Last chapter of Notre Dame! I think that the conclusion works pretty well, so I hope you enjoy it!
On another note, I'm going to be out of town until the ninth, so this will likely be the last update for a little while. Hopefully this one can tide you over until then. Enjoy!
Axel: "For the millionth time, DarthKingdom doesn't own anything at all. No Kingdom Hearts, Disney, Square Enix, nothing. Got it memorized, already?"
!
Chapter 101: Hellfire
An hour after the raid, Sora, Kairi, Riku, Yuffie, and Axel sat in a cell in the heart of the Palace of Justice. Their wrists were still bound in Dark chains behind their backs, and combining this with the evil marks on their foreheads giving them all headaches, it made the conditions of the cell very uncomfortable.
King Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Nehrut, and Bariss were in a similar state in the cell across from them. The stone corridor (lit only by a few torches on the walls, so light was scarce) in which they sat was probably just one out of many, because there were very few cells.
"Well, how do we get out of this one?" Donald asked the group at large.
"We'll think of something, don't worry." Sora said, always the optimist.
"As long as we think of it before tomorrow morning." came a voice from the cell next to Sora's.
"Phoebus?" Kairi asked, surprised. "When did you get here?"
"There's a back door to this cell, we were just put here." He answered. "Clopin and Djali are with me."
"No hard feelings for earlier?" Clopin's voice asked.
"No worries, dude." Nehrut said, craning his neck to try and see them from his own cell.
"Do any of you have somebody still outside the palace?" Clopin asked. "Somebody who might be able to break in and free us?"
"Nobody who'd be able to get here before tomorrow, even if we could contact them." Mickey said, referring to their many allies on Radiant Garden.
"Actually…" Sora said, a new light entering his eyes. "Axel, can you get Xonem in here?"
With dawning comprehension, he smiled and nodded. "I can't call him now because of this freaking mark, but he likes to check in on me after a while when I haven't contacted him. He'll probably be here soon."
And so, they waited, formulating vague plans, for nearly an hour. Finally, their patience was rewarded by the familiar sound of a small corridor of Darkness opening up. In the flickering torch light, they saw the Nobody, standing in the hallway mere feet away.
"Yo, Xonem!" Axel said.
The Assassin bowed in front of the cell. "My liege. When I lost contact with you, I thought it best I check in."
"You're about to save our butts, man. If I ever get on your nerves again, just remind me of this."
"I've got a plan, guys." Sora said. "Xonem, can you steal enough sets of chains for all of us?"
"That is a strange request, Keyblade Master, but I suppose I could."
"Good. We'll need you to do that, but first, you've got to wipe off part of the marks on our heads."
"Only part?" Kairi asked.
"Yeah. Just enough to make it lose effect, but for it to still look like they're intact."
Xonem appeared in their cell via another corridor, and reached out with one thin, fingerless arm. Carefully, he just barely rubbed the mark. Sora felt his headache vanish, and strength return to him.
Xonem repeated the process with the rest of the prisoners, leaving just enough of the mark intact to fool anybody who saw it. When Kairi was freed, she used Light to disintegrate the Dark chains around all their wrists.
"Thank you Xonem." Then she looked at Sora. "Why do we need the marks to stay?"
"To fool the Horned King if he sees them. Xonem, could you find us those chains now?"
"Of course." He vanished.
"Now, we'll replace the Dark chains with the normal ones, and say that Frollo wanted them swapped out."
"I hope this plan is gonna make sense soon." Goofy said.
"It will." Xonem returned with armfuls of chains soon afterward, and gave them to the prisoners. "Now Xonem, get to Notre Dame, and free Quasimodo, but tell him that Sora says he's got to stay at the cathedral."
"What should I tell him when he asks?"
"Here's my plan." Sora said, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
!
The next morning, at the break of dawn, a handful of armed and armored soldiers entered the dungeon to extract Sora, Phoebus, and the others. All of them were wide awake, having just donned the iron chains Xonem had stolen. The Nobody himself was long gone.
They were marched out of the Palace of Justice in single file, where several dozen other gypsies were being loaded into iron cages, equipped with sturdy wooden wheels to make them easy to transport.
Their chains were removed (which normally would have cost them their lives, either by the 'prisoners' or the Horned King) and they were pushed into separate cages. Sora and Riku, Yuffie and Bariss, Kairi and Nehrut, and Donald and Goofy were all put into separate cages. Clopin and Djali were put with another group of gypsy prisoners. Axel was put into his own cell, while Phoebus and Mickey were placed in a noticeably smaller one. Sora suspected that Frollo had made specific orders for them.
