Chapter 15 How To Be A Proper Princess
"Belle?" Kairi says, touching the other girl on the arm to get her attention. Belle turns to her and Kairi jerks her head towards the far side of the cell. Leaving the care of Aurora to Jasmine, Snow White, and Cinderella who had moved over to join them, Belle follows Kairi to the corner farthest from the others and looks questioningly at her.
Kairi sighs, kicking at the bars of their cell absentmindedly. "We have to get out of here."
She speaks in a low voice to keep the others from hearing and Belle does the same saying, "I know, but how?"
"There has to be a way," Kairi says glancing around the cell. The other girls are watching them curiously, but Kairi is reluctant to bring them into the conversation. She is doing her best to keep up a brave face around them, but with Belle she can let her fear show knowing the other girl is tough enough to handle the grim truth of their situation. "If only I had my keyblade," Kairi says flicking her wrist in the familiar motion and glaring at her empty hand when nothing happens. "I could unlock that door in a second and we'd be free before Ansem…"
Belle raises an eyebrow at her as she drifts off without finishing her thought. Kairi just shakes her head and tries to turn away, but Belle catches her arm. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
"No, of course not," Kairi says, glancing over at the other girls who have lost interest in watching them.
Belle crosses her arms. "So haven't held back anything? Everything Ansem told you you told me?"
"I've told you everything I know," Kairi says curtly. Technically it isn't a lie, but Belle seems to be reading between the lines.
Speaking in an even quieter voice that forces Kairi to lean in close to hear, Belle asks, "Should I be afraid? I mean, more afraid than I already am?"
Kairi sighs and runs a hand through her hair. It feels greasy and the knots only serve to remind her she's been stuck in this cell for days. "I don't know anything for sure," Kairi says slowly, still not wanting to say anything, but knowing from the glint in Belle's eye that she won't take no for an answer. "I've been going through everything Ansem said to me when I first got here and I think I might know what he wants from us."
Kairi glances back at the other girls again and Belle impatiently prompts her, "Well? What does he want?"
Unable to meet Belle's eye, Kairi lays a hand on her chest and whispers to the ground, "Our hearts."
For a moment Belle doesn't respond and Kairi glances at her, seeing the confusion in her face. "Our...hearts?" Belle repeats copying Kairi by pressing a hand over her own heart.
Kairi nods. "That's what he said. I don't know what it really means either, but as soon as he has all seven of us he's going to take our hearts. It's part of some plan of his with our hearts as some of the pieces, but I don't know for what."
Belle takes a moment again to respond and when she does Kairi can hear the quiver of fear in her voice. "Seven...that means there is only one more girl left."
"And once he has us all it will be too late," Kairi says. "We have to find a way out before he gets back."
Belle nods and the two of them stand in silence, neither one of them wanting to say aloud what they each are thinking. They have no idea how to escape.
Kairi starts to flick her wrist again in the familiar movement of summoning her keyblade despite knowing it is hopeless. Belle toys with the edge of her apron, scratching at a stain she had gotten on it. Frowning at the stubborn spot, Belle says, "If I just had something to pick the lock with, I'm sure I could do it."
Kairi doesn't even glance at her. They'd been through the same ideas a hundred times. When Belle had first brought up that she had read a book describing in detail of how to pick a lock Kairi had nearly jumped for joy, but after a long search of their pockets and the cell that yielded nothing for Belle to work with, the idea had to be regrettably discarded.
"A bobby pin would work," Belle says and Kairi runs a hand through her hair. As always there is no pin there for Bell to use. She glances at the other girl to see her do the same and her expression of frustration at the want of such a simple object.
There is a small commotion by the other girls and the two of them look over to see Aurora sitting up with Snow White's help. "The new girls," Kairi mutters and Belle raises an eyebrow at her. "Maybe the new girls have a bobby pin." She meets Belle's gaze for a second before they both hurry back across the cell.
"Do either of you have a bobby pin?" Belle asks cutting of Aurora who had been asking about what is happening.
Cinderella reaches up to her bun, but drops her hand back down. "No, I don't," she says.
"Me neither," Aurora says in a small voice, running a hand through her long blond hair. "Why?"
Sitting down with a sigh Belle says, "If I had a bobby pin I could pick the lock and get us out of here."
Kairi sits down beside Belle and finds Snow White's eyes on her full of hope that the red haired girl has a plan. Kairi has to duck her head to avoid the expectant gaze knowing she isn't able to live up to her promise of breaking them all out.
"Would something like a bobby pin work?"
Kairi's head snaps back up at Aurora's words to see the blond girl pulling a slim silver needle out of a pocket hidden in the folds of her blue dress.
