The Castle had all but disintegrated. The ground was littered with its remains, and Sora, Kairi and Markl had put their backs to the most massive piece, the iron prow that had once served it for an approximation of a face. Sora's Keyblade shone as brilliantly as ever, but his knuckles were bloodied and his shirt muddy and torn. The hills were seething with Heartless drawn to the carnage in the valley, clambering over the wreck of the Castle almost faster than Sora could swat them back. There were too many; not a stroke could be wasted. His Keyblade was a scythe through their ranks, but still, as the minutes crawled by, he was being pushed further and further down. Any ground he gained was lost almost immediately.
The deadlier ones were coming over the ridges now—the shades of bears, wolves, and wildcats, twisted and huge, flanked by the lanky shapes of Neo-shadows loping along beside them. His heart twisted. He hated fighting alone. One partner would do but two was best—a pyramid, three points forming the strongest base and the most difficult to topple. With three there was give and take, compensation for each weakness or false step from both sides. He looked back for one precious moment. Kairi was still slumped against the wall of rusty iron with her arm around Markl, and the scarecrow standing silent guard in front of her, as if the hordes of Darkness were as harmless and easily frightened as a flock of starlings.
The first wolf crested the wreck and Sora rose to meet it. His blade flashed twice in the moonlight and it disappeared, but its packmates followed, snarling mindlessly. Sora was blindingly fast, but there were too many, even for him, and even as quickly as his blade leapt from one body to the next, it couldn't be everywhere at once. The Heartless were flowing in like a swift tide, threatening to sweep him off his feet to join the current. To admit such a thing ran utterly counter to his nature, but he was, without a doubt, slowly and surely losing this battle.
He stabbed the last of the wolf pack in the throat as it leapt at him, but that brief burst of triumph was almost immediately swatted aside by an enormous paw belonging to something too grotesque to even identify. He stumbled, nearly knocked off his feet, and when he looked up, the single shape seemed to become two. Sora shook his head to clear it of the daze of the sudden blow, but the double vision persisted, and when one monster reared he realized there was nothing at all wrong with his eyes. Whatever the spined, toothy, frighteningly large creature was, there were two of them.
Helpless to stop them, a few of the smaller Heartless darted forward, skirting the radius of his Keyblade's reach. Markl whimpered in terror as they bore down on him, but instead of cowering in the false safety of Kairi's arms he shook them off and produced a jeweled dagger from beneath his cloak. He didn't hold it right, clutching it in front of him with both hands as if it was a sword, but managed to plunge it into one of his enemies anyway, which exploded in a shower of slime. He swung at another and dispatched it, too, with the dagger's powerful enchantment, but the second of the larger beasts, content to leave Sora's heart to the first, began to advance on Kairi.
Sora called out a useless warning to her and Markl. He tried desperately to keep himself between them and the two largest Heartless, but his own opponent was simply too dangerous to allow him the luxury of giving it anything less than his undivided attention. He may have been able to take them both down, on the battleground of his choice and on his own terms, but there was no way he could protect her while doing it. The broken promise soured on his tongue.
Kairi watched the scene unfold in front of her, and made her own decision. With her hands wedged into the wreckage she pulled herself up on legs that seemed as solid as wisps of straw, the sky spinning above her head. She was grateful for Sora's protection, but she would never let herself be rendered helpless ever again, not matter what the circumstances. She had made her own vows, to herself, a long time ago. The Heartless advanced. The poor scarecrow planted himself in front of her, and even succeeded in impaling one of the small Shadows on his stake as it rose from the earth, but the bigger, uglier Heartless punched it effortlessly into the wall of metal. With a crack like a broken bone his support pole snapped in two and showered her with splinters of wood.
The Heartless reached next for Markl. He dropped his dagger in the grass, the burst of desperate courage fled. She called his name, for him to run, anything, to break the paralyzing gaze of those massive eyes, to no avail. At the last moment she reached out pulled him sharply to the ground by the hood of his cloak, so the monstrous fist closed around her instead. Sora saw it out of the corner of his eye and screamed her name, again and again, but the distraction only won him a sharp blow to the shoulder from the other beast that sent him sprawling. He couldn't turn his back to it again.