By the time the sky was lit orange with the rising sun's rays, the entire procession was moved to the square in front of Notre Dame. A large wooden platform had been placed in the center of it. On the top was a stake, to which Esmeralda was bound by lengths of rope. Packs of dry kindling were being piled around her feet.
It was ironic, they had a plan to rescue her, and she was the only one they hadn't informed of it.
Frollo stood on the platform. A soldier stood behind him, holding a burning torch. Frollo walked up to Esmeralda, and opened up a scroll, which he began to read from in a raised voice, to the enraged crowd that had gathered in the square.
Looking at this crowd (many of which were holding their own torches, as well as shovels and pitchforks in traditional angry mob style) it was obvious that Frollo was not a popular man. Sora had to smile at that.
"The prisoner Esmeralda has been found guilty of the crime of witchcraft. The sentence: Death!"
This proclamation was greeted by angry cries from the crowd, who were being barely restrained by the soldiers guarding the platform. The doors of the cathedral opened, and the Archdeacon who Sora and the others had befriended stepped out. At the sight of Esmeralda tied to a stake, he almost stormed up to Frollo, only to be barred access by a pair of soldiers.
Sora noted all of this as his and Riku's cage rolled to a stop several feet away from the platform. He could see the rest of the group from his vantage point, and soon caught Axel's eye.
He mouthed 'Get ready', and received a nod in return.
Frollo took the torch from the soldier near him, who immediately stepped down off the platform. He held the torch aloft, and walked over to the trapped Esmeralda. He spoke in a voice so low that only she could hear. "The time has come, gypsy. You stand upon the brink of the abyss… Yet even now, it is not too late. I can save you from the flames of this world, and the next."
"Choose me, or the fire."
She spat in his face.
Frollo wiped it away, and snarled before turning back to the crowd. "The gypsy Esmeralda has refused to recant!"
As Frollo went into a long-winded and completely hollow monologue about the threat she posed to society, Sora cast his eyes up to the west bell tower high above them. It may have been his imagination, but he thought he saw a dark, hunched figure standing there.
"Almost." Riku said.
"Any sign of the Horned King?"
"I don't smell him. Probably wants to watch how this plays out from a safe distance, just like Halloween Town."
"That makes our job much easier then."
Frollo's long-winded speech was coming to an end. "-And for her own salvation, it is my sacred duty to send this abhorrent demon back where she belongs!" He touched the burning torch to the wood at the base of the stake.
The distant figure of Quasimodo leapt from the bell tower almost before the wood started to burn. Using a very long, very sturdy length of rope tied to the head of a gargoyle, he descended like a lightning bolt half way down the cathedral. He touched his feet to the wall, and ran along it until he was even with the platform, then leapt onto it.
Before he touched down, Axel shot out his hands, and the growing flames around Esmeralda shot from the kindling directly into Frollo, tossing him from the platform, burning.
Quasimodo landed on the platform, and tore off the ropes binding Esmeralda to the stake. Apparently, however, the smoke had gotten to her, because she was barely conscious. He picked her up carefully into his arms, and ran back toward the cathedral.
Soldiers rushed to intercept the two, but that was where Sora's group came in. The massive orange form of the Guardian smashed Sora and Riku's cage into a mangled ball of metal, and the Keybearers ran to meet them.
"Refraction Rays!" Riku shouted, extending his empty hands as he ran. Tiny red-orange balls shot from his fingertips, spiraling at the soldiers, and blowing each one of them off their feet.
The projectiles bounced off of their soldier targets, and repeatedly shot into others. This resulted in five soldiers dead before Riku and Sora even got close to them, and another twelve unconscious. The ones still standing decided to turn their attention to the dangerous newcomers approaching them.
Riku brought his hands together, and the tiny projectiles that had caused so much damage all came together into a single orange ball. He clenched his fist, and it exploded, sending the mangled soldiers flying.
Only one of them could still stand, and he stumbled toward Quasimodo, sword upraised.
He lost four teeth from the hunchback's punch to his face, and fell unconscious to the ground.
Quasimodo ran over him, back toward the door of the cathedral, which the rope he had used from before was hanging over. The two guards in front of it ran to meet him, but were then lifted into the air by Nehrut's telepathic hold, and thrown far away into the city to land in a messy heap a block away.
