Final Fantasy XV - Kingdom Hearts

Part 83

Summary: Two warriors of Light, the Chosen King and Keyblade Master, face an unseen Darkness.

The two masters of the opposing forces of light and darkness clashes at long last, the rematch that had taken over a decade to happen once more.

In a world where the keyblade masters once ruled in the seats of power, a world long forgotten. The master from the realm of light deflects a strike from Xehanort's dark keyblade, spinning hers as she whirled and dances around him, elegant like a dancer despite her armor. She dashes back to the ledge as the master from the darkness chases her, bringing down his key upon hers. She guards against it, the shockwave from their collision of keys breaks the stone ledge she stands on.

Falling together with Xehanort striking at her with the strength beyond his body's age, Aqua matches his attacks with all the anger and honed strength she had gained throughout her trials as a new up-coming master and leader of the team. Nearing the ruins and the ground, Aqua teleports behind the master who struck her father down and dropkicked him in his back, propelling him to crash into the ruined earth beneath her. She aims her keyblade and fires three balls of fire and three large icicles at her nemesis.

The six projectiles were destroyed by a roaring pillar of flames that erects beneath the blue-haired master. In response, Aqua skilfully dodges the pillar and descends around it, lower and lower until she leaps from it. Spinning in the air she raises her keyblade above her head and shoots: "Freeze!". A dense chilling mist hovers around the pillar of flames before in a near-instant freezes it into a giant popsicle. She looks and sees Xehanort flying towards her with several tendrils of darkness leaping from his shoulders.

They fly off his shoulders, chasing her like snakes going for a bird. The heroine of light dances in the skies to swerve, evade, and flip around the tendrils of darkness, flying further higher into the skies as they nearly touch the skies. She stays in one spot as the tendrils catch up, spinning her keyblade and holds it before herself before a burst of light explodes from her armor as her keyblade takes on a new form. When the tendrils reached her, a dome of golden lightning bursts from where she levitates, utterly obliterating them.

Now before Xehanort, Aqua's armor takes on a golden-yellowish color scheme while her keyblade takes the form of a double-bladed naginata, lighting dancing along with the blades as the clouds above darkened with thunder booming overhead. Aqua charges towards Xehanort, closing the distance with lightning fast speeds and slammed the steel blade into his stomach. She hears him gasp in pain, but that was just the beginning.

Like a thunderstorm, Aqua unleashes a barrage of strikes upon the seeker of darkness, each strike from the steel cutting him also jolts him with lightning with the strength of a horrible thunderstorm destroying the land. Spinning it around her body with each strike cutting into the man who had taken everything from her before, Aqua performs a spin with an over shoulder strike and knocks him below her and like a meteor, Xehanort is heading for the ruins.

He crashes through a building and lands on an empty ruined square of the town, flipping onto his feet after a tumble, looking up to see Aqua spinning the weapon over her head as fast as a hurricane. Soon the weapon is completely shrouded in lightning, and after a flash of natural lightning, she vanished. Xehanort hums in thought before he spins around and shoots a stream of water at the master behind him. Aqua throws her weapon to the sky and flips over the stream of water, her armored fingers touching it and instantly freezes it just as the end of the stream stuck the wall.

She rides the frozen water like a rail as her weapon falls back to her hand. She spins it to her sides and then jumps off the frozen rail. Aqua brings down the lightning charged weapon of her choice onto Xehanort's keyblade, lighting soaking into his key and hands. Striking at him with a ruthless barrage of attacks, her speed unmatched as she wails on him, forcing the older man to retaliate her strikes with his own and with nimble footwork despite both age and the weight of his armor. He swung his key upwards and slashes Aqua's left shoulder, cutting through her armor and knocking off a pauldron.

Likely he harmed her based on the hiss his superior hearing picked up, but his victory is nothing. Aqua slammed the other half of her doubled bladed weapon down onto his metal arm, breaking the steel and any more pressure applied she could have broken his arm in the process. With a spin of her blade, she swings the bottom end upwards and had Xehanort not leaned back, his face could have been cleaved in two. He jumps back from her whilst performing a swipe to halt her attack, and then another jump back to stand on a building.

He raises his left hand and the earth shakes beneath the feet of the master before him. Slowly the sounds of destruction run amok around her and to Aqua's surprise, the master is ripping buildings up from the very ground they were built on and practically raised the entire neighborhood up. Behind his helmet, he smirks cruelly before telepathically commanding the buildings to do his bidding and crush her. One building charges towards the master, Aqua leaps into the air like a bullet and leaves the building to crash and break apart with a loud crash.

Two buildings fly towards her at once, and she in turn teleports again, letting them collide together and smash apart. But for every building she avoids and causes them to self-destruct in their way, Xehanort pulls more buildings all around them from the surrounding areas, whether they were in better conditions or closer to abandoned homes. The master dodges, teleports, and even manages to slice them in two to evade being crushed. She hovers in the air as more buildings began to surround her and rotate like they were in a hurricane.