The Heartless lifted her in one fist on level with its lolling tongue. It sniffed at her hair, savoring the delectable morsel in its grip. Kairi raised her shaking arm until her fingers almost brushed its teeth and called out to her blade, which appeared obediently in her fist, and coincidently right through what passed for the thing's brain. She put both hands on the hilt and pulled as hard as she could. The Heartless convulsed once and dropped her when its arms melted, and she landed on her hands and knees in the dirt, too dizzy with shock and the unexpected success to rise again.
-ooo-
It wasn't far back to what was left of the Castle, but the bobbing marker of the hover's fuel gauge had dipped deep below the splash of red paint across the bottom fifth of the tube. Riku was just cresting the last of the stone walls separating the grazing land from the wilderness when the wings finally buzzed their last and locked into place. He swore at them, which did nothing, and pounded on the ignition switch, which did the same. The craft began its inexorable arcing descent into the hillside, coming in too high and too fast to even attempt a landing. But he did have a parachute, of a crude and improvisational sort, and using it was the only way he was likely to hit the ground and still be able to get up to fight again. Riku stood, nudged the rudder to aim for a long stretch of grass relatively free of boulders and debris, cast the spell, and jumped.
The air kicked into a whirlwind around him at his command, tempering what would probably have been a bone-breaking fall into an only bruising one. He hit the grass and rolled with the impact, finally coming to rest in a patch of wilting wildflowers beside the Castle. There was no time to surrender to the sting of a new layer of cuts and bruises; the Heartless on the ground converged on him almost immediately. He struggled to his feet and used the last of his magic to mend the bloody mess the Heartless in town had made of his left hand, so he could at least hold his blade. He heard Sora's voice on the other side of the mountain of debris and fought his way around to it. There was no time for a joyful reunion, just a quick glance and half a smile to reassure the other they were both still alive. Riku wasted no time in helping Sora dispatch the largest Heartless snarling for their blood. Against the two of them, it fell quickly.
When the field had been temporarily cleared, Howl circled once and alighted in front of them. His arms went slack and Sophie slipped to the ground, but didn't run from his monstrous visage. She took up two handfuls of black feathers and stayed resolutely curled against his chest. Every Heartless around them turned to him and stilled, as if awaiting a command. The hills went suddenly and eerily quiet, and their panting breaths rushed in their ears like a windstorm. Howl's wings rustled in indecision, the only external sign of the internal battle.
Riku didn't see how it could be anything but lost. He couldn't glimpse any humanity in the black wings, the filthy talons, or the animal eyes. Allowing the Darkness to flow through you unchecked warped the body and heart together, and it was a painful transformation, which only pushed the afflicted heart down deeper into a pit from which it was unlikely to escape. Guilt and despair were particularly insidious manifestations, since they often stemmed from an honest desire to do good, and were suffered through in a private silence, far from the people who had the power to pull you back.
But even under the dark feathers and crippling desperation, a dim, weak light must still have been shining—Sophie was still alive and unharmed. It was her gentle voice that broke though the shell of silence, and it carried, although it was meant for Howl's ears. "I don't care what you are outside, or what you were hiding inside," she began. The creature growled deep in its chest and raised its hand, with talons that could crush her skull, but Sophie only held on tighter. "I knew from the moment I met you that I never had anything to fear. You told me once you were a coward," she said, and laughed, although it almost came out a sob, "and I think that makes you a liar, too, because you fought through it every day to help the people who tore your old life from you, and the country that forced you into exile. You may have failed them once, but that was a long time ago, but you can't let that burden weigh you down so much it takes your life, too. Even if no one else ever learns how selfless and kind you are, I'll know. I'll remember, because I…" And her voice faded gently away into the night, too quiet for anyone but Howl to hear. His arm shook with uncertainly and then dropped with unexpected delicacy across her shoulders.