"It's a spindle needle," Aurora explains. "I'm not sure its will work the same, but-"
"No, it's perfect," Belle says taking the needle from the other girl and holding it like it is made of glass. She gets to her feet and Kairi jumps to her feet as well, following Belle across the cell with the other four girls right behind her.
Belle stops at the cell door and reaches through the bars to get at the keyhole of the lock. It's an awkward angle to be working at, but she bites her lip in concentration and slips the needle into the lock. She starts to jiggle it around and Kairi watches her work while holding her breath. The long moments stretch out into minutes and she can't keep quiet anymore.
"Is it working?" Kairi asks in a whisper.
Belle brushes a piece of loose hair behind her ear with her free hand and says, "I think so. I've never done this for real before. Only read about it..."
She trails off and refocuses on picking the lock. Another agonizing minute of praying Ansem wouldn't come back goes by and Belle seems to be working faster. Then, whether from sweat or nerves or a combination of the two, her fingers slip and the needle falls out of the lock.
Belle gasps and lunges for it, but it hits the ground and rolls out of reach. "No, no," she breathes out and Kairi can hear the quiver in her voice as she stretches her fingers futility in the direction of the dropped needle.
Belle turns to Kairi with her eyes wet with tears, but Kairi can only stare back at her. Her own hope is too shot to offer any comfort to the others.
"What are we going to do now?" Cinderella dares asks, but no one has an answer to give. A painful silence falls on them broken only by small sobs as the tears start to spill out of Belle's eyes.
In the quiet, Snow White starts to sing. Her song has no words, but in the pure notes Kairi can hear their own story and fear of Ansem ringing clearly. Belle's tears dry up as she stares open mouthed at Snow White as the young girl moves to the bars of the cell and sings her sad song out to the darkest corners of the room.
Beady red eyes blink into existence and with a scuffling sound, a rat creeps slowly into the light. Inching forward cautiously, it starts to make its way closer to them, encouraged by Snow White's song. It reaches the needle and takes a careful sniff before picking it up in its mouth. Crouching down, Snow White holds out her hand and the rat scampers over to place it in her hand. Once it drops it she ends her song and the rat scurries back into the dark.
"Here," Snow White says, handing Belle the needle with a smile. "Try again. I'm sure you can do it."
Belle stares at Snow dumbfounded for a moment. She nods slowly and turns back to the lock with the needle clutched firmly in her hand. Brushing away the tears, she starts to work the lock again, her determination restored.
"Even if we get out of here, what are our chances?" Jasmine says and Kairi turns to see her looking fearfully through the bars at the door that lead out of the room their cell is in. "We don't have any weapons."
"Once we're out of this room I will be able to summon my keyblade," Kairi says confidently even though inside she is fighting back a sense of doubt. Ansem had said it was the darkness in the room that kept her from summoning her keyblade of light, but what if that darkness extends beyond, maybe even filling whatever forsaken world they are in. She flicks her wrist in the way that has become a nervous habit and hopes that soon her hand will once more hold the familiar weight of her keyblade.
Jasmine doesn't seem reassured by her words. "But the rest of us will be defenseless," she points out. "If you have a keyblade, Kairi, I'm sure you are an excellent fighter, but are you sure you can defend all five of us if Ansem attacks."
The other girls' faces pale at the mention of Ansem and Belle glances up from the lock for a moment to meet Kairi's eye. Inwardly Kairi curses Jasmine for scaring the others. Fear would make them irrational and she needs them to be as level headed as possible if they are going to have any chance of getting away. Kairi tries to come up with a counter, but is at a loss knowing even with her keyblade back in hand she doesn't stand a chance alone against Ansem if he attacks. Even when Riku had fought beside her, Ansem had won easily. Kairi is still struggling for something reassuring to say when a sudden crash makes her jump and whirl around.
Cinderella is standing there with a smug smile and one glass slipper in hand. On the floor is what remained of the second now shattered. Picking up what remains of the heel she holds it so they can see the shape edge of the broken glass. "Not as good as a sword, but better than being unarmed."
Jasmine crouches down and goes to pick up a large shard only to drop it with a hiss. The sharp edge had left a cut on her finger already turning dark red with blood.
"Cure," Kairi says quickly and the small cut heals.
Jasmine nods in thanks and looks to her tattered pant leg. From the ripped fabric she tears off a long strip and wraps it around half of the glass shard as she carefully picks it back up. She touches the covered edge and pulls her finger back cut free. "This will work," she says, a small smile starting to form.
