A/N: This chapter is best read if you have either "He's a Pirate" (DMC mix) or "One-Winged Angel" playing in the background. Personally, I prefer to have "He's a Pirate" playing and then switch to "One-Winged Angel" at certain points…or play them one after another…your choice. Oh, and about this chapter…you have to pay attention or you'll get confused (and Cap'n, this isn't my demented three-way swordfight. That comes later XD).

Cloud, Norrington, and Inwë walked quietly into the quarry. It was a very good place for an ambush, as Inwë had pointed out. Steep walls rose on both sides of the small canyon, which cut a sort of hallway through the thick jungle. The quarry itself was not very large – only about twenty feet from wall to wall and forty feet from end to end. The woods had overgrown much of the small place. The two ends of the quarry were really just where the stone met the tree line. The stone itself was cracked in places and a thick layer of moss coated much of it, silencing the footsteps of the three warriors as they entered the quarry. Sephiroth, the Mouth of Sauron, and Beckett were waiting for them on the other side. Overhead, the sky was overcast and a crash of thunder announced the approach of rain.

"Sorry to keep you, Sephiroth!" Inwë said sarcastically as they approached. Cloud blinked slowly. The words sounded familiar but he couldn't think of where he'd heard them before. Sephiroth just stared at the authoress.

"We are here, as promised," Norrington snapped once they were about ten feet away from their enemies, "Now where are our friends?"

"They're safe…for now," Beckett replied coolly. Inwë smirked at him, enjoying some kind of amusing thought about him. Norrington hoped she wouldn't act as impudent as he thought she would.

"The agreement was that you'd let them go if we showed up," Cloud said with a hint of annoyance in his tone. Inwë made a mental note to compliment him on his acting skills later.

"We'll 'let them go' soon enough. You'll even be able to be together…once you're all dead," Sephiroth answered. Cloud growled and drew his sword. Norrington did the same. Inwë, who had carried her sheathed katana because she didn't have a sword belt, pulled her katana out and tossed the scabbard to one side. Sephiroth smiled slightly.

"This will be interesting. I look forward to watching you die, Cloud."

"I guess you'll just have to learn to deal with disappointment," Cloud answered calmly. Meanwhile, the Mouth and Inwë were staring each other down.

"My, my, Inwë. How long has it been since we last fought?"

"Too long for my taste."

"Eager to die?"

"Eager to kick your sorry butt into the next dimension."

"Hmph. And here I was hoping you'd be acting noble, giving your life to save your friends."

"Too bad. I'm a delivery girl now." The Mouth, for once, had a very blank look on his face before he grinned again.

"Delivery girl? And what do you deliver? Pizza?" Inwë twirled her sword around once and pointed it towards the Mouth.

"I deliver pain. Get the door, it's Dominoes." Inwë used her free hand to pretend to push an imaginary doorbell button, and then grinned. Before the Mouth could reply, she lunged forward and slashed at him. He parried the blow and backed off a couple feet. At the same moment, Sephiroth and Cloud started battling. They both moved far too fast for poor Norrington to make out any of their movements, though it looked to him like they were evenly matched.

"So...uh, traitor! Prepare to discover what happens to those who betray the East India Trading Company!" Beckett challenged in a much higher voice than usual. Norrington looked away from the battle and gave Beckett an odd look.

"Traitor? Please. Come up with a better insult before you start talking." Norrington immediately jumped forward and attacked. Beckett, being incompetent, barely managed to dodge the blow. He landed a weak counter-attack, which Norrington easily parried, and tried to slash at the Commodore's arm. He missed.

Meanwhile, Cloud and Sephiroth were caught in a dead lock. The two had struck out at one another at the same time and were having a kind of reverse tug-a-war, neither wanting to cave in and end up getting injured. Sephiroth seemed at ease, as usual, while Cloud was obviously working very hard.

"I don't understand why you always keep fighting, Cloud. Every time the two of us meet, someone you care about gets hurt. Tell me, whose fault is that?"