A gust of wind whipped into the stagnant air and swept a cloud of feathers into the night, and when it died down only Howl, in his true human skin, remained. His legs gave out under him, either from exhaustion or relief or both, and Sophie caught his arm to ease him down. Whatever curse she had been held under fell away completely, with one oddly fitting exception. Her hands were smooth and slender and her face unlined, and all that remained of it was the river of silvery hair that had been let loose from the braid that had always bound it up. "I know how to help you," she said softly, against Howl's temple, glancing uneasily about at the remaining Heartless, who had begun to hiss and shuffle closer. "But first you need to help them." He nodded. Sophie let go of his arms, reluctantly, and rose and backed away from the ring of black shapes, one step, then two, and turned to sprint back to the last room of the house left intact.
Howl pushed himself to his feet, unaided, and extended his arms, palms out and fingers taut. Hunks of debris came suddenly to life, tumbling over the grasses to crush the Heartless that suddenly charged them. Sora slid his feet back into a fighting stance, and Riku did the same. Howl did not step back from the line, as they'd both expected him to. Instead he raised his hand high above his head and snapped his fingers once, which sparked like flint striking flint. The glint of light rose above their heads, and grew, brilliantly, until it came to bob gently above the scene, gleaming so brightly they were all momentarily blinded. The Heartless had the worst of it, though, hissing and shying from the false sun.
The radiance of the spell breathed new strength into two pairs of tired hands, and Riku and Sora fell with a vengeance on the remaining Heartless, who stumbled stupidly about in the unnatural light, dazed and half-blinded. Their numbers dwindled until Sora swung his last stroke, and the single remaining Heartless in the vicinity crumpled into nothing.
It was gaining on midnight when they could finally, finally dismiss their Keyblades. A steady rain had begun to fall, turning the ground to mud and the fires in the valley below to damp ash and steam. The globe of light Howl conjured into being hissed and spit in the wet, and then folded in on itself with a little pop and disappeared. The danger gone, Howl finally let exhaustion overtake him completely. He collapsed against a pile of debris with enough of an overhang to shield him from the rain, and closed eyes that probably hadn't seen real sleep in days. Sora and Riku took that as their cue to see to Kairi. She was lying in the dirt with her head in Markl's lap, wrapped in his small cloak, painfully exhausted but still conscious.
"She saved my life," Markl said to them. "If I don't see you again, can you tell her thanks, when she's well enough to remember?"
"Of course we will," Sora answered, and lifted Kairi up little with an arm beneath her neck. Markl smiled in thanks and wandered over to the tiny patch of dry ground next to his master. He dropped down next to Howl with a sigh.
Riku lifted her up and carried her to a spot as hidden from the wind and rain as he could find. They were together again and safe for the night, but the reunion was tainted by the specter of their unfulfilled duty. This world was dying, and they'd seen it with their own eyes. As long as the fighting continued, the Heartless would thrive, and the same scene they had just witnessed had undoubtedly been played out in identical little towns from one edge of the country to another. Although they believed they had cunningly turned the knife against their attackers, Ingary had in fact slipped in between its own ribs.
Kairi was shivering uncontrollably under Markl's inadequate cloak. Riku encircled her more tightly in his arms, to lend her whatever warmth he could, and Sora did the same. Whatever happened tonight, she would be out of the fight, and salvaging what was left of the world would be all that much more difficult. She needed a warm bed and the attention of a real physician, not half-remembered first aid training and their severely depleted supply of magical stopgaps. Sora brushed a lock of hair out of her face. Even he couldn't scrape together enough hope to reassure them all it would turn out right, this time.
There was a crash and a yelp from above their heads, and whatever Calcifer had managed to hold together collapsed in on itself. Sora bolted up to save Sophie from a nasty fall as she half climbed and half slid down the disintegrating face of the castle with a red glow clutched to her chest.
