Humbug. As I said to someone on Ninja-RPG just a bit earlier, I have this annoying little hell-puppy following me around, nipping at every plot bunny, muse, or otherwise-inspiring creature.

Well, at least it's not a hellhound. Those are nasty. Especially the ones Kairi's trying to deal with right now in AEtT...

Also. Anyone remember what Sync's quote up here is regarding before we get down there and it's spelled out? I honestly doubt it, it's been so long since it got brought up...

"Yeah, I tend to just kinda find them. I've got a lot of them back at Daath." –Sync

Chapter 12.12 – Out of Time
Part 109

Sync's POV

I cursed as Mirage sent me flying, again. Damn it, I was really starting to hate her fighting style.

She definitely didn't fight like Kairi. Honestly, it was more a strange combination of Guy's and Asch's, with all of Asch's power and most of Guy's ability to be downright irritating.

What I wouldn't have given to have one of them here right now... Or, well, maybe just Guy, because damn it, Asch had to get rid of this miasma. I had always hated it when we were in the Qliphoth before we lowered the Outer Lands, but damn, it was making breathing hard now, too...

I rolled to the side to avoid a Demon Fist and then ran in toward Mirage yet again. Flick and Seth were dealing with Meryl, for the most part. It was obvious she hadn't been built to fight. Mirage, on the other hand, was kicking our asses, badly.

Twilight was down, too heavily wounded to keep fighting for the time being. Sorylle kept going back and forth between helping me with Mirage and running over to make sure he was still alive. I didn't really blame her. Ion was down, too, with a broken leg, more open gashes than I cared to count, and a bump on the back of his head from where Mirage had probably given him a concussion.

To be honest, the rest of us weren't doing much better. Flick's new clothes were basically destroyed, and while I knew the fonic glyphs stitched into the hems would patch them back together the moment she had a chance, it was still a lot of wear and tear that she wouldn't be able to patch again later.

She was also bleeding rather heavily. Since Sorylle and I were caught up fighting Mirage, Flick had resorted to short-range fighting for most of the battle so far.

It looked to me like Seth had finally taken her place, Blood Lily singing through the air with every attack. Meryl was being smart and either avoiding him or blocking his attacks. Flick was still landing hits with her bow, but at least now they weren't getting hurt as much.

"Raging Blast!"

I grunted as my distraction led to Mirage tossing me a few yards away yet again.

And... damn it, I wasn't in great shape either.

"Alright, that's it... Cover me!" Dark called. Sorylle let off an Ice Stream to slow Mirage down, since she was headed straight for him, and I sighed, dug around for my last orange gel and swallowed it before running at her and using a Stone Dragon Ascent.

I barely landed on my feet.

I hated to admit it, but I had to.

Ion and Twilight were going to bleed out if we didn't end this battle quickly. Flick probably would, too. Seth was holding Meryl off, but he was exhausted. So were Sorylle, Dark, and I.

Dark was casting though, so I'd keep fighting until I couldn't any longer.

Because damn it, I wasn't going to give up!

"Reaper's Toll!"

Mirage scowled. "Devastation!"

Oh, fuck that hurt!

I shifted, trying to push myself back to my feet. It couldn't end like this...

"O angel of judgment..."

My head shot up, and I looked over at Dark, seeing the indigo outline of the wings he had for Sacred Beacon.

"Take my soul for these innocents!"

No... It can't be...

I couldn't help the grin that spread across my face.

Reighn had given Dark the scroll on this arte.

"Sacrifice!"

A wave of energy washed over me, and I felt my wounds heal up instantly. I jumped, back-flipping out of the way of Mirage's next attack, the one that should have killed me. I laughed as I saw Dark waver and collapse against Sorylle—exhausted, but still conscious—while most of Ion's wounds healed up as well. Twilight got to his feet not long after, and the two of us kept attacking Mirage while Sorylle ran over to help Seth and Flick.

Ion stirred after a bit, but it was obvious from the way he was staying down that his leg was still injured. I wasn't surprised. Dark hadn't given up quite enough energy to heal everyone completely.

"O fragments of brilliant light, converge! Prism Gale!"

That didn't mean he couldn't still cast.

Mirage screamed in frustration as the arte landed.

Then I felt something hit me in the side, and I hissed and looked down.

Throwing knife.

I glanced in the direction it had come from and just barely spotted auburn hair before the black-clothed man jumped out toward Seth.