"Shut up!" Cloud shouted as he broke away and swung his sword at Sephiroth's head. Sephiroth blocked the blow and attacked. His blade managed to cut Cloud's arm, but the blonde warrior didn't seem to notice. The two of them started battling more quickly, so quickly that a normal person wouldn't have been able to keep up, rather like the two had done in Advent Children.

Back with Inwë, the Mouth had cut her left arm. The authoress pretended not to notice, but the pain was sharp and she hated the feeling of her own blood dripping down her arm. She was also fairly certain that the Mouth's sword was poisoned, though probably not with anything lethal. She didn't think he'd want their fight to be over that quickly. He enjoyed making people suffer, and if the authoress' mind were numbed by poison, he'd only manage to kill her faster.

"I didn't expect much from you, Inwë, but I really am disappointed in your fighting abilities. Did you learn nothing from being around so many warriors for so long?" the Mouth taunted her.

"Oh, don't be immature. You've gotten rusty if those are the best insults you can come up with," Inwë replied nonchalantly, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. It had started raining a few moments ago and her hair was already soaked, but she didn't have anything to tie it back with. The Mouth eyed her and started to make some kind of smart aleck comment, but Inwë attacked before he could finish. She lunged forward again and slashed at him twice, once aiming for his head and once aiming for his right shoulder. The first blow hit his helmet and the second he parried. Inwë smiled slyly as she heard the dull thud of her katana hitting his head.

"Hmm. I guess it isn't quite hollow. Oh well, if it was completely empty I suppose you wouldn't even be alive. That's too bad." The Mouth muttered something under his breath. At first Inwë thought he was just cursing to himself, but then she saw a chunk of ice flying towards her head. She dodged it and scowled.

"Magic. Damn," she murmured. Back in the "old days", she had had fire magic to counter the Mouth's ice and shadow magic. Now she was at a disadvantage. The Mouth tipped his head slightly to one side and grinned.

"Try to realize you're going to die. I hope you enjoy Mandos."

"Can I bring a friend?" Inwë asked sarcastically. The Mouth got the wrong impression and grinned more.

"Of course. All your friends will be joining you there shortly." Inwë shook her head.

"No. You see, by friend I meant you." The Mouth scowled. The authoress lunged at him again. He dodged to the right and slashed at Inwë's exposed back. She bit back a cry of pain as the sword sliced across her shoulder blades. It wasn't very deep, but it caused considerable discomfort. Inwë backed off a little and stood there, panting, as she felt blood dripping sluggishly down her back.

"You know," she said lightly, "Back in the day you would have hit a little harder and taken my head off. Getting a little slow in our old age, are we?" The Mouth grinned and shook his head.

"You're the one who's a little slow, Inwë. If you were at the height of your powers you wouldn't have tried that pathetic attack."

"If I was at the height of my powers, one of us would already be dead – and it wouldn't be me!" she replied icily. The Mouth chuckled.

"Ah, but even in the old days you weren't in your prime. You'd been getting steadily weaker ever since you deserted Valinor. It was only a matter of time before I became powerful enough to kill you."

"You had your chance. Three times. Every time your damned arrogance got in the way."

"Three times?" the Mouth asked with a blank look on his face. Inwë paused a moment as she realized something. The Mouth didn't remember! The authoress decided to test this thought out.

"So…when was the last time we fought face-to-face? It's been so long, I'm starting to forget who won." The foul messenger of Mordor cocked his head to one side, thinking.

"Let me see…ah yes, I recall now. That foolish Witch-king caught you. I won that round, Inwë, and don't you forget it. And still you managed to escape. You ran and hid like the coward you are, vanished until you showed up at the Black Gate just before Sauron fell a year ago." Inwë blinked slowly as she processed that information. Had it really only been a year since Sauron fell? How could the Mouth not remember the long years between then and the last time they had spoken? It was a span of at least twenty-two years. Either the Mouth was suffering from amnesia, or perhaps this was a "different" Mouth from the one she had been fighting for so long. Inwë decided it had to be the latter, but didn't have time to think on it more because just then Beckett came hurtling past. He was breathing heavily and seemed to be scared out of his mind. Inwë glanced around and saw Norrington following Beckett.