Aqua grabbed the double naginata and spins it above her head as she had done before, the dark clouds that had gathered around in the skies above her boomed and flashed with lighting in their void. With her weapon turning into a small whirlwind of light above her head, she loudly commands: "Judgement Bolt!".

All the dark clouds that had gathered above her fired a combined bolt of golden lightning that flashed and twitched so madly it was like chaos in the form of lighting. Striking her blade, the master lets the bolt expand and practically obliterate the buildings that plagued her, evaporating them into nothing. The bolt's power even struck Xehanort, destroying a barrier he quickly summoned to save himself. Not even his magic could save him from Aqua's new power.

The ruins they fought upon is slowly mimicking a desolate land than ruins of an old town, a giant hole beneath Aqua was made with water slipping into it from six rivers, filling up the hole. Reverting into her armor's previous form with her keyblade, Aqua turns to Xehanort standing on the building that barely held up to her storm, Aqua then dashes towards him with ferocity. She strikes at him, managing to even with him guarding her, knock him off the building he was one, and gives chase.

She tries to bring her keyblade down onto him, but the master of the darkness vanishes before her. She gasps but was too late to do anything to protect herself from being struck down by Xehanort's keyblade. Aqua is thrown across the island, through a clock tower, and crashes into a wall of a quaint little home, bouncing off it and onto her knees. Grunting with pain, she raises her head to see Xehanort firing a barrage of dark icicles at her like a horrible hailstorm. The master of light runs from this storm, speeding off to evade being skewered.

Dodging the dark icicles, she rounds a corner and jumps onto another building as the ground and walls she was near are becoming pin cushions. When she stands atop of a building, she turns on Xehanort's never-ending hailstorm of ice, her body shrouding with red. Activating a command style, Firestorm. With a fiery aura around herself, Aqua allows her keyblade to blaze into a roaring fire, and then she leaps to the hail of icicles.

Gathering all the flames from her command and within her, she has then enveloped a shield of flames that melts the icicles that came with her, the heat of it rivaling a volcano. She flies towards Xehanort like an arrow, only for the old man to call out: "Blizzaja". A stream of frosty mist spills from his palm, and when it touches Aqua, her shield of flames is nearly frozen in an instant, forcing her to quickly dispel her almost icy prison. Even without the flames, she still managed to reach him.

Keyblades clashing atop of the building, swinging so fast they were invisible to the untrained eye but neither landing a hit on the other. Only when Aqua manages to lure him into attacking her and countering him with a feint, she thrusts her keyblade and strikes him in the chest, blasting him off the building and over the ocean. She leaps after him, shooting seven magic balls of light at him. Xehanort flips in the air and raises his hand to shoot a torrent of grey lightning that eradicates the light, and almost hits Aqua.

She teleports higher in the air to evade the attack, only getting her legs a light shock from the dark magic. In the air, Aqua aims her keyblade to the master before her, and too her annoyance, Xehanort raises his hand and creates four hurricanes of water from the ocean below him. Surrounding him and warding off the master from the realm of light. His power creates a storm around them, booming thunder and lighting whilst rain falls from the dark clouds, the seas ravaging and raging below them as the hurricanes were littered with debris and destruction.

The waters bent to Xehanort's power shoot up and attacked the woman who was named after it, shooting water bullets that were strong enough to pierce stone. In the air Aqua dashes away from them, dancing like a ballerina and tries to blast her master's murderer. All her spells were halted by the hurricanes of water, each one rounding Xehanort to keep her spells and herself from harming their new master while at the same time attacking her without mercy.

A large wave suddenly raises behind the woman, and slammed into her, bringing her to the ocean. Xehanort smirked behind his helmet, sensing the woman was being dragged down the dark waters, and with her armor weighing her down and with the waters bending to his will, she wouldn't be able to escape. Not even someone with incredible magic like herself would be able to escape.

Or so he thought.

A puddle of light shines where she was dragged down, rays of cold dark blue break through the surface of the dark waters even in the storm. The puddle bursts with Aqua jumping through it, a trail of frosty mist behind her as the master from the dark realm feels a cold air overtook the air. Levitating in the air with her armor a darker blue with lines of white on her armor, a cold mist surrounding her, Aqua now carried on her feet and hands tekko-kagi claws. Brilliantly crafted weapons with her keyblade design and four five-inch long claws.

Aqua raised her right and then dived down to the ocean with a cry: "BLIZZA-GUN!".

Aqua strikes the ocean and immediately a blanket of ice freezes over it from the island battleground to the other stationed and empty island, freezing the waters like a horrible freak of nature and even freezing Xehanort's hurricanes of water. Now their battleground was a frozen ocean, leaving Xehanort without his watery defenses. The old master growls quietly, slowly it began to dawn on him that this woman was nothing like the others.

