ian12091995: oh good cause I nearly fainted while writing it
Centurious the Azure: Lol I went through a whole list of team names before settling on the current one, it was supposed to be FAT DIKS but I got talked out of putting it into the story proper. Riku and Rose are a lot of fun to write, and I knew that was gonna be the last opportunity for them to be together in private before the finale so I went for it. I hope you've been doing well in the meantime!
MicCheck2121: I'm actually thinking about setting the next april fool's day chapter in Traverse Town so there will be more Drakengard 3 meets modern technology shenanigans, definitely wanted to spend more time in the location, but alas, plot :/ I figured Ienzo would be one of the few kh characters that could match Three's 'energy' and channel it into something more constructive, ig Even too now that I think about it.
Ugh I wish I had more to say, but I don't wanna inadvertently spoil anything by going into too much detail with my thoughts. The wayfinder trio's interactions with the D3 have definitely been a highlight of writing these last few chapters for me though. I hope this chapter will satisfy that element for you as well.
Keybladelight: He will get his old clothes back at some point, I haven't forgotten about that. I've been working on their new designs these past few months, but none of them have turned out good so y'all are just gonna have to imagine what they look like lol. Idk about any miracles, I rather the characters suffer and struggle until the very end :)
A/N I: I am so, SO sorry this took so long to get out!
Anyway, a few things before you read, the finale ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated so I had to split it up into two parts. At first I was going to post both parts of the finale at the same time, so as not to delay the ending any further, but at this rate, it'll take weeks before I can finish the second part. And I'm sorry, I really hate that I ended up doing this, but I didn't want you guys to think I abandoned the story or that I died or something.
As for the second part, it'll be posted sometime soon. It won't take another 5-6 months, I can say that much. I'll be posting the final April fool's day chapter too LMAO, I thought last year would be it but what can you do huh ?
Okay, that's enough rambling. Hope you guys enjoy ;)
"...This Silence is…"
"One?"
As Two watched Four desperately hold onto One's body, it reminded her of when she lost Cent only days prior. And memories of him were inextricably tied to memories of the children, whose lives she cut short.
One, Cent, the children.
Their 'deaths' had all left them 'alive', strictly speaking, but every part of them that mattered—their heart, their soul, their very being—was gone from the world. That's what made One's death especially gut-wrenching. The Flower was dangling her life just out of reach.
"One, that's enough, you shouldn't play pranks on your younger sisters like this, it's not funny!" Four grabbed One's hand with her gauntlet and squeezed it. "One, please, you have to wake up. You can't leave me like this. I can't lose you!"
Four's stare tore into One, as if words alone were enough to raise her from the dead. She lingered on One's eyes like she was waiting for a response, before moving her gauntlet to her back, and pulling them both to their feet. "There has to be something we can do," she said, desperation bleeding into her voice.
She spun her head around, searching the forest, before her gaze landed on Mickey. With great effort, she dragged One's body across the ground, leaving behind a trail of blood that stained the dirt crimson as she made her way to him. "Mickey, I know we've asked so much of you already, but please help us save One. There must be something you can do with your magic! I would give you anything to bring her back..."
Mickey rubbed his arm, lowering his head to the ground. "I'm sorry Four, I really am, but I can't save your sister...She's gone, and I don't have any magic that can bring her back."
"Yes, you can!" she insisted. "You can use the light to save her!"
Now it was Aqua's turn to play the role of older sister that Two was unable to. She stepped in front of Mickey, held Four's shoulders in her hands, and then bent down on one knee so their eyes could meet at an equal level. "Listen to me." Her tone struck the impossible balance between sternness and compassion that not even One could master. "There are limits to our magic and repercussions for extending beyond them. As much as it pains me to say this, we can't bring One back. And I'm sorry there isn't anything more we can do."
Four went quiet, her face unreadable.
Two stole a glance at Three and Five, they were both grieving, but not in the way Four was. 'What would One have done if she were here?' Her heart ached from even thinking of her sister in the past tense, but she left her with no other choice of words. 'I can at least try talking to her, even if it's not going to come out right.'
Two started toward her sister's back. She wanted to reach out and touch her but ultimately decided against it. Hopefully, her words would have the same effect. "Four, I know it's painful, believe me. I know how much you're hurting right now, but—"
"I just need to 'move on', right? I need to 'HEAL'?!" Pushing away from Aqua, Four dug her gauntlet into One's back, then turned around to face Two. "Is that what you were going to say?! Don't even try to act like an older sister now, you'll never be what One was."
"What's wrong with you?! How could you say that to her?!" Five yelled.
"Shut. Up!" she snarled. "You don't care about her, none of you do! Not the way I did..."
"Four..." Before Two could get a chance to finish her thought, Four snatched her supporting hand away from One's back, then caught her collar in an ironclad grip. "Why One, why would you leave me? Why?! WHY?!" Four punctuated each 'why' with violent shaking, whipping One's head back and forth. "Why didn't you just listen to me instead of running off on your own?! You knew what would happen, but you still left me!"
The escalation from love to violence was so sudden, so jarring, that Two wasn't sure if what she was witnessing was even real anymore. Watching Four yell, threaten, and curse at their older sister's corpse...what else could this be but a nightmare?
When Aqua cried out, "Stop! You'll break her neck!", it finally snapped Two out of her daze. She rushed over to Four and grabbed her gauntlet, locking it into a tight grip.
Four froze up at Two's touch, horror spreading across her face like a plague. She released One's collar, and her body hit the ground with a gruesome thud.
Silence fell shortly after One did.
If Two were half the older sister One was, she could've thought of something, anything that would've stopped Four, but instead, she let the silence suffocate her.
Four tugged her arm away from Two's grasp without much effort, then turned her back to her. "I can't live like this anymore." And then she ran back into the same forest that took away One's life.
Two didn't even take a moment to breathe before scrambling after her into the darkness swarming around the black trees. 'Save her. I can't let her die too,' raced through her mind, pushing her legs further and faster than they had ever gone before.
However, the further she ran into the forest, the less she could see ahead of her. The tangles of branches formed a lattice in front of her, obscuring her vision, and the knotted-up roots on the ground slowed her initial sprint into a careful walk.
"Four? FOUR!" Two shouted from the top of her lungs. Nothing. She couldn't even hear her boots pounding against the ground anymore. But she was no more than a few seconds behind Four, how could she have gotten away from her so fast and in so little time? 'Wherever she went, I won't be getting anywhere with all of these branches in the way.'
Two reached for her sword, but as she moved her arm back, it brushed up against something that was definitely not a tree. It felt too fleshy, too…alive. She swallowed hard, cold sweat beading on her forehead. 'Maybe I should turn back and regroup with the others. Something is unsettling about this—No.' She bit back her fear, choking down on it. 'If I turn back now, I will never see Four again. I can't lose her.'
'I won't lose her.'
She tried to move forward, push through the emanating darkness, but couldn't so much as lift her leg. It was like something cold and wet was grabbing her, pulling her down, but she couldn't see who or what it was. Her reaction was delayed from the initial shock, but the truth slowly dawned upon her as she felt whatever was pulling—no, swallowing her, had now reached her waist.
"Oh my god...I'm gonna die." █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
CATHEDRAL CITY
*many moons ago*
The Cathedral didn't always have a kitchen. That was built in after One took up residence, and even then, Two had to beg her to expand beyond an oven, a hearth, and a few pots and pans. When she finally relented, it was only on the condition that Two would come in to cook for her every so often.
Easy enough, right? She certainly felt prepared for the challenge at the time, but as she pushed the serving cart down the velvet red carpet, she felt her stomach being pulled apart like dough stretched too thin.
The only comfort she had was Cent, who was holding a flat, silver tray of serving utensils beside her, the tongs and ladles clinking and clanking with each step. Naturally, he insisted on pushing the cart too, but she felt something like an attachment to the batch of homemade noodles and tomato sauce she made. Akin to how a mother would feel about her child. Granted, this mother would be sending her 'child' off to be torn apart and devoured.
They crossed under an archway and entered into the dining hall. Her sisters and their disciples sat around an antique mahogany table, beautifully crafted from the finest timber. It stretched out between a colonnade of marble pillars that shone brilliantly against the light flooding in from the stained glass windows.
As Two pushed the cart along, the creaks and wails from its rusted wheels echoed into the vast hall, alerting everyone to her presence. Three lifted her head from the table, Four and Five stopped arguing, while One set down the tome she was reading. With all of their eyes glued on to her, hungry with anticipation, she felt a sharp pressure build up inside of her chest.
'Okay Two, you have to relax. Breathe...breathe. There's nothing worse than a chef who's not confident about their own food.' She hid away her crippling self-doubt behind a smile, then nodded to Cent. Together, they went around the dining table, serving generous portions of noodles and ogre meat tomato sauce onto everyone's plates.
Once they forked out the last few strands of noodles and scraped the pan clean of sauce, Two hurried around the table's end, her heart racing, and practically jumped into the seat across from One.
"Aren't you lively today?" A smile played on One's lips. "But I can see why; this food smells fantastic." She combed the sauce with her fork, thoroughly mixing it into her noodles. Then, she twirled the noodles around before finally bringing a forkful to her mouth. One was nothing if not painstakingly meticulous.
Two stared hard at One, looking for any subtle change in her facial expression as if she wasn't a notoriously difficult person to read. She sat as still as a statue in her chair, but her stomach was turning inside out. 'Well? Well?! How is it? Come on! Just give me a hint, a smile, a frown…well maybe not that, but anything!'
"Two, your stare is unnerving," One said, picking up a napkin to dab the corners of her mouth. "That being said, this is delicious." Her lips pulled back into a broad smile, just shy of a grin. "I have to say, you've outdone yourself here. This has been your best dish yet."
No awkward smiling or sudden change in her inflection, Two noted, so she wasn't lying either. Her heart swelled with an exhilarating rush of excitement, making her jump up from her seat. "Really?! Are you serious?!"
"I'm serious about everything," she said in jest. "In fact," she teased the noodles with her fork, "I would like you to make this again sometime. Perhaps you could even share the recipe with me. If you don't mind, that is."
A gasp broke out of her. "YOU want to see one of MY recipes?!"
"Oh?" One rested her face in her hand, arching her eyebrow in amusement. "I didn't know my humble culinary skills were held in such high regard."
"Duh, of course they are! " Two threw her arms forward. "Just the other day, you looked at a loaf of stale bread, went 'yeah, I can make this work', and then whipped up the best bread pudding I've ever had before!"