The hunchback placed Esmeralda over his shoulder, and took the rope in one hand. He scrambled up it as quickly as he could, scaling the walls like a professional rock climber, and arriving at the center walkway in seconds. He stood in front of the massive round stained-glass window, and held Esmeralda up where all could see her.
And at the top of his lungs, he shouted, "SANCTUARY!"
The crowd cried out in jubilation, especially when Nehrut and Kairi flew up there with the hunchback, bringing Donald and Goofy with them to give the gypsy medical help if needed.
"Captain!" Exclaimed a voice Sora half-suspected they had heard the last of. Frollo had gotten to his feet, none the worse for wear apart from his scorched robes. "Secure the cathedral!"
Most of his personal guard of soldiers had been killed or incapacitated in the initial attack, so he evened the odds a bit by summoning several Heartless. As Sora rushed at the nearest Jester, beheading it with one clean swipe, he heard Phoebus's voice from somewhere behind them.
He was hefting an appropriated spear from a soldier that was now too unconscious to use it. "Citizens of Paris! Frollo has persecuted our people, ransacked our city, and now, he has declared war on Notre Dame herself!"
Frollo's head snapped around when he heard this. "Will we allow it!"
The resounding cry from the crowd, "NO!"
They surged forward in one massive wave, brandishing the tools they had brought along with them. Some of them had been equipped with weapons beforehand (courtesy of Donald and Mickey) and some stole them from downed soldiers. They were inexperienced when it came to combat, but their righteous passion was fueling their bodies, allowing them to go toe-to-toe with soldiers and Heartless.
To even the odds still more, Xonem appeared with several Assassin Nobodies. They immediately set about the task of destroying their boss's enemies, particularly Heartless.
"This is going to be good!" Sora exclaimed, rushing into the mob of Heartless and soldiers attempting to breach the cathedral doors. Riku and Bariss fell into step beside him, and they were upon the forces there before they knew what was happening.
Sora cut an Armored Knight in half, stabbed through a Jester's chest, and beheaded a Shadow before the nearest soldier was able to even turn to face him. By that time, however, it was too late for him. Bariss had come up behind him, and ran her sai through his back, into his heart.
"Hey," Roxas wondered, "A heart pumps blood through the blood stream, so how exactly do Nobodies survive without them?"
Can we talk about this later?
"Just don't forget, okay? This is going to drive me nuts now."
Riku blasted a pair of Heartless to shreds with one shot of Dawn, and then blocked an overhand strike from a Jester. Bariss leapt onto its back, and stabbed into its face. She back flipped off of it, and crushed a Shadow underfoot.
Behind her flew a flaming chakram, which cut through an Armored Knight, and stuck itself in the wall. Axel rushed up and reclaimed it, blocking a Dark fireball Frollo had thrown at him.
Immediately, Mickey and Sora ran toward him, Keyblades ready. "Bring it, old man!"
"I don't have time for your games, brat!"
He parried Sora's quick blow with a Dark blade, then Mickey's, before leaping completely over Sora's spiky head, directly at the cathedral doors. He seemed to pool Darkness around him in midair, and blasted completely through the foot-thick doors, and into the hall.
He was almost immediately confronted by the furious Archdeacon, who marched toward him with fists clenched. "Frollo, have you gone mad! I will not allow this assault on the house of God!"
"Out of my way you old fool!" He growled, grabbing the man by the collar. He threw him to the ground several feet away. "The hunchback and I have unfinished business to attend to."
He walked up to the nearest stairwell, leading up to the roof. As he did, over a dozen Heartless appeared in the hall. "And this time, you will not interfere."
The Heartless advanced on the Archdeacon, who backed away immediately, crossing himself. The first Shadow leapt.
Then, it met its end when a shuriken cut through it in midair. Yuffie appeared in front of the Archdeacon, and blocked a strike from an Armored Knight. Riku leapt into the fray, cutting into the Heartless before any of them came close to the holy man.
Sora, Mickey, Axel, and Bariss ran inside next, and immediately added their own might to the heated battle inside the church.
"Where's Frollo?" Sora asked the Archdeacon a few moments later, blocking a strike from a Jester that had rushed toward him. He pushed the large axe blade off, and drove Oblivion into its stomach.