Had he…miscalculated?

His grip on the keyblade tightens and with a grunt, he emits a lethal force that shatters his crystal hurricanes into thousands of pieces and launches him towards the woman who could potentially be a threat to his plans after all.

Aqua runs at him and swings her clawed fist at him, halting the swing of his keyblade. The clash of their weapons sends a monstrous shockwave that splits the frozen ground beneath their feet, shattering the frozen waves and almost broke through to the waters below them. Aqua brushes his keyblade aside and begins to unleash a flurry of punches and kicks, the armored master of the dark taking several hits from these vengeful strikes, though absorbing most of the damage. Xehanort catches her flying left fist during her flurry and lifts her.

He slammed her on her back into the ice and slams her around him four more times before he tosses her through a frozen wave, shattering it. As Aqua bounces off the frozen ground, Xehanort flies towards her and slams his keyblade right into her back mid-bounce. A loud groan of metal rumbles throughout the field, Aqua yelling in pain while being propelled across the field. As she flies, Xehanort swings his keyblade and throws several arcs of darkness at her, cutting into the frozen ground.

Aqua skids on the ground on her back, quickly rolling onto her feet and grabbing into the ice to stop herself. She raises her helmet covered head and sees the arcs coming for her, and then clenched her right fist as tight as her hand could. Slowly a whirl of ice crystals flutter around her fist, and slowly the icy fog coats her entire form. She slams the wrists of both her hands together in front of her, the ground shaking and cracking with the frozen air growing tenser and colder around her, creating frost on her armor and almost freezing the joints.

"Diamond Dust!" cries the master.

Aqua unleashes an impossibly cold blast of ice magic that practically turned into a blizzard atop of a mountain. The arcs were frozen completely within the first contact of her attack but they shattered no less than five seconds later as the cold freezes over the field even more. Xehanort curses and shoots a powerful blast of fire at her attack, but even his magic faltered and then ultimately was wiped off the field like a foolish apprentice attempting to show off to a superior master. As the blast reaches him, Xehanort raises a barrier to protect himself.

As the wave of ice washes over him, the barrier that could have easily withheld against Sora, Riku, and Mickey's attacks at once almost breaks upon contact. Frost covers the darkness and even his armor was starting to freeze up and be cloaked in frost, he feels the cold sink into his flesh and bones. He grits his teeth as he bears this attack, he won't let Aqua stop him. He cannot fail here…

As the spell finishes, Aqua's armor and weapons revert to their original forms, she is panting and grunting with exhaustion. Looking to see the near ice palace she had created, she tries to sense for Xehanort with narrowed eyes, knowing that even this wasn't enough to stop him. Her senses picked him up quickly but too late for her body to move on time. The master appears before her with his keyblade in both hands, and she feels the devastating attack of his keyblade. The blade striking her and throwing her off the icy field and to the ruined island.

Aqua is thrown like a meteor about to enter the world's atmosphere, so quick she nearly caught fire before she crashes through the tall building dominating the island and goes through it until she is literally on the other side of the island. Smashing through more buildings during her descent, Aqua slammed into the empty park, just barely able to retain her consciousness and even a fragment of her strength.

She rolls slowly onto her side in absolute agony, groaning and whimpering in pain she had never felt before. Yet even still, she pushed herself to her feet and manages to heal herself with a bit of left-over mana. As she feels whatever pain dealt was slowly leaving her, she looks to see her handshake. Her mana is plummeting faster than she feared, the fighting is slowly catching up to her with fatigue and weariness, the replicas and Xehanort combined were pushing her. Worst still even with those powerful spells, Xehanort was able to match her and she fears he could keep going.

"This isn't good…", she thinks to herself, "But with everyone either still missing or too hurt to fight…".

Her thoughts were broken when a sudden presence appears, and not a friendly one. Aqua turns around too late and sees Xehanort right before her, but his keyblade smashes into her left arm. Aqua screams in agony, the bones snapping underneath the attack and the shocks of the pain coursing through her body like she had been struck by a god's bolt of lightning. Once the deed was done, Xehanort struck her down her chest and blasts her into a wall.

Slamming into it, she bounced off it as it crumbles thanks to the attack, falling on her knees in agony. Growling and cursing in pain, she looks at her broken arm, the armor bent and broken digging into her broken limb, the agony and shocks rushing through it like it was on fire. Could she even heal her arm with the state she was in?

"I…underestimated you…Aqua", says Xehanort, dismissing his helmet. At least she took pride in seeing the damage to his face, the bruises and cuts along with cracked skin from being nearly turned into an ice sculpture. With teeth-gritting so hard she almost cracked them, the master forces herself to shakily stand, hissing and growling with the pain running through her body. "I can see why Eraqus acknowledged you as a master…", praises the old man.

