Eternal Hope (A Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts 2 fic)

Disc.: I do not own 'Kingdom Hearts 2' or 'Final Fantasy' in any way at all- they belong to their respective creators, this is just a harmless story!

A/N: Alright, it's time for Ch. 4! Time to see what's gonna happen to our favorite group of travelers! As you may have noticed, there's no summary of the story, but that's because the summary is kinda-sorta in the author's note of the first chapter…that being said, I certainly hope that doesn't stop you from enjoying the rest of the story. Not sure how many chapters it'll be, but it's not stopping anytime soon! Now, time to get down to it!

Ch.4- New World, New Power Struggle

After sharing a quiet and peaceful moment together, Sora and Vincent looked over to see the others coming up to join them. Smiling, the brunette turned to Lightning with a newfound determination that he hadn't felt since the day he'd sealed off the last of the Worlds from Organization XIII and the Heartless.

"Alright Lightning, what's gonna happen now?"

"The plan is that we make our way to Eden, just like I said when we first met. Let's get moving; no need to attract unwanted attention to ourselves."

Nodding at her, Sora and the others caught up to Lightning just in time for her to draw her weapon…ahead of them were 6 PSICOM Wardens, but that was all they had to worry about for the moment. After defeating them, Snow ran on ahead to look for something to break Serah out of the crystal she was trapped in.

Catching up to him, Vincent saw the next part of the path split in two directions. The left one was the only open path, so they all headed down it and ran into 4 Pantherons that looked ravenous, their jaws spilling saliva onto the ground as they ran straight on at the group. Vincent, Snow, and Sora easily took them out; Hope was knocked back onto his ass by a fifth Pantheron that showed up out of nowhere, Vanille moving between them to protect him.

Sazh unloaded a few bullets into the Pantheron and put it down while Vanille helped Hope up to his feet, pulling the young silverette into an embrace to comfort him so he wouldn't be shaken up, and talked to him soothingly much like an older sister would to her younger brother.

"All of this…it's just too much to handle right now; deal with it later."

Hope couldn't help but relax into Vanille's hold, feeling a bit better at her understanding of his pain. In all honesty, he just wasn't ready to deal with everything all at once…after a few minutes, Vanille let go of him and skipped on ahead. He was glad that she was there to comfort him, but he had to catch up to the others that were waiting nearby…for some reason, they were just standing there huddled around something when the brunette male walked up to Hope and gently pulled him forward.

"Hope, you might want to see this…then again, maybe not."

Wondering what he meant, Hope was on edge somewhat until he came upon a sight that really was too much for him: his mom was laying there in a pool of her own dried blood, her body unmoving…Hope knew right away that she was dead, so he just pulled his mother's body into his arms and began sobbing loudly, not caring if he alerted the enemy or that his new companions were right there. They too were crying over the loss of the woman that was Hope's mother, while Snow quietly slipped away and sat down on a crystallized rock nearby. He couldn't be near the kid right now, because he was the reason that his mother had died.

After several minutes of crying and praying that her soul would find peace, the silverette walked up to the blonde male with wet and puffy eyes to only to find the man crying his own eyes out.

"(voice breaking) Listen Hope, I'm really and truly sorry for your loss…it's all my fault this happened to you, I should be the one who died so she'd still be with you."

"What do you mean?! Did you-"

"No, I didn't deliberately let her die…but I may as well have killed her. I did everything I could to help her, but I still couldn't save her…"

(Flashback)

"Hang on, you'll be okay! I won't let you die…just hold on!" Snow said while holding Nora's hand with all the strength he could dredge up at the moment. The woman just smiled at him sadly, knowing that she was going to die…all that mattered to her in that moment was her son, Hope. All she cared about was that he lived and stayed safe, and said one thing to Snow in her final moment.

"Just…get him home safely."

And with a smile, she slipped out of Snow's grip and fell to her death.

"NO!" the blonde man screamed out as he watched her plummet to her death with a smile on her face. For the first time in 3 years, Snow felt complete despair and regret overtake him as he pulled himself up onto the bridge and cried while slamming his fist on the ground in sorrow. He knew he was gonna have to tell her son about the woman's death eventually, so he set out to find him and keep the promise he'd made to Nora in her final moments.

(Flashback ends)

"I made her a promise…and I intend to keep it. I'll get you home, even if you hate me for the rest of your life…I'll keep her promise." Snow said while attempting to stand up but was stopped when a small and warm body pressed against him, Hope embracing the older man while crying into his muscular build.

"I…I know you did everything you could, and I don't hate you for that. Just make sure she didn't die for nothing, or else I won't forgive you!" Hope said while wiping the tears from his eyes, then helped the blonde male to his feet so they could regroup with their friends.

