but NOBODY axes Axel". He points to his forehead and says his ever-famous words: "Got it memorized?".
He lunges forth and brings his keyblade down onto Xemnas. Only for the man to grab his keyblade right below the teeth of his flaming key. Axel's eyes widened with surprise and even a small trace of fear. Xemnas however remained stoic and unamused as usual, even though there was a smirk plastered on his face as he drinks in the look Axel displayed. "Is this a keyblade? It seems more of a joke than anything else", mocks the superior.
Before Axel could even comprehend the situation, Xemnas summons his dark thorns and struck the keyblade right between the ring guard and blade. The thorns pierce it and to the shock of the spectators' bar Saix, the keyblade dematerializes into flames before evaporating away into nothing. Axel staggers backward but the superior was far from done with this meddler, blue lighting dances around his hand before with a single wave of his hand, he entraps Axel in a space, isolating him. Amidst the darkness, red lasers surrounded the pyro and with a flick of the superior nobody's wrist, and a barrage of lasers is unleashed upon Axel.
Stuck from all corners and sides, Axel could only stand and take the merciless hits from his former boss, growling and gasping in agony as his body endures this horrible punishment. Only after what felt like thousands of searing hot bullets striking Axel's body, the superior ceases his attack and releases Axel, allowing him to fall to his knees in defeat and pain. With a flick his right hand, a single laser saber outstretches from his palm as he marched towards the man who mucked up so many of their plans.
"Our plans have been dashed by your interventions, far more then I would care to count", says Xemnas. Axel weakly but defiantly glared at his former master, head held high as he readies himself to resign to the fate that lies before him. "But now your constant meddling end here, I will purge that light from you…with darkness!", proclaims Xemnas. He thrusts his palm-laser into Axel, but then before the tip could even reach his heart, the blade was stopped.
Axel looks to see the laser is caught by the hand of the mystery girl, knelt and between the two. Steam rises from her grip on the blade, likely burning into her skin already yet she did not even whimper in pain nor even seemingly register the burning. This even gets Xemnas to address her with bemusement. "Changing sides, again?", he questions.
"…we need him alive…you know that", the girl finally speaks, and to the two masters she almost sounded like Kairi. With a scoff, Xemnas' glare turns even colder and less human, if that were possible. "We only need his heart to forge the key, his soul is of no concern", he lectures. But then there is an expression on his face, as if though he had suddenly remembered something interesting. For a moment there is the smallest trace of shock before it is kicked into the ground and standing over it was a cold and empty smirk.
"Oh…that's right…you were "friends". Then…you can take his life", he instructs. Dismissing his weapon and allowing the girl to stand up and call her keyblade. The girl with her key in hand aims it at Axel to finally remove him from the battle. Yet there is hesitation in her hand, something Kairi had taken note off immediately when she had been secretly healing herself and Sora using a spell Lunafreya taught her.
A shared glance between her and Sora was performed as the boy gets to his feet.
Axel raised his head to the girl, unable to see her face still like the others but somehow he feels that familiar feeling again. The one that cuts his heart and brought tears to his eyes more than he would have liked to admit. Even without seeing her eyes, he just knew there was a great deal of pain residing within her heart, and it felt like his. "Who…are you?", he asked, near pleaded to know. She lets a low gasp escape her, and even tilts her head to look away from him for a moment but returns to face him again.
Her keyblade was then gently gripped by a hand, and when she looks, Sora was there. This time he did not look at her with the eyes of an enemy, but one that cried sympathy and genuine concern for her. Almost like…the other boy.
"Don't do this", he pleads, softly and kindly.
She looks away, but then with teeth clenched to hold back the voice that wanted to express her true anguish, she throws his hand off the keyblade. Sensing her aggression was coming back, Sora jumps back as she chases him.
Sora lifts his keyblade to guard against her attack, slamming her keyblade onto his with crying out in anger. Each strike from her keyblade, Sora could feel her pain, that horrible agonizing pain that had burrowed deep within her heart. A pain he had felt for so long, a great pain no one should have ever be forced to bear. When she slammed her keyblade on to his, she tried to press down and force it down to remove his guard.
But even with all her attacking, Sora refused to strike back. "It's alright! You can stop now!", he says, no, he begs. Tears were running down his eyes, shocking her. Her hands shake as she stares at the boy's face, the same tear-stained face she had been on the receiving end in the past. The tears of someone who endured a horrible pain and loss, the same feeling on the day she had perished, her only memories of the boy who shared that special connection to her heart bore that anguish as she.
"It's alright…Xion".
She gasps…and then tears ran down her cheeks. Slowly memories of her old life came flooding back to her, not the painful days of her discovery but the days she had spent with two of the most important people to her heart. Days on the clock tower, eating ice cream and taking the sunset in, friends by her side as their existence slowly grew with purpose. More memories rush into her, making her clutch her head and thrash as her keyblade falls to the ground. Her cries of pain and misery echoing throughout the labyrinth, only to be cut off when Xemnas teleports right in front of her and Sora just before she could look at Axel.
"Useless puppet", spat Xemnas.
With a kick to the girl's stomach, she was thrown into Sora, and both fall to the ground, her hood finally falling back to reveal herself to the world again. She looked almost like a complete twin to Kairi two years prior before their adventures started, having her blue eyes and virtually the same haircut, though her hair is black, and her bangs part on a different side, some tucked behind her right ear.
