Niko didn't even give Sapphire a chance to respond. She settled into the back of the ship, hugging her knees to her chest. They couldn't be Heartless. She wouldn't believe it. The people she grew up with, the people she loved, her friends... She would rather herself die than them. She would take a bullet for any one of them any day. She couldn't let Niko kill them. She would rather herself than them.
She looked upwards as Niko spoke. She got to her feet and hurried up to the cockpit, eyes dark with worry. "They can't be overcome with darkness... They can't be..," she murmured to herself, her eyes downcast, her chest hurting. "We have to find them." Without waiting, she quickly got off the ship. She had to find them.
"If anything," Sarabi said. "We could find them...in any state. You've got to accept what you see. I have seen some weird shit like you have. This can't be any worse than what we've been through already!"
Yes, it could be, Sapphire thought, but she kept her mouth shut. They wouldn't understand. She'd be wasting her breath.
"Come on, Niko," she called anxiously back into the ship, hand resting on her holster, her steps forward slow.
Niko was already ahead of her looking around. He knew this could be dangerous but he also knew this was likely the only chance that they would have at finding them. When Niko walked into a new are he saw a group of Heartless. Closing his eyes, he tried to find out if they were the Insurgents. His heart sank, when he discovered that the Heartless in front of him were the Insurgents. The Heartless merged together and created a bigger Heartless.
"Oh no!" Saph shouted. "Sapphire isn't going to like this."
"No chizz," Niko said sighing heavily. He turned to see Sapphire approaching and he turned to her.
"That's them...that huge hulking monster?" Sarabi asked.
"Yeah." Niko said. "But we can save them...it's a complicated thing to share...but we have to defeat them...once defeated, our Keyblades can free them from the darkness that consumed them. It will...well...it's gonna create their Nobodies, but it will bring them back. We'll just have to find them again."
"That makes...little to no sense." Sarabi said angrily.
"I get it!" Saph shouted. "In order to save them we have to defeat them. When we do, they'll be reborn into new entities that will be in another sanctuary of light."
"Exactly!" Niko nodded. "So...knowing they will be okay once you defeat them, can you help me?"
Saph may have understood, but Sapphire did not. As soon as it was revealed that those were her Insurgents, she felt the response of flight overwhelm her. She wanted to leave again, to run, to not face her problems, to not hurt those she cared about, whether they were corrupted or not. Maybe when she was younger fighting them would have been easier, but she had gotten soft, and now she couldn't bare the thought of hurting them, Heartless or not.
And who was to say she could trust Niko's words? He didn't like the Insurgents, and he was still on her radar since Mobius went dark as soon as the darkness in his heart grew, and he'd already been talking about killing the Insurgents. Sapphire's mind was cluttered with thoughts, and she found herself putting her gun back into its holster and taking a step back, her eyes wide.
"I... I..," she started, but she could not form words. She wanted them back, but... Could she hurt them?
The Heartless Insurgents rushed at them. Niko saw Sapphire's hesitation and blocked their assault. Niko holds them off, getting tackled almost immediately. Saph looked to Sapphire and growled.
"So you're going to let him die?" Saph said angrily. "He's doing this because he respects them. He's doing what you are too scared to do! He's your husband and you're his wife. Why are you doing this?"
"If you don't help him, they'll kill him." Sarabi said.
"By all means Sapphire," a voice shouted. "Be afraid."
It was Xehanort. He smiled with glee as he laughed at Sapphire's fear.
"I turned them into Heartless, knowing you would be hesitant to stop them. Why not get rid of the one person keeping you bathed in the light to drown you in darkness."
"Sapphire!" Niko shouted in pain. "Help!"
"She can't help you." Xehanort said laughing. "She'd have to kill her friends first."
Xehanort summoned his Keyblade and walked to Niko. He looked to Sapphire and smiled.
"You have a choice, Sapphire," Xehanort said. "Defeat your friends or lose your husband."
Sapphire took another step backward, her wide eyes moving back and forth between the Heartless, Niko, and Xehanort. She loved Niko, but she also loved her friends. She expected herself to be overwhelmed with sadness or confusion, but a surprising emotion suddenly filled her:
Anger.
Sapphire was pissed. Why did she have to make this choice? Why did the people she love always have to get hurt? Why couldn't she just be left alone? As her anger grew, she suddenly found herself changing; her claws lengthened, her arms tore through her clothing, and scales began to form upon her skin. Her back arched forward as a scream ripped through her body, pain shooting through her as she changed into her demonic form. Her Keyblade fell from her back, and she panted from her hunched over figure on the ground, only to look up with black eyes at the scene, snarling, sharp teeth showing. Her mind was suddenly cluttered with the raw emotion of anger, and she was ready to take it out.
She stood up slowly, her figure hulking, her hands raised. She fired off shots of sparking black and blue Psi Energy at the Heartless form before running and charging at Xehanort, going to tackle him, knowing in her irrationality that he needed to be stopped.
Xehanort laughed triumphantly as he looked to Sapphire. He had gotten what he wanted out of her. Summoning more Heartless, Xehanort took the tackle.
