Hello everyone, this chapter has the most changes yet but I truly believe it is a good thing. To be honest I was never truly happy with the original fight scene, it was too rushed and left out some much needed descriptions. So here is the new an improved version, it is a bit long but hopefully you will find the chapter worth your time. As always, I would love to know your thoughts on it and thanks to all of you for continuing to come back to read what happens next.
Disclaimer: As always I do not own the Kingdom Hearts series or FFVII series, they are the property of Square Enix.
"Tifa!" Aerith spun around and hugged her. "Thank goodness you're all right. You're not injured at all are you?"
"I'm fine, stop fussing...ooff, Marlene you're going to make me fall." As Tifa was attacked by a hug from Marlene, Aerith quickly looked around for Cloud, maybe now with things calm I can say everything that's been in my heart. But Cloud was not there, she kept looking in all directions, slowly to not draw attention to herself, but still in all directions. Finally she forced her eyes back onto Tifa. Aerith's voice cracked a little when she asked "He's not here is he."
"I'm sorry, I did find him...we fought Sephiroth and it appeared he found his light." Tifa then paused "But he disappeared into the sky with Sephiroth and they were still fighting, I'm sorry."
Aerith quickly turned away; her eyes began to fill with tears. After a few moments she felt a small hand on her arm, "I'm sorry too Aerith, would you like my handkerchief?" She turned to see Vivi looking up at her holding a small cloth.
"Oh thank you very much Vivi." She quickly wiped away the forming tears and took a deep breath. Marlene also tried to help "Look Aerith! Look at the sky its getting dark so it must be time for the fireworks!" Aerith gave Marlene a faint, grateful smile and looked up into the sky. But her smile quickly faded; she had seen this sky before.
As she observed the sky she started to see an object coming through the clouds. She knew with every part of her being it was Sephiroth. She felt a fear shoot through her body; this was the nagging feeling she had earlier, somewhere insider her she knew he was going to be here. And just as she had in the time before, she knew she was the one who must face him... alone.But this time she would take him head on.
Takin a deep breath she turns, "Leon, I'm going to need your help." Leon turned with confusion, then deep concern on his face. "Aerith, what's going on?
"We don't have much time, I need you to help with crowd control, they are all going to be panicing in a moment. Make sure the King and Queen get out of here safely."
Aerith voice took on an authoritative tone. "Cid, I am going to need you to go with him."
"Now wait a damn minute what the hell is going on!" Cid huffed.
"Cid! Please just trust me!"Aerith had never yelled at Cid like that before, or any of them for that matter. But it did the trick because after a brief moment of Cid standing there with his mouth wide open he nodded and headed off with Leon.
She then turns to Tifa and Yuffie. "Ladies I need you to take care of Marlene and Vivi, please get them out of here." Yuffie starts to protest but the determination on Aerith's face stops her cold and she nods and picks up Vivi.
Tifa then asks "You sure you don't want to fill us in?" as she takes Marlene by the hand. Aerith only breaks her focus for a second to stroke Marlene's hair and to talk to Vivi.
"I'm sorry about this but please go with them and I'll see you soon and I promise I will explain everything."
There was no way to explain to them that she knew what that object in the sky was. By this time there was a lot of commotion, everyone oohing and awing while looking up; thinking its all part of the festivities. As the object continues to fall it now looks like a great ball of fire. People begin screaming and trying to leave the stands with some pushing and shoving. Leon and Cid have made it to the King and Queen and have already started escorting them out while telling Sora, Goofy, and Donald to help with the crowd. Sora and Donald sprint full force towards the crowd while Goofy orders the soldiers who were there for show to help keep stairways and exits open.
Aerith had already started moving toward the open part of the arena and was at the moment frozen; staring at the object hits the ground in the middle of the arena. A gigantic cloud of dirt starts to blanket everyone and the crowd's fear heightens even more. Some of the screams are deafening and Goofy and his small band of troops along with Sora and Donald are using every it of strength they have to save anyone who has fallen down to keep them from being trampled.