"There's no need for flattery. It's a simple dessert, anyone could've made it, really." Though she still blushed a little as she said this.
"Are you kidding me? You deserve every bit of praise, I swear everything you do is perfect, it's not fair!"
Her smile faded back into her usual stoic expression. "Not everything. There are areas that even I fail at, whereas you excel in them."
Two snorted at such a delusional fantasy. "What could I possibly be better at than you? Breaking things? You literally taught us everything we know, it all just comes so naturally to you!"
"Apparently not at making conversation," she replied bitterly. She took another bite of her food. "No one here is interested in discussing domestic policies or trading affairs."
"Because that's work and we always talk about work. You should try talking about things that would actually interest them!"
"...Is discussing our political infrastructure not interesting enough?"
Two thought One was joking at first, but the subtle pout on her lips said otherwise. "Erm- it can be, in very, very small doses. Kind of like taking medicine!"
"I don't believe that was the correct analogy to use, but I understand. You're all involved in other things and I'm woefully out of touch."
"Aw, don't be like that, you're not even giving yourself a fair shot! Here, why don't I give you the rundown on what our little sisters are up to so you don't feel left out?" Two plopped back down on her seat, recalling her last few conversations with her younger sisters. "Liiiike, you already know Three would go on a mile a minute about her dolls, but lately she's found a new interest in these weird demon creatures!"
"Weird demon creatures?" Two could already see the mental wheels turning behind One's eyes. "I'll have to look into that. Continue."
"Five's more or less the same, but she's been bringing me, um, 'exotic ingredients' for me to cook with. Sandworm, goblin brains, sting lizards, you name it and she'll hunt it down!"
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're enabling that girl's dangerous hobbies."
The last time Five was in charge of cooking, they'd all gotten violently ill, but One had it the worst. She was bedridden for days and managed to get even paler than she already was. It wasn't a memory One fondly looked back on, her soured expression said as much, but Two had a more charitable outlook on the incident. "Well, Five's always been the type to aim high, she has an adventurous personality. I think the idea was there, just maybe not in the execution. Besides, wouldn't you say it's better that she comes to me rather than get everyone else poisoned again?"
"I suppose you make a good argument, but I still think you're too soft on her."
"You think so? I probably am..."
"Although, there's nothing wrong with a little leniency every once in a while, even if you end up spoiling them more often than not." One took a sip of her wine. She was the only one allowed to drink on account of last year's incident. Two was too drunk to remember the specifics, but apparently, they set the cathedral's vestibule on fire...among other things. Of course, One was sober enough to recount every single embarrassing detail back to them later, she excelled in pretty much everything else so why not add holding her liquor to the list? Even so, Two wondered if the alcohol was partly to blame for One being so candid with her.
"You still haven't told me about Four yet," she reminded her.
"Oh, right! She's been doing great as usual, she told me she's picked up reading romance novels as a hobby... " Two noticed another smile spreading across One's face. Either she was on a roll today or the oh-so-serious, straight-laced One was getting tipsy. She couldn't decide what was more amusing to her. "Hmm? What's with that look on your face?"
"Nothing. Other than you thoroughly proving me right." She traced her finger along the rim of her glass. "I told you. It's easy for you to level with them. You can ask about their hobbies and speak casually to them, but when I try to do the same, they think it's a lecture, or that I'm imparting some great wisdom. It's...impersonal. They confide in you because you're their older sister first and foremost, not the 'Leader of the Intoners'." She sighed, staring into her glass as if it held the answers to all her woes. "I say that, but I wouldn't even know where to begin to bridge the gap."
"Just like we're doing right now! All you need to do is let your guard down and be vulnerable with your sisters every once in a while, that way they feel more comfortable around you. You don't always have to put on a brave face, you know."
If Two were right about One being tipsy, she sobered up right then and there almost instantly. One sat back in her chair, steepling her fingers. This was the version of her sister that Two was trying her best to avoid. "If the world were kinder, then maybe I could afford to be more vulnerable, but we live in no such place. Vulnerability will become your greatest weakness." Her face tightened around those words. "And if I let myself be weak, even for a moment, the rest of you will follow. That's the burden I carry as your older sister."
"Then let me share that burden with you!" Her shout pierced through the chatter of the dining hall, drawing everyone's attention. She didn't care. Now that she could finally let her emotions bleed out, she wasn't going to let anyone stop her. "Let me give you a shoulder to cry on! You shouldn't have to carry the weight of the world alone for our sake!" In the heat of the moment, Two slammed her hand against the table, causing their plates and glasses to rattle and shift. It was a miracle the table managed to withstand her monstrous strength, but that didn't mean there weren't any casualties.
"Ugh, Two! Look at what you did!" While everyone else caught their plates before they flipped off the table, Four wasn't so vigilant. The rest of her dinner was now dripping down her vest—a hideous splotch of red on an otherwise impeccable outfit. "Do you know how long this is going to take my servants to clean?! I swear, we can't have one evening together without you breaking something!" She turned her rage to her disciple, who innocuously held his plate in his hands. "And how come you didn't catch my plate in time before it landed on me? You saw it was coming and yet you only thought of yourself!"
Decadus stifled a moan. "I-I apologize, my lady, it was a gross negligence of my duties as your disciple. P-Please, I insist no, I implore you to punish me in any way you see fit!"
Four raised her hand in front of his face. "That's enough, Decadus. During times like these, it is of the utmost importance to show grace and decorum above all." She glared at Two. "Especially when the other party fails to do so."
Even though it had only looked like Four was stabbed in the chest, Two might as well have driven a knife into her just the same.
"...I'm sorry, Four." Two slumped into her chair, shame burning into her cheeks. This was the last thing she wanted to happen. She made great efforts to control her strength in preparation for tonight's dinner and yet she lost that grip on herself in a matter of seconds.
Two felt a nudge to her elbow. She turned to see Cent flashing a confident smile, assuring her he would swoop in to save the day. Like he always did. "Lady Four, if I may, I would be happy to make up for your unfortunate mishaps. I'll personally see to it that the best seamstress in the Land of Sands mends your vest back to its former glory; better yet, we can create a whole new wardrobe of outfits for you!"
"Oh, don't even bother, she has a dozen tacky vests." Five fanned her hand in front of her face. "I can't fathom why she's having such a huge meltdown over this one in particular. Honestly, she should thank you for finally laying that eyesore to rest."
While Decadus was trying to stop Four from clawing Five's eyes out, Two turned back to stare at her plate of food. 'It's probably run cold now. Hopefully, I wasn't babbling off for nothing like I always do.' She picked up her fork.
"Two." One tapped her finger against the table to get her attention. Her gentle voice eased her nerves. "As long as you remain who you are, I'll be just fine."
Two felt the sudden urge to pinch herself because this could only be a dream...
And it was.
Dread cut through her memories, tearing her away from a time she would never see again. From a person she would never see again.
One was dead. Cent was dead.
They could only exist as a memory now. A dream.
But Two was still alive.
Two was still alive in this cruel, unforgiving world.
.
.
.
FALLEN ROSE
Strength: 6
Magic: 7
Weapon History Lv. 2
There's something that ███ ███ ███ ███
███ I wonder, what did you ever see in me?
But███ ███ ███ ███ , ███ ███ ███ it's silly to even ask
When it comes to you, ███ ███ ███ .
"This Silence is ████"
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Zero's eyes snapped open. A sharp pain throbbed in the back of her head. The last thing she remembered was getting attacked by ██████, then everything went dark and cold and...slimy. She didn't have a better word to describe the weird sensation she felt while being dragged down to fuck-knows-where so 'slimy' would have to do.
She sat up and wasn't greeted by a wall of fire and brimstone, which was a good sign already. Then again, she wasn't sure if where they ended up was any better.
From the looks of it, they were in Cathedral City—the hellscape nightmare version of it anyway—but it was all city and no cathedral in sight.
The starless black sky was filled with those freakishly tall buildings, the ones from the 'Old World' that stood out like nuns in a brothel next to Midgard's castles and cottages. Some buildings slowly drifted by in the empty void, while others remained fixed in place. It was insane, visually and mentally, but so was everything else in not-hell hell, they were just on another level of madness now.
Looking around at...wherever they were, it was at least reassuring that everyone else seemed just as confused and disoriented as she was.
"Rose!" Riku pushed himself off the ground, then hurried over to her. His voice was frantic, heaving out each word as if he'd been running for miles just to reach her. "Hey, you okay? You're not hurt, are you?" Without waiting for an answer, he grasped her hands, pulling her to her feet. "How's your wound? Did it open? Are you in pain?"
"Riku." Zero met her eyes with his avoidant ones, holding his gaze in place. She squeezed his hand with her non-prosthetic one until she could feel the thrumming of his pulse. "I'm fine, okay? As long as you're here, I'll be fine."
"Until you're not," he replied coldly. "All of this power...and it's still not enough. It's never enough."
It wasn't lost on her that Riku was reeling from One's death. She saw it cast a shadow over his eyes, felt it pulsating in his veins. And she would've been lying to herself if that small, pitiful thing beating in her chest didn't feel the tiniest bit of remorse for One. She was once part of her after all.
But this wasn't the time for weakness. Or regret. Or hesitation. None of that. Those were the exact vulnerabilities the Flower relied upon, preyed upon, so that it could shatter their minds.
She drew her hand to his cheek, caressing her thumb around his skin. "You have all the power you need to kill the Flower," she pressed tenderly into his cheek, "so stop doubting yourself already."
Riku's gaze lingered on her for the longest time. "I'll..." His mouth opened and closed like he was going to say something else, but decided against it. "I'm gonna go check on the others, then we'll figure out where to go from there." He pulled away from her, then left to regroup with the others.
While she was concerned about him, if Riku wasn't brooding, was he even 'Riku' anymore? He would eventually get over himself, or she would force him to in her own loving way—whichever came first.
As for Mikhail, he was already flying around and scouting the area, much to her surprise. She would always have to remind him to do it before, but maybe he took the initiative for once because of Gabriella's absence.
And she wasn't the only one gone; Two, Four, and the little blonde kid, whose name couldn't remember, were all missing. While Three and Five weren't exactly in the best shape, they seemed downright sane compared to Aqua, who was pacing around in circles and muttering to herself like a madwoman.
'Would you look at that? The perfect ones always fall apart so easily.' Zero joined the merry band of mental cases just as they were discussing their next initiative
"We know Ven went into the forest with Two and Four, so they're probably all together, but that doesn't explain why Gabriella's gone too. I know she didn't go in there with them," Mickey said.
"You don't think Gabriella abandoned us, do you?" Five asked.