"He went up those stairs!" The man shouted over the noise of the battles going on in and outside of the church. He pointed to a the staircase that Frollo had gone up. "I believe he means to do the bell ringer harm."
"Go, Sora!" Riku said, parrying a blow from a soldier that had ran inside. "We'll take care of things down here."
"Xonem!" Axel shouted. "Give Sora some backup, huh?"
Sora ran up the staircase, the Assassin right behind him.
!
Frollo ran up the steps two at a time, intent on murder. He clutched Dark energy in the form of a blade in his hand, leaving a line of char along the stone wall where it touched it. He had locked the stairway door behind him, though he doubted that it was necessary; the Archdeacon was probably a Heartless by now.
He was nearly to the door that led out to the ceiling. He blasted it to splinters with a blast of Darkness, and stepped through the empty doorway.
He had a good view of the square below, which was in chaos. The execution platform had been set on fire (ironically) and was sending flames and smoke into the sky, giving the fighting below a hellish red tint. Unfortunately for those below, the spare kindling, Frollo's carriage, and several of the wooden floors of the cages had caught fire as well, adding to the insanity.
He only spared it a moment's glance, before pacing toward the west tower. He blasted the second door open as well, and stormed through the opening. "Now we end this."
Quasimodo stood there, as he had expected. But Nehrut and Kairi stood on either side of him, weapons ready. Donald and Goofy ran out of a nearby room, closing the door behind them.
"True as you tell it, 'Your Honor.'" Nehrut said, pointing his blade at him.
"But how it ends remains to be seen." Kairi added.
He scowled, and threw his Dark blade at them. It spun through the air, directly at Quasimodo's throat. Goofy leapt, and intercepted it with his shield. The blade dissipated on impact, but by that time, Frollo was running at them with another two in hand.
Nehrut and Kairi ran to meet him midway, so he brought both crashing down on them. Kairi blocked the right one, and Nehrut the left.
The psychic shot his hand out, throwing Frollo back out the door he had come from, and onto the roof. His five opponents followed him out.
Kairi struck at his head the moment he got to his feet, only to be blocked by a Dark blade. Frollo swept at her feet, and came up fighting with two more strikes before Donald sent a lightning bolt flying at him.
He caught the attack with one blade, with enough time to block Nehrut's strike with his other. He leapt directly backwards, and shot his blades at them. Donald jumped in between them, and called up a quick Reflega spell to block them.
From behind the protective barrier, Kairi fired a narrow beam of Light at Frollo. It impacted with his chest, and he flew backwards several feet, nearly falling off the roof. Nehrut sprinted forward, slashing high, then low. Both strikes were hurriedly blocked before Frollo grabbed him by the throat.
He tossed him over the stone railing, and down toward the square below, smiling in satisfaction.
So when Nehrut floated back up and blasted him into the air, he was pretty surprised.
"You didn't think that would be that easy, did you?" He asked when Frollo landed back on the roof with a thud.
"No, I didn't." Frollo fired a large blast of Darkness from his palm as he got to his feet, which caught the young psychic off-guard, and threw him backwards, off the ceiling again. This time however, he tumbled through the air toward the fray below.
He was barely able to right himself in the air, and land feet first on top of a Large Body menacing Clopin and three other gypsies. He stabbed down into its head, and decided that Kairi and the others would have to handle Frollo themselves.
Back on the rooftop, Kairi had her blade pinned against both of Frollo's, and was slowly pushing him backward across the rooftop. Donald and Goofy rushed up to either side of her, and attacked Frollo at the same moment.
Unexpectedly, the judge leapt high, flipping in the air to land on Kairi's opposite side. But rather than pressing his attack against her, he ran back to the west tower. Quasimodo stood in the doorway. He was holding a sword that Donald had conjured up for him in one hand, but seemed almost reluctant to use it.
Even now, as Frollo's blade flashed toward his neck.
Kairi leapt over Frollo, landing between the two men. She caught his blade as he slashed horizontally toward the hunchback.
Donald and Goofy leapt at Frollo's exposed back, but he disengaged from Kairi, and lashed at them both with his empty hand, tossing them backwards to the other side of the ceiling over fifty feet away.
The two were dazed, and seemed unable to get up without stumbling.
But it was this of all things that awoke Quasimodo's fighting spirit. He ran past Kairi, and aimed a wide slash at Frollo's chest. The judge leapt backwards, looking furious.
