Kairi Hearts

By Chronic Guardian

Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: DECK

Week 8: Death & Temperance

08 – One Who Fights too Long Without Dragons

Virtue was a funny thing. It wasn't a distilled, singular essence like fear or bravery. One could be brave and stupid, or brave and totally unprepared. To be virtuous, to be heroic, one needed to be something more, a tempered cocktail of all the best things held in balance.

To be brave, one had to simply act. To be virtuous, one had to act well.

"So, where are we actually headed?" Zack asked from the copilot seat of their salvaged Gummi ship. Even cursed into wolf form, he still sat at attention instead of curling up on the cushions. Whatever was in the transformation curse, it didn't change how he acted. He still kept the scars, figuratively and literally, just like the cross shaped one on his cheek.

"We're following my Heart." She did her best to say it with a straight face, but Kairi felt it was just a placeholder answer. She really was trying to follow her Heart, namely the part of it she associated with being a Princess of Heart. Yes, Yen-Sid had said those all got changed around somehow, but she figured if it was the light in her Heart that had restored Sora from a Heartless form, then the best way to get Zack back to normal would be through a similar princess.

In other words, she was trying to catch the only cursebreaking trail she'd ever known in her life.

"Y'know, following your Heart can get ya into all kinds of trouble..."

She raised an eyebrow. "Were you following your Heart when you made a deal with the Shadowman?"

"Uh, yes, as a matter of fact," Zack sniffed. "And the same goes for when I did a deal with the god of the underworld. My Heart wanted to be a hero and those two had the power to make it happen. Hearts don't think, Kairi. I mean, yeah, that comes in handy when your head gets ya stuck, but you can't just do something because it feels like the fastest way to get what you want."

Kairi pursed her lips and focused on navigating the Gummi ship. Would Naminé give that advice? Probably… As a Nobody, the girl was always edging on the logical side. In her own defense, Kairi hadn't been trying for the fastest way to get what she wanted so much as the only way she could see. Was she just supposed to wait and see what other people would say?

"So what's your plan then?" she asked. "Just attack the biggest, baddest thing we can find down there?"

"Look..." Zack sighed and slumped forward on his paws, "I get wanting to do something. I want to be done with this curse thing already but… I can see you're still kinda new to a lot of this. I just don't want to see you mess up like me. Now I'm stuck as a puppy guessing what Shadowman's idea of being a true hero is—assuming he wasn't lying about that, too."

"...I'll be careful." Keeping her eyes on the green planet in front of them, Kairi started the landing sequence and wondered how she was supposed to know what was enough. Zack was wrong. She wasn't new to all this, she'd just never figured out how to adapt.

Even now, when Zack had done most of the fighting in the Bayou, she was the same old, headstrong-but-useless girl Sora had left behind when the going got rough. Maybe she just wasn't meant to be a warrior...

-K-

The world was warm and dry. In some ways, it reminded her of the trips she'd taken inland back at the Destiny Islands. She could see trees and grass gathered along craggy veins of what she supposed to be waterways.

Other than that, it was mostly dirt and dust.

"You think it's usually like this?" Kairi asked, examining the ground around their landing site. The packed earth and attempts at pavement gave the impression of a road, but it hadn't been very well maintained. From orbit, she'd thought it would be livelier than this...

"What, you mean empty?" Zack replied. He sniffed the air and walked a circle around her. "I don't… smell anyone, but… Oh! Oh, oh, oh. That way!" He pointed with his snout out into the dusty wastes.

Kairi gave him a skeptical look.

"Yes, they smell like they could use a bath," he went on impatiently, "But they're there! I mean…" He stopped and sighed. "Well, they were there. Windspeed is bringing it back to me. Guess it was just a ride by."

"Could you catch them?" If he were a full grown wolf, she might have suggested riding him in pursuit, but catching them at all would be a start.

"Could I—?" Zack almost blankly repeated the question before he caught on and excitedly crouched. "Yes, yes! I'm on it!" Like a black and white rocket, he shot off into the wilderness. Soon, all that could be seen was a quickly clearing dust trail.