Jade's younger replica shifted in a single, fluid motion, blocking an attack and then thrusting one end of the dual-ended blade at his assailant. The man rolled, then threw another knife, this one at Dark.

Dark dropped back, barely dodging it, and brought up a gun, firing twice. The man flipped mid-air, avoiding both of them.

Flick was the next one he moved to attack, and she not only managed to hit him with one of her shots, she also avoided all five throwing knives he sent her way, as well as the Shadow Daggers that followed it up. The man smirked.

"Mirage, Meryl! Fall back to Eldrant, Zion's orders!" he yelled.

"But—" Meryl started.

The man chuckled. "I'll be fine."

The two girls ran off, and I swallowed and knelt, gathering up what energy I could while I still had the chance.

What I didn't expect was for Dark to rise, albeit shakily, and walk over to him. "Always on your own agenda, aren't you Master?"

The man tilted his head to the side, revealing the second of his neon-green eyes. "Of course. Can't let all my brats kill each other, can I?"

Dark crossed his arms. "Zion's not going to stop until he's gotten Kairi to do whatever the hell it is he wants from her. And I know Kairi."

"And you'll stand by her no matter what, am I right?"

The shorter of the two nodded.

The elder smirked. "Heh. Well. At least one of you two turned out alright." He stopped and looked over at Seth and Flick. Like Dark, they weren't acting like they were prepared to attack him. "I see someone's found herself a weapon she actually likes."

Flick grinned. "Yep!"

He turned to Seth. "And I heard something about a Seth Balfour a few months back, I believe?"

Seth flushed. "Blame Kairi."

The redhead chuckled. "Damn... I knew she was interesting when we talked at Keterburg. Wish I could get a chance to talk to her under less... hostile circumstances."

Dark frowned. "You're not going to have much of a choice, are you Master Ryndor?"

Ryndor shook his head. "No. Rhunön and I have our part to play, and we'll play it." He paused. "But... I believe one of Kairi's Malkuthian soldier friends knows where this will end. The orange-haired one, methinks."

I decided then and there that I liked this guy. That smirk was positively evil, and he was giving us hints, too.

Ryndor then looked over at me. "You might want to not move around too much until Kairi rejoins you. The poison on those isn't real fast-acting, but you tend not to notice it until it's too late."

I huffed. Of course his knives were poisoned.

"As long as it's not as tricky as the miasma, I'll be fine getting rid of it myself."

Ryndor looked amused. "Ah, so she taught you, huh?" He walked over and pulled his knife out a lot more gently than I'd have expected him to. "Better get that healed up. To be honest, I was aiming for Dark."

"You usually don't miss that badly," Dark said. Ryndor flinched.

"It would have looked really bad if I'd hit Mirage. Meryl may not look or act it, but if you hurt Mirage, she can and will do a lot of damage." He stood up, the knife disappearing into a sheath somewhere. "I have to go before the girls realize what's going on. Stay alive."

Once he was gone, Dark turned and walked over to Ion, Sorylle at his side. The former-assassin helped him up onto the liger, and I stood carefully, keeping a hand pressed against my side. I could feel the blood oozing through my fingers, and it hurt too.

Twilight growled a soft reprimand, and then stopped right in front of me, resulting in me walking into him. I sighed, but gave in and climbed up on his back anyway, because I knew he wouldn't let me walk off with the wound I was trying to keep from bleeding too badly.

"So Ryndor's not all in with Zion's plans after all..." Seth murmured. Dark shook his head.

"I doubted he was. He's an assassin, yes, but raising me and Danté made him acknowledge that he really did have a heart. He's gotten good at pretending otherwise, though," he said. "Man... Of all the times to try to test us, though..."

I scowled. "That was a test?"

Dark nodded. "That's Ryndor for you. If you can't dodge a few knives when he's that relaxed, you obviously need to do a lot more training. It was really irritating growing up, actually, though Koran always laughed when I came home hours later cursing up a storm."

Seth chuckled. "He usually wasn't that bad with me. Let's be honest here, I wasn't raised to be an assassin. Flick, yes, you, yes, but not me."

"Which is why he didn't bother with you for long," Flick said, cheerful as always. Her clothes were finally patched up again, except for one bit across her back that she was having problems reaching. Seth noticed her struggles and helped her, before seeming to realize that his clothes were in just as bad a shape.

Then he stopped, turned around, and ran off.

He caught up a few moments later carrying the extremely dark brown cloak he'd discarded halfway through the battle. I chuckled a bit.