"Doubt it. Even if she wanted to leave, she'd have nowhere to go. There's no way for her to get out of the Realm of Darkness without us," Riku said, arms crossed. He turned to Aqua. "Speaking of, have you been able to locate Ventus's gummiphone yet?"
Aqua let out a growl of frustration. "No. I don't know if it's because something is interfering with my connection, or if he's just ignoring my calls, but he should know better than to make me worry like this!"
"I see. Then maybe we should just head straight for the Flower. I'm sure finding it will lead us to them."
"You don't know that! One's brother is still skulking around somewhere! For all we know, he could be—"
"Aqua," Terra rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze, "it's not like you to lose your cool. Have some faith in Ven, as long as he's with the girls, they'll all be fine. You've seen what Ven can do out there, he's not gonna let some freak get the best of him."
"I guess you're right," Aqua said, but her shoulders remained hunched up and that frown was practically stitched to her face.
"I hope Two and Four are okay. If anything happened to them..." Five's lip quivered, tears welling in her golden eyes.
Three gave Five a sympathetic pat on the back. "I'll look after you."
"That sounds...AWFUL!" She buried her face in her hands and began sobbing. "I'm gonna be so hungry and miserable!"
Three snatched her hand back and folded it into her arms. "Rude."
"So where do you think the Flower is?" Zero asked, steering the conversation back to their main priority. "I can't feel much of its presence anymore."
"Well, I'm sensin' a whole lotta darkness thataway." Mickey hopped to the ledge of the building and pointed to the endless abyss below them. "It's just a hunch, but I get the feeling that's where the Flower is."
"Then we'll go down." Riku joined Mickey's side, propping his foot on the ledge so he could lean forward to stare into the abyss. "What're you playing at?"
"Hey! Heyyyy guys!" Mikhail's voice boomed out from above and his shadow swept over the rooftop. He circled down to their level, beating his wings so fast he was practically creating his own wind current. "I don't wanna scare anyone or anything, but I saw something really big and really scary coming our way!"
"Like what?" Riku asked.
"Uhh, it was like this giant beast thing with these huuuuge antlers and, uh, there were these snakes on its head...oh, and it had tentacle arms!"
Zero narrowed her eyes at her dragon. "The hell? You're not making this up, are you?!"
"No, it's true, it's true! I swear!" He swung his head back. "Oh no, I smell it coming! Take cover guys, I'll fight 'em off, just you watch!" Mikhail ascended higher into the sky, then spun around, causing another gust of wind to lash at them.
"Mikhail, wait! You're not doing anything without me, get your ass down here right now!" Zero shouted, but he was too high up for her voice to reach him. "Damn it!" Furious, she swung her head in Mikhail's direction to see whatever monster of the day he was yapping ab—
Zero staggered backward in shock, catching herself in time before she fell on her ass.
What could only be described as a 'giant beast thing' was perched on a building hundreds of feet away. It was still too far to make out many of its features, but she could definitely see its antlers all right. As tall and slender as church spires piercing into the heavens.
Mikhail's fireballs streaked across the night sky, leaving trails of orange light that illuminated the darkness. His fireballs hurtled toward the beast, but it made no attempts to evade or defend itself and let the fire shoot straight into its mouth.
"The hell...?" That wasn't from Zero, surprisingly, but Terra. He was at the ledge of the building alongside Riku and Mickey, eyes laser-focused on the beast. "This heartless is gonna be a pain to deal with, isn't it?"
Oh, so it was a heartless. Of course, it was. Why would it be anything but a heartless at this point?
Zero was tempted to join the boys at the ledge, but a sudden flash of white light bursting into the sky held her in place. "What the hell is—"
—BOOM—
The next thing Zero saw was a whirl of black and orange as she got flung backward into space with an insurmountable amount of force. "MIKHAIIIIL!" Was all that she could force out of her lungs before the air flew out of her.
Soon, the building became a distant memory. An intense fire devoured whatever bits and pieces the explosion left of it. So much smoke billowed into the air that Zero could hardly see the sky above her. She wondered if the others made it out alive, but that thought was quickly replaced by images of her soon-to-be-dead body splattering against the nearest rooftop. 'Shit! THIS is how I die?!'
"Zero! ZERO!" A woman's voice pierced through the wind speeding past her ears. It sounded like Aqua, but the full suit of armor and the strange vehicle she rode on threw Zero off. Hopefully, it wasn't her because she wouldn't be able to live down the embarrassment otherwise.
Flying under Zero, the armored individual caught her in their arms before she landed on the rooftop, holding her in a cradle. "Hey, are you okay?" She popped off her helmet and Zero felt her heart plunge into her stomach when she saw Aqua's face. "Oh my gosh, there are so many scratches and burns on you. Why don't I patch you up first?"
Zero turned away from Aqua so she wouldn't notice the flush rising in her cheeks. It was already bad enough having to be saved by this woman, now she wanted to nurse her back to health too? "I don't need it," she muttered.
"You're being unreasonable. I'm only trying to help you."
She thought about pushing out of Aqua's arms and falling back on the rooftop, but at this height, it wouldn't even kill her. A few broken bones at best and then she really would be at the girl's mercy. "You can 'help' by taking me to my dragon."
"Right away," she said curtly.
A few minutes of awkward silence stood in between them before Zero let out an annoyed huff. "So...how are the others?"
"Actually," Aqua's hold on her body grew tighter, "I don't know. After the explosion, you were the first person I saw flying out of the fire. It all happened so fast that I couldn't keep track of where everyone else went."
Zero rolled her eyes. "My hero."
She continued, "But I'm sure the boys are fine with their keyblades. I'm more worried about your sisters."
"Those two don't die easily, trust me. I've tried to kill them."
Aqua made a sound of discomfort. "It can't get that extreme, can it?"
"Oh it does," she reassured. "All sisters want to kill each other. Most just don't follow through."
"Is that so? But I would've loved to have sisters growing up. Being surrounded by boys all of the time wasn't always..." Her words trailed off into an unsettling silence. She darted her eyes forward and her body tensed up. "There it is."
Zero turned her head, and there the heartless was, perched on top of yet another building.
Now that they were flying so close to it, Zero could see how massive the heartless was. Its chest alone spanned the length of an entire building and those antlers on its head were so huge, they could've been mistaken for great oak trees.
The heartless had the body and thick, wiry fur of a wild beast, but its head was a hollow deer skull infested with a bed of snakes. Some of them threaded through its eye sockets and nostrils, while others slithered up its antlers, coiling around and hanging loosely from the ends. If that weren't gross enough, its arms were pitch-black tentacles with thousands of tiny suckers on the back and slick, slimy skin on the front. The sight alone was enough to make Zero's skin crawl.
"What a disturbing heartless," Aqua said. "I wonder why it's standing around instead of trying to attack us?"
Aqua spoke a little too loud because the heartless suddenly jerked its head toward them. The yellow glow from the beast's eyes flashed through its empty sockets, ensnaring them within its gaze.
"Damn it!" Zero banged her fist against Aqua's breastplate. "You just had to say something, didn't you?!"
"Sorry," she huffed under her breath, pivoting around to avoid its line of sight. "But its attack pattern isn't normal for a heartless. We need to figure out how it works if we want to defeat it."
"Ah! ZERO!" Mikhail's voice snapped Zero's attention back to the heartless. Taking caution not to meet with its menacing glare, she watched her dragon bob and weave through its antlers, attempting to close the distance between them.
"Come on, let's meet him halfway," Zero said.
"Right." Aqua turned back around and sped toward Mikhail.
For a few delusional seconds, Zero actually believed Mikhail could fly from point A to B without getting sidetracked. That was a foolish assumption.
Just as Mikhail was crossing over the heartless's skull, he doubled back to challenge the beast once more. Zero nearly ground her teeth into dust. "Oh! And don't think I forgot about you trying to blow up my friends, you big fat meanie! This is payback!" He uselessly fired off another round of fireballs that, just like before, vanished into the beast's maw.
Zero clawed her hands down her face. "Goddammit!"
"Could be a rebellious streak," Aqua said.
"Oh, NOW you wanna develop a sense of humor?!"
"You may not like it, but your dragon might have done us a favor." Aqua pulled Zero even closer. "Hold on tight"
"What other choice do I have?!" Zero snapped.
White light flooded into the sky, followed by a loud BOOM. The immense force of its roar hit them like a wave. Zero wanted to press her hands over her ears to snuff out the head-splitting sound, but before she could get the chance, Aqua sped away.
Zero's white locs whipped around in her face as the wind glided past them. Aqua was going so fast that all Zero could see was a blur of black and gray meshing together in a nauseating array.
Even though Zero was completely out of her element, she could feel the air around them heating up, like they were thrown right into a vat of boiling water. She didn't have to risk turning around to know the heartless's death beam was trailing right behind their asses. At this point, Zero wasn't sure what would kill her first: her body being incinerated by the death beam or her heart stopping from the sheer terror Aqua was putting her through.
They were quickly approaching the face of a building, but Aqua made no attempts to steer out of the way. It was like she wanted to crash into it. And while it would be one thing for Aqua to have her own death wish, she had no right to drag Zero into it too. She'd end her life when she damn well pleased!
Zero considered screaming at Aqua to do something other than kill them both, but right before they hit the building face, Aqua looped around, and for an instant, the world turned upside down. At the same time, the death beam shot straight past their faces, colliding into the building and obliterating it into millions of pieces. Better it than them.
"Oh my goodness." Aqua let out heavy pants, her armor clattering with each breath. "...We managed to survive."
"You...managed..." Zero slurred out. She was convinced her soul already ditched her body after that last stunt Aqua pulled, and the conversation they were having was merely a vivid hallucination. But the sickness churning in her stomach reminded her that she was, in fact, still alive. "Urp, I think I'm gonna puke."
"Not on my armor!" Aqua shrieked.
Mikhail flew down and grinned at them like he wasn't the reason they almost got killed. AGAIN! "It's okay, you can throw up on me, I don't mind!"
"Perfect timing!" Aqua pulled Zero's arms away from her neck, then set her down on her dragon's back.
"Captain of the Dragon-Intoner-Keyblade-Squad reporting for duty!" Mikhail said.
"I think you mean Captain of the Your-Ass-is-Dead-Squad," she groaned, clutching onto her stomach.
"I-I don't like that name, Zero!"
"Good! All of this could've been avoided if you'd just listen to me...ugh..."
Aqua sat down behind Zero. "Even though Mikhail's actions were reckless and misguided, thanks to him, I was able to confirm a few suspicions I had regarding the heartless."
