Second one... No, I'm not done yet. I said 'mass-upload', didn't I?

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Enjoy!

"She's not usually this childish." –Jade

"No such thing as gravity, the world just sucks." –Kairi

Chapter 3.4 – Akzeriuth
Part 32

Sync, Twilight, and I were up and walking before the sun was even starting to peek over the mountains. In hindsight, this probably wasn't a good idea, because we ended up racing each other when we hit the half-way point of the Deo Pass.

Why was this not a good idea?

"You said you weren't following us!" Asch yelled once he'd gotten his ability to speak back after Sync, Twilight and I had walked into their camp on the third morning.

I made a face. "Actually, I said we weren't following Luke's group."

Asch face-palmed, Anise giggled, Jade groaned, and Natalia and Reighn looked like they weren't sure whether to side with Asch and Jade or Anise.

Sync sighed. "In our defense, you're the one who put the two of us with the liger who can cover three times the ground a human can in half the time."

This time, Asch and Jade switched actions, Anise continued to giggle, Natalia made a face that hinted she was closer to agreeing with Asch and Jade, and Reighn sighed, trying and failing to hide the small smirk on his face.

Asch huffed. "You two are going to turn around and go back to Grand Chokmah," he said. I crossed my arms and leaned against a nearby tree.

"Nope."

"Kairi..."

"Not listening."

"The miasma—"

"Lalala~ Can't hear you~"

Jade stepped over to the nearby cliff wall and let his head fall into it.

Anise and Natalia gave him worried looks. "Colonel, are you alright?" Anise asked. Jade muttered something under his breath before straightening up and pushing his glasses back into place. Then he turned back around to look at her.

"My apologies. She's not usually this childish."

"She's also not usually suicidal," Asch ground out, still glaring at me.

I narrowed my eyes. "Right. That's your job, isn't it?"

Asch's fists and jaw were clenched. "Kairi..."

"I'm going to Akzeriuth, Asch. And you're not going to stop me."

"Of all the times to start being stubborn—"

"Asch."

Emerald green eyes met mine, and Asch huffed. "Fine. But I swear, if you get any worse—"

"I get it. You've been threatening me since you found out, and you're starting to get repetitive."

Asch rolled his eyes and turned back to what he'd been doing when I walked into their camp. Jade crossed his arms.

"Are you sure? We don't know how badly the miasma will affect you, if you're sick," he said. I sighed.

"I'm not sick. Not in the way you're thinking," I said. I looked away. "I'll tell you later. I promise."

"Come on. If we're going to get to Akzeriuth before the others, we should get going," Sync said.

"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that."

The eight of us (seven humans plus Twilight) looked up. I scowled when I realized that Legretta wasn't alone.

"Hello, Zion," I hissed.

He looked about as pissed as I did, though his glare was focused on Sync. "You're still alive, huh?" he taunted. Sync clenched his fists.

"No thanks to you."

"I'll be sure to rectify that mistake."

I growled an insult under my breath as the fonons of my sword slipped away from my arm. "I'd like to see you try with me here, bastard!"

Legretta and Zion exchanged a look before they jumped down, splitting us into two groups.

Twilight, Sync, Reighn, and myself against Zion; Asch, Jade, Natalia, and Anise against Legretta.

"Stay alive," Asch said before charging at Legretta.

I rushed in at Zion, who had been attempting to summon the blade of his scythe.

"O divine power, lend me they aid, and call forth from the abyss thy fonic blade!"

I smirked as Reighn then ran in at Zion, allowing me to jump back and start casting.

Twilight had been hovering around Sync, who had hesitated (and for good reason), but the two of them ran in with Reighn. I gave Zion credit for managing to duck and dance around all of their attacks.

Of course, with the three of them keeping him preoccupied, he forgot about me.

"Infernal Prison!"

The boy cursed and attempted to jump out of the arte.

I smirked when the edge caught him anyway.

"Damn you!" Zion hissed in my direction. I shrugged him off and started casting again while Sync rushed back in for yet another attempt to hit his original. The two exchanged blows, Sync trying and failing to avoid as many of Zion's as possible, while Twilight continued to claw at the original.

Zion scowled and jumped up, using Twilight's head as a springboard to get further away from his replica while I unleashed another Infernal Prison where I figured he'd land.

He wasn't very happy with me for that, but he'd already slipped into a casting stance, somehow managing to summon the blade of his scythe before Sync could hit him. I frowned, then sighed and ran in.