"Don't you dare say my master's name…you lost the right when you murdered him!", snaps Aqua, staring him down through her visor. Xehanort's face is neutral even with all his wounds, he scoffs regardless of her bite. "I suppose I have…but worry not, you will never hear his name uttered by me…nor anyone else, for that matter", he says flippantly. Aqua grips her keyblade tightly as the master smirked at her.

"Oh, I wouldn't be worried about pushing yourself any further my dear. Your role in this war is at an end, along with the others", he assures mockingly. Aqua takes a step forward, nearly stumbling from the pain as Xehanort levitates to the air, his keyblade dismissed and a ball of dark green magic forms above his palm. Aqua recognizes it as an Ultima spell, but there was a horrible power resonating within it, unlike her one she used against the demon hurricane.

"This island likely will be the final piece of land you and the guardians of light will stand on, and your final resting place", he promises as the ball grows larger and more magic pouring into it. A cold realization strikes Aqua as the master flies up into the sky, all she could do was stare up at him. "H-He couldn't be…is he going to destroy the entire island!?", she panics. High above the island in the darkened skies, Xehanort's ball of Ultima floats from his palm and directly below him as his hand feeds it with more magic.

The ball grows larger until it is the size of a gummi ship, green lightning and wind swirling around the black ball, sucking the air. Rubble and even some large debris from the ground were sucked up and eradicated upon contact, the wind howling so loud Aqua could barely hear her thoughts. Xehanort's cruel smirk darkens when he senses the hope within the woman wane at the sight of the bringer of her death, along with the guardians.

"Zetta Ultima", he whispers.

The ball slowly descends to the island, the suction growing more powerful as the demise of the guardians draws nearer. Standing there in horror at the display of mana, Aqua could only feel the chill of death slowly rake its cold nails down her spine. The amount of power within the ball was simply near an impossible feat of magic to achieve, not even herself, Mickey, Kairi, Yen Sid, and Merlin COMBINED could make an Ultima this powerful. The only victory she could glean from this is the fact this ball has taken a massive chunk out of the master.

For all his prowess in the magical arts, not even Xehanort could use a spell of this power without draining himself dry. He could potentially be weakened from using this, and perhaps should they survive it, the guardians may be able to turn this around. But only if they survive…

She placed a hand over her heart, feeling the connections and faint glimmers of light of her companions here and fighting on the other side, Terra, Ventus, Sora, Kairi…Gladiolus. The others who have helped her regain her strength and confidence as a master, who has become so vital and important to her, their futures on the line. Gripping her keyblade, she throws her hesitation and fears aside and embraces the light within her.

With the last bit of strength within her, she dons her final armor, the dragon. A burst of light shines from her when it fades her armor takes on a new form, the most powerful one yet. Dark violet instead of the usual colors, the cape with the dragon king proudly woven into the cloth, even her helmet shifts into one of a roaring dragon head with the visor for the mouth. In her hands it a huge tombo-kiri, taller than her with three blades at the top, one on each side with an axe blade with the spear tip having a bladed hilt.

She stabbed the pommel of her spear before her, creating a glyph of divine magic rivaling a pure maiden's heart, the glyph spreading out to cover the entire park, old magics running wild. She draws forth every bit of mana within her, the armor powering it to new levels she never dreamed could exist, the hum of power resonating within her ears while her eyes glowed in red light. For the others, for those she loves, she will save them all.

"MEGA FLARE!", cries Aqua.

The glyph shines bright red as pillars of flares fly arise from the corners and the center of the glyph like volcanos erupting. They all condensed into one gigantic beam that completely covers the entire glyph, the heat so hot it was burning the air and melting the debris that came close to while being sucked up by the Ultima. The beam collides with the ball of darkness and creates a near world breaking shockwave that spreads across the sea and land.

Many buildings collapsed underneath the force, the frozen ocean shattering like fragile wind glass, even the dark clouds parted from the attack. A true clash of magical might for all the world to witness and feel. The ball of darkness is halted for a moment before below within the beam, unharmed and giving it everything her body can grant, Aqua clenched the spear in hand and with everything she had to spare, bellows a roar that one could have mistaken for a dragon's roar, she empowers the attack.

The dark ball slowly fizzes and twitches before exploding harmlessly in the sky as the flare rockets towards Xehanort. Not even he could watch with the same confidence he carried with him where he went, his eyes opened wide in complete shock and dismay at the sight. Not even HE had the power to mimic an old dragon god. The beam closes in on him as he poured as much mana he could into a barrier, shielding him completely just as the beam came in and consumed him.