Axel even flinches and grabbed his head but his eyes open wide quickly when the name he had been so desperate to remember came back to him. "Xion…", he whispers, memories opening in his heart. "XION!", he shouts as Xemnas approaches to finish her off. With adrenaline rushing in his veins and even with his body nearly breaking apart, Axel lunges to Xemnas with a cry. The superior only turns his head slightly grant the man the smallest bit of attention before he fires a laser that struck him in the chest.
Even a direct hit like that did nothing the halt Axel as he took a swing to the man's jaw. Xemnas merely sidesteps him and trips him up and allows the man to fall by Xion's side. Axel rolled onto his side and stares heatedly at Xemnas, placing himself between the man and Xion instinctively. "A broken body and keyblade, but you still think you can play the role of a guardian of light?", mocks Xemnas.
"Screw you…", growls Axel, forcing himself to stand up and adamantly stand between Xion and Xemnas. Even staggering to stand while clutching his left arm, the burning determination runs within the man's eyes, now more than ever determined to keep the girl he failed before safe. Xemnas however, unimpressed by the stubbornness of his worst subordinate. "It figured, you would throw your life away for a failure…a mistake that should never have been created", cruelly proclaims Xemnas.
"Don't you dare…call her that…", Axel growled out, "She's NOT a mistake!".
Xemnas laughs mirthlessly as if Axel had said the funniest thing he had ever heard. He cruelly fires another laser at the man, striking him in the knee and this forced Axel to bend the knee at him. Another laser fired, and another, and another until Axel is forced on both knees, wounded and unable to get up. "A puppet and a traitor… at least rejoice. You'll both die together, and this time you will be forgotten by all".
Before the laser that would take Axel's head was fired, a gunshot rings out and Xemnas is struck in the chest by three bullets. He staggered back with a grunt, using his laser saber to destroy the other oncoming bullets that almost found a home in his head. Xemnas glanced to see Prompto with the gun in hand, all wounds healed and eyes burning with resentment. He marched towards then man as Kairi quickly rushes to Axel and Xion, and when Xemnas tries to strike Axel again Prompto shoots.
Destroying the bullets again, Xemnas regards Prompto with an impassive look. "The failed experiment", he mocks as Prompto stands in front of Axel and keeps his gun trained on the superior. "Ardyn did say the king of light picked up a malfunctioned MT…", he muses, before he cruelly chuckled, "Oh, I see…do you feel a kinship towards the puppet? Both of you were failures in your little ways, after all".
"…says the biggest nobody of them all", Prompto spits bitterly, "Using and tossing everyone aside when they aren't any use to you". Xemnas raises a brow at the sudden bravado the gunner carried within him. Looking at his robotic limb where the lingering tattoo that once marked him, Prompto feels that irritation on his wrist for a moment before he clutches his gun tightly and stares down Xemnas. "I dunno what the whole story is about her, but what do know is she's no different than me, Kairi or anyone else here…", he says confidently. "It doesn't matter how she was made or where she came from. She's got friends waiting for her to come home, and there's no way you're gonna take all that away from her!".
Prompto unleashes several shots onto Xemnas, the man using his laser sabers to protect himself just as Saix runs into the fray. The gunner yanks out a disc-shaped device from his back pocket and flings it to Saix, yelling: "Heads up!". The disc lands on the ground just before Saix and then a burst of electricity creates a dome around Saix and shocks him into place, making him roar with pain as Prompto takes more shots at Xemnas.
Xemnas teleports before the blonde swipes his laser saber at him, Prompto in response raises his robotic limb to catch the attack and guard against it. Xemnas' blade doesn't cut through the limb, much to his surprise as Prompto smirks at him. "My girl is the best mechanic in the worlds, even laser proof!", Prompto brags, quickly aiming the gun at Xemnas' head with his left hand. "But is your skull bulletproof?".
Before Prompto could pull the trigger, however, he gasps when a searing heat runs through his stomach, and he glanced down to see Xemnas' left hand was resting on the gunner's stomach with the laser piercing his stomach. Prompto drops the gun as his body staggers and slowly slumps to the side, Kairi and Axel screaming his name. Xemnas spares a glance to the fallen gunner clutching his stomach as he bleeds, groaning in pain before turning to the remaining guardians.
"There will be no more delays, your lights will be purged", he states confidently, calling both lasers to his hands.
Just when he is about to bring down the numbers of the guardians, Sora's body shines with light as a heart suddenly leaves his body and soars to the skies. No sooner had the heart vanish, a giant pillar of light rockets down to the battlefield. Xemnas quickly leaped away from it, fearing not even he could survive a full-on collision from this light. Dust flies up as the guardians are hidden within the cloud, Xemnas sensing a familiar presence returned to the realm of light.
"It…cannot be…", he says, disbelievingly.
But it was who exactly he thought it was, as the cloud is cleared. Standing in front of his friends like a shining beacon of hope, two familiar keyblades in hand, and with a simple lift of his hood, Roxas stands before his former superior.
"Roxas…", Axel gasps, grinning.
The key of destiny turned to his friend with a small smile and replied: "My turn now". The raven-haired girl looks up at him, uttering his name as she and Axel stand together. He gives her a beautiful and warm smile that made her lips form a joyous smile. Slowly behind them, Sora rises to his feet as Kairi immediately tends to Prompto's wounds, the blond smiling weakly. Roxas looks at him with a grateful smile, saying: "Thanks".