"Stay back and cast," I ordered as I ran past Sync, who had jumped back out of the scythe's range. He nodded once before turning and putting more distance between himself and our opponent.

Reighn chose then to unleash the Photon he'd been preparing, and Zion hurled something that looked like a wide version of Demon Fang in his direction.

Reighn smirked and glanced over at Sync, who let off his first Turbulence, before making a few hand signals I recognized well, having been the one to come up with them.

'Again, close to me.'

I frowned and considered a couple of ideas before pulling together fonons in my left hand. I wasn't using Energies to do it, mostly because it was actually a little faster to collect fonons through my fonslots. The collected fonons were forced to condense as I reached out and let them burst. "Raging Blast!"

Zion grunted as he was tossed away, apparently not at all pleased with me. I chuckled and raced after him, dropping a Havoc Strike in before he could get up again.

Zion lashed out, nicking my side with his scythe and successfully driving me away so he could deal with Twilight again. Or, more correctly, deal with Twilight's lightning blast.

"Turbulence!"

Another annoyed grunt, and Zion was jumping back out of where we'd pretty much boxed him in.

"Give us strength! Fairy Wing!" Reighn chanted, swinging his scythe around and creating something that looked like a light version of the altered Demon Fang from earlier. Given the name, the base arte was probably something along the lines of Demon Wing.

I raised an eyebrow when I realized the shockwave was aimed for me and Sync instead of Zion, but, noting that Sync was smirking at Reighn, I figured that was probably intentional. And, it was. A couple of small cuts healed up, and another burst of strength burst through my body.

So, it was that kind of arte, huh?

I chuckled and ran in at Zion, keeping my sword between me and him so he couldn't hit me too hard.

"Crackle!"

I jumped back to let the arte land, then cursed as a Blessed Drops came down on top of me. Hunkering down and gritting my teeth, I cradled my arm against my torso, protecting it from the onslaught of deadly popping bubbles.

"Kairi!"

"I'm fine!" I called to Jade, who had been the one to call out. I risked a glance over at the others and realized that Natalia was unconscious. Legretta must have taken a chance to do some damage to me since she's at least down one person.

I frowned and ran back, putting Twilight between myself and Zion, while exchanging a look with Reighn. The blue-haired man nodded once and ran in, scythe blade shining as he prepared a Demon Wing.

I rooted around in my bag a moment before pulling out a small vial with a blue liquid inside. White plastic wings wrapped around the bottle, declaring its purpose, and I looked up.

"Asch!"

The former God-General finished casting Icicle Rain before turning to me, and I tossed him the vial. He blinked a few times before sighing in relief.

"Thanks!"

I smiled and started collecting up fonons again. "O demonic gate, burn to ashes! Sapphire Riot!"

Zion rolled out of the way and twirled, the butt-end of his staff slamming into Reighn's gut.

Reighn coughed as the younger boy then kicked him away and raced toward me. I frowned and glanced around for Twilight, realizing that the liger had been knocked unconscious. He wasn't dead, his fonons would already be separating if that were the case, but he was out of the fight, unless Life Bottles worked on ligers, too.

"Uh, Reighn? You wanna see if Twilight is revivable?" Sync asked, tossing a Life Bottle to the man in question. Reighn cringed and nodded.

"Just a minute..." He stood and started casting. "O purest water of life!"

I blinked a few times before shrugging it off and racing back in toward Zion in an attempt to keep him away from the man who was attempting to heal himself. Zion scowled and started into a spin.

"Kairi!"

The outburst from Reighn was my warning as I held my sword in a reverse grip, keeping it angled between me and Zion while my left arm was tucked against my side.

"Draconic Soul!"

I cringed as the spinning attack hit me, but once Zion was done, I leaned forward, lashing out with my sword still held in a reverse grip. The hooded boy seemed started at how easily I was brushing off the pain, but to be honest, it was nothing compared to the fire that pierced my body because of the miasma.

"Meditation!"

Regardless of above stated fact, I sighed in relief when Reighn's arte enveloped me.

"Thanks!"

"I hate to bother you, but you wouldn't happen to have another Life Bottle, would you?" Jade asked as he prepared another arte. I frowned and jumped back, just in time for Reighn to finally get around to reviving Twilight. Good thing, too, because Zion had been heading for me again.