"Yay! I did a good thing after all!" Mikhail said.
"I know right?! And all it took was us nearly getting killed!" Zero ground her fist into his head to emphasize her point.
"Owowowow! Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
"Regardless of how we gathered the information, now I'm certain that its primary means of attack is fueled by consuming an external source of magic. I'm not sure why, but it seems hesitant to attack us otherwise without that first condition being met," Aqua said.
"I figured. It's always some weird gimmick," Zero said.
"And perhaps this is me being presumptuous here, but don't you think its eyes are suspicious?"
"Yeah. Something tells me we shouldn't stare directly into its eyes." She thumped her hand against Mikhail's head again to get his attention. "You heard that, didn't you? Whatever you do, don't look into its eyes."
"What, why not? What'll happen if I do?!"
"Something bad, that's all you need to know. Now, you ready to take this thing down?"
"Aww, you're not gonna throw up on me first?"
"Hell no! And don't sound so disappointed either!"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Try that again," she snarled.
"I-I mean, yes ma'am! So how are we gonna defeat this scary monster if I can't shoot any more fireballs at it?"
"With physical attacks." 'But that's easier said than done, especially with how much bigger this heartless is than Mikhail. We can't rush in without a plan.' Zero examined the beast for any vulnerabilities they could exploit/ While it was a solidly built creature all around, its torso stood out to her.
The torso was hairless compared to the coarse, thorn-like bristles covering the rest of its body, and the flesh was stretched so thin that she could see the outline of what looked like a ribcage. "There. Go for its belly," Zero said, narrowing her eyes. 'It won't be a lethal blow or anything, but we can try slowing it down until we think of a better idea.'
As Mikhail flew in closer to the heartless, it followed him with its gaze, moving its head along as he circled around. "Zero, this monster's really creeping me out," he whimpered.
"Just ignore it and keep flying."
"But I'm scared! What if that 'bad' thing you were talking about happens?!"
"It shouldn't," she said sharply before softening her tone, "but if it does, I'll keep you safe. I promise."
"O-Okay, I trust you no matter what happens!" Mikhail dove down, plunging below the heartless's chest, then swooped back up and sunk his claws into its belly.
An ear-piercing howl erupted from the heartless. Zero swung out her katana and plunged her blade into its flesh.
"We need to get away!" Aqua yelled.
"What—already?!"
A tentacle flew down and wrapped itself around Mikhail's neck. Before Zero could even blink, it yanked them up with a tremendous force, shooting them up past its chest and to its skull.
"Agh, Z- Zero ! C- Can't - b- brea- the!" Mikhail choked out, desperately trying to wrangle his head free.
"Mikhail!" Zero tried stabbing the tentacles with her katana, but she might as well have been using a twig with how utterly fucking useless it was. It got caught inside the tentacle on the fifth stab anyway. "Damn it!"
Before Zero could pull out another (hopefully better) sword, Aqua's keyblade spun out in front of them, cleaving through the tentacles constricting Mikhail's neck.
Now that he was free, Zero tugged at Mikhail's horns. "Come on, let's get out of here!"
Mikhail started to push away from the beast, but he couldn't get very far without its other tentacle lashing around his neck again and dragging him back. By the time Aqua sliced through the tentacle, it was already too late, they were caught in the heartless's trap.
The once lethargic snakes draped over its skull came alive, hissing and rattling at them as they all turned to face their direction.
Zero shielded her eyes with her prosthetic arm. "Mikhail, look away!"
"..."
"...Mikhail?" The nape of his neck felt cold against her hand.
—
Things that are precious, and things that are not.
Things that mustn't break, and things that may.
Tell me...who has the right to decide such things?
Two's eyes fluttered open. "One, Cent, I'm finally here!" She sat up and took in her new surroundings, but there wasn't a fluffy cloud or adorable cherub in sight. Everywhere she looked was totally and completely dead. Tall, empty buildings as far as the eye could see, it almost looked like a graveyard. She slapped her hands over her mouth, her heart plummeting. "Am...am I actually...'down there' instead?!"
"No, you're still alive!" Ventus popped up in front of her face with a cheerful grin.
"OH MY GOSH!" Two jolted back and clutched her chest. "Ven, don't scare me like that! You nearly killed me for real that time!"
He scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, guess you scare easily, huh?"
"Well, yeah when we're in a dark, creepy place like this!" She dusted herself off, then rose to her feet. "Where are we anyway? It looks familiar, but I don't know...my mind's all over the place."
"We're still in the Realm of Darkness, we're just way further down than the others."
"Further down?"
He gestured up to the black sky above them. "You probably can't see it from down here, but there's a bunch of skyscrapers floating around up there. I checked it out while you were still unconscious."
"Sky...scrapers?"
He pointed to one of the many rotted buildings that surrounded them. "Skyscrapers. Perfect name, right?"
"Oh, y-yeah, I guess. So...where are the others? Are they further up ahead?"
"Not sure. My gummiphone's dead, and I didn't want to get too far away from you, so I've mostly stayed in this area."
"So we're lost?"
"Pretty much." He smiled wryly. "Aqua's gonna kill me whenever she finds us...ugh, not looking forward to that conversation."
The mention of Aqua's name raised a question. "Wait, how did you get separated from Aqua and the others? Did you run into the forest after us?"
"Yeah, I was worried about..." he bit his lip, then awkwardly finished the rest of his sentence, "you guys."
Two cocked an eyebrow, which made his cheeks flush.
"I- I mean, I care about both of you guys equally and platonically! It wasn't weird I said that, ha ha!"
"No, it's fine...I'm worried about Four too." She grabbed her arm, Four's voice haunting her thoughts.
["Don't even try to act like an older sister now, you'll never be what One was."]
"But I doubt she'd wanna see me again." A sharp pain stabbed Two in the chest. "...The minute One dies, and I already screwed things up. That's gotta set a record for the worst sister ever, right?"
"Hey, don't take what Four said to heart. People say hurtful things all the time when they're upset, but they don't always mean it."
"Even if you think so, that doesn't change what I've done. I couldn't do anything for Four when she needed me the most and now she could be..."
Ventus approached her and took hold of her shoulders, his gaze locking onto hers. "We're going to find her, Two. And when we do, we'll remind her that she has people who care about her, and a pretty great older sister to look up to."
He smiled, Two knew he was only trying his best to comfort her, but nothing he said changed the way she felt. Words alone could not save anyone. If Four was alive, she would have to see her with her own eyes.
"Right." She pulled herself away, then brushed past him.
It took Two an embarrassingly long time to realize they were, in fact, wandering around the sunken ruins of Cathedral City. In her defense, the city was teeming with the Flower's black roots; they climbed up the sides of the aptly named 'skyscrapers', weaving in and out of the shattered windows. The roots even emerged from cracks in the street, leveling the road and making it unsteady to walk without careful steps.
This version of Cathedral City: draped in darkness, twisted beyond recognition, distorted her memories of the place One once called home. The place they once called home.
Now it was nothing more than a carcass for the Flower to spread its roots.
...
Together, they walked through the deserted city streets.
Ventus tried his best to cheer her up, chattering about his adventures in other cities because, for him, it was just that. Another city.
For her, each step was passing through the lanes of her memories.
None of them were good.
["If the Cathedral guard is missing, then what about the orphans...?"]
["Ugh! This is awful! I've never seen enemies like this! I can't stand it...I can't STAND it!"]
Occasionally, rusted barricades blocked their path. They were so brittle, they crumbled down with one strike.
["The orphans! Cent!"]
["I swear they will be safe. And so will you, Lady Two."]
As they ventured deeper into the heart of the city, husks of armor began to pile up higher and higher. Some even reached past their heads.
Heartless slipped out from the mountains of metal, lunging at them, but Ventus's blade was so much faster and they were gone before Two could blink.
Besides, if they wanted to devour her heart, they wouldn't find an appetizing meal.
["These were all normal people! What's happened to them?!"]
["I may have made them...less than normal."]
Soon, they escaped from the tight corridors of the city and reached an open space in the middle of two converging roads. The walls and ground bore numerous black stains, like drops of ink from an unsteady hand. Ventus wandered over to the center where a vast pool of blackness stretched out across the ground.
He knelt on one knee, dragging a finger through the stain. "Whoa, is this..."
["I can't take this anymore! Why do I have to fight my own people?! They were all kind, gentle people! Why did this have to happen...?"]
["...Why, Cent? Why?"]
Two was unwilling to go any further because she knew what came next was not a happy ending. With a heaviness in her chest, she collapsed to her knees.
"Two!" Ventus hurried to her side, offering her a hand she wasn't going to take. "You okay?!"
"Ventus...we're already too late."
Shock settled over Ventus's face, but only for a moment. He hid his emotions almost as well as she did. "What are you talking about? We haven't even found her yet."
Two shook her head. "The three of us ran into the forest at the same time, so why are only two of us together? I'm starting to think it's because One's brother caught up to her before we could and..." Her breath hitched in her throat, and hot tears stung her eyes.
Ventus crouched down to her level, picking her hand up off the ground, and holding it in his own. "We won't know for sure until we find her, so we have to keep going."
"Why? So we can find her corpse?!" The thought of seeing yet another lifeless body made her blood run cold. A chill ran down her spine, muting every other sensation in her body. "...I'm at my limit. You should leave me here."
"No!" He squeezed her hand, but she could no longer feel his warmth. "You can't give up on your light, I won't let you!"
"Light?" That word burned her tongue like acid. She snatched her hand away. "My last bit of 'light' died with One! Four's dead, Three and Five are probably gone too, and it won't be long before I'm next. There is no light left. There never was."
"So you're just gonna give up and wait for your turn to die?! I don't think so! I'm not gonna stand by and let that happen! I'll protect you and Four with everything I got, no matter what happens!"
Two opened her mouth, not sure where her words were going to lead her, but they fell back against her tongue before she could voice them.
An eerily familiar sensation snaked up her spine. "Ventus, watch out!" she screamed.
—SCREECH—
In an instant, Ventus and Brother One clashed sword to sword. The sharp cry of their blades grinding against each other reverberated throughout the city.
"You have sharp reflexes, boy." Brother One lowered his sword. "A second longer and I would've cleaved your head in two."
"Big talk for someone who's about to get their butt whooped!" Ventus said, gripping his keyblade.
"What delusions of grandeur. Alas, seeing to your death is not what brought me here." Brother One's eyes slid down, meeting Two's gaze. "I've come to collect you my dearest sister, Father has other plans for you."