And then she was alone.

Turning around, Kairi almost went back to studying the road when she caught sight of figures in the opposite direction. Why hadn't Zack smelled them? Did it have to do with windspeed?

Kairi smiled to herself. At least it gave her something to do in the meantime. Raising a hand in greeting, she set off towards the group. "Hey!"

They didn't answer, but they didn't run away either. Maybe they were focused on something else. She could tell now that the figures had their backs turned to her and were standing with slightly bowed heads. Was it trouble? She craned her neck to follow what was happening.

Her body tensed up with the sudden sense that something was wrong. The wind swept across the hill and she noticed the travelers didn't bend or brace at all.

Everything stood still.

She swallowed and tried again. "Hello?"

No response. Even as she ran up and touched them, nothing. Her senses confirmed what she was already desperately trying to deny. Gray, hard, cold, stone. Right in the middle of the road. Not ornamental statues. Not some ritualistic display. These had been human.

Her vision blurred and she furiously wiped at her eyes. She couldn't afford to get emotional right now. There was probably something still out there. Whatever had gotten these people could still be around.

She jerked upright. Zack was out there! Spinning around, she made a quick guess at the direction he'd gone in and started running. Yes, he was more experienced, yes he wasn't actually a puppy, but she couldn't just leave him up to chance. Maybe this was the moment, the moment when she changed.

She only got a few yards out before something snapped and went whistling through the air behind her. A second later, the coarse arms of a net wrapped around her and she went tumbling into the dirt. The earthy taste of dust filled her mouth as she coughed and squirmed to get a better view at what had caught her.

"Well, what have we here?" A girl with a crossbow smirked down at her from what appeared to be a giant cat. "A scavenger? You're a long way off from the Tail village, you know."

The girl had shaved the sides of her head and wore a practical white tank top and roomy black trousers. Not armored, but well suited for mobility. Three other similarly mounted people followed, all kitted out with bows, nets, swords, and other gear. So it had been a patrol… Had the statues been a trap?

"Something's not right, Namaari," one of them addressed the leader. "She doesn't look like she's from around here… Not even those Binturi from Heart had hair like fire."

"So she's an interloper," the leader girl surmised. "That's fine, we can just leave her for the Druun. Those are the orders, right? Everything for Fang, nothing outside of Fang."

Not really a great strategy for gaining allies, Kairi thought to herself, struggling in the netting, Not unless there's a way for outsiders to become part of this "Fang" club… Otherwise, what were they eventually hoping for? That everyone else would just pick up and move?

...Or get turned into statues.

Kairi looked at the figures and shuddered. If that was what they had in mind for her, she needed to start working on her own alternative. She was still pretty tangled up, but she still had magic. Fire would be the most familiar to cast, but what then? Could she really burn away the net without setting herself on fire too?

What else had Sora used? She pressed her mouth into a thin line and thought hard about the entries she'd read for homework in the forest. There had been a list of spells in the appendices, hadn't there? Blizzard, Thunder, Cure…

Aero.

Taking a deep breath, she focused on air around her, trying to feel and harmonize with it the same way she had with fire at first. Sora had usually figured out his spells through the course of battle. Would she be able to do the same?

No. She set her teeth and forced herself to focus. There is no "if", there is no "maybe", I can't live like that anymore. If she didn't figure this out now, she was going to die. She would capture the wind and she would escape. Feeling around to carefully untangle her arms from the net strands, she became conscious of the wind currents brushing over her. She could feel it moving with her lungs, swirling through the dust, pushing across the statues.

Curling her fingers, she began pulling it around her.

Meanwhile, Namaari's group wasn't finished discussing her fate. "What if she's seen the fugitive?" The man who had spoken earlier suggested.

