Chapter 10: The capital under attack
Subaru and Sora both joined the knights outside of the castle all the way towards the city, seeing a bunch of heartless attacking city buildings. This caused the two to look at each other, knowing that they have a big role to play in taking care of the heartless. Julius quickly led the knights into battle, managing to hold their own against low level heartless and some of the middle level heartless such as some Darkball and armored archers.
Julius on his own was able to take on the much tougher heartless with his martial arts and his spirit arts. With those skills they are able to take care of many heartless with Subaru and Sora backing him up. As the three worked together to take down many heartless, Subaru looked towards his left side to see the appa owner's daughter being chased down by shadow heartless. This prompted Subaru to go save the little girl, not wanting anything to happen to her. Sora noticed this and quickly alerted Julius that he is going to give Subaru some cover, realizing that some tougher heartless will be giving his apprentice some trouble.
Subaru quickly took down a couple of heartless without much effort before reaching the appa girl, protecting her from a couple of Darkball heartless. As he was able to do some damage to them, he realized that he isn't strong enough to one-shot them. He quickly used reflect to protect the two of them from taking any damage from the heartless. This ability allowed him to protect the two and the moment the barrier disappeared, Subaru quickly charged at the three darkball heartless, managing to push them back long enough for Sora to arrive and destroy them in one hit.
As the appa girl was behind Subaru, the appa store owner arrived at the scene to see Subaru protecting his daughter. He quickly ran towards their position and thanked Subaru for saving his daughter again before he went to take his daughter to safety. Subaru smiled as he watched the first person he interacted in this world running to safety. He returned back to facing the heartless alongside his master. Subaru and Sora joined back with the knights, seeing as they require assistance since many heartless are attacking them.
Sora quickly summoned Thundaga to help lesson the amount of heartless in order to give the knights a fighting chance. As the two keyblade wielders joined the knights, Julius looked at the two and quickly asked them,
"Sora, Natsuki Subaru, think you two can check on the market square on your own?"
"Don't worry, Subaru and I can handle them. Just tell your knights to be careful when facing the more tougher heartless. That is what they are called."
"Alright then, just be careful you two."
Subaru and Sora nodded at Julius before making their way towards the market square, having a feeling that there are much tougher heartless there. As the two keyblade wielders head off to the courtyard and the knights take care of the heartless in the front of the castle, the mysterious figure looks at the situation, seeing the capital in a state of panic due to the heartless attacking them.
"Seems like things are going different for this world now, at least there is some entertainment but to make sure I push this boy's spirit, I'm going to need you to do something for me."
The mysterious figure turned towards another one with the same coat as him before seeing him bow towards him and leave in a corridor of darkness. As he watched one with his black coat, he noticed Emilia and her group leaving the castle. At first he had little interest in the group until he noticed Reinhard.
Sora and Subaru both made it to the market square to see that there are a bunch of heartless from the soldier type to the Neoshadow heartless. Subaru got his starlight keyblade and pointed it directly at the soldier type heartless, letting his master know that he will take care of the weaker ones while he faced off the stronger type. Sora agreed to this and the two quickly charged at the heartless, both confident in their abilities.
During the battle, Sora looked at Subaru and noticed how easily he was taking care of both soldier type and shadow heartless without any fear in his eyes. This made him feel something he has never felt, pride in someone else. Being the first student he has ever trained, he has seen how strong Subaru has grown within a month, making him feel like he can be a Keyblade Master.
As Sora and Subaru were able to easily take on most of the heartless, the two encountered two darkside heartless appearing in front of them. The two noticed this and jumped back from one of its attacks. Sora was ready to fight the two giant heartless yet he noticed a black coat appeared near one of the alley, making the keyblade wielder realize that there might be trouble nearby him. Subaru looked at Sora and knew that something was bothering his master.
"Master Sora, is something the matter?"
"I want to ask you, how confident are you in taking care of these two by yourself?"
"I don't know but seeing as you have a disturbed look and by the way you are asking me, allow me to take care of these giants for you!"
Sora nodded at Subaru before going after one that looks to be from the organization, confident enough that Subaru can do something about the darkside heartless on his own. As Sora entered the alley, he saw the person in the organization coat and quickly asked them who they were, wanting to be certain that it was either an ally or an enemy. The coat person looked at Sora for a moment before taking his hood off.