Aerith closes her eyes for a moment waiting for the dirt to settle. When it begins to clear, her theory is made reality, there is Sephiroth rising from the ground with his long silver hair blowing and holding his sword. The moment she saw the sword she felt the sharp pain in her stomach again, she knew all to well how long that sword was and how effortlessly it could go through a body. Aerith swallows hard and forces herself to take another deep breath. She could not give into her fear; she knows perfectly well why he has come here. His purpose is to bring darkness and despair and this arena with all these people is the perfect place to start.
But it is also more than that, this is personal for him and she finds out just how personal when he slowly turns and sees her standing there. The one on one battle that now always seemed inevitable was here.
Her whole body tenses when they make eye contact but she somehow maintains a calm exterior. Sephiroth slowly begins to grin; taunting her.
"Oh look it's the Cetra girl, I remember you."
His menacing look is terrifying; however with knowing that he has been defeated before gives her a small amount of hope. It keeps her steady as he continues to talk to her.
"I have to hand it to you, you were much more powerful than I anticipated, it seemed not even sticking a sword through you was enough."
He gritted his teeth,"Always giving strength to the puppet."
He begins to slowly move toward her but Aerith doesn't even flinch.
"This is actually going to work out better than I had planned."
Sephiroth grinned again. "Yes if I truly destroy you I can get two for the price of one, killing you in that other place almost destroyed him, annihilating your existence completely in this one will be my way to complete victory over him."
He squints as he looks at her and then continues, "I'm sorry but you see your light is too bright and I attend to help bring the worlds back to darkness."
He stops now, there isn't too many lengths between them now. Aerith could feel the evil resonating off him.
"But this time you will see your death coming."
Aerith felt the pain in her stomach again, making her queasy but she ignored it. He was an amazing fighter and she was no match for him, if he got the chance to truly hit her, it would be over for her. So she did the only thing she could...she fell to her knees and started to pray.
Sephiroth laughed "So you're praying?"
His mannerisms were taking on just a hint of derangement.
"For what, that he'll come and protect you, is that what you're doing?"
Sephiroth actually began to shake from laughter. "He can't help you."
Aerith looked up and smirked. "Then I guess you'll just have to amuse yourself with just this one helpless girl."
Aerith rose to her feet with her limit break Great Gospel in full effect. "So attack me already unless your strategy is to bore me to death with your talking."
This stopped Sephiroth's laughter immediately and he drew back his sword bringing himself into his fighting position.
In the corner of her eye she can see something moving towards her and Sephiroth. Having gotten the crowd under control; Sora, Donald, and Goofy have come to help but in their ferver to get to her; Aerith doesn't have time to yell to them to stay back. Sephiroth says something that Aerith can't make out and with one swift movement he lifts the three of them into the air and throws them all the way to the other part of the arena. She glances over once and they are not moving; she hopes they are just knocked out, but pushes her worry to the side and stares at Sephiroth.
He holds nothing back and comes at her with a slash attack of some kind. He moves back to look at his work and let's out a quick laugh when he realizes the attack did no damage. Aerith knows she does not have a lot of time so she begins to use her magic spells. She begins with casting Slow and then goes through her arsenal to see which spells are effective. As she uses the summon Hades it confuses him long enough for her to use a potion to help her be able to continue to cast.
After trying many physical attacks that have no affect on Aerith, he changes to his lethal arsenal of magic spells. Fortunately for her the protection she had prayed for is holding up and she believes she is starting to weaken him. But after another couple of minutes, though he is now slouched over, Aerith is running out of bottles. So she decides to get ready to use her two most potent spells. But Sephiroth realizes what she is about to do and is able to get in a preemptive strike.
He uses an attack that takes energy from his sword and she is knocked down, Aerith is trying to regain the air that has been taken away from her in the attack; all the while coming to the numbing realization that her Great Gospel limit break has warn off. As Aerith shakily gets back up she can see Sephiroth coming at her in full force. Deep down she figures this has to be the end, she hasn't recovered fast enough to ward off whatever is about to come. However a few feet before Sephiroth reaches her he is hit with the powerful spell Flare. Sephiroth had been so enthralled with landing the killing blow that he never noticed the small black mage who had appeared on the other side of the arena. Aerith looks over as Vivi continues to hit him with a barrage of spells.