"What, the lost princess of Heart?" Namaari smiled and leaned forward. "Well, that's interesting. What do you say, stranger? Tell us who you saw and we might let you—"

And then the air burst around Kairi. Her ears popped as a bubble of breeze expanded and blew away the net. Before it could fall on her again, she summoned her Keyblade and retired the trap from further service. "I'll let myself out, thanks," she breathed. "You leave me alone."

Most of the hunting group could only gape at her. Namaari raised her crossbow to aim again, but Kairi was already casting again. She made enough of a whirlwind to send the shot askew before spreading a wall of fire between them. Two of the giant cat mounts reared and turned tail.

Namaari jumped through the flames.

"Alright," the Fang woman grunted, abandoning her crossbow for twin blades. She drew them from their sheathes and pointed one at Kairi. "What are you?"

Kairi put on a brave smirk and readied her guard. "I'm a Princess of Heart. I heard you were looking for me?"

"Princess of…?" Namaari's eyes narrowed. "Well, that's a bad joke. There's no one left from Heart except that Binturi Raya. So where are you from really?"

Before Kairi could say anything, the Fang woman launched her offensive. "H-hey!" the Keyblade Wielder managed as she batted the blows aside, "Do you want me to answer, or do you only know how to attack?"

Namaari grunted and kept at it. "Depends. Do you know anything about the Dragon Gem shards?"

Taking a deep breath, Kairi cast another aero spell between them. The two combatants went spinning to opposite ends of the fire circle and regarded eachother. Kairi had somehow held her own so far, but she wasn't sure how long she could keep that up. Namaari's hits were practiced, battle-tested. No matter how much practice Kairi had put in recently, it was clear Namaari had put in more.

Ergo, if Kairi could keep the battle verbal, she would at least stand a chance. If she could just choose the right words, they could end this peacefully.

"I'm not from around here," she said slowly, lowering her Keyblade. They were far enough away from eachother that she could snap it back into place if need be, but it felt important to take the first step towards deescalation. "I'm… kind of a monster hunter. Could you use some help?"

Surprisingly, Namaari didn't cut her off halfway through with a renewed assault. Instead, the woman gave a searching look. Recognizing the opening, Kairi pressed on before she lost that interest.

"The monsters here, the..." What had they said they would leave her for earlier? The Druun? "the Druun," she said with as much confidence as she could muster, "you're fighting them for your home—for Fang—right?" Running a hand along one of the statue arms, Kairi grimaced. "I wouldn't want that for my friends either. I may not be as good at fighting as you, but some monsters you can't face down with a sword. There's more to being a hero than just charging in and killing things."

For a moment, it looked like she was winning. Namaari looked away and as the flames died down her party members approached without weapons raised. Kairi almost even smiled. She could do this. Just keep with the right words...

"Are you with Mim?" Namaari asked in a low voice.

Kairi froze. Mim, the interworld meddler again. The Mad Madame stirring up Heartless and trouble even after Maleficent had given up and gone to ground. "Mim? She's here?"

These were the wrong words.

Namaari's sword was out again before Kairi could clarify. Reacting just as quickly, however, was an ally she hadn't seen arriving, thanks to the flame cover. Zack shot out from the flank and toppled Namaari before she had a chance to pivot. "Go!" He shouted.

And then the world abruptly went dark.

Kairi could only begin to stumble in the opposite direction before something caught the teeth of her Keyblade and began dragging her. It took a second for her to recognize it was Zack, but once she did she surrendered herself to his pace. Crossbow bolts whistled by, but none hit. If it weren't for her companion, she would have been done for.

"C'mon!" Zack growled around the weapon in his mouth, "I'm not gonna lose you to—"

He was cut off as they hit something that tangled in Kairi's legs and sent her sprawling. Zack cried out in surprise and Kairi tried to figure out what had caused her to eat dirt a second time that day. Had Namaari shot another net at her? If so, it had only caught her legs. She reached down and tried to lift the twine.

Her hand grabbed an ankle that wasn't hers.

Kairi screamed, then choked on dust and ended up in a coughing fit. A hand grabbed hers and hauled her to her feet as another bolt landed uncomfortably close.

