Final Kingdom
Chapter 11: A Major Fight.
Kaori got up, and making sure to wipe the tears away, went outside, so Yuna wouldn't see that she had been crying again. 'I'll go ahead and take my walk now.'
Since finding her brother, she had cried nearly every day, and for the first couple of months, she had cried all day. It was all she could do without help for a while. Thankfully, they had been able to fix it, but for several months after, she could only guess from the spell he had cast, she had been paralyzed. Now, to make sure she didn't fall into it again, she had to walk every day.
That was her usual time to cry. She would go down to the beach, and just sit there for hours, and cry. Then she would get up and run up and down the beach several times, so when she went back, she was at least tired and sweaty, so they wouldn't know if she had been crying, or not exercising.
Kaori ran even harder today, trying to escape all the memories that were attacking her. She had started remembering a lot of her life in New York. She had even remembered making a light bulb as a project in science once. She had made the light bulb special so it would light with just a flick of a button on the light bulb, and you wouldn't need any electricity. It wouldn't work very long, since it ran on minerals from the metals and glass she used, but she tried it here, and would use it when she really needed light.
She even remembered the day she found the mirror. She remembered sitting in front of it for hours, and trying to figure out what would happen if she touched it. She had learned how to turn it on by accident. Finally a week after she found it, she had courage enough to try to touch it, and had ended up here, seven years later, trying to make sure she didn't turn back to paralyzation.
When she got to the hill overlooking the village, she saw Tifa and Aeris running towards the temple, and realized something was wrong. They had made it clear that unless they had to, they didn't want to go in.
Kaori hadn't been able to fight very well ever since she had started to recover. Though no one else knew it, she could still summon, but her Aeons had been very weak right after that. She had been able to fix that. She had also been practicing black and white magic, but everyone thought that she couldn't fight at all anymore. And for a long time she couldn't, but she had practiced a lot. Even her weapons had improved. She was almost more powerful than before. And all because she had seen in her dreams that she would really need it. She still felt very hopeless, but it was getting better. Soon she would let everyone know how well she was doing. But she still felt like she wasn't needed. But as she looked down at the village, maybe she would be able to help them. She figured the least she could do was to try to help.
She already had her sword, since she never left without it, even though she still remembered most of the magic she had learned on her pilgrimage, but most of it she had lost when the lightning had struck her. Even though she sucked at weaponry, she still practiced whenever she got the chance, so she was slowly improving, and could now use it to a minimum.
Every day, she practiced for hours, trying to get back to where she was before, but that never took away the pain of her brother not noticing her, and of his betraying her.
She shook these thoughts from her head, and rushed down to see what was to be done. She found that the best fighters in the village were there, so why would they need her, but then, why had Aeris and Tifa come in? Maybe she was needed.
When she went inside, everything was different from what she knew. Things were on fire, the building was crumbling, and there were dead bodies nearly everywhere.
'What happened?' Kaori thought, rushing past it all into the chamber of the faith.
Maybe that was where it was all coming from. She would just follow the bodies and fiends.
Once she finally got to the chamber of the faith, she found things worse than she had expected. Everything was in disorder, and yet, worse of all, her brother was there.
Suddenly the last time she had seen him flashed through her mind, and though she didn't want to go through that again, she knew she had to do something.
Currently Yuna and Tidus were fighting him, but when she saw the attacks everyone was using on each other, she knew she had better hurry. Either way, someone would die today, and if it was her brother killing someone, she wanted it to be her. She didn't want someone else dying because she couldn't control her other half. Or at least, attempt to control it.
When she ran over there, she saw both Yuna and Tidus look over at her and knew they were trying to figure out how to fight and still get her out of there.
No one had seen her fight except for the first time after she had to start again. They thought she had stopped all together, so they probably thought now that she was trying to intimidate Dustin.
"Dustin! Looking for me?" Kaori yelled, facing him with her sword.
"Ah! So you have finally shown up? I thought you had run in fear, little one!" Dustin said, which, Kaori noticed was not his own voice.
Suddenly Dustin's face took on a look of pain, and he started shaking. "Kaori! Run!"
'That's his own voice! He's back!' Kaori thought, hope surging through her, just to be crushed a minute later.
He stood shaking for another minute, then he seemed to compose himself. "Where were we?" He asked, back to his stupid voice.
"Just about to fight it out for my brother. I win, I get him back, you win… you can have me on your side." Kaori said, taking her stance.
"NO!" Yuna yelled, coming up behind her.
"Leave me alone Yuna. I've made up my mind. I have to have my brother back." Kaori said softly to her, then turned back to Dustin.