"I kept you, clothed you, taught you, fed you," Frollo spat out, "And now you repay me with treason? You listen to me, boy-"
"NO!" Quasimodo interrupted. "You listen! All my life, you've taught me that the world is a cruel, horrible place. But now I realize that the only thing cruel and horrible about it is people like you!"
Kairi smiled at him. And her smile widened when Sora and Xonem ran onto the ceiling behind Frollo, ready for action.
The judge took notice of them. "So, I see that I'll have to commit four murders before I can rid the world of the gypsy girl. So be it. God is on my side."
"Don't think so, Frollo." Sora said, Keyblade in hand. He looked past Frollo. "Quasi?"
The hunchback nodded. "Let's do this."
He and Sora ran toward Frollo at the same time. Quasimodo leapt at the same moment Sora did, and they both buried their blades in the ground when they landed.
The whole cathedral seemed to shake, and Frollo was once again tossed into the air. For a moment, it seemed that he would fly off the roof, and down into the square just as Nehrut had a moment before.
However, he stretched out his hands, and seemed to right himself in midair by blasting Darkness from them. The force of his own blast threw him back onto the roof, landing in front of Sora.
"Nice one." Sora congratulated Quasimodo.
No sooner had the words left his lips than he rushed forward at Frollo. He took two powerful strides forward, and thrust his blade out in front of him into Frollo's stomach. The judge was unable to block it in time, and got the air knocked out of his lungs as Oblivion hit home.
He stumbled backwards, grasping his stomach in obvious pain. Before he could recover from the attack however, Quasimodo did what he had secretly longed to do for over a decade:
He vaulted effortlessly over the Keybearer's head as if they were playing an incredibly dangerous game of leapfrog. Before his feet touched the ground, he drove his fist into Frollo's face, and felt the satisfying crunch of his nose under his knuckles.
Frollo fell away again, nearly collapsing onto the railing, before Sora struck him in the stomach yet again. It nearly threw him over the edge of the roof again, but he was able to push himself off of it, and backwards.
But he only received Quasimodo's second punch in the face.
This happened another two times, and Frollo was bruised all over. Sora and Quasimodo stood side by side. "End it now!" Sora said.
Sora jumped lightly to stand on Quasimodo's opened palms. He took just a second to properly balance himself, before the hunchback tossed him directly up into the air.
As the Keybearer gained height, the blade he gripped in his hand began to shine with a deep golden light. This glow grew in intensity the higher he got. By the time he arrived at the peak of his ascent, it was as bright as a star.
For the brief period of time before he fell, where he seemed to be floating in midair, he took the Keyblade in both hands. For the briefest of moments, it almost looked like there was something floating directly above him. Something bell-shaped.
He struck this barely visible object with all his might, resulting in a loud sound that was both beautiful, and somehow terrifying. It was as if every bell in Notre Dame was suddenly struck at once -with a cannon ball.(1)
The cathedral shook again, and Frollo was thrown to the other side of the roof as a massive golden light burst from the Keyblade, shooting outwards.
"Sweet!" Sora exclaimed as he landed back on the ground.
He fully expected Frollo to stay down. He expected him to concede defeat, and surrender. Or perhaps he would fade into Darkness like a Heartless or Nobody- Perhaps he had become one?
But he never would have expected him to reach up with one hand, and grasp the stone railing. Nor did he expect for him to pull himself up, and get back on his feet in mere seconds.
His once clean, well cared for robes were smeared with dust and a bit of dried blood, and torn in several places. His hat had fallen over the side, and into the fire below, and his hair was ragged.
His expression was one of pure, unbridled rage.
Darkness pooled at his clenched fist. With a furious slashing motion, he released it in a huge burst at Sora, Kairi, and Quasimodo.
Kairi leapt in between the two men, and brought her hands up. She formed a Light shield in front of them to take the full blast. The intensity of it was almost enough to shatter the barrier, but it still held.
Frollo advanced, and fired another blast of equal strength. This time Kairi's barrier faltered slightly, seeming to flicker out of existence for the briefest of moments. And with the third shot, the barrier dissipated.
The judge smiled horribly and pulled more Darkness to his fist. With a cry of triumph, he slashed at Kairi.
Time seemed to stop.
And in this frozen moment, Kairi shouted, "Light!"
As she said it, a bright flash of gold light burst from her body, and the Dark blast flying at her evaporated.