Two's mind snagged on the splatters of fresh blood staining his face and dribbling down his white suit. Goosebumps pricked her arms like needles. Her mouth went numb. "Four," she somehow managed to sputter out despite her tightening throat, "what did you do to Four?!"
"Sister Four?" He pursed his lips, then turned his full attention to her. "What a pathetic girl. I had fun breaking her."
"What do you mean 'break' her?!" Ventus snarled.
"You can see for yourself." A coil of purple shadows swirled around in a vortex, consuming the ground. Slowly, a black, ellipsoidal void rose out of the vortex and loomed above Brother One's head. Thin wisps of shadows poured from the void, spilling into the street. When they brushed past Two's knees, a coldness pierced through her skin and chilled her down to her core.
Keeping his eyes locked on Two's, Brother One sunk his hand into the portal.
This was it.
The moment Two had been dreading.
After what felt like an eternity, Four's head emerged from the portal. Pale moonlight bathed her features, illuminating the cuts and bruises that marred her face.
A shuddering breath escaped Two's lungs despite her best efforts to keep it in. She parted her lips to speak, but couldn't force any words to come out. All she could do was watch in horror as he dragged the rest of her little sister's body out of the void and threw her against the street like an animal.
"Four!" Two cried out in a shaky breath. "I'm-I'm so sorry!"
"...Two," she replied, sitting herself up.
"W-Wait, you're alive?!"
"...Yeah."
Despite how hoarse and raspy Four's voice was, hearing her snapped a tight pressure in Two's chest, and her heart flooded with a wave of relief. "Four!" she cried out again in a vastly different tone. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. "You're still...you're really.."
Two threw herself at Four and wrapped her arms around her. "You had no idea how worried I was! I really thought you were gone, I nearly gave up hope," she caught her breath, "but Ven was right; you're here! You're alive! And I will never, ever lose you again."
'But why is Four hurt?' The thought pulled her away from Four. She brought a finger to her sister's red, swollen cheek, gently pressing into her skin. "Look at what he did to you... your face..."
"I deserved it," Four choked out.
"No, you don't deserve to be hurt! I don't want you to ever say things like that again!"
"Yes, she did." Brother One hovered his sword above their heads. "All of you do for severing your ties with Father. However," he swayed his sword around, as if to taunt them, then returned it to his scabbard, "Father has chosen not to eliminate you. Rather, he wants you to become one with him. Rejoice, my sisters, for I could think of no higher honor than a chance at redemption under His Grace."
Rage imploded inside of Two, straining every fiber of muscle in her body. She clenched her teeth and stiffened her body in a useless attempt to stop herself from shaking. "If you think we're doing anything you say, then you better—"
Four suddenly seized her hand, sensing her impending outburst. "Two. I...I know what he's saying sounds crazy, but please, just listen to him. Please."
"Why would I listen to him?! He murdered One and hurt you!" she screamed.
"One's not dead. Her body is still...here," Four paused to catch her breath, "the Flower's keeping her alive...and One's brother says there's a way to save her. I-Isn't that great?" A smile forced itself across her bruised face. "We can have our big sister back!"
"Four listen to me." She grasped her sister's shoulders, staring at her dead in the eye. "He intentionally did that to One for some sick plan, you should know he's up to no good. Besides, what could he possibly do to save her? Riku sealed the Flower inside all of us with his magic, remember?!"
Four lowered her head, tearing her gaze away from Two. "But any spell can be broken once its caster is dead."
—
The rest of Mikhail's body rapidly turned to stone, and then dozens of smaller tentacles erupted from the stumps where Aqua sliced its arms off. The tentacles wriggled and curled around Mikhail like worms, seeping into every nook and cranny they could find.
"Damn it!" Keeping her eyes shielded, Zero felt around her satchel for anything that could help them break free from the tentacles. She started to pull out a chakram, but stopped mid-way when she heard a deep, imposing voice call out to them from above.
"Need a hand?" Another armored individual, who had to be Terra by process of elimination, came flying in and slashed through all of the tentacles in one swing. He pivoted around on his vehicle, then pointed his keyblade right in between the beast's eyes. "Now it's time to finish you off, big guy!"
While Terra faced off against the heartless, Zero and Aqua had to focus on not letting Mikhail shatter into a million pieces as they fell through the sky.
"Rose, Aqua, I'm here! Hold on!" It was Riku's voice. About time.
He landed on top of Mikhail's stone head, holding onto his horns to steady himself. "Aqua, give me the word and I'll follow your lead!"
Aqua didn't respond.
Zero twisted her body around to see what the fucking delay was, and to her frustration, Aqua was still looking back up at the heartless instead of focusing on the building they were about to crash into. "Aqua!" Zero clasped her hands on her shoulders. "Get your shit together! You and Riku need to help Mikhail!"
"Terra's in trouble," she said without looking away.
Zero wanted to tear her hair out. "WE'RE in trouble!"
"Go ahead and help him out, I got things handled here," Riku said.
"Are you sure?" Aqua asked.
"Yeah, we'll be fine. Don't worry about us.".
"...I'm sorry. Thank you."
After Aqua flew away on her vehicle, Riku flipped his keyblade down, the tip of the blade pointing at Mikhail's head. "Slow!" he yelled.
Suddenly, their breakneck speed slowed to a crawl. Riku followed up with another spell, though not one that Zero recognized.
After a few seconds, they landed on a relatively soft surface. Curious, Zero leaned over Mikhail's head and saw they were being held in the palm of a colossal, white hand. The hand, partially emerged from a portal, was slowly lowering them to the rooftop.
What caught Zero's eye was the ancient language inscribed along the outer rings of the portal—symbols she had seen before whenever her sisters summoned their daemons. Usually, Riku's magic was foreign to her, but this was the first time it ever felt familiar. "Where did this power come from?" she asked.
"It came from you." He held out his keyblade in front of him. "Your sword gave me this power."
"That so?" She settled back and returned her attention to Riku. "I told you had all the power you needed."
"Yeah, guess so. And...I'm sorry for not getting to you in time. After the explosion, I got sent flying and landed pretty rough inside a building. If only I'd reacted faster."
"Hey, don't worry about it. You can make it up to me later when you patch me up~" she said with a smirk.
"Heh, you never change."
Mikhail's massive stone body barely made a sound as it touched down on the rooftop and settled into place. For now, he was in one piece.
"That worked out," Riku said, hopping off her dragon's back. "Now that Mikhail's safe, I'm gonna go help Aqua and—"
A gust of wind billowed out on the ground. Riku spun around and looked up to the sky. Zero did the same.
Aqua was gently floating down to the rooftop, cradling Terra's statue in her arms. Once she reached the bottom, she knelt on one knee to support his weight, then carefully set him down. "I was too late." She caressed his face. "...I couldn't save him."
Zero approached her with her arms folded. "So, how are we gonna beat this thing?"
"...I don't know."
An earth-shattering roar echoed from above, shaking the rooftop. Then it was quiet again.
"Neither of you used any magic, right?"
"Terra did," Aqua said in a haunting voice. "It consumed the blast from his shotlock."
Zero dug her teeth into her bottom lip. "Shit! Now what?!"
A white flash of light washed out the sky. And then they heard a boom.
—
Four's words seared into Two's mind like a branding iron. "What?" Her jaw hung down. "No, I-I don't think I heard you correctly, you meant something else, right?"
"Two, this is the only way." Four avoided her gaze like it would've killed her if their eyes met. "We're all going to die if we go against the Flower. It has the power to destroy the world, what makes you think we stand any chance against it? A-At least if we have our Intoner powers back, then we can all be back together again!"
"And become the Flower's willing slaves? Is that what you want?! You care so little about your own life that you would give it up to a demon?! One died fighting so we could live freely in this world, not for us to throw it all away!"
"Don't you want to see One again?! W-We can even have our disciple's back! You can have Ce—"
"Stop," she cut off. A bitterness rose in her throat. She was trying so hard not to cry, but she couldn't hold back her tears any longer. "I don't wanna hear any more from you. I don't even know why I came after you..."
"T-Two...I...I..."
"It sounds like you'll need more convincing, Sister Two." Brother One snatched the back of Four's collar, her eyes going wide before blanking out. "A pity that she lost her arm, had Father's gift not been suppressed, she wouldn't be in such a pathetic state."
He held up Four higher and higher until her feet dangled off the ground.
"I wonder, how much suffering would I have to inflict on your dear sister before you succumb to Father's wishes?" Brother One grazed the edge of his sword past Four's neck. "If you beg for forgiveness, perhaps I'll be merciful and end her life right now."
"Back off! You're not laying another hand on her!" Ventus swung his keyblade at Brother One, their swords interlocking in a ferocious clash of power. "And we're taking that stupid flower down no matter what!"
"You'll be dead long before you meet Father." Dropping Four to the ground, Brother One clasped his other hand onto his sword's hilt and used the added leverage to knock Ventus back. "You're becoming a nuisance. I'll deal with you swiftly."
A haze of purple shadows swathed Brother One's blade, he pulled his sword back over his shoulder, then snapped it down. A black wave tore out of the blade, radiating outward as it traveled further away from him.
Ventus slashed through the wave, then leapt up into the sky and raised his keyblade overhead. "Let's go! Fire!" A ball of fire swelled out from the end of his sword. Spinning around, he smacked the fire with a powerful backswing and launched it straight at Brother One.
"Is that all?" Brother One used his free hand to fire off a barrage of dark spheres at the fireball. After the two attacks collided, the fireball erupted into a billowing cloud of smoke.
"Now you're in for it!" Ventus emerged from the smoke and drove his keyblade into Brother One's chest. "Wind Raid!" Releasing his keyblade, it spun into Brother One with the rage of a tornado, throwing him dozens of feet back into the wall of a skyscraper.
But his attack wasn't meant to be fatal; it was meant to be a distraction.
Without wasting another second, Ventus shot back through the smoke as it had begun to dissipate and grabbed onto Four, throwing her arm over his shoulder. "Alright Four, I got you now, don't worry!"
"Don't waste your time on me...I...I don't deserve it. Just leave me here."
"Get real! We didn't come all this way for you just to leave you behind!" Ventus turned his head to Two. "Right? Come on, what're you waiting for?! Let's get out of here while we still can!"
"No. Even if we run, he'll find us again. You guys go on ahead without me, I'll stay behind and deal with him."
Ventus fixed her with a glare. "What's with you guys and wanting to be left behind all the time?! I'm not leaving you, I'll fight by your side!"
"What do you think you're doing?!" Four cried.