"Yes! Your darkness has come forth!" Xehanort triumphantly. "However, I can't be defeated like that. I'm a pure user of darkness myself. Do you see now, Niko? This is what your wife can become! This is who she is on the inside!"
Niko was scared of what Sapphire had become but he knew deep down, she was still in there. Standing up and walking towards Sapphire, Saph and Sarabi by his side. Walking up to her, he saw Heartless trying to stop him. Suddenly, he uttered the words "stop" and the Heartless stopped in place. Finally approaching, he took Sapphire's hand and closed his eyes.
The Heartless tilt their heads and disappeared as Niko began to show Sapphire where the Insurgents went.
"We can awaken them now." Niko said. "Please stop. I know you're angry and hurt, but if I don't stop you, it would be the same as me doing all the killing. Please Sapphire please don't do this. We can defeat him, but not like this! SAPPHIRE!"
Niko's pleas began to turn into a burst of light as Xehanort is knocked away. Niko, Saph, and Sarabi hugged Sapphire enveloping her in light.
There was a very small part of Sapphire that was holding onto her light, and it was the only thing keeping her from pouncing on Niko. The words he spoke didn't make sense to her rage filled mind, and as he approached and took her hand with Sarabi and Saph at his side, she snarled at him and sunk her claws into his hand, trying to make him stop. She didn't even notice the Heartless vanishing or Xehanort getting knocked away. When Niko created that light, though, she threw her head back and hissed, trying to back away from it, the darkness in her wanting to stay far away from it. As she was hugged, her demonic form writhed and shook, foaming at the mouth, claws swinging wildly as it was blinded by the light, trying to escape it. However, the attempts to escape grew less violent until they were nonexistent, the demon finally understanding that it could not beat this light. Slowly, the hulking, scaly figure shrunk back down to size, scales sinking into her skin and eyes turning a sapphire blue once more.
When the light cleared, Sapphire was back. She appeared to be weary, her eyes halfway shut, her breaths slow and quiet.
Xehanort watched from a distance. He knew what Sapphire was capable of and all he needed now was to get it out of her. Walking through a portal he smiled, knowing what he had to do.
Niko hugged Sapphire and sobbed gently, falling to his knees. He almost lost Sapphire to the darkness. However, the damage he acquired in battle took over as he passed out, laying unconscious on the ground.
"Let's get Niko back to the Gummi Ship!" Jiminy piped up.
"Yeah!" Saph added.
"What the insect said." Sarabi stated.
Sapphire was weak, and tired. She looked down at him as he fell, wanting to fall, too. Anger lingered in her mind and she found herself still realizing what it was she had just done, what she had become. "Yeah... The ship..," she murmured quietly, slowly bending down to take Niko in her arms. She looked at him sadly, at the claw marks on his hand, the reality of what she had done finally setting in. Her eyes darkened, and her face suddenly dropped.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, standing back up, not being able to bring herself to look at him. She started for the ship, carefully picking up her Keyblade on the way and throwing it on her back haphazardly with Niko in her arms. She didn't deserve the blade, but she didn't want anyone else getting their hands on it.
"It's not your fault." Niko muttered, as if responding to Sapphire's apologies. "Jiminy set a course for the Land of Dragons."
"Why there?" Jiminy replied.
"They're bodies were scattered. We'll have to find them individually. We'll start with the guy that I had the most beef with. We'll start with Garnet."
Jiminy set a course for the Land of Dragons and Niko looked at Sapphire and gave his usually dopey grin. Even though they're going through was seemed like hell, Niko managed to stay positive throughout. One would have to admire that. He would have something on Garnet that he would always keep. He can say he was able to keep Sapphire on the straight and narrow and nothing stupid.
"Plus there's a princess we gotta protect," Niko said. "Fa Mulan."
Sapphire gently put Niko down before going to sit on the floor of the ship, hugging her knees to her chest. She eyed Niko's clawed up hand again before looking up at him, her eyes dark with concern and fear. "Did I hurt them?" she asked quietly. "Did I hurt you?" She knew the answer, of course, but she needed to hear it, to know for sure that that beast was her.
"Oh this?" Niko asked. "I've been through worse, you know? It's nothing new. It did hurt, to be honest. I know you weren't trying to do it on purpose. You weren't thinking straight and the darkness was taking advantage of that. You didn't notice that I told the Heartless to stop attacking you and leave? We all have a little darkness in us. Xehanort knew how to trigger yours. I wonder how though."
Niko sat next to Sapphire and sighed heavily.
"If you keep moping around like that, we can't move the Gummi Ship very far. Everyone else is smiling and we need all smiles about the Gummi Ship to get it moving fast enough to find Garnet."
Smiles. How was Sapphire supposed to smile after what she had just done? If she caused that much negative effect on the ship, maybe they should just leave without her. She thought about bringing it up, but she knew she had to find Garnet and the others. They meant the world to her, and she couldn't just turn her back on them.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, hugging her knees tighter to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. She couldn't smile. Not after what she had just done.