When the light faded, Sora's jaw dropped. Kairi had entered a new Drive form.
She floated slightly above the ground, with her toes just barely skimming the stone. Her outer cloak had lengthened, and brushed the stone below her. It had turned pale gold, with a white trim, and her sleeves were suddenly missing. Her boots had turned white, and from the sides protruded small, shining gold angel wings. Four much larger wings protruded from her upper and mid back. Floating five inches over her head was a gold halo. Around her head there was a thin, golden woven band, with a ruby heart in the center. This was Kairi's Goddess form.
Two Keyblades floated in front of her, point down. The first was the white and blue Oathkeeper. The second had a circular, stone-grey guard, which had the heads of two gargoyles on either side. It turned to bronze at the pommel, where there was a circular mosaic pattern. The bronze shaft was engraved with what appeared to be latin words (reading, 'Our Lady of Paris'). A gold bell emerged from the top of the shaft in place of the key's teeth. The Keychain was a smaller replica of the map to the Court of Miracles.
This particular Keyblade was named, 'Bell of Notre Dame.'
Kairi reached out, and took both blades in her hands; Oathkeeper in the right, and Bell of Notre Dame in the left. Half smiling, she rushed toward Frollo, feet still above the ground.
Her first strike was so fast that her arm couldn't be seen for a moment, and Frollo was just barely able to block it with a hurriedly conjured Dark blade. Even so, it forced him backward a few paces.
Her follow up attack cut his blade in two. For the moment his guard was down, she dropped her blade, and struck at his chest, palm first. Light exploded from her palm upon impact with him, and it threw him backwards into the wall of the east bell tower.
Kairi closed the distance between them inside of three seconds, just as he was struggling back to his feet. She struck at his legs, and he barely reflected it. He quickly summoned a second blade to block the next strike.
They stood there for a moment, their four very different blades locked together in a temporary stalemate.
Then, Kairi beat her wings once, sending a gale of wind ahead of her. Frollo stumbled, and the Dark blades fell from his grasp.
With a shout, Kairi plunged her blades into the ground. A massive pillar of Light erupted from under Frollo's feet, and he shot high into the air. With a single beat of her golden wings, she launched herself upward, passing Frollo on the way up.
She dismissed her Keyblades for a moment, and brought her hands together. Light pooled to her hands, and a ball of Light formed in between them the size of a basketball. She held it for just a moment, and then fired the ball down at Frollo with a shout of, "Shining Assault!"
The ball hit Frollo in the stomach, exploding, and shooting him down into the roof of the east tower. He left a three-inch crater in the tiles and stone upon impact. He was just barely able to crawl out of the crater, and stumbled uneasily to his feet. Kairi touched down in front of him, Keyblades back in hand.
He began to back away, calling a Dark blade to his hand. "You may look like an angel, but I can see through your deception!" He spat. "I know that God is on my side!"
Kairi looked at him with a mixture of anger, incredulity and pity. "Do you hear yourself, Frollo? Can't you realize that you're in the wrong here? You might be the most influential person on this world, but instead of using your position to help people, you're committing genocide only out of hatred for the gypsies!"
"They aren't deserving of my aid." Frollo defended. "They're animals, do you understand me? Vile heathens that reject the rules of society in lue of their own outlandish views! They deserve everything I've done to them! I stand by my decisions!"
"You're insane." Kairi said, sighing in resignation. She adopted a fighting stance. "Let's finish this, then."
She launched herself forward, wings flapping, and struck toward Frollo's neck. When this blow was parried, she struck at his chest, feet, and head. All of these attacks were just barely blocked by his blade, but the judge was slowly being pressed backwards toward the edge of the cathedral's roof.
Mustering all the strength he could, Frollo leapt high into the air, soaring over Kairi to land a few feet from her other side. Fist enveloped in Darkness, he struck at her briefly exposed back...
Only for her to twist around at the last second, and catch it with her open palm, enveloped in Light. She clenched down on it, snuffing out his Darkness, and cracking one of his knuckles.
She dismissed her other blade, took his fist in both of her glowing hands, and tossed him with all her might over the side of the building.
He fell like a rock, screaming his lungs out as he plunged toward his seemingly inevitable death hundreds of feet below. But to his fortune, he had an ally watching the confrontation.