Two drew her sword, the blade hissing against the scabbard. "What I must."
An intense fire burned in Ventus's blue eyes. "No! I'm not letting you throw away your life just because you think that's the right thing to do!"
"It's not about right or wrong. This is just...what I have to do. I have to be strong in the way One was." She squeezed the hilt of her sword. "I'll never be like her, no matter how hard I try, but I can do my best to protect you guys."
But before Two could go through with her decision, hundreds of black spheres formed a dome-like structure around them, imprisoning them from all sides—a net meant to capture its prey.
At once, the spheres came flying toward them. Ventus set Four down behind him, then motioned to Two with his keyblade. "Hurry up and get behind me!"
Left with no other choice, she did as told and scrambled behind the boy, but not before positioning herself above Four. If she was going to cower behind him for protection, the least she could do was keep her sister safe. Even if Four would never appreciate her for it.
"Two! You think you're strong for pushing others away and facing the world alone?!" Ventus yelled. "That's not strength; it's just another kind of weakness! And I'll prove it to you, I'll show you what true strength of the heart looks like! My friends are my power...and I'm theirs!"
In swift, precise movements, Ventus deflected against the barrage of black spheres. Whatever he couldn't reach with keyblade or barrier magic, he let his body take on the full brunt of the impact, though that was few and far between. After the last sphere met its end to his blade, he let his body relax, then turned back to Two and Four.
"Phew! I thought that was never gonna end!" The skin on the back of his hands and forearms was not a pretty sight. Blotchy red patches traveled up to his elbows, blistering in some places, peeling in others. If he was in any pain, he hid it well behind his beaming smile."So? What'd you guys think?"
"Ventus, your arms!" Four blurted out, sitting herself up.
He flexed them. "Heh, nothing a few cures won't fix!"
Two let out a frustrated growl. "That's not the point. You're hurt too, just like Four." She rubbed away the wetness in her eyes before they could form into tears again. "And it's all my fault..."
"Hey, don't sweat it, that's what I'm here for. I told you I would fight for you no matter what." He fearlessly swung his keyblade around, aiming at a skyscraper in front of them. "Heh, an easy attack like that's nothing for a keyblade wielder! Now come on out and face me! Or are you scared?!"
"As you wish."
They heard Brother One, but didn't see him. At least not Two and Ventus.
"Ventus, he's above you!" Four said.
Ventus rolled out of the way just before Brother One's sword could split his head open. However, as he landed back down on the ground, Brother One managed to strike Ventus across the back, inflicting a deep wound that caused him to fall on one knee.
"Ventus!" Two and Four screamed.
"I'm...not...done!" Ventus said through gritted teeth. He used his keyblade to steady himself, then swept it back to meet with Brother One's sword.
When they clashed once more, Two didn't hear the same roar from Ventus's blade; it was more subdued, less focused than it was before. More like a desperate struggle than a firm resolve.
Two gripped her sword's hilt. She had to do something.
Steeling her nerves, she rushed forward, dragging her sword behind her. "Get away from him!"
Brother One used his free hand to unleash another onslaught of black spheres at Ventus, blasting him away, then pivoted around to Two. The smile he gave her sent shivers down her spine.
When Two reached him, she flung her sword so clumsily even a blind man could have dodged her blade. Before she was able to pull her arm back for another swing, Brother One snatched it, wrenching her body close.
"Now where were we?" He pressed his sword against her neck, then forced her body around to face Ventus who was trying to stand himself back up. "I wouldn't make any sudden movement if I were you, boy."
Two attempted to wrestle out of his grasp, but either his grip was too strong or she was too weak. Eventually, she had to give in or risk slitting her throat against his blade.
Once she made it clear she was done struggling, Brother One leaned down and hissed in her ear, "Say it," his breath felt cold against her skin, "say you'll join Father, and kill Riku."
Two said nothing.
"Still so defiant. Do you know how easy it would be for me to kill you right here?"
"Then do it."
"No, please don't kill her too!" Four gasped out in between sobs. "You can punish me instead!"
"I could." The blade dug deeper into Two's throat, breaking her skin and drawing blood. "But where's the satisfaction in that? I want to break her. Force her to beg for Father's forgiveness as punishment for her insubordination." He squeezed Two's left arm, then slowly pulled it back.
"No! Stop it! Please, let her go! Please!"
After he bent her arm back as far as it would go, Two knew what was going to happen next and braced herself for the—CRACK—
—
Another death beam exploded from the heartless' maw.
"Riku! If we die here," Zero yelled, raising her arms above her head, "then I want you to know that I'm sorry for stealing your money and spending it all on booze!"
"What?! You waited until now to tell me this?!"
That wasn't her only confession, just one of the lighter ones. Although, had Zero known Mickey would've come crashing down from the sky not a moment after she spilled her guts, she probably would've kept that one to herself.
"Hang on, I'll help ya out!" For a split second, all Zero could see was Mickey's black silhouette against the white sky. Then bursts of orange and red flared out, rapidly growing larger and more ferocious, threatening to consume them. But once it reached Mickey, it stopped. Somehow, he was single-handedly holding back the death beam with his keyblade.
With a single swing, imminent death deflected off his blade and fired back at the heartless. Set on a path of vengeance, the redirected death beam tore through the sky before colliding with the beast.
The force of the explosion sent the heartless flying right off the building and plummeting into the void. A chorus of thuds and bangs followed the heartless, with a ceremonious CRASH and rush of silence to end the performance.
Zero waited another minute or so before turning back to check on Mikhail. He was still encased in stone.
She stared at his statue in disbelief.
"What? If its own damn attack can't kill it, then what will?!" As she said this, an even worse thought ran across her mind that she didn't want to say out loud. 'No. What if it's already dead and we're taking for granted that killing the monster will automatically break its curse?' Her head spun. Zero felt like she was still flying in the air, holding onto Aqua for dear life, even though her feet were firmly planted on the ground. The possibility of Mikhail being stuck as a dragon statue forever wasn't something Zero wanted to dwell on.
Riku reached out and placed a comforting hand on her back. She was lucky to have him there, or else Aqua and Mickey would've been treated to a very different side of her.
"This fight isn't over," and as if reading her thoughts, added, "that heartless is in a class of its own. I wouldn't be surprised if it did survive the attack, but even if it didn't, we'll find some other way to free our friends." Funny how Riku could be so confident and reassuring when he needed to and yet so dense and clumsy in every other instance.
"Well, waiting around isn't going to bring us any closer to them." Aqua left Terra on the ground and then went over to the ledge. "We need to strike now before it can recover its strength." The woman who was so unsure of herself only moments ago was gone, cast away by cool, ironclad stoicism—a face that Zero knew all too well.
"Agreed. Even if it's not dead, it has to be severely weakened from that attack. This is the perfect opportunity to finish it off," Riku said.
"Now hold on a minute you two!" Mickey ran up to Aqua's side at the ledge, splitting his attention between her and Riku. "We need to think this through first before jumpin' straight into danger!"
"I'm with the mouse on this one. If we lose any more of our numbers, we're screwed," Zero said.
Aqua crossed her arms and stared off into the endless abyss. "Fine."
"So what's our strategy here? How do we fight a monster with the power to turn people into stone..." Riku trailed off.
It's not like this was the first ever heartless they faced with petrification powers, but they didn't have a good counter against that one either and now they were running into the same problem as before. The only difference between then and now was that they had immortality and an entire army to back them up. Now all they had was the four of them in their vulnerable, mortal bodies.
"WAIT!" The sound of Three's voice startled Zero, not used to hearing her outside of a low mumble. Three landed on the rooftop shortly after her announcement, lugging Five over her shoulder.
"Am I too late?" Her eyes darted between Mikhail and Terra, then a creepy smile spread across her face. "Not yet!" She dumped Five on the ground, exchanging her sister for the handheld device that Zero could only remember by its ridiculously stupid name. Funny Bone or something like that. In any case, she took the device and hurried over to the ledge.
"Isn't that my gummiphone?" Riku asked, following behind her. Oh, right, that was the name.
Three blatantly ignored Riku and leaned over the ledge with his 'gummiphone'. "What an exciting specimen! I must get a closer look at her!" She damn near jumped off the building, but Aqua caught her by the collar and reeled her back in.
Aqua held Three in place, not trusting her to move on her own just yet. "You called that heartless a 'her'?"
"Anesidora, actually. Do you like it? I thought it appropriate considering its composition and prowess! A chimera-like heartless composed of different elements of the Flower's darkness—that's my running theory anyway, but I believe it's been given credence by what we've witnessed so far."
Zero had never seen Three so...alive before. It was a little unsettling, kind of like watching a corpse suddenly come to life and hold a conversation. Then again, that wasn't too far off from the truth. And for once, Three was actually talking about something relevant that wasn't sandwiched in between layers of riddles and metaphors.
Aqua must have come to the same realization Zero did because she still hadn't let go of Three. "Three, it sounds like you have a good grasp on how this heartless works. It would be a big help if you could share some of the information you've gleaned with us. We might be able to use that information to finally destroy the heartless."
Three shook her head. "No."
"What do you mean 'no'? In case you forgot, this heartless has been trying to kill us!" Riku said.
She raised her hand in front of his face. "Anesidora is a single white rose amongst a field of red. Once in a lifetime."
"But—"
"Once. In. A. Lifetime. Riku."
"Three's right. It would be a horrible tragedy to lose out on such a...fascinating specimen." Riku raised an eyebrow at Aqua's supposed intrigue and she returned it with a look that said: I'll handle her. "I would love to hear more of your thoughts on Anesidora."
Three grinned, unaware that she was being played. "A head of snakes. A petrifying gaze. A time so far gone, it's become myth. Why does it bear such an uncanny resemblance? Could it be coincidence or intentional? Who's to say."
"She does take after Medusa, doesn't she? I read a story about her once when I was a child, but...I can't remember how it ends."
"In tragedy, sadly. Beheaded by a so-called hero."
"Oh? So you've read the story before?"
She shrugged. "Plenty. Light work."
"Since you're so well-read when it comes to mythology, perhaps you can tell me more about how that 'hero' was able to kill Medusa without getting turned to stone. If you don't mind me being your humble student, that is."
Three poked her finger at the air, as if touching some invisible surface. "In me, you see yourself, but not within. I hold your image, but keep no twin. In silence, I repeat all that you do. What am I, a mimic true?"
Zero threw her arms up in the air. "A fucking riddle at a time like this?!"
"Too bad Four's not with us," Riku said.
"That's an easy one. It's a mirror," Aqua said without hesitation.