Having mixed emotions of shock, relief, and fear Aerith uses the perfectly timed distraction to throw on a few protection spells like shell and regen. As soon as that was taken care of she turned her attention to her new little friend knowing she had to get Vivi out of there before Sephiroth recovers. She brings forth the spell tornado which gently lifts him and it starts to carry him away. But Sephiroth is in hot pursuit of him and uses a dispel of some kind to stop the tornado. Vivi lands on the ground with a hard thud. Aerith screams out in terror too far away now to help him. But at the moment Sephiroth is about to reach Vivi a loud noise comes out from the sky. It distracts Sephiroth and he looks up to see a gummi ship coming towards him and Vivi and full force.
Sephiroth jumps out of the way to keep from being knocked over. The engine is kicking up dirt and for a moment Aeirith cannot see what is happening except that Sephiroth is still on the ground shielding his eyes. A few moments later the dust clears enough to see that Leon, Tifa, and Yuffie have joined Aerith, Vivi, and Sephiroth in the arena and have managed to make a protective circle around Vivi. Aerith can see Leon and Tifa ready in fighting positions while she notice Yuffie turning and tying a rope to Vivi. Sephiroth has recovered and gets back into fighting position. Leon take this opportunity to engage him and they begin clashing swords. Meanwhile Yuffie throws the other end of the rope up to Marlene who has now come into view. Tifa then gentley picks up Vivi and with extreme control and accuracy she tosses Vivi up towards the hovering gummi ship deck. Vivi helps by calling out a floating spell just in time before he crashes into Marlene. Aerith can hear Tifa yell sorry up to them and receives a second rope from Marlene. Both her and Yuffie then turn the attention back to Leon and Sephiroth. Both women nod at each other and the next moment Yuffie releases her Shuriken weapon which hits Sephiroth's sword knocking it out of his hands. But as Leon goes in with an overhead strike, Sephiroth catches Leon's sword in his hands and throws a violent kick into Leon's stomach. As the force throws Leon back, Tifa immediately replaces him, hitting Sephiroth with a roundhouse kick that throws him back. That gives the three friends enough time have Leon grab the rope while Yuffie and Tifa grab onto his waist and with Marlene tying the rope to the railing and Vivi casting another floating spell Aerith watches as they dangle from the gummi ship but fly off to safety thanks to Cid's talent as a pilot to get them high enough to be safe from anymore Sephiroth's attacks.
All this has given time for Aerith to be able to ready her final attacks on Sephiroth. She first attacks with Ultima while dodging Sephiroth who appears to still have dust in his eyes from the fight just moments ago. She then calls forth Knights of the Round which hits him with attack after attack. The damage is extremely great and afterward he is on his knees hunched over; breathing hard and wincing. But though he is badly hurt he finds strength and comes at her with everything he has left. And unfortunately for Aerith, she has exhausted her magic.
Aerith searches the area frantically and sees Leon's sword still on the ground from where the two men had fought earlier. She runs to it and though it is a bit heavy she is able to turn and trip him and jab him a few times. She sees his stance and recognizes the attack so she prepares to dodge it and succeeds but by doing so she trips a little forcing her to try to keep her balance. With the delay that brings Sephiroth comes up to her but instead of finishing her off he uses the grip of his sword and knocks her down.
He then speaks "How does it feel to know that I will destroy all of those you love and cover all the worlds in darkness."
Sephiroth then leans in closer to her and in a soft but cold as ice tone he says, "What does it feel like to know you failed and you will die alone?" Aerith looks at him with defiance in her eyes knowing that she will never give him the satisfaction of allowing to see the sadness she feels for not being able to finish him off. Sephiroth then gets ready to use his final attack.
"He has failed you twice."
Sephiroth then lifts his sword to finish the battle and Aerith braces herself for the blow. But what she witnesses next is not what she envisioned, as Sephiroth's sword comes down towards her face instead of feeling a split second of excruciating pain before everything goes black; she instead sees a second steel sword block the first from hitting her. She sees sparks fly and hears the clashing. Instinctively she roles out of the way, then looks up to see Cloud and Sephiroth with there swords locked together. She watches as Cloud speaks to Sephiroth, "I will not let you take her from me again."