"No way..."
"What? You thought I would be dead for long? As if!"
"Riku and I defeated you! There is no way you are still alive, Xigbar!"
"Ha! As if you and your friends could've easily taken us down. The old man had a plan in the case this happened, so here I am."
"Wait, there is more of you?!"
"Yup, we are just here to remind you that we aren't done with you yet."
Sora watched as Xigbar walked into a corridor of darkness without any trouble in the world, causing the keyblade wielder to question whether it was only a few of the organization members who were sent to this world or if it was all thirteen that he defeated. This caused him to worry since there was enough trouble in the new world he found himself in, he didn't want to give it any more trouble.
If the organization is here then that would mean that...Rem!
Sora immediately realized that if the organization should get to Rem, she wouldn't stand a chance against them. He quickly started to run deeper into the city, attempting to find his way towards Rem's location while Subaru was doing his best to hold off the two giant heartless, seeing that they were not letting him get closer to them.
He tried using his magic, hoping that it would do something yet the darkside heartless just tanked the attack. Subaru quickly started to see that he bit more than he could chew, wishing his master was with him yet he started to think about Emilia. He wanted her to see him as a brave and strong fighter, which is the big reason he even chose to learn to use the keyblade, believing that it would give him the power he wishes to protect everyone.
This thought gave him his resolve to go head on the darkside heartless, not afraid of the two giant opponents that were standing before him. As he charged at the two, one of the darkside heartless moved its hand all the way back, preparing to punch Subaru with all the force it can muster. The young boy waited for a moment before jumping high enough to dodge the attack, surprised just how high he can jump before he got onto the heartless arm.
Once he hopped onto the heartless arm, Subaru started to run up towards the head before using all of his strength to hit its head. As he does this, he notices that he didn't do any damage, which caused him to get angry at himself for being weak. He continued to hit the heartless in its head with everything he had, wanting to defeat the monster only to be thrown off towards the ground.
'Damn it, am I seriously going to die here?! After all the trouble that we went through...after having been trusted by Master Sora to handle these damn things...darn, I really am pathetic, aren't I...?'
Just as Subaru was about to accept that he was going to die again, somehow he felt something grab his jacket and stop him from hitting the ground. He was quickly placed to the ground, which left him slightly confused on what was going on until he heard Julius's words say to him,
"You should be careful now, Natsuki Subaru. We wouldn't want you to get killed for Emilia-sama's sake."
Subaru looked at Julius, seeing that the knight of Anastasia standing beside him with his clothing looking a bit damaged from his fight with the heartless. Subaru got up and watched as Julius was managing to dodge a couple of both the darkside heartless attacks without trying. Seeing this and how much damage he was doing to the two heartless left him annoyed and envious.
'Damn you, how dare you kiss Emilia's hand and now show off that you can fight both of them like if it is a piece of cake. Damn you Julius!'
Subaru felt anger inside him, causing some darkness to start to take over the boy briefly before he decided to use Thunder on the heartless he attacked before nearly falling to his death. A lightning bolt is created and manages to land on the heartless head, managing to do enough damage for it to start falling on its back side. Julius noticed this and quickly took the opportunity to charge at the heartless, gaining the opening he needed to take it out with one attack.
Julius slashed the darkside heartless in its head in the exact spot Subaru's lighting hit, managing to cause the heartless to disappear. Subaru was shocked to see this, causing his self loathing to increase since he is supposed to be much stronger than before. Before he said anything, he could hear Julius speaking to him.
"Thank you for the assist, Natsuki Subaru. Now summon another powerful lighting magic, I feel that it'll help take care of this last one here."
Subaru noticed what Julius said and summoned another Thunder magic towards the darkside heartless, not as powerful as the previous one but strong enough to do some damage. The darkside heartless started to fall on its back like the previous one, allowing Julius to use one of his sword abilities to destroy the heartless in one attack, intensifying the jealousy he had towards Julius. The knight looks around to make sure there is no more heartless before turning towards the keyblade wielder near him, curious what happened to Sora. He approached Subaru with caution in the case the two get attacked.
"Seems like we took care of the heartless creatures here, thank you for your assistance. Now where did your master go?"