"Listen," Zack's voice came, not from the ground but from normal head level. "That blackout spell won't last forever. We've got to go before—hang on—"

The hand—Zack's hand, she belatedly realized—let hers go as footsteps galloped their way. A series of grunts later and suddenly he was lifting her again.

As the spell wore off and the world became visible, Kairi realized she was now riding on one of the cat things Namaari had appeared with. In front of her, guiding the beast and sporting black hair in a similar spiked-back style to Axel, was a man she could only assume was Zack. He glanced back to give her a reassuring grin and she caught a cross shaped scar on his cheek.

"Well, not sure exactly how we got here," he admitted, bringing his eyes back to the road ahead, "but I guess I should thank you."

She hugged him around his center and gave a breathless laugh. "You saved me. And you did it without fighting!"

"Right, sure, but..." he paused as he led their mount down a winding ravine path, "but why should that make a difference?"

"Because it wasn't just about fighting stronger opponents or doing things bigger," she went on. Maybe it wasn't exactly the case, but she couldn't help thinking out loud. "That's exactly what the Shadowman would've expected you to try. This was about why you were fighting. Not about you and your honor proving yourself, only about saving someone."

"Ah, geez…" he muttered back, sounding almost embarrassed, "when you put it like that. I feel like I should've gotten it ages ago."

"Maybe you just weren't fighting with the right challenges," Kairi sighed. "I mean, you wouldn't get to help me out of trouble if I didn't have such a knack for getting into it."

"Huh… Kairi, Maker of Heroes."

She tried to force a smile. "You're welcome." Maybe it wasn't what she was hoping for, but it was still something. Still not a master warrior, but she didn't have to be.

They rode for a while, further and further into the wasteland, before Zack pulled them towards a creek ravine like a trailing comet scar in the land. Kairi dismounted, splashed water in her face, and let the dirt run from her hands as Zack refilled potion bottles upstream. The air was cooler in the shadows of the creek bank, and she felt for the first time that day that she could really think clearly.

They hadn't won, but they really hadn't lost either. Not only had she mastered aero in the middle of a combat situation, she'd gotten Namaari—whatever her problem was—to listen for a moment. She'd come face to face with reality and found a new way to confront it.

Honestly, she was glad there was more to the worlds than just Heartless hunting.

"So, what next?" Zack asked, idly watching the afternoon shade grow as he continued his work. He swished the current bottle around to catch bits of potion residue off the edges, then poured it out and filled again.

"What are you asking me for?"

"I dunno… Because your Heart got us this far, I guess," he sighed. "I can pull you out of a scrape, and if you point me in a direction, I can get you there. I just… get the feeling from all this that I still need to learn to follow before I can lead. Which, I get it, seems kind of pathetic at my age, but—"

"You led me out of danger," Kairi interrupted. "And you proved you're more than a muscle head. As long as we're working together, we should do alright."

"We'll do more than alright if I can get my hands on a sword."

"We'll keep our eyes out," she assured him. "For now, maybe you can tell me about what your nose found."

Reaching up to his now less-than-canine nose with one hand, Zack seemed to realize the loss in tracking ability for the first time since his transformation. "Uh… well..." His eyebrows scrunched, then slowly softened. "I saw something in the distance, I guess, kinda like someone riding a giant ball. But then I smelled trouble with you and doubled back. They were headed this way, though. Maybe we'll catch 'em on the backswing."

Kairi smiled and nodded. Maybe they wouldn't get it all at once, but they didn't need to be perfect the first time.

Chapter Closed

Kairi obtained the power of Wind! Learned spells "Aero" and "Aera"

A/N:

Summer is quickly winding down, and so too will this drabbly collection of concept episodes for Kairi Hearts. We'll see what we can do before the end, but thank you for reading this far! If you are headed back to school, I hope your studies go well, and that you find a style of learning that works for you. If you are instead part of the workforce, I wish you cooler weather than the hundred-something degrees I've been experiencing. Next time, we plan to drop in on the Villains again.