"No need to thank me, divine intervener", Prompto groaned out, coughing.
"This is impossible…where did you get a vessel?", commanded Xemnas, glaring at the boy who defied fate. Roxas in response stares daggers at the man who had caused himself and his beloved friends so much pain. "Same as you. Most of the organization's members, their hearts here traveled to the past as hearts", explains Roxas. "You had replicas ready for every one of them, waiting".
Xemnas grunted out in restrained anger, another traitor amongst them had once again benefitted the guardians of light. "And who told you?", he ordered. "Too many to list right now, but let's just say you know a good majority of them", Roxas hints as he raised his keyblade to the man. A cruel realization dawns on the superior's face as he seethed. "Ansem the Wise…Zexion…", he lists with a scowl. "And that's just the scrapping of the surface", Roxas says, before tauntingly says: "Looks like you're not as good at winning over people's hearts as you think".
"But there was one last thing I needed to be whole again. A connection, and who better to help me connect than the very person who connected us all?", he says as Sora recalled his keyblade. One glance to Kairi and Prompto, his wound healed although he was still unfit to resume immediately, Sora sees the girl giving him a confident nod. With five keyblade wielders all together and even with Prompto at a distance, the odds of victory had greatly increased on their ends.
Together they all raced towards the two nobodies, weapons held high as morale skyrockets to the heavens.
Saix immediately runs in, however, going for Roxas and Xion. He is intercepted by a trio of bullets that forced him to sidestep, they zoomed past his head and through his blue locks. Axel immediately brought the keyblade down on his claymore, striking it with enough force that Saix is pushed backward and with another swipe of his burning keyblade, Axel knocks it out of the way of his torso. Axel slammed the blade into his stomach and ignited his weapon's tip to create a small explosive burst that finally harmed the berserker and blasted him away.
With Saix being handled by Axel and Prompto, the four keyblade wielders took their fight to Xemnas. Sora is the first to reach him and engage in a battle of laser and steel, his divine weapon bouncing off the weapons of choice. Xemnas huffs and with a single riposte swats Sora aside, leaving Xion and Roxas to rush in with the former skirting around behind the superior while her best friend takes to the air and brings down Oblivion down onto the man who took him into the organization.
Xemnas managed to hold back both keys from his former subordinates despite being attacked from two sides, the gap in power between them is clear. Even as Roxas and Xion pressed down on his laser blades, the man smirks and easily repelled them both by swinging his weapons around and disengaged their weapons. He shoots dark energy at Roxas and sends him flying before spinning around and kicking Xion in the shoulder and knocking her aside.
The final keyblade wielder close to him jumps down from above with her hands gripping the keyblade tightly. He crosses his lasers in an X formation to hold back her attack, but Kairi's keyblade cuts through the lasers and destroys them, rendering him defenseless. Shock dances in his eyes as Kairi lands and rushes into him with a flurry of strikes while he levitates away from her amazing display of skill. Not even Sora had the strength to break through his lasers.
Grunting while flicking his wrists to call forth more of his laser sabers, Xemnas clashes with Kairi as she relentlessly keeps moving forward while parrying his lasers. The determination in her eyes, no traces of fear within them, and her light shining so brightly it almost left the man of nothingness speechless, this was not the same girl his second in command had brought to them a year ago. A true guardian of light that stands amongst her peers.
But still, she bares the same great weakness Sora will always carry.
He glances at Xion getting to her feet and made sure to take as long as it took for Kairi to follow his gaze long enough to put two and two together on what he was about to do. He snaps his fingers and then a ring of lasers trained on Xion surrounds the raven. Kairi tosses her keyblade at Xemnas in retaliation before she turned and aiming her hand at Xion, chants a quick spell to encase the girl in a dome of light.
The lasers bounced harmlessly off the dome, Xion is saved. And that was exactly what the man hoped for. He quickly turned his palm onto Kairi who only realized too late what the man was doing, and fired tendrils of grey and black at her. Upon touch, Kairi is levitated and trapped in an aura of grey and darkness, letting out several whimpers and groans with her strength being sapped away, a sudden wave of weakness washes over her body as she slumps in the barrier.
"Kairi!", shouts Sora.
The boy rushes towards Xemnas, blinded by concern and rage. The superior turns swiftly and aimed his free hand at the boy and struck him with the same sapping energy and traps him. With both masters levitating by his side, trapped as their light and strengths are being sapped away, Xemnas smirked coldly at the four guardians before him, Saix standing right in front of the master like a guard.
"Now watch…as your friends wither away to nothing", he smugly taunts as the two masters groan out weakly.
Prompto growls and feels sweat run down his forehead, the tables have turned on them in less than a minute. He looks at Kairi's withering form, eyes closed as painfilled whimpers escape her as he sensed her getting weaker and weaker, his grip on his gun tightening. He shares a glance at Roxas, his teeth bared as the boy's anger rises, both of them nodded and readied themselves.
Making the first move, Roxas runs in toward a flying Xemnas, going for the toughest one first while Xion and Axel trail behind him. Saix snarls and then several levitating heads of his claymores surround his body before he propels himself towards the three friends, but Prompto runs in and swaps out his gatling gun for his rocket punch. With a quick aim, he launches the rocket arm towards the berserker and quickly swaps out the connections with another weapon.