"Master Sora went after something or someone, it must've been important since he seemed very disturbed."
"Hmm, alright well we should join up with the other knights. There are more of these creatures spread around the city and we still need to get most of the civilians to safety."
Subaru looked at Julius annoyed for a moment before giving him a nod, knowing that they need to get everyone to safety. He began to follow Julius for a while, both of them entering deeper into the city until they finally managed to catch up with the knights, seeing them facing many heartless attacking them.
Subaru and Julius nodded at each other and quickly entered the battlefield, both knowing that they need to help the knights before more heartless are created and overpower them with sheer numbers. Subaru took care of the more weaker heartless, knowing that he could one-shot them while Julius with his spirit arts managed to take on the more tougher of the heartless, both of them allowing a chance for the knights to push the threat back.
Reinhard and his group make their way towards the more heavily populated areas, figuring that the heartless would be there to cause problems. As they were arriving, Reinhard quickly grabbed a sword from one of the shops, having asked to borrow it since he knew his sword wasn't going to come out against creatures like the heartless due to how weak they are and that they are unworthy to be striked down by the Dragon Sword Reid. As Reinhard, Felt, Puck, and Emilia arrived at one of the most populated areas in Lugnica, they noticed Rom fending off against the heartless on his own while the civilians ran to safety.
"Old Man Rom! What are you doing here?"
"I came to make sure you were alright, Felt. These creatures attacked the sword saint's house and I just couldn't stand the thought of something happening to you, so I came here in hopes of finding you."
Rom and Felt hugged before Reinhard explained the situation to the giant, with the giant understanding that they are probably going to need his assistance if they are to fight off the amount of heartless that is attacking Lugnica. As Rom agreed to join in on the fight, the four of them started to get surrounded by darkling heartless, all wanting to take out Reinhard due to how bright his light shined.
Reinhard pulled out the borrowed sword and asked if the others were ready with both Puck and Emilia saying that they were ready after having set their formation. Felt looked at Old Man Rom preparing his club for combat before telling Reinhard that it is time to attack. Reinhard waited a few seconds before telling his group to commence the battle, knowing that they should take the offensive while they had the chance.
Reinhard on his own faced off many darklings, easily holding his own due to his countless divine protections and his skills as a sword saint allowing him to push the enemy back. Puck and Emilia both worked together to push back the enemy by firing lots of icicles at the darkling heartless.
"Lia, allow me to take care of these creatures with my power, you work on defending yourself from any of their attacks."
"No! Allow me to help out here!"
"Are you sure, Lia? I can take them out in a few hits."
"I know but together we can do much more."
"That's true." Puck said while having been shooting icicles directly at the darklings in full force, managing to get some of them to disappear into the shadow. As the two were managing to take out many darklings, a few Red Nocturne and a few Blue Rhapsody heartless appeared to shoot fire and ice at the pair.
Emilia noticed this and quickly used her magic to protect both her and Puck. As she defended the two, she could tell that these heartless are much weaker than the darklings due to how their attacks barely do any damage to her shield.
Felt and Rom were both holding their own with Felt providing some defense with some struggle since the darklings are much stronger than she expected while Rom used his raw strength to strike down the darklings. As the two seemed to be handling the heartless, a couple of Dual blade type heartless appeared, forcing the two to handle the heartless on their own with Felt handling the darklings with her wind speed and trusty knife while Old Man Rom trusting in his strength took on the Dual blade.
One of the dual blade heartless charges at Rom and tries to hit him yet he manages to grab the blade and uses it to pull the heartless closely to him, managing to land a strong punch on the heartless face. The heartless was pushed slightly back by that before attempting another attack at the old man.
Rom noticed this and quickly with his club he was able to land a hit first before the heartless landed a hit on him. Old Man Rom saw that the heartless was pushed back again with some damage on it yet realized that he would need to land a few strong hits before he could actually take one of them down.
Felt was barely able to take down one of the darklings, proving to be more than the girl can handle. She begins to wish that Sora was with them for a brief moment before hitting her head, not wanting to seem weak to herself.
Using her divine protection of wind, she speeds up and waits for the perfect moment before striking one of the heartless with a powerful slash. She manages to land a hit yet it only did some damage to the heartless, pushing her to stay on defense until Reinhard was able to join in himself to protect her.