"I accept." Dustin said, then adding, "Since that bolt of lightning I sent your way not to long ago, you shouldn't be able to do anything anymore. I understand that you used to be quite a fighter. Now you won't be able to do anything though. I think this will be quite fun."
"Just one question before we start." Kaori said, putting her sword up. "Actually two. First, who are you, and second, what goes?"
"Everything goes. As for your first question, I am a queen, taught by your grandmother, and I shall take over this land." Dustin said, an evil look coming over his face. "You remember your grandmother don't you?"
That evil look really scared Kaori.
"No, but that doesn't matter. Are you ready to start?" Kaori asked, taking a stance, even though she didn't have her sword.
"Yes, but it doesn't look like you are." Dustin said, noting her empty hands.
"I'm ready. I've just been waiting for you." Kaori said, running towards him like she was going to attack with her bare hands.
"Kaori!" The real Dustin yelled, right before fake Dustin started his own attack.
"Kaori! Look out!" Tidus yelled, trying to run forward, but being held back by someone. "Let me go! She needs help!"
"Leave her be. This is a fight that she must have alone." Auron said, holding his sword out in front Tidus to stop him from moving forward anymore.
During all of this, which had taken place during the time that Kaori had started running forward, Kaori had stopped, and to everyone's surprise, had summoned Anima.
"Can't do anything anymore huh? Apparently you aren't as powerful as you thought, otherwise you would have known this." Kaori taunted, sending Anima in to attack.
"Apparently she's better than she's let on. Or maybe she just wanted to be able to do something for herself, and this was it." Auron said, careful to lower his blade since it seemed Tidus might cut himself on it with his chin, it was hanging so low.
"Well, well, well. You have been practicing. I wonder how far you have gotten in other things." Dustin said, dodging Anima's attack with little ease.
"Seems we'll just have to find out. Are you going to jabber, or are you going to fight?" Kaori asked, annoyed but having Anima attack at the same time she did.
She had her sword out, and since Dustin had said that anything went, she figured that meant that she could have her Aeons attack while she attacked as well.
"Yes, I suppose you are anxious to have a reason to join the winning side, so you won't have to die." Dustin said, dodging her blow, since it had come first, but not having as much luck with Anima's hit.
It seemed that the hit just stunned him, but while he was still down for the moment, Kaori cast her strongest spell that she knew. Holy.
"You'll never live once I get my brother back, and I will get him back." Kaori said, as vehemently as she could.
Since she had been saying this, she didn't see something else come up behind her, and she didn't hear the warning yell. All she felt was the blade on her back.
"Argh!" She screamed in pain.
This would not stop her. She turned and quickly got rid of the minion.
"You're going to have to do better than that." Kaori said, receiving a blow from Dustin, but hitting him with one of hers.
The next time she was able to see behind her, she saw that everyone else were taking care of the fiends and 'minions'. That just left her with the worst thing that could happen. She still had to fight her brother.
"You're pretty strong. But not strong enough." Kaori said, attacking him with all she had. She summoned all of her Aeons, used all the black magic she could, white magic on herself and her friends, and physical attacks with her sword and guns.
It seemed that she had just about won. All of her Aeons were used up, so she dismissed all of them. She had used just about all her energy so she couldn't use magic anymore.
That left her with physical attacks.
She was pretty torn up, so she used one white magic spell to heal herself, and during this, Dustin recuperated himself. He didn't have any white magic, but he had potions, though they weren't very powerful, and he got ready to attack.
"That was very well planned. But now you are weakening." Dustin said, though Kaori could tell that he was worse than her.
"Seems that you aren't doing too good yourself." She said, just to see if he was going to bluff, meaning that it was worse than she thought.
"I am doing just fine. I ready for all that again." Dustin said, though his voice and eyes told the truth.
"You think I don't know my brother at all, do you? I know him better than myself, lost memory or no. You'll never win. At anything." Kaori said, attacking again.
She knew this would be the last hit that it would take, since she was putting every last ounce of energy into it, meaning that she might die.
But it would take care of the thing controlling her brother, and if that was all it did, she was happy.
"Now it's your turn to die." Kaori said, watching as her brothers face was knit in pain, flashing between the shadowy thing she had fought, and her brother.
She didn't want her enemy to know how much he, or she, had hurt her, so she used every ounce of self control over herself to keep herself standing until her brother was free.
When Dustin finally fell over, and the shadow was gone from his face, Kaori knew that she had won this battle, and she fell down next to him, not sure what was going to happen now.
The last thing she saw or heard was Yuna, leaning over her and calling her, and Tidus and Auron doing the same with Dustin. Then Dustin got up and came over to her side, putting her head in his lap.
Then it was black.