The arm struck Saix in the shoulder and knocked him back to the ground and on his feet. Yellow enraged eyes snapping towards Prompto, but Axel quickly obscured his view and stood in front of the man. Xion dashes past him and leaps towards Xemnas with Roxas in tow. The two younger teens swing their keyblades at their previous leader, Xemnas meeting their keyblades with his laser-sabers and maintaining his levitation while they use their air-dashing to keep up with him.
With Xemnas handled, Axel turned on Saix as the man's blue flames grow more intense, his rotating claymores surrounding him. As much as his ego hated to accept it, Saix was more powerful than the red-haired keyblade wielder had expected, maybe even a master level of strength. With Prompto having his back he might be able to pull off another lucky win, but he isn't an idiot, even their strength is enough, and it would be a matter of time before Roxas and Xion would fall to Xemnas.
Time to get serious…
Axel switches his keyblade back into his chakrams, stretches his arms out in his usual T-pose stance, and then unleashes a roar. Flames suddenly cloak around the pyro, roaring fire that acted like an aura imitating a volcanic eruption as Axel's chakrams suddenly burst into wheels of flame. Axel's eyes glowed in fiery light, flames licking his shoulders as golden red tattoos resembling his old tear marks appeared on his face, the chakrams silver was turned into crimson with golden flames licking the spikes. Axel tilts his head up as the flames around his weapons and body grew hotter and more intense.
With a wild grin plastered on his face as all sense of self-preservation and caution against Saix's berserker tendencies were thrown out the window, Axel exclaims: "LET'S TURN UP THE HEAT!".
Axel dashes towards his old friend, leaving a trail of flames as his levitates above the ground and brings his chakrams down to Saix. His speed dramatically catches Saix off guard, allowing him to slash his chest with a burning chakram. His steel cuts the berserker's cloak and even spreads small embers along with it, even his fire couldn't compare to the heat Axel carried. Axel dances around him while throwing his lethal weapons, striking his body and weapon while fire dances around him.
Saix leaps back into the air and throws his claymore at the pyro. Axel raises a wall of fire behind him and leaped back into it, disappearing just when the weapon struck the ground and fires a shockwave. Axel's wall of flames appears and he propels him out of it and soars towards Saix from behind, catching him off guard and striking him in the back. Saix grunts out in pain but Axel aimed his left hand behind him and fires a torch of flames blasts the two of them back to the ground. Slamming Saix on his stomach, Axel slams the face of his chakram down on his back and scorches his body. The flames covered the ground and turned the earth into a floor of burning earth as Axel uses more flames to create a dome of flames.
Cutting Saix off from helping Xemnas and keeping the others safe, Axel jumps off him and dances on the spot, chakrams rotating in his hands as the man gets up, raged coating his face as the blue flames grow more intense. Axel laughing wildly says: "Come on, LET'S KEEP THIS UP!". They rushed in and clashed, flames of opposite colors clashing as the steel bends and melts each other's, Saix landing blows on Axel's more lanky frame but the assassin slices and cuts Saix in retaliation.
Axel jumps back while throwing his chakrams at him, the wheels spinning quickly and appearing as pure disc-shaped flames that roared. Saix swipes them aside and tosses his weapon at Axel, the man front flipping over it as it gets absorbed by the flaming wall. Axel recalls his chakrams and skirts around Saix, getting behind him and swung them both up his back, cutting cloth and flesh. Saix is launched into the air and Axel gives chase, striking him several times and drawing more blood from his old friend as his flames flicker wildly.
His arm is caught by Saix and the berserker lands a solid jaw-breaking punch to Axel's face, halting his momentum and staggering him. He swung Axel over his shoulder and slammed him back onto the ground with enough force to leave a body imprint on the burning earth. Axel grunts and spits out blood but then he wildly grins as he grabbed the arm holding his in place and sends his crimson flames up Saix's sleeve.
This causes Saix to release his grip on Axel and quickly uses his flames to overwhelm the opposing fire to control it. Axel rolled on his feet swiftly, aiming both hands at his foe and fired a giant ball of fire that smashed into Saix and rockets them both to the wall of fire before detonating. Saix collapsed to his knee, his uniform smoking with embers and burns, but when he raised his head to Axel, his teeth were bared as his hair becomes spikier and more beast-like. Saix suddenly launches himself forward, tackles Axel so hard they both break through the dome of fire and escape it.
Running with Axel still in his arms, Saix slammed him into the wall with so much force he almost buried Axel into the wall itself. One he is stuck in the stone, Saix begins to beat Axel repeatedly by punching him, each punch pushes Axel deeper into the rocky wall. Axel groans in pain with each blow, knocking his senses out along with the air in his lungs.
Saix reels his fist back but when he tries to punch him, it is constricted. Looking at it he sees a wire had wrapped around his wrist like a snake and following the wire he sees a lone robotic limb planted from the elbow. He glowered at the position of the hand, a single middle finger up-right.
He turned to Axel but Prompto suddenly appeared in front of him with a large machine-like weapon in his hand. He slammed the weapon's barrel against his stomach, the machine purred to life as it sucked in the air around them. Prompto pulls the trigger and blasts Saix with what could only be described as having a runaway train smash right into his stomach going a thousand miles a minute. Rocketed across the battlefield until he slammed into the opposite wall, Saix crashes into the wall and is somewhat buried within it.