Zero clicked her tongue. "Tch, damn show off."
"So you can still look at it with a mirror." Aqua's eyebrows furrowed. "If only we had one...wait!" She took out a gummiphone of her own, though hers was blue and white rather than red and black. "I think I have something even better!"
"Wanna hear more?" Three asked. "There's more. Please say yes."
"I'm sorry, Three," Aqua backed away from her, stopping at the ledge, "but it'll have to wait." Then she leaped off the building.
Zero and Mickey ran to the ledge, joining Riku at opposite sides. Together, they watched Aqua fly down in hot pursuit of Anesidora.
"What is she thinking?!" Mickey yelled. He hopped on top of the ledge with his keyblade drawn. "C'mon Riku, let's go after her! Time's a wastin'!"
He nodded. "I'm right behind you!"
"Wait, take me with you. I'm coming too," Zero said.
Riku and Mickey turned to her. Mickey tilted his head to the side. "You?"
"Yes, me!" She grabbed Riku's free hand and held it tight. "I'm not letting her take the credit for saving Mikhail!"
They exchanged skeptical glances with each other.
"Well, as long as you're fine with me airstepping," Riku said.
"Heh. What's there to worry about? I'd say I'm getting the hang of it," Zero said, feigning confidence.
But as soon as she stepped off the building with Riku, a bout of dizziness overtook her body before her vision faded to black.
—
Sharp, excruciating pain lacerated through Two's arms, sending shock waves throughout the rest of her body. A scream shot up from her lungs, nearly leaving her mouth, but she bit down on her cheek to stifle herself. Pain like this was what drove men to beg for death because anything was better than suffering through this agony.
Two would have to endure it for as long as she could force her body to because she refused to give One's brother that satisfaction.
His hand grazed across her back to her right forearm. "I'll break as many bones in your body as I need to, and if I kill you in the process, then I suppose I'll have to move on to your other sisters."
He could break both of her arms, her legs, her neck for God's sake, but the thought of him inflicting the same pain on her sisters felt even more agonizing than the splintered bone digging into her flesh. "I'll join the Flower." Those words came up her throat and ground against her tongue like shards of glass. It was fitting that blood trickled out from the corners of her mouth as she spoke. "But just kill me now...I don't want to know the person I'll become."
Brother One lifted the sword away from her neck, presumably so she could cut off her head in one swing. She squeezed her eyes shut, the last thing she wanted to see was Ventus's horrified face.
She waited for the impact of the sword, but it never came.
—CLANK—
Two opened her eyes again and turned to see Brother One holding Four's gauntlet arm in his hand. Her gaze followed the chain down to Four, whose face was wet with snot and tears. "TWO! YOU'RE SUCH AN AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE OLDER SISTER! YOU MEAN THE WORLD TO ME!" she screamed. "...And I'm sorry that I never said that enough, and that I always looked past you! I was wrong for doubting you, and I'll never do that to you again! You've always been so kind to me despite the way I treated you and you deserve so much better! I don't want you to give up and die...I want you to have nice things...and nice sisters...and—"
Brother One snatched the chain back so hard that the metal snapped and Four fell face-first against the ground. Blood pooled around her head.
Before Two could even process through her whirlwind of emotions, she'd already slammed her fist into Brother One's face. She didn't think she put that much force into her punch, and yet she sent him crashing through the wall of a nearby skyscraper. 'Where the heck did THAT come from? Whatever, no time to think about it now.' She scrambled over to Four and picked her up off the ground with her only good arm.
Luckily, the blood seemed to be coming from a busted lip rather than a more serious injury. Still, that didn't make Two any less worried."Four, you okay?! Talk to me!"
"Don't worry...behind you..."
Two weaved around Brother One's sword, then curled her fingers into a fist and threw another punch at him. He tried to block her fist with his sword, but it shattered straight through the metal and landed on his jaw.
The explosive impact of her punch hurtled him backward into a pile of debris, but he wasn't down for long. Picking himself back up, he charged straight at her, launching dozens of black spheres at her with his bare hands.
'That stuff's kind of like fire magic, right? Then I know just the trick!' When Two was tasked with modifying her sword, she was about as clueless as a sea serpent out of water. Fortunately, Aqua was there to guide her, turning her half-baked ideas of 'twin-blades' and 'water swords' into a reality.
The design of her new weapon was deceptively simple. Concealed within the blade of her base sword was another smaller, thinner sword that was hollow in the middle. Besides the hilt, which was reinforced by complicated machinery, it kind of looked like a reject made by an amateur blacksmith. But this design feature was no mistake.
Returning her base sword to her scabbard, she removed the hollow sword, then released a trigger built into the hilt. The empty space of the sword filled with water magic, then expanded past the blade itself, tripling its size. With one slash, a wave of water rushed out from the blade, dousing the black spheres, and creating a wall of thick, black steam between her and Brother One.
Brother One's voice echoed out from an unknown location. "Why do you insist on fighting so much in that pathetic condition you're in?! Don't you know how easy it would be for me to knock you down?" Several more black spheres shot out from the steam.
"If it's so easy, then why haven't you done it yet?!" Two shot back, gliding around the spheres. 'If I rile him up enough, that should bring him out of hiding.' "You sure are high-and-mighty like One was, but at least she had the skills to back it up!"
"Wrong! My wretched sister fell to my blade! And you will die just the same!" Brother One burst out from the steam, another black sword gripped tightly in his hands.
'I'm sure he's intent on killing me since I'm too much trouble otherwise, but there has to be a better way out of this. If he's just as much of a victim to the Flower as we are, would it be right for me to kill him?' Instead of going in for another attack, Two took an evasive approach, conflicted about how she should handle One's brother.
'But even if he is a victim, that doesn't mean I can forgive him! He murdered One, why should he get to live?!' She stopped herself from letting any more anger take hold of her. 'No. What am I saying? I have no right to talk about who gets to live and who doesn't with all the blood I have on my hands.'
It occurred to Two that while her mind was anywhere else but on the battlefield, her body was reacting to Brother One's swings and slashes practically on cue. Like she'd done this before, evaded these same movements, anticipated these same attacks. It was almost like following a training routine—
No, that was exactly what she was experiencing. How could she mistake One's grueling training for anything else? If it wasn't painful enough for him and One to share the same face, they had to share the same mannerisms too.
Something about that struck a chord with Two. This boy was like clay, easily molded by whoever held him in their hand, but lacking a strong self-identity of his own. She would venture so far as to say that he never had an identity of his own. That had to end. And she would sever the arm of whoever was grasping him so tightly.
"Listen!" She called out to him, ducking under another swing. "If you decide to sever your connection from the Flower, then I can promise you'll have a home with me!"
"And why would I ever want that?!" After realizing his current strategy was ineffective, Brother One jumped back into a dark portal, then immediately came out from behind. Two swayed her body to the side, avoiding his sword by a wide margin, then kneed him in the stomach. She made a conscious effort to keep her strength in check this time around, but it still took a toll on him.
"Leaving Father to become a mortal only invites pain and suffering...you say you rather die than return to Father? Well, I rather die than leave him!" Staggering back, Brother One took another swing at Two out of desperation more than anything. Rather than try to dodge or block his sword, Two grabbed him by the arm the same way he did to her.
"You don't mean that," she said.
Surprisingly, Brother One made no effort to wrangle out from her grasp. He let his head hang low and spoke in a low mutter. "These wounds will heal and soon I will be back on my feet...but yours will not." He swung his head up, his glare burning into her. "And then...then I will cleave your body until it's unrecognizable and offer your remains to Father!"
He started pulling away from her with all of his strength, but he might as well have been a rabbit trying to escape the jaws of a lion. "Let me go! Let me go, you vile thing! Let me go, let me go, let me..." He collapsed on the ground in defeat. Apparently, four and a half 'let me go's' was all he had in him. "How...how are you able to summon such strength despite the state your body is in? I broke your arm in ways that can never heal, and yet you fought with so much more ferocity...I don't understand."
She bent down to his level so they could maintain eye contact. "My sister needed me. That was all. I could be that way for you too, if you let us free you."
"Free me...from the Flower?"
She nodded.
"Why? What is so important that you would give up immortality? Wouldn't you rather have a thousand mortal lifetimes instead of being shackled to death?"
"What's the point of having a thousand lifetimes if we can't even enjoy any of them?! We can be so much more than some demon's husk! It doesn't matter that we all come from the Flower, we all have hearts and we can laugh and cry, and fall in love just the same as anybody else!"
"But that would go against Father's wishes," he paused, then said in a weaker voice, "that would go against Sister's wishes."
"You don't have to ask! Your life is something you take by force and never let go. It's not for others to decide. Only you get to make that choice." Two let go of his arm, then held his hand. "So let me help you, I'll show you a new life outside of the Flower's shadow."
"...Why would you want to help me?"
That was a good question.
If words were difficult for her before, they felt impossible now.
A part of her still wanted to plunge her sword into his chest, but she knew it would also kill the little boy hiding behind those crimson eyes. 'I don't want you to remind me of One,' a voice buried deep inside of her wanted to scream. 'I can't handle seeing her face but hearing your voice.' "Because I...I don't want to watch another person in my life become some mindless husk. That's not any way to live. I don't want you to just be One's brother, I want you to have your own name. Your own identity."
"My own name?" he echoed back.
"Yes. I think everyone should have that much."
"Is it possible? Am I worthy of a name?"
"Remember what I told you about asking for stuff like that?"
"I...I don't have to."
She smiled. "There's your answer."
"I...I...ah...AHHHHHH!" Her brother snatched his hands away, wrapping them around his head, then screamed out in pain. "No, no, no, I don't want to anymore! Stop it! Stop it! STOP IT! AAHUGGHHHH!" The ground beneath them turned black, quickly spreading out like spilled ink.
"H-Hey, you okay?" Two jumped back as black roots sprouted from the emerging darkness. The tendrils snaked around his body from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, constraining him.
"Two, get over here!" Ventus yelled, his voice breaking her out of her trance.
She cautiously stepped away from her brother before turning around to make a break for Four and Ventus, who were huddled around each other.
Once she reached them, she knelt down to closely assess their injuries. "Oh! You two look much better! Is that your healing magic, Ventus?"
"Yeah, and a few potions didn't hurt!" He nodded toward her broken arm, which she was trying her best to ignore so the pain wouldn't come shooting back into her. "As soon as my magic's back, I can fix your arm up, no problem!"
"You can worry about it later, right now we need to focus on getting out of here. I have a really bad feeling about those roots." Two titled her head to Four. "Ven, do you mind carrying her for me."