There is one more shard large enough to use and Kairi carefully separates it from the smaller pieces. Jasmine cuts another strip of fabric from her ruined pant leg. She hands it to Kairi who wraps it around the shard while Cinderella breaks the second shoe. The second shoe yields three more big enough shards and Kairi hands the wrapped shard in her hand to Snow White so she can help Jasmine wrap the new pieces.
The sound of ripping fabric makes Kairi look up to see Cinderella hacking through the skirt of her dress with her makeshift knife. She's cutting it just above her knee and seeing what she is trying to do, Kairi moves to help. The two of them make short work of the layered skirt and the bottom of it falls to the ground in a heap leaving Cinderella free from its confining length. Snow White is doing the same to her dress and Jasmine gets rid of what's left of her tattered pant leg as well as cutting the other side to be the same length, leaving her in shorts.
"Got it!" Belle shouts out and quickly slaps a hand over her mouth to cut off the loud sound. "Sorry," she whispers in a muffled voice.
Kairi listens for any telltale sounds of someone coming to check the source of the noise, but she hears nothing. "Let's get to this then," she says handing Belle one of the glass shards. She quickly helps Belle cut her simple blue dress and free her legs for running. Taking a look around at the five other girls with makeshift knives clutched in their hands, Kairi tightens her grip on her own and slowly opens the now unlocked cell door.
Stepping out of the cell, she creeps towards the door out of the room with the others following. The only sound to hear is their padding footsteps on the floor, Cinderella in barefeet is the quietest. Reaching the door, Kairi hesitates with her ear pressed against the dark wood for a moment before giving the others a nod and slowly turning the doorknob.
The door swings open with a small creak that makes Kairi cringe, but she forces it open wide enough for them to slip out. On the other side is a long hallway, dingy with years of grime, where only half the lights hanging from the ceiling are working.
Once they are all out of the room, Kairi pulls up short and with her heart pounding flicks her wrist. There is a flash of light in her hand and she bites her lip to keep from crying out in relief seeing her keyblade appear. Turning to grin at the other girls whose eyes are fixed on her slender keyblade in awe, she tucks her now unneeded glass shard into her pocket and wraps her fingers tightly around her keyblade's familiar grip.
"Follow me," Kairi breathes out, walking down the corridor with the others trailing in a line behind her. They keep to one side and press against the wall as they go. Reaching the end where it splits off in two directions, Kairi holds up her hand and they stop. Inching forward, Kairi peers around the corner to see the back of a Large Body heartless facing the other direction.
She quickly ducks her head back to face the others watching her with wide eyes. Pressing her fingers to her lips, she steps around the corner with her keyblade in both hands. The heartless' back is still to her and as silently as possible she creeps up behind it. A short glance over her shoulder she sees Belle and Jasmine right behind her with their glass shards at the ready. Focusing back on the heartless, she lunges forward and strikes it hard on its vulnerable back.
It stumbles forward and tries to turn to face its attacker, but Kairi strikes again feeling satisfaction for finally being able to take her anger at being kidnapped out on something. With a final swing of her keyblade the heartless disappears leaving behind a pink heart that floats away from them, looking for a way to escape to the sky.
Kairi takes off at a run after it with the other girls following behind. She trusts that the heart has some sense that tells it which ways will take it to freedom as it leads them through twists and turns of what seems to be the ruins of a castle. It wants out of this dark place just as much as they do.
A final turn brings them to a jagged hole in the outer wall. The heart flies through immediately and shoots up into the gray sky, but Kairi is forced to halt, looking down at the long drop below to the ground below.
"What is this place?" Aurora asks, looking over a Kairi's shoulder.
Spread out around the castle they are standing in is the ruins of what was once a large, grand city. The houses are collapsing with broken windows and missing walls and the streets are empty apart from the occasional heartless scurrying along. A powerful wave of nostalgia hits Kairi, knocking the breath out of her. "Radiant Garden," she whispers, recognizing her broken homeworld. It had been over ten years since she'd last been here and it breaks her heart to see it in such a state. Her hand curls into a fist, thinking of the one who must be responsible for its destruction - Ansem.
"Kairi?" Bella says, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Kairi forces herself to look away from the view of the ruined city. She turns to the right where a staircase is leading down and says to the girls with a hard scowl on her face. "Come on. We have to get down to the ground level."
They take the staircase down to the next floor and once again find themselves in a maze of hallways. Kairi leads the way in a cautious manner, wary of more heartless lurking around. They find the way down to the next floor without any more run ins with heartless and Kairi starts moving faster, hopeful of their chances of getting away.
A scream echoes through the hallway, pulling them up short.