Prompto drops the machine and helps pry Axel out of the wall, breaking some stone along the way while hearing his friend groan and grunt in pain. It took a bit of extra effort on the gunner's end due to the restrictions Axel's prison endowed on them but Prompto managed to yank him out and onto his knees despite how deep Saix's brutal beating put the man in. Axel grunts out in pain, but he instantly shoots back to standing up, grinning crazily while summoning his weapons.
Xion strikes Xemnas just as she ducks underneath his laser blade and slammed Two Become One into his stomach. Her attack may not be as painful as Sora or even Kairi's but sending Xemnas flying through the air and then seeing Roxas descend upon him while wildly swinging his keyblades he gave her satisfaction she had caused harm to this man who had taken so much from her and those she held dear.
Roxas strikes his former superior with both keyblades, not cutting him per se but damaging him none the less with the powers of light and darkness. Wild flurries of keyblades before slamming them both down on his shoulders, slicing through with trails of light and darkness following their respective keys. The two glared at each other following his attack, teeth bared as Xemnas kicks the boy from him and weakly hovers in the air.
Before Xemnas could do anything however, a golden trail of light suddenly shines upwards and skirts right in front of his eyes, blinding him. A Starshell from Prompto as Axel forms up with his friends. "Roxas! Xion!", Axel yelled. Together with the two teens nodding at once, glimmers of light shining on their hearts just before they all ran towards Xemnas, Axel proclaiming: "Let's get back what's ours!". They both yelled in agreement as Xion, Roxas, and Axel jumped from three different directions just as Xemnas' sight starts to return.
They all bypassing him, swinging their weapons and cutting into the man who had taken so much from them. Landing in a perfect triangle from their former master, Xemnas hovers in the air bent over as a small sphere of light leaves his body. It forms an "X" of light before splitting into three rays of the beautiful light that struck all three former nobodies' hearts.
Raising their hands where the light touched their hearts, the same "X" appears hovering in their palms.
"Is this…is this the Sigil?", questions the girl softly, holding it so dearly. Axel confirms her suspicions and says: "Yup, the mark Xemnas gave us. Its what connected us from the start". With a small soft smile appearing on his lips, almost in a nostalgic look, Axel hummed. "It's the very foundation of the bond we share". Holding it in his hands, it just then struck Axel that for all the evil his former boss had done in the past, in a strange twist of fate he is the sole reason he met Xion and Roxas.
In a way, Xemnas was the one who brought them all together for the first time. And even now, technically he brought Xion to Axel, and in turn, Roxas returned to them as well. He scoffs, dismissing his Sigil as Roxas and Xion joined his side with Prompto aiming his gun back at the nobody ruler. "The mark will disappear along with Xemnas, and that's fine", Roxas says, accepting. "I just wanted to reclaim it for myself".
"This is the connection we needed", says Xion warmly. "That's why you needed Sora's help, so we can end this battle once and for all".
"…Okay umm not to ruin your moment but uh…you are gonna explain all that later right?", Prompto asks, "Because I am lost".
"You're not the first buddy…", Axel sighed.
Roxas rolled his eye while Xion giggles, then they turn to see behind Xemnas the two masters were on the ground, free of whatever curse the man marked them with. The boy senses they were safe although their strengths had taken a horrible hit, and judging by how much of a struggle the two showed just to raise on the elbows, Roxas feared they wouldn't be able to re-join them so soon. He turned his eyes back onto Xemnas, who callously smirked at them.
"That connection of yours…is nothing but an illusion", he mocks, darkness raising around him along with the grey energy as he levitates into the air. Prompto quickly aims but is then surrounded by a ring of lasers that quickly struck his body. He yells out and falls to his knees, his body a far cry from the durable form of the others as usual while Axel shouts his name and turns to Xemnas. Axel calls his chakrams and emblazes them with more fire and tosses them both at Xemnas.
They chakrams however were quickly repelled by flying lasers, blasting them aside. Unarmed but not out of the fight, Axel reels his arm back to toss a large ball of fire. However, during his toss, he freezes and then grunts out as the flames on his shoulders go out, eyes returning to normal and his tattoos fading away.
He groaned in agony and falls to his knee, heaving and shaking profusely. Quickly Xion and Roxas runt to him to inspect him, while Xemnas laughs in victory. "Pathetic…your new power came at a cost, it seems", he mocks. Xion looked at Axel and with a grunt of frustration escaping him, he confirms the insult. He knew the form he took on was going to come with a serious hangover of sorts but this pain felt as if his bones were all ground to dust and every beating he took from Saix came in full swing on his body.
"I do not need hearts…I will scatter them all to the winds…", proclaims Xemnas as he crosses his arms and then opens them up. Entrapping the four guardians in a den of darkness where the only light sources were the thousands of lasers glowing within the void of shadows. Roxas and Xion gasped and looked around to survey their predicament, slowly realizing that the superior may uphold his claims and rid them from the face of the world.
"Begone, worthless pawns!", Xemnas bellows as he unleashes a storm of lasers upon the four. The blazing red beams fly towards the four, Roxas quickly flipping around and deflecting them to protect the three. Xion quickly tries to huddle Prompto and Axel close as she could to at least cover them from the attack, joining Roxas in protecting them. Roxas and Xion dance and flipped around the two older friends deflecting the lasers as best as they could, but unlike Sora and Riku's battle where even weary as they were they had succeeded in warding off the attack unharmed, the two less experienced wielders of the keyblade's defense is a far cry.