"Forget something?"

"Almost," he admitted. Then he sighed. "Damn, I'm getting sick of all this miasma."

I nodded. "You and me... Hey, what's that?" I trailed off, having looked up at the sky and spotted—

"Is that... The hyperresonance?" Ion asked.

The light I'd spotted expanded swiftly, quickly becoming blinding, and I held my right arm over my eyes and squeezed them shut.

A moment later, it faded, and I took a deep breath.

A deep, miasma-free breath.

I lowered my arm and looked over at Flick, then the others, and then the sky. I took another breath... and smiled.

"They did it."

Dark chuckled. "Yeah. Now, let's get you to the inn so you can heal yourself."

I sighed. Yeah, there was still that... Huh, the area was kinda numb now...

I acknowledged that that was probably due to the poison, and once we reached the inn and booked a few rooms, I found a bed, collapsed on it, and pulled myself out of my body.

Ryndor had been right. The poison was spreading quickly, but wasn't really affecting much. I scowled and started pulling together Energies. I might not have been as good at this as Asch and Kairi, but it certainly wasn't the first time I'd had to do this.

Monsters sometimes poisoned you without your noticing immediately. I had always hated admitting to Kairi and Asch when that happened, so I'd picked up on how to do this very quickly.

Mohs had poisoned me that one time, right after Akzeriuth. I almost hadn't caught it that time.

Not to mention the miasma. I didn't have as much in my body as the guys who'd been operating the passage rings did, but Ion and I both had some from contaminated fonons we'd absorbed while opening the Daathic Seals.

And since I'd opened all of the Daathic Seals at least once...

I hadn't told Kairi about that, either. Ion wasn't sure why he'd woken up one morning feeling like he was on fire, either, even though it had happened only once since then.

This was my secret to keep... Assuming Asch the miasma-hound didn't catch it. He'd gotten so good at spotting discrepancies in miasma levels in Kairi's body that I didn't doubt he'd find the residual damage in mine despite all of my attempts at healing it.

Once Ryndor's poison was gone and I'd set Energies to the task of healing up the wound he'd left behind, I got up again. It was still only mid-afternoon, and I wanted to go visit Din. I hadn't gotten to speak to her much since Reighn and I had stayed in Chesedonia before moving on to Baticul and joining the others.

She might talk kinda funny, and some of her business might be a bit iffy, but she's a pretty nice lady, with absolutely no interest in me, thank Lorelei.

Finding her little shop was easy enough, and I was mildly surprised to find Dark leaned against the counter, chatting with her and—

"Miyagi? What are you doing here?" I asked.

He turned and smiled. "Ah, Sync. Dark said you were healing yourself after the last fight." I nodded. "Hmm... Also, Kairi mentioned something to me one of the nights while we were in the Inista Marsh." I tilted my head to the side. Oh, this was gonna be good. "Something about fon slot chambers?"

My mind drew up a blank before I remembered just when I'd told Kairi about that little... er... hobby of mine.

I dug around in my pocket. I usually ended up with two or three on my person, no matter where I was, so...

I pulled out a total of five little orbs. Two red, a blue, and two green. "Yeah, I tend to just kinda find them. I've got a lot of them back at Daath." I held them out, and Miyagi took one of the red ones.

"Ah, yes... Hmm, I haven't seen these in years. But I think I remember the trick to them. There should be four colors..."

"All of my sunshine chambers are back with the rest of the collection," I said. Dark pulled something out.

"Actually, Reighn gave me this. He picked it up when he went to grab Gold Wisteria," he said. "He wasn't sure what it was, so he wanted me to bring it to Din and ask about it. We just got a bit sidetracked."

I couldn't help it. I snorted.

"Didn't even have to steal the damn thing, and we still got one off the final Sword Dancer," I muttered, remembering what Kairi had told me back right before we fought the first Sword Dancer.

Miyagi placed one of each color out along the counter in front of Din, and then sighed. "Well now. These can have some interesting effects, depending on the artes they are augmenting. However, they generally do one of two or three things, so I'll explain those now..."

Fun Fact: We finally came back around to the fragging FSCs! FINALLY! Remember when this first came up? Back in Chapter 3? Part 30, to be exact? ...Yeah. It took us a while, didn't it?

The really sad part is, aside from a barely-poked blurb next Part, we don't see them come up again until AEtT, because we're all gonna be a little too busy from here out in Re:AST to do anything about it.