"You okay?" Sora asked, when the pile of debris had finally finished shifting.
Sophie nodded, but Calcifer answered with a vociferous: "No, careful!", and whimpered. "Sooooophie, it's raining, I'm going to go out!" the star whined in a small voice, from in between her fingers. She was cradling his body against her dress like a newborn kitten, and if the flames licking her hands burned them, she didn't show it.
Sophie opened the hand she was using to shield him from the drops and held him up to eye level. "Oh hush, you baby," she chided. "If you've survived this much, a little drizzle won't be the end of you." She knelt down next to Howl, who wearily opened his eyes when he heard her footfalls. "What do I do now?" she asked. "Do you think…will Calcifer be all right?"
Howl shrugged. "Honestly…I don't know."
"You'll both be fine," Sora said, with reassuring authority. "Hearts are different than anything else. Even if you divide them into pieces, you still don't end up with any less in the end." He glanced over his shoulder at Kairi, nestled in Riku's arms. "And her and me are proof. Go on, Sophie."
She kissed Howl quickly on the cheek, then exhaled to steady her nerves. She pressed Calcifer up against his chest, against his flesh-and-blood heart, since it seemed somehow fitting. The flickering light soaked through his shirt and disappeared. For a moment, nothing happened. Then Howl jerked forward against Sophie's arms and gasped in fleeting pain. Markl looked stricken, afraid something had gone terribly wrong, but relaxed again the grimace on Howl's faced unknotted itself.
A rainbow of sparks burst from around Sophie's hands. They coalesced in front of her into a dancing ball of light, which yelled, in Calcifer's voice, "I'm alive! And free! I'm freeeeee!" The sound of his jubilant voice faded into the sky with the retreating pinprick of light.
Howl coughed. "I feel terrible," he announced.
"Enjoy it," Sora said. "As far as I know, you're one of only three people in the whole Multiiverse to get a second chance at feeling anything after losing your heart."
"You're really going to be okay now?" Markl asked from Howl's elbow, and he nodded in response. They gazed at each other for a moment, at least until Markl threw his arms around Howl's chest and began to dampen the front of his shirt with tears of unabashed joy. "Your advice about love stinks, Master Howl," he muttered through them. "I don't care if it's against wizard rules or not—Sophie's staying."
Howl looked unsure of himself for a moment, and about what to do with a little boy sniffling his elation into his collar. He decided on patting him clumsily on the back, which seemed to be the correct response, since Markl hugged him tighter. "Agreed, Markl. I've never been much good at following rules anyway."
Sophie didn't say anything. She didn't have to. She grinned wide and embraced him so enthusiastically he almost toppled over. Sora got up to give them a little privacy about when Howl gasped out something about not being able to breathe.
"Are we all in one piece over there?" Riku called out sarcastically.
Sora shuffled over to answer the question. "Yeah. I think—" he began, but his face fell when he noticed what was left of the scarecrow lying in a dejected heap in the mud. He scooped it up in his arms and crouched down in front of Kairi and Riku. "Even if he wasn't a real person, he got all smashed up trying to protect Kairi. Maybe we can fix him up with a new pole when this is all over. I think he deserves it."
"Mmm-hmm," Kairi agreed, and pushed herself up a little straighter to address what was left of it, although it hadn't so much as twitched and the animating spell looked like it had dissipated. "You were braver than a lot of people I've met. Thanks," she said, and on the spur of the moment, planted a kiss of gratitude on its cheek.
It twitched. Then it twitched again. Then it wrenched itself from Sora's light grip so violently it flew several feet into the air, and landed, improbably, on the stub of its pole and balanced there. The sticks supporting the tattered suit went slack like overcooked noodles and puffed out again as the clothes filled out with the outline of human limbs. The perpetual grin on its face was subsumed into a look of slackjawed amazement on the face of a young man with dirty blond curls, who stumbled backward and fell on legs it seemed he'd forgotten how to use. He pushed himself up again, staring with fascination at his hands. "I've got fingers again!" he announced in delight. "Fingers! And…oh…where are my manners." He stood and bowed to Kairi, a little unsteadily. "My name is Stephen, and I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was sure I'd be stuck a scarecrow forever."