Even as agile and skilled as they were, none had been spared a hit. Roxas takes a hit to his shoulder while Xion receives on in the stomach, and many more hits find homes on their bodies. And the blasts were seemingly unending, likely Xemnas had more than enough power to fire as many as he wanted until there would be nothing remaining of the four guardians.
The four guardians were pinned down, Kairi slowly musters enough of her sapped strength to rest on her elbows and witness her friends in peril. She bows her head in dismay, weakened by Xemnas' curse to the point where even a direct hit from her keyblade would be no more lethal than a bug bite and even her magic would probably barely flutter half a foot from her. Kairi glances to Sora to see he is in no better state than she, probably more so with all the fighting he has been doing.
No potion could fix her state, any healing requiring mana would only lessen her pool of mana and strength and likely waiting for help is a sure-fire way to see her friends perish. Looking at her hands, slowly concluding that the promise she had not made, had finally come back to her. Closing her eyes, knowing that whatever happens will be out of her hands, and for all she knew, it may be her undoing in the end.
But she promised she would keep Sora safe, just as he would do for her. And that promise extends to his nobody.
Grunting and groaning with exhaustion and pain, Kairi slowly rises to her feet, keyblade called but remarkably heavier than ever as it dragged her hand down. Marching towards the dome trapping her friends whilst dragging her keyblade in the dirt, Sora weakly calling her name to plead her to stop whatever she was planning, the princess of light raises her hand, golden light shines brilliantly as it opens the dome.
Bypassing it, she marched slowly and weakly towards her friends, the lasers fixed on them instead of her. Xemnas notices the girl but does nothing as she got closer to the others. Kairi inhales deeply and breaks into a sprint as the lasers firing quickens to near gatling levels of speed. She jumps into the middle of the storm and levitates above her friends as she spread her arms and legs out, crying out as light bursts from her. Roxas and Xion looked up to see a divine light race down from the skies and shields the four from the lasers.
Kairi immediately feels the horrible strain on her body and heart as she cries out in pain, head downcast as she squints her eyes shut to fight the pain. This agony never happened to her when she fought the Horned King, never had she felt something was wrong when she uses this light. But her worries were cast aside, her friends needed her to be their shield and she was going to make sure they would all go home together.
Facing Xemnas as his lasers stuck her pillar of light, she cries out: "HOLY!".
The pillar shines with the most divine light the entire combatants had ever witnessed, the pillar expanding and covering the field that the dome claimed, the lasers swallowed up by the powerful light that was Kairi's will and power. Xemnas was forced to teleport away from the wall as it closes in on him, even he would not risk testing his resilience against such pure light. When the pillar touched the dark dome entrapping them, Kairi screams and uses every ounce of her light to break free.
Outside, Sora sees several thin rays of light pierce the dome until a burst of shining light breaks free and blinds all who witnessed it.
The light faded away; silence falls on the battlefield. Sora got to his knee and looks to see Kairi still levitating in the air but feels her light had diminished to almost nothing. Kairi's skin looked so pale and frail like she had suffered a horrible sickness all her life and her keyblade disappeared from her hand. She could barely look at him before she falls back into a slumber and falls to the earth.
But before any of the guardians could catch her, she is caught by a reappearing Xemnas. Sora's eyes shoot open in terror as their friends screamed her name while she is being held by the waist, slumped like a doll.
Sora yells out and breaks into a frantic sprint for the nobody, leaping towards him while crying out Kairi's name. He doesn't even get within range of the two before Saix reappears in front of him and swings his claymore at him. Sora quickly dashes backward in the air and away from Saix, landing back on his feet and watches Xemnas opening a dark corridor in the air. "What difference does one little light make? You have others", Xemnas questions mockingly, "Just as we have more darkness to replenish our ranks".
"Let her go!", Sora shouts, "If you hurt her, I swear I'll make you pay!". Callously smirking, Xemnas says: "If she means that much to you, then come after me, Sora". He disappears into the corridor with Kairi in tow, Sora crying out her name one more time before she is taken away from him. Clenching his fists in anger, Sora returns his angry gaze to Saix and growls. Saix almost starts to rush at him, but then he is struck in the side by Roxas and cast aside, the boy giving chase.
Sora watches him before he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks to see Prompto placing an elixir in his hands. He helps crush the bottle and replenishes Sora's strength, then pats him on the back. "Go", instructs Prompto, smiling. Sora looked at him before the gunner points down the open passageway leader further into the ruins.
"Go after Kairi, we'll take care of Saix", assures Prompto. Sora looked at his friend with remorse, ashamed that he was putting Kairi above everyone else, especially when he was needed. "What are you waiting for?", Axel calls out, clutching his wounded arm as Xion heals him. The two looked at the pyro before he gestures the passageway, smirking at the kid. "Go save her royal butt, we can handle Isa".
"Besides, didn't you promise you'd keep her safe?", Xion asks playfully with a warm smile. Sora looks between the three, before nodding and thanking them. Patted his shoulder one more time, Prompto gives him a thumbs up before Sora sprints after Kairi and Xemnas, leaving the others to deal with Saix. Xion looked at Axel with a firm look, "We'll handle this, I'll fight in Kairi's place, while Roxas fights in yours", she assured. "And good ole blondie fights for Sora", finishes Axel. "Somebodies gotta pick up the slack", jokes Prompto, running into the fight with Xion.