The beam slowly condenses into a smaller form until it fades away completely, leaving a hole in the clouds above and the complete silence looms over the world long forgotten. The island's buildings had crumbled into nothing more than ruins, all life was taken from the floral, even the world felt as if its life had been snuffed out. Silent as a graveyard and utterly abysmal, yet even still it would continue to serve as the final battleground.

The seeker of darkness levitates back down to the ruins, his barrier broken and barely keeping itself together. No sooner his feet had touched the ground, his shield wears off and he almost collapses entirely to his knees, the keyblade holding him up as the exhaustion he hadn't felt since his battle with Terra consumes his strength. Grunting and growling with fatigue, the old master looks at his hand to see his magic had greatly diminished to almost an apprentice pool of magic. Disgusted with his weakened form, his anger surged for the first time in decades.

"That…that woman…", he growls, seethes even. Eraqus had truly chosen well it seems, not since their old master has Xehanort ever seen any magic of such high caliber. His armor damaged and only keeping itself together thanks to his endless pool of darkness, but even then he knows it was only keeping him safe from a full-scale attack, and even now it felt too heavy for him to fight in. "No more…I will not waste any more time with them…", he swears to himself, realizing his underestimations of the guardians had nearly cost him his life.

Xehanort's ears pick up the sound of movement and turn to see who would be the first. His yellow eyes opened widely in disbelief, fore it is Aqua slowly marching towards him. Though marching was extremely generous of him, crawling on her two feet would be the better word for her walk. And her state only assured his victory.

Her armor was gone, now in her normal gear that looked like she was thrown an entire corridor of knives and explosions, the armor pieces that once decorated her clothes were gone or damaged beyond use, the cloth around her waist is nothing more than rags better suited to clean the floors of a palace, her skin grey and sickly looking while even her blue hair even took on the color grey, her eyes showing she was beyond exhausted and near death. Her broken arm dangling uselessly by her side as she dragged her keyblade along the ground.

He chuckles darkly as she crawls to him, unable to even lift her keyblade. He sensed not even the smallest traces of mana within her, and whatever light had given her the strength to stand is so frail he could just poke her and she'd be reunited with her old master. "You never cease to amaze me… be it will or stubbornness, you've quite the survival instincts", he remarks as the woman stumbles. His face shifts into disdain however, remembering this woman nearly killed him.

He turns his body to her and with his keyblade burning with darkness, he marched towards her. He already killed the king, next would be the master. Not even a foot closer to Aqua later, she suddenly raises her keyblade to his level and shoots two more rays of light at him with a cry. Completely caught off guard, Xehanort is a strike in the face twice, the light burning into his darkened body as he recoils in pain.

He clutches his face in pain, quickly using his magic to heal himself before the burns potentially harm his vision or functions. Only when he feels the burns subside thanks to his magic, he feels the skin is bumpy and raised, like an old scar that had marked him all those years ago. Almost…like Eraqus. He glares at Aqua, who was staggering in place as her keyblade falls from her hand, clattering to the ground as a giant weight had finally freed itself from Aqua. With a tired but smug look on her weary face, Aqua boldly says:

"That…was for my master".

With her last bit of strength used to shame the man who had orchestrated so much tragedy, Aqua finally falls to the side.

As the wind breezes by them, the master of light defeated and helpless Xehanort's fist shakes. For the first time in so long, his rage bubbled and fumes with incomprehensible hatred for this woman. No, she was too dangerous to ignore any longer. The dark realm was too good for a wretch like her, an unwanted rebel against her destiny is too much of a threat to his goal. She needed to die, she needed to no longer be a thorn in his plans.

A roar catches Xehanort's attention and as he turns to identify the noise, he is tackled by what he thought was a demon of rage. Lifted off his feet and slammed into a wall, his neck was pressed roughly by steel and muscle, and even before he could figure out who would dare attack him in such a boorish way, he received a fist into his face. The attack hurt him and almost dazed him, but the pummelling continued with each punch fuelled by rage and hate.

By what he thought was the tenth punch, he finally manages to see who had forsaken their life to lay a hand on him. The shield of the fallen king. Gladiolus kept him pinned as he punched him again, each punch vibrated the stone wall of a ruined building behind them, cracking it with each tremor from the punches delivered by Gladiolus. Reeling back his fist, and with another beastly roar, Gladiolus smashes his fist into Xehanort's face, sending him through the wall and across the ruined streets.

He uses his magic to stabilize himself and flip back onto the ground, spitting out blood as he uses his darkness to heal him. Xehanort raises his head to the shield, giant sword in hand as he bares his teeth and with eyes practically alit with the flames of his rage. Shockingly his body says he was in a far worse state than his actions displayed, yet it was like he was just brushing off a simple smack to the body than taking an explosion.