"Be careful Miss Felt, these creatures are not to be taken lightly."
"Says you, you are the sword saint, they are nothing compared to you!"
"True, for me these creatures aren't really much of a challenge but I must protect you."
Felt was annoyed by this yet she didn't complain anymore since she rather have Reinhard save her than to possibly be killed by the creatures. Reinhard quickly took care of the darklings without trouble before looking at Old Man Rom, seeing that he was struggling to deal with the Dual Blade heartless after barely being able to take down one of them. He approaches Old Man Rom and just as he was about to take down the heartless for him, an old man wearing a butler like attire quickly speeds into the fight and manages to take out the remaining heartless with such ease.
'Grandfather' Reinhard thought to himself, a bit uncertain on how to speak with him considering that their relationship is already strained. Wilhelm had arrived at the scene when he noticed a bunch of heartless attacking citizens nearby. He turned towards Reinhard, feeling the area with tension at first before saying,
"We need to get everyone out of here, do you know where Miss Crusch went?"
"Grandfather, Miss Crusch went along with Felix to face off these heartless. I tried to stop them but they left, forgive me on that."
"Ha, I expected Miss Crusch wouldn't sit around while a battle was ensuing. Alright then, thank you for the information."
Reinhard nodded at his grandfather before he quickly went off to look for Crusch, feeling that this was the rarest time the two would speak casually since they don't have the best relationship of grandfather and grandson. As Reinhard felt slightly happy to have a small chat with his grandfather that didn't feel awkward, he turned towards the others and told them that they should continue going into the city, fearing that the heartless are attacking the more populated places there. The group agreed and quickly made their way towards the deeper part of the city, knowing that there will be much more dangerous heartless there.
Subaru and Julius's efforts paid off as they were able to give the knights a chance to push back the heartless with their pure numbers and strength. As this became possible, Subaru was praised by some of the knights since they viewed his assistance greatly and a mighty warrior due to how he was taking down heartless with ease.
"You are much stronger than I had perceived, Natsuki Subaru. Your assistance was quite helpful, thank you."
Subaru looked at Julius and although he hated his guts, he bowed to the knight to show that he is also being respectful like Sora told him to be. As he bowed, the two started to discuss the issue of the heartless, realizing that it was going to get difficult the more deeper they went into the city.
"Considering how things are, we sure do need Felix here with us. He can heal all those who are wounded."
"Where do you think he could be at?"
"I would say he is probably with Crusch-sama. If that proves to be right, we would need to check her mansion nearby this area."
"Then allow me to check, I should be able to find Felix and Crusch. Besides, the knights are accustomed to taking orders from you."
Julius took a moment to think about what Subaru said before nodding at him, trusting that the boy in front of him can find and get Felix to join up with him and the other knights. He put his trust on Subaru by telling him that he should be careful. Subaru nodded and quickly ran towards the direction Julius told him to go, confident that he can get to both Crusch and Felix on his own.
On his way there, a bunch of strong looking heartless blocked his path, forcing him to go all out against them despite not being strong enough to hold them on his own without assistance.
"Move out of the way, dammit!"
Subaru took on a few of the heartless with everything he had, knowing that despite how strong his attacks were, he wasn't going to beat this heartless on his own. He continued to push his way through until he finally broke through the heartless in order to run towards the location he needed to get to. As he was running towards the mansion of Crusch, he managed to bump into the two leaving the place with Crusch dressed up in armor and holding a sword while Felix looked more determined.
"Crusch! Felix!"
"Nya? Subaru-kyun, what are you doing here?"
"Julius asked me to get you to join the rest of the knights to help heal any of the civilians that could be injured."
Felix looked at Crusch, wanting to know what she thinks about this. Crusch looked at Subaru for a moment, having recalled him being named a knight and the keyblade wielder's apprentice. Since she is wanting to get the keyblade wielder to align himself towards her camp, she responded to what Subaru said,
"We will accompany you to rejoin with the rest of the knights. I assume they are going to places where it is heavily populated. Felix will join the knights while I help protect the civilians."
Subaru nodded at this and quickly led the way towards the knights position, having recalled where exactly they went off to. As the three were going together to join up with the knights, Crusch asked questions about Sora, wanting to learn more about the boy with the key.