After much walking, Lightning felt a rumbling beneath their feet and looked over to see the Mech she had encountered on the train before meeting up with Sora and Vincent. Taking out her weapon, Lightning charged ahead while Sora, Vincent, Sazh and Vanille moved to attack from any blind spots the machine may have.

Snow decided to hang back and comfort Hope, who at the moment couldn't handle fighting after the blonde male's emotional apology and holding his mother's lifeless body in his arms. Snow just sat down on another nearby crystallized rock before he pulled the young boy to his build and held him tight while running his hand across his back soothingly, knowing that this was exactly what the kid needed at the moment…the fighting could wait, right now Hope needed reassurance and Snow was there to offer it.

When the fighting ended, Snow released Hope and both males rose to their feet as they ran to catch up with the others. Feeling their luck was gonna change for the better, Vanille charged ahead only to bump into the back leg of an Alpha Behemoth, which turned around to attack whatever it was that had interrupted its' assessing of the area. As she backed up, the pinkette warrior and dark skinned male quickly engaged it while Vanille stood next to Hope. He took out his weapon and moved to help the others, while Snow stood in front of Vanille to protect her.

Sora and Vincent soon arrived, weapons ready and armed. Sora was about to charge ahead to help the others until he got a splitting headache that caused him to scream in agony, which made the raven haired Chaos Vessel nearly drop his weapon in panic as he grabbed his mate and held him tight to his body, all while trying to calm him down and stop him from screaming.

"Sora, what's wrong!? Are you gonna be okay?!" But it seemed to only make things worse as the brunette kept screaming. Vincent then saw that his Cieth mark began glowing a very violent red and then Sora passed out.

The Behemoth, however, was stumbling back in pain at the intensity of Sora's screaming and it gave the others a chance to defeat it. Vincent then picked Sora up and just carried him on his back, relief washing over him when he felt his mate's arms wrap around his shoulders…this small action bringing a smile to his lips.

"Will he be okay?" Vanille asked Vincent as she ran up to him. She was worried about her friend, and the raven haired Chaos Vessel was glad that she was concerned…it meant that he wasn't the only one to feel worried over Sora's condition.

"I think he'll be fine after some rest. We just have to find the nearest city and get him to a hotel, then wait."

"You really love him, don't you Vincent?"

"Yeah, we've been married for a very long time after all…he's the only other one who has ever accepted me for everything that makes me who I am, scars and all."

"What kind of scars do you mean?"

"Physical and emotional scars. I'll tell you more later, because it looks like we just found our ticket out of here." The raven haired Chaos Vessel said as he pointed to a large machine directly ahead of them.

Vanille turned and faced the direction that Vincent was pointing at, the orange-redheaded girl looking up to see an aircraft that was in good physical condition, but the inside would probably be another story.

"This could help, right?"

"Yeah, the only thing missing might be an engine."

"You should stop being so negative, Sazh."

"And you shouldn't get your hopes up. Now let's go on and see what we've got here."

As the others looked over the ship, Hope looked behind him to see that he was alone.

"Hey guys, where's Snow?"

(With Snow and Serah)

Snow felt bad for slipping away when Hope had run ahead to catch up to the others, but he needed to help Serah out of her prison. True, he felt awful for dashing her feelings for him by telling her that he's gay but it was better for her to find out much sooner rather than later. Even so, he promised Lightning that he'd take care of her sister and got back to his task of trying to dig her out of the crystal.

After trying in a fruitless effort to free her, Snow looked up to see three PSICOM Air Carriers hovering in the sky above him, their spotlights trained on him as he could barely make out what they were saying to him.

"Hey, you guys gonna help me out here or what?"

It seemed all of Pulse really did hate him at this moment, because at least 18 PSICOM Soldiers began surrounding him. Snow cursed his own damnable luck, because he wasn't in the mood for this bullshit.

"Well now, let me help you out with your 'cleanup'."

The next thing the Soldiers knew, Snow was rushing at them ready to beat the shit out of them. After much struggling, they'd finally managed to pin him down until his Cieth mark began glowing blue. They all backed up in fear as two women materialized out of a blue sphere and knocked them all unconscious with a wave of ice energy, but soon enough they turned to Snow.

"Seems like I can't catch a break at all today, now can I?" Snow said as the battle began.

When the fight was over, Nix and Shiva turned to each other and then became Snow's newest transport away from the battlefield: a motorcycle.

"Alright, now this is what I call exiting in style!" The blonde said as he revved the engine and felt it rise up off the ground, his eyes falling on the crystallized girl one last time.

"Sorry Serah, I'll be back for you later."

After saying his goodbyes, Snow took off to catch up with the others and wondered if Hope would forgive him for sneaking off without telling him first.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

T.B.C.- Snow got Nix and Shiva! Will Hope forgive him for sneaking away? Read on to find out!