His vest torn with only half of it remaining, scars and wounds shown on his chest as his right arm is bare, pants torn and burnt here and there. Clear signs of pain in his stance only held back thanks to his anger, blood covering his fist and skin peeling on his knuckles from the beat down he just gave the master of the darkness. Xehanort shakes his head dons his armor again, preventing any more beatings to his face unless the shield would attempt breaking his hand to punch him.

"The shield of the king…", he greets.

"Shut your mouth and get over here!", roars Gladiolus, "I'M NOT DONE BEATING YOUR FACE IN!". Enraged, Gladiolus rushes towards Xehanort, swinging his sword in. Xehanort raises his keyblade with a single hand to block the attack, halting the attack. The force of Gladiolus' enraged attack demolished the ruined building behind Xehanort, and the shocks of his attack run down his arm, even Saix wasn't this power. No, dare he'd say not even Terra possessed could display this might before him.

"Such anger…is this because your king has fallen?", mocks Xehanort. Gladiolus pushes him back and with a bellow, he brings his sword down onto Xehanort's keyblade. Again like his first attack, the shockwave of their steel colliding sent a shockwave that splits the ground apart. "Oh don't worry, I was already pissed when you took Noct down…but seeing Aqua in that state?", seethes the shield of the king, his body glowing in Lucis light that gave him a fiery cloak.

"NOW I'M FURIOUS!".

Gladiolus strikes against the keyblade, sending tremors in the blade and shaking Xehanort's hands, forcing him back. Unrelentingly Gladiolus steps forward with each swing, dominating Xehanort with strength beyond the old man's body. Weakened by his drought of magic and Aqua's efforts, even against one who doesn't wield the keyblade is a battle Xehanort could no longer afford to be lax. He strikes the shield's shoulder knocks him back, but only by two meters and even then the shield doesn't even register the pain.

He just launches himself forward to Xehanort and unleashes a whirlwind of strikes, his powerful attacks forced Xehanort to start using more strength than he should have against someone like Gladiolus. But he also knows the shield has no magic, and no matter the strength behind a shield, it can be broken like all the others. Xehanort parries another attack and jumps into the air, aiming his hand to fire darkness at the shield, taking advantage of Gladiolus' low of range attacks.

Except he is blasted in the back by a hot sensation that burned into his armor. He whips around and sees Ignis jumping towards him, daggers bathed in lightning. He curses him and shoots darkness at him, only to see Ignis zipping in the air like he was lightning itself, dodging past the darkness and quickly closes the distance between himself and Xehanort. Ignis and he exchange attacks in the air, the speed the showed was like two storms fighting for supremacy.

Ignis then flips around the old man in the air, calls his spear, and brings it down onto the old man who guarded against it with magic. Together they fall back to the ground, where Gladiolus immediately rushes in to join Ignis in his assault. Ignis' speed and precise attacks combined with the space-consuming and raw enraged strikes from Gladiolus truly turned this battle on Xehanort, even the seeker is having trouble against them.

He jumps back from the two, giving him space, shooting darkness at them to stop their pursuit. Only thanks to Ignis using his darkness to erect a barrier did the two survive the attack, as Xehanort stands a few steps from them, panting and hissing as the exhaustion in his wizened state catches up to him. He turns his yellow eyes to behind the two members of the Kingsglaive and sees Prompto jogging up to them, gun in hand.

Three of the king's greatest allies before him, and like Gladiolus the two of them, for as beaten as they looked, unyielding to their wounds. Ignis's jacket was missing and even his gloves were gone, glasses miraculously unharmed while the left side of his pants was torn and the ends were ripped, hair messy and down as opposed to its usual groomed. Prompto's jacket was torn and ripped, right side completely was gone and showed off his gun arms connection, pants ripped with the right side from knee to his booth completely gone, cheek and chin cut with a probability of leaving scars.

The anger is shared amongst them all, though Gladiolus' glowed more hotly while Ignis is cold and merciless while Prompto's is emotionally driven for vengeance. Among the ten guardians who didn't wield the keyblades, this moment they had proven just how dangerous they are to the master. And in his weakened state, this is a problem.

Quickly Prompto takes aim and shoots at the old man whilst Ignis disappears through a dark corridor and Gladiolus rushes towards the master. Xehanort repels the bullets with a swipe of his hand, a gust of wind blowing them into the skies, and with his keyblade, he meets Gladiolus' steel. The shield pushes him back despite his heels digging into the cobblestone, the warrior striking at him without mercy or restraint in his attacks while Prompto skirts around the old man, changing his gatling gun out for his robotic limb.

Xehanort throws Gladiolus off him and with a blast from his palm, he sends the shield flying onto his back. Prompto rushed in between them, robotic limb charging with electricity and whirring loudly. Prompto launches his fist at the old man, bursting with lightning and striking the armored old man in the chest, knocking him back as he aims his gun at him and fires rapidly at him. Xehanort teleports just before his body adopted the bullets, hovering above the two glaives.