Kairi turns around sharply. It had been Snow White who had screamed and the small girl is backing away in horror from the dark corridor that has just appeared beside her. Out of the portal, Kairi's worst nightmare comes. Ansem's yellow eyes snap around the room, taking in the six of them in an instant. He is holding a young girl by the wrist and Kairi's heart sinks even more finding herself looking at the seventh and final Princess of Heart.
"An admirable effort," Ansem snarls, throwing the new girl to the side where she lands in a heap and raises her head to watch them all with fear filled eyes. "But for naught. You cannot escape your fate. The X-blade must be recreated and your hearts hold part of the power to do so."
Ansem's right hand starts to swirl with the power of darkness and Kairi rushes towards him, yelling to the others, "Run!"
Ansem lunges forward, shooting his blast of darkness at Snow White's back as she turns to run. Kairi is there in time to make sure his attack never reaches it's intended target and her keyblade deflects the dark energy back at him. It hits him in the stomach and he doubles over at the impact. Wasting no time, Kairi snatches up the hand of the seventh princess who is still sitting frozen on the floor. She pulls the younger girl to her feet and drags her off down the hallway in the direction the other girls had fled.
Glancing back over her shoulder she sees Ansem standing where she had left him, watching them run away. She shivers at the glare in his eyes fixed on her. He makes no move to pursue them so Kairi wrenches her eyes away from him as she turns a corner and focuses instead on the new girl beside her.
"What's your name?" Kairi asks, glancing down the hallway where the other princesses are waiting for them, gesturing frantically at the staircase down they had found.
"Alice," the young girl replies between gasping breaths.
"Alice," Kairi says looking right at her. "I know you're scared, but here." From her pocket draws out her glass shard and hands it to Alice who takes it hesitantly. "If anything tries to hurt you, use this." Alice nods slowly and Kairi lets go of her hand as they reach the others.
Belle looks fearfully over Kairi's shoulder. "Where is he?"
"I don't know," Kairi says, looking back as well. "But c'mon, we have to keep moving."
They follow the staircase down several floors, expecting to see Ansem's yellow eyes behind them each time they look back. Kairi has a sinking feeling in her stomach that he is hanging back on purpose, expecting something she is not. She can't dwell on the issue for long as one final staircase brings them down to the bottom floor and they find themselves in an a large room with a vaulted ceiling. There is a large double door ajar across from them and the girls hurry towards it feeling their hope return seeing daylight through the sliver gap between the doors.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kairi sees a shadow in the corner shift ever so slightly.
Kairi slows, turning her eyes towards it, raising her keyblade out of instinct. The others girl don't sense the danger. Jasmine is the first to reach the door, but as her hand stretches out to throw the door open the shadow in the corner moves again, this time as fast as lightning. The spot of darkness is suddenly in front of Jasmine and she jumps back with a gasp of shock. Out of the spot on the ground a Neoshadow heartless appears.
Jasmine shrieks as it lunges at her with it's claws stretched out. In a desperate movement, she slashes at it with her glass shard. Her clumsy strike is enough to knock the heartless back, but serves only to anger it. With a hiss it falls into a crouch and the princesses take a step back as Kairi moves in front of them with her keyblade at the ready.
She watches in dismay as more shadows slide across the floor and Neoshadows jump out of the pools of darkness to join the first one. Kairi swings at them, trying to carve out a path to the door, but with each heartless she takes down at least three more spring up to take its place. Soon the entire atrium seems to be a sea of heartless with hundreds of yellow, hungry eyes fixed on the princesses trapped together in the middle.
Kairi fights like she has never fought before. Swing, pivot, stab, lunge, turn, block, slash. All her focus is on the constant stream of heartless falling to her keyblade and she barely registers the other girls around her doing all they can to protect themselves from the onslaught.
Like Kairi they throw everything they have into this fight for their lives, but with no experience to speak of and weapons never meant to see battle, it is inevitable that the heartless will eventually gain the upper hand.
The first to fall is Alice. Kairi gasps in horror, seeing Alice's body collapse and her heart, a mix of pink and gold, appear. Slashing at a heartless trying to scratch her arm, Kairi knocks it back and turns to see Alice's heart fly not in the direction of the ajar doors that would take it to the sky, but instead towards the top of the steps they had come down where Ansem now stands. He reaches out at it approaches and it a flash it is gone, replaced by half the hilt of a keyblade in Ansem's hand. He looks at it with dark happiness and turns slightly to meet Kairi's wide eyes. She is frozen in the despair that settles over her and in her distraction Belle has to jump in to knock back a heartless leaping at Kairi's throat. Swept back up into the fighting, Kairi doesn't have a chance to thank her.