"Sure thing." Ventus scooped her up into his arms.
Two stood up and started to turn but she couldn't lift her leg.
Her eyes lowered to the ground.
The darkness had already reached them.
"No, not this again!" Ventus was trying to pull out his legs from the black muck to no avail. "Great, just when I thought the worst of it was behind us!"
"If we sink any further, we'll be at the Flower's mercy," Four said.
For the first time since Two met him, a crack developed in Ventus's composure, wide enough to let his deeper anxieties show through. "W-Wait, you guys don't think this is it, do you?!"
'Way to freak him out, sis.' Two took in a sharp breath through her nostrils. Now it was her turn to smile at him. "We'll be okay." The darkness had crawled past their ankles. "Besides, weren't you the one going on about the light? Times like these, we need to believe it now more than ever, right?"
"Heh, right...you're right." He smiled at her. "Thanks for reminding me."
Their 'light' came in the form of a thunderous roar that shook the very ground they were sinking into. "THERE YOU ARE!"
Two knew that grumpy voice from anywhere. "Gabby?!" She raised her head to the sky, and sure enough, their stubborn dragon was flying above the skyscrapers. "Oh my gosh! You came all the way down here to save us?!"
Gabriella flew past them like they were bugs on the ground and went straight for her brother. "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD! I'LL RIP YOU APART!"
"So much for coming to our rescue," Four muttered.
"Not so fast!" Holding Four in one arm, Ventus threw his keyblade at Gabriella as she was barreling past the city horizon and it hit her just above the eye. Much to Two's surprise, it stopped her dead in her tracks.
Gabriella whipped her head back. "YOU UGLY BRAT! YOU WANNA BE NEXT?!"
"N-No, I just wanted to—"
Two held her good arm out in front of Ventus. Crumpling up in fear when Gabriella was this angry would only result in her ignoring them again. "Gabriella!" she yelled, trying her best to sound as confident and reassured as One always did when speaking to her. "We're sinking into the ground and we could really use your help right about now!"
"NO. Not until I tear this runt to shreds!"
"I understand that you're hurting right now, we're all grieving over One, but killing him won't bring her back! He's a victim to the Flower too!"
"Girl, fuck him! He took One away from me, he's about to become a 'victim' all right!" With that, Gabriella returned to her quarry. "Wait—what?! Where did he scurry off too?!" She swung her head around a few times before turning back to Two and the others. "Grrrr, this is your fault for distracting me you little goody two-shoes brat!"
"Uh, I'm sorry? But now you can help us out so we don't get dragged down with him!"
Gabriella let out a huff through her nostrils. "Oh, fine. One would've thrown a fit if I let her only tolerable sister die."
"The only 'tolerable' sister, huh?" Four said under her breath.
The dragon flew down as close to the ground as she could without landing in the pool of darkness and extended her claw for them to grab on. Since Ventus was the only one left with two functioning arms, he climbed on top of Gabriella first, then pulled them up afterward. He let Two and Four sit in front of him while he positioned himself in the rear.
It felt weird for Two to sit where One did only hours prior, but it was something she'd just have to get used to. "Thank you, Gabriella," she caressed the dragon's scaly neck. "You really saved us back there."
"Hmph, whatever! I do what I want!"
Two smiled, she wanted to turn back to thank Four and Ventus as well, but something else caught her attention.
An enormous creature wrapped in flames hurtled from the sky. If Two hadn't seen its giant antlers, she would've mistaken it for a meteorite. When it crashed into the city, it flattened a wide radius of skyscrapers in its vicinity, unleashing a cloud of dust and debris.
"Whoa! What the heck is that?!" Ventus asked.
"I rather we not find out," Four said.
Once the dust settled, the creature pushed its tentacles against the ground until it was upright. Even while it was hunched over, its size rivaled that of a skyscraper, surpassing a few in some cases, with the help of its antlers.
Then, as if offended by the silence that settled over the city, the creature threw its head back—Two only now realized it was a skull—and let out a bellow of animalistic rage.
After several seconds of uninterrupted, ear-splittingly loud roaring, Two thought the creature's voice would've died down by now. It didn't. It just kept going. And going, threatening to topple over the remaining few skyscrapers in the area, but they held out like sturdy oak trees weathering a violent gale.
Unfortunately, there was no calm after this storm. Instead of the creature's roar fading away into silence, it transformed into something much worse: a song.
██████████ 'S HEARTLESS: ANESIDORA
Verse █ - █
O̵n̶c̸e̷,̶ ̵I̷ ̶s̶t̸o̴o̵d̵ ̷o̶n̴ ̷t̶o̸p̴ ̷o̵f̴ ̷t̸h̶e̶ ̴s̵k̶y̷,̵ ̵
̶N̴o̸w̵,̷ ̵I̸ ̸h̶i̷d̷e̴ ̴b̴e̷n̸e̴a̸t̶h̸ ̸a̸ ̶v̸e̵i̸l̸ ̴o̸f̵ ̶s̶t̵a̸r̷s̶,̸
̵f̷e̶a̵r̷i̶n̴g̸ ̶a̷ ̶w̵o̷r̸l̵d̷ ̴t̵h̴a̶t̵ ̷u̵s̶e̴d̴ ̸t̵o̴ ̴b̷e̶ ̴o̷u̸r̸s̴.̷
At the end of the song, a pair of jet-black wings sprouted from its back, and at that point, Two had seen enough.
She waved her hand in front of the creature, dismissing it entirely. "Yeah, no way we're dealing with that creepy deer-octopus-bird thing. Gabby, why don't we find a nice, quiet part of the city that's not in the middle of being destroyed and—oh my God!" Two didn't believe it at first, but there was no mistaking it. Someone was descending from the sky intending to strike the deer-octopus-bird monster head-on.
"Could that be one of the others?! But that doesn't make any sense, who would attack a monster like that so brazenly?" Two said
"Terra, probably," Four said.
"No, that's Aqua!" Ventus yelled. "That's her keyblade armor!"
"Oh." The revelation took a second longer than normal to process, but when it did... "WHAT?!"
—
Riku's harsh landing on the ground startled Zero awake. She opened her eyes and saw a barren wasteland of debris stretched out into the distance. There were mountains of crumbled rock and shards of metal where tall buildings should've been. She wasn't sure how long she'd been taken out. For all she knew it could've been—
"15 seconds," Riku said, setting her down. "I think that's your personal best."
Zero was going to have a 'friendly chat' about Riku's budding comedy career some other time. For now, she had to leave it at a scowl and a jab to the ribs because there were more pressing matters at hand.
Anesidora had bird wings now, as if the clusterfuck of other animals didn't give it enough of an edge. Not to mention the black flower blooming out of its right eye.
"Look guys, there's Aqua!" Mickey yelled.
Aqua was so tiny compared to the beast that Zero hadn't noticed her until Mickey pointed to the small figure darting around Anesidora's lower half.
"How is she able to confront it head-on? Did she find a workaround to its petrification?" Zero asked.
"She's using the gummiphone's camera to 'look' at the heartless," Riku said. "I only wish I'd thought of it sooner, would've saved us a whole lot of trouble"
"What the hell is a camera?" She shook her head. "Never mind, I'll figure it out if it's important."
From what Zero could tell through her squint, Aqua was rapidly firing light arrows at its belly, but that did little more than annoy the heartless and cause it to swat its tentacles at her.
After firing another slew of arrows, Aqua pulled away from under Anesidora's shadow, then summoned an enormous fireball in her hand.
"We need to do something!" Riku said.
Mickey held his hand out. "Now, hold on! I don't think Aqua's goin' about this all willy-nilly, it looks like she's got somethin' up her sleeve."
The lure of magic was as enticing to the beast as a drop of blood was to a sand wolf. It cranked open its maw, swept its wings back, then pushed itself forward to—BOOM—
Suddenly, a series of explosions erupted around the heartless, bombarding the sky with fiery blasts that were too fleeting for it to devour. The collective impact of each explosion sent it tumbling backward, a distance that meant nothing to a creature of that size, and it simply righted itself with its wings.
However, Anesidora wasn't left unscathed from the blast. Most of its fur was scorched off, leaving behind wide swathes of black, amorphous flesh. Whether that significantly damaged the heartless or not was another story, but it at least seemed hesitant about hurtling itself at Aqua again.
Aqua was now locked into a silent showdown with Anesidora. Seconds marched by one after the next, neither side willing to act before the other.
Anesidora broke the standoff with a sudden movement. It jerked its head to the side, the abrupt motion swaying the snakes curled around its antlers, and then its neck extended out from its shoulders like an unloaded spring.
Even while Anesidora was lunging its head at her, Aqua held her position, keeping the fire in her hand burning strong.
Zero couldn't tell if this was a power play on her end or if she was about to witness a grisly death. "What the hell? Is she trying to get herself killed?!"
"No clue, but I've seen enough!" Riku pulled his keyblade back as if he was going to throw the thing or use that nauseating 'airstep' maneuver. But before he could commit to either move, Gabriella swooped down from above and rammed her horns into Anesidora's bony neck.
Anesidora's head swung away from Aqua like a ball on a chain. While Zero could appreciate Gabriella not ditching them, her unexpected arrival was soured by the slew of fireballs she shot right into the heartless's mouth.
Satisfied with its meal, the heartless snapped its neck back to its shoulders, then ascended higher into the sky.
By then, Riku had already taken off, sprinting toward Anesidora's shadow as it spread across the destroyed city. Zero's eyes darted up; an orange glow rose from the back of the heartless's throat, spilling into its mouth. When she looked back down, Riku was gone.
In the blink of an eye, Riku was flying above Anesidora's head. A large portal appeared above the beast, then a white hand lowered itself from the heavens to grab its maw and force it shut. The heartless's body expanded from the pressure of the building explosion before bursting open altogether. Hundreds of hearts spewed out from its carcass, drifting away into the night sky.
Finally, Anesidora was dead.
With the tall buildings and Anesidora no longer blocking out the sky, Zero couldn't help but notice the Flower looming above the horizon, eclipsing the moon.
Then she heard the faint sound of Mikhail calling out her name.
"This Silence is Mine No. 3"
FINAL ACT I
Flowers for the Dead
FALLEN ROSE
Strength: 7
Magic: 8
Shotlock: The Final Song
Weapon History Lv. 3
███ I'm ███ afraid ███ ███
Because ███ you███
███ ███ always know the answer
A/N II: Join me next chapter for FFTD 1.99999999 final chapter remix :D