Roxas takes several steps while attacking Saix, using his superior mobility and dual-wielding style to overwhelm the berserker long enough for Xion to jump over Roxas and slam her keyblade down onto Saix' shoulder. The roars out in pain before the girl jumps over him and Prompto jumps in with his machine weapon, spewing a cloud of violet smoke. Saix coughed as the poisonous air filled his lungs and burned his eyes, but Xion strikes him in the back, cutting into him.
He slammed his claymore into the earth with enough force the clear the area of Prompto's poison cloud and even pushed back the guardians. Saix turns around and slammed his weapon down onto Xion, who raises her keyblade to block his attack with surprisingly solid defenses. Though her knees buckle under the massive weight and force behind his weapon, Xion holds him in place for Prompto to fire nine bullets at Saix, five of them hitting him as he calls for his floating claymores to shield him.
Roxas rushes in with keyblades crossed over his arms and cuts through his wall. But before he was able to attack again, Saix grabbed his face and slams the boy into the earth hard enough to break the earth beneath them. Xion glides to Saix and rescues her friend by unleashing a wild torrent of strikes upon Saix, cutting and beating him with light and darkness embedded within the keyblade as they glide above the ground.
Xion thrusts the keyblade into Saix but one sidestep from the man causes the girl to miss and expose herself to him. He smashed his weapon into the girl and smacks her across the battlefield, bouncing off the ground and slamming onto her stomach, keyblade falling out of her hands. Saix turns his gaze onto Prompto, gun in his left hand while his right arm now wears the driller modification, spinning quickly and frantically. Prompto runs at him, firing more shots from his triple barrelled weapon, all blocked or deflected by Saix as he glides to the man.
When Saix swung his weapon at Prompto, his devastating weapon is met by the drill and their collision combined with the speed and sharpness of the drill was enough for Prompto to pierce through and almost land in between the eyes of the berserker. Saix releases his grip on the weapon and lets it disappear into blue embers and calls for another just as Prompto tries to drill a hole into the man.
Saix's hands were already armed with another claymore and with a swift swing, he decimates the drill arm and renders it into pieces. Prompto yells in shock as he witnesses his weapon be reduced to scrap metal, and already dreading how enraged Cindy was going to be. He just managed to get away from Saix before he pummelled him into a paste by rolling away and taking several steps back from him while taking shots at him.
Reluctantly Prompto unlocks the connections of the drill arm and lets the holster fall like it was raining scrap metal before he quickly calls out for another limb to take its place. Saix tosses his claymore at the gunner, only for Prompto to toss his revolver up in the air and front flip over the weapon but still he grabbed the handle of the weapon. Once on his feet, he spins around and tosses back the claymore at Saix.
The blue-haired warrior is caught off guard by this display of strength and is struck in the chest by the massive head of the weapon. Prompto's new arm materializes from the pocket dimension as he shoots a charged triple shot from his revolver the moment he catches it from falling from above. The three charged bullets struck home onto Saix's shoulder and two in the chest, exposing him to be wide open for the fatal blow.
Feeling his new weapon lock-in with his metal stump, Prompto aims and says: "Game over!". Until he looked at his arm and gawked in dismay and embarrassment. It was the biscuit cannon…again. "OH, COME ON! OF ALL THE FREAKING TIMES!", bemoans Prompto as he stares at his limb with frustration. "Why did I bring you!? Wait… *why* did I bring you instead of that flame thrower mod!?".
His frustrated ramblings were cut short when Saix suddenly appeared before him and slammed the claymore on top of the gunner and pinned him to the ground. Coughing out blood as Saix pressed the large head of the claymore down on Prompto's stomach, the blonde stares up at the berserker. He firmly placed a foot on Prompto's chest to hold him there as he grips the weapon with both hands and raises it above his head.
"W-Whoa! Hang on, don't I get a last request? O-Or anything like that?", groans out Prompto, chasing his arm. A brow twitches on Saix's face before with a sigh, he asks: "What?". Prompto raises his biscuit gun and presses a button on the surface of it, popping out a biscuit into his hand. "…can I eat this before I die? Don't wanna go to the other side on an empty stomach, ya know?", Prompto asks with a sheepish grin.
Saix's brow furrows in impatience and irritation, this man reminded him too much of Demyx. "Is that your true wish? To eat a worthless morsel before perishing?", questions Saix with disbelief. "I'd like to live…buuuuuut chances of you letting me go are kinda slim to nothing, right?", groans Prompto, "So I'll ask Xion".
Saix grunts and spins around too late to stop Xion from striking him in the shoulder with all her might, the teeth of the keyblade dug into him. She flips and while upside down aims her keyblade at his chest and fires a beam of light that struck him with enough power to send him flying away from Prompto. Saix's heels dug into the ground but it was fruitless, for when he stops and raises his head, Roxas is already before him.
With his arms crossed as light shines beautifully around his body, the nobody of the chosen wielder of the keyblade dashes towards Saix. He opens his arms and strikes Saix with all his might, finally bringing down the berserker for the final time. Landing behind the man who had torn his friends apart in the past, Roxas pants and collapsed to a knee while Xion tends to Prompto, helping him to his feet as Saix tries to stand from the attacks his body had endured, but not even with the darkness given by Xehanort was he able to bear much more.
Darkness pours from his body and raises to the skies like the others before him, his weapon disappearing as he falls to his knees in defeat. Axel, still unfit for battle, runs to his dying friend while Roxas and Xion checked on Prompto. Letting their oldest friend give what they feared his final goodbyes to Saix.