He swings his keyblade at them and fires off a dark arc of darkness at Prompto. The blonde gunner is yanked back by Gladiolus, shield raised and takes the arc attack like it was nothing but a breeze. Ignis reappears from behind Xehanort, throwing dagger-shaped dark energies at him. Xehanort erects a barrier in the form of a wall to shield himself from the attacks, and upon turning to Ignis, he swings his keyblade down onto him.

Flipping around the attack like he was using a steppingstone, Ignis rounds the old man and dashes in the air, striking at the old man with frenzied strikes from his daggers. In the air, both strategists exchanged blows of steel between them, Ignis' daggers shining with violet light against the darkness of Xehanort's keyblade, the older man matching him in speed and surpassing him in strength. One more strike from his key knocks Ignis back down to the ground but before he is chased by Xehanort, a wire pieces the shoulder piece of the armor of the master.

He looks down to see Prompto with the wire fired from his armored, and Gladiolus grabbing the wire and roughly yanks it back. Xehanort is pulled from the air and swung around with the wire and after three spins, Gladiolus jerks him back down to him. Roughly pulled and almost having his shoulder dislocated, Xehanort meets Gladiolus and Prompto, both holding their weapons and together striking him. Gladiolus slashes his chest as Prompto puts three bullets into the old man's shoulder as the wire detached from him.

Xehanort snarls in pain before he uses darkness to blast the two of them away, a force spell that knocks them both off their feet. While they were in the air, he summons a hail of dark blades from a dark cloud in the air above the two and swings his hand down, letting a rainfall downpour upon the two. As they land on the backs, a dark barrier appears around them and shields them from the storm fall. Xehanort rears his head to see Ignis with his right hand coated in darkness and a dagger held upside down in the other, staring down the old man.

The advisor of the king then stabbed the dagger into the earth, a trail of blazing dark fire roars to life and races towards the old man. In response, Xehanort drags his keyblade into the ground and swings up, destroying the ground and firing a force throughout the cobblestone that decimated the earth. The flames Ignis sent to hurt him were doused, forcing the formerly blind magic-user to create a barrier to shield himself from the attack.

Behind Xehanort, Prompto calls his pistol to his hand as the barrier shielding him and Gladiolus begins to crack underneath the storm of blades. He aims, both hands clasping the gun as light shines around the barrel, the light was given to him by Kairi. Gladiolus stands above him with shield held high to shield them while he takes a careful aim, and once the barrier breaks his guns roars to life as the three bullets blessed by light take flight. They soared to the dark cloud and pierced through it, annihilating it and saving them from being constantly impaled.

Once they were safe, Gladiolus rushes towards Xehanort to save Ignis, only to have the old spin around in blinding speed and have a slash across his chest. The keyblade rips through his flesh as blood spurts from the shield, blasting him back and over Prompto's head and crashes into a wall. Gladiolus growls in pain, landing on his feet after pushing himself out of the wall and shakes as he stood, before finally with a low growl, collapses.

"Gladio!", Prompto yells in horror before he grits his teeth and glares at Xehanort. Switching his robotic limb for the gatling gun, Prompto stands and unloads a monstrous number of bullets upon Xehanort. Yelling at him as his face is brightened up the flashes of his gun, his anger brought forth while Xehanort uses more darkness to keep himself safe. Except by focusing on Prompto's never-ending assailant of bullets, he took his eyes off Ignis.

The skilled ally of the king suddenly appears before the older man, dagger in hand, and with a yell, he plunges the dagger into his left shoulder, piercing the steel and flesh and almost bone at all once. Xehanort cries in pain, turning his furious eyes onto Ignis, who with his right hand bathed in darkness, tries to grab for his face. Xehanort dismisses his keyblade and clutched his enemy's hand, holding him back as Ignis tries to reach for him, grunting with exertion.

Prompto ceases his gatling gun and calls out for his switchblade, runs toward Xehanort with the blade in both hands. If he couldn't shoot the old man to death, then stabbing him would just as well. But Xehanort manages to overpower Ignis by head butting him and when dazed, he throws him aside and turns onto Prompto. His keyblade returning to his hand and with a single swipe, he destroys the blade Prompto carried. Startled and unarmed, Prompto could do nothing but watch as everything moved in slow motion as Xehanort slams his palm into his stomach.

With one burst of dark energy, Prompto is blasted across the clearing and through a ruined wall, rolling on the ground before he crashed into another wall. The blast felt as if Xehanort blasted a hole within his stomach, making the gunner groan in pain as he forces himself shakily onto his elbows, hacking and coughing out blood. He raised his head to witness Ignis still fighting on for the two, but not for much longer.