"Bloody coward!" Norrington yelled at Becket, who ignored him and kept running. The Mouth, if his eyes had been visible, would have rolled them. With a wave of his hand he sent a chunk of ice towards Beckett's feet. When the ice collided with him, he found himself stuck to the ground.

"Stay in the fight, you incompetent fool. It'll be over in a minute," the Mouth growled. Inwë couldn't help but laugh.

"Nice one!" she snorted in a moment of forgetfulness, "What the hell am I saying?" She charged at the Mouth and managed to hit him in the shoulder. Norrington, who was heading past them towards Beckett, aimed a sharp blow at the Mouth's opposite shoulder. The two hits combined meant the Mouth was not very happy. He had never had a very high pain tolerance. With a snarl of rage he sent a sphere of black magic straight at Norrington. The sphere engulfed him and threw him against the quarry wall before dropping him.

"Hey, leave him out of this! Your argument's with me, Mouth!" Inwë shouted angrily as she parried a blow from the Mouth's sword. The Mouth laughed cruelly.

"When are you going to realize that is the reason I bring the ones you care about into things in the first place?" he asked. Inwë let out a soft hiss and attacked the Mouth with a fast burst of sharp blows. He parried most of them, but a few got past his guard: the Mouth ended up with several slashes across his arms and chest. In turn, he stabbed at Inwë and managed to cut her right shoulder. It was deep but not life threatening. However, the authoress was losing plenty of blood from all the injuries she'd gotten. She swung at the Mouth one last time before turning and running towards the tree line. The Mouth was a little slow to follow because he had to doge her blow, but he still went after her. Inwë ran as fast as she could towards a pile of boulders that looked like a good hiding spot. She ducked behind the rocks and sat there, panting. After a second she peered around the right side of the boulders. The Mouth was standing several yards away, looking around vainly for his opponent. Inwë chuckled softly to herself and glanced over to her left.

Her smile froze.

There, lying on his back with his face turned away from her was Cloud. Inwë could tell from the cuts on his arm that he had taken a heavy beating. He appeared to be unconscious, but from the gentle rise and fall of his chest she could tell he was still breathing. But if Cloud's there, Inwë thought to herself, then where's…?

"Hello, Inwë." The authoress turned her head sharply. None other than Sephiroth himself was standing in front of her, bloodstained katana in one hand. Inwë stared at him with her mouth open in surprise. There was no way she could mask her fear, and there was certainly no way she could fight him. Only Cloud was capable of defeating Sephiroth, and he was lying unconscious a few yards away. Still, Inwë wasn't about to just sit there and die. She had her katana in her hand and slowly started to lift it. Before she could even begin to parry, Sephiroth stabbed her. Inwë felt the horrible pain but her mind didn't register it. It was too much. She slowly began to comprehend that she'd just been stabbed through the stomach, but before she do anything else Sephiroth had lifted his sword in the air and thrown Inwë towards the tree line. The authoress gasped in pain as she slid off the end of his katana and slammed against a tree. She lay where she'd fallen on her side, twitching from time to time and taking in short breathes. How the hell does Cloud live through this? she wondered to herself before wondering if she would be able to live through it, too. The pain in her body told her she wouldn't. She closed her eyes and just kept breathing, though it was painful and she wasn't sure how long she could do it. After a second she heard footsteps approaching. She opened her eyes and turned her head slightly to look up. Sephiroth was standing next to her, watching her. He lifted his katana slightly, blood still dripping from it. The two of them held eye contact for a few moments before Inwë looked away and closed her eyes again. This was not how she had wanted to die, but she supposed it really didn't matter. She heard Sephiroth lift his sword higher, most likely so he could deliver a killing blow that would put Inwë out of her misery, before a sharp call interjected. That was the last thing Inwë heard as she fell into darkness…

A/N: CLIFFHANGER! Muhahaha. Don't panic and kill me just yet (I was nice enough to update two chapters in one day, ya know), I've already planned what's going to happen. I may even have finished typing up the next chapter. You never know. Reviews are loved and cherished, flames will be donated to Authoressinhiding because she's short on fuel for her flame-thrower.