Howl pushed himself to his feet, with Sophie's help, to inspect this unexpected turn of events. "Stephen," he called out. "Is it too much to hope that's as in the lost-and-presumed-dead Crown Prince Stephen of the Kingdom of Strangia?"
The blond man nodded, and brushed some mud from his jacket, shifting uncomfortably on his bare feet. "Not feeling very princely at the moment, but yes." He sucked in his lower lip, looking ashamed. "Those are my father's warships down in the valley, aren't they."
"Yes," Howl answered evenly.
The prince sighed. "He's made a terrible mess of things, and I'm half to blame—I'm so sorry," he said, the look of shame lingering especially long on Kairi and Howl. "I went off without my retinue tracking a stag in the Waste and slipped on a patch of loose gravel. I wasn't even badly hurt, but the Witch of the Waste found me before my servants did, posing as the kind of nubile virgin shepherdess one only finds in the shoddiest of adventure novels."
"Eugh," Sophie added, her whole face souring in disgust. "I take it you turned her down."
"Yes, of course. And for being an honorable man she cursed me with the body of a scarecrow, never to return to my human shape until kissed by a princess of the purest heart." He looked fondly down at Kairi. "I had almost despaired, since what were the odds of finding a girl like that in the middle of the wilderness?"
"Vanishingly small," Howl supplied, looking almost cheerful. "Now, as intriguing as this twist of fate is…we still have other problems to attend to. Markl?" Howl asked, looking out at the bombers still hovering over the town. "Would you be so kind as to pull a broom handle, some rope, and a white sheet out of that junkpile?"
"The dragonfly is out of juice," Riku said, immediately grasping Howl's plan. "And a wreck. When the fuel gave out I sort of crashed it into a hill."
"If Calcifer were still here I'm sure he could manage to put that little thing back together," Sophie said wistfully. "He lugged the Castle around for us, after all, with barely a word of thanks."
"I looooove being appreciated," called a voice from high above their heads. Every face turned up to look at it. The white glow drifted slowly down to settle in Howl's outstretched palm. When it met his fingers, the tiny star folded up its gleaming rays and promptly caught itself on fire. Calcifer blinked at Howl, looking both sheepish and oddly, deeply affectionate.
"I was hoping you'd be up to one more run," Howl said.
"I am," he replied. "More than one, even. I thought I'd go out and see the world with my newfound freedom and everything, but," he coughed. "It's still sort of raining."
"Thank you, Calcifer," Howl said. "For this…and everything else."
Calcifer grinned and zipped over grass to disappear into the wreck of the dragonfly. There was some metallic clanking and grinding, and the sound of bent steel torturously assuming its original shape. The craft drifted over to them and set down at Howl's feet, in perfect silence. The wings were no longer actually moving, but that didn't seem to impede its airworthiness in the slightest. Markl returned with a length of wood, some rope, and their large impromptu truce flag, which was quickly lashed to the back.
"I'll send a transport with a medical team back to pick you up," Prince Stephen promised. "And see to it she receives the best care the crown has to offer."
"Good luck, and thank you," Sora said. "I've gotta say I was worried for a while, but I think Strangia's going to be in good hands from now on."
At Howl's command Calcifer lifted the tiny ship into the air, and they disappeared into the billowing smoke and steam. Perhaps half an hour passed, and as they watched, the heavy bombers peeled off from their runs and one by one rose into the clouds, save for the largest, which spat out a smaller ship from its belly and flew towards them. Its guns lit up, but the rain of bullets fell in a wide circle around the patch of debris that marked their position, to shred any straggling Heartless. When the smaller one alighted, a soldier with a red cross emblazoned on each sleeve threw open the side door and waved them inside over the hum of the engines.