As a last favor to Claude Frollo, the Horned King (who had been watching things unfold from a rooftop a few streets away) applied the subtlest of changes to the air around the judge. This altered his free fall just enough to send him into the path of one of the gargoyles jutting out from the side of the cathedral a few floors below where he had fallen.
Frollo grabbed hold of the structure, and with what small amount of strength he had left, hoisted himself up to stand on it.
Also to the judge's good fortune, when the fighting on the roof had started, Donald and Goofy had hurriedly ushered Esmeralda through a doorway that would lead her to the lower floors. She had just been passing Frollo's gargoyle when he landed on it.
His eyes locked on her, and a deranged smile formed on his lips. With his last reserves of Dark power, he formed a blade of Darkness. He raised it high over his head, his half-mad eyes poring into her frightened ones.
"'And He shall smite the wicked, and cast them into the fiery pit!'"
This, however, was where Frollo's luck ran out. Kairi had followed his progress down the side of the building, and shot down after him. Just before he could bring his blade to bear against the gypsy, she threw Oathkeeper.
It whistled through the smoke-filled air down at the space directly in front of Frollo. The teeth of the Keyblade cut directly through the gargoyle's neck, severing the head on which Frollo stood from the rest of the building.
Both of them fell, and about halfway down, Frollo caught his last glimpse of the gargoyle's face. Perhaps it was a hallucination, but he saw its face twist into a leering expression. Through his screaming, he heard it unleash a roar as he crashed into the blazing remains of the execution platform.
"Precisely." Kairi said.
!
A moment later, Esmeralda, Phoebus, Quasimodo, Sora, Kairi, Donald, and Goofy were in the west bell tower. Sora was affectionately running a finger along one of Kairi's angelic wings (she had yet to revert back to her normal state). She smiled at him, and quickly pecked him on the lips.
Nobody spoke, as Quasimodo walked up to Phoebus, and Esmeralda. He took one of their hands in each of his. He looked fondly at both of them for a moment, before placing them together, and stepping back.
Phoebus and Esmeralda gazed at each other for just another moment, realizing that the hunchback had just granted them his blessing. Esmeralda waited two seconds before throwing her arms around Phoebus's neck, and kissing him.
He eagerly returned it as Goofy gave Quasimodo a pat on his humped back.
As if the kiss was some sort of signal, the nearest bell ('Big Marie', Quasimodo had called her) let off a faint ringing sound, and started to glow faintly. The light surrounding it assembled into one relatively small place on the outside of the bell, forming the shape of a Keyhole.
As Kairi reverted back to her normal form and clothing, she summoned Destiny's Light. She pointed it at the Keyhole, and let the silver light shoot into the world's Keyhole.
"Only one thing left to do." Sora said, looking meaningfully at the bell ringer standing to his left.
!
The day had fully arrived when the seven of them stepped out into the square, and it was to the sounds of tumultuous cheering from over a hundred people who were still standing there. Riku and Mickey were at the head of the cheering crowd, smiling.
Sora and Phoebus raised their fists to the crowd, eliciting still louder cheering. Donald, Goofy, and Kairi came out right behind them.
Last was Esmeralda, who was leading Quasimodo out the doors. The crowd fell silent for just a moment, looking unsure of how they were supposed to react to seeing him. Quasimodo himself looked nervous.
Sora walked over to his side. "I think we've all learned that it's important to accept others for who they are... Otherwise you turn into Frollo."
All was still for another moment or two, before there was a slight stirring near the front of the crowd. To Sora's surprise, it was a little girl that walked forward. She couldn't have been seven years old.
She walked past Riku, and up the steps to where Quasimodo stood. She looked at him for a few frozen moments, with the infinite, innocent curiosity that all small children had. Slowly, she reached up and placed her tiny hands to his cheeks.
She kept them there for just a second, and then pulled his large head down to her in a friendly hug.
"So cute..." Kairi squeaked, as the little girl took Quasimodo's hand, and led him into the crowd.
A voice that Sora recognized as Clopin's came from the crowd, "Three cheers for Quasimodo!"
The cheering began immediately, and the crowd surged forward to accept the hunchback into its throng. Soon, Quasimodo was sitting on two large men's shoulders, and another handful of other people had somehow gotten the off-worlders in the air, as well.
Riku called over to Sora. "So, mission accomplished?"
Sora laughed. "I think so." His eyes sought out Clopin. "So when's the next festival?"
!
Ta-da! About time Frollo got what was coming to him.
1) Bell of Miracles
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