Using his spear this time against the old man, Ignis was quickly outmaneuvered and overpowered by Xehanort who managed to not only disarm him but also grabbed the spear and plunges it into Ignis' right thigh. Ignis screams in agony as he is forced to bend knee, hissing, and cursing in pain, yet he stares down at the old man. Xehanort pants and grunts, releasing his grip on the spear once he concluded the Kingsglaive would no longer extend the fight. He shakes his head, amused by their tenacity and will, but ultimately their efforts futile and hopeless.

"I admire your loyalty to the king, fighting on despite the odds…but surely even you knew victory was not yours to claim", he mocks, smirking at the specs wearing advisor. Ignis grunts in pain, blood seeping down his leg as his body suffers from the fatigue that plagued them all. Yet even despite the pain, he stared at the old man without any signs of regret nor did his eyes show any acceptance of defeat. Something Xehanort had noticed.

"What? You still believe you all have a chance?", Xehanort asks.

"…no matter what happens, even if we should die here…so long as I draw breath, this fight isn't over", Ignis sternly boasts. "Even if I cannot slay you, nor Gladio or Prompto…I swear on my life, Xehanort…you will not succeed".

Then with a knowing smirk, Ignis smugly claims: "Besides…we aren't the ones who will bring you down".

The seeker of darkness is then blasted by an incredible burst of light that sends him away from Ignis and through three ruined buildings. Once at a safe distance, Ignis finally falls to his side with a defeated groan, his body at its limits as Prompto struggles to reach him with shaky steps. He falls onto his knees and whimpers in pain, looking at his beaten friend, who sported a wounded but hopeful look in his eyes. Ignis finally closes his eyes and lays his head to the left.

Prompto bows his head and clenched his fist, turning to the direction where the beam came from.

"It's all you guys now…", he says.

Using force magic to free himself from the rubble, Xehanort stands up as his armor finally breaks apart. Looking at his form, he couldn't believe his power had diminished so far to this point. His darkness that was empowering the armor had finally run dry with all the beatings he had been taking from the guardians, both keyblade wielders and those miscreants who dared stand before him. While he still possessed an immeasurable amount of power, likely enough to deal with whoever dared attack him, this sensation disturbed him.

How was it possible? This wasn't how fate was supposed to go for the guardians? Sora and Noctis might have changed their fates at the start, but destiny foretold the light would be consumed by the darkness and all worlds would be bathed in shadows. They shouldn't even have been able to entrap him in this world, they shouldn't have all survived to this point where he would have to fight for his final moments.

"There's more to the light than meets the eye", an old voice rings out in his mind from his past. He shakes his head with a grunt, pushing those memories aside. No matter what happens, whatever he must do, he must win.

His yellow eyes turn to those who dared strike him, and unsurprisingly, it was exactly who he suspected. Before him, Sora, Riku, and Kairi stood together, keyblades in hand and eyes casting disdain and anger at him. Strangely like how Aqua and her brothers did before, on the day he had stolen everything from them, except there is no fracture in their bonds. Absolute trust within each other, wills combined into one.

Even bathed in their blood and bodies carrying wounds, clothes ripped and torn while the old man sensed great pain within them, they still had the will to stand before him with unshaken resolve and power as a unit, as a team. He chuckles darkly, the last of the guardians to stand against him and fate, one more obstacle for him to destroy before he completes his task.

"You think this is funny?", Riku questions with disgust.

"Very much…I suppose it was fate you three would be the final challenge for me…", he says, facing them down, "Though I'd say calling you a challenge is being forgiving".

Kairi takes a step towards him, her grip on the keyblade tight. "You've hurt so many of our friends…Naminé, Luna, Aqua, Noct…and now Ignis…", she growled, "And you're just laughing?". "All sacrifices in the grand scheme my dear…it was their fate to die here, after all", Xehanort says flippantly. A burst of light shines from the princess, so strong and pure it almost left the old man speechless as the ground shakes.

"Take all your "fate" garbage and shove it!", Kairi snaps, "You're done hurting our friends! You're done with whatever you're trying to do with Kingdom Hearts! And more importantly, you're doing using other people to hurt others!". Her lover and brother stand with her as she dons her armor, Riku bringing out his dark powers to their fullest potential and Sora entering his Final Form. Together they stand as the symbol of balance between pure light and pure darkness, the three islanders who had never been fated to play a part in the great war.

The world's final defense at long last.

Xehanort laughs cruelly as he raises his keyblade, bathing himself with darkness and all his power. No more holding back, the final fate of the worlds will be unveiled.

The three guardians of light charge at Xehanort as he flies towards them…

A/N:

Short one but after re-reading the length of the previous chapter, I figured I'll split the last fight again just so people can get some breathing space.

I'm not gonna be asking any questions this time, all I want from you guys is to tell me how you felt about this one, do you like where its going or anything else. Please?

As always everyone, thanks for reading! Stay awesome but more importantly stay safe!