I pulled out another of the little vials and frowned. "This is my last one. Sync, how many do you have left?"

The green-haired boy let off another Turbulence and reached into his bag. "Two."

I handed over the Life Bottle and made a few hand signals. Sync nodded. "Finish as quickly as you can," I said to Jade before racing off to engage Zion yet again.

"Of course."

Sync was running in as well, lashing out with a well-practiced series of kicks, slashes (since he had a knife in one hand) and throwing in a Reaper's Toll at the end before going at it again. I made use of Zion being knocked down to get in a few extra Havoc Strikes.

Then Sync made a hand signal, and Reighn and Twilight backed out, while I braced myself. One negative thing about Tales of the Abyss in real life, versus the game? There is such a thing as friendly fire.

Sync let loose a small shockwave of fonons and ran at Zion...

Only for said opponent to growl and retreat back up the cliff.

"Legretta!"

The blonde woman glanced up, nodded, and let off one final Éclair de Larmes under Natalia, who barely managed to dodge. Then she joined Zion up on the cliff.

"We'll retreat for now. We have better things to do than deal with you. If you want to interfere in Akzeriuth, fine. We're almost done there, anyway," Zion stated to the eight of us in general. Then he looked down at me. "Of course, I can't say I'm impressed with you, right now. In your condition, Akzeriuth is the last place you'd want to be."

I scoffed at that. Zion already knew I wasn't from Auldrant, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that he knew about the miasma as well. "What do you care?"

"You're no use to us dead."

I glared at him as they left, while Natalia sighed in relief and dropped to the ground. Asch groaned.

"We're going to have to teach you guys our signals," he grumbled. I raised an eyebrow and tilted my head, the movement catching his attention so he'd see the expression. "Legretta knew what we were doing and kept knocking us out because we had to call out orders and suggestions."

Sync sighed. "It definitely helps," he agreed, picking up a throwing knife that had missed its target at some point in the battle. "Kinda sucks that he ran off because I was about to drop Akashic Torment on him, though."

I shrugged. "No such thing as gravity, the world just sucks."

Asch and Jade chuckled at that one. "Nice to see that your humor isn't affected by mass amounts of pain," the former noted. I shrugged.

"That's why we got the pain meds, isn't it?" I stopped for a moment and looked up. "Let's get moving. Those two slowed us down, big time, and it looks like we've only got the two Life Bottles left. We don't need to linger and attract more trouble."

Asch paused and crossed his arms. "Kairi... Are you absolutely sure about this?"

I sighed and nodded. "Yeah. There's something the three of us need to do, anyway... Assuming Van hasn't beat us to it." The redhead raised an eyebrow, and I shook my head. "I'll explain on the way... In private."

'In private' here meaning 'via telepathy.'

The rest of the trip to Akzeriuth was quiet, save for one point when we were walking through the forest between Deo Pass and the mining town, where I stopped and grabbed onto Twilight's mane.

"Kairi?"

I shook my head, swallowed back the bile that had been threatening to come up, and continued forward. "Sorry. There's definitely miasma here."

Asch opened his mouth, but a sharp glare got him to shut it again. Jade glanced between us, but thankfully didn't say anything.

We reached Akzeriuth in the late afternoon, and Jade and Asch immediately sought out the mayor.

"Hmm? Oh, Asch! Sync, Kairi!"

The three of us looked up and smiled to see Pyrope running up to us, looking much healthier than a lot of the men we could see. A little boy followed after him.

Asch stopped, and Jade grunted in mild annoyance.

"We need to find the mayor," he reminded the redhead. Asch shrugged.

"Pyrope, where's Jeff?"

The miner shook his head. "He's fallen ill. As the foreman, I'm handling things in his place for now."

Asch sighed, a sound tainted more by relief than worry. "Great. I'm here with representatives of Malkuth and Kimlasca. We're evacuating through the Deo Pass. Dorian General Grants should have already arrived with a vanguard."

Pyrope looked surprised, then nodded as he went back to business mode. "Of course. General Grants and the soldiers are currently helping to evacuate the mines."

Asch glanced at me, and I sighed.

Fun Fact: "A Wild Zion Appeared! Sync used Over-limit... The Wild Zion ran away..." Which is when Winx needs shot. I mean, really? Comparing over-limit to Roar? ...Okay, so it had rather the same effect, but still! She really, really needed a pastime. (Probably still does, sadly. I could use one too...)