The heartless are relentless and a numbness from the futility of their situation sets in. Kairi doesn't feel the jarring impact each time her keyblade strikes a heartless or the scratches littering her arms and legs from the quick sharp claws of the Neoshadows. Through the haze of fighting she watches the other princesses fall one by one. Aurora, Snow White, Cinderella, Jasmine, and then Belle fall to the overwhelming hoard of heartless.
Like Alice, their bodies remain where they had fallen and their hearts fly to Ansem instead of the escape of the sky outside. With Belle's heart the keyblade in Ansem hand is almost complete.
Kairi swings through a heartless, killing it, and her keyblade hits the ground with sharp sound. She spins, bringing her keyblade back up to take on the next heartless, but there is nothing there. Turning on the spot, her keyblade slips from her hand seeing all the Neoshadows are gone and the exhaustion she'd been ignoring catches up to her, knocking her down onto her knees. She falls forward and her hands brace against the floor to keep her from falling flat on her face. She watches drips from her nose and chin fall, a combination of sweat and tears.
Heavy footsteps approach and she forces her head up to see Ansem coming towards her. Lifting one shaking arm, she summons her keyblade and whispers out, "Blizzara." The ice shoots at Ansem who sneers and with a sweep of his arm, a dark shield appears that knocks her attack harmlessly aside.
Kairi uses her keyblade as a crutch to push herself back to her feet, but before she is fully upright, a blast of darkness is sent from Ansem's hand. It slams into her and she is knocked back several feet, landing hard and winded.
Lying on her back, she stares up at the peeling ceiling overhead without really seeing it. In her mind she can see her friends, Sora, Riku, Tifa, and Cloud and all the other from Traverse Town she isn't going to get to see again. Her memory of Master Eraqus, Terra, Aqua, and Ven are there as well, smiling at her, and tears trail down her cheeks. What she wouldn't give to see them again before she met her end.
With a face contorted in a smug grin of victory, Ansem leans over her, dispersing the images of her friends. His yellow eyes stare mockingly into hers and she tries to lift her keyblade at the sight of the one made from the princess' hearts in his hand, but her fingers only twitch. She is too weak.
Ansem raises his keyblade over her. Half of the tip is still missing, but it is still wickedly sharp. In mind addled by fear and exhaustion, she imagines Sora beside her. He is holding her hand and giving her a small, sad smile. Her fingers twitch again, trying to squeeze Sora's hand back as if he is really there.
Above her, Ansem's keyblade is coming down at her, but she only has eyes for Sora now standing off to one side of her. As she watches, he starts to glow, turning into bright white light that washes over Kairi and takes away her fear.
Ansem's keyblade is at the end of it's arc and she waits for the pain, but it never comes. Just a deep darkness that she falls into with a feeling of falling asleep.
…
Ansem straightens up and turns away from Kairi's now limp and still body to glare at the light corridor that had appeared on the left side of the atrium. In the final moments before her demise, Kairi's fingers had twitched in that direction, summoning the light corridor. It angers him to see such light in the castle he has doused in darkness, but it doesn't matter now. Summoning it had been too little too late.
He returns his attention to Kairi as her chest glows and a moment later her soft pink and gold heart rises into the air. "The final piece to complete the Keyblade of Heart," he says smirking to the point of baring his teeth as the small heart floats towards him.
He holds out the incomplete keyblade, waiting for Kairi's heart to disappear in a flash like the others had and finish the keyblade, but Kairi's heart changes direction, drifting instead towards the light corridor.
His eyes widen, realizing what is about to happen. He lunges after the escaping heart, but it dodges him, racing for the light corridor and zipping through it. Before Ansem could follow it through, the light corridor fades away leaving the room darker without it.
For a moment Ansem stands there staring at the spot his prey had escaped, then, seething, he turns to the bodies of the princesses on the floor. With a snap of his fingers his guardian appears at his side. "Take them back to their cell," Ansem commands, his eyes burning in anger.
The guardian goes to do his bidding, lifting the princesses and tossing them without care over it's shoulder, but Ansem stops it when it goes to pick up Kairi.
"Not her," he says, an idea already forming of how to salvage his plan.
The guardian nods and leaves Kairi where she lies. Once it is gone with the six other princesses, Ansem walks back to Kairi. Crouching down beside he studies her sleeping face a moment. "Let's see if you were right about those friends of yours," he says. Summoning a dark corridor, he tosses her over his shoulder like his guardian had done with the others and walks into the portal to go make preparations to set his new plan in motion.
LightzMusic22: Haha I'm glad you remembered the scene from MEKA I wasn't sure if anyone would.
Hope you all enjoyed a little badassery from the princesses in this chapter. Yeah their plan failed, but at least they went down fighting instead of as damsels in distress. It's a much better way to go.