Subaru answered this by stating that Sora had much more power than he showed during his battle with Reinhard. He then told about how he managed to defeat the Bowel Hunter in order to protect children. Listening to this surprised Felix and Crusch since they were unaware of whether Sora was a kind person or one who cares for himself.
"Now that is interesting, so Sora is here too."
"Huh? Who are you?"
Subaru, Felix, and Crusch stopped on their tracks when they heard what the voice said, to which Subaru had responded. They look at a person wearing a black coat; tall, elegant looking with feminine features. When this person took his hood off, he had hair that was shoulder-length and rose pink with ruffles. He looked at Subaru and could tell that the boy was somehow special, causing him to begin his interrogation.
"Now boy, tell me, where is Sora at? I would like to pay him a visit after he ruined my plans back in Castle Oblivion."
"The hell are you supposed to be?!"
"Right, where is my manner? My name is Marluxia and I will ask again, where is Sora?"
Marluxia pulled out his weapon, scythe as he wanted information on Sora's whereabouts, forcing both Subaru and Crusch to pull out their weapons. Marluxia at first wasn't interested in the three opponents he is facing, only wanting to find Sora yet when he saw Subaru pull out Starlight Keyblade, it caught his interest.
"Now isn't this interesting, where did you get that weapon?"
"It...It chose me, Natsuki Subaru, apprentice to Master Sora."
"Master Sora? Now this is quite the turn of events." Marluxia looked at Subaru with great interest, causing him to regret having mentioned that Sora was training him. Before anything happened, Crusch used wind magic to create a sword strike directed towards Marluxia. The enemy in front of them anticipated this and quickly created a similar type of attack to counter Crusch's attack. This surprised the green haired female warrior, causing her to realize that she will need to give it her all. Subaru was prepared to join in on the fight, confident that he can help Crusch yet she looked at him and began to say,
"You should get Felix to the other knights, I can handle this guy right here."
"I have a name, you know."
"I don't care, you are attacking this city! I won't let you get away with that!"
Crusch charged at Marluxia, beginning their fight. Felix wanted to stay to make sure Crusch was alright to which Subaru understood yet he knew that staying there will only make them a liability to her.
As he was going to convince Felix to listen to what Crusch said, he could tell that something is trying to attack them. He threw the cat boy away from their position before he ended up being pushed a few feet away from where he was standing.
'What the hell was that?!'
Subaru attempted to get up but he couldn't and started to cough up some blood, leaving the boy confused on what is going on. He looked at his stomach area and saw that he was bleeding, to which Felix wanted to heal him yet he couldn't due to heartless popping out of nowhere, blocking his way towards the young boy.
"I'm...dying..."
"Of course you are, after all I made a promise I would see your insides. My My, they look so beautiful."
"...Elsa...? But how…?"
"Somehow I was set free from my chains but it doesn't matter anymore because now you are going to die. My! Your guts have such a lovely color! "
'It hurts...It hurts...It hurts...It hurts...!'
Subaru looked up at Elsa while she enjoyed seeing him suffer, which made Subaru wish he could die since he can no longer take the pain anymore. As his vision started to get blurred, he saw Felix and Crusch both being overwhelmed by the amount of heartless, forcing the two to retreat while Marluxia went after them.
If I return back...I will stop you, Elsa, and I will stop you, weird pink haired guy...I won't let Master Sora down...I won't let Emilia down!
A few things to add/point out:
1. The second arc of this story is going to be the battle of Lugnica, basically expanding more on Arc 3 of Re:Zero, just the beginning part.
2. The organization are both real and not real, you could say they are data versions of themselves but they have the memories of the originals to a degree with Marluxia's memory ends after he was defeated by Sora in Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories rather than when he was defeated in Kingdom Hearts III.
3. To get a context on Subaru's strength, he is as strong as Sora in Destiny Islands pre-Heartless attack. His magic abilities are strong depending on his emotions, if he gets angry he will produce stronger magic but it's much darker.
4. Lastly, for those curious, this journey is happening in the one year time-skip they had in KH3 DLC (Limitcut Episode).
I do enjoy doing this story and I hope you all continue to enjoy it as well. Thank you for reading, I will be posting normal chapters either everyday or every other day while the OVA ones would be about two to three days, depending on my college and work schedule.