Standing over his fallen enemy, his friend, Axel could not help the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. He should have been happy it was over; he had gotten two of his best friends back, he helped in the clash and now Saix would be recomplete. Yet seeing his friend in this state, reduced to being disgraced once more for the man who had taken so much from them, he felt fury and despair. Saix merely chuckles however when he looked at Axel as if he were not expecting him to weep.
"Why…so sad?", Saix asked with a lazy smirk. Axel hisses as the tears slowly form in his eyes, with a swing of his arm, he yelled: "You let them reduce you to this?". Saix looks at him with bemusement and says: "I thought…you outgrew the markings underneath your eyes". Axel subconsciously places two fingers on where his old tattoos used to be before he hitches a breath and asks why Saix was bringing them up.
"You look like you need them, now", Saix remarks, playfully. "Stop it…this act…everything you've done…I thought it was all for her", Axel says, his voice tinted with pain and remorse. "At first…", confessed Saix, his eyes cast down to the earth. "I sacrificed everything to try and track her down", he reminisces, "But you were the one who went off and made other friends, leaving me and her in the dust".
Prompto and the other two watch the interaction with sadness, somehow feeling the same pain this man had endured. The gunner looked at his robotic limb, feeling the tattoo mark haunting him again as Saix's words struck a chord within his heart. Left behind by someone who meant so much to you for other friends, that one friend you could not replace but being replaced yourself must have hurt beyond any words.
"It infuriated me…how you just exited our lives", Saix says, grunting as his life force begins to fade away, a hand placed on his chest as his strength fades. "I lost…all sense of purpose". Axel is immediately by his side, a hand placed on his shoulder as he comforts his best friend. "I didn't forget you…or her…", he says, his voice fragile and close to tears. "I…know…I knew you wouldn't do that".
Saix looks towards the three new friends of Axel, and even confessed: "I was…jealous". Axel gasps lowly and with a fragile smirk, he teases: "You admit it". Saix scoffs this off, knowing this man will hold it over him until he finally passes onto the next world. Axel pats his back as his smirk fades into sadness, realizing this man was about to pass on, and who knows when they will see each other again. "Well…next time you come around, maybe you could hang out with his buddies too".
Saix and Axel looked at Prompto, sporting a knowing smile as he holds up his hand. "My friends accepted me, even despite knowing I'm not like everyone else. So…maybe instead of staying behind, why not just go with your friend next time?", suggest the gun user. "I mean…the more the merrier, right?".
Saix chuckles lowly at the gunner, amazed that he would offer to befriend him even after such a brutal fight. Truly Sora must pick the strangest of people to be friends with. "Well…if I do make it back, none of you will get it out me a second time", warns Saix as he stands on his knees. But even that was too much for him as he slumps to the side in Axel's arms, his body slowly evaporating into nothing.
A shared glance of sorrow between the two, a hidden promise is made between the long-time friends.
"See you, Isa", Axel says.
"See you, Lea", Saix hums before he vanishes into the void.
Kneeling still as he takes in the grief and pain of losing his friend again, Axel heaves a watery sigh before he holds the tears back. As Prompto said, the next time they met he'll be part of the gang. There will be plenty of ice cream to share after all.
The man gets to his feet as Prompto approached him. "I'm gonna go on ahead, try to catch up to Sora", Prompto says, "You guys rest up and meet us later, cool?". Axel nods and gives him a bro-fist, smiling at him. "Thanks…", he says. Prompto grinned and nods to him and the others, then sprints after Sora.
Axel watches him leave as Roxas joined his side, he mutters "what now" to himself. He glances at Roxas and sees the boy's smile, making himself replicate the sentiment. But they hear sniffling and sobs behind the boy and turned to see Xion crying. Instantly seeing the tears, Roxas rushes to her to help while Axel awkwardly stays behind and sheepishly says: "Guess I…should've brought some ice cream…".
The two looked at him as Xion's tears don't stop and Roxas' own eyes go watery. With a shaky smile before his tears flowed forth, Axel stumbled forward and all three embraced each other. Unashamedly crying as his two best friends lay their foreheads against his chest while embracing him, his arms around them protectively.
Their sobs cut deeply into his heart, yet Axel couldn't help but smile that he could hold them again, be with them once more. The pain that haunted them for so long had finally been lifted…A/N: I have no idea how the hell this went on longer than it had any right to…
I am sorry if the fighting was so good, I am just so burned out from all the fighting and worked hard to get this one done. We have got more to do sadly, so hope no one's sick of them as I am. But hey, next time is Noctis and co vs Vanitas and Terra, how will that go?
Not gonna lie but I hate myself for putting Kairi back in the damsel in distress role…again, but hey least she got captured AFTER she expended all her strength. Trivia about Kairi, she was supposed to fight the Xehanort trio with Riku and Sora, but I scrapped the idea.
ANYWAYS…Questions:
Q1: Thoughts on this chapter?
Q2: How was Xion and Roxas in this, they will get more in the future!
Q3: What did you think of Axel's new power? Thought it would be a nice switch instead of form changes.
Q4: Prompto in this?
Q5: What are you excited for next time?
Q6: Anyone annoyed Sora and Kairi did not get much spotlight?
Q7: Biscuit gun, best joke weapon?
Anyways, I am not entirely sure if the next chapter will be posted due to the fighting wearing me out but hey, keep moving forward! Thanks for reading everyone! Stay awesome but more importantly stay safe!
